December 5, 2025 • 54 mins
From Silence to Strength: A Veteran's Journey
In this episode of Real Men Feel, host Andy Grant interviews Louis Stockley Jr., an army veteran, father, coach, and founder of Before 22. Louis shares his story of serving 17 years in military and federal service, facing emotional shutdowns, and nearly losing his family to his video game addiction. He discusses the pressures of masculinity, how the military shaped him, and the harrowing experiences of transitioning to civilian life.
Louis also talks about his turning point and the creation of Before 22, a movement to help veterans find purpose, brotherhood, and support before falling into severe mental health crises.
Join Andy and Louis as they explore the importance of vulnerability, brotherhood, and service in reclaiming one's life and voice.
00:00 Military Programming and Emotional Suppression
00:40 Introduction to Real Men Feel and Guest Louis Stockley Jr.
01:27 Louis Stockley's Military Background and Early Challenges
03:13 Lessons in Masculinity and Military Discipline
07:55 A Painful Lesson in Commitment
10:17 Transitioning to Civilian Life
18:28 Struggles with Trust and Isolation
21:32 The Turning Point: Overcoming Video Game Addiction
28:01 Discovering the Power of Fitness
29:00 Helping a Friend in Need
32:56 The Impact of Brotherhood
35:32 Facing Personal Challenges
38:10 Understanding Veterans' Struggles
41:18 The Mission of Before 22
47:33 Encouraging Vulnerability and Seeking Help
52:33 Final Thoughts and Resources
Connect with Louis
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/lstockley/
Louis on TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@vetcoachlouis
Before 22 — https://www.tiktok.com/@before22aday
Louis on IG — https://www.instagram.com/vetcoachlouis
Before 22 — https://www.instagram.com/before22aday/
Connect with Andy and the Real Men Feel Podcast:
Join me and connect with other like-minded men in the
Authentic AF Community | http://realmenfeel.org/group
Instagram | @realmenfeelshow & @theandygrant
Andy Grant | https://theandygrant.com for coaching, healing, and book info!
Real Men Feel | http://realmenfeel.org
YouTube | https://youtube.com/realmenfeel
#RealMenFeel ep 382
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The way the military programs you, they're not trying to
program you to be an emotional healthy employee.
They're trying to turn you into a killing machine, for lack of a
better word. And killing machines are more
efficient when they don't have, you know, emotions.
So they're like, there is no real emotion here.
It's basically like you're taught to keep smashing down
(00:23):
that emotion and ignoring it because someone could lose their
lives because you're distracted by your emotions.
And what happens is the big issue is OK, that's how you
you're going to function while you're in, but there's nothing
to deprogram that when you get out.
Hello and welcome to Real Midfield.
I'm your host, Andy Grant. Today my guest is Louis Stockley
(00:45):
Junior, an Army veteran, father,coach and founder of Before 22,
a movement built for the Warriors who are losing the war.
After the war. Lewis spent 17 years in military
and federal service, did everything he was supposed to
do, and still found himself drowning in silence, emotional
shutdown, and the pressure to keep performing while falling
(01:05):
apart inside. Instead of pretending everything
was fine, he turned his breakdown into a mission.
Today, we're talking about what it really means to be a man in
the world that trains us to suffer quietly.
What happens when the uniform comes off and the pain shows up,
and how men can reclaim their voice, their identity and their
life before silence wins. Let's do it.
(01:25):
Hello, Lewis, and welcome to REAL Men Feel.
I know you entered the military at a pretty young age.
How old were you when you went into the army?
I was 17, rushed out of high school.
And how long did you serve? I served for about 6 1/2.
Years. How did your experience in the
military shape your definition of masculinity?
(01:46):
For me, going into the military was different.
I had had kind of like male rolemodels, like I had an uncle, I
had a couple of uncles that wouldn't spend time with me on
and off things like that. But as far as a steady father
figure in my life, I didn't havethat.
But I did have tons of influences from the military
(02:08):
itself because all those people served.
My mom served stepdad who was inand out, served all those
different people, served in the military, and so I looked at
that as the way to develop myself to the next step.
So when I joined the military, Iwas still figuring out what
masculinity actually meant. I grew up.
(02:30):
I had to grow up really fast because my step dad left
unexpectedly. My mother had to pick up two
jobs to cover for that loss of income and keep things moving.
I picked up a job and stopped doing sports and instantly
started giving all my paychecks to the household, helping to
raise my sister who was seven years younger than me.
(02:52):
And so I came into it thinking that was the idea of masculine
is do everything you can and don't complain.
So naturally, I ran into lots oftrouble in the beginning of my
military career. Was the entire career kind of
problematic? Were you clashing with things or
or what were what were the issues?
(03:14):
So in the beginning it was more like just learning how to be,
how to be an adult. You know, all the typical things
that you know a father figure would teach you kind of like be
a man of your word if you say you're going to be here at this
time or if you have the responsibility to be there and
make sure their plan do all those different things.
I gained a lot of the military discipline and basic training,
(03:38):
which was 13 weeks, and I knew how to be a soldier.
But as far as an adult man, I still had no idea.
And my first real lesson in thatwas when I made a huge mistake.
I got stationed in Germany and it always starts with a girl.
So there was a girl that I had met back in training and I said
(04:01):
I'm going to go visit her. I was in the city of Mannheim in
Germany, and she lived in a citycalled Stuttgart.
And to get to Stuttgart is a very, very long train ride.
So I said, OK, I'll come hang out with you over the weekend
and see where you're stationed and, you know, we'll have fun.
And so I leave on Friday. I go there, no plan.
(04:25):
I barely had any money in my bank account, even though just
living life on the edge of the on the edge.
And I had no plan on how I was going to get back.
So on Sunday we had an amazing weekend.
On Sunday, she drops me off at the train station.
I'm like, OK, I'll be good here.First problem pops up, it's
(04:46):
dark, the train station isn't active.
I'm like, OK, what's going on here?
So I go inside the train station, nothing's running.
I managed to look at the schedule and realize that the
train stopped running at like 4:00 PM on Sundays there.
So they shut down. I'm due to be back information
(05:06):
in Manheim at 6:00 AM on Monday,but I have no way to get back
and I have no power on the cell phone.
We had Nokia phones back then, so that was like, you know,
those phones would die really fast.
Then I'd have the no money issue.
So I couldn't use a pay phone tocall or anything like that.
Not that I'd be able to dial because I'm still fresh in
(05:29):
Germany and have no clue how to do any of that.
I sleep on a park bench right there in the train station
listening to all the weird haunted sounds.
Smelling the piss on the bench probably counts that, you know,
lots of messed up people who were there and things like that.
I wake up to a train pulling into the station at 6:00 AM in
(05:51):
the morning time. I'm supposed to be basically at
work. I wake up, I hop on the train.
Couple hours later I get back there, my NCO or supervisor, he
gave me like the crazy. He cheered me out from left to
right, just basically chewed me out, gave me every punishment in
(06:12):
the book, which in the Army, you're doing push ups, you're
doing sit ups, you're doing essays about how important it is
to be on time. You're putting it on record
giving you what's called a counseling statement.
And I just couldn't figure out in my 1718 year old brain, I'm
like, why is he so angry? You know, what's his problem?
You know, because I'm like, OK, I'm getting consequences and all
(06:35):
that stuff, but what's his real problem?
And I still talk to him to this day.
And he was just really worried for my safety, like a father
figured me. And he was really drilling into
me the importance of some of these masculine principles.
Like if you say you're going to be a formation on Monday, you
need to make sure you know how you're going to be there, know
the plan. And if things go wrong, you need
(06:58):
to be able to get in contact with me because my
responsibility is to make sure you're safe, not just out of a
work role, but because you are the person that I'm responsible
for. You are kind of like my
childhood situation because I'm way further along in this career
than you are. And so he chewed me out.
And back then, I was really, really angry about it,
(07:20):
obviously. But, you know, as time went on
and I grew, I realized that was like one of my first real
masculine lessons from the military.
So the military overall was was it more like positive lessons,
at least in hindsight? It was mistakes, but but I guess
one of my gifts was just learning from the mistakes.
I made lots of different mistakes.
(07:41):
Even in basic training. We ran every single day.
You know, we ran every day for 13 weeks.
Part of the training, you get upand you do your PT, you do push
ups, sit ups in the organizationand you go for a maybe a one
mile to a three mile, four mile run.
On one of these runs, we're going up this thing I called the
Devil's Hill because it tricks you.
(08:01):
You think you're just going up this one hill and if you fight
and get up that hill, you're good.
But you get up there and you realize there's another hill and
that one goes way up there. And so it defeats people, right?
You get up to the first hill andyou stop.
But I was like, I'm not going tostop them to keep going.
And due to me just not being conditioned enough, I'm hitting
(08:22):
that second hill, trying to drive up the hill and I feel a
pop over here in my hip flexor. And then massive pain ensues.
And it was all I could do was tojog and kind of limp.
And so we're all running together in this formation, you
know? And instead of being in the
middle of the formation where I was, I had to go to the back of
(08:43):
it, which is where the people who are almost about to quit,
they go to the back of the formation and they start just
fading back as everybody just keeps going.
We all know the route, so nobodygets left behind.
But it's kind of, you know, a shameful thing.
So I basically ride it through that tear.
It was a partial tear. I would say if it was a full 1,
(09:04):
I probably wouldn't have been able to even limp.
That happened that Week 2. I went through the other 11
weeks with that injury just at night, just agonizing with it,
trying to stretch it 'cause you know, it'll get tight and it'll
swell up. It'll do all sorts of stuff.
That was the most pain I've everfelt ever.
And I just felt this. I just kind of I learned one
(09:28):
negative thing from it. One negative lesson was to keep
pushing through the pain no matter what happens, Whereas
sometimes it might be time to goget that looks hat might be time
to go get that fixed. But then the other lesson I
learned is how what does commitment really look like?
You know, and it's to say, and my commitment was, I can't go
(09:49):
back home. You know, things were not good
with my mother. There was no success there.
The people that I grew up with were into good things back in my
hometown. And I knew if I went back there,
I'm going to get sucked into allthat again.
So I said, OK, I got to commit to this.
It's either do or die. I'm going to do this now or not.
(10:10):
And so I kept going. The injury hardened over and I
just kept moving forward, just kind of learning lessons from
things that went wrong like that.
So I've heard you say that when you left the service, it was
like being dropped off in the deep end.
What was that deep end for you? The deep end for me is like
this. From the perspective of going
(10:31):
into the military at 17. I never truly had the adult
experience outside of the military.
Also, I go through and I become an adult going through the
military, which it's different because they kind of provide
everything for you, right? They give you the structure,
they feed you, they pay you, they give you health benefits
(10:52):
and all that stuff. All you have to do is fill out
forms and things and all those things are taken care of or even
a place to live for the most part.
I basically on my last year and a half, I was deployed.
That was my first ever deployment in the military.
So me and my wife, we who I had met in Germany, we, we get
(11:14):
stationed at Fort Campbell. I go through six or seven months
of a training exercise with my unit and then we deploy over to
Afghanistan. We spend all that time there and
when I come back, it's already time for me to get out.
And so I get out or start this terminal leave.
You just cash in all your leave and you're still getting paid
(11:34):
until the leave runs out, basically.
