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Good morning everybody. How awesome is it that it's Friday, the week is over. Hopefully everybody out there listening to this kicked the week right in the dick. Now, for some of you, you might have been the one receiving the kick, but that's okay because the week is going to be over. You're going to get into the weekend. Hopefully you get some time to chill out. By the time you all are listening to this, I'm actually going to be traveling with my wife and kids. A vacation. Well, not really vacation, a jiu jitsu trip. It's a vacation jiu jitsu trip with all of the kids. Been looking to it for months. So that's what I'm gonna be easing my way into when this thing comes out. Traditional Q and A for today probably would have done something with Michael, but if you're a fan of the podcast, you know he's over in Ireland or the UK somewhere doing anything other than talking to women of his age, probably taking pictures of architecture and studying the genealogy of cats in the region. But whatever, you know, live your life however you want to live your life. I think I have four questions for today, a little bit all over the place. I think I picked one that's, you know, aligned with my deep specialty, which is relationship advice. Hopefully you can hear the sarcasm in that. But let's just get into it. Before we do, though, give me, give me a minute, maybe two minutes to pay the bills. This is how I bring the show to everybody for free. This episode is brought to you by Helix. As I have said before, this is likely the easiest ad read that I will ever do because I have been sleeping on these mattresses for close to a decade. As I mentioned earlier in the show, I'm on the road with my wife and family right now. We're staying at a place that we have stayed at before. The mattress there isn't bad, but every time, not on just this trip. When we're over in Costa Rica, but anytime I am traveling around with my wife, we have conversations about how much we can't wait to get home because we've never had better sleep than we do in our own house. And in my house there are three Helix mattresses. It's a townhouse. Not to church it up and make it sound like something that it's not. When we rented the townhouse zero beds. I was not doing any advertising with Helix at the time, but I had experience with the mattress so I just went on and bought full retail 3 mat for the townhouse. My children sleep on them, my wife and I sleep on them. They are unbelievable. The best sleep I've ever had. It is so easy to figure out what mattress you might want as well because if you go to helixsleep.com clearedhot I'll get to the call to action at the end. But if you were to do that, they have a sleep quiz right there and it will ask you do you sleep hot, do you sleep cold, do you sleep on your side, your stomach, your back, whatever you might want, firm or softer. All of these things. And to include mattresses for people who are a little bit heavier than others. Super easy. Every time I go through that, it has landed on me on the midnight luxe that is what my wife and I sleep on. The single best sleep I've ever had. These mattresses are fantastic. It's going to show up delivered to your house in a box that you're not going to believe a mattress could fit in. It is shrunk down and tightly compressed. Be careful opening these things. They they're not going to like snap out and bite you, but they open and they're going to go to a normal size of a mattress. I'm telling you, you're going to be shocked by the size of the box that shows up in at your house. Very dense, very heavy. Have a friend help you move it into the bedroom and also only unbox this where you're actually going to put it on the bed itself. I'm telling you it I cannot recommend these mattresses enough for the listeners. Head over to helixsleep.com clearedhot right now. During this time period you are going to get 27% off site wide plus a free bedding bundle which is a sheet set and mattress protector with any luxe or elite mattress order that is helixsleep.com cleared hot for 20% off site wide free bedding bundle with any luxe or elite mattress order that is helixsleep.com cleared hot. It's right down in the show notes. Go get some. Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north or south west of the smok smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, wait a minute, baby. Give it to me. I mean it. All right, we are off and running. Q and A. Here we go. Question one. Andy, you often mentioned that size and strength are very real when it comes to Jiu jitsu and that Jiu Jitsu is not magic. That is very true. I repeat both of those things quite often and I stand behind those statements. Recently, while sitting with a coworker eating dinner and watching UFC on TV, I jokingly commented that the ladies weighing in at 115 pounds could whoop up on my 150 pound male coworker. He, being an extremely confident 21 year old, is absolutely certain that being a male and 6 foot 3 tall would give him the size and reach advantage to dominate a professional fighter of the opposite sex. I offered, of course, to find someone willing to get in the ring with him and he said he wouldn't hit a girl. What are your thoughts? Size and strength are real, but so is training. For context, this guy did not play any sports growing up or come from an athletic background. He believes his height is enough. I'm skeptical. Maybe Leah could provide some insight as well. Well, I apologize, Leah isn't here, but here's what she would say verbatim, word for word, that she would fuck this dude up and that those professional fighters would just beat the living shit out of him. Now she wouldn't say any of those things because she has way better control over what comes out of her mouth and she's a super kind, empathetic person and she probably would try to figure out a way to phrase this with softer edges and try to motivate the dude to get into the gym. So, you know, everything that I just said that I said, Leah would say, I'm just, I'm joking. And hopefully she doesn't listen to this particular show because she might be mad at me for saying what I said and what she might say. But I'll work through that if I need to. Your friend, I love this. He believes that height is enough. Well, maybe if you're changing light bulbs or if you do painting and it's your job to get up into the corner or you