Hump Day Podcast | Episode 4 – Happiness Other Myths

➡ The Hump Day Deal with it podcast, hosted by Ron Partain and Dr. John King, is recorded early and discusses their journey of starting a podcast with an unknown audience. They share their excitement about the growing audience and the impact they’re making. They also talk about the Phoenix Collective, a project aimed at helping people recover from trauma, which has attracted people from various places. They’re seeking partners to help sponsor those in need, and donations go directly to helping individuals, not to the hosts’ personal gain.
➡ The text discusses the importance of men having spaces to communicate with each other, similar to women having their own spaces. It highlights that men often struggle to express their problems due to societal pressures and the desire to protect their families. The text also emphasizes the need for understanding and addressing men’s issues in a way they can relate to and respond. It ends by suggesting that societal changes, such as the feminism movement and women entering the workforce, have disrupted traditional family dynamics.
➡ The text discusses societal pressures that push women into traditionally male roles and men into traditionally female roles, leading to negative effects such as less time for children and increased divorce rates. It questions why a woman choosing to stay at home and raise children is viewed as less than a woman choosing a career. The text also touches on the struggles of transitioning from war to civilian life, and the difficulties faced by those dealing with trauma. It criticizes societal expectations and norms, and calls for acceptance of different choices and lifestyles.
➡ The Phoenix Collective aims to help people overcome trauma and move forward in life through a series of courses and therapy techniques. The program encourages consistent daily activities for 30 days to form positive habits and promote change. It offers different levels of engagement, from community interaction to personalized coaching, catering to various needs. The goal is to provide affordable, effective therapy and foster a supportive community for individuals dealing with trauma.
➡ The text discusses the emotional struggles faced by veterans, including depression, shame, and survivor guilt. It highlights how these issues can affect personal relationships and family dynamics. The text also explores the idea that love and bonds formed in battle are different from those with family, but not in competition with them. Lastly, it touches on the moral burden carried by veterans due to the pain inflicted on others during war.
➡ The text discusses the importance of authenticity and living from the inside out. It highlights how people often worry about how others perceive them, leading to a lack of authenticity. The text also emphasizes that everyone struggles in life, and it’s crucial to understand this instead of comparing ourselves to others’ seemingly perfect lives on social media. Lastly, it talks about overcoming personal trauma and finding joy in recovery.
➡ The study found that authenticity, or being true to oneself, generates 40 times more energy than feelings of love or joy. This suggests that our true selves, not our emotions, are the most powerful. The discussion also touched on how societal pressures and materialism can distract us from our authentic selves, and how some of the happiest people are those who find joy in simple things, like relationships, rather than material possessions.

Welcome, everybody, to the Hump Day Deal with it podcast. I am Ron Partain, joined by my good friend, Dr. John King. Vinny’s not with us today. We’re actually recording this a little bit early. We’re recording this on Sunday, the 1st, because Dr. John’s not going to be with us. He won’t be available on Wednesday. So you are. You’re seeing it on Wednesday, but it’s recorded on. On Sunday. Before we really kind of jump into the. To the. To the topic today, you know, I want to say that this. This whole idea of the Deal with it podcast that was, you know, that Dr.

John and I kind of discussed. We didn’t really know what we were going to have in terms of. In terms of expectations. Right. And we just didn’t know, you know, it was, you know, we didn’t want to go out and try something new on YouTube with no audience, but we wanted to try something with a, you know, with some sort of an audience. And so we tried it with mine. And again, ultimately, this is. This. This podcast is going to have its own channel, its own branding and everything. It’s not going to be a. It won’t be affiliated on my specific channel anymore.

But, you know, John called me. When did. What day did you call me? Oh, brother, I don’t know. I think it was like, Friday. I think it was Friday. Yeah, I got the call, man. It cut me up, man. So I ran straight away. You called me Friday, and. Because we’d recorded on Wednesday, and you called me Friday and you were just in. You were in tears, but in happy tears because you said that another person had reached out to you, and you’ve told me. You told me a number, a crooked number. That’s more than 2.

That’s more than 2 of people that have reached out to you just within the last couple weeks. Now, we don’t know if that’s all as a result of the. Of this particular podcast or if maybe they. Maybe they. They’ve had a relationship with you in the past and then they came back because they saw something. Who knows? But we are reaching. We’re reaching a lot more people than I realized that we would. And so, you know, I’m just kind of setting the table here. And then I want to let. John, why don’t you take over from here.

Sure. And just kind of get, you know, talk about some of the successes that we’ve had and the challenges that you’re facing. I mean, success is good, but success also comes with pitfalls. Yeah, it does Mate, and thank you. So when we launched the Phoenix Collective, the idea was to take the 15 years it took me to recover from trauma, because trauma is trauma, PTSD is ptsd. It might have different roots, but the fruit’s the same. And you can’t. You don’t aim to change the fruit, you aim to change the tree. So whatever has been the cause of this thing, you can track it back.

And this. There’s a commonality. So our aim was to take these 15 years of recovery process that cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars for me to go through and to make it, put it in such a way as to put it out for people. And we came up with the Phoenix Collective. Well, when. Since we started the podcast, I’ve been sharing that out with my people. You’ve been sharing it out with your people, and things have just taken off now. You know, we’re building an app, we’re building a community. But, brother, you know what it’s like when you’re at the front of something, you’re scrapping, trying to do it, making an ugly pancake.

And so he put a call out to those people that wanted to come on and get involved with us and making this thing. And since we’ve started the podcast, we are. And you’re being humble, and I appreciate that. We’re up to seven people so far. Wow. And I’m not sure where they’ve come in. The channels haven’t been sorted out, because, as I said, we’re making this thing as we go. And so we’ve had people from the Netherlands come in. We’ve had people from Texas come in. We’ve had people from the northern states come in. And one of the things we’re struck with is, you know, like this.

