Porter: 0:05

Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for personal values when dealing with each other and even within ourselves. Where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries and finding belonging. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are your people. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value. Welcome to Transacting Value. Today, as a discretionary warning, this conversation will talk about veteran suicide, its impacts and its potential remedies. If you or someone you know is suffering, call or text the free 24-7 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline 988. Go online to SAMHSA. gov or text HOME to 741-741 for free to reach a trained crisis counselor 24-7 through the Confidential and Global Not-for-Profit Organization Crisis Text Line.

Sergeant Q: 1:04

I learned that if I wanted to grow my business, I could only grow it so far with myself. But I really needed to focus on growing my people and they would grow my business.

Porter: 1:14

Suicide is considered an option for many people around the world. Veterans, convicts, students or doctors aren't discriminated against when trying to combat stress and potential remedies for the pain it causes. When we face trauma and become so burdened by its impacts, we begin to consider possible outcomes that seem valid but actually won't accomplish what we intend. While guilt, resentment and grief can lead to feelings of isolation, loneliness and depression, you're not alone, but when there's such a stigmatized view of suicide, mental health and asking for help, how do we discuss when we already feel like we hit bottom? Our next contributor says that suicide is never the only option, because you're never really alone. Although, after military service, we may not be physically co-located with our accountability partners like recruiters, drill instructors or squad leaders, we can still surround ourselves with like-minded people that will positively impact our healing journey. He's a Marine who left the battlefield for the mission field. He has formed apps for mental health and suicide awareness like Qa ctual and we Care, and he's a 2023 recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. Sergeant Q Aaron . Today we're talking our January core values of self-discipline, self-improvement and tenacity. Welcome to the podcast, welcome, and if you're a continuing listener, welcome back Folks, without further ado I'm, porter, I'm your host and this is Transacting Value. All right, Aaron, can I call you Q? I mean that's what you go by, right, Sergeant Q? Perfect, everybody calls me Q. It works All right, sick, so Q then, how's life, man, how you doing?

Sergeant Q: 2:41

This has been a really busy season. Of course, September is mental health and suicide awareness month, and so there's always a need for mental health teaching and suicide prevention, but this month it seems to be hyper-focused, so it's a super busy month for me. I'll be working with the Seattle Seahawks on Friday and the VA Health Summit, and so I'm going to be speaking at that event, and so it's just a lot of moving parts during this month. It's just super busy. You know how that goes.

Porter: 3:07

Well, sort of not quite to that extent, but so let me back up. All right, let me back up For anybody new to the show. Q and I are on a video call, right, and so we've had the opportunity to talk for a little bit before we hit record this go-around. You haven't. So, Q, let's just start at the beginning. Brother, who are you? Where do you live? What do you do? What sort of things have shaped your perspective?

