Silvercore Podcast 139 Amputation, Adversity, and the Power of Reframing: Seb Lavoie's Path to Resilience

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[00:00:00] Travis Bader: I want to start this episode off by congratulating Justin Garant. He's the winner of the Benelli game bag and the hunter chef cookbook that was being given away in conjunction with podcast episode 136 with Michael Hunter. If you wanted to get your own Benelli game bag, You can head over to Stoger, Silvercore club members get 25 percent off all clothing, 10 percent off all accessories and free shipping.

[00:00:34] Travis Bader: After wrapping up the combat flip flops episode with Griff, I went out and purchased a couple sets of flip flops and one of the shemags. And of course I applied the Silvercore club discount to that as well. For those curious about all the different discounts, perks, benefits of being a Silvercore club member, head on over to the Silvercore website.

[00:00:53] Travis Bader: There's going to be links in the description here. Coming up in the very near future. I would highly recommend to everybody who's listening to follow the Silvercore social media, keep your ear to the podcast. There's going to be some amazing giveaways, including ATI. Armament technologies. They are makers of the finest scopes in the world.

[00:01:12] Travis Bader: Marathon watches, been supplying allied forces watches for a very long time. Now, two very proud Canadian companies. Make sure to stay tuned to check that one out. When I opened up my social media this morning, I saw a post that I was tagged in by Dana Dykema. She had tagged me and Silvercore in it, and she was talking about the underlying themes in the podcast that she really values.

[00:01:37] Travis Bader: One of which in particular was that surrounding failure. The main themes that I try to get across over and over again in the podcast are that of community, that of positivity, of pushing ourselves to higher levels. Of creating an awareness of the potential that we are capable of and to not be afraid to fail.

[00:01:58] Travis Bader: I don't know if it was Churchill who said this one, but it's often attributed to him. Success isn't final. Failure isn't fatal. It's the courage to continue that counts. If it's true that our lives are made up of our memories and 90 percent of what we think about today is something that we thought about yesterday, perhaps by exercising awareness, by interjecting some critical thought and exposing ourselves to positivity will allow our tomorrow to be that much better.

[00:02:28] Travis Bader: Without further ado, let's get this podcast rolling. As you go through life, there's a few people that you will meet that will have a massive impact on you, both personally and professionally. Today's guest is one of those people. And if you're a regular listener to the Silvercore podcast, you're going to recognize him.

[00:02:46] Travis Bader: And if you've paid attention, you'll see that he marked an inflection point in the podcast and really helped expand the direction where we go with it and what we do. So without further ado, I want to welcome back my friend, Sablevoix. Good morning, brother. Good morning, man. You've had some things happen to you, some cool life experiences, some.

[00:03:10] Travis Bader: Some interesting life experiences since the last time we chatted. And I really figured it's about time that we kind of caught up and, uh, maybe distilled a few of these things that you've gone through, kind of got your perspective on a few different things. But maybe before I really get rolling, I want to ask you, how are you doing?

[00:03:29] Seb Lavoie: I couldn't be better brother. Uh, things are, uh, you Very good at the moment, as you know, I'm in the transitional phase of departing British Columbia and heading out to Alberta, a nice rural property, 14 acres, log cabin, green roof, rivers, mountains, you know, on the border of Montana, just an amazing, an amazing move that.

[00:04:01] Seb Lavoie: You know, but, um, I think sometimes understanding what the end goal is or what it is that you truly desire and negotiating that with what task you have at hand is critical. So I already knew, you know, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, that's what the direction that I was wanting to take, but I hadn't, I hadn't cemented what that was going to look like in relation to my career.

[00:04:24] Seb Lavoie: And so obviously retiring in, in 2021, open the door up for a variety of different things. And that is one of those things that's occurring right now. And I am beyond stoked. You know, that's 

[00:04:36] Travis Bader: something that a lot of people, they'll have visions, they'll have ideas, Hey, hopefully, hopefully they're saying, here's what I'd like to achieve.

[00:04:43] Travis Bader: Here's where I'd like to be. But for a lot of people, they just sit in their head as dreams and the path towards that dream, if they haven't traveled before, it seems almost impossible. They have a very difficult time seeing the next step or seeing their way through to the end and to actually achieving that dream.

[00:05:02] Travis Bader: Did you find, because I mean, this is all new uncharted territory to you. Did you find that there was difficulties in both mentally transitioning yourself, leaving your work and finding sort of a new path in life and, and now the big move out to another province. And I mean, you've got your network and everyone over here in British Columbia, did you find that there is.

[00:05:26] Travis Bader: Obstacles and hurdles that you had to overcome in order to kind of mentally get yourself ready. 

[00:05:31] Seb Lavoie: I mean, the obstacle, the obstacles are the way. Right. Yes. I mean, it is just, you know, I'm, I'm regurgitating here, but, but the, the bottom line is it is, it is the case and, and self doubt consistently creeps into your own mind.

[00:05:46] Seb Lavoie: As well as not necessarily knowing exactly the direction that you're supposed to go into, or if you're even going in the right directions, you know? And so I think at the end of the day, there's part of this that's, that's, that's faith. You know, it's faith, having faith that you're capable of, of, of adapting to changing circumstances, that you're capable of picking the slack up.

[00:06:09] Seb Lavoie: Should anything go sideways that you have enough in you and around you to make something happen out of nothing. All of those things are, are, are, you know, Incredibly important and to a certain extent anchors in making these difficult decisions. And so you can't just be coming out of nowhere, set yourself a very, very difficult goal and have never negotiated difficulties along the way to achieve a desired outcome that not many people achieve.

[00:06:39] Seb Lavoie: And so you need to have that knowledge about you. And that's where, of course, you know, engaging in a difficult things and the things that are truly challenging you, the things that are scaring you. Is incredibly valuable because it also teaches you what you can and can't do, or what you can and cannot yet do.

[00:06:58] Seb Lavoie: There, I like that, I like that. 

[00:07:01] Travis Bader: No such thing as a word I can't. No, there isn't. So, you know, people look at their job and they'll say, well, I'd love to do something different, but I can't leave because I'm the breadwinner or I've got a mortgage or I've got whatever it might be. So, so I'm stuck, right? Uh, or I'd love to, to move to a different place that offers a greater variety of what it is I'm looking for.

[00:07:24] Travis Bader: Like for me, space, right? Greater space between myself and my neighbors, greater access to the outdoors, where I don't have to sit in traffic for hours to get there. And people will come up with all this little checklist of, well, you know, once the kids are out of school and maybe once ABCD happens, did you have a list of these things that kind of popped into your mind that you had to systematically go through and kind of check off?

[00:07:50] Seb Lavoie: That is the propensity and it's my propensity as well as it is the propensity of the next person. The difference is I, I, I try to, at all costs, Disabled the disabler, if that makes any sense, because I will become, I will become the disabler. And as soon as I start focusing on something that creates an apprehension, you know, the body survival mechanisms kick kicks into full gear.

[00:08:17] Seb Lavoie: And, and all of a sudden you're magnifying the risk that's associated with the, whatever it is that you are after. But, you know, for me, I was very aware of that. I was very aware that I was, that I was going to try to talk myself out of it in a sort of surreptitious, maybe even subconscious way. And I, and knowing that as soon as it percolates in my mind, I'm able to address it on the spot, essentially a reframing, right?

[00:08:47] Seb Lavoie: Yes. There is no perfect way. Yes. Yes. I may have to do this. And so my, the question that I ask myself every time that something like this, Sort of creeping to my mind is what do I need to do to get to where I want to go? What in a, in an ideal world, if I removed all fears, and if I removed all apprehension with respect to where I was, where I want to go, what would I need to do and how would I need to address it to make that happen?

[00:09:14] Seb Lavoie: And you will, you will very often cognitively spew out the truth. The answers, right? Cause you, you, what you are doing is you, you are now, you have a knowledge and emotion, you have set it aside and now you're, you're, you're brought the focus back to your cognitive mind and you start engaging your logical brain instead of the fear center of the brain.

[00:09:34] Seb Lavoie: And so for me, Knowing that that's the case is the key. It's the self awareness that leads, leads to that self regulation. It's not that it isn't happening is that when it's happening, you recognize it and you move away from it. You take that step out, so to speak, you know, and look at the broader picture.

[00:09:53] Seb Lavoie: And so there's plenty of time. And even without boring you with the details. Even if in our fight to, to get there, to sell our home, do all this, it's been a four months of ordeal and we've had multiple lenders fall through and we had multiple things happening and it just was, there was at least a hundred different times.

[00:10:14] Seb Lavoie: Where everything in me said, quit, stop, just wait another year or wait another two. But then I would reframe that too and say another year, another two time is your biggest currency. You don't know that you have that. You don't know that you have that time at all. And so if you are to do anything and you keep on pushing it for, you know, for later and later and later, how many people have filled a graveyard?

[00:10:41] Seb Lavoie: With all kinds of later project unfinished. 

[00:10:46] Travis Bader: Do you ever have, and what I'm going to get you to do, just, uh, is there a piece of green tape in front of you there? Yep. Okay. I may be, I have it in the wrong spot or my camera moved. If you can move a little bit to you, there you go. And I'll, I'll edit that out.

[00:11:10] Travis Bader: Do you ever have the thinking in your head? I mean, people will push for something and I can make something happen and I can push against all odds to make it happen. And sometimes it winds at my back and it just goes. Am I pushing against the universe and out of sync with things and pushing for something that I'm eventually going to look back and say, like, why did I do it like this?

[00:11:34] Travis Bader: Do you have these thoughts? Like the difficult part with the mentality of all of the motivational and the self help and you can do it and keep on pushing is like, People being able to recognize when they're pushing towards something that's desirable, that's going to lead them in the right direction, or maybe the universe is saying, hold on, slow down.

[00:11:53] Travis Bader: Maybe there's, maybe there's a different place we should be going. Do you, do you have those sort of thoughts? 

[00:11:59] Seb Lavoie: Yeah, I absolutely do. And, and if I. Was to use a case study. Let's talk about Sean Taylor and I's book. When we first came out to, to, you know, to want to work on that, on that book project. And along the way, what we have found is that every little step we took was 10 times harder than it should have been.

[00:12:18] Seb Lavoie: Everything that we had in place somehow would There would be something that would generate a different outcome. And the person was either out or, or we didn't have the help that we needed or the person felt ill or whatever the case may be. And so it, it, it quickly became very apparent. And so it's important to look at the totality of the circumstances, not just what's happening, but what was happening with us.

[00:12:45] Seb Lavoie: You know, and so I reassess what I do when this happens is I generally reassess our current situation. Are we in the best possible scenario or are we in the best possible state to operationalize our, our, our idea at the moment? And so, yes, we have all these external factors that are not going our way.

[00:13:04] Seb Lavoie: But are there internal factors that are not optimized because this is where the difference is, if I'm fully optimized, I will push until I'm being told that it isn't going to happen or it quits. 

[00:13:17] Travis Bader: Right. 

