16. Stop Telling Yourself the Negative Stories - Kurt Liechty

Kurt Liechty is a former Air Force officer. He served 5 years active duty including a deployment to Afghanistan. After that he became a police officer for a short time before his current job at dōTERRA, the essential oil company. He has a bachelors degree in behavioral science and a masters degree in business administration. Kurt is married with six children, loves reading, and is big into fitness. 

Find Kurt on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kurt.liechty

Listen to the full song here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BKcOoZOw5Y0

A lot of times people think of war in Afghanistan with just the images of violence and killing. But the things that really affected me were the things that were happening to us, children and women that are just undescribable. And so when I came back, there was a long time where I was like, nothing matters. What I'm doing is not important. There's little kids over there that are held in the back of the police station as sex slaves, there's girls that are being stoned. There's women that are being gunned down in the streets because they dare to get a job and sell their own wares that they're making. And I'm here at home picking the best cereal for my kids. And I'm going to work and typing on this brand new for a while. I just felt like nothing mattered for those of you who are joining us here on the Simply Overcoming Podcast. Thank you for coming back. We are continuing to grow every single episode that goes out, and I'm humbled to see all these listeners coming in to listen to our podcast, and we hope that we can add value to your life. Today's guest is Kurt. How do you pronounce your last name? The strange one. Lick T people get it wrong all the time comes from the country of Lichtenstein, very small European country. All right. So Kurt Lickey is a former Air Force officer. He served five years active duty, including a deployment to Afghanistan. After that, he was a police officer for a short time, and now he works with doTERRA, the Essential oil Company. He has a bachelor's degree in behavioral science and a master's degree in business administration. Kurt, you're married. You have six children. And I see here that you love reading, which I appreciate that about you. And I know that you love health as well. I have to ask you, have you heard of David Goggins? Man, I just got done listening to his book, the Audiobook. I usually prefer text. I like to read because I love words, but the audiobook is so amazing because he breaks down each chapter afterwards with the reader and analyzes and gives you more details. Loved it. I'm glad that you're up on that, too. Absolutely. Loved that book. I've only read it once, but I'd like to go through it again. It's such a powerful book. That's good stuff. I'm talking about simply overcoming. Man, that dude has overcome some stuff. Yeah, no joke. So where are you calling me from? I'm sitting in my car. Actually, I wanted to get home to my home office. I just got done with work, little late than I wanted to. And like, Goggins, I don't like to make excuses for missing a workout, so I had to squeeze in a workout real quick before I jumped on here. So I'm just getting out of the gym, sitting in my car before going on my way home. That's amazing. So you live in Utah, right? I do. Yes. Where in Utah are you at? Maybe 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City. Okay. Are you following the Iron Cowboy at all? I've never heard of the Iron Cowboy. Have you never heard of the Iron Cowboy? Okay. Educate me. So there's a documentary on Amazon called The Iron Cowboy back in 2015. This guy did 50 Iron Man in 50 days and 50 States. So he traveled from state to state, and every single day he did another Iron Man. He started in Hawaii, obviously, for logistical reasons. You'd want to start there? He is now doing 100 Iron Man in 100 days. And I think he's about 30 minutes out of Salt Lake City, and he's on Iron Man 47 today. That sounds very Goggins. Like, yeah, he enjoys the suffer. Oh, my goodness. I don't even know how your body can take that much abuse, and there needs to be some recovery time in there. It blows me away. And really, what made him he's doing it to raise money for? I believe it's underground railroad, similar to what doTERRA lines with operational railroad is here in Utah, actually. So I hope he stops here to meet with them, Tim Ballard and the rest of his crew. Yeah, I think that's what he's raising money for. And I don't know, they've raised a couple of $100,000 so far. But the reason why he wanted to do the 100 is because after he finished the 50, he noticed that one of his fastest times was his last Iron Man that he did the 50th Iron Man. He was getting faster because his body got so used to healing in such a short amount of time. And we're talking like he's getting maybe 4 hours of sleep per night with the 50. Now he's getting more like 7 hours per night, but it's just unbelievable. I don't know. He's curious to see how far he can push it. He's in his late 40s. I believe your body can do so much more than you think you can do. We're just capable of way more than we ever accomplished. And like God has talked about. And I'm sure this guy, too, your body is hurting. It's telling you I want to stop here, but that's not your limit. That's just saying I'm uncomfortable. Please don't push me further. But there is way further than you can go. So I know you have experienced a lot in your life, Kurt, and you have a heart for people who struggle with mental