Sergeant Q: 3:28

Yeah, that's a great question. That's actually a huge story I could spend an hour just talking about like the origin story of how I got here. But real quick down in dirty for you guys. I grew up in the mountains of Northern California in what they call the Emerald Triangle, which is Humboldt, trinity and Mendocino County. It was the marijuana capital of the country really, and I grew up right in the middle of that drug trade where my family were marijuana farmers. So I've watched the industry go from the Wild West to Main Street and so, living that outlaw lifestyle. I got exposed to a lot of craziness as a kid which really shaped, you know, my view of the world. From there. I knew I didn't want that kind of lifestyle and so I joined the Marine Corps, something with more structure, more routine, more discipline, where I could make a difference in the world. And so I joined the Marines very quickly, got recruited into First Anglico, which is a small special forces group in the Marine Corps. We're all forward observers. So I became a master parachutist, close combat instructor, naval weapon security manager man. I got to do some super cool stuff in the Marine Corps that I didn't realize, that not everybody else got to do, and so it wasn't until I got out and started working with veterans in the nonprofit space. So it's like oh, what do you mean? You didn't have an awesome time in the Marine Corps Like I had this great time. I deployed to Iraq in 2003. I lost a good friend of mine in 2002 over Afghanistan. His plane went down and I just felt like I owed it to him to go and fight, and so I volunteered for a tour in Iraq and I went and was an FO for the six engineers out of Portland, still working with Anglico, but attached to that unit. When I came back, I was really struggling with mental health and very quickly my marriage deteriorated. I lost my job and was living in my car and I'm like what happened? How did I go from being a top tier operator in the Marine Corps to not being able to buy groceries in the store? Something is going off my brain and I got to figure it out, and that started my journey into learning about mental health and how the brain operates. I built a small little janitorial company as I was figuring out how the brain operated. At the same time, I found the Lord and started research in the Bible and I found that what the scriptures been telling us for thousands of years is actually being proven by science today, and so I built a little program for myself to overcome trauma and was able to build my business from just me and one other guy to having over 143 employees doing almost $7 million in business in the last 15 years. Started the nonprofit, helped veterans just like myself overcome trauma, started an award winning nonprofit, received multiple awards from the Department of Veterans Affairs. I work with the Seattle Seahawks as the chaplain for the Task Force 12, which is 12 other veteran nonprofits and just trying to help other people who are struggling like me, dealing with suicidal ideations and taking the value of mental health and applying it to the corporate world. And that's what I really did. That scaled my business out was taking my military battle tactics, using them in business, but then taking this value of mental health, and I learned that if I wanted to grow my business, I could only grow it so far with myself, but I really needed to focus on growing my people and they would grow my business. And now that's what I'm trying to bring to the world is this set of values of valuing mental health, investing in your employees, and that's how you can grow your business and the nonprofit space. I've done the same thing and now these trips where I took veterans on were actually taking civilians as well, because there's been such a need outside of the veteran nonprofit space in the corporate world. So I work in that capacity as well. So that's real quick, down and dirty, like everything I do. There's a ton to unpack in there, and so I'll let you decide what we want to unpack and how we want to move forward into this conversation.

Porter: 7:19

Yeah, dude. So it's a first and foremost. I think what you're doing is unbelievably awesome how you've taken where you came from and translated it is pretty cool not to downplay it, but it's pretty cool. But finding an impact and finding ways to inspire other people to communicate the same message and broaden that out and actually build it into the movement that it's becoming Super cool. I feel like translating skill sets is like hey, we're going to put resumes together. Like okay, cool, that helps. But finding ways to get those resumes into job hires and those employees into people that become better versions of themselves, to build better businesses, to build more impactful messaging and more productive societies or members of like what are you doing? And you were a janitorial services company owner, what are you even talking about? Man? Like okay, let me back up. I think there's a few things that we can start with to help nail this down with a little bit more clarity. All right, this is a segment of the show called Developing Character. Developing Character. Developing Character Now to the point that you just brought up. It's all essentially starting with you figuring out how to take what you have to offer your strengths, your views, your biases, your value systems, whichever and all the above and go to somewhere more productive as a space for you to grow and thrive, not just survive day to day in your car. So, if you're new to the show, that's what the segment's about. Q, two questions, as vulnerable as you want to be man, totally up to you, but it's about your value system. And my first question, while we're talking about values, what were some of the values that you were exposed to growing up? They weren't great.