[00:13:17] Seb Lavoie: Right. And that's, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But ideally, I will manage the interconnection between.

[00:13:26] Seb Lavoie: The outcome and the goal and the external factors and, and whether or not I'm optimized to reach said goal. And that's precisely what happens. So that, that, that pushing an endless push and never quitting isn't always the best option. If you're not optimized as the individual or as the person. That's wanting to do certain thing you may have to reassess that and say, I can work on our sense exactly what we did with the book.

[00:13:55] Seb Lavoie: For example, Sean and I realized that despite the fact that we had a lot of good stuff, we weren't quite ready. We weren't quite ready for the book. To be as impactful as we wanted it to be for, we weren't elevated at a certain, at a certain level of proficiency, if even in our communication styles or even in formulating our ideas or concepts that would, that would make a meaningful difference.

[00:14:23] Seb Lavoie: So my end goal was to create a book that helps in a book that create meaningful change. But I, we, both of us weren't optimized in that realm. And so for me, that was enough. I have the, the external factors telling me slow down, you're not ready yet. And I have my own evaluation of our current status and situation that says, hold on, you're not ready yet.

[00:14:47] Seb Lavoie: Then that's the time to tactically reposition, take, take a tactical pause, you know, whatever you want to call it. Cause it's not quitting. No, because ultimately all we did was, you know, You know, two years has passed, we developed together and did all kinds of things to get all kinds of projects. And two years later, the end goal that we had, you know, three years ago is exactly the same, but our, our capacity and our ability to, to make it happen is, you know, 

[00:15:17] Travis Bader: I've always had a difficult time, uh, just that, I guess, quantifying actually analytically quantifying when it's time to take a different direction.

[00:15:27] Travis Bader: Cause when I set my mind to something, I'd like to be able to analytically say, okay, A, B and C are going on. It would be better to do this over here, but, you Man, I don't want to be running away from something. And you know, when things get hard, that's when most people quit. And that's where I found success in the past by pushing forward.

[00:15:45] Travis Bader: But I will get a gut feeling and I'll just get this deep down gut feeling and I'll sit there, maybe it's a guy thing. And you try and you try and analyze that gut feeling when you say it's not ready yet, or I'm not prepared to do A, B, C, D, or maybe I'm prepared to do it, but the collateral damage is going to happen to those people around me, isn't something I'm prepared to take on yet.

[00:16:06] Travis Bader: Um, Do you just, I just rely on my gut. Is that what you do or is there a better way to be able to sort of process that you kind of look at to help put words to that gut feeling? 

[00:16:18] Seb Lavoie: Yeah, I do use my gut and I use my gut as a barometer, like something is up. I'm having, I'm encountering some resistance or, or I have internal resistance or there's external factors that are creating anxiety or there's things I need to explore.

[00:16:34] Seb Lavoie: And I, so I use my gut primarily to line up the, the sort of the, the actions that I need to take to ascertain whether or not I'm ready for whatever it is that I'm asking to do or to be. And so, no, there isn't an exact science, but at the end of the day, it's all about consequences too. What are the consequences attached to this?

[00:16:55] Seb Lavoie: Is this, is this, you know, grievous bodily harm or death? Is this, you know, dismemberment? Well, I just look silly 

[00:17:04] Travis Bader: and we'll talk about dismemberment. 

[00:17:07] Seb Lavoie: Yeah, exactly. And, but, but if the, you know, if the consequences that are attached with whatever it is that you, you are pushing for are not catastrophic. Send it 

[00:17:17] Travis Bader: like, 

[00:17:17] Seb Lavoie: I, I generally, I generally don't really hold back on at all on any of those.

[00:17:22] Seb Lavoie: Uh, but, but I will hold back on things that have, you know, catastrophic consequences. And when I say catastrophic consequences, I mean, if it was to affect your family in a very negative way or, or, or your business in a way that it'd be difficult to sustain living or whatever, um, you know, obviously those things, there has to be more.

[00:17:43] Seb Lavoie: There has to be more articulation to myself behind the decisions that I'm making or the, or the direction that I'm taking. But if it's just, if it's just that I'm encountering a lot of resistance, things happen where most people fail 

[00:17:59] Travis Bader: and 

[00:17:59] Seb Lavoie: most people quit. 

[00:18:00] Travis Bader: That's right. 

[00:18:01] Seb Lavoie: Right on the other side of quitting is what you're after.

[00:18:05] Seb Lavoie: But what's difficult is it's easy to have that conversation. But when it happens, wheels to the pavement and, and you get hit over and over and over and over again, it's really easy to take the path of least resistance, which is okay, maybe now is not the time. And so the answer is you don't know if that's the case.

[00:18:29] Seb Lavoie: And so for me, unless there's catastrophic consequences attached to this, I'm going to push until I can no longer physically or mentally and emotionally cannot. 

[00:18:38] Travis Bader: You know, I've always kind of used the phrase done is better than perfect. And I've also looked at, um, what's actually catastrophic because what's catastrophic in my mind today is A month from now, a year from now, I look back like that was nothing.

[00:18:56] Travis Bader: And even the things that seem catastrophic, you can go back on and say, well, it seemed pretty bad at the time, but look at the better place I'm in right now. Look at what I've learned from it. And with the done is better than perfect. If I'm building a project or doing something, and I'll do it even with this podcast, like I'll agonize over certain parts of this and how should the intro be?

[00:19:14] Travis Bader: And how should that be? And. I've recently just kind of changed things up a bit, and I'm trying a few things out to, uh, expand the value that we bring to the audience. And I figure, you know what, if I throw this out to the world, that'll be the ultimate litmus test. Maybe I'll look silly. Maybe, maybe it'll tank a little bit, but I'm going to learn from this and, and move on.

[00:19:34] Travis Bader: Done is better than perfect has been the one that's helped me get through those points. 

[00:19:39] Seb Lavoie: Wasn't that one of Patton's most 

[00:19:40] Travis Bader: favorite quotes? Was it him who said that? Yeah. Okay. I'd steal another one from him, which is, uh, Uh, don't tell a person how to do something, tell them what you want to see achieved and let them.

[00:19:51] Travis Bader: Surprise you with the results. Decentralized command. Yeah. It's massive, isn't it? Decentralized command. So you sent me a pretty cool video and I watched the thing through, it was about 45 minutes. And so that's, that's a time commitment for somebody with ADHD to go through. I'm not going to lie. I put my finger on it to play it at two times speed, but, uh, uh, but I watch it front of back and it was a neurosurgeon, MIT Uh, educated neurosurgeon spent about 20 years of his life doing neurosurgeon stuff, working on spines and learning about brains and wanting to make a huge impact on people's lives.

[00:20:29] Travis Bader: And he up and quit and he made a massive decision to change the direction of his life to be more connected with nature. And he boiled down what he was seeing in the medical world of, uh, People who would come into him for a problem. They would have, let's say, degenerative disc disease or balds in their spine.

[00:20:51] Travis Bader: And they're in a lot of pain and he would operate on them and they'd be back six months later or a year later with the exact same problem, maybe in the same place or different area, and And there's other people who he would work on and they would come into his intake. He's getting ready to do surgery.

[00:21:06] Travis Bader: All right, here's your date. And they come back and they'd be like, yeah, you know, I still got this bulge disc, but I'm pain free. Like, do I still have to come in here? And he was using a questionnaire process to look at their lifestyle, to look at where they're at. And he noticed a, a trend and the trend that he tracked over a number of years for people who were seeing positive results, hadn't Little to anything to do with the medical intervention that he was providing.

[00:21:32] Travis Bader: And if I remember correctly, uh, the big points that he pointed out were diet and he kind of pointed to a low sodium, uh, more of a plant based don't get rid of meat, but more plant based, um, sleep. Prioritizing sleep, um, exercise, being able to sweat, essentially get out there and move and sweat, um, positive social connections were massive.

[00:21:56] Travis Bader: And of course there's that Harvard study that says that's the number one predictor for happiness in people. And I think, was there one more piece? Because the one more piece I would add would be purpose. That was one that he didn't put in there for general happiness. Having a purpose combined with those would, uh, would help a person.

[00:22:15] Travis Bader: But he looked at these pieces and he says, I don't think I'm bringing the maximum positive effect I can bring to people. What if I started a YouTube channel and I did my best just to bring nature to them? And it was. Kind of a, I mean, for somebody to make that decision and leave a well-paying prestigious job, everyone's gonna be looking at him.

[00:22:37] Travis Bader: His friends are gonna be saying, what the hell are you doing? Why are you doing this? They're gonna ask him to justify it and he'll be, he said he felt foolish and then he stopped feeling foolish and other people felt foolish for him. He said they were, see, looking at him and feeling embarrassed, said he'd leave.

[00:22:52] Travis Bader: And I thought that whole thing was really interesting for what he had went through, but also what you have gone through with your career. You spent a fair bit of time with the RCMP. You got yourself to a position coveted, worked very hard and you left. Is there a similarity between what this doctor was going through and what you have gone through?

[00:23:17] Seb Lavoie: Unquestionably. So the one piece that that was missing, the one angle that was missing with him is stress management. Yes. Right. Mindfulness. Yes. Mindfulness, stress management, all the mechanisms that feed into stress management. And I think that as valuable as the video was, When he's explaining and giving us the rational explanation as to why he left, what was really critical to me is what he didn't say.

[00:23:44] Seb Lavoie: Tell me. Well, it was quite evident that the mechanisms that were employed by the people that were getting better were things that he couldn't do. Yes. Himself. Yeah. And so not only did he see that as a problem for people recovering from injury, but he saw it as a problem for himself because he was heading down the same path without a back injury.

[00:24:05] Seb Lavoie: And one of the things he said to that effect was in relation to, I probably won't live to be 60 if I continue down this path. And just imagine, you know, being a sought after neurosurgeon on call all the time being dragged out everywhere and doing some very, very complex work with some people that Sometimes you can help and other times you can't.

[00:24:29] Seb Lavoie: So there is a, there is a, there is an emotional load that's being carried as well on that and, and, and a certain burden. And so, you know, for me, when I, when I, when I watched that, the, the one feeling that came to sort of. That flared up was gratitude and, and I say gratitude and it sounds, it sounds, you know, either rehearse or, or, or, or tacky or, or, but the reality is I felt gratitude that I realized early enough in life that the things that I adore doings and the things that I was engaged in on an, on an operational front and the things that I, that I'd made my life meaningful over the last 25 years.

[00:25:17] Seb Lavoie: Also had an underlying sort of hurting mechanisms. And so, you know, whether it's. Uh, exposure to trauma, like repeat exposure and consistent exposure to trauma, whether it's even dealing with administrative stresses, you know, from dealing with, with the nation, the nation's Capitol or, or, or the head office or, and, and, and, and.

[00:25:42] Seb Lavoie: And managing highly stressful, highly consequential events in a, in a variety of different ways, whether it was tactically when I was, you know, in that kind of position or even administratively, if there, if the consequences attached to whatever actions that you are taking have a greater impact on the collective, which can be catastrophic.