So I take my terminal, leave andI get out and all they basically
did was hand me a checklist. They didn't really check on my
mental state, physical state or anything.
They said here's all the gear that you have that we've issued
you. This is what we need back.
These are the different places you need to go.
(11:55):
Talk to this financial person, this person, that person, and
they're all like, you have any questions?
And I'm like, I don't even know what I don't know.
It's to ask the questions that need to happen and they're like,
OK, great. They just check you off on the
list and you and your goal, yourmission for the last few weeks
you're in is just to get throughthat checklist and then you get
(12:15):
out. And I knew what my plan was.
I wanted to join the government,you know, and be an IT doing
that, which is what I did in themilitary as well.
But beyond that, I had no idea what I was in for.
I had no clue even how to sign up for health insurance, for
example, and I had no real experience going and applying
(12:35):
for jobs like interview, doing all those things.
So it was really like I had to learn all that stuff and I had
massive amounts of pressure to learn it because my son was on
the, I got out in June. He was set to be born in
December. So he ended up being born
December 27th, which is, you know, a couple days after
(12:58):
Christmas. But I felt this pressure to just
figure it all out. So I would make lots of mistakes
and people would take advantage of that too.
Like we needed health insurance,My wife needed to go to OB
appointments, obviously do an ultrasound and do those things.
And he, I called like a 1800 number, told him the person on
(13:19):
the line, my situation, and he was basically like, yeah, I'm a
veteran. You know, I can relate to what's
going on here. I'll help you, right?
I'm like, OK, He said, he's a veteran immediately to me, no
world experience. I'm like, I'm just going to
trust this guy that he ain't saying everything he's going to
do. And so he's like, OK, so for
this insurance plan, you pay us around 5 grand and I'll set the
(13:43):
plan up for you. The cards will come in the mail.
You take her to her first appointment.
You're good. So without even thinking about
it, we pay the five grand, the cards come in the mail, we go to
the appointment, we have the ultrasound, We have this amazing
memory, you know, seeing my son on the screen and print out the
pictures and all that heartwarming moment.
(14:03):
And then I hand them the cards again.
They're like, let me take another look at that.
And the lady is kind of perplexed by it.
And we're like, OK, what's goingon?
She goes, takes the card to the back, the lady in the back calls
us back there and asks us to sitdown and she said this car
doesn't cover any. So whoever gave you this
insurance screwed you over big time because from right now
(14:26):
until the birth of your son, it's going to cost you around
$30,000 ME. No world experience, no job yet,
you know, savings are starting to run out, all that stuff.
And I'm faced with that $30,000 bill and just struggling trying
to figure it out. And I just had to keep running
(14:47):
into situations like that. Like we figure that out
eventually, obviously, you know,because my son's here and we're
not still paying a bunch of money to something.
But I finally keep grinding because while I was deployed
I've been working on my bachelor's degree because I knew
if I want to get in the government going to have that.
I had like 2 months left before I finished it and I was already
(15:09):
out of the military still tryingto get in the government.
Something told me just keep applying anyway, keep trying me
with no experience how it's supposed to work.
I kept applying and I ended up getting a job offer to go to DC.
We're in Fort Campbell, KY so wehave a house that we bought
there. We had to buy the house because
(15:30):
of how big my family was with the wife kids and we had dogs
that we brought with us. Nobody would let us rent an
apartment anywhere and rent a house because the dogs are pit
bulls. We had two pit bulls or, you
know, they thought they were like dangerous breeds like a
German shepherd or whatnot. And my, we're big animal people.
So we're like, no, we're not going to abandon our dogs just
so we can rent a house. So I'm like, I've never bought a
(15:52):
house. I'll figure out how to buy a
house in two weeks. I bought a house.
I said we need somebody to help us manage this property or put
somebody into rented so we can move out there because we're
going to be paying two mortgagesuntil we can do that.
So I go to the property management person and I'm like,
I need some help with the house.Duh, duh, duh.
(16:13):
And he's like, I'm a retired Sergeant major from the Army.
You know, trust me, I'm a veteran as well.
So again, me I'm like, no, he said he's a veteran.
He had he was a high-ranking guy.
He must be a leader, really trustworthy.
I'm like, OK, cool. He signed on the dotted line.
He says I'll put my best employee on this, my son.
(16:35):
So I'm like, OK, that sounds legit.
He's going to have his son, you know, work on this.
And so we leave and Long story short, they didn't do background
checks on the people it brought in.
They put in a convict wanted in like 3 different states.
Apparently him and a buddy pulled up to a Walmart, held up
an old lady at gunpoint, took her car and all sorts of stuff
(16:56):
from her and just ran and just left.
And so they had warrants out forthis guy and everything.
And again, this is me with 0 experience about how to deal
with stuff like this in life. Trying to just make it, trying
to protect my family, feed my family, all of that stuff.
Just you know, it felt like I got dropped off the deep end.
(17:17):
We figured it out because I ended up working for the
Department of Justice and I quickly gathered up connections
and the local PD didn't care. They were like warrants, not in
this state, so good luck. I didn't care These people were
in the house. So I, we had to fire the
property management people and Igot the creative idea to call a
(17:39):
local FBI office down there in Tennessee, told them that I'm
with the DOJ, you know, I need alittle help here, a little law
enforcement help, you know, fromone thread to another.
And I said, could you guys do something?
So they called the local PD and the local PD listened to them
and swung by the house and it spooked them so bad that they
(18:02):
left. They abandoned the house.
And it was a guy. The guy had the warrant for him.
It was his girlfriend and three kids that were in the house.
And we had tried to get them outbefore because they weren't
paying rent and the property manager wasn't doing anything
about it. So, you know, we got them out of
the house, but they left a dead dog in the backyard.
(18:24):
So all these different experiences are happening in my
mind. I'm attributing this to, man, I
can't trust veterans anymore. I'm getting to that point where
I'm ashamed to be a veteran. If this is how we act when we're
out, you know, I can't trust them.
Can't do any of that stuff. And so that's when I really
started to feel like isolated. I didn't even want to put on a
(18:46):
job application that I was a veteran anymore or talk to other
vets. I was like, I'm going to just
try to be at full on civilian and go through my life that way.
I know you said you used the phrase I'm good during all this
time, So what did you, what did I'm good mean for you?
What it meant for me is that I would just keep moving and
(19:08):
anything I was feeling in my mind, I would just keep
distracting myself, brother. And what was always prevalent
even since high school childhood, whatever was video
game. So I'm playing video games and
fighting for my life basically at the same time, trying to keep
booger on the table, fix all these different problems and
(19:28):
stuff, and just pour my emotion into whatever distraction I had,
which was bad. Just video games essentially.
If anybody ever asked what was going on with me, that's that
would be the answer. You know, I'm all right, I'm
good and nobody would really argue with that obviously
because I kept myself kind of isolated and on paper it looks
(19:52):
good, right. I'm working through the federal
government. I got to the point where I was
the youngest executive in that agency making probably about 130
KA year and. Just really killing it in my 20s
doing getting awards and accolades and stuff like that.
So in my mind, I'm looking at all that stuff, all those lists
of achievements and I'm like, I have to be good, right?
(20:14):
I've got all this stuff got on you going for me?
You know, it just came crashing down for me because I had this
list of goals to hit. One of them was that dollar
amount hit that 130K and I'm sitting in my, my office there
in DC and I'm thinking, and I'm look and I find this word doc
that had the list of goals checked off and stuff.
(20:36):
And I see the 130K and then I look at my paycheck and I'm
like, oh, I hit that. There wasn't a single goal after
that. And so my mind, this quiet
question popped up. That happens for a lot of
veterans after they think they achieved what they they achieved
what they think they wanted. What's next?
And when I didn't have an answerfor that question, man, I was
(20:57):
floored. That's when my mental health hit
the ground. It just tanked.
And so in order to cope with it,I said, oh, I play video games,
they feel good, let's play more video games.
So my life became, even with a wife, young kids and stuff like
that, it became work and video games.
(21:17):
That's all I had space for is toto try to bury everything I was
feeling in video games. And that went on for years,
thousands of dollars into these games and all sorts of stuff.
So what finally ended that? What ended it for me is deep
down we know as men when we're doing something wrong and what
(21:38):
we run for is we run from when we're doing the wrong thing.
Is accountability like obviouslyright as the one thing that will
make you stop in your tracks. My wife was obviously going to
be my accountability partner andshe is Russian and Serbian.
So she will never hold back, right?
She will make sure, but I didn'tgive her the opportunity because
(21:59):
I hid how much I was truly spending on these games.
All she saw is I was spending lots of time on it.
The bill came in the mail one month and it was thousands of
dollars spent in a month on justgames.
Like there was nothing palpable there.
Nothing like none investments oranything like that.
You know, it was just spending on games because they just
(22:21):
weren't interesting enough to keep this, this distraction
going. I had to keep getting more and
more and more. And she saw that and she was
shocked. You know, she was like, you
know, we could pay more bills with this.
We can put more food. We could do all these different
things. And you spent all this on games.
And she put her foot down and she said, you got to go.
And so I did. I packed up a duffel bag.
(22:44):
I went to a hotel. And well, and you know,
typically most guys, they might be stubborn, it'll take them a
few weeks to figure it out. Took me one night.
I was like, do I really want to?Cuz cuz I have this flashback of
all these times that I'm really sure that it's not like I didn't
try to stop playing the games. It's kind of that addiction
(23:05):
pattern of I would play for a couple weeks, feel really
guilty, try to cut it all cold Turkey, last for a few days and
then get right back to it again.Like, oh, problem must be gone.
Let's go back to it and fall right back into the same vicious
pattern over and over and over again.
So I'm having memories and flashbacks of all those times
where I'm playing games. There was even a time where my
(23:28):
wife was pregnant in Germany andshe's sitting next to me,
probably just wanting attention and all that and not saying
anything. And I'm just playing on my
computer. Just playing on my computer for
hours until she decided to just go to bed, you know, and all
these memories are coming back to me and I'm feeling all this
guilt and all this weight. And then it's kind of like God
(23:49):
was like, God was like, all right, now we're going to show
you 2 possibilities. Kind of like that Christmas
story, you know, where here's this, this possible future and
here's this one. And here's the future where
you're sitting in the basement somewhere renting a room and all
you do is play video games all day.
Your kids hate you, your wife divorces you.
That kind of lonely life where you're not fulfilled at all and
(24:12):
then here's the other life whereyou're actually achieving things
that make you feel good, you feel peaceful, you're OK with
your life and the games actuallydon't exist.
You don't feel the draw to them.And you know, I chose the, I
chose the other one. I chose the latter because I'm
here talking to you. I probably wouldn't have gone
through their extensive improvedself improvement journey that
(24:35):
I've been through for the last 10 years if I hadn't made that
one single choice. So I called my wife.
I say I don't know what this is going to look like, but I think
I need to make a major change. I'm done, you know?
So I said I don't know what to do next, but first thing I'm
going to do is come home and sell every game, delete every
game, do whatever I can to get all that stuff going.
(24:57):
And I did. I went home, I grabbed all this
stuff, threw it in a trash bag, went to GameStop, said what can
you buy from all this stuff? They bought what they could from
it, you know, and the rest I just threw away.
I just I left that GameStop and threw the rest in the trash can
and I still had the challenges because I have AIT guy.
