William Stephens

Welcome back to Keepin It Rio. Episode 258 features a great Guest. William A. Stephens Jr. (“Stevo”) is a retired U.S. Army Sergeant First Class, six-time award-winning author, podcast host, and mental health advocate. As the founder of Story Tyme with Stevo and host of the Crawl Walk Run Podcast, he focuses on veteran transition, leadership, mental health awareness, and giving a voice to those struggling in silence.

Stevo is the author of the Reflection Series — The Mirror: Black Edition, The Broken Mirror, and No Filter — books centered on trauma, resilience, military transition, and personal growth. His work has received multiple literary and mental health advocacy awards, including the International Impact Book Award, Literary Titan Awards, and Readers’ Choice recognition.

Beyond writing and podcasting, Stevo actively advocates for veterans, first responders, and individuals dealing with PTSD, isolation, and suicide awareness. Through speaking engagements, podcasts, and daily outreach, his mission remains simple: helping others realize they are not alone and proving that even in darkness, people can still find purpose, healing, and their voice again.
Enjoy the episode

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. It's another amazing episode of your favorite podcast. This is number 258 of Keeping It Real. And this is going to be a really good one. I can assure you of that. I've got another new guest here that I've just met literally moments ago. And I'm excited to hear his story. It's going to be one of, you know, amazing different uh twists and turns along the way. And this is going to be a really, really outstanding podcast with no hesitation at all. Please let me welcome my friend, the host of Storytime with Steve O. Steve O, welcome to the show, my man. How's it going this evening?

SPEAKER_02 0:40

I'm good, man. Thanks, Chuck. I'm uh the host of the Crawl Walk Run podcast. So I talk. Yeah, I interview people with trauma and mental health and people who are trying to use coping mechanisms to help people out there. Everybody has some type of trauma, I believe. So I think you're right. And this is something we talk about a lot. Thanks for finding me and coming out and getting me, man. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah, this is gonna be a good one. Like I said, this is a topic that for some reason I've had several guests on my podcast that we've kind of talked about over the course of time. And I'm always fascinated because everybody's life story is different and everybody experiences things completely different. And getting a different perspective from someone who's done things that I've never done is the main reason why I do the podcast. So let's kind of kick it off a little bit. So we know you're doing the podcast now, and we know that you're speaking to, you know, folks that have gone through some trauma, like you said, or, you know, experienced things in life that have maybe changed their perspective, changed the way that they receive things and the way that they react towards others. Um, this is a very personal topic, obviously, because that's not just something that you pick out of thin air and say, hey, I'm gonna do a podcast about this. So let's kind of talk about it. Tell me a little bit about why this is so personal to you.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Well, first of all, I I don't do this for like entertainment. Uh I do this for awareness, and I learned through my 20 years in the government in the in the military and 16 years in the civilian government as a security specialist. Um, it's all about networking and education. I'm not talking about education for like a degree or anything. I'm talking about reaching out, me with the veteran community, and now that I'm a six-time award-winning author, the author community as well, because like I don't write no more. Now I'm an advocate. So I'm an advocate for mental health and PTSD and people that are struggling. It used to be for all veterans, but I changed all that in the different descriptions in my books and stuff, because not just veterans have trauma, we all have some type of trauma, and if not, we eventually will, you know. So uh I decided that um I would reach a whole broad audience, and now I'm with the author community, and um it's a different platform usually than working with veterans, but I've been learning that there are a lot of veterans out there who have written books as well. So I'll just take you back, man. I'm not gonna tell you the whole long outdraws military, nobody cares about that. That's all I talk about on all the other podcasts is I was a military blah. So it's all about after I got out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, man, I was like an inpatient, outpatient psych unit for a year, man, because like they did research and my last tour, I didn't have a weapon. I was an advisor. I helped write a book for the Center of Army Lessons Learned, and uh I didn't even know I was ever going to be an author. So I got out of Walter Reed. I went there for a year, and I was a group with like 12 people, and um I learned that the reason why I didn't go home is because like some of us take the battlefield to the living room and we unalive our family members. They think that they're the enemy while while you're asleep. They touch you, you wake up and you're in battlefield mode, and you can't get out of that battlefield mode. And then most importantly, when you step out into the civilian world, you still think you're wearing that rank, you still think you're wearing those awards, and you're not in charge no more, man. Like you go from here, whatever level you are. I was a sergeant first class, so like I had friends that get out that were sergeant majors and still get out, like your family members are not soldiers no more. You know, I was like, hey, call me sergeant. You know, my wife was like, forget that. I'm a I'm a psych nurse, you're gonna listen to me, you know. And that's the way it was for 10 years. Like, yes, yes, yes, you know, and and I had to forget all that military stuff. And um, I'll just tell you, man, the grass is not greener on the other side, man. I got out, you know, I was this super in shape stud guy that my my wife loved. And man, when I came back from Walter Reed, man, for 10 years there was no intimacy, man. None. So, and you know, veterans come back, they're all drugged up, they're on different medications. I'm gonna say how many meds now, because now people are watching. The VA's watching, and when you tell people that your your medication went down or your your your trauma went down or whatever, I stay at a just at a level because I'm 100% permanent in total, and I don't talk about how I'm getting better, how I'm getting worse. I'm just trying to help people. And my stories are about the lessons learned as a father. I got out after 20 years, 31 days, and I didn't know how to be a dad. Basically, I was just starting first class Stevens out getting whatever I could, you know, until I met this girl in 2004, and then we got married in 2006. And you know, uh, can I? I'm not allowed to swear, am I?

