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42-Year-Old Privates in the Army and the Purpose of Struggle | Full Auto Friday | 4.3.2026
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Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north or south? West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on with it, baby. Give it to me. I need it. You're clean. Hot. Can't be cleared hot. What's up, everybody? Good morning. It's a sleepy morning in Kalispell. Getting ready to go on the road with Leah. A little snowboarding action. Actually, by the time this episode comes back or comes out, we will be getting back. But I'm recording it now about a week in advance so I don't have to worry about it and do, like a super late night the day that we get back. You know, that's why we're sitting here. I got my coffee. I have my sweatshirt. Yes. People keep asking about the sweatshirt. It's made by a company called Marine Layer. Apparently, you can only get it if it's a bulk order, so I don't know. My buddy Dan found this in a store in Bozeman on the Rack. And I think it was the store's name was not the Rack. I don't remember the name of it. But it's on the main street down there in Bozeman, and it was the last one, so he bought it for me. So, you know, sometimes when people say things like, it must be nice, it is. When you got a homie who knows that you were looking at the sweatshirt he had bought for himself and trying to figure out whether or not you could fit in it and wear it in his presence and him not realize that it used to be his. And so he goes and gets you one because he's awesome. So Marine Lair. No relationship with them whatsoever. That's what it is. But, yeah, here we go. Let's just dive right into this bad boy today. Everybody knows the updates. Everybody kind of knows what's going on. Let's go. Let's get into question number one. Today's episode is brought to you by Ridge. How many of you earlier in life have been gifted with a wallet at your birthday or for Christmas? Usually they're a bifold. Sometimes if you're getting sassy, they're going to be a trifold. And they can hold a lot of stuff. So what do you end up doing? You put a lot of stuff in there, and it becomes the classic Costanza wallet, if you will. They can even give you low back problems. And what I have found, after decades of having wallets like that, eventually they become a collection place for a bunch of stuff that you don't need and then they eventually fall apart. So let's just go ahead and launch into 2026 and get rid of those type of products. Ridge is a unique, slim, modern designed wallet that holds up to 12 cards. They're made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber if that's what you're into. They have over 50 colors to choose from. They all come with a lifetime warranty and it's just literally gonna be the last wallet that you're ever gonna have to buy. They have over 100,000 5 star reviews and they also have RFID blocking technology keeping you safe from digital pickpockets. Maybe you already have a Ridge wallet. Well, don't fret. They create premium everyday carry essentials like power banks, key cases, suitcases and rings all built with the same sleek, durable design. For a limited time, listeners are gonna get 10% off at Ridge by using the code clearedhot at checkout. Just head to ridge.code cleared hot and you're all set. After your purchase they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please do me a favor, support me and the show by telling them that I sent you. Now back to the show. Okay, question one we'll start off today. A little bit of it's not like a headline one but it ties into headlines. Iran Peripheral to Iran. The army increasing their max enlistment age to 42. So here's the question. I recently read that the US army will increase the maximum enlistment age to 42 years. As someone who a joined the military at a much younger age and B is not much more than 42 years of age, I'm curious to hear your opinions on this change. From a risk and being ordered to do so standpoint, there are things I was more than willing to do at age 18 to 25. Prefrontal cortex maturity. Then I was willing to do it. Ages let's say 37 to 42. I was in nowhere near the physical condition at 42 that I was at 18. Will there be an age shift in the military if in order to get the 20 year full retirement there will be more 55 to 62 year olds in the ranks? There are a lot of questions in this change that make a little bit more complicated than just bumping up the age? That is a great question. I don't know why they are doing this, but I would like to know why they are doing this. I hope it's not because recruiting is starting to take a hit again. I could see that potentially it is. I am Starting to get a lot of messages from people who were considering going into the military. And I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth but I would say they were voicing and are voicing feelings of a little bit of hesitation and trepidation. They are personally and this is the people writing into me over email. They seem to be again me speaking for them slightly not aligned with the current trajectory of what is going on in Iran. Not that anybody is absolutely positive of what's going on. I hope somebody in the military, in the government is able to precisely define it. I would love to see or hear a defined set of goals, a defined and measurable end state, the wickets along the way or the measurables that we're going to use to determine whether or not we are being efficient and effective. I've yet to see any of those things. I hope somewhere that is being briefed and it is not very hard to draw the breadcrumb line between that and people saying huh, I don't like the direction that this is going. This isn't the same as in one of the emails referenced, you know, why did so many people. It seemed like there was this influx after 9 11. 911 is a different situation and I think each one of these situations has to be viewed differently. And I said this, I think on the last show, Friday show with Michael, you know, it's interesting to see the world's. I don't want to, I don't know the correct word for it. Not the world's superpowers but allies of the the Western world allies. Post 911 that essentially was what do you need from us? What can we do? We're all in when it comes to what's going on in Iran currently, it is a little bit of the opposite of that. We're not going to really be able to help out. We don't want to get involved in this. And I'm not trying to justify or judge either of them. I'm just saying when you look at these things separately, the reactions to that can often be because the situations are completely different. We live in a different world now. And yeah, was wild to see what happened in the days after 911 at recruiting stations around the United States. And we're talking lines around the block and I don't think it was at everyone but there were certainly some pretty iconic photos taken of that and that's not the current case right now. And so if the military is hurting or the army spec is hurting on this, I can see them modifying some Things that would increase that pool of people that were available. I believe not in this question as well, that they kind of just threw out or not the army didn't throw out. They basically said that if you have any marijuana related issues, they're not going to be worried about that. So they threw out that