Sisters-in-Service
Are you a women veteran who feels unseen and unheard? Do you struggle with finding your purpose after service? Sisters-in-Service is a podcast that gives women veterans the platform to talk about those exact issues and more. Hear from other veterans, military spouses and Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) just like you that have overcome their transition from the military. Every Tuesday this podcast encourages women veterans to stand up and be counted because as a group we have a voice. From your host - Cat Corchado - The Voice Connecting Women Veterans
Sisters-in-Service
How a Civilian Built a Leading Veteran Mental Health Org—and What He Learned About Suicide Prevention
The number that stops us in our tracks: every 11 minutes, a life is lost to suicide in the United States. That reality fuels this deep, practical conversation with Tony DeMeio—coach, entrepreneur, media producer, and the founder of Helping Heroes USA—about what actually helps veterans, first responders, and their families when the weight feels unbearable. Tony didn’t wear the uniform, and that became a strength. Decades of listening—on bikes, in workshops, and across thousands of interviews—taught him how to earn trust without trying to “one‑up” someone’s story, and how compassion plus attention can interrupt a deadly spiral.
We trace Tony’s winding path from UCLA’s Rose Bowl win to building Duraflex Sports Products and beyond, and we land where his work matters most: suicide prevention strategies anyone can learn and use. You’ll hear how isolation quietly sets the stage, why warning signs like giving away cherished items or sudden financial organizing can signal acute risk, and how access to firearms changes outcomes. We get specific about reducing means, rallying the right mix of friends and peers, and starting tough conversations with presence instead of judgment. Tony also shares how faith and a one‑day‑at‑a‑time mindset help people move through moments that feel impossible, and why the “victim–persecutor–rescuer” loop keeps so many stuck.
If you’ve ever thought “I don’t know what to say,” this episode offers a better script—and the confidence to use it. We talk about building “support angels,” recognizing risk factors like grief, job loss, divorce, and PTSD, and creating simple, reliable routines that pull people out of isolation. Our goal is clear: fewer families haunted by “If I had only known.” Explore free workshops and resources at helpingheroesusa.org and SilentBattle.life, share this with someone who checks in on others, and help us grow a community that listens first. If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and tell us: who will you check in on today?
https://www.helpingheroesUSA.org
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Sisters in Service Podcast. I am your host, Kat Cortado. You know who I am. I've been around for a little while. And our latest episode is about a veteran service organization that was started by someone who was not a veteran. Yeah, we'll get into that. So my guest today is Tony DeMale. He's a veteran advocate, first responder, entrepreneur, and community leader whose career has spanned everything from founding a multi-million dollar fitness company in the 1980s to coaching football at UCLA to producing more than 20,000 podcasts. He's the founder of Helping Heroes USA, a nonprofit that focuses on suicide prevention and mental health for veterans, active duty personnel, and first responders. Tony, welcome to the Sisters in Service podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you so much for having me on and uh helping us move our message forward. Suicide prevention. It's just a it's there's so some amazing statistics, and that's why we're in this space.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So before we get there, Tony, you've had such a diverse career. And looking back, what is what shaped this for you? What what was the thing that you just said? You know, because a lot of people stick with one thing and they stay with that one thing. They're afraid to go over here, they're afraid to go over there. But you were like, okay, I've done that. Let me go over here and coach. Okay, I've done that. Let me go do some podcasting. Okay, I've done that. Let me go over here. So, first of all, what was it like for you to, you know, because a lot of people have FOMO, not FOMO, they have uh, what's the word? Okay, I think of the phrase. Um imposter syndrome. Um, did you have any of that doing this? Or you said I'm gonna do this and you did it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I was uh I was born as a football coach. I think that's what's in your blood and your DNA. And I was very fortunate in my coaching career early on. Uh I was able to um work at UCLA under Big for Meal. And um we had a Rose Ball uh win. And I started designing exercise equipment, football equipment, and actually he was instrumental in getting me into that business. So I ended up uh building a company called Duraflex Sports Products, and we made like 6,000 skateboards a day and 60,000 pieces of exercise equipment a month, and um sold it to Carlson Industries, who is an eight billion dollar conglomerate. I still just in my late 20s, and so from that point, you start to look at you know just things that you want to do and different things. I started doing some consulting, and I ended up in the uh consulting to a company and ended up owning it in the time management space, seminar business. And we had some great distributors for us. Tony Robbins was one of our distributors on Fred Pryor Seminar. So once you get kind of going and you people start bringing you opportunities, and I think that's what happened for me. Um foundationally, I always approached everything from what I learned as a football coach, the organizational skills, the people skills, um, a lot of discipline. And it takes that to be entrepreneurial. And so I think that was a common thread into all the adventures I got in. And you know, um some of them are home runs and some are strikeouts. You know, they're not they're not all winners. You like to stay on the winning percentage, but you know, I've had some that after a while I figured out like, well, why did I do this?