(25:17):
So I have a computer all the time with me.
I have a phone all the time withme and there's always games
there. So the next step was me and my
wife decided was I need to get with a therapist.
I find some kind of therapist tohelp me go through all this.
And she did, she, she essentially kept working with me
every single week, just working with me to continue to stay off
(25:40):
of them because I quit cold Turkey just straight up.
And she had suggested go throughlike a 12 step program or
something like that. But I'm still in my head, like
I'm a veteran. I got to do this alone.
So I didn't do that. And it's so I worked out OK.
I, I kept going. I never went back.
So it's been many, many years since I've ever touched a game.
(26:02):
I learned some valuable lessons about being a man.
One of them in that beginning ofworking with this therapist was
vulnerability. That's something that's carried
me through all the way to now, you know, is just to be
vulnerable about what you're going through.
So the first place I got a master class in doing that was
sitting down with my kids, you know, and my wife together and
(26:27):
just telling them your dad is anaddict.
I know you guys love to play video games, but when I touch a
controller and when I play a video game, it's going to go to
a whole nother level. So I'm feeling all this shame
and embarrassment as I read, as I reveal all that to them.
And I'm thinking like, the kids are going to think, you know,
(26:47):
I'm failed them as a father and they're going to hate me and all
this stuff. And they were more like, how can
we help you with that? You know, what can we do
instead? And that kind of almost brought
me to tear. Then I'm like, wow, OK, that's
true love and support right there.
I never experienced that. And so I was like, sure, you
guys can play games. I'll be happy to sit around you
(27:10):
while you play them. But I can never join in with you
anymore. I can't do that.
I can't take part because if I do, I won't be the father, you
know, and remembering, I'll go back to being that guy.
So I, you know, we did that. I did the vulnerability thing
and then I went even deeper. I'm like, man, I, I just, I need
(27:31):
to do something because all I'm doing is working.
And then I come home and I'm just there with my thoughts
there with all the emotions I'vebeen burying from being deployed
and all that stuff. I need to do something.
So my mind went back to when didI feel the best?
When did I feel the best? And it was when I was deployed
with my brothers. We would get up every morning.
(27:53):
We would do P90X workouts. So we do those old P90X workouts
in the morning, they're on base.We would go work out in the gym
and hang out stuff. And I'm like, that feels like it
would be good thinking about doing those.
So I'd go download a bootleg copy of P90X workout and I start
getting up at 3:00 every morningbefore work and I just start
(28:16):
doing those workouts. I realized I felt really good.
It felt like I was back with them again, even though I was by
myself. And so I realized that's what I
was searching for was just more of that.
So then I started listening to motivational content while I'm
working out and I start taking the training even further.
And I go online and I find out there's calisthenics.
(28:38):
You know, where you can do all this crazy stuff with your body,
almost like you're a gymnast butnot, but you know, you can be
more expressive with how you work out.
So I start training calisthenicsand P90X and all this stuff gets
too easy. I just start building on these
things, discovering that there'sreally more to me than what I
thought and getting healthier. Now the the key piece that
(29:02):
really taught me everything thatcarries me to this day was when
I had the opportunity to help myfirst person.
Me and my wife had a friend fromGermany, was a military guy as
well, military policeman, and his situation was even crazier
than mine. I only deployed once in 10
years. He deployed every other year.
(29:22):
Every other year as a military policeman is insane because your
job is to protect the base so that you could be dealing with
car bombs, people trying to bum rush the entrance, all sorts of
hectic stuff that you're dealingwith all the time.
You know you're not going to sleep well, everything.
So he comes out obviously with massive problems.
(29:43):
He comes out around that time frame, goes to New York, His
family's not supportive. His father passes away as well.
We would have been his only support person that could
probably understand what he's going through.
Passes away. And me and my wife were like, we
just felt like we had to do something.
So she, she's always the one with the spontaneous ideas.
(30:05):
She's like, well, Thanksgiving is 2 weeks from now, invite him
over. They're like, invite him over.
Like stay with us over the holidays and stuff.
He's like, Yep, I'm like, all right, why not?
Screw it, you know, we'll do that.
And so he did. He came, stayed with us over the
holidays, slept on the couch. He had sleep apnea.
(30:25):
So the kids got a kick out of his snoring every night.
It's just like a great train in the living room.
And the kids kind of brought himout of the shell.
You know, when a kid comes and grabs you and says, let's go
play with trains, let's do all this stuff, you can't, you can't
stay Mr. Serious forever. So, you know, they pulled him
out of the shell. He was 300 lbs when he came.
(30:46):
So he was overweight, obviously depressed, PTSD, the whole 9
yards. I'm still working on myself at
the same time because I'm like, I have no clue how to get back
to where I need to be. So I'm just going to stick with
my routine of going down in my basement, grinding, working out,
listening to motivational content, reading and things like
(31:09):
that. And I get up, sneak past him
every morning before I go to work and start doing that.
And he kind of wakes up, you know, when I looks at what I'm
doing for a week and then the next week he comes down and
says, what are you doing down here, man?
I'm always hearing the music going and all that stuff.
And I'm like, I'm just working out, you know, I'm just
grinding, working on me, trying to get back to where I need to
(31:30):
be. And he's like, can I join you?
And so I was like kind of uncomfortable with it because
that have been my, you know, hadbeen my my little sanctuary for
so long where I feel like I'm growing and getting better and
I'm like, should I really have somebody else join in with this?
But I'm like, sure, man, go ahead, let's do it.
And so he comes down, he's struggling through, you know,
(31:52):
the workouts with me and stuff. And we had some amazing memories
and I just would keep pouring into them.
It just came from somewhere. I'm like, I don't know where
this is covers from, but let me say it to him and motivate him
and help him. And so you can imagine a lot of
the crazy stuff we did, like he was £300 and I had this little
dinky stand alone pull up bar. And so he does his push pull up
(32:16):
on that and the bar is just bending and crying for life.
And he he, that's the first pullup he ever got in like a long
time. You know, like he used to be a
bodybuilder so he knew all the stuff, but he hadn't felt it
before. And he said that felt amazing.
And so he's getting more in shape as we keep going because
we stayed through January as well.
(32:37):
And we're up at 4:00 AM one morning in front of my street
with the the two lane Rd. that'susually empty, doing wind
sprints from mailbox to mailbox,just yelling.
And it's, you know, amping each other up like soldiers would
usually do. Just having a great time waking
up the neighbors and stuff. We just by the time we were
(32:58):
done, it healed a piece of me and he got to a place where he
was really good too. And he said, so I, I
instinctively or intuitively, which is how I usually coach
people when I was coaching, is ask them like what, what's the
goal you have for yourself? What do you want to do next?
You know what, what is that? And he said, you know, I really
(33:18):
want to serve again. I want to be a policeman up
there in New York. So I'm like, go for it, man.
Just apply, see what happens. So when he left out the end of
January, went applied to be in the police Academy, he was in
shape. He was down from 300 to 200 lbs.
And you know, it fit and everything because he was eating
the way I was eating. He was working out the way I was
(33:40):
working out. And they told him no.
They said you got PTSD on your record.
We just don't trust it, you know, psychological wise.
So they told him no, but becauseof all the things we've been
doing, he was resilient. And he said, OK, maybe that
dream isn't it for me. And he became head of security
at a psych facility and just started doing that, helping
(34:02):
people stay safe in that facility and kept doing that.
And he still works different types of security positions and
stuff to this day. I still talk to him.
He's actually going to come thisChristmas possibly as well.
So he has a even, he's even a single father with a daughter
now. And you know, I like to think
that that's the first person I truly helped and, and figured
(34:25):
myself out in the same process too.
There's two guys, two men just grinding it out, figuring our
shit out, you know? So is that really when you
discovered the power of brotherhood and the power and
the good feelings that you beingof service, being being a coach
brought to you? Well, it's kind of like it.
It woken back up because that's what the military builds you on,
(34:49):
Brotherhood and sisterhood. Because when you're deployed, if
you don't have that kind of connection where you would give
your life to the other person, it's very likely that the
mission isn't going to be successful, which is what the
military's thinking like. So they're like, how can we get
these people to bond as strong as possible as quickly as
possible? We're going to put them in the
same uniform. Do what's called fear bonding.
(35:11):
You're all going to do crazy training and experiences
together and go through all these things together so that we
can build this tight, cohesive team.
I just didn't know that's what was happening.
And then it just kind of woke upwhen I'm working with him, like,
oh, this feels really good, you know?
And that's when I was like, OK, that's part of the puzzle that
was missing. Cool.
(35:32):
I want, I want to go back to when your wife kicks you out and
Yep, I 'cause I, I think it's miraculous that this was a
positive turning point for you instead of a death spiral, which
is what it is for so many other men.
So what do you think it was thatthat made you make the best out
of a really poor situation? I don't know, I just have this
(35:53):
weird way of thinking, like family kind of calls it mind
over manner. And I was thinking like, what do
I want? You know, because I've been
there before the other side where I'm alone, playing video
games, living this life I hate because that's what my life was
like in high school. I didn't take part in any of the
(36:13):
activities in high school exceptprom.
When I quit sports, all I would do was work and go to school.
And so I knew what that felt like already.
And it was kind of like, I don'twant to go back to that anymore.
And so in my mind, it became a very simple choice.
You know, yeah, this is going tobe painful and hard, but you've
(36:35):
dealt with painful and hard before.
So might as well go right back to it and and see if it makes
your life better because the other option isn't going to be
worth it at all. The way I equate it to is this
one question is it's something Itaught other people that I coach
to, and it's am I going to quit now?
Because when you ask yourself a question, like, even if you
(36:56):
don't mean to get an answer, your mind is going to
immediately answer for you. It just slips right through the
veil, you know, can't get filtered out.
And so you ask yourself that question, am I going to quit
now? The answer is going to be no.
And so once the answer becomes no, your only option at that
point is to begin to think of solutions.
And you start thinking of options and solutions instead of
(37:19):
quitting then you're moving forward then.
Come on. Yeah.
That our brain really exists to answer questions.
So it is all about. Thank God you're asking more
uplifting questions. If you know, if I was in that
situation, I would have been asking like, why does everything
suck so much? Why what I screw up did get here
and and that would be part of that spiral down.
So I'm glad you didn't go there.And it you know, hearing your
(37:42):
story, it really feels like loveis what you got to go the the
love for your children, love foryour wife, the love you knew
existed for you very. True.
Yeah, cool. Very true.
That was it too. Yeah.
Because I think, yeah, I think if it was just me by myself
facing the same challenges, I probably would have ended up
(38:03):
going all the way to being homeless.
You know, like I think I just didn't want to let them down as
well. Why are so many vets terrified
to talk about what's really going on for them?
There's a lot of different reasons.
Some of them could be like me. We had lots of bad experiences
and we're afraid to open up because we've been shown a few
(38:26):
times or time and time again that when we open up even just a
little bit or try to, you know, let ourselves open to trust
something or someone, we get letdown.
And so as a soldier that we are,we know serve and we're depended
on and all those things. So we're going to just, we're
(38:48):
going to smush it all down and just keep driving forward not
realizing there's an expiration date.
So there's that. Then there's the the way the
military programs you, they're not trying to program you to be
an emotional healthy employee. They're trying to turn you into
a killing machine, for lack of abetter word.
