The Mission After

Mike Bledsoe (00:02)
Welcome to the mission after podcast where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host Mike Bledsoe. And today our guest is Dave Morrow, a former infantry officer with the Canadian armed forces who served as a civil affairs officer in Afghanistan. He grew up in the army, learning valuable lessons of hard work, the importance of a solid team and how to motivate people during the worst situations. After returning from Afghanistan injured and without a clear sense of direction,

He launched into a teaching career he hated, neglecting his back injury and suffering from PTSD. His life was spinning out of control until he made a change. Now his mission is to help 100 ,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds. He believes that 20 years of war fighting weren't for nothing and that we need to leverage our collective experiences for the betterment of humanity. He provides a remote based training platform delivered weekly based on his beast.

Body Blueprint Method. Members of the H2K Facebook group receive encouragement, camaraderie, and Q &As. Supported by world -class guests on the H2K podcast, the H2K blog, and his book, The Nimble Warrior. His company is candidates first to provide online personal training services fully subsidized by the VA with their Athena program.

In 2021, he was recognized as Canada's most motivational personal fitness trainer. He loves a good challenge and is deeply committed to getting folks healthy and strong. If you're able to help in completing his mission, he welcomes you to join his network and work together on this massive challenge. By the end of this episode, you'll discover three major takeaways. One, addressing hard topics is crucial for personal growth and societal progress. Two,

Veterans face unique challenges in mental health, physical fitness, and transitioning into civilian life, and investing in oneself is vital for personal and professional development. Three, prioritizing health and wellbeing is essential for veterans to thrive in all areas of life. Don't wait until you have no other options to make a new choice and start a new path. But before we dive in, I want to tell you all about our new resource available at themissionafter .org. It's called the 10 Surprising Military Habits That Are Sabotaging Your Career and Your Life.

This guide will help you identify and overcome those habits. So be sure to download it at the mission after .org. Now let's get into our conversation with Dave.

Mike Bledsoe (02:37)
Man, I have really enjoyed watching your journey over the last, I don't know, when we first connected, you were a part of the Strong Coach. And it was all fitness, and now you're getting into a whole other realm, it seems, with the podcast.

Dave Morrow (02:37)
Alright, alright, alright.

Mm -hmm.

Kinda. Kinda. I mean, still no.

Mike Bledsoe (03:08)
Like you're addressing like the hard, the things that people usually would want to avoid. You're just like, yeah, I'm going to say something about that. Because at the end of the day, it does come down to health.

Dave Morrow (03:19)
I got nothing to lose. Yeah. I got nothing to lose, man. The Army's paying my pension. I'm not owned by anybody. So if nobody's talking about it, yeah, it's still in that health and fitness side of it. So sidebar, Canada's got a blocked out news. I don't know if you knew that from social media. You can't see it.

If you have a -

Mike Bledsoe (03:49)
You can't see the news on social media. So the only news you get is through the like the big networks. Is that is that what you're saying?

Dave Morrow (03:59)
Yeah, like if you go on their website or if you go watch it on TV like a boomer, like you're not getting the news. So I don't know what the stats are. A lot of people get the news right on their phones, on the big platforms like Facebook, for instance. I actually never looked at the news on Facebook, never really interest me, but apparently something happened in the United States and people went crazy about misinformation on the news on Facebook. So they cracked down.

Canada super hard. So if you have an IP address from Canada, you can't see, I can't even, so here's the thing, if I were to post something on Facebook that is quote unquote news, so it could literally be anything. It could be a news article from like a mainstream news agency. It won't show up on my Canadian friends feeds if they don't have the VPN that's outside of Canada, which is kind of like,

Mike Bledsoe (04:41)
news slash political or.

Dave Morrow (04:59)
insane when you think about it. So therefore I end up being kind of de facto news for stories that don't get picked up because another sidebar is our news agencies are all paid for by the government. Literally, they keep them afloat. Like they pay them lots and lots of money. So it's state sponsored media, which is so, so wild. So yeah, the fitness and health thing just kind of kind of dovetails with everything because well, if you talk about mental health.

Yeah, man. Being locked in your house for like two years and already having mental health issues, it wasn't a good thing for the veteran community. I can tell you that much. Plus, most people put on like 20, 30 pounds. That wasn't a good thing. And now adding all the extra stuff that the government has been throwing at us in terms of, hey, man, you're not doing so well. I got a plan for you. Why don't you just off yourself? We'll help you. Don't worry about it. We got you, bro. That's the message that they're sending us here in Canada. It's bananas, man.

Mike Bledsoe (05:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, what's it called? The, what's it called? The maid.

Dave Morrow (06:01)
Made, made, medical assistance in dying.

Mike Bledsoe (06:06)
Medical assistance in dying. Yeah, that was it. I caught something on your Instagram where I don't know if it was your show is a different show, but this guy was talking about how he basically called in for like suicide help as a veteran and then was suggested made it did he he considered it or he take it what happened there? Or do you know which one I'm talking about?

Dave Morrow (06:28)
Yeah, absolutely. I launched the episode two weeks ago. It was an episode I did with his lawyer, Catherine Christensen, who's a big friend of the podcast. And he was offered this quote unquote service. He was in a bad place, man. He was used and abused when he was in the military for a very short period of time.

It was such a bad experience that he just left. He was charged with sexual assault, was unfounded, was cleared of all charges. Then they bullied the shit out of him. It was just a terrible experience. And then he got out. His dad was in the military. His dad committed suicide. Super sad story. And then he tried four times to take his own life. And then he was like, wait.

Okay, this isn't the path I want to go. I need help. So he calls Veterans Affairs and like, I need help. They go, no, you don't. You need to die. And it blew him away. And like he said, he said, I was calling for help, but I didn't want to die anymore. And that's the service that they offered me. Hence the reason why he's suing them for $10 million. So.

Mike Bledsoe (07:49)
Fascinating. Yeah. I mean, I so in Canada, I mean, depending on where you're at, what you're listening to in America. So as an American, I don't really, I actually don't think getting your news from social media is a good idea either. But I also, I also don't think that the,

Dave Morrow (08:12)
No.

Mike Bledsoe (08:19)
the government should be limiting what people can share. I don't care necessarily what it is. I kind of take the same stance as like an Elon Musk, the way he talks about, it's gonna be a free platform, free speech. And of course in ex Twitter has to still...

abide by all the local rules that it's operating in or at least it chooses to and But I think where the magic is that if you really want to because like the idea of news in itself is really interesting as a concept of Like the news used to be a newspaper and they used to be really honest and that they would say that we're actually

promoting this political stance. There'd be like, I'd say in America, the way it used to be is like, we're the American, or we're the Republican newspaper and we're the Democrat newspaper. And it was like, you knew what you were getting. And as news cycles came up with television and everything became a 24, you know, there's 24 hour news and just, it evolved into this really crazy thing that,

Dave Morrow (09:23)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (09:39)
I think people thought at one time there was news that was not one -sided. I've looked back in history and I go, it's always been one -sided, but at least back in the day, they said they were one -sided instead of claiming that they're representative of the middle or whatever. But even if you check out the news, I think a really good interview that highlights this perfectly was when Joe Rogan interviewed

what's his name? The Indian doctor from CNN, Sanjay Gupta. And Sanjay had been trained for, I don't know how many years in, in traditional media to, to speak in 20 to 30 second soundbites or maybe 10 to 30 second soundbites. And in a long format conversation, just buckled and couldn't make any sense and didn't.

Dave Morrow (10:15)
That's a good...

Mike Bledsoe (10:38)
he was trying to get out of it. Like you could tell in his voice, he was like, I need to get the fuck out of here. Like he even said at one point, it's like, how long have we been on this? How long have we been going? He's like, it's like an hour and a half. He's like, how long do we go? He goes three hours. You can say he's just like, just the fucking the panic, you know, and it's like, I loved it as a podcaster, right? You're a podcaster, I'm a podcaster. And what we know is that long format is really where it's at, like, because

Dave Morrow (10:48)
Hahaha!

Three.

Mike Bledsoe (11:08)
These things require these conversations. If you really want to be a critical thinker, then you need context. You know, we need to have a lot more context and that requires time to, you know, present the package altogether and then be able to debate it over time. And so, you know, it may be sad that in Canada, they're blocking all this stuff, but from what I understand, from a technological perspective, it's really hard to censor podcasts.

Like podcasting is, it's, it's just a beautiful platform.

Dave Morrow (11:38)
dude. And I'm glad you brought that up too, because the benefit of the legislation here in Canada is that I kind of became the news. So my YouTube channel went to the moon. I had a video that went like super viral, like over 200 ,000 views, right?

My subscribers went up to like 5 ,000 plus. I was like, my God, my buddies are texting me like, dude, what happened to your YouTube channel? I'm like, I don't know. I'm not even looking at it. They're like, go check your views. I'm like, holy shit balls. So, because the story wasn't anywhere. And this was a big deal. It was 329 soldiers were suing the government for abuse of power during the COVID mandates.

Mike Bledsoe (12:15)
Hahaha.

Dave Morrow (12:32)
They did. They forced guys and gals out and they didn't follow the rules and it's still ongoing for half a billion dollars. It's kind of a big deal. It's like a really big deal. It's a lot of money. And on top of it, it's a lot of soldiers. You'd think, man, this is a major lawsuit. It's going to be on all of it. No, not a peep. So people were heard through the rumor mill and I was the only one to report on it. But funny that you mentioned podcasts can't be censored. Canadian government, again,

Mike Bledsoe (12:44)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (13:01)
is trying to do just that. They want to create a podcast registry to go through our regulatory body, which is the CRTC, Canadian Radio and Transmission Commission. I think that's what it stands for. But you can see it's a relic of the past. It was created for radio. Okay. So you want me to conform with a 120 year old set of rules? That doesn't make any sense. And on top of that,

Mike Bledsoe (13:21)
Right.

