Depression Picked The Wrong F'ing Guy with Ian Hill

 00:01
Josh
Good day fellows. I love you guys. Welcome to uncensored advice for men. My name's Josh. I'm a fellow dude. I'm a guy. I'm a man. This show is for you guys too. A lot of things that are going on in the world and our brains and our hearts. We don't know how to deal with them all the time. And we need some tough advice. This isn't for this isn't for the weak, this isn't for the guys on the sideline. This is for guys who have gone through tough stuff in the world. We've interviewed porn stars, pastors and coaches, counselors, everything in between to bring tough advice for you guys who want to push through and make it all right. So first of all, love you guys. If you're struggling with something, always head over to uncensored advice for men.com, fill out a quick form and I'll plug you in with one of our coaches or one of our friends or someone in the network. 

 00:48
Josh
You're not alone. This show's for you. Now let's dive in on today's show. We're going to have a conversation. This is going to be so much fun. This is Ian and Ian is about to embark on a crazy mission and he wants to share it with you, Ian, welcome to the show, man. 

 01:03
Ian
How are you? My friend. Thanks for having me on Josh's show is awesome. I've lived since listened to a number of episodes, so I'm honored to be off. 

 01:10
Josh
Yeah. First of all, let's I D I typically don't do this again. How old are you bro? 

 01:16
Ian
I'm 56 going on 57. 

 01:18
Josh
Well, that's good. I'm glad you could add 56 going on 57. Awesome. You're about to do something in the world of sports. What the heck are you up to? 

 01:27
Ian
I'm going to be the oldest man ever play division one college football. It's a part of a national men's mental health initiative to bring awareness to the alarming suicide rate amongst middle-aged men. 

 01:41
Josh
Alright. 56 years old about to be the oldest guy who's ever done division one football. Where in the world did you even think of this? I love the mission, but how did you even think of this dude? 

 01:55
Ian
It is outlandish. It is crazy, but, and we'll make a hard right. Turn into real s**t right away. Yeah. I, I had a successful business in the United States and Canada life was great. We were receiving awards all over the world for philanthropic and humanitarian endeavor. At the age of 50, I walked downstairs and told my family, I was going to kill myself on my 50th birthday. Now why we can go into later, but that's what happened. The journey to dig out of that, to deal with the abandonment and the abuse and all the nonsense led me to a place that I came to find that I wasn't unique that my age of men were killing themselves 70% more likely in any other segment. I said to myself, coming out of all that difficulty, when I call my journey in the darkness and I said, what? 

 02:59
Ian
Depression picked the wrong guy to f**k with. I'm going to kick depression's ass. I'm going to go get a thousand men from the brink. You tried to take me out. You cost me my family. You cost me my businesses. I'm going to go get a thousand men. I'm going to steal a thousand men out of the jaws of death. Okay. I had to ask myself, well, how am I going to do that? We had done a number of national and international initiatives to help kids and schools and things of that nature. I thought, well, what are we going to do? How can we, how can we connect with men? Engage them, equip them, support them. How could we do that? I'd broken a world record. A number of years ago, I gave the world's longest speech, 51 and a half hours listeners. Don't worry. That's not today. 

 03:46
Ian
I said, okay, I'll break another world record. Well, what world record? I went back in the Rolodex of my life. What was the singular most impactful thing on me? Sports sports saved me. I thought, okay, could sports saved me again? Because sports gave me a framework. It gave me something to wake up for everyday. It forced me to train. Frankly, Josh, it forced me to do all the things I needed to do to come out of depression. It forced me to get my mind right? Every single day. At the beginning of the day, it forced me to go into the gym or onto the trail or whatever and get all of the proper chemicals flowing that I needed to be more positive. Right. Finally it forced me to really monitor what I was putting in my body. Well, just those three things alone started to navigate me in the right direction of a positive mindset and moving out of the rut of depression. 

 04:47
Ian
It was an intersection of what was best for me and what was best for men. Initially it was to save my own life. I'm going to go be the oldest man to play college football. Cause that's the lifeline. I need to radically change my life. It turned into, well, you know what? Let's just rally a bunch of men. So that's the why behind it. What, what is now a national effort? 