[00:26:01] Seb Lavoie: And so. All of this is a lot of stress and all you have to do. And I remember in 2015, I went to Hawaii for a vacation, which is coming back next week. So I went to Hawaii for a vacation and I, and I'm like, you know, I love my job. It really doesn't stress me out. I can manage everything. I'm good to go, all this stuff.

[00:26:21] Seb Lavoie: And I was going to Hawaii for three weeks. I come back. And I was wearing a Garmin and my heart rate monitor was on just coincidentally. I never set it up or anything. And I sat down at my desk coming back, post vacation, and I fired up my email and within reading four or five email, I was 10 Heartbeat per minute above baseline.

[00:26:44] Seb Lavoie: Right. And I remember thinking, I'm not feeling stressed right now at all. Like I'm not feeling an increase arousal or stress or anything yet. Here we are. You know, there is a, there, there is a physiological. Consequence to the type of work that I spent 20 years doing. And we are seeing it with a, with the suicide rates.

[00:27:08] Seb Lavoie: We are seeing it with, you know, the, the amount of people that have severe post traumatic stress disorder, occupational stress injury, the amount of people that are in depressive states that have to stop working, all of those things are, are. So I do believe this. I do believe that a profession like this has a timeline.

[00:27:26] Seb Lavoie: I do believe that we've extended the timeline way, way past. What is safe. And if we look historically at some of our members that worked for 30 and 40 years, most of them, if not all of them are dead within a year of retiring. There is a good high percentage. Isn't there? It's incredibly high. And right now we are seeing it with some of our, some of our highest flyers that for, you know, Three decades of, I've provided an incredible service or extremely dedicated to a time obsessives, some might say, and really, really out there doing the thing and getting after it and helping as much as they could at every job and taking all the overtime in the world, doing all this stuff.

[00:28:08] Seb Lavoie: And they are dropping like flies. You're seeing them drop like flies. And we're talking about people in their early fifties or mid fifties in great physical condition, people that have, that have Taking care of their bodies, all this stuff. And so, so, so answer your question precisely, you know, for me, I've had a great career, no complaints about my career, but I was very aware of the cost of the, of the work, of the unspoken cost of the work and the subconscious cost of the work, which was in my case, conscious, I knew it was happening, even if I didn't fully understand the extent to which it happened.

[00:28:46] Seb Lavoie: And so when I decided to go out and explore life, I already had built enough experience in managing things that I, in which the external factors were extremely complex and successfully so that I wasn't worried about what's going to happen with me. I thought of it, it played on my mind. It wasn't the safest option, but it was But it also was, it also was a great challenge and a great op and something that I knew I would have to step up for myself in, in sort of a burn the boats type scenario.

[00:29:23] Seb Lavoie: And, and when you're left with, when you left yourself no other choice, you, you have To take actions and you have to do the things that you need to do to, to, to satisfy or to, to accomplish the outcome that you're, that you're after. And so when I watched this video and I saw him explaining what he was hoping to accomplish out of his career, what triggers, so to speak, made him realize that what he was doing wasn't exactly in line with.

[00:29:53] Seb Lavoie: With what gave his life meaning and that there was potentially a better way to achieve the meaning don't fall in love with your own plan. Don't don't fall in love with your own plan. I don't care how much you invested in it. Like, and the reason why I say this is imagine this. We have now an MIT train.

[00:30:13] Seb Lavoie: Neuroscientist, a neurosurgeon that has 10 years of experience and he's out there in nature, focusing on his dog and, and, and, and connecting with nature, but now he brings this to other people and that there's a great lesson in there because if you want commitment to a cause, It takes 10 years, 15 years of schooling to get to the position that he was in.

[00:30:35] Seb Lavoie: And then he did it for 10 years. And the money that's associated with that position is really good. 

[00:30:42] Travis Bader: It's next level. It's really good. Yeah, it is. 

[00:30:45] Seb Lavoie: So, so now you have from an outsider looking in, When now you start, this is perspective for you and it's not invalidation, it's perspective. You can look at this and say, okay, this guy was an MIT trained neuros, neurosurgeon that spent 10 years in neurosurgery.

[00:31:01] Seb Lavoie: He made a ton of money and he made a decision that was better for his wellness overall. And that is the number one priority at the end of the day. And so, when you look at this and you, you know, you've spent. Three years in policing, for example, and you did a six months course to get there and you, you know, um, it's easy to think that everything you've put so much effort in that somehow, if you don't follow the path that you were established for yourself, that you're going to do it wrong, but it isn't the case, that path that you forged, the information you've gained, the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you've gained are a part of who you are.

[00:31:39] Seb Lavoie: I don't care what you do. It's never going away. Like this guy, academic, academic achievements, the fact that he was able to negotiate what arguably non arguably one of the hardest program that probably is in, in the medical school as, as given him the self confidence that he needed to walk away from it, 

[00:32:03] Travis Bader: you know, 

[00:32:04] Seb Lavoie: all of that.

[00:32:04] Seb Lavoie: And now he goes into a different venture with the same analytical mind, with the same. Intellectual capacity with the same drive, with the same, all of those things. So he's polished all of those tools. He's bringing them into a different context. Like he hasn't negated what he did for 20 years, that 20 years made him.

[00:32:28] Seb Lavoie: And so now he's able to address life, you know, look, look, look, look at life through a different lens, but with all of that skills, knowledge, and ability is going nowhere. 

[00:32:38] Travis Bader: There's a lot of power in what you just relayed there. And, you know, there's, there's that logical fallacy of being pot committed that so many people subscribe to.

[00:32:47] Travis Bader: I put all of this time in, I put all this money into it. It's going to pay off soon. It's going to pay off soon. And being able to stop regroup, take a more desirable course of action by using what you've learned through all of that. I, I think there's a lot of power to that. And you know, the other one was don't get married to the plan.

[00:33:06] Travis Bader: I don't know if I'm paraphrasing what you said there, but don't, don't get married to the plan. Don't get yourself so attached to the plan that you had in place. So the plan isn't giving you the outcome that you're looking for, but you also said something about looking for your meaning. What gives your life meaning?

[00:33:26] Seb Lavoie: Yeah. Various things give my, give my life meaning and all of those things are, are. Somewhat interconnected. And again, you know, we, as human beings, we, we tend to silo things because it makes us, it makes it easier for us and more palatable and easier to process. The reality is everything is interconnected deeply and viscerally and, and failing to recognize that can cause, can cause issues.

[00:33:55] Seb Lavoie: And so for me, it's always been at the core of it, helping the collective in one way or another. I just love, I just love to help people. Yes, it really doesn't matter in one, in what context it could be, you know, physically protecting them again against harm. It can be mentally and emotionally being present when they need a friend or somebody to talk to or bounce ideas off.

[00:34:17] Seb Lavoie: It can be in a professional setting and, you know, with coaching people or, or, or going and, and, and do guest speaking appearances and, and really convey some critical information. To, you know, to, to, to people so that they can make better and more sensible decision in relation to the things that they're wanting to do, or the things that they're stuck in or whatever the case may be.

[00:34:38] Seb Lavoie: And so for me at the core, always been that the, the vehicles that I use. To, to accomplish that were many, you know, I, I was a coach, I, I had gyms, I did put my body and my mind in harm's way to help. I, I did step, step in when the time was required. I, you know, I, I, I, I was there for anybody and who's anybody that reaches into my DM and, and, and is going through a rough time.

[00:35:05] Seb Lavoie: And, and more importantly for the people that are very close to me that have needed me along the way. Not once have I not been there. Right. And so all of those things and continuing to proliferate the message and continuing to be out there, trying to not impart wisdom, but share wisdom, you know, and I, and I, and I always use this word because really, when I come and do an interview with you, I learn as much from you as you do from me.

[00:35:33] Seb Lavoie: And we're, and. It's a, it's a, it's an exchange, right? But sometimes when you're looking at a problem and when you're looking at something through either the same lens or at their same angle, it's kind of like, um, brainstorming with yourself, there is no brainstorming with yourself, you know, the storm keeps going.

[00:35:54] Seb Lavoie: And at the end you spew out the exact same outcome, which you have cognitive bias towards. And that's going to happen over and over and over again until somebody else comes in and says, wait a minute, look at it this way. Okay. You know, so those are all mechanisms that give my life meaning. I'm not necessarily looking for happiness.

[00:36:13] Seb Lavoie: Happiness is, is one of those things it's very fleeting. And if you're looking for happiness and this is your measure of success, however you define it, you're going to fail miserably multiple times in life. But if you're looking for meaning. You never fail, even if you're on the wrong end of adversity or something extremely difficult.

[00:36:32] Travis Bader: That's the whole concept of logo therapy, which is logo, logo, smart. I, you know what, I don't, you're gonna mess it up, but a logo, I'm not even going to get into what the Latin is, but essentially Viktor Frankl, um, was the third VNE school of, of, uh, psychotherapy. Come up with this concept of logo therapy, which is meaning searching for meaning because you look for happiness.

[00:36:57] Travis Bader: You're never going to find it. Happiness should be a by product of your hard work and your efforts. It's something that happens. It's not something that you can obtain. Uh, in, in that, I think for a lot of people is a, um, Is a bit of an aha moment when they finally understand that. And they realize that, that they will be happy when they're doing things, whatever it is, it goes towards their meaning.

[00:37:21] Travis Bader: And if that's being of service and value to others, then And very often that's where happiness will come from. I find personally, because if my, my idea of meaning is for me to be awesome and me to be perfect, it's very self centered and, uh, it's not going to fuel that happiness for me, maybe for someone out there, but I got to imagine that.

[00:37:42] Travis Bader: It's. It's probably not the formula there. 

[00:37:46] Seb Lavoie: Well, there's a lot of empty shells, right? Let's go, let's call a spade a spade. And so if you're an empty shell and you're, you are seeking and looking for constant, either external validation or, or even gaining perspective with the purpose in mind to self validate, you're going to start doing things.

[00:38:04] Seb Lavoie: To pump yourself up because there is an insecurity there. There's a better way to do it. There's a much better way to do it because ultimately you can lie to everybody around you, but you can't lie to yourself. And you're, you're going to call yourself out every single time you do it. And eventually it will have consequences that are, you know, not the, not the, not the consequences that you would, that you would like.

[00:38:28] Seb Lavoie: And so there's a better way to do it, which is. Action, the things that you need to action, to be the person that you say you are, that's it. And if you live with authenticity and you, and you are investing in the steps of the process to make you the person that you are. That you truly want to be, or the person that you say you are, or the person that you, that you, that you, you know, that other people are perceiving you to be, and that's what brings you joy.

[00:38:57] Seb Lavoie: Then you want to make sure that you are that person. What you see is what you get. 

[00:39:02] Travis Bader: Because you can't have a disconnect. If there is a disconnect in there, you can't You'll know it and it's going to show, it's just going to rear its ugly head and in some very 

[00:39:10] Seb Lavoie: interesting ways. It does. And, and the problem with that is a surreptitious ways in which, or the, um, insidious ways in which, in which it will affect you and insidious is dangerous, you know, cause it, it's almost, you can almost talk yourself out of something is happening here, but really what's happening is at the fundamental level, your insecurities are impacting.

