What's your framework on this thing that we call mental health? I'm not asking you to solve the mental health crisis in one swoop, but when you think about your own mental health, the people close to you, people you've worked with in the teams, how do you approach mental health as a concept and as an actionable thing?

I've lived so many different stages of my life, high points and low points and everything in between. At my lowest point, I had no physical connection. I was either down hard with an injury, coming back from surgery, and then my mental health rapid decline right after that. For someone who never suffered from mental health issues, it's shocking and you feel like you're the only person going through it, especially when you come from a subculture of special operations.

Nobody ever talks about it. So when you find yourself in that dark room alone, really contemplating some terrible things, it's hard to wrap your head around because you're the only person that's ever gone through it. I had some really good strength coaches and coming back from injuries and the better I got physically, my mental health naturally just started to pull out of it.

But everything we did was for the group. My physical attributes, everything I'm training is for the betterment of the group. Now it's betterment of my family, of my tribe, of whatever I have. You know, I talk about this thing, stacking up micro winds. My morning routine is structured in a way to where I can do that same routine everywhere I go.

Everywhere. At any point of day, I can lock that thing in. But it all starts with an evening routine. So when my phone goes off at 5 a.m. and I spring feet out of bed, I know exactly what I'm going to do for the next 12 minutes to put myself in position to not be stressed.

So I've got to power down my home life and I've just got to think about what's coming next. So laying out the clothes night before, my bottle of water is filled, my pills are out, my toothbrush is out, everything is set. So as soon as I get up, by the time I get to making my morning cup of coffee, I've done 25 things inside of my control.

Do you know off the top of your head what those things are right now that maybe you could just list them off? You said your alarm clock goes off 5 a.m. And that's regardless of when you went to sleep? Regardless of when I went to sleep, typically. I mean, if I'm out here, I'm on a different time zone and I can change it.

But if you get to bed at midnight or you get to bed at 9 p.m. or you get to bed at 2 a.m., alarm goes off at 5 a.m., you're up. My wife gave me this the other day. I came home on a red eye. I didn't walk through the door until 2.30 in the morning.

And alarm clock goes off at 5 and she rolls over and she's like, what are you doing? I'm going to work. And she's like, you can take a day off. I'm like, no, I'm not taking a day off. This last five days is the first time in as long as I can, 20 years, that I've actually taken five days of not working out when I had the physical ability to do it.

I've never taken five days off because I'm so afraid my mental health will drop. Something will happen if I leave that routine. So I wake up, unplug my phone, shut off the alarm. I walk in, toothpaste on toothbrush. I go to the bathroom while I'm brushing my teeth, spit it out, all the pills I got to take in the morning, you know, vitamin D, all the stuff I take.

And then I get dressed. Left sock, right sock, right shoe. Everything I do, I do it in a very specific order. Even the way I put on my bracelets. If I put them on in the wrong order, I'll stop and I'll de-jock them all and I'll redawn them. Just because that's one simple thing.

I'm not rushed, I'm not under duress, I'm in control of this entire timeline and that way when I get to the kitchen, I don't feel like I'm frantically wearing my keys, where's my wallet, where's my bag. Everything's in a system right now to where I can step in that car, I'm not stuck behind a school bus, my car has gas in it, my phone's at 100%, because we've all been there.

Everybody's a normal person. I wake up, my wife wants to have a 15-minute conversation, that puts me behind that school bus that I'm typically not behind. Now I'm late for my first meeting, I've got to rush through my workout, I don't have time to take a shower, all that is going to cascade and it's going to put me to be the person I don't want to be when I have to walk into that first meeting.

It's like I'm trying to optimize everything that's within my control so when I step through the threshold, this is a DJ that I'm purposely presenting to you right now under my control. And that really sets the entire framework for the whole day of being in a good headspace. I'm controlling the things that are controllable and the things that I can't control, I don't think about them anymore.

I block them out. I love the regimen and your adherence to it. I'm curious about your mindset when the alarm goes off, meaning where is your head? I guess I know you're human and I understand enough about the brain to make an assumption, which is that you don't wake up every morning with the alarm going off at five thinking, great, I'm going to get up and just roll right into the day that there may be times when you consider, you know, going into fetal position, you know, it's warm under those covers, but also that your mind, like anyone else's probably start spinning, leaps to the past, leaps to the, you know, a little more stress than you'd like, a little, a little, a little more lethargy, this kind of thing, do you purposely stack up to-dos so that you stay out of all of that?

