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A
Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun run north and south west of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Give it to me. I mean clear, not well. Hello everybody. For those of you who are beyond the audio only experience, you could probably tell things are looking a little bit different in the studio because I'm working on some stuff behind the scenes. This is just a different lighting package. January is going to have some pretty cool updates. Some cool stuff coming for 2026. I don't want to touch on it too early. I like to talk about things after they've already happened and not this overexcitement of things that I'm really looking forward to happening and then they maybe don't. I would rather under promise and over deliver. That's probably a better way to put that. So yeah, man, it's December. Unbelievable. I'm creating this episode right before I go to Costa Rica for a jiu jitsu camp. Uh, if you listen to last Friday's episode my wife Leah was talking about we're going to Hero BJJ in Tamarindo. We're actually, by the time this comes out, I think I'll be home because I'm recording this to come out while we're on the road. Regardless, she's doing a camp in February. Go to last two Fridays ago's episode where we did the full family Friday and you can check out all the camps that they have there. So you want to come hang out with us in February in Tamarindo. Go to town on that front if you want to. I find it to be a very nice break where I live. Shorter days, overcast a little bit, lack of vitamin D for sure. You need to supplement if you live up here in the the northwest. And then that break in February or even this break in December is super nice. You can kind of recharge, spend your time in the sun. It is what it is. And then I owe a 2026 year in review and man, maybe that's a good way to kick off today. I have some questions which I'll get to here in a second, but I've been thinking about just looking online and God, it is an emotion filled battlefield of landmines everywhere. And I'm just thinking about 2025 and I have no data to support that. There's been more emotional things that people have been posting about or less or more conspiratorial things or less. It feels like it's a little bit more and maybe that's just what I'm seeing. And it's so easy to. To blame the algorithm for what it is that you're seeing. And people forget that your algorithm is actually a curation of things that you interact with. And I've started messing with this a little bit specifically on Twitter, man. It can be super aggressive and super negative. But then I realize it's just showing me more things that I engage with. And that's true of all the platforms. So messing around with. I want to see less of this type of content, messing around with muting particular things that are. They're at the edge of invoking a little bit of an emotional reaction. But then the more you think about it, you realize it's not emotional. The person that you're reading something from, they're having an emotional reaction to something that is important to them, which might even be nonsensical or just completely non meaningful in your life. And I don't want to. I don't want to invest any time in that. And that's what got me thinking about, you know, 2025 and all the stuff that's happened on the Internet. And I was thinking about specifically Charlie Kirk. That one's still pretty fresh for me. Mostly because of the interaction I had with my kids on that particular topic, talking about what they saw. I hate the fact that they live in a world where they saw that and they weren't searching for it. All three of them did. And the impact it had, a little bit of development of numbness to that legitimate type of violence and death, which is exactly what that was. So that particular incident, man, you want to talk about conspiracies corking out into every different direction. Was it the bodyguards? Were they hand signaling? Was it multiple shooters? Were they trained by the agency? Was this dude a straw puppet? Is this false flag attack? Is this an inside job? Did Israel do this? Everything? Was he wearing body armor? He wasn't wearing body armor. People making these videos about ricochets and all of this stuff is demonic. Demonstrably, visibly untrue. And people are making so much content about this. And then other people are engaging and arguing back and forth. And I think I understand why. People don't want to feel helpless. They want to. And I had a bunch of people reach out to me like, I'm trying to get justice for Charlie. I get it. You know, you're sleuthing through the Internet and getting emotionally attached to things that are highly conspiratorial in nature. And I'll be the first person to Admit that conspiracies absolutely exist. That doesn't mean that all conspiracy theories are true. But people do conspire to do things. But oftentimes the simplest solution is probably going to be the most likely one. And I. I've come to the realization that people get emotionally attached to it because they don't like feeling helpless. And I don't like feeling helpless either. But I don't know if any of the people that reached out to me saying that they were looking for justice for Charlie by trying to spread at the top of their lungs information that was clearly not accurate, might have been emotionally compelling, but not accurate. I just wonder how it has served people if you were to look back and maybe the Charlie Kirk incident isn't for the listener out there that doesn't speak to you. You've paid almost no attention to that. Cool. Is there anything that you did get hooked by in 2025? And I'm asking myself that question as well, too, because I try not to. I try to be balanced in the amount of time that I spend, because I look at the amount of time that I spend on things like that, and at the end of the year, I asked myself, did it serve me well? Do I wish I could get that time back? Do I wish I could have done something different with that time? More productive, more meaningful, more purposeful? Any of those things. I mean, legitimately, just fill in the blank. And I've come to find that almost everything I do on this device that we all have, and this is a part of our life, and it's. I. I do believe we're gonna figure it out and figure out ways to manage it appropriately as opposed to it managing us. That's the risk versus reward or the pro versus con matrix that I think we should all run consistently maybe once a month. Look at your screen time, actually. What does the screen time come on? The iPhones. It comes once a week. Man, those numbers are startling sometimes. And so I'll look at that number, and I don't want to because it's higher than I want it to be. And I'm working on that. But I look at that number, and then I ask myself, okay, what did I do with that time? Is there legitimate time inside of that large number where I spelt spent doing things that were required for my business? Yes. Was it the majority? No. And you have to be able to honestly answer that for yourself. So for me, there is some business that I'm doing. There's also a lot of business that I'm not doing and doom scrolling or wasting my time, or it's just, it becomes habitual picking that thing