530: The 8 Life Lessons to Keep Your Head Above Water. With Andy Stumpf

Summary

Jocko Podcast #530: The 8 Life Lessons to Keep Your Head Above Water (with Andy Stumpf)

Date: March 4, 2026
Host: Jocko Willink (A), with Echo Charles (B)
Guest: Andy Stumpf (C), retired Navy SEAL, author, and host of Cleared Hot Podcast

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Overview

This episode centers on discipline, leadership, resilience, and the eight key life lessons from retired SEAL Andy Stumpf’s new book, Drown Proof. Jocko, Echo, and Andy dive deep into themes of personal responsibility, overcoming adversity (in war, business, and personal life), and lessons learned as SEALs transferred into everyday life. The conversation is candid, sometimes raw, and spans failures, personal loss, mental health, and the challenge of raising the next generation. They also discuss the complexities of quitting versus persistence, the true meaning of leadership, and using hardship as fuel for growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis of "Drown Proof" and the Writing Process

• Why Andy wrote the book

  • Mike Glover "tricked" him into it; it started as a joint project and became his solo work.
  • Writing was both enjoyable and taxing, allowing new introspection into his journey and failures.
  • Andy: "Not my idea. As with everything in my life, not my idea." (05:55)

• Writing mindset

  • Approach was relaxed—writing only when inspiration struck, not seeing it as laborious.
  • Previous writing experience from his blog influenced his style and honesty.

2. Owning Mistakes and Taking Responsibility

• Early SEAL career mistakes

  • Andy recounts an incident leading to his Trident removal after a bar fight, and the humiliation/cost of being ordered to cut it off his uniform with scissors.
    • "My commanding officer hands you a pair of scissors…cut your Trident off your uniform." – Jocko (14:50)
    • "You are responsible for your behavior. Until you view yourself as the author of your life, you will be the victim." – Jocko (16:26)

• Pivotal Life Lesson

  • Owning failure instead of blaming circumstances marked the turning point for Andy.
    • "I almost went into the board blaming everyone else…that would’ve been the end." – Andy (16:48)

3. Leadership: Responsibility, Humility, and the Dangers of Ego

• Mob mentality vs. true leadership

  • Jocko: The importance of detaching from groupthink whether winning or losing, and not mistaking authority for leadership.
    • "If you can detach from the mob and not be a part of it, you can actually lead." (23:19)

• On humility

  • Both emphasize humility as crucial in SEAL teams and life.
  • "The most impressive thing… you didn’t think you were all that impressive." – Jocko (09:32)

4. Business, Balance, and the Power of Saying No

• Periods of unbalanced living

  • Achieving big goals requires seasons of imbalance and sacrifice. Balance comes with experience.
    • "Every successful person I know…had periods of their life where they were extremely unbalanced." – Andy (41:35)

• Learning to say no

  • Boundaries are essential to meaningful progress and avoiding burnout.
  • Financial discipline and the importance of not tying identity to a job were repeated themes.

5. Identity Beyond the Uniform

• Transition out of the military

  • The trauma of losing “who you are” when the job ends and the struggle many face by clinging to a past identity.
    • "Being a SEAL is what I did. It will never be who I am." – Andy (46:18)

• Actionable warning for career personnel

  • Build social circles outside of your job; prepare for life after service well before it comes.
  • Jocko: “Remember, but don’t dwell.” (49:14)

6. Mental Health, Trauma, and Post-Traumatic Growth

• The veteran suicide crisis

  • Discuss why it’s prevalent, the importance of making use of available support, and shifting focus from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth.
    • "The trauma associated with military service doesn’t have to destroy you." – Andy (96:09)

• Normalizing struggle

  • Both emphasize the normalcy of emotional struggle after hard experiences—including grief, anxiety, and guilt.

7. Action, Quitting, and Perseverance

• The real reasons people quit BUD/S ("Hell Week")

  • Not about physical tools but a person’s mindset and perception of time and effort remaining.
    • "It wasn’t the tools… it was the students themselves. They allowed their view of time to override their decisions." – Andy (124:52)

• Power of chunking problems (breaking big goals into “micro-steps”)

  • "Make it to the next meal." was a baseline approach to survive Hell Week and life’s hardest seasons.

• Nuance of ‘Never Quit’

  • The real challenge is knowing when quitting is wise (toxic relationships, dead-end jobs) versus when it’s avoidance.

    "Developing a mentality that doesn't allow you to quit is easy. Knowing when you should is truly hard." – Andy (142:48)

8. Parenting, Modeling, and Acceptance of Imperfection

• Parenting as the hardest job

  • Honest discussion of feelings of failure as a parent despite best efforts, and that outcomes are uncertain even when all the right lessons are taught.

    "Children sharpen their teeth on your bones." – Andy (149:30)
    "The more I try to help, the worse things seem to become. Maybe this is the only way it can be." – Andy (149:56)

• Value of modeling behavior over prescribing it

  • Actions, not words, teach discipline, hard work, and integrity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Responsibility & Integrity

• Jocko: "You are responsible for your behavior. Integrity cannot be outsourced. Until you view yourself as the author of your life, you will be the victim." (16:26)
• Andy: "I almost went before the chiefs board with the mentality I had that particular night— it was the cops' fault, the bouncer's fault, anybody but my own." (16:48)

On Leadership (and Mistakes)

• Jocko: "There, it's incredible how much it hurts to do that, but also is incredible the way it’s received." (19:12)
• Andy: "I know people in their 50s and 60s who haven’t had that shift in mentality— and life is just an avalanche of boulders." (24:47)

On Quitting

• Andy: "It wasn’t the tools used in isolation or even in combination that drove students to the point of making the decision to quit. It was the students themselves." (124:52)
• Jocko: "Don’t focus on Hell Week as a five-day thing— just make it to the next meal, the next evolution." (134:01)

On Parenting and Influence

• Andy: "I feel like a failure as a parent. The more I try to help, the worse things seem… Maybe this is the only way it can be." (149:56)
• Jocko: "I've seen my kids kind of come back…You’ve got to let your kids brush up against the guardrails of failure." (151:15)

On Sacrifice and Service

• Andy: "If I could go back and change only one thing, it would be the final interaction I had with my mom… If you presented me a tactical problem, I could solve it— but I couldn't sit with my mother." (194:23)
• Jocko: "Helping someone else is way more rewarding than anything you do for yourself." (204:38)

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Practical Tools & Concepts

The Concern vs. Influence Chart (91:55)

• Left column: All your concerns
• Right column: What you actually can influence—your own actions, reactions, decisions
• Realization: nearly all energy is wasted stressing about concerns vs. influencing what you can.

Discipline, Motivation, and Regret

• Discipline: Small, consistent acts feed progress, not quick hacks.
  • "You have the choice of discipline or the choice of regret." – Andy (186:03)
• Motivation is fleeting; discipline is within your control.
  • Motivation can be stoked externally (music, role models), but discipline must be internally generated.

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Memorable Timestamps

• Owning failure and personal responsibility: 16:26, 16:48
• Base jumping, loss, and moving on: 69:31 — Andy discusses the death of a close friend and realizing "I had moved past the place where I needed the silence that BASE jumping had provided."
• On military identity and civilian transition: 46:18 – 54:54
• Mental health and asking for help: 96:09 – 104:18
• Barriers and "chunking" pain: 134:01 – 142:25
• Parenting, and the struggle to influence kids: 149:30 – 158:17
• Final thoughts on success, sacrifice, and the true ROI: 202:28 – 204:38

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The 8 Life Lessons (Implicit Themes)

While not all are explicitly numbered in the episode, the lessons explored include:

1. Own your story—take responsibility for your actions.
2. Don't be defined by failure; learn, adjust, and try again.
3. Leadership is about humility, not power or ego.
4. Balance: Sacrifice is required, but success at all costs destroys lives.
5. Identity: You are not your job; prepare for transitions.
6. Do the work—discipline is the only true hack.
7. Invest in relationships—ask for and offer help.
8. Help others keep their head above water; share your knowledge and pain.