[00:39:35] Seb Lavoie: Everything you do. And so now you're 17 layers deep on this project or whatever the case may be. And, and nothing is going the way you wanted to, and all of this is triggered by insecurities that were never actually dealt with. So if there are insecurities that are not dealt with and you haven't optimized yourself, you're, you're going to bring these demons with you everywhere you go.

[00:39:57] Seb Lavoie: Dealing with 

[00:39:57] Travis Bader: these different challenges and speaking of challenges, you recently had an amputation. That you've had to work through, um, you know, you've approached that head on, you've approached it with positivity. You've been very brutally honest in social media, about the process and where you're at and how most of it you were looking at is, Hey, things are great.

[00:40:27] Travis Bader: Things are going well. And I got to imagine when you talked before about being, uh, being there for other people when they reach out, it's good. Gotta take its toll on you. If you're of the mindset that you're always there for everybody as they reach out, and there's always going to be people that don't even realize the toll that they're putting on others when they ask for help.

[00:40:48] Travis Bader: I remember what was that sign? There's an old show called the prisoner Patrick McGoogan or McGoogan was the star character of it. And on the intro to everyone, he'd ride into town and there's a sign that says questions are a burden unto others answers are a prison unto oneself. People don't realize the burden that they're putting on other people by constantly reaching out for help.

[00:41:13] Travis Bader: I, it's a multi part kind of question. We could take it wherever we want to go, but I got to wonder about how you deal with that. If you're going to be a life preserver for all of these different people, um, where we kind of draw that line. And while you're dealing with your own Things that are going on, whether that be, you know, you've left work in the transition phase, you've been amputated, you've lost a leg, you've, uh, you're dealing with learning to be a new person, how to walk and, and, uh, exercise and get around.

[00:41:47] Travis Bader: How are you dealing with that? 

[00:41:51] Seb Lavoie: So, so for me, it's all about reframing and I use reframing Very, very seriously and all the time consistently. And I'll give you an example of where that might look like. Sure. We know that if a person takes the time out of their day to help somebody in need, that person is doing something that's, that's selfless, that's difficult, but is meaningful.

[00:42:20] Seb Lavoie: If the person is going through a hard time themselves, and they're still out there for others, that's a next level of that meaning for me. Anyways, it, it, it adds to the meaning of what it is that I'm doing. And I've had people come back to me later. When I sent you this email, I never realized what was going on in your own life.

[00:42:44] Seb Lavoie: Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you so much for jumping on a zoom call. Thank you so much for going for coffee or whatever the case may be. And so I actually thrive in that. I thrive in that for a variety of different reasons, but one of those is I need to show up for myself. I am going through my own ordeals.

[00:43:04] Seb Lavoie: I'm going through my own adversity and now I have to negotiate my adversity and perhaps helping somebody else that's having a hard time, not to be confused with not holding space for yourself. Like, and that's a, it's a feeling out process. I can't tell to the, I can't tell the next person that's doing way too much for everybody, perhaps that you should continue doing that.

[00:43:26] Seb Lavoie: If it doesn't feel right at the end of the day, it needs, you need to do what feels right for you in the moment. And some people it's isolating when they're dealing with adversity. And then they come back and help the collective stronger. And that's the perfectly good way to do it. But for me personally, I just love to be challenged and I love to be challenged in a way that would really, really impact most people.

[00:43:54] Seb Lavoie: You know, I love a real challenge like this amputation. That was a worthy challenge for me, you know, I, and, and, and for me to have, to continue engaging with the people, to continue to be there for those that needed me is, is just an added layer. To this, to this sort of meaningful enterprise that I got going on here, right?

[00:44:20] Seb Lavoie: And you know what, let's call a spade a spade. Is it, is it a hundred percent selfless or is it, or is it somewhat self serving? It has to be, it's somewhat self serving. It makes me feel good. It makes me, it makes me spend less time fretting on some of the things that I'm going through and having, you know, Engage with other people and helping.

[00:44:41] Seb Lavoie: And sometimes when I out there having a conversation with somebody and we're discussing all these things, sometimes I get answers to my own questions in the process. So there is a certain part of this that's, that is somewhat self serving, but it's on an individual basis. You need to, you need to know where the limits are for you.

[00:45:00] Seb Lavoie: And that's, you know, a lifetime of establishing boundaries. And often what happens is I have very healthy boundaries. Very healthy. Some people laugh all the time at my boundaries. You know, when, when I'm in a social event, when I'm gone, nobody gets says hi to, I'm gone. I disappeared. That's it. There's no pass go.

[00:45:21] Seb Lavoie: There's no claiming 200. It's like, see you later. Right. And everybody that knows me knows that when Seb is done here, he's gone. Yeah. Right. And, and those apply in a variety of different dimensions. But I may, I'm not ashamed. Of my boundaries. I have very clear. And so that is an important skill to have. If somebody doesn't have boundaries and they're trying to live in the way that I do, but without having boundaries, now they're going to get encroached upon all the time.

[00:45:55] Seb Lavoie: Right. So. Let's take something very simple. A kid, a kid sends me a message. He says, Hey, I've been following your social media. I really love the stuff you put out. It's very motivating. I w you know, I want to be this, or I want to be that. And I was, I was hoping to get your thoughts on that. Well, I got 900 podcasts out.

[00:46:12] Seb Lavoie: Yeah. So here, you know, here, here's a link to X, Y, and Z. And if you have any remaining questions, I'll be there after. So that's my way of establishing a certain boundary and still providing, providing some help. And so the question becomes, do I have boundaries? And if I do, what are some of the mitigating factors or some of the mitigating strategies that I can use?

[00:46:39] Seb Lavoie: To maintain my boundaries and still accomplish the mission. So the mission is this, the mission execution is flowing. And this is, this is the biggest mistake that people make. It applies to tactical operation, but it also applies to life. You have an end goal, you have a plan, you have a mission. They, they falling in love with the mission is totally fine.

[00:47:00] Seb Lavoie: Falling in love. In the way by which the mission is accomplished is not. 

[00:47:05] Travis Bader: So when I 

[00:47:06] Seb Lavoie: said, don't fall in love with your own plan earlier, I'm talking about the execution plan, the execution phase of the plan, which is which action do I need to take to achieve the outcome that I set for myself? And so that's something that has to be That has to be extremely clear in your mind.

[00:47:24] Seb Lavoie: What is your mission and what are some of the, what are some of the ways by which you can accomplish the mission, maintaining healthy boundaries. 

[00:47:34] Travis Bader: What were some of the biggest challenges that you've had with this amputation?

[00:47:42] Travis Bader: And I'll throw a couple of things out there. I mean, When you were, when it first happened, you put a post out and says, okay, let's hear it. Let's hear the jokes. Come on guys. Right. I mean, I'm sure everyone loves, are you still enjoying the 

[00:47:55] Seb Lavoie: jokes? Oh, absolutely. 

[00:47:57] Travis Bader: Okay. 

[00:47:58] Seb Lavoie: I got to tell you, man, if I'm being a hundred percent honest, which I always am anyways, um, I will say this, my request to ask or to ask people to make fun of me in that, at that time, Was the absolute saving grace of the first three days of my amputation, because what ended up happening is, and I want to bore you with the details, medically speaking, but they, I was supposed to have a stint in there that was supposed to prevent pain and it wasn't working, it wasn't firing.

[00:48:30] Seb Lavoie: So I essentially raw dogged an amputation for two days. Right. And when that happens, I And I'm trying to distract myself from the 10 out of 10 pain and all those things. And I jump on my social and I see a news, a news clip of me fighting a great white shark and having lost a leg. And, you know, it just made me laugh so hard that that is a natural thing.

[00:48:55] Seb Lavoie: That is a natural medicine for pain, for adversity, for anything is to smile, to laugh, to take it life, to take yourself lightly, to not take everything so seriously, you know, all of those things. It was the single best decision I made. As I was going through the process was to say, let me have it. What it also did is it prevented people from getting in my inbox in a sort of self pity, you know, and I just, I gotta, I gotta tell you, man, I gotta tell you, I have, I have this thing where at the best of times, I absolutely do not like compliments at all.

[00:49:37] Seb Lavoie: I, I, I don't, I'm the same. And it's funny because my, my fiance is soon to be wife makes fun of me all the time. She's like, you get so awkward when we give you compliments, right? And, and, and so if you think of it, you, you make a post, you make a mean, something that's meaningful that you think may have a meaningful impact on others.

[00:49:58] Seb Lavoie: And now it becomes about you. Um, you know, because it's like, Oh, you're, you're the greatest. You're this, you're that, you're that. I'm not, what I'm doing here is, is nothing. And, and I'm going to, I'm going to say this. You look at a guy like Mark Omrod, for example. Right. I have a below the knee amputation and I'm not discounting the fact that it comes with challenges, but you, can you imagine, and it's an elective amputation, I made the decision to do it on account of the totality of the circumstances and it served the purpose.

[00:50:28] Seb Lavoie: Okay. You're, uh, you know, a 19, 20, 21 year old vet that's out there somewhere patrolling and boom, three limbs missing. And now you're coming back and now you have to go through the, so I think that as humans, we, we, when we assess difficulty, we're not very good at it. At that we're not, we're, we're, we're actually not very good at knowing what's, what's truly, truly difficult.

[00:50:58] Seb Lavoie: And, and what are the spectrums of difficulties that are going to be? And so, and I think part of this is you don't want to be elitist, right? Like, Oh, you're just a below the knee amputee. And we see it in amputee world. It's actually quite funny. There's a bit of drama like this, but one of the things, one of the things that's important to realize is that seriousness is only as serious as you.

[00:51:19] Seb Lavoie: Apply it against the situation that you're in. That's a decision that you make. Nobody else can tell you this is really hard because for somebody really hard means walking two kilometers. 

[00:51:31] Travis Bader: Sure. 

[00:51:32] Seb Lavoie: For somebody really hard is running a hundred miles and for somebody really hard is running 10 times a hundred miles back to back.

[00:51:41] Seb Lavoie: I, the spectrum is infinite. It's an infinite spectrum of difficulties and we are really bad at assessing, you know, what's truly, truly difficult. And so I came to the conclusion and for me, what, what has worked best over the years is to assign, to, to, to not assign a specific level of difficulty to an event.

[00:52:02] Seb Lavoie: It just is. So instead of being like, Oh, that's going to be really hard, it changes nothing. Like me thinking that it's going to be really hard is an emotion. The work still has to get done. The actions still have to be taken. And I still have to take certain steps to make certain things happen. 

[00:52:20] Travis Bader: Just is. 

[00:52:20] Seb Lavoie: So you can stand in front of the board at the gym, watching the workout being Being laid out on the board and be like, Oh my God, this is going to be really hard.