And killing machines are more efficient when they don't have,
(39:11):
you know, emotions. So they're like, there is no
real emotion here. It's just focusing on the
mission, though. It's basically like you're
taught to keep smashing down that emotion and ignoring it
because someone could lose theirlives because you're distracted
by your emotions and everything like that.
(39:31):
What happens is the big issue is, OK, that's how you you're
going to function while you're in, but there's nothing to
deprogram that when you get out.So guys will continue that way
until they can't anymore until so or until maybe somebody's
able to reach them and get them to see, OK, we got to start
making changes. Yeah, there, there.
(39:52):
There's no opposite of boot camp, No, no healthy exit camp
that would really stick you up. So tell me about before 22.
So the 422 is based on that premise where there just isn't.
There's just a huge gap there where guys are getting out of
the military, they're getting out by surprise, they're getting
(40:15):
out 'cause they think they want to or they're planned to.
And once they're actually out and the structure and
camaraderie and everything in the military is gone, they feel
like they're dropped by the wayside.
That void shows up, that darkness in your chest shows up.
Like you, man, I missed that. I wish I was back there cuz now
(40:35):
this doesn't feel very safe, secure anymore.
And I don't know what's missing.And so Before 22 exists to put
words to those emotions and those feelings that are coming
up, but not just leave you with that, not like hand you that and
say, OK, that's how you're feeling.
It's kind of like leading you toOK, so if something's missing,
(40:58):
what's missing? And so we try to teach them
about purpose, try to teach themabout finding a brotherhood
because we have the group Before22 that we try to bring people
in there. But we're like, if you don't go
there, find some place like that, you know, try different
things there. And Before 22 is essential, a
shot out in the darkness that speaks so deeply to what you're
(41:21):
feeling that if you've been struggling, we call them silent
warriors. If you've been a silent warrior
struggling for a long time, justkeeping quiet about it, just
something about our message makes you wake up and decide,
OK, I'm going to say something or I'm going to ask for help.
And so many times we'll see in the comments section, people are
just saying, like, we had a guy come in there a month or so ago
(41:45):
saying, you know, I'm just thinking about taking my own
life already, you know, but I don't want to leave my family
behind. And I'm not sure what to do to
get help, you know? And so like, that's just one
example. But that guy, he served in the
military, got out, became a firefighter.
So that's even more stuff that he's dealing with.
(42:06):
And he's an active, he was an active firefighter.
And there they have this thing where they're linked to your
health insurance. So if you try to use your
assurance to go get some type ofpsychiatric or psychological
care, it will flag you and they could review you to remove you
from your career just because you tried to go get help for
(42:27):
your mental health. And so he he telling us that
like, I need help. I don't want to lose my family,
but if I try to go get this help, I'm going to lose
everything. You know, I'm going to lose my
livelihood and I'm going to be able to feed and support my
family. So it's like a huge catch 22.
(42:47):
We were like, holy crap, I always find help.
We, we did, we, we made so many calls and we found places where
it's like if you pay cash, we don't need to go for your
insurance at all or anything. We'll have a bed available.
You take some leave, you come stay with us.
You get yourself together, you go back to your life, found a
place with a bed open for him and he got the help he needed.
(43:08):
But those are the gaps that are out there for these soldiers
that come out of the military. They feel like they're dropped
out of the wayside and they'll just sit with that.
And me, luckily I naturally progressed to going through all
that stuff. I did have moments where I
thought of taking my own life aswell, but I luckily was I had
(43:31):
people that would do things likethey one guy convinced me to go
to this three-week program. That program ultimately saved my
life because I sat down first person I sat down with when they
flew me out there to stay at this program that I thought was
going to be all about getting a fitness cert, but it was really
about, you know, psychological health and things like that
(43:52):
along with the fitness stuff. I sit down in front of the
psychologist, His name was Johnny, and he's just got this
upbeat energy and he's just talking to me like I've never
been talked to before, just asking me about stuff because of
me going there. Put my marriage on the rocks.
My wife was like, you're leavingus to go do this.
And I don't understand what's going on.
(44:13):
I couldn't tell her. I'm thinking about not being
around anymore, so I need to do something.
So I just had to make the choiceto go get that help and put it
back together when I can't. Hulk.
So I'm feeling all that and he can see it and he's speaking to
me about all that. He's like, don't worry about it
man, we'll figure it out as we go, blah, blah, blah.
But then what stuck with me was at the end, he was like, all
(44:36):
right, man, you're going to do great here.
I'm here every single day. We're always going to be
talking. I love you, brother.
That's what he said. He looked me straight in the
eyes. And he was like, I love you,
brother. And that was the first grown man
ever to say that to me. Isn't that crazy?
The first grown man in my entirelife to say, like, I love you.
(44:57):
And I didn't even know what to do with that one.
I was like, OK, yeah, I just walked away back to the table,
but thank you. But that, yeah, it stuck with
me, man. And I was like, why?
Why am I? Why is that feel so awkward to
me? Why does that that's something
that was like amazing. You know, I want to just, that
(45:18):
just shook my entire foundation.And I try to create, I want to
create experiences like that with Before 22.
And I want to do it at the levelof social media because there
are veterans always in the middle of the night scrolling
looking for something. And if I can hit them with the
(45:39):
right video at the right time, and that's another life saved
right there. Before they even have to go sit
down in front of a therapist, before they're even figuring out
what to do and they're maybe thinking they don't want to be
around anymore. I can get a message to them.
And then if they, they usually are compelled to reach out if
they're at that level of pain. And then I have the opportunity
(46:03):
to route them with the differentresources that we're building
and linking up and setting up and things like that.
And we're also, and the thing that's controversial about
before 22 as well as we're not anon profit.
Oh, everything, every resource Iget and create is going to go
towards helping veterans and allowing me to keep helping
them. But I'm doing it running it as a
(46:25):
business because I had the benefit of seeing inside a lot
of these veteran nonprofits And the well is like dry, you know,
like I tried to get guys help and stuff like that.
And they'd always be like, we don't have space available.
We don't have resources, we don't have money.
And I'm like, if we had a viableproduct that did that, you know,
(46:46):
was like a win, win. Did this for that person that
paid and gave you the resources to help.
That would be it. We could make as much resources
as we need and never have to hear no when a guy comes and
asks for help. So I said before 22 will be
about making apparel and spreading these messages.
And now the apparel will be an extension of the messages being
(47:08):
spread because when you wear theshirt before 22, it says the
mission is to survive or whatever other stuff I come up
with. You know, people will ask,
especially veterans because it kind of speaks to them, you
know, on a deep level. It'll be like, what's that
about? And you can be like, go check
out this video. This is what it is.
And then that's another person that maybe needed some help that
(47:29):
will be able to get it, be able to join the group, find a
brotherhood, find something. It amazes and saddens me still
that, you know, we're encouraging men to be
vulnerable, to tell them it's OKto ask for help and get help and
you're worthy of support. And then there's still aspects
of society that will punish them.
You know your job at risk, you put your family at list, you put
your livelihood at risk. It's it's fucking horrible.
(47:52):
So what? What is the meaning?
What is before 22 mean? The statistic used to be that 22
veterans a day were taking theirown lives.
It's more like 60 now. the VA just doesn't keep track of it
because when a veteran takes their own life, the death
certificate isn't typically reported to the VA.
(48:14):
They're not clamoring to get that statistic or information
either because that means that they're failing at their task of
protecting and helping veterans.So but 22 a day is the coin term
that is well known across veteran communities and law
enforcement and 1st responder across the, you know, social
(48:35):
media. So we said we want to catch you
before you become one of the 22.So you came with the 4/22?
So if there's a guy out there who's obviously shutting down
and in trouble to the people around him, but he's staying
silent, what's some advice for for his friends, for his family?
What? What can they do to help him?
(48:56):
The advice is to have courage because I've actually helped a
few families that way as well, where sometimes you'll get the
guy that's quiet and reserved and depressed and would just be
like, you know, I'm all right and just melts away.
But then you'll get the other kind that gets defensive but
loud and tries to kind of scare you away.
(49:18):
And it's like, as a family member, you don't have to sit
there and take the face value answer just because it's awkward
or it's going to be a tough conversation.
And you can kind of feel that inyour soul.
You can be like, no, what's really going on?
I know something's up, so let meknow what's going on.
(49:38):
And it takes one family member usually, like one of the last
one was a black sheep, you know,his sister, you like, you know
what, what do I need to do? And it was kind of like she's
going to yell, he's going to he's going to throw a tantrum.
He's definitely not going to hurt you.
He loves you, but he's trying toscare you away because you know,
he's got all this trauma and stuff going on.
(50:00):
But what you're going to do is keep bringing it up.
If he throws the tantrum, sure, go ahead and go away.
But when he comes trying to talkto you about something else,
you're just bringing up again and again until he was like, all
right, fine, I'll go talk to somebody and mission
accomplished. Then you get him to the next
step where he'll at least speak to somebody.
(50:20):
Because what's scary, that's theother thing I teach families, is
if he's showing emotion, whetherit's sadness or fear,
frustration, annoyance, anger, any of those that's that's
actually a good thing. They're like, that's good.
And I'm like, yeah, it's good because the worst place that
they can be is an absence of emotion.
Apathy. When you're apathetic, when
(50:43):
different thoughts come into your head, they become truths,
they become fact. So the thought of maybe it'd be
better if I'm not around anymore.
When you're in the place of apathy, that's when that
decision becomes an action. More likely the barrier between
just a thought and taking an action, that barrier is just
(51:04):
dropped. And so if they're at that place
where a lot of those things justdon't bring them joy anymore, or
they don't want to play video games, they don't want to go out
anymore and and they just seem like an emotional robot, that's
the place where you want to try to figure out how to get them to
feel something again. Lewis, what's the best way for
people to connect with you, follow you?
(51:26):
Best way is on any of the platforms you can find me is Vet
Coach Lewis or you can find the organization as before 22.
Both sides of the same coin. I speak personally from my
experiences on Vet Coach Lewis and I teach everything I learned
as a coach, coaching entrepreneurs and and business
(51:50):
owners and professionals and stuff.
I just put it out for free on there just trying to help as
many as I can. And then on before 22, those are
voice over AI videos completely written and designed by me with
the imagery and everything like that, that will speak to
somebody who's struggling or somebody that needs a new
perspective in the effort to help them see themselves in the
(52:13):
video and say, OK, me write something, let me comment.
So if if you want to connect with me, that's great.
But if you do find someone that's struggling, just tell
them to search before 22 and take a look at a video at the
top end. They'll probably connect with
that message quickly and realizemaybe this is something I should
look deeper into. And finally, Lewis, what do you
(52:35):
wish more men knew? I wish more men knew to to don't
beat yourself up because nobody hasn't figured out 100%.
And so the best thing that you can do as a man is to try to get
around those you feel are further ahead than you are and
(52:57):
give yourself grace for the mistakes that you made.
And not to say that you don't feel anything from making the
mistake and you're not going to try to correct it, but it's a
lot easier process if you don't beat yourself up over it because
you have to look at your life, the life of those that came
before you. And I look at my parents, you
know, the father, my biological father, he's kind of emotionally
(53:21):
disconnected. We have a good relationship, but
he's not as connected as emotions or as vulnerable as I
am. He's coming along, you know,
talking to me, but you have to say they worked with everything
they had available to me, all the tools and all that stuff.
