September 11, 2023 • 49 mins
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What happens when an army veteran, psychologist, and author steps onto the mat? Join us as we unpack an intriguing conversation with Daniel Joseph about his exciting journey, exploring the intersection of military service, mental health, and martial arts. From the thrills of UFC to the grit of Jiu-Jitsu, we delve into his unique insights and how these powerful combat sports played a significant role in his life and the lives of those around him.
Have you ever wondered how the primal call to serve draws men into the military? Daniel shares his perspective on this intriguing aspect, pointing out the transformative power of service and the lessons he learned during challenging times. We analyzed the complex psychological effects of war on soldiers and linked how the discipline and control learned in martial arts could serve as a healing tool. We explored how leadership, self-reflection, and martial arts can foster healthier relationships and organizations.
Finally, we cut through the noise of our instant-gratification society, to explore the benefits of minimalism, humility, and calmness. Daniel shared his wisdom on how these qualities, which he learned from military leaders and martial arts, can act as a counterforce to the constant pressures of modern life. Join us for this deep dive into a fascinating world of grit, resilience, and personal growth. Don't miss out on this unique blend of life lessons, martial arts, and mental health discussion.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fitz (00:02):
Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitz Nation.
We'll get to our guest in justa few moments.
His name is Daniel Joseph.
He wrote a book called Backpackto Rucksack, talks about
leadership, talks about his timeas an army veteran, talks about
psychology and it talks aboutraising awareness for suicide
prevention, specific to ourmilitary veterans.
September is suicide awarenessmonth and obviously September
11th is a heavy date in thehistory of the United States and
as it relates to our USmilitary.
(00:23):
So that's coming up in justmoments, but of course I
mentioned a few episodes ago.
You email me, I will get youincluded in the show.
We can build a little communityhere known as Fitz Nation.
This email comes from JasonHagholm, and Jason is a veteran
veteran veteran.
Jason, I have seen you outthere on Twitter or X.
You definitely follow along andyou tend to take a screenshot
(00:44):
of the broadcast team at thebeginning of UFC events and you
share.
This is our broadcast team forthe night.
So, jason, I've been aware ofyou out there on X, but thank
you for emailing in and I'llread it here.
My name is Jason Hagholm and I'man aspiring sports broadcaster
myself stumbled across your FitzNation podcast, episode 143,
(01:05):
and felt it was the mostrelatable piece of video I have
seen all year.
Thanks for your three tips ongetting to be a network
broadcaster.
I've completed two.
I have two degrees inbroadcasting, in both television
and broadcast journalism, aswell as a YouTube account where
I do interview MMA fighters.
You also gave me something tothink about.
With what I'm trying to figureout and what I've learned
recently, I'm jotting down threedisciplines to try and follow
(01:27):
as we speak.
Your podcast has been a breathof fresh air for me, as I found
out that you are also someonewho is sober, like myself by
choice.
One day, I would love to pickyour brain on a podcast as well.
Keep up the great work with theUFC and enjoy calling Surrey
City on your Tuesdays Day in theWhite Contender series.
(01:52):
That is.
That kid is going to be a forcecoming from Canada.
Thanks, jason, jason.
Thank you for the email.
Surrey City, as I sit here onWednesday, the podcast is going
to be a force coming from Canada.
Thanks, jason, jason, thank youfor the email.
Surrey City, as I sit here onWednesday.
This episode will come out thenext week, but Surrey City, man.
(02:12):
What a big win, early stoppage.
I think that needs to beacknowledged and I'm glad that
Ramon Tavares is getting anothershot.
But Surrey City looked great.
He looked the part.
He obviously trains with agreat team up there in Ontario
and Mike Malott is a trainingpartner of his from time to time
.
So it will be interesting tosee Surrey City's entry into the
(02:32):
UFC Band to make division whathe does.
Jason, I'm glad that thatepisode resonated with you.
Keep working those disciplines,keep working towards those
things that I mentioned.
That will get you on the pathto be a network broadcaster.
Maybe one day we'll be holdinga microphone next to each other
on some big time TV network.
In the meantime, if you have aquestion, email me at Brendan
(02:55):
Fitz TV at gmailcom.
I got a great question recentlyfrom a guy named Richard over
in the UK.
It's about fight calls onbroadcast, the mechanics of it,
our moment when we watch theKorean zombie retire and kind of
have those those moments toreally soak it in and let the
(03:16):
viewer soak it in where none ofthe broadcast team was talking.
And also we asked about myfavorite UFC calls, whether it
was me, whether it was John Anik, other people, and I'll have a
great episode coming up where Iinclude the footage, include the
video and kind of talk throughit from a broadcast perspective.
So keep those questions coming,brendan Fitz TV at gmailcom and
(03:38):
I'll get them on the air.
And Jason, thank you for youremail this week.
Now it's time for our guests tothe week.
Let's get to our interview.
September is Suicide AwarenessMonth and this episode is being
released on 9 11.
So of course, that means a lotto people in the United States.
It means a lot to the membersof our military, and my guest
today is an author and apsychologist and an army veteran
(04:02):
by the name of Daniel Joseph,and he has an interesting story.
It's not just any othermilitary stories.
So, daniel, thanks for comingon the show and I'm happy to
talk to you today, man.
Daniel Joseph (04:14):
Thanks so much for having me.
Man, this is an honor.
It's so cool Gonna talk to youand getting a voice.
You know it's.
It's neat.
Yeah, it's really neat process.
Fitz (04:22):
Also, what's your jujitsu belt?
Daniel Joseph (04:25):
Well, so technically still a white belt,
Okay, been a white belt for likeI think five years, six years.
But when I roll, people aredefinitely like, hey, dude, yeah
, that's the wrong belt color,but yeah, I'm in no rush to get
it changed.
I what I took off for the armyfor like three and a half years,
so I stopped rolling with mycoaches and then while I was in
(04:47):
the army, I did get to trainwith some dudes.
We had little COVID undergroundfight club.
Yes, pretty rad.
So, and what was really specialabout those moments and I know
your viewers, who who wererolling, because you know,
during those times you got tokeep the tribe healthy, you know
and what was really special isyou got to be so picky about who
you rolled with during thoseprivate roles, right, and so we
(05:08):
had these one on one sessions,man, where these dudes would
just wreck me and build me up,and they taught me about rolling
blindfolded, they taught meabout proprioception, they
taught me about just so muchdude, and these one on one
relationships.
And a buddy of mine, I justrolled with them the other day
at victory Shout out to Eric, he, he's a black belt in judo and
(05:30):
he's a black belt in jujitsu andhe took me under his wing.
Man, we started doing like 90minute marathon rolls, Wow
breaks, just nonstop.
So think about how much datawas downloaded into the my brain
as a white belt on not spassingout, breath control and just
this dude's massive, Eric's huge, and he would just crush me but
(05:50):
like just enough where Iwouldn't have to tap out.
You know what I'm saying.
So he just it really up my gamea lot.
So belt colors, be damned, dude.
I can roll now and not panicand just handle stuff.
You know, not not trying to belike disrespectful to upper belt
murder anything, but it's just.
We can talk about this, butthere's so much to the mindset
of fighting and grappling that Ihad no idea until I started
(06:12):
training like that, you know.
Fitz (06:14):
Yeah, what's crazy, dan, is that and it's very
appropriate to our conversationtoday is that I got back on the
mat literally yesterday, fromwhen we're talking right now,
for the first time in a year,and that last year was like an
isolated class for the firsttime since like early 2020 pre
pandemic.
I basically took the pandemicoff for a list of reasons, but
(06:37):
you know, I got to a point whereI kept saying, no, I'm going to
get back to it.
I'm going to get back to it.
We had a baby last year and hejust turned one and I was like,
okay.
Daniel Joseph (06:44):
I'll get back to it.
Fitz (06:45):
And now I'm just, like the time is now my older son's back
in school, like I do have sometime.
If I don't do it now, it's justgoing to be one of those things
that I keep kicking the candown the road.
Also want to shout out yourbook that you were kind enough
to send me backpack to rucksack,and you know I had called
contender series last night, soI haven't haven't had a ton of
time to dig into it, but theearly part that I did is
(07:08):
fantastic.
I can't wait to like just diveinto this book about leadership
in the military and a lot ofthings that you've learned from
other great military leaders.
But something that jumped outat me, dan, is that you joined
the army at 32 years old, as youdescribe it.
You kind of had a cush job inSan Diego comfortable living,
(07:30):
luxury apartment and then at 32you decided to join the army.
What happened and why did youdo that?
Daniel Joseph (07:37):
So I am man.
A lot of this does have to dowith like jiu-jitsu and what
happened in my life, just basedon the community of people that
I met.
But I started making friendswith a bunch of badasses in the
military.
I write about them in the book.
Some of them are Navy SEALs,some of them are Mars Marsock
operators and the Marine CorpsGreen Berets.
So I was working with the EODsjust these awesome dudes that
(07:57):
were deploying, like with asuper high op tempo going, going
overseas, and I, my family, isactually from Iraq they escaped
back in the 70s and so not apretty situation.
And while I was in San Diego Iwas working in the biotech world
.
So I was working in basicallyit was pre like AI, it was
(08:19):
neural network programming.
So I was working withscientists that were coding
computer algorithms to assesshuman genetic code for
biomarkers and diseaseparameters that you could
essentially snip out.
You know, bad genes from afetus if, depending on, well, a
blastocyst, when it's a certainamount of cells, you can take
some cells out and do someengineering to cure disease.
(08:39):
So I was in this world where Imean it was lucrative, there's a
lot of money, it's.
It's a pretty esoteric world tonavigate, and so I was able to
speak both biology and computerscience was able to to get some
deals going that were prettycool.
But while I was doing all that,my buddies were coming back
from the Middle East right andthey're telling me these stories
of these firefights they werein and nearly losing their lives
(09:02):
and just fighting for,basically selflessly, what I
perceived it was they werefighting for.
They didn't owe anything to youknow, and they're telling me
about how, hey, I was pinneddown in a firefight, thinking
about my wife and kids, notknowing if I was gonna come back
and see them.
And I'm sitting there likecollecting these, these checks,
you know, and but then I feelthat primal energy, that that
(09:27):
dude, that just that masculinedrive that they had to keep
fighting, keep going back there,facing fear and shooting back
in the midst of it.
And I was looking at myself inthe mirror, especially as I was
doing more jujitsu, like youknow, I I want to see what, what
I made of outside of justwriting emails and networking.
You know there's and I liken itjust to this this primal call
(09:49):
and if you feel it, you knowwhat I'm talking about, because
I have guys reaching out to metelling me about how they feel
it, even at their age right,even in their 30s.
And I was getting close to thatcut off of joining and I
thought, do I got a jump man?
I got to leave everythingbehind and go do this because if
I don't all regret it the restof my life, and I was just so
inspired by these guys to saythat I put on a uniform at some
(10:13):
point.
I didn't care what I would do,as long as I could say that I
served you know, it was just onmy heart big time.
Fitz (10:19):
Wow, I'm reading a book by a guy named light Watkins right
now and it's about meditation.
He's like a meditation teacher,but he talks about your heart
voice.
It's like literally like yougot to quiet everything down and
then live with integrity forlike what you truly want.
It sounds like you just hadthis urge to serve in the
military.
Daniel Joseph (10:40):
Yeah, it was.
It was deep man and it was oneof those things where, you know,
and like it, the word primaljust resonates so deeply because
on the mats that's what wascoming out.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like that aggression, thatfight, flight, response, the
adrenaline and that trust forthose brothers on the mats to,
you know, be able to choke meout and if I pass out, they're
(11:00):
gonna revive me.
It's just putting my life intheir hands.
