64. Imposing Your Will on the World with Heath Smith

Brock Briggs  0:01  

Hello and welcome back to the Scuttlebutt. This is the show for those looking to impose their will on the world. I'm your host, Brock Briggs and today I'm speaking with Heath Smith. Heath is a former Army Command Sergeant Major and this episode is a download on 27 years of struggle, leadership and conquering. 

We discuss how average people have above average careers, why you can engineer leadership and who in your unit you should be focused on when leading a team, as well as overcoming a negative relationship with alcohol. Heath gives very tactical advice on intervening in the life of someone struggling with alcohol and talks about how he's approaching his next great adventure in retirement. Thank you so much for listening. You can find this episode as well as every other episode, transcripts and more at scuttlebuttpodcast.co. Please enjoy this conversation with Heath Smith.

Brock Briggs

Tell me you’re former military without telling me you’re former military cracking a Red Bull at 5:30pm.

Heath Smith  1:22  

And honestly, I went 27 years without drinking coffee in the military. 

Brock Briggs 

Oh, good for you. 

Heath Smith 

Yeah, like I didn't drink coffee or energy drinks for that matter. And now that I'm out, start drinking energy drinks and coffee. And I don't know. Well, it started out with coffee obviously. You know I'd never drink coffee in the morning. Never drink coffee ever in the military hardly ever like maybe a cup every now that wasn't one of those guys. You know that constantly had a cup of coffee. But yeah, man, I just recently started enjoying coffee. And then my wife found these damn Red Bull the red edition watermelons and they are lovely. Like they are lovely.

Brock Briggs  2:16  

Welcome to the caffeine Club. We're happy to have you.

Heath Smith  2:21  

Welcome aboard, son.

Brock Briggs  2:23  

All right. Heath, I really appreciate you joining me today. I've really been looking forward to our conversation. I think the best place for us to start today would be for you to maybe spend two to three minutes not gonna be a hard stopper there. But a couple minutes on just summarizing 27 years of the army and what brings you here today. 

Heath Smith  2:48  

Okay. Yeah, I came from Odessa, Texas. I grew up really poor, you know, lived in a trailer getting in some trouble. Believe it or not, I was not the calm, cool collected person that you see here. My entire life. I was actually, I wasn't making a lot of good decisions as a young man. And, you know, you've seen those cases about you know, go to war, go to jail kind of things. Well, that used to be kind of real thing. You know and that's kind of what happened to me is I got off of probation to join the army, joined in 1995 as an infantryman, infantry person, infantry soldier. Not sure, you know, the way infantry men back then. Of course, Fort Benning, man and then I really just had one of the most typical infantry careers ever. 

You know, I was a rifleman then I was a gunner and then became mechanized and then was a Bradley gunner for a while. Then they, you know, took the infantry away from mechanized and light and combined them. And then I went back light as a platoon sergeant. And then as a First Sergeant, I was mechanized and then as an operation sergeant major, I was light and then I was a mechanized CSM. So I did exactly like I said, like I can tell folks, you know, like I was telling you in the pre talk is, I really did exactly what the Army told me to. You know, Darby said go be a drill sergeant. I went to be a drill sergeant. You know, if the army said, you know, go light, go back. I did that, you know. They said go be an instructor, I went to be an instructor. You know, they said go trade doc, go be an observer controller, went and did that. 

So really, I just took the hard jobs that the army offered me and I never told them no. I got my degree or I finished my degree when I was in the Sergeant Major Academy Business Administration. And I got to be sergeant major, command sergeant major for four years. One and once again did exactly what the army told me. I was force comm and then went to trade op. Because that's, I guess that's what you do. But yeah and my career has not been anything extraordinary. Matter of fact, I think what I really learned over my career was I wasn't extraordinary like I thought I was. You know, when you're a young man, you think you're special. You know, you think you're different. You think you're doing everything cool and everybody else is, you know, behind you. 

But what you really learned over a long career and you know, as you grow in life is you're really not exceptional. In most things, you're probably pretty average or maybe even above little above average, maybe. But that's what I learned is I'm just a really normal person that just did what I was told. And then it was a wild ride, though. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the entire 27 years. And yeah, I take that back. I did enjoy the entire 27 years. I enjoyed all of it, except for probably last year and a half. I got pretty jaded on the army there for a while and you know, when you're a young kid, and you look at the sergeant major, you know what's the guy's problem? He's got it naive, you know, dude, did everything. He knows everything. He's so silly. Why is he such a sour? Excuse me, cussing, no cussing? 

Brock Briggs

Yeah, let it fly. You're okay. 

Heath Smith

Yeah. Why is he such a sour motherfucker? You know, what's his problem? And you figure out that, man, he's just been burnt on, you know, all the ins and he's tired. He's not really grumpy. Just tired, bro. No, yeah, seriously, you know, to ranger school, went to airborne school, district sniper stuff. And then, like, sad, just retired in September. Except I don't think I've ever really did. I don't think I did anything extraordinary. I think it was pretty freakin’ ordinary.

Brock Briggs  7:55  

Why do you think that that is? I think that that's one of the probably the most interesting things that I've heard somebody say, especially after a really long career like that. Yeah, doing the hard jobs that the army asks you to do. I want to ask like, even if you were an average person, like, how does a truly average person which in parentheses? I don't believe that. But let's just say for instance, if you are an average person, how does that make an above average career, you know?

Heath Smith  8:36  

I'll tell you that a lot of it has to do with sacrifice. You know, what, what are you willing to sacrifice? You know, when you hear people talk about their military career and sacrifice, you know what, I don't think a lot of people truly understand what that means. Because you do sacrifice a lot. You know, do you volunteer to go do the things that other people don't want to do? Yeah. And that is literally how you in the army anyway. I can't speak for the other services. But in the army, really, it's just do the hard stuff. 

You know, I joke around about that, you know, when I was a young man, when it would be raining or whatever, I'm like, yeah, Ray. Brilliant, make this as miserable as possible. I love it. And then, right there, at the end of my career, I was out at the National Training Center Rios OC and I don't know if you've ever been out there, but it's Sandy and shitty, of course, you know, anytime they put a military base in a shady spot, when the winds start blowing real hard, and I've got all this dust in my ears, it's just like, fuck that. I'm calling in. You go from this hard, tough kid. To this old soft man.

Brock Briggs  9:59  

Like An ocean wearing down like on petrified wood, you know, right?

Heath Smith  10:03  

To the beach. You're just like, then I don't want to be miserable anymore. I don't want to be crazy. Oh god, I used to, you know, people think I'm joking. I used to love being miserable man would get out there in the field. And the more miserable I was, the happier I was. Because, you know, I do it make for a good story later whenever, you know, or maybe I thought it may be a tough guy. But yeah, in reality, it's none of that. And it just wears your body down. Yeah, I know. And I joke around too, you know, they're the military, the especially the infantry, it's hard on your body. And I didn't realize that until I turned 45 once I turned 45 man, I feel like the wheels fell off. You know, I used to do give people a hard time when they'd have to have surgeries or something. 

I blew my knee out bad genetics. You know, what's wrong with you? Blame your mom. But when I turned 45 And I tore my back up. All in one fell swoop I ruptured the disk in my L four l five, tore my hamstring and tore my gluteal muscle all at once spin. And yeah, I really wish it was a cool story. But it's not I, we were having to move stuff around to go into our new building. And I picked a safe up, you don't want to give it up, stay safe, like the ones that are like, like, twice the size of an old old computer or whatever. You're the size of one of those old monitors and picked it up picks it up like I was supposed to. But I sat down and just kind of twisted and sat it down. And I felt this status. Oops, I was good. I was cool. The rest of the day I woke up the next morning. 

My ass cheek was bruised, my hamstring was bruised. And man I couldn't stand up straight, couldn't stand up straight long enough to urinate. Couldn't stand up straight long enough to take a shower. So then it was just I was hurt bad. And then after that, it seems like as I became, you know, not as mobile, because I really think that's what keeps kept me healthy all those years was just staying in shape. And man when I couldn't be Mobley Holy crap. Then I was hurt everywhere. found I found out I had a torn labrum torn in first finatus that I'd had for years torn up. Now I don't know anyway. But yeah, that's where a life of being a tough guy will get you all kinds of torn up shit.

Brock Briggs  12:48  

You said something earlier that a lot of people don't maybe understand sacrifice. I kind of want to kind of want to riff on that for a second. I was curious. Is your definition of sacrifice doing what others aren't willing to do? Because if that is it, that tells me that there your definition of people not really knowing is exactly it. Because everybody when they quote say that they've sacrificed it. Other people have done it than they really haven't.

Heath Smith  13:21  

Right. You know, things you sacrifice. You know, I look back at it, man and I was away a lot. You know, my family will get around during the holidays, which is really cool. Nowadays. Parenting adult children are so much better and parenting kids, by the way. But let me know all my kids will get around, they'll start telling stories. I'm like, what happened? Like, wow, you were so and so at the school, you know, you were the way it is. You know, when you sacrifice, you know, that community, you know, some people still spend their lives 30 years in one spot, you know, they have a muffler guy, you know, I don't have a buffer guy who has a muffler guy. If you've been around for 30 years in one spot, you have a muffler guy, you got a brake guy, you know, you got all these all these routes that you put down that we have the military don't do. 

