A New Approach to Helping Veterans Thrive

In this episode of One Minute Can Save a Life, Dr. Julie Elledge shares how coaching—not therapy—can unlock motivation, resilience, and performance for veterans and their families. Drawing on decades of experience as a therapist and master certified coach, she explains how programs like Veterans Talking to Veterans empower veterans to support one another and build community-based solutions to mental health and life challenges.

Takeaways:

1. The podcast emphasizes the importance of understanding the distinction between therapy and coaching, particularly in the context of mental health support.
2. The utilization of nature as a therapeutic medium for veterans is a remarkable approach that fosters healing and connection.
3. Veterans talking to veterans creates a unique support system wherein shared experiences can facilitate understanding and empathy among peers.
4. The episode underscores the critical need for effective suicide prevention strategies and highlights the role of trained coaches in this endeavor.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. mentoragility.com
2. Veterans Talking To Veterans

For more information on mental health support, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

For more information on Prosper, go to the website

Foreign.

My name is Kent Corso and I'm your host for this episode of One Minute Can Save a Life.

While I am a licensed clinical psychologist, none of these guests are my patients, nor does anything I say constitute medical advice.

The views conveyed during our conversations do not reflect the views, positions, or policies of any private or public organization.

This is simply a series of conversations with people who have some connection to hardship, suicide, mental health, or loss.

There's so much we can learn from one another.

So let's get started.

Today.

Our guest is Dr. Julie Elitch.

Why don't you introduce yourself, Julie?

I'd be happy to.

First of all, I'd like to say thank you, though, Kent, for inviting me to be on your podcast today.

This is a great honor.

It's my pleasure.

I've actually been trying to get you on for months, but you are a busy, busy woman.

And so I'm really grateful we were able to find the time between our

two schedules of travel.

It is a peak moment here that we can do this together.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So tell our audience a little bit about you.

Some of those who maybe live near you in Wyoming may know you, but others may not.

So my name is Julie Ellage and my background is I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist for over 35 years and I've been a coach for over 20.

And I have three board certifications, including the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaches.

And I hold the highest credential in coaching called an MCC or a Master Certified Coach that is given by the International Coaching Federation.

It's not given.

You have to earn it.

But I hold that there's only about 2,000 of us in the.

In the world.

Oh, my goodness.

So I took that expertise and created the company Mentor Agility.

And then we have a program called Veterans Talking to Veterans and another program called Reclaim youm Voice.

And Reclaim youm Voice is a Department of Corrections coaching program and Veterans Talking to Veterans.

We train veterans and spouses to work with veterans and families.

Excellent.

And they do a lot of community work where they give back and hold a weekly 90 minute coaching session in the community.

It's free to all veterans and their family members.

So before we take a deep dive into coaching and Veterans Talking to Veterans, which is probably, I think, your most well known program.

Yes.

How long have you been in Wyoming?

How did you get into veteran work?

Give our audience a little background here.

Well, my husband's family has been going to wyoming since the 70s.

We're dating ourselves here.

And, and so we.

He started Taking me after we got married.

And then we, as we had children, we were taking them every year to visit.

And one day my kids started talking about, we want to move to Wyoming.

We love Wyoming so much.

And Rob and I finally looked at each other and thought, well, if you could give your kids that kind of passion and offer that to them.

So we moved there and it's been a great thing for both my kids.

And now they're adults with professional adults.

Fantastic.

That's outstanding.

So your kids loved Wyoming like so many of us do.

And those who find Wyoming might even try to keep it a secret so that the rest of the country, the rest of the world doesn't find out about it.

Right.

Because one of the beautiful aspects to Wyoming is its nature and its wide open spaces and some of just the majestic mountains and other sorts of gifts that you've got in that state.

Well, that is one of the things that really drew us to Wyoming was the nature, to the point that I've always worked with my clients and outdoors.

And so when we started working with veterans, we developed a program with the State Parks, Wyoming State Parks.

