Marcus & Amber Capone: On Ibogaine, Veteran Suicide, PTSD Treatment & Brain Health

It was after Marcus's service that things started to really unwind. He really struggled when he transitioned into civilian life. I knew that he was grappling with thoughts of suicide, but I felt like Western medicine had no more options for us. Based around suicide in the military, I mean, we've actually lost more military service members to suicide than we have in combat. We've lost individuals that died by suicide over 150,000 compared to just over 7,000 that were lost in the battlefield. So that number is just staggering. That number is real. If you look at modern medicine's approach, most of what they offer, people that are in that condition are coping mechanisms. I was prescribed anti-depressants for years. And we know now that anti-depressants work for maybe to 30 to 50% of the population. What do we do for the other 50%? What would you say to the audience that's listening to this, that would be great ways to maybe throw up a flag that someone might need to help? Some of the red flags that I could identify in hindsight would be. [Music] Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, Human Biologist, Gary Breco, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's only my third-person shoot podcast. So this is one of those in-between podcasts, but welcome to the podcast, Marcus and Amber Capone. I'm so psyched to have you guys on here. My only regret was in preparation for this podcast, I watched your documentary, and I wish I had watched that before. I had DJ Shipley on the podcast. Yeah, that would. I don't think it was out yet, actually. Oh, okay, that would be a good excuse. Yeah, yeah, excuse. Okay, then good. When did the. November 4th, it started in. Oh, okay, so he was on before in November 4th. Yeah, but let me tell you something. That was an eye-opening documentary for me, because I think a lot of people, and if you haven't watched in Waves and War, you have to watch it. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes below. My wife watched it. I watched it. Incredibly impactful podcast. And not just if you are married to someone who's a service member or a former Navy SEAL, but anyone who is struggling with mental illness, addiction, this is just such a life-changing moment for a lot of these people. But before we talk about the documentary, and there's a lot we're gonna unpack today, I wonder if you rewind a little bit and just talk about your journey, what led up to this documentary about IBA game? How much time do we have? Give me a few hours. Not as you want. We already talked about him running long on podcasts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First Gary, just thank you for having us here. We're super stoked to be on the show. So we're very excited to get into whatever we're gonna go. And I know it feels like you're ready to rock. So if you want to do a great job. Totally honored to be here. I echo everything Marcus just said. Thank you. And we've been together for a very long time, almost three decades. So that's why there's a lot of content. But it was after Marcus's service that things started to really unwind and leading up to his exit from the military, we had spent so much time apart. Like up to 300 days a year that I didn't really know him anymore. There's a lot to that. But all to say that he really struggled when he transitioned out of the military into civilian life. And I was desperate to help him because I didn't want to lose him. But I felt like Western medicine had no more options for us because he had tried several things. And he can talk more about, how when you try and try and try again and don't receive a result, he can become very desperate. So I knew that he was grappling with thoughts of suicide. And I was just willing to try anything. And I did it as much to forgive myself if the worst happened as I did to help him because I didn't think anything would help at that point. But it did. And I think that's what's so important about this documentary is I don't want it to be pigeonholed as the savior of our service members. I wanted to be broad and so that people that are struggling with psychiatric illness or conditions like depression, crippling anxiety. What this seemed to do was unlock the reasons behind it. Which is what I found out found really fascinating about the documentary because if you look at modern medicine's approach and this is not to dog on modern medicine, most of what they offer people that are in that condition are coping mechanisms. Symptom reduction. Yeah, you've got a heavy backpack on. You can just get stronger. We don't know how to take it off. And I think one of the tipping points for me watching the documentary was listening to DJ Shipley talk about how he saw a post that you had done with him and you were just being like very vulnerable. We did a PSA. So we had lost Gary. We had lost a few teammates to suicide in the weeks leading up to the PSA. And I just said, I kind of broke down. And I said, is this the next wave of what we're going to witness? You know, we've fought 20 years of combat. If you come home with all your digits and all your toes, that's a good thing. Many of us are coming home with hidden wounds of war. And that's hidden wounds of war, but also some, let's throw in some childhood stuff there. Let's throw the wartime stuff where there's trauma, whether it's brain trauma, TBI's, through concussive, concussions, etc. And then let's throw transition in there. And it's very difficult to diagnose a person. Right. If you go back to Western medicine, we don't want to dog it here. They want to take a single diagnosis and a single drug, and it's very easy for a doctor. But someone like me, who has these complex cases, or if you want to call it comorbids, I was prescribed antidepressants and traditional talk therapy for years. And we know now that antidepressants work for maybe 30 to 50% of the population. Yeah. What do we do for the other 50% if we were to. Right, exactly. Treatment resistant. So if we went out on a mission, they said, hey, 50% of you are not going to come back. That's not a good number. Right. But we're doing that with our current approaches to mental health care, or brain health now. We're kind of moving away from the term mental health, more brain health, because we're starting to see this as a biological issue, not, quote unquote, a mental issue. So not everyone, half of us, will not respond to these. And so what do we have available? There are some FDA-approved treatments now. We'll get into what worked for me. But as I said earlier, before we got on the show, I began with just one of the spokes. There's a lot of spokes to this healing process, right? And there's a hub in the middle. And we just have to have access to things that are available and available for us. Right. We just can't put a box around what has been introduced to us almost 30 or 40 years ago. I call it old technology, because this is really that's what it is. Yeah, and you're right, because I come from a data science background. And so sometimes you have to take a step back and just look at the outcomes. Right. And some of the most alarming statistics I've ever seen in my lifetime. And hopefully I don't misquote these. We're based around suicide in the military. I mean, we've actually lost more military service members to suicide than we have in combat. Significantly more. Like, four times as many. That is mind numbing. Well, if you do-- Ammonia racing, too. Yeah, you got it. If you actually do the math over 20 years of combat, where we lost just over 7,000 service members in combat, during that same period of time, there's roughly 20 veterans per day that have died by suicide. But independent reports show that it could be double that or higher because they're not taking into account people who have died maybe that aren't registered to NVA care or deaths of despair, like overdoses or liver failure, whatever from hoping-- Overrelincation, cover mechanisms. Overmeticating. So when you actually do those numbers, 20 to 44 per day, it could be over 150,000 lost in the same period of time to suicide when compared to the 7,000. It's staggering. And that's also not taking into account people that are suffering with suicidal ideation or barely white knuckling life. Yeah, so 20 times the amount. So we've lost individuals that died by suicide over 150,000. And a lot of individuals are over 150,000 compared to just over 7,000 that were lost in the battlefield. That's the one that's my only out of AC. It is. And most people don't know that number. And every time we say that number, I kind of pause to let people really absorb that. So when you think about it, we spend the money, we go to war, we do what we believe is right. We lose over 7,000 individuals. We lose over 150,000 to suit. What is happening? There's obviously-- there'll never be a single answer. There's a lot of answers to that. But that number is real. It means statistically speaking, you have a greater chance of dying by suicide, entering the military than you do of dying in combat. And that is-- and multiples. And that's where I think sometimes the data becomes very sobering. We do this at-- in the Mahakshin Committee, Chair Bobby Kennedy's Mahakshin Committee, and just taking a sober look at the data, we spend $5.5 trillion a year on healthcare, where the sickest, fattest, most disease or ordination in the world, record as our military age, men and women, don't qualify for military service to the poor health. You start looking at the soundings, then you say, okay, what we're doing is not working, right? And this isn't the blame game, you know, doesn't make you anti-science, but what it just says is we need to open the door for two some alternatives. And was this kind of where that journey began with a wife trying to save her marriage and her husband? 