Dave Morrow (13:30)
hey, if you really want to crack down on me, sure, but I can just pack up my podcast and go anywhere else on the planet and still keep on doing it. And you haven't solved this issue. They're trying to grasp essentially water in their hands and try to control it. So there's all kinds of stuff afoot too. They're trying to bring in all kinds of sneaky tactics with hate speech. So if you dare say anything that is deemed based off of whatever the flavor of the month is here in Canada, that's hate speech.

you'll just be completely shut down and just be crushed. So that's the nature of podcasting here in Canada. I know about Rogan talked about this too. I think he was talking about with Tom Green and just discussing the nature of how Canada is gone down this total socialist, communist, tyrannical like path. And it's not good.

And when you look at it from an external lens, because we don't have anything like the First Amendment here, right? We don't have those protections in place that I really respect down in the States. You literally fight wars for these things. We haven't had that moment in our history. So I'm of the opinion that you need to earn your rights and freedoms, not just be giving them like ours were. Ours were just essentially kind of handed down to us.

Mike Bledsoe (14:33)
Right.

Dave Morrow (14:56)
And we only had our constitution set up in 1981, officially from the British. So like with that little history lesson, we're super young as a nation. We haven't proven that we deserve these things and we don't quite have them entrenched in our constitution like you guys do. So I think we're coming to that moment, right? We're starting to realize that, hold on a sec here, like everything that we thought we had is kind of just.

It's kind of just smoke and mirrors, man. There's no real weight behind anything that we say and do here. In case of point, we stomped all over people a few years ago for protesting. And veterans are cast as right -wing nationalists and conspiracy theorists because we have a voice that is outspoken. And we appreciate the truth. I think that's kind of where most of us stand is whether you're on the left or right of the spectrum, we like seeing principled

virtuous behavior, I think in general. And when we don't see it, it gets us kind of prickly. But now we're starting to speak up, like case of point, like, you know, you've moved into the veteran space, man, that's huge. And there's more starting to speak up. And I think if I'm looking at the way our government's reacting, I think they're freaking out a little bit. They're freaking out a little bit because we have a very good command of what right and wrong is.

It's very hard to buy us off in a traditional way because we're very principled in my opinion and we have just an ability to speak, a lot of us doing this because we had a lot of practice doing it, which as you know, right, if you speak well and can convey your message well through speech and through writing, it's a very powerful tool. So I think they're starting to get a little bit nervous here in Canada that we're starting to sort ourselves out and starting to organize. And that's why they're starting to kind of...

clamped down on us. And that's why I'm so focused on fitness and health, because to get more veterans in the space, honestly, we need to be healthier. Like we just can't be the same old kind of, you know, veteran beer belly in the basement, just kind of waiting to get our next payment from VA or, you know, work on our next kind of project that they give us. It's like, no, and you got to get out, you got to at least at a bare minimum, get your health sorted so they can do more, they can thrive and then take on the other challenges that, you know, we need to take on. So.

That's what I do, pretty much what I do now.

Mike Bledsoe (17:26)
Yeah, one of the things that I've really noticed and one of the points that I like to touch on and focus on is, you know, most guys serve in the military between the ages of 18 and 40. And, you know, I served, you know, for four and a half years, so it was like 19 to 25. But,

The military really soaks up your vitality. You know, people are like, when I was. Yeah, I it, it, it, it really, it does because you, you don't eat well one year in. Right. The, the P the PT that you're doing is it's better than nothing, but.

Dave Morrow (18:01)
I'm going to make a shirt that says that. The military sub -supervitality. Regain it here.

Mike Bledsoe (18:24)
the PT and I think it's advanced and gotten a lot better, but the PT is like, it's, it's okay. I mean, it's not, it's not the best. You're not, you're not normally training with like the best trained coaches in the world. When you're in the military, the, the food, yeah, the food is crap. I don't know about you, but I had chronic sleep deprivation when I was in, like that was just like sleep was just totally abnormal.

And you still were able to operate because you were between the ages of 18 and 40. And when you're that age, you can totally abuse the body and the mind and in your, the body, the human body is so resilient. You can abuse it for a really long time. And then when it's time to get out of the military, and that structure leads and you go, my, you know, man, this really hurts. Like there's no,

When you're in the military, like you're, you're so on purpose and so on mission that something's bothering you and it's easier to overlook. You get out into the civilian world and you don't have this life or death type of mentality anymore. That starts to fade away. It's like, I don't really have the purpose. It's life and death. Man, my shoulder and my back just really jacked up. I don't think I'm going to PT today. You know, I don't think I'm going to work out, you know, like I'm going to take it easy. Yeah. You end up, you know, beer belly on the couch and.

Dave Morrow (19:43)
Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (19:52)
just being another consumer. And so, yeah, I think you're, I think that's spot on. Like, can you tell us a bit about, what was your experience of, yeah, because you're in the Canadian Army. We've had one Australian on the show now, so we're already getting out there. Like, if you're in the military and you speak English, we'll have you. But I'm curious.

Dave Morrow (19:55)
Mm -hmm.

Nice.

You

Mike Bledsoe (20:20)
But yeah, how long did you get out of the army and you went into health and fitness, specifically veterans? Like what was that journey like?

Dave Morrow (20:29)
Yeah, I spent 15 years in the Canadian infantry here with our reserves, which is a little bit different than your reserves, but same kind of idea. I was part -time, but not. We have a lot of full -time work available. So I was able to dance between both the civilian and the military world for that period of time. Did all my education at university while I was still in.

I'd be gone every summer kind of thing, either being trained or training others. And then 2010, I got a chance to go deploy to Afghanistan. So I took it. So that was my one deployment. And then I was out in 2016. So I joined when I was 19, did 15 years. And I enjoy the experience. Don't get me wrong. I am pissed at, I guess, the treatment in hindsight.

There's kind of ghetto you're talking about bad food and stuff Yeah, we had great food. So that's the big I guess the big plus in terms of like fat pills like we had great cakes man Ken has me that's why we have the fattest army in the world. Holy shit, man The cakes were so good. They were like fresh like fresh cakes our cooks here are amazing They make beef bulgogi on like all kinds of really good stuff. So if you're a fat kid

Mike Bledsoe (21:41)
Do you?

I joined the wrong military.

Dave Morrow (21:53)
Yeah, if you're a fat kid, you're just like, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum. Now, that was really evident when I deployed. I deployed with the 171 Cav from the 10th Mountain Division, which was really cool. They were gallaudet, man. They had a really good, they had a cook. So they were cooking up fresh rations every day and we weren't eating ration packs and stuff like that. And then we'd go to Canadian base every now and then they'd be like, well, shit, like kind of stepped it up a notch. But we still felt like.

like lobster sometimes and I was like, man, this is sick. The Afghans would bring us what we thought was like, is this dog meat? I don't know, let's cook it up. We fried it up. Like we had a pretty good go when we were overseas. But fast forward now, I'm out of the military. I got out because I just, I got a really common injury right back in knee while I was deployed. Wasn't catastrophic, but it just really.

wore me down, man. And I didn't want to accept the fact that I was hurt because I was still kind of young. I was in my late 20s, early 30s. And I was hobbling around and the military was like, dude, you can't do your job anymore. And I said, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. But based on the way the military tries to rehab you, it's basically just pills and you go see a physiotherapist once every few weeks. I'm going to rehab shit. So I was getting worse. And then I was getting pissed off. I didn't realize I had some.

Mike Bledsoe (23:10)
Mm.

Dave Morrow (23:17)
lingering psychological issues too from deployment. But I got right back into working full -time, which was teaching. I was a high school science teacher. I mean, technically I still am by trade. So I was teaching 12 -year -olds how to learn about the orbits of the moon around the earth and like the planets and all kinds of grade seven, 12 -year -old stuff, which was kind of a big disconnect from what I was doing before because it wasn't that long ago that I was...

jumping out of helicopters, doing night offs with like nods on my head. Like, now I'm like, wait a second. Like these kids are asking me for Kleenex and like wiping their snot on my arm. I'm like, what happened? What the fuck happened then? This is weird. So did that for a few years, but all along I was always involved in coaching, right? I was always involved in the fitness space since I was a kid. So it wasn't hard for me to keep on doing that kind of stuff. Cause I'm really passionate about it. I've always been reading about it. I mean, my degree is in biochem. So.

Working out in the gym was just something I did. My dad introduced me to it when I was eight. So I just kept it up. And then I just started going down the path of the CrossFit. And that's where I heard about you and started listening to your podcast and started a CrossFit, an unofficial CrossFit group in my school, getting the kids and staff involved. And it was just a lot of fun. And then I got to a point when my civilian career teaching that there was just this disconnect. I'm sure...

having my psychological issues didn't help because I was making irrational decisions. Anxiety would spike and then I would have to be doing box breathing before teaching. And that's when I started realizing, I think I need to sort something out. It's not just my back and knee right now. And I was crippled for days, sometimes weeks at a time. I couldn't walk because my back was so bad. My knee was given out all the time. I just had a kid.

I was like, man, my life is spiraling. And so it was a good infantry, like NCO Do when his life is spiraling, he makes things worse by quitting his job and taking on another random job he's not really qualified for and then gets fired from it. And now he's completely unemployed, has a brand new family, new mortgage. And wife is like, dude, what are you doing? I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm good. I got this. So that's when I decided, hey, you know what, even better idea while things are spiraling.

Mike Bledsoe (25:20)
Hehehehe

Mmm.

Dave Morrow (25:40)
let's become an entrepreneur because that'll bring the money in, right? That's how I got started, man. And I started coaching. That would have been 2018. And I literally hopped on a plane to go to Spain to do my first weekend mastermind. And it was really on a whim, man. I just felt like I had to get out of my little bubble here. I had to do something where I just met new people.

