Trudeau Funded BJJ Retreat For Veterans

Dave Morrow [00:00:00]:
Hey there, Hard to Kill listeners. Today’s episode is brought to you by Natesto. Did you know that only 5% of men get treated for low testosterone? Low testosterone is a serious health concern as rarely discussed, especially in the veteran community. Toxic exposure, mild traumatic brain injuries, and terrible sleep habits can all contribute to a rock bottom total t score. I wanna help improve the health and fitness of the veteran community, and that’s why I’ve partnered with Natesto. Talk to your doctor today and see if Natesto is the right solution for you. What’s up, killers? It’s our Thursday live, and we got a special guest today. We’ve got Dave Zoboda, and he’s gonna be talking about his amazing program that helps veterans dial in their BJJ and get a little bit more mental clarity.

Dave Morrow [00:00:41]:
But before we get into that, while Dave is here, patiently waiting, Dave, I’m just gonna put you in the waiting room while I do my share and show moment. Hope that’s alright. There we go. Folks, I got one thing to show with you today before we get into today’s presentation because I wanna give them as much time as possible. Super excited to, share with you the fact that hold on a sec here. Let’s get right to it. I’m gonna share my harden up book here on, oh, Amazon. It’s up.

Dave Morrow [00:01:15]:
You guys can go get your copy of harden the f up. This is 19 chapters from the best conversations we’ve had on the Hard to Kill podcast. You’ve also got, link, and Dave is actually mentioned in this book, believe it or not. Dave, I didn’t know I don’t know if you know that, but, there’s a part on BJJ with doctor Gino Kalura talking about how important BJJ is for the veteran population. He actually wrote a paper on it. That’s doctor Gino who, the interview was with. And this ties in perfectly well. Dave, actually, we did a conversation with me on the podcast as well.

Dave Morrow [00:01:52]:
Unfortunately, he only, he didn’t make round 1 of the book, but he’ll likely make round 2. He didn’t make the final cut for round 1. But that being said, we’re gonna be chatting about BJJ today. But if you wanna get your hands on the book, you’re gonna have to head to Amazon. I’m gonna put the link here as well. The link should be in the description already. It’s day 1, so if you guys woah. Can’t generate the link.

Dave Morrow [00:02:16]:
Okay. Well, there’s a little bit of a hiccup here. Of course. There we go. I’m gonna put this in the comments. If you guys wanna pick it up, that would be amazing. And on top of that, if you leave a review, it goes a long way for, getting the algorithm as you know to make this book top of the charts in its respective category. So link is there in the comments.

Dave Morrow [00:02:43]:
The audiobook is coming out shortly, so if you guys wanna wait out for that, by all means, do so. But the Kindle version is there and the paperback version. Get your copy today on Amazon. Share widely with your friends and make sure to harden the f up this year. So let’s, let’s add Dave to the conversation here, and, let’s have a little chat. So let’s get your slides up here. Dave, welcome to the live show. Now that we’re done shilling, you guys have a really, have a really interesting program.

Dave Morrow [00:03:20]:
We chatted about it on the podcast, but I wanted you to share some really interesting insights that are specific to Canadian veterans and give us some, some information on what your program is all about, what you’re doing, and how you’re going to be, helping the veteran community here in Canada. But just overall, get a bit harder to kill and a bit more dialed in with their, their mental health.

Dave Zwoboda [00:03:44]:
Right, Almond. And, yeah, you’re you’re gonna have to you’re making me have to buy your book now that you mentioned that I’m in there. I didn’t even know that it was

Dave Morrow [00:03:50]:
right there. You’re becoming yeah. Your your link is in the book to go to your program, to go to your website. It’s awesome. So yeah.

Dave Zwoboda [00:03:57]:
That’s awesome. Well, we can talk about a few different things. I mean, I’ve got this topic of the presentation that we like to give at this time of year because, honestly, the holidays are a shitty time of year for a lot of people. And I think especially veterans can struggle right now just if you have mental health issues to begin with. And now there’s all this kind of stress and pressure, like, you’re supposed to be happy or you’re supposed to be surrounded by loved ones. And if you’re not feeling that, it almost just makes you feel worse. So, specifically, that’s why right now I kinda wanted to share these five strategies that we’ve helped hundreds of people implement inside of our microdosing program and just kinda give this information out just to help people keep their head above water this time of year. But I know you talked about our jiu jitsu retreat and, yes, Trudeau might fund your jiu jitsu retreat for free here in Mexico, through the education and training benefit.

Dave Zwoboda [00:04:43]:
But that’s a a little bit separate from our our coaching program, but we do run some jiu jitsu and healing retreats for civilians and then a separate one specifically for veterans and for first responders. That’s going down in March of 2025, and I think we still have something like 8 spots open. And, yes, a 100% Canadian veterans have had it, successfully funded depending on, you know, if you qualify for certain benefits stuff like that yada yada yada. I can actually help you navigate that whole process. So if you’re only here because you’re interested in the jiu jitsu retreats, we’re gonna not really talk specifically about jiu jitsu during this whole presentation that I’ve got. But if that’s you, just pull up my Instagram right now. It’s at it’s right there in my name atbecoming.ohm and shoot me a message that says like bjj, like don’t overthink it. If you shoot me a message, I’ll know that you came from here and I’ll hook you up with all the info that you need to know to apply for that retreat and see if we can get it funded for you.

Dave Zwoboda [00:05:39]:
So with that said, Dave, where do you wanna go from here? Should we, should we linger on the jujitsu retreat topic? Should we get into this presentation? What do you wanna talk about?

Dave Morrow [00:05:48]:
Yeah. Actually, let’s get let’s get right into your, into your presentation here and then, we can then segue into BJJ.

Dave Zwoboda [00:05:58]:
Right on, man. So I’ll preface this by saying as, Dave and I were talking about backstage, as I’m flipping through the slides, I’m not actually able to see the chat or the comments. So I’ll, I’ll kind of periodically look back at this and see what you guys are saying. But as I jump into it, I am super curious to hear from you guys. Number 1, I’m gonna talk a little bit about plant medicine, a little bit about cannabis because that’s actually what we specialize in is helping people overcome their PTSD through the use of plant medicine. And I know that the Canadian government seems to just throw cannabis at its veterans. Like, we’ve worked with people who are prescribed, like, 10 grams of weed a day, which is ridiculous. So if you have experience with cannabis already, just drop, like, the word yes in the comments or in the chat and that’ll just kinda help me figure out what’s what here.

Dave Zwoboda [00:06:45]:
And then also if there’s something specific going on that you’re struggling with right now, like, if you are really stressing about the holidays, if you’re really stressing about finances this time of year, if you’re struggling because maybe you lost a buddy 2 Christmases ago and now that’s always on your mind, let me know what’s up with that as well because maybe there’s some things I can kinda tailor specifically for that. But my goal here is to share these 5 strategies that we’ve shared with 100 of people over the last couple of years that have really made a difference in their lives. And again before we even hop into that, if you want to pull up my Instagram right there, DM me that word holidays and I’ve got a bunch of free shit that I can send your way. Actually some of it specifically with cannabis if that’s your thing. But my goal here, I highlight this little screenshot from this dude Brian Wilson. I don’t normally share names of everyone in our program, but this dude is a an American Air Force veteran And here he’s talking about how it was just Veterans Day in America remembrance day for all of you guys. And I know there can be a lot of kinda complicated emotions, complicated feelings regarding that time of year for people who feel a little bit conflicted about their service. And for him, he felt like this year was the first time that he didn’t have the sense of sadness or regret or all of those other kind of negative emotions because of everything I’m about to share with you guys.

Dave Zwoboda [00:08:00]:
And what’s gonna make this maybe a little bit different from shit that you’ve seen before mental health wise, well, for one thing, I don’t work for VAC. So I’m not just giving you the same exact information you’ve probably heard a 1000 times before. I’m not a clinical psychiatrist or psychologist. I’m not licensed. So that means that I get to swear and do things and kinda color outside the lines that an actual therapist wouldn’t really get to do. We pull on things like popular psychology, but I’m not just gonna hit you with bro science and tell you to do an ice bath because my wife and I have actually apprenticed with indigenous shamans down in Peru for the last 5 years serving Ayahuasca. And a lot of our approach to working with plant medicine actually comes from that and it’s blended with things like western psychology. So I think that our perspectives are are kinda unique.

Dave Zwoboda [00:08:44]:
That said, I’m probably not gonna share anything too earth shattering, but maybe this is just a reminder to get back to some fundamentals for you. And just super brief context about me. I know Dave mentioned a couple things, but this is me. This is my wife, Courtney. She’s downstairs taking care of our our 1 year old daughter right now. But my background is actually as a doctor of physical therapy and turns out I care more about helping you overcome your anxiety and your PTSD than I care about helping you fix your shoulder or your ACL tear. And my wife is actually a yoga instructor and a certified plant medicine therapist. So she’s kinda got some credentials to her name in that sense.

Dave Zwoboda [00:09:17]:
We live in Mexico with our daughter whose face we don’t put on social media. And And over the last few years, we’ve helped over a 150 people completely transform their lives, completely transform their mental health across our coaching program, across our Ayahuasca retreats, and of course, across our jujitsu and healing retreats down here in Mexico, which this is a photo from one of those retreats. And we focus a lot on helping veterans and other trauma survivors. And by the way, when I say trauma, we inside of our program, we feel like trauma is trauma is trauma. Whether you didn’t get hugged enough as a kid or whether you stepped on an IED in a hillside in Afghanistan, like, the worst thing that’s happened to you is still the worst thing that’s happened to you. So kind of everyone qualifies if you will. But what we do in the coaching program is we help people dramatically improve their mental health in the span of literally just 90 days kind of regardless of how many other things they’ve tried and failed or have been let down by in the past. And again, this dude Brian, he’s literally the inspiration behind this entire talk which we now do every year at the holidays.

Dave Zwoboda [00:10:18]:
This is a screenshot from last year talking about Thanksgiving. It’s American Thanksgiving today. Actually, I know you Canadians already celebrated a couple weeks ago, but he’s talking about how because of the microdosing and because of everything I’m about to share, again, it was a completely different experience for him where he wasn’t just a fucking anxious wreck getting shit faced to make it through Thanksgiving dinner with his family. So let’s dive into these strategies. My goal here is to keep this super kind of like hard hitting focused takeaway. So I’m gonna do my best not to ramble. Might go a little bit over the normal length of time here because I wanna hit some questions at the end. So if you got questions, just drop them in the chat so we don’t forget.

