Left of Greg 035 Resilience and your cognitive performance.

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. I'm Brian, I'm the host of The Human Behavior Podcast. You're going to be watching the video version of our audio podcast. Please, guys, if you like the video, like it, subscribe to the channel. There's going to be more content down there. If you're already a subscriber, it was a better way for us to get you guys some more stuff. If you have any questions or comments, go ahead and leave them below. Check out our links down below to get a hold of us and to actually find out more places where you can get more information about this. Please like and subscribe. Follow us on Facebook at HBPRNA. Remember, all these cases that we discuss and all these discussions that we have are through the lenses of what we call Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis. So please like it, share it, tell your friends about it, and we hope you enjoy the show. Thanks.

All right, so today we are going to be talking about Chumbawamba: "I get knocked down, I get back up again. You ain't never gonna keep me down!" I think that's at least a good way to frame it, right? So today, obviously, we're going to be speaking about resilience. And if we're going to speak about resilience, we have to talk about adaptability. We'll get into that. But the term resilience is used a lot, and I would say it's a kind of 30,000-foot word, right? It's not something specific because you can articulate what resilience is in a number of different ways, and it works in a number of different domains. So we always use it, of course, when we talk about resilience, it's just kind of mental cognitive performance. But a big thing, too, has to do with like PTSD and different mental health issues. Resilience also has to do with what people call emotional intelligence, right? It can also be a lack of resilience. So there's a whole bunch of different things we can get into.

So, Greg, I'll toss it to you first to frame the discussion of resilience and maybe give kind of a street definition of what it is. And I know you're going to want to talk about adaptability in there too, so we can...

Yeah, we'll wait on that, or you can go on. I think we'll depend on adaptability as we go on, Brian, but I think that was a great preamble. And if I was going to give a definition of resilience, it would be that you have to have the ability to adapt and thrive in the face of threats, adversity, trauma, tragedies, any high-stress incident. And I say adapt and thrive because I take umbrage when people say that resilience training is only necessary by folks that are totally stressed out, that are barely coping, right? Everybody needs a resilience strategy.

And you alluded to the fact, I use the example of Chumbawamba's 1997 album Tubthumping has a song on there, "I get knocked down, but I get up again." And for me, that's an internal audio cue to remind me that, "Hey, okay, it's time now to bounce back from whatever difficulty I'm facing." And audio cues, you know, The Clash's 1982 song "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" we assign in class – and this is why training changes behaviors – we assign in class visual, audible, emotional cues that will register with you autonomically, well before you're conscious of the fact that something's going on. And they can be a trigger point that a dangerous, threatening situation is arising and it's going to challenge you. And therefore, you will then be able to respond before the incident occurs. I know that sounds hard, but your brain is wired to do that. Your electrical current, the chemical neurotransmitters are already ready for this incident, and how you approach the incident is going to be critical. You have to teach yourself how to recover quickly from difficulty, and you have to practice it. Training changes that behavior.

Okay, so, and you use the term "dangerous, challenging, or threatening environment or situation," right? So now, let's real quick, that's different for every individual, right?

Yeah, it could be in an office, or it could be on the battlefield.

You know, right. And I think that's a good point to bring up because that's almost a subjective feeling or situation, right? So, meaning what's dangerous, challenging, or threatening for one human being may not be for another human, based on training, experience, factors, right? So, meaning, sometimes that dangerous, challenging, or threatening situation to someone who has social anxiety might just be having a conversation in front of a bunch of people or public...

Exactly.

...or meeting a new person, right?

Right.

But for that veteran, soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, high-speed operator, that dangerous, challenging, threatening situation might be getting out of the military and now they don't have the coping mechanisms or the adaptability to fit into a new environment or deal with the high-stress situations that they've been in. So, just, I think it applies to everyone, no matter where on that spectrum you fall, every situation might be different based on that individual. Correct?

Yeah, so let me, so let me give you one. We have to acquiesce. We all on this phone call right now, we all on that podcast, whether you're listening in or viewing, we have to agree to this or we're not going to get further. You absolutely have to have challenge in your life in order to develop and improve your resilience. If you don't have the challenges, you're going to have a tabula rasa every time that you run into a situation. That's a... you have to get knocked down in order to pick yourself back up.

And that's a hugely, hugely important point, so I'm going to cut you off before you go.

Yeah, no, no.

No, no, because I think that point of, you know, human beings need adversity, need challenge. It's part of how we've survived, it's part of how we evolved. And I think that mentally, you're exactly right, and that this is why I get into that this is kind of a subjective feeling, right? Because that's different for each person. So, yeah, that's also over time why you see a lot of issues arise that suddenly everyone takes huge offense to, where a hundred years ago that was nothing or not even an issue, because our lives get easier as time, as humans have progressed, right? As we've progressed as a society, our human life is easier today than it was a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago, it was easier than it was a hundred years before that.

You could keep a dog back.

Right. We live longer, we have a simpler life. We have more technology. So, but there's still that desire, that need – not desire, but a need – for some type of adversity. So, I can...

That would I be using that as a baseline on how to make my observations and feelings and, and kind of maneuvers for my environment? Yes. And your baseline may move in new and novel situations. Your baseline may need adjustments for, you know, confounds that you encounter along the way, but the idea is to strategy a baseline plus anomaly equals decision still fits. The more time you succeed, the stronger you'll become.