Sergeant Q: 8:58

You know, it was a lot of distrust of law enforcement. It was a lot of the outlaw lifestyle like what happens at home stays at home. You don't talk about that. And in the military that worked well. I mean, I had a top secret security clearance. I was a naval weapons security manager, so I didn't talk a lot about my job or anything like that. And so making the transition though from that military mindset if I got to hold everything back to I got to be an open book, was a really difficult, difficult transition. And so I wrote a book called Healing Through Service the Warriors Guidebook to Overcoming Trauma, and in the book I started out with this chapter and it's called the Three Mental Health Camps, and I talk about the victim camp, the denier camp and the silent majority. So when we talk about mental health, for any of us it's a subject that most people steer clear of. They don't want to necessarily talk about it or touch it because it makes them feel uncomfortable. And what I tell people is, especially if you're a leader and you've struggled with mental health, you need to be open and honest about it. But we aren't because we're too afraid of the people in the denier camp painting us as the people in the victim mentality. So we stay quiet, we don't really say anything about it because we really don't want to expose ourselves to any kind of criticism or ridicule. And I tell people the exact opposite, like, if you struggle with mental health, especially if you're a leader, you need to be vulnerable with your friends, your family, your employees. Because it changes the conversation for everybody. For the people in the denier camp, when they look at me and they say, well, you struggle with mental health and PTSD and you've dealt with suicidal ideations, I said, yeah, I deal with depression on a regular basis. It changes the perspective of what they think mental health crisis looks like and what somebody is struggling with mental health, what that is, and it changes their perception. For the people in the victim camp, it challenges them that they can do better and be better in their life. And for the people in the silent majority, it encourages them to step forward as well and say, hey, I struggle too, and that's how we can really change the conversation around this idea of mental health. Now, along the way, I've learned three really core values that I have, and in the Marine Corps we have core values honor, courage and commitment and they really drill that into you, and so for me, I took it a little bit of a step further and I put this into my company, into our ethos, and it's just my personal value system, and I think we should all have one is that I am honorable in all things. Number one. Number two I surround myself with people of high integrity. And number three if anybody asks me to violate rule one, I just refer to rule two and that has served me very well. And when I go into a new business arrangement or I hire a new employee or you know, somebody wants to be a subcontractor for me. I have that very blunt conversation with them about those three core values and if they cannot honestly live up to those, then we cannot do business together. And I don't just care about what you do in the office setting, I care about what you do outside of work, because what you do outside of work will affect my business positively or negatively and it could also damage the culture that I've created in my company. So those three core values that I have I have served me very well in my business and my nonprofit space and now, as I am moving into this sector of teaching other business owners, the same thing I have that very same blunt conversation with them is where's your value set and how do you use that to create culture in your business? Because your culture is what's going to drive your employees to perform. It's going to drive good behavior. It's going to be that guiding light, that when they're faced with opposition or they're faced with an opportunity to make a bad choice, they're going to be able to reflect back on that value system. Because if all you ever do is create a system of rules or humans, we're going to find a workaround, we're going to break them, but if you can give them principles where they can now be empowered, you educate, empower and encourage your employees. So if you educate them on this is the value system that we have, this is what we stand for here, you educate them on that and then you empower them to make decisions based on the values and the culture that we have in the company, and then all you have to do as a CEO, as a leader, is just come alongside and encourage them along the way, and they will build your company, they will make the good decisions and when they don't, you just hold them accountable to the culture that we've all created as one team. So I don't know if that answered your question exactly, but that's how I do it.

Porter: 13:28

I mean it does indirectly in the beginning, right? My second question was what are some of the values you've got now? But that's besides the point we already hit. What I started with, though, is what were some of the things that you grew up with and, all things considered, you didn't know Already. Folks sit tight, and we'll be right back on transacting value For the 3D printing industry, markets predict a 22.5% compounding annual growth rate and a potential $34 billion valuation by 2026. Quality production, customer care and customizable design will differentiate the market share. At M&W Precision, 3d printing gets expertly crafted in four dimensions In-house concept, designer collaboration, resin or FDM printing, paint and customization and quality customer care. To share the passion of two longtime friends with one-of-a-kind collectibles for your friends and family, check out MW Precision on Instagram, where creativity meets precision. What I started with, though, is what were some of the things that you grew up with and, all things considered, you didn't know, aside from the silent majority type theory, like it wasn't an opportunity to I don't want to say tell who you were like verbalized, but as an identification, as an awareness, to tell who you were at least that's what it sounded like and so then, moving through all of those things to identify that you had an opportunity, that one you had some strengths to, also the opportunity. And I think you know it was even maybe Robert Kiyosaki who said you've got to have capital and opportunity, otherwise you don't get success. You can't have one or the other right. Opportunity without capital is just a hope in a dream and Obviously, capital without the opportunity is wasted money from a business perspective anyways, I think when it comes to a personal perspective, in those opportunities it's the same parallel right. You've got to have an opportunity for growth and you've also got to have the ability or willingness to grow. You can't have one or the other. You can be as willing as you want, you can be totally capable to grow and change, but without the opportunity to showcase it, still just a hope in a dream. And if all you have is the opportunity but you don't have the capability, well then you go nowhere anyway. It's pointless. You're still in your car, I think between the two points though, dude, yeah, super well said, right. And then you talked about educate and empower and encourage. I'm not gonna continue repeating it for the sake of impact. I think it's powerful enough to stand on its own. But here's what I want to ask you about that now. You said you're working with other companies, or more specifically, ceos, business leaders, in these different types of capacities. Is that from a perspective of Let me help empower you to figure out more about yourselves yourself being some of these clients, or is it Let me help you figure something about yourself and gain clarity and presence to better help your business? What's the end game? Obviously not business model but end game.