 05:14
Josh
This is so cool, man. All right. I want to paint the picture, right? We're sitting on a leather recliner, watching some football and watching some college football and then one day you're like, hell yeah, I'm going to go be the oldest guy to play football from. 

 05:30
Ian
Actually it was, I can tell you exactly what went down. It was alone. It was my daughter's telling me they wouldn't talk to me. 

 05:40
Josh
Oh. 

 05:40
Ian
Man. It was another business failure. After tremendous business success, a series of business failures, I had made the decision to live and then it wasn't a hockey stick. It wasn't just shoot. Right. It was stumbled. Progress, take a step back. It was. I was like, f**k, why can't I figure this out? I'm done. I'm done with the stumbles and falls and the, saying, oh, but I'm depressed and no more. What will radically change me right now? And it was a big ass goal. Step up on a box and tell everybody you're going to be the oldest man ever play college football and then start acting like it. And that was the transformational moment, right? Because I knew I wanted to live Josh. I didn't want to die. I just knew I couldn't live like that no more. The football thing for me was the vehicle. 

 06:38
Ian
Now others are going to have another vehicle. Maybe it's an, it's an epiphany on the mountaintop. Maybe it's a loved one coming alongside of you. Maybe it could be a mini myriad of other things. Maybe it could be frankly, a counselor or a proper medication. Everybody has their own vehicle, but this was the vehicle for me. It was the thing I needed to radically change. 

 07:01
Josh
The thing I needed to radically change, man. You, your story is so cool. Scary because I've been in that spot where, like listening to the Tony Robbin tapes on repeat, listening, reading all the books on, self-help asking people, talking to people and I was at the end, lost hope, right? Dark stand on a bridge, thinking of Swan, dive in, right. That is a scary ass place to be. What, what was the thing that turned you around? Like you're so you're, I'm bigger to kill him myself. Did you, did you go down the route, like of having a plan or preparing what? That I don't want to talk about it, but let's talk about it. 

 07:47
Ian
So, my big plan was just to, there's a road between Reno, Nevada, and Carson city, Nevada. It's called 3 95 or it's now it was a simple plan. Just jerk. The wheel. All I needed to do is jerk the wheel and fly into that field. There was many a time that I was driving saying, okay, today's the day we're jerking, the wheel jerk. The wheel broke, jerk the wheel. It'll be done. It be a car accident, no big deal. People know you drive looking at your phone all the time. No one will question it. Like, that's the big thing. You know, I drive like Mr. Magoo, only a few people in your audience. Remember that character from the cartoons. But I was I'm Mr. Magoo. I drive like an idiot. No one would question if my car flew off into the field, into a ditch and I died and that was the plan and I could never bring myself to do it. 

 08:36
Ian
There was, I had probably four times where I had my hand on that wheel and I was ready to jerk it. Whatever reason, something, each time stopped me from doing it. To answer your question very directly, what was that thing? I survived as a kid, man, I was, this is a crazy even story. It's even crazy, right? I was adopted by the United States air force, a United States air force Sergeant in Iran in 1965 and smuggled out of Iran and brought to the United States. One of the things that stopped me from doing it was all those people put their selves on the line for me, and I'm gonna f*****g kill myself. Or I went through a lot of abuse, like many tragically in our society today, went through a lot of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and came out of that. Like, I know how to survive. 

 09:33
Ian
I know how to live. I know how to make it. And so that was another one. Finally, I didn't want enemy, whatever you want to call that thing. Enemy evil to win like is, is evil really gonna win here? Like, are you serious? You can do this. I believe in the human potential. I believe in human capacity. I believe that, that we all are meant to do something on the planet. All of that combined to you can't do this, man. Don't quit. Don't quit, don't quit. It was that opposing voices in my head every day I can quit f*****g quit. Don't quit. When I was a kid, this man made me have sex with him in a closet. That was probably nine. When I was 12, a woman, she was 43 or 44. I had sex with her regularly. My situation was really a mess, right after both of those situations, there was a home because I was a jock, right. 

