Episode 421 - Chadd Wright - A Navy SEAL's Amazing journey to salvation and resilience

Summary

Podcast Summary: Cleared Hot – Episode 421

Guest: Chadd Wright
Host: Andy Stumpf
Date: December 22, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this powerful and wide-ranging conversation, host Andy Stumpf welcomes Chadd Wright—former Navy SEAL, ultra-endurance athlete, founder of the 3 of 7 Project, and committed Christian—for an honest exploration of faith, suffering, growth, and life after military service. With trademark authenticity, humor, and occasional irreverence, Andy and Chadd reflect on the tools of resilience, the challenges of belief, personal transformation, and how grief and adversity shape meaning and character.

Throughout, listeners encounter raw stories from their military experiences, heartfelt admissions of past failings, and deep dives on controversial topics—from faith and politics to social media and masculinity—always grounded in the mutual respect and curiosity that make Cleared Hot a standout.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Resilience, Purpose, and Breaking Down Big Challenges

[04:38–17:26]

• Chadd credits Andy’s approach to breaking large tasks into manageable pieces as transformative—drawing from Navy SEAL training where “just making it to the next meal” sustained candidates in Hell Week.
• Andy notes, “Knowing the path and walking the path are not the same thing, man.” [13:50]
• Discussion about their mutual desire to pass these hard-earned lessons on to others. Chadd describes his 3 of 7 Project’s 24-hour endurance events, designed to teach participants real-time resilience when tasks become overwhelming—even to the point where, as Chadd says, “they just go full animalistic.” [11:09]

2. Teaching, Leadership, and the Human Side of Military Selection

[17:03–25:28]

• Andy reflects on his time as a BUDS instructor and the power of psychological tactics (“weaponizing the overwhelming big picture”) to either break or forge SEAL candidates:
  • “My number one tool as a BUDS instructor to get people to quit would be to get them to think about how far they were from their goals.” [16:50]
• Both men acknowledge the value in failing, owning mistakes, and the importance of deep self-knowledge.
• Chadd describes his pride and insecurity in “winning” pre-BUDS awards, and their limited meaning compared to the broader journey of self-improvement.

3. Transition, Grief, and Growth

[31:44–55:01]

• Both men delve into wrestling with loss: the death of loved ones (Chadd’s mentor and unborn child, Andy’s mother), and how these shaped their sense of self and calling.
• Chadd: “It has made me unafraid to run toward grief. …There's so much growth in the midst of that grief, especially when you have people around you who are grieving with you. And it's changed my life, man.” [48:08]
• Andy, reflecting on missing his mother's final days: “I wasn’t capable of being that person in that moment.” [46:15]
• The theme of running into adversity, not away, recurs as a crucible for empathy and transformation.

4. Faith, Doubt, and Honest Inquiry

[81:33–134:34 (multiple threads throughout)]

• Chadd shares the centrality of his Christian faith: “My love for the Almighty God and for his people... That’s the biggest thing. This thing we call faith has become dang near everything to me." [82:40]
• Andy is candid about identifying as agnostic, yet open and envious of the depth of meaning faith provides to others: “I wish I could say that I felt that way... but it hasn’t landed with me... Maybe it just hasn’t been my time yet.” [86:01]
• Chadd and Andy dig deep into the paradox of morality, the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice, and whether goodness can exist without an objective standard:
  • Chadd: “Where do you have any basis for morality unless there is an objective standard given by a creator?” [103:59]
  • Andy: “I believe that I don’t know. …Net positive just in general, whether people believe or not.” [84:03]
• The exchange is philosophical, open-hearted, and peppered with humor about Bibles, beards, and “hyperlinks” in old scripture.

5. Contemporary Controversies, Politics, and Speaking Truth

[65:52–80:47]

• Chadd discusses his (later declined) opportunity to run for Congress, and the dismaying realities of campaign finance and political compromise (“I could not go and do that without becoming the person I hated…” [67:59]).
• He explains his approach to social media, being “unhinged” and willing to lose followers for honesty:
  • “I get. I start itching when people start to like me too much… then I say something to piss everybody off again.” [71:02]
• Both men critique performative controversies in the veteran podcast and influencer community (“Weaponizing controversy for clicks… man, it’d be hard to sleep at night.” [80:47])

6. Parenthood, Fear, and the Next Generation

[30:09–66:46, 167:38–169:19]

• Chadd opens up about impending fatherhood, the fears and hopes it evokes, and grieving a previous miscarriage.
• Discussion on the challenge of shifting focus from self-driven pursuits to shared responsibility.
• On choosing baby names, Chadd: “I would really like to name our son Jubal.” [167:41]
• Andy jokes about conservative names and the hazard of schoolyard teasing. [168:11]

7. Technology, Social Media, and Modern Life

[155:22–179:36]

• A reflective (and funny) discussion on screen time, productivity, and the addictive nature of modern phones.
• Challenge: Chadd and Andy commit to a “one hour per day” social media challenge for January, encouraging transparency and inviting listeners to join them.
  • “I think it’ll be far easier to walk out of the studio and run 100 miles than go down to one hour a day on my phone.” – Chadd [180:01]

8. Human Nature, History, and the End of the Age

[138:56–140:15]

• Both reflect on historical cycles, the limits of human wisdom, and Chadd’s belief that “humanity is being swept along according to the plan of the Almighty God,” speculating on what the end times might look like according to Revelation.
• The segment is skeptical, playful, and occasionally irreverent (“What do you think that would look like if he were to return? … What does he wear for footwear?” [140:30])

9. Hunting, Reading, and Life Beyond the Teams

[164:38–170:31]

• Chadd describes hunting his first elk, the camaraderie of the outdoors, and daily joys like squirrel hunting.
• Both men extol the value of reading (“I read fiction every day. I read scripture every day. …Opens my mind up to this whole world”). [169:30]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Resilience:
  “Knowing the path and walking the path are not the same thing, man.” – Andy [13:50]
• On Grief:
  “There's so much growth in the midst of that grief, especially when you have people around you who are grieving with you. And it's changed my life, man.” – Chadd [48:08]
• On Teaching Others:
  “Our job now is to try to teach people…so it can have the broadest impact in their life.” – Andy [10:15]
• On Faith and Doubt:
  “I wish I could say that I felt that way... it hasn’t landed with me... Maybe it just hasn’t been my time yet.” – Andy [86:01]
• On Political Realities:
  “I could not go and do that without becoming the person I hated, even at the very first step to compromise…me being me.” – Chadd [67:59]
• On Parenting:
  “The fear is 100% rooted in selfishness.” – Chadd [63:48]
• On Social Media:
  “It’s a time vampire...this is the sneaky discipline one.” – Andy [170:31]
• On Personal Change:
  “I was so stupid and I was so wicked, man. I was so wicked. I don’t know why I was so wicked, but I was.” – Chadd [83:05]
• On Humility:
  “I wish I could say that I am of the 100% belief I’ve never had a unique idea in my entire life.” – Andy [07:44]

---

Timestamps of Important Segments

• 04:38 – Discovering resilience: breaking large problems into small steps
• 13:50 – “Knowing the path and walking the path...”
• 31:44 – Grief, fatherhood, and losing loved ones
• 81:33 – Chadd on deepening faith, personal change
• 86:01 – Andy on being agnostic but open to faith
• 103:59 – Can goodness and morality exist without God?
• 155:22 – The impact and addiction of social media; introducing the 1-hour challenge
• 164:38 – Hunting and finding new meaning after the military

---

Tone & Language

The episode blends gritty authenticity, humor, and humility. Both men are direct and unsparing about their limitations and mistakes, often poking fun at themselves and each other. Their willingness to openly explore difficult topics—faith, grief, politics, regret—makes the podcast feel like a deep conversation between friends, but full of wisdom for listeners.

---

Final Thoughts

Chadd:
“All jokes aside, I want to thank you for having me out for a second time. It means something to me…that you would think enough of me to invite me here and share this time.” [185:43]

Andy:
“Today's is gonna be easy because it's just sitting down with a friend and figuring out what the hell is going on in life.” [186:34]

---

Listener Takeaways

• The tools that get you through Navy SEAL training—breaking down big problems, refusing to quit, controlling your focus—are the same tools that can help with business, grief, parenting, or faith.
• Grief, suffering, and adversity, while deeply painful, are fertile ground for personal growth.
• Living with authenticity and integrity requires sacrifice—and often, a willingness to be misunderstood or disliked.
• Deep, honest conversations about faith, morality, and meaning are valuable—even in the absence of full agreement.

---

For listeners, this episode is a masterclass in honest living—challenging, comforting, and deeply human.

Transcript

[A]

Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun run north and south west of the smoke. West of the smoke.

[B]

Okay, copy.

[A]

West of the smoke.

[B]

I'm looking at danger close now.

[A]

Come on with it. Give it to me.

[B]

I need it get cleared hot. It was this building.

[A]

Let's, let's. Let's get it all. Let's get it on. When are we starting?

[B]

Where are they going?

[A]

Oh, you're good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Holy crow.

[B]

Oh, by the way, he tried to convert me to Christianity at the coffee shop, and I introduced him as David Godfrey.

[A]

Oh, I actually have a gift for you.

[B]

Is it a Bible?

[A]

I have a gift for you.

[B]

Do we do the gift? Hold on.

[A]

It's very special.

[B]

Gift at the beginning or the end? Some gifts.

[A]

No, we should do it at the beginning.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah, we should do it at the beginning. Yeah. I actually found this today, and. And I'm projecting. I'm going to project my likes onto you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So this is very cool to me.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

May not be cool to you at all.

[B]

Fair enough.

[A]

This is very cool to me. When I found this, I almost lost it. And then when I found it, I was like, dang, do I want to keep. Because I was looking for a gift for you, but then I found it and I was like, I want to keep it.

[B]

I knew it was a Bible. What is a Collins reference Bible?

[A]

So that Bible is from 1949. So about the year you were born.

[B]

A little bit before this is. Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is an older Bible.

[A]

Yeah. And in the. On the front page or on one of the front pages, it has a, like a dedication to the person that it was gifted to in 1949. You just missed it.

[B]

They pass it. Where's that?

[A]

You got to learn how to turn the pages in these Bibles, man.

[B]

Okay. Is it important to read everything?

[A]

No, not really. So I wrote this to you. Okay. And by the way, I just finished doing like 200 power cleans, so you may not be able to read it. You're actually.

[B]

Your handwriting is very.

[A]

It's a little squiggly, but I just thought that was so cool because that's a Bible from 1949, which is getting pretty old, and it's in remarkably good shape. And I don't know, it just to me. I love old Bibles. And yeah, I kind of wrote you a little thing in there. You can read it on air or read it to yourself, but that's essentially.

[B]

I'll read it.

[A]

The reason I wanted to give you.

[B]

This, man, it says, to Andy, my hope is that one day this book will mean something to you that by God's grace you'll be able to make sense of it and find the life piece and reconciliation contained therein. Mr. Chad with 2ds people. Right?

[A]

That's it, man.

[B]

December 19, 2025. This is an amazing gift. Thank you very much.

[A]

You're welcome, bro.

[B]

I've had, I'll be honest with you, I've had a few people who have stopped me and given me religious centric gifts and have said largely the same thing. And I hope I'm not putting out the vibe that I am like anti religious by any stretch, because I'm definitely not. Today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. You know what's weak coffee made for people who hit the snooze button and complain about the weather. That is not Black Rifle Coffee. BRCC is veteran, founded roasted in America and built for people who put in the work in the gym, on the range or out in the mountains. If you are looking to stock up for winter or grab a solid gift, go with Wake in the Neighbors for high caffeine, Beyond Black for something darker. Or Atomic Llama, their seasonal roast with a cinnamon and brown sugar that it just hits right? Or Atomic Llama, their seasonal roast with cinnamon and brown sugar that just hits right. This year, BRCC backed organizations that actually make a difference. Folds of Honor, Hunter Seven foundation, and more. As we head into America's 250th birthday, they are doubling down on the mission. So whether you are running a cold morning workout, sitting in a deer blind, or just trying to survive the family holiday chaos, BRCC has your back. You can find it at Walmart, your local grocery store, OR Black Rifle Coffee.com Black Rifle Coffee veteran founded American Roasted. This is America's coffee.

[A]

It's just not. That's not the vibe at all. Good.

[B]

I just wanted to make sure that that's not the vibe.

[A]

The thing is, man, is I think that there and I know you're going to think you're going to, you're going to give me a rebuttal on this, man. But like, I mean, people love you, dude. Like, I'll speak for myself. So from the time I got out of the Navy in 2019, you were one of the first podcasts I ever started listening to.

[B]

Do you remember how you found it?

[A]

So when I got out in 2019, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, man. I went and bought a lawnmower and a trailer, a 4x8 trailer and a blower and a weed eater. And I started a. I like cutting grass. I started a grass come grass cutting business. And so I would be riding on my lawnmower all day and I was just like looking for podcasts. And I don't remember how I found your show, but like, it was one of the first shows I ever started listening to. And a lot of the things that you were saying back in those days, I have taken them and, and applied them and also taught them to others. A lot of the things that I talk about, I put my own spin on them. But. But really, you were the first person that I ever heard articulate. One of the major points is how important it is to break a large task down into small digestible segments, which.

[B]

Is not my creation, by the way, because I re articulated something that I heard, heard along the way. We could probably pass that down who knows how long? Generations.

[A]

Well, we can. Yeah. I mean, we can all apply that to our own story and make it unique and put our own story in terms of how we applied that when we share it with others. Right. So we can make it unique. But another thing that I learned from you, man, that's really helped me grow over the last six years now, I guess since I've been out, because I am a. By the grace of God, I am a totally different person than I was the first time I came on your show, man. And not. Not. That's not to say that I'm finished growing or that I'm perfect, but I have that made a lot of great changes over the years. And just the way that you've handled yourself over the years, like, I pay attention to that times that you, you know, you know, you, whatever you want to call it, made a mistake or said something that, oh, you got to apologize. Yeah, man, you just like, you're one of the few. Maybe there's. I guess I shouldn't say one of the few, but like, you're one of the guys that I've paid attention to, that I respect, that has really just handled himself well and provided an example to me. It's provided an example to me. And so, I mean, I think you mean a lot to me. You mean a lot to a lot of people. Not to be weird. I'm not being weird about it. I've gotten to train dozens of people who listen to this podcast over the years from our first episode. People who are here, they heard me here and then they've come to train with me. And so I've got To hear stories in person from people who have been listening to your show for years about you and, like, about how you've impacted them. And so I know it's not just me. You know what I mean?

[B]

I wish I could say that I am actually of the 100% belief I've never had a unique idea in my entire life.

[A]

Well, there's nothing new under the sun, I agree.

[B]

But that's why I try not to ever take credit for anything. It's legitimately like the breaking things down into small pieces. The first time that I really listened to that was right before Hell Week in buds, because there was a brown shirt that was given out, a little bit of advice. And he said, hey, man, are you aware they have to feed you every six hours? And I said, no, I'm not aware of anything that's about to happen to me. If you have more information, I would like to receive it. And he said, don't worry about what day it is. Don't worry about what evolution you're in. Just make it to the next meal. Yeah, it's the first time I think I ever really listened to that. And then you can take that. And that might be a. Well, we both know people that that concept was a chunk too big for. Because our classes started with a big number and. And they get to a small number, and it's not like that concept is unique or new. And it's. It's one thing to know it. It's another thing to be able to, like, push through pain and actually, like, really focus on something you can make it to. But then beyond that point, that actually might be one of the most impactful things that I ever heard in my life up until that point.

[A]

Same here, man. And the funny thing is, I was doing that as I went through SEAL training unconsciously. My career in the teams, like, that's what got me through it. But I couldn't articulate it. And when you said it, and I heard it the way you said it, and I don't even think you said it on the podcast, I think it was a clip from a speech you were giving or something. I was like, holy crap. That's what I was doing. Because now our job, now, the position that we're in, is to understand what we were doing, to get through the really difficult parts of our life and learn how to articulate them in a way that others can apply it to whatever their circumstance is. Right. So when I. When I heard you articulate it, I was like, that's exactly what I was doing okay, that's, that's how I say it. That's how I can take it and share it when I go and speak. Because public speaking has now become a huge part of what I do. I mean, I'm doing like probably 15 or 20 speeches a year. And it's like, that's one of the major points that I share with people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that really, again, the first time I heard it really tied up with a bow on it is when you said it.

[B]

You know, it's interesting that you describe that our job now is to try to teach people. It wasn't until recently for me that I wrapped my head around. I knew, I knew the things that I liked to do. Like when I went back as a second phase instructor, I realized accidentally that I enjoyed teaching. I do too. That's all it is. And I hadn't really been in a place where I had done much teaching and that's an artificial environment because they have to pay attention to you. But then when I was working for CrossFit, teaching at the seminars, I'm like, okay, this is awesome. And taught skydiving. And I've realized now, and it took me a long time to get to this, like, what do we do with the experiences that almost everybody on earth thinks that they are not capable of having? My thought process is we spend the rest of our life trying to take what we learn from that environment and spread it to as many people as possible so it can have the broadest impact in their life. That's all I want to do.

[A]

That's it. That's it. And yeah, I mean, and that's what I love about, you know, what three of seven project has become. Now I get to teach those lessons to people not standing on a stage behind a podium while they sit out there in the audience. But we're able to teach these lessons in real time, in the real difficulty, and then work through the application of it. You know, it's one of the, one of the missions that we run is it's a 24 hour hike essentially. So we get 20. No, this is a, this is a, this is a course that we run at three of seven projects. So we have 20 people come from all over the country. Well, they apply first, then we select them, they come in, we give them an in brief, and then the next morning we step off on, on a long trail there at the house. And their only job for 24 hours is to eat, drink and move. If they stop moving, it's a failure to train. So they're dropped. Most of them just quit, usually at a resupply point. But it is hard, man. Like, I don't know. I don't know how long it's been since you tried that, but just to move through the mountains for 24 hours straight, they're not allowed to sit down, they're not allowed to stop. They have to eat and drink on their feet while they're moving. And what happens is we teach the lessons the day before. Then they have to work through the application of the lesson. And dude, at like 3:00am you know, during that training mission, it gets ugly. And like, it's really easy to do the things that we like to teach when it's not super hard. But when it gets super hard, I mean, they either, they either start, they either keep applying the lesson or they just go full animalistic. They just become animal. Like, I've seen one whole, dude, we were out there one time type of animal. We had a whole class out there. There's. This is a male, female mix there. There are 20 people on this trail. It's like 3am and dude, they just started like, dropping their drawers and crapping right in front of each other, like on the, like, like, they just went full animal, dude. And it's like, well, this is what happens when you can't apply the principles because it got too hard. It got harder than you wanted it to get, so you just said, screw it. I'm just gonna survive this thing. You know what I mean?

[B]

Knowing the path and walking the path are not the same thing, man.

[A]

That's it, brother. That's the hard part about speaking, right, Is when we share these things with people, it's like, man, it all sounds good to you, but. But are you really going to take it and, and use it?