work in an apple orchard. Even though I think most apples at this point are probably picked autonomously. Sure. Height. Height is real. There is the black bat down in Missoula, his name is Gus. He is an absolute pain in the ass. He's not 6 3, though. I think he's probably 6 6, if not 6 7. And he presents angular issues, let alone his technique is spectacular, by the way. Pressure. All of the things that make him a very, very extremely proficient black belt, all of those things exist too. But in addition to that, his height presents him the opportunity to do things that people with different sized lever arms are not able to do. But if he didn't have well over 10 years of training underneath his belt, it doesn't matter how tall he would be because he wouldn't know how to use those things to his advantage. He would just be a really tall dude walking around. And I do love the fact I get this, I've been this person, not that I've ever been six three. I've topped out at six foot for my entire life. Especially at 21. What's gonna happen? I'm gonna be a game time player. I'm tall. Maybe this guy thinks he would just palm somebody and put it on the head of one of these female fighters. What I will say is this, if you are talking about any one of the fighters that was actually on the card in the ufc, they would absolutely fuck start his life. He might think he's tall. That's great. I would love to see this individual absorb just a few leg kicks from even one of those 115 pound women. I've talked with male black belts, proficient, highly proficient male black belts and coaches that have had the opportunity to train with and roll with some of these female UFC fighters and their descript, you know, jiu jitsu wise again, size, strength is real. But we're talking about trained versus trained at this point, when you start talking about things in addition to that jiu jitsu, whether it's the cardio, the timing, the striking, the head movement, the kicks, distance management, all of that stuff, all of these guys are like, holy shit. These people are on a completely different playing field and level. Your buddy would have absolutely no fucking idea. The whirling dervish that he would be into the ring with, he'd be getting his leg, his big old bony ass legs. And that's. And I say that because if you're 63 and 150. I was 6 foot tall and 150 when I started buds and I was a bean pole. Stretch me out 3 more inches. Like I know who we're talking about here. This, he might get his leg karate kicked in half. You know, distance management is A learned skill. Just because he has these long arms doesn't mean that he would be able to do anything with those arms and legs to keep somebody away. And I get. I totally, totally get. Because I am in the same boat. I would never hit a woman either. But if this man got into a ring and his face just started getting ripped off by this person, he might change his thought, at least about trying to protect himself and fight back. These athletes are insane. So let's take it out of the UFC realm, because if he got into the ring with any level of professional fighter, he is so fucked. I mean, I was trying to find a lighter word, but that is the actual technical term for what would happen if you stepped into the ring. As an untrained. I don't care how tall you are, person, you're done. You're coming out of there black and blue at best. And it wouldn't be because of anything that you did. It would be because that other person, that woman, was taking it easy on you. So let's strip this out of the UFC for a second and maybe just talk about. Since you brought up, and you mentioned Jiu jitsu, which I don't believe is magic, size is real. The people that I noticed that say, hey, you know, size doesn't really matter. They're all big. Let me tell you what little people say. Big people suck when it comes to a size and weight advantage because they're on the other side of that. They're constantly forced to defend against that. They're being laid on. They can't get out. There's an excessive amount of force and weight. And what sucks for them even more, I have to imagine, is that they can feel that level of weight and pressure put on them, but there's no way that they can really apply it back to people unless they're way smaller that. Unless their opponent is way smaller than them. If you're on the smaller side, I mean, there's. I don't know of a lot of hobbits and midgets doing jiu jitsu, but at some point in time, you're just on the, you know, you're on the. The unfortunate side of the equation. You're just smaller. It is what it is. But the only people I hear saying size doesn't matter are big people. I've never heard a little person say that just for clarity. And not. I don't mean little people, like dwarf. I mean people who are like 5, 8 to 5, 10, 150 pounds, 6, 3. I would say that Against a female Jiu Jitsu competitor, not practitioner, would your size be able to like if it was a white belt, you could probably freak out at a blue belt level. A female blue belt is going to start giving that man a hard time. And my non professional personal opinion on this is that if you got tangled up with this person, your friend got tangled up with your run of the mill trains a couple days per week, but is actively training, cares about technique, is refining their technique. Female purple belt. He's done. That's it, done. Push and extend your arms all you want to. Let me know how that works out for you. You're gonna, these women, they're gonna take your back, they're gonna choke your face off. And I'm here for it, I support it. And honestly, I think if you could actually find somebody to test run this with your friend, it will be the wake up call that he needs. Because men at the age of 21 think we walk around in Superman capes and that you're gonna see red and you're just go all this stuff together. When life presents you with a violent situation and you won't if this guy gets humbled at 21. I can't even fathom starting Jiu Jitsu at 21. And again, it's not magic. So you should do boxing, you should do Muay Thai, go find wrestling. I don't know what that would look like. If there's like wrestling clubs for people who are 21, I don't know the answer to that one. But grappling, whatever it is, go do all of that stuff. I found this stuff when I was 40, I think 41, it's ridiculous. I watch these young people finding this and their trajectory and flexibility