Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode
of Hey, Human podcast.
This is episode 421,
and my guest is Nicholas Seidsman.
Nicholas is a veteran of the Australian Special
Forces with 3 tours of combat duty. He's
the founder of Warrior Refit, a foundation that
advocates for
and raises money in support of stem cell
treatment for
full spectrum regenerative
intervention
to improve the quality of life for veterans.
That's a mouthful, but let me explain.
After leaving the military, Nick was significantly disabled,
and through
extraordinary
and costly stem cell treatments,
he found a better quality of life and
a lot of healing. He said that his
life changed dramatically with the treatment from,
quote, operating at a 2 to 4 percent
of life with only 2 to 3 months
left to live,
unquote, to a dramatic upswing of
70%
and continually getting better. He says
he's now capable to live a full active
life, and
he really was on the brink of not
being with us anymore. So it's a major
deal. Stem cell
research, there's money going into it, but it's
really costly to do the treatments. So his
foundation helps raise money for others
to get that life saving treatment.
Really interesting guy, lovely conversation. We talked for
a long time, actually, before we even hit
the record button, so
really nice man and enjoyed that conversation,
and I think you will too. General Stuff,
Hey Human Podcast is on YouTube under official
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yeah. Take care of yourself. Be well.
Be loved, and here we go.
Nicholas
Seetman, welcome to Hey Human.
Thanks, Susan. How are you doing? I'm doing
well. And you're in Paris currently, but you're
a man of the world. Yes? Apparently, I
am. Yeah.
What are you doing in Paris?
I was just in Cannes Film Festival.
And then from there, thank god, like, I
wasn't there forever. Some people are staying 1
to 2 weeks, and it is it is
it is it is a lot of socializing.
Like, it's pretty heavy.
After 4 days, I'm like, I think I've
had my fill. But, my brother was in
Bordeaux
with his wife and my nephew,
so and I don't get to see him
that often. They're in Australia.
I I rarely go back,
and I just seize the opportunity to go
spend a few days in Bordeaux with them
and then a few days in Paris, and
now I'm just hanging out in in Paris.
Party? You speak French?
Yeah. Generally.
Not perfect, but I'm getting there. Yeah. And
that's so nobody gets mad at you.
Yeah. It's it's the Parisians. Right? They're like,
not so they can get mad at you.
This is this is how I would best
describe it. They they would get upset if
you didn't, but as soon as you see
speak French and they realize it's not your
native language, they will correct you with English
immediately and start speaking English to you. Like,
so what's the point of this dance, guys?
Like,
why the drama? Like, just Oh, yeah. To
prove that you were at least trying, I
suppose. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my my French
is pretty good. Like, they'll they'll give you
they'll entertain me for, like, minutes or 10
minutes or whatever until it's like like, I
can hang out with people that only speak
French, but it gets to a point where
it's like, alright. There's a word here we're
losing, and then they'll they'll jump in. The
minute you ask for almond milk and your
coffee, they're like, no. This is done. We're
done. Yeah.
There there are a few moments, like, I
I learned when I was living in in
Colombia that if you want toothpaste, you'd better
damn well work out how you asked for
the right toothpaste because no one's coming to
rescue you. So I've got all these, like,
really weird, tangent ways of requesting things
so that it's like, you know, to describe
what it is that I want to help
lead them to to that particular thing. That's
where all of the years of Pictionary come
in handy. Pantomime is the key to everything.
I'm Australian. We didn't have Pictionary. We only
we only had Pictionary
in the mer in the American movies. That's
that's it. That's all we had. So I'm
just going off what my general concept of
Pictionary is in my mind. Somebody needs to
get you a Pictionary game because it is
super duper fun.
I'm missing out.
Alright. Let let's get into your story. We're
obviously, we know you're Australian. Talk about your
upbringing a little bit. What shaped you as
a kid? How you went on the path
that you went on? Oh, yeah. So, this
this sounds pretty interesting. My my my father,
my grandfather, and uncle were homicide detectives
in, in in New South Wales, and they
they my my they were particularly good at
it. My father is still cited as, like,
case for case studies on on how to
do it. I guess that that that changed
a whole bunch of things in my childhood.
Right? My father and mother knew each other
in high school, ended up marrying,
having a long relationship for probably, like, you
know, almost 20 years, but because they started
early.
And that went until about the ages of,
let's say, like, 30,
34,
35,
where my father went through the full PTSD
journey from just seeing too many,
too many dead bodies and and all and
whatever comes with that. Right? Like, too many,
yeah, dead and and just horrific shit.
So
that shaped my childhood. Right? So I grew
up. I was young at about 4 or
5 parents divorced, separated.
My mother went cold before that or went
particularly cold afterwards. She's lovely. Like, I have
a great relationship with both of them, but
I I'm like, I very much just speak
the truth, you know, from whatever lens that
I'm seeing it. I've
I've done an awful amount as a result
of my life journey to
do to do self development work by a
spiritual, emotional, mental,
you know, embodiment, whatever it might be. And
as a result of that, I'm pretty well
enlightened about my own journey.
And they separated that had a certain effect
on my brother, had a certain effect on
me
till now learning
how to, you know, parent myself
better as a as an adult in the
best ways
and to steer the ship and correct the
course based on those effects that it had
on me and decisions that I've made. How
old were you when they divorced?
4. I think about 4.
Quite young. Or 5. Yeah. I was pretty
young. So it was like a lot of
it was over my head, which got really
confusing when I started spending time with my
dad. He had another another woman, and and
and it was he's became his wife, and
he's still married to her. So it's like
it that that there was was a little
bit confusing, but I just, you know, I'm
a kid. I just roll with the punches.
Alright.
My brother, I think he took it a
little bit differently
or he he took it fine, a bit
quieter about the situation or maybe less happy
so that we you know, we grow up.
My mom ends up meeting her partner, became
my stepfather,
and he was fine initially. But then, you
know, like, a year until I was about
10 years old when the when I think
they kinda got together and started getting married,
he he just pretty much, like, mercilessly bullied
me,
which
which gave me some cool superpowers.
Right? Like, looking at life in the in
the right lens here, like, what what whatever
that might have been, the gift from god
there, I got an immense superpower of resilience.
I learned to
like, it's a it would basically be great
at the dinner table every night,
and it was, you know, it was all
it was
I'd just be sitting there and listen to
an ambush of how I wasn't good enough
at anything. And I'm a kid. So it's
like, you know, as you as an adult
now, you're like, this is pretty irrelevant. And
your mom didn't step in and talk to
you? Mom didn't. Brother didn't. No one did.
They just watched it for, like, the better
part of 7 years, and I thought As
if it was happening to you, it didn't
happen to them, probably.
Yeah. At all. So it it was like
it was pretty black and white, and, I
was the weakest in the house even when
they had a child. Like, he didn't pick
on his own child. It was like it
was a bit like that. So
cool.
So be it. I was a kid, didn't
know any difference, but that shapes my adulthood
and my my emotions. I was able to
bury my emotions, like, really well. It was
a struggle at first to just bury your
emotions. I was a bit of a softer
emotional kid, like,
in some regards, but I learned to be
super resilient and bury all those. And as
a result of burying your emotions, the body
and the mind are very much connected. I
was able to make my body completely numb
to push through whatever ridiculous
task I wanted it to go through. I
had to learn how to socialize really well.
I had to learn how to build relationships
very well because I needed third parties
to to kind of, be there for me
in case
that that that this evident circumstance wasn't there
for me. My mom's lovely. She's worked her
ass off, but she was under the understanding
that providing a a home and food and
all these things and be diligent at that
was the best way she could take care
of the kids.
And she definitely did that. And as we
get older, you know, she's she's learned a
lot and she's, you know, the best version
of herself and and very very all that
love in her life has come back. So
that's that's great to see.
But, it shaped me so that
as soon as I you know, I did
pretty well in school. I was pretty smart.
I was very I was generally autodidactic
in many ways, but just really cared about
the social side of things. I could I
could get through class and pass tests and
exams without having to do any study because
I would just kind of memorize things pretty
well and and process information,
like, you know, that are interested me, like,
very well. Like, if it was history or
if it was if it was drama or
the arts or whatever, depending on the arts.
Right? Like, me painting is is
I'd I'd probably rather shoot myself in many
ways. Like, let's leave that till I'm like
the old Churchill version where you're like, you
know what? That's I heard something.
So so, yeah, so I, I did that
and then and, you know, I whatever I
adored, I was
great at, and then whatever I did, I
was fine at.
So no one was ever, like, you know,
coming at me for grades or anything,
which, you know,
made it interesting that I'd be there was
even bullying at all. So it was like
it was it was, you know, about whatever.
I proceeded to to to get to the
end of
my 16th year. And as I was getting
to the end of it, I'm just like,
well, I I I know I wanna be
in the military.
Like, I loved loved,
I loved
drama and and acting in school, and everyone
was trying to push me towards these schools.
These you know, like, the performance art schools
and then go on to the the next
phases of that. And I loved war in
geopolitics and history.
And, for me, it was like, well, damned
if I'm gonna skip that step
and not and not, have a good have
a good nudge at that.
So I, as soon as I turned
17,
I I went into the military
as electrical engineer,
and that set off its own journey. The
toothpaste back into 2 at that point, I
I went I went in, like, all in.
Does Australia require
service?
No. No. Not required. No. It's not mandatory
in any capacity. It's, it was just my,
you know, just what I was meant to
do in many ways.
And that and that that was probably my
my my youth
to say the to summarize it. My youth,
to me, was pretty
like, I look back now, and I don't
really remember a lot of things because I
don't think it it just wasn't
other than how it shapes me, it wasn't
as interesting as what I'd made my adult
life to be, you know? Mhmm.
Yeah. Were you already showing signs of being
a polyglot and polymath at that point? I'm
sure the military
notices things like that and and tunnels you
in a certain direction.
I think, I I don't actually think they
do.
I actually I think the military is just
like the cream will rise to the top
by their own sheer will. It doesn't have
to look out for things like you would
think so in a movie where someone might
touch you on the shoulders. Like, those people
striving exceptionally well stand out and continue to
strive, and they end up where they are
as a result of that, like, of just
being as diligent and as competent and as
as focused as they possibly can.
Mhmm.
Yeah. Like, I would say
I would say they yeah. There was no
observation for it. I just I just kept
going for things younger than than I just
wanna be the youngest at most things. Like,
I I would I would definitely try to
you know, I wouldn't let age affect me
in any capacity.
But you're already pretty young, it sounds like.
Joining at 17, it was like, okay. Cool.
The other people around me were all grown
men. Everyone going through training was grown men,
especially when I got to I was very
aware of it when I got to
I was always good socializing, so I was
I was able to build, like, really good
rapport just through just being authentic.
And
as a result of that, I, like, I
had great relationships with guys of all these
different ages around me, but some of the
guys are like they'd finished school the same
day I was born or, like, I was
17 and they're, like, 45. It was like,
you know, mixed bag of maturity.
And then also all the people in charge
of me were definitely older up until the
age of maybe 60.
But, when it came to the electrical engineering,
I was
I was a little bit out of my
my depths to say the least, but out
of my sheer will, I was gonna, like,
work it out or die trying. Mhmm. So
I, I I started
everyone around me had degrees or whatever already,
right, or or up to master's degrees.
