From Loss to Resilience: Navy Veteran Kyle Shepard on Intentional Stress & Becoming Your Best Self

Yeah. So we're live. We're live. Welcome, Fernanda and Natalia. This is Sacred Business Stories. I'm joined by our friend Kyle shepherd here. And for those of you who haven't joined us before, this is our weekly substack Live, where we have an honest conversation about what it looks like to build a business that's aligned with your deepest truth. So thank you, Kyle, for joining us. We'll do kind of more of an official intro here in a second and then let you talk about. Talk about yourself. But we'll just give it a couple minutes for, of course, for folks to join. Yeah, Amisha, Joshua's mom is here. That's so good. I don't think we've seen her live before, so.

Oh, that's your mom. How cool. Yeah.

Basically, like, before, we tried to.

You know, my mom also just joined. We'll have them go live and talk about us next.

Feeling a little jealous, I guess.

You should call your mom, Phil. Yeah. So just before we go into the conversation, we really created this space to inspire other people to tap into possibility. For us, Sacred Business is really like a business that brings all of who you are forward, like, all your gifts, all your victories, all your challenges. And you were able to combine that in something that you think it's worth for you to spend your time and support your lifestyle. And I feel that the more we see that in other people, the more we believe that this is possible for us. So that's the whole intention with the Sacred Business stories. It's really, really to inspire people and feel you, Kyle, like how you are inspired by the things that you do. Hi, Raquel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And clearly your message resonates with a lot of people because, again, your growth speaks to it. And I mean, we all like to think about kind of the why behind what we do. Or I say we like to think about it. We like people to encourage us to think about it, because I think we can get caught up in the rat race and, respectively, what's on our plates and what we do in our life. But when you have people that promote the message, no matter what you're doing, you can find a way to let it speak to who you are. So regardless of your job, or we'll kind of talk about different aspects of a job versus maybe a profession or a calling. And those are three very different things that can just be kind of how you apply yourself to an endeavor. And people like you that really encourage knowing yourself, knowing your values, and then applying them to your actions wherever you're at in your respective chapter of your book in your life, that that can really change your environment around you. So that is well articulated in your message. And again, that's why I've been looking forward to talking to you guys. And I think a part of the reason why you guys are so popular on substacking in general, because it speaks to anyone of any background, no matter where they are. How do I make what I'm doing right now reflect who I am on the inside?

Yeah, I love that you shared that. Because for me, every business is sacred. If you, as a business owner, or even if you're working for someone, consider that what you're doing is sacred. Right. So it's not actually about what you're doing. It's more about, like, how you're approaching what you're doing. And then if you decide that one day you want to, you know, change because what you're doing is not serving, the next step will also be sacred. And it could be more intentional. You know, that's the difference. It could be somewhere that you're like, oh, yeah, like, maybe I feel disconnected. Maybe I feel that there is something more. And then I want to create something that fulfills me more, that is more connected to where I am in my life right now. But yeah, like, every, every business should be sacred. If we could see that way.

And you said one of my favorite words, intentional. So I write a lot about intentional stress, but really intention behind anything we do, bringing conscious application to our actions, making both the difficult and the pleasure intentional really makes whatever we do while we're awake more beneficial for us, makes it conscious rather than subconsciously and passively going about life. And that can be applied to, again, our profession. It can be applied to our personal lives, to our relationships. But adding that intention can really change the what into a how and then a why. And those are all three imperatives. You can't have why without the what. But, man, when you go deeper you into our souls, it becomes more why rather than what you do.

Yeah.

So. So yeah, tell. Tell us a little bit about you. Like, I. I know you sent us over your official bio, and I love that you put like, father and husband first. But then, you know, you seem like someone who's had a pretty wide range of experiences. Brazilian jiu jitsu, brown belt, functional fitness coach. Definitely want to talk to you more about this Guinness World Record thing. I read one of the articles about it and it was fascinating. And then the military resilience instructor and then audiologists, which is very interesting because it's interesting because I kind of came from that world in some ways as well. So anyway, for those of you, for those that are joining us, just share a little bit more about your journey, how you're here, what you're doing now with substack and yeah, anything that you feel called to share.

Thank you. Yeah. Like you said, I put a lot in my bio there and I try to list it in order of my why, if you will, and find father and husband first. And that applies to everything else I do. So all the fitness and the martial arts stuff, even the military stuff, and all the things that I'm passionate about personally. It all filters back to trying to make the world a better place for my children, me be a better person for them. So my why has changed over time after becoming a father, of course. But if we dial back to pre Father Kyle, which seems like a lifetime ago. So I am 38 years old. I've been in the Navy for 12 years. And I came in as an audiologist. I came fresh out of my doctoral program. So an audiologist, by the way, for those that don't know, I'm interested to hear, Phil, by the way, how that overlap happens with audiology. We can talk about that. I'm sure we're going long today, by the way, because there's a lot of things that we're interested in with one another or we'll just have multiple conversations. But an audiologist is a doctor of hearing and balance, so a clinical doctorate of hearing and balance. And I work with a lot with ENTs, which I know growing up, like, what's a doctor versus a physician? An ENT would be my physician counterpart who does all the surgeries and the medications. And I get to do the fun stuff of getting to know the patients and spend more time with them on both the front end and the back end for either early intervention and prevention, which is a lot of what I do in the military, or treatment and management post, whatever causes, issues related to hearing and balance. But the balance system, again, I could talk audiology all day. It's such an interesting overlap into what I do in the military. So as a military audiologist, my primary mission is to prevent the number one injury in the military every year, which is noise induced damage, a lot of hazardous noise, a lot of people functioning it in different ways. So again, early intervention, if and when we can detect a problem, or even better yet, education for prevention. But we know people are going to be heavily exposed. So how do we maintain or enhance function in those extreme Environments and what I do. Now I'm at a naval air station, Patuxent river in Southern Maryland in the United States and I haven't seen a patient in over four years. So that's pretty common for audiologists in the uniform to see patients. But I work in research, development, test and evaluation of hearing protection and communication systems to enhance warfighter or any DOD employee effectiveness. But I also manage an aeromedical multidisciplinary military team that specializes in human performance. So I work with and oversee optometrist, physical therapist or physiologist, experimental psychologists and other medical components to bridge the gap between research and military needs. So really interesting stuff that influences my writing quite a bit because as you know, I'm very passionate, my account being resilient mental state, I'm very passionate about stress management and resilience. And while I was formally trained in the military now a little over 10 years ago in a program called Combat Operational Stress Control, it was a program created by the Navy Marine Corps back in 2007 in response to the long term conflict overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq. High rates of burnout, high rates of issues not only for military members, but civilians and contractors supporting the Department of Defense as well as family members. And of course burnout is prevalent across all populations, all professions, health care, huge high rates of burnout and audiology and every other providing profession out there, but also just in private sector in life. I talk about, I deal with the number one injury in the military and noise induced damage, but that's just documented damage. When I give safety stand ons, I say who's impacted by stress? Everybody. Every day. Stress impacts all and so it influences what I do as an audiologist. But as a kid even I've been pretty curious about stress and resilience. Not knowing the term resilience as a child, but being curious about why some people seem to function so well and respond to adversity, but the same event can make other people crumble, fall apart, or at least be really compromised from a performance perspective. So that had me curious. I thought I wanted to be a psychiatrist until I started taking some of those classes and observed a few psychiatrists in practice. I'm like, oh nope, I don't want to do that. So learning on the job and then falling into the career is what led me to audiology. And then I did have a double major in psychology and speech and hearing Science in undergrad and then went the doctor route for audiology. But psychology and stress has always been something I've been interested in. And now if anything, I do that as much these days in the military teaching resilience, teaching stress management as I do audiology, particularly these days. I'm doing a lot of speaking events and stand downs related to that. A lot of writing obviously on substack. So it. Converging a lot of my passions into what I do, which I'm sure we'll talk about more, has helped me quite a bit with my calling, if you will, and letting my profession, which is ideology, expand based on parts of my calling, which is trying to help others in any way I can. And not only that, but help myself at the same time.

