From Broken to RESILIENT How I Turned My Darkest Moments into Purpose!

KATHLEEN: Welcome everyone. This is the journey of an awakening spirit. I am Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold Brave TV network. The purpose of the show is to help you realize that you are not alone and that you are in control of your life. It doesn't matter where you came from or what your circumstances are.

KATHLEEN: We've all experienced pain. Suffering, hurt, abandonment, loneliness, and hopelessness. This show is here to help you turn those dark moments around to create a whole new you. Despite your success, have you felt lonely, angry, frustrated, or even suicidal? Do you long to be supported, recognized, and respected for who you are and not just the awards and accolades on your walls?

KATHLEEN: You don't want to be known, identified, or remembered in a way that feels fraudulent. Because you achieve things out of obligation and not passion. Do you find yourself sitting quietly at lunch listening to what lights you up only to feel shame, fear, frustration, and resentment?

KATHLEEN: Your inner turmoil and limiting beliefs surface making you feel not good enough and afraid of doing something different. You've read the books, attended the seminars, and practiced new concepts and principles, yet you still find yourself in the same rut. The lies you tell yourself perpetuate. A cycle of disappointment.

KATHLEEN: You say you'll change, but your self-limiting beliefs keep running the show, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a certified coach, I empower you to become your authentic self. My Soul Journey program aligns you with your true self and guides you to find your soul vision, helping you discover your purpose in life.

KATHLEEN: I provide tools to step into your true magnificence and remember who you are. If you're interested in learning more, contact me at bravetv at kathleenmflanagan.com. Each week I start the show with the sound of the tuning forks, bringing in love, happiness, and balance to set the tone for the show and bring out the best in both myself and my guest.

KATHLEEN: Zack Starr is a dynamic and compassionate veteran, is renowned for his expertise in aiding recovery from physical, mental, and moral injury. Over the past 15 years, Zach has dedicated himself to supporting veterans through their transition from active duty to civilian life as a public speaker, filmmaker, podcast host, and advocate.

KATHLEEN: Zack's unwavering commitment to supporting his fellow veterans includes collaborations with The Ohio State University, Blue Star Mothers Of America, the Department Of Veterans Affairs, GI Film Festival, American Warrior Association, Shout Out For Soldiers, just to name a few.

KATHLEEN: His journey is documented in the feature film The Epic Mile depicting his transformative 2,650 mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, drawing from over two decades of personal struggles with chronic pain, depression, and near suicide, Zach channels his experiences into inspiration, turning adversity into triumph.

KATHLEEN: Beyond his advocacy work, Zach finds joy in extreme outdoor pursuits, cherishing family time with his wife, Megan, and their three-year-old son, Atlas. And I know he has a new baby too. And despite challenges, he embraces life with humor and humility, continually striving to improve his one-armed golf game. Welcome, Zach.

ZACK: Oh, can you hear me?

KATHLEEN: I can.

ZACK: Awesome. I'm not sure my default mic is working, so we'll just roll with what we've got. How are you doing?

KATHLEEN: I'm doing great. So good to see you again.

ZACK: It is a pleasure. So thank you for the invitation. I'm excited for the conversation today.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, I am too. So let's start with, how about you tell everybody about your journey of becoming the awakening spirit that you are now?

ZACK: Yes, it's been quite a journey. It seems that life gives us chapters and we just got a brand new one that we can dive into if we want to. But, My backstory really started with an injury in the military and malpractice by VA. We don't get to choose our doctors when we're in the military. You're just handed what you get. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit, as we say in my household.

ZACK: That left me with lifelong injuries from malpractice in the service that reared their head 10 years later. And at the peak of me becoming an entrepreneur, being a professional actor on TV and film and running my own business. The injuries that I had, I had five screws implanted in my right shoulder. Those came out. They were never embedded correctly.

ZACK: VA misdiagnosed it for one day. And it brought everything to a complete halt. I lost my business immediately. Couldn't keep up with my client list. The VA put me on a bunch of medications. I was waiting on two surgeries that I ended up having over the next two years. And in that process, I became suicidal. I lost basically my identity when I lost my ability to be physical as a teenager through my injury.

ZACK: Then I reinvented myself. And then after the screws came out and I had debilitating pain again, and now I was doped up on medications and I couldn't continue my business, I had to find myself as an actor and an entrepreneur. And when that was stripped away, I lost who I was again. And so I went through this second cycle of losing myself and became suicidal and almost took my life twice.

ZACK: You would think Kathleen, that that would be it, right? You hear people say that. I hit suicide and then the rest of my life was just shooting up to the moon and everything was great. And for some of us that are stubborn, that's not how it works.

ZACK: So I went back in the corporate world, put my head down and got three promotions within an industry that doesn't accept non-college grads, which I was one of only in the company and was on my way back to working and becoming part of society again. And due to life circumstance and my father having a stroke, I hit a point where I realized. What am I doing? My father was actively in the ER. I'm with him.