I was talking with a guy just was today, yesterday. I was contacting. He contacted me. He was in our program. He’s read the book. It’s been just one of those challenges with a veteran that spent a lot of time in the sand, life really impacted, ended up going down to the border to help protect us during the last administration, rescuing kids. And now he’s burnt out, mate, and he doesn’t have anywhere to turn. And I reached out to him, sent him a video of what we were doing. He heard about what we were doing, and that the call is we’re.

And we’re so grateful that people are being touched. But if you’re. If there’s folks in the audience that are in a good place in life, we’d love to have them give some Some folks, a hand up, not a handout. We’re not asking for money to go and pay someone’s anything. What we’re doing is asking them, the co sponsor with us, that the people coming in, if they can afford it, they pay. If they can only afford half, then maybe we can match the other half. So our ask is for people to partner with Untold History, partner with the Hump Day podcast and allow us to get a tax free donation into the hands of these people to help change their lives.

That’s. That’s pretty awesome. You know, you actually had the. Let’s see here. I can drop a link for you. Yeah, you. You did. And what I. There it is. What I did was, I reached. I had to restart my computer. My. It was, it was kind of acting funny. And let me see here. Oh, you dropped it in the private chat here. We. And there’s a Phoenix Collective app page and they can donate from that page as well. Yeah. Where’s. I want to look at that? Let’s see here. That’s the Dr. John A. King.com Phoenix. Yeah, there we go.

All right, I’m gonna. I want to play. Oh, that’s. That’s like a three minute video. Did you want me to play the video I sent you the other day? Do you want me to send that to you again? No, let me, let me share this screen here. So I’m gonna. I gotta play this. But I’ve got it because my, because my. The sound thing isn’t really working today. I’ve got a. Do it in such a way that it’s. It’ll play and not echo so. Well, you know what? Now I’ll just. If you guys want to go there, you can go there and see this.

This is about a 3 1/2 minute video with, with Dr. John and his wife. And then there’s a place here where you can, you can kind of connect with him. And then there’s, you know, you can sponsor somebody through the donate problem, the donate program. You can do it from that page. They also, he also has this page here which is a Dr. John A. King. It’s a donor box.org give them a give Them Voice foundation. So. And it’s a 501c3 nonprofit, mate. So people will be able to, you know, we can help them out with the tax receipt.

Yeah. And these aren’t. This isn’t where you’re donating to somebody who is taking your money and going and buying a jet and flying around the world or anything like that. This is actually going to help individuals who are struggling. And so, and just, I just. This is more of a, of a curiosity thing and obviously not giving anything away. But the, the vast majority of people that are responding to you are male, right? Yeah, they are. We. We. And that’s not, does that, that’s not to say that females don’t need help either. But I think the, the, the, the thing about it is, is that most men don’t want to talk about things like that.

They try to because. Because men and women think differently than from each other. Men try to compartmentalize and put away and, and, and try to, you know, try to keep it in a, in a box that’s sealed so that. And, and have it never come out. Is that, would, would that be an accurate way of saying it? Yeah, I think like, women do things face to face. They’ll sit and have a cup of coffee together. Men do things shoulder to shoulder. So they’ve got to find an activity they can be involved in with another man that they trust.

And that’s very hard to do in trauma because you don’t trust. So part of the beauty of the collective and part of the reason why I know it works is I made a decision probably 10 years ago to climb out so far with my stuff that if people wanted to go and know who I was, they’d find out my story. And that alone has given me street credibility. Guys are saying, well, man, I know your stuff, so I can come share my stuff and safely do it, like the documentaries, the movies, the books. So there’s really been that, Ron and I think that’s really a strong connection.

And you’re right, the majority of people responding are to the Phoenix Collective are male, and I’m really comfortable with that. There’s very few places where men can have conversations with other men about stuff. Now, unlike a lot of women’s stuff, we’re not exclusive, but we’re focused on. And there are some things that, that are in the program are just for men. And a lot of that comes from my heritage. Australian Aboriginals. We have men’s business and women’s business, and the two don’t meet. They come together, they leave those businesses and talk. But there’s times an opportunity.

We, we recognize that there’s times an opportunity that men need to speak to men and women need to speak just with women. So culturally for us, I think that’s the way it is around the majority of the world, frankly. And, you know, you know, the America with their, you know, the. Or I Should say the west, you know, with this. With this misogynistic, you know, mentality, this woke mind, woke mind virus where everybody has to be included. You know, that’s. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. And a lot of the guys that are. A lot of the guys that are reaching out, they’ve spent time overseas where they’ve witnessed how men interact with each other.

And part of me thinks that they probably, like, man, I wish I had. I wish. You know what? I don’t. I kind of like that. I wish I had that ability, you know, and it’s. It’s interesting, you know, it’s almost like, you know, it’s like men. Men can’t have their own club because women want to sue to get into it, but men can’t get into the women’s clubs. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, I know. It’s a little bit like your home. You wouldn’t invite everyone to your house, and everyone doesn’t have a right to walk in your front door.

But, you know, all of a sudden it’s. It. It’s a free for all outside it, you know, it’s just silly. It’s like, I. I’m glad that there’s women’s gyms, bro. I want men’s gyms because I don’t want to look at some bit of ass in a yoga pants, bro. I just want to go there, lifting up, listen to horrible music and lift heavy stuff. You know, I’ve been involved in men’s gyms, and it’s fantastic. You can just get after it. And I understand why women want women’s gym. We both need our own spaces so we can come together and be better for it.

You know, I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms in my life, man, and this whole misnomer about what men talk about in their locker rooms is just that it’s a misnomer. I hear more conversations by men about, man, what do I need to do to be a better father? What do I need to do to be a better husband? They’re the real conversations in locker rooms. So, ladies, if you’re concerned that your man’s going to go to a locker room and hang out with his mates, well, he’s probably going to sit there and talk about how can he raise his kids better and how can he be a better husband or a spouse? That’s what really happens.

You know what? That is so true. And that’s. And let’s. I mean, let’s be real that’s not to say that there isn’t locker room talk about the opposite sex. I mean it’s, it wouldn’t be that way, but I mean there’s, there’s locker room talk about, about a variety of things, not just that. And it’s, it’s certainly stuff that wouldn’t be appropriate for, for a, you know, for a public venue, if you will. But, but, but, you know, that’s, and that, but that’s the beautiful thing about being in a locker room. It’s like you can talk about just, it’s almost like a barber shop, but you know, you know what I mean? So it’s exactly like a barber shop, brother.

