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Full Auto Friday - 6/27/2025
00:47:56
Traditional Q and A to round out the week, answering only the most demanding questions facing our society. I'm not sure they were actually that serious, but it sounds good. I did actually cover: -CrossFit Workout strategies for home gyms -What...
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Zoe Saldana
Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us. Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in. You don't need to trade in. When you switch to T Mobile, we'll give you a new iPhone 16 Pro. Plus we'll help you pay off your old phone. Up to 800 bucks and you still get to keep it. There's always a trade in. Not right now. At T Mobile. I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma. That's okay. I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender. I'm good. Seriously. Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints. Really, I'm fine. Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car. It's our best iPhone offer ever. Switch to T Mobile. Get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us. No trade in needed. We'll even pay off your Phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line, $100 plus a month on experience beyond finance agreement. $999.99 and qualifying. Ported for well qualified plus tax and $10 connection charge. Pay off via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days credits end and balance due. If you pay off earlier, cancel mobile.com. good morning. Do you ever have one of those days where you sleep weird and you wake up, feel like a donkey just kicked you in the face? Try to shake it off in the morning and you can't decide if you're still sleeping, dreaming, or you're just pushing your thoughts through a cheesecloth. That's what it feels like today. So who knows how this Q and A is going to go? We're going to get right into it. We're going to talk about life, how to be a protector of your family, how to be there to comfort somebody, maybe in the tail end of life. And yeah, a couple of other topics. Let's just get right into it. Let's go. Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun run north or south? West of the smoke, west of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on with it, baby. Give it to me. I need it cleared hot. Campaign cleared hot. All right, we're off. I love doing these Q and A's. They're fun. The questions people send in, they are fascinating. And sometimes it actually reminds me of things that I have forgotten about or things that I have forgotten that I have said, of which there's a lot of those. Mostly because I kind of talk for a living at this point and I don't remember the specifics of every conversation. But there are some tangents that people remind me of and it's cool to kind of relive those journeys a little bit as I answer. So question one going back to my CrossFit days, 36 year old dad here just trying to dip my toes into beginner CrossFit. You've referenced your past work with CrossFit quite a bit, but have never really delved into the workouts themselves. What are some of your favorite workouts and or wads, which stands for workout of the day for those of you unfamiliar with the vernacular for maintaining general fitness and strength. I live in a rural area and don't have access to classes or a local gym, just YouTube and my prison style garage gym. There's a second question here, but I'll get to that after I mention the CrossFit one. Today's episode is brought to you by Peak. I'm just gonna keep saying this. This is not your grandma and grandpa's gym tea. Did you ever see them traveling with tea bags? Probably not. But I tell you what, I am a coffee guy, but I'm becoming a tea guy as well. And these things right here, these little travel packs, they're not even necessarily travel packs, but you can travel with them. I take them with me everywhere. Now what kind of selection, you might ask yourself, does Peak have? I have a few of them in front of me. Look at this. We got skin and hydration detox. We got energy metabolism and mood and digestion and calm. This is one of seven different types of teas that they sent me and I'll talk about the offer at the end. Glass beaker frother. One of these days I'm just going to do an episode about how I make tea. I'm sure it'll be super riveting for people. I'm loving these. For gut health, for the probiotic, for the prebiotic, for longevity, the antioxidants in there, the convenience of having these things around me at any given time. Just needing to find warm water. It helps with the microbiome, reset energy and mood and immune support and harvested from 250-year-old trees for unmatched purity and nutrient density. And they use a cold extraction technology retains the maximum phytonutrient. If you are ready to elevate your day and go on a journey to transform your health, Peaked has an offer for you for a limited time. You can get 20% off on the Puair bundle plus a free starter kit which I showed. It's this glass beaker, super easy to measure. You're going to get this frother that comes with it USB C rechargeable and all you gotta do is head over to my link peaklife.com ClearedHot to claim this offer that is Pique P I Q U E Quebec uniform echo life.com ClearedHot instead of typing that into the browser, click on the show notes below. It's right there. I'm not joking diehard coffee guy, but I'm really enjoying the tea journey. Go check it out. This is actually what I really enjoyed about CrossFit. Actually I'm gonna say really enjoy. I have worked out far less in a weight room barbell dumbbell environment since I started doing Jiu jitsu and if I'm being totally honest, my body, especially the first year to two years after kind of setting barbells and dumbbells down for a bit, it never felt better. It was really nice. I was burned out and I didn't realize it. Probably equally mentally, emotionally and physically. Having said that, I am working on re implementing a strength and conditioning routine because you just can't do Jiu Jitsu for strength and conditioning and general fitness. It's really hard and exhausting and taxing when you first start and you just develop efficiencies as you get into it. And also as I age, there's a lot of science showing that longevity and muscle mass are tied and that's not going to come from doing Jiu Jitsu. You get