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For Veterans by Veterans. Discover and execute on the most important mission of your life. Join host, Mike Bledsoe, as he delves into transformative journeys, exploring the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from military to civilian life. Through compelling stories and expert insights, we uncover the keys to personal growth, resilience, and purposeful living.
Mike Bledsoe (00:00)
Welcome to the mission after podcast where we help veterans discover and execute on their next mission. I'm your host, Mike Bledsoe and today's guest is Dave Fielding. He is a former Green Beret who got out of the military recently and has made some really great steps into the civilian world. He's done a really good job, better than most. And so I think you'd be able to take some notes from him. He wrote the book into the darkness, a journey of love, war and emotional freedom. And one of things I got from the show with him
how he was so quickly able to begin to pursue his passions instead of just going with something that's safe. So I think you're going to get a lot of really great tips on how to approach the mindset of getting out of the military if you're new out. And for those of you who've been out for a while, think you're going to find the conversation to be simply inspiring. We get into a great conversational pace.
And we'll definitely be having him on again. Again, his book is Into the Darkness, a Journey of Love, War and Emotional Freedom. And before we get into the show, I want to let you know that we just started the new the mission after community, which is free for the first hundred people. We have 16 people in there right now. And I've I put in a microdosing course or some breath work stuff in there. And there's a community thread where we're all having a conversation.
So right now it's free. I recommend you getting in there. You can go to themissionafter .org. Just click the button to join and you'll hop in there and start joining us in the conversation. Enjoy the show.
Mike Bledsoe (01:34)
What's up, Dave? We almost made the classic mistake of doing the podcast before the podcast. And that's how I know it's going to be a good show. We're in for a ride. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I have to stop you. Yeah. So, yeah, we were just talking. I'm traveling and you just got done traveling. just the one of the things that I've noticed is I'm 42. You're 39.
Is it 39 is what you said? Yeah, 39. Yeah, it seemed like somewhere around 35. I became more fragile, like like a night of sleep or bad food or whatever. And people are like, aren't you like this, a fitness guy and health and like you're you're a tough guy at one point. What happened to you? I would I would say, you know, try putting what is it?
87 gas in our Ferrari and see how that works. You know, it isn't gonna run right, you know, and it's like, like, just like you said, one bad night of sleep, man, that's it, you're done for the day. Neck pain, whatever. it's, I mean, that's how it is. But I feel like the more you take care of yourself, the, you know, the more you realize the little things that move you away from homeostasis and living that optimal lifestyle, you know, it's like, but it is, yeah, but also too, it's like, you
years of service, they do a number on your body. Yeah, yeah. think that doesn't get talked. You know, there's a lot of high speed dudes out there, you know, just still talking about going harder, like, you know, just preaching like disciplines important, of course, but like, you know, just preaching like, keep going hard, going hard. like, man, I, I, I don't know if that's the right answer. mean, I think, I think the 22 year olds who are listening to these guys, it's a good message for them, but
If you did 10, 20 years in the military, take a break, take it easy, take care of yourself. It's your time to do things, chase happiness, And really, to your point, our bodies just aren't designed to run that hard for that long. We did it during the GWAT. We did it in the subsequent operations after the GWAT. And it does such a number on yourself.
I think the hardest thing that we struggle with, especially within former soft guys, special operation force guys, having the compassion to tell yourself like, no, I should take it easy, you know, and really kind of like look introspectively like, yeah, you were the person that you were, you were successful. Those things aren't going away as part of your identity, but you should probably ratchet it down a couple of gears, you know, and
you know, getting up at 4 a isn't in the best interest for you. Maybe it should be more like getting that solid eight hours, the four REM cycles you need a night to have what is considered good restful sleep. so it's, we are our own worst enemy, know, when it comes down to that, you know, always pushing the limit, that mentality. But it takes a lot to take a step back and say, you know what, actually,
You know, these things don't serve me anymore. You know, so, you know, figuring that out is also a journey within itself. Yeah, I mean, I was in a soft guy and I was in a fleet Navy and, you know, go on a deployment. You know, you're lucky if you got five or six hours of sleep for six months straight. The food's not great. You're eating bad food, getting poor sleep.
You know, the sleep quality they do get, it's no good. the exposure to radiation, the exposure to chemicals, the, the, I tell people a lot of times I'm like, I'm, really, had the foresight to get out after four and a half years. Like I wasn't, the Navy wasn't taking me on the track that I wanted to go. I actually want to go to Bud's and, and do that. actually went once, didn't, didn't make it all the way through. and
getting back wasn't gonna happen for me. but what I recognize is like, this is like, my life force is being spent really quickly here for a pretty, what I consider to be a mundane job. And so when I look at guys, especially the soft community, you know, do 10, 15, 20 years, like the majority of your life force,
has been spent. think that you can keep moving at that pace for another 50 years is a fantasy. we got to slow down and repair. Absolutely repair. Just like in health and fitness, I used to have someone come in, they'd be 300 pounds. And they go, was like, long do you think you should take to get down to 200 pounds?
They're like, six months. And I go, well, how long did it take you to get there? So it's like, how long did you spend in the military? You might need about 25 % to 50 % of that time to recover from that time. So you were in for what, 13 years? 13 years, eight months. Yeah, almost 14 years. It might be seven, eight years to feel spry. I don't know. How you feeling
Not so spry, but you know, I feel pretty good, you know, all things considered, but like it's exactly what you said. It's it takes so much of your life force. You know, I love that. And now I never heard anyone say that before because that's exactly what it is. And and so, you know, for the audience, you know, other than being a green beret in the latter half of my career, I was in the intelligence community as an intelligence officer. And, you know, so I did human intelligence operations.
because the idea of it was doing, it was fun to me. It was more of like the thrill of getting away with something is what really. It's why a lot of people join the military is like, I saw the movie, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be like that guy. And now I become that guy. And I know a few guys, one of the guys I work with a bit, he's getting out. He's about to get out of the intelligence community. He's a soft guy.