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Closing Reflections

Andy and Jocko close with the emotional and practical impact of helping others. Jocko underscores the essence of Drown Proof:
"Success has nothing to do with what you have or achieved and everything to do with who you are… Once you can keep your head above water, the next step is to help others learn to swim." (202:42)

Order Andy Stumpf’s book: clearedhotpodcast.com/book (205:56)

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Additional Resources

• Andy’s Podcast: Cleared Hot
• Jocko’s Projects: Echelon Front (leadership consulting), various books and online training
• Veterans & Mental Health: "You are not alone—reach out, ask for help, and keep trying. Giving up is never the answer." (96:13)

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“When your ability to survive is assured, I believe there is one additional step that can be taken and it's the most meaningful metric of success: You can look around and teach others how to swim.” — Andy Stumpf (202:42)

Transcript

[A]

This is Jocko podcast number 5:30 with Echo, Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

[B]

Good evening.

[A]

If you're ever given the choice between being ambushed or ambushing someone else, go with the latter. It is infinitely more enjoyable. When you are ambushed, you are often caught unprepared and in an environment that favors your enemy. Fear in these situations is normal. If we can agree that fear will be present. It is no longer a question of whether or not you will be afraid. The question becomes whether you are going to allow it to control you or. Or are you going to control it? When you are ambushed, the single most dangerous thing that you can do is remain in place and do nothing. If you do, your enemy is bound to maneuver on you and destroy you. The likeliest way to sustain your life and to turn the tables on your enemy is to maneuver. When you maneuver, you change the angles on your enemy, you change the geometry of the problem, and you start forcing them to react. In a perfect tactical world, you would maneuver, flank, and destroy your enemy. The first step in that sequence is the most critical, and it answers the question I have received countless times. How do I get started? The answer, you move. And that right there is an excerpt from a new incredible book called Drown Proof. Drowned Proof eight life lessons to keep your head above water is written by my brother and retired SEAL Andy Stumpf. And our paths crossed briefly while we were both in the teams and we actually got to know each other more once we both retired. Andy was one of the first guests on this podcast. I don't know if you know that, Andy, you were guest number 12. I counted.

[C]

I thought I was like episode 64.

[A]

You were episode 64. But I used to just read books more. And then eventually I started getting the people that wrote the books on, which turned into.

[C]

That's a good call.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Eventually started his own podcast. Oh, yeah, that's episode 64. So if you want to hear a bunch of background about you, you know, Andy and his time in the. In the Navy and whatnot, you can check out episode 64. But eventually he started his own podcast, Cleared Hot Podcast, and he's now also an author. And this new book, like I said, it's called Drown Proof. And it was an honor for me to be able to write the forward for the book. Incredibly taxing on my mind to try and figure out how to make you look good.

[C]

I mean, is there a more difficult task, but.

[A]

No, truly awesome to be able to do that and honor to have you back here again after a nine year hiatus. Yes. Nine year. Nine years from podcast 64 till now is nine years.

[C]

I would have guessed five, tops. Yeah.

[A]

It goes by quick, man.

[C]

Wow. Okay.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

We should probably get together more often.

[A]

Well, we've seen each other at hunt camp. We've seen each other Jiu Jitsu stuff. We've seen each other. Other random things, but we just never got down and recorded again. Wow. Didn't I do. I did your podcast.

[C]

We were out there at the Origin. Yep.

[A]

I think I recorded one with you here, too, at the gym at some point.

[C]

You did? For one of my episodes. Yeah.

[A]

Yep. So there you go. So we've done it. Yeah. But anyways, welcome back. Why'd you write a book,

[C]

man? First off, I think what you wrote, I probably just cut and pasted that out of your book. It sounds super similar to things that you would say. It's almost like there's a lot of lessons that a lot of people from our community learn. It's a different way of expressing it. I have been asked that question a lot recently because I have talked a very voluminous amount of smack about SEAL authors in my younger days and said that I would never write one. The honest answer to that is Mike Glover tricked me into it, and nobody believes me, but I finally had him back on my show, and he admitted to it. We were supposed to do a collaboration.

[A]

Oh, by the way, I can confirm this because you guys talked to me about it.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

You guys talked to me like, hey, we want to write a book. And I was like, cool.

[C]

You know, and this was his idea.

[A]

Yep. Whatever guidance I may or may not have given, but, like, yeah, I totally remember getting on a phone call with you two. Yep. You're gonna write a book, and you had your take on what it was gonna be, and you're both gonna write, like, you know, half the chapters.

[C]

Couple chapters. We had a date on the calendar where we were gonna come together and compare our work, and I came prepared to share my work, and Mike showed up and said, yeah, I didn't write anything. He was talking about coming up to Montana and spending time at our. He's like. He's just like. To just go full Hemingway and, like, have an owl on his shoulder and smoke a pipe and, like, just be out, you know, watching the sunrise and set and riding. Zero words.

[A]

He.

[C]

So he had found, though. And I. So this was my first time doing anything like this, and I still don't even necessarily understand the full process yet, because it's not even out yet. That's what do they call that? An arc?

[A]

Yep. Advanced readers copy.

[C]

Yeah. Are the. Are the hard covers bigger than that or is that the size of the book?

[A]

Might be a little bit bigger, but it's pretty much. This is pretty accurate to what it's going to be.

[C]

Again, highlighting. I have absolutely, absolutely no idea about this process. So he found somebody who takes an idea and turns it into a PDF document. And the guy was thinking, paid him five grand. Awesome document. And then Mike had found a literary agent who takes it to publishers. Our friend mark over at St. Martin's was one of the recipients of those. And when I showed up and had my sections, Mike was like, hey, you've already gotten some stuff written. Just hand it over to the guy. Let him create a pitch. Maybe it'll be something. So I said, okay, because I think I had 45,000 words written. I really enjoyed writing it. Actually, actually handed over to the guy he created that document, handed it over to Esther, the agent, who shopped it around. And Mark came back and I actually talked to you on the phone as I was speaking with Mark, because he's like, yeah, I do Jocko stuff. I'm like, hold on, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Jocko.

[A]

What's the story with this guy?

[C]

Like, straight to the source. And that's how it came about. But it wasn't my idea. It was legitimately going to be this collaboration and we didn't really know how we were going to do. Like he would write in italicized or bold or some way to. To form the two in there. So, yeah, as with everything in my life, not. Not my idea.

[A]

Had he already written Prepared.

[C]

Was prepared.

[A]

So this was going to be his sex. So he kind of knew what he should have been getting into.

[C]

I am convinced he 100% reverse engineered this. Would never having any intent whatsoever to write a single word.

[A]

And then did you go full Hemingway and have an owl on your shoulder or whatever you just. Now.

[C]

They're hard to catch. No, I. So how did this go? I talked with Mark. They agreed that they wanted to do the book. It wasn't finished yet, though. I signed a contract that I very briefly looked over and don't even necessarily understand what's in it. But there was a date associated when you have to have the manual script in. So I kind of reverse engineered from that. But I would only write stuff when I wanted to that would take a couple weeks off in between. Maybe 500 words or like maybe 1500 on a good day. But I would Usually in the mornings and then just put it away. And I did it over a couple months. I didn't find it to be hard at all. It wasn't easy by any stretch, but the process I didn't find to be laborious.

[A]

And you had written before because you had that in the blog Confessions of an Idiot.

[C]

So aptly something still around. Yeah, I never took it down.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because I don't know how but.

[A]

And you had good, good writing in there. You know, you clearly, you're articulate guy and your writing look like that for sure. So.

[C]

Yeah, that's. Yeah. The very first time I was actually on your show, you read one of the blog posts from that, which was the first thing I think I did publicly after getting out of the military.

[A]

Was right.

[C]

Was right. But then it. The blogs and then the podcast for me is a quicker medium. I enjoy writing, but I can't do it quickly. I'll often kind of vomit stuff out and then I go back and I trim stuff away from that, which takes time. Whereas, you know, you can sit down and have a multi hour conversation.

[A]

And yeah, podcasting is definitely incredible. It's all. There's a. I guess the negative to that is that you can just, pretty much anyone can make a podcast tomorrow and you have to sort through like if it's worth listening to or not. And that can be a, A challenge.

[C]

Is it though? I think you can tell.

[A]

Yeah, I guess you can tell. They rise. But it is weird how some people just think, oh, well, I'll just make a podcast. And they think they're going to be talking like Joe Rogan, you know, oh, I can sit down and talk to people like Joe Rogan does. They don't realize what the hell Joe Rogan is doing. It's.

[C]

Well, after they work through their family and friends, they realize, how am I going to do this? So at guest number six, they go, oh, boy, this is a little bit harder than I thought. And I have an episode that's due out on Monday and I don't have anybody, so. End of podcasting journey.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

All right, well, let's get into this book here. I'm going to jump in just as a disclaimer.