That’s exactly what it is. You know, they’re going to talk about, you know, a good looking girl, just like women talk about men. That’s right. And I’ve had my wife come home from her Pilates club and where it’s only women. And she said, man, I, I, I had to leave there. She goes, these women are so bitchy about their husbands. I didn’t want to be around that stuff. And you know, all I know is she goes, I’d rather hang out with your guy, mate, your male friends, because I’ve never heard them be disparaging about their wives.

So, and that’s part of the thing is like, men will have a tendency not to talk if they’re struggling at home because they want to protect their home, they want to protect their wife and their kids. And if they’re presented in the light of being a bad husband or father, they actually take that personally. I’ve done something wrong, I haven’t done this. So they won’t go in, they won’t actually sit down and unpack. Hey, listen, I’m really struggling with my trauma because it’s making me act like a jerk and I lose my temper because I get flashbacks of what happened as a kid or flashback about what happened on the job as a policeman or a responder.

And so I’m really behaving badly at home. How can you help me unpack this? They won’t say that, they want to say that, but they’re trying to protect a little bit of it is ego, self image. But they feel like if they show that they’ve got a broken home, they haven’t done well. And what we’re trying to do with the collective is break down some of those barriers. And that’s, and I can tell you that is so true, you know, the psychology of men and how they deal with things. And how they internalize things is completely different from women.

Just like what we talked about and men. I think you’re right. You know, men are naturally protectors and they do not want to allow negative things to come into their, their space. Especially if it’s, if, if any negativity could, could, could, could have a, a possible impact on their children or their wife, you know, to have them be concerned, worried, whatever, you know, what have you, you know, it would cause chaos in their life. And that’s the very last thing they will do is to cause chaos in the loved ones lives. And that’s what I think that’s what you’re talking about in terms of they won’t reveal that information.

No, that. You’re absolutely right. That is the case. Look, I even know in our relationship you have offered privately a couple of concerns about things with people that you know and love. You have never betrayed a confidence. You have never given indication as to how bad that is. And you’ve always asked the question of hey, I’m just concerned about this. What do you think? And you’re, and your, your heart and your mind has been open to, hey, if I’m being a bit of a dick about this, can you speak to me about this? Because I obviously need to adjust my attitude.

That’s been your whole, that’s been your whole approach. So. And I think it, I found with, when I, and I love working with men. I’ve, I’ve worked with them all my life and I love it because once you get to a place of trusting and they understand they’ve got someone that’s on their six, a brother that will just. Whose car are we taking? Then all of a sudden it’s just open for a conversation. And when you get to that space of real. It’s the most dynamic thing to see men start to come to terms with themselves and with their life and they want to change, they just don’t know how to.

Because the world does not speak to those issues in the way that men are able to hear it and reflect and respond. Got it. You know, you know what, that’s, that’s so true what you said there. From the standpoint that men do not know how to respond. They just don’t they. Because, well, I think there’s a, I think there’s a, there’s been a dysfunction and the, the nuclear family in this country now going on, you know, almost 50, 60 years. That’s really kind of. What do I say? It kind of started with the whole, you know, feminism movement.

Back in the, back in the late 60s, early 70s, you know, and then, you know, then women going to work, you know, when they go to work now, who’s raising the kid? You know, the. Basically the schools are raising the children now. And that’s, that’s all been by design. And when, when, when, you know, I’m not, I’m not a woman’s place is in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. That’s not who I am. That’s not what I believe. But I also do believe that is. It is a historical fact that women actually get more satisfaction out of life and are more happy internally when they are doing things that are nurturing and the things in their wheelhouse of, you know, things that make them women.

And I think what society has done is to push women into the men’s world, to try to make them equal and almost push men into the women’s world to reduce their masculinity. And it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s had negative ramifications across the board. But, you know, I would say that the negative ramifications on the female side is now that now that women are working, they don’t have the time to spend the time with their children. And then oftentimes you’ve got parents that divorce and, you know, you know how you talked about how men blame themselves for things, you know, whether people realize it or not, children blame themselves when a parent, when parents divorce.

Yeah. And that. And I think there’s a, you know, there’s been. There was such a large number of divorces in the 70s and 80s where you had, you know, broken homes that didn’t exist in the 50s and 60s. And now we’re seeing, you know, 20, 30 years down the road. We’re seeing the, the effects of that on society. Yeah. To your point there, I think it’s been, it’s now become the absence of choice. Like why, why should, why should a woman who chooses to stay home, build a home, raise children, be involved with her husband’s work.

Why should she be viewed less than someone who chooses to go into the financial field or be a teacher or why, why, why, why is there that absence of choice? Now, Melissa, my wife, we work together, so we’re together 24, 7, and people ask her all the time is, well, well, what do you do? She goes, I work with John. Well, but, you know, what job do you really want to do? And she goes, well, I, you know, I work with John. It’s as if they can’t accept that it’s the. The what? Huh? She runs a non profit.

She’s a CEO of a marketing company. She’s now just developed two apps with some friends. She’s involved in a medical practice. It’s like, you know, she likes to work at home with her husband and that’s not. Well, you’ve got to work outside of the home to find your identity. It’s like, well, what if your identity is with your husband and you just like being at home working, Right? And what if your identity is with your children and, and what if you believe that you’ve been blessed with children and you’ve got an opportunity to raise them and homeschool them and you got an opportunity to be with the person you think you’re called to, to spend your life with? I don’t.

Why is that a bad thing? Right? You know, we live an incredible life. We, we live an incredible life. You know why our life is so incredible? Because our overhead from our businesses is 7 to 15%. Everybody else is spending 30 to 50% on their businesses. We’ve managed to keep our so low that the, the economy, we can have 30% to 45% real inflation, which we do. And we’re still at home, still being able to enjoy our life because we don’t have an overhead. I don’t have a $2,000 car lease. I don’t have a $6,000 home.