And I got a great story for you if you got a minute, Brian. You know Niko, when Niko was younger, I know Niko then didn't respect the regime that much because I'd make him do odd things. And so, between the ages of seven and nine, we would go up behind the ranch in the worst, snowiest, coldest months when the snow is up to my waist, so you can imagine him trailing behind me, and we were snowshoeing it and bushwhacking it up through the rocks. And we would get up on top into the primitive wilderness, and it would take us a good three, three and a half hours of hiking to get to the spot on the rocks in the woods where we would go. We'd build a little fire, we'd pull out our MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat), and we'd heat them up and we'd eat them. And we talked about whatever topics were going on. We would do a little bit of survival training, a little bit of first-aid training, a little bit of shelter building and signaling, and then we'd hike back down. It was dark by the time we got back to the house. Shelley would have a nice fire roaring and a good dinner. And we did that every week for a couple of months every year between seven and nine.

So everybody goes, "Okay, well, what do you teach Niko?" Well, Shelley had an emergency surgery. They came out and we had to sign this document. "She might not make it." I'm in the emergency room, we're both in Gunnison. Gunnison is an hour from the ranch. Niko gets dropped off by the bus. It's a little Suburban that runs back into the woods, and they drop him off at the ranch from Gunnison. So we missed each other. No way for me to contact Niko. So I finally get a phone call through to the ranch, and he answers. He's nine years old, and the Christmas party is going on in the Powderhorn Community Center ten miles down the road. And I said, "Sorry, kid, I know you had your heart set on it. I know everything. I was supposed to be the Spanish Santa to do the bilingual Christmas." And I said, "Your mom, you know, sick." And I'm scared to death Shelley's going to die. Niko goes, "No problem, Dad, I got it from here." Niko went down to the vehicle bay, warmed up the Suburban, locked it into four-wheel drive, and drove the ten miles down to the community center in the middle of winter and adverse conditions, everything else. And I get a call from the neighbors, and they go, "Your kid was the most well-behaved, professional kid!" I call the ranch. He's at home, and he goes, "Oh yeah, I got the candy. I got this. We sang carols. Everything is fine." He never, he never thought of it as an adverse situation because he'd been training for his entire life.

And somebody listening is going, "You allowed your kid to drive?" Listen, my kid knew how to drive a tractor, every vehicle on the ranch, ride a horse, shoot a gun, all of those other things. And it made him more resilient. The more time you succeed, the stronger you'll become. I think it's a fact, Brian, I know that.

And that brings that, that's a, you know, a great, a great story to highlight what that can be, right? So, developing resilience is something and adaptability specifically, which leads to resilience more definitely, yeah. I become accustomed to different types of environments, the more "file folders" I build, the more resilient I become, right? I don't, I don't have as many non-standard observations, right? So I link that back to the same thing when I was a kid and I grew up in Chicago, and at a young age in a city. So, I grew up in the neighborhood, it wasn't like a busy, busy city, I was in the city, but it's almost more like kind of a suburb because it was a little community, you know, Irish Catholic community on the south side. And then, but even at a young age, I would take the train or the bus to downtown or wherever with a bunch of other kids, or even alone at 12 or 13, by myself to go to school. And, you know, I look at that now, and I look at a 12 or 13-year-old kid I see walking down the street, I'm like, "Jeez, that kid wouldn't make it a day in Chicago." It's like, well, maybe he would, or, or I don't know, you get him to...

Yes.

But then I also had on my mom's side of the family from Wisconsin, dairy farmers. I would go up there during the summer, during the winter. And when you're up there, you help work on the farm. So I had those experiences of the same thing of, you know, it's summer and we got to go through the field and grandpa's pulling the flat trailer behind the tractor, and we're literally walking, picking up rocks, right?

Right.

For hours and hours, like, "This is really hard work." Or getting up really early in the morning to help feed the cows and feed the calves, and it's, you know, it's, you know, eight below zero out. And winters, I think it's cool because I'm a kid and they have the riding, you know, lawnmowers, which is basically just a little mini tractor with a trailer on it to bale hay and bring stuff around. So I got to drive one of those at six or seven. So I'm going, like, I don't even care that it's five degrees out because I'm like, "This is the coolest thing ever." And then I go and try to, you know, convince my parents, "Hey, why don't we buy one of these and I'll start mowing the lawn?"

Oh, right.

Like, "Okay, okay. Big piece of machinery."

Smoke that little...

Much. And then I'm going like, "Well, I'll just do the whole block."

Then you just know better because you knew you could accomplish the task, great.

Same thing. Yeah, exactly. And then learning to drive stick there and everything, all that stuff is just, you don't realize at the time that it's an important life skillset that's building adaptability and building resilience. And I think that's, that's where it comes from. So I think that's a good place to, to start is, is, is growing up, is having those different experiences. And some are scary, and some are fun, and some...

Yeah.

You know, that's the building blocks of it. Correct? Would that be...?

No, it's exactly the right way to do it. And listen, somebody right now is listening, Brian, and they think, "I think I'm confused because I don't see the difference between adaptability and resilience." Think of adaptability as your human ability, your personal trait of being pliable, flexible, dependable, so you won't break. And then when you're thinking about resilience, I want you to think of that, that listen, resilience is the ability that when you skin your knees, you'll be less afraid to skin them the next time. You'll be getting knocked down, but the next time you get down, it's not going to be as scary. And guess what? If you come... You know, they're both opposite sides of the same coin, and they're both exactly like... Like, you know how to do that food chart, Brian? I can't think of what that's called, where you got to have this many nuts and fruit and isn't it?