Dave Zwoboda [00:10:55]:
And as always, you can send me a message on Instagram. We can connect there too if you don’t have enough time to stick around for the whole thing. But strategy number 1, this is probably the most important place to get started and that’s why it’s strategy number 1, It’s to understand the power of intention and intention setting. So when I talk about intention, the whole idea is to live your life on purpose, to live your life because this is what you want to be doing, because you’re making choices for how you want to be showing up. Not living life by habit or not living life because that’s how you’ve always done things or because you’re responding to traumas and you’re just getting triggered all the time. So kind of the two facets of this are number 1, to be able to answer these questions for yourself, to take a good hard look at where things are actually at right now in your life. I say a good hard look because that’s a really uncomfortable thing to do. So take a look at what your sleep is actually like.

Dave Zwoboda [00:11:47]:
Take a look at what your diet’s actually like. Take a look at how much caffeine you’re drinking, how much weed you’re smoking, how much nicotine you’re smoking, how much booze are you drinking. All of these kinds of things that, again, just kind of become habitual to the point where you you don’t even realize it, but you’re probably addicted to caffeine and you probably get a headache if you don’t drink it, but we don’t wanna really think about that because it’s just become a habit that’s kind of subconscious. So we take a good hard look at where you’re actually at

Dave Morrow [00:12:11]:
and then we gotta figure out

Dave Zwoboda [00:12:12]:
where do you wanna go. In the context of this, of course, we’re talking about just kinda making through the holidays without having a fucking mental breakdown. So I don’t mean, like, what’s your 10 year plan or where do you see yourself in 5 years? But figuring out, like, how do I actually want to be? When my kids in the back seat screaming and I get cut off in traffic, how do I want to respond to that? How do I want to handle that situation? When the washing machine breaks and I’ve already tapped out my credit cards because of fucking Christmas presents, how do I want to handle that conversation with my wife? How do I want to handle it when my aunt brings up politics at Christmas time? Right? So understanding basically how you want to be the person that you want to be is imperative. Even more important than that, we gotta understand why do I have to change. Like, why is it no longer okay to stay where I’m at? Why is it no longer okay to stay overweight and out of shape anymore? Who do I owe it to to get my shit together? Why is it no longer okay to keep drinking the way that I’ve been drinking? Why is it no longer okay to keep laying awake at night with the same thoughts I’ve been having? If you can’t answer that question for yourself, nothing I’m about to share with you is probably gonna really matter. And, honestly, if that’s where you’re at, that’s cool. Like, I always joke, you can lead a horse to our microdosing program, but you can’t make it work on itself. So unless you have a strong reason why you must change, it’s gonna stay the same until you can answer that.

Dave Zwoboda [00:13:33]:
So that’s kind of the one side of intention is just basically crafting this vision for what you want your life to look like in comparison to where it’s at now. And now for those of you who already have a plant medicine practice, this other piece is extremely important. So in our microdosing program, we teach people how to microdose with mushrooms. We also run Ayahuasca retreats. We do the microdosing at our jujitsu camps, and we also use plant, sorry, we use cannabis as a plant medicine at those camps as well. And I think people kind of forget that weed is a plant medicine because you can buy it at the freaking gas station in most places, but it’s a very powerful plant medicine that can actually help you to heal if you approach it that way. So I don’t wanna linger on this too too much. It’s an extremely important factor inside of our program for people who are microdosing, but setting an intention like this I’ll give you a real world example in a second, but setting an intention can completely transform that experience for you.

Dave Zwoboda [00:14:30]:
So for one thing, we’ve seen the intention setting of kinda how you want to show up make a massive change in people. And I know that it sounds kind of trivial of just saying, like, oh, I I wish that I were this way. Like, it can sound kinda stupid when you phrase it like that. But this is an example of a Canadian woman talking about Canadian Thanksgiving. I know it’s in Connecticut. Her husband’s American, but she would always freak out basically during the holiday. She has an eating disorder, and she would go down this this path of binge drinking and binge eating just because of the stress of being around this family that she wasn’t super close to and getting triggered by them. Literally just by setting intentions of wanting to act differently and show up differently, she was able to avoid going down into those normal triggers and those normal behaviors that she always went into.

Dave Zwoboda [00:15:15]:
This guy right here is a Canadian veteran This this is the guy who was prescribed 10 grams of weed a day. And he talks about how just, setting an intention with the cannabis just by saying something like, I hope this cannabis helps my body to relax and my mind to be clear, open, and calm. That’s all that I told him to do because he wanted to cut back his weed consumption. He knew that it wasn’t really great for him, but he didn’t know what to do. And I said, hey. Instead of actually trying to smoke any less, all I want you to do is start setting an intention every time you spark up a joint. And just by doing that, he says, can’t believe how amazing just that little subtle change has made to make him feel less anxious. And even if those intentions that he set don’t always go perfectly, you can see here he said he doesn’t feel like he’s just escaping anything anymore, but he’s actually opening up and using the medicine to connect to how he actually feels.

Dave Zwoboda [00:16:05]:
Because I think a lot of times we can kind of start abusing cannabis in that way just by smoking it whenever you feel anxious or anytime, like, before bed, you just wanna sleep and you get high. And doing that can be just another way of coping and it can be a way of kind of avoiding things, escaping your feelings. Setting an intention with it can transform that into an actual medicine that’s gonna really help you instead of something that you’re abusing or using to escape your feelings. So with intention setting, we can kind of think of it in a few different ways. For one thing, it’s a way to communicate with the medicine that you’re using. I know that calling it intelligence of the medicine might sound like some real fucking weird hippie nonsense if you’ve never been to an Ayahuasca retreat. But I think you that that we can all agree that sometimes you might use cannabis. You might smoke some weed, and it’s almost like it’s trying to tell you something or it’s trying to show you something.

Dave Zwoboda [00:16:56]:
And by setting an intention, we can almost make a a two way communication where you’re asking for something to come of that experience. I like to use this analogy of, like, steering a ship. So the intentions that we set kind of for that vision, that’s like charting our course. That’s, okay, I want to get to this place. And now the day is gonna unfold the way the day is gonna unfold. There’s a lot of factors that are outside of your control. It’s just like if you’re going down a river in a boat, that river’s running its own course. There’s rapids and there’s, like, mud that you’re gonna hit and all the ships.

Dave Zwoboda [00:17:24]:
So things are gonna happen, but still you have an oar. You can kinda paddle. You can steer your ship by setting these intentions by trying to nudge the experience one way or the other. If you’re someone who pray who prays, if you have a relationship with God or a relationship with the universe, however you kinda perceive that, I think of intention setting as a form of prayer. And perhaps most importantly, it can be a lens through which you understand what’s going on. So even if you set this intention to not be reactive and your crazy aunt brings up some conspiracy theory and you get all heated, so even though, yes, you did react, because you set that intention, you can kind of get curious about it. You can invite this introspection and say, well, okay. What is this experience trying to show me? What is it that I need to work on? What boundaries can I set better? What practices can I employ so I don’t fly off the handle next time? Because, again, instead of acting habitually, we want to act on purpose because we’re actually choosing how we respond to situations, and it really starts with just being aware of those intentions.

Dave Zwoboda [00:18:30]:
And speaking of acting differently and changing the way that we behave, not just doing things the way we’ve always done them, strategy number 2 is probably the single most important thing that you guys listening to this right now can start implementing.

Dave Morrow [00:18:46]:
Hey. Real quick killers. I just wrote a best selling book. It’s called Harden the Fuck Up. If you wanna get yourself a copy, it is now on Amazon. Get yourself a copy. Get your friends a copy. Get your family a copy.

Dave Morrow [00:18:58]:
Stuff them in those stockings, and you’re gonna learn from the best experts on fitness, health, nutrition, mindset, and recovery, all heard here on the Hard to Kill podcast now in one convenient book form. So don’t procrastinate. Go make that order. The link is in the description for this podcast. And if you’re loving this book, I would love a rating and review on Amazon. Merry Christmas, friends, and a happy, fitter, harder to kill

Dave Zwoboda [00:19:31]:
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Dave Morrow [00:19:31]:
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Dave Zwoboda [00:20:05]:
Literally have tomorrow be a completely different day from today based on how you feel. And I used to kind of roll my eyes when people talk about morning routines especially nowadays, there’s so much bro science, there’s so many people telling you that like you gotta wake up early and get sunlight in your eyeballs and then do an ice bath and then do a workout and then do your breath work and then do your meditation then write in your gratitude journal. People over complicate the fuck out of it. However, a morning routine I think is extremely important because it sets the tone for the rest of the day. We know that there’s this sort of inertia to making decisions. So if you’re already someone who works out, you’re gonna work out tomorrow because that’s just what you do. And if you’re someone who sits on the couch, it’s gonna be really difficult to make it to the gym because you have to overcome that inertia. So similarly, if we start the day off by making a good decision for ourselves, if we wake up early, get out of bed, and do something for our body or for our mind first thing, that inertia is gonna continue.

Dave Zwoboda [00:21:03]:
You’re gonna be more likely to make good choices when it comes time to buy lunch or you’re gonna be more likely to not scroll on TikTok for an hour before bed because you’ve already done something good for yourself. The mental state kinda goes hand in hand with that where, let’s say, you were up all night with these anxious thoughts, maybe you had a like a a nightmare, like a PTSD kind of stress dream. You wake up in a terrible fucking mood. You now have a choice. Am I gonna look at Instagram and watch reels of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians or drone strikes, or am I gonna scroll through TikTok and just make myself feel worse and more stressed and more like we’re all fucking doomed? Or can I wake up from that dream? Maybe I still feel like crap, but I put my phone away and I go and I do some breath work and now at least I’ve cleared my mind and I’m in a much different state to now take on the rest of the day. So just by doing something in the morning, it can really like change the whole trajectory of the rest of your day. Plus, doing something in the morning gives you the psychological victory. So no matter how shitty the rest of the day is, however sideways the rest of your schedule goes, you know, whatever happens with the kids, you get a flat tire, whatever.

