The WAY to WOW Shows
A Combat Medic’s Lesson for Life
September 27, 2023
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[0:13] good afternoon and welcome to people making money one of the way to wow shows I'm your host Kevin bemel and it is good to be back after uh um being on Hiatus for a few weeks and uh you know one of my friends uh yesterday was watching the show and he sent me a text message hey love the pirate look you know I haven't heard that more than about a hundred times in the last month but um in any event um it is it is good to be back and um what a way to come back

[0:48] um I I have a guest uh today um and I'm probably gonna mangle your name it's Barry's War teams zworstein right that's worrisston okay zorrestine I've been practicing and practicing and I know I'm saying to be wrong um and and um Barry was kind enough to get up very early because he actually is talking to us from um Australia so um I'm excited to have a guest uh from from outside of the United States that that's a real treat for me um before I I um you know start up with with um

[1:25] with Barry I just want to um remind you that we are here every week uh 12 30 p.m Pacific 3 30 a.m um um eastern time and what five uh 3 30 p.m eastern time and 5 30 a.m in Australia and that was really great of you it's very early yes and um so without further Ado though um you know um combat medic psychologist author um Barry swerstein

[2:01] um is is here to talk to us about um his career and and his uh his time helping people make transitions so Barry welcome to people making money thanks so much for coming on the show thanks Kevin I'm not sure I'm going to get it what I'm going to contribute to the money side of things but um well so so one of the sort of central themes of the show is is there are um lots of ways uh to make money um but what what what we're looking for

[2:36] or what I think what most people are looking for is a way that they can make whatever the amount of money is that they want you know to to live the life they want to live but also really enjoy what they're doing so you know for some people I suppose that's making you know a billion dollars um but for other people um you know I've one of my first interviews was a friend of mine who's a winemaker um up in Northern California and um you know I think by if you were to say you know is he financially successful he would say yes I am um but he doesn't have a you know nine figure bank account but he loves what he

[3:13] does he makes fantastic wine and you know and and so I think that by any measure certainly by his own and his he and his wife they uh run the winery together they are huge successful um even if not you know stacking up uh you know dollar bills so so first of all tell where are you where are you in Australia I'm in Sydney oh okay home home to the gorgeous opera house as I recall yeah it's it's a look it's a beautiful place um we live literally 10 meters from a national park

[3:49] um it's extraordinary here yeah it's it's a very beautiful place and um um I mean this is going back a few years um have you recovered from the devastating fires of several years ago yeah look it's it happens sporadically you know I came to Australia first in 1980 um and I remember in that time I'd been working for about two and a half years and then took off and just lived in the bush and traveled and camped and I remember being in Melbourne in about 80 82 and they were huge fires and I

[4:25] remember we were mountain biking for a week or so and just looking up at the sky and it looked like um some catastrophic event the sky was black I mean there was just smoke everywhere and then that was soon followed by um floods so everything was scorched and then the topsoil was washed away so you know over the years we've had our floods and fires and famines and it's it's the nature of the soul of this place yeah yeah yeah well um we had the same thing when I lived in

[5:01] Santa Barbara we get very bad wildfires which would destroy the ability of the groundhog and then we'd have terrible mudslides when the rains came so yeah look it's hard and it's tough on people and tough on towns that are really impacted on and people in their lives um yeah it's a challenge of nature right yeah right and and there's no there's no preventing it and we see it all over the world right now it's Libya uh you know yeah well so so Barry take us as far back as as you're willing to go so one of the

[5:37] questions I like to ask and you can decline to answer I assure you is you know when when you were a you know a kid a young you know a teenager growing up what did what what were your thoughts about you know what you wanted to do when you you know quote unquote grew up but you know I I was born in southern Rhodesia so in 1953 we were a British colony and um our currency was pound Shillings and Pence and we stood up for God's sake of the queen yeah it doesn't sit too strong and

[6:12] um you know I remember being I went to Carmel Primary School a Jewish Primary School which is we had a very strong Jewish community and then I moved into a government High School my father was um from Romania he came as a young boy couldn't speak any English it was shortly before World War II and his uncle who was quite a tough farmer and brought him out and he came with no English and went to the school that I went to and sort of began his life there

[6:47] and you know we lived in a very it was an amazing Community we were a very strong closely knit community we had family we gathered you know every Friday night I wouldn't describe myself as Orthodox I'd say we were just we were Orthodox but kind of middle of the way and um you know for us life was wonderful we spent time in the bush uh we you know you know in those days there was no mobile phones television initially didn't exist we listened to the radio the goons so I think Spike Milligan and um

