The Morning Formation Podcast
Hosted by KP Phillips—a U.S. Army combat veteran, former law enforcement officer, and seasoned instructor in tactics, firearms, and combatives—The Formation Podcast is built on the core pillars of Survivability, Situational Awareness, and the mindset to Adapt & Overcome.
Drawing from over two decades of real-world experience in combat zones and high-risk environments, KP leads authentic conversations with warriors, protectors, and everyday individuals who’ve faced adversity head-on. This podcast is more than content—it's a movement for those who understand that the fight begins before the event.
Through storytelling, lived experience, and expert insight, The Formation Podcast equips its listeners with the mindset, tools, and awareness to remain vigilant and prepared—whether on the battlefield, in the streets, or in everyday life.
The Morning Formation Podcast
Burnout, Military Brotherhood, And Being Honest with Joshua Mach aka JMach Podcast
We sit down with Joshua “JMach” Mach to talk burnout, identity after service, and how honest conversations can save a life. From raising resilient kids to setting standards in mentorship and sobriety, we unpack what it means to lead at home and in the community.
• asking twice to get real answers
• social media masks versus real burnout
• redefining success around family and service
• boundaries with content, algorithms and rest
• values stack of God, country, family
• feeling alone while carrying others’ burdens
• parenting for resilience not comfort
• mentoring standards and meeting halfway
• service identity without combat experience
• therapy, sobriety and doing the work
• tracing trauma back to childhood
• authenticity costs and protecting sanity
• legacy as giving back and staying humble
Make sure you follow Joshua on Instagram, YouTube, JMach Podcast. Go to www.JmachPodcast.org or find him on all social media at "JMach Podcast."
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Warriors fall in. It's time for formation. I'm your host, KP, and today, Formation Nation, we've got someone who's been grinding, building, and speaking truth with purpose. Joshua Mock, also known as J Mock, who I have heard from multiple guests. You gotta you gotta get with J Mock. You gotta you gotta talk to Joshua. And so here we are today. It's an absolute honor to be on the show today with someone who's very intentional and who is about legacy discipline and refusing to fold when life's pressures, you know, get on top of us, and sometimes we can't handle it, man. I know you talk a lot about the suicide prevention. Um, and then you your your platform, you have a lot of really deep conversations, and I've looked at some of your YouTube videos, and I noticed that the first thing you ask people is, How are you doing today? And then they tell you, and then you're like, Well, how are you really doing today? Yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah. Where does that come from?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, because the I I don't like service level conversations. Like, I I don't want to hear the bullshit. I I want to know who you are behind the closed doors, right? But when you approach somebody and you say, Hey, how are you doing? Your first response is gonna be good, living the dream, I'm alive. Okay, well, what's fueling all that? So, how are you really doing? And I I've noticed that it takes you asking somebody how they're really doing twice before they'll be willing to start opening up. Because in today's society, you don't know if someone actually cares when they're asking you how you're really doing, but I'm that one person that you can guarantee that I'll care and I'll I want to hear you out.
SPEAKER_00:It's pretty amazing when you start talking to people and you start getting around certain folks, especially in like I noticed in big cities. Um, I've lived all over the U.S., from Ohio to Kentucky to New Jersey, Hawaii, now California, and I live right here in LA. And it seems like in LA we're so busy and so caught up in ourselves and what we're doing that we don't have time to check on one another and ask those more in-depth questions. But then we're always at face value when we have these social medias like uh Instagram, uh, TikTok, and everyone's pretending that they're living the greatest life ever, but a lot of people don't know the pressure that's going on when the cameras are off. And you and I briefly spoke about burnout. And I know you've been feeling that lately. Yes, sir. Can you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, dude. I went from like, I feel like I was on a high like motivation, the drive, the passion, it's all there. The momentum was building. And then one day I just woke up and I'm just I've I don't know if it's the pressure, if it's because my value or version of being successful is being financially like set, like being able to do what you want when you want, and that's not where I'm at yet. But I don't want to stop letting people know that I care because I'll always care regardless. This isn't all about money. But as a person to feel successful and valuable, like my wife's still working, and my ultimate goal is to make that make sure she gets to retire or not have to work for the rest of her life. I want to be able to bring her home so she could be the stay-at-home mom, raising our girls, all of our kids, and just being there. But yeah, dude, burnout's really been kicking my butt this past couple of days. And normally I would allow myself to just crawl into a hole, be laying in bed all day. And that this time I'm being more present and aware, and I'm actually like forcing myself to go out. I'm uh I could have easily said, no, I don't want to do this podcast anymore, but um I'm forcing myself to be here. Not but I won't I hope you don't take that in the wrong way because I do want to be here. Just the energy I have is a little bit different right now if that makes sense to you.
SPEAKER_00:I feel you, man. Like this is I've been doing this for four years now, and I've gone through seasons because personal life is happening. We just had a really close family member that passed away. I changed positions at my full-time job, so I've been working quite a bit more and and a little bit more unexpected hours and things like that. And you know, you've got things going on outside of this because I don't know about you, but this doesn't necessarily pay the bills. This is more of a passion project for me. For sure. Is it the same for you?
SPEAKER_01:I'm it's about to pay the bills, all right? I'm manifesting it because I don't want to say this is just a passion project to me because it's so much more than that. And I think that's also my problem. I don't know how not to be J Mac, right? The the person that I preach about being, I don't know how not to be that person. And that's draining at times, right? Like I don't know how to put myself first. I'm always worried about who I'm talking to or who I'm with or what they're going through, instead of truly taking that time for myself. And this burnout session, I call it, is the first time that I've actually put myself first in a sense, where I'm still I still created the content. I just scheduled it out. So now I'm not like just falling off the algorithm. I still have content that's getting pushed out there, and I'm letting people know, hey, look, this is what I'm going through. I'm not going to be responsive right now. And I'm more focused on myself and my immediate family.