Dave Zwoboda [00:22:15]:
No matter how fuck the rest of the day gets, at least you did this one thing for yourself in the morning and you can feel good about that. So I do wanna spend a little bit more time kind of breaking this down because this is again probably the most important thing that you guys can implement tomorrow. And for those of you just joining, we’re talking about 5 strategies that you guys can use right now at this time of year to basically stay sane and avoid having the mental breakdown that you might have heading into Christmas with your whole family. So the pillars of this morning routine, number 1, you gotta actually wake up, which sounds obvious, but how many of you are probably rolling over, snoozing your alarm, you stay in bed for another 30 minutes, and now, like, that’s how you started your day is feeling kind of lazy or maybe even feeling behind or knowing that you could have done better but you didn’t. So even if you like, if your alarm goes off at 7 and you get out of bed at 8, just set your alarm for 8 and actually get out of bed. Doesn’t make any difference to, like, when you’re starting your day but it’s a psychological victory that, like, I did what I said I was gonna do and I woke up when I set my alarm which I know it sounds kind of stupid but it’s a very big psychological win. If you have an iPhone, again, it’s a little thing but the sleep the the health app rather has, like, different alarms so you don’t have to wake up to this, like, 19 fifties, like, buzzing sound that stresses you out and spikes your cortisol first thing in the morning, like, I wake up to a nice sound of birds chirping. But probably the most important thing here, the alarm has to be out of arm’s reach.

Dave Zwoboda [00:23:43]:
So I literally sleep with my phone in the kitchen so that when that alarm goes off, I have to get out of bed, exit the bedroom, go into the kitchen, and shut it off. Because I sleep we, like, co sleep with our baby. So I’ve got, like, my wife and my little toddler in bed and it’s fucking cozy as hell in there, especially now that it’s getting colder out. I wanna stay under the covers, man. I want those baby snuggles. So having the alarm in the kitchen forces me to actually get out of bed and start my day when that’s the last thing that I actually want to do. And ideally, you’re not even using your phone as an alarm but for most of us that is what it’s gonna be like. So that’s why number 2 is even more important where we have to figure out the entry points into negative behaviors and avoid them.

Dave Zwoboda [00:24:25]:
And I say it like this. I don’t just say, like, don’t scroll in the morning or don’t waste your time in the morning. But there are literally teams of engineers getting paid 1,000,000,000 of dollars to make you fucking addicted to your phone. And we’re not smarter than them, and we don’t have enough willpower to overcome that. So it’s all about setting up your environment for success. So we literally have a a woman inside of our program right now. She’s, like, mid fifties. She was in the Canadian military for a lot of years.

Dave Zwoboda [00:24:54]:
And one of her issues that she had is every single morning she would grab her coffee, she would grab her phone, she would check her email, she would check Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and then she would pull up the shopping app called Poshmark that I’d never even heard of before. And she would sit there and, like, watch these videos and compulsively shop for hours. She would literally spend, like, 3 hours a day in the morning looking at her phone and she would buy, like, $500 worth of stuff every day. It was ridiculous. And so she’s tried a 100 times before to stop doing that. It’s just like a smoker trying to quit smoking. So what we did for her is number 1, got this app called Opal set up on her phone. I’m not sponsored by them, but I freaking should be at this point.

Dave Zwoboda [00:25:35]:
Because if you’re like me, you use the screen time on your phone and then every 15 minutes, you’re hitting 15 more minutes. It doesn’t really do anything. Opal effectively blocks the apps, but what was even more important is we changed her environment. So now when she goes to bed, she puts her phone upstairs in an office completely away from her. And now it sounds really simple, but we literally just have a book waiting for her next to her coffee maker. So in the morning, instead of grabbing her phone with her cup of coffee and going down that whole sequence of like email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, shopping, now she simply grabs her coffee, she grabs her book and she goes and sits and reads. So literally just by changing where her phone is in her house and having that better substitution at the ready, for one thing, she’s saving 1,000 of dollars a month by not compulsively shopping and she’s not scrolling through her phone and of course, that means that her mental health is so much fucking better than it is when she sits there and stares at her phone and feels like shit and then puts herself down for wasting her time. So I know that these things sound pretty basic and they honestly, they are, but it comes down to engineering your environment in such a way that you’re not gonna waste your time in the morning, that you’re not gonna get sucked into these negative things that are just gonna put you in a worse mental state.

Dave Zwoboda [00:26:52]:
So basically once you’ve actually gotten out of bed, once you’ve successfully not gone down the rabbit hole of doomscrolling, now you have a chance to actually do something for yourself. And this is a little bit cliche that idea, you know, it’s like put on your oxygen mask before helping somebody else. But it’s a cliche because it’s fucking true. So before you go and take care of everything else, before you make coffee for your wife, before you get breakfast ready for the kids and get them off to school, even before you walk your dog, just taking some time to do something that’s just for you. If you’re not doing that already, you’ll literally be shocked at how different this makes you feel psychologically. Like, for me, even if I’m not hyper productive in the morning, like, I I like to wake up about an hour and a half before my the rest of my family. So I get up around 5:30 in the morning, do some breath work, do some stretching, and then ideally do a little bit of work on my laptop. Even if I don’t get any work done, I still feel better than if I’d wake up at 7 when the rest of the household is waking up.

Dave Zwoboda [00:27:51]:
I just feel behind the whole day. I feel a little bit stressed the whole day. So literally just by taking a few minutes to yourself, even if you sit there and, like, just do nothing, like, take some deep breaths and enjoy the quiet of your house, it makes such a profound difference in how you feel. Again, it’s, like, purely psychological. I have no research for why this is the way that it is, but taking a little bit of time for yourself in the morning is gonna be such a dramatic difference in how the rest of the day goes. And, of course, this isn’t rocket science. Right? Like, this all starts the night before. So when I talk about figuring out those on ramps to the time wasting, you don’t wanna be doing that in the morning.

Dave Zwoboda [00:28:28]:
You want to have made all of these choices. You want to have thought about everything the night before and set yourself up for success in the morning. I even use this whole method called the bullet journal. Totally optional, but, like, half of our clients usually end up using this. Or basically, you map out everything that you’re gonna do the next day, and then you just go and execute that plan. So I don’t have to think about what to work on. I don’t have to think about when I’m gonna work out or what I’m gonna do for my workout or when I’m gonna train. It’s all mapped out right there.

Dave Zwoboda [00:28:55]:
You just go and execute. The more choices you can sort of front load, so the more you can plan tonight and just execute tomorrow, the better it’s gonna be, especially in the morning when we don’t have the most willpower at our disposal. Our brain is offline. You haven’t had your coffee yet. Like, that’s not the time to fight the urge to look at your phone. That’s why my phone’s in the kitchen. That’s why I have that app called Opal setup. I even have this, automation where my phone disconnects from the Internet, so I can’t even look at Instagram if I wanted to.

Dave Zwoboda [00:29:28]:
Because if those things aren’t in place, I’m either gonna go straight back to bed or I’m gonna just fucking look at Instagram for, like, an hour in the morning, and that’s not how I want to start my day. Again, it comes back to the intention. How do you actually want to be spending your time? How do you actually want to be living your life? Don’t let that get decided for you by the engineers over at Facebook and Instagram. Don’t let them dictate how you’re spending your life. So those things so far, the setting intentions and, of course, this morning routine, I wanted to really harp on that because I feel like this is the most important thing to put into practice right now. And there are literally these step by step process that you can follow. The next one that I’m gonna talk about, it doesn’t have, a clear cut step by step process. It’s a little bit less like go and do this tomorrow, but it’s equally important, and that is to embrace your community.

Dave Zwoboda [00:30:22]:
I wanted to highlight this because I know that when times get tough, when you are stressed, when you are under pressure, when you’re feeling isolated or depressed, that’s when you just want to isolate more. I always talk about this with depression. It’s so insidious because it’s like the symptom is the same as the cure. The symptom of depression is that you don’t wanna go anywhere, you don’t wanna do anything, you don’t wanna see people. And literally, what do you need to do to pull yourself out of that? You gotta go places, you gotta do things, you gotta go see your friends. So it’s so insidious because when we actually need to lean into our morning routine and our habits and when we need to lean into the support from our friends, that’s typically when we want to let all of those things fall to the wayside and we wanna stay at home alone and not see anybody and not answer our phone and not text our friends back. So I implore you guys. I know that if you’re listening to this right now, you have some of that community just from the hard to kill podcast from everything that Dave’s putting out.

Dave Zwoboda [00:31:23]:
So embrace that this time of year. And, again, I wanted to highlight a couple things that people have actually said just to, for one thing, show you that I’m not pulling this out of my ass, but, like, these are people just like you. Half of these people are veterans as well who are embracing their community and who are enjoying it and who are getting a lot from it. This woman right here talking about remembrance day, she’s the one who compulsively shops. And so it was this is from just a couple weeks ago when it was remembrance day. She literally skipped going to the ceremony because being around service people is a triggering thing for her. She actually has a lot of sexual trauma from the military being sexually assaulted in the military. So going to gatherings like that is really not her vibe.

Dave Zwoboda [00:32:06]:
But instead of isolating, instead of staying at home, instead of, you know, drinking or just staring at her phone all day, she literally booked an extra call with us because she knew that she would need to be talking to somebody. She knew that she needed to be supported. So we literally just hopped on an extra call with her. I don’t know if we really did anything earth shattering, but she leaned into that community that she had. And, like, I feel like so many people inside of our coaching program, it ends up being the community that’s their favorite aspect or that gives them the most even if they didn’t expect that. Just being surrounded by people on a similar path as you, people that you can actually relate to, especially if you’re trying to heal your mental health, if you’re trying to especially work with something like plant medicine, sometimes you can’t talk about that with your family. Sometimes you might not be able to talk about that with your friends or you definitely might not be able to talk about your military service with an average person. They just won’t understand it.

Dave Zwoboda [00:33:03]:
So having some people who get you can make such a huge difference. And if you’re listening to me talk about that and you’re like, well, that’s fucking cool, David. Good for these people, but I don’t have a community. Maybe, like, you objectively do feel isolated because you don’t have coworkers to talk to or family to talk to or friends to talk to. And I want you to know if that’s you, like, I’m literally here for that as well. So, yes, we we run this program. Yes. We have these retreats, but, honestly, I kinda joke that I like to make social media social again.

Dave Zwoboda [00:33:35]:
So if you are feeling isolated, if you’re like, well, fuck. I’m not doing anything for Christmas. I don’t have anyone to talk to. Shoot me a message. Fucking talk to me. Let me be that community for you. This fucking stranger from the Internet that you’ve never met before, if that’s what it takes for you to feel a little bit less isolated, like, I want to be there for you. So with that said, before I get emotional, let’s keep it moving.

Dave Zwoboda [00:33:59]:
So let’s talk about another implementable takeaway. I know the community one is a little bit less cut and dry. So this next strategy is again something that you can literally go and start doing today. And affirmations are another thing that I used to roll my eyes at as well. Because people talk about, like, positive mental attitudes and affirmations and manifestation and all this shit. And it usually sounds like a crack of bullshit. Like, it sounds like this spiritual nonsense that you’d mostly see, like, these hippie girls with crystals in their hair talking about. So that’s why I put embrace affirmations that actually work.

