I'm Travis Bader, and this is the Silvercore podcast.
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back by popular demand.
Recently retired 20 year ERCP veteran, 17 of those years on tactical teams,
four and a half years with a Colbert section seven years team leader of the
lower mainland emergency response team.
Two years divisional Sergeant major for BC last podcast.
That'd be silver four podcast episode 55.
I started by butchering your name, but I ended with a feeling
of reconnecting with a loss from.
Welcome back to the Silvercore Podcast of Lavoie.
Thank you for having me.
And by the way, the math doesn't add up here.
So there's some self with
this, these numbers.
I pulled this all from the internet, so
it was on the internet.
It must be true.
Um, I figured I'd just get all of the main points out of the way to begin
with and anybody who wants to listen in greater detail, all of that can go
back to episode 55 because I was a very popular podcast, very powerful, a lot
of really good information in there.
And in this podcast, I was really hoping we'd be able to do a few things.
One a lot has happened in your life since we spoke last, a
lot of really exciting things.
And number two, you've been on a number of podcasts.
You have had the opportunity to grow as an orator to be able to,
uh, express yourself with others.
But quite often, what happens is a podcaster will act as an interviewer and
they'll ask questions of their guests.
And I, sometimes there's a two-way flow of communication that goes back and forth.
Sometimes it's really one way.
And if people are just meeting you for the first time, they tend to focus on
the same things over and over again.
And if we're to treat podcasts.
As something that we can use to get better in our own lives,
sorta like go into the gym.
If you do the same exercises over and over again, you're not really
growing, you're not pushing yourself.
So maybe we can push past some of the common things that people
may be new about, use some of the myths or misconceptions.
And, uh, see if we can both grow in this episode.
Sounds like an ambush.
Well, okay.
So a lot's happened to you since we talked last, uh, first one I'm
really excited to talk about is something that's really positive.
I'm watching on your Instagram feed and it looks like you've
got something in the works here.
Something that you're building.
Do you want to talk about this?
Yeah.
I mean, there's, I'm constantly building something, right?
So it's, it's, it's, um, not unusual for me to have a few projects on the go.
Uh, there's the benefit of having retired from the RCMP so that I can take on
to things that are meaningful to me.
And, uh, and that's what my company Raven's strategic has been all about.
And people are asking, you know, what do you do specifically?
I'm like, well, it depends.
What do I want to do?
And then my company is the umbrella to it, you know?
And so I've had, uh, you know, a variety of different pursuits.
And I think the one you're probably referring to is, um, a
book project that I'm working on.
Yeah.
So a book project that I'm working on with, uh, an, uh, another, uh,
amazing individual by the name of Sean Taylor, who's, um, you know, a
retired Pathfinder's second commando joint task force, two assaulter
team leaders, sniper, you know, just a, an overall incredible man.
Um, he's also, you know, a coach that's coached world champs in, in,
in mountain biking and downhill, downhill racing or extended.
I can't remember like long distance racing or something.
Um, anyways, just an amazing orator and an amazing, um, human.
And so we've been working on this book project together, which
has been absolutely exciting.
We cannot wait to push it out.
So he's bringing military top to your special forces background into this book.
And you're bringing talk to your law enforcement background into
the book is, is, is that yeah,
absolutely.
And I mean, the book, the target audience is everybody that's in
pursuit of excellence and, and, and some of our experiences in our own
pursuit of excellence in, and how.
If I was, if I was to put it into words, just imagine if you are putting
all your eggs in the same basket and you were pursuing a, you're a single,
single singularly minded to one goal to go somewhere and be at the tip of the
spear along the way, our casualties, those casualties may be, you know,
family, they may be other endeavors.
You might have be you, you could have benefited from, or,
or whatever the case may be.
So as people that, um, ended exactly where we wanted to be in terms of
career, there was a cost to this.
And what we are, what we're doing is we're looking back going.
I wish I knew this when I was 20, you know, like I'm 45 years old.
Now.
I wish I could go back in time and speak to my 20 year old self
and see where I could have avoided some of those traps, you know?
And so our that's exactly, and that's precisely what we are bringing, how
to pursue excellence, but mitigate the risk associated with that pursuit.
If that makes any sense,
it makes a ton of sense.
Yeah.
You know, I've always said what a man thinks he will do.
If you want to do something, you could make it happen when you get
to the finish line and the goals.
And you look back, did the ends justify the means.
And that's a question that people have to ask themselves to, to approach that
with the, uh, the knowledge ahead of time is invaluable knowing that, okay.
Yeah, there are things that will suffer if I want to push.
If I think that money is a worthwhile endeavor for me, and I really
want to have lots of money, I'll have lots of money, but my family
life might suffer my friends.
I might not be seeing them.
I might not be learning a musical instrument or doing any of these
other things that outside may be in the shop woodworking or metalworking.
I might put all of that stuff aside, so my can single-mindedly
pursue that one endeavor.
So, okay.
Obviously, obviously you've achieved some pretty great things
in this very short period of time.
Things that a lot of people will look to and say, man, I wish I could do the same.
And I think you would probably turn around and tell them, you can do
the same if you put your head to it.
But what would you tell your 20 year old self, if you were looking to getting into,
uh, in your situation he wanted to, when you approach policing, you did so with the
single-minded goal, you wanted to be hurt.
You want it to be here at T what would you tell your 20 year old self?
Is that a worthwhile endeavor?
Oh,
yeah, absolutely.
In terms of having regrets, um, for the accomplishment themselves,
no, that's never happened.
And we know that there is a cost to sacrifice for the collective.
So there is always going to be a cost.
It's not like you can completely eliminate the cost that's
associated with a life service.
But what we are looking at is was there anywhere along the lines where I started
blurring the lines myself, and self-impose some hardship that shouldn't have been, or
to my, or self-imposed to myself or impose on my family or impose on my friends or
my coworkers or whatever the case may be.
And w w would there have been a way for me to achieve the same thing
without leaving, you know, a trail of bodies along the way, so to speak.
Right?
And so for me, in terms of say my first marriage, and I mean,
it, it is what it is in policing.
The divorce rates are extremely high, but when I look back at some
of my say, teammates that have an incredible family life and are
sustaining their, their operations and are super competent operators, I look
back and I'm like, okay, where did I go wrong with my family, with my.
Wife where my, you know, and, and what can I learn from that?
It is not to say that at the end of the day, I'd be looking back saying,
well, I wish I stayed home, but I think would be surmised to think that
I didn't do anything wrong as I was going through the system, through
the pipeline, towards my goal.
And then ultimately what it comes down to is we're always going somewhere.
Right.
But the problem is, is when you're going somewhere, sometimes you
miss the entire journey and life.
Isn't about the destination.
It's about the journey.
And so for me, I could have appreciated, there is no doubt in my mind that I
could have, I could have appreciated the things that I've undertook over the years
that were in line with my final goal, but would have made me appreciate the
daily operation a lot better, you know?
And so, so I, I kind of, I kind of feel like I spent so many years working
as hard as I possibly could to get somewhere that I missed those years.
If that makes any sense.
It's a hell of a lot of sense.
And actually, you know, a lot of people don't know this about me, but when I
was 19 years old, I wanted to be SAS.
I mean, that's, that's what I wanted.
I've, I've read the books.
I've talked to other people who were SAS.
And I figured I, in order to get there, I need to join the British military
and join the British army, get in, go through the, uh, the process.
And so I was speaking with a recruiting officer recruiting office, Not a problem.
You're part of the Commonwealth Canada, come on over.
We can figure this out.
We can get you in there.
Just save up your money, get a ticket, come on over, have a bit of money
saved aside because the process takes a while and you want to be able to,
uh, not be living on the street while you're waiting for it to go through.
So I did that, uh, 19 years old flew over to the UK, met up with the, uh,
recruiting office and the fellow I was talking to had been transferred.
Uh, I met with a woman there who said, I have no idea why this gentleman
would tell you that you could do it.
He said, I'm sure you can, but you can't do anything
security related for five years.
I said, okay, whatever, what's what's security related.
And she says, well, why don't I show you what he isn't security related?
And it was basically like a janitor and even some of the
janitorial roles in certain areas was considered security related.
I said, okay, five years.
Huh?
But I've got a, what was it?
A, um, I think it was a minimum two year, uh, whatever the minimum engagement was.
I figured, well, I'll give it a shot.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Uh, at my trying to get in with sass.
And she says, well, if you do this five years, he couldn't even
start training until five years.
And so I, I started weighing it back and forth as Commonwealth.
I needed an extra year as my minimum engagement.
And by the time the dust settles, I was looking at eight years to walk out with
a possibility of trying for SAS and 12.
If I wanted to get some sort of a trade out of it.
I said, man, and especially when you're 19 years old,
that's a huge part of your life.
And I, I was just torn.
I was absolutely dejected and I just, I made the decision.
I, I just, the ADHD, whatever it is, looking that far ahead,
that just seems too big.
And I didn't want to sacrifice that many years of my life for something
which so many people, just, just for a shot at something which so
many people aren't able to achieve.
I used the money I'd saved up.
I traveled around Europe and I came back and ended up marrying my
girlfriend and having a great family.
And I've spoken with friends who have gone that route of SF Britta, special forces.
And they said, Trev, you made the absolute right decision.
So the recruiting officer was just pouring cold water on you.
Honestly, once you're in the army, once you're in the British military,
they had used it for whatever they, they might just say that,
but they'll use you for anything.
And my friends will look back and they'll look at my family and
what I've been able to achieve.
And they said, honestly, the decision you made was the one
that, although I valued my time, I miss out on building that portion.
So when you talk about, does the ends justify the means, or if there's,
uh, a way to be able to get to what you actually wanted to do and
not have to sacrifice everything?
Cause some, some things like high-end, I should imagine TTF too.
I got a story on that as well, but a JTF too, you don't really have an
option, but to sacrifice certain things, um, w the miracle mile was that Roger
Bannister, am I remembering this one?
Right.
So back in the day they had, uh, people said you can't run a mile and under,
I think it was four minutes formula.
Okay.
So four minute mile is impossible benchmark.
Yeah.
Okay.
Uh, all of a sudden, what was impossible became possible, and I
believe it was Roger banister, and I there's a statute here in Vancouver,
another guy, Lenny, Lanny, something, somebody will tell me I'm sure.
But the year after Roger Bannister ran that mile, more people ran it.
I think it was like five or six other people year after that,
there is like 20, some odd.
W everyone runs a mile in under four minutes because they have a
framework and they know in their mind that that is a possibility.
I'm wondering if in policing and high-level work in ERT, if there was
quite often a mindset of you just go into it, knowing that there's a high
divorce rate for police officers, and you have to give up everything
and take a hard path in order to operate as an ear at the ERT level.
Is, has that been the mindset in the past and is that changing
well?
Um, I think you're absolutely right.
I mean, humans, we put ourselves in boxes.
We're really good at that because it offers us a certain amount of
control or the appearance of control.
Um, and, and we don't like to be.
We don't like to be out of control and really we're flying in a universe on
a, on a ball of water, out of control.
We are, we are essentially, nobody knows what's going on here, you know?
Um, but I, I tend to agree with you.
And I think that the purpose of the book and the purpose of Sean
and I working together is to bring precisely that some of the, some of
those, you know, answers to some of those, I don't know about answers.
Let's call them reflection points where somebody will read that.
And it's, it made a make a whole bunch of sense at the time, but it will when
they are faced with that situation.
And when they start self-assessing what, how they are reacting to a
certain, you know, part of their, um, professional endeavors, you know, like,
okay, I'm, I'm seeing a pattern here.
That's already been pre-identified.
And I've been told that this, you know, ABC and D, so that was the
point is to offer the outside the box perspective so that you can still
pursue what it is that you were after.
And you can get after it, like nobody's business and go to the top of the
heap or do whatever you want, but know that, you know, those are some
of the mitigating strategies that you may employ at various stages.
Can you still have a successful relationship with a significant other.
And pursue these high level careers.
Yes, yes, yes.
Does that mean that the significant other is going to have to just accept
the fact that they're no longer going to receive the same level
of attention because of something else is going to be occupying that?
