Sophia Whitesell: That is the worst feeling in the world to not be able to help your significant other in those times when that's all you want to do. Welcome to the Giving Game, the only show where professional athletes are banned from talking about their sport. That's right. No stats, no game recaps, no media trained answers. I'm your host, Sophie Weitzel, and every episode we find out who these athletes actually are when the cameras stop rolling and the jerseys come off. We're talking untold stories, questionable life decisions, dating disasters, money, family, fame, philanthropy, and all the stuff their PR teams would probably prefer stayed off the internet. But here's the twist. Every episode is tied to a charity or cause chosen by the athlete. So while we're exposing personalities, we're also raising real money. And driving measurable impact for the organizations that matter. There are only three rules on this show: no sports talk, no filters, raise as much money as possible. So if you've ever wondered what athletes are really like off the field, welcome to the giving game. Let the game begin. Okay, everybody, welcome to this giving game, Matt Stone. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Appreciate you. Yeah, yeah. So What I love about you and what you do is like it's obviously something that resonates with me, ⁓ big time. And I want you to tell everybody why you're here and your foundation a little bit more about what you do. Yeah. So in twenty twenty four, I started the playing through foundation. And what that is is we we use golf as therapy for men. And not just men, but I mean that's our focus. I'll get into that, the reason behind that in a second. But I was a police officer for 17 years and went through a lot of stuff during from 2008 to 2021. It was just kind of a it was a hard time. Like it was a lot of fun running real fast at work. I worked ⁓ undercover. I worked a bunch of investigation style I guess assignments. And through that, it was it was crazy for a long period of time. And so from homicide suspects to child deaths to just Anything you can think of that police officers would go through, I was fortunate enough and unfortunate enough to go through all of that. And then on the personal side in my own life, ⁓ I lost my mom to suicide via alcohol through a tenure depression stint. I lost one of my best friends and my neighbor to suicide. And then I lost my mentor and police captain to suicide as well. And at the time I was able to kind of bury all of that stuff and just hide it and work and work through the adrenaline and work through ⁓ just staying busy. And then a lot of things just started piling up on me. And so I transferred departments and to a slower department. And that's when kind of my mental health just went to shit. It just really went downhill. And ⁓ people started noticing and then I ended up going on medical leave for a little bit to kind of, you know, see if I can combat it and then I ended up having to retire. And so I had this all this time off. I'm like, well, what am I gonna do? I can't go get another job right now because I'm still technically employed. I'm a big I love being an entrepreneur. ⁓ I've owned businesses in the past. And so I said, okay, well, why don't we figure out how to do something for men that'll be fun for me as well and help me at the same time. And YouTube golf was a really big thing. And so a couple of my friends who were athletes Said, hey, why don't we do like a YouTube style golf where instead of talking about stupid stuff on the course, we actually talk through life on the course and we record it and do whatever. And I'm like, okay, well, that's a cool idea. And then it's kind of morphed into this bigger thing where now we're we have this vision and mission, which we can talk about of just helping men get therapy that they need or get mental resets, work on their mental wellness. ⁓ we want to help fund a lot of that because the cost out of pocket is very, very expensive. And especially for first responders and our military personnel that when they go talk to a therapist, some of the stuff that they say is not confidential, depending on what they disclose. And so we want to give people the opportunity to work with a therapist ⁓ as like a third party network so that it's just between them and the therapist. And then if they want to get further help through work and stuff like that, they can they can go do that. And so that's what That's our main focus right now is is really trying to help guys do that. I mean, I think that whenever we first talked and, you know, we had our first conversation, I could not stop thinking about you telling me you were like, Yeah, when you go to a therapist and you're a first responder or, you know, police officer, military, whatever it is, like it's not confidential. And I come from a medical background where I'm like How the hell is that legal? Like that's such a HIPAA violation. How can you do that? I mean, I can understand if they say, Hey, they're not released to work yet. You know, they're not in a space where they can work yet. But to actually you know I mean, that just seems so wrong to me. And I c I just didn't know that was a thing. I be I don't know. That just really screwed me up when you told me that. Yeah, and it's it's not supposed to happen. The problem that I'm seeing, and it's not everywhere. It's kind of like we talked yesterday, like there's there's the good and the bad of everything, right? And so I think what's my personal assumption here is I think what's happening is that departments are are bringing on therapists and and these mental health, you know, coordinators and stuff, which is great. But I think that those relationships are getting way too close between the administrations and the therapists, where they're building friendships out of this, which again, that's that's not good or bad. ⁓ I think there can be some positive in there. But I think what happens is things start slipping up. And I know that in my case personally, I had said something to a therapist and she was the only person that I had told this thing to. And a captain from my department ended up coming up and asking me how I was doing with this situation that I was struggling with that I had only told this person. And so I immediately was like, Well, hang on a second. Like, how do you know about that? And so and I knew right away that I've only told one person. And so immediately I backed off. I was like, Okay, I'm not going to therapy, obviously. This is completely ridiculous. And ⁓ I so I had my first attempt at therapy ⁓ was a negative one. So I'm like, Well, why would I do this? And now that I'm in this industry and working with therapists, I've met some wonderful ones. It's different, but I want to take that fear away from guys and just be able to say, Okay, listen, man, you don't have to worry about this. This is Completely taken care of. We're going to let you go over here, do your thing, and then work through it and see if we can get you healthy enough to get back to work and then go go forth and conquer from there. If you want to open up your EAP through work and go through a therapist there, then now's the time to do that. That way just gives these guys a little bit more confidence going in that that what they're saying is is to really be with the therapist. They can focus on themselves and not worry about the potential of. you know, having to retire over something when they can actually work through it. I think that one of the things that I've had to tell my friends