America's Criminologist 11 11 25 Guest Lt. Col. (Ret.) Justin Crocker

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Col Steel suits gait just listening him as a faith.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Shadows a secret line.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Doctor currys got the sa.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Al scram anologist.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
Seals of the law in the Acolosys crime break and
Jay Bruce start the frame.

Speaker 5 (00:35):
And here's America's Criminologists, Doctor Curry Myers.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
All right, all right, all.

Speaker 6 (00:43):
Right to welcome to America's Criminologist, where we confront the
real roots of crime through the lens of faith, family
and your formation. I'm your host, Doctor Curry Myers, former sheriff,
State trooper, special agent, now applied criminologists, academician, and proud American.
It's Veteran's Day, my friends. God blessed to all those
that served in our wonderful country. For our wonderful country,

(01:07):
we honor those who were the uniform, defended our freedoms,
and now serve in new ways beyond the battlefield. Today's
episode is a tribute to service, resilience, and what it
truly means to lead with purpose. This episode is brought
to you by my substack page at doctor Currymeyers dot
substack dot com. This is where I explore the moral

(01:27):
and practical solutions to crime in America. Sign up today,
for exclusive access to articles, commentary, video essays that uphold
the law order in common sense. Here's my rift for today.
Law enforcement officers are exposed to a wide array of
occupational stressors, raging from critical incidents and violent confrontations to

(01:50):
chronic strains of shift work, family disruption, and public scrutiny. Increasingly,
researchers and practitioners recognize that wealth wellness cannot be compartmentalized
anymore into physical fitness or mental health alone. Instead, officer
wellness must be viewed holistically. The concept of operator syndrome

(02:12):
captures the holistic reality in the context of military special
operations in particular. Rather than isolating conditions like post traumatic
stress disorder PTSD or traumatic brain injury otherwise known by TBI,
operator syndrome conceptualizes the overlapping and cumulative health challenge operators face.

(02:35):
This includes things like chronic pain and sleep disturbance, hormonal deregulation,
substance miss use, social dysfunction, and identity crisis. Policing, especially
in high impact areas of certain special deality skills such
as swat homicide investigators. Under cover work also parallels military

(02:59):
sin special operations in many multiple ways. Sustained high risk exposure,
warrior ethos, circadian rhythm disruption, mus skeletal strain, and cultural
barriers to help seeking our part of those issues. Additionally,
with nearly one in five US officers having prior military service,

(03:24):
the risk of operator syndrome and law enforcement is significant,
even though you don't have to have military experience to
be at risk. Addressing it is vital not only for
officers' health, but also for the operational readiness and agency
liability and public trusts. That's my rift today. It's something
we really need to focus on in the future in

(03:47):
law enforcement, in particular as the military has already been
experiencing these troubles. Joining me today is a man whose
service is defined by sacrifice and grit and purpose. Lieutenant
Colonel retired Justin Crostcker is a former Army officer in
Green Beret who led combat operations in Iraq, I, Afghanistan,
and beyond. He's the recipient of five Bronze Star Medals,

(04:12):
including one for Valor and combat. Justin attended Yale University,
where he earned a master's degree in Global Affairs. After
twenty years in uniform, he now leads sharp's Performance People
and Talent Division. It's a company dedicated to elevating the
mental and physical performance of high demand professions, just like

(04:33):
first responders. As head of People in Talent, he leads recruiting, development,
organizational growth, bringing together world class coaches and operational talent
to redefine performance support for those in critical, high risk professions.
Colonel Happy Veterans Day. Thanks for your service and welcome

(04:55):
to the show.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure, Thank you
very much.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
You know, one of the most important things to when
we you know, the hidden part around Veterans Day is
that so many people have served, but so many people
struggle as a result of their service, and you and
you you know, it's hard to get a profile of
what that struggle may be because there's so many different

(05:21):
jobs in the military that can cause stress and chaos
and have personal struggles and and so it's really hard
to to find. But I wrote a piece on this
on this in particular, and what I found interesting is
the the crossing into law enforcement that can occur. Number One,

(05:44):
because we have so many military individuals that when they
either leaf service, they come into law enforcement or we
have a lot of law enforcement officers that are still
in the military, whether they're in the reserves or or
guard and so it's uh that crossover is significant.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
Before we get into all that, in that background, tell
us a little bit about your own family roots, the
military background that you had, what made you go to
the military to first and then you also became a
Green Beret in that journey and of course a yell education.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, uh, yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to come on. Yeah, service,
military service has always really been at the core of
who who I've been. I've always been around the military.
I grew up in an Air Force family in the
East Bay area. I was born and raised at Travis

(06:45):
Air Force Base, which is in the East Bay. Grandfather
was in the Air Force. Dad was in the Air Force.
Step dad was in the Air Force. Step mom was
in the Air Force. So I had, uh had a
lot of Air Force roots. And then and then I
decided I think I'm going to join the Army. There
was you know, I was, I was seventeen when I joined.