And and I just like high school. You
know? I was like, I was a little
bit out of my depth in that regard,
but that just means I had to study
harder. And even then, the studying was this
challenge,
of interest because I already knew what I
wanted to do in the military. I wanted
to get as
you know, like every child dream. Like, if
I was gonna be in the military, I
wanna be the greatest warrior I could be,
and I was gonna punches as high and
as fast as I I I possibly could
until I had the coolest job and did
all the the the the warrior stuff.
However,
the education was like the safety net of
having something and falling back on something. And,
you know, these these these things that I
I don't know who like,
the average person might say. We're like, oh,
you need something to fall back on as
a bit like a safety net. I'm just
now. I've never seen more relevance to that
than I than I do now in this
phase of my life. But
at that time, I felt myself out of
my death and but just forced myself through
it by sheer will. And you ended up
in the in the special forces or the
Australian equivalent of the special forces? Whilst I
did that, I simultaneously trained every single day
running, swimming, and weights because I didn't know
how much to train or what to train.
But what I was really good at was
pushing myself through, like, really hard stuff
and overtraining, which became a problem later on.
But I knew that if I overtrained, it
it's a better problem to have, you know,
than, than undertraining. Like, it would give me
extra time and extra clarity of mind to
be able to make decisions when others are
more fatigued than me against I wouldn't say
competition of you know, in certain environments,
but, you know, in the end, they've they've
only got so many numbers they could fill
it. But by comparison,
they're trying to catch their breath or whatever,
and I'd have time to think about the
next task or whatever. It's interesting because it
sounds like you came from a bit of
an abusive
household as a child. And, I mean, people
can say what they will, but I think
mental abuse is maybe even more detrimental. Bruises
heal,
but the mental stuff you carry your entire
life I I know for a lot of
people that are dealing with that kind of
childhood, you tend to head down
pathways
of
substance abuse and things like that or an
addiction in general. Would you say that this
overachieving
became your own kind of addiction?
Yeah. The the training and overachieving became an
addiction. Definitely. Like and and I'm gonna I'll
get to the snowball here. So I trained
I started training every single day and studying
every single day, but this was fine. I
was 17. I was in the military. I
wasn't allowed out. At night, I wasn't allowed
to drink and do all these things. Australia,
18 is the drinking age. Right? But it
also meant that they would cap you
and, like, have a duty of care so
your social life wasn't there. So so, like,
I had all the extra time to do
all this, all the all all the clarity
in the mind of the world because we're
now partying, but it also killed all my
time that I would have otherwise to take
girls on dates or or and do all
this socializing. So I had none of that
between 7, 8, and 18, like almost zero
interaction, actually. It was like they killed that,
which,
you know, as you're raised with the emotional
abuse and touching on that, it's like emotional
abuse,
as I've learned more about it, is is
one of the hardest to deal with
because people don't have marks or in incidents
to truly mark its existence. And it took
me until 31
and couple 100 psychoactive therapy hours for them
to to finally convince me and get me
to say, okay. Maybe this is a thing.
Like, she was like, oh, thank god. Like,
it was crushing her to try to get
this across.
So, yeah, it it is a pretty hard
one to treat and acknowledge.
But, again, it's like, alright.
Accept and understand it. Move on with the,
move on with the you know, what did
I get from this? What did it give
me? So I I learned to train immensely,
study immensely, and focus on the the the
task and where I wanted to go and
what what things I wanted to achieve
to such a degree that I was in,
you know, I I ended up finishing my
electric electronic school. I was posted to some
engineering
in in in the shipyards there for the
the naval ships, and I went to search
on the ships. I went on trips. So
I even enjoyed the moment and the journey.
But while I was on the ships,
I remember being in the Filipino sun,
and I would run around the flight deck
for, like, 3 to 4 hours with 50
kilograms and all this equipment and whatnot and
camouflage boots.
And I'm in the navy. I don't have
any of this, so I had to get
it from the army, and they just see
me over, like, training ridiculously. So they gave
me all this stuff.
And at this point, it's been,
like, 2 years or so, and I haven't
stopped training. I've actually elevated the amount of
training of which I'm doing to, let's say,
to an unnecessary amount.
But being in the navy, you know, and
a and a to switch over the army
to pursue special operations,
you know, I had to put in all
that extra gross amount of effort.
I just wanted to make sure that, okay,
cool. These people are gonna know more than
me, so how do I just outperform in
this area? Gives me space to learn the
other stuff.
I proceeded to just
run laps around the flight deck doing this.
And every time I did it, and I
do it at least once a week as
well as all the other training I do,
I'd feel my boots full of blood because
they tear off tear apart my whole feet
and off the back of my heel because
I I just had the wrong size boots.
Like, don't care to give me the right
size boots. They just gave me whatever equipment
they had, and I was just gonna make
it work.
So I went through a lot of, like,
layered resilience building there,
and then I and then then I put
in for the the army's selection
entry test, I should say.
And then I went across to do the
the entry test after the ship sabotaged me
several times because it wasn't in their interest
to lose me. It's it's hard to have
electrical engineers, even though they can't do anything
about it because it's it's prioritization of military
assets and resources.
They can't stop it, but they're like they've
you know, before deployment to to into Asia,
they'd be like, you know, we've lost your
medical something. The day before of the test,
they'd be like, we've lost your medical whatever,
and be like, I guess you can't go
tomorrow. And it it wasn't like a
it wasn't you know, like, they knew it
was illegal, but they were also kinda like,
I can't tell you can't go on, but
I just told you you can't go on.
You can't go do this entry test. Oh.
But, yeah, eventually, I got it myself. I
paid for my own flight back from Singapore
to be ahead of the ship
and,
and got there and did it. And, you
know, through my resilience, I came 1st or
second in every category
against, I guess, all the army guys without
me knowing how to do anything.
Now at this point, you gotta remember I'm
not like a I'm not like America where
they have the Navy SEALs, so you you
you have this image that the Navy SEALs
kinda know how to run around with guns
and whatnot. The Navy
in America as well, for the most part,
have no idea how to do any of
that. They have camouflage and equipment. They don't
do any of that sort of stuff. Yeah.
That's when the the you know, that resilience
in my life and growing up really tied
in here because I was able to just
train and overtrain and work and grind
and stay focused and push my body through
anything.
You know, the the army the army, the
navy could yell. They could do whatever they
want or whatever, and it just wasn't gonna
get through to me physically and and and
physically, emotionally,
mentally. It just it was it was untouchable
at this point, and I knew it. And
the worst part what the best part worst
part let's look at it like glass half
full.
I knew that I was, like, getting so
resilient and more and more resilient. And every
time that I did, I got rewarded for
that resilience by getting to the next level
in my career that I wanted to achieve
at a speed that is, like, really unprecedented.
Like, at this point, I've already done you
know, I just I didn't go across to
the army because they're like, you know, it's
it's more of a prioritization
of us to to
have special operations personnel
than it is to have another engineer. So
you're you're coming across,
and the Navy couldn't do anything about it.
So it's like, I'm getting rewarded, and I'm
I'm already living, like, these small careers that
are someone else's entire life journey in their
career, in their in their in their work.
As you are excelling in all these places
physically,
what are you doing with your
thoughts? Are they just getting shoved further and
further down? Like, I'm not feeling pain. I'm
not feeling worry. I'm not being scared. I'm
not having any of that.
I must have I must have I don't
know what it was. Like, I had a
really great grandfather. I have both great grandfathers
and grandmothers. Right? But my grandfather,
the one who got me you know, I
in my final year of of high school,
I was wearing a a blazer and a
tie and and all these things which happens
in in Australia to a certain degree.
And so I wore that, and he he
took me along to the recruiting. And he
was he was always he was a very
brilliant, remarkable man. He was he was very,
extremely well educated, but, like, self educated. You
know, the family growing up had a lot
of money, extreme amount of wealth, actually, and
his father gambled it all away,
but he never lost his ability to his
education that he was raised with. He was
able to self educate. He cocked it on
the chin,
you know, comes home. We've lost we've lost
multiple mansions and houses.
We've lost any business assets. They had a
stake in the First Bank in New South
Wales, and they, like, they established and they
lost that. Lost everything. It's like, oh, by
the way, you're going to the mines because
you're the oldest, and we need the family
needs any money they can get to But
they lost it or they gave it away?
Lost it. Gammeled it all away. His father
gambled it all away. Oh, shit. At home,
had none. And he and he, you know
so he he just cops on the scene
and got sent to the mines the next
day to make money for the family. Woah.
That's a shift.
Yep. Massive shift, but he never lost that.
And he he was extremely humble. He's probably
the he'll be he'll be an
unchallengeable,
mark as a gentleman to ever,
to have a measure up to. You know,
I felt like I was lost without good
men in my life. Right? My father,
this man.
So I wasn't all flying blind. Right? You
know, I had these people that that definitely
that definitely influenced me in a positive way,
I should say. What happens next? You've been
accepted into the army.
I didn't realize you could go laterally like
that between branches. You're not meant to. It's
only because I I passed their their test
and and the the
the head special operations guys were like, we
want that guy. We want that kid. Whoever
that kid is. Because I'm still
I think I was I was like
19
at the time. Maybe just yeah. 9 yeah.
Definitely actually 19 at the time. Yeah. So,
you know, I'd I'd spent somewhere between 2
to 3 years in the navy training
like hell probably about 2 and a half.
Haven't stopped every single day.
Just a baby at 19. So young. Definitely.
But, man, I was focused.
I didn't think negative about myself. I was
able to be self aware enough of when
I was doing good and doing bad. And
the thing was, if I put effort into
absolutely everything I was doing, I could not
be angry at myself if I did not
pass. If I didn't put effort into the
thing that I was doing and I failed,
then I could be down on myself. So
I had this really objective way
of looking at
success and measuring it,
the harshness of myself.
I couldn't sit there and be like, you
know, like it's like, man, you could have
sprinted harder. I didn't have that. I sprinted
every I gave everything into anything and everything
that I was doing.
So as a result of that, I couldn't
the thoughts,
the negative thoughts that might arise from, you
know, enduring these past experiences might make that
challenging,
but they didn't because it's like because I
was able to objectively measure them. And the
military has a lot of benchmark success to
help you objectively measure it. It's the civilian
world that might make that more challenging because
it's kind of like everything's up in the
air in every which direction. They bring me
across
because they can do that. They have the
power to do that. It was more important
this time during war was going on to
have special operations personnel.
Australia is a very high bar for their
for their servicemen,
and their infantry,
and as well as their special operations and
so on. And they they had to,
because we don't have the numbers America has.
We don't have the technological
advancements. Well, we do, but in smaller numbers
that the Americans have, which really doesn't give
us this
this drowning in asset scenario that America has
where you have an infinite amount of ships
and helicopters and planes and whatnot. You have
to be you have to.
But what we do have is this ability
to have a
extremely overtrained and educated
and, like, personnel to draw from. Look. You
guys are great. Like, I would like, man,
if you wanna go to war with anyone,
you wanna go to war with the Holy
Roman Empire, the Americans, they got it. I
get that. No. I get that. I do.