[C]

The Forward is probably the most fictional section I pay Jocko. I still owe him some bitcoin for the kind things that he said.

[A]

Yeah. Highlights of the. Of the forward.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[A]

No, I'm not going to read the highlights of the Forward other than to say, you know, the story that I told is true is like, I Was in charge of trade at. And we were, you know, we get like, a little package of who's going through the training. And I'm looking at all the, you know, normal guys, and I see, like, this dude who's, you know, came from the special missions unit, been wounded in combat, combat experience. We and had gone up through the ranks, and I'm like, okay, this could be awesome. This could also be terrible. And they know that's exactly what I wrote in the forward because I had dealt with guys that when, you know, with. In the SEAL teams, you get some guys that got some massive egos, and it. It can suck. Generally speaking, it's cool. Generally speaking, guys are like, yep, I get it. But, you know, definitely, I'm like, oh, I hope he's one of the guys that is cool. Because if it's not, it's always just turns into a gut check. But sure enough, you were totally humble and cool and, like, listened and were on board with what we were doing and helped guys out. You weren't a dick to people, which is, I might be surprising for some people to hear.

[C]

Shocking.

[A]

But. But, yeah, you were just super cool, super humble. Despite all the experience you had, you. You were a real value not only to the guys that you were working with, but, like, the trader guys, well, were. So I thought that was the most impressive thing about you was the fact that you didn't think you were all that impressive.

[C]

I was trying to figure out how to be an officer.

[A]

That's true, too.

[C]

I never got out of the new guy cycle my entire career. Yeah, I mean, I got, you know, most E5 with a machine gun. Let's just be clear. Best job on earth. Little to no responsibility other than to not kill your friends or people that you're with. And then, I mean, I picked up 01 after E6 and then got out as an 03E. I mean, that is complete. Middle of the road from a leadership perspective. Your entire career.

[A]

Did you do an LPO slot?

[C]

The reason I became an ldo, no lpo.

[A]

Did you do an LPO slot?

[C]

Well, the reason I went to the LDO program is that when I got hurt overseas, I was on my LPO tour, which they counted as incomplete. So when my package went to the Chiefs board two years in a row, swiped off the table, and a guy finally called me, he's like, clearly you're not supposed to share this information, but I saw what happened to your record. It wasn't even looked at because the LPO, for people who don't know, like, E67 is the big enlisted jump in the Navy. You have to have done your leading petty officer tour or you're not even eligible, dude. So it got swiped off, and I'm like, I don't. And I was at second phase, where a new LPO had just started and for sure duty. That's 24 months. So I would have had to wait for that to get into that role, to do it for 24 months to put my package in the next cycle, assuming that it lined up. So five more years of, like, spinning my tires.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I was like, how about all of you can call me sir? I found this art, like, antiquated program, which I don't think is even optional anymore.

[A]

Yeah, it's not.

[C]

Yeah. For the teams that didn't require a college degree, because spoiler alert, I do not have one. And put in for it and got picked up on the first look.

[A]

Yeah. I was similar in the fact that I couldn't make rank as an E dog back in the old days when you were competing against the fleet. And so I got. I got E4 out of buds, Merit, whatever. Not meritorious, but, like, automatic E4 out of buds. I got capped to E5. And then I was. I was watching, like, my friends, my peer group was getting advanced, and I'm like, shit. And I looked around and I was like, well, and plus, I work for an officer that was a prior enlisted guy, and he was the best guy ever. And so I was like, oh, that. That would be a cool thing to do. And so that's. That's what happened to me. But, yeah, it was definitely an interesting career line for the prior enlisted guys on the officers when they switch over the officer side. All right, let me get into this book here. As we were corralling platoon members across the street, the individual who moments before had been in the back of a cop car, went directly toward a different bouncer and began another verbal confrontation. By this point, we were at least around the corner of the building from the initial incident and not in the direct line of sight of the officers, but they were less than 100ft away. I ended up pulling out a folding knife.

[C]

Spider.

[A]

Police officers. These are police officers, by the way. I ended up pulling out a folding knife, holding it against my leg, and threatening the bouncer and then running from the police. I don't know how to rate my escape and evasion, but I feel like I put my best foot forward. It involved a sprint down an alley clearing a razor wire fence that left me with a Souvenir on my right hand. I still have to this day, hanging from the side of a building, then falling through a tree directly in front of the teammates I had just separated from. What would one likely do after evading the police? What would have been the smart decision in that moment? That's right, keep drinking. At yet another bar, I swapped shirts with a friend. God, this is just freaking classic. I swapped shirts with a friend, crossed the street and sampled the cold beverages of our newest drinking location. It was a relatively mellow dive bar, but it was tough to relax and enjoy with the lights and sirens of the local police constantly passing by. I guess they were looking for someone. And again, I'm just reading little excerpts from this, but, you know, typical 90s night out for a team guy, a new guy, an idiot, which we all were. You end up getting rolled up by the cops, you go to Captain's Mass, and again, this. This is freaking all in the book. And it's. It's all. It's. I can relate to it, but it's just good to read. And it lands. But one of the. One of the things that stuck out with me is your commanding officer. So you. You're in Captain's Mast after Chief's Mass.

[C]

After Chief's Mass, yeah.

[A]

It's a total nightmare. But you have on your camouflage uniform, we have our, you know, our name tape, and it says U.S. navy. And then it says, you know, willink or stump. And then above that there is the most sacred thing to us, which is our Trident. Especially when you're 19 year. How old were you? 19. 18.

[C]

Yes. And also I had just been issued said Trident six weeks before.

[A]

Oh, yeah. So this is the thing that you suffer for. It's what you want so badly.

[C]

First trip with my trident.

[A]

And so your commanding officer hands you a pair of scissors.

[C]

Slid them. I still remember the sound of the.

[A]

Across the table, the table, and says, cut your trident off your uniform.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

God damn, dude.

[C]

Not my best moment. Thanks for opening with that one. I mean, there's a reason why it's chapter one, but yeah.

[A]

Yeah. What a horrific moment. And you got to be thinking like, you, you're getting kicked out.

[C]

You ever had those moments where you think other people can hear your heartbeat? Like, I don't know if. I don't know what my game face looked like at that time, but it did that like the whoosh. And like every. I don't know how many veins people have on their forehead, but I feel like all of them were thoroughly exposed at that time. I thought I was done. Yeah, I really did.

[A]

Yeah. This is the 90s. They don't need you.

[C]

He could have easily just said, I'm gonna take your nec instead of. Because he didn't necessarily. He didn't really take it from me. He didn't let me wear it for six months, which is. And you know as well as I do that's about as bad anyway. But if I had done anything, jaywalked in that six month time period. Gone.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit to your kind of your lesson from this and again, get the book. There's so many, so many good lessons. Is eight life lessons. It is my hope that no one finds themselves staring over the edge into the abyss with the balance of their life in their hope or their hopes, dreams and aspirations resting in someone else's hands and judgment. I personally do not think that you need to take it that far to recognize that the first and most critical step in a young man or woman's life is to change their perspective of who they are and the role they play in their own life. Here's the Eureka moment. You are responsible for your behavior. You are responsible for the emotional reactions you have to the things that happen to you. Integrity cannot be outsourced. Until you view yourself as the author of your life, you will be the victim of it. You won't be a participant. You will merely be an observer in what happens to you and around you. So did you have that clarity at 19 years old once you got your trident revoked?

