Travis Bader: I want to start this episode off by congratulating Justin Garant.
He's the winner of the Benelli game bag and the hunter chef cookbook that was
being given away in conjunction with podcast episode 136 with Michael Hunter.
If you wanted to get your own Benelli game bag, You can head over to Stoger,
Silvercore club members get 25 percent off all clothing, 10 percent off
all accessories and free shipping.
After wrapping up the combat flip flops episode with Griff, I went
out and purchased a couple sets of flip flops and one of the shemags.
And of course I applied the Silvercore club discount to that as well.
For those curious about all the different discounts, perks, benefits
of being a Silvercore club member, head on over to the Silvercore website.
There's going to be links in the description here.
Coming up in the very near future.
I would highly recommend to everybody who's listening to
follow the Silvercore social media, keep your ear to the podcast.
There's going to be some amazing giveaways, including ATI.
Armament technologies.
They are makers of the finest scopes in the world.
Marathon watches, been supplying allied forces watches for a very long time.
Now, two very proud Canadian companies.
Make sure to stay tuned to check that one out.
When I opened up my social media this morning, I saw a post that
I was tagged in by Dana Dykema.
She had tagged me and Silvercore in it, and she was talking about
the underlying themes in the podcast that she really values.
One of which in particular was that surrounding failure.
The main themes that I try to get across over and over again in the podcast are
that of community, that of positivity, of pushing ourselves to higher levels.
Of creating an awareness of the potential that we are capable
of and to not be afraid to fail.
I don't know if it was Churchill who said this one, but it's
often attributed to him.
Success isn't final.
Failure isn't fatal.
It's the courage to continue that counts.
If it's true that our lives are made up of our memories and 90 percent of what
we think about today is something that we thought about yesterday, perhaps by
exercising awareness, by interjecting some critical thought and exposing
ourselves to positivity will allow our tomorrow to be that much better.
Without further ado, let's get this podcast rolling.
As you go through life, there's a few people that you will meet that
will have a massive impact on you, both personally and professionally.
Today's guest is one of those people.
And if you're a regular listener to the Silvercore podcast,
you're going to recognize him.
And if you've paid attention, you'll see that he marked an inflection
point in the podcast and really helped expand the direction where
we go with it and what we do.
So without further ado, I want to welcome back my friend, Sablevoix.
Good morning, brother.
Good morning, man.
You've had some things happen to you, some cool life experiences, some.
Some interesting life experiences since the last time we chatted.
And I really figured it's about time that we kind of caught up and, uh, maybe
distilled a few of these things that you've gone through, kind of got your
perspective on a few different things.
But maybe before I really get rolling, I want to ask you, how are you doing?
Seb Lavoie: I couldn't be better brother.
Uh, things are, uh, you Very good at the moment, as you know, I'm in the
transitional phase of departing British Columbia and heading out to Alberta,
a nice rural property, 14 acres, log cabin, green roof, rivers, mountains,
you know, on the border of Montana, just an amazing, an amazing move that.
You know, but, um, I think sometimes understanding what the end goal is
or what it is that you truly desire and negotiating that with what
task you have at hand is critical.
So I already knew, you know, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, that's what the direction
that I was wanting to take, but I hadn't, I hadn't cemented what that was going
to look like in relation to my career.
And so obviously retiring in, in 2021, open the door up for
a variety of different things.
And that is one of those things that's occurring right now.
And I am beyond stoked.
You know, that's
Travis Bader: something that a lot of people, they'll have visions, they'll have
ideas, Hey, hopefully, hopefully they're saying, here's what I'd like to achieve.
Here's where I'd like to be.
But for a lot of people, they just sit in their head as dreams and the path towards
that dream, if they haven't traveled before, it seems almost impossible.
They have a very difficult time seeing the next step or seeing
their way through to the end and to actually achieving that dream.
Did you find, because I mean, this is all new uncharted territory to you.
Did you find that there was difficulties in both mentally transitioning yourself,
leaving your work and finding sort of a new path in life and, and now
the big move out to another province.
And I mean, you've got your network and everyone over here in British
Columbia, did you find that there is.
Obstacles and hurdles that you had to overcome in order to kind
of mentally get yourself ready.
Seb Lavoie: I mean, the obstacle, the obstacles are the way.
Right.
Yes.
I mean, it is just, you know, I'm, I'm regurgitating here, but, but
the, the bottom line is it is, it is the case and, and self doubt
consistently creeps into your own mind.
As well as not necessarily knowing exactly the direction that you're
supposed to go into, or if you're even going in the right directions, you know?
And so I think at the end of the day, there's part of this
that's, that's, that's faith.
You know, it's faith, having faith that you're capable of, of, of adapting to
changing circumstances, that you're capable of picking the slack up.
Should anything go sideways that you have enough in you and around you to
make something happen out of nothing.
All of those things are, are, are, you know, Incredibly important
and to a certain extent anchors in making these difficult decisions.
And so you can't just be coming out of nowhere, set yourself a very,
very difficult goal and have never negotiated difficulties along the
way to achieve a desired outcome that not many people achieve.
And so you need to have that knowledge about you.
And that's where, of course, you know, engaging in a difficult things and
the things that are truly challenging you, the things that are scaring you.
Is incredibly valuable because it also teaches you what you can and can't
do, or what you can and cannot yet do.
There, I like that, I like that.
Travis Bader: No such thing as a word I can't.
No, there isn't.
So, you know, people look at their job and they'll say, well, I'd love to do
something different, but I can't leave because I'm the breadwinner or I've got a
mortgage or I've got whatever it might be.
So, so I'm stuck, right?
Uh, or I'd love to, to move to a different place that offers a greater
variety of what it is I'm looking for.
Like for me, space, right?
Greater space between myself and my neighbors, greater access to the
outdoors, where I don't have to sit in traffic for hours to get there.
And people will come up with all this little checklist of, well, you know,
once the kids are out of school and maybe once ABCD happens, did you have a list
of these things that kind of popped into your mind that you had to systematically
go through and kind of check off?
Seb Lavoie: That is the propensity and it's my propensity as well as it
is the propensity of the next person.
The difference is I, I, I try to, at all costs,
Disabled the disabler, if that makes any sense, because I will
become, I will become the disabler.
And as soon as I start focusing on something that creates an apprehension,
you know, the body survival mechanisms kick kicks into full gear.
And, and all of a sudden you're magnifying the risk that's associated with the,
whatever it is that you are after.
But, you know, for me, I was very aware of that.
I was very aware that I was, that I was going to try to talk myself out
of it in a sort of surreptitious, maybe even subconscious way.
And I, and knowing that as soon as it percolates in my mind, I'm
able to address it on the spot, essentially a reframing, right?
Yes.
There is no perfect way.
Yes.
I may have to do this.
And so my, the question that I ask myself every time that something like this,
Sort of creeping to my mind is what do I need to do to get to where I want to go?
What in a, in an ideal world, if I removed all fears, and if I removed
all apprehension with respect to where I was, where I want to go, what would
I need to do and how would I need to address it to make that happen?
And you will, you will very often cognitively spew out the truth.
The answers, right?
Cause you, you, what you are doing is you, you are now, you have a knowledge
and emotion, you have set it aside and now you're, you're, you're brought the
focus back to your cognitive mind and you start engaging your logical brain
instead of the fear center of the brain.
And so for me, Knowing that that's the case is the key.
It's the self awareness that leads, leads to that self regulation.
It's not that it isn't happening is that when it's happening, you
recognize it and you move away from it.
You take that step out, so to speak, you know, and look at the broader picture.
And so there's plenty of time.
And even without boring you with the details.
Even if in our fight to, to get there, to sell our home, do all this,
it's been a four months of ordeal and we've had multiple lenders fall
through and we had multiple things happening and it just was, there was
at least a hundred different times.
Where everything in me said, quit, stop, just wait another
year or wait another two.
But then I would reframe that too and say another year, another two
time is your biggest currency.
You don't know that you have that.
You don't know that you have that time at all.
And so if you are to do anything and you keep on pushing it for, you know,
for later and later and later, how many people have filled a graveyard?
With all kinds of later project unfinished.
Travis Bader: Do you ever have, and what I'm going to get you to
do, just, uh, is there a piece of green tape in front of you there?
Yep.
Okay.
I may be, I have it in the wrong spot or my camera moved.
If you can move a little bit to you, there you go.
And I'll, I'll edit that out.
Do you ever have the thinking in your head?
I mean, people will push for something and I can make something happen and I can
push against all odds to make it happen.
And sometimes it winds at my back and it just goes.
Am I pushing against the universe and out of sync with things and
pushing for something that I'm eventually going to look back and
say, like, why did I do it like this?
Do you have these thoughts?
Like the difficult part with the mentality of all of the motivational and the self
help and you can do it and keep on pushing is like, People being able to recognize
when they're pushing towards something that's desirable, that's going to lead
them in the right direction, or maybe the universe is saying, hold on, slow down.
Maybe there's, maybe there's a different place we should be going.
Do you, do you have those sort of thoughts?
Seb Lavoie: Yeah, I absolutely do.
And, and if I.
Was to use a case study.
Let's talk about Sean Taylor and I's book.
When we first came out to, to, you know, to want to work on
that, on that book project.
And along the way, what we have found is that every little step we took was 10
times harder than it should have been.
Everything that we had in place somehow would There would be something that
would generate a different outcome.
And the person was either out or, or we didn't have the help
that we needed or the person felt ill or whatever the case may be.
And so it, it, it quickly became very apparent.
And so it's important to look at the totality of the circumstances,
not just what's happening, but what was happening with us.
You know, and so I reassess what I do when this happens is I generally
reassess our current situation.
Are we in the best possible scenario or are we in the best
possible state to operationalize our, our, our idea at the moment?
And so, yes, we have all these external factors that are not going our way.
But are there internal factors that are not optimized because this is where the
difference is, if I'm fully optimized, I will push until I'm being told that
it isn't going to happen or it quits.
Travis Bader: Right.
Seb Lavoie: Right.