'Cause she loves you. - And I love her. - And yeah, and I think that Navy SEALs probably epitomize the generation of men that are just supposed to suck it up. And I think they also epitomize the mentality of most men just suck it up. I mean, you're not calling your buddy and telling him, I feel so vulnerable when I'm thinking about taking my own life. - We're not good for asking for help. - Yeah, that's right. - We don't wanna show weakness by saying, hey, I need help with this. Whatever, it could literally be-- - I got this. - It could be anything. I got this, I'll figure it out. But there's only so many things we can figure out on her. You know, we have a saying in the SEAL teams, we have this buddy check. You're always with your buddy. From day one at buds, you never go, you never go six feet outside of your buddy. From the day you start to the day you graduate, including underwater when you're diving, you actually have a land yard that's attached to you. So if you and I were dive buddies, I would have the Clip Dawn land yard a rope and you'd have it Clip Dawn, we would never be six, one six feet apart. More than six feet apart underwater. - There's very anti-COVID. - It's anti-COVID. - Yeah, the anti-social distancing. Maybe she's gonna have six now. - Yeah, you should have been sick of that. - 'Cause COVID only goes six feet. - 100%. - No matter what. - No matter what. - Six one, it can. - For sure. - But that's the idea, right? Is it you have this buddy now, but all of a sudden now you're not supposed to rely on that buddy when you're struggling internally or you're dealing with, you know, if you wanna call it, the demons, the darkness, the pain, the depression, the suffering, you can figure it out on your own. And I think we just have to get out of that mindset because who can really do things just by yourself on your own? Right? You've built the ultimate human, have you done this solely by yourself? Would you have an amazing team that's behind you and that's doing this and doing that? - All by myself, they just sit here and run. She's actually not on the computer right now. She's probably just scrolling, right? They're insuring. But we always need individuals and help. And I've had, luckily, I've had a guardian angel that has been my swim buddy for so many years from the day we've met. And it took me a while initially, Amber says it, well, where we like to white knuckle life, meaning just like we just want to hang on and we're really good at pain, right? We almost thrive through pain, but sometimes that pain is not good for your spouse, your children, your friends, your coworker. - Or for you that matter. - And if you don't fix us, everything else doesn't get fixed. We can't put on your own oxygen mask first. - Yeah. - And so I think we're getting better at that. I think you're doing is literally saving so many human lives, Gary. - Wow, thank you. - And we're trying to, you know, you are, you're doing is opening up, you know, just people's minds to different ways to look at taking care of themselves and taking care of others. And, you know, we will, we have a trouble admitting it, but we are also saving people's lives, right? We're not just saving the individual, we're saving the families, we're saving generations. Because if I can take care of my kids and we raise them in a way where they're good, honest, hardworking individuals and they're good people, and they're gonna pass that along to their children and to their children. - It definitely stopped trauma cycles for our family. - Yeah. - And reduced generational suffering. And I think that's one of the things that I've witnessed is our community, the SEAL community has a very high threshold for suffering, almost embrace the suffering or need suffering for fuel. - Perverse, yeah. - And I think that a lot of the spouses too are very used to handling a million things and being really tough. And for me, I realized that it didn't matter how tough I was. I was, we were inadvertently bringing our kids along on this insanity quest. You know, it just felt like, it didn't matter how tough we were. It was impacting them and it would impact generations. So back to your original question where you said we put out this PSA, Marcus did somewhat unwillingly a film video with me. Where really it was just when Vets was getting off the ground and we needed to start sharing the message, start raising funds. And so we did this video that DJ and Patsy saw. And that really is the essence of the video. The basis of the video was this radical vulnerability which was very against the grain for our community. - And it was one of the good ideas I had. I always say, "Amber's right, usually 98% of the time, the 2% I always, you know, I feel really good." - I feel really good brother. - You know, they're saying house, yeah. - Right, and so, you know, I just said, "Amber, we need to get this message out better." And I said, I think we should do, you know, let's do a video, let's do a post. Let's just talk about if someone's struggling that they're not alone. We've been there, we've had friends that have been there, been to the edge, call a buddy, check on them or raise your hand and go ask for help. And that was the whole premise beside behind the public service announcement. And it wound up again. - DJ's wife picked up the phone. They were watching it one night late in bed. And DJ will tell you this. We'll try not to say anything that no one else has come public with, but he just said, as we have many times, just started bawling because he said everything that I was talking about was exactly what he was experiencing. And he thought he was the only one in the world, right? As, you know, he's a tough son of a bitch, an amazing human that was dealing with this. - Yeah. - And a similar story is when I went to, one of the first times I went to see a psych chitrist on the west coast, and I was struggling, a stolen act of duty. I went in there and I sat down with him and I said, you know, here's what I'm dealing with. And I don't know why. And I said, you know, I'm sorry, I'm sure you don't get this. And he said, "Mark, just stop right there. You're over the 200th seal that has come into talk to me in like the last couple of weeks." Like, there is something significantly going on. And he goes, I'm not sure what it is. He's like, I'm sure you guys just have PTSD. Like that makes sense, right? He has been to war. He goes, but you're not the only one. And it kind of gave me a little bit of relief knowing that, okay, I wasn't the only one out there. - I think it was probably not a couple, 200 in a couple of weeks just. - Well, okay, maybe in a couple of months. - A couple of years, maybe not. - Are you judging me? - No, I just, no, I think. - Think God's age is not on this podcast. She was the same thing. - But the point to that, maybe it was a couple of years, there were many more that came in to talk about the exact, and it was the exact same things. It was like anger, depression, anxiety, anxiety attacks. I can't stand in line at Starbucks. - Sleeping issues. - The sleeping issues, the headaches. It was just kind of everything across the board. Very similar. And so when you hear someone talk about that, like I did on the PSA, and you're in the receiving and listening, you just kind of just break down and go, oh my goodness, like what he's talking about is, like he can almost see inside me, and I'm not even next to him, I'm 3000 miles away. - Right. - And DGA had heard about it, and Patsy reached out, but so many people heard that PSA, and I'm sure, look how many people DGA has saved now, right? Just through him going through his own healing process and talking about it, and individuals - Did you talk to him all the time, right? - He's a great orator. - Now did you and DGA know each other before? - We did, we served together at Silicon 10, we served together at DevGroup, and then like everybody else, they go off their ways when they transition, he started a very successful business. I went into finance, and we kind of reconnected after so many years and started talking about some of this stuff, and now we're doing some work. - You know what's really interesting is, this dub tails perfectly with my career in the mortality space, because one of the things that we knew was that if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half, at any age, you would put them in isolation. And this is where we get broken heart syndrome, right? Do you know any couples that have married 40, 50, 60 years, one spouse passes, we know what happens to the other spouse, right? And what would happen there? That was the first time in half a century that they were put in isolation. And I think a lot of the root of the skyrocketing rates or suicide is they feel so isolated, right? Like he just says, I'm the only one. You're the only one, you know, we're the only ones. And so we just suffer in silence until literally can't take it any longer. - And Gary, the other thing is to a very common practice when guys get out of the military, whatever branch, right? You know, my community, the SEAL community, but every branch, we like to kind of run, turn our back and like do our own thing. - Yeah. - Again, we don't want help. I don't want to talk to the guys. I mean, I separated for the guys for years, just because I didn't, you know, kind of feel ashamed a little bit. You're not doing well, you don't want to let anyone know. It's the isolation. - Yeah. - So guys wind up moving to like Montana, Idaho, these places like up in the mountains, by themselves, and they cut off from the world. And as we know, know, those are the worst thing that you can do. Right? Community is really everything. Connection, community. You know, it used to kind of be hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie to talk about that. Yeah. Communion community. However, as you're standing right here. A lot of you guys on the video called it, "Does hippie shit?" He's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." "Is hippie shit?" "Yeah, if it works." Right. He said that, and Maddie Roberts said it in the movie. Yeah. But it is a little bit like that initially, but it's very real. We need people. We need our partner. Like, I was able to be away from Ambrut 300 days a year and I had the guys and we were doing our thing, but now, like, if I go away for like one or two days, like, it kills me. Yeah. I'm the same way with my life. I'm like a little baby. Yeah. Like, too. I'm so attached to our. So crazy. 