ZACK: And I was running beer promotions at the time with a crew of 34, a team that worked for me. And I'm actively in there trying to cover shifts that we had that night for promotions that in all reality were irrelevant to what was going on in the world. And here my dad is actively having a stroke that they weren't able to get on top of. And that moment that I was sitting there saying, Is this how I want to define my life?

ZACK: That in these moments of importance, I'm more worried about a job. And so that was the last salaried paycheck I had. And after that, I can't recontinue my entrepreneur journey. And since then, I've had two more awakening chapters that we can dive into. I know that in the intro, you talked about my hike. That was that was chapter three.

ZACK: When I realized that trying to pursue acting and being an entrepreneur, I was doing everybody else's bidding. And I got to a point with my injury where it defined who I was and what I was capable of. And I remember I was heading into surgery, I think it was surgery five. And I wanted to get to what I was used to, which was being an outdoorsman.

ZACK: I grew up in Australia for eight years. I wanted to go back to hiking. I'd picked this trail that was 120 miles called the John Muir Trail. And I told the VA doctor, doc, this was December. I said, I need to get back to health so that I can do this hike next spring.

ZACK: And he said, you need to quit backpacking altogether. Now I had quit everything else. You know, I throw that in my intro about the one-arm golf game, because that's what I had done is reinvent myself. How do you operate when you have chronic pain and you have limited use of a limb?

ZACK: And when he said that you have to quit, basically what he said is quit walking for pleasure, quit backpacking because it's going to aggravate your injury. And I remember walking out of that office that day and the door closed behind me and I knew in my core he was right that I had no business hiking 120 miles.

ZACK: No business and in my research for the John Muir Trail I had uncovered these crazy neurotic people who do this trail that's 2,600 miles called the Pacific Crest Trail and in that moment of clarity, I said he's right I have no business hiking 120 miles I'm going to hike 2650.

ZACK: Clarification John muir is actually 220 miles and I said no I need to do something 10 times bigger than that and so I set off on a five-month journey lived in a tent out of a backpack and slept outdoors and barely showered for five months and redefined what I was capable of because I was tired of my injury limiting what I thought I was capable of.

ZACK: And then we just had another chapter handed to us by the grace of God that we can get into later that has redefined it again. So I've had many, many journeys. I wish that I could tell you it was just one thing. And I had this aha moment and life has been sweet ever since.

ZACK: But we live in life of chapters and seasons and I have had many of them.

KATHLEEN: As have I, as have I. And I think that's what people want to think is it just was one type and it's not. And after having meeting you in September and having a conversation and the depth of our conversation in such a very short period of time, it was why I wanted you on the show because It is about reinvention. I mean, I've reinvented myself so many times.

KATHLEEN: And as you were talking about your hike, all I got was you were walking in the valley of the shadow of the death, so to speak. You know, you were in Gethsemane with Jesus kind of thing, because I think that's what it was, because you can't live with that kind of pain. You know, you can't.

KATHLEEN: And it's painful and it is depressing and I'm sure that's where a lot of your suicidal tendencies came from. And if you didn't want to take your life, something bigger was driving you. And I like to know a little bit more about the depth of that because I want to reach the vets. I want to support the vets because I know that they get a bad shot from our government and how they treat us.

KATHLEEN: And what you guys do for us is absolutely amazing. Now, you don't have to talk about a lot of this stuff, about the military, supposedly, but your journey back from that, because I'm sure it was a big difference when you came back from the military after those kind of injuries. And I've heard the horror stories. I have lots of vets, friends.

ZACK: Yes. And I'm glad you asked this because there's something we don't get a chance to dive into very often.

ZACK: One of the stories that stuck with me that I had allowed to become sticky in my life was after I became suicidal. I was a jock. Listen, growing up, I was a national level rugby player, martial artist, kickboxer, went in the military, and then got injured. And all of that kind of came to a halt. But my mindset was I could get through anything.

ZACK: And that's what they teach us in the military. You adapt and you overcome with the tools you have in front of you. So when I was in the depths of my depression, I thought I should be able to have the tools and handle this on my own. And the funny part about that is we don't do anything alone in the military.

ZACK: And I tell the veterans that I work with now that when you get out, you feel like you have to shoulder this whole burden by yourself. And you really don't because we are trained to use team and to use community to overcome objections and objectives. And I didn't do that. And so I almost took my own life. But what was worse than that moment was that for the next eight years of my life, it stuck with me.

ZACK: The stickiness was that I wasn't good enough. If I couldn't control my own desire to live, how could I be a father? How could I be a leader? How could I be a husband? And so all of the relationships that I had after that moment were shallow because I didn't trust myself. And I didn't trust that anybody would want to get close enough to me.

