Trauma affects everybody, and not just the individual, but everybody around them. Trauma is like a pressure cooker. The pressure release valve is simply us telling our story. Tom Broadbent is a veteran, faith-anchored, and community-focused leader and the founder of Camp Treehouse Trauma Camp. His work reflects a deep commitment to resilience, restoration, and helping those who've served find community and purpose beyond their pain. Sometimes God allows tragedy in our life to reposition us to be more effective for Him. What we're doing with Camp Freehouse is we're taking the best practices from multiple nonprofits, bringing the best practices together for a common goal of helping people go into traumatic experiences. Most folks think, why me? Why did this happen to me? Why did God curse me? Oh, where you and I come from, these aren't curses. These are tests. These are rewards. These are challenges. It's interesting that you said that because I didn't plan on this, but what I didn't share with you, and I'll share right now, is that... It spans the globe like a super high school internet. Elvis, Brendan, Kyle, and Chris. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast. For those who live to leave a legacy. That's extraordinary. The impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Good. Open. Chicago with the lead. You said Paul is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dream. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. This is a special one because this is the first of our new show, Operation CEO. Joining us today is our first operator, Tom Broadbent. He is the founder of Camp Treehouse. Yes, I am. It's a fantastic new opportunity really for anybody, but primarily focused on our nation's heroes. And that would be veterans, first responders and their families dealing with combat or work-related trauma. And I say it's really for anybody because trauma affects everybody. Oh, yeah. And not just the individual, but everybody around them. You have people that are traumatized by divorce, by loss of life. Perhaps you got battered women. Interesting. You have trauma. Getting canceled and having your 15-year career destroyed. There you go. Right. Even something like kids in the foster care. Yeah. They've been traumatized by either abuse. Excuse me. Either by abuse or by neglect. Yeah. And so they end up in foster care. Did you know, just talking about foster care, for example, 70% of women aging out of foster care end up as pregnant single moms? Wow. And I think the stat is 87, I might be off a few, 87% of young men aging out of foster care end up incarcerated. Of course. And so, and that's partly because they turn 18. The government. Government. Unspiritual educated, just out and about. And they said, you're an adult. You're on your own. Yep. And they've never been able to deal with their trauma of abuse or trauma of neglect. And now they're expected to figure it out on their own. And they have no support system. And there they go. And so with Camp Freehouse, we want to be able to help anybody in trauma. Even though we say our target audience is veterans, first responders, and their families, the reality, much like Reboot Recovery, which is part of our DNA, they've developed a trauma course for veterans. They've developed a trauma course for first responders. And then they developed a trauma course for civilians, for everyday folks, dealing with maybe the loss of a job, sickness, death, divorce, you name it. you know, lose your money in the, you know, playing the lotto. Oh, yeah. No, yeah. For sure. You never know. But anyways, so it's really a fantastic opportunity because what we're doing with Camp Freehouse is we're taking the best practices from multiple nonprofits, bringing the best practices together for a common goal of helping people going through traumatic experiences. emphasis is experiences, traumatic experiences. Most folks think, why me? Why did this happen to me? Why did God curse me? Oh, where you and I come from. These aren't curses. These are tests. These are rewards. These are challenges. Elaborate, please. It's interesting that you said that because I didn't plan on this, but it's, I'm going to seize the opportunity. Please do. In 2017, offline, you and I talked about some trauma that I went through in 2017, losing my cousin. Yes, sir. And what God revealed to me. What I didn't share with you, and I'll share right now, is that through that experience, God gave me a word about why bad things happen. When I think about my cousin, my cousin Elvis, yes, he was named after Elvis Presley. His sister was also named after his daughter, Lisa Marie. So it's Lisa Marie and Elvis Aaron. I get it. I'm an Elvis guy versus the Beatles. There you go. 100%. I completely get it. My aunt was a huge Elvis fan, and so she named her kids after Elvis Aaron Presley and Lisa Marie Presley. But anyways, so Elvis was really like a brother to me. And of course, Lisa, like a sister. And so, Lisa, if you're listening, I love you. But anyways, when Elvis passed, I went to Amazon and started looking up books on why bad things happened. Because Elvis was a really good guy. And I'm not saying that tongue in cheek. He genuinely was the