SPEAKER_00:I think you struggle with what like a lot of veterans struggle with, and that's that's priorities and value. A lot of us, it's especially those of us that have served or first responders, you know, we get into this line of work not necessarily for the money, but for the community. And I always tell people the three top things is um God, country, family. And however you want to prioritize that, those should be your top three things. Do you think that sometimes you feel like you're in a lonely place, or do you think that you're surrounded by others that also have those types of priorities?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's a mixture of both. And part of it's on me like realizing who my priorities and who has the same priorities in that. So part of it is that I just don't want people to feel the way that I have felt before. Like I don't want people to feel alone. I don't want people to feel worthless and all that. While I still feel all those feelings myself, right? And I'm constantly doing my events where I bring in mental health resources for the community. I have community members coming in, learning about these resources. And I don't always take the time to use them for myself because I still feel a type of way. I still feel alone. Even in a crowded room, I'll feel alone sometimes. And I don't want other people to to feel that way. So instead of focusing that energy on myself and figuring out how to break out of that to feel the love and support that I have around me, I just give everything to people around me so they don't feel that way. And then I get into this burnt out stage, and it's just a cycle of my own insanity that I've created that I'm going to break. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Do you get frustrated a lot of times? Again. I say that because that's where I'm at. A lot of the questions I'm asking you is because I I experience the same thing too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I feel like right now, where I'm at in my life, I'm way too short-tempered. I get too frustrated and angry with my kids. And they're two and five years old. And but I expect them to be acting like proper 17, 21-year-old kids, right? And that's just my fault for having such a high expectation and not realizing and valuing that they are just innocent little children, still trying to learn how to grow and develop.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it's tough because when you're raising kids, you're also a life coach. Like you're teaching these kids how to life, and that's your responsibility. I run into a lot of parents, and in my opinion, I think it's the wrong mentality to think, well, I want to be my kid's best friend. And like, no, I don't want to be my kid's best friend. I want to be their father, and I want to teach them how to hunt. I don't want to teach them how to survive. And I want to teach them how to take care of themselves in those lull moments when they're they feel distressed and they feel like there's no way out. Like, that's my job. My job isn't to make you feel good and buy you ice cream Sundays and all the candy and the toys that you want and things like that, man. Like it's it's a ever forever gift when you're able to give your kids the life lessons that you had to learn the hard way. Um would you say that you had a good upbringing or was it kind of a not so good upbringing?
SPEAKER_01:I say I had a good upbringing and it still fucked me up. Right? Like I still have trauma from it. We all have trauma from our childhood. I don't care how silver of a spoon you ate off of to how terrible of a childhood you had. I have also found that like people that had the tougher childhood have a stronger mentality moving forward in life because they already went through the suck. And I agree with you. It it's our goal or it's our desire to be our kids' best friends, so they love us and that. But we also have to realize we are the disciplinarian. We are the one that has to say no. And unfortunately, sometimes we're gonna have to have our kids cry because they can't have everything, and we can't allow them thinking they can grow up and they're just gonna get everything because that's gonna set them up for failure.
SPEAKER_00:A thousand percent. I agree. And that's I think that's one of the biggest problems that we have in today's generation is they they don't know how to take a fall and and get back up again because they've been so coddled their whole lives. And and I see it with the up-and-coming generations. I've had multiple people people ask me, like, hey, can you mentor my son? He wants to go in the military, he wants to be a first responder, and then you know, they're 17, 18, 19, 20, some years old. Well, by this time it's almost too late because all the things that they did growing up, they didn't learn adversity. They didn't learn how to get up again once they fall down. Everything's been handed to them from college money to their first car to paying their freaking um car bills, their insurance, all that stuff, man. Like it nothing was really earned. It was just kind of given to them. And then you're asking me at the age of 20 years old to mentor this grown man now, and it's it's really difficult. And that's that's what I see as a father. And for me, it's it's I like I have to remind myself that I'm a father first over everything else because it it's really frustrating um to see this generation struggle as much as they've been struggling with just getting work, finding work, and holding on to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but to that I want to like cor not correct you, but change your mindset. Like it's not too late for those kids. Those kids need it the most. They need the mentoring the most. It's just not gonna be easy. Like, just like dogs, you could teach an old dog a new trick, but it's just gonna be harder and and more more work, right? It's not gonna be as easy because you didn't have the whole all those years to do it. Yeah. And one of the things I've been teaching my daughter is like when she falls down, like all the other parents like jump up and want to go rush to her. And I was like, Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, and I say, Hey, what do you do when you fall down? Nice and loud so she hears me. And she says, get back up. Whether she's crying or not, and she'll get back up. And so, like, yeah, the inner dad in me, I just want to rush over there, make sure my princess is still a princess and okay, right? But I know I have to let her teach her how to be strong because one thing I struggled with was failure, right? I want it to be perfect, I want it to be the best. But part of life and growing is failing, but failing forward. So when you fall down, make sure you fall forward so you can get back up and keep moving.
SPEAKER_00:I wanted to ask you, and I meant to ask you in the beginning, your military service. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01:My military experience, I feel it was insufficient. I feel like I for the longest time, I feel like I failed my mission of joining the Marine Corps. So I didn't join till I was 23 in 2013. By that time, I'm sure you know, I was an old man by the time I hit the fleet, right? Um I didn't get deployed. I went to Oman for a little less than a month, and uh I chose to get out because I ended up getting married while in. I was a statistic for sure. I was young, dumb, and full of stuff, and chose to get married. And well, that backfired. And I couldn't separate my home life from my work life. So it just felt like a tornado, no matter where I was at. Like home sucked, work sucked. And I was like, Oh, I need to get out. I need something new and fresh. Which, if I would have stayed in, I would have got a new duty station, I would have got that new and fresh. Uh, but I chose to get out. And for the longest time, as I said, I felt like a failure. Like I didn't complete my mission of service, but I've been able and have continued to work on my mindset that my purpose for joining the Marine Corps wasn't to go fight the war overseas, but to fight the war we face once we get back home, and that's exactly what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. The um what what year did you go in? 2013. 