 10:49
Ian
There was a Paul and I had memorized this poem when things go wrong, as they sometimes will. The road you're trudging seems all uphill when funds are low and that's her high when you want to smile. You have to decide when the cares of this life are pressing down a bit rest, if you must, but don't, you quit. As trite and as silly and as goofy as it sounds somewhere that was ingrained in me. Don't quit. Business failures, embarrassments humiliations in public because I'm a very public guy, you try to do something big and then it fails. You're on the front page of the paper as a loser, right? Yeah. You're like, it just be easier to check out. Don't quit. So don't quit. Just don't quit, man. If you're listening now and any of this resonates with you, the world's better for you being here. 

 11:57
Ian
The world's not better for you gone. Even though people told me that Josh, we would just better if you weren't here. No, the world's better for me being here. Just like there may be listeners right now that have been told that they're a piece of s**t. Whether they were told by people that love them, or they were told by that voice in their head, I'm here to tell you the world's better. Or you being here, period. The world's better for you being here. 

 12:33
Josh
Damn dude, you made me cry on my own show. 

 12:39
Ian
And just real man. You know, I can't judge. I swear. I appreciate what you're trying to do. If you and I are in Vegas and Washington on a pool deck or going to get a Mai Tai. We looked over in the pool and there was three dudes drowning. We would not be like this. Hey, good luck to you, bro. We're going to go have a drink. We'll come back. If we got a couple of extra dollars or throw them in the pool to see if we can help. If you want to talk, once you get to the poolside. Yeah, man, I happy to chat with you. No problems. Hell no. We f*****g diving in the pool. We would be grabbing chairs and throwing them in and trying to get them to grab it so we could pull them in. We would do everything. We could 3000, 287. 

 13:19
Ian
People are gonna try to kill themselves today. 3,287. People are in the pool right now, drowning like radical man. We need radical effort. So the football thing is radical. The football thing is ridiculous. It's suspended from reality, but that's all we need. When we decide as a society something's going to happen. It happens. Just look, do an exploration of Western history. When we, as a society, decide this is happening, it fricking happens. We just need to decide that enough of our brothers, our fathers, our uncles, our coworkers, our friends, enough of them taking their own lives. 

 14:11
Josh
What is the process of getting onto a football team at age 56, going on 57? 

 14:19
Ian
There's a process where first of all, the first step is, oh wow. I have to hold my breath to bend over and tie my shoe. I should probably do something about. 

 14:31
Josh
Jopson Mel beads, right? 

 14:32
Ian
Yeah, exactly. The first step was, as I said earlier, the first step was just getting my own self, right? Yeah. Four 30 every morning going into meditation, prayer and rewiring my brain, learning everything that I could about neuroplasticity, about the capacity and ability for me to take the patterns of communication and behavior that were well established and changing them because they were no longer serving me well. So that was step one. Step two was just generally get in shape. Not at not competitive shape, just getting shape because that will help me have the positive juices flowing that I need to flow from a chemical standpoint in my brain. Finally take care of my nutrition. As that started to pick up momentum. I knew I needed help. So I called Chris Rubio. Number one long snapping coach in the country. I actually emailed him at 11 o'clock at night. 

 15:22
Ian
Hey, I understand you. The number one long snapping and in the country, half of the long snappers in the NFL are your guys. You put a thousand guys into division one college football programs. I need you to help me. I'm trying to break the world record oldest man, to play college football, to bring light to the alarming suicide rate amongst the underlayment. I put my phone down, I'm a rollover and go to bed. Literally within seconds I get the beat and I was like, did that do just email me back. He emailed me back literally immediately and basically is responsible is what the hell are you talking about? We got on the phone and we talked a couple of times. He's like, I'm in 100%, man. I'm gonna make you the oldest man to play college football. I'm going to make you the oldest long snapper in the history of college football, you're going to do this thing. 

 16:15
Ian
It started with him and he's up in Lewiston, Idaho. I grew up and meet him every couple of weeks and we train and we probably talk every day or every other day. He connected me with Dr. Connor Hogan, Dr. Hogan, one of the top neuropsychologists for high performance guys in the world. Dr. Hogan started meeting with me seven days a week at five 30 in the morning from Ireland on zoom every single day, Christmas day, Thanksgiving, every single day. Now that we're through that phase, we're three to five days a week, but that was his intense for six months, every day meeting with me. Kirk Sanderson came on board for Sanderson is a performance trainer, physical strength and conditioning coach is he's worked with first round draft choices guys in MLB NBA, NFL. He's now on board taking care of my physical stuff and yeah, we're going to do it. 