Yeah, you can just tell like he's not out yet. Like he was like you're you're worn down. Let's So you need you need to take some time and he's got all these plans for like to just hit the ground running when he's giving out I'm like But how do you tell somebody that like what did it take for you to go? Because I bet you came out with like a gung -ho attitude Is that is that true? No, I actually had a fair amount of failure on my
that really, that was like, you know what? You know, maybe this isn't for me. Cause like, here's the thing is that as military members, we're so used to planning, you know, we come up with courses of action before operations where, know, we're doing, we're doing the same thing like the transition, but just like the mission, as soon as you hit the ground, it's gonna change. It's gonna be some sort of morph of this, right?
You know, for me, I applied to like all these top MBA programs, didn't get into a single one. And I am so thankful that that happened, you know, because my heart wasn't really truly in it. But for me, I viewed it as a, I don't know what I'm gonna do. So I'll just go there for two years and figure it out. But like, I can see if you're a junior military officer and you're transitioning out or junior enlisted to do that, like go bachelor's then get an MBA or something like that. I mean,
The opportunities that you get from that are incredible. And I'm not to knock him or anything, but as a dude who's been doing ops for a majority of their career, probably not the best thing for me. after that failure, or it wasn't even really, I mean, yeah, failure, we'll call it failure. Yeah. I think it's good to say that because I think that's how a lot of people are viewing
Being turned down for something like I think I'm gonna go down this track and it got turned away I'm going down this track and I got turned away like It's I think in the military like it's so common that you're on a single track And if you and if you don't accomplish something it is viewed as a failure like I tried to go that way There's no you don't get to choose your pivot like no like what I'm saying like I washed out of buds Mm I didn't get to choose my pivot. They were like
you failed at this. Now you're to do something you really don't like. Yeah. Right. And so there's I think the idea of failure is so much bigger in the military than it is on the civilian world. Because when I got in the civilian world and I experienced failure, I go, I get I actually choose my pivot. And I think most civilians don't know that either. that I think schooling reigns something in us that causes stick
see that there's a track, but like there is no such thing as a path that's already drawn out for you. But that's the beautiful thing about life. And so I think for me, it's, you know, I had this idea, I was like, I'm to live in New York City. I'm going to work a cool job, you know, and I'll just, you know, make money, right? And like, I think my number one advice for people that are listening to this podcast is go to where your strengths
Right, so I'll start my story. You know, my family kind of had like a little bit of a rite of passage and I'll spare all the details, but my grandfather was a POW in World War II. He was in the Royal Air Force and before that he was in the Marine Corps, US Marine Corps signed up to in
Canadian Royal Air Force because he wanted to go fight the Nazis, right? And, you know, talk about a dude chasing adventure, right? And so he was shot down February, 1944. He was a navigator in a Lancaster plane in the Pathfinder group and basically ended up in the infirmary of Stalag Luft III. Why they were debating amputating his legs that night.
The Great Escape happened. So when he was out of the infirmary, he worked on the second set of tunnels in The Great Escape. So, you know, I grew up with like a, you know, all these stories. And my gosh, and he was in the infirmary and and he's also part of an escape plan. Well, no, not yet. But like after he got out of the infirmary, he worked on the second set. He worked on the second set of tunnels.
And actually later in his life, he did help out with the Steve McQueen movie as a consultant. Really wild. But so he was an avid outdoorsman, you know, always going, being from New England, we have the beautiful white mountains up in New Hampshire and also, you know, ton of outdoor areas and natural natural areas of Maine. And part of the Appalachian Trail runs runs through this area, But he, you know, he always took my father hiking up
And so part of the rite of past, my grandfather passed away when I was like two or three. So I never got to know him, but I grew up with stories from my father. And I remember I was about eight or nine years old. He takes me on this nine mile loop around Mont Lafayette and we get hit by a mist storm. And I'm eight or nine years old in Teva sandals. And I have no idea I'm in danger, but I'm
I can't give up. I know grandpa's looking down on me. Growing up with that led me to Boy Scouts. That led me to go to a military school for college and eventually led me to seek out doing hard things in special forces. The key point here though, very long -winded, is when I got
I had to come back to where my strength is. And that was being back here, back at home in New England and doing fun things like back when I did at Boy Scouts, hikes like that, what I did with my father, right? Going up to being in the mountains, being in the wilderness and being that eight -year -old kid again. And for me, there's no way you're going to do that if you're like, say you're down, like being a New Englander down at Fort Bragg, you
Don't get me wrong, there's beautiful wilderness around, or excuse me, Fort Liberty area. There's beautiful wilderness around that area. But you know, it's a little too hot for me. you know It's a bit muggy. It's a bit muggy. It's a lot of mosquitoes, you know? But not to knock it, but they're just fun is different. And so like, I'll even give you an instance is like coming back home for me was to the New England area was like regaining my strength again and rediscovering what it is to have fun outside.
And so like this past winter I learned how to ski. if you and I swear to God, you know, if I, if I was to replan my transition, I would have just been a ski bum dude. I would have been a ski bum for like two seasons, at least two seasons, know? I'd be chasing it around. If you look at lot of Europeans and Australians, like they get out of you know, whatever it is they call high school, they get out of school and they take a year off to bounce around.
But in America, we either go straight to college or the military. There is no year of decompression from that consistent structure where you get to, quote unquote, find yourself. So yeah, think a lot of guys when they do get out, a lot of guys and gals when they do get out, they're like, I gotta have this thing. And especially, a lot of people have
family and you know there's the pressure of making money and all that kind of stuff but yeah if you can create that space. So you didn't become a ski bum for a year but looking back I mean you wait you've been out for what one year? Almost one year yes. Yeah so are you a ski bum yet? Working on it but these are the things that but for me that was like kind of this re -center like re -centering and becoming a very genuine version of myself that rediscovery period.