[B]

You know, also don't take it and use it and think it's going to change your life right away. It's. To me, the biggest changes in my life have not been this particular watershed moment. It was a little. A little bit here and a little bit there. And then I looked back in the rearview mirror and realized, oh, wow, I've made a lot of distance, but it wasn't some big broad jump across the Grand Canyon. I've actually failed more and attempting to make these grandiose, huge changes than I have and just kind of focusing on making a microscopic one and not paying a, like, a lot of attention to it. And then I just look back and am relatively impressed with the distance I was able to cover. Yeah, because the knowing how to Chunk things. Right. An easy way to, to talk about breaking a large task into a small one doesn't make it actually any easier. It makes it more digestible mentally. And you can. You still have to walk the path.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The steps still have to be taken.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And again, that's why. Because people have asked me, well, I said, why didn't they teach that concept at BUDS to begin with? And at first I was thinking, I don't know, why wouldn't they? And I wonder if it would even change the attrition rate. And I don't know if it would because you can know the path. You still have to walk it.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. I get exactly what you're saying. Yeah. It doesn't make it any easier. It just makes it, it makes it doable.

[B]

Because as long as you don't quit.

[A]

Yeah. As long as you don't quit. Because what, what ends up happening. Happening if you don. Do that. Like you said, it's not that doing that makes it any easier, but what happens is, is when you let your mind drift too far ahead, that that's what crushes you, like mentally. It shuts you down.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So that's what happens. Yeah. It doesn't make it make the task any easier. You're going to feel the same amount of pain, but you're just keeping your mind in the place that it needs to be. Which is also constant work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like how few people are good at even knowing what they're thinking about.

[B]

I mean, even know if I'm good.

[A]

At, I mean, thinking about really, man.

[B]

Like, maybe in short duration I'm really good at it, but most of the time I'm wandering.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, so to be able, you know, in, in, in a moment of difficulty, whether it's walking for 24 hours or you're on a big time hard hunt and you got an animal down and you got to climb back up out of the canyon or you got cancer or whatever. Like in a moment of difficulty to be able to say, okay, now I'm going to be conscious of my thoughts. And when I catch my mind thinking too far ahead, I am going to say no and refocus my mind back on whatever the next step is that I need to take, you know?

[B]

Yeah. My number one tool as a BUDS instructor to get people to quit would be to get them to think about how far they were from their goals.

[A]

That's it, man.

[B]

It was more effective than the telephone poles, the boats, the water, the sand, the sleep deprivation.

[A]

I would say that every Single person that quits probably has that moment.

[B]

Well, the reason I realized that that was so effective is, you know, in your class, I mean, it might have been different, but I suspect your experience was the same. When people quit, you don't see them again because you continue training and their life takes a left hand turn or right hand turn.

[A]

It's almost like they die, man.

[B]

Kind of. And let's be honest, how much do you really care about them anyway? You have a singular forward. You're a locomotive on the tracks. Well, as an instructor, you get to hang out with them and they're pretty honest, especially if you can approach them from a place of genuine curiosity and not trying to be like, hey, turd, tried real hard. Did you? Like, they're already most of the time in tears anyway, right when they're checking into X Division and all that stuff. So I would go talk to them and I would just say what happened? And the resounding thing was I got overwhelmed, which is just another way for them to say they lost control of what they were thinking about and they started thinking broadly instead of narrowly. And then I realized that and said, oh, that can be weaponized.

[A]

Yep, hundred percent, man. We have a film on Amazon prime, it's called Just One Mile, and it's about one of the last man standing races that I won. And you'll get to see me do that, weaponize exactly what we're talking about. You'll get to see me weaponize it in real time on that film. When it gets down to me and this one other guy, it's exactly what I did, dude. One, I convinced him that I was some sort of machine and that I wasn't feeling any pain. And I convinced him of that. And then I got him to think too far ahead and the dude literally starts crying. And this dude is like, this dude's like an established ultra runner with fastest known times on. On really difficult. I mean, he's an experienced ultra runner. But you're exactly right. I mean, in a race or something, you know, a lot of people, look, man, a race to me, like, I. That's the one time I get to come off the leash and everybody turns me off the leash and they don't hold me accountable. And I can be really, really mean. And so I love doing that. But that's just an example of what you were doing to the students that needed to go away in SEAL training.

[B]

People have been critical of the fact that I weaponized it. And I just take a moment to remind them what that job is selecting for and what the real world execution looks like. And they usually will stop the criticism at that point. Because the reality is there's a good chance I might have saved their life.

[A]

Yes, yes, that's a possibility. And you surely saved them a lot.

[B]

Of wasted time or somebody else's life. Because the real world environment of that job is not the place to have the realization that you are unable to do the small steps regardless of what.

[A]

Is going on around you. And weaponizing that tactic also, that's not going to work on someone who belongs there.

[B]

I would agree.

[A]

That would not have worked on me. I mean, I can say that with complete confidence.

[B]

I could see that in the eyes of the students because so I never yelled a single time when I was an instructor. I would just go up and I would talk with them, which actually, that's the worst, dude. So I didn't realize that at the time, but many students told me that afterwards they couldn't figure out because you knew the deal. There is. There are the caricatures. There's the instructor who is homies with the students. There is the unhinged T1000 yelling all the time. And I didn't mean to be, but I guess I was just kind of down the middle of the road just talking to him. And they couldn't. I'm like, is he serious? Is he trying to get information from us? And the answer is yes, both. I was trying to get information, but I was also being serious because two things can be true at once. But I would just go talk to him, and I would talk to him like Monday morning, hell, week before the sun comes up. Like, man, it is cold out. How long do you think you can be cold like this? It's only Sunday night. And of course, like, you're setting your watch to the wrong day. You know, on Wednesday, you're like, man, still just Monday. You guys got a long way to go.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you could tell some students, you. You could see the little. The Mac scroll wheel start to go, and other ones, it would just bounce off. I'd just go to the next student.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you can tell. You can tell the ones where you can invade the thought process. And then you. And then you start going to work. And the other ones where they're just like, whatever, get out of my face.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And just by the way they're looking like, okay, I'll go waste my time on somebody else.

[A]

That would have been such a cool experience, man, being an instructor there. Just like the insight you could gain into the way that the human mind works.

[B]

I think it is one of the most valuable laboratories on why people are successful or whether they make the choice to fail. And it's fascinating to me. What class were you in?

[A]

2, 7, 8.

[B]

Did they have the pre training program when you were.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I believe they actually got rid of that. I'm not super connected right now, but I believe it might be back. But I believe it went away for a time.

[A]

I was the hard charger in my pre BUDS class.

[B]

What does that even mean?

[A]

What's the best, dude?

[B]

Does that mean like a gold medal in the special?

[A]

That's pretty much the medal of honor.

[B]

Okay. I mean, it's like, yeah, you got a gold medal, but, you know, the end of the day we still, you know, talk about some other stuff.

[A]

But it's the highlight of my career. I just had to share that while we were here.

[B]

Fair enough. My point is, I am. I mean, I know for a fact they did studies and they would do personality tests and psychological assessments and they, you know, do you come from a broken family or a family with loving mother and father? A nuclear family? Did you have sisters? Did you play sports? Were you into academics? Were you into chess? Millions of dollars got poured into how can we make people successful? I'm not aware of them spending a dime trying to figure out why people quit. It's like, dude, there's more people that quit there than graduate. Let's go talk to these guys. They'll tell you that's literally all I did. We'd be over at the pool and they'd be there to check into X division and they'd, you know, they would face away from the pool and they had their nose six inches from the wall. You can tell they're in a super low moment. Almost all of them voiced a feeling of regret almost instantaneously as well, because they got to that moment and made a choice they normally wouldn't make. And they wish they could take it back, but they can't. And so I just went and talked to them. It's a laboratory and scientific experiment of people who are willing to surrender on something they said they want more than anything in their life. That, to me, is where the gold mine is. Because you can reverse engineer that.

[A]

Yeah, you can.

[B]

Yeah. Like, okay, you guys all got frustrated and overwhelmed in a moment. How can I weaponize that either against students or implement something in my life that allows me to do things that other people may scratch their head and wonder why or how you were able to do it? And Again, it doesn't make it any easier. People are looking for a path to a painless life. I did not just give you the recipe for it. Yeah, I actually might have given you the recipe for one of the most painless lives. Because you can attempt things that people think are impossible and be successful. And you're gonna suffer deeply by doing really weird feats of endurance. Like psychotic people.

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, I've done some hard endurance stuff, but yeah, I mean, this stuff you've done. Like, I was getting ready to come here and my wife, she was like, well, who is this Andy Stumpf guy again? And I was like, well, where do we start? I mean, like, he did all these crazy skydives. He's a jiu jitsu, you know. I don't know nothing about Jiu Jitsu black belt. He's a, you know, he's done with all the wingsuit stuff. He was a former seal. It's like, I mean, I look at the same, you know, you, you might look at the 250mile running, you know, race and think, oh, that's insane. But I look at jumping out with a wingsuit, it's like, nah, ain't doing it.

[B]

Yeah, but both of those. You don't start off with a wingsuit. And I bet you. Well, there probably are people who think I'm going to start running and250 is a good number to start with. They probably get to 2.5 and then change their mind. Oh, yeah, you work, it'll break you for sure. All that stuff, the wave tops, it's all built upon the foundation. And again, the micro steps that nobody pays attention to.

[A]

The tools are the same. Yeah, that's what's cool about the tools that work, you know, that you probably talk about when you go speak and it's like, the tools are the same, man. Whether it's building a business or fighting an illness or working through a marriage. Where you where? In my case, my wife was suffering from addiction. Like, like the tools are the same across the board. Running 250 miles, figuring out how to do these crazy jumps and stuff.

[B]

I don't consider them to be crazy. They're pretty normal.

[A]

Not to me, man. I don't think I'll ever jump out of an airplane again. I have not jumped since I've been out of the Navy. And yeah, it just, I've never been comfortable with it.

[B]

What was it that was it just kind of the concept? I mean, your body naturally, especially when you first start, is going to be giving you Some warning signs like, hey, dum dum, this doesn't seem like a good idea.

[A]

No, I'll tell you what I think it was. So, especially when I was in a platoon, I don't think I ever felt comfortable with it because we didn't train it enough. And then when the jump block would roll around and you know, you have some guys in the platoon that have come over from Damneck who, you know, they, they spent years and years over there and now they're, you know, a platoon commander or, you know, a troop chief or something. And. And they're lining up these jumps that are like nighttime water jumps, full combat equipment on, nods like, yeah. And I'm sitting here like, holy crap, man. I haven't jumped in two years. And this guy's like, they're wanting to. And you. It's like you can't really speak up. You just got to do it. And I just remember so many times jumping just being like, well, I hope I survive.

[B]

Yeah. And that's not a great headspace. And the reality is too, military freefall has been used so infrequently because it's really dangerous. It might be the most dangerous thing you do in that cycle of that evolution. And if a military free fall operation comes up, it's going to jsoc. The fact that they are trying to push the conventional teams to get to that level. Like you said, if you go two years without jumping. No. You might be able to take a platoon and exit an aircraft in flight and link up on the ground or in the water in the daytime successfully.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There are elements at JSOC units that are hypercurrent jumping all the time, specializing in that. It's. Yeah, let's. If we're going to make sushi, let's hire a sushi chef. Right? You don't bring a line cook in for the.

[A]

I never felt good about it, man. I never felt prepared, like proper, I guess not properly trained, I guess just not trained to the level that I felt like I should have been trained to. So, yeah, I guess I just left a bad taste in my mouth. So I just. And same with diving. Like, I never felt like I was effective at diving. Like, I got to the point where I was like, man, I should have been a Green Beret.

[B]

They have dive teams too, buddy.

[A]

I know, but. But it's not everybody, you know, we were working with these guys in, in Tunisia and they were Green Berets, the first time I'd ever really worked with them. And they were just telling me about their job. And it's like, yeah, we don't ever have to get in the water. We don't really jump. We just, you know, we're always humping around the mountains. And I was like, dang, that sounds really good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, yeah, I took an odd path, man. I took an odd path. Especially when I actually, when I went to take the PST to get a steel contract, I couldn't swim, really. Literally. My wife had to teach me how to swim at the aquatic center where the PST was at. We would go a little early and she would like, she started teaching me the breaststroke.

[B]

Did she put floaties on you?

[A]

No, but you could touch. You could.

[B]

Missed opportunity.

[A]

Well, yeah, she. She would have got a good. A better laugh out of that. But yeah, though, like, the first time I took a pst, I could not swim one full length of a. I guess it's a 50 meter pool probably. Yeah, I couldn't swim one full length without stopping touching the ground and, like, getting my breath back.

[B]

Isn't it exhausting when you actually getting in the water when you don't know how to control yourself or the medium? It is. Oh, exhausting.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It is.

[B]

It is.

[A]

It's one of the. It's one of the hardest things to learn. You know, doggy paddle is different than trying to do a combat swimmer sidestroke or a breaststroke where you got to put your head in and out of.

[B]

The water for sure. So, speaking of your wife, I saw an Instagram post recently, some changes in your family are upcoming.

[A]

Yeah, we got one in the oven.

[B]

Tell me about your thoughts on that. Man, the last time we thought sat down. I don't think I asked you directly, but I feel like you probably would have said no.

[A]

Not like we never. We. It was never in us to like, desire to have children, even. Well, I don't want to say even now because obviously we did decide to have a child. It's not born yet, but. But yeah, I mean, I guess we just got to the point. My wife, she's wiser than me. She was like, look, if we're gonna have a child or try to have a child, we have to try now because we're getting old. And I guess just facing up to that reality and thinking, what are we gonna miss in life if we don't at least try this? You know? And we tried. And Brooke got pregnant really quick. And when she told me she was pregnant, I got really excited. Like, she came home with a pair of little baby crocs. You know, and I got.

[B]

I was like, were they camo?

[A]

Yeah, they were camo. And so, like, flips. Some flipped in my head, and I was like, oh, this is awesome. You know, I don't know what flipped in my head. And then we lost that baby. Like, it's horrible. I don't know what it is, like, eight weeks in or something like that.

[B]

It's. It's. I'm not going to say it's incredibly common, but it's not uncommon.

[A]

No, that's what I was reading about it. It was. It's. It's a lot. It's a lot of times that that happens, but I didn't realize, like, how hard that was going to be. Man, I did not see that coming. But, like, there was a spell there where my. My old. My mentor that kind of helped raise me. Who, again, y', all, can. I talked about that a little bit on the episode with Joe, but, like, I abandoned our friendship, and, like, he came down with pancreatic cancer, and his name was Don Tidwell, and he just poured so much into me, you know? Man, I think back on the stuff I did, and I was so such a terrible person.

[B]

But what led you to abandon him?

[A]

There's some. I don't know if you've ever experienced this or not, but I think it's a kind of leftover from being in the military. I really want to focus on. I'm usually focused on something in life, like some sort of goal.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And if you're with me on that, like, you're a part of that, reaching that goal, then, like, you're my people. But if you're not a part of whatever that next goal is, I just shut people out, man. I just shut people out of my life. I don't know. I'm working on that because it's not right, you know? Also. Also, I think I abandoned relationships a lot of time, too, because I don't want to deal with help, like working through problems and sickness and things like that with other people, you know, that. That I love, so I'll just shut them out. Like, I'm working on this. I'm better at it than I used to be. But. But, yeah, I think that's what it was with. With Mr. Don. You know, he. He spent so much time mentoring me and making me. Turning me into a man. But then when I left to go on the. Into the Navy, it was like, well, here's. I'm on another track now, and I. And you're not. You're not with me anymore. And so I don't have time to. To talk to you. I still love you. Yeah, but they don't know that. It was remarkable, though, man. His wife called me, and he was. His wife was like, he just wants to see you one more time. And I just thought in my head, I was like, why? Why would he want to see me? Like, he's tried to call me and reach out to me for years, and I ignore him. Never called to check on him. Why would he want to see me? And then I had to make the decision to enter into that, like, enter back into that relationship at the time he's literally dying. That decision was rough, dude.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, just I had to make the decision to call his wife back and say, yes, I will come and see him, because I knew once I did that, that, like, I was entering back in and I was going to be committed to being there with him while he went through this hardest challenge that he will ever go through in life. And so I did that, and, you know, spent a lot of time with him, and it was so ugly. I know you lost your mother.

[B]

Yeah, I didn't have that time, though, man. I got a few days with my mom. It's one of the regrets of my life. I wasn't. I wasn't in a place where I could be the son that I feel like she deserved. We were overseas. She got diagnosed with cancer right before we left, and it was wild. So she had survived cancer before. I was at sniper school in Kalinga, the range that they had to shut down because people were getting valley fever because apparently you shouldn't crawl around for days in cow shit. Who would have known? Yeah, I'll just get a few people some respiratory issues for the rest of their life.

[A]

Dang, man.

[B]

I get a call from my dad, and he said, you know, your mom has cancer. And I'm like, okay, I'll come home this weekend. Because I was born and raised in Santa Cruz. Coalinga is inland California, a little bit. A little bit towards Santa Cruz. So I went home. Wasn't able to be there when she had the surgery, but was keeping in contact with my dad. She outlived everybody in her cancer survivor group. And cancer, if you, you know, if you go through the treatment, they keep a pretty good eye on you. Like, monthly checkups, then quarterly, twice per year, once per year, she got to a place where she. She was clear of cancer. That's what they told her. And I think she knew it was back because it was about February of 2010. They were down at my house. I was on pre deployment leave and my sister, who was a nurse at emergency room that we took her to, and my dad were like, your mom, something is wrong and she will not go see what is wrong. And I truly believe that she knew. I actually believe that she knew it was back and she wanted me to get out the door and be on my way overseas before finding out that information. So that you know, your handwriting is actually very neat. The single neatest handwriting I've ever seen was my mom's. It is. I have some of her journals. Dude, I couldn't write that precisely if I tried for a decade. And she was writing a shopping list for spaghetti. It was the first time I'd ever not been able to read her writing. She was sitting out on a. On a wall in our yard in the sun because she was trying to get warm. And I just, I looked over at her, I said, mom, we're going to take you to the hospital. And she just looked at me and said, okay. And then later that day, chest X rays. I used to think actually I was mistaken. I used to say it was non smokers lung cancer, which it actually wasn't. It was the cervical cancer that she originally had that metastasized into her lungs which the survivability still not great. My sister was in the room when they started reading the X rays. And she's not a radiologist, but she saw enough of the gray areas. So I remember her coming out. We were at the hospital in La Jolla in the emergency room and my sister come out and she kind of made eye contact with me and I met her in the hallway and she's like, I'm not a radiologist, but there are masses in mom's lungs. I was like, okay. And then my dad saw us talking and he came over and for me, I'm a little bit more of a. We're gonna take the band aid off on this one. I was like, dad, there's cancer's probably back with mom. Like she'll get specialized tests and all this stuff. So I left. Ever notice how ads always pop up.

[A]

At the worst moments when the killer's.