(07:08):
I growing up in that environment. You know, the military
service is it really is a family business. Sure, I
don't know what the percentage is, but a large percentage
of folks that decide to join the military come from
a military family. They either have you know, parents or
grandparents or aunts or uncles or somebody that they see

(07:30):
and they they recognize that's what I want to do.
I want to serve. And so I very much grew
up in that environment. I was. It was It was
never a foregone conclusion that I was going to be
be in the military, but I always just thought, you know,
this is that's the direction I want to go. I
took pride as a kid, you know, having parents and

(07:51):
grandparents that served, and I thought, you know, I want
to I want to have I want to experience that
as well. Now, you know, you'll ask my Air Force family.
They'll say I made the right decision of going into service.
I may have chosen the wrong service. There was just
something about the Army. I don't know what it was.
This was before nine to eleven, so I joined. I

(08:12):
originally joined in August of nineteen ninety eight, and there
was just something about a call to adventure that the
Army was going to provide me, and so I decided
to become an airborne instrument. I attended basic training at
sand Hill and Fort Benning, Georgia and then went over

(08:35):
to Airborne School and a few months later found myself
as a paratrooper in the eighty second Airborne Division at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was probably, I don't know,
one hundred and forty pounds and very quickly learned that
one hundred and forty pound person can also carry one
hundred and forty pounds and can also jump out of
an airplane with that much weight, and so yeah, I

(08:57):
but kind of going back to the route, I always
knew that that service was going to be a core
component of who I was. I didn't necessarily think that
I was going to stay in for an extended period
of time. You know. My original thought was, hey, yeah,
I think the Army offered me, you know, some sort
of like forty thousand dollars college fund or something, which

(09:18):
back then could actually pay for school. Yeah yeah, yeah,
these days that may pay for a semester or two.
But yeah, I just found that I really enjoyed it.
So the Army sent me, uh they they provided me
with a scholarship to attend school and earn a commission
through the RTC program. I actually left Fort Bragg three

(09:40):
weeks before September eleventh. So on September eleventh, I was
getting ready to start to start undergrad and then I thought, oh, man,
I just I just spent three years jumping out of
planes and beat my body up, and now I'm gonna
miss I'm gonna miss everything.

Speaker 7 (09:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
It turns out I didn't miss much. I spent four
years getting a undergrad and then went back in the
army as an emptry officer.

Speaker 6 (10:02):
Well, so they didn't call you back and say, hey,
we got we got missions to fulfill.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
And I know that, I mean, you know, back and
it's it's hard to remember now, but you know, after
September eleventh, when we decided to to to to move
in Afghanistan and and you know, defeat al Qaida, and
and because they were harboring out Qada, defeat the Taliban,

(10:29):
there was there was an assumption this was gonna be
a very quick war. It was going to be over
within a matter of weeks or months. That was that
was the original plan. And so I had actually I
wanted to get back to Fort Bragg and they said, no,
this will be over. You'll, you know, get get a
commission and come back in. And it turns out I
didn't miss much. I had plenty so well.

Speaker 6 (10:50):
The Persian Gulf ward, it was the case, you know what, Yeah,
went by pretty quickly because I remember when I was
I was a KBI agent at the time, and I
had so many friends that were in the military. They
were in law enforcement, but they were also in the
reserves or in the National Guard, and they were getting

(11:11):
called up to duty to go fight, and there was
never The one regret I have is that I never
did join the military. I started as a state trooper
at twenty one and just never has just never dawned
on me. You know, I'm already in a full time
profession and I just never dawned on me to go

(11:31):
into the military until the Persian Gulf War and I
was I think I was, you know, right around thirty
two or so, and I thought to myself, you know,
do I need to you know, volunteer and go. Because
I had a lot of friends in law enforcement, fellow
KBI agents. A lot of them were like CID guys.

(11:54):
I had a couple that was ass with the with
the Air Force. But you know, even they would that say, no,
you don't, you know, again, you're serving your country in
many ways by being in law enforcement. So absolutely like
that you have to do it, but it it does.
There is a regret there in many ways. And uh

(12:16):
so I have a great fondness and love for people
who in law enforcement just because so many or military
because so many of us in law enforcement, uh were there.
So but you went in the hard way. I mean
you started out as an enlisted person and then came
out and then went to college, and then you go

(12:36):
in as an officer. So it's not like you you know,
you came out yeah hearing that bar with you.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
You had to, you had to the long route. Is
there is there?

Speaker 6 (12:49):
I'm just curious, is there a layer of respect with
the non commissioned officers that that you put in that
kind of time or do they or no.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah, no, there there definitely is, you know. I think
non commission officers will tell you, Uh, they have a
lot of respect for for all all their officers obviously,
but they have a there's a special place in their
heart for prior listed Uh where where they where they
draw the line though, is there's a distinct difference between

(13:19):
you know, what an officer is doing and what a
what a non commission officer is doing and the officers
that learn, the officers that were enlisted before that that
understand that difference and stay stay out of those n
c o's lanes, uh and let them do their work. Uh,
there's a lot of respect. It's the you know that,
it's the officers that tend to go back to their

(13:42):
non commission officer roots when they're officers. Those are the
ones the n c O is kind of they'll roll
their eyes and usually have a nice little talking too
with one of your senior non commission officers to put
you back in your life.

