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What do you do when a traumatic brain injury takes away your health, your personality, and your sense of life's purpose?
I first met Pierre in Japan when we were both serving LDS missions. We were companions in the Mission Home for quite a while and we both thought we would be close friends forever. He came to my wedding shortly after he returned, and then we simply drifted apart with no interaction whatsoever. Life happened to both of us.
A few weeks ago, Pierre found my podcast and reached out. We spoke for a few minutes and then I forced us both to wait to catch up until I could record it for my podcast. So here we are more than three decades later. Pierre is on my podcast for far more than nostalgia. For some time, I'd been trying to talk with someone who had deconstructed life due to health reasons, and unfortunately, my former companion had that experience.
After witnessing 911. Pierre found his lifelong calling and he became a police officer in South Tahoe Police Department for over 15 years before he experienced a traumatic brain injury in the line of duty. That accident not only cost Pierre his career, his help, his identity, and his sense of purpose. It changed his personality and completely wiped out his fluent ability to speak and understand Japanese for long years of medical treatment, endless prescriptions, and every therapy he could manage couldn't wipe out his anxiety, agoraphobia, vertigo, migraines, or his thoughts of suicide.
Then, one day, as a last-ditch effort, his wife suggested he try hypnosis. That treatment saved his life. Hypnosis fixes medical conditions, gave him a new sense of purpose, and completely restored his Japanese. During our conversation, I felt like I had been talking with the same old Pierre I had known and loved. Half a lifetime ago in Fukuoka, Japan. I missed my friend Pierre and I am very excited for him to share his story with you and introduce him as another Stranger You Know.
CW: SI
Other Topics Include: sense of purpose, deconstruction, advocacy, integrity, core beliefs, changing world views, emotional hijacking, subconscious, hypnosis, training, experience, fear, comfort, anxiety, traumatic injury, healing.
Pierre - Finding & Losing Purpose
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Pierre [00:00:04] With all the neurologists and physical therapists and counselors and shrinks and everything, four years of dealing with this stuff, you know, they tried everything that they could for the anxiety in a room that they could for vertigo and migraines. Oh, man, really? It was it migraines? Just all the stuff. You know, it's I go from being Batman, you know, a swing shift or graveyard patrol cop low crime through the bushes to catch a bad guy to. I can't even walk into a restaurant without crying. It was just it was that extreme. I flipped the switch.
MUSIC
Brian [00:00:43] I first met Pierre in Japan when were both serving LDS missions. We were companions in the Mission Home for quite a while and we both thought we would be close friends forever. He came to my wedding shortly after he returned, and then we simply drifted apart with no interaction whatsoever. Life happened to both of us. A few weeks ago, Pierre found my podcast and reached out. We spoke for a few minutes and then I forced us both to wait to catch up until I could record it for my podcast. So here we are more than three decades later. Pierre is on my podcast for far more than nostalgia. For some time, I'd been trying to talk with someone who had deconstructed life due to health reasons, and unfortunately, my former companion had that experience. After witnessing 911. Pierre found his lifelong calling and he became a police officer in South Tahoe Police Department for over 15 years before he experienced a traumatic brain injury in the line of duty. That accident not only cost Pierre his career, his help, his identity and his sense of purpose. It changed his personality and completely wiped out his fluent ability to speak and understand Japanese for long years of medical treatment, endless prescriptions, and every therapy he could manage couldn't wipe out his anxiety, agoraphobia, vertigo, migraines, or his thoughts of suicide. Then, one day, as a last ditch effort, his wife suggested he try hypnosis. That treatment saved his life. Hypnosis fixes medical conditions, gave him a new sense of purpose, and completely restored his Japanese. During our conversation, I felt like I had been talking with the same old Pierre I had known and loved. Half a lifetime ago in Fukuoka, Japan. I missed my friend Pierre and I am very excited for him to share his story with you and introduce him as another Stranger You Know.
MUSIC
Pierre [00:02:20] It's great to see you. Really?
Brian [00:02:22] Yeah. I've been looking forward to this. I mean, time has been dragging since we first talked, and I was like, no, no, no. You got to tell me. We got we got to record this. I wanted this on the recording, but it's like I also really want to know. I want to talk with him. I miss him. We get a chance to talk back, to catch up again. I realized today I came home from my mission 32 years ago this week.
Pierre [00:02:43] Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah, that's insane, isn't it? I haven't done the math in a while because December 7th will be 32 years for me then. Yeah. Wow. Yes, that's kind of mind blowing. It's 30 since I've got on that has nothing.
Brian [00:03:03] Like two lifetimes. That's like two hands, right? Yeah. Everybody. Yeah, it was like yesterday.
Pierre [00:03:07] Yeah, it really was, though.
Brian [00:03:09] Yeah. That's kind of crazy. So coming to terms with major changes in life, you had a few.
Pierre [00:03:15] I've had a few.
Brian [00:03:17] Do you want to just kind of list some of your like Big Five and then we can talk about the ones you want to talk about? Sure.
Pierre [00:03:25] Well, I guess it would be.
Brian [00:03:26] The big five or.
Pierre [00:03:27] Six or five. I know the big three. I can think of my big four I can think of really easily. I've talked my head. We talked about deconstructing Mormonism. That's been within the last year.
Brian [00:03:39] That's very recent.
Pierre [00:03:40] Oh, yeah, really, really recent. And then before that, I was a police detective and a police sergeant for 16 years. And traumatic brain injury caused a force in my life where I had to make that change from pop to non cop. And not only captain on cop, you know, big strong man to a broken man with a broken head and a broken ear and a broken eye and all the things that went with that, that was a big change. Rewind the tape a little earlier. Getting remarried when my kids were 12 and marrying someone with a ten year old, that was a pretty big change. That was a lot. And rewinding a little before that was the divorce that precipitated the remarriage. That was a massive change. Those are the big ones that just come to mind right now as I sit and think so.
Brian [00:04:27] We've talked about a couple of these are probably smaller ones, but I think we talked a little bit about that these had happened. I don't know the details on any of them. But you've adopted.
Pierre [00:04:37] Yes.
Brian [00:04:38] So that's a thing. You're an empty nester now. Right. So that's a little bit of a change.
Pierre [00:04:44] That's a thing. Yes.
Brian [00:04:46] I love the one of the things I talk about deconstruction. I haven't had a chance to talk with anybody specifically about it is health issues. And that sounds very relevant to you because most of us just, you know, health is a given, right? And yeah, we get sick and we get better and we get sick and we get better. But there are some people that have something happen in their life that forces them to look at know you need to reconsider the idea of a given. You need to understand what it means to be healthy. And for so many people, your life now is going to be completely different moving forward and you will never get back to what you used to just take for granted. This is now going to be a thing that I think would cause a lot of yeah, I guess deconstruction would be a word. I don't know if that's the right word for that or not, but it definitely causes you to realign some of your values and your way of life and your thinking and all of that. So I don't know if you want to start with that, come back to that later or not even address it if whatever. So you pick wherever you want to start, you start where you want to start. So if you want to go chronologically, that's great to know.
Pierre [00:05:51] I have no particular order in mind if that's where your interest is piqued and that's where your intuition is going. I'm good talking about that now. I've never really applied the word deconstruction to what I went through there. And I think it applies and it's going to be this will be interesting for me because of what I do for a living. I you know, I have the ways that I tell my stories that help other people. And I have the ways I tell my stories, you know, like we all do for marketing. And I have the ways I tell my stories for family and I there's it's the same story and it's the same. Everything is true, but it's just these different.
Brian [00:06:23] You just focus on different points, on different aspects or different emotions as you go through it for different audiences.
Pierre [00:06:29] Exactly. So now as I'm sitting here talking with you, I am inclined to do my best to strip all that away and just let it be what it was. And as I just imagine doing that, I already feel the emotion coming up about it. It's interesting. I haven't talked about this with anybody without a purpose at my end really, really long time. So, you know, my injury there I was in great shape doing a job that's very physical and very important. You know, that puts your sergeant in California. And I'm not a police department. It was in South Lake. I started my training in Sacramento, California, and then did all my police work in South Lake Tahoe, California, which is an interesting little place because, you know, it's. Only 25,000 people in the city limits and it bumps up against Nevada, which is kind of interesting and cool legally and the way that all works. And then there's a bunch of county that attaches to that's probably, I don't know, 50,000 people right there in the pocket during the week. But then, you know, 150,000 people every weekend because everybody comes up to party. So it's a trippy place to be a cop. Hi. Parolee and sex registrant per capita ratio people. It's like the Alaska. California people come there to try to hide. So we got to deal with all that fun stuff. And, you know, the, the, the math made its way through and then the heroine made a proxy made its way through and the heroine made its way through. And we dealt with all that. And it's just a really trippy little spot to be a cop. And now I was doing it and loving it. I loved it. I really loved it. I did patrol for a lot of years. I went to the detective division for a lot of years and then I was back on patrol for a brief period patrol sergeant and while I was the patrol sergeant, I was also the sergeant of the Hostage and Crisis Negotiations team, which I had been doing for a dozen years, just as a member of the team. And when I promoted, I was the team leader and we did a lot of trainings with the SWAT team because, you know, we worked together so tightly and everything went to a SWAT training can.
Brian [00:08:35] Actually be done for just a second. You can you have much control over those different assignments. When you get put on patrol or on patrol.
Pierre [00:08:43] You can. Yes and no. I mean, it's very competitive. You apply to get in the different roles and responsibilities and it's a smaller department. So it's really competitive and there's not a ton of opportunities to do collateral assignments. Okay. I feel I was pretty fortunate to be able to do a decent number of different things.
Brian [00:09:01] And then you also mentioned you loved it. You loved it. What did you love about it? What was I mean?
Pierre [00:09:06] Oh, goodness.
Brian [00:09:08] I don't I'd hate to just breeze by that, because that sounds like that's an important part of PR right now.
Pierre [00:09:14] Oh, yeah. Well, it was my identity. You know, I went from being a marketing guy, and I need to slow down like I'm in, I'm in. I've got an hour to get a session done. Mode. Yeah. Oh.
Brian [00:09:26] Take a breath here. We've got all day.
Pierre [00:09:28] We've got all over again. Dead Warriors. So before I was a cop and then even think about this transition because this is a crazy transition in my life before I'm a cop, I'm living in Orlando, Florida, and I know we'll circle back around to this, but I adopt my children while I was living in Orlando, Florida.
Brian [00:09:46] And there. What year were you there?
Pierre [00:09:48] I was in Orlando from 93 to 98.
Brian [00:09:51] Are you kidding me?
Pierre [00:09:52] Were you there?
Brian [00:09:53] I was there from 97 to 2000. We moved if you live. I lived just north of Kissimmee.
Pierre [00:10:00] That I lived just north. You know the line? Yeah. I was probably a mile north of the beeline.
Brian [00:10:06] Okay.
Pierre [00:10:08] Coming through Iraq at your house from where I was. That's pretty funny.
Brian [00:10:11] Yeah, that's sad.
Pierre [00:10:12] I know. It is kind of a bummer, isn't it? Yeah, I had no idea. What were you doing there?
Brian [00:10:15] I worked for the mouse.
Pierre [00:10:16] Oh, did you really? What did you do for that?
Brian [00:10:18] Right out of grad school? I was in their corporate reporting, so I did a lot of finance and I was actually was in charge of their corporate reporting for the Disney MGM Studios. And also, I got to be involved with the Animal Kingdom pre-opening and on opening day and post open. So that was an experience. I mean, they haven't opened a new theme park since then.
Pierre [00:10:38] That's pretty wild.
Brian [00:10:39] They don't do that very often and I got to be there for that and be part of it and very cool. That was pretty awesome. Very fortunate for that experience.
Pierre [00:10:47] This will make you even more insane then because I was working. Are you familiar with taking Uncle Sam's La USA? No, it's a it was a Japanese receptive tour operator. So they booked tours in Japan, saw them over here, and we'd receive them and take them and do all the stuff. So, you know, were buying thousands of tickets to Disney, thousands of tickets to Universal. I was a tour guide, then a little supervisor, and then I was the VP marketing guy going to Japan, signing tours, bringing people over, doing all that for them while I was in Alaska.
Brian [00:11:16] So for the opening day, they had this huge worldwide press event, right? And it's I got picked to be a part of all of that big press event and they assigned me a group for the whole week. I think it was actually closer to like nine days that they were over here. And so I got to be the person that got the show message machine home for the entire week. And I was on three live episodes. And yeah, I was like for the our listeners that aren't familiar with it is basically Japan's version of Good Morning America. And so, yeah, I got to hang out with that group the whole week and take them wherever they needed to go and make sure they got the interviews they wanted and they got the location scenes and shot. Wow. Yeah. So that was kind of super. I think it was the last time I spoke Japanese was that.
Pierre [00:12:05] I really that's.
Brian [00:12:09] Kind of mean other than ordering sushi or.
Pierre [00:12:11] Something like that. Exactly.
Brian [00:12:12] Yeah, that's pretty much.
Pierre [00:12:14] I can say sashimi. Really good. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian [00:12:16] I had to learn the word for life. Satellite uplink. You didn't learn American missionary? No. I must say, I must remember that like that.
Pierre [00:12:26] I too upbringing.
Brian [00:12:28] No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. It wasn't quite that easy. Anyway, yeah, I used.
Pierre [00:12:33] To know it. That's funny. That's really funny. Yeah. So there were in Orlando together.
Brian [00:12:38] Not knowing Bird for a year.
Pierre [00:12:39] Yeah, not knowing. We could have been kicking it. That's pretty funny. How old are your kids at the time? Did you have kids at the time?
Brian [00:12:45] Yeah, we had our older two. So they were they turned three and four while were there.
Pierre [00:12:50] Okay. Wow. That's wild, man. Yeah, we adopted ours in 98. They were born triplets in 98, so our kids wouldn't have played together, but we certainly could have hung out.
Brian [00:13:00] Yeah, right.
Pierre [00:13:01] Oh, well, here we are.
Brian [00:13:03] Okay.
Pierre [00:13:03] Yeah, yeah. I'm in Orlando. Yes. Adopted the kids. They were born in August. I'm sorry. They were born in August of 97. They're born in August of 97. I'm working for Orlando. The tourism industry is shifting wildly at that time. And then a Japanese company bought having these ski resort, which was in South Lake Tahoe, California. And so they were recruiting for an international marketing person that spoke Japanese to liaise with them. So they recruited me. I accepted. I left Orlando and moved from Orlando, Florida, to South Lake Tahoe, California, in January of 98. And triplets are all of four months old. Wow. You know, it was a change. It was quite a negative cluster. It was pretty exciting. Moved there, worked for Heavenly for six whole months because it was the worst boss I ever had to that day. And still to this day, that guy was the worst boss I ever had in work. And it was really, really bad. So I did that for six months. And then Harrah's Entertainment and Hilton were I think at that point they were both managed by Promise Corporation. So much change in those hotels during that time. But I got recruited over to Harrah's Entertainment, worked in the Harrah's Casino Hotel in marketing for a stint not very long, a year, year and a half, and then ended up across the street and into the California side for the Embassy Suites. And I was there and back again for like a year, year and a half. I moved to California, South Lake Tahoe in 98, and then by 2001, I was working for the Embassy Suites under the Hilton Corporation banner, and I was in charge of sales and marketing for the eastern half of the United States for that specific property. And on September 12th, I was supposed to fly to Boston from California. And of course, 9/11 happened. And clearly I didn't end up in Boston on 912. So 911 happens and I'm sitting there in my little cubicle and I'm watching 911 happen. And there's a group of us there that had different areas of the United States that were covering. And we're all kind of crowded around watching 911 unfold. And before you know how it was, the world just stood still for that period of time. And we're sitting around just talking and we're like, why are we are we still in hotel rooms? I mean, at the end of the day, does it matter if someone sleeps in a Hilton or a Harrah's or a Marriott or a Hyatt? It suddenly it mattered not at all to any of us. So three of us ended up leaving. That year I left and became a cop. Ted left and became a firefighter, and Alicia left and became a public safety dispatcher, all as a result of being there together, seeing this unfold, questioning purpose and leaving to go do this other thing. It was a pretty cool thing. And Wild Man, you talk about a crazy transition. I'm just sitting in a cubicle in hotels and going on road trips and, you know, being the guy at the convention with the Harrah's or I'm sorry, the Embassy Suites sign and swag. And within a couple of months, I'm in a police academy getting pepper sprayed and punched in the face, you know, the whole all different world, all different world. And that's how I became a cop. And that's my long answer. That's the beginning of my answer to why I loved it. I mean, I really loved it. It it came from a deep sense of purpose and some really deep searching and. Okay, what will be my contribution to the world? It's certainly not if I sell hotel rooms for 20 more years, that's not going to matter at all. What am I going to do? So I did a lot of searching and a lot of talking. There was a guy in my ward at the time, Rich McGuffin. He was, I think at the time, a commander at the police department. I remember we just I was friends with him. I was friends with his sons. I was the young man's presidency over his sons. And I just asked him to lunch one day. And went to lunch and we sat on the rooftop of a little restaurant in South Tahoe called Breshears, and we had our little opening talk. Hey, how's it going? Good. How's it going? Good. And I'm like, Man, I got to be straight up. I have a reason for wanting to get together. Just like, what was that think? I think I want to work towards becoming a police officer. And he almost gave me a standing ovation. He got real. The excited like, oh my gosh, yeah, that's great. And totally see that this is fantastic. So he guided me through the process and how to start thinking and start looking at things in which academies to look at. And so I did that. And at the time and you tell me if any of this is too long a story. Oh, that's great. And I know you have the ability to chop stuff out if it's boring, whatever. Feel free to chop. It will.
Brian [00:17:37] It requires too much work.
Pierre [00:17:38] Okay. Maybe I should pass this part out then.
Brian [00:17:44] There's an old Mark Twain says I didn't have time to write you a short story. Short letter. So I wrote you a long one. Absolutely. I don't have time to make short podcasts, so they're long.
Pierre [00:17:52] Exactly. Exactly. Long is good. Long is good. I like long. Where can I go with this? Why did I love it? Became I went to an academy in Nevada because at the time, California laws allowed you to go to an out of state academy depending on the state. Nevada was one of them. Go to that academy and then challenge the California Coast Police Officer Standards training. It's the each state has their entity that controls who can become a cop and the requirements. So I went to an academy in Nevada with the intention of challenging the California Post immediately upon graduation. And about 75% of my time to the Academy, California Post changed their mind on that ruling and said, Well, now you can't challenge it right away. You have to go be a cop in that state for at least two years before you can challenge pose. And I don't know. So right at that moment I got that news and freaking out. The South Lake Police Department announced posted a position opening for a new cop that they would pay to go to a California academy. So I'm almost done with the Nevada Academy. I apply to get picked up and go to.
Brian [00:18:57] California State.
Pierre [00:18:58] That I was in a six month academy.
Brian [00:19:00] Wow.
Pierre [00:19:01] Actually, the Nevada one was a nine month academy because it wasn't a full time academy. It was an evenings and weekend academy. It was about a nine month academy. Well, I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it. I applied for the job in California. They picked me up. But, you know, the Academy is challenging. It's physical, it's intellect, intellectual, intellectually challenging, physically challenging. It's the whole show. So since I had come so far in the Nevada Academy and I was succeeding and loving it, I didn't want to just let that go and then start a California Academy, because a lot of it I mean, several people wash out. Either they just can't cut it or they don't get the academics or they get hurt or whatever. So for the last bit of my Nevada academy and the first bit of my California Academy, I actually overlapped and my California Academy was in Sacramento. My Nevada one was in Carson City Capital, the state. And so I was driving to California on Monday through Friday business hours, doing the academy. And some of those evenings I was driving back here to finish the evening classes, and then on the weekends I was coming here, those overlapping police academies for, I don't know, a month and a half or so. No, it was bedlam. So by the time I get out of both the academies, my fervor had deepened even more.
Brian [00:20:15] Okay.