Yeah. So tell us, so outside of your role with the, with as the audiology in the military, are the, you know, when you mentioned these functional fitness coach, military resilience, like what, how do these intersect? Are these kind of like side passions? Like. And also like for those of you, you know, I know you only through substack coming here, like I would love to know how you see kind of your writing and how that's kind of, as you said, converging with these passions and what you're really truly looking to bring forward kind of from this very diverse set of experiences that you've been able to have.

I've always loved fitness, so did a lot of sports growing up. Decent athlete, didn't do anything in college other than intramural sports and try to stay as fit as I could. I went to Guam, so my first duty station was Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Marine Corps baseball, loved that. Was in pretty good shape at the time. I don't know if you saw a picture I shared a while ago, but during that time I looked a little bit different. I was in shape and my face was probably twice the size. It looked like a basketball. Didn't have the best diet, probably wasn't as disciplined or I know I wasn't as disciplined as I am these days. But it's funny, just like the intention behind what you do and why. How well are you prioritizing sleep? How well are you prioritizing food? And then of course fitness on top of that too. But at 38 years old I look much different. And I would dominate my 20 year old self at any age in almost every way other than a few bad habits like drinking. My 28 year old self could out drink me for sure. And I'm not mad at that these days. So I've always enjoyed athletics. But you could say I probably exercised rather than trained. And I do like thinking about that concept because Yeah, I would go out and I would do what I had been taught to do before. I would move around and do a few machines, and I think I got it in for the day without really tracking progress, setting an intention, and trying to build upon that. There's two exercise physiology principles that I really like and I apply to resilience all the time, or really any life domain. First is the said principle or specific adaptations to impose demands. Basically, if I want to get better at something, I should be doing that exact thing. So we're prone to plasticity. But if I want to get better at speaking in public, I'm not going to read a book about speaking in public. Don't get me wrong, that can help build strategies. But if I want to get better at speaking in public, I need to do that exact thing at a manageable level initially. I don't want to go talk to a thousand people if I've never talked to a few people and tested myself from a stress management standpoint in that realm. But the more comfortable you get with something. Now we can use the second exercise physiology principle, progressive overload. So starting somewhere manageable and then recovering from that, and then as you get a little bit more comfortable in what initially made you uncomfortable, expand, push the envelope from there and progressively make it a little bit more challenging. So then these days I'm doing things that I would never have thought I would have done 10 years ago. Public speaking, writing, particularly writing in public. You had to force me to do that in school. I did not like writing. Holy cow, I almost fainted in junior high. Giving a presentation that I wasn't prepared for. Public speaking was. I was more scared of that than death for a long. I mean, there's cool stats around that, I think. I mean, push comes to shove, I think most of us are more scared of dying than we are public speaking. But because death is not in our front door every day, a lot of people thought more about that. And, man, the amount of stress I would have when I had to talk in public, I would just gut through it and then not think about it. Yeah, it's very funny to reflect on those experiences. But again, coming back to Guam, when I went to my second duty station and became a father, a lot of that time period is when I really started to change as a man. Of course, I became a father and became a much better husband. So when we first got to Guam, my wife and I, we were newlyweds in that we had just had our wedding ceremony. We had been civilly married for a Year, but did our wedding ceremony right before we moved to the other side of the world and we got there within a month. We found out we were pregnant. Not planned, but we were really excited. We knew we wouldn't have children and it was a blessing and so we were really excited. But we unfortunately lost that child and that was a really hard loss for us. We did not respond very effectively. My wife is one of six, so her siblings are like her best friends and she is very close knit with her family. And don't get me wrong, I'm very close to my friends and my siblings too, too. But she was at home by herself throughout the day. And I, I had just found mixed martial arts and Brazilian jiu jitsu. I started training because I knew I was going to become a father. And by that time, even with that loss, I was already training twice a day before and after work. And don't get me wrong, when I was home, I was still trying to support my wife in the way that I knew how, but that was mostly through like physical acts. I was trying to do everything around her to make sure she wasn't stressing about whatever it could be because that just, that's how I knew how to support. And ironically, I'm an audiologist, she's a speech pathologist. We should be expert communicators. We were not communicating well, we were coping poorly. So when we were spending time together, alcohol was involved and a lot of emotional reactivity and assumptions being made because we weren't connecting. And they talk about the most common miracle in the world is birth of a child. And it's true, I mean, children are being born every day. But what you don't hear as often is the most common tragedy is the loss of a child. Miscarriages are also quite prevalent. And yeah, that almost broke us. So we got to a point where we almost, we did consider a separation. She was honestly thinking about going back stateside to be with her family for a bit just because we were not coping very well. And thankfully after a very difficult night, we decided like, no, let's give this a hard try. Let's take dedicated time. I talk about the benefits of fasting in a lot of ways, but primarily from fasting, from technology. And we had this thing called technology time. So I try to be witty with terms sometimes. And so no technology during very dedicated times in the evening where we were truly present with one another and we used converse, devotions or guided conversation, if you will, to really connect. And that was such a formative time for us. And I recently wrote a piece on Substack about setbacks being opportunities, and I've written about what I'm talking about right now. It's in my bio. And I did another piece on it