[B]

Identity is about to be revealed during.

[A]

That perfect meditation flow. On Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad free podcast episodes so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad free.

[B]

Included with Prime a week later. Yeah, I Remember hugging her. They were staying at my house, hugging her at the stairs. I think I made it around the block before I had to call over. Just could not see through the tears to drive into work again. I was trying to get out when my kids were asleep. Both of my sons were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Rough. And my daughter was in a crib at the time. I remember kissing her goodbye. Go on deployment. Kind of keeping in contact, you know. She was always in emails up, hey, how are you doing? What's going on with you? Then I would get emails from my dad and my sister, like she's going, you know, through chemo, all that stuff. Lose the classic losing weight, not getting out of bed, feeling nauseous, no appetite, all this stuff. Fortunately, my dad has been making pot brownies for years, so he was really giving her some zingers to try to bring the old appetite.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Especially when she entered hospice. He would just get her, her so stoned and put her out on the, on the little balcony out by the window and she would just sit there and watch butterflies and bees and stuff and hopefully not be in pain. But it got to the point where they sent a Red Cross message over. Started my journey home. Got home, she entered into. I saw her in the hospital when they were releasing her from the hospital to put her into hospice and had to bounce back and forth from San Diego a few times. Only got to spend a few hours with her. But dude, my. I was in overseed mode. Binary, black and white, what needs to be done? Let's go. I just, I had zero emotional range and that's. And I actually need to be very cautious talking about this because people will say nobody should ever do that job because the job, no job should make you like that. And the job didn't make me like that. I worked myself into that place because I took the job that seriously because I was actually in a leadership role in that particular deployment and I was terrified that I was going to do something that was going to get somebody hurt or killed. So I was like full front side focused and you know, the deal overseas, it's. You're all the BS of life strips away and it's action, reaction, binary. And that doesn't just turn off instantly when you came home and I wasn't able to get back to the person I wish I could have been in time. It sucks, man.

[A]

Thanks for sharing that, brother.

[B]

Yeah, that's.

[A]

It makes me think about a lot of things. Like I kind of can relate to you in A way not the exact same. But with Mr. Don, I also didn't feel like I was the person I needed to be to go and enter back into that. Enter in with him at that time. And I think what I learned is that if that's what you're waiting on, like, you're never. You're never going to become that person. Because the strange thing is, is that these people that love you, like your mom, like Mr. Don, I realized with Mr. Don, even in the midst of me being a terrible friend, he still loved me. He never held any of that against me. And, like, all he wanted to do was see me. He didn't expect me to give him any comfort or good. Like, I would just go sit in the room with him for 7, 8 hours at a time. And, like, he didn't ask me to do that. I just did that because I felt compelled to do it. But I wasn't showing up as any sort of person that, like, I was about to walk up in this room and make him feel better in the midst of this thing. Yeah. I realized, no, like, all I can do is just go and sit with him. Like, that's it. That's. That meant so much to him, I think.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we're never going to be the person that we ought to be when we're entering in with somebody who loves us in. Especially in those last days of their lives. You know what I mean? Don't put that expectation. I've learned not to put that expectation on myself.

[B]

Well, you're also more than those last moments. My dad, over the years helped me with this one because I've expressed to him kind of how I felt in the emotional state or lack of ability to be in an emotional state. And he chuckled and he said, do you not think your mom knew who you were? Do you not think your mom.

[A]

That's. That's it, man.

[B]

Yeah. Do you not think that your mom realized that you were more than those last final times that you saw her? She has memories from your entire life.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Your mom knew who you were. She just wanted you to get home safe. I actually think she was waiting for me to get home before she died.

[A]

Yep. Yep.

[B]

Yeah. Which. That statement made me angry for so long, and I don't know why. I felt a sense of guilt associated with that. And I don't know. I don't know where it came from. I'm just being honest about how it made me feel. I hated it because other people would say, oh, you know, your mom was waiting for you to get home before she died. And it would just piss me off. And I don't know why. I wouldn't do anything about it, and I wouldn't say anything, but it was. I guess I didn't know what to do with that. I don't know what to. You know what I mean? Like, what does that mean? Like, she's suffering. I mean, like, I don't want her to have undue suffering for longer, you know? Also, at the same time, I'm, like, not hoping my mom dies.

[A]

Yeah. I didn't know what to do with it, man. Of course. Yeah. I mean, just the thing that comes to my mind is it's. It's such a representation of, like, how powerful that person's love was for you that, like, they. They. They were. They were staving off death, which I believe is possible.

[B]

I do, too. I actually have come to the place where I legitimately think that was the case, because once I got home and we got her into hospice, what was wild is my sister was the hospice nurse for her, which is. Dude, she was a hospice nurse for years. That's a special breed of partisan.

[A]

I have one coming on my show next month. Yeah, I want to talk about. I want to talk to someone that's done that job.

[B]

Yeah, she did it for years.

[A]

Brutal, man.

[B]

But imagine doing it for your own parent. I almost. I've never had this conversation. Conversation with her, but I wonder if it robbed her ability to be her daughter in the moment. Because you're a clinician.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, at the same time, you.

[A]

Have to look at things more, like, objectively, for sure. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And my dad and my sister were there when she passed. I was in San Diego. I wasn't able to be there, but, yeah, man, it was. God, I wish I could go back, but even if I could go back, I would need to go back as somebody who wasn't exiting that situation that I was coming out of. Because me going back and telling myself, hey, pull your head out of your ass. It wouldn't have done anything.

[A]

No. No.

[B]

I wasn't capable of being that person in that moment.

[A]

No. And probably the reality is it wouldn't have made a difference to her. Like, she got to see you again. Right. Like, she knew you got home safe.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Like, she. You know what I mean? That's what she wanted. And, man, I don't want to speak into that, man. I don't. You know, I'm not. I'm not that wise. I'm not wise enough to speak into that. I'M just telling you what's like come into my mind, you know what I mean?

[B]

You know, this is what's wild too. So five years later to the day she died, I did the wingsuit jump that you referenced. The world record attempt for distance. I talked to her the whole way down. People have asked me, like, what were you thinking? Like, first off, I was trying not to die. Exiting the aircraft, that was priority. And I had no intention of thinking about my mom during. I was aware that it was the anniversary, but I had no intention of it being. It was actually a coincidence. It was not. It was not necessarily intended to be that day. It coincidentally aligned with that day. Got out of the aircraft, subpar exit. By the way, it's on YouTube. You can go look at it. Couple. I was just. I was checking my corners, you know, I needed to make sure nobody was sneaking up on me. So spun around a few times real quick, oriented myself. And I didn't have an altimeter on and I just knew where the sun was and I knew the rough direction I wanted to go, so I oriented myself and tried to get to the best glide position for my body, which sucks. For eight minutes. That's a nice static hold for put 20 pounders in your hands and just hold that for eight minutes.

[A]

I bet that burns.

[B]

It does. And the entire way down, I was just chatting with her. I mean, I was. I mean, I was holding up the conversation for clarity, you know, I was doing more of the talk.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[B]

But yeah, we chatted the whole way. It was. It was wild, man.

[A]

Thanks for sharing that, brother. Yeah, man. Well, yeah, we gotta go somewhere.

[B]

What are your thoughts on being a parent? What are your thoughts on being a parent?

[A]

I guess I should get back on track. The question you asked. Yes, we lost Mr. Don, then we lost this child, and then we lost the dog.

[B]

You were gonna come out here right before we were gonna do this earlier. That's right.

[A]

Yes, I was supposed to do this. We were supposed to do this A long time ago. I had. I literally spe thousands of dollars on flights. Airbnbs. Cuz I was bringing my mom out cuz it was going to be warm and I was going to take her on the whole tour of Glacier.

[B]

Which you still should do, by the way.

[A]

Yeah, I got to come back when it's warm. I always end up coming here when it's cold outside. But. But yeah, then we lost the dog. And people say, ah, you know, what are you talking about? That, you know, why is a dog so important? Look, man, maybe you don't get it, but this dog. We got this dog when we. When my wife and I, when we were still in. She wasn't in the Navy. I say she was because she was married to me while I was in the Navy. So it was like, fair. I know exactly what you mean. You know, it's like. But. But my wife, when she was in the worst period of her active addiction, had this dog. I was on deployment, and this dog saved her life on multiple occasions. Because when she would take drugs, she knew she couldn't. If she overdosed, she wouldn't be able to get up and let the dog out. And so having this dog while I was gone on deployment, this dog being in our house, is. Is the reason. Wow. Why my wife did not overdose and die while I was on deployment. And then, of course, we had her, you know, for like 14 years. So, like, just so many special stories and memories with her. And it was so hard, man. And we learn on the day that the dog died that this child now was growing in the womb. Well, the day that the dog died, we learned about this child. It was just like, dude, it was like two. It was like a month and a half or two months of serious grief. Serious grief. And I avoid grief like the plague, man. But I've come to learn that, man, there's so much just richness in that grief. It's even hard to put words to it. But, like, it just, it's. There's so much growth in the midst of that grief, especially when you have people around you who are grieving with you. And it's changed my life, man. Like that little couple months window experience, all that back to back to back grief, it has changed me, dude. And it's made me. Actually, it's made me unafraid to run toward grief. I can't say that I want to run toward grief, but when I see that the opportunity is there, it's made me unafraid to run towards it. Because one, I understand that I can bear it, and two, I understand that it is. It's changing me. It's making me more like Christ. Which is the ultimate goal of the Christian life is sanctification. And that's one of the most descriptive phrases about Christ written hundreds of years before he came to earth is that he was a man of many sorrows and well acquainted with grief. And that was his life on earth. And so I don't know how we can't really be Christlike without even experiencing deep grief.

[B]

It's interesting too. Because you think most people are. This is a judgment. I see, a snap judgment, which might be wrong. And I've only thought about this for about 3 seconds, but it seems like the goal of a lot of people's life is to chase pleasure or joy or accomplishment or things.

[A]

Yeah, I.

[B]

Maybe the essential part of actually achieving those things or appreciating them is the value that you're talking about, that grief. Because if you don't find that and you don't learn from that and grow from that, how could you ever properly appreciate the things that you do have?

[A]

It really does make a difference along those lines, for sure.

[B]

And, I mean, obviously, I don't want horrible things to happen to people in their life. Spoiler alert for everybody. If it hasn't happened yet, it's going to at some point. Like, it's unavoidable. I mean, maybe the move is you walk into it headlong to the best of your ability and just face it head on, you know?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think you're ever. I don't think we as human are ever going to want to do that. Like, I just don't want the listeners to get this twisted and think that I'm saying that I'm searching for opportunities that are going to cause me grief.

[B]

Because I took from it.

[A]

I'm definitely not searching for those, but. But I know that they are coming.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And instead of running from them or trying to just halfway experience them, like, no, let's enter into the throes of it, because it's here and it does. I mean, you sit with a dying person, not only do you see a whole other level of strength and resolve. And for Mr. Dunn, he was a faithful man. He was a multimillionaire, but he never learned to read.

[B]

It's an interesting path. Probably a hard journey.

[A]

Yeah. He was so brilliant. He was brilliant. He was a builder. He could frame houses. And he came up with his own way to do math. No one ever taught him math, but he could do these angles and cut things to perfect specifications and build these magnificent structures and custom homes and. And. But he was a faithful man. Even though, like, I got to read the Scriptures to him. Oh, my gosh, dude, it was so powerful, man. Like. But yeah, you sit, you learn a lot of stuff from them and. And you learn a lot about the value of the days that you have left, you know, after they're gone.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, so, yeah, it does. And with the child, it's like losing that child. Well, now it has Made me value the one that is growing now in the womb.

[B]

When's your wife do.

[A]

To a higher degree In May.

[B]

What do you. Are you excited, scared, nervous, frustrated? All.

[A]

All the things fluctuates. Yeah, I mean, I think it fluctuates, man. I mean, have you read the book.

[B]

What to expect when you're expecting?

[A]

No. You recommend it?

[B]

I mean, sure, if you got some off time on a flight. I read every kid's book that I possibly could before my first kid and sure, some of those things happened. Most of it you figure out along the way.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, I bet, man. I mean, I feel prepared. I do feel prepared. I mean, thank you, Lord, that I didn't have children in my twenties.

[B]

How old are you now?

[A]

37.

[B]

I had my. I, for clarity, have never had a kid. My ex wife had our first child.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah.

[B]

I was involved in the process and then my. My involvement was short in the total time span of what occurred, but. 25.

[A]

25. Yeah.

[B]

I was a kid myself.

[A]

That would have been tough, man.

[B]

25, 27 and then 30. And I mean, man, even at 30, I don't think I was prepared.

[A]

Yeah. And you. And you were still doing the job, like. Yeah, you know, it's. It's amazing that, that I have the utmost respect for men and women who have children while they're on active duty.

[B]

When I got back from getting hurt when I was at the East Coast, I flew from Germany to New York. The command aircraft came and picked me up in New York. Got off an NAS Oceana, stairs come down. My ex wife was there with my oldest, who is now 22, in a stroller, pregnant, as I got off the plane.

[A]

Wow, man, I don't know how you did it, man.

[B]

I don't either.

[A]

I mean, I look back poorly, probably. I look back on my life and I'm like, I don't think I could have done that because I do. I feel prepared now. Like, you know, we've been responsible financially. You know, three of Seven project has been established and it's thrived across the years.

[B]

And speaking stuff's got to help too.

[A]

The speaking stuff helps, like, you know, so. And. And just too. Just the ability to. To have some wisdom now at this point in my life.

[B]

And you got to stop buying all these new cars, though.

[A]

Yeah, I do have a. Well, I have stopped.

[B]

Well, first off, you don't buy them new. You and Jack Carr seem to have this unhealthy obsession with Land Cruisers.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

I don't get it, man. I can appreciate that they're very capable. You like the square, boxy look like that turns your screws for you.

[A]

It does. Yeah, it does, man.

[B]

It is to me. I mean, again, I can have some level of appreciation for it, but I look at some of the pictures you guys post, I'm like, this is.

[A]

Well, it's the same as art. I mean, you're gonna see some, you know, you're gonna see something that, like, catches your eye that I'm not gonna be able to appreciate. I mean, I think a vehicle, especially older vehicles, they're. They're sculptures. It's. It's artwork.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so, yeah, there's different tastes in. In art, for sure.

[B]

You guys got a unique one. Like I said, I have an appreciate. I have an appreciation for how much you appreciate it. But I'm like, man, have you checked out the all electric F150, Chad? Because I don't have an appreciate. That's a joke, by the way. Don't you ever buy one? I'll never talk to you.

[A]

I think they're actually stopping their whole program for yes.

[B]

Which people are up in arms. And I'm like, hey, guys, just, you know, that's really good for the shareholders. Not that I own any shares in Ford. People would say, why would they do this? Because they want to stay in business. Yeah, it's not something.

[A]

I think the electric car thing is a fad. I think I could be wrong, but, yeah, I'm a car guy, man. I just think that that's a fad.

[B]

Do you like how they ride? Is it the look of the Land Cruiser? The capability, all of those things put together?

[A]

It's the look and then it's the. It's just the experience of. Of just like, you have to drive it and it's clunky.

[B]

Is it manual?

[A]

Yeah, it's manual. And it makes, you know, weird noises and. And two, you know, I like to hunt out of mine. So it just enhances the experience of like you're hunting out of something old and, you know, it's been restored and. I don't know, I just like that. Like the old Bible. Like, I like old stuff. I. I don't know what it is about it, but it enhances the experience. So, yeah, I went a little haywire on buying cars.

[B]

At least I was joking, though, because at least they weren't new. You're probably getting them at the value that they are. If you really want to invest in something that's not going to pay off to start getting cars off a new Car lot.

[A]

I've never owned a new car.

[B]

I don't want to own something that the second you drive it off, depreciates 30%.

[A]

No. I have never in my whole life went to the car dealership and bought a new vehicle. I. I do. That is something I want to do one day.

[B]

What would it be?

[A]

So my favorite truck on the market right now is the new. The brand new Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I wish they went and did a hybrid engine in it because again, I. I like gasoline. Like, I like the sound. I like.

[B]

You could solve that aftermarket. Well, it's a huge project, but you could solve that.

[A]

Yeah. That's my favorite truck on the market. I like the new truck. I like the new body style and the way that, you know, again, it's like art to me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's probably what I would get if I got a new one. But. But they changed the styling, like, just three years ago, I hated the way the Tacoma looked.

[B]

In three years from now, they'll change it again.

[A]

Exactly. And it'll probably ugly again.

[B]

But it is weird to see them almost. The current models now are almost going back towards a little bit of the boxy versus everything is rounded in a little alien vehicle. Ish.

[A]

We talked about that on my podcast the other day. How. How that's happening. Like, as. I'm sure you've seen this, like, as we progress, we've got to a point where everything. It has become like really plain and utilitarian architecture, vehicles. I mean, you look at a Tesla, it's like, it's just so plain. It's just. It's just everything's utilitarian. You know, you look at. I saw a picture on Instagram the other day of a McDonald's from 1980 versus a McDonald's from current. And it was like the one in 1980. Man, it looked fun.

[B]

It looked like Disneyland.

[A]

Yeah. It was like crazy lines and colors and all this stuff. And now you look and it's just a gray and all the lines are straight and everything's utilitarian. And it's been the same way with vehicles. And I. I don't know about other people, but, you know, there's a craving for. For style and art and movies are the same way. Remember when we were growing up, like, every year there was a. Like a big movie that was going to come out like a tombstone or a Jeremiah Johnson, which I wasn't alive when Jeremiah Johnson came out, but like Gladiator or the Patriot or, you know, every year There was this masterpiece of a movie that was coming out that was going to tell a story and provoke emotion in people and move people, and that doesn't happen anymore. Like, where's that. Where's this all went? You know, like. And music's the same way, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And this has been happening, like, way back. Like, we can see the progression away from creativity and art to a more utilitarian, you know, thing. I bet it's just in our lifetime.

[B]

I bet it swings back, though. I bet that pendulum goes well.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. I'm wondering if now, like, you mentioned with the cars, how they're shifting back to some older designs, if that pendulum isn't starting to swing, to swing back, because it has swung back and forth over the course of history, for sure. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah. I think that, you know, people want to push the boundaries, and then they realize maybe it was a little bit too much. Let's go back to what we like a little bit. Or it wasn't as successful as they thought it was going to be. So maybe we'll go back a little bit more towards the center, you know, I don't know.

[A]

That's a side conversation, but.

[B]

What scares you? What's your biggest fear about becoming a parent?

[A]

Not being able to, like, get really focused on something that I want to do.

[B]

You mean outside of being a parent?

[A]

Outside of being a parent. Yeah.

[B]

That's real. I can tell you, as somebody with three kids, it is. It is real. Your life becomes about more than just yourself in every way humanly possible and every word that I know possible.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, the fear is 100% rooted in selfishness.

[B]

Yeah. But you can also, though, involve your kids and everything you're doing.

[A]

Yeah. When I. I hope that we do learn how to do that and. And that's the way that we parent.