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yes, sir. Absolutely. This is we're in America.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

I mean, and I want to keep it real because you you don't uh, you know, I didn't realize that I was calling my wife a whore and a bitch, and my daughter a little princess, little bitch, you know, and it's just a little kid, you know, but we were sending her to pageants and doing all this shit, and I was, you know, I'm up at like two and three in the morning trying to develop a resume that I didn't even know how to hell write a resume because I was in a two-week course that got crammed down into three days, you know, because of money and all that, you know, they push our veterans away, you know, like and I don't agree with all that, and that's why I wrote so much different categories in the broken mirror about resume writing, death and dying, suicide, how corrupt the government was. And I'm not talking at this level, like our political right and left. I'm talking about as a security specialist, I worked for the government for 16 years, the same grade. Um, I was a GS11 and I got maxed out after I uh got fired. I got terminated, but I filed for disability from the government because um some things I said they didn't agree with, kind of a threat. Yeah, they sent me to the street after 16 years, but I filed for disability retirement and it was approved. So uh life is good, but uh there's still repercussions, you know. Um, I look back and I see things that I did, how much of a bad person I was. I mean, you can look super great, super in shape, but it's what's inside, man. Because I always tell people the demons, it doesn't matter what therapy you are, how much you pay to do like massage and coping mechanisms, someone's gonna trigger you with a scent, a smell, uh, a word. So, and you never ask veterans like, did you did you kill anybody? How many people did you kill? You don't ask people that stuff, and you let the veteran tell the story to you if you're like a civilian or like when I sit down with my veteran guy friends, like my boys, my battles, and they're like, Steve, we ain't talking about no, we ain't talking military, nothing. And and same with my kid. My kid's 18 now, and she's like, Dad, we don't talk about the books, we don't talk about my cheerleading, and we don't talk about dad's experience in the military. We talk daddy-daughter stuff. Because she knew how I treated her when she was a child, and she doesn't want any, she didn't even want anything to do with my books, but you know what? Bro, but my third book, No Filter, which is super raw from skateboard kid to entrepreneur, uh, and you don't have to be rich to be an entrepreneur, it's building a global platform like you're doing there, Chuck, and like I'm doing slowly. Um, my kid endorsed that book, and that brought me to tears because I asked her, and I'm thinking, oh, she's 18, she's just gonna run some stuff through Chat GPT and call it a day. But when she started pinpointing, like when I was 14, my dad taught me how to drive. Um, my dad didn't know who I was when I was a child, but growing up, you know, when he started finding himself after the divorce and realizing, you know, mom wasn't the beat or the bitch no more, and I wasn't the little princess no more, and my daughter proved to me wrong. Like I was like, I don't want you cheering. My kid's a two-time uh world champion, competitive cheerleading for Top Gun, Lady Jags and uh Revelations, multiple world championships, multiple awards. Like she started out in a little gym and grew out of it. I didn't believe in her. She left our family at 13 years old to go be in Florida with another family, and that hurt me because then her mom moved and I was in Pennsylvania by myself, and I didn't know what to do. I got fired from the government. I'm working day and night, trying to do my my paperwork, and the government didn't help me do anything. Like the civilian government, when they put me out, when they put me down like for three months, like from December to March, I just sat at home. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. So again, uh I was contemplating if I was gonna take my life by myself. I'm not anyone. I try to make myself the best that I can. And then I at on May 4th, on May 4th, I picked up my phone, and uh, because I have tremors in my left hand, I started writing. I wrote the calm before the storm. Like I talked to my phone and did the calm before the storm. It came out on the notes, and that's where the broken mirror was born. Um and excuse me, and uh, I sat on my back porch and I contemplated with my little dog if I was gonna take my life on my back porch. And I said, you know what? From this day forth, the government outed me. When I was in the military, a sergeant major stood in my way, and I called them career killers in my books. People stand in your way, even in the civilian world, they get jealous, they understand that you have all these achievements, and they don't want you to go, they want someone else to go. So um, I wrote The Broken Mir, and it is now a four-time award, literacy award-winning Eric Hoffer nominated book award uh for military uh transition, military self-help, uh personal development, and leadership. And uh it's just been good, man. And now uh I'm kind of like at a reset right now because like I did uh The Mirror, which is therapeutic poetry, which I wrote from age 19, like battlefield themes and relationships with different girls and love stories and blah blah blah, all like dark cryptic poetry, and then rebranded from the mirror to the mirror second edition and rebranded again to the black edition, mirror black edition, wrote the broken mirror, came back from award ceremony seeing how scammy that funnel organization thing was. Where hey, you won this book award. Well, you won't multiple two book awards from the same company, but you gotta pay $299 for a piece of glass over there, and then you gotta pay $2,000 to come to the gala. Good gracious, man. Congratulations. Yeah, man. Yeah. And you're also gonna be author of the year, and that's gonna cost about $5,000 to go to Hollywood. Not happening. So I wrote about how I was treated as a child. So skateboard kid, my dad abused me, called me names. I was uh a creep, a bum, and a motherfucker. Yeah, I was those. And it's funny when I asked my dad what a creep was, he said it was a bum. I asked my dad what a bum was, he said it was a creep. And then I used to watch my dad beat my mom with frying pans, and I said, I got to get out of here, man. Like, if I would have not joined the army, I you'd be read you'd be talking to my tombstone right now. Then I went from one battlefield, joined the army, became field artillery, went to cohort, went to Germany. Not even one year later, I'm leaving after December to go to freaking Desert Shield and Desert Storm. And most of the time when I'm online, it's all OEF, like Operation Iraqi Freedom. I may see no Desert Shield veterans out there at all. Or I run into a Vietnam veteran, you know. Like I've been deployed multiple places. I've been to Germany, I've been to Korea twice. Half my friends have served in the military 24 years, never been to Korea in their entire life. I ended up going to Korea, Fort Carson four years, Korea, Fort Carson four years. I was like, the hell with this. I picked up the phone, called the Department of Army, and I'm like, look, you need to send me somewhere instead of Korea because I ain't going back there. So they sent me to Fort Lewis. When I got to Fort Lewis, I got relieved as a staff sergeant. But you know what's funny? I built myself back up because they put me in a museum, and I'm glad they put me in a museum because one thing I learned when I was in a museum, I learned about military history. I learned about what unit patches are, what all your ribbons are, history of the military, the rank structure, and everything. And by God, while I was in that museum, I came down on the list for E7. And you should have seen all the people that like their minds just blew. Like this guy got relieved a year later. He's in a museum working. And you know what? I went in there and took a bunch of broke people, like on cast and profiles, and I turned them into warriors, even though they were broke. No one believed in them. We went from wearing civilian clothes back to wearing our B's with ribbons because you got veterans