A (0:01)

Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south west of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, wait a minute. Give it to me. I mean, it cleared. Hot coffee. Clear. Not good morning. We are off and running. Constantly looking over my shoulder. I did an ad read. I've already got Monday stuff prepped and ready to go because we're going to be at a jiu jitsu camp in Bozeman hanging out with my middle son as well. And did a good portion of an ad read, looked over. It's very easy, too. I just. Off camera. Maybe one day I'll do a tour of the studio if people are interested. Two red lights and I look over and one of them was green. Now, most of the time, I would blame this on Michael because that's just how it works. He's subpar in almost every measurable way to include his job performance, as anybody who listens to the show knows. But he's still in Japan because he's selfish and is focusing on, I don't know, personal growth and experiences, whatever. And so he wasn't here to push the button or not push the button. And I swear I saw two reds. But then I looked over and it was a green. And now I'm wondering if he somehow has laid a trap for me. The ghost of Michael is in the machine and it's messing with me. There's nothing more awesome than doing a killer ad read and looking over and realizing that either the camera's off or the audio's off, or both are off or the lens cap is on. I've done it all. But anyway, here we go. It's Friday, it's Q and A. Definitely got some. Some different ones today. Genre wise. This first one's gonna be the longest. I think it's important, though. And then we'll have three shorter ones and we'll be off into our weekend. Question 1. I have recently come across an issue I've never really had to deal with before. And with you being a man of great age, having. How dare you, sir? I still have a good amount of time left, hopefully before death by old age and maybe even some experience. I thought you might have some advice. I've been working at my current job for about five months now. The. The department I am working for has been on a hiring freeze for a bit of time. So I came on as a temp through a staffing agency with the promise, slash hope of being hired on permanently in the future. Although I don't like bragging on myself, to be quite honest, I've excelled in my role here. You can be honest about your performance and not be braggadocious. If you're good at your job, you're good at your job. It is what it is, and I bet you there are metrics you can measure that against. So you're not bragging on yourself sometimes you're just telling the truth. People are suited to do different things. Not everybody is great at everything. Most people are going to be lucky to find one or two things in their life that they're really good at. I am still searching for those, but I feel like they're out there. Napping is one that I feel like I could master and then really does speak to me as well. Back to the email. I've learned the job very well and after a while management very frequently commented on my performance. A few weeks ago, I was told to train another temp employee into my old roles in preparation for a new set of responsibilities. After a couple of weeks, this led to a position being offered. This position came with a new title, benefits, pay raise, and a few employees that would be directly reporting to me. While this is very exciting and it feels like I'm being rewarded for months of hard work work, I'm mostly feeling dread for the potential effects of this decision. There are a few other temp employees that worked here longer than I have basically skipped the line in front of me to be made permanent. There are a few other temp employees that worked here longer than I have, and I basically skipped in the front of the line to be made permanent. I've always been very friendly and even felt respected by them. One of them is even One is even the one I that I trained to cover my old responsibilities. They all have also worked hard in their respective roles, and I cannot speak for why management chose to give me a position over them. But I know that when the news comes out, they will not be happy that someone newer than them was given a permanent position. So I'll stop here and mention something here you wrote I cannot speak for why management chose to give me a position over them. You don't have to. You're not the one who made the decision. So you should have no expectation of being responsible for an explanation as to why those above you in either a chain of command or organizationally decided to make your position permanent or elevate your role. If they want to explain that to anybody else or nobody else, that's on them. You need to put that Particular rock down. Ounces can become pounds. Pounds become really heavy. It can weigh you down. Don't pick up rocks that you don't need. This is not your another, you know, water, right? This isn't your water to carry. This is management and leaderships water to carry if they want to. And also there's another side of that. It's nobody else's business why you were chosen over somebody else. They can be as transparent as they want to or as obscure as they want to, but that has nothing to do with you. So do the best that you can to put that weight down. It doesn't matter. The decision has been made. This episode is brought to you by Spartan Forge. I have had the founder on Bill Thompson a few times now. I've talked about this product quite a bit. This is the most awesome aviation product. Not designed for aviation, it's designed for hunting. We're going over to the website because this is something that you need to see. The three things you're looking at here, LiDAR and UAV. UAV mapping on the left hand side LiDAR is this image that penetrates foliage and allows you to see the terrain that is underneath. And I have been fooled many times by not looking at a LIDAR image, mostly because I didn't have the ability to do so. UAV mapping is amazing. It is going to be the most precise, clear imagery that you can get. It's shot from a lower altitude and it is updated the most frequently. Satellite images, sometimes they can be great but it can be years in between. Moving over to the right here. Deer movement and prediction. You basically have an AI tool here helping you determine the optimal location and time to strike your target animal. In app live pin sharing. Think about this as almost a blue force tracker. Scroll down here. Again, this is the difference in a LiDAR image on the right and a traditional image on the left here. Something else that Spartan Forge has is Cyber Scout. Imagine not having the resource of somebody with experience hunting. Or maybe you actually have resources people, but you want to expand your knowledge. Cyber Scout. If you head over to spartanforge AI and this is under the technology tab. Very top. Cyber Scout. Imagine an AI tool that you could ask what's an optimal setup for a 300 win mag? I'm going to be hunting elk in Colorado. What round should I be using an AI tool. Trained and taught. My words, not necessarily bills to answer your questions specifically in this space controlled on the back end by Spartan Forge. So if you are ready