Do we have our own community? 100% we do man. Like we have the best of communities. I love the military, but it's not you don't have a muffler guy. You sacrifice all those time, all that time with your kids. You know, you sacrifice your body. You sacrifice you know, I hate to say this, you know, but you sacrifice your mental health. A lot of it you know and I was like say I was that was the tough guy for a very long time. Well, I was part of the problem. As far as you know, people taking care of themselves. I really was, I was an asshole when it came to, you know, being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there. Are you know being physically fit if you weren't physically fit I'd crushing that I would. But those are the things you sacrifice, you know, I got my VA rating, you know, after doing all the work, whatever. 

My wife and I were actually sitting at this exact table and we got the radian. We looked at each other and you know, you're like, Well, shit, should I celebrate? Celebrate about this? Because really, what this is saying is your bodies that jacked up your, whatever percentage you got, that's how fucked up you are. That's how jacked up your body is. So I say that those are the things that you sacrifice, you know, there's a lot of guys, guys and gals, but you know how leaving us now? Like, I had to go on these work trips. And what I have to be away from my wife now for like, two weeks, it pisses me off, like us to a year, okay. They'll suck down a year, nine months, okay, no big deal. But now, when you tell me two weeks and like, Fuck off, you better cut that down to a week or something or I'm not going anyway. 

Yeah, those are the things that you know and of course, you have those guys never came back. You know, those are the people that really sacrifice, you know, their, their families. So people, people don't understand what it means. When you say, I sacrifice do we? Are we well compensated for it? Yes. Do you understand it at the time? I did not? I did not. I think there's some kids out there that understand it. You know, they understand that, you know, if they don't take this recruiter job or whatever, then it's gonna cost him. It's gonna cost them in their career, and they're okay with that. I was never okay with that. You know, I never sacrificed my career. I did. I did the hard stuff I did the stuff people didn't want to do. 

Whether it was you know, like, how many people get out of drill sergeant orders, you know, how many people get out of recruiting orders? How many people get out of you know, whatever, deployments, whatever. They know that it's gonna cost their career. But they're okay with it. And that I just, I never even gave it a second thought. I just went and did that. And that's, that's what I mean by people don't understand that. They don't understand. Or I didn't, you know, I say people, I shouldn't say that. I should say I because I'm the one that didn't understand it. until much later until, you know, actually now, after I had time to reflect on my career in my family, and, and, you know, actually starting to learn what, you know, what it's like to be at one place for more than three years.

Brock Briggs  18:06  

If you were doing that all again, tomorrow, how would you live differently do you think?

Heath Smith  18:15  

There's only one thing I would change throughout my career, and I don't even know looking back now, if I would have changed it then. That was the alcohol. Like, man, I just didn't understand the amount of alcohol I was, I was a heavy heavy drinker forever. If I could, if I could go back and just change one thing that would be it. But, you know, it also made me who I am now. You know what, I've learned some real hard lessons from that. So yeah, that's the one thing I would change is just the level of alcohol consumption I had throughout my career. You know, we joke around about it a lot. You know, hahaha, you know, get on the military alcohol problem. But it's really funny because it's true, because that's really what it boils down to.

Brock Briggs  19:12  

Do you think that military culture perpetuates alcoholism? Oh, yeah. 100%

Heath Smith  19:20  

absolutely does think of one event that you ever went to in the military that wasn't centered around alcohol maybe family they did that's only but but more than likely there was somebody there that has some kind of drinking going on. Every event is around alcohol. Dining in the crock dining out the crock of held farewells, usually somewhere where you can drink you know, I just can't you know the only the you know, even even, you know, like we used to when you Just to get promoted, you know, was you had to buy a case for whatever how many stripes you had or something, you know, I can't remember what it was, you know, and then you had to buy a case of beer. 

So everybody came around, you know, if you've got if you're a sergeant, you had to buy three cases. If you're a stamp, something you had to buy for, you know, you're sorry, it's our first question. Or, you know, there was a period of time when we did blood ranking, and we pour beer on people when they're, you know, doing push ups after they got promoted, you know, and then then also, the machismo of drinking, you know, how much can you drink? You know, how big is your tank? That kind of thing. So, it's all centered around alcohol? Do I blame the military? No, I made those decisions. I made the decision to drink like I did. But what really was it then I got to the point where not only were my military events in route alcohol shit, 

Everything I did was centered around alcohol prohibition. case of beer, you know, doing this case of beer a move in case of beer get to go work in the garage case of beer, you know, it was just everything was everything was alcohol at some point. So, but ya know, I don't blame the military for it. I do wish that we would let the military get away from that. And, you know, we've tried, you know, the military really has tried to do that. They've tried to get away from that, that alcohol glorification. It's just almost impossible. It's just, it's just ingrained in the culture. It's embedded in it, it's good. It'll take forever for it to rip that out. The almost like, well, like everything it does the military, it takes a while. Takes a couple generations to rip it out. 

I don't know, if we're even, like, getting after that or not. I really wish that it would though, because I guarantee it causes a lot of issues for a lot of kids. And a lot of well, I say kids, like, you know, now that I now that I can spot alcoholism. And there's a lot of my peers, not just, you know, senior enlisted, but officers that I look at, man, I know you got a drinking problem. You may not be an alcoholic, but you have a drinking problem. So I wish we would do something that wish we could figure out something. But it's just so hard to pull something like pull some culture out like that. I don't know.

Brock Briggs  22:36  

I am sympathetic to your story. Looking back on my own time, I am embarrassed a lot. And I know it was only four years, but I sometimes wish that I had maybe more to even show for my time. And because I just compare myself from now until then, and I think about how I like live and act differently. One thing that I think was interesting, before I joined I drank, but actually in the service, it seemed as if that is just like what you were supposed to do. Yeah,

Heath Smith  23:12  

it's expected.

Brock Briggs  23:13  

I don't know. Like, it's not like, there I'm sure that there are people that are using that as kind of like a negative coping that are actually like struggling, but it just this is everybody that is happy, sad, like whatever emotion you're feeling like that is kind of what you're just doing.

Heath Smith  23:30  

Yeah. So like Amen. Today really, such that we should drink. Hey, you got promoted, let's drink. It's just, you know, I think it starts because, you know, you got that old frat boy mentality. And it's easy, because that's kind of the I grew up in the infantry when it was only males, you know. So that's, that's been a huge transition for me to be more inclusive in my speech and in my, the way that I the way that I but when I reflect when I look back at it, that's how I remember it like we were, and we were like a frat boy, fraternity XP of the barracks live there is no fraternity that drinks like barracks, infantry soldiers, that it's, it's just impossible, you know? But we were that's what we did. 

And I just no matter what was happening, we were getting drunk before we did it. You know? It was like a badge of honor to you know, drink all night and do a PT test the next day, you know? What do you mean? What do you mean? You have a 12 mile footmarks tomorrow, and you're gonna go drinking till 3am makes no sense. Like, that is literally the dumbest thing. But we do it. We did it and it I'd say it was almost like a badge of honor to do stuff like that. Now I look back at just how stupid it was, then you know how much more present in better I would have been without booze? You know? Not just for my family, but at work, too. You know? How many days did I go in? Over feeling crappy than if I would have been 100%? sober? Like I am now. Like and I can't tell you how great it is to wake up and fill not shitty.

Brock Briggs  25:32  

Yeah, you recently crossed, I believe, 25 months? A big accomplishment. Congratulations.

Heath Smith  25:38  

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So that journey was incredible. You know, going to the point where, you know, the hardest part of that whole thing, you know, it sounds so cliche. But it's true, you know, is admitting to yourself that you have a problem. Because, you know, I was just like, set was this, this tough infantry guy my whole career that, that it needs your help, you know, I was gonna I was going to accomplish what I was going to accomplish, whether you were going to help me or not, and I didn't need your help. 

And I can do it on my own. And so I thought I can quit on my own. You know, I thought I could do all that shit on my own. What was I wrong? And I was that that was the one thing that is very humbling is to realize that something like that has a hold on you. And you can't help you can't fix it yourself. And you have to have somebody help you through that. And that was tough. For me. That was probably one of the hardest things for me honestly.

Brock Briggs  26:50  

If there was somebody else that was maybe in a similar position, or maybe know somebody in a similar position. And let's say that it was up to you to guide them on intervening. What do you think is the Kickstarter for something like that?

Heath Smith  27:10  

Number one is do not be confrontational about it, you're not going to you go talking to an alcoholic, that's been heighten their alcohol consumption, and tell them that they've got a drinking problem, they that's all it's gonna do for is irritate them. Really, the most supportive thing you can do is help them identify it themselves. And I think coming from somebody that has been there would probably be a lot easier. Because you have that discovery, you know, like me, being able to talk to somebody about their alcoholism would be easier because I know what they're doing. I know how they're hiding it, I know what they're doing is coming for it, you know, if you've never had an alcohol problem, because even for the times that I had an alcohol and alcohol problem, and didn't think I did. I didn't understand it. I didn't comprehend what was going on. 

