Healing from Trauma: You Can't Heal What You Hide with Joe Smarro

Joe Smarrow's story, it begins with trauma, big T trauma.

I'm talking about abuse, neglect.

Even setting his bed on fire is just a child.

But the battles that Joe would face, they didn't just end with childhood.

They weren't just confined to his home because Joe, he would go on to join the military.

He would serve as a Marine.

After the Marines, he'd serve as a police officer, a crisis negotiator, and a mental health advocate.

But even through all of these chapters in Joe's story, all of these different titles, these different hats that he's worn, the most amazing transformation is what happened inside.

This is a story of trauma, of transformation, of radical truth.

It's a story that proves that true healing, it doesn't come from hiding the pain, but rather from having the courage to face it.

If today's episode goes the way, I hope my friend, you yourself are gonna leave a better version of you than when you came.

Now, listen, before you dive in, I want you to do me a big favor.

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And with that, my friend, this is episode 397 of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

And who, baby, if you can't tell I'm excited you're here, well, please just know from the bottom of my heart, I am thrilled you're here today.

And I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that you're here for a reason.

And I have to believe that there's something that you're gonna hear today brought to us by Joe Smorrow that might just change your life.

Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_05: I got grip, great inspiration on my mind.

SPEAKER_03: What is happening, everybody?

Welcome back into today's episode.

I am in the studio today with a guy named Joe Savaro.

Joe, man, it is a pleasure to have you here.

Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Kevin.

Really looking forward to the conversation with you, brother.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.

Well, I'm excited to get to dive into your story.

And obviously, I mean, it makes no sense but to start at the beginning.

And so specifically, though, you know, my first question is kind of going back to childhood.

Would love just to kind of hear a little bit about that aspect of your life, just snapshot of childhood, memories that you stand out to you, just kind of getting a picture of where it all kind of started.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

And Kevin, you have my full permission to cut me off anytime you want.

All right.

Because I heard like tell me childhood, and then you said snapshot.

So I was like, oh, I gotta wrap this up.

SPEAKER_03: Oh no.

No, no, no.

That's all good, man.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you for that.

And I I still to this day I'm 43 years old and I don't have any memories prior to seven years old.

I've been in therapy for about 16 years.

But my first big trauma, I guess we'll call it big T trauma, happened around that seven, eight-year-old Mark, where we were stationed down in Norfolk, Virginia.

My father was in the Navy and my mother, they were married.

I have a sister who's three years older than me.

And my father was on a deployment.

She had an affair with another sailor, and he was consistently coming over to the house.

And then he decided to start sexually abusing, molesting me.

And this went on for some time.

I eventually had like brought it to my mom's attention, to which it wasn't well received.

You know, she said something to the effect of like, no, we don't say those things.

That's not happening.

And, you know, as a as a child, you don't know how to process something.

So you're like, oh, okay, maybe this is what normal is.

But at some point, and this this part of the story is important because it really is what drives the work I do now.

But at some point, it was a weekend.

Uh, it was during the day.

My my father was still gone.

My mom was taking a nap on the couch, and my sister was in the bathtub.

And my mom used to be a smoker.

So I went out into her purse and I grabbed a book of matches.

I went into my bedroom, and this is on base housing, and I shut the door and I laid underneath my bed and I was trying to set my bed on fire.

And I'd light a match and it would go out.

I'd light a match, it'd go out, and I just kept burning matches trying to catch my bed on fire.

And eventually the fabric underneath like burned through and it like caught and I rolled out, panicked, banged on the door to the bathroom, got my sister out of the tub, woke up my mom, and we ran outside.

Now, luckily, you know, because we were in base housing, the fire department was very close.

They showed up quickly.

My sister, mother, and I are standing outside, and I'm not realizing the severity of what I had done, you know, uh, but it wasn't catastrophic.

It did not burn the house down, but it definitely burnt my bed.

It charred the floor and then like part of the wall.

But this fireman comes out real aggressive, and he just straight lines towards me and leans down in my face, like pointing his hands in my face, and just says, Young man, if you ever start another fire again, you'll spend the rest of your life in prison.

Do you understand me?

And I was like, Whoa.

So that's when I started crying, and I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm in trouble.

I didn't, I don't want to be in trouble.

Like, I didn't mean to do anything bad.

And then I say, pause the story here, because again, no ill will towards that fireman.

We train them all over the country.

But I just thought, like, it would be really cool in hindsight if that fireman had learned our protocols that we teach now with our company.

But what we call our CCRTC model of de-escalation, but it's curiosity, connection, rapport, trust, and compliance.

And I'm happy to talk about that later if you want, Kevin.

But but basically it's like, hey, focus on the person, not the problem.

Like what I tell people is if someone doesn't listen to your words, their behaviors will always reveal the truth.

And now this is on a very deep subconscious level because I told my mom something bad was happening.

And because it wasn't received, now I escalated.

With again, it wasn't like straight line thought for me, but on some level, it was like, yeah, I don't like what's happening in my bed, and so I'm gonna burn my bed down.

That's not normal behavior.

And if that fireman would have just stayed curious and pulled me to the side and said, Hey, buddy, what's going on?

Like, why did you start the fire in that bedroom?

Is there something you're trying to communicate with us?

Because what we know is that all human behavior is communication.

And instead of him offering me help or hope, he threatened me.

And so the abuse continued.

At some point, my sister knows what's going on.

She calls our grandmother up in New York.

Uh, this is like 1989.

She calls our father somehow on a naval ship, tells him what's happening, says, Your daughter just called me, told me this stuff.

So he tells the Navy, the Navy gives him emergency leave to come home, and chaos ensues.

My dad ends up getting pushed out of the Navy.

My parents are getting divorced.

We moved up to New York.

I didn't go to third grade.

I was held back my third grade year because I wasn't in school a lot.

I was in and out of court, I was in and out of therapy three days a week.

And so I just missed uh most of a year of a school.

So they held me back.

And then my dad got custody of my sister and I, and he worked hard.

We never really saw him, but our relationship took a terrible turn.

He became an alcoholic, became very abusive, quite violent, hit me routinely, just horrible abuse.

And I remember at 15 years old, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.

His girlfriend, whoever it was at the time, because he had three more relationships after my mother.

Every one of them cheated on him openly.

Every one of them after my mom was physically abusive.

And I just remember getting to this point where I was like, Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore.

Like, I that's when my I had my first suicidal thought was that 15 years old, where it crept in of like, yeah, I just don't think life is worth living when there's this much like chaos and lack of safety and fear, and nothing about this feels good or fun.

I mean, I I was going to school every day.

My nickname was Smiley.

I got really good at putting on a mask and hiding behind my fear and my wounds.

And if it wasn't for athletics, you know, I probably would have never finished high school.

But what happened to wrap this up now is I start leaving the house, staying with friends more.

I had the same girlfriend, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, and finally her parents took me in and were like, hey, you can start staying here for a little bit.

And this is a joke, Kevin.

All right, this is a joke for all the listeners.

But my joke is uh just because you can't see my face or my expressions, but uh my joke is, you know, as a junior in high school with a girlfriend of three years, and I don't have a job at this point, I'm not really working.

So because their her parents took me in, I didn't know how to thank them, and then it hit me, and I was like, oh, I know I'll get their daughter pregnant.

It was a gift for them.

Now uh the the second punchline to that is in hindsight, they probably would have preferred a fruit basket, but uh my daughter is now healthy and she is 25 years old and doing well living in Dallas, Texas.