the requirement that you didn't used to have that or that the requirement that didn't, the requirement that used to exist, they are getting rid of that. And that requirement was, you know, drug related issues, specifically marijuana were a no go. So into the question though, 18 to 25 years old. Sure. Prefrontal cortex maturity, a risk to being in order to being do so standpoint, is there really a difference between where you're at at 18 to 25 and later on in your career? Well, in the community that I came from, you're still going to be asked to do the same things beyond the age of 25. So you might enter into the community in your late teens and yes, your prefrontal cortex is going to be developing as you are passing that 25 to 27 year range, but your job is still going to be the same. If you go into your 30s and you do 20 years, let's say you join at 18, do 20, so you're going to get out at 38 or maybe let's just say you rounded a bit and you do 40, 15 of those years are going to be after that prefrontal cortex development, the job is still the same. So there's not really, I mean you might have a better understanding of risk. And the order to be do so or the order to do so standpoint is I think a large misconception around how at least the community that I came from operated. It was very collaborative in nature. They would ask us to do things or provide for us an objective. But the how to do it and the risk level associated with that, the mitigating tools, the analyzation, the things that we could put into place, whether it be training and equipment using a different asset, attacking the problem from a different direction, those things were left to us. So it was the exact opposite of hey, there's a machine gun nest and you need to go charge that. You know, as a super rough analogy, they, they would say, hey, there's a machine gun nest over there and why don't you guys figure out how to solve that problem? That and that's a total hypothetical. That was never the way anything played out. Point being, it's the opposite of what a lot of people think, where everything is directive and they tell you everything you're going to, this is what you're going to do, this is how you're going to do it. These are the exact steps that you're going to take. And this is how much time you have. Some of those constraints were there, but we had great freedom and ability to decide how we were going to get things done. Now, you still might be ordered from a strategic level. You're going to Afghanistan, you are going to Iraq, you are going to Iran in the modern era. So yeah, there's that, but. And this is what I say to the people who are reaching out, asking about whether or not they should still join the military. My blanket response to them is this, take some time to sit with yourself and understand why it is that you want to join the military in the first place. And also make sure you understand the role that the military serves. The military is a deterrent by force. And if the deterrent doesn't work, then the role of the military is to fight and win wars that align with the strategic objectives of the United States of America. If you are not okay with that, if you are not okay to go back into the era that I served pre 9 11, where the world radically shifts underneath you and you may be asked to go somewhere that you are unfamiliar with for reasons that you may not totally align with, then the military may not be the best landing spot for you. Because even though, as I described in the world that I came from, we had an immense amount of latitude and flexibility to make decisions on how we solve problems on the battle space, I didn't get to pick the battle space. That those conversations happened well above my pay grade. An era that I was never given the opportunity to breathe, nor did I want to. I would have been interested to be in the decision making rooms as a fly on the wall in hindsight. But I don't think I actually would have wanted to be in those rooms when I was in the military because I would have been uncomfortable because everybody in there probably would have had stars on their collars at a minimum. So I would have been over my skis for sure. But yes, you may be asked to go places and do things that you don't want to do that is inherent in an occupation or career in the military. So understand that going in now, physical condition at 42 versus 18, totally. Life is real, age is real. But I tell you what you'll have at 42 that you don't have at 18, I would say a lot more experience and perhaps even depending on how you describe it, some more wisdom. So yeah, at 18 you're probably gonna be able to deadlift more, but at 42 you might be able to figure out a way to go get a forklift and lift the bar up with the forklift instead of having to do it yourself. You might be able to tackle more problems with your mind than you are with your body. And at 42 you still have the ability. You're not gonna be equivalent to your 18 year old self, but if you take it seriously, you can 100% still be very physically capable. And this is the natural progress. So anyway, if somebody joined the teams later in life, let's say they went to college first. So they went to college when they're 18, got out when they were 22, eventually got into the military. And this is not an uncommon age at, you know, somewhere between 24 to 26. Let's say they do 20 years, they're getting out at 46 years old. So this absolutely exists and happens every single day. People in the military are serving at that age. Are they expected to do the same stuff at the age of 18? No, but they're in a totally different phase of their military journey. At 42 years old or 15 plus years into your career, you have a different role, you have a different responsibility. You're going to be more senior. If you've been in for that long, you're going to be more senior than a lot of people in the military. Just given the Excel spreadsheet of time and service and when the advancements occur. And I do realize I'm talking about somebody who started in a younger age and is achieving this older age. I will talk about somebody who joins at this older age here in a minute. But there is, I think, immense benefit to having that knowledge and wisdom there. These are the people who are going to be closer to being in the world. I came from your platoon chief, your task unit commander, your task unit senior enlisted advisor. Are they going to be expected to be the number one man who is approaching the breach point on every target and just fighting to get to the front of the train? Actually, no. And it's not a good sign if they are in those positions because at that point they have worked their way up to a place where they are managing these chess pieces that are moving around. They're not expected to be the guy who is at the threshold of every door. So at that level they're there because of that knowledge, experience and wisdom. The word I will use, maybe they wouldn't. That I think that they had. So there's a great role for that. Now joining at the age of 42 years old, this is a little bit of a different story. Right? Because now we are having to strip away, let's say if you were to go in at 42, you are now stripping away the experience and the reps and just pure understanding of the military machine that somebody had joining at 18 and still being in at 42, or joining in their 20s and still being in at 22. And this is a different issue. Um, physical