So until I was able to get sober and look back. That's when I started to understand what the problem was even like, I didn't understand what the problem was. I couldn't even identify the problem. And without being able to identify the problem, you can't find a solution. And that's the problem with alcohol. Alcoholics is they rationalize everything. If I was having to guide someone into that, I think it has to be a very personalized situation that I don't think there is a way to say here's a guidebook for every alcoholic. Everybody's got an alcohol problem. It has to be a very individualized situation. Now are all the things that alcoholics do? Pretty much the same? Yeah. If you've ever read the big book is what they call the Blue Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and they have a whole bunch of stories in the back of it. 

And that's really how I realized that I had a problem when I was in detox. You don't have shit else to do. You can't watch TV. You can't do any of this stuff. So I started reading the blue book. Maybe, maybe that's their game plan. I don't know. But you start reading those stories in the backyard. Because at the time, I was still kind of pissed. I was like, maybe I don't have a problem. Maybe I shouldn't be here. Why am I at this? Why didn't you know? So I read all the stories like oh, that sounds a lot like me, man. Yeah, there you are. That's Fuck, man. Maybe you're an alcoholic. Maybe you do need itself. So I think it has to be a very personalized, very intimate way to bring those things up. You can't just put out a you know, step one, do this step two do this. 

It has to be somebody that really knows that person understands alcoholism, to give them help. Now, that's the sad thing about it is usually it takes a catastrophic event to make an alcoholic realize he's an alcoholic, which is kind of shitty to say, but it's true. You know, I was fortunate enough, I didn't. The only catastrophic event I had really was put in the hospital because my blood pressure was through the roof. And then, just because I needed to detox, so they put me in a five day detox, and that was kind of my little Shipman's. Maybe I need to go get some help. And that's so then I went down to warrior's heart for 45 days in mana. I can't praise that place enough. 

What your heart is in Bandera Texas and it's a PTSD and Alcohol Treatment Center for first responders and veterans and service members. It's absolutely an incredible organization that, you know, those people save a long lifespan, they save a lot of lives. And it's not your typical 30 Day Program, you know, the people in this program have to want to be there can't be like court ordered shit, you know, like, and I think that's the problem with probably most treatment centers is you send people in there that have to be there, they'll go to jail. That's a different story than send it a group of people together that want to be there and want to get better, you know? So that's what Where's heart is that I can't sing the praises that play stuff.

Brock Briggs  32:15  

How do you think that you live differently now? Being separated from that?

Heath Smith  32:23  

Man, it's really a freedom that you don't understand when you drink. When I was drinking, I didn't understand how tied down I was to alcohol. I was everything I did revolved around alcohol. I wasn't joking about that. Like, Hey, man, I'm gonna go mow the backyard. Well, couldn't get a six pack first. You know, or, you know, towards the later part of my drinking was whiskey, I drink whiskey. But that, you know, that's what everything revolves around that. So now, literally, the only thing that is not free for me, you know, when I'm not tied down to alcohol, or when I'm gonna get my next drink or whatever it is. I have to be careful about what events I go to. You know, it's not like, you know, when you hear about alcoholism on the movies and stuff like that, you hear? Oh, you can't be around alcohol again. 

Are they gonna fucking relapse and, you know, drink their faces off? Are they it's not like that, man. Not for me anyway. I can't speak for anybody else. But for me, man, you could put wine. Beer, I can be around all that stuff all the time. I tell. Half the time I still have beer and you know, some random leftover from Thanksgiving beers or something in the house. That'll keep it around. I still don't keep whiskey in the house. Still not there yet. But it's not like it's not like that the movie like in the movies where you have to kind of camp here at Elkhart county roads, something like that. It's just occasionally you know, you get a goof, maybe. Maybe I don't want to drink, but then you're like, Oh, God, why would I do that? It's off to the races if you do that. So that's the one thing I would say is Oh, man, you're really free without alcohol. Like, that's what it's like. 

And I couldn't imagine going through transition out of the army or out of the military with still be on on booze man. It makes so bad. You know, because it's a big transition. Going from 27 years of you know, eat, sleep, drink. You know, your whole life is the army. And the way I like to have this work life separation. That's not a thing. Not a thing. When you're in the military. There's no work life, work life balance. Everything is work. You know, you live on post your kids go to army schools, your kids hang out with other army kids and your wife hangs out The Army spouses and there's no work life separation, do you get time off from work? Yes, but there is no work life balance per se, I could know that I can because it is a huge transition, leaving the military is huge. It is you are who you are without it. 

You know who especially after you spend the you know, for some of the younger guys that have gotten out, like, I think you said you did four years. That's a huge chapter of your life. Four years is a huge chunk of your life, it really is just, but whatever you did it for 20 years or 27 years, it's hard to figure out who you are without it. You know, what is my purpose in life? I don't know if I do that. But I couldn't imagine doing that. Trying to figure all that out. While I was drinking, I would have been a mess and I would have been a shit show for sure.

Brock Briggs  35:55  

I think that that's why they really try to encourage being plugged in with people when you get out. And I think that some of the stronger VSOs in the space understand that the community element to service members after service is probably at the pinnacle of importance. When it comes to like every other resource that should be kind of offered to vets kind of 100%

Heath Smith  36:24  

agree that if you read that book by Sebastian Junger younger, I think, younger, younger,

Brock Briggs  36:32  

What's the name of the book? I'll read it. Tribe? Oh, I've heard of it. But I haven't read it.

Heath Smith  36:38  

Yeah. That's really what he talks about, you know, like, he talks about, you know, that, yeah, PTSD exists. It's real. But he, but what servicemembers really into you know, you're, you have a purpose, all that when you're in military. So you miss that. But he thinks what people miss the most is that tribe, that, you know, that group of people that you had for so long that, you know, were with you, whether they whether, you know, you were black, brown, Hispanic, you know, no matter what your sexual orientation was, or whatever, you know, whatever your gender is. They were just this group of people. Because, you know, it's funny you see around town, right? 

When your military towns, you'll see this group of kids, and you're like, those are soldiers. How do you know there's a soldier? Because those kids never wouldn't be hanging out together? If they weren't in the military, right? You see them you're like, right. Like, these are, these are kids that have the share this common bond of the military. And it's the same thing when you get out. You know, we're, you know, he talks about the library, there's tribal people. And so, a lot of what we're missing in our daily lives, just in regular America now, is this sense of community. And that's what you get in the military, you have this sense of community and when you leave, especially the way you leave the military, you know, like, I think I tweeted about this, you know, when you drive off post, that DD 214 Like, there's no banners on the side of the road, you know, nobody clapping for you, you just, you just leave, that's it

Brock Briggs  38:14  

extremely uneventful.

Heath Smith  38:16  

Really is, your like, I said, I'm just, I'm just out of the army now. That's it. The military does a lot better now. When they put us out the door, have given us these resources help man. It's almost like there's too many resources. Like, it's almost like you have to have somebody help you navigate the resources. There's just so many out there, you know, there's, you know, corporate or whatever, you know, Hiring Our Heroes, there's, you know, all these veterans organizations and all this help out there. It really is. And, like I said, it's almost, it's almost overwhelming, just because there is so much like, if somebody just tells me what to do like, like, for 20 Some years do just what do I do? What's the next hard thing I need to do it so I can do it and get it over with?

Brock Briggs  39:11  

Well, that is the hard thing. And that's I've like joked about that in some ways to myself internally because now looking back on my time in like being out is actually that is the harder step like that you just asked like what the next thing is like, Oh, well this is it. This is like this is actually being out of it is almost more difficult because then you have just like unlimited leeway again and you can kinda like

Heath Smith  39:43  

know, left or right limit like you're like, even I can just do anything I want, right? It's like they're the options are just fine. You just did it. So I think I think you're right. I think that is the hard part of the whole thing is just What do I do next? You know? And you know what? I think that for a lot of veterans, that just becomes overwhelming. You know, especially, you know, those that didn't learn a trade didn't get a skill for transferable skill for the outside. The Army does. 

So no, I say the army, the military, because I think I think almost all we're doing the one of those things, internships now, like, the army, the military is I'll get all these cool internships that you can do for you know, your last several months in the military, go work at Amazon for nine months before you get out or healthy, they're not some of them are a little bit longer about. I don't know how long they were, but I didn't, I should have taken advantage of one of those, but I couldn't really think of what I wanted to do. They say there's just too many choices. You have this

Brock Briggs  41:02  

tweet that I thought was really interesting. You said, being out being an alpha is like being a leader, if you have to tell people you aren't.

Heath Smith  41:11  

So to me, that kind of goes like, if you're running around telling people you're in charge, you're not charged man. You know, hey, I'm the leader of this boat? No, actually, you're not. There's some, there's some one of your subordinates is actually running the show. And you're just running around telling people you're in charge. And I really believe that good true leaders are like alphas, you know, they are the opposite of the pack. But you know, being an alpha is not what, what I could see consider to be the leader and the alpha of the pack, the, the tough guy is not the guy that's beating people down, or, you know, when I get that picture in my head, it's like The Walking Dead, you know, the guy that's got the spiked bat, is not really the leader, you know, he's, he's, he's not an alpha, you know, an alpha takes care of his pack. 

