In this episode of Spirits and Stories with Donald Dunn, we deliver a powerful storytelling podcast experience centered on real life stories, inspiring interviews, and the raw truth of the human experience. We sit down with Megha Parek, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars, whose remarkable career in sports law is matched by an extraordinary personal journey of resilience and healing.

Megha’s story reaches far beyond the boardroom. While guiding one of the NFL’s most visible franchises through complex legal and organizational challenges, she survived a traumatic home invasion that reshaped her life. What followed became a defining chapter of overcoming adversity—a path rooted in recovery, advocacy, and self-discovery. Her experience ignited a deep commitment to mental health awareness and trauma recovery, making her story one of the most compelling resilience stories you’ll hear.

Through deep conversations, Megha shares what it means to rebuild after trauma, lead with empathy, and embrace vulnerability in positions of power. Her reflections offer profound life lessons about healing, courage, and the importance of community. Listeners will hear how strength and vulnerability can coexist—and how the human spirit endures even after life-altering events.

From leadership and recovery to creativity and growth, this episode embodies what Spirits and Stories is all about: authentic voices, meaningful dialogue, and the stories that shape who we become. Whether you’re drawn to veteran stories, transformation, or real conversations about life’s hardest moments, this episode delivers insight, connection, and inspiration.

Companies Mentioned in This Episode:

Jacksonville Jaguars

Crisis Text Line

Habitat for Humanity

Four Seasons Hotel

NFL

Amazon

Def Leppard

Bon Jovi

Mentioned in this episode:

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Guest is a remarkable leader whose professional accomplishments and personal courage make her one of the most inspiring voices in sports and beyond.

Megha Parek is the executive vice president and Chief legal officer of the Jacksonville Jaguars, where for more than a decade she's guided the team through major transactions, development projects, international initiatives, and some of the most ambitious moves in the franchise's history.

A Harvard graduate and Sports Business Journal 40 under 40 honoree, she's been at the center of shaping the Jaguar long term vision on and off the field.

But Mega's impact goes far deeper than her title.

She is honest about both her struggles and her triumphs, including surviving a traumatic burglary and assault in her home, an experience that fuels her passion for trauma recovery and mental health advocacy.

She's a lifelong learner with certifications in well being, nutrition, crisis counseling and suicide prevention.

And she volunteers with organizations like Crisis Text Line and Habit Humanity.

And in one of the most authentic parts of her journey, she pushes herself out of her comfort zone by playing guitar once a year at a dive barn, proving you can be a high powerered executive and still fully embrace the messy, creative, complex parts of being human.

Let's welcome Mega to the show.

Hey, how's it going?

Great, how are you?

I'm doing amazing.

You know, life tried to prevent this interview, but we got through it and we're now here, so I'm looking forward to it.

Why don't we start with a little bit of background?

Tell us, you know, what brought you into the law scene and kind of where you grew up and what kind of form this.

Sure.

So going back to sort of where I started, I grew up in Jersey, went to public schools my whole life.

My parents had immigrated to the States from India in the 70s.

I have an older brother who was born here and then I was born 40 years ago up in Jersey.

And in high school, you know, my parents really emphasized the value of education to both my brother and I in terms of, look, this is part of the reason that we came here was to give you guys opportunities that you might not have otherwise had.

And so they were super supportive, super demanding, but also super supportive as we were growing up.

When it came time to apply for college from the Pizza Hut where I was working at the time on Route 9 in Jersey, I applied to Harvard and was genuinely shocked that I got in, but I did.

So I went there for undergrad, graduated in three years in part just because of the significant expense.

Had a degree in social studies, which was tremendously fun in terms of like major to Study because a lot of different disciplines counted towards that requirement, everything from philosophy to history to government to economics.

And I was able to write my senior thesis on heavy metal music, which for a Jersey girl is sort of the perfect way to culminate your studies, but of course not, not necessarily the easiest way to make money when you graduate.

So I went to law school after that.

And I've always really enjoyed being in a service oriented role, was at a law firm in New York in their transactional department for about three and a half years after I'd graduated.

And one of the transactions that I worked on was the acquisition of this team for our current owners, the Kahn family.

About a year after the deal closed, they asked me if I'd come down to Jacksonville, Florida, which I didn't really know exactly where it was, but I remember thinking this is a really tremendous professional opportunity.

And I told my parents I'd go down there for a year or two and then I'll come back.

And that was 13 years ago.

So I've ended up liking the job and really liking the city even more than I thought.

They've been wonderful to me in terms of the opportunities that I've been given of things to work on.

And so I'm now our executive vice president and chief legal officer.

But we're, we're living through a major construction project which is fun, challenging at times, but really, really fun to work on.

Okay.

Yeah, I've been to your current stadium.

You know, my family, I'm, I'm temporarily in Missouri.

I say that I've been here about three years, but I moved here to take care of my, my mom.

But my wife and kids are still in Georgia.

So we're about 75 miles north of Jacksonville by Brunswick is where we're at.

That's where my husband's from.

Is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I loved it.

Beautiful stadium.

I mean, it really is.

We went to a concert down there.

It wasn't a game, but we went to a country.

Do you remember who it was or was it the Country Music Fest?

It was the Country Music Festival.

Okay.

Yeah, that was, that was here for a couple years.

And part of the.

So two things.

One, people don't realize how unique the sports complex really is here in Jacksonville because you have stadium, 6,000 seat amphitheater attached to the stadium across the street.

You have a ballpark, an arena, and all of that's on the riverfront, so it's a really cool area, and we're in the process of developing it further right now with an office building going up across the street, a Four Seasons Hotel going up across the street.

But I'm really excited for what that could mean for Jacksonville overall.

But as you know, too, being in the Southeast, you're able to be outside really comfortably for, like, 11 months out of the year.

Not Missouri, not New Jersey, by any means.

And so it's a.

It's a.

It's a fun place to live because you can embrace being outside as much as you can.

And it's a cool sports complex in terms of the footprint.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I would agree.

So what is.

What was some of the challenges?

I mean, because that's a big difference of going from what you was doing up there in Jersey to come down here to Jacksonville, Florida, and.

And now, man, there had to be so many new things that you had to.

To learn and.

And remind yourself of what was going on.

How.

How did that affect so on that front?

Even when I was offered the job, I remember thinking, I don't know that I have all the experience needed to do this job.

And a few other people said to me, you know, look, if they think that you can do it and we think that you can do it, take the opportunity, but do what you've always done and approach things not from a place of you need to be the expert in everything.

And when I started here, I was the only lawyer here, and I don't need to be an expert in everything.

Right.

If you have a growth mindset, if you're curious, and if you're willing to learn, I think that that's actually the more critical tools for figuring out how can you be in a job with.

Where I don't know that anyone going into any job necessarily will know everything all the time.

Right.

That's just not how that works.