[B]

But has anybody ever finished a 250mile race carrying a baby Bajorn?

[A]

No, not that I know of yet. It could be a new challenge. Yeah.

[B]

That kid's going to be pissed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're going to get vomit.

[A]

But. But, man, I thrive. I really thrive on being able to, like, pick one thing. Yeah. And. And get really good at it and just focus on it. And, you know, the. There's something. I'm at a point in my life where I kind of don't have that thing right now, and I miss that. Like, I want to fight and.

[B]

Like, a boxing match.

[A]

No, no. Like, I want to struggle. Yeah. I want to struggle, like, just A few weeks ago, our representative in my district has quit. Marjorie Taylor Greene, she.

[B]

She announced. She's gonna, what, bail In January?

[A]

Yeah, in January. So her team reached out to me and they wanted me to take. To run. To take her spot, really, in Congress. And there is nothing in me that wants to be a congressman.

[B]

I was gonna say, I don't know if I want that for you, but.

[A]

What appealed to me was like, here's a fight that I can. I can.

[B]

What if you win, though?

[A]

I can go to town here. I. I mean, I think. I think we would have. We. We could have definitely won. But I guess what. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, is I love that to be able to enter into something that's like, okay, this is a battle. This is something that's going to be hard. This is new. I don't know how to do it. People are going to be attacking me, and I got to get smart and I got to learn, and this is going to, you know, just consume me. I really thrive in that.

[B]

How did you feel that Ms. Green served your district while in Congress?

[A]

I don't pay no attention to it. I don't. I mean, look, man, I've made fun of her for years. I want to have her on my podcast. I actually reached out to her and asked her if she would come on my podcast, and she said no, she wouldn't come on my podcast.

[B]

Well, that's just rude.

[A]

I was going to tell her. I was going to be like, look, Marjorie, I know I've said some. Some really mean things about you.

[B]

Well, she's done some really dumb stuff.

[A]

But I was just fooling about. Of course, you know, I didn't mean any of that. It was funny.

[B]

Haha.

[A]

So, yeah, man. Well, I was really drawn to that. I was seriously considering that. Like, that decision has consumed my mind for about the last month.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you learn a lot when you start seriously considering it, like about the process. And you're working with these people who are the people who know the system, who you need on your side to actually even just run a campaign without getting sued and losing everything that you have.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Your possessions and your personal wealth. And, like, you begin to learn that truly that position is not available to the average citizen.

[B]

And yet it is portrayed as the average citizen who has risen up and fought their way, and then is there to serve their fellow citizen.

[A]

You actually can. This is kind of, in a broad sense, the conclusion I came to. I could not go and do that without becoming the person I hated, like, even. Even at the very. The first step was going to cause me to compromise. The very first step to compromise on. On me being me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it was really frustrating, man, like, to come to that realization. And I actually found myself being full of hatred toward other politicians. And that's not good. Like, I found, like, clips would pop up on Instagram and I would be. When you start to learn a little bit about. I mean, we didn't even get. We didn't even get to peeling this onion back. I mean, this is just talking about how we. What we have to do to run the campaign and realizing that you have to either be independently wealthy or that you have to have people backing you who are independently wealthy, because you enter into this campaign and you're going to have about 13 to $15,000 a month that you have to pay just to have lawyers on retainer, because people are going to immediately begin suing you. And so when you realize that, like, all of these people now that you see who are congressmen or senators or whatever, and I really shouldn't use the word all because I don't know. All of their stories, I don't know. Okay. But you start to be like, well, okay, I'm starting to understand what they had to do to get to that position, even on a very basic level. And it made me start to hate them. And then it also made me start to hate the people who believed them. Like my fellow citizen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was like, I gotta shut this down, man. I can't. No, no, I. Because I have no political allegiance, and I would have had to run as a Republican to have a shot, and I would have had to been tied in with that party. I think the only way that I could do this, and I actually thought about doing this is I actually thought about filling out. I had. I'd have to raise $5,000 and then fill out the paperwork to put my name on the ballot. I thought about putting my name on the ballot as an independent, and then I thought about taking the $5,000 that I raised, which I could raise in 30 seconds, and buying $5,000 worth of the political signs that says, chad Wright for Congress, don't vote for me, and just spreading those all throughout my district. But I. I actually might still do this and that. So that would be my campaign slogan, was, chad Wright, don't vote for me. And then just literally go off the rails and be myself. Because I. I'm pretty unhinged, dude. I mean, I've noticed that's the reason I appreciate it. My. My following, especially on my podcast, it goes up and down because I say something lot of people really like, and then I'm like, dang, I got to say something like that's going to piss everybody off again.

[B]

What do you go with when you're in that moment? What's been the biggest one for you to lose?

[A]

I came out. Well, you come out against Donald Trump, you're going to lose a lot of people. Come out against white people, you're going to lose a lot of people. Or say anything positive about Jews, you're going to lose a lot of people. So you do any of those?

[B]

That's a real buffet platter right there.

[A]

Yeah. So, like, the other day, I did a video about the whole. Dan. Dan Kremlin Shaw and what'd you say?

[B]

Kremlin Shaw.

[A]

And Sean Ryan, the whole thing that they got going on, and it got like a half a million views in, like, two days on YouTube. And I was like, son of a gun. So the very next off from here.

[B]

On out, it is Kremlin Shaw.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And so then, you know, that.

[B]

That just.

[A]

I get. I start itching when things, you know, people start to like me too much. And so the very next truck talk I made was. Came out against the old whites and.

[B]

Probably less views, maybe different comments section, less views.

[A]

But it knocked my subscriber account back down to a reasonable.

[B]

That's good.

[A]

You know, a reasonable.

[B]

Yeah, you don't want to get out of control.

[A]

No. And then the very next one, the very next one, I came out and I said, well, did you know that it is historically a rise in antisemitism is a sign of a declining nation or declining society.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And so that one knocked my following way down again, too. So I like to keep it balanced out.

[B]

Well done. I did like the truck video about Dan and Sean because.

[A]

Oh, thank you for watching.

[B]

Yeah, I'm helping with that. I'm gonna go back and watch those other ones where you lost people. We get those numbers and counts back up.

[A]

Yeah. You come out against the old whites, man. Talk about your white guilt.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Your numbers are gonna go down.

[B]

I. I wish that Dan just would have called. Sean, you can get any. If you come from that community, it would be two phone calls, two text messages, and you'll get somebody's phone number who used to be in that community as well, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, we can get each other's phone number if we need to. There's groups that you could even message like, hey, Somebody please direct message me. Like, I don't the handle the public spectacle and theatrics of that. My words, not necessarily either of theirs. I don't get it and I don't see how it helps anybody. I don't see it helps the community at all. I don't see how it instills trust and integrity in the veteran community. I just don't get it, man.

[A]

It's one thing after another, dude. It's. Yeah, no, I don't get it either, man. But this is another thing I learned about politicians. You have to essentially become a prostitute.

[B]

Well, if you have multi million dollar backers and then that's the way to do it. I feel like you have IOUs lined up the second you get into office.

[A]

You have to sell yourself to either the people who are really both to the people who are backing you and then the people who you want to vote for you. So you have to become essentially a prostitute. And so when someone like Sean says something about someone who's in politics, like the reason the person in politics can't just shrug it off and be like, whatever, dude, because that's the reality, right? People are going to say bad things about you. They're going to make up lies about you. It's going to happen, okay? For me, personally, I don't give a crap, dude. Like, I don't care, man. Like, people have said all kinds of bad crap about me that was true about, about things that maybe I hadn't talked about publicly because they didn't make any sense to me in my mind. So why am I going to talk about stupid things I've done if they don't yet make sense to me? Like, you talk about the stupid stuff you've done once they make sense to you and you see how they fit, and then you can share them and learn and grow and learn and grow and take the lesson from them. But it's like this, look, man, who gives a crap, dude? But as a politician, you can't really do that because if your image is tarnished, you can no longer sell yourself. So it becomes a really big issue, which, you know, I'm sure is what. The whole lawyer thing too, man. This. We are so. What do they call it? Litigious. It's unbelievable. Like, that was one of the things when they, when they asked me to run, I was like, I had no idea that people were going to sue me. Because did you know that if you enter a campaign and somebody else that you're running against in the district, that's running against you. Like, me, I have a platform. So if I leverage my platform to help the campaign, the people who are running against me can sue me for having an unfair advantage.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yes, it's called an unfair advantage.

[B]

So instantly they can just fire off the first place.

[A]

Yeah. Like, I would have to be, like, I would have had to have been really careful with the things that I said on my platforms and the words that I used, because if I overstepped some boundaries in my language, I would have been sued for having an unfair advantage for a platform that I've spent the last five years building.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, wow. So, yeah, I mean, you can just sue people for anything. Defamation of character, you know, like, who gives a crap? That's what I said on the, on the podcast. I was like, you want a tip? Defamate on yourself. Like, if you just defimate on yourself.

[B]

That'S one letter away from something very different. You know what I mean?

[A]

You know what?

[B]

That came right. We change an M with the C in there, and it's like we starting to get real kinky territory, people.

[A]

If you defimate on yourself, nobody can defamate on you, man. Like, nobody can definite your character. You know, it's like, also, if you.

[B]

Go into the, if you become an elected official, you should expect to have people question the things that you. How about one of the things you're supposed to. Or you are required to mandatory report, which is your stock trading activity. The wealth. Like, these are the questions that Sean asked are legitimate of a public official. That's another one that didn't make sense to me. Like, what are we doing here, guys? Is this just theater?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I've never met Sean.

[B]

I appreciate his response, like, no, I'm not doing any of that. I'm gonna stand my ground on this.

[A]

You see a lot of people commenting. They're, you know, they're just doing this for, for the clicks and all. I don't think so, man. I think Sean was probably asking honest questions. And, and, and that was just Kremlin Shaw's response.

[B]

You know, old Kremlin Shaw.

[A]

I don't know if this conversation is valuable to anybody, but maybe give you a little somebody.

[B]

Yeah, I'm going to actually change his name in my phone to Kremlin Shaw.

[A]

Are you, you guys buddies?

[B]

I put him through buds. I was the proctor of his BUDS class. We served together at Team three. I would consider him to be a friend.

[A]

I, I've never met him either, so I, I, I also need to be careful with What I say about both of them, because I've never met him.

[B]

You know, I met Sean one time at old places at Tucker Carlson's Christmas party. He was releasing an Alpine, the Alp stuff, which I think is a nicotine pouch, like a competitor to Zinn. And we had. We've texted back and forth a few times, but, yeah, friendly. I knew Dan more just from our time in the teams. Haven't talked to him in years. But, yeah, yeah, it's vets getting after vets.

[A]

It's been wild, dude. It's been. Yeah, it's been wild.

[B]

Why do you think it's escalating?

[A]

I think all I can figure is dudes are just bored. That's all I can figure, man. Because I know none of mean. Very few of them are actually bad guys, you know, I just think they're bored. I mean, it may even tie back into what I was just talking about, how I thrive on having some sort of challenge or some sort of fight, you know, like.

[B]

Well, controversy can drive views, too.

[A]

Yeah. I would hate to think people were doing that purposely that.

[B]

I would, like. I would. I would like to believe that that wouldn't be the case either. But in the world we live in, it, you know, if you make your living on that medium, right. If it crosses this threshold and it becomes something that becomes a viable portion of who you are and what you're able to do, and you need to keep growing it, and you start get, you know, and you notice a trend of, like, man, more controversial the topic, the greater the engagement. I wouldn't recommend people go down that path. It's not for me. It wouldn't be my flavor of ice cream, but I could see how that could maybe even inadvertently becomes something that you find yourself stuck in, because then if you go too far and then that's what people know you for, and then you want to go back the other direction, now you're kind of stuck.

[A]

Yeah, man.

[B]

That's why. Sitting in the truck. That's what I'm talking about.

[A]

Well, I. I'm not. I. I'm not. I don't even remember all the stuff I've said over the years. So I'm not saying that I've never done that before, but. But I guess. I guess what I'm thinking in my mind is, like, if that was my overall objective, to drive clicks by causing controversy around other. Like, around other people intentionally, man, I don't. It'd be hard to sleep at night.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't get knowing that stuff at all. I don't. I don't know. That'd be rough, man. The whole reason I create, I mean, I guess I love. I love podcasting. That's my favorite thing that we do. But it's really to reach people who want to train and who get some value out of the podcast and then come and train with us. Like, that's kind of the core of our business, is training.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we've got to. I mean, I've got to spend real time and suffer with thousands of people in real life over the. The last five years. And yeah, I think all of our content is that kind of the foundation is to reach those people. You know, what do you.

[B]

You know, you said when we first started that you've grown tremendously since the last time you were here. What do you think was the cause of that? Other than obviously just more lapse around the sun, old age experiences, and what's the biggest growth that you have seen when you look back.

[A]

Man, that's a big question. What caused it? I. I think definitely life experiences, you know, difficulties that we've had to overcome in marriage. You know, I described a few of them, like with Mr. Don and stuff like that. The biggest. I guess the biggest growth that I've experienced is just my. My love for the Almighty God and for his people. Like, that's. That's. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. Like, it's like my. Yeah, this. This thing we call faith has become dang near everything to me.

[B]

What do you. Where do you think you would be in life if you hadn't have had those experiences while you were in the teams and found faith?

[A]

It's hard to say. I mean, it's.

[B]

You think it's still.

[A]

I don't know if I would have made it. I don't know if I would have made it, man. Cuz I was so stupid. I was so. I was so stupid and I was so wicked, man. I was so wicked. I don't know why I was so wicked, but I was.

[B]

Some of that has to do with being a young man and being an idiot. You know, our prefrontal cortex doesn't fully form until about 27, 28.

[A]

Yeah, man, but I was doing bad stuff, man. And I didn't. I didn't treat anybody good. I mean, I. Yeah, if I got into the weeds of just, you know, the intentional mean things I would do to people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know why I was like that, man. Well, I know why. Because I was just an unregenerate heathen and I was just consumed for some reason. Just this wickedness. I just let it consume me.

[B]

Did you have experiences when you were younger where you thought people were intentionally wicked towards you or in your upbringing?

[A]

No, not really.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Not really. I. I've been dying to ask you why you don't believe.

[B]

I don't have an answer. It's not, or I guess I should.

[A]

Say, what do you believe?

[B]

I believe that I don't know. I. I don't. The only thing I can do is be honest about how I feel. And I serve with people who were devoutly religious and I've read the Bible and I've had conversations with them about the Bible. And I'm fascinated and very envious of people who are as faithful as you are because it seems to provide a framework for an enriching and fulfilling life. I don't want to say a set of rules. It would fall back into the framework of behavior. Right. You know, and just the way to conduct yourself. All those things are great things. And I think, you know, a lot of religions probably provide that framework. Differences and similarities. But again, at a baseline level, I think a lot of. A lot of religion is net positive just in general, whether they believe or not. If you can follow the framework, you're probably going to be pretty damn good person. And my ex wife would want to go to church occasionally and I'd go with her mostly because there was free coffee. If I'm being totally honest, I don't like go.

[A]

I mean, I don't like going to gather with other believers. It's hard.

[B]

And so I would pay less attention to what was being talked about or preached about and I would pay more attention to the people that were there. And you would see people, and not everybody is like this, but you could see people who could completely give themselves over to whatever message was that Sunday. Right. And maybe they weren't that way the next Sunday or the previous Sunday. I don't know.

[A]

I was.

[B]

I was just paying attention to the, the impact that it would have on people. And you would see people maybe having a realization about themselves. You would see people break down in tears. You would see people standing up and putting, you know, in their arms up towards the sky. And I wish that I could say that I felt that way about the message, but it hasn't landed with me.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

In that way. However, I'm not saying that I don't think it couldn't happen. Maybe it just hasn't been my time yet. I would have to put my place if I Had to put a descriptor of what I would describe myself. I would say I'm agnostic, I don't know, but I'm open to the idea and I don't want to sit here. What I don't want to do is say that I feel one way and not actually feel that way. I mean, people. Because people have said, well, you know, how do you know that you're in love? You know, there's no proof that you're in love. I'm like, I get that. But I, But I know what that feels like. And I don't have this feeling towards faith and I don't know why, man, I'm not closed off to it by any stretch. I know you described me as a heathen in the coffee shop, but.

[A]

Well, I'll just. I was using your language, how you would describe yourself. No, it's genuinely interesting to me, like, because we should all question what we believe to include myself. I'm so rooted in faith, but I.

[B]

Haven'T had the experiences that you have had.

[A]

But I like to have conversations with men who I respect and who I know haven't abandoned reason, who are thinkers who, you know about why they, like, what is hindering, what is hindering you from believing this message specifically, you know, like, yeah, I get what you're saying about the emotional aspect and I was blessed to have a really unique experience, but largely for the 98% of this journey that I've been on since 2012 is largely unemotional and there's not a lot of feeling at all involved in it. I see the same thing when I go and gather with other believers. I see people, you know, raising their hands and, you know, doing, you know, this and that. I'm like, ah, that's just people being themselves. I don't.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah, it's been, it's largely not tied to emotion. But yeah, I love to just get different perspectives because most of the people that I talk to do believe. So I don't get to talk to people very often who, who don't.

[B]

I wish that, I wish that I could have the same level of faith because again, at a, at a baseline level, I believe it to be. I'm not an expert on all religions by any stretch, but again, an understanding enough of a lot of religions that the frameworks, again, like, it's a, it's a pathway towards a life that's probably going to treat you pretty well. But I, it just. I don't know, man. I mean, that's the most honest answer that I can give you is that I don't know why I don't have faith. I mean, I do struggle with believing that somebody rose from the dead.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, so I wouldn't say that that's like the, the railroad tie in the ground that's holding me back. But I'm like, that's an exam. Like, I don't know about that.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, if someone did come back from the dead, that's a problem. Like, that's something we gotta, we, we gotta step back.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And consider what the world happened right there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I, I, and I'm not one to, to like go through all the evidences of, you know, oh, well, this, this is the evidence that rise from the dead. Like, you know, this is, you know, you can bring up all sorts of points.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How did these 12, you know, redneck fishermen, essentially, you know, how did they go and change the course of humanity with this really foolish message. Really foolish message. How did that happen? You know, I don't know. I, yeah, I'm not an apologist, but there are people who specialize in like pointing to the evidence that it is true.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I don't even know if that matters.

[B]

Looking at evidence and then saying, okay, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence. I will force myself to have faith. That's not how it works with.

[A]

You can't do that.

[B]

That's what I'm saying.

[A]

You can't do that. Yeah, that's it, man. Like when I was, when I was having that, that conversation with Joe, you know, we ended up talking for two hours about faith, essentially.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That was not pre planned, whatever. That's just what we ended up talking about. And, and I understand that it's like you cannot force yourself to believe in something that you don't believe in. That's just the, that's just logical. Right. Like it's an impossibility, I guess.

[B]

I'm waiting to go down the stairs one day that we came up and I need, I guess, Jesus to be there to say hi. Yeah, that's, I guess that's what it would take. Can you line that up for me? You seem to have a good line, man.

