Kegan "Smurf" Gill (Aviation, Writing, Traumatic Brain Injury and his Healing Journey) - Episode 1039

LT Kegan "SMURF" Gill miraculously survived the fastest ejection in Naval Aviation history. Despite severe injuries, he overcame the impossible to return to the cockpit of the F/A-18E Super Hornet, and that was just the beginning of his journey. Despite years of struggle with physical and mental health challenges, Kegan has unlocked the key to overcoming the impossible.

In this second conversation, we discuss the tolls he's amassed to continue healing after a pyschedelic retreat, writing his autobiography "Phoenix Revival", hormone therapy, sleep and so much more.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This episode is sponsored by Global Medical Response, yet another sponsor that I have tracked down because they have a solution to one of the biggest problems we have in emergency medicine and healthcare.

(00:11):
We often hear the term 911 abuse, but what I love is the concept that this should be a three-tier system. ALS, BLS, and then the non-emergent element.
With the evolution of telehealth and telemedicine, that third tier is now possible virtually.
In 2018, Global Medical Response pioneered 911 Nurse Navigation.

(00:35):
In communities across the country, GMR's nurse navigators use evidence-based clinical protocols to screen a patient's current condition, providing an appropriate resource to meet the patient's unique healthcare needs,
whether that's dispatching a rideshare to an urgent care, an appointment at a federally qualified health center, or virtual care with a physician on the spot.

(00:59):
The five-level screening system ensures patients receive the right resource at the right time, in the right setting, to achieve the right outcome at the right cost.
So as a huge advocate for our first responders' health and of course the people that we serve, this solves three issues.
It allows the patient to have a far less expensive option when it comes to their non-emergent issue.

(01:22):
It stops a firefighter or a paramedic being woken up for that call, and it frees up an ER bed for a true emergency.
So if you want to hear more about how GMR can integrate nurse navigation in your 911 system, listen to episode 998 with Joshua Rose and Dr. Jared Troutman,

(01:43):
or go to globalmedicalresponse.com.
I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast, and that is Rescue One CBD.
For any of you who have listened to this podcast for the last eight years, you will have heard my own personal journey from using prescription pills after a knee surgery to finding CBD and having incredible success with that.

(02:08):
I then saw my son's wheezing diminish, my wife's anxiety, and so many more kind of success stories.
The problem is, though, I've also seen the stigma and misunderstanding about this incredibly powerful plant medicine.
When it comes to workplace drug testing, it's THC that they are looking for.
The concentration is high in marijuana, but there is a small amount in most CBD products.

(02:32):
And with John being a veteran firefighter paramedic himself, he was determined to find a product that was pure, that would ensure there was nothing in there that would put someone's career at risk.
So he developed a three tier system.
The third party testing facility tests to parts per billion, which is the most minute amount I have ever heard of in all the time I've worked with CBD.

(02:56):
The results of every batch are posted on their website so you can literally see the same results that they see from the batch that you are ordering.
Secondly, they include workplace drug test kits in the order when you order it.
So if you have any fears, you get to do it just to appease it, even though this is a pure and safe product.
Thirdly, they've just finished a year long study with the University of Maryland and Arcadia University and firefighters from all over the country sent in their urine samples and not a single person failed a drug test.

(03:31):
So you have three different tiers of trust with this particular product.
Now they have different flavors for their CBD. For anyone that's had it, that's just the CBD oil.
It does not taste good, so they found a way of making it more palatable.
They have a sleep remedy that has terpenes in, again completely safe.
That one's called out of service and then topical CBD, obviously for aches and pains on the outside.

(03:54):
Now, on top of all that, Rescue One is offering you, the listener of the Behind the Shield podcast, 15% off your order if you use the code BTS, as in behind the shield.
And you can find all of their products, you can find all of the testing and understand why this truly is a product that you can trust by going to rescue1cbd.com.

(04:16):
And you can listen to my conversation with John on episode 1011 of the Behind the Shield podcast.
This episode is sponsored by Team Builder, yet another company that's doing great things for the first responder community.
As a strength and conditioning coach myself who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination of wellness information is one of the biggest challenges.

(04:39):
Now Team Builder is the premier strength and conditioning software for tactical athletes.
And there are several features that really impress me.
Firstly, there is a full exercise library, so you, the personal trainer, does not have to create that within your own department.
Secondly, you can send out programming, but also individualize, which I love.

(05:00):
So you blanket program for everyone.
Now you can tweak based on someone's injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body composition rather than having to write a program for every single person on their own.
Team Builder also allows you to build custom questionnaires to collate health and wellness data.
It integrates with wearables.
And I think one of the most important things is obviously it tracks.

(05:24):
To me, it's imperative that we as a profession start tracking our people from day one and then over the full span of their career,
therefore catching potential wellness issues and injuries before they happen.
Now, if you want to try Team Builder, they are offering you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, a free 14 day trial to experience all of the features.

(05:50):
And if you want to take a deeper dive into Team Builder, listen to episode 1032 with Melissa Mercado or go to teambuilder.com.
And I'll spell that to you because it's not as you think.
T E A M B U I L D R dot com.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome back onto the show.

(06:15):
Navy fighter pilot veteran and the author of Phoenix Revival, Kagan Gill.
Now, if you haven't heard my first conversation with Kagan, which was episode 737, I urge you to hit stop, listen to that first and then come back to this episode.
His journey from training as a fighter pilot, the world record speed ejection that almost killed him, his mental and physical health journey downwards,

(06:43):
his healing journey is an absolute must listen before you transition into this conversation.
Kagan leads us through the last two years.
He had just been through a psychedelic retreat, opened the doors in his mind, but now it is time to find the tools that would work for him.
So whether it was breath work, ice plunges or working on his sleep, he takes a deep dive into the ongoing healing journey that each and every one of us are on.

(07:09):
Now, before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 1000 episodes now.

(07:33):
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, a welcome back onto the show Kagan Gill.

(08:08):
Well Kagan, I want to start by saying, firstly, anyone who's listening if you haven't heard episode 737, that was our first conversation so people need to listen to your, your full story before they listen to the second part so firstly I want to put that out there.
Secondly, I want to welcome you to or welcome you back onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.

(08:32):
It's great to be back with you, James. I can't believe it's been two years since that first recording we did man it's been flying. It's insane. So when we sat down last time we were in Dallas, Texas, having just done the 7x project.
So basically not sleeping for almost a week, and then watching, watching all these people run marathons and skydiving and all the other things that were going on so a good kind of icebreaker opening question.

(09:00):
Now you've had time to reflect on that. What are your kind of perspectives, what are some of the highlights of that trip for you.
Yeah, it's still it still seems kind of surreal that we got to do that. And, and I think probably the biggest highlight for me is the network of incredible human beings that I've remained connected to from that experience yourself included Birdman and the whole crew,

(09:25):
you know, we really developed this incredible little cadre of outstanding men and women out of that. And so I've been grateful to have continued contact with them and networking with them and and help and lift each other up and whatever we're doing.
And it's cool to be around a group of people that really want to do good in the world, and our good humans at heart that want to help, you know, just to help.

(09:51):
What did you see as far as the impact of that journey and for people listening, the crew the team, the goal was to do seven skydive seven marathon seven swims seven continents seven days and it wasn't a record breaking attempt it was really an effort to break
down humans and to see how can we prepare them for this how can we keep them going, especially the marathon runners and then how can we rebuild them at the end as a kind of micro chasm of what happens to our military members our first responders.

(10:23):
So even though you and I weren't running the marathons we were still there you know as part of the support team and, and, you know, being exposed to the same sleep deprivation. At the end of that week, what was the impact of that kind of turmoil on you physically and mentally.
Yeah, you could absolutely feel just the travel alone. I found out about that trip, just a couple weeks ahead of time. So I didn't really have much time to train but I still ran two marathons while on it.

(10:53):
I definitely felt just a physical toll from that. So imagining doing seven of those, and the additional stress of all the travel and the continents and time changes. You know it's pretty remarkable what the human being is capable of especially with health optimization
in the right support team to see what they could do in that trip and some of those guys were running those marathons and they were, it looked like they had fresh legs even on the seventh day and they were still just crushing it like way faster than I'll ever run a marathon.

(11:26):
But it was, you know, it just reinforced something that I already suspected but it's the human spirit is really capable of things far beyond what we think it would be our limitations and when you have the support tools and the modalities to heal and recover
and optimize your health after. I really think that I really hope that the military and more branches and more arms than just maybe a very small portion of the Special Forces community starts to see the value in optimizing the health of the military members,

(12:02):
not only for their performance while they're in the military but their longevity and then continued health for them and their families, you know, once they finally call us time to get out of the military. So, a lot of lessons learned on that trip.
I'm excited to see. I think there's still some publication in the works and potentially even a documentary coming out of that so excited to see once it's all put together.