I was convinced by this ex -RAAF guy, so British dude. He got on the phone, he was the sales guy. And he's like, all right, brother, this is the way it's gonna go down. And just spoke to me like veteran to veteran. And I was like, all right, I'm in. He's like, really? Yeah, man. I'm like, I'm getting my tickets right now. So I flew over there. We're still friends to this day. And it was one of the best things I ever did because it just kinda put me in a sink or swim type.

scenario and then I started the online coaching business from there, which was kind of by accident too, because the guys I was coaching were approaching me. I hadn't really started business ops yet. They just heard that I was doing this now. So I started putting programs together, not that big of a deal. And then slowly but surely wrote a book. And then the podcast came about a year later, 2019. And I just started doing stuff in my basement, just riffing, not really knowing what I was doing, talking to friends really about war stories, but I wanted to make sure it was their own fitness and health.

And now that's brought me to today where like, if we get to talk to you, which is a trip man, you're on your podcast. Like, you know, like man, Barbell Shrug, it was, we had this conversation before. I'm like, what is it like five, six years ago? Like, no, man, it was, it was like over a decade ago. It's not longer.

Mike Bledsoe (27:23)
Yeah, I started barbell in 2012 and I left in 2018. So.

Dave Morrow (27:30)
Right. So yeah, over a decade ago, I was listening to this guy, Mike Bledsoe. I was like, this is cool. I like this stuff, man. Never thinking I would ever interact with you or anybody in the sphere of CrossFit or fitness and health. But I've talked to Jason Kalipa on my podcast, which I was fan bowing hard. I'm like, fuck, dude. I'm like, Jason, man. He's like, yep, he's just a regular guy. I'm like, man, all these people are just normal human beings. What a surprise. And it's been really cool. I've heard it. So.

That's been my passion ever since. And I realized the veteran space is not really, there's a lot of folks in the veteran space, don't get me wrong, but specifically like veteran health and fitness, it's hard to come by. It's really hard to come by, at least anybody with legs. And I think being a teacher too helps a lot because I can convey messages for six year olds to like 12 year olds I'm pretty good at.

Mike Bledsoe (28:00)
Hahaha.

Dave Morrow (28:27)
So typically, typically like the infantry range of like, I could never achieve it. So like, I've got my niche, I've got my niche and it's been great ever since.

Mike Bledsoe (28:38)
Well, if you look at the Apple website, it's all written at an eighth grade reading level for a reason.

Dave Morrow (28:45)
Yeah, and rightly so, right? If I'm reading a high level text on a website, I go, who's this guy trying to impress? I don't need high level big university words.

Mike Bledsoe (28:52)
Yeah, yeah, someone may be capable of. Yeah, so maybe capable of understanding more, but we really like to. You know. Probably get our information around the same age of like 12 years old. That's that's when things had formed pretty well in the brain and you're just. It's a little more relaxed. Love it. So you've been so you went down this path of you went. I.

Was that mass for mine that was like the thing that doesn't been a conversation lately I've been with a lot of people's like There's a I've run into some veterans that don't want it or afraid to invest in themselves. I think there's like there's a Because everything was paid for like when you especially if you joined right out of high school It's like all your trainings paid for

Dave Morrow (29:38)
yeah. yeah.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (29:47)
GI bill pays for college and now there's voc rehab in the States and there's all these programs and it's like free, free, free, free, free, free. And you know, free will get you so far, but you know, you, how much was that, that, that trip to Spain? Was that your first like big investment in yourself? So I was like,

Dave Morrow (29:49)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Honestly, I think it was like $2 ,000. It was like nothing. Before you get started in investing in yourself, putting things into a frame is really important. How much do they spend on university? University is really cheap here, but still, I didn't consider it investing in myself because everybody kind of did it. So what I did, I did a lot of university. So I probably spent 30K.

Mike Bledsoe (30:17)
Right. Yeah.

Right.

Dave Morrow (30:39)
And like I have three degrees. I said I hated school. I did three degrees like a dummy. So I think it cost me like 30K total. That's a pretty big investment, man. But if you're looking at developing your business and developing yourself, what's $2 ,000? You drop that in like not even a month of university, but you don't even know what the return on investment is going to be.

Mike Bledsoe (30:48)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (31:04)
these business owners that you're going to do these masterminds for, you could potentially create a hundred thousand dollar business with that $2 ,000 investment, but you won't know unless you actually do it. So that started changing my mindset around cash and investing in myself. And then I just, I kind of went off. My wife still has PTSD from that experience of me just like buying courses and just going all in on like different masterminds. I didn't know anything. So I.

Mike Bledsoe (31:29)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (31:31)
I was in that journey, right? I was like, well, like, look, I spent 30K on formal education. If I spend even a fraction of that and it allows me to grow to like a million dollar company, isn't that a better investment? Yeah, I guess so. So it was just figuring that out as it went along. But 100 % your frame of veterans being more institutionalized is the same here in Canada too. I would say even worse because we don't have an entrepreneur culture just as like the general Canadian culture is not very entrepreneurial.

So the idea of even spending a dollar a day, it's kind of like, I don't know if I can justify the expense. So you really have to find those folks that are already past that threshold from what I can see. And then along the way, the people that aren't willing to kind of invest will see the improvements in the community and then they'll be like late adopters. That's how I kind of see things. It's just in the veteran space. And maybe you can speak to this too. I don't.

Mike Bledsoe (32:01)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (32:30)
I don't see a lot of, if you want to call it self -improvement, I don't know if that's the right way to describe it, but investment in oneself to the point where you have a lot of veterans getting after it in terms of fitness, health, mindset, business, stuff like that. But it's coming along and I like being part of it right now, but I think it's going to take a little longer to sort out the culture to a point where they actually realize investing in themselves is the only way forward. It's not the VA that's going to...

help them get to that next level.

Mike Bledsoe (33:03)
Yeah, I mean, I don't think the culture here is that much different. I mean, people are raised that that school is free. Like, basically, everything's free, or should be because even in America, even if you are taking out school loans and all this, there is a mentality of like a large part of the population is like, why do you why do people have to pay for college, you know, even if so and

Dave Morrow (33:28)
Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (33:33)
I know we both know at least in America. It's easy to rack up a $200 ,000 student loan debt. So And In I know people who actually my my fiance she's one of these has racked up one of these these student loan debts and I'm like, I'm gonna go spend

you know, five or $10 ,000 on this thing. And she's like, what, what? I'm like, you spent $200 ,000 on a, on two degrees. Like, like my $5 ,000 is like, this is going to give me, this is a very specific, specific practical application return. Like I'm going to, this is like training in a lot of ways. and my friend,

Dave Morrow (34:14)
Southend.

Mike Bledsoe (34:26)
Dr. Andy Galpin said it really well. He really well. He's a PhD. He's an academic and he has said for the longest time like to college kids. He's like don't be confused. This is not training. This is education. These are different. You know education is not really preparing you for any specific job at all. Like you have a you're in a field of study, but.

Dave Morrow (34:51)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (34:54)
You're here to get educated. You're here to learn a very broad set of knowledge so that when you go out in the world, you're educated. You're not trained. Don't expect a job to pay you when you get out. Like that's not what this is for. This isn't training. If you want to get paid, go get trained. Now, if you're educated and then you go gain some training, you're at a better position than someone who just had training because you have a better understanding of.

the world. That's that was kind of the initial concept of university was go send your you know, if you're a wealthy person, you send your kids to the university so they get an understanding of the world and then they they come and they they end up mentoring under somebody and so forth. So yeah, this whole idea that everybody's getting it now. Yeah, I just see it making it very difficult for a lot of people to make that step. And I was just talking to a friend last night who we were we were talking about.

investing and he's considering investing in some plant medicine psychedelic work and talking about the price of it. It's like, you know, it's like $3 ,000 for, you know, you get like two prep sessions, three days in a retreat and two integrations. He's like, is that expensive? And I'm like, no, like that's a, that's a, that's a deal. You're

you're experiencing like you're experiencing depression, anxiety, all these things. And there's a good chance that a lot of that's going to improve like $3 ,000 like your future self. If you if you do it, you're going to look back and kind of like laugh at yourself or that was totally, you know, some people would give everything, especially if you get to the point of suicide, right? If you get to the point where you're considering suicide.

Dave Morrow (36:33)
It's a steal. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (36:53)
Why wouldn't you just empty your bank account to for like something that is outside of whatever it is you've been doing? Like if the other option is to die, like just go ahead. Just like, and that's where a lot of people end up. That's where a lot of people end up. You hear these stories, people like, you know, I have a gun in my mouth and then something clicked and I thought maybe I shouldn't do this. And next thing you know, they're going down to Mexico.

Dave Morrow (37:04)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (37:22)
for Ibo game and they come back and they're like, my God, I got a whole new lease on life. Like things weren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. And, you know, it's, there's something to be said that too. Like, I guess my message here is you don't have to wait until things have, until you get to the point where there's no other options at all. Like you can start making a new choice prior to that.

Dave Morrow (37:47)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's what I like about your platform that you created. Because I'm sure you did your research, but I haven't found anything that is even remotely similar to that for the veteran world, right? Where you're journaling and you're actually asking the questions about your service and what sacrifice means and, you know, the thing with the commander, all those little drills.

if you want to call them, being able to reflect on who you are and why you do the things you do, that's completely not part of the transition process, right? That is, you know, we want to call it mandated because doing work on yourself is a big deal, man. And being a soldier is a big freaking deal, man. It's something that most people don't do for a reason.

Mike Bledsoe (38:17)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (38:42)
because it sucks, it's hard, and you're sacrificing yourself for your freaking country, man. There's a contract that's written between you and the country. And then when you get out, yeah, of course you're gonna have all these mixed emotions, especially if you saw combat, especially if you did stuff that, if you did that back home, you're in jail, man. Like straight up, you go to jail. So how do you reconcile with that? And how do you reconcile with the emotions and everything? So having an outlet where you can actually learn from folks like yourself in a community with us.

supportive that is geared for veterans. I think it's great, man, because I didn't have any of that leaving. I didn't know what the shit I was doing. I mean, the worst thing was I was a reservist, right? So there was no, I had the services, but I didn't know they existed. So I had to fumble around to figure things out. And talking about education before, that's where I'm happy I had my education because,

Mike Bledsoe (39:30)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (39:40)
even though things were pretty dark, I still had the ability to think. And the ability to think through a problem, I think is the most important part of education. If you don't get that from education, you've kind of missed the point of education. It's series of problems, different scenarios, and then the how do you think through things and how do you communicate things, I think is the most important part of education. Do I use anything from my chemistry degrees or chemistry degree? Not really. I'm not like right now.

you know, retro synthetic analysis on my desk every day. But it did teach me how to kind of problem solve and be, okay, well, I should go to this reference and then, well, I know a little bit about this. How do I connect those two together? And that's what I did in the transition in terms of, well, I know I need to be a little bit healthier. I can't be fat and stuff in my face with tasty cakes all day. Okay, I'll sort that out. Well, my back really hurts. What they're telling me from the VA is not working.