probably great cardio, but I wish it was cardio that applied to everything. It doesn't, but I need to add that back in so I'm looking forward to re implementing those things. I will say this though, at the age I'm at and what I want to work out for, I don't think it's going to be CrossFit style training from an intensity angle. Probably be a lot of the same movements because I was exposed to for the first time very functional movements when I was working for CrossFit, of which I did for just about 10 years actually. Probably actually just under somewhere between eight to 10 years. It's been a while and I haven't thought about it so specifically what workouts did I like? I was always a fan of a 21159 structure. I really like that for a few reasons. One mentally for me I would break the 21 up mentally into sets of seven. And I would do seven and only count to seven, and then start over, and then start over. And the next thing you know, if you're 21, and I would pair it, you know, a couplet or a triplet, meaning you do like a classic CrossFit workout. Sorry, I'm a little bit all over the place. Like I said, I feel like a donkey kicked me in the head today. 21, 15, 9. One of the workouts is called Fran, that is Barbell Thrusters, which is 95 pounds for men, and I believe it was 65 pounds for women. A thruster being a front squat, all the way down, crease to the hip, below the knee, driving up all the way overhead, kind of pushing your head forward, full arm extension. 21 of those, 21 pull ups. 15 of those, 15 pull ups. Nine of those nine pull ups. For people who don't understand the methodology, and I've seen this firsthand in person, they will say things like, how hard could that be? And let me tell you, it can be real hard. That sucker can eat your lunch. However hard you push, that's what it's gonna give you. And you will be flat on your back, especially if you just crank it into fifth gear early on or if that's your first exposure. And I've seen that happen in real time. And it was fantastic. It absolutely destroyed the people. We're talking vomiting, we're talking uncontrollable muscle spasms. Couple people I do know of that end up with rhabdomyolysis, which is worth a Google for people starting this type of methodology. Don't go too hard too fast, especially on movements you're not incredibly familiar with. But I loved that structure. So a couplet would be thrusters and pull ups. A triplet would be thrusters, pull ups, and barbell snatch or something. Another exercise, it could be a run as well, too. But I really like the 21, 15, 9. For me, that just was a really digestible chunk. And I will say this. Oh, so for. I'd go seven, seven, seven. And then I'd usually go five, five, five. Mentally, again. And then three, three, three for the thrusters. And anytime stuff gets hard like that in workouts, I would just tell myself, do one more, just do one more. Just do one more. And I would try to do one more rep than I thought I could do. And it's interesting to play with that structure. I've seen people who will do seven and put the bar down and take a breath and pick it up pretty quickly 7. And there's people who rip 21. Totally your own journey. And I recommend you play with both. I also recommend you play with things like do it in reverse order, do 9, 15 minutes and 21 seconds. It's a weird emotional and physical challenge. It's a totally different stimulus going in the other direction. At least it was in my personal experience. So those were probably my favorite ones. I also liked pairing Olympic lifting which would be a clean, a clean in jerk, a snatch, a power snatch, a power clean, whatever variation you would want to do. And for those of you who have never done these things, like this individual, you have YouTube and you have your prison style garage gym. Please, please take your time. If you can find somebody vaguely familiar with these lifts to give you some insight before you start ripping weight over your head. Specifically warm up with a PVC pipe. Practice the full range of motion with a PVC pipe or a broomstick or a barbell. You'll thank me for it later on. Don't be in a rush to add too much weight. I totally understand how guys brains work. They say if 95 pounds is better, 190 must be even better, it'd be more betterer and that, you know, we're idiots. There's reasons why the life expectancy for women is far better than it is for men. Just dumb. So fight your dumbness, which we're all doing as men. Learn about the movements before you get crazy. What I like about CrossFit is you don't have to have all of the gear and if you have a YouTube connection, you have everything you need, you're going to be able to find every type of workout. What I will say is before I get too far before, make sure you do specific strength training which will happen inside of CrossFit programming. But squatting, front squat, back, squat, overhead squat pressing. But strength training specifically, it is so it's fun. The workouts are fun and you can crush yourself but you know, laying on the ground after a 10 minute workout is great. Don't disregard the pure strength aspect as well that, that, that pure time under load muscle under tension. Strength training as well. And again, like I said, if you're at a gym, you're probably going to encounter those days where you're doing a deadlift or just a squat. And some days it'd be, you know, five sets of five or five sets of three or five sets of one going for a one rep max. Don't sleep on those days. They're equally as important. If you don't have access to that in your prison style gym as you describe. Do the best you can. And that's what I was going to say. I really like about this. If you see a workout that is, we'll use Fran as an example. 