259. Marcus & Amber Capone: On Ibogaine, Veteran Suicide, PTSD Treatment & Brain Health

22:27Gary Brecka:But it's that isolation. And I'm sure that when you unpack this on the Ibogaine journey, which I really want to talk about and I want to broaden the topic. But when you unpack this on the Ibogaine journey, you realize maybe it wasn't just specifically things that you witnessed in combat, which I think everyone pinpoints as that's what caused it. And that's isolated to just those kinds of guys, right, that witnessed these horrific events or, you know, just in the interviews, it reminded me of that question that they ask where – and they're like, how many drinks do you have a week? like one to two, three to five, seven to nine.

23:08Gary Brecka:But they were talking about how many times was your life in peril? How many times were you actually at risk of being maimed or killed? And they got to 51 or more. And he was like, yeah, 51 or more. I mean, I got goosebumps just in my arms. I just got goosebumps too. You're talking about like the PHQ-9, right? Like some of these symptom rating scales that they ask you these questions. Yeah, yeah, but it was in the movie, look at the goosebumps. And I was like, 51 or more, like I've never truly thought that I was gonna lose my life. Like death was imminent ever. So mine's zero. But someone that's had this 51 or more times, that was just, that would be so to me.

23:48It is. And we talk a lot about the PTSD label because I think it can be overused. And Amber's done a good job, I think, of explaining this where guys I worked with, we i mean we wanted to go overseas right like we wanted to fight for our country we wanted to do the things that we had trained for for 300 days a year while we were gone so i think i still really struggle and i know many of the guys do is like was do we do i really have ptsd or is it some of the stuff we experienced when we were children um maybe it was definitely some of the blast exposure like there's a lot of data now showing that again talk about mental health or moving into brain health, maybe our circuits have been jacked up a little bit, right?

24:37Gary Brecka:And some of those parts of the brain are turned off 100%. Repeated microtrauma. Subconcussive blows, we talk about mild TBI, potentially worse than just, say, having a single concussion. And these are reflecting themselves through depression, anxiety, panic attacks, potentially drinking or other substance use disorder. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say, you know, having been so close to somebody that went through this, like what are some of the warning signs that are not so obvious? Obvious if someone has a rampant drug or alcohol problem or something very, very obvious. Is it, would you say, is it them becoming more reclusive, withdrawn?

25:21Gary Brecka:Like what would you say to the audience that's listening to this that would be great ways to maybe throw up a flag that someone might need some help. Generally speaking, I would say everyone that comes to our program, for example, wants to get unstuck. They want to feel again. They want to live again. They want to be excited for something or feel like they belong to something. And so some of the red flags that I could identify in hindsight would be, yeah, becoming more isolated. Marcus has always been a high performer since I met him when he was 20 years old. He was very goal oriented, very active.

26:02And those things really dissipated. He no longer set goals or surfed, played golf, things that used to, I don't even know.

26:12Gary Brecka:This is like passion for life. Yeah. Going to the gym, like simple things. I didn't have passion for anything. I didn't want to get out of bed. I mean, I had definitely diagnosed clinical depression where for days I did not want to do anything. I didn't want to speak to anybody. I would turn my phone off. I wouldn't answer text messages. I have like over 600 on my phone right now. Well, that's a different reason. That's a different reason. Hopefully you know I'm going backwards, guys. It's nothing personal, anybody out there listening. But I really did have all the things and that's what happens when you get into these dark places where you just don't want to do anything.

26:52And all the things that I really enjoyed just kind of went away.

26:56Gary Brecka:So then how did the solution become Ibogaine for you? I almost want to say by accident, but I don't think anything happens by accident anymore. that we've all starting to see that maybe this is all in motion for a reason. It was what was presented to us. So we had a friend who was in a similar, let's say going through a similar journey as I was in terms of many years of combat, actually many more years of combat than I had and was just struggling with the same exact things that I was. So, you know, depression, anxiety, rage. And, you know, he had talked about suicide and he had found Ibogaine through his best friend who was a doctor and said, you know, I was at a conference and I talked to this doc who thought maybe this would be helpful to veterans that were struggling with, at the time, this is like 2017.

28:02so he didn't know he just figures ptsd right believe at the time maybe maybe traumatic brain injury mild traumatic brain injury and of course the doctor who was a seal um can i say his name sure yeah so dr kirk parsley who's a just a call him the sleep doctor yeah um he's an incredible individual he actually left the military because he couldn't practice what you preach right like Like, these guys, you know, testosterone levels are 300 at 25 years old or 30 years old. There's an issue there. He needs hormone replacement therapy. Right? So all these things, some meditation, maybe breath work, because meditation sounds weird.

28:41Gary Brecka:Right. The graybeards, as he called them, didn't want to listen to him. So he left and just started his own practice because he said, I want to help these guys. I want to help my brothers. And he got out and he's doing it now. Good for him. He's a really successful Kirk. And thank you if you're listening out there, Doc. but doc got him after talking to this quack doctor about ibogaine said hey maybe maybe you should try this maybe you should go to mexico it's legal down there um and it it can help according to him well it did i mean that first seal that first seal dr parsley helped one other seal okay now do you remember there's a scene in the film with a gun and an empty bottle of whiskey okay so So a little bit more context on that scene.

29:24I had gone to bed and I woke up middle of the night and I heard men's voices. Marcus wasn't in bed. And I tiptoed down the hall and this guy was in our house. And I thought maybe he'd had a fight with his wife and he needed Marcus. But what really happened was he knew Marcus was in a bad spot with this gun and empty bottle of whiskey. and he came to help him. That's the only reason that he knew Marcus was struggling because we would have never said that we were needing help otherwise. So when he came back from Mexico after having this experience, his wife reached out to me and said, this could help Marcus.