 17:14
Ian
I got to try out, man. Josh, I got to try out July 23rd university of north Alabama. 

 17:21
Josh
Yes. 

 17:22
Ian
Yeah. I got to try it out on July 29th at university of Idaho. 

 17:27
Josh
Is that kinda like a walk-on right? So you, 

 17:29
Ian
Yeah. Yeah. They have a prospect camp, but think about it. The coach has to agree for me to come. I've gotten to a place now on film that coaches are like, oh, okay, well I'm willing to entertain the idea. I'll tell you a story. There was an assistant head coach of a power five program, like big time program. He and we connected and we're going to get on the phone and we get on zoom and he's like, man, we love this. We just love this. This is so amazing. I'm in my mind, like they're going to go for it. They're going to put me on the end of the bench and they're going to give me a shot. Holy s**t. He says this as a conversation while I'm going through, he goes, what? We really look forward. I'm like, to me being a part of your program and he goes, we really look forward to celebrating you. 

 18:22
Ian
As you go on this endeavor, 

 18:27
Josh
We celebrate having our frontline run you over. 

 18:32
Ian
We look forward to new playing for someone else and cheering you on. Everybody, every single head coach, assistant coach, I mean, I've probably contacted 120 programs and every one of them has been incredibly supportive. At the end of the day, they're not in the social service business. They're in the business of winning football games. It dawned on me really quick that no one was going to be like, oh, look at the old man. Yay. I need to play football. Like really play football. 

 19:04
Josh
Yeah. Yeah. You need to immediately go watch Rudy like on repeat. Right. And you gotta get ready to run. 

 19:12
Ian
I got to tell you though, it's even more than that because in the long snapping environment, you don't carry, defensive lineman, you carry 20 defensive linemen, 30 defensive lineman, whatever you carry two, maybe three long snappers and they gotta be ready to play. That's what coach at the university of Idaho said. He said, via email, he said to me, I'm in like, this is great. Know this, if you come, you're going to make the team. There's a strong chance that you'll not just play one play. You're going to play. I can't just have guys along snappers, not doing anything. That made me have to really rethink this whole thing and really come in with a mindset to compete. One other thing, Josh, and this, I would just lay at your listeners feet. I also had to do an inventory of what I really could bring to the party. 

 20:04
Ian
Instead of focusing on what I couldn't do, I had to start focusing on the value that I could really bring. One award winning proven leader has done seven things that have never been done before. That's my pedigree man too. I, I know how to overcome adversity. Clearly three, I teach people, leadership. People pay me a lot of money to come. Whole communities asked me to come and create transformational change in my past. I can bring that to your team. There was a lot of things that I had to reframe stop worrying about that you can't jump and you can't run like you did when you were younger. Start focusing on the attributes and qualities that differentiate you and make you something unique and different and special and put your total focus on that. I started calling it the focus on ability, strategy, just focus on abilities and that's what I would lay at your listeners and to say, focus on abilities, focus on abilities, who gives a s**t, what you can't do. 

 21:06
Ian
It doesn't matter. It's inconsequential. Even if you only got one string on your guitar, play the s**t out of that string. That's when I think the dynamic started to change and we started to, we literally created bullet 0.5 reasons why you should have be in hell on your, But you know what? It is a part of the turnaround, right? When we stopped focusing on our f****d ups, our mistakes. Yeah. Okay. Screwed up. Yeah. Okay. Side note paranthetically and yes, I have to go clean that up. 

 21:45
Josh
Yes. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I. 

 21:48
Ian
Have to go sit. Right? My daughter's are bitter and angry that I walked downstairs when they were 12 and said I was going to take my own life. They're like, how could you do that to us? Like why, why couldn't you go see a counselor? Why did you have to drop that on us? Where we had no capacity or a framework to deal with it? Guess what? I don't get to walk away from that. Our mental challenges do not mean a lack of mental capacity, nor do they mean a lack of mental capability, nor do they mean a lack of the opportunity to do the impossible we can't. It also, isn't an excuse to walk away from the consequences of our choices and behaviors. Right. Unfortunately, sadly, there are consequences that we're going to have to deal with. That is a part of the turnaround as well. 