Sergeant Q: 16:15

So when I first started doing this, I started investing in my employees and I realized very quickly that had a huge return on Investment and they were the ones who actually grew my company and scaled it and built it. Oh and so I want to be able to help as many people as I can, as fast as I can. I could go out there and try to Educate, empower and encourage anybody and everybody who comes across my path, which I do. But I really want to focus on leaders, and here's why, if I can train up a leader and they can value you growth and they can value mental health, then they can take this knowledge and use it to impact their sphere of influence. Sure, their employees, their friends, their families are already leaders. These guys are already leaders. They just need somebody to help direct them to how to be more effective. So if I want to impact more people, I don't want to build a bunch of followers. I'm not into building a bunch of followers. That's not what I do. I have a bunch of social media outlets, but I'm not interested in building followers. I'm interested in building leaders, better leaders that will create a better future for the next generation coming out. And if I want to do that, I have to affect the leaders that are already out there, that are already starting to grow and become Influencers in their different spheres. And so I look at industry leaders, I look at people who are starting businesses CEOs, hr directors who can have a very direct impact on their demographic. Because here's the thing people hire me to come into their company and give speeches and talk about leadership and do things like that, and it's great, it works. But it works ten times faster if I work with their leadership team. First, teach them these techniques, teach them how to value growth and how to value the mental health of their employees, and then I can come in and say whatever I want, and the leadership team can reinforce it day to day, because I can only make a very small splash in their pond. I can give this rousing speech and people are cheering. They think it's great, but what's the follow-up? What's the follow-on? What is coming next? Right, it's got to be reinforced by their leadership team, because I don't understand the culture as well as they do in their company, and so a great example for this is the Choctaw Nation. I work with the Choctaw Nation. They're the third largest Indigenous nation in the country. They're huge. They're out of Oklahoma and I've been back four times to speak with them to do different events. But I had to totally immerse myself in their culture and I work with their leadership team. So I train up their leadership team and then I'll go and do a big speaking engagement and then when I leave, their leadership team is prepared to do follow-on with all of these different groups that are coming up and needing help and wanting To understand mental health, because I can break down all those barriers. But then I leave and then so all of my words are empty. There's nothing there to reinforce it. So if I train up the leaders, they can have huge impact in that community and I've seen it. I literally have the data to back it up because I developed a. I have a small technology startup as well called Qactual and I developed a suicide prevention app and I can see the mental health of the demographic. They're all using this technology. They're doing a daily wellness check. Now I have no idea who the individual is, but I can see the group data, the aggregate pieces, and I can see. When I go in and I do an event, I can see this huge spike in their mental health and then when I would leave, it would be this big drop-off and I realized very quickly like Okay, that's not good, that's not good for anybody, so how do I keep this going? So I started working with the leadership and now I can see this huge spike when I come and show up and then it doesn't drop off, it stays pretty steady and it starts to slow down. Yeah, and then when we start to see where it starts to trend down, then they say, all right, Q, we want to bring you back. So I come back, I work with the leadership team, we do another event and whatever demographic they think is going to be valuable. A couple months back they really want to focus on female veterans and so I was like I'm not the best person to probably go in and speak to these female veterans. So I went in and I did my section on mental health. But then I brought in Erica Kelly, who is the retired command master sergeant of the Air Force, so, top of the top, she just retired from the Pentagon, close personal friend of mine. I brought her in because she's going to be able to bring more value to the conversation to female veterans than I ever could, and so it's doing things like that, and I can track those little data markers. They just called me two days ago to book me for another event out in March of next year, and they said it's not the leadership that's asking for you to come, it's the people. So there were people writing in said, hey, when's Q gonna come back? Hey, is he gonna be at this event next year? And so the proof is in the pudding. When you start investing in people and their mental health and Teaching them these very simple, fundamental truths about investing in personal growth, investing in the mental health of others, it changes the culture. But I can't do that. I can't. I have to train up the leaders, and then they're the ones who actually do the work. They're the ones who actually change the culture, and so that's what I'm focused on now in the business sector, and this has been new for me in the last six months of transitioning this from just working with veterans Into the business sector, and it's taken off faster than I could ever imagine.

