Dan Zai Joseph, author of Backpack to Rucksack: Insight Into Leadership and Resilience From Military Experts, joins from the United States to speak about mental health among military personnel and veterans, the importance of understanding mental health as a leadership quality, steps to improve mental health, his research on jiujitsu as a mechanism for anxiety control and his upcoming books.
Dan's website: https://combatpsych.com/
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Dan Zai Joseph, author of Backpack to Rucksack: Insight Into Leadership and Resilience From Military Experts, joins from the United States to speak about mental health among military personnel and veterans, the importance of understanding mental health as a leadership quality, steps to improve mental health, his research on jiujitsu as a mechanism for anxiety control and his upcoming books.
Dan's website: https://combatpsych.com/
Support us and reach out!
https://smoothbrainsociety.com
Instagram: @thesmoothbrainsociety
TikTok: @thesmoothbrainsociety
Twitter/X: @SmoothBrainSoc
Facebook: @thesmoothbrainsociety
Merch and all other links: Linktree
email: thesmoothbrainsociety@gmail.com
I still want to hear about your thesis. I want to hear about your research thesis. Yeah. Okay. So, um, should I hit the intro and then we can talk about that as well? Yeah, let's do it. What do you want? Snort out. Let's do it. Why not? Um, so here's the mic sounding okay as well. Your mic sounding great. I have no issues with it. As long as you hear the helicopters in the background, I'm on a Navy base and they're, they're flying in the, they're dropping guys in the water right now. Can you hear the Helos or no? No, if you can't hear. Okay. Perfect. Let me know if it gets loud. Well, funnily enough, a helicopter just passed by here as well. So if you didn't hear that then, Nope, we're good. But I don't think it's a Navy helicopter here. All right, so welcome everybody to the Smooth Brain Society. Today we are talking to Dan Zia Joseph. I will let him introduce himself in detail, but the reason we wanted to talk to him is he was gracious enough to reach out to us because he wrote a book titled Backpack to Rucksack, which I feel my friends really like the title and are very interested to hear more about it. But it is about leadership and resilience in the military, so mental health in the military. So welcome, Dan. Hey, thanks so much for having me. Hello from California. Uh, that's the other thing which I should mention that Dan is a United States military veteran, which is very different from New Zealand where me and Olivia are. Um, I think our relationship with the military is also slightly different. So it will be interesting, um, when we get into it. So yeah, then why don't you give us a little bit of a intro about yourself? I know you've been on about 300 podcasts. No, I mean, it's been, it's been a bunch, but, uh, Man, first of all, I'm grateful that you reached out and you're willing to have me. These talks are valuable and super awesome. Just, it's so fun having some real chats about mental health, but I was in the army for three and a half years. I was a combat engineer, which is essentially, there's three types of combat engineers, horizontal, which means you engineer roads, things of that sort, vertical, you build buildings and construct, and then combat engineers, which basically blow everything up. So that's what I was. And I was in combat deployed. I was in a non-deployable unit working on training people to deploy. So my job in the military was a lot safer than most because I wasn't out there fighting the enemy. So what I did experience a lot was working with combat veterans. And I was able to see firsthand how much war impacted them, how important mental health was from a leadership perspective I'm leading these men and women and they're struggling with these issues. They've had these experiences. They carry so much weight. And I was there by their side to kind of walk, walk with them through this stuff. And it was so cool working on a master's while I was in the army in psychology, because I was able to put language to this and understand the biophysiological markers of what trauma looks like, of what PTS looks like hypervigilance. And so while I was leading a platoon. and working out in the field and whatnot on our training sets, I was also in a kind of metacognitive way, if you will, thinking about how we were all thinking while we're in uniform. And so I wrote a book about kind of the nuances of that. And as for the title, Backpack represents the civilian part of my life converting over the military is then transitioning to having a rucksack on my back, which is the giant pack that we basically live out of when we're in the desert. for two weeks at a time in the field. Yep. Oh, amazing. And what made you join the military as well? Like, did you always have that psychological background as well? Was that was an interest for you? And then you joined or? So I joined at 32, which is extremely atypical. I'm definitely an outlier in that. There's a few of us who are in our 30s, but the majority of people who join are, you know, they're young 20s, some 18, 19 years old. Right. And so I I'm a huge biotech nerd. I was a bio major. I worked in the genetic engineering space, working in bioinformatics and basically spent a decade of my life just developing relationships in that sector. And then slowly I was I was in San Diego, San Diego is you know, one of the worldwide hubs of biotech, right? A lot of people from Boston when they create their amazing companies like to create a branch out in San Diego so they can have some property by the beach and so and then there's San Francisco, which isn't too far but Anyway, so I was living my life in San Diego, just kind of networking and, um, establishing cool relationships in that space. And then I was making more friends who were in the military. And I noticed that there is a stark contrast between my personality. Um, I wouldn't say personality traits. I would, I talk about it in my book in terms of what I felt were ego deficits. Like there were weaknesses that I had that I wanted to strengthen. And when I saw these folks and heard about their deployments and heard about the austerity that they lived in, I was touched by that. It impacted me because it made me feel that I was more materialistic than I wanted to be. I wasn't as primal as I wanted to be. I was much more sort of disconnected from my body for a variety of reasons. And I began to realize how in military training, I mean, you're exposed to the elements. You know, you're exposed to hunger. and sleep deprivation. I mean, there's so much raw primal energy that is embedded and embodied in that service, right? And so I started longing for that. I was having fun in biotech. It was extremely cerebral. And I felt that joining the military would then get me out of my head and into my body. That was kind of the main synopsis of why I decided to join. Ah, yeah. And I'm also wondering what the American army is like. I know a lot of listeners want to know much about the army, let alone what the army culture like is in America. So if you could give us a bit of a background on that. Yeah. So, I mean, it was just 9-11, right? And we're never going to forget what happened in our country that I was, you know, I was like 13, 14 years old when 9-11 happened and it galvanized our nation. You know, and so our military has just been it's almost like it's like a family member to a lot of a lot of people in America. I mean, there are people who don't have anyone who serves in their family, but they see a veteran and you know, or somebody in uniform and they'll pay for their dinner or they'll pay for their food. And they there's just a lot of love from my purview of what I've seen for military service members. And so that was kind of my idea going in is that they're protectors of our nation. And so I was stoked to join this family. And now experience in the military can be totally different. You know, it depends on the leaders you have, the job you have, the mission sets, what's happening around the world. There's, you know, good and bad in every human organization. Right. And so it's and I talk a lot about this in the book that especially leadership, leadership really dictates culture at a psychological level. And so that's why it's so important to have leaders who are. robust and self-aware and have, you know, emotional intelligence in order to