You know, because like being in special forces, doing the intelligence officer thing, it's all about the mission. And granted, that's how it should be. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be that way because, you know, it's nation's defense is important, but like, you know, it just, like you said earlier, is the life force to be able to be in these positions, do this job, do the training, do the missions, the deployments, you know, dealing with the personal life too, right? And, or the lack of one.
You know, you only have, I like to say life is a buffet and I'm a dabbler. I'm definitely a dabbler of life. I'll try a little bit of everything, but you know, that lifestyle, really, it doesn't really afford you that, you know, and you got a, you got a PCS, you got to live in a certain location. Granted, you're exposed to some really cool stuff in the military and it's awesome. And it makes us better people and gives us different viewpoints and everything else. But
I think a lot of people that are listening to this, that are looking for growth, there is that identity too. That uniform becomes a part of us. So yeah, I did the transition classes. Did they do anything for me? No, no, nothing. Like I'm not that type of guy. It's like, all right, I'm gonna have a plan. I'm gonna have a resume. I know what it is that I'm gonna do. Like green berets are very much like, we'll just figure it out, man.
And that's how I've always been even before special forces. was like that. So, you know, for me to build a life that is intense, intensely genuine to me, you have to experience it first. You're not going to know. And honestly, like failure, it I wouldn't even say it does. When I say failure, it doesn't have the sting that failure had when it was in the military. You know I mean? Like, and I think it's
It was a growth point for me and it definitely was, and it happened for the right reason because it just wasn't genuinely in my path of interest of things I'd like to do. You know, we're being living in a place that is most beneficial to me. it's, know, because in the military we, learn to, know, especially in my career, I learned to live without a lot of things. You know, I was, I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. was at one one. I was far away from my family, you know,
And then I was stationed in the DC area in the latter half of my career, which was great because, you know, now I'm close to a metropolitan city, right? And there's, there's a lot of fun things to do, but you know, my heart and soul is in the white mountains, baby. You know, so it's, so now it's like, well, you know, Dave, what are you doing now? You know, well, other than, you know, writing and, and, promoting my book into the darkness.
which we can get into in a little bit, is, I'm building a health and wellness program for law enforcement. And like just the name of this podcast, the mission after, right? I look at all the struggles and trials and tribulations I went through in the military. There's an element to me that still feels a need to serve and give back. as I'm 39 pushing 40,
I feel like I'm at a point in my life where I have a lot of lessons learned that I can give to law enforcement to say, hey, you know what, maybe fitness, nutrition, mental health, and sleep, they're kind of all related. You should take that stuff seriously too. So it's a good, it's a rewarding career it gives back. And for me, it provides me some mobility and to kind of play around with things.
So you're playing with your strengths there. So you're like, okay, I served at like the highest level of the military where these things are required. This level of fitness is required. Adaptability is required. And then you go into like a police department and it's probably a piece of cake for you in a lot of ways of like, there's so much low hanging fruit that we could improve here. It's like, we don't even have to get into
deep biohacking, anything. It's like, get enough sleep, eat these foods, exercise like this. It's probably fairly simple for you where it might be a total mystery to somebody in the police department. How did you get it? Are you working with police departments? Are you engaging with police officers directly? I work in a jail.
Right? So there's, there's some excitement with that. Everyone's like, so you really give up the element of danger in your life. Did you? You enjoy surrounding yourself with characters is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. What was that network? It was a TBS characters welcome. That's basically it. But, I work mostly with corrections officers right now. And they are a great bunch of people. It's a very,
It's a very difficult job. It's a very difficult job. And so I enjoy the challenge of it, like doing wellness for them in the environment that they're in is a challenge in itself. And so between shift work and then just every day, put their, like kind of like the military, they put their boots on, they come into work and regardless of what happened the day before. And so it's for me
bring these tenants to them and give it in a very digestible format. Whereas like, yeah, it does play to strengths because I went out there and lived it. Plus I'm going to school for it right now too. And it's great to kind of really put some of the science to the, instead of talking to the professional, I'm slowly morphing into the professional now. That's the best way to go. That's how I did it. What are you studying?
What's the degree program? I am a master's of science in health promotion and management. So I have about halfway through the course or halfway through the degree right now. did. I got a bachelor's in exercise and sports science and I opened a gym, open across the gym. Like my senior year and that was the best education is like, I'm just going to apply all these principles to what we're doing here. Yeah. People who wait till they're out of school to
go find a job, I think is a huge mistake. Yeah. totally. And, and I think a lot you get, but that's the thing. It's like something that you're passionate about, you know, it's something I'm definitely passionate about. Like you'll know, you know, like it's, it's hard for me to stray away from the gym, you know, because of all the, you know, the mental health benefits I get from it. And it's like kind of recentering, especially I'm a huge fan of CrossFit. go, you know, try to go at least five times a week.
That's my thing, especially programming. Yeah. What kind of program are you following? you going gym programming or do you got something else you do? I'm following gym programming. It's pretty good. And right now we're doing about three lifts a week. And we just came off of a heavy clean cycle. And so now we're working on front squats, sumo deadlift. My focus is for me to hit those new heights.
You know, it's a fun thing to do. mean, for me, was, you know, the military kind of made fitness part of my life, you know? So it's something that I didn't give up on. And I don't think I ever will. But am I going as hard as I did? No way. No way. I'm actually, have a lot more forgiveness for myself where I'm like, if I'm sore, like, you know what? I should probably take a rest day, Dave. I probably take a rest day. And so it's...
there is something that I realized when I was in the military that I love to talk about is allostatic load. Yeah. Allostatic load. So if you're transitioning and you're getting ready to get out of the military, you need to keep an eye on your allostatic load. that is... the definition of stress was basically, they came up with Hans Selye.