To that extent, to that level,and a lot of these dudes are in
the military, you know, and I Iroll at victory, jocco willing
stairs.
So there's a lot of team guysof you know, all different
branches that show up and just agroup of badasses and they,
they taught me what they're like, their discipline, right, the
discipline they live on the mats, the discipline they live at
work.
(11:20):
Again, the op tempo and thebattle scenarios that they're
willing to enter into and comeback and just Be these humble
guys.
Man, they weren't, theywouldn't brag about it, they
were quiet and and getting totrain hand-to-hand with these
dudes on the mats was like itwas feeding a part of my soul
that I had left Unaddressed forso long and in younger years I
(11:42):
had self-medicated down.
You know the drugs and alcohol,the partying it was all just a
process of trying to put outlike a fire, if you will.
But what sucked about that is?
I needed that fire, you knowit's.
And I tell dudes this now,especially young guys joining
the military or who are in themilitary right now.
I tell them, like, don't everapologize for your aggression,
(12:03):
because I feel like this worldkind of tells us to be ashamed
of aggression.
And I tell them don't be, don'tbe ashamed of it, throttle it.
Just like a black belt teachesus how to throttle the amount of
violence on the mats, right,they teach us how to escalate it
, how to down regulate it.
But if we need to bring it,then we will, right, it depends
on the scenario.
You do it appropriately, butyou certainly don't apologize
for it.
And so I think I see this justbeautiful synergy between
(12:26):
martial arts and Leadership themilitary and just being dudes in
general, and I believe it's alost art, you know, to have that
tribal connection with oneanother and to not apologize for
it.
Fitz (12:37):
Yeah, how did Changing your lifestyle of joining the
military?
How did it change who you were?
I?
Daniel Joseph (12:46):
Mean the military introduces the concept
of austerity in such a big way.
You know, you're stripped ofeverything.
You're stripped of caffeine, ofSmartphones, of societal
comforts, of a bed I mean youhave a cot but it's.
It's so cool because you get toknow yourself.
You know it sucks in a lot ofways, but it sucks together with
a group.
There's that brotherhood thatbuilds and it's.
(13:10):
It's amazing because you knowyou can be in a horrible
situation.
Right, it's miserable, theweather sucks, whether it's
freezing or if it's justblistering hot, and they do such
a great job of sensory or notsensory deprivation, sleep
deprivation, hunger, all thisstuff, right.
And so you're sitting there,miserable, wondering why you
signed the contract, but thenthe dude next to you cracks a
(13:32):
joke.
So you go from being likesulking and just pissed off to
like busting up, laughing andyou realize, right there, what
that guy is doing Is, rightthere, what that guy's sense of
humor did.
It showed you that even in themidst of a horrible situation
where you're totally just bummedout, you can still be yourself
like fully.
Nobody can take that away.
(13:52):
So it, by stripping everythingaway, stripping all the excess,
it boils down to your core senseof self, and that's what the
military Just a brilliant job of.
And it got to a point where youknow we'd go on leave right
after basic training and thenOCS and stuff like that, and
you'd go home and you know, youjust look at the beach, right,
and you're stoked, likeabsolutely stoked, that there's
(14:15):
ocean waves and you can be therewith flip-flops and board
shorts, right, no shirt, no,just nothing with you.
And in that moment you'reyou're just pumped about life
because you learn to appreciatethe littlest things, and that's
a concept that just kind offlourished after being in the
military as well, and I didn'texpect it to, I really didn't
(14:36):
expect it to stick with me, um,but it has.
And that's one of the coolestthings ever is you just you
become more of a robust humanbeing Because you know what it's
like to live with nothing.
Yeah, that's, that's how theytrain us.
Fitz (14:50):
Yeah, you acknowledge everything that is and that
isn't the.
The daily gratitude isobviously this concept that is
not exclusive to military, but Iwould imagine, like you said,
your experience kind of puts itin perspective every day with,
with what you deal with, andthen Early in the book you you
(15:12):
have your friend, austin, Ibelieve was a Marine, who wrote
an introduction to it.
Daniel Joseph (15:17):
Yeah, man, and he talks a lot about.
Fitz (15:21):
He walks.
He talks a lot about the whydon't like lead?
True leadership is is givingthem the why.
Don't just tell him what to do.
Give them the why.
What is your why right now,daniel?
Daniel Joseph (15:31):
So my why is because of Austin and Cody
predominantly, and I'll tell youSpecifically what happened.
So Austin, he wrote about thisin the forward.
It's so hard to say, bro, it'sso hard to fathom this, but one
at the time I wrote this book,12 guys from his unit, from
after, after after afterAfghanistan man, 12 guys from
his unit committed suicide.
(15:52):
The 13th guy killed himselfafter I published my book.
And Austin could, could havebeen on that list.
So I'm still in touch with them, man, we talk every week, if
not every other day, and Stillcheck in on him, right and so
that that's an unimaginableburden that he's.
(16:13):
He carries Losing double digitsto suicide, double digit
brothers and arms.
Man, it's just the conceptscrazy to me.
And so he inspired me to writethe book.
And as well as Cody, who wrotethe intro, cody is my soldier
who, for my platoon, from firstplatoon he survived his suicide
attempt and writes some words ofencouragement.
(16:37):
But the why Was so?
When I wrote the book I hitmoments of self-doubt, because I
talk about self medication, Italk about shameful stuff that's
happened to me or that I'vedone, and you know ego deficits
that I've had and Compensatorymechanisms that I used to feel
like somebody you know faking,like I'm strong, putting up a
(16:57):
facade, all this stuff, right.
And when I got to some pointswhere I was pretty, pretty
bummed out about the book, likeI can't believe I'm writing this
stuff, I'm putting this onpaper, this is crazy.
And then my buddy, he asked mewhat's the why?
Remind yourself what was thewhy of why you wrote this book.
And I said to process a lot ofthe weight of what these guys
(17:19):
carry, because I feel it too,because I love these dudes you
know, they're like brothers ofmine, right, and I Was never
combat deployed, I was in thenon-deployable unit, but these
guys did deploy, right, and soI'm walking alongside them as
they're.
They're carrying all thisweight and I feel it, man, and
so they're.
They're the why behind what I'mdoing right now.
(17:41):
And I can tell you what was socool, what started this whole
thing.
And I have another friend ofmine, dear friend of mine, who
not only was he suicidal but hestruggled with, with being
homicidal man.
He almost, he almost, killed acouple people when he got back
from war because he was sodesensitized to the bodies and
to the, the gore and everythinghe saw that the man, the
(18:02):
pressure was insane, right, andso he almost snapped very close,
had a loaded weapon, had theplan, had plastic laid out on
the floor, everything.
And these are guys I'm supposedto lead, right.
That's to me a joke, almost,because Talk about warriors,
right.
I mean, think about the type ofmen they want to be led by,
(18:22):
right.
So there I was with these dudesand you know, I started talking
to them.
It was a completely sidesidebar discussion.
On jujitsu, I've had my ownanxiety, right, especially when
I started sobering up dude, alot of stuff started surfacing
and in jujitsu I started havingthese flashbacks.
I started having thesemanifestations in my body of
some past events and my coachnoticed, coach was just like
(18:45):
what are you doing?
Why are you freezing up?
Why aren't you doing the move?
I showed you right and I had noidea, but it was a freeze
response.
So I was talking about the, thephysiological manifestations of
this constriction in the chestheaviness on my gut, hyper
vigilance, ruminating thoughts,feeling like I was being hunted
by somebody, just this crazyfeeling of like something's out
to get me right.
(19:06):
And and I was as I was sharingthe story, man, there's a guy
we're having some scotch justchilling.
I was meeting a couple soldiersand One of them started tearing
up and I look at him, thisdude's a badass like this dude's
, complete badass to me.
I really look up to him.
He started tearing up and I waslike dude, what is happening?
And he said hey man, everythingyou just described about your
(19:29):
body, what you felt in jujitsu,I felt that since I got back
from Iraq and I didn't reallyhave words for it till right now
.
Mm-hmm and he I mean we bothTeared up and cried, bro.
It was, it was an intensemoment and he said, like, can I
tell you some stuff that I'venever told anyone?
Can I tell you some stuff thatyou know my wife doesn't know,
(19:50):
never told a therapist?
Things that you know a guy likeme would never share?
About combat?
That was deep dude, that wasreally profound.
I was honored and it was heavyand and I love this guy, you
know I love for each other greweven more from that day, because
once you see eye to eye likethat, bro, it's just like You're
(20:12):
connected man in a cool waythat is indescribable and it's
so rare to find.
You know, and they inspired meto kind of move forward and have
a discussion with other peoplethat are stuck in their own head
, that are stuck in theirmemories of what happened in the
past.
Right, and I don't want anybodyto feel like that, especially
having a soldier that I almostlost to suicide.
(20:33):
I have countless friends whotold me don't take that for
granted, because we know plentyof guys who didn't survive
suicide, and that includesAustin.
And so the message here is man,just for these dudes to not
only just have hope, becausethat's such a canned response,
right, just maintain hope.
But it's more of like work outthat hope, whether it's on the
(20:55):
mats in Jujitsu, whether it'sself enrichment in another way,
just finding a brother andletting him know what's going on
.
But it's such a difficultjourney because not a lot of
dudes are going to trust otherpeople like this, right, and so
I feel for them and so I justwant to normalize what they're
going through.
And if they don't want to talkabout it because they don't want
(21:17):
a spotlight, you know, and theydon't want to relive the
tragedies over and over again,then what's my part in helping
them?
That's where I find my valuesjust being a guide to them.
And they've asked that of me,and of course I'm going to do it
.
Man, of course, dude, any dayif they need me, I'm there.
So not really sure what that'sgoing to look like, other than
(21:39):
getting to have these awesomeconversations with guys like you
who are super cool and superwilling to let me talk, man.
It's rad and I'm blown away,like on behalf of the soldiers.
Dude, thanks for listening.
You know it's cool, yeah.
Fitz (21:52):
Well, you know, you reached out to me, to you know,
and I was like you're kind ofthe story and the stories that
you're connected to in the bookis like something that's super
valuable and it links up with,you know, september 11th and
September being SuicideAwareness Month.
Now, for you who, like, enteredthe military and, as you said,
(22:13):
you weren't deployed and soobviously it's impossible for
any of us to put ourselves inthe shoes of people that were
deployed and that did experiencewar in that way, but for you,
who carries gratitude with youeach day because of what the
military kind of takes from youin terms of day to day comforts
(22:33):
and then the ability to breathefresh air at the beach in San
Diego, and just be extragrateful for it because you know
what it means, how do you putyour finger on or describe guys
that come back from war thatcarry the demons that are seem
to be, in a lot of cases,stronger than a sense of
(22:54):
gratitude for not being in waranymore?
Right, guys that do havefamilies.
I bet all the time that theywere deployed they were like I
can't wait to get home to mywife and kids, I can't wait to
get home to my loved ones.
And then they get home andthere's still those demons that
tug on them quite strongly.
How do you explain that?
Daniel Joseph (23:12):
So this is like.
This is why I love psychology,bro, I mean.
So I work towards my mastersand psych during the lockdowns
to understand these concepts,because it's so complicated,
it's a constellation ofvariables.
So some people told me severalfriends have told me in the
military that in a war zonethey've never felt more pure
(23:33):
love in their life and if theycould, they would live in a war
zone.
I've had some of them tell meif I didn't have a wife and kids
, I would live in that war zonebecause yes, it was heavy and
yeah, there were lives lost andit came with a huge price.
But at the same time they saidthey've never felt a greater
sense of love for their brotherthan in those areas and it's
(23:57):
because all they cared about wasknowing that they made it back
from their patrols right, thatthose convoy movements didn't
lead to a fatality, thateverybody was back in one piece
and I mean that literally in onepiece.