100%. And so safety blanket. We need our. I couldn't imagine Amber not being here. Right. And so we don't love our kids being out of the house, but what we do love is, you know, we have our businesses, we have our charity, we get to travel together for everything. If we go fundraise. So good. So good. And speaking of Harvard tomorrow, I get to go with her and hang out and I'll work up from my laptop. I'll do my calls, but we get to be together. So we make them little vacations. That's so good. If you know me, you know I don't recommend anything I haven't personally tested. That's not a marketing line. That's just how I operate. I've been on the road my entire career. I've been on time zones, brutal schedules, no margin for days off. And so I'm constantly testing what actually works in my own body. NED was something I keep coming back to. It's the molecule your cells use to produce energy and repair. And it declines faster than most people realize. When I found symbiotic as liposomal NED, the absorption technology is what got my attention. I tested it. I felt it. And it's been in my bag ever since. I'm always evolving what I put in my body. And this one has stayed on the list. I'm genuinely excited for you to experience it. This is the standard we hold every product to before it even reaches you. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. But I think the big, big, overlying theme that I want to make sure doesn't get masked on this is like this is not just your main two PTSD from wartime or to Navy seals or service members. Like your case is so much more common. You know, the situation albeit maybe from a different source. But I mean, the byproduct is the same. And so there's somebody that's listening to this or as a loved one that's listening to this that is like, well, you know, my husband or my wife wasn't in the service. But it's that it's that isolation. It's and it's and I'm sure that when you unpack this on the I have a game journey, which I really want to talk about and I want to broaden the topic. But when you unpack this on the I began journey, you realize it maybe it wasn't just specifically things that you witnessed in combat, which I think everyone pin points as that's what caused it. And and that's isolated to just those kinds of guys, right, that witnessed these horrific events or, you know, it just in the interviews, it reminded me of that question that they asked where and they're like, how many drinks do you have a week, one to two, three to five, seven to nine? But they were talking about how many times was your life in peril? How many times were you actually at risk of being maimed or killed? And they got to 51 or more and he was like, yeah, 51 or more. I mean, I got goosebumps. I just got my arms. Yeah, you're talking about like the PHQ nine, right? Like some of these symptom rating scales. Yeah, these questions. Yeah, but it was it was in the movie. Look at the goosebumps. And I was like, 51 or more like, I've never truly thought that I was going to lose my life. Like death was imminent ever. So mind zero. But someone that's had this 51 or more times, that was just that was it. It's mind. It's it is and you know, we talk a lot about the PTSD label because I think it's I think it can be overused. And Amber's done a good job, I think of explaining this where guys I worked with, we, I mean, we wanted to go overseas, right? Like we wanted to fight for our country. We wanted to do the things that we had trained for for 300 days a year. Why were we gone? So I think I still really struggle. And I know many of the guys do is like, was it, do we, do I really have PTSD? Or is it some of the stuff we experienced when we were children? Maybe it was definitely some of the blast exposure. Like there's a lot of data now showing that again, talk about mental health versus, you know, moving into brain health. You know, maybe our circuits have been jacked up a little bit, right? And some of those parts of the brain are trying to go on. 100 percent of my trauma. You know, subconcussive blows. We talk about mild TBI, mm-hmm. Potentially worse than just say having a single concussion. And these are reflecting themselves through depression, anxiety, panic attacks, potentially drinking or substance, you know, other substance use disorder. Yeah. What would you say, you know, having been so close to somebody that went through this like what? What are some of the warning signs that are not so obvious? Obviously, if someone has a rampant drug or alcohol problem or something very, very obvious, is it would you say is it then becoming more reclusive withdrawn? Like what would you say to the audience that's listening to this? That would be great ways to maybe throw up a flag that someone might need to help. Generally speaking, I would say everyone that comes to our program, for example, wants to get unstuck. They want to feel again. They want to live again. They want to be excited for something. I feel like they belong to something. And so some of the red flags that I could identify in hindsight would be, yeah, becoming more isolated. In Marcus' has always been a high performer. Since I met him when he was 20 years old, he was very goal oriented, very active. And those things really dissipated. He no longer set goals or served, played golf, you know, things that used to, I don't even know. He's like passion for life. Yeah. Go to the gym. Simple things. I didn't have passion for anything. I didn't want to get out of bed. I mean, I had definitely diagnosed clinical depression. For days, I did not want to do anything. I didn't want to speak to anybody. I would turn my phone off. I wouldn't answer text messages. I have like over 600 on my phone right now. Well, that's for different reasons. That's for different reasons. I'm not doing personal. Anybody out there listening. But, you know, I really did have all the things. And that's what happens when you get into these dark places where you just don't want to do anything. And all the things that I really enjoyed just kind of went away. So then how did the solution become I began for you? I almost want to say by accident, but I don't think anything happens by accident anymore. Yeah. We've all started to see that maybe this is all in motion for a reason. It was what was presented to us. So we had a friend who was in a similar, let's say going through a similar journey as I was in terms of many years of combat, actually many more years of combat than I had. And was just struggling with the same exact things that I was. So, you know, depression, anxiety, rage. And, you know, he had talked about suicide. And he had found I began through his best friend who was a doctor and said, you know, I was at a conference and I talked to this doc who thought maybe this would be helpful to veterans that were struggling with at the time this is like 2017. So, he didn't know if he's just figures PTSD, I believe at the time, maybe traumatic brain injury, a mild traumatic brain injury. And of course, the doctor who is a seal, can I say his name? Sure. Yeah. So, Dr. Kirk Parsley, who's just a, we call him the sleep doctor. He's an incredible individual. He actually left the military because he couldn't practice what you preach. Wow. Like, good for him. These guys, you know, testosterone levels are 300 at 25 years old or 30 years old. Like there's an issue there. He needs hormone replacement therapy. Yeah. Right. So, all these things, some meditation, maybe breathwork or some meditation sounds weird. Right. The gray beard as he called them didn't want to listen to him. So, he left and just started his own practice because he said, I want to help these guys. I want to help my brothers and he got out and he's doing it now. It's really successful, Kirk. And thank you if you're listening out there, doc. But doc got him after talking to his quack doctor about, I began, he said, Hey, maybe, maybe you should try this. Maybe you should go to Mexico. It's legal down there. And it, it can help according to him. Well, it did. I mean, the first seal that first seal, Dr. partially helped one other seal. Oh, okay. Now, do you remember there's a scene in the film with a gun and an empty bottle of whiskey? Okay. So a little bit more context on that scene. I had gone to bed. And I woke up middle of the night and I heard men's voices. Marcus wasn't in bed. And I tipped her down the hall and this guy was in our house. And I thought maybe he'd had a fight with his wife. And he needed Marcus. But what really happened was he knew Marcus was in a bad spot with this gun and empty bottle of whiskey and he came to help him. That's the only reason that he knew Marcus was struggling because we would have never said that we were needing help otherwise. So when he came back from Mexico, after having this experience, his wife reached out to me and said, "This could help Marcus." And I approached, it was actually 2016, I approached Marcus about this and he said, "That's absolutely crazy." No, we live in, you know, the most medically advanced country in the world. Nothing I can get in Mexico, you know, that I can't find here. And that's at the point where I'd been on years of antidepressants. Yeah. Other mood stabilizers. I'd been to, I think, five brain clinics up until that point. Well, that was the point you started going to brain clinics. Because we knew he needed something. He had been on, you know, several different antidepressants. He was very reluctant for many years to, you know, go on pharmaceuticals, finally, relented, and then sort of went on this pendulum swing of zombie monsters, zombie monster. Like it was just, there was nothing present about him. No in between. No in between. Yeah. And two switches, you know, on and