Coming up next on passion struck, I.

Never even thought of doing a marathon saying, let alone across the English Channel, not the easiest if marathon swings. And he said, no, you've been through buds. I think you got the right mindset. You should be able to do it. But contact the family of one of your buddies, one of your fallen buds. Immediately, I thought of Neil Fifi. Neil Roberts nickname was Fifi. I called Patty his wife, and I said, hey, patty, I'm thinking of doing something in memory of Neil. What do you think? And she said, well, what are you thinking of doing? And I told her, I could hear her slap the table on the other end of the phone. She said, oh, my God, you got to do it. He would love that. He would love that. He would have done it with you. And I was like, oh, shit, I just screwed myself into this one. I can't get out now. I'm committed. I just told Patty that I'm going to do it.

Welcome to passion struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's of most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions. On Fridays, we have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEO's, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 441 of Passion Struck, the number one alternative health podcast. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn, and to discover new ways to live better, to be better, and to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that.

We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we put into convenient playlists that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com starter packs to get started. I have a special invitation for you. I'm excited to introduce our new passion struck quiz. It's a unique opportunity for you to discover where you stand on the passion struck continuum. Are you an orchestrator who's masterfully balancing various aspects of life with passion and purpose, or are you a vanquisher conquering challenges and turning obstacles into opportunities? Take the quiz on passionstruck.com and find out which one resonates more with your journey to living a passion struck life. In case you missed it, earlier this week I interviewed Doctor Stephanie Estema, the renowned expert in metabolism and neurology. Doctor Stephanie is known for her groundbreaking work and optimizing human potential, and she will share her insights on how to harness the power of your body's biology to achieve peak health and performance. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. And if you love today's episode or that one with Doctor Stephanie, we would appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families.

I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Today we dive deep into the life and lessons of my very good friend, Captain John Doodle Little, a retired Navy SeaL captain with with a story that captures the essence of courage, resilience, and unwavering perseverance. John's journey from the US Air Force Academy to the demanding world of the US Navy Seals and beyond is a testament to what it means to live a life driven by purpose and passion. Captain Doolittle is not just a military veteran of 25 years who has mastered the art of navigating life's most turbulent waters, both literally and metaphorically. An accomplished channel swimmer, John has taken the lessons learned in the SEAL teams and applied them to not only swimming vast and trencherous waters, but also to speaking to organizations across the country about overcoming adversity, leading with integrity, and building teams rooted in trust from the depths of the ocean to the forefront of leadership development. John's message is absolutely clear. Anything is possible with resilience and perseverance. In today's episode, we explore John's multifaceted career, his motivations for enduring some of the world's most challenging military training, and what it took for him to swim across the English Channel in honor of a fallen teammate.

We'll delve into the principles that have guided him through life's adversities and triumphs, and how he's bringing proven leadership skills to organizations and teams around the country. Join us as we uncover the depth of Captain John Doolittle's experiences from his impactful work with Katsu Global and the Tampa Bay frogman swim, raising awareness and funds for the Navy SEAL foundation. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have my very good friend, Captain John Doodle on the podcast today. Welcome, John. So great for you to finally be here because we've been talking about this for, I think, like a year and.

A half now, John, it's taken forever, man. I mean, we're talking like two and a half years we've been talking about this. I feel blessed to be here finally. So thanks for having me.

Yeah, well, thank you for giving me so many of your friends to be on the show. I mean, I appreciate it, but I.

Figured you had Redmond on, didn't you?

Yes.

Yep. And Mack belt, he'll be coming on, and a bunch of guys.

Yeah. Well, thank you for that. And I think we have so much to explore today because you've had such an incredible life and career. But I want to start where it all began, in Walnut Creek, California.

Okay. All right.

And can you share how your family's emphasis on adventure and stepping out and creating experiences shaped who you have become?

Well, so I grew up in northern California, Walnut Creek. It's part of the San Francisco Bay area. My mom and dad, John and Nora, my sister Tori, younger sister, and we were swimmers. We did wreck swimming, that kind of stuff. And we were big skiers. My dad was a ski patrol every winter, so about three weekends out of each month, we'd be up in Lake Tahoe. And he was national ski patrol. Did that for 30 plus years. He also worked for Southwest Bell, Pacific telephone, and a bunch of other stuff. But where I really got the taste of adventure in my family was in 1978 at. And t reached out to all the phone companies in the whole nation, and they said, hey, the Shah of Iran in Tehran wants to redo his entire communication infrastructure. And they asked for contractors to come to Tehran, Iran, for three years at a time. So, it was in 1978. My dad comes home, tells my mom, hey, what do you think about moving to Tehran? My mom says, no way in hell are we going to Iran. And then my dad takes this piece of paper and he slides it across the dinner table, and he said, well, this is what they're looking to pay me.

And my mom said, well, when are we going? So we ended up going to Tehran. I was eight, nine years old, and that was before the revolution. So the shah was in power. But while we were there, things started to go south. And I'll tell you what. You want to talk about adventure, that was high adventure. It was crazy.

What, getting out of there.

Yeah, the whole experience. My dad got out before the hostages were taken, but all the women and children had been evacuated by that time. So we were back in California when all that was taking place. Yeah, that was the beginning of my appetite for adventure. Ended up going through high school, played basketball, got hurt, and I was told I'd never run again. So I started swimming, and I swam all through high school. I wasn't great, but I was good enough that I got noticed by some colleges, and I swam for a guy. We'll talk about him later, mister Mike Troy.

Gold medalist, right?