so many times is they'll go to therapy once and they'll think the therapist is weird or it's not the right fit. And I have to be like, hey, it's like it's like shopping for like somebody who's gonna deliver your baby, right? Like it's like you may not like one of them, but you may I mean y it's not a one size fits all. Like I know with my therapist, I don't like the like lovey dovey stuff. I want real and I want you to be like honest with me and I don't want like that doesn't do anything for me, you know. So somebody like reaffirming all this stuff for me, like I'm like, okay, what am I doing here? I can have a friend tell me nothing's wrong with me, but like that what am I paying for? You know, but so but there's some people that really need that. And there's some people that need you to be like very gentle and you know, so it's just finding that right fit for you that obviously some people don't know that either. I don't know why that's such an odd idea that ⁓ all therapists are, you know, just great and it should fit for you, but it really doesn't. I think it's like you have to figure out which style works best. And ⁓ yeah, I don't I don't know. I just think that that's important to say too. It's just like not every person is gonna vibe with every single therapist. And yeah, I don't know. I tell people it's kind of like shoes. ⁓ yeah, there you go. I mean, really. I mean so What I'm really fascinated about is like you obviously had a baseball career and then you went into did you go straight into law enforcement after? Yeah, I played ⁓ like straight into it. Yeah, I played division one baseball. I was good enough to probably play further, but not at a not at the you know, major league level, of course. And so for me it was an eye opening thing where I'm like, okay, all of my friends, I know you had Tyson on and love him Like he was drafted my senior year, another buddy of mine, Jason. I mean, these guys all signed million dollar deals out of college, right? And so I'm like, Man, these guys are all making money. I gotta figure out how I'm gonna make money in life. And I wasn't smart enough to do anything else but be a cop. And at the time it was like, Okay, it's great money, it's great benefits and I have an opportunity to do it right now, so I'm I'm gonna take that. And that's that's kind of what put me in that direction. I know. I joke all the time that I did not realize I could be friends with a cop, but you've changed my perspective a little bit. I'll keep working on that. It's ⁓ it's and that's kind of why I became a cop. Seriously, I mean it was I wasn't a big fan of cops ⁓ growing up. It was I grew up in a quasi small town, but in in the Bay Area, if that makes sense, like where it was, you know, everybody kinda knew a lot of people, like you You know, my car was very distinguishable when I was growing up and I had a sports car and you know, the highway patrol were definitely watching me all the time. ⁓ which I look back and I'm like, okay, it probably made sense. Like I was I was crazy. But it did developed a a a sense in me where I'm like, okay, if I'm gonna be a cop, I wanna be a different type of cop. I wanna be a cop that even the worst of the worst. I need to figure out how to be able to talk to these people. I need to be able to to connect with these people. And it's it's ⁓ there needs to be compassion and empathy in everything. I think that there's a fine line between a lot of that. Yes, people need to go to jail, people need to be punished for the things that they've done. However, they also need to be treated like humans. And so it's it's figuring out, you know, what that fine line and balance is and working. in the gray area, not just a black and white, like figure this out. Like there's only one way to do this. I think that that's why I had such a successful career and I was able to, I mean, believe it or not, a lot of people that ⁓ that I arrested and that I ended up working with later on as like informants and stuff like that. Like I had great relationships with them because they trusted me because I I truly cared about them. Like, hey, like you have this drug addiction, you can continue to make you know poor choices. Let me help you. and this is actually playing through probably stems from a lot of this because if I was gonna help people out with cases and stuff like that, one of the deals that I used to make with people was like, Hey, listen, I'll help you, but you have to go to this detox program. It was a very specific one. ⁓ I can't share what that is, but it it was out of state and they would have to sign up for it and go. get the help that they needed and then I would help facilitate a lot of that stuff for them because you know if if people don't truly want to change, they're not going to change. It's just and that's I saw that with my mom. I forced my mom into rehab. And while yeah it was great for a month, like she ultimately wasn't ready to make that decision. So you can't you can't force people to do anything. And what's really like you can't decide what's rock bottom for one person. Like my rock bottom is much different than this person's rock bottom. And unfortunately, most cases it's like you're gonna have to figure that out for yourself. Like what are what's gonna be that that point for you where you're like, ⁓ gosh, okay, I've gotta do something differently. But no, I completely agree. And like one of my I'm one of my favorite stories to tell as like a nurse was this guy. He was You know how I don't know who who does it, but when we have inmate like patients, you know, there's always gonna be a guard with them at all times. And we had this guy that he was a paraplegic. So it's not like he was going anywhere. They had him shackled in all four like restraints on the bed. And, you know, and I was like having to start an IV on him and I was like, come on. un you know, take these off. Like he he's not going anywhere. And I just went in and like shot the shit with the guy and it's like I don't know what he did. I don't know anything about him. I didn't want to know. But he I was like, good grief. Like he let him be comfortable. And he looked at me and he was like, Thank you so much. And I was like, for what? He was like, I just appreciate being treated like a human being. Like you're the first person that's treated me like a person and not just a total criminal. And You know, and that just made me so sad to think like I and truly I don't know what he did at all. And maybe he was a horrible person, but in that moment, I think everybody just deserves to feel like a human being. And so I respect cops that like have that same mindset of, you know, if you're good with me and you're you treat me with respect, I'll do the same. But I d I just think that too many people like stereotype somebody based on what they've done. And I'm like, I just think we've all made fucked up mistakes and God, I would hate for someone to judge me off of something I did once or something I did in, you know, a moment of stupidity or impulsivity. And it's like, ⁓ now all of a sudden you're a terrible person. It's like doesn't matter anything else you've done. But I think our our system also isn't really set up for rehabilitation and You know, I mean I could go on and on about that, but I've seen so many people that get out and it's like nobody will hire them because they're felons and then they can't pay their bills and they've got kids and they've got, you know, and so then they get with some dude because this guy says they're gonna take care of you know, it's just like