Hans Salier, he was like the original, came with the original definition, which was basically anytime you're moving away from homeostasis, right? So anytime you're away from homeostasis, cortisol, all these stress hormones, they get released in the bloodstream. Now, when you got work, you got fitness, you got personal stuff, and I'd imagine that a lot of people that are listening to this that are transitioning probably had families too.
You know, all that stuff contributes to your overall allostatic load. it's a tale as old as time, but if you take on too much stuff, something's gonna have to give, right? And so always having that, I think for me in my transition, it was just always having that North Star, always having that North Star. Well, I was like, well, I'm a service -based person.
I wanna help people, we'll see how that is, but I wanna have fun along the way. So how do I build a career to maximize that, to be really deeply genuine with who I am, but also not to bite off more than you can chew, which is hard to do when we are literally trained to be able to handle it all. So it's, for me was learning how much I can take on.
and being very judicious with that time. Yeah, the idea of like the allostatic load and being one is there's a level of self -awareness that's necessary for that. One the I found where Garmin watch and I pull the data and it makes recommendations. I don't always like the recommendations, but, know, and I'm always tapping into how I
Like, what am I feeling right now? And I like to use data as a calibration tool to like, okay, I'm going to have someone else. I've got this robot looking in on my life and making recommendations. doesn't always know. Like it wanted me to exercise really hard this week. Like it was recommending really hard workouts, but I was, did a 72 hour fast. I'm like, well, I'm not going to work out hard when I'm fasting. like also, you know, bring my own common sense to the situation, but
This idea of like all stress, anything moving away from homeostasis is something that needs to be considered as you're taking things on. I going to go do a cold plunge? Am I going to go work out? How am I, how am I met? Am I aware of all the things that are causing me stress or my, do I overload myself and get sick? And then, and then just think, I just got sick. And then it's like, wait,
probably overrode the system. That's another thing that happens in the military. I think a lot of this starts in sports. You probably did sports when you were a kid. I did too. We learned to mind over matter. It doesn't matter how you feel, just keep going. If that's how we live our whole lives, I noticed
people who live that way will like get sick and then they get better and then they get sick and then they get better. And like the idea of getting sick is just like, yeah, it just happened. I don't know why. I must've caught a bug. like, I think the bug is around all the time. You're, however you're dealing with it. And so I think there's a level of awareness that you're talking about that's required and the people have to be, I just call it like paying attention. Are you just even paying attention? Are you paying attention to the stress at work?
family, all that stuff, or are you overriding the system in order to try to like meet some arbitrary requirement you set for yourself? I really think that our experience in the military kind of wires us to be that way, right? And so a lot of like, know, special forces selection, right? You got to, I remember one of the cadre said to me, this is at some time, I think in the qualification course.
For your audience, go to a special forces selection, you get selected, and then you got to survive the 18 month to two year qualification course after that. this is something that always stuck with me. He said, well, if the mind don't mind, then the body don't matter. I mean, at the time, sagely advice, but is that a mantra to live by? Absolutely not, man. And to your point, it's like, know, the more you move away,
the more you move away from your homeostasis, right? And if you don't have that solid foundation built of like, you're getting enough sleep, right? You're eating the right foods that's good for your, know, good for your body, right? That works for you, right? There's more studies that are coming out that it's not so much
the things that we're eating, it's how they interact with the microbiota in our gut and our gut health is super important in driving our overall health, right? So there's all these little things you say, like if you're trying to run your body like a Ferrari and you put 87 gas in it instead of premium, you're gonna feel the effects of that. additionally to your point is that no one's even paying attention. And I don't even think that I was paying attention to it in my career.
You know, at certain points and, you know, I have a multitude of injuries that you can't see. Probably the most surprising one that I found out was I had a TBI and a moderate TBI. And so I'm thinking, you know, like quintessential SF guy, I'm like, that's not bad, right? And they're like, the doctor's like, no, you could have died. And I'm like, that's not good. And it was like realizing the fragility of, you
that I have a year's running hard, but I would never put two and two together like that. so, for me, was running, I'll kind of get into the, I'll dovetail into the book because I think that the book is a great example of this. And so you have a person that's me, right? In 2018, took off my green, first line of book says, 2018, I took off my green beret and became a spy.
And I did all this very cool spy training. But in the meantime, my personal life fell apart. I went through a divorce, right? I went through, I had, I got enough, I like to say a forbidden romance, you know, during that timeframe, make it up, missed out on my twenties, make it up for lost time. And so like, there was like, I look back and I'm like, who was that dude? Right? And just making one bad mistake,
after another. And then eventually I'm on this deployment in Iraq and I'm having a staring contest with my pistol. Everything has fallen apart. My entire life, the internal dialogues that I just let run rampant inside of me that led me to that moment where I almost took my own life.
retrospect, right? Some of the things that did keep me safe during that time was my dedication to the gym, my dedication to my diet. On that deployment, didn't get much sleep. But when I came back, I made sure I got a lot of sleep. It wasn't like it was all roses after that deployment either. It took me a while to put myself back together. But it was, it took me to almost taking my own life to develop a self -awareness about myself.
about what was going on with me internally and not even just internally, but all the actions that I was making that was adding to that as I, as we talked about earlier, that allostatic load and why didn't you take your own life in the moment I'm sitting there on the edge of my bed and you know, at this point I lost everything.
in the divorce. Well, I didn't lose everything, but I lost a considerable amount. And then I was in this relationship with this woman that suddenly ended. And I don't want to spoil the details of the book for a lot of people, but I made a lot of sacrifice. It was a forbidden relationship. So there was there was some conveniences of me taking that deployment to protect that relationship. I was willing to do whatever it took.
and did whatever it take. And so I think that's also looking back on the funniest parts of the book too. But the sincerity of the moment, when I was about to take my own life, I don't know if there was a higher power in there. Maybe it was my grandfather. There's an element to me that believes in past lives, but somebody was in that room and they were listening to me. And I was half
You know, half whimpering, half crying. And I said, I realize all I have left is admission.
