Nicholas Seedsman: From the Brink in Service

Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey, Human podcast. This is episode 421, and my guest is Nicholas Seidsman. Nicholas is a veteran of the Australian Special Forces with 3 tours of combat duty. He's the founder of Warrior Refit, a foundation that advocates for and raises money in support of stem cell treatment for full spectrum regenerative intervention to improve the quality of life for veterans. That's a mouthful, but let me explain.

After leaving the military, Nick was significantly disabled, and through extraordinary and costly stem cell treatments, he found a better quality of life and a lot of healing. He said that his life changed dramatically with the treatment from, quote, operating at a 2 to 4 percent of life with only 2 to 3 months left to live, unquote, to a dramatic upswing of 70% and continually getting better. He says he's now capable to live a full active life, and he really was on the brink of not

being with us anymore. So it's a major deal. Stem cell research, there's money going into it, but it's really costly to do the treatments. So his foundation helps raise money for others to get that life saving treatment. Really interesting guy, lovely conversation. We talked for a long time, actually, before we even hit the record button, so really nice man and enjoyed that conversation, and I think you will too. General Stuff, Hey Human Podcast is on YouTube under official

Susan Ruth. I'm on patreon at susanruthism, and we've been doing monthly get togethers. We talk about everything from books to philosophy to where people are from to anecdotal bits about life in general. It's a lot of fun, so sign up for Patreon and and be a part of that.

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I appreciate the listens. I appreciate that you're sharing, in your community with your friends and family, and, yeah. Take care of yourself. Be well. Be loved, and here we go. Nicholas Seetman, welcome to Hey Human. Thanks, Susan. How are you doing? I'm doing well. And you're in Paris currently, but you're a man of the world. Yes? Apparently, I am. Yeah. What are you doing in Paris? I was just in Cannes Film Festival. And then from there, thank god, like, I

wasn't there forever. Some people are staying 1 to 2 weeks, and it is it is it is it is a lot of socializing. Like, it's pretty heavy. After 4 days, I'm like, I think I've had my fill. But, my brother was in Bordeaux with his wife and my nephew, so and I don't get to see him that often. They're in Australia. I I rarely go back, and I just seize the opportunity to go spend a few days in Bordeaux with them and then a few days in Paris, and now I'm just hanging out in in Paris.

Party? You speak French? Yeah. Generally. Not perfect, but I'm getting there. Yeah. And that's so nobody gets mad at you. Yeah. It's it's the Parisians. Right? They're like, not so they can get mad at you. This is this is how I would best describe it. They they would get upset if you didn't, but as soon as you see speak French and they realize it's not your native language, they will correct you with English

immediately and start speaking English to you. Like, so what's the point of this dance, guys? Like, why the drama? Like, just Oh, yeah. To prove that you were at least trying, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my my French is pretty good. Like, they'll they'll give you they'll entertain me for, like, minutes or 10 minutes or whatever until it's like like, I can hang out with people that only speak French, but it gets to a point where it's like, alright. There's a word here we're

losing, and then they'll they'll jump in. The minute you ask for almond milk and your coffee, they're like, no. This is done. We're done. Yeah. There there are a few moments, like, I I learned when I was living in in Colombia that if you want toothpaste, you'd better damn well work out how you asked for the right toothpaste because no one's coming to

rescue you. So I've got all these, like, really weird, tangent ways of requesting things so that it's like, you know, to describe what it is that I want to help lead them to to that particular thing. That's where all of the years of Pictionary come in handy. Pantomime is the key to everything. I'm Australian. We didn't have Pictionary. We only we only had Pictionary in the mer in the American movies. That's that's it. That's all we had. So I'm just going off what my general concept of

Pictionary is in my mind. Somebody needs to get you a Pictionary game because it is super duper fun. I'm missing out. Alright. Let let's get into your story. We're obviously, we know you're Australian. Talk about your upbringing a little bit. What shaped you as a kid? How you went on the path that you went on? Oh, yeah. So, this

this sounds pretty interesting. My my my father, my grandfather, and uncle were homicide detectives in, in in New South Wales, and they they my my they were particularly good at it. My father is still cited as, like, case for case studies on on how to do it. I guess that that that changed a whole bunch of things in my childhood.

Right? My father and mother knew each other in high school, ended up marrying, having a long relationship for probably, like, you know, almost 20 years, but because they started early. And that went until about the ages of, let's say, like, 30, 34, 35, where my father went through the full PTSD journey from just seeing too many, too many dead bodies and and all and whatever comes with that. Right? Like, too many, yeah, dead and and just horrific shit. So

that shaped my childhood. Right? So I grew up. I was young at about 4 or 5 parents divorced, separated. My mother went cold before that or went particularly cold afterwards. She's lovely. Like, I have a great relationship with both of them, but I I'm like, I very much just speak the truth, you know, from whatever lens that I'm seeing it. I've I've done an awful amount as a result of my life journey to do to do self development work by a spiritual, emotional, mental,

you know, embodiment, whatever it might be. And as a result of that, I'm pretty well enlightened about my own journey. And they separated that had a certain effect on my brother, had a certain effect on me till now learning how to, you know, parent myself better as a as an adult in the best ways and to steer the ship and correct the course based on those effects that it had on me and decisions that I've made. How old were you when they divorced? 4. I think about 4.

Quite young. Or 5. Yeah. I was pretty young. So it was like a lot of it was over my head, which got really confusing when I started spending time with my dad. He had another another woman, and and and it was he's became his wife, and he's still married to her. So it's like it that that there was was a little bit confusing, but I just, you know, I'm a kid. I just roll with the punches.

Alright. My brother, I think he took it a little bit differently or he he took it fine, a bit quieter about the situation or maybe less happy so that we you know, we grow up. My mom ends up meeting her partner, became my stepfather, and he was fine initially. But then, you know, like, a year until I was about 10 years old when the when I think they kinda got together and started getting married, he he just pretty much, like, mercilessly bullied me, which which gave me some cool superpowers.

Right? Like, looking at life in the in the right lens here, like, what what whatever that might have been, the gift from god there, I got an immense superpower of resilience. I learned to like, it's a it would basically be great at the dinner table every night, and it was, you know, it was all it was I'd just be sitting there and listen to an ambush of how I wasn't good enough at anything. And I'm a kid. So it's like, you know, as you as an adult

now, you're like, this is pretty irrelevant. And your mom didn't step in and talk to you? Mom didn't. Brother didn't. No one did. They just watched it for, like, the better part of 7 years, and I thought As if it was happening to you, it didn't happen to them, probably. Yeah. At all. So it it was like it was pretty black and white, and, I was the weakest in the house even when they had a child. Like, he didn't pick on his own child. It was like it was a bit like that. So cool.

So be it. I was a kid, didn't know any difference, but that shapes my adulthood and my my emotions. I was able to bury my emotions, like, really well. It was a struggle at first to just bury your emotions. I was a bit of a softer emotional kid, like, in some regards, but I learned to be super resilient and bury all those. And as a result of burying your emotions, the body and the mind are very much connected. I was able to make my body completely numb to push through whatever ridiculous

task I wanted it to go through. I had to learn how to socialize really well. I had to learn how to build relationships very well because I needed third parties to to kind of, be there for me in case that that that this evident circumstance wasn't there for me. My mom's lovely. She's worked her ass off, but she was under the understanding that providing a a home and food and all these things and be diligent at that was the best way she could take care of the kids.

And she definitely did that. And as we get older, you know, she's she's learned a lot and she's, you know, the best version of herself and and very very all that love in her life has come back. So that's that's great to see. But, it shaped me so that as soon as I you know, I did pretty well in school. I was pretty smart. I was very I was generally autodidactic in many ways, but just really cared about

the social side of things. I could I could get through class and pass tests and exams without having to do any study because I would just kind of memorize things pretty well and and process information, like, you know, that are interested me, like, very well. Like, if it was history or if it was if it was drama or the arts or whatever, depending on the arts. Right? Like, me painting is is I'd I'd probably rather shoot myself in many

ways. Like, let's leave that till I'm like the old Churchill version where you're like, you know what? That's I heard something. So so, yeah, so I, I did that and then and, you know, I whatever I adored, I was great at, and then whatever I did, I was fine at. So no one was ever, like, you know, coming at me for grades or anything, which, you know, made it interesting that I'd be there was even bullying at all. So it was like it was it was, you know, about whatever.

I proceeded to to to get to the end of my 16th year. And as I was getting to the end of it, I'm just like, well, I I I know I wanna be in the military. Like, I loved loved, I loved drama and and acting in school, and everyone was trying to push me towards these schools. These you know, like, the performance art schools and then go on to the the next phases of that. And I loved war in geopolitics and history.

And, for me, it was like, well, damned if I'm gonna skip that step and not and not, have a good have a good nudge at that. So I, as soon as I turned 17, I I went into the military as electrical engineer, and that set off its own journey. The toothpaste back into 2 at that point, I I went I went in, like, all in. Does Australia require service? No. No. Not required. No. It's not mandatory in any capacity. It's, it was just my, you know, just what I was meant to do in many ways.

And that and that that was probably my my my youth to say the to summarize it. My youth, to me, was pretty like, I look back now, and I don't really remember a lot of things because I don't think it it just wasn't other than how it shapes me, it wasn't as interesting as what I'd made my adult life to be, you know? Mhmm. Yeah. Were you already showing signs of being a polyglot and polymath at that point? I'm sure the military notices things like that and and tunnels you in a certain direction.

I think, I I don't actually think they do. I actually I think the military is just like the cream will rise to the top by their own sheer will. It doesn't have to look out for things like you would think so in a movie where someone might touch you on the shoulders. Like, those people striving exceptionally well stand out and continue to strive, and they end up where they are as a result of that, like, of just being as diligent and as competent and as as focused as they possibly can.

Mhmm. Yeah. Like, I would say I would say they yeah. There was no observation for it. I just I just kept going for things younger than than I just wanna be the youngest at most things. Like, I I would I would definitely try to you know, I wouldn't let age affect me in any capacity. But you're already pretty young, it sounds like. Joining at 17, it was like, okay. Cool. The other people around me were all grown

men. Everyone going through training was grown men, especially when I got to I was very aware of it when I got to I was always good socializing, so I was I was able to build, like, really good rapport just through just being authentic. And as a result of that, I, like, I had great relationships with guys of all these different ages around me, but some of the guys are like they'd finished school the same day I was born or, like, I was

17 and they're, like, 45. It was like, you know, mixed bag of maturity. And then also all the people in charge of me were definitely older up until the age of maybe 60. But, when it came to the electrical engineering, I was I was a little bit out of my my depths to say the least, but out of my sheer will, I was gonna, like, work it out or die trying. Mhmm. So I, I I started everyone around me had degrees or whatever already, right, or or up to master's degrees.