to take decades of experience from tip of the SPEAR units in the military that used to target human beings and apply that towards your more target gentle civilian endeavors. I cannot recommend enough Heading over to Spartan Forge AI. Again, I use this almost exclusively for aviation. There's a traditional tool and then the first thing I do anytime I am landing off airport, whether it's checking out property lines, adding in permission PDF documents, all of this stuff, sharing pins with other aviators. It's straight over to Spartan Forge to round out the rest of that knowledge that I need to safely complete my flight. Spartan Forge AI Back to the show on top of that, there's an already permanent employee who trained me originally and we eventually became pretty good friends. He's been with the company for about three years and has let me know that he's basically begged for areas to branch out, trainings to receive, and any opportunity to develop himself. Most of these requests have been ignored and I could tell there was some resentment when I started taking responsibilities in preparation for the role that I'll be starting now. The this was confirmed this past Friday when I signed my offer letter, but was told by management they wanted to wait to announce it until Monday. However, later that day my friend slash coworker happened to check our company's org chart and saw that I was listed on there as a lead in parentheses. I guess that HR jumped the gun a bit. He kept bringing up the fact that I was the lead and how I was technically above him and how messed up that was, but I had been told I was not to let anyone know yet, so I had to play dumb. I know he's not retarded though, so it felt like lying. It felt more like lying, but based off his reaction, I know he won't be happy when my new position is announced. What's funny is I was told by HR that I couldn't have a larger raise than what I was given because management didn't want me earning more than him. But I can't tell him that because of his pay because being confidential information. So I suppose my question is how do I deal with this potential fallout? I know in your previous job you were surrounded by large egos and your leadership capital, a jocko term I know was driven by performance. So I'm hoping for some advice from someone with more experience in leadership than me. Luckily, my direct reports like me in parentheses for now and I have made it clear that they will have no issues and they have made it clear that they will have no issues with me giving them direction, which most of them have been at this a bit longer than me. So I feel I have much more to learn from them than what I can provide them. But I'll try my hardest to make their jobs easier and more efficient. But my largest concern is my peers. The other morning Zoe got donuts. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana. Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network. Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them. T mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for launch? Dude, my work here is done. The 24 month bill credits on experience beyond for well qualified customers. Plus tax and $35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance Agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1099.99 A new line minimum $100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Oaklove Speed Test Intelligence data 1H 2025 Visit t mobile.com There are temporary employees and permanent members who will resent the progress and opportunity I have been given. And I guess I'm looking for advice into how to navigate this situation. Maybe if you want, you could also ask Michael how he feels that a man pushing 50 can beat his ass on the mats and vocally sparring. I'll ask Michael that on the next Friday episode. Maybe I'll do a little cut and paste of that and he'll just say. He'll just look at me and be like, whatever. Or he'll maybe he'll find it inside of him to talk a little bit of smack and say, well, it's just because I'm not actually trying. That would be the move. If he took that move, a small fire of pride inside of me would be ignited. Because he's learning. But she is learning and he's a great kid. But we'll save that one for another one. Okay, there's a little bit to unpack here. Actually, there's quite a bit to unpack. So let's start with this. I know in your previous job you were surrounded by large egos and your Leadership capital, which again in parentheses says jocko term I know was driven by performance. I wish that military leadership was driven by performance and merit. Now to the ego side. Everybody has an ego. This is something that I hear people say and it's something when I publicly speak, when I talk about the characteristics of a leader that are very beneficial, one of them that I discuss is ego. It's not a matter of whether or not you have an ego or you don't have an ego. If somebody tells you that they don't have an ego, they're just lying or being dishonest, depending on how polite you would like to be with the term. We all have an ego in a leadership role and this will serve people well in any phase of their life, even if they're not in a leadership role. It's about keeping your ego in check. And specifically in a leadership role, in my opinion, it is about detaching your ego from your decision making process. Don't be the guy making decisions or forcing a plan into a suboptimal situation, trying to force a result because you want to be the guy. At the end of the day when they ask, man, whose plan was that great job? That you get to raise your hand, don't be that person. That's an example of an ego working its way into your decision making process. It can be catastrophic, especially in a leadership role. But there's a second part of your sentence here. Leadership capital was driven by performance. Or how about even the leadership roles. The military in so many ways can be driven down to an Excel spreadsheet. How many years have you been in? It would be on the bottom axis, the lateral axis. What's your rank is on the vertical. And you go like this. And then you come up and where do the two meet? Officers have a lineal number, I think is what it's described as. And that is an actual number of where they fall into the rank hierarchy. Let's say you're 03 or a lieutenant in the Navy. There is a senior 03 in the SEAL community and the Navy and a junior 03 in the SEAL community and in the Navy. And I wish I could say that leadership roles were only given based off of, you know, it was a meritocracy, but it's not. It's oftentimes given based off who is next. So I have said this many times. The best leaders that I ever worked for were in my time in the military. And in the same breath, I will say that the worst leaders that I ever worked for were in the military, both of those entities were known before they got into those leadership roles. What do I mean by that? There was the reputation surrounding the great leaders and there was the reputation surrounding the ferocious turds. But when it was their time in the shoot, because they were next, you could push it off a little bit and move people around. But there's a point in time where somebody, because