(12:27):
Absolutely. Yeah, it was interesting in some recent conversations I've had. If you look at the seals the Delta guys you know they they have, you know, nutritionists and strength conditioning coaches and you know all the things to squeeze out that elite performance
and longevity. But then if you look at our first responders, for example, the conversation when it comes to nutrition and wellness is basically if you really break it down is to try and stop us from dying.

(12:52):
It's not about human performance. So we as a professional. Yeah, literally I will just get them walking and teach them how to make oatmeal, as opposed to you know how can we feel this person because they might have to climb, you know, 50 stories with 100 pounds on their gear
on their back before they even go to work like there isn't a leap of performance is needed in uniform but we've just kind of broken down our first responders and it's a recruitment crisis now.

(13:17):
So I think realizing that where we need to be on the human performance side is a good place to plant a flag because it shows us how far from that we actually are.
Yeah, no doubt. No doubt we have a long ways to go, just just to get people eating better food and you know, cutting out the booze culture a little bit cutting out the pharmaceutical world that seems to patch people back together again and mask symptoms to keep them, you know, maybe operating at some level, but

(13:48):
I think I think there is a bit of an awakening at least occurring right now. There's so much information coming out about practical ways to improve your health and middle performance and optimize everything and I think that's going to continue to spread like wildfire and at least at least now people are talking about it,
which I think is a big first step but even even in the strike fighter community I mean they're putting millions of dollars into training the pilot in order to be a pilot that's ready for the fleet, especially in the strike fighter community and then to not take care of that individual

(14:23):
and optimize their health while they're in service, you know, not only does it reduce their performance but you're also very drastically potentially shortening their, their career length and that's that's a huge attrition of experience that's just hemorrhaging out of the military currently
it seems like and and the and the bar just keeps getting raised higher as far as the level of tactical knowledge you have to have the number of things you're supposed to be able to do it within a 24 hour span of the day and and and unfortunately I don't see the support coming for the people that need the

(14:59):
the optimization of their health that they're going to continue to perform at that level for very long. What are you seeing as far as the impacts on the physical side in our pilots, especially as a couple areas one of my friends is a helicopter pilot and he was talking about
just the stress on the neck and the neck problems a lot of you guys have, but also another conversation I've had is, you know, in the fire service for realizing this PFAS in our gear. And so there's that carcinogen element as well. One would assume that maybe as you progress through that maybe some of our military pilots have also been exposed to certain chemicals, whether it's jet fuel and the things that you work around, whether it's actually what you're wearing, and that is an unseen killer as well.

(15:43):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's a number of hazardous exposures that you get as a military pilot you're getting exposed to, you know, inhaling jet a fumes on a regular basis, you are wearing a fire retardant flight suit that's coated in some sort of chemical to, to prevent it from catching on fire.

(16:07):
You are exposed to high G forces, there was actually a really interesting article that recently came out in the New York Times, actually a couple friends of mine, Rosie and slider, who are both Navy strike fighter community. I think they were both even served back in the day the f 14s, but the article goes into depth about the way that pilots are experiencing G forces in a way that can create traumatic brain injury and disrupt the physiology of the brain.

(16:36):
In ways that we didn't really suspect before, but there's a lot of parallels between, you know, especially the sport, the special forces community started to be acknowledging with operator syndrome and things like that.
Leading to PTSD symptoms. Well, the same thing's happening in the pilot community and no doubt it's happening in the firefighter community and the first responder community. You are exposed day in day out of all these stressful forces acting on your body, the high pace lifestyle, you know, boosts of dopamine and drop out from the extremes that you're operating at and on the verge of death at times, you know, whether that be running into a burning building or a firefighter.

(17:17):
Or landing on the back of an aircraft carrier in the dark where you're at any moment, just a couple seconds from death. You get exposed to that on a regular basis and it causes disruptions on so many levels of your physical body, you know, the stress on your spinal cord and spine and the damage to your brain that it causes over time that accumulates and oftentimes insidious ways where it's very subtle and creeps on. You don't even know it's happening.

(17:45):
But yeah, there's a whole line of it and I don't think that any person that signs up for these jobs has any problem accepting that risk, but I think that the U.S. government owes it to these people to take care of them so that they can continue to perform and be of better performance while they're in service.

(18:08):
And it's just it makes no sense to me that financially even not to invest in taking care of these guys while they're in service and keeping them healthy in the ways that we now know are available.
And I know that you are well versed in and I am well versed in and and fortunately it's starting to catch on a little bit.
But there are so many ways that we can heal the body and the brain that would be so cost effective at keeping people performing better and longer careers.

(18:38):
Absolutely. Well, when we were at 7X, we got to Columbia and I remember I did a Cartagena.
I did a little mini speech just because I could see the bond that was forming with all of us.
And there was the VIPs, the people who paid, you know, really funded the event and came along with us. There was the athletes and the support staff and everyone.
And it really was, you know, shared suffering like you would have in a boot camp, like you'd have in a fire academy.

(19:04):
And I watched us all kind of bonding and I remember saying, just be aware that once we all go home, there will almost be an element of grief.
And this mirrors when we leave our military profession, our first responder profession and that kind of loss of tribe and there can literally be depression and things that follow it.
Did you feel any of that once we all went home?

(19:26):
You know, I did. I did feel a little bit of that because we created such a bond in a short period of time.
And it was like it felt like we were back in, you know, I was back in a squadron again and we were on detachment traveling in the NALO and the Navy.
Like it felt that same camaraderie and shenanigans and that shared sort of struggle of traveling all over the place and being shoved into hotel rooms and not knowing what time zone you're in.

(19:51):
And then when you get to do that again with another group of people that was as outstanding as Birdman had assembled for that, absolutely, I missed the gang after we were gone.
And fortunately, you know, we've done a really good job, I think, of keeping in touch and making stuff happen to get back together again after the fact.
Absolutely. Well, like I said, we talked about your journey up to that point in the in the first conversation.

(20:17):
So I want to kind of pick up from a couple of years ago.
So firstly, let's talk about the tools you continue to accumulate. I'd love to hear more about the psychedelic side and how that's helped you and then the other things that you've started adding to your toolbox to continue this healing through the roller coaster of life.

(20:38):
Yeah, you know, as a result of getting the fortunate experience of getting to experience all these healing modalities that are sort of off the books at the VA or even mainstream insurance or TRICARE.
I had something occurred that I didn't really expect along with that, you know, and that that was the sort of spiritual awakening that occurred and the sort of having what I think the Buddhist would call like the path of Dharma, which is the path to ultimate happiness or enlightenment.

(21:11):
And that was sort of presented to me through some of these indigenous medicines. And then I was very fortunate to get into a group called the Wisdom Dojo, which which takes guys after they've gone through veteran solutions program, heroic hearts program, mission within.
There's a number of ways, but they take a veteran who's been through a major psychedelic experience, be that ayahuasca or Ibogaine, five MEO DMT. And then you take them from there and then you start to teach them a meditation protocol.

(21:46):
And this is, you know, not that long ago, I would have thought this stuff was all just a bunch of nonsense like like I literally thought that meditation was like an excuse for all these monks to hang out with their bros and and nap all day.
Like I had no idea. And it is not bad at all. You know, for just to clarify for the record, and what I was fortunate to discover is the sort of merging of the sort of shamanic path to enlightenment, which is with the use of these indigenous medicines or psychedelics, along with the sort of the yogi path, which is.

(22:22):
Meditating your way to enlightenment, which is the hard way to do it, the slow motion way to do it that takes, you know, people decades or or longer even of living in isolation, living in a cave of sort of cutting themselves off from society at times to get deep into themselves.
Well, the way the wisdom dojo has seen it is that you can accelerate that process to the ultimate happiness this path of Dharma by giving in this case military veterans and first responders exposure to the shamanic path of seeing the top of the mountain of what that getting a little glimpse into what enlightenment is and what it feels like and where that is within all of us, you know, beyond our five senses.

(23:08):
And that's what you get in these indigenous medicine ceremonies or psychedelic assisted therapy, if you want to call it that. And then you come back and then you teach the the old fashioned way of getting there.
But now you kind of know what it looks like at the top of the mountain, and it kind of helps you get up that path and allows you to drop into a meditative state much deeper and that doesn't take decades upon decades.