We live well, you know, we’re supposed. I don’t know why we ever got to a place or how we got to a place where you need two or three or four jobs for a family to survive in America. Like Whiskey Tango Fox prop bro. Seriously, it’s crazy. So overstretched, so stressed, so over margin. And your marriage is the very thing that you’re supposed to want to do is find your best friend and hang out and do life together is destroyed with all these other things. And then you pile trauma on top of that. Then you pile stuff you’ve got to deal with.

Right? Coming home from war, the way you were raised, you don’t even have brain with bandwidth to be able to spend time getting over that stuff and trying to be a better human being. Right? It’s, it’s. And the sad thing is about this is, is that it’s done deliberately and we don’t know it. It was done deliberately behind our backs and sold to us as liberation when it was the complete opposite. Yeah, it was. You’re absolutely right. And you know, that’s not, that’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s A historical fact. People need to go back and have a look at the Rothschilds.

They need to go back and have a look at the, you know, and you say things like this and I know people are going to think I’ve got a foil hat on, but the CIA was very, very deliberate in their targeting of African American communities. They wanted to destroy those communities and they set about destroying the men and the women and the family units because they knew if they could break down the family units of a very large spiritual basis in our country, they could control the people. And so look, we just don’t need to argue about that stuff.

We need to accept that that’s just real. Rothschilds did say what he said. That’s what their plan was in the 50s and 60s. That’s got nothing to do with the fact if you love. Want to go and be a rocket science, go and be a bloody rocket science. I’ve got, I’ve got. Raised two daughters very successfully. One wants to be a vet tech because she loves animals, loves cats. Hey, I like her already. Yeah. One wants to be a lawyer, fantastic. I talk. I taught my girls how to box the same way I taught my boy how to box.

I taught my wife how to box. Not why, because I’m some champion of women’s right? No, because I’m a man. That’s what men do. You tell your kids and your wife they can do whatever they want. You know, we got to take care of each other. You protect yourself. That’s just man 101, man. That ain’t no matriarchal feminist movement. That’s just manhood. That’s what men do, right? Thousand percent. I, you know, I’m. We, we kind of got off the beaten track here. Track here today because we were, we were going to talk about unicorn. Yeah, well, we’ll do that tomorrow and miss and other things like that.

And you know, we, I guess maybe we’ll just kind of just have to just, you know, make this a rambling conversation because we’re about, we’re about halfway through and we’re not even anywhere. We haven’t even broached any of the topics we wanted to talk about. Well, you know, why don’t we do. Why don’t you do this? And I’m not asking you to do this in a sales pitch way, but I’m asking you to do this from the stand, from the standpoint of a. If people out there are, have been blessed with resources and they do want to help others out there who can’t afford Maybe, you know, they, they’re down on their luck or, you know, quite, quite frank, quite honestly.

You know, the, the vast majority of people who have been. Who’ve had their, you know, their kind of. Their. Their brains like scrambled with egg. You know, egg. Scra. Trauma that has occurred in their lives, a lot of times they. You find that those are the people that are. They can’t. They are the ones that need the help the most, but literally have the least amount of resources deal with it because they can’t get their life on track. That’s. And you made it. You made a really, really valid point. I had breakfast with a mate of mine, one of my closest friends.

This guy is, is a war fighter. He is a penultimate hero. If you’ve ever seen this guy in battle dress, he’s got more medals than just about anybody. He has been, you know, I, I won’t go into his stories or his accolades of what he’s done. I don’t, you know, that’s. That’s his to give. But he’s been fighting. He’s been in the sand since Panama and he is an absolute legend, my friend. The man I love and I love him. He is my brother. Brother chosen brother. Not blood of blood. He just can’t get it together.

He. He just. And it’s not because he’s. He’s stupid. He’s one of the most. People don’t understand this. This is the Hillary Clinton leftover that she thinks these guys are just thugs. These, this guy is a master’s in political science. He’s got. He’s a. His math. He’s. His math. Brain is unknown. If you’re going to make it into Delta and the Rangers, you have to be so well read, well versed, articulate, intelligent on the spot. It’s. It’s. It’s the top. It’s. It’s the top of the top of the top. Yeah. So here’s this guy and his life’s a mess because he could never come home.

He could never transition. I don’t know if people have seen the American Sniper movie, but the focus of that is Tanya talking to Chris Kyle about coming home and being present. Now these guys can be here with us, but they’re not present. They don’t know how to. They need help. So trauma does that to people. It locks them in the front of their mind. They’re in sympathy. They’re on all the time, always on black, always ready to go. And they don’t ever have a chance to relax, restore and, and reflect. About how to move their life forward because they’re just always on point.

And what the aim of the Phoenix Collective is to take 15 years and 200,000, $300,000 worth of therapy devices, knowledge, and combine it into a series of courses. Our. Our hope and belief is by the time someone gets through six months with us, their life, their mindset would have started to change, and they’re in the process of transformation. I genuinely think it’ll take 18 months. But we’re set up. The way we’re set up with the foundations course is we take people through the Deal with it book and the Deal with it process. Every day they get a video.

Every day they get homework. And it’s like this constant reminder that you can do it. And why we did it that way is after 30 days of disciplining yourself to do it. Neurological facts say that by the time you get to the end of that period, you’ve already changed, you’ve already started. It’s the process of doing something consistently for 30 days. Yes. And when you do it. So when you do it consistently for 30 days, it becomes a habit. And when it becomes a habit, your life changes. And then they say that once that occurs, it’s like the, the, the positive ramifications that come from that are immeasurable.

It’s like you can’t, you know, like, you’re. If. Let’s just, let’s just, let’s just take, for example, somebody who’s really, really overweight. They are at the bottom of the hill. And for them, getting to the top of the hill is to be, you know, thin or, you know, in shape, whatever. And they, they’re. They’re looking up. They’re at the bottom of the sale looking up. And to them, it could be, you know, it could be £20, it could be £50, it could be £200, whatever, whatever. Where. When they’re at the bottom of the hill looking up, and I’m sure this is that way for women as well.