Yep. Double gold medalist in 1960 Olympics, world record holder in the 200 meters fly. And did I believe it was three tours in Vietnam as a seal, back when the Navy Seals were a brand new thing after the UDTs and post Kennedy, getting into SeAL teams, going. And I'll tell you what, Mike used to tell these stories. They were motivating as hell, and they were great learning experiences, but it always resonated with me. That kind of planted the seed for me eventually getting into the teams.

Well, you have an interesting route of getting there. Yes, I do. When you and I, you went to the air Force academy. I went to the naval Academy, and ironically, my roommate went in the air force. You go in the Navy. So I guess we traded one.

Who's your roommate?

Colin Morrison.

Okay. Don't know him. Yeah.

And also another one of my company mates, Todd Chivon, also went into the air force.

Okay.

One got out as a colonel, and one got out after five years.

You were in 91, your group, right?

93.

93. Okay. I knew we were separated by one, so I was in 92, your group. So let's back up a little bit. So you're 90, so we're about the same age. So you remember when Top Gun came out the first.

That's what I was gonna say. That's what I was gonna say. Everyone I knew went to the academy because they wanted to be top gun.

I wanted to. I was too tall to be maverick. I wanted to be goose, but not get killed. I wanted to be goose. I applied to the naval academy. I got turned down. They actually laughed at me on the phone when I told them my SAT scores, my college entrance exam scores. They basically laughed at me. And I told Mike Troy, who is one of my mentors, or behind my dad, Mike. And we'll come back to him several times. Just an incredible mentor. And I always tell people, if you don't have a mentor in your life, that's not friend or family. It's incredibly important, I think, to have a backboard that you can lean against when things get tough. But anyway, yeah, I went. Lost my train of thought.

Well, I wanted to do the same thing you wanted to do, but there was no way in heck I wanted to be goose if I was going to have to land on an aircraft carrier. I wanted my hands on the stick. And unfortunately, I have some field of vision issues. And I, like my junior year, even beginning of my first years, we were preparing to do selection. I would go to the optometrist, like, every week, and they were so patient with me, because if you had on the 2020, I was able to get four out of six. And then one time I got five out of six, and you had to get six out of six and do it, like, a couple repetitive times. And I kept getting five. They would bring me in and I could just never get the 6th. And so when I knew I couldn't fly in the front seat, I didn't want to fly. So then decided I wanted to follow in my father's footstep, who was UDT, class of 16. And then I played rugby, and I ended up getting hurt and got medically disqualified from being able to do it.

So my path was a little bit different. But to go from the Air Force academy to the Navy, when I was there, I thought that you had to have lineage. Like both the gentlemen I knew, both their fathers were in the air force. So I had always had the conclusion that you had to have a father or grandfather who had served in another service. But you proved me totally wrong.

Well, I mean, my dad was air force. He did a career in the air force. He. During Vietnam, he did four or five years active duty. Then he got out, and ironically, he missed the camaraderie that comes with being in an organization like the military. So he tried to get back in, and he kept getting denied, denied, denied, because they were downsizing as Vietnam was ending, obviously. And eventually they let him into the reserves. And so when I got turned down at the naval academy, I asked Mike what he thought, and he said, well, you should talk to the swim coach at Navy. That also went down in flames. But then he said, hey, if you want to fly, look at the air Force academy. And I did, and I called the coach there, and ironically, they needed a short distance butterfly and breaststroker. They looked at me, my school grades and my scores, and they said, well, keep taking that test and if you can scratch the bare bone minimum, we can probably get you in and that's what happened. So I barely got in.

Wow. So you end up graduating from the air Force academy. Must have been pretty interesting when you're there in a Navy uniform when you're graduating. I assume that's how you did it because that's what our guys did. I mean, they were there in their air force.

Yeah, it's a little different there. You get in your parade uniform and you have the big parade where you. Everybody throws their hats in the air and that kind of stuff, but you get commission right before that. So I put on Navy whites with air force shoulder boards. I got commission, became an ensign, zero one ensign, and then I had to change back into the parade uniform and then go march out for the graduations. May 27, 1992, Ensign Doolittle graduated with all his Izumi buddies. But there were actually four of us in that class today that went into the Navy. Two of us went, we all wanted to go to buds. We all wanted to go to basic underwater demolition school and initially had orders to do that. But the Navy, once they realized there were four air force guys going to one buds class, they said, no way, and they only ended up taking two and I was not one of the two. For the next three years, every six months, I submitted a package to try and change my designator to go into the buds training pipeline and I got denied six times over three years.

And while you were doing those applications, you were a Navy diver?

I was a hard hat diver, salvage diver. Yeah, that's what I was doing in the Navy.

So do you think that ended up helping prepare you even more to that, going to buds?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. The Navy dive school for the salvage diver is it's different than anything you do in the SEAL teams, but it definitely prepares you for being comfortable in the water. If there's one thing, if there's one thing you need to be comfortable at to go into teams, you got to be comfortable in the water. So, yeah, absolutely. The hard hat diving school helped with that.

Yeah. I think one of the misconceptions about the seals is that when you're diving, I think some people think that you're going really far under and really a lot of what you're doing is like, right under the surface, oxygen rebreathers.

You stay like 15, 20ft under the surface and you transit combat swimmers getting from point a to point b, it's not about going down.