Speaker 6 (13:52):
But yeah, fortunately saving because you didn't get to that status.
I mean you were probably what rank were you when
you were Yeah, I was.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
I was a corporal U when I left service. Yeah,
so I was I was a E four you know,
just still still a still a young still a young
soldier at that point.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (14:10):
Yeah, interesting, Yeah, but you learned a lot from a
high risk environment. So you uh, when you when you
went back, did you go back into the eighty second
Airborne as an officer or you get.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
No, I didn't. I went back as an intry officer,
which is what I wanted to do. You know, that's
that's kind of the core of the Army, UH is
there is there Entry Force, and but I I I
didn't go back to the eighty second. I after doing
about a year another year at Fort Betting for for
Intra Officer Basic course and things like Ranger School and

(14:45):
a bunch of other bunch of other courses, I went
to Fort Hood, Texas UH and I was a platoon
leader for UH in the fourth Entry Division, which was
a called a mechanized division but essentially armored troop carriers
and tanks. So I did that for about three years
before going to Special Forces Assessment selection and becoming eventually

(15:10):
becoming a Green Beret.

Speaker 6 (15:12):
Now do the Green Berets do you choose them or
do they choose you? I know you got to when
you're going into SOF.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
Is it.

Speaker 6 (15:21):
Did they then say we think your best to be
a Green Beret or your best to go to this
unit to or how does that work?

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, it's a little bit of both. You have to
volunteer to do it obviously, and you know, you initially
apply to become a Green Beret or to go to
the selection to eventually be selected to go to the
course to become a Green Beret. So I applied. In fact,

(15:48):
I was on a fifteen month deployment to Iraq as
a platoon leader and had this wild thought that I
decided or I thought that I wanted to be a
green break. I frankly, I didn't think that I was
going to make it, beause a selection is a pretty
physically demanding event. It's about three weeks, and they the

(16:12):
whole purpose of selection is to really push you to
your limits, because that's where the true selection begins is
when you're you're at your absolute limits physically, and they
want to see how well you're making decisions and what
type of mental space are you in when when your
body is starting to give out. And so I was

(16:32):
about I attended Special Force Assessment selection just about two
months after a fifteen month deployment to Iraq, and there
wasn't a ton of prep time for me to get
physically ready to go. And so I originally went to
Special Force Assessment selection thinking that I wasn't gonna that
I wasn't going to get selected. But I was as

(16:54):
surprised as anybody when I did at the end.

Speaker 6 (16:56):
So, well, we got a lot of things to cover,
But can you share with us maybe a story from
your Green berea years of a special mission or one
that you can tell us without killing us.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, there's there's plenty, you know. Uh, they're all going
to revolve around the guys, right, Like everybody tells you
when you leave the military, you're there's a lot you're
not gonna miss, but at the top of the things,
you're gonna you're gonna miss or the guys, and so

(17:28):
all my all my stories revolve around my guys. I think,
you know, something that stands out for me initially was
actually my first combat operation as a Green Beret and
I already had, uh you know, fifteen month deployment to
to Iraq as a platoon leader responsible for about thirty folks,

(17:51):
and an operational attachment is much smaller. So a lot
of people don't realize, but in the in the Green Berets,
the core unit of of a Green Brave formation is
an operational attachment outfit. So it's only twelve folks. It's
the officer, you got a warrant officers, your second IC
to IC, and then you got about ten noncommissioned officers
with different specialties and that's it. But you're partnered with

(18:15):
the core mission of the Green Berets is to partner
with host nation forces. So in Afghanistan, we were partnered
with about an eight hundred person Afghan commando battalion. These
were especially selected Afghans that were selected to do commando
style raids. And so my very first operation as a

(18:37):
platoon or as a as a detachment commander was a
bit of an ad hoc we we had had. Unfortunately,
we had had somebody in an adjacent odier that was
killed and that team started to get surrounded pretty quickly,
and so they recognized that they needed a reinforcing element
to go in. So we were the ones that were
selected to go. And I distinctly remember are we You know,

(19:04):
when you have an ad hoc plan, things get a
lot of planning gets missed, right, and so everything started
to go poorly, we'll say, right from the beginning. I
mean we had, we had our plan and then just
like any good plan, it falls apart as soon as
you know the first rounds are shot.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
So we landed. We landed in in different different areas
than where I was expected we were expecting to land.
I had we had infilled with about five different helicopters,
all of the helicopters landed in different locations. I had
elements in different locations, and I'm thinking to myself, this
is my first operation. I've already screwed it up. I
have no idea where my people are. Half of us

(19:45):
are being shot at, but we're going to figure this
out and kind of circling it back to my guys.
You know, one of the reasons, one of the primary
reasons why I wanted to become a Green Bray was
I wanted to be surrounded with some of the best
non commissioned officers in the world, not just in the Army,
but in the world. I mean a career green beret
noncommissioned officer you want to talk about just a professional