2013, okay. Um you didn't deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan at all? No, sir. Do you do you feel like people that served during that time sometimes are hard on themselves, hard on themselves as far as like feeling inadequate because they didn't go to the big fight? And what's your experience with talking to people about that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%, dude. It's a it's been a struggle for not only myself, but uh several other veterans that I've talked to that are willing to open up and share about it, right? Because we feel inadequate, we feel less than. And all my seniors, they went through it, they were training us for it. We got the experience, but never had the real life application. And before, I used to think we all think like, man, we failed, we didn't complete our mission, or we're not worthy of the title Marine or veteran or whatever the case may be. And then we just got to take a step back and realize, man, what a blessing. Like we were, we trained, we signed up, we were ready to go. It just wasn't in our cards. The Lord didn't hand it to us the way that we wanted it to be. And instead of realizing, I think you we can relate this with all of life, right? Instead of focusing on what we don't have or what we didn't get, we need to prioritize what we do have and what we do get. Right? Like, yeah, I wish I had that military experience. And then I counter it with like, do I really wish? Like, I'm already struggling, I already have these struggles and challenges, but then now I want to add on top of it being in combat and potentially losing my brothers or losing myself or anything like that. And I'm I'm sad because I didn't get that experience. Like, first of all, our brothers and sisters that lost their life in that experience would give anything to have the life I'm having right now, but I'm choosing to not live it to the fullest because I didn't get that experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I've I've had conversations with people before that have um that didn't deploy, and then they act as if because I did, that I'm my DD 214 is worth more than theirs. And it's that's not the case. Like it's I think my respect goes out to anyone that serves in the military because I think signing up and simply going to an unknown location and turning that that page to that new chapter, I call it becoming an adult, because you're getting away from family, you're going to boot camp, you're going to be getting a paycheck, like no one's there to like tell you, you know, to pay your bills for you. So it's it's sort of growing up. So my I have a lot of respect for anyone that serves in the military, but I've had conversations with people that that do feel inadequate because they didn't go to the big fight or whatever, but like you said, it wasn't in the cards, it wasn't like anyone tried to avoid anything. But I I want to circle back to what you mentioned about um the 20-some-year-olds that you try to mentor. The one thing that I learned was I can't care more than you. And it's man, it has it has pushed it has pushed family members away. Because when I first moved here to California, I was asked to like mentor some uh cousins of mine, and they were in their 20s. And I, you know, just like most military people, we we go all in. Like we we want the best of the best for them to succeed. And so everything from getting them the job to helping them learn how to finance and all that stuff was part of the whole package. But what I learned was I would get so frustrated because I would try to explain things and then they wouldn't follow through with it. And so what I've learned to do is try to meet them halfway. Like I'll make them call me or I'll make them show up to me versus me showing up to them. And I think that's really important for mentors out there to not get frustrated and burned out is to sometimes people aren't ready. Like they're just not ready. You know, most of these 20-some-year-old kids are they're not ready to be mentored, and maybe it's their parents pushing them. So I've kind of gotten to a point where like, okay, I'll meet you halfway, but I'm not going further than that because you may not be ready. I mean, you'll come back in a couple years and maybe we can talk again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. That's I think you take that into life in general, right? You can't make anybody do anything like that old analogy, you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make them drink it. And I think you doing meeting them halfway is a great work in progress, but in reality, we got to meet them where they're at. And I don't mean driving to them. I mean, yeah, make sure they drive to you, but meet them where they're at with their discipline and where they want to go. However, if you're mentoring someone, I feel like you also have to be a little bit, you can't just I take everything I just said back, right? Because if you're mentoring someone, you can't meet them where they're at because then they're gonna stay there, they're gonna feel comfortable. It's almost like it's just like how I would go to therapy for years and expect that one therapy session a week or a month or whatever it was was gonna do all the work for me. Not that I actually had to go home and do the homework and do the prack app and put it to use in real life, right? So I don't know if I answered your question or if I just went off on my own tangent. However, uh, I agree. You can't just care more than someone else does because then it'll burn you out because you could see their you can see what they're capable of or what they're what they can do, but they might not see it here. So it's gonna frustrate you and burn you out because you're just striving so high to get them up to where you see them. But in reality, they're right here and they're stuck right here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And just explaining the standards. I mean, I remember a few years ago I told uh someone I was mentoring, I was like, hey, meet me at my place, we're gonna run three miles. Their response was, but the test is only a mile and a half. I'm like, you know what? Like you're looking for a job as a first responder. Like we're not looking for the 60-second fight. Like we're preparing for the three to six six minute fight. And that's the and where you're at at your age, you should be having no problems keeping up with a 40-year-old man uh to run three miles. And that's and that's the and that's the severity of it all. It's like trying to set the bar and set the standards and explain why it's important. It to me, it blows my mind because back when I joined the military, like that was a no-brainer. Like you weren't trying for 10 pull-ups, you were trying for 20. You were trying to do more. And now it seems like the idea is that let's just clear the bar, let's just smoothly clear the top. Like, no, like we need to not just clear the bar, we need to clear three bars or whatever the case is. And mentorship can be really stressful, I think, in that sense. And it's something that I've struggled with over the years, just trying to learn how to, like you mentioned, meet them at where they're at, sort of whether it's communicating, whether it's delivery. Sometimes my delivery is not the best way. Sometimes it sounds better coming from Joshua Mock. Like it just there's just so much involved, man. It's so frustrating. But guys like me and you, we give a shit. Like we care, and that's the bottom line, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. I was gonna say that's a kudos to you, though, because it just shows how much you care and how much you believe in what you're doing and how you can help someone else, and you don't want to keep all that knowledge to yourself, and you're willing to share and help others, and it's it's got it's just frustrating when they don't want the help or they're not willing to do what they're clanked talking about.
SPEAKER_00:And guys like me and you have been there, done that before. Like we've made mistakes, and so we're trying to teach the next gen like how do we how do they have a clearer path?
SPEAKER_01:For sure. I think I've been both people that you've just talked about, right? The one that wanted the mentorship but wasn't ready. I went to the recruiter like three, four separate times, like years apart. And it wasn't till obviously the last time that I went that it it stuck with me. But I I also accredit the recruiter, he wasn't an asshole. I told him what I was going to do and what I was willing to do. And he he's like, okay, cool, I'll check on you once a month. And that's what he did. He didn't blow me up every day, every week, trying to figure it out. But I had to lose 70 pounds in six months. I lost 70 pounds in six months just to enlist into the Marine Corps. And for the longest time, I do I can definitely see where I used to think like as long as I can beat the standard, that's good. I always dreamed of getting the 20 pull-ups and going above and beyond. I wasn't ever a runner, man. But it's not about meeting the standard, it's about setting the standard. You want to be the standard, you don't just want to barely meet the standard. That's going to cause too much stress in your life where you're just barely beating the minimums.