[7:24] you know having a vision well that was an interesting case because school for me was a thoroughly unpleasant experience I think my mother who was a teacher hadn't realized that I I had some learning issues so having extra lessons in every single subject so academically I don't think I ever had any aspirations in fact I didn't really even know what I wanted to do but the one thing I excelled at was sport so you know I was a gymnast and a squash player and that was my meeting at at school and

[8:02] eventually in 1970 when when I finished when we graduated from high school I hadn't a clue and my mom said to me well you know clearly you don't know what you're going to do so just become a teacher but she hadn't realized what was that becoming an English teacher speak you know that kind of a request when I really couldn't spell properly and also had a profound dislike of school but you know my naivety I said you know look okay I'll I'll go to university and I did I went to University in South Africa

[8:38] in in those days we'd go by steam train and uh rhodesians were renowned for the for their drinking and God knows what and uh spent four years doing a degree in a high school teacher's diploma finished that and decided that there was not a chance in heaven that I was ever gonna put foot in high school um so I uh I was pretty lost to that point you know not knowing really what I needed to do so I went back to Rhodesia um and kind of I got called up that's

[9:14] right so the Rhodesian Bush War had begun in in the mid 60s and I'd be in the journey for three years so I was already 89 20 about 21 or so and um I got called up and in those days if you didn't go in you weren't allowed to return so um I thought well you know I'm gonna go back I'm going to go in and I got back and uh then the real journey began and I think for me that was really The Watershed of beginning to find our two I was um you know I always maintain that in a

[9:50] comfortable life we don't really have to think about who we are uh I think it's in discomfort in Challenge and I always maintain that it's a cool thing with the folk I work with we need a level of discomfort we need a level of heat that kind of cooks us to challenge us to discover the edges of who we are so I am did my initial training and then I thought well I'd become a good officer which was a bit of a contradiction in terms because I also don't have a sense of direction and I got to the final day of the selection and then because I had

[10:26] a gymnastics injury my shoulder dislocated on a on a very tall object and I fell off and that was it so I then um decided okay I was going to become a medic and I did the three-month training which was actually based on the Israeli training so there was very little we couldn't do we could you know administer drips drugs morphine cut Downs um we could do tracheostomies there was we were very well trained and arrived at my company which was on the Mozambique border and

[11:03] um I was allocated to a stick a stick is a certain number of people and allocated to stick a four and in the bush War we operated in four man sticks so very very small um groups in the bush and um spent seven months patrolling the the war at that point was extremely bad um it was a very violent War um and we worked in areas where terrorists walked in groups of 32 3 to 300. I think one of our four-man sticks walked into 400 300 terrorists at one

[11:38] point and uh did some interesting things certainly got to practice my craft yeah it was it was very much like you know mash the good old days of mesh and so you know if if the four of us walked into a situation and were called into a situation that was near us I'd be sitting in a thorn bush getting drips and getting drugs in waiting for the Choppers to pick them up and then then we would move on so those seven months were were powerful um they were encountering um but they also left an edge you know

[12:13] you can't I always say there's no such thing as an unwounded veteran so following that I went back to University in in Cape Town in South Africa and I became all I could do actually was become a speech and hearing correctionist so I did that for a year and then I wandered around three schools primary schools testing hearing and teaching kids to say Ronnie rabbit and kids who would say femi snake and only wear but so I did that for a year and

[12:49] then decided maybe that wasn't my career aspiration and um if I can interrupt you for just a second go for it yeah so um what led you to decide um and maybe this is you know in in the United States one of the big decisions anybody in the military makes is whether they're going to make it a career or whether they're going to kind of do you know three and out or four now so what led you to decide to um get out of the military and and go back to civilian life look I mean the military was never going to be my life I mean it I was an

[13:25] interesting contradiction in that in 1972 I decided I'd I was going to become a vegetarian you know killing things was not um was not going to be a goal for me and so when I went operational and I went you know guys look there's a bit of a problem with the retex um I'm a vegetarian and there was a shock wave that just traveled through up all the way to Command Center and they had to find food for me to eat on patrol so it wasn't going to be my future but it was a point in time where I did something that in many ways set me up for the present

[14:01] um the only way I could get out because at that point things were pretty tight end and I really didn't want to come out feet first and I applied to University and the only thing I could do was that diploma and speech and hearing defects so it was by default a lot of a lot of my journey was by default I didn't know what to do they were Crossroads there was one option I grabbed the option and so that was one of those default um moments where I made a choice but the military wasn't going to become my career um and certainly you know seeing the

[14:38] impact that it had on on all of us and also having worked with um veterans over the last 21 years look it's a good lifestyle you know there's a camaraderie ship and there's values and this the concept of tribe and dependability and reliability but the Rhodesian Bush War Rhodesia collapsed so it could never become an option A lot of the guys did carry on and joined the South African Army or or became contractors around the world and in fact even now the guys in the late 70s