You know, when somebody comes, comes to attack, and he defends him, but he also, you know, occasionally has to dole out tough punishments, or, you know, tough corrections to the people in his pack. But it's not because he wants to show them he's in charge, because he actually genuinely cares about those people. And I think that's the biggest difference between the people that walk around, you know, with this, this manly chip on their shoulder, and, you know, just the true badass, right? The Dude, that's really a badass, he doesn't have to tell you, he's a badass. And he may, you know, he may not look like much, but when it comes down to it, and something bad is happening, all eyes are gonna go to that person that's in charge, whether they're the person that's wearing the actual rank, and that should be in charge. 

But when something goes bad, that's where they look to, that's the person that's the alpha, that's the leader, that's the servant leader. Because that's the person that everybody knows is going to take care of them. Nobody cares how great you are. When shits going great, man, nobody cares how awesome of a leader you are. Because things are going well. People start to look at you as a leader. And watch everything you do. With times aren't good, wood chips going bad. When a bad decision has been made. That's when they look at you. That's when they care what your what your decisions are. They don't give a shit when you know, when everything's rolling and happy. However, anybody can be in charge of that. That's easy. You know, being in charge of the sinking ship is real hard. 

You know, when you're having to make real hard decisions, real life and death decisions or, you know, even even, you know, when I look at like, making decisions about you know, soldiers that have made bad choices. I got a DUI when I was a private probably should have been a hint about my alcohol problem. And I had a battalion commander that took a chance on me, man, Lieutenant Colonel browns, never forget the guy. He allowed me to stay in the military. And I tell people I used to tell soldiers that story all the time. You know, whenever they knew they were in trouble for something I'd be like, Hey, man. What happened to you doesn't define who you are. You know, don't I? I'm super glad that people don't judge me on all my bad decisions. You know? That's what you need. 

To take care of pupils when they're at their lowest, not pile on them and make them feel worse, you know, I'm not saying, you know, blow sunshine up people's asses or whatever, but, but whatever bad things are going bad for soldiers, and the kind word, you know, letting them know that you still care about them. That's what it means to be in charge, that's what it means to be a leader in alpha, you know, that's what it means to be is, is, you know, taking care of those kinds of kids, the kids that are in the, in the low spot, you know, the badass kids are gonna take care of themselves, you know, you have to, you have to, I think there used to be, there used to be a book written by an old NCO is called the three meters, though, you know, he's talking about, like, people have to five meter zone.

Maybe he talked about like, it was, it was like, leadership was a range, you know, your 150 meter soldier is your soldier, you know, the, you just have to barely give him a left to right guidance, and he's gonna go execute it and kill it, you know, but whenever you get that, that soldier that's in your three meters of, that's the one that you really need to pay attention to. Because if something bad's gonna happen, you know, the decisions they're making are not going to be good. Whether it's, you know, self harm, or whatever, it's, it's always that those kids that then you have to focus the most on,

Brock Briggs  46:23  

how would you encourage a young leader trying to step into those shoes? Okay.

Heath Smith  46:27  

And I'm going to go away from common military thought processes. You know, everybody thinks that you can make a leader, you know, you can send them to enough schools, you can, you know, send them to whatever leadership school and you're gonna make them a leader. first thought, Do

Brock Briggs  46:51  

you think that that is the Army's sentiment on that? Do you think that the army believes that?

Heath Smith  46:56  

Oh, yeah, yeah. 100%, they think they really do believe that they can make make people into leaders. And I think you can make people into managers by doing that. You because You can manage stuff. But to be a true leader, it's, I think, I think you've either got it or you don't to be a great leader, in my opinion, either. You haven't? If you don't get it, can you? Can you refine and hone your skills as leader? Absolutely, you know, the more self aware you are about things, the more aware you are of how it affects people, as you get older, you get better at it. But the one thing that I would tell people a young soldier is you actually have to be concerned about your soldiers. Like it can't be made up, they're gonna see through that shit, man. That's, that's, if you care about them and truly care about their well being. They'll know. 

And that's literally all it takes. Because when you think about their well being, that means whether it's a you know, a good correction, you know, or when I say correction, you know, whether it's, you know, scuffing them up or reading a counseling, whatever, it's all done because you care about them. Not because you're trying to make him suffer, or trying to turn them into something they're not, you just have to genuinely give us Fuck, I'm really trying to quit Kosak by the way, you want to talk about something that's hard. After 27 years of having like this horribly foul mouth, and becoming a civilian, and not having a foul mouth. That is a challenge. But anyway, yeah, that's what I would tell him is you, you can't make it up. You can't fake it, man. You can't fake that genuine concerns. 

You know, if you're actually giving a crap about your guys, or gals, they're going to know I think it was, was it Colin Powell? It was one of those general officers. Really good ones, like you know, nobody cares how much you nobody cares. I can't remember how exactly goes they don't care what you know, until they know that you care. Something like that. paraphrased obviously, because my brains not sharp enough to remember shit like that. Verbatim. But yeah, something like, you know, you can, you can basically know all the books and you can learn all the shit that you want. 

But until you genuinely care about somebody, you can't lead them. You can manage them. Yes, managing people is totally different. It's just like managing stuff. You know, you can fill out your Excel spreadsheet, make sure that dental is good and their, you know, their academic report is done or whatever. But do you really care about that person? If you really truly care about their well being? That's when you can start leading, but until then, you can't lead them you can just manage it.

Brock Briggs  49:57  

How do you think that we ought to best do that in practice? Is that just getting involved in their daily lives?

Heath Smith  50:06  

God stay on it, you know, once again, it's a very personal approach. Somebody would have been all up in my business when I was young man, I would have told them go fuck themselves, right? Get to get away from you, dude, I don't need you in my house, I don't need you to come check out my family. You know? Dude, it's obviously you can't fake it. And that's, that's, that's the biggest thing is all of that stuff is trying to get people. Like an old guy like me trying to make a young Sergeant care about his soldiers. That's where we get into trouble, as leaders is that and I'm not saying like trouble, but. But when we get into confusing things, like, you'll get to know your soldiers, you should know their family's names, you should know where they live. You should? Yeah, but it's not. You can't force that. 

You know, if you will, one of my soldiers, and I'm just having conversations with you. That's how I find out that stuff. Because you voluntarily Tell me about it. Not because? Because I'm asking you about it, like, hey, where do you live? How many kids do you have? What's your kids names? You know, that's, you know, maybe you do that in the beginning. But just over time, you get to know your soldiers. That it's not, you can't force that you really can't. That just has to be something that's natural, in my opinion. You know, and that's what a lot of, I think senior folks are trying to do now is to hate in care about your soldiers, you should know that about your short soldiers. But if you actually care about them, you would already know these things, you would naturally understand that, hey, this kids have problems at home. 

Because you know why? Because you talk to him, especially when you've only got five soldiers. You know, when you're a sergeant, you've only got five soldiers. When you're a staff sergeant, if this is the army, of course, you know, the Navy's got like what tech sergeant? Or should I came out, though, you know, the Navy's ranks to blow my mind, like, you know, see midnight class of the motor room. But no, you know, when you're, let's we'll use ease, that's probably easier, like a five, b six, or any five? In the infantry, you've got five, five soldiers. What are your knees six, you got nine to 12. You know, when your platoon sergeant, you know, you got 30 or 40. Or he said you get 30 or 40. But when you're an e6, or need five, if you're not in one of these weird technical jobs, where you know, all you do is work on, you know, some wobbly or shaft or whatever, you know, you've only got this with the sword. 

How is it that you are not that you don't already know these things about them? If you've had if you've been in charge of them for a year? How do you not know what their kids names are? How do you not know what their spouse's name is? How do you not know how many dogs they have? You know, haven't you had conversations while y'all were working? When you were doing stuff? Are you just not talking to these kids? And you know, maybe now it's different. You know, obviously, I like those old guys now. Because, you know, we text but you know what, even in a texturing you're with four or five folks, you know, you're cracking jokes, you're, you know, you're, you know, what kind of a sense of humor this person has, you know, you know, what upsets them What does upset what gets them going, you know, what motivates them, what doesn't motivate them?

You know, you'd learn these things just naturally, you can't force that shit, man. And i No matter how hard the military tries, we can't force it. You just can't you just actually have to be a generally good human to be a good leader. If you're a shitty human, you're going to be a shitty City Leader, man. That's just the way it is. If you just don't care about people, you're going to be a shitty leader. You're just not going to be worth a fuck honestly. Just I don't know, like say and I don't think you can teach that stuff man. You can teach people to be better at it, but you can't teach them to care. You can't make them care. They either do or they don't. And you know what, honestly, we don't need we don't need you know, sar major grimston In every squad. 

You know, there the army needs people to come in, do a mediocre job and leave. We need those people. You know, honestly we do. We you know hey We, we need you to come in and do four years, eight years, 10 years and leave. Because at some point you have to anyway. Because if not, there is no SAR Major, the pyramid goes up within you, people have to leave and people have to follow the wayside. So you absolutely have to have average folks like me that just hang around long enough to get promoted. But you also have to have people that are going to come in and do a mediocre job and leave. Or you need people to come in and do superstar Rockstar, shit. 