And and I just like high school. You know? I was like, I was a little bit out of my depth in that regard, but that just means I had to study harder. And even then, the studying was this challenge, of interest because I already knew what I wanted to do in the military. I wanted to get as

you know, like every child dream. Like, if I was gonna be in the military, I wanna be the greatest warrior I could be, and I was gonna punches as high and as fast as I I I possibly could until I had the coolest job and did all the the the the warrior stuff. However, the education was like the safety net of having something and falling back on something. And, you know, these these these things that I I don't know who like,

the average person might say. We're like, oh, you need something to fall back on as a bit like a safety net. I'm just now. I've never seen more relevance to that than I than I do now in this phase of my life. But at that time, I felt myself out of my death and but just forced myself through it by sheer will. And you ended up in the in the special forces or the

Australian equivalent of the special forces? Whilst I did that, I simultaneously trained every single day running, swimming, and weights because I didn't know how much to train or what to train. But what I was really good at was pushing myself through, like, really hard stuff and overtraining, which became a problem later on. But I knew that if I overtrained, it it's a better problem to have, you know,

than, than undertraining. Like, it would give me extra time and extra clarity of mind to be able to make decisions when others are more fatigued than me against I wouldn't say competition of you know, in certain environments, but, you know, in the end, they've they've only got so many numbers they could fill it. But by comparison, they're trying to catch their breath or whatever, and I'd have time to think about the

next task or whatever. It's interesting because it sounds like you came from a bit of an abusive household as a child. And, I mean, people can say what they will, but I think mental abuse is maybe even more detrimental. Bruises heal, but the mental stuff you carry your entire life I I know for a lot of people that are dealing with that kind of childhood, you tend to head down pathways of substance abuse and things like that or an

addiction in general. Would you say that this overachieving became your own kind of addiction? Yeah. The the training and overachieving became an addiction. Definitely. Like and and I'm gonna I'll get to the snowball here. So I trained I started training every single day and studying every single day, but this was fine. I was 17. I was in the military. I wasn't allowed out. At night, I wasn't allowed to drink and do all these things. Australia,

18 is the drinking age. Right? But it also meant that they would cap you and, like, have a duty of care so your social life wasn't there. So so, like, I had all the extra time to do all this, all the all all the clarity in the mind of the world because we're now partying, but it also killed all my time that I would have otherwise to take girls on dates or or and do all this socializing. So I had none of that between 7, 8, and 18, like almost zero

interaction, actually. It was like they killed that, which, you know, as you're raised with the emotional abuse and touching on that, it's like emotional abuse, as I've learned more about it, is is one of the hardest to deal with because people don't have marks or in incidents to truly mark its existence. And it took me until 31 and couple 100 psychoactive therapy hours for them to to finally convince me and get me to say, okay. Maybe this is a thing.

Like, she was like, oh, thank god. Like, it was crushing her to try to get this across. So, yeah, it it is a pretty hard one to treat and acknowledge. But, again, it's like, alright. Accept and understand it. Move on with the, move on with the you know, what did I get from this? What did it give

me? So I I learned to train immensely, study immensely, and focus on the the the task and where I wanted to go and what what things I wanted to achieve to such a degree that I was in, you know, I I ended up finishing my electric electronic school. I was posted to some engineering in in in the shipyards there for the the naval ships, and I went to search on the ships. I went on trips. So I even enjoyed the moment and the journey.

But while I was on the ships, I remember being in the Filipino sun, and I would run around the flight deck for, like, 3 to 4 hours with 50 kilograms and all this equipment and whatnot and camouflage boots. And I'm in the navy. I don't have any of this, so I had to get it from the army, and they just see me over, like, training ridiculously. So they gave me all this stuff. And at this point, it's been, like, 2 years or so, and I haven't

stopped training. I've actually elevated the amount of training of which I'm doing to, let's say, to an unnecessary amount. But being in the navy, you know, and a and a to switch over the army to pursue special operations, you know, I had to put in all that extra gross amount of effort. I just wanted to make sure that, okay, cool. These people are gonna know more than me, so how do I just outperform in this area? Gives me space to learn the other stuff.

I proceeded to just run laps around the flight deck doing this. And every time I did it, and I do it at least once a week as well as all the other training I do, I'd feel my boots full of blood because they tear off tear apart my whole feet and off the back of my heel because I I just had the wrong size boots. Like, don't care to give me the right size boots. They just gave me whatever equipment they had, and I was just gonna make it work.

So I went through a lot of, like, layered resilience building there, and then I and then then I put in for the the army's selection entry test, I should say. And then I went across to do the the entry test after the ship sabotaged me several times because it wasn't in their interest to lose me. It's it's hard to have electrical engineers, even though they can't do anything about it because it's it's prioritization of military assets and resources.

They can't stop it, but they're like they've you know, before deployment to to into Asia, they'd be like, you know, we've lost your medical something. The day before of the test, they'd be like, we've lost your medical whatever, and be like, I guess you can't go tomorrow. And it it wasn't like a it wasn't you know, like, they knew it was illegal, but they were also kinda like, I can't tell you can't go on, but I just told you you can't go on. You can't go do this entry test. Oh.

But, yeah, eventually, I got it myself. I paid for my own flight back from Singapore to be ahead of the ship and, and got there and did it. And, you know, through my resilience, I came 1st or second in every category against, I guess, all the army guys without me knowing how to do anything. Now at this point, you gotta remember I'm not like a I'm not like America where they have the Navy SEALs, so you you you have this image that the Navy SEALs kinda know how to run around with guns

and whatnot. The Navy in America as well, for the most part, have no idea how to do any of that. They have camouflage and equipment. They don't do any of that sort of stuff. Yeah. That's when the the you know, that resilience in my life and growing up really tied in here because I was able to just train and overtrain and work and grind and stay focused and push my body through anything. You know, the the army the army, the

navy could yell. They could do whatever they want or whatever, and it just wasn't gonna get through to me physically and and and physically, emotionally, mentally. It just it was it was untouchable at this point, and I knew it. And the worst part what the best part worst part let's look at it like glass half full. I knew that I was, like, getting so

resilient and more and more resilient. And every time that I did, I got rewarded for that resilience by getting to the next level in my career that I wanted to achieve at a speed that is, like, really unprecedented. Like, at this point, I've already done you know, I just I didn't go across to the army because they're like, you know, it's it's more of a prioritization of us to to have special operations personnel

than it is to have another engineer. So you're you're coming across, and the Navy couldn't do anything about it. So it's like, I'm getting rewarded, and I'm I'm already living, like, these small careers that are someone else's entire life journey in their career, in their in their in their work. As you are excelling in all these places physically, what are you doing with your thoughts? Are they just getting shoved further and further down? Like, I'm not feeling pain. I'm

not feeling worry. I'm not being scared. I'm not having any of that. I must have I must have I don't know what it was. Like, I had a really great grandfather. I have both great grandfathers and grandmothers. Right? But my grandfather, the one who got me you know, I in my final year of of high school, I was wearing a a blazer and a tie and and all these things which happens in in Australia to a certain degree. And so I wore that, and he he

took me along to the recruiting. And he was he was always he was a very brilliant, remarkable man. He was he was very, extremely well educated, but, like, self educated. You know, the family growing up had a lot of money, extreme amount of wealth, actually, and his father gambled it all away, but he never lost his ability to his education that he was raised with. He was able to self educate. He cocked it on the chin, you know, comes home. We've lost we've lost multiple mansions and houses.

We've lost any business assets. They had a stake in the First Bank in New South Wales, and they, like, they established and they lost that. Lost everything. It's like, oh, by the way, you're going to the mines because you're the oldest, and we need the family needs any money they can get to But they lost it or they gave it away? Lost it. Gammeled it all away. His father gambled it all away. Oh, shit. At home,

had none. And he and he, you know so he he just cops on the scene and got sent to the mines the next day to make money for the family. Woah. That's a shift. Yep. Massive shift, but he never lost that. And he he was extremely humble. He's probably the he'll be he'll be an unchallengeable, mark as a gentleman to ever, to have a measure up to. You know, I felt like I was lost without good men in my life. Right? My father, this man.

So I wasn't all flying blind. Right? You know, I had these people that that definitely that definitely influenced me in a positive way, I should say. What happens next? You've been accepted into the army. I didn't realize you could go laterally like that between branches. You're not meant to. It's only because I I passed their their test and and the the the head special operations guys were like, we want that guy. We want that kid. Whoever

that kid is. Because I'm still I think I was I was like 19 at the time. Maybe just yeah. 9 yeah. Definitely actually 19 at the time. Yeah. So, you know, I'd I'd spent somewhere between 2 to 3 years in the navy training like hell probably about 2 and a half. Haven't stopped every single day. Just a baby at 19. So young. Definitely. But, man, I was focused. I didn't think negative about myself. I was able to be self aware enough of when

I was doing good and doing bad. And the thing was, if I put effort into absolutely everything I was doing, I could not be angry at myself if I did not pass. If I didn't put effort into the thing that I was doing and I failed, then I could be down on myself. So I had this really objective way of looking at success and measuring it, the harshness of myself. I couldn't sit there and be like, you know, like it's like, man, you could have

sprinted harder. I didn't have that. I sprinted every I gave everything into anything and everything that I was doing. So as a result of that, I couldn't the thoughts, the negative thoughts that might arise from, you know, enduring these past experiences might make that challenging, but they didn't because it's like because I was able to objectively measure them. And the military has a lot of benchmark success to

help you objectively measure it. It's the civilian world that might make that more challenging because it's kind of like everything's up in the air in every which direction. They bring me across because they can do that. They have the power to do that. It was more important this time during war was going on to have special operations personnel. Australia is a very high bar for their for their servicemen, and their infantry, and as well as their special operations and

so on. And they they had to, because we don't have the numbers America has. We don't have the technological advancements. Well, we do, but in smaller numbers that the Americans have, which really doesn't give us this this drowning in asset scenario that America has where you have an infinite amount of ships and helicopters and planes and whatnot. You have to be you have to. But what we do have is this ability to have a extremely overtrained and educated

and, like, personnel to draw from. Look. You guys are great. Like, I would like, man, if you wanna go to war with anyone, you wanna go to war with the Holy Roman Empire, the Americans, they got it. I get that. No. I get that. I do. But but I wish that education was a little bit more emphasized for the non commissioned. You know?

Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, even then, I've got I've I've seen some American commissions that wouldn't also, you know I'd be less inclined to follow them into a cinema. And but but it's not saying all of them. Like, for the most part, the people I worked with in the American military, so the operators, helicopter parts, all this stuff, I'd like I'm absolutely

on their team. They were just Yeah. I I have friends that are, you know, special forces and marine you know, all this stuffs, and they are definitely the cream of the crop as far as knowledge and ability and integrity. Yeah. Integrity is the foundation for all of it. So I can't get I actually to do that test, I I have to have a track record of an entire career with an unquestioned integrity.

Mhmm. There could not be a single moment where they're like, Nick there was Nick's integrity was in doubt. So I wasn't just doing the right thing. It was if you fucked up, you're owning up to it, and you're copying it. It's like, come what may, but it was like,

his integrity has never been in doubt. And every every operator that does this in order for these teams to work, and and it and it gets a little bit more elevated as you go up higher in responsibilities as to, like, how important that is because you could be operating as a 1, you know, 1 or 2 man team, you know, in some sort of theater in in the world. Right? And you damn well better have have your especially if you're in a

small team. Right? Like, that other person is relying on you, like, intensely. So I get to the army, and I do this, and they got me on this path where they're like, alright. Well, now you're across here and you've done this test. Great. However, you don't have the infantry training, and you don't have the the training from the the general army. So they they started training me as fast as they could across all these things, and then they put me in the whole

infantry school. And I just go through that as fast as I can, and then they have this special operations, like, prerequisite sort of course that they do to help you gap the time so that you can learn as much as you can before doing their our our special forces. Commandos, we have 2 special forces. I'll get into that in a bit. We have our our commandos or our, like kinda like our brain brace, right, or or ranger or something like that. And these guys here, they,

you know, they're like, cool. We got a selection and training course that we do together. And, basically, a training course, if you're not up to it, they'll cut you off cut guys off every day or every week until they wheel it down to the people that they want. And when I got to the infantry school, I started the day, like, week somewhere in the 1st week, I got a hernia the size of a golf ball. And, yeah, and it was I and it was down in my groin.

And I so what I would do is I had to jam it in whatever organ it was. I had to jam it inside of me, my fingers, and I did the next 13 weeks of the infantry infantry course like this. What whatever it was, whether it was pack marching, charging, whatever, I would jam in this golf ball organ inside. It was the most agonizing thing ever, but I was capable of putting myself through anything at this this point. Holy cow. Anything.

And the other thing was I I was very observant, and I learned things quickly, which became very important later on for the the military. So I was able to suffer this even though there was a distraction of pain, but I was extremely fit. So I was able to compensate with that and compensate that I was able to learn quick. So my attention, even though it was part of it, is definitely focused on this apportion, the rest of it is, for the most part, focused on the task at hand, capable of being there.

Well, I come out of surgery, start training again as soon as I can, which really means you can't use your upper or lower body because your abdomen doing everything is quite the challenge. Right? And I've realized I'm behind the other guys who are about to attempt this selection. So not only am I behind the 8 ball of knowledge, I'm out of the 8 ball of physically, and I'm also extremely fatigued

here. Well, eventually, the day comes, I get on this course, and I proceed to spend the next 32 days or 4 no. It was like this one was about 40 45 days, something like that because it was a course and a selection, and I just kept going. I and I I was aware I was struggling in many regards where it mostly was fatigue. I wouldn't quit. Didn't know how to quit. But I knew I didn't know things more than the other guys, and I knew I didn't. I knew I you know, physically, I was

kinda holding there. The the hernia was its own question, but the fatigue was like, I would have to stand up in all the lessons or any anything because I couldn't sit down anymore because I'd fall asleep. Like, it like, I'd have been microsleeps if I sat down. And I'm talking, like, within the first 10 seconds of sitting down. So I learned that unless I was permanently gonna go to sleep for the next couple hours, well, they woke you up with some yelling and screaming.

So I was I was I was back against the wall, and I so I got a few days just before the end, and they pulled me across at the outside. And, you know, out of out of 100 of guys that we're down to, like, the last 30 guys, and they pulled me across, and they're like, look. You you don't have enough experience to be here. And I'm like, I yep. I tried to tell you that, guys, when I missed out on that course. And I did this surgery, but I'm like, so be it. That was my first, like, failure.

I don't know if I could call it a failure. Well, yeah, it it was definitely interesting. It was for me, it was failure. How I handled that was really good because I took it on board. It hurt. It crushed me. It was the first time that it's like I gave it everything, and and it didn't work out, that you know, even though I'd given it everything. Because for the most part before, things are working out because I was just putting in every little bit of effort. And, usually,

when you do that, go figure. Things usually go your way when you legitimately hand on your heart, put your solid effort in. I'm like, man, maybe maybe I'm not good enough. So I went through about a couple of days of of just general suffering and alone time and all these things. And the first time in my life that I got any real concept of emotional turmoil, and I went through that a bit and had that journey. So then I went to, an infantry unit of my choice. They said

you don't have any choice you want. Went to the one of my choice, which I knew was a new one. I knew that they'd promote me and put me through the ranks much quicker. So what happens, you you get deployed right away? When was your boots on the ground somewhere where you went, well, this is not a video game? I then go to this unit. I proceed to they realize that I'm like, I'm I'm pretty cluey, so they proceed to

promote me. We can have me in put me on reconnaissance courses and all these things so that I'm in charge of a bunch of the team, really. And, and basically, I'm actually just gonna skip that special forces selection, which was only gonna be a place that's gonna hang out in that unit for a few years and then do our next special operations unit, which is the SAS. And then I started training 5 to 7 times a day between all my my my work activities. The SAS, which is the air service?

So you're you guys created some SEALs, SEAL teams to have something like our commandos, and you had then you created special forces to have something similar to that as well. And then you just created Delta Force to to have something like the British SAS. And then you created out of the SEALs, you took the your best SEALs, and then you created something called SEAL Team 6, which

was mocked after the British SAS. So it was definitely like a a step above for me in maturity, the ability to pursue, and I'll still again, this time, I just turned 21. So it's like, okay. Like, you've got your your seals, as you know, as your whole week. Like, this is 3 weeks of of just rigorous psychological mental torture, to just see every weakness in you. And I got injured, but the best thing happened to me for the first time in my career, I rested and had to rest. It was

lower back. I couldn't run. I couldn't do upper body. And the day that I knew my lower back was functioning was the day that I decided to pick up my pack to put it on to go to the airport to fly to Perth to do the selection. Anyway, for the sheer will of the gods, I, I got through. I I got selected. They had a you know, they had, like, about 300 70 or something start, and I got down and there was about 19 of us or something that got selected at the end.

Selection, the last it's famous because the last 5 or 6 days without food and sleep, and you're already broken at that point anyway, work you to death and harass you to death. Is part of that breaking down, I get to sort of cohes you into one functioning machine and not a person because you can't be a person when you have to look out for all the other people. You have to be functioning

as a unit. I get that part. But is it also partially because if, god forbid, someone were to be captured and tortured, they need to know that the people that they've selected can handle that, or is that just my movies movies brain going on? That's that's that's part of it. They just wanna know that it's the it's the most mentally and physically resilient person that has no concept of quitting in any format and can so they need to get you to a broken point,

completely broken. They've they've tested you as as in masses for different things. Right? They got 100 of guys at the start. So testing you for quitting, testing you for integrity, testing you against things they'll teach you. You won't sleep for a few days, then they'll test you on them several days later. They test in how you handle high stress scenarios, how you test like interrogations,

all these things. And that happens for weeks until the last then then, like, 12 days from the end, they'll send you out into the mountains for 5 days to navigate, and and every day, you'll you'll walk like it's, like, 30 kilometers. God knows what that is in miles. And then Nobody knows. No one will ever know. No one will ever know. 30 kilometers, and then you'll you'll also climb a mountain as well. But at this point, your legs don't work. You've got injuries. You're you're missing

part of your feet. You're like, you're we lost, like, 33, £34 each just on this 3 weeks. And we didn't have it to lose. We're very athletic guys, like, going for their this this thing of their in their their life, you know, something very important to them. So we all looked like sick starved dogs or from a war like, prisoner of war camp. You know? Then they threw into 6 days of, like, every day, you're carrying things, like, heavier than your body weight for 12 hours a day.

And then you're building and solving problems to see if you can lead a team under stress, see if you can everyone's a leader, so everyone has to be able to lead the teams. And it's like and seeing if you can remember and solve problems and whatnot. And then the whole night, they'll keep keep you up in this, like, mock village where they've got you digging a digging a swimming pool for the chief or being harassed, with a knife. You're just sitting there just you know? And and then so you don't

eat. You literally you don't eat, and you definitely don't sleep. Like, there's no, oh, that's where you're gonna sleep. There's none of that. You're actually you're sick days. You're not sleeping, so you're you're pretty losing it a bit by the end. There is there is one meal, like, you know, 2 days before the end. They it's it's not really a meal. It's more of just to test your results. They bring out this green stew that's cold, and it's just it's it's brains and different organs

that are riddled with maggots. So they left it out until the mag until the flies went through it, left maggots in it. And it so it's like off meat with maggots through it, and you're just and it's cold, and you're just expected to eat as much of the maggots and it's and the the brain or whatever as you possibly can to show that you can do it in those circumstances. But you're starving, so you'll eat anything at this point. And you get a bit of that, and then they just take it from you. So

you don't get a meal. They just wanna know that you'll do it, and then they pull it from you. So it's like you're just trying to eat handfuls of maggots and anything you can in any format just to get any nourishment into you. I feel like maggots, I get that's protein, but eating some brain, I don't know if I have to do Maggots were maggots were fine, actually. The brain was pretty random. It's the brain that freaks me out.

They got it wrong too. So they they they the cooks didn't get it right because everyone's cooking this very often, and it they wanted it not really cooked for us. They got it wrong. So it actually gave everyone, like, basically, like, low level dysentery. So it was like it was it was a mess thereafter. Pun no pun intended. So Good lord.