So I always love to hear about different experiences from buds. And a friend of mine, one of my classmates, Chris Cassidy, told me the story that when he was going through buds. He and his guys were told to clean the office of some of the instructors. And this was right before hell week started. And he said, we go into this office and with all of us who go in to clean, it probably only takes about a half an hour, but they allocated like three, 4 hours for it. And he goes, when we walk in, just like this book is sitting here is a book that says hell week schedule. And some of the guys who are with them said, oh my God, there's the book. It's right there. And Chris is like, no, you don't want to pick that up. There's something to this. This is a trap. But the two people pick it up, they end up photocopying it and they spend the whole night reading it, going through it. And before hell week even started, both of them quit. And Chris said the lesson that he really learned from that is that sometimes it's better not to know the hardships that you're going to face than to have them laid out right there in front of you because that's what they psych themselves out.

I agree with that. I agree with that. And I think that applies to a lot of life approaching difficult times. One step at a time in buds, in hell week's it, they say, don't think of it as a day at a time or even an evolution at a time. And an evolution might last one to 3 hours, but to think of it as one step at a time, if you can make it to right there, well, you can probably make that next step. And to just think about those really difficult times in life when things get tough. Just one, you know what they say, how to eat an elephant one bite at a time. Not thinking about the whole overarching picture yet because it can get overwhelming. I mean, we've talked about this in the past.

Yeah, well, in the teams you served in an actual, you were in SEAL team two and you did deployments, you also served at much higher levels. One of the things I like to talk about in my book is this concept called gardener leadership. And the person who really taught me this was General Stan McChrystal. And what Stan talks about, and I think it's very applicable to a SEAL team, is that from his perspective, he could be the head of SOCOM or whatever detachment is giving you your mission. But if you are a seal and you're deployed 5000 miles away from where your boss is, your boss has got to think of it, that they're giving you the training they're giving you the operational awareness of what you need to do on this mission. But yet they have to be hands off because they can't be there in the moment that you're in conflict to micromanage everything you're doing. Do you think that's true? And how do you apply that to the civilian world?

Yeah, in my current role, I love talking about Commander's intent, and that's something we learned about in the team. It's a military concept, but it's very much leveraged in special operations Command, where you take a very senior person in an organization and you talk to the most junior person in an organization, the whole organization, about what the overall intent is of what we're trying to achieve, and you tell them what you want done, but not how to get it done. You got to rely on historical perspective and their experience to really accomplish whatever that mission is. There's a great quote. His name's Ritz Lebinski, slab, Medal of Honor recipient. He would be a great guy to have on your show as well. But Slab used to say all the time, you're never too junior to have the best idea in the room. And you're never too senior to be wrong. You're never too junior to have the best idea in the room. You're never too senior to be wrong. And that's beautiful because it empowers everyone in an organization to achieve something great. And when you look at. And yeah, okay, I was in the SEAL teams.

I did that for 25 years. But when you look at any small group of like minded personalities and like minded people trying to achieve some overarching goal. End state. If you can, tell them not at all how you want it done, but tell them what the end state is and let them navigate between those swim lanes. It's amazing what they'll come up with. And oftentimes when you empower those junior guys in an organization, they'll crush it. They'll crush it when they feel like they're being under that traditional military model, that hierarchical, where, hey, you will do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. That doesn't work a lot of the times. Certainly the case in special operations.

It's funny, we're Admiral Metz.

I do, yes.

And I was talking to him about you. And he goes, when people see Doolittle, he goes, that's what everyone pictures a seal looking like. He goes, when they see me, he goes, I have no physical ability at all. So he goes, John makes it look easy. And he goes, I had to work like, ten times harder than he did to do anything.

Oh, man, he's a great american, great leader. He did a friend of mine's retirement just a couple weeks ago.

Oh, that's great. Well, when I think of seals, and I think when a lot of people do, you oftentimes think of physical endurance and the physical aspects of it, but I think way beyond that is the mental toughness aspect of it. Can you share a technique or a practice that you learned in the teams that helped you maintain mental resilience in times of extreme challenge?

Yeah. Before you go to initial training, everything in a young alpha male's head is all about physical. And once you get there and you realize everybody's just in incredible shape. And I don't want to say everybody is the same, but in my opinion, the thing that distinguishes guys that leave on their own accord, that ring the bell and quit, and the people that stay, it's their mindset. It is absolutely their mindset. For me personally, it was that perspective that I might get kicked out, I might get medically dropped if I get injured or something horrible might happen, but I will not, no matter what, quit. And that's where my mind was. Now, everybody treats it a little bit different, but it is definitely more mental than physical. And when you go through an experience that live with a lot of friends and teammates, you walk away from that experience. At least I did, realizing that there's really nothing you can't do as long as you surround yourself with the right people. What you learn at buds, though, is you cannot do it by yourself. Absolutely not. Impossible.

No, absolutely not. Really a band of brothers, for sure. Well, a lot of seal missions are shrouded in secrecy, as they should be. As they should be. And you're going into very dangerous, oftentimes unknown situations. Can you describe at all what goes on behind the background? Like, when you're typically preparing for a mission, what aspects do you focus on that people might not expect?

Well, this can apply to a lot of things in life. The mission planning, that was one of the things that kind of surprised me was how distributed across the organization it was. I mean, you might be the senior enlisted in a task unit. You might be the senior officer in a task unit, but you're not necessarily doing any more work than anyone else in that task unit. Everybody's working hard to prepare for what that mission is. So if you think about a small program manager in a small team, if you wanted to take the special operations model and apply it to that team, you give everybody high levels of responsibility, even those most junior guys. And that surprised me. I really thought the officers and the senior enlisted kind of shaped all the mission planning, and that's not at all the case. That's not how it works. Without giving away too much, the way we insert an infill to a target, that might be all the point man's responsibility to figure all that out. And unless one of the leadership in the organization sees a major issue with it, they go with it. They trust him.

And that has applications throughout life, especially if you're working in the business world. Right, right.