standards, sure. I mean, there's some 42 year olds out there that would be able to keep up with an 18 year old, but there's going to be a stop, a stopwatch on that or an egg timer because you're not going to be able to forever because recovery is one of the biggest differences. As you get older now they are going to bring an immense amount of life experience with them. And I'd be curious to see in the army if this 42 applies to everybody or if this age of 42 applies to very specific career paths. Because I do think depending on what your role is in the military, and it should be remembered at all times that it is a profession of arms. If you are in the military, you should always, even if you think you have a purely administrative job, you need to keep it in the back of your mind at all times that you may end your end up finding yourself at some point in time with a gun in your hand fighting. Now there are plenty of career fields where that is statistically unlikely and some people would say maybe even impossible. But even during my time and they started initiating the IA program or the individual Augmentee program, and they were pulling people from what I would call relatively administrative career fields and yep, they're ending up overseas. Are they going outside of the wire off of the FOB and getting involved in direct engagements? Probably not. Do fobs get attacked sometimes? Can you be on the receiving end of indirect fire? Yeah, 100%. So just again, you can tell yourself, I'm gonna go do this role in the military and it's gonna be administrative only. You're lying to yourself if you think that that's a absolute certainty or a guarantee. But again, I would love to see what the army has planned for this. I don't know if it would be a great idea to allow a 42 year old to join up as an infantryman, but I could see a lot of benefit in having somebody in their 40s who is coming in from a professional career Whether that's even in business, whether it's in some type of medicine, some type of practicing law and whatever it is. And they're integrating into very specific career fields and paths where they can bring that knowledge and wisdom from the outside and apply that in a way where I think it would actually rise the tide for overall efficacy of the army if you took a 42 year old and put them into just you became an infantry man or woman. I don't know about that one. Also, I was never in the army so I would rely on other people who actually did that job to describe to me the physical demands of that. But it's interesting again, I, I get questions like this and I often end up with more questions of my own, like why are they doing this? What are the specifics, the broad headlines? They don't answer a lot of questions and then so they end up deriving more questions from that. Yeah, there would be 62 year olds retiring if they did a full 20. I bet you there are people in their 60s in the military anyway or late 50s depending. I mean there are officers and enlisted who have been in for well over 30 years. I guess they could have joined at 30. I, I, I wish I had Michael here right now. He's not here, of course, he's sleeping in, getting his beauty rest. Probably has his hair up in a bun or a little curlers with something. You know, one of those little hats that people wear when they go to sleep to get their hair did. That's, I'm assuming what he's doing. So yeah, you might end up having 62 year olds in the ranks. That would be interesting. But again, not everybody in the military is going to be by doctrine or design, that front roll soldier who is going to be looking a little bit more like the Terminator. You know, oftentimes you need to have people many steps removed figuring out which direction the Terminator is going to go. So in the end I look at this as a potential net positive because there's a lot of experience that I look at myself when I was 42 years old comparison to when I went into the military. Good God. I mean I understood a lot more about the world. I don't know if my body would have tolerated going back. Actually there's no even chance I would even have attempted seal training at 42 years old. And again, I also don't think that every pipeline is going to be open to somebody of that age. But my decision making was better, my emotional maturity was better, my ability to communicate was better. My just understanding of the world around me was better and all of those things would benefit me in that job. And If I was 18 around somebody that was that age, and this happened often with the senior enlisted personnel and the senior officers, you can draft off their experience and it has a positive impact on you. So again, I think net positive. We shall see. And that's all I have for question number one. All right, question two. Shifts in gears here, Andy. What is the point in all of this life that is, I mean, is it to find a significant other, have kids, to continue the race, nurture them, teach them, guide them, whatever? And then what? Then we're dead? Work, question mark. My dad spent years working, worked three jobs at one point because I had a mother who didn't want to work or do much of anything really. He died at 61 from brain cancer. Didn't even make it to retirement. I'm in a hole. But what's the point in getting out? To struggle, to work, to sacrifice for what? I'm still going to die. Pre ordered your book, looking forward to it. A very hard right transition at the end of that email. Thank you for the support in that. But good Lord, man. Okay, what is the point in all this? I appreciate the fact that you would ask me because you think I have a great answer for this, but I also have more questions about what is the point of life or maybe the purpose of life or how people should live their life purposely than I do answers. You know, what's it all about? Is it to struggle, to work, to sacrifice? I actually think yes. The answer that I have landed on is yes. But life, the pursuit of an easy life where there is no struggle, where there is no work, where there is no sacrifice, I don't think that's real. And I say that because I've yet to meet a single person, and clearly I haven't met everybody, so I get that, but I haven't met a single person. Even those that are wildly successful, by every metric, people that have a B associated with their net worth, they are struggling, they are working, they are sacrificing. Now, in each of those three different things, depending on your socioeconomic status, they can manifest itself differently. You know, a sacrifice that a billionaire makes may not look the same as a sacrifice that somebody who is living paycheck to paycheck makes. Actually, we can probably take the question out of that. I, I think it's safe to say that the sacrifice economically that billionaires make do not look the same as those who are living paycheck to paycheck because they're probably not thinking about whether or not they need to skip a meal so they can fill up their vehicle with gas and worry if, especially if you're on a 1st to the 15th pay cycle got with the government going on right now too, it might be the first to like the 15th of February. It seems like depending on where you work in the government and how frequently you're getting paid. But I distinctly remember the days of paper checks and going in on a Friday, knowing I got paid on a Monday to the grocery store, trying to figure out if I could float that check, meaning write