And so while that's going on,right, this sense of connection
with one another and thatmission, right, because they're
(24:17):
going to do everything they canto succeed and survive and make
sure everyone that they're withis alive.
The hypervigilance is where thepsychology comes in.
They're constantly.
Their radar is going off dayand night.
I mean, they're sleepingthrough mortar rounds coming in.
You know, they're always onstandby for bad news Every time
(24:39):
there's an explosion way out inthe distance and they feel that
percussive wave or they hearthat they're like who just died?
Which one of our guys just gothit?
I mean, this is constantly ontheir mind, right.
And so, in a trainingenvironment, we trained in very
similar situations to what theyexperienced in war.
I was in a desert environment.
We'd have detonations out inthe desert, we'd be war gaming
(25:00):
and have, you know, uavs andjets and all the stuff going on
24 hours, right.
And so my colleagues, thesedudes who've been in the war,
would be next to me and let meknow hey, man, I'm in the middle
of what was a flashback.
They wouldn't say it like that,but they'd say like hold on,
something's coming up right now,give me a second.
(25:21):
They'd look around and be likeI'm back in Afghanistan right
now, dude, because they'd lookat the dirt bank.
This is the exact dirt that wasin Afghanistan.
These mountains look exactlylike the ridge line in
Afghanistan and I would belooking at them like, all right,
bro, I'm going to give you amoment.
You know I'm going to let youchill for a second and we'll
carry on with the mission, right?
And that would just compel meto be that much more considerate
(25:45):
of the weight these guys carry,because it would happen so
abruptly like they wouldn't knowit was going to happen.
Do you know what I'm saying?
It would just kind of sneak upon them, yeah, and then, not to
mention.
So war is complex enough, right,being at the right time in the
right place with the rightweapons and engaging the enemy
and not, you know, hitting nofriendly fire and all of that.
Sectors of fire, all that stuffis super complex.
(26:05):
You throw in a toxic leader,you throw in somebody that they
can't stand, who's attackingthem psychologically on top of
the enemy attacking them, andthat's happened then.
And you see the rage, you seethat level of I don't want to
just say hate, because I don'twant to make it sound like it's
an emotional thing, it's more ofjust their desire to be
(26:28):
protected from that is huge andthey will fight violently
against that stuff.
And so, as a leader, it was soimportant for me not to push
these guys To be sensitive forthings that they weren't even
willing to feel.
Because self-disclosure aboutthe past is heavy, man, it's
super heavy, and it just I wasso motivated by them to be
(26:49):
considered about what was goingon in their inner world as they
were fighting it and theself-medication would be high
with some of them man.
Some of them needed eightglasses of scotch to go to bed
regularly.
You know that impacts you as aleader when you know that
because you want to push peopleright, you want to stay
tactically sharp and you want toalways push hard, but at the
(27:13):
same time you got to let themdecompress, even when they don't
know it.
Oftentimes they don't know.
They don't know they have todecompress.
They don't know that they're onthe edge right now, that their
fists are clenched in the middleof a conversation because they
just want to knock a guy's headoff.
But this is the beauty ofJiu-Jitsu and MMA and martial
arts dude you read your opponentright away, like one of my
(27:34):
favorite black belts that I know.
He's all about the black belt.
He's awesome, dr Luke, shoutout to him.
He tells me that, based on ahandshake, it'll dictate the
level of violence with which hehas to react to an opponent.
If somebody's crushing hisknuckles.
He knows how to break theirhand, wrist, elbow up to their
shoulder, right, he's not goingaround breaking people's bones,
(27:55):
but in his mind he's aware thatif it needs to escalate to that,
he can take it right.
But he taught me that you feelout your opponent.
You look at their eye contact,look at their posture right.
Look at their aversion to eyecontact and where their hips are
and how.
All the setup of the fight,right.
Who's going to strike first?
(28:16):
All of that, well, that appliedin the military all the time,
because I'd be talking tosomeone and if they were super
darty with their eye contact, ifthey were rigid, right, if it's
basically a dude that Iwouldn't want to roll on the
mats with in that moment, Iwould know to watch my tone of
voice, to watch how aggressiveI'm being, how much I'm pushing
them, so I'd be able to say, hey, man, we're going to put a pin
(28:37):
in this conversation, we'll comeback to it, I'll give you a
second.
And it wasn't patronizing like,oh, I know you're being
emotionally reactive right nowand I wouldn't do that because
that's wrong to make him feellike that, but just like a black
belt, just like an upper beltwould say hey, if you're going
to spaz this much, we're goingto chill for a sec, take a
breath, do a quick reset.
It was that kind of concept andit worked A lot of times.
(29:00):
They would notice, man.
They'd notice like, hey, youstop pushing me, you weren't
being a dick, you weren't beingcondescending, you gave me some
space.
They appreciate that, becausehow many other dudes would see
that and say, oh yeah, you wantto fight, you're going to talk
like that, you're going to actlike that, not knowing that this
dude is just reflecting on aguy that got blown up in back in
(29:22):
war because we're on a demorange right now.
We detonated some C4 and then,immediately when he felt that
wave, he's just thinking like,yep, I'm thinking about my buddy
that I lost, right.
So these are the layers ofawareness I want new leaders to
have when they go in, and I alsowant every new leader who joins
military to do Jiu Jitsu,because I think that's really,
(29:44):
you know, enable them to beaware of this stuff.
It gives you a different,spider sense, you know.
Fitz (29:48):
Yeah, and way more valuable mentally, it sounds
like, than physically.
Daniel Joseph (29:53):
It's both yeah.
Fitz (29:54):
it's both yeah, mentally yeah, and that's I mean
obviously if you find yourselfin a difficult position in
hand-to-hand combat, a lot ofpeople will say Jiu Jitsu is the
best weapon to have right,instead of being a great striker
type of thing.
It's just like no Jiu Jitsu,you can subdue no matter where
the fight goes, type of thing.
But like mentally for guys thatare going through stuff guys
(30:15):
and girls.
Daniel Joseph (30:16):
Yeah, what's cool, man, is how married the
mind and body are.
And again, we can talk aboutthis for days.
But that's the philosophicalapproach to Jiu Jitsu that was
so astounding to me and DeanLister is one of my coaches and
you know I was talking to Deanabout the concept of Jiu Jitsu
helping me with my anxiety andmy fear and my stress in life
(30:39):
and I had a really rough patchin life and Dean gave me some
awesome words of encouragementthat when I was considering like
taking some time off Jiu Jitsu,he pulled me back in and you
know we talked about thespiritual journey of Jiu Jitsu.
We talked about how it's a muchricher concept than just
learning how to fight andgrapple right, because you got
(31:00):
to be so aware of your nervoussystem and your ego and what
you're bringing to the mats,because they always say the mats
don't lie, like it's going tocome out.
If somebody sees disrespectfulbehavior, that knee of justice,
that shoulder of justice,whatever it is, they're going to
smash my throat, they're goingto smash my face and check me
right and I'll hopefully respondpositively and grow from that,
(31:20):
because I've needed it, you know.
But also the concepts theyteach us on the mats.
It all applies in real life, inthe world outside the gym, it
applies in leadership, itapplies in the military, because
it's all about recalibratingyour perspective.
One of my favorite coaches,james, tells me that he tells us
there's no such thing as a badposition in jujitsu.
(31:42):
Work the position, don't fret,don't throw your hands up and
give up, don't tap out.
Work through it.
What can you modify?
How can you reangle yourself?
How can you just sip air andnot get it, not black out.
Just create enough of a defenseon your throat to sit there and
wait for the guy to get tiredand then shift his weight and
(32:03):
then, boom, you grab that nextmove.
So all these concepts, man, whenthings were rough in the
military, when it was 127degrees in the desert and we're
in full kit and we're lost andwe're on horrible terrain,
running out of fuel and water.
So there's moments where I'mlike, all right, I'm gonna take
a breath before I try to talk toa commanding officer and say
something disrespectful, andthen, you know, re-center myself
(32:26):
and the soldiers would see it.
Man, soldiers would go like,hey, sir, I thought you were
gonna lose your mind.
It's like, do you think I'd betexting a black belt.
It's like, bro.
Thank you so much, bro Like youjust saved me, man.
You saved me because thisstuff's applying off the mat
dude.
Fitz (32:39):
You know it's crazy how little it takes to kind of
understand those concepts.
Like I told you, like I've doneone class in the last year and
Michael Bisping would give me aton of shit if I start talking
about like, oh, all thoselessons that I've learned in
jujitsu, because I was on themat for like an hour and a half,
right.
But I do remember an experiencefrom a couple of years ago when
somebody had me in a rear nakedchoke and they were close right
(33:02):
, like it was about tap time andI felt like air coming out of
my eyeballs type of thing, right, like you just feel a different
way.
But I didn't and I was justlike, well, I'm not out yet, let
me try.
And sure enough, we kept going,like I didn't have to tap, I
got out of it, let go.
And the feeling on the otherside of that is like it opens a
door.
It opens a different type ofdoor.
(33:23):
And same thing yesterday wheresomebody kind of jerked my
shoulder and I was like if thathappened, like around my house,
I'd just be like, ah, itprobably let me ruin my next
half hour.
But in jujitsu I was just likethe role's still going and sure
enough it didn't hurt.
A minute later it was just likeah, it kind of feels good,
right, you know, your body getsworked out a little bit For
(33:45):
those who aren't in the militaryand many people that are
listening to this aren't in themilitary, maybe not directly
connected to the military whatdo you hope that people,
civilians, get out of thestories that you tell and the
lessons that you share, bothfrom your book and otherwise?
Daniel Joseph (34:02):
Basically self-reflection.
That's the biggest thing,that's the biggest part of this
book is to be open to modifyingyour perspective.
Be open to looking at your ego,deficits, especially as a
leader, and what you'reprojecting on others, what
you're asking other people tocarry Because in the military we
have rucksacks, right, and wehave these weighted rucks where
(34:23):
you've got to have a certainamount of weight, you have a
certain hit time, you've got toget through that distance.
Well, why would you put extraweight?
They say ounces are pounds, soif you add an extra ounce to
your bag, you might as well addan extra pound, because that's
how it's going to feel aftermile 12, right?
So the same concept withleadership and just with
relationships in general.
The more hangups we haveindividually, the more we're
(34:47):
struggling with whether it'spride or just a variety of anger
issues, passive aggression,anything else.
The people that interact withus have to feel that weight.
They're going to feel it, andso the healthier we are as
individuals, the healthiersystemically we're going to make
organizations, our teams, ourunits, our friendships,
marriages, whatever it is.
(35:08):
They'll, across the board,elevate, because we've worked on
an internal issue withourselves, right?
So that's kind of the big takehome of this book Because a lot
of the guys I write about.
They showed me where I needed togrow in life and I would take
nuggets of advice from each oneand that's kind of what I strung
together to make this book wasevery piece of advice they drop
(35:32):
it really resonated with me in adeep way and showed me, dude, I
have an issue and I got to fixit Because everyone else I'm
dealing with in life is going tohave to be impacted by my kind
of unawareness if I don'trectify that.
And as leaders we learn veryclearly in the military the more
rank you have, the morecultural influence you have and
(35:53):
that command climate it's onlyas healthy as you are.
If you have an unhealthy bossas an individual, as a human
being, like outside of uniform,it's gonna translate to work
Just the culture that theycreate, the persona that they
bring in the office, and it'sgonna be pervasive.
Everyone's gonna feel it, it'sgonna trickle down.
But if you have someone healthy, who's grounded, who's
(36:14):
level-headed and humble andapproachable, dude, it makes the
unit so it makes it awesome togo to work Like, not just
average.