up. Almost just laziness. Or we've been programmed by our robot overlords to just constantly go to that anxiety rectangle anytime we feel like we have idle time. You know, don't be by yourself, make sure you're consuming something. And again, that's, that's not, in my opinion, the fault of the people that create these apps. Even though they are designed to monopolize your attention, they are designed to be addictive. Like, I get it and I know that. So at the end of the day, if I spend too much time on them, whose fault is that? And the answer is, is that it's mine. So at the end of the week, I ask myself, what did I do at this time? And then I'll ask myself if I could have that time back. Is there anything else I could have done that would be more productive? And the answer is always yes. It's always yes. And so I just, I look, for whatever reason I've been looking at that, my engagement with things like that online in 2025, that is something I want to change in 2026. So a little bit of an early year end review for me, but I'm curious out there for the listeners and viewers because I feel like I am not in the minority when it comes to consumption time on devices. But objectively, if you were to look back at it in, in chunks of a week or a month or a year and somebody could give you that and just say, hey, you have an opportunity to do this over again, would you want to spend that time differently? Who? For me, that is a hard, hard yes. And I bet a lot of people are like that too. So I need to change that up front because I don't get the opportunity to do that, nor does anybody else. But I can change my future behavior when I inform it from my past behavior. And I actually ask myself hard questions and look myself in the mirror and take control of the things that I have control over, which is only really myself. So for everybody out there, if you got emotionally involved in something you saw online this year, you argue politics or conspiracy theories or everything in between. And I'm not telling you you shouldn't do those things. Live your life the way that you want to. But ask yourself, take, sit down, take a breath, take stock of the time you spent and ask yourself if you were well served from that time spent. Did you change anybody's mind? Did you get justice for anybody or did you just spin out a little bit and get angry and argue with people that you don't actually know? It didn't have impact on their life because they weren't actually listening to what you said. They were more concerned with saying what they wanted to say and then moving on. Tough questions, but important ones. And on that note, maybe we just get in here to question one instead of me just rambling about my personal thoughts. And the thing that monopolizes my thoughts when I'm laying in bed and I can't sleep, staring at the ceiling fan, which is not on. So it's far less entertaining in the winter months because you can't watch it go round and round. You just sit there and you look and you realize, man, I need to get the vacuum out because the front leading edge of that fan is really dusty. Today's episode is brought to you by Spartan Forge. I love talking about this app for a couple reasons. One, I love Bill Thompson. He is one of my favorite people. I've had him on the podcast twice. I highly recommend you go check him out. He is the CEO and founder of Spartan Forge. And just if you do go listen to those episodes or you're familiar with them, just imagine taking somebody with that level of military experience in that particular field for that length of time. His network, his knowledge, his know how and turning it into this app. Now, is it based around hunting? Of course. I've said this many times and I'll keep saying it. I use this more for aviation than I do hunting. But it is a fantastic hunting, Fantastic, fantastic hunting tool. So right here in front of us, we're looking at LIDAR and UAV mapping. This stuff changes the game when I'm out there flying. And even if you're looking at terrain, you're doing an analysis or a study, what is underneath the foliage? What's the slope angle? What am I looking at here? Because you can look at imagery all day long, but if you can't see through the foliage, you actually don't know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Contour lines are great. Having the ability with LIDAR to look through that and maybe even find game trails or foot trails is even better. They have deer movement prediction. We're taking intel analysis of human beings and targeting and applying it to wildlife in app live pin sharing. This is very analogous to a blue blue force tracker. But this pin sharing, you can send this out to a group, you could set a group, you could set boundaries, you could track each other sharing information. It is a fantastic tool for communication. Again, I talked about LiDAR. Here's another visual representation of what that looks like. And you know, another thing, I'm on their website right now. Spartanforge AI the technology aspect here. You come over here to cyberscout. This is gonna be in your web app, so not on your phone yet. But this is basically an embedded AI. And here's some examples of things you can ask. What's the best arrow setup for an elk? What's the weather in my location? How much soybean seed do I need for 3.23 acres in Southwest Wisconsin? If you don't have a mentor getting you into the hunting world, this is not a replacement for that. But this is a gradual way to start gathering information while you look for that mentor. Spartanforge AI this is the easiest money I spend every month on my app subscription. Spartanforge AI Back to the show. Question number one. Andy, first and foremost, thank you for being available and opening yourself up to help others answer questions. My pleasure. And I've said many times I really enjoy this. I like the process of questioning my own beliefs. Why do I believe what I believe? Where did that belief come from? What's it founded in? Is it founded in emotion? Is it founded in fact and knowledge, experience, whatever it may be? And I believe in believing things very deeply but not holding onto them too tightly, being open to having my mind changed. So here we go. I've been in my line of work for 11 years. I work for a small agency of 10 people, including the boss. We are currently down two positions, so the workload is increasing as well as the burnout. And there is no sign of this letting up. Nobody wants to be a cop anymore and especially not at the lowest paying agency in the area. I would say those are probably both true statements. I am a new suit supervisor working the overnight shift and I find myself going through the motions. My first 10 years I was motivated and excited to go to work. Lately it's been a chore. I get home and I go immediately to sleep. When I wake up, I am fried. I fight hard some days to stay off the couch and it helps, but I'm miserable. I'm not sure if it's the sleep or lack thereof or an absence of a goal, but I find myself going down the rabbit hole of what am I going to do when I retire. And the thought irritates me slightly because that is another nine years away. Any advice for dealing with burnout for me and the folks that I supervise? Side note, I have an appointment to have my blood work