recently. But it's hard to see in the moment, particularly when it is a novel experience like that was for us at that time. But that loss had so much meaning in our life. And within a month after we got through that trial and became better because of it, my baby girl was on the way. EVELYN so while I like, I, I, it's, I reflect on that, it's not like gratitude. I, I for sure have gratitude. Like, I'm not thankful, I guess, that we lost that child. But at the same time, I guess you can kind of say I am, because without that loss, I don't know if Mary Kate and I would have developed some of the strategies that have helped us with even larger forms of loss and adversity since then. And because that was not the only loss that we've experienced, and it's been further along in pregnancies, and they've been very challenging. And I love the quote, the worst thing that's ever happened to somebody is the worst thing that's ever happened to them. And at that time, that was one of the worst things ever happened to us. But that, that setback, looking back on that and that time period, all things being considered, it was about a month of a really hard time. And a month right now, you think as we sit here, pretty comfortable today, that flies by. But in the moment, I mean, a minute can feel like a year. And parenthood, there's a great quote that the days, the days feel like. How's the quote? I'm not even. The days feel like years and the years fly by. Something like that. But your question relating to fitness and everything converging, that was a pivotal moment in my path where I became a much better husband. And I think to be a good father, you also need to be a good husband. And we developed some really good foundational strategies and actions to align with our values of being as tight as we can be in response to adversity, preparing us, even though you're not ever fully prepared to be a parent. But for the next three children that we had. So I have three children right now and a baby girl on the way, due in July. So my fourth child. So, yeah, we're very lucky. But that was a pivotal moment for me when I just got into training, where I started learning from professionals how to dedicate your mindset to getting better rather than just going through motions and checking boxes of staying in shape. And that's when I started to look different. I started competing in Brazilian Jiu jitsu and having success there and I've done that now for the past eight years. So I coach locally here at a local mixed martial arts and Brazilian Jiu jitsu gym. And then I do the functional fitness thing through the gym and in the community. But all of these things, they're for free, so they're volunteer because I'm very lucky to have my profession in the military. And so I think of these as like unpaid internships. I get to work alongside these professionals first in Guam and now here and doing things that I'd be doing anyway, paid or not, with others or not. And the fact that I get to do them and kind of learn, live on the job as I take over like the functional fitness group that I do out in the community and now doing the writing stuff, which I did recently upgrade to a paid tier. But that's just a stress test. My writing put a little bit of extra edge on it. I'm not doing it any differently. I'm not trying to make money, but I am seeing if a paywall still people that I don't know if they are, if they find content valuable enough to pay for and learning on the job. Yeah, I plan to. I'm going to be in the military if they'll keep me for another good eight years or more. So I'm not in a rush. I'm here to learn, I'm curious and doing these things. Progressive overload, if you will. Just testing myself to see how much better I can get over time. So all of this relates to self improvement, if you will. So I can be a better father, I can be a better husband and ultimately provide. So like yeah, I do want to make money with this post my military career, but I'm not in a rush to make that my primary income source. And I'm more so. And when I write, I'm writing for myself either last year, today or in the future. I'm also writing for my kids if God, God willing, I weren't going to be around long enough to give them some of the wisdom I've gathered over the years, leave some things behind for them and then if it helps other people, what an awesome byproduct. And as it grows, it's getting really fun. It seems to resonate with some people. And as I have now been Talking straight for 15 minutes, I'll shut up. So we can talk about some other things, but I try to find convergence anywhere I can in ways to help me become better first for my family and also for myself. So I can sustain that for my family.

Yeah, I think that's a beautiful way of seeing life because it's kind of like putting the oxygen mask on you first and then helping others. Right. So I need to become a better person. I need to work the work myself and then I'm writing for myself and then if that helps other people, you know, because then if you're doing for others all the time, like that's just not sustainable in my own opinion. But when you put yourself, yourself in the center and then from that like full cap, you're like, yes. And also if that's serving others, if that can contribute to other people's lives, then you could do that forever. Right? Because for you it's not like. And it extends to others, but at the end of the day you're doing for yourself, for your family and out of like self love.

Yeah, I love the concept of like selfishness versus selflessness. And I strongly believe that every action should have a component, a component of both. If you are purely selfless, like you said, you're going to burn out event you're not going to look out for yourself enough, even from some of our base level needs. You're not going to sleep as well, you're going to be stressed, you're going to think about what's next. And altruism is beautiful. I mean, you want to have people looking out for others, of course you want those helpers. But if they don't use that oxygen mask, the best analogy, you don't look out for yourself, you will burn out for sure. And in many ways probably why we have such high prevalence rates these days. How well are we taking care of ourselves? But true self care versus maybe things that we think are taking care of ourselves, like relaxing on the couch and watching Netflix or scrolling on our phones. Our body's not moving, but man, our mind is. And it's getting hit with dopamine, it's getting hit with other things that keeps that energy internally high and you're not recovering. So intention behind even your rest and how you recover is imperative. But then of course on the other side, if you're only selfish, you're not going to have a lot of good connections, you're a narcissist and you're all those other things that we're well aware of that also leads to of course, a lot of, a lot of Downsides, lack of fulfillment. So somewhere in between, harmony between both based on the application. Always a good consideration. Yeah.