SPEAKER_00:But uh so I think it's funny that you sound like a veteran because a lot of veterans go through the same thing while they're active duty military. We're so used to pivoting on a dime when the military says, drop this because you're going over here, that I find that a lot of entrepreneurs are military veterans and they they kind of just cling on to it like, okay, what do I need to learn? What do I need to do? Uh so Tony, out of all of those things that you have done in your lifetime, which one did you like the best? What was your favorite? Or do you have one?
SPEAKER_01:I don't, I'll tell you a great um, a great one I had later on in life. I became the director of business development for Dalpin Motors. And if anybody knows it, know who they are, but we were the number one Ford dealer in the world 30 years in a row, and also the number one Jaguar dealer in Aston Martin, and that was just a fun position. So it was business development. We sponsored almost 100 golf tournaments a year with Holo One cars, and um I had to attend all the galas and all kinds of events. So that was my job, and it was great. We had 285 salespeople, and I was involved in some of the sales training, and uh that was that was a real fun job. But I know I I think Duraflex was anytime that you're running, you know, you're the CEO and you're playing with your own money and you're running the show. So uh the seminar business was fun for a while. Uh the uh made some great contacts there. Uh a guy that became a friend of mine is Rick Goins, who is the former CEO of Tupperware, but's retired now. Uh learned a lot from him about business. So along the way, I think you're fortunate that you picked up a lot of good tutors. And uh the UCLA staff uh learned a lot from Coach Ramille. There was also guys on there like Jim Mora who went to the New Orleans States. If you remember him, and plenty of obstacles is famous. Yes. But there was uh 12 coaches. I was actually Terry Donahue's assistant. So along the way, I think I've just been very fortunate to have a lot of good mentors and tutors. And you know, it's the old story to be a good teacher, you've got to be a good student. Yes. I think that's it's really been a blessing for me. Um, the way I got into the veteran space is that in um about 2015, I started consulting to an organization called Project Hero Ride Recovery. And what they did is they did cycling events, and um we take like 150 to 200 veterans, and we'd cycle from San Antonio, Texas to Houston. So we'd be on the road, you know, six days. We'd go Jacksonville, Florida, Atlanta. So we'd go around the country and live like that. But the purpose of that organization is um to take and to get people out of isolation. One of the first steps of the downward spiral to suicide, it goes isolation and then depression, then drugs and alcohol, and then unfortunately death by suicide. So what the purpose there was to be able to take and get people, get all this camaraderie, and we had all levels. We had uh people that was cycle, they would be amputees, double amputees, they'd doing a hand crank point. Um, you know, and so what was important to me was that as I got in that space, not being a veteran, I wasn't sure how people would accept me. I really had some apprehension about that. And what I found was that because you were there to help them, and they didn't really care about your background, you know. And I can remember getting on a bike and we're riding, maybe riding through 60, 70 miles and chatting up with a bunch of guys. And um the other good thing about it, and the reason why I bring that up is because in this spectrum that we're in, sometimes people are afraid to approach somebody. They may have a family member, lovely, that's a veteran or first responder, and they don't want to approach them because they're not one. But the truth is, if you approach them with compassion and listening, you know, uh they're open up to you. So that's the other thing was that I never had a story to share. So as I was listening, I could just listen because um, you know, people would share some of the atrocities that they'd seen and what was haunting them. And so I almost felt in a lot of ways it was my advantage. You know how sometimes somebody shares something with you and then you share because it's almost like a one-up in thing. So I thought it was great. So my message as we're doing it, we do a lot of seminars, symposiums, is to say, look, it doesn't matter what your background is, just you're there to listen for.