and strength and cardio. Super jealous. I wish I had found it at that time. The only way this guy is going to have that awakening is if he is made to feel helpless, repetitively held down by somebody he doesn't think should be able to hold them down. Female purple belt. Let him go pound For £, find £150. Female Purple belt. Let him get his ass whipped, because that's what's going to happen. And then he'll have the opportunity to do something about it, or sit in a bar, watch UFC and keep telling you how much of a badass he is. So that's what I think. I don't think height is enough. And if this happens, please videotape this, send it to me and I will put it on an episode of the show. Because fuck it, why not? That's all I have for question number one. Question number two, diving back into the jumping world. No pun intended. I was recently in Twin Falls, Idaho and watched some folks BASE jump off the Perrine Bridge. Very interesting to watch. It got me thinking about skydiving and all of that stuff. I did the static line thing in the army and I really enjoyed it. Tried skydiving first AFF tandem or first an AFF jump and the tandem two and it just wasn't very enjoyable for me, which is not uncommon. It sticks with some people. Some people really dig it. Others have a slightly allergic reaction to it. It is just is what it is. I'm not sure if you've discussed this before, but what was your progression from static line mil guy into skydiving, then into mff, then base and then into wingsuiting? Each one of those steps in progression after static line seems like it would have been a particularly steep learning curve. Wingsuit flying seems so unobtainable for the average person because how do you learn without doing it? And that first time might not end well. I was an absolute colostomy bag on my first AFF jump. I've never heard a jump or a jumper described that way. I might have to put that one into the old Rolodex. But at the end it was fine because there were two instructors there to keep me stable and once my shoot was deployed it was all pretty mundane. What was your first wing suit like and how did you get there? Would be very cool to hear your journey. I enjoy your show and I got a chance to visit the coffee shop in Kalispell this past summer. Super cool. Saw your recent YouTube with the helicopter. Great looking machine. Okay, I clipped off. I meant to cliff up. Only the question how did I get into each one of the genres of you will or if you will. So I did start. My first jump out of an airplane was at Fort Benning. It was a static line jump. I went through the traditional military course. Five jumps and you're off. Got sent back to team five. My first two platoons I had an OIC that really enjoyed air week or air weeks, which is, you know, the 18 month workup is broken up into weeks with jumping, diving over the horizon, over the beach, rain time, all of those things. So they really liked air operations and of course they did because they were free fall qualified. So we would static line. We would go dedicate entire weeks, plural sometimes to this. We would go out there and yeah, I'm sitting on the. As you're facing the forward walking onto the aircraft. I'm sitting on the left hand side, they're sitting on the right hand side. We're getting out at 1,000ft, they're getting out at 13,000ft. We're laying on the ground questioning our life's choices and wondering whether or not our femurs have exploded. And they're hooping and hollering as soon as their canopies open. High five. And talking about how badass it was. So, yeah, that sucks. And you realize that the left side of the aircraft is not the best side of the aircraft at that point in time in the community, which has changed now. You get static line and freefall on your way to getting your trident and going to your initial SEAL team, which is awesome. Everybody comes with a much higher level of capability than I did. You had to go to the military freefall course in Yuma, Arizona, with a little bit of wind tunnel time out in Fort Bragg. Limited number of slots available for Navy personnel because it was an army course. They were the. The army is the proponent for military free fall, and a lot of it had to do with how many Navy instructors were out there. So if there were only a few instructors, only a few slots. If there were more instructors, you'd get some more. But it was all based off of seniority. And I was the most junior guy, not only at my team, but at every west coast team, which were all competing for the limited slots. East coast team was doing exactly the same thing, so that wasn't an option. But there was a DZ down in San Diego. Skydive, San Diego, specifically. It was at Brownfield. Brownfield Municipal Airport is where I did my first free fall jumps, went down there. And I started on a Friday and was jumping on my own by a Sunday because the AFF course is seven or eight jumps, depending on your performance. And quite frankly, looking back on it now, the barriers to entry are not that high. You're not incredibly safe, you're not incredibly stable, but you're safe enough and stable enough that you can start your learning journey from there. So that's what I was doing on my weekends. I went and I was jumping at local drop zones. I would go up to Paris Valley, I'd go to Lake Elsinore. Those were kind of the only three that I jumped at when I was on the west Coast. I did a couple up in the Monterey area. They had used to have like a crazy 18 bucks for 18,000ft. It was pretty wild Every once in a while. I don't know if they still Offer that and you'd fly out over the Monterey Bay. It was gorgeous. Unbeknownst to me, when I started this, the military had a challenge course program where if you had enough civilian jumps, they would let you challenge the military curriculum. So it's not like I was pursuing that. A message came out. I think I had 250 jumps at the time, something like that. And the people at the command knew that I jumped. So I went out to Yuma for I think it was a week, it was probably three days of training. But some classroom challenged the military curriculum just. And so what that means is there are go no go test gates as you are going through the MFF course. You just attempt those go no go gates and you either pass or fail and you either move your way through the course and get your military free fall certification or you don't. So I went out there, passed