Yeah.

Okay, so if we were talking about essential building blocks of the young mind and how that person is going to learn to survive no matter what situation they get into, things like morality come up. Well, things like resilience and adaptability come up. You can build them all together. You know, I've got a favorite TV show. People ask, "What do you watch?" Well, you know, I like cop TV shows and we're always on the road. So are we watching Hotel Tribe? Yeah.

Well, the only time I watch like normal television is when we're on the road because I don't have cable. I don't have... exactly.

Exactly. So, so The Andy Griffith Show is timeless. It's the perfect show about cop work. And there's one episode, I don't know the episodes by heart, of course, but there's one episode where Opie is, you know, a kid's stealing his lunch money and everything. That's the son of the sheriff. And the sheriff looks at him, you know, he and Barney, the undersheriff, they teach Opie, "Hey, listen, it's not gonna hurt you. Just scrunch up your face a little bit, ball up your fists, and you tell that kid you're not gonna do it." The kid knocks him down. Kid gives him a black eye. He gets beat up, but guess what? He didn't give up their lunch money, and that kid didn't try the next day. You know, those are those are life skills. I'm not saying, Brian, go out and fight all your enemies, but what I am saying is that you have... Look, problems don't get easier or less scary the longer you let them grow. They get more scary, they get insurmountable sometimes. So what you got to do is you've got to look about getting knocked down, and you got to start making a yellow pad first, "What did I learn from this? Okay, next. What can I do prior to the next challenge I face to improve on my performances last time?"

And in simple strategies, like I've got a, you know, we hang out all together, Brian, all together all the time. You know about self-reporting. The thing is, if something's going wrong, the faster I pull the band-aid, the easier it's going to get. So I'll tell you right away, "This has failed. I didn't do this. This is going on," because I don't want there to be this, this... I want it to be absolute transparent. It's a good day, it's a bad day, with whatever else. So I want to get all that pain out of the way up front. And it's just like answering phone calls. I've been with people where they look at their phone and then they shut it off and I go, "What's that?" "I don't want to talk to that guy right now." Listen, talk to that guy right now. Talk to, handle it now, because if you handle it in the moment, one, you're not only building resilience, but you're training and rehearsing and exercising your adaptability. And guess what? You'll find that the problems get easier to face. You know, facing your problems, Brian, puts you back in charge of the day, and then the event stops being so scary. And it's okay to say, "I'm scared." I'm scared all the time. And, and, and, and the thing is that I can manage my fear. There's people out there that are not really good at managing their fear, so guess what they do? They miss opportunities. They skip things that they could be doing, and they're like, wonderful new adventures that they get taken because they're scary. You know, and it's not fair.

Yeah. And when you get into what you're talking about of building resilience, I, I think that's why I like how we break it down of sense-making, problem-solving, adaptability, resilience, right? That's our, our methodology, which sense-making, problem-solving is something everyone does naturally.

Yeah, yeah, you do.

You have innate ability as a human. The adaptability part and resilience, I like how those are linked together, meaning I can build resilience, I can become more resilient by learning to be more adaptable. And I think that's where a lot of issues come into place, like I brought up earlier, the social anxiety issue, because, a, I always talk about it, but I bring up anxiety when we talk about this resilience stuff because it's like the number one... no one in the world, like everyone's, yep, has some form of anxiety about something, right? And, and, and like we always talk about, you know, number one fear in the world is public speaking, and we're not there in front of... and, and, you know, it's, it's terrifying. It's still, I, we do it for a living, I do it for a living, and, and it's still, you get that feeling before you go up in front of people, like, "Hey, I got to, one, I kind of give them their money's worth, but, two, like, it's, it's, they're all eyes are on you and it's up, you, you're up there alone and the rubber meets the road.

You're the end state. You're... Brian, we just briefed in DARPA in Alexandria, we're getting to Virginia, right? And again, I, I've been briefing folks on my techniques for over 40 years. What did I tell you before we went out?

Yeah.

How often do you know how many times did we go over what we're going to say?

Exactly. And I had the butterflies on the elevator going up to the briefing, right? Yeah, exactly. So, so I think that's a good way of what, when you get into building resilience of, "Hey, start with being more adaptable to different environments," right? That's the whole "try something new, do this, explore that." I think the, the reason my people, you know, say that, the reason why I say, you know, the saying, I love the one, "Hey, you know, just get comfortable being uncomfortable," right? That's a military version.

Yes.

"Hey, look, you're about to go through a lot of really crappy training where you're going to be cold, wet, tired, hungry, full of sand, whatever, like, just get comfortable being uncomfortable." And then you get that adaptability and, and I know, you know, that, that'll build that resilience. And then this is why, you know, it's always fascinating and heartbreaking to me, different guys with, especially veterans or law enforcement, huge, first responder, huge issues with, with post-traumatic stress and, and, and different coping mechanisms, right? Because they actually, if you, if you look at it, let's just take a scientific view of it, let's take the emotion and anything out of it. If I was just an outside observer looking in, I would say, "Hey, these guys actually, these guys and girls should be better than anyone else because look at what they deal with on a daily basis and the training that they had."