health, especially veterans. Is that correct? Yes. Absolutely. Okay. I guess let's start with this. I'm curious. What was your life like growing up? How did the things in your early life affect your decisions in life as an adult? Honey, and this is probably the first tip I'd give someone. If they're trying to overcome or maintain a positive outlook in life, you can tell yourself any story about growing up so growing up, I had a good childhood. I had parents who loved each other and taught me, showed me a good example of what a loving family is supposed to be like. They paid for me to take piano lessons, put me in sports. I had six siblings that we got along great. I had amazing experience of traveling the globe with. My father was in the military. I was able to go to College, got a four ride scholarship to the Air Force. They paid for my master's degree also. And they'll get married. I have six kids, four plus. We foster adopted two. So we say six. So if you're telling that story, my life's been perfect. My life has been fabulous. I'm great. But all of us could tell another story if you wanted to. And so often I've done this in my life, and it's not healthy. So tip one. Don't do what I'm about to do. When I was young, I broke my femur bone. And the day after I got out of the cast, I broke my other femur bone. Female bones are hard to break. I don't know anybody that's ever broken the FEMA bone. I broke both of them. And the second one, the day after I got out of the body, the body cast from your chest to your toe. Unbelievable. I know. Then I broke my knee, and then I got crazy rashes every summer. Rashes that would shut my face down and close my eyes and bleed and pus. I felt like freaking job. Like everything bad was happening to me. I was getting beat up in school. I woke up a few times after fights, having my coat and my shoes stolen. In high school, I had three friends that were murdered. They were shot and killed. And then two more after that. So five close friends that were killed. I can go on and on. And that's the story you want to tell yourself. If you want to stay depressed, we could all build a story like that. It's just not helpful. So where in the world did you grow up? That you had five friends that were killed? As I said, my father was military. We moved all over the place. We ended up in North Chicago for high school. So my junior and senior year were there. North Chicago was pretty rough town. There was a military interest processing station just outside of North Chicago, where my dad was trying to recruit people to join the military. Good place for recruiting. It was very rough school. I was one of just a handful of white people there. They called me Ritz because I was a cracker. And my brother saw team, and we got in fights all the time. We would fight a lot. There were a lot of gang violence there, and we lost. I lost two of the first people to really befriend me and let me sit at their lunch table and we got rap battles, and we played basketball together. They were killed. They were shot down and stuffed in a truck and missing for a week. And we finally found their bodies. And it's tragic. And then another friend on my basketball team was killed also just before graduation, got into a fight and was shot and killed. And that's a tragic stage of life to have it. And so abruptly like that, man, what does that do to a young person who is there seeing all of this take place? What did this do to you? Your brain is forming so quickly at that time. Your synapses are connecting, and it's shaping your view of the world. I got very quick to be defensive and be on guard and created this mentality that I always got to wash my back. And people are bad. Someone is out to hurt me, and I have to react quickly. And so I developed very aggressive, very responsive attitude quickly and certainly is not healthy. And not everyone growing up there does that. Some of my best friends out of Chicago are very happy, positive people. We can go through the same experience and have different reactions. But that was my reaction. That's how I responded to that. And it took a lot of undoing a lot of mental work to undo that kind of psychological processing. So you can sort of relate to the mindset of somebody who lives in a rough environment like that. Yeah. I was there for two years, and I was tempted by ganglife sometimes or crime, or it ended up being fun to fight. I enjoyed fighting. I would look to go pick fights with people. And yeah. So if you're growing up there your entire life, I can certainly see how someone would be, especially if they come from a broken home. I had two parents that would that love each other. And it's very stable home. So if you don't have that and you're growing up in this kind of chaotic environment, I can see it would be very attractive, very appealing to get into some of those bad habits which are dead ends. They're not going to lead anywhere good. But I can see the appeal I see from you, Kurt, that you're a true believer in cultivating a positive mindset, but it hasn't always been that way. I'm assuming. Yeah, you're right. I've shared with you some of my thoughts and some of my darker moments. I'm curious, is this something that built up over your lifetime, or was there a point in your life where this darkness came over you? I've tried to identify that. I'm not sure. I remember as a kid feeling homesick at home a lot, and I never understood that in my living room at home on a Sunday when things are good. I'm like, man, I'm Super homesick. I don't understand that feeling. So I think it was always there. I don't