Battle The Stigma: Resilience Through Sport

In this episode, we are honored to have Army Officer Dan Joseph as our guest, where he shares profound insights and experiences that touch upon various facets of life, leadership, and mental well-being.

Dan Joseph begins by discussing the transformative power of Jiu-Jitsu in reducing anxiety and fostering resilience. He delves into how this martial art has not only helped him personally but also how it can serve as a valuable tool for individuals looking to navigate life's challenges with a greater sense of calm and strength.

As a military officer, Dan shares important leadership lessons learned throughout his career and how they intersect with mental health. He emphasizes the significance of resilience in both leadership and personal development.

Our conversation takes a poignant turn as we explore the topics of trauma and grief among veterans. Dan offers compassionate insights into the experiences of veterans who carry the weight of trauma and loss, shedding light on the importance of support and understanding within the veteran community.

In This Episode We Cover:

• Anxiety reduction and resilience through Jiu Jitsu

• Military leadership lessons and mental health

• Resilience

• Trauma and grief amongst veterans

• Addiction and trauma in the veteran community.

• Self-worth as a veteran

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

Combatpsych.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dzj/

Transcript from Episode 114 with Dan Joseph:

Keith McKeever 0:01

All right welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy Podcast. Today I got a great guest Colin on. We're gonna talk about what kind of a little bit deeper dive into anxiety in sports and kind of the intersection of those. My guests kind of self described himself as a little bit of a nerd when it comes to that stuff nerd, a little bit of an athlete, but I'm really excited to kind of talk about how something like Jiu Jitsu or maybe possibly some other sports can help somebody kind of lower that anxiety right and help you better your life. better navigate through life and those kind of things. He's also an accomplished author, he's got a handful of books. He's written motor mind User's Manual cog, our cognitive mechanics, bridging worlds navigating honor, shame and self identity as a first generation child blackbelt mindset backpack to rucksack insight into leadership and resilience by military experts. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that one, and combat psych handbook. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that one. So very accomplished author got a lot of very exciting things to say with anxiety psychology. So hang on your seats can be a fascinating conversation. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. So welcome to the podcast, Dan.

Dan Joseph 1:14

Hey, Sup, man? stoked?

Keith McKeever 1:17

Yeah. Well, glad to have you here. Like I was telling you, before we recorded man, I kind of I'll say, you know, I've taken I've taken a couple of psychology courses many, many years ago in college. It's one of the things I think is very fascinating. Although I will self admit, I don't know a ton about it. But when you first reached out and I was looking at your website, I was like, this is really fascinating, right? Like, you kind of hear all the time about like how sports can help people with a lot of different things. But like you took it a step further and part of a master's program really dove into it really got a lot of data and science on how jujitsu can you know, help with that. Before we get into that. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and your military journey. And all that kind of catches up with who you are.

Dan Joseph 2:00

Yeah, so I was a combat engineer in the army. I got out I joined it. 32 years old. So definitely a late dude, I'd made made it by the cut off by a few like six months. Went to basic training at Fort Jackson went to OCS, and Georgia, and then engineer school in Missouri. So yeah, became a combat engineer was stationed in California, I was part of a non deployable unit. So I never, never did deploy during my short contract. And then, yeah, I definitely, I wrote a book when I got out about last year, about a year ago. And it was kind of a meditation on my time as a, as a platoon leader. And in light of one of my soldiers who survived his suicide attempt, and I worked with a buddy, really close friend of mine, who was he had, he was in the Marine Corps, and now he's in the army, he lost 32. Or sorry, he lost 13 Guys from his unit to suicide, which is just an insane number. And so, you know, not me, myself, not having been to war, I was working with all these warriors who had been to war, you know what I mean, all these brothers of mine, who had seen done things that just, it was heavy stuff, you know, and so I, I love these guys. And I grew really close to him. And they shared a lot of a lot of private stories with me, that bonded us. And it was really cool, how we can get into it, how jujitsu kind of gave me a understanding of their world that I didn't really expect to know. And so they've given me permission to share some of their stories and whatnot. And it just do just writing the book helped me process it. And I worked on a master's while I was in the army, as a platoon leader. So it was an online master's in Organizational Psychology, and I figured it would kind of fuel me as a leader and feed me, you know, objective information, objective data, that could help me grow as a leader and benefit the troops. So I didn't anticipate writing a book, you know, until I got out, and then was just reflecting on things. Yeah, so hopefully, it can help people. And I mean, that's that's kind of the the quick and dirty about my stint in the army.

Keith McKeever 4:17

Gotcha isn't interesting how just things happen in life sometimes. And just stuff just comes together, not intending to write a book and you just end up writing a book.

Dan Joseph 4:26

Yeah, it started as a journal entry. Because I was thinking about Cody, he wrote the code he wrote the foreword to the book as a suicide attempt survivor and just kind of a word of of hope to those struggling you know, and when I and then Austin, who lost those 13 Guys from his unit, he wrote the foreword, and you know, this is like super heavy stuff, and I don't mean to be that heavy right now, but kind of like just came out swinging into your listeners. But, um, yeah, man, I just, it just weighed really heavy on my heart and I thought to myself, like what could I have done better as a leader You know, what did I do? Well, what good did I do for the platoon? And for the guys, and I don't know, man, leadership's messy. You know, it's there's so many gray areas. But yeah, what started off as a sort of a journal entry thinking about some of the guys who mentored me, before I joined, it just turned into a 400 page book where I was just kind of plug in some of the science on leadership too. So it's got some research articles in there just just so I know, I'm not talking out of my own opinion, if you will, I want it to be as objective as possible. Because, you know, we all have our subjective experiences, like everybody who joins the military knows that we all have different experiences, you know, whether the mission set changes, or the unit changes with the command climate, there's so much to it, you know, nobody walks the same exact path in the military. And so it's much harder than I thought to find like, a very black and white answer to some complex leadership situations. So that's why I wrote a book and yeah, man, just want to normalize the weirdness for people.

