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Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north to south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Give it to me. I mean it. You're cleared hot. Can't be cleared hot. Whew. We made it kind of, I mean, Friday this episode comes out so you can trail off into the weekend. I'm recording this the day before on Thursday. So we're almost there. I guess it would be the light at the end of the tunnel that I can see for the week. Man, August was wild. Very Jiu Jitsu heavy. Went up to a week long Henry Akins seminar in essentially Mendocino, California, then just got back from origin camp in Maine. On that note, I believe Pete said this many times while we were there, but I think it was only open to the people who were there for the 2025 year. The 2026 registration is going to be opening up. I believe they cap it at 500. Please don't hold me to these numbers. I'm sure the origin website will have better information than me. It's cool though. Lee and I were talking about this. We think we've been there four years, maybe five. We can't decide between four or five, but we're going to be there next year. It's a pretty cool week, man. It's like drinking from a fire hose though. Thousands of square feet of mats, countless high end instructors. As much rolling as you want, take as much time off as you want. It's all contained in one really cool area, which I think is one of the most unique parts of it. Like if you can get there, you can just go to town and train to your Jiu Jitsu heart's delight as much as you may desire. Really cool. It sells out fast. That's the point of me telling you this. I don't have any tie to professionally to Origin. Obviously I'M a huge fan of the brand and very good friends with Pete and Jocko. But I, you know, go or don't go. It doesn't matter to me. They're not a sponsor. They don't do any advertising on the podcast. It's just a really cool week and if you want to go and experience it, act early. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Arguably the worst sales pitch ever. I just took like two minutes to say, buy your tickets now for 2026. Essentially. What are we talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by Mud Water. Now, if you know me, you know that I love coffee. But coffee doesn't work for everybody. And what are you supposed to do if you wake up feeling like most people and you got some pretty heavy brain fog from just waking up? A lot of people say, oh yeah, we'll just have a cup of coffee. Well, what if you're really sensitive to caffeine? What if it makes you anxious or if it makes you jittery? A lot of people would say, well, I don't have any options. But you do. And that's where Mud Water comes in. And I will say this too, if you're a fan of Matcha, which I'm not a huge fan of, that is another reason to take a look at Mud Water. Mud Water is a functional coffee alternative. I'm going to read some of the things that are inside of it here. Okay. 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The their OG blend contains cacao and chai for a hint of caffeine and hot chocolate like flavor Lion's mane for focus Cordyceps to promote natural energy in both Chaga and Reishi to support a healthy immune system. The best part about Mud Water is provides sustained energy without the spikes and crash of traditional coffee. So if you're ready to make the switch to cleaner energy, head to mudwtr.com and grab a starter kit today. Right now, the listeners will get an exclusive deal up to 43% off your entire order. You heard me say that, right? 43% plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use the the code cleared hot. That's right. 43% off or up to 43% off with the code cleared hot at Mud Water, which is Mike Uniform, Delta, Whiskey, Tango, Romeo M U D w t r.com after your purchase, they're going to ask you how you found them. Please do me a favor and let them know that Cleared Hot sent you keep your energy natural and refreshing all year long with Mud Water because life's too short for anything less than clean, delicious energy. Back to the show. What do we got here? 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3. Carry the 1. 4, 5. Okay, I think I have some good questions picked out for today. They're for whatever. It's like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. I was able to grab like five in a row right in my inbox because they seemed interesting to me. So what do you think? Let's just dive in. Question number one. Here we go. Hey, Andy, I'm wondering what your line in the sand is with the administration before you speak out. If American troops patrolling American cities is not enough, the than what is. For me, it was January 6th. I knew that day that if Trump is given the chance, he would burn down our democracy. Your opinion matters to a lot of people and I'm hoping when you see that line you will once again defend democracy. I'm assuming you mean the line that you're asking about what my personal line in the sand is. I'm a huge fan of the podcast and although I don't agree with you at times, I do respect your opinion. I like emails like this and I like the fact that people tune in who don't necessarily agree with what I have to say. Here's some food for thought for you. I don't always agree with what I necessarily say. I've changed my mind on a bunch of stuff over the course of my life. I do the best I can to critically think through the things that I'm gonna say, but oftentimes new information will come out and it will change my opinion or my thoughts on something and then I just do my best to kind of footnote and annotate that. I don't think it's probably a good idea if you were. Beliefs and opinions are rigid from birth and they don't change throughout, maybe that would be a good thing. But I feel like you'd have to encapsulate yourself in a bubble and only be reinforced with things that support your belief system. And that hasn't been my life, and nor do I make an attempt to make my life that way. I'm totally open to having conversations with people that are diametrically opposed to my opinions and beliefs. We can agree to disagree. I'm open to having my mind changed. I enjoy talking with people that when you ask them if there's anything you could say or do that could change their mind, they say, yes, I am open to doing that. That's amazing. That's a middle ground where you can have these conversations. So I just try not to be super dogmatic. My line in the sand before I speak out, I feel like you're saying just specifically on this administration, Trump's administration, and it makes me wonder how often you've listened to the podcast, because for me, I don't have. I can't think of, like, in this moment, in real time, when I'm answering this, like some line in the