Zoe Saldana (5:14)
Okay copy west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on with it. Give it to me. I did it. You're clear. Hot copy. Clear night. All right, diving into the old meat and potatoes, if you will. I have three emails that contain questions and one email that I received based off of an episode I think I did two weeks ago. Before I get into this email, I receive feedback often on the episodes that I create, both for the Monday episodes where I'm sitting across from somebody having a conversation, and the Friday episodes where it's me, as people know, running my mouth, looking into the camera, trying to answer the questions that are asked of me or provide my opinion when it is asked. I do my best when I receive feedback or just emails in general to write back, to communicate. I've had emails that come in that asked me to clarify how I feel about something, which I'm more than happy to do. And again, I do the best that I can. I can't always respond in the length that I want to, but I do try. Sometimes the feedback is positive, sometimes it is critical in nature, and I am accepting and open to both. I am trying to do the best that I can at everything that I do to include creating the podcast. So I welcome the feedback. Every once in a while I get an email kind of like this one. And the reason that I'm gonna bring this one up is to me, it highlights the massive difference between hearing somebody when they are talking and actually listening to what it is that they are saying. We've all had a situation where social situation, let's say, where somebody is talking and you can hear what they're saying, but you're tuning them out, you're not listening, or you are having A conversation with somebody in your friend group, social group, family, whatever it is, you're hearing what they're saying. But you are so clouded with your own bias that instead of listening to the words that are coming out of their mouth, you're filtering it through your own bias and and arriving at conclusions or end states that were not the intent of the person that was actually talking. There's a couple things about this email that are unique. I'm going to read the entire thing, then I'm going to parse it a little bit and kind of break down some areas that I think are important. But again, this to me, the reason I bring this up, it has nothing to do with the feedback. Positive, negative. I will accept both. And I actually this is a tough one and this happens a lot on social media. There's this negativity bias. You could give get a hundred comments congratulating you or supporting you on whatever it is that you're doing. Hey, that was a great episode. We'll use a podcast as an example. But then you get one comment that was negative. And for whatever reason we put so much more emphasis on the one negative and we ignore the positive. And this is something I struggle with as well. I try to balance both. I can't overly take serious positive feedback and under take serious negative feedback or vice versa. I try to make sure that it is balanced across both. Try to do that because I feel like my hope is, I should say that it helps me maintain my objectivity. I also realize that I'm not everybody's cup of tea, right? And I also agree with the the phrase that I'd rather be somebody shot of whiskey than their their cup of tea. I know that I don't view the world the same way that everybody else does. I'm not trying to necessarily change anybody's opinion of it either. I'm answering the questions that I get and providing my opinion when asked them. So let's get into this. Here's the email. I am generally impressed with the wisdom you provide for many of the questions you answer in your full auto Friday sessions. Not so much with this one. Released Friday, May 23, 2025. So yeah, that was two weeks ago. You have stumbled into the conventional trap of parents telling kids that they can be, in quotes, anything that they want to be. Never has a more bullshit position been taken by anybody on any subject. Here is one example. Of all the people you know, most likely not a single one could be a professional ballerina or a pianist. No matter how much they practice or train if they want to try to be if they want to try, so be it. But most likely they will eventually run into the brick wall of failure. I personally know a man I've known from childhood who dreamed of being a professional pianist. He did play at Carnegie hall, but the quest destroyed him. There are many reasons most do not achieve their similar dream. A plethora of the reasons are out of our control. Wisdom is learning to determine what we can achieve and throwing our energy at that, not chasing a fantasy that will bring nothing but heartache and disaster. Parents do a terrible disservice to children by telling them that they can do anything again in quotes, if they only try hard and long enough. This does not mean that they should not achieve. It does mean they need to account for reality in the plan and not let fantasy take over. That is the intention of that young man's parents. But it's a difficult lesson and many parents don't excel at teaching it. I had many dreams that in other circumstances I could have probably achieved. Then a genetic disorder became active when I was a teenager, rendering all of my dreams unachievable. Did that slow me down? No. I simply re aimed at new objectives. I was successful at that and likely as satisfied as I would have been in achieving the previous previously desired goals. I have no regrets. There are many dreams available. Choose one that works for you, not one that turns your life into an ugly mess. You talk about a conventional or traditional life, and those are terms that I used in that particular episode, specifically through the lens of a conventional path or a traditional path. I'll get more into that in a minute. Your description is one from a 60,000 foot view, meaning there are no details. It simply brushes past a few high points which tells you nothing about the person's quest. I know many who took what you would label as a conventional path. Not a single one has had a conventional life. Everyone, including mine, has been filled with unexpected challenges and course corrections that that most could never have been reasonably anticipated. That's real life. That's what most people experience. If you want to degrade them and tell them they lived a conventional life because they didn't put on a wingsuit or get shot in the sandbox, so be it. But you are the one wearing blinders and limiting your willingness to see the challenge and adventure they took on. Talk to a man who gets an engineering degree and signs on with a big company where he can reasonably expect to have a stable job for his working years. Then he and his wife have a child with down syndrome or cerebral palsy, and one of their parents gets crushed in