a check for the money I didn't have in my account, knowing it would take them a couple days to cash it in the hopes they would try to cash it on Monday so I could pay for legitimately food. Now was that because I didn't have enough money or I was stupid with the money that I had? Yes, is the answer to that question as well. Too. Sometimes two things can be true at once. And I'm not saying that that was all the time. But those struggles are different than somebody that has a B associated with their net worth. But those higher income families and individuals that I have been fortunate enough to meet and spend some time with, their life is not without struggle, it is not without work, and it isn't without sacrifice. From what I can tell from a distance. And I am not somebody with a lot of money. But the more money you have, if you have big money, you have big money problems. And that might be people constantly trying to manipulate you, people constantly trying to scam you, people constantly trying to just have their hand out or get into your social circle or orbit so they can take more of what you have. The point of all this is wherever you are, that work, that sacrifice, that struggle, it's going to be there. And if we can agree that it's going to be there, the only real question then becomes how do we learn to deal with that or navigate that. And when I look back on my life, the few successes that I have been fortunate to have. Not the best pairing of words right there. None of them came for free. Nobody handed them to me. And they were the ones that, and maybe not for a duration of time that I worked the hardest for, but for a period in time devoted myself to and worked incredibly hard for. And because of that hard work, that's where my level of appreciation came from. And this could apply to something you are trying to achieve in your career, professionally. This could apply if you are 50 to 100 pounds overweight. And the single focusing goal in your life is to shed that excess weight and change the trajectory of your life because of what you're going to be able to do in the new meat suit that you're walking around and navigating life with. Struggle, to the best of my ability to figure this out is actually what life is about. And that kind of sucks to say because I think we've all been sold this fairy tale of we get to a place in life. Retirement, to use your dad's example here. Retirement, we work and we struggle and we sacrifice. And one day we get to sit on our rocking chair and our wraparound porch and do whatever we want to do. And my God, that sounds so incredibly boring to me. My dad is retired. My dad is bored out of his fucking mind most days. I think it. Listening to him talk a little bit one time is, you know, he's getting ready to be into his 80s and time seems to be. Some days are shorter and some days are way longer. But because he has nothing to do in air quotes, meaning he doesn't have, like a job requirement or he is his own person that gets to decide how he spends his time. There are days where the hours drags and, you know, he just spent time going down into San Diego and helping my sister out. And let me see here, My sister's. My sister's episode is going to be out on Monday, so three days after this. For those of you who are men who have significant others, who have ever heard them use the term perimenopause or menopause, you need to have them on standby to forward that episode to them on Monday. But the point in this is my sister's business is growing in San Diego. So my dad went down there for a couple of weeks. He got off. He. The environment he lives in now, where he is the warden of his own schedule, he can do as little or as much as possible. He can spend the day he has. He doesn't have a rocking chair, but he has a chair outside on his. It's not a wraparound deck, but it's a deck by his front door. And he gets the nice morning sun and as it passes into the afternoon. And he does spend some time out there and he loves playing his Sudoku. But he often will tell you me that I got to find something to do. I have to find something to do. I need to have a purpose. I need to have a mission. My word, not necessarily his. So he goes down to San Diego and for Two to three weeks is really helping my sister with the. The building of the physical infrastructure as her business is growing and she took on a new office space. He was painting the walls and a good portion of the ceiling as well, too. And I, it. I went and saw the building when I was there for Jocko's podcast, and he did not remove any of the power outlet covers. So those are green now, too. Just amazing choices in some regards. So green power outlets, green white. Green sections on the white drop ceiling tiles. Just spectacular. But I digress. He said he loved it, and my sister said that he was thriving in that environment. Well, why, if you listen to his words, he felt like he had something to do. Now, is that his purpose in life, to go help my sister with what she has going on at her job? Absolutely not. The point in all this is that excess idle time, because you've arrived at a place in your life because you've put the work in, you sacrifice. And now you just don't want to do anything else that somebody were to tell you to do or that you would have to do. Maybe use that with caution. The more people I see getting into that phase of their life, the more people I am now seeing. And maybe this is a change in generations. Maybe for my dad's parents, this is exactly how they wanted to go out. I don't know. It sounds like hell on earth to me. But for my dad, now he's thinking about where can he volunteer, what can he do, how can he spend his time? Because having all that extra time that you have worked to save up, but having nothing that you want to do with that time seems to be, in its own way, a prison. And I don't personally want to get there. For me, I don't think I'm ever going to retire in the sense of sitting on the rocking chair on the porch. Don't get me wrong, I love a good rocking chair on a porch, watching the sunrise and the sunset. And I can think of nothing I would rather do than sit there with Leah and just rock back and forth and spend time with her. But I couldn't do that for a month straight or a year straight, or for a year straight. I would go insane. I think she would too. It would be great for a little bit. But then you're going to ask yourself, well, what's next? And to use your word in here, is it death? We're all going to die. Yes, we're all going to die. Okay, so then what's the purpose of life? I don't know the best answer I can give you and where my headspace has landed is this is to live sucks. Your dad died at 61 from brain cancer. And if you had told him, though, and this is the exercise I play with myself. If you had told your dad at 30, 30 and a half. To make this easy math. If you had told your dad at 30 and a half, hey, man, you're halfway done legitimately, like from this day, you are now every day moving forward closer to death than anything else because you are past the halfway point. You are over the apex today and only today, you are standing on the apex of the mountain of your life. Do you think he would have lived it differently for almost everybody to include myself? The answer to that question is yes. And it's not yes like I wouldn't have a family. It's not yes that I would disregard the responsibilities of my life, but I would and continue