Porter: 21:29

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Sergeant Q: 22:38

And this has been new for me in the last six months of transitioning this from just working with veterans into the business sector, and it's taken off faster than I could ever imagine.

Porter: 22:50

You know, I think a sort of subtle irony here is what's the expression? You can take the man out of the forward observer position, but you can't take the forward observer out of the man. You know, you're still sort of prepping the environment for follow on actions, so to speak, and I don't know that's sort of why I was smirking as you were describing that, because a lot of that is still present, you know, and it's a niche skill set, I think, within the military, specific to at least the Marine Corps and obviously all the capability that you provided as a result. But now, what are you really doing different conceptually? What are you really doing different? You're finding the problem sets, finding ways to target more specifically, effectively and efficiently those issues, in this case, mental health, obviously, suicide prevention, leadership to a certain degree, I think, a little bit more maybe third to that list and then doing something about it. You know, hey, you need to whatever shift right, shift left, add, drop, so to speak, and really get people to either bracket for positive effects and creep, if necessary, for follow on activities. Man, and I think it's super cool. Maybe you didn't put it together that way before, maybe you did, but as you're describing it now super cool. And so when we're talking about a lot of this stuff, that you're working with the Seahawks and you said the Cherokee Nation, was it Choctaw, choctaw?

Sergeant Q: 24:00

And I just started working with the Cherokee Nation. Actually, the technology that I built was having certain great effect in the Choctaw Nation, and so they shared that with the Cherokee, who were having similar struggles, and so they contacted me and said hey, we got your contact from the Choctaw Nation. Whatever you're doing there, we'd like you to do it here. And I was like, okay, cool. So I set up a meeting with them to give them my pitch on. This is what I can do, this way I can provide. And about three minutes in they said you like it's fine, we don't need the pitch, we just want to sign. We already saw what you did there. We just want you to come and do that here. I was like, oh, okay, they're like we just have to get you in the budget for next year. So just send us the price, send us the contract. We're going to sign it and next year we'll work out the details of getting you out here and doing the events and just everything you did for them, do for us Ice man.

Porter: 24:48

Okay, congratulations, thank you.