Dave Zwoboda [00:34:36]:
I wanna break down why most of the time they don’t and how that’s actually worse for you and what you can do instead. Because I think that the the real crux of healing, especially for veterans who have this trauma from the military or perhaps even trauma from leaving the military, like difficulty with that transition into civilian life and everything that comes with that. Really, what it’s about is changing this identity that you have. It’s changing this narrative in your head about who you are, about your place in the world, and about how other people perceive you. So I’ll give you a financial example just to kinda make them make like, illustrate my point here. If I use the affirmation that, like, I have $1,000,000 in my bank account, that’s cool. I can say that. And then I pull out my Chase app and I look at it and I see that I’m fucking broke.

Dave Zwoboda [00:35:27]:
I don’t have a $1,000,000 in there. So if I can immediately basically prove my affirmation wrong, it’s not gonna help me at all. In fact, that’s probably gonna make things worse because it’s highlighting that I’m not there yet and I’m actually breaking trust with myself. It’s, it’s it’s like I’m proving to myself that I’m not a man of my word if I use an affirmation that’s obviously untrue. So instead of saying I have a $1,000,000 in my bank account, all we have to do is change the language that we use and make it so that our brain can actually get on board with it to make it something that I can’t poke a hole in that easily. So I could say something. If I wanted to improve my finances, I could say something like, every day, I can find new ways to increase my earning potential. So now, like, doesn’t matter what my bank account says.

Dave Zwoboda [00:36:16]:
Like, I can figure out a new marketing strategy. I can figure out a new product to sell, a new business to launch. I can figure out how to negotiate a raise at work. So that’s something that my subconscious mind, that self critic, can actually get on board with. I could even break it down further and say, like, every day, I am capable of finding new ways. So that maybe today, I don’t have a new business idea, but it’s like, well, I was still capable of having an idea today. And I know that that on the surface, it sounds like semantics. It sounds like we’re just playing with words and kinda twisting language around.

Dave Zwoboda [00:36:50]:
And in one sense, that actually is what this comes down to. But, again, it’s because your subconscious mind has to believe that this stuff is true. So if you’re gonna say something like I love myself because maybe you struggle with feeling like a piece of shit. Maybe you feel worthless. Maybe you feel like you’re unworthy of love, and that’s wreaking havoc on every aspect of your life. Instead of just saying I love myself, you say something like I can learn to love myself a little more every day. Instead of saying, I do not get triggered by my family, you can say, I’m learning to enforce boundaries and be less affected by people. Because, again, let’s say you’re at Christmas dinner and your aunt starts talking about Justin Trudeau or Kamala Harris or Donald Trump or whatever side your crazy hypothetical aunt is on and you find yourself getting triggered, you find yourself getting heated, then if you had the affirmation of, like, I will not get triggered today, you find yourself getting triggered, well, now you’ve failed.

Dave Zwoboda [00:37:47]:
And so it kind of confirms that you’re not a person who says what you’re gonna do, you’re not a person who’s in control of their mental state, maybe you’re not a person who’s ever gonna overcome your PTSD and and all these things that trigger you. As opposed to just changing that wording to say something like, I’m learning to enforce boundaries and I’m learning to be less affected by what other people say to me. Well, now even if you get triggered, like, hey. It’s okay. Like, I’m learning to do this. And, again, it comes back to the intentions that you set, and we are now invited to look at, well, why is this triggering me? What’s actually going on? Do I need to enforce a boundary with this person? Maybe just not be around my family anymore for a little while while I work this shit out. This last one here, I’d say a good, like, 80% of our clients end up using something along these lines because that negative self talk is such an easy trap to fall into where you just go down this rabbit hole of saying, like, man, I’m a fucking stupid piece of shit. I’m fat.

Dave Zwoboda [00:38:46]:
I’m all out of shape. I’m never gonna amount to anything again. I’m washed up because I got injured. Now I had to leave the military, and now all of my brothers are still serving and I’m fucking worthless over here sitting on the sidelines. Like literal things that we’ve heard people say. So having an affirmation that’s gonna address that negative self talk can be really, really valuable. And phrasing it something like I can speak to myself a little more kindly today. I know that on the surface and at first at first as you’re hearing me say this, you still might be rolling your eyes just like I used to.

Dave Zwoboda [00:39:20]:
You might be thinking this fucking nonsense. What’s this hippie talking about? But we have seen this work time and time again with literally 100 of veterans who had all of these kind of feelings, who had this low self worth. They had these negative stories about themselves, telling themselves that, like, their whole identity is being a wounded warrior or before it was just being a warrior and that got taken away from them. And now they’re a wounded warrior and they’re pissed off and they’re medicated for your safety and shit like this. And literally just by changing the way that you speak to yourself, it has such profound effects in terms of healing your depression, in terms of overcoming that PTSD, in terms of overcoming all the triggers that are normally setting you off and probably making you a dick to be around for a lot of your friends and family. And by implementing something like these affirmations, I think that this is how we can start to shift that narrative that runs in the back of our mind. Little bit of a tangent, but I feel like journaling is kind of the process of allowing your subconscious mind to come to the surface and to be expressed. And I think affirmations are a way that we kind of take the opposite approach where we try to plant new ideas into our subconscious mind.

Dave Zwoboda [00:40:34]:
And it’s gotta be believable. Like, if you imagine that little devil and the little angel on your shoulder, if that devil can look at your affirmation and call bullshit on it, if you say I’m gonna love myself and then you call yourself a stupid piece of shit, that devil is gonna be like, see, you are a stupid piece of shit. Like, you’re never gonna amount to anything. And that angel on your shoulder is not really gonna have a response to it because you kinda painted yourself into a corner with that language. So, again, maybe you’ve tried affirmations before, maybe you’ve never tried it because you thought it was nonsense. I think most people approach it the wrong way because they just do stuff like this. And it’s only by rewarding it in a way that your brain can actually get on board that it’s ever gonna do something. So if that’s new for you, I would encourage you to just kinda try it to be to be curious about it.

Dave Zwoboda [00:41:20]:
Treat it like an experiment that you’re running on yourself for the next month and just see if it’s able to just very subtly start to shift things. Maybe you catch yourself thinking negatively a little bit more often, and maybe you can start to adjust it a little bit more often. Maybe you start to show up in your relationships just a little bit little bit, slower to react to things, a little bit better temper when, I don’t know, your toddler is screaming and you’re in traffic and you just wanna snap at somebody. Alright. So these strategies that I’ve shared so far, guys, the intention setting, the morning routine is probably the most important thing to, to to implement right away. Embracing your community, leaning into that, and using these affirmations that actually work, those are all things that you can literally start doing tomorrow and your day is gonna go differently. They’re all things that if you start implementing them right now, you’re gonna feel different and you’re gonna feel better from putting those things into place. This last one that I’m gonna share is, it’s a little bit less, like, immediate action based and it’s also probably not gonna make you feel better in the short term.

Dave Zwoboda [00:42:29]:
So these things right here are kinda what you need to keep your head above water. If you’re really struggling right now or you know that this time of year is always a struggle, start doing this stuff. Save number 5 for when things are, a little bit more spacious for you. So number 5 here, though, this is probably the biggest thing that’s gonna actually help you to heal long term. Because I I kinda like to say, you know, no amount of discipline or willpower is gonna make you stop feeling like a piece of shit and hating yourself. Because if that’s what’s driving your behavior, yeah, morning routine is gonna help, but it’s not gonna solve that. What is gonna solve that is something called shadow work. Maybe that’s a new term for you or maybe you’ve heard this before if you’ve kind of been on this healing path for a while.

Dave Zwoboda [00:43:11]:
If you’ve dabbled in plant medicine, you probably heard this term. So shadow worker, the the shadow, it refers to the unacknowledged parts of ourselves, the parts of ourselves that we suppress, that we keep hidden, that we don’t bring up, with our friends and our family, that we don’t like talking about. Things like trauma that we haven’t resolved yet. Chances are pretty good that that goes a little bit deeper than you might think as well. A lot of our clients come to us thinking that they’re all fucked up from an IED blast or thinking that they’re all fucked up from working sex crimes cases as a detective for 20 years. And it turns out that it goes back to feeling abandoned by their mother or being sexually abused when they were 5 years old. Like, this stuff goes deep, and that’s what the shadow is referring to. All of these things that kinda lay hidden beneath the surface.

Dave Zwoboda [00:44:01]:
It’s only by actually looking at that stuff by bringing it out into the open that we can actually heal it, that we can become whole again and integrate these parts of ourselves. There’s this quote from Joseph Campbell that, again, is a little bit of a cliche almost in, like, spiritual circles. He says that the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. And what that means in our context, like, the treasure that we’re all seeking is feeling okay again. The treasure that we seek is being rid of anxiety. It’s being content. It’s having a purpose. It’s having a loving family that we connect with.

Dave Zwoboda [00:44:34]:
It’s feeling grounded. It’s feeling good again, feeling like yourself again. That’s what we’re all seeking, but it’s the cave that we fear to enter that holds that treasure. Meaning, it’s only by going into these things that are uncomfortable to look at, uncomfortable to talk about, uncomfortable to think about that we’re actually gonna make those changes. I hit you with another quote from this guy, Herman Hess, who wrote Siddhartha, super good book. Says that if you hate a person, you hate something in them that’s a part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. So, again, when you’re getting heated, when a family member brings up politics or when you see someone and you just, like, want to judge them, that’s your first instinct is to talk trash about them.

Dave Zwoboda [00:45:19]:
A lot of times, what we actually need to do is kinda turn that mirror on ourselves and ask, what part of me do I see in them? What part of me do I hate about myself that I can criticize in that person because it’s easier than criticizing myself? Of course, there’s a caveat. If I see someone kicking a dog, I don’t have to also kick dogs to hate that they do that. Right? So use some discretion there. But it is an important element to talk about of turning that mirror on ourselves, not for the purpose of judging ourselves or putting ourselves down or confirming that we’re a piece of shit, But for the purpose of actually looking at these things and how deep they go and how they’ve affected us throughout our lives and sort of explaining why we are the way that we are. It’s only by diving into that shadow work, which in our minds, it includes things like boundary setting, letting go of the past, and includes, like, attachment styles and relationships and things like that. Those are each topics that we spend a whole week on inside of that 12 week microdosing program. But it’s only by diving into those things that you can actually get to the root of those traumas, and you can make long lasting changes like that guy Brian who is talking about Thanksgiving and Veterans Day being completely different than they used to be in the past. Yes.