to reorient my life towards experiences and time with other people than things that I'm trying to save up imaginary ones and zeros to be able to purchase. And I'm not saying that you are in this point, and I'm not saying that your dad was at this point, but that is the exercise that I have with myself when advertising for the podcast. It's very simple mathematical formula. You take the number of downloads that you are able to get across the variety of platforms that you host your podcast on and they're all. Almost everybody is on exactly the same things, which is why this formula is so easy. And then they call it cpm. Cost per. Cost per. I used to say it was melee, but then as I was reading the audiobook, it's cost per mil, which is dollar figure associated. And the brand can set that or you can negotiate for that multiplied by your CPM. So let's say easy math, 20 bucks per every thousand downloads. These are made up numbers, by the way, so 20 bucks for every thousand downloads. If you were to get a million downloads on an episode, you can run the math on this. When you present these numbers, earlier in my life I would have said, okay, how many of those deals can I get? Because what I want to do is make as much money as humanly possible so I can put it into an account and look at that number as it grows and grows and grows and grows. I'm going to lord over that number and protect it at all costs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti money by any stretch. I still like making money. I wish I figured out a way to make a hell of a lot more money than I do. Because it's not what you make, it's actually what you spend. And let me just tell you, having multiple businesses and children and just life happens as you get older, it gets a little bit more complex. It costs things, right? So it's not what you. It's not what you make, it's what you spend and what you have left over at the end of the day. And you can very largely control that, by the way. Now, I look at opportunities when they present themselves to me, and I actually will have this conversation with myself. Like, let's say it again, it's a. Let's say it's not a podcast sponsor, because that one's kind of unique. And honestly, the money, you can see where the money goes. It goes back into the show, let's say a brand relationship. And they're like, okay, hey, we would like to work with you, and this is what we're willing to pay. I don't look at a bill that I might be able to pay with whatever the money may be. Let's say it's $2,000. Again, this is. These are made up figures. I'm just trying to make easy math here. So instead of saying, okay, I've got two grand extra a month right now, let's do this, let's reverse engineer into that. Oh, I really like this new vehicle. So maybe I can get that for. If I can get it for under $2,000 a month, that's what I'll do, right? I'm reverse engineering potential future income into. Into a thing that was me for a lot of my life. Making bad decisions with money, doing those things. At this point in my life, I look at that and I go, you know what? Where could I go with that money if I saved it for a year? Where could I take my family? What could we go do? What could we go see? How could I go live my life? How much gas could I put into the helicopter? Where could I take my family with that? How could I explore? And the reason that I have this exercise with myself is that I have now been around enough people in my own social circle and cohort that are dead that have left their families behind. And I was having this conversation with my sister off air. We were just talking one morning. They stayed with us while she was up here. She did a full presentation on women's hormone. And the. What would. The. How would she describe that? Perimenopause, menopause time. Utter fucking chaos, I think would be the technical description and term for that time period. But before that, she worked in hospice. And she. We were talking about. The conversation, started talking about my mom's death. We were talking about her experience with it in my own. Because she has heard me say many times that I regret the last interaction that I had with my mom, which I deeply do, and I can't go back in time, and I've come to peace with it. But she was talking about the hundreds, if not thousands of people that she has sat bedside with as they are transitioning into the next phase of their life. They're dying. And they know they're dying because they're in hospice. And her words, not mine, not a single one of them, not a single one talked about anything that they had. They. And if. If it was. And again, this is me speaking for her a little bit. So I'm not saying this came directly out of. I just don't want to misspeak for my sister. But, you know, what do they wish they had more of? Time with friends, time with family experiences. And if that's what you're missing most or wishing for most at the end of your life to get to the answer to your question, maybe that's what it's all about to begin with. And you. And I don't think you should disregard all of the responsibilities that you have in life, because having kids to continue the race, I don't look at that as having a race. But what I will tell you is this is having kids is super challenging. And I, by no stretch of the imagination, have parenting figured out. I don't have life figured out. I am a work in progress in every single aspect of my life to include personal and professional and parenting. But as your kids get older and they start to accomplish and they start to achieve and you can start seeing them grow into the person that they are becoming, and you can share your experiences with them and new ones and open their eyes to the world. That, to me, is not continuing the race. That, to me, is living your life. I bet your dad would have made different choices if he knew he was halfway through. It's a question that I ask myself, and it's a question that I ask myself often. Why am I doing the things that I am doing? Is this an attempt to. To get more in air quotes? To hold more, to have more. And if it. If so, why? Because let's say somebody were to come to me and say, hey, guess what, Andy? You've got a month left. Well, guess what? I'm going to do in that month. I'm not going to try to make a ton of money. I probably would try to spend every penny that I have doing things with my family that they would never be able to forget. And hopefully my memory would live along in that as well, too. So why do we have to wait until we are presented with that situation before it changes our mentality and mindset to a place where we stop valuing things so much and start valuing more of those experiences? When I was sitting with Casey, again, to be slightly repetitive, if you have the opportunity, speaking for her, to listen to people at the tail end and they almost all say the same thing about wish what they wish they had more of. I feel like the answers are on the. To the test are right there. So maybe that's what it is. You know, it's. Yeah, shitty things happen. And sometimes shitty things happen, like brain cancer. And I'm sorry that that happened to your father, but I hope that in your father's passing it gave you a little bit more of an appreciation for life and more of a reminder that that can come and happen at any time. So therefore, waiting for the perfect opportunity and the perfect moment which may never arrive because you might have