Brendan Quisenbarry - Transcend Foundation - Vital Healthcare for American Heroes

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[00:02:06] creators that we are for you too. Go to podcastcollective.io to learn more. That is podcastcollective.io. Now on to the show. All right. We are live. Brendan Quisenberry, welcome to the future of fitness, man. Oh, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Eric.

[00:02:27] Yeah, it's a pleasure and an honor really. I'm not too sure how we originally got connected, Brendan. We've gone through a couple of scheduling and rescheduling and finally we got to make it happen and I'm just fired up because what you're doing is really important. It's always...

[00:02:43] Yeah, there's just a lot going on with you and Transcend Foundation and the mission that you guys have. A 7X Human Performance Project, you were just telling me about holy cow, man. Some really, really cool, interesting stuff that's important to you.

[00:02:59] So let's start with this as always, Brendan. Just give us a little bit of your background. I know you've... We're the Armed Forces for a while. You've got a very interesting and intricate background so we'll start there and then we'll get into everything else. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:03:12] Now I was born and raised here in a town called Clarkson, Michigan. At 18, I went and hit the United States Army, went in, was 11 Bravo infantry guy pretty much 2004, went straight into 82nd Airborne Division so I became airborne, qualified, went to the 82nd Airborne, immediately deployed.

[00:03:32] I know I've told people from time to time, there's a couple of times where literally I think from my senior prom to the time that I was on the streets at Baghdad was I think about a six month timeframe. So it was pretty crazy.

[00:03:45] You had to mature pretty quick and things are kind of thrown at you pretty quick. But yeah, I did some time in the 82nd Airborne Division about five, six years. Went over to 101st Airborne Division, was on the 101st Parachute Demonstration Team. That was pretty cool.

[00:04:02] Got to jump into thousands of baseball games, football games, air shows, got about 7,000 skydives under my belt now. Fall in love with the sport of skydiving. It was great and it was really cool to represent the United States Army through

[00:04:15] the sport of skydiving and bolster recruiting numbers and give fans and audiences a great show. And then right around that timeframe, right about 10 years, about halfway through my career, went and joined Special Forces. So two years of training and pipelines became the United States Special Forces Green Beret

[00:04:32] and then for the last 11-12 years, I'd been constantly kind of deploying back and forth for my country. I was with Southern Special Forces Group for a while and then went over to 20th Special Forces Group for a while as well.

[00:04:45] And then that literally actually retiring out as we speak. How many years total was your career within the Armed Forces? 21. 21? Yeah. Wow. And how's that transition going? Just for you, at a high level, how does it feel? Are you excited about it? Is it kind of a bummer?

[00:05:09] Is it a mix of everything? Well, great question and the transition piece I think for a majority of Armed Service members that get out, whether they retire out or they just ETS and just get out

[00:05:22] after four, six, 10 years is some of the hardest times I think for Service members when they're transitioning into the civilian sector. For me, that transition actually happened when I was a year 15.

[00:05:36] So I did 15 years active duty and then the last five and a half I've kind of done with the National Guard. So my full time, my official transition was probably about 2018, about five, six years ago. And that timeframe was really rough for me.

[00:05:52] I think I went into the civilian sector. I was given everything actually. I was given a good job, six figures right out of the gate doing weapons and ammunition, sales and all that.

[00:06:04] So from a gun guy that was like almost a wet dream of mine to kind of do that. But I basically fell apart. It was just weird. Different. I struggled with it a lot, went to binge drinking, went to a lot of kind of down dark rabbit holes.

[00:06:20] It was interesting. Actually, it took me to a spot to where I almost killed myself actually. So I was pretty close to suicide at one point in time, which was right about a year after I kind of ETS out. So it was rough.

[00:06:33] And then it took me some time to get help through some foundations, a little bit through the VA, did what I could with the VA, but got some help with other foundations. And over like a year or two, got better. Again, was with the National Guard.

[00:06:47] So I still continued to do special forces, deployments here and there when I could. And then eventually, you know, takes me to starting up a foundation as well. And I'm sure we'll get to that.

[00:06:57] But yeah, that was kind of my transition was a little rough to say the least. Yeah. What was the year as you're going through the rough patches? What was the greatest benefit to you? Like, where did you find the most help? I think so.

[00:07:12] One particular foundation and I love calling them out, shout out to them because they were incredibly helpful, but all secure foundation was one guy named to Command Sergeant Major retired Tom Satterley. He runs that foundation. He was with Delta Force, the highest of the special operations tier units.

[00:07:30] And his foundation was really good. It was the first time that myself did a lot of PTS issues that I was struggling with. But it was also the first time I had heard about secondary PTS and secondary PTS is almost similar to secondhand smoking, right?

[00:07:45] It's where my PTS spills off into my household, into my wife, my kids. And they kind of have to deal with my temperedness or my, you know, their those micro traumas that I instilled into them. They started struggling with.

[00:08:00] And so that in turn really made some difficulties for my family. I didn't really know what I was doing. It was just me being me and struggling with my PTS. But a lot of my stuff kept spilling into my family. It made it harder for the family wife.

[00:08:12] That's then that took me into further spiraling out of control. But when I got help through that organization, all secure and kind of identifying the marriage therapy in counseling sessions that I had and then recognizing identifying secondhand PTS and what that does to

[00:08:28] the family when we kind of started isolating and focusing on that and getting the help, I think that brought a lot of context for my wife. She didn't really know what was going on with me or how to deal with it.