And you're doing everything thatyou experienced and all the
(53:41):
tools you had. You're doing the best you can
what you've got. So just try to figure out how to
do more and learn more and be around the right people.
Awesome. Oh, man, I'm so glad that you
got over your fear of trusting vets and they're now helping
them. And you found the joy of service
in how it can reward you and allthe people you touch.
(54:02):
We, we need that. We need an army of Lewis's.
Thanks for joining us today. And thanks to Louis Stockley
junior. He's living proof that the war
inside ends the moment Amanda sides to stop hiding and start
speaking truth. If something in this
conversation woke something up for you, don't let it fade.
Don't go back to I'm good. If you're not, check out Lewis's
work at Before 22. And if you're a man looking for
(54:24):
community connection and a placeto take the masks off without
judgement, join me inside Authentic AF, my online men's
community. We have men's groups, guided
meditations, real conversation, and a space where you don't have
to pretend. Visit realmenfield.org/group and
step inside. And until next time, be good to
yourself.
The way the military programs you, they're not trying to
program you to be an emotional healthy employee.
They're trying to turn you into a killing machine, for lack of a
better word. And killing machines are more
efficient when they don't have, you know, emotions.
So they're like, there is no real emotion here.
It's basically like you're taught to keep smashing down
(00:23):
that emotion and ignoring it because someone could lose their
lives because you're distracted by your emotions.
And what happens is the big issue is OK, that's how you
you're going to function while you're in, but there's nothing
to deprogram that when you get out.
Hello and welcome to Real Midfield.
I'm your host, Andy Grant. Today my guest is Louis Stockley
(00:45):
Junior, an Army veteran, father,coach and founder of Before 22,
a movement built for the Warriors who are losing the war.
After the war. Lewis spent 17 years in military
and federal service, did everything he was supposed to
do, and still found himself drowning in silence, emotional
shutdown, and the pressure to keep performing while falling
(01:05):
apart inside. Instead of pretending everything
was fine, he turned his breakdown into a mission.
Today, we're talking about what it really means to be a man in
the world that trains us to suffer quietly.
What happens when the uniform comes off and the pain shows up,
and how men can reclaim their voice, their identity and their
life before silence wins. Let's do it.
(01:25):
Hello, Lewis, and welcome to REAL Men Feel.
I know you entered the military at a pretty young age.
How old were you when you went into the army?
I was 17, rushed out of high school.
And how long did you serve? I served for about 6 1/2.
Years. How did your experience in the
military shape your definition of masculinity?
(01:46):
For me, going into the military was different.
I had had kind of like male rolemodels, like I had an uncle, I
had a couple of uncles that wouldn't spend time with me on
and off things like that. But as far as a steady father
figure in my life, I didn't havethat.
But I did have tons of influences from the military
(02:08):
itself because all those people served.
My mom served stepdad who was inand out, served all those
different people, served in the military, and so I looked at
that as the way to develop myself to the next step.
So when I joined the military, Iwas still figuring out what
masculinity actually meant. I grew up.
(02:30):
I had to grow up really fast because my step dad left
unexpectedly. My mother had to pick up two
jobs to cover for that loss of income and keep things moving.
I picked up a job and stopped doing sports and instantly
started giving all my paychecks to the household, helping to
raise my sister who was seven years younger than me.
(02:52):
And so I came into it thinking that was the idea of masculine
is do everything you can and don't complain.
So naturally, I ran into lots oftrouble in the beginning of my
military career. Was the entire career kind of
problematic? Were you clashing with things or
or what were what were the issues?
(03:14):
So in the beginning it was more like just learning how to be,
how to be an adult. You know, all the typical things
that you know a father figure would teach you kind of like be
a man of your word if you say you're going to be here at this
time or if you have the responsibility to be there and
make sure their plan do all those different things.
I gained a lot of the military discipline and basic training,
(03:38):
which was 13 weeks, and I knew how to be a soldier.
But as far as an adult man, I still had no idea.
And my first real lesson in thatwas when I made a huge mistake.
I got stationed in Germany and it always starts with a girl.
So there was a girl that I had met back in training and I said
(04:01):
I'm going to go visit her. I was in the city of Mannheim in
Germany, and she lived in a citycalled Stuttgart.
And to get to Stuttgart is a very, very long train ride.
So I said, OK, I'll come hang out with you over the weekend
and see where you're stationed and, you know, we'll have fun.
And so I leave on Friday. I go there, no plan.
(04:25):
I barely had any money in my bank account, even though just
living life on the edge of the on the edge.
And I had no plan on how I was going to get back.
So on Sunday we had an amazing weekend.
On Sunday, she drops me off at the train station.
I'm like, OK, I'll be good here.First problem pops up, it's
(04:46):
dark, the train station isn't active.
I'm like, OK, what's going on here?
So I go inside the train station, nothing's running.
I managed to look at the schedule and realize that the
train stopped running at like 4:00 PM on Sundays there.
So they shut down. I'm due to be back information
(05:06):
in Manheim at 6:00 AM on Monday,but I have no way to get back
and I have no power on the cell phone.
We had Nokia phones back then, so that was like, you know,
those phones would die really fast.
Then I'd have the no money issue.
So I couldn't use a pay phone tocall or anything like that.
Not that I'd be able to dial because I'm still fresh in
(05:29):
Germany and have no clue how to do any of that.
I sleep on a park bench right there in the train station
listening to all the weird haunted sounds.
Smelling the piss on the bench probably counts that, you know,
lots of messed up people who were there and things like that.
I wake up to a train pulling into the station at 6:00 AM in
(05:51):
the morning time. I'm supposed to be basically at
work. I wake up, I hop on the train.
Couple hours later I get back there, my NCO or supervisor, he
gave me like the crazy. He cheered me out from left to
right, just basically chewed me out, gave me every punishment in
(06:12):
the book, which in the Army, you're doing push ups, you're
doing sit ups, you're doing essays about how important it is
to be on time. You're putting it on record
giving you what's called a counseling statement.
And I just couldn't figure out in my 1718 year old brain, I'm
like, why is he so angry? You know, what's his problem?
You know, because I'm like, OK, I'm getting consequences and all
(06:35):
that stuff, but what's his real problem?
And I still talk to him to this day.
And he was just really worried for my safety, like a father
figured me. And he was really drilling into
me the importance of some of these masculine principles.
Like if you say you're going to be a formation on Monday, you
need to make sure you know how you're going to be there, know
the plan. And if things go wrong, you need
(06:58):
to be able to get in contact with me because my
responsibility is to make sure you're safe, not just out of a
work role, but because you are the person that I'm responsible
for. You are kind of like my
childhood situation because I'm way further along in this career
than you are. And so he chewed me out.
And back then, I was really, really angry about it,
(07:20):
obviously. But, you know, as time went on
and I grew, I realized that was like one of my first real
masculine lessons from the military.
So the military overall was was it more like positive lessons,
at least in hindsight? It was mistakes, but but I guess
one of my gifts was just learning from the mistakes.
I made lots of different mistakes.
(07:41):
Even in basic training. We ran every single day.
You know, we ran every day for 13 weeks.
Part of the training, you get upand you do your PT, you do push
ups, sit ups in the organizationand you go for a maybe a one
mile to a three mile, four mile run.
On one of these runs, we're going up this thing I called the
Devil's Hill because it tricks you.
(08:01):
You think you're just going up this one hill and if you fight
and get up that hill, you're good.
But you get up there and you realize there's another hill and
that one goes way up there. And so it defeats people, right?
You get up to the first hill andyou stop.
But I was like, I'm not going tostop them to keep going.
And due to me just not being conditioned enough, I'm hitting
(08:22):
that second hill, trying to drive up the hill and I feel a
pop over here in my hip flexor. And then massive pain ensues.
And it was all I could do was tojog and kind of limp.
And so we're all running together in this formation, you
know? And instead of being in the
middle of the formation where I was, I had to go to the back of
(08:43):
it, which is where the people who are almost about to quit,
they go to the back of the formation and they start just
fading back as everybody just keeps going.
We all know the route, so nobodygets left behind.
But it's kind of, you know, a shameful thing.
So I basically ride it through that tear.
It was a partial tear. I would say if it was a full 1,
(09:04):
I probably wouldn't have been able to even limp.
That happened that Week 2. I went through the other 11
weeks with that injury just at night, just agonizing with it,
trying to stretch it 'cause you know, it'll get tight and it'll
swell up. It'll do all sorts of stuff.
That was the most pain I've everfelt ever.
And I just felt this. I just kind of I learned one
(09:28):
negative thing from it. One negative lesson was to keep
pushing through the pain no matter what happens, Whereas
sometimes it might be time to goget that looks hat might be time
to go get that fixed. But then the other lesson I
learned is how what does commitment really look like?
You know, and it's to say, and my commitment was, I can't go
(09:49):
back home. You know, things were not good
with my mother. There was no success there.
The people that I grew up with were into good things back in my
hometown. And I knew if I went back there,
I'm going to get sucked into allthat again.
So I said, OK, I got to commit to this.
It's either do or die. I'm going to do this now or not.
(10:10):
And so I kept going. The injury hardened over and I
just kept moving forward, just kind of learning lessons from
things that went wrong like that.
So I've heard you say that when you left the service, it was
like being dropped off in the deep end.
What was that deep end for you? The deep end for me is like
this. From the perspective of going
(10:31):
into the military at 17. I never truly had the adult
experience outside of the military.
Also, I go through and I become an adult going through the
military, which it's different because they kind of provide
everything for you, right? They give you the structure,
they feed you, they pay you, they give you health benefits
(10:52):
and all that stuff. All you have to do is fill out
forms and things and all those things are taken care of or even
a place to live for the most part.
I basically on my last year and a half, I was deployed.
That was my first ever deployment in the military.
So me and my wife, we who I had met in Germany, we, we get
(11:14):
stationed at Fort Campbell. I go through six or seven months
of a training exercise with my unit and then we deploy over to
Afghanistan. We spend all that time there and
when I come back, it's already time for me to get out.
And so I get out or start this terminal leave.
You just cash in all your leave and you're still getting paid
(11:34):
until the leave runs out, basically.
So I take my terminal, leave andI get out and all they basically
did was hand me a checklist. They didn't really check on my
mental state, physical state or anything.
They said here's all the gear that you have that we've issued
you. This is what we need back.
These are the different places you need to go.
(11:55):
Talk to this financial person, this person, that person, and
they're all like, you have any questions?
And I'm like, I don't even know what I don't know.
It's to ask the questions that need to happen and they're like,
OK, great. They just check you off on the
list and you and your goal, yourmission for the last few weeks
you're in is just to get throughthat checklist and then you get
(12:15):
out. And I knew what my plan was.
I wanted to join the government,you know, and be an IT doing
that, which is what I did in themilitary as well.
But beyond that, I had no idea what I was in for.
I had no clue even how to sign up for health insurance, for
example, and I had no real experience going and applying
(12:35):
for jobs like interview, doing all those things.
So it was really like I had to learn all that stuff and I had
massive amounts of pressure to learn it because my son was on
the, I got out in June. He was set to be born in
December. So he ended up being born
December 27th, which is, you know, a couple days after
(12:58):
Christmas. But I felt this pressure to just
figure it all out. So I would make lots of mistakes
and people would take advantage of that too.
