Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Schick and I'm joined by my co host and wife, Ashley shik.
Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a gold Star granddaughter. And we work together to serve military veterans, first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy. At One Tribe Foundation.
We believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to get them to where they are today.
Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story, to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape who they are and what they're doing to pay it forward and give back.
Our mission went to show is to dig deep into our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope and inspiration their story has to offer.
We're thrilled you're joining us.
Again, Welcome to the Good Stuff.
We want to introduce ourselves and our show to the audience, and it's important to us that listeners know who we are and why we're making this podcast.
Absolutely. Our show invites guests to tell us their stories, which is always a vulnerable undertaking, so we thought it was only necessary and right that we do the same, which is both scary and freeing and frightening exhilarating because we know firsthand the therapeutic nature of telling your story and more importantly, listening to other stories without further ado.
Here's us today's guests as a severely wounded marine returning from combat with multiple wounds, amputation on my right leg, dramatic brain injury, being a government issued drug addict, what name boy's fault is the way it works out, and doing eighteen months in the hospital, trying to figure out my new norms, trying to learn to love myself again. Well new to me I discovered through being voluntold by my grandma. Telling my story was going to be my
first step in my journey of healing. That was something that played a big role and saving my life, which is empowering at the same time because it took me walking through my fear and embracing my vulnerability to start that journey, because we all suffer with that fear of ridicule and judgment and all those things that they're the constant extremely loud bullhorns and megaphones in our head telling us you can't do this because of XYZ and being
able to embrace my inner warrior, not the marine one, the one that everybody's born with. Is I think what gave me the courage to say, you know what, I need to do this one. I can't tell my grandmother I'm not doing something that's not a thing. And I've got to be able to walk through this valley regardless of feeling like I was naked and people were shooting at me. I had to walk through the.
Valley and ultimately it made you stronger.
Still does.
We believe in this show because we know firsthand, not only through the work that we do, but through both of our own journeys, the healing power of accessing your truth and telling your own story.
And we know how difficult it can be.
That's the point. Anything we're doing, it is supposed to be hard. It's by design.
You're exposing your emotions.
You feel like you're walking naked in front of the world, But there's power in that and being able to speak your truth freely.
It's very empowering.
Yeah, And that's the thing is that in everybody's story there's still the victories, right there's still the triumph the winds, because that's a daily basis thing, right, right, We wake up and we decide as soon as our feet hit the ground, our foot in my case, you're a victim or a victor.
You have two feet. The government just owns one, that's right.
One of them is a loner. And that's okay. People ask me how I feel about it. It's just a tool for me to do the things I need to do. That's all it is.
It's just like being vulnerable.
Yeah, I mean, and that's why I do what I do still. Yeah, all over the world, I go in front of complete strangers and I unzip my chest cavity, and I spill my soul all over them with truth and conviction and not really giving it damn who likes me or not in the process, because it's my.
Truth and it does inspire people.
I've seen it firsthand because along with all of the heartache and along with all of the loss comes the triumphs and the victories and the celebrations.
And that's what this podcast aims to do.
All it is is just like you'll hear from so many of our guests, and we've talked about so much. It's mindset perspective. You know, you were your biggest advocate or your own worst enemy. You. Every day you wake up, you versus you, not you, versus your spouse not you, versus your boss not you, versus your kids to you versus you. The side victory as soon as your feet hit the ground or foot and borrowed foot, whatever the case is.
And while I never enlisted in the military or the Armed Forces, I grew up in a household where it was extremely important to our family to have love of country and respect the military and the sacrifices that they make. We're a gold Star family, which means we lost a family member while they were serving in our Armed forces. My grandfather, Lieutenant Larry Dwayne Voss, was actually killed when he was twenty four years old serving for the United
States Air Force. He was killed in a T thirty three plane crash in Fairbanks, Alaska, and he left behind his widow and his young two year old daughter at the time, that daughter being my mother. Even through this very tragic situation, you know, my mom still was a forever patriot.
Still blows my mom to this day what she instilled in you and your sister considering what happened right like, it's just so very admirable.
And that was the household that we grew up in. And I found myself later in life after college working in media in Austin and got the opportunity to do a radio show to tell people's stories, and that was really important to me to be able to share the stories to the ninety nine percent of what the one percent went through. We highlighted military members from the Austin, Texas area. And while this work was rewarding, I was always telling other people's stories. I was never vulnerable myself.
I never came out and told my truth and my story. I found myself years later in an airport in Austin, Texas, sitting across from a friend and being vulnerable, not by choice, but that conversation is one that really changed my life because that conversation and that friend was you.