So if it's not working, then obviously doing something else couldn't hurt. Maybe it could, but odds are it'll probably be better. And so figured that out. And then I realized, shit, half the things, if not the majority of the things I was struggling with, just require me to be open to change and figuring it out and be patient and being okay with the fact that I'm going to make some mistakes, but I actually can figure this out with the help of others. And not just from my therapist or not just from the...

government mandated team that has been assigned to me really opened up my eyes to just how you can heal and how you can be a better human being. And which is not just for veterans, but especially in the veteran, veteran world, man. It's so, it's so needed, man. Just that the fact that a lot of us have gone through it and we're, we're working through, through these things by using what you have on your platform and experience you've had and, you know, in business and podcasting. Yeah, it's pretty, it's powerful stuff, man. It's really powerful.

Mike Bledsoe (41:40)
Yeah, over the years I had a lot of people. I've raised a lot of eyebrows on how I've lived my life since I say last 11, 12 years or even before that, opening my own business, opening a CrossFit gym was like, what are you doing? You know, that's that's crazy. And before people even know what CrossFit was and the guy it's going to.

In 2007, I was like, this is going to be big. People are like, what are you talking about? And I was right. I'm pretty good at spotting patterns. I didn't know that early on, but that was like, it was one of those like passive talents that I, once I recognized it was able to turn it into a strength. And, but, but the, where I got was like yourself, I started questioning things where,

Dave Morrow (42:16)
Mm -hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (42:36)
Like the first time, the thing that really set me off was the first time I had a consumed mushrooms in 2013. And I had done a little bit of research beforehand. I talked to some people and I.

I was like, this isn't going to melt my brain. This actually might be good for the brain. I actually can't. Yeah. I was like, I was like, this actually could be a good thing. And so, you know, I tried to a medium dose at the park and had a, a life changing, maybe even I could say a life saving experience. And, and it was one of those, it was one of those moments where I go start questioning everything.

Dave Morrow (42:59)
No one can have a psychotic break. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (43:23)
I go, shit, like, if the average person, I think I've always been built this way. I think a lot of people go to the military built this way is like, if the average person is doing it, I'm going to do something different. Like, like the average American is obese, right? Like, I think 40 something percent of Americans are obese. It's like, and I look at that and I go,

Dave Morrow (43:48)
Yeah, 44 % of veterans are, 39 % of Americans are, veterans are worse.

Mike Bledsoe (43:54)
There you go. There you go. So if I look at that in veterans are by almost every disease metric out there are worse off than civilian counterparts. Something to be said there, right? That's something not to be ignored. But let me kind of looking at results. Okay, if if we look at the stats and we go the average.

veteran has got heart disease and overweight and so on and so forth, then the average treatment also is not working. The mainstream interventions are not working. If I look at the mainstream American, I look at the average American, I look at the income, I look at the debt, I look at the lifestyle overall, I look at the amount of television consumed, I look at the whatever it is.

I look at what the average is and I go, I'm going to do the opposite of the average because why would I, why would you, why would anybody settle for average? Like what kind of life is that? And so, even if you don't feel good about your life and you find yourself falling into these average lifestyle, habits, you can just change it. It's, it's not, it's not,

It's easier said than done, but like, if you're fed up with it, if you look at your life and you go, fuck, I don't want to be average anymore. Fucking start, you know, let's make some changes here. And so I think.

Dave Morrow (45:33)
You want to know what my moment was? Sorry to interrupt you. You want to know what my moment was that forced me to change? I was teaching. Again, kids, weapon, there's not a lot of mean shit. My highlight of my day was going to take a shit by myself with my phone, just to get away from the chaos, right? And so I just started listening to podcasts because my coworker, buddy of mine, started a rugby podcast. It blew up. I was like, okay, like nerd, like what are these podcasts?

Mike Bledsoe (45:36)
Yeah, no, go for it.

Dave Morrow (46:02)
He's like, yeah, it's on Apple Podcasts. I'm like, okay, I didn't even know I had it on my phone. So then I just started scrolling through and obviously Joe Rogan's the most popular one, so I clicked on it. Honestly, the first episode I listened to, he's talking about mediocrity and I wish I could find it because it was so many years ago. And he literally says, well I'm taking a shit and listening to my phone. He's like, if the highlight of your day is going to take a shit, he's like, you know you've got things that you need to change in your life. And I was like,

Mike Bledsoe (46:12)
right.

Heheheheh

Dave Morrow (46:32)
my God, Joe, like Joe, like, how do you know? Honestly, it was like the biggest like mind shift I've ever had. And I left that shit and I was thinking, my God, he's right, man. This is not good. I went from up here doing cool shit in the military to now like not saying teaching is a bad job, man. But honestly, for me, I realized that there was a lot more out there that I could be doing. And I just didn't know what.

Mike Bledsoe (46:34)
You

Dave Morrow (46:59)
but I knew I had to change and that put me on an irreversible course. So I knew I had to change. So sorry to interrupt you there, but that was kind of my journey.

Mike Bledsoe (47:06)
That's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. You're the guest of the show. You can just talk. It's okay. Yeah. I mean, if you let me go, I had to set up in the woods because I was talking to a Canadian. I wanted to make you feel at home, you know, the trees in the background.

Dave Morrow (47:13)
Feel free to interrupt whenever you want Dave. Feel free. I'm just talking to myself in the woods.

Meanwhile, I show up corporate with the jacket on. You got a lumberjack mic out here wearing a Canadian tuxedo. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (47:35)
I mean, I did say no shirts for the podcast. So I'm disappointed.

Dave Morrow (47:44)
Yeah, we did say no shirts and we both showed up with shirts. I was both too scared. I was like, man, I didn't fast for the last three days. There's no way I'm doing that. There's no way. I'm not looking shredded. Yeah, looking puffy. No thanks.

Mike Bledsoe (47:59)
Yeah. So, so you decided, so you're sitting on the shitter and you're like, fuck, I need to change things. And you, you, you make, you know, you quit your job, you decide to start, you become an entrepreneur, you start your own business. And I remember, I remember working with you, and, just trying to make it work. Right. Can.

There's like, it didn't just, you weren't like, I'm going to help veterans get in better shape and get fit. And clients just came through the door. You know, there was, there was conversation about like, what a charge. How do I get their attention? What is it they really want? Like, how was, what was that experience like?

Dave Morrow (48:48)
Well, dude, when I saw you guys out, I was in a bad, I was just at the, I didn't realize how bad it was going to get, but I knew something was off because I had some initial success just because, I don't know, you would call it beginner's luck. I had recurring income and it was more than my salary teaching. Cause here, I think the salaries are pretty shit in the States too, here in Canada.

But here in my province anyways, they're pretty shit. So I was like, I'm making, as a business owner, I've been making more than I was a teacher and I'm not really working as hard. I'm like, this shit's easy. You know, like, now I'm realizing that, yeah, I didn't have any processes in place. I was just running some basic Facebook ads, getting guys in. I was learning the sales process, how to sell. So I had a year or two experience and I was getting kind of cocky. COVID really crushed me morally and physically, not,

Mike Bledsoe (49:32)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (49:47)
COVID itself, but just like the whole experience really hurt like deep down to my core. And so business started to kind of go off the rails a little bit. I wasn't able to focus as much as I wanted to. And then Facebook.

Mike Bledsoe (50:03)
When you say it, when you say, Kobe was there, you know, got you down, hurt you down to your core. Was it psychological? Was it clients weren't buying? Like what was it that hurts so much?

Dave Morrow (50:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, it was the psychological torment, gaslighting, because my stance from the start, actually having a science degree was, hey, we just need to let the experts do the expert thing. And I was doing podcast episodes on basic, how the immune system works. This is literally the stuff that I was teaching in grade nine science. You have an immune system and you build immunity to, you know,

Mike Bledsoe (50:40)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (50:44)
And then that all of a sudden started to turn into like I was a right -wing nut. What are we talking about? No, no, no. This is how vaccines work. And they're like, no, you can't say that. But wait, that doesn't make any sense to me. So then I started questioning things because I was pro mainstream. Hey, man, they know what they're talking about. And then I started realizing there was cracks in that line of thinking. And then I started realizing, hey, man, like,

Don't lock me in my house, I'm fine. What are you talking, you know? And it got really draconic in here. And my YouTube channel started getting strikes and then all of a sudden, Facebook just completely locked me out in terms of being able to run ads in a fishy way too. It wasn't my ad account, it wasn't my business account, it was my personal account. I can still post, but I couldn't run. Everything was based off of running Facebook ads. That's how I generated.

Mike Bledsoe (51:39)
I remember this. I remember this. We were like trying to figure out what's going on with your Facebook.

Dave Morrow (51:42)
So I generated leads, man. Dude, it was stressful. I was like, hey, this will be a week. Okay, it's a month. Okay, it's three months. And I'm like, well, I'm trying to figure out the organic ways to reach out and that's going okay, but I'm not growing. And then I started getting more and more stressed and I start kind of panicking. So you guys kind of kept me on the straight and narrow. And in terms of...

also figured out, hey, how do I want to sell this? What's my main message? And that's where I came up with helping 100 ,000 veterans lose two million pounds. That was cool. That really kind of focused me in as that guy that does this one thing. Because before I was talking about helping guys trying to get into special forces and helping veterans and weight loss and strength training. And so it wasn't focused enough. So I was able to focus my effort and then it was figuring out, well, how do we crack this nut?