(20:09):
at their absolute peak. I mean, they can focus on
a mission better than anyone I've ever I've ever seen.
And I remember experiencing this as the platoon leader and
seeing them, and I thought, that's that's who I want
to serve with. And so I had about two of
my fellow teammates with me, and we had about forty
or fifty Afghan commandos with us, and the two NCOs

(20:34):
that were with me, the two Green Brays on my
team could see that I was visibly we'll say, frustrated,
probably a bit shaken. Here I am in my first
my first combat operation, and I have no idea where
my people are, and I'm trying to coordinate fires and
all these other things. And I remember one of them
just kind of putting his shoulder on my or his
hand on my shoulder and saying, hey, man, we're going

(20:56):
to figure this out. It'll be okay. And I just
remember just the sense of calm that that brought, knowing like, okay,
I know that I'm with We're in a bad way,
we're being shot at, I have no idea where what
people are, but everything's going to be okay. And that's,
you know, at the core, that's kind of what green

(21:17):
braids are are good at, right. They're good at mastering
the chaos, figuring out how your brain works in stressful situations.
And this is actually something that that shark that well,
I know, we'll talk about a little bit later, but
if you can master your brain in a in a
stressful environment, you can you can come to some pretty

(21:38):
good decisions. And so I would say that's you know,
there's plenty of great stories, most of which I will
never share publicly. But but that's one where just kind
of at the core of of what green breads are
that's always stuck with.

Speaker 6 (21:54):
Me, and that ability to discern and discern quickly, rapid
rapidly dessert discern, which is got to be also not
just an art, but it's I think it's got to
be in the DNA of many people. And you, after retirement,
you're now involved with sharp Performance and it again goes

(22:15):
into a coaching and performance model, and you decided to
focus it on first responders in particular. Why is that?

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, because that's where the need is, That's where the
need is the most. You know, the idea behind Sharp
Performance was really brought forth from our experience about a
core of us on the team or from the Special
operations community. In fact, one of our founders we used

(22:49):
to serve together in third Special Force Group, and about
fifteen years ago the Special Operations Command really started to
recognize that they needed to do something to help their
operators become healthier both physically and mentally. There was actually a,
you know, a strong enough exodus from the Special Operations community.

(23:09):
They were recognizing that folks were getting out about the
six to eight year mark, and it's a pretty expensive
undertaking to recruit, train, and equip a single single operator,
and you got to keep them right, you know, like
if they're getting out at six or eight years, you're
just you're just now starting to get a return on
that investment the nation is and so you know, kind
of looping it back to what Sharp's doing, you know,

(23:31):
the Special Operations Command built what they called the Human
Performance Program, and actually, when I was a detachment commander,
I was one of the first ones to my team
was one of the first ones to be the recipient
of the Human perform or to participate in Human Performance Program.
And it came with both physical and mental coaching. So
on the physical side, we had strength and conditioning coaches

(23:53):
from like we had I had a D one strength
and conditioning coach from West Virginia who was our team
strength conditioning coach. We had physical therapists, we had nutritionists
all there right at the unit. Made it very easy
for us to to heal some of the bumps and
bruises and maybe build build some some physical resilience for
some of the things that we were doing at the time.

(24:16):
But the real game changer of that program was the
performance coaching.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
They so common was smart enough to bring in some
performance coaches for each of the units, and the folks
that really leaned into that were able to There's a
number of there there there are a number of issues
that performance coaching will address. But you know, one of
the biggest ones is, hey, how does your brain work

(24:41):
under stress? How how are you making how are you
processing information? How are you regulating breath? And how are
you making some clear headed decisions? And I really leaned
into it, uh, and it was a it was a
beneficial for me, both on a professional front but also
on a personal front. How I was showing up for

(25:01):
my family. I mean, transitioning from combat to home and
home to combat, You're you're becoming a completely different person
between those two. And it's not as easy as just
turning a switch on. It takes active coaching to help
you figure out how you individually do that. And so
at Sharp we we knew that the first responder community

(25:23):
there was a lot of similarities both in terms of
the individual officers and the individuals and the Special Operations Commune.
There's a lot of similarities there as far as behaviors
and experiences, but there's also the stressors that the job
provides that come with the job. We call it the
price of admission for doing the work you want to do.

(25:46):
And part of the price of admission is you're you're
signing up for a job that is going to be very,
very mentally taxing. You're going to experience some things that
is going you can't compartmentalize. A lot of us kind
of assume because you are a Green Beret or a
Navy seal, or a cop or a firefighter, that you
can you can compartmentalize trauma. You're you're inbred with this,

(26:09):
This just natural ability to compartmentalize, And the reality is
that's not true. That's not how the brain works. Uh.
And so SOCOM was was smart enough to recognize that,
and so they they brought coaches on for us and
at SHARP. That's exactly what we want to do with
the first responder community. So a long way of answering
your question, we we focus first primarily in the first

(26:31):
responder community right now because that's where the most need
is and we're not going to stop until every every
first responder in the country has access to SHARP.