(23:34):
Now you still have to build a very well run practice that you do regularly and stick with. But the guys over at the wisdom dojo.
You got Eric moose Smith. He's a former seal. He's the first guy I talked to there that really started getting me going on the program after I had gone down to Peru with heroic hearts.

(23:56):
And then you've got Bill filter. He's he's been basically a master meditation coach for decades. You know, he's he's the guy who went sort of the old fashioned way of, you know, going and living in solitude and doing retreat and meditating his way.
And then we also have Mark Williams. He's a former F-15 Charlie Eagle pilot. And he has also along with Bill, you know, they were buddies and they kind of went that old fashioned path to meditation because he came out of the Air Force flying these tactical aircraft.

(24:34):
And he wanted to get back to that state of the mind where you're just sort of high situational awareness, very present. And, you know, some people call it like being in the zone where you're just kind of turned on like an athlete knows what it's like to be in the zone where every shot is going in.
You're just at the top of your performance. And so Mark Mark of pursued that with hopes of reaching that state of mind in his everyday life. And so him and Bill got together, spent decades traveling all over the world meditating through very traditional practices.

(25:09):
And now they've taken that and they've taken their shamanic experience of using indigenous medicines and they've merged them in this program called the Wisdom Dojo that I think is is one of the most outstanding things that I feel so fortunate to be a part of because it's allowed me to continue my healing after the psychedelic assisted therapy in a way that has I'm now able to reach a point where it's almost like being in a psychedelic state only just through meditation.

(25:38):
And so it's just this state of calm, peace, openness, love and presence, and it fills you with joy and it's, you know, it's the state of mind that we all have within us. And when we can declutter the mind from the egoic mind which is you know our senses, our sense of being who we are, who we tell ourselves, ourselves are we are you know the stories about ourselves, our past, our fears, our worries, our anxieties of the future.

(26:05):
And so just clear all that out through the experience of meditation and then couple it with sort of having a glimpse of the top of the mountain of what it's like to feel like when you're an enlightened being and you merge them together the way the wisdom dojo does it's created something that I've seen make massive transformation on guys of all walks of life from military first responder communities and just become the best version of yourself that you've ever gotten to be in a way that you want to be of service.

(26:34):
Full of love and caring clear headed and just feel good and that that emanates out of you in a way that helps lift others up around you.
It helps your family. It helps your friends. It helps the world and to see what's possible with this path of the Dharma if you want to call it that you know it's not strictly a Buddhist thing.

(26:57):
There's there's plenty of people from various religious backgrounds and beliefs that are in the program and seeing massive benefit from it.
But there's no doubt there's there's something so much more to the world than than what we perceive with our five senses and the things that we're kind of obsessed with in Western culture which is you know making money and status and what's my how many degrees do I have and how many deployments have I been on who am I I want to build up the me me me.

(27:24):
When you strip all that shit away because it's all temporary anyway you get to really see who we are and we are all connected through that and and anyways wisdom dojo if you're out there looking for a good way to support an incredible cause those guys are outstanding and if you're fortunate enough to get to go through some of these programs and you get the opportunity to talk to Moose or any of these guys about the program.

(27:48):
I was I was there with you if you're skeptical I remember when Moose first started talking to me about meditation I was like all right I guess if a Navy SEALs doing it like there's got to be something to it but at first I didn't I was like I'm probably not going to continue doing this in the back of my mind.
But but I was glad that I stuck with it because what it transforms into is has become it is enriched my life in ways that I would have never imagined.

(28:15):
It makes so much sense when I hear people that say they tried ketamine or you know maybe they did a psychedelic but it was on their own you know to me all you've done is open the basement door, but no one has actually helped you go in there and start sorting things out and throwing things away.
So having the ability to kind of maybe turn the light on like you said with with a guided ayahuasca but then you know the meditation is the work isn't it I mean that's really what you continue to do and start unpacking and taking away power from things that were lying beneath the surface the whole time.

(28:50):
Absolutely, absolutely and it's like defragmenting your hard drive on a regular basis it just clears out this clutter and the panic and the anxiety and all the shit that can weigh on us that's distracting us from just being alive and feeling good and it has a physical effect on your body.
You know when you when you have a calm mind you sleep better you you engage more healthily with the people around you, you start to pursue the things that are more healthy to yourself and just sort of naturally I've drifted away from any sort of alcohol any sort of cannabis any sort of recreational drug and a lot of unhealthy things that just become more clear in my life that like I just want to feel good how I am I don't want to mask that I don't want to bring myself down with with something

(29:40):
that clouds that up and you just feel better than maybe at least I feel better than I ever have back in the days when I would you know drink a bunch of beer to like break the ice in a social setting and and to fit in and now that I don't need that I feel you know I feel tremendously better and not to say that you know I'll even still have a beer on occasion it's not like you have to be strict about it if you don't want to be but it's it kind of frees you from the need of so many of these things that that have sort of been

(30:10):
become part of our common society that that bring you down over time and break down your body and poison your body and and when you get free of all that crap and including all the clutter of your mind and your fears man I can't I can't even explain in words how how good that feels.
One of the thing the the lesser discussed elements of first responder and military mental health is what happened to us from you know arguably even in vitro through to when we put the uniform on.

(30:39):
When you started down this journey when you maybe had some of your your ayahuasca journeys and then in the meditation reflecting after you you had the the highest recorded ejection as far as the an aircraft speed I mean you had a massive TBI you had this incredible downward spiral as far as your mental health journey.

(31:02):
When you reflected those are obviously big T traumas those are those are you know clearly going to be contributing but were there any things that that you unpack that were unseen that maybe you didn't realize were also part of this equation.
Yeah I was I was actually very surprised at the things that I discovered deeper within myself that were really the the baseline of what had caused this this place that I had gotten to you know living in a VA inpatient psych facility out of my mind and broken and what I found was.

(31:35):
Eboga actually was the medicine that I journeyed on right before the 7x trip and met you for the first time and that's what really opened my eyes I was I was very fortunate.
I went down with no fallen heroes run by whiz Buckley former Hornet guy for former Hornet pilot and and he funded me to go down to.

(31:57):
Awaken your soul in Costa Rica and there I got to sit with the bogus which is is what they make ibogaine out of but it's got a variety of other alkaloids included it as well.
We did it in a very ceremonial setting with a shaman and the gentleman who guided me through this is named Troy Valencia who's actually opened his own.

(32:17):
retreat center now called root and wisdom down in Dominican Costa Rica he sat with me on my journey the first time with iboga and while I was deep within that medicine deep in this experience.
He's also a trained psychotherapist he went back with me to pre birth while I was still in my mother's womb and I got to experience.

(32:40):
All of these traumas that I had no conscious memory of prior all of these things within my subconscious that were still there and he helped me unlock them and re experience them.
And many of the things that had I think driven me to become a fighter pilot many of these things were based in this this trauma that happened when I was a child and.

(33:01):
And it was really it was really in many ways, it was an absence of love at a very young age through a number of issues that you know are very personal I don't I don't know that I want to get into great detail on them, you know on a podcast but.
I had these experiences, you know very very young age that basically made it where I didn't love myself and I was very much in love with myself.

(33:25):
And then I think because of that I always felt this need in my life this anxiety almost that I needed to prove to everybody that I was worth loving.
And through that I pursued you know one of the hardest career fields, you can and became a navy strike fighter pilot in that.
But the way it was fueling me was through this rage that had been buried deep within me from this experience as a little baby and and and it drove me and it drove me.

(33:53):
And you know you can run on rage it's a very powerful fuel but it burns out the motors real quick and I think that in part was something that had happened to me.
Is I had gotten you know gone through all this physical trauma of the ejection the comeback back into the cockpit all of this, I think that what was fueling me deep within was the sort of.

(34:15):
Absence of love that I had you know or didn't have and and once I saw what had happened and I was in a state of panic and I was in a state of panic and I was in a state of panic and I was in a state of panic.
And and once I saw what had happened and I was able to sort of forgive the situation and understand it from my new perspective as a grown man, rather than the scared little child.

(34:43):
You know it opened my eyes and I was able to release that trapped emotion that had been weighing me down from my heart my entire life.
Now without that extreme traumatic experience I probably would have never become a fighter pilot to begin with and and I can't tell you how many other guys that I've met you know, especially in the in the special forces community who've had.

(35:05):
Had very traumatic experiences at a young age that they've now uncovered through indigenous medicine ceremony and meditation practice, but once you can free those trapped emotions.
You get to really become the version of yourself that not only loves yourself, but they can then develop compassion.
And caring for others and that's something I don't think I had a lot of my life I couldn't love everybody else around me because I couldn't even love myself.