coming in from all over the world, man, to come to the Fort Lewis Military Museum, come down there. Audi Murphy was at the Fort Lewis Military Museum at uh Fort Lewis. Man, not one complaint ever while I was there. And it was funny because like my buddy called me, he's like, Yo, Steve, man, you're number 52 in the whole army, dude. You made that sergeant first class list. And I was like, What? So as soon as I found out that I got promoted at the museum about three months later, because like usually you wait a couple months because there's like a number system, but since I was so low on the totem pole, I got promoted like two months later. And I think my career's over. Where am I gonna go? Like I, you know, so they sent me to Fort Riley, and I've done multiple different desert operations and things like this, and did this and was in different units at Fort Riley, and then man, I went to Fort Riley, and then we finally got the call to go to O. We replaced uh, was it 3rd Infantry Division when we got there? And I got an altercation with a soldier in the tent because he wanted to try me. Because, like, I was the big bad platoon sergeant. I was out there training them guys every day on chemical warfare and stuff, and they got tired of that. Like, man, we're tired of this. So one of them stood up to me. Him and I had an altercation. Next thing I know, I'm standing in front of the sergeant major, and I'm the battalion reenlistment guy. So I'm the big bad sergeant now that everybody hates. And now my sergeant major's telling me, Hey, you need to get numbers. Well, I learned real quick the soldiers aren't numbers, they have families. So I'm trying to re-enlist soldiers in combat. Yep. So I'm I'm supposed to be living on the Ford operating base behind the scenes, but I was like, hey, the best way to get soldiers to re-enlist or stay in the army, you know, I'll go out on a guard point at two or three in the morning where there are no sergeant first classes, a bunch of privates or specialists and or E4s that are trying to, you know, think of what their military career is, and here I am out there on a guard point, and they're like, Who in the hell is this guy? Why is he out here? You know, and I'm out there shooting the stuff, man. I'm like, hey, come back to the office, you know. And I'll tell you, man, there's four quarters. My first quarter was terrible. I would go in the dining facility, they would run away from me, man. They hated me, they hated me. I hated people, I couldn't work with people. So, third, fourth, and fifth, I blew it out the water, man. When I left Iraq, I was 159% of our 100% mission. I kept all them people, and they all like three months later came right back to Iraq. It was like a huge just a wagon wheel. Come home, kiss your wife, spank the kid. Now you're going back to Iraq. I picked up the phone and said, I can't do this. I can't do this. So they sent me and I was advisor for my four, my four lap my last four years. And then while I was there, I got to go to Iraq again for the fifth time. And um, this time I didn't have a weapon. I wrote for the Center of Army Lessons Learned. We are a combat arms assessment team, and that's where the career cure career killer stood in my way and said, Look, even though you did a good job in Iraq and you wrote this book for the army, and it's a punch ticket because all the other guys with me, they all made master sergeants. Look, you're not, you're not, uh, you're not going nowhere. So I I sat down with my my wife at the time, she was a psych nurse, and she's like, What's more important? And now I got orders for Afghanistan. I'm like, if I go to Afghanistan, I'm coming back in a box. Because I was already blown away with my psychiatric and my mental health and trying to hide it, and my punching walls, and you know, cleaning my knuckles and coming back and trying to be like this instructor guy that is definitely hiding a lot of anger and stuff, and like snapping on soldiers on the lane and stuff, and like they weren't having that. Like, you have no leadership skills, and you're not a good leader. So, I you know what? I went down to Walter Reed, I signed the daughter line, I signed my my my whole military career over, and it saved my life. It's always saved my life, man. So now people have come out to me and said, Look, you're a six-time award-winning author. I just dropped uh, so I combined. Uh, I had a girl named Johanna um help me uh edit and format my newest book that just dropped called The Reflection Series. So all three books combined are mirrors, different mirror images. So the Reflection Series is book one, two, and three all combined into one. So I did a pre-log, a prologue and I did lessons learned. And she put all that together, took all the headers, took all the format. I mean, all the all the all the fours and prefaces because you can't have three in one book, and it's amazing. It just dropped, but I pulled it because Ingram messed up some stuff in the cover inside cover design when you open it. It's supposed to be like a legacy edition. So that the podcast, morning message every day, uh talking about. I try not to talk about things I don't talk about is politics, my awards, and um uh just normal everyday things that are going on in the world. Because, like uh really, I don't even believe in the media anymore. I'd rather watch a Lego video, man. Seriously, I will watch a Lego video or go and watch uh the The Simpsons on TV that I have right now. Like I watch reruns on Simpsons. That's like my coping mechanism, my what's it called? My uh man opera, like soap opera, man opera. That's what I do. I watch reruns and and and decompress, but uh this last couple of months I've had I just finished up the episode of military sexual trauma, uh sexual trauma, uh sexual awareness, uh the domestic violence all combined. So I learned there are men and there are women that suffer, and the military hides it. So it was great, it was a great podcast, and it's funny, man. Like, I got public affairs people reaching out to me, like, man, we see your message in the morning. You know, uh, we're trying to get our person. I'm like, you got a person with 300,000 followers come to me, and I only got 147 people on YouTube watching me, and it's not even the followers, man, it's that one person. If you say something in some message, man, and what take my books, I give my books away more than I sell them. I'm always sending audiobooks, like maybe I'll send you the uh maybe I'll send you the audiobook so you can check it out and listen to for free and be like, damn, this guy is actually there's something to this guy, but yeah, man, there's no script here, man. Like, I always try to change it up, man, because I've noticed being on different podcasts. And being an advocate, you know, and being on the road for a whole year in my RV, like man, I started out with like maybe a hundred followers, and I'm not bragging, I'm almost at 3,000 on TikTok. It took me a while to get there. I'm about one point on Facebook, and my sub-Facebook platform that I talk about in my books, I'm at 1.7. So, and that's cool for me, man, because like I'm spending like two to three hours a day engaging with people, and engagement is the most important thing because, like, and I even like go all the way down to thousands of people, man, and just pick one and go, Hey, you remember me? Because of you, I'm here. And if you don't remember me, this is what I'm doing today. And they're like, Who the hell are you? I'm like, You started following me like two years ago, and then you see them posting. Like, when you post your morning stuff, you'll see, and I'll tell you the way that you gain people the heart emojis, the thumbs up. You just click on those and you see people that aren't following you, but somehow your stuff got out there on the they call it the FYP, you know, yep, on Facebook. I don't know what it's called, it just goes global, and you see these people, man, they're like they believe in your message. And now I got people coming out to me. Uh, just did a guy from uh the UK, uh, a girl from the UK. I did a guy from uh Russia, I just did a dude from Australia who is an award-winning author, best-selling two-time, best-selling Amazon. Yeah, man, they're coming out of woodwork, and today I will announce it because it's public affairs. I don't know if you know who Scotty Frazier is.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