Yeah. It It was it was anyway and then at the end of that, they, you know, we got to the end, and no one had been told if they were selected or not for the remainder of guys that had finished. It was only, like, 20 something guys that finished it. We still had to see if we were actually gonna be selected

to start the 18 months training cycle. So instead of ending it there and getting his medical attention, all this stuff, they were like, the the guy running it wanted to see if he could outdo all the other instructors for every other year and make it even harder. So we threw straight into 96 hours of resistance to interrogation, which is another 96 hours of no sleep with the same song on blindfolded, shivering in the cold on a mat. Do you remember the song?

Yeah. It was white something from White Stripes. I don't wanna hear it. Like, it gave us we all had night post night terrors and all this shit. Like, we're all yeah. By by 10 days after this, like, it was it was clearly they they said they'd never do it again because we're already pretty broken to to it turned out to be torture. That there's a Commonwealth investigation into it for torture.

It it definitely broke the lines. Those days there, that one song on a repeat, so so awful that, like, we just can't couldn't hear it. None of our guys can hear it. Like, it's like it'll it'll set us off pretty quick. But then afterwards, we're having, like, full blown night terrors. Like, everyone was everyone was, like, well, like, grow everyone pee in the bed. No one had bowel control anymore. Like, it's like waking up screaming. Not just like it was like we'd

they they yeah. They definitely broken the lines of and they're like, cool, guys. We know where the line is now. It's like, hey, guys. This is it. This is the line. You don't wanna go past this point here, so help me god. The so now the yeah. Now the military knows that. And it's probably you know, you guys might get a benefit off that too. Strange tested it out on their own. Abu Dhabi, they use that to torture

prisoners. Yeah. Right? They Yeah. They they use the same thing to to, you know, and they're they're practicing and refining their techniques of the intelligence on us. So it's like, okay. Fuck, guys. Thanks for playing. Thanks for playing, but we didn't quit. No one quit. We just copped it. And at the end of this, we like, the guy we got broken out like our commanding officer of the unit we're going into. This dude, he's just like badass, came and

did it. And just yeah. Let's not waste an opportunity to us to do a really good training. So they had us set up in this location. And at the end of it, they just they go, cool. We're gonna put you to sleep in in line with the Geneva Convention, which means they could be like, oh, we're gonna give you 10 minutes sleep. But they put us in there, and as soon as they laid us down, like, we're we're we blacked out. Right? Like, 10 days out of

sleep, we black out. Like, our bodies don't move anymore, and, like, we're in the spirit world of dreaming and our and over saved up

REM. And, anyway, he him and this entire one of the squadrons, one of the the the fractions of the unit, turn it into a whole mission where they set targets up everywhere throughout the entire city, and we're just shooting and blowing in walls and doing all this stuff to, like, set up an entire hostage rescue scenario so that they could actually practice with what it would be like live hostages that have been in this scenario, kinda like what Israel's

going through at the moment. Right? When they came in to get us, they'd never done it with the, you know, these kind of hostages before, so they realized we couldn't actually use our legs anymore. So they had to get these, you know, 18 or 17 guys or whatever it was and drag them and carry them while shooting. So it was like, you know, which is part of the 18 months training. Guys have to be able to pick up a grown man with equipment on and carry him himself whilst he does his job and run with

us. And like they had to do a full mission profile. Anyway, and at the end of it, we get this speech by this guy that I can't remember, but I will remember that moment for the rest of my life. Like, this commanding officer was like a guy that you would follow into the gates of hell. You'd be like, I'm happy to storm hell with this dude. Wow. That's a wild that's also wild. Well, okay. Let's truncate a little bit. Yeah. You're you're a movie You're several movies, I think.

Yeah. Tell me about so you do you do 3 combat tours in Afghanistan. You end up with PTSD, TBI, fibromyalgia. I read all the different ailments that were understandably I mean, one could argue that those things were building all along. I can't even imagine 10 days without sleep, what that does to the brain, first of all. And that was just one instant. 100%. Great observation. That's for sure. So I finished that 18 months training. I I I get I I get into unit, which is a significant deal for me as

a young man. I'm I'm like now 23, just turned 23. And then they're like, hey. We need some guys to go to Afghan for for a kill capture combat deployment over this period. Nick, you haven't been because I'm young, and I've been busy in training this whole time. And he's like they're like, you wanna go? I'm like, yeah. 100%. Like, I'm frothing to go. I'm like, like, it would be a fight amongst us to get deployed. Like,

we love doing our job. So the more we're sitting over there, like, my first trip, I didn't wanna come back. I'm like, just leave me here. Permanent deployment till they shut this country down. And, you know, overzealous in some ways, but we'll pay pay for that later. So then I proceed to do that one. That was what their job was, though, right, to create a super soldier? Yeah. We we we went we were we were pretty hungry for it.

They did that, and they trained us ex disproportionately competent to the to our enemies, like, immensely. So we did that. The other thing we were doing that the Americans stopped doing or didn't do was we were doing day missions. So we were like we worked out you know, do using combat assault dogs. Like, we'd have these dogs. We'd we'd do missions where we'd have dogs running around and help us clear cornfields and kind of be in our eyes and ears in many ways. The Malinois?

Yeah. The Malinois. We didn't let it I had one on my 3rd deployment. So I didn't, we didn't let the Taliban, like, gain refuge. Their command is in any format. Like, for often, they'd be like, oh, if they're gonna come, they're gonna come at night. Like, hell no. We would come in day night to come ruin your good time. We did not give a shit, which meant that we were working round clock day night, which meant that day night were completely on

the table. Like, we come back from 1 we come back from, like, 3 days of no sleep with training, right, to prep for that. And then we'd be like, shit. This other guy has popped up. Alright. Change gear. Bomb up more ammunition. Let's go again. And we just roll out again. And so for 4 months stints, we were just doing that. So I did 4 months, came back, and at this point, I was pretty tired. I came back, and then I and then but I positioned myself so that I come back and do a

course called JTAC course. Now this is a whole other person's job in the military to be just good at coordinating a deconflicting aircraft on the battlefield to drop bombs on the enemy, not on your own guys, not on civilians, and know how to deconflict the airspace. Well, we would do that so we could do that in combat on the ground simultaneously as well. I'm like, yep.

I I I wanna do that because I knew if I did that, it would make me more employable for people to be like, Nick, we want you and our team to go on the next trip. It was, like, strategic, and it worked. I did my 1st 4 months. I came back, went straight into that course instead of taking leave off. Did that. Got to the point where I was just like I I was exhausted. Right? And then had a this is where decompression comes in. You could say all that stuff in my life prior has caught up with

me. So then I'm like, right now, it's I still haven't decompressed from what I just gone through. Right? Like, as in combat, killed my first man on day 4, and then the combat just kept going after that. So it was, like, pretty pretty, pretty intense, you could say.

And then the decompression looked awful lot like me flying out of Australia, the 2 mates from the unit, going to LA for, like, 6 days, going to Vegas for, like, 7 days, going to San Diego and back to LA and drinking pretty much and drinking every day. Like, it was like the the decompression was that, and it was you know, there was a few starting to be a few rocky elements there that you're like, right. Things aren't that great, but, you know, this will

blow over. Yeah. Decompression equals Compression is self medication, really. Yeah. And I so so I proceeded to go straight back into went back straight back into Afghanistan for fighting season this time, which is, you know, somehow even busier. And that there was definitely busy. And did that for 4 months. And at the end of that, I was like, alright. I haven't taken leave pretty much my entire career at this point voluntarily in any capacity.

So I had all this leave and time saved up, so I took about took about, like, about 10 weeks. I had an actual decompression where I just forgot that I was a soldier with my brother and 2 dear civilian friends and traveled around from you know, we we we arrived in in Miami, went through the South of America a little bit, and then went to all South America, hung out there, came back, got a dog, got trained up on how

to do the dog. So now I'm coordinating, doing it my entire extremely complex job as an operator, plus JTAC, coordinating aircraft, plus dog handling. I definitely bitten off more responsibilities than anyone actually needs to bite off. It's fine. It's part of the bearing of emotions. I'm not interested in developing a relationship. I have the extra time. So Well, you have to have a relationship with your dog, obviously. We had to bond with the dog. A lot of work. A lot of work. A

lot of work. Went to deploy with him. And then the third one was where I probably saw some of the shit that I wished I didn't see as much, and it caught up with me at that point. So at the end of that one You mean human suffering? Yeah. Some some some death. Yeah. It was it was it not definitely seen it in every other one. It was just some of the memories from that one, like, seem to live on a little bit more than than the other deployments. Right? Like, it's it was it was more collateral.

You know? And it was just like civilians, kids, shit like that. It was just like, fuck my life, in that regard. The thing that is always strikes me is, for any military person that I speak with, is that it's clear that the military creates a person or sort of almost an absence of person in order to rewire our golden rule understanding. That's just inherent of morality of being a person on the planet.

They have to restructure that in your mind and create someone that kills, but kills in in a just quote unquote way. Yeah. But we all know that that's not what war looks like. It looks like chaos. It's like, you know, it's it looks like it's not a Michael, Michael Bay movie where everything's just perfectly organized systems and technology, like targeting exact everything like so those though and, you know, and any of the collateral that I saw, you know, I had it wasn't it wasn't myself.

That's when it became the hardest when it's like it's not it's it's like kind of like an enemy fault, but you're still dealing with the consequence of what they did, and that's when it's kind of creates this frustration. Yeah. I mean, they use children as bombs. Yeah. Yeah. In in Iraq and yeah. There was just yeah. His father uses he had, like, a Yeah. Anyway, we're going You don't have to talk about it. No. It's okay.