a car accident, ask them if they lived a conventional life. Your fantasy about the future you want is just that. It is a fantasy. Just like the enemy has a vote, so does life. I'm not suggesting active discouragement of kids who want to throw themselves at special operations, but perhaps a little acknowledgement that they are indulging in a fantasy that has little connection to what the adventure of life really is. Even if they do succeed in achieving that life goal, they will have some adventure for them that will far surpass buds or anything else they choose to do. A child's fantasy is just that. Reality has more in store for you than you can ever imagine. And stop harassing Michael to get a girlfriend. Now you're pushing your fantasy on him. We actually addressed that last part in the Friday. Last Friday's episode when we were talking about this. I brought this up because. And I'll start with that. People get a snapshot of Michael and I's relationship. We hang out and we do a lot of things outside of the podcast and have a lot of interactions. It would be impossible to explain all of that on a podcast, but for somebody who thinks that I am legitimately pushing a girlfriend on Michael as opposed to needling him about a subject that we laugh our asses off about off air as well as on. I don't know what to tell you, so let's move on from that one. I'm going to put that one back into the bucket of. You're bringing this to the conversation. Michael and I are having a good time with it. If this is triggering for you the person that wrote this and how Michael and I talk about his relationships or lack thereof, or dating struggle. Hate to tell you, buddy, you brought that one to the party with you because Michael and I were just having a good time. This email, there's a lot here, obviously, and I'm not going to. I'm not going to spend too much time on it, but there's some important things to discuss. I need to talk about the email in general. Every once in a while I get an email like this and two things always occur when I get one, or there are two variables that always coexist. And I'm not saying that this will always be the case, but. But for something like this, there are two things that seem to always be there. The first one is the email always comes through ProtonMail. And I understand the people, why they use proton mail. I'm not suggesting that anybody is out there Trying to conduct espionage, maybe spies to use ProtonMail. I don't know. I get the reasons why you would want to use ProtonMail. A portion of that is through anonymity. But another thing is emails like this never come with the individual's name associated with it. This is the anonymous person that demands to be heard but refuses to actually attach their name to it. Now, clearly I'm sitting here as you're listening to this or watching this, like I'm on the Internet. This is me. This is my face. I've been doing this for years. That'd be really. I don't know how you would do this anonymously. And I support people's desire to remain anonymous if they want. So I made a choice to be on this side of the camera. People can make whatever choice they want to to stay on the other side. But I tell you what, emails like this always have come from the anonymous person that demands to be heard, but doesn't want to associate themselves with what it is they're actually saying. Anybody who's ever listened to the show, I have never doxxed anybody. You'd be surprised how many details I actually change when, when I receive emails. So I screenshot them just like I did this one. So I can't even look at an email address that it came from. If there is a name, I cut it above that so I can't accidentally say a name. I usually skip the introduction and as I'm reading it along, I will actually pull out additional details in an attempt to make sure it is as anonymous as possible. For the person writing in, whether that's a city or an occupation or a specific fill in the blank, I'll pull it out because I'm not trying to dox anybody. So for somebody who listens to the show to send this in in such a manner, to try to remain so anonymous, for me, it's at least eyebrow raising a little bit because like I said, there's always those two things. Anonymous email and no name and a demand to be heard. So let's, let's talk big picture here. Why do I say that there is a difference with this email between listening and hearing what somebody actually has to say, or hearing somebody speak and listening and actually getting the information that they were trying to impart as opposed to that information taking a bypass through your own bias. And I'll end with that. The bias portion of that, the particular email or that episode. I had collated a bunch of messages that I had received specifically around people trying to or asking questions about pursuing special operations career paths and I think there might have been a law enforcement one in there, but tranched in together. Young people asking about the career path and not only their desire to do so, but the hesitation from the their parents. But before I go any further into that, I have said this so many times. Life isn't fair. And I agree with some aspects of this email and I have actually mentioned them many times. Life isn't fair. The only place where there's a really awesome fair that I'm aware of is in Northern Iowa. Merry go round, cotton candy ball toss, all of those things. Ticket to ride the rest of life isn't fair. I couldn't agree more that human beings each individually have glass ceilings and I think one of the most highlighting features or factors of that is look at how many professional athletes there are people who legitimately Their occupation is that of a professional athlete versus the population size of any state country. Fill in the blank. It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percentage. Why is that? Well, if you are Evan Hafer's size and you were born 4 foot 8 and 135 pounds soaking wet, you are probably not going to play in the NFL. Why? Because life isn't fair. And that particular occupation rewards for people who are bigger, stronger, faster. It is what it is. I will say this though. Evan, who actually isn't that small or light, is perfectly sized and of average size for people in the special operations world. I actually think it rewards people who are smaller in nature. They can move better. And I tell you what, somebody my size who goes down on the battlefield versus somebody's Evan size, I'm a nightmare to drag around. Not that Evan would be super easy to drag around, but it is easy or for sure. And the reality is the special operations community, although there are physical requirements going into it, a lot of it is neck up exercises versus neck down exercises. It's problem solving between the ears. Physical capacity is important in that, but not the key feature, especially