Pierre [00:20:16] You know, I've put so much into it, I. I mean, I put everything I had into it, and I worked really hard. I wanted to know my stuff. You know, there's. There's so much in the news. Good cop, bad cop stuff. Not nearly as much then as there is now. Yeah, but even then there was. And I really wanted to be one of the good cops. I wanted to help people and. And be there for the right reasons. And in talking to other friends, including Rich and other people who had met and I went to the South Tower Police Department, did some ride alongs with some of their senior guys and got to know some of them. And a close family friend of ours when I was growing up was a DEA prosecutor. I talked to him a lot. Another was a police officer. I talked to him a lot. I talk to these people a lot because I wanted to find out what I really needed to know, besides just the footwork. And what I walked away with was the cops who in general do the stuff that ends up in the news and not in a good way are either the cops who don't know case law or they don't know what they're doing or they're afraid. And so they take an action that they might not otherwise take. So I wanted to really know my case law. I really want to know what I was doing. And I really wanted to know how to fight and shoot guns really, really good so that I didn't have to ever be afraid. That was my goal. I could come out and serve well. So because I put my heart into it so hard, when I finally got to the field, I feel like and the feedback from the people that I dealt with, I was able to do some good. You know, 99% of the people who I arrested in the backseat of my car by the time we got to the jail, would probably consider me a friend and were like, Man, thanks, man. You're right, man. I appreciate this, man. You'll do better, man. Like I can build those relationships. Yeah. And then, you know, I did several years in patrol. Then I opened the detective division where I invested, investigated crimes against children for two years. Never had nightmares about work till I started doing that role.
Brian [00:22:09] Yeah, I have a lot of respect for people that do that. I that's one of those roles where I'm like, I don't know how you just leave work at. Work, even clock out and you can go home. But you're not gone. Then this sits with you. I mean, even I would imagine after you leave the department and everything else, it's.
Pierre [00:22:26] Oh, yeah.
Brian [00:22:27] It it can't, it can't not affect you deeply.
Pierre [00:22:30] I had I just had an experience not two months ago, where I finally let go of a little bit more of that time. Yeah. That I'm sure we'll get to later. But that was a brutal role. I did that for a couple of years. And talk about purpose. I mean, is there can you find a place where a normal human being can do something more purposeful than protecting the kids who are in those situations? That was that was some deep meaning and purpose. And then I rolled from that into what was my next role. I think I went from that to the domestic violence and sexual assault responsibility role. So and in domestic violence, of course, kids are usually involved. And that's why it was a really good evolution because I got to work, focus really hard on the kids. And then when I expanded my role to domestic violence, sexual assault, I got to bring all that experience with me and still help the kids that were in families where those things were going on. And I did that for that was my longest time, the fact that there was domestic violence, sexual assault, and it was a smaller division. So, you know, I worked homicides and officer involved shootings and all the other things that would come up. I wouldn't be the lead on those, but I work those with the leads and then I was the lead on the stuff that was under my purview. And then from there I promoted. And when you promote in that agency, with that size, you promote, you go back to patrol for a while and then you test to come back in. Detective Division is the sergeant there by promoted? I'm back on patrol and that's when this injury happened. Do you ask the question why? Why did I love it? I feel like I answered that, that I answer that in a way that's satisfying to you.
Brian [00:24:03] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, know that the purpose and having meaning in everything you do, I mean, every job has the point where there's the day to day that you don't like that aspect. Right. But you don't get away with that, you know. You know. But to know that even the stupid paperwork and the stupid little cleaning up things that you need to do, that you're required, those are helping the engine that is making a difference, that are protecting people and serving those that need the need to help the most. And if you can see through to that, I had like the exact opposite experience. Interestingly enough at Disney I talk about it and with the exception of working, working the opening of the animal kingdom, I didn't feel like my job made any difference at all. And I work a ton of hours and I would have rather I mean, my ideal job is to be the guy that sells popcorn just inside the gates you're having. You're impacting everyone. The walk through the door, at least with the smell and your attitude and your smile and right. And how important is popcorn? It's not about the popcorn at all. Right. And so, yeah, I felt like I left a company that everybody is just admirable for and they do a great job on so many levels, but a job that I felt like none of this, none of what I'm doing matters. Nobody cares. This is I'm just filling out this data.
Pierre [00:25:28] My brother work at Disney. That was his first job out of Disney World. Yep. Disney World in Orlando. That's how come I hadn't even ended up there, because my connection through my brother, he is a double major music major sound engineer and engineering sound reinforcement. And he worked at their main stage doing the sound for all the live shows there at the Castle Main Stage and magic.
Brian [00:25:47] Oh, okay. Wow.
Pierre [00:25:48] Yeah. And then he went over to EuroDisney and was and he designed and implemented the whole sound system for EuroDisney. But he also left, just as you know, wasn't doing everything he wanted, didn't like fulfillment and finance the time and all this stuff.
Brian [00:26:03] So yeah, but at least he was on stage. I mean, that's actually the term they use at Disney is on stage is where the guest can see you. You know, and I was back he.
Pierre [00:26:11] Actually wasn't he was up in the booth doing the stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah. Kind of.
Brian [00:26:17] Funny. So, yeah, you answered the question. What? Why did you like it? Yeah.
Pierre [00:26:20] So what I really.
Brian [00:26:22] What parts of it do you miss? And it sounds like and we'll get to your, your current job because that's another change that you had in your life. Your current role is was a big eye opener, but it sounds like you get a lot of purpose with that now, too. But what do you miss most about the days being back on the force?
Pierre [00:26:37] So, so much that I miss. And I mean, yeah, what, what I've been doing has a great impact and I love being able to help people. That's one of the things I was looking for as I made my transition. Trying to reinvent here was a job that would course make money and it would be fun and it had to be something that was meaningful or I wouldn't be able to do it. So yeah, this is meaningful and there's a lot that I miss about being with the police department. I mean, I still have to go back every year and qualify with my handgun that I carry concealed. So I get to interact with, you know, at least once a year. I go through and it's never a go. Hit the range and shoot and leave. It's like I hit. Arranged and I walk in to say hi to a couple of people and 6 hours later I walk out the door. Right, right. Everybody is still there. I miss the camaraderie for sure. I miss the unity and purpose for sure. Is there a group of people that you know? I know there are a lot of bad press and there are some bad eggs, but by and large, all the police officers, FBI agents, ICE agents. I mean, I worked with all the three letter acronym federal agencies. I worked with everybody and men. By and large, massive percentage are just people really trying to do good. And it's fun to have that unity and purpose and.
Brian [00:27:51] Dedicated to doing their job. Well, like you were talking about, they want to do their job at the best they possibly can.
Pierre [00:27:58] Yeah, they really, really do. So I miss that. I do miss you know, there's the adrenaline part of it that I miss. I mean, driving 100 miles an hour down the center lane of a five lane highway towards a house that's on fire. And there's a guy with a gun inside. And you're in a line of cop cars that are just trying to get there as fast. There's something special about that's magical. And you can't duplicate that. There's no way to duplicate that.
Brian [00:28:24] No. In Hollywood has tried really hard to capture that on the big screen and they get close. But I don't think it's anywhere close to how it actually feels. Being in one of those.
Pierre [00:28:31] Now, it's it's a special feeling. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And, you know. Do you get scared? No. I find it really there's so much training that goes into just even the mindset. There's not time to be scared because you know what you're supposed to do and you know what your role is, you're just going towards it. And in retrospect, I look back and think, Oh, yeah, that one should have scared me. And it's not that there's not adrenaline and it's not that there's not, you know, some thoughts that creep in of this could go bad or whatever. Yeah, of course those are going to come. But there's a special kind of focus where all of that just kind of melts away. And I miss that. Yeah, that kind of focus.
Brian [00:29:08] Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I imagine. Also, fear is, is one of those things where, like, fear rarely makes good decisions, like you alluded to early, earlier you need to get trained past the fear. You need to be trained and focused on the minute and knowing what's going on this second. Right. Or if you get the fear that's going to be kind of tough.
Pierre [00:29:27] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And and, you know, I look at the things that make the news, you know, were officers took some actions that in hindsight weren't fantastic. I think opinion I haven't talked to those officers and I am not sure in the investigations.
Brian [00:29:43] But you're closer to it than I am.
Pierre [00:29:44] So yeah, I think a lot of those things happened because of fear. Yeah. And an officer.
Brian [00:29:48] I look at that and they say, if I were a cop, I would have a hard time not shooting first in a situation I told you to stop. I told me to shoot. Told you to show your hands when in doubt I'm protecting me. I'm surprised. Just like when I watch a lot of these sporting events, I'm surprised how often the officials actually get it right in the split second. On the moment I look at the officers and thinking the fact that they're willing to take an extra second and go three or four more steps to say calm down. But, you know, it's like I would have been scared well before then and I would have made a bad decision well before then, and it would have turned out awful. I haven't had that training right that catch get you through that. I don't have that comfortability with my weapon to know that I can. I still have far more time than the average person with a weapon. And I'm going to be much more effective when I if it ever gets to that point. And I know that and that relieves some fear as well. So there's a lot of that training and you just can't beat experience, right? You can't.
Pierre [00:30:44] Beat experience.
Brian [00:30:45] If that's your first time. I'm honest on scene, you're more likely to mess up and more likely to go back on your gut instincts, which is protect yourself.
Pierre [00:30:53] Right. Right. And, you know, you look at the states where they spend the most on training for cops and as you know, California, New York, kind of gold standard, the most training, the most training hours, the most time invest in their training. And then, you know, as you move towards the center of the country and this isn't, you know, a perfect parallel, of course, but, you know, you kind of move towards the center of the country and the Midwest and the South. That's where there's the least training and the least money spent on cops and the least number of hours. And you look at where a lot of the problems happen, it's kind of that Midwest and to the south and to Florida. And yeah, some things happen in California. Things happen in New York. Sure, just sheer numbers. But the better the training, the more experience, the more time, the more reps you can get in. The fear can just be put in check a little bit better. Yeah. And I think that's the thing. I think the real thing that, you know, that's really want to do something, some money to train, don't defund the police, but double fund the police and double train all of them. And in all the things, even if there are some compassion training in there too, that can be fantastic and get them really competent in their linguistic skills, their physical skills, their weaponry skills get just so comfortable and really weed out the ones who don't belong. I think a large number of these problems go into we're way out of the weeds now. I love my job, but no.
Brian [00:32:08] But that sounds like a very passion project for you is if you could go back into training and. Work some of those new avenues with the funding, with the police department. It sounds like, yeah, everybody needs more training, right. Especially the people that are always that close to making just a huge impact on a situation.
Pierre [00:32:26] Oh yeah.
Brian [00:32:27] And the amount of proper training and ah, experience can, can push the, push the event one way or the other. Mm hmm. It really just comes down to that one split second, right? I mean.
Pierre [00:32:36] It really does. It really does. And I saw personally experienced and saw lots of times where a shooting or an ass kicking would have been completely legally justified. And it didn't happen because training, experience, moment of patience, that willingness to, as you said, let things even use these words. But like let things breathe for a moment because, you know, the person on the other end of the equation, I'm not meeting people on their best day. Yeah. You know, there clearly something big has happened for them to be in this situation. Yeah. I mean, one, one of the ones I remember most, we get a call of a guy running down Tamarack with a gun, and we don't know any of the back story. Of course, all we know is people are seeing a dude running down Tamarack with a gun and he's running from it in a residential neighborhood towards a little business section where there's tons of people on foot. It's near a beach, it's approaching a main road. We don't want that guy to get to the main road, of course, because he's carrying a gun. And I had just like I just passed the intersection of U.S. 50 and Tamarack. So I flip around, take a side road and, you know, I'm as we drive, I'm doing all the things in the car, put it on the radio either like all the stuff and I'm unwrapping the rifle so I can come out and I, I intersect and he's coming. Tamarack And I don't remember what street I was on, but I'm one of the public streets and I intersect them and I come out and I'm, I'm on him and he's got a big old 45. And again, we don't know the back story. We don't know why he's there. We just know that he's there. Well, when I came up on him, he turned toward me and he's got this gun in his hand. And I remember it very, very vividly. He's got a gun in his hand and it swung in my direction. And I would have been absolutely justified in a gun running down the middle of the street, turns his gun towards me. But there was something that was so I paused and his gun, instead of coming up, just went down. And and that's a crazy place because this movement. Yeah. Doesn't take very fricking long.
Brian [00:34:31] No, no. On raising your arm, having a gun in your hand to pointing it.
Pierre [00:34:36] That doesn't take long at all. Yeah, but I engaged him in conversation and the other cops got there and we ended up with a little perimeter, and we sat there and he ended up with a gun to his head. And, you know, I was a brand new member of the hostage negotiation team. I had transitioned from my rifle to my handgun. There are a bunch of other guys, so I've got a handgun out. I'm 15 yards from this guy with a gun to his head for three plus hours talking to it while and just, you know, and I'm getting more information. And he had just been in a fight with his girlfriend or wife and I can't remember. And all the backstory I have the whole backstory I'm learning about his life from him, talking to him while he's contemplating suicide, surrounded by cops, talking to a cop with a gun on him. And I mean, at any moment it could have been justified to take that guy out, but were able to talk him out of it. And I remember he had his gun up when he put his gun down. His gun, of course, has to go from this position to this position, which just.
Brian [00:35:32] And threw you all the way down.
Pierre [00:35:34] Yeah. And again, I mean, at this point, we have snipers up and we have lines in the stand. If he crosses one of these lines, he's not going any further. I mean, we have all this stuff in motion and we talking about his gun and then he laid down and he got arrested and went to jail. And and man was his family thankful. Man was he thankful? And just that moment, that moment's pause right at the beginning. Yeah. Is what saved that guy's life. And I again, it came I was comfortable with who I was. I was comfortable with my skill set. I was comfortable I could talk to him as I was comfortable. I could read it comfortable. I could take the right action. You know, there were some a couple of cops are like, man, good job. And you put yourself at too much, too much risk. You should have taken him out when you got there. Just a couple of everybody else was really solid about it. And I can't argue their point on either side of the coin. Right. I can't argue either point.
Brian [00:36:27] But yeah. And like you said, you've got the what the law justifies, but then also what you felt in the moment and you felt that it wasn't quite there yet and you could have been wrong.
Pierre [00:36:42] And you.
Brian [00:36:42] Wouldn't you wouldn't be here telling that story. And unfortunately, too many officers are wrong.
Pierre [00:36:46] Yeah.
Brian [00:36:47] And and fully justified or not that's a dangerous occupation.
Pierre [00:36:54] Yeah.
Brian [00:36:55] So yeah.
Pierre [00:36:56] The way you put that the law justifies this action could have done this action, but in the moment I, I, you know, from my eyes, in the moment I saw the human and, and I, I felt more powerful than him in that moment. And I have a little bit of cover because I'm buying the opposed to my car. Right. I've got a rifle. He's got a pistol. Again, we're in training and experience.
Brian [00:37:15] Training and experience.
Pierre [00:37:17] Equipment. Put me in a position of power. Yeah. Compared to him, I mean, who knows? He could be the shark, the California sharpshooter, champion.
Brian [00:37:25] Or hell.
Pierre [00:37:26] 2012. What he.
Brian [00:37:27] Shot could.
Pierre [00:37:28] Be a lucky shot.
Brian [00:37:28] Could reflect it off of something and hit you.
Pierre [00:37:30] Exactly. Exactly. But but in, you know, looking at the totality of the circumstances, I'm in a position of power. I have more powerful stuff. I'm a little bit more protected. And yes, the law would have justified a certain action. And yet I didn't take it. And it worked out great. And I don't know something about the way you put it. Using the word justifies probably because of the context of my life right now, put me right into ex-Mormon deconstruction of, you know what? What will the law justify in a judgment if there is a judgment? And what will God and or Christ or whoever else there is over there? Think about our actions. You know, will they go to right to what the law justifies, as some professor? Will they will they wait that moment and have the conversation and talk me through some stuff for a few hours and help me come through on the other side? And I know this is highly contextual because of everything that's in my brain with my deconstruction, but I would like to think that God will be more merciful than I was at the end of the day.
Brian [00:38:29] Yeah, yeah. I mean, we'll, we'll come to that. But it is very important because there are this there are these the set of laws and they're fairly well known, but they're also somewhat ambiguous. And then there's also some that are more emotional and some personal, and you're going to have to figure out where you fit in all of that. And like you said, any number of police officers in that same situation, a certain percentage of would have taken him out. A certain percentage of them will be shot themselves. A certain percentage of that you don't know. There's no but you. Yeah. In that moment, you had the ability to make the call for you. And interesting thing everyone on site you mentioned it sounded like there were dozens of people there that were on site from the government.
Pierre [00:39:21] By the end of it.
Brian [00:39:22] Yeah, yeah. They knew that you had the call and they were looking for your guidance and you got to decide to take them. That could have been somebody jump the gun someplace else or one of the snipers or whatever. But you had the lines in the sand drawn to what you felt comfortable. You were in charge of the situation. And one of the things different between that and deconstructing faith crisis is everyone on site will tell you later. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I like the outcome. Nice job you in deconstruction when you're leaving the church. Every one of many of those people that were out there supporting you will say you did the wrong thing. You did what you thought was right, but they don't agree with it. So they're not there supporting you. And that that's a huge difference that I've noticed. That is so painful.
Pierre [00:40:11] Huge difference. And it is painful. And instantly you get this.
Brian [00:40:14] It's, it's almost immediate these people that you thought you were on the same in the same department, on the same team, on the same squad, on the same ward or same family or whatever you want to look at it. You made the decision to leave and they just immediately turned their back and judged you for it. Like what? I'm all of the sudden I'm a different person. What I don't you know, I've had very few people approach me and say, Hey, I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, but I'm here for you. I'm glad it worked out for you. Is there anything that I can do to help? Wow, you had a day. Let me help you out with this so you can go decompress a little bit. I don't feel like that as great of people as they are. They just don't have that ability to just be with you. You're still the same person that drove into that situation and that drove away from the situation. But something happened in that situation that they don't want to know you anymore.
Pierre [00:41:09] Well, you know, it's I think the parallel is fair. So I mean, yeah, you know, there were people that turned me off for a while and have reengaged with me. There are people who turned me off and won't reengage with me. And there are people who just, you know, are ambivalent that I thought aired and apparently don't care because there's never been a reach out or reach back when I reached out to them. And I feel like a common denominator. There might be fear because the doctrine is so clear that you're in or you're out. If it's black and white, you're, you know, there's no lukewarm and they're afraid for my soul that I'm never going to be able to make it to the highest level of the celestial kingdom or whatever. And I think there's a genuine fear that now my life is going to suck and my life is also going to suck for eternity. And there's a fear there that my choice has had that kind of an effect. And yeah.
Brian [00:42:02] And I think I mean, the law is codified and we have this legal precedent on just about every law that's out there. We can go back and see how it's been handled in the courts or.
Pierre [00:42:12] It is overturned.
Brian [00:42:13] Right. But you mentioned any religious system has their Talmud or a Koran or their scriptures or their whatever, but they also have their social norms. They also have all of these unwritten laws that you're rubbing those the wrong way, too. And it doesn't just come down to debating the Talmud. It comes down to you left us. We thought you were someone who could be trusted and who believes. And now you've. You've wandered and you've made a simple decision because you really wanted to. You're lazy or whatever. But whatever the situation, they don't care. The fact is that you left and they feel abandoned too. And so they need to have that make sense in their head.
Pierre [00:42:58] And they likely feel threatened because, man, I know so much. I know 52 years of diligent studies worth about them. And I mean, that's the scariest enemy to have. And if you're not their friend, suddenly you're their enemy. And what are you going to do? And I, I mean, I've literally had people all but run away from me in the grocery store. And it's like.
Brian [00:43:21] You are a pretty scary person, though. I am.
Pierre [00:43:23] Pretty intimidate. I'm all of five, seven and a half, you know, depending on how I do my hair, you know, pretty intimidating guy. But it is. I see you're out and you're scary.