And so I made sure that I was always really thoughtful about being aware about what it is that I do know and what I'm good at, but also what it is that I don't know.

What might I need to go get trained in, what might I need to get educated in.

And what's been really fun is that, you know, when you're at a law firm, you're.

You're more.

The breadth of work is a little bit more narrow, but the scope is probably a little more complex here.

What I really like is that you are able to touch on so many different areas, plus I also have HR IT security and then in managing construction with a great team.

And so being able to work with a variety of different people who think differently, which I enjoy, as great as working with a bunch of lawyers is it's, I really like the diversity of thought.

I like learning from people and working with people who are different than I am because that's, that's really how you get exposed to different things and how you learn more.

And so I've enjoyed being here, but have very much approached it from a mindset of I don't know everything and what I don't know I'm going to need to learn or figure out and build good relationships that I can ask for help when I need it.

Yeah, you know, I think that goes back to the old saying, which I have really lived my life by.

You know, the smart person in the room is the one that realizes that they're not the smartest person in the room.

And I think if you surround yourself with like minded people that are experts in different areas and you can collab and get different feedbacks, one, you've now eliminated your ego which can get in the way of a lot of things.

And two, you're getting different perspectives of things that you may not have seen that would have happened down the road from a different path.

So I agree, you know, in the, in the legal side of the NFL, it's, it's kind of a unique situation because all the fans think about is oh yeah, they're just sitting back, they're doing these multi million deals for these players, but they don't think of all the little stuff, you know, the HR stuff.

They're still employees, they're still that side of the house.

They're still, like you said, building things, coming up, different deals, signing deals and, and stuff with merchandise and licensing and, and all that stuff.

And now the NFL is hard to go worldwide.

And yeah, that makes another issue.

And everything that you just described is part of what makes the job continually interesting.

But to your point, about the different facets of the business, even for myself, when I was a fan, I was more focused on what's happening on the field and didn't necessarily have as deep of an understanding about the business of sports.

And to your point, that includes everything from sponsorship agreements, food and beverage agreements, merchandise, ticketing.

We also have for instance, a medical and training staff.

Right.

To go with it, you have an equipment staff, you have video people, you have technology People and so I we have an entire production department because of course we are in a lot of ways a TV program.

And so it's been interesting to have complex problems presented and then to work with a team, as you said, of passionate people with integrity who care.

It's fun to then try and solve those complex problems and come up with more elegant solutions.

And that's a lot of what the job is.

And it is more multifaceted than certainly like when I was sitting at home as a fan and as a kid rooting for the Jets.

I ever really appreciated or realized.

Yeah, I would agree 100%.

You know, I've been a Bengals fan since the 70s and I don't think it really matters in today's world what your favorite team is.

Every team has got the same dilemma and the same growth package that that's happening.

You know, I personally am not a fan of the going worldwide you can see a difference as a fan you can see a difference in the players from the, the struggles of traveling, time changes.

I'm sure there's 850 interviews that they're going to do before the game and I, I that might be great for the NFL but you know, as a fan it does damper the game.

And now we are going with adding sports gambling.

It's going to, you know, before long will be worldwide.

How is, how has sports gambling affected you on a, on a legal standpoint?

So the league, the NFL has really strong integrity requirements and protocols.

So from our perspective it's a matter of balancing making sure that our staff understands players and non players what the rules are, what it is that they can and cannot do, making sure that they have and feel comfortable reporting to extent that they're ever getting any pressure from anybody or anything like that that we are here to support them.

Right.

And making sure that they have avenues to go report that to and trying to look to the extent that it's a pretty significant business category, our responsib to make sure that we embrace that business growth but do it in a responsible way.

And so I'd say that's the balance that we've been working through over these last few years since it became legalized.

Yeah, I think, I think it is something that we take for granted as a fan and we forget that these rookies are what 24, 25 years old, maybe even a little bit less.

Yeah.

And they come from modest backgrounds, the majority of them and next thing you know, not necessarily.

Maybe the money's not thrown at them as big as what people think, but the attention and the outside noise, as you would, can really affect them.

And now again, we've got sports gambling.

I think college is slowly going to more of an NFL kind of style for their players, you know, in the long term.

But at the end of the day it's a huge change, you know.

Oh, and by the way, the pace of the game changes, you know.

Yeah, well, and I would say almost like just pivot that focus a little bit.

I think one of the biggest challenges is actually also just the accessibility on social media.

So it's one thing to maybe have a different business category.

It's another when you have people that can very directly make threats either publicly or in somebody's private messages that could otherwise impact, as you said, someone's experience.

Right.

That, and that's much different.

And so to me, part of it is also just being really sensitive to.

And it's still a shifting landscape.

How is it that social media is impacting all of these facets in terms of people's well being generally?

Yeah, I, I didn't even think about that.

But you're absolutely right.

You know, the, the best thing in somebody that those situation that's famous, you know, is not to read the comments, post, forget, you know, what do they say, post and ghost, you know, that's, that is the best way to do it because you've got such a large base, you're not going to please everybody, somebody's going to be mad, somebody wants to troll, whatever.

But these guys are coming from a background where social media is a large part, they grew up with it, it's a large part of their life.

You know, that's how they unwind, is to see what their friends are doing and so forth.

But then you get the advertisements from ESPN and everything else.

And I had a guest on here, he was a Detroit Lions linebacker and he really talked about that additional pressure about how when you are dealing with all that outside noise, how it affects you and how it can lead to alcohol and drug abuse and just ways.

Because now there's no way that you can just unwind, you know, you can't just go to a movie and sit in the crowd and watch a movie because it ain't gonna work well.

And so just to share from my own experience, I will say that I was, and I'm not a public figure, right, by any means.

And I was genuinely surprised that there was a few years ago, two and a half years ago, a wrestling podcaster, which is one of our affiliate businesses, who had never Met me before, doesn't know anything about me, was intentionally mispronouncing my name in, like, a xenophobic way, made some comments on social media that were absolutely false.

And even that I was shocked by how much it bothered me.

And, like, I don't have Twitter.

I don't look at it that often, but I was made aware of it.

And I was like, oh.

I was like, I don't know these people.

And these people who've never met me before all of a sudden have a platform to say whatever they want and when it's negative, I was surprised and I underestimated the effect that it would have on my own, like, sanity overall.

Yeah.

And on the one hand, I was like, I want to know what people are saying.

But on the other, I was like, why?

They don't know me.

They don't have any facts.

They're allowed to say whatever they want.

And that negativity.

And it's based in science.

So for every, like, negative experience you have, you generally need about five to 10 positive experiences to outweigh that.

Right.

To.

To counterbalance it and think about how that's not normally what you get, that that's not what's existing on these platforms.

And so I, I agree that I think overall, it is not particularly healthy to engage in it in a way where you're trying to make sense of it.

Right.