But but I wish that education was a
little bit more emphasized for
the non commissioned. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, even then,
I've got I've I've seen some American commissions
that wouldn't also, you know
I'd be less inclined to follow them into
a cinema.
And but but it's not saying all of
them. Like, for the most part, the people
I worked with in the American military, so
the operators, helicopter parts, all this stuff, I'd
like I'm absolutely
on their team. They were just Yeah. I
I have friends that are, you know, special
forces and marine you know, all this stuffs,
and
they are definitely the cream of the crop
as far as knowledge and
ability
and
integrity.
Yeah. Integrity is the foundation
for all of it. So I can't get
I actually to do that test, I I
have to have a track record of an
entire career with an unquestioned integrity.
Mhmm. There could not be a single moment
where they're like, Nick there was Nick's integrity
was in doubt.
So I wasn't just doing the right thing.
It was if you fucked up, you're owning
up to it, and you're copying it. It's
like, come what may, but it was like,
his integrity has never been in doubt. And
every every operator that does this in order
for these teams to work, and and it
and it gets a little bit more elevated
as you go up higher in responsibilities
as to, like, how important that is because
you could be operating as a 1, you
know, 1 or 2 man team,
you know, in some sort of theater
in in the world. Right? And you damn
well better
have have your especially if you're in a
small team. Right? Like, that other person is
relying on you, like, intensely.
So I get to the army,
and I do this, and they got me
on this path where they're like, alright. Well,
now you're across here and you've done this
test. Great.
However, you don't have the infantry training, and
you don't have the the training from the
the general army. So they they started training
me as fast as they could across all
these things, and then they put me in
the whole
infantry school. And I just go through that
as fast as I can, and then they
have this special operations,
like, prerequisite
sort of course that they do to help
you gap the time so that you can
learn as much as you can before doing
their
our our special forces.
Commandos, we have 2 special forces. I'll get
into that in a bit. We have our
our commandos or our, like kinda like our
brain brace, right, or or ranger or something
like that. And
these guys here,
they,
you know, they're like, cool. We got a
selection and training course that we do together.
And, basically, a training course, if you're not
up to it, they'll cut you off cut
guys off every day or every week until
they wheel it down to the people that
they want.
And when I got to the infantry school,
I started the day,
like, week
somewhere in the 1st week, I got a
hernia
the size of a golf ball.
And,
yeah, and it was I and it was
down in my groin.
And I so what I would do is
I had to jam it in whatever organ
it was. I had to jam it inside
of me,
my fingers,
and I did the next 13 weeks of
the infantry infantry course like this. What whatever
it was, whether it was pack marching, charging,
whatever, I would jam in this golf ball
organ inside. It was the most agonizing thing
ever,
but
I was capable of putting myself through anything
at this this point. Holy cow.
Anything.
And the other thing was I
I was very observant, and I learned things
quickly, which became very important later on for
the the military.
So I was able to suffer this even
though there was a distraction of pain, but
I was extremely fit. So I was able
to compensate with that and compensate that I
was able to learn quick. So my attention,
even though it was part of it, is
definitely focused on this apportion, the rest of
it is, for the most part, focused on
the task at hand, capable of being there.
Well, I come out of surgery,
start training again as soon as I can,
which really means you can't use your upper
or lower body because your abdomen
doing everything is quite the challenge. Right? And
I've realized I'm behind the other guys who
are about to attempt this selection.
So not only am I behind the 8
ball of knowledge,
I'm out of the 8 ball of physically,
and I'm also extremely fatigued
here. Well,
eventually, the day comes, I get on this
course,
and I
proceed to spend the next 32 days or
4 no. It was like this one was
about 40 45 days, something like that because
it was a course and a selection,
and I just kept going. I and I
I was aware I was struggling in many
regards where it mostly was fatigue. I wouldn't
quit. Didn't know how to quit. But I
knew I didn't know things more than the
other guys, and I knew I didn't.
I knew I you know, physically, I was
kinda holding there. The the hernia was its
own question, but the fatigue was like, I
would have to stand up in all the
lessons or any anything because I couldn't sit
down anymore because I'd fall asleep. Like, it
like, I'd have been microsleeps if I sat
down. And I'm talking, like, within the first
10 seconds of sitting down. So I learned
that unless I was permanently gonna go to
sleep for the next couple hours, well, they
woke you up with some yelling and screaming.
So I was I was I was back
against the wall, and I so I got
a few days just before the end, and
they pulled me across at the outside. And,
you know,
out of out of 100 of guys that
we're down to, like, the last 30 guys,
and they pulled me across, and they're like,
look. You
you don't have enough experience to be here.
And I'm like, I
yep. I tried to tell you that, guys,
when I missed out on that course. And
I did this surgery, but I'm like, so
be it. That was my first, like, failure.
I don't know if I could call it
a failure.
Well, yeah, it it was definitely interesting. It
was for me, it was failure. How I
handled that was really good because I took
it on board. It hurt. It crushed me.
It was the first time that it's like
I gave it everything,
and and it didn't work out,
that you know, even though I'd given it
everything. Because for the most part before, things
are working out because I was just putting
in every little bit of effort. And, usually,
when you do that, go figure. Things usually
go your way when you legitimately hand on
your heart, put your solid effort in. I'm
like, man, maybe maybe I'm not good enough.
So I went through about a couple of
days of
of just
general suffering and alone time and all these
things. And the first time in my life
that I got any real concept of
emotional turmoil,
and I went through that a bit and
had that journey.
So then I went to,
an infantry unit of my choice. They said
you don't have any choice you want. Went
to the one of my choice, which I
knew was a new one. I knew that
they'd promote me and put me through the
ranks
much quicker.
So what happens, you you get deployed right
away? When was your boots on the ground
somewhere where you went, well, this is not
a video game?
I then go to this unit.
I proceed to they realize that I'm like,
I'm I'm pretty cluey, so they proceed to
promote me. We can have me in put
me on reconnaissance courses and all these things
so that I'm in charge of a bunch
of the team, really. And, and basically,
I'm actually just gonna skip that special forces
selection, which was only gonna be a place
that's gonna hang out in that unit for
a few years and then do our next
special operations unit, which is the SAS. And
then I started training 5 to 7 times
a day between all my my my work
activities.
The SAS, which is the air service?
So you're you guys created some SEALs,
SEAL teams to have something like our commandos,
and you had then you created special forces
to have something similar to that as well.
And then you just created Delta Force to
to have something like the British SAS.
And then you created out of the SEALs,
you took the your best SEALs, and then
you created something called SEAL Team 6, which
was mocked after the British SAS. So it
was definitely like a a step above for
me in maturity, the ability to pursue, and
I'll still again, this time, I just turned
21. So it's like, okay.
Like, you've got your your seals, as you
know, as your whole week. Like, this is
3 weeks of of just rigorous
psychological
mental torture,
to just see every weakness in you.
And
I got injured, but the best thing happened
to me for the first time in my
career,
I rested and had to rest. It was
lower back. I couldn't run. I couldn't do
upper body. And the day that I knew
my lower back was functioning was the day
that I decided to pick up my pack
to put it on to go to the
airport to fly to Perth to do the
selection.
Anyway,
for the sheer will of the gods,
I, I got through.
I I got selected. They had a you
know, they had, like, about 300 70 or
something start, and I got down and there
was about 19 of us or something that
got selected at the end.
Selection, the last it's famous because the last
5 or 6 days without food and sleep,
and you're already broken at that point anyway,
work you to death and harass you to
death. Is part of that
breaking down, I get to sort of cohes
you into one functioning
machine and not a person because you can't
be a person when you have to look
out for all the other people. You have
to be functioning
as a unit. I get that part. But
is it also partially because
if, god forbid, someone were to be captured
and tortured,
they need to know that the people that
they've selected can handle that, or is that
just my movies movies brain going on? That's
that's that's part of it. They just wanna
know that it's the it's the most mentally
and physically
resilient person that has no concept of quitting
in any format and can so they need
to get you to a broken point,
completely broken. They've they've tested you as as
in masses for different things. Right? They got
100 of guys at the start. So
testing you for quitting, testing you for integrity,
testing you against things they'll teach you. You
won't sleep for a few days, then they'll
test you on them several days later. They
test in how you handle high stress scenarios,
how you
test like interrogations,
all these things. And that happens for weeks
until the last then then, like, 12 days
from the end, they'll send you out into
the mountains for 5 days to navigate,
and
and every day, you'll you'll walk like it's,
like, 30 kilometers.
God knows what that is in miles. And
then Nobody knows. No one will ever know.
No one will ever know. 30 kilometers,
and then you'll you'll also climb a mountain
as well. But at this point, your legs
don't work. You've got injuries. You're you're missing
part of your feet. You're like, you're we
lost, like,
33, £34
each just on this 3 weeks.
And we didn't have it to lose. We're
very athletic guys, like, going for their this
this thing of their in their their life,
you know, something very important to them.
So we all looked like sick starved dogs
or from a war
like, prisoner of war camp.
You know? Then they threw into 6 days
of, like, every day, you're carrying
things, like, heavier than your body weight for
12 hours a day.
And then you're building and solving problems to
see if you can lead a team under
stress,
see if you can everyone's a leader, so
everyone has to be able to lead the
teams. And it's like and seeing if you
can remember and solve problems and whatnot. And
then the whole night, they'll keep
keep you up in this, like, mock village
where they've got you digging a digging a
swimming pool for the chief or being harassed,
with a knife. You're just sitting there just
you know? And and then so you don't
eat. You literally you don't eat, and you
definitely don't sleep. Like, there's no, oh, that's
where you're gonna sleep. There's none of that.
You're actually you're sick days. You're not sleeping,
so you're you're pretty
losing it a bit by the end.
There is there is one meal, like, you
know, 2 days before the end. They it's
it's not really a meal. It's more of
just to test your results. They bring out
this green stew
that's cold, and it's just it's it's brains
and different organs
that are riddled with maggots. So they left
it out until the mag until the flies
went through it, left maggots in it. And
it so it's like off
meat with maggots through it, and you're just
and it's cold, and you're just expected to
eat as much of the maggots and it's
and the the brain or whatever as you
possibly
can to show that you can do it
in those circumstances. But you're starving, so you'll
eat anything at this point.
And you get a bit of that, and
then they just take it from you. So
you don't get a meal. They just wanna
know that you'll do it, and then they
pull it from you. So it's like you're
just trying to eat handfuls of maggots and
anything you can in any format just to
get any nourishment into you. I feel like
maggots, I get that's protein, but eating some
brain, I don't know if I have to
do
Maggots were maggots were fine, actually. The brain
was pretty random. It's the brain that freaks
me out.
They got it wrong too. So they they
they the cooks didn't get it right because
everyone's cooking this very often, and it they
wanted it not really cooked for us. They
got it wrong. So it actually gave everyone,
like, basically, like, low level dysentery.
So it was like it was it was
a mess thereafter.
Pun no pun intended.
So Good lord.
Yeah.