type of guy that would give you the shirt off his back. He never met anybody who wasn't a friend. Wow. And his job, I mean, get this. He was living in Hawaii on the Big Island. His job was to make sure other people had fun. Wow. He became a boat captain and would take people out to swim with the sharks or scuba diving or deep sea fishing or what have you. Sure. And so what a great life to have, helping other people have fun, helping other people create memories. And he was getting ready to get married. And unfortunately, I was involved in a motorcycle accident and lost his life. And so that was tough. That became a trigger for a lot of my post-traumatic stress from combat. Losing people I couldn save And here now I got somebody who is like a brother who was my cousin that there was nothing I could have done to prevent his death And so I ended up writing a book. Why bad things happen. And what I learned is it's it's all based off God's sovereign will. You know, the Bible says it's appointed unto every man a time to die and then face judgment. And it also says that in Revelation chapter one, it says that Jesus Christ alone holds the keys to death and to Hades. And so when you realize the truth, statements like that, that come from Scripture, it's liberating. But what it did is God showed me six biblical reasons why bad things happen. And you can actually, no shame here, but go to Amazon. You can Google my name or do a search for my name, Tom Broadbent, Why Bad Things Happen, The Sovereignty of God's Will. Wow. And I got a book. And what I did when God gave me this message of why bad things happen, again, on Amazon, there's a ton of books on why bad things happen. But the reality is this. Romans 3.23 says, all of sin fall short of the glory of God. Right. So all these books out there, why bad things happen to what? The good people. The reality, good behavior is learned behavior. There is no such thing as good. We're all sin. We all fall short. And that's why I really looked at why bad things happen, because part of God's sovereign will, he's trying to teach us stuff. He's trying to grow us. He's trying to stretch us, trying to use us. And so he gave me insight, biblical insight, truth statements on six biblical reasons why bad things happen. And I use experiences from my own life in combat, my own life in the military with my cousin, my family. But I also use biblical examples like Joseph, for example, in the Bible. If you look at Joseph's life, all six reasons why bad things happen, you can find illustrated in Joseph's life in the Bible. And for those that don't know the story of Joseph, you know, he had 10 other brothers. And he was one of the youngest ones. He was second to the youngest. But he was well-liked and well-favored from his parents. The parents gave him a coat of many colors, and brothers became jealous and envious. They were out in the fields working, and Joseph got to hang out with Mama back at the house, and he was a little soft, but he was boastful. You know, look at this nice coat I got, you know, and things like that. Well, his brothers plotted, beat him up, they threw him in a pit, they sold him into slavery, subsequently got sold a second time into slavery to Potiphar. Potiphar's wife then falsely accused him of rape. He got thrown into prison, forgot about. Eventually, as the story is told, the true life account of Joseph's life, he was then able, he was gifted to be able to interpret Pharaoh's dream. Wow. And what happened, one of the six biblical reasons why bad things happen, sometimes God allows tragedy in our life to reposition us to be more effective for him. As you know, Joseph was named second in all the land, second only to Pharaoh. The Bible says that people from all nations came to Egypt, came specifically to Joseph at a time where there was a worldwide famine and they came to him for food. God allowed the tragedies, a series of tragedies, to reposition Joseph to be more effective. He used a series of tragedies to advert a much larger tragedy. Right? He used a series of tragedies to allow Joseph to minister to other people. Yes, sir. He used a series of tragedies to test the faithfulness of Joseph. I mean, you look at it, and even the one of the six, you know, you look at all six reasons why bad things happen. They're all based on what God's trying to do in us or through us, for us or for other people. The only reason why bad things happen that's not a good thing can also be found in Joseph's life. sometimes our tragedy is a result of our own bad choices. Absolutely. And so in Joseph's case, his choice to be a braggart, boastful, talking about how much he got this nice coat from his parents, it just stirred up anger and resentment and bitterness in his brothers, and that was the downfall where he ended up getting beat up and thrown into the pit and sold. And so all six reasons you can see in the life of Joseph. And so I talked about it, but I purposed. Sometimes people need quick answers right now. So I purposed to write this book, less than 100 pages, so it's an easy read. I thought about people like myself that have bad eyesight, and so the font is just a tiny bit bigger. The spacing between the lines are a little bit