I mean, yeah, absolutely. I love that.

Yeah.

My father was a preacher.

Really?

Yeah. And I always asked him, especially because he was in Cambodia, and I'm like, how did you feel about being in that position? He goes, I didn't think about it. He goes, you don't think about it. You've got a job you're trained to do. If you don't do it well, that people are going to get hurt. They're relying on you. And so he goes, I just went into it trying to do the best job I possibly could, and I just felt the rest of it would take care of itself because everyone else was entrusting me then I'm gonna get it right so that they could concentrate on their jobs. And I.

Is he still around?

He is. He's 86 now.

Awesome. Awesome. You should get your dad and my dad, you all have a beer.

That'd be great. So I want to now jump from the seals to your swimming prowess because you not only swam in college, and ironically, my roommate in college was also a swimmer. He was a butterflyer.

Okay.

But you did something pretty remarkable. As far as I know, you are the only Navy SeAl who's ever swum the English Channel. Is that accurate?

I think there's another guy that's done it now.

That's done it now, but at the time, you were the only one. And that's what, 33 km? Something like that.

It's 21 miles as the crow flies. But what happens with the channel is you go through two tidal shifts, so your track across the channel ends up looking like a big s. So 21 miles is the crow flies. But our track for my swim was 37.1 mile. But you're not swimming that far because if you're swimming 1 kt this way and the current's going five knots this way, you understand you're being pushed and pulled by the current, tides and currents. You really rely on your pilot vessel. And that was an incredible experience. I was at the school, naval post graduate school in Monterey. It was early 2004. A lot of my friends and teammates were over in Afghanistan and at that point, Iraq. So we had both things going on then, and it was a really busy time in the military, for sure. But I was struggling with that because all my buddies are getting after it, doing these great things, and I'm at school. At a postgrad, when you're an officer, they encourage you to go get your post grad degree, that whole thing. And I. One night, I called up Mike Troy again.

They said, hey, Mike, this school thing really sucks, and I'm struggling with it, and something's not right with me. I just. I feel off. And without skipping a beat, man, he's no longer with us, but I know he's laughing right now. Without skipping a beat, he goes, John, swim the English Channel and do it for one of your buddies that died. And I was like, mike, I was like a 200 meters breaststroker when you were my coach. I've never done a marathon swim. I've never even thought of doing a marathon swing, let alone across the English Channel. Not the easiest of marathon swimming. And he said, no, you've been through buds. I think you got the right mindset. You should be able to do it. But contact the family of one of your buddies, one of your fallen buddies. And immediately I thought of Neil Fifi. Neil Roberts nickname was Fifi. And so I called Patty, his wife, and I said, hey, Patty, I'm thinking of doing something in memory of Neil. What do you think? She said, well, what are you thinking of doing? And I told her, and she's just. I could hear her slap the table on the other end of the phone.

She said, oh, my God, you got to do it. He would love that. He would love that. He would have done it with you. And I was like, oh, shit. I just screwed myself into this one. I can't get out now. I'm committed. I just told Patty that I'm going to do it. So then I went to go do my first swim in Monterey. No wetsuit. Because to do the channel for it to count with the channel swimming association, you can't wear any neoprene, so you got to be in a speedo, and you can have a swim cap, and you can have earplugs. That's it.

No fins. No, no.

God, no. No fins. The only rule is you can't touch the boat, and you can't be wearing any neoprene stuff. You put some, like, vaseline on or something under your armpits. But so I go in Monterey and I get in the water to do my first training swim for the English Channel. How long do you think I lasted?

Maybe you did a mile.

Five minutes.

Five minutes.

Five minutes. At five minutes, I was jackhammering because you were so cold in the water. Temp in Monterey, that time of year, 58, 59 degrees. But that's the same temperature it is in the summer over in Dover, England. So I was like, oh, man. But what I learned about myself and about human physiology is your body has an amazing ability to adapt. And so the first day I lasted five minutes. The next day I lasted seven. By the end of the week, I was in the water for ten minutes. The next week, 15 minutes, and later on, a few months later, I want to say it was about six months of doing that or a little more. I worked my way up to what they call an immersion swim up in San Francisco. You got to last for 10 hours in water under 60 degrees fahrenheit. So I did that, and long story longer did it in memory of Neil and to raise money for the UDT Seal association and the Navy Seal foundation to help gold star families. And, yeah, long story longer. Eventually made it.

How long did it end up taking you to do the swim?

Twelve and a half hours. A little under twelve. It's 12 hours, 24 minutes and 220 seconds, man. When you finish that, you go to Dover. So you swim Dover to Calais, or near Calais, France, and then you finish it, and you get back on the boat, and the boat brings you back to Dover, and you go to the white horse pub. In the white horse pub, if you complete the swimming, you get a free pint pool of Guinness.

That's your reward.

That's your reward. You get to write your name on the ceiling tiles or on the walls. But there's a pay phone, right? Or there was. And I went out there, called Patty, and it was powerful. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

And, I mean, it's an amazing thing to say you've done it, but to do it in honor of. Of a teammate is quite a remarkable honor for him and his family.

One of the things Mike told me before I started training for this, he said, yeah, john, it's hard. It's going to be hard. It's going to be one of the hardest things you've ever done. But if you're doing it for a purpose greater than yourself, you will be able to achieve it. If you do something for a greater good or a greater purpose than just this then you'd be able to accomplish it. And he was exactly right, because we were halfway across and the tides were going, the currents were going one way, the winds had picked up, and we're going the other way. So now we didn't have swells. We had that washing machine chop, and everything was starting to fall apart. My stroke count was slowing down, which you never want to have happen. My shoulder was just aching. I was cramping, I was hitting jellyfish, all this stuff. And my dad was in the support crew on the pilot boat, and they all could see that I was struggling. And I didn't know it, but they had snuck on board a three by five american flag, and it was like 1518 knots of wind.