I said it again, all I have left is the mission. The internal dialogue of not being able to win, my life is a joke and the fact that I didn't have anything was actually probably the most freeing thing ever at that moment in time. But it was having the mission caused me to push my pistol away.
And immediately after that, I said, I have to get out of here. And I went to the gym and they had this like little gym that was open 24 hours. could go use. And then I proceeded to slay myself on equipment for about three hours. And, but here, here's the thing is that it wasn't all magical and better after that. It was, I was dealing with that for the remainder of the deployment. And then even when I got back, it was right when COVID started. So I didn't
It wasn't like I could go take leave, come home, reset, re -center over my family, you know, or spend some time in the mountains. I was stuck, stuck with all this stuff. the thing, and this is the part that I love. For the first time in my life, I said, I'm not gonna run for myself. I wasn't gonna do another ultra marathon. I wasn't gonna
Replace this pain with some sort of success because like being in special forces We we develop a high tolerance for pain and and and through that pain we we see success and I said to myself I was like, know what? The pain that I needed to do the hard thing that I needed to do at that time Was just sit there and ask myself why and sit with
and have compassion for myself, which was very unfamiliar territory for me. every day I had a calendar and I used to do these AARs, after action reviews, every day. And I do this emotional AAR and I'm like, all right, Dave, where are we today? Did we feel like killing ourselves today or not? And I would literally, I'm like,
Today was a terrible day X. And then, you know, it went like that for a few weeks, but then eventually I started getting some small W's, some small wins on the board where I was like, you know what, actually we had a good day today. And the whole thought of taking my own life never crossed my mind. And, but it wasn't like, every day was on my mind every, like every single day of the question. And this is something I kind of skipped over. as a human intelligence operative, right?
You're talking to sources, people with privileged information. The number one, the most important question that you have is why? Ask it. And I decided to sit there and ask myself why. And I lied myself to death. And the ugly truth, right? The ugly truth after picking every little layer of this onion back was that I realized that I tied my opinion of myself
how others viewed and felt about me. And that is a very dangerous place. And so I had to take that person back. I had to take control back, you know? And I had to kind of re -coach myself, rewire my own brain to conquer those negative internal dialogues and step into being a more genuine version of myself.
And so it's some like coming up on a year out of the military soon here. And it's like, I feel like it was even though that was a few years ago in 2020, 2021, there was growth, 2022 there was growth, 23 even more growth, you know, taking off the uniform and realizing that, wow, that really was a part of my identity, you know, and saying that, but this is who I
I'm really that eight -year -old kid on the side of Mount Lafayette, you know, who likes to do hard, fun things outside, you know? And so it's, you know, life isn't, and I'll just say this, is a lot of people try to chase happiness. And I realized I was chasing happiness, which is a fool's errand. It's more for me about maximizing the joy you have in your life. And there's all these different buckets in life.
And you have, for me, it's like there is a sense of service. And I get that from working with the corrections officers, being able to give back, right? And then picking up new skills like skiing, mountain rock climbing, all these things I've always wanted to do, mountain biking type of stuff. also having the freedom to do, building a life to be able to have the freedom to do that too. And, you know,
It's obviously a story that is to be continued, but there's little things every week you learn about yourself that you shake. I am not impervious to the negative mental thoughts, even still to this day, but I'm hyper -vigilant about being aware of stuff now. Like just the other day, this is gonna sound really silly, but I have to share this story. I have to share this story, it's so silly, but I kinda laugh at myself, but I
I'm taking this class right now for research methods. And I just came off a weekend. I went to New York City, did another podcast. I was with Jack Murphy, et cetera. And I was woefully unprepared for class. But that was the story, the narrative I created in my mind. And I had all this anxiety, like similar to showing up to any one of the numerous military schools I've gone to in my
Like you had to show up every day and perform. I was just, I realized all this anxiety I had in myself. like, you know what, dude, nothing bad's going to happen, man. And guess what? Guess what, Mike, nothing bad happened during that class. was no big deal. I just sat there and just did class and everything was fine. And I was like in my own head and I kind of laugh. Like there's that, you know, there's all these little things like that. You just develop that self -awareness for,
You know, and you start to realize that it's not that bad. It's not the end of the world. There is going to be no punishment. There isn't really, you know, and it just cut the extremes that I've worked in over the years and letting go of that. So it's, you know, you can be late in the private sector. Everybody's late. Everybody's late. You know, so the it's just it's really silly. But every week it's something new.
your panel on that onion back. And just like you said, I would imagine it's going to probably take, I'm excited to see where I am from a year from now, but more importantly, I'm excited to see where I am like three, four or five years from now. you know, age is a state of mind, man. It really, it really, if anything, New York city taught me about, I used to work in New York city when I was in my early twenties before the army. And, you know, I had, there was 50 year olds acting like 25 year olds and not that I could, not that I could do
Not that that's my thing, but it really showed me that age is a state of mind and you can be as young as you want to be. I've been to Burning Man five times now. It's a great place to just witness people of all ages being children. Just having a good time. It's a great place to do it as well. Yeah, one of the things that struck me as you were talking
you know, yeah, people are late in the civilian sector. You know, you went to research methods class, you weren't prepared, you weren't prepared, but it actually like, no one yelled at you. didn't, no one, no one, you know, threatened to, you know, take your pay. but the, but one of the things that, the, the, the level of nuance.
And the amount of choice that we have from moment to moment is something that I really, I've put a lot of my attention on, which is like, I run my own business, right? I've got my fingers in a few different pies. I do a few different things. And I get to choose from moment to moment, what is my priority?