[C]

I almost went into the chiefs board with the mentality I had that particular night, which was. It was the cops fault, the bouncer's fault, anybody but my own. I almost did that. And if I had done that, you and I definitely wouldn't be sitting here because they would have ejected me for sure. I look back at that. That was probably the most pivotal moment in my life. Shifting who I was and what I wanted to be up until that point and what I'm about to say, people will say, that doesn't sound reasonable. But they've also never walked a mile in a guy's shoes who wanted to be a SEAL since he was 11, made it through training, made it to a team, and is with people that you look at as if they're walking gods. If they would have told me, we're gonna go rob a bank, like, can I at least be on the roof with the 60? You know, you're gonna crawl through burning coal. Like, how. How far do you want to go? Hey, we're all about to get into a bar fight. Okay, like, let's go. And that was the mistake that I made that night. There were so many things that could have stopped that night from happening, which I was present for all of them and didn't say anything because in my mind, I'm like, I'm the new guy. I'm the youngest guy. It's. I need to do things that these guys will appreciate. And all of that is just, like, external, as opposed to looking in the mirror and be like, hey, this isn't correct. You know, this isn't correct, and you need to do the right thing. And I didn't listen to that voice. It was in my head, but I didn't listen to that voice. And that's what I almost went into the Chiefs board with. But instead, I went in there with the exact opposite and just owned 100. I think I opened with an apology. I saw. I apologize for bringing a poor light upon the SEAL community because it was late 90s. Not. Not as much knowledge about seals back then, but, you know, the apology of that, like, I'm completely responsible for what happened. This is what I learned from it, and I hope that you guys will give me a chance and an opportunity to show you who I want to be.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Very similar to the story of the blue on blue for me when, you know, we had my ex, my commanding officer, command master chief, the investigating officer, all coming out to, like, get a debrief from me. And I'm sitting there trying to figure out what I'm gonna say and who I'm gonna blame. And I just felt, like, nauseatingly sick about, like, why can't I figure out who to blame? Like, there's all these different people that made all these little mistakes. You know, what the hell? Why is this so hard for me? And I was like, oh, jackass, because you're the senior guy, and this is on you.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's funny. I had another friend that was. That got fired from a position in the SEAL teams, and he called me, and he's like, hey, I'm getting ready to go to, you know, the big boss. What do I say? And I'm like, you say, I'm sorry that I got fired, and I will try and do better. Here's the mistakes I think I made, and that's it. And that's what he did, and, you know, it worked out for him. But, yeah, there. It's incredible how much it hurts to do that, but it also is incredible the way it's received. And I'M sure you, in your career, you know, got to see the other end when people did not come in with that attitude.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Where it was like you just wanted to freaking slap them upside the head.

[C]

They slid their tridents across the table.

[A]

Yeah, they did. Yep.

[C]

And I thought. I mean, it was. It was so funny. The chiefs board. I was the last. They interviewed everybody in that room, and if I'm, like, standing, you know, they're probably my dress blues or something, maybe cammies, I don't know. And I didn't realize there was a whiteboard off my shoulder. And then they started asking me, because I went through all that, and I didn't talk to any of the chiefs after this. But there was an essence of them, like, not bad. You know, pretty good, because I look over and a portion of the E map is written up. They've been asking the platoon members, so what exactly happened? So then they're like. They start asking me, like, tactical, like, well, draw where you went over the fence. And I was like, oh, I went over here. They'll had you down the roof. I was like, I climbed this tree up onto a conex box and then jumped on the roof. They're like, you know, so one of them was, like, super, like, trying to be like, Mike Mayer was one of them, just being a total. Just coming at me. But all the other chiefs were just like, you know, so they would take their turn being pissed, but also at the same time, like, yeah, we get it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And by the end, I had drawn this whole map. They're like, all right, get out of here. I thought it was. I thought I was completely done with it. I go to the interview process for the East Coast. It's this single question that they open with, asked by the master chief of the command. He goes, hey, what happened in Tucson? So I tell the whole story, same thing, what I learned from it and that I appreciate that it happened. He goes, okay, okay. Let's put ourselves back in that situation. But it's me that's the one who is acting out of sorts. What are you gonna do? I was like, oh, that's actually an easy one. Now, I don't care who you are, how much combat experience you have, what rank is, I'm gonna grab you and take you home, and we're gonna be done with it. It's the last time I ever got asked about it.

[A]

Yeah. Squared away. This is just kind of a continuing thought here. When you wake up, you will realize it doesn't matter if someone's older than you, this is what you just got done saying. It doesn't matter if they're a senior in rank to you, your mentor, your friend, or your parents or your parent. When words need to be spoken, when actions need to be taken, you are the one that needs to be step. That needs to step forward. We have control over very little in this world. But make no mistake, you have complete control over yourself and the actions you take. You will never feel ready to take them until you reframe how you see yourself in the world. My path to reframing required handcuffs and scissors. Hopefully yours does not. So there you go.

[C]

There are other ways, people.

[A]

Yeah, this kind of reminds me of the, you know, the. The Melee massacre. So the Me Lai massacre. You know, these guys are out there with Lieutenant William Kelly just murdering, raping, mutilating bodies, like to the tune of 500 women and children. And finally this helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, he's like doing flyovers. They're trying to help out. They're trying to get some people out there. He sees what's happening, actually brings his helicopter in between civilians and US army guys to protect the civilians, flies back to camp and is like, hey, there's a massacre going on right now. You need to put a stop to this. And they got on the radio, they called the company out in the field and like, hey, stop killing people right now. And immediately they all stopped. And it took one person having the intestinal fortitude to. Not to. To from a detachment perspective, tell people to stop. So it's just what you're saying right now, like, it doesn't matter. You're a new guy. It doesn't matter your. And I'll tell you what, if you're a new guy and you get overridden, at least you tried to freaking speak up.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And usually if you're saying something that makes some semblance of sense, people will go, you know what? This is actually a pretty good call right now. We need to get the hell out of here, or we need to stop what we're doing or whatever so that. That idea that one person can step up and really change the. The direction that. That a group is going. And I always talk about, from a leadership perspective, like, there, there's a mob. You're in charge of a mob. And if you're in the mob, you're going to be having the mob mentality like all them. And if you can detach from the mob and not be a part of it, you're going to be able to be. You're going to actually be able to lead. And it, it comes into play whether we're winning, like, oh, we're winning. Guess what happens when the team, when the mob starts winning, everyone gets cocky. We need to work as hard, we don't need to train as much, we don't need to worry about anything. And the leader needs to go, hey, actually, yep, we're doing good. But let's, let's, let's see, we can get better at. Let's, let's make sure we don't get cocky. When the team is losing and the morale's bad and like this sucks, it's the leader that goes, hey, you know what? We had a bad mission last night, but we learned some lessons from it. Here's what we can do to fix it. So not participating in the mob is a huge part of leadership and being a good human being.

[C]

I don't know, I don't know if you read the inscription. There are no bad leaders, only bad teams. Which is the second book I'm going to write called Extremely limited ownership. Chapter 2 Leif Gaming the boss didn't

[A]

tell me that my team and then chapter three is my team didn't do what I told him to do.

[C]

How many people do you know, late into life though, that have never had that shift in mentality where everything they have, no, nothing is in their control. Everything, they're just, just I, I would like to believe had that not happened to me, I would have had that shift or I was on my way to it. For me, that was just a super concrete shift in who I thought I was as a person. I know people in their 50s and 60s who haven't had that yet, no doubt about it, and their life is just, it's like they're under an avalanche of boulders just getting nuked.

[A]

I was talking to a guy a while ago and he went through his life story starting with football coach didn't like me. Wrestling coach wouldn't, wouldn't focus on me. Parents, you know, got divorced. They, it was, it was thing after thing after thing. You know, the ex wife. It was just everything what. The reason he ended up where he ended up was because of all these other circumstances. And I'm like, bro, like, it hurt to listen. And you know, when at a certain point, like you've dug yourself a really deep hole and I'm not saying you shouldn't, you know, square yourself away and at least start, at least stop digging deeper. But it's, it's hard. You know, people reach a certain point in life where they look around and it's like, what am I going to do now? Like, even if I completely do everything right from here on out, I'm barely going to get my head above water, which is a hell of a lot better than not getting your head above water. But it's tough. It just. It's another thing that piles on and makes people continue to blame the world.

[C]

Yeah, man.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit.

[C]

Some jiu Jitsu.

[A]

Yeah. Six years ago, I started training Jiu Jitsu. So you. The first time you came on this podcast, you weren't training.

[C]

When did you break Dudley's neck?

[A]

That was. I was well after that.

[C]

Okay. So, yeah, I hadn't started because I had just started. I was a white belt and watched you attempt to kill a man for no reason whatsoever.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

The old hammer fist joke is such a solid too, now that I know it.

[A]

It's funny, too, because, like, I remember, you know, because I was. I. Betraying Jiu jitsu for a long time. And I remember you were, like, just getting started.

[C]

100.

[A]

And I remember watching you going, oh, yeah, I know he's looking at this, like, going, this is puzzling. Like, let that, like, you have a little bit of understanding, but not quite enough to really understand. You just get that, like, sort of inquisitive look on your face. And I'm like, oh, yeah, he's. He's gonna be really.