No, sir, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Marine Corps veteran, turn country music star. Like, he's the big dude on my podcast. Like, I think I could talk about it now. Like, I have a cryptic, he sent me a video. I'm gonna do the lessons learned for my podcast this week because like I want people to know between the man and the woman and some things that happened and the backlash that I got from military people disclosing their trauma, sexual abuse, and all that. So, next week I'm doing it's called a situation report by myself. I got it all laid out, and then I have lessons learned, and I shared it with both guests so that they don't get like starstruck. You know, is there something I should add? Because I don't want to put something out there, and then I learned one thing from being on a podcast. When you talk about the subjects that I talk about, you gotta have a disclaimer. You gotta have a disclaimer, and you gotta have your people sign something because when it's recorded, I'm dropping it. Okay, I'm not gonna pull it back because you know what? With my bio trailers, I share those bio trailers out with people because I don't like to read. So, like, you know how you said, tell me a little bit about yourself? I have an intro trailer for my guests. I build an intro trailer, they give me pictures, I put it in an AI generator, and I take their pictures. And if they're like a purple heart recipient or they have some kind of degree in whatever they're doing, I look that stuff up and shock them when like before their stuff plays, it plays the history of the purple heart or the bronze star, or uh if you're a doctor in like you do cancer research, I find out that type of cancer research and then I stream it, you know, and then their bio starts, and then I ask the questions because like me, I don't ask a lot of questions, but anybody that comes on crawl walk run, they're like, What is crawl walk run? So the first question is crawl walk run. What does crawl walk run to mean mean to you? You know, what is trauma if you don't have trauma? Well, what is trauma? What is your trauma? If you don't have trauma, what do you do to help people with trauma? And then the third question is what are the coping mechanisms you use for trauma? And the third, most people, some civilians, doctors, and therapists, they still transition, you know, but military, what was your military transition like? And when you talk to like a sergeant major or a colonel or a general, and they have to come down to that level and still think they're at that level, and you don't care if they're a general, you don't care if they were a general. That comes later in the podcast. I want to know what that transition was like. Was it bad for you, or did you just slide right into the system because of who you were? And sometimes it's terrible. You know, Purple Heart recipients, they think that they're gonna get out and get all God Almighty. I got a buddy, man. I'm trying to help him get 100% right now. He's got some family issues going on. I'm always talking to him. He was one of my soldiers, he believed in me. Uh, he made it all the way to Sergeant First Class. And I told him, I'm like, dude, man, family, bro. Don't go to another deployment, man. Family. So we're trying to get him 100%. You know, uh, the demons are coming out on him, man. Like he got out, he was working at a gas station when he got out. And I'm telling you, man, a lot of people get out of the military, they don't know how to write a resume. They have to take all that military lingo and bring it over to the civilian side because, like I said, when you go into the civilian world, I started out at a cola place working as a merchandiser. And let me tell you what, man, some of these stores, their managers are terrible to merchandiser. People talk to you like you're dirt. I have people calling me boy, get down there. Boy, get down there and get uh those cubes. Man, I despise walking through the soda aisle with cubes because I used to get down on my knees and pulled out for granny, you know? No thank you, no nothing. Then I I left that job. Then I worked in the prison system as a correctional officer trainee. And that's why I say mental health is a life sentence without parole, because I have watched murderers, I have watched killers walk right out of that prison and go commit that crime and come right back. When you have mental health issues, you don't have no parole. You can use the coping mechanisms, but make it real, right? Make it be real, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

And and I'll tell you that that's the whole the whole scenario to me is very admirable because number one, thank you for your service to our country. I didn't serve in the military, so I had the highest level of respect to anyone that did. And I've had several military veterans from you know different different places that have been on the podcast, and the one common theme is what you just spoke of, and it's that over on this side in this life, I was you know, super important. Everyone looked up to me, everybody knew who I was. I was, you know, a very specifically important person. And then you come back over to the other side and you don't get any of that, even to the point of getting disrespected. And I think that the biggest thing that most of those folks have all kind of told me is similar to what you just said, it's very difficult. And it it changes who you are as a person. And then you have to figure out how to adapt. And a lot of people never do. A lot of people end up taking their lives very young, and they end up coming back and not being able to adapt, having all kinds of problems. And I think having someone like yourself to speak out and say, I know how this feels. I've been through this, you're not alone, you're you've got friends. Come be with us and let us be together and understand each other is incredibly admirable. And the question that I would love to ask is this every time I have someone on who does something that is for the purposes of helping others, someone who's got a pure heart, whose goal is to do good. It's not for fame, it's not for fortune, it's to genuinely be a good human being towards others. There's always that first story of that person who comes back to you after you've decided, you know what, I'm gonna reach out, I'm gonna be. You're sitting on your back patio, like you say, with your little dog, and you're thinking about life, and you make that choice right then. I'm gonna help people. So tell me a little bit about the first time that someone reached back out to you and said, you know what, we've never met before, but I saw your story, I saw what you were saying, I heard you, and it struck a nerve and it it hit me personally to the point where I need to reach out and tell you thank you. And I kind of want to know, you know, I always ask this question how did that make you feel when when a complete stranger reached out to you like that and said, What you're doing really does matter. Hey, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