help people decompress, you know, and so So yeah, that's I mean that's a big question and I can tell you that there's ups and downs There's definitely hard times in the military, but that at the same time is what draws you in So in the military, it's the hardest times are what draw you together you know, they pull you in and so that's That's a really big deal is knowing that when you join, it's not meant to be peachy all the time. There's gonna be times where it sucks, but that's when you look around and realize that's your brothers and sisters around you. And you keep these friends for the rest of your life. There's a lot of service members I have in my life that I'll be in touch with forever just so we can check in on each other. But yeah, I could talk about that forever because it's- Everybody has a different experience in the military and every branch is different, you know The army the Navy the Air Force Marines Coast Guard like every It's all so different and then whether you go in enlisted or officer Yeah, I love to give advice on this I have a little YouTube channel where I was kind of giving people advice on what it's like to join it 30 right I was 32 when I joined like I said, so there's just so many There's so many perspectives that I think are kind of missing, if you will. I mean, we look at the recruiting information, but we wanna know what's it actually like, right? And so I'm just one story of millions, you know. Yeah, I was gonna ask because I guess most people join the military really early. Do you think that you joining a lot later kind of helped you or is it more beneficial to join later or something like that? I mean, it's... Do you see any difference? There's pros and cons to both, you know, because when you're... What I was told, I was just having dinner or having a little coffee discussion yesterday with a couple ladies who help with military mental health and the active duty. and veteran space and they were telling me, the fact that I joined at 32 meant, my brain was fully developed. And so there's less developmental aspects going on at that age than when you're younger. And when you're younger, I don't mean that in a condescending way, but I mean that where these younger folks, they're getting molded in a very real way, just because of neuroplasticity, right? And think about if they're exposed to trauma at that young age. they're exposed to warfare at that young age, those synaptic connections are just doubling down over and over again for these protective features. And so I'd like to think that my going in at my age allowed me to be, um, well, I don't want to make it comparative because I don't want it to sound disparaging in any way, but it did give me a unique perspective. Um, I was told by my buddies who are in, who've been in for, you know, 15 years, 10 years. They told me to not use my age to speak down to people, but be willing to be a voice of reason or of wisdom if somebody asks. Like, hey, you're the old guy, give me some advice on this. You know what I'm saying? So that's that. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I guess... Oh, sorry, Olivier, you can go. Oh, I was just going to ask if you noticed any changes in dynamics in terms of coming from the civilian world to the army world, and then I should back again in terms of leadership in those group dynamics. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's similarities because humans are humans. We have our primal biological manifestations of hierarchy and how we speak to one another. I saw a lot of similarities to be honest. Like, you know, if a leader is a healthy leader, right, they're gonna have a kinder tone of voice. They're gonna be humble. They're gonna be very straightforward. They won't be playing any sort of games. You know, it's very objective in the data that they present to you. You know, we gotta get this done. This is what we need to do to do it, go execute. And that happens in the military and that happens in the civilian world. But then you have managers and bosses and unit leaders, commanders who are, they want to play a game with you. You know, they want to invoke a sense of power. Like I have the control here. I can, you know, make or break your career. You need to respect me because of the rank I wear. And it's less about them earning respect. It's more about them trying to bludgeon you over the head with their rank. And... And again, it happens in the corporate world as well, as well as the military, private sector, it can happen in a startup company. I've been part of biotech startups where somebody will walk around and do the same thing. I'm the CEO, I'm the founder, screw all of you. I can do whatever I want, it's my money. But then you have these brilliant scientists that are like, wow, okay, so you just hired me, got my PhD, and now I'm working under you, and you're gonna treat me like dirt? I don't think so, buddy. I'm gonna go start my own spin-off biotech, right? So it was interesting. What was cool about being in the military at my age is I was able to verbalize these examples of what I experienced outside the military to the people I was serving with. So it would allow us, it would validate their experiences. Because if they're feeling something in their gut, right? About a certain leader or about a certain situation, I'm like, oh, this reminds me of so-and-so in my past life. It's a mirror example of what's going on here, whether it's good or bad. And you would just kind of see this awareness of, oh, okay, cool. So that's what's going on. I'm not crazy. I'm just simply observing a social, a psychosocial phenomenon happening in this organization. That's why I love organizational psychology. Yeah, you were, you said that you did your masters while part of the military. So how was that? How, how did you even decide to get into doing that to begin with? And what was that like? Well, it was the lockdowns that caused that inspiration to happen because I, so, you know, when the lockdowns happened, right? People started, you could think of it two ways. You can either optimize yourself and enhance your life and thrive in that situation, or you could fall off. you know, go drink alcohol, go isolate, become depressed, be by yourself, right? So I had struggled with substances and with alcohol younger in life because of some early childhood stuff that happened and whatnot. And so when the lockdowns happened, I told myself, I'm not going to get depressed. I'm not going to allow myself to feel stuck. So I thought, what can I really do to optimize my time right now? And I thought, well, let's go remote, grab a master's degree. and be, you know, be intellectual with my leadership aspect, have an academic strength in leadership that I can actively exercise in uniform at work. So that was so that's what was so cool. I would like go to work, experience something awesome or something not so awesome, come home. And then the prompt of the day for the assignment was give an example of you know, a healthy leadership dynamic. in a high stress situation, back it up with peer reviewed journal publications. So then I'd go do these searches on the neurophysiology of being nice, being kind, managing in a certain way, right? I'd look at how do the synaptic connections fire? How does the prefrontal cortex wrestle with the amygdala and try to compete for how we're going to regulate with our sympathetic pair, sympathetic responses and whatnot. And so, and I'd apply this to what it looks like in a dyad. you know, between two people interpersonally. So I was kind of tying the cellular developmental biology aspect with the macro side of it, what it looks like as we talk and develop relationships. Do you have an example of that? Like something that you could see playing out in front of you, but then it was, you kind of understand the academics behind it. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, yeah, thanks for asking that. Cause this is a really special moment. You know, I was on a range and we were playing with, uh, some explosives, right? So we were. blowing up some C4. And the way we train on explosives is an explosion. If you look at physics of a of a percussive wave, it's you can shape it. It depends on how you know what the charge looks like, how large it is, how you angle it, is it in the ground? Is it above the ground? How is the blast distributed? So we'd play with this stuff, right? We'd have shaped charges, cratering charges. We cut, we have cutting charges. So we do different things like that. While I was on the range, I was, there's a bunch of, again, combat veterans with us, right? People who've been to war, when they were 18 years old, they shipped out, right? And now they're in their 20s and 30s. And so I was talking to one of them, and when the detonation went off for one of the charges, like mid conversation, he just completely froze and shut down, stopped speaking, and his eyes were large. glazed over. And I was like, hey, are you okay? And he said, I'm sorry. He shook it off and said, hey, I just realized, like I had a flashback. I was thinking about a guy that died in our patrol, got blown up, because of an IED. And so I realized right there, I saw the physiological manifestations of a hyperactive primal system, right, his hypervigilance shot up. If you look at the fMRIs on how the thalamus and the hippocampus, anterior cingulate, all these different aspects of the brain will fire and or misfire. And that'll lead to sort of a sense of timelessness where they kind of, they flash back, right? There's no sense of time, past, present, future, it all kind of becomes a collective whole. So he's in the present with me talking at a range and now he's flashing back to Afghanistan where he lost a friend. And so it made me aware of how considerate and sensitive I needed to be as a leader. And we don't talk about that, you know, in the military. We don't talk about being sensitive. But if you're talking about somebody potentially killing themselves or hurting themselves or self-medicating because of their past trauma, then I believe it's a leader's responsibility. And I'm not the only one. I shouldn't say this on a soapbox. There are a lot of leaders. We believe it's important to be kind in our words, to show some love, because, I mean, we're gonna see a very stressed out nervous system to our left and right, and we need to help. The more we manage that, the more tactical and more proficient we can become. I find that so interesting because I guess the people that you're talking about are the toughest kind of people that you could think about. But at the end of the day, they've still got a nervous system and that can be overwhelming. They're men and women, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, they're people. And so many times we forget that. So many times, man, that's the part that really changed. Because I saw my platoon. I was a platoon leader. I was an officer. Soldiers, you know, I treated them like they were my kids like they're my brothers and sisters, you know I cared for and so but that's a part of joining older as well is I wasn't ashamed of that I wasn't ashamed to say I care about you. How are you feeling? You know, how's your wife? How's your kids? Are you pursuing an education? You know that can come off kind of like what are you my dad, but I didn't do it that way You know, I did it like hey, tell me about what's exciting for you. Like what are you doing outs? Look, the desert sucks when it's 127 degrees Fahrenheit. Sorry, I don't know what that is Celsius, but when it's blistering temperatures and you're dying out there, all you have is each other. And so we would just talk like, hey, what are you gonna do when you get the weekend off? Where are you gonna go on vacation? And so, but I wanted to inspire them to think about self-enrichment, you know, about how to take care of themselves because the healthier they were in uniform. Again, the smoother our procedures are gonna be, the more safer we're gonna be, the less mistakes, the fewer errors that occur. And even in training, I mean, we see this all the time, even in a training environment, people can die very quickly. So it's not something to say like, oh, there's no bad guys shooting at us. We can just do whatever we want. No way, man. If we, the second we get too cocky with that, too arrogant, somebody gets hurt. A vehicle rolls over, somebody gets ran over. somebody's caught without water for too long and fatigues out and gets heat stroke. I mean, there's a lot that can go down where it's like, man, I didn't frigging think that was gonna happen so fast. On the same thing, do you think that the approach towards, I guess, like taking care of, or at least meant to health-wise taking care of your platoon members or whatever has changed across time? I know you were there for three years, but have some of the people you've spoken to told that it's changed from, I guess, the beginning days of the Iraq war to now or whatever people who've been in the military for 15, 20 years? Have they? Yeah. commented on whether such awareness has changed or improved. That's a brilliant question. I love that question because that's where I feel like I exist. I exist in that space with this book because these people that I, that encouraged me to write the book, they were, they gave me permission to share some of their stories, right? About what they saw in those first initial entry into Iraq and Afghanistan. Right. They didn't have the language back then to talk about things like we do now. So this new generation of soldiers coming in, they do, right? They have more awareness. But we have this sort of contrast with these older, salty NCOs and officers who've been in for a while, these war dogs who've experienced what happened in the past. And now we have these younger soldiers. And so I want, I really want them to share that wisdom, like oral tradition. Like, let me hear from you, you've been to war, tell me what's the most important thing that matters. How do you care for somebody? How do you decompress? And they tell you like, man, this is all the stuff I wish I knew, but I didn't. And then now we can use that knowledge to aid these younger service members, right? Before the next war kicks off, we can get them, not that I'm looking forward to it, but war is inevitable in my perspective. We always need to be ready for it. And I want our troops to be the healthiest that they can be mentally going in. So that way. again, it keeps decisions clean, it minimizes errors in combat, right? It could save lives. Ideally, we wouldn't have a war because we'd have that much, I don't know, mental health globally. But anyway, that's another philosophical discussion. But I definitely, I see a growing change because there are some service members who've been in for a while, they want better for the younger the youth coming in, right? They want to, you know, a healthier mindset. However, there are some that don't believe in change in the sense that they perhaps, maybe they feel so lost or they feel like they're stuck in their own trauma, that they're not able, they don't have that cognitive, the resources to aid somebody else yet. They will if we help them work through it. And that's where I wanna step in, is tell them how they can repair themselves, right? because of neuroplasticity, because of self-awareness and mindfulness and all of that. I know that a lot of these are buzzwords, but you put them into practice and they actually help. And I'm still working on it. I don't have the answers. I mean, I'm still trying to take care of myself. But I believe in the potential of seeing this evolution occur in our military. I'm passionate about it because it's based on love. It's not based on... just data, information, it's not cut and dry clinical science. This is, I love you, I care about you as my soldier. I don't want you to hurt yourself. I want you to be your healthiest self. So learn about your mind, learn about mental health in pragmatic ways. Not just check a box like, yeah, I went to the seminar, the brief, but actually learn and apply it. How's it gonna look in your life? Sorry, I got really excited. No, no, that's just... Yeah, with all that, I'm just wondering how you translate that to your soldiers, especially I can imagine maybe some might be a little bit more resistant, especially to the to the buzzwords, like you say, like mindfulness and self-care and all that stuff and I imagine there's a bit of resistance to being vulnerable as well. Yeah, I can't hear what's on that. Can I just add to that as well being I feel a lot of who joined the army usually have families or have a familial history of doing so. So you're also not only combating that, but you're probably combating someone, a veteran back home, having their own idea of how things should be. And therefore resistance, not only being internal, but being familial could, you know, kind of the same as when parents say, why shouldn't I beat