How to Build a Bullet-Proof Mind with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

Bart Leger (00:00.993)
Well, thanks so much for being on the Surviving Your Shift podcast. It's great to meet you.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (00:07.634)
It's my pleasure, brother. And it's an honor. And you know, you've really homed in on the heart of the matter. Let's go home to our family alive at the end of the shift. And, you know, surviving emotionally, spiritually, physically, you know, psychologically, that's the goal. And certainly what I do when I do my bulletproof mind presentation. So I think I'm the only person had the honor to be state certified in all 50 states and every federal agency.

And it's all about surviving that shift and believing in who you are, believing in what you do. It's a good ride.

Bart Leger (00:44.193)
Thank you. You've had a very extensive career and you've made such an impact on so many people worldwide. And I'm glad to have you with us today and always look forward to hearing you speak. I've heard you speak in the past. I remember being in a large auditorium surrounded by other first responders and listening to you speak and hear what you have to say. You know, I know you're extremely busy. You have a very busy speaking engagements with your writing. But what are some activities and hobbies?

that you enjoy in your downtime.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (01:16.054)
Well, you know, I like to shoot. That's my hobby. My wife's health, the things we used to like to do are no longer an option. I'm still at 100%. I'm 67 years old and truly at 100%. No reason not to do this another 20 years, but old age is not for sissies. And we used to do canoeing and long rides and exploring and those things aren't options anymore. But we still get...

Bart Leger (01:19.629)
Mm-hmm.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (01:44.426)
get a little shooting in when I get a chance and a lot of reading and a lot of time with my dogs and life is full, you know, it's been a good ride.

Bart Leger (01:55.217)
We all need some things that put the fuel back in the tank, right? You have an obvious intensity when you teach and when you speak. What motivates you? What fires you up to do the work you do?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (01:59.202)
Yeah.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (02:06.954)
Well, you know, it's an interesting story. I was a young lieutenant. I'd been a prior service buck sergeant, came up through the ranks, 82nd Airborne Division. And I was a platoon leader in Fort Lewis, Washington, in the old 9th Infantry Division. And our division commander's a guy named General Cavasos. And when they renamed Fort Hood, they named it after General Cavasos. I'm almost okay with that one because he's a pretty amazing guy.

pretty legendary guy, two-star general. And we'd been out in the field, and probably the most miserable I've been in the field, one of the 10 most miserable times of my life. It rained every day and froze every night, and we were just miserable. And we came in and he brought all the officers and NCOs together in the base theater, still dirty and muddy and grody. And the first time we'd all been together and warm and quite a while. And I can't remember much of what he said, but.

But he said, you have suffered for freedom's sake. And when you go home, you will eat that meal prepared with love and it will have a flavor the protected will never know. And I looked to the right and there's my company commander, Ivan Middlemas, special forces hard man with a tear in his eye. And I looked to my left and there's Sergeant First Class McGurk, kind of a bitter man. He'd been a captain in Vietnam. He'd been rifted.

down in enlisted ranks and reduction in forces. And he's kind of a bitter guy, got a tear in his eye. And look back at the general, I said, what's this guy doing? He's talking from the heart about things at the heart. And people will listen. And I remember thinking, I can do that. I wanna do that. Since my prayer out of every one of my presentations, somebody walks out the door and says, I can do that. I wanna do that.

to talk about things of the heart, to motivate and inspire men and women to do hard things and hard times and to believe in who we are, believe in what we do. That's my goal. And so my first book came out while I was in as a young lieutenant colonel, not out of the army just yet, on killing. And I tell people, you know, I coined the term killology.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (04:32.542)
And I told people, you know, criminology is not about teaching people to be criminals. Killology is not about teaching people to kill. It's about understanding the factors that enable and restrain killing in our society. And I tell people, you know, you look at this terrible crime and you say, look at that horrible crime that proves that mankind's a killer. Well, that's an outlier. It's one in a million.

We're a nation of a third of a billion people. That one terrible murder you heard about today, that's one in a third of a billion. You explained to me the 99.99999% of our citizens who didn't kill anybody today. Divorce, infidelity, layoff, traffic accidents, and in a lifetime of provocation, less than one in a thousand will even seriously attempt to take a life. Explain that.

There's this whole array of physiological, psychological factors that enable and restrain violence. And that's what I call killology. We're not to turn them on, we're not to turn them off. The book came out in 1995, and this is my inspiration. I was following this path to talk about hard things and to train people about hard things and look at hard things based on that wanting to motivate people, you know, and their presentation by the general. And the...

The book really, really laid a great foundation for that.

Bart Leger (05:58.689)
So that didn't seem incongruous when this general was speaking from the heart and talking about made with love. I mean, you had just come back from a mobilization. I mean, so it wasn't that incongruous to you. It was when he was speaking with such heart and passion, it didn't seem incongruous to you that here you are in the military and the job that you had to do. So the—

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (06:03.338)
Yeah.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (06:13.122)
So it's safe, isn't it? Right.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (06:26.122)
Yeah, that's really, that's a good point, because it wasn't just that it was incongruous. It was that it was the opposite of that. It was completely appropriate. It was completely necessary and appropriate and focused for the moment. And that's the thing I think is these things that we think talking about that. And so, you know, I teach resiliency, the bulletproof mind. And the first...