It It was it was anyway and then
at the end of that,
they, you know, we got to the end,
and no one had been told if they
were selected or not for the remainder of
guys that had finished. It was only, like,
20 something guys that finished it. We still
had to see if we were actually gonna
be selected
to start the 18 months training cycle. So
instead
of ending it there and getting his medical
attention, all this stuff, they were like, the
the guy running it wanted to see if
he could outdo all the other instructors for
every other year and make it even harder.
So we threw straight into 96 hours of
resistance to interrogation,
which is another 96 hours of no sleep
with the same song on blindfolded, shivering in
the cold on a mat. Do you remember
the song?
Yeah. It was white something from White Stripes.
I don't wanna hear it.
Like, it gave us we all had night
post night terrors and all this shit. Like,
we're all
yeah. By by 10 days after this, like,
it was it was clearly they they said
they'd never do it again because we're already
pretty broken to to it turned out to
be torture. That there's a Commonwealth investigation into
it for torture.
It it definitely broke the lines. Those days
there, that one song on a repeat, so
so awful that, like, we just can't couldn't
hear it. None of our guys can hear
it. Like, it's like it'll it'll set us
off pretty quick. But then afterwards, we're having,
like, full blown night terrors.
Like, everyone was everyone was,
like, well, like, grow everyone pee in the
bed. No one had bowel control anymore.
Like, it's like waking up screaming. Not just
like it was like
we'd
they they yeah. They definitely broken the lines
of and they're like, cool, guys. We know
where the line is now.
It's like, hey, guys. This is it. This
is the line. You don't wanna go past
this point here, so help me god.
The so now the yeah. Now the military
knows that. And it's probably you know, you
guys might get a benefit off that too.
Strange tested it out on their own. Abu
Dhabi, they use that to torture
prisoners. Yeah. Right? They Yeah. They they use
the same thing to to, you know, and
they're they're practicing and refining their techniques of
the intelligence
on us. So it's like, okay. Fuck, guys.
Thanks for playing. Thanks for playing, but we
didn't quit.
No one quit. We just copped it. And
at the end of this, we like, the
guy we got broken out like our commanding
officer of the unit we're going into.
This dude, he's just like badass, came and
did it. And just yeah. Let's not waste
an opportunity to us to do a really
good training.
So they had us set up in this
location.
And at the end of it, they just
they go, cool. We're gonna put you to
sleep in in line with the Geneva Convention,
which means they could be like, oh, we're
gonna give you 10 minutes sleep. But they
put us in there, and as soon as
they laid us down, like, we're we're we
blacked out. Right? Like, 10 days out of
sleep, we black out. Like, our bodies don't
move anymore, and, like, we're in the spirit
world of dreaming and our and
over saved up
REM. And, anyway, he him and this entire
one of the squadrons, one of the the
the fractions of the unit, turn it into
a whole mission where they set targets up
everywhere throughout the entire city, and we're just
shooting and blowing in walls and doing all
this stuff to, like, set up an entire
hostage rescue scenario
so that they could actually practice with what
it would be like live hostages that have
been in this scenario, kinda like what Israel's
going through at the moment. Right? When they
came in to get us, they'd never done
it with the, you know, these kind of
hostages before, so they realized we couldn't actually
use our legs anymore.
So they had to get these, you know,
18 or 17 guys or whatever it was
and drag them and carry them while shooting.
So it was like, you know, which is
part of the 18 months training. Guys have
to be able to pick up a grown
man with equipment on and carry him himself
whilst he does his job and run with
us. And like they had to do a
full mission profile. Anyway, and at the end
of it, we get this speech by this
guy that I can't remember, but I will
remember that moment for the rest of my
life. Like, this commanding officer was like a
guy that you would follow into the gates
of hell. You'd be like, I'm happy to
storm hell with this dude.
Wow.
That's a wild that's also wild. Well, okay.
Let's truncate a little bit. Yeah. You're you're
a movie
You're several movies,
I think.
Yeah. Tell me about so you do you
do 3 combat tours in Afghanistan.
You end up with
PTSD, TBI,
fibromyalgia.
I read all the different ailments that were
understandably I mean,
one could argue that those things were building
all along.
I can't even imagine 10 days without sleep,
what that does to the brain, first of
all.
And that was just one instant. 100%. Great
observation.
That's for sure.
So I finished that 18 months training.
I
I I get I I get into unit,
which is a significant deal for me as
a young man. I'm I'm like now 23,
just turned 23.
And then they're like, hey. We need some
guys to go to Afghan
for for
a kill capture combat deployment over this period.
Nick, you haven't been
because I'm young, and I've been busy in
training this whole time. And he's like they're
like, you wanna go? I'm like, yeah. 100%.
Like, I'm frothing to go. I'm like, like,
it would be a fight amongst us to
get deployed. Like,
we love doing our job. So the more
we're sitting over there, like, my first trip,
I didn't wanna come back. I'm like, just
leave me here. Permanent deployment till they shut
this country down.
And, you know, overzealous in some ways, but
we'll pay pay for that later. So then
I proceed to do that one. That was
what their job was, though, right, to create
a super soldier? Yeah. We we we went
we were we were pretty hungry for it.
They did that, and they trained us ex
disproportionately
competent to the to our enemies, like, immensely.
So we did that. The other thing we
were doing that the Americans stopped doing or
didn't do was we were doing day missions.
So we were like we worked out you
know, do using combat assault dogs. Like, we'd
have these dogs. We'd we'd do missions where
we'd have dogs running around and help us
clear cornfields and kind of be in our
eyes and ears in many ways. The Malinois?
Yeah. The Malinois. We didn't let it I
had one on my 3rd deployment. So I
didn't,
we didn't let the Taliban, like, gain refuge.
Their command is in any format. Like, for
often, they'd be like, oh, if they're gonna
come, they're gonna come at night. Like, hell
no. We would come in day night to
come ruin your good time.
We did not give a shit, which meant
that we were working round clock day night,
which meant that day night were completely on
the table. Like, we come back from 1
we come back from, like, 3 days of
no sleep with training, right, to prep for
that. And then we'd be like, shit. This
other guy has popped up. Alright. Change gear.
Bomb up more ammunition. Let's go again. And
we just roll out again. And so for
4 months stints, we were just doing that.
So I did 4 months,
came back, and at this point, I was
pretty tired.
I came back,
and then I and then but I positioned
myself
so that I come back and do a
course called JTAC course. Now this is a
whole other person's job in the military to
be just good at coordinating a deconflicting aircraft
on the battlefield
to drop bombs on the enemy, not on
your own guys, not on civilians,
and know how to deconflict the airspace.
Well, we would do that so we could
do that in combat on the ground simultaneously
as well.
I'm like, yep.
I I I wanna do that because I
knew if I did that, it would make
me more employable for people to be like,
Nick, we want you and our team to
go on the next trip. It was, like,
strategic, and it worked. I did my 1st
4 months. I came back, went straight into
that course instead of taking leave off.
Did that. Got to the point where I
was just like I I was exhausted. Right?
And then had a this is where decompression
comes in. You could say all that stuff
in my life prior has caught up with
me. So then I'm like, right now, it's
I still haven't decompressed from what I just
gone through. Right? Like, as in combat, killed
my first man on day 4, and then
the combat just kept going after that. So
it was, like, pretty
pretty,
pretty intense, you could say.
And then the decompression looked awful lot like
me flying out of Australia,
the 2 mates from the unit,
going
to LA for, like, 6 days, going to
Vegas for, like, 7 days,
going to San Diego and back to LA
and drinking pretty much and drinking every day.
Like, it was like the the decompression was
that, and it was you know, there was
a few starting to be a few
rocky elements there that you're like, right. Things
aren't that great, but, you know, this will
blow over. Yeah. Decompression
equals Compression is self medication,
really. Yeah.
And I so so I proceeded to go
straight back into
went back straight back into Afghanistan
for fighting season this time, which is, you
know, somehow even busier. And that there was
definitely busy.
And did that for 4 months. And at
the end of that, I was like, alright.
I haven't taken leave pretty much my entire
career at this point voluntarily in any capacity.
So I had all this leave and time
saved up, so I took about
took about, like, about 10 weeks.
I had an actual decompression where I just
forgot that I was a soldier with my
brother and 2 dear civilian friends and traveled
around from you know, we we we arrived
in in Miami, went through the South of
America a little bit, and then went to
all South America, hung out there, came back,
got a dog, got trained up on how
to do the dog. So now I'm coordinating,
doing it my entire extremely complex job as
an operator,
plus JTAC, coordinating aircraft, plus dog handling. I
definitely bitten off more responsibilities than anyone actually
needs to bite off.
It's fine.
It's part of the bearing of emotions.
I'm not interested in developing a relationship. I
have the extra time.
So
Well, you have to have a relationship with
your dog, obviously.
We had to bond with the dog. A
lot of work. A lot of work. A
lot of work. Went to deploy with him.
And then the third one was where I
probably saw some of the shit that I
wished I didn't see as much, and it
caught up with me at that point. So
at the end of that one
You mean human suffering?
Yeah. Some some some death.
Yeah. It was it was it not definitely
seen it in every other one. It was
just some of the memories from that one,
like, seem to live on a little bit
more than than the other deployments. Right?
Like, it's it was it was more collateral.
You know?
And it was just like
civilians,
kids, shit like that. It was just like,
fuck my life, in that regard. The thing
that is always strikes me is, for any
military person that I speak with,
is that it's clear that the military
creates a person or sort of almost an
absence of person in order to
rewire
our golden rule understanding.
That's just inherent of morality of being a
person on the planet.
They have to restructure that in your mind
and create someone that
kills,
but kills in in a just quote unquote
way. Yeah. But we all know that that's
not what war looks like. It looks like
chaos. It's like, you know, it's it looks
like
it's not a Michael,
Michael Bay movie where everything's just perfectly organized
systems and technology, like targeting exact everything like
so those though and, you know, and any
of the collateral that I saw, you know,
I had it wasn't it wasn't myself.
That's when it became the hardest when it's
like it's not
it's it's like kind of like an enemy
fault, but you're still dealing with the consequence
of what they did, and that's when it's
kind of creates this frustration.
Yeah. I mean, they use children as bombs.
Yeah. Yeah. In in Iraq and yeah. There
was just yeah. His father uses he had,
like, a Yeah. Anyway, we're going You don't
have to talk about it. No. It's okay.
But I get what you're saying. Yeah. It's
so and then at the end of that,
I came back, and I'm like
and I like, on that 3rd trip, like,
I also taught myself Spanish. I was I
was training a dog. I was doing missions
con constantly. I was training at the gym
2 to 3 times a day. I was
commanding aircraft in the command center because we
didn't trust anyone else to command as diligently
as our guys if we were available because
we're like, who's gonna find fixed location of
these guys better than us? So we recorded
any multiple drones and and aircraft in the
air whilst working with our team. So that
when I got on the ground, I could
be like, I've been coordinating that aircraft, and
I've been seeing him dig a hole in
that position every fucking night and going out
touching it. Do not go there. Not everyone's
like a leader in this organization at, like,
a roundtable of some capacity. But I could
stand there in front of everyone and be
like, do not go near that. I've been
watching this guy for the last several nights.
Go out there to whatever the hell is
being dug there and do something every night.
And usually, they set, like,
booby traps. No. Let's just say booby trap.