So, you know, when it's too cold out, maybe, which for Wyoming nights, it's rarely too cold, but when the weather is permitting, we really encourage our coaches to go out with veterans and their families.

So we have programming for veterans where our coaches collaborate with state park coaches and they take them outdoors and they do these wonderful things called Story Quest walks.

And so it's coaching outdoors, using nature as a co coach.

And it's great about getting people out in nature, but also walking and not even thinking about it really has a way of being able to calm down, somebody's in pain or things like that.

It's just nature is just a great healing force if it's used right.

So we have a wonderful partnership with State Park, Wyoming State Parks as well.

And also what an amazing concept.

So not only are you taking veterans and coaching them, but you're using nature as a medium or a conduit or sort of a pathway to make them feel maybe safe, make them maybe feel at peace or whatever folks feel when they're out in a national park enjoying that kind of scenery in that environment.

Why'd you pick veterans, Julie?

Well, I grew up in Point Loma and my husband grew up in Coronado.

And both of our families were military.

My parents were of World War II era.

And so everybody was involved.

My aunts, my mother, my father, my uncles were in the Air Force and test pilots.

So.

And we all Grew up three blocks from each other.

In my family, we're three blocks from each other.

So all of my cousins, we were all very much involved in the military life.

And.

And everybody around you has some connection to the military.

And then when I was a therapist, a brand new young therapist, I worked with a lot of military families who were down when they were downsizing the military, helping them to transition out, which was a hard thing for families, you know, especially.

I mean, it's hard already to go from a military career into civilian life.

But then also we were working with military that expected their entire life they would have a full life career in the military.

And so that was kind of a double jeopardy for them because they loved their military life.

And then they were downsizing, so they had to find new work, new ways of being a family than they had planned.

So that was my early work.

But veterans talking to veterans was born on the day that we pulled out of Afghanistan.

Oh, wow.

Is that just a coincidence or did you intend to launch it consistent with that mission ending and that whole movement of our troops and equipment and everything?

No, we were not focused on Wyoming at that time.

We were just because our coaching program, our training program is credentialed by both the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaches and the International International Coaching Federation.

So we were training people all over the place, all over the United States and the world.

And by 9 o', clock, I had received three phone calls from our coaches who told me that they had intervened with veterans who were suicidal that weren't even their clients.

They, like, were in the parking lot going and finding somebody who was suffering.

Oh, my gosh.

And so they.

We always tell our coaches that when you have some sort of traumatic event like that, you should be calling your mentor coaches.

And so I'm like, it's nine o'.

Clock.

That's how I found out that we were pulling out of Afghanistan.

So I knew the implications for veterans from growing up around the military and also my work with the military.

So to help our audience just a little bit, can you describe the difference between coaching and therapy?

Because someone who's a coach and someone who's a therapist might both have clients, but these are very different relationships.

So help our listeners understand the difference.

Yes, thank you for asking that question.

It is very clear we know the difference between therapy and coaching.

So therapy is driven by the insurance companies.

You must have a diagnosis and a treatment plan.

You have a diagnosis and a treatment plan, and you are treating mental illness.

Okay, got it.

In coaching, you are working with somebody's potential.

So you're focused on their performance, their goal achievement, their motivation, their resiliency.

And this is very clear.

A lot of times people think, oh, you have strong feelings, you need to be in therapy.

And that's not true.

Emotions are normal, both sides of it.

So it's very clear in the core competencies from the National Board for Health and Wellness and also the International Coaching Federation that you must know how to hold space for a client's strong emotions, and that also the coach must be able to manage their emotions as well.

Okay, so let me just sort of read that back to you.

Whereas therapy is the.

Is more like medical practice or a healthcare practice.

A therapist is a practitioner who's treating a diagnosis and has a treatment plan.

Coaching, by contrast, is when a coach is helping a client, but they're focusing on their strengths, they're focusing on their performance, Whether or not there are strong emotions.

They may be there, they may not be there.