done in the near future. And I'm glad that you actually ended with that because that's where I was going to start. Even if your blood work is perfect, at least you know, and that is a variable that you can take off the plate or the buffet table, if you will. If you don't have that, you don't know, is this issue legitimately burnout or is your endocrine system burned out from stress from your job? Are you not sleeping well? All of those things could be happening in addition to your hormones shifting as they naturally do, and they do it paces for everybody at a different pace, right? They can give you broad ranges of where you might necessarily fall. But that broad range, let's also not forget here, is supposed to encompass every human being. So it's exactly what it is. It's a range. Your numbers might be naturally lower. Your numbers might be naturally higher. I think that's totally okay. But how are you going to know that unless you have a baseline? This is one thing I look back, I wish I had done baseline blood work years and years and years ago. Two years ago now, at this point, or just under two years ago, I finally had my blood work done. My hormonal panel looked at everything. Testosterone was one of the markers and I looked at everything else as well too. And a lot of them were trending in the wrong direction, but I didn't really know, hey, am I historically a little bit high here? Is this an elevated number or is this kind of where I've always floated because I just didn't have that good blood work? It Even if again, this is a blanket suggestion and I can only speak for men, for women, I would say reach out to my sister. She is specializing in hormonal panels and blood work for women. I think she's focusing a lot on menopause and perimenopause or pre menopause. So there's an aspect of that as well too. But she can answer questions on the female side way better than I can. And I can only actually talk about my experience on the male side. I can't answer a lot of questions other than what I did and why, but get the baseline. So at least you know, because let's say you get a blood draw and your numbers for a dude and your testosterone is low. Well, what if your 18 year old number was low and you felt fine? Then what if your testosterone is a little bit higher than what you were looking at, but you've always been a little bit higher? So the Number isn't equating with how you necessarily feel and hormones. Testosterone specifically. Let me let the cat out of the bag on this one. Spoiler alert. It's not magic. Can you take a superhuman dose, like an ultra high physiological dose, and probably make yourself feel amazing? I would assume so. I don't know because I haven't tried it. But there are certainly people that abuse everything to include testosterone. But it can help. But it's not going to solve all of your other problems if you don't have a good diet, if you don't have good sleep hygiene or a sleep routine, if you're not working out. Taking testosterone isn't going to fix all of those things overnight. It might give you a little bit more motivation to work towards those things. And I think that that would be great. But let's just say it's not like you take the lid off of this thing and a genie pops out and you get all your wishes made. So I'm glad that you have your blood work getting ready to be done in the near future. To the burnout aspect, here's what I can say I have obviously I did no military time. I did some professional aviation time. I worked for a strength and conditioning company. I taught skydiving for a bit. I do public speaking. I own a coffee shop. There is nothing that I have done in my life professionally where I haven't had to deal with a little bit of burnout. So that's my overall answer to this is is you're going to be okay. And I don't know of a job or somebody who has done a job for years, if not decades and more, where they haven't described, at least at times where they were burnt out, even if they really enjoy their job. Here's a perfect example. The podcast I'm doing right now. I love doing this podcast. Are there days where I just feel less like doing it than others? Of course. Is it because I'm burned out? I don't know. That would probably be the laziest description of it. But a lot of the times it has nothing to do with what's going on around the podcast and everything to do with what's going on in my life. Maybe I'm training hard that week and I've been eating like a garbage pail and haven't been sleeping well, haven't been managing my hydration and my rest and my recovery. It can make me feel like I'm burned out. But I'm not actually burned out. I'm just tired. And that expresses itself by a lack of desire of wanting to sit down and do the podcast, even though it's my favorite thing that I do. So it doesn't even necessarily have to be directly in line with your job. I have heard a lot of officers that I know describe burnout in their career. It is repetitive in nature, as many careers are. You're going to deal with a lot of repeat customers. There's the current social optic that has shifted more towards negative than positive. I would say. When I was growing up, I mean, the police, they were viewed differently. It was just a different lens on that occupation and what that occupation meant to people. And I think the pendulum is swinging back in that direction. But it's never going to be static. You're going to have ups and downs with that. So it's easy to lose yourself in this job and in any job. And what I'll say to you is this. Find something outside of your job to spend your time doing that lights a fire under you. And I know you're saying right now you're struggling to get off the couch. Okay, that's, you know, you don't have to get off the couch and do anything Herculean. Find a new hobby, Find a new social circle that has nothing to do with law enforcement and start pouring as much energy as you have left over at the end of the day. And some days, you know, it might be a little eyedropper, and some days it might be a quarter of a cup. But the more you can diversify yourself, I think what you'll find is you can recharge your batteries by finding and doing something new. And again, maybe that's just going out and joining a community group that has nothing to do with law enforcement or finding a new social circle that has nothing to do with law enforcement. You didn't mention anything about marital status or being in a relationship. If you are, we'll just say in a relationship in general, doing something new with your significant other. I have. I have found myself to be re energized many, many times in my life when I take a step out of what I'm currently doing and I try to teach myself or find something new that challenges me. Sure, you can end up burning up a little bit more energy in that new thing, but you're excited again. It's a spark that you think that had been extinguished. And it's not maybe just the one thing that you're spending the lion's share of your time doing. It's the groove that has had, you know, the most friction in it. So it is just repetitive in nature. It's not providing for you what it used to. And that's totally okay because you're never going to find a job where 20 years later, every single day is going to be as exciting as the first