30:11And I approached, it was actually 2016, I approached Marcus about this and he said, that's absolutely crazy. No. We live in the most medically advanced country in the world. Nothing I can get in Mexico that I can't find here. And that's at the point where I'd been on years of antidepressants, other mood stabilizers. I'd been to, I think, five brain clinics up until that point. That was the point you started going to brain clinics? Because we knew he needed something. He had been on several different antidepressants. He was very reluctant for many years to go on pharmaceuticals, finally relented, and then sort of went on this pendulum swing of zombie monster, zombie monster.

30:59Like it was just – there was nothing present about him. No in between. No in between. Yeah. Two switches, you know, on and off. That sucks. That was it. So we knew that wasn't working. We knew talk therapy wasn't working. You asked me what were some of the red flags. I actually was noticing red flags that were unrelated to PTSD, if you will. Yet that was his primary diagnosis. and one of the things that I remember vividly was him trying to put Christmas tree lights on a tree and he couldn't figure out where they stopped, where they started, where they plugged into the wall, how they plugged in together.

31:45This was like a neurological issue and another instance, he was like wide-eyed, sweating profusely, trying to get out the door for a flight and he couldn't like figure out how to pack everything. It was like he couldn't figure out how, you know, he wanted to. And he just, it was pitiful. So I thought this is a brain thing more than it is an emotional thing, yet he's being treated solely with talk therapy and antidepressants and wondering why he can't get better. Like this feels wrong. This feels, there's more to this story. Now my dad happens to be a football coach. which we met because my dad recruited him to play for him.

32:26And my dad always downplayed concussions. But one of his friends in the SEAL teams had taken his life, and his wife had his brain autopsied, and it came back that he had interface astroglial scarring and what I'd heard to be stage 1 CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And so I started doing this research and realizing that there's a linkage between, you know, some of these issues he was clearly experiencing. and repeated head trauma. Marcus not only had 15 years of tackle football, he had 13 years working with explosives as a breacher. And so I started to realize maybe my dad, you know, maybe I should look beyond what my dad had to say about concussions.

33:08And I became terrified because it felt like a terminal diagnosis. Like there was no solution. There was not even a diagnosis, let alone a treatment or a cure. And so I thought we've got to get him off of these pharmaceuticals and into more innovative things. There's another part to the story that I won't get into now, but I had gone down this rabbit hole of advocating for our son who experienced a significant plethora of illnesses and diagnoses. Unrelated to everything he's gone through.

33:42Gary Brecka:Unrelated. But I had begun to pull back layers. I had begun to advocate for my child. Good for you. And I was ready to do the same for my husband. I was at least not going to go down without a fight. And so I just started putting the pieces together and thinking we've got to have a different approach. We've got to at least try. And so I had gotten Marcus into a clinic in California. He was doing some imaging and more functional medicine type treatments. He was also doing hyperbaric oxygen and magnetic therapy on the brain. And that was really all I had left because he said no to Ibogaine. so I was like okay well let me try all these other more you know forward thinking approaches and those really didn't help in fact in some ways I think it made him worse and so it was just through sheer divine intervention that I re-approached him about Ibogaine and I did it in a way that I'd never done it before just love and grace and I ditched the guilt and condemnation and shame that I had used previously and I really just committed to meeting him where I was at.

34:51So we were doing a lot of this. Yeah, of course. Of course, and the more one side, you kind of get what you receive. So the more one side gives, the other side gives. And so when Amber, I think, fell more into receive mode and allowed me to kind of meet her halfway, our relationship got better and I started to listen because initially when I first thought about Ibogaine, it was a pure ego thing. Like I'm, you know, across my arms, I'm not doing that. It's a psychedelic, it's a drug. I grew up going to all boys Catholic high school. This is weird. This is hippie shit. But so then I started doing my own research.

35:27And the more you start going down the rabbit hole with the research, these things have been around for thousands of years. And in the last hundred years, they've actually have some research around it and individuals were getting better. We're not talking about small percentages, like large percentages of individuals who utilize these in the proper way get better. And so the more I researched, the more I felt comfortable knowing, oh, wait a minute, this is not a drug. This is a medicine. This is a treatment that could potentially heal whatever I'm dealing with. And that's what allowed me to be a little bit more relaxed and accepting and say, okay, this is something that I would absolutely look into.

36:09I'm a little bit like you, probably. If you tell me it's gonna make me bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, you know, hurt less. Like I'll try it. Sure. Let's, you know, I'm gonna get even the hippie shit. Even the hippie shit. And so in a roundabout long way, winded way of answering your question, it was, that's how we got to Ibogaine because it could have been another medicine, right? It could have been something else, but that was the one that this individual turned his whole life around with. And so you trust your brother, right? You trust your friend. And so I said, you know, I'll, I'll give this a shot.

36:41Gary Brecka:I mean, some, some of the most, uh, the people that I hold in the highest regard that respect the most have done this. Um, and I've never had a negative comment come back about it. Um, some of the experiences are vastly different. Um, but the outcome seems to be all very similar. I've been, and the underlying theme is I now understand why I am the way I am. And I think that's a, that's a huge relief, right? When you can identify, finally identify the villain. It's like, it's like having a flu, you know, for half of your life. And then a doctor says, oh, you have influenza A, you can take this and it will kill influenza A.

37:22Gary Brecka:It's like, at least, you know, what it was, you know, what it is. And what I found really fascinating was how different everyone's journey was. I mean, similar contacts, but very different journeys. It's subjective. Yeah. Right. Because we're subjective. I'm different, excuse me, I'm different from you. Yeah. Genetically, we look different. We're different from Amber. We're going to have different experiences. Yeah. That's what, you know. And, you know, it's a childhood trauma. Is it from your career? Is it from a previous marriage? Is it from, you know, how you were raised you know what your life experiences from repeated head trauma could there's so many things that put people in this position um and they find themselves exactly where you were where they went all through the conventional route and i think the um inability for conventional medicine to help a lot of people in this position is much bigger than we think um but people feel stuck in the system because there's not an alternative and certainly not one that their health insurance will pay for.