And it's, it's beautiful how you've been able to find kind of that alignment between your occupation in the military and then these other things that you're offering and also like the service aspect of that because. Well, for one, this is something we talk a lot about in our coaching. Like there's no one path for everyone. So while we tend to coach more entrepreneurs, like, I think it's beautiful to be in a situation if you have true alignment with your occupation in the military, to be in this position where you can, you know, bring these other passions forward and then find those opportunities to serve as well through not needing to necessarily at this moment charge for those things. And it's, it's interesting, right, because this is something even when we talk with entrepreneurs who are like full time trying to build a business, kind of back to that point of the oxygen max, we'll always talk about like, hey, you need to get yourself resourced first, right. So whether that's making sure you have, you know, a well paid coaching offer before you start trying to serve everyone or in your case, you know, your resource through your military occupation and then you're in this beautiful, beautiful position to give back. So yeah, I really love having you as a guest too, just to kind of show that other possibility for people where, because we say that too, like, you know, everyone kind of like glorifies this entrepreneurial all in path and I just don't believe that that is actually the path for everyone. And yeah, I just love your story about how you're kind of combining all that together in a way that sounds like it's really working for you. And then it's. Yeah, I mean, you're growing as well here on subsequent. So it's clear that people are really benefiting from what you have to share and your ability to kind of put energy into that. So yeah, just wanted to kind of reflect that back as well.

I love that you say that there's no one way like even in the entrepreneurial world, whether it is like a sole entrepreneur, team networking or you have another job. Because in many ways, like I am playing in the entrepreneurial world, but I'm just not focused on making enough money to support my family because I don't need to right now, which is a blessing. But you think of kids in high school or college who are not yet in the private sector. In many ways I feel like I'm one of those kids Right now, like I'm set up. I have my other obligations or my other commitments in place right now. And I don't need to make money at this point to a particular level, at least to live. And that's a great opportunity, a great way to have mentors, have peers that I work alongside, and maybe even have people that I train in the way, in the strengths that I've developed. It is harder for kids, of course, as you're developing, to start coaching, when you are still trying to develop your skills, you're still trying to have your prefrontal cortex fully formed. I think it's like 25, 26 years old that that happens. I think mine was delayed until like 30 years old, which is when I got to Guam and all those life events happened. But yeah, I love the idea of OJT or on the job training internship. You really get to experience things live because we have a lot of assumptions. I thought, I want to be a sports agent when I first went to Ohio State. I love the movie Jerry Maguire. I want to be just like him. I went and saw a sports agent and job shadowed for a few days. Life's not like that. That's not what it's like to be a sports agent. The movies lied to me. So we have these assumptions, we have these beliefs about how something's going to be. But man, get some experience, get out there, start applying yourself, start making connections, asking questions. Because there's only so much research you can do online and through books. You want to have those real life human connections, real life experiences for yourself. So your perception of live can determine if this aligns with you. But then again, if you have a job which may not be the career or calling for you down the line, you can still apply your character and your virtue to that job. So if you want to help others and at this point, your life, you're a janitor. You could be an amazing janitor and make beautiful connections with people at that profession. By the way, your part on that team is just as important as anyone else in that organization. That community does not thrive without clean hallways, without clean rooms. Everything can fall apart if your position falls down. So when you think of a team, a well functioning team, every job on it is imperative to the success of that team. So you can take one position and then call it a job and a job, you know what to do, and if there's no heart behind it, you do that. What you get paid, we're done. But you can also take that and start thinking about how you do it. So if you're a janitor that understands the how, you can teach others how to do it. And you can become a manager of other janitors when they come in, because people will come to you on the correct way to do it. And you can teach them how effectively. But if you know why, it's important and you can explain that now you start talking about applying your calling to that position. And when you can speak from the heart behind that why. I mean, talk about a leader no matter where you are. And that is the way that you can evolve and you can create a reputation with others not based on your status, not based on your income. Character has nothing to do with those things. For the people, for the real ones, for the people that know. And your trajectory can change quite a bit when you of course understand the what, can explain the how, but apply the why. And that is not a job, that is not a status. That is a who you are as a person. So anything can be an opportunity at any point in your life. And I love that concept that I found in a few books of that job versus professor versus calling and thinking about what, how and why.

Yeah, it's powerful. I agree 100% with everything you just shared. And it's interesting that if you think about that, it's not the position, it's not exactly what you're doing, but who you are being in every moment. And if you're doing that because building connections feels good to you, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Going to have a beautiful life, because it's every present moment that you choose who you are being. And I'm like, I'm trying to be the best of. The best version of myself while I'm here talking to you guys. The best version of myself. If I'm down there talking to other people and it doesn't matter like the work, you know, it doesn't matter your title, it's you choosing to be the best version of you every in every single interaction.

Absolutely. And obviously networking and connections with others is such a valuable skill. And of course there's introverts versus extroverts. I'm generally more extroverted. I've always enjoyed connecting and talking to others. As you can tell, I can talk for a while. My wife is more introvert. But regardless of where you lean on the outgoing scale, we all value and benefit from connections. Introverts just value deeper connections. Not as many, not as much quantity, more quality. And don't get me wrong, I. I love quality. But I can find it almost in anybody. It's not gonna. I don't have the deepest relationships with everybody, but I can, I can talk to a pretty boring person for a while if the situation dictates and, and find a reason to connect with them and give them a good terrible inter interpretation and find an opportunity selflessly because I enjoy other people, I like helping them, but also selfishly, you never know where the opportunities might be. So like from a selfish perspective, your biggest advocate might be originally your enemy or might be the biggest pain in the butt at your job. But when you can turn those people, Holy cow. When you create connections and you don't know five years from now they're in different position that could benefit you. Every interaction is an opportunity not only to make someone else's day better, but to potentially make you and your future better. You never know. So why not try to make every engagement beneficial, not only for them, but for you. But yeah, that ability to connect with others and network I would imagine is imperative in the entrepreneurial space. And I love Substack so much for that reason because I get to meet people like you, connect with you. And whether it be through community chats, through comments on posts, through notes and commenting on them, there's so many cool features that encourage digital connection, which of course is not similar to what we're doing right now, which also if we were together in person would be even better yet. But we're on the other side of the world with one another right now and yet we're still able to connect deeper than we have so far in our respective digital relationship on Substack. But definitely getting to know you guys and reading, in reading your writing, collaborating, promoting each other's work, that, that's, that's benefited us personally, but, and obviously we benefit each other when we do the same things through reciprocation. And yeah, I love the idea of connecting with others, especially in this AI developing world, that human connection and the skills behind it, finding quality in our connections. Even if you are the most introverted person in the world, finding people that align with your values can really help grow whatever it is that you're trying to do. But another big concept that is imperative to think about is what are your values? And do a lot of people reflect on that? Not only of yourself individually when you talk about your calling, but also of whatever business you're building, what are the values there? And really creating that mission statement for yourself and for your business and then trying to make sure the actions are aligning with those stated Values. The stated intent of whatever you're doing is easier said than done. But maybe one of the most important intentional stress challenges, using some of my terminology that you can do for yourself and for your business.