know why it developed or how it developed similar to what you said. I listened to your story, and you don't know why it came where these feelings come from, but they got worse, especially as I told myself the second story. I was telling you all the negative things in my life. Man, I have good reason to be upset and depressed and sad and keep telling you that story. And so you lived there for a long time. Then it becomes a habit. And then, yeah, I don't know. I think it was always there. But if you feed it, it gets worse. And there's been some times where I've had really dark, frustrating, sad moments. I'm sure we all do. But like, extreme for me. Talk to me about the Air Force. Kurt, what was that like for you? I know you had a tour in Afghanistan. I'm open to any stories that you may have. Well, it was a long time ago. Now I feel like sometimes it has been talking about some of those events. 2012 December 2012 I got out so it was just over eight years ago, but I love talking about it because it was so important to me and my family's, military. Both my grandparents were pilots. My father was in the Air Force. My brothers are in the Air Force, so I joined the Air Force. Also, you mentioned Afghanistan. I deployed with my dad to Afghanistan. We bumped together for six months while I was over there. So that's a cool story. I mean, he was just getting out. He was Lieutenant Colonel was almost done. He had already deployed to war before Persian Gulf war. And we deployed at the same time. And Afghanistan is ugly, man. North, Chicago Times 1000 It's just hell over there. It was considered a combat deployment. I got a combat ribbon from being there. I wasn't a warrior like you see on the movies, though. People kicking down doors or shooting the Taliban every day. But you can't avoid experiencing that. If you go outside the wire, you leave your base, which we did frequently. You're going to experience that roadside bombs, young kids on the street we interact with all the time, would be abused and whipped and killed and molested and kidnapped by the Afghan police. And I won't even describe the Ugliness. It's just every kind of Ugliness that you can think of. A lot of times people think of war in Afghanistan with just the images of violence and killing. But the things that really affected me were the things that were happening to children and women that were just undescribable. I don't want to traumatize the audience, but I'm happy to get into any details you want, but they really haunted me after I got back. It's just an everyday life there. And that's the saddest thing. I was there for a short time, but they're experiencing that their whole lives. And so when I came back, there was a long time where I was like, nothing matters. What I'm doing is not important. There's little kids over there that are held in the back of the police station as sex slaves. There's girls that are being stoned. There's women that are being gunned down in the streets because they dared to get a job and sell their own wares that they're making. And I'm here at home picking the best cereal for my kids. And I'm going to work and typing on this brand new for a while. I just felt like nothing mattered. And I was just thinking about what mattered most, these young children and these girls. And yeah, it was difficult to process. It still is. Sometimes it's devastating. And I can't even assume to imagine what seeing those type of things are like. The closest thing that I've ever come to is I've spent collectively about a year in India over the past four years and just seeing the poverty level. There not even what you're talking about, but just seeing the poverty level and brother and sister having a child together, and this child is messed up, and they just leave this child out to die in front of their house. And the child is just covered in flies. And it really puts it into perspective. What are we doing here? What are we doing? Like, why am I not engaged in that? That's what I should be doing. That kid has no chance at life. I've got everything here. So it's a struggle to know where your place is and how much you need to get involved and what you should be doing. And you don't want to disconnect from those things. Yeah, at some point, you're powerless to change that. So you do need to disconnect. But you don't want to disconnect. It's a balance. It's a struggle. Do you feel that people who are deployed to Afghanistan and they come back is this one of the things that drives people veterans to struggle with mental health problems and depression is seeing that other side of the world? Yes, I'd say it's threefold. Number one in our training, especially for the warriors, the Marines, the infantry. You're almost trained to lose your soul to go over there. I've got a cousin, Maureen, and he said that the goal is to take your soul away so you can go over there and do your work. And already that's not healthy. So that's already contributing to the issue. Then you go over there and you see these things, and if you haven't lost your soul completely, you're going to be affected by it. Then you come back and you're traumatized with what you've seen. And so many veterans get out to distance themselves from the trauma. They don't want to experience that again, or they can't continue to do their job because it's a reminder of what they've gone through. But then they're missionless. Then they don't have an objective. Then they're purposeless. And to me, that's worse. That's the worst thing, because at least you think you can get away from the trauma, and that's going to make you