[00:08:38] And everything that I think she did was felt like it was probably wrong because of how I handled it. But that really highlighted, identified and addressed a lot of things for us.

[00:08:47] So a shout out to all secure foundation for them helping me with a lot of PTS struggles. Yeah, Brennan, for people who have never experienced PTS. How would you describe it? Like what? What? Yeah. What is it like? I mean, as best you can.

[00:09:05] And as far as yeah. Yeah. And I would imagine there's ranges right of certain level of escalations of some people's PTS versus others. A lot of times I would imagine for myself. I almost felt like there wasn't an issue.

[00:09:22] Right. If you would have asked me, hey, you know, you're struggling with PTS. No, I don't know what the hell are you talking about? No, like I would deny it and just be very aggressive and kind of denying the fact that, no, there's nothing wrong with me.

[00:09:35] I'm still good to go, you know. And so, you know, I think that range looks different for people. But then there is no doubt my my struggles, my attitude, especially in the home life again, how I mean,

[00:09:48] my kid would probably spill a glass of milk, you know, on the counter or something like that. Of course, I would snap, you know, it started yelling like, what the hell are you doing? You know, like learn to hold your glass normally, right?

[00:09:59] And then it's up my four or five year old daughter and she's about to like look at me and start like welts up in tears in her eyes and then it takes me a second to be like, what am I doing?

[00:10:08] You know, why am I yelling at her for this, right? But it's so reactionary to where I would just snap at people. Short temperness, aggressiveness, irritability. I mean, those were a lot of my signs, but I would probably be in straight denial about having.

[00:10:21] So that was probably a little bit of my struggles with it. And then people that would kind of probably see those things and then eventually engage me with them and tell me about these things. Again, I would just brush them off and just not a nail.

[00:10:33] You know, you're talking about, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm good. Right. And of course anything but so that was kind of how mine predominantly looked like, you know, yeah. That's like it's a little bit of what I can answer for you. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:46] Well, I think it's good segue into this is that, you know, before we get into everything that Transcend Foundation does, right? Maybe give us an insight into the problems that you guys are looking to address and solve. Absolutely. So glad we kicked off the topic here with PTS.

[00:11:06] Now, talking about Transcend Foundation, our Transcend Foundation's mission statement is to identify and address the invisible ones, right? And exactly what do I mean by that? You know, so post-traumatic stress, TBI, traumatic brain injury, endocrine deficiencies, hormonal imbalances.

[00:11:23] So a lot of things internally going on that a person might not fully know really what's going on. Not quite the same as a blown out back or a knee where you know you have to address that immediately.

[00:11:33] These are like slow irritable drips that just make a person off throughout their day to days of operating within life, right? Those invisible ones that catch up to them as people are struggling. So that's what we do. We identify and address that through the foundation.

[00:11:48] Now, PTS and TBI, those are some pretty big buzzwords. And I think over the last 20 to 23 years with global war on terror, which I mean, even back in 2004, 2005, Dr. Barry Omalu, which was the NFL doc that blew the concussion protocols wide open, right?

[00:12:06] If you remember that for CTE and concussions, PTS, TBI has been around for, you know, for a while, obviously, and it's a beginning of time. But for us to kind of identify it as a society and as a country,

[00:12:19] yeah, definitely those two have morphed over the last 20 years into well known research topics. But what hasn't been as well known is endocrine deficiencies, hormonal imbalances. So when I first found out about this, I was getting ready to ETS and leave service after 15 years, right?

[00:12:39] From seven special forces group, then going to the National Guard. Just before I did that, we had a team of doctors from Special Operations Command from SOCOM. They came out, they did some studies on us and everything.

[00:12:51] And it was the most extensive, probably medical study that I'd ever done. They hooked us up to heart rate monitors, to sleep monitors. They checked our dieting that went to the gym with us. I mean, it was great. We had them basically in bed and tag along

[00:13:05] with my special forces team for a couple of weeks. And they're collecting all this data. And again, blood work, biomarkers, everything. They did the whole night. It was awesome. It was great. So anyways, just before I'm getting ready to leave off active duty servants,

[00:13:19] this team of docs, they eventually, you know, two weeks goes by, they calculate all your results and everything. They kind of sit you down and then they're like, All right, hey, Brennan, we're going to go over your results.

[00:13:29] OK. And so they, you know, sit you down and then it's just like, Hey, you have high blood pressure. You have low testosterone. You have low vitamin D, DHEA. You have thyroid issues, pre hypertension. It doesn't look like you're sleeping very good.

[00:13:43] And it just kind of the list goes on. And of course, you hear that information and again, you know, just remind the audience we're a bunch of special operations. You know, tip of the spear, barrel, chest and freedom fighters.

[00:13:57] So the moment that you tell us, like, oh, you know, you're you're so optimal or you're not doing good, of course, you know, we're like, Well, how do I get better, doc? What can I do to get better?

