Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.

Hey everyone, welcome back to drive on. I’m your host Scott DeLuzio. And today my guest is Aaron Gray, who is a podcaster, a mindset mentor and expert in personal development. Uh. We’re going to dive into his experiences and his approach into overcoming obstacles, specifically focusing on the importance of mindset and personal growth.

So before we get into that, Aaron, uh, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

Aaron Gray: Yeah, Scott, I’m really glad to be here, man.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Um, uh, let’s start with your background. Kind of [00:01:00] what got you into, um, you know, doing what you’re doing now, helping others, developing a positive, resilient mindset and, uh, you know, all, all the work that you’re doing now.

Aaron Gray: Uh, yeah, man. So, uh, thanks for asking. And again, thanks for having me on. Uh, so how this all got started was it started out with trauma and I lost a child. It’s coming up on 12 years now, lost him, um, to a heat stroke. Uh, it was an accident. He was, he was left in the car. And so it, it was one of those things, you know, you go to work, everything’s normal and you get a call.

I think it was about two, two o’clock in the afternoon and everything’s not normal anymore for the rest of your life. And so fast forward seven years, kind of went through the, my divorce with my ex wife. She was involved in the accident, but we stuck together seven years. So seven years out, we could go through a divorce and I had done a lot of shoulder up work.

And what I mean when I say that is I, you know, I’d sat on a couch probably 150 hours [00:02:00] of talk therapy. I’d done EMDR. I did TMS, which TMS, I don’t know if you’re familiar, and I don’t know, it takes trans magnetic. Crane. Anyway, it’s a, it’s a thing where they have a magnetic stimulation where they’re tapping on a specific spot in our brain.

It stimulates, uh, I think neuroplasticity makes some connections that have been broken, uh, reconnect. And so I went through that. And uh, they had me medicated. I was, I was on a lot of Clotapin, uh, for the anxiety. And I quit that after about five years and that was, that was probably my first big eye opening thing.

I would kind of came out from underneath that cloud and, um, then at seven years, went through the divorce, and I, I was, I was. Still feeling well, you know, I’m sure we’ll get to it moving forward, but I was still feeling stuck. I didn’t feel good. I wasn’t happy. I felt like anxiety and depression and unhappy.

We’re just kind of, so everyone have to live life because, [00:03:00] you know, I tell my story. It’s a sad story. It sucks. Everybody can think, man, God, I see how you couldn’t get over that. So I had that affirmation. Um, I mean, I was, people would say, you know, they understood, and so that was just telling me this is how I’m supposed to be, right?

And um, anybody who kind of bucked that, um, I was, I would quickly point out how they, they didn’t know. Oh, is that what you did when your kid died? Knowing they di...