You need those, you need those guys to come in to do Rockstar jobs and then go on to be CEOs of companies. Because that spreads the army message to that spreads the military messenger spreads the Navy message, you can come in, do four years, do 10 years and have a super successful career. Because, you know, you're going to admit it does do you some good on the outside. You know, those that little bit of military experience does do some good it gives you put your foot in the door for some things. So we need all those people. But don't try to make everybody a rockstar bad shits gonna happen. And there's nothing that Sarge can do about it. And just understand that as a leader, anyway. Yeah.

Brock Briggs  56:25  

No, that's all really good stuff. I like that. That's, it's super interesting and very realistic. I think because that's not, that's not what you normally hear about. In those types of conversations around leadership. It's not but it's everybody wants, everybody wants to think that everybody can be a good leader. It's just not the case, man.

Heath Smith  56:48  

Not everybody can do it.

Brock Briggs  56:50  

I might call that a hot take.

Heath Smith  56:53  

Some people just aren't cut out for it. They just don't have that care for their fellow humans, especially those that they're in charge of healing some of them. And of course, there there are folks that make it through to write there are guys that don't really give a crap about soldiers that actually make it to the highest levels of the military and they do it by shitting on people their whole way up. That's just gonna happen. You try to catch it as soon as you can. But that's literally where you get the term toxic leadership, which I hate that term because it gets thrown around so much, right? Everybody's toxic leader and toxic leader. Are they toxic? Or they just hurt your feelings? 

No, there's a difference. There's a difference between somebody being toxic and somebody making you do stuff you don't like. You know, hey, yeah, I need you to come into your day off. Was that crappy? Yes. Was it necessary? Absolutely. I would never make somebody come in on their day off unless it was absolutely necessary but we're in the people business you know, well, the army or the people business and then like not gonna poke fun at the Navy a little bit more in the Air Force. Because you know, the big thing about the Navy is the boat right like the boat is y'all come ships or boat I know. But my cousin is in the Navy and I can't remember it's like shipper but one of them you're gonna figure them out.

Brock Briggs  58:19  

I use both I don't know.

Heath Smith  58:23  

Maybe they get upset about this yet right. Oh, man. It's a shift. I don't remember which whatever but it is.

Brock Briggs  58:30  

I don't care because I don't know the difference. So I probably should but yeah, that's fine for now.

Heath Smith  58:35  

What did you do with it

Brock Briggs  58:36  

I worked in aviation. I don't live on a boat or a ship for Hang on a second. We've got the we've got the Google machine

Heath Smith  58:47  

check out the Google the CD machine. Because I know like some people really get upset about it. It's about

Brock Briggs  58:55  

Well, that's a size difference. Okay, we knew that one is the coordinate of the Naval Institute a boat is small enough to be carried aboard a larger vessel. And a large enough to carry a smaller one as a ship. What a weird definition. That's weird, right? Mental floss.com Shout out to them.

Heath Smith  59:17  

Thanks. Thanks for so. So if I can carry a shade RB what are our B 15? This is what we call rubber boat. 15. Yeah, if I could carry that on my pontoon boat. It is a boat that I know.

Brock Briggs  59:40  

So it's something that would make your pontoon boat a ship. Right? It's so maybe it's contextual. Like it just doesn't. Ship is not a ship but a vote is not.

Heath Smith  59:53  

You know, there's nothing better than a couple of vets from Different services, you know, giving each other a hard time. I love it, man. Oh, yeah. It's so much fun. You know, it's the, you know, especially Marines because they get so wound around the Oh man, I love it. I love it. I love it. They just to give those guys a hard time it's so much fun. Because they get so excited. They're so excited about it. You know? So for me, like the Navy, it's about their most of their budget is spent on boats, ships, but ships, the decisions will come ships in the Air Force, most of their budget is spent on the airplane. Well, you know, the Army is people, it's a people business. Do we spend a lot of money on equipment? Yeah, but the army is a people business, the Marine Corps. They're so small. There are people businesses well. 

And I think we get away from that idea of, we're all in the people business, because if you run any good corporation, you know, what is your product, you know, like, if you let's say that you're in retail, and your product is shirts. But as a manager, the leader of that organization, whatever you say thing is like, the customer's always right. You take away from what's important, and that's your employees, because that's your employees, you don't make sure it's you don't sell shirts, you don't do any of those things. So taking care of your employees should be your number one priority. Because without them, you don't get to have that in product. And whenever you're in a life and death business, like the military. 

You forget sometimes that the actual end of the day, the most important thing is that kid pulling security on the corner. You know, that's the thing that matters at the end of the day. Because without him you can't do that cool, shit like warfighting and, you know, killing the enemy. Without that, without that kid to pull that trigger, and actually put his sights on and be able to do that. You forget, that's the end product, especially when you become more senior, you know, everything you do comes down to that kid pull security on the corner. And it's really easy to lose sight of that, especially as you start getting like sent more senior, you know, because you're gonna have so many meetings and you go to this, this thing and that thing in your tenant, man. 

Just let me go spend time with these kids for you know, for just just 10 minutes today, you know, can I just get out of you know, I used to equate the all the meetings we used to go to utilize to equate it you know, you what you've got you've got me You've got me doing here is standing on the scale trying to lose weight, man. I can't stand here and lose weight. I gotta go do shit. I got to you know, but you get so wrapped around the the process of being a leader that you don't do any fucking leading, you're standing on the scale trying to lose weight, you're not the process of you know, making sure this kid's got his dental appointment, or is his these qualified on his gun. That's all really cool. 

But when was the last time I got to go spend time with this kid. So especially as you get to be more senior, you it's really easy to lose sight of that shit, man. But I do, I think I think we have to have all of us, you know, we got to have, we got to have the troubled kids, we got to have and you know, whatever. Whatever wolf you feed is what the scouting Pro. Remember that in any organization, in my opinion. If you're the guy focused on people that are screwing things up, you're focused on the wrong shit, man. I used to have my buddies, my peers, especially SAR majors, you know, really easy to get focused on this shitheads because that's the people that you spend all the time with. Because, like I said, the rock star kid, you know, all you gotta do is tell him once he's gone, he's gonna go take care of himself. 

But you you end up spending all this time when you know, the kid that got the DUI or, you know, this, this kid that, you know, did drugs or those are the kids you end up spending all this time with, but the most important part of it is really the kids it's doing the right thing. Go spend some time with that kid. You know, I keep calling them kids because I literally have children their age. So you know, like some of the lieutenant's that came in towards the end of the day like literally have kids your age span your your You look like a baby to me because my kids are your age. So I get this bad habit a call Little kids. 

Because literally, when I was a SAR major I'd, my son, that well I have a daughter that a while she was in the military transitioned or started her transition from male to female. And so, once again, I look back and I'm like, my son, but my daughter, you know, anyway, yeah, I have kids your age. So I'm gay. And when I think the kids, they're literally just kids, and they're just learning all this stuff, but you, you end up forgetting that those kids, the good ones, to go spend time with them, you really do. But at the end of the day, that's the kid that's important. You know, nothing, not the kid that got in trouble. If you focus on that, if you feed that, that's what will grow your organization. Because, you know, it's almost like the see got three kids, one of them is always getting in trouble. And you're spending all your time with that kid. 

Well, if I was the middle kid, or the older kid, maybe, maybe I start getting in trouble. So you start giving me attention, Dad, Mom, you know, but it's the same thing as in an organization. If you're focused on these kids that are they're doing the wrong things. Why would the kids that are doing the right things do the right things. They're not getting any attention for it. So you have to make sure you know that your word that the good, good person, the Good Wolf. So that wolf will grow, I had to really remind myself that as a SAR major is not get not get into the weeds and getting marked down by the bad things that are going on in your organization, you got to really feed the feed the kids that are doing the good things and then focus on that in your organization. 

Or you will manual spend all your time you'll be miserable son of a bitch as a sergeant major or as a senior leader in the military, because you're you're spending all your time dealing with that instead of you know, writing awards, or going around handing out coins, you know, even though they're just trinkets, they mean nothing to anybody, welcome in handed kid, you just kept doing the right thing. You know, maybe he's just sweeping the boat full, maybe just, you know, turn in a wrench or, you know, maybe he's just cleaning his rifle. But nobody told him to do that you walk up, you hand them a coin. Man, that stuff spreads like wildfire, that hey, man, when she's going for S R matrix walked up and said, hey, man, glad I caught you doing the right thing today, here's your coin. 

And then this stuff spreads like wildfire. And instead of you stand in front of your information, talking about, you know, don't add to the population to subtract from population, you're talking about all the bad things in life, instead of that, you actually get to know teach these kids that literally just do the right thing occasionally get your reward. Anyway, I get caught up on a lot of the senior level stuff because, you know, that's held the last seven years, eight years of my career. I wasn't started major, you know, so that's the most of my military career. I spent those, I spent more of my careers as our major than I did in any other rank, you know, the E-1, when you get to stay in E-1 for a year, ie to do if you're, you know, if you make it twice or three times, maybe gets a spin there, you know, three years, you know, for relief, or you can spend, you know, three four years there ie five to three years there.