Speaker 6 (26:44):
That's awesome, And you guys have developed some technology to
help drive some progress, right, some trackings.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, yeah, so so at our at the core of
our product is coaching, one on one coaching. All of
our coaches come from high risk professions. It helps with
there's a lot of reasons why that's very very helpful,
shared experiences. And then we're also, uh, we we have

(27:13):
built a great digital product and app. We're putting a
lot of resources into that that. Our goal is to
create the best mental illness app in the world. It'll
be specific to high risk professions, it'll be exclusive to
our clients, but that's exactly what our clients deserve, and
so that's what they're going to get. So that's that's

(27:33):
what we're putting a lot of emphasis in right.

Speaker 6 (27:35):
Now, Can you hang around for our second segment? I'd
love to all, right, powerful insights from a warrior who
now champions performance on a different battlefield.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
We'll be right back after this message.

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Speaker 6 (30:28):
Hi, folks, Doctor Curry Myers here to let you know
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Curry Myers every Tuesday at one pm between the Dave
Ramsey Show and Kevin mccolla Show. Is a former State
Trooper special agent share for a major county. I will
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I'll have guests, news and my insights as an applied

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criminologist throughout the one hour show. So criminals and the
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T all right.

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This portion of the show is brought to you by St.
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(31:28):
We're joined again by Lieutenant Colonel retired Justin Crocker, US
Army and he's also involved with Sharp Performance. Colonel welcome
back to the show.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Thank you for having me. It's been fun so far.

Speaker 6 (31:41):
Yeah, my pleasure. So I wrote a piece of policy
brief on officer wellness. I've done quite a few on
officer wellness. But when when we talk about operator syndrome,
which was identified through the work that was done, your
team was kind of one of the guinea big guinea
pigs actually with this to be able to develop what's

(32:02):
called operator syndrome. Can you go over the importance of
identifying operator syndrome as compared to PTSD, for instance, what
makes it so unusual or why it fits better with
what's going on in the military, and how it how
it rolls over into first responders.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, you know, so it's the first thing to recognize
about operator syndrome, is it. It really is a framework.
It's not a diagnosis. You know, a doctor is not
going to diagnose you with operator syndrome. It really is
a framework to help put into context for for folks
that have served some of the things that they're experiencing

(32:47):
that it's really it's really difficult to describe or understand
and I can, you know, talk about it through through
my experiences. So doctor Chris Free, who were works closely
with us as Sharp Performance UH, is the the gentleman
that came up with the operator syndrome framework and he

(33:08):
did it. He's you know, he started as the first
part of his career was as a PTSD expert with
the with the Veteran Affairs and he you know, he'll
he'll he'll talk about it himself. He'll say, you know,
I thought I knew everything there was to know about PTSD,

(33:29):
and then I started and then he started to work
with UH some special operators. And it's also important to
recognize like operator syndrome. But the framework, it was really
designed around special operators. But you don't have to necessarily
be a special operator to have a lot, a lot
of symptoms associated with with operator syndrome, which is exactly

(33:49):
where we're discovering the first responder community and the military
ri at large. Right, there's plenty of there's plenty of
folks out there that that saw a lot of things,
that experienced a lot of things that have the symptoms
of operators syndrome. But the framework is really a good
way of describing some of the negative consequences. I know,
in the in the in the first segment we talked
about the price of admission for the job we chose,

(34:11):
you know, in the in the special operations world. Part
of that is there's there's the the cool sexy videos
of of folks jumping out of planes and entering rooms
and and you know, and and and combat. Right, that's
about five percent of what being a special operator is.
The other is has to do with preparing for combat, right,

(34:38):
just being in a combat environment. Uh but but just
even you know, your day to day work of preparing
for combat and then being in a combat environment. You
know your body when you when you're in a stressful environment,
your body goes into a hypervision and state. It's a
very normal human reaction. I mean, everybody's experienced it. The
problem with hypervigilance for the for the professions we chose

(35:02):
is that you're in a high pervisional state for the
majority of your life and that is not normal and
there's a lot of negative consequences both physically and mentally
associated with constantly being in this hypervigil and state. You know,
it starts with poor sleep, poor sleep quality, I mean,
and you layer that on top of what you know

(35:23):
first responders face with swing shifts and circaan rhythms completely
thrown off. But you'll really see the lack of sleep,
whether it's you know, experiencing traumatic things, seeing traumatic things,
or just frankly, like the day to day work of
not knowing what the next call is going to bring.
My experience with hygh pervision and it's not like something
where it's like a light switch that goes on all

(35:44):
of a sudden you recognize like, oh I'm in a
hypervisional states. It's a very slow, steady process and before
you know it, you're constantly in this hygh pervision and state.
Even when you're home, you try to transition back home,
but you're in a different space, right, And we used
to always I never said it out loud until I
left the service, but and in fact, Chris Free, the