You look up at that hill and it’s. It may as well be Mount Everest. Yep. I mean, it’s a. Whatever, Whatever the deal is, you’re looking up. Yeah. And it’s almost. It’s like. It’s. You. You kind of have this mentality that it’s insurmountable. Yep. And what I think what you’re trying to do is to bring people into a system where you guys have, like, people can connect with each other as well. Yes. It’s not just a one on one thing where they’re they’re, we’ve got, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve done it this way. I’ve, I’ve made about 160 videos just for people to watch and consume.

We’re putting them all in the app. Then there’s the next level where if you want to be part of a community and you just want to have conversations and talk with people and read other material and watch the stuff that comes through, that’s great. Every second Saturday of the, of the month there’s going to be a men’s Bible study. We’re going to talk spiritual things. Talk about. Because it’s body, soul and spirit and we’re one of the few organizations, I believe that and I’m just, it’s just how it is. You’ve got to, I believe in Jesus Christ, I’m a Christian man.

But whatever it is that you believe in, you’ve got to have a spiritual center in your life because that’s the way we are. We’re tripartite beings. Then the next level is our foundation, our Phoenix foundation level. And that’s where we put you through these series of four to six week courses and they run just, they just continue to run. So you can always be in a point of learning, learning, learning. And if you want to drop down and just be in the community, you can, if you want to go and say, hey, listen, I want to learn about biohacking trauma, I want to learn about frequency medicine, I want to learn how to get idiots out of my life.

Okay, I can do that, I’m going to learn that. And then our next level is our coaching level where if you’re wanting your whole family to go through a program where you’ve got direct access with Melissa and I and on a one, on one level, on a weekly basis, then we can offer that for you. So we’ve tried to get it at whatever people’s needs are and to be honest, mate, we’ve managed to set it up and do it in such a way and technology’s helped us where people are getting it for like 10, 20% of what the cost would be.

I know how much I was paying for therapy and I know how much I charge for therapy and one of the reasons we did this is because it’s nearly prohibitive. If you don’t have the capacity to make the money or you’re in a bad place, then you know that’s the place to do it, man. Well, so, so I guess the question that I had there or the follow up question is if somebody decided that they wanted to kind of partner up and help somebody, I’m sure that they would probably, it would, it would probably be, they wouldn’t be able to talk to the individual that they were, that they’re trying to help, but just because that’s, unless that person was okay with it.

But the, I mean, I, I would, I’d kind of assume that we’re dealing with such a sensitive topic that they wouldn’t want their information to be revealed. So if somebody, if somebody with, with the means wanted to come in and assist, it’s, it’s there. What am I trying to say here? It’s, they have to take it on faith that, that what they’re doing is, is going to be helping somebody. Yeah. Look, we will have our books open. We always have our books open. Now I can tell you how many people are on here, how many people we need help with.

You won’t know their names, but you, you, you will. I’ll tell you. I, I, I, Well, I make my money elsewhere. I don’t make any money off this thing. That’s not how we, we survive. That’s not how we financially survive. So, you know, you know, we, we run very low in terms of said, in terms of our overhead. I’m not, and I don’t, I’m not even really talking about that. I think, you know, I think we live in a world where almost everything is a scam. Yeah, I agree. So I’m, I’m really, what I’m trying to do is I’m, I’m trying to set people’s minds at ease, that if they want to help somebody, that their money is going to go to somebody who is actually going to receive the help as long as they are participating in the program.

Right. As long as it’s a hand up, not a handout, brother. And the people coming in, if they get scholarships, they’ll be told very simply, you’re being scholarship in. If you don’t perform, you can piss off. I’m not going to put up with it. This is taking my time. My. Every time I sit down and I talk these conversations, it cost me personally, emotionally cost my family. I’m not going to waste my time on someone who’s not prepared to change. I don’t want to. I just, there’s no time in my own life. I can never tolerate a victim in myself and I can never take, I can, I cannot stand for myself to deliver anything but my utmost.

Now, if my utmost is sitting on the floor crawling, crying as I crawl forward, then, bro. I’m crawling forward. I don’t. I’m not after perfection. I’m after performance. You just gotta crawl, brother. Just get about falling. All you can do is stand up and fall forward. Crawl. Stand up, fall forward, crawl. Then you’re making room. Right? You know, and I, and I do, I do know this, but with a group of people we’ve got. I’m going to bring a couple people on the program. When we’re ready and they’re ready and they’re in a space, I’m going to bring them back so you can understand.

We can. So what? You know, because there’s nothing shameful with what we’re doing. There’s nothing wrong with having a battle or I want to get rid of all that. I. There’s. If you’ve got a battle, have a battle. You’ll be as confident. Confidential as you need it to be. Confidential, man. But if you want to shout to recovery from the rooftop. Climb up here, baby. The ceiling. You know, it’s interesting that you say it in terms of a battle. I like that because it is a battle. You’re. But, but really it’s a battle within. It’s not a battle without or it’s not an external battle.

It’s a battle. It’s an internal battle that you’re fighting with yourself, with the emotions that you’re, that you’re. You’re keeping pinned up. And the biggest thing is if you confront that negativity or that emotion or that trauma, whatever, whatever it is that you’re hiding away and trying to suppress, you know, what did I say? I heard, I heard this a long time ago. And maybe it’s wrong or. But depression is nothing more than suppressed anger in manifesting and suppressed anger. Yeah, yeah, it is. Also, depression is inflammation in the brain. If you can reduce inflammation in your body, you’ll reduce your anxiety and in depression, instant.

People don’t understand that. They think it’s a mental. Is it a medical imbalance, A chemical imbalance? Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just inflammation, man. Your body’s on alert all the time. It’s inflamed. I, I think. I honestly think the biggest challenge is shame. People are embarrassed because they were raped as a kid. You know, it’s embarrassing. You don’t have to be embarrassed by it. They’re embarrassed because they came home from being overseas and they didn’t cope and they didn’t reintegrate. They came home and their marriage fell apart. They came home. One of my best friends, his his first marriage, he.