Brian [00:43:34] But I think it goes one step beyond that. To the question isn't the question, is that your scary? I think the question is, what if I'm wrong? What if he has seen something and he's right? What does that say about me? And when you're 52 years old or older or whatever or and that's hard to admit to say, oh, I've been on the wrong side of this. This isn't the way that I thought it was. So what you scrap that, you'll walk away? I mean, what will my spouse think? Are my parents or my kids or my neighbors or my everybody think that's because you're not just walking away from something you used to believe. It's not just choosing a different brand of car, right? It's saying, yeah, it's so I think that's hard. And I think for a lot of people that gets to be, I think that fear of them potentially asking the question, what if I'm wrong? The potential for that to be so damaging makes it so they will never ask the question. Right. And it's just easier to say, well, of course I'm not wrong. And then they dig in deeper, right?
Pierre [00:44:39] Well, there's the fabled question. If the church wasn't true, would you want to know? And yeah, and you know, I don't walk around asking that and I let people do their own thing. But I also wonder, you know, if I ask and people that I'm close to that question, what would they say? I don't want to talk about it. They wouldn't be able to answer the question. I just want to talk about it is the question I imagine, or the answer I imagine getting. Just based on the small conversations I've had with some people in my life, they're still in and that I'm close to and it's an interesting. Yeah, yeah. So I loved being a cop.
Brian [00:45:13] You love being a good answer. I think it was a very good answer.
Pierre [00:45:15] I really loved being a cop.
Brian [00:45:17] And I think were on our way for you saying talking about your injury. Oh yeah, we can either go back to that or we can stick on that. What? You tell me what? Where do you want to go? I don't want to lose that thread or I want to pick it up at some point.
Pierre [00:45:29] Yeah, let's just pick it up. Let's pick it on it. So it was, I think a monday night and I was working swing shift patrol sergeant and the SWAT leader. SWAT team leader asked if I could come help with the SWAT training and my role was just to be a bad guy, you know, to be a stand in for some role play stuff they were doing. And I'm trying to think I'm trying to remember if I signed an NDA on this, I had to sign a limited NDA on stuff around this just for out of an abundance of caution, all Reader's Digest condensed version. Yeah, yeah. During the course of the training, I sustained a traumatic brain injury right here. And it's crazy the way it happened and I'll check the NDA stuff I signed and you know, if it interests you later out of reach out here.
Brian [00:46:14] I would like to know personally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't necessarily pull out for everybody, but.
Pierre [00:46:19] If you can, it's crazy. And we respect.
Brian [00:46:21] India too.
Pierre [00:46:22] So. Oh yeah, yeah. It was, it was a crazy situation. But that was the last shift I ever worked. Because of everything that happened that night. I walked away with damage to my right ear, damage to my left eye memory. My memory was really impacted. I mean, I work for Take Taco for that Japanese company after my mission up until 98, my Japanese was pretty frickin good. I mean, I was I could read and write. I watched the news. I could do all this stuff. When that injury happened, it turned off my Japanese like a light switch. Really weird. And now I get, like, little lightning bolts of, Oh yeah, I understand that. And I used to, you know, I'd take notes in meetings or whatever, you know, mostly English. But if something was quicker, easier to write in Japanese, it would end up in the margins and write in a little congee or just whatever. And then in a seminar, just I think it was last year I was going through some notes and like, oh, there was. Disappeared. There was like, Oh, that's kind of cool. So I'm getting a little, little things back. I would not put great effort into relearning Japanese because I'm old and that's tiring.
Brian [00:47:22] It was hard enough the first time. I mean, I never got to the level where I could read and write in it. I mean, I know.
Pierre [00:47:28] But yeah.
Brian [00:47:29] You're not useful enough.
Pierre [00:47:30] That was one of the weirder things that happened was this is my Japanese and it's reminiscent because on my mission I think it was, yeah, it was absolutely. Before were companions in my second area and I think it was my secondary because I think the key issue and then I went to nobody, okay? And I think this happened and nobody else got where it was a rainy night. I don't remember which companion I was with. I was riding my bike down the road on a rainy night and a little mini me Japanese little minivan. Things, you know, blew through a stop sign and just took me to freak out.
Brian [00:48:02] Did they honk first?
Pierre [00:48:03] No. I've got nothing. I got nothing but waking up spread eagle face down in the middle of the road that they tossed me into with cars going by me as I laid in the middle of the road, my companion stop in traffic. He comes out to me and he's like, Dude, are you okay? And I'm like, you know, 19 year old Superman, right? We're fine. My folks dusted off and realized, you know, the right half of these kind of hamburgers, I'm just bleeding everywhere. My umbrella was like a cartoon, like flat on the side. I bipedal. My handlebar was all flat and flat. I mean, it was pretty glorious. But my Japanese was gone for about 24 hours. Really? Yeah. I knew nothing. It was like I had never went to the empty scene, you know? I wasn't ripping at Japanese at that point, but what little I had was just. Was just gone. And that guy, he felt really bad in true Japanese fashion. I mean, he wanted to want to give me all his money and pay for my life and send me to college. He wanted and it's like, did accidents happen but let it go. But. But yeah. My Japanese was gone then and interesting then it came back pretty quick. But then when this thing happened, my Japanese leaving was it's one of the big bummers of it for me because I wasn't as good as I was, you know, old country song, not as good as I once was, but it was good was because everyone could still at least talk Jap. I could converse in Japanese, but not that left. I had never experienced true anxiety and suddenly after that, an accident or accident. I thought that. But after that injury, borderline agoraphobia, high anxiety. And I. My, my. I couldn't think anymore. I, I just. I couldn't stay on the rails on any one thought. If I was talking to one person, I could really focus on that person and track a conversation. If I was talking to two people, I couldn't do it. I couldn't go into a restaurant because my brain couldn't sort out the ambient noise from the noise of the person I was talking to. So it's like every conversation had equal weight in my mind of the but people at all the tables was a racket, man. Oh, I was such a wreck. And then I had vertigo. I can laugh at it now, but vertigo to the point where I'd be standing and it would feel like somebody just turned the world sideways and I'd be on the ground for what? The world like this, and I'd be on my back on there. And no warning, no anything. I would ball. In fact, I ripped tore my rotator cuff just bawling in my driveway because of this vertigo. And that went on. I mean, all this stuff went on at varying levels. I went to all the neurologists and physical therapists and counselors and shrinks and everything for 2015. It happened 20 early, 2019. So years of dealing with this stuff, you know, they tried every med they could for the anxiety in a room that they could for the vertigo and migraines. Oh, man. Really exquisite migraines. Just all the stuff, you know, it's I go from being Batman, you know, and a swing shift or graveyard patrol cop lo crawling through the bushes to catch a bad guy to. I can't even walk into a restaurant without crying because it was that extreme. I flipped the switch and, you know, all hail my wife for sticking with me. She's like, yeah, I like, be in this area. I love Barbie. And she rode the whole wave with me. And and it was I can't imagine how hard that was for her. I was a real wreck. I am I was legitimately suicidal for a lot of it. I mean, I had some I haven't talked about. My wife knows. I don't know if anybody else had the note written at my funeral plan. I had everything done and I knew when, where and how I was going to end it. And then I just didn't. And I that was I lived that life knowing when, where and how I was going to do it pretty much every day, at least a year, at least the year. And, you know, I would not do it because, you know, Lindsey had a game that I needed to go to for my daughter or I would not do it because, you know, my mom's birthday's coming up or, you know, I always found a reason and it just wouldn't be the best time for everybody or not do it today. And and that was heavy I'd go to sleep at. I just fantasize is that it would just be up and I wouldn't sleep until I could fully live through the fantasy and know. Okay. All right. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I can go to sleep tonight. I know that you deal with it and think about now where that note is, because I refreshed it every once in a while. You know, depression. No, it was exactly what I wanted to think about. And I didn't talk to anybody, you know, seeing counselors, not seeing everybody. But I knew if I said the magic words, the right magic words about being suicidal enough, they'd cut me off and I wouldn't be able to do it. Yeah. And so I wouldn't tell anybody right now. Nobody. This is all me and sometimes God, but sometimes not even God. Because I figured that point in my life, I'm like, Man, what if God does my bishop? You know what if God tells my mom or my brother, you know, I in my way, I'd work my way around to I just keep this to myself deep inside enough up, I'll be able back off. And that's just that was my it physically was broken mentally broken emotionally broken was good for nothing and good for nobody.
Brian [00:53:22] You lost your purpose. Yeah.
Pierre [00:53:24] Yeah, no purpose. I was worth more money dead than alive. Just all the things. Right? So I was there, and one day my wife was like, now we've tried everything. And, like, I know you tried everything. She's like, but your brain, right? Like, what about hypnosis? I'll try it. I'll try anything. Yeah, I can. I'll try it at that if you think it'll help. Yeah. In hindsight, that might not have been a bad idea either with all the research emerging now, right?
Brian [00:53:48] Right. Yeah, that's pretty interesting.
Pierre [00:53:50] Yeah, I just put that together. So I decided I would try hypnosis before killing myself. I made that overt decision. I will try hypnosis before killing myself. So I googled up hypnotists Reno and I see Bill Denton as the guy who does hypnosis in Reno. And that name is significant because Bill Denton is the psychologist who did my background psych exam for me to become a cop way back when you were at that point almost 20 years ago. So my cool somebody I know is Mike knows me, knows my name and I can trust I call his office names if you're hearing like. Oh, sorry. He's not accepting your clients. He's getting ready to retire next month. Like, tell him you're hearing one session. See what he says. So, Bill, let me in. And Bill, I build a two sessions of hypnosis with me not knowing the truth of where I was because I again wasn't going to tell anybody, but he knew enough to do something. And those two sessions did more for me than the years of everything else combined. So, you know, my wife having this spark of insight and Bill Denton being good at what he does, just tip the scale enough where I decided not to go. And after my second session with Bill and the lights went on to, it's like, that's something I think maybe I could do. I, I just asked, how do I become you? He stood me up and he put his arm around me. Walk me over to the wall. And there's a picture of him on the wall, him personally in a picture with Milton Erickson. And I don't know if that name rings a bell with you, but Milton Erickson was like, he's the father of modern hypnosis from back in the day that a very young Bill Benton, who's retiring at not a young age with his arm around me showing a picture of him and Milton Erickson. I didn't know the significance of that picture. And he's like, I got to learn him. And he started talking about Milton Erickson to me. He showed me a few different paths that I could take to become a hypnotist. He handed me some resources and put me on the path to purpose again and being able to help people again in a new and unique way that resonated with me because it's the thing that saved me from everything.
Brian [00:55:55] I want to back you up just a little bit. You're going in to see this therapist whom you've met before. You're willing to try anything. You trust your wife's intuition on this. So it's like, let's give it a shot. Going into that first session, what did you tell him and what did you what were your views on? On hypnotism, if you can remember at the time, I know that changed a lot since then. I'm very happy to know what your concerns were, how much you told him ahead of time or what that first session was like. Let's just focus on the first session for a second. I want to ask you some questions about the second one, too.
Pierre [00:56:29] But, okay, that first session I don't remember. Remember, but I can imagine, which probably means it's pretty close. I can imagine telling him, you know, that the generalities of my injury, you know how it happened, the anxiety, the things that were pressing in my mind that I was talking about with people, the anxiety was a big deal. The migraines were a big deal. My Japanese being gone was a big deal. The vertigo was a big deal. Those are the things that I would have been talking about with health care providers at the time. I would not have talked about the other the suicidal ideation. I would not have talked about that, but I would have talked about those things. I do remember him asking me, he's like, if you could make a full recovery, would you go back to being a cop? I remember him asking me that question and I almost laughed out loud. One of the only times I felt like laughing in years, you know, I would fake laugh to make other people feel good. But as far as me laughing, I almost laughed out loud just because of the impossibility of it. In my mind. I just absolutely did not believe it would be possible for me to make this full recovery because of the years of dealing with. All right. Yeah. So he you know, he asked me his questions. I talked about I can imagine those things. He's like, well, have you ever been hypnotized before? And I hadn't, but I had watched my brother get hypnotized and my brother, this is kind of cool. My mom is from France. We grew up speaking French in the home when were really, really, really little less so when I was raised. But my brother when my brother was born, my mom didn't really speak English. My brother grew up French. Was it? It was being it was prime. So he was upset, fluent French then, you know, started going to school and my mom learned English more. And so English became more the language in the home. And then my brother spoke English going through middle school and high school, and then he gets called to serve his mission in Montreal, Canada, the French speaking, but had pretty much lost his French. I mean, there's still some common phrases that we'd use around the house or whatever. But he wasn't fluent French and my dad had this just brain child. Let's let's see if we can get hypnotize regression and get his French back. And I remember we all went to a hypnotist on 20th Avenue in Farmington, New Mexico, and were like, This is going to be so cool. Andre is going to get hypnotized and the whole family crowd's into this little teeny, tiny office. And I remember the hypnotist Andre laid back in the chair, and I remember the head of this thing, some words, and then telling Andre he wouldn't be able to lift his legs up because it'd be so heavy. And I watched Andre just struggling to lift his legs up and he couldn't because they were so heavy and I'm like, so cool. And then I don't know what the hypnotist said. I have an idea now is what I did right. But I remember the hypnotist, he regressed him. He was like three or four. I guess he would have been six or seven years old in the regression and Andre's voice, it didn't go like a little kid, but it like that one little bit higher and fluid coming out and he's talking with my mom who's in the room in fluent French and he's telling my mom that he's playing with a ball with my sister in the hallway. The fluent French was coming back out of my brother because of a hypnotic regression and how that was in my mind as I go to see Bill Danton. Okay.
Brian [00:59:29] Okay.
Pierre [00:59:29] I know I believe in a power of hypnosis. I don't know what it is, how it works.
Brian [00:59:35] But you had seen it work.
Pierre [00:59:36] But I had seen at work. Okay. Full on scene at work. So I had an expectation of something happening. I don't know what. Yeah, but something happening and he, he said let's just see how you respond to hypnosis. I said groovy. So I was just sitting in a normal chair. Wasn't a recliner or anything, just a normal chair. And I think he instructed me to close my eyes, but I can't say for sure. And then he just started talking and he started talking. And then I remember my head falling forward and I have an inkling of the things that he said, but not a clear recollection. And then I remember him giving me an instruction to wake up, and I did. And I remember my neck was sore because I had just been so relaxed. And your head's pretty heavy. Yeah. Little bowling ball. Yeah, it just stretched up my neck. I was like, Oh, my next was like, How long was that? I wondered how long I was out. It had been, I don't know, 20 minutes that I was out and that was it. He's like, Let's see how you do with that. I said, Something happened.
Brian [01:00:29] Do with it.
Pierre [01:00:30] Yeah, that's it. So I left and I went home and I thought I felt better. I feel great, I felt better and I felt just a little lighter. And I still had the thoughts of ending things, but they weren't they were equally pervasive that they weren't as substantive, if that makes sense. They weren't as heavy on me. They were there. They just were lighter. Okay. And that was kind of cool and kind of interesting. I don't know that I drew I think I, I, I know I didn't I couldn't give all the credit to hypnosis and like other stuff, whatever. You know, the talk I had with my sister must be making me feel better. That other thing must be making me feel better. I couldn't quite just attribute it all to the hypnosis because it was just so effortless. And I did nothing. I just sat there. Yeah, yeah. It was so effortless on my part. I just couldn't give it all the credit. But he had told me to come back. So I said, okay. I got his instructions and I went back.
Brian [01:01:28] How much longer? How much later?
Pierre [01:01:30] I was a week or two. Okay. Yeah, not. Not too long. And it was the same kind of thing. How are you doing? Everything's been feeling like going on and answered. Still didn't talk about the other stuff, the suicidal ideation stuff. He's like, All right, let's do not to rock and roll those same kind of scenario sitting in the chair in his office. And then he did this thing. And when I came out that time, it was a palpable change. And I knew I felt I still can't really give it a good description, but it's like some cogs came together somewhere deep inside, and I just knew everything was going to be all right. And based on that feeling of everything's going to be all right. Remember when I. It's real clear memory when I. Kim came out of it the second time. I've got a mustache here that's doing something. I'm not sure what's happening. When I came out the second time, I there was a long pause where he didn't talk and I didn't talk. Minutes And now I understand a little bit more what happens in that time. But at the time, I had no idea what was happening. But I knew something was happening and so much was happening that it was almost confusing. But at the same time, it felt good and I knew it was positive. So I just let myself be in that liminal space, that space between, and I just let myself stay there. And he, of course, being the pro, let me stay in that space. And when I finally looked back up at him, he just nodded his head and asked me how I was doing. And we talked for a little while. He went over, which he didn't the first time. He's got a schedule to keep a very busy guy. He went over and because of everything that I felt that led into the beginnings of our conversations about how do I become you, essentially? Yeah, yeah.
Brian [01:03:15] That's an incredible experience.
Pierre [01:03:17] It was it was a really incredible experience. We had some good foundation for me. Give me a good, I don't know, having experience. If I if I wouldn't have had that experience, there's no way I would be doing what I've been doing the last few hours, not just because of learning about it, but because it gave me a belief in what can happen at that unconscious level. And man, I see, I felt it and I see it in other people. And that's, you know, all the scientists and neuroscientists and psychologists, psychiatrists, they're adamant that we don't call it magic because it's science. But pardon my language. It's it's fucking magic. Yes, it's voodoo magic now.
Brian [01:03:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's magic. Only that we don't understand it. Right. Absolutely. And that's all it is. Penn and Teller do the same thing. It's magic because you don't understand how they do the trick, right?
Pierre [01:04:06] The day will come that we do right.
Brian [01:04:07] And our cell phone. If you've never seen a cell phone before, it's magic.
Pierre [01:04:11] Magic.
Brian [01:04:11] The fact that you can science it and go build it and put mass produce them does it, you know, doesn't take away the magic. We just know so little about the human brain and how it works that I mean, like you mentioned earlier, there are some ways that we're tapping into our own potential chemically that we've never understood before, that just does far more than years and years of honest, hard work and therapy and meditation and boy, one or two doses of MDMA and your ten year experience with trauma is gone. And what does that tap into? Those chemicals don't stay in your system. They tap into your brain, your brain salt itself. You just kind of have to trick it. How to get there and whether you do it with chemicals or without it still has the same capacity.
Pierre [01:05:03] Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, there's even debate as to the existence of the conscious versus the unconscious mind and, you know, and then you throw on the super conscious or the higher conscious mind, do they even exist or are they all part of one thing? Like, how does this work? Or are there really two things in mirrors? I mean, there's all this debate and I don't have the answer to that. No, but I know that it's a really useful construct for me and my clients. Yes. To at least imagine that there's an unconscious mind or subconscious mind that we can connect with and make change at that deeper level. Right. And I'll use that construct until someone shows me a better way. There's a better way. I'll be right on board and we'll go jump on that bike and go down that road. But for now, this is a really, really good way to get stuff done.
Brian [01:05:48] So you've been doing this for how many years now?
Pierre [01:05:50] It was March of 2019 that I met with Bill Denton, and in March of 2019, I went to my first hypnotist hypnosis little three day introductory course taught by this really awesome guy called Callum Hawke from Australia. I'm over and taught it down in Vegas and every year on the anniversary of that course I sent Callum a love letter because Callum was a big part of changing my life, man. He taught that course and he did it magically and gave me even more confidence in the power of tapping into that deeper resource. So I took that first class and based on that first class, there's a very limited amount of things you can do to help people. I'm like, You could do a stop smoking session or you can do relaxation sessions or things like that. Right after that, I got myself an office on the sign on the door and I'm a hypnotist man. And my wife came with me at the next class and from hypnosis we jumped into NLP neuro linguistic programing, into additional hypnosis, into timeline therapy techniques, and we really started studying those hard. And then we both had our little offices here and were hypnotists within LP and timeline therapy. And then since then I've just passionately consumed I've gone tons more training of course, and a lot of networking and a lot of courses and a lot of books and a lot of everything. Things just get better and better and better, better and all the experience and all the clients. Those March of 2019, when I took my first course and called myself a hypnotist and I look back, I'm like, Man, I really didn't know anything. But still were doing it.
Brian [01:07:26] Yeah, but you can look back on any part of your life and look at that, right? I mean, look at your first day on the job in the police force. Yeah, I hear you're. Yeah, you're an officer. Yeah. You you have no idea.