So, but that decision obviously was very hard because I became a father in my senior year of high school, and that changed everything for me.

And it was a the greatest blessing in disguise because I had zero desire to join the military.

But because now I'm a father as a child, you have limited options.

And the Marine Corps recruiter came in, did a great job selling me the dream, told me I wouldn't have to worry about finances, health care, my daughter be taken care of.

And that was in 2000.

And so I joined the Marine Corps, and then 9-11 happened, and that completely changed my world for the second time.

And I had two combat deployments.

I was with the first Marines uh as we pushed up into Iraq March 19th of 2003.

And uh it was a lot of trauma uh in that deployment for me.

And then I got out of the Marine Corps, moved to South Texas, where I currently reside now, and joined the San Antonio Police Department.

That was more trauma.

Spent 15 years with them, eventually got on the mental health unit.

That changed and saved my life.

And then at 15 years, I was like, yeah, I can't do this no more.

It's not good for me.

I'm frustrated all the time.

I love the job.

I don't love a lot about the job.

And so I decided to resign in 2020 and focus full-time on the business I created, which is what I'm doing now full-time as uh as the CEO of Solution Point Plus.

SPEAKER_03: Wow, what a heck of a journey.

Rewinding about a bit back in the story as a kid.

Sure.

Before you would go to live with your dad, besides for the incident of lighting the bed on fire, did you have anything else?

Like I think of kids maybe running away or anything like that.

Did you ever do anything else?

Oh, I was a menace.

SPEAKER_01: So part of my mask at school just to survive it was to be funny.

So, you know, I was I'm quite witty still to this day.

Um, so like comedy and humor come very natural for me, and but it was a protective mechanism for me, right?

Uh, I'd rather people see me as funny than depressed or sad.

And outside of school, I was became a bit of a thief.

It's funny, I I have no business being in the military or a police officer, but I promise both of my careers were quite honorable, which is kind of a testament to how effective is the psychological evaluation that they actually give to get in, right?

Um But I, you know, I would I would go to like we had a penny candy store, a comic book store, and we'd have these like, you know, just and it wasn't anything significant, but it was definitely like it was just again, it was just enough negative behavior that if I had gotten caught and arrested as a child, like how would that have changed my life completely?

Right.

And so for me as a police officer, I was always sensitive to dealing with the adolescents and the choices they were making because one, it was, and this is what drives my focus on the person, not the problem thing, is anytime I would catch a child doing something what we'll call stupid, they know is against the law, but I would catch them.

I'm very aware that the only reason I was in the position I'm in is because I got lucky enough to not get caught.

And so instead of me like shaming them or, you know, threatening them or talking down to them, it was always just like, hey, look, we're not gonna like debate the fact that we know what you're doing is wrong.

You know it's wrong.

But like help me better understand what's causing you to get to this place where you're wanting to sabotage yourself because ultimately that's what it is.

And they don't realize that at the point, right?

So stealing things had a little graffiti stint where I would just like spray paint stuff.

I remember, you know, this is an upstate New York and smaller community, but we would just go around like some of my buddies or my half-brother at the time, or stepbrother, I guess, and we would just like check garages.

Like they had a side door, right?

It's not like I don't know where you live, but here in Texas, it's like you have the garage door and that's it, and then it goes into the house.

But a lot of the garages in New York were detached garages, and so they had like the actual garage door, but then it had like a regular door on the side of it, and we would just check them, and many of them were open.

So we would just go like pillage through and just like look at people's stuff, and I mean, just absolute ridiculous behavior.

But I'm not exaggerating, like I was very unsupervised as a teenager, really no parental oversight or or attention unless it was some type of violence or abuse.

And then, you know, my my stepmom, whoever it was at the time, would just complain to my father nearly daily, but several times a week about like, oh, Joey, as I was called growing up, like, oh, Joey was mumbling under his breath again, or Joey was talking back to me, or Joey walked out of the house when he wasn't supposed to, or just and then my dad would just come in and like put hands on me, uh, yell at me, treat me terribly, and then go like crack a beer and go to bed.

And I was like, yeah, this this is a quite terrible life.

One more I'll share just because it came up, just to show like how not well I was.

I remember, so we lived right on the Hudson River, and you know, the it the it was right at the fork of where the Hudson River and I believe it's Teconderoga, maybe, but the these two rivers come together, and one of them had rapids, and it was, I don't know, class two or three rapids, and there was people that would go down them.

And so I was used to just seeing people come by the house, and then also we had a bow bridge like a mile up from our house, but you could see it from in front of our home.

And so people would frequently stop and like look up the river to look at this bridge because it was one of the last bow bridges in New York, I think, or I don't know.

So it was a it was a popular spot, but anyway, people would drive by on their bikes, and I remember one time I have no clue what the hell I was thinking, Kevin, but in my mind being funny, I was up in the second story of my house with the window open, and there were people just like riding by on bicycles, and I decided to take a bow and arrow and shoot an arrow out my window towards people driving by on their bikes.

And one of them was so close that I actually had like a holy crap panic moment where because I think I'm being funny in the moment, right?

Obviously, I have a very underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, I have a lot of trauma, I have all kinds of chaos, and I'm just thinking this is funny until I remember shooting one arrow, it went right by this person's like head, went right by their face, and they're wearing a helmet, but still, like I don't think that would have stopped it.

It went right by their face as they're riding a bike.

And I remember, like, oh my God, like if that would have just hit that person, oh, my life would be done.

Like, what the hell am I doing?

And that was one of those moments where that and I know I said one, but just one more is there was this big rock wall a mile up from the house, and we would go up there, and cars would drive by on Route Nine, and we would just like throw little rocks off and see if we could land it in the back of people's trucks.

And one time we threw one and it landed right on the person's windshield, and it wasn't like a boulder, but it also definitely cracked a windshield.

And this one car came to a screeching halt.

This guy got out, started screaming cuss words, and started climbing up this wall.

And I was like, oh my God.

And I just ran like deep into the woods to the point where I actually got lost.

Like that was pretty routine for me.

At school, I was the funny kid that was naturally kind of gifted athletic, not size-wise, but just I had natural athletic talent.

So I was pretty good at whatever sports I played, and which was tennis, soccer, and basketball, but I mainly focused on soccer.

And so, like at school, you would see me as one version of myself.

But what I realized is I got really good at like morphing into my environment to just fit in to try to feel safe.

And I'm not proud of those things.

I'm not encouraging them at all, but I can definitely understand how they happened because of just again, no real oversight of my life.

Like I would go to school, come home, and then it was just like, yeah, I knew I had from about 3 to 9 p.m.

or 8 p.m.

maybe to just kind of screw around.

And it didn't serve me well.

But again, thank God I never got caught doing any of the stupid things I did that uh would have got me jammed up.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

Wow.

So I guess my next question is is I listened to you talk about this wild childhood teenage period.

What possesses you with that amount of just unlimited freedom to join the military?

Where I think like complete opposite.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's why I tell people I grew up super fast in the Marine Corps because you're right.

Like that was the first time in my life where I had like real structured discipline.

But another fun story, uh, and if you know anything about the military or any in your audience, listen, we can all just agree that when it comes to basic training, the Marine Corps has it the hardest.

It's not a it's a non-negotiable.

And so I'm in the Marine Corps, right?

And they're very strict.

So we're in our squad bay.