SPEAKER_00:So I think that veterans specifically, maybe active active duty military, but veterans aren't just gonna spill their whole military story to you. You know, they're not gonna say, hey, veteran over here. And when I think of the phrase, thank you for your service, it sounds kind of dismissive to me. You know what I mean? So I I try, even to my veteran uh partners or those that are that are veterans, I say to them, even though I am a veteran, you know, thank you for wearing the uniform. And I think when you're not a veteran veteran, when you show true interest, you know, oh what, you know, what branch of service, you know, where do you where do you serve? Where do you want, you know, when you show that kind of interest, someone's gonna say, oh wow, this person really does care. And I think that when you say the words, you know, thank you for your service, it's kind of like, huh, you know, it's like one of those things you just say. I think it's really interesting too that when you talked about Duraflex and um the skateboards, my son was a huge skateboarder back in the 80s, like back when Tony Hawk was a child.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. So what happened?
SPEAKER_00:But he broke, he broke so many skateboards. I just thought that was funny that you mentioned that.
SPEAKER_01:Skateboard business was kind of funny. What happened with us was that the real reason why I was in that business was because of the exercise equipment. And our our clients were people like Kmart and Pennies and Big Five Sporting Goods and big chains like that, you know, Target. And um skateboard business was something I kind of inherited, but Duraflex is a good brand. Matter of fact, in the skateboard hall of fame, there's still Duraflex skateboards, but uh the volume was incredible, and then one day God said there'll be no more skateboard sales, and it just stopped. So we were really fortunate. So we had, I just remember we had shipped our last truck of 70,000 skateboards out there on the business side. The people that got killed were the people that were huge retailers that had inventory on inventory of it. And one of the things that killed the market was the small manufacturers that would change skateboard magazine. You know, today it was a laminate board, tomorrow it was a double kick tail, the next day it was injected molded wheels, the next day it was you know, hand cord wheels. So, what was happening was the market was moving so fast that the big retailers couldn't keep up. You can't keep up exactly. So we get out of that and we stayed in the uh exercise equipment, and we were really uh a forerunner in the retail exercise equipment. We actually interviewed one of the first retail selectorized weight machines where weight machines weren't even in the market at that point. And exercise, it's now called fitness. That was part of the transition, it was from exercise to fitness. Fitness, yes. The other thing was that the only people that really lifted a lot of weights back then were bodybuilders, and so a lot of the sports teams were afraid that guys would lift and get muscle bound, and then all of a sudden stretching came in. So it's a whole evolution there. It was really exciting. It's exciting to be on the front line to be designing products that all of a sudden you take off of the marketplace. Um, you know, talk about fun businesses, that was fun.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think it's interesting that talking about fitness. I started my fitness career back in '84 when I was still in the military. And to see it change and evolve, like you would say, hey, have you heard of this? And I'm like, yeah, it's just, it's just an another way to say that, you know, it's something old, like something old is new again. And they're trying to make it new, like, oh, palesthenics, you know, and I'm like, oh, please.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We did that in the military. So, Tony, I have a I have um a question for you. Sure. Um What is the percentage of suicides for first responders versus veterans? Is is there a marked difference or is it just pretty much the same?
SPEAKER_01:Let me let me start off and say that there one of the things that shocked me is there's a suicide in the United States every 11 minutes. And when there is one death by suicide, there's like 135 people that are affected by it, whether they're you know comrades, whether they're business associates, family, friends, it really has kind of a sprawling effect to it. Now, according to the the veteran per day statistics, there's numbers out there that are like you know 22 a day. And but we tend to think that it's larger than that because not all death by suicide is reported that way. Absolutely. And a lot of times it's not reported that way, and it has to do with pensions and things like that. To answer your question, we actually believe that there is as many or more first responders, but statistically there isn't. But one of the one of the challenges there is that you know the VA charts and tracks the deaths. First responders, their unions, don't. So we don't really have a good handle. There's statistics that are all over the all over the map.