But I spent damn near seven years my military career as a sergeant major, almost eight years as a sergeant major. So you know, that's, that's, I guess that's more by experience. And what's weird, though, is very few people get to make it. You're fortunate enough to hang around long enough to be a sergeant major. So I don't know, Bill. Again, I guess you have to know your audience, maybe of the podcast, who is your who's your main audience? I don't know. Is it veterans? Or is it no service members? Or, you know, who do you reach you know and I guess that's a hard question for you to you know, what's your main audience? You know, what you what audience you reach trying to reach because I know that your podcast is in its infancy. So what, what audience is it you know?

Brock Briggs  1:09:44  

Yeah, I hope that it speaks to both in some respect. I think that's right. I think that that has actually been kind of an interesting challenge for me as I've especially starting something like this. You really need to see should focus on like a really niche group of people. And I've struggled to just pick one or the other. And as this has kind of evolved, I, or my mission is to hopefully have conversations that both parties can benefit from there. It's not just questions about whether you're out or you're in, it's about how to make better decisions and earn more money and think deeper about things. Yeah. That's, that's this because that's the stuff that I like, that's the stuff that I care about. I don't care who it's coming from. But if it makes my life better than I'm about it,

Heath Smith  1:10:40  

see, that's me too, man. That was something that that kind of took me by storm really was, as I started maturing, as a leader. How do I make myself better at this? It knows that reading books? Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're a leader, you're a reader. I believe that my heart and I very rarely set time aside to actually turn pages on a book. So what I started doing, and my son says that I'm a psychopath for this is when I was working out, like on the treadmill on the bike lifting whatever, this I started listening to books and then I started listening to podcasts. And I said, you know, I did that while I was working out my son's like, what do you what do you mean, you're not listening to music, like, I used to, I used to listen to music when I when I worked out, but then I realized, man, I just don't have time in my life, to sit down and read. 

So man, I gotta multitask. So I started listening to podcasts and reading books while I was, but I'm a firm believer that if you're not trying to make yourself better every day, you won't, you won't be better. It doesn't just naturally happen. You've got to work at that shit. Did you know that I found that very interesting that you know, something that makes me better about it. And that when you just said that, that's man behind that, you've got to actually work at it. You're, you're not you're not going to just all of a sudden become a better human. Because life decided that, uh, you're gonna be better. That's not how it works, man. You gotta actually put effort into that shit. Whether it's physically, mentally, like said, you know, part of that mental shit.

I used to be part of the problem on that deal, did I, then, and then I, as I got older to what I realized, was, I was giving out all this great advice. I wasn't following, right? Like, now man, you should, you should really go seek help. If you need it, and then go do that. Go, go, go go seek their own counseling go because that's that. That's all there is to mental health. You know, it's not all about going and seeing the psychiatrist or whatever. Your part of it is about just taking care of yourself. Whether it's, you know, that little bit of time that you have to read a book or or listen to a book or whatever, you know, but I wasn't taking I wasn't taking my own advice. And that's where I think I'd got myself in trouble with booze as well as I wasn't, it wasn't taking care of myself mentally. 

You know, the best way to quiet the noise in your head. Boozman sure is easy. You know, it's an easy way to quiet that because I've got ADHD and you know, all this other all these other, you know, mental health problems of course, but Bucha was an easy way to make things quiet in my mind, you know, that I was running from anything I've been affected by drinking a lot of it came from celebratory help me I just finished a hard ass week. It's good drinks booze then. But the I wasn't I wasn't taking the time to make myself better. I wasn't taking the time needed in a lot of ways to make myself a better person. I was literally just towards the end of just going through the motions of daily life and I wasn't I got where I wasn't enjoying it. I wasn't enjoying the little things in life that I should have been appreciating. 

So, man, when you said that, man, I just really set off a lot of bills for me is you know, how do you make yourself better? You know, is it whatever it is? Do those things for years. have an adult you made, I was taking care of everybody else's problems, I was fixing everybody else, but I wasn't fixing me. So I really do think that really, like said that hit home with the man is whatever it is that makes you better do it you know whether whether it's you know, whenever you're focusing on optimal human performance, or whatever you're focusing on just fuck man, give me a give me a second, let me fix myself. Whatever it is, you know, if you're having problems, or if you're focusing on being optimally better, that shit takes effort, man. And I'm not saying that by all, like I told you, I'm just an average ordinary person. 

But if you're going to, if you're going to be better, you've actually got to put effort in that. And that's the I 100% believe that you can't just sit around and expect life to make you better, because it's not, you know, that you've actually got to put effort into that. Whatever that is, whether it's, like I said, fixing your PTSD because any you know, anybody that deploys, looks into the belly of the beast is going to have some sort of mental baggage that goes with that ship managed as part of it. Does that mean you're broken? Man, I hate that broken soldier shit. I really do. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. You know, Hollywood portrays it that way. And, you know, a lot, a lot of soldiers feel like that about themselves. And I don't buy into it, man. You know, you're only broken if you allow yourself to be broken. 

Now, once again, that doesn't mean don't reach out for help. Because God dammit, man, I made that mistake. And I really thought that can fix my own problems. And you can't always fix them. Sometimes you can sometimes you can. You can make yourself better by, you know, just sucking it up and making yourself better. But sometimes you can't. You know, sometimes you got to go out and ask for that help. And condemn it. Who decides when that is? I don't know. And I don't know, I don't know the answer that I do. You can answer that? Well, let me know. Because I don't know. I don't know the answer to that shit, man. If God do, you know, I think we got ourselves to where I get myself into dark places whenever I realized that. 

And I didn't reach out soon enough for or, you know, I worry about I worry about a lot of my soldiers now, man. Because I've had a couple of them, you know, more than I want to acknowledge more than I want to talk about for sure that have been two days day that, that permanent decision to you know, in their lives. You know, when I was in the depths of my darkest place with alcohol, you know, I actually thought about that shit, too. That's, you know, I used to, I used to say things like, you know, suicide is selfish. It's a selfish act. And, you know, I know a lot of people like talking about that shit, but I used to say that. And then I got myself into a place where and I was just so fucking miserable. I was so drunk. That, you know, I mean, there was that split second. 

And that's all it takes, is that that split second of despair to where you, you just, you take that one moment. And I guarantee very few people take their own lives when they're sober. I would. Veterans anyway, I would, I would venture out to say there are very few veterans that take their lives when they're sober. I don't know the statistics. But I would be willing to bet they're very few that are like, stone cold, sober. And go yep, this is the moment and you know, finish them because, you know, most veterans, most veterans don't, don't take their lives by taking pills or, you know, whatever most most veterans take their lives with with a gun. And you know, I've heard those things You know, if you could like, if you like, you're gonna, you know that the seconds that it takes you takes you to unlock that gun is the second step. 

Maybe you decide not to take your life or whatever, but yeah, man, it mental health is serious shit. And it's what is what was it Ronald Reagan quote, you know, government is serious business for serious people, you know, I kind of feel like that about mental health, you know, it's serious business for everybody though, everybody even at some point, there's this decision and you know, the generation that I grew up in, we didn't, we didn't really until now, until my generation actually is looking back and go, Man, we probably would have been a lot better off if we had actually taken our mental health serious. We just didn't, you know, just not something that we did. And now I look back at it. 

And there's a lot of times, you know, because I still see a counselor whether I need to or not honestly, whether whether that whether I've been to headspace, because of the military helps us out with VA counselors and all that. But I do, man, even when I even when I don't think I need it, I still go talk. And sometimes, you know, some shit comes out that I didn't need to talk about, even though I didn't know I need to do it sometimes talking isn't the answer for me. But at the end of the day, there are some things to be said about whether it's optimal performance or it is getting the help to fix some things. It's all some of its critical thinking, and some of it is fixing it within when you need to embed it once again, I don't know what that is. I don't know. And I think each person has to answer that for themselves. I think it's a very personalized thing. 

As far as mental health How do you make yourself better? How do you optimally deal for? And when do you know that it needs to? Do you need to fix something? Man? That's all very personal? I don't know the answer for everyone. I know I learned some hard lessons when it comes to all that shit. And I don't know if I can ever teach those lessons. Because all of my came in, they all became very personal. So I don't know, I don't know what the right answer is to any of that. I do know, optimal performance. I know how to do that. I know how to make people better. Whatever they're doing well, I know how to fine tune people's performance, whether it's mental or physical. But there is that point where you those who can't do teach, though, what was the other one? Those that can't teach? I can't remember there was. 

So he was really, really funny. Now, if I can ask because I can't think of it. It's like those who can't do teach and those who can't teach. I can't remember. But yeah, it was all about performance. And whether it's getting better or optimally for I don't I don't know where that where that answer is. But I know that each person has to be thinking critically, to answer that question. Does that make sense? And a lot of people, we talked about critical thinking and really thinking you're just thinking about critical thinking is just thinking about your thought process, right? Like, how do we get to that at the end of the day? And I don't know what the answer is for everybody. I know what Biden is. And I know that I have to be in a good position to perform optimally. But I do know now that when I'm getting into that dark place, because I have been taking care of myself. 