[A]

The problem. Joking, obviously the problem is Jesus came and we killed him.

[B]

Yeah, but can he come back? I feel like there was something in there that he, can he stop by and say hi first?

[A]

I think if he came back, we would kill him again, man. Because nothing's changed about the human.

[B]

You know, he could wear a beanie.

[A]

And Some shades and just come and talk to you. Because you wouldn't kill it.

[B]

Well, no, well, like, stop. Hit me along the way first before you hit like the national stage and get too much attention for yourself. Yeah, you know. Yeah, yeah, just like a quick five, you know, like, hey, man, I'm Jesus. Do you have a few minutes to chat? Like, okay, cool.

[A]

Do you ponder much these things? Like, do you ponder much?

[B]

I ponder my place in the world on the speck of a ball sack of the universe, like all the time.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And, and I don't have any of the answers. I, you know, Montana is a great place. I'm sure it's like this where you live too, especially. I'm very fortunate enough to own a house out by a lake in Montana. There's not a lot of light pollution. For anybody who has ever, like, if you're from the city and you've never gone to a place with no light solution and looked up at the stars, I recommend it. If you want to feel absolutely meaningless in the totality of what there is. Go lay on your back and ask yourself, where did this come from?

[A]

Powerful man.

[B]

It is. And so of course I ask myself those questions. It's like, do I believe that it all started with the Big bang? Because then my next question is, well, who started the big bang and where? Like, I can go on forever and I don't know. I'm a room temperature IQ on the thermostat, doing the best I can, navigating my way through life. I have way more questions than answers. So, yeah, I spent a lot of time pondering that stuff. But it just leads me to more questions.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I totally understand that, man. And I think that one gets me.

[B]

Though a lot though. The non light pollution looking up, up.

[A]

Like, dude, I saw that up around the Grand Canyon. We, we went up there. I don't know, it's been about a year ago. And it was, it was magnificent, dude. Because they have like ordinances where you can't. You have.

[B]

Yeah. For exactly that reason.

[A]

And, and yeah, I mean it. You're exactly right, dude. When you look up at that sky.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're like, good night.

[B]

You may have that same experience when you hold your kid for the first time. Yeah. And that's another one. Like, whoa. Today's episode is brought to you by David. I tell you what, these bars, they saved my butt yesterday. Got done with Jiu jitsu, realized I didn't do very good meal planning throughout the day. Had a podcast to record, actually, the one that you're listening to right now. Grab one of these bad boys at the studio. And I was good to go. So these bars, 28 grams of protein for only 150 calories with zero grams of sugar. It comes in six flavors. Chocolate chip cookie dough, cake batter, double fledged brownie, blueberry pie and the newest and most popular, peanut butter, dark chocolate chunk and salted peanut butter. This is the blueberry pie one. It happened to be the one on top. It was really good. If you're anything like me, you might struggle a little bit with a sweet tooth. These things are a perfect way for me to satisfy that feel satiated because of the amount of protein. And it helps me get to that seemingly unachievable, you know, one gram of protein per body weight. That is the recommendation. Not the easiest thing to do, by the way. But of course I feel the difference when I do it. I just can't do it all the time. I have these at the studio. I travel with them on airplanes. They're my go to snack for flights. They're in my truck. I mean, they're just a really simple way to get some additional protein, have a little bit of a snack and then I use them in the evenings as well when that little sugar monster starts to come out and say, hey, don't you want something sweet? Well, this is what I go with. It's a much healthier option. You can order a sample [e-mail] I highly recommend you going over there and checking out their website. That is David normal spelling protein P-O-T-E-I-N.com links down in the show notes. Back to the show. Look it into the eyes of your, you know, son or daughter for the first. Are you guys going to find out if it's a boy or girl?

[A]

Yeah, it's a boy. Yeah.

[B]

Where's. What, what are you doing? Where's the faith? You get equal amounts of clothing for boys and girls and you get surprised.

[A]

Well, that was my wife's decision.

[B]

I'm joking.

[A]

I would have been fine with that.

[B]

We 100% found out with all three of our kids too.

[A]

I would have been fine with not knowing, but she wanted to know if.

[B]

Anybody pitched to me that you have to paint half the nursery blue and half of it pink and then finish once you find. I'm like, I don't think you understand how time works and how I value my time.

[A]

Well, I wouldn't have done it. I would have just waited to do the nursery after the child was born.

[B]

And Then have been sleeping in the paint fumes. Chad, we gotta talk. You need to read what to expect when you're expecting. I'm gonna send you a copy.

[A]

That's a good point.

[B]

No, I, I, well, where, where have.

[A]

You, where have you searched specifically to potentially find some sort of answer?

[B]

Well, like I said, I have. I've read the Bible front to back a few times, but.

[A]

Say what, man?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. I, I like reading. Do you view the Bible as somebody who has not found their way towards faith or faith hasn't landed with them? Do you read it as a textbook or a story? You know what I mean? It's like I'm interested in what is in there. And it, you know, some of the older versions are tough because, like, what doth thou mean? You know?

[A]

Yeah, that's, that's that one right there. That's an old King James. And I love that language. You just have to get used to reading it 100%.

[B]

And that may not be what you want start somebody with if they, you know what I mean? Like, depending on the person, you might want to start them off with a little bit of a more current vernacular. But, you know, do I. Am I reading this as a historical textbook or am I reading this as a story that you could pull parallels? You know what I mean? And I look at it as both. I don't think in this. And again, a preface, this. I'm not a religious person. I don't think, and this is only my opinion, that church and faith are necessarily the same thing. I think there's a big gap between those two. And I think you could be a really faithful religious person and not go to church.

[A]

What do you think the church is?

[B]

No, I mean, like your participation at like a particular church, like the body of church, obviously. Right. That's the repository of the people who are spreading the word. But I think you can be a very religious and faithful person. And maybe your church attendance isn't amazing because I know plenty of people whose church attendance Is, and they're POs.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. There's a separation between. For sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just because you go to church doesn't mean you're a good person. Just because you don't go to church doesn't mean you're not faithful and religious. Right. Like, I understand what it's supposed to believe, but I don't think the relationship has to exist in like this, this chain that is inextricably not Able to be broken.

[A]

I agree. So, yeah. So you wouldn't be a Roman Catholic, then?

[B]

First I would have to research what that is. Does it involve a lot of shame? Game. And then I'd probably be out on that one.

[A]

Don't get me started on Catholics, man.

[B]

Well, there's a lot of. I mean, there. And then it's like you look at some of this. And again, I'm not a Catholic, and. But I talked to my wife, who. Their family came from a little bit more of that realm, and she's like, yeah, what do you know about guilt and shame? You want to go learn about guilt and shame? What. Why is it all based in guilt and shame? What's this all about? Right. That's gonna turn a lot of people off.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

You know?

[A]

Yeah, I think. I think that's definitely a part of it is us, like the revelation of what kind of creatures we actually are and how far from perfection. Like, I'm pretty close if. Well, I know you're really close, but. But one degree off is. Is. Is. Is enough to make you miss the mark, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I think we do have to come to a realization of the type of creatures that we are and the things that we do both knowingly and even the thing recognizing the things that we even do unknowingly that are hurtful.

[B]

I'll give an example, too, of how I. This is how little I know, but stuff I think about, I would say younger in my life, I tried to have a very tight grip of control over outcome. I have to do this, and I have to make sure that this happens. And I'm so worried about what if this email doesn't come in or this conversation isn't successful and it doesn't lead. It's just like white knuckling. Right. And actually, as the podcast is a good example, when I first started, like, I have to line up all of these guests. I have to have such a tight grip, and everybody. I need three months of people lined up now. I'm at a point I don't even worry about it. It. Because I realize it's going to sort itself. People are going to reach out. So what is that? Is that me just kind of loosening up my grip because I have enough experience in the fact that a volume of people have reached out over time. So that is kind of imprinted on me so I know I can release my grip on that a little bit. Or is that a little dip of toe into faith saying, yeah, the world's going to sort it Out. But then what does that mean? What does it, what does that mean? That the world's going to sort it out? Is that just random chance? Because we're all marbles just bouncing off against each other. Right. In somebody's laundry machine that's watching us from the outside, laughing at how stupid we are. Or does that mean.

[A]

Well, the Bible does say God laughs many times.

[B]

If you were watching us and you couldn't laugh, I just read a psalm.

[A]

This morning that said God laughs. So he is laughing at our foolishness.

[B]

I mean, come on, if the human species is good at one thing, we have got to be great maybe all time in the universe for comedic effect of how stupid we are and the dumb things that we do. Yeah, like all of our technology that we're developing, we're probably a bad decision away from nuclear annihilation. Right. Because like, look at this amazing. We can power cities and all these stuff. And yeah, we could also get really pissed and hit this button and just end it all. We are idiots.

[A]

So when you read the Bible, you've.

[B]

It's been some years since I have.

[A]

Okay, well, when you, when you have read it, what did you take away from it? Like, what did you see the message.

[B]

As kind of the framework that I described for you? You know, if you look at it detaching, like let's take the faith out of it or the religion. But maybe, maybe because maybe that term, let's say, you would not know that this was that the Bible, whatever, you're somebody who is ends a ufo, right. An alien comes out, reads the Bible, he doesn't know that it's a religious text. What would somebody get out of that? I would say that framework that I talked about, some lessons to be learned, how to conduct yourself, talk, think, you know, behave all of those things, it would be a framework. So that's, I recognize the framework in that. And that's why I would say even for somebody who isn't faithful, that framework is not a bad place to start.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And seeing that framework, though, we take specifically the framework that Jesus lays out during his Sermon on the Mount. And where he takes that framework, you're talking about the framework of morality. And he expounds upon what the actual standard is. And yeah, you know, where he talks about like lusting or adultery is literally looking at a woman with lust. When he expounds upon those principles, you know what I mean? Like murder. Hating another person is the same level as murder. So when we see the framework, did. When you see that framework, did you Recognize your inability to keep, that it.

[B]

Was an impossible standard.

[A]

Okay, so you did see that it was an impossible standard to keep.

[B]

But that doesn't mean it's an impossible standard to aspire to. And I think again, if you were to give somebody the Bible and tell them it wasn't a religious text and they were to find that framework and aim for it, I think they'd be better off than not being aware that that type of framework exists.

[A]

I would agree with. That. I would agree with.

[B]

So then, you know, the question is, do you need the religious aspect of it to live with the framework?

[A]

Well, the problem is, if that framework isn't God given, isn't truly the law, like, why should we follow it? I guess what I'm getting at is where do you have any basis for morality unless there is an objective standard given by a creator? Because I can ask you right now, is it, is it bad for you to go out down here and kill your neighbor and eat their child?

[B]

What did they do?

[A]

Nothing.

[B]

Then it is bad.

[A]

Why do you say that?

[B]

Because I respect human life.

[A]

Why should you respect human life?

[B]

Because it has value.

[A]

Value to you. But that's subjective to you, I would say.

[B]

Well, I mean, it has value to them too.

[A]

Yeah, but that's still subjective. If there's. There, there you like, we, we, we can, we can make a case.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Without an objective standard given by an almighty God, we can make a case that, that anything is permissible because then all morality becomes subjective to the person.

[B]

Yeah, I can see what you're saying.

[A]

I mean, I'm just talking about like, like you're saying, well, you know, we can follow the framework, but if it's not, if we take the religion out of it, it's still a good.

[B]

I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying. Yeah, these are the questions.

[A]

It's still a good framework. Well, it's a good framework. According to whose standard? According to your standard. Because, you know, you were taught, taught to. You were taught this is what is moral, this is what's right, this is what's wrong.

[B]

You know, do you think people have any inherent understanding of what is right or what is wrong or it's all subjective until they find something like religion.

[A]

I think there is, I think that humans are. All humans are given what. I guess the best word we could use is a conscience. So it's parts of that standard written on the human heart. I think all humans have a conscience, but I think we can very easily choose to ignore that and determine what we think ought to be done like we can ignore that. But the fact that all humans do have a conscience is the reason why we are all as humanity going to be held accountable. Because that framework you're talking about there has been written on our heart. So when we choose to ignore it at that point, we can then be held accountable for ignoring it.

[B]

So what about the other frameworks that have potentially been written on other people's hearts from different religions and different places in the world?

[A]

So then, then that, so then that would be taught, that wouldn't be categorized as our conscience. Right. That would be a, that would be something taught that ought to go against a person's conscience initially. But eventually if we're taught something that goes against our conscience, maybe you're told something, you're told it's okay to murder this person. Let's just use that as a big example. At first maybe that pricks your heart, but it, it's permissible in the society that you're in. So you do it. And then eventually the conscience becomes seared. But you still had it in the beginning. So you, you will be held accountable for going against that conscience. Even if it's something that was taught to you, you still are the one who chose to ignore it when it pricked your heart the first time you did it it. Right. So when you're reading this book, you see that framework again, if it's not from God, who's to make a case that it's a good framework or a bad framework? Who's morality is subjective now did you see anything in there about, I guess the nature of what we would, would what that book categorizes as God?

[B]

I mean, I would say it's again been years.

[A]

What's your view of, of, of the God of the Bible?

[B]

Man. So we're talking probably double digigit years since I read the Bible. So this is looking back in the rearview mirror a long time. I don't know, I mean what would be the most recognizable, all knowing, all powerful, like omnipotent, holy? Sure. But I mean, what does that mean?

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. What does that mean? Yeah, I mean holy. I guess the best way and, and that was, that's one of the things that stands out to me most about the, the God of the Bible is that he is holy, which in a sense means that he's transcendent. He's altogether different than we are in terms of not only the being that he is, but the perfection of who he is. So yeah, it would Be perfect perfectness according to the. According to his perfect standard. Right.

[B]

That would make us like his court jesters. Because if you had perfect perfectness, you would need to laugh at something.

[A]

Yeah, he did. He does laugh.

[B]

I hope so.

[A]

Does laugh. He's perfect. And I, like, that's what the God of the Bible. That's what it describes to us. Like, he's every. He's. He perfectly loves. He's. He's perfectly just. Yeah, he's perfect in his knowledge. He's. And of course, like you said, what is perfect? Well, we can't even comprehend a. A perfect perfect because it's transcendent. Like, it's totally transcendent.

[B]

So don't get me wrong, Chad. I don't have objections with.

[A]

No, no, no, no. I'm just. I'm just. I'm curious in what you got from reading the book, because. Yeah, this is interesting to me. I'm sure we lost all our listeners by now. That's okay.

[B]

I doubt it.

[A]

So as you read the book, you ought to come to the conclusion because it's glaringly obvious that God is a transcendent being who claims to have created all of this.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And he has given us his objective standards for morality for the way we live our lives. And it ought to then become glaringly obvious that you can't meet that standard. And because God is perfect, he's also perfect in his justice. What does a perfectly just God do with a being who doesn't live up to the standard that he's given?

[B]

No, you can either punish or forgive.

[A]

How can you forgive and maintain justice?

[B]

How can you forgive and maintain justice? Well, if perfection is impossible, I don't know any other way.

[A]

That's a good answer. Exactly how. That's. This is the question.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If this is the being, he's given us his standard, he's completely holy. And he's also completely perfect in all of his ways to include justice. He cannot forgive us for not living by. And up to that objective standard.

[B]

Shouldn't have made us imperfect then.

[A]

What if he didn't make us imperfect?

[B]

Who did then? I thought he made everything.

[A]

What if he. What if he created. If. If you go back and you read about the genesis of the creation of man, okay, you will find that man, in his genesis, had the ability to not sin.

[B]

Where'd we mess that one up?

[A]

You know the story, don't you?

[B]

Yeah, but. Come on. We can't say that we stole a rib out of Eve and.

[A]

No. Okay, now you're getting to it. So man in the beginning had the ability to be perfect over a piece of fruit. He had the ability to be perfect. It's not about the fruit.

[B]

I know. It's about the temptation.

[A]

It's not even about the temptation.

[B]

What's it about?

[A]

Man? You can read the story. The reason that man ate the fruit from this tree. That would give him the knowledge that God had, right? It's about man wanting to be like God.

[B]

But didn't God tell him not to eat the fruit?

[A]

Yep, exactly.

[B]

So if you wanted to be like God, you probably should be. Keto or whatever doesn't have fruit.

[A]

It was just that one fruit. It was just that one.

[B]

How many times have we all told.

[A]

Ourselves one time that was gonna get the man wanted to. And does man not still want to be like God? We can still see it in our very nature. We can still see it in our very nature, Man. Like, we want to create something. That's what this whole AI thing is about. We. We want to. We want to be like God in the sense that it's still innate in us.

[B]

That's what our mutual friend Joe thinks AI is going to become.

[A]

I know, I heard him though.

[B]

Digital God.

[A]

I heard him the other day.

[B]

What does that even look like? You log in and it kind of like tells you what to do or what is. What does that even look like?

[A]

Well, hold on back to our question, man, so you can read that story. Man had the ability to not sin, right? But he chose to. So he had that. He had choice. He could choose to be perfect. You said why? You asked me a question a minute ago. Why did he create man without the ability to be perfect? Like how can he. No, he created man with the ability to be perfect. But man fell from that by way of his choice.

[B]

Now we all being held accountable for Adam's choice there.

[A]

Dude, I have, I have. I have thought about that so much. Something happened in that moment. And the only thing that I can figure is that the. The human genome was. Was marred in some way because it has been now passed down to every human from that very moment. It was. Was something was biologically changed about the human. That fruit did something to a man and it changed us. And now that has been passed down to us since that moment.

[B]

I mean, I think God should read extreme ownership and give a copy to Adam. Maybe Adam can take some responsibility for his own behavior.

[A]

What would you say about God? What would you say about God if he would have created Adam? And he wouldn't. He. He would not have given Adam the choice to, to do what he wanted to do.

[B]

I have absolutely no idea what I would say about God in that situation. So it's a good thing because we are in the.

[A]

It's a good thing.

[B]

We're in the deep end of the pool that I don't swim in very much.

[A]

Okay, back to my question. How. Okay, we, we've established. We have that. We have that, that framework. We can't meet that framework if we're saying that this God claims to be holy and perfect in everything, including his justice. He cannot forgive us for missing the mark because then he would no longer be just. Okay, now what did you read or understand when you read this about this key figure called Jesus?

[B]

That he was his son and the story goes that he died for our sins.

[A]

So why did Jesus have to die for our sins?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Because it's the answer. It's the answer to the question that.

[B]

We'Ve arrived at how he could be perfect and allow forgiveness but still be just.

[A]

That. Jesus is the answer to that dilemma. Because that is the great dilemma.

[B]

But okay, I feel like Jesus dying then is like got a real big sense of being retroactive because that happened a long time ago. So that was for everybody. Even people who weren't born yet.

[A]

It's for everyone who puts their faith.

[B]

Gotcha.