better. But at least you had a mission that was important. When you were over there, you were doing something that was ugly, but you were riding the world of evil. You were getting rid of these evil men, these Taliban, these evil people that were just bent on just making the world hell. So you had an important mission. You were helping and being traumatized. But when you take that away, your mission, you still are living with your trauma. But now you don't have a mission, and that's where they get you. And I think that is one of the major factors. By 22 veterans commit suicide every day. You're trained to follow orders every single day is an objective. Everything that you do is an objective. And then you get out of the military. And there seems to be no purpose in life, no purpose for your life. Your purpose is over. Well said. I think the greatest psychological necessity we all have is a mission, a purpose, an objective. Whatever word you want to use, we need a good cause to be engaged in and sometimes not even a good cause. We just need a cause. We need something to wrap our lives up in and to give us direction. If you don't have that, you're hurting. Kurt. Do you use your degrees and your experience in life to help other veterans? I would like to do more for veterans. I don't do a lot. I connect with them whenever I can. I'm aware of them. I look for them online and in my community. I don't know if I focus so much on investors, just empathizing connecting with people. Anyone who I identified is struggling with depression or has gone through trauma, even if it's not warlike trauma, PTSD from being abused or raped or from your childhood. I love connecting with those people and let them know I feel you. I've experienced a lot of what you've experienced. What you're feeling is normal. It's okay. You're not crazy, but you can still have a good life. You're still wonderful. You're still valuable and worthy. And let's get through this. So I do try to use my psychology degree, a behavioral science degree and my experience to help those people. It's one of the missions that I feel like I have now, reaching out to people and connecting and trying to help them not live in that bad place that I've been in. I want to take it back to your childhood briefly, because I've never heard somebody explain it the way that you did that you felt homesick even when you were home. But that is just so accurate to the feelings that you can deal with. Just feeling displaced. Society is not meant for you. Like, maybe the world was never meant for you. Yeah. People talk about suicide is a selfish act and my grandpa committed suicide. And a lot of my relatives say selfish act or other. My cousin committed suicide. My aunt committed suicide. I've got friends that have committed suicide. I had a really close friend in College. It's affected me a lot. It's been around me a lot, and a lot of people will talk about that as a selfish act. How dare they look at all the people they hurt, man, they're so selfish. How could they have done that when you're in that space, you actually think you're doing the world of favor. You've analyzed it and you figured this is the best thing. I'm only contributing harm and hurt to the world. I'm not adding value and I'm being hurt. I can escape my own hurt and actually do a favor to the world. You think you convince yourself that this isn't selfish at all? In fact, this is selfless. This is the nicest thing you can do for the world right now. Have you ever. I mean, I know you've struggled with depression. Can you talk to me a little bit about? Was there a specific turning point in your life where you realize that you really needed to change your mindset in order to survive? You needed to change the way that you thought. I don't know if there was a certain point. And I listened to your story. Also, your story is fast. It's fun to listen to. And there was something you said. It was another episode. You had a podcast where he said after that moment and God was speaking to you, he gave you a sign. I won't spoil it for your listeners who haven't read it. But you said after that one. I'd love to say from then on, I never did anything wrong. And life was perfect. And we moved forward. You'd like to think that's what you do. So I didn't have a moment like that either. Was like, okay, this is it. I need to think differently now. I'm cured now. Moving on. I think it's just growth and life and maturity. And as you learn things, you connect things, okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. I can apply that. I can do this better. And it's just the process. But there's still days that I get depressed. There's still days where I picture killing myself. It still happens. But I'm not in that space that I used to be in it's. Still, there something that you're probably going to live with for the rest of your life. You're experiencing this for people who don't understand depression because they haven't struggled with it. It is something that you will most likely live with the rest of your life. But how you deal with those dark thoughts? How you move past those dark thoughts? That's a completely different story. And I love the idea of using fitness and getting out and moving your body as a way to help change your mindset. Talk to me a little bit about fitness and how fitness has impacted your life. Man critical so important a connecting comment to that still connected to our last part, though. I don't like this idea that someone's going to come to save you or you're going to be rescued. There was a Broadway that came out recently. It was a