Bart Leger (06:34.903)
Hmm.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (06:53.81)
You know, kind of like the foundation of resiliency is, you know, we study people who do not get PTSD. One of the great examples is Viktor Frankl. Wrote a couple of important books, Survivor of a Nazi Death Camp. And Viktor Frankl said, he realized, the only thing in the universe these Nazi bastards couldn't control is how I choose to respond. And that's the foundation of resiliency. That's the foundation of survival.

The only thing in the universe you can control is how you choose to respond. That the past is done, like, oh, the past, lead your life. That's why faith is one of the pillars of resiliency, having a higher power to turn things over to. You know, we've all got that negative thought response. And whenever I get a memory of a bad time or a bad thing and a mistake that I made, I just give it to the Lord. I said, Lord, you know, you know, please keep me keep me strong and faithful.

You know, I give this to the Lord and keep me on track. I knew nothing without you.

Bart Leger (07:58.317)
Well, how do you address that with our typical type A first responder? We like to be in control. As a matter of fact, we get on the scene and we take control. How do you deal with resilience, our response to what happens to us to help us realize that really there's very little that we do control?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (08:04.524)
Yeah.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (08:10.455)
Yeah.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (08:15.406)
Okay, right.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (08:24.918)
Right. You know, everything in the past is done. Let go of it. Give it a higher power. The future is uncertain. What some idiot does in traffic, you can't control that. Doesn't do any good to shout at him or get mad about it. The only thing universe you can control is how you choose to respond. And the heart of that is, if you lose your temper, you didn't lose it. You gave it away.

Bart Leger (08:37.581)
Mm-hmm.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (08:51.39)
It's the only thing in the universe you can control. The only thing in the world you can control is how you choose to respond. And if you lose your temper, you gave it away. So to paraphrase Victor Frankel, life is a big game. You lose your temper, you lose the game. That's easy to say, it ain't too easy to say.

Bart Leger (09:11.254)
And we've seen so many first responders ride off the rails because they gave in to anger and their temper when realizing that they didn't have to give it.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (09:22.41)
Yeah. And you know, I teach a lot about the puppy, the autonomic nervous system. And the autonomic nervous system separates into the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, and parasympathetic, which is feed and breed or rest and digest. And one of the first things we do as a human being is to learn not to crap ourselves and not to piss ourselves. Now, those are parasympathetic

rest and digest processes, we bring under conscious control. And it defines us as a human being that we don't crap ourselves, right? You know, as life goes on, we get greater and greater control of those things that aren't under control. And the thing to realize is that it is never appropriate to lose your temper.

I thought being an army ranger was about shouting at people and kicking things, and being a colonel was about shouting at people and kicking things and blustering. And the thing to realize is nobody respects your temper tantrum. They respect your calm. If you lose your temper, then forgive yourself and move on, but nobody respects your temper tantrum. And I talk about nurturing an environment of quiet professionals. The Laconic Spartans.

the Stoic Roman, the inscrutable Samurai, the stiff, over-lipped Brit, and the day we talk about the quiet professional. And those are all different ways to say the same thing, self-control. What all warrior societies, what all people in hard times have respected is self-control. And so if we give way to bitterness or cynicism or complacency or denial,

That's the one thing we can control. And you've given the world a victory with your own hand. So as we become better people, we learn to not crap ourselves and not piss ourselves, and we learn to not lose our temper. And the problem is that the world tells us that that's what men do. They shout and they kick and they scream. And the truth is just the opposite. If the day-to-day piss and things make you blow you cool, when things are going to hell and people are dying, you don't have a prayer.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (11:39.454)
And I am ashamed of a lot of things I did with my kids. We were children with children, but we learned. And that's why we get to be better grandparents, you know? I tell everybody, how many of you all got kids? How many of you all raised hands? How many of you all looked at your parents, your kids, and said, are you the same ones that raised me? And they all laughed, and the answer is no, they're not the same people. They're at least 20 years older, more mature. It's called maturity. We want to get it as fast as we can.

And just like you learn not to crap yourself, you learn not to lose your temper. These are fight or flight responses that got to be brought under control. You know, and the parasynthetic backlash is feed and breed. And we got to bring that under control. One of the things that get cops in trouble is having sex on the job. It's a biological backlash in many ways. We learn to control fight or flight. You know, you know, fight or flight hormones kicked in. I punched his lights out. I couldn't control. No, nobody's buying that.

And we got to learn to control feed and breed. Oh, the feed and breed hormones kicked in. I couldn't, no, we're not buying that. But we understand there is this biological response, a life and death event, which sexual activity becomes enhanced and make the most of it. Wait until you're off duty. It'll still be there, I promise. It's amazing how many people get in trouble every year for having sex on duty. So here we are with these autonomic nervous system,

and sympathetic nervous system getting us in trouble. We lose our temper. We lose control of our sexual responses. We, and as we become better people, the definition of us as humans versus animals is controlling our sexual response, controlling our anger. And nobody ever told us that. We thought the real men were out there, you know, going for every girl they could, you know, and we don't realize it's a time and a place for everything.