[00:14:06] You know, get me back in the fight kind of thing. And at that time they were kind of like, well, there's nothing we can do. We're just here to collect the data. OK. All right. Fine. So of course, immediately after, you know, I get done,

[00:14:17] my results are kind of more private and told to me, right? But then, you know, over a bunch of, you know, green berets and we're just like, hey, hey, Eric, how'd you do? Right. And Eric, you're like, and I have low testosterone,

[00:14:29] low vitamin D, this, that and the other. You're like, OK, man. Mike, Mike, how'd you do? Same thing. Right. So now I'm like, what the heck? And like, I realized like kind of a white ball moment at that time

[00:14:40] where I'm like, wow, there's a lot of people with hormonal deficiencies going on within the special operations community. And so, you know, at that moment, you know, you're kind of like, well, obviously hindsight is always 20. Right. So you take a look at, well, for multiple combat deployments,

[00:14:57] you're constantly overseas, you're stressed all the time, your fight or flight mode is constantly checked in. You don't know when you're going to step on an IED, you're doing missions at night, you're sleeping during the days, there's your vitamin D deficiency issues.

[00:15:09] You know, so of course, there's actually things that do make sense. That's to OK, that kind of explains why we're out. But then why do we continue to operate so optimally? And so at that point in time, I left service right around

[00:15:23] when I got that information and what did I do with all of that information for the next four years? Nothing. Of course, I got into contracting, I got into other gigs, wife just continued to happen for me and I didn't address a single thing.

[00:15:36] Right. So I had all that information, all that knowledge about my hormones were completely messed up. I'm struggling with all the stuff. Obviously, PTS and TBI issues were there all engulfed and rolled into one.

[00:15:46] I kind of knew some of that, but didn't fully understand it or know it. And it took me to eventually four years later, I was at the gym running into the owner of Trance and Company fellow veteran himself as well named Ernest Collin.

[00:16:02] And so Ernest and I talk in the gym, a couple of veteran guys come together. We hit it off. And then, of course, we both started talking about some struggles that we got with. And Ernie had experienced some physical mental health struggles.

[00:16:15] I had gone down the rarer with the same issues. It wasn't until we both basically came together and were like, yeah, he got help with some foundations. I got help with some foundations. It was great. And then it was kind of like, why don't we start our own

[00:16:28] foundations with addressing iniquity deficiencies, hormonal balances. And so that's where the birth of Trance and Foundation came out, which again, we identify and dress the invisible wounds, PTS, TBI. But the biggest thing is blood biomarkers on all of our people, getting a comprehensive blood work panel on them

[00:16:46] and finding out the deficiencies within hormone irregularities that are commonly found in not only special operations guys, but military people across the board. And that's what we're not only identifying, but also addressing. Yeah, really interesting, man. A lot of it seems to align with Dr.

[00:17:02] Kurt Parsley. I think I connect you guys. I don't know if you ever got a chance to talk to him, but on this podcast about six months ago, five months ago, and he works with the SEAL teams and very similar, almost identical stories.

[00:17:17] And the big thing for him that he addressed was all the low hormone levels, very, very suboptimal, almost like really bad, right? Like it's shocking to see guys like you or team members who just look physically amazing and in great shape, strong, resilient.

[00:17:38] But then on the inside, they're just a hot mess. And his thing too is like some of them were taking ambient. Like and that doesn't give you really good restorative sleep. So that was a big issue. That's why I came up with a sleep remedy.

[00:17:51] And part of it too is it sounds like the last thing that I imagine special forces people want to do is admit that, you know, hey, I'm not fit for duty. And then you get taken right away from what you love to do. And that's a big part.

[00:18:06] So what do you do? You just hide it, lie about it. So I mean, is that similar to in your experience as well? Absolutely. Yeah, I know. And then, you know, it's half and half, right? Half was probably too stubborn to even recognize that that's even a problem.

[00:18:21] And then we're just like, no, that's low testosterone. No, I feel fine. I feel fine. And then, of course, mathematically, you know, the blood counter and biomarkers show that yeah, they are low testosterone, but they're still going to the gym.

[00:18:31] They're trying to get their lifts in, but they're just too stubborn to accept it. And then the other half, they know that knowledge, like you said, but then they don't want to share that with their team commander or their team members because then they could be

[00:18:42] viewed as either weak or like kicked off the team. No team guy wants that. So yeah, it's we can be our own worst critics. With getting ourselves better because of how we handle the situation.

[00:18:54] Yeah. And you guys, we'll get into everything that you guys do here in a second, but you also open it up to first responders. So explain why that's an important segment to address as well. Absolutely. And there's again, I think 43 to 45,000 non-profit veterans service organization, VSO, right?

[00:19:16] So there's quite a few out there with 1.5 million non-profits in the United States operating by themselves. 45,000 VSO. So again, we're both veterans. We both want to address the veteran community. That's our best both of our passions and backgrounds, of course.

[00:19:30] But you know, me and Ernie, we're talking about it as we were kind of building this idea out and building the foundation out. It was pretty quick for us to be like, you know what? Let's add first responders in there too, because I know my whole family

[00:19:43] comes from heavily law enforcement backgrounds. Ernie has law enforcement and firefighter background and his family as well. Right? And so we both wanted to kind of easily address and open it up because there's a lot of issues with amongst law enforcement,

[00:19:56] amongst firefighters as well. Suicide rate is not quite as high, but just as high with even firefighters. Right? And so a lot of people are struggling with those invisible moves. And again, it's people on the front lines, right? Like your veterans or you're obviously active duty military

[00:20:13] that's going out there, your law enforcement guys on the day to day that are going out there most of the time they're getting paid. Not the greatest of money, right? And then they're sacrificing so much and a lot of it with their health

[00:20:25] physical, but then also a lot of mental health going on there as well. And so we wanted to open it up and address those guys. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all the firefighters that I know, and I know a lot of them really very closely, you know, it's tough,

[00:20:40] especially that transition between the shifts. Like, you know, it's two three day shifts where sometimes it's incredibly busy or not sleeping. You're going from this world of just and they, you know, a sense of humor is really important within those communities, because that's how they cope to right?