I'm here to help, always have been, and I get that. I understand the difficulty in being vulnerable and telling your truth that's unadulterated, unmitigated, there's no boundaries. I know the difficulty in doing that and asking people to do that, but people will find that if they try it not worried about who's going to show up to their funeral. You shouldn't care. You'll be dead anyway. Like you're not trying to get more people there, You're not trying to
be cooler. If people try to walk through that valley of their own truth, they will see it is And I'm speaking from life experience here. This isn't from a book I read. It is the first step to you not being a prisoner in your own mind anymore.
And everybody's got a story, and those stories can often provide the inspiration that we need or the perspective we need to check ourselves to be inspired to go achieve everything that we can achieve as human beings. Someone else's story, someone else's trauma or tragedy can help. That's why we want to make this show. We want to inspire people, and we want people to know that they can live their life to the fullest extent.
All while I embracing their humanality. I have generation after generation after generation of people that served in the military, and I was raised in a house that didn't really talk about it much. But luckily I spent pretty much all my free time with my grandmother, who was if I could idolize somebody. It was her Memi, Memi, like Gunna used to always say about certain marines. She was harder than would pick her lips. But I loved her
and she loved me, and it was boundaryless love. She was my ultimate example of service and sacrifice on what that looks like, and being a servant leader and giving of yourself to help others. And I was with her every step of the way, and I learned so much from her about being kind, staying humble, and working hard. That was me me. If she loved you, you knew it. If she didn't, you knew it. That was as used to always say, what I suffer from, what comes up
comes out syndrome. She had no filter, and I loved that about her. I got to see at a very early age why things got done, how things should get done. There shouldn't be sugarcoating or fluff. There shouldn't be emotions involved. You have an objective. To accomplish that objective, you have to straight line it. That's what Mimi was and I
got to see that on the regular. And I remember Mimi being so convicted and me knowing and understanding how much she loved and was devoted to my grandfather, who unfortunately died a couple of years before I was born and was the first generation marine in our family. And how she would talk about him and her eyes would light up, literally, her eyes would light up, and her chest would swell with pride, and she would always tell me she reminded me up until the day she died.
So maybe ever since your papa died, I never so much to dance with another man.
That was her soulmate.
That was where I learned loyalty, That was where I learned faithfulness and dedication, all those things. It almost all of dare I say, everyone takes for granted today, and I'm grateful. There was a guy in her neighborhood everybody called Red. I'm pretty sure what was his name, but everybody called him Red. And she said, come on, baby, we're gonna go down to Red's house. And I just said, yes, ma'am. We went to Red's house. I think I was five
when this happened. I'm pretty sure I was five years old. It's one of my only memories at that age. Whether that's from Trump, from childhood and trying to block things out or what have you, but I remember going to Red's house with me and me she sat me on his lap and Red pulled out the scrap book. Well, and it turns out Red was a combat photographer in
World War Two. And he started flipping through the scrap book and I was looking at all these pictures from all over the world, and then he got to this one spot and he went to turn the page, but he stopped and he placed his hand on the page so I couldn't turn it. And he looked at her, and she looked at him, dead in his eyeballs like it was high noon, and said show him. And he turned the page and it was pictures of a liberated concentration camp and just the piles of emaciated bodies and
the destruction and showing how evil humans can be. And I remember that like it pierced my soul. It was something that spoke to me, almost at a spiritual level, like Okay, you've got to do something. You have to do something to be a part of something bigger than you'll ever be, to help stop something like this happening ever again. And then just a few years later, the age of eight, is when I made the absolute determination, all right, I'm going to be a marine, come hell or high water.
Eight years old, I felt.
It in my bones that this is what I was supposed to do. I was put on this earth do this thing. And I felt it and it never left me, you know. And I played sports growing up and excelled as a football player here in Texas, and but I which yeah, which is here. It's a religion. But I knew this is what I want to do, and I was so convicted in it, but I just never talked about it. Yeah, and then the beginning of my senior year, I signed up and just didn't tell anybody. I'm so
grateful I did that. I have zero regrets about any of my service to this day.
Can you signed up in two thousand and one?
Yeah, it was actually two thousand. It was actually beginning of my senior year was two thousand because I graduated no one, so clearly it was like August two thousand and I went in took the asvab My recruiter, awesome recruiter. I mean a lot of guys don't can't say that guys and girls have been screwed by the recruiter. I'm not one of them. I had a really locked on recruiter who actually tried to taught me how to going if tree. He was like, Jake me, you know you
don't have to do that. You're never really crappy living conditions and it's going to suck. And I'm like, that's the point. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to experience the conditions of Eugima, which your grandfather did, right Like, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be that bad. And quite frankly, like I kind of need to have my ass kicked because I'm just kind of spinning out
of control right now. I'm young, and I'm stupid, and I know that I don't have enough self discipline to go be in a college setting and be productive and all those things. And besides that, I've wanted this since I was a little kid. You're not talking me out anything. And so I did, and then of course not loving happened, and that was a huge, huge awakening for me. When I watched that second plane at the South Tower, I knew, you know. I looked at Danny and I said, we're
going to war. Yeah, and we did. I was nineteen at the time, and it was like, Okay, tough guy about to see how talk you really are.