So like saying, I know that's all very individual. And I wished there was a way that we could as leaders, as people know, when that is well, like he could look at someone and go I don't know what that person needs. But we just can't do we can't read minds. So once again, that that whole thing is just, I guess I'm fascinated by it right? I get so fascinated by this, this thinking about being better, and how do you get better? You know, how do you perform optimally? Then how do you? How do you not get into this dark place? Man? That all is just so fascinating to me, man, I really do. I go down these weird rabbit holes with it anyway. Just take you under took out a wall right there. Now you're good, you're good.

Brock Briggs  1:25:38  

You said that a lot of your time, presumably, in the Army has been spent learning how to fine tune people's mental and I'm guessing physical performance to some degree? How do you think that we can best do that?

Heath Smith  1:25:55  

So soldiers, man, we teach. And so training is really what we're doing is we're teaching you to go against your natural instincts. And that's what, that's what a lot of training is in the infantry. You know? Let's think about it. Man, we make soldier do weird shit, right? Like normally, when you hear the sound of gunfire, and it's coming in your direction, Your natural reaction should be to get the fuck away from it. That's, that's the natural human reaction, right? That's the flight or fight response. So in the military, we're teaching you to go 100% against the flight response. Like we're, that's what training is training is teaching you to not do that. Training is teaching you. Conditioning may be a better word than teaching. It's conditioning. Because what we're what we're trying to get you to do. Go goes against everything that your body is telling you to do. 

So how do you get someone to do that? You know, right, like, that's, that's the crux of the army is we're, we're taking you on this journey, or they are taking you from this point where you just you're just coming in as a civilian. And then we're taking you to this point, not only, you know, as we take you through the training matrix, we're not only teaching you to not run, right, like that's the first thing we teach you, is when people are shooting at you don't run away. And then now we're teaching you to lead people not only to not run away, but run towards the gunfire. And now we're not only teaching you to not run away from it, we're teaching you to figure out a way to kill the person that shooting. 

And now I'm only teaching you how to do that I'm teaching you to do that on a large scale. Right? So that's, that's really what being an army instrument is all about, is number one, don't run from the gunfire. Number two, run towards the gunfire. Number three, figure out a way to kill them. And then number four is how do we do that on a large scale and do it successfully without dying? So man, it's really all about a mental games. In the end, especially, you know, if you hear like UFC fighters, you hear I'm talking about imposing their will on other people. And really, it's what we do in the military is we're imposing our will, on another force, whether it's a country or, you know, terrorists or whatever, that's really what we're doing. 

At the end of the day is we're imposing our will on somebody else, like UFC fighters do a one on one is imposing their will on somebody, and, you know, thinking ahead far enough in the game, to beat that person will. us in the infantry in the service, you know, whether you're, you know, you're the signal guy or a medic or whatever, you're still part of this contraction, this organization that imposes its will on another force on another group of people. And that's really at the end of the day. That's, that's what it's all about. It's that fine tuning of that human mind to impose its will on some, man, that's hard. It sounds easy, right? If you say it, but then when You get this grand scale, whether it's a squad or platoon or a company or, you know, a boat is with things are terrifying. 

This is what you do, and you just do it naturally because you've done it so many times, and you've done it under these high stress situations. So, no wonder, whenever at the end of this thing, we all have mental problems, because we've just literally taught you to do shit that your vine does not what doesn't want you to do. So no wonder, you know, at the end of the day, we have these mental health problems, we have these, because literally, that's what we done, we broken the way that your body should react and does react into a whole different world anyway. Yeah, that's whenever I whenever you whenever you break it down, you start thinking like that. It gets more and more fascinating. And then, how do you take that, pull it out of somebody, and then throw them back into the world. 

And then expect to just perform. And some people do it really well, right? Like some people get out. And they, they have they, they get out and they thrive. But then you have you know, other ones that carried things differently that they get out? They don't do so well without you know, their tribe or their but their? Or maybe you know, the way that they're wired is just different him. So I guess it's another one of those things like a sociology experiment, really? Like what is it that made some people get out of the Army, you know, you take two general people that are, you know, average jokers. And one of them performs pretty well in the army and the other one performs pretty well in the army, then you get them out. 

And you send them on their way to go out of the civilian world and one just nosedive, right? He tanks and then the other one thrive. So what's the difference in the one I think that's your all these veterans administration's? And are all these veterans organizations and veterans studies and all these things? It's really trying to figure that out? What is it that makes one person get out thrive? One that one does it? And then how do you replicate? The person that got out and did well you don't want to replicate? You know, you've reinforced success, you always reinforce success, you never reinforce failure. So, once again, what's the answer? Fuck, I don't. Matter of fact, if we can figure that out on this podcast, we'd be millionaires, right? 

We've used some of the most successful people on the planet, if we can figure out what made people super successful, or what made people just your average? Or, you know, what? What causes people to spiral into that dark place? I mean, I don't know that. I say once again, it's all fascinating to me, really is because it all boils down to that really boils down to your mental capacity and, and how you What was the thing? It's Stephen Covey? In 10 Habits of Highly Successful People. He talks about that, like, how do you replicate success? How do you not replicate success? And then and then the only true freedom in life is there's a stimuli and then there's the time that you're truly free to make a decision. And then there's the consequences of your decision. 

But the only true freedom because, you know, like, they were the he talks about a prisoner of war. One of them, you know, the guards, and you know, the, the Viet, the Vietnamese, just, and they just fuck this dude up, but, man, he's like, happy, he's made himself no matter what they do to him. He's taken the freedom to be okay. And then of course, you know, you have other dudes that, you know, they just literally, they get so down, that they actually just die. So, you know, once again, that true freedom and how do you do that? Where's that? How do you make somebody take a stimuli and make a good decision about it, so that at the end, they're successful. And like I said, once you get free, you figure that shit out. Would be good,

Brock Briggs  1:34:50  

right? I think if there's one thing that I'm taking away, it's in terms of like defining what that success might look like. Maybe it's to it. impose your will. On

Heath Smith  1:35:02  

100%. I love that. Yeah. Hey,

Brock Briggs  1:35:05  

I want to use that. I'm going to use that. Yeah, that's really good.

Heath Smith  1:35:10  

And that's but now it here's a weird, here's, I'm in a weird spot now. So I got my retirement, you know, in my VA check. And at the end of the day, I could live off of that. Would I be comfortable? Not necessarily. But it wouldn't be horrible, right? I wouldn't know, I wouldn't be eliminated a cardboard box. Let's still have enough money to pay rent and eat? Do you have a cell phone? Like? How hard do I want to work now? Like, so excited I can I can, I can be like, seven, I'm gonna be a millionaire. But do I want to put myself back into a stressful life. Like, if somebody pays you $250,000 a year, they want access to you. Like on the weekend, like, like, back when I was a SAR major that would get paid two or three days, but I was an art major. And people had access to me 24/7 Right. 

Now, I don't know if I want a job where I get paid. Call me on the weekend money. So that's kind of a kind of this weird place. Now in my life were like, Oh, I'm comfortable. I live comfortable. I've got a job, you know, my job plus my retirement. Plus my disability. I'm comfortable. But I also catch myself wanting to impose my will, right? Like, I catch myself doing this that workload like I'm going to be the next manager, you know, just like I did as a soldier, like, I want to be that staff sergeant. How do I be that stuff sorted? Well, obviously, I have to do these things well. But have got myself like, No, I don't want to be a regional manager. No, like, I don't want to be a project manager. Because that is you could call the other weekend money. Yeah. Right. Because if I start getting if I start doing those things, and I'm in charge of those things, that means they want access to me 24/7 I don't want to work that hard right now. 

Now, do I need to you know, in five years, you know, I'm still relatively young, I build, like, a military years like ancient, right? Like, what do you think of when you're in the military? When you hear that somebody's 50 You're like, Oh, my God, that's all this fuck, right? But when you're in the civilian world, and you tell somebody, you're 48, they're like, oh, man, you're still young man's, like, because I'm 48. Now, maybe in five years after I done this transition and I'm fully away from the military, because I'm still kind of in the military. Kind of, I'm still around the military, I still teach in the military, so I'm still attached to it. Maybe, maybe after I'm completely away from it, and I'm completely decompressed maybe, then I'll go looking for this high pressure job. But right now, as it stands, I don't want one. 

So I'm in a weird position, where, like, by nature is to impose my will on to things like, is a person man like that? I'm sure you know, but I think most military, you know, people that call themselves alphas, that's, that's kind of who you are in life. And you want to just, you know, what's my next step to be better? Boom, and what does that take? So maybe what I'm trying to do now is kind of focus on just me and like how to make just me better. But it's real hard to be in an organization and not try to make the whole organization better, and bend it to your will. And, you know, just make everything the way you want it. So that I think I think that's part of my transition is getting into the military not doing that anymore

Brock Briggs  1:39:32  

trying to like I mean, you give us 27 years to an organization, like there's going to be you've got some strings attached. And that's Yeah,

Heath Smith  1:39:40  

yeah, it's still just like this. This mentality of man, if I was in charge of this, this is how I would do it. So how do I get charged because I didn't make this better. I can make this better if I was in charge of it. I don't want to work that fucking hard band like But I catch myself doing it all the time. Like, right? Like, how do I, how do I take this thing and make it better. But then once again, now you're if you start doing that, you're gonna find yourself in charge of things, because you're volunteering to be in charge of things in the civilian world, if you're not getting paid to be in charge of those things. Don't do that shit, right? Like being in the military like, oh, I'll take on all these extra responsibilities, because I just know, it's better for my soldiers. If I do that.