ZACK: Now, through doing a very, very deep work as an actor and with other personal coaches, one-on-one coaching, I uncovered the fact that I am good enough as I am. And if anybody were to come into my world and show interest in me, it is because of my past, not in spite of it. So I am the man I am today because I have navigated those waters and because I've dealt with the things that I have dealt with.

ZACK: And that makes me stronger. But I really didn't let that go until I was on that trail. And that's where I found the Lord. And whether people, are spiritual or Christian, to me is irrelevant. It's understanding that there's a higher power in our life and that we have a higher calling.

ZACK: And once I found that calling, it freed me up. And Kathleen, when I let go of the fact, this was after the trail. So this is after a lot of deep dive work. I let go of the fact that I wasn't good enough because I had been suicidal and that I was damaged goods. And when I let go of that, less than a month later, I met my current wife.

KATHLEEN: I was going to ask you about that. And we're going to take a quick conversational break and we're going to go down that because that's what I was thinking is you must have met her right after that.

ZACK: Yes. Perfect.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back, everyone, to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we have Zack Starr in the room with us today. And Zack was just getting ready to talk about after he went and did his deep dive into his own personal hell, so to speak, his beautiful wife.

KATHLEEN: And I know that he's had things and how he's had to maneuver through his journey back from his suicides with his wife. And I'd love if you feel comfortable. I don't want to push you too far. I like pushing people far.

KATHLEEN: For the depth of it and the reality, just some of the journeys that you went with her too. I mean, she's a beautiful woman don't know her, but to be able to deal with what you expressed to me back in September, that's a very powerful, loving, dynamic woman to do that.

ZACK: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, like I said, right before the break, we met, it was about a month, maybe six weeks after I did this deep dive in this counseling session and really unpacked that I am who I am because of what I've gone through.

ZACK: And what it did was it freed me up to be real with her when we met. And right off the bat, I laid it out there. Here's my past. Here's what I'm working on. I was traveling the country in an RV, trying to get my public speaking career going. Yes, a speaker living in a van down by the water.

ZACK: It made for a very interesting second date. I was sweating. I was like, I have to tell her and eight hours into the second date. I was like, we need to sit down and talk. She honestly thought I had been married before that I was currently married. She's like, this is not going to go. So I just laid it out there. And I said, listen, I feel a connection, but you need to know where I am and where I'm going.

ZACK: And I have to be real with you. Otherwise, what's the point? What basis are we, are we putting here? What foundation? And that has helped us, navigate the waters because I have had a total of 10 surgeries. I have had five surgeries with her, four surgeries with her. I lose count, Kathleen, but four or five surgeries with her hospitalized many times.

ZACK: The unfortunate part about suicide, mental health, depression is there is no switch and we can do a deep dive if you want on that, but there is no switch to say. I'm better. That's it. And so it's something that I work with and I live with and it's active, right?

ZACK: And you have highs and lows. And for us over the first few years, that was very difficult to navigate. As a matter of fact, within our first six months of dating, I had a joint replacement moved in with her. She had to do my passive physical therapy three times a day.

ZACK: And we had to navigate all of that. The communication issues that come with that. Not doing it correctly and she thinks she's not being a supportive spouse and I'm trying to communicate no it just feels this way and you have to do this.

ZACK: We had to navigate all of it and it has made us stronger today. In fact she understands now when I have these depressive cycles how she can best support me and help me and that has also helped me in my business as a speaker and a coach for veterans to allow them to understand what the family members go through.

ZACK: Because that's a whole nother chapter of our story is you can navigate it. You're never navigating it alone. So whether you think you are or you're not, you're having a ripple effect on the loved ones and the people around you in your community.

ZACK: And so it is important for us to understand that role that they play. And it's important for us to give them the tools that they need to be able to help us when we need it. And so we have been able to navigate it. That over the years. And she's incredibly supportive of my mission of what I do. She also understands when to let me breathe and when I need that time, depending on what I'm going through.

ZACK: I also deal with nerve damage and chronic pain. And listen, as optimistic as I try to be and as light of the world as I try to be when I can, there are days that it's not fun to be around me. And that's just the facts of life. And anybody that's dealt with chronic pain or depression understands that.

ZACK: And it's how can you set the people up around you so that they don't feel that they're doing something wrong? Because for many spouses, the issues come when they internalize what's going on and they say in their own internal monologue, because we can't always articulate what's going on, they may be thinking, did I do something? Am I not supportive enough? Should I be doing more?

ZACK: And in all reality, you're just trying to breathe your way through every minute of that day to survive. And you're really not thinking about them or the impact of it on them. So we need to learn those tools and arm them with the tools to help them be more comfortable in those situations. And in return, they can be more supportive of us.

KATHLEEN: I think that's a real key topic because so many people, it's always about me when it's not about me, but it's always about me. Everything you do say, think or feel is about me. I think when I did my deep dive into my soul journey, I realized everything's not about me because sometimes it's about the other person or you're coming in and you're having a bad day and take it out on me.