sand, where to me it's like, that's it. I have to make my whole existence now about speaking out, about fill in the blank. I do my best to call balls and strikes, and it doesn't matter what administration is in office. And this is true from when I was in the military as well. I served under Democratic presidents and Republican presidents. I tried to call balls and strikes. Since I've been out of the military, I have been a citizen of this country. An obviously I was a citizen while serving as well. But just separating military service and everything beyond Democratic and Republican, I try to call balls and strikes. If you have listened to this show, then you should be aware that I have been highly critical of how things played themselves out on January 6th on both sides, not only from the first Trump administration and how I believe he personally could have drastically changed the outcome of that day, just with speaking publicly the vernacular that he would use, but also the people who chose to take those actions. You know, the preparation, response, like the whole thing, the entire thing was wildly political politicized, as is almost every issue in this country. And it absolutely drives me nuts. I've been very vocal about January 6th. I was very vocal about my thoughts on Covid and the Lockdowns and vaccinations and consequences for those that didn't have vaccinations. So I don't know what line in the sand you think I need to approach. I'm just not somebody who makes politics the defining factor of who I am. And the only thing that I am willing to talk about defending democracy, you know, you hope that I will find this line and then once again defend democracy. Let's look at what I do right now. Occupationally. I'm talking into a microphone, into a camera in an empty room. It's just me in here right now. And I can give people my opinion. I can't defend democracy from this table that I am sitting behind. I'm not sure I was able to defend democracy in my old job where I was issued a weapon and a uniform and deployed overseas. I do believe that we had impact. But was it truly defending democracy? I don't know. I would say it was hopefully providing a safer environment where democracy could swing to the left and to the right and go through the natural struggles that it needs to to survive into the future. But I don't know if my individual actions had anything to do with that. I land on probably not. Were they hopeful? Maybe in some microscopic world and degree, but I mean, that's what that is. So I don't know if you think I wear a red, white and blue cape down the street and I'm capable of keeping our democracy in check, but I don't feel that way at all. I give people my opinion when they ask me for it. I try to answer honestly, regardless of what the outcome may be. Because I know that I hold different opinions than some people. And I know that some people hold different opinions than myself. They're free to ignore me. They're free to change the channel, they're free to unsubscribe. They're free to skip whatever it is that they want to do. People will ask me for my opinion and I give it. But I don't think I am in any place to try to defend our democracy. That's just where I land on that now line in the sand. Here's one. I mean, if here's an example, a perfect example of how I just try to call balls and strikes right now. I think the current administration, Trump specifically when he signed the executive order making it a crime to burn an American flag is a galactic mistake. There are probably few things that would turn my stomach less and infuriate me less than watching somebody burn the American flag. And I came from an occupation that was unique in the perspective that I was issued that flag and I got to wear it around the world. Anybody can buy a flag for sure, but there are few jobs where you actually are issued that flag from the country and are expected to represent that around the world. And it is that very flag that when my friends were killed, they would drape it over their coffins and fly them home. It has immense, deep meaning for me and I hate seeing it. When people use the American flag as something to either protest against or a tool of their protest, especially when they deface it or they burn it. But the ability to do so, the ability for the First Amendment to hold its power. And to me, the First Amendment, whether it's verbal or physical expression, is not about. This is the way I view is not about what I can say and what I can do. It's about what other people can say and do, regardless of the fact that it may turn my stomach and absolutely boil my blood. I think that there's a reason it's the First Amendment. And if they were to rank them in order, I feel like there's a reason that one's at the top. Right. It's also the first 10amendments are our Bill of Rights. Why is it number one? I don't know. Maybe because it is so damn essential. Can I understand an argument that you know that flag is sacred and therefore should not allow to be burned? I understand that argument, but I don't agree with it because as much as I care about it, I don't have the right to prohibit somebody else, nor do I think the government should have the right to prohibit themselves or themselves, somebody else, not themselves, from expressing themselves in that manner if they choose to. Again, freedom of expression is not freedom of consequences. People who are out there who do these things, and we've seen this so many times on social media, you might be protected by the First Amendment from a government action. How many times have people lost their jobs? How many times have people had modifications in their social circles? Freedom of expression does not free you from consequences. I would almost rather have. I'm not take the almost rather. I would rather have people act like a fool publicly so we know who they are and where they are, than do that stuff in the shadows where it is harder to keep track of the dum dums. Right. And I'm not saying people who burn flags are dumb dumbs, but I think some of them are. It irritates me and concerns me that that executive order was written. Now, is this a line in the sand for me, no. Because I believe the checks and balances are actually working in our government right now. For every executive action that has been taken or order that has been signed, there are federal lawsuits that are following it and they're bouncing back and forth into the courts. And that's exactly the way it should be working. Some of them are going through and some of them are not. I am not a constitutional scholar, I'm not an expert in how the government works. But I am watching what a lot of people would say are challenges to our Constitution and democracy. But then I am watching those same systems that are supposed to be