day that you had on the job, or the excitement, or not being able to sleep the night before, or, you know, putting all of your energy and effort and time into making sure your uniform look looks good or whatever it is. Those things that you do when you first start a career and you're so concerned, living up to the standard and being the person. And then 10 years down the road, you realize, like, I'm not going to do those things anymore. Not because they don't matter to me anymore, but because I have. I just. I'm in my groove. And you still do the things that matter. But you're not losing sleep at night before going to your first shift ever, because you're a little bit less excited. You're just more used to it. Find that spark. Find that somewhere else. I'm telling you, it will reinvigorate your life with the blood work you're getting ready to do. Because I do suspect, not a doctor by any stretch, that what you're describing may have a little bit to do with some hormonal imbalance as a guy, as you are navigating your way through life. And probably the biggest thing that it makes me feel that it might be, that is when you wake up, you feel exhausted. That was probably one of the key things for me as well. And then I went down this path of wearing an aura ring. I wanted, what's my heart rate variability? What's my resting heart rate? Am I snoring? All of this stuff to getting an eight sleep and controlling temperature and getting feedback on how much I'm rolling around and how much REM I'm getting in deep sleep. And all of this stuff, you know, all those metrics are great. I actually found, though, sometimes you can almost become, like, addicted to the number you're seeing in the morning. And sometimes the number doesn't match how you feel, and then you're in this really weird space, like, I feel like shit, but this number says I should feel amazing, and I don't. So how accurate is this thing? And I think the answer to that is it's a blend. These numbers are great. They're great guidelines. They don't have to be rules so you can get super nerdy and all that stuff. And I did, and I was still feeling exhausted. So. And that's when I went and got my blood and hormones checked. And it's been helpful, but it's not magic. I still have my days. If I do too much, if I focus too much, if I let other areas slide, I can go right back into feeling like how I used to, which would be burned out a little bit. And then you got to take a holistic look back at like, what am I doing? How do I fix this? Sleep is a huge one. The lack of sleep. I almost don't even know what you can do if you are not sleeping well, if you're not recovering, just go on Google and just look at the consequences of poor sleep habits and sleep deprivation. You don't need me to tell you, just go spend as much time as you want to. There. The absence of a goal. I mean, again, I think I already covered that. Light a spark for yourself. But please try to do it outside of the profession of law enforcement. I think the key to staying young, to staying engaged, to staying energetic, is constantly trying to learn new things. And it doesn't have to be physical in nature. You don't have to go climb Mount Everest. You might get yourself. You might nerd out on chess or checkers or my dad Sudoku, which I still don't understand, but he buys these sudoku books or crossword puzzles or going for walks or getting into jiu jitsu or getting into target shooting or hunting. I mean like fill in the blank. Competitive crochet, whatever you might be into, get into it. I'm telling you, that spark is there. And I have found if you can light a fire somewhere else, sometimes it hops over and your cup is more full, even though you're spending more time. And that time you might have used to spent sitting on the couch, like, how is this possible? I'm doing more but feeling better. It's because you're more engaged. So that's what I would suggest. And then also reach back out when you get your blood work done and let me know. I can at least talk you through my experience. I can do that offline via email and give you some suggestions or pointers based off of that. So that's all I got for question one. Question number two. Touches on law enforcement here a little bit, but it's definitely a different question. Hey, Andy, Love the show and I've watched it for many years. My name is redacted. Their name isn't actually redacted. I said that. I reminded myself to say that because their name is right here and I want people to be able to send things in anonymously and know that I'm not going to dox them for lack of a better term. 26 years old I'm married and I'm gay and I'm currently stuck and have wanted to join the military my whole life. Due to me being 26, I'm on the older end of the typical recruitment age at work. There are three individuals in total who know that I am gay and are people I feel I can trust. This is by design because being gay is not my entire identity. I'm also pretty masculine and people who are told are often shocked. I'm in a leadership position currently and I don't want that to be an obstacle because of perception or stereotype that people may have and question my leadership abilities or my strengths as a person and a leader. As a police officer, I guess I have several fears such as my age, sexuality and current career. Due to these fears, it has put me in a place in my life where I've allowed myself to get complacent or make excuses which have prevented me from doing many things. This being the one regret, the one I regret the most and think about often I think that you're talking about joining the military. I don't want to be a police officer forever. I have been for five years now. But I also can't shake the feeling of regret not even having tried at this particular dream. I got lost in a cycle of work and sleep routine which we just talked about that on the previous question. I try not to compare myself to others, but I grew up in a family who have served in the military and many of who wrote me out of their life or treated me drastically differently after coming out. The feeling of longing for unfinished business that is joining the military. I'm curious if this was something you have experienced dealing with and being an instructor, if at all. If so, what should I expect and if being older as a new recruit is wise choice. Once again, I appreciate the time and wish you nothing but success. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Where should we enter into this one? Let's talk about your age. 26. Is that a little bit old for somebody to join the military? Yes, and each branch is going to have their own maximum age. I don't even have a clue what it is, even though I think we've looked it up on episodes before. 