Dave Zwoboda [00:46:30]:
The morning routine keeps him on track. Yes. The affirmations help change the way that he thinks about things, but it’s really by doing this shadow work by looking at all those parts of himself that he was able to get to that place. Again, I wanna highlight a couple things that people have said about it because doing shadow work is not easy. Like, all this stuff is a lot easier said than done. This person’s like this is another Canadian veteran who says that they feel like they were hit by a semi truck with realizing all these patterns that they were engaging in that were driven by anxiety and self worth, and she can see herself repeating those same patterns over and over again. And that’s a difficult thing to finally face and to finally realize. This person is another, female Canadian veteran talking about this is actually the person with the compulsive shopping, talking about how she thought she was the master of discarding those thoughts of pushing them down and hiding all of those feelings.

Dave Zwoboda [00:47:24]:
But realizing for the first time as, like, a 55 or 56 year old woman, all these things that she’d been carrying with her her whole life. But it’s only by going through that process of looking at those uncomfortable things that you can come out the other side. So this dude, Toby Miller, he’s kinda one of the faces of our program. He’s one of our peer mentors. He was a seesaw operator. This is the dude who stepped on an IED in Afghanistan. That’s why I always keep coming back to that example. I should say he was right next to an IED as it went off.

Dave Zwoboda [00:47:55]:
He’s talking about how his wife, another veteran, couldn’t believe the changes that he’s made. You know, like a doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde kind of a thing. And, basically, this whole side of him has been completely erased from doing all of these work, from from putting into practice all those things I’ve been sharing, from working with plant medicine, from doing the shadow work. Even his dogs, he has a Belgian Malinois who used to kind of be afraid of him because he would yell and throw things and put holes in the wall and drink. And even his animals have realized what a different person he is. Another Canadian veteran talking about how she’s finding her voice being listened to and honestly has completely left all of her anxiety behind that came from her years in Afghanistan. And my wife likes to use this analogy yeah. Toby is a legend.

Dave Zwoboda [00:48:45]:
Toby’s the man. My wife likes to use this analogy that, like, this is the transformation from a caterpillar into a butterfly and it comes about from doing the shadow work. I don’t know how much you know about, biology and insects, but apparently, when a caterpillar goes into its little cocoon thing and it emerges as a butterfly, it literally dissolves its body. Like, it breaks down its whole body and it dissolves into this goo. So, like, if you opened up that that cocoon, you there’s, like, this gross pile of goo. It looks like a fucking booger and you feel like, what is that? But if you leave it in there for long enough, it emerges as this beautiful butterfly. And we always like to joke that as our clients are going through the shadow work, it might feel like they have dissolved into this pile of goo and they’re just fucking crying or they’re super emotional and all of like, everything’s going sideways all at once. Their life is falling apart.

Dave Zwoboda [00:49:35]:
And we basically tell them, like, hey. That’s right where you need to be when you’re doing the shadow work. Like, this person had been through the program a couple times before, so she thought she could skip it. And she’s like, shadow work did not skip me, but indeed slapped me in the face for even thinking that. And but it’s only by looking at that hard stuff. It’s only by feeling like your whole life is falling apart that you become that beautiful butterfly that Toby now is. And so, I mean, if you’ve followed us on Instagram for any length of time, if you’ve seen our stuff before, you know that we’ve got like thousands of these screenshots at this point. I’m not gonna read all of this.

Dave Zwoboda [00:50:12]:
But I bring these up to say that these people like Toby, Blair, Stephanie, Brooke, like, Kishan, Brandon, all these guys, they’re no different than you. A lot of them are veterans or retired first responders. They’re all normal people. They’ve got jobs. They’ve got families or maybe they’re retired from the military. And, yes, like each person is their own special unique snowflake. Yeah. Sure.

Dave Zwoboda [00:50:34]:
But there’s nothing special or unique about the process that they went through. So if you go and put all these things into place, especially if you just kinda supercharge it with some plant medicine that we can talk about, you’re gonna be able to have the exact same experience that Toby did. So from here, guys, going forward, there’s kind of 3 paths that you can take with this knowledge, with these perspectives. For one thing, keep doing what you’ve been doing. Like, if you don’t have good answers to those first three questions that I open this up with of, like, where am I at now, where do I wanna get to, and why is it imperative that I change? If you can’t answer that last one, nothing’s gonna change. And that’s cool. If that’s where you’re at, that’s where you’re at. I think everything happens for people in their own time at their own pace.

Dave Zwoboda [00:51:17]:
So keep doing the things that you’ve been doing. Things will stay the same. That’s cool. Or you can take this info. You can take some of the other free stuff that I wanna give you guys. We’ve got a whole other training specifically about morning routines, whole other training specifically about why habit change is so hard, why your past attempts have probably failed, and what to do differently. Got a ton of free info about using cannabis and using, like, psilocybin microdosing. Take all of that shit, lean into the community that you already have, and do your best to put this stuff into practice.

Dave Zwoboda [00:51:48]:
And if you do that, I promise you that this Christmas is gonna be very different than past Christmases in terms of your mental health, in terms of getting triggered or snapping at your family, and probably in terms of how much, wine or beer you reach for in order to deal with your mother-in-law. I think it’ll be a very different story this time around if you do this stuff. Or option number 3 is you can let me help you navigate all of this. And I say, let me help you navigate it for free because you’re probably thinking at this point in the presentation, this is when I hit you with a pitch for my fucking timeshare, but I don’t wanna do that at all. I really, really, really am passionate just about helping people. Like, I’m not a veteran myself. I joke that I just watched Black Hawk Down one too many times during my formative years. So I’m I really enjoy working with people like you guys and I wanna help.

Dave Zwoboda [00:52:39]:
And hopefully, you’ve watched the Godfather so you understand the stupid joke, but, my daughter just turned 1 literally, this week. So I wanna give you guys another free gift. So again, pull out your phone. If you’re I assume you guys are on social media. If not, you can send me an email, but grab your phone. Look me up right here, becoming dotom. That’s our company. If you send me a message on Instagram, DM me the word holidays and for one thing, I’ll send you over a free course that we have on specifically using cannabis and setting intentions with that.

Dave Zwoboda [00:53:08]:
We Normally sell it for, like, $27, but I wanna give it to you guys for free as a thank you. One other thing that we can do if you want, if you know that you need help with the morning routine specifically or maybe the affirmations, but, like, if you know that there’s a lot of shit that you need to clean up, if you’re like, yeah, I I go to bed at, like, 1 in the morning after binge watching YouTube videos and I’m drinking 4 cups of coffee just to get through the morning, like, if that’s you, I wanna fucking help you fix that, like, right now because there’s so much progress to be made. So literally what we can do if you want to, I’m gonna send you the exact same intake form that our clients get. You’re gonna fill that out and fill me in on everything with, like, where you’re at right now, like your caffeine consumption, your sleep, your exercise, your diet. We’ll talk about those things that are rattling around in the back of your head, those anxious thoughts that keep you up or those thoughts that drive you to drinking or all the things that are causing an issue in your relationship or how you’re not the father that you wanna be to your son, anything like that. I wanna talk through that. And then once we have that baseline in the span of literally like a 30 minute Zoom call, we can figure out what you’re doing that’s sabotaging yourself so you can finally stop fucking banging your head against the wall and doing the same things over and over again. We can figure out exactly what habits you need to change and how to make them stick.

Dave Zwoboda [00:54:26]:
So you’re not just throwing a 1,000 things at the wall and hoping that something works, but rather we identify 1 or 2 very concrete things to shift that are gonna make other dominoes fall into place. And if you already are using plant medicine, if you’re already microdosing or smoking cannabis, we can get that dialed in with the intention setting, with some meditations, talking about the affirmations, or if you’re not doing any of that yet, I’ll help you figure that out, figure out the right plan for you to get started with. Or if you’re like drugs are bad, that’s not for me. We can just stick with the first couple of things. Alright? So if that’s you, if you know that you could use a hand with that, or if you feel fucking lonely and isolated and you want someone to talk to or you just want some free shit, pull out your phone, shoot me a message. For real, like, I like to think that I’m making social media social again. I just enjoy talking to people on there. It makes me feel better about using Instagram if I can actually use it to help people instead of me doom scrolling.

Dave Zwoboda [00:55:22]:
So whip out your phone, shoot me a message. Daryl, I see you typing that in right now. I’ll follow-up with you later because I don’t have access to the StreamYard thing right now, but we’ll get you sorted out. So with that guys, I, I know I I kind of steamrolled through a few things, but I wanted to respect your guys’ time and get through this. So let me take a look through the comments and answer a couple questions. If you guys have any other questions, drop them in here right now. I want to hit them. Dave, do you have any thoughts, takeaways, questions, comments, concerns for me after all of those strategies?

Dave Morrow [00:55:54]:
Man, that was beauty. The morning routine, that is hands down. It’s It’s a good estimate thing. Yeah. If I was gonna prioritize any one of those things because when things go off the rails for me, I always just I fall back on a protocol. Once I protocolize no. That’s not a word. Systematize.

Dave Morrow [00:56:16]:
Systematize. Sure. Yeah. Things get a lot easier.

Dave Zwoboda [00:56:19]:
You know that you know that phrase, like, we all like to think that we will rise to the occasion, but in reality, you fall to the level of your training. And so that’s what I’m talking about. When things get tough, when life gets more stressful, we want to, like, disregard those things. We wanna just, like, fall lower than that honestly. So having those routines in our program, we talk about nonnegotiable habits where no matter what you’re getting this thing done, and that’s the shit that keeps you on the rails when your whole life is falling apart. Honestly, it’s like, hey. I know that I have to hit my workout and I have to meditate for 5 minutes today or whatever they are for you. Having those things, a 100%, man, it keeps you on the rails.

Dave Zwoboda [00:56:57]:
It keeps your head above water when times are tough.

Dave Morrow [00:57:00]:
Yeah. That’s, yeah. You’re you’re exactly right. Because you you can only control so much. Right? You can control essentially how you react to things, and everything else can be on the shit all around you. But if you hold that one thing, which is how you react to things and how you perceive things, and and see in a positive light, and things happening for you instead of to you, that for me, I can sense the downward spiral of shit when I start feeling like a victim. I’m like, fuck. I’m like, it’s such a shitty day, man.