Sergeant Q: 24:51

Yeah. So the Choctaw I'm working with the Muckleshoot tribe locally out here in Washington right now. I've been consulting for them, building a mental health program for them, and now the Hawaiian Royal Guard. I was just over there two weeks ago working with the Hawaiian Royal Guard. They've had a series I can't give you the exact numbers because it's alarming how many suicides they've had since the fires have happened over there and so they're like we need help, and so I've been trying to do everything I can to try and pour into that community and help them build a mental health program. But for them they need counselors on the ground right now, and so that's a huge need. It's not something that I provide is mental health counseling I have a whole program but it's something that I have resources that I can help them get in contact with. That's one of the really cool things. Being in this position now I can't solve the problem right, but I know a guy who can, and so I have this huge network of other people that I work with that will help different areas. And so a great example not to get off topic, but a great example was yesterday. I had a law enforcement officer that had gone through my program a couple of years ago and helped him when he was struggling with mental health. A combat vet, and now he was working for Seattle PD. And great guy, fantastic guy, and he went through my program, great guy. Now he's working for another police department and they had an officer be arrested for domestic violence and he was threatening suicide. And so he reached out to me and he says how can I help this guy? I'm like I don't have that emergency care, but I got somebody who can provide it. And so that's what I did. I contacted this other group that I know that works in this space and I was being able to liaise on to get him, get this officer connected to this group, get all the paperwork streamlined within a matter of 30 minutes so this officer could go from custody to care as soon as he gets out. So after his arraignment, when he bails out, he's going to go from custody to care. And so this is a guy who'd been struggling with mental health already. He'd been asking for help, he was self-medicating with alcohol and got himself in trouble and then felt like his life was over and was threatening suicide. And all of this stuff happened like super quick. So they reached out to me, I was able to connect them. So that's one of the really cool things that I get to do is connect other people because I work in this space and so to be able to plug people in when they need reasonable persons. I don't have to solve all the problems, but I just have to have a network of people who can and plug them in where they're needed. So that's something that I get to do. That is, I guess, a fun part of my job. It's to be able to connect other people into areas where they can specifically make impact.

Porter: 27:29

Yeah, and I think trying to find ways for people not only to help each other but obviously to help themselves is huge too, and obviously there's some degree of honor in that. But there's plenty of people let me say this in the world I don't think it's a secret, I'm not airing anybody's specific dirty laundry here but there's plenty of people in the military and obviously out. But generally speaking, within that range of time of end of contract pick however many in doesn't matter, but end of contract give or take a few months to then reintegrating into society give or take a few months where a lot of that self medication I think is more prevalent in that window. Maybe it started years before, maybe it last years after, but more prevalent in that window because there's a lot more unknowns, a lot more uncertainty, a lot less self awareness, a lot less self confidence, a lot less self esteem and self identity and all of these crises that come into play, generally speaking, that ultimately lead to self medication. And so when we're talking about boundaries or coping with stress, or even just identifying stressors, that they even exist in your life and you're not just accepting that it's normal anymore maybe that level of stress was normal for years, and then you get out and you're like, well, hold on. Now maybe it's not, and so, for whatever reason, people are deciding to self medicate, let's say within a span of one year, with the middle point of that event being end of contract. How do you recommend and I guess really for the second time is my last question too but how do you recommend people start becoming aware and finding positive outlets to self medicate, because it's not always bad. But in your experience, what are your thoughts?

Sergeant Q: 29:03

This is something I really advocate for. My digital mental health platform is set up on the peer support model. So here's part of the problem in our society now, we are so afraid to do anything because we're afraid of the repercussions, we're afraid of failing, we're afraid of doing the wrong thing. You can watch videos of people where there's been a car accident and everybody's standing there with their phones recording it. But they're too afraid and we ask them like, why didn't you help extract this person out of the car? Oh, I was afraid that would hurt them. I was afraid that you know, if I got them out of the car that I'd paralyze them and then I would somehow be liable. The guy is burning alive in the car. Okay, he paralyzes at least of his worries. Get him out. And so that's a graphic example of what we deal with on a daily basis, because there are people who are on fire right in front of us every day with their mental health and we're too afraid to say something, we're too afraid to ask the questions, we're too afraid to confront them on this dangerous or bad behavior or self-medication, because we don't want to say the wrong things, we don't want to be liable all of these different things. So we really just want this hands-off approach I call it the Judge Wopner mentality. Right, don't take the law in your own hands, take them to court, like there's going to be a professional that can take care of this or, you know, there's somebody else that can handle it, and that mentality is detrimental to us as a society. We need to be involved in one another's lives, and so peer support is huge Having a small group of friends that you know and trust, that you can support and can support you when you're struggling with mental health. And so there's a couple of really big lies that we tell ourselves. Number one is that I don't want to be a burden to my friends. I should just be able to handle this as a man. I should just be able to handle my own stuff. Well, the idea of a self-made man is a bunch of BS. You need a team. We knew that in the military. Right, nobody went off to combat and went and John Rambo and fought the war by themselves. Right, you had a team, you had a squad. The Department of the Army did a 40-year-long study to determine why the military was so successful in the battlefield, and then narrowed down to one element the squad. Because we fight in squads we're more successful because every member of the squad values the squad over themselves, and therefore they're going to fight harder and longer to stay alive because they don't want to let their squad down. And so the same is true for us. When we leave the military, we kind of leave our squad and we're out here on our own. So you have to recreate a squad two or three guys that you know and trust, that you can support. The best way to build mental resiliency is to help other people, and so there's countless studies out there that prove this fact. There's a really cool one done by the Parks Department in Canada, where they showed that going out and serving your community and helping other people built mental resiliency. Those people were more well-adjusted to handle trauma because they were out serving other people.