It's nighttime, and we used to have to, I don't remember how frequently, because the boot camp was three months long, but maybe once every few weeks, we would have to go shower and then we would stand online naked, and a nurse would come by with our drill instructors and they would just like scan our bodies to make sure we're not all bruised and beat up and hiding injuries and all that stuff.

And so they they come by our line, and now there's two lines, right?

Because there's bunks on like both sides of this squad bay with like a big row or aisle down the middle.

And we're online at attention, facing forward, and they come, the two drill instructors and the nurse come by, they do their scans, and then they go to the other side.

And right when they get to the other side, they're right across from me.

Now, obviously, both drill instructors and the nurse are facing away from me, their back is towards me.

And I decide in this moment, I'm gonna be funny.

So I take my cover, as they call it, which is my hat, right, that we wear for a uniform.

I take my cover and I put it on backwards, and I kind of start just doing a little dance.

And I'm what I'm trying to do is to get the people across from me that are looking in my direction to laugh so that the drill instructors would smoke them.

But what happened instead was I didn't understand at 18 years old light reflection.

And the drill instructors are able to watch me through the reflection in the window, the direction they're facing, they're seeing this happen.

I have no idea.

I think I'm being slick, and I'll never forget it, man.

I got my cover on backwards.

I'm just doing a little quiet dance like an idiot.

And this drill instructor just kind of like takes a half step back and so fast, he just whips around and comes straight at me.

And I'm like hand up on my hat, on my cover, about to take it off.

It's backwards, and he's coming for, and I don't have time to get it off, and I'm done.

And he just starts like slamming his the covers they wear is called a smokey.

It's got that big like brim on it, and he's just like slamming his smokey into my head, screaming at me, and I'm like, oh my god, my life is over.

But that's when I realized there's a time and place for comedy, apparently, and I need to get better at channeling that because and I don't know that I ever did, honestly, because this kind of followed suit into the police academy as well.

And I've always just been someone that's like, let's push the envelope and see how far we can go with this.

But truth be told, you you're absolutely right.

And that was a great point that you made there, Kevin, is because it was such an opposite for me.

And that was pre 9 11.

So even just the structure of it, you know, having to wake up at a certain time, having to go to bed at a certain time, having to clean our room a certain way that would pass a white glove inspection.

There were so many lessons that, yes, they were hard, and yes, they challenged me, but they really did prepare me for the real world in a very, very fast way, which Which sadly didn't happen throughout my childhood years.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

Now, I'm curious the fact that here you were just joined the military.

And then, like you said, then the 9-11 happens.

What was that experience in terms of, I mean, before 9-11, had you even deployed like overseas?

SPEAKER_01: No.

Because I was in an infantry unit out in California.

So with the Marines, if if depending on what unit you're with, if you're deployable or not, I was with a deployable unit.

And so over a four-year contract, you're typically going to do two six-month deployments just for training.

So we had one scheduled for January of 2022.

So we were going to go on a routine float, they call it, a six-month float, where for us, like you leave San Diego, you go to Hawaii, you go to Guam, you go to Singapore, Thailand, and then maybe Africa, and then you come back.

Right.

And it's just training.

It's really just to keep a presence throughout the water.

And but then 9-11 happens in September, and by October, we were already leaving.

So it was it got pushed up a couple months, but the big difference was all the things we heard about how great the West Pac floats are.

So the Western Pacific, right?

It's called West Pac.

So we heard all these great stories from other Marines about how fun these West Pac floats are.

Like how fun it is to go to these other countries and get what they call liberty, which is just like time in country where you get to go and like play and explore.

And so I was excited about the idea of doing a routine West Pac float.

But then when 9-11 happened, suddenly it's like, oh, everything just changed.

This is no longer going to be fun.

This is all business now.

And yeah, it was quite the psychological shift for sure, where it was the most difficult, challenging time of my life, regardless of all the trauma stuff I had been through.

Being in war is something that I truly believe no words, no journalism, no like the brilliant journalists that are out there, the brilliant writers that are out there, the people that have written incredible stories, movies, novels, like just it, whatever it is, it'll never truly capture the essence of being in it.

And it's no fault of anyone else's, right?

It's just like I just believe that so completely to be true that if you are not in country, if you are not having to live in that level of stress and fear, being surrounded by chaos and explosions and death and hearing the whistle a bullet makes when it goes by your head, and just seeing dead children and women and exploded vehicles and buildings and just pure chaos.

And then even Americans killed and shot and dismembered and burnt and to experience suicide where people in our own unit were killing themselves.

Like just the amount of consistent saturation of chaos is life-changing and life-altering.

And to the ones that have truly been there and survived it, not just physically but psychologically, like hats off to them, because I don't know how that's humanly possible to do, uh, to see that level of no, because what I tell people, Kevin, is I was trained.

Like the Marine Corps does a great job of training us.

So I knew how to shoot and move, fight, clear buildings, what they call mount training, military operation of urban terrain.

Like I they prepared us for what we were going to deal with mostly, but then there's certain things that you can just not prepare for, right?

You can't prepare for the breakdown in communication.

You can't prepare for the fact that like no one actually knows what the hell they're doing.

And everything that was done in a routine exercise where we knew it was safe, even with stress inoculation, when you get over there, there's always going to be an outlier that we didn't prepare for.

And so you're constantly having to be creative, to think on your feet, to be adaptive, to be malleable to your environment.

And communication is the most important aspect.

And my first day into crossing into Iraq, it was March 20th of 2003, because March 19th is when the war started, but it was late at night, and we were doing like a few hours of driving up Highway One.

But that first day of war, that became very apparent to me that there were a massive breakdown of communication just amongst our own Marines as we were doing the invasion.

And there were some friendly fire incidents.

There just absolute mayhem.

And to deal with that for you know nine and a half months consistently was uh incredibly difficult.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

Now you said you ended up remaining in the Marines for a total of four years.

Yes.

Yeah.

Now, when you first signed up, how long were you committed to?

Was this four years?

Yeah.

Four years ago.

Yep.

Okay.

Okay.

Was there any part of you at the end that ever thought about continuing on, or were you glad to get out?

SPEAKER_01: I was very glad.

And so sad story here, Kevin, is when you're over there, they throw money at you.

And, you know, a lot of us are young, you know, 18 to 22 years old, maybe 19 to 25 years old is the probably median for most that are over there.

And they were throwing tax-free reenlistment bonuses.

And I, and I, if my memory serves me correctly, I want to say it was like$35,000 tax-free.

Now, as a 19-year-old kid, 20-year-old kid, you're like, oh my God, like that's that's a million dollars, right?

In your mind.

And to like know that you don't have to pay any taxes on that, like I can just put that in my bank account and it's just there when I get back.

You're already starting to buy the vehicle in your head.

Like, this is awesome.

But I remember, so my first deployment, I didn't bring this up, but my first deployment was to Afghanistan.

And that was right after 9-11 because of, again, what you know President Bush was saying and weapons of mass destruction and all this stuff.

So my first deployment was to Afghanistan, and it was a pretty inactive deployment.

Like nothing really happened.

We would do some helicopter operations, fly into Afghanistan, take over an airfield.

But when I say take over, it was really just like land, do a perimeter, do security.

Most of every time they would just leave, they would just give it up.

They didn't fight for it.

So I really didn't see any quote unquote action in Afghanistan.

So I was like, oh, this, you know, war's not so bad.

This was pretty easy.

And then we came back home and did about a four-month workup.