of their lineal list, or where you land on the enlisted side or where you are in the advancement cycle, you're going to get the job. So I wish now the leadership capital aspect, yes, that's going to be based off of performance for sure. But sometimes the wrong people get into those roles. Now what is hard to describe or answer actually, I guess it's easy to answer but hard to understand. Maybe from the outside, when the shiniest of turds made their way into those leadership positions, why didn't the teams fail? Because the reality is we were successful with great leadership and we were more often than not, if not nearly always successful with crap leadership. Why? Because the people working under that leader would not allow the team to fail because of the immense amount of buy in that they had. The greater overall mission. I have never seen that environment replicated in the civilian world. I don't know if it's even possible. You have to think about the number of selection courses and the days, weeks, months, even years that you went through in these pipelines to arrive at a place where you're your first day on the job. It's measured in calendar months, if not years. The people there are there for the right reason generally. So when you have a crap leader, what do they do? They pick up even more slack. They succeed in spite of the leader, not because of the leader, because they believe in the mission and they believe. In the instance from where I came from, the men to your left and right, they were more important than the shiny turd that you directly reported to. But from the outside, people like, wow, you guys just always succeed. And that's not the case. And those poor leaders had almost no leadership capital, but we still succeeded. I have not seen that in the civilian world. What happens in the civilian world, what I've seen more often than not is people will allow the team or organization to fail because they really don't care. For a lot of people, it's a paycheck. It's not. They don't get in a sense of enrichment or purpose from what it is that they're doing. They're working there to pay their bills and to advance their own Personal desires and aspirations in life, which I actually don't think there's anything wrong with that either. And as somebody stepping into a leadership role, it's good to understand your people. Is this somebody who is super bought in on what we do and what we want to become and the ethos of this organization, or is this somebody here that's probably just a placeholder? They're at a phase in their life, they're going to churn and pass through and their level of buy in is much lower. You can work with both of those. And that's the challenge of leadership is understanding your people. Especially in that environment where you don't have two years of a selection course to let the selection course do its work and net you a largely finished bought in product in the civilian world. I'll use the coffee shop as an example. Now I have a management team that I work with much more than I interface with our frontline staff. I don't even know if they would call themselves a frontline staff, but let's call it a consumer facing staff. Of the four managers, we have all four or different. They're in different phases of their life, they have different goals and aspirations, they have different things that they like, they have different motivations for working at the coffee shop. And I need to understand all of those things because I cannot take a size 10 shoe and force it on everybody's foot in the world. It's going to be too loose for some people, too tight for some people, and be like the perfect glass slipper for others. If you treat everybody exactly the same in the civilian world, in my experience, you are on an egg timer for failure. If you take the military leadership model and you're just super directive and over the top and do what I tell you to do, which by the way, that is based way more in movies and entertainment than it is in actually real life. I was never. There are times when you have to be like that, but they're brief moment in times where hey, if we don't do this, perhaps somebody might die. You're going to be directive to somebody. Hey, break right, punch left center, peel. Whatever it may be, there's no time for Bob, you know, how is your day going? You know, talk to me about your, your motivations for today. Did you get enough sleep? Meanwhile, 762 by 39 is is ripping over your head. Not the time and place for that, but the vast majority of leadership was much more personal in nature. Could we fall back on rank if we need to? Yeah, but I would Consider that to be a failure, not a success, if you have to fall back to pointing at your collar device, which I call it a collar device. And it seems like now they've moved it completely to the center of the. Where the zipper would be or the buttons on the top. And in some uniforms, you're still wearing it on the collar, but operationally it's going to be on the center of your chest. So the center of your chest device, I would consider that to be a failure. The point in saying all this is you are going to be working with a group of people that has a vast difference in experience and reasons to be working where they are and the goals that they may have in working in that organization. You hit it on the head when you said, let me find it, that most of them have been at this a bit longer than me, so I feel like I have much more to learn from them than what I can provide them. That's a great realization. There are leadership challenges, specifically, I would say, on the officer side in the military, where you're going to get an officer who is very junior in nature, not by rank, but by experience. They will have been in the military. And again, I can only talk about the SEAL community in this, but your OIC in a platoon is going to be a lieutenant. Your AOIC is probably going to be a lieutenant JG, which lieutenant is an 03, a JG is an 02, and then an ensign would be an 01. The butter bar, the silver bar, and then two silver bars. Ours will be the lieutenant. Imagine the mental headspace and stress mentally and on performance, because a lot of things that we did in the community were performance based of, let's say, the aoic, the assistant officer in charge who is senior to every enlisted SEAL at the command to include the command Master Chief. Now, the rank structure, trust me, the AOIC of a platoon is not walking up to the master chief and telling him what to do. That'd be a good way to end up going home with a black eye or spending some time in a locker covered in shaving cream, which is something I'll cover one of the subsequent questions. But in the platoon, let's say the platoon breaks into two elements, and now you have 2 of 8 or 2 of 10 or 2 of 12, depending on the size of the platoons these days. That AOIC is now in charge of everybody underneath them. And everybody underneath them is probably going to be. There'll be some people on their first platoon, but there's going to be a bunch on Their second, third, fourth, fill in the blank. So senior by rank, junior in every aspect by experience. What do you do in that situation? It's a leadership challenge. Well, you've