Like we needed health insurance,My wife needed to go to OB
appointments, obviously do an ultrasound and do those things.
And he, I called like a 1800 number, told him the person on
(13:19):
the line, my situation, and he was basically like, yeah, I'm a
veteran. You know, I can relate to what's
going on here. I'll help you, right?
I'm like, OK, He said, he's a veteran immediately to me, no
world experience. I'm like, I'm just going to
trust this guy that he ain't saying everything he's going to
do. And so he's like, OK, so for
this insurance plan, you pay us around 5 grand and I'll set the
(13:43):
plan up for you. The cards will come in the mail.
You take her to her first appointment.
You're good. So without even thinking about
it, we pay the five grand, the cards come in the mail, we go to
the appointment, we have the ultrasound, We have this amazing
memory, you know, seeing my son on the screen and print out the
pictures and all that heartwarming moment.
(14:03):
And then I hand them the cards again.
They're like, let me take another look at that.
And the lady is kind of perplexed by it.
And we're like, OK, what's goingon?
She goes, takes the card to the back, the lady in the back calls
us back there and asks us to sitdown and she said this car
doesn't cover any. So whoever gave you this
insurance screwed you over big time because from right now
(14:26):
until the birth of your son, it's going to cost you around
$30,000 ME. No world experience, no job yet,
you know, savings are starting to run out, all that stuff.
And I'm faced with that $30,000 bill and just struggling trying
to figure it out. And I just had to keep running
(14:47):
into situations like that. Like we figure that out
eventually, obviously, you know,because my son's here and we're
not still paying a bunch of money to something.
But I finally keep grinding because while I was deployed
I've been working on my bachelor's degree because I knew
if I want to get in the government going to have that.
I had like 2 months left before I finished it and I was already
(15:09):
out of the military still tryingto get in the government.
Something told me just keep applying anyway, keep trying me
with no experience how it's supposed to work.
I kept applying and I ended up getting a job offer to go to DC.
We're in Fort Campbell, KY so wehave a house that we bought
there. We had to buy the house because
(15:30):
of how big my family was with the wife kids and we had dogs
that we brought with us. Nobody would let us rent an
apartment anywhere and rent a house because the dogs are pit
bulls. We had two pit bulls or, you
know, they thought they were like dangerous breeds like a
German shepherd or whatnot. And my, we're big animal people.
So we're like, no, we're not going to abandon our dogs just
so we can rent a house. So I'm like, I've never bought a
(15:52):
house. I'll figure out how to buy a
house in two weeks. I bought a house.
I said we need somebody to help us manage this property or put
somebody into rented so we can move out there because we're
going to be paying two mortgagesuntil we can do that.
So I go to the property management person and I'm like,
I need some help with the house.Duh, duh, duh.
(16:13):
And he's like, I'm a retired Sergeant major from the Army.
You know, trust me, I'm a veteran as well.
So again, me I'm like, no, he said he's a veteran.
He had he was a high-ranking guy.
He must be a leader, really trustworthy.
I'm like, OK, cool. He signed on the dotted line.
He says I'll put my best employee on this, my son.
(16:35):
So I'm like, OK, that sounds legit.
He's going to have his son, you know, work on this.
And so we leave and Long story short, they didn't do background
checks on the people it brought in.
They put in a convict wanted in like 3 different states.
Apparently him and a buddy pulled up to a Walmart, held up
an old lady at gunpoint, took her car and all sorts of stuff
(16:56):
from her and just ran and just left.
And so they had warrants out forthis guy and everything.
And again, this is me with 0 experience about how to deal
with stuff like this in life. Trying to just make it, trying
to protect my family, feed my family, all of that stuff.
Just you know, it felt like I got dropped off the deep end.
(17:17):
We figured it out because I ended up working for the
Department of Justice and I quickly gathered up connections
and the local PD didn't care. They were like warrants, not in
this state, so good luck. I didn't care These people were
in the house. So I, we had to fire the
property management people and Igot the creative idea to call a
(17:39):
local FBI office down there in Tennessee, told them that I'm
with the DOJ, you know, I need alittle help here, a little law
enforcement help, you know, fromone thread to another.
And I said, could you guys do something?
So they called the local PD and the local PD listened to them
and swung by the house and it spooked them so bad that they
(18:02):
left. They abandoned the house.
And it was a guy. The guy had the warrant for him.
It was his girlfriend and three kids that were in the house.
And we had tried to get them outbefore because they weren't
paying rent and the property manager wasn't doing anything
about it. So, you know, we got them out of
the house, but they left a dead dog in the backyard.
(18:24):
So all these different experiences are happening in my
mind. I'm attributing this to, man, I
can't trust veterans anymore. I'm getting to that point where
I'm ashamed to be a veteran. If this is how we act when we're
out, you know, I can't trust them.
Can't do any of that stuff. And so that's when I really
started to feel like isolated. I didn't even want to put on a
(18:46):
job application that I was a veteran anymore or talk to other
vets. I was like, I'm going to just
try to be at full on civilian and go through my life that way.
I know you said you used the phrase I'm good during all this
time, So what did you, what did I'm good mean for you?
What it meant for me is that I would just keep moving and
(19:08):
anything I was feeling in my mind, I would just keep
distracting myself, brother. And what was always prevalent
even since high school childhood, whatever was video
game. So I'm playing video games and
fighting for my life basically at the same time, trying to keep
booger on the table, fix all these different problems and
(19:28):
stuff, and just pour my emotion into whatever distraction I had,
which was bad. Just video games essentially.
If anybody ever asked what was going on with me, that's that
would be the answer. You know, I'm all right, I'm
good and nobody would really argue with that obviously
because I kept myself kind of isolated and on paper it looks
(19:52):
good, right. I'm working through the federal
government. I got to the point where I was
the youngest executive in that agency making probably about 130
KA year and. Just really killing it in my 20s
doing getting awards and accolades and stuff like that.
So in my mind, I'm looking at all that stuff, all those lists
of achievements and I'm like, I have to be good, right?
(20:14):
I've got all this stuff got on you going for me?
You know, it just came crashing down for me because I had this
list of goals to hit. One of them was that dollar
amount hit that 130K and I'm sitting in my, my office there
in DC and I'm thinking, and I'm look and I find this word doc
that had the list of goals checked off and stuff.
(20:36):
And I see the 130K and then I look at my paycheck and I'm
like, oh, I hit that. There wasn't a single goal after
that. And so my mind, this quiet
question popped up. That happens for a lot of
veterans after they think they achieved what they they achieved
what they think they wanted. What's next?
And when I didn't have an answerfor that question, man, I was
(20:57):
floored. That's when my mental health hit
the ground. It just tanked.
And so in order to cope with it,I said, oh, I play video games,
they feel good, let's play more video games.
So my life became, even with a wife, young kids and stuff like
that, it became work and video games.
(21:17):
That's all I had space for is toto try to bury everything I was
feeling in video games. And that went on for years,
thousands of dollars into these games and all sorts of stuff.
So what finally ended that? What ended it for me is deep
down we know as men when we're doing something wrong and what
(21:38):
we run for is we run from when we're doing the wrong thing.
Is accountability like obviouslyright as the one thing that will
make you stop in your tracks. My wife was obviously going to
be my accountability partner andshe is Russian and Serbian.
So she will never hold back, right?
She will make sure, but I didn'tgive her the opportunity because
(21:59):
I hid how much I was truly spending on these games.
All she saw is I was spending lots of time on it.
The bill came in the mail one month and it was thousands of
dollars spent in a month on justgames.
Like there was nothing palpable there.
Nothing like none investments oranything like that.
You know, it was just spending on games because they just
(22:21):
weren't interesting enough to keep this, this distraction
going. I had to keep getting more and
more and more. And she saw that and she was
shocked. You know, she was like, you
know, we could pay more bills with this.
We can put more food. We could do all these different
things. And you spent all this on games.
And she put her foot down and she said, you got to go.
And so I did. I packed up a duffel bag.
(22:44):
I went to a hotel. And well, and you know,
typically most guys, they might be stubborn, it'll take them a
few weeks to figure it out. Took me one night.
I was like, do I really want to?Cuz cuz I have this flashback of
all these times that I'm really sure that it's not like I didn't
try to stop playing the games. It's kind of that addiction
(23:05):
pattern of I would play for a couple weeks, feel really
guilty, try to cut it all cold Turkey, last for a few days and
then get right back to it again.Like, oh, problem must be gone.
Let's go back to it and fall right back into the same vicious
pattern over and over and over again.
So I'm having memories and flashbacks of all those times
where I'm playing games. There was even a time where my
(23:28):
wife was pregnant in Germany andshe's sitting next to me,
probably just wanting attention and all that and not saying
anything. And I'm just playing on my
computer. Just playing on my computer for
hours until she decided to just go to bed, you know, and all
these memories are coming back to me and I'm feeling all this
guilt and all this weight. And then it's kind of like God
(23:49):
was like, God was like, all right, now we're going to show
you 2 possibilities. Kind of like that Christmas
story, you know, where here's this, this possible future and
here's this one. And here's the future where
you're sitting in the basement somewhere renting a room and all
you do is play video games all day.
Your kids hate you, your wife divorces you.
That kind of lonely life where you're not fulfilled at all and
(24:12):
then here's the other life whereyou're actually achieving things
that make you feel good, you feel peaceful, you're OK with
your life and the games actuallydon't exist.
You don't feel the draw to them.And you know, I chose the, I
chose the other one. I chose the latter because I'm
here talking to you. I probably wouldn't have gone
through their extensive improvedself improvement journey that
(24:35):
I've been through for the last 10 years if I hadn't made that
one single choice. So I called my wife.
I say I don't know what this is going to look like, but I think
I need to make a major change. I'm done, you know?
So I said I don't know what to do next, but first thing I'm
going to do is come home and sell every game, delete every
game, do whatever I can to get all that stuff going.
(24:57):
And I did. I went home, I grabbed all this
stuff, threw it in a trash bag, went to GameStop, said what can
you buy from all this stuff? They bought what they could from
it, you know, and the rest I just threw away.
I just I left that GameStop and threw the rest in the trash can
and I still had the challenges because I have AIT guy.
(25:17):
So I have a computer all the time with me.
I have a phone all the time withme and there's always games
there. So the next step was me and my
wife decided was I need to get with a therapist.
I find some kind of therapist tohelp me go through all this.
And she did, she, she essentially kept working with me
every single week, just working with me to continue to stay off
(25:40):
of them because I quit cold Turkey just straight up.
And she had suggested go throughlike a 12 step program or
something like that. But I'm still in my head, like
I'm a veteran. I got to do this alone.
So I didn't do that. And it's so I worked out OK.
I, I kept going. I never went back.
So it's been many, many years since I've ever touched a game.
(26:02):
I learned some valuable lessons about being a man.
One of them in that beginning ofworking with this therapist was
vulnerability. That's something that's carried
me through all the way to now, you know, is just to be
vulnerable about what you're going through.
So the first place I got a master class in doing that was
sitting down with my kids, you know, and my wife together and
(26:27):
just telling them your dad is anaddict.
I know you guys love to play video games, but when I touch a
controller and when I play a video game, it's going to go to
a whole nother level. So I'm feeling all this shame
and embarrassment as I read, as I reveal all that to them.