And then it's like, okay, now we're going to go into Iraq.

And we were kind of like, eh, I doubt it.

Like, I don't think that's true.

But I'll tell you, as far as psychological warfare on us, we got to Kuwait in January of 2003.

Between January of 2003 and March 19th, when we actually crossed into Iraq, we were probably told, I don't know, six to ten times in those couple months, hey, everyone, pack up your stuff.

We're not going to go in after all.

We're going to fly out tomorrow.

We're heading home.

We're like, oh, the first time I was like, awesome.

So we packed up, we get our stuff, we're heading home.

Cool.

The next day, they're like, nope, change of plans.

President Bush says, we're going in.

Everyone unpack, get ready, start doing your workups, do your preps, get everything ready.

We're going to head in tonight.

And then we wouldn't.

And then four or five days later, all right, everyone, pack your stuff.

We're going home.

Well, after five, six times, you just stop believing it.

And I remember vividly the time they were like, all right, let's go, everyone, load up.

We're going to cross in.

We're just like, we're so relaxed in our demeanor because no one believes it to be true.

And then the moment they're like, no, we're loading up into these, uh, these Amtrak's and we're crossing into Iraq.

I remember thinking, like, oh damn, like we're actually not going home.

And we're actually going to war this time.

They've been telling us this for two months, but like it's never been true.

And now we're actually in Iraq.

Holy crap.

Like it suddenly became very, very real.

And that deployment for me was the one where they were trying really hard to get us to re-enlist.

Cause that was so that was March to like October of 2003.

And I was sp I was supposed to get out in June of 2004, which is when I did get out.

But because I was coming up on the end of my enlistment, that's when they were like, hey, you've got you're on your last year.

Do you want to re-up?

We're going to give you this money.

It's tax-free because we're overseas.

Like, you can take this money now, sign up for another four-year contract.

And I was like, there is not a chance.

I was already a father at this point, remember.

That's why I joined.

I don't know that I would have had the courage to join, if I'm honest with you, Kevin.

If 9-11 happened when I was in high school and I had a baby, I don't know that I would have still been able to join the military, just out of pure fear.

And I'm just being honest.

Like, I don't know that I would have had the courage to do it knowing, oh, I'm going to war.

I went to war because I was already signed up and felt I really didn't have a choice.

And I'm truly grateful for the experience, even though to this day I still have to deal with a lot of that.

I still am in treatment for a lot of that.

I'm diagnosed clinically with PTSD and persistent depressive disorder from the VA.

And, you know, I stay engaged in treatment, but man, what what a difficult time for sure.

And so, no, there was no world in which I was wanting to re-enlist and just do more of that because the writing was on the wall that we were nowhere close to done.

And if I were to re-enlist, I was going to go right back.

And to end this part of the story, a good friend of ours, Moses Rocha, he was a sarge, he was our sergeant in the Marine Corps, great guy, but he ended up taking the re-enlistment bonus.

When we got back, you know, obviously it's towards the end of my time.

I start getting out.

They go right back over about four months after they got back, and he ended up getting shot down in his helicopter and died.

And yeah, it was it was like, man, it's just it was such a difficult thing because he got killed in combat.

And then one of our other good friends ended up killing himself from our unit.

And then another guy, it it came out that it was an ATV accident.

Uh, but this guy was like the chief that he was the colonel's driver.

He was a very good driver, but he apparently slammed his ATV into a tree.

And while it was ruled an accident, a lot of us wonder if that was the case or not.

So yeah, and it's been tough.

It's been tough, whether dying in theater or taking your life from suicide after it.

I'll tell you, you know, I've I've struggled with those thoughts uh since getting out in 2004 throughout my time in the police department as well.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

Wow.

Now, something that I'm always curious about for anybody who's who served in the military, and especially at the state that you did deployed overseas fighting like that, how in the world do you transition back to just normal civilian life?

Not well, Kevin.

SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I mean, this is that this is why I always tell people like, yeah, I survived war physically, but psychologically, there's no world, right?

And and just to pull that thread a little bit for you, Kevin.

So for me, I'm 22 years old, right?

I don't have a college degree.

I sucked in school, like in high school.

Like I my grades were terrible because again, I didn't like going.

I wasn't very smart.

I legit thought I was a stupid person because I never did homework, because I rarely went home, because, you know, so I so I obviously failed a lot of tests because I wasn't doing the homework to prepare.

School was very hard for me.

So I legit thought I was a dumb person.

So now I'm 22.

I legitimately don't think I'm very smart.

I don't have a college degree, I don't have any real skills except for like I know how not to die in war.

Okay, so how does that transfer?

Like, what do I do with this?

And yeah, it's like what profession kind of mirrors the military in the sense that like you get paid every couple weeks, there's a pension, there's benefits, and it has a very low barrier of entry.

Oh, I know, I'll go be a cop.

And you know, that's not an offensive thing to anyone that is a police officer, has family that's a police officer.

That's just a fact.

It is not hard to be a police officer in this country.

If you have a decent credit score, you haven't done drugs in a few years, and you're a relatively decent human being, and you can pass the MMPI saying you don't still wet the bed or burn cats, and you have like the physical fitness standards to pass the PT test, you can be a police officer.

And again, I have a problem with that.

I really do.

I think the standards need to be raised for this profession.

I remember, and I'm not jumping, but I want to make this point, Kevin, is the first time I went to the VA for treatment, like I was acutely suicidal.

I was a cop for about eight years, and my wife's leaving, my second wife is leaving me.

Uh, I've got three divorces by the time I'm 30 years old.

I'm just a whole mess of a of a person.

And my wife's leaving me saying, Hey, I hate you, and something is seriously wrong with you.

Like something is legitimately wrong.

And I remember sitting there, I'm staring at my gun bell, and I'm thinking, like, I just, I just don't want to live anymore.

Like, how long am I gonna be just thinking about suicide before I just make this choice and just be done with it?

And for whatever reason, in that moment, it was so vividly clear to me.

We'll call it the still small voice, we'll call it the loud booming voice.

I don't know, but it was so vividly clear that two things happened in that moment of me looking at my gun thinking, I just want to die.

It was, Joe, you need to go to treatment and you need to go to college.

And both of those were the furthest things from anything I ever would have thought I would have done.

And I'm like, what the hell was that?

Like, why would I go to college?

I hate school.

I'm stupid.

Like, why would I ever go to college?

And then go to the VA.

Like, why would I go to the VA?

I have my limbs.

Now in San Antonio, it's one of the most prevalent places for treatment for war fighters.

We've got the Center for Intrepid, we've got SAMSE, it's a level one burn trauma center.

So I'm used to seeing very physically injured veterans or active duty personnel in this city.

And then here I am, like, yeah, my body is fine.

I have no burns.

I have all my limbs.

I'm not on prosthetics, like, I'm not in a wheelchair.

I don't walk with a cane.

Like, what the hell is my excuse?

Like, I don't need help.

And that was, and I worked on a mental health unit, which is the absurdity of all this.

And but that's how real stigma is.

And so I remember going to the VA and they're doing my background and my life and same like you, of like, tell me about your childhood, your life, and all this stuff.

And I remember Charlie tells me the first session, he goes, Joe, just so you know, with your level of childhood trauma, you are 300 times more likely to develop PTSD with any combat exposure.

And my first question was, Well, then why the hell did they let me join?

And he's like, Oh, because we don't screen for that.