But I get what you're saying. Yeah. It's so and then at the end of that, I came back, and I'm like and I like, on that 3rd trip, like, I also taught myself Spanish. I was I was training a dog. I was doing missions con constantly. I was training at the gym 2 to 3 times a day. I was commanding aircraft in the command center because we didn't trust anyone else to command as diligently as our guys if we were available because we're like, who's gonna find fixed location of

these guys better than us? So we recorded any multiple drones and and aircraft in the air whilst working with our team. So that when I got on the ground, I could be like, I've been coordinating that aircraft, and I've been seeing him dig a hole in that position every fucking night and going out touching it. Do not go there. Not everyone's like a leader in this organization at, like, a roundtable of some capacity. But I could stand there in front of everyone and be

like, do not go near that. I've been watching this guy for the last several nights. Go out there to whatever the hell is being dug there and do something every night. And usually, they set, like, booby traps. No. Let's just say booby trap. ID with a with a plate that sets it off so that if anyone does come at night, because they're expecting, for the most part, US and British or whoever, but the strains will go on the

day. But if we did do a night mission because we we we think it's you know, because that's the opportunity, it would be like, don't go there. Find another way in because that looks dodgy as hell. But I was doing all my job, all the training, all the missions, all the athleticism required, the dog energy users because they run so much. You've gotta run with them. They're brilliant dogs. They're brilliant, but they got

so much energy. I used to take him to the treadmill, and he'd he'd run an hour and a half on the treadmill elevated, or like we'd run around the we'd like we'd go on full gear together, his little his little entire strap chest with his camera and stuff. He'd put a muzzle on. I'd put a I'd put a mask on, and we'd run over everything. We'd just do a lap of the airfields in the sun just so I could, like, try to kill some of his energy. So I was burned out. I get to the end of it. I'm

emotionally and physically burned out. And so I'm starting to realize that I've got my my tether where I can run out of of energy in many regards. And I finished that that last deployment. And then all of a sudden, I start feeling tired. But instead of having time off, they throw us straight into some counterterrorism training to get us up to speed with a handover to take counterterrorism and and and just hold that down domestically for the most part.

Well, that was when I that's when I you know, my energy and my my resistance of this was just started to take a huge hit of fatigue. Like, I'm like, I'm I'm pretty damn shattered, guys. I've just done 3 of these trips in 2 years and all this training and everything else in between and and, like, you know, all these other anti terrorism stuff. And it was just like, guys and and also with deployments to Asia and all these other things.

I'm like, I'm pretty wrecked, and they're like, no one cares, which they don't, which is fine. I did it, and at the end of it, I I I remember this day on the last night that I started walking towards, a vehicle to go home. And I'm the last guy to leave most of the time because I got the dog. I gotta take care of everything else, and I'm now also gonna take care of another half a human being and and make sure he's fed and he's good.

And I start walking towards the car, and I just it was it's like as I the car is only, like, 200 yards away, max 250. And as I start getting closer to it, and I'm probably only a 100, I just start breaking down crying. And I'm like, I I I had no idea, like, my energy, my fatigue, everything, it just burst at this point. It's like I'm just walking and, like, stumbling along, just trying to hold it together. And I'm like and and that's when I I was like, oh, man. I'm

I might be pretty tired here. I'm not doing I'm not doing too good. I think I might need to rest. So then I'm like, okay. I cashed in all my holidays and leave and everything saved up. And in a few months, I'd I planned it so that I would go to I'd I'd leave the country, and I'd have, like, 10 a half months out of the out of the unit. Like like because in Australia, you don't get you don't get bonuses and stuff for staying

around longer. What you do is they give you 3 months long leave if you've spent 10 years serving. I've got in young. So at this point, I'm like, you know, about 27, and I've been in for the 10 years. And never really taken a break? Never taken a break. Like, you you'd have to make me. So I took this. And as I started going to all of that, I started encountering I went to a doctor and I was like, I'm feel, like, really tired at the core. Like, I just, like not even not a fatigue anymore.

He's like, oh, it's chronic fatigue syndrome. So I'm like, okay. What do you do? He's like, just rest. I'm like, alright. Well, I've got time off coming up, so I guess I'll just rest. Anyway, I took the time off, and I I went to some Europe for a bit, and I settled mostly in Miami and down there on the beach and just hanging out and chilling and not really focusing too much on

the military stuff and resting. But what happened was I started getting the fatigue started turning into, like, like, anxiousness, and then I started turning into, like I couldn't sit in the cinema anymore. I remember watching the the movie, the American sniper, and I couldn't sit in the front. I I wanted to leave. I was rocking. I was shaking. That that's what started first was the anxiety around it. That became a thing and became really, really difficult to deal with.

And then, you know, the fatigue didn't go away. And then after that period of time, I went back. What happened was I I I met a girl. I started dating a girl. I had my really my first relationship. That must have been interesting too because you didn't really have all the socialization skills that happened throughout the first 10, 15 years of dating. Let's say I had the ability to court a girl like, like, you know, I was living a rock star life of some kind and completely unattached.

And I had that element, but I didn't have any relationship building skills, and I'd never seen a healthy relationship as such. However, when I was in Miami, I had 2 dear friends of mine who were who were, like, probably 20 years older than me, And he was a mate and his wife, and they were just they were awesome. And we would always hang out and go on

adventures together. They were and he he's like a very certainly successful guy, and but just also really grounded and spiritual and collected and has 5 kids for, like, just beautiful healthy kids. Like, apples don't fall far from the tree. Right? So really gave me kinda like this this person I could model, something like that off. Ended up getting this this girl in my life, and she was she she's she's adorable. She's great great girl.

Right? But the tough part is for the first time in my life, I'm now learning how to use emotions. And I'm also starting to stampede towards PTSD and and going through all those psychological chaos to get there. Did any part of you recognize it because of your dad? Did you have any kind of because you were so young. I guess you wouldn't have. Yeah. No idea. I and I just it became like this beautiful artwork of chaos of me trying to work out. You know? Like, I'm not I'm not crazy. I'm not like a

a person screaming in the streets. It's not my vibe. Right? But when I lose it, it's, like, really trying to understand why my mind like, I I started sleeping, like, 19 hours a day in truly deep sleep. There's no REM. There's no light sleep. Like, I lay down. I am out. My body doesn't know any of the other factors. I, you know, I mean, I I start start I'll be in a car with her, and then I and I and, like, and I'll just start breaking down crying, and she doesn't know what the hell is

going on and on. And she's like, what's wrong? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I I have no idea what's happening. And, eventually, this happened over the next I got went back to the unit, and this kinda happened over the next year as I was trying to hide it and almost got deployed for the whole lysis thing and and and a few other things. And it was, and I was trying to make it all work so I could do this job, and

the job kinda distracted me enough. But at this point, I got diagnosed with a chronic fatigue again, then I got fibromyalgia. And then I eventually, you know, had this psychiatrist that I I had to see, and and it was getting to the point of the full blown PTSD scenario. Right? But I let it get to a point due to my resilience, you know, which is now no longer a superpower at this point in my life. It's starting to become not a superpower.

Mhmm. I let it get to a point where I had a full blown like, I I couldn't drive in a straight line anymore. I couldn't remember names. I couldn't remember long distance thing, like like, long memory, medium memory. Everything was foggy. It it was like All the trauma was coming to a head, basically. Yeah. It was getting pretty heavy at this point. Oh, flooding your brain. I proceed to start I I'm I'm breaking down crying 15

times a day. While I'm in there, I'm like, I'm gonna do this job because no one is gonna watch no one's gonna go to war and no one's gonna watch my body's back better than me. No one is as good. No one identifies that pressure plate. No one remembers this. Like, we cleared this village that last time my my my squadron went there. They killed 81 dudes. So we go back to clear it, and I'm like, there is a there is a small, tiny tree line there that you guys missed.

And I'm like and I think someone should go back and clear it. And it's like they go back clear it. There's 2 Taliban laying there in ambush. Right? They would have they would have killed, like, 4 or 5 of our guys or maybe even shut off the helicopter on the way out. So it's like the little details that I remember and know that about the the things that I added to keep guys alive. I'm like, no one will watch them better than me. No one.

So it's like I do it until I'm at breaking point and can no longer do it, and that's what I did. Were you still with the girlfriend at this time? Was she able to handle that? No. No. She that had separated several months before where it kinda came to a head where it was just like, I I can't keep myself alive and do this. And she's like Did your CEO notice stuff? No. No one noticed. I kept it so hidden.

Kept it so hidden until I had to just walk into the office of of my commanding officer and be like, hey. I'm really not good. And even then even then doing that, it like, he could he could see it in my face at that point. He's like, holy shit. You're yeah. Okay. Fuck. No one's been no one's been taking the time to look at you. Like and they they deliberately we do that for each other in a sense that it's like the guys will help each other medically stay in the unit as long as they can. I get

that. Yeah. Injuries, whether it's for whatever, it's like, if you can keep up and do the job, no matter how much pain you're in or what's going on Yep. We'll hold it down for you. We'll duct tape your whole life so you can keep going. Duct tape, glue and sticky tape, sold everything. So I did that, and then then they were like then he went to his next, senior commander, and they they both had a chat. They're like, holy fuck. This is not good. So they're like, go home. Don't drive.

They're like, do not drive. Walk home. And this is the thing. I was almost dying in in car accidents. I I lived, like, right on the edge of base. So to drive to work was, like, maximum 4 minutes, and and I was always dying in several car accidents on the way to base. And my subconscious wanted me dead, so it wanted me to steer into oncoming traffic. It wanted

to steer into trees and whatever. So I'd catch myself coming out of these daydreams, like, consciously, and I'm aiming at a tree or it was it was getting pretty pretty dicey. It was against my own subconscious. Right? Yeah. Do you think that that moment was or that realization was the subconscious is like, dude, the only way we're gonna get you to get a good night sleep is to kill you? Yeah. I mean, is that kinda where it was? We're tired, man.

Fucking tired. We're hanging in here. I I don't I don't know. I I think it's like it was a boiling point as you alluded to before where all my childhood and everything until this point had finally kind of caught up with me of doubling down. Here's a result as a result of me going and talking to these commanders and rightfully so, but sadly so, in that one moment, I just lost my identity, lost who I am, lost my mission in this world, which to a to a man is the most important thing to him. And,

I'd lost I'd lost my career. I will never be that. I'll never be the operator again, this guy that I worked my ass off to be and to stay as. I will never be able to go to war and cover these guys back and and do this journey of life. And and I've just destroyed my entire career in one conversation of going into that office and speaking up that something But you saved your own life. Yeah. Well, that's it. That's where that other layer of courage was. Did they did these people step up for

you? I mean, it sounds like they did. I know that for you, it's like, shit, my whole world is crumbling. But to know that they saw they they love you. I mean, they it was important for them to protect you. Yeah. Yeah. No. Like, everyone everyone that that encountered it had on it well and took care of it. It was there. It was it was not it was not a problem. It was it was very it was it was more of just my internal well was destroyed and very challenging.