And I'm thinking like, the kids are going to think, you know,
(26:47):
I'm failed them as a father and they're going to hate me and all
this stuff. And they were more like, how can
we help you with that? You know, what can we do
instead? And that kind of almost brought
me to tear. Then I'm like, wow, OK, that's
true love and support right there.
I never experienced that. And so I was like, sure, you
guys can play games. I'll be happy to sit around you
(27:10):
while you play them. But I can never join in with you
anymore. I can't do that.
I can't take part because if I do, I won't be the father, you
know, and remembering, I'll go back to being that guy.
So I, you know, we did that. I did the vulnerability thing
and then I went even deeper. I'm like, man, I, I just, I need
(27:31):
to do something because all I'm doing is working.
And then I come home and I'm just there with my thoughts
there with all the emotions I'vebeen burying from being deployed
and all that stuff. I need to do something.
So my mind went back to when didI feel the best?
When did I feel the best? And it was when I was deployed
with my brothers. We would get up every morning.
(27:53):
We would do P90X workouts. So we do those old P90X workouts
in the morning, they're on base.We would go work out in the gym
and hang out stuff. And I'm like, that feels like it
would be good thinking about doing those.
So I'd go download a bootleg copy of P90X workout and I start
getting up at 3:00 every morningbefore work and I just start
(28:16):
doing those workouts. I realized I felt really good.
It felt like I was back with them again, even though I was by
myself. And so I realized that's what I
was searching for was just more of that.
So then I started listening to motivational content while I'm
working out and I start taking the training even further.
And I go online and I find out there's calisthenics.
(28:38):
You know, where you can do all this crazy stuff with your body,
almost like you're a gymnast butnot, but you know, you can be
more expressive with how you work out.
So I start training calisthenicsand P90X and all this stuff gets
too easy. I just start building on these
things, discovering that there'sreally more to me than what I
thought and getting healthier. Now the the key piece that
(29:02):
really taught me everything thatcarries me to this day was when
I had the opportunity to help myfirst person.
Me and my wife had a friend fromGermany, was a military guy as
well, military policeman, and his situation was even crazier
than mine. I only deployed once in 10
years. He deployed every other year.
(29:22):
Every other year as a military policeman is insane because your
job is to protect the base so that you could be dealing with
car bombs, people trying to bum rush the entrance, all sorts of
hectic stuff that you're dealingwith all the time.
You know you're not going to sleep well, everything.
So he comes out obviously with massive problems.
(29:43):
He comes out around that time frame, goes to New York, His
family's not supportive. His father passes away as well.
We would have been his only support person that could
probably understand what he's going through.
Passes away. And me and my wife were like, we
just felt like we had to do something.
So she, she's always the one with the spontaneous ideas.
(30:05):
She's like, well, Thanksgiving is 2 weeks from now, invite him
over. They're like, invite him over.
Like stay with us over the holidays and stuff.
He's like, Yep, I'm like, all right, why not?
Screw it, you know, we'll do that.
And so he did. He came, stayed with us over the
holidays, slept on the couch. He had sleep apnea.
(30:25):
So the kids got a kick out of his snoring every night.
It's just like a great train in the living room.
And the kids kind of brought himout of the shell.
You know, when a kid comes and grabs you and says, let's go
play with trains, let's do all this stuff, you can't, you can't
stay Mr. Serious forever. So, you know, they pulled him
out of the shell. He was 300 lbs when he came.
(30:46):
So he was overweight, obviously depressed, PTSD, the whole 9
yards. I'm still working on myself at
the same time because I'm like, I have no clue how to get back
to where I need to be. So I'm just going to stick with
my routine of going down in my basement, grinding, working out,
listening to motivational content, reading and things like
(31:09):
that. And I get up, sneak past him
every morning before I go to work and start doing that.
And he kind of wakes up, you know, when I looks at what I'm
doing for a week and then the next week he comes down and
says, what are you doing down here, man?
I'm always hearing the music going and all that stuff.
And I'm like, I'm just working out, you know, I'm just
grinding, working on me, trying to get back to where I need to
(31:30):
be. And he's like, can I join you?
And so I was like kind of uncomfortable with it because
that have been my, you know, hadbeen my my little sanctuary for
so long where I feel like I'm growing and getting better and
I'm like, should I really have somebody else join in with this?
But I'm like, sure, man, go ahead, let's do it.
And so he comes down, he's struggling through, you know,
(31:52):
the workouts with me and stuff. And we had some amazing memories
and I just would keep pouring into them.
It just came from somewhere. I'm like, I don't know where
this is covers from, but let me say it to him and motivate him
and help him. And so you can imagine a lot of
the crazy stuff we did, like he was £300 and I had this little
dinky stand alone pull up bar. And so he does his push pull up
(32:16):
on that and the bar is just bending and crying for life.
And he he, that's the first pullup he ever got in like a long
time. You know, like he used to be a
bodybuilder so he knew all the stuff, but he hadn't felt it
before. And he said that felt amazing.
And so he's getting more in shape as we keep going because
we stayed through January as well.
(32:37):
And we're up at 4:00 AM one morning in front of my street
with the the two lane Rd. that'susually empty, doing wind
sprints from mailbox to mailbox,just yelling.
And it's, you know, amping each other up like soldiers would
usually do. Just having a great time waking
up the neighbors and stuff. We just by the time we were
(32:58):
done, it healed a piece of me and he got to a place where he
was really good too. And he said, so I, I
instinctively or intuitively, which is how I usually coach
people when I was coaching, is ask them like what, what's the
goal you have for yourself? What do you want to do next?
You know what, what is that? And he said, you know, I really
(33:18):
want to serve again. I want to be a policeman up
there in New York. So I'm like, go for it, man.
Just apply, see what happens. So when he left out the end of
January, went applied to be in the police Academy, he was in
shape. He was down from 300 to 200 lbs.
And you know, it fit and everything because he was eating
the way I was eating. He was working out the way I was
(33:40):
working out. And they told him no.
They said you got PTSD on your record.
We just don't trust it, you know, psychological wise.
So they told him no, but becauseof all the things we've been
doing, he was resilient. And he said, OK, maybe that
dream isn't it for me. And he became head of security
at a psych facility and just started doing that, helping
(34:02):
people stay safe in that facility and kept doing that.
And he still works different types of security positions and
stuff to this day. I still talk to him.
He's actually going to come thisChristmas possibly as well.
So he has a even, he's even a single father with a daughter
now. And you know, I like to think
that that's the first person I truly helped and, and figured
(34:25):
myself out in the same process too.
There's two guys, two men just grinding it out, figuring our
shit out, you know? So is that really when you
discovered the power of brotherhood and the power and
the good feelings that you beingof service, being being a coach
brought to you? Well, it's kind of like it.
It woken back up because that's what the military builds you on,
(34:49):
Brotherhood and sisterhood. Because when you're deployed, if
you don't have that kind of connection where you would give
your life to the other person, it's very likely that the
mission isn't going to be successful, which is what the
military's thinking like. So they're like, how can we get
these people to bond as strong as possible as quickly as
possible? We're going to put them in the
same uniform. Do what's called fear bonding.
(35:11):
You're all going to do crazy training and experiences
together and go through all these things together so that we
can build this tight, cohesive team.
I just didn't know that's what was happening.
And then it just kind of woke upwhen I'm working with him, like,
oh, this feels really good, you know?
And that's when I was like, OK, that's part of the puzzle that
was missing. Cool.
(35:32):
I want, I want to go back to when your wife kicks you out and
Yep, I 'cause I, I think it's miraculous that this was a
positive turning point for you instead of a death spiral, which
is what it is for so many other men.
So what do you think it was thatthat made you make the best out
of a really poor situation? I don't know, I just have this
(35:53):
weird way of thinking, like family kind of calls it mind
over manner. And I was thinking like, what do
I want? You know, because I've been
there before the other side where I'm alone, playing video
games, living this life I hate because that's what my life was
like in high school. I didn't take part in any of the
(36:13):
activities in high school exceptprom.
When I quit sports, all I would do was work and go to school.
And so I knew what that felt like already.
And it was kind of like, I don'twant to go back to that anymore.
And so in my mind, it became a very simple choice.
You know, yeah, this is going tobe painful and hard, but you've
(36:35):
dealt with painful and hard before.
So might as well go right back to it and and see if it makes
your life better because the other option isn't going to be
worth it at all. The way I equate it to is this
one question is it's something Itaught other people that I coach
to, and it's am I going to quit now?
Because when you ask yourself a question, like, even if you
(36:56):
don't mean to get an answer, your mind is going to
immediately answer for you. It just slips right through the
veil, you know, can't get filtered out.
And so you ask yourself that question, am I going to quit
now? The answer is going to be no.
And so once the answer becomes no, your only option at that
point is to begin to think of solutions.
And you start thinking of options and solutions instead of
(37:19):
quitting then you're moving forward then.
Come on. Yeah.
That our brain really exists to answer questions.
So it is all about. Thank God you're asking more
uplifting questions. If you know, if I was in that
situation, I would have been asking like, why does everything
suck so much? Why what I screw up did get here
and and that would be part of that spiral down.
So I'm glad you didn't go there.And it you know, hearing your
(37:42):
story, it really feels like loveis what you got to go the the
love for your children, love foryour wife, the love you knew
existed for you very. True.
Yeah, cool. Very true.
That was it too. Yeah.
Because I think, yeah, I think if it was just me by myself
facing the same challenges, I probably would have ended up
(38:03):
going all the way to being homeless.
You know, like I think I just didn't want to let them down as
well. Why are so many vets terrified
to talk about what's really going on for them?
There's a lot of different reasons.
Some of them could be like me. We had lots of bad experiences
and we're afraid to open up because we've been shown a few
(38:26):
times or time and time again that when we open up even just a
little bit or try to, you know, let ourselves open to trust
something or someone, we get letdown.
And so as a soldier that we are,we know serve and we're depended
on and all those things. So we're going to just, we're
(38:48):
going to smush it all down and just keep driving forward not
realizing there's an expiration date.
So there's that. Then there's the the way the
military programs you, they're not trying to program you to be
an emotional healthy employee. They're trying to turn you into
a killing machine, for lack of abetter word.
And killing machines are more efficient when they don't have,
(39:11):
you know, emotions. So they're like, there is no
real emotion here. It's just focusing on the
mission, though. It's basically like you're
taught to keep smashing down that emotion and ignoring it
because someone could lose theirlives because you're distracted
by your emotions and everything like that.
(39:31):
What happens is the big issue is, OK, that's how you you're
going to function while you're in, but there's nothing to
deprogram that when you get out.So guys will continue that way
until they can't anymore until so or until maybe somebody's
able to reach them and get them to see, OK, we got to start
making changes. Yeah, there, there.
(39:52):
There's no opposite of boot camp, No, no healthy exit camp
that would really stick you up. So tell me about before 22.
So the 422 is based on that premise where there just isn't.
There's just a huge gap there where guys are getting out of
the military, they're getting out by surprise, they're getting
(40:15):
out 'cause they think they want to or they're planned to.
And once they're actually out and the structure and
camaraderie and everything in the military is gone, they feel
like they're dropped by the wayside.
That void shows up, that darkness in your chest shows up.