Yeah, I would love to come back to this just because I feel like this is so close to your work, this intentional stress. And also I, it's so interesting. I love to. So, so I'm going to ask you about, you know, one of the things we talk a lot about with our audience is like the fact that like if you're going to put yourself out there, like as much as even just like getting on a live like this, like it's going to be super normal to feel fear or feel resistance depending where you are. It's really interesting because I, I strength train and this idea of progressive overload, like until you just said that a minute ago, I never really connected the dots that, that, that concept. Like I have a different way of relating with it, but I never actually connected the dots between that concept and like every other aspect of life outside of the gym. So I thought that was really, really cool the way you said that. And you know, like, you know, one of the things that you were talking about like public speaking, which is also still something I struggle with. But like one of the ways I've related with this and I've talked about this on other, on other lives is like if something comes up for me as like resistance or fear and I feel it, I usually feel it here in my chest and I've started to be able to reassign this as kind of like a, a tickle rather than, than a pain or a bad feeling. But then it becomes this thing. It's like as soon as I feel that I'm like, this is the thing I must do now, it almost becomes like the guide, right, or the compass for the next thing. And so yeah, I would just love anything that you could offer to people listening, whether live or on the replay. Just like practical tools for people that you know are experiencing fear and resistance. I would love to hear more on that. And also just like, because I think it's useful for people to hear like from direct experience, like where are those things showing up for you now in this moment in life? And how are you, are you leveraging those tools for yourself?

Man, you said so many good things in your question. That kind of what I'm about to say in your relation to strength training and fear. So again, self reflection, first and foremost, if you don't know yourself, in this case your particular Symptoms of stress and whether that's fear is just a different application of stress. So like what happens to your body when that limbic system is activated, when that stress response is initiated. And don't get me wrong, something like we all have the emotional brain, we all have our limbic system, the amygdala, the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, that stress physiology is part of being human. And that emotional core brain that we evolve from, where our brains are now three times the size, with our rational brains and our prefrontal cortex, that will override everything. So an empowering piece of evidence that we now know is no matter the cause of the stress response, the brain doesn't differentiate it. It does the exact same thing every time. The stress response is identical. Once it's initiated, it releases the same neurotransmitters, it goes through the same process. And by the way, something I didn't know for a while until more recently, there's a woman by the name of Dr. Jill Bolt Taylor neuroscientist, and she, she came up with a 90 second rule. So the stress response, when once it's initiated, if nothing prolongs it, which basically the only thing that can prolong it is rumination or continued thoughts, is 90 seconds long. So if right now someone came up behind you, Phil, and scared the bejesus out of you and you jumped, but it was really just a friend and you knew you're safe and you had no thoughts about like why the heck would they do that to me on this live and you didn't keep thinking about it, that stress response would take about 90 seconds. Now, of course, most of us stress about stressors, Stressors being the event either externally or internally, stress being our perception of it. Most of us experience stress a little bit longer than 90 seconds. But to know that it's basically because of our interpretation of the stressor that prolongs it, what an empowering perspective to give us back control, which we don't have a lot of control in this life. I like to say we have two controllables, the interpretation of our thoughts. And I intentionally say that because I don't control a lot of thoughts that come into my head. There's some wild stuff that come into my head that I'm not very proud of. And there's some stuff that comes to my head that I'm really proud of, but I don't really get any credit. I don't think it just comes there. I don't know why, but love it. I'LL try to act on that. But how we interpret those thoughts, how we act in those thoughts is our first controllable. But really it's the subsequent action, whether that's internal intention or, of course, my words, my behaviors, my actions, Those are the two controllables in life. Everything else kind of outside of our control. But, man, those two things can change your life quite a bit. But as I get away from this tangent that I'm going on, stress physiology is the same no matter what. So whether it is caused externally or intentionally, that is prone to plasticity like everything else, we're a culmination of our skills. So if we know that we can initiate the stress response intentionally and it does the exact same thing as when it's caused by outside events. What a powerful concept for intentional stress. But then we need to know what are our unique symptoms of stress. So you mentioned chest tightening, or how you call it tickle now to give it a nice reframe and more positive connotation. But absolutely. Our chest tightens, our breathing changes, our peripheral vision is activated. Blood rushes out of our gut to other parts of our body because of our evolution, because our body is in that fight, flight, or fright. I'm sorry, fight, flight or freeze response mode. The only thing that's different is severity and, of course, duration, usually based on our own interpretation, but that the system is the same. So when you are aware of your symptoms, that can encourage awareness that you're experiencing the stress response. So now the whole goal is, how can I go from an emotional state to a rational state? And that's a big thing I like to talk about when I give some of these standouts in the military or what I try to allude to in my writing is recognizing the fact that you're emotional. How can I help recover and get back to rational so I can be sure my thoughts, my words, and my actions all align with what I truly want to do. Because most of the things that I've done in my life that I'm not proud of have been because of emotional states, have been because of some of those primal instincts where we act without thinking. And there are times where that is imperative when our life is threatened, when safety is on the line. But even mixed martial arts and Brazilian jiu jitsu, when I'm competing, the more emotional I am, the more exhausted I'm going to get. And the more I'm going to get away from my training and what is going to be most effective so the more rational I can stay. Even in extreme environments For a competition in a sport like Brazilian jiu jitsu, the more I can keep my body rational, the more effective I can be. So that is the concept of intentional stress. If I can initiate it, cause these symptoms that represent fear or any other application of stress, how can I understand it? And now how can I start training it to be more calm in response to it and then reframing like you alluded to, for public speaking? I mean, I talk all the time in the military now and privately for different organizations, whatever it may be. And even before I represse, even before this, I feel a little bit in my chest. I feel that. And. But I also know there's not, there's. There's no physiologic difference between anxiety and excitement. It's just, how do we label it? So distress and eustress, same exact physiology. It's just a different perspective, a different mindset. So whether it's positive or negative, that's really a choice. And don't get me wrong, there's some negative things that happen. I wouldn't wish loss on anybody. You do need to grieve. You do need to experience emotion. Emotions are great, but again, the intention behind it, the understanding of it, the labeling of it and what it's for can really encourage effective response to whatever it may be for fear. I mean, again, with reflection, what maybe causes you fear might not cause someone else fear at all. So we are all unique. So you got to understand first and foremost, reflect on what are your fears? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your areas of improvement that you want to focus on? Because there's some things that's okay to be afraid of and it's okay to like maintain safety. But without fear, you can't be brave. You can't be courageous. So courage is not the absence of fear. It's the understanding of the fear response and acting anyway because you know it's important aligns with whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish. So the reframing once again so you can still function despite the symptom of your stress response. And then after you understand all of that, get after it said principle progressive overload, start training it as at a manageable level. And then the more you do it, the easier it gets. And what used to terrify you, you're now calm and effective in response to it. But of course you need to understand it first, have developed strategies, make those strategies something that you're confident with, either consciously or you do it long enough subconsciously, and you make your Instincts and your habits effective where I, I know I'm still even prone to it. We're a culmination of our skills and a lot of them are suboptimal. So how can we improve those skills through creation of habits that we want to do in a rational state.