my kids? I was beaten or things like that. Yeah, so I'll talk about that first. Yeah, I mean, with social media, there's so much awareness that this new generation of service members comes in with, right? You can't create a subculture that blinds them. They're always going to have external data to look at. They can always reference outside information now, right? Because they have high definition footage, right, of other units, of other militaries, of other nations. So Yes, there's definitely tradition that's carried in. I mean, that's a part of pride in the military, right? We want that tradition. And so there's this interesting balance I see in these new service members that show up and they want this hard edge of being tactical, being lethal, being protectors of our country. But at the same time, they've got a tremendous sense of humor. And they've got this, I mean, there's always this sense of humor in the military because you got to have fun when things suck. Otherwise it's just gonna suck. Like you gotta have a dark sense of humor or just a crazy sense of humor to make it fun. But I do see that there's this interesting balance. It's like they throttle it between being on social media, posting stuff, being goofy, but then being physical and training and being tactical. So, and there's arguments on both sides of the table. Like, no, you guys are too much involved with trying to be this new generation of people in America. And then there's other people. that are like, no, this is what we need. We need to adapt. We need to be compatible with society because the military and civilian society are married together. It's not like they're two separate entities. I mean, there has to be a symbiotic relationship between the two, right? Otherwise, you're not gonna be able to recruit people, which we've seen recruiting numbers dwindle. So it begs the question of what are we missing, right? We need to be able to adapt and evolve. Because enemy also, the enemy's always evolving. and that's warfare, you've got to always figure out new tactics and struts strategies and all of that stay aware, you know, but going back to Olivia's question, which now I forgot, oh, yeah, yeah. So how to break the ice with somebody who's going to be, you know, not as open to being vulnerable. I talk about jujitsu. So in jujitsu, you got to talk about your emotions, but you don't talk about your emotions explicitly. And I'll tell you how it works out. If I'm upset, or I'm angry or I'm whatever for the day with a bad attitude and I go to jujitsu and I don't tell anybody, I'm gonna get absolutely smashed by somebody. A black belt, an upper belt man is gonna crush me because they're gonna say, you showed up, you're being dangerous, you're being too tough guy, whatever, so they're gonna show me physically, like if you do that again, you're gonna be walking out of here with a limp. And so, What's cool, and this is kind of like, especially like when it's dudes rolling together, guys have a different kind of like culture than if there's a female on the mats. We wouldn't do it if we're rolling with a female, because that's considered a sign of disrespect. But if we do it to the guys, we police each other up. And so the black belts, they teach us like, your feelings, your emotions, that comes out on the mats. Your level of aggression, your level of calm. how kind you are, how considerate you are of others, we're inspired to develop emotional intelligence because the more emotionally intelligent we are in Jiu-Jitsu, the less we get beat up. It becomes more about technique. It becomes chess. Imagine you have an option to either play chess or to get beat up. Like I'd rather play chess than get beat up, right? And so in Jiu-Jitsu, you can throttle it very quickly. Do you wanna play? anatomical chess or do you want this to turn into a fight? And so I took that into the military. So I would tell people like, look, that tone of voice, that posture, that body language, the non-verbals, like this is escalating into a conflict. So let's just take a breath, because that's what we do in Jiu-Jitsu, right? Like, take a deep breath, calm down, ground myself, right? And then figure out the proper technique, the appropriate technique. Same thing applies to leadership. You know, don't come spouting off with foul language. Don't come at me with your balled up fists like you wanna punch me in the face cause something is wrong. It's like, hey, I get it. Things are totally jacked up. Take a breath. What exactly is going on? Now, how do we address this logistically, logically? And it allows, when you do that for people and they feel that. as a leader, they know that, hey, if I come to you with something like, you're going to help me get out of my head, right? Because it's visceral. They feel that. It's not just words. They feel that connection. It's like therapy, you know? Mm. So you would be a proponent of, I guess, in your leadership style, like taking that breath, even though you may be feeling a certain type of way, and then thinking about something more strategically. Is that what you're saying? Totally. And they'd see it too. Because they'd see this big inhale, just like, and you know, as soldiers, right? They're expecting me to just start screaming and yelling like, ah, right? Because that's not a normal response. If somebody loses their mind, so shouting, yeah, because we got to raise our voices, right? But then when you're somebody, I got in trouble in a training program when I was becoming an officer in the army because I didn't yell enough. I didn't scream at people. So the instructor said, he pulled me aside and said, I'm gonna lower your grade a little bit because I don't know, like what are you doing with all of your anger? You're not screaming at anybody. And I'm like, sir, there's no point in screaming. I'm just gonna communicate what needs to change. And it was so funny because to me, screaming is just communicating the same information but louder and if anything, a little bit with more static, emotional static. So I thought, let me just clean it up, tell them exactly what they need to hear and that's it. But he got mad at me because he's like, no, you need to scream, you need to yell at these guys. I'm like, that's not my style. Just if people were thinking that what Dan's saying is just his own experience, he has research as well to back it up. So I'll just share the screen to show that this was the basis of his master's research, looking at Jujitsu and anxiety and Black Bill Jujitsu. So if anybody wants to read it, it's on his website for those interested. So yeah, just... I'm writing a book about it too. Hey, thank you so much for giving me that shout out. And I wanted to let you know, I just finished the book design cover. It's gonna be called the Black Belt Mindset. So I'm writing a little public, a little manuscript on what that research showed me about the emotional toolkit that they have, the psychological toolkit regarding breath, reframing, just there's so much emotional regulation that these black belts have. And again, I'm all about oral tradition. Like we got to tell people these stories because you know, we can allow people to heal if we share this information. And the other thing is this is not new or just related to, well, martial arts is probably one of the best ways, but you've seen it. I think there's a lot of historical accounts of Greek or Roman wrestling as well on the same kind of basis. A lot of sports, um, uh, lots of sports, neuroscience work has shown similar things, um, for, I guess the same reasons. It's about respecting yourself. Your opponent, um, helps with that kind of parasympathetic response, baby. Um, yeah, so. I, because I'm on your website because I was pulling that up. I also saw that you are writing a couple other books as well. So one more is the combat psych handbook. The other one is shame culture kids. Could you please elaborate on shame culture kids? Cause that's an interesting title. Yeah, I'm actually going to change the title. I think this one, I was told it's a little negative, so I'm going to change it. But I grew up, so my parents are from, uh, from the middle East, from Iraq. And so I grew up in America as a first generation child. And so. There was a lot of tension between the honor and shame culture of my parents and my heritage, right? And then the American sense of freedom. And so as a Westerner, right, so I'm an American kid, but I have Middle Eastern roots. And so I needed to