38:20Gary Brecka:And that kind of traps them into a certain vertical. That's a big deal. That's a whole other thing we can talk about when I was talking about commercialization. What does one of these journeys cost out of pocket? We have special pricing for the veterans that we support through our program, but someone that is doing self-pay would spend between$8 ,500 and$10 ,000. Now when you compare that, I mean, Ibogaine is actually used mostly for addiction disruption. When you compare that to a 30-day inpatient stay with the abysmal success rates, it's really a drop in the bucket. And it's a drop in the bucket to give someone their entire life back because it does have this really innate ability to provide a different perspective or concept of why these struggles exist.

39:08And then it's doing something really incredible on a physiological level as well, which you also saw in the film with the Stanford study.

39:18Gary Brecka:Yeah. You know, it was really – I think what the film does really, really well is it takes the context of what you're saying and it puts it in a visual way. Your animators did an incredible job. um it was just you know listening to the voiceovers of uh dj for example just walking through the different points in his life and how he would tie something that happened as a child i mean i remember talking about the the incident where you know he's mowing the lawn and and his father who was this big imposing figure came he he busted the lawnmower um running over a root and the dad came sprinting at him and he just went into a rage and he picked his lawnmower up and literally just smashed it over his head to bits and and the fear that he felt and the rage that he saw in his dad's face um he felt it as if he was still the 10 year old version of himself and then he was able to immediately draw forward like 25 years and see that he had smashed his daughter's uh dollhouse yeah and he could see himself and he felt the pain through his his daughter and he was like whoa And that's the power of it is that you get into these, when you get into the experience, you witness potentially some of these incidences from different perspectives, first person, second person.

40:40And you can feel potentially the pain that you're causing someone. So for instance, I had a judgment experience during my experience that I was constantly judged. And everything is like hyper, it just compounds everything that's going on.

40:57Gary Brecka:Yeah, like you're very aware. You're so aware, you're there. And I was judging Amber and the kids and it was like this weird thing that was going on, it seemed like an eternity and I was judging and judging and judging, but I was doing the judging. And then all of a sudden the perspective completely shifted and I was judging myself. Oh. And so, and then that went on And I was feeling like the pain and the rage of this person. I was feeling the pain of my rage judging me. And I was getting judged as I was watching myself judge them. And I could feel it and it hurt. And I just said, that's it. I will never do that again.

41:39Like I don't ever want Amber or our children to feel that pain that I'm experiencing right now in judgment because that's what they must be experiencing, right? So I was feeling that and I came out

41:53Gary Brecka:and I'll never do that again. What kind of super intelligence is that? It's wild. I mean, I don't even purport to understand it. I mean, we don't either trust me. I consider myself above average intelligence, but I mean, we've only scratched the surface of the power of the mind. I mean, they say we only use 10 % of our brain capacity, but I think we've only scratched the surface of the mind. But what's really fascinating is you're actually using the best vehicle, which is your own mind, to heal the vehicle that's damaged, which is your own mind. I mean, what better resource than to tap into your own innate ability to heal yourself?

42:30Gary Brecka:And that's it, Gary. And you do it every day, right? You're right. You do use supplements and nutraceuticals and things, but they're supplements, right? They're not, right? But the things you're doing are healing the body from the inside. And that's what this does. It's, some doctors say it takes what, this is what therapy is trying to get to, right? Talk therapy, different cognitive behavioral therapy is trying to get to the root cause, trying to get in your mind and figure it out and have you see it. Ibogaine does that in a few hours. So you have to be prepared, right? So what you're trying to work on with a therapist for five or 10 years.

43:06Which that judgment issue probably would have taken you five to 10 years. Right about now he's coming into the solutions. I'm great. Everyone's saying I'm perfect, Jared. But think about trying to do that for five or 10 years, except solving it in six to eight hours.

43:22Gary Brecka:Yeah. And that's the beauty of it. And that's the difficult part. I think that science or PhDs will have trouble wrapping their heads around where we're just saying, well, we just wanna see the mechanisms of action. Of course. What part of the brain isn't working on? But there's just other underlying things that are happening that make these subjective experiences so powerful and so healing. So life-changing. And how long did you go down with him? I didn't, but I did go down the day after. And I had a complete freak out on the plane. What have we done? You know, you're so desperate to save the person you love.

43:59I also didn't think it would work because so many things hadn't worked.

44:03Gary Brecka:Yeah, I'm on my way to Mexico to see my husband after a psychedelic trip. Like, is this really where we are? I can imagine what you're thinking. It was terrifying. And then everything started to come undone in my mind. Like, what have we done? This is it. If I see him, I'm going to know immediately if it worked. If it didn't, I'm going to be devastated and I've got nothing left. Luckily, when I saw him, I knew immediately it had worked. And the first thing he said to me was, this is it. This is exactly what his former teammates needed. And how did you know? If you don't mind me asking. His countenance was back.

44:40I had known him since before he was a SEAL, and the things I loved most about him had disappeared. So when I saw him again, it was like immediate, exactly the way I remembered him. You see a glow on individuals. I mean, we see it now, you know, thousands of individuals over that we've seen on a Monday that go through treatment and come out on a Friday. On a Monday, they just look, you know, Some of them are gone. They're not even looking at you, right? Because they can't. They're just, they're really broken in some ways or just hurting or searching. Their eyes might be dark. They're not talkative.

45:15They're not happy. They're not making jokes. Yeah, DJ's why he talked about that. What's his wife's name? Patsy.