This is Zoe. She's 12 years old, she's a long-haired Chihuahua Paneranian. She is my emotional support, she is my light, and I don't know what I would do without her because, like, when I we got her 12 years ago, I hated her. I absolutely hated her, but now you know the difference between a red and a blue toy, don't you? Go get that toy here. All right. So, first of all, I don't make no money off of the stuff that I do. Um, the money that I do make, I go and buy more products. Or uh, I've had people give me donations and I don't take them. I'm not a nonprofit. Uh, and I usually have a military retirement or a disability that I get from the civilian government. And a lot of people don't know this, but the royalties, the royalties, little bit stuff that I get, like you sell a book for $20 and you get a dollar in royalty. All that goes to a private account for my kid. Because, like, um, I just sold my RB and I just paid off all her student loans. So I could have taken that money and been greedy and been like, okay, kid, you're 18, you go do what you need to do. But she's a Stevens, she is my mini me, and I was very terrible to her. So I'm just gonna say, I was a terrible person, man. A terrible person. And now I see people coming at me like, you have seen this light. No, I haven't seen Jesus, but I know that he's out there and there's the Lord and all this, but I do it because I know that eventually it will come back and help me. So better than any Amazon review or any good time review, I was in Florida, I was in Claremont, and this is when it all resonated with me when I was out. I met with multiple people on the road and spoke with them, and they shared their stories, but no one's ever came back to me and said, Your book, The Broken Mirror, saved my life. So I was doing something, and I gave the lady at the front desk, because she always looked bored. I gave her my book. I'm looking, I wasn't even an award-winning author yet. My book hadn't won nothing, just reviewed by the U.S. book review. I gave my book to her and I said, Hey, you you talked to me about some mental health issues. And she said, I came back to see her a couple days later, and she said, You see that guy sitting over there in the chair? He was um in the Navy and he was a master at arms, and they're the ones that are like military police and deal with weapons. And she said, he was in for 25 years and then got out as a police officer. And I'm looking at this old broken dude back here, and I didn't know what to say. What struck me is when she said he came here because he's waiting for his kid to come down to join the Navy, and his kid was in a head-on collision and died. That guy's suicidal. I didn't know what to do because I'm not a subject matter expert, but I've been there on the suicidal side in 2014 and in 2024. I don't really disclose in 2014 I want to take my life, but all the shit that happened to me, it all just came. But I immediately turned around and she handed me my book. She said, I don't need this, he does. And I thought to myself, that's good because I don't have another book. So I sat down with him, like, hey man, first of all, I'm I'm so sorry to hear what happened. Because like you have to watch when you talk to people, like you have to definitely come down to that level or even be low. And like, I'm like, is there anything that I can do for you, man? Like, can I take you out to eat? Can we sit down and talk? And he was like, Hey, I really don't want to talk. But I'm like, look, I want you to do one thing, man. I said, first, thank you for your service, and thanks for retiring from the police academy or being a police officer, private investigator. I said, You've definitely seen what a lot of combat veterans or veterans don't even see. I said, I'm gonna give you this book. I said, I don't know where it's gonna take you. I said, but I hope it helps you in some way. I said, that's why I write. I said, it's a mental health book. I said, I'm not saying you have mental health issues, but I think we all struggle, and I seriously know that you're struggling. So I left. I gave him my book. I had my dog, I went back to my RB, and I heard that night the ambulance, and I didn't know what that was, and I went to go check on this dude, and he wasn't there. And I'm like, wow, what happened to this dude? So I went to the front office and they were like, he went to the hospital.

unknown 35:00

I'm like, oh man.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Maybe he tried to end it, you know. But he was like throwing up blood or something because, like, a couple of days later, I went back and I saw him outside, and he was reading my book. He was reading my book. So I walked over to him and I said, Hey man, I came by the other night to see you. I said, Um, uh, are you getting something out of my book? And he closed it and he stood up and he gave me a hug and he said, Your book saved my life. And I said, Holy shit. And you know what? I didn't even tell anyone online, I didn't put it out in a comment. But now, when I do public engagements or like you ask me, it's not just a book, it's not a bunch of words, it's not AI written or anything, it's all raw and it's experiences, and it will it's now saved three people's lives. Three people's lives. So I know I'm doing something right, and like I said, I wish I could sell more books, but the audiobooks are doing great. Like maybe, maybe once a week I get a little ting. Hey, you sold an audiobook. I just got an amazing five-star review from this guy who a guy, a guy saw me on a podcast and said, I want that dude, he's a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant retired. I want that dude to write the forward to my book. I'm like, dude, I don't write no more. So he gave me his two books, the manuscripts, and I had them read back to me. And I had Chat TPT pull out the most important things because I'm not an avid reader. So I took what it did, I collaged it all together. I said, look, I have to write this. I wrote what I could, I spoke what I could, and I wrote this for it, and I didn't know it was very good. And I gave it to him, and he was like, dude, this is the best piece of literature I have ever seen before. He's like, Who wrote this? I'm like, I spoke it. I spoke it. So you might want to take out the likes and the hands, you know. And I I didn't even proofread it, really. I just ran it through chat to commas and periods and look like I'm not educated, you know. And that resonates with me when I'm doing podcasts or I'm doing a morning message, and I see those little heart emojis, or they're not money things, they're just like thumbs up or thumbs down. Or you're always gonna have people agree with you or not agree with you. But last, I'm just gonna tell you this on your podcast. I learned from my buddy Brian, who's a Marine Corps veteran. I'm gonna give him a shout-out because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be doing podcasting every day of Saturday with Brian and Maria. I told you, Brian, I'd call you out. And um he told me the other night because I was getting backlash on the MST stuff, you know, uh, the male who came out. The female was kind of hidden with an emoji, you know. But the male he spoke up, and some people didn't believe his story, you know, it wasn't driving and all that. And I'm not, I don't do that on my podcast. I'm I'm not the judge and the jury. I let the American people or the people or the veterans listen. But he said, you know what, Steve? You gotta take it with a grain of salt. There are three parts. Uh so there are three parts to a story, and I don't know if you've ever heard that before. You always hear there's only two parts to a story. The first part is the victim or the person that's being interviewed, the second part is the people who committed the crime or the organization that's trying to put that person out, or who they're talking about. But the third part is the truth, yeah. And that blew me away. I was like, what? Man, I'm 56 years old, man. I've never heard that in my life. And this dude, a Marine Corps veteran, I don't know what he did. I think it was infantry or something. Infantry or something. Oh my no, I'm am I still there? Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yes, sir. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