Keith McKeever 6:00

That's a very good point, you know, there's, there's not always a black and white answer. But if you can read about past situations, when a situation comes up, you can maybe reference to it say, Yeah, you know, we're judged. How this person handled it, could I handle this situation this way? Or can I adapt the way this was handled for my situation, or whatever, I love that find that gray area somewhere in between, like, what works or it can be that kind of that guide for you one way or another? So now, I was kind of curious, because it was, you know, on leadership and resilience, and I'm sure you probably learned a million different things while writing that and talking to people. Was there anything in particular, that you learned that you found profound about leadership? While going through that?

Dan Joseph 6:46

Yeah, so I mean, if you look at and you can go go to my website to kind of get a distilled version of this, because I posted a lot of these on the website. But each chapter is written about a dude in my life that was serving in uniform. So they're Navy SEALs, Greenbrae officers, a MARSOC. Officer, couple pilots, EOD rescue swimmers, so all different branches. And each chapter has a nugget of wisdom from from, from those dudes. Right. So that's what stood out to me, is the profound wisdom they had because my platoon when I exemplified that would benefit. So like, the Green Berets in my life. So Craig talked about being humble and being calm. And that that's huge for the guys, you know, especially when you're so I was just in the field training, I wasn't, you know, again, I wasn't deployed. But in the field, things get pretty crazy. Because we train to be as stressful as war. We try to simulate that. And so a lot of people, you know, when it's 127 degrees out in the desert, and you're in full kit, things can get weird fast, you know. And so, it's really important that when you give orders and whatnot, that your guys see you calm, even when things look chaotic, and they are chaotic. So that's, that was really huge dealing with different personalities, you know, whether there's conflict and things of that sort, you want to stay as even keeled as possible. And we can talk about jujitsu and how that reinforced that with like, I want to say with fists, but that wasn't we didn't always throw fists, we did have combat jujitsu. And that taught us a lot. But we, you know, we get choked out pretty quickly if we lose our calm. And then some other stuff like, so I changed some of the names in the book. So I gotta remember, like, what was his name in the book. So like, the Navy Seal, one of the seals in the book. His name and the character in the book is Jared. But he's actually a real friend of mine. So and he's serving stone SWAT for OpSec. I don't want to say his name. So yeah, the Jared, in the book told me, you know, either do something or shut your mouth, basically, like, don't keep talking about if you're gonna do something, just execute, you know, and that, again, soldiers love that. So you're leading a bunch of enlisted guys, as an officer, let's say you're a platoon leader. You can't just make promises to the guys and girls that you're leading, you got to deliver, you know, and so you'd see that you'd see what happens if there's certain leaders that would just kind of dangle the carrot. But then the Joe's wouldn't see that, and then they, that leader would lose credibility in their eyes. So it's things of that sort. I mean, these are just two pieces that stood out right now. But there's endless examples in the book. I will say my EOD buddy, Brad, I'm actually going to see him tonight. His his advice was pretty profound and shocked me really, because he I remember I was kind of in a situation at work where I felt like, I couldn't be myself. I felt like I had to be a version of myself that the troops or certain leaders wanted to see. And this dude's been to war. He's been shot at you know, he's had buddies blown up, and he's lost a lot of guys. And everything. Anything he told me about war. I mean, I'm all ears, right? And his advice to me was be authentic. Be the authentic version of yourself whether you're a goofball, if you have a sense of humor, whether you're a nerd, whether you're a jock, whatever you are, doesn't matter if you're in uniform, don't don't change that. The military doesn't need people who are inauthentic it needs your authentic personality. That blew my mind. When he said, you have permission to be funny, you have permission to be relaxed, you have permission to be whatever you want, or role rather, whoever you are, because the people you're serving with, they're gonna know if you're disingenuous, so they're

Keith McKeever 10:31

gonna break it up really, really quick. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna, and they're gonna label you as fake if you're if you're, if you're not being authentic and genuine.

Dan Joseph 10:40

Yeah, I mean, cuz soldiers, they'll poke at you and you're a leader. I mean, you're in a fishbowl, especially when you're a junior officer, and you're that close to him. Because if we were super close in the field, I mean, we're sleeping cots next to each other and the vehicle sometimes we had to share the vehicle in the wintertime. You know, you're doing hygiene out there together. Like it's it's a pretty close knit group, when you're in the field that off and the soldiers will poke at a leader, you know it just to see who you are. And, and it was surprising to me how much they saw there's, you can't really pull the wool over their eyes. And I love that, because it does keep us honest as leaders, you know? Yeah. Like even even times where I didn't think they'd see things, they'd come out and be like, Hey, sir, I heard so and so. Or such and such happened or whatever. And it's like, how the heck did you like, where do you have like, ears and eyes, man. But it was cool. Because if you do good by them, they let you know, they let you know, I hate Thanks for Thanks for doing that for us, or whatever it is. And it's just, it's cool. It's really cool.

Keith McKeever 11:39

Well, for anybody who ends up watching this or listening to it, you know that if you're a parent, you're probably chuckling a little bit. As a parent, it's like, it's kind of like kids, like your kids pick up on way more than you ever expect. Like, they just watch your every move, just just just like the troops on your command. You know, I mean, whether you're an officer or you're an NCO, like they're watching everything that you do, so like, they are gonna, they are going to know everything that you do. You have to be genuine, you have to be real. You have to, you know, you can't, can't lie to him. You can't, can't sugarcoat things like, Be honest. Be blunt. Be who you are. So, yeah. How about resilience? data out of curiosity? Any any good lessons you got there?

Dan Joseph 12:23

Yeah, so that would come from my, like, my army dad. He's an NCO who was there in Iraq during, you know, the, the initial siege and all that. You know, there's him and some other guys, I got to talk to you, when they came close to, you know, taking their own lives at some points, right. And the weight that they felt was real, real serious. And they taught me a lot about leadership in the sense that I don't want to add pressure to someone's life who's already got, you know, demons that they're fighting and they've got darkness in their life that they're still trying to make sense of, I mean, over a decade past, right, it's, it's heavy stuff, and, but what they taught me was, for those who I mean, look, self medication is huge, right? A lot of people will drink a lot of people will dissociate, I mean, just normal without massive trauma. We self medicate, it's just as a species, let alone a dude has been to war. A gal has been to war and, you know, seen all this stuff. And so the most resilient minds, what I noticed is, they were able to, to get stuff out of their bodies, you know, get stuff out through a hobby, whether they shoot guns, ride, horses do jujitsu, they channel it, because you can't just wish it away. You can't just pretend it didn't happen. You have to, you've got to let your body get that stuff out that get that aggression out, you know, but they do it in healthy ways. So they wouldn't repress it. They they'd get it out. And I mean, dude, resiliency is it's such a hard thing to quantify. But it's definitely one of those things. That's from what I gather. And I don't have all the answers. I should have probably said that from the beginning.