 22:46
Josh
Yeah, yeah. Wow, man, bro, this is a weird journey of emotions that you're taking me through. I'm laughing and I'm crying and I'm laughing. Ian. All right. So July 23rd, we've got some tryouts. 

 23:06
Ian
Yeah. Yeah. 30. Hold on. I'll tell you exactly. It's I can tell you on my phone here. Cause I got it on my phone. It is 37 days, seven hours, 58 minutes and five seconds when you're listening to this. 

 23:21
Josh
Right. What we have to do, man, we got it. We got to cheer you on your journey and then also track some progress, right? When from the moment you go, okay, I gotta take a deep breath to tie my shoe. All right. Give us what were your stats there? We're going to do like a football card stats, right? But were your stats. 

 23:39
Ian
At that time? I was not much different in weighed probably two 15, but I was wearing probably a 36 inch waist probably had 15 inch arms today. I'm a 34 inch waist. I weigh two 10, but I probably got 17 and a half inch arms. I have a pelvic floor injury right now. So I can't run unfortunately. I've had an AC joint strain, a stress fracture in my foot and a pelvic floor injury, which the doc says to me, that's really only indicative of women who go through a pregnancy or having a job. That's that's me. 

 24:26
Josh
And my wife had that too, buddy. 

 24:31
Ian
So, so today I'm fit. I'm pro I'm fitter than I've ever been. I I'll put it to you this way. I moved more weight the other day. I moved when I was at my prime, in the bench and things like that. The snacking, the beauty of long snapping is this Josh, it's a skill it's like golf. And, and so you can learn a skill through the beauties of neuro-plasticity, right? The ability of your brain to communicate and repeatedly do something. Because Chris is such a great coach, he was able to really instill in me perfect long snapping for me, different body type different shape. He's got me a technique that really works starting NCAA division one long snapper snaps the ball back to the punter and 0.7, five seconds. I'm consistently at 0.8 right now consists on right there. Right. I'm right there. Now that doesn't take into consideration, oh, I've got to run down the field and tackle a man. 

 25:41
Ian
I've got to, I've got to deal with some 300 pound lineman that wants to crush me. There is that. As far as snapping goats, I can snap a football. Now it's just all that goes with that, improving that I have value that I could bring to a team. The staff card would say, 2 10, 5, 9 benches, 2 25, 14 times a third, 14, maybe 15 times we call it 14. The guy has some physical capacity to them. 

 26:14
Josh
Old man's strength right here, buddy. We're going for it. Right. 

 26:17
Ian
And that's, it's funny that you say that the strength and conditioning coach says to me, this guy is just one of the top in the country. He says, Ian, stop focusing on the ceiling and start worrying about raising your floor. In other words, you're not going to be what you were when you were in high school and in your twenties. However, you do have some advantages. One is you're going to beat these guys. Cause you're going to be able to maintain your strength longer because that's one of the things that holds in a man, strength, holes in Durance holes. No, you may not be able to clip out a hundred percent max, but you'll be able to clip out 80% more times. Again, it goes back to that focus on abilities, right? 

 27:07
Josh
Yeah. 

 27:08
Ian
And you know, it's funny. I was talking to a guy in California and he had reached out to me, I'm a business guy. I lost my pizzeria in the pandemic from seminar, whatever he said, he was $400,000 in debt. I'm 59 years old. Like, why shouldn't I kill myself? There's no way I can get this thing turned around. I, and I just said, yeah, from where you sit right now, you're right. It's implausible. Let's start focusing on what you do have. Let's start focusing on abilities. Let's start breaking it down into the things you can bring to the party. All of a sudden that mountain doesn't seem so big decline. All of us have assets. All of us have talents. All of us have abilities. All of us have something we can bring to the party. Evil tries to get us to believe that there is no chance that there is no hope that we have nothing to offer that there is no way. 

 28:13
Ian
Yet when we take a step back and we clear our minds, we go Owen, and I have this, I could bring, I have this, I could rent this. I could bring, I have this. I could bring. The next thing there's a chance. There's a chance. That's an, that's the other, kind of when you pull back the layers of this football thing, that's what I'm trying to prove. I didn't worry about what I couldn't do. I started focusing on what I could do, came up with a strategy when got the people that I needed to help me in that strategy. And then just get to work. 