And I breathe to my right, and I look up and they're holding in the wind this american flag. And I just remember thinking, holy smokes, John. Get out of your own head. This isn't about you, man. It's about Neil. It's about all the guys like Neil that we're going to lose going forward in this long war. And I'll tell you, it was like a light switch. All of a sudden, nothing hurt anymore, and we were able to finish it.

That's incredible. And I just released an episode this week that we're doing this with this Gurkha soldier named Harry Buddha Magar.

The guy from Nepal?

Yes. And this gentleman, unfortunately lost both his legs above the knee from an IED in Afghanistan. And remarkably, he was the first person with that situation who's ever climbed Everest. And just to hear his whole story, he got similar to you trying to get in the seals. He kept getting denied because the nepali government doesn't want a fatality. They don't want someone to fail.

Sure.

And so he had to actually climb Mount Blanc and another mountain just to prove to him that he could do it. But I, as I was interviewing him, I said, how often did you want to give up? He said, almost every hour of every single day. He goes, because it was so hard. He goes, but to your point, he goes, I wasn't doing it for myself. I was doing it to prove to other people with disabilities so they could see me and realize in their own mind that anything is possible if they set their mind to it.

I was telling Katie about. I listened to the first ten minutes of it last night when he told me, and so I haven't finished it yet. But when I told Katie, bilateral amputee, both above the knee, first person in history to summit on Mount Everest, she didn't believe me, at first we had to look it up. She's, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. I'm really grateful you're able to get him on the show. That's an amazing story.

Well, I happened to. I don't know where I heard about him. I think it might have been Corey saw a video about it and said, you gotta get this guy on the show.

Yeah.

And I'd never. It was such a remarkable accomplishment. I just thought his story was worth telling to inspire other people. Going back to swimming English Channel isn't the only thing we're staying in swimming. We're staying and swimming English Channel isn't the only thing that you have done that is supporting the Navy SEAL foundation and fallen seals. I have seen you now two years in a row, swim here in Tampa Bay in January. You do the frogman swim. And that is something that's in what, it's like 14th year.

Yep. Well, 15 years. We just had our 15th one. And so let's go back a little bit. 15 years ago, I was stationed at special operations command headquarters, SOCOM headquarters, and we heard about a seal, and he doesn't mind me telling the story, so I'll tell you his name. Dan Knosson. And Dan, in Afghanistan, they were landing on a hilltop. They were inserting from a rotary wing insertion and the point man missed pressure plate IED, improvised explosive device. And Dan stepped on it. And the IED went low order, meaning the whole daisy chain of explosives did not go off, luckily, thank God. But the pressure plate primer charge did go off, blew both Dan's legs off above the knees. And so we heard about that, of course, immediately at SOCOM. And they medevaced him and he was at Walter Reed. And we were hearing through the grapevine that this was before our foundations had a lot of money to help wounded guys, to help gold star families and all that. So we heard his family was in the hurt locker financially a little bit. And so some of us here locally, I know a lot of these guys, Dan O'Shea was one of them.

And a lot of us got together and we said, well, what can we do to support this guy? And somebody, I think it might have been Rory came up with, why don't. Oh, I know who it was. Terry Tomlin. Rest in peace, Terry. That guy was great. But Terry said, let's swim across the bay. And I was like, wait a minute. The Tampa Bay is like 26 miles across. What are you talking about? No, we'll do a shorter version. Five k, three and a half mile ish, there's a place we can swim across. And so we did it. We ended up having a little party afterwards at the American Legion on the Tampa side. There were about, I don't know, 25 of us, maybe 30 tops, that showed up that morning. It was cold. It was in the thirties. And at the end, we consolidated all these handwritten iOU notes on bar napkins, little wads of cash, pocket lint checks, and we put them all on a table at the American Legion. And we started counting up, and we were hoping to make about $3,000 to give Dan's family to just help out with something, anything.

And it ended up being about $30,000. And at that point, we're like, wait a minute, we're onto something here, because we didn't even try, and we made $30,000 for this guy. And so now jump forward a few years, and instead of doing the swim for an individual, we decided to do it in support of the Navy SEAL foundation to help with gold Star families and surviving spouses and surviving kids that are struggling with a, B, or c. And each year, the swim has made more and more money for the foundation. And the foundation's got a lot of money to help guys now. But if you think about what happens when we lose somebody, when a family loses their husband or their father, the entire family needs to get to the memorial service. The entire family needs hotel rooms. There's rental cars, there's per diem costs. Then there's the burial, which is often at a different time. All the travel costs that comes with that, and the kids, their college education. The seal foundation covers that. A lot of times, the spouse had not been working, just been raising a family, but now the spouse needs to go back to work.

The foundation helps with that, and it just spider webs in so many ways that they can help these families. That's why we do the swim. And it's incredibly successful. It's one of my favorite things to be part of, man. It's really cool.

Well, this year, when I was there, it was a tough year, because right at the time that this was happening, there were two seals in the gulf who had gone missing, presumed fatalities. But I also. Every single year, you swim for a different family, and it's typically a family who is there present. And this year, I got to see and meet the parents of daddy Wertz.

You have mom, his sandy mom and his father.