extra so you can focus better. Look at you. And I tried to get in the military, we have, you know, we do acronyms for everything. Sure. And in the military, we talk about the bluff. The bluff. Bottom line up front. Huh. Just get to the point. We call it in journalism. Yeah. Keep it above the fold. There you go. Keep it above the fold. If you had to scroll down, you lost me. Right. Keep it above the fold. It's funny you say that because I tell you, I'm not tech savvy. and I created the website camptreehouse.net for those that are listening. If you want to go check out our website. I created the website. I don't know how. I just kind of stumbled into it. But the person who was trying to give me some counsel, some wisdom, I was the same guy that led me to the Lord, my Uncle Roy. Thank you, Roy. Uncle Roy. A little plug for Roy and his wife, April. I love you guys. They gave me some tools to create the website. and they told me, Tom, in this generation, two or three clicks and you lose people. Yep. The attention span is too small or too short. Problem is, I don't know how to do two or three clicks. I don't know what that means. Yeah. And you don't need to. You don't even need to worry about it. Just do you. So if you go to my website, there's a lot of words. I try to insert some videos and some pictures to break it up, but there's a lot of words. But here's the one thing you'll get from our website. If you go to our website and you click on each of the tabs and watch all the videos and read all the words, you'll get a very thorough understanding of what we're trying to do with Camp Treehouse. Everything from our mission, our purpose, our five-phased approach to building Camp Treehouse, who we want to be involved, what Camp Treehouse looks like, how it's to function, and who it's going to serve. You'll get all of that from Camp. And you can even get this get this you can even go there and donate to help build Camp Treehouse because we can do more together than we can ourselves Amen Amen to that Folks are building institutes. Folks are building academies. Entrepreneurs are building tribes. It's all the same story. You brought up a classic Bible story. I kind of giggle and smirk because I'm like, we've heard this story time and time again through music, through modern storytelling. Talk about how the word is transposed and now has landed at Camp Treehouse. And I was saved at nine. You were saved much older, but I think you were given the gift of storytelling. Tell me about the stories you're telling at Camp Treehouse and how you're motivating, how you're saving and how you're ascending folks. So the reality is what we believe, the philosophy that we believe in comes from two passages in Scripture. The first one from Genesis where it talks about God created us in his image. And when you think about, well, what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, when we learn about who God is and we learn that he's a jealous God, we learn that God is love, we learn that God is both body, mind, spirit, and emotion. And so all of that, which God is, he created in us. And so we're going to be emotional creatures. We're going to be relational creatures. And, of course, we're physical. Manifestation of the energy of God. Yeah, and mind and spirit. And so that was the very first premise behind the idea of reboot and camp free houses that were made in his image. And thereby we're going to function much like him. But, you know, with anything good, it can be corrupted. And so you either are functioning the way God designed us to function or you allow it to be perverted and we function in a way that's unhealthy. That's why we see in the Bible, it says be angry. There is a thing called righteous anger, righteous indignation. But it says be angry and sin not. Don't allow the anger turn to sin. Sure. Right. We are to love like God is love, but don't pervert that and fall into adultery or fornication or other sexual type of perversions, right? And so there's a way to do things in a healthy way and a way to do things unhealthy. So the second part— That is still pleasurable, not miserable. Like you are still designed to enjoy life. Oh, absolutely. If you look at the Psalm of Solomon, it's all about pleasure. Yes. Physical, emotional pleasure. And wealth and riches. Yeah. Talk about spiritual wealth. That's something that a lot of Christian CEOs walk in and go, it is a thing. You see, especially in some churches and in some faith-based organizations, there's this idea of a philosophy of scarcity. You know, we talk about, well, God owns a sheep or the cattle on a thousand hills. But then we constantly question, well, does God really want us to have this? You look at the prayer of Jabez. He prayed specifically, Lord, enlarge my territory. In other words, give me some land. Give me a mega church. And God blessed. We see that God wants us to have life and life abundantly. And I'm not preaching wealth and prosperity doctrine. What I'm preaching is simple biblical truth. God says, acknowledge me in all that you do, and I'll grant you the desires of your heart. Right. According to his will. Right. And so he wants us to have life abundantly. He wants us to experience some of the