26, I think you're still within the wheelhouse for all of the military branches and there are some pros and cons for sure. We'll use boot camp as an example. Is your experience in boot camp, regardless of the service that you choose, going to be different than a 17 or 18 year old kid? Oh yeah. Are you gonna think a lot of the things that you do there are laughable? Yes. Are you gonna feel like you are babysitting children a lot of the time? Oh yes, you are. And that's okay. You're actually gonna fall naturally into a leadership role in any branch you go into specifically in boot camp because of your experience in life. So what's gonna seem hard to a 17 or 18 year old is gonna seem laughable to you. What's going to seem critical to a 17 or 18 year old, you're going to have a better context on that. The drill instructors will probably treat you a little bit differently. Maybe not directly in front of everybody else in that mixed company, but you can imagine or I would suspect, and this goes back to my time as being a BUDS instructor. When you want to influence the class, there's a couple ways you can do it. You could yell at the entire class, you could bring the whole class in, you could punish them, you could remediate, you could try to teach them, or you could sit back and identify the people in the class who are influential amongst their own peer group and then dedicate some time to working directly with them and allow them to use that influence that they have already developed amongst their peers to influence the entire class. There are no right or wrong answers in how you do that. But just like every tool, some or are more well suited for the end state, some can get you there faster. So as an instructor I was always interested in trying to figure out who inside of each one of the classes had the influence. And sometimes it was the senior leaders, but not always. Sometimes it was the older person. If you're just wanting to join the military and have the military experience, I don't think going in at 26 years old is going to negatively impact you. I think it will very positively impact you actually because of the life experience that you bring with you. If you wanted to go into a special operation pipeline at some age, the math is going to slowly start to trend against you just because of the physiology required and the physical nature of those selection process processes. Process I whatever the correct word would be. But statistics are just that, you know, they are accurate often. But just because you are a little bit older in the stats say you have a slightly less statistical likelihood of being successful doesn't mean that you necessarily will be because they're accurate sometimes and not accurate others. They're a broad representation of everybody that tries. I wouldn't wait too long if you want to go down a special operations pipeline. Only because the jobs are very physically taxing in nature and physically demanding even after you get through the selection course. So make sure you have some in the tank. But I actually think your odds of graduating a difficult course like those guys.
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So when they are presented with a physical challenge that they feel is overwhelming because they don't have the mental reps and to work their way through it or have developed this internal architecture and infrastructure and how to control their thoughts, they may end up quitting on something they'll regret for the rest of their life. And you may look at the same issue and realize you can work your way through it without very much difficulty because of your previous experience in life. So I think there are more net positives at your age than negatives. As for the people that wrote you off in your life because you came out as gay and the only thing I can say about that is fuck them. That sucks. And you Might want to consider that your life is better not having those people in your life. I want people to live their most expressive, fulfilling life as long as they are not preying upon other people. I am largely okay with everybody living their life in the way that they see fit. I'm not going to say I have an immense social circle of people that are gay, but I know enough gay people to know that it's. It's not an act. They. It's not a choice that they are making. They are who they are. And who am I to tell somebody how to live their life? And especially a family member that doesn't want to accept you because of who you are. And again, if you were driving around in an ice cream truck with the music playing and free puppies painted on the side, trying to lure children into a van down by the river, we're gonna have a different conversation. If you're trying to be true to yourself and who you are and live your best life, I don't know what to say about those people other than I think you are probably better off not having to deal with them and the judgment that comes with that. Now, I'll close with this. And this ties into something that you said here. Let me see if I can find it first. Oh, okay, here we go. This is by design because. Oh, you said it worked. There are three individuals who know because they're people you can trust. This is by design because being gay is not my entire identity. I think that's excellent. I don't think anything should be anybody's entire identity. But I will say this. I'm almost positive that the subject line in the email, the first thing that I saw said gay in the military. And my advice to you would be this. Flip that on its head. You want to go into the military and you're gay, Right? And that sounds weird to say. My point in saying that is make your sexual orientation secondary. Be in the military. Focus on being in the military. The service that comes with the military, the roles and responsibility that comes with that military, the sexual orientation comes after that. Just like you're doing with law enforcement. Do the same thing in the military. I don't think you are going to find anybody that cares if you are a solid performer, if you are somebody who lives up to and exceeds the standard, if you have integrity, if you define the. The moral values of the uniform, you know, core values of the Navy, or honor, courage and commitment in the Marine Corps and the Air Force and the army and Space Force. They all have their own And I'm not an expert on that. So I can't, you know, talk about their core values. But if you live up to the core values of the branch of service that you choose to go into and you perform, and when things need to be done, people are looking for you to be involved in the team that accomplished that or to lead the team that accomplishes that because of your performance. That's all that matters. That has been my experience, at least. I can't say that I open that I served with somebody as a SEAL that was openly gay. I would have to statistically imagine that I did serve with somebody who was gay and didn't bring it up to their peers. And I can understand why they didn't. It's man, you want to talk about a piranha tank of a community where a drop of blood could create a freeding. Freeding frenzy, feeding frenzy. I got the words correctly in order. I get it. I understand why they may have necessarily been hesitant, but I can only speak for myself. I don't know how other people would have reacted. I don't give a shit. If you meet the standard and I can rely on you and you perform, I could care less. There are plenty of heterosexual service members whose personal lives are an absolute nightmare that have negative consequences to their professional life. It is not as if sexual orientation determines trajectory in the military. It can completely derail it. But I could give you chapter and verse of examples where, you know, we're only a, you know, we can only have