Fuck it all. What's important now, it's important later. Right? What's important now is I need to go to a hospital that you're gonna put on and go every day. I have to turn up there and do, like, this 6 to 8 hours of trauma recovery because I'm on the close of death. Like, I'm just trying at this point, I'm just trying to stop my self dying. So I take antidepressants and stop them.

I start going to this clinic. I start doing psychoactive therapy in private as well as in the the with other veterans. And it was like something out of a movie, but it was it was real. It was real. It was where I started understanding my past, my present, the mental side of it, really getting some tools in there to to so I was able to stem the what I would call I would call it triage, which is West is really good at. Right?

Like, medical triage, and I think mental. Outside of that, not really that good. Just really handling the the immediate chaos of an emergency where we nail that. Like, if you ask me what doctor I want for these for mental or physical, I I I want Western doctors for that. But after that, it doesn't really serve its purpose. It's triage medicine. It's it's it becomes irrelevant. Right? Almost entirely. I was able to have a catch up with the the the psychologist who took me through that.

I was having a catch up with her, like, 2 or 3 days ago, and she had a she had a good emotional we we both had an emotional moment where she she I thanked her, you know, to be grateful for her keeping me alive. My journey didn't just stop there of of healing. This was like, I finished that, and now I'm like, my body's exhausted. I'm, like, tired. So then I I I leave the military, and, you know, I'm like, I wanna get away from Australia. I wanna get away from

all of this. I wanna be somewhere completely different, and I just wanna walk away from this this life for a while. So I went to Colombia, and I I taught myself Spanish on my last deployment to to Afghanistan. I had to read and write at least, like, you know, Spanish. My ability to speak it wasn't great, but I could I could talk to you. I could read and write to you all day in Spanish. Mhmm. So I'd, and I went there, and I

started this new life. And I took some time slow and and just and just kinda chilled out. But I started realizing that, man, I I'm getting I get sick really easy and real all the time. And it was this realization over the next probably 2 years, and I'm like, alright. I've spent, like, out of the last 12 months, like, 10 months of it, pretty sick in some capacity. In the other 2 months, I'm I'm pretty just exhausted. This point, I'm realizing that there's a whole bunch of

still psychologically, I've got work to do. You know? Getting my life together, getting a new path and a new alignment, completely incapable of of dating. Like, nor am I interested because it's just like, I'm just you know, if you give a fuck, I'm just trying to keep myself together at this point. I spiritually and emotionally, there's a void there that I'm and that I'm starting to discover, more of. I guess the emotional, I'm definitely in the thick of it, but don't understand

any of it. And the spiritual is starting to appear. It's it's head a little bit. And then I then I hang out, and so I hang out calling for 2 years before I find out I'm just not ever not sick. Like, I've got a bacterial or viral infection or something. I had a lung infection for a year and a half. I had constantly with the sickness and permanently fatigued

and sleeping and whatnot. I'm like, I've gotta ended up getting some after talking to a lot of doctors who, you know, they'll they'll say things like, oh, yeah. It's it's in your head. You know, as soon as they find out you've had any mental health passed and you try to talk to them about chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia or not, it's in your head. Trust me. They do that with women all the time too. Oh, I think. Yeah. Or or or guys. Or a guy. There is yeah. Guys getting

crushed. We're all getting crushed out there by Western medicine. And so what would what I did was I was like, I I really don't think it is. Like, I'm I'm pretty good at the nuance of these things now, and I'm extremely self aware. Eventually found a doctor in Australia through the help of a dear friend of mine, a guy who I still work with, by the way. He just treated my mother and

helped my mother. I I paid for him to to take care of my mother and because I want as many years out of her as I possibly can, right, to orientate her diet. And he was like, Nick, you firstly, it's not in your head. It's this, this, and this. All these tests here have indicated that you you have these viruses active in your system from the jungles. You have dengue fever. You have Epstein Barr. You have,

rosservo fever, which is Australia's malaria. You have several others that they don't have names for. They're so random and rare. And he goes, so you have all these viruses that can't go dormant because they're all active in your system. And he goes, you're on your way to autoimmunity. And he's like, you need to leave. You need to be in the sun every day. You need to be on ground level. And he's like, and you need to be, you you need to move cities essentially and

be here. So I moved and went to Brazil and stayed by a beach there. And I know that might sound romantic, but at this point, every day is pretty much hell trying to hold it together. No. I mean, they used to tell people with tuberculosis to go to the sun. I get it. You you gotta go where your body is gonna heal. Yeah. Yeah. And it was so, you know, I go down I go down there, and I I start,

you know, getting into this. Now you gotta remember when I got out, like, I'd still find work and pursuit of my time. Right? So it was like a challenge for that. So I I actually found myself consulting in the family office space just because I knew a lot of people everywhere. I just that was a very interesting journey. There's a lot of really interesting relationships that I still have today that that that I came across.

That was that was great, but it got to a point after a couple of years that I was like, I can't actually do this anymore. I'm now at my full time job of not dying again. Mhmm. When my actually, all I've I got completely into autoimmunity. It wasn't just fibromyalgia anymore with intermittent. It was like full blown autoimmune. But also trying to hold my mind together, and I'm trying to hold this emotional world together. Now I'm just trying to not die

from autoimmunity. So it was like trying to do that now with my arms and legs tied in a swimming pool. So it's like it was a nightmare to do that, but I was doing my best. But the the interesting thing was I I I went in there's a guy named Jesse Gould by Heroic Arts Project. He's he launched the he he really drove psychedelics in Ayahuasca in the veteran space. And he's been in New York Times and National Geographic. He's he's a great guy, a remarkable

guy. He's spoken in front of congress. He's worked with MAPS to get a lot of these, psychedelics with a with a civil congressman and veteran congressman through through congress so that it's accessible to have psilocybin, you know, MDMA, ketamine, all these sort of things accessible to veterans, and God bless him. And he put me on with a bunch of other vets, put me on, my first Ayahuasca retreat at this gap where for, like, a few weeks, my health had

stabilized. Because before around that, I was like, I can't do this because if I send it by knowingly send it to an area that's gonna fatigue, and I'm gonna set myself up for an even bigger life failure. But I I I managed to get, like, a few days in there and did it, and and that was, you know, that was life changing. That's when I realized there was some soul or spiritual work that I had to do as well in some capacity. I'm like, this is a whole new sphere here. It's again I'm doing self

triage. I'm like, what's important now? It's important later. My mind is kind of pretty well hold together. My health is in shambles. Physiologically, I'm I'm dying. I'm like, okay. I I also have all these injuries from the military. Right? Like broken right leg, foot, ankle, worn through both my kneecaps, left ingonal hernia. I've got my lower back

seizes up. My neck, I've worn through both my shoulders, dental damage, hearing loss, TBI, all these things, but it's like, still I'm playing this game of what's important now, what's important later with with life and responsibility to generate some some income or manage investment or anything like that that can just keep you keep me going whilst fighting off the major one of the present, which is the

physiological. Right? So I come out of I come out of this, state of, like, euphoria and understanding and self awareness and whatnot from the Ayahuasca. And that was great for the next few weeks, but I immediately went back into alright. Cool. Body's like, well, sweet. But we're gonna keep going back into this trajectory downhill of of, like, catastrophic health failure.

But it was a good to just put a pin in that and be like, I need to come back here to this this world and this energy and this space to do work on myself when the time is right. So, eventually, I get to a point where my health is so bad. I pass through Colombia again, and it's serendipitous a mate of mine. It's like, I need you, Nick, given your situation to just meet this guy at his social party tonight. I'm like, dude, I can barely talk anymore. I can't go out at night.

I'm I I can't I can't drink. I can't do any of that. I can't, like, I don't dude, I I don't I don't physically have the energy to do these things. My bod like, if you understood how miserably exhausting this is at this point, like, I I don't know what the hell to describe this, but I he's like, just do it for me. It's a doctor. You should meet this guy. Met him. I went to clinic, stem cell clinic in Colombia. So I I talked to him and I talked to a fellow people at the party.

He's like, I can't guarantee anything with with what you've got going on, but he's like, but I can fuck, man. I can try. And, like, put me in touch with his head medical, officer. And she's like, look, Nick. I, she goes, I I can't guarantee anything, obviously. I think stem cells is still very much experimental medicine at this time, but the ultra rich were doing it and that the most successful sports players and UFC fighters

and all these guys were doing it. So it was like, I doubt there was you know, it was completely invalid. And I listened to enough podcasts. She's like, Nick, I, I can't you're you're you're so far in the hole. I don't know if we can save you in time, which became pretty daunting that she that was that was kind of like no one had no doctor had said that to me yet that, like, you're dying, which became I didn't didn't think about at the time as much, but it became pretty

confronting a little bit later. I was like, I'm I'm actually so unself aware due to my ability to block out emotions and physical pain that I'm the opposite of a hypochondriac, and I've actually haven't reacted sufficiently in time to save my own life potentially. That's a huge deal, and that's it's a big awareness to have for somebody to finally look you right in the eye and say, if you don't do this, at least try. You're fucked.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like well, she and she didn't sell it to me at all. She's like she's like, we're gonna help you. We're gonna try we're really gonna try to help you. You know, we can't guarantee anything. We we just wanna say that. And and but I can tell you that I've had a 100% success with every single patient that's come in here with autoimmunity in our clinic. And I'm like, well, that's pretty good fucking odds, and I'm dying anyway. So take whatever

money. It's it's just like it was it was definitely very expensive. It was like a lost each effort not to die, but, you know, best deal I've ever made in my life. Because the next 2 to 3 months, it started it was getting worse. And I was like, at this point, I I I could barely leave the house each day. I couldn't have conversation with my family or friends or anyone because I didn't have energy to even have a felt phone call.

I'd shake in my sleep permanently so I could take sleeping tablets, and I'd still be awake because I'd just be shaking. You could see the parasites around my eyes. My eyes twitched from the nervous system. It completely shut down. They didn't give you something to kill off the parasites? So here's the thing that I got to a doctor and they did, and they gave me, anti, what do you call it? Antibiotic? Ebonics. Jesus Christ. I'm like, I'm struggling with that one.