good things in life. You know, it's not reserved just for the wicked. You know, I read a book, interestingly enough, a guy that was building a private school in Northern California, San Jose, California. And the book you wrote was called The Quest for Excellence. Quest for Excellence. Why the quest? It was the idea that why should people of the world get the best of everything? Yeah. You know, you think about music. You know, they say, well, when you compare secular music to Christian music, the secular music is better. When you compare secular movies with all the cinematography and all this other stuff compared to Christian movies that seem to be berated. You know, why do the non-believers get the best? Why can't we have good, fantastic things? Well, you're seeing it now. Welcome. Merge the two and you have it. There you go. Well, and this is what Camp Free is. When you think about everything that we're trying to create at Camp Free House. Yes, sir. I'm talking a huge lake. I'm talking a 10-acre island that we call Adventure Island where you do all your activities. It's got a huge mountain on Adventure Island with a 100-foot waterfall coming down into a lazy river that you can float around on Adventure Island with zip lines and conference courses and basketball courts and swimming pools. And just, I mean, everything that we're talking about creating with Camp Treehouse, it's going to be the one of a kind facility in a world. And it's going to be the very best for the very best. Our nation's heroes. Beautiful. Right. And because they deserve nothing less than their very best because they fought and bled and in some cases died for our freedoms, for our liberties, for the people, our friends and family here stateside. And it's not like Vietnam where people were drafted. there were some that volunteered but most people were drafted and then told alright you're going to go fight this war they didn't even want to call it a war but you're going to go and you're going to fight and then when they came home people yelled at them, screamed at them, spat on them hit them called them baby killers, all this other stuff as if they had a choice in the matter oh yeah, no, they were just serving they're not thanked enough in my opinion. In fact, I encourage all who are listening to this podcast, if you see a Vietnam veteran, go up, shake their hand, thank them for their service, buy them a meal, buy them a cup of coffee, but let them know that they're appreciated because those guys laid the groundwork for guys like me and the people that I fought alongside, people that died and gave their life ultimate sacrifice. You know, the Bible says, and again, this is bringing faith into a practical reality. No greater love does a man have. They lay down his life for another. That's what Jesus did. And that's what the American soldier does. The Marine, the airman, the, the, the sailor. Now we've got space force. I don't know what that, I don't even know what they call it. That's the future, sir. Let's, let's ground it and wrap it up. I was just going to say, that's why it says it probably in God, we trust in every bill. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. How can folks, uh, uh, Camp, what was the website again, sir? Camptriose.net. Listen, we have five goals that we're trying to accomplish. And these are five bite goals that anybody can help be a part of We looking for prayer warriors When you try to do the right thing the enemy likes to attack us It called spiritual warfare And so if you want to be a prayer warrior where you're praying on a daily basis for Camp Treehouse, its ministry, the recovery of our nation's heroes struggling from traumatic events, and to pray for their leadership, then simply go to camptreehouse.net, Go to the communication page and type in the online form that you want to be a prayer warrior, and we'll get you added to that list, and we'll start communicating our prayer needs for Camp Treehouse and the ministry. The second goal is to raise up some campaign warriors, right? People who want to partner with us in the ministry of helping our nation's heroes, you can be a campaign warrior where you're giving on a monthly basis. And what I tell folks when it comes to giving is I don't care if you give $5, $50, or $100. Sure. What I care about is that you go through the website, pray about it, and ask the Lord, what do you want me to do? And simply be obedient to that. And as long as you're obedient to what God puts on your heart, God will bless you, and he'll bless our ministry, and we'll be able to help our nation's heroes. But we need campaign warriors because the reality is we need to raise some funds so we can build the camp so we can help our heroes, right? The third goal we have is to create some strategic partnerships with churches or other nonprofit organizations like we did with Reboot Recovery, like we did with Wild Warrior Adventure. Listen, Wild Warrior Adventure, I shared with you earlier, two first responders in between 20 and 22 veterans commit suicide every day because they don't get the help they need, want, or desire. It's not that there's not good help out there. Organizations like ours that are wanting to help our nation's