It's like, can you do pull-ups and run three miles?

Welcome to the military.

And I was like, Well, that's a problem.

He's like, Yeah, it is a problem.

So that same thing kind of carries over into policing.

So I get on the police department, and lo and behold, I get on the police department.

I want to help people.

I'm still the class clown at the police academy.

So many people are stressed out.

People are quitting.

They're like, oh my God, they're yelling at me.

This is scary.

I don't know if I can do this work, and I'm just having the time of my life.

The a lot of the instructors told me afterwards, they're like, dude, we don't know how you even graduated.

We we all were taking bets on the fact that like you were never going to make it through just because you're such a jackass and you just love like, you know, joking around all the time.

You took nothing serious.

And I'm like, well, yeah, because I know that this is just a mind game.

Like you guys are just trying to break us to see who's gonna be weak and not be able to finish this psychological game you're playing with us.

And yeah, I might struggle psychologically and be have and I might have an undiagnosed mental illness at that time, but the Marine Corps prepared me very well to like never fold to the games.

Like it's just a mindset thing.

And like, yeah, when it comes down to mindset to mindset, I won't lose.

I really believe that.

And I still struggle with like my own stuff for sure, right?

But anyone else like playing a game with me or psychologically trying to break me, it's like, yeah, that's not gonna work.

But I can break myself because I am my own worst enemy for sure.

And I get on the police department, and 364 days into my policing career, one day before my first year anniversary, I get a call.

I'm working the south side of San Antonio.

Uh, it's nighttime.

I get a call for a guy screaming in a parking lot.

I show up, he's there, he's not screaming, he's just staring into space, and I'm trying to talk to him.

He won't respond, trying to engage, he won't respond.

I'm like, all right, man, I got to get you identified before I can let you go.

Like, you're not in any trouble, but just tell me your name and birthday so I can say I was here and then I'll take off.

He wouldn't do it.

And so I'm like, all right, well, come to my car.

And I grab his arm, we start walking to my car.

He's complying.

And as soon as we get to my car, he pulls his hand, his arm away from my hands, turns around, punches me in the face, fights on, and nothing came off my belt.

No taser, no pepper spray, no baton, nothing.

We're just doing Brazilian jujitsu.

We're just grappling on the ground.

But he is screaming.

He is screaming his face off.

Help me, please help me.

He's killing me, he's gonna kill me.

I didn't have any mental health training.

I don't know what the heck's going on right now.

I'm like, what is going on?

Like, this dude must have a felony warrant.

He's just trying to get away from me.

But it was right at shift change.

And so it was terrible timing.

But I ended up rolling with this guy for seven minutes and 24 seconds, which is a long time before the first cover officer showed up.

And it took four of us to get this guy handcuffed.

No weapons, just rolling with this guy, trying to get his arms behind his back to handcuff him.

And as soon as we got handcuffs on him, he died.

And so I've got an in-custody death now as a cop.

I got out of the Marine Corps because I was tired of being surrounded by death.

I was tired of causing death.

I didn't like being around death.

So now I'm a cop.

And oh, I get a call for a guy.

I'm just doing my job.

And now this dude's dead.

And of course, the media puts him out there as like his name, father of five, 35-year-old man, father of five killed by the police.

And I'm like, damn, man.

So I went into a dark, dark depression.

And that's when all of my childhood stuff, my military stuff, and now my police stuff all hit me at once.

And that was the first time I was, I was probably 24, 25 at this time when that happened.

And that's when I just took like almost two decades worth of trauma and just spiraled.

And then it I spent the next seven, eight years actively working very hard trying to destroy my life.

My vice was, thank God, not alcohol or marijuana or heroin or meth or anything like that or opiates, but my my drug was women and I would use women to validate myself because I hated myself.

I had no self-esteem.

And I didn't believe love was real.

I didn't think relationships would last.

And so I would get into a relationship, I would have an affair, I would get caught, I'd break up, and this just happened over and over and over until finally I woke up and was like, wait a minute, I actually think I've discovered the common denominator in all this, and that's me.

What if I'm the problem here?

And that was the greatest blessing of my life was it's a mantra I live by to this day now, which is everything is my fault.

And for your listeners, I'm not being harsh on myself, and I don't want you to be harsh on yourself, but please understand that anything that happened to you all as children was not your fault.

You didn't deserve it.

Anything bad that happened to you, if you were a victim of something in your childhood, that was not your fault.

And you did the one thing that we're all supposed to do as kids, which is just survive.

All we're supposed to do in this life is survive our childhood.

But then the great blessing is as adults, it's now on us to figure out what worked for me, what didn't work for me.

What I'm doing through therapy right now is what they call like it's inner trauma work, but she told me, like, hey, Joe, listen, the structures you created to survive your childhood were incredible because they helped you survive your childhood.

The problem is those are not going to serve you now as an adult.

And it's like, oh, so it's a lot of unlearning in my trauma work, is accepting what happened to me as not my fault, but now taking responsibility for the choices I make as an adult because I'm sabotaging myself because of course I want to get in trouble or have my wife leave me because I don't believe I deserve to be loved.

I don't think I'm worthy of anything good.

And so let me actively try to destroy my life so then I can be a victim to it.

And that's a lot of the work I've spent the last decade doing.

And it's still, I'm a work in progress.

Like it's hard.

It really is hard, Kevin, that you know I have to do this daily with my mindset work, managing my own thoughts, like giving myself grace, uh, learning the power of gratitude and not future tripping or past dwelling, but really just rooting in the present moment to find something good.

And uh it's a it's a daily journey for sure.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

When that happened with that man who died, was there any part of you that wanted to just go ahead and quit being a cop at that point?

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

But with my company now, Solution Point Plus, we offer training all over the country, right?

And to various groups, it's not just for first responders, it's everywhere.

But so much of our work with first responders is like, hey, listen, you have to learn to be honest with yourself.

Like, I was an anomaly leaving at 15 years.

My own peers were telling me how stupid I was.

Like, dude, what are you doing?

Like, you don't get a pension at 15 years.

Like, just do five more years.

Like, just wait till you have 20 years and then you'll get your pension.

And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not happy.

And they're like, none of us are, but you don't leave.

And I was like, well, that's terrible advice.

And so it was me stepping out on faith of like, yeah, I don't know if this is gonna work or not, but I'm gonna pursue this passion I have of this company that I've created that I, you know, that I want to see where we can take this.

And, you know, it was just me and Jesse, because as soon as I quit, my business partner Jesse left right after me two weeks later.

He had about almost 11 years as a cop.

I had 15 years.

I quit, he quit, and we're now four and a half years into this full time and we're still doing this together.

And but it's like, man, if I just stayed stuck there, you know, if i I call it playing small, but it's it's because we become a prisoner to our pension.

And for me, I think a pension is a great idea, but understand a pension is fixed income most often.

And if you are not happy doing the thing you are spending a third of your life doing, then change it.

Like none of us were drafted into our professions, right?

Like Like no one came to your door, Kevin, and said, Hey, sorry, Kevin, bad news, but you're going to start a podcast and you don't have a choice, right?

If you didn't get joy from doing this, I imagine, I would hope that you would just stop doing it.

But it's because you still enjoy it.

You love doing this, is why you have a great show, right?

It's why your audience loves listening to you because they know you're passionate about it.

There are far too many police officers that have lost their purpose and passion in the work.

They become so frustrated.

They have, you know, just become pawns in the system.

They don't love the leadership.