something horrible that happens to you as well, too. So why wait, right? I'm not saying be irresponsible, but maybe value the things that you can do over the things that you can have a little bit more. Sucks that your mom didn't really want to do much of anything. But you know, in good and bad things that happen to you in life, there are examples there. You know, not everybody comes from a great home, a nuclear family. It had a supporting mother and father. And you have no ability to choose whether or not that happens to you in life because you are born into that situation. But you have 100% control over whether you can take that example that was presented to you, whether it's good or bad, and do something with it in your life. And you can perpetuate that downstream and do that to somebody else. Or you could change the trajectory of your life and make sure that nobody in your orbit ever has that happen to them ever again. So it's. Instead of it being good or bad, I'm consistently walking towards that. Life is about struggle. Life is about doing hard stuff. Life is about sacrificing because it makes those moments where you're able to do what you want to do with the people that you want to be with that much more valuable. Because if you didn't have the struggle, the work and the sacrifice, I don't think you would appreciate him as much. And I know that's probably not the answer that you're looking for. But if you're describing to me that you're in a hole, what's the point of getting out of it? Well, so you can live your life, man. So you can go out there and work your ass off to save up a chunk of money. So you can go somewhere and explore a portion of the world you didn't even know existed, right? And be responsible. Put savings away and all of these things, but make sure you're also doing something with that. You know, if you always save for this rainy day fund and you have an umbrella and you don't want to go outside because it might rain and you have all this stuff just sitting there waiting to be used and the opportunity never presents itself, what's the purpose in that? What's the utility in that? To me the answer is not much at all. So get out there and live your life. You're supposed to be in holes at times in your life so you can appreciate the times that you aren't. And that's all I have for question two. Today's episode is brought to you by Helix, the mattress that has been delivering the best sleep of my life for years. At this point, helix has over 20 models that you can choose from to find the perfect model for now. How are you going to do this though? They have a sleep quiz, go to helixsleep.com ClearedHot of course, find the sleep quiz and it's going to ask you the questions that you need to answer. Such as do you sleep hot or cold? Do you sleep on your side? 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Helix is the most awarded mattress brand tested and reviewed by experts like Forbes and wired. Go to helixsleep.com Cleared hot for 20% off site wide. That is helixsleep.com Cleared Hot for 20% off site wide. Helixsleep back to the show. All right, question three today. Sweatshirts off. We're getting into it. We're heating up a little bit. Having some coffee. God, I love the nitro. Cold brew. Just warms my heart and my body. Here we go. Negative self talk. Probably the last question for today. I was hoping you could help me understand how some people can execute on target and others that cannot. I compete in a lot of tennis, an individual sport that derives its beauty from the perfect shot. As somebody who knows nothing about tennis, I don't know if there's anything beautiful about it. It's very bizarre to me. I don't know why you guys wear whites, the tennis whites. Why does everything you're wearing have to be white? Does this have something to do with being able to see the ball better? Or are you guys just a weird expression of the Illuminati? It's hard to say. From what my coaches tell me, it's not necessarily my physical aspect, but more mental for me. I myself strive for excellence more than anything else that can be More than anything else that can be a detriment to my own game. And I say if a pro can make the shot, why can't I? It's not out of a delusional statement that I think if you apply yourself with immense hard work, you can do anything. Yet I can't and others can. I remember during a podcast with Steve Sanders, very good friend of mine named Triple S is who he's talking about. During Green team, which is the selection process for the east coast command, some operators would implode internally by not doing a decock of a P320, which is a double action or single action pistol depending on the configuration. So they would implode internally by not doing a decock of a P320 on double slash single action on safe during a shooting course. Correct me if I am wrong, but these are high performing individuals that wanted to be there more than anything and it wasn't necessarily a physical standard but more mental. I can't necessarily relate to that level of performance, but I can relate to the perpetual buildup of negative self talk when it doesn't go your way. Oh buddy, welcome to the team. How did you and how did those separate. How did you and how did those separate? Those. That's from those. My God, dude, that's a lot of those that were extremely high performing individuals talk to yourself during those times. Thank you for taking the time to answer this question and everything you've done that. I'm going to go back a sentence. How did you and how did those separate those from those that were extremely high performing individuals talk to yourself during those times? I think what you're saying is how do high performing individuals talk to themselves during those time? That is more utilizations of the word those that I've ever seen in my entire life. Life. Okay, Let's go to. What I consider to be personal opinion here means nothing other than how I particularly feel. But somehow, somewhere there was a really, really, really bad lie that was created. And that lie was this. If you want it enough and you work hard enough, everything is within reach. And that is a steaming pile of horseshit. Because if that were true, life would look a lot different for a lot of people. Bad luck is a real thing. Horrible, catastrophic things happen in people's lives not because they want them to, but because. To tie into the last question that I just answered, that is the nature of life sometimes. Are human beings all created equal? Now in 2026, that's an interesting question to ask because there is a cohort of people that would tell you until they are blue in the face that yes, all human beings are created equal, both male and female. And I just wonder for the people who believe that how much time they've actually ever spent out in the real world looking at the differences not only in men and in women, but between men and women. How many people? I'm going to talk about a sport that I know absolutely nothing about, basketball. I'm using this because I know the NBA is wildly popular inside of the United States and actually basketball has a pretty global presence. So for the person that wrote this email, I know you play tennis. I don't know anything about tennis. I know that there's Wimbledon and that people smash the rackets into the ground sometimes. And sometimes you guys are running around on turf and sometimes artificial and then sometimes clay. And