SPEAKER_00:Why is that, Tony? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that seems really important. Why do they not keep statistics like that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, if you think about a union, a union collects dues, and when they don't collect dues anymore, they know somebody passed away. Um BA, they're involved, you know, because they're tracking somebody, they're paying pensions, or uh they've got hospital visits, things like that. So they're more attuned to tracking than the the unions are. The unions is somebody just falls away, they may not know the cause of death, they just know they're deceased. So tell you an interesting story. I I had started the Healthy America campaign years ago, and um we grew it pretty large, and one of our biggest uh clients was Blue Cross. And what we were doing was we're doing health and fitness screenings and then you know, identifying people that were at risk for different kinds of disease. This is at the forefront of preventative medicine. You know, so the problem with preventative medicine was that people knew that preventative medicine worked. If you could treat a disease at the front end, it was less expensive than you could at the back end. Yes. The problem was you couldn't bring it to the bottom line. You couldn't say we spent$20 million on preventative medicine and we so we saved X. But when we were working with Blue Cross and their database, the way the database worked was that they had all these names, the entire population, but they didn't know the health level of anybody until there was an incident. And so what we were doing by the screen is was then starting to have a profile, a health profile, on their client base. So that's that's sort of the way the union thing works out. And uh the first responder and law enforcement, there's as many or more, that's unfortunate. You know, the other thing is that when we look at this, uh so in our world, it's creating what we call support angels. We want to have people out there that have the radar up that understand what some of the warning signs are for somebody that's at risk. And um, so we talk about the isolation and depression and then you know alcohol um and drugs. The other thing is that firearms are the number one cause of death by suicide. Yes. And so when you have a large uh law enforcement, you know, veteran population, they have firearms, and so they have access to means. And so one of the things that we talk about in our in our symposiums and workshops is if you're identified somebody at risk, and we'll talk about some of the risk factors are things like uh death of a loved one, death of a combat uh buddy, uh financial stress. Uh a lot of times guys with PTSD that have been deployed come back and they have a hard time fitting in, they have a hard time getting a job. What happens is they can't get a job. What's the next step? Sometimes it's divorce. They find themselves in a divorce battle, then they find themselves in a child custody battle. At the same time, they're battling with the VA to get you know their uh their ready. Yes. So there's a compounding thing that happens. And um, so we we're I'm in Palm Desert, right outside of Palm Springs. We're near 29 Palms, the marine base, and and so we we see a lot of young guys that are coming back and and they're having these problems. They're they're they're they get to the point where there's no way out. And those are some of the signs. Well, things that people say, um, a lot of times, one of the signs is that somebody starts giving away all their possessions. Yes. They'll start to give away metals, they'll start to give away things that they cherish, but they're giving away. Another sign is that they'll take and they'll start to organize your financial situation. Never had a will, and all of a sudden they have a will, that type thing. Um, another sign is where you'll you'll start to see that their personal hygiene just goes. They just don't care anymore. And so that's a problem. And when we work in our our workshops and our symposiums, is to show people what some of the identifiers are and how to deal with that. And the most important thing, the most important step, is to be able to enter in a conversation, just to take and to be able to say to somebody, you know, I really care about you. I've noticed some different some things different. Yes, as opposed to coming at it from judgmental and saying, look, what's wrong with you? Right.
SPEAKER_00:Shake it off, get it, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Suck it up, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, suck it up, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So the the in my book, my book is called Um Silent Battle, and it's really written for the families and friends and loved ones of uh veterans, first responders, and law enforcement. Because from my viewpoint, you asked me about starting a lot of businesses. So I've been around this for over a decade. I see a lot of money spent and a lot of grants that go to research. And the problem with that, in my estimation, is that we keep researching it, but we don't get to worry it can help. Just have a lot of data. So, what we want to do is throw a broad net and we want to reach a lot of people that can help people that are at risk. So we're maybe we're not actually going right at people that are at risk. Although somebody picks up the book or somebody comes to one of our workshops and they're at risk and they'll hear these things that um they're gonna take, and and and we're hoping that we can mitigate their chance for suicide.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Now there's a statistic out there that is you know, it's over 12 million people a year that contemplate suicide. There's millions of people that actually try, and the good news is they fail. And then we have this huge number of 11 uh every 11 minutes one succeeds. But um what we're trying to do is to get our people that identify people at risk is to is to create a support network to get help. Now you might know that somebody's got alcohol abuse and drug abuse, and they own a firearm. And if you're not the one, that you might find somebody, you might call another veteran buddy and say, look, we've got to get that firearm away from them. Maybe we need to get them in a program. Right? And so one of the things that we encourage people is to not feel like there's a huge burden of you identify somebody and then you're all alone. So when we're working, especially with spouses, spouses, you know, they're the ones that have it filled up right away. And they find out, but then they know what to do. A lot of times they're afraid. There's some stigma out there that says if you ask somebody about it if they're have thoughts of suicide, that that's gonna make them start thinking about it, and they're gonna go down a spiral. That's not it.