And I remember I was in college in sam Marcus on nine to eleven and I was in an eight am psychology class and some kid came running into the room and I immediately left the class and ran down to the quad to watch this tiny little TV and saw the second plane hit the South Tower and I just remember, you know, the day the world stopped turning, like, how helpless and how vulnerable and how scared we all were back then. And I had two friends deploy immediately,
one Marine and one Army. And I remember I was just this broke college kid in sam Marcus, Texas. But I wanted to help, right, I wanted to do something. And I knew I wasn't going to go put on a uniform and serve because I was on a different path. But I wanted to contribute, so I just I started writing letters like for me, and it was probably you know, more for me, but I just thought, well, this is a way I can contribute, right, what's the cost of a stamp?
And that mindset that was why we won World War One and World War Two because it was a collective effort, right, everybody came together, raised color, creed, religion, was all irrelevant. Everybody came together and supported the war effort, and so you doing that it had more of an impact than you realized. Not only was it therapeutic for you, but it was therapeutic for the people receiving the letters.
I would probably be so embarrassed if I read any of the letters today, because I'm sure that it was mundane. It was just, you know, this is what happened today back here in college.
But speaking for someone who's been on the receiving end, didn't matter. You didn't want to hear about I saw on the news blah blah blah. Right, you wanted to hear about the mundane seemingly doesn't matter to ubs that the everyday people were doing because for a moment, it took you out of the place you.
Were, and that was the goal.
That's honestly where the tiny little spark that was already inside of me to serve really grew. That was the fanning of the flame that hey, this is something I want to do. And I started getting more involved, and that's really where it began for me.
You know, for me, the more time we spent in the workup and then eventually deploying and going to Iraq, and the more we went through, the more hardships. And we were already a tight knit unit even when we got to twenty nine Palms. Every day we got tighter and tighter and tighter. I mean, we were a straight up family, no doubt about it, no questions asked, none of us shared DNA, and we had an unbreakable bond. You know. It was something that is extremely hard to
replicate on the civilian sector. It is so very difficult, and I think that's because essentially we flow around in our little bubbles, that's our own reality. Comfortable, yeah, no doubt. And we were able to have human to human connection in a way that we otherwise didn't because of very high highs and super low lows. Yeah, and we had to find some type of commonality to get us back to what was somewhat our middle baseline in order to be effective for the next and then the next and
then the next. And it was a constant You're going, going, going, going, going, going, going, and you don't have time really to sit back and go hmm, oh no, what my parents have for dinner. That type of stuff doesn't like, it didn't even cross your mind. You're just like, Okay, what's the next thing. You just keep moving, moving, moving, just a.
Huge adrenaline dump, exactly.
It's hard to describe. And it's one of those things that's like unless you've been there and done it, Like it's really hard to explain. Right, I remember the day that I got hit, because I always say I got blown blown thirty feet the top of the Humbee when are our lead vehicle hit the ied. I landed on my head because I'm a marine and we believe in good form because we're the best. But I never lost
consciousness and I never wanted a shock. And it took the black Hawk forty two minutes come and get me, and it was a really long day at the office. I get ruined my whole day. But I remember, to this day, I can see it, just like when I was on Red's lap, Like I still see it in my mind's eye, like it literally happened yesterday when the pilot took off and he dipped the bird and I could see my guys, my family out of the corner of my eye looking up. And that to this day
is the hardest part of all of it. By leaving my fellow warriors behind, it felt like it was worse than death. And to this day I can say that is a fact, which I think is why I dealt with some anger. And I was such a awesome patient. I felt like I was robbed of the one thing I wanted since I was a little boy. And I didn't get the quote God given right unquote to die as a gladiator on a field of battle. And even though I told God, just don't take me in front
of my brothers, I'll ask, it's so contradictory. But there's a lot. It's a lot.
You just had that absolutely unbreakable bond that so you're right, so many people don't experience that.
Yeah, And it's sad to me because the global pandemic has proven we're herd animals. We need interaction with each other, right, and when you do it at an extreme level, you get a taste of that, and then that becomes the definition of what you need and who you are and all those things and your why.
And I started to experience that.
At the time, I had just gotten out of college and I was working a media in Austin, and that led to me working for one of my clients who was a national homebuilder, which led to me going to Fort Hood, Texas and working with a Congressional Medal of
Honor recipient at Fort Hood, Texas helping military families. And that's when my eyes were really opened to what military spouses, military families, military individuals themselves, and veterans, wounded veterans were coming back and really what they were dealing with and what they were lacking.