There's a time to take a crap, there's a time to piss, and there's a time not to. There's a time to have sex, and there's a time not to. And there is never an appropriate time to lose your temper. Remember, the only thing in the universe you can control is yourself. And if you lose your temper, you're given away the only thing in the universe you can control. Again, paraphrase Victor Franco, life is a big game. You lose your temper, you lose the game. So what I tell people is this.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (14:00.738)
You know, I got hate mail from Antifa during the heat of this. All of our nation's top law enforcement trainers were just vilified and attacked at every level. These people had a comprehensive campaign that shut down all of the top law enforcement trainers, Force Science and Jim Glennon's folks and me. And then we get emails that said, you're the bitch that's teaching killology. All these killer cops are gonna rape your dog and burn your family alive.

I can't do anything with what these idiots say. The only thing I control is what? How I choose to respond. They send this little nasty gram and this threat, you know, and if it bothers me, they win. I'm not gonna let them win. So I got some candy that I get a couple of times a year, boxed into a Christmas box through at my birthday. I get one of those nasty grams, I get a piece of candy. And I look forward to it. I don't get a nasty gram, I get to have a chocolate covered Terry. You can see them, you evil bastard. What the hell you doing?

Bart Leger (14:43.313)
Mm.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (14:59.582)
And you get a chocolate covered cherry. Yeah, so who wins now? So here's what I tell cops. I used to tell them this and I modified it. Tell them, look.

I like tootsie rolls individually wrapped. They stay clean. They're good in the heat, they're good in the cold. Have a little baggie of those little one-inch tootsie rolls. Remind me of Halloween candy. And have a little bag of that in the dash. And you only get to have one when summer is ugly, dear. They give you the finger, they mouth off to you, they disrespect you. I could have a tootsie roll. And I was passing that out for a while and people were buying into that. And one cop said, I was pounding down tootsie rolls.

He says, put on weight. And he says, I was just, I put me down to the rolls. So this is what he said, he said, so I changed to Smarties. You know the little pack of Smarties? He says, I changed to Smarties. And then my little chill pill. Somebody gives me the finger, I get to have a Smartie. And he said, you know the crazy thing about the Smarties are you can never have just one. Once you eat one of those things, you really wanna have another one, I can't have it.

Bart Leger (15:42.934)
Hahaha

Bart Leger (15:51.154)
Yeah, yeah, lucky ending

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (16:09.546)
until somebody's ugly. You say, I drive down the street, waving at people and smiling, until somebody give me the finger so I could have another Smartie. So, that's the attitude we want. So we give the finger, oh, I get a Smartie. It's actual cognitive behavioral therapy, which should take your thought and your behavior, and you modify them to rethink, to re-see the world. So what they meant to hurt you actually is something that you look forward to.

Bart Leger (16:17.677)
So it's all about attitude, right?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (16:39.866)
And really, you know, when it comes down to it, we're cops. We don't run from a fight. Look, fighting with people like us is like wrestling with a pig, right? Everybody gets dirty, but the pig likes it. And so the way we win this fight is by staying calm. And again, that day-to-day piss and things make you lose your cool. When things are going to hell and people are dying, we don't have a prayer. So the heart and soul of resiliency.

is to understand this ultimate secret. It is really ancient stoicism, what blends in perfectly with Christianity, to understand that one thing in the universe is self-control. The greatest of all achievements, the greatest of all endeavors is this idea of self-control, to control that puppy inside, your sexual responses, your anger responses, and to stay focused on the job and control the things you can't control.

Bart Leger (17:33.637)
So no, pretty much no matter what high stress profession that we're in, there are times, there are moments when we have to take charge. We have to raise our voice to gain control back. So you're saying there's a difference between losing our temper and taking control and having that calm...

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (17:50.394)
Absolutely. And there's a difference between raising your voice authoritatively and screaming at people. And the reality is, unless you're in a screaming battlefield, you don't really need to shout. You know, you don't really need to raise your voice much at all. Again, to be able to remain calm when all about you lose in theirs, I blame it on you.

Bart Leger (17:53.749)
in charge, attitude.

Bart Leger (18:02.957)
So they're different.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (18:19.81)
The idea that we've got to shout, unless you're in the heat of the battlefield, you know, you're a football coach with screaming fans, you've got to grab them and shout in their ear. Unless the circumstance demands raising your voice to be heard, the truth is if you keep your voice calm, you're getting a much better effect. Trying to raise your voice creates stress in your voice. And...

Bart Leger (18:41.677)
Right. So how do you think that will affect the communities we serve if we are able to assume that quiet confidence and assertiveness, yet doing it in a calm manner? How do you think that will affect the communities we serve?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (18:52.334)
quiet professional.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (18:59.55)
Oh, I think that when your protectors, your sheepdogs, maintain that calm and create that culture of quiet professionals, I think you've done something spectacular. I think you've done the next evolutionary step of us as human beings, in which we transcend our animal.