[15:13] um still doing contract work whether they helicopter Pilots or advising but it was a point in time um so that's kind of why it didn't become a permanent fixture for me yeah okay but education I certainly wasn't going to be walking around with the testing caring for the rest of my life So eventually I I went I ended up and it's a little bit I ended up in England England I was working for um a bicycle

[15:48] shop for a few months because I had done a second language qualification in teaching English as a second language and um at that point as I mentioned to see before we went on when I finished that my wife um who was not Jewish at the time said look I really need to get to Israel I've got to be in that place and I said to look I I'm not sure that I'm creating an awards and go there but you know what the hell it's another adventure so we bought her a mopid um I bought a mountain bike there's old

[16:24] steel frame things and loaded it up with bags of guitar and I have a photograph of with sandals on no shoes no map no mobile phone because they weren't invented and off I went off we went to Israel with no sense of direction so to this day I can't really explain what happened in my head that I thought that was feasible but all I know is I had this bike and I was heading off in the vague Direction somehow I was going to get to Israel which wasn't going to happen so we're actually going to ride your

[16:59] bike I was gonna I was going to ride a mountain bike with no map no clue to Israel yeah so downhill from England right as well I think that's probably just go straight turn left at 100 000 kilometers and and you'd find out where I was going so unfortunately having had um quite a lot of pollen allergies I got a top of a hill I was exhausted my lungs were gone um went back to the UK flew to Israel and arrived and um we decided to make Alias and and for those of you that don't know what making

[17:34] aliyaris is is you immigrate you immigrate to Israel you get an identity document and there's a process in which you settle down you become a citizen and and you live in the country you're not just a tourist and when was this what what year so this was 1984. okay so arrived in Israel um and yeah it was a bit tough to begin with and then the actually prior if I jump back before 84 we'd made we'd immigrated from South Africa to Australia um got to Australia on a Zimbabwe Rhodesian passport which was the one

[18:11] with the transitional government um after the war um there are debt government changed and became Zimbabwe I sent my passport back and paid for a new Zimbabwean passport which never arrived I became stateless and stayed and stayed thank God in Israel where I'd immigrated to until I got an Aussie passport in 83 things were really difficult I was working with autistic children at that point um but it was tough it was really tough we had no family no friends and arrived with no money um went Bush for a couple of months just

[18:46] to travel and catch our breath and then we left back to South Africa and then to Israel Israel I think still to this day remains one of the most incredible experiences for a number of reasons I mean one was the British government had got permission to start an English Language Center in Tel Aviv and five of us were selected to grow this from the ground up and um we started off on just paper no computers and built it up to one of the biggest British Council English language centers in the world it doesn't exist

[19:21] there anymore it stopped um so I had a glorious life I mean it was the only time if you talk about money it was the only time I was earning over a million shekels a year with inflation um you know they had the 1 000 shekel notes so for those of you you know it was a little note and a thousand shekels and when inflation hit they knocked all three notes and turned it into one shekel coin so the the one shekel coin confused all the old people because they couldn't tell the difference between

[19:57] that and smaller currencies and were being ripped off at the markets so as a reaction they called it a joke so as you know is one one joke and the joke is a cockroach and so it was their way of telling the government they weren't amused so and it got known as you know if something was one shekel uh you they'd asked you for Joker and um but I had a wonderful time I loved the work it was creative I discovered a love of Israel

[20:33] um because I'm not I'm not really I don't really come from a very religious background um and traveled a bit around it and that's when I also started running so Israel brought me back to a lot of my roots but extraordinary place with the history and I then began that journey of of a love of running so and that carried on until about three years ago when I when I ran myself into a wall and uh was no longer allowed to run anymore but you know I just turned up in Tiberius which is a beautiful sea

[21:09] a period of water and put on an old pair of running shoes with no training and ran 42 kilometers and uh yeah that was hard work um I wouldn't want to do that again um and then ran the Tel Aviv marathon and did some running in the desert and that became a big part of my life but Israel wasn't going to last because I didn't want to be a teacher I wanted to move on I wanted to do something different I couldn't study in Israel because my Hebrew just wasn't good enough to study went back to South Africa

[21:45] then trained went back to University didn't know what to do again and went to my old University Town my friends were now running the psychology department um they said why don't you do psychology I went Crossroads of my life default yep so I finished my degree in Psychology I did psycho two and three did the honors got accepted for the clinical Masters finished that became a psychologist and then um I had remarried and eventually we arrived back in Australia in 2000 at that point in time it was easy I'd had

[22:21] three children I they had all become Australians by descent um so I still had my passport we walked back in and began a new life in 2000 um my journey with with my ex didn't last very long it was due I think at the sense had run out of out of the the time clock and it was due to finish but I've been here ever since and um prior actually prior to coming back was when my running really took off I started moving from marathons to ultra marathons I did a couple I did a thing