off, that sucks. How is it? So we knew that wasn't working. We knew talk therapy wasn't working. You asked me what were some of the red flags. I actually was noticing red flags that were unrelated to PTSD. If you will. Yeah, that was his primary diagnosis. And one of the things that I remember vividly was him trying to put Christmas tree lights on a tree. And he couldn't, he couldn't figure out where they stopped, where they started, where, you know, they plugged into the wall, how they plugged in together. This was like a neurological issue. And another instance, he was like wide eyed, sweating profusely, trying to get out the door for a flight. And he couldn't like figure out how to pack everything. It was like, he couldn't figure out how, you know, he wanted to. And he just, it was pitiful. Yeah. So I thought, this is a brain thing more than it is. An emotional thing. Yet he's being treated solely with talk therapy and antidepressants and wondering why he can't get better. Like this feels wrong. Yeah. This feels, there's more to this story. Now, my dad happens to be a football coach. We met because my dad recruited him to play for him. And my dad always downplayed concussions. But one of his friends in the sales team had taken his life and his wife had his brain on top seed. And it came back that he had interface astroglyl scarring and what I'd heard to be stage one CTE, chronic traumatic itself, the lopathy. And so I started doing this research and realizing that there's a linkage between, you know, some of these issues, he was clearly experiencing and repeated head trauma. Marcus not only had 15 years of tackle football, he had 13 years working with explosives as a breacher. And so I started to realize maybe my dad, you know, maybe I should look beyond what my dad had to say about concussions. Right. And I became terrified. Because it felt like, it felt like a terminal diagnosis. Like there was no solution. There was not even a diagnosis, let alone a treatment or a cure. And so I thought we've got to get him off of these pharmaceuticals and into more innovative things. Yeah. There's another part to the story that I won't get into now, but I had gone down this rabbit hole of advocating for our son who experienced a significant plethora of illnesses and diagnosis. I'm related to everything he's going to do. Unrelated. But I was, I had begun to pull back layers. I had begun to advocate for my child. Good for you. And I was ready to do the same for my husband. I was at least not going to go down without a fight. And so I just started putting the pieces together and thinking we've got to have a different approach. We've got to at least try. And so I had gotten Marcus into a clinic in California. There's doing some, you know, imaging and more functional medicine type treatments. He was also doing hyperbaric oxygen and magnetic therapy on the brain. And that was really all I had left because he said no to eye began. So I was like, okay, well, let me trial these other more, you know, forward thinking approaches. And those really didn't help. In fact, in some ways, I think it made him worse. And so it was just through sheer divine intervention that I re-approached him about eye began. And I did it in a way that I'd never done it before. Just love and grace. And I ditched the guilt and condemnation and shame that I had used previously. And I really just committed to meeting him where I was at. So we were doing a lot of this. Yeah, of course. Of course, in the more one side, you know, you kind of get what you receive. So the more one side gives, the other side gives. And so when Amber, I think, fell more into receive mode and allowed me to kind of meet her halfway. Our relationship got better and I started to listen. Because initially when I first thought about eye began, it was a pure ego thing. Like, I'm, you know, across my arms. I'm not doing that. It's a psychedelic. It's a drug. You know, I grew up going to Catholic, all boys, Catholic high school. This is weird. This is, this is heavy shit. Yeah. But so then I started to do my own research. And the more you start going down the rabbit hole of the research, these things have been around for thousands of years. And in the last hundred years, they've actually have some research around it. And individuals, we're getting better. We're not talking about small percentages, like large percentages of individuals who utilize these in the proper way, get better. And so the more I researched, the more I felt comfortable knowing, oh, wait a minute, this is not a drug. This is a medicine. This is a treatment that could potentially heal whatever I'm dealing with. And that's what allowed me to be a little bit more relaxed and accepting and say, okay, you know, this is something that I would absolutely look into. I'm a little bit like you, probably, if you tell me it's going to make me a bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, you know, hurt less, like I'll try it. Sure. Sure. I'm going to give you the hippie shit. Yeah. Even the hippie shit. And so in a roundabout, long way, winded way of answering your question, it was, that's how we got to I began, because it could have been another medicine, right? It could have been something else. But that was the one that this individual turned his whole life around with. And so you trust your brother, right? You trust your friend. Yeah. And so I said, you know, I'll give this a shot. I mean, some of the most, the people that I hold in the highest regard that respect the most have done this. And I've never had a negative comment come back about it. Some of the experiences are vastly different. But the outcome seems to be all very similar. I then, and the underlying theme is, I now understand why I am the way I am. And I think that's a, that's a huge relief, right? When you can identify, finally identify the villain. It's like, it's like having a flu, you know, for half of your life. And then a doctor says, oh, you have influence A, you can take this and it will kill influence A. It's like, at least you know what it was, you know, what it is. And what I found really fascinating was how different everyone's journey was. I mean, similar contacts, but very different journeys. It's subjective. Yeah. Right? Because we're subjective. I'm different, excuse me. I'm different from you. Yeah. Genetically, we look different. We're different from Amber. We're going to have different experiences. Yeah. That's what, you know, and you know, it's a childhood trauma that's it from, is it from your career? Is it from, you know, previous marriages and from, you know, how you're raised, you know, what your life experiences from repeated head trauma could, there's so many things that put people in this position. And they find themselves exactly where you were, where they went all through the conventional route. And I think the inability for conventional medicine to help a lot of people in this position is much bigger than we think. But people feel stuck in the system because there's not an alternative. And certainly not one that their health insurance will pay for. And that kind of traps them into a certain vertical. That's a, that's a big deal. Yeah. That's a whole other thing we can talk about when I was talking about commercialization. Yeah. You know, that's, you know, what, what is one of these journeys cost out of pocket? We have special pricing for the veterans that we support through our program. But someone that is doing self pay would spend between $8,500 and $10,000. Okay. Now, and you compare that, I mean, I began as actually used mostly for addiction disruption. When you compare that to a 30 day inpatient stay with, you know, the abysmal success rates. It's really a drop in the bucket. And it's a drop in the bucket to give someone their entire life back. Yeah, no, no. Because it does have this really innate ability to provide a different perspective or concept of, you know, why, you know, these struggles exist. And then it's doing something really incredible on a physiological level as well, which you also saw in this film with a Stanford study. Yeah. You know, it was really, I think what the film does really, really well is it takes the context of what you're saying. And it puts it in a visual way. Your animators did a incredible job. It's just, you know, listening to the voiceovers of DJ, for example, just walking through the different points in his life and how he would tie something that happened as a child. I remember talking about the incident where, you know, he smelled in the lawn and his father who was this big imposing figure came. He busted the lawn bar running over a route and the dad came sprinting out of him and he just went into a rage and he picked his lawn bar up and literally just smashed it over his head to bits. And. the fear that he felt and the rage that he saw in his dad's face, he felt it as if he was still the 10 year old version of himself. And then he was able to immediately draw forward like 25 years and see that he had smashed his daughter's dollhouse. And he could see himself and he felt the pain through his daughter. And he was like, whoa. And that's the power of it. Get into these, when you get into the experience, you witness potentially some of these incidences from different perspectives, first person, second person. And you can feel potentially the pain that you're causing someone. So for instance, I had a judgment experience during my experience that I was constantly judge and everything is like hyper. You're very aware. You're so aware. And I was judging Amber and the kids. And it was like this weird thing that was going on. It seemed like an eternity and I was judging and judging and judging. But I was doing the judging. And then all of a sudden the perspective completely shifted. And I was judging myself. And so, and then that went on and I was feeling like the pain and the rage of this person. I was feeling the pain of my rage judging me. And I was getting judged as I was watching myself judge them. And I could