Kinda begged with the doctor. I'm like, these make me really bad. Like, I'm like, when I go on any of these, they they, like, really set me back. They do disastrous things. He's like, you're gonna have to to kill this type of parasite. This doctor wasn't bad. He's one of the world leaders of microbiologists, so he kinda had to trust him, but it was also like, hey. The cure to I don't know. The cure to your your sadness is drinking alcohol. You know, like, that was kind of like what it was. It

was like, oh. It's like chemo. You have to count almost kill someone to kill the cancer. Yeah. Right? It just got to the point where it was really starting to get very hopeless. And my diary, which I mentioned to you before we started here that I I didn't stop journaling, and I didn't stop studying languages every day, and I didn't give up hope. Like, I managed to teach myself you know, I know about 5 languages now. I managed to teach myself some languages.

I managed to to journal every day to be self aware, to read, to better myself, do everything I could because I was able to push through. At this point, I was aware that I'm like, alright. I can't exercise that much. I can't. And I you know, I do whatever I can. And I and I was trying to, but it was like,

I didn't give up hope. But if you go back to my journals, they're like, what I'd what I'd unfortunately but fortunately been able to learn was there's a complete difference between depression as a as a, disease of the mind and misery. And I was able to delineate between the 2. Misery based on circumstantial misery and depression based as a sickness. And, unfortunately, I was able to live through the both of them, and I can identify them very simply. And I was miserable.

I was in truest deepest form of misery of waking up every day kind of regretting that I wake up. And I remember just writing there. I'm like, I hope to go that one day I don't just exist for the sake of existing. And I was like, you know, I just I'm very aware of my misery the way I would journal and process, and I'd give myself 3 things to be grateful for every day. I'd give myself a joy, you know, and I'd I'd I'd work through this journaling system just to just to hang

on to life just in some capacity. Right? Went through a lot of Marcus Aurelius Mhmm. At this time as well. Every day, I'd I'd have, like, a bit of a quote or something that I'd I'd focus on from him. And, man, yeah, I was in hell. I I was in I was in I was in Anastasia hell, but then the stem cells, like clockwork, they kicked in. Oh my god. They kicked in. And I started healing and getting better. And then I from there, I started feeling, stable. Not just not I I wasn't even hoping

to get better. I was just hoping to not die anymore. Yeah. But but I didn't wanna I'd had this feeling before a few times where Brendan, you know, life had pulled a rug from underneath me, and then I started getting better from beyond that and kept getting better. And then I went in for my next round of stem cells just before COVID shut everything down, like, this

that literally 4 or 5 days. Like, I did to them on Thursday or Friday, and they shut everything down on Monday, but the whole world was closing closing down. And I got the 2nd round of 3 in time, and I'm like and then when I got that, I'm like, I'm still going up. And then for the months afterwards, I'm like, I'm still inclining. And for me, if you got me back to 40% of health, I would that was a deal. That that's the best

deal that that anyone's ever given me. And then I kept going until I got to, like, you know, about a I I was able to, during COVID, take just after a while, it's like, well, you know, your COVID experience is whatever, but I'm the kind of person that's like, I'm gonna die on my feet rather than on my knees. So it's like so for me, I just chose countries that were by the beach like Greece and just hung out there during COVID by a beach on an island somewhere, and just just found my peace with the

world. Read a read a book, like, in a hammock. As a result of that, I just I came out of all of it at about 70% at the end of COVID. And I was like, my god. And I've still continued to incline because I got my immunity back in my health as well as learning what else I can do to to help my health, which probably goes into the next part of how the body and the mind is so intricately connected, and also emotionally, spiritually, these other elements.

Bright. They went, okay. Now I've got my mental stable because my physical's not making it me miserable. And I've done the mental health works in my mind. I don't have the depression, all that stuff at the this time. And I'm like, what's the next realm? Next realm is saving my my heart, my soul, my emotions, all that that whole aspect of me that I've done an entire life of ignoring to to bring myself to some sort of holistic health status. Just work at the next the next pier.

And yeah. And then that's that's what I did. Wow. I mean, that's a hell of a journey. And I am you're still on the journey, obviously. It's gonna be a lifetime that you keep working toward it, but your health is back now? Yeah. So my my health got back. I then proceeded to go on this journey of picking up picking up business and developing in Columbia buildings, and I built a foundation for veterans to to try to to spread the word about the stem cell stuff.

Warrior refit. Is that what that is? Yeah. And then I and then I stepped into I stepped into probably 50 to 60 ceremonies of Ayahuasca with really disciplined intensive work around it to follow that up with integration and everything. I've done most of the the medicines that are available, whether it be peyote ceremonies, whether it be woofo, combo, the the the the venom. Frog. Yeah. The frog. I've like I've meditation. I've and and in in this, I've managed to open my heart,

which I thought was a throwaway line. I had this battle showdown one day with myself and Ayahuasca. I'm like, I will open my heart today or die. So be it. Come on, May. And I managed to open my heart. I'm able to fall in love with myself. I was able to understand and really connect with the feminine and God, have a conversation with God and presence of God and understand the plight of the of the feminine and the the challenges in the world.

And then also understand, like then then, like, months later, I went down the masculine journey and responsibility and stepping into that. And that was its whole journey. I've found a connection to god that I never had. Like, I'd had every reason in the world to be like, you couldn't convince me god exists. Like, why why try? You know, not that I've necessarily chosen a religion to go down the line of, but I've I've almost completed reading the whole bible.

I'm I'm about 40 pages or something from the end. Interesting read. It is a very interesting read. I tell you what, it's it's a lot of it's a lot going on in there. There's a lot going on in there. But, yeah, I really stepped into that and and then did a whole bunch of investment into myself for self development in in every other aspect to understand different parts of my life. And, I I've I've, like, left nothing unturned

in in that development. The the last part that I'm covering about the emotional spiritual side is is to me far more interesting than everything else. I have done more work there than I can possibly even try to comprehend, which is allow me to understand every tier of spectrum of emotion that, like, you know, any of the any of that space to me is, like, really easy to recognize the emotion and and and and understand and connect with it and

and process it. And relationships and and what I'm looking for becomes much easier, to process in in many ways when choosing relationships and able to keep things so extremely healthy, on that front, understand my past, self awareness of my entire trajectory, self awareness of, like is, like, with relationships, stepping into responsibility for the business that I create,

and what I do in this world. Like, I I overhauled everything in my life that I won't touch anything unless it's associated with passion and service. You just can't pay me enough. I just I just rather, like, I'd rather live in a jungle. And as a result of that, it's far more rewarding in every capacity to to provide a service to another person or do something that's passionate or both that the likes of passion in you or both.

That has been the most beautiful part of the journey that I'm looking forward to. When you said I learned how to love myself, that was the moment. Right? Then you realize that everything that this is the only reason we're here. Right? The bottom line is love. If I believe in something bigger than myself, and I believe that we're all put here in order to, a, figure out how remember how to love ourselves and how to love others.

And that compassion has to has to be flowing into oneself in order for us to have the compassion for the rest of the world. And you, honestly, that whole journey you went on, all those fires, you wouldn't be able to now operate in the world with such great compassion and with such integrity if you hadn't experienced those fires, all the way back to little you who felt like shit when your stepdad was being a jerk. You know? That in some place, he was trying to make you forget who you are.

And then in that moment of you sort of waking up and saying, oh, I love myself. That that remembrance, that's the minute, that's the that's the moment that Genesis, right, that god and you touch fingers. It's yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. The the the going back to my childhood and didn't connecting with that child within certain, like, breath work or whatever or what they've been pretty powerful and intense. And it's like, one of the things that came up with it's like,

yeah. I'm I'm like, he was just tired of doing adult shit. He, like, he was tired of being an adult too early to take care of me and take care of and and it's like and then there's this duty of responsibility handover where I was like, hey, man. This isn't your work anymore. And it was like it was interesting to see that, yeah, he didn't he didn't get the the as much of the childhood as he wanted, or he needed, but, you know, that having to remove love

from the equation was was challenging. So then, you know, being able to reconnect with him now in this theory is much happier and more grateful for that journey. More grateful for the of God into all of this as well. Mhmm. Or God or whatever or whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. You can call it anything. It's it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I and for me on that one, it's like, you know, my thoughts around that is it's like, okay.

In order to tell in order to to dictate to me that there is no god or or energy source or whatever it is, it's cool. You have to conjure the concept of this thing in your mind, which is where god's created within yourself because how else do you create something external unless you don't create it within your own realm and understanding? You have to create this to then tell me that that thing that you now know is a thing doesn't exist, which means you've just given it the power of existence.

So what you wanna do is people wanna take that, whatever that is, and be like, well, I I don't have enough space in my realm, and I'm scared of that. It's really fear that governs most people's decision making. Right? People operating from a place of fear. So they put it in a box, lock that box, sit on it, refuse to ever look in it, and they're like, god or the grand spirit or or whatever it is doesn't exist. It's like, okay.

Not gonna try to unpack all of that, but it's but it's like the greatest gift for me is stepping into the fear of god and that there being a god. Like, it's actually and since having that element of god and acknowledgment of that in my life, everything that I step into because when I go to these Ayahuas and all these ceremonies and things and and everything else in my life, The bigger the fear and I'm not talking existential or if it's an existential fear, you're like,

yeah. Don't walk closely into that cliff. Stupid. Right? But you've got these fears that are really what I call the breadcrumbs of god where it's like just trying to get you further along your path and give you a little lay up, little alley oop, and you're just like it's just it's and it comes in the form of fear. And every time I step into that fear, every time I step into deeper or surrender to the challenge or the darkness, I am rewarded immensely by God for courage.

So I'm at and which is actually to me, you know, I don't I don't get after the military career and what I was doing, I didn't like, by my by my last trip, I, I I I was, you know, I'm I'm sitting in a helicopter with a dog strapped to me, ammunition guns at night, flying and waiting to skydive out of it, and I would sleep in it. Like, my heart rate would be so low. I just sleep the whole time, and someone would tap me, and they'd be like, alright. 3 minutes screaming.

So like, they'd have to do a colored light, so he explained to me. We're jumping. I'm like, cool. I'd go back to sleep until they tap me on 1 minute, and they'd be like, in one minute, we're a jump. There's nothing else I need to do. I'm completely prepared to jump out of this aircraft for the last 2 hours. But it's like, after that, I don't get this rush of courage or adrenaline or whatever format it is anymore. The medicines, they've given me an opportunity to find that.