[00:20:56] So they come back in the stories I hear about, you know, when they're just on shift and the things that happen, they're laughing about it. That is really tough. Like, you know, most people who are used to that level of reality,

[00:21:09] I guess, and then they have to go immediately transition back into normal family life back and forth, back and forth. And, you know, talking to one of them, a daughter of my friend, who's a captain of a very, very busy department.

[00:21:22] They're like, yeah, she's like, yeah, I can tell within two minutes of my dad walking in the door if I'm going to be avoiding him that day or saying hello to him that day and give him a hug, right? So it's almost immediate, almost 30 seconds.

[00:21:34] I can just tell. So it's like, you know, I think that's something that people want to talk about with the first responders as well. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. That's like transition they have to make. Secondary PTS, there you go. Yeah, yeah.

[00:21:46] And the kids pick up on it and they know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so what do you how are you guys addressing this problem? Like what is what is the foundation doing? What are the pillars that stands up? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:58] So right right now, it's not like we've actually launched. We have a website up and going. It's still under construction. So we're still building out as we speak. So bear with us on that. But I think we got our donation button and page and all of our

[00:22:09] information up there right now. Eventually, we're going to add, you know, hey, contact us, connect with us and all that. We're going to get that built in. But it's been primarily word of mouth and people within, you know, special operations communities or veteran community

[00:22:22] that I know that other people have gone and brought them to us. We everyone we got in right now has been the award of mouth, which has been no shortage of that for sure. But yeah, I know we would love to eventually have

[00:22:33] everything to where people can contact us and reach out to us on our page and then we eventually connect with them. But yeah, I mean, that's the first thing that we're doing right when a patient comes in their backgrounds and everything

[00:22:45] is going back to that blood biomarkers and, you know, kind of a comprehensive blood work panel that needs to be done. So the first thing we're going to do is get a baseline off of where is that person?

[00:22:57] And again, the blood doesn't lie at the end of the day. Person's perception of his physical or mental health can always be skewed even by the individual himself. Well, you get the blood count and you get your lab result and all that like that's unbiased.

[00:23:11] That's not going to lie. That's going to tell you direct information of what's going on. So we do an incredibly comprehensive blood panel of what's going on. So that's the first thing is Eric as you come into the foundation, we do a comprehensive blood work panel on you.

[00:23:24] But then the next thing that we're going to do is, hey, can you tell us a little bit of hereditary information, your past information, family information so we can kind of paint that picture up between your blood work, your hereditary disposition and past information.

[00:23:36] And then, hey, you know what, Eric? What are your lifestyle goals? Where are you trying to get to or what are you struggling with at the moment right now? And where can we get you? So I think within that triangle of our patient

[00:23:46] being in the center and addressing those three key things that gives us a really good idea to eventually address what needs to get cleaned up, whether it's hormone replacement therapy. If it's certain types of peptide therapy that we do as well, peptide therapy has been great.

[00:24:01] And that's also making massive buzz, I'm sure, around the health and wellness community. But our testimonials that we've gotten back from our patients on our peptide therapies has been incredible. And so we have that ability to identify the issue, be it through the blood work and everything

[00:24:17] and talking to the patient and then address it while hormone replacement therapy, peptide therapy or specific medications for addressing root cause based issues, right? We're not a big pharma company. I'm not addressing a pill for an ill, a pill for an ill.

[00:24:32] No, if there's you got thyroid problems, here's medication, it's armor thyroid. Here's thyroid medication, right? DHEA issues, here's the HAA meds, right? We're addressing root cause problem stuff, not just slapping a band-aid on a arterial lead. So that's kind of one of the big things

[00:24:47] that we do here at the foundation is kind of launch with the blood work, get the patient going. And then we are a telehealth and wellness company, right? And through the foundation and the company which utilizes the same platform,

[00:24:59] we have multiple compound pharmacies all across the United States. The hardest thing for the patient, Eric, you would have to go out, go to LAP, Corp or Quest. We're partnered with them all across the country, get your blood drawn at whatever county and state that you're in

[00:25:13] and then come back and then that's pretty much the hardest thing. Everything else is via telehealth. Our people come online, they talk to the patient, they gathered information, they then ship the protocols, the HRT or peptide therapy straight to the patient's doorsteps.

[00:25:27] They eventually get on it and then we have a wellness specialist right there coaching, guiding them all along the way for our three to five months is our typical range of protocols. Right? So they'll get on something for 90 to 150 days or so.

[00:25:40] And then at that point in time, we'll then run the second blood work in biomarkers. And that's where we're like, OK, patient was here. Now we see, OK, we got you here. You know, we got from point A to point B. That's great.

[00:25:52] You know, improve their biomarkers across the board. But then the next question is to Eric, how you feel right? Where are you at right now? And so I think that's the biggest thing too. It's quantifiably we can actually take a look at it through the blood biomarkers.