in place holding up our democracy and Constitution. The checks and balances that are slowing things down are working. So I guess the best way I can. Well, let me address one more thing here. American troops patrolling American cities. The only examples I know of this are Washington D.C. and LA. So let's talk about LA, where the National Guard was deployed. I talked to state and federal officers who were there. The federal troops in LA were allowed to basically form a perimeter, a loose perimeter around federal buildings, assisting or augmenting the law enforcement personnel in Los Angeles. That's what their role was. That's all that they did. Were they patrolling the city? Not from anybody that I was able to talk to. D.C. is a little bit more interesting. It appears that the National Guard was again deployed to dc. They may be doing more than just surrounding federal buildings, but at the same time they were authorized and given additional powers. I believe it was either from the SecDef or it came from the Office of the President, still inside of the powers that the National Guard is authorized to have. It was not a deviation from, and again, not a constitutional scholar, not a legal scholar, it was not a deviation outside of the parameters that currently exist. It might be right up against the edge of those parameters, but to my understanding, it has not gone beyond that. I've talked to state and federal officers in Washington D.C. as well. The National Guard troops are not leading these efforts. They are plussing up and augmenting state, local and federal agencies to provide more manpower. Now, one of the things that recently has happened, some of the National Guard troops have been given authorization to be armed, which from an optic perspective may be unsettling to people. And I guess from a use of force perspective, if there was no firearm there, I guess it's unlikely that there'd ever be a National Guard versus civilian firearm engagement. Is it more possible now because there are weapons? Potentially, yes. Let's see how that one plays out. Does the Idea of arming National Guard soldiers bother me not in concept, because they're in a profession of arms, they're trained on their sidearms, and every other state and federal officer that they are there to augment is in fact going to be armed as well, optically. I can understand why people don't necessarily like it. To me it does. It's like that's one of the tools that comes with doing that job. Now, what authorizations come with those firearms, what they're able to do, their rules of engagement, I don't know the answer to that. So I can't speak to whether or not that is going beyond the legalities. But I haven't seen a challenge to it yet. So I don't think that it is beyond that. But from an optic perspective, like I said, I get it. I was reading an article literally this morning where the mayor of Washington D.C. who was originally incredibly hesitant about this deployment of National Guard troops, has now admitted, she readily admitted that it's working, that crime is decreasing. I think the stat that I saw was in the, for the first time in a really, really long time, a matter of years has been like an 11 day stretch where there wasn't a murder in Washington DC. Do I want the National Guard deployed to cities across the United States of America? No, I absolutely do not. Do I want unchecked violence in any of our cities across the United States? No, I absolutely do not. And what I would highly, highly suggest for people is for them to go and do some actual research on the amount of violence in and around Washington D.C. if you have hair, it will blow your hair back. An incredibly violent city. Do I like that optic? Do I want the National Guard deployed in that manner? No. What are your options if the local and state authorities are not empowered to do so by the leadership above them at the state level and they know that there's that level of violence and they do nothing about it, I would say put yourself again. Now we're into the world of a little bit of a hypothesis here. But if you were the decision maker sitting at that seat and you were able to look at that level of violence and, and see the tools that potentially are available only to the state or city elected officials and you're looking at that and you're asking those people, why aren't you using these people in a way? Or why do you have policies that are set up in a manner that are actually going to perpetuate this violence and do nothing to stop it? And then. So that's on the right hand side of the table. On the left hand side of the table, you're a person in that position who can make that decision. And you have another tool that you could implement that would in fact actually have almost an instantaneous impact and drastically reduce that. What would you do as the decision maker? Would you allow it to continue? Or would you make a decision that has an almost instantaneous impact for the citizens of that city? Not a right or a wrong answer that can come from this. But it's so easy for people to sit back and Monday morning quarterback these things. And my question is, what would you do if you were in that position? That would be a really tough one. Especially, like I said at the beginning of this episode, everything is weaponized and politicized and you're watching people either do things or not do things because they want to score political wins at the cost of potentially the safety and the lives of those they are supposed to serve in elected office. That is a tough one. So these are conundrums. I've gotten completely off topic. My line in the sand. I try to do exactly what I'm doing right now on this episode. Maybe when I'm talking about the First Amendment, when things come up, I talk about them. I'll tell you how I feel. But people need to take into account that I am one person with one person's experience in life, and these are purely my opinions. I'm not a. What are the. What's the word? You know, thought leader or I don't work for a think tank. I'm answering questions that I get in emails and it's just one guy's opinion. So my line in the sand, when I encounter it, I talk about it. And then if I encounter another one, I talk about it. I try to do it in real time. I don't think I'm ever going to be the person who becomes their soul. Life mission and purpose is to be this vocal mouthpiece for what I consider to be my line in the sand. Because I also recognize that other people have lines in the sand and those people are my neighbors. And sometimes our lines are parallel, sometimes they're perpendicular. We still need to figure out a way to survive and then hopefully thrive as well. This episode is brought to you by Poncho, makers of the Ultimate Outdoor Performance shirt for men. And of course, I'm an idiot and forgot to wear one. So I just have this T shirt on for the ad read today. But imagine a shirt that feels like your favorite tea. It's built for the outdoors and still looks sharp enough for a dinner out. That's the magic of Poncho. One of the benefits of working with these brands is that they send you some of the products. So they sent me three shirts and holy cow, they these things were good to go right out of the container. The fabric is lightweight, not see through, but it breathes incredibly well and dries really fast, which is perfect for summer late summer activities in Montana, where the sun is just beating down on you if you run hot. The vented back helps keep you cool, especially on those hot and humid days. And it has become my favorite summer shirt. 