Or is there a way to be able to juggle both of them successfully?
Well,
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that in majority of cases,
the relationships that are successful, um, when people are pursuing, you
know, things at the top of the heap is often the spouses are very
supportive and it does happen that one.
Puts their own endeavors on a bit of a back burner, you know, at
times to support the other person.
But that has to be a mutually agreed upon arrangement.
It has to be something that the person is okay with.
It has to be something that's reciprocal at one point or another.
So for example, I could be looking at, you know, working the next five years
to get onto a team or to get into, um, a military team or, or, or even an office
job, a corporate ladder climbing the corporate ladder, whatever the case may
be, but we need to be in this together.
And, and this is what is anticipated and this is it.
But the problem is, is at times is we want the next and the next and
the next thing and the next thing.
And we forget that disinter time we were being supported by somebody
that may have muted their own, you know, wishes and desires with
respect to the professional endeavor.
And, and if there is a, if there is, um, uh, a way to have that
agreed upon and the person is okay with that, that's one thing.
The problem is, is when somebody is being left behind and then
everything becomes about the person that's pursuing a certain goal.
So there, there, there has to be give and take, and there has to be, but you need,
when you enter a life of service, You need somebody that's supportive, you know, and
that doesn't mean supportive blindly, like all the way through and forgetting about
themselves, but then inversely, you also have the responsibility to look back and
say, how much support have I been getting?
And how do I, I don't like to say, pay it back so to speak, but it is.
I mean, how do I, how do I, you know, how do I in term of, uh, support the person
that's been supporting me for so long and whatever and whatever it is that, you
know, sort of makes their heart, you know?
Um, and so, yeah, I, I do believe it is possible.
I do believe that at some point there has to be like dependent on
the, it has to swing the other way.
Otherwise we're looking at possible resentment and we're looking at a
degradation of relationships, those types of things, it takes a very special person
to be, to be able to say, okay, I'm going to put myself on the back burner for a
bit while this person is pursuing this.
Higher purpose, so to speak, but
do so in the selection, selection process for ERT specifically, uh, there's going
to be physical selection, obviously.
Um, there'll be cognitive selection.
I do they look at your personal relationships to see if you have that
support network when you go home.
Is that part of the selection process?
No, not really.
I mean, it is from a professional standpoint, but no, it, you're not
getting into, you know, the person, um, personal, personal affairs, so to speak,
to, to try to see if they have the, and, and ultimately where's the line, right?
Like who's making that determination.
So say you were to go interview somebody and you say you come up on a, you
know, a fact that perhaps that person doesn't have the right support at home.
Like what happens then?
Like, do you enter jacked and you're in, you interfere with their careers
or really, so it just wouldn't work.
Right.
It's but I think what needs to happen is to let the candidates and the people
that are seeking those jobs so that they know, so that they're aware that those
conversations need to happen and that, you know, it will be very costly and what the
cost could be if, if they don't, you know?
Uh, and so, yeah, I think just pre pre-loading that information into
the brains of those that are seeking.
To do certain things as critical and, and that's again, feeds
into the purpose of the book.
So I guess you'd have to be really, really careful about the way you
preload that information without creating self-fulfilling biases.
So if you're, for example, pre-loading information that says, you know, person
can run four and a half minute mile, but a four minute mile, I don't know.
Right.
Or if it's sort of, and I I've heard it referenced in the past.
So gunshot wounds, uh, shotgun wounds can be absolutely devastating
rifle room wounds, lots of power.
But if you're shot with a handgun, you're more likely to
survive than you are to die.
If you're shot, the statistics would bear that, um, mind you, they were
finding people that were dying from wounds that doctors would look at and
say, you know, they probably shouldn't have died from this thing, but they did.
And, uh, some people have postulated that perhaps it's because people have
this bang, bang, you're dead mentality.
Oh, I'm shot.
Next step is no, I'm, I'm dying.
And you create this sort of self fulfilling prophecy or cognitive bias.
Um, do you have to be very careful in how you release, these are possibilities
that could happen without ingraining?
Well, you know, if you're going to be tier one, you can expect
to kiss your relationship.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
Well, see.
Yes, and, and that is not how it's articulated.
Right.
And so, and so that's, that's precisely how it's not articulated essentially.
So you can be tier one, you can go to these very places and you
can maintain a relationship.
Those are some of the key things and traps to avoid, or to, um, see coming so that
you may make the right decisions at the right time, based on the totality of your
circumstances, not for you to live your life the way I lived the mine, you know?
And so it's more about having people, giving people the ability to
recognize the traps that are going to come along the way and give them,
you know, three to four options.
You don't even need to give them options, per se.
All you need to do is for them to know that options are out there, you know?
And so, so their brain and their mindset is now how do I, and this is how we
should be, we should seek to, to, to reach excellence in everything, which includes
the way we self-assess our reality.
Right?
And so that's also a part of it.
So having the ability to minimizing biases and really look at our own
self are at, at oneself, um, in a.
Critical nonjudgmental way, but having the ability to say, okay, this is where
I'm at, and this is where I'm going.
And this is a trap that I seem to be falling into here.
I know there is possibilities out of this that are not warranting me
to break up my relationship or to, you know, stop the hobby that I love
doing or whatever the case may be.
Um, therefore I will focus on finding what this path is
going to look like for myself.
When you say self assess your reality, I thought that was an
interesting choice of words.
What do you mean by that?
What do I mean by your reality?
Yeah, I mean, instead
of the reality, self-assess your reality?
Well, everything is contextual, right?
And so, and this goes in line with risk assessment, for example, like
a small, tiny, tiny little variable might change, uh, completely change
the course of action in dealing and resolving a situation, whether it's
a tactical dilemma or anything else.
And so having the ability to grab the overall concept, which.
The concept of introspection, the concept of looking inwards to see the
concept of not being deflecting, the blame, the concept of not staying in
a box as it pertains to my own life right now in light of, you know, my
relationship, my job, my, my goals, my career aspirations and all the, the, I,
I would say, um, the factors that make it such a complex operation, because
seven might be in front of me telling me that this is one of the options, but
for me right now, at the moment that isn't based on this, that, or the other
thing, so it's not, don't get me wrong.
Like it's not a perfect science, but you know, what's imperfect is go
generations upon generations of Canadian.
Service people going through the same things, looking back, going, I wish I
could go back to 20 year old me and have those conversations and just walk away and
not say anything to the next generation.
And the next generation does the exact same thing.
So don't, you know, there is no mirror, there's no miracle pill here.
Our goal is not to save everybody's marriage.
And our goal is not to save.
Everybody's falling, falling in some of the traps that we fell into and it
inherently, it will happen anyways, because you'll be warning people and they
will be in denial that this isn't them.
And now they won't appropriate this information to their own reality.
So they'll end up in the same trap anyway, but at the very least when
they're reassessing, having falling in that trap, there'll be like I
was stoled and I didn't listen.
And also he reinforces the point.
So our goal is not to change the world.
Our goal is to provide, uh, different viewpoints of, of the same.
Um, yeah.
Or I don't want to call it problem, but just different viewpoints.
And so that the people that are seeking, you know, excellence in whatever field
of endeavor know that there is a way to do it without it impacting versus,
you know, you gotta be prepared to, to just put everything aside and
just focus a hundred percent in.
And, and, and, and yes, there is some of that, but there is a time for that.
And then there is a time for being a dad and there is a time for being a
boyfriend in a, in a, in a husband.
And there's a time for the family and, and the travel and the, the other things.
And, you know, there's, there's, there's no, there's, there's no way
to make it perfect, but you can make it perfectly imperfect, you know?
So, you know, you talk about things like resiliency.
I think it was Dave Grossman.
He wrote the book on killing and on combat, and he's got a new book coming
out, actually that he's a, I don't know if we're allowed to talk about it yet,
but it said a couple of Canadian people have teamed up and are in a joint book.
So I'll just put that teaser out there.
And maybe we can talk about this at a later time.
Um, But he talks about resiliency in the form of, uh, people, specifically
people who aren't kind of subject to PTSD at a, at a later time.
And Dave, Grossman's a highly kind of he's.
He espouses his faith as a big backbone for that.
And I, he says that the research has shown that people who have minimal
to no effects from PTSD are ones that have a strong sense of faith.
And I'm wondering when we, when you talk about a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
of what you're a black belt in the last podcast, he talked about it.
When I, when I brought up the point and I says like, you know, are we just
learning these things now about how to deal with, uh, with trauma and PTSD?
And you said, when did we forget it?
This has always been a part of, of what we do.
W does faith play any aspect into, um, what you do for your part of
your cognitive resiliencies and faith doesn't mean having to believe in some
person in a cloud, it could be faith in, in whatever, but does that play a
part in your cognitive resiliencies?
Yeah, I believe
it does.
I mean, ultimately what it comes down to is purpose, right.
So when you're looking at faith, for example, then there's a higher purpose,
which is, and so is it directly correlated to higher purpose or is it
directly correlated to the specifics of whatever faith you are following?
Right.
But I would say that.
For my part, spirituality has always been a big part of my life, whether,
um, you know, the, the, the manmade sort of religious endeavors are, are
not something that I always was not only attracted to, but I, I was having
a hard time with some of the concepts.
Right.
And, and, and the reason why I was, is because there was certain, very evident
biases that were injected over time.
Uh, you know, in some, in some of the, some of the religious, some of
the religious endeavors, but I would say that in terms of spirituality
or, or really feeling the sense of higher purpose, I definitely had that.
And it wasn't higher purpose as in I'm serving a greater purpose
than the person that works for me.
It wasn't that, but it was taking the focus off of myself
and going to the collective.
Right.
And that, to me, gave a strong sense of purpose.
Like the collective is what I was truly focused on.
What can I bring to the collective?
How can I sacrifice to protect a collective?
And it gave me such a strong sense of, um, of purpose and duty that
you there's no question that it was easier for me to rationalize
some of the emotional injuries.
That I, you know, sustain as a result of my duties.
And so humans are, and we've spoken about that before, but
humans are 90% emotions, right?
And so 10% is conscious thoughts.
And the problem with that is that because it's conscious thoughts,
we think it's the other way around.
And so at the end of the day, it becomes about controlling our
emotions, not so much, you know, what our thought processes are.
And so for me, um, I was compassionate.
I was invested, I was all those things, but you know, not
over-invested and not over-invested in things that I can't change.
And I would invest my time, energy and emotions in things that I truly
had influence over, you know, things that are directly in my sphere
of influence things that I have a little bit of influence over.
I would, I would invest a little less emotions thing that are
completely out of my control.
I gave no time to, because you know, you start, you start spreading yourself
really, really thin, really quickly.
And so I wouldn't say it's a it's, it's not certainly not a singular approach
to, you know, building resiliency, right.
It's a multi-pronged approach.
So, and that, that was something that I was thinking about before as well.
When you say spreading thin, you give a lot, I mean, people who look on your
social media feed, you, there's a lot of positivity that you convey to others.
Obviously we can't be 100% positive, 100% of the time we need those
ebbs and flows in order for us to appreciate when it's good.
If we never knew what it was like when it was bad.
But with that, you're probably going to find that there are people who will
cling on to you for that positivity.
Do you find that to be draining?
Like there's only so much Seb to give, to give around how do you,
how do you draw those boundaries for your own mental health?
Well, one of the things that I, that I, that I did that really helped me
was to retire because one of the issues was I had my social media presence,
which isn't substantial by any stretch, but it was substantial enough and I
was having enough engagement that.
Often receive messages and emails and calls and have people wanting to
discuss certain things a little bit more and people that needed help.
And I always did it always.
It didn't really matter who you were.
I always responded and oftentimes I'd be responding with, you know, some
sort of novel, you know, that I written because those, the questions were
simple, but the answers were complex.
So I would have to launch into those, those things.
And I really enjoyed doing that, but managing my own career and
my family life and everything at the same time was very difficult.
So when I decided to retire, I made this, which was a passion for me,
a part of what I was now doing.
And so I started, you know, performance coaching and I started doing those things.