Pierre [01:07:37] Yeah.
Brian [01:07:37] You didn't put on the uniform, right? I mean.
Pierre [01:07:39] Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. You know.
Brian [01:07:46] Because we're all there. We all think everybody else has to figure it out but us, right?
Pierre [01:07:50] Yeah. Yeah.
Brian [01:07:51] So why is it so hard for people to get over the fact that a hypnotist is bunk? Why is it so? It's Hollywood.
Pierre [01:08:02] Hollywood and Wikipedia.
Brian [01:08:03] Okay. Okay. So so an interesting parallel there. I'm sure you've read How to Change Your Mind or. Oh, yeah, latest Netflix series. Right. Why are those drugs so harmful? Why Hollywood? Nancy Reagan data. No one doesn't have any. They're exactly right. Right. Yeah, we just she classified that as, oh, those are bad and these are going to spawn the opium epidemic. But they're good. Yeah. And we're diagnosing them like candy. We're just prescribing them to anybody that wants them. We can give. But these are bad. However, how did she know? What was her background? Where was the data when the data at the time even was pointing the complete opposite direction?
Pierre [01:08:41] Both of them, they were doing great research.
Brian [01:08:44] Right? Yeah. But there's something about the human mind, though, that doesn't want to accept it. I think that wants to think the idea that you could solve my problems in a couple of sessions. Again, it's like someone who has left the church. It's like, what if I've just been in this pain and in the wrong place my whole life? Because I never asked the right question. Yeah, because I insisted that I already knew. Yeah. And that's. Oh, that's bunk. That's that, that's not real. Have you tried trial one. What do you talk what do you say to someone who's on the edge of saying, Gee, I don't know if I believe in this. I'm sure you get this a lot. I don't know if I believe in this. I'm not very familiar with it. I don't know how it works or anything. But on the other hand, it's like I have tried everything else. What what how do you talk to someone like that? How do you.
Pierre [01:09:34] Yeah, that's a great question. It's interesting to think about. It's so personal depending on what their needs and wants are, why they're coming to me. A lot of people come to me at the end of their rope because, you know, hypnosis is this French thing and that's called a pseudoscience or whatever people want to call it. So people, of course, will go, especially here in our Western medical culture. They want to they want to talk to a counselor and they want to trial the pharmaceuticals. Is that supposed to work?
Brian [01:09:58] I can write your prescription.
Pierre [01:09:59] Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we've been conditioned that we want things fast and easy. So if a prescription is going to make me feel better, I'll pay my co-pay, take a prescription and feel better.
Brian [01:10:09] But the thing is, here's a list of side effects that come with those.
Pierre [01:10:12] Oh, saying.
Brian [01:10:14] Yeah, the side effects are worse than what you're treating it for.
Pierre [01:10:17] Exactly. And if you look at the threshold for a drug to work in the clinical tests, the garbage man, the percentage point difference between a drug working and the placebo working, it's very minimal distinction even there. But that's another conversation for another day. What do I tell people who wonder if hypnosis is right for them? Wonder if it could work? Really? It comes down to where they're at, why they're coming to see me, and if they really want to make the change. The human mind has so much potential. It's limited in great part by what you can let yourself believe. I mean, you look at the miracle healings from, you know, stage four cancer or whatever that are either connected to or not connected to religion because they happen in both ways. A lot of that comes down to just what you believe your body can do and what you believe your mind can accomplish with your body. So my job in an introductory call is to learn a little bit about the person and then maybe give them a taste or maybe tell them a story of hypnosis and help them begin to believe is if they can believe that change can happen, then change can happen. The biggest sticking point, really, the only time that hypnosis won't work is when secondary gain comes into play. Are you familiar with the term secondary again? So if I'm getting more out of keeping my problem in my mind than I would out of letting it go, you bet your bacon I'm going to hold on to my problem. The person that has taken the problem, my values, my problem, anxiety. If if because of my anxiety, I'm getting a ton of attention from my wife and my kids. And my mom calls me every day. And I don't have to do any responsibilities because everybody's worried about peers anxiety. I don't have to get a job because I can get disability. And I'm not dissing anybody who has all those things that are real and people are in that situation. I am not. I want to be really clear. I'm not slamming on anybody or. Locking down anybody with mental health issues. There are people also who perceive these issues because they're getting all these gains out of it and they don't want to let it go. Because if I let my anxiety go here and my circumstance, if I let my anxiety go, maybe my mom won't cause much. Maybe I'll have to accept that calling. Maybe I'll have to clean the house. Maybe they'll have to get up and shower and maybe I'll have to do these things. Then I might want to hold on to the anxiety. And I know this is a really sensitive thing to talk about. Yeah, I'm here to help people. It's my whole purpose for existing, so I'm not slamming on anybody that I want to help men. And now I'm wondering, do we need to get this part out? Because it sounds critical of people.
Brian [01:12:49] No, but it is it's a good explanation of I mean, nobody wants to keep their problems. However, there's some point subconsciously or somewhere else where you've got some benefit from it, that you are looking at it and thinking, you know what, I kind of like that. I've got this. I now have this relationship with this individual or it's stronger now than it was before. And I'm there's part of me that fears that if I'm whole and I go back and I don't need them anymore, that we might lose that. But honestly, that relationship is more important than all of the suffering and everything else that's caused by it. And again, it could be subconscious, it could be conscientious. You could even be aware of it and not and say you want to fix it. But honestly, there's a benefit there.
Pierre [01:13:34] Yeah. And there's some people who are proud of their problem too. Like I've had some people want a consult. Like I've talked to this person, this person, that person said the thing, I've tried these hundred other things and no one can fix my problem. And there's like a badge of honor for having that problem. Yeah, I'm not. I don't know if I want to take that on because I don't want to be another name. I don't wanna be another notch on your bedpost.
Brian [01:13:56] Right. Because that's what you're looking at.
Pierre [01:13:58] Yeah. Couldn't take away your problem because it's this badge of honor. So my job to kind of go back to where were, my job is to just let people believe that there's really help. People believe there's a better way. And I work with people that have problems that we want to get rid of. And I work with people that have massive goals that they want to go toward and the solutions the same it's belief. If I believe I can let go of this and live a better life, I believe I can accomplish this fantastic, great thing. I have that belief. Something happens inside where before if I don't have the belief, my unconscious mind is it's not really working for me. But once I have that belief, my unconscious mind is looking for all the reasons to affirm that belief, and it's looking for all the reasons to support that belief. And it's working for all the reasons to make that belief come true. So, you know, the guy who the real estate guy I worked with in Northern California who did make $1,000,000, losing $10, make $1,000,000, losing many dollars, he's just like boom, bust, boom, boom, boom, bust. And somebody refers to me, he's like somebody told him, hey, in your head is you're good at what you do clearly because you're making these millions, but then it's happening and you're losing these millions. So he gets referred to me. So we talk. Well, his whole life, growing up as a kid, his family was broke. So his entire motivation was, don't be broke. Yeah. So his goal is to not be broke the whole time he's making money, he's looking towards this goal of not being broke. Yeah. The further he gets away from it, the further he is from his motivation, the further he gets away from it, the less fire he feels about it is unconscious mind wants to sabotage of aid, get him back to where he's comfortable and because that's where his motivation is. We just all supposedly do him belief in his word for being wealthy, rich, financially independent, whatever you want to call it. He had his word. We just refocused his unconscious mind there in a meaningful way where he was thinking about this. He'd let go of this thought and believe that thought and go there. And the closer we got to it, the closer he was to his motivating force, became like a gravitational pull almost. It's like it's a magnet that pulled into it. And once he got there, that's where an unconscious mind is now comfortable. And that's where he stayed. And now he's just a multi-millionaire. And it's just belief. Belief.
Brian [01:16:07] And so you the technical term was Wesley do was that.
Pierre [01:16:11] That was the just the technical term. Yeah I read about it in.
Brian [01:16:14] I did call you about that in the DSM. Yeah. So my son in law has a way of looking at that. He likes ride motorcycles and he's like when you're writing down these trail in the hill and you're going way too fast, he said. You need to keep your eye on the trail, not look at the rock because you're going to go where you're looking. Yes, right. And he was looking for not being broke. Right. And yeah, you have a nickel. You're not broke. That's that's really your entire goal. That's where you want to go. A nickel. You're you're doing all right. Right, exactly. So, yeah. You want to look at the trail? The trail is how do I become as rich as possible then. Yeah, that's a different that's a different motivation. Right, right, right. And not only a goal, but psychological. That that's different.
Pierre [01:16:57] Absolutely. Absolutely. So and it's it all comes down to belief. And if you're focusing on the right things, not looking at the rocks, but you're looking at the trail or looking down the trail, you're focusing on the right things and you have a firm belief in it. Then you can go there. So a lot of. What happens in my office.
Brian [01:17:14] Here is the lovely office, by the way.
Pierre [01:17:16] I thank you for that. My wife actually painted that dishy. Nice, cool.
Brian [01:17:21] Yeah, it's very nice.
Pierre [01:17:22] Yeah, the belief is the big thing. And there's steps to help people believe in, to let go of disbelief, and to believe in themselves and their own power and their capabilities and in the goodness of the world and the universe to support them and what they want to do and letting go of the right things and picking up the right things and all of that circles back to belief.
Brian [01:17:44] Yeah. Which, which ties back into the only people I can help are the people that don't want to because they believe they don't want to. Right. So that's good to know if you're at a point where you legitimately think this is going to help and you want to try it. Yeah. Yeah. You're in a good you're in a good space.
Pierre [01:17:59] Absolutely.
Brian [01:18:00] Right. So tell me about all of the negative side effects and the bad things that happen from hypnosis. Right. There you have, right? Yeah.
Pierre [01:18:09] You get to relax. You get to see things in a new way. You get to be comfortable. You get to find internal resources that you may not have accessed ever or may not have access since you were a child or in a long time. You get to learn how frickin awesome you are, is everybody. I've never had a client that didn't have all the resources they needed to let go of a problem or to accomplish a goal inside them. Already had it. They just didn't know where to find it. They didn't know how to connect. So you get all those amazing things at. The side effect is you get to learn how cool you are. Yeah, because everybody's cool is really cool and it's amazing to sit in the office and connect with someone at that deeper level. There's a lot of what I do and my wife does too, is it's conversational hypnosis where there's some of that, you know, close your eyes, you're getting sleepy off. But I don't use those words. But that's what's in TV and movies, right?
Brian [01:18:58] Right. There's so many.
Pierre [01:18:59] True. It has to be true. There's some of that, you know, close your eyes, go inside and I'll guide you through almost a guided meditation kind of thing. There's some of that. But by and large, what we do is we will put you in kind of a light trance and then we'll talk with you. And in that light, that state, you're actually accessing unconscious thoughts, feelings, beliefs. We're actually talking with your unconscious mind. And through that conversation with your unconscious mind, you're able to find these tools and these resources and this belief and get rid of the ones that aren't serving you and strongly, powerfully, meaningfully access the ones that are and make the transition where those are the things that light up and act up and hook up when you need them instead of the old beliefs that weren't serving. Yeah.
Brian [01:19:43] So what defined the difference between what you're doing then and what will we be done in normal therapy?
Pierre [01:19:51] Really, the big difference is in therapy and normal talk therapy. You're talking about the content of the problems or the issues. Right. This thing happened to me and this, this to happen. And this time I felt about it. And when he said that I did that and when I did this, it meant this. You're talking about all the content of the issue when you come to talk to me. We want to talk about the structure neurologically of how that is being stored in your neurology. So we're dealing with structure rather than content. If you don't want to talk about your problem with me, we don't really have to talk about it a whole lot. I'm more interested in how you're holding that problem in your mind and in your body. And once I find out how you're holding that problem in your mind and in your body, we can deconstruct it. Yeah. And give you access to something better instead. And with teenagers, that's a huge they don't want to tell a stranger about their problems. But if a teenager can come to me and I can talk to them and learn how they're holding their problems in their neurology, and then we can just kind of dismantle it in a way that's fun and interesting to them. That's fantastic. And even a lot of adults don't want to talk about the actual content of the problem. And to the extent that they need to, sometimes you need to purge and get it out. Happy to do that. That's not really going to meet what we need to get interesting.
Brian [01:21:04] Yeah, that's a great definition. Thank you for explaining that. I was very interested. Interested in that, though.
Pierre [01:21:10] Absolutely. Absolutely.
Brian [01:21:11] What are the what are things have been on your mind lately? What are some of the things you've been thinking deeply about and worried about?
Pierre [01:21:17] And yeah, that is that is interesting. I'm sure you and if I go in a direction you want to go and just tell me I'm so easy going with this stuff.
Brian [01:21:26] Forward I think is good. Yeah.
Pierre [01:21:28] Don't nothing. Nothing's going to hurt my feelings. I'm sure you've seen in the news the Bisbee, Arizona case. Yeah, that's been on my mind lately. Yeah, a lot. Being being a retired. Crimes against children, detective. Yeah. And deconstructing Mormonism. Yeah. It's an interesting intersection from which to view the happenings in Bisbee, Arizona. And I've been watching some of the apologists and I've been looking at the church responses, and it's been pissing me off pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's been on my mind. That's something that's been very top of mind. In fact, it hit me so hard. What's the best way to approach this? I remember the night that I finally knew I was done with the church, and I remember the things that led to it. And in. In my bedroom, there's bed. And there's the chair in each corner. And I remember sitting in this chair and I sat in the corner chair, my head in my hands when I had the final crack of the shelf, if you want to call it that. And I didn't realize that I was in that pose for hours. My wife would come in and out a few times and she knew what I was going through and found that on the bed, my knee. And we started talking and I realized I'd been in that position for hours as things were just finally going into that place of certainty. And it was a very unique sensation, a very unique experience. And I re-experience that last week, not quite to the same extent, but very close. And and my wife was really curious about it. She said, well, that happened then and you knew you were done. How how come you're re-experiencing it right now? And so I really had to look inside to realize that I wasn't re-experiencing the shelf break for me because my shelf then broke. It's busted and it's where it is. And I have been for the last months letting go of all that and rebuilding what's going to be there instead and doing all that work. And I've been maintaining this kind of third party observer to the ex-Mormon community and to my Mormon or my I'm still going, oh, my Mormon friends and family and kind of being neutral in kind of Switzerland. I'm not going to argue one side or the other was going to kind of let things just be. And then when this thing came out in the AP and I've seen, as I said, some of the apologists and some of the church responses, it broke another shelf. And I it took me a day or a day and a half to figure out that the shelf that broke this time was the shelf that allows me to sit passively and not speak out on something. And it's going to be another layer of losing friends and family. But I can't sit quietly anymore. I can't do it. So I don't know yet what form that's going to take. I have some ideas that are beginning to come together, but yeah, that's been really, really heavily on my mind and can be a nice couple of months to see what pops up because of that.
Brian [01:24:19] Yeah. Your explanation of your event is seems to be fairly normal with most shelf breakers. There is a moment that they can pinpoint that. It's like that day at that time I was here, I was wearing this. I was I just come back from this. But I don't think I don't think that moment was your deconstruction.
Pierre [01:24:44] No, I.
Brian [01:24:44] Think that deconstruction carries forward for in many cases years. If not, I don't know if maybe, possibly forever possibly. And this is just another aspect of it. And you brought up an interesting point. I mean, that the phrase and I may have been guilty of saying this and you may have been guilty of saying this even just a year ago or two years ago or whatever. People can leave the church. They just can't leave the church alone kind of thing.
Pierre [01:25:13] Yeah.
Brian [01:25:13] And and you didn't want to be one of those people and you get to one of those points. It's like, this has nothing to do with the church. I mean, you're going to interpret it as that. You're going to feel bad. I'm going to hurt some feelings and lose some relationships with this. But this cannot happen anywhere for any church at any time or anything. I mean, and I'm not just going to sit here and pretend like, oh, well, we'll just, you know, let them take care of their own issues. No, I've got to be an advocate. And an advocate means speaking out on behalf of others.
Pierre [01:25:47] And I just changed my little LinkedIn or tik-tok little thing to x mot advocate. I need to use that word. Yeah. First time I put my picture up there, I had been just silently watching and commenting and doing things. I just changed my name. I changed my little bio. I changed a couple of things. I don't even know what I'm going to do with it yet. But yeah, it's just the first thing I knew I could do to just, like, do something. I had to do something right away. Yeah, people need that.
Brian [01:26:09] Yeah. Yeah. And, and children most of all right. I mean. Yeah. And the situations that they're, they're grown up in and I can't tell you that. And that's just I'm pretty emotional right now. Part of me, when you were talking about sitting in your chair, I had a different experience. Mine was not necessarily a single shelf breaking thing. That was the end that I can necessarily look back on it and point that was the time. That wasn't my experience. But you going through that and agonizing in that and realizing that your life is now at this point and it's on this precipice and you can either stay or you can jump or you can try to hold on or you can let go and see what else is there or however, whatever makes the most sense there. I mean, I was having like a visceral reaction to that. I mean, I felt that all the way through my body. And then as we're talking about being an advocate, one of the things that bothers me is I would say about half of the women that I've talked with on this show have. And sexually assaulted. And that wasn't their main thing. That was just a little mention off to the side. Oh, by the way.
Pierre [01:27:19] That's incredible.
Brian [01:27:20] And we're were talking about this the other day, and someone put out brought out the statistics, and I can't remember the exact statistics, but they said like 2 hours to two or three or four out of ten boys and five or six out of ten girls. And you're probably more familiar with the statistic. Have are sexually assaulted before they're 18. And we immediately came to the realization was like, this isn't anomaly. This is a normal thing. Now this has become a normal event in most people. Most people now are at the point where they're going to be sexually assaulted before they're 18. It's like, I'm sorry most people that so yeah. Who, who needs an advocate and why can't you just leave quietly and why can't you just not say anything on that topic? And why are you so yeah, I can't not do that now. And it could cost me every friend that I've got. Sorry. That's just it. It is just. It's worth whatever cost and it would be more comfortable. But it's not more comfortable. There's no way that's more comfortable for me to be quiet about this.
Pierre [01:28:23] Right. Yeah. I lost sleep every night for the last couple of weeks for this case. Yeah, and. And the response to it. I'm dumbfounded by some of the things that people are saying.
Brian [01:28:32] Yes.
Pierre [01:28:33] Yeah. It's been right up on. I'll take a deep breath. Yeah.
Brian [01:28:38] Yeah. So, yeah. Why can't people just stay quiet? Well, it would be convenient for you, wouldn't it? But I'm going to tell you to get stuff off their neck.
Pierre [01:28:43] Yeah, absolutely.
Brian [01:28:45] Every time I see it, I'm going to tell you.
Pierre [01:28:46] Absolutely. Absolutely.
Brian [01:28:48] And it might hurt your feeling. I had somebody just a couple of episodes ago. They mentioned they used to feel bad. She she said something. She called someone out, I think it was at work. And she said, you realize you just mansplain that? To me, it was a very simple concept and you explained it to me like I had no idea what that was. And she said, and I looked at it for like the next little bit. They were at some social gathering or something and he looked really nervous. And she said for 20 or 30 minutes, he looks like really nervous. And finally he came over to me. He said, you know, I have to tell you, I heard what you said, but now I feel like I have to walk on eggshells and be very careful about what I say. And she said, Good. And she said, normally I'd be so oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to her. No, you should be more careful about what you say, especially if you're behaving this way and you're saying these things I need to call you out on. And I hope you feel like shit. And I hope you think about it the next time you say it. I hope that just constantly runs through your head every time you think about it. Yeah.
Pierre [01:29:48] Is there is a better way.
Brian [01:29:49] There is a better way and you should be thinking about it. Yeah. And I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable, that's, that's beyond, that's not even the issue. And so we're going to talk about things that are uncomfortable and we're going to be vocal about them and we're going to hurt some feelings and make you feel a little uneasy and good. Yeah, good. That's. That's part of it.
Pierre [01:30:07] Yeah, absolutely.
Brian [01:30:08] So now I'll get off my little soapbox there.