heroes. because the reality is there's a ton of good nonprofit organizations designed to help people like Wild Warrior Adventure that they take combat vets out fly fishing and they give them an opportunity to tell their story. Wow. Wild Ops, very similar to Wild Warrior Adventure, they take people out. It's not fly fishing. It's more of the traditional rod and reel type of fishing, but they also take them skeet shooting, shoot at clay pigeons. They'll take them, you know, full willing on side by side and they do all kinds of stuff. Both of those organizations, Wild Ops and Wild Warrior Adventure, 100 percent free to the veteran. Wow. They'll pay for transportation, lodging, food, all the equipment you need to do this stuff. And they and both organizations will give you an opportunity to tell your story, which is important because trauma is like a pressure cooker. And the pressure release valve is simply us telling our story. I know. Project Purple Heart, a company out of Canada. A couple of American vets moved up to Canada, and they started this nonprofit where they will pay, out of their fundraising efforts, to fly people up to Canada, pay for the lodging, their food. They will gift them woodworking equipment, teach them how to work with wood. Yep. It's a form of therapy. Oh, yeah. They'll send them back home with all this free stuff. On top of that, they will contact a company wherever you're from to go to your house to build you a workbench so you can woodwork at home. Literally building a fishing rod. No cost to the veteran. Wow. Project Purpore. There's another company that people don't know about, Operation Tabletop. They're actually based out of here in Florida, and they got a location up in Colorado where I'm from where they simply provide a distraction for the veteran that's dealing with trauma. Sure. And they bring them and their families to a location wherever designated throughout the city simply to play board games. Amazing. Something so simple. Oh, gosh. They're creating community. You know what it is to play Dungeons and Dragons with a war vet and kind of share stories and kind of turn the fantasy into reality and vice versa? Gosh, just listening to you speak, sir, I can just kind of see the manifestation over your head in the cloud. Yeah, it all interconnects. So what we're trying to do is create those strategic partnerships where we can partner with people to help raise the awareness and to raise the support so we can build camp for the house. Our fourth goal is to fill some vacancies on our board where we're looking for subject matter experts, whether it's in the legal field, the finance field, the, you know, like CPA, you know, financial planner, developers, construction workers. Sure, sure. People that have specific skills, knowledge, education to keep Camp Treehouse moving in a positive forward direction. You should reach out to Tesla. Tesla has a great program for vets. It's a great white labeling program. You just call them up and they'll just be like, here's how you build a Tesla battery. And they'll do it for free and they'll get it up. Our final thing that we're looking for, well, and the other thing with the strategic partnerships, like with the churches, if you are in leadership of any nonprofit organization or a church, which is also nonprofit, and you want me to come speak to your organization, I will come out. I will share truth from God's word, and I will share the vision behind Camp Treehouse and give people within your organization the opportunity to partner with us in the ministry. And then the final goal that we're looking for is to raise up some ambassadors, people who are doing what I'm doing right now, and just seeing a mouth through the ministry to share with others about what we're trying to do, because I believe wholeheartedly we can do more together than we can by ourselves. And that's what I'm trying to do here in our, in our world, we call it building that tribe, building that village. And I love the fact that be it, if you're in your antagonist or protagonist journey, it's very much still the same source. Yeah. Tom has been such an honor to have your energy, listen to you speak on stage in the podcast room. We got to wrap it up, unfortunately, But I know in my heart that this is going to be one of the loudest bullhorns that we're going to supply you with, my friend. And that's fantastic. And whether you're supporting Camp Treehouse or whether you're a person in trauma, you can reach out to me at CampTreehouse.net. Go to the communication page and say, hey, I need some help. Or you can go to RebootRecovery.com. and they got courses all over the country, in-person courses and virtual courses where you can start getting the help you need today. Just go to rebootrecovery.com or camptreehouse.net, communicate with either one of us and we'll get you the help that you both want, need and desire. And we'll get you restored hope and get you back on the road to recovery. Amen. Let's amen to that. Let's change that PTSD acronym to H-O-P-E. Amen. Amen to that. Thank you again, Tom. That was such a great first podcast for Operation CEO. For Inside Success and the Living Your Legacy podcast, this is Tom and I'm Ray.