already identified that you're going into that. And my best piece of advice to you is this is don't try to go into the office on your first day and be Thor with his hammer, swinging it as hard as it can possibly be. The best leaders that I ever worked for made no attempt whatsoever to be the smartest person in the room. We would have an ops meeting with commanding officers on, you know, I think it was Tuesdays and maybe Thursdays. And you would go in and they would bring in department heads in, specialists from every one of the end codes. From N1, which is admin, and 2 is intelligence, and 3 is an operations. I would sit or I was associated with that when I was an officer at Team three. So I would. I would speak if asked to in that portion. All the way up to N9, the best leaders never tried to be the expert in any one of those end codes, and they never tried to tell the person how to do their job. They sought out the person who was the most qualified, capable, and competent, and then solicited for their feedback, guidance if needed. And then the CO would make their decision or commanding officer, for those of you unfamiliar with the military vernacular, would make the decision based off of that input. So again, the N1, and through N9, they are authorized to make decisions inside of their departments, for sure, up into a level. But then it gets to a point where the CEO is going to need to make a call or the XO or the cmc, and then that's where you can take in that guidance. That guidance or information is passed upstream, can be discussed at whatever level those decision makers need to discuss it at, and then they can push that guidance down. The worst leaders that I ever worked with would be basically the exact opposite of that. Instead of soliciting for guidance, they would tell people how to do their job. They would flatten the chain of command. And instead of trying to talk to people who had more experience and ask them questions, which is something that you can easily do in your first days in this new role, is you can ask people, be way more inquisitive than you are directive. Maybe don't even be directive at all. Take some time to get an understanding of the terrain, the roles and responsibilities of those people that are working for you. Because the bad leaders, they would just flatten it. And they would look at somebody who had Magnitudes of order, more experience than them and tell them what they were going to do and more often than not that they were wrong. And sometimes, especially early on in the relationship, the person with more experience will try to push back tactfully and eventually they realize they're going to get ignored. So they just shut up and then they fix it. In the world that I came from, they would fix it on target or in the training scenario, away from the prying eyes of the person trying to give that guidance. And you'd watch them go around the room and they would either dismiss the guidance or just try to have a. They would meddle. Maybe that's the best word for it. They would meddle. They would try to put their fingers into everything. And I'm not a fan of absolutes, so I'll say at least every time that I saw it. Which is not to say it happens every time. It was a recipe for failure in some way, shape or form. And again, this is tough because the team didn't fail, but that leader absolutely failed. They were despised. People would mess with them in ways that. Again, I'll discuss another question here because it was directly asked about and there was so much more work that had to be done by the people underneath them to compensate largely for their ego and I would say hubris. Neither of those things were earned either. So don't be that person. Be inquisitive. Take the time to understand your role. Are there going to be people that are pissed because you skipped them in what they considered to be the next logical step in the hierarchy? Yeah. Is that your concern? No. Focus on doing your job. Your job as a leader is to make sure and ensure that the team that works for you has the tools that they need, the knowledge that they need, an understanding of what they are being tasked with doing, that they are empowered to make decisions inside of the boundaries that you want to provide for them before coming up to a higher level of authority and that they are successful. And when they are successful, by the way, make sure that they get all of the credit for that. If your team fails, you need to step up in front of that, identify where it came from and then you can handle the inter team issues away from the eyes of the people that you are going to take accountability from. Failures are going to happen. Do not throw your people underneath the bus. That's the best advice that I can give you. And you're, you're in line with a lot of this. You're talking about making their jobs easier and more efficient. The Best way that you can make their job easier and more efficient is to hold yourself accountable to them. Accountability is a term that I use when I speak about leadership. And so many leaders will say, yes, you are damn right. The people that work for me, they are accountable to me. And a portion of that is correct. Actually, by doctrine and definition, they are correct in what they're saying. But that's not what I'm saying when I use those words. What I'm saying is that the best leaders that I ever worked for held themselves accountable to their team. They made sure if, let's say there was a, whatever, a short, we had a failure in the training evolution that was more than just a one off. Maybe it hit the point of not being like a repeating problem, but it happened more than once. There was a trend. Okay, what's going on here? What's this trend caused by it? Do you guys have the knowledge that you need? Do you understand the problem and do we understand the potential solutions? Is this an equipment deficiency? Do we need more time training? Is this a communication issue or error? And once you identify that you hold yourself accountable to your team by making sure that they have the tools or education and knowledge needed to solve the problems that they are being faced with, it's not necessarily your job to make their job easier and more efficient. I would say it is your job to hold yourself accountable to the team to make sure that they have the tools that will allow those things to happen easier. I don't know if I'm a fan of that word. I get what you're saying, but more efficient for sure. How can you make things more efficient? Knowledge, equipment, the combination of the two, practice training, all of those things. As a great leader, make sure that your team has those things. Your biggest concern, your peers, the other temporary employees and permanent members who will resent the progress and opportunity. You know who they can take that up with? The management and leadership. Do you know what they can do? If they don't like it, they can leave. Or here's a thought, double down on your efforts and perform better. So the next time that an opportunity like this presents itself, maybe they're the one being considered as opposed to being the one passed over. It's not uncommon. You mentioned this about the person who saw