SPEAKER_00:The one thing I explain to a lot of kids, and I call them kids, young adults, is that whether you get into the military or you become a first responder, is those types of careers are marathons. And if you're starting this marathon walking across the start line, then you're going to be in deep trouble by the time you hit your 40s. Like so you need to make sure that you are hitting it and you get that momentum so that you get through those first 15, 20 years, uh, and then so you can have a healthier career, all right, and you can be effective and have a fulfilling career as well. And guys like you that get out and then you continue doing things like what you're doing right now with the podcast, you know, I'm it's it's so refreshing to to see folks like you because I I can tell how motivated you are. Man, I went through a lot of your YouTube videos and and listened to a lot of your uh conversations that you had. But what was the moment of impact that pushed you to start the J Mock podcast? Not just think about it, but actually execute my therapist.
SPEAKER_01:So I when I got out of the Marine Corps, I separated my shoulder, had a grade five AC joint separation, had to have surgery. Fast forward a couple years, I didn't properly rehab it properly, so I'm paying for that now. But I was tagged in uh you remember the 22 push-up a day challenge? I was tagged in that, and but I what there was no way I was gonna do 22 push-ups for one day, let alone 22 days. And it was just eating me alive, like I was failing my brothers and sisters, like I could do so much more to help. Then the next day, one of my Marine Corps buddies posted a meme that said, Stop doing the fucking push-ups, pick up the phone and call your buddy. And that's where like the light bulb went off in my brain. I was like, Oh, dude, this is a great idea. I originally pitched it to someone else because I didn't think I was worthy or capable or anybody would want to talk to me. He turned it down. I was in therapy and I was talking to my therapist that I had this idea and he didn't want to do it, and blah, blah, blah, blah. She tried to convince me into pulling out my phone and going live in her office, telling all my friends and family that I was gonna start this and this is what I was doing. And I was like, now you're the crazy one, let's switch chairs, joking. But then I went home and made the video like I promised, and I started this. It'll be five years this Veterans Day. One thing I want to say about if you ever have a dream or vision or passion to start something, the best thing to do is to make it exist and then make it good. Because if you look back in my podcast to begin with, it was trash. I didn't even know how to record. I was trying to do FaceTime screen record, which didn't even record the audio. It was just terrible. And I ended up breaking a two and a half year sobriety in order to start the podcast or do the podcast because I thought nobody would want to talk to me unless I was drinking, or because I couldn't be the best version of myself unless I was drinking, which is a lie. But it was just I was so insecure and so so lost at the time, I thought I needed to drink. But I'm back on that sobriety train. I'm more so California sober. I'll still smoke canvas here and there. Uh, I but my defense for that is like when was the last time you heard Marines burn down a bar because it got too high? Never. When was the last time they burned down a bar because they drank too much? Probably like five minutes ago, right? Uh, not a good justification, but I'm also trying to use the cannabis in a more medicinal manner, where instead of having five to ten prescriptions through the VA, I have one or two and I'm managing my pain through the cannabis and not taking it to that recreational level because I do believe there's a huge difference between recreational cannabis and medicinal cannabis.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no doubt, man. And you talked about something I think that is really should be encouraging for more veterans out there, and that's therapy. How long did it take for you to come to terms that you needed to start doing that?
SPEAKER_01:Man, I tried to go to therapy while I was in the Marine Corps. I mean, I successfully went to therapy while I was in the Marine Corps, but I didn't do the homework. I didn't do the work. I thought my talking inventing to this person would help solve all my problems. And then I got out of the Marine Corps, and it probably took me two to three years to get back into therapy again. But then it took me like another two years to start actually doing the homework. And I've been to more than just therapy. I I've checked myself in one time. I went to a two-week mental health program through the Wounded Warrior out in Boston called Home Base, and that was super beneficial. Like they teach you sorts of different techniques that you can use, but you're surrounded by veterans that are going through the same things you're going through.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate your accountability and your self-awareness.
SPEAKER_01:This is all I know. Like uh I don't want to be, I guess my fear is I have imposter syndrome, right? Where like I feel less than, lack then, but I don't want anybody else to be able to say, oh, he's lying, or call me out for some bullshit. So I'd rather just tell you the truth right off the bat. Like, I don't I don't want to have to feel like I'd lied to somebody and have to keep that lie up. I'd rather just be fucking open and honest the entire time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's the best policy, man, because there's nothing to be ashamed of at all. Everybody, I don't care how perfect they they portray themselves, everybody has some shit in their background. Like it not there's no one out there that was like the perfect leader, the perfect soldier, the perfect marine every single time, all the time. We need to stop thinking like that. Even myself, man, there's there's times where I completely failed or I've made bad decisions. And the biggest thing for me is to live and learn, look back at it, figure out what I can do better going forward. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and I asked him, you know, he's going through a divorce. Um and I I asked him, I said, Hey, if you could go back and put everything back in place the way it was before, and work on yourself and and whatever you need, would you do it? And his response was, I don't I don't look back at things, I just keep moving forward. And I'm thinking, in my opinion, that's a stupid thing to say. That is so stupid. Because at the end of the day, we're supposed to reflect, look in the mirror, look at ourselves, look at what we did right, look at what we did wrong, and try to fix things for the future. Would you agree with that too?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. You gotta reflect back and see where you did wrong so you can correct it so it doesn't happen again, or where you were right, and or where you exceeded at, so you can mimic that and keep moving forward that way. You definitely have to look back in your past. If you're not looking back, you're running from something, and eventually it's gonna catch up to you. So there's a great saying about the water buffalo, I believe it is, where they're the only animals that turn into the storm when it's coming. So it's the fastest way out is to turn into it and embrace it and go through it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. And I'm constantly in my mind reviewing things that my life experiences, and I'm constantly trying to think how could I have handled that better? What can I do better for the future? You know, everything from mentoring to personal life stuff. Um, I think we have a lot in common when it comes to our own pitfalls. And you might have you might have came here for the same reason I did when it came to podcasting. I felt alone. I started during the pandemic, and I live in a big ass city called Los Angeles, but even though we have a lot of people here, this is a really lonely place. There's not, I don't connect with a lot of veterans in my own neighborhood or in my own community. I mean, we all live in LA, but they're like all over the place, and everybody's too damn busy for each other. When you first launched this podcast, what were some of the pitfalls or personal fear, internal resistance that you had to try to kill off?