What am I not going to do that I thought I was going to do? was going to you know, I thought, you know, today I would be doing this, but then I realized there's another priority that's actually more important. There's something else more urgent and important. And the, the amount of emotional distress that used to cause me of having to decide, well, I plan to do this. I'm going to deviate from the plan. and what's
How's that going to impact? I have this narrative running in my head that other people are expecting me to show up in a certain way. think for a of us, if I show up with 80 % of my cognition online, I could start feeling bad about I'm not doing a good enough job.
on the podcast or coaching or mentoring or whatever it is that I'm doing when I'm interacting with people, they don't even notice. They don't know. We're our own worst critics. it's like realizing that, you know, you're 70 or 80 % better than most people's, you know, 150%. If you've been applying yourself day after day,
Absolutely. I had a conversation with a friend of mine. He's running a business. He has a business. He has a full -time job. And that was the exact conversation he had going on inside his head. He's a veteran, great dude, building a great business, his passion's in the business. The nine to five is just funding everything, know, paying for the house, know, funding for the kids. And that was exactly what I told
I said, listen, man, like your 80 % is gonna be a hundred percent or more for a lot of people. it's you, if you have to give a 75, 80 % of effort at your nine to five, you're not checked out. No one's saying that you're checked out, man. And, and, and, but your mission, your new mission that you should be given a hundred percent, you know, is this, is this, you know, business that you have that you're building now. And, and so it was just,
he knew that he just needed to hear from somebody else. so, you know, because there is like a level of guilt, you know, because like we're always like, this is my mission when I'm here and I'm going to meet mission and this is my mission over here. it's, but it's like comes back to how we started this conversation is like, you got to be very judicious with your calories and what you spend it on. because your allostatic load can only handle so much. Right. And
Do you wanna spend those, spend the best hours of your day, know, focusing on the dream? Or do you wanna be spending it on the nine to five where, you you've given 20 % more effort to meet that, for you to be at 100%, they're only getting 5 % more. You know, whereas that 20 % on your business would be, you know, who knows what the upside is, right? You know, and you're passionate into it too. it's... Time and energy are not created equal.
Right? Like when you, when you have passion for something like this, the one thing I've done, I've been in entrepreneurship for 16 years. Wow. And what I found is that I can actually finish my work day with more energy than I went into it with if I'm doing the right things. If I finished the, if it's one or two o 'clock in the afternoon and I'm tired,
I did a bunch of shit that I probably shouldn't be doing. And sometimes it's a requirement for a short period of time while you get things in order so you can delegate that out or automate that out or whatever it is. Because we live in a world of automation now. Robots are doing shit for us. like the the that's always my sign. Like, man, I'm tired. Well, shit, what was I doing? What made me tired? OK.
How do I get rid of that? Sometimes we're doing stuff that makes us tired. It's not even really that important. Like most businesses fail. And it's, it's usually because people are just focused on the wrong things. Like people will like spend all this time building a website or they'll spend all this time posting on social media
whatever it is, instead of like actually selling a product or service, like people forget that like you sell to people. don't just like, you don't just put checks in these boxes and then like, well, I did A through Z, nothing's working. I put up a website and I'm like, yeah, but does any of that make sense? Does it make sense to the customer who's coming in? And so it's like, are you doing the right thing? Are you fired up about the right thing?
Maybe you shouldn't meet doing this business at all. I've, I've, I've run several different businesses just because one business was doing well, doesn't mean that I should have been doing it or maybe because it was doing poorly. Like I didn't, I wasn't quite in alignment. My passion wasn't quite there and that's why it wasn't working. So I wish that I could just, you know, give somebody a pill and say, you know, take this pill and then you're going to like know what you're passionate about. But it's a lot of trial and
totally. I was even looking at doing it, starting a cross -medium, you know, at one point. And then I got my. yeah. You would have been, you would have just joined the rest of the veterans. I know that I'd have an apparel line and it would be this whole thing. Podcast, coffee. totally. Yeah. It's gotta be all those three things that trifecta, but like I, so I got my CF level one and,
Probably one of the best things I did while I was figuring out my next steps in life, I coached special needs adults in CrossFit. So I was one of the head coaches. I was down at 12 Labors in Appalachia, Maryland. twice a week we coached special needs adults. it was very, so people living with Down syndrome, people with autism, all amazing human beings, right? Like they taught me more about myself than I ever thought. But I also realized
Owning a gym is very, very, it's wicked hot, dude. It is so hard, right? And it's like, I know that this isn't the path for me, but I enjoy doing it, you know, but it's, it's important to try things without, you know, do an internship. Like internships are great. Like you can figure out whether like or not, whether it's for you or not, instead of going all in. And, you know, I just think that that's like a funny example of like me while I was just figuring it out and people like, you should.
you should start across the gym. And I'm like, I don't even know if I'm good at running a business like that, you know? Yeah. You're like, you know, and it's but it's to your exactly to your point, like, was that something I could be passionate about? You know, probably not, you know, the type of person that I that I am like, you know, I much I am a dabbler, right? So like, I have lot of irons in the fire for different things. If I like it. All right. I'll put more calories to it.
I think the transition journey for a lot of people isn't a, is it? I'm trying to think of the saying a zero sum game or something like that. It isn't just all in on this one thing and then that's a path for the rest of your life. it's just. Well, I think what a lot of people get caught up is they've got some type of lifestyle that requires a specific income and they are unwilling
to adjust their lifestyle so that they can do something they're passionate about. Because sometimes when you do something you're passionate about, there's a lull. There's a period of time where, here's the thing, if it didn't require faith and if it were always easy, then everybody would be doing it. They'd all be pursuing their passions. But to pursue your passion requires a certain level of trust and faith that
I'm knowing I am going to go through a lull and you know, maybe my income this year just won't be as high and I'm going to figure out how to make these cuts and maybe I'll run up some some debt and just knowing that that's I know that sounds so irresponsible to so many people. But if you're pursuing your passion, like to me, you're guaranteed to succeed. The only time people fail is when they don't pursue their passion. And I just
I witnessed so many people, when we start talking about their passion, the next word out of their mouth is, but. So they negate everything before that and just start focusing on all the reasons why they should not do it, which is a terrible place to live. so, yeah, it's just one of the things that has worked out well for me.