You know, the first thing you teach a dog is, it's hard. It takes months. It's house training, right? Don't crap in the house. How hard is that for a dog to learn? That's hard. But it's the first step in civilizing a creature. And the first step in us is gaining control of those things. But I think that the heart of the matter then is a direct application. And I tell people, I only had 30 minutes to talk to a bunch of cops. What I'd talk about is we're in the middle

of a global epidemic of sleep deprivation. Now do an online search of global epidemic of sleep deprivation and watch what comes up, just article after article, around the world, every demographic group, every age group, every nation around the planet. And it's the addictive video games, it's the Ben's watching TV shows, the social media, all these things are designed to be impossible to turn off. We've all played a video game.

and suddenly it's four o'clock in the morning, got annoyed, they were the last eight hours went, and it's close to time to wake up and get dressed and go to work. Now they do that on purpose, they do that on purpose. And the thing to realize is, sleep is a biological blind spot. Our bodies are really good at getting up to air and food and water. Try and go with that air for water, your body will take over. Try and go with that water or food for a while, your body will take over. But the thing about it is that, sleep always happened naturally.

because every night without fail, it got dark. And there's nothing to do, a little talking, a little sex, rolled over and went to sleep. And the body didn't have to make us get enough sleep. And then we invented the electric light bulb and television and video games. And suddenly we got all these exciting things to keep us going. And the body doesn't know how to make us get enough sleep. So critical component right up front on sleep, sleep is the most significant factor in suicide.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (21:23.19)
Now, Chief Neil Gang is doing great work on police suicide. And he says the data is overwhelming. We lose more cops to suicide than every other line of duty death put together. We lose more cops in our own hand than every other line of duty death put together. And the research linking suicide and sleep deprivation is overwhelming. Now what sleep deprivation does is it makes you stupid.

it impairs your judgment. It's like being drunk. So if you're drunk and sleep deprived, they amplify each other. They don't, it's not additive, it's multiplicative. If you're sleep deprived and angry, they amplify each other. If you're sleep deprived and bad things happen, you're far more likely to get PTSD. So sleep deprivation is aggravating factor. It's like blowing, 24 hours without sleep.

is equivalent of blowing.10 above legally drunk blood alcohol level. It's like flat out being drunk after 24 hours without sleep. On the third day without sleep, you are psychotic. Any graduate of Army Ranger School will tell about hallucinations on the third day without sleep. So taking your own life is not a natural act. Alcohol and suicide have always been related. Alcohol creates impaired

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (22:47.938)
But the most pervasive form of impaired judgment, our children, twin-agers, sleep deprivation, twin-agers, 10, 11, 12-year-old girls, twin-age girls' suicide rate has tripled per capita in just the last decade. So here's parenting 101 for the 21st century. When you send your kid to bed at night, take their cell phone away from them. No laptop in the room, no cell phone. You, as a parent, as a grandparent, you should be scared sick.

about suicide. The thing most likely to kill your kid, head and shoulders. And send them to bed, and no TV, no video game, no cell phone. They got to go to bed and sleep. So a cop came up to me during break in one of my classes. He said, I had one of those tweenagers. He said she was a good girl. She was an A student. She said, Dad, it's embarrassing. You don't have to take my cell phone every night. You can trust me. Family policy. Self-harm the charger, go to bed.

He said, okay, I trust you, keep your cell phone. Just a little while later, she took her life. He said, my little girl took her life. And we never knew the hell she was living in until we looked at the text messages on her cell phone. Night after night of ceaseless, relentless, vicious bullying. And he can't just ignore that, we're not worried that way. He said it was heart rending. The sheriff all night long, night after night, trying to defend herself.

trying to find someone to stand for said, I understood my little girl was bullied to death. What I didn't understand until now, she was sleep deprived, tormented and bullied to death in front of my eyes and I let it happen. He said, I can't ignore that text message in the middle of the night. How can we expect our kids to? He said, the one thing on earth that I'd done for my little girl was take her phone every night and let her turn off the bad stuff in this world. So who's going to be your mommy?

Who's gonna make you get that sleep? Sleep deprivation makes you stupid. Better no cop than a stupid cop. Better no cop than a sleep-deprived cop. I'm a two million miler on Delta, million on all the others, about to hit two million on American. I get on planes every night. If they don't have arrested crew, they cancel the flight. The pilot, the flight attendant, and the guy that works on the plane required to get enough sleep. I'm good with that. Better no pilot than a tired pilot. Better no cop than a tired cop. So...

Bart Leger (25:01.945)
Hmm.

Bart Leger (25:12.225)
So what strategies, so what strategies would you give our listeners to, okay, so we have a lot of things that that's going through our mind. It's hard to turn, turn our minds off. Uh, sometimes we need to numb ourselves and I found myself scrolling through my phone just, just to chill out. So what strategies would you give our listeners to get the necessary sleep?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (25:34.35)
All right, here's the foundation now. Sleep deprivation is a biological blind spot. It is a key factor in suicide. Far and away than the war on killer bar cops. If we gave a damn about law enforcement suicide, it is a key factor in a global epidemic of traffic deaths. Now decade after decade, we brought traffic deaths down. Airbags, seat belts, medical technology. Now worldwide, traffic deaths are exploding. Think like a scientist, think like a detective.