Like, this is not the place for reasoned debate.

It's not the place where people want that nuanced reason to debate.

It's kind of a place where people want to say whatever they want.

And even if you walk in with eyes wide open into that mindset, just being aware and not feeling guilty or ashamed, yes, it does affect you.

And that's okay.

That's actually a very normal human, scientific response by your brain.

So don't, don't be mad at yourself for, like, not somehow rising above it.

You should stay away from it if it's negative.

Yeah.

You know, and.

And I think with the rise of fantasy sports, I mean, fantasy sports has been around for you for a lot longer than anybody really knows.

But now the big boom has pretty much happened these last eight years, nine years, and I can only imagine how many people's posts say, thanks, I started you this week, and, you know, you didn't perform well.

You know, I'm going to tell you, as a maintenance manager, there's been days I went to work that I didn't perform.

You know, and it happens to everybody.

I think that also played a large part in you Know my healing as I was dealing with PTSD and my mental health because I owned a trucking company in the middle of the.

Probably the worst time to be locked in a truck for six weeks at a time, 11 hours a day, and have nothing but your, your own non.

Mind.

That's not thinking anyways already to think about.

And, and all I'm hearing on the news is, you know, this is back in all the negativity and the politics is going back and forth and, and, and everybody was going back and forth.

I just, I just could not get away from it.

And it took me a long time to figure out, stop looking for it.

Yeah.

You know, it takes a while, but if you quit searching stuff like that on the Internet, eventually your news feed will clean up.

And, and now pretty much all I see in my newsfeed is musicians and non profits.

You know, that's pretty much all I get anymore.

And it's because that's where my focus is.

But explain that to somebody who doesn't understand one, that they're the product, they're not the, the customer, and to how the algorithms and everything works.

And I can't even imagine then adding the, the pressure of somebody in the spotlight on top of that, you know.

Yeah.

Let's dig a little bit into what is going on with this mic.

Am I cutting out?

You're okay.

Am I okay?

Yeah.

I'm hearing it through my, my headphones.

It's like all of a sudden my voice goes away.

But so, you know, it's, it's funny because on the mental health side, there's, there's so many facets of things that you've got to do.

Right.

In my current book, one of the things that I'm talking about is the fact that how I approached it, there was a lot of things that didn't work for me.

You know, when you were dealing with your situation with the burglar, if you don't mind talking about it a little bit, what was that road to recovery like for you?

Sure.

And so I appreciate you asking that because what's interesting and what I found over time, so four and a half years removed from when it happened was May 21 of 21.

What's interesting and what I've learned with time is that when I'm prepared to talk about it, I'm 100% comfortable talking about it.

When somebody brings it up out of the blue and I'm not expecting it, that's when I do feel my nervous system sort of get activated and is a Little bit more tense and hijacked.

And so I think in many ways, if you boil it down to its most simplest form, my nervous system was severely disrupted.

And it's taken a lot of time and a lot of experimentation with things that do work and things that don't work to figure out what helps, just comment down.

So I was just to set the scene a little bit.

I had worked that week.

It was about a year and a half into the pandemic, but it was going to be my first day off the next day.

And so I was very, very excited about the fact that I had this trip planned to go to Dallas, to go to a concert.

And so that night before, I was in a condo building on the first floor and I had played guitar, packed up and fell asleep on the couch watching baseball.

I woke up to someone standing over me, realized that, like, it sort of came, like, became more conscious, like, this isn't right, this isn't a person.

I know this isn't a dream.

Punched him in the throat and ran out the front door.

And it's interesting just in terms of human memory.

And I, I think that this is something that's a little bit.

I think we sometimes expect victims of trauma to be a little bit more perfect than it's really fair to ask them to be when they're re explaining their trauma.

I remember all of that.

I don't remember running out the door.

I remember getting to my neighbor's place and saying, I need to go outside, I need fresh air, I need to call the police.

And I don't remember a second of that phone call with the police.

I do remember the police coming.

Did a fantastic job.

I was able to call a colleague who's a former police officer who also came over that night.

And as he left, I remember saying to him, I have a meeting at 9 o' clock tomorrow morning before I head to the airport, but I don't know if I'll make it.

And he just looks me, he goes, okay.

He's like, it's okay.

He's like, don't worry about it.

I'll make sure that I tell people, if you don't make it.

I somehow did.

And that in and of itself to me is another example of what was very helpful to me is the people who, rather than saying this is what you should be doing, or this you shouldn't be doing, which is like, a lot of people just say, hey, stay home, don't go to work, don't worry about it.

Let me tell you that going to Work that next morning actually really helped me feel, in a moment where I had so little control the night before, like I was coming back into myself, like I was having a little bit of control.

So I'm glad that I made it to work the next day.

And it was about something that was really important to me, which was helping another colleague would relapse into substance abuse.

While I was at the office, the police called and they said they'd actually caught him.

And, you know, thankfully, the man who broke in by noon the next day had confessed to everything.

And that's very rare as a victim to get that amount of closure that quickly.

But to his credit, that really did help me start the healing process right away.

The first thing that I sort of realized is that I need to be very thoughtful about understanding and accepting what's happening to my body and my brain.

Like, I'm just not going to be myself.

And that's okay, because I need to figure out what this new version of me is going to be for a little bit, and then I need to adjust accordingly.

So my body shook for about 10, two weeks.

And it wasn't until like six months later when I got a dog and fireworks were going off and I was like, oh, like, that is what my body was doing in the aftermath.

It was just shaking in the way that an animal does when they're scared.

I just.

The only real difference was that, like, I couldn't wear high heels to work for about two weeks.

But.

But, you know, I wish that someone had said, hey, this is a really normal trauma reaction.

And it is.

And now I know a few years later that that is a normal trauma reaction.

And one of the ways.

And one of the.

This is a great fact.

I think one of the best ways to help your body when you're feeling that anxious is either just shake it out or dance.

And that, like, listening to music and dancing can help re regulate your nervous system.

And so it was a matter of being aware about how it is that my body and brain might be.

Might be reacting and doing my best to balance that with what I know would be most helpful to me.

So a lot of people would also, in the immediate aftermath, are like, you need to move.

Like you move out of this place because there's too many batteries.

It's like, no.

I was like, I don't want to feel like someone else is pushing me out of my home.

I didn't do anything wrong.

I was just sleeping on my own couch.

And so I have since moved.

But it was really important to do it on my own terms.

And then to your point about experimenting with healthy coping mechanisms, that'll work for you.

That Thursday before it happened, I remember messaging our head of HR on Microsoft Teams because we had a mental health training that following Monday already pre scheduled.

And as I was sitting outside, I was thinking about all the things that had come up during COVID Because this happens as I'm exercising, I tend to do some of my best thinking.

Even I'm not sitting at a computer, probably because I'm not sitting at a computer.