(36:08):
author of Operator Syndrome, asked me one time. He's like, well,
let me let me ask you a question. Are you
more comfort? Are you more comfortable in combat than you
are at home with your kids? And I said, yes, right,
And that's not something that I enjoyed saying out loud that.
It's something I felt very guilty about. But the reality
is is when I was in combat, my body was

(36:29):
in an environment that matched my hyper vigilance. When I'm home,
I'm still in this hyper visional state, but I'm in
an environment where that's not matching. And so I felt
very uncomfortable. And what we've discovered is that first responders
faced the same exactly. In fact, to be to you know,
at sharp, it's really important to recognize that, you know,

(36:50):
we recognized that I had to. When I was in
the military. I had to transition from home to combat
about three or four times a year, right, And I
usually had a few days of decompression before I got home.
First responders have the complete opposite problem. First responders, or
you're you're waking up in the morning, or you're going
to work at night, you're kissing your your loved ones goodbye.

(37:11):
You're becoming this different person. And then no matter what
you saw during your shift, no matter what you experienced,
you're taking that uniform off eight, ten, twelve hours later,
and then you're transitioning back to trying to be this
a father, a husband, a mother, a wife, a normal
you know, member of society. And that's a really hard

(37:33):
thing to do. And so, you know, I experienced many,
many of the similar symptoms of operator syndrome, from lack
of sleep, which leads to you know, poor poor work
performance during the day, which leads to many many other things.
I mean, you can kind of see the snowball effect
of all the negative consequences associated with what really starts

(37:56):
to just from from you know, being being stuck in
a high revisual state. And so Chris Chris Freeze really
puts a great framework to this, you know, put it
on operator syndrome. And now he's he's working with us
to help use the study of operator syndrome and what
we can do on the coaching side to help folks,

(38:18):
to help you know, high risk professions, starting with first
responders deal with the negative consequences. I mean, before I
talked to Chris, I had never confided in anybody what
I was experiencing because I didn't know how to I
didn't know how to explain it. The VA, you know,
puts the rubber stamp of PTSD on it because that's
what they know and that's clinical. But operator syndrome provides

(38:42):
a little bit of a different framework.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
Well, and that's why it's so important to talk about
because is in particular we are expressing what we've experienced personally,
and I think that's important for people to understand and
for others to be able to understand and say, Okay,
it's okay to even talk about these dyes. Because law
enforcement comes from a place often where if they exposed there,

(39:07):
they feel like they're exposing themselves. Then it could hurt
their quality of work, it could hurt their standing. And
then you throw in the court system where you feel
like that it could impact maybe even potentially court decisions,
or maybe it could be used against you if you
say that you're struggling with a particular issue. Those are

(39:28):
the things that we think of. And I was caught
in that state for quite a while personally, especially when
I worked undercover. I mean, I was a homicide investigator
for many years. As a state trooper, you saw a
lot of bad accidents and saw a lot of issues
as well. But when I started working deep undercover, and

(39:51):
then I was in the nineteen ninety three Federal building
bombing and shooting incident, those kinds of advanced. But there
was times where I could go home and I felt that,
I'm I couldn't even think properly. I couldn't sleep. It's
like I'm you know, I had to go do something
to get up as the anxiety, the anxiousness of it

(40:13):
was significant. And then you throw in the fact that
as a undercover you're pretending to be a totally different person.
So it's almost like you're a spy, you know. So
it's it's not you're not only you not only throw
the typical things that are occurring in law enforcement, but
you're throwing in the fact that you you aren't who

(40:33):
you are. You know, you look in the mirror and
it's somebody totally different, And you know, I used to
I'd still take My family like to mass, for instance,
and I'd here be a guy that looks like he
belongs in a biker gang, you know, and and I'd
have people come up and, you know, shake your hand
during mass or something, and they're looking at you like

(40:54):
you don't belong with it.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
You know.

Speaker 6 (40:55):
My wife's dressed up and the kids are dressed up,
and here I am. You know, even if I try
to dress up, I still look like a guy. I
still look like a buyer trying to, you know, dress up,
so that that makes you weird, you know, it makes
you and then you want to go, well, I just
want to go back to work, you know, because you're
you're in that state. And so that's the that's the

(41:19):
law enforcement side that makes it even more difficult to
deal with. And what I like about your program Number
one Sean Ryan, who's a probably one of the most
biggest podcasters in the world today. He and Joe Rogan
probably are one and two. He actually called out Your
Guys's work with the Secretary of the Army on his podcast,

(41:41):
talking about how important it is. And one of the
reasons I like it in particular is you take people
who have been there and done that which opens the
door to law enforcement. Because law enforcement is a close society.
You've got to be in in to that society. It's

(42:02):
called the thin blue line for a reason. You got
to penetrate that thin blue line. But you also do
it with this great humility in the fact that you
are not part of the system. You're coming from outside.
You're an external opportunity to talk, which gives it even
more of a I hate to use the term safe space,