[C]

We're putting that in the Rolodex. Dudley's defense was interesting, was the bear hug and pull closer, which applies additional pressure to the Adam's apple area.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, man.

[A]

I wasn't around for when he called you and told you he had cancer.

[C]

Yeah. Did you hear this part?

[B]

Echo? Didn't you say it on Joe Rogan?

[C]

I hope so. I'll say it again on Joe Rogan. I don't even care. Jocko needs to be exposed for attempted murder. Now. Dudley thought he was going to, like, an ear, nose, and throat doctor. He thought he was dying, and you'd hear him on his podcast for months later. Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, he. I did an Ezekiel Nogi. Ezekiel choke on him. And in order to try and defend it. And the thing is, also, John Dudley is like, a stud of an athlete.

[C]

Like, and not tiny.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Especially then. This is before, like, starvation. John Dudley.

[A]

So he. And to try and stop me in his mind at the. The big. The biggest mistake that I made. And we were talking about this earlier. It's called the delta, right. Is there's a delta between, like, you and other people and I didn't even think to explain to him, hey, you know, if you feel, like, pressure, tap, that's how we tell each other that we're done. I didn't tell him that. I thought, you know, he. He's into ufc. He knows Joe Rogan, like, if you understand what tapping is. And so I put this choke on him, and he starts, like, squeezing me closer, which is literally applying more pressure to the choke. And, yeah, it. Like, it made a. Like, a hairline fracture in his hyoid bone.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And as it healed, there was an extra master calcium in there, so he was, like, bothering him. It felt like a tumor. So he calls freaking. Andy is like, I'm dying. And the crazy thing about Dudley is he never said a word to me about it. Like, he never over. Like. And I talked to Dudley, like, regularly, and he never said, like, dude, you know, when you.

[C]

He.

[A]

I didn't find out until we were on your freaking or Dudley's podcast or your podcast.

[C]

And it was the three of us, and I forced. I brought it. I forced it into the conversation.

[A]

Oh, man. Epic. So six years ago, I started training Jiu Jitsu, and since that time, I've had heard many coaches that I deeply respect say that the hardest belt to achieve is your white belt.

[C]

Do you guys tell people that, too?

[A]

I know that there is a clip of me saying that out there, so this might be directed directly at me. For those unfamiliar with Jiu Jitsu, the Bell ranking system. White is the lowest ranking system belt. Black is the highest. Almost no one starts Jiu Jitsu. Almost no one who starts jitsu makes it to their black belt. But everyone who walks the door on their first day is going to be handed a white belt. With that being the case, why do coaches say the white belt is the hardest to achieve? Simple. It requires action. Not only action, but action into the unknown. Action towards something you know nothing about, something you know others will be better than you. Something you may be afraid of, uncertain about, and with an end state that you may not be able to precisely define. I do agree that walking through the door on the first day and making a commitment to start is difficult, but the rest of the trope is, and not just for Jiu Jitsu, what is truly hard and the heart and the place where so many people give up is the grind after you start. So there you go. Yeah, it's. And again, I think there's a. You know, what you say is accurate, and, you know, you're like, yeah, it is. Most people don't even Start Jiu jitsu. Most people don't even start, like, it's,

[C]

they're repulsed by the idea, like the physical proximity to another human being. Like you put sweat from your body goes into their eye or mouth. I don't want to do that.

[A]

Ear.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And also might get hurt. I'm. They're going to try to kill me. They're going to try to break me

[A]

and I'm going to have to submit over and over and over and over again to people that I, yeah. Think I'm better than either physically, mentally, spiritually. And it doesn't matter. I'm sorry, I hate to break the news to you. It doesn't matter. You will be submitting.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And, and you're right, though. Like most people, the jokes in Jiu Jitsu are like, oh, you made blue belt cool. Black belts, it was, it was nice knowing you, you know, because when people get their blue belt, they just never train again. For what. And then the same thing, thing happens with purple belt and the same thing happens at brown belt where you're kind of getting close, kind of.

[C]

I know a guy who quit at brown belt.

[A]

Damn, dude.

[C]

I know. And we're talking legit 10, 10 years into the process, some time off in between. But I get why people quit at blue belt because they have this. And speaking even from my own experience, when you know, nothing, getting to blue belt, you're like triple digit growth almost every class. You're like, oh, I didn't even know that was an option. I'm now surviving 0.5 seconds longer. And then at blue belt, I think it, it slows a bit. Right. And so people's enthusiasm, like you're refining a little bit. It's like, oh, the curriculum is repeating itself. Now I'm seeing these things again. Maybe the outcome of the role isn't that, you know, it's just, it's just this trajectory goes lower and lower and lower and lower and lower. Nobody talks about that. It's like, oh, just come in. It's, that's the hardest one. It's like, no, you're six years in wondering what the hell is happening to you. That's the hardest, hardest part about it.

[A]

Would, did you get addicted day one?

[C]

I do remember my first class. It was, they were doing takedowns, takedown defense. Actually, we were doing a body lock takedown. And the guy who I was partnered with was a purple belt at the time. He's now a two stripe black belt. It was, I definitely enjoyed it. I was looking for a Physical outlet. And it was just fun. And I was. It was really cool just how happy everybody was. They were, like, laughing, and even if stuff didn't go right, they're just like, whatever. You're just laughing about it. And there was no rolling at all. So at the gym that I train at in sbg, they start with about two to three months, depending on how often you can come in with foundations. So it's exactly that and no live rolling. You don't get introduced to live rolling until you join the midday or advanced classes. And there is a difference between those two. But I think having an understanding of the Alphabet is going to help you write words and sentences and paragraphs later on. So it wasn't even rolling. It was just. It was fun. It was a physical outlet that I was looking for. Was I addicted to it at that point? I don't think so.

[A]

I was going to say, if you didn't get to roll.

[C]

I didn't.

[A]

Then you probably wouldn't get the. The full addiction.

[C]

When I did start getting to roll, though, I was like, can you come three times a day? Yeah.

[A]

So that's what it took. Yeah. You know, it's so weird because I was having this conversation with my daughter Rana, and we were actually. We were at a competition that she was competing in, and we were out for dinner after she weighed in. So it was very glorious for her because you get to eat. But, you know, my. My daughter is totally. And actually, all my kids are, like, totally addicted to Jiu Jitsu. And, you know, like, I was talking about. My oldest daughter, was talking about, like, where she lives and, like, where her whole life is like, well, it depends on the Jiu Jitsu there. You know, it's all about Jiu Jitsu and where you can train and. And I was, you know, and my middle daughter, like, trains, you know, all day long and teaches. And, you know, I was just. Man, I'm like, isn't it crazy that as much as you love Jiu Jitsu right now, I tried to convey that to you when you were a kid, and I couldn't. I was not capable of doing it. And in fact, not only did I.

[C]

Not the other direction, I pushed her

[A]

in the other end. Pushed all my kids.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

In the other direction because I was so overly enthusiastic. And the Delta. I've been talking about the Delta with Echo earlier today. I mean, like, realizing that there's a difference between you and me and you and me and, like, other people, it's so hard. Like, I cannot comprehend that you Wouldn't understand how beautiful and amazing Jiu Jitsu is. So I'm just like, just, you gotta do it, man. It's good. And like, that creates the barrier. So as much as someone, as much as you love Jiu Jitsu, I couldn't convey to my daughter or my other daughter when they were young, like, this is the funnest thing you're gonna get to do in your life.

[C]

I wonder if the approach you took at anything.

[A]

Oh, total 100%, dude. 100%. And you know, we.

[C]

How matters.

[A]

That was part of the conversation was because me saying, hey, this is so fun.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then putting him in a competition against a kid that's 20 pounds heavier and older and better and having them get their ass kicked in front of a bunch of other, you know, in front of a big ass crowd when you're 6 or 7 or 8 years old, that shit ain't fun. It ain't fun. And look, there's a small group of people in the world that, that is fun. There's like even kids in the world that will go, oh, yeah, no, I get it. This is what I want to do. I want to get. I want to be the person that, that's humiliating other people. I don't want to get humiliated anymore. But for the most part, man, kids want to have fun. And as much as I said the words fun, the actions were not fun at all.

[C]

I don't think they should actually teach children Jiu Jitsu.

[A]

What do you think they should teach them?

[C]

I didn't find it until I was 40. So that's the starting age for everybody. Because if you learn how to move on the mats, I can't do anything about that. And it's not fair.