[00:52:28] Seb Lavoie: And you start getting in your head and you start interfering the process. You start doing all this, or you can look at this and they, this is what I have to do. Just is like a knowledge, the fact that, you know, you're unsettled about it, perhaps put the emotions aside and look at it objectively. It's the work that needs to be done.

[00:52:48] Seb Lavoie: There's neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. A hundred percent. And I think a lot of people, it's greatly under or under appreciated, and it's greatly misunderstood. People think that things are coming with an associated value of difficulty or an S you know, and it's like, it doesn't, what is it for you?

[00:53:14] Seb Lavoie: Mm hmm. Like, how do you feel about, you know, and it's, and it's so interesting because it's almost like, um, anecdotal stifling. Like if somebody is coming in and telling you how difficult something is, then automatically at that point. It's difficult to you, right? And this is how people talk themselves outta doing all the all kinds of stuff.

[00:53:32] Seb Lavoie: I'm not gonna go to the special operation selection because a friend of mine who's much fitter than me or much faster and stronger, it didn't make it, so therefore I won't. Mm-Hmm, . You know, 

[00:53:44] Travis Bader: it's a very odd kind of group think that I see people subscribe to quite often. So one person thinks a certain way, the group starts thinking a certain way they did a, um, who was it?

[00:53:55] Travis Bader: Uh, it was Tim Cook and I think it was Elon. I think that the two of them were in an interview, they're talking about, uh, how they hire people, how they bring people on and. The one big takeaway that I got from it was individuals who are high performers that go into a low performing environment will quickly adapt to that low performing environment and vice versa.

[00:54:22] Travis Bader: You can bring a low performer and put them in the group of high performers. And they'll quickly adapt to that. And this kind of group think mentality is so massive. If you're hanging around, people are like, Oh, this is hard. Oh, this is difficult. And that becomes your bar and that's your world. And it's, you're constrained within this little sphere of, well, here's my limits and here's as far as I can go.

[00:54:44] Travis Bader: And I, I think, uh, having the mindset and maybe that comes from, you I guess, forging your own path to a big extent, as opposed to, uh, trying to surround yourself with other people with a larger fear, having your own path where you have an infinite sphere in different directions. They can get kind of go to, I'm just kind of thinking out loud as I go through here, because I can definitely say there are those with larger spheres that I will talk to and I'll look at, and I will say, okay, that sounds good.

[00:55:19] Travis Bader: Uh, in certain areas, is that what you do, or are you, are you kind 

[00:55:24] Seb Lavoie: of creating your own sphere? I think it's a combination of both. I think if you're surrounded, if you're surrounded with the right people around you, the people that elevate you, the people that bring out the best version of yourself, the people that will call you out every time that, you know, you're doing something that people Perhaps this is substandard or, or, or that you're limiting your potential or that you're lacking vision or whatever the case may be.

[00:55:46] Seb Lavoie: I mean, if you're surrounded by people like this, it's, it's, it's a great. It's a great check in, you know, a periodical check in where you, where you, where you actually get to say, okay, where am I in relation to others that are doing all these things? And I think that that occurs naturally, but generally what happens is people, instead of embracing that and saying, I can now elevate myself, there's a, there's an attitude of resistance to what I, what it is that I'm seeing.

[00:56:13] Seb Lavoie: Like, so if the person, you know, works out more than I do, oh, but they love to work. They love to get up in the morning. And they love to work out if this person does X, Y, and Z. Oh yeah. Well, but you know, uh, uh, I've done, you know, and so again, an, an emotional reaction or emotion or a chain and emotional reactions to a variety of different things.

[00:56:33] Seb Lavoie: They have zero control over, and that's not what the purpose is. If you want to optimize yourself, you need to look at it differently. Can I be a little bit better here? Can I engage a little bit more here? Can I do this? And if your friends are going, are out there getting after it and getting things done and moving the needle and helping others, and this is the sphere that you're in, you're in the, you're in the right spot.

[00:56:56] Seb Lavoie: As long as you have the right attitude in relation to what you are discovering about yourself or the things that you are doing. If you start playing a possum, or if you start putting your head in the sand, you're doing it wrong. It's not going to work. I don't care if you surround yourself with the best.

[00:57:11] Seb Lavoie: The best of the best. So you need to be engaged in the process of actively seeking the chinks in your armors and so that you can reinforce areas of your armor that are lacking. Where are your chinks right now? Well, right now my leg is, uh, you know, um, For me, there's, there's, it's constant, right? I have chinks in every single dimensions of my life.

[00:57:37] Seb Lavoie: So it's just a matter of, can I bring a little bit more polish here? Can I bring a little bit more finish? Can I build it a bit more, you know, resilience? Can I be, can I build it a bit more? Ability to communicate, like all of those things. And so I'm in a constant state of self evaluation constantly, and, and I'm not suggesting that sometimes it's not obsessive, you know, it can be obsessive.

[00:58:02] Seb Lavoie: And, and I think that maintaining a healthy perspective. On the reality of things. So I will use an analogy. I will use a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu analogy, just because, just because, because what is the conversation with our Brazilians? So, so I'll give you an example. Um, you know, you're looking at the world class grapplers as, as it stands right now.

[00:58:26] Seb Lavoie: And really. From a competitive standpoint, belts don't really matter all that much at all. You have like guys that are at the top level slaughtering world class black belts and their blues and purples, which is much lower ranks, but their skill level in the way they develop and the way they train and to train full time and all of those things has, has the propensity to create.

[00:58:48] Seb Lavoie: Grapplers such as this. Now, if they train with the right people, it's the possibilities are endless. And so when you look at this as a recreational grappler or somebody that did Jiu Jitsu as a, as a matter of self protection in the context of maybe an operational career or whatever the case may be, or even, even just for self defense purposes, when you look at this.

[00:59:11] Seb Lavoie: You now start questioning, like I'm a BJJ black belt, I've had it for three years. I'm technically a first Dan now, just a matter of receiving it. But when I look at an operation, an operating context, so let's go to a gym full of solid black belts that are competitive black belts. I'm now at the bottom of the totem pole, right?

[00:59:30] Seb Lavoie: Like from a, from a competitive or from a, from a competitive standpoint, take that same person and bring them to a lineup at the bank. Mm hmm. And now what? Right. Yeah. Like, and so I think it's, it's really, really healthy to understand that you can always be better, but everything has a cost and equal, equal or opposite reaction, or sometimes disproportionate reaction.

[00:59:55] Seb Lavoie: It's necessarily not equal. Right. Right. So you could go, so you could go, for example, you could say, okay, I want to be as good as a, as a competitive grappler. I now need to train eight hours a day. Well, something is going to give on account of you having to do that and many things probably. Right. And so.

[01:00:13] Seb Lavoie: There's two, there's two portions to this. Where can I be and where, where am I in reality? If I'm comparing myself to people that don't do this for a living and where is it that I'm an X and an acceptable range or ratio of those two things that make me fulfilled, that make me capable. That make me performing well enough that I'm satisfied with this, you know?

[01:00:42] Seb Lavoie: So it's a constant, it's a constant evaluating what's being done out there. What's better, who does it better? How can I get better? All of those things. And then an evaluation or a risk assessment associated with that decision. If I'm to do it as good as this, what has to give for me to make that happen, you know?

[01:01:01] Seb Lavoie: And so for me, I just got really good at kind of striking the balance. And I'm very comfortable with that. When I tell people I'm a recreational black belt, they're like, they always say, why do you say that? Why do you say that? Because I am. Sure. It's different, you know, and, and, and, and telling you that I'm not a competitive black belt does not take away from me.

[01:01:25] Seb Lavoie: That you're a black belt. It doesn't define me at all. It's just a part of who I am. But what's even more a part of who I am is authenticity. And I can't stand here and tell you all black belts are created equal. Cause it's just simply not the case. Sure. Right. So the least amount of your self reflection are causing you to, to get your hackles up and to start.

[01:01:49] Seb Lavoie: To want to, I, you know, to want to hide or to, or to, or to want to sugar coat or do all of those things, as long as actions are taking to be the person you want to be, your self worth will be at a level where those things no longer affect you in the same way, but it takes practice and you need to take it on the chin.

[01:02:11] Travis Bader: It's interesting you bring up self worth. That was something that, uh, Chance was talking about recently and he says, you know, I've always had a difficult time valuing myself and the idea of self worth. And I think that's a common thing. I think that's pretty common for a lot of people to, um, you know, maybe part of it's being Canadian and humble, right.

[01:02:29] Travis Bader: Maybe part of it's, uh, insecurities, um, Maybe it's cause we're always comparing ourself. If we look at self worth, well, I'm sure I'm a black belt, but I'm not that black belt. Right. And that black belt will say, sure, I'm that black belt, but I'm not. I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with.

[01:02:48] Travis Bader: And you also brought up the fact that you have a difficult time taking compliments. Are those two things, uh, is there an intertwining in there at all of, um, um, Difficulty with compliments. Cause I, I have a difficult time when, when people give me compliments, I have a hell of a time with it. The biggest compliment I can ever get is for someone to say nothing, but just to live their life in a better way.

[01:03:12] Travis Bader: If I was able to affect them in a better way, right? That, that would be a compliment to me. Why do you think you have a difficult time with compliments? And can you talk a little bit about self worth? 

[01:03:25] Seb Lavoie: Yeah. Like I, I don't know is the answer. Okay. 

[01:03:28] Travis Bader: Fair enough. 

[01:03:29] Seb Lavoie: So 

[01:03:29] Travis Bader: you're like me. All 

[01:03:30] Seb Lavoie: right. So when it comes, when it comes to, when it comes to my difficulty accepting compliments, I, I, I remember being like this as a kid even.

[01:03:39] Seb Lavoie: Yes. So, so this is not, this is not something new at all. And I think. I, I think to a certain extent, I was a ambivert. So I was a, you know, a person that had the capacity to be extroverted and introverted. I've 

[01:03:51] Travis Bader: never heard that term before now. Ambivert. 

[01:03:52] Seb Lavoie: Ambivert. Okay. And for me, I find that, Compliments piece or some of those things seem to bring the introvert in me.

[01:04:04] Seb Lavoie: I want to, you know, I kind of want to go into hiding and I'm sure a psychologist listening to this is going to be, Oh, we got some trauma here or something, you know, and I'm not, I'm not suggesting there is by any stretch of imagination, but, but the reality is. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. And, and to a certain extent, if you said to me, okay, here's what we're going to do.

[01:04:25] Seb Lavoie: You're going to, you're going to post as you normally do the regular content on your social media, you're going to have these conversations and everybody will bring a piece of their wisdom to what you just posted. But you will never again be externally validated. I would take that in a heartbeat. I legitimately do not need it at all.

[01:04:46] Seb Lavoie: But what I do need, and what I like to see is people bringing a little bit more wisdom. So I start something, I put a post out there. Some will say that there's wisdom in there. It's, some will say that perhaps it's inspiring or whatever the case may be. Cool. But what do you have to contribute to this?