And slowly but surely it was honestly building the moral courage to stay in. Because I was ready, I was going to tap out. I was like, this is awful. I don't know where I'm making my next dollar. It made me really, really kind of panicked. And then on top of that, to make things even worse, I got kicked out of the house, me and my wife separated. So it was just like compounding issues that were just really taking a toll on me. Now, thankfully,

Mike Bledsoe (52:38)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (53:06)
me and my wife patch things up, we're back together. Business is back up and running. It's going in the right direction. The podcast is doing great. And honestly, I was talking to Jared, that was just like, just stay in, man. It's just about staying in. Just stay in. Yeah, it's a rough year, and we all go through these rough years. And if it was easy, everybody would have a successful business. But that's why most entrepreneurs leave. You're inevitably going to hit that year where it's like, this all sucks. I'm making no money. I'm going to have to just fold.

He said, no, just stay in, man. It'll be okay. You know, look at the things that you've accomplished. Just stay in. I was like, okay, I will. I'll just stay in. And so I figured it out, right? Just by resolving that I'm going to stay in. So that was what year? That was last year. So that was like year three or year three in business. This is officially year four. And now I can finally see the light. shit, I'm making money again. nice, people are paying attention. Okay, cool. Okay, now momentum is building.

Mike Bledsoe (53:52)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (54:04)
So that was the whole COVID era. I basically started the business during COVID, which wasn't a bad thing because I was online, right? So people were looking for online coaches. Hey, Dave, let's get you on board. The army was hiring me to run their PT for their instructors at the local units here. They're like, we have all these guys that are at home getting paid. We don't know what to do with them. Can you PT them? I'm like, sure. Sure, that's the problem. So that was cool. But then it just kind of all.

Mike Bledsoe (54:12)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (54:34)
it hit a real big road speed bump when I couldn't run ads. And so the good thing about it is that it forced me to diversify. How do I do this? So like YouTube opening up that channel, I didn't have that before. That's good. Affiliate sales, I didn't have that before. Now I have that. Like podcasts make some money now. It's not tons, but it's a lever that I'm pulling on now. And just being open to new opportunities. And now like I opened up a school community, right? Because...

part of helping 100 ,000 veterans is, well, I need to scale. I can't one -on -one coach 100 ,000 people. That's not possible. So how do I get to that point? Well, I need to find a platform and school was the next natural fit. So now I've launched that as a way that I can do one to many rather than one -on -one because I recognize I need to work more on the business side and business development, business operations than actually the tactical coaching side. And that's kind of the entrepreneur's journey, right? I'm sure like you've gone through it, right?

Mike Bledsoe (55:33)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (55:33)
you know, your coaching calls, right? You're, you're doing a one to many model. Cool. I get to bounce things off you. That's, that's great. I get to like, get a snapshot of what you would do in a certain scenario, but it's not one on one. And so that model, once I learned it from you, essentially in the strong coach, I was like, yeah, that's the model I need to go to. It's not just, I'd like to have it. I have, with what I want to do, I need to move over there. So how'd I get from here to there?

Mike Bledsoe (55:57)
I think it's better for the client to it's better for the client to because it is it necessitates some agency on their part. So I don't want like it one on one can turn into I'm your baby center for the rest of your life real quick and in a group setting it's like I'm going to give you the tools I'm going to because.

Dave Morrow (56:08)
Yeah.

Yes, 100%. 100%.

Mike Bledsoe (56:26)
What I, what I, I think you're in the same boat, which is I pride myself on teaching people how to think is like this, how to think about this topic, you know, and this is how to look, you know, think and feel your way through this situation. so that in six months, when, you know, you're, it's a Wednesday and you don't have direct contact with me for another week. And.

something comes up, you got it. You know, you got, you can handle this. Can you explain what school is for people listening? Cause you know, this is for veterans, not necessarily entrepreneurs. Although I think, I think becoming an entrepreneur as a veteran is a pro move, not for everybody, but it's a, it could be a good idea, especially if you're getting, there's a lot of a hundred percent disabled veterans out there who I think like setting up some,

Dave Morrow (57:05)
Yeah, man.

Yeah, man.

Mike Bledsoe (57:25)
just something simple, doesn't need to be crazy, just some type of entrepreneurial, something that's creating some cashflow, doing something you love. I mean, come on. That's amazing.

Dave Morrow (57:38)
Yeah, I want to touch back on the entrepreneur side for veterans after I described my school community. So the school community was something that popped up on my radar about five, six months ago. So if you're not tracking Alex Hermosy, Sam Ovens, Alex Hermosy is a business influencer, been following him for years. Great stuff. A lot of awesome free content.

Mike Bledsoe (57:44)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (58:05)
and have his books, listen to his podcast. So when he dropped this as another offer, I've been looking for a platform, right? I have a free Facebook group, but I'm a teacher. I want certain things. I want to see certain things in order for me to convey my knowledge in a cleaner, more, I guess, robust platform. Facebook wasn't quite it. It's busy too. There's a lot of shit on Facebook, man. Like, this is a...

Mike Bledsoe (58:33)
Easy to get distracted.

Dave Morrow (58:34)
He gets super distracted. So are you going to learn there? No. So I have that group. I built it over the last few years, but now I've found this other option, which is school. So I've spelled S K O O L. I created the group called the veterans getting fit as fuck. So it's like veterans getting fit AF. So I don't get hit by any SEO things or, but essentially the goal.

Mike Bledsoe (58:55)
I think the guys who run school are gonna stay cool. And so you can pretty much, you're gonna get away with more with school than you would some of these other platforms.

Dave Morrow (59:01)
Probably.

Yeah, it's just when I share it out, I'm aware now of having a potty mouth.

Mike Bledsoe (59:10)
yeah. If you're trying to share it on Facebook.

Dave Morrow (59:17)
Yeah, Facebook would go, no thanks. No thanks, you're Canadian. So the goal is to really be able to reach that mark that I set of helping 100 ,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds. So I want to bring as many people in to this platform, which is if you're starting out as an entrepreneur and you have something to teach, you have a skill set, this is an awesome place to do it because...

you end up with the payment gateway already set up on their platform. Cool. You don't have to set that up. All you need to do is drive people there and provide value. So if I had this four or five years ago, I've been like, shit. I mean, there's other platforms that are comparable out there, but this one really hit what I wanted. It's simplistic and you can host Q and A sessions, which I do twice a week. You can build all your courses in there. It's super intuitive and easy to do. And then you have a community tab and.

And the thing that I like because as a teacher, you always have to incentivize good behavior and work. Like, you know, gold stars is like the typical teacher thing to do. I had like 16 year old, like, like they're basically men in my science class that would like freak out for like lollipops and gold stars. I'm like, okay, cool. You know, like it's for sure. You know, like we're all, we're all, we're all chimps, like when you break down.

Mike Bledsoe (1:00:33)
Hehehehehe

Dave Morrow (1:00:40)
So if you get a little reward and praise, it's cool. And that has that built in. So it's got like a leaderboard and you get points for community interaction. And then I make a little game of it. So, you know, at the end of every month, you know, people, most points get a little, you know, prize from one of the sponsors that we have or stuff like that. So we can have a little bit of fun with it too. And you can stay on for as long as you want. And it's a monthly subscription. I love this model. So definitely want to check that out. If you're building something that's more educational, it's a great place to kind of.

get things off the ground in terms of entrepreneurship and being a coach, especially if you're a coach, this is probably one of the best platforms I've seen and the feeds are actually really good. So yeah, definitely want to check it out.

Mike Bledsoe (1:01:22)
Do you have your community on the outside or the inside? Because I know that one of the things I looked at school, I chose not to do it. And one of the reasons is because you only get one community feed. There's not like a community feed per course or anything like that. And with some of the stuff that we're dealing with at the mission after, I don't necessarily think we want it all.

Dave Morrow (1:01:38)
Yes.

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:01:52)
be out there. Some of these conversations are incredibly private.

Dave Morrow (1:01:55)
Well, that is one of the... Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the... Especially if you're looking at it from keeping your business kind of a walled garden where you don't want to necessarily give up all the secret sauce. This is not the place to do it because anybody can join up. Anybody can sign. I'm not taking sales calls for this. So, you know, there's...

Mike Bledsoe (1:02:18)
yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we have a little bit of a, we have a little bit of a, we want to verify people. There's a little bit. And, and I don't want conversations that I think should actually be private, not necessarily because they're valuable, but because they're sensitive, because we are talking about mental health. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Morrow (1:02:26)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Yeah, precisely. Precisely. So I recognize that folks can hop in and do a recce on what I'm doing, but I also encourage it too, because if somebody is going to be able to compete with me, the amount of people I've talked to on the podcast, the amount of value and the amount of connections I've made, cool. But until that day comes, man, I think there should be more people in the health and fitness space for veterans, period. So if you want to come in and replicate.

Mike Bledsoe (1:03:04)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:03:06)
awesome, you're not going to replicate me, that's impossible. I mean, I am who I am and folks like who I am because I just come at them with honesty. But I like it for the simplistic nature that it has. And then on top of that, I haven't built out the free community yet, but that free community is going to act as a way to kind of get people warm to join the paid community. The one thing I don't like is that you have to set up two different accounts and pay for two different accounts.

if you want to have two different communities, kind of like what you're saying. So I can't open up another community based off my one email address. I have to pay for another one with another email address. So I mean, not every business model and every platform is going to have its things that are quite in line with what you want, but you just have to make the decision based off your best kind of.

Mike Bledsoe (1:03:37)
-huh. -huh.

Azure.

Yeah, I stitched together two or three different things at any given time to make exactly what I want. It's annoying, but no single platform always does at all.