Exactly.

Exactly. The training and, and, and the tacit knowledge that they have. So that's why it's always like, "Wait a minute, why are these the, the people having the most difficult time? Why are veterans, and why do more law enforcement officers kill themselves every year than die in the line of duty?"

You know what the answer is? The answer is so simple and it's so scientific. If you are predisposed to want to be in those lifestyles, career choices, all that other stuff, that means that you have the emotional acumen to go out there and put your life on the line to save others. Well, guess what? You give more of yourself too. You, you've got that emotional register. You've got that bowl that's full of all that you are, and it's spilling out every time that you give and you give and you give and you're introspective. "I should have given more. I couldn't do this." And you know, I'm holding this up and I'm like a garbage man, if I don't pick up the garbage today, there'll be twice as much tomorrow. So when you don't challenge yourself, Brian, you have less to, you know, give a damn about. Do you know what I'm trying to say? That you don't have a lot of emotional input and therefore you don't lose a lot when, when people give so much, like teachers and, you know, a doctor that's in an emergency room, you know, you're playing with a high-stakes event, and therefore the anxiety and the fear and the, the, you know, the PTSD that comes from that, which we'll talk about in a minute, takes its toll. You know, and I say that there's, there's ways to manage it, there's not ways to get rid of it, but there's ways to manage it.

Right, that's, I would, I would agree with that and there's different professional opinions that think whatever, that study it. But, but it's, that's what I always start with, you know. I mean, I was just speaking at that veterans event out on the, yeah, that major, major company where they invited us out and we didn't, you know, I got to meet all their folks. But it's, it's, you know, I liken it to that, you're all week, you're always going to have it, right? That's always, it's always your cross to bear. That's why we do work with Carry the Load. You're always going to be carrying that load. So if it's there, if you've got this heavy rock that you're carrying, let's learn how to carry it better. Let's learn how to get stronger. Let's learn about padding on the shoulders.

Yeah.

How do you now, you need to train for that, right? So if I'm going to do a rucksack march or carry a heavy pack up a hill, it's going to be easier for me if I go through a training program and build that strength to handle that. And then now I can carry that easier. Well, it's no different when it's a, when, when it's a metaphorical load on your mind because we're walking around with that inside of us. And so why wouldn't it, you know, why, why wouldn't I approach it the same way? I think there's a little bit of stigma because there's a lack of understanding. I think that's gotten better, but there's a lack of understanding about it where we approach it as, "Hey, this guy is crazy, he's got mental health issues." We all got mental health issues. We all do. We also, at least everyone I know, but, but everyone's got something. So you don't approach it as that, you approach it as like, "Hey, this is what I got. What do you got, buddy?" "Oh man, no kidding. I've dealt with that before."

But that's called endurance, Brian, and endurance is the root word of endurance. And, and so what happens is you, you can either keep that all inside and then blow your brains out, which is what's going to happen, or you can eat all of that hate and that pain and you're going to, you know, be diabetic and lose a foot, or you can do something about it. And I say when you see, first of all, pre-indications of anxiety, pre-indications of suicide are exactly the same as pre-event indications of terrorism or criminal activity. Once you've identified them, though, people see them form and you can coagulate and cluster, right? You're they're the same. Meaning you can observe them in another individual. You might not know whether they're going to do harm to themselves, but there's a likelihood, there's a leader there. So when you see that, and let's say that the scary situation's starting to form in your brain, and now you're getting this perfect storm and you go, "Wow, I've been here before. I know what this feels like." Then I say, you know, pick a strategy.

So a strategy that Shelley uses, which is amazing, is the What About Bob? one of my favorites. Okay, so what Shelley does is she gives herself a prescription: "Take a break from the pain and talk to the hand. I'm in pain, and I'm going to go fix it. So I'm going to go do something that I absolutely love doing because I can't talk to you right now because I'm in pain where I got to give you felt." And you know what? Whether that's go for a walk or hit the treadmill or hit the gym, you completely switch gears and focus on something entirely different cognitively, and that inhibits your brain's chemistry. It disallows that negative thought cycle. Yes. So for example, you can control, just try this at home, not while we're doing broadcasts, because you'll fall asleep and you won't click the little button. But try deep breathing exercises. You know, and I'm not this mindfulness coach, trust me. But deep breathing triggers the chemicals in your brain because your parasympathetic nervous system reads this and says something is changing, right? So what it does is it immediately kicks out the endorphins to calm you down and switch off that stress so you can focus on what's coming. And, and you know that, and I know you know that, and I certainly do. You know that P90X, Brian, that workout system, what it's, what it's scheduled to do, and I've never used it, clearly. Schedule what it intended to do is to mix it up, your muscles. And that's what you can do with deep breathing exercises. Measure it, do, do a plank or overreact. Both of those are stress responses, right? Which one do you think has been more beneficial to your overall health? You know, and then if you yellow pad, if you Moleskine the benefits of the past challenges that you've faced and overcame, now what you've got is you can project the future challenge.

