Some stuff came up recently about a friend of mine. Guy was a super soldier. Fucking kicked ass on missions and was a brother to me and everyone on the teams. Literally the best fucking guy. He killed himself. His wife cheated, he went through some shit, and long story short he is dead now by his own hands. This happens to a man I know at least a few times EACH YEAR. In 2019 before another tour to Afghanistan I saw some facebook messages from an old friend I served with; just popped in my feed. He's just an awesome dude. His messages were red flags to me so I posted in an old unit page, said there was an emergency and I needed his personal number because I had lost it over the years. Couldn't get a hold of him. I called his girlfriend at the time through facebook. She answered, and brought her phone to him as he was in the other room. When I called he had a gun to his head. He heard his child and girl in the background and couldn't pull the trigger yet. My call stopped it. We talked. I coached him. He got rid of the girlfriend and turned things around and now runs a private security company worth a few million and is very successful. The girlfriend had tragically killed herself with drugs shortly after the incident, and happened to have been a major source of his problems. Her inability to recover and all that went with it had drained his life to a point where he was staring down the barrel of a gun. Unfortunatily addicts don't understand how much they take from those who care about them. And they will never get it until they get clean. He got very lucky. __________________________________________________ I think about my friends that died. Here I am, a goddam expert in the very area he was struggling in, and I didn't get a single phone call to where I could have absolutely turned them around. And then I look at my business as I sit in a very small niche with a small following, and then at the fact that 304 white claw hour and super car cool guys and chicks that playcate to broken guys who say entertaining things all have millions of subscribers and followers. My old friends knew about those other people I am sure, and yet they wouldn't even know what I do because my lack of branding and marketing. And because of my integrity (a good thing) and because of my lack of marketing and branding (a bad thing) I have such a small imprint that many of my own fucking friends and people who know me wouldn't all think to call me in a crisis, or join one of my programs when we could all turn it around in a zoom call or community post.