(35:34):
But but it's amazing what can be at the root cause of these things and it's not necessarily even that you know these crazy traumatic experiences, we may encounter.
Through our service in the military as first responders of running into burning buildings and you know.
A lot of us that i've a lot of the people that i've been fortunate to meet have had similar things encountered, which is the sort of repressed memories.

(35:58):
And if you can get to a place where you can address those you know on rare occasion I think people able to do that just through years and years, if not decades of psychotherapy but.
These indigenous medicines are great accelerator to that, especially when you're doing it with the skilled guide like Troy Valencia and some of the other folks that are out there at these well run retreat centers.

(36:23):
it's such an important perspective, though, and hearing you tell the story I think just adds weight to it.
One of my guests jay Clark years ago said he told him basically educated me on what aces even are the adverse childhood experience score.
And supposedly military first responders and prisoners you have an average of six I think it's out of 10.

(36:48):
So that's pretty pretty significant when it comes to the scale and you look at the why will a lot of you know us when we were small if there was elements of trauma, then we want to be the protector they want to be the defender we want to stop other people hurting.
And then also the busyness the excitement of you know, a military pilot or a firefighter that also is kind of keeping that memory pushed down because you're too busy, you know, trying not to die, for example.

(37:12):
But most of us at a certain point that excitement wears off and that's where I think you see a lot in my profession around the 10 year mark is when you know you've seen a lot you haven't seen everything by any means i'm not saying you know you you're there at 10 years but.
The newness the adrenaline the excitement of most of the calls is now tapered off because you're starting to become you know venture into the veteran space.

(37:34):
And that's when I think a lot of these rear the ugly head so we look back and go Oh, it was what happened to you the last 10 years instead of you know acknowledging that right at the front door a lot of us already have a lot of rocks in the basket.
And so if we're not addressing that as a profession that becomes a fractured foundation, so I would love to see certainly in my profession.

(37:56):
Rather than using psych tests to just yes or no you know select people actually put mental health at the front door and give our probes counseling from day one and give them the opportunity to turn those struggles into strengths.
yeah if they could find a way to to fund that that would be massively beneficial you know I think I know in my recovery there was a lot of questions asking like.

(38:22):
Why why didn't we you know why don't we test people ahead of time with some sort of psychological testing going into the pilot community, so that we have a baseline of this person's you know mental performance.
Because I had gone through all this you know trauma with the injection brain injury you know physical injuries and then, when I started to get all these testings you know they ran me through a whole battery of.

(38:45):
Like IQ testing and personality testing but a lot of things they're like well we didn't we didn't know what he was like before, so what are we supposed to compare this to and so.
I know in that community there's a lot of talk of like shouldn't we have like a baseline of where this person's at in case something you know.
And for what you're talking about so maybe we can actually address issues before they they fester and come out in ways that.

(39:09):
You know lead to suicide and substance abuse and crumbling of people's families and in loss of career and all the terrible things that we see so commonly and and the truth is, I think I think there's a massive proportion of society.
That has a lot of these factors you know you don't have to have been.
You know in the military you don't have to have been a firefighter you don't have to have had these big obvious traumas that that seemed kind of easy to connect the dots to there's there's a lot of subtlety in what trauma can be and that can simply be.

(39:43):
A massive trauma to little kids is just an absence of love which which I I unfortunately see.
Very commonly in our society now where everybody's the parents are both working parents they're stuck in a career where they're gone all the time the kid kind of gets their raising gets outsourced to you know.
School and extracurricular activities and so there's sort of this absence of love for a lot of little kids where.

(40:09):
You know the parents they're having their kid and they're right back to work within you know, whatever it is maybe three months if they're lucky.
And there's not this bond with the mother and the father that needs to be there and I can't I mean the detrimental effect that that's had on our society, I think is massive if we want to go back and really fix where the where the where the

(40:31):
real problem starts for so many people it's it's sort of this high paced Western society we live in that doesn't really value parents getting to connect with their children for very long after birth.
Yeah well, I mean even again my profession, one of the biggest things that I talk about is the firefighter work week, I mean most of our firefighters work 56 hours a week and they're not even.

(40:53):
There's this recruitment crisis so I mean it's not just now like I was doing it years ago, but there's a thing called mandatory overtime so you're about to go home they tell you know another 24 hours you got to stay.
So the impact multi generationally on you know the children of my profession, this is why.
i'm trying to really kind of stoke the fires of the fight be like look it's not about you and your hero shit it's about the fight.

(41:16):
fighting to be at home with your children when they're having that worst day when the girl dumped them when you know they have that ballet recital whatever it is and they turn around and they see you in that chair the impact that has on a child 10 1520 years you know it can't be overstated.
No, and it's yeah it's it's sort of an epidemic right now, I feel.

(41:39):
And things just keep getting faster and and when that little kid doesn't form that strong bond with their parents at birth and learn to be loved and get to experience and bask in that warmth.
That they can't love themselves in the way that that manifest is their life progresses is, I think, a huge factor in what we're seeing.

(42:00):
widespread throughout our society right now so many people dealing with drug and alcohol and she's dealing with mental health issues, you know and just.

(42:22):
exacerbating that from our terrible food system to poison in the water that everybody's drinking to just getting pumped full of at the first sign of any problem they're getting pumped full of pharmaceuticals as little kids you know, like there's just a.
there's just a bombardment of toxicity in our society right now and we're seeing it just manifest in ways that's very detrimental and.

(42:45):
You know, the good thing is, I think there you know there's podcasts like this and you and sharing this this kind of information, I think people are starting to wake up to it, and we want to we want to do it differently.
yeah i'm an incurable optimist and I think we're at the beginning of a renaissance I really do, I think.
A lot of the lies have been exposed, I think a lot of the paper tigers have been exposed these people that call themselves leaders that pay themselves, you know accordingly.

(43:11):
That when called to lead we watch them fail, I mean think cove it's a good example of that, so I think now there is, I think there really is an awakening is it everyone, of course, not but is it that sensible middle ground growing I truly believe it, and I think I think we're going to see some exciting, you know years to come, hopefully.
yeah I like you and very optimistic and I feel that pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction and and there's sort of this you're not going to see it on the news necessarily you're not going to.

(43:41):
You know they're going to do everything they can to not talk about what's going on, you know really because it's it's going to take.
Take the power away from the few and disseminate it back into the people just giving us back our healths our mental health, our wisdom and and reconnecting us to one another in ways that I think we've sort of forgotten in this country in many ways.

(44:05):
But i'm excited to see where it goes where it's going because yeah I can I can feel that momentum that that momentum shifting.
Absolutely well one area that that i've talked about a lot in the first responder mental health space is.
That no one was really talking about it, there was obviously the pioneers, but most of us really weren't talking about mental health 10 years ago, and then there was a kind of paradigm shift around 10 nine ish.

(44:31):
Where all of a sudden, it was just in our face and we couldn't turn away anymore, and so there was the kind of smash the stigma conversation for a long time.
But I feel like we've got stuck there and where I think the messaging needs to go and obviously you know, based on your experience amongst so many others.
Is not the oh i'm going to live with my PTSD conversation, you know the kind of sad one where they've got their dog and you know they tell the story over and over and over again it never progresses forward and that's not me casting shade it's just there is that messaging out there.

(45:02):
I think the hope of the hope of post traumatic growth, the resilience that is forged from identifying what were the struggles, what was the pee beneath the mattress.
And then working through it and now that becoming you know a beacon of light you becoming this more resilient version of yourself so talk to me about that kind of concept.
Who are you now versus who you were and and is there an element of of you know kegan 2.0 a more resilient beacon that you are now.

(45:34):
Yeah, absolutely I mean you know the place where I was just to give a short recap for people who maybe didn't listen to the first episode we recorded I was.
I was given a delayed onset PTSD diagnosis after you know being through an extreme trauma of high speed ejection traumatic brain injury broken neck arms legs.

(45:56):
You know spent a couple years rehabilitating over a dozen trauma surgeries reconstructing me putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.
And after two years of rehabilitation and overcoming prescription drug addiction to all the pain management medications I was receiving I returned to the cockpit and flew f-18s again and while it seemed that.

(46:18):
You know that that was the happy ending to the Disney movie it ended up you know there was a lot more to the story in that as time progressed and then getting another experience.
To a potential TBI through a rapid decompression the cockpit I started to experience massive debilitating effects from traumatic brain injury.

(46:38):
That was initially just recognized as a PTSD diagnosis like oh you're not feeling like yourself oh you're not sleeping oh you're you're feeling depressed you're having anxiety concentration all the things.
All these symptoms that have presented themselves in something that's diagnosable in the world of psychology which was a PTSD diagnosis are now called PTSD.