a same pattern over and over again where I don't really feel like we're a society that rehabilitates people and you know, I don't I could go on and on, but do you feel like whenever I got a great, great perspective on that because we're actually gonna have the opportunity in a few months to go to San Quentin Prison, which is here in California. And it's if you look this place up, like it is it's a it's a it's a place. It's a prison. Like it is ⁓ some of the worst of the worst used to be housed there on Death Row. I actually live right down pretty close to Folsom prison. ⁓ so I've done some stuff in there as well. And San Quentin actually has a really cool rehabilitation program in between the walls there. ⁓ and they actually have a baseball team. They've partnered with the San Francisco Giants, and the guys obviously the guys have to earn it, which makes sense. Like you're there for a reason. But yeah, if you earn it and you show that you can be trusted and do these things, they have two baseball teams there that are pretty competitive. And so ⁓ we're gonna have the opportunity to go there and chat with these guys, play with. play some ball with these guys. And really my purpose of that visit is to really sit down with a handful of guys and kind of talk through what rehabilitation look like looks like. And again, I deal with mental health, not mental illness. In my opinion, those are two totally different things. Very different. ⁓ yeah. And so for me it's like, okay, we're focusing on the mental health here. How's mental wellness in the prisons? Cause it's a it's a shitty place to be, you know, and anybody could end up there. And it's How are we helping these guys, like you say, you know, rehabilitate to the point where when they get out of custody, they have a chance? Because if we, if we're releasing people, which we should after they've served their time, then they should get the opportunity to to to be productive in society, right? If they choose to do that. If they don't choose to do that, then that's a problem. But, you know, I think that there's a lot of things that can be changed about our system as far as. You know, what kind of things are we offering in prison to people? And and I used to have a completely different outlook on this, trust me. Like I I was pro death penalty, like let's get rid of these, like this is ridiculous, you know. And I still on some things, to be honest, I still am, but some crimes are just heinous to where it's just ridiculous. But right the majority of people in prison aren't those people. And we need to have programs where people can get certificates and get, you know, trades under their belts so that they can get out and start. Screw working for somebody else because yeah, it's hard to get hired as a felon, but okay, give them the skills that they can start their own trade business and go out and be successful. Like I would much rather hire somebody that I know has gone through this shit and turned their life around and is really working hard to provide for themselves or their family than, you know, just an average corporation, right? Kind of falls under the small business thing of like, hey, I'd rather s support local, support small, but why not why don't we have something where we're supporting these guys? you know, with whatever it may be. It might not be something sexy. It might be plumbing, electrical construction, whatever, landscaping, like, but man, these guys need to be able to have a chance when they get out. And and that's that's something that I want to talk to them about of, you know, what are you doing right now to help prepare yourself for when you do get released? And then on the flip side of that, how are the guards dealing with these guys? How are they, you know, cause they have to balance, you know, Fights on the yard, people not complying with what they're doing with, you know, and and everything else, but then also treating the guy. So if one guy's acting like a shithead and the next guy that's selling with them is a complete, you know, trying just to do his time and get in and out of there, how do you balance the the conversations and the emotions that are dealt with that? Because that's gotta be, you know, dealing with people on the streets is one thing, but dealing with people that are incarcerated and living together is a whole nother thing. And so The mental wellness between the guard the staff and the inmates is is so complex to me. And I I I'm looking forward to kind of diving into that. Yeah. I that's I mean, that's super cool. And I think it's great what you do. And I mean, my dad used to make fun of me all the time and he'd be like, You're just such a bleeding heart, you know? And I said, It's not about any of that. It's just like left or right, no matter what you believe, it's like We're we're spending so much money to keep these people incarcerated, right? It's like, how do we get them to be productive members of society? Don't even get me spotted on how much money we spend. Yeah. It's like people that are in prison need to be people that can't be trusted out in society, not people that have addiction issues that can be productive members of society. I in my opinion, you know, if you're targeting children or doing something like that. Obviously that's different, but you know. Yeah. I just think that we're spending an enormous amount of time and allocating our resources in not an efficient way. And I think if we had a a treatment program where it's like, hey, you have to go work a nine to five and come here and learn the tools and, you know, do what you need to do to kind of transition into life instead of just You're gonna sit in this cell and we're the taxpayers are gonna pay for it. Like, what does that prove to anybody? You know? Like what what are we doing? Yeah. And that's another area where we wanna focus too is substance abuse is a big thing. And I think it leads to a lot of further issues where, you know, somebody's going through something. They don't j you don't just start, you know, smoking meth or smoking heroin or any of these other types of drugs. Like I had a partner who was shot. And basically died on the table like six times, had to have a bunch of blood transfusions, multiple follow-up surgeries, and not to his fault, got hooked on prescription meds and just kind of spiraled out of control. And, you know, I look at that situation and I'm like, okay, like I knew this guy before and after. and I see how easy this can happen. You know, we're so quick to force drugs on people these days. ⁓ whether they be prescriptions or whatever it is, and we become so dependent on those things that they end up spiraling us out of control. How do we fix that? ⁓ there's a really cool group called Soba Golf and he was an alcoholic for a bit. Now he helps alcoholics and and addicts use golf as like a therapy as well. We w we align on a lot of things, but they do it sober, you know, and they they have a community of people that are sober and They have like a Discord meeting and stuff. And it's it's so cool to watch. But it's like, how do we get how when we talk about prison and stuff like that? Like we need to come up with better ways of incarceration for addicts, right? Where it's like, no, you will be going to treatment. You will be getting this. When you're incarcerated, you're forced to do it. And again, hoping that throughout that time period, whatever that that treatment looks like, that they truly want to change for themselves. ⁓ but when you're talking about drug use and substance abuse, it's It's ⁓ it's a dependency on something other than yourself, and you gotta kick that. And so again, along those lines, where if we can use golf as a healthy outlet for people or whatever, we're not just a golf foundation. I just love golf and it it's helped me tremendously. So I'm biased towards it, but it can be anything. It can be fishing, it can be hiking, it could be working out, it could be reading books. Like I don't care what your new vice is, but you have to find something to take. you out of the other element. And I think what we're trying to do is help people be creative in finding what that is and using it to their advantage instead of falling back. We're all going to slip up, we're all going to do stupid shit, but we got to be able to pull ourselves out of it, recognize the behaviors and then go back to what we know is healthy. ⁓ and I think that when we talk about helping other people doing that, especially if we're talking about incarcerated people, then we've got to set the example there first. And come up with way if we're spending so much money on housing these people, we waste so much money on shit that doesn't work that it's time why aren't we finding new ways? Why aren't we getting creative with this? And it's because we're lazy and because a lot of the money that's used for that stuff doesn't even go towards it anyways. But again, that's a soapbox thing. But I've seen I've seen it happen personally and it's freaking frustrating. Yeah. I'm Yeah, we we we could probably have like a podcast series on this because we both are pretty passionate about it and just Yeah. Anyway, what I was gonna ask you is because this was a problem with me after I had my baby, I had horrible postpartum. And so the doctor immediately was just like, Okay, I'm gonna give you some Lexapro. And I was like, Okay, you know, and it wasn't like That was just it. It was just here's your Lex Pro. And it was it's a six month wait to get you into psychology. So we're just gonna give this to you. And, you know, you just come back in six weeks and tell us how you feel, you know. And so it was like then I felt like, okay, I'm okay. I felt like after, you know, four or five months I was good. And it was then I went to my doctor and I said, Hey, I feel better. And she's like, Yeah, that's because the medicine's working. And it's like, Well, do I just stay on this for fucking ever? Like, you know, what am I ever gonna get off this? Or is this just like who I am now? Like I just have to take this for the rest of my life. And she was like, Well, let's just see how you like, let's just see how you do. And then and then finally, I mean, and it's really dangerous, actually. I just like took myself off of it because I was like, I don't want to depend on this forever. Because after a certain amount of time, what people don't tell you about SSRIs is that. Yes, it helps with the depression or it helps with like, you know, you feeling just miserable. But then after a certain amount of time, like you just feel nothing. Like you don't feel sad. You don't feel happy. You don't, you just walk through life like just you're in this fog. And ⁓ you know, my my sister, she talks to me about it all the time. She's like, I don't know what to, I just don't feel anything. I'm like, well, that's not healthy. And she's like, Yeah, but I'm not like sad. Like, yeah, but You know, and so I don't think we talk enough either about these SSRIs that were prescribed and then it's like, You're just on ⁓ now, forever. Like they're safe, you know? And ⁓ I don't know if you have guys that deal with that or not, but I see it constantly. It's my personal life has been affected by that more than I'd like to admit. On my side of it, I thought it was really funny that the moment that my department was started looking at retiring me out. I had to speak to a psychologist. That was over the phone that I'm talking to somebody. And just based on a conversation, they prescribe me three SSRIs. And I'm like, well, I don't want to take meds. Like I want to do this healthy. I want change my diet. I want to change my lifestyle. I need to change a lot of things. And a lot of the stuff that I'm going through is because I keep getting into traumatic issues, right? I keep dealing with people that commit suicide. I keep dealing with death of kids. And you know, for me, a lot of it during the daytime I'm fine. I have a lot of flashbacks at night from whether they were officer involved shootings or, you know, I had a I had a six month old die in my arms ⁓ at a daycare one day. I've been run over by a car. I've been like all these things like if like in dealing with one of those things is is is pretty big at its in itself. But then you start dealing and compiling all these things that most people don't even go through. And to me, it's the norm, right? Like I go to work expecting these things to happen. ⁓ most people don't have to go to work expecting that, which is fine. Like, that's what I signed up to do. I I I accept that, I understand that, but now you're telling me I gotta take these pills. And I'm like, I don't know. I just need a a reset from this shit that I've been dealing with for the last 17 years. And and that's that's my perspective on it. Do some people need them? 100% they do. We gotta figure out how to how to tail the Tailor them off of those things. But on the flip side of that, you know, my wife and I lost the baby at birth and at like, you know, almost this was, you know, last year, and she was completely healthy, the cord wrapped around her neck five times. And so when we delivered her, we saw what the issue was. And and there's nothing we could do about that. But my wife has dealt with a lot of things because of that. And it's it's affected, you know, our relationship and things in in social things and everything else. And so I I I hear you on that side. And for me, this is another thing where like, okay, it's not just men. Like men are affected by what you went through as well, what she went through, because now our lives are turned upside down. Right. We deal with the the emotions and things totally differently. I deal with stuff by staying busy. She deals with stuff by getting in her feelings. And I don't understand that. I because that's not how I process. And that's not how you process. You might process completely differently. And so again, for our foundation, that's another thing that we we want to be able to come along and support is postpartum depression, postpartum anything that fits into that because it also affects the men in their lives. Because we need to be a a positive support system in that arena. ⁓ and we don't know how to do that. I I will fall on the sword all day long and admit it like it is that is the worst feeling. in the world to not be able to help your significant other in those times when that's all you want to do. I can do the dishes more, I can pick up laundry, I can clean the house more, but none of that is going to help you internally, right? And so I'm trying to find therapists that are, you know, specializing that area now that we're connecting with because, you know, that's a thing that, you know, most people don't know this when you start having kids. And I'm going on a tangent here, but I think it's important is that like One in four pregnancies end in either miscarriage or some type of ⁓ trauma. And it's not it's not one of those things where, you know, you're really expecting that. Everyone thinks that it's like, ⁓ okay, like babies just come and it happens, right? Like, no, we went to a hospital to give