KATHLEEN: And it's like, no, no, I didn't cause this. So you either take a time out or get the hell out of my house until you're better. You know what I mean? And it is, it's important. And it's not a lack of love. It's a respect for myself. And I know from Most of the people that are vets in my life, they don't share anything.

KATHLEEN: They have their own personal tortures that go on. And even though they know how to manage it, so to speak, that doesn't mean it's easy for a loved one when there is something going on. And I've had this one gentleman as a friend of mine, as a colleague, and I remember he was always higher up in the military and he gave the orders.

KATHLEEN: And he has a lot of... Damage because he was in combat, and the brain shaking from bombs and cannons and everything else. And I remember him talking one time and I just was like, and that's all I could do because I had no idea because he masked it so well. And yet here he is with all these health issues, fighting with the VA like you did.

KATHLEEN: He knew more than the doctors knew. And then they finally gets on a protocol and a new doctor comes in and changes it. And it's just my God. And then all the Vietnam vets, I mean, just them alone and the head trash and everything. And most of them just bury it and still have their nightmares.

KATHLEEN: And as a person who's, I mean, I've known things. People have told me things. I was at Warren Air Force Base doing a job for three years. And those vets talked to me about things that they never tell anybody. And they told me. Kind of like how you and I went down that depression road, because I know what you mean by depression.

KATHLEEN: I know that I still fight it, even though I'm not suicidal anymore, I still fight my own depression. I mean, I'm currently going through some of that now with just all this energy going on in 2025 that why do I want to be here? I'm staying. I'm not leaving. But I had a meltdown last week and my partner comes in and is like, are you OK? And I'm just crying.

KATHLEEN: I mean, it's like because he got injured on the job. He's not getting the treatment. We found out his boss doesn't have workers comp. He's in pain. He can barely walk because of sciatica. He can barely walk. I feel helpless. Now I have to take care of him. And so there's a whole new dynamic in my head going off.

KATHLEEN: I mean, it was like everything compounded. And so I know because I'm doing my own head trash, I know what I'm doing, but it doesn't matter. It's still programming. It's still going on, even though, I said, I'm really trying. He said, I know you are. He said, but I mean. Really trying here. And I mean, we laugh at it, but we had to talk about it, too, because I felt helpless.

KATHLEEN: And there's nothing worse for somebody who doesn't want a loved one to be in pain, you feel helpless. And there's nothing I can do. So I just had to be like, okay, if you need to be in the room and do whatever, it's like, do you need anything? Did you do your exercises? That's all I could do.

ZACK: You know, You're spot on and you touched on something that's very, very important within the veteran community. I gave a keynote recently for Vietnam veterans and I implored them to share their story because so many didn't.

ZACK: Now, we have to frame the context here that they came home and they were not welcome home. This is pre-9-11. It was a different story. Paint was thrown at them. They were called baby killers. It was different. Their walk, their journey was different than mine.

ZACK: What they did is. Shut it down, locked it down and sucked it up. And that created a whole generation. I was actually at the movie theater here. When I get a chance now that I have two kids and a three month old, it doesn't happen anymore, but I used to go to the movies by myself.

ZACK: On a weekday, when you have the whole theater yourself, here's a hack, ladies and gentlemen, don't buy a movie room for your house. Just go to the movie theater during the week. If you can, you get the whole theater to yourself. And I walk in by a ticket and I have a service dog and the kid behind the counter says, thank you for your service and tells me his dad was in the military too.

ZACK: And I said, oh, what did he do? And what were they serving? He said, I don't know. We don't talk about it. He said, he was in Afghanistan or Iraq. We don't talk about it. Now this kid was in his teenage years.

ZACK: And so what we have done is we've taken the Vietnam era and we have handed that down to the next generation to say, we just don't talk about it. We just shut it down. And a lot of times we do that. And this happens in first responders as well in the first responder community, because you feel like you're protecting your family from the events that you have witnessed.

ZACK: And that's valid. You can't share everything that you see with them because it will traumatize them. And so in an effort to protect them from what we've seen and what we've done and what we've heard, we shut it down, lock it up and suck it up. But here's the problem. What have we learned in that journey?

ZACK: And why are we not sharing what we've learned with those loved ones around us? So this teenage young man who's working the movie theater, if he loses his father early, like I lost my mother, his whole father's journey of what he learned about being part of the best team in the world, about having unity where religion and ethnicity and all of that weren't part of it.

ZACK: You wore the same uniform. You were a unit, a family about having. A purpose that's greater than yourself, what has worldview changed into after he had his deployments. If he doesn't share those experiences with his son, then it's lost and we're losing another generation.

ZACK: And so it's very important. I tell my vets, we get trained in a new language. And when we come home, we expect everybody around us to adapt to us. And we say, civilians don't understand me. They don't know what I went through. As a matter of fact, I gave a keynote for the government.