His kids. His kids joined up in the military and went in there and graduated. He didn’t even know they’d graduated through elite school because they were made to be so embarrassed of their father. Their father is a hero, you know, and regardless of the fact that he may not have been there because he was overseas, I get it. But come on now, you don’t have to alienate your children from having a relationship with their father. And so this is the stuff we talk about on the Phoenix Collective. So how do you feel, man? I feel like a dick.

You know, like I don’t feel my daughter anymore. I don’t see my son anymore. It’s so interesting that you say that, because I can’t tell you how many people that I know that talk about the dysfunctional relationship that they had with their fathers. And the vast majority of them are guys that their fathers fought in World War II or Korea or Vietnam. And now there’s a generation coming up where their fathers fought in Desert Storm when Desert Storm really wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean, it wasn’t a war like a Vietnam type situation. But now we have another section of men who went through, you know, the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom.

And, you know, all this. All these other, you know. You know how I feel about them. They. They’ve. They’re dealing with these and trying to deal with, you know, it was just. Just side note, this. This past week was Memorial Day, and I played a. I was with. With a guy. I was with Ghost, actually, and he was my. He was the guy who was the. Not the co host, but he was the guest. And I played a thing with the. With like, a military tribute for Memorial Day. And it was. It had, like, the bagpipes.

The bagpipes playing. I’m. I’m having a hard time because I feel emotion welling up. It was the bagpipes playing Amazing Grace. And, you know, I’m. I’m. I’m Scotch, so. You know, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but William Wallace was my uncle. Really? Yeah, I was. I’m descended from John Wallace, who was William’s brother. Really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You got bagpipes. You got a bagpipe and a kilt in your. In your past and your future, bro. I do. But. But the point. The point is, is that when you watch that video and you see the.

The faces of the loved ones behind. Yeah, come on. That are just in absolute grief and have no idea how to handle it. That’s. That’s hard. But I would imagine that it’s even harder for the guy who survived. Come on now. And have to come back. Yeah. And deal with what they saw and integrate into personal life. Yeah. Or private life. It is. You’re absolutely right. One of my best friends and I, you know, I’ve got a lot of best friends. What can I tell you? I love all these guys. He had to come back stateside to deal with the family thing.

And while he was here, his whole squad was killed. It’s. It’s the thing that haunts him. And that’s the thing. It wasn’t. He had to come home and do. He had to come home and do a husband thing and a father thing because it was a crisis that only he could handle. So he did that. And while he was here, everyone was lost. And the guilt he carries. A survivor guilt he carries. All he wanted to do was to go back and if you listen to his story, post that event. He did everything to kill himself in the line of battle, to join his mates in Valhalla in warrior freedom.

And it didn’t happen. So here he is, and he hates being alive. He’s alive and he’s got responsibilities he can’t walk away from. And I love him for it. But he. He never came home because he left everything that he loved it. Now when. When we tell women that they feel a sense of competition, they feel like the men, they’re competing for the men’s love. Men love other men. And when men go to battle, whatever that battle is, there is a bond between brothers that is totally different than their love for their wife and their family.

The reason they bond with their brothers in war is because of their wife and their family. And that’s. Then they get into competition with that. Instead of understanding that they compliment a man and he’s calling. And if he’s called to go to war and he’s called to fight and engage, that’s actually. They need to complement and understand that and work with their husbands to come to a sense of realizing that. And my brother was in competition at home. And she would always fight with the fact that he was over there and thought that his love for her, his ability to love her was diminished because of his love for his brothers.

See, and this is the converse thing. He would never turn around and accuse her of loving him less because she loved the children. Because there’s more love. The more love there is, the more love there is. And just like your love for your family, just love your understanding your passion for that, and it comes through. And thank you for being so open. There’s this sense that we’re in competition with, and we shouldn’t be. We should be complementing each other in these things. Well, it’s. You know, I’ve almost become. I’ve become such a pacifist these days because I’ve seen, you know, as a veteran of the.

As a Navy veteran who served during the first Gulf War, you know, I wasn’t on the ground, and I was. I got over there really towards the end, and, you know, I saw a few things. Nothing, you know, I saw some missiles flying off ships, you know, and everybody’s like, oh, that must be really cool. And I’m like, well, you know, when you see a missile taken off and they’re doing a test, that’s fun. When you see a missile taken off and you know that there’s. That there is a target at the end, the other end, you know that there’s going to be death and destruction is a whole different feeling and a whole different emotion when you watch that missile take off.

And. And then knowing now what I know in terms of, you know, being. Being a much more mature adult, I look at, you know, I. And this is. This may be. This may not be. This is probably the human side of me, but I’m thinking. I oftentimes think of how the. The. The horror and the terror that a lot of these people faced in these countries when my brothers and sisters and my countrymen were over there, not because they wanted to go, but because they were, you know, or they volunteered to go, but. But because, you know, we were in a state of conflict with these places.

And so our men and women went over there and they did things that, you know, many would consider morally reprehensible or certainly, certainly a violation of moral conduct because we were. It was a situation of war. Well, that doesn’t. That may suffice for us for a short period of time, but when you get older and with reflection, you start to think about the things that you did and the pain that you caused other human beings, whether they were of your, you know, whether they were from your country or not, you still caused anguish and pain on other people.

You carry that burden, too. That’s another whole. That’s a whole nother burden. And I. That we haven’t even really discussed. But there’s, you know, there’s that, too. And how do you know that? How do you know that? See, I look at. I look at people as they’re just People. They may have a different culture, but people are people. You know, the, the Kennedy, John Kennedy, when he spoke at American University, I believe, and it was after the Cuban missile crisis, I believe, anyway, and he just, he talked about how, you know, the. The basic common link with everybody is that, you know, we all inhabit this small planet.