It makes it awesome becausepeople you feel like an adult,
you feel inspired.
You have autonomy, you can dostuff.
You can fail and not feelashamed of that, because this
leader has your back.
It's an indescribable feeling.
Especially and I'll end it withthis it's just in a military
(36:37):
environment, because you can'tjust escape it.
You can't just.
There's some bases, there'ssome environments where you're
stuck in that and that's a wholeanother level of man.
Just yeah, it's just anotherlevel.
That's hard to explain tocivilians.
When your back's against a walland whoever that person you're
with, that's all you have.
(36:57):
You have nothing else exceptfor the people around you.
So again, when they're healthy,that's awesome, but when you're
trapped with people who are nothealthy, it gets dark fast.
So it's so important to not bethat guy.
Be the person that brings lightto the situation, you know,
yeah.
Fitz (37:14):
What is?
What are your thoughts on, like, modern day life outside the
military and things that mightbe going against those concepts
that you just teach of, because,like, there's a lot of
unhealthy things out there thatare the conventional way of life
(37:37):
.
What are your thoughts on, likesmall tweaks to make it better,
or something that you wishcould be a bit different, about
how our society is, by and large, day to day?
Daniel Joseph (37:49):
Yeah, I mean the biggest thing and I still
struggle with this man being acreature of comfort.
Instant gratification,self-medication these are all
issues that are pervasive insociety today, and we look at
anything from social media andporn to alcohol consumption,
drug use just there's so manydifferent things that people use
as an escape and it's reallyimportant to be honest with
(38:12):
ourselves about what we wannatrim out of our lives, and I
look at it as make small,incremental improvements.
You know, you don't have to doanything too drastic.
There's this really coolpsychology study where they
showed if you take somebody'sremote control away from their
TV and they have to get up andwalk to the television to change
the channel.
This was like, I guess, back inthe day.
So you show that those peoplelost a significant amount of
(38:32):
weight Only by removing theirremote.
It opened up so many differentoptions and so many different
perspectives.
Just by having this to get upoff the couch and walk toward,
they'd get up and go exercise.
They'd get up and go dosomething else.
So what this study was tryingto demonstrate was don't go
outright and make a massivechange to your life, Because
(38:54):
that's not gonna last, right,it's more about thinking and
customize and personalize thisto yourself.
Where are some small areas inour lives individually that we
can modify and tweak that tomake it better?
But it's all about counteringthe instant gratification type
concepts in our lives, becausedopamine right now is just off
the charts with what's happeningwith smartphones and with
(39:17):
technology and so much that'shappening, and it's a systemic
issue.
It's a really systemic issue.
So it's a complicated topic,right?
And yeah, man, that's again.
When I wrote this book, Ithought a lot about how I don't
wanna come in with my biases andproject that on everyone else.
Right, this is more about beingwilling to have that discussion
(39:38):
, the uncomfortable discussion,with ourselves.
So I think that anythingdelving into minimalism and
austerity is kind of where Ipersonally lean.
Stoicism is huge.
It's important to me, but Iunderstand that there's
implications in stoicism thattell people like you gotta
repress your emotions and thatcan lead to suicidality and
(39:59):
other things or side effects toit.
Again, we can unpack that onanother podcast, but but I would
say, just going from what themilitary taught me is removing
those things that I thought Ineeded.
Do you know what I'm saying?
And it's surprising how muchyou don't need certain things.
It's really and it's refreshing, it's so cool because it's like
(40:20):
trimming fat man.
It's like you trim the fat outof life and you're leaner and
meaner and you just you feelthat there's this levity that
you didn't have.
So it's counterintuitive howcutting off materialistic things
actually frees you up more andthat's yeah, I love minimalism
(40:42):
man.
Fitz (40:42):
It's a biggie pack on your idea.
Yeah, that word scares a lot ofpeople though.
Minimalism people hear it andthey think, oh, I just have to
live with like a chair and aplant on a table and nothing
else and it's just like.
No.
I've read a lot of books,starting a year ago, about
minimalism and nobody would comein my house and think I'm a
minimalist.
I got two kids, there's toyseverywhere and whatever, but
(41:04):
I've given away or gotten rid ofor donated so much stuff and
I'll just tell you I don't thinkabout one thing and say I
shouldn't have given that away,like I am glad for everything
that's gone and I still look formore, right, because less is
more.
There's like just less mentalhead space to take up with that
sort of thing.
(41:25):
So I'm glad you brought up thattopic and that counts inside
your head too, right?
The more you shed outwardly,the more you kind of can shed
inwardly and just like live,live simpler but better, if that
makes sense, totally yeah foryou.
You mentioned that you'velearned from a lot of great
military leaders.
Is there a quote or a conceptthat you come back to as kind of
(41:49):
the top or like the trunk ofthe tree, that all of your other
great Pieces of advice thatyou've gained from these great
leaders Comes right back to.
Daniel Joseph (42:00):
Yeah, I mean the biggest thing.
So I gotta remember what did Iwrite his name as I changed his
name for Opsec.
He's a green beret, so let methink of so Greg in the book,
the character Greg.
He's a friend of mine, he's agreen beret officer and he gave
me advice.
He's actually one of the fewchapters in my book that has
multiple nuggets of advice, butHumility and calm were two of
(42:25):
the biggest beliefs that hecarried as a green beret.
And and Humility in the sensethat you don't ever brag to
people and tell them what you'regreat at.
You Demonstrate it through yourwork ethic.
You know you don't use words,you use actions right.
So that was one of the moreprofound pieces of advice that
really resonated, especiallywhen it's hard because you'll be
(42:46):
around people who do want tochest beat and show bone and
some industries you have to man,being in sales and business
development, trust me, I've from.
I'm from that industry and Iknow what it, what it looks like
To have to do that to provethat you're a certain person.
But there's also this kind ofsweetness when you're able to do
it in a way where it's not Idon't know.
(43:06):
It's just more genuine andauthentic.
But yes, but anyway.
Humility is powerful becauseit's such a universal concept
and truly everyone I wrote aboutthis book, they, they
demonstrate humility for sure.
My editor told me to stopsaying that in every chapter
he's like you're saying the samething, dude.
You got to just pick one guy tobe like the humility guy and
like yeah.
Humble and then calm was superpowerful.
(43:28):
Because and again I liken thisto to what I learned from the
upper belt men in jujitsu Isthat calm is contagious, panic
is contagious and calm iscontagious.
And in a war zone, from fromwhat I've heard from these guys,
man, there's been some knifeedge moments where things we're
gonna dive into panic but thenthat one person steps up and
(43:48):
tells everybody, take a breath,like we're not dead yet, you
know, re-center, focus, likewhere's the enemy at how do we
deal with this casualty?
And Everyone looks up to thatperson like thank god you just
showed up because we were aboutto freak out and go ballistic.
You know, yeah and so yeah, Ijust I love that and it applies
in any fight situation andthere's just this level of
(44:12):
respect you have for somebodywhen you see them
Physiologically.
Take that breath again, keepthat comfortable and consistent
eye contact right, keep thatbody posture.
That's just.
They're present, right, they'reforced to be dealt with, but
they're not.
They're not a being, a bullywith it, you know, they're just
(44:33):
grounded and it makes you wantto center yourself.
That's, that's how they make mefeel and that's how I would
hope I would help other soldiersfeel when I work with them,
it's just To be stable and havewhat I call.
What I love is is equanimity,so being even killed in these
crazy situations.
You know, equanimity means youjust, you're just stable, you're
(44:55):
that person that people look toso they don't lose their minds.
And the few times I've beenable to do that for others, it
blew my mind, you know.
Getting it, I would tell peoplelike that's not, that's not
normally who I am, and I wouldthank these mentors of mine for
teaching.
Yeah, you know.
So, a lot of the.
If there's any good that I haveas a leader, good
characteristics, it's very muchdue to them, because, yeah, I
(45:17):
wouldn't have had that man, notthe guy that I was when I was
medicating and trying to escapemyself you know I'm saying I
needed to be taught that.
Fitz (45:24):
Humility and calm, those are the two broad strokes.
It always makes me chuckle alittle bit, though, dan, because
you know the world of mixedmartial arts and prize fighting
is very much a chest beating,and you got to perform at the
press conference to, like youknow, ratchet your way up the
ladder quicker, and it totallyis opposite of why so many
(45:47):
people love martial arts and andand the like, the art of
fighting, because how it calmsthem mentally and how it's about
discipline and respect, andthere's still that that Exists
when it's time to fight.
But all the the circus and theshow around it which makes the
sport very fun to follow yeah, Imean, look at how they embrace
(46:08):
each other after fights.
Daniel Joseph (46:09):
That's what.
Fitz (46:09):
I exactly that, Exactly dude.
Daniel Joseph (46:11):
That's the cool part, because I get it.
The show biz part has to havesome flair to it.
Fitz (46:15):
Yeah.
Daniel Joseph (46:15):
When you see these bloody dudes look at each
other and respect each otherlike that, that to me is love,
because love doesn't have to bea Soft thing, and I talk about
this in the book man.
Love can be violent, love canbe explosive, and that's
something that I think is soimportant, especially in a war
fighting field, when you're withthese people that are willing
to lay down their life for you.
If you give a directive, man,like I've seen it, dude, even in
(46:37):
training environments, wherethese soldiers I tell them like
hey, this has to get done.
And you see them just Charlie,mike, man, they're just moving
forward with it.
And I'm like, hold up, bro,before you do that, like let's
talk about the safety part ofthis.
Like I got this, I got this,don't worry about it, don't
worry about it.
And I'm looking at, I'm like, dothis?
Kids willing to freaking, losean arm and a leg right now and
and To not show love to someonelike that is it'd be wrong to me
(47:01):
as a leader.
And again, you see fighters dothat same that, that fighting
mentality, bro, they will killfor that prize, but at the same
time, they still have respectfor each other and admiration,
like that's such a cool Concept,that's, it's you.
Just you don't get that out ofa book.
You got to live.
Yeah, you know you gotexperience that right.
Fitz (47:19):
Yeah, and Colby Covington is kind of a lightning rod, kind
of love him or hate and type ofguy.
It's like the mics picked himup after you know, fighting
Kamara Usman again and they hadnasty things to say about and
he's just like hey man, you know, just just trying to get your
money up.
You know what I mean.
Like he's promoting the fightright and he's great at that,
but in the end there's there'smassive respect, daniel,
(47:42):
hopefully not the last time wetalk in this format, and what I
really would love some day is tobe in the same zip code as you
and get a Rollin on the mats.
Dude, come out, you don't haveto ask me twice to make a trip
down to San Diego one of myfavorite places on on planet
Earth.
I'll show the book again.
The book is called Backpack torucksack insight into leadership
(48:03):
and resilience by militaryexperts.
That's written by my man here,daniel Joseph.
And Daniel, just a shout out towhere people can find you, your
website and social channels andwhatever else, as you kind of
are on this mission for suicideawareness month, especially
geared towards veterans inSeptember and September 11th
being recently.
(48:23):
Just just shout out yourchannel so that people can do
more if they want to getinvolved.
Daniel Joseph (48:28):
Yeah, I mean.
First of all I just want to sayto everybody who served and who
is serving, thank you for yourservice and you guys are worth
it.
You know I steal that line frommy buddy, jp Lane.
He is a double amp, doubleamputee, lost his legs after a
200 pound IED exploded and healways tells people when they
thank him for a service he saysyou're worth it.
And I told him I was like JP,I'm gonna steal that bro, but
(48:49):
I'll give him credit for it.
So do what it takes to enrichyour life and be a healthier
person through whatever it isYou're struggling with, because
we're all human, we all havestruggles.
You can find me on combatpsychcom.