Yeah, yeah, I love this, this, this comment of like, emotional to rational. And I'm going to, I'm going to share a story with you because I think, and I would love to get your perspective on this because where I get caught sometimes is like, I'm very good at action, but it's when almost like when non action is called for and then. And this kind of fear kicks in. And so like, it was interesting. Caroline and I were, for example, recently in Chile, and she's much better at this, this aspect of things than me. But we were in this high rise hotel in downtown Santiago, Chile, and the entire power grid for the entire country went out. And this is a massive city and it was out for almost 24 hours. But like, there was no AC, everything was sealed up. And we were at this like, hotel bar and everyone was just like gathering there. And it kind of felt like one of these like, end of the world parties because there were all these like, crazy like, business people that were just like getting really drunk. And I was just like looking out on the street and just getting more and more uneasy because, like, there were sirens everywhere. Like, they were talking. Like, the cell phones were down, the Internet was out. The hotel didn't know anything. They're like, we can't give it. We have no more food. And they were starting to send hotel workers home. And we're just like sitting there and. And yeah, so my mind all goes to like, what are the things I need to be doing, right? Like, how do I get my phone charged? Like, should I get, you know, the bag out of the room? Like, where are the exits? Like all these sort of things. And, and you know, Caroline, I've had some really good conversations around this of like the line of like, you know, what you should do and, or what you can do. And then once you've reached that point, it's like, okay, like, let's sit back and enjoy the prosciutto that they were able to service. But I'm just curious, like, for anyone, for myself actually, but anyone listening, like, how do you, in the moment, and I know a lot of this probably comes down to the practice, right? But like, in the moment, how do you kind of negotiate that line between kind of doing and non doing? If you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you've lost control. So this is maybe. This is a more extreme example than maybe the entrepreneurial side of things. But it's all connected. And. Yeah, I just love to. Since we have an expert in the space, I'd love to get your opinions on this.