45:20Gary Brecka:Patsy, yeah. She talked about how she walked up, looked them in the eyes and knew. You could just see it. And we call it the glow effect. You can see the individuals. Almost literally looks like they have like heat radiating from them. Their skin looks like they just - Well, their spirit has just been like... They just reversed aged by 10 years. You just look good and healthy, and your eyes are open, and you're happy. And so you go on a Friday, say, a group of five to six veterans that we give grant scholarships to. In the van, maybe no one's talking to each other. On Friday, they're telling jokes, and they're exchanging numbers, and they can't wait to see their wife and their kids and go do the things that they wanted to do.

45:58It's a dramatic change. It's just awesome, just a witness.

46:02Gary Brecka:That's amazing. and Sean's a part of this uh philanthropy too right because it is it and with you and Shipley and everyone yes yeah Sean you know and again we can speak about it because Sean is you know he's talked about it on his show and he says he was in a similar place right for years he didn't feel oh yeah um he was just kind of just white knuckling it and going through it and and absorbing the pain of everything thinking like this is normal. And, you know, he said, you know, he was right after his experience, he was out on a bench overlooking, just like looking out at the ocean. He said, man, I haven't done this in 15 years.

46:41He's like, I haven't just stopped and looked and just been present and realized how like awesome life is and earth is and the water and just being outside and seeing green grass and blue sky. Like these are the things that, you know, they call it an awakening. It kind of wakes you up to, you know, people say, wow, I didn't realize the apple is so red or avocado is so green or oranges smell so good. Wow. And that is not like one person, that is everybody. That is amazing.

47:11Gary Brecka:If your energy is low during the day, the problem usually started the night before. Sleep affects focus, mood, metabolism, literally everything. and most people never learn how to properly support it. Our free sleep challenge is April 29th and 30th and it's designed to teach the basics of better sleep in a way that's realistic and easy to apply. If learning how to sleep better feels like the right place to start, we'd love to have you join our challenge on April 29th. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So what would you say to families that are struggling with similar situations about this?

47:47I would say think outside the box. That's one thing about our community is we take care of one another and we're taught to think outside the box. Now, Marcus is a really great soldier in that he did go to his appointments and he did take his medicines. But when he got off of pharmaceuticals going into Ibogaine. Because you have to get off everything. You have to get off everything. You have to titrate. And that can be for individuals. Literally, we've had some that have been on them for 15 or 20 years. Just imagine titrating off of that or coming off in cold, which, of course, some individuals.

48:20Gary Brecka:And also telling your VA doc, hey, I'm going to titrate off the knees and go. Try to explain to a doctor that you're going to go to your own disease. Yeah, so you just got to do it in silence. Yeah, 100%. So he hasn't been back on them. So that sort of unconventional, we're going to just try this, really helped open up a life that I could only dream about. I was just trying to keep him alive, but didn't realize that he hadn't actually been living. And so, you know, the connection that we have now, the life that we're creating now, the people that we've been able to help through the work that we do would say the same.

48:54It's one thing to have a pulse. It's another thing to live. Yeah. And that started the kind of the idea around vets. You know, when Amber saw me, we embraced, we cried. I didn't even say I'm better. She can just see that. I just said literally the first words were, this is exactly what the guys need. Like we have to figure out a way to help them. Someone paid for my treatment. And I knew that these are expensive treatments and it's not covered under insurance like you were talking about because they're not FDA approved yet here. We're working on that. But I wanted to pay for somebody, right? I wanted to get somebody that opportunity to heal like I did because I was in such a dark place And I said, man, if there's so many individuals that I know and have very close friends that were in the exact same spot, and if they can't afford treatment, well, what's going to happen to them?

49:46And so that was the idea around how do we do this and how do we pay it forward?

49:52Gary Brecka:Yeah. So what does life look for you guys now outside of I have a game? Like what are you building together? What are your goals? What sort of path are you on? There's a lot happening, Gary. Oh yeah. And this is, you know, there's a lot in that supplement bag right there that you're going to throw up. We should talk, we definitely talk about that too. That's hilarious. I got to clear everything off of here. And I brought that as just a funny, you know, as a funny joke, I figured you'd get a kick out of it. I did. You need to throw that in the garbage. Oh, that stuff's really good. But anyway, we'll get to that.

50:26We have a lot going on. So we initially started Vets and received our 501c3 charity status in 2019. And just from day one, I mean, it was just Amber and I, and we're working seven, you know, it's like building a business. So seven days a week, all hours of the night. That's why I have over 600 text messages I've unread. And we've been doing that for years and working with Stanford and Ohio State and Hopkins and just studies and policy work at the state and federal level. And that's just going. We have a full team at Vets and Amber could talk more about that. She's the CEO. I chair the board there with some amazing individuals that help just kind of keep it on track.

51:03And then the success we had there at VETS, I was approached by entrepreneurial individuals, one in particular, Grant Verstandig, who's just an amazing human. He dropped out of Brown his freshman year to fix healthcare because he had his 15th knee surgery and it just kept getting worse. And long - 15th knee surgery.

51:24Gary Brecka:It just, yeah. And this guy is like, you know, Mensa smart, just brilliant. And just tried to solve the problem through technology and better communication with doctors. And he built a business called Rally Health and they partnered with United and the rest is history, of course. And then he approached and just said, dude, the work you're doing with veterans is incredible. I'd love to support that work. But as an entrepreneur, how do we do this for the private sector? And so we founded a company called Tar Mind. I'm the founder and CEO along with Grant. And we figured out a way to take individuals who are struggling that don't respond to antidepressants and introduce them to advanced mental health care through FDA-approved treatments, right?