song that was so beautiful. You will be found. You're going to come and be found. And I tell people, my friends are struggling with depression. Nobody's coming for you. You're not going to be found. You will not be found. My friend who committed suicide was waiting for someone to come into her bedroom and save her and she thought someone would come save her at the last moment and she died. I had a relative that same thing waiting on his back porch for someone to come save him and he didn't. So you might be found. But I tell people, don't expect that no one's coming for you. You will not be found. And maybe that sounds bad, but you can find yourself. It's like the Frozen Two song. You are the one you've been waiting for all of your life. It's you and for me, the best way to find myself and to save myself and to comfort myself is fitness is to get out there and just kick butt and just be a little better and a little stronger and a little tougher every day. And as I get tougher physically, my mind is tougher, so I'm stronger. I just did 50 pushups. I can do 51. I'm that much stronger. I did 60 pushups. I did 75 push ups in a minute. I'm a beast. And if I can get through that mentally, I can get through anything. I have a friend. I work out with a female, a girlfriend. And she says that she's an ultra marathon rep. So she runs 50 miles like Goggles and this iron guy who's the name we're talking about, the Iron Cowboy. Iron Cowboy. She's a runner, and she's going through some difficult things in life. It's like stinky to make it like hell, yeah, I can make it. I run freaking 50 miles, so yeah, I can do anything I want to do. I just don't know if I want to do this thing. So once you make yourself so physically tough, you can make yourself mentally tough and then you can do whatever you want. So yeah, if you can push through and run a marathon or beat your last marathon time or do more pull ups in an hour than you used to. Or if you can increase your deadlift from £120 to £140. Now those are victories. Instead of telling yourself the negative story that I was telling before and adding up all those sad things that have happened to you, you might be right. You might have lots of reason to be depressed and sad. And maybe the world has totally disrespected you. And yeah, everybody's defecated on you. You're probably right. It's not helpful, though. So you want to add up the victories instead? All those little wins, man. I just kick butt and my pushes, man. I just totally had a great leg workout, man. I just ran my fastest mile and a half I've ever run in my life. You add up those victories and they translate. Then when you have a mentally challenging day or something emotionally difficult happens to you, you already know how to kick butt. So you do it again. Is it fair to say that the hardest thing to overcome, or rather, the most important thing to overcome in your life is control of your own mind? Yeah, I'd say so. Working out would do that for you. There's some days I don't want to work out and you make yourself do it anyway. You've never got to the end of the workout. Like, man, I really wish I hadn't worked out today. Even if you force yourself to go out when you come back, you're like, that was the best decision I made today. Yes. I mean, you're dragging yourself to your gym, you're laying up your shoes like, I do not want to do this. And most people quit, and then they go to bed knowing they're a quitter. That's great. Yeah, but if you can make up a shoot and do it anyway, then you finish and saying, I'm a Victor, man. I just did that. And I feel wonderful. Nobody's ever got to the end of the workout. I really wish I had not worked out today. I have an alter runner friend. He's bipolar, and he has struggled with this. It's almost taken him over the edge many times. He's been on medication for a really long time. And a few years ago, he was like, I cannot be on this medication anymore. And he started running and it was like a five K. A. Marathon. Hey, 100 miles. He stopped taking his medication, and it's been over two years of no medication. And he has leveled himself out through exercise. That's what's up. Like you said, it's the most important thing you can do. Not that medication doesn't have its place exactly for everyone to get off the medicine. But I've been on medication and it hasn't helped at all. It hasn't even made an impact. Exercise is great medicine. I grew up Mormon, and coffee is taboo in Mormonism, but exercise and coffee, to me has been the greatest thing. It's funny. It's a wonderful antidepressant, and we 16 million members of that faith can't participate in it, man, it's such a the Devil's juice is wonderful. In my life. I've started drinking coffee and I drink coffee regularly because my mind is all over the place. And the two things that bring my mind help me level it out is coffee and exercise. If I don't have one of those things, my head is everywhere and it's hard to pull all my thoughts into one spot. Why do you say that? I have a friend who got off his Add medicine with coffee. It does the same thing for him, but it doesn't have the bad side effects. I was never diagnosed with Add, but chances are that was the situation. And so, yeah, coffee has always helped me straighten my mind out the wonderful thing. It's a gift. Use it. So that's the next tip. If you don't drink coffee, try it out. It's probably a really good answer to the question for you. And the exercise, too. I've never got the runner's high that people talk about. I'm always like, mile four, five, six. I'm like, when the heck does that runner's