Keith McKeever 14:05

I know don't feel bad, nobody has all the answers. Well, even if he just

Dan Joseph 14:08

sounds like I wrote a book on this, so I should know it. But it's more about I will willing to have the discussion about it.

Keith McKeever 14:14

Yeah. But if we had all the answers, we'd have the problem fixed.

Dan Joseph 14:17

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, so they give us a PowerPoint in the army that says like, you know, resilience is the tennis ball, right? It bounces back. But being too rigid as you're like a glass ball that just shatters right? And so what I understand is that people, they they can decompress. They can recharge from burnout. While they're dealing with something heavy that keeps them resilient. It's not that they're impervious to stress. They're not impervious to bleeding right on the battlefield. But what they do is, is they allow themselves the ability to recover and recharge while they're continuing down those hard paths in life. And instead of repressing it bottling it in and then and either self destructing self sabotaging, blowing up at somebody, they they're able to kind of have a release valve of pressure throughout their life. And they find it through a hobby, again, through relationships, whatever it is, or all of the above, really, because you need everything. I mean, it's such a holistic process. But those are the guys who were I saw as super resilient, you know, and the ones that weren't the ones who came close to taking their lives or who, unfortunately did take their lives from what I gathered through my friends, as they felt trapped and isolated. And that it's not that they're weak people, it's just that they didn't, they didn't find those modalities to kind of get stuff out of them, they kept it isolated, they kept it in and do it, eventually, the body just it degrades through your energy storage, your ability to manage just have the emotional bandwidth to do life that it kind of closes in on you the walls close in. And that seems to be kind of the opposite of resilience, you know, it's just that they stay as strong as possible, up until they have nothing left to give. And, to me the process of resilience should be a lot more dynamic than that. It shouldn't be this just white knuckling. I'm going to sit here and just keep myself together as long as possible. It's more about, hey, what do I do right now to get this out of me? What do I do to you know, through self care through rest, and then again, they're getting that aggression out. And that's where jujitsu is like a powerful tool?

Keith McKeever 16:31

Yeah, I think just kind of sitting there letting that bottle that's like kind of a passive way of dealing with it. Like it's just gonna keep building up, like the active ways is jujitsu or doing something is whole health or nutrition, exercise, counseling, whatever other treatments are out there, whatever, right? It's actually going out there and saying, Okay, enough of this crap. I'm going to find some modality to move down to do something about this. And,

Dan Joseph 17:01

and grieving. Grieving is huge to man. Grief is a powerful, powerful way to process trauma. And you know, if we could always get into this pretty deeply, but from my understanding the way that the brain like the neurotransmitters will work, when you store a traumatic memory, there's a lot of energy locked into it like a motive energy, there's they call it salience. Like a fact salience, meaning how much emotion is kind of tied to that memory, and through grief, you're able to then process the emotions of it, and still store that memory because you're not just going to have amnesia and forget what happened. But it'll the memory will be stored back in your brain. Without all that angst all the emotion with it, it'll kind of dial it down from 11 down to however much you grieve and process it, you're able to then store it back and lower valence. I think they call it valence, but that's another term for it. But that's one thing I try to preach to guys who are struggling with stuff just to end grief is a very awkward thing as a grown man to cry, you know, but, um, I needed to do it for some stuff that happened to me, not in the military. It was my prior life and jujitsu brought it out of my body. It came out on the mat student I was having like a freeze response. I was going through some flashbacks, I didn't know that was what I was feeling. And then saw a therapist through a buddy of mine. And he's a badass DEA agent. So I trusted him when he was like to go see a therapist. And then do I did I cried a lot. I grieved a lot because it was pretty gnarly, like, weeks and weeks and weeks. It was just I thought it was broken. But after I finally purged it out of my system did I was able to go back to jujitsu, and it was never that bad again, you know?

Keith McKeever 18:49

That's good. And there is nothing wrong with crying. Sometimes it that energy's got to come out. Yeah, I mean, shoot, I've been there. I mean, I've been I've done it a couple of times this year, you know, we're just stress life, you know, like, you know, work life kids, just, you know, things just get to you. And you're just like, hey, look, I just made that moment, I just got to sit here on the couch and just let it roll. And just, you know, just get those emotions out. And maybe it's five minutes, maybe it's 10 minutes. You know, maybe it bothers you for your feet for a few weeks. Who knows, but sometimes you just got to let it out and just be like, okay, all right. I feel a little bit better. You know, I I took myself from you know, a 10 or 11, down down down to an eight I feel a little bit more calm. Now. I could go right back into it and you know, go back into whatever tasks I was doing for the day. Whatever you got to go through for the rest of life. So