that course, came back with my military free fall certificate, which is cool because you get a little bit more money for that too. Don't, don't, don't let your hair blow back on that. I think it might have been 50 bucks per month and kind of continued on. So I didn't do any more air training military wise until I went out to the East Coast. And there I was given the opportunity to kind of pursue the path that I wanted to. So in a very short succession, and I mean in a couple of months, I went to a static line jump master course in Virginia beach, then a free fall jump master course at the command specifically for command personnel. I went out to Arizona and I went through the AFFI course, which is the accelerated free fall instructor course, and then the MTTB course, Military tandem tether bundle course. Went back and augmented the tandem courses and became an instructor. So military tandem master instructor and then a military tandem master evaluator. Got my qualification to be able to jump videography, essentially, which is more just paperwork and making sure you have the appropriate number of jumps. But essentially I got every air qualification that I could that was available to me inside of the military. So that's where I got the vast majority of my military experience, jumping wise and then stepping into the static line jump master role and the military freefall jump master role when I came back to the West Coast. And during that time I would jump as many times as I could. I would go and teach at the basic course and take students on their first jumps, work in the wind tunnel. Beyond working in the wind tunnel, we would get extra time for instructors. So we would go jump all day and Go two hours in the wind tunnel with like three of us. It was unbelievable. So a bunch of jumping, a bunch of tunnel time, a bunch of instructing, working at all of those courses, because what's the point of going to get those skills if you don't turn back around and use those skills? Got to the west coast conventional teams, I will describe it as having they have a jump capability, but it is, I don't want to say diminished or degraded than JSOC command. I'll just say that it's different, that they're different. They're different entities in and of themselves. The mission is different. So not a whole lot of jumping. We would go back to those air operations weeks again. And thankfully this time I got to be on the right hand side of the aircraft. And it wasn't until I got out of the military that I really got to explore skydiving the way that I want to, which will lead me to the wingsuiting and all that stuff. So I'm trying to think here. I got out and I wanted to learn how to BASE jump. So I went to exactly the same place that you watch people jump. Twin Falls, Idaho. There was a woman named Bonnie who owned the gear store at Skydive San Diego. And I remembered her at some point in time talking about a man named Miles Dasher. And I believe that they used to jump at the same DZ in Tahoe. I think those details are correct. Regardless, she had an email address for him. I shot an email out into the dark. Lo and behold, he shot it back to me. We met in the parking lot of the visitor center near the Parrion Bridge. And I think I jumped off within an hour of meeting him there. Spent an entire week with him. It was just he and I packing. Jumping, you know, everything from your first jump is a pilot chute assisted jump, meaning they're actually holding on to the gear that pulls your parachute off. This is a. And this, what I'm about to describe this progression is in almost every air operations skill, whether it's static line jumping or free fall jumping or teaching other people you crawl, walk, run. So although yes, I did jump off the bridge, probably within an hour of meeting Miles, I wasn't pulling my own parachute. I essentially successfully climbed over the railing, turned around, looked out at the old Evel Knievel jump ramp, which is what he told me to look out, Counted down from three, jumped out. He held onto the pilot chute and the bridge. The canopy almost instantly came off my back. And then I'm right back into something that I understood. I had toggles that I could steer with. They're routed a little bit differently. If you let go, they're going to kind of fly off, which is not awesome. So you don't let go on a. No slider jump. But we started there, and then he started having me pack the parachutes or a portion, and then he would finish. And eventually, instead of doing a pilot chute assist, where he's holding on to your pilot chute and having it be ripped out of his hands, you are going to climb over the bridge and you're going to jump off this time and you're going to reach back and throw your own pilot shoot. Then it was. And then like instantly, like jump and throw it and then take a little bit more of a delay. You know, the Twin Falls bridge is not where you're going to take a very. A deep delay because you're going to impact in just over four seconds. Then it's, let's climb up onto the top railing, which is an emotional journey in and of itself to stand up on the top railing, which is kind of moving in your balance. It's so funny. You know, you're gonna jump off forward, but as you're. At least for me, as you're like trying to balance yourself and climb up there and get both feet underneath you, you're, like terrified you're gonna fall off. Even though you're getting ready to jump off. It's hilarious. So that stuff. And then, you know, you can build from there. He taught me how to do a gainer, you know, instead of jumping straight out, do a 90 degree turn and stand on the rail facing the edge, one of the edges of the actual valley itself, and just step off into the side, or just do that with one foot on the concrete and holding onto the rail to see if you can control your body position. Because you don't want to induce a spin, because you can't stop the spin because there is no air resistance for your body to be able to be used, like the ailerons or flaps or, you know, stabilizers for an aircraft. There's no airspeed. So if you jump off and there's a little bit of a spin, that's just what you're going to have going until you open your parachute. Progression is the point that I'm getting to. So at no point yet had I added wingsuits into the mix. But I learned how to base jump. And I was talking with Miles while I was there because I knew I wanted