But I think the key that you're getting at is it's.

It could be applied to their performance and their strengths in the healthcare arena or maybe in the occupational sort of professional arena.

There are various ways a coach could work with a client.

Is that right?

Yes, as a matter of fact, because a coach's expertise is motivation.

Ah.

Stimulating and activating their client's motivation.

Got it.

Their performance, their goal achievement, the resiliency.

So they're a thinking partner.

So the coach does not hold these solutions for their clients, but they.

Their job is to help them identify.

Be a thinking partner in order to identify their own ideas of what they want.

And setting goals, performance, motivation, all of those things that lead to your potential.

Okay.

So even though some therapists use motivational strategies.

Strategies to help their clients meet their goals, that's not the same as a coach whose entire job it is to motivate that client to meet their own goals.

Not treatment goals related to a diagnosis, but let's just say life goals.

Yes.

And they are sort of a partner to help that client be their best version of themselves, leverage all their strengths, bring all their abilities to the table to build on that motivation for whatever goals the client has.

Yes.

And in addition to that, building new skill sets as well, and finding reservoirs of resiliency, for example, and tapping those into those for their motivation.

Okay.

Now, a lot of times, coaching and therapy describe this way.

Therapy is about the past, Coaching's about the future.

Hmm.

That's not really.

That's not fair.

Yeah.

Because a coach, One of the concepts we teach in Coaching is an African untranslatable word, which means that in that culture, it's such a highly valued concept that they've given one word to that idea.

But we would all know that idea.

We just don't have one word for that.

So the word sankofa means to go.

We go to the past to fetch what we need for the future.

Sankofa.

Sankofa.

So it's a.

We don't go digging around.

Coaches do not go digging around in somebody's path.

But sometimes a person has to go, now, when was I successful?

In the past.

I see.

What did I do in the past?

Now, how can I take that back?

Back into the future?

That's one example.

So it's not such a clean cut, past, future orientation.

But we have to use our skill sets, our memories, our knowledge, our lived experience and bring that forward in order to create success and growth in our future.

So there are times where you're identifying moments in your history of learning.

Whether you learned from a positive experience or negative experience.

There was a light bulb that went on.

Learning happened.

You're sort of digging back into your own past to find specific things that only you understand.

Right.

Because you did them uniquely as a person and then you're applying those to some sort of a current or future situation.

Yes, that's precisely with one caveat.

Okay.

We train our coaches to never say, so what happened to you when you had that experience?

Okay.

Coaches are not allowed to go digging around somebody's past curiosity.

Let's unpack that experience, and so on and so forth.

Why not?

Why can't they?

Why can't they help people unpack stuff like that?

Because you can trigger trauma.

The mind doesn't know the difference than something really being experienced in that moment or if they're really living it.

So we have guardrails in terms of, okay, the client brings up that past.

Okay, there's techniques to take what you need, what you've learned, and move it into the future.

But no digging around.

So don't we call that trauma informed care?

Yes, yes.

And just for our listeners, can you quickly describe trauma informed care, what that means as a concept?

So trauma informed care involves creating safety, for example, for the clients, so they feel safe, they feel a sense of connection.

And it's used in nursing and a lot of different areas coaching.

Our coaching system, though, is views it a little differently.

It aligns with creating safety for the client.

But we don't look at a traumatic event as that somebody's broken by it or that they have to have therapy.

Some people do.

20% would benefit from therapy, but 80% use that experience to go on and to grow from it, either immediately or in the future.

So what our training methods were, see that traumatic event as normal and that the their life has to reorganize around that traumatic event.

And when you say normal, I think that's a word that can carry judgment and stigma and things like that.

So if we can unpack this.

This isn't coaching, but I do want to unpack.

Unpack the word there.

What you're saying is the trauma someone's experiencing is normal, given they were exposed to that situation.

In other words, the reaction they are having is understandable in light of the situation that they experienced.

Yes.