the org chart, which by the way, releasing an org chart publicly that was not supposed to be talked about or released, that's just an error on the HR department side. I mean, be better, right? Be better than releasing the org chart. Especially if you ask the person getting the promotion not to talk about it, just be better. Small error can be corrected. Hide it behind a password, you know what I mean? Whatever it may be, there's easy technical solutions to that, but it's also not uncommon for that person, let's say that they hadn't seen that particular org shark because it's just a level of resentment with that. But they, they say, you know, I keep asking for more, I keep wanting to do more, I keep asking for opportunities. That's great that people do that. But here's the reality that a lot of people have a hard time swallowing. Sometimes humans suck. And just because you want to do more doesn't mean that you are the right person to do more. There is a bell curve of performance and every team to include the most high performing teams on planet Earth are going to have a bell curve. If you have a team of 10 people, you will have a number one performer and you will have a number 10 performer. And in this case, number one is the best and 10 is the worst. Now, on teams that have gone through an immense level of training and selection processes, yeah, your number 10 guy is going to crush most teams, number one. But in comparison to their peers, there's still a one and there's still a 10. Am I going to give a guy or gal who I have identified as being a number 10 because of their performance and what appears to be their limitations as a human being more responsibilities in a leadership role just because they ask for it? The answer to that is it depends. It depends on what is available and it depends on the other people that are filling out that team just because somebody asks for something. And also, by the way, remember that you're only hearing this from one side. Management may have a completely different side of the story that you're hearing. It's great that they want more. Some people have an IQ that is more fitting for a thermostat than it is for a leadership role. Some people are communicators that exceed my understanding of the known languages on earth and vernacular. And others could not get a point across if their life depended on it. And that's not a value of a person. What I'm just saying is that people are different. And you in a leadership role might have to start making these, these decisions. And what do you want when it comes? Let's say there's two people available to you in this leadership role. One of them is somebody just constantly telling you, I want to do more, I want to branch out. But their performance sucks and it's not because of a lack of training. It's not because of a lack of you being accountable to that person and making sure that they have the tools and the knowledge and the training and the reps, et cetera. It's because what they're asking to do is beyond their capability. So you have that person to choose from or somebody who comes to these things a little bit more naturally, that dominates and over performs that individual every single time with way less investment. Which one are you going to give the role to? I know who I'm giving it to. I'm giving it to the person who performs. Is that fair? I don't know because I don't believe that life is fair. I believe the fair is in Iowa and it has cotton candy and a merry go round. And if you want to go to a corn maze, go there. Because life isn't a corn maze. Some people are better at things than others. That sucks to hear you think I like getting beat at stuff. Do you think anybody likes losing or being beat at things? But guess what? I'm never gonna beat an NBA player or professional athlete of any kind in any sport that they do. I'm never gonna win a chess championship. I barely have an understanding of the English language. Sorry. That is what it is. And people are going to dominate me at their core competencies that they have the time, experience, reps and propensity for. And I don't like that. It's not fair. Who cares? Not the world, I can tell you that much. So just keep that in the back of your mind from a leadership perspective. Focus on what it is that got you looked at for this new role to begin with. Take care of your team. If there is pettiness around or resentment, don't engage, perform and everything is going to work out okay. That's all I have for question number one. Today's episode is brought to you by Stopbox. Many gun owners will tell you that safe, secure storage can be a problem because there's two competing ideas. One is that your gun is locked away, secured, safe, wall mounted garage, whatever it may be, or it's unsecured. I'm here to tell you that there is a middle ground. That middle ground is called Stopbox. If you don't want to choose between readiness and security, or you want a solution that contains both of those, then the Stopbox Pro is for you. Now I open this thing up and I'll show it again. Closed just for size. This is an iPhone pro, so you can see what it has as far as storage goes. This is tough with two hands even trying to show this for the podcast audience. Close this bad boy up for the video. People. You can tell this is the size that we're looking at. When it is closed and secure, you could fit a phone in there and your firearm. I don't know why you would put your phone in there if you want to. You could though. The push button locking system gives you fast, reliable access when every second matters without the hassle of keys or the reliance on batteries. It's 100% mechanical so it works every time. No power needed. Traveling with peace of mind is easy because the Stopbox Pro is TSA compliant. You can put this bad boy in your checked luggage, right? Not carry on checked luggage and you can travel with ease for a limited time. Listeners are going to get a pretty crazy deal. Listeners are going to get 10% off your entire order when you use the code cleared hot. And right now Starbucks is also running a deal on their most popular bundle, the Two Pack, which saves you over 30% and comes with a free accessory and shipping. That's 10% off and a big bundle discount when you use the code cleared hot@stopboxusa.com Discover a better way to balance security and readiness with Stopbox. Back to the show Question number two as promised. Changing gears and this one ties in a little bit to what I was mentioning in the first question. India, Enjoy the podcast, especially the full out of Friday segments. I think you have a common, measured response with some humor sprinkled in that really makes the responses impactful. I hope so. People keep sending in questions and I love them because it forces me to really think deeply about things that, quite frankly, I didn't before. All right, well, most of the topics are pretty heavy and you're imparting some great wisdom. I would like to ask a different type of question in your episodes, especially when you're talking to guests from your old profession, you sometimes mention practical jokes were common. I believe there was a mention in one of the episodes that some of the best pranks happened in the cage