Pierre [01:30:10] Now I'm with you. I'm with you. It's so easy to not want to hurt people's feelings and, you know, maintain the warm fuzzies and all that. Go with them and that feels good, right? It's what feels good. But in the long run, is that serving any form of progress? No. Yeah, not. And, and progress means different things to different people. And I'm slowly coming to terms with what progress might mean to me in this context.
Brian [01:30:34] Yeah. Yeah. And so this episode that I just dropped this morning is part two of another conversation that I had with Maggie. By the way, if anybody wants to look it up because that's your podcast, I'll be out a month after that one. But she was talking about her cheating. She was talking about self-love. And she the image she used was of the mama bear cuddling her little cubs. She says, oh, she's always thought that love is calm and you forgive your inner self and you know all of that, and that's really important, she says. But there was another type of love that I was familiar with it's the mama bear with claws protecting her youth. And she says, I didn't realize that can also apply to self-love. My claws can come out and protect me.
Pierre [01:31:18] I love that.
Brian [01:31:19] I can do that. Love was always kind and gentle and we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and whatever. And that's okay for some things, but sometimes those claws need to come out and they should come out. And she says that's the part of love. Self-love that she's leaning into now is the feel like she can kind of bear those claws and stick up for herself and throw her shoulders back and say, no, you don't get to do that anymore.
Pierre [01:31:41] Nice.
Brian [01:31:42] And then I'm going to say, I'm sorry. That makes you uncomfortable. I'm glad that makes you uncomfortable. Right. I love that. It was really interesting. You had to bring.
Pierre [01:31:50] It really cool. I love that too. So much of what I do work wise is in metaphor too. So the metaphors that she puts forward are powerful, they're visceral, they're meaningful. I would love to talk with her about what they mean to her and deepen those with her because, man, that's a really cool stuff.
Brian [01:32:05] Yeah, yeah.
Pierre [01:32:06] She's really cool. Yeah, she's a.
Brian [01:32:07] Great she's a great stranger. You want to know?
Pierre [01:32:09] Yeah, that sounds really cool.
Brian [01:32:11] Okay, so were back. You skipped over some stuff. And I don't know if you want to go back and talk about it. Could you talk about what was this? We. We just we talk about it too much. And I but I just can't not go back. Talk about the deconstruction. I can't go back and say you had a shelf break and it's been a year and you've been dealing with it and you lost some relationships and now you had another shelf break and you might lose a few more. I just I sometimes I feel like I beat a dead horse on that, but I think a lot of people need to hear and they clue in on other people's stories as well. So I'm kind of curious as to when it started for you, what started it for you, what was on that shelf that caused it to break? And just kind of the story around that. Because I can imagine 32 years ago, either of us would look forward and see us in this situation now.
Pierre [01:33:03] I can't imagine that either.
Brian [01:33:05] And we have a lot of mutual friends who I respect and I love that. I mean, quite frankly, we're hurting their feelings, right? We're stepping on something that they hold to be true. And I know how that makes them feel because I've felt that way. Right, right, right. And I look up to people that are doing what you and I have done, and I feel bad for them that they lost that comfort and that connection and that knowledge and the understanding and the testimony. And now they're at risk and they're putting their family at risk and all of the things that they've lost. And anyway, I'm just I know there are a lot of my listeners listen to. They've gone through similar experiences. And part of what you leave and we both mentioned it a couple of times is you leave your sense of belonging and that's how part of how you've defined yourself for a long time. You define yourself by being a police officer that was taken away from and I think a lot of people can experience that. I used to be a professional athlete and I used to sit on top of the world and now that's gone. I have to adjust to that now. I never was a professional athlete, just to be clear, but I know you deal a lot with athletes and I, and then they're adjusting with things like that. I used to be very successful and I've lost that. I used to be healthy and I've lost that. I used to be free. And now I'm in prison. I used to belong. You know, I used to. Religion has that effect where you now no longer and we live in the same place we've lived for 22 years. I've raised my kids and everyone's kids around me and I'm in Utah and Davis County. And of the hundred houses around me. 90, I would have said normally 96. But now I'll say maybe like 92% of them, 92 of them are still faithful Latter-Day Saints. And they don't talk to me. They don't know what to say to me. They will say hi to me occasionally, but I lost that. They were my family for a long time.
Pierre [01:35:07] Right?
Brian [01:35:07] That 92 out of 100 houses around here, that was our connection. And 92 out of 100 of them are gone now. And that's hard. That's hard to adjust. So we've lost that sense of community. So I think a lot of people listening to this are finding sense of community. And I know several of the people that I've talked with on the podcast, they reached out to find someone that had gone through this because they felt like they were the only one, right? And they started posting on Instagram or whatever just because they're just flailing. They're just trying to find a place to belong. They're not trying to throw rocks at the church. They're not trying to hurt anybody. They are just trying they're floundering.
Pierre [01:35:42] Right. And I think this really speaks to the false notion that people leave the church to make things easier on themselves. Oh, my gosh. It would have been so much easier to just bring and stay in the church and just be on cruise control and fake my way through it. I would have. That would have been easy-peasy man. Life was good at callings that I liked how families in go. We have all that in common you know I've got guaranteed ministering brother and sister friends got picnics and barbecues and Christmas party like everything is just like in play, man. It's easy.
Brian [01:36:16] Yeah. So why didn't you. Why do you have to make everything so difficult?
Pierre [01:36:19] Oh, yeah. That's like integrity. When it came to the place where I knew it wasn't what it professed to be in the way it professed to be, it I couldn't do it anymore.
Brian [01:36:30] Give me some specifics. What would you prefer not to?
Pierre [01:36:33] I'll tell you the last thing that happened. I was I'll give you a short run that let me just start talking.
Brian [01:36:39] You haven't signed an NDA on this one. I know that.
Pierre [01:36:41] No, I haven't signed NDA. You just tell me what you gave me as, like.
Brian [01:36:44] Honest, vulnerable and brave.
Pierre [01:36:47] Honest, vulnerable and brave. All right, honest, vulnerable and brave. I like that. That's a good t shirt. Honest, vulnerable and brave. So I was when the when I call it a reorganization of the Elder's Quorum and High Priest, where the High Priest and Elder's Quorum all started meeting together and all that stuff in there, reorganize the Elder's Quorum presences and put all the responsibility for the bishops. We get focused on the youth and worthiness and bolivar. I was called into the Elder's Quorum presidency when that all happened and. President Presidency's assumed a lot of the roles that Bishop rex had before. So that calling happens. It's, you know, it's cool to be part of that change and it's fun and it's demanding. But that's all right. I'm in a really Cold War down in South Reno. I love the bishop, Geoff Perkins, salt of the earth guy, one of the best human beings I've ever met. A really solid stand up dude like the guys in the presidency I was working with. I was all great and I'm still in a lot of ways recovering from my brain injury. So it was challenging to me it for me to be in that.
Brian [01:37:47] Role that this was how many years after your so you had your brain injury, you were working through that for four years. You went to hypnosis. And then how much time passed between that and what you're talking about now?
Pierre [01:38:03] I got called in the Elder's Quorum presidency before hypnosis. Okay? So whenever that was. So I was still struggling.
Brian [01:38:10] With a lot of months before year before.
Pierre [01:38:13] I can't remember. Time is a blur part of my life. It really is a blur part of my life. It was a challenge for me to sit in a presidency meeting. I declined eating Elder's Quorum and they knew about my injury. You know, they had asked my wife and I to be what do they call mine on track? Yeah. And I couldn't do I physically couldn't do it. So I had to say no to that as the first calling I've ever said no to in my life. And always horrible.
Brian [01:38:40] Yeah. The guilt and the shame from that.
Pierre [01:38:42] Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And they tried to make me feel better, but, you know, I still felt it because that's how I was raised. I'm in the Elder's Quorum presidency and then I find hypnosis and then my business starts frickin booming. And then I'm going away for four trainings all the time. And then I become a trainer. And then I'm going away to do trainings and I'm going away to be a keynote speaker and do like doing all the stuff as this is. This Blossoms and Elder's Quorum president tells me at one point he's like, Man, you're really busy. Your business is doing good. That's awesome. I think it's time to release. And I'm like, rock and roll, release me that they release me. And not long after that, I'm really, really, really busy. I'm traveling a lot doing this work. I get a random phone call from the bishop like, Hey, how you doing? That is weird. I mean, we go to lunch and stuff together, but this just had a weird, weird feel to it. Yeah, I'm good. How about you? He's like, good. How busy are you? Like, right now? We're in general. In general, I'm pretty busy. Like, okay, I'm just, you know, just seeing about because I was in between callings, just seeing about it calling, you know, what's your times like? Are you still going to be traveling quite a bit for a while? I said, Yeah, I'm still going to be traveling quite a bit for a while. It's like, okay, I know I need to find out like a weird but okay. And then, you know, within the month I get a new calling and I'm one of two gospel doctor teachers, so they have me and, and another person and we can alternate weeks and then they can pitch it if I have to travel and then I can make up or whatever. And then right after that they reorganize the Bishopric because one of the Bishopric was moving out of the ward. So I go to lunch with Jeff Perkins the next week. I'm like, You're calling because you're gonna put me in a Bishopric, huh? He's like, Yeah, if you weren't traveling, I was going to ask you to be my guest. And it was weird, honest, vulnerable, brave. It was weird because I felt sad. I'm like, Oh man, I could have been in the Bishopric, but yeah, I'm in really, really cool. And I was like, bummed that I didn't get to go be in the Bishopric with you. And, and I was a gospel doctrine teacher, which is a pretty cool calling. I like, I like teaching and my brain was doing all right and I was training and stuff. So I was feeling like I was in a place to do that. And it was the year of church history. Bom, bom, bom. We're doing much. So I get into that and I don't like boring lessons. And so, you know, I'm trying to do lessons and I am doing the thing, you know, stick to church approved materials and don't go outside and all the stuff that happens. What's the book called? Lindsay. Lindsay, somebody. Well, I've got to write, you know.
Brian [01:41:03] Luna Lindsay Corbden.
Pierre [01:41:04] Lindsay Corbden. Ah, we'll get to that. I didn't go there. But, you know, like she's she talked about, you know, trying to keep you in the rails. I was doing all the things standing the rails, like just wanted me to do. Yeah. And I don't even know how because I know they've been up for a little bit, but they certainly weren't advertised with great vigor. I ended up in them the Mormon Essays, and so I'm written essays and I'm reading. I mean, I, I grew up in the church, served a mission with my good buddy Brian here. I did all the things I graduated. I taught seminary for a couple of years up in Tahoe. You know, I was going with the six weeks and I mean, I, I could count on probably one hand, maybe to the, the number of days I didn't study the Book of Mormon in the ten years preceding, stepping away from the church I was bringing in, you.
Brian [01:41:56] Were a lazy learner as basically I.
Pierre [01:41:58] Was a full on, laziest learner full of hard lazy learner. Yeah. And when I got the Mormon essays and stumbled across all these things that I had never seen or heard, in fact, I had argued against because. That's what I had learned earlier in life. Joseph Smith Polygamy, for example. No, of course that's not true. None of these things.
Brian [01:42:19] They would have they would have mentioned that.
Pierre [01:42:21] They would have. I would no, I would not know. People in the church. Not people out of the church. What? That's right about the church. So I find all these things and it gave me a not insignificant moments, pause. But, you know, I was the gospel doctrine teacher. And so I pretty much took everything in those and just walked them on my shelf and was the good Boy Scout and kept on truckin.
Brian [01:42:43] Did you have anything on your shelf at this point that you knew of? Did you did you have anything that had always just been kind of bothersome that you're like, Yeah.
Pierre [01:42:50] The only thing I didn't I couldn't swallow and couldn't stomach. But it didn't bother me greatly. I figured. Got to work it out. Next, you know, in the next lifetime. I didn't love the idea that the Mormon Church was the only way back to God. I felt like that was I understood why the Mormon Church said it, and I felt like it could be a useful, useful tool for them to use, not just to record membership, but to give people so much faith and instill in them some good faith. And having served my mission in Japan and my amazing people who loved Buddhism and Shintoism and, you know, the only reason that they're not Christian, at least, is just because of where I mean, it's like what birth lottery determines where you're going to get your religious ideals from. I didn't love that idea, but I figured God would work it out in the next life and the Mormons that they really painted a great picture. Everybody who didn't get the opportunity to learn this life would get there next. And that's why we did Temple work. I mean, they solved that.
Brian [01:43:46] Problem, right? Right. Right. By answering another problem.
Pierre [01:43:49] Yeah. By creating a whole new set of problems. So I was able to kind of let that one go. But then I thought, you know, especially my teenage years, well, that's kind of bullshit. So I'm born Mormon. I have to live all this strict, ideal life while everybody else goes out and parties, and then somebody will do the work for them and they get to go to heaven. Having experienced this full richness of the Earth life experience, well, I'm over here drinking frickin my caffeine free Dr. Pepper and kissing girls. Don't be mad at super sex, but I made my way through. So that's probably.
Brian [01:44:22] Nice to know that anger has you've let go of all that anger now to.
Pierre [01:44:25] Totally let go of it.
Brian [01:44:26] All. Yeah, it's. It's gone.
Pierre [01:44:28] It's gone. It's that's probably the only thing that was just kind of sitting there and it wasn't really even a heavyweight on my shelf. It was just something that every once in a while would not harm me. And it bothered me only most significantly bother me when a member of the church would talk poorly or talk down on another people because they weren't members of the church. Right. Right. I'd be like, no, that's done. Cause I know a lot of people who are great people who aren't members of this church and a lot of them I'd rather stand by their side than a lot of you folks, because I know you all very well. And so that made me uncomfortable. But then when I find all these things in the Mormon faith, that put a significant weight on myself. And that's what led me to first start looking at resources that were not church sanctioned or whatever. And, you know, I had never I didn't know about the CES letter and somebody mentioned that to me right in the same period of time, somebody mentioned the CES letter. And I'm like, what is the first letter of which you speak? And they wouldn't answer me. They're like, Now you know what? If you ever want to find it, go find it. It's not. And this was somebody who was out of the church. He just didn't want to be an instrument of doom or whatever. And I found this letter. I found a letter from my wife as I was called. Yep. I read those as definitely added a bunch to my shelf and then I start. I looked online for some other resources. I found LDS discussions. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I got it. I got it about us. Yeah. And through LDS discussions, I found a look. You know, I liked him so much, I found him. I wasn't a ticktock or I didn't know what a tik tok was other than one of my teenage clients. Like, I saw this thing on Tik Tok and I'm like, What? The Tik Tok? And they showed me, I'm like, Oh, cool, I'm stuck. So I didn't go there. Yeah, but then through all these discussions, I'm like, I want to see what he has to say on Tik Tok. So I did and I found this crazy amount of information and this gigantic, I guess it not even check it, but a significant community of people who were going through what I was going through or had been recently gone through, what I was going through. And so, man Pierre turned into a tik tok aholic for a little while. Story after story after story. And I'm really grateful. I really am grateful to those people on Tik Tok and I've mentioned names, but I don't want to leave anybody out. Yeah, but yeah, there's a good number of folks on Tik Tok who really emotionally saved my bacon as I was figuring all this stuff out. And the thing. So all of this is going on, I'm, I'm like freaking out because my whole life has been this like, what am I going to do with my kids? Three of my four kids are still in the church. My oldest. The triplet daughter, Lindsey, had stepped away from the church when she went to school in Sacramento, and she had found a church that had a really rocket fire that she wanted to sing. And so she started going to that church, awesome church. My wife and I go there, everyone wants to watch the choir because it was just a fantastic night. And so my kids family, my wife, I've got this calling. My whole life has been that my identity is wrapped up in it and it's weighing really heavy. And all the while covid's going. This is like right at the beginning of COVID. And I remember going to church once and I decided I was just going to go to church and pretend that Christianity was mythology and just see what I could get out of it. I just looked at it from that perspective. I don't even know where that thought came from. Didn't come from anywhere outside of that. My thought was like, okay, if the church isn't true, let's just cure it all the way to the end. And Christianity is not true, and let's just look at it like it has the bears the same amount of weight as Greek mythology. What can I get out of it? So I went in and I sat in the back to the left. I was by myself with, you know, 150 people that I'm super close with. I still felt all by myself sitting back there. Yeah, and I'm just listening. I'm like, This is mythology and it's metaphoric metaphor, and I'm the master of metaphor, right? I'm just in a metaphor. I'm like, I can see what I can get. And it was interesting academically. It was kind of interesting. My folks are kind of cool. And I wondered if I could just keep coming to church if I just looked at it as metaphor and make it okay in my head. And so I played that game for just a little bit and then I was on a tick tock live with again, I'm not going to mention names, but I don't know how much they want to be out there. I want to tick tock while I'm watching a tick, tick bite. I'm not on it. I'm watching a tick tock life. And somebody mentions first, though, you heard of herself? No. You know, Bonobo Communications. Uh huh, oh, yeah. Vulnerable communications. They had a marketing division and part of their marketing. One of the products they invented is heartfelt and heartfelt. They used for church marketing and advertising and part. So the Boy Scouts of America is that the Red Cross is of the American Heart Foundation. Is it herself? And being the AP expert, I'm an A.P. trainer that I was I thought that's kind of fucked up. What is this heart? So so I start researching heart stop and it took some good digging on heart soul to find a source material that, you know, is Bonneville talking about it and not somebody else talking about it or talking about it. Yeah, but what I found was that the object of heart soul is to find the strong individuals that connects the heart to the wallet. And when I found that myself, Brooke, and I was sitting in my car in a parking lot at a trailhead near Mount Rose Ski Resort, and I just rolled down my windows and I cried for a little bit. And then I made my first my manager, I just learned about this, and I'm a trainer and this broke my shelf. So I'm going to make a series of TikTok’s about how the church uses NLP to bring in members and to control members and then to be like members. And in my take talking to put it down, I drove home that had my wife and I sat in that chair I talked about for hours and didn't even look at that talk till the next day. And it had blown up thousands of people not blown up in real life. But for me.
Brian [01:50:29] I thought therapy for a first tick tock. Yeah, yeah.
Pierre [01:50:32] Thousands of people were like, Holy cow, I'm all about this. Tell me more for me. I don't know. Three, three or four. Tick tock, three, four or five, tick tock. You know, I don't know. I got two or 3000 followers. 50, 60,000 views are like that. I remember which metric it was in in a few days of people really resonating. I went to do a church building because I still had a key and I started playing a hymn and then I talked about how emotions are attached to that hymn or something that the church exploits. And so these are the kinds of ticktock talks I was making. I talked about heart soul a little bit more. And then I got a phone call from a church leader, a state leader in a neighboring state that said, hey, you might want to be careful with what you're doing. There may or may not be conversation about church discipline because of what you're doing, and especially because you made one of these TED talks in a church. And I wasn't ready for that. So I put all my TED talks on private and so they're not out there anymore. And I changed my name. I was LDS and LP names that I know. And what about my dad and how we got here? How do we get here? Where am I going? What's that? What's my train? What is.
Brian [01:51:41] Talk about your shelf breaking.
Pierre [01:51:43] Oh yeah, it's a broad topic. It's a broad topic. And with that, you know, I had to I knew I should tell my brother and my sister because it was going to be obvious because my brother's oldest daughter was getting married in the temple and not too long and I was going to be going inside. I knew that was going to cause no small stir among my family. Rewinding the tape, I'd actually called my brother a couple of months earlier and told him, Hey, I've got some concerns. He's in state presence in the Bay Area. He'd been a bishop following a couple of my. Stearns and he was pretty open to talk about it. Oh, my sister. Hey, I got some concerns is open to talk about it by talking about a couple of things. But then I didn't really talk too much and then all this happened. And so then now I'm at the place where I got to let them out. So I had heard I'd received some advice to tell people in a way that gives them time to process it. But I decided to send them a message, a text message, so they could process it. So I didn't have to watch them flip out and they could see what they wanted to stay. And of the first thing that came to their minds.
Brian [01:52:40] Right. Right.