Yeah. And his father was a fighter pilot himself, and I didn't know that. Yeah, he flew f four s. I mean, just to see how impactful it was for them and the power of hope and remembrance that it brought them made me, I mean, just internalize the whole reason why everyone does it. And I think what's remarkable now is that the vast majority of people who swim it aren't Navy SeaLs. They're civilians who are now trying to help or veteran.

It is such a cool way for the Tampa St. Petersburg clearwater region community to come together to support this effort, because at that memorial ceremony, when the sun's coming up that morning and the reading of the names of all the naval special warfare operators we've lost since 911, when that memorial service is happening, we're surrounded by the local community on the beach. And it is incredible. I mean, you've experienced it. Every time I talk to somebody about this, I encourage them, even if they don't volunteer, even if they don't swim, even if they don't go to the after party, go see the memorial ceremony and the reading of the names. It's so powerful, and it's just information that needs to be shared. And I'll keep doing this thing till I can't walk anymore. Hell, I'll keep doing it after I can't walk. Where are we going now?

The life of a seal, I think any of us who served, we end up later on having a whole bunch of injuries. And if I have it right, you've had a dozen plus surgeries yourself.

Yeah, 13 orthopedic surgeries.

You're stationed at SoCOM, which is the special operation command here in MacDill. And at the time, you are now having to get shoulder surgery. If I have it right. And you had to have this shoulder surgery.

Yeah.

Rotator cuff in the past, and it took you about a year to recover from it the first time. But you're going through this now the second time, and you're introduced to this device.

I know where you're going now.

Yes. And so you're, at the same time, you're contemplating getting out of the service. But I, knowing you, you want to do something that's going to. To help people. And so you end up starting to use this device, which we're going to talk about, and it ends up cutting your recovery time in about half, if I understand it correctly.

You got it right. It's like you've done research on this.

And you start realizing that this thing has got applications that be helping a lot of people, especially people who've lost limbs, who are in severe chronic pain, like a lot of veterans are in, and even the elderly who suffer falls and other things. So can you tell us about this path? I think I just did some sugar coating on it.

Well, first of all, thanks for even going down this road, because I've been out for six and a half years, and I've been working with this company, katsu, the whole time. Katsu is a japanese word. It stands for increase ka. And if you think a shiatsu, atsu, pressure, increased pressure. Kaatsu. And there's another word, shiatsu. Shiatsu. So katsu is like pressure on. Shiatsu is pressure off giatsu. What kaatsu is, it's pneumatic elastic pneumatic bands controlled by a little pneumatic compressor. And when I was going through rehab over at SoCOM from one of my surgeries, they would put these devices, in this case, on my arms. And during the inflation phase, it looks like a tourniquet, but it's not a tourniquet. It's an elastic pneumatic band. And all it does is it pools the blood in the limb. So if I had it on my legs right now, during the pressure phase, I would feel all this tingling in my legs. It would all be engorged with blood. And you're slowing down that venous return. But when you start moving the leg, when it's in that state, or same with your arms, not only does it feel much harder than it actually is, but you're tricking the body.

You're tricking the biomechanics in the body. It's almost like a biohack where the body thinks you're working really hard, but all you're really doing is instead of moving 100 pounds, you might be moving five pounds, but you're getting that hormonal response as if you're moving 100 pounds. So it's a great tool for rehab. That's how I got introduced to it. They'd have me do these exercises with incredibly low resistance, low weight, but it was really difficult. And what I found is, in my case, they used it on me for two different surgeries. In both cases, my rehab time was pretty, pretty quick. And, yeah, I fell in love with it. And a few years later, I was getting out. I ended up traveling to Tokyo, Japan, and I met the founder, Doctor Yoshiaki Sato, and I got trained by him. And then I met the CEO for Katsu Global, and long story longer, I've been working there ever since. But the thing I really enjoy about it is helping, and you touched on it is helping the wounded, ill, injured teammates. Especially in the veterans space. There's something to be said when somebody has chronic injuries, orthopedic injuries or otherwise, or they have a lot of osteoarthritis and they can't, like, go to the gym and lift heavy anymore because they get that massive inflammation response, or they get injured and then they're down for a while.

This is a way to, with very low weight, so the risk of injury is very low, but this is a way to get that workout without going heavy. And if you saw pictures of my back, you'd understand why I will never be able to go heavy ever again. But I can still get good workouts from this stuff.

I want to explore this a little bit more. Yeah, we are an alternative health podcast, so, yeah, yeah, this fits right in. And I know you've got one of these with you. My understanding of this, if I have it correctly, is the person who discovered this actually studied people over a ten year period to understand the usefulness of it. And I think I've heard you talk that there are people up until 104 years old who have used this in a safe manner. So the other thing I understand about this is it's got a couple different modes. One, as I understand it, is it's like a constant mode, and another one is recircling mode, where it gives you.

Some, I call it the Kaatsu cycle mode.

Okay, so why don't you go through this?

Well, first of all, sarcopenia is the muscle loss that happens after, as you get older and older, you lose more and more muscle mass. And it used to be considered a medical truth that once you got over 55 years old, you were going to start losing muscle mass. What doctor Sato showed, and he showed it with people up to 104 years old, with MRI, cross sectional measurements and whatnot. If you pool the blood in a limb and then you exercise that limb, very simple exercises, you can actually get muscle hypertrophy even into your eighties, nineties. And in that extreme case, 104 years old. That has taken a lot of the fitness industry and turned it on its head a little bit, especially for people that are in their fifties and older. Because you talk to guys especially, we see this as ex military guys all the time. Guys just don't want to go to the gym and go heavy anymore. Because if I go to the gym and I do some deadlifts, just like back in the day, 225 deadlift was nothing. If I do a 135 deadlift and I'm wrong in my form in any way, I'm down for a month if not longer.