We all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s future. And, you know, I think that’s. I think that’s. I mean, that’s not to say that there’s not sociopaths out there, but I think the vast majority of human beings on this planet are good people who just want to, you know, they want to put their head down and work and do the best that they can and live a satisfying life. Yeah. And when you inject this war trauma or sexual trauma or whatever, trauma that has been inflicted on these innocent, whether they be children or innocent of the world, you know, I mean, let’s.

Let’s be real. Just because somebody’s 20 years old. 20 years old, doesn’t mean they’re an adult. It just means that they’re. They’re now legally considered an adult, but they haven’t lived and they haven’t had any real, Real life experience yet. They don’t really grow up until their mid-30s. Yeah. Because they haven’t experienced enough life to, you know, to have a full understanding. So anyway, I don’t mean to be. I don’t even mean to ramble. I’m just, I’m just. To me, there’s, There’s. There’s a lot of stuff out there that people. I think, you know, another thing is people get so consumed with their problems that.

And they can’t see the forest for the trees. Yeah. And they don’t understand that everybody is struggling. And I mean, and I mean that it’s not like, you know, we live in a world where, you know, you’ve got Facebook and Twitter or Instagram or whatever, and people always put their best foot forward out there, and it makes it look like they’re just these, you know, like their life is all together and their life isn’t together. And in fact, in fact, I would argue, you know, and I, and I, I. I’ll use an example. When I see people that I don’t really know personally, but I see them on.

And I don’t. I don’t have Facebook. I haven’t had Facebook in several years. But when I used to see people post like a Bible verse every single day. Yeah, my. I would tell. I’ll tell you that my initial thought was. You know, my initial thought was, who are you trying to convince that you’re Christian? Yeah, the. Yourself or the world? Yeah. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s. It’s almost like a. It’s not, you know. You know, and I know. I do know people that are. That are, you know, very, very hardcore Christian, and they do share Bible verses and stuff, but they generally will do it within a.

A closed community, not an open community like that. That’s just not what they do. Some people do. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it at all. I’m just saying that when I see it like that. Yeah, it’s. It’s. It’s one of those things that it’s not a cause for concern, but it just makes me question, you know, what do you. Why. Why are you trying to. It’s almost like I said, virtue signaling. It’s. It’s. Yes, it’s a virtue signal. I agree. Absolutely agree. It’s like whenever people, you know, spend all their time talking.

I just love my wife. I don’t need to tell the world I love my wife. I just love my wife. Right. It’s. It’s just how that is. And when I. When I. And I. I agree with you. And I think the problem is this comes back to what we discussed last week, is living from the inside out. When. When you. When you’re consumed with living from the outside in, making sure that everybody else is comfortable with you and how they perceive you, then. Then you put on this. This. This lack of authenticity to it. And I heard a beautiful thing on authenticity the other day.

Have you. Have you seen that clip on the power of authenticity? I’m gonna. I’ve. I think I’ve got it downloaded here. I can text it through you. I don’t think I can share on the platform. I don’t think we’ve done that. I’ve worked out how to do that just yet. Is it a link? It’s a actual, actual video. I downloaded the video off. I hacked my Instagram account and downloaded it. Let me put it in there. The pat. The power of authenticity. Let me drop that. This to you. This is. This is worth a listen to because it talks about authenticity being the highest frequency and the over.

The power of love. And we always talk about the power of love. We never talk about the power of being true to ourselves and what your reflection is made and thank you for it. Is that so many People are so concerned with how other people perceive them, they don’t bother even to stop and think about themselves and who they truly are. And that’s our whole aim with the collective, is we can get you comfortable with you, then you’re going to change. And if you change, then everybody in your world gets to benefit from it. Right, I found it.

Here, let me. Let me open this up. Okay, hold on one second here. Because it is. It’s showing me that it’s not the. It’s not the proper file type. So give me a second. This will be. It’ll be. It’ll be super easy to fix because it’s a short video, but I. But I still have to put it through the. I still have to put it through the software to do it. Talk about amongst yourself, folks. Yeah, this is. We could play this and have a chat about that, mate. Then we need to let him go. I gotta get.

All right, you know, let me ask you. While I’m doing this, let me ask you what you know, because. Because it takes a certain type of fortitude to, you know, to kind of overcome what you’ve overcome. What was it inside of you that just said, you know what? I am not going to allow this to keep me down, man? That’s a great question, Ron. I think part of it was my. My fuck you, ometer, which was like, I’m just not going to allow you to win. And then when I worked that out, when I realized that was there, I realized that the very best way that I could not allow them to win, with which.

With what was done to me, not by me, was to just have a really great life, have a really great marriage, to have a really fun adventure. Because everything they did, they tried to destroy me and desecrate me. And when I realized that, that gave me freedom to go, no, I just need to really enjoy this. So I started to enjoy my recovery. I started to enjoy getting better because I wasn’t miserable anymore. I wasn’t sad. So. And that really. That really set me free. That made it. Instead of it being raw grit that got me through.

It was just, bro, I’m getting up and enjoying today because this is the best payback I can ever do, right? So, you know, mind you, a little bit of the fuck you ometer is not a. It’s not a bad thing for a man to have in his toolbox. No, it is not. And, and, but, but you see, I think there’s a lot of people out there who want that. But if you tell me you’re all out of Fox. You’re not all out of fucks. Well, no, I’m just saying. You know what I mean? You know, people say that it’s like, no, you’re not, mate, because you’re still giving a fuck if you’re posting that stuff.

I get that. What I’m saying. What I’m saying is, is that I think there’s a lot of people out there who want to be able to, you know, to. To come out, to get out from underneath that, but they don’t know how. And. And sometimes I think they’re paralyzed by fear of what other people are going to think of them. Yeah. Be. And that. That alone keeps them silent. Yeah. And I think that’s why you like that authenticity video. If you don’t. If we haven’t got it now, we can start. It’s coming. I’ve got it. I just.

Again, I had. What I had to do was I had to convert it into a particular type of file type. Oh, okay. I think this. And that’s what rings true with the authenticity brings true authenticity to me, is that. Is that this sense of being true to who you are. You’re living from the inside out, so it doesn’t matter what someone else thinks about you, and it doesn’t matter if you fail or succeed in their eyes because you’re trying your best to be yourself. Mm, let me see. I just had another vet reach out to me while we’ve been on the phone doing this podcast.