once you get through the selection course. But I digress. Life isn't fair. There are people who are born with higher levels of athleticism, who are born with higher levels of intelligence, IQ and eq. Hand eye coordination. Fill in the blank. I totally understand that. And the reason that I didn't talk about that particular aspect one. I've talked about it a bunch on the podcast, but two two weeks ago when I released that episode, I was specifically talking about those occupational career paths. Each of those career paths, whether you want to go to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, space Force, whatever it is, have minimum physical criteria that you have to make meet or exceed to even begin that career field. If you don't meet them, guess what? You're not going. It doesn't matter how much you want it. And I'll say this, even though I've blue in the face saying these things. When it comes to selection courses in minimum physical criteria, all of the information is available on the Internet and anybody can look it up at this point. Train to the standard you're going to be tested for and make sure that the minimum physical criteria does not require a Herculean effort or your best day. It should be something. Those test gates should be passable on an average to below average day for you. And people might hear that and go, my God, how is that possible? When you do a little bit of research and you find out what they are, they're not incredibly hard. If you have that target and you can aim at it from young in life, you're going to be fine. As long as you put in the commensurate amount of energy and effort, you're going to be just fine. If you can't meet those, you're not going to go anywhere but for the people who can meet those. And I've said this so many times, if you possess the physical ability to show up specifically in the SEAL training pipeline on the first day, if you can pass those entry criteria, if you can get there and arrive on your first day, and I say this as somebody who was a student and an instructor. When I showed up as a student, I was 6ft tall, 150 pounds. I looked like a scrawny beanpole, which most students showing up there actually do. I was a little bit taller than most students. Not the tallest in the class, not the shortest. I, I would say 5, 10 is the average height of a student physically. If you were to look at them and line up a class, you'd be like, huh, I'm a little bit shocked. I'm a little bit underwhelmed is probably the word that you would use. Why is that the case? You just, you don't need to show up looking like Adonis. It would actually work against you if you carried that much additional body weight and muscle mass. The training program doesn't reward that. But if you can get there day one, you physically possess the tools needed to graduate. But if you can't get there to day one, it's never going to happen for you. So that's why I didn't focus on in that particular answer? Well, you know, physical capacity changes and is different across of all of us. For one, that's common sense. But two, these training pipelines take care of that for themselves. But at some point in time, it's no longer about your ability to meet that minimum criteria. It's about your ability to stay the course, especially when things are harder than you thought they could ever be. When you're colder than you thought you could ever be, or more tired than you thought you could ever be, or in combination of all of those things. Again, that's a neck up problem, not a neck down issue. The muscle that fails you in these training pipelines is above the the neck, not below. Even though so many people focus on the below. For the kids that wrote in, and I'll use the term kids because they're way younger than me and I'm looking at them through the lens of what I must have looked like at that point in time, I made the assumption, and perhaps that was incorrect of me to do show, and I didn't specifically mention it, that they'd done their research and they were sitting at a phase in their life where they needed to make a decision. They were at a fork in the road, or maybe multiple forks in the road and they were trying to decide what they did. And I would not, not change the advice that I gave. If you're at that point in your life and you have so much Runway in front of you, slide your fucking chips into the middle of the table and go for it. Even if you are unable to make it through the training pipeline and you end up doing four years in the military, you are going to leave there with a core set of skills and competencies that is going to serve you incredibly well for the rest of your life. And you qualified for all of the benefits of military service, educational, occupational, all of those things. The downside is incredibly limited. Are you going to be able to necessarily achieve the goal that you wanted to? No. But you have the rest of your life to recover. I would not change my advice on that at all. And in no way, shape or form was I trying to say that anybody can be anything that they want to be. Never have I said that. I actually deeply agree with this particular person's emphasis on it's dangerous to tell children that they can be anything that they want to be, because it's not. And it does ignore the objective reality that people are very different. But I've never advocated for telling people, especially with kids, hey, tell your kids that they can be Anything that you want to be. Again, for somebody who claims that they listen to the podcast, they're not really hearing what I'm saying, are they? They may be error actively listening. And I guarantee you, for this person, it's being filtered through a tremendous amount of bias. And perhaps that's the case for all of us. But you're not hearing what I'm saying. I've never said that you should tell your kids they can be anything that they want to be. I've actually openly talked about. I think that's one of the more dangerous things that parents can do because it sets an unrealistic expectation. The path that I took and have followed was I would ask my kids, what interests you? And then I would support, to the best of my ability, whatever direction it is that they wanted to go. Honest conversations about the differences between people, honest conversations about the differences between careers. But supporting my kids in the things that interest them, I think is essential. Telling them that they can be anything that they want to be. I mean, it's a choice. As a parent, is it necessarily responsible? I don't know. That's probably a conversation for another day, but it's not something that I have ever advocated. So for the guy who opens with or gal, because I don't know, I'm generally impressed with the wisdom you provide for many of the questions you answer. It doesn't actually sound like you're really hearing anything that