And I remember texting her saying, one of the things that we really need to tell people on Monday during this mental health training is they need to identify what their coping mechanisms are before they need it.

So I had a friend who a few months prior had been really, really down, really isolated, depressed, had called me one night and we talked on the phone for about two hours.

But the challenging part of the conversation was every time I said, what would be helpful to you?

All that he could get out at that point was, I don't know.

And so it's like when someone's drowning, that's not the time to teach them how to swim.

That's not the time to tell them they should have had a life preserver.

You need those things before the fact.

And so for me, the things that helped, especially because I did keep on going to work, was making sure that I was aware of when am I I might start to get a little bit nervous or jumpy, which I had never been, probably was overconfident in the past, but now found myself being and having those tools in place.

The things that tended to be most helpful to me, having a playlist.

And in hindsight, I didn't realize this at the time, but the songs that I was listening to all had a really consistent drum beat.

And I think it was just helping me regulate my breathing.

So when I would feel overwhelmed at work, I would put my headphones in.

No one knows if you're taking a call or listening to music or whatever it is you're doing.

I go take a quick walk.

Because walking is also a proven way to help your nervous system.

Being outside in nature is.

And listening to music where.

And those things really helped in the immediate aftermath, which is getting my nervous system start to settle down.

And then it's been up and down over time, which I'm sure based on your experience, you can like attest to, which is that it's not a perfectly linear pathway to recovery.

Last week, so six days ago, I were being in the shower and having this exact thought, which I honestly cried when I had it.

But I realized this.

This because I'd never admitted this out loud to myself until a week ago.

I still get this much scared anytime the doorbell rings.

Anytime the doorbell rings and I was like, I'm a 40 year old woman.

I have a job.

I don't want to admit this out loud to people.

I don't want to share this vulnerability.

I had a hard time sharing that with my husband because, like, I don't want people to think that I'm crazy.

And a lot of times people just kind of want you to be okay.

And sharing that even something like that, that simple, is causing you alarm.

I think, unfortunately, a lot of people, again, coming from a good place, like good intent, bad execution, where they're like, we'll just let it go, just get over it, like, everything's okay, you know, there's nothing there.

Of course I know there's nothing there.

But if I'm listening to my body and I'm listening to my brain, it's still not comfortable in that situation.

And so just giving myself some grace to realize that the key is having healthy coping mechanisms in place.

But it's not going back to exactly who I was on May 20 of 21.

Because I may get back there, but I may not.

And that's okay because there's a lot of good that's come from it, which is.

I didn't understand.

I mean this sincerely.

I did not understand anxiety up until the situation happened.

I didn't get it because when people would say that, sort of paralyzed or frozen in place, like, I am such a action oriented person, I was like, I don't.

And I wasn't trying to be callous about it.

It was more a matter of, I truly don't understand what you mean.

I understand it now.

I never had nightmares before, understood what that was like.

I understand that now.

I never really understood what it was like to be the victim of something traumatic or what complex PTSD might be like.

I understand it now.

And I'm still, I think not only me, I think sort of in general, we're still learning a lot more about it.

But look, if.

If the, if nothing else, yeah, I may not go back to being exactly who I was, but.

But I hope that I'm a more empathetic person with a greater understanding of things.

That, look, might not have been the lesson that I wanted to learn, but I learned it.

And I hope that I can use what I've learned to help Other people.

Yeah.

You know, you brought up a lot of good points and, and to, to caveat what you said.

Yes, we are still learning.

You know, when you break down ptsd, there's a lot of similarities that men and women have together.

Or if you want to compare veterans trauma to a first responder's trauma or something else.

Right.

There is similarities.

Where things change is the triggers.

You know, what triggers one person is not going to trigger the other person and then that road to recovery changes as well.

Because what is traumatic for one person is not going to necessarily be traumatic for the other person.

I kind of always use the analogy, you know, if you take a, a person that grew up in a neighborhood where gunshots was normal, being shot at might not be enough to, to cause that trauma while deployed.

But maybe a mortar round or seeing somebody happen could be.

And then you take somebody who, you know, the worst thing that ever happened to them was they got a B in science and they get a mortar round that hit the base nowhere near them.

That may be enough to, to traumatize them.

And so those roads to recovery and the time frame really changes and, and you can't put a number on that.

On top of that, there's a lot of research that's going on.

I've got a friend, she's got a non profit and their whole goal is to do research on the effects of PTSD for women.

Right.

Because the way women handle the trauma and how they hide it is completely different than, than the men.

You know, we do have an outlet, whether people want to admit that or not.

You know, and that outlet is always anger.

That's, you know, on, on the male side, you know, especially military, because that's the only emotion that you're given is, is how to deal with everything is through anger.

But on the, on the, the women's side, they're, they're the ones that have to be strong.

They can't be, they can't take their, the blame out on their kids or their husband or friends or whatever.

They have to always have that appearance that, you know, society says you need to have your.

Together and, and at the end of the day, those, the society norms really do affect how long and how traumatic we go before we realize that we need help.

And on top of that, you were saying that, that you may not be that same person.

You're, you're 100.

Correct.

Because your mind, your consciousness makes you.

And after going through a traumatic event, your brain creates new connections.

And now that doorbell ringing has changed from oh I wonder who's at the door to oh, let me get my gun, you know, and, and at the end of the day, that's where the fight comes from because you have to unwire that, all of that stuff.

And, and the sooner you can start unwiring that, you know, the, the quicker that that recovery can be and, and the sooner you can get back to one loving the new you because you'll, you'll never be the old you, but you can bring some of those characteristics that you missed from the old you back.

And, and that's a long road, but it is, it is truly a lot of science out there that, that is unknown.

You know.

Yeah, you guys deal with, with TBI and, and concussions a lot in, in your industry and you guys have done some, some great research on, on helping that there's a lot of new rules in the NFL that a lot of people don't like.

I personally do like them.

You know, dealing with TBI myself, I know what the lows, long term effects are and when you have somebody that their career is done in, you know, at the age of 35, 36, they still got a long life to live.

And after the NFL, things come.

You know, I deal with a lot of side effects from medications.

You know, if I'm reading things or trying to say things, I'll forget words and so forth.

And a lot of that I know what it comes from, but take somebody in their prime and put them in that situation, you know, so my hat's off to the NFL for, for what they have done for, for tbi.

Because it all goes together.

It really does.

Yeah.

And it's, it is, I'd say probably the biggest challenge for me or thing that I've had to learn to adapt to is that realizing and I'm the same way.

Until I had been through it, I didn't know what it was like.

But it's really hard to explain to people that haven't been to hell and back what that road back looks like.

But people who have walked that road, they get it.

And so the fact that there's other people to talk to and even the way that you framed a lot of what you just said really resonated where it's just helpful to have the conversation because I have access to tremendous resources and I was just, just and have really supportive family and friends and I was genuinely surprised by.