high kick in? But the high I get is when I finished, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that was 15 seconds faster than I've run before. Or that was a mile longer than I've ever run before. The feeling of accomplishment is just wonderful. That's a psychological win. And even if you don't get that run aside, you know, you're doing something for me. I think for a lot of people, runner's high doesn't kick into, like, mile 30, I ain't doing 30. I have this strong desire to use fitness as a way to help people who struggle with mental health. And in 2019, I did this Everest challenge. I chose a local mountain in North Idaho, and we advertised it. It was on all the local news stations and the papers. And I climbed the equivalent elevation of Mt. Everest up and down, which was about 60 miles. So really steep. If you're on a slight incline, that would end up being 150 miles. So it has to be very steep. But it was slow. It took me 28 hours of no sleep just going. But it was amazing. People came out and joined me for reps, and we raised money for a local nonprofit that has a facility where people can go in and stay for up to 24 hours who are in a crisis. And they'll help you find the people that you need to talk to to help you through these challenges that you're dealing with. And after that event, something that the local hospital. I was talking to their marketing director, and she said, Erin, you have something here. You could do this every year. This could become a yearly event. And ever since then, I've wanted to do that. And the plan was to do another one this spring. But it is really hard to pull this all together on my own, because it's just been me working on this. What are your thoughts about something like this? I heard when you talked about that in that other episode first just totally impressed all around. Impressed with your stamina to be able to do that, your mental fortitude and your desire to help other people. I love it. So I'm totally impressed. I'd love to be involved with you on something like that. I think it's a beautiful cause. I don't know if I could do it, though. Well, what am I talking about? I can do it. I don't know if I want to. That's painful on your body. Yeah, for sure. And I think how we worked it for this spring June was when we were going to make this happen. The hardest thing is finding a location. You have to find a mountain that's steep enough that you can do it in, like, 60, 8100 miles instead of 200 miles. It has to be steep. And so finding the right location is difficult. But how we were going to do it this year is we wanted to invite people to come out there's different mountains, elevation of mountains. You choose what mountain you want to conquer and you conquer it. Whether that be a Mount Rainier, whether that be Mount Hood all the way down to only having to do three reps of the mountain instead of 16 reps, which is what I did. So people would be able to choose what they wanted to do. But the whole point is to get people out there, have them challenge themselves and accomplish that and feel good about that. I'm staring at mountain binogus right here, and I'm wondering if that would fit the bill. I almost guarantee there are a ton of great mountains over there that would fit the bill. Originally, my thought was I wanted to do this locally in North Idaho because that's where I grew up. The community knows me. And so I wanted to make it a community thing. But I'm starting to realize that maybe I need to broaden my Horizons, move this somewhere else, and try to kick this off and make this work and turn it into a yearly event to raise money for nonprofits. I am open to raising money for anything that has to do with mental health. That's just a passion of mine that I really want to continue to pursue. But anyway, we can talk about that further someday. I just was curious on your thoughts. I'm in. I would love to participate with you. I've just known you for a little bit, but I feel like we're good friends already, and I would love to collaborate with you. And on a cars like this, I'd love to participate. I'm in. You tell me what I got to do. And actually, I don't know if you want to leave this in either, but because I haven't told anyone this publicly, a couple of my friends know, but I'm opening a gym, a nonprofit gym in about a year. That's my goal. Next spring to summer, I'm opening a gym called Metafit. I've already got it registered. It's already got nonprofit status from the IRS. We are going to give free training to military members and police officers. So many military members struggle to stay fit to fight. And after I got out of the military, I was a police office for a short period of time. There was so little empty handed training, empty handed skills. We spent like, 140 hours on the range learning how to shoot somebody. But then when it comes down to it, if that's your only option, we don't want our local police officers with only one option. So we've got an MMA fighter. We've got some other good trainers. I've been doing a lot of boxing recently. I took my first fight recently, and I want to train police officers with some empty hand skills, keep them fit, keep them ready to fight and take care of our communities. So free to them, free training and the public, too. We're going to do a lot of interesting stuff. So nonprofit gym that I'm hoping to open next year. And man, especially if we're engaged in a cause like yours, where people are staying overnight and getting the treatment they need, or if we can connect them in the future to my gym and raise some funds for first responders and our local police officers. Any way we do it, I'm excited and I'm in. You tell me what I got to do. That sounds amazing. Wow. So is this the official announcement for the launch, or are we going to cut this out? You tell me the name is Metafit. So if you want to leave that in, I guess that's okay. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's leave it in. So now I have to do it now. I'm all in now. I can't back out. It's going to be a community, non profit gym. So, yeah, there's something else I would love to see what I could do to help you help you in this venture. This is amazing. Talk to me a little bit about your religious experience. Was it yesterday you sent me a song that you wrote that's on YouTube and I listened to it multiple times, really resonated with me. And this is what you said. And I'm just reading what you had. You said. The lyrics of this song are a compilation of real conversations I've had with God over the past several years, which I hope will allow someone to find their voice or help a family member realize what their loved one is going through. And so it's a powerful song. So talk to me a little bit about your religious experience and maybe talk about that song a little bit. Well, thanks for listening and caring. That's so valuable when someone actually cares about what someone else is going through. And I wanted people to understand what this is like. It's so hard to describe your deep depression when you're there and you don't want to either. It's embarrassing and you don't want to be a burden to anyone, and it's almost impossible for someone else to understand, too. So I was hoping that this would help people understand both people who are going through it and family members. So over the years I've been close to committing suicide several times. I've thought about it a lot. It's a thought that I don't like, but it pops up into my head all the time. I see myself killing myself or ending my life. And so on those days where it's very real. Growing up, I grew up in a very religious household. The Church Jesus Christ Latterday Saints is the official name of the Church. Mormon is the nickname, but they don't really like that nickname anymore. So I grew up that way and had a close relationship with God, and I would talk to God in these moments. I would reach out to him in prayer, like, I need you if I ever needed you. Now's the time you got to come save me, I need to know that you're there. Can you help me? And so I think the song is a little more eloquent than that. I put those thoughts, those words when I was in that moment, I would write them down sometimes. And then after a few years, I've had several of these thoughts and moments where I wrote down these prayers, and I put them all together to music to try to give the feeling of what that's like. I try to illustrate the people how dark a place that is. So I hope I got that message across in the song. I think you did. And you made it very clear that this isn't this is no longer an emotional place that you're in, but this is just you trying to explain. And I think you did a great job of explaining some of the feelings that somebody who struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts sort of where they're coming from in life. If you don't mind, I'd love to read a couple of bars that really resonated with me just to our listeners and listen. This is pretty dark, but this is kind of the reality of where people are in. And if you know somebody who struggles with depression know somebody who struggles with thoughts of suicide, maybe this can help you better understand where they're at. If people want to hear the full song, how can they hear that? Maybe you can give us permission to just play it on the podcast. Yeah. Feel free to play it. It's a channel I used to do called Mormon Discussion. If you just type in Mormon discussion and yeah, please forgive me. I actually said the name on my channel incorrectly. So it's Mormon discovery. My prayer. Somebody father, it's me again. Are you listening? Forgive me for talking too much, but the pain today someone's crippling. Why do I feel like this? I hate it. How come you can't just take it? You have the power to heal all this. If you were the one who created undo me, undo it all. Take it away from me now I'm hollow inside. I'm empty and hurting. I want to explain it, but I don't know how I feel like I'm homesick. But I'm home with my family and all of my things. The only one who can understand this is the one proven to being that's you. So listen. I heard that you answer all prayers. Ironic to me because I'm speaking to you. But all I hear back is my tears knocking. The shall be open. Seeking Ye shall find asking the shall be given you all answers coming. God's time. But, Dang, how much more time do you need? That's something I feel that's run out. Your indifference brings bitterness and is contained as torment and doubt see in my mind as a guardrail. I've examined the guests for years. The guardrail gets damaged every day, but it protects me. It appears it hurts me too. But there's no other way. So you've given no power to fear. At least you put the guardrail there because that cliff is something severe. But today, when I smashed against it, the guardrail just gave way. I'm off the cliff and it's scaring me because you ain't hit of a legislative pool. And right now I'm at six. Answer me. I said, answer me. I don't think I can lose all my clip. You said you'd always be there for me. But you're not. I'm set for yelling at heaven. But my father never forgot. Give me something no more run than