respect my family, respect my elders, respect my heritage. But also they wanted me to be in America to be totally free and have all these liberties that they didn't have growing up. So I wanted to write a book because I felt so alone a lot of my life. Not knowing the proper English words for things. And then kind of like, you know, those little side laughs that kids would say. And then I felt stupid, like, oh no, I'm different, you know. The smells of food and the curry in my house, which my friends loved, by the way, but I always felt kind of self-conscious. The way the clothes my parents would wear, the traditional clothes, the traditional music that they'd listen to. And so I wanted to write a book because I heard more and more people have struggled actually with mental health too. Some who are depressed, some I've heard were suicidal because they felt so almost ashamed of themselves trying to embrace a Western identity and then tell their family about it or have their family say, hey, like you're having too much fun. You know, you need to focus more on school, be a doctor, be a lawyer. Don't. we don't want you to go, like don't have those experiences your friends are having. And that sucks. You know, when your friends want to go on spring break, and then your parents say, no, we don't want you to go on spring break, you need to just go study or something. There's always this kind of like, weird feeling I felt inside. And now that I've studied, again, organizational psychology, I didn't realize that there is, you know, there are guilt based cultures and there are shame based cultures. And there's a dichotomy between the two. and how they're rooted, you know, and there's so much to go into here. But I wanted to give a voice to people who, like myself, for so long, felt voiceless. You know, I didn't have the words to talk about this stuff. I didn't know how to explain it to my friends because as a racial minority, I didn't know if they would even have an ear to listen to me or if they would say like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So I don't have any input for you, right? which isn't the case. Most people in my life, every friend that I have, they're sensitive to that. They're willing to hear my story. Do you know what I mean? So, but I really kind of am writing this book for my younger self, if that makes sense. Not to be totally selfish, but it is healing a part of myself from my younger years. No, that makes a lot of sense. I look forward to it because, so I, my parents are Indian, but I was born here. I grew up in New Zealand as well as in the States because we moved to the States for a bit. So, so I completely get that idea of having like one foot in each base and sometimes being accepted by both, but also not by both at the same time. Yeah. It's like, where do I fit? That's totally things. Yeah. That's cool. Hey, thanks for saying that. Thanks for saying that. Because. Again, you just put so much wind in my sails to write this book. So thank you. So yeah, I was actually on a podcast a while ago, which was with a group of New Zealand kids who all were off immigrant backgrounds in one way or the other. And it's the same, same kind of thing. So you definitely have an audience. The more global the world gets, the more kind of these combinations you see as well. So I think you definitely have an audience. A lot of people can relate in many ways. But. I wanted to circle all the way back to the military, to your first book. And do you... I think so. I know or I have heard that it is very hard to get confidentiality within the military if someone wants to see a therapist or something like that, because they have to probably tell their superiors. Do you feel that as a sort of a barrier to probably improving mental health in the military? So I totally thought the same thing. That stigma exists, you're right, that stigma totally exists. I believed it when I was in the military, then I found out that's not true. So I went and saw behavioral health, and apparently, unless I disclosed it, nobody else would know about it. So they really did create a protective mechanism to make sure that doesn't get out. Unless there's certain issues that will affect the job, then there are certain things that need to be discussed, right? So certain people wouldn't be able to handle a weapon, or it depends on the situation. But for the most part, they've really done a lot to break that stigma, which is so cool. Yeah. And I spent a lot of time talking to my troops about that to make them comfortable with it because I did not want them to feel isolated and alone. And so I thought if these resources are here for you, please use them. Like mental health is totally worth the investment. Hmm. I guess from that, I'm curious in your experience, what would an ideal conversation look like, I guess, between maybe an officer and, and the soldiers around mental health? I don't know if that makes sense. But yeah, it does. It really does. Maybe they need to communicate. I would say talk to them like, okay, it's nuanced, right? Speak to them like, like your parenting. to an extent, but more mentoring. If that, if not the, not in a way that seems condescending or patronizing, not to put them down, but to be with them in it, right? Like these are my issues, lead with vulnerability. Hey, I've had issues and this is how I work through those issues. And if you have any issues similar to me, because you're a human being and we all have issues, I fully support you. and letting them know that you care for them and validating them is important. Oftentimes people won't tell you that they wanna be seen, but that's like the biggest thing humans want. We just wanna be seen. And so soldiers are no different. And what's important, and this is why I say do it like a parent, because I believe like a parent would have the ability to tell their child they love that they love them without the child having to say it back. Because when you do it in a way that's you're not putting pressure on them saying, Hey, I care about you guys. I want you to get help. Or if you need anything, let me know. If they truly believe that you're for them, and you're being selfless in that they're going to trust you. But if they feel you have an agenda, or you're out to get them or you're condescending or trying to power trip, they're not going to want to believe you, you know, and the worst thing we can do for mental health. is to give somebody a bad experience with it and to turn them off to it. It's so important to lead by example. Anyway, I don't know if that parenting analogy is helpful. I hope it's not like a turnoff to some people, but that's kinda how I looked at my troops is that I cared for them, like they're my kids. Like I wanted to defend them and yeah, anyway. Yeah, because I guess the conversation that kind of comes to mind is one that I think is so common is like, if you're super stressed with your workload, then thinking about bringing that up to your superior when you think about all these other things like, you know, we're all stressed and does it look like I'm like, I can't handle all these tasks and things like that. Yeah, you clicked on my ability, you have to be careful about who you tell. And on that note, You know, if somebody doesn't believe in, if they don't have a growth mindset, if they have a fixed mindset, they're not gonna be of help. If they say, I don't believe you'll ever get better because I couldn't get better, then that person, there's no hope talking to them until they get help. Do you know what I mean? So you have to go up to somebody and if that means you have to circumvent a leader, then you have to do it. If it becomes life and death, I mean, come on. Come on, it's so important to be. to go to somebody who's gonna support you. And if you go to somebody, and I've seen it, where let's say somebody is suicidal, right? And they're depressed. Like legitimately they wanna take their lives. And I've seen somebody tell other people, you're not allowed to complain about suicidality because I felt it and I don't wanna hear your complaints. And so that was horrible. because how many people are hurting and this person basically said, I don't care if you're hurting, because who isn't hurting and you have nothing to complain about, suck it up. That's not the way to do it. You know, that's because now he's suffering on his own and now these troops are gonna suffer on their own. So we need awareness across the board so everybody