ZACK: And afterwards we did a Q and a, and one of the wives asked me specifically, she said, he tells me, I don't know what he did and I'll never understand it. What do I say to him? And I said, you say exactly, unless you share with me, unless you tell me more about it, how could I possibly understand? So we are taught a new language.

ZACK: We come home and we don't try to integrate back in. And we don't share that language with the loved ones around us. And that makes us feel even more alienated. So back to what you were talking about. It is a matter of finding common ground, sharing it with your loved ones around you.

ZACK: Because what I have found and what I did personally in my own life is I gave my wife the worst version of me. When I was going through surgeries and depression because I knew she'd still be there. I knew she wasn't going anywhere because she loved me. And so I didn't give her the best version of myself. And that was unfair on her.

KATHLEEN: I get that. I get that. And when I was on Warren Air Force Base, I love these guys. They love me. They thought I was so cool.

KATHLEEN: And they did. I mean, we had so much fun. The things these guys told me was unbelievable.

KATHLEEN: But, they would come up to me and say, Kath, I'm really messed up. You don't know that because I'm putting on a face, but I'm really messed up. And the gentleman who told me this, he said, when he came back, he went into civilian life and he couldn't handle being in civilian life like what you were saying because he was used to it. And what was the thing he said?

KATHLEEN: I came back as a civilian and to Warren Air Force Base because I missed my family. I missed the community. I missed the understanding. What you guys are going through out in the world is nothing compared to what we went through in the military. We may be messed up here in our bodies, but we have a unit. And there's a cohesiveness and an understanding and a family and a camaraderie that you don't know.

KATHLEEN: And I said, well, thank you so much for sharing that because you're right. I don't know. But being around, the general contractor, all they did was Corps Of Army Engineers work. We were working in the medical clinic. And these guys would tell stories and I would, you know, they love to eat too. Oh my God.

ZACK: Stories and eat, it sounds fair to me, yes.

KATHLEEN: And then they would tell stories of what they would eat in these other countries. And I would just about vomit and they would laugh because I took it, you know, I just took it. I was a good sport about it. One gentleman, one vet told me he jumped out of an airplane, something happened.

KATHLEEN: And he says, you watch Rocky and they're bouncing off the trees and everything else. And he had hit trees down all the way down and then bounced back up when he hit a limb and then bounced back down again.

KATHLEEN: And he said and we're laughing he's laughing but it's not funny and we both know it's not funny he said the movies make it look like you can handle that he says you have no idea what that does to your body and he was telling me because he's a mess physically he's a mess sure yeah but you know these guys were sharing some really tragic stories in a funny way but they knew that I understood and I had compassion and what they also liked was that I was like one of them Because I believed in honesty.

KATHLEEN: I believed in integrity. I didn't take any shit off of anyone. And my mouth flew as much as their mouth flew. You know what I mean? I was about protecting the people that were on the job site. And when they were doing stupid things, I told them. I was a tattletale because this was my job.

KATHLEEN: I had to protect these guys too. I had to protect everybody on this job site. So I would be one of those. And they were like, thank you, thank you, thank you. And they had my back. And I'm like, I love you guys. I love you guys. Where have you been my whole life?

KATHLEEN: Because as a civilian, we don't have that kind of an experience generally. And here's this amazing group of men, just like you're my kid's sister and we're just going to go have some fun and play. And that's what we did. And I have to take a quick commercial break and we'll be right back.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back everyone to the Journey of an Awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host, and we're streaming on the Bold Brave TV network. And I have Zack Starr in the room with us. And we were ending before the commercial break. I was talking about the gentlemen that I worked with at Warren Air Force Base and how they transitioned.

KATHLEEN: And the only other thing I wanted to say is that my business partner had two brothers that were in Vietnam in the war, and they both died recently in the last five years or so. And he never knew anything that happened to them. It went to the grave, as you were saying, is not a good thing. So I'm going to turn it back over to you.

ZACK: It's not. And, I've worked with a company called Opus Peace, and they work with soul injury. And it was started by six hospice nurses that dealt with thousands of dying veterans. And what they found is on their deathbed, they were sharing these stories with these hospice nurses. And it wasn't so much the stories that they were sharing. These were all stories that. That they hadn't shared with anybody before.

ZACK: They were basically taking them to their grave, got comfortable with these nurses because in the hospice program, if you know anything about that, they are there daily and they really become part of the family. And what these hospice nurses witnessed was the relief that came from finally speaking the words for whatever they had been carrying with them for so long. It was this release.

ZACK: And we've all experienced that it's burdens that we've carried for a month a day years that when we finally get the ability the opportunity to hit that release valve we almost feel like a cleansing that we have been able to release that and many vets don't do that and it ties in with the work that I do now you had mentioned earlier about you know veterans coming back and missing the community and not being able to articulate that to their family and their family doesn't understand and What we found, this has taken me 10 years, over 10, 12 years to really unpack this and come up with this framework.