(47:04):
Well where my standard treatment led me was here take these pills let's try some SSRIs let's try some anti psychotic medication.
That'll help you sleep at low dosage called quetiapine or Seroquel and what those things did was they masked some of the symptoms.

(47:25):
But meanwhile that underlying physiology of my brain that was physically damaged and not working properly causing all sorts of impairments.
From hormone production to mental function on so many levels and physical performance.
All of that just went masked and those symptoms got worse and worse with time as the dosage of those medicines continued to increase and led to me being medically retired and and then continued treatment through the VA system.

(47:58):
Which was largely you just have to take these pills every day multiple times a day for the rest of your life and when they stop being effective what we have to do is increase the dose which means.
Even greater side effects even more detrimental effect to your body of the toxic effect that those substances can have and that physiology just continue to get exacerbated.

(48:22):
There is this TBI component that was just screaming for help but everybody just put a PTSD diagnosis on it and just focused on the symptoms and managing that through masking them with pills and that led me to the point where.
My wife came in I was completely naked I had shaved off my hair my eyebrows my facial hair and.

(48:43):
You know all I had on was a black plastic garbage bag I was wearing as a cape because I thought it was some sort of superhero that was going to go out into the snow and fight crime.
So I ended up getting a trip to the emergency room getting who knows what all dumped into my body with anti psych medic or psych medications and then I ended up living in an inpatient psych facility for I think about 40 days.

(49:07):
Which was tremendously traumatic in itself the way people are treated in those facilities the way American veterans are treated in the facilities and anybody else who is unfortunate enough to have to go into the custody of one of these.
You know non private versions of these facilities it's it's it's traumatic and you're treated in the same way that you would treat an enemy combatant in a prisoner of war situation by being confined by being sleep deprived through absurd policies requiring the staff to come into your room every 15 minutes to wake you up.

(49:38):
With a flashlight to make sure you're not hurting yourself now you take somebody who's in a psychotic state who's already on the.
Upper edge of their their fight or flight nervous system just on edge and then you have people bursting into your room all night even if they don't shine a flashlight right in your eyes.

(50:00):
You're on high alert and you hear them coming and you cannot sleep your fed just ultra processed garbage food you get to go outside maybe once a week into a concrete yard surrounded by metal fences and brick buildings you hardly ever see the sun.
This is what you do to break somebody and you take perfectly healthy military members going through survival training and you can find them sleep deprived them malformed them and you can find them in a very safe environment.

(50:27):
Survival training and you can find them sleep deprived them malnourished them for just a few days and physically mentally robust military members from the special forces community or fighter pilot community.
They start to have auditory and visual hallucinations they start to have delusional thoughts and that's a perfectly healthy person now you're going to tell me by putting them in a facility that does those same things although maybe unintentionally.

(50:54):
What do you think is going to happen and so I went through this brutal experience there.
Eventually I was fortunate to get out with the support of my family, but I was I was broken I was on you know I had already very much contemplated suicide before going into that facility as my symptoms got worse as I lost my career as I separated from the community that I had become I'd worked so hard for my life to become part of.

(51:18):
I had lost my identity and now I felt vastly betrayed betrayed by the government that I had served and so I was in a very very dark dark hole my family was falling apart I was on the verge of divorce I was such a bitter angry depressed PTSD inflicted human that I just I was pushing my children away.

(51:39):
And in in the things were not going well and then I was fortunate to discover some of the modalities we've been discussing through the use of.
Indigenous medicine or psychedelic assisted therapy through traumatic brain injury clinics that actually addressed the underlying physiology of my brain that had been disrupted and they started to give me nutraceuticals and customize.

(52:00):
supplementation to address hormonal imbalances and all the things that were off in my body and and as my my body actually started to get fixed and then the things that was lacking and given access to modalities like hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
And this whole world of incredible healing tools that we have that are just not available through the VA that are literally on tri care it says you cannot use hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat PT or to treat TBI which is absurd because one of the best things for treating a TBI is hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

(52:38):
But anyways I was fortunate through the generosity of these organizations through donation were able to fund me to gain access to these healing modalities and where that has brought me.
Has been a massive transformation and in a big part of that I have seen though I went through this darkness and I could be angry about I could be pissed off at all the people that you know blame it on everybody else and point fingers and live in this bitter place for the rest of my life which I damn near did.

(53:11):
But now that I have this perspective I feel that I went through that for a reason there's a beautiful quote by Carl Jung and it's in order to grow to reach the heavens we must have roots deep into hell and by having these dark experiences in our life it can often enable us to grow to new heights.

(53:33):
If you can get through that darkness if you can if you can you know tend to that little ember of hope that may still be in there even when you're locked in a psych facility getting literally tortured with sleep deprivation and medications being forced upon you if you can still find that little ember of hope and kindle that fire.

(53:56):
That can turn into a massive warmth that can raise you up and explode out of your heart and and emanate into your entire life and I'm I'm saying every human being is capable of this you don't have to you know have anything special other than just believing in yourself and believe believing that there is a possibility that you can get better and I'm here to tell you.

(54:19):
There is an entire world of healing which is largely based on you simply changing simple lifestyle habits you know the biggest components of this you don't need funding to go on a medicine journey while that can certainly accelerate the process.
You can do a lot of this on your own simply by changing the way you eat changing what you consume in food water personalities around you toxic lifestyle there is a lot of toxicity in our society right now and if you can start to eat whole foods you can start to look at the labels and you know you don't it doesn't have to be a whole food.

(55:01):
It's not like you're counting calories but just by not eating all the poison that's on 90% of the shelves of the grocery store by shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store getting organic produce going to the farmers market locally if you can is even better.
Eating healthy animals you know if you're a hunter or finding things that have been grass fed pasture raised things like that when you eat healthy food that comes from healthy soil and healthy places healthy happy animals that goes into your body and it literally becomes you it goes into your cells and becomes everything that makes you up.

(55:37):
And that's probably one of the biggest things that you can start doing right the second that will make a drastic impact is just stop putting the toxic processed foods into your body start drinking clean water if you pour water out of the tap from the city faucet and it smells like chlorine.
That's destroying your gut microbiome that is making you sick you need that those trillions of organisms that live within us that is basically like a second us has drastic influence on cellular function physical function mental function everything in your body is dictated by all these little guys that live in the body.

(56:07):
And when you can nourish that and you can start to cultivate a rain force of diversity within there rather than freaking wiping it out every time you drink a bunch of tequila shots or pound a bunch of city water or or drink a soda all these things high fructose corn or whatever.
That's just wreaks havoc on your entire body and again you don't need special funding all you have to do is make the conscious effort nobody can make you do it but i'm here to tell you are more than capable of healing yourself and growing and transforming yourself into a better person.

(56:41):
Just in what you consume just in the people you're around by turning off all the social media nonsense all the bickering on the news channels it's not serving you cut it out of your life.
Build back with things that make you feel good about yourself make you feel good about yourself and you can do it.
You have control of it you have to be the captain of your own ship as my friend Andrew Mara always says.

(57:11):
Anyways I kind of went on a tangent there I don't know if I answered your question yeah no you did I had fun doing it whatever that was.
Well you hit on a few points the first one obviously i'm going to pull out and everyone listening to those is one of my biggest kind of dead horses that I flog is sleep deprivation you've got as I mentioned you know these these firefighters is my community.

(57:42):
That are just being worked into the ground being told to stay extra shifts another 24 hours without sleep and again you imagine in a fire station waiting for a call we're either up actually running calls.
Where you got that you know one eye open element waiting for that call to come in anyway so before we hit record we talked about 62 Romeo Robert Sweetman as far as you know you finding help with your own sleep so talk to me about focusing on your sleep specifically and what impact that's had on your physical mental health.

(58:12):
Yeah just for people that I don't know Robert Sweetman he's a former navy seal he lost a very near and dear friend of his which kind of put him on this path of wanting to figure out why why are guys committing suicide and how could he help and so what he's developed is 62 Romeo it's a nonprofit organization that helps first responders and veterans.

(58:34):
Get better sleep and a lot of his work is based off the book why we sleep by Dr Matthew Walker but when you go through his course through his online curriculum.
What you get to do is you get to step by step see all the ways that you can help to produce better sleep and maybe even more important than what I was just talking about with food and water and what you consume or around all the time getting better sleep.

(59:01):
Is the foundation to our health and Rob saw the vast importance of that if you're not sleeping well and you continue to run in a state of sleep deprivation.
Your life will start to fall apart around you and maybe you can run like that for a period of time maybe even a decade maybe even two decades you've been running in this world of sleep deprivation.