What is the new factor causing a global explosion of suicide? What is the new factor causing a global explosion of traffic deaths? Again, there's a reason why truck drivers require the law to get enough sleep. What are the two major killers of cops? Suicide and traffic deaths. If we give a damn about it, sleep deprivation is a key factor in Alzheimer's. That should scare the hell out of us. The data's overwhelming. Look, I recommend to everybody.

is Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker. Mandatory reading, every cop. And he's got a website with the latest research updating and adding to it. And the link between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer's is overwhelming. People say, oh, oh yeah. Oh yeah, he's the guy. But people say, ah, I'll sleep when I'm dead. You have a decade of Alzheimer's first, idiot. Sleep deprivation.

Bart Leger (26:48.286)
Dr. Walker is a leading expert in sleep.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (26:58.138)
is a key factor in the opiate epidemic. Now stop for a minute. Why fentanyl is an opiate? We lose more people to fentanyl every year than all of Vietnam. We lost 50,000 people in Vietnam across 20 years. We lose 70 to 80,000 a year from fentanyl. If not for Narcan, that number would be far higher. Why are opiates a drug of choice? Why not crack? Why not meth? Well, sleep deprivation creates chronic pain.

You don't sleep, you're going to hurt. Doc, I hurt all the time. Give me a pill to fix. You don't need a pill, you need more sleep. You got to knock off the caffeine chart you have to lunch. So here we go, we got this critical component and you've got to know this, you got to embrace it. It's the first step in the process. It's a critical component in suicide, in traffic death. It's a critical component in opiate overdoses. It's a critical component in Alzheimer's. It's a key component in obesity.

and heart disease. Sleep deprivation is killing us. Okay, we got it, we got it, but you gotta burn it in your soul and say, I need to fix this. I gotta fix this. It makes us do stupid things that we will regret for the rest of our life. Good, I got it, Grossman. How do we fix it? Number one, our bodies are designed to sleep in total darkness. I'm a huge science geek. My favorite website is sciencedaily.com. Check it every day through every category.

I was a kid, you know, when the newspaper came in every morning, you'd have one new one science article, and I glommed on to that one article. Now I've got a whole website full of those things every day. And major study in the sleep lab, totally dark room, bathroom, might as well the door shut the light coming under the crack of the bathroom door is enough light to stop your body from producing the melatonin that you need. Melatonin.

is the hormone our body creates to make us sleep and it creates it in the dark. If you're not in the dark, the body can't produce melatonin. So total darkness, I mean, dark, dark. The docs say the glowing dial of a clock is too much, turned away from you. But the best answer, no matter, unless you spray paint the windows black from the inside and the fire guys do that, you know, we're cops, right? And there's a lot of fire guys out there. The thing that bothers us is

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (29:21.302)
Firefighters get paid to sleep. Yeah, only firefighters and prostitutes make money in bed. Yeah. So. Yeah. You know, we're teasing. And the hard part is they do these 24 hour shifts and a lot of times they don't get to sleep and that's not right. That's not good. But, but number one's total darkness and that means a sleep mask. There's just the number one sleep mask on Amazon. So one I love, it's a little piece of perfection.

Bart Leger (29:29.118)
Now you have a raw audience.

Bart Leger (29:38.712)
Right.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (29:50.046)
Last I checked, it had 85,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. So number one, right now, order that sleep mask. I had a cop in Utah, ordered the sleep mask, and he said, Dave, the next night, he's tracking his sleep. And it is so good to wear a fitness tracker that tracks your sleep. The Aura's doing the best job, the ring, the Air Force is ordering these Aura rings for all their pilots to track the sleep of their pilots. You fly in a half a billion.

Bart Leger (30:17.056)
Is that right?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (30:18.378)
Yeah, flying a half a billion dollar aircraft. We need to make sure he got enough sleep, Roger out. The Fitbit's doing a good job of tracking sleep. So here's this guy tracking his sleep. He said, I wore that sleep mask and an awesome night's sleep. It was incredible. I said, theoretically, the next night is when you're going to see the big impact because the melatonin was being created by sleeping in total darkness. And in theoretically, we'll see if even better. The second night, he said it was through the roof. The second night was amazing.

So find a sleep mask that you like and use. My grandson goes off to college. Grandson's in the army now. Grandson goes to college. What's most likely to kill my grandson? Suicide, traffic deaths, and opioid overdoses. What's the best gift I'd give my grandson? A good night's sleep. He went off to college, gave him several different sleep masks. I tell him, get enough sleep and wear these sleep masks. I call him up. Hey buddy, how you doing? Doing fine grandpa, you get enough sleep? Yes sir. Are you wearing your sleep mask? Yes sir. As a matter of fact, he got kind of grody.

went online and ordered another one. So number one, find a sleep mask you like and use it. It's the best investment, the best wellness investment you'll ever make. Number two, the sleep mask will make you sweaty. Well, that's good because the data says sleep in the dark and the cool. Turn the ceiling fan up a notch. Turn the thermostat down a notch. When you're wearing that sleep mask and it's cool enough that it's comfortable, boom, that's perfection. Now next.

cut off all caffeine shortly after lunch. We're in the middle of a global epidemic of caffeine abuse. The half-life of caffeine in your body is five hours. That means that caffeine you took at 5 p.m. at supper is still at half-spring when you go to bed at 10 p.m. And that caffeine, oh, caffeine doesn't bother my sleep. Well, then why are you taking it? Caffeine doesn't make you not sleep. Caffeine makes it easier to stay awake.

and harder to have quality sleep. Guard your sleep, protect your sleep. Sleep is that little vacation that waits at the end of every day, and caffeine is the enemy of good sleep. So.