Yeah, you got a front row seat to the other side of the ball that most people don't think.
About, absolutely being there at Fort Hood and working firsthand, not only employing military spouses with the organization that I was running, but just all of the ones that would come into the office and sharing with us.
Some of these kids.
Were fresh out of their hometown. They'd never left their hometown. Then they got married to their high school sweetheart. Now the high school sweetheart's deployed and they don't know basic stuff like banking or how to find housing.
Then there were the extremes.
Stories where the guy was over in Afghanistan with two young children back home and the wife took off and took everything and left the kids at home, and he had to come home from Afghanistan because his kids were at home unattended you know, it's it's again, it's what do we do well? We can adopt them for Christmas? And having the little girl go to church and say, you know, I heard Santa's not coming to our house this year. Stuff like that that it was like, okay,
if not me, who if not? Now went That's when the heart for service grew because there was the need and it wasn't just the basic stuff at forehood. It wasn't just the extreme circumstances. It was even our veterans coming home and finding out that some of them weren't getting paid what they were doing, so they were struggling to make ends meet while they were in the hospital recovering from a double imputation. It was all kinds of stories, and we've got to do better as a country to
this day. Even though we've been at this for years and we've already done the draw down overseas in both of the major locations we were in, we still have to do better. I knew from my own personal experience. Gold Star families don't get treated as well as they should. Their loved one gave their ultimate, gave it all in service to this country. We've got to step up and do better.
Yeah, well, I'm not going to disagree.
You better not.
And it's important for me to state though that I come from a place that is obviously a much different perspective than yours for obvious reasons. But I don't I didn't do anything I did for somebody to owe me anything, right, And I think that's important too, is that we have to have ownership and accountability of the fact that nobody made us do anything. You know, that's important that people remember everything has a price. Yeah, nothing's free. Free is
a made up marketing word. Period. Someone somewhere, somehow paid for it some way. Nothing's free to include our freedom. And regardless of how you feel about this nation, regardless of the faults, the division, the politics, it is the freest country in the world.
Yes, guaranteed you know the struggles because you first hand dealt with them. Eighteen months you spent in the hospital.
I found myself in the hospital, and I found myself angry, reverting back to all I knew fighting just everything was a fight, and I feel like that's where, for whatever reason, growing up, like that's what I did. When I'm backed into a corner, I'm going to fight my way out and I went from fighting in a combat zone to fighting from a hospital bed, and a lot of relying on my grit to get me to the next minute, and then the next minute, then the next minute, because
it was not a day by day thing. Yeah, especially the first several months I was home. It was a minute by minute thing where even when I blinked hard, it felt like getting blown up all over again. And
dealing with the people I dealt with. The loss and the trauma and the tragedy didn't stop when I got back home, meaning to America, because it seemed like once a week, every week I was in the hospital, I was paying my respects to a flag great body in a hospital room, and then talking to the families and telling them I'm sorry, knowing that a lot of them were looking at me and thinking how come you lived,
not having an answer for that. That's an interesting position to be in, because then you feel guilty, and then you feel shame, and then you feel all these things of Okay, well, why did I live? Why was I spared? Why did I get to keep carrying on regardless of the fact that I'm a now drug addict soon to be alcoholics, Like why now I'm able to answer that. I think it was a lot more conviction through truth
and with the pure heart where was before? You know, I couldn't because I was lost for a long time. And I remember the first time I was asked to go speak, and it was by my grandmother. You know that you can't say no to even if she said something crazy, which to me, I need you to come speak to my rotary club, Like that was crazy. It's like, are you crazy? And of course I didn't say that, but I'm thinking it.
Yes, ma'am, What the hell are you?
Why are you asking me to do this? Completely forgetting the fact that she has been on this earth way longer than me and has a ton more wisdom. And so of course I went and did it, and it was horrible and I was high and all I thought about was getting more high. I'm pretty sure eighty percent of the room fell asleep because I was probably about fifty years the junior in the room, and it was just a horrible, horrible deal. Like I was sitting there, I was sweating grind aids, and I was just like
I just ready for this to be over. With the fact that I even do question and answer now when I do public engagements is crazy to me because when I was done, I remember, like, I walked off the back part of this podium inside a white room with a lot of white hairs, and I walked out the back doors and when I finished, I don't even remember how I finished, but I'm pretty sure. I'm like, that's it.
And I was already walking out, you know, not well because I was still healing, but I couldn't get a cigarette fast enough, right, And I walked outside and I burned one, and my grandmother walked out there and she said, so, how do you feel. I looked at her and I said, you know what, actually knowing that it was it was crap, and that it was just me tripping over myself. But it was the first time I told my story, and it was the first time I told my truth and
how it had happened. And I left a lot of stuff out because I wasn't fully embracing my vulnerability yet. And I just said, you know, I feel lighter, I feel a little bit better. And she just looked right at me and said, good, that was a point and walked away. And I was like, damn it, freaking brain ninja. But now I totally get it well for sure. It was just like when people ask you, how long are
you going to do this speaking stuff? Because inevitably I bitch about having to do it because we're so spoiled, and I'm like, you know, you hear me do it weekly when I'm like, oh, I don't want to go do this thing or whatever because there's so much going on. And then I get done and I look at you and I'm like, hey, I'm so glad I did this thing.