So if you go to combat psychyou can preview the book for the
first few chapters.
I'm working on the audiobookright now and I'm putting some
more content up and I hope tocreate some discussions going on
(49:11):
.
I don't have all the answers,but there's so much wisdom to be
shared the officers and theenlisted side of the house and
the military.
So if we put our heads together, will come up with some awesome
solutions to just grow oneanother, and Definitely I wanted
to involve anythinghand-to-hand on the mats for
sure.
Fitz (49:27):
Yeah, nice man.
Thanks for connecting Daniel.
It was great talking to you,thank you.
I appreciate you having me.
Hey everybody, welcome back to Fitz Nation.
We'll get to our guest in justa few moments.
His name is Daniel Joseph.
He wrote a book called Backpackto Rucksack, talks about
leadership, talks about his timeas an army veteran, talks about
psychology and it talks aboutraising awareness for suicide
prevention, specific to ourmilitary veterans.
September is suicide awarenessmonth and obviously September
11th is a heavy date in thehistory of the United States and
as it relates to our USmilitary.
(00:23):
So that's coming up in justmoments, but of course I
mentioned a few episodes ago.
You email me, I will get youincluded in the show.
We can build a little communityhere known as Fitz Nation.
This email comes from JasonHagholm, and Jason is a veteran
veteran veteran.
Jason, I have seen you outthere on Twitter or X.
You definitely follow along andyou tend to take a screenshot
(00:44):
of the broadcast team at thebeginning of UFC events and you
share.
This is our broadcast team forthe night.
So, jason, I've been aware ofyou out there on X, but thank
you for emailing in and I'llread it here.
My name is Jason Hagholm and I'man aspiring sports broadcaster
myself stumbled across your FitzNation podcast, episode 143,
(01:05):
and felt it was the mostrelatable piece of video I have
seen all year.
Thanks for your three tips ongetting to be a network
broadcaster.
I've completed two.
I have two degrees inbroadcasting, in both television
and broadcast journalism, aswell as a YouTube account where
I do interview MMA fighters.
You also gave me something tothink about.
With what I'm trying to figureout and what I've learned
recently, I'm jotting down threedisciplines to try and follow
(01:27):
as we speak.
Your podcast has been a breathof fresh air for me, as I found
out that you are also someonewho is sober, like myself by
choice.
One day, I would love to pickyour brain on a podcast as well.
Keep up the great work with theUFC and enjoy calling Surrey
City on your Tuesdays Day in theWhite Contender series.
(01:52):
That is.
That kid is going to be a forcecoming from Canada.
Thanks, jason, jason.
Thank you for the email.
Surrey City, as I sit here onWednesday, the podcast is going
to be a force coming from Canada.
Thanks, jason, jason, thank youfor the email.
Surrey City, as I sit here onWednesday.
This episode will come out thenext week, but Surrey City, man.
(02:12):
What a big win, early stoppage.
I think that needs to beacknowledged and I'm glad that
Ramon Tavares is getting anothershot.
But Surrey City looked great.
He looked the part.
He obviously trains with agreat team up there in Ontario
and Mike Malott is a trainingpartner of his from time to time
.
So it will be interesting tosee Surrey City's entry into the
(02:32):
UFC Band to make division whathe does.
Jason, I'm glad that thatepisode resonated with you.
Keep working those disciplines,keep working towards those
things that I mentioned.
That will get you on the pathto be a network broadcaster.
Maybe one day we'll be holdinga microphone next to each other
on some big time TV network.
In the meantime, if you have aquestion, email me at Brendan
(02:55):
Fitz TV at gmailcom.
I got a great question recentlyfrom a guy named Richard over
in the UK.
It's about fight calls onbroadcast, the mechanics of it,
our moment when we watch theKorean zombie retire and kind of
have those those moments toreally soak it in and let the
(03:16):
viewer soak it in where none ofthe broadcast team was talking.
And also we asked about myfavorite UFC calls, whether it
was me, whether it was John Anik, other people, and I'll have a
great episode coming up where Iinclude the footage, include the
video and kind of talk throughit from a broadcast perspective.
So keep those questions coming,brendan Fitz TV at gmailcom and
(03:38):
I'll get them on the air.
And Jason, thank you for youremail this week.
Now it's time for our guests tothe week.
Let's get to our interview.
September is Suicide AwarenessMonth and this episode is being
released on 9 11.
So of course, that means a lotto people in the United States.
It means a lot to the membersof our military, and my guest
today is an author and apsychologist and an army veteran
(04:02):
by the name of Daniel Joseph,and he has an interesting story.
It's not just any othermilitary stories.
So, daniel, thanks for comingon the show and I'm happy to
talk to you today, man.
Daniel Joseph (04:14):
Thanks so much for having me.
Man, this is an honor.
It's so cool Gonna talk to youand getting a voice.
You know it's.
It's neat.
Yeah, it's really neat process.
Fitz (04:22):
Also, what's your jujitsu belt?
Daniel Joseph (04:25):
Well, so technically still a white belt,
Okay, been a white belt for likeI think five years, six years.
But when I roll, people aredefinitely like, hey, dude, yeah
, that's the wrong belt color,but yeah, I'm in no rush to get
it changed.
I what I took off for the armyfor like three and a half years,
so I stopped rolling with mycoaches and then while I was in
(04:47):
the army, I did get to trainwith some dudes.
We had little COVID undergroundfight club.
Yes, pretty rad.
So, and what was really specialabout those moments and I know
your viewers, who who wererolling, because you know,
during those times you got tokeep the tribe healthy, you know
and what was really special isyou got to be so picky about who
you rolled with during thoseprivate roles, right, and so we
(05:08):
had these one on one sessions,man, where these dudes would
just wreck me and build me up,and they taught me about rolling
blindfolded, they taught meabout proprioception, they
taught me about just so muchdude, and these one on one
relationships.
And a buddy of mine, I justrolled with them the other day
at victory Shout out to Eric, he, he's a black belt in judo and
(05:30):
he's a black belt in jujitsu andhe took me under his wing.
Man, we started doing like 90minute marathon rolls, Wow
breaks, just nonstop.
So think about how much datawas downloaded into the my brain
as a white belt on not spassingout, breath control and just
this dude's massive, Eric's huge, and he would just crush me but
(05:50):
like just enough where Iwouldn't have to tap out.
You know what I'm saying.
So he just it really up my gamea lot.
So belt colors, be damned, dude.
I can roll now and not panicand just handle stuff.
You know, not not trying to belike disrespectful to upper belt
murder anything, but it's just.
We can talk about this, butthere's so much to the mindset
of fighting and grappling that Ihad no idea until I started
(06:12):
training like that, you know.
Fitz (06:14):
Yeah, what's crazy, dan, is that and it's very
appropriate to our conversationtoday is that I got back on the
mat literally yesterday, fromwhen we're talking right now,
for the first time in a year,and that last year was like an
isolated class for the firsttime since like early 2020 pre
pandemic.
I basically took the pandemicoff for a list of reasons, but
(06:37):
you know, I got to a point whereI kept saying, no, I'm going to
get back to it.
I'm going to get back to it.
We had a baby last year and hejust turned one and I was like,
okay.
Daniel Joseph (06:44):
I'll get back to it.
Fitz (06:45):
And now I'm just, like the time is now my older son's back
in school, like I do have sometime.
If I don't do it now, it's justgoing to be one of those things
that I keep kicking the candown the road.
Also want to shout out yourbook that you were kind enough
to send me backpack to rucksack,and you know I had called
contender series last night, soI haven't haven't had a ton of
time to dig into it, but theearly part that I did is
(07:08):
fantastic.
I can't wait to like just diveinto this book about leadership
in the military and a lot ofthings that you've learned from
other great military leaders.
But something that jumped outat me, dan, is that you joined
the army at 32 years old, as youdescribe it.
You kind of had a cush job inSan Diego comfortable living,
(07:30):
luxury apartment and then at 32you decided to join the army.
What happened and why did youdo that?
Daniel Joseph (07:37):
So I am man.
A lot of this does have to dowith like jiu-jitsu and what
happened in my life, just basedon the community of people that
I met.
But I started making friendswith a bunch of badasses in the
military.
I write about them in the book.
Some of them are Navy SEALs,some of them are Mars Marsock
operators and the Marine CorpsGreen Berets.
So I was working with the EODsjust these awesome dudes that
(07:57):
were deploying, like with asuper high op tempo going, going
overseas, and I, my family, isactually from Iraq they escaped
back in the 70s and so not apretty situation.
And while I was in San Diego Iwas working in the biotech world
.
So I was working in basicallyit was pre like AI, it was
(08:19):
neural network programming.
So I was working withscientists that were coding
computer algorithms to assesshuman genetic code for
biomarkers and diseaseparameters that you could
essentially snip out.
You know, bad genes from afetus if, depending on, well, a
blastocyst, when it's a certainamount of cells, you can take
some cells out and do someengineering to cure disease.
(08:39):
So I was in this world where Imean it was lucrative, there's a
lot of money, it's.
It's a pretty esoteric world tonavigate, and so I was able to
speak both biology and computerscience was able to to get some
deals going that were prettycool.
But while I was doing all that,my buddies were coming back
from the Middle East right andthey're telling me these stories
of these firefights they werein and nearly losing their lives
(09:02):
and just fighting for,basically selflessly, what I
perceived it was they werefighting for.
They didn't owe anything to youknow, and they're telling me
about how, hey, I was pinneddown in a firefight, thinking
about my wife and kids, notknowing if I was gonna come back
and see them.
And I'm sitting there likecollecting these, these checks,
you know, and but then I feelthat primal energy, that that
(09:27):
dude, that just that masculinedrive that they had to keep
fighting, keep going back there,facing fear and shooting back
in the midst of it.
And I was looking at myself inthe mirror, especially as I was
doing more jujitsu, like youknow, I I want to see what, what
I made of outside of justwriting emails and networking.
You know there's and I liken itjust to this this primal call
(09:49):
and if you feel it, you knowwhat I'm talking about, because
I have guys reaching out to metelling me about how they feel
it, even at their age right,even in their 30s.
And I was getting close to thatcut off of joining and I
thought, do I got a jump man?
I got to leave everythingbehind and go do this because if
I don't all regret it the restof my life, and I was just so
inspired by these guys to saythat I put on a uniform at some
(10:13):
point.
I didn't care what I would do,as long as I could say that I
served you know, it was just onmy heart big time.
Fitz (10:19):
Wow, I'm reading a book by a guy named light Watkins right
now and it's about meditation.
He's like a meditation teacher,but he talks about your heart
voice.
It's like literally like yougot to quiet everything down and
then live with integrity forlike what you truly want.
It sounds like you just hadthis urge to serve in the
military.
Daniel Joseph (10:40):
Yeah, it was.
It was deep man and it was oneof those things where, you know,
and like it, the word primaljust resonates so deeply because
on the mats that's what wascoming out.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like that aggression, thatfight, flight, response, the
adrenaline and that trust forthose brothers on the mats to,
you know, be able to choke meout and if I pass out, they're
(11:00):
gonna revive me.
It's just putting my life intheir hands.
To that extent, to that level,and a lot of these dudes are in
the military, you know, and I Iroll at victory, jocco willing
stairs.
So there's a lot of team guysof you know, all different
branches that show up and just agroup of badasses and they,
they taught me what they're like, their discipline, right, the
discipline they live on the mats, the discipline they live at
work.
(11:20):
Again, the op tempo and thebattle scenarios that they're
willing to enter into and comeback and just Be these humble
guys.
Man, they weren't, theywouldn't brag about it, they
were quiet and and getting totrain hand-to-hand with these
dudes on the mats was like itwas feeding a part of my soul
that I had left Unaddressed forso long and in younger years I
(11:42):
had self-medicated down.