I have said in the shows that you've listened to. Or perhaps I'll take, you know, I take ownership on this one, but that's not the correct way to phrase it. Perhaps you just haven't heard me say those things because, you know, the episodes you get are a little bit part and parcel. That's just the way that it is. Conventional versus traditional life. I couldn't agree with you more. That life has more in store for everybody than most people could ever consider would be coming their way. That's gonna happen regardless of the choices that you make in your life. What I specifically said in that episode was if you wanna take a conventional path, make conventional choices. If you wanna fall into that traditional, and I don't wanna say stereotype, I'll say definition. There's nothing wrong with that. And the choices that you make could lead yourself in that direction. The emphasis was on if you wanna be able to achieve things that will make other people scratch their head and wonder how you did it, you're going to probably have to start making some extraordinary decisions. You're going to have to take Risk, you're going to have to be able to fail. And not everybody is comfortable with that. Just like all the physical differences that can come with human beings, people's tolerance to risk or things that they enjoy doing also very different. So not everybody falls into that bucket. But for somebody who is unwilling to take risks, who wants to live a conventional life by whatever definition that they would consider it to be, who would like to live their life, call it in third gear versus fifth gear, I totally support that. But the likelihood of that person being an innovator, being at the front, leading edge, exploring or creating things or doing, doing things that. That rocks people back on their heels a little bit and, and gets them to think about, damn, how was that person able to do it? I'm sorry, they're incredibly low, if not impossible. Is that. Could that be a wildly fulfilling life? Absolutely. For that person. Is there anything wrong with that? Nope. Live your life however you want to live. My point, and again, specifically I was talking about a occupational career path for these people of sliding their chips in and making a non traditional choice was about where that could potentially lead you. It could lead you to incredible sadness and failure. And to use your terms of the guy who was played at Carnegie hall, the quest destroyed him. Interesting that you are describing that for him. I wonder how he would actually describe that. I bet you there'd be a divergence there, but that's neither here nor there. Is it possible that you could end up destroyed by your quest for a non traditional life? Yes, it absolutely is. But the likelihood of you being able to accomplish something incredible is orders of magnitude beyond somebody who is unwilling to make the same choices. And that's just the way that it is. Is a non traditional path better than a traditional path? No, I don't think so. They're different. They don't have to be compared and contrasted. Which is something I didn't do in that last episode. Again, the difference between listening and hearing. I'll end with this. I'm sorry that you had a genetic condition that altered the trajectory of your life. I've never received an email from someone like this who was successful and happy. Think about that for a second. Why don't those people send emails like this? Why? Why don't people who fall into that category send emails warning you against encouraging others to make non conventional choices? My answer to that is it's because they understand the value and they probably lived some aspect of that in their own life. Again, not better or worse, just different. I'm glad that you were able to find new objectives. I'm glad that you found success and you feel likely as satisfied as you would have been in your other goals. I don't necessarily think that's the case because I feel like if you would have achieved those other goals and that hadn't happened, this email would have never occurred. Life isn't fair. Something that I think we can both agree on. Just because something happened in your life, do the best that you can to not put those blinders on and view the world through that lens quickly. The wingsuit and getting shot in the sandbox. I've never advocated that anybody follow my path, by the way. And getting shot in the sandbox was actually just an incredible stroke of bad luck. So again, I don't know why you picked those two options other than if you have actually listened to the show. You don't understand who I am and who I advocate or what I advocate. I should say two last things you said. Wisdom is learning to determine what we can achieve and throwing your energy at that. You and I disagree on the definition of wisdom. I would rewrite that. Wisdom is learning that the only person that can determine what you can and cannot achieve is actually yourself. The limiting factor the number one limiting factor in almost everybody's life is themselves and the story that we tell ourselves. Are there physical limitations to that? Absolutely. I'm not saying that somebody who is in a wheelchair should dream of playing in the NBA. That isn't realistic. But the list of things that they can or cannot achieve is going to be governed by what they tell themselves they can or cannot achieve inside of reason. And that is true for every occupation and every person. Lastly, my description was one from a 60,000 foot view. Yes, I agree with you on that. I was a 60,000 foot question. That's how it is. When I get broad questions, I'm going to have to give some broad answers. I didn't give specifics on what you should do per month or week or per day because I didn't have enough information to specifically dial in on those things. So sometimes broad questions net broad answers. So I'll wrap it up on this email. Hopefully that clarified at least how I felt. Again, very interesting set of circumstances for the email that came in and actually to totally close it out, what I'll say is this. If I was a betting person, this man or woman willing to bet doesn't have kids themself. That's it. Moving on to question number two. This episode is brought to you by Mando. Do you use deodorant I hope that's a rhetorical question for everybody listening, because stinky people, well, they kind of stink. And I've been there. I've been the stinky guy before. I mean, I didn't really have a choice and I didn't have access to something is incredibly portable as like deodorant wipes like this, which I'll talk about here in a second. But I've gone about, oh, 60 days minimum without a shower. Obviously there was a military circumstance associated with that. I don't think I smelled great. I think our enemy may have been able to smell us about a week before we arrived on target. But I digress. What is Mando? It is whole body deodorant. I'm going to read where they say you can use it. Pit balls, thigh folds, belly buttons, butt cracks, and your feet. I don't know if you're supposed to use that all at once like that, but that's where you can use it. It was created by a doctor who saw firsthand how normal BO or body odor was being misdiagnosed and mistreated. It is clinically proven to block odor all day and control odor for up to 72 hours. They have solid deodorant sticks and they have spray deodorants. I'm late to the spray deodorant game. I really didn't. I guess I knew it was around, I just didn't think it was a thing until I started working with Mando, which surprisingly enough, one of their Instagram ads got me long before the partnership. So I was actually using this stuff before I started working with them on the podcast. It's great stuff. 