SPEAKER_01:Dude, so many. Like all my limiting self-beliefs about myself that I'm unworthy, I'm undeserving, nobody wants to talk to me. Like, who the fuck am I? Sorry, am I allowed to curse on your? I'm going to, anyways. All right. But like, yeah, dude, all those limiting self beliefs, I had them all myself. I still battle them to this day. Now, even five years into podcasting, there's still times I question like, dude, why? Am I on TMF right now, dude? Like, what did I do to deserve to be here? There's someone more deserving than me, right? But I think one of the biggest eye-opening things is when I finally got to understand and accept that nobody's coming to save me except myself. So the more that I put into my work and what I'm doing, now I'm hosting two live shows a month where I have live audiences in there watching me talk, where I bring in eight different mental health resources from within the veteran community. I think a lot of it also had to do, and I want to blame, I don't want to blame the military, but they do do a great job at keeping us drunk, right? Like you go to the PX or the commissary, and the biggest aisles are the alcohol sections. It takes up the majority of the store, right? Uh I think stopping drinking helped me learn more about myself and who I actually am. Because now I'm no longer living in that anxiety, or I still have anxiety, don't get me wrong. But drinking brings a different level of anxiety to you because it changes your brain, it changes your thought process. So you wake up and you're you're depressed. I I woke up and I'd be depressed. One of the last times I drank, I was so proud of myself because I only drank Bud Light. I didn't mix, I didn't take shots, nothing. I got home safely, played with my kids, they went to bed, hung out with the wife. I went to bed happy, woke up depressed. And I was like, all right, dude, this is enough. Why is this? And it's just because I wasn't happy in life. And drinking made me feel like I was happy, but it was just a mask. And then the more I started to like drink, the more you feel like you have to drink, and the sooner you have to have another drink so you can get to being that version of yourself. So I finally put all that stuff aside and started to like truly work on myself. And bro, two, three years ago, I probably would tell you bullshit that I'm sitting down right now talking to you on our podcast or your podcast. I'd be like, there's no way I'm still only doing audio only podcasts. I don't want my face seen, nothing like that. But now I'm here and I'm fucking talking.
SPEAKER_00:And what's funny is she mentioned drinking too. And here you are mentioned mentioning drinking a lot. Um, and she did she did as well. And the the issues that she had with it. Um it it seems to be a common theme, but I I I wholeheartedly appreciate your honesty talking about that. I've had guests on before that act like, oh, I'm so polished and I'm so perfect, and I've never had anything, any vices in my life, and I'm just an angel. And I'm like, come on, you know, let's keep it real.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I say to this day that if you joined the military, once you signed that dotted line, you were a contractual alcoholic. Whether you were drinking before you went in, you were definitely going to drink within that first year of being in the fleet. And it's like encouraged, it's the thing to do, but it causes the most problems.
SPEAKER_00:And I always tell people too that um everybody blames the military sometimes for like you, everyone has that epic uncle that joined the military and now he's all fucked up, and it's because of the military. And I've always thought to myself, that's not always the case. A lot of people go into the military with issues already. And what happens is those issues just get magnified even bigger. Um, and so whether it's childhood trauma that you've experienced, um, people think, well, I'll just join the military and it'll solve all my issues. Like that, it that doesn't always happen. If anything, it just blows it up, it makes it even bigger and a lot worse. So you got to handle those situations. I've had that conversation with some family members of mine where I've said, look, I know you're still young, but I encourage you to go to therapy because it you may have shoved all that stuff down and it's in there somewhere, but it's gonna come back at some point. And it's gonna come back like a volcano, and you're not gonna even realize it.
SPEAKER_01:No, for sure. And I'm pretty sure we all have mental health problems that join the military. Nobody in their right mind is gonna sign up to go run into bullets getting shot at them, right? Like there has to be a reason for that. And that's part of the reason like my event's called the sandbox, because our trauma started in the childhood sandbox. As veterans, we have trauma from whether going or not going to the sandbox. So let's heal as adults in the sandbox together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh, that's pretty wise, actually. I I never really thought about that that uh relationship of sandbox as a child and sandbox as a as a military veteran. Your podcast in general, what's the mission behind your platform? When people watch you, what do you want them to walk away with?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, J Mac's podcast mission is to combat veteran and first responder suicide while reminding the community that they're not alone. We all have our struggles.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's pretty deep, actually. And it's it's an extremely important topic. I mean, we've we I have personally known several uh members that were in the army while I was in that uh committed suicide after service. And I always tell people, like, from a combat veterans perspective, that many times it's not what you deal with over there, it's coming back here. And I can tell you that I personally had several soldiers that begged me to stay in Iraq longer, and I didn't understand why. As a 24-year-old lieutenant uh downrange, I didn't understand why these 30-year-old NCOs were begging me to stay. And what I learned was that several of them simply told me, they said, Look, when I left, I had the white picket fence, I had the dog, I had the kids, I had the house. But now when I go home, I've got to go put all my stuff in storage, move in with my parents, and I've got to go to divorce court. And that's hard to think about that, you know, you survived a year downrange and then you come back here and your life is going to be completely changed. You expect like a hero's welcome and you expect things to be back in place again. And oftentimes I wonder how many of the people I served with are doing today with their personal life and how they're handling it. But, you know, sometimes I reconnect with them on social media and sometimes I don't, because back when I was in uh the really the hottest thing that we had was like my space, man. There was no like LinkedIn and all this other stuff that we have now. So it's, you know, people are just getting caught up with getting connected from from my era per se.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And I don't think you you mentioned this and I wanted to follow up, so I'm gonna bring it back a little bit. But you said we all have trauma before we join the military, and then you're you're 100% right. We have trauma before we join the military, then the military trauma compiles, compounds on top of that trauma. But and then we react off of the trauma that we think is caused by the military, but we're only responding that way because of what happened to us as a child. So when we go to therapy, we have to stop trying to talk about what happened in the military. And we got to take it all the way back to the roots because that's what formed our thought processes, our actions. The way we're responding to combat or not seeing combat is all what we programmed or got programmed as a child. So that's the coding or whatever you want to call it. That's what we have to work on. We have to go all the way back. We can't just work. We're so for me, I've been alive for about 35 years now. I can't go back five years and think I'm gonna fix myself. No, that's something I do need to work on, but I also need to work on the first 30 years as well.