[00:26:06] But then also at the end of the day, if the blood tells me you elevated and you got better, but Eric, I'm like, how are you doing? Obviously still telling me you're sleeping like shit or not, you know, not the greatest or this that's going on with you.

[00:26:17] OK, well, then we're going to take a look at that and dress that up as well. So it's a very kind of more of a non-traditional, non-evasive, you know, procedures from a holistic health standpoint that we try to address the patients with your transplant foundation.

[00:26:29] Yeah, right on, man. And as this is either low cost or no cost, right? To these people, is that correct? Great question. Zero costs. It's zero cost to the patient and actually all money in proceeds that are donated to the foundation.

[00:26:45] 100 percent of all proceeds go right back to the veteran and first responder. There is no overhead cost. Again, I'm very fortunate as Transcend Foundation. We are attached to a pretty successful Transcend company. The building that I'm in right now, all my overhead costs,

[00:27:01] it's already paid for by Transcend Company. In fact, a bulk of the money that donations and funds come in early generously donates from his own company into the foundation. We're still raising money. We're still trying to get donations out there from other donors to help us out.

[00:27:16] But at the moment, I mean, he's given his own money from profits of the company and donated them right back in. So no overhead costs, which allows us to focus 100 percent on the patients and get them from point A to point B and optimize their health

[00:27:29] and get them back to homeostasis, back to baseline, back to where they need. Yeah, awesome. And how does one qualify for this? I mean, do you have to be active duty? Can you be retired? Like what are the qualification processes to be part of the program?

[00:27:44] Yeah, so I mean, technically, right? Qualifications is veteran. You know, first responder that kind of qualifies under those categories. Now at that point in time, it's it's been primarily word of mouth. So I'm getting guys coming in and in that moment it is strictly.

[00:28:00] OK, what funds do I have to play with? I'm the executive director of the foundation. So again, I take donations in. It is a balancing act. I would love to take every veteran, every first responder out there on the streets, love to bring you in.

[00:28:12] But of course we have donations. We have funds. So I have X amount of money that I have to play with. So that allows me every month and every quarter to kind of, you know, hey, let's bring in 15, 20 more. Let's bring in 50. Right.

[00:28:23] So I kind of have the ability to kind of play with that. And then at that point in time, it will be a little bit of triage. Right. If I do get a military guy who's multiple combat deployments

[00:28:36] and then I get another guy from the military that maybe served three years and never deployed, you know, finally have one slot left. I'm most likely going to get that guy who's probably struggling with multiple combat deployments. Right.

[00:28:48] So there is a little bit of a triage system that kind of goes into it through a questionnaires and also be talking with the patients as well to kind of link them in and engage them where they're kind of at and getting them into foundation. Yeah, right on.

[00:29:02] It's interesting. I mean, I, you know, having spent a portion of my life in California, a portion of my life here in Montana, like, I'm sure you know this. And I'm not sure if this you can fact check me.

[00:29:14] Listeners, if you want, but I'm pretty sure that Montana has the highest percentage of military veterans per capita of any state in the union. And you drive around and you see a lot of billboards and rightfully so, just bringing awareness to suicide issues and things like that stuff.

[00:29:30] I didn't really see around California very much. Right. So it's become, you know, more, it just talked about here a lot. And I feel like, you know, even though there, it's still a tremendous problem, at least there's a little bit more awareness. But how do you feel?

[00:29:43] I mean, it's data things across the country. Like how would you rate our awareness? You know, F through A, like how would you say we're doing? Yeah, I would say so awareness again, kind of echoing a little bit

[00:29:57] of what I said previously over the last 22, 24 years, you know, post-traumatic stress TBI has gotten a lot better, right? A lot more awareness, a lot more research on it, treatment centers, different modalities for healing has gotten a lot better. Indicating deficiencies, hormonal imbalances.

[00:30:14] I want to say, I feel like that's like the newer one that is kind of people are like, oh, you know, hormones are off or this that that's like newer where I'm talking, I'm talking to several foundations right now, special operations foundations that I'm talking to

[00:30:29] that they're like, oh really, you know, testosterone is a big issue. Like I didn't know that. And so creating that awareness of hormone imbalances, endocrine deficiencies amongst service members has been the last two years is kind of been my bread and butter admission in kind of in

[00:30:43] whiting and educating and creating the awareness of those particular things going on amongst the, amongst the service members and problems that they're facing. So again, I think light years, night and day leaps and bounds, jumps of post-traumatic stress and TBI. But I would say, endocrine deficiencies were almost 2004, 2005.

[00:31:03] It's like just before the case blew wide open with Dr. Barry O'Mallow with CTE and Concussion Protocols. It's almost like we're kind of there right now with a hormone imbalance issue. And so, but the moment that I tell people this, everyone's super receptive.

[00:31:16] They're like, oh, like we had no idea and then they want to help or they how can they do this? How can they do that? So that's been, that's been good. But I know the lack of awareness of that being a major issue

[00:31:24] with our service members is every day I talk to someone new where they're just not tracking had no idea that. And so the education piece has been huge recently to enlighten people on the problems that a lot of people are facing with endocrine deficiencies. Yeah, awesome.

[00:31:38] And well, speaking of raising awareness, let's dive into this seven X human performance initiative that you have. Absolutely. That's the right word. Yeah. Give us what is it? Why? How did the idea come across and yeah, give us tell us about the experience too. It's amazing. Yeah.