[22:57] called comrades Marathon which was a 84 kilometer run uphill in South Africa and another ultra marathon got injured off to the final Ultra um so I had this love of just movement and being in nature I found I could process but somebody said something really important to me you know with extreme sports they asked me they asked me one very valid question they said what are you running away from and you know that was quite an encountering question and even today when I work with veterans I uh specially

[23:32] veterans have a tendency to move into quite extreme stuff and it's not that there's an issue with extreme stuff but we also have to be careful that we're not running away from stuff in the pursuit of the wall so it really did it it really did get me thinking and then fortunately soon after arriving back for the second time I got a position um in a jury school as a psychologist in 2002 and then at the same time the

[24:07] government got permission for contractors to work with the veteran organization here in Australia and so they they took me on because of my combat experience and and um being a psychologist so I've been with my school for 21 years and I've been with the veteran Organization for 21 years now you know when I look back and this is the randomness of life is I was never going to be a teacher doing education was just insane becoming a psychologist was by default but everything came together in 2002

[24:45] where because of my education qualifications I ended up in a school not as a teacher as a psychologist and the interweave of the military brought me back into working with the tribe so these random choices that were made by default there was a patent and a dance to them with which only manifested you know 30 or 40 years later so I'm here now and got remarried 10 years ago to an extraordinary human being she's from Brazilian we're from Brazil she was a pharmacist visiting a masters

[25:21] in counseling and Psychotherapy so you can imagine the conversations between us um and we have a good life and I always say happiness real happiness truly began at the age of 60. I began to find peace wow so it was a it was an interesting Journey Kevin very interesting so so there's a there's a couple of um sort of through lines and and I'd like to hit on at least one of them so you you mentioned uh well you've you've you've shown that you traveled around a lot so movement was

[25:57] part of your life moving from country to Country Place to Place but also marathoning Ultra marathoning so what was it if if you know that impelled you to to to move to make these changes and um and and how did you know if you did when it was time to make any you know particular change you know I don't think I was ever one of those people that I as a child that I was

[26:34] going to imagine just constant change and constant movement I think I always say in the war we lose slivers of us part of who we were gets sworn away I think that left something inside neither good nor bad but the restlessness is probably the best way I could describe it you know I think I always remember that one one of my most profound experiences was four of us being on an operation and we were on a hill I'm doing an opian observation post where you just

[27:09] literally sit very quietly in the middle of the Bush and observe and we saw about two or three hundred meters away about six people overalls carrying things over the back and we figured that they could be terrorists and two of us set off to sort it out and I remember the tracker that I was with going around and I I climbed over and and you know I don't know if you ever played Cowboys and Indians as a child it there was a sense of unreality that this was real cowboys and Indians and I remember getting to the top of the hill and lining up with my weapon on the guy

[27:46] down below and at his signal he was going to do it he was going to do it and I was going to sort out the guy down there fortunately he called me down they were actually civilians but there was that millisecond where we one we would have killed civilians but two what I realized was that it was not difficult to kill somebody and that awareness has stayed with me I think for a lot of my life but at first it didn't sit easily I don't think the war sat easily in a lot of us because we changed and from the 70s there was no support

[28:22] the you know PTSD or or combat trauma or combat stress was not something that was really a great awareness and so I think a lot of us lived and and drove Our Lives forward in quite a Restless way we just couldn't settle because I think internally we were unsettled and and I think a lot of what I was doing came from that point in time um whereas a lot of my generation who had not been at War you know they went

[28:57] to Lyrica they became doctors lawyers surgeons whatever um well some went to Israel some went to the UK but mine was very nomadic and the only part I think that contributed to that was that point of time in my life where everything was turned inside out because we don't often spend many months living on the edge of life and death or and seeing quite a lot of life and death and I think that reorganized a lot of a framework that we were brought up with and and the security and

[29:32] a normal normalcy of of how we approach life and I think a lot of it came from there I think the running came from there as well um and it's a racistness that I think a lot of us still have to this day we we don't it's not so much around moving but um I think there's a part of us that never really settles inside us you know we all still have strange habits of of watching doorways and and and getting slightly kind of edgy and very busy supermarkets now or shopping centers now you know from a rational point of view at my age and as a psychologist that's

[30:08] that's ridiculous but it's there and so who we were we no longer were in the present and I think that had its impact on our life Journeys but it also had a positive impact on our value system I mean all the folk that I know and all the folk that I've supported are human beings who have a deep sense of tribe connectivity highly focused or reliable and dependable and you know when I work with um military veterans I always say to them you know would you ever leave a man