 28:45
Josh
Let's address the real elephant in the room. 

 28:48
Ian
Okay. 

 28:49
Josh
You got to go back to school, buddy. 

 28:51
Ian
I know it's Rodney Dangerfield, man. It's Rodney Dangerfield. Yes. I, I won't say the name of the school. So I was in this admissions call. It was a school that was very favorable. They in, they are still favorable. They haven't offered me a tryout, but they're still favorable. I'm on the call with the director of admissions. Well, Mr. Hill we're, we're excited. This is amazing. Typically we have our freshmen live in the co-ed freshmen dorm, but we think in your specific situation for you to live in graduate housing, you don't be walking around with the 18 year old. Co-ed how's that going to be a problem? 

 29:34
Josh
What's wrong with that? 

 29:36
Ian
I know. Well, I have daughters in school. I have, I have a daughter in college right now and I can't imagine if I got a phone call from her and said there's some 57 year old dude next to me at my door. 

 29:49
Josh
Right. Right. How would your daughter feel about how would your daughter feel if you went to the same school as her? 

 29:57
Ian
Oh no. Yeah. Trust me that. 

 29:58
Josh
That's not allowed to happen. 

 30:00
Ian
It's a 500 mile radius rule. I think probably I will not call anywhere near that. You know? I think, I think that the practical side I had to start really addressing like an example. I have a, I have a 16 year old son. I see him like many families. We, we no longer are together. We share time with him, my ex and I, and so I need to be mindful of the six months that I'm going to be in college. How am I going to see my son every other weekend or every other, whatever the, how am I going to have regular contact with my son? That's been a logistical thing that we've had to start really planning. What am I going to do about revenue? Right? I mean, we're starting to rebuild our companies and we're starting to get back on our feet underneath us. 

 30:51
Ian
Man, we got a mountain of debt. We got to pay off and all kinds of stuff, but how am I going to make money during that six months? How am I going to fulfill my responsibility to him during that? You can't say, oh, I'm going to go change the world. You don't get to see me for six months, son. Well, he's autistic. Like he can't process that. We've really had to think through the practical side of this. We've had to say, let's not do anything that a regular dude couldn't tap into. 

 31:22
Josh
What do you mean by that? 

 31:23
Ian
Like, I've had a lot of doctors and people call me, Hey, we've got this special thing. We've got this special, you can start doing this special cocktail and we'll intravenously. Give it to you every week. You'll perform like you've never performed. None of it's illegal. It's all natural. Man, I said, well, how much would that normally cost? Oh, it's $1,500 a treatment, but we'll let you do it for free. If you'll just say how amazing it was. Well, the only problem is what regular dude can tap into that. 

 31:49
Josh
Yeah. 

 31:49
Ian
Nobody. Everything that we're trying to do, we've got to keep in mind. It has to be relatable. It has to be, it has to be, I can't say completely barrier free because maybe you wouldn't have access to Chris Rubio or something like that, but it has to be at least within reach. So that it's realistic. Right? 

 32:09
Josh
Yeah. Let me see. All right. You and I, we're on the line, dude. I'm like, I'm like, I'm a lot smaller than you buddy, but we're on the line and you're about to do a long snap and you're, we're looking at each other in the eye. Show me the, show me the stare, show me the, 

 32:31
Ian
Okay. That first of all, there's none of that b******t. I don't need to draw. I don't need to draw any more attention to me, but what it is. I'll be, it's the gym on the field when I'm snapping, when I'm training and this'll sound over the top. I honestly just think of the men. 

 32:50
Josh
Yeah. 

 32:51
Ian
I get in the zone and I think of the men, I think of the 50, I think of the 47 year old police officer in Sheffield, Alabama, outside of Florence, Alabama, that took his own life the other day with his service revolver. Yeah. I think of the mom who gave me a picture of her son in Vermont and said, when you get down and you don't feel like working, you look at this picture of my son who took his own life at 12. 

 33:22
Josh
Damn. 

 33:25
Ian
When I know what you're saying to me when you're saying, Hey, what's that look like that looks like I'm f*****g tired of people killing themselves. 

 33:32
Josh
You're desperate. 