And that's, and that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But ideally, I will manage the interconnection between.
The outcome and the goal and the external factors and, and whether or
not I'm optimized to reach said goal.
And that's precisely what happens.
So that, that, that pushing an endless push and never quitting
isn't always the best option.
If you're not optimized as the individual or as the person.
That's wanting to do certain thing you may have to reassess that
and say, I can work on our sense exactly what we did with the book.
For example, Sean and I realized that despite the fact that we had a lot of
good stuff, we weren't quite ready.
We weren't quite ready for the book.
To be as impactful as we wanted it to be for, we weren't elevated at
a certain, at a certain level of proficiency, if even in our communication
styles or even in formulating our ideas or concepts that would, that
would make a meaningful difference.
So my end goal was to create a book that helps in a book
that create meaningful change.
But I, we, both of us weren't optimized in that realm.
And so for me, that was enough.
I have the, the external factors telling me slow down, you're not ready yet.
And I have my own evaluation of our current status and situation that
says, hold on, you're not ready yet.
Then that's the time to tactically reposition, take, take a tactical pause,
you know, whatever you want to call it.
Cause it's not quitting.
No, because ultimately all we did was, you know, You know, two years has passed,
we developed together and did all kinds of things to get all kinds of projects.
And two years later, the end goal that we had, you know, three years
ago is exactly the same, but our, our capacity and our ability to,
to make it happen is, you know,
Travis Bader: I've always had a difficult time, uh, just that, I guess, quantifying
actually analytically quantifying when it's time to take a different direction.
Cause when I set my mind to something, I'd like to be able to analytically
say, okay, A, B and C are going on.
It would be better to do this over here, but, you Man, I don't want
to be running away from something.
And you know, when things get hard, that's when most people quit.
And that's where I found success in the past by pushing forward.
But I will get a gut feeling and I'll just get this deep down gut feeling and
I'll sit there, maybe it's a guy thing.
And you try and you try and analyze that gut feeling when you say it's not ready
yet, or I'm not prepared to do A, B, C, D, or maybe I'm prepared to do it,
but the collateral damage is going to happen to those people around me, isn't
something I'm prepared to take on yet.
Um, Do you just, I just rely on my gut.
Is that what you do or is there a better way to be able to sort of
process that you kind of look at to help put words to that gut feeling?
Seb Lavoie: Yeah, I do use my gut and I use my gut as a
barometer, like something is up.
I'm having, I'm encountering some resistance or, or I have internal
resistance or there's external factors that are creating anxiety
or there's things I need to explore.
And I, so I use my gut primarily to line up the, the sort of the, the
actions that I need to take to ascertain whether or not I'm ready for whatever
it is that I'm asking to do or to be.
And so, no, there isn't an exact science, but at the end of the day,
it's all about consequences too.
What are the consequences attached to this?
Is this, is this, you know, grievous bodily harm or death?
Is this, you know, dismemberment?
Well, I just look silly
Travis Bader: and we'll talk about dismemberment.
Seb Lavoie: Yeah, exactly.
And, but, but if the, you know, if the consequences that are attached
with whatever it is that you, you are pushing for are not catastrophic.
Send it
Travis Bader: like,
Seb Lavoie: I, I generally, I generally don't really hold
back on at all on any of those.
Uh, but, but I will hold back on things that have, you know,
catastrophic consequences.
And when I say catastrophic consequences, I mean, if it was to affect your
family in a very negative way or, or, or your business in a way that
it'd be difficult to sustain living or whatever, um, you know, obviously
those things, there has to be more.
There has to be more articulation to myself behind the decisions
that I'm making or the, or the direction that I'm taking.
But if it's just, if it's just that I'm encountering a lot of resistance,
things happen where most people fail
Travis Bader: and
Seb Lavoie: most people quit.
Travis Bader: That's right.
Seb Lavoie: Right on the other side of quitting is what you're after.
But what's difficult is it's easy to have that conversation.
But when it happens, wheels to the pavement and, and you get hit over and
over and over and over again, it's really easy to take the path of least resistance,
which is okay, maybe now is not the time.
And so the answer is you don't know if that's the case.
And so for me, unless there's catastrophic consequences attached to this, I'm going
to push until I can no longer physically or mentally and emotionally cannot.
Travis Bader: You know, I've always kind of used the phrase
done is better than perfect.
And I've also looked at, um, what's actually catastrophic because what's
catastrophic in my mind today is A month from now, a year from now,
I look back like that was nothing.
And even the things that seem catastrophic, you can go back on
and say, well, it seemed pretty bad at the time, but look at the
better place I'm in right now.
Look at what I've learned from it.
And with the done is better than perfect.
If I'm building a project or doing something, and I'll do it even with this
podcast, like I'll agonize over certain parts of this and how should the intro be?
And how should that be?
And.
I've recently just kind of changed things up a bit, and I'm trying a
few things out to, uh, expand the value that we bring to the audience.
And I figure, you know what, if I throw this out to the world,
that'll be the ultimate litmus test.
Maybe I'll look silly.
Maybe, maybe it'll tank a little bit, but I'm going to learn
from this and, and move on.
Done is better than perfect has been the one that's helped
me get through those points.
Seb Lavoie: Wasn't that one of Patton's most
Travis Bader: favorite quotes?
Was it him who said that?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'd steal another one from him, which is, uh, Uh, don't tell a person how
to do something, tell them what you want to see achieved and let them.
Surprise you with the results.
Decentralized command.
Yeah.
It's massive, isn't it?
Decentralized command.
So you sent me a pretty cool video and I watched the thing
through, it was about 45 minutes.
And so that's, that's a time commitment for somebody with ADHD to go through.
I'm not going to lie.
I put my finger on it to play it at two times speed, but, uh, uh, but I watch it
front of back and it was a neurosurgeon, MIT Uh, educated neurosurgeon spent
about 20 years of his life doing neurosurgeon stuff, working on spines
and learning about brains and wanting to make a huge impact on people's lives.
And he up and quit and he made a massive decision to change the direction of his
life to be more connected with nature.
And he boiled down what he was seeing in the medical world of, uh, People
who would come into him for a problem.
They would have, let's say, degenerative disc disease or balds in their spine.
And they're in a lot of pain and he would operate on them and they'd be back
six months later or a year later with the exact same problem, maybe in the
same place or different area, and And there's other people who he would work
on and they would come into his intake.
He's getting ready to do surgery.
All right, here's your date.
And they come back and they'd be like, yeah, you know, I still got
this bulge disc, but I'm pain free.
Like, do I still have to come in here?
And he was using a questionnaire process to look at their lifestyle,
to look at where they're at.
And he noticed a, a trend and the trend that he tracked over a number
of years for people who were seeing positive results, hadn't Little
to anything to do with the medical intervention that he was providing.
And if I remember correctly, uh, the big points that he pointed out were diet and
he kind of pointed to a low sodium, uh, more of a plant based don't get rid of
meat, but more plant based, um, sleep.
Prioritizing sleep, um, exercise, being able to sweat, essentially get out
there and move and sweat, um, positive social connections were massive.
And of course there's that Harvard study that says that's the number one
predictor for happiness in people.
And I think, was there one more piece?
Because the one more piece I would add would be purpose.
That was one that he didn't put in there for general happiness.
Having a purpose combined with those would, uh, would help a person.
But he looked at these pieces and he says, I don't think I'm bringing the maximum
positive effect I can bring to people.
What if I started a YouTube channel and I did my best just to bring nature to them?
And it was.
Kind of a, I mean, for somebody to make that decision and leave
a well-paying prestigious job, everyone's gonna be looking at him.
His friends are gonna be saying, what the hell are you doing?
Why are you doing this?
They're gonna ask him to justify it and he'll be, he said he felt foolish
and then he stopped feeling foolish and other people felt foolish for him.
He said they were, see, looking at him and feeling embarrassed, said he'd leave.
And I thought that whole thing was really interesting for what he had
went through, but also what you have gone through with your career.
You spent a fair bit of time with the RCMP.
You got yourself to a position coveted, worked very hard and you left.
Is there a similarity between what this doctor was going through
and what you have gone through?
Seb Lavoie: Unquestionably.
So the one piece that that was missing, the one angle that was
missing with him is stress management.
Yes.
Right.
Mindfulness.
Yes.
Mindfulness, stress management, all the mechanisms that
feed into stress management.
And I think that as valuable as the video was, When he's explaining and
giving us the rational explanation as to why he left, what was really
critical to me is what he didn't say.
Tell me.
Well, it was quite evident that the mechanisms that were employed by
the people that were getting better were things that he couldn't do.
Yes.
Himself.
Yeah.
And so not only did he see that as a problem for people recovering from
injury, but he saw it as a problem for himself because he was heading down
the same path without a back injury.
And one of the things he said to that effect was in relation
to, I probably won't live to be 60 if I continue down this path.
And just imagine, you know, being a sought after neurosurgeon on call all
the time being dragged out everywhere and doing some very, very complex work
with some people that Sometimes you can help and other times you can't.
So there is a, there is a, there is an emotional load that's
being carried as well on that and, and, and a certain burden.
And so, you know, for me, when I, when I, when I watched that, the,
the one feeling that came to sort of.
That flared up was gratitude and, and I say gratitude and it sounds, it sounds,
you know, either rehearse or, or, or, or tacky or, or, but the reality is I
felt gratitude that I realized early enough in life that the things that I
adore doings and the things that I was engaged in on an, on an operational front
and the things that I, that I'd made my life meaningful over the last 25 years.
Also had an underlying sort of hurting mechanisms.
And so, you know, whether it's.
Uh, exposure to trauma, like repeat exposure and consistent exposure to
trauma, whether it's even dealing with administrative stresses, you know,
from dealing with, with the nation, the nation's Capitol or, or, or the
head office or, and, and, and, and.
And managing highly stressful, highly consequential events in a, in a variety of
different ways, whether it was tactically when I was, you know, in that kind of
position or even administratively, if there, if the consequences attached
to whatever actions that you are taking have a greater impact on the
collective, which can be catastrophic.
And so.