2115, 9 thrusters, pull ups, and you have no barbell. Cool, dude. Use dumbbells. Well, I don't have a dumbbell either. All right, Use a sandbag. You don't have a sandbag? I don't know. I mean, at that point I'd be like, damn, where are you? Are you in prison? You know, do reps with your roommate's hog if you need to. Whatever it is that you think you can get it in with, get it in. But it's infinitely modifiable, which also allows you to work around injuries as well. Don't push it, don't hurt yourself more or re injure yourself in the pursuit of fitness because you think it looks cool and you see other people doing it. Listen to your body, take the feedback that it gives you and work around it. Flexibility will be an issue on some of these movements. Work your way into it again. You can all go all the way back to that PVC pipe. But don't be afraid to work around what you have. Pull ups. If you don't have pull ups or say you can't do a pull up, grab onto the bar, put a bench underneath the bar. And so you have, you know, you're holding onto the bar, it's at full extension over your head and you have a little bit of a bend in your knee. Jump and pull yourself up. I've. I've worked with people, I owned a CrossFit gym for a couple years. I've worked with people that were incapable of doing a single pull up. It's actually shocking how many adult men and women cannot do a single pull up. And that, that can be tough as a coach, especially if you don't know where to go from there. Well, shit, how do I take somebody from 0 to 1? Because I'm here to tell you, 0 to 1 is harder, I think, than getting somebody from 1 to 2. And building on top of that, the jumping pull up is a great one. If that is even challenging. You could have them, you know, start where they have their chin over the bar and just control the contraction on the way down. And I hope what the person who asked this question is getting out of this is you can completely modify this in any way that you want. It's one of the things that I loved about it. So you'll have the gear selection you have in your garage and the ability to pick other pieces of equipment. And I'll tell you, these workouts are way different. Like Fran with a barbell is different than Fran with dumbbells, which is different than Fran with the sandbag. They feel completely different. Highly recommend you experience all of those things, but scale it, modify it, and because you have access to YouTube, dude, you're gonna be good. Hopefully that answered your question. Hit me back up if you got any more specific ones. But it's a cool journey and be creative. It's also one of the reasons I didn't really get bored with it for years is because you're never really doing the same thing. Or if you do get a little bit bored, change one aspect of it and man, you're off and running. Second part of the question. You've done almost 400 episodes, which is something I didn't realize even though I put the number in every week. When I'm getting ready to load up the next week episode, I just realized we're in the mid-390s, which is really cool. I'm trying to think of something that I could do for the 400 episodes. 400th episode. If anybody out there, viewer or listener, has a suggestion, let me know. My I hate saying this. I hate it because I'm resistant to this idea, but my sister and her husband will be in town soon and it is possible, I suppose, to get my dad, my sister, me, my wife and Michael into the same room. I don't know what we would call that other than an epic clusterfuck, but that was one idea I had for the 400th as well, because a lot of people have asked me about having my sister on. It is what it is. If you have a good idea, hit me up. I'll take it under advisement. So 400 episodes at this point, and I'm sure you've spent countless hours interacting with some very high achievers in your day. What are some things that you've learned from all these relationships and conversations and put into your own life? Are there any themes or threads or commonality you see among these high performers, such as waking up stupid early? Are you talking about Jocko? How dare you. He is somewhere right now either accomplishing something or is just fucking exhausted taking a nap. That's my guess. I'm not saying he's actually doing that, but I feel like if you wake up at 4 o' clock every day, those are your two options. You're kicking life in the dick or you're taking a nap. Adhering to strict schedules and routines are holding solid core values of perhaps family, faith, dependability, et cetera. Just curious if there's any major light bulb moments or lessons you've brought into your life that have made an impact. I tell you what I get out of the show, what the first thing that leaps off the page for me when I think about this, regardless of the level of success and I have, and this is one of the things I love about the show, is I get to talk to people from every different sector of the world. So far at this point, I've talked to soldiers, male and female. I've talked to doctors, I have talked to psychiatrists, I've talked to psychologists. I've talked to titans of industry, whether it be in technology or manufacturing, everything in between. First responders, fire, police. I still want to get a 911 dispatcher on at some point because I do believe that that is a completely forgotten black hole of people that are just on the receiving end of horrendous phone calls and how they interface inside of the system. But the one thing that I have noticed, especially from those people that are incredibly successful, is that from the outside, it is so easy to think that each of those people has every aspect of their life together and they are following a blueprint of specific steps. And what I have determined in talking with successful people is that regardless of how much it seems like somebody else might have every aspect of their shit together, we are all just doing the best that we can. They are not perfect. The highest achievers are not perfect. They are not doing things wildly different than almost everybody else. I think what separates them often is one, they might have a revolutionary idea or a new way of looking at something, but it's the consistency to stay the course. Even when there is adversity that is thrown at them, even when they need to take a left, when they feel like their blueprint is taking a right, and they do so and they continue on and they are just consistent. The success that they have is fraught with challenges. I have yet to meet a successful person that says, yeah, well, you know, I had this plan and I wrote it all out and I just rolled out of bed every day and just everything that I thought I was going to be challenged with, that's what hit me. And I just worked my way through it. And yeah, it was, you know, pretty easy, really. Straightforward. No, I mean, for anybody who's listened to the show and the people that I've talked to, it's the exact opposite. Like, man, let me tell you about this failure. Let me tell you about this 10 year valley that I had