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Free exchanges to make sure that you get that right fit. And Poncho stands by every shirt and they will make it right. If it's not your favorite, go to poncho outdoors.com cleared hot for $10 off your first order. That is P O N C H O. Poncho outdoors.com cleared hot for 10% off and free shipping. Go try one out and I'll try to wear one of those shirts on an episode soon. I got a multicam one, a camo. It's not a big deal. You'll. You'll be able to see it when I wear it back to the show. All right, question two. I actually realized I kind of unintentionally bled over into this. It was a question about Trump's deployment of the National Guard to D.C. and plans to extend such measures. I think I've, I've covered that. So I'm actually gonna step on, step over to question number three. So here we go. Longtime listener from New Zealand. New Zealand is. I spent two weeks there in the south island many years ago. I think Switzerland is a tough. That's a tough competitor between New Zealand and Switzerland. Those are the two most beautiful places I have ever been on Earth. If you've never been to New Zealand, you need to get your ass to New Zealand. I can't speak to the North Island. I was only in the South Island. But there's a reason they filmed the Lord of the Rings there. It's unbelievable. Okay, digressing. Served four years in the New Zealand Army. While I didn't do anything in that time worthy of noting, I was influenced and inspired by a lot of people like yourself and your former colleagues. My question is this. And this is the reason I chose this is. This is so pertinent to what is kind of going on in the veteran and specifically Special Operations veteran space right now. After hearing the stories from many ex servicemen over the years on your podcast and others, some who I admire deeply, then coming to find out that they weren't entirely truthful of their service and what they did. Another way to phrase that is they lied. How do you tell who is being honest and genuine and who is not? I don't know who or what to believe now. And people I admired, I now no longer feel I can due to their false representations of themselves, thoughts or advice. God, I have gotten a version of this question so many times in the last two months. There was a little bit of a grumbling about this in the months before that, but in about the past two months. And I would say that the two entities behind this are the Antihero podcast and Nate from Valhalla vft. The information that they have been able to. What's the word? Provide. Dig up, parse source. I don't know. The information that they have been able to in black and white present in contrast to people's own words and actions that were captured on the Internet. The Internet's a beautiful thing, connects us. It allows you to communicate with people you never were. You would never. Would you have access to, I think like the low 90th percentile of all knowledge available to human beings. But it's also a time capsule. It lets you go back in time and it lets you truth check people who probably never thought that they were going to get checked and that we'll call 2025. That has been an interesting piece of the 2025 puzzle. And again, those two platforms, Anti Hero and Valhalla Who? It has been rough for certain individuals, but what I'll say is this, those individuals that are getting this laser like focus on their actions and their speech and their claims, they did everything to earn it. So they are now at the buffet line of their own actions and they get to eat those consequences. Those individuals will have to work their way through those consequences. And at an individual level, like if you, if you serve that up and you have to eat it, you kind of need to go look in the mirror and determine whose fault that was. And when you flip the light on in the bathroom, just as a heads up for those of you who are finding yourself in that place, the person you see in that mirror. Yeah, that's the one responsible for it. The question that I have been getting asked and I struggle to have a good answer for this one, and this is my biggest issue with what's going on, is people reaching out and saying, how do I know who I can trust? What bothers me about people lying about their service or lying about their experiences is that it undermines the integrity of anybody who has ever worn a uniform. And I, you know, in a perfect world, the people who serve in uniform would hold a level of respect and integrity from the civilian populace that they were serving for. When people are demonstrably caught lying and really for no reason, because what they had done was completely enough, why they tried to make a nine level wedding cake out of it is absolutely beyond me. But when they lie, not only are there personal consequences, but it erodes the trust that should exist between the civilian population and those that have served in uniform. And I have been bombarded with this question, how do I know who to trust? And I've talked with some people about this and I've asked them what their answers are to this question because this is actually more difficult than you may think. You could say, well, make sure you use Google and do your research. Well, for about 10 years one of these people that we're talking about was able to get away with it even though there was a bunch of information on the Internet. So it's not a perfect tool. But I will say that is one of the things that I answer with one, just make sure you do your research. Do not develop a belief or what is the word I'm looking for? A belief or a dogmatic approach to anything because you saw a short on social media. Editing is real, lying is real, AI is real. @ this point, if you find something that you love or hate, take an additional step and just do a little bit of Research be slow to put your faith in online personalities. And I fall into that same category as well. I hate the fact that I could be considered an online personality. But I tell you what, people