again, none of that makes sense when you're wearing white for clarity, but whatever. How many people out of everybody who plays basketball in the world do you think wants to be at the highest level making millions of dollars in the NBA? We'll get. Keep this to a little bit more of a USA specific answer. Okay. Do you think that the answer to that question from a numbers perspective, and I don't know how many NBA teams there are and how many players are allowed to be on each team, what number do you think is bigger? The number of people who want more than anything to be in the NBA versus the number of people that actually can be in the NBA. What do you think the difference is? It's a lot. Now, all of the people who want to be there could work as hard as they possibly want to every single day, devoting their life to that goal of being in the NBA. And the vast majority, majority, probably the high 90th percentile, will never make their way there. Why do you think that is? Because your sentence of, if a pro can make the shot, why can't I? Is total. Because not everybody is created equal. Some people have a psychological and physiological advantage over others, period. Full stop. Now, whatever you come into the world with psychologically and physiologically, can you enhance and improve that? Absolutely. But are there people who are starting off at a higher level of both of those things than you and almost everybody else on earth? Yes. Can they improve as well? Yes. Is their particular physiology and psychology better suited for this niche job than almost everybody else on earth? Yes. Could somebody who could work harder than them, regardless of the amount of time that they work hard at what they want to do, still not be able to achieve what that person can with less effort? That person who is physiologically and psychologically better suited for it, who is not going to work as hard, can that person who is not going to work as hard still achieve more than somebody that dedicates their life to it? Yes. And that sucks, but that's the actual truth. This. If you want to do anything, you can, although it sounds great, and I am not saying, like, crush the dreams of anybody to include young men and women who will express to you, this is what I want to do and this is how I want to do it. I think the best that you can do in that environment is facilitate that, nurture that passion and that growth and put them on a path and give them tools where they can either go be successful or not on their own with that desire. And in the course, what I have found for a lot of people is in that path, whether you succeed or fail. But more along the lines, when it comes to, when you're not able to achieve those things, you realize, like, you know what, you know probably better off that I didn't dedicate my life to that and that I didn't achieve, because then it Opened up some other things to me that I am better psychologically or physiologically suited for. So don't try to cut the legs off of a racehorse, but just maybe make sure that it's on the track in the right race. And if you find that you're like, hey, I'm trying to race this horse. But you know what this thing's really good at? It's jumping over obstacles. Maybe you can shift, you know what I mean? I don't know anything about horses either, by the way. Not everybody is created equal. And so we'll go to a green team. What you're talking about here. Um, I think, Stephen. I don't remember the conversation Steve and I were having, but one of the prefer, like a month when you first get there. It is people who have been SEALs for 48 years. 4, 2, 8. Like 4 dash 8. And they are applying to go to a different command that has an additional level of selection and training associated with it. It's going to be about six months long the first month. And again, this is me talking back from 2002. Take it for what it is. I have no idea what it looks like. Right now you are going to be shooting and practicing room clearing, to speak broadly. And you'll do it with two people and four people. And it is very specific and very precise, the performance and requirements of each person. Like, if there are two people, each of those people is expected to do very specific things, whether it's angles, footwork, where you're going to end up, how you're going to move, how you're going to communicate, the condition of your weapon, when it can be off, safe, when you're firing, what to do when it's not all of these things and then there's four people, then you can even add more of those things. Multiple rooms, all of this stuff. It's a double edge criteria there. The first one is, yes, you have to be able to do those things because those. That's the foundation that you will build upon and work into the future when you get to the squadron. And some of those things are a little bit more ridiculous, like the decocking as well. Like, is it catastrophic if you decock at a. At a time that isn't perfect or precise? When it comes to the selection and training model, no, it's not catastrophic at all. Don't shoot yourself, don't shoot the people that you're with. Make sure your pistol is in the correct configuration before you reholster it. But in a selection and training model, it is a Critique and criteria. So it gives the people who are watching you from above, which is generally a one to one ratio, meaning you have a seasoned operator literally just watching you and your performance, it gives them something that they can critique you upon and either give you a good mark or the thumbs down on that. And if you start getting a volume of thumbs down, you're going to draw some more attention and it might get to a place where under that level of stress or because of your experience, or wait for it, the fact that we all have a glass ceiling and you may just not be able to perform at that level, regardless of how much you want to, that you are going to be sent back to your command. That doesn't mean that you're not a good person. That doesn't mean that you're not an amazing special operations person and can't go have an amazing career. It just means that for the one course or the, the selection course that you are in, even though you want to be there more than anything else, you don't physically possess the ability to do so. Is that fair? No, life isn't fair. You are going to watch professional tennis players make shots that you are not going to be able to do. So do you know why that is? You're not a pro tennis player. They, I bet. And whether it's hand eye coordination, visual acuity, the combination of the two, psychological buildup, physiological buildup, I'm sorry, you for the rest of your life could try as hard as you want to emulate a shot that one of these people could do in their sleep. Now, I'm not saying that they don't work hard, but for whatever reason that job, they are the tool for that job and you may not be, and you have to be okay with that. Does that mean once you realize that you're never going to be a pro or that you're never going to get to that level, that you should give up? Up? No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is life isn't fair. And you're better off telling yourself the truth than lying to yourself every day and getting yourself into this headspace where you. What was the hold on negative self talk? Where you get into this place where regardless of how hard you work because you are judging yourself against the standard of literally