Dave Morrow (1:03:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, unless you're willing to take on like venture capital and build a platform and do it all yourself and to go that route. Like we're building, I don't know if you can see it there, but like I have the watch with the heart on it. We're building an app for veterans to track their steps and get them involved in community activities and stuff like that. We call it Voluntold because we're Voluntel and veterans to get active, but we're not inventing the smartwatch to go with it. You know, like we're not reinventing the wheel.

Mike Bledsoe (1:04:06)
yeah.

Right.

Dave Morrow (1:04:32)
So we're not inventing the platform to go with it, we're inventing the game to go with it. So therefore it's a bit different than going and finding millions of dollars from venture capitalists to kind of build everything out from scratch just for you. That's a whole other kettle of fish that I just, we're not willing to go down. So there's all kinds of options out there. But in terms of, I want to touch base on the entrepreneur side of things. The...

Mike Bledsoe (1:04:51)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:04:57)
Military Influencer Conference was a real eye -opener. If you're not tracking what that is, it's an annual conference down in the States. And it's the premier event for military veterans and even those that are serving that are in the entrepreneur space. So this year it's in Atlanta, end of September, early October. And me and my business partner, Mike, we've been tapped to create the Canada House space. So there's going to be a dedicated area just for Canadian veterans because we went down two years ago.

just because I heard about it from a friend that went down like years ago. And I was like, man, we're just starting out a business. Like that's, let's go down and like shake some hands and see what it's all about. It was in Vegas too. So like, cool. Like I've never been to Vegas. So let's go. And we went down and we made so many good connections, man. Like it was just, it was, it was the best, it was the single best business trip I ever done. And from there we were able to just make the connections necessary to start getting the app off the ground.

Mike Bledsoe (1:05:39)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:05:58)
I was able to build my podcast that worked out significantly better. And then we went back last year and now because, you know, the, we got to meet the organizers and chat a little bit more, just be kind of like buddy to buddy. It was like, Hey, do you guys want to help build the next phase where we want to like make this go international? And it's like, hells yeah, man. Like let's get more Canadians down here and then build this capacity out because veterans, you know, just because there's an imaginary line across our two countries, right? Doesn't mean that we didn't have the same experiences and that we can't.

you know, unite based off commerce and entrepreneurship. And that's literally like what we're doing here, man. Like we're crossing those bridges, right? We're making things happen and we don't have to just stay in our silos of, you know, Canada, United States. It's the point of entrepreneurship is to make those connections, do those co -labs. So that's something that if you're in the entrepreneur space, you should definitely check out. And for me, it's built my second purpose, right? If I wasn't doing the entrepreneurship thing, I don't know what I'd, like teaching was not.

I'm still teaching, don't get me wrong, but just in a totally different capacity. So the entrepreneurship side of things has given me that passion because I get to work with the veteran population that I want to help. Like that's essentially what it comes down to. I want to help. So how do I do that? Well, I know some stuff. I know a little bit more than most. So let's just convey it as best as I can and collaborate with the people that know even more and make this thing even better. So that's the beauty of entrepreneurship. So I hope that was a good enough plug for entrepreneurship to get started.

Mike Bledsoe (1:07:25)
Love it. Love it. Yeah, I mean, that the end result is amazing. And also just recognizing it's not it's also not going to be easy. It's not it's like the amount of freedom you get experiences is incredible. Like I've been in Tahoe for for two weeks. I live in Austin, Texas. I didn't have to ask anybody if I could leave. Yes, I've been.

Dave Morrow (1:07:27)
Hahaha!

Mike Bledsoe (1:07:55)
Yes, I've been working. Yes, I've been working. Yes, I took off, you know, a couple Thursday, Fridays. I, you know, I worked on some weekends too. you know, I don't, I don't really have weekends. It's, but, and at the same time, there's been times where I was out of money, you know, and that was really stressful. Like your, your, you know, Jaco says it, which can become cliche, which is like, was it.

freedom and responsibility or something like that, right? Or discipline. But I think Jordan Peterson was talking about, shout out to the Canadians, to the responsibility and freedom. It's like, yeah, if you want more freedom, then you have to become more responsible. And that means you have to have the ability to respond to more things. And so even though like entrepreneurship is a...

is a phenomenal feat for a person to take on, for sure. You're drawing outside of the lines. And it's worth it. And it's gonna be really hard. So if you're up for taking full responsibility for your life and not necessarily needing to, you know, you're not looking out for handouts or for people to make it easy. And I'm not saying that people have jobs that are doing that. Sometimes people are just very.

A lot of people are very skilled in one place and they don't want to have to think about managing the money and sales and marketing. They just want to do their craft. Totally like, you know, stick with that. But if you are also somebody who's, you know, not happy with doing what you're doing, there might be something else for you. So.

Dave Morrow (1:09:39)
Yeah, yeah, I think you're, you're, I mentioned that the, his famous quote, their discipline equals freedom. Where like, if, if you're able to just stick to it and do the things that you say you're going to do and be consistent, that's the discipline. That's where most of us have, we have that kind of installed as being veterans. Discipline for a lot of us comes easy, but what I've noticed at least with myself, so I'm not talking from us on a soap box here, but,

especially the guys that I work with, the structure is gone. So they go, I don't need to maintain the discipline anymore. It was only there because the system was there. But was it? Likely not, man, because you probably got in shape because you wanted to, I don't know, maybe you want to go on selection or maybe there's another position that you wanted, or you knew that just being in shape was good for your career and your job, right? It was mission specific. You have the discipline, you did the things. You can just apply it to something else.

Mike Bledsoe (1:10:16)
Mm.

Dave Morrow (1:10:39)
And, you know, but one of the main things is like, and that's why I learned StrongCoach too, the getting your business right requires you to get right. Cause if you're at that phase where like I'm the head of marketing, I'm the head of fulfillment, I'm the head, I'm the CEO, I'm the president, I'm the executive assistant. Well, if I'm not good, that whole thing is not going to work. And that means physically, like I have energy that I get up in the morning. I'm like, Hey, that...

I gotta get these things done. And if it's 11 o 'clock and they're not done, it doesn't matter. I need to get them done. If you can do that, you can have those days where it's like, yeah, Thursday, I'm just not working today. I got, I got anything to get done, done. Maybe I need to work a little bit on Saturday. Like it's, I work much better in that framework because I worked in the, I worked in the education system, which dude, I like when I was talking about going to take my shit, I have them.

Mike Bledsoe (1:11:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:11:37)
I had very few of those. A lot of days, there was not even enough time to take a shit because my schedule was packed and there was a bell, right? So it's like you're time bound to these spaces, regardless if you're tired or burnt out, it doesn't matter. You got to show up and teach those kids. And legally, you have to be there because, well, you're technically responsible for them. If somebody gets hurt, man, you can get sued, man. It's a real deal. So, you know, that for me was really hard because just being able to take a breather was really important.

be able to take a step back and be like, okay, I am stressed, man. You can't do that in teaching, you can't. You can't just take a moment and grab a coffee. So I realized I needed this latitude. I couldn't do a nine to five. I tried it, it didn't work with me, especially since I got back. I needed moments where some days my back is so bad I can't move around. Okay, well my capacity to work is shit, I'll be honest. You're just in a lot of pain. So usually I gotta smoke a joint. And if I smoke a joint, well,

Mike Bledsoe (1:12:16)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:12:37)
Hey, guess what? Dave's not getting any work done. It's the game over. So I just need to recover that day. Being an entrepreneur allows me to do that. But in the back of my mind, I know, well, it's not like, this work is just going to disappear because I took a day off to my back hurts. I know I just need to catch up. So talk to my wife and be like, hey, look, I need to do a few hours on Saturday night when the kids were asleep. Yeah, sure.

Mike Bledsoe (1:12:40)
No.

Dave Morrow (1:13:03)
You know, just being able to communicate that. But it also gives me the latitude, like I can go pick up my son now after school and then we go take him to Jiu Jitsu. And then afterwards I can go back to the office if I need to, or, you know, he has a pen day. My wife has a regular nine to five, so well, she can't keep him at home. She's gotta go in the office. So it's like, no worries, I got him. It just gives you that much more in terms of freedom, in my opinion, if you're willing to put in the work and accept the ass pain of.

You only make money if you do things while I do things right and you stick to it. Then maybe it's for you.

Mike Bledsoe (1:13:34)
Yeah.

How's your back doing these days?

Dave Morrow (1:13:40)
You know what, man? It's not as great as it used to be. Let's just put it that way. So when I was at my worst, I had a cane and I was kind of hobbled and like walking like an 85 year old man. Now it just kind of generally hurts all the time. So, you know, I'll get up from this this chat and my back will be a little sore because I've been sitting down.

Mike Bledsoe (1:13:59)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (1:14:07)
But even when I stand up, it's kind of like, ugh, for like 15, 20 minutes, like it'll start to ache. So I always need to kind of be in movement. So as long as I'm always moving, I'm okay. I'll go to the gym. As long as I get warm, I feel great. So that just means I see my Cairo and massage therapist and stuff quite often to just keep things in line. And I'm on the foam roller every day. But I know it's never going to be at the point where I'm just pain free. And I went to see a surgeon.

I was waiting to go, it was hard to see, it's hard to see a surgeon here in Canada. Like it took a year and a half for me to go see the specialist. I was like, all right, I've been, I've been getting ready for this for a long time. Like I've been training, I've been, you know, getting strong cause I know recovery is a lot better if you're strong. And so I went into his office. He looked at me, he looked at my scans. He's like, you're, you're doing pretty well. I'm like, well, it hurts a lot. He's like, yeah, but here's the thing, man.

Mike Bledsoe (1:14:43)
Mm.

Dave Morrow (1:15:05)
you're in your, I was still in my thirties, so I was like 39. I'm not gonna operate on you, so you can just keep on doing what you're doing. I go, whoa, doc, doc, whoa, hold on a sec. What are you saying? You're not gonna operate on me. He said, well, look, man, I'm gonna fuse your discs. There's a risk that, of paralysis, I can't lie, it's just the nature of the beast, man, when I'm working on your back. But let's say the surgery is successful. Now both those discs are fused. He's like, now you lose mobility there.