(59:22):
But it's accelerating your aging and it's causing every single cell in your body not to recover and when you start getting good sleep.
Your life will transform when we're sleep deprived not only is our cognitive functioning go down we even perceive the world around us in the sort of skewed way where people's facial expressions even appear to be more negative than what we're used to.

(59:49):
Like we'll have a conversation with somebody when we're sleep deprived and we'll even interpret their facial expressions in in speech and mannerisms as a way that's maybe this person's angry with me or bitter or upset for some reason with that's not actually the case.
We even perceive the world in a more negative light with our human interactions when we're sleep deprived.

(01:00:11):
But not not to summarize the whole book I highly recommend picking up a copy that and looking up 62 Romeo but the profound effect of just simple tools to help you sleep better was transformative in my life and a massive step in the right direction and a lot of this is just.
You know cutting out things even caffeine you know if even if you just have one cup of caffeine in the morning one cup of coffee let's say.

(01:00:40):
The half life of that caffeine is is about 12 hours so even 12 hours later in the day even if you just had that at 8 a.m. now at 8 p.m. half of that caffeine is still active in your system.
Now if you're one of these people like I was who's running on caffeine and nicotine all day to stay awake.

(01:01:01):
Then what do you need at night to cut back and ease off now you got to pour yourself some whiskey or have some beers to to ease yourself into sleep and what that does is is massively detrimental to your sleep or if you're having to take ambient or any sort of sleep medication.
You're not getting restful sleep you may be getting into some state of unconsciousness but it's not in a way that's actually healing your body the way that restful sleep can.

(01:01:28):
And by reducing or cutting out caffeine by taking out alcohol you know having alcohol in the evening even if it's just one or two drinks on a regular basis.
It does not allow it now your body can't get into deep sleep anymore you're not getting restful sleep and over time that'll take effect on you you won't retain a lot of things if you've you know you've studied a bunch say you're in a community where you have to constantly be learning new tactics or new skills.

(01:01:56):
You're not going to remember it nearly as well because you're not storing that information if you're not getting into deep sleep there's so much that happens in that deep sleep that you're not going to be able to remember.
There's so much that happens in that deep sleep that is so vital to our health it's more important than what you eat what you drink and how much you work out if you're not getting good sleep.

(01:02:17):
You need to get that before you even consider exercise yes exercise beneficial yes I recommend that but if it's at the expense of sacrificing your sleep.
You're not going to see benefit from it and actually it's probably just going to exacerbate your your nervous system it's going to make you get unhealthy with time even if you're working out like crazy.

(01:02:39):
You're not going to see the benefits if you're not resting.
So that's that's you know a very short glimpse into his program of some of the things that will help you do from sanitizing your sleep space making sure it's dark making sure there's not a bunch of blinking lights.
You're not checking your cell phone or watching anything crazy on a blue screen late before bed there's a lot that you can do that simple low cost or doesn't even cost anything.

(01:03:03):
That'll help you get sleep but if you're in a place where you're relying on medications alcohol to knock yourself out you are you are doing a massive disservice to yourself.
Absolutely well another area you touched on you know when you're talking before.
The lot of people listening have disrupted hormones and again the sleep deprivation is a big reason why, for example, in a lot of men and women testosterone is in the toilet even for you know 20 something 30 something responders.

(01:03:30):
And what's sad is i've said this many times now what i've seen is all these men's clinics spurting up you know and they'll they'll test someone oh yeah it's low we'll just give you you know trt.
Not understanding there's a whole range from lifestyle change and then peptides and then trt is like a last resort.
A company that you know I use that I advocate for the speed of sponsor of the show is transcend and I know that you know they were a big part of why seven x even happened, I mean the the altruistic arm of that company is is incredible what Ernie's doing.

(01:04:00):
So talk to me about you know the the blood tests you know what what you found and how supplementation has helped you in this kind of overall holistic journey.
yeah that's that's definitely been an important component, especially to getting from a place where I was you know.
Really suffering and then getting back to a baseline and then working towards actually being a thriving human being and optimizing my health they were a big step in helping that happen so at a baseline again sleep.

(01:04:30):
Nutrition what fluids you're in taking cutting out the toxicity you know be it seed oils alcohol drugs.
You know all this crap that we kind of can just bring ourselves down once you've addressed it at those baseline levels.
Then it's maybe time to consider moving towards something like transcend and what they help do for me is they take a very comprehensive.

(01:04:56):
Lab analysis of your blood and they look at a tremendous array of biomarkers and, most importantly, they have people that know how to interpret them.
I had I had some blood testing done when I was at the VA and and they literally compared my testosterone levels to that of a.
Very aged population of you know 80 plus year old sick individuals and said well you're not that bad.

(01:05:28):
Well, turns out that it varies drastically for your age and a number of different factors.
So what transcend was able to do was not only look at my testosterone, but all these other biomarkers and then create a customized nutraceutical and supplementation program.
In order to help optimize my health to get me to that next level again you need that baseline before you deal with this stuff.

(01:05:50):
And you can go out and you can do supplementation on your own and there's a very good chance you're going to end up doing more damage than good with supplementation and spending a lot of money doing it.
But through an organization like transcend that knows what they're doing they can get you on a number of things that will really help optimize your health and for me, you know.
A couple of the big things that they've done that have really helped the use of peptides which, of course, the FDA is actively trying to shut down due to their ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

(01:06:21):
These peptides are chains of amino acids that are often created through proteins that we consume into our bodies and it's sort of like when you eat protein you're getting the individual building blocks to build these chains of amino acids to repair and restore you know physical parts of your body.
When you get a peptide you're getting an actual you're like kind of getting a completed section of the house and that accelerates your recovery and what I've been fortunate to experience with them are things that have helped repair nerve damage, improve sleep quality, improve athletic performance, accelerate healing.

(01:07:01):
There's one called BPC 157 body protective compound 157 and that compound actually some people call it the Wolverine peptide because it allows your body to regenerate at a faster rate.
So if you have a shoulder injury like I had for my arms almost getting ripped off from this injection to you know spinal cord problems so all these different ailments and sores and aches and pains.

(01:07:27):
You can put this stuff in your body and it'll actually accelerate that healing decreasing inflammation.
It allows you to recover quicker from exercise.
It allows you to sleep better and because these things are so effective and I haven't had any side effects whatsoever from this stuff because it's stuff that your body normally produces on its own and it doesn't impair your body's normal processes of producing these things still in the way that maybe like using.

(01:07:54):
Anabolic steroids you know kind of cuts off your body's natural ability to produce those things that can lead to long term problems but they have a skilled team that knows how to tailor this stuff to you and of course the FDA is fighting every step of the way because as people can heal from this stuff they're not going to need all the opioids.

(01:08:15):
They're not going to need all of these different medications to try to get better when you can actually heal the underlying source and that's a huge takeaway that I've learned from all of my journey is when we actually start to treat the underlying physiology of a problem we heal.
But first we have to look at it and that's something that transcends very good at doing is is let's actually look at your biomarkers and see what's off and then we're going to tailor it to you and then continue to test you every few months to see where you're at and then kind of fine tune the course from there.

(01:08:47):
But they've you know they've really helped me get back to healthy levels on so many ways and very grateful for those guys you know Brendan Keansbury, Ernie Collins, the guys that run Transcend and Transcend Foundation.
Outstanding community of human beings that are doing good things in the world and they're having to fight for it you know but they're ready for it.

(01:09:10):
Yeah I mean it's I'm on I think it's a Clomophene I think it's called it's just a peptide which just boosts my own testosterone because I do the same.
Yeah I love that because I had a 50 I had still had a natural T of about 700 which is all well and good.
Yeah that's pretty good.
But that was after 14 years of not sleeping so my whole thing the optimization is like well I obviously you know I don't feel like I'm recovering as well and maintaining strength so there's a there's a missing link so maybe now I'm going to be able to do that.

(01:09:40):
Maybe naturally I'm supposed to be at you know 850 or whatever it is even at 50 years old and so just tweaking it a little bit and it went up too much initially with what they gave me and so then as you said another blood test and I thought right let's taper it down minimal effective dose.
And so I'm on less now than I was and I feel amazing and then also the the KPC no what's the APC is it?

(01:10:04):
BPC 157.
Yeah I think it's body protective compound.
So that again I mean I'm more banged up from stunts and martial arts and firefighting but again it just it just you know allows that it takes the edge off that inflammation so you can do the movement practice which is actually healing the injury so it's not a magic pill but it's allowing you to move again.