I didn't put it on airplane mode. Somebody called me and I had to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yep, you're here loud and clear. Didn't even skip a beat.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

But yeah, man, I'm learning so much from my podcast, man. How to speak to people. Uh, it's all about body language, how you like when people are talking about trauma, I'm not writing, I'm not looking at my phone, nothing like that. You know, I'm locked in. And I've also made like to help people, silent videos. Because if you go back and look at the podcast, you'll see that I say, hey, look, maybe you need to go and uh you know, compose yourself. I'm gonna put you down in the green room and I'm gonna play uh an emotional video of 30 seconds. And that emotional video made made them like burst into a light that they came back, they were ready to push out. And I've always like sat before my podcast, like you did. I kind of coached them. I'm like, are you sure you want to do this? You know, because like the world is gonna hear this. Because, like, if I give it to you early and you put it out to your friends, I haven't streamed it yet. But one time it's out there on the internet, it's always gonna be on the internet, even if you delete it. It is out there. Someone took a screenshot of it, someone heard something, and I'm learning about my credibility. Like, there are certain things you say on a platform, and there's certain things you say not on a platform. So I don't know what to say, man.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

It's you know, keeping it real, man. Yeah, there's a lot of different levels to it, and I'll tell you, it's very inspiring. And I can't say enough how much I respect and appreciate what you do because it does come from the heart. And I have no, I mean, I have not nothing in anything that you've said would have any question about that. This is done because you want to relate to people who are experiencing things that you have gone through as well. And I want to give you a huge round of applause for coming back afterwards and acknowledging in life that, you know, maybe I wasn't the best guy, maybe I was problematic, maybe I had my own issues that I needed to take care of, and realizing that the people that were around you were, you know, they were there for you and with you, but probably could have had a little bit better treatment. And then being a man and going and actually taking the steps to to make that better. And the fact that you've got such a strong relationship with your daughter at this point in life, that that is absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

It's so amazing because there'd be times where she couldn't even look at me, and I just wanted to pick on her, and and it was just it just it amazes me. So uh I do want to say one thing uh about my kid. Uh, my kid is my whole world to me. Like there were times, even though I get so much money and stuff, I would give all that money to her cheerleading or help, even though I don't get along with her mom, you know. Her mom is doing some crazy stuff right now, and her mom's actually gonna be homeless. Her mom has a master's in education, nursing education, a bachelor's in nursing, and a bachelor's in in uh education. No, a bachelor's in psychology. Do you know how hard it is to get a job like that?

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yeah, the degree does it's easier to be a roofer in modern times.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Yeah, the degree does not matter because, like, I told my kid, I'm like, look, I'll help you pay your way through college. I always noticed when I didn't notice when I was uh got out of the military, my daughter used to play with those cosmetology heads, like the Barbie heads. Now she's going to one of the biggest schools in the United States in Orlando, the Paul Mitchell School. And I just got done paying her tuition. And you know what? I don't think she really realizes it yet, because when she gets out, she won't be any, she won't be in debt, like her mom that hasn't even paid on her master's yet, because of the administrations where keep pushing that back and keep pushing that back and putting people in a hole, and now they'll be working till they're like 70 or 80 years old. So my kids like, the hell in college, top gun was like, look, you got this skill, and the little girls see it. So crawl walk run is being passed to my kid because she's a coach, teach, and mentor for little girls. She's 18 years old, and she's a competitive cheerleader coach. She's a heavy handing. She's going big places. Like, man, I cheer tuition ten thousand dollars a year. That's not even uh flights, hotel house, all that the tuition, the uniforms, and now that my kids are coached, everything is paid for it. I can't wait for that. And then this year. Because she was only 17, she couldn't certify a USA. She'll be certified as a US cheer coach. And her goal is to take a team to worlds. And I believe that she's going to be one of the youngest cheer coaches to take a team and win worlds. And it just that just gave me a that just gave me a chill, man.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Yeah. That's something we all can look forward to now. And that's that is so amazing. And I love that because it doesn't work out that way for everybody. And the hard work that goes into it and the realization is is that's what makes you who you are. And the fact that you're here today, the fact that you have done what you've done, you've saved three lives verifiably already. But I bet you it's more than that. I bet there are people that have probably never that are probably never going to reach out, that are in the shadows, that that somehow got a hold of the copy of the book, and they they heard something that you said and it just hit with them. And they said, you know what? It's gonna be okay. Everything is is messed up, but it's gonna be all right.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