feel it and it hurt. And I just said, that's it. I will never do that again. Like I don't ever want Amber or our children to feel that pain that I'm experiencing right now in judgment because that's what they must be experiencing. So I was feeling that and I came out and I never do that again. What kind of super intelligence is that? It's wild. I mean, I don't even report to understand it. We don't either trust you. I don't have any intelligence. But I mean, we've only scratched the surface of the power of the mind. You know, they say we only use to present our brain capacity. But I think we've only scratched the surface of the mind, but what's really fascinating is you're actually using the best vehicle, which is your own mind to heal the vehicle that's damaged, which is your own mind. I mean, what better resource than to tap into your own innate ability to heal yourself? And that's a carry. And you do it every day, right? You do use supplements and nutraceuticals and things, but there's supplements, right? They're not. But the things you're doing are healing the body from the inside. That's what this does. It's some doctor say it takes what this is what therapy is trying to get to you, right? Talk therapy, different cognitive behavioral therapies, trying to get to the root cause, trying to get in your mind and figure it out and have you see it. I began does that in a few hours. So you have to be prepared, right? So what you're trying to work on with a therapist for five or ten years, which you've done. That judgment issue probably would have taken you five to ten years. Right. The right about now he's coming into the solution. I'm afraid. I'm going to tell you I'm perfect there. But think about trying to do that for five or ten years, except solving it in six to eight hours. And that's the beauty of it. And that's the difficult part. I think that science or, you know, PhDs have trouble wrapping their heads around where we're just saying, well, we just want to see the mechanisms with action or the brain is it working on? But there's just other underlying things that are happening that make these subjective experiences so powerful and so healing, so light changing. And how long did you go down with him? I didn't, but I did go down the day after. Okay. And I had a complete freak out on the plane. What have we done? You know, you're so desperate to save the person you love. I also didn't think it would work because so many things had worked. I'm on my way to Mexico to see my husband after a psychedelic trip. Like, is this really where we are? I can imagine what you're thinking. It was terrifying. And then everything started to come undone in my mind. Like, what have we done? This is it. FICM. I'm going to know immediately if it worked, if it didn't, I'm going to be devastated and I've got nothing left. Luckily, when I saw him, I knew immediately it hadn't worked. And the first thing he said to me was, this is it. This is exactly what his former teammates needed. We had to know. His countenance was back. I had known him since before he was a seal. And the things I loved most about him had disappeared. So when I saw him again, it was like immediate, exactly the way I remember him. I see a glow on individuals. I mean, we see it now, you know, thousands of individuals over that we've seen on a Monday that go through treatment and come out on a Friday on a Monday. They just look, you know, some of them are gone. They're not even looking at you, right? Because they can. They're just, they're really, you know, broken in some ways or just hurting or searching. Their eyes might be dark. They're not talkative. They're not happy. They're not making jokes. Yeah, DJ's what he talked about that. Yeah. It's this way. That's the patty. Yeah, she talks about how she walked up, looked them in the eyes. I know. You can just see it. And we taught, we called the glow effect. You can see the individuals almost literally looks like they have like heat radiating from them. Their skin looks like it. They just, well, their spirit has just been like, they just reversed aged by 10 years. You just look good and healthy and your eyes are open and you're happy. And so you go on a Friday, say a group of five to six veterans that we give grant scholarships to, you know, in the van, maybe no one's talking to each other on Friday. They're telling jokes and they're changing numbers and they can't wait to see their wife and their kids and like go do the things that they want to do. It's a dramatic change. It's just awesome. Just a witness. That's amazing. And Sean's a part of this philanthropy too, right? Because it's an ambushed you and Chipply and everyone. Yes. Yeah. And again, we can speak about it because Sean is, you know, he's talked about it on his show. And he says he was in a similar place, right? For years, he didn't feel. Oh, yeah. He was just kind of just white knuckling it and going through it and absorbing the pain of everything, thinking like this is normal. And you know, he said, you know, he was right after his experience. He was out on a bench overlooking, just like looking out at the ocean. He said, man, I haven't done this in 15 years. He's like, I haven't just stopped and looked and just been present and realized how like awesome life is and earth is in the water and just being outside and seeing green grass and blue sky. Like these are the things that, you know, they call it on the waking thing. It kind of wakes you up to, you know, people say, wow, I didn't realize the apple is so red or avocado is so green or orange is smell so good. Wow. And that is not like one person. That is everybody. That is amazing. If your energy is low during the day, the problem usually started the night before. Sleep affects focus, mood, metabolism, literally everything. And most people never learn how to properly support it. Our free sleep challenge is April 29th and 30th and it's designed to teach the basics of better sleep in a way that's realistic and easy to apply. If learning how to sleep better feels like the right place to start, we'd love to have you join our challenge on April 29th. Now, let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So what would you say to, you know, families that are struggling with similar situations about this? I would say think outside the box. You know, that's one thing about our community is we take care of one another and we're taught to think outside the box. Now Marcus is a really great soldier in that he did go to his appointments and he did take his medicines. But when he got off of pharmaceuticals going into, you have to get up. Yeah, you do. You have to titrate and that's back in the for individuals. Literally, we've had some that been on them for 15 or 20 years. Imagine titrating off of that or coming off in cold. Wow. Of course, some individuals are telling you're VA doc. Hey, I'm going to titrate off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Try to explain to a doctor that you're going to do. Yeah, he just got to do it in silence. Yeah. Yeah. So he hasn't been back on them. So you know, that sort of unconventional, we're going to just try this really helped open up a life that I could only dream about. I was just trying to keep him alive, but didn't realize that he hadn't actually been living. And so, you know, the connection that we have now, the life that we're creating now, the people that we've been able to help through the work that we do would say the same. It's one thing to have a pulse. It's another thing to live. Yeah. And that started the kind of the idea around vets. But you know, when Amber saw me, we embraced, we cried. I didn't even say I'm better. You can just see that I just said literally the first words where this is exactly what the guys need. Like we have to figure out a way to help them. Someone paid for my treatment. And I knew that these are expensive treatments. And it's not covered under insurance like you were talking about because they're not FDA approved yet here. It's we're working on that. But I wanted to pay for somebody, right? I wanted to get somebody that opportunity to heal like I did because I was in such a dark place. And I said, man, if there's so many individuals that I know, I'd have very close friends that were in the exact same spot. And if they can't afford treatment, well, what's going to happen to them? And so that's what was that was the idea around how do we do this and how do we pay it forward? Yeah. So what does life look for you guys like for you guys now outside of I have a game like what what are you building together? what are your goals? What's your path for you on? There's a lot happening. (laughing) Yeah, and this is-- There's a lot in that supplement bag right there that you're gonna throw. We should talk-- We're definitely talking about that, too. That's hilarious. I gotta clear everything up. Yeah, and I brought that as just a funny, you know, as a funny joke, I figured you'd get a kick out of it. I did, you need to throw that in the garbage. Oh, that stuff's really good, but we'll get to that. We have a lot going on. So we initially started Vets and received our 501C3 charity status in 2019. And just from day one, I mean, it was just Amber and I, we're working seven, you know, it's like building a business. So seven days a week, all hours in the night, it's why I have over 600 text messages on the run red. And we've been doing that for years and working with Stanford and Ohio State and Hopkins and just studies and policy work at the state and federal level, and that's just going. We have a full team at Vets, and Amber could talk more about that. She's the CEO. I chair the board there with some amazing individuals that help just kind of keep it on track. And then the success we had there at Vets, I was approached by, you know, entrepreneurial individuals, one in particular, Grant Verstandig, who's just an amazing human. He dropped out of Brown his freshman year to build, to fix healthcare because he had his like 15th knee surgery and it just