Bart Leger (32:22.853)
Well, what do you say to our listeners who are just drinking energy drink after energy drink after energy drink so they can stay awake during shift?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (32:29.25)
Okay. All right. The source of caffeine is really important. Coffee and tea appear to be pretty good for us. The research tells us coffee drinkers and tea drinkers are living several years longer than non-coffee drinkers. People say, I must be immortal then. But here's what we know. One or two normal sized cups of coffee or tea at breakfast. One or two normal sized cups of

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (32:59.018)
We got that low point right after lunch, and then switch the decaf, have all you want. But here's the thing, the sodas are sugary poison. The diet sodas are even worse. We're metabolism, you know, if one diet soda is, one soda is no big deal, it's like one candy bar. But if your blood type is diet coke, if your only form of hydration is sodas, you got a problem. But the energy drinks are condensed poison.

Now we, the United States Armed Forces, still in Iraq, since 9-11, we've been at war for 23, going on 24 years now. For the first 15 years, the US Armed Forces passed out those energy drinks like water. They gave them to us by the pallets, we gave them to the troops, and we like skies. And then about eight years ago, two separate major.

Department of Defense-wide studies on the energy drinks. Both came up with the exact same results. The energy drinks are poison. For all practical purposes, there is a ban on issuing energy drinks, U.S. Armed Forces. They're like cigarettes. You wanna buy your own, not gonna stop you. You're an adult, we'll never buy them for you. In an academic environment, the one taking the most energy drinks,

were the ones most likely to fail out. The energy dinks were the single greatest predictor of academic failure. In a tactical environment, the one taking the most energy dinks were the ones most likely to nod off on the job. Again, in a tactical environment, the energy dinks were the single greatest predictor of tactical failure. All there is in that stuff is a mega dose of caffeine and sugar and some stuff that will make you metabolize it quickly.

it will give you a one hour burst of physical ability and then you crash. Before a PT test, before an athletic event, one of your energy day, not a bad idea, but then don't plan on doing anything afterwards, you crash. Second one feels good for 10 minutes, you crash. Third one feels good for five, after the first one, all you're doing is developing your addiction and your dependency to caffeine.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (35:17.586)
and you're putting mega doses of caffeine in your body and it's not doing any good. You know, you're driving your family home from vacation. It's three o'clock in the morning, you're headed Bobbitt. Will a cup of coffee keep you awake? Or if you're putting such mega doses of caffeine in your body, when you need it, it's not there for you. So caffeine is this powerful, effective, and incredibly addictive drug that...

that is one of the best things we found to temporarily limit our vulnerability if we're not abusing the drug on a daily basis. The energy drinks are poison.

Bart Leger (35:49.641)
Right. I know that a lot of people will think that you're teaching heresy when you talk about energy drinks like that, but medical community is telling us now that energy drinks are being linked with lethal arrhythmias. They are, yeah, exactly.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (36:03.758)
It wasn't. And anyway, I was on a podcast with a guy whose his whole focus is on addiction. And he came down off a heroin and he came down off a caffeine. Now he was pounded down six packs of these energy drinks. He said he went cold turkey and he went into seizures. I'm talking crap yourself, piss yourself, seizures from the energy drinks. He said it was harder to come off a caffeine than it was off a heroin. He said heroin was horrible.

but it was over, I got off my life. He said caffeine, just this lingering desire, this ache in my body for weeks afterwards. He said, coming down off of mega doses of caffeine was at least as hard as heroin, if not harder over the long haul. It's an addictive drug and we've got to use it carefully. And these mega doses of caffeine and these energy drinks are poison.

Again, one good shot, right? But you're just as well off with two cups of coffee before that PT test. And I think coffee drinkers are doing so much better just because the other stuff is so bad. But why do we put all this stuff on our body? Sodas, diet sodas, worst of all, energy drinks, when coffee and tea appear to be pretty good for us. And somewhere around, like right after lunch, switch to decaf, have all you want, and then when you need it, it's there for you. This is...

This is one of the vital wellness issues. The sleep management and the caffeine management are the two places where we're being blindsided and they amplify each other. They interact with each other in the most pathological manner.

Bart Leger (37:42.513)
Let's move on to the organizational aspect. In your opinion, how can leaders support their teams in becoming more resilient and also helping them perform at their highest level?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (37:53.194)
Yeah. Well, first off, you know, I had the honor to train a bunch of California sheriffs on leadership recently. And I said, the key to being a better leader is about being a better person. And the first step in being a better person is to control your temper. And that's easy to say, but an answer is easy to do. And the first step in controlling your temper is to understand there is never

a time when it's appropriate to lose your temper. Nobody respects our temper tantrum. We all had leaders that screamed at you and you despised them. Don't be that person. We're like abused children who we've had abusive leadership and then we turn around and do the same thing to our children. Our parents smacked us, so we smack our kids and it echoes down across the generations. It's time to stop that. Nobody respects your temper tantrum. And as leaders, we've got to understand that.