(42:23):
but I will. It gives it a safe space. You
can say, Okay, this isn't part of the government, is
not part of the agency, it's not going to be monitored.
I can talk to these guys. Plus they're special forces
people or maybe somebody that's been in law enforcement that
has done similar work that can really relate to what
I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, what you just described is really at
the core of what Sharp provides.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
You know, at our core, we're a coaching platform for
one on one coaching for high risk professions. Right. Nothing
super unique about that, Right, There's plenty of companies out
there that provide, you know, platforms for therapists and for coaches.
What makes Sharp Performance so unique is what we're doing

(43:17):
and who we are really really matter, right, I think
I mentioned before, but all of our coaches come from
HIH risk professions, so there's a shared experience there. And
the things you described around fear of saying too much

(43:38):
to a healthcare professional, it is the same thing that
we experienced in the special operations community. Right, Like nobody,
nobody when I was in in the Green Berets wanted
to go see the group psychologist. We had a group
we had we had multiple group psychologists full time.

Speaker 9 (43:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
The only time you went to go talk to them
was when you were forced to. Usually that meant you screwed.

Speaker 6 (44:00):
Up the loneliest job in the military.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah, there's a lot of empty chairs in there, and
there's nothing you know, like you know, I want to
make sure that I'm clear on there's nothing wrong with
psychologists and therapists, right, there's a there's a there's a
very healthy they provide a very healthy uh form of
mental health. Uh, and they need to continue to do

(44:24):
that coaching. And what what Shark provides is subclinical, So
we don't diagnose anything, we don't treat anything, but what
we provide are coaches that are trained. They're trained coaches,
but they also come from higherriest background, so there's a
shared sense of experiences with with the clients. We're also

(44:48):
removed from the department. And we're very clear when when
Sharp partners with a with with a department, we're very
clear with that department leadership that we are not going
to report back names of folks that when when when
a department contracts with Sharp, everybody, every sworn officer in

(45:09):
that department has unlimited access to our coaches and our platform.
And in fact, a lot of the recent agreements that
we have with departments, and I'm glad that a lot
of these departments recognize it is we include spouses into that.
We include spouses, we include dispatchers, we include the admin
folks that have to talk to these first responders and
here's some of the trauma. And but we we provide

(45:33):
coaches that we're not going to report back to the department.
The only thing that we do report back to the
department or numbers. So we report back utilization rate of
the platform, which we right now we have we have
about forty to fifty percent of our average department actively
using SHARP performance coaches. Yeah, which I mean, like you know,

(45:54):
the utilization rate for the group psyche that when I
was in Special Forces was probably about two to three percent,
and that two to three percent didn't want to be
there in the first place right now. In fact, you know,
when I when I would redeploy, we would always have
what we called a post deployment health survey. You go
to to the docks, you fill out a form. They
got physical docs, they got you know, psychologists there and

(46:17):
I am along with just about everybody else that that
that goes into those uh we we we don't fill
out those forms truthfully, right, I fill out those forms
in a way that I'm good, keeps me, keeps me
out of that out of that office, that gets me
out of there as quickly as possible.

Speaker 6 (46:33):
Right.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
But what Shark provides is an alternative alternative to you know,
and and most of the departments we work with have
things like peer support. We're a very good supplement to
peer support because the the the nice thing about Sharp
is shared experiences with the coaches they've been coaching. Really
at the at at its core is mentorship, right. Uh,

(46:57):
it's it's helping all of our coaches have ex trauma.
All of our coaches have largely gone through some pretty
traumatic things and they've they've recovered largely through coaching, and
then they decide they recognize how how impactful it was
in their lives, and they they decided to become coaches.
They decided to become coaches for SHARP performers because they

(47:19):
want to. They want to they want to pass it along.
But Yeah, what what you described really at a at
a core is what what SHARP is uh. And that's
a mentorship platform for high risk professions. And it provides
a space that not to use the safe safe space, Moniker,

(47:41):
but it provides an environment where you can share things
that are perhaps bothering you. Uh, and then we can
talk about how we're going to recover, how are we're
going to move on.

Speaker 6 (47:51):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
And at course, coaching is about goal setting. It's about
who do you want to become? And I'm gonna help
you get there and I'm hold you accountable to getting there.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
I've always said that it's so important for officers to
be centered. Well, the three, in my opinion, the three
pillars of individual excellence is faith, is mind, spirit, and body.
And if one of those are out of sync, then
you're going to have a problem. And especially in the

(48:24):
and I'm sure you ran into this that special operators
and the many in law enforcement stay very physical fit.
Not everybody, but especially the ones that are doing the
high end work. So that's not a problem they can
address to that. And most of them are actually incredibly
intelligent people and do a lot of personal improvement when

(48:48):
it comes to education or maybe they go back to
graduate school, or they're working on something else that they
want to do. But it's this faith connection serving something
greater than themselves and understanding where they're at in the
real world of who they are is are those things?
Can you help make the that those three legs stable again?