[00:31:58] This was a big one. So the project was called seven X human performance project. This was spearheaded by a Navy SEAL named Ryan Parrott. And actually I plugged in with this. I heard Ryan speaking on another podcast at a given point

[00:32:14] in time a couple of years ago who was talking about this upcoming project seven X. So Ryan Parrott is former sniper partner and one of his best friends was killed. Well, suicide. Right. And this again, sometimes we've heard this before. Maybe sometimes people have it.

[00:32:32] You're talking like if you thought anyone in your family or your network of friends like who would commit suicide, like that his sniper partner was the furthest from ever doing that. Right. And so you never know who it strikes or where it comes

[00:32:46] from or why people do what they do. Right. Because prior to that you think best loving husband and father and then great team guy never would have thought any issues with this guy. So, you know, suicide does not discriminate at all and it can target anyone.

[00:33:01] So he lost his partner to that to suicide and then a year or two went by and then just within the community again, 22 a day, that's probably a generous number. I think that's a good number to say because it's probably actually higher than that.

[00:33:14] And so we're actually fine with probably saying 22 because that's probably 25 to 28 now. But with that being said, it was a major problem. So Ryan set out on a mission to basically wanted to do this holistic health project where, you know, he can

[00:33:28] address a lot of things physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social health where he wanted to put together a project that was so intense that basically simulated combat deployment like how do guys go overseas they do a combat deployment to come back.

[00:33:42] So of course that's really hard to simulate in real life but they're like, you know what? We're going to, you know, church this up. We're going to go all over the world. We're going to have seven operators that are going to go to seven different continents, do seven

[00:33:55] skydives, seven marathons, seven swims on seven continents in seven days. And so that's for sure going to throw the human body, you know, and through a whole loop of, you know, messing you up. That's going to throw anyone off.

[00:34:10] I mean, I think we logged, I want to say like, I don't know, it was like 120 plus hours of jet time because, you know, like it was insane how much time we spent on the plane. Right. Your sleep's going to be deprived.

[00:34:20] Your jet lagged, you're burned out from marathons, from skydives. So he took a test pool of seven operators, couple of Navy SEALs, couple of green berets, a few unit guys and kind of added it to the to the test subjects.

[00:34:34] Right. So I heard about that through a podcast. And then of course I reached out to Ryan, told him how fascinated I was with what he's about to do. And then he was like, well, yeah, if you want

[00:34:44] to come on board or be part of team, please let me know. And so I was very curious about that. And of course I came back, I brought this to my boss, who I'd mentioned before, told him about the project he was all in.

[00:34:55] So we basically kind of helped support the backside of Ryan Parris project. We did a lot of the biomarkers and blood work on the on the test subject. So we did basically a pre during and post blood work. So obviously, pre they're in really good shape.

[00:35:09] They're about to deploy and go overseas, which is due to the actual event. Then they actually, you know, so their biomarkers were looking pretty good. Then they go execute the actual thing and then we get post blood work on the back end.

[00:35:22] And of course, all seven of them, they were trashed. You know, their biomarkers were kind of trash. Obviously, they're all struggling with certain things, you know, because a lot just happened. So then at that point in time, it's like, okay, how does the human body then recover?

[00:35:34] How do we, okay, now they're trashed. How do we get them to recover quicker, faster so they get them back into the flight and back down range, possibly. So those were kind of what transcend foundation and transcend company participated in by helping Brian Parrot and his entire

[00:35:49] crew of doctors and, you know, nurse practitioners, massage therapists, counselors. He had a whole team go with these seven operators, travel the world and then collect all this biometric data and everything. And so transcend did the blood work and did some of the peptide therapies pre and post.

[00:36:06] And that's kind of where we fit in. But it was his project. He spearheaded it, but I got to tag along. And because I'm also a special operations guy myself, I'm a huge avid skydiver. So I love being able to do all the jumps

[00:36:17] in the different countries as well. But it was just a great project. And again, it was all about mental health. How do we stem? Why are we having this mental health crisis and suicide kind of crisis going on right now? What is driving us to this?

[00:36:31] And so I don't want to give out too much because that's where the documentary and the manual that will soon be released hopefully by the end of 2020 will reveal a lot of that information of what we've kind of come across with our findings. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting, man.

[00:36:45] Are you a runner? Like, do you run marathons? Nope. Nope. So not a runner at all by any means. And it's definitely brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, gosh, I mean, the most I run is like 20 miles at once. I've never run a marathon and just doing

[00:37:03] that back to back for that many days. Yeah, I did a couple of marathons in just my entire life. Right. Yeah. It was it was brutal. Yeah, man. Well, I'm excited for the documentary. I mean, I think it's a picture here too, Brendan, like

[00:37:20] say five years from now, right? If everything continues to go where it's at, like what's your vision for for Transcend Foundation? Like where do you see it going? How many lives do you see it affecting? What do you need to get there? Like what's what?

[00:37:35] Yeah, paint a picture. No. Oh, that's a great question. And yeah, that kind of five year outlook. What does that look like? Back to the the foundations, right? Forty three to forty five thousand nonprofits that are out there. I could you could almost argue and say

[00:37:50] that ninety nine percent of those nonprofits that are out there, they're they're reactive. Right. There's something happened. There's a need that they need to address. These foundations stand up and they address that need, whatever it is. Right. And so they're very they're very reactionary. But that's good.