And so now, and it's, it's been a big transition because I never
liked to charge people for certain things and helping people was
always something I'd done for free.
But now I was running into the scenario where it was becoming overwhelming for me.
Right.
And so.
With my social media, as it stands, what I tend to do is I tend to, and
there's so much content out there now with like all the podcasts I've been
on and some of the documentaries, those types of things, what I've started
doing with people is because humans will take the path of least resistance.
They know I have 30 podcasts out and it will ask me, what should
I do to, you know, become this?
Or what should I do if I want to go into policing or whatever, I'm like, listen,
I got lots of content out there once you are done reviewing and listening to some
of those, which is a time investment.
And you're not going to get the instant gratification of getting an
answer today, but you will get the gratification of knowing you've done
the work and you've researched it.
And now you have the answers that you are looking for.
And if there's anything left outstanding, come back to me and
we'll have that conversation.
That's kind of what I had to do to draw the line because I was getting inundated
with, with this, the same questions over and over again, the quick fix.
Yeah, for sure.
And you know, this is not something that's.
This is not something that's, um, that only people that are
wanting to go somewhere doing this is what most people do.
So if I was a team leader, when I was a team leader in a team and the
guys had access to me because my were cubicles, you know, we're open.
And that, and it was like an open floor format.
And every time they walked by, they could ask me a question with respect to
something that they definitely, their peers would have known about that I
definitely didn't need to be, um, you know, tapped on the shoulder for that.
So what I used to tell the guys is like, look, you're,
first of all, ask your peers.
If you don't get the answer, ask your supervisor.
And if you still don't have it come to me.
Right.
And, and if there is something that really, it needs to be addressed
right now, evidently come to me.
But if there is a way for you to work out the information without, so that I can
focus on my administrative task and make sure that the team is as is running the
way it should, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna need some help here at boys, you know?
So it re yeah, so it's, it's, so it's no different and humans,
humans are lazy by nature, right?
Yep.
And we just want, we just want the quick fix.
So
see, that's something that I've struggled with because I
can to like, to help people.
And when people ask for help, I will almost always say.
Yes, not a problem.
How can I help?
I will drop everything that I'm doing so it can help somebody else.
Because in my mind, if somebody is taking that step to reach out
and ask for help, well, it must be something pretty substantial, right?
Because I don't know about you.
All I do know about you.
You're not the type of person to go out and putting your hand out
and asking for people for help.
I'm not the type of person to ask people for help.
If someone's asking me for help, I naturally kind of think that they
must be kind of like me and they must need some something quite quickly.
And I, a good friend of mine says, Travis, the problem with people with good
enhances is those with ill intentions will use those good intentions against them.
And I don't know if people will do that.
Some people will do that.
Intentionally.
Most people don't even realize that they're doing it.
And being able to draw that line and say, listen to the podcast, listen to
the, the work that I've put out, take a look, read some of the stuff I had
that I think that's a brilliant way to be able to ensure that if someone's
coming to you for help, that they are putting in the work themselves.
Um, if somebody's listened to all the podcasts, read your literature, read
your, do you feel they would know, you
know, Not really.
I do think that, um, there is a, there is there still, there still are a lot
of misconceptions with respect to not only me, but people like me, you know,
and it's, and it's very interesting.
So I'll, I'll give you a, I'll give you an example.
Um, let's, let's talk about Jocko willing, for example.
Right.
And I, and I obviously respect hold a ton of time for him and everything
he's trailblazed and everything he's accomplished and amazing leader,
but Jocko who was a Navy seal commander is often seen as this.
And to a certain extent he's responsible for that, but he's
often seen as a bad-ass, right?
Like he, he's a bad-ass that gets up at four 30 in the morning, eats ammo.
And, uh, and, and, you know, and, and, and so, and so when the younger generations or
the people that are aspiring to be in a, in a shoes that Jocko was in, for example,
they miss that when he speaks about his guys, he tears up when he, when he does
certain things like, and so what we have here is actually, um, Uh, an incredibly
caring human that cared about his people more than he cared about anything else.
And you see that very evidently.
So what you're now missing is you're seeing, you know, him working out hard,
him being a black belt in jujitsu, him doing this, him doing that.
But the reality of what made him such a great leader is the amount
of care he put in these people.
And so if you were to miss that part, you are now sort of, you are crafting yourself
into this bad-ass that doesn't have the balance of the other side of this.
And there's real issues with this there's real issues with being a
self-discipline hard-ass that doesn't have the compassionate side that doesn't
have, um, you know, the caring side that doesn't have that self-awareness,
that self-regulation, that doesn't have.
And so, and, and Joel core course, isn't going to go out and say, I'm an
emotional person, or I'm a person, or I'm a person that, you know, loved, you
know, Markley or whoever, you know, past, um, obviously as a result of war under
his command about man, like, if you are paying attention, you are seeing that.
And if, and, but that's.
With some steps back.
Right.
But if you're, if you're, if you're singularly focused on a certain goal
and you're looking at David Goggins and you're looking at the Jocko Willink, and
you're wanting to be one of them badasses, you often will miss the other side of
that, which is, you know, the rest of the stuff that, that I just spoke about.
So for me, I I'll often, and, and again, I have, you know, tattoos on my hands.
I have this Mohawk, I have this.
And so a part of that itself is self.
Um, and not self-imposed.
But part of that is, is, is, is me creating a certain image with myself,
you know, not that that image, isn't a reflection of who I am, but
that image is a part of who I am.
It's not who I am.
Unfortunately, you only seeing what the eye, what the eye can see, and
you hear a very narrow, um, sort of, it's a very narrow view on the
inside, on the inner workings of, of someone, even if you have 30 podcasts.
And as you mentioned before, and I actually, I, you know, I couldn't agree
more with you is that people tend to ask the same questions and we, we, we
tend to go to same tangents and we, we tend to stay in the realm of where
I was an SME, you know, and that's generally policing, tactical operation
training, those types of things.
So it proliferates the.
The stigma.
Right?
Right.
So my high school grad quote, one of them, cause I have two different
quotes at two different high schools.
I think in another podcast that's out there.
People will know, I think was five high schools.
I went to got into a little bit of trouble, but, um, one of my high
school grad quotes was by and it was out of suffering have emerged
the strongest souls, the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Now for you, there's scars both physically and non-physical.
And I figured in one area that's easy for us to talk about the easy things that we
can go through areas where you're in SME.
And we can talk about that.
And maybe we can talk about the other one as well.
And it's something that I think a lot of people listening would get value out of.
But let's start with the easy one you came in here.
I was surprised you're walking in.
I offered to give you a ride in here because I didn't know
what your mobility was like.
You've suffered a pretty substantial.
Injury.
And did you want to talk about that?
Sure.
Yup.
So on August 25th, 2021, so this year, um, I was having a minor surgery
done on the left calf compartment and I was in Toronto, Canada.
And, um, that night I started experiencing, um, what we now know to
be compression syndrome and, uh, sorry, compartment compartment syndrome.
Yes.
I stand corrected.
I should know.
Oh, you've got, this goes to show.
Um, and, and so, you know, I fell a bit of a victim of my ability to
withstand pain because I associated the pain that I was feeling to the
surgery that I had earlier that day.
But really the pain I was experiencing was much higher than
what I should have experienced.
I just didn't know.
Right.
So, um, I remained in compression for over 26 and I, and this is a total
oversimplification of this story.
Cause there is a few calls to the doctors and a few trips to the
merge and doing all this stuff.
But ultimately what it result the end result was I was in
compression for 26 hours.
And my, essentially for those that don't know, uh, compartment syndrome is, and
this is a again an oversimplification, but it's basically the muscle is.
Swelling to the point where it outgrows the capacity of the pocket
that it's in, which is the fascia.
Once it happens, it starts restricting blood flow by constricting the blood
vessels and the nerves and everything.
And if, if there is too much time spent in compression, a muscle may die from
essentially oxygen starvation, right?
So muscle and nerves can can die.
At which point they become useless to you and they need, they need to
be removed before they send your body into a tailspin of, of toxic shock.
So after 26 hours in compression, between August 26th to October 1st, I had nine
surgeries to, they called them the bride men, where they remove necrotic
tissue tissues from my left leg, uh, essentially the totality of my left calf.
Not that I had any substantial calf before that
joke about it.
Totally.
But, um, but they, you know, they took whatever I had that my friends
could make fun of and removed, removed the totality of it, um,
which causes its own set of issues.
But anyways, when I was in Toronto, I spent 28 days bedridden, uh, You know,
taking opiates and pain medication that was evidently required at the
time, so that I could heal the issue that came after was I was sent home
with the same opiates and my pain level was now a lot lower rate.
And so managing, um, the lack of tapering as I like to call it,
because I essentially went cold Turkey was a, you know, a problem.
Um, but so now where it stands now is the wound is closed since October 1st.
And I have been able to walk and do certain things like I can do
jujitsu and, you know, not to the extent that I could before, and I
generally pay for it later, but I can still engage in a reasonable amount.
But right now where we're at is January as the reassessing, Nate, as my
tibial nerve was believed to be dead.
And if the tibial nerve returns, which I believe it has returned, um,
there's kind of two possibilities.
It's either we're going to reconstructive surgery route, which would mean that
foreseeably I'll be in surgeries for the next six, say two years.
You know, I probably have another nine, if not more, to try to rebuild some
functionality in that leg, which is also an unknown, cause we don't know
what the end result is going to be or the tibial nerve or the nerves are not.
Sufficiently back.
And a determination is made that amputating that leg below
the knee is the best option.
I have my thoughts on that.
And, um, and, and the conversation is obviously a corporate cooperative approach
to problem solving this with the doctors.
It's not just a one-sided affair where they say, well, we want to keep the leg.
And I say, we want to, you know, let's take it off or vice versa,
but it's a cooperative approach.
Like what are we looking at?
What is the prospect?
What is, and, and, and really conduct a risk assessment to see
which one of those two options is better for me when the time comes.
So that's kind of where we're at right now.
And, um, I would say that.
The biggest downside right now is like the ancillary issues that I seem
to have related to the condition.
So that's the neurological, there's something called a neuropathic
itch, which wants to the central nervous system is affected deeply.
It may trigger, um, a hive sorta S you know, feeling as if I, I have to scratch,
you know, scratch myself all the time.
Cause I'm itchy and it gives me shivers.
I'm constantly cold.
And at night I will have night sweats, you know, and I've had
night sweats for God, like three and a half months or so every night.
And we are talking about, you know, multiple changes of
clothes and from the neuropathy.
Yeah.
So we don't know exactly where it's coming from.
The, the blood levels are all good.
Everything's kind of good to go, but somehow I still have
all these ancillary issues.
So, um, yeah, so that's been a challenge, but it is what it is.
So
obviously the physical side, there's lots of pain that's associated with that.
Uh, there is the interesting side note about the medication and the opiods that
they, they, they put you on and you said, you just decided that's it cold Turkey.
I'm off.
Well, what was that like?
Yeah,
it was stupid is that's what it was like.
So, and when I say it was, I'm not deflecting this to anybody else, like I
was stupid to do with the way I did it and whether or not help was available for me,
I really try to reach out and add to time.
I will say this in the United States and in Canada, there was
really nobody responsible for the transition, from a certain, um,
level of taking pain medication to, to address, uh, to address pain.
And then through D okay.
To pain is now, you know, six levels lower.
And how do we take her off?
And there is a science behind that tapering off.
It's not just the logical linear approach, you know, like, oh, well, when I felt, say
on a scale from one to 10, with 10 being the most pain you could feel, if you said,
well, I'm a four and now I'm an, or I was a four and I took this much medication.
Now I'm a nine, I'm taking this much medication.
Therefore, if I go back to four, I should go back to exactly what I was taking,
because it doesn't work like that.
No, you got a hammer.
It doesn't exactly.
So, you know, and so what we have found is that.
Uh, there is a problem beyond the pandemic with respect to opiates
and, um, overdosing in the states and here in Canada, it very, very serious
problem, which also, you know, by virtue of me doing all the research to try
to, to fix what I knew was fixable.