Dave Morrow [00:57:33]:
This isn’t going well. Like, why, like, why did this have to happen to me today? You know? And then, you gotta catch to be like, oh, one sec. Woah. Woah. Like, let’s hit the brakes here. If I start letting Jocko willing into my brain

Dave Zwoboda [00:57:48]:
Yeah.

Dave Morrow [00:57:48]:
Hey. Hey, brother. This was good. You know? I’ll be like, yeah. You’re right, Jocko. You’re right, spirit, Jocko. Thank you.

Dave Zwoboda [00:57:55]:
That that good. Like, it’s a it’s a bare bones example of an affirmation that you can repeat to yourself and just reframe the way that things are. It’s an intention that you set where, hey, no matter what happens, I’m gonna take this as a positive. And you can it’s a it’s a frame to understand things where, okay, my car broke down, my washing machine’s broken, my credit cards are tapped out, and my wife is yelling at me. What can I learn from this experience right now? Good.

Dave Morrow [00:58:25]:
Yeah. I love it, man.

Dave Zwoboda [00:58:26]:
It’s not all that at once, but, dude, that’s that’s the reality, man. And, that’s why I threw all the screenshots in there of, like, things that our clients have actually said because, dude, like, we’ve had at this point, especially Canadian veterans probably, like, at least a 100 just Canadian vets go through this program. And they’re all real things that we’ve heard people say. And literally just by doing this stuff, like, it’s really not rocket science. But just by doing that stuff, people’s relationships are saved. People’s fucking mental health is saved, and careers are changed just from putting those things into practice. So it it works, man. I I know it sounds basic.

Dave Zwoboda [00:59:02]:
It sounds like things to kinda roll your eyes at when someone’s telling you to do it because you probably know that you should be doing it already.

Dave Morrow [00:59:08]:
Mhmm.

Dave Zwoboda [00:59:08]:
And that’s that’s the magic of working with somebody that’s gonna help you actually, for one thing, stay accountable. For another thing, figure out how that should fit into your life. Because, you know, we we I mentioned that intake form that our clients do. Each person, they put these things into practice in some way, but it’s always uniquely tailored to them. I think that’s half the value that we provide is just helping people figure out specifically how to slot these things into their unique life situation.

Dave Morrow [00:59:36]:
Right on. So let’s let’s let’s break things down into kinda like phase. Like, phase 1,

Dave Zwoboda [00:59:43]:
this

Dave Morrow [00:59:43]:
is the way I see things. Like, phase 1 is, like, what you outline in terms of, okay, you gotta establish those habits. You start establishing those habits. You start feeling a little bit better. You’re like, okay. Cool. You got a community. Cool.

Dave Morrow [00:59:56]:
You got a a morning routine. Cool. You’re coming up with a plan when you go to events like Christmas dinner that normally would get you spun up and doing one of those, like, motherfucker. Exactly. You’re you’re you’re you’re taking a, like, a tactical bound to the rears. I like to hop and be like, okay. I got some distance on this. Why am I getting why am I getting upset? And then once you ask yourself that question, for me, anyways, it calms myself down.

Dave Morrow [01:00:22]:
So you’re you’re working on that. Now let’s let’s get into the the next step. So you, I’m gonna share in the screen here your retreats because, like, these are these are really unique, and and I wanna make sure that that folks are are tracking, these things. So I put up your website, so becoming a home, and I’ve got operation flow state here. So I’ll I’ll leave you the floor on this. What how does now this all segue into a retreat like this?

Dave Zwoboda [01:00:54]:
Yeah, man. We started these retreats well, I should just say when we started these retreats, I was almost dumbfounded that no one had done this yet. And that’s why I was so excited to do it. I was like, this just needs to exist. Like, objectively, this has to be a thing that happens. So you mentioned doctor Jean before. I think everyone at this point is aware of jiu jitsu, and they’re aware that they probably should be training jiu jitsu. Now what I think is really cool about jiu jitsu specifically is that there can be a huge spiritual component to it.

Dave Zwoboda [01:01:28]:
If you’re someone who’s trained for a while, you’ve probably noticed that jiu jitsu is a vehicle for self development in every aspect of your life. Like, you start doing jiu jitsu and, like, your relationships improve because you’re challenging yourself in these ways. You’re pushing yourself in these ways. There’s a quote from Miyamoto Musashi who says, when you know the way broadly, you see it in all things. So you start seeing how jiu jitsu applies to life, applies to mental health, applies to your relationships. And I was kinda sitting there thinking, like, why is no one talking about this? Like, why why like, you go train jiu jitsu, they show you a move, you strangle your friends, like, that’s cool. That’s great. Maybe you listen to Joe Rogan and you smoke some weed and you’re like, okay.

Dave Zwoboda [01:02:08]:
This is kinda cool too. But, like, there’s nowhere that’s putting it all together. And that’s why we we did our civilian camp first because I was like, this is just a fucking cool thing that I wanna do. And then we realized veterans need this, dude. 1st responders need this. Jujitsu is the ultimate community forming event because you’re coming together. You’re sharing this struggle. You have a shared aim.

Dave Zwoboda [01:02:30]:
There’s a reason to come together. Like, I I kinda roll my eyes at a lot of, like, men’s retreats and stuff because I think it’s just kind of, like, forced. So jiu jitsu, like, there’s a reason that we’re here and there’s a reason that we’re doing this. So what my wife and I have done is we basically take everything that we know about working with plant medicine, take everything that we know about using mindfulness strategies to improve your mental health, and we pair that with jiu jitsu for the purpose of helping veterans heal. Now I’m only a blue belt, so I’m not teaching jiu jitsu. That’s why we also partner with Seb Lavois, who some of your listeners might be aware of. Dude, he’s the most savage person. I never feel worse about myself than when I look at Seb’s Instagram, and I’m like, oh, cool.

Dave Zwoboda [01:03:11]:
He just climbed a mountain with his prosthetic leg.

Dave Morrow [01:03:14]:
Okay. I’m like, he’s just missing a leg. No big deal.

Dave Zwoboda [01:03:17]:
Bro, I’m like, I train Muay Thai for an hour, and my hip is killing me for a week. And Seb’s out here climbing mountains with the prosthetic leg. But, anyway, yeah, this is Seb. So former law enforcement officer. I think he was basically, like, the head of the SWAT teams, like, the ERT teams for his whole province.

Dave Morrow [01:03:33]:
Yep.

Dave Zwoboda [01:03:34]:
Fucking savage guy. And so he is our head instructor for this jiu jitsu retreat. And Seb’s on a a super interesting, like, healing journey himself right now that I like to think I played a little part in, like, nudging him in some of these directions, especially embracing the plant medicine. After a career in law enforcement, it’s a bit of a transition. But we combine everything that Seb’s got. And by the way, he’s a massive leader and a a a real big figure pioneering mental health for first responders and for police officers specifically. And so we take his approach to jiu jitsu, his approach to leadership, his approach to life, and just being a fucking savage. We combine it with everything that me and my wife do specifically for using psychedelics to help you heal, and we do it in Mexico where I live.

Dave Zwoboda [01:04:20]:
I’m pointing out the window because I live in Mexico and it’s beautiful here. We do it in a literal jungle paradise with fucking incredible food. And, of course, there’s some elements of just a cool fun vacation. So we go hit some Mayan ruins. We swim in a cenote. We go to a water park because you gotta have fun also, And it’s it’s just incredible, man. It’s it’s equal parts jujitsu retreat, fun Mexico vacation, and, like, deep healing work that you’re doing there. And by the way, it’s like everyone’s welcome skill level wise.

Dave Zwoboda [01:04:51]:
We’ve got black belts who come, and we’ve got people who’ve never stepped on the mats before. There’s literally no better way to start jujitsu than at this retreat. That’s from the last one. My wife was 9 months pregnant.

Dave Morrow [01:05:00]:
Oh, boy.

Dave Zwoboda [01:05:01]:
Breathwork ceremony. Yeah, dude. Oh, boy. It’s a little bit crazy. So so, yeah, it’s it’s it’s an incredible event, man. It’s it’s there’s so much healing to be had. There’s so much community to be found there. And, dude, it’s fun.

Dave Zwoboda [01:05:16]:
It’s so much fun. I can’t wait to go back to the center because their food is so good. And just for me, like, I do all the cooking for my family. So, like, having someone cook for me for a week, I’m like, oh my god. It’s amazing.

Dave Morrow [01:05:27]:
Yeah. I know.

Dave Zwoboda [01:05:28]:
That’s so cool. So this is coming up. Our civilian camp is, like, almost all the way sold out. We got a couple of spots left. For this one right here, though, the the the what you’re looking at is our veteran retreat. We’ve got, I think, 8 spots or so remaining for that one. So it’s coming up, the end of March 2025. March.

Dave Morrow [01:05:44]:
Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing. Okay. So now now what’s really important is, like, how did you figure out how to get the education benefit to subsidize Yeah. Canadian veterans to go down? Like, they you’ve cracked you’ve cracked the code here, man. This is yeah. I I they might shut down this livestream.

Dave Morrow [01:06:04]:
Let’s just

Dave Zwoboda [01:06:05]:
Yeah, dude. Honestly and by the

Dave Morrow [01:06:07]:
way, if you if you look

Dave Zwoboda [01:06:08]:
at our website for for this reason, the website’s a little bit light on some of the details Yeah. Because, you know, you get it. We’ll we’ll leave some things on set.

Dave Morrow [01:06:18]:
But Yes.

Dave Zwoboda [01:06:19]:
I I didn’t figure out anything. We had someone actually go through our microdosing program, and she was, she’s basically a lawyer in the military in some some degree, and she’s very savvy at navigating the paperwork and navigating the VAC stuff. And she just kind of said, like, hey, I’m gonna try to I’m gonna try this application and see if they’ll pay for this program. We’re like, yeah, cool. That sounds awesome. Mhmm.

Dave Morrow [01:06:43]:
And

Dave Zwoboda [01:06:43]:
so we had her do that and then we actually had someone basically try that for this jujitsu retreat and Vak came back and they’re like, yeah. Cool. Good to go. It fits our requirements. So I’ve been I’m not an expert in navigating the vax stuff. Like, I’m an American civilian. Right? Like, that’s not my world necessarily, but it does seem that we’ve cracked the code with, like, this 2 part application process. So if anyone’s interested, you could shoot me a message and I’ll basically lay out for you, like, you do this application first to see if you apply and then we do this application to get the retreat covered.