[00:38:04] They're addressing a lot of needs and fixing people. Transcend Foundation is no different. And I would say that that's exactly what we do. Veterans are kind of broken. We get them to come in, we give their biomarkers. We try and fix them, get them back to homeostasis.

[00:38:16] Right. We're no different. But I'd also argue too that we are one percent where we're proactive. Right. We are right now. I have board members by myself, Ernest Collins, as well the owner of Transcend Company and the Foundation. We're making trips to the Hill right now.

[00:38:32] We're working with congressmen. We're working with senators on enlightening the problem of this. So we're going very proactive on some of these issues. We've gone on multiple podcasts, multiple lot news networks and kind of enlightened and talked about these issues.

[00:38:46] And so it's been pretty unique to be able to kind of address some of these issues, not only just fix the veterans up that come into us as a whole just right then and there, but then OK, we know future soldiers that have even joined

[00:38:59] are eventually going to come across these same problems. So how do we do to not only either prevent that? But again, you might not be able to prevent anything. But then how do we get them to recover quicker? How do we keep retainability within the United States

[00:39:11] military longer? How do we keep these soldiers wanting to stay in wanting to keep them healthier for longer? And so we have some initiatives right now that we're working on with some very high up officials at the moment where

[00:39:23] I would love to be able to roll this stuff out to active duty units to where when, you know, guys going overseas and then they come back and let's run comprehensive blood work panel on everyone, right? My 21 years of service, your typical military annual physical right?

[00:39:42] It's not the greatest. I mean, you know, arguably it's that basically confirms that you're still alive, right? Like there's not much to it. So why don't we actually put a little more time and effort into these tests that we're doing on people, do a comprehensive blood work panel.

[00:39:57] It is not that expensive, to be honest. And then actually get when now soldiers are coming back from overseas, you do a comprehensive blood work panel. You're going to find out you're going to have some hits on probably a few soldiers that are like, well,

[00:40:09] that's a guy's kind of, you know, got a lot of things going on there. And then you're going to know as a unit commander to probably keep an eye on it because again, the old mantra was come back from overseas and then everyone is

[00:40:22] in formation picture, you know, 150 200 people in formation, one guy standing up on the podium. Hey, if anyone's struggling with PTS or TBI or anything fall out of the formation over here and, you know, we'll get an address. Oh, who was doing that?

[00:40:37] Right? No one's getting out of formation. No one's doing that. And that legit happened. That's a real example by the way. So, you know, to be able to actually identify these things in a more, you know, consolidated effort and actually not, you know, isolate or highlight people

[00:40:53] in that and then keep an eye on them. That's some stuff that we're working on right now. It's another thing that we're working on as well, which is can you detect PTS in the bloodstream? We have some tests that we're rolling out.

[00:41:05] We're looking at some pretty cool things. There is a 77 to 80% accuracy rating that we're starting to get on that. So, we're rolling some pretty cool things out into the future and how beneficial would that be for United States Armed Forces service members

[00:41:17] to be able to get blood work tested and done on them to see if they possibly have PTS. So there's some pretty cool things on the proactive side that we're rolling out as well. So in five years, I would love to see that active

[00:41:31] and moving into the military as a whole and having that be a standard procedure where guys come off a deployment or come off of a heavy training cycle of some form of fashion and they get a blood work panel on them.

[00:41:42] And then if any issues are going on, well, okay. Now they identify it and then they can address it. And I would love to see that. Then a service member waiting till he retires out or gets out of the service, then goes to VA.

[00:41:52] Then all these problems arise years, decades later. Now I'd rather have it done as quickly as possible as soon as they get back. That's something I would love to see rolled out in the next five years, Eric. Yeah, a really cool vision, Brennan.

[00:42:05] And it's surprising but kind of not surprising to me that like, okay, so we have probably that, you know one of the finest military in the world with some of the best warriors in the world. And yet like with so much time and incredible amount of capital invested

[00:42:24] in the training and the equipment and the logistics. But like, maybe I'm missing something but it seems like optimizing the human with all the science that we have through hormone optimization and sleep optimization. Everything that people are paying so much at longevity clinics for now, right?

[00:42:45] Like it just seems to make a lot of sense. Like why not get them while they're operating and keeping them at an optimal level. So, recovery, mental acuity, things like that just make the best even better if we can just seems to make a lot of sense. Absolutely.

[00:43:01] I mean, you're spot on with that statement and why? That's always a good question. Don't know why. I will say this, it's heads are turning. People are becoming more aware of it and higher up people, Congress and people that can actually start to infiltrate and make change.

[00:43:17] High generals, high colonels up in the military are starting to kind of become more aware of it. Now again, it's the United States military things operate very slowly, right? If you wanna change the smallest things that could take one to three years, you never know, right?

[00:43:29] So things take some time. But at least on the good news people are starting to kind of see that and they're starting to slowly make these changes to addresses. So that's the good news. And I think some of that comes and stemmed from the awareness piece

[00:43:42] that we're doing right now. But yeah, I would love to see that. I think the change is coming slowly but surely, but yeah, it's pretty interesting. And you're right on, right? Special operations and United States military as a whole has some of the best equipment,

[00:43:56] best training and everything. But yeah, optimizing themselves, the individuals has been kind of forgotten or it was just never really addressed. And it is what it is. The war kicked off and guns of blazing went overseas and we did what we did for decades.