Pierre [01:52:42] Yeah. So I sent a text to my brother and sister and then I sent a text to and also a couple of months earlier told my bishop, hey, I've got some concerns and some of the questions I've got. So when it came time to break, do I send a text message to a group text message, my bishop, my Elder's Quorum president and then my home teacher slash ministering brother were going to call and to really get friends in the ward. Those five guys I sent a group text message.
Brian [01:53:09] This was after your time on the.
Pierre [01:53:10] Chair, after my time on the chair and told them stepping away and honest, vulnerable brief. The differences in the responses shocked me. Like my brother came back after a long period after days and back with you know, you're choosing the harder path. I don't agree and other such fluff. My sister came back right away with I love you no matter what. Yeah, this is not great news. I don't love it, but I love you no matter what. And that's first and foremost. And then all the guys in the world I sent the text to instant response. Pretty much everybody. Oh, man. Dang, we're going to have ketchup left. Grab lunch. Oh, I love you, man. I still love you. All of them were like, still love. Yeah. Let's hang out. Still love. Let's hang out still let's hang up. My brother took it the hardest and we didn't talk a whole lot for a few months after that. I think, you know, I'm not inside his head. I think he was dealing with a lot being in a state presidency. All his kids are you know, his youngest was, I think, still on a mission then, if not just him, just come home. You know, he's a logical thinker, thinking about the ramifications, worried now and didn't. Hell, I think he had probably had thoughts of, you know, all his kids really loved me and respect like look up to me worried about that. I waited, I don't know, a week or two before I texted him, hey, get my. Yeah, I got to process it. All right. You know, one of the guys in the ward texted back, he's like, I don't remember which team name, but something to the effect of, you know what, I'll still love you no matter what unless you tell me you love the Raiders or something like that. And I remember him, you know, super cool. But, you know, and pretty much everybody's dropped off my radar like, you know, you in your neighborhood already and say hi and stop by. And they don't call, they don't write. It's like there's I reached out to Jeff Perkins, the bishop, and we did lunch once and he, you know, super nice, pleasant lunch, crickets, other guys straight up crickets. There's been two that have Nick Riley. I want to give a shout out to Nick Riley. I was actually his ministering brother, who a few blocks from me. He's the one who like, you know, my friend, my friend. And now I know, now I know. Nick's my friend, Elder's Quorum president. He reaches out, we'll do lunch, you know, once a quarter or whatever. We bought a house. Since I'm not in his ward anymore, you know, still call every once in a while. My brother has is slowly made his way back to quasi normal conversations. He resists talking about any church stuff from his end and you know, he's in a state prison first counselor and Stake President. He's got a lot going on church wise. And I used to be a regular topic of conversation, but yeah, he won't bring that up anymore.
Brian [01:55:50] About your wife and your kids, when did you bring them into the loop?
Pierre [01:55:54] So Lori watched me go through the stories.
Brian [01:55:56] My wife and she told her upfront. I had a concern, oh my gosh, this.
Pierre [01:55:59] And yeah, she was with me right from the right out of the gate. People we've asked them, like Sean in the Mormon essays, have you seen this? She's like, No, I haven't seen that. This is crazy. So she was in it, right? Right from the get go. We were talking about these things and she kind of went through it with me. She has an interesting relationship with the church. I'm not sure if that's my story to tell, so I won't. Okay, but she's got stories and there is one part of her story that she gave me permission to tell, and I'll tell that in a little bit. But she's kind of been in and out of the church a little bit growing up. So it wasn't as she wasn't, you know, in shock and aghast like I was. And it wasn't going to be the big life changer. It was a life changer. But she having been in and out, it wasn't going to wreck her world like it was wrecking mine, but she was pretty blown away by the stuff were reading, the revelations that were coming to us. You know, the things I should have known all along had I read that one 1976 issue of The Friend or whatever, all those things.
Brian [01:56:55] That have since been redacted and torn up, taken up every shelf and.
Pierre [01:56:58] Yeah, exactly. So she was in it. She watched me go through it. And the moment I was done, she's like, I'm out to was probably get her daughter Louise so. Well go.
Brian [01:57:08] Ahead. Was that a do you think she had a. A big deconstruction or does she just kind of have just consider and kind of make it make a change?
Pierre [01:57:17] I think it was more of a consider and make a change for her. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And since she had been in and out, Luisa, our youngest, had been in and out, too. And so it she was I think she was relieved actually, when I called and told her I was stepping away. I think it offered her some relief because I feel like the felt like she wasn't quite good enough and she wasn't Mormon enough. Yeah, Lindsay. I called Lindsay to tell her. And, you know, Lindsay's the triplets are black. And Lindsay. Lindsay, I think, was a little bit relieved, too, because she had some real issues with not fitting in because she's black. And with the history involved there, she was pretty I think there was a sense of relief there that she wondered what I was going to do next. That was, I think, her big question. What are you gonna do now that the boys had both been on missions? Matthew after his mission and Michael after their mission, you know, moved to different parts of the country and telling the boys. Michael's the only one who voiced men. Why would you do that? I don't think you're making the right decision, but I still love you, however, again. But I don't think it's a good cop. But he didn't flip out. And then, I don't know, three or four months ago I even got a call from Michael. You know that I am stepping away from the church, too. So Lindsay is the first one who's who stepped away. And then Laurie and I and we didn't know it, but Louisa, where she was and of all stepped away at the same time. Matthew stepped away at some point in there. I'm not exactly sure when. And Michael stepped away just a few months ago. So everybody stepped away. You know, telling it and following that story in 120 seconds makes it sound pretty simple and clean. It wasn't that simple. And you.
Brian [01:58:53] Can't tell that story.
Pierre [01:58:54] Or.
Brian [01:58:55] Feel those emotions or cover those points. You just you just never can know.
Pierre [01:58:59] You can't there's no way. And, you know, I'm not a journalist, so I wasn't like taking copious notes on this by any chance or by any stretch of the imagination. So it's that has been really, really crazy. And during this whole time, I've been being really reserved and what I say into the world, like you wouldn't go on my social media and know, oh, Facebook according to Facebook, here's eczema. No, you wouldn't know that because I'm just really sterile. And my you know, my Instagram, when I did Instagram, it was about my business so I could, you know, start my first stream of clients. And I have a posting thing on there and it's all in did what it did and I didn't need that anymore so you wouldn't know it anywhere. I just made the change on Tik Tok and that's the only place you'd see. And most of my family and friends aren't under to find me. And I didn't let it access my contacts. So it's not out into the world yet. So I've been this like, you know, deconstructing but with soft pedal on not being very loud about it. Sorry, my phone, like you're not disturbed doesn't turn out a lot of weird. I'm sorry. So I've been deconstructing quietly and in my own little corner of the universe and in it's still been uncomfortable and painful, like going to my niece's wedding. The good news is, you know, it was in the Oakland temple and they had their COVID restrictions. And so not many people could make it into the ceiling room. So there was quite a bit of family that didn't get to go in. The bad news is I'm super tight with my niece, so I absolutely would have been one of the ones that went in. So my mom, having flown out from New Mexico, was very suspicious that I didn't go in. She didn't know that I had stepped away from the church. And it wasn't until a few months after that I'm having a conversation with my mom is like and I ask you a question. I said, Sure. She's like, You're not going to church very much, are, you know, mom? Not going to church at all. And she didn't want to ask why she hopes I come back and wants me to tell her if I ever do. And she said, yeah, but it was a very short, very surprising conversation because my mom has a tendency to have a reaction to things. But she didn't really my dad passed in 2012. So, you know, she's just they're processing it on her own. And, you know, I asked my brother and sister, she talked to them about it. And at last report, she hadn't. So I don't know if that's changed or not. You know, people found out either I would tell them or somebody else would tell them. And I was just quiet. Yeah. My best friend in Reno, his name's Jamison. He's very active member of the Church Sisters on High Council in Fallon, Nevada, just a little bit removed from Reno. And it's you know, I had the conversations with him, but those were deeper, longer conversations because he's here. So we could go to dinner and talk. And it was rough for him at first to know I was stepping away and he was really honest with me. He's like, I hope, I hope it won't change our relationship, but I can't say it won't. And I love you and I really hope we can stay tight. And we have and his extended stay visiting his wife's family up in Washington. He was just down here last week, went to dinner, had a great dinner, went saw Thor love and thunder because that neither of us had seen it yet. And afterwards, I sit in the parking lot, I'm like, so I've I ask questions, this is, how are you doing with post-Mormon? It's surprisingly nice. And in fact, he said. In a lot of ways it's kind of refreshing because basically all my friends and family members or friends and family members of our members of the church and I wonder if my friends weren't members of the church or if I left the church or if I'd even stay friends with them. And the fact that you left and we're still this close shows me that it's a real friendship and it's kind of refreshing. That was that was a really cool response.
Brian [02:02:33] Yeah. But it's so disheartening and heartbreaking to realize you're still here.
Pierre [02:02:40] Rick, I.
Brian [02:02:41] Know you can put a post or a pre or whatever adjective you want. After that, you're still here. Yeah. And it's amazing how choosing a prefix or something to go with it changes all that. It's like, no. Yeah. Don't. Didn't change. I'm. Yeah, I'm still here.
Pierre [02:03:00] Well, on the surface, things that change, that means so much. Members to active members. Like I. Like I said a lot. Now what? Right. I love my iced tea. Give me the right coffee and I'll really like it, too. And you know what I really like? This is going to blow your mind. I like an old fashioned and a cigar who to thank. This is my, my, my, my first out, I've come out of the air. Wow. Cigar closet on your podcast. Wow. I really love an old fashioned. If I don't drink every day, I smoke a cigar maybe once a month. Right. I don't like it. But those things mean they represent an assumed change at a foundational level of my person, of my character.
Brian [02:03:47] It to me, it reflects your acceptance of you. And that is such a freeing thing to be able to do.
Pierre [02:03:56] It is.
Brian [02:03:56] And I've had one of my concerns when I was going through all this was so who am I? Right. So you've taken you're so heavily invested in this for 50 something years, right? If you rip all that away, what's left to do? You really did you really define yourself before that you were the peer that didn't drink old fashioneds? No. How does that. Having one once a month define who you are now? And I think one level, obviously it doesn't, but on another level it is. I am peer and I'm giving myself permission to make my own decisions. I'm the guy on the scene in charge of the situation and I appreciate the support and I love the support and I'm glad to be part of a team. But don't tell me what my rules of engagement are on life. Don't limit my rules of engagement. Don't come in and take over the situation or tell me how the situation be taken care of in this aspect of me. I'm in charge of me and that's such a different way of looking at life. It's so freeing. I've always thought, Well, what happens? So now you ask all the questions, Well, do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus? What happens when you die? What up? You've got to go through and answer all those. And I was like, What? I was on the other side of this decision. Those scared me. Yeah. And I'm on this side and those decisions are freeing. There is I am so less bound to the answers to those questions than I was before. Yeah. Before that literally defined who I was.
Pierre [02:05:35] Right.
Brian [02:05:35] And now I'm like, no, the fact that I have a drink once a month doesn't define who I am, but I get to decide whether or not I have that drink and what the drink is.
Pierre [02:05:46] And I.
Brian [02:05:47] Auditioned to.
Pierre [02:05:48] Write. Exactly. And I get to decide what's morally relevant. Yes. I think for me that freedom to decide for myself what's morally relevant instead of it being imposed upon me, what am I hurting my soul by sitting on my balcony at sunset and having an abortion with a cigar? Right. I'm not. In fact, I might argue.
Brian [02:06:10] That if I'm going to go have one right now, I'll be. Yeah.
Pierre [02:06:12] I was home. I might shake one up. I could argue in many ways I'm a better person.
Brian [02:06:19] I have not only said that and thought that, but I've actually felt like I'm a better Christian now. Now that I consider myself, I'm not maybe not even necessarily a Christian, I'm still a better Christian.
Pierre [02:06:29] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I concur.
Brian [02:06:33] And it's easier for me to actually care about these people instead of having a program telling me I should or. Yeah, and when the program goes away, so do I know I'm still going to be there. I'm still your neighbor. I'm still your brother or friend or whoever. Yeah, I'm you know, I'm. I'm still just me.
Pierre [02:06:49] Yeah, yeah. Just the, the catastrophic consequence that's placed on that one cup of coffee. Yeah. You see that video? The cup of coffee cup. The man.
Brian [02:07:00] Yeah, that did it.
Pierre [02:07:01] Oh, my gosh. And for me, yeah. Like, if that's all it takes, I don't stand a chance.
Brian [02:07:07] I'm not going to make it. It's going to be well beyond the cupcake.
Pierre [02:07:10] Oh, my gosh. I mean, yeah, screw ups that I've done in my life. But then there's the grace that you're supposed to rely on. But there's also have the whole.
Brian [02:07:19] The necessity to control everyone around you and whether or not they have a drink or whether they have a cigarette or and you have to police that and know that has nothing. They are not hurting you. Yeah. They're not hurting themselves or they're not hurting anyone else. Why is it any of your business?
Pierre [02:07:42] I remember I was dating this girl in between my divorce and marrying Lori who wasn't a member. And we. We dated for quite a while, and a guy in the Bishopric asked me about her, and he's like, I don't remember how it came up that she had wine with dinner one night when went out and he's like, You're okay with that? And like, I didn't drink any more. Of course I'm okay with that. Well, you shouldn't be. And he lectured me on how I shouldn't be okay with that. Yeah, that's like, oh, my goodness, we're so, so, so, so, so hung up. Yeah. So many things that matter. Not at all.
Brian [02:08:15] Not at all. One of my favorites, another Meg that I interviewed, says she likes to go to brunch and she will have a cocktail for brunch on Sunday and sit there and not judge everyone else who's there. We're just we're just all here. We're having a good time. We're just, you know, enjoying the day. That's all we're doing. That's all we're doing. Or she's she likes quite a few tattoos and she just got another one. And, and I ask people about their tattoos because it's a good conversation starter. And one of them told me she said, Oh, because it's right there on her, on her wrist, on the inside of her wrist, clear up to her hand. She's not hiding it someplace because she's afraid someone will see. She's like, Oh, no, that's just me. Me reclaiming my body. Nice. That's a reminder that this is my body.
Pierre [02:09:00] That's awesome.
Brian [02:09:01] And it's just.
Pierre [02:09:02] I'm designing my first time right now.
Brian [02:09:04] Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Hi. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's it just it can be so liberating to realize that their salvation is not your business and what you're thinking of is there salvation isn't going to affect their salvation, right?
Pierre [02:09:21] Yeah. Yeah.
Brian [02:09:21] So why don't, why is it any of your business.
Pierre [02:09:23] Right, right. Yeah. Oh.
Brian [02:09:26] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I think that was one of my questions that I had to email. We've got two of my questions.
Pierre [02:09:32] Nice.
Brian [02:09:33] Yeah, this is another one. We can take another topic. It's unless you've got some more time. I don't know if you want to.
Pierre [02:09:38] I'm good on time. I'm, I'm good on time if you're not if you need a gift. We but I'm good with whatever.
Brian [02:09:44] I'm not. I'm just, uh. Yeah, I don't know. So the next one is kind of real simple one. What are you doing to take care of yourself and your family? Now, what? What do you do to take care of yourself?
Pierre [02:09:55] What do I do to take care of myself? That is an excellent question. So several things. Where do I start with that? Answering that question, the biggest thing I'm doing to take care of myself right now is I so I was in pretty good shape as a cop. And then this injury happened and my body fell apart and I had other injuries as a cop, I had a really great injury. We get a call of a man with a gun. He's on the second story of a really, really crappy hotel. And but it's kind of three stories because it's raised over a cement parking lot. So he's kind of it's the second story, but it's a third story, man with a gun on a balcony. So me and one or two other cops get there and then we go upstairs. We keep around and we see him and it's not a man. And they described him as a naked man with a gun. So you kind of stick out like dark balls, right? So we come up around the corner naked here.
Brian [02:10:45] You would hope it would be the one that would be the one.
Pierre [02:10:48] And he yeah, he was the one. And he was a man with a knife, not with a gun. So that's, you know, escalates the stress a little bit. It's still a man with a knife that's naked on the balcony of. Yeah. A motel. Not a great scenario for anyone involved. So we get up there. I mean, I really don't remember how we escalated it, but we de-escalated it somehow. We get the knife away from him. We get him into there's a motel room door that's open, figured out his. We get him in there, he's sitting on the bed and we're, you know, identifying him, doing the things that we do and, you know, make sure there's nobody else hiding in there, all that stuff. And he declares, somehow, I don't remember what words used, but he declared somehow that he was going to end it all. And he goes, B, waiting to jump off the balcony. Oh, the third story onto the summit. And he runs by me. I run behind him. And as he jumps over, I grab some part of his body. I don't remember his angle at rest. I grab him and I, I wrap my arm around the balcony rail and I held him. But all I heard was big as I ripped my slap tendon and give myself a hernia catching this guy. So the other cops get there and we real him back in and we take him to the hospital and all this stuff. And so I've injuries like that. There are other injury stories, so I've got all these injuries and then I've got the big injury, so my body's falling apart. This is really long answer to a really simple question. About two years ago, a guy named Moreau found me. He's a Spanish guy who was living in the States, found me. And he does personal coaching for health and fitness for men. And he found me. And so we got talking. And he does this thing and I do hypnosis and we're talking and I'm like, Man, no sucking up your guys. He's like, Yeah, my stuff is awesome and worth talking. And so we just talk briefly. We talked about me coming in and talking to his group and then it just things kind of fizzled and faded and he went his way and I went mine and I thought, my cool guy like three or four months ago, another friend of mine, totally unrelated, lives in Northern California, pops up on my Facebook and he was an overweight dude, but now he's just like six pack lean, 10% body fat, ripped and buff. And I'm like, and Ryan Brand's is looking good. And I read his post. It's like, Man, thanks, Mario. You changed my life. And I'm like, This can't be the same for tomorrow. So I call Ryan up like Maroto got married. Tomorrow is the same friggin Mara. I reach back out tomorrow. I'm like gay marriage time, so to take care of me. I just signed up with Mario a couple months ago and Mara put me in his program. So I want to get my body, but I'm reclaiming my body. I've lost a match. I lost £17, which is awesome. I'm getting a little bit of a frame back. I've lost some weight. I've got like lots more, lots more to go. It'll be a lot more weight loss. I'm done and I'm feeling better. I'm the exercise program that he has is awesome. Going stronger every day. Cardio is feeling better every day. The nutrition program he has is pretty solid. So to take care of me, I want to get my body back. Good. And my goal is to get it back by end of this year. Beginning of next year, be back to a level that I'm pleased with. I'm doing that. I have all my hypnosis stuff that I'm doing and I apply it to myself.
Brian [02:13:54] And can you do that to yourself?
Pierre [02:13:56] Is that. Yeah. Okay. And if I get stuck somewhere I happen to be married to help out that.
Brian [02:14:01] Yeah.
Pierre [02:14:01] Pretty handy. Pretty handy to the dandy and we help each other out when one of us gets stuck on something. He can help me out. Yeah. And we help the other person out. So that's pretty cool.
Brian [02:14:09] So give me an example. Something you'd get stuck on that she'd be able to help you out with. What do you mean by getting stuck?
Pierre [02:14:15] If. If if I have a so part of the deal with the problem is the manifesting problem is not usually the underlying problem. And until you can find the underlying problem, it's like, what do I even work on to resolve? And if I get stuck trying to ferret out what the underlying problem is, that's usually where I get stuck. Usually where I should get stuck to is I've got this manifesting problem situation, whatever.
Brian [02:14:35] That you're aware of, but you know it to something that it is deeper.
Pierre [02:14:39] Exactly, exactly. We'll help each other find that thing. And then sometimes since we're there, we'll just help the other person resolve it. But oftentimes it's like, perfect. Now I know what to go work on and I'll go do my thing and fix it. So that's an example. Okay. All right. Good luck on Vietnam. And then during the course of my training over the last few years, from 2019 to now, all the hypnosis, all the timeline techniques, all the NLP, all the Hoonah, we have to talk about Hoonah then it's really cool stuff, a bunch of stuff. I also did some high performance coaching training. Brenden Bouchard familiar with that guy. I went through his high performance coaching programs and I performance coach as well. And during that I met this really awesome guy and Mark came through the training with me and we're like, We want not only to practice using these new techniques but to benefit from them. So we cross each other. So every Monday, four months Mark and I meet, we take turns taking each other to these high performance coaching sessions, and I think that's going to be an ongoing thing for a while now. But those are the things I'm doing for me. You know, I want to take care of me in a different way now.