You know the drugs and alcohol,the partying it was all just a
process of trying to put outlike a fire, if you will.
But what sucked about that is?
I needed that fire, you knowit's.
And I tell dudes this now,especially young guys joining
the military or who are in themilitary right now.
I tell them, like, don't everapologize for your aggression,
(12:03):
because I feel like this worldkind of tells us to be ashamed
of aggression.
And I tell them don't be, don'tbe ashamed of it, throttle it.
Just like a black belt teachesus how to throttle the amount of
violence on the mats, right,they teach us how to escalate it
, how to down regulate it.
But if we need to bring it,then we will, right, it depends
on the scenario.
You do it appropriately, butyou certainly don't apologize
for it.
And so I think I see this justbeautiful synergy between
(12:26):
martial arts and Leadership themilitary and just being dudes in
general, and I believe it's alost art, you know, to have that
tribal connection with oneanother and to not apologize for
it.
Fitz (12:37):
Yeah, how did Changing your lifestyle of joining the
military?
How did it change who you were?
I?
Daniel Joseph (12:46):
Mean the military introduces the concept
of austerity in such a big way.
You know, you're stripped ofeverything.
You're stripped of caffeine, ofSmartphones, of societal
comforts, of a bed I mean youhave a cot but it's.
It's so cool because you get toknow yourself.
You know it sucks in a lot ofways, but it sucks together with
a group.
There's that brotherhood thatbuilds and it's.
(13:10):
It's amazing because you knowyou can be in a horrible
situation.
Right, it's miserable, theweather sucks, whether it's
freezing or if it's justblistering hot, and they do such
a great job of sensory or notsensory deprivation, sleep
deprivation, hunger, all thisstuff, right.
And so you're sitting there,miserable, wondering why you
signed the contract, but thenthe dude next to you cracks a
(13:32):
joke.
So you go from being likesulking and just pissed off to
like busting up, laughing andyou realize, right there, what
that guy is doing Is, rightthere, what that guy's sense of
humor did.
It showed you that even in themidst of a horrible situation
where you're totally just bummedout, you can still be yourself
like fully.
Nobody can take that away.
(13:52):
So it, by stripping everythingaway, stripping all the excess,
it boils down to your core senseof self, and that's what the
military Just a brilliant job of.
And it got to a point where youknow we'd go on leave right
after basic training and thenOCS and stuff like that, and
you'd go home and you know, youjust look at the beach, right,
and you're stoked, likeabsolutely stoked, that there's
(14:15):
ocean waves and you can be therewith flip-flops and board
shorts, right, no shirt, no,just nothing with you.
And in that moment you'reyou're just pumped about life
because you learn to appreciatethe littlest things, and that's
a concept that just kind offlourished after being in the
military as well, and I didn'texpect it to, I really didn't
(14:36):
expect it to stick with me, um,but it has.
And that's one of the coolestthings ever is you just you
become more of a robust humanbeing Because you know what it's
like to live with nothing.
Yeah, that's, that's how theytrain us.
Fitz (14:50):
Yeah, you acknowledge everything that is and that
isn't the.
The daily gratitude isobviously this concept that is
not exclusive to military, but Iwould imagine, like you said,
your experience kind of puts itin perspective every day with,
with what you deal with, andthen Early in the book you you
(15:12):
have your friend, austin, Ibelieve was a Marine, who wrote
an introduction to it.
Daniel Joseph (15:17):
Yeah, man, and he talks a lot about.
Fitz (15:21):
He walks.
He talks a lot about the whydon't like lead?
True leadership is is givingthem the why.
Don't just tell him what to do.
Give them the why.
What is your why right now,daniel?
Daniel Joseph (15:31):
So my why is because of Austin and Cody
predominantly, and I'll tell youSpecifically what happened.
So Austin, he wrote about thisin the forward.
It's so hard to say, bro, it'sso hard to fathom this, but one
at the time I wrote this book,12 guys from his unit, from
after, after after afterAfghanistan man, 12 guys from
his unit committed suicide.
(15:52):
The 13th guy killed himselfafter I published my book.
And Austin could, could havebeen on that list.
So I'm still in touch with them, man, we talk every week, if
not every other day, and Stillcheck in on him, right and so
that that's an unimaginableburden that he's.
(16:13):
He carries Losing double digitsto suicide, double digit
brothers and arms.
Man, it's just the conceptscrazy to me.
And so he inspired me to writethe book.
And as well as Cody, who wrotethe intro, cody is my soldier
who, for my platoon, from firstplatoon he survived his suicide
attempt and writes some words ofencouragement.
(16:37):
But the why Was so?
When I wrote the book I hitmoments of self-doubt, because I
talk about self medication, Italk about shameful stuff that's
happened to me or that I'vedone, and you know ego deficits
that I've had and Compensatorymechanisms that I used to feel
like somebody you know faking,like I'm strong, putting up a
(16:57):
facade, all this stuff, right.
And when I got to some pointswhere I was pretty, pretty
bummed out about the book, likeI can't believe I'm writing this
stuff, I'm putting this onpaper, this is crazy.
And then my buddy, he asked mewhat's the why?
Remind yourself what was thewhy of why you wrote this book.
And I said to process a lot ofthe weight of what these guys
(17:19):
carry, because I feel it too,because I love these dudes you
know, they're like brothers ofmine, right, and I Was never
combat deployed, I was in thenon-deployable unit, but these
guys did deploy, right, and soI'm walking alongside them as
they're.
They're carrying all thisweight and I feel it, man, and
so they're.
They're the why behind what I'mdoing right now.
(17:41):
And I can tell you what was socool, what started this whole
thing.
And I have another friend ofmine, dear friend of mine, who
not only was he suicidal but hestruggled with, with being
homicidal man.
He almost, he almost, killed acouple people when he got back
from war because he was sodesensitized to the bodies and
to the, the gore and everythinghe saw that the man, the
(18:02):
pressure was insane, right, andso he almost snapped very close,
had a loaded weapon, had theplan, had plastic laid out on
the floor, everything.
And these are guys I'm supposedto lead, right.
That's to me a joke, almost,because Talk about warriors,
right.
I mean, think about the type ofmen they want to be led by,
(18:22):
right.
So there I was with these dudesand you know, I started talking
to them.
It was a completely sidesidebar discussion.
On jujitsu, I've had my ownanxiety, right, especially when
I started sobering up dude, alot of stuff started surfacing
and in jujitsu I started havingthese flashbacks.
I started having thesemanifestations in my body of
some past events and my coachnoticed, coach was just like
(18:45):
what are you doing?
Why are you freezing up?
Why aren't you doing the move?
I showed you right and I had noidea, but it was a freeze
response.
So I was talking about the, thephysiological manifestations of
this constriction in the chestheaviness on my gut, hyper
vigilance, ruminating thoughts,feeling like I was being hunted
by somebody, just this crazyfeeling of like something's out
to get me right.
(19:06):
And and I was as I was sharingthe story, man, there's a guy
we're having some scotch justchilling.
I was meeting a couple soldiersand One of them started tearing
up and I look at him, thisdude's a badass like this dude's
, complete badass to me.
I really look up to him.
He started tearing up and I waslike dude, what is happening?
And he said hey man, everythingyou just described about your
(19:29):
body, what you felt in jujitsu,I felt that since I got back
from Iraq and I didn't reallyhave words for it till right now
.
Mm-hmm and he I mean we bothTeared up and cried, bro.
It was, it was an intensemoment and he said, like, can I
tell you some stuff that I'venever told anyone?
Can I tell you some stuff thatyou know my wife doesn't know,
(19:50):
never told a therapist?
Things that you know a guy likeme would never share?
About combat?
That was deep dude, that wasreally profound.
I was honored and it was heavyand and I love this guy, you
know I love for each other greweven more from that day, because
once you see eye to eye likethat, bro, it's just like You're
(20:12):
connected man in a cool waythat is indescribable and it's
so rare to find.
You know, and they inspired meto kind of move forward and have
a discussion with other peoplethat are stuck in their own head
, that are stuck in theirmemories of what happened in the
past.
Right, and I don't want anybodyto feel like that, especially
having a soldier that I almostlost to suicide.
(20:33):
I have countless friends whotold me don't take that for
granted, because we know plentyof guys who didn't survive
suicide, and that includesAustin.
And so the message here is man,just for these dudes to not
only just have hope, becausethat's such a canned response,
right, just maintain hope.
But it's more of like work outthat hope, whether it's on the
(20:55):
mats in Jujitsu, whether it'sself enrichment in another way,
just finding a brother andletting him know what's going on
.
But it's such a difficultjourney because not a lot of
dudes are going to trust otherpeople like this, right, and so
I feel for them and so I justwant to normalize what they're
going through.
And if they don't want to talkabout it because they don't want
(21:17):
a spotlight, you know, and theydon't want to relive the
tragedies over and over again,then what's my part in helping
them?
That's where I find my valuesjust being a guide to them.
And they've asked that of me,and of course I'm going to do it
.
Man, of course, dude, any dayif they need me, I'm there.
So not really sure what that'sgoing to look like, other than
(21:39):
getting to have these awesomeconversations with guys like you
who are super cool and superwilling to let me talk, man.
It's rad and I'm blown away,like on behalf of the soldiers.
Dude, thanks for listening.
You know it's cool, yeah.
Fitz (21:52):
Well, you know, you reached out to me, to you know,
and I was like you're kind ofthe story and the stories that
you're connected to in the bookis like something that's super
valuable and it links up with,you know, september 11th and
September being SuicideAwareness Month.
Now, for you who, like, enteredthe military and, as you said,
(22:13):
you weren't deployed and soobviously it's impossible for
any of us to put ourselves inthe shoes of people that were
deployed and that did experiencewar in that way, but for you,
who carries gratitude with youeach day because of what the
military kind of takes from youin terms of day to day comforts
(22:33):
and then the ability to breathefresh air at the beach in San
Diego, and just be extragrateful for it because you know
what it means, how do you putyour finger on or describe guys
that come back from war thatcarry the demons that are seem
to be, in a lot of cases,stronger than a sense of
(22:54):
gratitude for not being in waranymore?
Right, guys that do havefamilies.
I bet all the time that theywere deployed they were like I
can't wait to get home to mywife and kids, I can't wait to
get home to my loved ones.
And then they get home andthere's still those demons that
tug on them quite strongly.
How do you explain that?
Daniel Joseph (23:12):
So this is like.
This is why I love psychology,bro, I mean.
So I work towards my mastersand psych during the lockdowns
to understand these concepts,because it's so complicated,
it's a constellation ofvariables.
So some people told me severalfriends have told me in the
military that in a war zonethey've never felt more pure
(23:33):
love in their life and if theycould, they would live in a war
zone.
I've had some of them tell meif I didn't have a wife and kids
, I would live in that war zonebecause yes, it was heavy and
yeah, there were lives lost andit came with a huge price.
But at the same time they saidthey've never felt a greater
sense of love for their brotherthan in those areas and it's
(23:57):
because all they cared about wasknowing that they made it back
from their patrols right, thatthose convoy movements didn't
lead to a fatality, thateverybody was back in one piece
and I mean that literally in onepiece.
And so while that's going on,right, this sense of connection
with one another and thatmission, right, because they're
(24:17):
going to do everything they canto succeed and survive and make
sure everyone that they're withis alive.
The hypervigilance is where thepsychology comes in.
They're constantly.
Their radar is going off dayand night.
I mean, they're sleepingthrough mortar rounds coming in.
You know, they're always onstandby for bad news Every time
(24:39):
there's an explosion way out inthe distance and they feel that
percussive wave or they hearthat they're like who just died?
Which one of our guys just gothit?