Dan Joseph 19:46

yeah, man, that's awesome. And you do it with more clarity you do it you're more grounded. And then you're less caught off guard by emotions and I think I mean from personal experience, that's why I self medicated you know, I was pretty wild before I joined the military and now I'm not proud of what I did. And, you know, the things that I was caught up in, but it was I was running away from a past I didn't want to think about. And so I do, like the alcohol consumption and the drugs and all that stuff, it was just a way to self medicate, and I don't fault anybody for doing that stuff, especially, you know, when I was in the military, and I find out, you know, certain Joe's were struggling with different addictions and whatnot, I wasn't going to judge him, you know, because it to me, it's self medication, I'm not going to encourage it. But it's like, Dude, it's such a bigger picture than just change your behavior, it's, it's a matter of getting to the bottom of what's causing it the root cause, and, and dealing with it. And I mean, I still, I still deal with issues, for sure, I'm still not where I want to be in life, but I'm growing. And I hope that my story can encourage others, you know, while they're struggling with theirs, but especially as men, it's I noticed this through like, with combat veterans, a lot of them, they knew, it's like the silent acceptance or the silent awareness that you know that you're struggling with the same demons that that guy over there struggling with, but all you know, is you all are drinking a ton of whiskey before bed to go to bed to not remember things. And this is coming from friends of mine who, you know, confess this stuff, right, and they'd remember the sounds and they'd remember the scenes and who they lost. And so a lot of them were just trying to not remember that stuff. And it's heavy, you know, and it's out of my love for these guys, and my respect for them for what they did for our country, that I want better for them in their subconscious dude, in that those final moments before they try to go to bed at night. Those are the spaces where it's, I want them to have peace, you know. And so it's an, those are areas where I struggled, you know, I was drinking a lot to go to bed before like, seven days a week, a lot like blackout drunk. And so, there Yeah, again, I'm nowhere and I'm no one who can judge these guys, but uh, definitely want to show him some love and just have these discussions.

Keith McKeever 21:55

You know, I know, I know exactly what you're what you're talking about. I was that way after my first deployment to Iraq, I was like that for a couple of years. Anybody who was with me over there, and you go to Japan knows exactly, many, many nights where all I have to go off of is the stories of everybody was around me, because I don't remember. And, you know, I know my mom was very concerned about my alcohol consumption there for a couple of years. Luckily, I had a great group of guys and gals I went down to Ecuador with and sounds weird to say it, but we kind of drank it out down there. But it was the people I was with, right. And people it was with the healing. The opportunity to kind of talk and be with the right kind of people with the right mindset, and kind of came back from there and IPCs back to the states from Japan. And it was like, Alright, I'm back here, didn't have access to bars where I could just walk to and it was like, Alright, I gotta I gotta change this behavior. Because this isn't good. This isn't healthy. Like, I just knew that if I kept that up, I wasn't gonna be here today. You know, something bad was gonna happen. So totally. Can't like go through, bro. You know, now at some point, like, I've gotten so old now. If you see me drinking, like, I'm only gonna have one or two because a I don't like the hangover feeling. And most alcohol makes me feel like warm and just I don't like the feeling anymore. So you know, but it's like, you can't Can't I don't care what it is like, it could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be it could be pornography, it could be gambling, like, there's a lot of bad things you could be doing. But I one thing I hate is when people judge people for those addictions. I just don't understand why this person is doing this. Like, why can't they just stop? Why can't they do? It's like, okay, if you've never had a problem, no matter how bad the problem is, or you've never had somebody in your family just had a problem. Like you just you just don't understand. Like, it's not that they could just stop. It's not that easy. Like there's, there's the trauma or there's the reason below, somebody doesn't just wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna be an alcoholic or a drug addict. I'm just gonna go gamble every penny I have away like, you don't just wake up and make that conscious decision as a, as a rational person. You do it because there's a trauma. And your mask is something you're hiding something like, you know, you need help you need support, they need love and encouragement not to be you know, hated on a chastise for, you know, and looked down upon. But unfortunately, a lot of people in society do that. And I'll say some people, some people in our veteran community do that to each other. And it's like, come on, like we got to we got to do better as a community. So, but, you know, we we've all had those briefings on resilience, you know, even if it's been a few years or point D I think, you know, I know those memories are probably repressed those memories back there somewhere. Maybe that PowerPoint It's back there somewhere. We all know we we pack that away somewhere.

Dan Joseph 24:57

I was that guy that stood up in the back when I'm there like Don't fall asleep, stand up if you're going to fall asleep. All right, moving to the bag.

Keith McKeever 25:04

We've all done at least once or twice. You know, as weird as in civilian world, if you ever get up and do that, and they look at you like, Why is this person?

Dan Joseph 25:12

So annoying? That is so annoying about Yeah, that's exactly right. When you get back into society after you leave the military, and little things like that make you stand out. It's like, Guys, I'm not that weird. I mean, this is what we do. I'm not going to fall asleep, you know, but yeah, you're totally right. I'm glad you noticed that. Yeah, I don't mind looking weird to civilians. I just, I don't fit in the world anymore.

Keith McKeever 25:32

I've noticed it once or twice. It's like, wow, there's three guys in the back. They're definitely the vets in the group. You're not trying to fall asleep? So? Um, yeah. Well, I wanted to shift focus now, you know, kind of back to the jujitsu? Because your thing was all about anxiety and anxiety management? Could you kind of frame for everybody kind of what anxiety is gonna be what it is what it isn't a little bit. For those? Yeah, I mean, I'd be a little bit more aware.

Dan Joseph 25:58

In simple terms, I would say anxiety has to do with like, sort of a hyper vigilance in the human mind and in the brain. So it's got to deal with kind of an awareness of what like environmental stimuli, threat detection, things of that sort. And you can have anticipatory anxiety. So just thinking about a potential issue could cause your system to kind of rev up. And I see that sort of warming the engine prior to fight, flight, freeze, faint fun, whatever your your body's going to do for primal survival. I'd say anxiety is a state and it's exhausting. It's a state of awareness and knowing that something's coming, and I got to react. But I don't know exactly how, and there's different variations and nuances to this. But I'd say from a neurophysiological level, it's kind of an activation of the nervous system. And it's oftentimes not like an actual reaction, because to react with fight or flight, you're actually doing something, you know, with your, with your body. But anxiety, is that kind of like that pre state. I'd say it's more about anticipation, if anything,

Keith McKeever 27:09

it's kind of like that preparatory command when marching, right? You're paying attention, like your body's mentally aware of what's going on. Like, if you know you're going to a crowd, like a concert, but you have a problem with crowds, like you're, I'm assuming, yeah. Like, if you have a problem with that anxiety might be popping up of like, I don't know why I'm so I'm such high alert. But it's because if you have a problem with crowds, maybe you're aware of it or not, but know that you're gonna go into an environment like that, or maybe it's loud noises or cash gagis can be anything, but something like that, right?