I also stumbled upon the fact that, Hey man, like a lot of people that
are on east Hastings or on the streets today, a lot of them have
been prescribed legally prescribed opiates to begin with as a result of
a surgery or an injury or whatever.
So it's a terrifying prospect.
And, um, yeah, and so for me, it, it took time and it took a lot of pushing
the medical professionals along the way to help me get off the opiates.
And I do not have, uh, an addictive personality at all.
And I was, are you sure?
Yes.
Somebody who even exercise even pursuit of excellence, you wouldn't say that would
follow into an predicted with personality.
No,
I, I believe here's what the difference is.
Okay.
I need to work out every day.
Like I need to work out every day if I don't, I, I don't, I don't feel right.
Or I don't feel right about myself or it messes up my day or it, and if I don't
and if I skip it for whatever reason.
I'm disappointed in myself or I have to make it up or whatever.
I was never like that for me, it was about, I need to work out.
It's a self sacrifice.
I don't like it.
I don't care for it.
If I don't do it, I couldn't care less.
If you gave me the same level of fitness, I'd be sitting on the couch somewhere,
reading, doing other things with my time.
I don't know if that makes any sense.
So it was a means to an end.
It wasn't, this must happen.
You know, it was, it was, it, this must happen, but it must
happen in order to get this done.
Interesting.
So it was, it was more of a professional responsibility
that I had to train like that.
People always say that to me, it's like, oh, you love training.
No, I don't give me the same results.
And, and, and let me just hang out.
I will, I will use those, uh, those many hours spent in
the gym to do something else.
Right.
And just, and, and even if I was even if, even if there was a certain degree
of addiction in this, the responsibility of making sure that the people that
are taking these medications in my opinion, is on the medical world, right?
Like you have a responsibility as, as medical professionals to not only.
Assist the people with managing their pain, but also the follow through,
like how do we ensure they don't end up on the road on the street?
How do we ensure that they don't end up overdosing?
How do we ensure that they don't end up affecting their way of life, their
families, their, you know, and so there is a responsibility and somehow, somehow
for the longest time in the Canadian system, it was nobody's responsibility.
So there was zero accountability.
And so I was informed that very recently, uh, Vancouver general
has had a transitional pain clinic created smart, but we are talking
about how many years have we been handing out opiates like candies?
Totally.
I mean, it's been, you know, over 20 years.
So, um, and the amount of people that are suffering deeply from
opiate addiction is unfathomable.
So there's a, uh, leave.
He's a doctor, at least a professor.
I believe he actually resides in north Vancouver.
And at some point I, if it's something the listeners are interested in, I
might just reach out to him, but I, he.
Pioneered a study called rat park.
And I don't know if you've heard of this one and it's come under fire.
Some people have different ideas on it, but the end results of it is led
to a more harm reduction and then people in the downtown east side.
But the essence of it was they were doing studies on the addictiveness
of different types of narcotics.
And they stuck a rat into a cage with a water bottle and they lace it with cocaine
or methamphetamines or with opiates.
And they would find within a few days all there.
And they'd given two different water bottles, one with water
and one with the drug lake sweat.
And they'd find that this rat more often than not would go to the drug laced one.
And next thing you know, a few days later, the rats dead, cause
it just couldn't get enough.
And this individual with some others postulated, well, hold on a second.
We give diamorphine to our grandmas when they break their hip and they
come out of the hospital and they're not ending up down county side.
Why is it that some people find themselves on this downward spiral will other people.
Don't is it that the drug is so addictive or is it the environment in which they
were raised in and that they're currently in and they introduce this drug into it.
And so he said, let's make rat park and they'll give them a whole bunch of
other rats to play with and other rats to meet with and wheels to turn on and
all different types of toys and stuff.
And he came back and said, yeah, there's some rats I would like to party.
And they'd like the drugs, but only a few.
And they weren't doing it to a point of killing themselves.
But by and large, given their druthers, these rats would go for
the water over top of the opiates.
So I think when you're talking about having a proper pain clinic,
holy Crow, is that ever important?
I'm wondering if people have to be genetically predisposed or cognitively
predisposed in order to be suffering from addiction from these opiates, or if it's
just the opiates or the drugs, whatever it might be in and of themselves, it's
enough to, uh, uh, to cause that hook.
I don't know.
Um,
I mean, I don't know, but then we have to look at is, is the things that we do
know if we're not providing anything.
We're now we're anomic they essentially making a stance that you're, if you're
addicted, as you were meant to be addicted, and if you're not addicted,
you're just not, you know, whereas we have, there is we're providing the
information, what people do with the information, because ultimately doctor
isn't going to come to your house and make sure you've taken one instead
of two or that you've you've that you followed the tapering procedures to
the letter and you are, you know, so there's always a way, but what do we do?
Do we throw our hands in the air and say, well, people are just predisposed
to, you know, being addicted to opiates.
And I don't think we can take that at all.
Like it's it's and, and we do that quite a bit.
We do, I, as humans, I feel like we're doing that quite a bit.
I feel like this ties right into another thing that we see a lot of is let's not
explain to people why we do certain things and I'm referring to in the policing
context, for example, they can be taken out of policing, but let's have people
have a really strong opinion on something and we will not go and ahead of the bar
in front of the camera and, and, and attempt at explaining or articulating
why it is that we made a certain decision because they will not undertake.
And that's entirely, it isn't
entirely erroneous.
Like people are, are way smarter than we give them credit for.
Sometimes it takes a, uh, you know, a little bit of time to kind of process
the information and perhaps it has to be delivered properly and the person has to
be genuinely credible and have all this information, um, to offer and, and, and,
and, and answers to some of the rebuttals.
But we do that all the time.
You know, we, we, we paint people in boxes.
You're either addicted or you're not, it's not that simple,
you know, when you, and I'm looking, I mean, Siri's getting
a new police force out here.
I think it's a w what are your thoughts on that?
Having spent so much time with Vrse and number two, and we don't have to get it.
Yeah.
It hit the front vehicle and the tail vehicle, then I'm stuck in
between trying to get off the ex.
Um, no, I mean, it, you know, I, I think I've made my, my thoughts known on that.
I, you know, I would say that a lot of the, a lot of the things, those
are not mutually exclusive, so there is what's being done to, to create,
um, the police service, which is, you know, who they hired and, and,
and, and, and, and what they're trying to do with their leadership.
And what they're trying to do with our model is, is a positive, like, there's
nothing wrong with w w what they're doing.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the way DRC and P has done business for the last,
however many years that we were in Surrey.
Now, the issue is, is the things that are now being offered to these
guys in their new capacity are the things that the RCMP was asking for
so that they made do the job properly.
Right?
So for me, it's sad that we AE, um, are now telling the current members of
the RCMP, like, evidently you weren't good enough and you didn't do the
job hard enough and you weren't there for us or whatever the case may be.
When clearly there was a lot of areas that were lacking that were
communicated over and over again, that weren't being resolved.
And now we're setting up the new police force for success by
giving them all the tools that the RCMP has been asking for for so
long.
Right.
How's that affect morale
and it's, and it's, it's a really tough one, right?
It's a really tough one.
I have friends on both sides of that fence, which I don't think
there is a fence, but you know, I'm just, um, yeah, they're there.
Like I said, they're not mutually exclusive, like both.
To a certain extent or are doing the things right, but there is the, the
political environment and everything as was changed or the context was changed.
And now you are going to, you're going to be assessing the results or the
outcome of having implemented a new police force and say, see, I told you
that this was the right way to go.
What would you have done is given them what the RCMP was asking for?
And the reason I not to just completely go off on a tangent.
I'm just wondering, the reason I brought that in was not tangental.
It was because I'm wondering if it's got to do with the way that the
RCMP was communicating and had they communicated things differently.
There's this whole defund, the police mentality going on in the states.
And the RCMP is a large target, right in Canada, they're large organization.
And they've been around for a long time.
And consequently, when they're in their position, they're also kind
of easy for people to throw rocks out of there at the top of the pole,
too, they're going to make mistakes.
They're going to do things that are well, but have there been a
different approach in communication?
Had they treated the citizenry as if they were intelligent or more intelligent
in some areas or maybe less, uh, informed in other areas and used their.
To publicly inform.
Do you think we'd even be in this position?
Yeah, it's, it's really hard to tell, you know, cause it's really hard to
quantify things that weren't right.
Like how do, how do you know how it would have impacted, but I can tell
you this, um, current RCMP commanding officer of the division now, Duane
McDonald was, um, an and an AECOM at the time in Surrey, responsible for Surrey.
And he was out with some solid arguments and some solid articulation as to
why they were doing certain things.
And, and even when, to the extent of explaining to the citizen, we've
been asking for those things all along, just so you understand and, and
providing context, doing all this stuff.
And he did a fantastic job, which was very unusual for the RCMP for a, such a
high ranking person to go out and do it.
And then evidently he's got the charisma and he's got everything.
He's an excellent leader.
Um, former it guy, by the way as it hurt.
But, um, but, but yeah, so I, I do believe that there was an attempt made
in, in communicating those things.
Um, and you know, whether or not it would have made a difference
if it was at a higher level.
I have no idea.
You know, I'm wondering how much hands are tied here because at a
political level, it was interesting was talking with the individual
Nicholas Johnson and he says some.
His idea on public safety.
And he says, you know, public safety should start from the individual level.
The individual should be able to take care of themselves and should
be able to take care of their family.
And from there, each individual is able to protect themselves and consequently,
you achieve public safety, but he says, we've gone backwards in his opinion where
public safety is now, something that's been abrogated onto some other body
in this case, policing or the federal government to turn around and say, we
will provide you your public safety do not take matters into your own hands.
Do not train yourself in certain ways to be safe because we will come after you.
Um, I'm wondering if the RCMP situation who was more or less sort of being
hamstring by the current political climate of, um, not allowing individuals
to defend themselves or to be, um, responsible for their own public safety.
I feel like you're specifically talking about firearms here.
Not
specifically, not this individual was specifically talking about firearms,
but you know, it can come into, let's say martial arts, you're, you're
learning self-defense for yourself.
You're learning a system for morality and some of the martial arts, right.
Um, you're gaining a teamwork and connection and all of
these different things.
But if you want to go and use that yourself, you you're going
to have to be very well-schooled in the legal parameters, right.
That surround that.
So you're not using excessive force or you're not instigating or doing
things that are, uh, offside, but, uh, as well, there seems to be a
general, um, a general attitude that's, uh, portrayed over and over again.
Don't worry.
Just, you know, call up the police.
We'll take care of you.
Call up don't don't take care of this yourself.
The government will come in and take care of you and people seem all too willing.
To sit back and say, what's the government going to do to fix this?
Right?
I mean, you look at an Abbotsford when the flooding happened and their local
government said the pump stations were going down, the glocal government
says, don't go there and we're going to send police out to keep guys away.
This is a dangerous situation.
And as primarily farmers and normal citizens that came out and said, no,
we're going to take matters into our own hands and we're going to work.
And there was so many people that showed up that the fire department
said, well, you're here anyways.
Let's put you to work.
And their efforts abated a disaster.
Um, the, well, me be all before I go too far off base there.
What are your thoughts on that?
What are your thoughts on people taking personal responsibility
for their own safety?
And I, is that at odds with where, um, the current political climate
would, uh, currently stand, like people are afraid of being sued.
The government wants to try and do something and say something,
but not really do anything because if they really put their neck
out there, they might get sued.
Um, I guess that's a slight tie into what we're talking about.
Yeah.
I
mean, The answer is yes, people are responsible for their own safety in
terms of situational or an S in terms of having predicated contingencies and,
and, you know, and implemented some safety mechanisms in their own lives.
And I have never, in my 20 years in the RCMP heard the RCMP management or anybody
say, people shouldn't be doing that.
You know?
And so what w w the, the problem and what makes things a little blurry is that if we
tell them if from a political standpoint, if we stay, if we tell the population,
okay, you, you ought to do these things.
Then there is an expectations that there ought to be money for these things that
there
ought to be support for these things.
So, so there's implication with doing that.
So from a political standpoint, but it's like, do you need to be told everything?
You know, like, no, I don't, I don't need to be told everything I don't need.