I mean, this is constantly ontheir mind, right.
And so, in a trainingenvironment, we trained in very
similar situations to what theyexperienced in war.
I was in a desert environment.
We'd have detonations out inthe desert, we'd be war gaming
(25:00):
and have, you know, uavs andjets and all the stuff going on
24 hours, right.
And so my colleagues, thesedudes who've been in the war,
would be next to me and let meknow hey, man, I'm in the middle
of what was a flashback.
They wouldn't say it like that,but they'd say like hold on,
something's coming up right now,give me a second.
(25:21):
They'd look around and be likeI'm back in Afghanistan right
now, dude, because they'd lookat the dirt bank.
This is the exact dirt that wasin Afghanistan.
These mountains look exactlylike the ridge line in
Afghanistan and I would belooking at them like, all right,
bro, I'm going to give you amoment.
You know I'm going to let youchill for a second and we'll
carry on with the mission, right?
And that would just compel meto be that much more considerate
(25:45):
of the weight these guys carry,because it would happen so
abruptly like they wouldn't knowit was going to happen.
Do you know what I'm saying?
It would just kind of sneak upon them, yeah, and then, not to
mention.
So war is complex enough, right,being at the right time in the
right place with the rightweapons and engaging the enemy
and not, you know, hitting nofriendly fire and all of that.
Sectors of fire, all that stuffis super complex.
(26:05):
You throw in a toxic leader,you throw in somebody that they
can't stand, who's attackingthem psychologically on top of
the enemy attacking them, andthat's happened then.
And you see the rage, you seethat level of I don't want to
just say hate, because I don'twant to make it sound like it's
an emotional thing, it's more ofjust their desire to be
(26:28):
protected from that is huge andthey will fight violently
against that stuff.
And so, as a leader, it was soimportant for me not to push
these guys To be sensitive forthings that they weren't even
willing to feel.
Because self-disclosure aboutthe past is heavy, man, it's
super heavy, and it just I wasso motivated by them to be
(26:49):
considered about what was goingon in their inner world as they
were fighting it and theself-medication would be high
with some of them man.
Some of them needed eightglasses of scotch to go to bed
regularly.
You know that impacts you as aleader when you know that
because you want to push peopleright, you want to stay
tactically sharp and you want toalways push hard, but at the
(27:13):
same time you got to let themdecompress, even when they don't
know it.
Oftentimes they don't know.
They don't know they have todecompress.
They don't know that they're onthe edge right now, that their
fists are clenched in the middleof a conversation because they
just want to knock a guy's headoff.
But this is the beauty ofJiu-Jitsu and MMA and martial
arts dude you read your opponentright away, like one of my
(27:34):
favorite black belts that I know.
He's all about the black belt.
He's awesome, dr Luke, shoutout to him.
He tells me that, based on ahandshake, it'll dictate the
level of violence with which hehas to react to an opponent.
If somebody's crushing hisknuckles.
He knows how to break theirhand, wrist, elbow up to their
shoulder, right, he's not goingaround breaking people's bones,
(27:55):
but in his mind he's aware thatif it needs to escalate to that,
he can take it right.
But he taught me that you feelout your opponent.
You look at their eye contact,look at their posture right.
Look at their aversion to eyecontact and where their hips are
and how.
All the setup of the fight,right.
Who's going to strike first?
(28:16):
All of that, well, that appliedin the military all the time,
because I'd be talking tosomeone and if they were super
darty with their eye contact, ifthey were rigid, right, if it's
basically a dude that Iwouldn't want to roll on the
mats with in that moment, Iwould know to watch my tone of
voice, to watch how aggressiveI'm being, how much I'm pushing
them, so I'd be able to say, hey, man, we're going to put a pin
(28:37):
in this conversation, we'll comeback to it, I'll give you a
second.
And it wasn't patronizing like,oh, I know you're being
emotionally reactive right nowand I wouldn't do that because
that's wrong to make him feellike that, but just like a black
belt, just like an upper beltwould say hey, if you're going
to spaz this much, we're goingto chill for a sec, take a
breath, do a quick reset.
It was that kind of concept andit worked A lot of times.
(29:00):
They would notice, man.
They'd notice like, hey, youstop pushing me, you weren't
being a dick, you weren't beingcondescending, you gave me some
space.
They appreciate that, becausehow many other dudes would see
that and say, oh yeah, you wantto fight, you're going to talk
like that, you're going to actlike that, not knowing that this
dude is just reflecting on aguy that got blown up in back in
(29:22):
war because we're on a demorange right now.
We detonated some C4 and then,immediately when he felt that
wave, he's just thinking like,yep, I'm thinking about my buddy
that I lost, right.
So these are the layers ofawareness I want new leaders to
have when they go in, and I alsowant every new leader who joins
military to do Jiu Jitsu,because I think that's really,
(29:44):
you know, enable them to beaware of this stuff.
It gives you a different,spider sense, you know.
Fitz (29:48):
Yeah, and way more valuable mentally, it sounds
like, than physically.
Daniel Joseph (29:53):
It's both yeah.
Fitz (29:54):
it's both yeah, mentally yeah, and that's I mean
obviously if you find yourselfin a difficult position in
hand-to-hand combat, a lot ofpeople will say Jiu Jitsu is the
best weapon to have right,instead of being a great striker
type of thing.
It's just like no Jiu Jitsu,you can subdue no matter where
the fight goes, type of thing.
But like mentally for guys thatare going through stuff guys
(30:15):
and girls.
Daniel Joseph (30:16):
Yeah, what's cool, man, is how married the
mind and body are.
And again, we can talk aboutthis for days.
But that's the philosophicalapproach to Jiu Jitsu that was
so astounding to me and DeanLister is one of my coaches and
you know I was talking to Deanabout the concept of Jiu Jitsu
helping me with my anxiety andmy fear and my stress in life
(30:39):
and I had a really rough patchin life and Dean gave me some
awesome words of encouragementthat when I was considering like
taking some time off Jiu Jitsu,he pulled me back in and you
know we talked about thespiritual journey of Jiu Jitsu.
We talked about how it's a muchricher concept than just
learning how to fight andgrapple right, because you got
(31:00):
to be so aware of your nervoussystem and your ego and what
you're bringing to the mats,because they always say the mats
don't lie, like it's going tocome out.
If somebody sees disrespectfulbehavior, that knee of justice,
that shoulder of justice,whatever it is, they're going to
smash my throat, they're goingto smash my face and check me
right and I'll hopefully respondpositively and grow from that,
(31:20):
because I've needed it, you know.
But also the concepts theyteach us on the mats.
It all applies in real life, inthe world outside the gym, it
applies in leadership, itapplies in the military, because
it's all about recalibratingyour perspective.
One of my favorite coaches,james, tells me that he tells us
there's no such thing as a badposition in jujitsu.
(31:42):
Work the position, don't fret,don't throw your hands up and
give up, don't tap out.
Work through it.
What can you modify?
How can you reangle yourself?
How can you just sip air andnot get it, not black out.
Just create enough of a defenseon your throat to sit there and
wait for the guy to get tiredand then shift his weight and
(32:03):
then, boom, you grab that nextmove.
So all these concepts, man, whenthings were rough in the
military, when it was 127degrees in the desert and we're
in full kit and we're lost andwe're on horrible terrain,
running out of fuel and water.
So there's moments where I'mlike, all right, I'm gonna take
a breath before I try to talk toa commanding officer and say
something disrespectful, andthen, you know, re-center myself
(32:26):
and the soldiers would see it.
Man, soldiers would go like,hey, sir, I thought you were
gonna lose your mind.
It's like, do you think I'd betexting a black belt.
It's like, bro.
Thank you so much, bro Like youjust saved me, man.
You saved me because thisstuff's applying off the mat
dude.
Fitz (32:39):
You know it's crazy how little it takes to kind of
understand those concepts.
Like I told you, like I've doneone class in the last year and
Michael Bisping would give me aton of shit if I start talking
about like, oh, all thoselessons that I've learned in
jujitsu, because I was on themat for like an hour and a half,
right.
But I do remember an experiencefrom a couple of years ago when
somebody had me in a rear nakedchoke and they were close right
(33:02):
, like it was about tap time andI felt like air coming out of
my eyeballs type of thing, right, like you just feel a different
way.
But I didn't and I was justlike, well, I'm not out yet, let
me try.
And sure enough, we kept going,like I didn't have to tap, I
got out of it, let go.
And the feeling on the otherside of that is like it opens a
door.
It opens a different type ofdoor.
(33:23):
And same thing yesterday wheresomebody kind of jerked my
shoulder and I was like if thathappened, like around my house,
I'd just be like, ah, itprobably let me ruin my next
half hour.
But in jujitsu I was just likethe role's still going and sure
enough it didn't hurt.
A minute later it was just likeah, it kind of feels good,
right, you know, your body getsworked out a little bit For
(33:45):
those who aren't in the militaryand many people that are
listening to this aren't in themilitary, maybe not directly
connected to the military whatdo you hope that people,
civilians, get out of thestories that you tell and the
lessons that you share, bothfrom your book and otherwise?
Daniel Joseph (34:02):
Basically self-reflection.
That's the biggest thing,that's the biggest part of this
book is to be open to modifyingyour perspective.
Be open to looking at your ego,deficits, especially as a
leader, and what you'reprojecting on others, what
you're asking other people tocarry Because in the military we
have rucksacks, right, and wehave these weighted rucks where
(34:23):
you've got to have a certainamount of weight, you have a
certain hit time, you've got toget through that distance.
Well, why would you put extraweight?
They say ounces are pounds, soif you add an extra ounce to
your bag, you might as well addan extra pound, because that's
how it's going to feel aftermile 12, right?
So the same concept withleadership and just with
relationships in general.
The more hangups we haveindividually, the more we're
(34:47):
struggling with whether it'spride or just a variety of anger
issues, passive aggression,anything else.
The people that interact withus have to feel that weight.
They're going to feel it, andso the healthier we are as
individuals, the healthiersystemically we're going to make
organizations, our teams, ourunits, our friendships,
marriages, whatever it is.
(35:08):
They'll, across the board,elevate, because we've worked on
an internal issue withourselves, right?
So that's kind of the big takehome of this book Because a lot
of the guys I write about.
They showed me where I needed togrow in life and I would take
nuggets of advice from each oneand that's kind of what I strung
together to make this book wasevery piece of advice they drop
(35:32):
it really resonated with me in adeep way and showed me, dude, I
have an issue and I got to fixit Because everyone else I'm
dealing with in life is going tohave to be impacted by my kind
of unawareness if I don'trectify that.
And as leaders we learn veryclearly in the military the more
rank you have, the morecultural influence you have and
(35:53):
that command climate it's onlyas healthy as you are.
If you have an unhealthy bossas an individual, as a human
being, like outside of uniform,it's gonna translate to work
Just the culture that theycreate, the persona that they
bring in the office, and it'sgonna be pervasive.
Everyone's gonna feel it, it'sgonna trickle down.
But if you have someone healthy, who's grounded, who's
(36:14):
level-headed and humble andapproachable, dude, it makes the
unit so it makes it awesome togo to work Like, not just
average.
It makes it awesome becausepeople you feel like an adult,
you feel inspired.
You have autonomy, you can dostuff.
You can fail and not feelashamed of that, because this
leader has your back.
It's an indescribable feeling.
Especially and I'll end it withthis it's just in a military
(36:37):
environment, because you can'tjust escape it.
You can't just.
There's some bases, there'ssome environments where you're
stuck in that and that's a wholeanother level of man.
Just yeah, it's just anotherlevel.
That's hard to explain tocivilians.
When your back's against a walland whoever that person you're
with, that's all you have.