Porter: 31:51

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Sergeant Q: 32:59

going your community helping other people build mental resiliency. Those people were more well adjusted to handle trauma because they were out serving other people. The lie that we tell ourselves is that number one, I can do it all my own, which we know is not true. There's studies that prove it and the second one is that I don't want to be a burden to my friends and family. Now, the exact opposite is true. When we are asking for help from our friends, we're giving them an opportunity to build their own mental resiliency, and so that's what I really want people to understand is that we are the first responders for our friends and family. So this is why we take CPR and first aid classes right Is because we want to be able to help somebody if they're choking. We want to be able to help somebody if they're bleeding, if they're hurt. We want to be that first responder to stabilize them so we can get them to the professional medical treatment that they need. The same can be true for mental health right. We can be that first responder that can help them get to the professional mental health treatment that they need. And so there's a lot of fear and trepidation around trying to help somebody with their mental health needs, but there doesn't need to be. It's very simple. It's asking simple questions Like ask them hey, man, are you feeling OK? Are you thinking of harming yourself? You're like, I don't want to put that in their head, that's not going to happen. Asking those questions gives that person a second to think like, no, I'm not OK, no, I do need some help. Then you don't have to fix the problem, you just help get them to the professional treatment that they need and then just walk alongside them as they're going through that process of healing.

Porter: 34:34

Well, and that's the difference, right, you may, in effect, be putting it in their head for the first time, but what you're also doing is encouraging and empowering in that process along the way. That's right, building an, in fact, potentially even introducing a sense of belonging that they didn't feel like they had. So you may be the one to introduce some of these thoughts. That's just the reality of it, and there's no way to know that we're not mind readers, but the certainty is you are also the one offering help or the ability for them to realize. Maybe we can do this together if I can't do it on my own, or I don't have to do it on my own, and that's huge, and for the sake of time, I know you've got a life to get back to and you've got work, probably at this point to finish as well. But if anybody wants to find out more about you, check out Qa ctual or obviously anything else about your career, your bio, any of these awards, you as a speaker, or just maybe book janitorial services, I don't know, in whatever capacity find out more about you and work with you. Where do you want people to go? How do people track you down?