And and it and through this path of god, it's given me an opportunity to step further into that courage. And the more I do that, the more I'm rewarded. Right? So that's become the unknown completely unknown, like, far out of left field sort of blessing in my life that I wasn't prepared for. And I know I know America is, for the most part, is like really wants to run away from that god concept. Well, it's religion. There's a difference between

God and religion. There's a difference between what you're talking about and the thing that happens in organized religion, which I think tends to prey on fear and hate more than lift up in love and understanding. Yeah. Yeah. They're 2 different things. Correct. 100 100%. They, yeah, it is is there I've also become less naive to the fact that maybe there is some general, like, to to evil in the world. Like, I just thought evil was, you know, the I thought it was like it was misguided love.

I actually think that there is there is some of that in the world, and I have to face the naive. Like, my naivety was a young man that that that might not actually be the case. But there is some general, you know, misguidedness deliberate misguidedness on on that front. So that's it. It's the balance. As much love and goodness, there's probably an evil and hate hateful counter counter to it, but I do think hate

is the absence of love. Like, the true hate, when you talk to someone and they're so passionate in their hate, I think, wow, this person's really passionate, which is but right up against love, really. What they're afraid of, I think, for the most part in their hate is seeing themselves in the thing they hate. That's what they're really afraid of. That's what I've heard. If I have a frustration with someone or whatever, it's just a reflection of the past of me that I most uncomfortable.

Yeah. I know. And and, yeah, I feel that. Like, I feel they're doing it out of they're doing it out of ultimate love for themselves and fear of losing whatever it is that they have. Or hate for themselves. Self loathing. Self loathing is a hell of a motivator. You know? Yeah. Actually, yeah, that one, you can't hate yourself to success, but damn well, we we we try. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So really quick, though, I wanna touch on I've kept you so long. The Warrior Refit Foundation,

is that doing well? To be honest, no. Right? And it it's relative. I would say no. Because what I worked out was I worked out that just became a vessel for for spreading the word. And and my ultimate goal was to get it into Veterans Affairs at serving militaries actually because it'd be so much better to be prevention rather than cure on many fronts, which it does. It can be used as preventive medicine regenerative. It's literally cells entering your body that aren't designated cells.

They find damaged or missing cells, and they they fix them. Right? And the technology is only getting better every year. What saved my life is now probably 3 to 5 times more efficient and 1 third the price. So it's like so what I did was I got a mate who's the extremely successful entrepreneur, tech entrepreneur that that

we built a company out now. And that basically trying to build out an entire national stem cell company across the United States so that we can basically get the message out there, correlate as such as much data as possible, and then get that into the hands of those veteran congressmen that do care. The reason I wanna affect America is not just as I in the thick of it with those guys over there because those helicopter pilots were not Australian. They were

American. They were there every day. They came in a snowstorm supply. It's how they came in a gun. Dude's like almost getting shot out of the sky together on so many occasions. It was like it's a shit show. So it's like we're all in together. Right? So as far as I'm concerned, those nations that I serve with, it's like 1 in all in. But it's like in America, if they do it, if they change it, and they introduce stem cells into your system here, then the rest follow.

So building up the company and creating a format where the more public that do it, the more veterans that do it, the more people that do it, you know, and the and the the more that I can affect that space and get this across. So it's, like, becoming a pretty interesting and very fast moving journey to do this, by the way, which Great and wonderful, and I think, yay, more power to you. I I hope that everyone far and wide can utilize this technique and this treatment.

Yeah. Because it's pretty much a no brainer. You know? It works. It's been proven to work. So what's the problem? You know? That's it. It's been it's been it's been proven to work immensely, but I think there's an agenda by the Always. Pharmaceutical industry to like, you know, they'll get control of it eventually. That's how they they move, but it's a big machine, and it needs to move slow so it doesn't rock the boat because it's

Pharmaceutical companies don't want us getting better. We've been certainly not. It's a logically in their interest. Yeah. Like, it it would rock the boat significantly. But yeah. So I I took that's how that has shifted to this, which has become service. It's become, like, really awesome to help people, like, you know, just across the nation that are that are that are struggling with these things and give them give them some hope and give them some

some journey. I haven't yet to come across anyone who hasn't had any results at all. So it's like it's it it is moving the needle there. With all the journey that I've done, even though I've done my best to summarize it, I find myself working with men in, like, in in performance orientation and really excavating their past to orientate their future and get their whole life in together.

And that's been extremely rewarding as well. You can help change these guys' lives for for the better and how that changes their family, how it heals their family, their relationship, what they do with their life, what they go with their life is, profound. And I've I've been working with if I get my choice, because I've only got so many people I can work with at a time, I work with veterans, and and, you know, it's it's been

immensely rewarding. I've even got, like, you know, a mate of mine humble enough to go, hey. Would you work with me? And just watching him change and watching him step into his life, and the things that have come without of are extremely, you know, profound. So it's it's I'm glad that my suffering isn't all, like, in in vain, like, just lost in that journey. Well, you went from service to your nation to service to the world. I think that's a nice transition. Yeah.

Yeah. I had this question come up. So when I was, because service is great. Right? And but I had this thing come up when I went to Australia after after Burning Man, and I had this moment where I I set myself as like, alright. You're not dying anymore. You're not gonna die. So that identity is not part of you anymore. Sweet. I'm not the the dying person. Not that I go talk to people like, hey.

I'm a dying person, but it would be like something that I had to identify that time that I'm the fighting for my life person. This is my job. And I remember I'm like, cool. What would you do if you had cancer or you were finding out you're dying or you went to jail or whatever, and suddenly that wasn't the case and you managed to you had your life back? What was the one thing you do? So I I went I searched my soul pretty deep. I'm like, went

back to my childhood. I'm like, the only 2 things I love were were were were war and acting, in particular, war movies. Right? So I'm like, okay. Well, what's there to that? And I ended up going down this path of just diligently studying acting intensely, for you know, I didn't half cock things, for for, like, you know, a year and a half, and then I'm like, okay. Cool. Alright. Well, I'm a a I guess it's time. I'll I'll go to you know, I took that off as

a passion. Right? Because I'm like, that's the only art I've ever loved and I ever liked, and and I'm like, cool. And I'm also just a marathon, not a sprint. I don't have to, you know, rush anything anymore. Right? My life's so my life's great. My journey's great, and I will achieve whatever it is that I wanna achieve. I've worked out in in whatever period of time. It doesn't matter. I get there. Took that up and ended up ended up going to, going to LA, and they had that strike.

It's just so funny. I got here, and I'm, like, talking to some producers and people that I I know because I've just met a lot of people. And then they had the strike, and I'm like ended up meeting 1. He's like, well, we're probably still shooting out in in Bulgaria. And I'm like I'm like, oh, really? And I was like, 2 days later, I caught a flight to Bulgaria. It's appeared in the casting director's office. I'm like, hey. I'm just gonna be local. Anyway, ended up working out pretty well for

me. Got a few films out there last year that that'll they're on when they're released, they'll be on Paramount Plus. So it's like also and also so it's like I was able to do that side as well, which is like so I'm still, like, in the pursuit of doing things well beyond my control, well beyond my abilities and just, like, getting there. Hey. Half the battle is showing up.

Half the battle is showing up. But, yeah, I I've, like, I've managed to really come full circle on the things that I wanna do in my life for the rest of it. Right? I think the most beautiful journeys of this whole working on my spiritual side, working on my emotional, my mental, physical, everything. I'm so much more in tune with the meditations with my body, everything that I'm able to, like, now orientate myself onto a calm path of things that I'm happy to do for the next

20 to 30 years. Yeah. That's, and that's been it's kind of, you know, like, I I've been probably in one of the most prosperous states of of my entire life now after this journey. That's wonderful. I really appreciate you sharing this story with me, your story.

Welcome. I mean, I'm I'm like, I'm happy to there's there's layers here of what I would not have shared in the past, but now I'm like an open book truth forthcoming with everything and every information that, like because if I can, so you have a veteran that listens or whatever. If I can help 1 guy Mhmm. And take his path to step into courage to talking about or whatever, I it's for me, that's a fair

deal. I'll I'll I'll spend whatever time it takes to save say or let's say save, but let's say to reorientate one one veteran. That's a deal. I'm with you on that one for sure. Yeah. Tell people how can they find you. Instagram. I I I I don't like multiple layers of social media. I hate it. So I'm just like, I'm just I'm just decided Instagram is it, and Instagram is where if anyone wants me, they'll find me. Yeah. And I'll put a link on Hey Human Podcasts, link page so they can find you easy.

Awesome. Thanks, Susan. Great talking with you. Next time you're in LA, give me a call. I'm in Santa Monica. We'll go grab coffee. You're a cool dude. Totally down for that. I, look, I I keep last time I was there, I was staying, which is a which is a few weeks ago, I was staying in Westwood. I'm slowly learning more about the city. Yeah. I not like your traffic, but I Nope. I walk everywhere, so it's fine. I live

in a walkable city. You know, in Santa Monica, I live right by the beach, so I can I walked everything? Well, that's that's just terrible. I did stay in Venice Beach, and I learned some shit out there too. I can tell you that much. Yeah. That's not what I was like. When I first went there, I'm like, I love the beach. I'm Australian. I'll work this out. And I was like, oh, this is this is this is where I finally got Grand Theft Auto. There's only 2 types.

There's 2 types of people. There's people, Grand Theft Auto shit. I'm like, oh my god. That wasn't actually a Farfetch'd imagination in the game. There's like the person screaming in the street maybe with a knife or a bat, and then there's a sweater wearing State Farm commercial looking dude. Yeah. It's it's a welding area. That is for sure. It's like you're

one of the 2 categories. You look super ordinary because you're not screaming in the street, you're wearing a sweater, or you're screaming in the street. So I got my I got my still of Santa Monica is a little more chill. Yeah. Yeah. You got you guys are definitely definitely chill. Thanks for that. Yeah. Thanks relativity down there. It's it's getting a bit more. Be well and safe travels, and thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for listening, everybody. Thanks, Susan. Tell

the story. I look forward to the book. I, Yeah. Get this. I figured I'm just gonna keep doing cool shit until I'm too old to move my body and then write stuff. Amen. I think that works. That's what Ian Fleming did. Yeah. Right? Hell, yeah, man. Yeah. Thanks, mate. Alright. Have a good day. Bye. Great. Review and subscribe to Hey Human podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Iheart, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Bye.