SPEAKER_00:That's really important. You're right, because life didn't start when you joined the military. You had a lot of things that happened before that that you might have to process and get a different perspective on that's gonna keep you moving forward. I I've learned over the years that perspective is so important when it comes to being able to keep your wits, not be so short-fused. Um, one of the things that I struggled with for a long time was not being able to relate to other people, especially other men, other dads, and things like that. But the one thing that I understand is if I'm sitting at a table for dinner, um, the chances of anyone else sitting at that table and having gone to Iraq or Afghanistan is very slim. And their perspectives are going to be much different than mine. And in today's world, a lot of people gain a very strong uh perspective on world politics just through watching their phones, not actually having been there and done that before. And I remembered, I remember when I first got back, I think it was two months after I came back, I was sitting across the table from a cousin of mine, and her husband was sitting there telling me what was going on in Iraq, and my boots were still dirty. And that's when I knew back then, I was like, so this is how it's gonna be for the rest of my life. I'm gonna have to listen to other people who weren't there tell me how it is. And to keep my frustration levels down, I have to have a better perspective that they work in a cubicle every day. They've never been in the military, they've never been to boot camp, they never served, they never wore the uniform. So their perspectives are their perspectives. And that actually helps me out with um just not just not being so short-tempered, I guess, with and so frustrated with just life in general. Like I said, I think a lot of our struggles are coming back here and dealing with uh people that just don't understand or don't get it.
SPEAKER_01:I think that also has to we have to take accountability for that, right? And I'm not calling you or any of our other brothers and sisters or myself the victim, but we got to stop with that victim mentality. Like, yeah, that's somebody else's fucking opinion. Now it's up to us on how we're gonna respond to that or react to that. Have you had the ability to sit down? Have you noticed any mindset differences from sitting down with Iraq-Afghanistan war veteran to just a veteran who hasn't served and like the difference in the mindset? Like, do you feel like you cannot relate to a non-combat veteran?
SPEAKER_00:I I think that there's um specifics that minute specifics that they may not understand, but for the most part, no. Yeah, I mean, there's there's certain things that like a garrison person might see in perspective versus like a combat veteran, but overall as a whole, no, not not really.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's an interesting question though. So thank you. Because it it was curiosity to me. Like, do you feel like you I guess I was relating to me, right? Like, do you feel like you can relate to me more equal to or less than uh one of your combat buddies, you know? But then if he's your buddy from combat, you're obviously gonna relate to him more because you had that experience with him. So there's too many variables, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:I think there's a lot of things that we can talk about in specifics, like whether it's like dealing with the PXs that were over there or just the funny stuff like that that you had to deal with. Um but as far as like talking to people that have not been there before, no, I don't think there's a whole lot of differences um as far as mindset and perspective overall. Yeah. You know, I've I've looked at some of your content and you you post on a like uh what I would say is unapologetically, right? Um and you're very authentic. So I want to ask you something. Has that ever cost you anything?
SPEAKER_01:Cost me anything? Sure, it's cost me friendships. I'm sure it has cost me I'm sure it's cost me something, right? But at the end of the day, like, is that a friendship or a cost that like truly mattered? I I struggle because I feel like I can help everybody. I'm for everyone, but I need to realize I'm not. I can't. Not not that I can't help them, or even if I could help them, some of them don't even want the help, as we talked about, right? And I I think if anything, it it costs me my sanity because I'm trying to be there for everybody the same way I show up for you. I show up for everybody else that I meet. There's a great saying I heard that like treat everybody you meet like they're the CEO, whether they're the janitor or not. And that's what I try to do. I try to treat everybody the way I want to be treated. Now, what I have been realizing lately is how I said earlier, I don't know how not to be J Mac. So I don't know how to be my sarcastic asshole self anymore without feeling bad, like oh fuck, I just caused trauma because that's I'm just so stuck in this world. So it it did cost me my sanity to a degree, but I'm also trying to become a better version of myself. So I don't I think that's a what it be a green cost, that's a positive, you know, I think it's a positive loss.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, I just asked because I've I've it's cost me. Like it's cost me family members, it's cost me friendships, just being honest and being authentic. But like you said, if like I don't want people around me to be fake, and I don't want to be fake towards them or pretend that they their hair looks nice when you know it looks like shit. Like to be honest with you, like if and it the same for me, like I want people to be honest with me. I don't want people to be fake with me. I want people to be honest because I'm used to that criticism and I'm good with it, and I can take it and I can try to get better at it or whatever it is. But I just feel like sometimes the authenticity and the unapologetic approach sometimes it ends up costing those of us with that type of personality, it cost us those relationships. And I just wanted to see what what you thought about that.
SPEAKER_01:We're on the same page, 100%. I had that same experience, but I think the way we need to view it, we need to shift it. It's not a cost, bro. You're saving yourself time, energy, and everything and trauma or drama, right? Because now they're no longer in your life because they can't handle the truth. They don't want to better themselves, they don't want to live to a standard that you're willing to accept. And that's okay for both of us to understand because there's a situation I'm in right now, kind of, where people around me, they just like to drink. But I understand if you can control your drinking and it it maybe it's like once a week, a couple times a week, but like every day, every night, and then like issues are arising from it, but like you don't want to hear how you're flawed, but you're so willing to point somebody else out. And that, and then when it comes to the family, there are some times that it is very hard to like be real and open. And I I I try to choose my words wisely. I almost like going into Chat GPT, say, like, I want to tell them to fuck around and find out, but it tells you a professional version. I try to find that professional version when I'm approaching someone that's more important to me, like my parents, my brother, my close friends, and things like that. But I also feel like due to the way that I am, it's hard for me to have consistent friendship. I'm that friend that we're best friends, but like we may not talk all the time. We may not talk for a month, a year, whatever. But when we get back together, we start talking again, it's like no time's lost. And that makes me almost feel like I almost struggle with that, where I feel like I'm, what's wrong with me? Why can't I have a friend that I hang out with every day? But then it's like, do I really want somebody I have to hang out with every day? I got these kids and this wife I gotta hang out with every day. I don't need to add to it.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, I think at the end of the day, I've always told people that I have friends that I understand what their left and right boundaries are, and I understand what their ceilings are. I think a lot of times people just get disappointed and frustrated because they expect certain things out of people. But I think for a good leader, it you have to be able to look at someone, figure out what is their left stake, what is their right stake, what is their ceiling. This is what I can expect out of them. I have friends that have a heart of gold, um, but they're not the type of friends that I would want to start a business with. You know, fight to the death type of marine, you know, veterans, and and you know what I mean? And it's just one of those things where like you gotta know and kind of compartmentalize like what to expect out of each friend that you surround yourself with. And I a lot of people get really frustrated because they expect certain things, but that's to me, that's how I kind of get to know folks and then figure out like this is the friend to have a good time with, this is a friend to have a podcast with, this is a friend to have a business with, like, so on and so forth. You it's good to have that variety of people out there.