(36:57):
You have nothing else exceptfor the people around you.
So again, when they're healthy,that's awesome, but when you're
trapped with people who are nothealthy, it gets dark fast.
So it's so important to not bethat guy.
Be the person that brings lightto the situation, you know,
yeah.
Fitz (37:14):
What is?
What are your thoughts on, like, modern day life outside the
military and things that mightbe going against those concepts
that you just teach of, because,like, there's a lot of
unhealthy things out there thatare the conventional way of life
(37:37):
.
What are your thoughts on, likesmall tweaks to make it better,
or something that you wishcould be a bit different, about
how our society is, by and large, day to day?
Daniel Joseph (37:49):
Yeah, I mean the biggest thing and I still
struggle with this man being acreature of comfort.
Instant gratification,self-medication these are all
issues that are pervasive insociety today, and we look at
anything from social media andporn to alcohol consumption,
drug use just there's so manydifferent things that people use
as an escape and it's reallyimportant to be honest with
(38:12):
ourselves about what we wannatrim out of our lives, and I
look at it as make small,incremental improvements.
You know, you don't have to doanything too drastic.
There's this really coolpsychology study where they
showed if you take somebody'sremote control away from their
TV and they have to get up andwalk to the television to change
the channel.
This was like, I guess, back inthe day.
So you show that those peoplelost a significant amount of
(38:32):
weight Only by removing theirremote.
It opened up so many differentoptions and so many different
perspectives.
Just by having this to get upoff the couch and walk toward,
they'd get up and go exercise.
They'd get up and go dosomething else.
So what this study was tryingto demonstrate was don't go
outright and make a massivechange to your life, Because
(38:54):
that's not gonna last, right,it's more about thinking and
customize and personalize thisto yourself.
Where are some small areas inour lives individually that we
can modify and tweak that tomake it better?
But it's all about counteringthe instant gratification type
concepts in our lives, becausedopamine right now is just off
the charts with what's happeningwith smartphones and with
(39:17):
technology and so much that'shappening, and it's a systemic
issue.
It's a really systemic issue.
So it's a complicated topic,right?
And yeah, man, that's again.
When I wrote this book, Ithought a lot about how I don't
wanna come in with my biases andproject that on everyone else.
Right, this is more about beingwilling to have that discussion
(39:38):
, the uncomfortable discussion,with ourselves.
So I think that anythingdelving into minimalism and
austerity is kind of where Ipersonally lean.
Stoicism is huge.
It's important to me, but Iunderstand that there's
implications in stoicism thattell people like you gotta
repress your emotions and thatcan lead to suicidality and
(39:59):
other things or side effects toit.
Again, we can unpack that onanother podcast, but but I would
say, just going from what themilitary taught me is removing
those things that I thought Ineeded.
Do you know what I'm saying?
And it's surprising how muchyou don't need certain things.
It's really and it's refreshing, it's so cool because it's like
(40:20):
trimming fat man.
It's like you trim the fat outof life and you're leaner and
meaner and you just you feelthat there's this levity that
you didn't have.
So it's counterintuitive howcutting off materialistic things
actually frees you up more andthat's yeah, I love minimalism
(40:42):
man.
Fitz (40:42):
It's a biggie pack on your idea.
Yeah, that word scares a lot ofpeople though.
Minimalism people hear it andthey think, oh, I just have to
live with like a chair and aplant on a table and nothing
else and it's just like.
No.
I've read a lot of books,starting a year ago, about
minimalism and nobody would comein my house and think I'm a
minimalist.
I got two kids, there's toyseverywhere and whatever, but
(41:04):
I've given away or gotten rid ofor donated so much stuff and
I'll just tell you I don't thinkabout one thing and say I
shouldn't have given that away,like I am glad for everything
that's gone and I still look formore, right, because less is
more.
There's like just less mentalhead space to take up with that
sort of thing.
(41:25):
So I'm glad you brought up thattopic and that counts inside
your head too, right?
The more you shed outwardly,the more you kind of can shed
inwardly and just like live,live simpler but better, if that
makes sense, totally yeah foryou.
You mentioned that you'velearned from a lot of great
military leaders.
Is there a quote or a conceptthat you come back to as kind of
(41:49):
the top or like the trunk ofthe tree, that all of your other
great Pieces of advice thatyou've gained from these great
leaders Comes right back to.
Daniel Joseph (42:00):
Yeah, I mean the biggest thing.
So I gotta remember what did Iwrite his name as I changed his
name for Opsec.
He's a green beret, so let methink of so Greg in the book,
the character Greg.
He's a friend of mine, he's agreen beret officer and he gave
me advice.
He's actually one of the fewchapters in my book that has
multiple nuggets of advice, butHumility and calm were two of
(42:25):
the biggest beliefs that hecarried as a green beret.
And and Humility in the sensethat you don't ever brag to
people and tell them what you'regreat at.
You Demonstrate it through yourwork ethic.
You know you don't use words,you use actions right.
So that was one of the moreprofound pieces of advice that
really resonated, especiallywhen it's hard because you'll be
(42:46):
around people who do want tochest beat and show bone and
some industries you have to man,being in sales and business
development, trust me, I've from.
I'm from that industry and Iknow what it, what it looks like
To have to do that to provethat you're a certain person.
But there's also this kind ofsweetness when you're able to do
it in a way where it's not Idon't know.
(43:06):
It's just more genuine andauthentic.
But yes, but anyway.
Humility is powerful becauseit's such a universal concept
and truly everyone I wrote aboutthis book, they, they
demonstrate humility for sure.
My editor told me to stopsaying that in every chapter
he's like you're saying the samething, dude.
You got to just pick one guy tobe like the humility guy and
like yeah.
Humble and then calm was superpowerful.
(43:28):
Because and again I liken thisto to what I learned from the
upper belt men in jujitsu Isthat calm is contagious, panic
is contagious and calm iscontagious.
And in a war zone, from fromwhat I've heard from these guys,
man, there's been some knifeedge moments where things we're
gonna dive into panic but thenthat one person steps up and
(43:48):
tells everybody, take a breath,like we're not dead yet, you
know, re-center, focus, likewhere's the enemy at how do we
deal with this casualty?
And Everyone looks up to thatperson like thank god you just
showed up because we were aboutto freak out and go ballistic.
You know, yeah and so yeah, Ijust I love that and it applies
in any fight situation andthere's just this level of
(44:12):
respect you have for somebodywhen you see them
Physiologically.
Take that breath again, keepthat comfortable and consistent
eye contact right, keep thatbody posture.
That's just.
They're present, right, they'reforced to be dealt with, but
they're not.
They're not a being, a bullywith it, you know, they're just
(44:33):
grounded and it makes you wantto center yourself.
That's, that's how they make mefeel and that's how I would
hope I would help other soldiersfeel when I work with them,
it's just To be stable and havewhat I call.
What I love is is equanimity,so being even killed in these
crazy situations.
You know, equanimity means youjust, you're just stable, you're
(44:55):
that person that people look toso they don't lose their minds.
And the few times I've beenable to do that for others, it
blew my mind, you know.
Getting it, I would tell peoplelike that's not, that's not
normally who I am, and I wouldthank these mentors of mine for
teaching.
Yeah, you know.
So, a lot of the.
If there's any good that I haveas a leader, good
characteristics, it's very muchdue to them, because, yeah, I
(45:17):
wouldn't have had that man, notthe guy that I was when I was
medicating and trying to escapemyself you know I'm saying I
needed to be taught that.
Fitz (45:24):
Humility and calm, those are the two broad strokes.
It always makes me chuckle alittle bit, though, dan, because
you know the world of mixedmartial arts and prize fighting
is very much a chest beating,and you got to perform at the
press conference to, like youknow, ratchet your way up the
ladder quicker, and it totallyis opposite of why so many
(45:47):
people love martial arts and andand the like, the art of
fighting, because how it calmsthem mentally and how it's about
discipline and respect, andthere's still that that Exists
when it's time to fight.
But all the the circus and theshow around it which makes the
sport very fun to follow yeah, Imean, look at how they embrace
(46:08):
each other after fights.
Daniel Joseph (46:09):
That's what.
Fitz (46:09):
I exactly that, Exactly dude.
Daniel Joseph (46:11):
That's the cool part, because I get it.
The show biz part has to havesome flair to it.
Fitz (46:15):
Yeah.
Daniel Joseph (46:15):
When you see these bloody dudes look at each
other and respect each otherlike that, that to me is love,
because love doesn't have to bea Soft thing, and I talk about
this in the book man.
Love can be violent, love canbe explosive, and that's
something that I think is soimportant, especially in a war
fighting field, when you're withthese people that are willing
to lay down their life for you.
If you give a directive, man,like I've seen it, dude, even in
(46:37):
training environments, wherethese soldiers I tell them like
hey, this has to get done.
And you see them just Charlie,mike, man, they're just moving
forward with it.
And I'm like, hold up, bro,before you do that, like let's
talk about the safety part ofthis.
Like I got this, I got this,don't worry about it, don't
worry about it.
And I'm looking at, I'm like, dothis?
Kids willing to freaking, losean arm and a leg right now and
and To not show love to someonelike that is it'd be wrong to me
(47:01):
as a leader.
And again, you see fighters dothat same that, that fighting
mentality, bro, they will killfor that prize, but at the same
time, they still have respectfor each other and admiration,
like that's such a cool Concept,that's, it's you.
Just you don't get that out ofa book.
You got to live.
Yeah, you know you gotexperience that right.
Fitz (47:19):
Yeah, and Colby Covington is kind of a lightning rod, kind
of love him or hate and type ofguy.
It's like the mics picked himup after you know, fighting
Kamara Usman again and they hadnasty things to say about and
he's just like hey man, you know, just just trying to get your
money up.
You know what I mean.
Like he's promoting the fightright and he's great at that,
but in the end there's there'smassive respect, daniel,
(47:42):
hopefully not the last time wetalk in this format, and what I
really would love some day is tobe in the same zip code as you
and get a Rollin on the mats.
Dude, come out, you don't haveto ask me twice to make a trip
down to San Diego one of myfavorite places on on planet
Earth.
I'll show the book again.
The book is called Backpack torucksack insight into leadership
(48:03):
and resilience by militaryexperts.
That's written by my man here,daniel Joseph.
And Daniel, just a shout out towhere people can find you, your
website and social channels andwhatever else, as you kind of
are on this mission for suicideawareness month, especially
geared towards veterans inSeptember and September 11th
being recently.
(48:23):
Just just shout out yourchannel so that people can do
more if they want to getinvolved.
Daniel Joseph (48:28):
Yeah, I mean.
First of all I just want to sayto everybody who served and who
is serving, thank you for yourservice and you guys are worth
it.
You know I steal that line frommy buddy, jp Lane.
He is a double amp, doubleamputee, lost his legs after a
200 pound IED exploded and healways tells people when they
thank him for a service he saysyou're worth it.
And I told him I was like JP,I'm gonna steal that bro, but
(48:49):
I'll give him credit for it.
So do what it takes to enrichyour life and be a healthier
person through whatever it isYou're struggling with, because
we're all human, we all havestruggles.
You can find me on combatpsychcom.
So if you go to combat psychyou can preview the book for the
first few chapters.
I'm working on the audiobookright now and I'm putting some
more content up and I hope tocreate some discussions going on
(49:11):
.
I don't have all the answers,but there's so much wisdom to be
shared the officers and theenlisted side of the house and
the military.
So if we put our heads together, will come up with some awesome
solutions to just grow oneanother, and Definitely I wanted
to involve anythinghand-to-hand on the mats for
sure.
Fitz (49:27):
Yeah, nice man.
Thanks for connecting Daniel.
It was great talking to you,thank you.
I appreciate you having me.
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