Dave Zwoboda [01:07:17]:
I lay out all the information that you actually need to fill in on that form, and then it’s just on you filling in some stuff about your service record and things like that to kind of see if you qualify. But, yeah, we we call it, a short educational course. So it’s a it’s a course in mindfulness for veterans and first responders. Mhmm. And because it’s an educational course on mindfulness, there’s a good chance that VAC is gonna cover that for you if you qualify. I think, you know, there’s there’s some things with, like, years of service and some other requirements and stuff like that that I don’t know the ins and outs of. But Mhmm. If you know that you, you qualify for the education and training benefit, there’s a chance that we can actually get your government to pay for your whole experience here.

Dave Morrow [01:07:57]:
That’s amazing. Yeah. Folks, if you if you’re listening right now and you want me to do a video on how to go through step by step how to get this, like, up to up to scratch and and and submitting your your request, drop it in the comments. Just just say, like, video. Like, I want the video, and I’ll go through it just step by step because I’m I’m going through the process as well. And David’s been helpful too just making sure that we have the right, the right stuff available so that we can actually, actually get that that, all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, which is really which is really cool. And and and ultimately, like, you know, a lot of us have these education benefits in a case in point. I was literally in school and I was doing a master’s degree.

Dave Morrow [01:08:41]:
I’m like, oh, sweet. I got the education reimbursement. Can I use it? But I’d already started my mother, like, no, sorry. I can’t use that. My but I’m literally in school. Why can’t I use it? I get they said, well, we didn’t approve it to start. So, but should why is that make any difference? I’m in school. But there’s so there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of issues for a lot of folks with inconsistencies.

Dave Morrow [01:09:01]:
But in this case here, with a short course, it seems to be a little bit easier. So, if you guys are interested, drop it in the comments here, and I’ll I’ll I’ll take it on, like, good measure to to create a video for everybody here so that they can they can start applying as well. And so the dates here, if I if I’m not it’s the end of March. Yeah.

Dave Zwoboda [01:09:21]:
To the top. Yeah. Okay. There you go.

Dave Morrow [01:09:24]:
That’s really cool. And you know what’s funny, Dave? Like, when we initially chatted on the podcast, I was like, hold on a sec. How is Seb doing this program in Mexico with an American guy I don’t know? I know Seb. He’s never mentioned it to me. You’d think this would be like, hey, Dave. By the way, there’s this, like, jujitsu retreat that’s freaking badass. It’s in this beautiful place in Tulum. Like, we just didn’t do a good job promoting this.

Dave Morrow [01:09:54]:
So, from, you know, the last point we chatted was over a year ago to now. Like, how’s the growth been so far? Like, how how’s, like, the retreats and and everything you’re doing now?

Dave Zwoboda [01:10:04]:
Yeah, man. This is this is a it’s a 100% my responsibility and not just because I exercise Jocko’s extreme ownership in all things, but, like, yeah, I didn’t leverage Seb if you wanna say that word, enough to get the word on this. Yeah. A 100%. So the you asked about the growth. It’s actually we’ve been focusing so much on growing that microdosing program, and that has grown dramatically. Oh, cool. We we, we used to have, you know, like 4 or 5 people going through it at a time.

Dave Zwoboda [01:10:33]:
We’re now running groups. It’s, like, up to 15 people because we we still cap it. But that’s grown tremendously. The word’s getting out there more on that, which is awesome. Honestly, I probably still haven’t done a good enough job getting the word out on this one because we’ve been focused on that microdosing program. So I’m really glad that you’re bringing it up now, because we we we do need to continue getting the word out for it. It is something I’m gonna really focus hard on kinda towards the end of the year and into January, get like, get a little posting strategy going to that. Because, dude, there there’s there’s endless people that follow Seb that would want to come to this retreat, and he just hasn’t told them about it, which is a 100% on me because I haven’t haven’t, been cracking the whip quite enough.

Dave Morrow [01:11:13]:
Mhmm. Well, you know, things like this, like, in my opinion, this is where the money from Veterans Affairs goes to meet the veteran where the individuals that will get a benefit. Like, these are the type of things that are gonna save lives. Because what I’m seeing here with your testimonials, with the community, with the outside the box type stuff, we’re using plant medicine and then BJJ. I mean, it’s not necessarily for everybody, but for the people that it does serve, man, like, it it is such a is such a breath of fresh air to see people that are actually able to heal when a lot of us in the community, it almost seems like there’s no hope because you get sick, you don’t feel great. A guy like Toby, for instance, who have had on the podcast as well, freaking legend, just describing his process, I can see why you get to a point where, like, fuck it. There’s no there’s no turning back. Like, I can’t I can’t get I can’t get better.

Dave Morrow [01:12:05]:
What’s the point?

Dave Zwoboda [01:12:07]:
And that that’s honestly, that’s why I highlight stories like Toby’s. So I highlight stories like that. That woman with the compulsive shopping like I mentioned. Like Yeah. Dude, she’s been on Prozac for, like, 20 years.

Dave Morrow [01:12:17]:
She’s been

Dave Zwoboda [01:12:17]:
in and out in and out of VAC therapy. She’s tried EMDR. She’s tried, like, tried, like, equine therapy. Yeah. She’s been, like, medicated for years, and she’s fucking sick of it finally. It’s it’s a a sad amount of people that we work with where we hear things like, hey, this is kind of my last hope. Especially now, I I kind of make light of it as an American but, like, I feel like the Canadian government throws cannabis at people and if that doesn’t work, they offer you to help you kill yourself and, like, that’s their solution to the problem.

Dave Morrow [01:12:48]:
Oh, man. I’m laughing but, yeah, you’re the like, the memes are furious. The memes are so popular with this, man, because it’s true. It’s 100% true.

Dave Zwoboda [01:12:57]:
And there’s a lot of people who are getting to the end of their rope because they’ve tried the therapy. They’ve tried the pills. They’ve tried the EMDR, and nothing just seems to stick and nothing seems to work. And that’s why I harp on stories like Toby’s. And, dude, I’ve got so many other stories that I could share but we take people’s privacy very seriously. And so that’s why, you know, I blur out people’s names. That’s why we don’t put, like, pictures of people’s faces on our Instagram. You’re not gonna see, like, before and after pictures or something like that.

Dave Zwoboda [01:13:24]:
Like Toby and that guy Brian, they’re actually peer mentors inside of our program, which is awesome because again, like, I’m a civilian, right? So like there’s things that you’ve experienced that I straight up can’t relate to and that’s why we have Toby and Sherry, Toby and his wife Sherry and we have that guy Brian Wilson, American Aviator, inside of our program to give back and share their experiences and share their lessons learned. So it’s not just me. But that’s why I harp on the same stories because, we’ve got a retired CIA officer with, like, super high level security clearances who’s trying to go back to getting a job in the DOD. So, like, yeah, we can’t really talk about her too publicly besides those details. So there’s there’s a there’s a lot more stories that I wish I could share, and we probably need to do a better job of highlighting those people as well. Because I think it gives people hope to see something like, hey. Toby was an alcoholic for 2 decades. Toby tried committing suicide by cop when he was at his lowest.

Dave Zwoboda [01:14:18]:
And thank God those, RCMP officers were like, exercise restraint that day. Because now Toby’s here and able to share his story and able to kind of be a beacon of hope for people who are going through the same things and who don’t see that light on the end of the tunnel. So I really appreciate you highlighting his story on your podcast and giving me a space to talk about this stuff because it’s important, man.

Dave Morrow [01:14:40]:
Yeah. Well, 100%. Yeah. Absolutely, man. Like, it was it was chatting to Toby that I got in touch with you because during the conversation, I was like, wait.

Dave Zwoboda [01:14:48]:
Who are

Dave Morrow [01:14:48]:
you talking about here? Oh, wait. There’s a there’s a retreat?

Dave Zwoboda [01:14:51]:
Hold on

Dave Morrow [01:14:51]:
a sec. Who’s this Dave guy? He’s like, oh, I’ll put you in touch. And then that’s how podcasting the power of podcasting really ends up creating something special because you don’t know who you’re gonna talk to next that’s gonna open up a whole new world. And case in point, like, you’re here. Yeah. And I I I can officially say, Dave, because of you, this is the largest live audience I’ve ever had. 266 and growing. This is insane.

Dave Morrow [01:15:17]:
So congratulate slow clap for this one. Guy, people were definitely definitely intrigued. Like, wait. There’s free jujitsu? I got one guy here. Where is he? He’s like, okay. Let me show his comment. Free or taxpayer funded. So I hope we answered that question.

Dave Morrow [01:15:34]:
It’s for folks that have the education reimbursement. So therefore, taxpayer funded, but free to the individual that earned it. So I mean, is there really anything that’s free? I mean, I can’t I can’t think of anything, you know, everybody’s gotta pay at some point. So so that’s going to be, I mean, for me, anyways, I can’t wait to get signed up, man. Like, it’s going to be such a good experience. The Runways clear now for me. So, and I’m going to be doing my 1st competition and like beginning April. So it’s gonna be yeah.

Dave Morrow [01:16:08]:
It’s gonna be it’s gonna be a thing. It’s gonna be a thing.

Dave Zwoboda [01:16:12]:
We got, we had a couple of amateur MMA fighters come to our civilian camp last year. Oh. And now they microdose before every single fight that they have. Really? They’ve been undefeated since coming to our jujitsu retreat. So Oh, wow. Cheat code.

Dave Morrow [01:16:25]:
Okay. That’s amazing. I’m already shitting my pants a little bit. I think I had nervous diarrhea the other day. I’m like, okay. I’m gonna do this. My body’s like, what are you doing, man? You’re gonna get your arm broken. I’m like, done.

Dave Morrow [01:16:35]:
Just shut it down. Shut it down. So, it’s going to be an interesting experience and my son, isn’t the main reason why I’m doing it because he is been he’s been training like a savage, but he’s got a little case of a, I don’t wanna call it the yips, but he’s nervous because he keeps on getting beat because, well, he’s young, but he’s super big like me. So the kids that he’s fighting against are a lot more experienced and he’s like, oh, I don’t wanna get beat again. And, you know, he gets really upset. I’m like, I’ll go with you. I’ll fight too. He’s like, yeah.

Dave Morrow [01:17:02]:
I’m like, yeah. So, yeah, we’re doing a a father son event in April. So, Dave, this has been a excellent conversation, I mean, as they always are. Thanks for sharing all the, the updates. And we’re just gonna go through post by post or page by page. Your first this is Seb here, but I wanna show your, Instagram account. So, folks, if you wanna send a message directly to Dave, do so right now. Go follow him on Instagram.