area. I would enjoy hearing about pranks you pulled, witnessed, or were a victim of. Additionally, could you begin to pull some pranks on Michael? You know, I like this question and perhaps just that sentence right there is why I selected it. I will talk about some pranks and at the end of that I think most people can realize that they would be wholly inappropriate appropriate to do to Michael because the things that we did to each other were horrible and awesome at the same time. Maybe get revenge for the prank he pulled with the mic settings, which are both still red. We're still good. Okay, Pranks, man. Okay, I'll start with this. Everything I'm about to say is of course hypothetical because people that care about each other would never do things like this to one another, even if it was good natured, good humored, and payback for somebody hypothetically doing something to them. So, and there's two, there's two aspects of this. A lot of people, they've asked me before about hazing and the role that, that, that fills. I do actually think that there is a place for it. The intent behind it matters, the management of it matters, that the condition of it matters. Can it be taken too far? Absolutely. Can it have incredibly negative consequences? Absolutely. Can it have incredibly positive and cohesive consequences? Absolutely. But this isn't about the role of hazing. Let's talk pranks. Let's start with some easy ones that were. That would have been. Had these actually happened. Been my favorite. So cage areas. And again, I can only speak about. I'm super dated, right. I have no connection to the active duty community anymore. When I was in, the cages were made basically of chain link fence. And so you'd have these rows of cages and they were exactly a cage. They'd usually have a sliding door with a lock. A lock that you provided. And I guess I saw, I saw some that swing. But oftentimes there's basically a hallway. And so if you were to swing the door open, it would be problematic. So a lot of the times they were sliding. However, I did see ones that were swung open. Not everybody enjoys practical jokes as much as others. And if you stayed out of it, at least in my experience, you were left out of it. And that's a good thing. Meaning, not that you were like left out of the club, but you would not be involved. You know what I mean? You were an innocent bystander and you were treated as such. You were the Red Cross, you were the un. But if you wanted to get into the trenches, you had better be ready to be into the trenches. And there's no dipping your toe into a hot tub. This is, this is a cannonball. You're going to go all the way in. So hypothetically, some things that you could see that I, that I found to be fantastic. We had access to flashbangs, which is a device. It is a concussive device that produces a light as well. It is a disorienting device more than anything that we use a bunch in training and very Rarely overseas. But if you think about it, if you're going to go on a target that has multiple rooms and you're throwing these devices before you go into every room, if there is somebody back there who has even a small tactical understanding, like, wow, these are getting a little bit closer. And this is the way that it's going. So time and place for sure. Great distractions. I've seen flashbangs that if you pull the pin and release the spoon, it's going to go off one time. There's a small delay on it similar to what people are probably familiar with with a grenade. And then I've seen some that go off multiple times. The most I've ever seen is a 9 a 9 banger. And I tell you where they can fit well that people may not notice. And that's underneath shoes or boots that are on a cage floor. So if somebody wanted to, they could prime one of those bad boys and put it into a place where an unsuspecting person who obviously deserved it would pull out their shoes in the morning to get ready and be awoken with unprotected eye pro and ear pro, which isn't safe at all. In close proximity to a one or a nine banger going off. And I tell you what, I have a coffee in front of me. I enjoy my coffee iced because it allows me to consume it faster. But you know what wakes you up faster than a nice coffee? A nine banger going off in your cage. Does it move around a little bit? Does it damage things? Could it probably start something on fire? Absolutely. And I think that makes it even better. So that could be an opener. Actually, there's other things that, that, that would be underneath that. I've seen zip AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com ties like plastic zip ties. I've seen several. What I would, I didn't actually count them, but I would assume several hundred. Talking about these sliding doors, and I mean every inch, inch of the door was zip tied to the adjoining piece of metal, which you can of course undo, but man, that would be time consuming. Sometimes the breachers have access to torches and I have in welding material. I have seen cages legitimately welded shut. That's a little bit more of a problem. I have seen Zodiacs, which is an inflatable rubber boat. They have hard floor compartments that can be put into them and they're deflatable and they have individual sections that they're baffled off, for lack of a better term. So that way if you have an issue with maintaining pressure and one, it doesn't sink the entire boat. It's a pretty smart design. But you can open them all up and you can really, you can roll it from front to back, pushing all of the air out and it actually can go into. It's not a small space by any stretch, but it would look like a rolled up sleeping bag. Excep Way, way bigger than that. Scuba tanks with just compressed air is a great way to open that up. There are foot pumps and you have those foot pumps with you at pretty much at all times when you're in the boats, just because it's a backup mechanism to inflate them. But let's say you wanted to roll one of those up and you could put it inside of somebody's cage with a scuba tank and crank that thing open. It is going to expand to maximum capacity regardless of what is standing in its way. Is that destructive to somebody's gear? Not like destructive destructive, but if you have an anal retentive person that cares so much about knife cutting edges in between their T shirts and socks, would it scramble their eggs? I think so. I think it would. I have heard of. I mean, we can take this even farther to things that probably are health code violations and why hepatitis B still exists. Or C Dixie cups, you know, white styrofoam Dixie cups that people would take a dump in a nice big growler and then put it into the freezer, wait until it freezes, punch holes in the bottom of the Dixie cup, and then put it on the top of somebody's cage so it would thaw and then slowly drip down over time. That's a good one. I watched people who were engaged in this type of warfare allegedly leaving their cages open and having their entire selection of camouflage pants and tops taken to the airloft where every leg was sewn shut. Every sleeve was shown shut multiple times, usually at around the knee area, because that way they'll try to put it on and they lose their balance and they