to work my way through to find success on the other side. Let me tell you about the personal toll that this took. The toll on my relationship with my loved ones, my family, my kids, my wife. None of that is captured when you just see success from a distance. And it's inspirational for me to sit down and talk with people like that because it makes me feel like. And reminds me. It doesn't make me feel like. It reminds me that all the bullshit that goes on in my own life as well, it's totally normal. We're all in the trenches of our life now. Are some trenches, are you driven to them in a Rolls Royce on a pj? Yes. But I'm here to tell you, knowing some people who live in that world with very high net worth and multiple successes under their business card or the acronyms that you want, they're still in it. Now, is it different? Sure are. The size, scope and scale of the issues that they're dealing with? Maybe larger due to the industry or organization that they're leading? Yeah, but it's not all daisies and, you know, perfectly manicured grass with unicorns walking across and gumdrum raindrops falling down. And they just sit there and enjoy the, the spoils of their effort. Now they're fucking in it. And God, I'm glad to see it. I'm glad to see that they're in their trenches because again, it reinforces that, you know what, we're all supposed to be in the trenches. There is no path towards anything that is meaningful that's not going to involve that in the consistency piece that I briefly touched on. That is what inspires me, that ability to just keep grinding, especially with those who are going against the grain, who are being told, hey, it's a dumb idea, hey, you shouldn't be doing that. Hey, that's risky. Hey, that's dangerous. You should reconsider. I don't understand this. People don't know why you're doing this. Why would you want to do that? The consistency, to be able to absorb that, or actually probably not absorb it. That's probably not a good analogy. To wear a Teflon suit of armor of some kind, where that shit hits it and it slides off and you keep going and you keep going and you keep going. Yeah. That is inspiring to me and that is the coolest aspect of the podcast. I have seen people successful. You know, you were Saying family, faith and dependability. I've seen people who have been successful because of those things, and I've seen people successful in spite of the fact they had none of those things. I've seen people successful because they wake up stupid early, and those who are successful because they wake up at noon, but what are they doing? They're grinding until like 3:00am you know, those two sides of the same coin. Strict schedules. Yep, I've seen it. Routines, Definitely seen it. Hardcore values. Seen it. But I've also seen success absent all those things as well. So what does that tell me as a person? My journey is my journey. My struggle is my struggle. Stay on my path and be consistent. Show up and do the work that you need to do. And if you have a really driving goal, like this magnetizing force that's pulling you towards it, pick your head up from time to time to make sure you're still making progress in that direction. But then stop paying attention to how far you are from that goal. You'll get there as long as you can maintain your consistency. So those are the key things and lessons. I knew those lessons. It's inspiring to me, and it helps keep me on track. Because we're all gonna have days in the trenches where you feel like you're losing, like you're giving up ground. And some days you do give up ground. But is that one day where you gave up a couple inches important? Because when you look at it, in the course of a week, oh, shit, I took back a few more feet. Right? Don't lose your perspective. Stay in the fight. And the podcast helps me do that in my own personal life. Andy. My name is Eddie. I hope I'm saying this correctly and you'll understand why in a second. I'm riding from Romania. Edi, I don't know how you say that. Is it adi? Is it Eddie? Is this like R E, D, D, Y? So however you say your name, thank you for reaching out, and I'm sorry that I butchered your name. More than likely, I am someone working on becoming a more capable person overall, especially as I shift my focus towards being the best I can be for my family. I really appreciate the insight and raw perspective that you bring. I have a question that I'd love to hear your take on. What does it really take to become a protector of your family physically, mentally, and tactically? Drawing from multidisciplinary military experiences like SEAL training, aviation survival, et cetera, how can someone prepare across those areas to be well rounded and capable as a protector in everyday life. Thanks for what you put into the podcast and community. Your reach extends even out here into Romania, which is wild. It is really cool to get an email from somebody in Romania. Did I realize that I had an audience there? Did I even think that was possible? No. I mean, this is one of the beautiful things about the Internet. Okay, so you mentioned a couple of things here. SEAL training, aviation survival, et cetera. How do you come or how does someone prepare across those areas to be a well rounded and capable protector in everyday life? I'm probably going to take aviation out of that, other than to say, one of the things I like about aviation is it's very regimented and there are procedures that you can follow, literal checklists. And I do think actually that aspect of having a checklist could help you a little bit with preparation. And I'll roll that into one of my answers here in a second. But I don't think you need to know how to fly an airplane or a helicopter to truly be a protector of your family. That makes a great movie plot where you're Tom Cruise and you eject from an F18 and you happen to see an F14 and you and your buddy just casually walk along in your flight suits with your helmet and jump in that thing. And so it's like everything you can see, you can fly. That's a cool movie thought and plot, but I just. You're gonna be okay without that one. I think there's some other basics you could start with. And then if you wanted to go down the aviation pathway, which I would recommend for everybody because it's super rewarding. But maybe let's hit some baseline stuff first. Okay. For me, what does it take to really become a protector