They themselves are bad leaders, but they won't leave.

And I've heard this countless times all over the country.

And again, not just police, fire, EMS, corrections, dispatchers, nurses, teachers, public transit workers, all of our clients.

Everything I just named, we have clients in all of those professions.

And I have heard it every single time from somebody saying, I just have to do X more years before I can be done.

And I'm like, why?

Like you have one life to live.

Why not?

What what I call maximize the human experience.

It's like if we can just accept that we're here, right?

Whether it's whatever you believe in, right?

God, karma, faith, big bang, it doesn't matter to me.

That's between you and you.

But for me, it's like the thing we cannot deny is the fact that we get to be alive is a miracle.

And the best estimates I found in research is that the odds of us being born is one in 400 trillion.

So we can't argue the fact we are a miracle.

And we know that on average in America, our life expectancy is about 78 years.

All right.

So if we're alive for 78 years on average, and for me, like I'm 43 years old, I already look about like not that I want to die at 78.

I don't want to die.

I want to, I want to live to 150 if I can be healthy.

But because I've learned now to start enjoying my life, and it's taken me a long time to get here.

But I also realize that the statistics and data would tell me, because of my high ACES score, my adverse childhood experiences score, that I have a lower life expectancy because of the amount of trauma I have, because of my poor life choices I've made, because of these things that I've endured, I have a lower life expectancy.

So if 78 is the end of my line and I'm 43, it's like, oh, I'm already more than halfway into my life.

I want to enjoy this.

I want to have fun.

Like to me, life is meant to be enjoyed, and we have way too many people taking it far too serious and then not willing to do the things required to make changes for themselves.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.

What for you was the, I guess, the turning point, honestly?

I mean, after that incident, after the year mark of being a police officer, you spiral down.

We go through all of this stuff, but what was kind of the turning point when things turned around for you?

SPEAKER_01: There's two things that saved and changed my life.

The first one was therapy, 16 years ago, just starting that journey and kind of breaking through the own stigma that I had.

That was incredibly powerful for me.

And it was, it was my wife, my second wife leaving me the first time.

And then the second thing was about seven years ago, I discovered a channel with Tom Biliew called Impact Theory.

And it was just like a mindset.

It was all about growth mindset.

And he would have incredible guests on his show as a video podcast on YouTube.

And I remember he had Ryan Holliday on there.

And Ryan Holiday, who I had never heard of before, was talking about stoicism, which I had never heard of before.

And when he was speaking, it woke up something in my soul to where I was like, whoa, what is this?

And then I went down the stoicism path and started reading Ryan Holliday books, The Obstacle is the Way, Stillness is the Key, uh, The Daily Stoic, all this stuff.

And I was like, this to me feels like truth.

And uh, I have a tattoo on my arm that says Amor Fatih, which is a quote that just says it translates to love of fate, uh, which it's like, hey, if it's happening to you, it's happening for you.

And what I tell people is you can either learn the lesson through it or you can hold the pain of it.

But I'd rather learn the lesson.

And then just another beautiful quote that I love, which is I've learned to become grateful for the things I wish never happened.

Like, sure, I wish I was never molested.

I wish I was never abused, I wish that I didn't have to join the military out of necessity of being a father as a child.

And I have learned to become so grateful for all of those things in my life because it's what drives the work that I do today that gives me meaning and purpose.

And so without those, like who knows what I would be doing.

And when we can have that reframe, and again, stoicism has really helped deliver me and get me there to that, it really just makes the world binary.

And while human beings are incredibly complex and I have such deep love for people, I really do see the world as simply binary.

And it's like, is this in my control or is it not?

If it's not in my control, then why am I going to stress and worry about it?

And I think we just have so many people right now operating from a place of things that are so far outside of their control and yet they carry massive amounts of burden because of it.

And well, again, I have so much empathy for them.

I just, I also see it as voluntary suffering because if we learn to manage our minds, if we get into therapy and heal things, if we get into coaching and have accountability and someone revealing our minds to us and how they work so that we can learn how to leverage them, then there's incredible freedom on the other side of that.

Right.

But there's something about the fact that like some people just for whatever reason it is, there's a myriad of reasons, but it's just a form of sabotage.

But sadly, there's a lot of people that just want to stay stuck because it's comfortable.

And it's like my therapist told me, it's like, Joe, you thrive in chaos.

So like when things are calm, when like I have a really good day, I have to be very careful because I'm like, uh-oh, the thoughts start to creep in of like, okay, this is going way too well.

I need to make sure I ruin this.

And so, like, what can I do to cause conflict in my own life to make sure my day gets worse?

And I have to be very, very mindful of that.

But again, I have committed to doing the work.

So it was divorces, it was therapy, and it was the discovery of stoicism that really woke me up and realized I've got to start taking control of my life.

SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's incredible.

That's absolutely incredible.

And I guess my next question is as I listen to you talk, I can't help but wonder a guy who has struggled himself with mental illness, how do you then like you would almost think in my head, you would want to steer clear of that?

Like you have your own struggles, but instead, you've kind of dove deep into it, helping others with their own mental state.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think, Kevin, it's a great point.

I will, I'll admit that my first two years, year and a half to two years on the mental health unit for San Antonio Police Department, I was a massive hypocrite.

I showed up every day telling people, again, I'm a I'm good at putting those masks on.

It's why my TEDx talk I titled I See You, because it's about seeing beyond your mask.

And but I would show up every day telling people, you know, if you just took your medicine, if you just went to the doctor, if you would just stay on your meds, if you would just go to treatment, you wouldn't have to deal with the police, you wouldn't have to be mad at us.

And then I would go home.

I struggle with like a pornography addiction for three years.

I would drink four or five beers after my shift, just trying to like calm myself down and go to sleep.

And I'm like, I'm a mess.

Like, I'm an absolute mess of a human being.

But then I would show up to work every day on time with a good attitude, and people were like, oh, wow.

And I did.

When I went to therapy, I also started going to school.

And guess what?

I finished number one in my school as the top graduate with the highest GPA.

And it wasn't because I was the smartest, it was because I was the most distracted.

And what I mean by that is I used school as a crutch.

School was 6 p.m.

So I would work 8 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

And then school was 6 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

And anytime I'd go to school and the professor would say, Hey, good news, guys, uh, we're gonna be out of here tonight by 7 o'clock, I would panic.

And I'm like, no, I can't leave at 7 o'clock because I'm not going home.

Home is not a safe place for me.

I don't like being home.

So when we would get released at 7, I would just stay there.

I would go to the library, I'd sit in my truck, and I would just do the work.

And so I think because I just put the most time into the assignments, that's how I ended up finishing top of the class.

But it was all out of avoiding wanting to be home.

And again, when people create their distractions or their masks or their avoidant behaviors, it's so hard for them sometimes to agree or see it when it's something positive.

Because on the outside, looking in, if you didn't know any better, you'd say, like, wow, look at Joe.

He's a great cop.

He's doing great work in the community, he's well respected, he's never getting in trouble.

In fact, he's getting awards and accolades, and he's in school and he's finishing top of his class.

He's on the dean's list.

He finished number one.

Like, man, what a great guy.

And yet, I'm still thinking, I just want to die.

And it wasn't until, again, after that two-year mark where I decided I need to go to treatment and start going to therapy.

And then to actually answer your question and make the point, Kevin, this work became cathartic for me.

And what I learned was every time I go to therapy and learn something about myself, I was like, whoa, yes, this is good for me.