can get healthy, you know. Mm. You mentioned about circumventing. I feel, one, I feel it's very hard for like younger, newer recruits to be able to do that without feel like they're stepping on toes in one way or the other. The second is, do you have advice for people who are probably in platoons, whatever, with the leaders? At least they are, like you said, they are pretty hard because I feel the lower down you are, the harder it is to probably move sideways. Yeah, definitely. Yes. I mean, again, I've seen that as well. So the biggest thing you got to do is take care of yourself. And, oh, boy, this is this is where the nuances of psychology comes out, right? Because you got to minimize exposure to toxic people as much as possible, because they're going to drain you, you know, but what if you can't do that? Well, that's a dark situation. And it gets dark extremely fast, because there's no escape for people. Right? So the self medication goes through the roof. They dissociate, they become disenfranchised, right? They'll self-destruct or, you know, whether it is suicide or homicidality could increase as well, right? If we're looking at the full spectrum of human dynamics, you're like, let's be real. So finding someone to talk to is key to stay sane and at least take care of your mental health. Even if they don't have the power and ability to pull you out of your unit. You got to go to somebody who's going to at least validate the very human experience you're having. Another situation is you can report it. There are there are ways to report behavior in the military that gets looked at not just by military personnel, but by civilians as well. So that way, nobody sweeps it under the rug. It's you know, like a whistleblower type situation, right? A lot of people are too scared to do that. And the thing is, when you do that, you have to be able to back it up. It can't just be, I'm mad at this person. There needs to be actual data to back this up. But there's investigations that go on, people are looked into. And so, you know, so we're talking anywhere from find a way to decompress to go report that person. And look, I'm, you know, I'm all about the safety of the troops. If there's something unethical going on, then that has to get reported. We can't have that in the military. That'll lead to death. That'll be deadly very quickly. It'll be destructive. It's a cancer, right? And so it's important to come up with a list of people around you who are gonna help you and come up with a list of people to avoid and then work those angles. Find the appropriate way to get champions on your side who are gonna help you because they're not just gonna help you. If you're suffering, chances are there's a bunch of us. service members next to you in that unit that are suffering as well, they're just too scared to say anything. And that's where a real leader steps up and is like, hey, I'm gonna make a change here. I'm gonna speak up and be an advocate for change, right? Being an advocate for healthy workspaces is super important. And it's not just about complaining, it's about bringing solutions, you know? And again, if things suck for a little bit, you gotta endure it. But if it's long-term and there's ways to... If there's ways to make improvements and somebody says, I don't care, I'm not gonna allow improvements to be made here, that's destructive. It's different than if somebody says, hey, we're gonna go on this mission and it's gonna be a very, very tough mission, but we're gonna get through it. And after we get through it, you're gonna go home, you're gonna relax, you're gonna be with your family. You know what I mean? They want you to be restored, right? two different philosophies there. So Mm hmm. Yeah. And I guess on that note, I think you're a great storyteller and I'd be keen to hear if you have any standout examples from the military or not of really great leadership that you've seen or even that you've done yourself that you feel like you'd like to share. Oh man, there's so many stories. Let me think about that. So yeah, I mean, one that comes to mind is, you know, one of the best officers I ever got to work with is a Special Forces officer. He I don't want to say names or anything, because I don't want to give away. It's operational security type stuff. But he was higher ranking, and he was special forces, which is the elite guy, right? But he put his ear to the ground, if you will, to listen to the lowest ranking soldiers. He went out of his way to hear from people in a very real way. And even though changes couldn't happen, overnight, right? The fact that he was willing to listen created a sense of hope. And it built in my mind, a sense of community. Oh, boy, these guys are going crazy. I'm on a military base right now and they're all yelling and shouting. So anyway, he was an example of somebody that did not let rank become a bureaucratic blockade to say, you can't approach me. I don't care what's going on your side, right? He didn't have to care. But anyway, it was a cool example of him giving a voice to people that wouldn't have ordinarily had a voice. And championing other people to speak with your rank is such a cool concept. Because you're not just using your rank to build yourself up, you're lending it to other people. It's like borrowing your credibility. And It's awesome. It's awesome to see that appreciation when you give someone a voice and they're like, hey, thank you. Thanks for listening to me. And I felt completely silent until you asked me what's going on and now I can just let it all out. And it's not always pretty, right? It's gonna be rough. It's gonna be messy. But when someone's willing to go into that messy aspect of leadership and do work there, that's when you know you're leading because you care about people. not because you're focused on systems and procedures. Because you could be, you could be focused only on systems and procedures in the organization. And then you forget about the beating hearts in the people that are doing the work, that they're living, breathing human beings. The caveat to that is that you can over-focus on just the emotional needs of people and forget the organizations. And that's where I wrestle. Because I lean more towards people's emotional needs, right? because if they're not healthy, then the organization, it's not fair to them, right? But I have to be careful with that because, again, that's where I needed to learn more about, and I'm still, I need to grow, I want to grow more in this, is to put up with the hard stuff, knowing that it's gonna be temporary, we're gonna get through it, and then we'll have a chance to decompress and recharge. But that's so important to me. I have to see that guarantee that the troops are gonna have a moment to decompress. Because if they constantly are bombarded with more and more and more, and they don't get a chance to take some of that pressure off, that really bothers me. So anyway, I don't wanna go too far down this rabbit hole, but this is the tension in which my books exist, is that tension between focusing on systems and focusing on people. It's a never ending discussion. It's always growing, always evolving. And I think it's a brilliant way to just get to know people and get to explore different cultures and pick what works and keep moving forward with that stuff. Mm-hmm. Can I ask, because the last thing which you said there was cultures. I know America, the United States is one of the most diverse countries in the world, in terms of just like backgrounds of people and so on. And how does that affect a leader in the military? Because although I guess everyone's American, they do come from different backgrounds, like you said yourself. How does that interplay with being a leader? I know not just probably like cultural backgrounds, but also sexual backgrounds and things like that. Do they play a big role in any way? Oh, yeah. There's tons of diversity in the military, man. Tons of diversity. I've worked with... So, I mean, if we're talking racial, like I've worked with all different racial ethnicities, you know, racial cultures. So, one of my best friends, Moses, he's from French Congo. So, he taught me French. So now, I want to speak French a little bit because I was bored in basic training and... I'm like, Moses, where are you from? He's like, I'm from Africa, I'm from the Congo. I'm like, bro, teach me your language. And so, so yeah, he's, I wrote about him in my book. I had some friends from