All of this is a lot of stress and all you have to do.
And I remember in 2015, I went to Hawaii for a vacation,
which is coming back next week.
So I went to Hawaii for a vacation and I, and I'm like, you know, I love my job.
It really doesn't stress me out.
I can manage everything.
I'm good to go, all this stuff.
And I was going to Hawaii for three weeks.
I come back.
And I was wearing a Garmin and my heart rate monitor was on just coincidentally.
I never set it up or anything.
And I sat down at my desk coming back, post vacation, and I fired up my email and
within reading four or five email, I was 10 Heartbeat per minute above baseline.
Right.
And I remember thinking, I'm not feeling stressed right now at all.
Like I'm not feeling an increase arousal or stress or anything yet.
Here we are.
You know, there is a, there, there is a physiological.
Consequence to the type of work that I spent 20 years doing.
And we are seeing it with a, with the suicide rates.
We are seeing it with, you know, the, the amount of people that have severe post
traumatic stress disorder, occupational stress injury, the amount of people that
are in depressive states that have to stop working, all of those things are, are.
So I do believe this.
I do believe that a profession like this has a timeline.
I do believe that we've extended the timeline way, way past.
What is safe.
And if we look historically at some of our members that worked for 30 and 40
years, most of them, if not all of them are dead within a year of retiring.
There is a good high percentage.
Isn't there?
It's incredibly high.
And right now we are seeing it with some of our, some of our highest flyers
that for, you know, Three decades of, I've provided an incredible service or
extremely dedicated to a time obsessives, some might say, and really, really out
there doing the thing and getting after it and helping as much as they could at
every job and taking all the overtime in the world, doing all this stuff.
And they are dropping like flies.
You're seeing them drop like flies.
And we're talking about people in their early fifties or mid fifties
in great physical condition, people that have, that have Taking care
of their bodies, all this stuff.
And so, so, so answer your question precisely, you know, for me, I've had
a great career, no complaints about my career, but I was very aware of the cost
of the, of the work, of the unspoken cost of the work and the subconscious
cost of the work, which was in my case, conscious, I knew it was happening,
even if I didn't fully understand the extent to which it happened.
And so when I decided to go out and explore life, I already had
built enough experience in managing things that I, in which the external
factors were extremely complex and successfully so that I wasn't worried
about what's going to happen with me.
I thought of it, it played on my mind.
It wasn't the safest option, but it was But it also was, it also was a
great challenge and a great op and something that I knew I would have
to step up for myself in, in sort of a burn the boats type scenario.
And, and when you're left with, when you left yourself no other choice, you,
you have To take actions and you have to do the things that you need to do to,
to, to satisfy or to, to accomplish the outcome that you're, that you're after.
And so when I watched this video and I saw him explaining what he
was hoping to accomplish out of his career, what triggers, so to speak,
made him realize that what he was doing wasn't exactly in line with.
With what gave his life meaning and that there was potentially a better
way to achieve the meaning don't fall in love with your own plan.
Don't don't fall in love with your own plan.
I don't care how much you invested in it.
Like, and the reason why I say this is imagine this.
We have now an MIT train.
Neuroscientist, a neurosurgeon that has 10 years of experience and he's out there
in nature, focusing on his dog and, and, and, and connecting with nature, but now
he brings this to other people and that there's a great lesson in there because
if you want commitment to a cause, It takes 10 years, 15 years of schooling
to get to the position that he was in.
And then he did it for 10 years.
And the money that's associated with that position is really good.
Travis Bader: It's next level.
It's really good.
Yeah, it is.
Seb Lavoie: So, so now you have from an outsider looking in, When now you
start, this is perspective for you and it's not invalidation, it's perspective.
You can look at this and say, okay, this guy was an MIT
trained neuros, neurosurgeon that spent 10 years in neurosurgery.
He made a ton of money and he made a decision that was better
for his wellness overall.
And that is the number one priority at the end of the day.
And so, when you look at this and you, you know, you've spent.
Three years in policing, for example, and you did a six months course to get
there and you, you know, um, it's easy to think that everything you've put
so much effort in that somehow, if you don't follow the path that you were
established for yourself, that you're going to do it wrong, but it isn't
the case, that path that you forged, the information you've gained, the
knowledge, skills, and abilities that you've gained are a part of who you are.
I don't care what you do.
It's never going away.
Like this guy, academic, academic achievements, the fact that he was
able to negotiate what arguably non arguably one of the hardest program that
probably is in, in the medical school
as, as given him the self confidence that he needed to walk away from it,
Travis Bader: you know,
Seb Lavoie: all of that.
And now he goes into a different venture with the same
analytical mind, with the same.
Intellectual capacity with the same drive, with the same, all of those things.
So he's polished all of those tools.
He's bringing them into a different context.
Like he hasn't negated what he did for 20 years, that 20 years made him.
And so now he's able to address life, you know, look, look, look, look at
life through a different lens, but with all of that skills, knowledge,
and ability is going nowhere.
Travis Bader: There's a lot of power in what you just relayed there.
And, you know, there's, there's that logical fallacy of being pot committed
that so many people subscribe to.
I put all of this time in, I put all this money into it.
It's going to pay off soon.
And being able to stop regroup, take a more desirable course of action by using
what you've learned through all of that.
I, I think there's a lot of power to that.
And you know, the other one was don't get married to the plan.
I don't know if I'm paraphrasing what you said there, but don't,
don't get married to the plan.
Don't get yourself so attached to the plan that you had in place.
So the plan isn't giving you the outcome that you're looking for, but you also said
something about looking for your meaning.
What gives your life meaning?
Seb Lavoie: Yeah.
Various things give my, give my life meaning and all of those things are, are.
Somewhat interconnected.
And again, you know, we, as human beings, we, we tend to silo things because it
makes us, it makes it easier for us and more palatable and easier to process.
The reality is everything is interconnected deeply and viscerally
and, and failing to recognize that can cause, can cause issues.
And so for me, it's always been at the core of it, helping the
collective in one way or another.
I just love, I just love to help people.
Yes, it really doesn't matter in one, in what context it
could be, you know, physically protecting them again against harm.
It can be mentally and emotionally being present when they need a friend or
somebody to talk to or bounce ideas off.
It can be in a professional setting and, you know, with coaching people
or, or, or going and, and, and do guest speaking appearances and, and really
convey some critical information.
To, you know, to, to, to people so that they can make better and more
sensible decision in relation to the things that they're wanting to
do, or the things that they're stuck in or whatever the case may be.
And so for me at the core, always been that the, the vehicles that I use.
To, to accomplish that were many, you know, I, I was a coach, I, I
had gyms, I did put my body and my mind in harm's way to help.
I, I did step, step in when the time was required.
I, you know, I, I, I, I was there for anybody and who's anybody that
reaches into my DM and, and, and is going through a rough time.
And, and more importantly for the people that are very close to me
that have needed me along the way.
Not once have I not been there.
Right.
And so all of those things and continuing to proliferate the message and continuing
to be out there, trying to not impart wisdom, but share wisdom, you know,
and I, and I, and I always use this word because really, when I come and
do an interview with you, I learn as much from you as you do from me.
And we're, and.
It's a, it's a, it's an exchange, right?
But sometimes when you're looking at a problem and when you're looking at
something through either the same lens or at their same angle, it's kind of
like, um, brainstorming with yourself, there is no brainstorming with yourself,
you know, the storm keeps going.
And at the end you spew out the exact same outcome, which you
have cognitive bias towards.
And that's going to happen over and over and over again until
somebody else comes in and says, wait a minute, look at it this way.
Okay.
You know, so those are all mechanisms that give my life meaning.
I'm not necessarily looking for happiness.
Happiness is, is one of those things it's very fleeting.
And if you're looking for happiness and this is your measure of success,
however you define it, you're going to fail miserably multiple times in life.
But if you're looking for meaning.
You never fail, even if you're on the wrong end of adversity or
something extremely difficult.
Travis Bader: That's the whole concept of logo therapy, which is logo, logo, smart.
I, you know what, I don't, you're gonna mess it up, but a logo, I'm
not even going to get into what the Latin is, but essentially Viktor
Frankl, um, was the third VNE school of, of, uh, psychotherapy.
Come up with this concept of logo therapy, which is meaning searching for
meaning because you look for happiness.
You're never going to find it.
Happiness should be a by product of your hard work and your efforts.
It's something that happens.
It's not something that you can obtain.
Uh, in, in that, I think for a lot of people is a, um, Is a bit of an aha
moment when they finally understand that.
And they realize that, that they will be happy when they're doing things, whatever
it is, it goes towards their meaning.
And if that's being of service and value to others, then And very often
that's where happiness will come from.
I find personally, because if my, my idea of meaning is for me to be awesome
and me to be perfect, it's very self centered and, uh, it's not going to fuel
that happiness for me, maybe for someone out there, but I got to imagine that.
It's.
It's probably not the formula there.
Seb Lavoie: Well, there's a lot of empty shells, right?
Let's go, let's call a spade a spade.
And so if you're an empty shell and you're, you are seeking and looking for
constant, either external validation or, or even gaining perspective with
the purpose in mind to self validate, you're going to start doing things.
To pump yourself up because there is an insecurity there.
There's a better way to do it.
There's a much better way to do it because ultimately you can lie to everybody
around you, but you can't lie to yourself.
And you're, you're going to call yourself out every single time you do it.
And eventually it will have consequences that are, you know, not
the, not the, not the consequences that you would, that you would like.
And so there's a better way to do it, which is.
Action, the things that you need to action, to be the
person that you say you are,
that's it.
And if you live with authenticity and you, and you are investing
in the steps of the process to make you the person that you are.
That you truly want to be, or the person that you say you are, or the person
that you, that you, that you, you know, that other people are perceiving you
to be, and that's what brings you joy.
Then you want to make sure that you are that person.
What you see is what you get.
Travis Bader: Because you can't have a disconnect.
If there is a disconnect in there, you can't You'll know it and it's
going to show, it's just going to rear its ugly head and in some very
Seb Lavoie: interesting ways.