to win Suit BASE jump. And he was able to mentor me. And it's all about, just like the pilot shoot assist. At some point, like you mentioned, yes, you need to put a wingsuit on. But wingsuits come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some of them have very small wings, which gives you incredible maneuverability. The performance of the wingsuit isn't great because the wing is really small, but the safety margin is higher because you can move around a lot more. Bigger wingsuits can feel like a little bit of a straight jacket. I mean, your arms aren't crossed in front of you, but you have limited mobility. There's some things you can reach and some things that you can't reach. So you get yourself into a progression. You find yourself somebody who is an expert at teaching people how to go from not jumping in a wingsuit to jumping in a wingsuit. And that's what I did at Skydive. San Diego went through that course. Miles actually came down and did the vast majority of it for. Not for me, but with me. And then later on, I combine those two things. Now, I'll say this. When I did my first BASE jump, I had a couple thousand skydives already. So I understood flying a canopy. I understood variable wind conditions. I knew how to bring canopies in flying backwards. I knew how to crab. I knew how to correct for a lot of malfunctions. And that applies in the wingsuit world as well. It's not like I just wanted to skydive and said, I know what I'm going to do. I am going to just throw this wingsuit on and huck myself out of an airplane and see how it goes. I had already had cutaways. I had already had malfunctions that I could not fix, which is where the cutaways come from and ones that you can work your way through, whether it's hung slider, just line twist, things of that nature. All of that experience helps. So I wasn't at the point anymore where I was anxious about skydiving. I was anxious about wearing a wingsuit for the first time, for sure. But I understood the baseline skills required for skydiving. So combined skydiving with wingsuit jumping, working my way through different sizes in suits. And then when I was ready to combine the two, I went with Miles. He was there with me. He took me to Italy. First we went to Monte Brento, which is a very, very overhung cliff that gives you thousands of feet that you can fly. Overhung, meaning where you jump from the Terrain instead of being vertical, it actually goes back underneath your feet. So if you totally fumble and exit, it's not that you're guaranteed safety, but you have a little bit more time to sort it out. The opposite of that would be a positive exit. Whereas if you look down at your feet, the terrain is sloping and you can see the rise in the terrain in front of you. Vertical at a minimum to learn would be my suggestion. Overhung is even better. This is also kind of what makes the bridge pretty awesome. You jump off the bridge and where you jump off the light pole that you use as the exit point, it's in the middle of like one of the spans. So it's not that much. You're going to be able to impact. Even if you have 180° off heading opening of that stuff. It's as safe as you can possibly do it. So Monte Brento threw it all on there and yeah, one day went from never having wingsuit base jump to standing there with miles counting down from three. The old three, two, one, see ya, push off and maximum effort. That movie wasn't out yet, but if it had been out, I probably would be reminding myself of that and others at every exit point. Maximum effort everybody, because that's what you need. And then from there, right, still overhung. Then he took me to the Lauterbrunnen Valley and we started working on cliffs that were vertical. Sheer cliff. Thousands of feet of his sheer cliff. So as long as you got the suit flying and got away from it, you're going to be okay. And this whole time you're working on your body position, how fast you can start your suit, meaning how fast you can go from vertical to forward flight. And then you start working your way towards exits that have a little bit more consequence. Maybe it's a 5 to 6 second rock drop, meaning if you drop the rock, that's how long it takes to impact. And you need to get your suits flying horizontally away from the terrain because it's gonna start going from vertical. Maybe it takes an angle, maybe there's some talus, tree line, whatever it may be. And you have got to get your suit flying. That's progression. And then at some point you determine what your minimum start is. Like are you gonna send a three second rock drop, a four second rock drop, traveled all over Switzerland. It was amazing. There's so many cool places that you can jump and a lot of these places have different exits. The flight that you can do afterwards is different based off of where you start. But it's It's a pick your own adventure, and there's nobody putting a gun to your head saying, hey, you have to do this mandatory performance exit, meaning you either nearly instantly get your suit flying or you die. I have done some jumps that are like that. I didn't find it to be an incredibly enjoyable experience. It's visually intense for sure, as you watch the rock you're about to smash your face into at nearly terminal velocity approach you before you start getting that horizontal flight. But again, if you've noticed something in this progression or in this journey of how I started into where I finished and I put wingsuit, BASE jumping and BASE jumping away, I don't think I'll ever do it again. It was all about finding a mentor and finding somebody who could walk me through the crawl, walk, run, segment of that. Everybody, every single person will have a different velocity with which they can go through that, or a different starting point or their step between. Do you need four steps to go from crawl to walk, or do you need two? Do you need one? It's variable. That's the role of a mentor. So all of that stuff was calculated. I'm not an adrenaline junkie. I've had so many people tell me they think I'm an adrenaline junkie. People have no idea the amount of time that I think about risk and considering risk and calculating risk and mitigating risk. And people will say, well, how do you mitigate risk, base jumping? Well, you need to be really current, you need to be really competent. You need to stay inside of your boundaries. You need to know where your boundaries actually