you turn off all my suffering. If you don't, then I will. Two more pounds. Then this will pre. Take the invasion. Your ways are higher than mine and don't righteous. I'm in a crisis. Forget your whole line upon lies because you can't ask again. You what you do with this? Some sick joke and about your other children who ask for bread and all you dating stones instead of the lilies, the Ravens, the fowls on them to get rid to food. Well, that's real convenient that none of us speaking to tell us that there was a Jew. And what about her? She was good. She needed you. You never came. She was praying like this to a heavenly father when thousands is doing the same. She was your daughter. She knew you would save her. That's where her hosts were built. It was a pain. But you never came. So you made me can't read the guilt, man. What's the point? That's even worse than I really don't want to survive. I'm a curse of my daughter, my son and my wife. No one will miss me. What are your thoughts about that, Kurt? Yeah, that's real. That's kind of what I expressed before. You really don't think anyone will care. You feel like a burden and a curse to other people. And you're tired of suffering. Tired of hurting. This is the best choice. It's not a bad choice. You feel like it's a good choice. Yeah. It's hard to listen to that. It got me a little bit emotional. Let's do it for a while. I haven't been in that dark of a place for a bit. So that's good. What SADS me is like you said, that's a very dark place and I didn't do it. I didn't go through with it. So there's people out there that hurt more than that. They're really hurting and struggling and suffering, and you can't see them on the outside a lot of times you don't know that they're going through that. It just emphasizes the need to be kind to people and reach out to people and just care about their feelings. And there's a darker place than that that a lot of people around us are going through, and this might be their last day. That's hard to think about. It really is something that people should listen to if they know somebody who's struggling with thoughts of suicide and they can't fully grasp and understand where that person is coming from. This song may help you. Kurt, I really have appreciated you coming on the podcast. Being willing to share. I think we both align with the desire to help people who do struggle with these things. And I'm excited to see your gym open up, see where that goes. And I hope this is definitely a long lasting friendship. Me too. Do you have anything else that you'd like to share before we end the podcast? I think we both given a lot of good advice for people who are going through mental challenges and including exercise. Exercise is key. So important for me. Stacking up those victories, creating mental toughness or physical toughness, which will translate to mental toughness. It's so connected. Drinking coffee, man, it's a good antidepressant. So I think we've done a lot of good tips for that. I also want to make sure that people are aware of how they can help people who are going through that empathy is so needed. And if you can't empathize, one of my brothers says all the time, I can't empathize with you. I don't know what that's like. I haven't been there, but I sympathize and he listens and he's kind and he's caring. Some people that I share this with. I've shared that song or I've told them that I've been close to committing suicide. Like, what the hell is wrong with you? You've had a great life. Or why don't you just count your blessings? That's not helpful. Be nice to people. Nobody wants to feel this. I'm not trying to feel this, so reach out with some caring and some love and some compassion. You don't need to baby people that are going through this. They don't want to be babied, but don't make them feel crazier alone. Neither of those feelings are good. So if you can show a little bit of compassion or kindness or empathy. Man, it goes a long way powerful. Kurt, thank you so much for being willing to be on the podcast, and I just hope that the listeners out there, there's somebody out there who can benefit from this episode today. If you want to reach out to us here at the Simply Overcoming podcast, we've got our Instagram simply Overcoming podcast. We've got our Facebook simply overcoming. Check us out on social media and listen to some of the previous episodes. We've had some really great episodes up to this point. We have an episode about forgiveness where a woman had her husband murdered in front of her and she forgave the man and became friends with the family. Just so many powerful stories of overcoming. I want to encourage you to listen to some other episodes. If this is one of the first episodes that you've listened to. Kurt, how can people reach out to you or how can people find you? I know that you're still in the process of starting this gym, but how can people reach out to you about that or something else? Yeah. I wish I had met a fit Facebook open up already until I do or Metafit contact until I do. Probably the best would just be find me on Facebook. I'm on Facebook. Kurt Lickdy. It's a very unique name. L-I-E-C-H-T-Y-I can't imagine there's too many out there. So if anybody wants to hit me up on Facebook, you can message me. I'd be happy to share my phone number and email. If you hit me up there, it's probably the easiest place to find me. I can even leave a link in the description directly to Kurt's Facebook. So go and show o Kurtson love reach out to him until next time. We will talk to you guys next time or something of that nature.