And the language we usually use around this, which I think is a little bit more clear.

It may be extraordinary in my life, this event, but the fact that you had that experience is ordinary.

When we look at the human experience.

Interesting.

Okay.

Does that mean that many of us have had trauma whether we recognize it or not?

Yes.

Yes.

What the research they have various, but mostly they say about 70% of people will have a traumatic event in their life, which will cause a reorganization of how they think about their life.

And I think another important thing is trauma is traumatic.

Experience, by definition is an event that comes from the outside into the person.

The person.

It's outside of them, which causes a response inside of themselves.

Okay.

And what.

That internal response has a lot to do with how you navigate that experience.

Sure.

And I want to add, the oldest myth in the world is Guglamesh, and that is the first recorded example of a traumatic event and somebody's response to it.

So that's like 500 BC.

We all stand here because we have an internal capability of living through a traumatic event.

That doesn't mean it's not painful.

The ability to heal from it and to move forward is within ourselves.

So we have the capacity to pivot from, grow through, grow past, recover from anything that's traumatic.

Would you say that this is what they call adverse childhood events?

When you said 70% of people have had a traumatic incident, is that what we call ACEs or Adverse Childhood events?

They can be.

And a lot of people, guess what?

70% of military have had an adverse because they're part of the population.

Right, Got it.

Veterans cross every single domain of humanity.

So veterans have had adverse childhood experiences.

And a big misnomer is that people assume that the trauma or where they may get stuck in their healing process or their resiliency process is because they saw violence.

And that is not necessarily true at all.

Maybe, but it could be from a childhood event.

It could be because they were separated from their family at a critical, crucial moment and they were not there.

Maybe their child was hurt or something happened within their marriage and they couldn't be present.

So they feel guilty or bad about that.

So assuming why a veteran feels that way is quicksand.

Okay, so we shouldn't make assumptions that every veteran who has had trauma, that it's combat related trauma.

It could be military sexual trauma, it could be any type of trauma.

So let's not make the assumption.

Got it.

Now, how does your program help them?

How do your coaches help them with that trauma?

Well, there's no better person to talk to a veteran than another veteran.

True story.

And that goes for a spouse too.

Because our spouses and their families serve along with them.

They make sacrifices for our country.

So what we do is we train one veteran to be a force multiplier that can touch another hundred.

And so we train veterans and veteran spouses.

And once you've trained a veteran or a veteran spouse, it is like fire because now they see what they can do.

So when they're face to face, what happens is with our group coaching is you're creating camaraderie.

You're putting together not only the unit.

Right, right.

The familiar idea of the unit, or even older, the campfire.

Now you've also given purpose.

So now that veteran or the spouse who have a natural desire to serve, now they see their purpose and where they want to go.

And now we've given them powerful skills.

And we can't afford to not have veterans not at their best.

They're an important force.

It's a compassionate and it's an economic issue.

Not just compassionate, it's also economic because military is one of the best training forces in the world.

And so when a veteran is not fully engaged in their life, we lose leadership, we lose important skills.

And veterans often fill some of the most important jobs for our own safety, like law enforcement, fire, EMTs.

They're highly trained and they are coming out.

They need to be in the workforce.

Not only are they filling those jobs, but they are preferred.

So whether you're talking about JP Morgan Chase and their preferred hiring profile, or whether you're talking about Walmart or Home Depot and their hiring profile, there is a preference given to veterans.

And I don't say that in a discrimination sense.

What I mean is they preferentially look for veterans.

And the reason why is they tend to have excellent training.

They understand how to work within teams, how to work within complicated systems.

And they have this drive, this ambition, this energy, this commitment, this determination.

So I love what you're saying, Julie, which is that we cannot have our veterans suffering.

We cannot have our veterans be on anything other than their A game.

And I love the model that you're using to help them get there.

Because you're right, it is a force multiplier.

There are so many veterans who just have this inner need and drive to help.

And obviously that might mean helping other veterans or it might mean just helping their community.