heterosexual people doing this job. And I'm like, okay, this particular individual over here is on their third marriage. Every trip that we're on, on the road, they're banging just about everything that they can get their hands on. They're an absolute nightmare. The issues with their spouse and children are spilling over into the work environment because the spouse is calling the command all the way up to the commanding officer. And, oh, by the way, I'm combining a few people in my head and of course I'm not going to name them. Every single one of these things that I've talked about is 100% true, and I've seen it happen. So my advice to them would actually be the same thing, but like, hey, maybe focus on the things that are going to make you good at this job and lead with that identity and that. And again, that's. That's the advice that I would give you. I don't think anybody is going to really care, especially if you are crushing your job, because that's actually what matters. Just leave it as a secondary identity, which it sounds like you've already done anyway on your current job, treat it exactly the same way. And perhaps the subject matter of the email, maybe I'm reading into that a little bit too much. And you wrote that so I would get my eyes on it, which I did, which led me to your email, which led me to be sitting here answering this question. But that's the biggest piece of advice. Don't lead with it. Perform. Nobody's gonna give a shit. And I find that to be true of almost every job, even outside of the military as well. All that other stuff, it's very secondary unless you make it your primary identity and you force other people to view you through that lens first and foremost above anything else. That's where things get off the tracks real fast. If you don't do that, I'm struggling to find an example of where that leads to trouble. But I got plenty of examples of where the opposite really does. And that's all I got for question number two, other than to say if you're going to do it, do it before you're 30 and research the age requirements for each branch. I think you're fine at 26, but you know winter's coming to a degree on your age, so do before 30. That'd be my advice. Today's episode is brought to you by Peak. If you've been a fan of the show for this year, you've heard me talking about this. This is tea. Not something that I'm probably generally associated with actually, and not something I drank. Until I started working with this brand, I wasn't really interested. They sent me a broad selection and it was fantastic. I like the taste, I like what it targeted and I like how it made me feel. So it's in addition to my coffee. Don't worry, I still drink coffee this holiday. While others are chasing the rush and find your sense of calm with Peak. 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And you don't have to worry about purity and potency because Peak Pu Erh tea is sourced from 250-year-old trees in untouched forests, making it one of the rarest and most nutrient dense in the world. Like I said, I've been using this stuff. I love this stuff. Feel the holiday magic and unlock your healthiest glow with the most exciting offer of the season. 20% off site wide for life plus a complimentary exclusive holiday bundle. Go to peaklife.com ClearedHot that is P I Q U E. That's Papa India Quebec Uniform echolife.com ClearedHot Try it and glow up from the inside out. Back to the show. All right, Question three Shifting gears here. Howdy. Howdy. Our mom is currently dealing with some eyesight issues. Those issues, of course, I just. There we go. Come back here. Those issues have been with us for three years, ever since they botched surgery on her eye. The doctor did one eye and then retired from surgery. In parentheses. He's in his 50s. I don't know what to take from that particular sentence because people retire at a variety of different ages for a variety of different reasons. Maybe he retired because he was a really poor surgeon. Maybe the numbers were not tallying up in his favor. Maybe he did that to avoid a lawsuit of malpractice, whatever it may be. Or maybe he had other things going on in his life. Maybe he came from a family of money. Maybe his significant other came from money. Maybe he just didn't need to or want to work anymore. Maybe he got tired of dealing with insurance companies. Fill in the blank. People retire for a variety of reasons, so don't make a leap in logic just because he retired shortly after your mother's first eye surgery was done. They could be related, but they could have no relation at all. Next we were referred to a doctor in the same office and she refused to do the surgery. My mom originally just had high eye pressure from glaucoma and now after the surgery she is 95% blind. Blind in one eye. I don't know what to do. My mom is turning 70 soon it seems. If my brother and I don't go to every appointment or we Slack off for a few years, someone tries to take advantage of our sweet ma and pa. What advice or thoughts do you have? Balancing parents health, making sure they are in good hands, and not calling out of work to go with them to each appointment. How do I balance this? Well, medicine, doctors are. It's a community comprised of individuals. I have had fantastic experiences with doctors and I have had horrible experiences with doctors. I don't think I've encountered a doctor yet that was like, had malicious intent and was carving people up or, you know, like killing people in an emergency room to try to like live out one of their fantasies. But there's a, there's a bell curve for every occupation. There are people who are at the peak and there are people who have fallen off on both sides. And every community has their top performers and every community has their lowest performers as well. And when it comes to medicine, or actually, I guess just in general life, I hope that most people encounter those at the top of their game, not at the bottom. So it's variable. And I have found that the vast, vast, vast majority of doctors get into it for the right reasons. The Hippocratic oath, first, do no harm. They want to help people, they're passionate about what they do, but they are also just people. They are not perfect. Doctors make mistakes. It happens. Guess what? Every occupation makes mistakes. If you can find for me an occupation that doesn't make mistakes, even from those who are the most well intentioned, the most well trained, I would love to hear it because it happens and it sucks if that happens to you. But that doesn't mean that the doctor is evil and it doesn't mean that doctors are evil or the whatever. You found a poor tax professional that took advantage of you. That doesn't mean that all people are like that. Right. Like I get it. So I think the best approach that you can have is this. Be very proactive in your healthcare journey and in also your parents. Yes. Is it inconvenient to call out of work to go with them to each appointment? It is. And they did that for you probably until you graduated high school and left the nest. And at some point in time, and I have ex. I'm not going to say I've fully experienced this, but I've had this realization. I look back now, I mean, I'm the age my father was when I was my age to my father. Does that make sense at all? Yeah. When he was almost 50, I was in my early 20s. So I'm seeing, and I remember what it was like then. It went from completely reliant on my parents to finding myself getting some wind underneath my own wings, launching out of the necks, out of the nest, thinking I had the answer to everything, doing everything on my own. Sporadic interaction with my parents. Because I was off living my life right, my experience was of the utmost importance. Slowing down a little bit, having kids of my own, dedicating the time, energy and effort to that, going to these appointments, making sure that they have what they need above everything else. All of those things that go with that. Watching your parents start to age, see them decline in some of their capacities, seeing them need a little bit more help, having them start to ask you for advice about the world that is changing around them faster than they can compute it.