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As a special offer for listeners, new customers can get $5 off that starter pack I just mentioned with the exclusive code that equates to over 40% off your starter pack. And the selective code that I was talking about is cleared hot. You can use that@shopmando.com that is S H O P as in Papa Mando. M A N D O.com Please support the show and tell them that I sent you again. Shopmando.com using the code cleared hot. Smell fresher, stay drier, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. See how I rhyme. They're not a big deal. Back to the show. All right, totally shifting gears. I will make these questions short and sweet. Recently on Change Agents, you interviewed author and former CIA targeter Sarah Adams. Do you think the current administration is taking her seriously? Where were you during the Benghazi attacks? And do you think Sarah needs to track down the heathens that tried to get your father's credit card information over the phone? Thanks for all that you do. Oh, man. Let's go back. Oh, actually, the easiest one. First, the Benghazi attacks. That was September of 2, 2012. So I was about eight months away from being medically retired in the Navy. That would have put me as the operations officer at the training detachment on the west coast, largely an administrative role, just working in the chain of command. I had an office and a desk that kind of overlooked the Pacific Ocean was pretty dope, but that is where I was completely detached from anything operationally. Do we need to launch Sarah to track down the heathens? Your words, not mine. That tried to get your father's credit card information over the phone. For those of you unfamiliar with this story, let me give you the wave tops. I was doing a show for change agents, which is a podcast that I host or show that I host with a production company called Ironclad. It's a great show. Try to keep it them into 60 minutes. Talking with people who are agents of change. I was talking with, I think it was a couple. That episode was a couple. And we were talking about these just farms, not agricultural farms, but these horrendous entities that. And there's a lot of it is based in gambling in certain areas of the world. And this infrastructure that exists and people get traffic there and they end up working at these scam call centers. And these things are evolving over time. And sometimes it's text messages, sometimes it's calls. And we were talking about the susceptibility of older generations to these type of things. And I mentioned to my father and I said to him, because we were talking about the text message scams I mentioned specifically, I said my dad is the absolute target demographic for this. If he were to receive a text message like this, he'd be sprinting at his geriatric pace that he's capable of sprinting across the room to get his credit card information. And I want to say to me the story is way better if I can say within 24 hours, that is exactly what happened. But I think it might have been within 48. It was un. So uncanny how close it was. My dad gets a text message and it says, you owe a debt on a toll road in California. And this is how they're so good. And I think that was actually, I don't know, they might have said that because he has a California phone number. But it was close enough to being realistic. And he had gotten a toll violation in California on a recent trip there. Click this link to satisfy it. Now there's usually a thread associated with we're going to, you know, you're going to suspend your license, all of these things. So what does he do? And I think the first toll was like three bucks. What does he do? Puts in his credit card information. It doesn't go through. He gets another text toll violation, $1500. What does he do? He goes and gets another credit card, puts that information in. I think it was three or four text messages and three or four cards. I say that because he got to go through the lovely exercise of calling the banks and getting new credit cards issued and then figuring out how to reset up auto pay on the things that he had set up. So yeah, good learning experience for my dad at the age of 78. That's the wave tops of what happened. The fact that I had that conversation and within two days, unbelievable. And he actually, when he finally I get a. I got a text message from my brother in law. It's like, hey, you need to get a hold of your dad. He's putting his credit card information on random links that he's getting text. I was like, oh shit, I'm on it. I call him like, dad, what are you doing? I'm trying to pay him a toll. He was embarrassed. And I'm like, listen, you don't need to be embarrassed. This is a Very, very good learning lesson one, never put your credit card information onto the Internet unless you know exactly where it's going. Don't respond to text messages from people you don't understand. Don't click on the links. All of this stuff that my dad did, he just didn't know any better. And I had to explain to him, like, don't be embarrassed. There's a reason that these scams exist, and you are the target audience for this. Hate to tell you, buddy. Now, do we need to put Sarah on top of that? I would say no, because I like Sarah's focus on counterterrorism and physical threats. And the reason, and not that the. The threats of financial scams are less, especially for those in vulnerable economic situations. The reason I don't think we need to send Sarah on a targeting mission heading towards that is that there are plenty of people who are already paying attention to this. There's a bunch of NGOs, there are government agencies that are looking at this, and I think we just need to support them in their quest to tackle these individuals. So I would bifurcate that effort. I would not align Sarah's expertise to, towards a scamming effort because at the end of the day, I don't think that there's going to really be a targeting solution from like a direct action or a piece of ordinance