of your family? It starts with the question that you're asking. It starts with the realization and desire that that's actually what you want to do. Because this is gonna help you view the world a little bit differently. I do my best to not be an alarmist. I do my best to maintain my situational awareness, not only of myself and my own capability, but also of the world around me. But I also do my best to not lose myself in the rabbit hole of existential threat, where I think every human being is a threat to me, where everybody could be having a plot against me or family or community or country or any of those things, even though I know for a fact that those people exist. I intentionally don't live my life in every interaction looking for those things, because I think you will just absolutely burn out. You Cannot maintain that level of situational and tactical awareness forever. You just can't do it. You will fry yourself down to the wires. And if you really want to be a protector and you find yourself at that point, are you doing your family or anybody else a service by getting to that area? My answer to that would be no. So you started on the journey, you realize that you want to be that for your family. So let's start physically. Likelihood human beings, assuming you're not living in a war zone, to encounter violence would probably be physical in nature. And so let's talk about where I live. In the summer months, the transient population of homeless people here increases. And I totally get it. If I was homeless, I would want to live in big sky country as well, where it's beautiful, the temperature is good in the 24 hour, you know, series of a day. I would not want to be homeless here in Montana in the winter. But the summer is glorious. I get it. There are some drug issues that are associated, not necessarily with that transient population, but just where we're at, where I live, it can get a little methy. I'm told if you talk with my law enforcement buddies from time to time. Drug issues have, you know, interesting expressions from people and their decisions and their willingness to want to confront you. So I walking around day to day and this has happened. I've had some very weird interactions with people, mostly at the coffee shop, who wanted to make the coffee shop their semi permanent residence. And we had to have a little bit chat about how that was not gonna work. So for me, having to touch somebody or physical violence. And I think for most people, that is the most likely form of confrontation that you're likely gonna have. Then you have your edge weapons, your ballistic weapons, like guns, things of that nature. Statistically sure that happens, but I think physical confrontation is likely gonna be more likely. Likely going to be more likely. What a fantastic sentence that was. That is likely going to be your highest statistical probability. Well, let's prepare for it. How can you do that? Do you need to turn yourself into a ninja? No. Should you be able to see your dick when you're naked if you're a dude? Probably. What do I mean by that? I mean, don't go for a body type that is more melted candle wax than it is Arnold Schwarzenegger taking over all of the drugs when he was doing Mr. Olympia. Neither of those probably suits you well for actually being ready to defend yourself and others. I would say, though, aim more towards Arnold. And I'm not saying start Juicing yourself up and you have to have a physique like that. But be a physically capable person. If you have kids, you need to be able to pick them up off the ground and move for a little bit. And I'm not saying you need to throw them over your shoulder when you're in a gunfight, but like, if you get into a car accident and you need to pick your kid up out of the car and move them out of the vehicle, are you going to be able to do that? Are you going to be at the limit of having a heart attack because you are physically incapable as a person just by doing that? Because I'm here to tell you, in those situations, your heart rate is going to be elevated to begin with. You know, nobody wants to imagine their house being on fire. But what if you needed to pull your wife and kids out of that house? You need to carry or drag them. Dead weight is very hard to move. How can you prepare yourself for just about any physical confrontation? Well, train your body physically. And again, I'm not saying you need to be Arnold, but don't be made out of candle wax either. Find a balance between those two things. Mentally. I would accept the premise that there are people out there who have ill intent for you and your belief system, whatever that may be. Are they going to find you? Statistically not. But is it possible? Yes. And again, depending on where you live, the stats might be a little bit skewed. But understanding that violence is a part of the world that we live in and deciding, do you either want to be a victim of violence or a capable person in that environment, able to be this protector that you're talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by Element, spelled lmnt. Feel free to call it either. You could call it element here. You could call it Element. They are the purveyors of the finest salts and electrolytes. You know, I was talking about in the intro where I feel like I'm, like, pushing my ideas through a cheesecloth. I'm just one of those days that is how I feel, especially in the summer months up here in Montana where I sweat a little bit more. You pair that with jiu jitsu. If I just hydrate with water afterwards, man, that is how I feel as my day goes on, when I actually replenish the electrolytes and the salt that I burned when I was doing jiu jitsu. And it's not that I can feel myself coming back to light. I just start feeling a difference in my energy state. For the rest of the day, my mental clarity, my thought process, all of those things. And the coolest thing about this is one, it's delicious. But two, it couldn't be more convenient. You can get a bunch of these things. These are. We'll talk about the offer at the end here, but the powder form is going to come in these very convenient packs. It's got a thousand milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, 60 milligrams of magnesium. Their newer product though is this sparkling electrolyte water. The colder the better. For my flavor profile, same thing. Thousand milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, 60 milligrams of magnesium, no sugar, no caffeine, all electrolytes. You can feel yourself coming back to life. It is amazing. Especially if you are in a high output activity. Perhaps you don't know what flavor you would like. That's okay. Here's the offer. You can get a free 8 count sample pack if you head over to drinklement.com cleared hot again that is drinkLM LMNT limamikenovembertango.com clearedhot and as always just in the show notes below you get the sample pack with any purchase@drinkelement.com ClearedHot don't forget the 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. And they oftentimes will release new limited time flavors like the lemonade they have right now. That is my summer go to. It's a banger. Get some while you can stock up. I'm not so sure how long they're going to be selling it for. Back to the show. The people I know who are the least likely to get involved in any level of violent confrontation are the ones that are the most capable in those disciplines. People know I like Jiu Jitsu, but I've said this from the day that I started. It's not magic and it's not a complete self defense system. You need to be able to. If you're in a striking distance and you don't know how to strike because your whole game is like you have to get your hands on somebody. You might get tuned up by somebody who has a boxing background. Do you need to be a Golden Gloves boxer? No. But let's develop an understanding of striking and kicking distance. Then there's the grappling distances. You know, knees and elbows and fists are a real thing in the real world and they don't really work or exist in the training philosophy of Jiu Jitsu. At most schools that I've gone to because people are really refining their Jiu Jitsu ability. But don't think that people who want to hurt you aren't going to do those things. They're also going to headbutt your fucking face off. And that is the worst. You have to understand all these things. So if you want to be capable in those worlds, find the discipline that works for you. Muay Thai boxing, Jiu jitsu, fill in the blank, but train there. Expose yourself to violence before violence exposes itself to you tactically. And again, I don't know the rules in Romania when it comes to firearm ownership. If you want to extend your distance and range of being able to protect yourself and others out to hundreds of yards, depending on the platform, you have go and train, go. You know, if you can own a pistol, get a pistol. If you can own a rifle, own a rifle. Owning those items doesn't necessarily make you safer. It could actually put you at more risk. One, if you don't know how to use them and two, if you're not mentally prepared to do so, have those conversations first. So if you have those tools, learn how to use those things. And that way you can expand that ring of safety. Even I don't know if that's a great word for it, but you can expand that ring of influence if you would need to. Your ability to project protection of your family, friends and loved ones out to a couple hundred yards. So that's from the, like, what can the physical person do? Preparation, you know, When I think about stuff that I worry about in the US I'm thinking like power grid goes down for weeks. I'm thinking interruption to water supply, interruption to food supply, interruption to, of access to daily life services that, let's be totally honest, in the first world almost everybody takes for granted. I've heard many people say, you know, from a survivalist perspective, make sure your gas tank should never go below half, if not three quarters. Why is that? Well, if you know, for whatever reason our supply of gasoline runs out, you're going to have some and you know, you could have containers at your house and all this stuff. I mean, come on, we're all getting the low fuel light from time to time. And again. This is, this is that balance of, oh shit, my car is at almost, it's just below half a tank. I have to go fill it up right now. There's a time and place for that and if it's convenient for you, do it. But there's also a time and place like, you know, What, I'm going to go on a road trip or I'm really busy this week and yeah, I'm going to cruise around with a quarter of a tank of gas in my car. Right. Balance the two. Food, water, shelter. I mean, those are basic things that you can think of. And this ties me back into the checklist from aviation. Write out what you think you would need and go through that checklist to make sure that you have it in order. Can you generate power? Can you clean or purify water? Can you. Do you have somewhere that you can stay? And do you have a plan? Have you communicated this plan with your immediate family? On if something does happen, where would you meet and then where would you go? It's always better to have those communication or those types of communication before you're in an emergency. There's nothing worse than trying to problem solve in an emergency. And there's nothing that feels better than when you find yourself in emergency and you realize you've already thought your way through this. You're trained, equipped and prepared. You feel like a rock star. And it's way better to feel like that than really just trying to figure out complex problems in real time. That would be my suggestion on the preparation. Survival could kind of fall into those things. The preparation and survival. As you're looking at what it is you would want to have, there's some ba, like, hey, can you start a fire? Romania, I bet you there's some good hunting there. You know, if you lose access to food supply, and I'm talking about grocery store in the Western world, what are you gonna do? Do you know how to source food? Do you have the opportunity to source food? Do you have the tools needed to source food, the knowledge needed to source food? Not impossible, but it might seem like it's impossible if you haven't thought about it first and put the things in place, the tools in place, the structure in place that's gonna help you do those things when the emergency hits. So you can kind of preparation and survival. I'd combine those two. There's an immense amount of overlap. The aviation, like I said, it ties in through the checklist. But that's what I look at, you know, rate yourself objectively across those things. Give yourself an A through an F or A1 