And we got to maintain this calm, this constant calm. And like I said, maybe, you know, Kojak had that coochie roll in his mouth, you know? Something in your mouth is calming. That cigarette is like having mama's nipple in your mouth. That cigarette goes back to having mama's nipple in your mouth. Then the cigarettes were calming because you had something in your mouth. But the best way is just have a big swig of water, big swig of water pulls you.

from fight or flight to rest and digest, it sends a powerful message. It pulls us from sympathetic to parasympathetic processes. But being a better leader is about being a better person and strive to be a better person. But if the number one challenge is sleep, and if the number one killer of our cops is suicide and traffic deaths, then as leaders we must lead by example and we must demand it of our troops.

Troops do what the boss inspects. And what the boss should inspect, first and foremost, is sleep. Are you getting enough sleep? What are you doing in your off time? We have got to track their side gigs. We've got to track their sleep. It is absolutely irresponsible to put somebody with a gun who has been sleep deprived and send them to a life and death event. It is one of the most irresponsible things we could possibly do is give them a gun

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (40:17.366)
have them sleep deprived and stagger into life and death event. We're in a zero defects environment. Everything we do will be caught on camera. Somebody does something stupid, we will all pay a terrible, terrible price for it. Better no cop than a tired cop. We've got to manage that. And it's a critical component in resiliency is to nurture that in our folks. One of the things that we can do is the lunch hour is their hour. They want to cram down an energy bar in five minutes and sleep for 55 minutes.

That's not a bad idea. Nationwide, what we're doing is we're putting nap rooms in the department, not for the guys that are on duty. We're not firefighters. But you work a night shift, in two hours you have to be in court. Nowhere you could get a home, get a good nap, and be in court. Got a dark, quiet place to crash? That's solid gold. You want to use your lunch hour to take a good solid nap? That's solid gold.

And there's things we can do, but I have that dark, quiet place. I do, I've had an honor to do a lot of work with NYPD across the years. I was in New York recently with the postal police. And the postal guys are great folks and, and most of them had come from NYPD. They liked the postal job. They liked what they're doing. They said, the only thing was in the postal cops, if they catch you sleep and they fire you right now, they said, NYPD.

every precinct had a dark, quiet place where you could crash. And if you were exhausted and staggering, rather than be staggering out on the street, rather than be sleeping in your police car, it was understood you have a dark, quiet place to crash. I think that should be a little bit better managed than just saying, all right, but if somebody is just totally shot because they're sleep deprived, we got to, number one, make sure they never do that again. And again, you know, if shown up

showing up to work sleep deprived is like showing up to work drunk. Look, somebody shows up to roll call drunk, you kick his ass. If they show up to work sleep deprived because they played video games, I played the new game all night long, I was up all night long, playing it. That's not funny. That's unacceptable. They need their ass kicked. We gotta create an environment. Oh, you stayed up with a sick baby all night long? Damn, we got you covered. You played games, you binge watched shows. You know the head of Netflix said.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (42:38.594)
that their competitor is sleep. The corporate policy of Netflix is to steal your sleep. Look it up, Netflix competitor, sleep, boom, come right up. What kind of a stupid corporate policy is that? They don't care that they're killing people, they just wanna sell their product. And so you've got to be a conscious consumer. And if you show up to work sleep deprived because you were on social media all night long, you played games all night long, that is not acceptable. And as leaders.

We've got to create that environment where we understand showing up to work sleep deprived is just like showing up to work drunk. And everybody should have a mutual understanding that person who showed up to work sleep deprived because he played games all night long needs to be dealt with. And I say that to military and law enforcement, a lot of them look at me like, I said, dude, you're talking straight to me. That's me, I played the game all night long and show up to work.

You never knew that, nobody told you, now you know. You know damn well I'm right, and you know damn well you can't keep working that way. You've got to get this stuff under control. So as a leader, this is the key area where we need to focus our energies.

Bart Leger (43:47.617)
Well, over the years, I've.

Right. Well, over the years, I've heard so many of the same, well, you know what? We see so much crap out there. I can't sleep. Well, what are you doing to try to get better sleep? The playing the video games or staying on your phone is not the right way to get the sleep.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (44:02.686)
Yeah. Amen. And one thing I tell people, and the data is there, no more than one drink on the way to bed. Now, ideally none, but you could get by with one. You tell people, oh, no alcohol on the way to bed, and they blow you off. But the data is there, no more than one drink on the way to bed. And if you're doing any more than one drink on the way to bed, there are millions of people using alcohol to put themselves to sleep. It is the most counterproductive thing you could do. I tell people, do your own research.

wear your sleep tracker, you know, your Fitbit or whatever, wear your sleep tracker, pound down five beers and go to bed and see what it does to your sleep. You will fall quickly into a shallow sleep. You'll wake up in an hour or so and can't get back to sleep. Look, docs don't like long-term use of ambient, but it's infinitely, infinitely better than alcohol. If you tell the doc I'm using...