[A]

In Him. Yeah. It's for. And so that's the question. How could God be just. Well, he had to come himself. He had to become human himself. Which is weird. I'm surprised you don't ask the question, why does God allow evil to exist? I'm surprised you've never thought about that. Or maybe you have thought about that. Okay, we just described this God that's all powerful he created. Why does he allow this evil to even exist? Right.

[B]

Why did he allow Adam to have free will and choice?

[A]

Exactly. Anyways, I'm getting off topic. That's a whole nother question. So.

[B]

But I mean to me that falls in. I mean it's. If people have choice, they're not always going to make the right choice. You know, people are tempted at different levels.

[A]

We all come out well, we would say man. Now being in the fallen state that we're in, every man after Adam actually did doesn't have. We lost the ability to not sin. So we don't have the same ability that Adam has again, because something changed about the human in that moment. So now every single one of us, not a single one of us, have the ability that Adam had.

[B]

Did he lose it when he bit into the apple.

[A]

Yes, according to the story, dumbass. According to the claims, dumbass.

[B]

Do you think he even put peanut butter on it?

[A]

I wonder if any of us would have. Would have chosen to stay perfect though. I wonder, you know, if we would have been in Adam's position. I mean, we're completely perfect.

[B]

Would you want to be?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, who would you have to laugh at?

[B]

Because I laugh at myself and the dumb stuff that I do quite a bit.

[A]

Perfection doesn't exclude laughter. I mean.

[B]

No, but I mean if you weren't perfect and never made a mistake, you would lose the opportunity to laugh at yourself. And all the dumb stuff that we do.

[A]

Well, I mean, I think we would still like trip and fall and like.

[B]

Do stupid stuff, but nope, you'd be graceful as you were running your 250 miles to be with grace.

[A]

Perfect. Perfect according to this moral standard.

[B]

All right.

[A]

But that's what Jesus is all about, man. It solves this dilemma. God, God had to come here and say, I love these creatures so much. I created them and they are literally the like, I love them this much that I'm going to come here and I'm going to enter into all of this suffering, enter into this world with them and I'm going to let them kill me so that I can provide a blood sacrifice and take all of their wickedness, all the wickedness of these people and I can accept the punishment that they deserve on their behalf. And so now I can indeed forgive them. I can still maintain my justice and be the justifier of these people who will place their faith in the work that I accomplish that'll make sense on the cross.

[B]

What do you think happens to people who die without faith?

[A]

We would, you know, we would need, we would have to go to the scriptures and we could find definite articulated word on that. But people who die without faith get what they deserve. Hell, essentially lack of a better eternal punishment. Yeah, they get, they, they get what they deserve. And them it's because again, because God is just. And there's, there's really no other way that we can call him just if they don't get what they deserve. See, we that believe are getting what we don't deserve. For what reason some of us that believe, the ones that do believe. Why are we able to believe, man? You'll rack your mind around that.

[B]

Like I said, man, I don't have objections to the story. I can't force myself to feel away about something that I don't currently. And I always say this too, maybe that just Means it's not my time, you know? What are you chewing on? What are those?

[A]

Oh, these are these nicotine pouches. I dip snuff all my life, man.

[B]

What would Jesus think about that? I thought we were trying to be perfect.

[A]

Well, luckily. Luckily, I believe, which is a whole nother conversation, you know? Okay, now I know there's a covering. The merit of Jesus has been applied to me through my faith in the work that he accomplished on the cross. So why don't I now just not worry about being a sinful person anymore, because I know all my sins are covered, you know? And all of those questions are answered in detail in the Scriptures because the apostle Paul, he was preaching this message that I'm preaching to you, to people back then, and they were asking the same questions. Well, Paul, you're saying if we believe in this, then all. Then we're forgiven. We're reconciled back unto God, We've been justified, and the merit of Christ is applied to us. So, heck, yeah, man. We can just go about living how we want to live, which is. So we will arrive at the same conclusions that the people he was preaching to arrived at. And he explains all of it in great detail. And there's just so much in there, man. There's so much in there.

[B]

What do you. What are your thoughts as somebody who is. And don't get me wrong, I'm very envious of your faith and what it's done for you and your life. Life. As somebody who is that faithful, what are your thoughts? And I don't know another word to describe this other than the manipulation of religion. And I'm thinking specifically of, like, these mega churches. That one dude, do you know who I'm talking about? Michael, who looks like a goddamn serpent?

[A]

Kenneth Copeland. Oh, Kenneth Copeland, my dude. He's like the. The big. He's like the biggest comedy relief I get from the.

[B]

But as somebody who is that faithful, what are your thoughts on somebody doing that with faith and trying to pull people into that model that Jesus said. The Lord said to me, I had to get the jet.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And then I. Well, I had to get another one, and then I had to get the Runway in the Mansion. And, like, it's all. Yes, this.

[A]

Yeah, dude's a nut, man.

[B]

First off, if there is proof of alien life, we might have found it.

[A]

Yeah, he. I'd agree with that, man.

[B]

There are some videos of him, like, hissing at people.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I watch it. I watch this stuff all the time, dude.

[B]

Do you just look at that and shake Your head.

[A]

It makes me laugh so bad.

[B]

What about the people in his congregation who believe with the depth of their. Do you worry at all about them or. At the end of the day, is the message what matters? And we need people like this to be walking servants.

[A]

Oh, man. I mean, what do I think about this dude? Is. Has obviously. Has obviously taken. He hasn't even taken the message of scripture and twisted it. He's come up with his own message and, like, used the word Jesus and.

[B]

700, 300 million to 750 million. Nice.

[A]

Yeah. And fooled a bunch of people. Like. Yeah. I mean, this. This guy, like, this guy is not part of the church. He's. He's just.

[B]

I have another thing. You said, what would it take for me to believe? I have another answer. I need. Need him to be smited down. I would believe that. But it can't be, like, an accident. I need him to. It needs to be a lightning bolt, like, right to the top.

[A]

So if Kenneth Copeland got hit by lightning, you would believe while he was preaching?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Well, maybe it'll happen. Not saying it couldn't happen.

[B]

Well, I feel like most of them happen indoors, so we. So we have some, like, issues with how electricity transfers through. But. But I feel like I can say that that one would definitely get me to the edge and to reconsider.

[A]

Well, there's been. I think if you really searched and considered and made it your objective to find evidence for the reality of the God of the Bible and Jesus and all that, I think you would find.

[B]

And evidence and belief, though, are two different things, man. Like I said.

[A]

Oh, you're talking about without you seeing it with your own eyes.

[B]

And I honest, honestly think that that might be a. For me, I might fall into that category. Right. Like, I don't want to say seeing is believing, because that is way broad. But I don't know, maybe for me, I need something similar to the experience that you described the last time that.

[A]

You were on it. Yeah.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Yeah, it is nice to. When. When the Lord reveals himself to you that way. But I think the greatest miracle that I have experienced in my life, even above and beyond the experience that I've had. Had the greatest miracle is how I was changed. Like, my heart was changed instantly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, that's the greatest miracle.

[B]

I've heard that from many people.

[A]

Yeah. And I think it is. I think it is legitimately the most tangible representation of the reality of the power of faith in Christ. I think the most tangible thing that we get to see is when we know people in our lives that all of a sudden are able to believe that the God of the Bible is who he says he is, Jesus is who he says he is. They put their faith in that and it changes everything about who they are. Like, I think that's the greatest evidence that we get to witness.

[B]

I've certainly seen it have that impact on quite a few people. For sure.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I just. I don't know I can speak for my own because I don't know anything else that that could have or would have. I can't fathom anything that could have or would have changed me that way that quick, you know? And so you can see that in other people. Like you said, you've seen it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But when it happens to you, it's something that you really cling to.

[B]

I can imagine it's something that you.

[A]

Really cling to because even us who believe, like, you talk about the great faith that I have, like, dude, I still have times of unbelief. I still have. Have things that I really struggle with.

[B]

Like, how could you not like.

[A]

Like think I think about this sometimes. How crazy is it? Like, no, we'll just use the word foolish. How foolish is it that I believe that book right there is the literal words of God?

[B]

Depends on if you're right or wrong at the end of the day.

[A]

But that's crazy, man. Like, I think about that with my logical mind a lot of times. I'm like. Like, it's crazy, man, that I.

[B]

Well, I mean, I think sometimes there's a gap between faith and logic, though, and that's the gap I think people struggle to cross.

[A]

Yeah, but. Yeah, I still. I still have times of unbelief too. But that is one thing that I cling to when I am struggling with unbelief. And I pray and I ask my father to help me in my unbelief when I am struggling with things. But the one thing I can always go back and cling to is that greatest miracle that I ever experienced.

[B]

I. When. When.

[A]

The Lord essentially changed me, made me spiritually alive and has preserved me, like, kept me on that path and sanctified me and strengthened me and taught me from that day till now.

[B]

Do you find when you're doing the endurance stuff that you do that your faith helps you with that, or do you feel more connection to faith or less or less. It's. You don't even think about it.

[A]

Like, when you're in the trenches, completely unconnected.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I. People ask me that quite often when I'm out running a long racer. We. We went to the Yukon and did the A thou. A Yukon 1000. Me and one of my buddies that I went through buds with, who's paralyzed now from the waist down, actually from skydiving. When I do these things.

[B]

You're not making a good case for skydiving.

[A]

That was this summer. That was this past summer. No, I picture my father in heaven laughing at me like, you, you dummy. Like, you can do this. Okay. But, yeah, you know, why are you. Why are you doing this? You know what I mean? Like, and he. And he, ultimately, I think that he uses those things that I do and he, He. He brings lessons out of them that are making me better in allowing me to share with other people and make them better too. You know what I mean?

[B]

But do you believe somebody can live a good life without faith or an attachment to religion or the church?

[A]

What's a good life?

[B]

I don't know. They would feel fulfilled that they can be a moral person or a good person. And again, I don't know what the definition would be because it would depend very.

[A]

Yeah, that's the problem.

[B]

Subjective.

[A]

Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah. I hate to keep a. That's. That's one of the. I think that's one of the biggest, like, the biggest things that we have to be able to explain is how do we make a case for anyone's actions to be good or bad without an objective standard? And it's a good argument. And we can see that. Well, we take our own nation, for example, as we begin to become more and more like, secular as we abandon, you know, faith in God.

[B]

And do you think that's happening? Or does. Or is there data and stats that show that that's happening?

[A]

So I think it has been happening, but I think now it's like, it's really weird right now. It's cool to be a Christian since, you know, especially the thing with Charlie Kirk, man, that was terrible, man. But, like.

[B]

I had a few people reach out to me directly and say they went to church for the first time in years after that.

[A]

Yeah, people. I think it's got to the point now that people are starting to see the results of abandoning that standard as an objective standard that we are held accountable to by our Creator. And they are beginning to see, like, okay, well, if we keep. If we keep doing that, then this is what happens. Because the logical conclusion is the whole idea of morality is subjective at that point.

[B]

Point.

[A]

And everything just Goes haywire.

[B]

Do you think that Charlie Kirk kid actually got on the roof and acted alone? Cuz there was some controversial Internet content around that bad boy.

[A]

These people are losing their mind, man. Like this freaking. Who is this lady? Candace Owens.

[B]

I have only followed it peripherally and honestly, I.

[A]

They are losing their mind, dude. They. These people.

[B]

I've seen more of Charlie Kirk's content since he passed. I. I didn't engage with it or may didn't see it in my feed much. So I only kind of peripherally know who Candace is and that they had a connection, but she is.

[A]

I never knew who she was until all this happened. And all of a sudden she started popping up on my Instagram.

[B]

She's got a flamethrower out.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Arcing that gelatinous gasoline.

[A]

Yeah. She's abandoned reason, man. Like you asked me that question. I. I don't. First of all, I'm going to give you the same answer you gave me a minute ago. I don't know. If you ask me what I think, I think. Yeah, that was just a crazy dude that got up there and that's kind of where I live and, and, and committed that. Dang. What do you even call it?

[B]

It was an assassination.

[A]

Yeah, an assassination.

[B]

Like I love the people said, I can't believe how good a shot he was because he hit him in the neck.

[A]

Like, guys, he wasn't aiming for the neck.

[B]

No, he was not aiming for the neck.

[A]

No. But anyways. Yeah. If you want to ask me what I think. Yeah, I think I was just a crazy dude, man. But it. Man, we've gotten to the point. There. There's a whole. There's a whole mess of people out here that think everything is a conspiracy and nothing's real.

[B]

Yeah, I do worry about that.

[A]

They're a bad People are abandoning reason and like, reality. Like. No, there are just crazy people out here who.

[B]

And they can't agree upon truth in any definition. Yep, that's a wild one. What do you go when the word truth is, has no meaning or cannot be agreed? Like there is a refusal to agree upon it. You need your Land Cruisers for that. That's all I know.

[A]

You ain't lying, brother. I love the conversation you just had with the, the, the guy who was a Roman historian. What's his name?

[B]

Man, if you wouldn't ask me, I would have been able to tell you.

[A]

No worries. I just listened to.

[B]

I just had him on pull up YouTube, Michael, and see what it was.

[A]

I loved the conversation that you had with him. Man, I love people who are.

[B]

Have such a depth of knowledge in a particular area. And they can. Because again, like you said a couple hours ago, there's nothing new under the sun. We're not doing it like. We're not doing anything crazy.

[A]

Jeremy Slate.

[B]

Yeah, Jeremy Slate.

[A]

Jeremy.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

What I loved about it is. But you guys were posing the question is, have things went too far.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To recover and. Because I have been asking myself that question basically since COVID And I remember.

[B]

You wearing masks a lot. You were out there to get the jab, dude.

[A]

Almost.

[B]

Something like that. I think that was the videos you were making.

[A]

I almost. I almost lost my mind during those years, dude, I was so angry, man. But anyways, what were you angry about?

[B]

Just let the societal control and manipulation happen.

[A]

Those are some wild years, man. I never thought I would live through something like that.

[B]

Do you think they'd be able to pull it off again? So people will look at Covid as a conspiracy too. And I've thought a lot about this one. Not that I. I believe conspiracies exist, but I wouldn't put myself into the category of a conspiracy theorist. There are certainly people that conspire. I think my guess on that one is that they were in fact working on gain of function. And it probably was a safety protocol that was an accidental release. I think initially they probably were dishonest about it. But I think most. I want to believe that most people are good and they're trying to do the right thing. Their messaging was just horrible. And instead of saying they didn't know, they said, this is the only way. And they led it down this path that almost started. Become like societal control to a degree I've never seen in my life. And then you'll see people say, well, that was the test. Like, yeah, but they failed that test because so many people are upset about what happened that now if there is an actual virus that comes out that has the 25% death rate, people are like, yeah, I remember last time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then it's like.

[A]

It's like the boy who Cried wolf.

[B]

Yeah. Except this one time he's on a trail and he turns around, he's like, oops.

[A]

Oops.

[B]

That's a real big.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. Do I think they could get away with it again? Yeah, I think they could. Yeah. I just.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I just.

[B]

It would be way more iffy. They would. That. You know what I mean? Like, they would.

[A]

I mean, I think it would have to look a little different. They couldn't run the exact same Play.

[B]

Stop it. Covid. 26 might happen.

[A]

I. I don't think they could run the exact same play, but I think they could do the, like, accomplish the same things if they scare people enough.

[B]

I think they could, but I think there's is. I feel like our government is literally following a template of let's do this to completely erode any remaining trust that people actually have in us. And then when we're done with that, what do you guys think would. Would also be great to erode trust, because we'll do that too.

[A]

Yeah. And the. So the. And. And part of the question is, are. Is. Is that. Is all of this happening according to a master plan of like these all powerful lizard people who. Yeah. Who want to control the.

[B]

They meet in Monaco.

[A]

You know, that's the thing, man. Everybody thinks everything's a conspiracy. Humans are dumb, dude. I mean, in some ways they're smart. I know Joe Rogan would argue with me on that point and I think he did on the show. But I don't have a lot of, a lot of faith in like, human ability. And, and you know, I feel like the things that we do are impressive to us, but they're really not that impressive when we look at what creation is, you know, but.

[B]

Or even look in the rearview mirror in our own history of recorded history.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The things that were galactic leaps in technology we look back on now like, you idiots. How could you not have known how to create iron ore? Right. I really. I mean, we've only been in. Flying around in airplanes for I think just over 100 years.

[A]

Very shortly.

[B]

That's what I'm saying.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So who knows what the next technological leap is going to be? But it might look like what we think today is the most revolutionary thing ever. It might make it look like a joke.

[A]

Here's what I. Here's what I would pose and what I believe is happening. It's not this master plan that's being led by the human intellect. It's not this master group of evil people who are trying to control the world. I think humanity is being swept along according to the plan of the Almighty God. And I think that we're moving toward the end of the age of man, of human as we know it.

[B]

Do I need to get some more high capacity magazines?

[A]

It won't help you.

[B]

Okay. Like a higher strike rating on the plates. Like, what are we talking? What do we need?

[A]

No man. Level four. So when Jesus came the first time as a lamb with the express purpose to Be slain when he comes again. He's coming with a sword. He's coming as the judge. He's coming as a king. See, I said I don't have any. I said earlier I have no political allegiance. That's kind of a lie. I do, because I call this Jesus my king.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

He that I. I'm. I'm. My allegiance is to his kingdom.

[B]

That's not an uncommon statement from people of faith. Yeah.

[A]

So I. I think humanity is being swept along toward the end of the age.

[B]

What do you think that would look like if he were to return? I mean, are we talking a person that would actually be rendering judgment? He would rally together those and create an army of those who render judgment based off of his. What he said.

[A]

Well, it tells you exactly what it's going to look like in there.

[B]

What does he wear for footwear?

[A]

I don't know if it talks about his feet, but he does have tattoos.

[B]

What. What type of.

[A]

It tells you what his tattoo says.

[B]

Tribal says.

[A]

Right? Barbed wire. No, it's written 60 link on his thigh. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. I don't remember this part of the Bible. Are we talking one man rendering justice? I mean, what does this look like?

[A]

I wish we could pull it up and read it right here. He returns on a light bulb. It's in. What is it? Revelation?

[B]

Look at what AI says. Our digital God says it's unlikely that Jesus has tattooed tattoos version of Jesus.

[A]

With a name written on his thigh. All right, so pull up Revelation 19. Just pull up the whole chapter.

[B]

That's also not how you spell tattoos, Michael, but I'll let that go.

[A]

All right, we'll pull. We'll pull it up. I'll pull it up in the King James, man. Pull it up in the King James. All right, we're about to see. All right, scroll down. We're about to see what this. What this looks like.

[B]

Like.

[A]

All right, here it is. Verse 11. Here's what it's going to look like, Andy.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I saw.

[B]

Is this to be taken literally?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I saw heaven open.

[B]

Where is that going to happen?

[A]

The heavens?

[B]

No, but, like, is it going to be in Wyoming or. Where does this happen?

[A]

It's the whole heavens on the dark.

[B]

Side of the planet when it's nighttime for them, too. And on the light side?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh, it's going to be big.

[B]

He can't come down in every place on the.

[A]

Oh, but he can.

[B]

It actually makes it easier in this case if the Earth is flat.