[30:43] behind and they go absolutely not and I go so so why have you lift yourself behind I get lost you've put on weight you're drinking you're depressed you're anxious why have you left yourself behind and the first mission we always have is to go back and rescue who they were heal the wounds and then bring the positive stuff forward and combine that with the civilian you know thank God in this age today we know how to work with people that struggle with the impacts of War you know my time I think we were lost you know 60 years through the desert

[31:18] Kevin we did the same thing in a different way we wondered until we found a place where we felt we could belong but we kept moving until we found a place where we could belong so I don't know if that explains some of it to you yeah no I I think it does and um I mean what you said about you know you wouldn't leave a comrade behind why did you leave yourself behind I I that's one of the most powerful things I've ever heard I mean that with no hyperbole at all um because it in my work as a Chaplain

[31:54] um I I encountered that same that same thing people who were extremely selfless in their Devotion to their comrades their family or whatever to the point where they were destroying their own lives and I would say to them what what will you be able to do for your family if you continue on this path right without taking care of in the Navy we have a a saying um ship shipmate self which makes it sound like you you put yourself last but it's only because if the ship sinks then

[32:30] you know everybody goes down right and and but in reality I have to remind I had to remind my Sailors and Marines in order to be able to protect the ship you have to be fit enough to be able to do that and and it's it I feel it's really easy to lose track of that it is you know through because there is such an ethos of selflessness in in them are you so how how if you do do you apply lessons

[33:06] such as that to people who have never been in the military because I think you don't have to have been in the military to Lose Yourself right especially at the expense of other people that again here in America there is in many ways there is this sort of ethos of selflessness like that's that's the funniest thing to Aspire for right so how do you translate that for people who who perhaps haven't had it you know that experience and well you know when I in in last year I I wrote my book which way is

[33:43] your where are you facing and it's a transitional manual and I combined the lessons from running Ultra marathons and the lessons from being at War and I think those lessons are often my little cockroach in my head is whether I reframe that book and turn it into something for any population so the lessons that I always use are that there is no growth without discomfort and we are we're and I we're um we're a species that as we age we like to become more and more comfortable but as we soften we start to lose our

[34:19] Edge and our appreciation of the things around us there can be no growth without change without effort without challenge it always takes something it's a bit of a fire we need to go through so the first lesson always in working with kids in my school and and others is that we need to look at micro challenges every single day it could be making your bed you know you've got Admiral mcraven who wrote that book make your bed the Navy SEAL and that one really that was a very beautiful little book that I read and and I make my bed every single day because that that's a

[34:56] statement that says I'm organizing my life I am driving my life it could be for some people it could be going for a walk around the block it could be um just getting up and doing the shopping getting up and doing some exercise gentle stuff you know it depends where people are at but you need to step out of your comfort zone to create change so that's that's one of the big ones I do explore um the other one is that um I work a lot with with Fitness and well-being and well-being at a level of

[35:31] emotional psychological even spiritual you know for folk that are religious Christian Jews whatever they may be all those aspects the holistic aspects of who we are and nutrition are all really important I'm not a nutritionist but it's getting people taking care of of their well-being from ultramaritans one of the lessons I really understood was that I often say if you can't run walk if you can't walk crawl if you can't crawl sit down on the side of the road have a moment get up dust off and keep going no you know when I work with veterans

[36:07] and even um when I I don't really work with civilians anymore in my private practice but with The Adolescents in my school they've been a couple that are that that enjoy pushing the edge a little bit and I'm very much you have a guy in America called Wim Hof and he does the breathing and the cold water stuff and um cold water is a very powerful challenge and so for example I I made a choice about nearly three years ago never to have a hot shower and and I've had cold showers 365 days a year but the thing is when you experience

[36:43] discomfort whether it's a cold water or what your body starts to adjust in the depth so that means in time what you perceive is to what you perceive as being uncomfortable certainly becomes comfortable so you start to extend your parameters of your own personal strength your own personal vision and your own personal endurance and resilience now you know when you talk about creating wealth well you know creating wealth as you said can be huge amounts of money it could be just working really hard it could be providing for your family you know wealth is the point at

[37:19] which we feel comfort but before we get to wealth we also have to move through discomfort and even with wealth we can lose wealth material stuff it can go overnight and it's constantly working and teaching people that discomfort is your greatest teacher so when kids come into my room um let's say they in this they their last two years of school which can be quite stressful and like you know what's happening and they go I'm not motivated I go well motivations the cream on top of the pudding it's about time management organization discipline well-being Fitness endurance resilience you know so forget motivation it doesn't

[37:56] that's not what you're here for um but I think we all we regeneration well not so much Our Generation but I think the younger generation if it doesn't work we discard it if it's a relationship I don't like it I'll leave it we just change we take off we take it off and we move on yeah I struggle with that because we sometimes need to dwell with where we don't want to be and that's probably the core of what I do with people is who are we and what do we do and how do we find the resources to manage being where we don't necessarily