Dave Morrow [01:17:31]:
It’s becoming dot ohm. And, I got a nice following here and growing. Last time I checked, you’re up 5,000, man. You you’re up at eighties.

Dave Zwoboda [01:17:39]:
I told you, bro. We’ve been putting in work to grow the coaching program.

Dave Morrow [01:17:42]:
And Yeah. Yep. Well, John’s son.

Dave Zwoboda [01:17:45]:
Thank you.

Dave Morrow [01:17:45]:
Cool. And then, if you want more information on, his website, so we’ll just go to Becoming Home here. So becoming home.com. So you can, go through his website and then find out everything about the retreats, both for civilians and veteran retreats. It’s all here.

Dave Zwoboda [01:18:07]:
Even one last thing. We actually have a women’s retreat that we’re starting. I would plug it, but it’s actually sold out already.

Dave Morrow [01:18:13]:
Oh, is that wild women’s healing retreat? Yeah. That’s it right here.

Dave Zwoboda [01:18:16]:
That’s correct.

Dave Morrow [01:18:16]:
Oh, very cool.

Dave Zwoboda [01:18:17]:
Women. We’re gonna be running another one probably January 2026. So if you’re a female veteran out there, that’s a 100% the place that you need to be at. We actually have a ton of, like, resources, a whole private community just for women that my wife spearheads. I didn’t even talk about that because that retreat’s already sold out, so I didn’t wanna promote it and you say, hey, you can’t come, but just another thing to keep in mind.

Dave Morrow [01:18:36]:
Very cool. Oh, that’s awesome, man. And to, shamelessly promote my, my book that does mention Dave and, his

Dave Zwoboda [01:18:44]:
Must be great. Retreat.

Dave Morrow [01:18:45]:
It’s good. That’s international bestseller for sure. I’ll just bring the link up here. If you go to my website, you can go to hard to kill.org. Go to harden up book. You can get your copy right now. You know, folks are saying a lot of good things, namely, Tim Jensen wrote the forward CEO, grunt style. We’ve also got Dallas Alexander saying some nice words, Tony Chapman, general Thompson, you name it.

Dave Morrow [01:19:09]:
Folks are already, interested in what’s going on here because it is literally guys like Dave and other really high speed individuals that are experts in the field. It’s not me. It’s not me. I’m not the expert. I’m just a conduit. You can find how to piece all of the stuff you learned on the podcast together with this book and, get a lot more insights. And I mentioned doctor Gino Kalura, who’s kinda like the unifying force here, I think. He’s like the bjj, I’m gonna call godfather.

Dave Morrow [01:19:39]:
You mentioned the godfather in your presentation, so I’m gonna say the bjj godfather because he did the research because he’s an egghead on how important bjj is for the veteran community because there’s the camaraderie, there’s the warrior mindset, and there’s the the the one on one confrontation that builds trust. That link to his paper is in my book as well. So this is kinda, you know, the, I guess, the the starting point if, one would say for folks if they’re really interested in in getting involved in BJJ. You don’t need, blue belt. You don’t need any experience to join, your flow state retreat. I’m a white belt. I’m I’m brand new. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ve definitely seen the benefits of a establishing routine.

Dave Morrow [01:20:25]:
It then leads to things like BJJ, and then it just leads to a better, happier, more fulfilled life. And I’m more present with, you know, my family and my kids because I’ve avoided being strangled for an hour, and it dials me in. And that’s that’s the beauty of it.

Dave Zwoboda [01:20:41]:
It’s awesome. It’s awesome to explain that to someone who has no idea what you’re talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I simulate murdering my friends so I can be a better dad. A 100%.

Dave Morrow [01:20:50]:
I do know what’s cool. Yeah. Gino, he talks about, like, that whole concept of, you know, avoiding, quote, unquote, death. It activates that part of the brain, that fight or flight part of the brain that for a lot of us is jacked up. And in that moment, you have to fight. But there’s also the escape hatch where you build that trust because all it takes is a tap and, hey, we’re good. We’re buddies. We’re not trying to kill each other.

Dave Morrow [01:21:14]:
But for that small period of time, you think that, hey, I might die. And it actually brings you back to, to baseline. And that’s what I found is the best thing about jujitsu. It’s just that, is that kind of fear and and aggressiveness that you often don’t get. So, yeah. So, Dave, thanks so much for chatting here. We’re up to 285, Dave. I’m I I almost wanna just stay online and just chat about the weather.

Dave Morrow [01:21:37]:
This is huge.

Dave Zwoboda [01:21:38]:
I’m glad that I couldn’t see that number as I was going live or else I may have gotten nervous. I saw, like, 4 names in the comments. I was like, no one’s even listening to me talk right now.

Dave Morrow [01:21:47]:
What’s funny what’s funny is that, you know, put up a there’s a comment here that somebody’s shit posting. Is this the only good thing that Trudeau has done? Yeah. I you know what, man? I don’t even know he had if he had anything to do with the education reimbursement. I don’t know if that was him. I think that was I think that was Harper when they did the new veteran charter, but I you’d you don’t quote me on that. You’d have to find somebody that knows, knows the veteran stuff here in Canada a lot better. And then, you know, for any American listeners out there, like, you know, obviously, like, we’re we’re kinda leveraging our our assets here in terms of funding. But, you know, for my American listeners, like, obviously, like, come on down.

Dave Morrow [01:22:21]:
This isn’t just a Canadian exclusive thing.

Dave Zwoboda [01:22:24]:
Right?

Dave Morrow [01:22:24]:
Like Not at all. We’re all we’re all in the same boat here. We’re building a lot of bridges, and and that’s what, that’s what the show is all about. It’s building those bridges.

Dave Zwoboda [01:22:31]:
So funny, man. It’s like 3 years ago, I don’t think I knew a single Canadian person. Like, I figured it full stop. A 100%, man. Literally, like, some some friend I met on, like, the Internet on Instagram put me in touch with Seb, and I had Seb on my podcast back in the day. And that’s where all of this started. Seb put me in touch with Toby. Okay.

Dave Zwoboda [01:22:51]:
And then it’s just your military is so small. It seems like literally everybody just knows everybody.

Dave Morrow [01:22:56]:
It’s 2 degrees. You know, like 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon. It’s 2 degrees of if you don’t know the that guy specifically, you for sure know one of his friends or a guy that

Dave Zwoboda [01:23:05]:
he trained with. What is it called? Operation Pegasus jump? I’m not sure you I’m sure

Dave Morrow [01:23:09]:
you are familiar with that. Of course. Tim Tim Yep. Is in my book. Like There you go. There you go. So Tim Tim’s daughter’s a half. He’s an animal.

Dave Zwoboda [01:23:18]:
Half the people who even go there have been clients of ours. Half the people who now are our client went there and got tattooed by Damien or his wife, Pam, who were our clients and came to Peru with us. So literally, we have someone in our program who got tattooed by Damien at that event and, like, didn’t like, that’s how she got connected with us. So next year, me and my wife are actually planning a trip to Canada because now I have a 1,000 Canadian friends and, like, I wanna be an official sponsor of something like Operation Pegasus. We’re already basically an unofficial sponsor of

Dave Morrow [01:23:48]:
your thing. You’re an on you’re already basically Canadian. The fact that you’re, like, you drop, like, RCMP and, like, random Canadian I know some stuff.

Dave Zwoboda [01:23:56]:
It’s just Alright.

Dave Morrow [01:23:57]:
You just you’re in. You’re in the club. You’re you’re gonna be wearing Maple Leafs and just and now you have to pick a hockey team. And that’s the defining factor. So that that could be

Dave Zwoboda [01:24:06]:
there,

Dave Morrow [01:24:07]:
you know, like people are very divided on like Republican Democratic lines. But you know what? The hockey team you pick here, I think is is yeah, it’s gonna make or break a lot a lot of relationships. So pick wisely. That’s that’s my only that’s my only recommendation. Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m biased. Right? I’m I’m a Habs fan. Like, you know, if you don’t like the Habs, you can just unfollow my podcast.

Dave Morrow [01:24:27]:
It’s basically it. Like, I don’t want anybody from Toronto listening to

Dave Zwoboda [01:24:30]:
Do Canadians get down with American teams? Like, there’s, like, the New Jersey Devils. Like, that’s where I’m from. Okay.

Dave Morrow [01:24:35]:
Oh, yeah. Of course. But, I mean, it’s rare. So there’s some teams that just they don’t they didn’t really catch on for whatever reason. But, you know, we have a big because Boston is our biggest rival more or less after the Maple Leafs. But there’s a lot of folks that are Boston fans because they just didn’t wanna be Has fans because during the seventies, the Canadians won everything, and people got pissed. So they’re like, screw you. We’re gonna cheer for the other guys.

Dave Morrow [01:24:59]:
You know? So there’s a lot of Boston fans here. There’s a lot of, actually, there’s a lot of avalanche fans because the Quebec Nordiques became the avalanche. It’s it there’s a whole history. We can have a whole podcast about it. Actually, you know, we’re almost at 300. We might as well just talk about hockey now. This is amazing. Well, I

Dave Zwoboda [01:25:15]:
hope that’ll keep people coming back in short.

Dave Morrow [01:25:17]:
But I’m sure you got things to do. You got a young family, Dave, so I don’t wanna keep you any longer. Really appreciate it, man. And, we’ll be in touch, in the near future and continued success with, everything you’re doing, man. It’s it’s awesome.

Dave Zwoboda [01:25:28]:
You, bro. Thank you very much for helping out here. And, again, anybody listening, I know some people hopped in later on, shoot me a message on Instagram. I’ll give you everything that you need to survive the holidays and beyond heading to 2025, feeling better than ever. I’ll hook you up with all the info on the jiu jitsu retreats. Hit me up at Instagram, becoming dotalom. That’s the best place to find me.

Dave Morrow [01:25:47]:
Yeah, buddy. Right on, folks. Right on. So, folks, you know what you gotta do. If you’re super interested, go, find Dave on Instagram. And, if you wanna get some more insights as well, head over. Grab my book. It just, is on sale now on Amazon.

Dave Morrow [01:26:04]:
I’ve just a whole chapter on BJJ there. So get some insights into that and, start rolling ASAP. That’s it for me. Dave, thanks so much. Don’t forget, folks. Train hard for you fight easy. See you on the next one. Peace.

Dave Zwoboda [01:26:15]:
Peace.

Dave Morrow [01:26:17]:
We hit 300.

Dave Zwoboda [01:26:18]:
Yay. 301. Yay. That’s awesome, man.