Dan Joseph 27:44

Yep. And hyper vigilance is like a more poignant form of that, like, it's way more, it's super intense. And depending on the trauma and what happened in the past, and there's a lot to it, like how old the person was, when they experienced it, or how repetitive the trauma was. And just the the sheer like magnitude of what that trauma was, will dictate how much hyper vigilance occurs. And that's situational awareness that's like, spider sense is off the Richter scale, you know, you want to know what's behind you, it's in front of you 360 degree radar going off at all times. And that's extremely exhausting. That's like a huge, primal limbic system activation in the brain, amygdala, all of that. And the issue with with all these kinds of sensors going off is that your prefrontal cortex, kind of down regulates a bit so your body's more concerned with surviving then it is about thinking complex thoughts. And so your prefrontal cortex, that's where your personalities at, that's where your logical, you know, engineering thoughts, you more complex thoughts, your meditative thoughts, prayer, all of that exists because we have a massive prefrontal lobe in our brains. But when we're anxious, the mental resources go into like, Oh, I gotta survive this incoming threat, you know, and a lot of dudes live live in that kind of neighborhood. Right? So it's, it's a, yeah, it expresses differently in the body. You can have indigestion you can have the sweats, you can there's there's just so much, you know, increased heart rate, shallow breathing, there's a lot to it, depending on the state of anxiety that they're in.

Keith McKeever 29:20

I don't think I've ever heard it put so perfectly, that it makes so much sense of just kind of shutting, you know, like we say, like that engineering brain, that artistic brain of shutting that down, and just just the core functions of your brain of fight or flight. You know, I'm just kind of thinking of like that, that environment. Like if you have a problem with crowds, and you find yourself in a concert or something like that, I just think about that person that's like on the edge of the crowd, because they want their back to the wall, totally. At the exit, and they're just kind of sitting there stiff, no emotions on their face, you know, just kind of scanning everything and it's like, like, they're like, boom, they're right. Need to go one direction or another? Right? Like

Dan Joseph 30:03

totally. Like, for me, I hate sitting in. Like if I'm on a plane or at church or whatever, I have to sit in the IOC, like I cannot sit inside. Because if something goes down a shooter, somebody walks in, I don't know, whatever it is, I need to be in the aisle seat. So I have access to the door, the person friggin Single Leg takedown, whatever. But yeah, man, I just want to say that if anyone's weird, like me, you're not weird.

Keith McKeever 30:27

I know, there's people that have had the, you know, issues in restaurants where they want their, you know, want to be in the back of the restaurant back to the back of it covered

Dan Joseph 30:34

towards the window to especially don't think about Chicago. Um, I've heard stories

Keith McKeever 30:40

I've joked with well, you know, kind of joked with people before, they're like, you know, what, what would happen if something happened if there's like a threat or somebody, you know, active shooter or something I'm like, Are people start running? I'm like, if people start running, or if you see me running, you might want to pick a direction. I'm not telling you which direction to go. Like, why I said, because I don't know. I might run towards the thread. I might run away from the thread. I don't know. There's no telling what am I do? Depends on

Dan Joseph 31:05

if I had my coffee this morning. Yeah. If I'm running away, if not, my gosh,

Keith McKeever 31:10

I might just be like, No, screw it. I'm just gonna go out that door. I'm out of here. Or I might just be like, yeah, it's just one guy. Like, maybe I'll just, you know, whatever. I don't know.

Dan Joseph 31:17

This is where jujitsu is huge, bro, when you know what to do. If there's a situation like that, that's one thing that's really cool. Because I would never have known what to do if there's a threat now because I roll at least I know what to grab and how to grab and you know what I'm saying. So that's, that's one thing to think about. For people who feel fearful is just be that person that can respond to a situation like that. And then always have a tourniquet on you. Quick clot, like I have quick clot on me, I have a tourniquet just just in case, you know how like Battle rescues, we always like battle buddy rescues is what we learned in the army, if one of our guys get shot, you got to or if you get shot, you deal with self rescue. So you try to turn it get yourself if you can, or whatever it is. But if you're down for the count, then your guys have to bounce to you taking incoming fire and whatnot. We learned this on basic training. And then you rescue your buddy, right? But you can't just walk into gunfire and get shot. So there's you got to have a tactical approach. But all this stuff kind of helps. And that's why I definitely, you know, I admire these young folks who joined the military so young, because they're learning about this stuff. And, you know, God forbid, you're ever around an active shooter or whatnot. Like, you want to be that person that's reliable, and that's stays calm and is able to, to help others. You know, I think that's yeah, that's just something that really inspires me about young people in the military.

Keith McKeever 32:33

Yeah. Well, hopefully. Hopefully, it never happens. But I ever find myself in a situation. I hope I respond and do the right thing. I will tell you know, tell everybody, I don't carry any tourniquets or quick clot or anything with me. But I usually have fingernail clippers and band aids in the trunk of my car. So I've got kids after all, if you if you have a belt, you have a tourniquet. That's a good point. I used to have a belt on so I do I guess I do have a makeshift tourniquet, but I do have band aids. Like I said, I got bad days. And I actually I think I have a poncho still in my in a bag in my trunk. So I got something right.

Dan Joseph 33:08

Which was issued by the Air Force. Yeah, well returned. Yeah. Did you clear you cleared out a post

Keith McKeever 33:18

that was ringing. I don't know what it is, but I got a bag with a bunch of stuff in it. But yeah, I mean, you know, I can MacGyver that shit. You know, we'll come up with something in a situation. I keep blankets in there too. And jumper cables. I'm sure it can be used for something right. I watched MacGyver when I was a kid. We'll figure it out in an emergency. So so to your research, kind of blew my mind there with the whole way everything shut down at the pretty pretty good there but when it comes to the jujitsu and what it does to the mind and it was some of the key findings that you found there. Yeah. What that does