coming off of a wing. Many of those people don't seem to want to actually be there. And the reason that they're trying so hard on the scams that they're working is, is that that's their only chance at survival. And a lot of the times, the carrot of freedom is dangled in front of them. And you can imagine how the story goes. Do they ever actually get to that carrot? No, of course, because it's on something on your head and it's just dangling in front of you. They didn't choose to be in that situation. They're trying to survive. And I'm not trying to excuse their behavior by any stretch, but do you need to have a kinetic solution for that type of thing? No, I would orient the other agencies and NGOs toward that and do the best she can with that. Keep Sarah aligned to the first part of this. Do you think the current administration is taking her seriously? When you say taking her seriously? I will paraphrase the conversation we had on change agents and something that I've heard her and many others in the intel community recently, recently talking about, and that is the likelihood of another attack inside of the U.S. the Homeland attack, I believe, are the exact words that she uses. And I will say this many, many people in the intelligence community of which I have no direct ties anymore. But I know some people who have worked there or still have some peripheral ties. And the information trickling down there are a lot of red flags, not with specifics, not on this day and time. And this is what's going to happen because I wish that's how intelligence worked, that you could put a CL on the wall and hit a button and say an X amount of hours at this 10 digit grid, we're going to have an attack of this kind. That's not the way intelligence works. It's not the way I've ever seen it work. I wish that was the case. Not all intelligence is actionable, unfortunately. You could have a lot of information that's there and it's hard to connect the dots, to parse the wheat from the chaff, to get it into something that could terminate in a piece of ordinance coming off a wing or somebody being there to stop it. That's the fantasy of that. And that's largely based off what you see in movies and books and all those things which are entertain, but doesn't paint a picture of the real world. There are from the professionals that I pay attention to, a lot of red flags waving. And what is that tied to? It could be tied to our own foreign policy overseas, our own policy when it comes to the border, allowing people into the country largely unchecked. It's not any one thing. It is, as are most things in life, a combination of many things. Regardless of those many things of which in the past, we cannot go back and change. The net result of that is people that I trust because of their experience, their placement, their history, their job performance, they are doing their best to sound the warning, the alarm bells, if you will. Do I think the current administration is taking her seriously. I don't know because I have no idea what, what the current administration is doing. And that's probably a good thing that I don't know what they're doing. A lot of the intelligence apparatus is designed by nature and doctrine to operate behind the curtain, if you will, the blue curtain behind me, off the radar, another metaphor that might resonate. So that's okay. And a lot of the times, you know, a tough job for agencies like that is you don't often hear about the successes, but. But failures, yeah, they're going to be front page news. So it can be a little bit of an unbalance or unbalance when it comes to their efficacy. But I am worried. I am. Am I worried? Am I concerned? God, what's the right word? Maybe a mixture of both. What I will say is this. And I'm not talking about the administration at this point because that's the most complete answer I can give. I don't know if they are taking her seriously. Do I want them to take her seriously? Yes, I absolutely do. Can I control this administration and what they do? No, I cannot. Can I control my own personal life? Yes, I absolutely can. And so can you. So let's talk about that. Because these people that I take seriously are sounding the alarm bell. And I do think that they are doing that from a position of trying to gain awareness and attention as to a potential threat. Even though they may not have, like I said, specific, actionable intelligence on the X in the moment. What does that change about my own life? Am I driving around with an AR platform rifle in my truck with my body armor and helmet and night vision and a go bag and a med kit, ready to bang it out at a moment's notice? No, I am not. Do I have all those things? And could I do that if I wanted to? Yes, I could. Do I advocate anybody else doing that? Well, that's a personal choice. And before you make that choice, please research and understand the laws associated with where you live. I would hate to see people in an effort to be as prepared as possible and take the steps that they need to go on the other side of the law and actually find themselves in more trouble. And that's a state by state thing there. I have the ability here, where I live now, to have a lot more things on me or with me that I would not be able to where I lived in California. And that is just the way that the cookie crumbles is that, hey, Montana is better than California. No, they're just different. Right? We can talk about differences without having a value proposition to that and saying one is better than the other. It is just the reality. What have I changed? Well, more than anything, I've started having conversations, limited with my kids, more so with my wife. And so, you know, cup of coffee in the morning. Hey, so, Red dawn, what do you think? Do you think in the backyard, should we build our. Our punji pit in the backyard? Should we do a fighting position in the front yard? No, it's not those things. It is broad. Hey, let's just talk about interruption to infrastructure in Kalispell. What's our plan? Dusting off our emergency plan of action? What are we going to do if something does happen. And let's see what power infrastructure in the US out for minimum 72 hours. But she's at work. I'm off doing something. My kids are wherever they're at. Cool. Let's have a plan on where we would meet in the case that the cell network went down as well. And that's going to be our plan. This is where we're going to link up and this is where we're going to go from there. So you can either meet me at that point and if you missed that little link up, meet us at this other location. Those are easy plans to have. Do you have a generator? Yep, got a generator. Okay, cool. Has it been actually serviced? When was the last time you turn it on? That's something that I do every time that I go out to our lake house, which is where I have the generator. I'll turn the thing