are. You need to go through a training course, and you need to constantly be assessing not only yourself, but all the other conditions. What's the wind like? What's the time of day? Is the wind coming up the face that you are about to jump and rising, or do you feel it on your back? And I've made the mistake of jumping with wind that is sinking. It's usually that's going to be happening as the temperatures shift, right? Because hot air rises, cold air descends. Let me tell you, there's no worse feeling than jumping off into a descending wind. And you feel as if somebody's light hand is just pushing on the back of your parachute as it's trying to just drive you down towards something you don't want to impact. It's pretty shitty. Try not to make those mistakes more than once. Mentors, progression, currency, competency, calculating risk, and if it gets to a place where you can't control any of those things or you don't have the time. Put it down. That's what I did. So that's how I got there. How was my first wingsuit jump? If I'm being totally honest, it was pretty benign. It was fun, but you don't feel like an F18. It feels different than your normal skydive, but the suit was smaller. It was cool to see somebody else there flying with you. It's a different visual than most skydives as the suits got higher in performance and then you start chasing clouds and you're carving around these cloud formations and doing acrobatic things. Then I was like, holy shit, this is wild. But it takes time to get there. Don't put the cart in front of the horse. Today's episode is brought to you by Sundays. If you are a dog lover, then I really like you because I like dogs. I'm just a fan of the beast. I have a dog, his name is Javelin. He is spectacular. He is the coolest little 11 1/2 pound psychopath known to man. But I will tell you this. We have struggled with food with him. He has got a fidgety digestive system and when he gets something that he doesn't like or his food sits out a little bit too much and perhaps turns out well, we know about it, we hear it, we see it, we smell it. It's not great. It's liquid in form often. 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Unlike other fresh dog food, Sundays does not require refrigeration or preparation because of their air drying process. Just pour and serve. You can cancel or pause your subscription at any time with their 14 day money back guarantee. And every order ships right to your door so you will never need to worry about running out of dog food again. If you have a dog that you love and they're going to love you back and you want to give them the best food humanly possible in the most convenient way possible, you can get 40% off of your first order of Sundays. Go to sundays4dogs.com cleared hot or use the code clearedhot at checkout that is sundays4dogs.com clearedod Back to the Show Question 3 for the past month or so I got the itch to start riding again. Did tons of research and decided on an entry level adv which is an adventure bike. Nothing crazy, 500cc, just something safe and reliable to ride around the North Fork and Logging row. So this is somebody from local to where I live. We've had a couple serious discussions about it. This is with you talking about with your wife? She oh, I believe the title of this email was Help me convince my wife to buy a motorcycle. I'll do my best. She doesn't worry about my riding or me being safe. It's the worry of all the other factors that I have zero control over, of which there are a lot, especially out on the roads. Are people gonna see you? Are they distracted? I worry less about my riding ability, especially off road. I've laid down every adv bike I've ever had cause I'll jump off the damn thing. Driving on road is. It can be scary and I'm not worried about my driving ability. My biggest fear is somebody not seeing me. So I I ride very defensively, but I also ride very aggressively and I use space. I try to give myself space as a buffer, but I am constantly, constantly on the lookout for somebody trying to accidentally kill me. I get it. And we just put the discussions on pause. I was literally a day away from buying the bike and shipping it to Columbia Falls, but then just put it on ice. I won't lie to her and go behind her back on something we haven't agreed upon. But the irresponsible asshole in me wants to. I plan on taking the msf, which is the motorcycle safety course I believe, as well as the additional safety courses that are available. But none of that matters if she can't get past the no motorcycle at all. Her compromise was to go get a side by side that scratches 20% of the itch I feel. My buddy that has a side by side seems to break them every weekend. They do break a lot, a lot of mechanical pieces. It's like a small off road vehicle. I Have a truck. So I could care less about a side by side at this point. Fuck it. I'm rambling. Any thoughts on this? Yes, I have thoughts. Here's the first one. You are the only one who I have heard say she can't get past the no motorcycle at all you said earlier she has worry about the factors you have zero control over. You get it? And we just put the discussion on pause. So she's not worried about your riding or you being safe. You're the one saying she has a no motorcycle at all policy. And again, maybe this is the limitation of this medium. Unless she has specifically said those words to you, my advice to you is this. Just sit down with her and have a conversation. I think you did 100% the correct thing by putting this on ice. And don't do it behind her back. There is no world where she would appreciate that. There is no world where that would enhance your relationship. There is no world where that's not going to have some level of resentment. Don't do that stuff. If anybody out there is listening to this and you think that you know the path forward of least resistance, well, here's what I'll do. If I just don't say anything, that's okay because I'm not lying. But you are lying. It's called lying by omission. If you have that sense in your stomach that you're doing something wrong and that somebody that you care about might get pissed off because of what it is that you're doing, don't do it. As somebody who has done that far too many times, it's never worth it. All those things that I already listed are true. They're not going to be happy. There's going to be frustration. There's going to be