Brian [02:15:43] Absolutely.
Pierre [02:15:44] And by taking care of me, I'm a much better version of me to take care of my family. Yeah. I mean, I think about it, you know, everybody says in the church, you know, lay yourself upon the altar or give yourself as the gift or whatever metaphor they use to give yourself to Christ and lose yourself in the service of others. Right. And they often it's a kind of a thing I see. Forget to take care of themselves. Yeah. And then. And then they end up in my office as a client. Yeah.
Brian [02:16:11] And they don't have time.
Pierre [02:16:13] They'll, they don't, they might that.
Brian [02:16:15] The church makes sure that they don't have time.
Pierre [02:16:18] Yeah. Little Lindsay talks about that too. Yeah. And one of the first things I talk to with those clients is what version of yourself are you giving Christ? Are you given this, like, busted, subpar pawnshop version of you to Christ? Right. What would happen if you took really good care of yourself and you were strong and powerful and felt good and you were just awesome and you could present that version of yourself to Christ? How many more people could you help on a day to day basis? Yeah. And what would that be like? And it gets lost and forgotten. And there's it's almost like it's a negative stigma if you take care of yourself, if you're not broken and decrepit and dirty and dust and all that stuff, it's bad. And I get ideologically really wearing yourself out in the service of others. But dude, moderation in all things. There's so much doctrine that's counter to that, too. And we could start talking about doctrine that counters itself. We could talk about that for weeks and weeks. And I think that's one place where there's a lot of doctrine that contradicts itself, is, you know, be broken and be dirty and wear yourself out, but also be glorious and be perfect and do all those other things. Or how can you do both of those things at the same time? And difficult. So those are the things I'm doing under me right now. Good. How about you? Do you mind if I ask you that?
Brian [02:17:36] No. Ask me. What? What am I doing? Take care of me. So to my deconstruction came while I was in the Bishopric as first counselor. Rock and roll. And yeah, so that was kind of hard. And it got to the point and I looking back on it, I realized it had started years before that really. And I had been in a Bishopric before that and I had been High Priest group leader for seven years and I was released from that to get called into this Bishopric and I was in that Bishopric when they got rid of the High Priest group leader. And I was. And all this time I'm still coaching hockey and lacrosse and working and everything. And it got to the point where I had that I asked to be released, but I'd never asked to be released from my calling. But I couldn't sit there and I couldn't. I just couldn't. Right after that, my wife thought this would be a great time for us to take a little better care of ourselves. And so we she hired she would she had us go to a nutritionist that she'd heard a lot of really good things about. And went to this nutritionist and she said, You need to go to the gym and you need to lift weights. And I'm like, okay, I'll do whatever. So I got into that. And for three in like three months, I lost like £65 of body fat.
Pierre [02:18:55] And engraftment man.
Brian [02:18:56] And started putting on muscle. And I'm still watching what I eat, but I'm not as strict as I was back then because I'm not really in the loss mode, but I've still been going to the gym and it's still a daily thing and I enjoy that. So that's been really good. Psychologically, I'm trying to break some scripts that I've got in my head. It's just something I was just thinking of today. You've you're familiar with Pixar's movie Inside Out? Mm hmm. So a couple of years ago, while I was going through this and I didn't even know I was going through this, but I also started reading a book called Permission to Feel by Dr. Mark Brackett.
Pierre [02:19:32] I don't know that.
Brian [02:19:33] And yeah, I love Mark and what he's teaching and everything he about at Yale. And I'd never in my family, we never had meaningful discussions. So I'm making up for it now with this podcast. Right. Good for you. We certainly never talked about anything important. We had some traumatic events go on when I was younger. I don't know if you knew that when I was in sixth grade, my dad's parents were murdered. I did at home. And so that's had an effect on everyone. We don't talk about that. We don't talk about anything important. We don't talk about feelings. We don't talk about. And so that's kind of what I grew up well, now I'm learning out. I actually have feelings and it's like, imagine that.
Pierre [02:20:11] Yeah.
Brian [02:20:12] And when you ignore them, they don't just go away. Yeah. And then it's okay to talk about your feelings and actually have them. The good ones. The bad ones, the all of them. It's, you know, as, as the book talks about the your feelings are an important feedback of your body to yourself. If you ignore them. It's like ignoring half of the dashboard on your airplane while you're trying to fly. It's just giving it good information. You ignore them at your own peril.
Pierre [02:20:46] And if you ignore them, they all you're just your subconscious. My unconscious mind communicating. Exactly. And if you don't do something more to get your attention. Yes.
Brian [02:20:56] So I'm paying more attention to that. I started reading a couple of other books that kind of along the same lines, the deconstruction I'm trying to be more in the moment. So anyway, I talked about Pixar's Inside Out because it's about emotions, right? You've got anger, right? And wants to run the control panel and the great sadness. And, you know, they only have five in there, but, you know, there are quite a few more and chapters.
Pierre [02:21:18] Are a little bit like.
Brian [02:21:19] That movie does so well. It shows you're dealing with two or three or four of these at a time. You're feeling happy and frustrated and pissed off and hopeful all at once.
Pierre [02:21:29] Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Brian [02:21:31] Complex. And so I started to have I started thinking today about these scripts that I have in my head, these beliefs, these values, these voices that I hear from my childhood that tell me, Well, you're spending too much time on that. You need to go do something. You need to you need to, you need to you should, you shouldn't have all of these things. They're just little scripts that we have in our head. And I'm thinking they are all like the inside out. They're not feelings. Yeah, they're just these little tiny little subroutines and every one of them wants to have control of the console. And I need to be very careful of. Now. Which one I let have control of the console? Yeah. And before when I had somebody, it's like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, go ahead and do that. And I didn't want to create any problems. Well, one of my scripts is you don't confront someone. One of my scripts says, just be nice and let people do what they want. One of my scripts is what you want to do is an important be nice and be helpful and be a good boy. Those are the important things. And so these are all scripts that take over the control panel. And I'm like, Lately, I'm just thinking, okay, I'm just going to be in monitor mode. We're going to leave the ship in the dry dock, and I'm just going to see who tries to sit in that captain's chair and why. And now maybe I can understand a little bit more is like that script. I don't even want that script. That's I proven that is a that is a damaging script. That person never that script never gets the control panel. And what do I want to replace it with and who does get the control panel and now who gets to decide? And I don't need to let them all take over because I'm trying to be nice. Some of them I need to grab by the scruff of their neck and drag them out, drag them out of the building.
Pierre [02:23:16] And that's what I was going to ask. Is it is it for you? Because ofttimes it is as simple as it might not be the right word. But is it as simple as recognizing that it's not serving you anymore and letting go of it now? Are you able to successfully do that?
Brian [02:23:29] Know all you can for me, it's so there's this other book that I really enjoyed reading called The Artist's Way, and she has a couple of practices that she recommends. And one of them is writing morning, writing three pages a morning, and it's just free form text, just kind of whatever I use a lot of that time. She gives you exercises of things you can think about and whatever in that, and she is trying to her whole thing on the artist's way in the book just I think it's celebrated its 25th anniversary but all of the big there are some very famous people that have relied on this book, Martin Scorsese, Jay-Z, Melissa Gilbert, a lot of these great producers and writers and musicians, they say this book is what makes them an artist. Wow. So her thing is you need to silence your inner critic, find out what they're saying, and then just tell them to shut up. And one of the ways you do that is when you write these three pages, you just freehand nobody else is going to read them. You're not even going to go back and read them. It's just you silencing your inner critic saying, I know you're there, thank you for being there. But right now, just sit here for a second, take a time out while I go through some things. Right. And you realize the world doesn't stop when you just say what you want, what you feel, what you, whatever, you know. And that kind of develops the habit that now you can sit your inner critic on the side for 10 minutes more for an hour, or you know what, maybe I am good enough or you know what? Let me try let me at least try what's the harm in trying? And so I'm using a lot of those things to go through and talk about it. But I have to revisit a lot of these issues and it uncovers something deeper. And it's like, you know what? That's really tied to this. This is just a surface level thing. What it's really tied to is the fact that you don't feel comfortable enough being yourself because nobody's going to like you. And because if somebody sees you with an old fashioned and a cigar, what would they think?
Pierre [02:25:17] Yeah.
Brian [02:25:18] And the real question is, I don't care.
Pierre [02:25:20] But the problem is I still do and I'm still working through that. But like you're saying, right?
Brian [02:25:26] You don't just say, well, get the hell out of here now. You got to throw that guy out every weekend. Every Friday night, he's coming back and you got to drag his ass out. But now you're recognizing him and you know how he's getting in and you're and maybe if someday, maybe he could even sit down and maybe you can have a drink with you, right? Right. And maybe it's just like I just. But for right now, I think just identifying it and realizing. What are you doing in the captain's chair? I thought I told you. You're not allowing me here.
Pierre [02:25:54] Yeah, I fired you months ago, right? I don't even think clearly more. Why are you remember?
Brian [02:26:00] Yeah.
Pierre [02:26:01] Yeah.
Brian [02:26:01] So? So those are a lot of the things that I'm kind of going through. And I think one of the big ones for me, life term has been efficiency. Make your list, get it done. Because in the end, someday you've checked all the boxes if you've got it done. And I've always I have the personality that like when I am when I pull the car, I get home for whatever thing I already know what my next five things are that I need to do. Never mind that I'm having a really good conversation with someone who's in the car with me. Why don't we just do this? Why is the fact that, oh, I need to empty take the garbage out tonight? Yeah, but not right now. You don't. Not during this conversation. You don't.
Pierre [02:26:40] You know, I.
Brian [02:26:41] Need to make time and think, you know. Okay, so this is the world's worst thing. Peer might have a cigar, and I might forget the garbage. And the world will come to an end.
Pierre [02:26:53] Yeah.
Brian [02:26:53] What's going to happen? Yeah, we've got two huge garbage cans. There are only two of us living here. We don't fill them up in a month.
Pierre [02:27:00] Exactly right.
Brian [02:27:01] And you having a cigar? Well, it's just those things. It's like it's been so conditioned and we just listen and do and it's just. Automatic. It's the bitch you all. It's just. Yeah. You don't get to sit in the driver's seat anymore.
Pierre [02:27:13] Yeah.
Brian [02:27:14] I'm controlling the driver's seat by having conversations. And bring me another drink and someone else can take out the garbage or not. I don't care. Or not.
Pierre [02:27:23] Right.
Brian [02:27:24] The world is not going to come to an end. But my whole life has been all about efficiency and climbing the ladder and doing better, doing more and prioritizing and getting the. Right now I'm going to spend a couple of hours just sitting and talking with my friend Pierre and catching up and asking him questions and getting to know who he is now and what's gone in his mind and how he's feeling and what his life's about. That, to me, is the most fascinating thing ever and it's awesome. This podcast is just allowed me to do that with so many different people.
Pierre [02:27:51] Wow.
Brian [02:27:52] And it's just been so cathartic because I see myself in everyone and I actually review these transcripts when I'm getting the podcast ready, I probably spend about five times as much time reviewing and preparing as we do for the length of this interview. So if we have a three hour conversation, I'm spending at least 15 hours this week getting a podcast ready for 3 hours.
Pierre [02:28:15] Wow.
Brian [02:28:16] And chances are probably even more than that, because by the time you see a three hour podcast, it was probably 4 hours to start with. Oh, yeah. So there's another you know, there's another factor I have to add to it. But I look at the transcripts and I try to find the gist of what you're saying. I try to find out what I could do better as a host. It's like, Why did you change the topic of conversation here? I'll make myself little notes. It sounded like he was going this way and you jerk it over to here. Why? Why? What was over there?
Pierre [02:28:47] Yeah, yeah.
Brian [02:28:48] Just let him talk, you know? Just let him ask him a question about that. Let him say, well, why did you bring that up? That's interesting that you phrased it that way. Why do you think you know those? And I to be honest, I think I still kind of suck at a lot of that. I'm getting better with it. I'm getting as I do more of it and I study and I want to better at it. It's not going to make a living. I'm not going to make any money off of it at the best. Hopefully one day it'll break even. Right. Right. But it that's not why I'm doing it.
Pierre [02:29:15] The other is why you're doing it.
Brian [02:29:17] Yeah, I'll, I'll come right back to that. The other thing I come back to is I see what you're going through and questions you've asked yourself. And I ask myself that question and I'm saying, okay, so I can't. So I'll think of yeah, so I'll just someone says, well, you know, I spent some time so the mama bear thing I was just talking about because that's fresh, because I just been looking at that all week. When do I need to be more of a mama bear for me? When do I need to stand up and show my claws and make people uneasy? What? Not that I'm looking for ways to do that. But if I never bear my claws, chances are I'm a plus. I need to do a better job. I need to say, Hey, you know what? Stand up for yourself, right? They don't get to treat you that way. You. You just get out there and you do what you need to do. You protect you. You can do that. And I'm a huge feminist because I like that. It kills me that to many women and young women and girls are told that they're not enough and that you need to be polite and you need to be gentle and you need to, you know, what will others think? And you know that it it really kills me.
Pierre [02:30:27] As a dad of daughters. That stuff brings me out.
Brian [02:30:29] And so I've been coaching women's lacrosse for 12 years. And this year I just started I had my first practice this Wednesday with my new team. They're in third and fourth grade.
Pierre [02:30:39] Night and.
Brian [02:30:40] I love it. They are amazing. They have no idea that they're the weaker sex. But it kills me that at some point on the line that will be made very clear to them and a lot of them will believe it. And a lot of them were on this amazing trajectory and it's going to get derailed because someone told them, well, that's not very polite. Anybody like it, it's not ladylike. Yeah. And I just. That just kills me. Yeah. So I do what I can. Yeah, I try to instill in that. Actually, this whole analogy of the mama bear is going to come up in one of our lacrosse practices this year.
Pierre [02:31:14] I love it.
Brian [02:31:14] We're going to talk about self-protection and self-love. And sometimes you might need to get your claws out. And when you do, people will they'll shame you for it. That's okay. That's their issue. You still stand up for yourself, right? And maybe for somebody somewhere that might make a difference someday. Right. Right. So my question and this has bothered me more on that, that the fact that the whole the purity culture thing has bothered me more since I left, I wasn't as sensitized to it as I am now. When I was in the church. It still bothered me, but not as much. But my question was this Have we really nailed the second, the second commandment as a career.
Pierre [02:31:54] Question and keep a straight face.
Brian [02:31:56] Right as I look around. We don't love our neighbor. We do our home teaching. We will check all of the boxes. But do we love our neighbor? And if we say that, our neighbor is. Literally everyone, just someone who looks like us and thinks like us and votes like us and lives near us and believes the same thing as us. If we love our neighbor, we're do we don't have it. So I even said and this is and I have this in several notes from Bishopric every topic we give, every calling we issue, every assignment we give, every lesson we teach, every Sacrament topic we give should be love your neighbor through service, temple attendance, studying your scriptures. You're serving your family. What it should be, which we should start every single one of them with Love your neighbor. And let's focus on that one before we get way lost in the other end of the spectrum. On what type of cola drinks where you know, none of that matters. We can't get past to I don't know what one is or we probably wouldn't be able to get past it either. Yeah, but maybe I'm breaking one. Just even having this conversation, I don't know, I still can't figure that out. But so that started to bother me. And then I started to see a lot of the othering and how the church was not only causing harm to so many people, but they were doing so in an aggressive manner and repeatedly.
Pierre [02:33:25] Like Prop eight type stuff or like. What are you talking about?
Brian [02:33:27] Yes, exactly. All of that. All of that. They were actually causing harm to a young man or young woman who was struggling with an issue. And I didn't know that Jackson was going through his issues at this time. He was going through them. And it was at this time I didn't know that. But they get to the point that says, I think I might be gay. It's a problem. It will be solved in the afterlife in this life. It's just going to cause me and everyone around me. Harm. Let's just get it. Get on with it. Let's just end it. Let's just move on. Let's just. Fine. We've got to go to 2.0. And that version, all my problems will be taken care of. Right. And that's what they're telling themselves and that's what they're hearing. And that's what they're doing, unfortunately, far too often. And the church will come out and say, defend yourself with muskets. And I'm like, hmm, mosque. It sounds like an attack. And by the way, the people you're defending yourself against, they're not attacking you. They want you to leave them the fuck alone.
Pierre [02:34:26] Yeah.
Brian [02:34:26] So don't pick up your muskets and chase them down the street.
Pierre [02:34:29] Yeah.
Brian [02:34:30] Just stay on your own side of the street. They'll be fine. You'll be fine. And just those repeated messages that we just I couldn't not hear them in every training and every general conference, and they would double down on them. And I just knew someone and the pain that it was causing them. Every time someone like this and the people that I used to look up to and respect and admire and take notes on the all their conference talks. Yeah, I think they were so wise, were, are complete buffoons that are causing so much damage they should just shut up. And so that's kind of why I'm like, I can't be a part of this anymore. And then I started to realize, how many times was that my response? Right times when someone came to me that said, I think I might and I haven't had this specific example, but someone came to me and says, I think I might be gay. My response would have been, Are you reading your scriptures?
Pierre [02:35:27] Right, right. Oh, yeah, that's my favorite. Yeah.
Brian [02:35:30] How much of this am I pushing forward? Just by sitting up here on this stand? How many people sitting in the congregation need a hug and say, you just do what you need to do. You take care of yourself. Forget all this other stuff that we're doing up here. I would say instead of love your neighbor, the only commandment that would be greater than that and I just thought of this, the only commandment that would be greater than that isn't to love God, but love yourself. And God can take a walk. You'll figure it out. He'll be fine or she will be, or if they're there or whatever. But you need to love yourself and then love your neighbor because you can't love your neighbor unless you love yourself. You can't help others if you're not in a situation where you can help, right? You need to take care of yourself to help others. You take care of your family by taking care of yourself.
Pierre [02:36:20] Right?
Brian [02:36:20] Right, right.
Pierre [02:36:21] That market's so messed.
Brian [02:36:23] Yeah. And from that moment on, everything I heard was, like, it was just an obvious loud noise gunshot right next to my head. The whole time that I'm just hearing this, every time they sit there and they're trying to defend themselves against people who aren't attacking them, who just want to be left alone and be allowed to do, you know, live like everyone else gets to live.
Pierre [02:36:44] But my question.
Brian [02:36:44] Is a little bit.
Pierre [02:36:46] When is God going to change his mind about gay people? Because, you know, it's going to have to come socially. The church is going to be so pressured just like they did. And I'll say it wasn't doctrine, just like they do with the blacks. Yeah, that was never doctrine. Yeah. Have you read the first presidency's statements and all the other stuff that said it was doctrine, right?
Brian [02:37:03] Not only that several of your profits were just flat out racist and. Worst people. Yeah, I mean, not their General Conference talk, but talk about what they were saying in politics at the time.
Pierre [02:37:15] Right. Right.
Brian [02:37:16] That is awful.
Pierre [02:37:17] That was actually one of the things that early on that really got me, as in the essays, the little link where you can click over and read Brigham Young's political speech. Oh. It written in his own handwriting. Who that was? That was a shock to the system.
Brian [02:37:33] Where does love your neighbor fit in with that?
Pierre [02:37:36] Right.
Brian [02:37:36] Right. And didn't we talk about on the road to the Maria that we passed by a beggar who was in need? We even crossed the road where we pat ourselves on the back for cross on the road. Mm hmm. Yeah. We don't do that anymore. Mm. We talk about it. We feel like it. We don't. Yeah. Yeah. Just that part got to be too much. So I was out, like, out, out, like, probably a year or more when I even first looked at the CES letter. Really? Yeah. And it was like, yeah, I'd like to say that I'm surprised. It's actually it's quite lengthy and quite detailed. Right. Right. And most of that stuff, it's like, yeah, I, but I didn't have the approach that I would have had earlier, which would have been, if this is true, we would have heard about it in, in our lessons. I mean, we study the lives of the prophets, right? We study all the lives of the prophets. We see the history of the church. We study the scriptures. We study the parts that we put in the lesson plan.