It does.
And, and the problem with that is a surreptitious ways in which, or the,
um, insidious ways in which, in which it will affect you and insidious is
dangerous, you know, cause it, it's almost, you can almost talk yourself out
of something is happening here, but really what's happening is at the fundamental
level, your insecurities are impacting.
Everything you do.
And so now you're 17 layers deep on this project or whatever the case may be.
And, and nothing is going the way you wanted to, and all of this
is triggered by insecurities that were never actually dealt with.
So if there are insecurities that are not dealt with and you haven't optimized
yourself, you're, you're going to bring these demons with you everywhere you go.
Dealing with
Travis Bader: these different challenges and speaking of challenges,
you recently had an amputation.
That you've had to work through, um, you know, you've approached that head on,
you've approached it with positivity.
You've been very brutally honest in social media, about the process and where
you're at and how most of it you were looking at is, Hey, things are great.
Things are going well.
And I got to imagine when you talked before about being, uh,
being there for other people when they reach out, it's good.
Gotta take its toll on you.
If you're of the mindset that you're always there for everybody as they
reach out, and there's always going to be people that don't even realize
the toll that they're putting on others when they ask for help.
I remember what was that sign?
There's an old show called the prisoner Patrick McGoogan or McGoogan
was the star character of it.
And on the intro to everyone, he'd ride into town and there's a sign that
says questions are a burden unto others answers are a prison unto oneself.
People don't realize the burden that they're putting on other people by
constantly reaching out for help.
I, it's a multi part kind of question.
We could take it wherever we want to go, but I got to wonder
about how you deal with that.
If you're going to be a life preserver for all of these different people,
um, where we kind of draw that line.
And while you're dealing with your own Things that are going on, whether
that be, you know, you've left work in the transition phase, you've been
amputated, you've lost a leg, you've, uh, you're dealing with learning to
be a new person, how to walk and, and, uh, exercise and get around.
How are you dealing with that?
Seb Lavoie: So, so for me, it's all about reframing and I use reframing Very, very
seriously and all the time consistently.
And I'll give you an example of where that might look like.
Sure.
We know that if a person takes the time out of their day to help
somebody in need, that person is doing something that's, that's selfless,
that's difficult, but is meaningful.
If the person is going through a hard time themselves, and they're
still out there for others, that's a next level of that meaning for me.
Anyways, it, it, it adds to the meaning of what it is that I'm doing.
And I've had people come back to me later.
When I sent you this email, I never realized what was
going on in your own life.
Thank you so much for taking the time.
Thank you so much for jumping on a zoom call.
Thank you so much for going for coffee or whatever the case may be.
And so I actually thrive in that.
I thrive in that for a variety of different reasons, but one of those
is I need to show up for myself.
I am going through my own ordeals.
I'm going through my own adversity and now I have to negotiate my adversity
and perhaps helping somebody else that's having a hard time, not to be confused
with not holding space for yourself.
Like, and that's a, it's a feeling out process.
I can't tell to the, I can't tell the next person that's doing way
too much for everybody, perhaps that you should continue doing that.
If it doesn't feel right at the end of the day, it needs, you need to do
what feels right for you in the moment.
And some people it's isolating when they're dealing with adversity.
And then they come back and help the collective stronger.
And that's the perfectly good way to do it.
But for me personally, I just love to be challenged and I love to
be challenged in a way that would really, really impact most people.
You know, I love a real challenge like this amputation.
That was a worthy challenge for me, you know, I, and, and, and for me to have,
to continue engaging with the people, to continue to be there for those that
needed me is, is just an added layer.
To this, to this sort of meaningful enterprise that
I got going on here, right?
And you know what, let's call a spade a spade.
Is it, is it a hundred percent selfless or is it, or is it somewhat self serving?
It has to be, it's somewhat self serving.
It makes me feel good.
It makes me, it makes me spend less time fretting on some of the things that
I'm going through and having, you know, Engage with other people and helping.
And sometimes when I out there having a conversation with somebody
and we're discussing all these things, sometimes I get answers to
my own questions in the process.
So there is a certain part of this that's, that is somewhat self serving,
but it's on an individual basis.
You need to, you need to know where the limits are for you.
And that's, you know, a lifetime of establishing boundaries.
And often what happens is I have very healthy boundaries.
Very healthy.
Some people laugh all the time at my boundaries.
You know, when, when I'm in a social event, when I'm gone,
nobody gets says hi to, I'm gone.
I disappeared.
That's it.
There's no pass go.
There's no claiming 200.
It's like, see you later.
Right.
And everybody that knows me knows that when Seb is done here, he's gone.
Yeah.
Right.
And, and those apply in a variety of different dimensions.
But I may, I'm not ashamed.
Of my boundaries.
I have very clear.
And so that is an important skill to have.
If somebody doesn't have boundaries and they're trying to live in the
way that I do, but without having boundaries, now they're going to
get encroached upon all the time.
Right.
So.
Let's take something very simple.
A kid, a kid sends me a message.
He says, Hey, I've been following your social media.
I really love the stuff you put out.
It's very motivating.
I w you know, I want to be this, or I want to be that.
And I was, I was hoping to get your thoughts on that.
Well, I got 900 podcasts out.
Yeah.
So here, you know, here, here's a link to X, Y, and Z.
And if you have any remaining questions, I'll be there after.
So that's my way of establishing a certain boundary and still
providing, providing some help.
And so the question becomes, do I have boundaries?
And if I do, what are some of the mitigating factors or some of the
mitigating strategies that I can use?
To maintain my boundaries and still accomplish the mission.
So the mission is this, the mission execution is flowing.
And this is, this is the biggest mistake that people make.
It applies to tactical operation, but it also applies to life.
You have an end goal, you have a plan, you have a mission.
They, they falling in love with the mission is totally fine.
Falling in love.
In the way by which the mission is accomplished is not.
Travis Bader: So when I
Seb Lavoie: said, don't fall in love with your own plan earlier, I'm talking
about the execution plan, the execution phase of the plan, which is which
action do I need to take to achieve the outcome that I set for myself?
And so that's something that has to be That has to be
extremely clear in your mind.
What is your mission and what are some of the, what are some of the ways by
which you can accomplish the mission, maintaining healthy boundaries.
Travis Bader: What were some of the biggest challenges that
you've had with this amputation?
And I'll throw a couple of things out there.
I mean, When you were, when it first happened, you put a post
out and says, okay, let's hear it.
Let's hear the jokes.
Come on guys.
Right.
I mean, I'm sure everyone loves, are you still enjoying the
Seb Lavoie: jokes?
Oh, absolutely.
Travis Bader: Okay.
Seb Lavoie: I got to tell you, man, if I'm being a hundred percent honest, which
I always am anyways, um, I will say this, my request to ask or to ask people to make
fun of me in that, at that time, Was the absolute saving grace of the first three
days of my amputation, because what ended up happening is, and I want to bore you
with the details, medically speaking, but they, I was supposed to have a stint in
there that was supposed to prevent pain and it wasn't working, it wasn't firing.
So I essentially raw dogged an amputation for two days.
Right.
And when that happens, I And I'm trying to distract myself from the 10
out of 10 pain and all those things.
And I jump on my social and I see a news, a news clip of me fighting a
great white shark and having lost a leg.
And, you know, it just made me laugh so hard that that is a natural thing.
That is a natural medicine for pain, for adversity, for anything is to smile, to
laugh, to take it life, to take yourself lightly, to not take everything so
seriously, you know, all of those things.
It was the single best decision I made.
As I was going through the process was to say, let me have it.
What it also did is it prevented people from getting in my inbox in a sort
of self pity, you know, and I just, I gotta, I gotta tell you, man, I gotta
tell you, I have, I have this thing where at the best of times, I absolutely
do not like compliments at all.
I, I, I don't, I'm the same.
And it's funny because my, my fiance is soon to be wife
makes fun of me all the time.
She's like, you get so awkward when we give you compliments, right?
And, and, and so if you think of it, you, you make a post, you make a mean,
something that's meaningful that you think may have a meaningful impact on others.
And now it becomes about you.
Um, you know, because it's like, Oh, you're, you're the greatest.
You're this, you're that, you're that.
I'm not, what I'm doing here is, is nothing.
And, and I'm going to, I'm going to say this.
You look at a guy like Mark Omrod, for example.
Right.
I have a below the knee amputation and I'm not discounting the fact that
it comes with challenges, but you, can you imagine, and it's an elective
amputation, I made the decision to do it on account of the totality of the
circumstances and it served the purpose.
Okay.
You're, uh, you know, a 19, 20, 21 year old vet that's out there somewhere
patrolling and boom, three limbs missing.
And now you're coming back and now you have to go through the, so I think
that as humans, we, we, when we assess difficulty, we're not very good at it.
At that we're not, we're, we're, we're actually not very good at knowing
what's, what's truly, truly difficult.
And, and what are the spectrums of difficulties that are going to be?
And so, and I think part of this is you don't want to be elitist, right?
Like, Oh, you're just a below the knee amputee.
And we see it in amputee world.
It's actually quite funny.
There's a bit of drama like this, but one of the things, one of the things
that's important to realize is that seriousness is only as serious as you.
Apply it against the situation that you're in.
That's a decision that you make.
Nobody else can tell you this is really hard because for somebody really
hard means walking two kilometers.
Travis Bader: Sure.
Seb Lavoie: For somebody really hard is running a hundred miles and for
somebody really hard is running 10 times a hundred miles back to back.
I, the spectrum is infinite.
It's an infinite spectrum of difficulties and we are really bad at assessing, you
know, what's truly, truly difficult.
And so I came to the conclusion and for me, what, what has worked
best over the years is to assign, to, to, to not assign a specific
level of difficulty to an event.
It just is.
So instead of being like, Oh, that's going to be really hard, it changes nothing.
Like me thinking that it's going to be really hard is an emotion.
The work still has to get done.
The actions still have to be taken.
And I still have to take certain steps to make certain things happen.
Travis Bader: Just is.