[38:31] want to be but we're our greatest learning can actually happen I mean it's so interesting so much of what you said I've I've had in recent conversations with my daughter who in 16. and the one that really resonated was she she's a writer and she's been struggling to finish projects she said to me uh I think week before last Dad I'm just not motivated and I said okay but that has nothing to do with being a writer said if a writer waits to be motivated they don't write anything and I say and I've told her about a book that Stephen King wrote

[39:07] where you know you you set your time each day and that's the time you write and whether you write no useful Pages or 50 useful pages to a certain extent is immaterial as long as you're writing because a writer writes that's what makes a writer um and it's it's a hard lesson to learn I think look it's not easy and I know with a lot of the non-military folk I often ing for the 84 kilometer Marathon now you know 1972 at University in a little black and white television I saw this race and I always remember watching and

[39:44] there was sometimes a kilometer or two between people running this insane distance uphill one year downhill the other year and the insanity of it all stayed in my head and then in 1990 um I went I want to run that I could just it was this thing just went up in my head and I got a guy who was a silver medal Runner and I said I want to run that and he said okay so here's the deal he said I'm going to train you and you may not like me very much but the deal is it doesn't matter what goes on on your head you don't opt out I'm gonna be fine don't worry well you know training

[40:20] sessions of you know training session could be a 40 kilometer run um day in day out you know six seven days a week constantly my body ached my headache my soul ached and I didn't want to be there and he showed no sympathies his whole approach was you made a choice and if you can't stay with the discomfort then you shouldn't have made that choice and I learned from that and I explained to people that there were points where I wanted to give up but when we start to give up and walk away because things are uncomfortable we go from being in the driver's seat to

[40:56] the passenger seat but the castle going but there's no one driving it anymore and so by constantly affirming that we are still in control of Our Lives by learning to manage discomfort and the disciplines of even just getting up and making your bed every day you're in the driver's seat you might be driving through a bit of a sandstorm or a thunderstorm but you are driving and I think the goal is with change in life is that we we go through tough really tough um times in life you know those moments that put us in the corner and we sweat

[41:32] and we watch the walls move in but by doing the things that keep us in the driver's seat at least we have a level of control to survive and endure the challenges that face us you mentioned several times I think that at these sort of turning points in your life there would be sort of one option and and you you grab that and and that made the decision for you um do you continue to do that in your life are you are you more intentional now

[42:08] about decisions how do you deal with that issue now as opposed to how you dealt with it you know in in general part of your life I think it's a really good question thanks it's it's not so Random anymore and it's not as if I arrive at a crossroad and I don't know what to do and I grab the first thing I I've got to a stage in my life where in terms of the work I do I have an absolute passion for what I do so I'm no longer looking to grab at what I do

[42:43] um I'm really comfortable financially so I don't need excess so I'm not hunting excessive wealth so I'm not grabbing or looking for options there so I'm all at a stage in my life where I can be um the change I want is change that I'm conscious about and wanting to choose so I'm at a point in my life where I'd like to slow down aspects maybe bring my veteran work down after hours a little bit um and then maybe pursue something different so for example my wife and I

[43:20] will the book writing a book came from that I had a dream about writing a book it drives me crazy you know I didn't want to do it at times very much like your daughter I empathize with her but I had the discipline to get up and keep writing because it was I could feel a calling in there my wife and I talking about starting a bit of a podcast because we forever talking and reading books and discussing things so nowadays the choices are more things I consciously choose because they create change and add layers of Engagement and pleasure and diversity on

[43:55] my life and our life rather than being in a point where I had no clue and just grabbing the first thing that came but you know that Kevin was you know it took it took 60 years to get to a level of peace and then it took another 10 years after that uh as you know at my age now to um to feel I'm embedded in in a rhythm and you know I have my rhythms I mean I I'm a strong meditator I've meditated for 47 years it's a part of my daily Rhythm I live in

[44:31] nature that's critical to my well-being I have an extraordinary relationship um things have Consolidated but getting here was not an easy Journey but I used the tools that I learned from being at War to running and even in my most desperate moments I was still kind of in the driver's seat driving through the madness of what I was facing so I life has given me a gift at this stage so I can afford now to to enrich rather

[45:07] than survive there there seems to be I don't know somewhat of an ethos at least in Western Society where um we we have to make intentional decisions yeah so I'm I'm wondering how do you look at let me preface by saying um in some ways our life has certain parallels um I would come to a turning point in my