Bart Leger (44:44.343)
Mm-hmm.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (44:57.106)
I'm using, you know, I'm using a fifth of liquor to put myself to bed every night. The doc will give you anything you want. It's better than that. Please no more the one drink on the way to bed. It is so harmful. It is so pathological. You got to get that under control. If you need a little help, a little baby dose of melatonin. Check with your doctor, get the smallest dose you can. A little bit goes a long way. As we get older and older, the body produces less and less melatonin.

Bart Leger (45:03.297)
Not good.

Bart Leger (45:18.041)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Bart Leger (45:26.957)
Hmm.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (45:27.406)
It's recommended as wellness over long-term, just a little baby dose, and really wear that fitness tracker, track your sleep and see what that melatonin is doing to your sleep, and manage your sleep like you manage your money, and make it a long-term wellness dynamic. But you really brought up something else that we should talk about. We talked earlier, hopefully I'll be back on.

and talk with you about the faith side of the issue, my book on spiritual combat, on spiritual warfare. Well, yeah. Yeah, well, let's talk about that.

Bart Leger (45:56.577)
Right. Yeah. Well, that was actually going to be my next question. Um, you know, what, what are you most excited about and, and how do you think it'll impact first responders and other professionals? As a matter of fact, uh, we, you have, um, a couple, one new book, but it's a sequel to a previous book, uh, on spiritual combat and on spiritual warfare. Um, have those and as a matter of fact, uh, great books. Uh, maybe what we'll do is we'll

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (46:19.66)
Yeah.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (46:22.902)
Praise God.

Bart Leger (46:25.325)
put together a bonus episode and we'll let you talk about those faith and how that impacts our lives.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (46:33.11)
Let's do that. Let's do that. But right now, here's just a little nugget of faith that I give to every class. I tell them, this is not about faith or religion. This is not about religion. This is an existential question every human being asks. As a first responder, you see a lot of terrible things every day. And you can't help but ask, how could a loving God allow these terrible things to happen?

And the thing I want you to understand is you think you know how God works based on Hollywood. And if you think for just a minute, you realize everything Hollywood tells you is wrong. Now here's what all of our faiths would tell you. We are not God's puppets. A loving God would not make you his puppet. The evil one will make you his meat puppet of the blink of an eye. But the God...

God loves us enough to let us make our own decisions. You ever heard if you love something, let it go. If it comes back at you, that's how much God loves us. He loves us enough to let us make our own decisions. And that means a lot of people make bad decisions. A lot of bad things happen. He said, God, why don't you do something? He said, I did. I sent you. And that's the answer. And a part of you says, I wish there was a loving God.

I wish it was true. But then I want you to identify that little wish for what it is. It's a little seed of faith. And I want you to plant that seed of faith and ask for more. You know, a man came to Jesus, asked him to heal his child. And Jesus said, they have enough faith, anything's possible. He said, I believe Lord, help my young believe. Boom, Jesus did what he asked him to do. All God wants us to do is ask for more faith. Plant your little seed of faith.

Say, I believe, help my unbelief, and boom, start walking that faith path. My book on spiritual combat is designed to be basic training on spiritual warfare is diving into the deep end of the pool. They both stand on their own, but that understanding that you wish there was a loving God, that's your little seed of faith. Plant that seed of faith. And our mission in the end, our purpose on life is spiritual warfare.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (48:58.954)
In normal warfare, we win by killing people in large part. In spiritual warfare, we win by saving people. And our mission in spiritual warfare is to love God and love people. And God is love and all love flows from him and we can ask God for more love. You know, we should go to the, if your mission was to plant explosives on a bridge, infiltrate enemy lines, blow up a bridge, well, you'd go get, where do you get explosives? Well, the...

that ammunition supply point, the ASP, all the things go bang, they keep there. Well, God's where all the love is. And we go to God, we ask for more love, and we ask for more faith every day. And plant that little seed of faith and understand that God's not a helicopter parent who hovers over you, bring everything to God in prayer, and know He is there. But He lets people make their own decisions. And if you have a remote idea,

there might be an eternity, that there might be life after this life, then you gotta recognize it's the most important thing in the universe. And understand this, in the end, everybody's gonna die. No matter how hard you pray, that prayer's not gonna get answered. Everybody's gonna die. In the end, every nation falls over my dead body. In the end, our son will die, but eternity continues. Keep your eye on the big ball.

Don't let the things, don't let the things of this world pull you down. Keep your eye on the big picture and we'll talk more about that. And maybe some, some future.

Bart Leger (50:22.798)
Well Dave, I am looking.

Bart Leger (50:29.833)
Yeah, I am looking forward to that episode where we can talk more about faith and how it impacts our journey, how it impacts our career. For those interested in learning more about your work or getting in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do so?

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (50:35.342)
Where is it going? Yes.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (50:42.806)
Well the website is GrossmanOnTruth.com. The truth on combat, the truth on killing, the truth on spiritual combat, GrossmanOnTruth.com.

Bart Leger (50:52.669)
All right. Well, Colonel Grossman, thank you so much for being with us today on this episode. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm sure our listeners did as well.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (50:59.562)
My pleasure, Doc. And stay in the fight, we need your brother.

Bart Leger (51:02.754)
All right. See you next time.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (51:05.186)
God bless you and God bless America.