Seb Lavoie: So you can stand in front of the board at the gym, watching
the workout being Being laid out on the board and be like, Oh my God,
this is going to be really hard.
And you start getting in your head and you start interfering the process.
You start doing all this, or you can look at this and they,
this is what I have to do.
Just is like a knowledge, the fact that, you know, you're unsettled
about it, perhaps put the emotions aside and look at it objectively.
It's the work that needs to be done.
There's neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
A hundred percent.
And I think a lot of people, it's greatly under or under appreciated,
and it's greatly misunderstood.
People think that things are coming with an associated value of difficulty
or an S you know, and it's like, it doesn't, what is it for you?
Mm hmm.
Like, how do you feel about, you know, and it's, and it's so interesting because
it's almost like, um, anecdotal stifling.
Like if somebody is coming in and telling you how difficult something
is, then automatically at that point.
It's difficult to you, right?
And this is how people talk themselves outta doing all the all kinds of stuff.
I'm not gonna go to the special operation selection because a friend
of mine who's much fitter than me or much faster and stronger, it
didn't make it, so therefore I won't.
Mm-Hmm, . You know,
Travis Bader: it's a very odd kind of group think that I see
people subscribe to quite often.
So one person thinks a certain way, the group starts thinking a certain
way they did a, um, who was it?
Uh, it was Tim Cook and I think it was Elon.
I think that the two of them were in an interview, they're talking
about, uh, how they hire people, how they bring people on and.
The one big takeaway that I got from it was individuals who are high
performers that go into a low performing environment will quickly adapt to that
low performing environment and vice versa.
You can bring a low performer and put them in the group of high performers.
And they'll quickly adapt to that.
And this kind of group think mentality is so massive.
If you're hanging around, people are like, Oh, this is hard.
Oh, this is difficult.
And that becomes your bar and that's your world.
And it's, you're constrained within this little sphere of, well, here's my
limits and here's as far as I can go.
And I, I think, uh, having the mindset and maybe that comes from, you I
guess, forging your own path to a big extent, as opposed to, uh, trying to
surround yourself with other people with a larger fear, having your
own path where you have an infinite sphere in different directions.
They can get kind of go to, I'm just kind of thinking out loud as I go
through here, because I can definitely say there are those with larger spheres
that I will talk to and I'll look at, and I will say, okay, that sounds good.
Uh, in certain areas, is that what you do, or are you, are you kind
Seb Lavoie: of creating your own sphere?
I think it's a combination of both.
I think if you're surrounded, if you're surrounded with the right people around
you, the people that elevate you, the people that bring out the best
version of yourself, the people that will call you out every time that,
you know, you're doing something that people Perhaps this is substandard
or, or, or that you're limiting your potential or that you're lacking
vision or whatever the case may be.
I mean, if you're surrounded by people like this, it's, it's, it's a great.
It's a great check in, you know, a periodical check in where you, where
you, where you actually get to say, okay, where am I in relation to others
that are doing all these things?
And I think that that occurs naturally, but generally what happens is people,
instead of embracing that and saying, I can now elevate myself, there's a,
there's an attitude of resistance to what I, what it is that I'm seeing.
Like, so if the person, you know, works out more than I
do, oh, but they love to work.
They love to get up in the morning.
And they love to work out if this person does X, Y, and Z.
Oh yeah.
Well, but you know, uh, uh, I've done, you know, and so again, an,
an emotional reaction or emotion or a chain and emotional reactions
to a variety of different things.
They have zero control over, and that's not what the purpose is.
If you want to optimize yourself, you need to look at it differently.
Can I be a little bit better here?
Can I engage a little bit more here?
Can I do this?
And if your friends are going, are out there getting after it and
getting things done and moving the needle and helping others, and this
is the sphere that you're in, you're in the, you're in the right spot.
As long as you have the right attitude in relation to what you are discovering about
yourself or the things that you are doing.
If you start playing a possum, or if you start putting your head in
the sand, you're doing it wrong.
It's not going to work.
I don't care if you surround yourself with the best.
The best of the best.
So you need to be engaged in the process of actively seeking the chinks in your
armors and so that you can reinforce areas of your armor that are lacking.
Where are your chinks right now?
Well, right now my leg is, uh, you know, um, For me, there's,
there's, it's constant, right?
I have chinks in every single dimensions of my life.
So it's just a matter of, can I bring a little bit more polish here?
Can I bring a little bit more finish?
Can I build it a bit more, you know, resilience?
Can I be, can I build it a bit more?
Ability to communicate, like all of those things.
And so I'm in a constant state of self evaluation constantly, and, and I'm
not suggesting that sometimes it's not obsessive, you know, it can be obsessive.
And, and I think that maintaining a healthy perspective.
On the reality of things.
So I will use an analogy.
I will use a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu analogy, just because, just because, because what
is the conversation with our Brazilians?
So, so I'll give you an example.
Um, you know, you're looking at the world class grapplers
as, as it stands right now.
And really.
From a competitive standpoint, belts don't really matter all that much at all.
You have like guys that are at the top level slaughtering world class black belts
and their blues and purples, which is much lower ranks, but their skill level in the
way they develop and the way they train and to train full time and all of those
things has, has the propensity to create.
Grapplers such as this.
Now, if they train with the right people, it's the possibilities are endless.
And so when you look at this as a recreational grappler or somebody that
did Jiu Jitsu as a, as a matter of self protection in the context of maybe an
operational career or whatever the case may be, or even, even just for self
defense purposes, when you look at this.
You now start questioning, like I'm a BJJ black belt, I've had it for three years.
I'm technically a first Dan now, just a matter of receiving it.
But when I look at an operation, an operating context, so let's go
to a gym full of solid black belts that are competitive black belts.
I'm now at the bottom of the totem pole, right?
Like from a, from a competitive or from a, from a competitive
standpoint, take that same person and bring them to a lineup at the bank.
Mm hmm.
And now what?
Right.
Yeah.
Like, and so I think it's, it's really, really healthy to understand
that you can always be better, but everything has a cost and equal,
equal or opposite reaction, or sometimes disproportionate reaction.
It's necessarily not equal.
Right.
So you could go, so you could go, for example, you could say, okay, I want to be
as good as a, as a competitive grappler.
I now need to train eight hours a day.
Well, something is going to give on account of you having to do
that and many things probably.
Right.
And so.
There's two, there's two portions to this.
Where can I be
and where, where am I in reality?
If I'm comparing myself to people that don't do this for a living and where
is it that I'm an X and an acceptable range or ratio of those two things that
make me fulfilled, that make me capable.
That make me performing well enough that I'm satisfied with this, you know?
So it's a constant, it's a constant evaluating what's being done out there.
What's better, who does it better?
How can I get better?
All of those things.
And then an evaluation or a risk assessment associated with that decision.
If I'm to do it as good as this, what has to give for me
to make that happen, you know?
And so for me, I just got really good at kind of striking the balance.
And I'm very comfortable with that.
When I tell people I'm a recreational black belt, they're like, they
always say, why do you say that?
Why do you say that?
Because I am.
Sure.
It's different, you know, and, and, and, and telling you that I'm not a competitive
black belt does not take away from me.
That you're a black belt.
It doesn't define me at all.
It's just a part of who I am.
But what's even more a part of who I am is authenticity.
And I can't stand here and tell you all black belts are created equal.
Cause it's just simply not the case.
Sure.
Right.
So the least amount of your self reflection are causing you to, to
get your hackles up and to start.
To want to, I, you know, to want to hide or to, or to, or to want to sugar coat or
do all of those things, as long as actions are taking to be the person you want to
be, your self worth will be at a level where those things no longer affect you
in the same way, but it takes practice and you need to take it on the chin.
Travis Bader: It's interesting you bring up self worth.
That was something that, uh, Chance was talking about recently and he says, you
know, I've always had a difficult time valuing myself and the idea of self worth.
And I think that's a common thing.
I think that's pretty common for a lot of people to, um, you know, maybe part
of it's being Canadian and humble, right.
Maybe part of it's, uh, insecurities, um, Maybe it's cause
we're always comparing ourself.
If we look at self worth, well, I'm sure I'm a black belt,
but I'm not that black belt.
Right.
And that black belt will say, sure, I'm that black belt, but I'm not.
I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with.
And you also brought up the fact that you have a difficult time taking compliments.
Are those two things, uh, is there an intertwining in there at all of,
um, um, Difficulty with compliments.
Cause I, I have a difficult time when, when people give me compliments,
I have a hell of a time with it.
The biggest compliment I can ever get is for someone to say nothing, but just
to live their life in a better way.
If I was able to affect them in a better way, right?
That, that would be a compliment to me.
Why do you think you have a difficult time with compliments?
And can you talk a little bit about self worth?
Seb Lavoie: Yeah.
Like I, I don't know is the answer.
Okay.
Travis Bader: Fair enough.
Seb Lavoie: So
Travis Bader: you're like me.
All
Seb Lavoie: right.
So when it comes, when it comes to, when it comes to my difficulty
accepting compliments, I, I, I remember being like this as a kid even.
Yes.
So, so this is not, this is not something new at all.
And I think.
I, I think to a certain extent, I was a ambivert.
So I was a, you know, a person that had the capacity to be
extroverted and introverted.
I've
Travis Bader: never heard that term before now.
Ambivert.
Seb Lavoie: Ambivert.
Okay.
And for me, I find that,
Compliments piece or some of those things seem to bring the introvert in me.
I want to, you know, I kind of want to go into hiding and I'm sure a
psychologist listening to this is going to be, Oh, we got some trauma here or
something, you know, and I'm not, I'm not suggesting there is by any stretch
of imagination, but, but the reality is.
It makes me extremely uncomfortable.
And, and to a certain extent, if you said to me, okay,
here's what we're going to do.
You're going to, you're going to post as you normally do the regular
content on your social media, you're going to have these conversations
and everybody will bring a piece of their wisdom to what you just posted.
But you will never again be externally validated.
I would take that in a heartbeat.
I legitimately do not need it at all.
But what I do need, and what I like to see is people bringing
a little bit more wisdom.