I have people that I go back and look at on Facebook that have been following me since 2017. So I have to tell you, in 2017, in 2014, my mom died at the age of 61. And I had to make a choice because the guy who beat me to death when I was a kid reached out and said, I can't do this alone. So I left my wife and my daughter with the clothes I had on my back. Now I'm not even an author yet. I'm I'm writing a little bit, but I took my government laptop, the clothes I had on my back, and the car, and I went over it and I lived with my dad. And you know what? I found out so much about my dad because I didn't date, like you know, I was still divorced, like, but separated. Didn't go out, went to work, came home. My dad had my meal cooked for me. He made me breakfast, and I'm like, this is totally a different guy. He didn't drink no more because when my daughter came into this world, my dad went cold turkey. And when I told my daughter how terrible of a man he was, she could not believe that Pappy Bill was that man until the day she actually read The Broken Mirror or looked at pieces of the broken mirror. She's like, You're lying about Pappy Bill, and I'm like, Well, go read No Filter. And I sent her the manuscript and she dropped uh the the uh the endorsement, and I was like, Whoa! So, but yeah, man, when you treat your kid like shit like that, and then years later, where she's 18 now, and she does a uh an official endorsement. Like, I'm getting ready to go out in October. I'm gonna speak at a huge book gala. Like, basically, I'm just driving there and they're gonna do everything for him and help him set up. But I'm gonna do a conference in the morning, that's where I'm gonna release the crawl walk run campaign. But I I I changed the name, it's gonna be called What is Your Purpose? So I want to go around to different military installations and talk to soldiers because there's a lot of leaders that don't talk to their soldiers before they get out, and then they blame the military that they treated them like shit. So my categories are this what is your purpose, mental health and suicide, and what is that transition gonna look like? And are you ready to transition? You might be a year out or you're playing that uh ETS game, echo tangled suitcase. Hey, I'm getting ready to get out, but I don't have a plan. But you better have a plan because when you step out, the military doesn't care about you, and when you turn around, you better hope that the foot or the door is gonna slam you in the face. Because I know soldiers that get out, and all they get is their DD Form 214. They don't get a service award, they don't get nothing. Nothing. Except for thank you for serving. And I just want to say one thing about today. Um, and I'm not calling anyone out, but I don't know if you saw the enlistment army. Uh, you can go to basic training now, up to 44 years old. It's up to 44. The cutoff is 44 now. They want soldiers. You got people coming on the internet putting on their uniforms, all proud and going back. But I'm gonna tell you one thing that I learned. If you are 100% or you have a disability rating, and you go back to the military, they're gonna see that you got better and you want to go back and you want to fight. But I'm gonna tell you this all the benefits that you received, I guarantee you're gonna pay those back. Or they're gonna, I don't see how somebody 100% permanent and total will want to put on the uniform and give all that up for their family. 100% PNT is over $4,000 a month. And it depends if you have CRSC. Uh, no, I'm sorry. I don't even want to talk about it. Sorry, not CRSC. It does depend on how many dependents you have that you get more. So I don't see why somebody would go back and serve, even with whatever administration on a something that I don't agree that what we're doing right now, even though I'm a veteran and I speak to other veterans, there are a lot of veterans coming out and speaking about what's going on right now. And I truly believe, man, like when we were in the military, there was no drone warfare. I don't care how much money they spend on uh military technology, like tanks and um artillery, a small drone this big that probably cost $200 to make in China or somewhere can take out a multi-million dollar tank. And one all they got to do is leave the hatch open or somewhere vulnerable. And you don't think these scientists and people that are doing these drones know the vulnerable points? It's just like when we were in Iraq, we wore a helmet, we wore a neckpiece, we had this on, and we had a little thing covering our little ding-dong down here, right? There were propaganda leaflets going out to the people that lived in Iraq. 10,000, whatever, if you can shoot them uh under the collar. If a sniper can shoot them when they're not wearing their pet. And they did so much research, soldiers weren't wearing the neck piece. So who was getting shot? The soldiers were getting shot in the neck, or soldiers were standing on top of the roof smoking, and they said, if you see a little light like that, shoot the light, and you're gonna hit the head. That's why when we went to Iraq and we did the book and we did all the uh collecting data, we took all the lessons learned and uh put it in a handbook because there were units that were going into Iraq that had no clue they were going from being a postal unit or a supply unit, and the next thing you know, they were going to arrange and certifying, and the next thing you know, they were downtown Baghdad or Falouja or Afghanistan going through tunnels, and they'll tell you this stuff, kicking down doors and taking names. Why? Because people like me went in the theater that was an advisor and went with these units. They took that data, took that data, declassified it, took it back to Fort Leavenworth where they wrote the book and put it out to these units. When I was working at the Navy base, I had a Navy captain walk up to me. He's a oh a Navy captain, uh, is an 06, like the highest, like a colonel in the army. I had a Navy captain walk up to me in the hallway and go, Are you the William Stevens that wrote the Security Force Handbook 0602? And I was like, How the hell does this guy know this? He's like, that book funneled over to the Navy when I was a young lieutenant, and I had to train my unit. And I heard that this Stevens guy was in the building. I want you to sign, I want you to sign it when I bring it to you. And I was like, Wow, that's the first time I've ever signed a security force handbook. So I thought that was pretty cool. So, but yeah, that is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

But yeah, man, we're keeping the show. Yeah, we're doing it, and this has been an amazing conversation. So go right ahead. Yep, we've been we've been having a good conversation. I'm gonna take a couple seconds here while you're getting a little refreshment to give a shout out to my sponsor. Without without my sponsor, I wouldn't be here. And my sponsor is roofer.com. That's R-O-O-F-R. I'll tell you a little bit about Roofer. Basically, Roofer does everything for my company. We go from instant estimates, first contact with a homeowner, all through the entire roofing process, final payment collected, email reminders a year down the road that they need to call and get their general maintenance done. Everything is on Roofer. All my guys that are in roofing know I've been talking about it for four years. It's the best CRM in the world, and they're the best sponsor too. So thank you to Roofer for that. And I think we'll get ready to start winding this one down a little bit. Um, I certainly appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