(01:10:28):
So many people are kind of incapacitated by their pain they can't do the work to fix their pain so I'm a huge huge evangelical customer when it comes to transcend because a they're incredible human beings behind it and be what they're given you know our first responders military and civilians works.
And you know it works because the FDA are trying to oppose it CBD works MDMA led therapy works and these are all things that the FDA are actively trying to shoot down so when the FDA has got a bullseye on it you know it's probably the most effective thing out there.

(01:11:02):
Right and that's I mean even when I was at the TBI clinic they were trying to I think the FDA while I was in Texas going through a TBI clinic getting a peptide I think it was some morelin.
It might not have been some morelin it was a very helpful peptide that didn't have side effects that was just helping me feel better while I was down there they actually had made it the FDA put roadblocks up so that it couldn't be accessible anymore making making these things illegal not because they're dangerous.

(01:11:33):
But because the only thing they're dangerous to is the bottom line of the pharmaceutical industry that you know unfortunately controls the FDA these days.
So maybe say anymore.
The most one of the most detrimental things that have maybe the most detrimental man made problem that's ever been induced into our society as far as the death toll and and death of just despair that have surrounded that collapsing massive populations of humans.

(01:12:06):
It's disgusting and that's and that's an FDA approved item whereas peptides.
Psychedelic assisted therapies these things are facing massive head water headwinds to try to get approval or stay legal.
And it's absurd but I think like you mentioned earlier there was there was an overplaying of that hand during the covert epidemic and it's the pandemic.

(01:12:34):
And now people are kind of aware of it and less and less people are.
Are willing to put up with it and we the people I think fortunately still do have some power in this country and even if it's maybe with our vote and even more so I think with with our decisions knowledge and our money that we spend and if we're just not.

(01:12:54):
Spending the money on these things that are kind of controlling our world if we're not spending the money on the junkie food and the and the pharmaceuticals well those those things will those will diminish with time.
There was one truth that came out the pandemic the the more sick you were the more chance the higher chance there was that you were going to die from covert which was a real virus.

(01:13:16):
So the only thing that we should have been focusing on the main thing would be let's make our nation healthier again and after four years we got fatter and sicker.
And that span both aisles of the political you know alleyway as well so clearly it was never about health if it was about health you had this captive audience everyone was glued to their screens.

(01:13:39):
Imagine what you could have done you could have put healthy food back in schools you could have bolstered p.
E programs and local parks and all these things but none of that happened zero so there's your sign if they actually cared about the health of the nation.
Twenty twenty five would be you know we'd see that obesity line finally for the first time starts to go down instead of up but it's a continuous line and our kids are getting type two diabetes and their spines are all crooked from inactivity.

(01:14:08):
So it is up to us the people you trusted your government for four years to handle the world's biggest fucking red flag of our ill health.
And they completely disregarded it they politicized it for their own personal gain and we came out worse than we went in.
Yeah it was about a business model and profiting from it not not for curing the problem and in a way I'm grateful that that all happened so that we can sort of have this awakening that's.

(01:14:38):
It's making us realize a lot of kind of ugly truths that have been insidious within our society now for decades and even longer and.
With that awakening I think we're going to see an ex just a dissemination of this knowledge and the fact that we really do get to hold the keys to our health in our hands.

(01:14:59):
And probably the greatest medicine out there is teaching people how not to need any and the reality is that that that can be for so many different ailments that's the case we can really take control of our health.
Through our own decisions and what we put in our bodies and and yeah you really get to hold the keys.

(01:15:20):
Absolutely well you have a book coming out phoenix revival January 21st so talk to me about when you decided to actually start putting pen to paper.
And then what were the cathartic elements of that process and then maybe what was some of the negative elements of pursuing the book.

(01:15:41):
Yes so it was probably about three years ago that I really started feeling a need to share my story it was actually something through indigenous medicine that I felt this very big push to hey.
You need to share what you've been through so that you can help others in that dark corner and in the process of writing it all down.

(01:16:06):
Was incredibly healing you know to relive some of the traumatic things that had happened and to be able to write about them emotionally on a very vivid and descriptive way kind of forces you back into those moments which.
In a lot of ways help me process and come to peace with with many of the things that had happened from you know kind of the dysfunction I saw in the VA systems the mental health system.

(01:16:34):
The struggles that I faced coming back and nearly losing my family I was able to really gain a lot of peace with that and some clarity moving forward.
So the process in itself was incredibly healing for the writing some frustrations through the process I've seen you know I think I kind of went into this whole thing I'd never written a book before.

(01:16:56):
I wasn't even much of a writer when I was in high school or whatever I had never excelled at that but you're just sitting down and writing an entire book it helps improve that skill but I was naive in that I thought.
I thought that the world of publishing books and becoming an author on say the New York Times bestseller list or having a Ted talk you know that was all a very.

(01:17:22):
Merit based system that there's this metocracy still in place and what I found the truth of it all was all of that stuff is just pay to play if you want book awards you literally just basically pay to have them.
If you want to be a New York Times bestseller you write the New York Times $100,000 check if you want a Ted talk.

(01:17:44):
Guess what you pay them anywhere from $5500 up to $25,000 depending on how many views you want ranging from 100,000 views up to 2.5 million views.
So you're really just paying to gain access to all of those things and even social media I think the golden years of social media where you could break out and become this viral voice just through what you had to say in the merit of what you were saying is starting to diminish.

(01:18:14):
I had an experience with I guess I won't name this particular social media company but I had a growing I had a growing audience starting to follow me through actually some of the videos that were put out on the 7x project and people started really.
Taking interest in my story from that and my my viewership was growing like hundreds of people a day and going and going and going and going and I remember in the middle of all this growth.

(01:18:42):
I got a private message sent from somebody that I assumed worked at Instagram was affiliated in some way and said hey we really like your content we see it's growing so well we want to help you continue to reach out all you got to do is pay us $1500 a month and it's going to continue to grow.
And when I declined their offer saying it's just kind of growing on its own you know I don't think I need to pay to do that it was like someone pulled a switch on my social media account and I was getting less engagement and all my stuff that I then when I had just a couple hundred people even though I had thousands now.

(01:19:19):
So even that sort of system has gotten you know the greed behind it has sort of taken over so that's been frustrating I've been very fortunate I found a publishing company called ballast books and they they sort of broken away from the mainstream system I had talking to people talked to multiple people I talked to you about writing the books and kind of heard people's different perspectives.

(01:19:45):
And I had too many people that had gone with the mainstream publisher and seen that you kind of go into it assuming that having a big publishers going to mean they're going to use their financial resources and connections to market your book and get it out there.
Well unless you're already a big name you're probably not going to get much any marketing support and so people all too often will sell the rights to their book hope they're going to only get a tiny fraction of each royalty and they lose the rights to their story.

(01:20:14):
In exchange for what they hope is going to be exposure in the reality these days is you're likely not going to get that and so I went with a hybrid publisher which meant I paid for their services and editing and things up front but in return I retained the rights to my story and I get the lion's share of each royalty.
But I found largely I'm going to have to market myself you know I was really excited when I talked to the guys at Ted like oh these guys are going to get me on Ted talk they seem so interested in after an hour long conversation with the guys at Ted talk talking about how much they're excited to have me.

(01:20:48):
They're like well here's the price breakdown of how much you have to pay to get your foot in the door and I was just like man even Ted talks.
We need to talk about the price for this podcast by the way it starts at 10,000.
We're just gonna have to scrap it. I got like a shoestringer too.
I'm going to delete your last one too then fucker.

(01:21:10):
Dang it it's everywhere. It even got James.
Speaking of the Instagram thing I got shut down about this is why we haven't seen each other yet. It was I think October and all I ever share is clips from my own podcast you know my guests and then I just repost all the beautiful moments of kindness, the heroic rescues and police and fire.

(01:21:35):
Like uplifting stuff.
And I always credit whoever's you know if it's been shared by the original person it's all on there and so hopefully it will send people to them and I had I look I had like over 9,000 posts over the you know whatever it's been eight years I think I started Instagram when I started the podcast.
And then within the click of a finger.
I got messaging saying that I had breached copyright and then I was it wasn't like given a slap on the I was completely shut down. I think it might be for six months I'm not sure but regardless like shut down they even say why they said copyright but I mean we're talking 9,000 posts where no one had a problem at all because and if you when I signed on to the new Instagram account.

(01:22:18):
The first thing it tells you is let it be known anything you post on here is allowed to be shared by anyone else on Instagram.
So I mean that's that's what it's based on is we share each other stuff we're sharing the message with Sarah I've been I'm you know my podcast my video all I want people to share as the whole point.
But I'd so I think I call bullshit I really do and I've been you know middle of the road with like Gaza you know I mean people just don't want to talk about that but I refuse to just sit complicity while innocent women and children are murdered.