resentment. It's going to lead into an argument. Why? Why do that? Sit down and hear this person out. This is my suggestion directly to you. Sit down and hear this person out. If she says to you no motorcycle at all, if this is a hard pass for your wife, this is one of the things where this is her line in the sand. And regardless of the course you may take, she says no. Well, if you love her and you want to maintain a healthy relationship, this is one of those things in life where you might need to pass time for you to take up fly fishing or rafting or whatever it is, or get an electric, you know, mountain bike or a downhill bike or something like that. Because the hard no is going to be the hard no. I'm sure you have some Things where it would be a hard no for you as well. You would want those to be respected. So you're going to have to respect this. But I don't think you're at this point yet. And there are things you could talk to her about that, you know, if she's worried about stuff being on the road and you want to get an adventure bike, you know, maybe ease her into this idea and let her know that with this bike, you know, what I'll do is I'll get a trailer and I'll trailer this to the trailhead. And until you have a level of comfort in this, I'm just going to ride on single track or, you know, double track or just logging roads. Not that those are inherently more safe. There's a lot of. I mean, an animal can run out in front of you. You can come around a turn, not manage your speed well, there could be a tree that's been, you know, all these things have happened to me by the way. Tree falling down, you just lose control and, you know, and you come around a corner and there's a shadow. And in that shadow there's a little bit more moisture. Things are still frozen. Lose the tail in there. A nice little low side, which is far better than a high side if you give me those choices. I would rather not go over the bars. Having as somebody who has gone over the bars, it's not that great. I'll take the low side every time. You can talk to her about that if she's good with that and adventure biking and like, that's. You need to have a bike to scratch that itch. That might be the compromise. So find a compromise between the hard no and the hard yes to start with. Maybe she needs to see you ride responsibly with this bike in those conditions first before she develops that level of comfort. That's would be my suggestion, but be upfront. Be honest. Ask her specifically what her concerns are, and then I would tell her specifically why this means so much to you if it does. If you cannot find an alignment beyond that. There are plenty of battles in life that you're going to have to fight anyway. There are plenty of obstacles that you're going to have to work your way around, through, underneath. Whichever path you may take. Some of them just aren't worth it. This one might fall into that category. Whatever you do, though, be honest with her. Respect her for who she is, the person that she is in her life. If you want to really piss somebody off, make them feel like they're not heard. Don't do that. And you know, dude, there's there's other things in life out there besides adventure bike riding, especially if your marriage is more important than that. So I think you're on the right path. But I also feel like unless she has specifically said to you no motorcycle at all of any kind, I think there's a window of opportunity for you there. So take it. Last question for today. Deeply into my specialty of relationships. Here we go. I'm a 22 year old young man who recently graduated from college this past December. Since then, I have decided to pursue the military and recently signed my army 18X Ray which is a Special Forces Candidate contract in hopes of becoming a Green Beret. I'm excited for the opportunity as this is something I have been working towards for the past two years. Along with that, I have a beautiful wife who has supported me every step along the way and has reassured me she is ready to take on military life together. My wife graduated from the same school I did and currently works as a nurse in the ICU at a local hospital. She is the strongest person I know and I am so unbelievably lucky to have her by my side. That's awesome man. That's an awesome description and I'm happy for you. To your question number one, which is funny that you numbered these questions but then only sent one question when you were leaving for when you were leaving your home for training trips, selection process and deployments, did you feel any guilt about leaving your wife behind and being the cause of her heartache? If so, how did you overcome that feeling? And what other advice would you have for a young married couple about to enter the SOF community if everything goes right? We both understand that the job suffers last and most nights will be spent without each other in a given year, but we believe that it is possible to maintain a successful marriage in this community regardless of the statistics. Thanks for taking time to read this novel. I will be sure to return the favor when yours comes out early next year. April 14th is when the book is going to come out. I think I get to officially start releasing some of the COVID art and talking about it a little bit more in June or July. So digress. Statistics are great, but sometimes you have to say to yourself fuck em. Yes, the divorce rate is horrible in the military and specifically the special operations community, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. It's going to be hard. It's going to be harder than you think it's going to be. And I will say this. The two of you have absolutely no idea what you are about to get yourself into. And that is okay because it can be done. It is about the right people being together. Fuck the statistics. If you think you can do it, then you can do it. I stand hard and fast, and I know a lot of people who have gotten divorced to include myself either while in the special operations community or oftentimes, surprisingly, shortly after. And I have a theory on that. My theory is you didn't get to spend a lot of time together when you were in that community. And then when you get out of the military, boom, real life catches up and sometimes you've grown apart and that is just no longer compatible. I actually. I have no data to support this, but I think that is a component