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Advice, spending some more time getting a little bit more involved in their journey as they are coming over the top of the bell curve of life. Not that it's going to, like, rapidly drop off, but it's going to happen to us all. And it's wild to see and feel that in my own life. I want to be more involved in my. I'm speaking now specifically on medical stuff. I want to be more involved because I want to be able to advocate for my dad. My dad is my only parent Left. My mother died from cancer in 2010. And I want to be involved. I want to be able to be an advocate for my dad, just like my mom and dad were advocates for me. Now I have more access, just given the Internet to information readily than they did at my, you know, in my younger years, those years where I was completely reliant upon them for medical decisions. But at least it's a conversation. And I want to go with my dad to support him in those things just so he knows that he's not alone. So you don't have to sit in a waiting room by yourself. Can it be a pain in the ass? Yeah. Will you regret doing it, though, if something happens or if you had the opportunity to be there and you weren't? Are you going to look back on regret at that choice that you made because you might have had to call out from work? I think you will. And I hate regret, of which I have plenty, by the way. I have never met somebody who hasn't regretted something in their life or wished to make a decision that they could have changed or done something better. Even those who are the most successful people that I know, they still have things that they would do differently in their life, which I think is amazing and essential. The constant desire and drive to be a better version of yourself. So regret doesn't have to be negative. It can be in a very powerful motivational force and lever. And I hate it. I hate the thought of regret. I hate the things that I do regret in my life for my lapses and behavior and decorum from when I was younger. Not that I'm. I'm hidden from them now as I get a little bit older. I do try to learn from them, though, more rapidly. Point being, get involved. If you're not getting the answer that you want from the doctor or you don't think that the doctor is listening to your input or questions, find another doctor. Where I live in Kalispell, Montana. It's rural. There's a hospital here. There's a hospital in Missoula. There's one in Great Falls. There's one in Helena. We have life fly here if we need it. The point being being it's not a one choice or one person end all be all that we have to go to for medical treatment. Now. There are certainly some places where it can be more remote and you're going to have left less choices. There are still solutions for that, I believe, in the. In the modern era. But if you have choices, make the best choice that you have. Find A doctor that is equally as invested in your mom's journey as you guys are. I don't know much about glaucoma. I don't know about the pressure behind the eye. I don't know if what you are finding is repairable, I guess, the 95% pressure. But I would say throw yourself into your mom's shoes. If the roles were reversed and you were struggling with your vision and 95% blind and needed additional surgery, would you want an advocate on your side? Would you want somebody asking questions, doing some research on their own? Hell, yeah. You would. So be that person for your mom. You only get one mom and dad. Work hard for them. They worked really hard for you. And anybody who has kids should have some level of understanding and respect for the amount of work that other people put into you, specifically your mom and dad, to help you get to the place where you're at today. Not all parents is created equal. I get that. And some parents are absolute bags of trash that are lit on fire in a toxic waste dump. And if you're a child of one of those parents, I'm sorry, but I bet you still have a lot of role models in your life. Positive and negative lessons can be learned from both. Be that for somebody else, but focus. Let's be the positive role model, not the negative one. So take the time off from work that you can and don't let your parents give up. My dad is 78. He'll be 79 here next month. He's got some lingering medical issues as everybody's going to, as they approach their eighth decade. Some of them he pushes off a little bit, which I get. Nobody wants to get surgery, I think, ever. He's got a potential shoulder surgery coming up. They actually were getting ready to put him under and he had a heart regularity. I believe it was called an arrhythmia. So they stopped from putting him under to get the heart checked out. That's all cleared itself now. I don't know if it was an arrhythmia, afib, I don't know. It started with an A. Something involved started with an A. And so that's sorted. So then he can go back into surgery, all of those things. But, you know, he's not super pumped about it. And I totally get that because at the age of 79, a six to nine month recovery is sucks. I mean, that sucks regardless of what age that you're in. So he'll need help in that time. But, you know, you could help him before you could Help him during. You can help him active or after. Just be active, be present. Be the best version of yourself that you can be, and don't give up. I know it can get frustrating and this is a conversation I have with myself too, because my dad can get a little frustrating at times because he's old and he does crazy stuff and he's stubborn. I don't know. I'm not stubborn at all. So he definitely is. But the apple didn't fall off the tree at all. He just ate them all. So he's the only stubborn person in the Stump family. And I get it. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna stop. So I'll go to the appointments that I can. I'm going to stay on top of them, educate myself about the procedure, the rehab, all that stuff. Set stuff up, whether it's in home care, afterwards meals, fill in the blank. So balance it to the best of your ability. No right or wrong answer. I'm not going to say it's an 80 20, but anytime you feel like you don't know whether or not you want to do it, just reverse the roles and ask yourself, what would your parents have done for you? I bet you figure out that they would have done it for you and that you should probably go do it for them as well. That's all I got for question three. All right, question four. Switching gears to tactical a little bit. I'm going to keep this one quick for the sake of time. I. Let me see here. As previously mentioned, I am from the UK. My career path has been military, into being an EMT, now into the police. I've just completed a 14 week course to become an armed police officer. In parentheses, that's abbreviated arvo. I can only liken this to SWAT potentially where we are trained in cqb, which stands for close quarters battle vehicle tactics, et cetera. The course itself was very intense. I was dealing with a nine month old at home and my partner is also police. Went back to work working shifts after finishing maternity leave during the first few weeks, which made some of the days incredibly long. I get it. There were evolutions I had to repeat probably more than the others on the course. But ultimately, out of the 15 that started the course, I was one of the eight that completed and passed. A very proud achievement for me. You should be very proud. Congratulations on that accomplishment. Have a feeling now though that I'm on an actual team of being an imposter. We're talking about imposter syndrome here. I'm around guys who have done this for years and years and feel that at a time when my confidence should be high after passing the course, it has taken a massive dip. You don't want to be the new guy. That is shit. We don't get to train CQB and such other tactics as often as you would think. So this skill set drops off as we are not using this every day. I just wondered if this was a normal feeling when moving onto these types of special teams that you found in your experience. Not necessarily law enforcement, but after you passed SEALs training and went to the teams, how did you find it to be? I already know I'm a warrior and I get nervous about what others think of my ability. I've only noticed this gets worse as I have gotten older. Currently 33. As in my military days, it was not something I struggle with. Perhaps I've become more aware of the world and value others opinions of myself more than I once did did. However, this sometimes seems to be more of a hindrance. I don't have time to write down my entire life story for you, but life experience and opinions may provide some assurance going forward. Okay, I never once felt like I was not an imposter. I still have I have imposter syndrome to this day, to a degree I'm not saying crushing anxiety. I'm like oh my God, I'm not going to be able to be good enough on everything that I do. The coffee shop. I have no idea what I am doing. It's the first time I've ever had a brick and mortar business. I'm figuring it out every day. Some days I feel more confident than others. Some days I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. The podcast Do I have enough to keep growing this thing? Do I know enough? Do I have the ability to do so? Am I confident enough in myself and in my own personality to be myself, to express myself, even intense conversations or into to to put myself out there in my true thoughts onto the Internet for random people I'll ever never know to tear me apart if they don't like me? It's a tough one. Am I good enough to do that? Am I secure enough in myself to do that Jiu jitsu? Do I actually feel like a jiu Jitsu black belt? No. Do I feel like I am an expert in the knowledge and the techniques? No. Why? Because I'm surrounded by other people who are so much better than I am from maybe a knowledge perspective, a technique perspective, the application perspective. All of those things that yeah, it constantly makes me question myself. But I think that's a good thing because for me, that lights a fire and makes me want to work harder. I actually think that a healthy dose of imposter syndrome is a good thing. If it goes to the point where it crushes you and you or you cannot get out of your own head, that's too much. But if it gets you to put in the extra time to do an extra rep, to go to an additional course in your off time, to continuously polish the blade and sharpen the blade, metaphorically, obviously, then I think that's great. In my old job in the military, I never did not feel to some degree like an imposter. And so what did that make me do? More range time, more time on the gun, more time reading, more time getting reps on whatever it is that we were doing. This constant desire to be a little bit better. Why? Because I had this small percentage. Not a massive percentage, but small percentage of doubt. Did I know enough? Was I good enough? Am I good enough? How do I quiet that voice? By putting in the work. And that's what you need to do. The feeling of being an imposter, I assure you, will decrease after you get some real world reps underneath your belt. But be cautious for it completely disappearing, because I actually think that's a bad thing. For anybody that's at a place in their career where you think you know it all or that you have arrived and that you have nothing left to learn, my advice to you would be immediately find a new career because you're probably at the most dangerous point in your current occupation. You are lying to yourself if you think you know it all. The real world is getting ready to just uppercut you right in the sack. Just bam. Marvel superhero landing, where you're like on the ground and then gah, right in the balls. Which is not awesome for women. I don't know the metaphor for that, so you guys can fill in the blank on that one. But imposter syndrome is good. Crushing anxiety and imposter syndrome, where you're afraid to take any action. Not good on the CQB front. Just food for thought. Yes, you probably don't get to go to a kill house or a shoot house often and practice this skill set. But where do you live? Do you live in an apartment? Do you live in a house? Do you live in a neighborhood? I still to this day work tactical problems in my mind. I'm in a podcast studio right now. I have cleared this thing and I'm not talking about like getting weapons out and pieing corners and all of that stuff, even though from time to time I will do that. But there's a hallway outside here. There's this. The door that you guys can't see goes out and it goes off into a T hallway. And there's ways you can clear that on your own. There's ways that you can clear that with two people cross coverage and barrel waves and looking down the other direction. Then there's open doors and closed doors and then there's a stairway. How do you wrap the stairway while you're still holding long and all these other things. I am not even in the tactical world anymore, but sometimes I still, because I enjoy it, I will walk through and I'm here oftentimes at the studio at hours where a lot of people aren't here or in the building, I'll walk through it. And I'm not talking about doing like a kill house run, but I'll just think about what it is that I would do, how I would solve that tactical problem. And you have access to that as well. Every building you go into on shift you can look at from a tactical perspective. So yes, your reps in a shoot house might be low. Your opportunity to think tactically is incredibly high. So utilize that. And that is all I have for this Friday. See you on Monday.