need to be out there. They need to be 100% researching me as well. I if you research me online, here's what you're gonna find. Plenty of examples of me saying dumb stuff. I'll be the first person to admit that sometimes my mouth outstrips my brain. Try to do my best to walk that stuff back there. But I also don't take stuff offline either because I'm okay with people seeing my mistakes. I'm okay with time capsuling dumb things that I said and having them exist. I have no problem talking about them in the future. I have no problem correcting myself in the future or taking accountability for something that I said that was either misguided or stupid. But I would challenge you to find something specifically and especially. But I actually don't even care. I was about to say just about my military career. I don't care. Military career, civilian career. I do my absolute best to tell the truth. There are some subjects that I won't talk about because it is unfair for only me to be able to talk about those things. My divorce is probably the best example of that. Yeah, I went through a divorce. Do I ever talk about the specifics? No, I do not. Other than the fact that it actually happened and it was horrendous, probably one of the hardest experiences of my life. But I leave it at that. People should fact check me. People should do a deep dive on me and I hope what they find is, yeah, this guy is an idiot from time to time on the Internet, but at least he tells the truth. Because that to me is what absolutely matters. That to me is how you actually can build and maintain trust. And I wish that that existed in this world of service members and non service members. But the more this stuff comes out and the more that you find that people are adding 10 to 15 to 150% to their stories and lying about this and lying about that and I don't know why they're doing it. I don't know if they're doing it for money or status or opportunities, whatever it may be, it's horrible and impacts everybody that served and everybody who didn't, by the way. I don't know how to un. I don't know how to unwind it and I don't know how to fix it other than to say be very cautious, be very Slow and do as much research as possible. And you still might be fooled, and you still might be tricked. What I will say is this. It doesn't exist only in the military world. That advice that I just gave, I think is good for military members, anybody else you might see online, or even people in your personal life. I have been fooled by people in my personal life deeply and painfully thinking that they were something that they were not. And at the end of the day, they were either a con man or a narcissist or saw me as a bridge to get from where they were to where they wanted to be. And then once they're over that bridge, light a match, throw it over their shoulder, and it's done. Having some time away from those situations, it's very easy for me to point to those people in my life, throughout phases of my life where that may have happened and say it was their fault. But now, objectively, going back, I missed a ticker tape parade. You know, the Communist Chinese Party, red flags waving, bordering the sides of the street that the parade was going down. I mean, maybe there were not that many, because I feel like there's a lot of red flags at a CCP rally. But I missed red flag after red flag after red flag or caught it and made an excuse for them. And that is the most. That one still chaps my ass to this day. You see it, you recognize it, and they don't even need to make an excuse because you make one for them. And, God, that sucks for me. Looking back again, trying to do a postmortem on this or an after action, most times that is tied to velocity. I. I wanted it to be true, so I made it true. I recognized a warning sign, but I ignored it because. No, no, no, that could never be true. That person would never do that. That's not that person's fault. That's my fault. Looking back on the information again that Nate and, you know, Brent over at Antihero that they're putting out, there was a lot of messed. Not messed. Well, how could I? There was a lot of messed up and missed red flags. No, I just. I used the wrong word. There was a lot of missed opportunities, specifically with Tim, that I should have paid more attention to. The warning signs were there. You know who made the excuse for him? I did. He didn't need to. I stepped in. I made it. I made that excuse because I guess more than anything, it was easier. It's not his fault. That's mine. So, again, this. Maybe we should call this getting off Topic Friday or being really long winded Friday. I think it's okay if you don't know who to trust. I think that's better than blanketly trusting everybody. I, in my own personal experience, the ones that, the people that. And this, I'm going to say this goes in the civilian and active or retired military world. The ones who say less, I'm not going to say, I was about to say, are likely telling more of the truth. I don't know. And that, and that statement is. I'm trying to put words to this. That statement is close to how I feel, but I don't want to be that broad with it. In my experience, the most legitimate of people in any type of accomplishments in their life, personal, professional, civilian, military, everything in between. They're more often than not, they are most often the ones who are the least likely to talk about it. The peacock who is out there strutting their stuff and trying to get the spotlight on them, in my experience. And again, it counts only for myself. And there are times when this can be wrong because there are just personality traits associated with people being more introverted or extra extroverted. Excuse me, those peacocks, there's almost always something behind the curtain there. So I'm not saying because somebody is more vocal about what they did that they are not telling the truth. In my experience, there are more issues with those that are out there peacocking about stuff, the quiet professionals. And, you know, that's an argument internally, specifically inside a special operation, should you ever say anything. We should never say anything about anything. It's like, yeah, but then you're also, you know, almost everybody who is in a special operations career community heard about it somewhere. So there are appropriate ways that I think you can tell stories to pass on lessons learned that still entice people and interest people and they want to come down that pathway, totally shutting off information I don't think is a great idea. Having a completely open and unchecked spigot is not a great idea either. It's that balance in between. I don't, I don't know how to prepare civilians to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to BS military stories. You