 33:34
Ian
Well, yeah, we have to be mad at it is, has to be radical and to be Frank, Josh, cause we're, as you said, we're having a very open and honest conversation. I'm not done fixing me, right. This is still a journey to keep me alive. It's still, it's still a fight every day to make sure I make it. Now each day, those demons get smaller and smaller. My fears and my, my challenges. It begin to subside as I grow. Right? Cause every day we're growing, I do not want to be. And this isn't a judgment. I do not want to be one of those guys five years from now still saying he's struggling with depression. That's not my goal. My goal is to say that chapter now, maybe that won't be realistic. I don't know. I'm just saying that's my goal. 

 34:24
Josh
Yeah. 

 34:25
Ian
Through this process, through this transformative endeavor of going and playing college football, this is the vehicle that I've chosen to fix me. Now, if everybody else comes along for the party. Awesome. Come on, come along. Like I've been asking people to be my training partners. What's your big goal. What's your big thing. What's your stumbling block. Maybe you do want to climb Kilimanjaro or maybe you just want to reconcile with the loss of family member that, you've fractured that relationship because it's stupid things that you did, whatever your big goal is. Join me, come on. Let's go. Let's train every day, whatever training looks like for you. Let's all just do this thing to get it right. 

 35:07
Josh
That's pretty cool, man. As you're, as you're choosing, working with schools and you have to try out and you have to go through admissions, what's your degree going to be in? What, what are you going to study? 

 35:21
Ian
Well, it's going to be a general studies. My friend, it's going to be one semester of general studies. It's, here's the funniest thing about all of this. I was not an academic superstar in high school. I was a three sport Letterman, but I was not an academic superstar. I graduated 492nd out of a class of 495.9 GPA. Like one of these schools looked at my transcript and said of when I told them what my transcript, I haven't seen the official high school transcript that I told them my transcript. They were like, you're going to be on probation. So, so you know that's but you know, that's another part of the journey. I, even though we've accomplished a lot of amazing things and we've gotten all kinds of fancy awards, sometimes I still struggle with this idea that I'm not very educated. Yeah. Right. I didn't go to college that, and sometimes I struggle with that stigma. 

 36:17
Ian
This is forcing me to deal with all that and come to terms and navigate through it. 

 36:24
Josh
Dude. You're you're awesome, man. I think that this is a great mission. I think that this is super cool. And, and we do want to cheer you on, there's a bunch of middle-aged men who are going hell. Yeah. We want to go to the after-parties with you. You know? Like we want to celebrate with you. We want to, we want to tailgate with you. I don't even care about football, but I want to be there for you. Okay. 

 36:45
Ian
Yeah. You know what? Then they can follow along. They just got to go to season to save a life.org, seasoned, to save a life.org. We've got some amazing partners and we've got some amazing supporters and what they're going to find when they go there is tools and resources. If you're a man in crisis, if you're a man who like me was thinking and planning to leave the planet of your own hands, go there season the same alive.org, scroll to the middle. There's a phone number, national suicide lifeline callback. If you're not in that version of a situation, but you're trying to say, am I just sad? Or am I actually depressed? You can click the resources button. It takes us to our partner, heads up guys.org. One of the finest in the world. They've got tools, resources, they got quizzes. You can take surveys. They've even got videos that you can watch. 

 37:41
Ian
And then they got a directory. And, and as you just pointed out a moment ago, they can access information on your site as well. There's tools here and we want to support you and we want to help you. We want to be and walk alongside of you. Finally, Josh, and this is a little unorthodox. One of the biggest challenges I had through this to the darkest times was there was no one to talk to because who was I going to call? I was the guy that stood on stage in front of the 10,000 and said, you can make it, you can do it. You can achieve it. I was that guy. Now I was the guy that couldn't do any of that. So I was embarrassed. I was humiliated. I didn't have anyone to talk to. If your situation as a listener is similar where you just, it's a stumbling block to talk to people around you. 