Dan Joseph 33:56

so and this books not not out yet. I know you listed a bunch of books I'm actually so on my website there's like a coming soon page. I literally was writing this today the black belt book, Black Belt mindset. So I don't want to false advertise these books are pending release but two of them are out now combat psych handbook and the backpack rucksack, but for the black belt one. Yeah, it was based on my master's thesis that I did. I was able to interview 32 black belts and 32 non jujitsu practitioners and kind of do a comparative study. The reason I this study even happened is because of Jocko Willink, I train at his gym, and he gave me permission to access some of the black belts and so huge thank you to him for enabling this but the black belts told me about their stories regarding what got them into jujitsu, how they deal with anxiety, and overall what I found is when blackbelts experienced a threat so I have people kind of self disclose their anxiety levels before during and after a high Anxiety event in their life. So what I found is with the black belts they have initially, basically, they're lower across the board. But then people who don't practice jujitsu, but with these non practitioners, they have a slightly elevated anxiety rate kind of after the event ends, because there's residual adrenaline in their body and whatnot. But when blackbelts engaged with a threat, their engagement with that threat causes like a substantial decrease in anxiety even afterwards. So they might get anxious. And some of these guys were like UFC fighters and MMA fighters and stuff, so they'd get anxious right before getting in the ring, or before like anticipating some sort of fight going down. But as soon as they get into the event, I mean, their anxiety is just gone. And then afterwards, their anxiety stays gone. Because the threat was sort of, it's just in their mind, you know, they know what they're doing, they know how to handle it, and then through breath control, they're able to really maintain kind of the braking mechanism of their physiological response, they're able to keep their mind very, very prefrontal, because jujitsu is like, you know, three dimensional chess. And so they're working out all these amazing, you know, sequences on the mats. And for like a white belt, you know, we're taught moves that are, because you're going to execute this armbar, or this triangle choke, and it's like, steps 1234, right. But you talk to a blackbelt, about that same sequence. And he'll tell you, like, oh, there's actually 25 different variables I'm thinking about, but they do this thing called chunking, where they chunk those moves together. And I mean, just the nuances and the granularity of what they're trying to manipulate whether it's a finger, or just a small angle here or there, you know, shifting weight here or there, it's amazing. But they'll, they'll have this insane amount of kind of resolution on that image, right. And then they'll execute it seemingly seamlessly, because it's ingrained, subconsciously. But it's almost a meditative state, you know, even though we're talking, throwing blows, right, or getting hit, or getting struck or getting choked out. But they're able to, to kind of dissociate from that in a in a healthy way. And not be triggered, if you will not be in a state of alarm. But still, this is like a fight that pretty much feels life and death, right? someone's grabbing on your throat like that sport, but they stay so calm through it. And anyway, I mean, I could talk for days about this.

Keith McKeever 37:39

I'm assuming you know that that calmness comes from all of the training, and constantly being in that chaos, and mastering the control in that chaos. And that's probably where, you know, I'm assuming, in other moments of anxiety, being able to just control your breath, and master the chaos for a second be like, it's okay. I could react. I don't

Dan Joseph 38:07

just say that carries off the mats too. But sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I

Keith McKeever 38:11

saw somewhere I heard somewhere, you know, there's, there's a difference between reaction and responding. Right. And the best thing that you can do for anything is to not react, you need to respond, you need to take that momentary break even a couple of seconds to just take a breath or half a breath, and have half a second to think. So you can respond, respond appropriately, instead of react, especially when it comes to something, you know, anger or violence or something like that. Because your response is so much better. Which is, I think, an important lesson, especially for veterans, when it comes to something that might trigger you, if you could just take a half a second to breathe, and respond to it in an appropriate way that can keep you from, you know, a myriad of potential issues that could come up with it. Right, you know, snapping at a cashier because they gave you the wrong change, or who knows water, loud music and event or whatever comes up, like appropriate responses.

Dan Joseph 39:11

Yeah, hey, sorry. There's, there's like an F 35 flying overhead. And they're super loud. Air Force they've been doing they're like, what do they call? What do you call it with the vertical lands? I forget what they're now but they're doing their vertical engine. So it's so loud. But what you're talking about taking that second to breathe, I was going to just kind of interrupt you for a second, which I try not to do because I get really excited about this stuff. But there's a really interesting kind of neurophysiological property this if anyone's interested in the brain, you know, because I know especially with dudes. Guys don't want to talk about like touchy feely feelings, right? It's like give me the hard science of what's going on. If you look at the brain like a biomechanical engine, then it really kind of makes this way more tangible and so your your visceral gut through your vagus nerve. Your visceral gut has like a faster response to your environment than your prefrontal cortex by like nanoseconds. So the reason why is your brainstem, obviously lower part of your brain, it's wired, it's hardwired to your guts, not just your guts, but your lower extremities. And that's what kicks on your fight or flight. So your your legs will run, if you got a flight, your hands will punch if you're going to fight, right. But the way the neurocircuitry works is that there's a split second difference between your ability to think, complicated thoughts, or just higher brain executive thoughts about the situation and get the context, it that lags a little bit more than your initial gut reaction. So taking that just pausing for a moment, will allow your prefrontal cortex to catch up, then you can filter your next action, whether you're going to say that thing you're about to say, or, you know, punch that person or run away whatever it is, because any of these things could be appropriate. Given the given the situation, I don't know.

Keith McKeever 41:06

Yeah, they might very well be appropriate. Hey, that's not me.

Dan Joseph 41:10

Yeah. So again, just taking that split second will give you that will give you that ability to make a final judgment call on what's what truly needs to happen in that situation. And I know from personal experience, you know, God, I'm not a perfect human. There are times I react like an idiot to something because I just I feel it my gut and boom, that's, that's what's going on. But if I just breathe, filter through a correct filter, what's actually going on? It's like, oh, yeah, that person, they might have said it like that. That's not what they're really saying, or I'm projecting my own issues here, you know. But then we can go into other context about the gut usually being right. That's one thing that's that's another flipside to this. There's some people in life who are in states of denial, when it comes to their reality. So they'll, they'll feel something visceral, but they won't admit it. And this is complex, so I won't unpack it too much. But if you notice yourself kind of later in life kicking yourself, because, dude, I should have followed my gut. If you're that kind of person, like I've been been there a lot. There's the reverse effect where you'll over filter stuff. So there's a genuine threat, but then we downplay it or minimize it. And then we kind of keep finding ourselves in these bad situations with the wrong people. And that's because our gut was telling us the right reaction, but we shut it down and overrode it. So there's, there's a balance to this. It's a sliding scale.