know, you don't know the questions to ask. You don't know the small vernacular where somebody will just describe one thing in a way that you know isn't correct and you're just like, huh, that doesn't sound right. And that's usually what begins the unraveling. Civilians don't know that stuff. So again, take your time, do your research and maybe just remember at the end of the day that we're all human beings and to a degree we're all a little bit messy and there is no perfect human being out there. Even your hero, whoever your hero may be. And you know, when I was growing up, my heroes were my parents. Guess what? I'm now at the age that I was looking at my parents or my, you know, I am the age now when I was younger looking at my parents, thinking that they had it all figured out and that they were my heroes. And they still are by the way, but I realize they're just people and it's messy. So there is no person out there that's the perfect expression of fill in the blank. It's not going to happen. Be cautious. I've heard this phrase often with business. Be slow to hire and quick to fire. Maybe that works well with military influencers as well. People on social media. It's the best I can do for you. I wish I had a templated answer. It's murky out there at best. You're going to be looking through a cup of coffee trying to figure out what's on the other side of it and it's really, really dark. You may not be able to see much. Question number four, I think, Andy, what type of guy were you as a teen prior to joining the Navy? Not in relation to school or sports. Let me just answer those two for you aggressively. Average at sports, water polo and baseball. Academically disappointing would probably be the word that my parents would choose. Just under a 2.0 GPA in high school. It's not a big deal. I mean if you try hard, you probably can achieve it as well. Yeah, the bar was set low for me academically and somehow I still managed to trip in fall but graduated because I think mostly my teachers knew I was headed off to the military and probably didn't want to see me around for another year. So I think they might have all give me the old pencil whip on some of the paperwork and send sent me on my way again though back to the email. So not in relation to school or sports, but more from an individual standpoint. What type of individual mentality did you have as a younger pre Navy guy? And what changes did you notice in yourself and your mentality and demeanor after boot camp and then also post buds? I ask because in the years that I've been tuning in, you've shown yourself to think and behave in a calculated manner in order to protect yourself from every angle at all. Times, while also not sacrificing being able to speak the truth regardless of any potential consequences. So I'm going to stop right there. Even though there's a couple of sentences here, you've shown yourself to think and behave in a calculated manner in order to try to protect yourself from every single angle at all times. I don't know if I agree with that, and I think I touched on this a little bit in the first question. I have never once tried to frame an answer through the lens of protecting myself. I do my absolute best to call balls and strikes as I see them from me as an individual. And I do my absolute best to explain to people the things that I am an expert in and the things that I am not an expert in. And the list of things that I have ever claimed to be an expert in is really, really short. I may have at one point in time in skydiving be cons have been considered from a proficiency level, an expert that's come and gone tactically. Or maybe my ability to manipulate a handgun or a rifle maybe have approached the level of expert currency and competency on that out the window from being an expert perspective. Do I still know how to do all those things, skydiving and firearms and all that stuff? Yeah, but that's not my job anymore. Everything outside of that, I have always said exactly the same thing. I am not an expert. I am not trained in it. But I will give you my opinion. I do not sit here and think about things from the perspective of how do I protect myself. I will give an honest and open answer. And the reason that I don't think about things through the lens of protection is that I believe that audience capture is super, super dangerous. I begrudgingly think of podcasting as a business. I had no idea. I think I've been doing this now for nine years. I had no idea that nine years ago this was going to build into something that it has now. It is so wildly enjoyable for me. I get to meet so many people. I think I have like 12 or 13 episodes scheduled coming up already. And you know, I get hit up every single day and I get to sit there and pick and choose like that. Sounds interesting. Let's talk. Not as interesting or very in line with other guests that I've already have. I've been introduced to people and conversate and the things that I've learned have been fantastic. There's a monetary aspect to it. The only way I derive money from the podcast is through advertising. And I know people hate ads and all of those things. But it is part of the ecosystem and I do my best and I try to speak from my heart, and I only will work with the advertisers that I believe with. I was having this conversation with somebody the other day. I told them, you know, gambling, drugs, alcohol. I turned down every opportunity associated with that. Not because I'm against those things, but I think there's a younger audience from time to time, and I don't want to be seen as promoting those things. Live your life however you want to. There's plenty of advertising out there for all of those things. But that's a personal choice that I make. I have seen shows and people start to only create content based off of the demand that they perceive as coming from their audience. And as they do so, the audience. If you were to use what would be a good scale of this? Let's say you're a ruler. So it's 12 inches, right? And you have. And your needle is sitting in a six. And the point of this is not an actual measurement of distance, but if the needle is in the middle of six in the middle of the ruler, that is, you know, a measure of equality on left and right. Not that people politically, left or right, most people have leanings either way. I would say for myself, I'm fiscally conservative, probably more socially liberal. A lot of people say that's libertarian. I don't know. I'm not an expert in those terms. And for me, honestly, it depends on each individual question. And again, if people ask me, how do you feel about this 100% answer you. Some people might hate the answer, some people might love it. I'm gonna tell you the truth about how I feel. But if you're in the middle, you're on a six. But let's