Sergeant Q: 35:32

Really cool. I've got a ton of socials out there. You can look up Sergeant Q, so it's S-G-T-Q, so don't spell out Sergeant, just S-G-T-Q. You can throw that in the old Google machine and you'll find tons of stuff about me, articles and things like that. Sergeantq. net, so S-G-T-Q. net. That's my main page. You can see a lot of the stuff I do there. You can see a bunch of my social media feeds. I would say follow me on social media. I give out a ton of tips. Every Monday I do a Mental Health Mondays video where I talk about different mental health components, and then on Tuesdays my podcast comes out. It's called the Mental Health Janitors. We help you clean up the mess in your head. So that's really great. It's an hour of me. I work with another combat vet. She's gone through my program as well and now she's a mental health counselor. She is a licensed counselor, she's got her master's, she's going for her doctorate. We sit down for an hour. We unpack different mental health tools that are out there, different technology that's coming out, and then she puts me through a little mini therapy session at the end. So we'll talk about these mental health tools in the beginning and then at the end. It's like a little five to 10 minute mental health counseling session, and what we do there is we really want people, we want to break down the stigma, like I'm afraid of counseling. I don't know what it looks like, and so we break that down so that people can see what counseling looks like. So she uses all these different techniques. Every week it's a different one. I never know what it's going to be. I just get to be the training dummy, right, and she puts me through these things and, honestly, it's not fun, because I have to be super vulnerable in front of millions of people who are going to watch this podcast, because once it's on the RSS feed and on YouTube it's there forever and so people are going to see me going through this counseling. But it's there to show people what it looks like, break down the barriers, take away the stigma, and so we have the mental health genders that you can check out On Facebook. If you follow me on Facebook, I had Sergeant Q, I have a private group called Workplace Wellness, and so if you go on my Facebook, you can find it. If you're a leader, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're somebody who's wanting to go into leadership, that's where I talk about these things really in depth Is how do you help somebody on their mental health journey, what is the relationship bank? How do you add value to others? How do you value personal growth? And so it's all free. It's free information there. If people like that and they want to go deeper, I do some private classes from time to time where I'll train people in small groups of 10 how to take these concepts and apply them specifically to their environment or specifically to their business model, and so that's how you can find me A lot of stuff on social media TikTok, instagram, youtube, all of that stuff, man, I'm everywhere, sweet sweet.

Porter: 38:11

Well, for everybody listening to this conversation, depending on the streaming platform you're using, click, see More. Click Show More. Scroll down in the show notes or the description for this conversation and the links for Q's social and for his podcast, for his website. They'll be in there. You can click on them and Q, that way people can get to you as well if they're already listening to this. Anyways, frankly, it's probably the least I can do. Super cool man. I appreciate the opportunity to come in and sit and talk, obviously to monopolize some of your time for a little bit, but all things considered, dude, what you're trying to accomplish and obviously what you've proven that you are accomplishing is that much further multiplied by doing shows like this and I don't mean specific to mine, I mean shows like podcasts. It's not speaking at stadiums or arenas or conferences or whatever right, but in digitizing your perspective, it's giving everybody an opportunity to replay it. They may not need it today, but they might forget it tomorrow and they might need it in two years, and so things like this and your willingness to continue doing things like this and take time out of your schedule as busy as frankly it sounds it is is huge. So I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of that journey. Come in and help you push your message and, obviously, help anybody else that gets the benefit out of listening to our conversation as well. Huge, dude, huge. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Sergeant Q: 39:26

Yeah, hey, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it, porter, and I actually have a challenge for your listeners here. So if there's something here that I touched on and you're like man, I would love to know more about that, send Porter an email, send him a message, say, hey, I really liked that Q talked about that. Could you have him back on and talk about that specific thing? And then you and I can just if there's a couple of things that people really wanna know about you and I can just unpack that one piece Cause we kind of gave everybody an overview, like this is all of this stuff, like there's a ton of stuff here and if there's a couple of nuggets that some of your viewers are like, hey, I really wanna know more about that, let's come back on and we'll just unpack that one single thing and we'll just make the whole thing, the whole episode, about that one concept or that one idea or that one thing that really touched people. So that's my challenge to the listeners out there is to send Porter an email, tell them what you appreciated about this podcast and how we can maybe unpack a little bit more of that for you guys.

Porter: 40:20

Yep, that's exactly it. And for anybody who's new to the show, Transacting Value Podcast@ sdytmedia. com and we'll be able to get your email or, obviously, drop a comment on our website transactingvaluepodcast. com. We'll track you down there. Q for the second time, brother. Awesome conversation, awesome opportunity. You're a phenomenal human being, brother. I really appreciate what you're doing. Thank you to our show partners and folks. Thank you for tuning in and appreciating our value as we all grow through life together. To check out our other conversations, merchandise or even to contribute through feedback, follows, time, money or talent and let us know what you think of the show. Please reach out on our website, transactingvaluepodcastcom. We stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms and we'll meet you there. Until next time. That was Transacting Value.