Like you, man, I missed that. I wish I was back there cuz now
(40:35):
this doesn't feel very safe, secure anymore.
And I don't know what's missing.And so Before 22 exists to put
words to those emotions and those feelings that are coming
up, but not just leave you with that, not like hand you that and
say, OK, that's how you're feeling.
It's kind of like leading you toOK, so if something's missing,
(40:58):
what's missing? And so we try to teach them
about purpose, try to teach themabout finding a brotherhood
because we have the group Before22 that we try to bring people
in there. But we're like, if you don't go
there, find some place like that, you know, try different
things there. And Before 22 is essential, a
shot out in the darkness that speaks so deeply to what you're
(41:21):
feeling that if you've been struggling, we call them silent
warriors. If you've been a silent warrior
struggling for a long time, justkeeping quiet about it, just
something about our message makes you wake up and decide,
OK, I'm going to say something or I'm going to ask for help.
And so many times we'll see in the comments section, people are
just saying, like, we had a guy come in there a month or so ago
(41:45):
saying, you know, I'm just thinking about taking my own
life already, you know, but I don't want to leave my family
behind. And I'm not sure what to do to
get help, you know? And so like, that's just one
example. But that guy, he served in the
military, got out, became a firefighter.
So that's even more stuff that he's dealing with.
(42:06):
And he's an active, he was an active firefighter.
And there they have this thing where they're linked to your
health insurance. So if you try to use your
assurance to go get some type ofpsychiatric or psychological
care, it will flag you and they could review you to remove you
from your career just because you tried to go get help for
(42:27):
your mental health. And so he he telling us that
like, I need help. I don't want to lose my family,
but if I try to go get this help, I'm going to lose
everything. You know, I'm going to lose my
livelihood and I'm going to be able to feed and support my
family. So it's like a huge catch 22.
(42:47):
We were like, holy crap, I always find help.
We, we did, we, we made so many calls and we found places where
it's like if you pay cash, we don't need to go for your
insurance at all or anything. We'll have a bed available.
You take some leave, you come stay with us.
You get yourself together, you go back to your life, found a
place with a bed open for him and he got the help he needed.
(43:08):
But those are the gaps that are out there for these soldiers
that come out of the military. They feel like they're dropped
out of the wayside and they'll just sit with that.
And me, luckily I naturally progressed to going through all
that stuff. I did have moments where I
thought of taking my own life aswell, but I luckily was I had
(43:31):
people that would do things likethey one guy convinced me to go
to this three-week program. That program ultimately saved my
life because I sat down first person I sat down with when they
flew me out there to stay at this program that I thought was
going to be all about getting a fitness cert, but it was really
about, you know, psychological health and things like that
(43:52):
along with the fitness stuff. I sit down in front of the
psychologist, His name was Johnny, and he's just got this
upbeat energy and he's just talking to me like I've never
been talked to before, just asking me about stuff because of
me going there. Put my marriage on the rocks.
My wife was like, you're leavingus to go do this.
And I don't understand what's going on.
(44:13):
I couldn't tell her. I'm thinking about not being
around anymore, so I need to do something.
So I just had to make the choiceto go get that help and put it
back together when I can't. Hulk.
So I'm feeling all that and he can see it and he's speaking to
me about all that. He's like, don't worry about it
man, we'll figure it out as we go, blah, blah, blah.
But then what stuck with me was at the end, he was like, all
(44:36):
right, man, you're going to do great here.
I'm here every single day. We're always going to be
talking. I love you, brother.
That's what he said. He looked me straight in the
eyes. And he was like, I love you,
brother. And that was the first grown man
ever to say that to me. Isn't that crazy?
The first grown man in my entirelife to say, like, I love you.
(44:57):
And I didn't even know what to do with that one.
I was like, OK, yeah, I just walked away back to the table,
but thank you. But that, yeah, it stuck with
me, man. And I was like, why?
Why am I? Why is that feel so awkward to
me? Why does that that's something
that was like amazing. You know, I want to just, that
(45:18):
just shook my entire foundation.And I try to create, I want to
create experiences like that with Before 22.
And I want to do it at the levelof social media because there
are veterans always in the middle of the night scrolling
looking for something. And if I can hit them with the
(45:39):
right video at the right time, and that's another life saved
right there. Before they even have to go sit
down in front of a therapist, before they're even figuring out
what to do and they're maybe thinking they don't want to be
around anymore. I can get a message to them.
And then if they, they usually are compelled to reach out if
they're at that level of pain. And then I have the opportunity
(46:03):
to route them with the differentresources that we're building
and linking up and setting up and things like that.
And we're also, and the thing that's controversial about
before 22 as well as we're not anon profit.
Oh, everything, every resource Iget and create is going to go
towards helping veterans and allowing me to keep helping
them. But I'm doing it running it as a
(46:25):
business because I had the benefit of seeing inside a lot
of these veteran nonprofits And the well is like dry, you know,
like I tried to get guys help and stuff like that.
And they'd always be like, we don't have space available.
We don't have resources, we don't have money.
And I'm like, if we had a viableproduct that did that, you know,
(46:46):
was like a win, win. Did this for that person that
paid and gave you the resources to help.
That would be it. We could make as much resources
as we need and never have to hear no when a guy comes and
asks for help. So I said before 22 will be
about making apparel and spreading these messages.
And now the apparel will be an extension of the messages being
(47:08):
spread because when you wear theshirt before 22, it says the
mission is to survive or whatever other stuff I come up
with. You know, people will ask,
especially veterans because it kind of speaks to them, you
know, on a deep level. It'll be like, what's that
about? And you can be like, go check
out this video. This is what it is.
And then that's another person that maybe needed some help that
(47:29):
will be able to get it, be able to join the group, find a
brotherhood, find something. It amazes and saddens me still
that, you know, we're encouraging men to be
vulnerable, to tell them it's OKto ask for help and get help and
you're worthy of support. And then there's still aspects
of society that will punish them.
You know your job at risk, you put your family at list, you put
your livelihood at risk. It's it's fucking horrible.
(47:52):
So what? What is the meaning?
What is before 22 mean? The statistic used to be that 22
veterans a day were taking theirown lives.
It's more like 60 now. the VA just doesn't keep track of it
because when a veteran takes their own life, the death
certificate isn't typically reported to the VA.
(48:14):
They're not clamoring to get that statistic or information
either because that means that they're failing at their task of
protecting and helping veterans.So but 22 a day is the coin term
that is well known across veteran communities and law
enforcement and 1st responder across the, you know, social
(48:35):
media. So we said we want to catch you
before you become one of the 22.So you came with the 4/22?
So if there's a guy out there who's obviously shutting down
and in trouble to the people around him, but he's staying
silent, what's some advice for for his friends, for his family?
What? What can they do to help him?
(48:56):
The advice is to have courage because I've actually helped a
few families that way as well, where sometimes you'll get the
guy that's quiet and reserved and depressed and would just be
like, you know, I'm all right and just melts away.
But then you'll get the other kind that gets defensive but
loud and tries to kind of scare you away.
(49:18):
And it's like, as a family member, you don't have to sit
there and take the face value answer just because it's awkward
or it's going to be a tough conversation.
And you can kind of feel that inyour soul.
You can be like, no, what's really going on?
I know something's up, so let meknow what's going on.
(49:38):
And it takes one family member usually, like one of the last
one was a black sheep, you know,his sister, you like, you know
what, what do I need to do? And it was kind of like she's
going to yell, he's going to he's going to throw a tantrum.
He's definitely not going to hurt you.
He loves you, but he's trying toscare you away because you know,
he's got all this trauma and stuff going on.
(50:00):
But what you're going to do is keep bringing it up.
If he throws the tantrum, sure, go ahead and go away.
But when he comes trying to talkto you about something else,
you're just bringing up again and again until he was like, all
right, fine, I'll go talk to somebody and mission
accomplished. Then you get him to the next
step where he'll at least speak to somebody.
(50:20):
Because what's scary, that's theother thing I teach families, is
if he's showing emotion, whetherit's sadness or fear,
frustration, annoyance, anger, any of those that's that's
actually a good thing. They're like, that's good.
And I'm like, yeah, it's good because the worst place that
they can be is an absence of emotion.
Apathy. When you're apathetic, when
(50:43):
different thoughts come into your head, they become truths,
they become fact. So the thought of maybe it'd be
better if I'm not around anymore.
When you're in the place of apathy, that's when that
decision becomes an action. More likely the barrier between
just a thought and taking an action, that barrier is just
(51:04):
dropped. And so if they're at that place
where a lot of those things justdon't bring them joy anymore, or
they don't want to play video games, they don't want to go out
anymore and and they just seem like an emotional robot, that's
the place where you want to try to figure out how to get them to
feel something again. Lewis, what's the best way for
people to connect with you, follow you?
(51:26):
Best way is on any of the platforms you can find me is Vet
Coach Lewis or you can find the organization as before 22.
Both sides of the same coin. I speak personally from my
experiences on Vet Coach Lewis and I teach everything I learned
as a coach, coaching entrepreneurs and and business
(51:50):
owners and professionals and stuff.
I just put it out for free on there just trying to help as
many as I can. And then on before 22, those are
voice over AI videos completely written and designed by me with
the imagery and everything like that, that will speak to
somebody who's struggling or somebody that needs a new
perspective in the effort to help them see themselves in the
(52:13):
video and say, OK, me write something, let me comment.
So if if you want to connect with me, that's great.
But if you do find someone that's struggling, just tell
them to search before 22 and take a look at a video at the
top end. They'll probably connect with
that message quickly and realizemaybe this is something I should
look deeper into. And finally, Lewis, what do you
(52:35):
wish more men knew? I wish more men knew to to don't
beat yourself up because nobody hasn't figured out 100%.
And so the best thing that you can do as a man is to try to get
around those you feel are further ahead than you are and
(52:57):
give yourself grace for the mistakes that you made.
And not to say that you don't feel anything from making the
mistake and you're not going to try to correct it, but it's a
lot easier process if you don't beat yourself up over it because
you have to look at your life, the life of those that came
before you. And I look at my parents, you
know, the father, my biological father, he's kind of emotionally
(53:21):
disconnected. We have a good relationship, but
he's not as connected as emotions or as vulnerable as I
am. He's coming along, you know,
talking to me, but you have to say they worked with everything
they had available to me, all the tools and all that stuff.
And you're doing everything thatyou experienced and all the
(53:41):
tools you had. You're doing the best you can
what you've got. So just try to figure out how to
do more and learn more and be around the right people.
Awesome. Oh, man, I'm so glad that you
got over your fear of trusting vets and they're now helping
them. And you found the joy of service
in how it can reward you and allthe people you touch.
(54:02):
We, we need that. We need an army of Lewis's.
Thanks for joining us today. And thanks to Louis Stockley
junior. He's living proof that the war
inside ends the moment Amanda sides to stop hiding and start
speaking truth. If something in this
conversation woke something up for you, don't let it fade.
Don't go back to I'm good. If you're not, check out Lewis's
work at Before 22. And if you're a man looking for
(54:24):
community connection and a placeto take the masks off without
judgement, join me inside Authentic AF, my online men's
community. We have men's groups, guided
meditations, real conversation, and a space where you don't have
to pretend. Visit realmenfield.org/group and
step inside. And until next time, be good to
yourself.
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