[45:43] life there was an opportunity there and and I well okay and and and I sometimes I would think oh you're just taking the easy way out because the opportunity was there and then if uh I was interviewing a friend of mine who's a doctor with NASA and he he has a philosophy he lives by just say yes because we you know we grew up in a just say no world that his his attitude is if if opportunity presents itself just say yes and I mean it's it's done many things for him including being able to work at Nasa going to

[46:18] um scuba dive in Antarctica you know really amazing things right so how do you look at this idea of on the one hand sort of going with the opportunity presented versus analyzing and being intentional about decisions and in particular um with respect to the adolescence that that you work with who are in many ways just sort of starting out on that Journey yeah look I think now um and if I do when I do work with

[46:53] people I think the intentionality and the ability to understand the territory you want to walk into and understanding all the components of it I think that's important you know my generation we blasted out um into the world after the war um there was a Randomness there was a woundedness and that didn't allow Clarity often to happen if I could go back and the learning I had in the present and look back I I would rather have had more intentionality you know I always say if and I always

[47:28] say to the kids especially with the veterans if you're going to navigate through territory but you're going to do it with no compass and a map there's going to be a problem so I think as your friend did if you have something to say yes to well the next step then is to understand the choices of that yes the demands of that yes understand the territory of that yes you know the hills you're going to have to climb the challenges that you're going to face then enter it I I think there's far more logic and the capability for success

[48:04] at that point because you're not running in blind um you know I I know that um when I could no longer run long distances I I was running up until three years ago so 67. so it's 66 67 I would be running on my trails in extreme heat but a really extreme heat now that was not intentional or well thought out of because I would be a whiskers hair away from you know heat stroke um I was not thinking

[48:39] and so when we slam into life without thought to intentionality you know we can kill ourselves and and so I've learned even from that lesson at a later stage of my life that I think we need to I need to think more carefully be more intentional before I start pushing the edge you know I could have had a long successful running career because I was good at what I was doing but because of a lack of intentionality planning and understanding you know I injured myself so the learning I often share with

[49:14] people is that you need to understand your territory when you make a choice and then it's almost like setting up an operation what do you need what are the skill sets what are the challenges so we know our myth that we can navigate through it effectively and in any you know Kevin life whether it's a military Journey or what is about transitioning from one place to another place as we grow and change and things change in our lives and any every transition there's a certain amount of not quite knowing but if we always work at our

[49:50] internal compass and understanding our territory we're going to navigate reasonably effectively and even when we lost we know how to refind ourselves so all that that kind of an approach works for anyone you don't have to be in the military to to adopt a lot of those School mindsets so kind of um taking that one step further one of the things I see is is oftentimes um people um when they're faced with an opportunity um they're they're when they think about

[50:27] it there's too many unknowns and so they're afraid to take the opportunity even though it may very well be that this is something they should you know step forward smartly into as you know we used to say in the military so how do we um balance understanding you know as you say this the sort of you know map Encompass forward versus not letting fear um whether it's fear of the unknown fear of the pain whatever

[51:02] preventing us from moving forward in our lives look I think the first thing as I said was before you do any movement sit down and have a really good look at the territory you want to move into um what are your present challenges do you have a family do you have kids do they rely on a predictable income um what are the risks what are the challenges that you're going to face it's then a discussion um if necessary with others around you you know if if whether you're a male or

[51:38] female if if that choice can impact on others one needs to take that into the equation so I think when we understand the territory there's a mutual agreement within oneself within one's family that this is something that can happen that it's got risk attached then if there's fear then we need to look at the fear you know it changes fearful um getting old I don't have to tell you you know our bodies are changing and they can do things we don't want them to do and there's fear this yep you've got your eye and you know none of us all of

[52:14] us have fear about um finding points in our lives where our bodies actually start to change and betray us um but I think when we understand the components of what we need to move forward into then this fear if we we need to look at that fear you know fear could be fear can have its roots way back in our pasts in our personalities um so when we weight up the risks and we know it's potentially okay then we take time at the end of that if we still feel that I don't want to do

[52:50] this then we make a choice and that's okay you know sometimes we lose opportunities that's life-given you know uh we have to listen to what's happening in our bodies and when the things we can't resolve we still need to listen to our bodies you know our greatest wisdom is is within our bodies not often within our thinking but it's that gut feel combined with the thoughts that go around it so sometimes we will lose opportunities sometimes we'll grab opportunities sometimes they'll be the worst decisions

[53:26] we've ever made but if we bring as much of a a thoughtful way of approaching it that's informed by understanding and conversation with others and understanding the map and the territory then we can step into the risk or not it's just a matter of choice isn't it it is indeed um I I know I've gone through times in my life where um I have studiously neglected to follow my gut instinct yeah and