SPEAKER_00:That's not true, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:They're not gonna go down a rabbit hole just because you brought it up, right? You know, so we we talk about that. We talk about what are the barriers to somebody starting a conversation, and one of them is well, I'm not military, I'm not first responder, I I don't know. Well, you don't have to know, you just have to listen compassionately. Right. So that's one jury. The other thing is that you're bringing it up is not gonna have that right. Uh yeah, and to not be judgmental and not try to have a solution, right? Try to fix it, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not that's not the case. It's really the person has a solution, they're just up against it, they've got everything, they see no way out, and they think maybe the world would be better off without them, and that's when it's you know it starts to really go south. So if you're listening and you're asking the right questions, uh one of the questions is you know, is is like what's really bothering you? And they don't, I don't know. That's an answer, right? But the next question is, well, what you know, what do you think it is? Because they know. So one of the things, you know, you said in my bio, I I my company Big Media USA, we produce over 20,000 podcasts. I've interviewed probably over 3,000 people, and being an interviewer is great, like you know, you know, you're a listener. So we advocate listening and we advocate writing, you know, asking the questions. And if it's if they if they're really lost, but you can they hint that there's somebody you can grab that can help them. Right. The other thing is that this happens um long distance too. So it may be I I've got somebody working with right now, but they've lost a loved one, they've been married for 50 years, partner died six months, and they're really going down a rabbit hole. So constant photo contact and then finding somebody close. We have a lot of veteran organizations that we work with, a lot of a lot of guys that just are informal, it's like Tuesday morning coffee at McDonald's. You know, that that's sometimes all it takes. That's all it takes, yeah. You know, it's not that elaborate, it's just that you know, they've got something to look forward to.
SPEAKER_00:Um of the things, can I just interject for a second? I think as a veteran, one of the things is, you know, they say, well, why don't you talk to somebody? The fact that we have actually served in the military, we've done all kinds of things, good, bad, and indifferent. So to ask for help, and I've even come across this, not suicide, but you know, asking for help is like, I got this, I don't need help. So I think it's really hard for veterans to ask for help because there's, you know, some of them are used to being in charge. Some of them are used to, you know, I've done things, I've handled millions of dollars worth of assets, you know. So then you want me to ask for help. It's almost like an I won't say it's an insult, but that's how they feel. They're like, I got this when they really don't.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I agree. And I think that what when somebody offers it as opposed to them asking, it has a different feel to it. If somebody just cares about them, and as opposed to, I get it, you know, like I've got everything together. Um, you know, we say that people that have their shit together a lot funny, but you know, it's like I've never heard that one. Yeah, so if that's the feeling, like I got it all together and I'm not gonna really go out and ask somebody, I don't really want to share I'm embarrassed, they'll think I'm weak. And I get that, and I think that's why if we have somebody, and this is what I've just learned. I mean, I've spent hundreds of hours, thousands of hours on a bike sitting next to guys listening. And it was because I just asked. And it was just like, you know, hey, you know, I'm here, you guys want to care about you checking up. How are you guys doing? And all of a sudden it the floodgates open up. And I've heard some stories that are just atrocities that you know somebody won't even ever uh share again with somebody. But there's sort of a relief of getting it off the chest, and um but you're absolutely right. That's one of that's one of the problems. And again, it's it's the you're not alone. It's that isolation, right? It's like I'm gonna solve this, I'm gonna fix it myself. You're not alone.
SPEAKER_00:Let me ask this question, Tony. So you understand, you know, the veterans suicide of first responder, and and and I do, not that I understand it, but I care because they are veterans. How do people who, aside from yourself, of course, people who have no affiliation with the military, do you think they care about this? Because I feel like they they kind of seem like, oh, that's so sad, but that's a military issue. You know what I mean? Do you think they really care? I mean, that's kind of a callous question, but I'm kind of I'm I'm asking in it anyway.