You know that I honestly believe in the, in the little three-by-five cards. So you, you have a three-by-five card in your pocket that says, "Okay, what do I do when I start feeling this way?" And you take it out and there's three choices that Gosh, um, little guy that danced around with the weight loss and he had those cards dancing to the oldies, whatever that guy's name was. Remember? I know you were a huge fan and you dressed like it for a while. Yeah. Okay. What Richard Simmons, right behind you. You got all I got...

Richard Simmons.

Richard Simmons came up with that brilliant plan, and the plan was, "Here's the cards that you're dealt. You got to play those cards. And guess what? If you only play those cards, you're going to lose weight." That's how you approach a stress response. Make it your own. Okay? It's the only way I survived my divorce. Well, in listen, I, I was in basic training, graduated from basic training, I already had a kid, I was married, I was 18 years old, had that gosh darn birthday, and in AIT (Advanced Individual Training), I was under a tremendous amount of stress. Go away, not, not accompany two unaccompanied tours. You know, these wonderful zones came back, didn't even know my old lady. So I got to go through a divorce, and I thought at that time that this is the most stressful thing I've faced, not all these other situations I was facing in the military. But this situation, not living on the streets of Detroit, this situation, losing my wife, was the worst thing in the world. So what I did is I projected a point in the future, and I said, "Okay, what would future me say to me? What would I look back on this and what are the things that are guarantees?" Because people are going, "Oh, it'll never be the same." And you're trying to cry it out, and crying is good, but you know my dad's waste of water principle. But the idea is if you can't bootstrap yourself and you can't look forward, you know, you don't... Great training is great training is watching a sad, emotionally crippling movie and emotionally detaching yourself from it and say, "What would I tell that guy right now?"

Yeah, I had her in the room.

So the idea of you, you know, physician, heal thyself. A lot of our listeners hear us say that, they don't understand that that's our life a goal is that listen, you need to take responsibility for your own safety and your own mental health. And, and of course, we need help now and again, but you have to face these incidents because if you don't face them to get the scar tissue, you'll never build resilience and you'll certainly never be adaptable.

Yeah. And you brought up what I think what a lot of people call that is separating the emotion from the event, right? Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's difficult to do, but the, you know, there's, there's this, the general standard idea is if you went through some traumatic event and it's been over a year or 18 months and you still have a serious emotional reaction to that, that means you haven't dealt with it. You usually not dealt with it. If that comes up and it's that trigger that people, you know, call it and you have that, that means you, you haven't, haven't properly dealt with that situation. So I think that's a good baseline, whether it doesn't matter with how many months that actually is, it's just the idea is if you still have that heavy trigger. So, so what you said is building that, that resilience is, I learned, I was taught that method, same thing as separating the emotion from the objection. We were locked out in a very, very horrible, horrible combat situation where one of my friends, you know, we got, was killed, bled to death all over me, and we was a horrible, horrible IED (Improvised Explosive Device) and just everyone was messed up. I, you know, couldn't barely hear, had horrible TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injuries) from it. But all that, it was that that was the same thing as I was lucky enough kind of at that time that we had someone come in, our chaplain said, "Look," and you know, he brought our squad together, the team, the next day and we talked about his... Remember that day? It was like, "Imagine the worst hangover you've ever had, but you didn't get to go out drinking the night before." That's how it felt. But he sat us down, we just started talking, and he said, "Well, what did we learn from this? What good came out of it? What else did you do after that?" And we just talked about, we learned, debriefed, a tactical debrief of everything that happened after that. And we were like, "Hey, you know what? Despite that situation, we whipped it on, we actually got successful, we did this, we did that." We had to go into details, but then it turned that kind of negative situation into, "What's the positive now going forward? What do you do?" And it was just a very, very, you know, kind of, it was a great conversation from what I remember of all of it. And it's good, we had the tribe there, we had our team there, we had someone talking us through it.

And the funny thing is, is ten years later, we had a reunion for that and I went up, and our chaplain, he was still in at the time, he just recently retired, and I said, "Hey, you know, Chaps, I just don't remember going back, you know. I've actually just done some suicide prevention courses with the US Army. I was telling about how we approach and what we've done before." And I go, "You know, we had this conversation and this is what you brought up and I go, and I'm just, I'm just curious, like, what were you taught how to do that, or what did they say?"

Yeah, right at me.

He goes, "No, I was completely making that up on the fly." I was like, "Are you kidding me?" So I'm dying laughing, he's like, "No, I had no idea. I just figured we had to talk about it. I was there, let's get it out, let's figure it out." He just sat down with you guys and that's what came of it. And I was like, "You bastard!" But so, here I thought it was like some professional method. So, but to take away from that, and the point of that is that it doesn't have to be something professional sometimes.