So I start something, I put a post out there.
Some will say that there's wisdom in there.
It's, some will say that perhaps it's inspiring or whatever the case may be.
Cool.
But what do you have to contribute to this?
Thanks.
Right.
Because we're ultimately what happens is we live life as passengers in a car,
and sometimes it's a driverless car.
I'm just sit here in the passenger seat, waiting for somebody to do something,
Travis Bader: anybody
Seb Lavoie: to take the wheel, any external factors, anything
is impacting me directly because I'm not engaged in a process.
I want you in a, um, what's the word?
Um, there is a word for a, a, a, a style of education where you educate and the
person reframe what you've taught them, and they come out with the, uh, with,
with their own version, so to speak.
And, right.
I'm forgetting.
Iter, the word iterative.
No.
Um, no.
There's, there's a, there's a, there's a, a really good word for it.
And now I, I can't, I can con constructivism.
Constructivism, okay.
Constructivism.
Yeah.
I, I believe that's what it is.
So in constructivism is exactly what should be.
In my opinion is here's all this wisdom, all these technical data, all
these things that I'm providing you, you assess this, assess all of this
against your own skills, knowledge, and abilities, and you come, come
up with a hypothesis of your own.
In relation to something.
And now we're really moving the needle forward because it's
easy to jump on a bandwagon.
Oh yeah.
That was a great post.
Love it.
Next.
Right.
You know,
Travis Bader: passenger in a bus, somebody else's driving for you.
Seb Lavoie: And so what do we know about that?
Well, I'll tell you what we know.
You can sit in the passenger seat of a car.
And go to the same location five times and never know how to get there.
You got that.
Yes.
But if I say to you, I need you to take the map book, I'm dating myself
here and I, and I need you to.
To monitor X, Y, and Z and tell me when the next turn is and what the
street name is and all of those things.
When you ask that person again to drive back to that location, they're in a
much better position to do that because they were engaged in the process.
And most people live life disengaged and engage in other people's lives.
So, so you see external things.
You're like, Oh, that's cool.
That's cool.
But you disengage in your own life.
And so that's why I always, I love when people are engaging in the post.
So I post something.
It's, it's, it's thoughtful.
It's, it's, it's maybe sometimes at times intellectual, it might be a
variety of different things for different people, or maybe it's completely
at odds with how you see the world.
And if that's the case, then I want to hear it.
Like let, let it, let it formulate some sort of a hypothesis or
let's, let's formulate something that I can now think about.
And now, now we're expending the knowledge.
And I mean, we've seen it on all platforms.
You've seen it on your silver core podcast.
You, you know, you're growing an idea as you were developing it, as you're talking.
Travis Bader: And it's
Seb Lavoie: the same with the collective.
The collective is really good at that because you have all these
different perspectives coming in, all these smart people with
incredible backgrounds, and they're bringing a different angle to this.
And next thing you know, your own thought process has evolved.
Adaptation is good.
Evolution is, is excellent.
Travis Bader: What do you think about Jason, and I'm going to
butcher his last name, Subkowicz, how do you pronounce that?
Subkowicz.
Is that how it's pronounced?
I believe so.
Okay.
Subkowicz.
Subkowicz, yeah.
Um, he recently made, put a post up there on social media.
He was working really hard to try and share what his journey and positivity.
And he says, you know, it's just not for me.
This is, uh, it's not the path for me.
Um, I don't know.
I can identify with some of that.
I can definitely identify with the, uh, uh, the, the tool of social
media being used to be able to bring other people up and to assist others.
What are your thoughts on that one?
Seb Lavoie: I feel the exact same way as Jason does.
I didn't, I wasn't on social media until 2017 and at the
time I was running my team.
I was listening to Metallica in the back room, you know, creating ops plans,
going from operation to operations.
And I was.
Singularly focused on my work and my guys and the things that we needed to be doing.
And so I never worried about that.
And some of the guys would make fun of me for that and,
and, and it was all good funds.
And I, I owned it as I do anything else in life.
And, um, and eventually I saw it as a, There was a, there was a way there was a
way for me, perhaps, to continue impacting the collective by taking that route, which
was supposed to be a temporary state of affairs and quite, if I'm being honest,
it still is a temporary state of affairs.
I do not stay and remain stagnant.
And so once I spent five, six, seven, eight, 10 years.
Putting all kinds of content out there, trying to help the
collective do all this stuff.
My mission here is done and I can, I can make a correlation
to my mental health walk.
You know, we just hit 60, you know, certain things started
happening that made me re evaluate.
And I came to the conclusion and the realization that those 60 walks.
That I've done out of good, out of the, out of the, you know, out of goodwill and
all of the sacrifices that were associated with this are not without their cost.
That's right.
And so for me at 60 mental health walk, it was done.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Seb Lavoie: Right.
I, I now I'm passing the buck.
I've, I've, I've given the torch.
Yeah.
The torch precisely.
And I've, and I've.
And I've engaged in a process wholeheartedly, but I have reached my, the
end of my capacity to continue doing that.
Now I'm going to morph and do something else, right?
I'm going to do something else.
And so I, you know, when I look at a person like Jason, I don't know.
I, I have an incredible amount of respect for, by the way, for a variety
of reason, but primarily he's got a great heart and, and just, I love
his philosophical take on things.
I love, I love our present.
He is for everyone.
I just love how he lives.
Like I love everything about how he walks the walks and, and talks
to talk, but also I know that this was counterintuitive to him.
And I'm sure.
With some of the, some of the inherent negative backlash that you get, what
it does is it brings, it brings, he's, he's in a peaceful environment
doing peaceful and meaningful things.
And he brings a certain layer of negativity.
Yep.
Right.
And.
You don't need it.
You, you absolutely don't need it.
You don't need to be reading all the comments.
You don't need to be out having arguments.
You don't need, you know, can, can you read says his best, you know, it's like,
I'm at the age now that if you tell me that the sky is pink, I'll say yes.
Of course it is.
Like, you know, he's, he's done with trying to convince people against
their will and people convince against their will or to some opinions still.
Right.
And so for me, I actually love that Jason did that because it poked me, it poked me.
It said, what about you?
I kind of figured it with, where are you at with that?
Right.
And that's why I told Jason, I said, as soon as, and I've
been very open with this.
When I'm in a, when I'm in a place and a, and a, at a time in my life where I
feel Like I've provided enough and that I've given enough of myself and sacrifice
enough of myself and those around me, because let's call a spade a spade,
like taking the time to have all these conversations, doing all those things is
taken away from the time that you could be spending with your family and friends.
And so there is a cost to this and it's, it's a collective sacrifice.
It's not just my sacrifice.
And so when I look at this, it's not just It, it tells me when is your turn,
you know, when are you re evaluating.
When you need to reprioritize and, and go in a different direction.
Did you ask yourself that question?
Oh, a hundred percent.
Immediately.
And?
Immediately.
Well, so for me, it's, it's, it depends is the answer.
It depends where everything else goes, right?
Cause I have all kinds of plans.
And so when some of those plans starts going, some of those will require a
certain level of social media engagement.
It's, it's the way it's the nature of the beast right now.
Right.
But as far as having, you know, a Uh, uh, an open public page with
like regular updates and, and, and pictures that are pretty polished.
And, you know, that's the piece that I don't, I don't,
that's not sustainable for me.
I, I, I, I'm not interested in doing that forever.
And so it's going to be a matter of negotiating and.
Or, or evaluating where I'm at in space and time.
How do I feel about my contribution and where it's going and the reality of my
current life and, and, and doing the things that are meaningful for me, which,
you know, consist of generally being in the woods, walking around, hiking.
I like that.
Yeah.
What does your next step look like?
Well, so
I'm essentially moving from the city to a 14 acre property in
a rural setting that has no, skip the dishes, no . I like it lot.
I know, I do too.
And so one of the things I, I really want to pick up that
I've never done is hunting.
Travis Bader: Ah, yeah.
Seb Lavoie: Yeah.
So of course that goes without saying and, and it's almost shameful that
I've been on this podcast three or four times, and I'm not even a hunter.
Well, I've never hunted in Alberta, but I do have my
Travis Bader: wild card, which is a requisite for hunting in Alberta.
And I do know people in Alberta who are very good hunters.
So I think
Seb Lavoie: we're, I think we can figure something out.
Awesome.
So, yeah, I'm, I'm being told I need to do a couple of courses and I'm
in, I'm in, I'm in to get all that done, but I want to do some of that,
but what I want to do is really live the life that I currently live, but I
have to go to various places to do it.
And so I'll give you an example of this.
Um, you know, uh, my days of working 50, 60 hours a week are done.
It's never happening again, unless I'm working temporarily for, you
know, for a short time to try to get something accomplished.
There's no problem doing that.
But my days of, of sacrificing health, wellness, and everything on account
of making a buck are done, done.
And so what I want to do is, so what I do now is, you know, I go to the gym,
I get my training in, I do a little bit of work in front of my computer,
a little bit later, I'll go on a run.
Well, I'll go on a hike, I'll take my dog, Achilles out, I'll do all of those
things, but I'll try to have multiple modalities in a day wellness modalities
that is right in a various pillars, all interconnected doing all this stuff.
So what I want to do is I want to go out there, I want to build a gym.
Like, so a functional gym, I want to build a mat space cause I want
to have some people coming in so I can continue doing jujitsu.
And I've already had MMA fighters contact me, say, Hey, we're going to
come train with you, all this stuff.
So I'm in for that, but also I want to have sauna, hot tub, cold plunge,
you know, and I'm 20 minutes from Waterton Lake or Waterton Park.
So the, the, the, the provincial park, one of the most beautiful
provincial park in Alberta, um, there's police lake next to me.
Which you can go in for either swimming or fishing or doing all of those things.
So I want to do some of those things.
So right now I'm in the wellness phase of my life, and it's probably
been since I would say five years ago that I've put in an incredible
amount of emphasis on prioritizing that above almost anything else.
I also want to.
Help the community as cheesy as this sounds, because that's a
very tight knit community over in Cardston where I'm going.