So to be able to stoke that motivation and make sure that they don't have hindrances and barriers, that's an incredible thing for you to be doing that.

We know that since the wars in 9 11, there are over 50,501 C3 non profit companies that are centered around veteran issues.

So it's not as if this is some secret that our veterans need help or could at least benefit from some help.

So I love how you're doing that.

Thank you very much.

And we do a lot of work of working within, are either collaborating with nonprofits or training within a nonprofit or government entity or a business entity where we actually train those people.

So what we look to do is how do we make the most effective contact with the veteran so that the veteran has the best care that they can have.

And instead of having somebody that doesn't understand if somebody gets angry or regulates some way, well, like if you're sick, you're more likely to dysregulate because you're not at your peak performance.

What do you mean by dysregulate?

Sorry, that sounds like a technical term.

It's a clinical.

Yeah, it is.

It does sound like that.

If somebody just loses their cool, they blow up.

For example, Okay, A lot of times people blow up because they don't feel good.

And so our trauma informed coaching is not to treat them.

Oh, you're broken.

Oh, you war.

Oh no.

Actually that makes people stronger, not weaker.

Right.

Having experienced something like that, but to be able to regulate, to recognize, oh, that's trauma.

What it means is you change your approach so that person can bend, you can improve the interaction and you can access their motivation, their resiliency in that circumstances.

So is your vision that every employer in Wyoming and beyond would have a veteran who's employed there trained as a coach, that if other veteran employees are struggling at work, whether that struggle is because they just had a fight with their spouse or whether that Struggle is because their finances are in a tough spot.

Is that your vision?

Yes, actually, we.

And we're expanding.

We've expanded beyond the borders of Wyoming, but we're born in Wyoming, so a lot happens in Wyoming.

But by training employees, they can have a.

We can get people into their pocket of performance faster.

And so our level one training that is behind the veterans talking to veterans and the Department of Corrections program number one begins with trauma informed suicide prevention.

Thank you very much.

Prosper for being part of our program.

Happy to do that.

And once we have those three skill sets down, so some in companies, they may just stop.

This is a new program we're launching where they can just train that trifecta right there.

We call them the gateway trifecta classes.

So they can.

Because if they're, you know, answering the phones, for example, it can be hard.

You know, you have to pick up the phone and answer and deal with a lot of people who are ill or don't feel good or who are in pain.

So how can you make that the best experience for the person on the other side and for yourself so that you don't get caught up in the stress of hearing a lot of stories?

Secondary trauma.

But then we have courses and our coaches have all of this training.

Financial intelligence, the relationship to money.

But also financial coaching, not advising.

We have coaching and chronic illness coaching and healthy lifestyle.

We have coaching, group coaching, team coaching, and also workplace coaching.

So we teach trauma informed micro coaching.

But also what's appropriate in the workplace to keep your workforce at peak performance motivated.

That's right.

Yeah.

If this is all about motivation and performance, I think many supervisors or business owners would love to have that coaching in house.

Honestly, not just for the veterans, but for others, right?

Yes.

Well, that's what happened with the Department of Corrections.

Veterans talking to veterans started in the Department of Corrections and then it was very so successful that they then expanded it into all of the different properties and it's reclaim your voice.

Specifically specific to the Department of Corrections.

So the leadership found such benefit about how veteran performance and motivation was increasing that they said, wait a minute, this could be applied to all of our employees.

Yes.

And it was as successful and loved as much by the staff as it was the residents as well.

Got it.

So one other question here.

You're not just training employees, though, within organizations, you're training veterans to go out into their community, correct?

Yes.

Yes, that's our community program.

And in some organizations, what we're looking to do is do a veterans talking to veterans group at Work to support them at work as well.

So what I love about that is there are multiple doors for someone to find a coach, but there are also multiple doors for coaches to sort of walkthrough in order to reach people to coach.

Is that right?

Yes.

And this is.

In the world of coaching, you have.