[01:05:04] Seb Lavoie: Thanks. Right. Right. Because we're ultimately what happens is we live life as passengers in a car, and sometimes it's a driverless car. I'm just sit here in the passenger seat, waiting for somebody to do something, 

[01:05:15] Travis Bader: anybody 

[01:05:15] Seb Lavoie: to take the wheel, any external factors, anything is impacting me directly because I'm not engaged in a process.

[01:05:22] Seb Lavoie: I want you in a, um, what's the word? Um, there is a word for a, a, a, a style of education where you educate and the person reframe what you've taught them, and they come out with the, uh, with, with their own version, so to speak. And, right. I'm forgetting. Iter, the word iterative. No. Um, no. There's, there's a, there's a, there's a, a really good word for it.

[01:05:49] Seb Lavoie: And now I, I can't, I can con constructivism. Constructivism, okay. Constructivism. Yeah. I, I believe that's what it is. So in constructivism is exactly what should be. In my opinion is here's all this wisdom, all these technical data, all these things that I'm providing you, you assess this, assess all of this against your own skills, knowledge, and abilities, and you come, come up with a hypothesis of your own.

[01:06:15] Seb Lavoie: In relation to something. And now we're really moving the needle forward because it's easy to jump on a bandwagon. Oh yeah. That was a great post. Love it. Next. Right. You know, 

[01:06:23] Travis Bader: passenger in a bus, somebody else's driving for you. 

[01:06:26] Seb Lavoie: And so what do we know about that? Well, I'll tell you what we know. You can sit in the passenger seat of a car.

[01:06:32] Seb Lavoie: And go to the same location five times and never know how to get there. You got that. Yes. But if I say to you, I need you to take the map book, I'm dating myself here and I, and I need you to. To monitor X, Y, and Z and tell me when the next turn is and what the street name is and all of those things. When you ask that person again to drive back to that location, they're in a much better position to do that because they were engaged in the process.

[01:07:00] Seb Lavoie: And most people live life disengaged and engage in other people's lives. So, so you see external things. You're like, Oh, that's cool. That's cool. That's cool. That's cool. But you disengage in your own life. And so that's why I always, I love when people are engaging in the post. So I post something. It's, it's, it's thoughtful.

[01:07:22] Seb Lavoie: It's, it's, it's maybe sometimes at times intellectual, it might be a variety of different things for different people, or maybe it's completely at odds with how you see the world. And if that's the case, then I want to hear it. Like let, let it, let it formulate some sort of a hypothesis or let's, let's formulate something that I can now think about.

[01:07:42] Seb Lavoie: And now, now we're expending the knowledge. And I mean, we've seen it on all platforms. You've seen it on your silver core podcast. You, you know, you're growing an idea as you were developing it, as you're talking. 

[01:07:52] Travis Bader: And it's 

[01:07:52] Seb Lavoie: the same with the collective. The collective is really good at that because you have all these different perspectives coming in, all these smart people with incredible backgrounds, and they're bringing a different angle to this.

[01:08:03] Seb Lavoie: And next thing you know, your own thought process has evolved. Adaptation is good. Evolution is, is excellent. 

[01:08:13] Travis Bader: What do you think about Jason, and I'm going to butcher his last name, Subkowicz, how do you pronounce that? Subkowicz. Is that how it's pronounced? I believe so. Okay. Subkowicz. Subkowicz, yeah. Um, he recently made, put a post up there on social media.

[01:08:26] Travis Bader: He was working really hard to try and share what his journey and positivity. And he says, you know, it's just not for me. This is, uh, it's not the path for me. Um, I don't know. I can identify with some of that. I can definitely identify with the, uh, uh, the, the tool of social media being used to be able to bring other people up and to assist others.

[01:08:49] Travis Bader: What are your thoughts on that one? 

[01:08:51] Seb Lavoie: I feel the exact same way as Jason does. I didn't, I wasn't on social media until 2017 and at the time I was running my team. I was listening to Metallica in the back room, you know, creating ops plans, going from operation to operations. And I was. Singularly focused on my work and my guys and the things that we needed to be doing.

[01:09:13] Seb Lavoie: And so I never worried about that. And some of the guys would make fun of me for that and, and, and it was all good funds. And I, I owned it as I do anything else in life. And, um, and eventually I saw it as a, There was a, there was a way there was a way for me, perhaps, to continue impacting the collective by taking that route, which was supposed to be a temporary state of affairs and quite, if I'm being honest, it still is a temporary state of affairs.

[01:09:39] Seb Lavoie: I do not stay and remain stagnant. And so once I spent five, six, seven, eight, 10 years. Putting all kinds of content out there, trying to help the collective do all this stuff. My mission here is done and I can, I can make a correlation to my mental health walk. You know, we just hit 60, you know, certain things started happening that made me re evaluate.

[01:10:03] Seb Lavoie: And I came to the conclusion and the realization that those 60 walks. That I've done out of good, out of the, out of the, you know, out of goodwill and all of the sacrifices that were associated with this are not without their cost. That's right. And so for me at 60 mental health walk, it was done. 

[01:10:23] Travis Bader: Yeah.

[01:10:23] Seb Lavoie: Right. I, I now I'm passing the buck. I've, I've, I've given the torch. Yeah. The torch precisely. And I've, and I've. And I've engaged in a process wholeheartedly, but I have reached my, the end of my capacity to continue doing that. Now I'm going to morph and do something else, right? I'm going to do something else.

[01:10:43] Seb Lavoie: And so I, you know, when I look at a person like Jason, I don't know. I, I have an incredible amount of respect for, by the way, for a variety of reason, but primarily he's got a great heart and, and just, I love his philosophical take on things. I love, I love our present. He is for everyone. I just love how he lives.

[01:11:02] Seb Lavoie: Like I love everything about how he walks the walks and, and talks to talk, but also I know that this was counterintuitive to him. And I'm sure. With some of the, some of the inherent negative backlash that you get, what it does is it brings, it brings, he's, he's in a peaceful environment doing peaceful and meaningful things.

[01:11:26] Seb Lavoie: And he brings a certain layer of negativity. Yep. Right. And. You don't need it. You, you absolutely don't need it. You don't need to be reading all the comments. You don't need to be out having arguments. You don't need, you know, can, can you read says his best, you know, it's like, I'm at the age now that if you tell me that the sky is pink, I'll say yes.

[01:11:49] Seb Lavoie: Of course it is. Like, you know, he's, he's done with trying to convince people against their will and people convince against their will or to some opinions still. Right. And so for me, I actually love that Jason did that because it poked me, it poked me. It said, what about you? I kind of figured it with, where are you at with that?

[01:12:10] Seb Lavoie: Right. And that's why I told Jason, I said, as soon as, and I've been very open with this. When I'm in a, when I'm in a place and a, and a, at a time in my life where I feel Like I've provided enough and that I've given enough of myself and sacrifice enough of myself and those around me, because let's call a spade a spade, like taking the time to have all these conversations, doing all those things is taken away from the time that you could be spending with your family and friends.

[01:12:37] Seb Lavoie: And so there is a cost to this and it's, it's a collective sacrifice. It's not just my sacrifice. And so when I look at this, it's not just It, it tells me when is your turn, you know, when are you re evaluating. When you need to reprioritize and, and go in a different direction. Did you ask yourself that question?

[01:12:57] Seb Lavoie: Oh, a hundred percent. Immediately. And? Immediately. Well, so for me, it's, it's, it depends is the answer. It depends where everything else goes, right? Cause I have all kinds of plans. And so when some of those plans starts going, some of those will require a certain level of social media engagement. It's, it's the way it's the nature of the beast right now.

[01:13:17] Seb Lavoie: Right. But as far as having, you know, a Uh, uh, an open public page with like regular updates and, and, and pictures that are pretty polished. And, you know, that's the piece that I don't, I don't, that's not sustainable for me. I, I, I, I'm not interested in doing that forever. And so it's going to be a matter of negotiating and.

[01:13:40] Seb Lavoie: Or, or evaluating where I'm at in space and time. How do I feel about my contribution and where it's going and the reality of my current life and, and, and doing the things that are meaningful for me, which, you know, consist of generally being in the woods, walking around, hiking. I like that. Yeah. What does your next step look like?

[01:14:05] Seb Lavoie: Well, so I'm essentially moving from the city to a 14 acre property in a rural setting that has no, skip the dishes, no . I like it lot. I know, I do too. And so one of the things I, I really want to pick up that I've never done is hunting. 

[01:14:29] Travis Bader: Ah, yeah. 

[01:14:30] Seb Lavoie: Yeah. So of course that goes without saying and, and it's almost shameful that I've been on this podcast three or four times, and I'm not even a hunter.

[01:14:37] Seb Lavoie: Well, I've never hunted in Alberta, but I do have my 

[01:14:39] Travis Bader: wild card, which is a requisite for hunting in Alberta. And I do know people in Alberta who are very good hunters. So I think 

[01:14:47] Seb Lavoie: we're, I think we can figure something out. Awesome. So, yeah, I'm, I'm being told I need to do a couple of courses and I'm in, I'm in, I'm in to get all that done, but I want to do some of that, but what I want to do is really live the life that I currently live, but I have to go to various places to do it.

[01:15:03] Seb Lavoie: And so I'll give you an example of this. Um, you know, uh, my days of working 50, 60 hours a week are done. It's never happening again, unless I'm working temporarily for, you know, for a short time to try to get something accomplished. There's no problem doing that. But my days of, of sacrificing health, wellness, and everything on account of making a buck are done, done.

[01:15:25] Seb Lavoie: And so what I want to do is, so what I do now is, you know, I go to the gym, I get my training in, I do a little bit of work in front of my computer, a little bit later, I'll go on a run. Well, I'll go on a hike, I'll take my dog, Achilles out, I'll do all of those things, but I'll try to have multiple modalities in a day wellness modalities that is right in a various pillars, all interconnected doing all this stuff.

[01:15:46] Seb Lavoie: So what I want to do is I want to go out there, I want to build a gym. Like, so a functional gym, I want to build a mat space cause I want to have some people coming in so I can continue doing jujitsu. And I've already had MMA fighters contact me, say, Hey, we're going to come train with you, all this stuff.

[01:16:01] Seb Lavoie: So I'm in for that, but also I want to have sauna, hot tub, cold plunge, you know, and I'm 20 minutes from Waterton Lake or Waterton Park. So the, the, the, the provincial park, one of the most beautiful provincial park in Alberta, um, there's police lake next to me. Which you can go in for either swimming or fishing or doing all of those things.

[01:16:23] Seb Lavoie: So I want to do some of those things. So right now I'm in the wellness phase of my life, and it's probably been since I would say five years ago that I've put in an incredible amount of emphasis on prioritizing that above almost anything else. I also want to. Help the community as cheesy as this sounds, because that's a very tight knit community over in Cardston where I'm going.

[01:16:47] Seb Lavoie: And I want to be there and I want to be, I want to engage in that. I want to engage in this. Somebody need, you know, needing us real time wheels to the pavement. We're in, I want to re spool We Defy Canada. We Defy Canada has not gone anywhere. I don't quit on things. I just set them aside because I need to reprioritize with Sean and I are finishing the book.