This is a way where you can still get that, but maybe just do the bar, or maybe no bar at all and just do those movements. And this is what it looks like. This is our Bluetooth version where the compressor is actually connected to the band. But these bands, they're not tourniquets. They stretch and they give and they move with the limb. Now, there's a lot of, I'll call them competitor products, and they use repurposed surgical tourniquets. And that would be much wider than this, over double the width of this. And they're rigid and they're cuffs. Now, nose are designed to fully occlude blood flow. And then you back it off a little bit and you can get muscle hypertrophy from that. That's true, but you can only do that on young, healthy people. You would never do that on somebody that has compromised vascular system or cardiac issues. This, on the other hand, is actually a cardiac rehab device in Tokyo. We just recently registered it as a class one medical device here in the US. And we're working with the VA and a lot of medical organizations for the cardiac rehab piece of this and for.

Those who are not watching but are listening, this is. It's about, what, 18 inches long?

Yes, give or take. Yeah. So this is an armband. It's about 18 inches long, just over an inch wide. It has a pneumatic bladder in it. This one is controlled by your smartphone, so it has the actual compressor on here. The other versions, you wear the compression device on your shorts or on your sweats, and then there's a tube that connects to the band. A lot of the military organizations like that one better because you can untether. The band will hold, hold the pressure when it's untethered, and then you're waterproof in that mode, and you can do aggressive movements like jiu jitsu and things like that. I like this version when I'm like in the kitchen making coffee and working around the house, but that folds into something else. That is really what got me started with this company. It's less about having people add something new. It's more about taking whatever your life, how you live your life already, activity wise, and folding this into your existing life. If somebody never goes to the gym, they should never go to the gym with this. They just fold this in to what they already do for activity.

Anyway, I could talk about this all day long.

So, going back to Harry Buddha Magar, I know one of the things that those who have lost limbs, it could be from diabetes. It could be from a motorcycle accident. It could be from combat. They end up getting phantom pain where they almost feel like their limb is still there. How would this help someone in that situation?

So we have many cases of this decreasing residual limb pain. Now, full disclosure, when I say residual limb pain, I'm talking more at the actual area where the limb had been severed and then sewn closed. So those nerve endings around. I don't like to call it a stump, but that residual limb ending. A lot of people have pain at that point. This helps alleviate that pain by simulating. When you exercise, what do you do? You're dilating and relaxing blood vessels over and over. When you're exercising. Well, you can do that with this in the passive stage. So if you think about an amputee and they have a lot of discomfort in that limb, if they can exercise that residual limb, then it feels much better. Nine times out of ten, some guys don't like it. I mean, I'll be honest, some guys, especially if they've had any nerve ablation done, this can actually not work on many of those guys, but nine times out of ten, guys love it. Now, we also have had people with what you're talking about, phantom limb pain, having that decrease with this, but we haven't done studies on that.

I can't say that we got to do some further research on that. But anecdotally, yes, I think what it is more than anything is a distraction technique for the brain. I think the brain gets into these pain pathways, get so engrossed or embedded in the brain. If you can distract those pain pathways, then you can help decrease that pain. Paraplegics and quadriplegics that are dealing with not nerve. What type of nerve pain is that called?

I can't remember. Off the top.

I'm having a mind blank. But we work with plenty of paralyzed veterans and otherwise, and it's a way to improve systemic circulation in that person. So we have somebody right here in Tampa. He's a total quad. He was shot through and through his c three. So he's a complete quadriplegic from his neck down. But neuropathic pain. So his neuropathic pain, even though he has no feeling or traditional feeling and no muscular control over his legs, he's still before bed. He still has neuropathic pain. This seems to decrease it in those guys. I'm not going to say it makes it go away, but he does say when he's using this before bed, he's able to come off those meds to help put him to sleep.

Okay, well, I mean, that's great. And I think the other big use case is, I know when my grandparents were older, my parents now were always worried about them falling, because slip on ice or slip anyway, you end up damaging a hip or something like that. It's the repercussions that come from that downstream. And to me, this is a great way for people to use a device like this without having to go to the gym if that's not a resource, or they don't have the strength at that point to do it.

Yeah, frailty is a big issue. People get into their seventies and eighties. I mean, both my parents use this on a religious basis every single day, and they swear by it. And if you saw my mom and dad, I mean, yes, they look like, sorry, mom, you don't look like you're in your eighties, you look like you're in your sixties. But their muscle tone, they both still ski, they both still hike. It's that eliminating frailty as you age is incredibly powerful. And to your point, that is a way, if you do fall, if you do slip and fall, muscle tone in the body is just going to help in a variety of ways with that fall, if not help keep you from even falling in the first place.

Well, thank you for sharing that, John. I want to go back to swimming here for a second, and I'm going to introduce this topic through this lens. I know you love to speak. You've been donating your time a lot to universities to try to inspire the up and coming next generation. But I happened to go on LinkedIn one day and I see this conference announcement, and here you are headlining, and they had these two, I don't know, average people speaking with you, Michael Phelps.

And my aquatic childhood hero.

And I know that this speaking is something that you love to do, and it's something that's become very important to you. Can you talk about. I know one of the things you like to talk about is burnout and how to avoid it. I was hoping you might be able to share that, and then I'll ask you a couple other questions about some of the things you like to cover.