52:09Wow. Through TMS Saint protocol, through IV ketamine. And we do that through employee benefit plans. So we're selling this to like J.K. Morgan and the Googles of the world and Walmarts and the labor unions, right? And so these are the groups that are just taking what we originally never even thought about, just starting out with veterans and now taking it to the private sector. And so that, and we're doing that all through data. Everything's driven by data. So we kind of, you know, we're identifying individuals through AI, through other, you know, kind of fragmented data sets. We're making sense of all that data through kind of longitudinal structured data.

52:44And then we're showing these companies like, hey, you have all these individuals that've been on antidepressants for years. They're not getting better. you're wasting money, right? Let's focus on these individuals. Let's get them to the right treatment.

52:56Gary Brecka:So there are also powder kegs. I mean, potentially some of them. A hundred percent. They're the ones that end up in the ER, they end up on disability. So we're getting ahead of that, right? And then eventually of course, you know, our vision of course is like, well, on the monitor, we'll get into biomarkers. What's the right treatment for the right person at the right time. So that's my commercial business, Tar Mind. And so we have vets, I have Tar Mind. what else you know I know you want to talk about a few other things that we have while we're not working 24 hours a day you guys are busy dude I thought I was busy so I talk about this I mean we you know we have a lot going on we do have a lot going on so Marcus and I have been in build mode and that has that has kept us trapped behind a laptop for the majority of the last eight years or so there's nothing like building I don't care what anybody says about being in business with your spouse best thing I best decision I ever made Yeah.

53:48Gary Brecka:Really best decision. We love it. We don't ever fight. We agree on everything. You can have a shitty day at the office and have a great day at home. That's right. You can separate business from your private life. Horseshit. It hasn't always been roses, but it's definitely been very gratifying. And I feel that it really is my life calling, Marcus's life calling. And together we hope to break free from the laptop in 2026. The film has heightened the awareness around this topic, but really just broad mental health beyond the veteran community. And so we're actually launching a podcast this year. Yeah, later this spring.

54:31You already banked a few, right? Yeah. We did. We've banked 10. We have two more. We had to work through some legal stuff that we've done. So we'll shoot those two more in the next few weeks. But talk about it. What are we doing? What do we help to accomplish? If I'm passing through Dallas, I'd love to jump on there. I just invited myself onto the podcast.

54:52Gary Brecka:We'll have to check with the team to make sure that you have to go through the DD process. We would be honored. But no, the idea is really just to continue speaking to this topic and bring hope to people that they really can transform their lives. Marcus came home from a driving school, defensive driving school, very early on in his SEAL career. I think that the lesson he shared with me pertains to life and not only what we've done and are continuing to do, but to anyone. This is great. And basically what he said is, do you know why individuals wrap their car around the lone tree in a field or the lone telephone pole on the side of a road?

55:30Because that's what they're staring at when they start to spiral out of control, to spin out of control. So a person overcompensates two or three times to steer towards the pole when they have so much open room to just make one adjustment and you pass the pole and now maybe you're sick. Right. But we overcompensate because we're staring at that thing and we actually drive to the thing. Wow. So I told Amber this. Now she uses it for everything.

55:55Gary Brecka:Amazing metaphor. I realized during our spiral that I was becoming so focused on the proverbial tree that I didn't realize I was surrounded by an open field of possibility. And where did I want to steer? So regardless of how crazy things had gotten in our personal life, I was just intent on steering towards where I wanted to end up, realizing that I had an entire field. and anyone can do that. That's a great metaphor. So it's just being in the business of encouraging people to transform their lives and drive where they want to go. We focus too much on the problem. Andrew Heumann does a good job talking about it.

56:42He's been talking about it recently, about how individuals just they get stuck in the loop and part of this is mental health, but the loop is just you keep thinking about the bad thing that's happening. I got to raise money or my kid's doing it. instead of driving to the open place to say, hey, let's get out of this loop, right? Let's move to the open space, the open space being healing, whatever that is or whatever you're going on. And I think that's just such a good metaphor for really everything. And that's what the podcast will touch on.

57:11Gary Brecka:That's so awesome. I think you guys are gonna do amazing with the podcast. What else? What else do we have? Well, we are working on a book. We've been working on that for a little while. Oh, right on. We've been approached by so many people to write a book and we're just like, books are - It's a lot tougher than people think. It's tough and it's also from our community, from the SEAL community, although there has been a lot of books written, it was a bit shunned or even still a bit shunned. And I think there's a way to do it and a way not to do it. And I think we've done a good job. I've definitely done a good job because I don't love the spotlight.

57:46I'm decent at speaking and getting out there and doing it, but you can do it in a way where it's not about you. And there's so many individuals that are out there and they write about me, me, me, this, and I did this and I did that and I've been to war. And I never wanted to do that. And so we put off a book forever because that's not what we wanted to do. But what we've realized is the more we talk and the more we get out there, the more people hear our story and it gives them hope. And so the book, there might be a chapter about the SEAL teams in the book because people do want to hear that and that stuff is exciting.

58:21But that's not what the book is about. it's really about our life and our healing and where we started. And it'll be a chapter. If there's eight chapters, it'll be a chapter probably on college life and growing up and maybe some about the SEAL teams. It would just be more about what Amber and I are doing now and our lessons learned and how do we pay that forward? How do we help individuals? How do we help couples stay together? How do we help children deal with potentially their dad not being in the military away at work, but maybe being a banker who's gone 100 hours a week, right? So it's extremely and so we're super excited about that.

58:52And that's, we're working with great folks. Yeah.

58:55Gary Brecka:That's amazing. So let's see what we got in the bag. Oh man. Yeah. So Gary, I thought it'd be a great idea because we travel literally, we live in Dallas, but we're probably there not even half the amount of time. Yeah. And Amber bought me these packing cubes for my clothes, but I wound up packing all my supplements. Those are packed in my overflow pink cubes. Her pink cubes. I was like, you know what? I'm going to bring this to show you. So your wife's not the overpacker in this relationship? No, she's not. He's going to get a kick out of my travel stuff, and he's going to also say yay to some of this stuff and nay to some of it.