Yeah, because you feel lighter because every time it's.
Therapy, it's therapeutic, it's cathartic. And when people ask me, and you've heard me say it to him, how long are you going to do this? When are you going to stop doing this? And I always say, when I walk off of a stage or I leave a place and I don't feel lighter, is the day all stop?
Right?
But now I'm just very honest with the audience. Isn't like tell him like, hey, I'm here for me just as much as you're here for me, exactly.
And by the time we had met in twenty fourteen, you had been public speaking for years and had really honed your craft. I'd been doing my real hero show for a couple of years at that point, and we actually met at a veterans event in Fort Worth. It
was just such a great thing to meet you. And I remember, and I remember Jackson, your oldest was three at the time, and he looked so cute in his little cowboy outfit, and we were at the stockyards and I just remember walking up to him and saying, you're gonna push me around the dance floor later, and he did, and that was the well I carried him. But I was the first person he ever danced with. That's super special to me.
I remember that as hammered as I was, I remember that it was a beautiful moment. That is something that it's almost like God knows what he's doing. Yes, I'd been speaking for a while, and I'd been doing a lot of work and trying to discover things about me that made me do things that I did, or decisions I made or whatever. And I was very much in my journey to healing. And it was not pretty because I was definitely abusing alcohol, doing the occasional drug, not
yet living the way I needed to live. Yeah, I was, by no means being an effective example to my son. I was by no means being an example to my family, my community, And it was something that I really struggled with because we all deal with this form of hypocrisy when we say one thing and we know that we're not doing the thing, you know, which makes it harder for us to ultimate goal love the person staring back at him in the mirror. Only then can you truly
be effective in your fight for the greater good. Doesn't mean you can't have grit, doesn't mean you can't get things done. It doesn't mean you can't be effective for other human souls, because I did all that for years. But how much was I truly fighting for the greater good while I was fighting myself every step of the way.
Now that I'm able to most times be in a peaceful place and be convicted who I am and love the person inside this skin or what's left of this skin, like I feel it now more than I ever have.
And now that I'm clean and sober and understand human psychology and the human element the way that I do because of my own demons, I'm taking the bull by the horns, if you will, and understanding why my mind works the way it works, and what post traumatic stress really means and what that is, which ultimately for everybody listening, is nothing more than a normal reaction to an otherwise abnormal situation. Does it mean like you're completely messed up
and there's no turning back. It's not what that means. It means that was completely normal.
And I know veterans are the ones that were that term, and that kind of got coined initially. We don't own it, but veterans don't own PTS to.
You've been around a long time.
It doesn't matter what you've been through diabetes, or if you've been raped, or you've gone through family abuse or what.
Anything, anything, It makes you normal. Our bodies have things that are built in to help us survive these situations in order to thrive. That's all that means. And that's why you hear me say all the time to people all over it's okay to not be okay. That makes you normal.
Yep.
You're not going to ever wake up every day the rest of your life and ride on your unicorn on the rainbow to and back from the office. That's not real life. That's not reality. But the more that you can embrace it and fill it, which through my journey through sobriety. It was very free and I learned a lot of these things at the Center for Brain Health and Brain Performance Institute well before I actually got into the nonprofit realm. It was a constant discovery of my
own soul. It was like an onion pill in the layer's back and then having all of these epiphanies like, oh, that's why I did that thing, was to counteract that thing, right, probably happened when I was a little kid.
Childhood trauma.
But you also had veterans they're working with you that you were able to kind of start some of that peer to peer support.
Absolutely, that's something that I think doesn't get enough praise, and it doesn't have to be just through veterans. And that's what I think is really important for our listeners to understand is this is not a show about veterans. This is not what that has to do with. This is a show about human beings dealing with human issues in order to thrive and what tools they utilize to get them through the valley. It's not just about veterans. And I was very adamant from the very beginning, like
it doesn't need to be veteran heavy. I don't want this to be veteran heavy because I need people to understand we're all relatable through pain and suffering. That's the thing that we all are on the same playing field.
I'm uncomfortable right now. I am so used to telling other people's stories. I've been doing for decades.
