Scott Mann

And then over time, they would build that social capital out until the collective would stand up on its own.

And I was just blown away by that over the years.

But then when I got back to the States,

in 2013 and started going through a transition, one of the things that really sent me off the edge in my transition was coming back to a country I didn't even recognize anymore.

So divided, so much just conflict with ourselves.

Sebastian Younger says it in his book, Tribe, you know, most combat veterans are more than willing to die for their country, they just don't know how to live for it.

because it's hard to know how to live for a country that's tearing itself apart along every imaginable line from race to politics to religion.

And that really put me into that spiral that I went to in my transition.

I was like, what was the point of going over there and fighting to keep it over there when we're tearing each other apart here at home?

For me, I knew that there was like something I could offer to that, to that churn.

I'd seen it my whole life, but it wasn't a lot of the cool guy stuff that you see special.

It was interpersonal skills, storytelling, active listening, building trust, building rapport, when the reaction is you wanna reach for your gun.

And that's what these NCOs taught me in Special Forces was how to do that.

But every time I would try to talk about it or do it, I would just get stuck in my throat.

I had so much anxiety and survivor's guilt from it.

I couldn't get in front of people at all.

I was petrified.

And I think you and I have talked about this.

It was really hard for me to get in front of people and share those lessons, even though I felt like I had a ton of content to do that.

And ultimately, I ended up studying storytelling under this ex-NFL player who had learned storytelling as an actor and a playwright, and he started teaching me.