ID
with a with a plate that sets it
off so that if anyone does come at
night, because they're expecting,
for the most part, US and British or
whoever, but the strains will go on the
day. But if we did do a night
mission because we we we think it's you
know, because that's the opportunity, it would be
like, don't go there.
Find another way in because that looks dodgy
as hell.
But I was doing all my job,
all the training, all the missions, all the
athleticism required, the dog energy users because they
run so much. You've gotta run with them.
They're brilliant dogs. They're brilliant, but they got
so much energy. I used to take him
to the treadmill, and he'd he'd run an
hour and a half on the treadmill
elevated,
or like we'd run around the we'd like
we'd go on full gear together, his little
his little entire strap chest with his camera
and stuff. He'd put a muzzle on. I'd
put a I'd put a mask on, and
we'd run over everything. We'd just do a
lap of the airfields in the sun just
so I could, like, try to kill some
of his energy. So I was burned out.
I get to the end of it. I'm
emotionally and physically burned out. And so I'm
starting to realize that I've got my my
tether where I can run out of of
energy in many regards. And I finished that
that last deployment.
And then all of a sudden, I start
feeling tired. But instead of having time off,
they throw us straight into some counterterrorism training
to get us up to speed with a
handover to take counterterrorism and and and just
hold that down domestically for the most part.
Well, that was when I that's when I
you know, my energy and
my my
resistance of this was just started to take
a huge hit of fatigue. Like, I'm like,
I'm
I'm pretty damn shattered, guys. I've just done
3 of these trips in 2 years and
all this training and everything else in between
and and, like,
you know,
all these other anti terrorism stuff. And it
was just like, guys and and also with
deployments to Asia and all these other things.
I'm like, I'm pretty
wrecked, and they're like, no one cares,
which they don't, which is fine.
I did it, and at the end of
it, I I I remember this day on
the last night that I started walking towards,
a vehicle to go home. And I'm the
last guy to leave most of the time
because I got the dog. I gotta take
care of everything else, and I'm now also
gonna take care of another half a human
being and and make sure he's fed and
he's good.
And I start walking towards the car, and
I just
it was it's like as I
the car is only, like, 200 yards away,
max 250. And as I start getting closer
to it, and I'm probably only a 100,
I just start
breaking down crying.
And I'm like, I I I had no
idea, like, my energy, my fatigue,
everything, it just burst at this point. It's
like I'm just walking
and, like, stumbling along, just trying to hold
it together. And I'm like and and that's
when I I was like, oh, man. I'm
I might be pretty tired here. I'm not
doing I'm not doing too good. I think
I might need to rest.
So then I'm like, okay. I cashed in
all my holidays
and leave and everything saved up.
And in a few months, I'd I planned
it so that I would go to
I'd I'd leave the country, and I'd have,
like, 10 a half months
out of the out of the unit. Like
like because in Australia, you don't get
you don't get bonuses and stuff for staying
around longer. What you do is they give
you 3 months
long leave if you've spent 10 years serving.
I've got in young. So at this point,
I'm like, you know, about 27,
and I've been in for the 10 years.
And never really taken a break? Never taken
a break. Like, you you'd have to make
me. So I took this. And as I
started going to all of that, I started
encountering
I went to a doctor and I was
like, I'm feel, like, really tired at the
core.
Like, I just, like not even not a
fatigue anymore.
He's like, oh, it's chronic fatigue
syndrome. So I'm like, okay. What do you
do? He's like, just rest. I'm like, alright.
Well, I've got time off coming up, so
I guess I'll just rest.
Anyway, I took the time off, and I
I went to some Europe for a bit,
and I settled mostly in Miami and down
there on the beach and just hanging out
and chilling and not really focusing too much
on
the military stuff and resting. But
what happened was I started getting
the fatigue started turning into,
like, like, anxiousness,
and then I started turning into, like I
couldn't sit in the cinema anymore.
I remember watching the the movie, the American
sniper, and I couldn't sit in the front.
I I wanted to leave. I was rocking.
I was
shaking. That that's what started first was the
anxiety around it. That became a thing
and became really, really difficult to deal with.
And then, you know, the fatigue didn't go
away.
And then after that period of time, I
went back. What happened was I I I
met a girl. I started dating a girl.
I had my really my first relationship.
That must have been interesting too because you
didn't really have all the socialization
skills that happened throughout the first
10,
15 years of dating.
Let's say I had the ability to court
a girl
like, like, you know, I was living a
rock star life of some kind and completely
unattached.
And I had that element, but I didn't
have any relationship building skills, and I'd never
seen a healthy relationship as such.
However, when I was in Miami, I had
2 dear friends of mine who were who
were, like, probably 20 years older than me,
And he was a mate and his wife,
and they were just they were awesome. And
we would always hang out and go on
adventures together. They were and he he's like
a very certainly successful guy,
and but just also really grounded and spiritual
and collected and has 5 kids for, like,
just beautiful healthy kids. Like, apples don't fall
far from the tree. Right?
So really gave me kinda like this this
person I could model, something like that off.
Ended up getting this this girl in my
life, and she was
she she's she's adorable. She's great great girl.
Right? But
the tough part is for the first time
in my life, I'm now learning how to
use emotions.
And I'm also starting to stampede towards PTSD
and and going through all those psychological
chaos to get there. Did any part of
you recognize it because of your dad? Did
you have any kind of because you were
so young. I guess you wouldn't have. Yeah.
No idea. I and I just
it became
like this beautiful artwork of chaos of me
trying to work out. You know? Like, I'm
not I'm not crazy. I'm not like a
a person screaming in the streets. It's not
my vibe. Right? But when I lose it,
it's, like, really trying to understand why my
mind
like, I I started sleeping, like, 19 hours
a day
in
truly deep sleep. There's no REM. There's no
light sleep. Like, I lay down. I am
out. My body doesn't know any of the
other factors.
I,
you know, I mean, I I start start
I'll be in a car with her, and
then I and I and, like, and I'll
just start breaking down crying,
and she doesn't know what the hell is
going on and on. And she's like, what's
wrong? I'm like, I don't know. I don't
know. I I have no idea what's happening.
And, eventually, this happened over the next I
got went back to the unit, and this
kinda happened over the next year as I
was trying to hide it and almost got
deployed for the whole lysis thing
and and and a few other things. And
it was,
and I was trying to make it all
work so I could do this job, and
the job kinda distracted me enough. But
at this point, I got diagnosed with a
chronic fatigue again, then I got fibromyalgia.
And then I eventually, you know, had this
psychiatrist that I I had to see, and
and it was getting to the point of
the full blown PTSD scenario. Right? But I
let it get to a point due to
my resilience,
you know, which is now no longer a
superpower at this point in my life. It's
starting to become not a superpower.
Mhmm. I let it get to a point
where I had a full blown
like, I I couldn't drive in a straight
line anymore. I couldn't remember names. I couldn't
remember long distance thing, like like,
long memory,
medium memory.
Everything was foggy. It it was like All
the trauma was coming to a head, basically.
Yeah. It was getting pretty heavy at this
point. Oh, flooding your brain. I proceed to
start I I'm I'm breaking down crying 15
times a day. While I'm in there, I'm
like, I'm gonna do this job because no
one is gonna watch no one's gonna go
to war and no one's gonna watch my
body's back better than me. No one is
as good. No one identifies that pressure plate.
No one remembers this.
Like, we cleared this village that last time
my my my squadron went there. They killed
81 dudes. So we go back to clear
it, and I'm like, there is a there
is a small,
tiny tree line there that you guys missed.
And I'm like and I think someone should
go back and clear it. And it's like
they go back clear it. There's 2 Taliban
laying there in ambush. Right? They would have
they would have killed, like, 4 or 5
of our guys or maybe even shut off
the helicopter on the way out. So it's
like the little details that I remember and
know
that about the the things that I added
to keep guys alive. I'm like, no one
will watch them better than me. No one.
So it's like I do it until I'm
at breaking point and can no longer do
it, and that's what I did. Were you
still with the girlfriend at this time? Was
she able to handle
that? No. No. She that had separated several
months before
where it kinda came to a head where
it was just like, I I can't keep
myself alive and do this. And she's like
Did your CEO notice
stuff?
No. No one noticed. I kept it so
hidden.
Kept it so hidden until I had to
just walk into the office of of my
commanding officer and be like, hey.
I'm really not good.
And even then even then doing that, it
like, he could he could see it in
my face at that point. He's like, holy
shit. You're yeah. Okay. Fuck. No one's been
no one's been taking the time to look
at you. Like and they they deliberately we
do that for each other in a sense
that it's like
the guys
will help each other medically stay in the
unit as long as they can. I get
that. Yeah. Injuries, whether it's for whatever, it's
like, if you can keep up and do
the job, no matter how much pain you're
in or what's going on Yep. We'll hold
it down for you. We'll duct tape your
whole life so you can keep going. Duct
tape, glue and sticky tape, sold everything.
So I did that, and then then they
were like then he went to his next,
senior commander, and they they both had a
chat. They're like, holy fuck. This is not
good. So they're like, go home. Don't drive.
They're like, do not drive. Walk home.
And this is the thing. I was almost
dying in in car accidents.
I I lived, like, right on the edge
of base.
So
to drive to work was, like,
maximum 4 minutes,
and and I was always dying in several
car accidents on the way to base. And
my subconscious wanted me dead, so it wanted
me to steer into oncoming traffic. It wanted
to steer into trees and whatever. So I'd
catch myself coming out of these daydreams, like,
consciously, and I'm aiming at a tree or
it was it was getting pretty pretty dicey.
It was against my own subconscious. Right? Yeah.
Do you think that that moment was or
that realization was the subconscious is like, dude,
the only way we're gonna get you to
get a good night sleep is to kill
you?
Yeah. I mean, is that kinda where it
was? We're tired, man.
Fucking tired. We're hanging in here. I
I don't I don't know.
I I think it's like it was a
boiling point as you alluded to before where
all my childhood and everything until this point
had finally kind of caught up with me
of doubling down.
Here's a result as a result of me
going and talking to these commanders and rightfully
so, but sadly so,
in that one moment, I just lost my
identity,
lost who I am, lost my mission in
this world, which to a to a man
is the most important thing to him.
And,
I'd lost I'd lost my career. I will
never be that. I'll never be the operator
again, this guy that I worked my ass
off to be and to stay as. I
will never be able to go to war
and cover these guys back and and do
this journey of life.
And and I've just destroyed my entire career
in one conversation of going into that office
and speaking up that something But you saved
your own life. Yeah. Well, that's it. That's
where that other layer of courage was.
Did they did these people step up for
you? I mean, it sounds like they did.
I know that for you, it's like, shit,
my whole world is crumbling.
But to know that
they saw
they they love you. I mean, they it
was important for them to protect you. Yeah.
Yeah. No. Like, everyone everyone that that encountered
it had on it well and took care
of it. It was there. It was it
was not it was not a problem. It
was it was very it was it was
more of just my internal well was destroyed
and very challenging.
Fuck it all. What's important now, it's important
later.