through A10, whatever works for you, and start trying to move the things. I mean, 10 is high, 10 is most capable, one is the least capable. Start moving as many of those things as you can towards a 10. The preparation and survival. A lot of that might be things you can get and put you into that category. But you need to have skills and knowledge to go with any tool. You know, I'm sure a doctor, if you laid out all the tools in front of a brain surgeon, that's great. That would give him the technical ability to do what he needs to do. But you have to know how to use those tools to achieve the greatest impact and effect. So hopefully that answers your question for you. That's how I would tackle it. That's how I would array it. All right, last one for the day because I've been rambling a bit on the first two. I'm a 23 year old college graduate working on getting into a special operations pipeline. I've known for a long time what I want to do and how I want to to do it. My girlfriend is another story. She is very smart and has been balancing a full time job in college for the last two years. However, she does not enjoy her work and she also does not have any clue what she wants to do for her career and has a lot of anxiety surrounding her future career. She also gets frustrated that she has to follow me around while I'm in and says that I don't consider how my work is going to prevent her from starting her career until after I get out of the service. I don't believe that to be true. However, I have been unable to convince her that she can start working on her career even when we don't know exactly where we're going to be living. I feel like she could. I feel like she would have more peace if she knew what she wanted to do and I would be able to better consider our options if I knew what she wanted to do. I have suggested speaking with a career counselor or a therapist to her to help her come up with some options or tools for handling the anxiety. But she's very resistant saying that she already knows everything that they would say. How do I help her find the things that lights her fire the way my career aspirations light mine? Oh, put your seatbelt on, buddy. I don't know if my answer to this question is going to be what you thought it was going to be. Okay, so strap in one, take a wrap off. Okay? You are not even into the special operations pipeline and you are already telling your girlfriend that she could start her career at any time even though she doesn't know where you're going to be living. Now that may sound great to you coming out of your mouth. How the fuck do you think that sounds to her? Let me Give you the reality of what this looks like. If you're in a position where you have to bounce around, you are going to have complete and total job satisfaction. Well, your girlfriend, I'm just gonna call her your wife moving forward because I'm gonna combine the two anyway. So your wife is not. She's gonna have to be uprooting her life. And let's say she starts a career, I'm gonna pick. Actually, I don't even care what your career field is. Unless she has a job that is totally remote and can stay plugged in to one entity as you move around the country, which you likely will if you're in special operations. Your career is going to be a lot more seamless than hers is. And she is, and I'm saying this from personal experience, watching this play out in real time, she is going to have interruptions and challenges in her career that you are not going to have. Because guess what, you are lining up in this situation. And I'm not saying what you're lining up is wrong. You are lining up that your career is primary because it's important to you. And you know that you have wanted to do this for as long as you can remember, which. You're going to be surrounded by people in that career if you make it through that, express the same thing. It's a very common thing. But guess what, man, you are the exception. You are not the norm. The number of people I have met who knew exactly what they wanted to do is very small, microscopic in comparison to those that are in the situation that your wife is in where she has anxiety because she doesn't know what she wants to do. And I'm not, I hate to use the term normal, but in this situation, you're knowing exactly what you want to do and taking the whole of society in the US at least into consideration here. Your desire and knowledge about what you want to do and that singular focus is abnormal. Her being where she's at and having anxiety, not knowing what she wants to do is way more normal than somebody like yourself. And you are setting up this system where your career is what is most important to you. And basically what you're saying is, to her, hey, you're going to be able to figure it out. So fucking let's go. Just come on board. And I'm here to tell you right now, watching this happen in real time, you are setting yourself up to get your ball sack stomped on with a 6 inch stiletto heel because as your job satisfaction increases, hers could potentially decrease because of the instability of the job that, guess what? You don't even actually fucking know about. And you're already telling somebody else that, hey, it's gonna be fine. Just come along with me. So take a wrap off, dude. Take a wrap off. And do the best you can to maybe try to see this through the lens of somebody who isn't as driven and focused as you are, because that's almost everybody you're going to encounter in life. I feel like she would have more peace if she knew what she wanted to do. And I would be able to better consider our options if I knew what she wanted to do. No, that sentence is bullshit. You would feel a lot better trying to convince her that everything is going to be okay if she could tell you, hey, this is the job that I want to do. Because then you could go out and you could say, look, you could do this, this, this, this, this, and this, right? That's what that sentence actually means. You would feel better about being selfish about your career if she could tell you what it is that she wants to do. That's the reality of that. So again, dude, take a wrap off. If you push this and you force her to declare what it is that she wants to do, and she'll probably give you an answer if you force it. But guess what? It's probably not gonna be really from the heart or something that she's truly landed on. She's gonna give