on, make sure it's still functional. Right. It's great to have that piece of equipment, but it's just a paperweight if it doesn't actually work. Guns, ammo, all that type of stuff. I live in a very to a friendly state, so I have all of those things. Good to know where they are, good to know what you have, and good to make sure that your equipment is in a serviceable condition. I've always carried medical kit in my vehicle, not some incredible blowout kit. I actually use the field craft survival. There's two versions. There's an individual one and then a vehicle one as well. I've actually had to rip open those just being first responder to accidents. You're much more likely to have to stop bleeding than actually create bleeding for somebody. So think of that. When it comes to stats, I'm just dusting off my what if binder. My, my mental what if binder. I have not gotten to the place where I'm like, you know, body armor is going to be in the truck from here on out. Maybe I'm going to increase or change the capabilities that I have with firearms that I carry on me. Maybe it's time to start having, you know, ballistic helmet and night vision with me at all times. Could it possibly get to a place where I would feel that way? Yeah, I guess it probably could. And I would be honest about that if it got to that point. But I'm also being honest that that's not the point that I'm at right now. If people, again, if people feel that they need to be at that point, should they do those things? Not for me. To tell you how to live your life. But please, please research the laws and where you live. The government in those moments, let's say something does happen. I'm not even going to hypothesize on a situation. What I will say is this. If you look to the government to solve your problems as those situations are unfolding or in the short aftermath thereof, the government is not going to be there for you. They're not equipped to do so. They're not going to be able to move rapidly. State and local probably will be able to handle things a little bit better. But the reality is this plan on being your own first responder for 72 hours. So have a little mental what if binder and some equipment necessary, some material necessary that you'd be okay for a minimum of 72 hours. Does this mean you need to have a nuclear bunker? I don't think so. Can you get one if you want one? Yeah. Go to town. Depending on your economic situation, not everybody's in the same situation, but you can always control what you can control. And some of that. The easiest thing to do is just have a conversation with your friends or family. Hey, if something does happen and it's. It looks along the lines of this, where should we meet up? What if we can't talk to each other because all of a sudden our cell network is down? Where should we meet up? And if you miss, if you miss the meetup, where could our next place be? Think about those things. Formulate at least a little bit of a plan. If you have the economic ability to start gathering some tools and equipment. Awesome do so, I mean, I would focus on maybe electricity creation via generator, water supply, you know, and the ability to filter out your water from a tainted water source. Not like, hey, it's been poisoned by Al Qaeda, but like, I don't know if I want to drink out of that stream because deer shit and go from there. Control what you can. Control. The government is not going to be able to save you in those first few moments, minutes, hours, days. God, if it gets to the point of weeks, it's going to be a real, real interesting lens into our society or just humanity in general. But control what you can because I can't control the government. And at this point, I'm sitting there looking at the government like, what in the fuck are you guys actually up to? So I hope they're taking her seriously. I'm not at a place right now where I have a Red dawn mobile decked out. If I get to that place, I'll be honest with you. I'll tell you why. But again, my choices are my choices. I have a different level of experience and access to equipment and background than most people and that's okay. I'll do the best to explain how I got to my decision point, why I'm making that. But I'm not saying people need to model my behavior, but currently my behavior hasn't changed other than dusting off the mental Rolodex. All right. I don't even know how long I've been going for. I think I've been going for a bit. One more for today. Totally changing gears again. Andy, first off, thanks for all the content you and your friends put out. It certainly makes the night shift a bit less monotonous. Man, you night shift workers, more power to you. I don't know how you do it. I just recently had my first of a few interviews for a position as an LEO up here in Snomexico and was successful in my first round and I'm waiting for the next one. I have to assume that through your military career you had to interview at least a few times for different positions. I'm interested to get your take on how to deal with the nerves that get to most of us in the lead up to and during an interview process. How did you deal with them? Man, great question. Nerves are a real thing. The most frequent time that I deal with them now is when I do public speaking. It is not nerve wracking but a nervousness inducing environment to know you're going to get up in front of an audience with literally probably a light on you and a microphone in your hand and people are going to have expectations. What gets me is that my expectations are more likely than the expectations people have in the audience. And over time I have learned to just accept the nervousness that I have because I realize it's a natural thing. I also realize I can't have a perfect speech. I might stumble across a word. Sometimes you lose your way a little bit. There's things you can do to help yourself. Bring a notebook, bring a slideshow, bring an index card that can help. Have a framework for where you want to get in case you get lost along the way. And also what helps me with speaking is realizing that every single person in that room would probably trade almost everything they have to not switch places with me. We're all human. I'm the one who happens to be up there. They're probably really thankful that they are not. Their nervousness would be an order of magnitude greater than mine, given my experience in doing so. But they're not possible or capable of doing it perfectly either, and neither am I. So we're going to accept the fact that I'm going to make mistakes and we're gonna go with it. And also that nervousness reminds me that it's important and it helps me care. How do I help combat that nervousness? I prepare. I meticulously prepare. Know what I'm gonna talk about, have an understanding of the topic, and I stay on topic. And when I get asked questions that I don't know the answer