birth and left without a baby. Right. And now the only thing that I have is a memory of her and like I wear her ashes on my wrist, right? And it's like, okay, like there's something humbling about leaving a labor and delivery room with with nothing to show for it. And now you gotta bottle all these emotions up. And ⁓ it's like that's of all the things I've gone through, that's probably the hardest because it's affected more areas of my life than just one. But yeah, so when I know that again, that's a tangent, but from what you said, like the fix our societal fix on that is pills. And that's not the answer. You know, that's that's just That's one aspect, one tool, but we've got to offer more. We've got to, we've got to open up different different pathways through there. Does that make sense? And I think I think what's really important too is like because I'm a t I'm the type of person, like I know that I'm gonna avoid it. Like I'll keep myself really busy and I will just work and work and, you know, ⁓ kind of avoid it if I can and realizing like there is no way out of it but through it. So like For me, it's like you could work all day long, you could play golf as much as you want, but those things are still gonna haunt you if you don't work through it. It's great to have an outlet. And I love that. And I love what you're doing. But I think it's also important to say you can't distract yourself out of trauma. You can't just say, I'm gonna play golf every day. You can't say I'm gonna work every day. I'm not gonna start this new business. Yeah, those those things are are gonna help distract you, but like those. Trauma triggers are still gonna come up and those things are still gonna happen if you don't work through it. And they they might still happen even if you do work through it. But you can't you can't just distract yourself through life and hope that everything's magically just going to get better. And that is has been the hardest part for me because I felt like I couldn't I didn't want to ask for help because I felt like it was a weakness. And, you know, we joke all I joke all the time that I'm like a basically a guy, you know, but I I I process things a lot like a guy does and just like I'm gonna I don't wanna ask for help. I think that it's a weakness. I think that you know, blah blah but it's like, hey, I mean, the real flex is being like, Hey, I'm not good and I need to ask for help and I need to say, Hey, I'm like, because that's the hardest thing in the world to do is to say that you're not good. And I've been a took it like 30 some years. Yeah. I mean, you I mean But it took like 30 some years to realize that too. Of like, because I talk out of both sides of my mouth sometimes. I'll say mental health is super important. It is, right? Like a thousand percent. If you're not mentally there, everything else in your life is gonna fall apart. But then there's this other side of me where I had to, I was the boss over a lot of people. And in this younger generation, we have a lot of people that. are so sensitive that they can't take direction. I you know, I would say, Hey, you know, you're not doing this correctly or this is not effective. Like let's correct this. And, you know, just trying to give positive reinforcement or like coaching. And it would be my mental health can't take this and I can't, you know, it's like, what? You know, I mean, so at some point you're like, you have to be able to be like And I sometimes I think that we're so sensitive to where I'm afraid to say anything. Like that's what terrified me about having a podcast, is because I was afraid of God knows what I'm gonna say to offend somebody. And I'm sure this will offend somebody. And I think that we've gotten so susit like sensitive as a society where it's like everybody's afraid to say anything at all. And so sometimes I talk out of both sides of my mouth where I'm like, show some mental toughness here. And also like have some like mental health. Like mental health is important, but like good grief. Like you can't go through life whining and expecting everybody to just give in to you because you can't handle anything. Like, is that I don't know if that I I'm sure I will get so much hate for saying that, but that's really how I feel. On like I don't know how to differentiate that sometimes. Yeah, and I don't yeah. You gotta brush that off because that's not what we're unfortunately and fortunately, that's not what I'm here to deal with, to be honest. I don't have time for that. It that's that's complete nonsense in my opinion. I think that one of my favorite shows growing up, I won't mention it, but one of the my favorite sayings is like life's tough, get a helmet, dude. Like, you know, like you have to you have to be able to wear stuff. That's not that's not my focus. My focus isn't for the people that are weak minded, for the people that are soft, right? It's No, these are people that have gone through shit and need to figure out how to get through it or they're going through it right now. Like this is you have to be mentally tough to focus on your mental health, right? Like if you if you're not, then you're just gonna be a victim all the time. And there's no place for that. If if you have a victim mentality, nothing's ever gonna get better. You have to pull yourself up by the bootstrap sometimes. You have to be able to you have to be able to differentiate between being soft and being productive. And I think that in this today's generation is completely that's why I sold one of my businesses because I didn't want to deal with the younger generation and employing them. And but what we're trying to do is help people see, okay, hey, listen, no, no, no, no, no. If you need therapy, then you go get therapy. You go deal with the problem, the issue, and then you get out of it. You don't have to live in therapy. And any therapist that's trying to get you just keep coming doing sessions with them after you feel like you're pretty decent, like Okay, find a new therapist. ⁓ and most of the good therapists will tell you that. The the therapists that I have on our team are are fantastic. I would recommend them to anybody because they have the same mindset. They're not here to be like, ⁓ well, okay, tell me, you know, this soft approach, right? If you need the soft approach in the beginning, that's totally fine. But you need to get down to brass nuts and be like, hey, listen, this is what I need to work on. This is what I is going on. How do I get back to functionality. How can how can I get back to where I can do the things that I need to do? Trauma especially is never gonna go away. I'll never be able to forget cutting, you know, I shouldn't, I mean I'll get into it, whatever. My one of my best friends hung himself and I went out and found him, right? And one of the things that I'm sitting there doing is I'm like, well I can't cut him down because the coroner has to come do that. Being a cop helped, I'm like, okay, I can't cut him down. I can't do any of this stuff. And so what do I do? I call I call the cops. I'm like, hey, I found him. Like, we're out at this remote location. Like it's gonna take you guys a while to get to where we're at. I'll share my location. And he had a cooler, an ice chest sitting next to him. And so I cracked a beer open that he had and I just sat and hung out with him. Like those are those are crazy scenarios, but it's like you're never for gonna forget that, right? But how do you deal with and work through that? ⁓ how do you how do you get through? But I also think I also think