Like I said, been in entrepreneurship for 16 years, has not been unicorns and rainbows all the way through. In fact, I hit a point where I thought I'll never make less than this amount of money. wow. And then I left the business and then I made a lot less than that for a while because I actually was like, I feel like I'm passionate about this, but not quite. And I'm one those people that like the income follows the passion.
I'm not passionate about it, dude. Like no matter how hard I grind, it ain't going to work. Yeah. And so true. So true. I remember I remember I was in college. I'll go like quick bio here because I haven't told it like this before. But like went to college for exercise, sports science. My parents go. What are you going to be a gym teacher like like you make any real money? I was like, I have no idea what I'm going to do with the degree. All I know is that when I'm in class, I am loving
And they didn't understand how much like of a research component there was. Like at the university I was at, there was so much research happening. And I was like a physiology nerd. And so, and then I opened up a CrossFit gym and I'm like, I can make money doing this. In 2007, no one was making money in a CrossFit gym. one, didn't have what to charge, didn't know. Shit. No one knew what CrossFit was. know you were ahead of everybody else. I was in Memphis, Tennessee, trying to get people to do CrossFit.
Right. It's not a healthy city and it's not a city that there's not a lot of money there either. So. But I was passionate about it. I thought that this was going to be the only thing I did. I don't know how many projects I've done where I thought that the projects that were always successful is the ones that I thought I would do till the day I die. And then five years go by, I'm like, I was so silly. I'm going to sell this thing. I'm going to walk away. But the gym.
I get to use my degree for my gym and I was like, wow, one passion led to another. And then I, I got to a point where I hated the gym, but I, but I had started a YouTube channel on podcasts that were now I'm flying all over the world doing interviews with these people and interacting with high level coaches and going, holy shit, I'm having, this is what I'm passionate about. And after a while talking about exercise got boring for me and I could go, there's something deeper here.
There's the mental and emotional aspects that are contributing to people's quality of life that's gonna go, shit. And so just kept on following the breadcrumbs. And I think that there were so many opportunities when I left one thing and I jumped into the next passion that could have looked like failure. It's like, you walked away from that thing. Like you were like at some peak of something. Yeah. And I was no longer passionate about it. So I switched gears.
I saw a dip in income and then it came back. But did I have to change my lifestyle during that time? Absolutely. Did I rack up some debt? Definitely. Did my fiancee ask me to get a job at some point? She did. Did I go get a job? Fuck no. So it's like,
Yeah, I just want to say that because the people are listening. This is the part of the podcast we're in where it's like we're talking about passion. go, I just. I don't see any other way if if you really are that joy you're talking about, like you could either be grinding somewhere, but if you are working that job to make ends meet and then you're also pursuing your passion, I would say that person do your shit first.
Wake up early and work on your business first, then go to work. Don't think that you're going to have the same amount of oomph after you get off of your job. I'll tell you, that is so true. mean, for me, the book, it's all about the book, man. Like the book, the book is a passion. Writing, I thoroughly enjoy writing. I got a second book about three quarters of the way done, just finding the time to do it. But like, know, most of my time
you know, free time is doing this book right now, you know, talking about it, getting it out there. And, and I'll tell you, like there's date, but you're absolutely right. I have to do it first thing in the morning. I got to get up. got it. People see emails from me at like six 30, know, six, six 30, you know, seven o 'clock in the morning. And, know, I'll go to, I'll go to my, I'll go work at the sheriff's department and then I'll come back, you know, also a rewarding day, but you don't have the energy.
Right. The guy, right. And usually I love going to gym in the morning. I love going to gym in the morning, but I am the most creative and have the most energy to expend as soon as I wake up and then, and then, you know, get some lion's mane coffee in the system. Yeah. Well, speaking of lion's mane, what, what have you done for your TBI? honestly, I,
I haven't done a whole lot other than really CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, dealing with a lot of, you know, the side effects of not even just a TBI, but like years of service. Like I nap a lot, which is a new thing for me. And actually I just saw a study that came out a few weeks ago. It was like, if you're a man,
and you sleep, you take a 20 minute to 45 minute, 20 minute to 40 minute nap, least three times a week, you'll reduce your overall risk of cardiovascular disease by like 68%. Something like insane. So I'm like, you're gonna catch me napping all the time, right? it's, but. The first year I was out of the Navy, I told myself, I was like, I'm gonna take a nap every single day.
And I did. And it was fucking great. my God. And I'll tell you, it's the I mean, in terms of if you're suffering from a TBI or, you know, the best thing you could do for your brain is sleep. The best thing you do to heal that brain is sleep and getting those getting at least four REM cycles of sleep a night. I mean, if you're a competitive kind of semi -competitive athlete like I am.
and CrossFit this year, made the night I was 91st percentile for my age group in the open. was like, yeah, nice. And I made quarterfinals. But then I was like, you know, I'm like, hey, I'm I looked at my allostatic load. like, I'm publishing a book. I will probably die in the quarterfinals. Like, you know, it's like Cantu Bull Cantu Bull. Yeah. What's got to give, man. Right. It's we got a guy. We got a guy at the mission after right now. He's a he's a CrossFit competitor about the same age.
And he, yeah, it's like a constant, it's been a constant conversation of, he's probably listening to this. So I won't drop his name, but, I'll just give him shit. that it's like, it's like. Prioritizing and I, I've been, I've, I've coached a lot of high level athletes over the years and there's been points where I get real with them. like, are you, you're not making enough money as an athlete or you to be making.
this level of taking on this level of risk. So what's the real priority? And I think that the getting down to the real priority can be really challenging for a lot of people where it's like, I feel like I need to do this. But like, I like what you're saying here. It's like, the book, the book is the priority. I do it first during the day. I'm looking at my the entire load over my on my system over time. You know, what's the priority and is doing this going to give me more energy?
and passion for this priority or is going to take away? I think that, yeah, just knowing what your priority is and being hyper -focused on that. people don't identify, think it might be a little bit different in the SOF community, but in the military in general, like your priorities are given to
True. mean, like the missions given to us, we figure out, you know, the priorities or work of that. like, it's yeah. But I that's the number one thing they dictate. Your priorities dictate it. So the idea of identifying and sticking to your own priorities after you get out, like you may have to consider you're an infant when it comes to doing that and giving yourself grace and saying, I fucked up. I didn't actually.