You seem like you're a good boss or a supervisor or even a CEO. You seem like that you take care of your people.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

I try my best because I am not going to get up on a roof and nail shingles at my age. I've gotten, you know, I did 28 years in the roofing industry and 28 years of roofing, it takes a toll on you to the point where you don't want to get up and do any of that stuff. So treat my people really well, but I've got an amazing group that's around me, my team, all the people that I surround myself with are absolute winners, and we try to lift each other. And I think that's kind of the theme of our show today. So I do want to help you.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Let me ask you one question about the roofing, you didn't know I asked you about roofing here.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Absolutely, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

In my house, I was at the age, I was at the the 20-year threshold where it needed a new roof. Uh oh. I know what's coming. Let me ask you the people that come and try to sell the roof for your company, did they do the roofing? Were they experienced to do the roofing? Do they know? Because I've had people come to me and they say, Yep, we're gonna build this and this and this. And the first thing I asked them was, Did you ever get up on the roof and repair the roof? Did you ever know how to do that? Because, like, I'm like, I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to somebody who works for your company, did all the hardcore roofing, and now they're at that level where they can explain whatever I ask about an angle or different levels.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Some of the people who all they know is that's something that I'm very passionate about. And I spent 15 years as a truck driver. I used to deliver roofing materials, I would roofload the shingles onto the houses, and in that process, you physically basically, you know, you lift 80-pound bundles of shingles every day, all day for 15 years. You know, my arms are messed up and my back and all that. And I got to see a lot of the people doing the actual installs during that process. So I feel like I was on job sites, I was doing the work, I was putting it in a different aspect to what they were doing. But from there, I went to open a roofing supply business and I managed that. I sold supplies to roofing contractors all through Charlotte, North Carolina, came down here to Texas, and I was 15 years into my career before I sold my first ever roof. And people ask you that all the time. Have you ever installed roofs? And I tell them, well, no, but my story I think is more unique than anybody else in my industry. I've got I've got every side of it covered, and so I can teach people pretty well. And I know that that's an age-old thing, is that a lot of people say, Well, you know, if you don't know what you're doing, I don't want to work with you. But the reality is I've got guys on my team that have, you know, been doing roofing for 35, 40 years. And I tell folks, if you see me up there with a hammer, we got big problems. Like something really got screwed up if I'm up there putting the roof on. And uh, I think people appreciate that aspect of it as well. But, you know, kind of two sides of thought process on that. And I've got buddies that have some of the most successful businesses in the roofing industry that do tens of millions of dollars a year that started off swinging hammers, and I've got guys that did, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars that never installed a roof in their life, but they just had that work ethic. So it's just kind of what you make of the situation, how you present it, how you frame it. And, you know, it's been good to me. I've loved everything about it. And one thing I do know, people in the industry, this is gonna resonate with a lot of them. And I want to help you sell some copies of your book. I want to help you get this out into the public a little bit more, and that's what keeping it Rio is about. Sure. I selfishly get to hear all the stories from all these great folks all over, but I want to spread the word as well. So somebody's watching, they want to follow you, they want to hear your podcast, they want to buy copies of your books, they want to come see you speak. What are some of the ways that we can make this happen? How's the best way to go about doing this? And we'll we'll do what we can to make it happen for them.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

Well, I have my Facebook page before my phone dies. I have I have my Facebook page, uh, story time and time is T Y M E because there's a lot of times out there, just like you're keeping it real. Um so it's story T Y M E with Steve-O, uh William Stevens Facebook page, and then I have a story time with Stevo. Storytime, no, story time with Steve O Stevo, which is the author side, uh sub website. And then I'm on TikTok is Storytime with Stevo. But to find my books, you can go to Storytime with Stevo69. I was born in 69.com. That is the whole website I built from Trulia. Uh, they have an amazing website thing where you pay $9 a month for a website and $15 a year for maintenance and uh your domain. Super cool. So, but that's where you can find me. Uh, my books are on Amazon, my books are on barnesandobles.com. Um, not in the stores yet, but I'm getting ready to get my last book, uh, the reflection series physically in Barnes and Nobles. I'm on Walmart.com. I'm on uh BAM Books A Million. So yeah, I'm out there. You just gotta Google William Stevens. Actually, it's SFC, uh, capital SFC for Sarge and First Class, R E T for Retired, and that's how you find me quicker, William Stevens Jr. And just put in the broken mirror, no filter, whatever. Uh, if you're struggling out there, reach out to Chuck. He can reach out to me, put me in contact. I'll hell, I'll give you the audio book for free, or I'll give you the manuscript. But I'm just gonna tell you everything's copyright. And when your stuff is pro when your stuff is approved by the Pentagon, good luck trying to put it right to telling you. So, but love, peace, and joy. I always say, man, keep your head on a swivel. Big brothers always listening and watching.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

There you go. I think that's the way that uh we're gonna end the episode with that right there, because that's profound. And I'd like to thank everybody that watches keeping it real. Episode 258 definitely did not disappoint everything that I was hoping for, and then some. And we're gonna have another uh we're gonna have another go-around a couple years down the road after you hit your bestseller status with the book and you get your first million out there into print. New time bestseller already. Glad to see you. So now you're the 45th author I've had on the show, and you're the 24th best seller. So, congratulations on the success. I know it's gonna continue coming, and I am very honored that you took the time to be here with me tonight on the show. Um, I always close it out with the corniest tagline in the world, and I will ask this I'm gonna play an ad for my sponsor. Stick around and we'll finish our conversation on the backside. But until next week, ladies and gentlemen, y'all know the deal. Keep on keeping it real. We'll see you guys next Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

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