of why many marriages implode after service as well, too. It's. I'll call it service connected Divorce. Service connected. I like that term. I don't like the term. I take that back. It's a horrible thing, but I think it's accurate. Anecdotally, it's about the person, though, not the community. I do know for every example that I have of a relationship imploding either in service or out of service, I do have an example of one that stood the test of time. Do they suffer more challenges, setbacks, frustration and problems than civilian marriages? Yes, but that's because there's a different dynamic. Can they look different than a civilian marriage? Is the. You know, I'm not gonna even say that the quality is different. Cause that's not for me to say they are different. But it is doable. Seriously. Sometimes you just have to sit back and give the stats a middle finger. Because let's say the divorce rate is 80%. Just make sure you're in that 20. Do everything that you can. To your question, when you were leaving home for your training trips, selection process and deployments, did you feel any guilt about leaving your wife behind and being the cause of her heartache? I'm going to add to that my children as well. Yes, you 100% feel responsible, you feel guilty, you feel selfish, you feel the heartache and you stuff it. Because, like you mentioned, the job suffers last. And if you're in a selection course, your fucking goal better be to graduate that selection course. And if it's not, don't waste your time. So you're gonna have to stuff it, and it sucks. If you are a person that has any level of emotional quotient, you are gonna understand the burden that you are putting onto Somebody you are gonna understand that it can be hurtful, that it can seem as if at times you have to prioritize your desires, wants and needs over everybody and everything else. You will understand those things. So, two pieces of advice. The first one is this. In the moments that you have with your wife and the time that you have with your wife in between these moments, be as present as humanly possible. Do the best you can to be the partner that your wife deserves and shelve all the other stuff. You're going to be going for your green Beret, but in the time that you were with your wife, just be your husband. Put the Green Beret to the side. That challenge is going to be there. It's going to be waiting for you. And you can work your way through that. Be the best husband you can be to your wife in that time period. And two, there will be times where your wife is going to get pissed and frustrated and she potentially is going to bring up your time away. The selfish nature of what it is that you're doing, the fact that the job suffers last because life is ups and downs, right? You might both catch each other in a down, whatever it may be. Don't try to deflect that. Just eat it. Don't try to tell somebody that they're crazy. Don't say, hey, this is what we signed up for. None of that shit, Listen, and then go back to step number one, being as present as humanly possible. The reason I added my kids to this is that my wife was an adult when I was going through these process. My kids were still kids even when I got out of the military. My oldest, 2010 was my last deployment, so he was 7. My oldest son was 7 the last time I left home. So that meant Riley was seven, Tyler was five, Julia was two and a half. I kissed her in a crib. She didn't even wake up, thank God. When I left for Afghanistan for the last time, I missed a lot of their life in those formative ages as well. And that is a burden that is placed directly on the significant other that is left behind. And I would add to that feeling guilty about your wife left behind, the kids left behind, and the heartache associated with that. At some point in time, if you become a Green Beret, which I hope that you do, you're gonna have to hang it up. Everybody has an expiration date. People's lives, in your personal life, in your family, they're going to have to adjust to suit your dreams and aspirations and goals of being a Green Beret. You might be bouncing around between duty stations, schools, etc. Whatever it may be, when you get out of the military, and this may take a while for you to register, when you do, it's your turn to start paying that back to them. The way I get over and I still feel guilty around. It's funny you brought up the book. I obviously dedicated. I dedicated the book to my children and my wife and to my kids. I essentially said, I'm so sorry for the time that I was away when you were younger, but I promise you, it wasn't wasted. Well, I have to show them that now. Now that they're older, I have to be the absolute best version of myself. Let me tell you what my kids don't care about and what your kids will never care about. After you're a Green Beret, they're not going to fucking care what you did in the military. They're not going to care that you were a Green Beret. And that's a good thing because you're their dad. So my job now is to be the best expression of a father that I absolutely can be for my kids. When they come to me for advice, I give it. When they ask me questions, I answer them. When there presents itself an opportunity for me to help them, I do. But more importantly, I am there for them and I am available as much as possible. That is the only way that I think I can pay back my debt to them. And it is something that I owe them every single day. And it's tough because it's the complete inverse of what you were expecting of everybody else. While you were pursuing this green Brae path, pipeline and career, people's lives were molding and moving around you. You were the aircraft carrier going through the ocean, and the water was going around the form of the ship. Well, if you have kids, you're going to need to start becoming the water and they're going to start becoming the ship at some point. And it's. It's challenging. I feel like I will always be indebted to my children for the time that I missed in their lives. I missed birthdays, holidays. You know, the standard trope it. You miss all of those things, but you have the rest of your life to make up for it. And after your military career, when you're still married, right? Because you are not going to pay attention to the odds. You owe that to your wife, too. So that is the best piece of advice I have, and that is all I have for this Friday. See ya.