Right? What's important now is I need to
go to a hospital that you're gonna put
on and go every day. I have to
turn up there and do, like, this
6 to 8 hours of trauma recovery because
I'm on the close of death. Like, I'm
just trying at this point, I'm just trying
to stop my self dying. So I take
antidepressants and stop them.
I start going to this clinic. I start
doing psychoactive therapy in private as well as
in the the with other veterans.
And it was like something out of a
movie, but it was it was real. It
was real. It was where I started understanding
my past, my present, the mental side of
it, really getting some tools in there to
to so I was able to stem the
what I would call I would call it
triage,
which is West is really good at. Right?
Like, medical triage, and I think mental. Outside
of that, not really that good.
Just really handling the the immediate
chaos of an emergency
where we nail that. Like, if you ask
me what doctor I want for these for
mental or physical, I I I want Western
doctors for that. But after that, it doesn't
really serve its purpose. It's triage medicine. It's
it's it becomes irrelevant. Right?
Almost entirely.
I was able to have a catch up
with the the
the psychologist who took me through that.
I was having a catch up with her,
like, 2 or 3 days ago, and she
had a she had a good emotional we
we both had an emotional moment where she
she I thanked her, you know, to be
grateful for her keeping me alive.
My journey didn't just stop there of of
healing. This was like, I finished that, and
now I'm like, my body's exhausted.
I'm, like, tired.
So then I I I leave the military,
and, you know, I'm like, I wanna get
away from Australia. I wanna get away from
all of this. I wanna be somewhere completely
different, and I just wanna walk away from
this this life for a while. So I
went to Colombia,
and I I taught myself Spanish on my
last deployment to to Afghanistan.
I had to read and write at least,
like, you know, Spanish. My ability to speak
it wasn't great, but I could I could
talk to you. I could read and write
to you all day in Spanish.
Mhmm.
So I'd, and I went there, and I
started this new life. And I took some
time slow and and just and just kinda
chilled out. But I started realizing that, man,
I I'm getting I get sick really easy
and real all the time.
And it was this realization
over the next probably 2 years, and I'm
like, alright. I've spent, like, out of the
last
12 months,
like, 10 months of it, pretty sick in
some capacity. In the other 2 months, I'm
I'm pretty just exhausted.
This point, I'm realizing that there's a whole
bunch of
still psychologically, I've got work to do. You
know? Getting my life together, getting a new
path and a new alignment, completely incapable of
of dating.
Like, nor am I interested because it's just
like, I'm just you know, if you give
a fuck, I'm just trying to keep myself
together at this point. I
spiritually
and emotionally,
there's a void there that I'm and that
I'm starting to discover,
more of. I guess the emotional, I'm definitely
in the thick of it, but don't understand
any of it. And the spiritual is starting
to appear. It's it's head a little bit.
And then I then I hang out, and
so I hang out calling for 2 years
before I find out I'm just not ever
not sick. Like, I've got a bacterial or
viral infection or something. I had a lung
infection for a year and a half. I
had constantly with the sickness and permanently fatigued
and sleeping and whatnot. I'm like, I've gotta
ended up getting some after talking to a
lot of doctors
who, you know, they'll they'll say things like,
oh, yeah. It's it's in your head. You
know, as soon as they find out you've
had any mental health passed and you try
to talk to them about chronic fatigue or
fibromyalgia or not, it's in your head. Trust
me. They do that with women all the
time too. Oh, I think. Yeah. Or
or or guys.
Or a guy. There is yeah. Guys getting
crushed. We're all getting crushed out there by
Western medicine.
And so what would what I did was
I was like, I I really don't think
it is. Like, I'm I'm pretty good at
the nuance of these things now, and I'm
extremely self aware. Eventually found a doctor in
Australia through the help of a dear friend
of mine,
a guy who I still work with, by
the way. He just treated my mother and
helped my mother. I I paid for him
to to take care of my mother and
because I want as many years out of
her as I possibly can, right, to orientate
her diet.
And he was like, Nick, you firstly, it's
not in your head. It's this, this, and
this. All these tests here have indicated that
you you have
these viruses active in your system from the
jungles. You have dengue fever. You have Epstein
Barr. You have,
rosservo fever, which is Australia's malaria. You have
several others that they don't have names for.
They're so random and rare. And
he goes, so you have all these viruses
that can't go dormant because they're all active
in your system. And he goes, you're on
your way to autoimmunity.
And he's like, you need to leave. You
need to be in the sun every day.
You need to be on ground level. And
he's like, and you need to be,
you you need to move cities essentially and
be here. So I moved and went to
Brazil and
stayed by a beach there.
And I know that might sound romantic, but
at this point, every day is pretty much
hell trying to hold it together. No. I
mean, they used to tell people with tuberculosis
to go to the sun. I get it.
You you gotta go where your body is
gonna
heal.
Yeah. Yeah. And it was so, you know,
I go down I go down there, and
I I start,
you know, getting into this. Now you gotta
remember when I got out, like, I'd still
find work and pursuit of
my time. Right? So it was like a
challenge for that.
So I I actually found myself consulting in
the family office space just because I knew
a lot of people everywhere. I just
that was a very interesting journey. There's a
lot of really interesting relationships that I still
have today that that that I came across.
That was
that was great, but it got to a
point after a couple of years that I
was like, I can't actually do this anymore.
I'm now at my full time job of
not dying again. Mhmm. When my actually, all
I've I got
completely into autoimmunity. It wasn't just fibromyalgia anymore
with intermittent. It was like full blown autoimmune.
But also
trying to hold my mind together,
and I'm trying to hold this emotional world
together. Now I'm just trying to not die
from autoimmunity. So it was like trying to
do that now with my arms and legs
tied in a swimming pool.
So it's like
it was a nightmare to do that, but
I was doing my best. But the the
interesting thing was I I I went in
there's a guy named Jesse Gould by Heroic
Arts Project.
He's he launched the he he really drove
psychedelics in Ayahuasca in the veteran space. And
he's been in New York Times and National
Geographic. He's he's a great guy, a remarkable
guy. He's spoken in front of congress. He's
worked with MAPS to get a lot of
these, psychedelics with a with a civil congressman
and veteran congressman through through congress so that
it's accessible to have psilocybin,
you know, MDMA, ketamine, all these sort of
things accessible to veterans, and God bless him.
And he put me on with a bunch
of other vets,
put me on,
my first Ayahuasca retreat
at this gap where for, like, a few
weeks,
my health had
stabilized. Because before around that, I was like,
I can't do this because if I send
it
by knowingly send it to an area that's
gonna fatigue, and I'm gonna set myself up
for an even bigger life failure.
But I I I managed to get, like,
a few days in there and did it,
and
and that was, you
know, that was life changing. That's when I
realized there was some soul or spiritual work
that I had to do as well in
some capacity. I'm like, this is a whole
new sphere here. It's again I'm doing self
triage. I'm like, what's important now? It's important
later. My mind is kind of pretty well
hold together. My health is in shambles.
Physiologically, I'm I'm dying.
I'm like, okay. I I also have all
these injuries from the military. Right?
Like broken right leg, foot, ankle,
worn through both my kneecaps,
left ingonal hernia. I've got my lower back
seizes up. My neck, I've worn through both
my shoulders,
dental damage, hearing loss, TBI, all these things,
but it's like, still I'm playing this game
of what's important now, what's important later with
with life and responsibility
to generate some some income or manage investment
or anything like that that can just keep
you keep me going whilst fighting off the
major one of the present, which is the
physiological. Right? So I come out of I
come out of this,
state of, like,
euphoria and understanding and self awareness and whatnot
from the Ayahuasca.
And that was great for the next few
weeks, but I immediately went back into alright.
Cool. Body's like, well, sweet. But we're gonna
keep going back into this trajectory downhill of
of, like, catastrophic health failure.
But it was a good to just put
a pin in that and be like, I
need to come back here
to this this world and this energy and
this space to do work on myself when
the time is right.
So, eventually, I get to a point where
my health is so bad.
I pass through Colombia again,
and it's serendipitous a mate of mine. It's
like, I need you, Nick, given your situation
to just
meet this guy at his social party tonight.
I'm like, dude,
I can barely talk anymore.
I can't go out at night.
I'm I I can't I can't drink. I
can't do any of that. I can't, like,
I don't dude, I I don't I don't
physically have the energy
to do these things. My bod like, if
you understood how
miserably exhausting this is at this point, like,
I I don't know what the hell to
describe this, but I he's like, just do
it for me. It's a doctor. You should
meet this guy. Met him. I went to
clinic, stem cell clinic in Colombia.
So I I talked to him and I
talked to a fellow people at the party.
He's like,
I can't guarantee anything with with what you've
got going on, but he's like, but I
can fuck, man. I can try. And, like,
put me in touch with his head medical,
officer. And
she's like, look, Nick. I,
she goes, I I can't guarantee anything, obviously.
I think stem cells is still very much
experimental medicine at this time, but
the ultra rich were doing it and that
the most successful sports players and UFC fighters
and all these guys were doing it. So
it was like, I doubt there was you
know, it was completely invalid. And I listened
to enough podcasts.
She's like, Nick, I, I can't you're you're
you're so far in the hole. I don't
know if we can save you in time,
which became pretty daunting that she that was
that was kind of like
no one had no doctor had said that
to me yet that, like, you're dying,
which became I didn't didn't think about at
the time as much, but it became pretty
confronting a little bit later. I was like,
I'm I'm actually so unself aware due to
my ability to block out emotions and physical
pain
that I'm the opposite of a hypochondriac, and
I've actually haven't reacted
sufficiently in time to save my own life
potentially.
That's a huge deal, and that's it's a
big awareness to have for somebody to finally
look you right in the eye and say,
if you don't do this, at least try.
You're fucked.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like well, she
and she didn't sell it to me at
all. She's like
she's like, we're gonna help you. We're gonna
try we're really gonna try to help you.
You know, we can't guarantee anything. We we
just wanna say that. And and but I
can tell you that I've had a 100%
success with every single patient that's come in
here with autoimmunity in our clinic.
And I'm like, well, that's pretty good fucking
odds, and I'm dying anyway. So take whatever
money. It's it's just like it was it
was definitely very expensive.
It was like a lost each effort not
to die, but, you know, best deal I've
ever made in my life.
Because
the next 2 to 3 months, it started
it was getting worse. And I was like,
at this point, I I I could barely
leave the house each day. I couldn't have
conversation with my family or friends or anyone
because I didn't have energy to even have
a felt phone call.
I'd shake in my sleep
permanently so I could take sleeping tablets, and
I'd still be awake because I'd just be
shaking.
You could see the parasites around my eyes.
My eyes twitched from the nervous system. It
completely shut down.
They didn't give you something to kill off
the parasites?
So here's the thing that I got to
a doctor and they did, and they gave
me,
anti,
what do you call it?
Antibiotic?
Ebonics. Jesus Christ. I'm like, I'm struggling with
that one.
Kinda begged with the doctor. I'm like, these
make me really bad. Like, I'm like, when
I go on any of these, they they,
like, really set me back. They do disastrous
things. He's like, you're gonna have to to
kill this type of parasite.