[01:17:08] Seb Lavoie: We're probably six months, six, seven months away from that. Amazing. Um, I want to start a retreat. I would like to have a, uh, a wellness retreat. Aim that people wanting to get into first response world, the corporate world as well. I would love to do a decompression retreat for people that have left high stake jobs.

[01:17:27] Seb Lavoie: And that can be in any sort of context for them to learn how to change the way they do life, because on, on account of, you know, how they lived life for so long, and maybe not having had the exposure that I've was blessed to have and, and, and making, and I want to do it not in a. Scripted way where I teach them things that we know academically, I want them to experience things, you know, so, so go and do equine therapy by riding horses in the mountains, go do a little bit of rock climbing so that even if you're scared, so that you can work through the kinks of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and gain some valuable.

[01:18:09] Seb Lavoie: Insight. Mm-Hmm. about yourself, your life, and how you do things. I want them to have some self-defense mechanisms. So there's gonna be some, you know, jiujitsu, some standup, some whatever is needed, but also some situational awareness. I wanna do some resilience classes and have some academic piece coming in there and bring some people that truly exemplify all those values.

[01:18:29] Seb Lavoie: Mm-Hmm. and people that walk the walk to come in and guest and instruct on those. And, you know, I hate to say it, but you're, you're coming at some point my friend. Hey, I'd be honored to be there. 

[01:18:41] Travis Bader: I'd be 

[01:18:41] Seb Lavoie: honored to 

[01:18:41] Travis Bader: be there. 

[01:18:42] Seb Lavoie: But those are, those are projects that I have at the moment. And, uh, you know, I also made a way through a thesis I need to finish as well, which I always seem to find, you know, further down the line.

[01:18:58] Travis Bader: Yeah, that's, uh, well, that's an interesting one too. Did, did you, uh, did you go with the thesis that, uh, that we were talking about before the, the 

[01:19:05] Seb Lavoie: possibly highly controversial one? No, actually I didn't. Okay. And the reason why I didn't is because it would have been very difficult to find empirical, um, you know, information about that.

[01:19:15] Seb Lavoie: And also it would have had, it would have encountered all kinds of resistance. And that I'm at the point now where I need to finish my degree. That's all. 

[01:19:21] Travis Bader: Yeah. You know? 

[01:19:22] Seb Lavoie: And so, and one of the things that I'm very passionate about has been Haiti, right? And so Haiti, um, there's, there's, there's, there's a complex landscape there.

[01:19:32] Seb Lavoie: And so, and it ties right into, you know, The, the nature of my, of my, um, T of my, um, degree, which is international security. Right. And so I re re sort of refocused on Haiti and it's great because it's recent. There's a lot of recency. There's a lot of recent events and there's also a long tracking history with Haiti.

[01:19:52] Seb Lavoie: And so we're able to, you're able to, you have enough of that empirical data, but you also have enough of the anecdotal stuff and you have enough of everything else that you need to build a thesis that's meaningful, that fills a research. 

[01:20:05] Travis Bader: Well, I'm, I'm looking forward to reading that one. You know, to change tracks here a little bit, um, just, and I know I'm kind of throwing it out here from, from left field.

[01:20:16] Travis Bader: What was the best joke you ever got on the, uh, when you put the call out for the, uh, uh, after the amputation there? 

[01:20:22] Seb Lavoie: Well, we already spoke about it. It has to be the shark. It was the shark one? So, but there's a, but there's a, there's a continue, there's a continuation to the story. So basically what happens is, is, is a friend of mine, uh, Makes a news clip and the news clip is, is a man saves his girlfriend by fighting a great white and loses a leg in the process.

[01:20:42] Seb Lavoie: And of course it's me that's on the cover and there's a great white, you know, they have the great white hanging from a, you know, as if somebody fished it out of the water after or anything. What happened was, I guess one of my fiance's, Alex's friend. Or colleague was reading this and she thought this was the most heroic thing she's ever heard.

[01:21:04] Seb Lavoie: And so what she started doing is telling all of her family and everybody about this incredible dude that Alex is with that fought a great white to save her. And you know, and everybody's in awe and we get to this, this event, Alex was working event and this person was there working with her. And when we started talking, she was all confused because she didn't realize that this whole thing was a joke, right?

[01:21:27] Seb Lavoie: Like I didn't actually fight a great white and I'm not a hero.

[01:21:33] Travis Bader: Here. I thought when we left the hospital, you'd be wearing like an IHOP shirt or something. 

[01:21:37] Seb Lavoie: Oh, man. Oh, it was, it was beautiful to see the disappointment in her eyes when she realized I actually wasn't a hero and I didn't fight a great white. 

[01:21:46] Travis Bader: That's funny. That's 

[01:21:48] Seb Lavoie: funny. 

[01:21:48] Travis Bader: Yeah. What about, uh, there's the other thing that we kind of talked about a little bit at the beginning of this podcast, which was, uh, in recent events, depending on when this guy comes out, uh, the Trump assassination attempt.

[01:22:02] Travis Bader: Uh, you've got a background in international security, you've got a background in leading teams for executive protection and, you know, everyone and their dog seems to have an opinion and be an armchair security expert on this. You've actually got. Some background and can speak with some authority on this.

[01:22:21] Travis Bader: Uh, what were your thoughts on, uh, the assassination attempt? 

[01:22:26] Seb Lavoie: Well, I have a lot of thoughts. It, it depends which segment we're looking at and we're evaluating, right? So one of the things, one of the things that, um, That I will prioritize when I, when it comes to form, formulating an opinion or forming an opinion in relation to something is there's generally a lot more than meets the eye.

[01:22:47] Seb Lavoie: So understanding that there are limitations to what you are watching and those limitations are not to be understated because you are going to miss critical Pieces of information that were either not known to the person at the time that made a certain decision or, or, or, or that you, or that makes it look like somehow all that information was available to everybody because you're getting a bird's eye view of the situation.

[01:23:13] Seb Lavoie: Sure. So that's very dangerous to do that. And I try not to do that as best I can. Certainly. There, there are a lot of questions, right? There's a lot of questions like we're talking about 130 yards away from, from the presidential stand where he was and with a clear shot, like how was that roof left unattended is very basic.

[01:23:36] Seb Lavoie: Now, if that roof was 500 yards away, Okay. I can see that happening, right? You, you, you're going to have to stop expanding your perimeter at some point because manpower is a reality. Like you're going to, you're going to need to be able to, to, to staff those positions and make sure that you can maintain those positions and still have your core group where they need to be.

[01:23:54] Seb Lavoie: Now, when you look at. Some of the reactions, uh, of the, of the secret service. And I've worked with secret service in the, in the context of close protection before I've worked primarily with cat and counterattack team, which is their sort of the SWAT team that's attached to the close protection team. And the cat has a, a bit of a different.

[01:24:14] Seb Lavoie: Uh, sort of tasks set or mission set. But when you look at the executive, the close protection team themselves, there's a lot of questions there. There's a lot of questions, you know, if you are to use your body to body bunker, so to speak, uh, a, a, a very, very large individual who's six, three and. Quite imposing.

[01:24:36] Seb Lavoie: It's going to be very difficult to do that. If you have, if your detail is very small, right. And there, unfortunately there was a lot of that going on, which would, uh, exposed, you know, the upper torso, the head, and there was a, it's almost like there was an assumption that it was only one shooter, whereas that's another, another thing you would never do always one plus one.

[01:24:57] Seb Lavoie: If there's one, there's going to be others. And I don't care how secure you think the site is, your site was just proven to be Insecure, right? Right. Cause somebody was there capable of doing this. So that means that any sort of levels of security you had on that site has now been completely negated as far as you're concerned.

[01:25:14] Seb Lavoie: And you need to treat this as if there is an additional shooter. A hundred percent. So having him at waste, you know, folded in half, covered by his, uh, by his people ASAP is a. Is a, there's no negotiating with that. Like that needed to happen a lot faster than it did. There may be reasons why it didn't. And that's the reason why I say we have to be careful when we're armchair quarterbacking.

[01:25:41] Seb Lavoie: There's, there is all kinds of questions that can be asked. And I know there's all kinds of conspiracy theories out there and all kinds of things. And sometimes conspiracy theories are not conspiracies. Sometimes they're real, you know, and so, and so, but the only way to know that is to have intricate knowledge of every, of the timeline of everything that occurs and, and be able to establish who knew what, when, and what are some of the things that happen now, some of the hands and feet skills.

[01:26:10] Seb Lavoie: And some of the things that we have seen, there's, I have thoughts on that as well. So there is a lot of memes being put out there, one of the ladies having a real hard time reolstering her pistol, doing all this. And the propensity has been to jump on a gender bandwagon, right? One of the, one of the, one of the good friends I have, her name is Jen LaSalle, has spent an entire, almost over a decade, if not more assigned to our prime minister.

[01:26:39] Seb Lavoie: And she is. Uh, a team leader or was a team leader in a absolutely incredible woman, like really fit, really capable, you know, shoot, move, communicate, do all of those things. She would, she would have made this girl look like, you know, a completely different human. And so, but now when we're, when we start attacking the gender piece, What, what does that say about women like Jen that are out there doing the right thing or training hard that are doing those things.

[01:27:05] Seb Lavoie: So I do not like this. And we're also taking a sanitized view of this because she just had the Superbowl, right? Let's call a spade a spade here. If your job is executive protection on the level five dignitaries, such as the president of the United States, and somebody just shot him, that was your Superbowl.

[01:27:24] Travis Bader: Yes. 

[01:27:24] Seb Lavoie: Okay. The stress response that you will have in relation to this is extremely hard to, to emulate in training. 

[01:27:31] Travis Bader: Sure. Really hard through the 

[01:27:32] Seb Lavoie: roof. So is it possible, I'm just being devil's advocate, that she struggled with arousal more than she did with the rest. And so, you know, we know as, as you get more and more aroused, the fine motor skills are going out the windows and, and things are being impacted.

[01:27:48] Travis Bader: Sure. 

[01:27:49] Seb Lavoie: Now, when the, when the military special operation communities looks at this. They probably, you know, it's been quite evident that there was a lot of condemnation on these types of things, but also the, the soft military community needs to understand that their skillset that was acquired, wasn't really acquired until they got into battle.

[01:28:11] Seb Lavoie: They acquired technical skills and tactical skills and operational skills, but really where the meat, where the wheels meet the pavement is where the true learning happens. Well, that's a very, very difficult scenario to achieve in the policing context. Yeah. 

[01:28:25] Travis Bader: You're not putting people in true, true situations over and over again to get that, 

[01:28:30] Seb Lavoie: that training and experience.

[01:28:32] Seb Lavoie: A certain level of inoculation. And so, and there was a lot of criticism on this special, on the, on the secret service and, and on police in general, but I got some news for you. A lot of these secret service guys are former,

[01:28:47] Seb Lavoie: Like, so it's not, it's not so black and white. There's also another thing here. The last time a presidential candidate or a president, uh, a president was, uh, was attacked in, in such a way was in 1981. 

