Shawn Johnson grew up on the Texas coast wanting to become a Navy SEAL. He spent eight years in the teams and deployed twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. Tab asks what drew him to the training, what those deployments were like, and why someone who once imagined a 30-year military career chose to leave after eight.
Shawn describes long training cycles, months away from home, and the knowledge that a friend might not return from the same place he had just served. He had two young daughters, and each homecoming meant finding his place in a household that had kept moving while he was away. Back in Texas, he invested his savings in a chicken-wing trailer in Dripping Springs. The business worked, while he says he was struggling with PTSD, a traumatic brain injury, and the pressure to appear unshaken.
A fellow veteran recognized that he was having a hard time and offered help. Shawn shares his experiences with mushrooms, running, and later a DMT retreat, describing the changes he believes they brought to his life. Tab, who says he has never used those substances, asks what the experiences felt like and what happened afterward. Shawn's account is personal, including the work of finding his way back into relationships and everyday life.
That next chapter brought him into personal training, including working with Alex Jones. Shawn describes their relationship in the gym and his focus on the person doing the work in front of him. He and Tab discuss nutrition, sleep, and the routines that occupy his life now.
Shawn also talks about starting a podcast, which leads them to the stories families can lose when nobody thinks to record them. After a life spent preparing for dangerous situations, he is giving people time to explain where they came from and what they have lived through. Tab shares his interest in preserving those conversations so children and grandchildren can hear the voices and experiences that came before them.
Shawn's accounts of combat, health, and psychedelic use are his own. This episode is not medical advice or a recommendation to use psychedelics.