I don't need to be, I don't need to be, um, babysit through life
by the government, so to speak.
Right.
And so, and then with that, what comes next is the deflection, because a
lot of people will not want to take responsibility for their own safety.
That's somebody else's job.
So that way, when they, it doesn't go according to plan, there's
somebody else to blame, not me.
Right.
Um, and so.
How do you reconcile that?
Right?
And first of all, what we need to stop doing is wearing
rose colored glasses, right?
Then we need to have the conversations and that starts, where does it start?
Does it start in school?
Does it start later?
Does it, is, is, you know, is this, um, is there, is there a communication strategy
that we can employ to, to remind people, you know, and, and everything that we
do and we choose to do has potential ramifications, whether good or bad.
And so, for example, if somebody was taken martial arts and that the
purpose of them taking the martial arts is, is that they can defend
themselves, should the need to arise.
Well, then they need to know what are the limitations of that, of the
ability to defend yourself in this country, for example, and what are
some of the traps to fall into?
Because it's, it's really easy.
You know, something happens, I feel threatened and I react a certain way.
The person ends up being struck with a closed fist.
The person goes to the ground, I stopped dare disengage, call the police, tell them
to, you know, whatever the case may be.
Or I just add an extra kick in the head while they're down.
Whoops.
No, exactly right.
So where, where is that line now?
Same things.
Same thing happens again, but this time the person that's now on the ground was
reaching for something in their waistband.
And I had it an extra kick.
Was that reasonable?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Based on the totality of the circumstances, I think, uh, you know, a
reasonable person would say, yeah, this, and there's a lot of the way there as
well, because there's no professional training in those various, um, you know,
there's no, there was no expectations.
So for example, if a police officer or off-duty police officer responds a
certain way, there is an expectation, a professional expected expectations
of how this should be handled.
Whereas a civilian has a little bit more leeway, right?
And so they don't need to know law the law nearly as good.
They need to know it.
They need to know where their rights start and where they end and how
to stay within those boundaries.
But I guess the point I'm making is, so now if you've, if you've gone to
your martial arts studio and you've started training yourself and you've
done all this, but you've never looked at the legal side of things, whose
fault is that don't look around.
Like, you know, don't look around, there's nobody else to blame.
So we, we have the internet, we have open source things and information everywhere
and reliable source of information to boot, not just any information.
And yes, there is information out there that's but you generally can,
can, can see it really quickly.
You just have to read the comments, you just have to, you know, and
you'll, you'll, you'll get a sense too, as to whether or not the source
of the information is reliable.
Right.
And so, and so if we are to take responsibility for our own wellbeing,
if we were to take responsibility for our own safety, then we have
to take responsibility for where are our rights, you know, stopping.
So
where, I guess, where I was going with this, cause I wanted
to touch on the Siri thing.
And I thought that was a perfect kind of segue to at least
talk about that generally.
And I wanted to talk with the personal responsibility part because you're talking
about your leg and your you've got some options that you have to weigh right now.
Uh, growing up, I had a neighbor down the block and he he'd throw
pickleball tournaments every year.
And there was prizes that were given away that were just crazy.
I mean, Carr was one, one year PV.
I mean, it was just nuts and it was this guy's license plate was a highly drug
atory term for anybody from South Africa.
But nobody over here knew it.
Um, In previous years, this fellow was in a motorcycle accident and I
forget what bridge he is going over, but he had his leg ripped off and
a doctor said, your leg is useless.
It won't be able to do anything with it.
You're you're done you're amputated.
And he said, F that, so the thing back on, I don't care if the thing rots off
me or putting it back on, they did.
And, and result is he's able to play pickleball and have these tournaments.
Right.
And he walked around with a limp, but he took personal responsibility
against the wishes of what the doctors were based on his gut, feeling
more than any medical profession.
If it comes to a point where the doctor is looking at you and say, it's our
professional opinion that we're going to have to be looking at amputation,
how are you going to deal with that?
Would you take a similar approach to this individual?
Or like what what's, what does that thought process look like?
So far has been the other way around.
They are wanting me to keep it and I'm telling them, and I'm trying
to convey to them that the level of functionality that they're
offering, isn't going to work for me.
Okay.
So I'm not keeping this thing with a 40% functionality.
Like, this is not conducive to my lifestyle at all.
It's not conducive to me going out, doing the sprints.
It's not conducive for me to be jumping.
It's not conducive to me, you know, hiking and doing whatever
I really enjoy doing in life.
Uh, some of the things that are not necessary, but are the way I
lived my life and I, and I enjoy it.
Um, so what was very apparent to me is that the way they measured functionality
rate and what's acceptable and what's not was a different person than me.
Right.
And so, you know, oh, your leg is, is, is going to look.
It's going to look nice.
You know, it'll be, it'll be, and eventually down the line, you may
even get, um, implants or whatever to try to balance your two legs.
And, you know, cause I don't have, obviously I don't have a
calf muscle in the left side.
So for me it was kind of the other way around.
Now there's a ton of anecdotal stuff around like, you know, you can go
to the Panama and get some stem cell research and you can do this and that.
And if you have 150, excuse me, $150,000 and all these other things.
Okay.
So at the end of the day, I'm going to have to make a call and
that call is going to be based on.
Educated guessed and evidence-based right, because we, we don't know
for sure what's going to happen.
But what I do know is this, if I send myself into another two years of
reconstructive surgery where opiates are going to be required, right?
Because we've spoken about the, you know, the downside of opiates, but let's call
a spade, a spade, don't take him and go through too much pain and you're not
healing because your body is in fight or flight and it just simply will not heal.
It just wants to survive.
Right.
So there is applications for these medications.
There is applicant there, there, you know, and we can't discount
that, but I'm not really interested in spending the next two to three
years in reconstructive surgeries.
I'm not right.
And, and that's, you know, if I was 20, it's a completely different story.
But right now at my age, my career, mostly behind me in terms of like the
career I really was seeking, you know, is, is kind of behind me and the need
for physicality to the point where I needed it as behind me as well.
And so for me now it's more about when can I go to Iceland?
You know?
And, and, and, and you know what I mean?
I know same here, right?
How long do I want to be on those pain killers?
How long do I want to be going through?
And the surgeries?
I mean, we're talking about this, you have nine surgeries.
I mean, this is nothing compared to somebody that was overseas that walked
over a, you know, an IED or whatever.
Um, but you know, it's still substantial to have, say nine surgeries.
And if you have another nine that's 18 total and they just
don't happen miraculously in between there's recovery time.
And then they go back and then it's, it's, it's, it's an
incredible amount of investment.
It's an incredible amount of pain.
It's an incredible amount of pain management.
It's an incredible amount of, you know, is this hardship right?
And, uh, and so the alternative is say, you go down the amputation route and
you are now looking at, say a 60, 70, maybe 75% functionality rate over the
course of the next, say, six months, you are going to be, you know, wearing that
prosthetic, doing, doing things that there is no way in hell you would have done.
Right.
And so now, you know, people will talk about Phantom pains and all
these other things while I get that right now, right at that right now,
I have like the incredible, you know, the pain that I have in there.
So.
The answer is no, I'm not going to, I'm not going to keep that limit
all costs, you know, and quite the other way around, I'm also not in
a rush to get it amputated, and I'm not making any rash decisions with
respect to it, but it's going to be an evidence-based risk assessment.
That's conducted to the best of my abilities with the opinion of medical
professionals taking into account.
And then we're going to go from there.
When I look back at the outcome favorable or not, I want to go back to the
decision-making process, take the emotions out of it and say, based on a totality
of circumstances and based on what I knew at the time, this was the best call
to make it backfired or had worked out.
But you can never be blamed for making the right call, right?
Is this, it is what it is.
It was a reasonable call at the time.
It didn't work out or it worked out, but ultimately based on the information
you had, that's always the
call.
That's all you can do.
And that's exactly how I look at it.
There's no, there's no, there's no overwhelming emotional attachment,
you know, there's no, um, yeah, to just isn't is this interesting?
It's kind of a, it's a process, right?
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah, the.
Lot of different ideas that we can chat about, but maybe I'll
just leave those for the moment.
Um, you have talked about your desire and willingness to stand
up for injustice, where you see it being a very easy decision for you
when you see it in others less.
So when you see it in yourself, why do you think that would be?
And this is going back to your last podcast.
Here are your very last podcasts that you did with.
And I'm going to get in trouble here,
Dave Morrow.
Are you talking about, I believe
it was that one.
Yeah.
That's exactly the, and by the way, hard to kill, what's the
name of the Steve SEL movie?
We're trying to remember that.
No, no, no, no mark for death.
It was marked for that.
Cause we called it hard to kill that, but that was a different one.
That was with a wet surface.
Yes.
His former wife.
That's right.
Um, what, what
was her name now with the worst love scene ever?
Well, it's Steven Seagal.
What do you expect?
Yeah, mark for a death where they cause they put the tongue on his door.
Sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Wicked movie.
Yeah.
If you were into specifics of golden, which we obviously are, um, can you
rephrase or reframe that question?
Cause I'm not getting, I'm not getting the, um,
okay.
So you made the statement that you always found it easy to stand up for injustice
when you see it happening to other people.
Yeah.
But you CA you let, and I think I got it in my notes here, but, uh, and I
don't want to misquote you, but you generally said that you find it difficult
to stand up for injustice when you, when it's happening to you and you
mentioned it at an early age, so maybe that was back then and not so much now.
Sure.
Yeah.
That was contextual.
And it was, and it was in my youth, in your youth.
So basically, and this was specifically attribute it to my
ability to, to physically do.
Myself or others.
So, okay.
So basically I would stand up for bullying when other people were being bullied and
B be prepared to sustain physical harm in interfering with the bullying process.
But when it happened to me, I just didn't have it in me to fight it.
So, you know, so it was, it was a strong sense of responsibility that somehow
took over me almost to an autopilot style when somebody else was being victimized.
But it didn't kick in when I was.
Does that make sense?
That's
interesting.
And I wonder why, I wonder what a psychologist would turn
around and say about that.
I think a psychologist has already taken the day off.
I spend an hour with you $9,000 and never call me again.
Oh man.
Yeah, no, this was specific to, to my, to, you know, a weird propensity
that I had of stepping up for helping everybody else and just not have
the ability to do it for myself.
And, um, which eventually changed substantially.
Did you, cause you've, you've talked openly about your mother and what
a great person she was and all the roles that she played in your life.
Uh, you have talked openly about the lack of a father figure or a lack of a father.
I should say.
Maybe not, not necessarily a lack of a father figure.
I think mothers when children are developing are incredibly, incredibly
important up to a certain age.
After a certain age, the father takes priority when a child needs the nurturing
and the loving and the, the affection that is generally attribute it to a mother.
When they get to their teenage years, a father will teach a boy how to
be a man and it'll teach your girls what kind of a man is acceptable
and how a man should treat a woman.
Um, did you, did you find somebody in that role to be able to assist
you in, in your development?
And do you think that the lack of having the, um, let's say the, the father in your
life, uh, puts you in a position where you want to stand up for others and you
want to basically be the man for others?
Does VanDamme count
was a reason.
I learned how to do the splits.
You
was the reason why we did a lot of things.
Um, you know, well, it is while it is important to have a father
figure, um, there's a lot of people out there with their two parents
and that's still don't have sure.
The perfect picture.
Right?
Sure.
And, um, mum knowing all of this, you know, doubled down on making
certain things happen that she knew were going to be shortcomings in
my, uh, sort of, you know, life.
Right.
And, um, whether or not that's affected me on a subconscious level, I don't know.
But what I do know is the primary reason why I hated injustice is because
I was always on the wrong end of it, you know, from a very, very young age.
Um, and, and this could have been attribute it to a variety of things,
but one of those was Quebec in the seventies where, and we're
not talking about Montreal here.
We we're talking about the north shore.
You know, the suburbs where it was mostly.
Visible minorities.
And I was clearly different, but I was also different.
So I was different in different, you know, in, in kind of in,
in, in, in more ways than one.
And I paid a hefty price for that difference.