I didn't actually stick with the priority that I thought I was supposed to have, so on and so forth. Okay, I give myself some grace. I recommit to my priority. And I love the words, I recommit, as I go. There's three words that are really magical for me, which is, oops, I recommit, and then I say the thing I recommit to. But I think that the priority conversation is
I see a lot of people making, it's like they have three priorities going on. Mm hmm. It's too much. I think the book called The One Thing, they talk about how the word priority was not plural until like the last 50 or 60 years. was no That's a great point. There was no such thing as priorities. Like somebody made that a plural term at some point,
50, I don't know how long ago it was, but there was priority. That was it. Wow. And then we, us being the environment, the economic system we are, we're like, no, I can't be it. It's got to more than one, you know? But it is very true on this journey, at least for me, like anyone that's out there that's interested in, you know, thinking about writing, you know, as a, as a potential.
know, career or something to do as well to share your stories with the world, because this is something I realized is that everybody has a beautiful story, no matter how big or small, you know, no matter what they do. But the thing that the thing that you said that really that really resonated with me is, yes, this is also a complication with TVI is like I just randomly lose my train of thought. I'm like, that was really good. But
not just passion, having, this is where I want to go. It's a marathon, not a sprint. You know, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And so if you, when I did, I did two ultras and then I did two ultra marathons almost back to back in 2018. And I trained several months for it. And the thing it taught me is long, slow distance, right?
You settle into this nice easy pace that doesn't stress you out and you can go all day with it. And that's way you should look at these projects that you're doing. Especially, all right, you got the nine to five that's paying the bills. It's meeting the needs of your family to provide for them. Very important. But settle in, figure out what that marathon pace is. And for me doing the book, there's, I literally on the weekends, I shut my laptop and I'm like, I'm not doing anything.
because I need that time to kind of reinvigorate myself. And that time I'm spending outdoors, I'm doing fun things, filling that bucket with little joys that I can try to squeeze every ounce out in the weekend or during the week. it's...
yeah, I do get a high from working on it. do like after this podcast, I'm going to be so amped up. I'm like, I got all this energy. This is awesome. Right. And I'm like, like, all right, David, we to go to the gym or do you go for a run or something? cleanse the system a little bit. Good. Get some of this, get some of this cortisol out, you know what I mean? But, so, it is a marathon. So knowing that and having the compassion and like you said,
to say, all right, not every week is gonna be a big week. Like to even further your point is that you do have to have a lot of faith. You have to believe in what you're doing. And for me, my simple goal was, cause I lost so many, I lost more friends to suicide than I have to combat in my career. And I'm sure that's a case for a lot of people that are listening to this podcast right now. And not to be, but for me was,
having the faith that I get this book in the right hands of somebody right now that's struggling. I may or may, I'm not taking credit for saving their life, but I may have changed their life from going down the dark path. And it was having that simplistic goal is really what kept me going. And just even the response I'm getting from former Green Beret friends and stuff like, I am meeting that intent, you And so you have
The mission, that's the mission, right? And the passion for that mission and where it stems from. And you have to have faith that you're on the right path. I think if in summary, what our military service does to us is it teaches us to believe in ourselves. And I think if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're thinking about getting out of your transitioning or you're in the middle of your transition is
It's time to you risk so much for this country. It's time to take that same risk on yourself. And I guarantee you, you'll be successful. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. I think I think we already know the answer to this because you are a passionate guy. But what is what is your mission after? My mission after? Well, I would say it's it's always in development, but I think it's I want to be that eight year old kid, you
have a, the things, it's not about wants in life, it's about joys and being surrounded by natural beauty, you know, being able to have the time to enjoy those things, go outside, right? And for me, that's, I plan on living below my means for a very long time, you know, for the rest of my life, just because those things are so, those are a priority.
It is a priority for me, not priorities, you know, but like, but, filling, filling those buckets, filling the buckets of, you know, service and giving back, you know, that's either continued continuation of the book, whether I'm doing that five or 10 years down the road, that's to be determined. But that, that really is what the mission after looks like for me is maximizing that joy, baby. And, hopefully someday I'll win the Honda Schneider
at Cranmore Mountain. And that's more of a joke to my ski friends. but so that's that's just one of those little joy goals that I got in my eyesight, you know, for future on. I mean, I think it's like, you know, just keep having fun. You know, life, we're only on this earth for so long. You got to have fun with the years you got, you know, as long as you're healthy, you know,
continue to a healthy lifestyle and maximize that joy and let that eight year old version of myself look up to me and go, wow, that's who I am, you So those things are important. Yeah. Where can, where can people find you, find your book, all that stuff? Absolutely. Thank you so much. you can find out about me at a day fielding .com.
You can search for my book. It's available in all formats. We just came out the audio book like two years ago. The title of the book is Into the Darkness, A Journey of Love, War, and Emotional Freedom by Dave Fielding, available on Amazon. you, audio book is available, I think on basically everything as well, if you're interested in that. so, and then you can also find me on Instagram at DaveFielding .dol and Twitter DaveFieldingDOL.
Thanks for joining us today and sharing. What a great podcast. I'm gonna have you back again if you desire. Hell yeah, absolutely. Would love to. All right.
Mike Bledsoe (1:10:16)
I hope you enjoyed the show with Dave Fielding. Just want to remind you that we have the community over at TheMissionAfter .org. It's free for the first 100 people. I hope to see you in there. Join us in the conversation. Check out some of our free courses. And I'll see you next week.