But I really appreciate you right now, and I've got to just I've got to say my gratitude. I'm really grateful to you for owning that shit right now because I know how much you've been stressing about this, and it's so huge to me. I want people to feel what I feel when I walk off the stage. I want people to feel the freedom of embracing their humanality in the truest way that you possibly can, because that
is the first step to reaching your full potential. Right, So, gratitude moment, and I just want to give that to you realquick. Yeah, you're exactly right about that peer to peer thing, and I think that that's something that is
really really vital to people's growth forward. I've been in so many different situations, in so many different rooms with my fellow brothers and scissors in arms, having these conversations and being able to watch their soul actually get lighter through this period of peer talking about and sometimes and oftentimes actually it doesn't have anything to do with combat, doesn't have anything to do with a wartime experience, doesn't have anything to do with what the media is obsessed
with showing over and over and over and over, because for a lot of us, we were really prepared to know because of what we volunteered to do, it's highly likely we're going to be in a very volatile situation that's going to be memorable. There's a lot of us that were a lot more prepared that the media gives us credit for. But what we don't talk about is the demons we had before we put on the uniform. That's not talked about, like what was there before, the gnarliness from the military, the.
Childhood trauma, and then you just exacerbate it. But that's putting on that uniform.
And you're right because there are so many resources out there. One of our best friends, Renee McQuillan, she lost her husband two years ago who was a very very dear friend of mine for twenty years and it was extremely traumatic and she got up and forced herself to go to one of the grieving widow's support groups, and I know her soul felt lighter after that. Whatever you're facing,
there are resources out there. That is one of the beautiful things about the peer to peer and reaching out and sitting in a room with like minded people that just have the opportunity to talk it out.
Yeah, And I mean I remember the column though I had with Renee, pacing in my office back and forth, back and forth because I was like, I have no idea how this is going to end. But I remember her telling me after the fact that was the springboard I needed to take that deep dive into the journey of healing. And that was a prime example of peer to peer. That was somebody who's experienced significant trauma giving someone else, empowering someone else to take that first step.
And it's one of the things that I think about and I try to think about often. You have to be so careful, just like people with diets and who want to be fit and be healthy. You watch what you put in your body. That goes the same with words, that goes the same with music that you listen to. You have to be so protective over your environment and over what you're putting into your body. And I think that's part of the reason. You know, after we met
in our friendship blossomed more. I came to really admire you as a speaker because it was so powerful and so effective, to the point that I mean, you remember anytime I had an event, because then I had gotten really involved down in the Austin, Texas area with all of the military and veteran events going on in the area, and I had you come down multiple times and speak, and.
I wouldn't charge you too, And he took full advantage of that.
Damn right, I'd free ninety nine. Oh marketing word. There it is.
But you know, it was one of those things where I knew the power of the spoken word, and I knew that you spoke your truth. And so yeah, you came down a couple of times. You know, you stood me up a couple of times.
There's look, if you know what, if you're going to talk about that in front of God and everybody, tell the whole story, tell the whole story.
Okay, Well here's what happened.
Okay. The first time it was because I just got completely schmamwork. There was no way I was going to make it.
Assent, thank you for your ownership.
For a second time. That's not what happened.
For seven years, I ran the military appreciation night at the Round Rock Express, which is the Triple A affiliate to the Houston Astros at the time and now the Texas Rangers, and I asked Jake to come and throw out the first pitch one year, and he called and canceled on me the day of.
So the next year I put.
Him back, and then first year totally my fault, one hundred percent accountabil I got completely hammered and I knew, like I woke up and I was it was a timing thing. I was like, there's no.
Way, thank you for owning it.
Yeah.
The second year, I put him in the slot to throw out the first pitch again, and everybody on the planning team was like, are you sure. You know he canceled on us last year he was a no show, and I was like, yeah, shickle, pull through. He called me the day of and I said, you are not canceling on me again, and sure enough, and of course, I, you know, just started give him all kinds of heck.
But then I interrupted you and told me why. Yeah.
Then I felt like a jerk.
As you should. Yeah. I said, oh, by the way, just so you know, my cousin died this morning. And you were like, oh my god, I'm so I'm like, no, no, no, it's fine. But I get it. You know, I'm terrible. I'm horrible. I totally turned it back on you. But then ultimately you got the last laugh when I actually did show up.
There are times the charm so to get him back, of course, the first pitch goes out and stands on the pitcher's mound, and I had him standing out there and I made them read however bio.
It was the never ending bio.
It was amazing.
It was like I would rather be prison shanked than have to go through something like that again.
I think I added extra sentences just.
To guarantee you did that. That's that's I know you did. Like you put in You put in craft that didn't need to be in there. And I was I remember standing up there on the mountain thinking of myself, I wonder if I could hit or with this baseball.
Nope, nope.