Korea, from other African nations, from Brazil. There was a bunch of different service members that joined our military or were working with us in training. So there's definitely a rich cultural diversity, which shocked me. It was cool. It was refreshing. Cause then I, it was just awesome seeing that, you know? And we celebrated that. Cause we had these briefs where it's like, talk about your home cooking, talk about your home cultures, show us photographs. What are your rituals and ceremonies, right? So we give them the, because we wanted to learn, right? We're operating with these people around the world. And so that was one thing we did really well in the military, which I think is not advertised. There's a lot of good stuff that isn't highlighted, you know? That was one of them. And then you asked for sexual diversity. Yeah, I mean, there, I'd served with transsexuals, I served with gay, lesbian, bi, straight, there's all. all variety of people, essentially, it's a microcosm of culture. You know what I mean? There's nothing that exists in society that doesn't exist in the military. And I understand that there's sweeping generalizations met, right? Are made about the military, but it truly is a microcosm of society. There is literally every walk of life. And the coolest thing nobody cares about any of that stuff, as long as you put on the uniform, and you're about the mission. That's what's cool. And I enjoyed seeing that. I enjoyed seeing racial barriers, all these different barriers kind of overcome because all you care about is doing the mission together. You know, that was that was a neat part about being in the military. Super cool. Yeah, it sounds like it. The reason I ask is because I feel the way everybody probably hears about the military is through whatever politicians say, right? It's usually through the lens of politics and it's through the lens of, oh, this war is happening or this. So sometimes you don't actually know that you never really hear about the internal workings or some of the more positive aspects people see. Therefore, it's really good to listen to. you know, an insider's perspective on these things. Here's the cool part though. Bro, we're not politicians in the military. Do you know what I mean? That's the cool part. That's what came to my realization is we're not political. I mean, yeah, we have different beliefs, but in uniform, it's the politicians that make decisions, but service members are there to go do the mission. And to me, there's a purity in that. We don't have a political agenda. We're not allowed to. You know, we have to serve whoever it is that's telling us what to do. We're serving the... the United States Constitution, the people, right? And that was a unique persp- And I appreciate you saying that. I know I kind of interrupted you, but I got really excited because, again, that was another aspect that brought such a deep connection with these troops, was that I really don't care what you believe and who you voted for. I care about you being alive at the end of this mission, because we owe it to each other. If we're not looking out for each other to keep each other alive because of our hangups, that's extremely dangerous. We have to care for each other because at the end of the day, we're brothers and sisters in arms. And just like brothers and sisters disagree, so what, we're gonna disagree on stuff. But I wanna be alive, I want you to be alive, and I'm hoping the feelings are mutual. So let's do this mission together, right? Let's see eye to eye and get the mission done. That's what I loved about the military. Something that comes to mind when you say that, obviously it sounds like there's a really great camaraderie going on and like a sense of purpose within the military. How do you grapple with, obviously everyone has their different abilities and their backgrounds are very diverse. How do you deal with when someone has, how do I put it, they're just struggling a little bit in terms of trying to execute that mission. They maybe have some certain weak points. Yeah, I mean, the point is to mentor people in the military, that in an ideal situation, in a healthy environment, you speak to somebody at a level that you want them to rise up to, not speak down to them. And there are people that speak down, right. And I would, that really drove me crazy. Because in like basic training, when you go to boot camp, you're supposed to get broken from your civilian ways. and then you get built back up. You don't get broken to stay broken. And this is where mental health is huge. You know, we don't break people in order to see them go operate, go on missions, go fight and not be healthy. Cause that'll lead to all this duress that we see psychologically. But when somebody is lacking in proficiency in a certain way, the point is to use your experience to raise them up to do the job. Cause in the military, everyone's replaceable. Right? If one explosion goes down, blows up a whole platoon, there's three more platoons that do the exact same thing that are about to replace us to go do it. And so with that philosophy, we're not supposed to treat anybody like, yeah, you're not gonna learn this stuff. It's not for you. Now, if they're not good for that job and they get washed out of the pipeline or they fail, they can learn the skill and come back and try again, or they can go do a different job that suits them more. I mean, There's all these different jobs, all these different aspects. And so it really comes down to their mindset. And then also, do they have a supportive, you know, a support system around them that's gonna aid them in growth? And again, that's why I wrote this book too, to remind leaders that the way we speak, even our tone of voice communicates how willing we are to help people, right? And that's, and I need to remember that cause I'm not perfect. I still screw this up. And so it's really important for me to realize, because a lot of this book I wrote was to my younger self as well. It's so important to be about mentoring others and serving others. We're not supposed to join the military to be selfish. So, and I'm again, I'm not perfect. I screwed a lot of this stuff up, but I think there's sometimes I got it right. And sometimes I got it wrong, but that's again, my mistakes. I'd like other people to learn from them too. So their soldiers could be even healthier, you know? I like how you made the point of the military is that it like initially it breaks you and that it's there to build you up. I did like in school I did the cadet stuff and they were very good at breaking you. They weren't very good at building you back up. I remember doing that in like, what do you say, early high school. Same thing with quite a few of my friends who just after high school went and tried to join the military. They all came back with the same thing. Yeah, they broke us, but no one ever or very of those who left said that. So it's that thing of trying to culture. It's about culture. Both of them at the same time. Yeah. We need healthy cultures in the military for sure. I do have a question. I'm interested going forward. Obviously, you've got your books to write, but I'm curious if there's any. topics that you're super excited about or things that you're, I don't know, trying to think about in your mind, just trying to grapple with any interesting topics. Yeah, one of them, I'm trying to help men have a stronger sense of vocabulary for feelings. So I'm going to write a book talking about the human mind with the analogy of mechanics and mechanical parts and things of that sort. So it's, I'm coming up with some interesting ways that'll hopefully... I envision that say if there's a wife of a service member, a soldier who's just, let's say the guy's completely dense. So she's just upset because he can't talk about feelings and he comes home just aggressive and like, ah, you know, so she could take my book and just throw it out his head and be like, read this, you know, so I'm kind of trying to come up with a fun, a fun humorous way of getting men open up to discussing their feeling states, writing one on jujitsu and breath control, which is extremely like. It just, it touches my heart because you did so much to heal me. Um, there's a couple more books I have planned, uh, about one's about the lack of joy and materialism. So I I'd like to explore the neurophysiology of pleasure, satisfaction, happiness, contentment, and I'd like to discuss why people who oftentimes have the most luxurious things in life can be some of the most unhappy. And so I'm going to do a deep dive in one of the books on, yeah, I guess the neuro the neuro circuitry that backs contentment, I would like to look up some research on that. Thank you for asking that, by the way. Well, you're always welcome to come back on to talk about them. And also, hopefully, we have some researchers who might help you along the journey as well. If you go through the people come on here. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to be citing some research publications in the book. So if they're willing to have their work cited, I'd love to give them credit. Well, yeah, we've been recording for about an hour and it's mostly been heavy, deep stuff. I know that you have another podcast to record because you're doing the circuit. So should we like spend the last, last roughly 10, 15 minutes talking about like lighter stuff? Let's do it. Yeah. Uh, dad, the last thing we do is we basically ask a few kind of rapid fire questions your way, they're real chill things mostly, um, cause I feel almost all our conversations which we have kind of do get heavy and serious or very science-based or very, yeah. So it's kind of like a de-stressor kind of thing. So, Olivia, do you want to go first? Okay, so what I can remember, Dan, summer or winter? Summer. Cats or dogs? Dogs. Actually, I heard that the US military at one point of time tried to train cats. Is this true? I think I heard about that. For certain detection tasks? I don't have experience with it. But I think I came across a paper on that. It's funny you say that. And then what is it the other one goats? I think the police officers are trying to train bomb sniffing goats. It did work with pigs though, right? I think it worked with pigs though. I think you... I'm not sure. I don't know which military, but some military trained pigs to do something to sniff landmines or something like that. Funny. My next question is movies or TV shows? TV shows. Oh, I'm surprised to thought you would have said books. Just been like. All right. You mentioned cultures. What's your favorite cuisine? Oof. Indian food, man. I love chicken tikka masala and naan bread. I eat like tons of naan bread and then I make sure that I get extra chicken. and every drop of that sauce, the tikka masala, I like wipe the plate clean. So I basically give them back clean plates. But it's garlic naan specifically. Spice level two, I can't handle spice. So a little bit of spice, but not hips. What's your least favorite kind of music? Least favorite kind of music? Oh man, I love all types of music. Jeez, that's, I guess the new age rap, like new rap music, if I can't hear them, what they're enunciating, it's harder for me to vibe with it. Cause I don't know what I'm agreeing to in those lyrics. I don't know. Do you have like many DJs and stuff in like your platoons and things? Like, we, yeah, every soldier thinks he's a DJ, man. Whenever we're on a convoy movements, they grab the Bluetooth speaker and every dude wants to put his music on there. So we've, we listen a lot and they're all younger than me. So I'm listening to where all the, the 19 year old, 20 year old kids are listening to them. Like, what is that? What is that dude saying? Like slow it down. Because I write songs, so I'm a lyricist. I love writing songs. And so I enjoy the word play, but yeah, with the slang and then, you know, different, it's hard. I want to know what they're saying because it paints a picture in my mind. Otherwise, I'm just not having fun listening to it. What is a saying that everyone says but you dislike or think is untrue? A common saying. I'm fine. That's a good one actually. I really wanted to ask this to a military person, so this is fun. Which superpower would you like to have? I don't know. I like the ability to teleport because yeah, I just, I like different environments, man. You know, be in the ocean, be in the sky, be on a, be on a mountaintop. Like I would really like to teleport. That'd be cool. But you know what my biggest fear about teleportation is? If I accidentally like hiccup and then teleport into outer space and then I don't know where Earth is, I'm like trying to teleport back to all these random stars. Like which one's Earth? Anyway. thought about that. Considering you do, considering you've looked up neurobiology and things a lot, when you teleport, do you think it's you who goes there? Is it a new version of you which sets up in a different place? I would say that, I mean, in my mind, it would be me versus like, I don't know, you know, with neural link or something in the future where we'll have like avatars. I wouldn't want to upload my consciousness because then again, I want to make it back to my body eventually. Yep. And what do you think is the ugliest fruit or vegetable? Um, what's the one that smells like, like a dead thing? It's like in the forest and the Amazon or something and they say, you know, it's in it's in bloom. It's really sticky too. It's supposed to like catch a bunch of flies. And they said it smells like a corpse or something. It smells like rotting fruit or vegetable. I don't know. They said it's putrid. Oh, I feel like I know what you're talking about. It like opens once a year or something. Yeah, I think it's really big. But yeah, I saw that thing like, that's alien. Whoa. Yeah, but the smell, I haven't smelled it. But the way they described it, I'm like, oh, that's horrific. Hmm. Yeah. To be fair, I quickly Google the stinkiest fruit and like all it shows is durian. So maybe I need to specify the search further, but it doesn't matter. I don't know if you ate it though. I think. Yeah, I think that's just a plant. So did I not answer the question then? That's fine. It's a hot dog or sandwich? No, it's not because the bread's not cut on the other side. It has to be fully, uh, you know, extrapolated on both sides in order to be a sandwich in my mind. It's a taco. So is a quiz nose. So is a, Oh, it's a taco. There we go. I like that. Oh, shoot. That means subway sandwiches are tacos too. Oh shoot. Yeah. All right, last question then is if you could give us one piece of advice to leave with, what would it be? So I always say this because I have a friend, his name is JP Lane and he's a double amputee, he lost both of his legs to an IED and when people thank him for his service, he's got such a big heart. When anyone thanks him for his service, he always looks at him in their eyes and says like, with utmost sincerity, you're worth it. And I told him I'm going to steal that line. and giving credit for it though, because that's like my, especially when it comes to mental health, you're worth it. You're worth self-enrichment. You're worth learning about your brain. You're worth growth through all your past issues and trauma. We all have it. No human is perfect, right? We all are jacked up. We all have insecurities and fears. But whatever it is you're struggling with, you are worth overcoming it. And until you believe that, you may be self-sabotaging and have these self-limiting beliefs. and just feeling that warm embrace of knowing you're worth it. I mean, I say it and I feel it. Do you know what I mean? It's a visceral reaction for myself too. So yeah, just own that phrase and carry it forward to somebody else because somebody else in your life needs to hear it. That's really good. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Dan. If you want to give people a shout out where they can reach you, if anybody wants to, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, feel free to, you can go to my website, combatpsych.com. You can put the spelling in the description, but feel free to just hit the contact me button. You can look at all the other podcasts and books and whatever it is I'm putting out there. Yeah, just. Take a look, let me know what you guys think. And I appreciate you giving me a voice and letting me talk about this. And it's cool. It's a really special moment. Connecting across the globe, this is my first international call like this. So I'm really excited and I appreciate you so much for allowing me to speak up here. No, that's great. Yeah. Thank you so much. We would love to have you back whenever you're available as well, especially talk about your other books, what you're doing next, so on and so forth. Yeah, let's do it. See ya. Awesome. All right. Thanks so much. Take care everyone. Thanks for listening and see you guys next time. Bye. See ya.