[01:29:01] Travis Bader: That's what Reagan. 

[01:29:02] Seb Lavoie: Correct. In 81. So anything that hasn't happened since 1981 is contributing to a certain level of political instability.

[01:29:12] Seb Lavoie: Complacency, and I don't care, I don't care how you try to, you know, spin it or whatever it will inherently happen. It will happen. And if there is a problem, like say your current administration isn't supporting necessarily the, the, the, the fiscal burden that's associated with your work or those types of things.

[01:29:34] Seb Lavoie: Now, what you, what you start doing, As you need to, to impose risk mitigating strategies and risk mitigating is not risk eliminating, right? It's only, what can we do based upon what we have available to us in this time, at this point, and unfortunately, this thing that we know could be something. Now needs to be left alone because we don't have anybody to do it.

[01:29:59] Seb Lavoie: And so the rest of it is quite dangerous. Like when people say some cop was approach and provided the information or a cop showed up on the, on the roof and the guy pointed his rifle at him and he, and he left. Did he leave or did he, He got up on the rooftop and the rifle was pointing at him and he ducked down, right?

[01:30:18] Seb Lavoie: Like, what do you, what do you expect him to do in that case? And I know with the, the, the propensity as well, okay. Action versus reaction. My friend, you show up and the guys that drop on you and he already knows what he's about to do. You're going to fall flat on your face every single time it happens.

[01:30:34] Seb Lavoie: Yeah. We've seen it over, over in the scenarios. I can put you in this room right here, put a gun in front of you. And I can say to you, I will put a gun in front of me. Let's, let's change this. I'll put a gun in front of me here and I will sit here with my hands on the table and I will have a, an operator or somebody coming in or a cop coming in with their gun pointed at my chest.

[01:30:54] Seb Lavoie: And I will retrieve that gun and shoot them almost every single time before they can react. Action versus reactions. You know, humans have to observe, they have to orient, they have to decide, and they have to act all that takes time. The person that's already knowing what they're about to do as only one thing to do action.

[01:31:10] Seb Lavoie: That's, that's all that needs to happen. And so there it's much faster, all this to say that there is a lot of factors here and it's important that we look at the totality of the circumstances when it comes to sort of mudslinging and like the whole, but what's also important is to be blatantly honest, you know, from the secret service side, like feelings, a hundred percent there are.

[01:31:34] Seb Lavoie: And so how do we address this? And I mean, had it not been for Trump, Moving his head in a very particular way at a very particular time, call it divine intervention, call it whatever you want. Sure. Um, we would, we would have, we would be looking at the prospect of very different, a very different landscape right now.

[01:31:53] Seb Lavoie: In fact, I don't know how bad this could have been. 

[01:31:56] Travis Bader: Oh, it would be really bad, regardless of what your opinion is of, of Trump, one side or the other, it's as bad for democracy in general. 

[01:32:04] Seb Lavoie: As far as divisiveness, I don't think, I don't think it would have created a bigger, a bigger gap. And I think that to a certain extent, this, this unfortunate event, um, has brought people together from both parties and not everybody.

[01:32:21] Seb Lavoie: But it has, it, it seems to have cemented that we're here for a common goal and we've been fighting each other this entire time. And you, you, you can see sort of a, uh, a bit of a shift in the landscape. Now, will that last people have short memories, as we know? Very short. Yes. 

[01:32:38] Travis Bader: But the other thing they're doing and I'm liking is putting some responsibility on the media for how they're reporting and how people are inciting violence against other people, just through how they broadcast through the text through.

[01:32:51] Travis Bader: But through whatever, and there is a social responsibility, like that teacher at UBC here, who's now under investigation, who is saying, uh, and I'm paraphrasing, uh, too bad, too bad Trump didn't get shot and too bad it could have been so much better if he was, um, there is a social responsibility on people who have a voice and who have influence over others to be not inciting that 

[01:33:19] Seb Lavoie: sort 

[01:33:19] Travis Bader: of divisiveness.

[01:33:20] Seb Lavoie: Sir. I couldn't agree more just before I launch into this, there's something I've, I kind of forgot that I want to add in there. You know, when I was talking about the lady, it was having a hard time reostering and all this stuff. I just want to be crystal clear, right there. We know that most, most. Law enforcement agencies are highly restricted when it comes to training.

[01:33:40] Seb Lavoie: And when you look at a close protection agency that follows the presidential candidates and a variety of other people, past presidents and whatnot, I assume that there is, there probably is a lack of training there, right? And so some of the physiological responses to stress are going to be exacerbated if the training isn't where the training needs to be.

[01:34:02] Seb Lavoie: So we can't just look at this and be like, okay, well, this was all nerves. Because it possibly wasn't right nerve where a factor, there's no question understanding how the gravity of the situation as an agent that's working this, but also understanding that that's precisely where you're there for you.

[01:34:19] Seb Lavoie: And that needs to be at the forefront of. Everything you do, every step you take, every punch you throw or don't throw, every gym session, every range session, every bullet you fire, all of those things have to have that in the back of your mind, my ability to perform my job to the best of my ability. Is other people's lifeline, like it, you know, 

[01:34:44] Travis Bader: there's no way around that.

[01:34:45] Travis Bader: I think one of two things would likely happen from that for this individual. Who's this, the height of all these different memes, like, did you see the David Attenborough AI voice meme where, uh, David Attenborough, the documentary filmmaker for, um, Wildlife and it's this little voice over in the background of, oh, here we see the internatural environment and here's where she hones in on her professional acting skills of pretending she's drawing the pistol again and doing a deep scan of the environment.

[01:35:12] Travis Bader: Like it's really funny, not for her. So I would imagine that one of two things are going to happen. One, she's going to say, maybe this isn't for me or two, she's going to say, all right, let's, let's get back to some training and let's, uh, let's pick this up a bit. MF. And how a person deals with that sort of thing is going to be, uh, uh, very important, but you said there's another point to all of this that you were jumping into.

[01:35:37] Seb Lavoie: Um, that was the, sorry, the original question you were asking here, which now escapes my mind. So what was it again? I don't know. I forget you. I was hoping you could kind of help me 

[01:35:47] Travis Bader: there. 

[01:35:47] Seb Lavoie: No, 

[01:35:48] Travis Bader: um, I can't remember what it was now. Well, I'll tell you this much. Um, I'm, I'm pretty stoked to see where you're, Moving with your life and where things are going.

[01:35:56] Travis Bader: I love the fact that you're constantly evaluating and taking a look at, am I bringing the most impact for myself and for those around me? Uh, I like the approach that you've taken with the, um, the mental health walks. You've done a lot of good with those and you've passed the torch and hopefully they continue.

[01:36:15] Travis Bader: Um, I'm stoked to see what things are going to look like for you in Alberta. That's, uh, that's, that's going to be the next big transition here. And I, you know, when we're off air here, I've got a bunch of ideas for you. So I'm going to be throwing them your way just to see if, uh, if anyone are up your alley or if they hit, is there, is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should talk about?

[01:36:41] Seb Lavoie: We should talk about the fact that I been wanting an alibi dog for over a decade again. Yeah. But it's something that you just can't. So they're, they're also referred to as the central Asian shepherd. Okay. And, you know, I have Achilles, my Malinois, of course, I, I'm, I'm just all into the simple breeds, you know, the breeds that are super easy to train.

[01:37:08] Seb Lavoie: Oh yeah, so easy, so easy to work with. And so, uh, so one of the things, one of the things that I, that I did is I recently put a deposit on an Abai. So I will. Did you really? Yeah. So it's, it's, the litter is supposed to be, uh, to be born in December or November or December. And so next sort of, you know, winter ish Yeah.

[01:37:28] Seb Lavoie: I should, I should have an alibi on the property and that's super exciting. 

[01:37:32] Travis Bader: No 

[01:37:33] Seb Lavoie: kidding. Yeah. Yeah. So what are they known for? What's that breed known for? Well, they're, they're shepherds, right? So they're, they're, they're protecting the flock is their, and their flock is essentially their family unit, their territory, and they are extremely capable and they're extremely capable.

[01:37:50] Seb Lavoie: And there's various stories out there of them, you know, fighting and. Beating wolves and, and things. And, and when you talk to wolf experts, they, you know, some of this has been, some of this has been questioned at time, but there is no question that there, there is individual anecdotal stories of these, some of these dogs, like growing to incredible length to, to protect.

[01:38:09] Seb Lavoie: And I think that being in an environment where grizzlies are going to walk through your yard and all this stuff is probably a great idea to have 130 pound alibi, you know, My cute Malinois that, you know, is, is really cool for social media, but, uh, probably wouldn't do anything. A little too lovey dovey now.

[01:38:30] Seb Lavoie: Yeah. Somebody, somebody compromised him, not to name anybody. 

[01:38:35] Travis Bader: Yes. Yeah. I say the same thing about my dog. I'd be like, you guys have got what you look for, right. But I mean, it's, uh, there's a dog trainer that we've had on the podcast here and Ron Bamey's yeah. And, uh, I was talking to him a little bit back and forth.

[01:38:53] Travis Bader: He's like, you're going to end up with a lap dog, Trav, you know that, right? I get it. I get it. Uh, but I'm, I'm like you, I'd love to have another dog, but it needs to have, uh, space. Uh, where we're at right now, I live in Ladner, got a beautiful place, got some space. And, uh, But I, the types of dogs we're looking at are higher energy.

[01:39:16] Travis Bader: They need a lot of places to roam around. And so I figure our next dog, we're going to get, I'm going to have to do the same thing as you get, get some acreage, get some place where they can actually run around. 

[01:39:25] Seb Lavoie: Absolutely. And you get, there's a lot of, you know, Cool stuff you can do. They got perimeter collars, you know, where, where it, because it's important.

[01:39:32] Seb Lavoie: I mean, you have a dog breed, that's a big and strong dog breed like this. You want to make sure that there's a level of control and we're going to have, we're going to have some fencing and things and, and, and, and, and. And kennels, you know, for them, because also it has like very thick fur and it, it gets hot really quickly.

[01:39:51] Seb Lavoie: So the winter is perfect. And also where I'm going in Southern Alberta, actually the average is something like minus 10. So the, so the bad, no, the winters are not like the winters are say in Calgary, for example, you know. And you probably get a fair bit of sun there too. It's the sunniest place in the country.

[01:40:05] Seb Lavoie: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And I have a seven acre available in case you want to build on it, by the way. 

[01:40:10] Travis Bader: Well, just maybe a little workshop with a little shed upstairs. Do a little blacksmithing. I'm in. All right. I love it. Well, Seb, thank you so much for being on the Silvercore podcast. Again, we're going to do our next one, I think is going to be held in Alberta at your new place.

[01:40:26]Travis Bader: I'm going to bring the show on the road and we'll do it there. Thank you so much. You're welcome, brother. It was my pleasu