59:36I just think it would be hilarious because, like you said, on the road it's hard sometimes to get a good meal or do this or do that. Marcus is very committed to showing up for himself every day. He's very disciplined. He's very into...

59:49Gary Brecka:This is just got a very Navy SEAL vibe to it just already, you know? Right. So, like, I mean, if you want to go through this stuff here, right? So, like, of course we need, like, some of the best beef jerky you could find. I found this on a flight once, and I was like, oh, God, I got to buy it. Perfect. As soon as I get home. Huge fan. Huge fan. We're going to give that a 10. I got some nuts. You may tell me. Give that a 10 as well. That's awesome. Who doesn't need their electrolytes? Like, I got to put my electrolytes every morning. I have to have creatine because, you know. creatine we're finding out is really good for you.

1:00:20Very good for you. Excellent cognitive function. Of course, you know, free range, like the try to get the best protein supplements from kind of like a central market. Grass fed way.

1:00:31Gary Brecka:That's great. Yep. Actually the CEO, the founder of Momentus gave me some stuff. So I have to, you know, take some of that. Cool, great brand. I got a little bit of fiber in here. Sometimes this gives me a little bit of a bellyache, but I have it. And this is just pure fiber? Yeah, I get some pure fiber. I also have some collagen in there. Okay. Again, some of these things, you might say Marcus throw that shit away. Not sure about that brand. Yeah. It's got some dairy stuff. Dairy Digest. Dairy Digest. A ton of vitamins here. Rotorii. I got omega-3s. I have more digestive enzymes, CoQ10. All good.

1:01:09I take all this stuff for my liver. I've had some high liver enzymes come back over the couple of years.

1:01:14Gary Brecka:Milk thistle is great for the liver? So I've got some stuff that I can just kind of clean out the liver. You pick one all form of CoQ10. I don't know if you recognize this product. That's a great one. That is a must. It is definitely a must. H2 tab. When we're at home, we have our home system that we have. And it adds hydrogen to the water. That's great. I got some vitamin D. D3 with K2, which is also amazing. And in fat because it is a fat-soluble vitamin. So I don't know this brand, but it appears to be well-structured. We can work on the brands. I do take a low dose, just have a little bit of thicker blood.

1:01:49Gary Brecka:Regular therapeutic phlebotomy is really good for that too. Just regular blood dumps. There you go. I mean, I have to have some bone broth for the road. Excellent. Is this a powdered bone broth? Powdered bone broth. It tastes delicious. It looks like you haven't dug into this in a little while. This one's looking a little rusty. That one's a little rusty. Okay. That one's a little... I think they gave you that when you got out of the service. Yeah, exactly. It's like an MRE. There's sentimental value to that somehow. Oh, and then I take, I have two different types of methylene blue. I have a liquid kind of dropper at the house.

1:02:21I don't want to take the liquid on the road, so I have these. These still turn my urine colors.

1:02:26Gary Brecka:You can't get away with peeing on the toilet seat. That's the problem. That's how my wife busts me every time. Because I used to be able to deny it, but now if it's blue, no denying it. I thought you'd get a kick out of this stuff. That is awesome. We'll go through and tighten anything up that needs to be tightened up. I'm a huge fan of berberine. Actually outperforms metformin as a glucophage in some studies. Great for blood sugar control. Yeah, that's great. I love that you have a survival meal pack that you take with you too. Because if you're going on commercial flights, I mean, the garbage that they feed you on airplanes.

1:02:59Hey, do you want these pretzels and crackers? No, I don't.

1:03:02Gary Brecka:No, I don't. They actually get mad at me because I also sometimes I'm like, I don't need a hot towel either. Just like, we're good. Is it true that water, ice, coffee on airlines is just absolutely hideous? Oh, my God. I mean, if you actually knew what they made that out of, first of all, it's all just straight tap water. And the coffee is really garbage. But it's mainly like they're making this all with just unfiltered tap water. And I tell people a few things that you can do to sort of biohack your life. but the first moment that you have any kind of disposable income, the first thing you should do is water filtration, right?

1:03:46Gary Brecka:I mean, there's, we're what, 65 % water. And if you look at the amount of toxicity that comes through the water supply, you know, not just fluoride, which is categorizes in neurotoxin, but chlorine, fluoride, it's called PFAs, these polyfluoroalkyls, trace pharmaceuticals, microplastics, you know, all of this stuff. In something that is not immediately toxic doesn't mean that it's necessarily harmful. It sounds like a scare tactic, but the truth is we're just trying to get around the system. But water filtration is huge. So, you know, the nice thing is in airports now, you can't carry bottled water with you on the plane.

1:04:26Gary Brecka:You can get it on the other side of the security. But I'm seeing more glass bottled water choices. and most of them have the filtered refillable stations. Yeah. So if you just throw an aluminum bottle in your bag and then fill it up before you get on your flight, I mean, some of those containers will hold almost a liter of fluid. I mean, that's perfect, you know, while you're on a flight. I might even, the only thing I might add to that would be some, like a mineral salt, like a Baja gold. I've heard you talk about that. Yeah, yeah. Would you replace the electrolyte with that? Yeah, because those electrolytes are heavily focused on the big ones that the consumer knows about, potassium, magnesium, sodium, which are certainly electrolytes and you certainly need those, but you really need 91 trace minerals.

1:05:11Gary Brecka:Our soil has been so depleted. A lot of the challenges that we have are mineral deficiencies. And mineral deficiencies manifest themselves in all kinds of ways, brittle bones, osteopenia, osteoporosis, migraines, a really interesting study in the Wiley Journal of Headaches about migraines and sodium. I get them. Yeah, you do? I've heard you talk about Baja. So now that we're here in person, I'm - You get them first thing in the morning? It's the first thing I'm going to do is take, I get them throughout the day. Okay. I get them pretty regularly. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, just remember that pain cannot come from the brain, right?