So I do enjoy the public space speaking, which surprises me, because in the military, I hated getting up in front of large groups and selling our mission. Anytime we wanted to try and get a mission, the officer would get up and brief all the senior leadership. And it always was. I always felt like I was getting sniped from the crowd. And so I did. I avoided that stuff. I didn't enjoy it. I tried to do one on ones with the senior leadership, get missions and that kind of stuff. And then I got out and I got asked to go speak at a local high school, and I didn't really want to do it, and I went and I did. It was a veterans day thing, and 11th hour, the 11th month, Armstrong and I look out in the crowd, and these kids are hanging on every single word, and then I open it up for questions. After I spoke, I only talked for 15 minutes, and after a half hour, the principal had to cut it off. It was so much fun. It was so much fun. And what I learned is there's so much from my life that I've learned in my time in the military and my time after the military in business.

There's so many lessons that I've learned that I love sharing with people, especially when they're younger, that college age seniors in high school, college, or young professionals just starting in the business world. I love talking to those guys because there's so many lessons that I learned the hard way that very simply can be avoided with doing the little things right. I love talking about that right when you're at the service academy and it doesn't make sense why you got to do all these little things the exact right way, or you get the buds have to sharpen your knife a certain way or tie your shoes. All those little things, they don't necessarily make sense until one day you're in the combat zone and you have tragedy and somebody dies, and you peel it all back and you look at what happened, and then you realize, oh, geez, we missed a little thing. Those types of stories resonate with young Americans. That's what I love to do, is there's things that I've done in the military, and there's stories I like to tell and then take the operational piece of whatever the story was and then fold it into these kids lives and how it can help them.

And it works for small businesses and project management teams and that kind of stuff as well.

And I think going back to that story with Harry and him trying to show that anything's possible, I think your journey of doing the English Channel and even becoming a seal is also a testament that if you put your mind to something and you have passion and perseverance and you're intentional about how you're approaching it, you can accomplish things that you never in your life thought you could accomplish. Is there something you would like to talk to the audience about that?

Yeah, just that my website says anything is achievable, and I think that applies to about anything at life, anything you put your mind to, especially if you surround yourself with a small team of like minded individuals, there's nothing that will stop you. And I love talking with people about that.

The final thing I wanted to ask you is looking ahead, what are some of the next challenges or goals that you're passionate about pursuing? And if there's one you want to talk about, how are you thinking about tackling it?

I love talking with people about the work they do and the passions they have in life. And if you can have both of those intersect some way, you have found personal golden. And that's what I'm doing with Katsu. So my passion journey and my hope for the future is that injured, wounded first responders, military veterans, especially that population in our country that's dealing with stress and burnout and mental health and behavioral health issues. If you can get them exercising again or you can get them feeling better about themselves, that's gold. And I'm so grateful that the organization that I'm working with is doing exactly that. My goal is anybody that's wounded, ill, injured or can't go to the gym because they can't lift heavy weights anymore, I want to get them caught to. That's what I'm going to do.

Okay, well, John, if someone is interested in learning more about you, wanting to hear where you're speaking, wants to hire you to speak, things like that, where's the best place for them to go?

Johndollittle.com and a friend of mine told me about making a website with my name in it. So that's what I did. Yeah.

So the backstory of this is John's talking to me about, I'm in the process of designing this website. This is the name I'm going for. I bought the domains for my kids because I think if you can find them, you should get them because they're so valuable, because no matter who you are, it's never too late to brand yourself. And I'm going through that. And I called John up. I'm like, why aren't you just using your own name? He goes, well, I checked it like six months ago and it wasn't available. I'm like, well, you better go right now because you can buy it for $9.99. And I guess you listened to to me because you have it.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Well, John, it was such an honor to finally get you on the show. And we just packed a little bit about who you are, but what a remarkable story. And thank you so much. As I've gotten to know you, you are an inspiration to so many. And I think what I've always admired is you go out of the way. You go out of your way to make other people feel special and to try to help people. And I think that's why you have developed such a big following.

Well, thanks, John. And thank you for what you've done with this passion project and this podcast, because you're changing a lot of lives in a positive way, and that's gold. And while we can't sit here and say that you're saving lives, I will tell you that I think that is happening. So thank you very much for what you're doing.

Well, I mean, thank you. That means a lot. And I am just so happy we could finally bring this to the world and hopefully awesome. I can get you to do more podcasts with me because I think people would love hearing you and I banter and talk to guests.

Let's do it anytime you want. You live right down the street.

There you go. Well, thank you audience, for tuning in today, and so glad we could get this final episode with John out to you. So thank you again, John.

Thanks, John. Thanks for having me, man. Awesome.

I am so honored that we were able to do that interview with my friend Captain John Dolittle, and he and I have honestly been talking about this for the past two years. All things John Doolittle will be in the show. Notes@passionstruck.com Dot Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos are on YouTube at both our main channel at Johnr Miles and our clips channel at passion struck clips. Please go to subscribe and join over 250,000 other subscribers. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place@passionstruck.com. Deals please consider supporting those who support the show. You can find me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, live intentionally@passionstruck.com. Dot. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast interview that I did with Gabby Bernstein, who will share the transformative wisdom from her latest book, Happy Days. We discuss how to heal from your past, embrace the power of self love, and learn how to step into a life of joy and peace. So tune in and get ready to unlock your happiest days.

Yet we cannot heal what we're not willing to see having the bravery and the courage to become conscious and aware of the physical experiences, the thoughts, the energy, the sensations that are keeping us out of alignment with true nature, which is joy. Having the courage to be the witness of those experiences that are blocking us is the first step to healing, because you cannot heal what you're not willing to see. So having the bravery to begin to look at your life and maybe even simply say, is this it? There has to be a better way. That willingness opens the door for more recovery to be revealed.

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