Pierre [02:38:33] Right. That's correct.
Brian [02:38:35] And we do study that a lot. We do study that a lot. A lot. But yes, he was married to a couple of 14-year-olds. Yeah. Okay though. Mhm. And that's why Emma didn't come west and that's why they were driven out of. I could see some people getting upset and wanted to drive out of the state for that and pass a man named Moses. Bring that to me on a platter. I could see that.
Pierre [02:38:56] I could see that too.
Brian [02:38:58] But what were thinking about.
Pierre [02:39:00] That's really interesting to me and not at all surprising that those initial issues are what made you pass. Just knowing you and I know it's been a minute. Yeah, since were actually physically together, but I'm a very feelings oriented person. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember what it felt like hanging out with you. And like I said, it's been a minute. Those things stay with me. And you're a solid dude, and I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for staying true to that solid ness that's inside of you. And it took a little bit to come all the way up. But once it did, I'm proud of you for letting it be there and sitting with it long enough to understand it. And I'm proud of you for being vocal about it. And I'm proud of you for standing up defending the defenseless and help the helping the people that really need it. I'm proud of you. And I'm proud you're my friend. I'm proud that were on a mission together in Japan. Thanks. I mean, that was a cool time. It was a good time. I felt like our approach to missionary work is in its own way reflective of who we are now.
Brian [02:40:08] I think so. I do not feel like either one of us were disingenuous to back then. No, I think were playing the script that we had at the time as our best self.
Pierre [02:40:20] Yeah.
Brian [02:40:20] And I think as we realized that we don't necessarily believe in that script or that script was wrong, we've, we've had that the courage to change it.
Pierre [02:40:28] Do you remember when you got in trouble for parking president Sakis car perpendicular anyway?
Brian [02:40:32] Yeah, that's what took a minute.
Pierre [02:40:34] Oh, that took a while.
Brian [02:40:35] Yeah. The world's first hundred and seven point turn, I think.
Pierre [02:40:39] He was not as entertained as were.
Brian [02:40:41] Just talked about the fact that the missionary program is plummeting. Really? Yeah. Well, how else do you come out again and say you don't have agency? Yeah, you're 18 year old, you go on a mission. You gave up your agency eight when you were eight years old and you chose to be baptized.
Pierre [02:41:01] That one blew my mind. Like really blew my mind.
Brian [02:41:06] What did you choose when you were eight years old? I wasn't allowed to choose what I ate for dinner when I was.
Pierre [02:41:10] No, no, no, not at all.
Brian [02:41:14] Not even on my special day. I didn't graze what we had for dinner. Right. Well, what makes you think that I chose to go on a mission in 15 years when I'm.
Pierre [02:41:24] Yeah, when blew my mind. That was a good one.
Brian [02:41:26] And then you're coming back. And if you're 21 and you're still not married, you're a menace to society. So. RUSH And marriage, kids boom, boom, boom. Yeah, and I actually.
Pierre [02:41:34] System. System.
Brian [02:41:35] Yeah. And I actually had a friend who was just talking about the high risks in relationships and they're like, how do you get married before your brain to fully develops? How do you get married when you've only known someone for six months? Right. How do you get married when you have no sexual intimacy and you have no idea what this person is like in bed? Not that these are all deal breakers, or we would judge people for doing all three of them, but they are all high risk category behaviors.
Pierre [02:42:02] Right? Right.
Brian [02:42:04] And the first three months you're dating someone, it's all chemicals.
Pierre [02:42:08] Yeah. Chemicals and the very best face they can put forward. Yes. You're not being themselves.
Brian [02:42:14] Yeah. So, yeah. So that was an interesting podcast. She got into all the data in there. That's what that was her expertise.
Pierre [02:42:19] Really cool. Really, really cool. Where did you and her religiously or spiritually, Bill? Where are you from doing? Yeah.
Brian [02:42:26] A work in progress. One of the things that I've learned and especially through these podcasts, from talking to a lot of people, is I hold my beliefs and my values much more loosely.
Pierre [02:42:35] Um.
Brian [02:42:37] I, I think I, right now, I think I'm more agnostic, atheist. I don't, I don't believe that there's an afterlife in the sense that I used to believe it in. I think I'm much closer to the fact that if I get eaten by a bear, there are parts of me that will reorganize and reform somewhere else in the cosmos. Whether my intelligence or my memories go with it, I don't know. But I have much more. I don't know. I have a much stronger, strong I guess I'm a little bit closer to believing that than saying my soul and my body will be reignited on another plane of existence and we'll get to live with all the other good people that never smoked a cigar and never have cigar smoke blown at us. Yes. Because that'll be heaven. Yeah, I don't I. How about you. Yeah.
Pierre [02:43:32] I'm in a place where I do believe there is some kind of God like entity power or something greater, bigger than me. I do believe that because of my experience with hypnosis, because I do a lot of timeline therapy work with people and timeline therapy work is very, very Reader's Digest condensed version of how it works is you're basically using your unconscious mind to take you back to a point in time that's relevant to a particular problem, to find a root cause scenario for that problem so we can deal with it back there. And 99% of the time, if we can deal with it back there as they travel back across their timeline, back to now, by the time they get back to now, the problem goes away with it. Yeah, pretty powerful. Really cool. And since we're using the unconscious mind to guide us back to where that root problem, that root causes, it is not uncommon to go back to the womb or to go back to past lives, either geologically or to actual past lives. Yeah. And, you know, there's no way to corroborate past lives, but there are ways to corroborate genealogical lines and there are absolutely ways to corroborate experience people have had in the womb. And I've had clients sit in my chair who have their unconscious mind, has guided them back to something that they experienced while in the womb, who have talked to their moms and said, hey, something weird happened in hypnosis today and I feel like I remember this while I was in the womb and for their mom to drop whatever they were holding and say, how did you know that? Because that's something I went through while I was pregnant with you and have it actually corroborate it. Yeah. So. So if the unconscious mind can take someone back to the womb, who am I to say that it can't take them back to past lives or take them back ancestrally?
Brian [02:45:20] Right.
Pierre [02:45:20] And if it can, then past lives is the thing. And if past lives is a thing, then wouldn't that also be a thing in the future? Meaning this could be a past life at some point down the road, right? So I'm like you. I my mind is so open now and I'm, I'm open to at least explore the possibilities of these things, whereas I wouldn't have been before. I would know if there's a free existence. There's nothing over here. We're going to go to the right world and then we're going to want to go on.
Brian [02:45:48] Goes over here and recode.
Pierre [02:45:50] Yes, exactly, exactly. Exactly. And it's, it's fun. This is such a it's so much more fun.
Brian [02:45:56] It really is these things. It really is. Because I've heard a lot of experiences of a multigenerational trauma. And Gaby has says even in therapy, they teach that anything that happened while you were in utero happened to you. If it happened, if your parents were under stressful conditions before you were born, you're born with that stress. They've proven that in mice.
Pierre [02:46:17] Yeah.
Brian [02:46:18] That they can learn something while they're in the womb, that they have an affinity for or a disgust for after they're born, even though they know anything about them. Do that with mice. We can do that with us. Right? Powerful. And then I've heard I read a little bit about your wife's experience with ayahuasca that she posted and she said she experienced her mother and her daughter. And I've heard a lot of those things from a bunch of different people, including the person I was just talking about from Russia, she said. But it's this multigenerational trauma. She felt all women, she felt all this and she felt all of this trauma and everything else. And I think that's there. But I think that kind of I kind of align that to my experience of being eaten by a bear. It's like I will eventually become part of something else in that bear experience will be part of who I was for a minute. Just like this will be part of my experience of who I am right now. Mm hmm. Will there be a perfected state where I'm reunited with? I don't know. But I think there's a reason that humans have this innate sense that there's something there.
Pierre [02:47:22] I do, too.
Brian [02:47:23] Right. There's a reason we all kind of feel. And it's not just, oh, it would be nice or oh, it would be convenient. No, what I mean, it is that everything you wrote in that book were actually the exact way. It turns out that would be conveying.
Pierre [02:47:34] That would be convenient.
Brian [02:47:35] Right. But the fact that there's something there that we don't understand or that we and that we're already a part of and we've been a part of. Mm hmm. Yeah, that seems to make sense. And there's some evidence to support that.
Pierre [02:47:46] What I've thought about. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. One of the things I've thought about with if there are past lives and, you know, I'm an accumulation either of my own past lives or if the other people became me or whatever, however it works, I don't know. Right. Why? Why don't I remember it? Why can't I remember it? And kind of a place I've come is everybody has their own unique personality, right? Yeah. What if that personality is just the highest chunk concept construct of a group of memories that just come together? And a personality and a personality really is a form of memory. Yeah, that's kind of where I've come with thinking about that. And as far as believing, you know, is there a God in my own God of my own universe, you know, and the kind of if the universe is forever expanding in this infinite, no matter who you are, you're the center of your own universe. That's that kind of goes with it. Does that mean I'm the God of my universe? Well, know. In a way, yes, in a way. Maybe not. Yes, certainly in a way, yes. There's a lot there's a lot to think about and play with.
Brian [02:48:44] Yes. You and I kind of go along the lines of, well, you're your God of your own universe, depending on how you define your universe.
Pierre [02:48:49] Right.
Brian [02:48:50] Right. So but I don't go there. I don't feel like I'm the God of my universe, but I feel like I'm closer to that than the God that I've been told was the God of my universe.
Pierre [02:48:59] Do you.
Brian [02:49:00] Pray? No.
Pierre [02:49:01] Yeah. Do you? Not in the same way. Okay. For sure. Really? More. It's. It's. It's equal parts. Really. Connecting with the inner part of me.
Brian [02:49:10] Okay.
Pierre [02:49:11] Love that. And then. And then allowing that to just expand in whatever way feels right in the moment beyond me. Those first two turning in, connecting deeply, and then just letting it expand out in whatever way is natural in that moment. And it takes a different form all the time, but it's not a bowed my head. Heavenly Father, give me a parking spot. It's not that.
Brian [02:49:32] You know, it's interesting, as you were just saying, that I was used I was seeing your visual before that you used for your client that said, I don't want to be poor. Right. But you go into your inner core and say, this is me. And then starting there, let me turn around and look out at possibilities. Right. Yeah.
Pierre [02:49:49] But then instead of like, this is what I want, this is what I need, it's like, turn in, find me. And then as I expand, I. I deeply contemplate the ways I all the power I have to make that happen. Yeah. And tangible things I can do and energetic things I can do to really make that happen. And I feel like it helps me align with humanity in the world and in everything that's out there. So I can be my most authentic me as well.
Brian [02:50:19] Yeah. And that kind of ties in with my inside out script that were talking about earlier.
Pierre [02:50:24] Yeah.
Brian [02:50:24] Who is the person that should be in that captain's chair? Who do I want there? Yeah. Who is that? Authentic? Me.
Pierre [02:50:30] Yeah.
Brian [02:50:31] And then what are all the pieces that don't belong anymore? I'm deconstructing those scripts. Yeah. Like, I know that's always been a part of me. And he sits in that captain's chair a lot. I don't like that guy. I don't want him around here anymore.
Pierre [02:50:42] Do you have a default emotion that you feel when you're your best self?
Brian [02:50:46] Love! Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. I have love for I can't coach a team and not have a lot of love for all of my players and their parents and the girls on the other team and the ones that are struggling and the ones that I just yeah, I just genuinely appreciate their existence and who they are and what their potential is and just want nothing but the best for them.
Pierre [02:51:08] And when you feel this love, where do you feel it?
Brian [02:51:11] In my chest. In my arms, mostly.
Pierre [02:51:13] Just in your arms? Yeah. Yeah. What does it feel like.
Brian [02:51:17] Though? I get a little bit of tingling in my head, but my chest and my arms are mostly like warmth and just, like, a little bit of energy. Like it. It did tingles a little bit, I guess, as well.
Pierre [02:51:30] Yeah. The tingle in your head and warmth and it goes a little bit in your chest, like. Can you feel it now?
Brian [02:51:35] Yeah, a little bit.
Pierre [02:51:36] Yeah.
Brian [02:51:37] So.
Pierre [02:51:37] Oh, good.
Brian [02:51:38] So one of the things I was going to ask you earlier is like one of the things that I have to look back for is I've had some truly spiritual experiences that I rested my testimony on for a long time and said that couldn't have happened if the church wasn't true, if God wasn't there, if whatever. And I haven't had a ton of those, but I've had some of those that at the time and for a long time, I could have only answered that was answer to my prayer and it was as clear as day. A as clear as can be. Mm hmm. I'm assuming you've had some of those. How do you explain those now?
Pierre [02:52:14] Mm hmm. I explain those by realizing and remembering and allowing myself to understand that I have felt those same things in other contexts.
Brian [02:52:26] Same thing for me. I feel those same things when that little girl for Inside Out gets picked up by her parents after having Pixar. Does that.
Pierre [02:52:35] Yeah.
Brian [02:52:36] Right.
Pierre [02:52:36] American Idol does it for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Brian [02:52:40] Right. I mean.
Pierre [02:52:41] Yeah. Because those are.
Brian [02:52:43] Real. Those are human emotions. Yeah. And the the church, any religion, they don't get to hijack that and tell.
Pierre [02:52:52] Me they wanted to hijack it. They want to own it.
Brian [02:52:55] Yes. And tell me that means that. And for a long time, I believed that. But once I had that realization, it was like I feel the spirit more in a Pixar movie. Yeah. Than I felt in church. And I like the music. And it's picked. It's chosen well, but oh, man, I don't know if you have many triggers that just like immediately just get your anger up or whatever or put you on red alert. But music has done that for me, for church. I used to love the music, especially the primary songs. Yeah, I listen to some of those songs now. They are such a trigger, and if I listen to the words, I almost get.
Pierre [02:53:34] Sick brainwashing them.
Brian [02:53:36] It is. I mean, you could replace follow the Prophet with follow Hitler. And I wouldn't get a more visceral response with the second one than I got with the first one. Right. And yet clearly people would say, well, that's brainwashing if you you replace Hitler with prophet in every one of those. And tell me what you think. Yeah, it is such a trigger. And to hear how often and how much comfort and love and joy and peace and hope that brought to me. And I'm like, I feel a little hijacked.
Pierre [02:54:08] Absolutely. Absolutely. Elevation, emotion. Have you heard that expression before? Yeah. Yeah. It's so much of it is all the emotion when you can. Well, when were on our missions together in the missionary guide, there's a whole section on. Yes. Helping others. You'll recognize the spirit. Yeah. You're going to feel the feeling and it's going to mean this dude that is scandalous to do that to someone, to tell them they're going to feel something, create the situation where they do, and then label what it means to them.
Brian [02:54:38] Yeah. And tell them what they should do to act on it.
Pierre [02:54:41] That's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah, absolutely terrible. Yeah.
Brian [02:54:45] It's a communal terrorism actually, when you think about it.
Pierre [02:54:48] It is it is in hypnosis. I mean, we get so deep with people where they're inside themselves and they're accessing these thoughts and feelings. Part of that, the ethics of it is to not install. Yeah, not install meaning, not install labels, not install actions. They should do not install interpretations. It all comes from the client and not from me. So when I'm training people, that is something I really, really, really drive home so, so hard. But it's the same thing that the church uses. You don't create this wonderful thing. They'll tell you how you're going to feel and then you feel it. And then they tell you they get to decide what it means to you. And bullshit. That's part of what pissed me off as part of what broke my self. Yeah.
Brian [02:55:29] And well, when you realize those systems that you're so careful to not abuse or install anything that's coming from you, it's all them. You realize those exact systems are being played like a freakin banjo by the jury. I mean, they play it exactly every time they want it, and it's the Pied Piper. And you realize that is exactly that's the exact playbook of what I'm trying to avoid. They're running it. They're calling that play every day, all the time. And every program at every calling at every level. Mm hmm. Yeah. You got to throw a flag on that one, right?
Pierre [02:56:04] And you got to. I've never thought about it before, but you have to wonder if there's an addiction element to it. You get addicted to that feeling. There's and addiction element for people who are active members of the church to get addicted to feeling what they think is the spirit, you know, addicted to the warm fuzzies, get addicted to the love. They get addicted. It's all they're doing it right. And that's what they're going to be and that's what it means. I feel like I've never thought about it before, but I think there has to be some dependance an addiction element going on there.
Brian [02:56:31] Yeah, it kind of begs to differ, too. Is it is it more intellectual brainwashing or is it more emotional hijacking?
Pierre [02:56:38] Emotional aspect is an aspect of both, but emotional hijacking for sure.
Brian [02:56:43] Yeah. Everything good comes from us. Everything bad comes from. Yeah.
Pierre [02:56:47] Yeah.
Brian [02:56:47] And what happens when you go over there? Oh, the worst that the world comes to an end.
Pierre [02:56:52] I got to tell you, since I left the church, my revenue and my personal business, I'm going to I haven't done the math. My revenue and my personal business has conservatively tripled. And I'm going into negotiations. Next month with a company to do executive coaching and other things for them that has the potential to add another triple to that. Wow. I've, I've never felt as free and happy by my relationships with my kids or better my relationships. My relationship with my wife is better. My relationship with myself is better. I'm not just guilting myself and shaming myself and regretting myself to death. I can't think of any aspect of my life that hasn't improved since stepping away. Well, not one.
Brian [02:57:41] This is why I keep the recording on, because that part has to go in the podcast.
Pierre [02:57:44] There you go. Yeah. I can't think of a single aspect. And if I could have seen the future and seen this moment a year ago, I would have screamed and hollered and done everything I could to prevent me from leaving the church, because I wouldn't have been able to believe the words that were coming out of my own mouth.
Brian [02:58:02] No, you can't. That's not possible. And now you also know that T is a gateway drug.
Pierre [02:58:08] Yes, it's true. Very true. You know what else might be as ayahuasca?
Brian [02:58:14] It sounded like your wife didn't have a great experience with.
Pierre [02:58:17] You know, we had a fantasy. Did you try it, too? Oh, absolutely. Look, I know we've been talking for 5 hours. I know, right? Yeah.
Brian [02:58:27] This is going to be an editing nightmare. This could be the hardest thing I've ever had to edit and bizarre.
Pierre [02:58:31] Yeah.
Brian [02:58:32] But it's been great.
Pierre [02:58:33] Yeah, it's been fun. It's been really. It's. It's enriched my life. This. This conversation as it rest of my life. So I thank you for. Yeah, for inviting me on. I'm so glad we reconnected.
Brian [02:58:44] So I did have one more question for you.
Pierre [02:58:47] Oh, yeah.
Brian [02:58:48] What are your thoughts on having your records removed?
Pierre [02:58:52] That's an interesting question. If I feel like I would run out and do it as fast as I could if my mom wasn't still alive. But I know she's like, if she got on her little ancestry.com one day and saw that I wasn't a member of the church, I think it would break her heart. She's, you know, getting ready to turn 84. And my dad passed away in 2012, and I don't know what it would do to her. Yeah. So I worry about it a little bit there.
Brian [02:59:14] Yeah.
Pierre [02:59:16] One of my best buddies just got excommunicated last week. Kind of out of nowhere, really. He hadn't. He had stepped away from the church. He was vocal about it, but and I don't know yet the context of his actions. He just left me a message on it yesterday. And we had a very brief conversation last night because he and I were going in two different directions. So I don't yet know how he feels about it. All right. My brother fantastic day. Hello. Me too, man. I know it went longer than you probably planned on.
Brian [02:59:41] No, this is great.
Pierre [02:59:42] I appreciate it.
Brian [02:59:44] Thank you for listening to strangers. You know, if you're enjoying our conversations, please share us with a friend. Continue the conversation by sharing and liking on Facebook and social media, or for exclusive content and detailed show notes, visit our website at www.StrangersYouKnowPodcast.com where you can subscribe to our newsletter or make a donation to support the show. Thank you for your support.