fall over and it takes forever to pick the stitching out. What else? Shredders, Top secret. Shredders produce a product that is so fine and thin and you could, if you wanted to climb on top of somebody's cage and dump the entire contents of a TS Shredder on everything that they have in their cage. You could also, if somebody left the sunroof open in their car, fill it to the absolute brim with every TS shredder bag on the base to the point where years later when they turned on their ac, it would still puff out a little bit of shredder material. You could go to a grocery store and you could buy fish and you could take the hubcaps off of your friend's cars and put fish inside of the hubcap area, zip tied on there as well and enjoy the long term show of them trying to understand what was happening. If they had seat covers, you could do the same thing with fish or roadkill that you may find. You could skin it and put it underneath the seat covers and I'll let them have that journey of discovery of what it may be. So as you can tell, those are the type of things that obviously didn't happen but could happen in the practical joke environment. Some people would say those are neither practical nor jokes and I would agree with you. And I would say they could escalate and get out of control. Which is why in this instance it's better to be more the Red Cross in the UN than in the trenches. But that's a personal choice. So hopefully that answers your question. For you, those would be some hypothetical examples of things that definitely never happened. Question 3 I want to start by saying I absolutely love what you do and help the guidance and the help and the guidance you offer. My question has been plaguing my consciousness for years now. I was born with Cerebral palsy CP and the only thing I ever wanted to do was join the military. Growing up, my parents ensured that I was given all the tools and therapies to overcome cp. In fact, the doctors told me my told me and my parents that I would never walk. Well through the work I had put in I was able to walk and even play football, wrestling and lacrosse. In high school I had attempted to join the military and had the first recruiter I spoke with tell me I was a non starter because I would never be able to join due to the cp. I waited a few months and then moved and decided I would try again and use the military's don't ask, don't tell policy against them. I don't believe that was for medical conditions, but moving on, as I never was specifically asked about cp, I simply did not mention it. I joined the Army Reserves and went to Basic training and ait, which I believe is advanced infantry training, and ended up serving until medically discharged for mental health six months prior to the end of my contract. I have struggled with being proud of my service, knowing that I technically never should have been allowed to join. Would you have any advice or insights as to how to lessen the internal battle that I deal with? Many people tell me I should be proud of what I have done, but there is always the voice in the back of my head that knows there are others that would have issues with this. Do you know that there would be others that have issue with this? Or is this just something that you are choosing consciously or unconsciously to tell yourself? Has anybody told you that other than the person that you see in the mirror? My suspicion is no. I'm going to go back a step here. I covered this in the first question talking about life being fair. It isn't. This is an example of something that you had absolutely no control over. That is of course a disqualifying genetic condition or medical condition from military service. Is that fair? No. Why does that disqualification exist? It's because of the severity of the job that you were applying for volunteering for. In my mind, everything has to be drawn backwards. Standards and expectations reverse engineered from the real world execution of your job. And in the military, regardless of the branch, it is a profession of arms, in my opinion. People can argue about that if they want to. Just a single person's opinion. For anybody who has a medical condition like this or something similar that is disqualifying, I would not recommend that you lie to a recruiter. Do what you want to with your life, suffer the consequences of your decisions writ large beyond, well beyond just your ability or desire to join the military. But if you have something, a condition that may impact your ability to perform at a time and place, and severity that you may not be able to control, there is a reason that it is a disqualifying factor. So you are free to make the choices you want to. It is my advice. For somebody with a disqualifying position or a condition, I should say do not take the path that this individual did because I'm sorry, the job and those serving in the job are more important than your desires. And you may not want to hear that, but I've covered this many times on the podcast today. Life isn't fair. So back to this actual individual though. You made the choice you made. You served. Not sure exactly as to why you were discharged other than what you put on there. Six months for Mental health. You didn't mention any more about that. I'm not going to hypothesize, but it would seem like up until that point you served honorably and accomplished what it is you wanted to accomplish. Why? You are aware that you technically should have never joined, but you're also aware that you made the decision to go around that. It does not appear that there was an issue with your service. And again, I don't know the exact conditions or situation around your discharge, nor does it really matter. That's your situation. Why? Why pick up the rock or the bucket of water or any ounce of weight associated with either regret for something that you can't change or struggling to feel proud about doing the job that was asked of you. Unless you were not able to do the job that you were asked to do, which it sounds like you were. You didn't mention that you weren't. What is there to not be proud of? You can tell people, if you want to, that you served. You don't need to tell them the reason for your discharge. If you got an honorable discharge or an administrative discharge, whatever it may be, that's your business. Unless you're applying for a job. Right? You need to be honest. If you're being asked directly about it in a professional capacity, you need to be honest about the reason for your discharge. But other than that, it's not really anybody's business. So the biggest impediment that you have is the person looking at you in the mirror. You are choosing to focus on the voice in the back of your head that tells you there might be somebody out there who has an issue with this. So what? How much free rent are you going to give that hypothetical person that you haven't met yet in your head? Why would you give him an inch or an acre or anything in between? I would if I were you. Go find somebody to talk to. Not because I think you have a continued mental health issue, but because somebody who is way more educated than me in this, who does this professionally, will be able to give you the tools. So you can