There's a lot of like, support initially, but I remember my older brother said, he was like, do you want me to come down there?

And I Was like, I don't think I need you to come down here right now.

I was like, I think I may need you in a few months when all the support's gone, when the warmth is like.

And understandably so, right?

Like, that's.

That's just how life works.

When people aren't as focused on this event, and it's more of a distant memory to other people, but less of a distant memory to me when it's quiet, that's actually probably when I'm gonna need more support.

And that's what prompted me, in the end, to get a dog.

And I'll tell you that there's days when.

Because it is sometimes difficult to articulate what's happening, the best thing about the dog is that happy, sad.

No matter what it is, they are there and they're excited to see you, and they still want to go for a walk, and, like, they need to go outside.

And there's been many times where my intrinsic motivation might have just been dimmed, but I look at that puppy, and I'd be like, all right, we got.

We got to get up, and we got to do what we got to do.

And I do think that in many ways, like, my perspective and on the value that as it was in music and animals, like, the value that that can bring and just being in nature, have been tremendously helpful for me in terms of recovery.

And on the days when you're not motivated to do certain things which come right, just having those.

Those in, like, that in place to help get you through it and giving yourself some grace of, yeah, look, every day, you're not going to spring up out of bed and be thrilled, right?

But that's okay.

Like, when you.

It's.

It's starting tends to be the thing that will.

Then there's some forward momentum going because I found myself struggling a little bit in terms of, like, okay, well, so about a year after this happened, I was involved in a physical altercation at work.

About a year after that, I was sexually assaulted by a massage therapist.

So I've been going to somatic therapy because that was very helpful to me, even more so than talk therapy therapy.

And then that safe environment had been violated.

And then this past year, a former employee was disgruntled and had been harassing me.

And so all of those things, cumulatively, I realized, were starting to make me withdraw a little bit more.

And I was like, I can't.

If I do that.

Then to your point about your brain getting wired, I was like, I can't get to the point where I'm so much more comfortable in my house.

I have to do a little bit of exposure going outside.

Right.

And the dog was the best at that because it was like.

Like, he's got to go out.

He's got to go out in the dark.

Even if I'm a little bit jumpy when I do it, it's a really good test to start rebuilding that pathway of every day is not burglary.

Yes, there are times when you out in the dark and it's unsafe, but that's not most of the time.

Yep.

And yes, the world can be dangerous, but it's not more dangerous than it is not.

And you start reminding your brain of that and teaching your brain that again.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's it right there.

You know, you.

You go from, you know, like myself, I. I spent 68 months deployed, and, and it's just trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma.

And then when you get back, you know, it was so bad for myself that, you know, if I seen a person wearing a turban, anger instantly came out for no reason.

You know, the numbers are just walking down the street.

They may not have even ever lived over there.

May have been born in America, you know, and it's taken years to get through that because it brings back so many memories of people that had passed and.

And things that had happened.

And it's.

It's hard to convince yourself that, look, that was a moment in my life that's not my life.

You know, like you said, you know, my house was broken into, but yeah, was the unlucky person one out of 10,000 in.

In a town get their house broken into, you know, and it's hard to say, you know, my.

I'm still just as safe as I was before that happened.

You know, I'm not no more.

Less safe than before.

But it's hard to.

To when you're seeing trauma.

Now your brain goes into that.

What do I got to do to protect myself?

And, and that's where I see a lot of veterans especially.

They go.

They.

It takes a minute for them to bounce off the.

The outer limits before they get into that middle zone.

You know, they go from, oh, I've got trauma to the other side of all right now I'm going to have a gun in every single room.

I'm going to make sure the doors are locked.

I'm not going outside no more.

There's.

There's.

There's bad things going on out there, you know, and.

And we tend to overreact.

You know, somebody in your situation could have easily hired guards and, and put in new alarm systems and, and just went crazy on, on trying to, to upgrade everything when reality is you did everything right in that moment, you know.

You know, so maybe a class or something for, you know, self protection or maybe taking in some martial arts.

It's going to do great for distracting as well as discipline as well as a lot of other things.

You know, maybe just enough that you need to, to change to, you know, not necessarily bolt the whole house down and Right.

It is tough.

I love the idea of getting a dog because my best friend is my dog, little Anne.

And she's under the desk right now.

You know, I say she's not little, she's 75 pounds.

But you know, she's my best friend.

And like you said, it don't matter what kind of day I'm having.

You know, I've came home before, I, you know, got my temper under control, just screaming, yelling and going crazy.

And she just looks at me and next thing I know she's in my lap licking my face.

And you know, that's just her telling me, look, calm down, it's gonna be okay.

Yeah.

You know, and it is, it is truly a blessing.

I love the non profits that, you know, there's one up there in Connecticut called 22 Mohawks and they don't do service dogs, but they, they do take dogs from pounds and pair them with veterans as emotional support dogs and they do a lot of great things.

So I love plugging them because again, it's, you know, great advertisement for, for a non profit and they're doing some really good stuff.

So you brought up a point too about how before you didn't really understand depression and anxiety and you know, and there's so many people out there that, that feel that same way.

You know, I myself remember times saying, why don't you just get over it, man?

It's in the past.

Let it go, you know.

And so my second book that I wrote was a fiction book.

It was called when demons follow you home.

And I took that phrase that, that we all use, I'm fighting my demons and I turned it into a real demon that attached themselves to veterans that were deployed and it attacked four homeless veterans that nobody's going to listen to.

They're all druggies and alcoholics and homeless and you know, they're seeing these demons.

And I put the exact same.

Everything those demons did to those veterans is the same thing that's happening to us.

Inside our head.

And I did it to give people that ability to have a connection.

I see the enemy, I see the attack.

I see what's happening.

And so many people struggle with it.

I. I didn't realize, you know, pts.

PTSD is tough.

Depression.

Depression is a beast.

I mean, it truly is.

And unfortunately, it comes with ptsd.

You know, the.

The further down that rabbit hole you get, that makes it tough, you know, And I think that's why we lose so many people to suicide.

Well, and I think making it.

You said this earlier just in terms of the stigma, but I think that a lot of times people will say things like, get over it.

To me, that's like taking somebody.

And part of the reason why I'm trying to shy away from using the term mental health is that to me, it is no different than physical health.

The two are intimately connected.

And I don't want it to be treated like a different category because the amount of empathy that we have for someone when they break their leg should be no different than the amount of empathy that we have when they're fighting something invisible.

We just don't see it.

We don't understand it.

But to me, telling somebody who's depressed to get over it is like telling somebody with a broken leg to put a cast on their arm and go for a run on.

That's not actually good advice.

And frankly, like, we all do have some respect for the physical.

Like, if I hurt my knee, like, your average person is not going to sit there and try and operate on it.