And I want to be there and I want to be, I want to engage in that.
I want to engage in this.
Somebody need, you know, needing us real time wheels to the pavement.
We're in, I want to re spool We Defy Canada.
We Defy Canada has not gone anywhere.
I don't quit on things.
I just set them aside because I need to reprioritize with Sean
and I are finishing the book.
We're probably six months, six, seven months away from that.
Amazing.
Um, I want to start a retreat.
I would like to have a, uh, a wellness retreat.
Aim that people wanting to get into first response world,
the corporate world as well.
I would love to do a decompression retreat for people that have left high stake jobs.
And that can be in any sort of context for them to learn how to change the way
they do life, because on, on account of, you know, how they lived life for so long,
and maybe not having had the exposure that I've was blessed to have and, and,
and making, and I want to do it not in a.
Scripted way where I teach them things that we know academically, I want them
to experience things, you know, so, so go and do equine therapy by riding horses
in the mountains, go do a little bit of rock climbing so that even if you're
scared, so that you can work through the kinks of pushing yourself outside your
comfort zone and gain some valuable.
Insight.
Mm-Hmm.
about yourself, your life, and how you do things.
I want them to have some self-defense mechanisms.
So there's gonna be some, you know, jiujitsu, some standup,
some whatever is needed, but also some situational awareness.
I wanna do some resilience classes and have some academic piece coming
in there and bring some people that truly exemplify all those values.
Mm-Hmm.
and people that walk the walk to come in and guest and instruct on those.
And, you know, I hate to say it, but you're, you're coming
at some point my friend.
Hey, I'd be honored to be there.
Travis Bader: I'd be
Seb Lavoie: honored to
Travis Bader: be there.
Seb Lavoie: But those are, those are projects that I have at the moment.
And, uh, you know,
I also made a way through a thesis I need to finish as well, which I always seem
to find, you know, further down the line.
Travis Bader: Yeah, that's, uh, well, that's an interesting one too.
Did, did you, uh, did you go with the thesis that, uh, that we were
talking about before the, the
Seb Lavoie: possibly highly controversial one?
No, actually I didn't.
Okay.
And the reason why I didn't is because it would have been very
difficult to find empirical, um, you know, information about that.
And also it would have had, it would have encountered all kinds of resistance.
And that I'm at the point now where I need to finish my degree.
That's all.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
You know?
Seb Lavoie: And so, and one of the things that I'm very passionate
about has been Haiti, right?
And so Haiti, um, there's, there's, there's, there's
a complex landscape there.
And so, and it ties right into, you know, The, the nature of my,
of my, um, T of my, um, degree, which is international security.
Right.
And so I re re sort of refocused on Haiti and it's great because it's recent.
There's a lot of recency.
There's a lot of recent events and there's also a long tracking history with Haiti.
And so we're able to, you're able to, you have enough of that empirical data,
but you also have enough of the anecdotal stuff and you have enough of everything
else that you need to build a thesis that's meaningful, that fills a research.
Travis Bader: Well, I'm, I'm looking forward to reading that one.
You know, to change tracks here a little bit, um, just, and I
know I'm kind of throwing it out here from, from left field.
What was the best joke you ever got on the, uh, when you put the call out for
the, uh, uh, after the amputation there?
Seb Lavoie: Well, we already spoke about it.
It has to be the shark.
It was the shark one?
So, but there's a, but there's a, there's a continue, there's
a continuation to the story.
So basically what happens is, is, is a friend of mine, uh, Makes a news clip
and the news clip is, is a man saves his girlfriend by fighting a great
white and loses a leg in the process.
And of course it's me that's on the cover and there's a great white, you
know, they have the great white hanging from a, you know, as if somebody fished
it out of the water after or anything.
What happened was, I guess one of my fiance's, Alex's friend.
Or colleague was reading this and she thought this was the most
heroic thing she's ever heard.
And so what she started doing is telling all of her family and everybody about
this incredible dude that Alex is with that fought a great white to save her.
And you know, and everybody's in awe and we get to this, this event,
Alex was working event and this person was there working with her.
And when we started talking, she was all confused because she didn't realize
that this whole thing was a joke, right?
Like I didn't actually fight a great white and I'm not a hero.
Travis Bader: Here.
I thought when we left the hospital, you'd be wearing like
an IHOP shirt or something.
Seb Lavoie: Oh, man.
Oh, it was, it was beautiful to see the disappointment in her eyes when
she realized I actually wasn't a hero and I didn't fight a great white.
Travis Bader: That's funny.
That's
Seb Lavoie: funny.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
What about, uh, there's the other thing that we kind of talked about a little
bit at the beginning of this podcast, which was, uh, in recent events,
depending on when this guy comes out, uh, the Trump assassination attempt.
Uh, you've got a background in international security, you've got a
background in leading teams for executive protection and, you know, everyone and
their dog seems to have an opinion and be an armchair security expert on this.
You've actually got.
Some background and can speak with some authority on this.
Uh, what were your thoughts on, uh, the assassination attempt?
Seb Lavoie: Well, I have a lot of thoughts.
It, it depends which segment we're looking at and we're evaluating, right?
So one of the things, one of the things that, um, That I will prioritize when
I, when it comes to form, formulating an opinion or forming an opinion
in relation to something is there's generally a lot more than meets the eye.
So understanding that there are limitations to what you are watching
and those limitations are not to be understated because you are going to miss
critical Pieces of information that were either not known to the person at the time
that made a certain decision or, or, or, or that you, or that makes it look like
somehow all that information was available to everybody because you're getting
a bird's eye view of the situation.
Sure.
So that's very dangerous to do that.
And I try not to do that as best I can.
Certainly.
There, there are a lot of questions, right?
There's a lot of questions like we're talking about 130 yards away from, from
the presidential stand where he was and with a clear shot, like how was that
roof left unattended is very basic.
Now, if that roof was 500 yards away, Okay.
I can see that happening, right?
You, you, you're going to have to stop expanding your perimeter at some
point because manpower is a reality.
Like you're going to, you're going to need to be able to, to, to staff those
positions and make sure that you can maintain those positions and still have
your core group where they need to be.
Now, when you look at.
Some of the reactions, uh, of the, of the secret service.
And I've worked with secret service in the, in the context of close protection
before I've worked primarily with cat and counterattack team, which is
their sort of the SWAT team that's attached to the close protection team.
And the cat has a, a bit of a different.
Uh, sort of tasks set or mission set.
But when you look at the executive, the close protection team themselves,
there's a lot of questions there.
There's a lot of questions, you know, if you are to use your body to body bunker,
so to speak, uh, a, a, a very, very large individual who's six, three and.
Quite imposing.
It's going to be very difficult to do that.
If you have, if your detail is very small, right.
And there, unfortunately there was a lot of that going on, which would,
uh, exposed, you know, the upper torso, the head, and there was a, it's
almost like there was an assumption that it was only one shooter, whereas
that's another, another thing you would never do always one plus one.
If there's one, there's going to be others.
And I don't care how secure you think the site is, your site was
just proven to be Insecure, right?
Right.
Cause somebody was there capable of doing this.
So that means that any sort of levels of security you had on
that site has now been completely negated as far as you're concerned.
And you need to treat this as if there is an additional shooter.
A hundred percent.
So having him at waste, you know, folded in half, covered by his,
uh, by his people ASAP is a.
Is a, there's no negotiating with that.
Like that needed to happen a lot faster than it did.
There may be reasons why it didn't.
And that's the reason why I say we have to be careful when
we're armchair quarterbacking.
There's, there is all kinds of questions that can be asked.
And I know there's all kinds of conspiracy theories out
there and all kinds of things.
And sometimes conspiracy theories are not conspiracies.
Sometimes they're real, you know, and so, and so, but the only way to know
that is to have intricate knowledge of every, of the timeline of everything
that occurs and, and be able to establish who knew what, when, and what are
some of the things that happen now, some of the hands and feet skills.
And some of the things that we have seen, there's, I have thoughts on that as well.
So there is a lot of memes being put out there, one of the ladies
having a real hard time reolstering her pistol, doing all this.
And the propensity has been to jump on a gender bandwagon, right?
One of the, one of the, one of the good friends I have, her name is
Jen LaSalle, has spent an entire, almost over a decade, if not more
assigned to our prime minister.
And she is.
Uh, a team leader or was a team leader in a absolutely incredible woman, like really
fit, really capable, you know, shoot, move, communicate, do all of those things.
She would, she would have made this girl look like, you know,
a completely different human.
And so, but now when we're, when we start attacking the gender piece, What, what
does that say about women like Jen that are out there doing the right thing or
training hard that are doing those things.
So I do not like this.
And we're also taking a sanitized view of this because she just
had the Superbowl, right?
Let's call a spade a spade here.
If your job is executive protection on the level five dignitaries,
such as the president of the United States, and somebody just
shot him, that was your Superbowl.
Travis Bader: Yes.
Seb Lavoie: Okay.
The stress response that you will have in relation to this is extremely
hard to, to emulate in training.
Travis Bader: Sure.
Really hard through the
Seb Lavoie: roof.
So is it possible, I'm just being devil's advocate, that she struggled with
arousal more than she did with the rest.
And so, you know, we know as, as you get more and more aroused, the fine
motor skills are going out the windows and, and things are being impacted.
Travis Bader: Sure.
Seb Lavoie: Now,
when the, when the military special operation communities looks at this.
They probably, you know, it's been quite evident that there was a lot of
condemnation on these types of things, but also the, the soft military community
needs to understand that their skillset that was acquired, wasn't really
acquired until they got into battle.
They acquired technical skills and tactical skills and operational
skills, but really where the meat, where the wheels meet the pavement
is where the true learning happens.
Well, that's a very, very difficult scenario to achieve
in the policing context.
Yeah.
Travis Bader: You're not putting people in true, true situations
over and over again to get that,
Seb Lavoie: that training and experience.
A certain level of inoculation.
And so, and there was a lot of criticism on this special, on the, on the
secret service and, and on police in general, but I got some news for you.