you enough information, enough specifics so that you guys can move on for that particular conversation. And you know what you're gonna tell yourself, sweet, now I'm good to pursue exactly what I want to pursue to the exclusion of everything else, because she's good. She told me what it is that she wants to do. Well, guess what? In a few years, when she decides that's not what she wants to do, guess where you're going to be. Right back here at square one, right? It sucks. I've seen it happen. Use the strategy that you are using right now with extreme caution. Can it work? Yeah, sometimes. Are the odds not in your favor? From what I've seen anecdotally, with my own life and my own two eyes, yeah, they're not in your favor. Have you even once considered flipping the script on this and say she knew exactly what she wanted to do and it was in a very specific location and she was going to have to move around quite a bit, and you were the one who was trying to figure out what you wanted to do, and then you landed on, you know, I want to go down into a special operations pipeline. Have you even considered how unsettling to your particular goal that that might be that you guys had to move around like that? Because if you haven't, I highly recommend that you do so. It's not always the easiest things thing to do, not plural. Just take a little step to your left and right and try to see the world through somebody else's eyes. Do you think that your girlfriend is actually trying to be a pain in the ass to you? Do you think she's actually trying to hold you back from doing what it is that you want to do? My guess is going to be no, she's probably not either of those things. So instead of pushing the issue, maybe try to see it at least a little bit through her eyes. And also your desires and what you want to do occupationally may not align with you staying in this relationship. Have you considered that to be successful in special operations personal opinion, I speak for only myself. You are going to need to be a little bit selfish. And by a little bit I mean a lot. The job is going to suffer last. That is the way that it is. That is the way that the job is designed to be structured. The severity of the job, the consequences of the job. To a degree they demand that. Can it be balanced? Yes. How much do you want this? Do you want this enough that you could walk in different direction from your girlfriend to achieve it? The answer to that question is for you and you alone to understand and decide. But have you considered it that far down the pipeline? And maybe that's what you need to do to start and you guys can reconnect later on down the line after you've gone through the pipeline, which by the way is going to involve inordinates amount of time of you guys not being together also. That's what the career is largely going to involve as well as you do training and exercises and deployments. And that's even just an a non wartime environment that's just straight up peacetime military. Have you considered that? Your last sentence, how do I help her find the thing that lights her fire? The way my career aspirations light mine. You may not be able to, but you can push somebody away that you love more than anything else in the world if you keep trying to put how you feel onto her and expect her to feel exactly the same way. We are on our own paths. And just because you have that gravitational pull towards something does not mean that anybody else is going to. I will say her response, you know, she already knows everything that they would Say when it comes to a counselor or therapist, if she's never gone to one, that's a pretty interesting comment because it's like saying, I don't need to try apple pie because I know what it's going to taste like, even though I've never had it. And that's a really weird analogy. And I don't know where that came from. But, you know, my kids used to do this. I don't like that food. Have you ever tried it? No. How do you know if you don't like it? I just don't. I mean, it makes sense from a kid, right? Because it's ridiculous. What they're actually saying is they just don't want to eat it because they don't like the idea of eating it. And that's probably what your girlfriend is saying here. They don't like the idea of going to a counselor or therapist. So they're going to say to you, well, I already know what they're going to say. And the reality is, no, you don't. And let's say you go for an hour. Start with a career counselor. I mean, if that's less of an emotional hurdle than it would be to go to a therapist, but start with that. And what's the worst case scenario? You spend an hour of time with somebody and you don't come out of it with any other ideas. What's the best case scenario? Well, shit, you spend an hour of time with somebody and you're like, God damn, I got some great ideas. I kind of have. I didn't even consider those things. And that's what happens sometimes when you talk with people who are professionals and helping people make their decisions. Same thing with therapy. They're professional, what goes on between the ears. They don't have to share the same things that you're going through to help you develop a structure. You can work your way through it. So if you force her, though, I can tell you how that's going to go. Not well for her and for your relationship. But, dude, stop trying to overlay yourself onto her. If you can't do that, if you cannot stop overlaying yourself onto her, I would consider whether or not this is the right person for you. And actually, the fairest way to say that is to her, are you the right person for her? Because you're trying to make her into something she's not. And you're trying to do that because you have something that you want to do and it is the driving force in your life. So let's just fucking call it what it is, right? You are selfishly pushing her and trying to pull her along. How would you appreciate that if somebody else was doing it to you? That's a question for you to answer. That's all I have for this Friday. If you want to feel more connected to humanity and a little less alone, listen to Beautiful Anonymous. Each week, I take a phone call from one random anonymous human being. There's over 400 episodes in our back catalog. You get to feel connected to all these different people all over the world. 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