SPEAKER_01:It's a great question. I'll tell you. Yesterday we did a symposium. We were we're hired by the Association of Builders and Contractors. And what's interesting is that the construction industry is the high has the highest rate of suicide of any major industry. Wow. And so this association realizes that, and we I just happened to meet this woman at a trace, and we start talking about it. She goes, I'd love to have your program. So when we're in there and we're doing our um symposium yesterday, and what's the makeup of the room? Well, one of the things in construction, you have a lot of veterans. There's a big veteran population there. Yes, and so you have people that are there that are somehow tied to a veteran, family members, friends, that type of thing. Here you have business associates. You have one other group, it's kind of interesting. Group, and I didn't think about this when we started, but we have the people, you know, it's people out there that take CPR classes. Why do they take them? Well, a lot of them take them just in case it ever happens, they know what to do. Exactly, yeah. So I'm finding that we have people that are coming to our classes or workshops that are interested, they may not have somebody on their radar right now, but they want to learn. They want to learn. The other thing is we have a group, and this is one of the things we really talk about, is that we're trying to mitigate. It's the if I would only know there are people carrying it around for 40 years, 50 years, where somebody close to them took their life by suicide and they had no clue. And they're just like, gosh, if I just knew I could have talked to them, I could have so we work with getting rid of that. If I it's sort of like once you came to our workshop, now you can't say if I only knew, because now you know. Now you know, exactly. So working with that, and what are some of the signs? Um, and you know, I learned a lot from my dad that he didn't know he was teaching me, but my dad lived to be 90. My mom died at 75. And so that's a long time to live alone. Yes. And what my dad did is he had he number one, I realized that I would go visit him and I might be the only person he talked to for a week. You know, guys are just not chatty, don't pick up the phone and fight for No, they're not. And so now when I come across somebody and they start to talk to me, I I really listen because even if what they're talking about makes no sense to me at all, or why are they telling me this? I'm thinking, you know what, I might be the only person they see for like three or four days or a week. So we're we're talking about that, getting people's radar up, you know, about those kind of things. The other thing is habits. Uh my dad did my dad lived in Burbank. He had worked for Disney his whole life, retired out of Disney. And every Wednesday he'd take his car to the car wash, drive to the car wash, drive it home, put it in the garage. But he did that because that was his thing to get out, right? So he looked forward to going out there. He got his pension checks and those type things, and he would take them to the bank himself because he got out.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So I tell people don't discourage people from doing things like that, because that's in their mind, that's their way to get out of isolation, their little thing. And if you can help them somehow, right, who we pick up. We've got uh, you know, from our network. Uh, I have a guy that I was working with that on the day he was gonna get the news of his custody hearing. A couple couple of buddies, we just took them to lunch and we were hung with them that day. We really, you know, really kind of made stuff up. But we knew that he was gonna get bad news or good news, and that he was in that spiral. So we're teaching people, we're talking to people about just being more compassionate, just realizing what they can do more. Um I I don't really find, honestly, I don't really find a big stigma about if you care about somebody, it doesn't matter if you're first responder, military, law enforcement, you know, people just care. And I think that's that's a great thing.
SPEAKER_00:Um Well, I think it's also, you know, there's listening to understand and listening to fix it. You know, these people that are struggling, sometimes they just want someone to to just hear them.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And I think it's important for anyone who is trying to help someone is you know, is is understanding that sometimes a lot of times. Maybe you can't fix a situation, but you can be there to support and to listen. And I think that's that in and of itself is huge. Yeah, because I I do that with my husband, you know. I'll say, hey, you know, can I talk for a second? And my husband will say, Okay, do you need my advice or you just or you just want to vent? And I said, I just need to vent. As soon as he picks up the phone, I go, I need to vent. He goes, okay. And he will shut up and let me vent. And afterwards, I go, Oh, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01:He probably puts the phone down when you say he was a vent says something else.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's the same thing to me. He'll call me and say, I need to vent. Tony, for someone listening right now who may be strugglingly, struggling silently, whether they're a veteran, first responder, or just someone feeling the weight of life, what message would you want them to hear from you today?