For example, most people are familiar with athletic coaching for athletes.

Sure.

But then you also have executives who have coach.

Who have coaches, political figures.

These.

The.

No executive CEO of a big corporation would not have a coach.

They all have coaches.

Absolutely.

Yes, of course they do.

It is also the trending in hr.

It's the chain of being embedded in a group, in a team.

Because coaching focuses on motivation, performance, goal achievement, resiliency.

That's right.

And so those skills are needed in all those different areas.

There's marriage coaching, there is family coaching, parenting, things like that.

But as you talk about, like marriage and parenting and families, that doesn't mean that coaching is a replacement for therapy if someone wants that or needs that, right?

Oh, yeah.

They're very, very different.

Working a lot with.

My entire career, I have worked with families.

And therapy is different than, for example, marriage or family coaching because one's dealing with certain kinds of problems or diagnosis, whereas coaching doesn't treat mental illness.

Coaching is working on potential.

Okay, great.

And I think I'd love to have you back at a later episode.

Another episode, Julie, Because I think there are some nuances to what you're describing, and I think some of our listeners might be interested in understanding the difference.

There are a lot of people who might be having a bad day, bad week, bad life, and it's pretty hard to know, where do I turn, what do I need?

There's a lot of stigma.

There are tons of barriers.

So I think your point is well taken, that they're very different.

But I'd love for us to dive a little deeper into that at a later date because we're getting short on time.

So can we put a bookmark in that and come back to it at a future episode?

Absolutely.

All right, I'd love to.

Thank you for that.

Two things before we go.

If someone's listening to this and wants to be a coach, whether they're a veteran or not, how can they get more information?

Our website is mentoragility.com and that's Mentor

M E N T O R not mental, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you for making.

Because it sounds very close, but mentoragility.com and then pretty soon, veterans talking to veterans is on Mentor Agility's website.

Right?

Now, but they will be launching their own website because they are a separate 501C3 now.

Oh, so veterans talking to veterans has now become a nonprofit organization?

Yes.

Okay, great.

That's good for people to know.

And then let's say I am an employer or an organization or a municipal department of some kind.

And I'm thinking, you know what?

I've got a staff of 50 people and 10 of them are vets.

How can I get a coach?

How would I not become a coach, but rather find a coach in my area who might be able to work with my team?

Yes.

You can reach out to us@mentouragility.com and we can do a dating match.

A dating match?

Yes.

Like a date here.

Like eharmony for vets and coaching.

Yes, match match the coach to the organization and what they do because within once they have our training, they bring their lived experience.

So they off.

So each coach, we work to make each coach unique in how they actually they use all of our tools, but they have different specialties.

Of course.

You said healthcare versus maybe occupational goals or athletic goals.

Right.

That makes sense.

Okay, before we wrap up, this has been wonderful.

Thank you so much for coming on our show.

Anything else?

Any last thoughts that either something we haven't discussed or a tidbit you'd like to leave the audience with.

Oh, I just want to say thank you, Kent.

It's always good to have a conversation with you.

You are such a great listener.

I really appreciate very much the work that you do in suicide prevention.

You are too kind.

I am just trying to be part of the solution here, Julie.

And we know that suicide is actually more common than one would think.

And also, what's more common is people choosing not to end it, but rather choosing to live one more day, try one more day.

And sometimes that's all it takes is just focus on the next minute, the next 10 minutes, the next hour.

And we know from those who have attempted and lived, they will routinely say in very great numbers that, wow, I'm so glad I was alive.

That was not a good decision.

That is not.

That wasn't going to solve my pain.

So appreciate what you do, and thanks for your compliments.

Looking forward to hearing about the next steps.

I understand you might have a few new programs that you're developing.

So looking forward to having you on in the future.

Thank you so much, Ken.

Thank you for listening to this episode of One Minute can save a Life.

Take care of yourself.

Take care of your neighbor.

Be bold.

Ask the hard questions.

Because if you don't, who will.

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