kept getting worse. And- - 15th knee surgery. - Yeah, and this guy is like, you know, a mental smart, just brilliant. And just tried to solve the problem through technology and communication, better communication with doctors and he built a business called Rally Health and they partnered with United and the rest is history of course. And then he approached and just said, dude, the work you're doing with veterans is like incredible. I'd love to support that work, but as an entrepreneur, how do we do this for the private sector? And so we started, we founded a company called TAR-R-MIND, I'm the founder and CEO, along with Grant. And we figured out a way to take individuals who are struggling that don't respond to anti-depressants and introduce them to advanced mental healthcare through FDA-approved treatments, right? - Wow. - Through TMS St. Protocol, through IV ketamine. And we do that through employee benefit plan. So we're selling this to like, - Wow. - J.D. - And you know, the Googles of the world, and Walmart's and the labor unions, right? And so these are the groups that are just taking what we originally never even thought about just starting out with veterans and now taking it to the private sector. And so that, and we're doing that all through data. Everything's driven by data. So we can, you know, we're identifying individuals through AI, through other, you know, kind of fragmented data sets, making sense of all that data through kind of longitudinal structured data. And then we're showing these companies, like, hey, you have all these individuals that have been on anti-depressants for years. They're not getting better. You're wasting money, right? Let's focus on these individuals. Let's get them to the right treatments. - So they're also powder gigs. - I mean, potentially some of them. - 100%. They're the ones that end up in the ER. They end up on disability. So we're getting ahead of them. - And eventually, of course, you know, our vision of course is like, well, on the monitoring, we'll get into biomarkers. What's the right treatment for the right person at the right time? So that's, that's our commercial business, Tar-Mind. And so we have vets. I have Tar-Mind. What else, you know, I know you want to talk about a few other things that we have, while we're not working 24 hours a day. - I'm all busy, dude. I thought I was busy. (laughing) - So I talk about this, I mean, we, you know, we have a lot going on. - We do have a lot going on. So Marcus and I have been in build mode. And that has kept us trapped behind a laptop for the majority of the last eight years. - But it's so good too. There's nothing like building. I don't care what anybody says about being a business with your spouse. Best decision I ever made. - Yeah. - The really best decision I made. - We love it. We don't ever fight. - Yeah, we agree, we agree on everything. (laughing) And it's, you can have a shitty day at the office and have a great day at home. - That's right. - You can set a break business from your price, private life, push it, push it, - It's a big shit. - It hasn't always been roses, but it's definitely been very gratifying. And I feel that it really is, you know, my life calling, Marcus's life calling. And together we hope to break free from the laptop in 2026. The film has heightened the awareness around this topic, but really just broad mental health beyond the veteran community. And so we're actually launching a podcast. This thing. - All right. - Yeah, later it's pretty. - You already banked a few, right? - Yeah. - We did, we've banked 10. We have two more. We had to work through some legal stuff that we've done. So we'll shoot those two more in the next few weeks, but talk about it. What are we gonna, what are we doing? What do we hope to accomplish? - Some lessons. - We love to. - Oh, we love to check on there. - We love to. - I just invited myself on to the podcast. - Please. - We'll have to check. We'll have to check to see you to make sure that. - We have to go through the D.D. process. - Yeah, yeah. - We would be honored. - Yeah. - But no, the idea is really just to continue speaking to this topic and bringing hope to people that they really can transform their lives. Marcus came home from a driving school, defensive driving school, very early on in his seal career. I think that the lesson he shared with me pertains to life and not only what we've done and are continuing to do, but to anyone. And basically what he said is, do you know why individuals wrap their car around the lone tree in a field or the lone telephone pole on the side of a road? Because that's what they're staring at when they start to spiral out of control, to spin out of control. - So a person overcompensates two or three times to steer towards the pole when they have so much open room to just make one adjustment and you pass the pole and now maybe you're saying, but we overcomensate because we're staring at that thing and we actually drive to the thing. So I told Amber this, now she uses it for amazing metaphor. - I realized during our spiral that I was becoming so focused on the proverbial tree that I didn't realize I was surrounded by an open field of possibility and where did I want to steer? So regardless of how crazy things had gotten in our personal life, I was just intent on staring towards where I wanted to end up realizing that I had an entire field. And anyone can do that. - Great metaphor here. - So it's just the, you know, just being in the business of encouraging people to transform their lives and drive where they wanna go. We focused too much on the problem. - Yeah, and Andrew, and Andrew human does a good job talking about. He's been talking about it recently about how individuals just they get stuck in the loop and part of this is mental health, but the loop is just you keep thinking about the bad thing that's happening. I got to raise money or my kids doing, instead of driving to the open place to say, hey, let's get out of this loop, right? Let's move to the open space, the open space being healing, whatever that is or whatever you're going on. And I think that's just a such a good metaphor for really everything. - Yeah, that's what the podcast will touch on. - That's so awesome. In relation to you guys. - In relation to you guys. - Do amazing with the podcast. So what else we have? - Yeah. - Well, we are working on a book. We've been working on that for a little while. - All right, huh? - We've been approached by so many people to write a book and we're just like, you know, books are-- - It's a lot tougher than people think. - Yeah. - It's tough and it's also from our community, from the steel community, although there has been a lot of books written. It was a bit shunned or even still a bit shunned. And I think there's a way to do it and a way not to do it. And I think you've done a good job. I've definitely done a good job because I don't love the spotlight. Decent at speaking and getting out there and doing it. But you can do it in a way where it's not about you. And there's so many, there's so many individuals that out there and they write about me, me, me, this, and I did this and I did that and I've been the war. And I never wanted to do that. And so we put off a book forever because that's not what we wanted to do. But what we've realized is the more we talk and the more we get out there, the more people hear our story and it gives them hope. And so the better. There might be a chapter about the seal teams in the book because people do want to hear that and that stuff is exciting. But that's not what the book is about. It's really about our life and our healing and where we started and it'll be a chapter. If there's eight chapters, it'll be a chapter or probably on college life and growing up and maybe some about the seal teams. It'll just be more about what Amor and I are doing now and our lessons learned and how do we pay that forward? How do we help individuals? How do we help couples stay together? How do we help children deal with potentially their dad not being in the military away at work but maybe being a banker who's gone in a couple of hours a week, right? So it's extremely relatable and so we're super excited about that. And that's we're working with some relationships. Yeah, that's amazing. So let's see what we got in the bag. Oh man, yeah. So Gary, I thought it'd be a great idea because we travel literally, we live in Dallas but we're probably there not even half the amount of time. Yeah. And Amor bought me these packing cubes for my clothes but I wanted to packing on my supplements. His clothes are packed in my overflow, pink cubes. I'm gonna bring this to show you guys. So your wife's not the overpacker. He's in this relationship. No, so he's gonna get a kick out of my travel stuff and he's gonna also say yay to some of this stuff and naid to some of it. Mm-hmm. Just think it would be hilarious because like you said on the road, it's hard sometimes to get a good meal or do that. Yeah, so do that. And so- Marcus is very committed to showing up for himself every day. He's very disciplined. He's very, and so- This is just the guy that got a very Navy SEAL vibe but he's just already, you know? Right, so like, I mean, if you wanna, if you wanna go through this stuff here, right? So of course we need like, So we're going to start. the best beat jerk you could find. I found this on a flight once and I was like, oh God, I got it. Perfect. As soon as I get home. Huge fan. Huge fan. We're going to give that a 10. I got some nuts. You may tell me that like I may give that 10 as well. That's awesome. Who doesn't need their electrolytes? Like I got to put my electrolytes every morning. I have to have creatin because creatin we're finding out is really good for you. Very good for you. Excellent. Of course, free range. Like the try to get the best protein supplements from some grass fed grass fed away. That's great. Yeah. Actually, the CEO that I found her momentous gave me some stuff. So I take some of that. Cool. Great. I got a