This is all for me, but other people need to know this.

And I have a privilege of working on a mental health unit where I get to interface with people in the worst moments.

And what am I doing that I'm learning through my own therapeutic journey that now I can help other people?

And again, I'm not providing therapy in crisis context.

I'm doing de-escalation, but I'm learning skills that have allowed me to better connect to myself, that now I can take and use on other people to help them better connect with themselves.

And even if it was just to give them hope to want to stay alive one more day.

And now I am in a position where I help people that help people.

And as a training company, we fuse all of these concepts and the things that I've learned through my various treatment modalities, even Stoicism.

Stoicism influences all of our content and our curriculum.

And so I've taken all of these things on my own journey, right?

And the saying we use is facts tell and story sell.

Right.

Uh Jesse, who has a PhD, he's just got to finish his dissertation.

I'm four classes shy of my master's degree.

My goal is to never have to finish it because in business I don't need the formal education.

I just need execution and decision making.

But but for me, like we are intelligent people.

And I just want people to know, like when they come to our trainings, that it's like we're not just going to give you a whole bunch of research and data.

We're going to let you connect to us as people that have lived experiences and stories.

And this is the power of like peer connection and peer support is when you have people with lived experiences, it's so much easier for an audience to connect to them versus just saying the data says or the research says.

And it's like, yeah, but have you lived this life?

And my answer typically is yes.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

As we've kind of walked through this story today, we we've talked about these multiple transitions in your life, whether from going from living at your mother's to your father's to you leaving home, ended up moving living with friends, and then your girlfriend, then joining the military, then becoming a cop.

All of these transitions that really were things that weren't quote unquote, like the thing, the say the choice that maybe you wanted to do, but you just did it.

When you made the choice to chase a passion, leaving being a police officer into this world of kind of entrepreneurship, what was that transition like?

Because it was really the first time from my kind of perspective that you chose something based really on what you wanted to do.

Incredible, Kevin.

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: You're an incredible listener and you are really skilled and talented at seeing the throughput here.

So right before I left, it was doing the work with my therapist that I'm still with.

Now I've been with her almost seven years.

And she was a big reason why I left because, you know, again, I had all the fear.

I fought it for 18 months.

I was like, I know I'm not happy, but I can't just walk away.

And yeah, I have this business, but like we're not making any real money.

I mean, we're making like$30,000 a year as a side hustle.

Like I can't live on that and pay my child support and health insurance and all that.

So I'm like, yeah, I don't know that leaving is smart, but I also don't love being unhappy every day.

And I remember my therapist telling me, she goes, Joe, just like you brought up right there, she's like, you have been a victim or a passenger in your whole life or in your life, your entire life.

Right?

You chose the military because you had a kid.

You chose the police department because you didn't have a skill or a job that you thought would transfer, so you just became a cop.

You went to school and therapy because you thought this was a better alternative to suicide.

And you've always done things from the passenger seat of your own life and you've never really taken control of it.

She was like, I want you to pull out your phone and let's just pick a date on the calendar and you're gonna quit.

And I was like, ah, terrified, like so afraid.

And she goes, Joe, I promise you, if you just focus all your time on this one thing because it's what you're actually passionate about, you can't fail.

And other people had told me this, right?

Other people in the entrepreneurship space that I belong to, some mentors, are like, you're not an entrepreneur, you're a wantrepreneur because you still have your safety net.

You know you're getting paid in two weeks, so you don't have to grind on your business.

And man, were they right?

Because I'll tell you, in fact, in 2020 was our best year ever.

So things started to pick up, which was a blessing.

We did like$70,000 in 2020 as a side hustle, but still, it was COVID, right?

We're in the midst of COVID.

COVID's March 2020, and we're now in September, and that's when I resigned was September 24th, and the world shut down.

And I own an in-person training company, so all odds are stacked against me.

And yeah, I honestly don't know.

We just figured it out.

But lo and behold, everyone was right.

And again, I'm not bragging, I'm just trying to make a point here and answer the question.

But wouldn't you know it?

In 2021, we went from$70,000 to over$700,000 in business our first year, and we had like 900% growth.

And I was like, oh my goodness.

Now these are fun problems to have because I don't know how to actually manage money.

So now I've got to learn this skill.

I've never made this kind of money before, right?

And so we made mistakes there.

We were just burning cash.

It was one of my mentors said, dude, you didn't create a business, you just created an ATM machine.

Like this is not sustainable.

Slow down.

Um yeah.

So, but to bring all that home, yes, the point is when I finally decided I'm gonna do what I want to do.

It's what one of my I got some custom shoes made, Kevin.

I got these like custom Nike Air Force Ones made and how I signed every one of my books, right?

Because my first book just came out, 2024, called Unarmed.

And a lot of the stuff that we've talked about today is in that book.

And so I'd love to just offer some to your readers, but I sign every one of my books the same, which is be selfish.

And this idea of learn to choose yourself for yourself.

It's not bad.

We, as a society, we've created such a negative uh description of what being selfish is.

And there is a negative side of selfishness for sure, but my version of selfishness is I want to be known as a selfish person, a selfish man, a selfish individual, because you know, based on my actions, that I'm a very selfless person.

And when I say be selfish, it means I go to therapy, even if I'm on the road, I'm gonna do it over Zoom.

I have to play golf.

Like, and not daily, not even weekly, but like if I don't get a tea time in at least like once a month, I start losing my mind a little bit because I'm like, oh, I am way too focused on business right now.

I'm not bringing in enough pleasure because golf is my number one self-care for me personally.

So it's like, yeah, I have to make sure I schedule my tea times so I know when my fun is going to be scheduled in.

That's just my idea of what being selfish is my morning gratitude, right?

Every day starting my day in reflection.

Where am I?

Why am I here?

Who contributed to this?

Every day, the same thing, right?

So I have my practices that I have to do for myself, but I see that as selfish because if I don't take myself serious and I don't prioritize myself and love myself first, then I'm not going to be able to show up as the best version of myself for everyone else.

Yeah.

So the idea of being selfish is just learning to choose yourself.

For all the listeners to this, Kevin, you, everyone listening to this, friends and family, the greatest cure you will ever have is your cure of the disease to people please.

And when we can stop living our lives in accordance with other people's expectations of what we should have done or what we should be or what we should be doing, there's so much freedom in learning to choose yourself.

What drives you?

What are you passionate about?

And how can you learn to create a life around that?

That to me is the beauty of life.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Wow.

Man, what an amazing, amazing example of the blessings that can come when you truly find your place in the world.

When you chase that passion, when you chase that desire, when you when you know the thing that you were meant to do and you do it, you're not choosing out of obligation or what you think you're supposed to do, but you just do it.

And to hear how business exploded, how not only just having this business, which which I want to ask you more about here in a minute, but then you you do TEDx talk, you've written a book, you're doing podcasting, all of this sharing your story, but also just your pure utter passion for what you do.

It's absolutely amazing and such a beautiful example of your world was just your world, your life was just waiting on you to finally choose you, and then it could all open up.

SPEAKER_01: Amen, brother.

Well said.

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yes, yes.

Well, talk to me about the business that you and your partner started and exactly what you guys do.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So we say we're international only because we're up in Canada as well, but we are a training and consulting firm that operates at the intersection of public safety and behavioral health care.

So, all of that to say, to make it very simple, we offer de-escalation training as our expertise.

We are very good at de-escalation.