SPEAKER_01:That's a skill I'm actively developing in, to be honest. Because for the longest time, I always wanted to share my successes, my dreams, my passions with everybody who asked me, even the closest people. I have learned the hard way time and time and time again. That's not what you do. Or at least in my situation, it's not what I can do. Because like I want to go to my parents and tell them, like, oh, I'm so excited to do this, I'm so excited to do that. And they hit me back with love, but their love is coming from how scared they are, what they don't know, and their concern of me like falling on my face or getting hurt. Right. So we have to be strategic on who we share things with, right? Like you feel like you could potentially share everything with your partner, your wife, your husband, whatever. And that's not always the case either, because they're not perfect either. So they may not be in the mood to hear it, and that could be very discouraging for you. Or they're just not the type of person that needs that that you need to bounce that idea off of. And learning who to share with has been a challenge, but it is showing me that I'm growing.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, this conversation with you has been sort of a therapy session for me. I came into this conversation today hot. Like I was like, had such a bad week, um, and feeling like I'm not connected to really anything or anybody, but just talking to you and being able to hear your experiences, your side of everything, it it's great to have this connection. And I'm and I I I had this last weekend too with another uh podcast guest that I had, Jenna. And it, man, we've talked forever, it seemed like even after the podcast. And it was it was refreshing. I think we both walked away like feeling better, you know. And you and I live hundreds of miles away, but here we are connecting and and talking about mentorship, uh, you know, suicide prevention, all these important, valuable things that we have. Taking it back to your childhood, man. Who is your mentor? Who who poured into you? Well, first, Jenna, she's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:And second, you're not alone on this week being trash or coming into this podcast hot. Like it got to the point where I was like, dude, honestly, I I feel like I had a PTSD moment on Halloween and I could not shake out of it the rest of the night. And then I woke up yesterday and that energy and all those feelings and emotions were still running in me, and I had no idea I couldn't, I couldn't let it go. I was just mad. And then today I was a little mad still to the point where like before this podcast, I was like, dude, I need to lay down. I don't want to, I don't want a life anymore. So I laid down for a little bit. And then now I'm on here and I'm talking, my energy feels better, I feel lighter, you know. So I appreciate you. So thank you for having me today. And I'm so grateful that I forced myself to not cancel or back out.
SPEAKER_00:Dude, I I mean, I I force myself all the time to do stuff. But just like a good exercise, just like going to jujitsu, man. I was like, I feel like shit, I'm sore, I've got, you know, I could just go home. Man, after I'm done getting my ass beat for about an hour, I feel so much better. And I'm like, God, I'm glad I came. Like I feel better now.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, dude, usually the best workouts are the ones you didn't even want to go to. Yeah, 100%. For sure. 100%. Uh so who poured into me as a child? This is a tough question because I don't remember a lot of my childhood. And but I'm just gonna go with my dad. Uh, I remember my dad is my not 100% my dad, right? He is the reason I ended up joining the Marine Corps, even though he told me no, don't do it. You're not allowed to, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? My dad was uh is now a retired police officer. So growing up, my dad was always a cop. I always wanted to fill his shoes. I have a picture of me at like five to seven years old wearing his uniform that's like super baggy and hanging off me. And I just always wanted to serve and be a cop. And my dad would take me out to have you ever heard of uh the Lions Club? No. It's an organization within the community that they receive donations and they give back to the community members. Like one of the main events that I remember always doing with my dad was the pancake breakfast, where for like two or three dollars, you can come and eat as many pancakes and sausages as you wanted, and just getting the community together. And so I think that's where my volunteering and my my desire to serve came from.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I have heard of the Lions Club now that you mentioned it. You talked about the pancake. Uh yeah, dude. I the was it as like a pancake breakfast or something like that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They also sell like the candy too, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's where I've seen it before. And they would also like collect collect glasses or give out glasses. I'm sure there's a I'm sure we're talking about this much of what they do, but that's that's my core memories of them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, me too. I too. I've got this dog.
SPEAKER_01:I also want to be honest and open and uh, dad, I'm sorry if you hear this, but like as great as my dad was, I still have trauma and abandonment issues because he works so much to provide the great life that he gave us. My dad was always working. So I was predominantly raised by my mom, and I feel like that's where I got I'm a little bit more emotional than most men should be, right? Yeah. Yeah, so look that's how I started the podcast is that like I had a great childhood, but I still got fucked up from it. That's a great example. My dad did his best, he was out there working. I comprehend and I understand that, but the feelings that him not being around or him sleeping or being at work at the hours that I'm up still cause some issues.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I I I hear your kids in the background over there playing, and I've got this, I've got this golden doodle right here that's uh seeking seeking my attention as well. I'm over here petting him and stuff, and he just can't can't get enough of it, man. I've it's it's funny how we have like so many things that we juggle from like fatherhood to work and just taking care of family and everything like that. And here we are today, like still doing these podcasts and everything. And it's been so awesome to talk to you, man. And I just want to ask you, legacy-wise, what does it mean to you in practice? Like, not theory. Legacy and practice. Can you break that down Barney style for me? Like, legacy-wise, like what do you want to be known as? I I always tell people that your last chapter is not what just happened. Like, your last chapter is like this is not over with. So, J Mock Podcast, like, where do you want it to go in the next like five, 10 years or so?
SPEAKER_01:Yo, so J Mac Podcast is gonna go Joe Rogan Who, right? I'm gonna be the best podcast there is out there, and I'm going to pass on nothing but generational wealth to my children. But I just want to be someone that is recognized that for giving back. I want them, I want the my legacy to be like, man, he helps so many people, and I want to be able to stay humble even when I'm at the very top of my game. I want to be this version of me when I'm at the top.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's that's rich. I mean, that right there is that makes you a billionaire, honestly, man. To be known as someone that gave back their entire lives and tried to make their community, their family, their friends better, you can't ask for more than that, man. And I feel your passion just talking to you. I mean, you wouldn't get up every day, sacrifice time like this to get on here, record, put yourself out there if you didn't give a shit. And man, it's it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. And if this was the last conversation, if this was the last thing that anyone heard from you, what's your message? What would be your message to everyone?