little bit of fiber in here. Sometimes it gives me a little bit of a delay. But I have it. And this is just pure fiber. Yeah, I get some pure fiber. I also have some collagen in there. Okay. Again, some of these things you might say more so that shit away. You're not sure about that brand. Yeah. It's got some dairy, some, some, some dairy. Dairy digest. Dairy digest. Yeah. A ton of vitamins here. Rotorye. I got omega-3s. I have more digestive enzymes, coq10. I take all this stuff for my liver. I've had some high liver enzymes come back like over the couple of years. Milk this was great for the liver. You know, so I've like got some stuff that I can just kind of clean out the liver. You pick one off form of coq10. I don't know if you recognize this product. That's a great one. That is a must. It is. It is. It's two tab. You know, we're at home. We have our home system that we have. And it, and it adds hydrogen to the water. That's great. I got some vitamin D. D3 with K2, which is also amazing. And, and in fat because it is a fat soluble vitamin. So I don't know this brand, but yours to be well structured. I think we can work on the brands. I do take a low dose. Just have a little bit of thicker blood. So, you know, regularly therapeutic phlebotomy is really good for that too. Just regular regular blood dumps. I mean, very good for you. I have to have some bone broth for the road. So I accidentally just powdered bone broth powdered bone broth. I love that. It looks like you own dug into this in a little. That one is looking a little rusty. Okay. That one's a little like some of these. I think they gave you that when you got out of the service. Yeah, exactly. That's like an MRE. Yeah, yeah, there's sentimental value to that. It's on health. Oh, and then I take, I have two different types of methylene blue. I have a liquid kind of dropper. Yep. At the house. I don't want to take the liquid on the road. So I have these. Yep. These still turn my urine colors. So I, yeah, at least it's, you can't get away with peeing on the toilet seat. That's the problem. That's my white bus move every time. Because I used to be able to dindodayet, but now if it's blue, so anyway, no, dindayet. I thought you'd get a kick out of this stuff. That is awesome. We'll go through and tighten anything up. Then he's going to be tightened up burberry. And I'm a huge fan of burberry. Actually, outperforms me at form and as a glucafage in some studies, um, great for blood sugar control. Yeah, that's great. I love that you have a survival meal pack that you take with you too. Because if you're going on commercial flights, I mean, the garbage that they feed you on airplanes. Hey, do you want these patsas and crackers? No, I don't. They actually get mad at me because I also sometimes I'm like, I don't need to hot towel either. It's just like we're good. Yeah. True that water ice coffee on airlines is just absolutely hideous. Oh my god. I mean, if you actually knew what they made that out of, first of all, it's all just straight tap water. But and then and the coffee is is really garbage, but it's mainly like, you know, they're making this all with just unfiltered tap water. And, um, you know, I tell people if, you know, few things that you can do to sort of biohack your life, but the first moment that you have any kind of disposable income, um, the first thing you should do is water filtration, right? I mean, there's where what 65% water. Um, and if you look at the amount of toxicity that comes through the water supply, you know, not just fluoride, which is, uh, categorizes in neurotoxin, but, um, chlorine, fluoride, it's called PFA's, these polyfluoroalkyls, um, trace pharmaceuticals, microplastics, you know, all of this stuff in something that is, um, not immediately toxic, doesn't mean that it's necessarily harmful. It sounds like a scare tactic, but the truth is we're just trying to get around the, the system, um, a water filtration is huge. So, um, you know, the, the nice thing is in airports now, you can't carry bottled water with you on the, on the plane, you can get it on the other side of the security, um, but I'm seeing more glass bottled water choices. And most of them have the filtered refillable stations. Yeah. So if you just throw a aluminum bottle in your bag and then fill it up before you get on your flight, I mean, some of those containers will hold almost a liter of fluid. I mean, that's perfect, you know, while you're on a flight. I might, uh, the only thing I might add to that would be some, um, like a mineral salt, like, uh, like a boha gold. I've heard, I've heard you talk about that. Yeah. Um, would you, would you replace the electrolyte with that? Because those, those electrolytes are heavily focused on, um, the big ones that, that that are the consumer knows about potassium magnesium sodium, which are certainly electrolytes and you certainly need those. Um, but you really need 91 trace, it makes trace minerals. You know, our soil has been so depleted, you know, a lot of, a lot of the challenges that we have are mineral deficiencies. Um, and mineral deficiencies manifest themselves in all kinds of ways, brittle bones, uh, osteophenia, osteoporosis, migraines, really interesting study in the widely, widely journal of headaches about migraines and, and sodium. Um, I get them. Yeah. I've heard, I've heard you talk about boha. And so now that we're here, I'm, I'm, you know, first thing in the morning. It's the first thing I'm going to do is take, I get them throughout the day. Okay. I get them pretty regularly. Yeah. So, okay. So, you know, just remember that, um, pain, cannot come from the brain. Right. So even though it feels like the migraine is coming from your brain, that's not possible because the brain has no pain receptors. So it actually can't generate a pain signal. So even though you feel like the pain is coming from the brain, it's not, it's coming from the covering of the brain called the dura. Um, and that's where it's fraught with pain receptors. The dura hates two things. It hates being stretched and hates being contracted. And what determines whether or not it's doing that is, is the sodium gradient, the osmotic gradient. Great, um, study in the widely journal of headaches for anybody that wants to doubt that just by adding minerals salt to your water, you can very often fix migraines, read that study. Perfect. Um, it was an inverse correlation between sodium, um, and migraines. You know, it's just given the body the raw material it needs to do its job. So what is your supplement pack luck? Like, is it? Mine doesn't look like that Gary. I, she's got like two, mine looks similar to yourself. I have stoned her classroom, which she just found out today. Oh, really? I'm, uh, I'm going to have been all in. And what I'm all into. And I feel like building beds has really shifted my focus away from myself. It's something that I also hope to work on this year. It's like you take pretty good care of yourself. So I do, I do. But, um, admittedly more for vanity purposes than, um, we love walking together. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask you. Like, what are, what are your daily hat? Because you know, I built a business with my spouse as well. And by the grace of God, it was successful. Um, so I know what that struggle is like. And, um, there's no separating your business from your personal life. So if you're starting a business, these spouse just know that you're going down that road. Um, if you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need perfect amino. It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as way, but without the excess body fat, we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. But you know, I, I, I think I've learned that the best relationships in my opinion are the ones that have gone through everything that's meant to tear them apart. But they're still together. It's like two imperfect people that just refuse to give up on each other. You know, and at no point would did hit the bliss point, right? Um, but you know, there's nothing better than succeeding together. All right. That is the, I didn't go into the greatest gifts for any, any marriage, any couple, um, is to, is to have the, the wins and, and the losses, you know, going through those together. And one of the things I think Sage and I learned was, we've had a great book called Rocket Fuel. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's very simple book, but it's, it was, um, it's a quick read, but it talks about an integrator and a visionary and the importance of having both. Cause I'm very much of a visionary, but I also create so much dust, right? And I, and I, and I throw up so many ideas and she's very practical, very organized, very regimented and without. And so we would butt heads all the time in the business. Very similar. Do you guys need to read this book, man? Okay. Right. If your marriage is at nine, it just took it to a 10, 15, 15% of everything comes out of it. Yeah. But, but, uh, this is called Rocket Fuel. So it's a simple book. And what it did, it, it literally reframed the way we looked at each other. Right? I saw so much value in what she was providing. And she saw so much value in what I was providing because she was like, you know what? I can't make the phone ring. I can't make people walk through the door. And I was like, I can't pay the bill. we would be absolutely broke. Or our credit would be in the absence. - Oh, we didn't read that. - Yeah. And it made me realize the synergistic value of both of us rather than just my independent value for bringing in all the business and coming up with all the ideas. And I was like, all you have to do is send the checks. And I oversimplified what she did. She oversimplified what I did. So it was a great book. - I don't give any marriage advice, but I will toss that one out there. - Well, definitely. I think that we're the same in terms of just really complimenting each other strengths and weaknesses. And at one point realizing that we were in such a score keeping contest. - Oh, gosh, that's exactly what we were doing. - Yeah. And such like this push pull, we're headed towards the same finish line. We have the same goals and minds, but we were fighting each other all the way there. And it's like if we just got behind one another and really celebrated and leaned into those strengths and weaknesses, how much more impactful could we be? And I think that's where it right now. - We're each other's biggest fans now. I mean, we were complimenting each other. I tell him every day how perfect she is and how amazing she is. And you know what? - I just, I can't tell. - Now I got it on tape and on video. - Yeah. - So, what's your need is, what's your need is? - Is the one for sure. - Yeah, it's funny. We did exactly the same thing. 