I appreciate you calling me an expert. I don't think I'll ever get used to that or agree with it. Yeah. So a few questions that you had there. So defaulting action, not a bad thing. But action doesn't have to be active. Inaction is a decided action when it makes sense. So, so the decision, it's real. What you're asking is the framework behind the decision. And then that comes down to am I making this decision emotionally or am I making it rationally? What makes the most sense? Am I using cognitive flexibility, another skill that I like to talk about quite a bit. Am I considering different perspectives and then the ramifications of them? Do I have the time to do that? Of course. Again, all this assumes that we are safe and not urgent to get out of an issue. One moment. I'll be there. A second fatherhood. It's not an emergency. No one's screaming. I'm sure it's as a question for me, but. So emotional versus rationing. Rationing. Are we considering different applications? And this is why it's so great to have other perspectives and other people around us. Because God knows that without my wife, I would default to a lot of actions that would be not beneficial for me. I like to do and then learn on the job rather than consider reasons to maybe sit back and pivot sometimes. So my wife makes me better in so many ways and has me consider options that I wouldn't otherwise because I'm defaulting action too quickly. And anything can be done in excess. Even beneficial actions can be done in excess where they become detrimental for you. So again, coming back to between emotional reasoning and rational reasoning, it's having strategies. So if you feel the stress response and you feel like you are hypened up in some way, and you're active internally and maybe a way that you need to slow down before you make that rational decision, what strategies are you using to slow your system down? I always come first and foremost to intentional breathing, conscious breathing. So the breath is something that changes automatically. It's part of the autonomic nervous system. So our heart rate and blood flow, breathing and other aspects of our body happen automatically. Thank goodness. So we don't have to think about our breath every Time we take it, but it changes automatically in response to stress. It speeds up. So being aware of your breathing naturally is a great trigger to catch if I'm breathing a little faster than I'm used to. If you don't have the chest symptoms that you're aware of, or the gut symptoms, or whatever your unique symptoms are. I am very conscious of my breathing most of the time. And I joke that as a father with my youngest right now not needing anything at all to be in here with me, I have more stress management breathing techniques that are natural for me than I do normal breathing these days because of parenthood. So focus on the exhale is a way to slow down your nervous system and activate that parasympathetic nervous system. There's a lot of great breathing techniques out there, but I like to just make it as simple as possible because I have a pretty simple mind. Nasal breathing and focus on exhale downregulation. The exhale will slow things down. The inhale. The more you focus on that can help speed things up. So if you want to wake up, you want to become more alert, hyperventilate, focus more on the inhalations. But in this case, to get out of an emotional state, bring your awareness to your breathing. And again, that 90 second empowering thought. Like, if I can focus on intentional breathing for 90 seconds, orient nowhere else but my breath for 90 seconds. If you have that kind of time, because the power is out and people are just taking shots around you, let's take 90 seconds real quick while everyone else is getting drunk at a pretty silly time to do so when probably crime is going up and other considerations need to be made. Not. I mean, don't get me wrong, young Kyle would probably do that. This Kyle would not. But yeah, conscious breathing first and foremost, and then start asking questions. So Carolina did that for you. But if you're asking questions, you're activating executive function, you're activating your prefrontal cortex. If you're making assumptions, if you're jumping to conclusions, you're staying emotional. This is now, this is where I need to default to. This is what I need to get done. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And those are great attributes to have sometimes. But if you're not asking questions about the why behind it, there's my cognitive approach. What questions can I ask? And then my sensory approach is my, my breathing. But there's all kinds of other strategies out there. That's actually the main presentation series I've been giving lately. I did a post called Energy Free Stress management strategies that I put on substack and then I threw together a slide deck and it's been very popular around base right now in response to all the change that's happening in the US government and the transitions are happening. Just change is hard, change is stressful. Stress and change, by the way, are needed for improvement. But it's easier said than done when you're in the. When you're in the middle of it. And so reframing and coming back to our controllables, that's imperative. Recognizing when you're in that emotional state, allowing yourself to recover, to not start compromising your base level needs and not sleeping as well, not eating as well because you continue to be stressed out. And some of these higher levels of needs in our maskless hierarchy of needs getting threatened when it comes to like fulfillment and our current job and all these other things. We don't need much to live and be happy. But that's easier said than done when you have something that you are currently used to that may change. Uncertainty is scary in and of itself. And I know I'm going on a tangent right now, away from your question, but it's very relevant for what I'm dealing with these days is how can I recognize that and then use whatever strategy is possible, whether that is. There's no such thing as energy free, by the way. It's just a nice title. It's low cost when it comes to energy. I mean, we're expending energy as we sit here. Relax right now. We expend energy when we sleep. But low cost for energy application. There's so many things. But I divided them into two approaches, sensory approaches. So you've probably heard of the five, four, three, two, one technique. I think it's beautiful in that it talks about orienting away from the problem to your five senses. I don't like it. It's just because I always have a hard time remembering which one's five, which one's four. When I really think about it, I think it's five things that you orient to with your vision, four things that you orient to with your hearing. So what kind of stuff do I hear in my environment? Three things that you orient to your sense of touch. I feel my table right now is nice and smooth. What is it then? Two things that you orient to your sense of smell. So someone's perfume nearby, a fart that you just let out, whatever it may be. And then, then one thing that you can taste in your mouth right now. But all this is just to encourage orientation away from your stress to your sensory nervous system and the signals that are being sent inward and allow time to pass so you can slow down. And then cognitive approaches, the other strategies that I like to think about, that has a lot to do with questioning, reframing, and other considerations to change your initial interpretation of your thoughts that led to the stress response in the first place.

I just find, like, fascinating because everything that you just shared, it's so, so powerful and it's so, so basic. But if we're able to manage that and just go back to our breathing, like we've got everything right. And then I, and I find very fascinating too, because very often I talk to clients and I'm like, they're like, what can I do to solve this thing? Like, you got to balance your physiology. Like, just be aware of your breathing and that's all. And then people are like, waiting for the magic, waiting for a technique that's too complicated. As if, you know, just breathing. Just like I always talk about, like belly breathing. And I'm like, yes, you can master that. Then the rest, like, then you create separation between you and the stress, you and the situation. And then you can ask the right questions at the right moment, and then you make the right decisions because you're not like involved in that fear response. And yet I find that it's something that is so, like, underestimated. People are like, looking for something complicated because it couldn't, you know, the brain works like that. Like, if it's just as simple, maybe it's not as effective. But at the end of the day, like, go back to the basics. And, you know, if you can do that, you know, if you train that on your daily life, then when you go to a very stressful situation, then you can do that as well. But if you don't train that on your daily life when it comes to stressful situation, then you're just like, what do I do now? And it's fascinating. Like, I would love to just get all your explanation and just post everywhere.

You just, you just said it so beautifully though, that if you don't train it in your daily life, the worst time to practice is when you're emotionally reacting to uncontrollables. And I can assure you every day is going to involve uncontrollable stressors. That's inevitable. The traffic on your way to work, the power going out, connectivity issues, whatever it may be, there's going to be things that are at least annoying, if not pretty stressful on a given day. At that time, it's all about how can you optimize your response and not overreact, but intentionality when you're in a pretty good place to do so, that's the time to practice. That is the time to think about what are some strategies that I want to start honing for the next time around. Because it's that stimulus response that we operate in most of the time, but adding space, as much space as reasonably possible between that stimulus and your response for whatever that space is, whatever strategy you use, whether it's internal, external, it's going to be obviously context dependent, stimulus dependent. But the more you can encourage space so you can optimize or maximize your physiology as you just beautifully described. Yeah, it's simple, but it's not easy. And there is the opportunity for intentional training. And I love the idea of when you are in a good place, intentionally inducing the stress response. Because now we can talk about some of these prepared strategies. And what works for me might not work for you. There are endless resources out there and I always bring up the Bruce Lee quote of absorb what is useful, discard what is not, make what is uniquely your own. So when I give 10 strategies, 20 strategies in a given presentation or at a given post, I try to always emphasize that quote and say, just pick a few of these and try them out. I love the idea of nothing more than a month. Yes, it takes a lot longer to create a habit or to become a master of something, but it might not be beneficial for you. But a month is more than enough to determine to one, experience plasticity, experience positive change. But if it doesn't align with your life, your objectives, or even just what you enjoy particularly, or at least are gratified by after the fact. Because there's a lot of things that I do that I don't necess. I found a way to reframe it and enjoy it, if you will. Starting a lot of things that I do, I still experience fear and hardship sometimes before I go to Jiu Jitsu. I love Jiu Jitsu, but there's parts of my body, it's like, do I really want to go through this night? Do I really want to get a head bump and have a black eye before all these important presentations or at risk tweaking my knee. Yes, I do. But part of me also, I just. We have so many different selves within. Within us. And that concept of resistance that Steven Pressfield so beautifully talks about in the War of Art, we. I love that terminology. But a lot of what we Talk about even Steven Prescott. This is all ancient wisdom. This has been around forever. We just say it in different ways, we repeat it exactly. And it's worthy of redundanc because again, it's all simple when we're sitting here and we, and we're not experiencing it. But it is not easy when we are. It's not even easy to train when you're in a rational state. But the more that you can develop those plans and train it at a very manageable level, at a very, almost easy to start level, do that for a little bit and then you get a little bit more comfortable and then progressive overload once again. And that can apply to any domain. And again, we're a culmination of our skills. But some of those skills can apply to multiple domains. But across domain application of skills you don't see too often either. And a component of resilience that I, I'm trying to get better at articulating, talk about, write about is like, there's so many exceptional people in this world, whether it be athletes, entrepreneurs and businessmen, or you name it, but they may be exceptional in one area of their life and then really struggle in another. The concepts that they applied to be exceptional in one area could quote, unquote, they could simply but not easily be transferred to other areas of their life to be resilient there as well. But through lack of harmony, lack of patience, lack of understanding, you don't see cross domain application as well sometimes. So that, that's a big thing I'm trying to hone in on too. Like how can we encourage conceptually components of resilience, components of, you name the skill that's beneficial and apply it across domains for virtue to be held anywhere.