I don't understand, you don't think that if you did, for example, PTSD has to be a medical profession declares that you have it? Yes, yeah, I mean, it's like declaring bankruptcy, you know, just walk out, you know, "I declare bankruptcy!" Pull the trigger. What I would challenge everybody listening is how you approach a challenge or a threat is going to dictate how your brain chemistry responds. And so, if you can train just your biceps, or you can do a chest workout, or you can just do cardio today, then you can do the same thing with your brain. And I'll give you an example: if I think of what's coming as a challenge, and I equated it to facing a crossword puzzle or a Sudoku or watching Jeopardy! and in competing with the people on that, then my brain chemistry has prepared me to think advanced critical thinking. I'm going to breathe the right way, I'm going to move. Yeah, I think of it as a threat rather, then it's going to be the fight, flight, freeze. I'm going to start getting the, you know, catecholamine group is going to be, "Do I, do I, am I going to fight this guy right now? Am I going to...?" So if you can do that, and training will help you to refine that, then which would you rather have? Are you going to face everything is going to be a threat? No, because then you're going to go in combat mode and everything is going to be sink or swim, black or white, right? But approaching it as a challenge and going, "Wow, this might be challenging, but I think I can overcome the challenge, and I've got a strategy for facing the challenge." That's the type of thing that you got to do, because if you don't, again, suicide comes from the inability to forecast anything past right now, and everything that I'm facing right now. You will never forget your buddy. You will never forget that blood, the smell, the taste, the feel. Okay? But that doesn't mean it has to you and inhibit your living a life and, and, and, and preserving his memory by doing the great training that you're doing right now. You know, I, I was in the Arghandab and in Afghanistan and it was not a fun trip. And I, I got news three days after a mountain lion attacked Shelley, broke into the house. They remember that way. I remember that. And we had a couple of wonderful house cats that we raised from kittens. The mountain lion destroyed them, almost fatally injured our dog. Shelley was, was, you know, it's hard even to talk about it now, Brian. I'll tell you what, what grew out of that is how many people can go around and say, "You survived a mountain lion?" Okay? And so Shelly uses it as a defense mechanism. You know, you know how Shelley's speaking to somebody, look at a huge target, and she'll go, "Dude, I survived a mountain lion attack, so anything that you're giving me right now, yeah, I'm good with. I think I can get past that."

You know, we had the water, sewage, it water and sewage it roamed in our house last Christmas. You remember from Christmas? And it years, we had no water. The sewage was, was everywhere on the porch and the yard and everything else. And because it was well below zero, nobody could come and fix it. You know, yeah, we, we had the, the ranch. I came up with the genius way of financing the ranch for, you know, 10% of 1.5 million dollars for 38% interest. Still, that's my genius, man. You know, had memorable experiences and gave people more than their money's worth for 13 years. You know, yeah. And so somebody said, "Yeah, you're still paying the Small Business Administration." Yeah, but, but the idea is, I'm living my life.

Yeah, you're different.

I, I, I cherish those experiences, and I'm not sitting here going, "Oh, why me?" And, you know, worried every time the bill collector...

And, and that's a, that's a good point to bring up from a lot of those situations is why this stuff occurs and why, yeah, we'll have, have different, you know, what's, you know, PTSD or whatever they're going to call it, and it's going to change, I think. But, but, you know, if you are too scared to get in the car after a car accident, that's a form of post-traumatic stress. Absolutely, it is. So it doesn't have to be something chaotic or crazy. It could be the way you grew up, you're emotionally or psychologically or physically abused. There's a number of different, different places where that can come from. You're terrified from experience. And I think that that also, it's, it's point out too, there's other reasons why these you get this emotional or physical or psychological trauma that leads to these feelings. And one, of course, I know with a lot of guys, especially military or law enforcement, is that that what also is called that survivor's guilt, right? Because, yeah.

The door in front of you. Yeah.

And that's, and one of the normal human emotions you feel during those situations is that, "Thank God it's not me," right? The one your buddy can die next to you and you go, "Man, I'm really glad that wasn't me." And then everything comes down, then you think about it the next day and you're, "Holy crap, I can't believe I felt that way." But it's a completely normal, it's a completely normal.

Everybody feels that.

Yeah.

Brian, my trigger moment yesterday, and you know this, and Shelley's been up in Crested Butte all this week and has to work through the weekend. She's got all these, you know, things: siren chatter, fire. She's watching me, and I'm typing and I'm writing on the yellow pad and I'm crying like a baby. And she goes, "What is it this time?" Because I've got this thing where, you know, I get emotionally overcome by ridiculous triggers, but it all has to do with, with our past training events where something, you know, some really heroic action occurred. And, and I, I see it, so it's a FedEx guy running up on the porch, and I'd never seen the video before. And he stops, and there's a little, a little settee there, and he fixes the pillows to make the, the American flag. The pillows were aligned wrong. One had the field and one had the stripes. So he takes a minute and he adjusts it. And I'm weeping like a baby, and all I could think of is everybody that gave their lives to have it back home, and how this guy didn't think twice about fixing it and didn't ask for acknowledgment. You get what I'm trying to say? And he wasn't entitled. And so Shelly looked at me and she said, "Hey, make sure that you reward the small wins." And then she said, "Take time to stop and smell the coffee." Yeah, I said, "Stop and smell the coffee?" She goes, "Yeah, because I can't effing afford roses," and walks out of the room. Shelley, you know what I'm saying? And what we call that, folks, the technical term for that, it's called the slap of reality. Yeah. So Shelley reaches in and grabs you and shake-baby-syndromes you and says, "Get a grip," and "March, march on." I love that because whenever it... She's my totem. So whenever I'm facing a situation where I don't feel like I'm in control, I think back to, and the bracelet, "What would Shelly do?" Do you know what I'm trying to say? And it makes me grin, and then I can get up and I can dust myself off, Brian, isn't that what we're talking about?