Keith McKeever 42:37

That's yeah, that's really interesting.

Dan Joseph 42:39

Sorry, to get so technical. No, I

Keith McKeever 42:41

know, I love it. I think. I think probably everybody can sit there and probably know somebody in their life that's been like that. Like, he's making bad decisions and overanalyze everything, or, you know, probably a lot of listeners sit there and be like, man, yeah, I've probably said that far too many times in my life, like, I should have listened to my gut. You know, where there's, I know, I've done it a few times where I'm like, Yeah, you know, I just should have trusted my gut on that one. You know, and there's, there's times where I sit there and try to think about it like, oh, well, my gut says this, but like, you know, the numbers or logic would say this, you know, it's like, what what direction you go, like, what do you do? So keep that in mind.

Dan Joseph 43:25

And dude, you tie this into leadership man, especially again, especially like a tactical leader, or in the military, or whatever it is. And I mean, this is where that balance is so intriguing to me. And this is why I say it's a discussion. It's not about having answers. Because everybody has a different perspective. Every situation, you know, you have different personalities, you've got different again, mission sets, you got different threats, different avenues of approach and most deadly course of action, most likely course of action if you're looking at it from a military outboard perspective. And so there's never a cut and dry black and white, this is the answer. It's never one plus one is two. It's always this insane algebra in St. calculus that has to go on with leadership. And anyway, that's just me venting about this whole thing. Is why wrote a book to just mull this over. And I love talking to folks like you because it gives space to have these talks of how insanely complex humans are, you know, on top of the battlefield, or the training environment, or whatever the mission is, we're trying to call there's no

Keith McKeever 44:27

doubt about it. We're definitely complicated, especially as vets, we just add an extra layer of complicated dishonor.

Dan Joseph 44:35

We apologize to my boss all the time for that. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 44:37

Yeah, it is what it is, you know, we've just, we're just complicated individuals. So but we're the best, you know, we're the best, I mean, just personal opinion. But no, it's yeah, we're the best. So I was also kind of curious, was there anything in your research when you're going through this? That surprised you? You know, since you had been Do you know been there at the gym doing jujitsu and stuff like that? I'm sure some of it probably didn't surprise you. But was there anything in the findings that you were like, Wow, I did not expect this.

Dan Joseph 45:09

Yes. I've had panic attacks on the mats myself from some past trauma and life and stuff came up on the mats. I think the majority of the black belts I interviewed have also experienced panic attacks. I was not expecting that these dudes are. I mean, they're warriors through and through, you know, these dudes are badasses. And they're so just so cool. And they're insane fighters. I mean, you see them on the mats have rolled with several of them holy smokes, it's insane. It's like fighting an octopus, there's like eight arms coming at you. It's It's insane. Their technical ability, and how how grounded they are as human beings. You know, they don't, they don't look like they'd experienced a threat ever. And they were normal human beings with social anxiety with general anxiety, having had severe panic attacks, and they choose to, to battle through, they choose to rise up, they choose to face those things and conquer those things. And that was the coolest part of the study because I looked up to these guys like they're, you know, gods or whatever. Like, they're just these amazing people and they would just break it down like No, I'm just like you I'm just a guy who didn't quit I kept coming back and I went from a white belt and it got darker and darker and darker. Now I have a black belt and seeing that authenticity and that vulnerability, and a lot of these guys are combat vets. You know, dudes just it was so cool. It was so cool getting to know I still geek out over this study you know and it's just because we talk about battle scenarios right then losing guys and getting shot at a lot of them experienced this stuff and then how they work through it on the mats and jujitsu. One of them quit quit opiates and cocaine. Because of jujitsu. He literally sweat out his withdraws on the mats. I mean, the shakes, and the withdraws on the mats and jujitsu stuff's cool, man. This stuff is like, I'm so grateful to these guys, because they were that honest. And they're not the easiest people to get a hold on man black belts. It's, it's like talking to almost it was like a veteran community where you better know somebody who knows somebody if you're going to come back come approach me right not on the mats. They weren't like this on the mats are very humble guys. But when it comes to asking about their personal private life, like it had to be word of mouth introduction between black belts. And luckily, I got the credibility through them to continue this study. But it was just such sincere insight into their lives, man, I just, I'm stoked. I love these guys. They're so cool.

Keith McKeever 47:38

That's awesome. And I had no idea what to expect for your answer on that. But I definitely did not expect panic attacks, dude. Yeah, that one that would kind of surprise me.

Dan Joseph 47:48

They're human beings. Man. I couldn't believe it. Like what you guys are humans read made me feel less crazy. You know, it's, it's cool. And I love that they shared that stuff, you know, and I can't name names to protect their privacy. So, you know, that's really understood. But the fact that, you know, I could share this, I hope encourages people, for sure, I hope, hope people feel

Keith McKeever 48:09

it's awesome that they were able to share because there's no telling how many people that can help. You don't have to study like that and who, you know, over time, how many people could review that study, look at it and gain insight from it and get help from it. So, but it's cool, too, that you train at the same place that Jocko trains. So he must that must be pretty interesting. He might. Yeah, I'm assuming he's just as intense as he seems like on his podcast. Yeah. Yeah,

Dan Joseph 48:37

I believe he's built. He's a good man. He's definitely I'm surprised.

Keith McKeever 48:41

I'm not surprised by that. Yeah, he was a pretty cool guy. I do want to ask, you know, somebody who might be listening to this and say, Hey, Jujitsu sounds like a great idea. But you know, maybe for whatever reason, physically, whatever, Jujitsu may not be an option, maybe there's no place to do it. When you're going through this, or maybe you've thought about at some point, is there any other sports that you could think of that may also deliver some of the same benefits or anything you ever thought of if somebody's out there, like, like I said, Jujitsu may not physically be the thing for them, maybe they want to try something else that might deliver something similar.