The guy hefty price from a very young age and it was sustained and it was, it wasn't
just the, it wasn't just the people.
It wasn't just my peers, my other kids, it was the teachers.
It was, you know, there was an inherently racist bias.
And trust me, I am not one to pull out the race card I had never have, but I
can tell you this, that was blatant.
It was, it was blatant.
And it was, you know, the circumstances were such that, you
know, I'll give you an example.
I'll give, I'll give you, I'll give you actually two examples, right?
The inherent bias associated with who I was as an individual,
based on what I look like.
Um, you know, one of them, a little girl, so it was some little punks
were, you know, teasing and doing what kids do consistently, which is fine.
And one of them kicked a ball at me and in an attempt to hit me with it.
Right.
And I, and I raised my knee and the ball bounced off my.
Into his face.
And so he now goes to the teacher complaints about me.
The teacher never comes to me.
What happens though is during the class, she's going to make a point.
And I end up on all four with the kids beating me, you know, so she
puts me down and she essentially allows every single one of those
kids to come in and throw a kick in.
Right.
So there was no attempt at trying to ascertain the facts of what
happened, because despite the fact that that kid was coming after me,
I still felt bad for hurting him.
I, and so there was really no attempt at coming to me and
say, Hey, what happened here?
Like, you know, obviously he's bleeding from his nose, the
ball was returned to his face.
It sounds like you may have kicked it.
What happened?
Well, actually he was trying to hit me and I just raised my knee
and the knee shield kind of way.
And the ball bounced off my knee into his face.
It was accidental.
Okay.
So there was no attempt at doing that instead.
I got a beating, right.
And so fast forward a year or two later, they ran the first
ever, uh, school Olympics.
And in there was ShotPut high jumps sprints.
Pull-ups like, whatever.
Right.
And.
I don't know how to.
So anyway, what happens is after two days of competing, I am now
have won nine out of 10 gold medals and there's one discipline left.
Okay.
So tender storm comes in the whole bed.
We've already seen a room full of throw fees and metals and like accolades,
you know, out the ying yang for whoever are going to win those disciplines.
And the teachers have been all over the entire week was about those
Olympics, those many Olympians, right.
Or as they call them sure.
Back in Quebec.
But, um, now we're on day tour, three I've cleaned up, you know, in every
single, uh, sports or, or events.
It starts raining.
There's some thundering, everything, they shut everything down.
Then they basically say, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna resume later.
All this stuff.
We never resumed.
And.
We, they never handed out the prizes.
Like they never handed out the prizes and they never, you know, there
was never, so it sounds like a very innocuous things, but it's not, it's
not because here's what happened to me.
I was a champion, right.
I was inherently, I was a champion.
I was born to be one and I was going to be one.
And the rest of my life was spent being a runner up because I never truly
believed that I could be the champ.
And it sounds like an overdramatize, you know, but it isn't, it it's
taken such a toll on me that I always found myself short of winning and
it affected me in, in other areas.
It affected me in math and it affected me and other things because I stopped
believing I could, you know, I have to being cheated and it took me years.
It took me years to realize that, like this isn't like, you know, at the time
I already knew that, you know, you're missing up my life, you know, and it
wasn't that then it, and it, and it wasn't that it did mess up my life, but
it certainly has, um, uh, it's had an
impact.
It did.
I mean, that came, there's a few different things that I'd love to chat about here.
Cause that makes me angry when I hear that.
And I guess one thing just sort of forget about essentially dealing with
that anger because that's something that you can carry with you for a long time.
Um, but I can empathize in some ways too, because I was six foot four.
By the time I was in grade seven with size, I think it
was 13 shoes at that time.
And a towering above everyone, always a tall kid.
And it was always raised.
Be careful, you don't know your size.
You gotta be, don't just go half speed, go half.
And, uh, the people who were smaller were always encouraged, go hard, go hard.
Right?
You gotta, you gotta make up for the fact that this guy has so much and
you're, it does stick in your psyche, always feeling like, oh, I gotta be
gentle and never being able to truly live up to your potential so I can
empathize with some of those things.
But the part that would make me angry, it's just like the systemic
racism for no, any other reason how they treat an individual?
How, how do you, how do you reconcile some of those things?
Cause what happens in your youth will are things that are slowly
but surely fired into your brain and by the round 30 years older.
So they make up your personality, neurons that fire together wire
together, I think is how they put it.
And when everything starts solidifying up, despite there is neuro-plasticity
research that we can start rewiring our brains a certain ways.
You're probably, if I'm just guests here spending a fair bit of your time, rewire.
Sort of what happened in your youth into an area that in, into a way
that you wanted to fire properly now.
So how do you, how do you deal with that anger?
And do you find yourself having to rewire yourself?
Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question that I think
Jordan Peterson would be more qualified to answer, but I will say this, um,
the reason why I was so successful in my, in both my military and my police
career, and especially in the context of tactical operation, for example,
is that there is a game that's being played, that there in that game is
you're not good enough to join us.
You're not right.
And so the worst thing you can do to me is to say, we expect you to be
good at all, but if you're telling me you're nothing and you'll never
make it, it's like watch this.
Right.
And so from a, from a, from a performance, um, from a psychological performance
standpoint, for me being in environments where I'm consistently being told,
I'm not good enough is where at Excel.
Whereas if, if it's too, if it's, if it's, if there's a certain expectations
that I'm absolutely going to be the greatest, then I start, you know,
that's when self doubt would start to creep in and that kind of stuff.
So what I know happened over the years is I just channel that anger, like
anger firing in all directions is one of the worst emotion you can possibly.
And it's the bodyguard of sadness, right?
They're referred to it as a bodyguard of sadness.
There's a reason for that.
And it's also one that's really easy to exteriorize.
It's one of the emotions, that's the easiest to exteriorize, it's also one
of the most damaging one, but also it has tremendous, um, ability if used, if
channeled properly to use it for fuel.
And that's essentially what I did is I had a lot of anger.
I had a lot of resentment and, um, and I, I essentially knew that being successful
in whatever I took on was the best way to get payback, being that person that
can and will and would get it done.
Uh, and so in my teenage years at about, I would say.
1718 ish is when it truly, it truly happened.
And I started being very focused on where I was going and how I
was going to go about doing that and using the fuel to essentially,
you know, drive myself forward.
So it was a rechanneling and I don't know if it just happened
organically or if somehow there was a trigger, you know, I don't know,
dressing.
So, you know, when people look back, sometimes they'll look at things that
have happened and that will evoke emotions of anger or regret, or, uh,
maybe they'll just look at something and say, Hey, that's a good experience.
I learned from what liquid I've growed to.
They've been able to frame it in the proximal way, but often I found that,
uh, looking to the past will, if you're going to feel any regret or remorse,
that's all going to be past based fear.
Fear is in my opinion, enemy completely.
Future-based it's got nothing to do with your present reality.
It's got everything to do often
doesn't have anything to do with reality.
Totally,
totally.
Right.
Like people are afraid of the dark.
Okay.
Why put the light switch on and it's, and it's bright out.
I remember as a kid, actually, I was afraid of the dark and I think a lot of
kids are, and I am, my father was ERT.
He was in charge of them for.
I think it was about seven years actually, um, for Vancouver.
And so, um, brought out a duffel bag and I put on the Bella cloud, black makeup and
get all darkened up and learning about, uh, uh, the principles of camouflage and
shine, gene movement, silhouette shadow, like all the, uh, the general things.
And he says, okay, now you are the night.
Now you are the darkness and you are what other things in the dark or afraid of.
Right.
And so just that simple reframe of the, of the, uh, of the idea, but,
you know, getting back to fear, being sort of a forward looking thing.
Um, have you found yourself in situations where you're feeling fear and everyone
does, I think at some point or another, and how would you deal with that?
Well, it depends.
And the answer is, it depends, right?
Because contextually, it makes a big difference for me.
So for example, professionally, um, professionally induced fear where there's
a reasonable fear of harm, say on a, on a tactical operation, but then there's also
a disconnect because it's a professional achievement, it's a professional, uh,
you know, so then you can, it makes it easier to address in that context.
And then you have the fear of say, um, you know, I have two teenagers, right?
And one of them will be driving next year.
That's terrifying.
It's a terrifying prospect because I feel like she is a 11 in maturity, you
know, level, and this is no secret.
Like she can listen to this and she knows it.
Well, that's
your perception.
Of course he clearly isn't, but that's just the perception that we have because
there always are our babies to us.
And,
and so, and so, you know, I would say those are our two different
two different things, right.
And the way, the way I dealt with a fear and I, and I don't recall
like being, you know, overly fearful in the professional realm.
Um, mainly because we maintain tactical advantage, we've maintained,
you know, there's a variety of things that we can do to address
the issues that could potentially make that fear become a reality.
And the team helps with that.
That's right.
That's
right.
And then when it was on an individual basis, I had been where I had been,
I'd been at bounce surgery in the biker war, in Iraq machine that hell's
angels I've, you know, there's a ton.
So my sort of threshold for fear was quite high and very rarely do we encounter that.
So it wasn't a big issue.
Um, On, uh, on the personal side, I mean, it's no different right
now with my daughters and my daughter getting her license next
year and it is a part of life.
And it's just about letting go, that's it.
There is nothing else.
There is nothing else I'm going to do.
I'm going to have the conversations with her.
I'm going to have to, um, you know, I, I know there are
advanced driver courses out there.
I want her to have that.
I want her to have defensive driving.
Once she's had some time on the road, you know, also to provide her with the tools
to mitigate the risk, not to eliminate the risk, because there's always a risk.
If I provide the tools to mitigate the risk and something happens, something
happens, you know what I mean?
But it's a different story.
If, from my perspective, if I haven't done everything I could to mitigate the
risk and then something happens now, now there's the constant going back.
What could have been done?
What could have been done better to make her safer?
What could have been, you know, so I, it's almost like fear of being a very emotion.
Um, emotionally based sorta reaction.
Most of the time can be controlled with.
Rational thoughts, which has, you know, provided that there
are grounded in reality.
So if I know there is a process to make her that much better at
driving I've will reduce my fear.
It's not good.
It will not eliminate my fear, but it will reduce it to a manageable level,
which is what we should strive to be.
Right.
And then there's a, there's a, there's a, an element of,
of luck in everything as well.
And you know, you have to know that, but the harder you work, the
luckier, you think you seem to get
how that works weird.
Yeah.
So for, for that specifically, and I'm using this as an example, that's
going to be my way to risk mitigate and mine manage my fear because otherwise
we know what's going to happen.
I'm going to be overbearing.
I'm going to, you know, and, and, and you can do, you, you can actually,
um, send somebody in the tailspin that you're trying to avoid by
creating all this extra pressure.
You know?
So now I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm say transferring my fear to her by saying
now she's, uh, not a confident driver.
Now.
She is terrified of everything that moves and now she's focusing on the
wrong things or not, you know, and maybe she gets in an accident as a result
of having being so overwhelmed by the fearful emotions that I transmitted
over, you know, and again, there's much people that are much smarter than me.
That could definitely pick that apart.
But for me, that's the way that I mitigate fear.
In most scenarios, you realize
you just provided her with a perfect out for her, for facts, that's your fault.
And then of course it is.
She also knows about the flection to so be taking blaming
smart kids, smart kid.
Yeah.
You are transitioning.
You're transitioning from a position within law enforcement at a high level.
And maybe you're looking back and said, I should have got my surgery
while I was still on the job.
But, um, there's a transition process now back into civilian life.
Um, I know some people seem to be able to do that rather gracefully.
Some people have a very difficult time in my observations.
It's usually not something that they find difficult right off the get go.
The first difficult part is like, what am I going to do with all my
time then it's how do I organize my time in a productive way?
Because it feels like I have just so many things to do all the time.
Now, when I previously that was well organized.
And then I see the transition going towards, um, people wearing all
their police shirts and police stuff.
So they can advertise to people that they were at one point law enforcement,
because there may be missing that level of, uh, What that brought to them.
And you know, one of my, uh, one of my friends he's been
retired for some time now.
And, uh, he says one of the most difficult things that he's fighting
as he gets older, as he does, he doesn't feel dangerous anymore.