interrupt that internal monologue, because that internal monologue is you talking to yourself. And I am as guilty as anybody else, and maybe even more so of being capable of a horrendous inner monologue that actually likes to get worse as I spiral down. And I've talked about this before on the show, too. One of the things, that immense amount of help that I receive by talking to counselors and therapists is an ability to recognize early and a tool set a personal tool set that I can apply against this decline to at least shallow it out or off ramp off of that negativity cycle. Which by the way is so easy to say. The world is causing me to feel like this and it's this horrendous internal conversation without the tools necessary, it can get out of control. So invest in yourself a little bit here. This is what I would recommend. Spend some money. It's. That's what's going to cost. But what is your happiness for the rest of your life worth more than the cost of talking to somebody to the point where you can develop an architecture to help you deal with the voice in the back of your head? Because what do you need to do, really? You need to tell it to shut the fuck up because it's not serving you well. That's the best advice I can give. Last question for today. Andy, I've heard you rant about your miniature dachshund on the podcast or the dakkal. The last six months I've lost two dogs whose combined weight was about 200 pounds. First off, that sucks. I'm sorry. For those of you who've never had a dog, you may not understand love because it is awesome and unconditional. One was a lab who died sleeping in the front yard. The other was a wolf mix who had diabetes and needed twice daily insulin injections before needing to be put down. Damn. I'm pretty happy to be dog free right now. But your unbridled enthusiasm for your very small dog is intriguing. My question is, what are the specific benefits of such a small critter? I'm used to a dog that chases wildlife and literally drags deer carcasses into the yard. Can such a small dog be alone outside and not be carried off by birds of prey or attacked by chipmunks? I have 3.5 acres of land in a rural area. Wildlife is common. I miss my dogs. I'm curious about a new one. Should I consider a micro pet? There are birds of prey. Like if I lived in a place where like bald eagles were out there and like large birds of prey, I would actually be worried about javelin. I don't. I don't know if the bird of prey would choose to attack him given the other wildlife that is around. But I kind of would be concerned. So, so I would say, in my opinion, at least I'm an n of 1. I wouldn't recommend leaving a dog like a miniature dachshund outside on 3.5 acres, especially if other wildlife is around. I would Leave them in the house. Is it possible that you could do that? Yeah, I don't know if it'd be a great idea without fences, though. So the dachshund breed specifically was bred to go into tunnels and kind of go after rodents. They're very headstrong. Javelin understands all of the commands that we give him. He will look at you, you will see in his eyes that he recognizes it, and then he will look at you with his eyes and tell you to off and go do what he wants to do. Because that breed is designed, through breeding, to make decisions in small tunnels by themselves. They're very headstrong, they're super smart, but on the other side of that, they're very emotional. So it's. If you left him without a fence on three and a half acres, I feel like he might go on a walkabout. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. And it sounds like your situation, you know, maybe it wouldn't work just based off of where you live. Could they be in the house for a full day, eight hours, man, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that either. So this may not be the right option for you. But why do I love them so much? Dachshund owners, specifically and for clarity, I. Dogs are one of my favorite things. I love all types of dogs. I just happen to have. My daughter happened to have a miniature dachshund. And it was my first exposure to a small dog like that. And I didn't think I was going to like it because I thought it was a little rat. And his name is Chachi. Still alive. Chachi was the best. Super loving, loyal, cuddly. He's like a little pocket creature. You can pick him up and you can take him anywhere. And among the many things that I lost in the divorce, I lost Chachi. So when Lee and I were talking about getting a pet, the only thing that I actually recommended was a mini dachshund. And if you talk to somebody who's owned one before, the man, they're so cool. And I'll let other people describe their own experiences. They're an absolute pain in the ass. They bark at everything that is there. And most things that are not there, they are absolute attention. You cannot pet them enough. Personal space doesn't exist. And all I can say is you'll absolutely love them for it. So, Leah, it's probably blow people's minds. Leah had never had a dog at all growing up in life. So we get Javi, who is his nickname for Javelin, obviously. And I've Asked her many times like, what do you think about having a dog? And she has said, I didn't know that you could love something so much. To which I said, looking at her like, what the. What about me? Hopefully you feel that way about me. She's like, oh yes, of course, of course. But also, I love this dog so much and I get it because as much of a pain in the ass as he is, they're so loving and they're all up in your business. And we just got back from a wedding in. We landed in Mississippi, we were in Louisiana, he came with us, travels through the airport, we got slings, we can carry him in. He's got far too many outfits, my God. He has too many bags as well. And just accoutrement to go with the bags as well. And they're convenient rides around in the car with me. I haven't gotten him up in the helicopter yet. I want him to have a good experience because I don't want to scare him away, because I want him to be my co pilot, because I've seen videos of people flying with dogs that are co pilots and it's amazing. But that's where the enthusiasm comes from for us, where we live. Like right now we rent a townhouse. It's a 1400 square foot townhouse gate, gated fence, backyard area that he can go to the bathroom, all of these things. I'm not leaving him outside for three and a half hours in the summer months we'll leave a crack in the door. But he's contained by that yard, so it works for us when we're looking at moving out of that place here within the next year, but that'll be a consideration. What does the yard look like? It's going to need to be fenced for him because he is just an explorer by design. That's what the breed is. So consider a micro pet. Yes, absolutely. Is it the fit for everybody? No. But if you can make it work, would you love it? I think so. But also I'm biased and I still do Ms. Chachi. Chachi and Javelin have met each other one time. The elder wean and the junior Weed. And they just looked at each other and sniffed each other's butts. And then Chachi went and jumped on the top of the couch so how they couldn't harass him. And that was it. And I'll see you all on Monday.