But it was at that time that I was really involved with a lot of different military nonprofits and veteran nonprofits, and you were also doing the work just across the board up here in the DFW area. And you know that if you remember at that time, there were a lot of nonprofits that were being exposed for misappropriated funds or not not not doing what they were saying they
were doing. And so that was a time where we were grateful because there were so many resources that were becoming available for military and veterans, you know that were returning. Guys that survived Iraq and Afghanistan probably would have bled out in Vietnam. Right, So the technology has gotten better, the response time has gotten better, and so we have more wounded coming back. Well, fortunately there were nonprofits stepping up to do that.
I always knew that if we.
Had a veteran in need, in distress, that I could call on you, that you would be there. That was something that was very comforting for me to have, and that's, you know, part of the reason our friendship continued to blossom.
Yeh through tragedy. You ever thought about huh, Yeah, I knew anytime it hurts me it wouldn't and be like, hey, just seeing how you're doing, immediately went into all right, next step mode. Right. It was something that I poured myself into and I did that via twenty two Kill Right, which was started by a group of warriors and a couple of business people here in Dallas years ago, and it was started because of the study that came out in twenty twelve that where the VA stated that on average,
twenty two veterans died by suicide every day. I've caught so much flak over the years, Like Jake, there's not the real number, and that's not the point. It's not the point. One is too many, period of story. Suicide is just a word, just like hero that it's been diluted and doesn't have the original meaning that it was intended to have. But I tell people suicide is just a word until you get punched in the mouth by it. Then it becomes a very real thing. And I pray
to God you never know what that feels like. Yeah, Because I've buried over thirty of my friends who have died by suicide. And this is something that affected me years before the study came out, when I knew it was a thing, not only struggling with mown suicide ideation, but burying friends over and over and over and over and over, finding myself speaking at funerals, because having the widow ask me, Jake, will you be the first one to speak is like having my grandmother say I need
you to do this thing. It's an automatic yes, regardless of how much I don't want to do it, because then I have to focus on not falling apart and being stoic and pillar of strength and all the societal things and all the labels, and when ultimately I just need to get up there and tell my truth. We put all this undue pressure on us to be something that we don't need to be, Like we need to wake up and just do us. Everybody else is taken and be okay with that. And I remember it was
five and a half years ago somewhere in there. You're the human calendar or not. It was like God poked his head through a ceiling and said, if you don't stop drinking, you were going to be the next one they bury. And I mean I felt it to my core, just like the day we got hit and I knew we were going to get hit. I felt it that much. And that was the last day I had a drink of alcohol or the occasional line or joint or whatever, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That was the last
time that has completely changed my journey. It's completely changed my path so much so that I was hitting the face with reality about the name twenty two kill. You know, twenty two vets. That's where the twenty two comes from, and then the kill, because suicide's and act, regardless of how you slice it. I got told so many times by so many people, you're never gonna get anywhere with that name.
It's too strong of a name. Well, the more I hear that you're just feeding my ego, the more you tell me I can't or you won't, the more I'm like, hold my salad and watch this, like, the more you're
just feeding the internal beast that doesn't understand. Stop all gas, no break, Like that's who I am, Like I suck at anything in moderation, it's all go or I just don't even show up, which I mean, you've witnessed them all different aspects, and that's ultimately it'll be a hell of a show either way, good, better, indifferent, It'll be a show. Let's just hope way less Jerry Springer more, Tony Robbins. But I got a very tough phone call
right before the world shutdown. It was a very tough phone call about an officer from a very large department that we would we've done a lot of work with. And you remember this phone call, I mean you were in the living room and I was told that this officer had started his beat, took a handle of liquor, went out in the middle of nowhere, drink almost the whole bottle, called his wife from a cell phone, pulled
out a service pistol, and he shot himself. And I remember being dumbfounded because I was like, he knew all about us, why wouldn't he come to us? And I was told, Jake, because he was non veteran, think about it. Your name is twenty two kill. That has nothing to do with law enforcement, right, And I was like, Okay, it's time to stop being a hostage to my pride. It's not about me. And I called them mercracy board meeting and told him it's time to change the name.
I remember one of them said right away, like, Jake, did you start drinking again? And he was He wasn't joking because that's how convicted I was in that name not changing And I said, it's time for me to put my ego to bed and stop being a hostage to my pride because it's not about me, and this will be the last time I get a phone call like that because of me. And so that's when One Trap foundation was birthed. And it's very simple. People are like one tribe. What's that mean? Human trib? We all
bleed red, We're all connected by default. I want to help everybody, not just certain demographics, because I feel like ultimately we end up segregating people that have one thing in common, pain and suffering, and I think it is an equation that we have fallen victim to that needs to change. We got to remember the one thing we all have in common. We're humans first, everything else secondary to that. That's the whole idea behind this foundation is one tribe, one fight.
We're all in this together.