first First responders, we have the most fucked up sense of humor. Like ⁓ I'm telling like you have the most morbid sense of humor ever and you have to because we see such horrific things that it's like if you don't laugh about it, you'll just go home crying every day. Yeah. So it's like that's totally ⁓ that's totally something I could see myself doing, just being like, Well, I mean, this guy definitely would want me to have a beer with him. So here we go. Like One people do not understand that. Yeah. I had a kid, ⁓ well, not a kid, he's almost 20 years old, 4th of July, you know, out there screwing around with fireworks. Kid blew his hand off right in front of me. And they came over and they're like, What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Like he's a star baseball player. I'm like, was a star baseball player. No that career, that career just sailed. So you're gonna have to find something else to get at. You know, and it's like, I got in trouble for saying that. Yeah. You know, I'm like, okay, still factual. ⁓ my gosh. I God, the amount of times I have been in trouble with HR sh I mean, really needs to be studied. Just that's that's another area that needs to be talked about, you know? That's that's something that you you can't get in trouble for that. Yeah. No, you get in I especially in the hospital, like this I had I was like so I was teaching these younger like I was actually I'm actually really good at my job. It's just I'm not like a super soft approach with like younger nurses, you know. And so this one nurse, she was newer, she just graduated and we had a code and she's like starts panicking and she's like, ⁓ my gosh, ⁓ my gosh, like I just ⁓ like and you know, freak and I was like, What the fuck is your problem? And she was like, I I I don't want to screw this up and I go, He's not going to get more dead. What do you what's your problem? And she was like, ⁓ my god. Like, and I was like, He's not gonna get more dead. You can't screw it up. And she like was like, as fucked up as that is, that actually really helped me. But you're probably gonna get in trouble for s for saying that. And I'm like, I mean, you know, so but there's people like that that just ⁓ you know, I'm the type of person that I was like HR's worst nightmare. But you know, it helps people too, to just be real sometimes and just be like, Hey, you know, I know this is a scary situation, but like let's laugh about it and You can't screw it up. Like there's literally nothing you can do wrong here. The guy's already dead. So might as well just do what you can't. And so it's not figure it out. You can you can figure it out. Yeah. And I mean, do you feel like everything that you've been through has made you more jaded and and that like you have less maybe imp. understanding or empathy, or do you feel like it's actually done the opposite and made you more empathetic towards people and been like, you know, peep you just really need to understand every individual story. Yeah. Like that's my question is do you do you feel more jaded or do you feel more empathetic? There's I have a two part answer for that. ⁓ when I was in the thick of it and going, the most jaded person there was, right? I had no empathy. I was very, like you said, to the point, especially in a traumatic situation where you're trying to you only have, you know, you know the golden hour, right? Like you have one hour for somebody to get them to a hospital, to get them to the help that they really need that's gonna help them. So for me, I was very process oriented, especially in a in a ⁓ life or death situation to where I would if somebody was not doing what they needed to do, I would tell them. ⁓ in a not so nice way. Like either get out of my way so we can do this or make yourself useful. ⁓ and on the flip side, even to the patients, right? To people that are freaking out that are shot or whatever, whatever they're going through, like, calm the fuck down. Like, let me help you. Like I can't help you if you're acting like this. Like this is this is crazy. When I get out of that career now and I have some time to kind of do whatever, I'm raising my three year old, right? I'm a I'm a stay-at-home dad to my three year old. And I spent all my time with her. And that girl has changed me for the better in so many ways because now I see, like, okay, you have to be patient. You have to walk through stuff with people. You have to be more empathetic. You have to do all these things. And it's changed me so much where now I'm like crying during Hallmark movies. I hate to admit that, but that's just the way it is. And it's like, okay, like. I can kind of help balance out the scenarios that I need to balance out because with my first two kids, I missed a lot of their childhood because of work. And now I'm not having to do that. And I'm getting to see a different side of life that's way more valuable. And I want that for more people. I want that for my first responders. Cause like we talked about earlier, like if our guys are going to work stressed out and going through stuff, especially in their personal life, they're going to take it out on the people that they're dealing with. you know, out in out in the field. And so, and no different than nurses or doctors, right? Like you're you're gonna give better care if you're taking better care in your personal life. And so it's it's finding that balance, finding that empathy. We want to get into police departments, fire departments, different professions and be able to talk to people and help create mental ⁓ mental health trainings to where it's like, hey, listen, like mental health trainings suck. They're boring. They're focused on at least the stuff that I've been through. It's just, it sucks. It really sucks. But when you bring in professional athletes to a police department to talk about mental health, they're gonna talk, they're gonna listen a little bit more. Yeah, you know, I I I I that's why I use these athletes so much is because it helps other people connect and be able to be like, ⁓ okay, these guys go through a lot of shit. Like this is this is tough. I if they go through this too, I can go through this as well. And finding ways to escape and and have mental resets is is huge. So Well, and I mean, and this is like a really controversial thing that I believe, but it's very true because I've seen the pros and cons of it in my life is I don't believe that you should put your kids first. I don't. I think that when you do and you think that you're doing all these things to put your kids first, then it chips away at you a little bit more and more and more every day. And I think that when you are a fulfilled whole person and you're doing things that make you happy, it is so much better for them to have a parent that is happy with them four hours a day than a parent that's with them all day long that's screaming or unhappy or not fulfilled in their life and not setting an example for these kids and you know I I mean I tried to be a stay at home mom and I was so depressed because it was like I felt like my purpose was bigger and I felt like that just wasn't where I found joy and I felt like a shitty mom because I I didn't want to stay home. And a lot of people like guilted me and were like, Hey, ⁓ don't you feel bad missing out on so much of his life? And I was like, No, I don't Because I come home and I'm happy. And I think when when you're a happy person, you have happy kids. And there are people that tell me all the time, like, you're supposed to put your kids first. And I'm like, No, you you put yourself first because when you're happy, your kids will inherently be happy. I think and I think more people need to hear that. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I've heard recently is we're not raising kids. We're raising men and women. And we need to we need to look at it more that way than we do, you know, coddling these kids and doing you know, it's it's so it's so hard to find that balance, especially when society's telling you one thing and and you're trying to do something different. It's it's crazy like watching some of these parents. Like I was at a little league game last night and it's like watching, you know, parents go through stuff and There's a restraining order issue between two parents last night at a game. Like, why are we letting that affect the game? Like, grow up, be an adult, get through stuff. And let's let's set a good example here of like how to go through life, like not being a shithead, but good luck. But yeah, I think that if we keep the focus of we're raising men and women, then they need to have the example of what to do, like how to live, how to how that looks like. ⁓ healthy relationships, healthy. ⁓ habits, healthy everything, right? And and we're again, we're gonna mess up, we're gonna yell at our kids. Like sometimes they need that. They need to know that what they're doing isn't acceptable, but we also gotta be instilling those habits into them. And and I think that, you know, what better way than to start with yourself than anybody else? 'Cause if you're not healthy, they're not gonna be healthy. A lot of stuff gets passed on generationally. So Yeah. And same thing for like a relationship. It was I mean Do you really want your kids people especially in the Midwest? Okay. It's like a you you know, marriage is forever. And I believe that in a perfect world, marriage would be till death and and that's great. But sometimes people change and t you create toxic environments for kids. And it's like is it really best for them to see that and to think that that is what a a marriage looks like and then that's what they have growing up? Or do we say, Hey, mom and dad are better as friends and we're happier and hopefully you find somebody that makes you happy that you can set that example for them. I mean It's the there's you gotta find the fine balance, right? It's like you gotta figure out what's gonna work best for you, deal with it in that I think life comes at you in seasons too, right? Like you gotta deal with the season that you're in and fight through it. You can't just get through it, you gotta fight through it. And and you you assess those seasons as they come and it's it's ⁓ I mean I've been going through so many different seasons these last few years. It's like it's crazy. Like it's my life is literally a roller coaster of emotions and events and everything else. And it's like, you know, you just you gotta we talked about earlier, like this this generation now is so weak they won't fight through anything. And we've gotta set the example of like, okay, like where where are we gonna draw the line? Where are we gonna step up and do the things that we need to do and fight for what it is that we think is right? Are we gonna fight for relationship are we gonna fight for a job are we gonna fight for our kids are we gonna fight for whatever political issue we're we're for or against like what is what is it that you're willing to fight for and I don't think people are willing to fight for anything anymore these days. I think that's the that's the crazy thing. Wait, so are you a stay at home dad now or like I mean obviously you're doing a lot with your playing through foundation and your podcasts and you know you're busy but is that like your main your main thing? Right now it is, yeah. I think as the foundation's growing and we're starting to we're now able to accept donations, like we're trying to make this a full time thing. I've been super fortunate in having some sponsors like TrueLinksware and some other people that ⁓ are helping us grow and connect with other people nationwide. And so yeah, the the goal is to to make this a full time gig and travel a little bit, but mainly figure out how we can kind of grow the organization nationally and bring on some more people to help us out and and yeah, that and golf. I mean there's some amazing golf courses all around the nation that I want to play. I mean, honestly, it's probably a great thing that you came on and you could talk about it because you're you're there's probably so many wives that are like, okay, golf therapy, like give me a fucking break. Yeah, you know, but I do think There is something to be said for having something that is yours completely. Like I don't think it's healthy in a relationship to do everything together. That weirds me out, couples that do that, where it's like you have nothing on your own. Like, you know. And so I think that it is really healthy to have your time alone, whether it's like time with your girls or like go off with the guys for a few hours and, you know, ⁓ go play golf for a little bit. But, you know, I think that sometimes wives get a little salty about it. Because it's like it's the most inconvenient times or, you know, whatever it may be. So it's probably a good thing that you come on and you're like, hey, we're not just going out there and like drinking the whole time. We're actually like doing things to like level us out and, you know, talk about things that we need to talk about. It's yeah, that's that's ⁓ that is definitely an issue. That issue will never go away, I'm sure. But at the end of the day, I think that you have to Again, like we talked about, you to focus on yourself too. In order to be the best person for everybody else, you have to be the best person for you. And what I have found is that when I'm golfing, I'm showing up a lot more. ⁓ when there's grace in letting me go out and and spend some time like I'm currently you know, as of yesterday, I'm in a four day golf tournament here at our club, which is a member guest, which is fun and everything else, and but it's very time consuming. ⁓ and then next week I leave for Myrtle Beach for four days. And so yeah, it's that doesn't make ⁓ you know, child care or anything else easier for sure. However, there's a lot of positivity that's coming out of that. I'm going to Myrtle Beach for the foundation to accept a ten thousand dollar check. Right. And so for me, that's a big deal. And I'm a big networker, I'm a big social person. ⁓ I love to be sociable. ⁓ I love to to talk with people in person. And if somebody's willing to give me a check for ten thousand dollars, I would much rather accept that face to face and be able to shake their hand and say thank you than just have them wire it to our account and not know anything. I want to build relationships with people so that they when you're dealing with people's health and stuff like that, like there needs to be trust. There needs to be ⁓ relationship there. What how whatever that relationship looks like, but there needs to be a connection that that if I'm giving you money. I want to know that it's going to where it's going. ⁓ full transparency. I want to bring people in. I want to have that experience with them. So me being on a golf course with somebody for four hours gives me the opportunity to share my vision, share my story, and share our mission as far as what we're trying to do. That way, when somebody leaves after a conversation with me, they they have a better understanding of what they're giving to. And that that