He's like 80 % of the people that I fuse their disc, they herniate later on down the road, the discs are a little bit higher up. Above and below. He's like, cause you lost mobility. He's like, I'm not going to do that to you. You're active, you're training, you're you've got like, you know, marathons and stuff to do. He's like, keep on doing what you're doing. And maybe I'll see you in like 15, 20 years, but I'm not going to, he's like, I'm not going to touch you. And it kind of was like bittersweet. I was like, sweet man. Like everything I did work, but hold on a second. I'm not going to get out of pain. fuck.

Mike Bledsoe (1:15:42)
the above and below. Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:16:04)
So it's just like that's just but that's just the perfect analogy for life, right? You do all this awesome stuff, but there's.

Mike Bledsoe (1:16:09)
Why I.

You know, I have witnessed and myself and others shake things that we thought were gonna be pain in our bodies till the day we die.

Dave Morrow (1:16:23)
Mm.

Mike Bledsoe (1:16:24)
And it's by doing a lot more on the emotional work side of things. And like the longer I do this thing, you know, I started in health and fitness and I just kept going. People were like, how did you get from health and fitness to this? I go, well, this is just more health and fitness, but it's in tangent. You can't see it.

can't see it happening. So yeah, I've, I've, I wouldn't cast that spell on yourself that it's not going to get better, or you're always going to have it. Yeah. I think you have been better. Yeah. A lot of times when, when people say something, you know, when people say something, I go, well, if you say so like,

Dave Morrow (1:17:08)
Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. Because I have been better. I have been better. And yeah, so I know there's I know there's a point where I'm

Mike Bledsoe (1:17:23)
Hehehehehe

But yeah, there's just a lot of, there's a program called My Enlightened Life that does a week long retreat, which there's like, I think a lot of times when people are talking to me, they think there might be psychedelics involved. This particular retreat, there's no psychedelics involved.

Dave Morrow (1:17:27)
Yeah.

It's like, are you gonna microdose me when I have my coffee in the morning? He's like, I don't know.

Mike Bledsoe (1:17:52)
Yeah, there's a program called Mind, Light, and Life, which is a seven day retreat, which I really like. I've also witnessed people go on ayahuasca retreats. I myself had chronic hip pain before ayahuasca and totally vanished. I had to get stronger again because I had a new range of motion. I've also witnessed people with other...

types of psychedelic medicines totally have their pain vanish. I have a veteran client right now who's had a lot of hip pain where he started a microdosing protocol with mushrooms. Microdosing, you don't even kind of like, you're not supposed to notice that you're on it, right? That's the whole point of microdosing. And his hip pain vanished. He's an athlete and he was dealing with chronic hip pain, not vanished. So,

Dave Morrow (1:18:39)
No. No.

Mike Bledsoe (1:18:50)
You know, I'm not saying it's who knows if it's going to vanish forever, right? But there are things that are very alternative that you're like, we didn't even like work on that thing that hurts. And all of a sudden it got better. So just throwing that out there, just throwing that out there to you. I know we've had a little bit of conversation about this stuff before, but most people don't connect what's happening psycho -emotionally to what's happening physically.

Dave Morrow (1:19:10)
Bye.

No, I'm all on board with that, man. Like the idea, like your neurons, like the ones that fire together, wire together. So if you've made that pain connection with that injury and it happens at this time, well, you've already wired that connection through. So the interaction with microdosing and using plant medicine, and I've only microdosed and I've...

Mike Bledsoe (1:19:26)
Mmm.

Dave Morrow (1:19:48)
It helped me on an emotional level, not a pain level, which was pretty wild. Like it, it actually, it forced the worst event in my life to happen, which was basically me and my wife separating because I got really honest. Like I microdosed and I was super honest that night that I was like, I'm not connected to you. And it caused us a major, a major riff, but it had to happen because then it was like, well, why? And so then we had to separate and then I was able to think things through. I microdosed.

And I went down into myself and then I realized, shit, I'm one of the main causes of all this, not the other way around. And so then I was able to start figuring out the why. And that was huge. That was so huge, man. So it didn't address, because I think for me, the biggest thing was the psychological aspect of things, the soul -based things that were not.

Mike Bledsoe (1:20:28)
Mmm.

Dave Morrow (1:20:49)
where they needed to be because I hadn't done the deep work. I don't know, are you familiar with Nietzsche's work and like the going down under and like the whole idea of like self -improvement is masturbation, which is what Fight Club was based on, which blew my mind. Like, my God, Fight Club is based off Nietzsche's work? That's crazy. Because Tyler Jordan talks about it, it's like, yeah, you know, like self -help is just masturbation. I always thought, how could that be? Like you're improving yourself.

Mike Bledsoe (1:20:52)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (1:21:18)
And from Nietzsche's perspective, it was, well, it's because you're avoiding what you actually need to do, which is get down deep into like, why are you doing this self -improvement? Is it because you have an insecurity? Is it because you haven't healed a wound from their past? You gotta get in there because then when you do those self -improvement things, then they actually have meaning, you know, like, because you can mask a lot of stuff with self -improvement. I was doing that. I was doing that a lot. So the microdosing thing is really cool. And I talked to, shoot, I'm forgetting his name, Dave.

Mike Bledsoe (1:21:40)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:21:48)
about his, he has a jujitsu and psychedelic retreat and it's for veterans. Awesome program. I think you talked to it. Yeah, he's in Tulum with his wife. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:21:56)
I think I've talked to this guy. Is it down in Tulum? yeah, dude, he described like the week long retreat I got, dude. That sounds like the best time ever. It's like a week of jujitsu and microdosing and breath work and a little bit of cannabis. I'm like, that just sounds like a good fucking time.

Dave Morrow (1:22:05)
Yeah. Yeah, I was like...

I was like, and on top of that, our government here has started to pay for veterans to go down. Like they're covering it based off their recovery plan. I was like, my god, Dave, you're a millionaire already, man. You're going to have every Canadian veteran down there. Get the maple syrup, let's get the hockey games on, but let's cater to this, man. So I haven't yet gotten down that path yet, but I reckon he said that. He's like, what fires the other wires together?

And I even talked to another buddy of mine, a veteran, who when he did his ayahuasca retreat, like he was on 26 different meds, right, for like anti -psychotics, SSRIs, you name it. And he'd have psychotic breaks and you name it. And eventually he was able to go have his ayahuasca journey. He's down to one medication, which is like a blood pressure pill. But he said, he's like, Dave, he's like, I know this is going to sound like I'm crazy, but.

Mike Bledsoe (1:22:52)
Mmm

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (1:23:11)
I had an out of body experience while I'm in the jungle and I saw, if you want to call it fairies or whatever, they had my back open and they had my central nervous system just displayed and they were taking wires out and plugging them into different spots. And he's like, after that experience, he's like, I've been able to control the rage. I haven't had any issues in terms of not being able to cope.

Mike Bledsoe (1:23:28)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:23:38)
He's like, literally, I saw myself being rewired and then I was rewired and that just like, I was like, ginger blow my mind, man. And I was just living a better life. So I totally, I 100 % believe in that. 100%, I just need to go execute, that's all.

Mike Bledsoe (1:23:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. What you said you were doing the personal, you're calling it self -help work. When you're saying the self -help work is masturbation, like, can you define that a little more clearly? Cause it sounds like these deeper things are also self -help work. What do you mean by like, how can you create a distinction between like self -help and doing the deeper work?

Dave Morrow (1:24:06)
Hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, self -help can be something as long along the lines of like, you know what, I'm going to learn a new language because I've always said I wanted to do it, but not understanding why. It essentially comes down to like, okay, is it like a tactical reason like for your work? Okay, cool. But if you want to actually improve yourself, okay, let's say you want to get fitter. Okay, cool. Well, why do you want to get fitter? Well, I want to want to be there for my family. Okay, awesome. And then it's just a constant.

questioning of why is that the case? And then for me, the work had to come down to, like I've been doing years of therapy and I kind of got lippy with my therapist. I was like, hey, like I've been seeing you for like seven years. And what it took was like a month of me kind of being on my own and reading a book, which was called No More Mr. Nice Guy, to kind of realize, shit, I need to like heal a bunch of things from my childhood.

in order to move forward. How come we never talked about that? She's like, well, that's a good point. I'm like, god damn. We could just zero it in on that and make things a lot better. So self -help could easily be, you can go to a conference, right? That's self -help. I don't think there's, actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Just regular old masturbation, I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Mike Bledsoe (1:25:26)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:25:44)
But if it's chronic, I think then you're just kind of chasing, you're running away from something. You're not addressing something that's a bit deeper. So for me it was, well, I didn't really address why I always want to do more. Why do I always want to take on more physical challenge? Why do I always want to be perceived as like the good guy, the nice guy? Why? I never really addressed that. And so all of these things that I was doing was to mask that, to create this persona of me being like a nice guy.

Mike Bledsoe (1:26:07)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:26:13)
And it didn't work well with my wife because she's like, get the hell out of the house. You suck. And she was right, man. Like I was just a miserable piece of shit because I just wasn't, I wasn't living in a, in a truthful manner because I didn't know what even that was. I thought I knew what it was, but I didn't. And it just took time, distance and some microdosing to kind of get into that state where I could just accept the fact that the work wasn't really being done. But had I not taken that leap.

Mike Bledsoe (1:26:25)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:26:41)
and gone down the route of trying to improve myself with courses and finding coaches and stuff like that, I never would have been open to the experience. So however you want to interpret that, you need to take action is essentially the main thing. And then going down under and figuring out that your deepest, darkest things that we need to fix it, that's going to take a lot of work. And just, it sucks because you realize a lot of stuff about you is...

either a lie or you're not exactly who you've made yourself out to be. And so most people don't even want to address that, right? I know I didn't want to, but I did and I feel a lot better. And the thing is like the anger I used to hold was, I'm not saying it's totally gone, like I still have moments, but I definitely live with a lot calmer existence. And obviously service had a lot to play in that because it hit a wound that I already had.

