Welcome

A story brought you here.

Whether I met you out in the wild, you heard me speak, caught an interview, found something I built, or heard me extracting someone else’s story on Going in Blind, something piqued your curiosity.

Maybe you were wondering how someone can ski black diamonds with his eyes closed, “or simply How could a Marine be such a bad shot?”

Whatever it was, thank you for being curious. We need more of that in the world.

This newsletter is going out about once a month, and the plan is pretty simple: interesting people, strange ideas, hard-earned lessons, updates from whatever I’m working on, and things worth paying attention to.

Since this is the first one, I should probably start with the obvious question, because it may have been a while since you joined this list.

Who The Heck Is This Guy?

To keep things short and sweet, my name is Zach Tidwell, and I intentionally shot myself in the face on March 31, 2019, about nine months after I got out of the Marines. I swear, I was a better shot when I was still in.

When I was brought off life support, I was completely blind, deaf in one ear, and had to relearn everything, from feeding myself and brushing my teeth on up. But I was snowboarding again by the end of the year, back in college another month later trying to turn my mistake into something positive, and living fully independently again six months after that.

But my toiling was not over.

My university stopped making my education accessible to me, so I researched what caused the technological barriers that stood in my way. When I found out it was code, I dropped out of college to teach myself how to code so I could remove barriers for other people like me.

I went on to struggle with horrendous alcoholism for several years, and was even diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease while I was at rehab trying to get sober.

But I’ve come out on the other side with a pretty wonderful life.

In 2023, I won a couple awards for my first piece of software that anyone could use, whether they had a disability or not. Since then, I’ve been working on my next piece of technology, writing a memoir, speaking, and Going in Blind, which recently surpassed its 100th episode.

Plus, I’ve been fortunate to add quite a few other endeavors to my repertoire, like rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, surfing, and competing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu against fully able-bodied opponents, amongst other things.

This is all relevant because my experiences have made me extremely curious about the world.

Curiosity has carried me through my highest highs and lowest lows, and I think we need more of it in the world.

So I started Going in Blind at the end of 2024.

Podcast

Going in Blind with Zach Tidwell is where I sit down with scientists, military operators, entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, researchers, and people with extraordinary stories to explore the ideas, experiences, and perspectives that shape their lives.

These are deep-reaching conversations with the most compelling people I can find.

New episodes are released every Monday, with an occasional bonus episode sprinkled into the mix.

Upcoming episodes include a retired Rear Admiral working with the White House in the field of UAP and anomalous objects hiding in our seas, the man charged with rebuilding NASA after the deadly Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, an American Winter Olympian, and more.

But the good news is, you don’t have to wait. There are already 100 episodes waiting for you.

Watch on YouTube · Listen on Apple Podcasts · Listen on Spotify

New to the show? Start here.

Consider starting with Jack Hager, a Vietnam combat veteran and convicted drug and weapons smuggler who turned his life around and entered youth ministry after prison.

Or try Dr. Betty Kovacs, whose research suggests that the real history of Jesus was covered up and replaced with the stories the Bible tells today.

Want some other suggested episodes from me? Reply to this email to get in touch. And if the show makes you think, laugh, get pissed off, question something you believed, or disappear down a three-hour internet rabbit hole, send it to somebody else.

What I’m Curious About

I’m going to use this section for whatever has been taking up space in my head lately.

It might be something a guest said. Could be a piece of technology. Could be a book, research paper, historical rabbit hole, training lesson, bizarre question, or something I learned while speaking somewhere.

There won’t be a strict theme. Curiosity generally doesn’t work that way.

For now, it’s the “coddling of the American mind.”

This ties in with Jack Hager’s episode that aired this week, which almost immediately reaches Jack’s observation:

“We seem to be a nation of victims.”

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and lawyer Greg Lukianoff wrote The Coddling of the American Mind in response to disturbances they were seeing in the mid-2010s on college campuses, which abstracts back to their proposed cause: a culture of “safetyism”, the softening we’ve experienced as a culture as a byproduct of overprotection.

They don’t place blame, and rather go out of their way to highlight how this road to Hell was a path paved with good, understandable intentions.

But they do make the argument that these good intentions are now leaving our young adults unprepared to handle the stressors of the world, which is evidenced by alarmingly high anxiety, depression, and suicide rates, just as our efforts to protect children from exposure to peanuts left their immune systems incapable of recognizing the nuts as a harmless allergen.

I highly recommend the book, and hope to have these gentlemen on Going in Blind one day.

Where I’ll Be

August 22 at 12:30 PM MT

I’ll be speaking on the main stage at the Colorado Springs Health & Fitness Expo.

All proceeds from this event are donated to a local suicide prevention program. So if you live in the Denver or Colorado Springs areas, stop by and support a good cause.

Before You Go

This thing is new, so help me make it worth opening.

Hit reply and tell me what you want more of.

Interesting books? Behind-the-scenes stories? Podcast takeaways? Adventures? Things I learned the hard way? Something else entirely?

Until next time,

Zach Tidwell

Stay curious.