This doctor wasn't bad. He's one of the
world leaders of microbiologists, so he kinda had
to trust him, but it was also like,
hey. The cure to
I don't know. The cure to your your
sadness is drinking alcohol. You know, like, that
was kind of like what it was. It
was like, oh. It's like chemo. You have
to count almost kill someone to kill the
cancer. Yeah. Right? It just got to the
point where it was really starting to get
very hopeless.
And my diary, which I mentioned to you
before we started here that I
I didn't stop journaling, and I didn't stop
studying languages every day, and I didn't give
up hope. Like, I managed to teach myself
you know, I know about 5 languages now.
I managed to teach myself some languages.
I managed to to journal every day to
be self aware, to read, to better myself,
do everything I could because I was able
to push through. At this point, I was
aware that I'm like, alright. I can't exercise
that much. I can't. And I you know,
I do whatever I can.
And I and I was trying to, but
it was like,
I didn't give up hope. But if you
go back to my journals,
they're like, what I'd what I'd unfortunately
but fortunately been able to learn was there's
a complete difference between depression
as a
as a, disease
of the mind
and misery.
And I was able to delineate between the
2. Misery based on circumstantial misery and depression
based as a sickness.
And, unfortunately, I was able to live through
the both of them, and I can identify
them very simply.
And I was miserable.
I was in truest deepest form of misery
of waking up every day kind of regretting
that I wake up.
And I remember just writing there. I'm like,
I hope to go that one day I
don't just exist for the sake of existing.
And I was like, you know, I just
I'm very aware of my misery the way
I would journal and process, and I'd give
myself 3 things to be grateful for every
day. I'd give myself a joy,
you know, and I'd I'd I'd work through
this journaling system just to just to hang
on to life just in some capacity. Right?
Went through a lot of Marcus Aurelius
Mhmm. At this time as well. Every day,
I'd I'd have, like, a bit of a
quote or something that I'd I'd focus on
from him. And,
man, yeah, I was in hell. I I
was in I was in I was in
Anastasia hell, but then the stem cells,
like clockwork, they kicked in.
Oh my god. They kicked in.
And I started
healing and getting better.
And then I from there, I started
feeling,
stable.
Not just not I I wasn't even hoping
to get better. I was just hoping to
not die anymore. Yeah. But but I didn't
wanna I'd had this feeling before a few
times where Brendan, you know, life had pulled
a rug from underneath me,
and then I started getting better from beyond
that and kept getting better. And then I
went in for my next round of stem
cells
just before COVID shut everything down, like, this
that literally 4 or 5 days. Like, I
did to them on Thursday or Friday, and
they shut everything down on Monday, but the
whole world was closing closing down.
And I got the 2nd round of 3
in time,
and I'm like and then when I got
that, I'm like, I'm still going up. And
then for the months afterwards, I'm like, I'm
still inclining. And for me, if you got
me back to 40% of health, I would
that was a deal. That that's the best
deal that that anyone's ever given me. And
then I kept going until I got to,
like,
you know, about a I I was able
to, during COVID, take just after a while,
it's like, well,
you know, your COVID experience is whatever, but
I'm the kind of person that's like, I'm
gonna die on my feet rather than on
my knees.
So it's like so for me, I just
chose countries that were by the beach like
Greece
and just hung out there during COVID by
a beach on an island somewhere,
and just just found my peace with the
world. Read a read a book, like, in
a hammock.
As a result of that, I just I
came out of all of it at about
70%
at the end of COVID. And I was
like, my god. And I've still continued to
incline because I got my immunity back in
my health as well as learning what else
I can do to to help my health,
which
probably goes into the next part of how
the body and the mind is so intricately
connected,
and also emotionally, spiritually, these other elements.
Bright. They went, okay. Now I've got my
mental stable because my physical's not making it
me miserable.
And I've done the mental health works in
my mind. I don't have the depression, all
that stuff at the this time.
And I'm like, what's the next realm? Next
realm is saving my my
heart, my soul, my emotions, all that that
whole aspect of me that I've done an
entire life of ignoring
to to bring myself to some sort of
holistic
health status.
Just work at the next the next pier.
And yeah. And then that's that's what I
did.
Wow. I mean, that's a hell of a
journey. And I am you're still on the
journey, obviously. It's gonna
be a lifetime
that you keep working toward it, but your
health is back now?
Yeah. So my my health got back. I
then proceeded to go on this journey of
picking up picking up business and developing in
Columbia buildings,
and I built a foundation for veterans to
to try to to spread the word about
the stem cell stuff.
Warrior refit. Is that what that is? Yeah.
And then I and then I stepped into
I stepped into probably 50 to 60 ceremonies
of Ayahuasca with really disciplined intensive work around
it to follow that up with integration and
everything.
I've done most of the the medicines that
are available, whether it be peyote ceremonies,
whether it be woofo,
combo, the the the the venom. Frog. Yeah.
The frog. I've like I've
meditation.
I've and and in in this, I've managed
to open my heart,
which I thought was a throwaway line. I
had this battle showdown one day with myself
and Ayahuasca. I'm like, I will open my
heart today or die. So be it. Come
on, May.
And I managed to open my heart. I'm
able to fall in love with myself. I
was able to understand and really connect with
the feminine and God,
have a conversation with God and presence of
God and understand the plight of the of
the feminine and the the challenges in the
world.
And then also understand, like then then, like,
months later, I went down the masculine journey
and responsibility and stepping into that.
And that was its whole journey. I've found
a connection to god that I never had.
Like, I'd had every reason in the world
to be like, you couldn't convince me god
exists. Like, why why try?
You know, not that I've necessarily chosen a
religion to go down the line of, but
I've I've almost completed reading the whole bible.
I'm I'm about 40 pages or something from
the end.
Interesting read.
It is a very interesting read. I tell
you what, it's it's a lot of it's
a lot going on in there. There's a
lot going on in there.
But, yeah, I really stepped into that and
and then
did a whole bunch of investment into myself
for self development in in every other aspect
to understand
different parts of my life. And,
I
I've I've, like, left nothing
unturned
in in that development. The the last part
that I'm covering about the emotional spiritual
side is is to me far more interesting
than everything else.
I have done more work there than I
can possibly even try to comprehend, which is
allow me to understand every tier of spectrum
of emotion that, like,
you know, any of the
any of that space to me is, like,
really easy to recognize the emotion and and
and and understand and connect with it and
and process it. And relationships and and what
I'm looking for becomes much easier,
to process in in many ways when choosing
relationships and able to keep things
so extremely healthy,
on that front,
understand my past,
self awareness of my entire trajectory,
self awareness of, like is, like, with relationships,
stepping into responsibility for the business that I
create,
and what I do in this world. Like,
I I overhauled everything in my life that
I won't touch anything unless it's associated with
passion and service. You just can't pay me
enough. I just I just rather,
like, I'd rather live in a jungle.
And as a result of that, it's far
more rewarding in every capacity to to provide
a service to another person or do something
that's passionate or both that the likes of
passion in you or both.
That has been the most beautiful part of
the journey that I'm looking forward to.
When you said
I learned how to love myself,
that was the moment. Right? Then you realize
that everything
that this is the only reason we're here.
Right? The bottom line is love. If I
believe in something bigger than myself, and I
believe that we're all put here
in order to, a, figure out how remember
how to love ourselves
and how to love others.
And that compassion
has to has to be flowing
into oneself in order for us to have
the compassion for the rest of the world.
And you, honestly, that whole journey you went
on,
all those fires,
you wouldn't
be able to now operate in the world
with such great compassion and with such integrity
if you hadn't experienced those fires, all the
way back to little you who felt like
shit when your stepdad was being a jerk.
You know?
That in some place,
he was trying to make you forget
who you are.
And then in that moment of you sort
of waking up and saying,
oh, I love myself.
That that remembrance, that's the minute, that's the
that's the moment that Genesis, right, that god
and you touch fingers.
It's yeah. There's a lot to unpack there.
The
the the going back to my childhood and
didn't connecting with that child within certain, like,
breath work or whatever
or what they've been pretty powerful and intense.
And it's like, one of the things that
came up with it's like,
yeah. I'm I'm like, he was just tired
of doing adult shit. He, like, he was
tired of being an adult too early
to take care of me and take care
of and and it's like and then there's
this duty of responsibility
handover where I was like, hey, man. This
isn't your work anymore.
And it was like it was interesting to
see that, yeah, he didn't he didn't get
the the as much of the childhood as
he wanted,
or he needed,
but, you know, that having to remove love
from the equation was was challenging. So then,
you know, being able to reconnect with him
now in this theory is much happier
and more grateful for that journey. More grateful
for the of God into all of this
as well. Mhmm. Or God or whatever or
whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. You can
call it anything. It's it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I and for me on that one, it's
like, you know,
my thoughts around that is it's like, okay.
In order to tell in order to to
dictate to me that there is no god
or or energy source or whatever it is,
it's cool. You have to conjure the concept
of this thing in your mind, which is
where god's created within yourself because how else
do you create something external unless you don't
create it within your own realm and understanding?
You have to create this to then tell
me that that thing that you now know
is a thing doesn't exist, which means you've
just given it the power of existence.
So what you wanna do is people wanna
take that, whatever that is, and be like,
well, I I don't have enough space in
my realm, and I'm scared of that. It's
really fear that governs most people's decision making.
Right? People operating from a place of fear.
So they put it in a box, lock
that box, sit on it, refuse to ever
look in it, and they're like,
god or the grand spirit or or whatever
it is doesn't exist. It's like, okay.
Not gonna try to unpack all of that,
but it's but it's like the greatest gift
for me is
stepping into the fear of god and that
there being a god. Like, it's actually and
since having that element of god and acknowledgment
of that in my life,
everything that I step into because when I
go to these Ayahuas and all these ceremonies
and things and and everything else in my
life, The bigger the fear and I'm not
talking existential
or if it's an existential fear, you're like,
yeah. Don't walk closely into that cliff. Stupid.
Right? But you've got these fears that are
really what I call the breadcrumbs of god
where it's like just trying to get you
further along your path and give you a
little lay up, little alley oop, and you're
just like
it's just it's and it comes in the
form of fear. And every time I step
into that fear, every time I step into
deeper or surrender to the challenge or the
darkness,
I
am rewarded immensely by God for courage.
So I'm at and which is actually to
me, you know, I don't I don't get
after the military career and what I was
doing, I didn't
like, by my by my last trip, I,
I I I was, you know, I'm I'm
sitting in a helicopter with a dog strapped
to me, ammunition guns at night, flying and
waiting to skydive out of it, and I
would sleep in it. Like, my heart rate
would be so low. I just sleep the
whole time, and someone would tap me, and
they'd be like, alright. 3 minutes screaming.
So like, they'd have to do a colored
light, so he explained to me. We're jumping.
I'm like, cool. I'd go back to sleep
until they tap me on 1 minute, and
they'd be like, in one minute, we're a
jump. There's nothing else I need to do.
I'm completely prepared to jump out of this
aircraft for the last 2 hours.
But it's like, after that, I don't get
this rush of courage
or adrenaline or whatever format it is anymore.
The medicines,
they've given me an opportunity to find that.
And and it and through this path of
god, it's given me an opportunity to step
further into that courage. And
the more I do that, the more I'm
rewarded. Right? So that's become the unknown completely
unknown,
like,
far out of left field sort of
blessing
in my life that I wasn't prepared for.