1:05:49Gary Brecka:So even though it feels like the migraine is coming from your brain, that's not possible because the brain has no pain receptors. So it actually can't generate a pain signal. so even though you feel like the pain is coming from the brain it's not um it's coming from the covering of the brain called the dura um that's where it's fraught with pain receptors the dura hates two things it hates being stretched and it hates being contracted and what determines whether or not it's doing that is is the sodium gradient the osmotic gradient great um study in the wiley journal of headaches for anybody that wants to doubt that just by adding mineral salt to your water you can very often fix migraines go read that study perfect um it was an inverse correlation between sodium um and migraines you know it's just giving the body the raw material it needs to do its job so what does your supplement pack look like is it mine doesn't look like that gary she's got like two mine looks similar to yours so i have stolen her colostrum which she just found out today.

1:06:48Oh, really? I'm guilty of being all in and what I'm all into. And I feel like building vets has really shifted my focus away from myself. It's something that I also hope to work on this year.

1:07:02Gary Brecka:You take pretty good care of yourself. I do. I do. But admittedly more for vanity purposes than health right now. We love walking together. Yeah. That's the thing I was I was going to ask you, like, what are your daily habits? Because, you know, I built a business with my spouse as well. And by the grace of God, it was successful. So I know what that struggle is like. And there's no separating your business from your personal life. So if you're starting a business with your spouse, just know that you're going down that road. If you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need perfect amino.

1:07:40Gary Brecka:It's pure essential amino acids. the building blocks of proteins in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100 % utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as whey, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need Perfect Amino. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. But, you know, I think I've learned that the best relationships, in my opinion, are the ones that have gone through everything that's meant to tear them apart, but they're still together.

1:08:21Gary Brecka:It's like two imperfect people that just refuse to give up on each other. That's right. You know, and at no point would that hit the bliss point. Right. But, you know, there's nothing better than succeeding together. Right. That is, I think, one of the greatest gifts for any marriage, any couple, is to have the wins and the losses going through those together. And one of the things I think Sage and I learned was we read a great book called Rocket Fuel. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's a very simple book, but it's a quick read. but it talks about a integrator and a visionary and the importance of having both because i'm very much of a visionary but i also create so much dust right and i and i throw up so many ideas and she's very practical very organized very regimented and without and so we would butt heads all the time in the business very similar do you guys need to read this book okay all right if your marriage is at a nine it just took it to a ten i'll take 15 of everything that comes out of it but uh this is called rocket fuel so just a simple book and what it did it it literally reframed the way we looked at each other right i saw so much value in what she was providing and she saw so much value in what i was providing because she was like you know what i can't make the phone ring i can't make people walk through the door and i was like i can't pay the bills we would be absolutely broke.

1:10:02Gary Brecka:Or our credit would be in the absolute. Oh, we need to read that. Yeah. And it made me realize the synergistic value of both of us rather than just my independent value for bringing in all the business and coming up with all the ideas. And I was like, all you have to do is send the checks, you know, and I oversimplified what she did. She oversimplified what I did. So it was a great book. I don't give any marriage advice, but I will toss that one out there for you. We'll definitely read that. I think that we're the same in terms of just really complimenting each other's strengths and weaknesses.

1:10:36And at one point realizing that we were in such a scorekeeping contest.

1:10:41Gary Brecka:Oh gosh, that's exactly what we were doing. Yeah, and such like this like push pull. We're headed towards the same finish line. We have the same goals in mind, but we were fighting each other all the way there. And it's like, if we just got behind one another and really celebrated and leaned into those strengths and weaknesses, is how much more impactful could we be? And I think that's where we're at now. And we're each other's biggest fans now. I mean, we compliment each other. I mean, I tell Amber every day how perfect she is and how amazing she is. And you're, you know, I just, I can't tell.

1:11:12Gary Brecka:Now I got it on tape and on video. So if you ever need it. This woman is the one for sure. You know, it's funny. We did exactly the same thing because what I found we would do is we would always kind of want to prove the other one wrong. so if I had an idea and she said no and I did it anyway and it failed then she would hold it against me if it succeeded I would hold it against her and then what I realized was if we would just do these together then what happens is the wins you celebrate together and the losses are sort of outside the castle walls because you both made the decision to take a step forward in one direction or another if it doesn't work there's no finger pointing because you both agreed on it.

1:11:59Gary Brecka:So now that becomes something that's, it's not a bone of contention anymore because I didn't decide to do it and you said no or you decided and I said, yes. And then when you make a decision and it works out, then you both celebrate the victory. So you end up only celebrating the wins and the losses are kind of outside the castle walls instead of in there where they poison everything else. And it was such a simple thing for us, but it made a massive difference and how we operated together. And it also was the tipping point for our business. It just skyrocketed. I believe that. I do. And I appreciate you sharing that.

1:12:37I think too, the work that you're doing is so important. It's just so fundamentally important. The work that we're doing is helping give people their lives back. Same for you guys. And I think that there's just this innate responsibility in sort of answering the call. I don't feel like we stumbled into this. I feel like we are, you know, on a divinely appointed mission that is such an honor to serve. So we might as well serve, you know, together.

1:13:02Gary Brecka:Yeah. Well, listen, I think what started as, you know, a wife's silent struggles and a husband's silent struggles, you have had the courage to, you know, put out there in the public domain and be vulnerable, which led to this documentary, which is an incredible documentary. I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Oh, thanks. And it was well narrated. It was well orated. It was entertaining. I found myself being very curious about, you know, what was going to happen. I've identified with each of the parties. It shed more light on the discussion that I had with DJ Shipley, which was one of our top podcasts.