SPEAKER_01:Um, you know, when things are just you're pushed against the wall and you don't see a way out, um, for me and for a big part of organization, we really rely on our faith. You know, God's had a plan, as bad as it seems, and it does seem like there's no way out, it does seem like everything's gonna happen. One thing is take one day at a time. Don't get stressed out what's gonna happen. You know, in the Bible, it says that every day has enough troubles to deal with the troubles for that day. And I think when people start to look into the future and try to solve a problem that may be happening three weeks from now, you get into trouble. So um take it a day at a time. You know, I mean, I think that's a great message. And I think the other thing is to have hope that situation could turn and to you know, to look at that and also to get support. Don't be don't have your shit together so much that you want to talk to somebody and you know, grab a friend and figure out who that friend is, too. You know, just one of the things we talk about is you have different kinds of friends. You know, you have kind of friends that says, you know, hey, I really have my back's hurting. They go, Yeah, great, suck it up. So don't go to that person, right? Yeah, the other person saying, Oh, my back's really hurting, they kind of give me a there, there, you know, that mother's care. So identify those people in your world. You need them all.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, you know, but for different reasons in your life.
SPEAKER_01:They're gonna have a little compassion, you know, the person's gonna kick your butt. And sometimes you need to go to that person to get your butt kicked and turn around and you know, don't have a pity party. We talk about there's a cycle that's called victim, persecutor, rescuer. What happens if somebody comes a victim becomes a victim? It's like everybody's against them, everything always happens to them. Yes, and that happens for a period of time, and then they start lashing out around everybody. Then they become this persecutor, and now they're gonna get back at everybody that victimized them. And the next step in that cycle then becomes they feel bad that they yelled at people, so they become a rescuer. You know, can I help you out? Can I do that? Can I get that for you? What can I do for you? Yeah. So you know it's a cycle, and the way to stop that cycle is to keep them out of victim and to let them realize that you know they're creating things around them, it's not everybody's picking on them, they're not against them, they don't have much energy.
SPEAKER_00:And it's not healthy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, it's for anyone.
SPEAKER_00:The friend, the family member, whomever. It's it's not healthy for anyone. Uh, Tony, where can people connect with you? Or if they need your service or they they need their help, where can they connect with you or learn more about Helping Heroes USA?
SPEAKER_01:Well, our our website, helping heroesusa.org, and they can reach out to me, they can reach out to our staff there. Our workshops, our symposiums are free. We have great sponsors, and we can deal with donate, and that's how we so I never wanted a financial barrier. If somebody really wanted to come to one of our workshops, I don't want to be a financial barrier, they could. Yes. So we offer those free. And we're just fortunate that we're out there and we have people donate and sponsor. Um so in my book coming out, uh SilentBattle dot life is someplace else they can get information. But really, the hub for us is helpingherlessusa.org. And we're we're glad to have people contact us and reach out, um, maybe direct them in the right way, and sometimes just talking to somebody for a little bit that's going down the path or going down a rabbit hole. Um, the answers, I really think for a lot of people the answers again. It's sort of like when you know, like for me, my wife comes up to me and says, which one do you like better, the red one or the black one? You know, the dress. And I'm like, Well, which one do you like? Yeah. Because I don't want to get in that. It's a lose, you know. So it's it's just being supportive for somebody, letting them talk, asking them questions. It's really what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Tony, thank you so much for being on the Sisters in Service podcast today and telling us more about your organization. And for anyone listening, you know, suicide is it's it's a horrible thing. But when you get to the point where you feel like you have no way out, that's even more horrible. Is that a word? Is that a phrase? It's it's it's it's horrific. That's what I want to say. It's it's horrific. So if you know someone who you think is struggling, you know, connect with them. Let them talk to you. Listen. Don't try to work, don't try to help them by, oh, I think I have the the you know what you need. Sometimes they just need someone to talk to. And if you don't know what to do, Tony DeMeo is right there. I'll make sure that your website and stuff is is um on there, Tony, so people can contact you. So as always, please stay safe. Take care of each other until next time. And please remember it's never too late to start your impossible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you so much for having me on here. Helping us forward. I really appreciate it. The more exposure we can get, the more people we can reach. That's our goal. Thank you so much. Thank you.