And I know I know America is, for
the most part, is like
really wants to run away from that god
concept. Well, it's religion. There's a difference between
God and religion. There's a difference between
what you're talking about
and the thing that happens in organized religion,
which
I think tends to prey on fear and
hate more than lift up in love and
understanding.
Yeah. Yeah. They're 2 different things.
Correct. 100 100%. They,
yeah, it is
is there I've also become less naive to
the fact that
maybe there is some general, like,
to to evil in the world. Like, I
just thought evil was, you know, the I
thought it was like it was misguided love.
I actually think that there is there is
some of that in the world, and I
have to face the naive.
Like, my naivety was a young man that
that that might not actually be the case.
But there is some
general, you know,
misguidedness
deliberate misguidedness
on on that front.
So that's it. It's the balance. As much
love and goodness, there's probably an evil and
hate hateful counter
counter to it, but I do think hate
is the absence of love. Like, the true
hate, when you talk to someone
and they're so passionate
in their hate,
I think, wow, this person's really passionate, which
is
but right up against love, really.
What they're afraid of, I think, for the
most part in their hate is seeing themselves
in the thing they hate. That's what they're
really afraid of. That's what I've heard. If
I have a frustration with someone or whatever,
it's just a reflection of the past of
me that I most uncomfortable.
Yeah. I know. And and, yeah, I feel
that. Like, I feel they're doing it out
of they're doing it out of ultimate love
for themselves and fear of losing whatever it
is that they have. Or hate for themselves.
Self loathing. Self loathing is a hell of
a motivator. You know? Yeah. Actually, yeah, that
one, you can't hate yourself to success, but
damn well, we we we try.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. So
really quick, though, I wanna touch on I've
kept you so long. The Warrior Refit Foundation,
is that doing well? To be honest, no.
Right? And it it's relative. I would say
no. Because what I worked out was
I worked out that just became a vessel
for for spreading the word.
And and my ultimate goal was to get
it into
Veterans Affairs
at serving militaries actually because it'd be so
much better to be prevention rather than cure
on many fronts, which it does. It can
be used as preventive medicine regenerative. It's literally
cells entering your body that aren't designated cells.
They find damaged or missing cells, and they
they fix them. Right? And the technology is
only getting better every year. What saved my
life is now probably 3 to 5 times
more efficient
and 1 third the price. So it's like
so what I did was I got a
mate who's the extremely successful entrepreneur,
tech entrepreneur that that
we built a company out now. And that
basically trying to build out an entire national
stem cell company across the United States so
that we can basically get the message out
there,
correlate as such as much data as possible,
and then get that into the hands of
those
veteran congressmen that do care. The reason I
wanna affect America
is not just as I in the thick
of it with those guys over there because
those helicopter pilots were not Australian. They were
American. They were there every day. They came
in a snowstorm supply. It's how they came
in a gun. Dude's like almost getting shot
out of the sky together on so many
occasions. It was like it's a shit show.
So it's like we're all in together. Right?
So as far as I'm concerned,
those nations that I serve with, it's like
1 in all in. But it's like in
America, if they do it, if they change
it, and they introduce stem cells into your
system here, then the rest follow.
So
building up the company
and creating a format where the more public
that do it, the more veterans that do
it, the more people that do it, you
know, and the and
the the more that I can affect
that space and get this across. So it's,
like, becoming a pretty interesting and very fast
moving journey to do this, by the way,
which Great and wonderful, and I think, yay,
more power to you. I I hope that
everyone
far and wide can utilize this technique and
this treatment.
Yeah. Because it's pretty much a no brainer.
You know? It works. It's been proven to
work. So what's the problem? You know?
That's it. It's been it's been it's been
proven to work immensely, but I think there's
an agenda by the Always.
Pharmaceutical industry to like, you know, they'll get
control of it eventually.
That's how they they move, but it's a
big machine, and it needs to move slow
so it doesn't rock the boat because it's
Pharmaceutical companies don't want us getting better. We've
been certainly not.
It's a logically in their interest. Yeah. Like,
it it would rock the boat significantly. But
yeah. So I I took
that's how that has shifted to this,
which has become
service. It's become, like, really awesome to help
people, like,
you know, just
across the nation that are that are that
are struggling with these things and give them
give them some hope and give them some
some journey. I haven't yet to come across
anyone who hasn't had any results at all.
So it's like it's it it is moving
the needle there. With all the journey that
I've done, even though I've done my best
to summarize it, I find myself working with
men
in, like, in in performance orientation and really
excavating their past to orientate their future and
get their whole life in together.
And that's been extremely rewarding as well. You
can help change these guys' lives for for
the better and how that changes their family,
how it heals their family, their relationship, what
they do with their life, what they go
with their life is, profound. And I've I've
been working with if I get my choice,
because I've only got so many people I
can work with at a time, I work
with veterans,
and and, you know, it's it's been
immensely rewarding. I've even got, like, you know,
a mate of mine humble enough to go,
hey. Would you work with me? And just
watching him change and watching him step into
his life, and the things that have come
without of are extremely,
you know, profound. So it's it's I'm glad
that my suffering isn't all, like, in in
vain, like, just lost in that journey.
Well, you went from service to your nation
to service to the world. I think that's
a nice transition.
Yeah.
Yeah. I had this question come up. So
when I was,
because service is great. Right?
And but I had this thing come up
when
I went to Australia after after Burning Man,
and I had this moment where I I
set myself as like, alright.
You're not dying anymore. You're not gonna die.
So that identity is not part of you
anymore.
Sweet. I'm not the the dying person. Not
that I go talk to people like, hey.
I'm a dying person, but it would be
like something that I had to identify that
time that I'm the fighting for my life
person. This is my job.
And I remember I'm like, cool. What would
you do
if you had cancer or you were finding
out you're dying or you went to jail
or whatever, and suddenly that wasn't the case
and you managed to you had your life
back? What was the one thing you do?
So I I went I
searched my soul pretty deep. I'm like, went
back to my childhood. I'm like, the only
2 things I love were
were were were war and acting, in particular,
war movies. Right?
So I'm like, okay.
Well, what's there to that? And I ended
up going down this path of just diligently
studying acting intensely,
for you know, I didn't half cock things,
for for, like, you know, a year and
a half, and then I'm like, okay. Cool.
Alright. Well, I'm a
a I guess it's time. I'll I'll go
to you know, I took that off as
a passion. Right? Because I'm like, that's the
only art I've ever loved and I ever
liked, and and I'm like, cool. And I'm
also just a marathon, not a sprint. I
don't have to,
you know, rush anything anymore. Right? My life's
so my life's great. My journey's great, and
I will achieve whatever it is that I
wanna achieve. I've worked out in in whatever
period of time. It doesn't matter. I get
there. Took that up and ended up ended
up going to,
going to LA, and they had that strike.
It's just so funny. I got here, and
I'm, like, talking to some producers and people
that I I know because I've just met
a lot of people. And then they had
the strike, and I'm like ended up meeting
1. He's like, well, we're probably still shooting
out in in Bulgaria. And I'm like I'm
like, oh, really? And I was like, 2
days later, I caught a flight to Bulgaria.
It's appeared in the casting director's office. I'm
like, hey. I'm just gonna be local.
Anyway, ended up working out pretty well for
me. Got a few films out there
last year that that'll they're on when they're
released, they'll be on Paramount Plus. So it's
like also and also so it's like I
was able to do that side as well,
which is like so I'm still, like, in
the pursuit of doing things well beyond my
control, well beyond my abilities and just, like,
getting there. Hey. Half the battle is showing
up.
Half the battle is showing up. But, yeah,
I I've, like,
I've managed to really come full circle
on the things that I wanna do in
my life for
the rest of it. Right? I think the
most beautiful journeys of this whole
working on my spiritual side, working on my
emotional, my mental, physical, everything. I'm so much
more in tune with the meditations with my
body, everything that I'm able to, like, now
orientate myself onto a calm path of things
that I'm happy to do for the next
20 to 30 years. Yeah.
That's,
and that's been
it's kind of, you know, like, I I've
been probably in one of the most prosperous
states of of my entire life now after
this journey.
That's wonderful.
I really appreciate you sharing this story with
me, your story.
Welcome. I mean, I'm I'm like, I'm happy
to
there's there's layers here of what I would
not have shared in the past, but now
I'm like an open book truth
forthcoming with everything and every information that, like
because if I can, so you have a
veteran that listens or whatever. If I can
help 1 guy Mhmm. And take his path
to step into courage to talking about or
whatever, I it's for me, that's a fair
deal. I'll I'll I'll spend whatever time it
takes to save
say or let's
say save, but let's say to reorientate
one one veteran. That's a deal. I'm with
you on that one for sure.
Yeah. Tell people how can they find you.
Instagram. I I I I don't like multiple
layers of social media. I hate it. So
I'm just like, I'm just I'm just decided
Instagram is it, and Instagram is where if
anyone wants me, they'll find me. Yeah. And
I'll put a link on Hey Human Podcasts,
link page so they can find you easy.
Awesome. Thanks, Susan.
Great talking with you. Next time you're in
LA, give me a call. I'm in Santa
Monica. We'll go grab coffee. You're a cool
dude.
Totally down for that. I, look, I I
keep last time I was there, I was
staying, which is a which is a few
weeks ago, I was staying in Westwood. I'm
slowly learning more about the city. Yeah. I
not like your traffic, but I Nope.
I walk everywhere, so it's fine. I live
in a walkable city. You know, in Santa
Monica, I live right by the beach, so
I can I walked everything?
Well, that's that's just terrible. I did stay
in Venice Beach, and I learned some shit
out there too. I can tell you that
much. Yeah. That's not what I was like.
When I first went there, I'm like, I
love the beach. I'm Australian. I'll work this
out. And I was like,
oh, this is this is this is where
I finally got Grand Theft Auto. There's only
2 types.
There's 2 types of people. There's people, Grand
Theft Auto shit. I'm like, oh my god.
That wasn't actually a Farfetch'd imagination in the
game. There's like the person screaming in the
street maybe with a knife or a bat,
and then there's a sweater wearing State Farm
commercial looking dude. Yeah. It's it's a welding
area. That is for sure. It's like you're
one of the 2 categories. You look super
ordinary because you're not screaming in the street,
you're wearing a sweater, or you're screaming in
the street. So I got my I got
my still of
Santa Monica is a little more chill.
Yeah. Yeah. You got you guys are definitely
definitely chill. Thanks for that. Yeah. Thanks relativity
down there. It's it's getting a bit more.
Be well and safe travels,
and thank you. Thank you so much. And
thank you for listening, everybody. Thanks, Susan. Tell
the story. I look forward to the book.
I, Yeah. Get this. I figured I'm just
gonna keep doing cool shit until I'm too
old to move my body and then write
stuff. Amen.
I think that works. That's what Ian Fleming
did.
Yeah. Right? Hell, yeah, man. Yeah. Thanks, mate.
Alright. Have a good day. Bye.
Great. Review and subscribe to Hey Human podcast
on iTunes, Spotify, Iheart, wherever you get your
podcasts. Thanks. Bye.