[A]

The Earth isn't flat. And I Saw heaven open. I'm sorry you can't understand that with your finite mind, Andy. All right, all right. And behold, a white horse.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. So here it is. Here's what it's going to look like. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. Yes. What? His clothes. Well, I don't know if it gives us his footwear. Here's his clothes.

[B]

Better think it through.

[A]

He was clothed with a vesture that was dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. Now, how do we know this is Jesus? Because. Because John tells us about this in the very beginning. Jesus is the Word of God, and the armies which were in heaven followed him.

[B]

So he's bringing his own peeps.

[A]

I'm going to be riding with him. What?

[B]

No, you're not. You'd have to be dead then.

[A]

Oh, I'll be dead before this happens, I'm sure.

[B]

I don't know, because a lot of people keep saying this is supposed to be happening on a very specific date. And I'm going to be honest with you, they haven't been very accurate so far.

[A]

It's because no man knows.

[B]

Why do they claim that they know that?

[A]

Because that's how you make money, man.

[B]

Oh, that's. That's true. I didn't actually submit the hundred.

[A]

Do you realize how much money I could make if I came out tomorrow on a truck talk? And I say, I got this divine revelation from God and I know when he's returning. Give me a hundred bucks. I'm going to share that. I could. Dude, I could become a millionaire overnight, probably. Seriously? Okay, okay, let's get some more context here. Armies in heaven are following him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen. White and clean. And out of his mouth. Picture this goes a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Oh, here's his tattoo. And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

[B]

Maybe it's not a tattoo, though. Maybe just got some face paint.

[A]

That is a good point. I mean, my finite mind can only think that it would.

[B]

You know, the linens thing, it bothers me because he could do, like, a nice poly Cotton blend or like the armies could. I think they would be more comfortable than like a table linen.

[A]

I think it's going to be wool. Yeah, I think it's.

[B]

But it says linen, so it's like. I feel like they're wearing a good.

[A]

Well, we would need to look up. Okay. We would need to look up linen in the original Greek word.

[B]

Yeah, but that's the problem. They didn't have poly cotton blend. Then they didn't have a little bit of. So if it's not going to be four way stretch is what I'm saying. It's going to be restrictive.

[A]

It's going to be perfect, man.

[B]

It's going to be the perfect for a dinner table.

[A]

No, it's.

[B]

Now you need four ways. You wore prize before. You need stretch panels. A little place where you. Wicked.

[A]

If we look this up in the Greek word, maybe we could get some more context around the actual. Look up the Greek fibers of the material. It refers to flax. The original Greek for linen refers to flax.

[B]

Well, now I don't even know what the hell that is. I think it's a plant.

[A]

That's how uneducated you are. Andy, I would be the first to speak. And you've read the Bible twice and you didn't even know what the Greek word for linen was.

[B]

That is correct.

[A]

Okay, you must have really just skimmed through this book.

[B]

Well, I wasn't looking up words while researching reading the word. I was too busy. I was absorbed.

[A]

Well, that's where you screwed up, man. As you read, you've got to go back to each word in the Old Testament. It'll be in Hebrew or Aramaic.

[B]

Do you want me to finish reading this?

[A]

And then when you get into the New Testament, you have to reference each word with the Greek word.

[B]

I'm just saying they would look dope in a set of cry Precision stretch panels in the right spots. Wicking.

[A]

Dude, these uniforms are going to be beyond your comprehension. Correct.

[B]

Cool. No, because linen is not.

[A]

You don't understand the linen of God, son.

[B]

You might not understand.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Cry multi cams are.

[A]

So. You know, it's gonna be big. That's what it's gonna look like, man.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know, that's just a little snippet for you.

[B]

All right. How do you sleep?

[A]

Dude, we've gotten sideways.

[B]

Have we? Who cares? I never have any idea. When you're doing your podcast, do you ever have, like, a definite direction that you want to go?

[A]

No. No. Well, I mean, sometimes something will be on my mind. I'll have something I want to tick people off about.

[B]

Yeah. But then after that, right, you're left to what's interesting. Like, you and I just haven't seen each other in years.

[A]

I mean, I was looking forward to.

[B]

Literally just sitting down and talking with you.

[A]

I love it too, man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It's going to be big, Andy.

[B]

Well, I mean, yeah, if it comes out like that, I was going to tell you, bud.

[A]

You want to be riding with the king.

[B]

I mean, I'm gonna tell you the truth. I'm probably gonna remain a heathen like today, which is what he described me as Michael to a guy in the coffee shop who I had never met, by the way. He's like, I'm here to save this heathen, and if it doesn't work, I need you to keep chipping away at him.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

This is the same guy that I did say. He's. The guy comes up and goes, do I recognize you from the Internet? He was not talking to me. And I said, yeah, this is David Goggins.

[A]

Yeah, he did give me my Goggins introduction. I don't have to rip on this podcast.

[B]

I don't even do intros. I heard you.

[A]

You could have at least referenced me as Goggins.

[B]

I can still add that in earlier. We could do insert. I heard you say one time that you. You kind of softened because originally when you first came on, you were talking about you wanted to do a race with him, but I think we were talking about the way over here. I think we are both in the same spot. Like, I'm the SEAL team stuff. I mean, whatever. People who are steeped in that community and world might know some of the nuances, but other than that, how can you do anything but support a guy guy and inspiring millions of people, you know, that's all I've ever said.

[A]

Yeah, dude. I mean, the whole. The whole reason that I hated David Goggins for a while and I shouldn't use the word hate.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I didn't. I didn't hate him. The. The whole. The whole reason was just because I wanted to beat him. That was it. I. I, like, made.

[B]

Hate makes an engine run hot.

[A]

I, like, made in my. I, like, made in my enemy in my mind. Because, yeah, I wanted to beat him, man. And there's probably. Then in that immature state that I was in, it was probably some jealousy involved in that. And. Yeah. I mean, I've. Again, like, I'm not scared to tell you how bad I've been. Yeah. And because. Because I'm So thankful to be who I am now.

[B]

I'm really glad that I'm not judged just on the quality of volume, size, scope and scale of my mistakes in life. And I do my best to remember that and see that in other people too. Because I tell you what, you don't know what's going on between somebody's or behind somebody's eyes, man. People are dealing with stuff that you.

[A]

Would never know 100%. And it's crazy to think how stupid I was just three or four years ago that I would think I knew enough about someone to make assumptions about them based off of what I saw of them on the Internet.

[B]

Internet, yeah.

[A]

That is mind bogglingly stupid.

[B]

I would agree.

[A]

That's how stupid I was three or four years ago.

[B]

I don't think that means you're stupid. I think it means you fell for the modern trapping of making an complete decision off of incomplete information.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

You're not stupid.

[A]

These, I mean that's, that's the intellectual way to. We're, we're kind of call somebody stupid.

[B]

We are fighting tooth and nail against technology that I don't think the human brain is at a place yet that it can fight it off.

[A]

Yeah, I heard you say that on one of your shows the other day. You said you were, you are hopeful that we will find ways to manage what this technology is doing to us.

[B]

Well, I don't think we know the long term results of necessarily what it is. I mean they, they I think are showing and from what I again a little bit over my skis, but paraphrasing a lot of stuff that I've read, I guess it would be easier to say I haven't seen a lot of information showing that it is truly enriching people's lives. But the information that is out there is quite overwhelming that it can have negative consequences, especially on those human beings that are not fully formed yet. Whether it's influence or access to information that they probably would be better served finding it more mature time in their life or maybe with a little bit more guidance as opposed to accidentally stumbling across it. I mean I had to talk with both, all three of my kids about, about. They all watched Charlie Kirk die.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it breaks my heart that we live in a. They weren't looking for it either. But if you exist on those platforms, man. Michael, did you ever end up seeing it? Yeah, Leah did not. Leah's my wife and she said because she had heard other people talking about it, she, she actively stayed off of social media because the Platforms did try to clean it up, but the velocity with which it was was getting shared. So yeah, like my 17 year old daughter, she's like, dad, did you see what happened to Charlie Kirk? And I said, yeah. I said, I don't know how to ask this question to you other than to ask you directly. I said, did you actually see the video of what happened? And if you did, like how are you doing with that? And she was just like, yeah, I saw it. You know, it was what it was. And what people saw was the assassination of. I mean he was dead before he got to the vehicle would be my assessment. Was he medically alive? I had heard that he was, but I've seen that type of bleeding before. Not survivable injury. I'm sorry. Like he probably had. Had passed before he got carried into the vehicle. I, I would hope at least that he didn't suffer, wasn't in pain. But the fact that my daughter would say, yeah, you know, it was what it was. Stuff like that's on the Internet at like.

[A]

No, not, not every, not everybody ought to be exposed to that level of.

[B]

Should be man. Like we should be the only people who, who have a career that is targeted towards the, the, the end state of maybe. And actually for most people who serve, that isn't the end state anyway. But I would like it to be the vast minority of people in these really weird communities that almost nobody wants to do that, have to encounter that and deal with the burden.

[A]

Yep, yep. Yeah, you, you are. If you're exposed to that, you ought to intentionally walk into that knowing that this is the job. I remember. Yeah. And then like in buds, they showed us one day, they showed us a bunch of videos of dudes getting their heads cut off in the classroom. I don't know if they did that when you were there or not, but.

[B]

That hadn't happened yet.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because you obviously went through after 9, 11.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

I went through it 96, 7.

[A]

Good night.

[B]

We watched those videos overseas.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then went and loaded magazines.

[A]

They showed that to us. They showed us a bunch of them in buds. And like everybody was sitting in the classroom and, and the instructors, they were all yelling because guys were trying to turn away and not like, not look at the screen and guys were getting sick and, and I. We lost probably more people that day after watching those videos than any other day that I can remember. I remember we went straight from there to the chow hall and I remember classic parent really. I remember standing in line at the chow hall and guys just start Peeling off and, and I'm like, like loads of guys and I'm like, where are these cats going? Like, we're about to go up in here and eat some chow. Why are they quitting right now? It was because of that video. And yeah, it ties to this because depending on how like what type of person you are, you're going to have a different response to seeing something like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because when, when we saw that video, me and the guys that stayed, it made us angry.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the, the majority, I would say, saw that in it. Like it screwed them up, dude.

[B]

It should, it should, it should, it should. It should sicken the. Them seeing that. It's. And that's what, you know, people who had reached out to me. I had a couple people reach out to me too that were in the crowd and essentially said, I'm paraphrasing again, combining a couple people's statements. I had always told myself I was going to be the person in that moment that took action. I had always told myself that if I'm ever in a situation like this, I'm going to do something. And I froze. Who am I? Like, it's easier to talk about than game than lace up your cleats and get out on the field.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, and my responses to them were legitimately like, listen, this should have an impact on you. You should be feeling these ways. This is normal. If you didn't feel any of this, I would actually have more concern than somebody who reaches out to an unknown person on the Internet for some feedback. That's a healthy response.

[A]

I agree, brother. Yeah, you, you were talking about your screen time and like how this is all impacting you. What, what is your screen time?

[B]

Oh, I would have to check it. Probably three hours a day.

[A]

Mine is like three hours and 40 something minutes a day. Almost four hours a day, dude.

[B]

I mean, fortunately for me, there's nothing more productive I could do with my time because I'm so efficient that I actually need. I've had to find an outlet to waste.

[A]

Dude. What? But, but like you said, there's, there's no long term knowledge or studies on. And you, you referenced like minds that aren't completely developed. What is that doing to them? Good night. Who knows, man? But even to me, how many times.

[B]

In your life have you wished, I need another hour. If I would just have had another. And then you look at your screen time and you think, okay, multiply that by 365 days. Days. There's every bit of time that you ever would have needed if you had the discipline to control your device instead of let it control you, which it is. I mean, I'm talking about myself when I say that.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm preaching to myself for sure. But you. You mentioning that on the podcast made me consider exactly that because I know it's affecting. I know it's affecting so many aspects of my life. My sleep, my productivity. It's affecting my relationships. It's affecting my. My business. Like it's affecting all the. And I would say when I say affect, I mean negatively affecting all these aspects of my life. But it's so powerful that even I, and I have a pretty well trained mind at this point in terms of discipline. Being able to make my flesh do what I want it to do. It's so powerful that I haven't even found a way to curtail it by design.

[B]

That's not accidental.

[A]

That's powerful, man.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, because you can tell yourself, well, you know, I need some of this for business. Right? This is how I create content. So I post this up there. You know what I mean? I got to have some touch points. You got to be there. That doesn't mean you have to be scrolling reels at 10 o'.

[A]

Clock. Exactly, man. Exactly.

[B]

One does not, or to use the language from the book, doth not have anything to do with the other.

[A]

It's bad, dude. Yeah, I'm hopeful, too, that over time. Well, first of all, I need to implement more discipline in my own life, like now.

[B]

Yeah, same here.

[A]

I need to do that now. But I am hoping that it becomes kind of the norm for people to understand right off the rip. No, this isn't good. Like, we're. We're going. It is necessary to. To stay off of this thing, you know, and just be on it a reasonable amount of time. Because that's not a conversation. That's being. That's really being had very often right now.

[B]

Yeah. What else are you into these days, man? You still obviously. You got the three, seven attempted to start a project four of eight just to mess with you. But. So you obviously spent a lot of time doing that. Obviously passionate about your faith. Again, the example of the guy at the coffee shop recognizing you because didn't he say, aren't you the guy that talks about Christ? Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. So amazing, right? It's reaching people. You said you went to work out today. We did talk about this. You have a few distinguishing features that I don't carry. So I can probably hide in the shadows more than you.

[A]

Yeah. This is. Like I said, this is my retirement.

[B]

That's your far recognition. Yeah. Signal. Yeah, it's.

[A]

When I shave this thing off, nobody's gonna know who on earth I am, dude.

[B]

But it allows you to connect with people. Do you love the endurance stuff still as much, or do you. When do you think you'll put it down? Or will you ever?

[A]

Well, I think having this kid. I say having this kid, you know, having a child is, you know, going to impact hopefully, hopefully just naturally impact my desires, you know? So, yeah, I don't know that I'll completely put it down. I mean, I'm sure I'll still do some races and stuff, maybe just not at the level that I've done it in the past.

[B]

There's a chance that it will change your desires, but in doing so, open you up to opportunities you don't even realize exist right now.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

[B]

It could lead you somewhere in life because you said no to something. I actually am at a place in my life where I deeply believe subtraction is more powerful than addition.

[A]

Yep. I've been pondering that a lot here lately, man.

[B]

And by saying no, I have actually found it oftentimes provides more opportunities. But you didn't know they were there.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Because you kept saying yes, and then your time is so bracketed that you didn't even have a chance to look.

[A]

I can so relate to you, too. In. In one of the shows, you. You named off all the things that you did, and I was like, I.

[B]

Can still figure how I ended up here.

[A]

Yeah, okay. Like, I.

[B]

And I. And I looked back on that, I'm like, oh, I forgot, like, six things.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. I'm like, man, we have. We. We do live training, we do a podcast, we have a YouTube channel. We travel, and we public speak, like. And again, you know, I can't even think of everything either, but it's like, we just. It's so dynamic. Yeah. I. And you have to do that for a while. I think, like, that's good for a while, but at some point, you start. You do start thinking, man, let's have a little more quality in these specific spaces and a little less quantity.

[B]

I had to change my relationship with money to be able to say no more.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I had to realize. And this is through me buying really dumb stuff that I thought would be meaningful and then having it impact my life 0%. And then you're left with something. You got to Deal with that. You thought was going to be life changing. That just takes up space.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Or just being dumb. When I was younger with money, you know, I remember my first Navy paycheck I think was like 460 bucks. I was like, no one's ever been this rich. I am basically an Egyptian pharaoh.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And since this comes every two weeks, clearly the goal is to have none left when the first 100%.

[A]

Dude, I was the same way. I spent that. I got a $40,000 bonus when I graduated.

[B]

What?

[A]

Sqt. Maybe. Or I spent it all in six months.

[B]

Yeah. I got a crisp high five. So I don't want to hear about your six month journey.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Six months, 40 grand. I thought I would never have to work again if I had went away in six months.

[B]

If I had a time machine, the only thing I would change was to be to convince my younger self to put all my money in bitcoin coin. Because then I'd be a billionaire.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'd be like the snake, man. I'd be convincing people to. I would have my own jet. But like, let's start a compound. And other people will buy me a jet because I have the word.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

No, it's.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The relationship with money, man, that was later in life, though. And getting to the place, the realization that it's not things, it's time. That's all I care. I just want to make enough money where I can say no if I want to, which is sovereignty over my time.

[A]

Yep. Yep. It's the most valuable resource we have. I know that sounds cliche, but it truly is. It does. It does become more glaring as you get older.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

How true it is.

[B]

Trust me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You see it and you see you.

[A]

Ain'T got long left, man.

[B]

I figure four years. And then Mike will be sitting in this chair.

[A]

Cleared out.

[B]

Brought to you by Michael Shelton.

[A]

The only other thing that I'm really into that. That you. That you didn't just name is hunting, obviously. Yeah, but that's a. You know, we could do another three hour long podcast about hunting, but I'm about to have to take a pee.

[B]

Son, go take a pee. We'll come back and we'll finish it up.

[A]

Is that gonna mess you up, Michael?

[B]

No, he's fine. No, this whole time, straight out of the door. Yeah. Come on back.

[A]

Yeah. Half of that just went down my leg.

[B]

I have a. That's okay. I have a picture of my dad. Yeah. At the coffee shop who was pissing into a urinal and didn't realize that it was taped off because he wasn't wearing his glasses. And he said, once I start, I can't stop. So he just continued pissing down his leg.

[A]

Good night, dude.

[B]

Walking to the. The stall next to him and then just walking out of the coffee shop. So I immediately get the manager. I'm like, security footage. Immediately snapshot. Send it to me. He doesn't even know I have these pictures yet. See if I can find.

[A]

He seems so awesome, dude. When his Instagram. He was doing like, an Instagram Live thing for a while.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I just had to tune in, man, because it was pretty epic.

[B]

He is unique. I'll send you these pictures, actually, so I don't waste time looking for them, but, yeah, they are relatively good. Oh, here they are.

[A]

Epic, dude. You don't get no worse than that.

[B]

So I don't, dad. First off, it was just a little sign that said closed. Did you consider just finishing up and then letting somebody know it goes. Nope, Just turn and started walking. Just. Gosh, no. Age. It's coming for us all, man. It's coming for us. So what did we not cover? We actually been at it for over three and a half hours or two and a half hours.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. No, I got to kill my first elk this year. That was really exciting. That was the. The highlight of my year.

[B]

Year.

[A]

Yeah, that was the highlight of my year, man. And down in New Mexico and just the. The team element of elk hunting, and it was. I got to do a 950 yard shot, which I'm not a sniper, so that's a. That's a really long shot for me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the guys that I was hunting with and. And that hunt was actually gifted to me.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

By some. By a, you know, some wealthy people. And. Yeah, man, just the team aspect of that type of hunting was so awesome. Dude.