'Cause what I found we would do is we would always kind of want to prove the other one wrong. So if we had an idea and she said no and I did it anyway and it failed, then she would hold it against me. If it succeeded, I would hold it against her. And then what I realized was if we would just do these together, then what happens is the wins you celebrate together and the losses are sort of outside the castle walls. - Yeah. - Because you both made the decision to take us a step forward in one direction or another. If it doesn't work, there's no finger pointing. 'Cause you both agreed on it. So now that becomes something that's, it's not a bone of contention anymore. 'Cause I didn't decide to do it and you said no or you decided and I said yes. You know, it, and then when you make a decision and it works out, then you both celebrate the victory. So you end up only celebrating the wins and the losses are kind of outside the castle walls instead of in there where they poison everything else. And it was such a simple thing for us, but it made a massive difference in how we operated together. And it also was the tipping point for our business. Just skyrocketed. - I believe that. I do and I appreciate you sharing that. I think too, the work that you're doing is so important. It's just so fundamentally important. The work that we're doing is helping give people their arms back same for you guys. And I think that there's just this innate responsibility and sort of answering the call. I don't feel like we stumbled into this. I feel like we are on a divinely appointed mission that is such an honor to serve. So we might as well serve together. - Yeah, well, listen, I think what started as, you know, a wife's silent struggles and a husband's silent struggles, you have had the courage to, you know, put out there in the public domain and be vulnerable, which led to this documentary, which is an incredible documentary. I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. - So thanks. - And it was well narrated, it was well-horated, it was entertaining. I found myself being very curious about, you know, what was gonna happen. I've identified with each of the parties. It made, it shed more light on the discussion that I have with DJ Shipley, which was one of our top podcasts. I only wish, like I said, I wish I'd come out earlier before I'd been on the pub with him or had him on the pod. But what I really found was how applicable it is to everyone, even though it was the seals. You know, I think men in general want to suffer in silence and I think a lot of wives will very often hit that wall and they'll leave before. - Yeah. - And the solution could be two steps away, right? You're on the 98 yard line and maybe you only need to move two more yards. - Yeah. - You know, and the fact that you guys did it and succeeded and you can see how many people it's inspired, you know, not the least of which are the characters in the documentary. It's an absolute must-watch for anyone because they're the people that are not struggling, that know someone who's struggling. - For sure. - And those are people that start struggling because I don't think anyone watching this podcast now does not know a single person in their sphere of their life. - We say that all times. - For sure that mental health brain health doesn't discriminate. It's either you or it is one degree of separation. Starting to find that out. If I'm speaking to a room, I always say, "Hey, raise your hand." If it's not you, that's why you don't have to raise your hand. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But say if it's one degree of separation, it's almost at least half the individuals usually more raise their hand, say, "Oh yeah, I know somebody, it's either my child or my spouse or my friend." - Yeah, and that's how you really move the needle. So, congratulations to you both. - Thank you. - So, you know, I always wind out my podcast by asking my guests the same question. I'll ask it to you individually. And if you watch it, you know this is coming but there's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? - And I knew you were gonna ask this question. (laughing) - I actually got asked it on a podcast and I was like, "That's not fair, that's my question." (laughing) I struggled. - Yeah. Well, I'll try not to struggle and I thought I had a good answer last night. But I'm gonna, I'll talk through it because it has to do with curiosity. And I think being curious is one of the biggest attributes that we can have as individuals, as human beings. And why I think curiosity is so important is because we're stuck in our ways, we're stuck in our old ways. We never change, we never evolve, we never innovate, we never progress. And if I was stuck in my ways, I would have never gotten better. I would have listened to the doctors that I've always been told for many years from when I was a child that if you just listened to your doctor and you do this this way that you're supposed to get better and as a good soldier, I wasn't getting, I was doing everything I was supposed to do but I wasn't getting better. So for me, being curious and wanting to get better and thinking unconventionally and trying to solve the problem through curiosity is what enabled me and Amber to be what we're at today. So I think curiosity is the first thing as a ultimate human. Always be curious as a lifelong learner. I think we should just never stop. And for me and Amber, we have that type of personality. I always say a close friend of ours, always say send it and I love that because I struggle with the term balance and I think it's very difficult to be balanced where you're trying to succeed and excel in life. And so if you're getting into something, if you wanna be a good student, you wanna be a good podcaster, you wanna be a good seal, a good banker, a good teacher, you have to send it, you have to go all in, you have to, right? And especially early on in life, you have to make sacrifice, right? And it's earlier on in life, it's easier to sacrifice because you can make mistakes, you may not have a family, you may be able to focus on yourself a little bit more. As you get older, you can have some balance, use your network, use your influence that way, but you gotta send it. You gotta go all in and it's the only way to get things on hard work, determination, all that stuff is very real. And so for me, that's what it means to be an ultimate human. - I know about you. - All right, well, Mark has told me that this was coming, so I have given it a bit of thought. And there are a couple of things actually that I didn't say in the podcast that I would like to touch on in terms of being an ultimate human, but my real answer is gonna follow these two things. Number one is that when I approached Marcus in love, because I had given myself love and grace and really by the grace of God had ditched the resentment that had built up over years, he responded. So I think there's so much power in love. And as humans, we need to feel that. I think that real strength is in vulnerability. So when you say like big Navy SEALs are on camera, being so raw and honest, that's why this is resonating with people because it's really as the most organic form of strength. But I think that what really I feel it is to be an ultimate human is to consider this. We think that we're human beings in search of spiritual experiences, but we're really spiritual beings having human experiences, I think. And so I think to be an ultimate human, you really have to tap into that spiritual feeling of love and the radical vulnerability. - Yeah, I think that's where true connection is made. You know, in connection and community, we know one of the fundamental necessities to a long time. healthy happy life. So that's a great answer. Thank you. Thank you guys both for coming on the podcast. Gary, thank you. Amazing. Thank you. This is going to, this is going to touch a lot of lives. I will put this in the show notes links to their contact. Where does my audience find you guys if they want to find you? So the Capones.com will be very simple. Very simple. Yeah. We grab that domain name. We made sure. Oh, you got the Capones.com. We sure did. Wow. As far as that was the show. We had threatened a few people. Yeah, it's some payoff. But hey, you're a, you're Navy SEAL. So we are. And then of course, our organization is vet solutions dot org online. And we didn't talk much about vets, but we are sponsoring veterans five or six per week every week. Wow. Who are going to Mexico to receive the same opportunity that Marcus did. And we're having a tremendous success. So the organization really is the lifeblood of the film and of our lives. So that's solutions dot org. Yeah, it's really important to talk about that. We, you know, we, we live in, live and die by philanthropy. And our mission at vets continues on by individuals that are willing to partner with us to support us. And so, you know, if individuals want to get involved, as Amber mentioned, you know, you know, look into what we're doing and reach out. Oh, yeah. My audience definitely will. Yeah. So Marcus, Amber, thank you guys so much for coming. Thank you. It's been a honor. This is great. Yeah. Thank you. And until next time, guys, that's just sites.