That's it. You know, when I started my journey through sobriety, and I'm sure you remember, for the whole first year, I wouldn't say I was sober. I would say I wouldn't drinking, because I think those are two different things, living a sober lifestyle and not drinking or two different things. And that's where I really begin to fill everything that I had gone out of my way to numb. That's
where I really started to grow. And it was uncomfortable and ugly and not pretty, and I'm so grateful for all of it because that's how I begin to truly start tapping into my full potential without crutches. In regardless of the fact that I'd gone through a divorce and which majority of said divorces because of me and the decisions I was making to go out of my way to numb and not feel and then at the very same time go out of my way to feel anything.
I was a walking, eating, breathing contradiction because I wasn't dealing with my demons. I was avoiding. And so this journey through being clean and sober has really opened my eyes. It's really expanded my spirituality. I feel like my walk with God is as close to being in lockstep as it's ever been, and I'm grateful that I feel like the rides you're just starting agreed.
And while at the time I wasn't dealing with PTSD or addiction, I certainly was drinking a lot. I was trying to numb, and I was hiding, and I was avoiding vulnerability. Right, my life on social media looked amazing. I was traveling the world, and I was involved in all these things, and I was still serving. I was still doing work for others, but I wasn't working on myself. I was in a toxic relationship that was truly eating me alive, and I needed to step up, and I
needed to take that step to be vulnerable. Unfortunately, I was able to do that across from you.
At a cafe.
I'm not sorry in an airport when you look at me and you lied, just straight up, that's what you did.
We hadn't seen each other in a little while, and you just texted me and said, heyes.
Like I always did going through Austin.
Hey, camerath, I'm coming to Austin. And we literally found this one that we both happened to be at the airport. I was flying out, you were flying in, and we sat down across from each other at the cafe for this one hour that we had and you looked at me and said, so, how are you doing? And I said I'm great, everything's fine, and you looked at me and you said, bs, how are you doing?
Yah? Eyes are the windows of the soul.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure mine watered up at that point.
Yeah, you definitely were like right, Row, you got me.
But you know, that was the first time that I was able to start speaking my truth and stop hiding behind everything that I was going through at the time, And I'm.
So grateful for the ability to.
Open up and be honest with you, the strength that that conversation gave me after the fact to go and change my life for the better, get out of the toxic relationship, and start focusing on me so that I could reach my full potential.
The beautiful thing about that night in the airport and that conversation we were able to have is that because of the decisions that I've made to live with truth and conviction, I was able to be ever present for you. Our relationship was purely a platonic friendship, and I'm grateful because that night, because of decisions I made and the ways that I chose to start living my life on a daily basis, I was able to be there for you in a capacity that I'd never been able to be there for you before.
And your friendship was so important and vital to me at that time. For months when I was dealing with everything that I was dealing with, and I'm so grateful for that because it was hard.
It's hard to share it right now.
Yeah, well, because nobody likes sharing their scars, right, especially ones you.
Can't see, but they're there.
But it starts with empowerment, right, That's the first step is having the courage to take the first step in that valley. That's scary and it's full of a bunch of unknowns, but you know, you have to make the journey in order to get to the peak, because if you don't, you will never ever ever be able to enjoy the view from the top, right, not truly, not the way God intended. And that precisely is what this podcast is all about.
And we came up with the idea for this podcast not too long after we got together, that the world needs more positivity. We've both led interesting lives where we've come in contact with so many people that have a story. Everybody's got a story going through this trauma, going through this tragedy, and then coming out on the other side a victor, not a victim, coming out on the other side with lessons that they can share with others to inspire others. And we all need it on a daily basis.
We all need inspiration, we all need perspectives like bathing.
It's good, have it daily.
Every single day, and we're so excited to bring this to you. Not only are we inspired on the daily, when we go back and listen to episodes and ed of episodes, we're inspired by the words that come from our guests. This season on The Good Stuff, we feature some truly amazing people telling incredible stories of overcoming hardships. And many of these guests that we have are people
that we're honored to call friends and family. And each episode is a lived experience of us getting to know fellow human beings on a deeper level.
Not only us, but our entire team has worked incredibly hard, yes to make this podcast straight up soul food. Yes, it is food for the soul.
Stories of triumph.
I mean some absolutely hilarious moments, stories I promise you've never heard.
Before in every guest. Every guest is just the roller coaster of human life. It's awesome and that's why we come away from it better every single time. Like, I can't believe we get to do this, Agreed, It's amazing and moreover, I can't believe we get to give this to other people.
But that's the whole point. That's the good stuff. Thank you so much for listening. If this episode touched you today, please share it and be part of making someone else's day better.
Put on your bad ass capes and go be great today, and remember you can't do epic stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening to the good Stuff. The Good Stuff is executive produced by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media. Hosted by Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick, Produced by Nick Cassilini and Ryan Kountzhouse post production supervisor Will Tindi. Music editing by Will Haywood Smith, Edited by Mike Robinson,