[B]

Were you shocked by how big it was when you finally closed?

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And walked up?

[A]

Yeah, man. Just the. The antlers and. And the. The elk that I actually killed had. Had been gut shot a few days before.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

So he was pretty poor. He had lost a lot of weight because the rut was just getting over. And then he had been gut shot and. And, you know, so his body was. Was looking really poor, but man. Yeah, just his antlers were massive.

[B]

Dude, what'd you do?

[A]

I did a European mount.

[B]

Nice. Yeah, I did it up in the house.

[A]

I got to go pick it up. Yeah.

[B]

Are you gonna put it up in the house?

[A]

Yeah, I'll put it up in the house? Yeah, I'll put it up in the house. And so I got to do that. Man, that was just so much fun. I want to make a commitment to doing that at least once a year. And now.

[B]

So for Western states, you'll need to educate yourself a little bit on when you have to put your tags.

[A]

I signed up for a service that.

[B]

Does all that because otherwise you'll miss it. And you're like, sweet. Maybe the year after this one.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because if you miss the. The input window, you're not going to draw.

[A]

Yeah. These guys do handle. You tell them where you want to hunt, when you want to hunt, what gun you want to hunt with, and then they put it all in for you and help you determine what the odds are. And so it's a really great service.

[B]

That's a awesome.

[A]

So I did that, and then a few weeks after that, I did a bear hunt in a wilderness area up around my house. And I took a good friend of mine and his son out. We killed a nice black bear. They did. I was just. That's. That was the goal was to get them a black bear.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So that was a cool hunt. And then I squirrel hunt, like, every day, man.

[B]

So I heard you talking about that on Joe's show, and I was thinking, I don't know how that one's going to go over with the audience.

[A]

Yeah, man. People don't understand it, but if you've never been squirrel hunt, you can't understand it.

[B]

But the more you talked about it, the more I thought it was going to be great. I just thought people would think, who is this redneck talking about this?

[A]

Oh, I'm a redneck, 100%. I don't deny that. But hey, man, if we. Yeah, if we put a group together, you know, and. And went out and did a squirrel hunt, we're all gonna have a blast. I mean, it's just so much fun. I love it and love fooling with the dogs. I love dogs. I know you love dogs. Yeah, they are the best. So, yeah, that's about it, man. Just. Yeah, just working and working and hunting and staying in shape. That's my life.

[B]

So have you thought about names?

[A]

I would really like to name our son Jubal.

[B]

Jubal.

[A]

Jubal is my favorite character in a. Well, the book is actually called. I pronounce it Jubal, but it's pronounced Jubal. Jubal Sacket. My favorite author is Louis Lamour, and that's my favorite book written by him.

[B]

Pretty close to gerbil and, you know, pretty Close. Kids are pretty rough.

[A]

Jubal's a biblical name though.

[B]

I understand that. But Djirbal is a mean name and young kids are going to be mean.

[A]

Yeah. My wife is shooting, shooting it down, so I don't think I'm going to get to name him that.

[B]

What does she think would be a good name?

[A]

She likes like, I think she likes Jeremiah, which I'm on board because Jeremiah Johnson's one of my favorite movies.

[B]

Yeah, Andrew. Obviously not a big deal.

[A]

Andrew.

[B]

Yeah, sure, Andy.

[A]

For sure.

[B]

It's not a big.

[A]

That's too white man.

[B]

Listen, we already talked about what happens when you go after the whites. I want you to lose any more.

[A]

Subscribers trying to name names. Some crusty white person name man. Like my wife wants to name him after my dad and her dad. She was like, let's name him James David. I was like, that's way too white.

[B]

First names sus. That's the common vernacular that the kids use.

[A]

And then it would be JD and this. Then now we got this guy JD Vance who's. You know, I don't want to. No, man. For some reason with the names like I have to have a good image of a character that has the same name.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

In. In my mind.

[B]

All right.

[A]

But I love to read and, and like. Yeah, that's my. My mind is creative every day.

[B]

Do you read?

[A]

Oh, I read fiction every day. I read scripture every day. I read other books about scripture every day. That consumes most of my non. Fiction. Yeah. Is stuff like that.

[B]

But you do get into the fiction world as well.

[A]

Oh yeah. I mean every, every day I read like I say I love Lewis Lamore most, most of the time. He's written hundreds of novels.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're all kind of the same storyline. It's all like Western. Yeah. For sure. Type stuff. So. But yeah, that's. That's like. I don't watch tv. Reading is. Opens my mind up to this whole world and I'm playing it out in my head like I'm watching a movie.

[B]

In between that 3.4 hours on your phone.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I know. I know, man. I know. I mean, I mean, how much better would I know scripture if I spent 3.3.4 hours a day reading scripture?

[B]

How much more could I dial in the systems on my business? How much more could I work on a workout routine or you know, you can just go on forever.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Irrecoverable time suck. Those phones are time vampires, man. The difference is that we hook ourselves up to it. It's not like something that surprises us. It's like, oh, I can't get it out of my throat.

[A]

Throat.

[B]

You're like, hold on. Here, just take my blood.

[A]

I just need to quit talking about it and just make a commitment to have some. Some more discipline around that in my life.

[B]

What would you want to get it down to?

[A]

I mean, let's do a challenge.

[B]

One hour.

[A]

I. I think that one hour a day would be an extremely generous amount of time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For me to do what I actually needed to do on that phone.

[B]

You want to. Let's see if we can get ours down to one hour in the month of January for a whole month. New Year's resolution.

[A]

Dude, I like that.

[B]

Loser suffers. What consequence? Judgment of Christ. What do you think that's going to happen anyway in your book? So that's not fair. What does the loser have to do? It's going to have to. Also, we're gonna need to hire a company to verify numbers.

[A]

The lose. No, if you. If you're leaving it up to me, the loser has to take the other. The loser has to take the winner on a hunt. Not of the winner's choice. Of the loser's choice.

[B]

So it could be for Score squirrels.

[A]

It could be for squirrels. It could. You. You know, you live in an area that don't have a lot of squirrels, so I'm.

[B]

They're all over the place.

[A]

Just so are they really?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Well, dude, I could. If you took me on a squirrel hunt, I'll bring the dog.

[B]

Michael, you down for a squirrel? Notice how he's assuming that I would lose.

[A]

I know you won't.

[B]

No, because I'll buy another phone that doesn't track my screen time.

[A]

I'm just looking. I'm just like. I'm just looking for. For excuses to go on a hunt together, man.

[B]

Let's do that for sure. But honestly, you know, some stuff like this, it's. You can actually change behaviors a lot faster if you're doing it with somebody else. And it's like a fun level of competition. What's your screen time at?

[A]

I don't know. Probably pretty high because I put YouTube on in the background.

[B]

Notice how we went right for an excuse. Well, that's a reason it'll be high. How do I even get to the screen?

[A]

Driving.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

What does it count? Let's say you were driving and listening to a podcast. Does that count as screen the meantime? I would say no, because you're not.

[A]

Actively looking at your. Or doing something. Yeah, but is it going to total.

[B]

It Up.

[A]

It will.

[B]

I actually don't know.

[A]

Yeah, that's gonna. I didn't even think about that.

[B]

We need to do.

[A]

Let's do research on that and see. Because then, then we would have to do like a supplement.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But then it would require us just to have integrity.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And say this one hour, even though it's going to show up on my stats, is only going to be spent listening to a podcast or a.

[B]

Well, fortunately, in your overall screen time, it does parse out what it is that you're doing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So if I think I would say a podcast would be. I don't. Because I don't know about you. I don't watch them. I listen to them while I'm doing other things. So I'm not going to count that as screen time. That's device utilization. But it's certainly not. I mean, this is what I'm talking about.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean? Like that's. Yeah. What is yours at Michael? Six hours for.

[A]

Yeah. And half of that is YouTube, so it does show.

[B]

Okay. But it starts with a U and then there's a P and O P in their orn. I mean, he's, he's, he's being. He's really trying to skirt around an issue.

[A]

You got to get off of that crap, dude. If that's the case, man, I just put it on in the background. It calms me. I, I haven't, I haven't watched any of that. I don't even know if we can say that word on the podcast without like getting demonetized or something.

[B]

Naked acting.

[A]

Yeah, I haven't watched any of that naked acting since. Yes. Since I, Since I started following Christ in 2012. Now before that, I was all about it.

[B]

I never. I mean, I haven't guessed as much interest in sex as anybody else. It never, it never. It never really did it for me. It seemed too artificial.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess when I was.

[B]

Don't get me wrong, I've seen it. Yeah, but you know, it like, okay.

[A]

I've heard that message. I've heard that that mess is like scientifically bad for people watching that we actually hosted.

[B]

What would she say? We had Caitlin on yesterday. She was. She wrote a book. She is a sex coaching am therapist. And there are a lot of dangers and a lot of it is just this creation of or an expectation that is not achievable. And of course, the same thing. It's very analogous to Charlie Kirk and an accidental exposure to that. You're. You're a frickin onion layer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Accidental exposure. And again, at a level where your mind isn't mature enough or prepared for that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It gets its hooks in you. I mean, you know how.

[A]

You better get off that mess, Mike. Michael.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is unsatisfied.

[B]

That was a disat. I mean, we could put that on the list. It'd be like several down on the list of unsat things that Michael does.

[A]

But. Yeah, that's not even number one. I'm telling you, dude, one hour a day. I mean, yes. I think that's a generous amount of time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For me to do what I need to do. But to be honest, it will be hard.

[B]

One hour a day on social media, because you are. I know you film yourself. I'm assuming you use your phone and your trip truck.

[A]

Yeah. That's like five minutes. Day truck talks are like five, but.

[B]

You got to upload them and you got to put them. You know what I mean? So then you might have to go on to your laptop, which it will collect combined screen time. Right. So that's a social media platform, but you legitimately are doing that as part of your business. I'm talking about wasted. Needless.

[A]

I think I can fit all of that into one hour. I actually think I. I think I can fit all of that into one hour, if I'm being honest.

[B]

I can too. Yeah, let's do it. January.

[A]

I'll commit to that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

All right. Are we going to share it with the listeners?

[B]

We have no choice. So we have to do it on social media, though, because this episode will come out, and then this would. I'll release this on Monday, so a couple days from now.

[A]

So this starts January 1st. This is going to be hard, dude.

[B]

I'll probably start tapering off in late December just so I can be beating you initially. And then what I'll do is I'll gloat over my numbers and talk about how easy it was.

[A]

This is gonna be hard, dude. I'm not kidding you. No, it is a little bit nervous.

[B]

It is gonna be hard.

[A]

That's how powerful that thing is, dude.

[B]

Yeah, but we've already talked about this one, too. The adversity and the challenge and the suffering. That's where you have to go to make a difference in your life.

[A]

So we just post. Let's just do this, and let's post on our story every Friday. Every Friday. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it like that.

[B]

Okay, I'll do that. All right.

[A]

And I'll tag you and. Yep, you tag Me?

[B]

Yep. And then I'll make several videos about how I'm just dominating you with my performance.

[A]

You think you're gonna get below an hour?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I'll use my wife's phone for almost everything.

[A]

Come on. I know you're not gonna do that, man.

[B]

To win, there are a few obstacles that I'm not willing to overcome.

[A]

We do need to come up between now and January 1st with a legitimate reward for the winner.

[B]

I agree. Could it be better than squirrel hunting? How about if I win, you have to go skydiving with me? Wingsuit optional. But I get to choose.

[A]

Man. I got a baby on the way, dude.

[B]

Okay, fine. I'm just thinking out loud. Just thinking.

[A]

Maybe we should just.

[B]

To be determined.

[A]

Yeah. To be determined. Yeah.

[B]

Should we. Let's choose a neutral third party.

[A]

I don't know, man. I'm worried about Michael watching all of that nasty stuff.

[B]

It's just.

[A]

How do we get to a point where I'm addicted to porn?

[B]

Because you were the one who said your number one app usage was you. And then those words, you just.

[A]

You said that. I said you, too.

[B]

I said that because I know what you meant.

[A]

Of course. Yes.

[B]

Yeah, we'll get you. We'll get you some therapy.

[A]

I'm worried about where his mind's at, man. I'm not going to let him. There's no telling what he would have.

[B]

He's in his late 20s, you know, he's in the gutter still. He hasn't found his way out of it. Just. Cesspool of humanity.

[A]

Oh, yeah. It's nice down here. Yeah.

[B]

You think that mustache is accidental? It's not.

[A]

Michael, I'm going to pray for you before I leave, man. I need it, actually.

[B]

We'll figure it out. Yeah, but January 1st, we begin every Friday in the story.

[A]

God, this is gonna be brutal, dude.

[B]

But I. At the end of the month, you know, we're both gonna say, I'm happier. I got more done.

[A]

A hundred percent.

[B]

Yes. And it's so. It's just. You're like, it's gonna be brutal, but we already know what the end state's gonna be.

[A]

It's an. It's. Yeah, it's an interesting. It will be an interesting experiment for sure. Just. Just because I've talked so much about having some discipline around that thinking phone, and I just. Just haven't had the power to do it.

[B]

Well, these are the sneaky discipline ones. This is. Like I said, it's a time vampire that just takes a drop at a time. But that drop fills a bucket almost every single day. And we're willing participants. But it's so. And they're. Of course, it's all designed to get us to do that as well too. Which doesn't mean you have to allow it to. Right, that's where the discipline comes in. But yeah, let me just tell you, if. If my screen time, I bet you it's probably just under four hours. It's in the three hour range inch. There's a lot more I could do with that.

[A]

I think it will be. It would be far easier for me to walk out of the studio right now and run 100 miles then than go down to one hour a day on my phone.

[B]

Are you in? Also, Michael.

[A]

He'S a tech guy dude. I feel like he might lose his job. I feel like the punishment if I come in is going to be much, much worse.

[B]

No, you definitely will have a different set of rules.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

And even if you achieve this, you will in fact be punished in some way just to forge you as a human being.

[A]

I knew that. I mean, as a tech guy, you may not even be able to possibly fit.

[B]

He does tech stuff on the screen over there.

[A]

That's actually true. I could probably get it down to under an hour. The problem is YouTube because I just put it on and I put it in the background.

[B]

Do you have a laptop?

[A]

No, actually.

[B]

Okay, well, we can solve that. Why do you not have a laptop? 23 years old, you don't have a laptop? I don't need one.

[A]

I don't have one either. Yeah, I have. I have like a desktop at home.

[B]

But I play your YouTube on that.

[A]

But then I can't bring it with me.

[B]

Do you see how. Well, maybe this is a man obstacle. This is what he does.

[A]

Maybe for a month you could replace YouTube with reading.

[B]

Yeah, that's actually cuz it's just.

[A]

I mean it's just as education.

[B]

You read. That's a new app you should download. You read.

[A]

I actually do kind of have a backlog of books, so that could be. Yeah, that way you're not like starving your. I know you. You're probably a very intellectual person and I don't want you to starve yourself of feeding.

[B]

I mean I do watch a lot.

[A]

Of knowledge science stuff on YouTube because it's super interesting.

[B]

Lie to yourself and say for that month you're a renaissance man and you're going back to the old ways of your forefathers with paper that you have to turn. You know, Sounds good.

[A]

I think It'll be good for you, Michael.

[B]

I think so. Get three people. I bet you, you we can get some other people to join in on this challenge too.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like I said, this will come out Monday, so we'll have a couple weeks for people to prep. We're going to need a good name for it.

[A]

It's a good thing, dude. It's going to be brutal, though.

[B]

Yeah. But even.

[A]

I hope, I hope you replace some of that time and read through that Bible again because you obviously the other times you read through it, you missed the main points that I had to explain to you earlier.

[B]

It wasn't perfectly written.

[A]

What's that?

[B]

It's not perfectly written. Otherwise.

[A]

I, I told you, you have to go back to the original language, man.

[B]

Listen, so that's going to be a lot of screen time. So thanks for making me have to do that later.

[A]

I actually have a Bible right here that I will give you that has all, all of the words. The, the keywords are hyperlinked to the, to a dictionary. Hebrew and Greek original language in the Bible.

[B]

I don't think in a book just for clarity. It's called hyperlinking. If it's in the same book. I think that's a digital medium term. That's an appendix.

[A]

Okay. It's. Yeah, it's appendicized.

[B]

That's what I was going to say, too. I don't know if that's the correct.

[A]

Word, but there it is. So you. I, I'll. This is my favorite Bible, but I would give this.

[B]

Keep that. I could take a picture of that or I'll take a picture. I can buy one.

[A]

I don't even know if you can buy this anymore.

[B]

But what, how could such a.

[A]

It's an old. This is an old Bible, man.

[B]

Well, if it was that good, they would probably create a more modern edition.

[A]

I don't, I don't like new Bible. I mean, something about reading the old one.

[B]

Is the information the same in the new one?

[A]

Depends. There's a bunch of versions out now that are not meant. They state that they are not meant to be a literal translation of the words.

[B]

Are they trying to round the edges on the language to get more exposure to people, you think?

[A]

I don't know. I mean, I don't know if there's any malicious part to it or what. But. But there are basically three translations that are meant to, that are meant to be a literal translation as close as they can get to the original word. And that would be the King James Version translation, the NASB which is the New American Standard Bible. That's a literal translation, and I think the English Standard Version is the third one.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

All right. And so each of those you read, you can read each of. I actually have one copy of each of those translations. And when I'm looking at a key text that I'm really trying to understand, I'll go through and I'll read how they translated the word from all three versions to try to get as close to the true meaning or essence of the word as I possibly can. And then, obviously, along with. With that, going back and reading how the original language was defined.

[B]

Okay, that makes sense.

[A]

You think about when we're trying to understand something, what does that mean? It means we're trying to define the words that are used. Right. So when you really get into the text and you're really trying to understand, what is this trying to tell me? You can get into the weeds word by word, by word. And there's a lot of richness in that, dude. I teach a Bible class every Tuesday. Well, three Tuesdays a month for our Patreon people. And that's how I teach. It might take us 45 minutes to go over five verses. And you can read five verses in 10 seconds.

[B]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

But we go word by word by word, and really just, like, get the richness of the meaning of what this is trying to tell us.

[B]

Damn.

[A]

So get after it.

[B]

All right?

[A]

Get after it.

[B]

Andy, what do you want to close it out with? We're right at three hours.

[A]

No, I just want to close it out with. All jokes aside, I've had fun in this conversation, but all jokes aside, man, I want to thank you for having me out for a second time. It means. It really does mean something to me, whether you care or not. Like, it means something to me that you would think enough of me as a man that I respect and that I look up to, that you would think enough of me to invite me here and share this time with me. It really does mean a lot to me.

[B]

Same here. I was looking forward to it ever since we finally agreed upon a date. Like, this is. This was the last episode we recorded this week, and my wife was asking me this morning. She's like, who's it with? I'm like, today's is gonna be easy because it's just sitting down with a friend and just figuring out what the hell is going on in life.

[A]

I enjoyed it, man. Thank you so much, Andy.

[B]

Thank you for coming out.