[A]

Yeah, kids these days are, are so good, the next generation. And it's just going to keep getting exponentially better. You know, I really. Just when you think some, some mode of Jiu Jitsu is kind of topped out, there's. There's always just someone that figures something else out. There's a new way to approach it. There's a new way to do it. There's a, there's another counter to it. So it's just. To me, that's one of the most amazing things about it is like, oh, yeah, I will still learn something. And I actually feel like the learning curve because there's so much growth in jiujitsu right now. Like, you can still. I can still go. And I've been training for a long, long, long time, and I'll still go. And, like, learn something that is kind of shockingly revealing to me where I'm like, oh, that is sick. You know, that is freaking sick right there.

[C]

Oh. Followed up by, why couldn't I figure that myself last two decades? Yeah. What? I'll ask a question, and the answer is so ridiculously simple that I question my own intelligence on my drive. I'm like, why wasn't I able to figure that out?

[A]

Yeah, that is really bizarre. It's. It is one of those things that it helps to have an instructor so much. And by the way, this right now, you know, your Instructor can be YouTube and you still got to go do the thing.

[C]

Yeah. You got to feel it.

[A]

But you can. You can learn a lot from it. And you didn't get. That's actually funny because I've heard you talk about the fact that one of the reasons you didn't get super into Jiu Jitsu probably was because I could

[C]

have started in the 90s. And you dorks were so enthusiastic. And anytime I see somebody that enthusiastic about anything, I have an immediate allergic reaction. So, yeah, I could probably be. I don't know what it takes to get a coral belt, but I'm gonna say, I'd be at coral belt or whatever you would be at right now, because I'm sure I would have gotten addicted then. But they were so pumped about it. My only response was, sounds gay.

[A]

The funny thing is, I was not. I was very open minded the whole time. Like, I was never like, oh, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the thing that you need to know. Only, like, I never really had that attitude. I knew that it foundationally, like, you better know what the hell this is. But I was always about wrestling, Muay Thai, boxing and jiu jitsu. I've always had that thing. But yeah, there was definitely like any religious belief. Like, there's people that would full religion on jiu Jitsu, and there's people that go full religion on, you know, Muay Thai or any other martial art. It's getting less and less now. I think people realize that, man, you got to just train a lot in a lot of different. So what do you like about it now?

[C]

I can't master it. I. You get a black belt. And I don't know if you guys have had this experience. People will come to me and say, hey, how do you do this? I'm like, I don't actually understand the words you just used because I don't know what that is. They're like, but you're a black belt. Don't you know everything? It's like, no. I actually feel like I know way less than what I started almost, and I have more questions than anything, actually. What I probably spend more time on is fundamentals, not flashy stuff. Not that I don't like the flashy stuff, but I find that solid fundamentals is not the complete answer to things I don't understand. But it's a good starting point, especially when people are, like, throwing stuff at. You've never seen, like, go back to something, like, pretty simple, see if that shuts that down.

[A]

The. The black belt. I know that there's areas of jiu jitsu for people that they're a black belt in. Like, for instance, I know there's areas of my game where I am legitimately like a black belt. I can teach it. I understand it fully. I can teach all the offenses, all the setups, and all the defenses. And then there's, you know, some other move over here that I can do that with. And there's very few people that are just, oh, no matter what question you bring, I'm going to be able to answer it. That's a pretty rare. That's like world champ. That's like Dean List or Jeff Glover where they go, oh, no, no, no. Here's what. Here's. Here's the way you do that. That's what the level you got to be at.

[C]

And a lot of those people, I found they might physically be at that level in their game, but they strug develop an athlete or to teach that very, very often. I have found that. That the same thing is not found in the same person. It's a rarity when you can get both. They can do it and they know it and they can teach it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. That is a. That is a rare gift. And, man, you got to be a little bit, like, touched if you're that into jiu jitsu.

[C]

Little tism. Yeah, Little side of the tism at the buffet.

[A]

You got to have a little bit. Because it's a weird thing to be. Be super into.

[C]

Is it?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You don't have to get creepy with it.

[A]

It is a weird thing to be that into. I guess it's a weird.

[C]

You should be into it, but not that into it, is what you're saying.

[A]

Yeah. And. But. But I guess it's like, you shouldn't

[C]

wear your ghee when you're walking to class. That one freaks me out. We have some people that do that, and they come in, like, and they're changed before. I'm like, Whoa, dude, did you walk in here in that game? They're like, yeah, 100% like, didn't you have some food in like, yeah, I stopped at the store on the way.

[A]

I'm like, oh, do you train mostly gee or no GI or both?

[C]

It doesn't really matter to me. I think our, my school is more GI than no gi. But I have a deep appreciation for both. And I try to roll in the GI with no GI grips a lot of the time so I don't become reliant on the door handles that the collar provides.

[A]

I've always had a no GI ish gigame. I mean, but you know, obviously you're gonna grab that. You're gonna grab that gee sometimes because

[C]

boy, how can you not grab the collar? It's right there talking to you.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit. Every successful person I know, and I mean every single one, had periods of time in their life where they were extremely unbalanced. There was no work life balance. There was only the grind. I do not suggest anyone live their entire life in that space. But to accomplish the goals that keep you up at night, you will need to embrace periods in your life where you are comfortable being unbalanced. You'll have to prioritize your goals over life experiences. You will have to prioritize your momentum over time with your friends, family and love loved ones. You're going to have to make difficult decisions and place long term success over short term desires. I will be the first to admit that the happiest and most fulfilled I have been in my life is when I have found a true balance. But I would not have achieved what I have and in turn found my way to that balance without periods of the exact opposite. It takes sacrifice and often mulling over difficult decisions. But along the way you will discover an incredibly powerful business and personal tool that I did not find or perhaps didn't realize the effectiveness of until much later in my own life. This tool is simple but very difficult to use at first. It is the act of saying no. People say yes to everything sometimes.

[C]

I used to.

[A]

How's that work out?

[C]

Pretty awesome if you want to accomplish nothing.

[A]

At what point in your life, at what point in your life were you saying yes to everything it had come?

[C]

Gen is usually economically based. And when I would get to a place where I was uncertain of economic stability or what the future would look like. So you get your. You talk yourself into. And again, I think this is important too. Are you really in an emergency or are you telling yourself that you're in an emergency, is it really a crisis or do you just feel like you're in a crisis because you're emotionally attached to what's going on? I mean, I would say your house being on fire, that is a crisis. Wondering economically about where the next paycheck is going to come from is important, but solvable. Mid-30s, probably up until.

[A]

Were you still in the teams?

[C]

No, because in the teams, I mean. And you know, I think I could probably speak for you here a little bit. The teams is a pretty good example of an unbalanced life. Buds is a great example. I. The married guys that were in my class going through that. How. What relationship with significant other. Like, what are you talking about? 1st Platoon, training cycles, deployments, post G. Like, okay, a lot of the recognizability that you and I both have is from our previous job. Right. And so you can find your way to this incredibly stable place and build upon that. But it required that instability up front, so it was almost required. So I would say my time in the teams was very un. Unbalanced. Getting out of that in my mid-30s is when I started having more options because, dude, you know how awesome it is on the old 1st and the 15th. You know the matrix. Like, oh, the 1st is on a Monday. I get paid on Friday. No big deal. I've got this completely figured out. Get out of the military, that kind of goes away a little bit other than your, you know, your pension and benefits depending on how you get out. And then I. Family's growing. Right. Multiple kids. Quality of life kind of goes up as you start making a little bit more money. Uncertainty about that. And just became, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I can't personally do 50, 50 things very well, but I can do five pretty well. Yeah, but you have. You have to carve it away. You have to start saying no. It's hard to do.

[A]

Yeah, it is pretty an awesome time period when you're like 19, 20, 21, 22 years old and nothing else in the world matters at all than your platoon.

[C]

Yeah. Or the moment you're in or whatever it is you are doing in the. Like, this is actually life and there is nothing beyond this.

[A]

Nothing. Nothing else matters. And yeah. It's just.