say you feel as a content creator, there is a demand for something more towards the 12. And so you start creating content that is based off the demand signal you're perceiving. And so then you're at a seven, then you're at an eight, then you're at a nine. Maybe you get to 12, maybe you don't. Maybe you're hanging out at somewhere between 9 to 10. That audience capture, to me is super dangerous because I have watched some people then really become calculated about what they say, how they portray themselves, the questions that they're willing to answer, how they phrase it, and they're doing so because they're trying to protect the reaction from their audience. I don't do that. And maybe that is to My absolute detriment. Maybe the show would be way bigger or more wildly successful if I did that, but I'm never going to. To me, money is the ability to do what I want to with my time. I have largely achieved that ability. And I'm not a wealthy person by a number in a bank account, but I have the ability, when I want to, to say, no, I'm not going to do that because I want to go travel with my wife and kids. That's wealth to me. And people can look at that and be like, yeah, but you drive a shitty vehicle. I'm like, I don't care. You know, time to me is more valuable than things. I don't ever want to have to think in my head, can I say this and still maintain the audience that I have? If I say this, am I going to face backlash from the audience that has captured the content that I am creating and now I am creating things specifically for them? I can't do that. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. And I would rather be wildly less successful from a size, scope and scale perspective on the podcast than to be completely captured and narrowly tranched, heading in only one direction, talking to only one segment of people. That is just not my thing. It's other people's thing. And if they are fulfilled in doing that, then right on. Like two thumbs up. Deuces. Get it. Get as much as you can. I can't do that. So I don't try to protect myself from every angle. I just answer honestly and I'll tell people what I know and what I don't know. That's the best that I can do. Moving on. So I ask these questions wondering if you've always thought and behaved in this exact way, dating back to when you were a teenager. Or is this a result of the Navy having forged you in internal heat followed by external cold with sand and flux as the salt water and salt water as the lubrication. I mean, I think you're talking about the heat cycling, heating something up, cooling up, heating to forge or strengthen or harden because, you know, not a big deal. Basically a master blade. Smith. I've watched almost every season of Forged and Fire. I get it right. You need to heat treat your blade. In your answer, please compare yourself to Michael and let him know where he is lacking by comparison. We're not going to do that because I don't have enough time in my day to list his many deficiencies and lacking nature. What I may, I'm going to have to post A picture of this, actually, I'm looking over at the desk that he sits at. One third of the desk right now that I'm looking at is covered in empty. What do we got here? Waters. Half drink coffees. That looks like it's either from McDonald's, one of those big redneck guzzlers. McDonald's or Chick Fil. A savage. He's an absolute pig pen over there, and he revels in it. He knows that it drives me crazy. So now he has his collection over there, but whatever. Michael is the best, by the way. I know some people think that I give him a hard time on the podcast, but you guys actually have no idea. What exists on the show is a fraction of our daily interactions. So Michael's gonna be okay. We're forging him together into a weapon. Also, what was worse? Boot camp tighty whities or UDT shorts? Tighty whities are just the, like, traditional white boxer. No, no brief underwear. That's not that big of a deal. UDT shorts have no holding anything together or in. They have an inseam that could probably be measured in millimeters and a belt buckle that does absolutely nothing. And they're horrible. They collect sand. They stay wet forever when you're in the ocean. So, yeah, tighty whities, not a problem. UDT shorts, trauma and crippling anxiety around those things probably for the rest of your life. So those were way worse. I've never got past the tighty whitey part. I would have looked great in UDT shorts. I don't even know what to think about that last sentence, but let me just tell you, tidy whities are better than UDTs. You could wear tighty whities with your UDTs. Provide a little extra level of protection that everybody on earth would appreciate, because nobody wants to see that. But let's go backwards here. How was I as a. As a young man? I pulled this question up last night where I screen grabbed it, and I was thinking about this, and I wonder if my feelings on this are parallel with anybody else. You know, I'm closer to 50 now than I am 40. And I look back at myself as a young man, and it's embarrassing. There are things I'm ashamed of, you know, the ways that I behaved, things that I said to people, emotional reactions that I had, just incomplete thought processes, poor decisions. And I look back and it's easy. I guess now, you know, 30 years in the rearview mirror to say, you are such an idiot. But I don't know if I was capable of not being an idiot in that moment. I don't recognize the young man that I was. And if I could go back in time, I would have a lot of advice for my 18 year old self or I probably would try to get a hold of myself at around 16 years old. But as I was thinking about this last night, I don't know if I was capable at the age of 16 of taking any advice from my future self. I'm not proud of the person that I was back then. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't a sociopath or just out there as a wrecking ball in society. But I have changed so much since I was that person. And I know that that person back then was just not the best expression of who they could be. And the consequence of that is just shitty things that were said and done to people. Not like taking anybody's life or hurting them, but just being an asshole. But I don't know if I went back, I don't know if I could slap my younger self. I don't think I could get myself to pay attention or to understand the importance of the changes of which there are still many things I need to improve on. But the things I have improved on, I don't know if I could have gotten myself to understand the value of that or the impact it would have had on my life. God, it would have helped and I think more than anything it would have helped any pain or damage that I said or did to others. But I just don't think I could have done it. And I wonder how many people looking back on their call it 16 to 18 year old cells, Specifically men, because we're idiots. There's a reason why women statistically live longer than men. And there is an immense amount of data out there for men. Prefrontal cortex forms itself between 25 to 40, 27 completely. And that has a lot to do with your ability to understand risk and decision making process. Not an excuse by the way, just physiology of why, you know, young men do such dumb things at those ages. But I'd be curious for, you know, for the guys out there, is there anybody out there that is proud, like legitimately proud of who they were at that age? Because I look back and it's just, ugh, I'm not ashamed, but I'm not, I'm not stoked. I was real, I was just about to say I was real quick with my mouth. I can still be from time to time. That is one thing when I look back at my Younger self. To answer your question specifically about how I was as a younger man, I was incredibly insecure as a younger man. And what I will say is this. That is something that I have struggled with my entire life. I still struggle with being insecure. Am I good enough? Am I capable enough? Am I competent enough? Am I smart enough? Do I have the skills necessary and needed to be a father, a husband? Do I know anything about business? Can I do the things that I do? And I think a lot of the, you know, the, the business and the other stuff comes from a question of yourself as a person. I mean, the insecurity is a tough one. I really struggle with that when I was younger and I, I masked that and protected myself by having a real sharp mouth, which got me in some trouble early on. I mean, it's, I mean, wouldn't surprise me for people who were to encounter somebody who knew me when I was younger or honestly even till this day. If you were to say what's Andy like in person? If somebody were to tell you I can be a real smart ass, that wouldn't surprise me. That is in many ways a protective mechanism of that insecurity because it's easier to direct the attention elsewhere than to absorb it yourself. It's not a strategy that I would suggest for anyone. It can bite you in the ass and it has bit me in the ass many times. I was a little bit of a hothead when I was younger as I think a lot of guys are just more emotionally driven than logically driven. But I don't think I had enough laps around the sun to truly be a logically driven 18 year old. That is something that I understood the value of, but it was very, very refined and reinforced in my time in the military. So I'm very thankful for that. I would say I have a much better control over that post military than I did pre military. But that has nothing to do with BUDS itself or boot camp. In boot camp, I learned how to fold my clothes in a very weird manner, which I still fold my T shirts that way and, and I learned how to march and wear navy uniforms. It's about what I got out of that. Not a change as a person. I mean, it was eight weeks long. BUDS I don't think changed me as a person either. It was very difficult. I developed more confidence as a person because I made my way through that. But I don't think it changed me at my core like as a core person years in that community did because of constant reinforcement and application of the Standard. One of those standards is emotional control and thinking objectively through what is being presented to you. And that is a skill that has helped me in everything that I have done in life. But that is. I mean, that is how I would describe myself as a younger man. I don't think I can give the military credit for changing all of that. Some of it just came with time. I think I probably was a little bit slower to mature than others. And don't get me wrong, I still have my moments of absolute immaturity. We're at a phase in my marriage now where probably about once a day my wife will look at me and say, what is wrong with you? Sometimes she's laughing, sometimes I think she's mortified. When we first met, probably was like once a month, then about once a week, and then we're probably about once a day. Sometimes I can double up and get at two a day. But I don't know how you short circuit time and experience. How do you short circuit the lessons learned from decades of life? I don't know. And I actually think it's a good thing that I look back and don't feel too great about who I was when I was younger, because it really motivates me to try as hard as I can to not be like that going forward. And I will say this. You know, there are. There are a few instances of myself as a younger man where I was a really shitty expression of who, looking back now, who I wanted to become through what I said to some people. And every time I've been given the opportunity, encountered that person again, I have gone out of my way to specifically address that situation and apologize for it and do the best I can to explain that I just completely in the wrong and I am a better person than that, and that I apologize for what I said. And interestingly enough only, and this is not like we're talking like 40 or 50 people here, but I'd say like a half a dozen people. Not one yet has remembered that incident. But it had immense impact on me. And I don't necessarily know what that means, because I'm glad that I did it. Whether or not they recognize it or not. I needed to. It sucked to do it, sucks to confront that, but it was essential. And I'm glad that I feel that way about those things because, like I said, it absolutely burns a hole inside of me as who I am, and I want to do a better job of not being that person. So, yeah, that's the mentality I had when I was young, I'd be fascinated. For people out there listening. Any. Any guys getting closer to 50, are any of you really proud of who you were pre 20, maybe even early 20s? Put it in the comments, if you would. Just an objective review of who you were. And then actually, with that, what was the mechanism that you used to change? Or was it purely just time and experience in reps and laps? Because I can see that being true. Or if you have this, like, magic crucible that you were able to put yourself through and it shifted, I mean, let me know. I mean, I'm at a phase in my life where it's like, cool, yeah, I think that would work. I should wish I had done it when I was 18, but let's do it when I'm 47 and see if it makes my life even better. So, yeah, I'm trying to. What else did I catch? Everything. Also not gonna be a speaker, too. Okay. Speak the truth, regardless of any potential consequences, while also not sacrificing being able to speak. Yeah, I think I covered all of that stuff, so hopefully that gives you an idea of who I was and then who that person was and how they still drive me today. That's all I have for this Friday. See you guys on Monday. Bye.