I’ve had two more people reach out. Wow. Just while we’re here. That’s crazy. Let me see here. Been battling demons, bad suicidal ideation, no sleep, insomnia. Finally got to the va. Panic attacks. I’m just so numb. All right, here we go. This is the one that I think you were. You just sent me. It was an interesting study done recently. The hypothesis was that the highest vibrational frequencies that a human body can generate is when it feels love or joy. So they put humans in a Faraday cage to create a perfect isolated electromagnetic field and then would engage the person in an interview with story.

And so they tell stories about their grandmother, the things. And sure enough, they found these huge bursts of energy coming out of the being when it would go into stories of love and joy and gratitude and all of the predictable things. But they would also take them into anger and frustration and hopelessness and depression. And there was this annoying finding that kept happening, that 40 times higher frequency than love and joy. A burst would come, and it was very inconsistent. Seemingly as to the emotional state of the person. As they listened back through over and over again, they realized that at those same points, they were getting goosebumps with personal story.

So somebody in there came up with a theory of I wonder if it’s an authentic moment that we’re sensing. So they redid the experiment, and sure enough, authenticity is 40 times higher generator than love and joy. Your soul doesn’t have emotions. Your soul is authentic. The you that you really want to connect with is not a state of an emotional feeling. It’s not a state of being. It is an authentic version of you is the authentic experience of seeing the beauty of you. And when you see how beautiful you are, you will go into a deep sense of grief because you’ve been so disconnected from that.

You will go into a deep sense of joy for feeling the reverence inside of you. You’ll go into a deep state of love for the beauty that you can see in yourself. But you won’t find it until you start to value the authentic version of you, the authentic reality of you. Wow, man, that was pretty powerful. It is, yeah. About being true to yourself. Yeah. And I think you’re, you know, you’re 100% right about authenticity. I think, you know, we live in this world where it’s. Keep up with the Joneses mentality and, you know, you know, this consumerism crap that has been shoved down our throats since, you know, really, since the 20s, probably of the night, the 1920s, that is.

And it’s like, you know, hey, well, if so and so’s got this that I need to have is because I need to be cool and I need to be hip. And, you know, it’s. It’s like we’ve. Society has programmed us with all this external stimuli to feel a certain way when really, you know, like, some of the happiest people in the world are some of the poorest people in the world because they’re not. They’re not surrounded by all this external stimuli. They find their joy with people with friends and family that they love, even though. And frankly, they don’t understand what.

They don’t understand anything other than poverty. You know what I mean? You know, for you and I to think about somebody who’s living in the Philippines or somebody who’s living in. In. In Africa in, In just a state of absolute, you know, where it’s. It’s downtrodden, it’s, it’s. It’s. It’s broken, you know, the systems don’t work, there’s trash everywhere. You just don’t, you know, but it’s. There’s disease. I mean, all these things that are. That are, you know, third world. Yeah. We can’t fathom that because we live in the United States, and we’ve seen what it is in the United States.

The people that live over there, they’ve never seen anything different. Yeah. And I think that ties into. And I think it’s going to be a really interesting time for our next podcast mate to talk about these happiness myths, and there isn’t. Happiness is a myth. It’s like unicorns. You know, there is no such thing as the perfect state of happiness or the perfect person in the perfect part of the world. And, you know, America is one among some of the most miserable people in the universe, Literally, statistically, we’re miserable. In fact, I think it’s Pakistan or Afghanistan has about the same happiness level as America.

Wow. I know. I’ll bring some stats to that game and we’ll have a look at. And we’ll have a real conversation. We’ll go through that extensively in the book, and it’ll be interesting. Man, I, I look, I look forward to that. We. Boy, we really went off the rails today. We. We. It was awesome. We literally talked about nothing. We’re gonna talk about, bro. It was your turn to cry. I’m so happy. Oh, man, I cry, man. I tell you what. I, I don’t. I don’t. I’m not afraid of. Of shedding tears, brother. You know, I, I took a.

I took an interpersonal communications class in college long ago, and the, The. The professor in there, she, you know, I learned something very valuable, that tears actually are full of toxins, and when you cry, your body sheds those toxins, and it makes you feel better. Yeah. Yeah. So. So I’m. And I’m not, You know, I wear my. I wear my emotions on a sleeve anyway, and I’m not afraid to cry. I’m not afraid. I’m just not afraid to cry. No. Neither of my men. Source. Hey, I gotta go, Pac Man. I’m off to north. Hey, well, go, go, Pac Man.

Go see Mount Rushmore, man. Yeah, well, that’s. That’s gonna be fun. That’s right, that. You’re going up there. You’re going up to, to the, to the Black Hills and go see Rushmore. Yeah. If anyone’s up that way, let them reach out to you and they can come have a burger. Okay. Will do. All right. When you. What’s your schedule? Like, where. Where are you going to be? We head out tomorrow. We’ll take. We’ll drive seven, eight hours and in camp, and then we’ll hit there probably around Tuesday. Okay. And catch the podcast and then wander around.

Go see. Go do the thing, man. Go be some tourists. That’s awesome. I’m hoping to catch up with some red fellas because I want to. I want to represent my tribe, the Waramunga. So indigenously, whenever you go into another man’s lay, elder to elder, I’d love to try and connect with some red fellas up there, and if I do, I’ll take some video and send it to you. Awesome. I look forward to that. Well, brother, travel safe. And we’ll look forward to. We’ll look forward to the next time we get to do this live, which will be, I think, what.

What is that going to be? The 11th? The 10th or the 11th or something like that? Yeah, somewhere. Yeah, Wednesday the. Whatever. Let me have a look at it here. Wednesday the 11th? Yeah, Wednesday the 11th. Awesome, man. I got to talk to you about that one, man. I’ll circle back around to you about the 11th. We may do another Sunday or something. We’ll do something. Okay. We got it. We’ll figure it out. All right, brother. All right, brother. All right.
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