ZACK: But when we leave the military, we lose our crap. And that is our community, our routine, our accountability partners, our activity, and our purpose. All of those are stripped away. You don't get on base anymore. You don't have the structure that you had. You knew the chain of command. You knew what uniform you were going to wear.

ZACK: You knew what your career advancement looked like and when you get out and you're given this opportunity to do whatever you want you don't want to pt don't pt you're not forced to you want to start a store or coffee shop you can do that but the options are so unlimited that it can be overwhelming it's almost analysis paralysis if you will and so what we find is we lose our crap that's my acronym for what we lose when we get out and if we don't rebuild that we cannot thrive in life because we've lost our teammates, we've lost our purpose for many of us, and we've lost our daily routines.

ZACK: And so the first year or two, this is why we see the suicide rate so high years after military discharge. It's not right after. And the other statistic that blows people away is the majority of veteran suicides never saw combat.

ZACK: And that single statistic really led me down this deep dive to say, Why are we losing veterans who never saw combat at such a high rate? And it's because we lose that culture, that purpose, that routine.

ZACK: And for many of us that get in as teenagers, we've really never had that. I had an alcoholic mother. I had a father who wasn't around. Like, it's so typical of a story. And so for the first time for many of us, we find it, we find it in sports and other things, you know, as we grow up in high school.

ZACK: But then we really find it for the first time in life in the military. And when that uniform stripped away from you for the last time, you're at a loss. And so coming out, now we teach veterans that you have to rebuild that. And our acronym is Thrive, to thrive in life. And that means you have to rebuild your team.

ZACK: You have to rebuild and find new habits. You have to flex your resilience muscle and learn where you've remember where you've been to remember what you can overcome. You have to have investment in yourself, others, and your community around you. V is for vision. You have to have a vision for what you want your life to be.

ZACK: And you backtrack that. We have a way of backtracking that to figure out what you should do. Don't just go take a security job because this is a tangent, but so many veterans go back to firefighter, first responder, security, police departments for a reason, because it has the brotherhood, the structure and the routine that we missed.

KATHLEEN: Because I would think to doing that is just the adrenaline rush, because I had a vet on who talked about the adrenaline rush that always seemed to be going on, too, especially in combat.

ZACK: And that replacing that is a whole nother now there are different therapies out there that I won't dive into because I'm not licensed and all of that, but there are ways that we're getting around that.

ZACK: But in essence, for your audience to understand if they never were in the military or never saw combat, it is like going from a freeway and not like an Ohio freeway, like a Texas freeway where it's 75 or maybe a Wyoming freeway where you can drive 80 and you're going 90 and driving into a school zone. It doesn't feel like a school zone. It feels like snail mail.

ZACK: Like you are just plodding along going, come on. And so it's very similar to that. And then life gets itchy around you. You get frustrated. So you can't go from that high adrenaline, always on, always on point to just an everyday life. It doesn't work.

ZACK: So there are ways to do that, but having a vision, we can walk backwards and figure out what it is that you want to do when you get out. And then the last piece, the E for the thrive acronym is engagement. And that's all other pieces, all the other five pieces you have to engage because you could have the best team in place.

ZACK: But if you don't engage with that team, if you don't talk to that team, if you don't set them up for success, they're not going to know how to serve you. You know, my second near suicide, I ended up driving to my brother's house. I was fighting with my door that had my firearm in it, in my closet. And I had been in a battle with that door.

ZACK: And there was no like Mel Gibson movie moment where I was going to open the door and like, look at the bullet and put in the gun. I had already walked through what was happening next in such a way that it was muscle memory in my brain that it was going to be very quick and final.

ZACK: And I was about to go to that door and I was a mess. And I think I was drunk probably at the time, late hours of the morning. And something nudged me, Kathleen. Instead of opening that door, I opened my bedroom door and I found myself in my kitchen and I just walked out to my garage, grabbed my keys, should not have been driving, drove a few miles to my brother's house and showed up on his doorstep.

KATHLEEN: Thank God. He did not know.

ZACK: Thank God. But he did not know how to handle that because I hadn't told him where I was or how he could help me.

ZACK: And so I left him with this mess. He put me to bed in his spare room. And the next day I left, he left a note and said, just lock up when you leave. And he never circled back because he didn't know how. And that wasn't his fault. That was my fault.

ZACK: So we teach veterans that before you need it, you have to engage your team and reach out to them and tell them, Hey, this might be going on. Here's how you can help. If I reach out, or if you don't even know, if you haven't done the deep work to know what helps you, you could say, Hey, I may be going through some things in the future and I may lean on you.

ZACK: And then that gives them the opportunity to do their own research and to maybe figure out some ways that they might be able to help you if you ever make that call. So that's the engagement part is you can have the best team in the world, but if you don't engage and prepare them and, and interact with them.

ZACK: The same part is with mental health, with depression. The only way people will see your depressive cycles is if they engage with you frequently. It's like a haircut. You don't notice it until it's, well, it's actually bad analogy because it's the opposite of a haircut. If you're with somebody every day and it's growing, you don't realize that it's growing.