Yeah. And no, and it's the ability to get up, knock that dust off, and get back in the game, right? And, and that goes into a lot of different coping mechanisms and ways to approach it. But I like that approach, too, is it's kind of what I brought up earlier, too. When you have, when you've been through, you know, you have to look at whatever traumatic event or whatever issue that you're dealing with, all right, the fact that you went through that, survived that, actually means you now have the ability to be more resilient than the average person. Someone who hasn't been through that, that's your one special place. You actually inside your brain, yeah, actually, now since you're just alive and kicking, maybe you didn't thrive in that situation, maybe it was just really scary, chaotic. But you came out the other end still alive. Okay, you now can approach that as, well, "I, I went through this experience. If I learn about it and I learn to cope with it, and I, and I take away the positives from it, what it got me, I own it now. I'm actually stronger and more resilient for having gone, having gone through that chaotic situation." So if just learning to, so look at it that way is, as, you know, it's not, and whether you're looking at someone else who's been through those situations and they're having issues dealing with it, you know, that that maybe that person's a broken human being right now, but guess what? Yes, you don't... Bones heal, you know, scars fade. Remember, do you? "Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again." They put him back together. Yes. So, so you can just read into that story and it's one of my favorites. But, uh, but yeah, you can, if you look at it, take that approach from it, I think that it's now you have an ability that other people don't have. You know, that's why...

Yes, wear it as a bone, wear it as a badge of honor and lived through it. You get what I'm trying to say? Don't, don't sit there and throw it up as people as, "Listen, this has created my inability to thrive, and therefore I'm going to remain broken," because that, that, sir, is a choice. You choosing to remain broken is a choice. And, and if we're going to say that PTSD requires medical diagnosis and, and we both know that it's a mental health condition and you, you, you may have witnessed or personally experienced an event, the idea is you might not even know that you have it, Brian. And, and that for our listening in, listen, I'm, my symptoms are thus: I'm irritable all the time. I attempt social isolation because I can't face other humans. I'm hostile rather than in talking things out. And this is all just what you do in the elevator. I've got these bouts of horrible depression and I feel lonely, and then the insomnia and the nightmares. And I've got nightmares that, that would make Stephen King cry, right? And I can't control them. And you know that sometimes when we're up on the, on the stage and we're talking, man, it'll hit. So listen, the unwanted memories that you're facing, or maybe you don't even know what it is, and you're saying, "Hey, listen, it could be diet. It could be something medical." That's why you got to get to a doctor or a hospital, or talk to somebody about it. At least tell somebody, "I'm feeling this way. I'm thinking like this." Because then, like Brian, one of the great things is rather than feeding like, rather than you and I sitting in some dark bar somewhere and going, "Oh, woe is me," yeah, trust me, we've really done, but the idea is that that we're doing stuff like this and facing it head-on.

Yeah.

We're bringing it out in the clear light of day and saying, "Hey, listen, you don't have to remain that, that, that broken human. There's, there's meds, there's therapy, there's, there's groups that you can talk to that would be interested in willing to hear your story." And sometimes, Brian, many people just want their say and not necessarily their way, and it does feel better to discuss it. You know, and I'm no hero. I've never done anything heroic in, in my life, well, I think that in my mind. And so I, it's hard for me to face these and go, "Why am I chosen? Why did I get chosen to feel that?" You know?

Yeah. And, and I think you brought up a good point of, you might not know you have it. It changes your, but like those traumatic experiences and what you go through change your behavior and the way you think so much that you don't even realize it, right? So I've had that, I've had that epiphany before where I've got a little bit of training and help and talk to folks. Even, even just like, remember that working with a behavioral scientist back in the Combat Hunter studies days? Yep. You're just, just asking them questions and talking about it. Then they go, "Dude, that there we go." They're like, "You like that, yes." They're like, "Brian, exactly, look, don't get me wrong, you're a functioning member of society, but you're completely insane. And here's why." And I was like, "Well, that's not normal?" Like, "No, no, no." And you're like, "Okay, now I realize that this reaction is not only but it's a coping mechanism, isn't it?"

Right.

Coping mechanisms. They say, like, "Oh, you're so ready to go take something like overly, overly extremely aggressive and violent." Like, we're all, right? Where I'm in my head going, "All right, I really want to cave this guy's face in," but I know I can't do that because that's not appropriate. Then the next step was learning like, "No, Brian, you, you actually shouldn't have that reaction given the set of circumstances. That guy's just being an annoying jackass. Like, you don't have to let that trigger you." And then it's like, "Oh, really? Like, I shouldn't think that way. Like, I know I won't act on it, but..."

They say, "These learning Greybeards told you you can be back in charge." Yeah, I think anybody listening right now, if you're feeling powerless, if you're feeling scared, if you feel that nobody else understands what you're facing, one, bring it out in the clear light of day because it makes it less scary. And name it, own it, and get some help for it because you can come back. You don't have to live the remainder of your life being a broken human. And, and there are what I like to call clinical definition people that are around you that will allow you to stay in that, yeah, and that funk.