the best people in the world at doing this one thing that you are involved with, that you are never going to be good enough, that is a recipe to ignore any of the improvement that you have made. Any of these successes that you have had and any of the happiness or joy or fulfillment that you are going to get out of participating in playing tennis, that's how you turn something that you could use as a personal development tool. And this realization that it can't be mastered, but you can try as hard as you can to continuously get better and be fulfilled and enjoy that journey again. To go back to the last question of the struggle and the sacrifice, you could be enjoying that, but you're not right now because you're looking at some dude who's on a Wheaties box who is going to crush you 101 times out of 100 without thinking twice, working half as hard as you are because he's better at it than you. You have to be able to be okay with that. So I would ask yourself, why are you playing tennis? Why do you want to play tennis? Is it about you being a pro or is it about something that you enjoy? Do you like the challenge? Do you like the struggle? Do you like the physical aspect of this? One of the things I love about Jiu Jitsu is I do not believe that it can be mastered. And I say that of after talking to people who've had black belts for 30 plus years and they constantly are working on something new or trying to do something better and they're not perfect and they don't always win and sometimes they get caught. And to me, that is the most fascinating aspect of it. I have no delusion that I am any better than anybody else. I just realize that I enjoy learning and I enjoy trying to get better at things that have no definable end state. I'm never going to be the best. I don't want to be the best. But I am going to look at my journey in Jiu Jitsu as an attempted constant improvement. I just want to be better than I was the day before. Ask yourself this. If you were playing tennis with yourself from a year ago, who would win? I bet you the answer is modern day you. But you're missing all of that. Are you even taking a moment to recognize or maybe even celebrate the fact that you have made an immense stride or strides in that one year time period? If you could beat the person that you were that you were a year ago, what does that say? That means you're improving constantly and consistently. And I would ask yourself that question every six months. You're going to have to find a way to enjoy the process that you are in, or the process itself is going to destroy you. Life does not have to be a competitive Sport of suffering in comparison. So instead of comparing yourself to a pro, compare yourself to your former self and try to find a way back to be getting some joy into the activity that I feel like you are spending an immense amount of time investing in. Now. How do those at extremely high performing individuals, how do you talk to yourself or in those moments? Well, as somebody who got a safety violation for whether an oversweep or decocking at the right time, a. It sucks, right? But I also don't expect anything in life to be easy, especially if it has value and it touches back into the first two questions. So sometimes legitimately people just make mistakes. Like I'm sure there are examples of pros who are just sending it into the crowd by accident. They're trying to do a swing and whatever, it goes off the edge of their racket. I think I've seen these videos where like the, the judge who was in his ivory tower in his little chair gets like nailed in the ear. I like those videos. I know it happens. I don't think the tennis player was meaning to do that. I have seen it where it just gets sent off into the crowd. So why does that happen? Did the pro mean to do that? No, it was a mistake. Mistakes still happen at a pro level. They just probably happen statistically less. So first off, identify why it happened. Was it a lapse in judgment, Was it a lapse in focus, a lapse of attention? Or did legitimately shit happen? Rackets also break too. I've seen that. And then the ball does weird stuff too. Do you blame the person on that or do you just say, hey, I, you know, I didn't recognize that the racket broke here, give me another one. Right back into our game. Um, some people had that happen because they were performing at the maximum level that they could, but they were being asked to do more. And that's why the selection process exists. When asked to do more that you are capable of, because the criteria for what you are screening for is based on real world expectations and requirements of the job. And you are unable to achieve that level. Not only is it safer for everybody else that will be operating at that level, but also for yourself, for you to be exited from the course. And that was heartbreaking for a lot of guys. And I didn't have that happen to me. So I can't speak about that from personal experience. But it seems to go in one of two ways. One of those types of people is like this place and everybody here and I'm never coming back. And the other One's like, you know, I'm gonna have a moment of reflective reflectiveness and objectivity and realize here, you know what? You're right. I wasn't meeting the standard. I am going to go back and I am going to work harder. And I would say about 50% of those people did go back and work harder and they reattempted it again. And about another of the hundred percent of people that decided they were going to at least attempt to come back. Not the fuck you crowd. 50% of them probably came back. And the other 50%, in their journey to try to achieve those standards in a training environment before attempting the selection process again, I think they realized they didn't have it and it wasn't in their wheelhouse. And that's a tough, tough pill to swallow. But instead of that ruining their life, they found something else that they could derive their purpose from or excitement or joy or pleasure or whatever it is. And they devoted their time to that. They didn't bother coming back the second time. And that is the safest choice for them to make. It's painful because you are admitting to yourself that there's something that you want to do that you are not capable of doing. And to that I say, welcome to life. Welcome to the real world. As much as I would ever want to play in the NBA, which I didn't, for clarity, I would never be able to do so. Yes. Is there example of people like Spud Webb, who is 3 foot 8 and was able to make it into the NBA? Yes, there is a single example of that, but there are countless other examples of people who felt the same way and were not able to achieve that. So we cannot paint the norm with the anomaly. Figure out a way to get out of your own way. That is what is going on here. You are measuring yourself against a standard that is unobtainable for almost everybody. And that's okay unless you spend the rest of your life doing that and lose sight of that fact. I would say instead, measure yourself against your prior self or a cohort of peers. That is more in line with your own capabilities. And I think what you'll find once you realize and recognize that you are far more successful and making far greater strides in the right direction than you currently think that the negative self talk is going to go away. That's all I have for this week. See y' all Monday.
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