But if there's something going on in my head, somehow we feel like it is okay to give advice that we're not qualified to give, myself included, like, in terms of that, right.

Where you need a professional, a neurologist who really understands it.

And so I think that a lot of it is just opening up the conversation.

I think sometimes when things are heavy, people are afraid to talk about them.

Right?

And depression and suicide are two of those words that people just.

They'd rather just not think about it or talk about it.

I don't think that's helping anybody.

I think you put some sunlight on it that helps the people that are dealing with it, helps other people who want to help, frankly, but just don't know how sometimes.

But I remember in the nights after burglary, and I have neighbors on either side.

I was sleeping with the lights on and with music, like, pretty high in terms of volume.

And one of my neighbors was like, are you okay?

Like, is everything okay?

And I was like, look I was like, there's two ways to look at this, which is that, yeah, I'm doing some stuff that's maybe not the most normal.

Like, I'll agree to that.

I, I was watching Beauty and the Beast every night.

It's like fall asleep.

Agreed.

Right.

That's not normal.

It's not going to be forever.

But if this is the way that I can get to sleep and wake up in the morning and do what I gotta do, what's wrong with it?

It like, yeah, no one's saying that it's normal.

But you know what?

Just frankly, being in the dark right now a little bit scary for me.

So I'm gonna sleep with the lights on as long as I'm actually sleeping for a period of time.

Obviously everyone knows that's not a long term solution, right?

But if I'm doing it that way, like, give people some grace, like, who cares?

Who cares if it works?

Who cares?

And there are some friends that I've just had to sort of maybe keep it a little bit more of arm's length because of the whole just get over it mentality.

And I'm like, look, just because you don't see what's happening and don't understand what's happening doesn't mean it's not real.

It also doesn't mean that by me being honest about it.

And this is where I get really disappointed sometimes when people are honest about their vulnerabilities, other people will use it against them.

Like, nope, I'm honest about it and I talk about it.

Because that's part of the equation, identifying it.

The other part is that I got to learn how to manage it.

And that's okay, right?

That's the hand that I've been dealt for now.

And I'm going to play those cards.

Everyone's got emotions if they're honest about it.

No matter what it is that you've been through, whether it's sort of the heavy stuff that you're talking about or even sometimes, Right.

It's the getting a be on a science test might really weigh you down.

Yep, things are going to happen, good things, bad things.

And your job as a human being is to learn how to manage through them, not to pretend like they're not happening at all.

And like, if you want to be supportive to somebody else.

If there's one thing that I could tell people is that, and, and I was very much an advice giver in the past and had to learn this through volunteering as a crisis counselor, which is that the best Question that you can ask somebody instead of jumping into advice mode is what would be most helpful to you?

Because what would be, to your point about the triggers are different for everybody.

What would be most helpful to you might be, what would be different than what's most helpful to me?

But that's the goal, right, is just to figure out what's most helpful to you.

Now what makes me, the person that's watching you in pain, feel more comfortable or makes it easier for me?

Yeah, yeah, 100% you, you're absolutely right.

And, and it is so important.

You know, sometimes, you know, people say, well, I'm not a counselor, I don't know what to do.

You know, you don't have to do anything.

You have two ears, one mouth.

And there's a reason for that.

You know, I've had veterans call me at 3 o' clock in the morning and they'll be crying.

And the things that we talk about aren't trauma related.

We're talking about the weather, we're talking about our favorite sports team.

It's, you know, changing that, that topic.

You know, I don't need to re, bring up your trauma.

You called me with it already in your head.

Let's, let's give your mind a break and let's take the focus away and let's talk about some good stuff, some funny stuff, some news related stuff, whatever you want to talk about.

And then we can come back to that if you want to.

But, but just trying to fight through it is not the time to try to, to say, okay, let me solve this, you know, let me, let me get you back to a plane.

And that's right.

And once you can get there, then we can work forward, however long that takes.

You know, I use this example.

There's a, a veteran musician that, she's on our radio station.

Her name's Barbara Sim.

You know, shout out to Barbara.

She, she awesome, awesome former Marine.

I guess they don't like to be called ex Marines, but they, she wrote a song called the Long Way Home.

And that song came from the fact that her therapist told her, you know, you really should be better by now.

And she said, well, I guess I'm taking the long way home.

And, and it became a song and, and awesome, awesome song.

I love it, you know, but it is so true.

That path is never straight lined.

It's going to have a lot of curves and there's going to be a lot of moments in them.

Some are good, some are bad.

And for me, what helped me without realizing it was when I wrote my first book.

I didn't even know it was going to be a book.

I wrote a document to my family because I never talked about my trauma and coming back.

You know, it literally numbed them because I would come home from a deployment and tell them, oh, everything's great, another day in the office, you know, And I remember that how much that changed my wife because I wasn't being fair to her.

I thought I was protecting her.

But I remember the first time I deployed and she was at the tarmac with tears in her eyes and everything.

And the last time I deployed, she rolled over, gave me a kiss and said, see you in a year.

And that's how numb it had became because I didn't share any of that trauma.

But then when I hit rock bottom, I pushed my family away because they didn't understand what I was going through.

And so I wrote this document because I wanted to finally share that.

But I didn't want to do it with a conversation.

I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole of questions.

Right.

I wanted to give you the facts of what happened and let you do with whatever you need to do with it.

My daughter asked me to publish it and so that's how it became a book.

But I discovered that when you write that, you thinking of yourself in a third person.

Now I'm writing about a character and it allows me to judge that a little bit and I can start seeing where things went wrong.

You know, I wrote about my childhood, which was not traumatic.

And then you get into traumatic events and now my, my decision making process of things I'm doing, you know, is not normal.

The old me would never have sat and played online poker until 15 minutes before PT, you know, and, and those addictions and those way you start coping, you start seeing that when you can step out and, and write it down.

And I tell a lot of people, it doesn't have to be a book.

You don't have to share with anybody.

Just put it on a computer, document, write it, type, it doesn't matter.

But think about as you're putting it down and focus on that and it'll identify a lot of the areas where, like you just said, oh, not every night is going to be somebody breaking in my house night, you know.

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of value, There's a few things you said there that, that I think are really interesting.

There's a lot of value in getting it out of your brain because I didn't know this, but Amazon came to the door at 4 in the morning.

Because I, I, when I, when I think of things and I know that, I mean, I like, just with my schedule being busy, I may not be able to get to the store.

I will buy them on Amazon if I can.

Amazon came to the door at 4 in the morning.

I just happened to be awake.

I see somebody.

I didn't realize that it was Amazon.

I see somebody on my front porch with a flashlight shining it into the house.

This was six months ago.

And I just kept on.

The only thing that I could say and I just kept on shouting this to my husband, who's home and asleep, poor thing, was, there's someone at the door.

There's someone at the door.

There's someone at the door.

And I couldn't explain what I saw.

I couldn't explain why.