[C]

And your parents are like, hey, did you lose my phone? And be like, no, I didn't. Who are you again? Because this is like, like, you know what I mean? So incredibly unbalanced.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But so much. As much as you and I would ever want to try to escape our Past. Not that I'm saying that we should. The foundation of where we came from is built off of that. Then it helps or it can hurt, you know, depending on how you use it.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit here. This is from a. From a chapter called the Deep End. In my small social circle growing up, I was unique in only one way. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. From the age of 11, I had one focus, and it consumed me. I did not apply myself in school, and I think it is fair to say that I scraped by in the educational setting. It did. It just did not interest me. When my peers were studying for the SAT and submitting college applications, I was working or training for my entry into boot camp and the journey beyond, I dove. I drove head first down the path. And it wasn't until nine years into that journey that I finally lifted my head. You know, you. You end up. You're wounded in 2005, and you end up in this. Like, if I'm unable to continue being a seal, what am I going to do with my life? What am I going to become? What do I want to do? It was a truly pivotal moment in my life. And I honestly never thought about what my life would look like when I hung up my military uniform and had to redefine who I was. If you allow yourself to be defined by the uniforms you wear or the insignia that sits atop your uniform, you are going to be in a difficult place when the time comes to hang it up. And that time is coming for us all. I don't care who you are or what you do, there is an expiration date to your usefulness. You will cease to be of value to the community you are part of, and it will move on without you. It is not the community's responsibility to figure out what the next steps are for you. When that occurs, it is yours. The more you tie your personal identity to your occupation, the harder that transition will become. I know of so many specimens, specimens of men, absolute legends on the battlefield, who are stuck in that transition. They live their lives in the rear view mirror, unable to let go of who they were, were, and what they used to do. And the world passes them by. I had a constant mantra for myself that I used to as a reminder and an attempt not to get stuck in the same valley I've just described. Being a SEAL is what I did. It was and will never be who I am. That's a rough one for people. You know, anybody stuck in that valley gets wild, man. It gets wild, wild.

[C]

The Longer you're in, I think the more enticing it is. Like the gravity pulls you into that. It's the best thing. I think I told you this the first time I was on. The best thing in hindsight that ever happened to me was getting shot because I, I was remember laying in a hospital bed asking myself, is this the end? And I had not thought about that. I had not considered since I was. I mean I had no plan B going into. But somebody asked me the other day, what were you going to do if you didn't make it through bus? I'm like, why would you even ask a question like that? What do you mean? There's clearly only one option. Like, well, did you ever think about quitting? Like, no, I had nothing else to do, you know, and that's not a very scalable. Or what I would recommend people have. But I also wouldn't recommend that plan B is too sexy either.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because of old instructor Stump theirs in the middle of the night with a nice cup of coffee. We're going to talk about plan B until it's really enticing.

[A]

I had a friend who is part of a special operations unit overseas in another country and he was like 30 something years and he was finally getting ready to retire and I was giving him like that talk of like, hey man, you're going to retire and they're going to keep going and you got to let it go, man. Like it's not going to be a part of. It's not going to be part of your life anymore. And look, you know, it's funny because I talk about when I read this part of your book, I talk about like when you lose guys, like when you lose your friends. Right. And I, what I tell people is like, remember but don't dwell.

[C]

Yeah. And easier said than done.

[A]

It's definitely easier said than done. But if you just dwell on the past, you're not making forward progress. It, it just, it, it's not, it's not good. I'm not saying forget it. But you see, you want to remember what happened in the past, but you don't want to dwell on it. It's. And this, that reminded me of this attitude that you're talking about here. Like, look, you and I both spent our adult life and our formative years in the teams and there's not like, can't walk away. Like, can't change that. I can't just like Men in Black my mind and make all that disappear. Like, no, that stuff happened. It was cool. I had A good time doing it. But to wake up every day and be like, oh, that was, you know, that, that was it. I can't, I can't go back there. You end up like Uncle Rico, right? From Napoleon Dynamite. Like, you know, if I would had that, just that one, one interception in that state finals game, I would, we would have been champ, you know, like, which is a rough place to be. And I get it, man, because it's, you know, I love the teams like same. It's the best.

[C]

And did anybody give you that talk though, on your way out, like, hey. Or as you were looking at the door of leaving, like, hey, you might have some identity issues. Or even earlier on in your career, like, hey, guys, check in with yourself. And I think a warning sign that I've identified now mostly in getting to know a lot of law enforcement people is, is your entire social circle comprised of people that do the exact same thing that you do. That is an early warning sign that when you detach from that job, you're going to struggle. Because the only people that I knew were team guys because I only spoke team guy, which is English that nobody else understands because we're unique specimens in many different ways. But most guys, when they get out, they will go back to where they came from and their social circle is then now drastically different. I think you would be incredibly healthy about. I don't say you do 20 year career, but every five years it's like, hey, just so you know, this is going to come to an end. I'm not saying disregard what it is that you're doing, but like check in with yourself. Is your entire identity wrapped up in this? Because even the bullfrog at some point is going to retire. What are you going to do then? I hadn't thought about that a single time until I was laying in a hospital bed in Iraq going, huh, I don't know if I can do this job anymore. And then the second question that is, what are you going to do? I was like, I haven't really thought about that.

[A]

Yeah, I'd say for me, obviously I didn't have the rude awakening that you had of getting wounded and being like, oh no, you might not be able to physically do this job anymore. I had to come to that conclusion of my own. Like, what is it? What does the next 10 years of my life look like if I stay in?

[C]

When did you start asking yourself that though, in your career?

[A]

So I got home from ramadi and in 2006 and I went to trade at. And when I Got there because I hadn't even. I had never, ever thought about getting out. Like, I never thought about it. It was just like, this is what we're doing. You know, it was just the best job ever. And this is what I'm doing forever. So I get to trade at. And of course, you know, you start looking at, okay, well, what's next? And I start looking at what's next. And, man, I realized that there was a long time of jobs that didn't appeal to me in a super positive way.

[C]

How dare you talk about a disassociated tour in Germany like that? Or a Taurid African as the ops officer.

[A]

And, you know, you and I were talking about this before we hit record. Like, the career path for an officer is.

[C]

It's abrupt.

[A]

It's abrupt. And, you know, I had really been as lucky as a human could possibly be with the, the tours that I had and the way my career went, you know, like doing deployments as an enlisted guy, and then once the war starts, get to do more deployments. Like, I'd been very, very, very lucky. And so now I'm looking at, I think the number that I finally put together was it was going to be seven years before I was like, in charge of a SEAL team, right. And meanwhile, my kids didn't know me. Some other dude taught my son how to swim. You know, it was just. It was just I had to. I had to look around and go, okay, what are we doing here? And so that's, that's why I made that decision. You know, it's just.

[C]

How many years did you. You did. Got out at your 20.

[A]

20? Yep.

[C]

How many guys do you know, though? And maybe this is more on the enlisted side. They're at 19 years and six months. Like, dude, I just started my associate's program or my batch. I'm just. Yeah, I'm just starting online school. I'm like, well, if you said online school, I mean, I know guys who are crushing out degrees that were overseas, which I didn't have the bandwidth to do, but I would definitely advocate people taking that look up. Like I said, it, it, it changed for me. I always had the sense that this will end. So it got me thinking about the things that I could do.

[A]

Yeah, that's another thing. Another big mistake that guys make is, you know, you. You just think it's going to last forever. And so financially, you're just like, oh, I do need a new Ford F350 Super Duty immediately. Brand new, off the lot.

[C]

Limited.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

The Harley Davidson one. Right.

[C]

Totally.

[A]

Like, guys just do the dumbest things financially because you're gonna. Like you said earlier, it's the 1st and the 15th. I can cover this. We're gonna be good to go.

[C]

And that is any loan you want to. Like how long you been in the military? What's your contract for? No problem.

[A]

We got you 17.

[C]

Interest rate. Don't worry, we'll pull that over. 37 years for this car.

[A]

Yeah. And so I think that's where guys also, because if you, you do it right, you can do 20 years in the, in the Navy or in the army and you can 100%. You can 100% retire, never work again.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

If you do it right. The amount of people that I know that actually did it right is probably like. Probably like three or four guys.

[C]

Oh, I was going to say zero.

[A]

Yeah, it might be zero, but I knew a couple guys that were pretty savvy.

[C]

I know a couple guys who are trending in that direction.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, you, you know, you take your entire per diem check and just flush it down the toilet.

[C]

Yeah. At the bar the first night.

[A]

Yeah. Day one. And so then you're just tapping into your. It's ridiculous. So you get paid good money and you blow it all because you're young and stupid.

[C]

Then you get re. Enlistment bonuses. Yeah.

[A]

God.