Dan Joseph 49:15

Cute. I mean, it's anything that gets you in your body. So the concept here is that it's about grounding. And what that term means is feeling present in your body. And that's it's the opposite of dissociation. So jujitsu is a prime example. Because if you don't stay in your body and stay present, you will black out and wake up with guys above you like Hey, dude, wake up. So, but I mean, you could do this bowling, golfing, doing yoga, paddleboarding? kiteboarding. I mean, swimming, there's anything that gets your body moving, where you have to think about your breath. You got to think about your form. You got to think about your physiology. That'll get you there. It's it's just a matter of exposure therapy. So if you're, you know, So for me, it was really rough doing jujitsu, because some stuff that happened to me when I was younger in life. And so that was like, probably the hardest thing to do. And yet, I found myself on the mats just going through it. And so I want to caution people, you need to be cognizant of what you're exposing yourself to. So, you know, like, it really depends on a lot about your background. But if there's something that you want to do that you're drawn to, and maybe that you're a little bit afraid of, that's probably that's probably the path to go down. I don't know, talk to somebody you trust to make sure I'm not just blowing smoke. But so for me, I was super intimidated by jujitsu, right, and Muay Thai and boxing getting punched in the face all of that stuff. But it's understandable. Yeah, there's some friends of mine, they got me into it. And it was cool, you know, a bonded us and I felt that that tribal connection that primal, you know, I needed that, right. So that fed me, but I was also scared of it simultaneously. And then they helped me access some stuff I was bottling up and that I was numbing out on for a while. But But again, and I had a moment where I, you know, talk to a therapist, and he's like, Look, dude, this is this is exposure therapy for you. And you could stop, you can not do it. You can medicate, there's a lot of stuff you could do. But you got to understand that when you're on the mats, you're gonna feel this stuff. So I chose to work through it. And it helped. But there were moments where it became overwhelming. And that's, you know, when the panic attack started, for me, and I worked, I took a long time to get through all that, but But yeah, if there's if basically any sporting activity, anything that gets you in your body, where you're, you're thinking about diaphragmatic breathing, you're breathing deep belly, you're slowing down your mind, you're slowing down your breath. And that will help you ground yourself. And you'll notice different things about your body. You'll notice aches and pains. You'll notice when you're feeling great. There's just this depending on how dissociated somebody is like I was really dissociated. So just like, What is this, I feel a breeze on my face, or I noticed that the sky is a lot bluer and the trees are a lot greener than usual. There's that sort of sensation. And whatever it gets you there, do it as long as you're not feeling overwhelmed. Or if you are overwhelmed, that you can throttle it back down with a safe environment, people that you trust to look after you. That's why I love rolling with that, man. It's cool.

Keith McKeever 52:31

Awesome. That's a That's great advice. Because that, like I said, I wanted to ask that because I know there's some people that may look at it and be like, Look, I can't physically do that. But maybe there's something else I could do. Because you know, like maybe it's golf or swimming or gosh, no who else who knows what else so so last thing I wanted to I was gonna throw this up here as your website up here. So scrolling across the bottom have no fear everybody, like always, it's down in the show notes, combat site.com. And you said you got a couple of books that you're still working on there. So by the time this comes up, maybe we'll have had them done. If not, everybody go check check back in future. I know. I'm really excited about those, some of them. But you've got combat psych handbook is out and backpacks to rucksack, which we talked a little bit quite a bit about today. And you're working on the black belt mindset and bridging worlds navigating honor, shame and self identity as a first generation child. And the motor mind user's manual, the cognitive and mechanics, right? Yeah. Awesome. So if anybody's interested in those, definitely go check them out. I know. Actually, all of those look really, really interesting to me. But I've got a long list of books to read. One of the one of the perks of being a podcast host there's a lot of a lot of books to read and, and a lot of homework. Yeah, a lot of homework. A lot. A lot more reading, you know, there's so much reading to do when you have a podcast. But, but a lot of good stuff, though. So go check it out. You've got a lot of other great information on there. You got your whole report on there. Was it like 13 pages was your your whole report on there? And a nice little graphic that kind of breaks down the charts and stuff that kind of shows where the anxiety levels Where's right, a lot of fascinating stuff. I kind of nerd it out on it, kind of read through it. So thanks, man. Cool. So any any last words about everything we talked about?

Dan Joseph 54:11

I would say. So I have a friend JP lane, and he he lost his legs and Afghanistan to an IED. And when people see him on his prosthetics, they always thank him for his service. And he's he's such a good dude. He's got such a big heart. He was also a combat engineer. And he'll tell people when they thank him for his service. He says you're worth it. And that always that really, like touched my heart man. And I told him, I was going to copy him and give him credit. But I always like to say that to people as you're worth it, you know? So if somebody's struggling with anxiety, stress, depression, suicidality, whatever it is, panic attacks, whatever you're struggling with in life, because we're all human. We all have struggles. You know, just know you're worth it when it comes to recovery when it comes to self enrichment, self care, and Any of that stuff. I know, it's especially hard as males to think about that. But I believe if people see their worthiness and feel their value, they'll invest in the right relationships and the right resources, and they'll find ways to improve their lives. I think. I think adults are just as resilient as children, I think children have a tremendous amount of resilience. And we just, we've got to enable one another, to go with what we know is right for ourselves, and pick those healthy, those healthy avenues. But I don't think we do that until we feel that we're genuinely worth it. And so I understand the struggle. I certainly do. And yeah, I just hope anybody who feels alone and isolated out there, finds finds that sense of worthiness and pursues healthy means of getting out of that hole and living their best life.

Keith McKeever 55:51

Man, I love that and pass along to my said, Dad, I know you're worth it. That might be the best response to thank you for your service I've ever heard.

Dan Joseph 55:59

Yeah, JP, he's gonna get emotional if I think about it. But yeah, man, he definitely blows people's minds when he says that he genuinely needs it. Cool, dude, he's, yeah, if you look up JP Lane story, I mean, he's a good dude. He changed my life when I met him.

Keith McKeever 56:16

Awesome. Well, I Yeah, but please let him know. I think that's probably the best response I've ever heard. And with that, we'll go ahead and and wrap the show. But I thank you for coming on here sharing with us, Dan. Thanks so much. Yep. There we have folks, I hope you enjoyed as always, check out the website for all kinds of information and resources. And as always, say if there's something on there you think should be on there, let me know reach out. And if you're struggling for any reason, remember, the National Suicide Hotline number is 988 press one or you can text 838255