And he was just like, like, look, it's like, just calm down.

Four or five hours later, once I had calmed down, I realized that's me ordering batteries off of Amazon.

Like, there's no reason for me to have reacted that way.

But someone did say to me, hey, that's, that's actually your brain getting stuck in a trauma loop.

And so it's really normal to repeat yourself.

But if I didn't know that and someone else doesn't know that, right.

That's the sort of behavior that people start to label as crazy.

Which really bothers me because, like, had.

Have we just been honest about, hey, this is actually a normal reaction to trauma, okay?

Like, I can cope much better if I understand that there's a scientific reason why something's happening.

Like, that information is, frankly, one of my, like, most helpful healing tools is understanding there is a scientific reason why your amygdala is stressed.

There's a way to migrate those memories out to your prefrontal cortex.

And here's things that need to happen.

And for some people, writing it down, work.

So after I got assaulted, I was so shocked by it.

And I'm like, not a passive person by any means in everyday life life.

But I was so shocked by it, especially because, like, this is what I was using to like, help myself heal.

I had to email myself after it happened, what happened.

And after I emailed myself, I still couldn't talk about it.

But I, we, about a week later forwarded that email to my husband and I said, okay, I'm ready to talk about this now.

And I was like, it's no knock on you.

It's not that you don't create a warm, safe space for Me, it's that it was just really hard for me to process that this even happened.

And so now other people look at that sometimes and they'll question like, oh, was it really that bad?

Like it took you a week to fart it.

Like you had to write it down and it's like, no, no.

Like this is a really normal trauma response.

Something that I was reading the other day that I thought was really interesting.

Was it so that, hey, if you're not somebody who writes things down, there's value in just saying it out loud too.

Right.

And so this way it doesn't just get stuck in your brain.

So find what works for you.

And as you said, that is going to be different for everybody.

But whether it's writing it down in a long form, writing it down in a short form, or just even speaking it out loud, I think is really critical to getting that out of your brain so that, as you said, those pathways can clear and it can become a more.

I probably would have the best vocabulary, like, almost like a more regulated normal memory as opposed to a traumatic memory.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny that, that we was talking and give some context about the old you compared to the new you.

Right.

I'm not going to mention no names, but it was in the news.

Our flight surgeon in a unit I served with after military retired, he went into his daughter's bedroom and she was missing.

And it was late at night and he went outside as this white car pulled up and he seen his daughter in the back of it and he instantly had the dude on the ground at gunpoint sprawled out calling the cops.

It was an Uber driver.

His daughter had snuck out and she called an Uber to bring her back home.

And I don't know that he, prior to everything that we seen, would have reacted the same way as he did there.

All he seen was a threat and his family was in danger.

And you know, it is, it is crazy how much it can grab a hold of you and change you by just something that no longer exists.

You know, it.

He's in a nice neighborhood.

You know, we're not talking about Compton or something, you know, we're.

We're talking about in a nice upper scale neighborhood.

And, and that threat is no longer there like it was when we were all over there.

And so it is, it is weird how, how much it changes.

And I think for, you know, for every traumatic event that that affects you, you know, you're got months to, to recover from it.

It's not, it's not a One for one, you know, what happened in 30 minutes so I can fix it in 30 minutes.

You know, that was probably the hardest thing for me to appreciate.

It really was because I'm very much a like fixer.

Let me go figure things out.

And about a month after, not even, I think it was three weeks after that guy broke into my house.

There's a hotel down the street.

And I remember thinking, I'm going to just try and spend the night at the hotel because let me see how I do in uncomfortable environments and let me.

And again, it was right down the street, just a couple blocks.

Like it was more of just a test to see how I would do.

I failed.

I didn't last through the night.

I was in that hotel room.

I was terrified and I had to go home.

And I went home and I realized I'm somebody who actually was really independent and really comfortable being alone before.

And I of had like very grateful being able to travel the world.

Would walk around New York when I lived there at 2am, walked down the streets of Paris in the middle of the night and I was like, oh, I don't know that I can do that anymore.

And one of my friends pointed out to me, there's like, I think that most people actually don't do that by themselves.

Like you were probably just fiercely independent in the other direction.

He was like, I'm a grown man and I don't really walk around at night like you do, so.

So don't be so hard on yourself that things are different.

And it's, it's hard because I almost feel like it's a failure where I'm like, oh, well now when I travel, I'd actually feel more comfortable if I had somebody traveling with me.

And I feel like it's like a failure in some way to say that.

Right.

Or admitting some kind of defeat.

And I need to get over my own ego.

And that's like, no, it's not like, okay, so you get nervous when the doorbell rings.

You know what the flip side to that is?

When somebody came at me, what did I do?

I fought and I knocked him out.

So like I can, I can focus on the, the negative piece of that which is, yeah, I'm, I'm sort of hyper reactive now if I feel threatened or I can focus on the fact that when someone came at me, I fought.

There's, there's two books that I read that just because you mentioned that, I just wanted to say so.

One is called all the Light We Cannot See and it talks about And I hope that's the right title.

I'll double check to make sure.

But the premise of the book is that you have the narrator speaking, and he's somebody who's in a movie theater when a shooting happened, and he killed the shooter.

And it talks about his perspective of what that means and how that's changed things.

And the narrator is a school teacher.

Right.

So someone who's designed to protect kids who then does this and how that changes him.

And one of the lines in the books talks about how he's reconciling himself to that fact.

And he's like, you know what?

He's like, yeah, I hurt somebody, but I was doing it in the name of protecting other people.

And that really makes me a noble warrior.

Right.

I had good, good intentions overall.

I wouldn't have done what this if I didn't have to.

And that was one of the scary things for me, was realizing, thank goodness I was home alone, because if someone else had been in the house, I might have fought even harder.

My instinct was, disabled person run away.

But if somebody else was there that I had to take care of, that's when you realize there's maybe some more fight in you or some.

Some.

I call it darkness.

But it's not really that in you that you might not have thought.

And I used to read before bed every night post burglary.

I'd have the energy.

I was just tired, and so that's when I was watching tv.

And more predictable tv.

Right.

No surprises is really helpful for people that are, like, recovering from trauma.

But his books were one of the first ones that I read that sort of, like, were a little bit easier reads, but still thoughtful.

The one that I read this year called My Friends, it talks about this and it talk what you're talking about in terms of demons and the friends of the person who's struggling.

One of them says in the book, I prayed not for someone to come save you.

He's like, I prayed for your demons to leave you alone.

And I just thought that was such a powerful image.

Right.

It's like no one.

No one wants them chasing them around.

No one wants them.

Like, if someone could let it go, let me tell you, every single one of us would.

We're not holding to it because we want to.

Yep.

And.

And the part that a lot of people don't understand is, is that one event has now turned everything that's stressful into mountains.