 38:31
Ian
Seven seven five two nine, eight, ten fourteen, seven five two nine, eight, ten fourteen. That's my phone number, personal cell phone number. You f*****g give me a call. I'm not an expert. I'm not a doctor, but I can listen. I know experts in doctors and I will connect you, but I'll listen to you. If you've got no one else. Now, if you've got someone else talk to them, cause it's better to talk to somebody in your own town or that's close to you and actually knows your situation because they're going to be sounder and better. They're going to better able to support you. If you've got no one else, just call me. I got your text, me, text me. If I don't pick up the phone right away, I'll call you right back and I'll talk to you and we'll do this together. Cause that's the number one thing that I couldn't seem to be able to do. 

 39:18
Ian
I want to be able to provide that vehicle to others. So just give me a call. 

 39:22
Josh
That's super cool. During this interview, man, rollercoaster of fricking emotion. And I love you for it. Thank you for doing that. 

 39:33
Ian
For giving me the space to do it, Josh. I mean that sincerely thank you for creating the environment where I felt comfortable enough to just be myself. I think you've done that in all of the shows that I've listened to. I'd say, it's think that you're doing an amazing thing here. I don't think we can walk past that. You're creating the opportunity for these dialogues and you're the catalyst for these dialogues. And I thank you for it, 

 39:55
Josh
Dude. That's pretty cool. Let me ask you this for guys in the audience who go, Hey man, maybe I'm not struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, but someone close to me is, or has, and it might not be affecting me directly, but it affects someone close to me. And what I have is resources. I have, business connections at universities. I have, training resources for football. I have extra knee braces. I have money. Where could people go to say, Hey man, how can we help you? What's a good place to do that. 

 40:33
Ian
Two things, let's start in reverse order on the money side, don't send money to me, don't send money to us. We don't need that. If you have money, then go to Google and type in mental health organizations for men in my area, and then take that money. You are going to send to me and send it to your local one and then call them and say, how can I help you from a national standpoint? What we can, what we do need assistance with is threefold. One. We need to continue to spread the word to, we do need more corporate partners because this is a three-part prong initiative. The football piece of me is one prong. The second prong is a series of summits across the United States and Canada and summits for coaches, where we want to bring coaches in of all sports, we want to equip them with the tools of what to listen for, what to look for and what to say and how to integrate mental health strategies into their everyday practice. 

 41:33
Ian
Just like the train speed, let's train mental resiliency. We want to teach them how to do that. In the afternoon, we want to give them self-care strategies. So we're our goal is 10 summits. If someone wants to come on board and assist us with those 10 summits, we would love that we would love, we already have a number of core corporate partners that are coming on board with that. We would love to have more corporate partners so that we can get the speakers there so that we can get, the food. We can do the marketing so that we can make sure that we're equipping coaches because that will begin to break the generational cycle. Yes, we're trying to work with the 40, 50 and 60 year old man of course, but what are we doing about the 15, 16 and 17 year old? We prepare them for when they become 40, 50 and 60 year olds. 

 42:23
Ian
So that's the idea of the coaches. Finally, and I talked to you about this earlier. We're launching a television network for middle-aged men and gbn.tv. You can go to the website right now. We're going to launch that television network in the coming days, it'll be on Roku, apple TV, Amazon fire. You need to be on that network, man. You do, your show needs to be on that network. I got to figure out how to arm wrestle your ads onto that network. 

 42:45
Josh
That's go, man, I'm a wrestler. 

 42:46
Ian
I don't need to get you on that network. So maybe they want to support that. Maybe they said I'm down for that mission. I'll buy some advertising on that network. As far as me playing college football, I don't need no financial support, but those other endeavors, we do need it. We need your time and your talent and your treasure. You can go to season to save a life.org and you can tap into the form there. Just grab it and fill it out. Or, or you could, like I said, you could call me (775) 298-1014. 

 43:15
Josh
Cool. Cool. All right, let's do this man fella guys. I love you dudes. I love you. This show was created out of a lot of darkness in my own life and I needed help. I started just asking people and I was like, man, I'm getting some good stuff and I didn't want to keep it for just me. I put a microphone in between us record it and started sharing it with you guys. My encouragement to you is if you need help, you could go to this website and fill out a form and we'll plug in, reach out to our guests, ask them for help. Also if you have some help to give, if you went through some darkness and you want to share your journey and encourage other dudes, that's a good place to start too, man, uncensored advice for men.com and maybe we'll get you on the show. 

 44:00
Josh
So then love you guys. Talk to you all on the next episode. Peace.