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah? Yeah, and you're right right, like, uh, for the
most part, you know, we all we all work. We
go to the gym, right where we're constantly working on
on our physical fitness, but where we lack is working
the most powerful muscle in the body, and that's the brain.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
We focus on increasing our bench press and increasing our squads,
maybe increasing our or decreasing our two mile time run time,
and that becomes the focus. But that's only going to
take you so far. Your your brain is it can
be the most powerful muscle in your body. But you
got to work it and typically just like having a

(49:57):
really great physical coach, but especially for the brain, it's
it's helpful to have somebody that knows what they're doing
and coaching you and guiding you through the process. And
we you know, for for our our clients that are
with SHARP, you know, the first call is really centered
around what do what does that person want to achieve?
And it can be physical. We have coaches that that

(50:19):
provide physical coaching to provide you know, thoughts on on
how how do you how are you gonna you know,
improve your physical fitness. But we also have you know,
clients that they want they just need to get better sleep.
They're sleeping terribly. They're sleeping you know, two or three
hours of broken sleep and that's that's producing a lot
of negative consequences. So we've got coaches that focus on

(50:41):
on that. We've got folks coaches that are faith based
that focus on on helping someone either continue their their
their journey and faith or or really rediscovering it. For
for a lot of clients, they lose connection with that
and SHARP is a good way to to get reconnected.
We have coaches that come from a chaplaincy background, both

(51:05):
military special operations chaplaincy background and also from a first
responder background. Yeah, so we've yet to run into a
client that had a goal that we couldn't help them with.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
That's awesome.

Speaker 6 (51:18):
Yeah, you know, it's underestimated. But the art of listening,
I tell my students a lot sometimes I'll train investigators,
is that we talk too much and we don't listen.
If you're doing an interrogation, we're spending too much focused
on what we're saying and not on listening to what
they are saying. Same thing with personal relationships, we are

(51:40):
not spending time listening to people. Do you all how
do you train your coaches and mentors that art of
listening which is so important?

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah? Awesome question. A really great coaching cause about twenty
percent talking for the coach and at eighty percent listening.
And from a training perspective, the vast majority of our
coaches come with coaching certifications UH and so usually they're
they're taught, you know, how to manage a coaching session

(52:13):
before they come to sharp. But we also have a
really great coaching uh coaching leadership on our coaching team.
We've got a fantastic head of coaching that comes from
a special operations background, but then decided that he wanted
to move into mental performance space. Uh. And we've got
a couple of really great coaching team leads that do

(52:35):
the same thing. And you know what, when we're bringing
a coach on, that's one of the things that we
discussed with them is managing a coaching call, particularly in
this environment with with these types of clients. And part
of that management is less talking and more listening.

Speaker 6 (52:50):
Yeah. Yeah, well you have a you have a great program.
Let's talk a little bit about are you seeing some successes,
Are you seeing some measured results in the work that
you're doing.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Yeah, super proud of what we're building here at SHARP.
You know, from a from a measured perspective, it's really
tough to measure, you know, how effective a coaching session is,
or how effective a coaching program is. So much of

(53:22):
it is very very subjective. But you know, the biggest,
the biggest stat that I'm that I'm really proud of
is the utilization rate for our platform. I mean, when
we've got thirty forty fifty percent of a department actively
using our coaching program, and we call it our nearest competitors.

(53:42):
Always that department psychologists where God love them. You know,
they do great work, but they're only getting about two
to three percent utilization, whereas we're getting forty to fifty
percent utilization. And it's just because of who our coaches are.
But you know, we get calls and emails every day
from department leadership and individual clients talking about how we

(54:04):
fundamentally change not just the way they approach their jobs,
but their lives. I mean, the probably the biggest impact
we've had is like folks that didn't know how to
deregulate out of high pervision. Its finally figured out and
with the help of a coach, and they walk in
their home after a shift, and that their presence is
just so much different and that has just such a

(54:26):
powerful snowball effect, right of getting better sleep, showing up
better for the next day. Yeah, So we're we're just
so proud of what we're building. And like I said before,
like we we are not we are on a mission
right like this is we're a company built by special
operators and we're no longer on the battlefield. Our new
mission is to make sure that every first responder has

(54:49):
access to a platform to our plat quickly quickly.

Speaker 6 (54:52):
How can we follow sharp performance in your.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, I head to sharp performance dot com and uh
there's a there's a uh, a little query in there
you can put in to learn more information and we'll
reach out to you.

Speaker 6 (55:05):
Very good, Colonel Justin Crocker, the United States Army, retired
former Green Beret and a head of people in talent
for sharp Performance. To our listeners, remember, a just society
has built on strong families, virtuous information and faith that
anchors us. We appreciate everything you do and don't forget
to visit my work on substack at doctor Curry Myers
dot substack dot com. Happy Veterans Day, say safe, have

(55:28):
a good night.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
Call steal sustus as fate shadows seequis line, doctor cars.
Let's do the scram alogist

Speaker 4 (55:53):
Sells anckles and crows, break and chain through Fast off
to the fame.