You know, it might be a molehill, but your anxiety is going to dwell on it and you're not going to just be able to, to put that in my back of my mind.

I'll deal with that later.

It's not a big deal, you know, but now everything's a big deal deal.

And that was, that was the part that hurt me.

I mean, I struggled.

Yeah.

You know, here I am running my own trucking company and, and you know, everything that, I mean, nothing goes right when you're trucking.

I mean, every day something's gonna happen.

Yeah, I'm sure.

You know, but everything was top emergency and everything can't be top emergency.

You know, you just, you just burn yourself out.

I know we're getting to the top of the hour, but I want to, I want to hit on the.

This last topic.

You're playing guitar.

I think that is so cool that, you know, you're not looking to be a musician, but you do it once a year just to just approve a look.

I can do it.

I can get out of my comfort zone.

I don't like standing in front of a bunch of people and playing, but I can do it if asked to do it.

I think that ties with what you learned during your trauma.

So, yeah, let me, let me rewind even further.

So that, that started after I lost a friend of mine to a heroin overdose.

So like I said, I'm 40 years old, grew up in New Jersey, and a lot of people around my age were to opioids at the time.

And when we were growing up, I remember him saying to me, you are good at everything besides having fun.

Which was kind of true.

Like I was a, I was a kid that like loved school, loved reading, like I, I enjoyed it.

I still do to this day.

And he's right.

Like, I was pretty good at most things.

Wildly unathletic, but pretty good at most things besides having fun.

And so on the year anniversary of his passing, I'm thinking, okay, I can sit here and I can cry my eyes out, or I can do something that I've never done before, which is play in front of other people.

And I did not know what I was doing.

I had a couple friends who helped out, but I played a three hour acoustic set at a dive bar down the street the first time that I played, which is again, a function of not knowing what you're doing.

Yeah.

And I wasn't very good, to be honest.

Mediocre.

Right.

But when you're playing songs that people like, that's what they care about.

They don't care whether or not, like I'm perfect or not.

They care about, are they having a good time?

And I did it and I remember thinking I'd be one and done because it makes me really nervous to do.

And instead, over time, I actually went and I went and got singing lessons just because, like, hey, if I can get better, I can get better.

And the point is, like, I do devote and pour so much for myself into my job.

Why don't I pour more of myself into something that brings me so much joy?

And so now I've done it 10 times.

Again, I don't do it that often.

I would love to practice with other people, but just don't always have the time for the best schedule.

Like, I'd be a bad bandmate, but I love doing it because it's difficult.

It's not something that comes naturally to me.

And in the end, I think music is one of the best medicines out there.

And if I love it and I know that I feel better when I hear certain songs, why not spend an evening trying to remind people it's of.

Of songs that, that brought them Joy too?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

I'm.

I'll hit a little bit on this after the show, but yeah, music is, is definitely a great place.

I have also discovered that a lot of veterans turn to stand up comedy and, and to me, that's scary because, yeah, you get up there, there ain't nobody else.

It's you and a crowd and it's either you pass or fail.

And you know, somebody that's dealing with ptsd, you're putting a lot of stress on yourself.

But a lot of people have told me how, how, how much it has helped them.

Yeah, to be able to go up there and, and bond with the audience and, and tell stories, you know.

Now a lot of these, we're not talking about people are standing in these big shows, arenas.

We're talking about people that are at vfw, having shows at and stuff like that.

But I don't care if it's six.

People, you know, so the last one I did, it was a rainy night, so the bar wasn't that crowded.

But for the first time, again, I've been playing first picked up a car when I was like 12 years old, but I've been playing off and on and more diligently over the last few years.

But my parents were there for the first time and, you know, it didn't matter that there weren't a bunch of other people there, it didn't even matter that they really are not quite as familiar with the music.

You could tell that they enjoyed watching it and just enjoyed seeing like that part of my.

And that more than anything made me so happy where it's like, I am so sorry.

I'm so appreciative of all the guitar lessons you drove me to.

I'm so appreciative of all the things that you encouraged me to do.

And here I am doing it later just for the joy of it.

It's not going to make me any money, it's not going to necessarily make me better at my job, but it does make me a more well rounded human.

And I think that's important.

Important?

Yeah, it, it, it brings another side to you to help you bond or, or understand somebody that's coming from a different angle and, and that's how we become human, you know, and how we, we make these changes that, that so desperately needs to happen from like you said earlier from COVID So, you know, the, the last question is kind of always a fun question for me, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna tailor it a little bit different.

Normally I ask who you'd bring to dinner, but since we both like metal, you said earlier that you liked heavy metal.

I'm a White Zombie fan, so what metal band, if you could bring to a party to perform for you at a private party, who would you want to hear?

I probably have too many answers to this question.

So I will say, like a good New Jersey stereotype, love Bon Jovi.

Absolutely love it.

Love the transformation, love their longevity over time, but only because this is recent.

When I was in high school, for whatever reason, I went to the mall, I bought the Def Leppard CD Vault, and I listened to that non stop in my Chevy Cavalier.

And there is just something so comfort.

Every song on that album is so good and there's something so comforting to me about that.

So.

So if not Bon Jovi, I will tell you, Def Leppard was probably one of my favorites just in terms of, you know, the music is, it is especially interesting as a woman, just because people think of metal as not necessarily being a welcoming, safe space for women overall.

And I feel like it's music that it, it's complicated, it's beautiful.

It is so much more interesting and intricate than people give it credit for.

And frankly, someone who like, loves guitar solos, I miss it on the radio these days.

And the only place that you can find them today at this moment, really is kind of in country music.

And so I do think that probably Def Leppard, just because of those.

Those good old high school days, going to the Jersey shore, listening to Vault were very fond memories.

Oh, maybe.

Yep, we're back.

There you go.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know, you saying Bon Jovi and deaf leopard man sent some memories back to me.

I. I remember when you give love a bad name was on the radio.

I was, like, 8.

And I always remember listening to it when I was at a.

A Napa store sweeping the floors, because in the summertime, they would have me come in and do some, you know, janitorial type stuff, and then they give me money to go to the swimming pool, and then I'd get a little snack at the swimming pool and swim.

You know, I mean, I was learning at a young age that you had to work for what you wanted to do and that.

And then you said Def Leppard.

That was the first concert I ever went to, was.

Was a Def Leppard concert, so.

Absolutely.

Well, this has been a.

A great time.

I. I enjoyed the conversation.

We hit on a lot of deep things, and I think it is extremely important that we.

We talk about these things and.

And we.

We make the change.

So I appreciate you coming on.

I hope.

I hope you had a good time as well.

Very much so.

Thank you for having me, and thanks for the work that you do to.

To.

To help raise people's consciousness to the things that we talked about.

I appreciate that.

Well, you all take care.

Be safe.

Don't forget.

Don't let the day kick your ass.

Kick the day's ass.