And it sounds weird.
It sounds like, ah, who cares to a lot of people, but to somebody who spent
his lifetime and in his profession, feeling dangerous and feeling capable
control of all these situations.
Uh, that's a, that's a difficult thing to square.
You are now transitioning from law enforcement, you're transitioning into
civilian life and your fast tracking some of these things by some of the,
uh, physical issues that you're, you're working with right now and working
through, how are you finding that?
Yeah, so, you know, one of the, one of the issues that seem to play
the policing in the military world is letting the job define you.
And I have never done that.
However, how much, how much I, you know, however much I loved the job.
I never let it define me.
And I did that by engaging in outside activities.
I did that.
Um, having friends that were not cops, I did that by finding a sense of purpose and
in various other things like the gym, for example, when I was, when I was owning two
CrossFit gyms and I was actually a coach there and I was teaching my athletes and
then the other side, when my martial arts studio and with jujitsu and everything.
So I had all this infrastructure around me and so policing and being, uh, on
ERT or being a teammate or being a Sergeant major or whatever the case
may be was simply a part of who I was.
But it wasn't who I was, if it is who you are, when you are no longer,
we're having some serious issues.
One of the things that I was on a course in a week with a certain special
operation unit, and one of the key problems that kept on resurfacing was
when members go overseas and there are these special operator type, like, you
know, super studs and, and, and super humans really, um, would, would get,
say blown up or something would happen.
Then they would come back and all, as they, they had was this defining, you
know, mission set and does define.
Job the date that they had, and now they're finding themselves, you know,
um, sounds purpose and with, and it's not the case, but that was the perception
and how difficult those situations were.
We've seen it on the RCMP side where people retire after 33,
34, 35 years and die within one.
Right?
Because, because now all of a sudden it's all, all of this has gone.
So there is, there is quite a few traps, which is again, part of the book and
you know, that to avoid, to avoid going down the path of letting your job define
you now with that is a sense of reality.
Are you dangerous though?
Are you, you know what I mean?
Because arguably it depends,
right?
It depends on how you define dangerous.
What does that, what does that even mean?
Right.
Because if I stand in a lineup at the bank as a BJJ black belt and I
look around and there's eight people.
There's a good chance, you know, I'm the person in there, there is a
good chance that could, that could potentially inflict harm on others.
Guess what?
Every street corner is somebody that can, and you you're you're you're behind.
Right.
And then a, we want to talk about gun fighting.
Sure.
Let's let's talk about this.
Would you, would you bet, you know, would you, would you gamble your next
gunfight as thinking that you are the best shooter you've ever met ever?
Do you know what I mean?
And so, and so there is an overinflation, there is a propensity
to overinflate one's capabilities.
So let's take the same scenario.
I'm standing in the lineup in the bank, and now there's a, there's a,
you know, pro MMA fighters with like 45 fights and all this good stuff.
Like all of a sudden my, my so-called toughness just taken a back seat.
Right?
Cause now I have somebody in there that's actually paid to fight.
That's their job to be that much better.
And it's not to say that there is no way I can win.
But the point I'm making is part of define letting a job to find you as
the, over in the overinflation of the importance of you within the context of
that operation, you know, it's not true.
It's not like when said love was left.
The outfit, people can say, oh, you know, it was a great loss
and all this stuff, those are.
Human interpersonal connections, but in the big scheme of things,
the machine keeps turning.
It just does.
Right.
And, and so I can't stand there and overinflate my importance.
So the importance that the organization, inversely, overinflate, the importance
that the organization had for me, right.
That stuff it's hard to do.
It is.
Um, so you left after 20 years, you felt like you've done your thing.
You could've got a better pension if you wanted to keep plugging away and going
through for another 10 years, but you left for a reason, what was that reason?
What I left for a variety of reasons.
But the primary reason was that my, I joined the RCMP to be on
the emergency response team.
That was my sole purpose in life in terms of professional purpose in life.
I that's what I wanted the most.
I had been there and I was given an opportunity to return there after my
stint, as a Sergeant major, basically as a operational noncommissioned officer.
So I would, I would went back there as the team leader for the team leaders.
Okay.
And so I'd taken the job I'd said yes to it and everything.
And every morning I started waking up.
Or having a hard time sleeping.
I was, I, you know, and some, yes seems, seems to, and I've been
an insomniac most of my career, but, um, but it made things worse.
And then I had to come to the realization, looking at myself in the mirror that
perhaps you don't want to go back.
Is that a possibility?
And I had to ask myself the tough question.
And then I started thinking it's been two years.
I haven't been on called I haven't been dragged out of bed.
My stress level is incredibly manageable.
I haven't, I don't have to deal with, you know, tactical operation, the resolving of
same and, you know, uh, HR related issues with, and it's not with our personal
PR proper, but just the administration of such a, a high-speed team.
And so w what happened was I, I was honest with myself and I, I said to
myself, I don't think you want to go back.
And I don't think you should go back if you don't want to go back,
because I know that you are going to have to give your life to the team
again, in order to make that happen.
You know, so I knew there was, there was going to be a ton of
sacrifice of the things that.
I was now connected with, after being off the on-call off, getting pulled out
of all the events with the family and, you know, the dance recitals and the
birthdays and this and that and the other, which I missed a ton of along the way.
So I came to a realization that I didn't want to go back.
So now what if I don't want to go back?
And that's the only reason why I was here in the first place.
Now, what I either found a new passion within the
organization, or I go elsewhere.
And what ended up contributing to me going that way was that I
started wanting to pursue meaningful things with meaningful people.
And that's what I, you know, that's kind of my, and I don't like to call
them buzzwords, but that's my buzzwords right now, meaningful things with
meaningful people is what I'm after.
And so I really wanted to take my skillset, my acquired skillset,
profession, professional skillset, and, and transpose it to the civilian
world while taken on the things that I truly wanted to take on.
And being, you know, this basically using passion and, and, and judgment.
To get the things that I really wanted to get engaged with done rather than
doing 90% things that I had to do.
And 10% things that I wanted to do.
Yeah.
That's a, well, you're definitely making those strides really quickly.
I was climbing in Squamish with a friend of mine and he brought another
friend of his, um, and buddy of mine.
He's been on the podcast before and was his buddy, uh, his ex JTF deal.
And he said, you know, I th that's all I figured I wanted to do.
And so I worked for, I worked hard for God onto JTF too.
And I looked around and these people weren't like me and
I didn't feel like I fit in.
And I, I withdrew myself after all of that work that I put on.
It was on there for a while.
He says, you know, just some of the things where he was in his head
a lot, from what I gather, he was thinking a lot, they said, go in
this room, shoot all these targets.
Right.
And of course, some of the targets are ones that are made to look in a sense.
And, um, he comes and he's like, I, I get it.
I get the process of going in follow orders, shoot, and go through.
But I mean, there's a target of a, um, the mother with a child or there's an,
and I, I would articulate afterwards why I didn't shoot, but that wasn't part of
this particular drill that we were doing.
Um, So he withdrew himself because he didn't figure that it didn't turn out to
be exactly what he was hoping it would be.
Did you find when you got yourself on with ERT, did it live up to the
expectations of what you were hoping it would be, or were there differences in
there that you weren't even expecting
without launching into, you know, um, what was said?
I will say it is, there is nobody walking around of any organization after either
leaving it or being asked to leave it,
that paints pictures of the issue being themselves, you know?
And so I, I'm not suggesting that it's, I'm not suggesting
that it's the case here.
Oh, it's
a
hundred percent but case here, but is generally, is generally when people
are leaving or when people are asked to leave a certain unit or decide to leave
a certain unit, there is an inherent, something was off with the unit and,
and, and, and I just didn't jive with it, or somebody did this or how I was
wrong by this person at that person.
So I would love for in a case like this, what I like to do is I
would love to have the version of.
The instructors that were watching and what the drill was, and they know
like, what were the circumstances?
Right.
You know, because you can build a drill as, you know, you can, you can
build a drill and make it that it's a completely different, like the decisions
that you were going to make inside that room are based upon the context
and the totality of the circumstances.
Right?
So in 99.9, nine, 9% of the time shooting that mother with the
kid is completely unacceptable.
Right.
It leaves the 0.09%, where information is given that changes
that, that wasn't a kid who was naive or whatever.
Right.
Exactly.
Or that she was rigged.
Right.
Even with a kid.
Right.
And so, um, I would love to, you know, I would love to kind of dive into it
and get the two sides because there's generally one side the other end and the
truth, somewhere in the middle where he
openly says it is what it is, but it wasn't him.
And he was the one that didn't fit in that piece of the equation, because
sure.
But what I don't like about that, what I don't like about that statement is that
it implies that everybody in that room was cool with shooting a kid in a FENa mum.
And
that that's, that's a good point.
And that I don't believe in, I don't, I don't, I don't believe so.
There's so there's something missing.
Right.
And, um, and w w w whatever that might be it's it's because people
that are not familiar with the.
Units and the way they operate is very different from the traditional military in
the idea that people have on world war II.
When you're going to do this, you're going to do that.
We're talking about intellectual humans with incredible physical capacity that are
very capable of problem solving and not only very capable, but they are expected
to problem solve things without the help of the leaders, you know, and very quick.
Absolutely.
And so for you, for somebody to tell me that everybody in that room was still
equal with murdering a mom and a child, it just, there's something that's,
that's completely against the soft, um,
which of course they aren't and they weren't, and they weren't.
So that's, so that's all I did.
That's the reason why I'm saying that I w I would
love to hear, I like, I like that perspective because I find that so often
in everyday life, if someone's going to break up with somebody else, it's because
the other person was ABC at the time.
And I find it as an employer, dealing with my coworkers and staff.
When you can see at some point when somebody comes to a point and it's like,
you know, they're ready for their next challenge in their life, but they don't
know how to be able to take that step without trying to demonize something.
Uh it's whatever it's a customer is, it's the job.
It's whatever it is, because somehow that it clicks in their
head as an acceptable way, rather than just saying, you know what?
I had a good time when I was here, I put my 110% in, um, good, bad
learned, grew time for my next stage.
And that's something that I try very hard to relay to everybody that I work with.
Hey, when it's time and it's your time, we will help you 110%.
So you can make that next step in a successful way.
And in fact, I might even have connections in the industry or the other areas
that you might be looking to go to.
And that mentality of approaching, um, leaving an individual and
organization or something else I think is incredibly healthy.
But I don't think it's shared by most people, most people like you're
saying, they'll, they'll take the approach of, well, you know, it's
just me, but it's because of this.
Yeah.
I mean, we see it in the PR and promotions processes, and we see it in, you know,
who was wronged when and how, and who was passed for promotion first.
I mean, nobody goes, you know what?
My leadership skills really needed to work.
I actually.
Nobody wants to follow me.
You know what I mean?
Like I look around, you know, and because it, because it's hard, right?
It's, it's hard to expose those shortcomings, but it is necessary.
And having the ability to do so is so liberating, you know, because,
Hey, you can address the issues.
You can address the issues if, if the issues are identified.
But also it's kind of really refreshing to have somebody take
responsibility for their actions.
You know, when you're speaking to someone and they come out and say,
say, this just wasn't for me, it's just, it's just this wasn't for me.
And I wasn't the right fit.
And I pulled myself out and I love that.
I had, uh, I had a I've over the years, I've had so many members come
to me and say, you know, and, and it's funny because when I walked
by in an office or something, it's almost like people were drawn to.
That they were going to get in shape so that it can get to your T.
So it would be like, you know, all, you know, yeah.
I'm going to get in shape.
And, uh, and, uh, and I'm going to try out and do, like, you've told me
this 28 times in the last five years, you're not trying out, not working
out or you're not, you're, you're, you're just, you're not going to do it.
So why are you wasting your time telling me, you know, what you, what you are
going to do, because there is a sense that the, somehow they feel compelled
to tell you what they're going to do and, and how they're going to do it.
Whereas I met this one guy and he's like, I would love your job I'm way too lazy.
And I just laughed so hard, you know, and, and, and good for him, loved it.