A lot of these secret service guys are former,
Like, so it's not, it's not so black and white.
There's also another thing here.
The last time a presidential candidate or a president, uh, a president was, uh, was
attacked in, in such a way was in 1981.
Travis Bader: That's what Reagan.
Seb Lavoie: Correct.
In 81.
So anything that hasn't happened since 1981 is contributing to a certain
level of political instability.
Complacency, and I don't care, I don't care how you try to, you know, spin it
or whatever it will inherently happen.
It will happen.
And if there is a problem, like say your current administration isn't
supporting necessarily the, the, the, the fiscal burden that's associated
with your work or those types of things.
Now, what you, what you start doing, As you need to, to impose risk mitigating
strategies and risk mitigating is not risk eliminating, right?
It's only, what can we do based upon what we have available to us in this time,
at this point, and unfortunately, this thing that we know could be something.
Now needs to be left alone because we don't have anybody to do it.
And so the rest of it is quite dangerous.
Like when people say some cop was approach and provided the information
or a cop showed up on the, on the roof and the guy pointed his
rifle at him and he, and he left.
Did he leave or did he, He got up on the rooftop and the rifle was pointing
at him and he ducked down, right?
Like, what do you, what do you expect him to do in that case?
And I know with the, the, the propensity as well, okay.
Action versus reaction.
My friend, you show up and the guys that drop on you and he already
knows what he's about to do.
You're going to fall flat on your face every single time it happens.
Yeah.
We've seen it over, over in the scenarios.
I can put you in this room right here, put a gun in front of you.
And I can say to you, I will put a gun in front of me.
Let's, let's change this.
I'll put a gun in front of me here and I will sit here with my hands on the
table and I will have a, an operator or somebody coming in or a cop coming
in with their gun pointed at my chest.
And I will retrieve that gun and shoot them almost every single
time before they can react.
Action versus reactions.
You know, humans have to observe, they have to orient, they have to decide, and
they have to act all that takes time.
The person that's already knowing what they're about to do as
only one thing to do action.
That's, that's all that needs to happen.
And so there it's much faster, all this to say that there is a lot of factors
here and it's important that we look at the totality of the circumstances
when it comes to sort of mudslinging and like the whole, but what's also
important is to be blatantly honest, you know, from the secret service side, like
feelings, a hundred percent there are.
And so how do we address this?
And I mean, had it not been for Trump, Moving his head in a very particular way
at a very particular time, call it divine intervention, call it whatever you want.
Sure.
Um, we would, we would have, we would be looking at the prospect of very different,
a very different landscape right now.
In fact, I don't know how bad this could have been.
Travis Bader: Oh, it would be really bad, regardless of what your opinion
is of, of Trump, one side or the other, it's as bad for democracy in general.
Seb Lavoie: As far as divisiveness, I don't think, I don't think it would
have created a bigger, a bigger gap.
And I think that to a certain extent, this, this unfortunate event, um,
has brought people together from both parties and not everybody.
But it has, it, it seems to have cemented that we're here for a
common goal and we've been fighting each other this entire time.
And you, you, you can see sort of a, uh, a bit of a shift in the landscape.
Now, will that last people have short memories, as we know?
Very short.
Yes.
Travis Bader: But the other thing they're doing and I'm liking is putting
some responsibility on the media for how they're reporting and how
people are inciting violence against other people, just through how they
broadcast through the text through.
But through whatever, and there is a social responsibility, like that
teacher at UBC here, who's now under investigation, who is saying, uh, and I'm
paraphrasing, uh, too bad, too bad Trump didn't get shot and too bad it could have
been so much better if he was, um, there is a social responsibility on people
who have a voice and who have influence over others to be not inciting that
Seb Lavoie: sort
Travis Bader: of divisiveness.
Seb Lavoie: Sir.
I couldn't agree more just before I launch into this, there's something I've, I kind
of forgot that I want to add in there.
You know, when I was talking about the lady, it was having a hard
time reostering and all this stuff.
I just want to be crystal clear, right there.
We know that most, most.
Law enforcement agencies are highly restricted when it comes to training.
And when you look at a close protection agency that follows the presidential
candidates and a variety of other people, past presidents and whatnot,
I assume that there is, there probably is a lack of training there, right?
And so some of the physiological responses to stress are going to be
exacerbated if the training isn't where the training needs to be.
So we can't just look at this and be like, okay, well, this was all nerves.
Because it possibly wasn't right nerve where a factor, there's no question
understanding how the gravity of the situation as an agent that's working
this, but also understanding that that's precisely where you're there for you.
And that needs to be at the forefront of.
Everything you do, every step you take, every punch you throw or don't throw,
every gym session, every range session, every bullet you fire, all of those
things have to have that in the back of your mind, my ability to perform
my job to the best of my ability.
Is other people's lifeline, like it, you know,
Travis Bader: there's no way around that.
I think one of two things would likely happen from that for this individual.
Who's this, the height of all these different memes, like, did you see the
David Attenborough AI voice meme where, uh, David Attenborough, the documentary
filmmaker for, um, Wildlife and it's this little voice over in the background
of, oh, here we see the internatural environment and here's where she hones
in on her professional acting skills of pretending she's drawing the pistol again
and doing a deep scan of the environment.
Like it's really funny, not for her.
So I would imagine that one of two things are going to happen.
One, she's going to say, maybe this isn't for me or two, she's going
to say, all right, let's, let's get back to some training and let's,
uh, let's pick this up a bit.
MF.
And how a person deals with that sort of thing is going to be, uh,
uh, very important, but you said there's another point to all of
this that you were jumping into.
Seb Lavoie: Um, that was the, sorry, the original question you were asking
here, which now escapes my mind.
So what was it again?
I don't know.
I forget you.
I was hoping you could kind of help me
Travis Bader: there.
Seb Lavoie: No,
Travis Bader: um, I can't remember what it was now.
Well, I'll tell you this much.
Um, I'm, I'm pretty stoked to see where you're, Moving with your
life and where things are going.
I love the fact that you're constantly evaluating and taking a look at,
am I bringing the most impact for myself and for those around me?
Uh, I like the approach that you've taken with the, um, the mental health walks.
You've done a lot of good with those and you've passed the torch
and hopefully they continue.
Um, I'm stoked to see what things are going to look like for you in Alberta.
That's, uh, that's, that's going to be the next big transition here.
And I, you know, when we're off air here, I've got a bunch of ideas for you.
So I'm going to be throwing them your way just to see if, uh, if anyone are
up your alley or if they hit, is there, is there anything that we haven't
talked about that we should talk about?
Seb Lavoie: We should talk about the fact that I been wanting an
alibi dog for over a decade again.
Yeah.
But it's something that you just can't.
So they're, they're also referred to as the central Asian shepherd.
Okay.
And, you know, I have Achilles, my Malinois, of course, I, I'm, I'm just
all into the simple breeds, you know, the breeds that are super easy to train.
Oh yeah, so easy, so easy to work with.
And so, uh, so one of the things, one of the things that I, that I did is
I recently put a deposit on an Abai.
So I will.
Did you really?
Yeah.
So it's, it's, the litter is supposed to be, uh, to be born in
December or November or December.
And so next sort of, you know, winter ish Yeah.
I should, I should have an alibi on the property and that's super exciting.
Travis Bader: No
Seb Lavoie: kidding.
Yeah.
So what are they known for?
What's that breed known for?
Well, they're, they're shepherds, right?
So they're, they're, they're protecting the flock is their, and their flock is
essentially their family unit, their territory, and they are extremely
capable and they're extremely capable.
And there's various stories out there of them, you know, fighting and.
Beating wolves and, and things.
And, and when you talk to wolf experts, they, you know, some of this has been,
some of this has been questioned at time, but there is no question that there,
there is individual anecdotal stories of these, some of these dogs, like growing
to incredible length to, to protect.
And I think that being in an environment where grizzlies are going
to walk through your yard and all this stuff is probably a great idea
to have 130 pound alibi, you know,
My cute Malinois that, you know, is, is really cool for social media, but, uh,
probably wouldn't do anything.
A little too lovey dovey now.
Yeah.
Somebody, somebody compromised him, not to name anybody.
Travis Bader: Yes.
Yeah.
I say the same thing about my dog.
I'd be like, you guys have got what you look for, right.
But I mean, it's, uh, there's a dog trainer that we've had on the
podcast here and Ron Bamey's yeah.
And, uh, I was talking to him a little bit back and forth.
He's like, you're going to end up with a lap dog, Trav, you know that, right?
I get it.
Uh, but I'm, I'm like you, I'd love to have another dog, but
it needs to have, uh, space.
Uh, where we're at right now, I live in Ladner, got a
beautiful place, got some space.
And, uh, But I, the types of dogs we're looking at are higher energy.
They need a lot of places to roam around.
And so I figure our next dog, we're going to get, I'm going to have
to do the same thing as you get, get some acreage, get some place
where they can actually run around.
Seb Lavoie: Absolutely.
And you get, there's a lot of, you know, Cool stuff you can do.
They got perimeter collars, you know, where, where it, because it's important.
I mean, you have a dog breed, that's a big and strong dog breed like this.
You want to make sure that there's a level of control and we're going to
have, we're going to have some fencing and things and, and, and, and, and.
And kennels, you know, for them, because also it has like very thick
fur and it, it gets hot really quickly.
So the winter is perfect.
And also where I'm going in Southern Alberta, actually the
average is something like minus 10.
So the, so the bad, no, the winters are not like the winters are say
in Calgary, for example, you know.
And you probably get a fair bit of sun there too.
It's the sunniest place in the country.
That's right.
Yeah.
And I have a seven acre available in case you want to build on it, by the way.
Travis Bader: Well, just maybe a little workshop with a little shed upstairs.
Do a little blacksmithing.
I'm in.
All right.
I love it.
Well, Seb, thank you so much for being on the Silvercore podcast.
Again, we're going to do our next one, I think is going to be held
in Alberta at your new place.
I'm going to bring the show on the road and we'll do it there.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome, brother.
It was my pleasure.