1:13:49Gary Brecka:um i only wish i like i said i wish i had come out earlier before i'd been on the pod with him or had him on the pod but um what i what i really found was how applicable it is to everyone even though it was the seals um you know i think men in general want to suffer in silence and i think Like a lot of wives will very often hit that wall and they'll leave before. Yeah. You know, and the solution could be two steps away, right? You're on the 98-yard line and maybe you only need to move two more yards. Yeah. You know, and the fact that you guys did it and succeeded and you can see how many people it's inspired, you know, not the least of which are the characters in the documentary.

1:14:42Gary Brecka:it's an absolute must watch for anyone because there are the people that are not struggling that know someone who's struggling and there's the people that are struggling because I don't think anyone watching this podcast now does not know a single person in their sphere of their life. You say that all the time, Jerry, that mental health, brain health doesn't discriminate. It's either you or it is one degree of separation. We're starting to find that out. If I'm speaking to a room, I always say, hey, raise your hand. If it's not you, that's why you don't have to raise your hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:15:12But if it's one degree of separation, almost at least half the individuals usually more raise their hand and say, oh yeah, I know somebody. It's either my child or my spouse or my friend.

1:15:21Gary Brecka:Yeah, and that's how you really move the needle. So congratulations to you both. Thank you. So, you know, I always wind down my podcast by asking my guests the same question. I'll ask it to you individually. And if you've watched it, you know this is coming. But there's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I knew you were gonna ask this question. I actually got asked it on a podcast. I was like, wait, that's not fair. That's my question. I struggled. Yeah. Well, I'll try not to struggle. And I thought I had a good answer last night, but I'll talk through it because it has to do with curiosity.

1:15:59And I think being curious is one of the biggest attributes that we can have as individuals, as human beings. And why I think curiosity is so important is because we're stuck in our ways. We're stuck in our old ways. We never change. We never evolve. We never innovate. We never progress. And if I was stuck in my ways, I would have never gotten better. I would have listened to the doctors that I've always been told for many years from when I was a child that if you just listen to your doctor and you do this way, that you're supposed to get better. And as a good soldier, I wasn't getting, I was doing everything I was supposed to do, but I wasn't getting better.

1:16:43So for me, being curious and wanting to get better and thinking unconventionally and trying to solve the problem through curiosity is what enabled me and Amber to be where we're at today. So I think curiosity is the first thing as a ultimate human. You could always be curious as a lifelong learner. I think we should just never stop. And for me and Amber, we have that type A personality. I always say a close friend of ours, always say send it. And I love that because I struggle with the term balance. And I think it's very difficult to be balanced where you're trying to succeed and excel in life.

1:17:29and so if you're getting into something if you want to be a good student you want to be a good podcaster you want to be a good seal a good banker a good teacher you have to send it you have to go all in you have to right and especially early on in life you have to um make sacrifice yeah right and i and and it it it's earlier on in life it's easier to sacrifice because you can make mistakes you may not have a family, you may be able to focus on yourself a little bit more. As you get older, you can have some balance. Use your network, use your influence that way. But you got to send it. You got to go all in.

1:18:09And it's the only way to get things on. You know, hard work, determination, all that stuff is very real. And so for me, that's what it means to be an ultimate human. And how about you? All right. Well, Marcus told me that this was coming. So I have given it a bit of thought. And there are a couple of things actually that I didn't say in the podcast that I would like to touch on in terms of being an ultimate human. But my real answer is going to follow these two things. Number one is that when I approached Marcus in love, because I had given myself love and grace and really by the grace of God had ditched the resentment that had built up over years, he responded.

1:18:52So I think there's so much power in love. And as humans, we need to feel that. I think that real strength is invulnerability. So, you know, when you say like big Navy SEALs are on camera being so raw and honest, that's why this is resonating with people. Because it really is the most organic form of strength. But I think that what really I feel it is to be an ultimate human is to consider this. We think that we're human beings in search of spiritual experiences, but we're really spiritual beings having human experiences, I think. And so I think to be an ultimate human, you really have to tap into that spiritual feeling of love and this radical vulnerability.

1:19:50Gary Brecka:Yeah, I think that's where true connection is made. Yeah. And connection and community we know are one of the fundamental necessities to a long, healthy, happy life. So that's a great answer. Thank you. Thank you guys both for coming on the podcast. Gary, thank you. You guys have been amazing. Thank you. This is gonna touch a lot of lives. I will put in the show notes links to their contact. Where does my audience find you guys if they wanna find you? So thecapones.com. The Capones. Very simple. That's easy, dude. Don't forget that. We grabbed that domain name. We made sure. Oh, you got thecapones.com.

1:20:27Yes. We sure did. Wow.

1:20:29Gary Brecka:As far as that one started. We had a strong arm of a few people, but it worked out. We had to threaten a few people. Some payoffs. But hey, you're Navy SEAL service. Here we are. And then of course our organization is vetsolutions.org online. And we didn't talk much about vets but we are sponsoring veterans five or six per week, every week. Wow. Who are going to Mexico to receive the same opportunity that Marcus did. And we're having tremendous success. So the organization really is the lifeblood of the film. and of our lives, so Vetsolutions.org. Yeah, it's really important to talk about that.

1:21:05We, you know, we live and die by philanthropy and our mission at Vets continues on by individuals that are willing to partner with us, to support us. And so, you know, if individuals want to get involved, as Amber mentioned, you know, look into what we're doing and reach out. Oh, yeah, my audience definitely will.

1:21:27Gary Brecka:So Marcus and Amber, thank you guys so much for coming. Thank you. It's been an honor. podcast. This was great. Yeah. Thank you. And until next time, guys, that's just science.