I was like,
well, people like to varnish over their own imperfections,
but like you say, liberating.
Yeah.
Empowering completely, totally taking that responsibility from a third party.
I left because I left this relationship because they are a, B and C, well,
you know what, there probably a, B and C to begin with, and maybe you
overlooked it because of Def right.
Whatever it might be.
And then now you're coming around to it.
You're leaving because you've made a personal choice.
It's time for you to leave.
Once you're able to take that level of personal responsibility, all of a sudden
these issues are no longer, you're no longer affected by external issues.
Everything falls under your locus of control.
You affect every little aspect of what you do.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And I mean, it, it bleeds into everything and, you know, to go back and this is
going to sound like I'm kind of going backwards, but when we spoke about
the way I felt my me being different effected me as a youth, for example,
it sent me into this other side of things where, when people ask me, like,
how did you feel as a, as a visible minority, as a, you know, half black
person, um, in the organization and how, uh, you know, what kind of challenges
were you against and everything.
None.
That's how awesome zero, right?
Why?
Because I wasn't, there was no, it wasn't about what every other
thing could do for me, or for me to see my own failures as a reason.
Um, as the reason being my color, see, you know, in the organization or my
skin tone or whatever the case may be, but it re it reversed the onus on me.
Like what have I, what have I done?
And what have I done to prevent these things?
And I just wasn't, I was a hard target.
You're going to, you know, you are going to pick somebody
else if you have a choice.
And so how did you, and it prevented me from falling into a
trap of like, oh, you know, this.
Racism related, or this was like pulling the proverbial
race cards, so to speak, right.
Pity party.
Yeah.
And the thing is, is I have people that have the same skin complexion
as me that have had issues their entire career everywhere.
They went.
It's like, okay, um, I'm not an expert, but it is, it is possible.
And it is reasonable that you have run into one, two or three people that
potentially I never ran into that, you know, treated you differently
on account of X, Y, and Z everywhere you went, everybody is racist.
You already issue.
Right.
There is, there is zero question about it like that.
You know, it's just, it isn't a reality.
So it's kind of like the you're, you're driving in traffic in the morning and, and
you're listening, you listen to radio and on the radio, it says something along the
lines of, there's a crazy driver driving the wrong way on street, whatever you
look up and you see a whole bunch of them.
And you're like, Mara, there's more than one.
There's more than one it's probably.
Yes.
So, so that's a critical piece.
Stop relegating your failure or your failure to achieve certain things
based on predicated factors, such as race, gender, those types of things.
Because a lot of the times it actually had nothing to do with it.
It's not taken away from the fact that at times it does have to do with it.
Right.
But it's a different mindset, you know, I
a hundred percent follow.
So what's the next steps here for sub Lavoie and what needs to happen for
you in order to be able to get there?
I see a rock and some nice three dark here.
Are you going to be on one of their commercials or watch watching one earlier?
That was fantastic.
Yeah, boys,
what are you guys doing?
You need me in your commercial.
They do.
Um, yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's funny.
I, um, I had discovered this, this company out of the UK and, um, to, as I understand
it to SBS guys are special board services.
Guys are owners of that company.
And of course, suffice to say that they're commercial and there is,
are going to ruin me about that.
But, uh, but they have, you know, when I, when I encourage a company now, when I
encourage a business or where it has to be something I truly believe in, and it has
to be something that suits me personally, you know, um, I may, I may love a nice.
You know, BMW, whatever.
Sure.
But I'm a super snake driver.
I love Shelby's why, because they, because they're me, you know, and it's, it's, it's
the same with this, with this company.
That's truly, um, I think what you are seeing is the tier one excellence being
exemplified at every step of the way.
So we are talking about website, we're talking about a product,
we're talking about packaging, we're talking about delivery.
We're talking like everything is so dialed in and it's, you know, it has that special
operation, you know, touch of everything.
They have everything they touch turns into gold because they have so much of that.
And so much of that comes from their ability to look inwards and be truly
critical of their own performance, you know, which is very rare.
And, and having the ability to do that as allowed them to grow
substantially really, really quickly.
And so, um, I will continue encourage companies like this,
that fall in line exactly.
With, with the way my mind works, you know, And the product is it's phenomenal.
It's phenomenal.
So you've got the book coming out and it's going to be both in
audio format and a written format.
Yeah.
So what we've done with this is, um, you know, we have recorded a ton of
content and the idea was that following the book there is going to be, I believe
there is going to be a lot of interest in finding out how that all came about,
how it unfolded some of the funnies, you know, behind the conversations.
I mean, cause it wasn't all, you know, rainbow, sunshine and applesauce.
Excuse me.
In fact, um, just to, to tie this in, like to tell a funny story, uh, that
wasn't, wasn't so funny at the time is when we started recording, you
know, I had been on so many podcasts.
I was like, wow, this is going to be easy.
We sit in front of each other, say, if we're going to address leadership,
I'm going to go out on a, on a rant and, and you, you were going next.
Then we kind of feed off each other.
That way sounds easy, but it just didn't work.
It didn't work that way.
We sat in front of the mic.
Our first, like I would say four hours of recording was utterly useless.
Like we, we, we try to put things together.
It just wasn't flowing it wasn't.
And, and, and so that first, the half of that first day.
Abject failure.
Um, and we looked at each other and I got the sense inside that,
you know, that premature panic, you know, like, oh shit, this might not
be as easy as I think it's going to be, and this might not go anywhere.
And then your mind starts running a train on you.
Which of course I stopped immediately because I knew what my mind was doing.
This was uncomfortable and we needed to get through it and we
needed to find a way out of it.
And that was also uncomfortable.
And so I didn't want to do it.
And so what I did is, and what we did really as a team is we sat down, we
stopped the recording and we said, okay, how are we going to problem solve this?
And so we had a conversation and decided to speak about something we
truly, truly wanted to speak about.
Like, it didn't matter if it didn't fit, if it wasn't the intro, if
it wasn't chronological or any of that, we just wanted a win.
Right.
And so, and we said, let's go get some.
Come back this afternoon, we knock it out of the park and we're on our way.
Right?
And so we did, we, we went, I had an app, Sean had an app, we came back together.
We decided to speak about boom, this subject, which, which at all,
was not chronological with respect to where we were in the process,
but we knocked it out of the park, which built up our confidence.
And then from there we couldn't fail.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
But having the ability to recognize, like, this is a point here where premature panic
can set in and I can let it consume me and I could have, you know, and when I
say, if you are somebody like had flew somebody like a FA a photographer from
Montreal to come over, she's fantastic.
Tanya lamb is her name amazing photographer.
Um, and she came
and saw her work.
Yeah, it's amazing.
It is.
And so she came over to document absolutely everything to make sure that
we had a ton of material to follow up.
Once the flood gates are open and people are wanting the information
instead of, oh man, I wish we did.
Yeah, we did it then.
So it's so we have it's we have audio video, we have pictures, we have all
kinds of stuff that we can launch into for the next little while.
But for me as the person that organized this as the person that
quote unquote led the project.
The feeling of premature panic really hit me hard to the point where I was
on the verge of like self sabotaging there, you know, and I caught myself
and I was like, okay, you're going to shake yourself out of that stupor.
And you are going to go for a nap and you're going to come back and
you were going to reset the clocks and that's what's going to happen.
And so we came back, reset the clock and everything went
well and smooth after that.
That is awesome.
It's amazing how many times people will not even take that first step
because they can't get their head wrapped around the rest of the process.
How do I start this business?
How do I write a book?
How do I, I'm not a good author.
I'm not, I'm not going to ABC.
Well, what are you good at?
And how can you use those things around you to help buttress sad?
I know another friend of mine that I went to school with him and, uh,
he wrote a book with somebody else.
It was called sociable back in the day, right when social
media was kind of coming up.
And then he was showing, showing people how to use social media in order to propel
their businesses in themselves and what it can be used for and what it can't be used.
And I'm like, what the hell?
You're right.
The book he's like, we just sat and we talked to a tape recorder, we sent
it over to India, they transcribed it.
And now I'm on the lecture circuit because I'm able to talk about what I'm
passionate about and what I know about.
And, and those people who actually are able to.
Their dreams in embark on these endeavors in the way that yourself and others do.
The more that the older I get and the more I look at other businesses and people who
are building things, uh, the more I see that it is basically just the process of
putting one foot in front of the other.
Number one, number two, the ability to pivot when they need to, uh, three, the
accountability level is being able to take the, that level of accountability.
It's not the fact that I can't write.
I mean, I can talk in a microphone.
Someone else can transcribe it.
Uh, the pivot thing, I mean, that's why Instagram is around.
I mean, Instagram started out as a, what was it called?
Bourbon or something like this.
And it was supposed to be, you could write down information or take pictures
of restaurants and review few food.
And they quickly pivoted from that into what they are now into
a multi-million dollar industry.
And then, you know, the ability to even though pivoting can be very
important, the ability to persevere, and that is the one area like how
you persevered, you could have easily given up and said, yeah, forget it.
This sucks.
We can't continue with this because we're going to have to try something else.
The ability to persevere and continue plugging away.
What do they say?
The plugging away will we need the date will be at piker at old part.
Robert Frost.
The ability to continue down that path is what separates the
successes from the failures.
So many people would give up at that first step.
And then I saw you and Sean over, where were you?
You're triggered by ties.
So
we're drinking my ties in the 80, cause that's a real
tourist destination right now.
It's really hot for tourism.
Yeah.
We, uh, we ended up with Sean and I ended up going to Haiti, uh, working on a
secure security project there and nothing super sexy for those that are, you know,
have the words that were mercenaries and it wasn't what we were doing, but
yeah, w you know, there's a ton of good work to be done in some of those,
the more challenge areas, and that's something I'm truly passionate about.
I mean, that's, you know, I'd love to go to Mali and help problem solve
some of the command and control issues they have in whatever venue or, or,
you know, whatever the case may be.
Those are truly meaningful endeavors.
You know, being on the ground in Haiti for four days was a reminder, and
it's not at, you know, ethnocentric.
I'm not trying to be ethnocentric in my statement here, but
we do have it quite cushy.
And, uh, I think that a lot of people forget that.
And once you go in a, in a, in a place where things are very difficult, such
as in Haiti right now at the moment, um, You know, uh, on a variety of
different fronts, not just human factors, there's also other factors,
you know, earthquakes and this and that.
Then it's a very, very, um, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's a very
difficult, um, place to, to, to live in right now at the moment.
And, um, and they're doing it and, you know, everybody's up at six o'clock in
the morning, doing things that kids are going to school at like six 15 or some,
you know, it was just crazy to see.
But, um, but Sean and I, having the opportunity to go overseas
and help problem solve the issues.
I am all over it, you know, I am all over it.
If there's anything that needs, that needs help somewhere that falls within
the sort of the realm of our expertise.
I'm
in what I find really impressive.
Cause I'm talking about the plugging away and might've been Robert service.
Robert Frost it'll come to me, but anyways, um, probably Robert service,
uh, the fact that you put your head towards what it is you want to do,
and then you're filling in the blanks.
This is where I'd like to be.
Here's where I am.
And with that goal in mind, you're filling in all of those
blanks in order to get there.
You're taking something that you would, you don't have a roadmap right now to
any of these different things, but you know what you'd like to see out of your
lifestyle and you're making it happen.
And that is truly inspirational.
I'm really, really looking forward to your book when it comes.
So maybe I can get an advanced copy.
Yes or no.
You might be in luck for sure.
Um, is there anything else that we should be talking about before we wrap up?
No.
I mean, thank you very much for having me back.
Uh, I, uh, you know, really insightful conversation, both of them really.
I was listening to the other one this morning and I really enjoyed it.
Um, you know, once the book comes out, I am, it'd be nice to get Sean and I, you
know, to some airtime so that we can have, because evidently right now I'm trying
to give some, without giving it all.
Cause I don't want to get the carpet taken from under us, but once the book
is out and the information is readily available, we could add a great chat with
another, you know, outstanding human.
Yeah.
A hundred
percent that'll happen.
SAB.
Thanks very much for coming on this Silvercore Podcast.
Thanks for having me brother.