So we have, I would argue, the best de-escalation training programs in North America.

And then we also have wellness and resiliency suicide prevention training as well.

So we do the de-escalation training for me is giving people the skills to deal with the external world and other people that potentially go into crisis.

And then the mental health, wellness and resiliency training that we offer is for the individual to help them level up their own life and learn some of the concepts that, again, I have learned and utilized in my own life.

Our clients vary, we our largest client is the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

And so all the federal prisons in America fall under our de-escalation training.

And then we've got unique clients like the Valley Transportation Authority up in San Jose, which is bus operators and light rail workers in the public transit space.

We've worked with grocery stores, we've worked with schools, we've worked with hospitals and healthcare.

So it's really wherever there are people that deal with other people that have a potential to go into crisis, I assure you we have a solution.

That's really what the business is.

I do a lot of keynotes as well all over the country.

I speak at conferences, uh, which again, you know, is more on the mindset, inspiration, motivation side.

But then usually that's a funnel to get us in to do more training as well with our company.

There are 12 people in the company now.

And yeah, we're very easy to find at solutionpointplus.com, all spelled out.

And then my website is josmarrow.com, and that's where you can find me and the work that I'm doing as well, or book me to speak at events or get the book.

So very easy to find.

And yeah, the company's awesome, man.

I love it.

It's so much fun.

It's just all right now, it's in-person training that gives people the skills to increase their confidence and competence in dealing with the mental health crisis of America.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, fantastic.

Well, I will be positive that that all the links and stuff that you mentioned are in the show notes for anybody interested for easy access.

But to kind of wrap up today, will you tell me more about the TEDx talking plus your book?

I would love to hear more about both of those.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So TEDx was in 2018, and I've been a big fan of TED for a long time, learned a lot from their talks.

And so to speak on the red dot was a very, very proud moment for me.

Although I will say my goal is to do another one where because when I watch it now, and you can just go on YouTube and put in my name, Joe Smorrow, but when I watch that, I'm like, oh, that is so bad.

Because it doesn't feel like me.

Like I doesn't have the right personality, the right, you know, gestures, the intonation.

Because with Ted, it's very memorization driven.

You write your talk, and then you have a curator, you have a coach, and then your talk starts changing multiple times until the whole group decides, yes, this is good.

That's how ours was anyway.

And so now I'm like, okay, we just got the final stamp on this, like five days before I go live.

Now I've got to memorize this talk, which, yes, it's my talk, but I got to memorize like 10 sheets of paper.

And I I, as a speaker and a trainer, I'm very good at just knowing what my main themes are, and then I can go off the cuff and I'm always like on time, right?

So I've gotten good at that skill.

Well, this was very different, and so I felt a little robotic.

I felt a little underprepared myself that I didn't put in the right amount of time because I was like, I can just kind of wing it.

Yeah, there's no winging it with Ted.

So but the the concept I see you came from the movie Avatar.

And in the movie Avatar, how they greet each other is they take their like long hair and they like plug it in.

To one another, and you see this physical transference of energy, and that's how they would actually connect and say hello.

And I just thought, like, how interesting that here, especially in the Western culture, that when we say hello to someone or like, hey, what's up?

It's super trite.

It's a very above surface level response.

Like, think about this, Kevin.

If you were walking down the street or in a store and someone was just like, Hey, how you doing?

And you're like, honestly, not well.

You know, I haven't slept well in a few weeks.

I I've been really struggling with my mental health.

That person would be in such panic.

They'd be like, Whoa, man, like, oh Jesus, I didn't ask for all that.

Like, good Lord.

They wouldn't know what to do.

And so, because of that, we've just gotten into the habit of just giving these like very flippant responses of like, Yeah, everything's good, living the dream.

I'm fine.

Hey, how are you?

Good.

All right, awesome.

There's no real meaning in that.

There's no real connection in that.

And I think that is the greatest thing that we are lacking as a society right now is true, meaningful connection, not fabricated, not a phantom connection, but like real, true human connection is the thing that I think that we are lacking most.

And so my talk was just how I, as a cop, focused on people, uh, regardless of what they have done, regardless of what they have said, regardless of who they are, but to see the human in them, the one that is worthy and deserving of love and being the one willing to give that to them, if even for a moment.

But it was also about pushing the power of reciprocity and that when I say I see you, this isn't one-sided.

I also want to be seen in return, which is why I would, if the situation allowed for it, I would share my story as well.

Right.

Like, hey, listen, man, I know right now, while you're thinking about suicide and you're thinking that's the best option and you think you're all alone, you know, if the situation allowed for it, I'd tell them, like, I can relate to part of your story.

Right.

I have been in a similar position because of this thing that happened in my life, man.

And it's hard.

It's real hard.

But if you're willing to commit to the work, dude, like there's great opportunity on the other side of this, but right now you're just having a hard time seeing it because you're in the throes of it.

And I've been there, man.

But it's like, it's not about minimizing their experience, it's about sitting with them in it.

And that's a big difference.

And so that's what the talk was.

And again, it's on YouTube, it's about 11 minutes long.

And then my book is titled Unarmed.

It's Deescalation Techniques to Cultivate Courage, Compassion, and Connection.

And a lot of what I'm talking about right now on the wellness stuff, on the suicide prevention stuff, and then the things we didn't really talk about, which is all like the skills stuff.

So, like four of the classes we teach in person are chapters in the book.

And I did that for two reasons.

One, I wanted the book to be a great resource for people that go through our training.

But two, I really wanted the book to be a resource for people who maybe their agency or maybe they're just even, I've had like stay-at-home moms read it and get value out of it.

So maybe your your agency or your employer can't afford to bring us out.

Cool.

Go on Amazon, spend the 19 bucks, or if the money's a barrier, reach out to me, connect with me on social media and say, hey, Joe, I would love the book, but I can't afford it.

I'm gonna send it to you for free if that's what you want.

And then I'm working on the audio book right now, and uh it should be done here very soon.

I've just got to read my last chapter because I'm doing it myself.

So I got to read my last chapter, get it edited, and then get it through the ACX checks, and it'll be on uh on Audible or wherever the audio books are that you listen to.

So we're getting close, but I just I wanted that book to be a resource for people that can't take our training, and I wanted it to just be another like legacy token for my children or uh long after I'm gone books or something that just kind of stay around forever.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man, I love it so much.

Joe, man, you are the boost of positivity that I know I needed today.

I can only imagine the person listening that they needed, whether they realized they needed it or not.

By now they realized, whoo, I know I couldn't live without it.

And uh you, you, man, you're you're an awesome guy.

And more than than anything, I love the way that your story is going.

The fact of you choosing you, you choosing to live, to thrive, and to use what you've gone through to give back and help others.

I think it's an absolute beautiful story.

It's been an honor getting to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Kevin.

I really appreciate you sharing your audience with me and uh for your incredible questions and the conversation.

Eternally grateful to you, brother.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03: Oh man, you you are welcome.

And uh for you listening today, I hope that you've taken something away today that you can implement in your own life.

Obviously, I want you to be entertained, but more so, I want this podcast to mean something to you, to do something for you.

And maybe the biggest thing is that maybe there's somebody in your life that you could think could really benefit from this.

Go ahead and share today's episode with them.

That would mean the world to me, and I know in turn it will mean the world to them.

So until next time, I'm of course your host, Kevin Lowe, and this was another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

SPEAKER_05: Grace and inspiration!

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