And if some of that persists as you're brushing your teeth, what's, what's the way of dealing with that? I just keep pushing. I just keep myself in motion the entire time. And I talk about dials, not switches a lot with people and it sounds selfish, but I have to be selfish right now in order to be selfless later.

So I tell guys, you know, as soon as that alarm clock goes off, I'm not thinking about my wife. I'm not thinking about my kids. I'm thinking about being as efficient as humanly possible. And I'm trying to hit that gym. So I unrack at zero seven, the best version of me.

And I can't do it. If I'm thinking about a fight or an argument we have with the wife the night before the kids and this and that, I have to be selfish right now because it's the only block I'm going to have for me to optimize myself. Cause at 10 AM, I'm going to get pulled from 50 different directions.

It's the exact same thing when I go home. So now between the hours of 10 AM and 6 PM, I'm only thinking about work. I don't think about my wife. Don't think about my kids. I only think about the team and everything we're trying to do at six. You can watch and I tell everybody, if you would put a hidden camera in my car, it'd break the internet.

I do it every day. I slam that car in the park. I put my phone on do not disturb. I check social. I check all my texts. I'm good. There's no phone calls. And I've got a 12 minute drive from door to door. Those 12 minutes I put on Chris Stapleton, something that makes me feel good.

That calms me down and I pre-rehearse everything that's going to happen. The moment I hit that garage door opener. Really? I do it every single day. I realize it's personal, but to the extent that you're willing, maybe share a couple of the, what you're rehearsing. I pull onto the driveway.

I slam it back in park. I check my phone one more time. And I tell myself, you're only going to have three hours from six to nine to be the person they need you to be. You got to be a full-time dad right now. You can be a full-time husband.

And I don't get it right every time. Some days I drag that stuff home with me, two-hand texting frantically, but I really try not to. And before I hit that garage door, I tell myself, like, they don't know what's going on. They don't know the stress you're out at work.

She's had her own day. They've had their own day. I've got a daughter in seventh grade. I've got another one, second grade. Like, you know, we've got to work through this whole thing together. And it's like, what version of me do I want to present to them right now?

I'm going to walk in, bags over my right shoulder. I'm going to clear the threshold and make an immediate 90-degree turn. And there's going to be that seven-year-old. And she's a huge ball of energy. She gets all shaking. She runs at me at full blast. And I pick her up, shake her, kiss her, like 100% love.

Take an immediate right in the kitchen. There's my oldest, usually eating something before homework's about to start. Give her a kiss. Give her a hug. Ask her how her day was. Straight to the room to see my wife. Because she's got a, she gets like a 30-minute buffer before she has to go upstairs and lock in with seventh grade homework.

Check her. What do you need? If you can fold the towels, if you can start dinner, done. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So my last interaction in the morning was positive. I left on a positive note. The first interaction you're getting at the end of the day is in a positive note.

And regardless of how I'm feeling, if I have to fake it, I'll fake it. I got three hours. And if you space out of the course of the five days, I don't have a lot of time to make positive memories. Just because of work and stress and everything else, I'm trying to maximize those three hours.

And then when I do, it feels like you can do no wrong. But every night after we finish dinner, me and my wife do a 20-minute walk. 10 minutes for her. So as soon as we start it, tell me about your day. Everything she wants to vent through, everything we get to get caught up on, we get the halfway mark right around this park.

And then it's my turn for 10 minutes. Average human can walk a mile in 20 minutes. Helps circadian rhythm. Helps digestion. I mean, mental clarity. I'm not on my phone. There's no stimulus. I mean, I'm watching the sunset. But now it's 20 minutes just for us to reconnect, and we do it every single day, unless it's a torrential downpour.

We're doing it every single night. And our marriage has never been better. My physical health has never been better. And then my time with my kids, I can be accountable for every single minute in my day. Did I maximize that opportunity? No. Why? Because I drug that dude home with me from 2.30 in the afternoon.

I drug him all the way home till 6. That's not who they need. They don't need a commando. They don't need a business owner. They don't need an entrepreneur. They need a dude that's going to have a tea party right now, or a guy that's going to talk about how difficult navigating seventh grade is.

Like, she really needs a husband that's going to be fully present, because I haven't been for the majority of our marriage. I've been gone 300 days out of the year. She really just needs a buddy who's going to help parent. And if I'm not mentally there, I'm never going to get there.

So I set conditions to where I can be the person I need to be, no matter what threshold I'm walking through. And it's been hugely beneficial for me. Thank you. Thank you. . you