Brock Briggs  1:40:33  

I think you can do both. And I think so. And here's why. And it's because I feel very similar. And it's because I, the way that I think about it is, Job is your nine to five is kind of what's paying the bills, but it's like, they're only getting like 25% of you. And then on the 75% side, you impose your will on everything else, but it's all stuff for you. Because you've spent so much time like giving to the army and like, like I do this podcast, and like all of that, like self improvement stuff, like, you get to, like, just go all in on that and just, like not as much at work. And that is like, I think that that's the answer.

Heath Smith  1:41:21  

Okay, like, so. And I kind of feel that. Because right now, like, do it like, do like this body building, right? Like, I'm trying to shape myself into. Not what the Army wanted. Like, I don't have to run anymore. So when I say this, people were like, oh, just like every other veteran. I went from 175 to 190, I weigh 192 pounds right now. And you know, the army, I never could have done that. I couldn't do that. Because I still had to run. And when you're short as I am, like, I'm only five, six, you put 1010 pounds on this frame. Do that slows you down. And I always wanted to run fast because I have to because I'm in the army, then you know, do as many pushups as I could, you know or even with ACFT came you have to run two miles. So you can't get you know and I can max the deadlift at 175 pounds because only 345 pounds or so. 

But now, I've kind of started doing this bodybuilding thing. So now I put on a What does that 15 pounds anyway, I'm going from 170 to 175 to 192 under 95 pounds. And, and it's weird, because number one, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Because I weigh too much. And I don't runs. I still do cardio, but I don't run. So I feel like I'm doing something wrong. So I'm kind of with you like I got like my job but I also have like, where I'm working on this whole weird. My wife calls about body dysmorphia thing I'm gonna go like Okay, so now I'm trying to get bigger but now with fat so now I gotta lose weight. So you know, you're do this whole bulk and, you know, anyway, it's fun, it is a good time and it is that it is something for me. 

You know, it's it's all about how I look at myself and how I feel about myself and but it's really just something fun to do like okay, now get it get as strong as I humanly can get as big as I humanly can without you know, killing myself and, you know, put myself in no physical danger as far as like cardiac issues you put on too much weight you start stressing your volt ticker. And you know, I think I've got to gotta be careful to genetically high cholesterol, you buy you all that weird chips. But yeah, I think that I think you're right, I think you're onto something there. You get your job that pays the bills. And yeah, you put in some effort there. And especially, you know, it's because at the end of the day, my job is teaching soldiers still so I still had to do that well, because it can matter in the end. 

But I don't want to throw myself completely into something and give it 75% almost 75% for me, my wife, and you know, my adult children and so it's Yeah, I think you're onto something there is nothing so good. Definitely not doing 100% job. That's because if my wife used to call herself the mistress, you know, because I was married to the army and she was my mistress. Luckily, I'm still married to the same woman. I don't know how she's been up with all my shit for all these years. God bless her man. She's been through the military deployments. You know, fuck my alcohol, alcoholism, Jesus, you know, then when you find one like this one, dude, hold on to that shit, because they will make your life 100% Better. 

Once again, Stephen Covey and 10 Habits was, you know, you can't be interdependent until you're independent. But we shouldn't be look independent shouldn't be what we're looking to be, we should be looking to be interdependent with our, you know, our spouse and so it was really, really kind of a cool idea. But yeah, I think I definitely think you're onto something, you know, you get work only gets 25% of me nowadays, instead of, you know, like, I used to get 90% of me all the time.

Brock Briggs  1:45:51  

Well, I'm, it sounds like, you know, you've got other time to like, do stuff, hobbies and, you know, things that, you know, not 24/7 duty anymore, and like,

Heath Smith  1:46:03  

worrying about getting that three o'clock in the morning phone call, like, I literally for this podcast, I guess my phone naturally. This like, Hey, you have an event coming up? You know, here's the shortcut to do not disturb. I was like, I can do that. I can put my phone on Do Not Disturb because nobody has to get a hold of me. Right, buddy, there's nobody out there that is depending on me to make a decision for their life anytime soon.

Brock Briggs  1:46:35  

Well, and you are making decisions, but it's only for you, which is a really great place and your family. But that's a great place to be.

Heath Smith  1:46:43  

Yeah, of course, it really is man. You know, honestly, there is a fear when it's time to get out. And that might be the reason that I stayed around for a little bit longer. Because, honestly, I was just scared to get out. Like, what do you do? You know, what are my finances going to look like? You know, because you know, when you're think about retirement, okay. So if you stay for 20 years, you get 50% of your base pay, but you know, your BH and all this other stuff. So when you retire, you're gonna get 50% of the pay. What is my final financial is gonna look like oh my god, you know? And then, you know, what am I going to do? Because you one thing I learned from COVID Was I can't not do anything. Like I always said I was gonna retire like fish, right? Like, I'm just gonna fuck off. I'm not gonna do anything. 

COVID taught me that that is not an option for me. Like, mentally, I will lose my shit. If I don't have some sort of purpose. Like if I don't, if I don't have if I have if I don't have work, or something that is purposeful in my life, which I think is another thing that veterans struggle with is purpose. You know, you had a purpose when you're in the military, when you get out you don't have a purpose of it. But that is one thing that COVID taught me I have to have a purpose. I have to have reason to get my ass up and go do stuff. Because if I don't, I will 100% Like, lose my mind. Like, I will go crazy. I will. I will start climbing the walls, a guy that you know, like during COVID I think I watched all of Netflix. And you go and watch the live TV.

Brock Briggs  1:48:24  

That's a fact.

Heath Smith  1:48:27  

I watched all of the internet during COVID Because we were in California man. I don't know where you're actually like physically right now. But we were in California and like, they were serious about lockdowns do they wasn't like in Texas, like I'm in Texas now. Like, whenever the CDC was like, hey, you need to wear a mask Texas like that. We're not doing that. But California man, they were serious. Like when you were lying down. Like we actually made it off of Fort Irwin onto one of the malls one time. It was like The Walking Dead Like, nobody was there. It was so weird. Like, all the stores were closed. And we're like, man, this is weird shit. Yeah, I mean, gotta have a purpose. I have to have something to do. Or I'll go crazy. I'll lose it.

Brock Briggs  1:49:14  

I think that that's true for all of us. right there with you on that. Keith, I really appreciate you spending some time with me and downloading us on 27 years of Army leadership experience.

Heath Smith  1:49:27  

And I mean, I love this. Because like I said the whole time I'm on this one I'm talking on this thing. I'm thinking what did I learn the hard way and what can I put out there that hopefully somebody will watch and they'll be like, man that inspired me to do something different in my life or you know, whatever the case, but I really appreciate you having me do that. I also want until you also brought that it's inspirational, that you're doing something like this. 

Because, you know, not everybody has the capacity to keep doing something like this and trying to make a difference for soldiers, veterans and man that inspires me what you're doing, I truly appreciate it, man, I really do. Because it's somebody that's trying to do something outside of themselves. That's not all selfish, like I am right now, right? Like, looking out for me, fuck everybody, you're actually you made it out of the military, you realize that there's a need and a want. For something like this, there's, you know, that knowledge of not just for people that are in but you know, for people that are out there. There's this gap out there and you're trying to fill it in. I appreciate that, man.

Brock Briggs  1:50:56  

I appreciate the kind words, those are probably far too generous. There is a big part of this that is extremely selfish. And like I still the jury's still out on whether the world actually wants this podcast or not yet. But I know, in the interim, I am getting to connect with some really great, fantastic people and hopefully have some conversations, that means something.

Heath Smith  1:51:22  

Yeah and you know, if it's just the one person that watches it, and goes, Hey, that meant something, I learned something from that. That's a man that makes it you know, even though it may have had selfish beginnings, and like you said, it may still be there's some selfish parts of it, where, you know, you want to get people to watch it. And there are things that, I'm sure are selfish about it. 

But like, even being a leader, there's some level of selfishness, right? Like, whether I want to be in charge, I want to be that guy that I admired. You know, there's still some selfish aspects to it. You know, there's always some kind of little selfish part of it. You know, even though people want to know the humble leadership, servant leadership, there's always some level of selfishness to it. So I think you're the I think you're you're no different than the rest of us humans.

Brock Briggs  1:52:28  

Well, I appreciate that. If people want to connect with you, where should we send them and then also, how can we be useful to you?

Heath Smith  1:52:40  

Winter is a good one. LinkedIn is a good one. You know, I can shoot you my personal information as well. You've already got my email by any means. Anybody that needs to get in contact with me or wants to get in contact with me that is a great way to do it. Like said my Twitter is I think it's at real heat Smith. My LinkedIn is m dot Heath. That Smith just like my actually is my Gmail as well. They really appreciate it.

Brock Briggs  1:53:20  

Thank you so much. 

Heath Smith  1:53:21  

Yeah, man, I appreciate you too. And like I said, man, thanks for having me on, man. Keep keep keep grinding brother. Absolutely.