[00:44:15] But clearly there's a lot of issues going on. So we need to start addressing these things now rather than kicking that can further down the road. And so I think that's slowly starting to get addressed and I'd love to see some change come in.

[00:44:26] And I think there will be change coming here soon. Which would be awesome. Yeah, man, awesome. As an industry, so people on the fitness, health and wellness industry, how can we help you with what you're doing, Brennan? And what would you like to hear from people about?

[00:44:43] Yeah, I mean that's a good question. So as far as the awareness piece and the health and wellness space that the fitness guru on the backside, it doesn't matter anyone, any person, one of our taglines that we say here

[00:45:00] is invest in your health and your health will invest in you. So I mean take, go do a comprehensive blood work panel because unless you're having your over 40 physical where then it becomes more comprehensive for people to go to their primary care physician at that point in time

[00:45:15] and then they're like, oh, you're 40, let's do this physical now. And it's like now they're addressing it, go get that done now, get it done in your mid 20s, get it done in your 30s. There could be issues going on that you can then identify

[00:45:27] or there might not be. And if there's not and you're a 25, 30, 33 year old person and at least you have peace of mind now that you're like, I just spent 150, 200 bucks on comprehensive blood work panel. You know what? Everything looks good. Great, you have good peace of mind

[00:45:40] but more often than not, 90% of the hits that we get on comprehensive blood work panel there's gonna be one, two, three biomarkers on there that need to get cleaned up and addressed. And it's just the current lifestyle that we're living, the secondary lifestyle

[00:45:54] I think a lot of stuff, the food and everything that's going on, right? Like we're very busy people, we're glued to our phones, we're glued to our computers. So there's a lot of things that are not optimizing our health and wellness by any means.

[00:46:06] So take that time, identify a couple of things invest in yourself and again, your health will eventually invest in you for the longer. And then another cheesy tagline that we have here at Transcend is normal is not optimal.

[00:46:20] And what I mean by that is when I had my testosterone checked my labs were about, the range for testosterone can vary from 280 to say 950, right? For testosterone, that's your range. Which is being compared by 18 year olds to 80 year olds also by the way, right?

[00:46:38] So you got a lot of older people that are gonna lower that range level for you. So then if I get a lab result done at 310, guess what? My primary care physician is gonna come back and they're like, hey, good news, Brennan we got your results back.

[00:46:51] Everything looks normal, right? And me not knowing anything, okay, I'm 310 but as probably a 38 year old pretty healthy, a thick guy, man, I'm hoping to be 700 plus 800 plus in my testosterone level, right? But a primary care physician in Western medicine is just gonna tell you,

[00:47:09] oh, you're in the normal spread range, you're good. But no, you're not good. Normal is not optimal. You can be a lot better. And so get those labs checked to kind of pay attention to your health, your own biomarkers, take your health back into your own hands.

[00:47:21] All right, that's all I can, I can't encourage that enough for people. I will say, I think with the one semi decent thing that COVID has kind of come out of is I do think post COVID a lot more people are becoming consciously aware about their health,

[00:47:34] their fitness protocols and all that. If I think that's gotten a little bit better but take your health into your own hands. You know, I don't wanna say don't trust your average, your doctor, but just invest in yourself and your health will invest back in you

[00:47:47] and I can't encourage that enough for any of the viewers, the audience, anyone. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. People really have to be an advocate for their own health. You can't expect someone else to do it and that means being proactive, being educated, seeking out knowledge and truth

[00:48:02] and just having conversations like this with more people. So really, really well done, Brennan. People wanna get a whole overview, man. Where would you like them to go? Absolutely, so for the nonprofit side, it's just www.transcendfoundation.com. That will take you to the foundation page.

[00:48:19] Please look at that. If anyone would like to make a donation, we would love that. Again, a heart-pressat of all donations, all proceeds go right back to a veteran's first responder struggling. Our www.transcendcompany.com, if anyone is interested in comprehensive

[00:48:34] one-word panels, they're not a veteran or first responder. Yeah, just go online, give us a look and start investing in your health. And again, your health will eventually invest in you and the long run. And then, yeah, I think, you know,

[00:48:46] but yeah, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, you know, a couple other things, but yeah, I mean, other than that, that's probably the best way to kind of just get ahold of me. Please reach out, please check us out as well.

[00:48:58] And again, I just, please spread the awareness of kind of what's going on with not only service members, right? Again, those issues I talked about, I isolated a veteran's and first responders. But again, anyone within the United States, within the world, please, you know,

[00:49:12] go do a comprehensive blood work check to just see where you're currently at right now. You'll be surprised, you'll go to your doctors and you'll have doctors tell you like, oh, why do you need that? You look good. Are you kidding me?

[00:49:22] You're telling me that by five second interaction with me? I mean, take the time investing in your health, your health will invest in, can't echo that enough. Well done, well done. Hey, ma'am. Thank you for joining me on this recording and I'm really excited for the documentary

[00:49:38] and really excited to kind of check in with you guys and see how things unfold. I have a feeling with your work ethic and your drive and what you got behind you, I think this is going to be a very successful initiative. So yeah, really appreciate it.

[00:49:50] Ladies and gentlemen, Brendan Quisenberry. Thanks for having me, Eric. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Feminist. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes

[00:50:08] and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, Cast Fox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share.

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[00:50:44] as I'd love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone and this is the Future of Feminist. Have a great day.