Oh man, I keep talking to you for like a really long time, but I know we're coming up on an hour here, so we may, who knows, we may have to do another one. There's so many topics we didn't get to. Or we'll, we'll connect offline. But yeah, I think at this point, I don't know, sometimes we have questions, sometimes we don't. So if anyone's listening live and has any questions for Kyle, please feel free to jump in on the chat and, and while we're, while we're doing that, Kyle, like, I know obviously we're here on substack, which makes it pretty easy, but if someone's been listening either here on the replay and it's just kind of been, you know, finding themselves curious from anything that you've Shared with us. What would be the best way for them to kind of plug in with your work to learn more about what you're, what you have to offer.

Thank you. Yeah, def substack for sure. And then direct message me on there. As you can tell, I'm pretty passionate about this stuff. I like not preparing for these conversations so I can speak from my heart about them and, and then train that skill, if you will, of articulating what I feel inside, outside, better. And the more you do anything, the better you get at it. Resilience is a skill that can be trained. I like to say that about anything. But I apply to resilience as much as possible. But for sure, resilient mental state is my account on substack and yeah, sign up for free. And I mean most of my stuff comes through free anyway and I try to make even my paid tier stuff where you can see a lot of it and then direct message me on there and let me know questions you have. I do have. I use my community chat every day. I post a reflective question. So like this morning is how do you, how do you be authentic? So just things that exercise and intentionally stress the mind, if you will. And I like to start off my day with reflecting on a quote. So you'll see every morning on substack a quote quote from somebody in the past. And then I write kind of my interpretation of it. So there's my mind exercise for the morning and then all these questions that I ask in my community chat are my opportunity for others to do the same if they're not doing it themselves or finding elsewhere on great accounts like yours.

Beautiful. Yeah. And just because you mentioned earlier and you mentioned that actually as you're using your paid membership, I think you said kind of as a tool to sharpen or hone your own writing. Yeah, tell us about that. Like what's going on with that project.

Yeah. So again, I have a long term plan, if you will, when it comes to post military and what I may or may not do. I love being an audiologist and I could very well keep doing that. But as you can tell, I'm pretty passionate about stress management resilience too. And there's a lot of things within audiology that I could talk for forever about too, whether it be the balance system or tinnitus and ringing in the ears where I apply a lot of these concepts to helping people in that realm when they have permanent consequences that affect either one of those systems where it really does become mindset and what we call Habituation to make the new normal more effective that I help those people out with. But what I do post military, I still have some time to figure that out. So the paid tier on substack I'm using for some of the types of posts that I make. One is called intentional stress challenges. So think of a different skill in the fitness realm or in the co, in the mental realm, cognitive realm, in the spiritual realm or in the social realm. I come up with different challenges and I do that concept of progressive overload. So I have basic, advanced and elite challenges for each skill for readers to consider starting out at a manageable level and then making them more difficult. So that's one of the paid tiers. I also do a workout of the week. I don't do it every week, it just depends on how crazy my week is, but through my functional fitness group. And it is functional fitness. It's mostly body weight or it'll be low weight stuff. But I will do a specific adaptation for the week. So whether that's stamina, endurance, anaerobic, you name it, the different skill adaptations you can have in the fitness realm, I'll write up that workout and I'll write up kind of the goals behind it and the skill it relates to. And those are some of my paid tier options as well. I'm developing some master classes on things like balance, things like tinnitus, situational awareness, human performance, and then again trying to add in controllable factors of all of those things so people can train and evolve those skills if it applies to their life. So that's some of the things that I'm doing with the paid tier and again, more so just stress testing my writing to see if it's valuable.

Cool.

Beautiful man. Well, really appreciate you joining us. It's been a fascinating conversation and as we were saying before we started, just we hadn't had the chance to. We've been following each other and kind of playing and collaborating on Substack probably really since we got on back in October. But we've never really had a chance to talk. So it was really fun to hear your perspective and learn more about what you're up to. So yeah, thank you. Very grateful. And yeah, we'll be sharing this recording with our, you know, with our audience after this. We put kind of a recap together. So I'll share that with you. Feel free to share that with your people if you, if you think it could serve and yeah, otherwise man, I really, really appreciate you. So thank you so much.

Right back at you guys. We didn't even ask about your overlap with ideology. But I feel like we have a hundred other things that we can talk about, so I look forward to the next one. We will have to plan another one in the future. I appreciate you guys and everything you do. Thank you very much.

Yeah, we'll get there. Thank you. All right, take care, Kyle.

Have a great one. Bye, guys.