So therefore I just had to come to grips with it. And that's the beauty of kind of taking a step back and kind of figuring out yourself. Like know thyself, right? That said on the Oracle of Delphi. That's what they were talking about, man. That's what these old motherfuckers were talking about. Know thyself. Yeah, I know myself pretty good. It's like, no you don't. No you don't. Like go do some more work.

Mike Bledsoe (1:27:53)
Yeah.

No.

Yeah, yeah, well said. Yeah.

it's a it until you've done it, it's hard to know what it is. And that's like what the work is. Right. And so, you know, wherever, wherever you're feeling the resistance or fear is that actually might be the arrow of where to go. I had a great mentor at one point. He pointed out I was having some experiences where.

I go, this just feels feels wrong. He goes, well, yeah, it's gonna feel wrong because you're doing something different. Like, and like, I couldn't tell him why it was wrong. It just felt wrong. He goes, yeah, if you're making a new choice, it might actually feel wrong for a moment or for a day or a week. But let it let it sink in. It's like, what I felt was wrong was like the most right thing I could be doing in that moment.

Dave Morrow (1:28:52)
Hmm.

Mike Bledsoe (1:29:08)
But it was new. It was a new choice. And so a new choice is going to feel different. If you feel the same, you didn't make a new choice. So.

Dave Morrow (1:29:20)
Yeah, you stayed in comfort zone. You stayed in your box. Like leaving my job and getting another, that felt like crazy. But I knew, I knew even jumping into the job, I'm like, this doesn't feel right. I was kind of right. But had I not taken that leap, I wouldn't be doing it. So there, therefore that, that fear was put aside because if I didn't take action, I'd still be, I'd be a, I, I know what I'd be. I'd be a miserable, cranky ass teacher. And we all had those growing up, right?

Mike Bledsoe (1:29:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:29:51)
This guy should have checked out 15 years ago. He's still here, shitting on students, crushing their dreams. That would have been me.

Mike Bledsoe (1:29:54)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think, I think the, an exercise I did was like, why did I join the military in the first place? like, like knowing yourself, I think you were kind of getting towards that a little bit of like, what about me made me want to join? I was like, yeah, I want to serve my country or, you know, or someone who says, you know, I want, I want to like get college money or, or, you know, whatever reason. And it's like, okay, go a little deeper than that.

Like, I want to serve my country. Like, did you? I mean, that that may be true. And what else was there? There's many ways to serve the country. Your fellow man. Like, what else? What else? What else? I was like, yeah, I was angry. I was angry. I was I was a bit rebellious towards my my dad. I I didn't like myself very much. And I was like the idea of.

doing the hardest thing possible. Maybe then I'll like myself if I become one of the baddest dudes on the planet. Just all these things. And it's good to get real with yourself about those things. So until you know those things, until you know yourself in that way, you are doomed to repeat patterns. And it's going to be Groundhog Day.

Dave Morrow (1:31:30)
Yeah, yeah, and that's hard for a 19 year old to kind of come to grips with, right? You don't really get any, we don't really, unless maybe if you're religious, a bit more religious than the average, maybe you might get some more introspection. I don't know, but I think it's just part of the maturation process, right? And gaining wisdom. 25, right? Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:31:48)
Well, the prefrontal cortex doesn't even fully form until you're about 25. So until until someone hits like 25, like if you're under 25, it's probably good just to find somebody who's doing really well and listen to whatever the fuck they say. Because I think you're probably yeah, you got to listen and and you're probably going to be 30 before you're and this isn't true for everybody, right? But I think for the this was true for me. It's true for a lot of people I've talked to.

Dave Morrow (1:32:04)
Yeah, but you gotta listen though. That's a hard turn.

Mike Bledsoe (1:32:19)
That deep self -reflection, I don't even think it's really, wasn't possible for me until I was about 30. And so, because when I was 25, I was heavily using alcohol. And you're not gonna be self -reflective if you're consuming once alcohol. So you have to stop drink, to be self -reflective, you really do have to stop drinking. And you do need to be of a certain age and to really be able to look at yourself critically.

Dave Morrow (1:32:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for me it was 40. Typical midlife crisis shit. Yeah, it was 40. 30 I was still an idiot. So I had my son at 35 and that kind of forced me into being a man. Things got real real fast man. Mortgage and kid within two years. So yeah, I mean that's just...

Mike Bledsoe (1:33:05)
Things got real.

Dave Morrow (1:33:14)
I was like, I'm an adult now. And so my biggest thing has always been I never felt like I was enough and I never really felt like I was an adult, if that makes sense. It doesn't matter what I do, it's just like, I gotta do more because I never felt like anybody was ever paying attention to me. And that goes back to, I was an only child and my parents were great, but there's a tension brought on me, but not, I guess, the way I...

Mike Bledsoe (1:33:23)
Mm -hmm.

Dave Morrow (1:33:40)
had in mind. And so I always felt like I had to do more to kind of get their adoration and pride out of them. So that's why I joined the military man, that's one. And then every other thing was like another step to get closer and closer to whatever that is. But then it's realizing like, well, nobody knows that I'm doing that. It's like people are like, you're doing this for me? thanks, Dave. That's not how things work. So I just said, like, no, I'm doing, I have to do this for myself. So therefore.

Mike Bledsoe (1:34:02)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:34:10)
I had a really good conversation with my wife a few months ago. I did this like Navy Seal challenge in California. It was fucking terrible. No, it was with Bedros Kulian. Yeah, yeah. It fucking sucked, man. Like I trained for like five months and like I did the work. I did the cold baths. I was reading my ass off. I was really focused on doing well on this.

Mike Bledsoe (1:34:20)
Is it with Mark Devine?

Bay, Bay Dross. Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:34:38)
and it's three days of just hell. And I didn't even get 12 hours in and everything failed on me. My arms failed, my legs failed. I just completely, I couldn't, and I could keep on going but I didn't have the speed. I was like, Holly's got so much faster than me. So I was like, that's it, I'm done. But before I left, my wife said, are you gonna retire? I said, well, I'm only 43, I'm like from work? No, I'm not retired. She's like, no, no, no.

from taking on these really, really difficult physical challenges. You started with the military and then you did the Cambrian patrol and then you went overseas and then you did a marathon and then you did an Ironman and now you're doing these things. You're doing CrossFit Open. It's like, are you doing this for you or are you doing this for other people? And I was like, I was like.

Mike Bledsoe (1:35:09)
Yeah.

Dave Morrow (1:35:29)
Quit looking into my soul, woman. How dare you? She's like, well, maybe you can just, like, you already do it. She's like, honey, you do hard stuff? She's like, you have a business. I don't know how you do any of this. It seems insanely hard. You know, you don't need to prove to me that you do hard stuff anymore. It's fine. I know you do hard stuff. The kids know you do hard stuff. So maybe just, you know, retire from taking on these like really insane physical challenge for a little while. And I was like, you know what, you're right.

Mike Bledsoe (1:35:29)
You

Mm.

Dave Morrow (1:35:59)
You're right. I can still do challenges, but I can keep them within a certain boundary. And as long as I do them for the right reason, because I was doing them because I wanted to show other people that I can do this. I don't need to be in that space anymore.

Mike Bledsoe (1:36:16)
Yeah, I'm valuable. You should love me because I can do this. Exactly.

Dave Morrow (1:36:20)
Yeah, people like me. I'm special. Was that Stuart Smalley from SNL back in the day? They like me. I'm special. Shit. So that's my journey, man. That's been it so far. That's been it so far. Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe (1:36:38)
Awesome awesome anything you want to leave it people with before we roll?

Dave Morrow (1:36:43)
Just, I love folks that, I'm assuming most folks here are gonna be veterans. What you're doing, Mike, is a perfect compliment for what I'm doing on the physical side. You got physical stuff on your platform, which is awesome. You can't dissociate the mind and the body, as you know. So if you like the idea of getting a little fitter,

and getting a little healthier from a veteran perspective. Definitely want to come check out not only my podcast, so the Heart to Kill podcast, tons of really great guests. So you don't need to listen to me. You can listen to the guests that know what the hell they're talking about. Definitely want to go check that out, especially on YouTube. I drop an episode every week. And if you do want to get a little fitter, a little healthier, but do it at like veteran speed, then you can come to the school group that I set up, Veterans Getting Fit AF.

But ultimately, man, I really want to see the veteran community get healthier. Mainly because I want to create like a ultra right wing militia group. No, I'm just sorry. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, that's what the government wants me to say. It's because I genuinely want to see our community get healthier because I think we have a lot to give back to our communities, to our society because we...

did a lot of hard shit over the last 20 years. And a lot of it could be heartbreaking, but it created a lot of resilience within us. But if you're not fundamentally healthy on that Maslow's pyramid of needs, it's gonna be very hard for you to thrive. I just want folks to thrive. So whether you get it from my free content or my paid content, I don't care. I'm in this to build a community that's as robust and as active as possible so that we can have a really big influence on our...

communities and our countries because I think if anybody's going to do it, it should be us. That's just my take on things. So you can follow me at my, yeah, you can follow me at all my socials. If you go to my website, DaveMorrow .net, you can find the bulk of everything there. I forget most of my social handles because I'm almost a Gen Xer. So my memory is not so good on that stuff. You can find me at DaveMorrow .net.

Mike Bledsoe (1:38:43)
Absolutely.

I get it. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. But if anyone is going to turn things around for both of our countries, veterans are uniquely positioned to do so. And it requires that we we dig down deep and do our own work. Yeah. Appreciate you. Make sure to go check out Dave's podcast, YouTube channel, school program, all of it.

Dave Morrow (1:39:17)
Amen.

Mike Bledsoe (1:39:27)
and I'll see you all next week.

Dave Morrow (1:39:30)
Thanks, buddy.

Mike Bledsoe (1:39:31)
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Mission After. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about our free resource, the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide is packed with valuable insights to help you overcome common challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take control of your career and life. Head over to the missionafter .org to download your copy now. It's completely free and could be the game changer you're looking for.

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