SPEAKER_01:Yo, you're not alone. We all have our struggles. And I mean that in like not where suck it up, you're not alone. I mean it like open up, reach out, go to therapy, get the help, start the business, start bettering your life in the ways you've always dreamed of, but you you haven't yet. Take that leap of faith and believe in yourself. You're worthy and you're deserving.
SPEAKER_00:That's huge, man. Do you uh sponsor with anyone else that helps you out with that message? Do I have sponsors? Yeah, do you have any sponsors like uh I just the reason I asked is because I just talked to QRFD and they're a suicide uh prevention uh nonprofit organization. Are you sponsored with anyone like them?
SPEAKER_01:I am sponsored by Total Roofing and Construction. They do construction out of Northwest Indiana and Illinois, but I have not collaborated with another veteran suicide organization to that degree yet. I've been talking to QRF up for a while now, uh been trying to get them out to my events, and soon we'll we'll cross paths as well. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Was there anything else in this podcast you'd like me to mention before we wrap it up? Yeah, go to JMACPodcast.org or find me on all social media at J Mac Podcast. But before we wrap it up, I should have did this in the very beginning, but how are you doing? We talked about it briefly, but how are you really doing?
SPEAKER_00:Not good. Not good, man. I'm lately I've been really burned out quite a bit. Yeah, just conversations like this help, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_01:You see how you thought like not good and you were about to tell me more, but you chose not to? You need to start going that extra mile and sharing that because you're gonna give other people who listen to you and look up to you the opportunity and freedom to speak about their challenges. The one of the things about my podcast is, right, like, oh man, he's such a badass. He he's a prior service, now he's in law enforcement, he doesn't have any struggles, he just handles life, he's a badass. But then you come on my podcast and we have these deep conversations and you open up and you talk about your challenging childhood, your military troubles, your coping mechanisms that were unhealthy, and now the healthy ones that you're doing. And it gives people the chance to look at you like, oh fuck, man, like he does struggle. He is just like me, but this is how he gets over it. We can learn from everybody. You could sit here and tell me nothing but negativity, and I can learn from that because I can relate to something in there and pull that nugget straight out of my life as well. Just like us sitting here talking positive to one another, we could take that positivity from each other and implement it in our lives.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I'm just still processing, trying to figure out what's going on. Uh, like I said, we had a recent uh fam member that passed away and we turned over the her keys to her apartment after she lived there for 40 years. Um It's been a lot of ups and downs, man. I mean, watching Dodgers win last night was a positive. Celebrating my daughter's celebrating my daughter's sixth birthday. So it's it's like this, bro. It's like, I don't know. Like, I'm just like, let's wait till Monday, Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01:I think I think we also got to recognize that's part of life, right? Like, as much as we want it to be baseline and flat, right? That's not living. That's not reality. We have our ups and downs. And the part of growth and and being mental health forward and being aware is pulling ourselves back sooner each time we allow ourselves to go down, or even when we're so high and we could take on the world, we got to catch ourselves and realize that's not reality and bring ourselves back down to that baseline. So the faster we can pull ourselves up or back down to that baseline means we're growing, we're living and thriving. So don't be too hard on yourself. But don't hold it all in either.
SPEAKER_00:I guess for me, it's uh, you know, I really respect the fact that you I don't know if normalize, baseline, whatever you want to say. I I respect the fact that you are open to talking about it and normalizing not being okay. Because it's okay to not be okay sometimes. Um and to talk about it and to just simply talk about it and just know where you're at.
SPEAKER_01:I think I do it because I'm trying to justify it for myself. I'm trying to make it okay for myself to be this way. So now if I preach it to everyone else, we can connect on that level. And the more that I preach it to someone else, the more we connect. There's very few, and I don't even I can't right now in this moment, I can't even think of anybody that like I had this deep conversation with that caused us to go the opposite way. In return, it usually solidifies our our friendship, our relationship, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. No, I agree a hundred percent, man. I agree a hundred percent. I think this conversation is what I needed because I've been I've been really frustrated the last few days, man. Just kind of masking it, going through it. Grateful and thankful that we got over a lot of things. Um, but I'm looking forward to this week and just seeing where we're at, you know, this time next week. I think that it's just it's just a tumultuous time for me right now with everything going on.
SPEAKER_01:So And I want to relate to you on that because, like I said, this week has been hard for me. And when I was laying down trying to take a nap before this episode, I had to force myself not to have those dark thoughts. Where I would start thinking of like, oh, a gun. And I'm like, oh, well, I don't know where this is going, but I don't want to find out. So I wouldn't allow myself to think that way, right? Because I know where it's going to lead. And I don't want to have those thoughts, nor do I want to feel that way. I want to be in charge. I want to get myself back in charge of my own life before I allow my mind to have those thoughts. And the wildest thing that I've been learning is that we are not our thoughts. And that's so crazy. So, like, who the fuck's in my brain thinking then, right? But it's up to us to choose. And everything we do in life is a choice, whether we realize it or not. We're choosing to wake up and be miserable and stressed out, or we could put in the work even when it's fucking hard and we just want to give up. When you put in the work then, that's when the biggest growth is coming.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Amen. Man, I'm so impressed with this conversation. Actually, it it's you lighten my mood, and I really appreciate you talking to me today, Josh. I can't tell you how much you know it it means to me for you to show up and sharing your journey, your mindset with everyone that's listening in my audience. Um, make sure you follow Joshua on Instagram, YouTube, J Mock Podcast. You're also on all the other audios, right? The Spotifies and everything else.
SPEAKER_01:Correct. All under J Mac Podcast. And honestly, it's been my pleasure to talk to you. And don't fucking wait till we are on another podcast to reach out to have a conversation like this. I'm down to talk like this all the time. And I'd like to invite you out December 28th through 31st, if you're free. Come out to Lichfield Park, Arizona. There's a collegiate golf tournament called the Patriot All America where the golfers are carrying a fallen service member's name inscribed on the bag in essence giving them their final tour of duty. But there's a veteran village with a hiring event. I'll be doing two interviews a day out there. It'd be a great place to. We're not we're only like four or five hours away, so it's not a far escape, uh, right? But it's still a way to get out and be around veteran individuals.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I have a cousin that lives out there. So yeah. Perfect. All right, folks. Until next time, as always, I want you to stay tuned, stay focused, and stay motivated. Warriors, fall out.