to, you know what I say? I don't know. And I'm okay with doing that because I don't have the answers to all questions now in an interview process, and this will tie into public speaking as well. The best piece of advice that I have for anybody going into an interview is this, be true to who you are. Do not try to portray yourself as something that you are not, because that facade over enough time or pressure is going to crack. Now, occupationally, I'm going to add to this. If you're going into an occupation, do some research on the job. Have an understanding and the ability to show the interviewer. Because you as the interviewee are applying for a job, they start asking you questions about the job. And I'm not talking. You're talking about Leo, right? Law enforcement officer. I'm not saying you need to understand the exact policy for everything at that department, but understand that you're going to be required to do shift work. I was having a conversation with somebody the other day about a guy who came out of the fire academy and quit right afterwards because they didn't realize they were going to do 24 hour shifts. Now the ridiculous nature of that to me is mind blowing. How would, how could you. Why would you apply for that job not knowing that that would be one of the requirements? But it highlights what I'm saying. Don't be that guy. So, yeah, you don't need to understand the exact policy for everything, but understand the basics of what it is that you are trying to apply for. So if the person interviewing you goes down that pathway a little bit, they realize that the person sitting in front of them is intelligent. They've done their research. They did their research because they care. They care because they want the fucking job. All of those things are net positive in your favor. Now back to being yourself and being honest. The really, the only interview that I remember doing was for the selection process for development group. And it occurred over a three Day time period, and it's so long ago, I do not remember the exact order. But I think we did all the, the psychological testing. First the bubble tests, then I think I sat down with the no. Then we did the physical test, the run, swim, push ups, pull ups, all that stuff. Then I think I sat down with the shrink and did the interview with him which is more of a review of your psychological profile. And then the actual interview where they set it up in a horseshoe shape where all of the senior members from the command were on the outside and you are sitting in the middle. I swear it was this elementary school desk that had one of those flip up little desks and you're in your dress uniform and you're sitting there and it's like, this is awkward. You're like on the inside of the horseshoe in a child's desk and you don't know what they're going to ask you. That can be a very stress inducing situation. I remember the stress from that and that was Jesus in the 90s, late 90s. And I remember what I told myself. Be yourself. Answer honestly. Don't try to portray yourself as something that you are not. Because I'm telling you over time that will crack anybody out there who is living a lie that may be working for you right now. But if you give it enough time and enough pressure, you're going to get proper. And that's your fault if you are doing that. Living an honest life and telling the truth and portraying yourself as who you are and staying true to who you are is so much easier than trying to remember who you've lied to, why you lied to them, how the lies are connected. Fuck all that. Be true to yourself. Every question that I got asked I answered honestly. I'm a fan of saying to some questions that I don't know, but I always follow up with this and this. I mean this is not an interview, but this is like when you're getting a pilot's license, you'll have questions that are asked of you. There's no way that you can know them all. But anytime I get to a place where I say, you know what, I don't know the answer that, but I'm going to get back to you with the answer and then I do. So I might even look it up in the moment if it's like a far aim thing for aviation. And if I was asked a question in an interview setting, I would, if I told them, hey, you know what, I don't actually know the answer to that question. If it's something technical in nature. I would say, you know what, I'll get back to you. And then I would. I would immediately upon leaving that, find the answer to the question that I was asked. And then obviously you have some level of communication with them because you set the meeting up and you're there. If it's email, I'd email them back, be like, hey, you know what? This is what I found. I just wanted to close the loop on this. Thanks again for your time in the interview. You know, let me know next steps, something along those lines. Obviously, that can vary depending on what it is. It's okay to say that you don't know, but if you don't know and it's important and that information would be valuable to the interviewer, find it and provide it to them. But again, all of that is underpinned in being true to who you are and being honest. I have watched people, so many people, create a story and create a narrative, and it'll get them through the first filtering process, because no filtering process is perfect. And whatever, however long it may take, maybe it's a day, maybe it's a month, maybe it's a week, maybe it's a year, the same thing happens. The tower eventually comes crumbling down, and life is so much easier by not building that tower of bullshit. Take what you have, be honest about who you are and what you have, and go from there. Excuse me. Don't build it on bullshit to begin with. That is the best advice I can give you. You're going to be nervous going into the interview. That's okay. Guess what? The person interviewing you was nervous at some point going through the same process. We're all human. They're going to recognize that to agree. They're going to expect you to be nervous to a degree right before I go up on stage. And this would help in an interview process as well. I take a moment, I'll just sit down and I'll find somewhere that's quiet and maybe it's even my hotel room, depending on where it is that I'm speaking. And I'll sit there and I'll just close my. I'll take a few deep breaths, remind myself that I know who I am. If it's a speech, that I know what I'm talking about, because I only do speeches on topics that I actually understand. If you're getting ready to go into an interview, I remind myself I know who I am. I know what I stand for, I know what I believe. And I know that given enough time I can answer any question that is asked of me. Take that deep breath. Go. That's how I deal with it. And hopefully that helps somebody else out there. And hopefully it helps answer your question. See you all on Monday.