ZACK: And then you haven't seen them for a few months, you go, wow, your hair's different. It's the opposite of that. If you're with your team and you're talking with them on a frequent basis, they will notice the days that you're off. They will notice when your habits are different.

KATHLEEN: Yesterday I was doing fine and then something happened and I just went and plummeted.

KATHLEEN: And I know what triggered it. And I was very quiet. And he's like, are you okay? Are you okay? Because you look really depressed. And I said, yeah. And I was just processing something that had happened that just came out.

KATHLEEN: Because I've been saying this, like my demons from- my whole life are coming up in front of my face and they're being released and you know but there's truth in that but there's an emotional component that goes with that too when you're getting rid of garbage there's an emotional release there's something that's unfamiliar to you depression is easy for me Trying to say no to it and keep moving forward, but I know that I still have to be in it and process through it.

KATHLEEN: But the fact that he recognized it, like for the first time in his life, he saw something different in me. And it was because I had that meltdown, two days before. I see exactly what you're saying. And I'm not even a vet. And I see what you're saying because I have to tell people. I'm always the strong one, the rock of Gibraltar.

KATHLEEN: And I said, you know, I had this meltdown for you. And he says, what do you mean by that? I said, because you think I'm infallible. Because women can be very strong and so can men. And we base everything around what we're observing, but we don't always know what's going on deep inside. And, showing that degree of vulnerability is hard.

KATHLEEN: But you did that with your wife. She saw the worst of you and still stood by you. And yes, you can look back and say, that wasn't right. But what did you do? You corrected that. You started allowing her in so she didn't go into the head trash. And then she leaves you because she can't cope with you anymore. Because then that becomes a self-sabotage.

ZACK: Yeah. No, trust me. I tried that many times with other relationships. It does not work.

ZACK: You can be the strongest person you know when I went into that hike do you want to know it didn't end up being my final why I talk a lot about why what's your purpose in doing something one of the reasons that I started that was because I knew I wanted to talk to the veteran community and I didn't feel like I had a reason or the ability to go ahead from the veteran community to talk to them as vets we're always one-upping each other so it's like I'm not an amp I'm an injured veteran but I'm not an amputee So who am I to speak to other injured veterans?

ZACK: Or I'm a veteran, but I wasn't on SEAL Team 6. So who am I to speak to other veterans? And I thought, let me find the most audacious goal I can. People got off that trail at a rate of 75%, 25% complete the trail.

ZACK: More people had summited Mount Everest by the time I had hiked this trail in 2015 than had hiked that trail. And so it is very difficult. And I did it needing a joint replacement because I felt like I had to walk through hell.

KATHLEEN: To be able to speak to other veterans and that's not the case isn't it amazing what we do to ourselves? I mean we do all sorts of weird nasty things to ourselves that nobody else would ever do to us but we just give ourselves permission to just beat the hell out of ourselves because who the hell am I? Well, you're somebody and the gift that you're bringing this world is painful you chose this and you know that yes and you have to own that responsibility of You chose this for whatever reason to bring hope to the vets, to help them understand, help the family members understand what they're going through, even if it's just to start opening their mouth and sharing just a little bit, just to get that out so they don't commit suicide.

KATHLEEN: Because people still have people love you. I don't care how bad of a criminal you are. Somebody still loved you. You were a baby once. You were loved once.

KATHLEEN: Our life circumstances change us, but it's how adaptable are we. And part of that is so we come back into wholeness. We come back into the true essence of us, where there's a higher being that's supporting us.

KATHLEEN: Because I hate when I'm in pain. I absolutely hate it. You know, so to have chronic pain, I know people have committed suicide over chronic pain because it's so bad. You know? It's real.

KATHLEEN: Resilience to do that is mind-blowing to be able to to do what you're doing and you don't look like you're in pain you don't look like you're in anguish even though you've had an event today you're so grounded in where you are and that's what attracts people to you is you're grounded that you own who you are And you're vulnerable to share that with people.

KATHLEEN: And I do appreciate that immensely that you're opening your heart up to that degree on this show. Because people need to hear this.

ZACK: I appreciate that sincerely. I also want to let people know that we have to give ourselves some grace. And that's something that has helped me when I have those days where I am not a nice human being. You know, I have a three and a half year old son and now a three month old son.

ZACK: And there are days where I find myself snapping at him because when I'm in pain, I feel claustrophobic in my own skin. I'm not, I am a road rage driver, like get away from me. I'm not, I don't want to be comforted by my wife. I don't want my three-year-old tugging on me and wanting to wrestle and do things. And sometimes I have to give myself grace in those moments.

ZACK: I have to find pockets to get out of that and not let that damage him as he grows up. But I also have to remember that I am dealing with something. And in doing that, I feel like you. We can beat ourselves up just a little bit less.