That, well, and then that goes just clear that crap out of there. You don't want people... Normal behavior, you know, homophily, birds of a feather flock together. And that's why when I've done different work with all, it's always been with, you know, every job I've had, you know, once I went in the Marine Corps, everything after that was generally obviously military-related or that were working with guys who were former Tier One dudes or whatever, you know, specialized skill sets, you know, high Type A personality guys. So you, you talk, when you get to do that, you just, you, you become everyone like it because there's some sorts of situations where in there where you can, nothing you say is going to be considered over the line, right? Your job, you can say whatever's on your mind and no one's going to judge you for it because they're all like, "I would have thought that too." So there's an acceptance towards their way. But, but at the same time, then that if you allow that to become your reality, then all that behavior is accepted and then you don't ever progress. So what I always tried to do was, you know, force myself into those other situations, become friends with and hang around with people that don't have the same background as me, that don't have the same experience. A lot of military and law enforcement guys have a hard time. Nurses and doctors, that's a great example, too. Or, or, you know, that I've... these badass tough dude ironworkers I met this week, you know, who are up exposed in the New York skyline building this art...

You, you don't, you don't, you don't do well in another situation. So you're working with a group of guys, a high-performing team that are out in the elements doing a really tough job. So when you have that, you know, you got to be able to... you know, I've said, "What do you... I need to be..." Well, I went back to my sniper training. What's the idea? When you're a sniper, you should be able to blend in with your surroundings, and I took that as, "I should be able to adapt to anything." So I'd try to become friends with, okay, these guys, they like to work out a lot like I do. They don't weren't the military, they weren't this. So I'm, but I'm going to hang out with them because relationships and that leads to more and now you actually start to become more adaptable. And I don't have to only hang around with guys that have been shot at, blown up, you know, just seeing the worst stuff all over the world. I can, I can fit in in other situations. Then it helps to like because I have to go speak to corporate folks at a discovery. We teach kids all the time. We go to hospitals and teach people that have never been exposed to some of this stuff, or, or airlines or corporate. And their biggest challenge may be this guy unwinding in front of them because their flight's canceled because of a tornado, and you are responsible for their tornado. So you're exactly right, spot on, Brian.

And, and people watching, listen to this, and write down some of these cues because you don't have to live like that. You don't have to live in pain every day. But, and you know, yeah, and all I did was I took those, those, those, those sayings, those axioms, those different, you know, things that become cliché, but, but have so much meaning behind them, you know, like that, "Get comfortable being uncomfortable." All right, I'm going to put myself in uncomfortable situations and see how it goes. And, and, you know, sometimes it worked out, sometimes it was a learning process, sometimes I'd get overwhelmed then I have to leave or whatever. But, but, you know, you eventually, you know, learn how to, how to cope with that. I think that's, that's kind of the best way to do it. And that now makes you better in other situations. So now I can walk into a high level of, you know, corporation, you know, all C-level executives and say, "Hey, these are some things you need to consider," and be able to take my experiences I had and then now translate it to something that they know and they are familiar with because I've had both of those experiences now. So I think that just that adaptability thing is important to lead to resilience and you don't have to kill yourself trying.

I'll cite the G. Gordon Liddy example. G. Gordon Liddy from Watergate, a guy with a big mustache, wrote, yes, wrote an incredible book called Will. And in, in the book Will, he explained growing up, he was afraid of lightning, so he went out in a lightning storm naked, lashed himself to a tree, and forced himself to confront lightning. Okay, what was that? He attacked a rat and killed it and ate the rat. And you and I are talking about over here, and let's, let's put this dial up, right? This is the G. Gordon Liddy example, and it's in red for a reason. The other end of the spectrum, I wouldn't, wouldn't recommend tying yourself to a tree.

I really read that book as a kid and back then I was going... so you can imagine, you know.

But hey, his life strategy worked for him like a boyfriend. Is you can fix being a broken human, and there are answers out there. And, and, you know, there's, there's never a reason. We had this discussion with a person that shall remain nameless, a Marine colonel, and not, not the one that everybody knows, but a lesser known. And he was talking about suicide. He said, "Hey, there's some perfectly good reasons to commit suicide." And I couldn't think of one. And he's like, "Oh, well, you know, the trauma from the pain from this and that and the other." And you know what? Kevorkian. Okay. You can make anything an end-of-life decision, or you can turn it around and say, "Dude, I might only have this much left, but I'm going to live it like," you know, "that every minute's the last," because then one of those times I'll be right. You can turn a negative into positive, but if you don't, your brain chemistry will latch on to that negative, and that will become your baseline, that negative experience loop, that negative feedback loop.

Yes.

It'll become how you see the rest of your life. And that feedback loop is an important term for people to understand, because, you know, you can make it a negative feedback loop, or you can make it a positive feedback loop, right? And the axons and the dendrites create that, so that link, and it gets stronger every time you're negative.

Yeah. You know, that's, that's the whole, which is kind of a misunderstood, the Matthew principle of, you know, "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer." Well, if you understand some of these things that you take, then that's what's going to happen. So that means there's not a creator, you're going to create it. If you want to keep getting poorer, you're going to keep getting poorer. If you want to keep getting richer. But I mean that more in a mental health of if you want to get worse, you continue with that way of thinking. You want to get better, right? Change the way of thinking, and then they shake you up, you know, it'll, it'll grow exponentially over time, right? So you'll continue to improve if you're on that, that right track. So I think that's a pretty good, pretty good spot to bring it in for a landing on. So unless you have anything else you want to add, I think that's our kind of take on adaptability and resilience. So we appreciate everyone tuning in, and thanks for listening. Thank you.

Morning.

Make sure you like it, share with your friends, and don't forget that training changes behavior.