(01:22:51):
You know so and I'm not out there preaching anything I'm just sharing you know stories when that's happening like hey you know it's tens of thousands of children England America are you going to have any fucking backbone and do something about this but never anything controversial or.
But just you know and I got a funny feeling that probably put a little bulls eye on how dare you advocate for people you know shut up and get in your place and just you know support Israel or your whatever you know and it's just I don't know it's I mean who knows what the actual thing is or if it's like you said.

(01:23:21):
Getting too big for your britches with 200,000 and never have given them a dime in you know in sponsorship money or something I don't know but it was complete bullshit and yeah literally snap of a fingers and 200,000 people gone and what pisses me off is a lot of people would reach out that were hurting.
And I would be able to send them you know interviews or or you know heroic hearts whatever the thing is I could help people through that too and all those connections were snuffed out so that's what pisses me off.

(01:23:53):
That's absurd I'm sorry that that happened and I hope that there's I hope that you're able to recover the account after this bullshit time out they put you in.
Yes it's frustrating to see you know some of the forces that play in our world that have just sort of are crushing a lot of important voices and ideas all in the name of making more money in a lot of in a lot of ways.

(01:24:19):
Or maybe just some broken algorithm some freaking supercomputer that's maybe that's our futures.
Yeah T1000.
That's crazy yeah your stuff has always been very uplifting revealing and positive ways you know not you're not out there like putting up conspiracy theories or like which honestly you should be able to you should put up whatever you want freedom of speech you know.

(01:24:46):
Yeah it's it's kind of a crazy world we live in and so I'm not going to miss dealing with that kind of bullshit once this once this whole publishing experiences through.
What about the audio but did you record it yourself.
I did yeah I was really fortunate I have a family friend Dave Runyon right here where I live in northern Michigan he's been running a recording studio professionally for decades now you know he's recorded some.

(01:25:13):
Like really big musicians and he's recorded audio books and stuff before too and he was gracious enough to let me just come into his studio uses $5,000 microphone and all is awesome equipment to make this book sound freaking awesome but yeah I read the book and.
Recorded the files with him and he sent them to the publisher they've got a dude working on finalizing and editing everything and really polishing it up but I saw I got some audio clips and the sound quality sounds great.

(01:25:43):
Beautiful yeah I I did my first one one more light was my stories and then each chapter was like a takeaway sleep deprivation obesity back injury whatever it was so it was very.
Nonfiction and that was tough but the second one kind of I just did.
That was an actual miss not a fiction is almost like a historical fiction so the characters that you know the main characters are fictional but everything that they're seeing through their eyes is really real world.

(01:26:13):
I'm and a lot of the main characters calls of my calls my real calls and I found it extremely hard.
Narrating when I wrote it was cathartic I was getting it from my mind onto the page when I when I read it's almost like it came back in like I was because I was having to really get in there and relive some of these things did you have any experience like that at all.

(01:26:37):
Yeah what I what I saw big time was when I went back through kind of editing after the initial just sort of brain dump onto the page especially when I got into some of the stuff that happened in the psych facility.
I would come off come out of the room where I've been on the laptop editing stuff and I would just be in like.

(01:26:59):
I'd be back in that deep dark feeling of deep betrayal and all these negative emotions and there are times when my wife's like you need to like stop doing whatever you're doing with that book because it's it's messing you up.
And so there are definitely some some lingering effects that just retelling that story to myself and editing it reading back through it had on my life but fortunately I'm through.

(01:27:25):
And after doing it a few times actually I think maybe help clear some of that out.
Yeah that was the reading for me like the actual audiobook reading that that okay yeah really I think partly as well I was catching mistakes in the written book and so that pissed me off too so that didn't help.
I paid a lot of money for an editor but but yeah but the other thing was yeah when you when you're speaking it and almost like acting it into the microphone all of a sudden it's like you know visceral again so it's been interesting.

(01:27:52):
The writing like I said was cathartic but I almost found it was you know in some ways almost re traumatizing when you were when you were actually physically speaking it when you were reading it reliving it with some of this emotion.
But it's a good thing because it's still part of the process and when I was done like you and I was done with everything then there was this big kind of emotional exhale like okay now now the shit is done.

(01:28:17):
Some exposure therapy.
Exactly well for people listening as we said January 21st for the paperback is that when you're hoping to put the audiobook out as well.
Yeah I think we're still on timeline for all of it to release together it should be on hardcover we have a paperback as well as ebook and then audible available so you'll have audiobook option and.

(01:28:42):
Yeah you can even you can hop on now I'm not sure when this releases maybe it's going to be right around the release date anyway so you should be able to find it on Amazon and if you get one please leave me a review that really helps to boost the visibility of it.
And get the story out to more people to share which is really kind of my calling in life now I feel is to is to share my experiences to maybe maybe if it's just one or two people they get a copy of this in it.

(01:29:07):
You know it helps them put that pistol down they were going to end their life with or whatever it may have been.
It was worth it and so yeah thank you for helping me spread that message and I know you you're doing so yourself and the world needs more of that.
Absolutely well we're all again I would say this all the time we're all part of the same tapestry and this was beautiful you know some people might listen to me and something that I say resonates and other people need you know you to say it so that it resonates with them so that.

(01:29:36):
If there's all these voices out there there's a big drag net that hopefully will get almost everyone that needs needs to hear what they need to hear.
So with that being said it's a good segue talk to me now about the speaking side that you started creating.
Yeah so it just actually again through folks I met on the 7x project.

(01:29:59):
Got me into the world of professional speaking and it's never what I thought I'd be doing with my life but sharing my story in person has been incredibly.
Enjoyable getting to feel the emotion of people as I share the story and see the impacts it has of people in tears and standing ovations like to feel that energy reflected back at yourself with something that you're putting out and people coming up afterwards and saying.

(01:30:28):
This is incredible I'm going to tell so and so about I have a friend who's struggling I have this I had my own personal journey through this and now I can I see a way forward and so it's been incredibly.
Incredibly powerful and really something I've really enjoyed doing it's.
You know the challenge I found face with that similar to the book world is is in order to get you know representation and marketing and things you know it's all it's all pay to play and I don't really have I haven't developed you know.

(01:31:02):
The financial stability at this point to really like invest a lot into my speaking career so I'm I'm really just marketing myself and trying to get the word out but.
If you're listening to this and you have an event coming up and you'd like incredible inspirational story I can really tailor mind to any format time audience that that will fit really nicely and I've spoken at this point at everything from.

(01:31:27):
I got to do one of Jesse itchlers mastermind retreats through Chris Hoff who was on the 7x project the coach who helped train all the athletes got me connected with him.
I've I've done universities done nonprofit fundraisers I did a high school commencement ceremony corporate events and all sorts of stuff in between I'm even.

(01:31:49):
I've got a church group actually that recently reached out to me to come talk more about the spiritual side of my experience so.
I can really tailor it to whatever you got and would love the opportunity to do so.
You for people listening where the best places to find you as far as the internet and then social media.
Yeah you can you can visit my website directly kegan gill.com which is spelled just like you might see it in the little window here ke g a n.

(01:32:20):
Last name Gil just like the fish G I L L kegan gill.com that has links to my social media account it has resources for veterans and first responders looking to apply to these programs.
Or for people who are looking to donate to some of these causes to help support him I have some some great great organizations on there that you can help share with.

(01:32:44):
There's also different videos of me speaking and podcast links on there or you can just type my name into whatever podcast platform you like to use.
And you'll you'll probably find at least a dozen plus different podcasts I've already been on and counting you can also find me on Instagram at kegan smurf gill.

(01:33:07):
You can also find me on LinkedIn so there's a ton of different ways to get a hold of me and I'd love it even if you're just somebody who you know maybe needs a little guidance with what you're going through I'm always happy to help you know point you in the right direction.
Beautiful well may I want to thank you it's been such a great conversation you know such a great addition to episode 737 where like I said we kind of really went through from from year dot but seeing all the things that have changed in the last couple years and this incredible toolbox is actionable toolbox.

(01:33:40):
And the the meditation group that you mentioned as well there's so many takeaways from the second conversation and obviously the book and the audio book I'm sure a lot of people excited to read and or listen so I want to thank you so so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the behind the shield podcast today.
Thank you so much for having me James and helping to spread positive messages like this I hope Instagram gets their head out of their asses and and sees what they've done was a massive mistake on many levels but I appreciate it and it's great to catch up with you and see you again I hope to catch you next time I'm down in Florida again and.

(01:34:18):
I really appreciate you having me on.