ZACK: If we give ourselves some grace on what we're navigating in the moment, you know, our Thrive Framework is not just for veterans. We've touched a lot on veterans on this episode. And I appreciate that because that's a platform. Those are the people that I talk to the most, but the Thrive Framework that we use is available to anybody and it helps anybody going through major transition.

ZACK: And I realized this when I got off the trail because I had this goal and you know, we work with athletes as well because it's similar to Olympic athletes. The most decorated swimmer of all time, Michael Phelps, came back and locked himself in his bathroom and for a half day was contemplating suicide.

ZACK: And he talks about it in his documentary. Now, he had just become the all-time winningest Olympian ever, and he was suicidal. And you say, wait, you had all these goals and dreams and you even exceeded those. How can you be sad? How can Robin Williams be sad? He has the world at his fingertips.

ZACK: And it's because we define ourselves by what we do most of the time. We define ourselves by the uniform we put on. And when that's stripped away, we don't have the structure to fall back on. And I experienced it after I got off the trail. I had this vision for five months.

ZACK: Well, I really had it the months prior to that in the buildup and the training and the research that I was going to complete this trail, whether I died doing it or not. And once I completed the trail and got to the end, it was like, what's next? Who am I? Sure, I've done. Thing and you can talk about it at a bar and it's cool. And people are like, wow, you walked that far. You did 26 miles a day for five months.

ZACK: That's crazy. But then I was empty on who I was after I got back until I found public speaking and started serving others. And so the Thrive Framework, having a team around you, having habits, having resilience, investing in yourself, your community, and those around you, having a vision and engaging in all of those, those are the pillars that allow you to fall short.

ZACK: Goals or to feel emptiness and still not go down the dark depths that I've gone down or other people have. So I just hope that is impactful for somebody in the audience who may not be a veteran or dealing with veteran issues. You can apply that to divorce, job loss, anything else.

KATHLEEN: I've had this in my life. I mean, I had this one year where I did all this traveling. I had come out from my journey.

KATHLEEN: And had all this traveling and I was all excited about everything and then it was like when I finished the last one it was like I was depressed I'm like why are you depressed and it was because I had put so much into this amazing year I had created and you know when my sciatic went out when I was in the middle of a divorce in the year 2000 I slept through to the Y2K because I didn't know how to I mean I was married for life in my mind and that's not what happened and You're so right on the money of what happens to people that we are a doing society.

KATHLEEN: And that's the one thing that I do my best, it's about serving others. It's get out of myself and quit worrying about what I'm doing. Because I find that once I accomplish a dream, if I don't have something, because I'm in the middle of a big dream and I'm so close to accomplishing it, what am I going to do afterwards?

KATHLEEN: Commit suicide because I finally did it and said, okay, I did it, so I'm going to die now. No, I have to switch my perspective so I can keep moving and evolving. And the only way I know how to do that, like you're saying, is I'm bringing people into my life more. I'm talking to people more. I'm getting out. I'm serving more.

KATHLEEN: I'm doing a lot of things like you said. And it makes a difference, especially when you feel like you're failing, but you're not failing, but you think you are because you're not getting where you want to be. And that's what people don't understand. So Zack, we have two minutes left. How can people get a hold of you?

ZACK: You can go to my website, Zachstar. Com is the easy way. Z-a-c-k-s-t-a-r-r.com. Learn about my speaking platform, keynotes, and courses. And if you want to email us, it's info at Zachstar. Com. We're starting a YouTube channel soon, but that's in the works. That's the best way right now.

KATHLEEN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being on the show today. And I know we could go down so many other avenues with just the vet side and the civilian side and how they actually are all the same. It doesn't matter what journey or path we took. We still all feel the same and coming out. So I really do thank you for coming on. And I will be sending prayers to your family.

ZACK: Thank you for today what happened today and speedy recovery so again I appreciate that and I want to thank you for the opportunity and for the openness to go a little deeper you know we could talk facts and what did you do and what was your rank and all of that but the reality is if we're out here to serve other people and help other people advance in life we need to get down to some of the nitty gritty and so I appreciate the ability to do that with your audience today and if anybody wants to reach out if they want to see our film I did a two-hour documentary film about my suicide my journey military service and the trail beautiful hiking footage email me and I'll send the digital copy for free so okay and you can send me the link too and I'll put it up on the show notes so people will have it too if they come across it so that way it gets more exposure perfect.

KATHLEEN: Okay all right well thank you everyone for joining me today if you liked anything on the show please feel free to reach out to me or Zack. Send the link to friends or family that if you know anyone who's suffering or in pain right now, help to help them.

KATHLEEN: This is a program that I believe is life changing for somebody and it's going to help you and everyone else. And I'm just pretty much I think that's all I'm going to say. So from my heart to yours, I will see you all next week and I hope you have a fabulous week in the process. Thank you so much, Zack.

ZACK: Thank you.