means a lot to me. And so But even if it's just a random round with some friends, like to me there's nothing better than being out there with four of my closest friends talking and hanging out, you know, and connecting. I think one of the things wives will ask is like, Okay, well you played with you played with Joey for four hours today. Like, how is his wife doing? How are the kids? And I'm like, ⁓ Joey's doing good. You know, like that's but now it's like challenging ourselves we didn't talk about Yeah, but but now we do, right? It's like, okay, well, hey, how are you guys? How are the kids? How's job? How's work? How's you know, whatever? Those are the things that we're trying to help guys focus on in the conversations on the course. And it's not just going out and playing and being silent, but going out and having good conversations and and allowing those things to open up and and kinda happen. I think you need to let a girl come in and just like disrupt it a little bit. Just let me come in and shake shit up a little bit. Just allow me to come to one of these retreats and I I promise you they will have the time of their lives. Well, not only that, it's like a lot of the therapists, we have a lot of female therapists too, right? And it's like they reach guys a lot differently, especially the ones that are able to say, Hey, listen, like like you were saying, like my f the one of the best therapists I ever had called me out on a lot of stuff. Like, hey, you're being soft about this, you're being too hard on yourself about this or whatever, or you just gotta let that go. And that's what connected with me. I was, you know, I'm like, okay, like this lady's not gonna let me lie to her or not talk about something in particular. She's gonna get down to the to the issues. And I think women have the ability to pull that out of men a little bit more. And it's it's scary and especially if they're hot. Right. It's it's different, right? It's like it's like, okay, like like okay, like I'm listening, like what do you have to say to me? And it's it's so It's so different. But I think like going back to your your statement, like it's let the guys golf. Like let them get out, let them enjoy something. But we should also be doing the same for for you guys, right? Like do whatever you need to do to get to get in that healthy place too. Like go on a trip, go whatever. Like men, step up and watch your kids. Like they're yours too. You're not babysitting your kids. You're being a parent. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like let your wives go to Air Mes. Okay. Like that is what they need. Get her that Louie bag. Yeah, exactly. You need to ⁓ you know, have a little bit of grace there, please. I mean, no, I think so. This is like hilarious because I've got the funniest story about that actually. About women have like a different way of bringing things out of men. And it doesn't even have to be like, ⁓ a sexual thing at all. Like there was this guy, he was at the bar and I was you know, at a conference with some of my friends and this guy was at the bar and I was just talking to him and shooting the shit with him. And ⁓ you know, we got to talking for like forty-five minutes and then he opened up to me about like the struggles in his marriage and how he wasn't happy and all these th and I was like, ⁓ yeah, like you just I think you just need to get out of that because that sounds horrible at talk like and so then, you know, I was just laugh and then I go back to my friends and they were like, What in the actual fuck Did you talk to him about for so long? And I was like, ⁓ just, you know, life stuff. And they were like, that dude is like a multi, multi-billionaire. Like he is majorly connected. And I was like, ⁓ my God, I just told him to get a divorce, you know? Like it was, you know, just so funny because they were like, I cannot believe you talked to him for that long. Like I wouldn't even approach him, you know, or it's funny things like that where you just don't know who it is. But like these people like just need somebody to talk to that. You know, and I think women can sometimes get that out of men more when you're like, ⁓ yeah, no, that's like horrible. That's really toxic. Like you need to get out of that. And ⁓ you know, and they're like, I cannot believe you did that. ⁓ but but anyway, just funny story about it. But I think that, you know, I just really, really love what you're doing and I really ⁓ think it's an incredible mission and I hope we can support you however we can. And it sounds like You know, you have some pretty amazing prizes and a pretty pretty cool things to promote your cause. So ⁓ we'll just have our listeners stay tuned and hopefully we can, you know, get you some support that you need. So really appreciate you coming on. I appreciate what you're doing and not just for us, like, you know, it's I see what you're doing. You and I have talked about what you're doing and the value that's there for you're serving other people first, right? And that's what I love doing too. Like for playing through, like we want to be a network that doesn't need the credit for anything. We just want to see people get the help that they need. ⁓ and there's a lot of worthy organizations out there that people can give to. I want to see people give in their money go directly to the cause that they want to support. And I think what you guys are doing is giving us in in in organizations like ours, the ability to kind of share on a platform, which is one productive in itself, ⁓ but two, to be able to kind of maybe even come alongside other nonprofits, right? To be able to work together because we all have a similar mission in some some way, shape, or form. like going back to Tyson with Loyal to My Soil, like I support them yearly, right? It's like I see what he's doing. If I can go help him at a camp, I do. I send people to the camps because it's so important. And it's the awareness that people need of these types of organizations is is so lacking. And so what you're doing is so important. And I'm I'm grateful that you reached out and asked us ⁓ to share our story. But I hope that more people come on here. whether it brings in a dollar or whether it brings in a hundred thousand dollars, it doesn't matter. It's it's getting the word out and and sharing and the advocacy about the programs that we're trying to to instill like it that's that takes a lot of guts and it takes a lot of hard work and I know that behind the scenes you're going through it and like you gotta you're fighting to like just put this thing together but the charts don't lie just just for the record. Like you're you're doing it. I appreciate you. I appreciate you so much and I will continue to wait patiently for my golf invite. Yes, we will make that happen. It's a that's a that's a done deal. You will make it happen. Deal. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And I'm sure you're golfing any minute. So I will let you go. And ⁓ you know, I can't wait for the fans to see what you what you're bringing to the table for your fundraiser. Let's do it. Let's build something together. Let's ⁓ let's blow this out of the water. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Matt. Thank you. I appreciate ya. And that's the giving game. If today's episode hits close to home for you, the donation link for this afflict charity will be in the description below. And if you can't donate right now, hey, that's okay too. Just do something kind for somebody today. The world needs more of that. See you next time!