[54:04] off almost always it seems like it it was you know the wrong the wrong path um and yet at other time other times I'll I'll trust my gut instinct and it's it's hard to do because it really means having faith in oneself and and sort of state that even if your gut instinct turns out to be wrong that somehow things will come out okay right so you mentioned you mentioned earlier I'm gonna shift gears on you a little bit here because we're we're yeah we're getting close to our time

[54:40] um that that you you know you deal with a very holistic um approach and in fact I don't think you can see this at least in terms of the you know the colors and stuff so this is the three pillars of attainment it's it's it's a a system I put together initially for my Sailors and Marines to help them develop resilience and I've modified it now but but it really is looking to to help people holistically think about their lives so things like you know your your health your mindset your identity your your your

[55:15] relationships friends family whatever and then your Pursuits right and and the idea is all of these interact with each one has an impact on the um that compartmentalized yeah how do so this I guess this is gonna have to be my last question um how do you help people come to understand but also access

[55:52] themselves in all of these different Realms of life you know I think you know that just in terms of that the triangle um and there's actually a series on Netflix I think it's it's a three-part thing of living to a hundred and he explores different cultures that have longevity thought about ability to make effective decisions and and Lead lives that enrich us and you know you you can have the pursuit of wealth from a material Level and be desperately lonely and unhappy we

[56:28] can have we can live with very little but feel very wealthy so you know I think we often need to look quite carefully and when we look at that definition and when I work with people it is about one looking at your well-being so how much attention are you paying to yourself every day what's your nutrition like you know if I have disciplines every day I meditate I exercise you know I'm a raw food vegan but that's my choice I'm a bit extreme on that one but just looking at what goes into your mouth I'm looking at our relationships with people are we alone or do we have family to connect with to

[57:03] fostering a sense of meaning I think there's an important part for spirituality or or a connection even a connection with nature can be a deeply spiritual experience so I think that part of that that whole holistic model that you talk about when that's a level of living with discipline a level of discipline of care for self-care for other and being embedded in in meaningful Frameworks you know I think when we have that we've achieved wealth we really have achieved wealth I I describe myself

[57:39] as an extremely wealthy human being and I'm not materially wealthy but I am comfortable but in every way of my life I have meaning connection and belonging and I think when we go with that triangle you know at the end of the day you may not have a lot in the bank but yes you've got a lot of money somewhere else right I I one of the things I teach my daughter is is relationships are a currency all their own and and in many ways much more valuable than anything you can put away in a bank yeah do you

[58:16] know Kevin the one thing there's a song I heard a long time ago it says when you when the singer is no longer living what song does he leave behind no I think the challenge we always need to ask is when we're not here what song are we going to leave behind and that's leaving a part of yourself and that level of service and something that benefits and enriches whether it's our families or others you know and so for me my professional life was 21 years of working with the military my book was my song My Children could be my song um so it's it's outside of all of this

[58:53] outside of the triangle outside of everything we've talked about the bigger picture is what would you leave behind when you're no longer here so before we went out of time um Denise is is on with us I'm I'm I don't know Denise as far as far as I know but Denise do you have do you have a question for for Barry give her a moment to respond if so do you know Denise or no no okay okay um all right well as as it's so often the case I think we could go on you know for for another hour there's we've just started to

[59:29] unpack you know many of the ideas that were raised um by by your life by your journey and so um hopefully we'll have another opportunity to do this um and and and delve into some other aspects of this but but thank you so much Barry for for getting up so early in the morning and and and spending this hour with us I I really deeply deeply appreciate it yeah no look thanks for the opportunity to talk and and also for meeting you and sharing sharing your ideas you know just thanks a lot you're welcome do a quick wrap up here and and um and

[60:06] then and then we'll we can you know wrap up offline so ladies and gentlemen that that is our show for today thank you very much for tuning in both live and and on social media I I hope you enjoyed it um I will post a link to Barry's book so that you can get it on I assume it's on Amazon or yeah it's everywhere yeah okay so I'll make sure there's a link to to to Barry's book if you want to check that out I I encourage you to do so I can I can shamelessly promote it because

[60:42] I have no no you know financial interest in it but um you can see the kind of experience and wisdom that that Barry brings to to life and to others and so I do encourage you to check that out so that just leave me to to say again thank you very much for joining us we'll be back again next Wednesday at 12 30 p.m Pacific time for the next edition of people making money and do keep in mind on Monday at 10 A.M is um uh Estates trust in Estates weekly and on Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific time is

[61:19] business lessons from the military so that's that's our slate of show each week and we I cordially invite you to to join us at each and every show so I hope I wish you all a wonderful West to the West on Wonderful West of the day a wonderful rest of the day and a and a a lovely rest of the week and look forward to seeing you next week and signing off as I always do uh to my my good friend uh Marie darling you are my bell so thanks y'all very much