[C]

I mean, to an E5. I think my first reenlistment bonus was 8. Pretty sure I spent 12.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You know. Yeah. But first off, 8 was more. I'm like, no one human being has actually ever had.

[A]

I am the richest human money.

[C]

I'm going to go get a pirate ship and bury this somewhere, because this is treasure. No, it was gone the next day.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's unfortunate. And as much as, you know, when I went to ocs, they had like a full financial class. And of course I was now 28 years old, married, and I was kind of a little bit more of an adult. And I was like, oh, wow, this stuff is. And I'm looking around the class. Not One of these 21 year olds is paying a bit of attention to anything that these people are saying.

[C]

Perfect.

[A]

And it's just such a bummer. So that ties in, you know, that keeps guys in a bad place because when they get out, they don't. They're not prepared for it.

[C]

That's not unique to the military. I've become really close friends with a lot of local law enforcement where I live. I see the parallels there. I see it in federal service. I see it. Whether you know any of the agencies that support, if there's a uniform tied to it or some sense of, I guess I'll say status, man. Keep track of it. Do not let it become all that is who you are. Because that's rough on the end. The trapdoor is coming.

[A]

Yeah. And you fast forward a little bit. You talk, you know, you, you were at a strength and conditioning company. You were working at.

[C]

Yeah. Highly litigious strength and conditioning company. Questionable morals.

[A]

You had a, you had a training role there in the beginning and then you end up in a business role and you're freaking miserable because the leadership sucks. But you're, you kind of got addicted to the money.

[C]

100 gold. I call it golden handcuffs.

[A]

But.

[C]

And this is what you're talking about though. The people who do it right versus the people who do it. I'm not going to say wrong, but differently. Almost everybody I know will define wealth by the amount of money that they make as opposed to looking at the amount of money that they're spending. I have some broke ass millionaires because if you make a million and spend 1.1, I mean, I guess that looks great on the front end. But when you're getting, you know, your assets seized, how's that looking out for you? So I, and you know, I'd get a little bit more money. Let's just have a little bit of lifestyle creep. You know, we do need the new Tahoe. I feel like the leather seats bucket. Of course not bench. Because that's pedestrian. You know, I mean we have, we need to have this. It's got the new entertainment system. And the next thing you know, you're just, you're like bumped right up. For so long in my life I lived like that. Bumped right up to the edge. And I look back, it was all optional misery. Completely optional misery.

[A]

I did not do that. I was like.

[C]

You and I, I don't know if you've recognized this yet. Are not the same dude.

[A]

I drove a night. I drove a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan with the, with a team issued riggers tape on the door window on the driver's side that is actually stealing from

[C]

the United States government, so.

[A]

Exactly. And I was always, I've always. I don't know why, but I was always paranoid about like debt.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I was always paranoid about, you know, having big bills. Well, I shouldn't say always.

[C]

Not me.

[A]

I would soon say always. Because when I was younger, you know, young team guy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like, oh wait, I can buy this vehicle like you said, oh. The guy's like, oh, yeah, we can definitely give you a loan for that. Oh, how nice of you.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

Sign me up. So I, I made those moves, but I also looked around after a little while going, dude, wait a second, this doesn't make sense. And I got a little bit paranoid about debt and so I always avoided that and lived like a poor person.

[C]

Let me tell you what the other side of that car looks like. I need a seat belt for this one. This is when your boss calls and says, hey, you're, I'm going to give you a raise. And completely optionally, you spend the rest of the day calculating the difference in your paycheck and trying to determine what it is that you need that fits inside of that delta to the point where you end up refinancing your home to pay off credit card debt multiple times. That's the other side of the coin. I'm not saying that happened to me, not saying it didn't.

[A]

But it was crazy too, that the fact that like a lot of guys got caught by the housing crisis.

[C]

Is it crazy?

[A]

Well, it's not crazy.

[C]

Are we always the smartest? Yeah, but we can move quickly, very well and make decisions. Fine print not taught in the SEAL community. Like, oh, this is an adjustable rate mortgage. Let's just focus on the M, not the A.

[A]

One of my buddies who I'm sure you know, I won't say his name, but he tells the story of when he was. He had eight houses.

[C]

Please tell me he was an E5 doing stated income.

[A]

He was an E6 doing stated income loans. He had eight houses. And he's telling me, he's like, yeah, I'd be walking into work just looking at everyone like, what a bunch of idiots. I can't believe everyone's so stupid and I'm so smart. And, and he said, you know, there was like some little ripple in the, in the economy. And he talked to his, you know, investor friend and was like, listen, if things start to go sideways, don't worry. You can just sell the houses and you'll be good to go. And every one, when it, when it finally like tipped over, every one of his houses was completely upside down in 30 days. And he ended up the only he was able to keep the house that he actually lived in. But all of his, you know, you have eight houses in San Diego. He probably had four or five million dollars worth of real estate at a minimum, and it was all gone in 30 days.

[C]

Yeah. So get. So I tell people when team guys do good, we go big. When we do bad, we also go big. Not known for moderation.

[A]

Yeah. God, Crazy. This is still on that same thing. I tried to view the situation from a different angle. I asked myself what advice I would give to one of my children if they were in the same situation as me asking for help. This is the situation being that you hate this guy that you're working for, but you're kind of addicted to money. The answer was very clear. I would tell them to change their situation. The actions I took in the moments after that realization, I do not recommend to anyone.

[C]

Just try to be honest, man.

[A]

They can and should be considered irresponsible. I texted my boss, told him I was done in that moment. Went from good income to $0 per month. So boom, you just called it, you'd had enough. Were you still active duty at this time?

[C]

No. Oh, and I hadn't. I think I was on a 70 VA rating. I was like maybe 1600 bucks a month, something like that. Zero. Six figures. Mid six figures to zero overnight. And I mean it's. I talked about it in the book Craigslist is a wild place. We started putting up things for sale. I literally went and stood in my garage and asked myself, what do I need here? And the answer was absolutely none of it. Stand up paddle boards that had been gathering dust. I lived in Chula Vista, by the way. I don't know if you know this. Not a lot of stand up paddle boarding out there. Of course I had a truck that I could, you know, take it to the beach and if I wanted to. Did that zero times. I mean, all sorts of crazy stuff in there. And so I just looked at it, but I started looking at it like an operation, like, let's prioritize here. What do we need to burn rate? Get it as low as possible. So just like cutting things out, selling all the stuff that I could sell. And then I was in kind of in that crisis space of. That's where I started saying yes to a lot of stuff, which is a double edged sword because it led me to a lot of the stuff that I do now. But it was also a little bit of a time suck in other places as well. But that was one of those times because that was when I was in my mid-30s of just feeling like I, I. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And God, probably a decade later I found myself in a place where I could start saying no.

[A]

How, how old were you when you retired medically? Retired after 18 years. 17.

[C]

17 years.

[A]

And you joined when you were 17, so you were like 34, 35.

[C]

Yeah. I mean in the Kennedy area we got to be really clear. So it was 16 years, 11 months and three days. Right. I don't want to have somebody come out here and be like, was it 50 grenades? I don't know. So I feel that the gov can spot me an additional year. But yeah, so I. Yeah, it was 3435.

[A]

Yeah, that's. That's like a little. That's just those five years between 35

[C]

and 40, they're huge.

[A]

Yeah, those are big years.

[C]

I might have learned the vast majority of the concrete lessons post military career in that five year time period. And it was actually the time that I struggled the most. Probably because I was saying yes. But again, double edged sword. My buddy was teaching freefall to the tail end of the PJ and CCT pipeline. Hey, do you want to come do this, Mike? Yes, sure. But of course that was in Florida, so time away from family, but good money. I had been flying for CrossFit and I had been doing some charter work on the side and I would do that stuff, but super infrequent. The paycheck was okay when they called, but a lot of the times they don't call. So I had to back away from that public speaking. But the skydiving thing led to being a sponsored athlete, which led to meeting Joe, which led to starting the pot. You know what I mean? So there's. There was good and bad, but I. You want to talk about crippling anxiety because you're just waiting for something to come in so you can say yes to it and you have no idea when it's going to come or what it's going to be, but your answer is going to be yes.

[A]

Yeah. How long did you spend in that? Like, I don't know how I'm going to pay my mortgage this month. Mode.

[C]

What month is it? Three years. Damn, about three years. But there, I mean, the one thing I think most team guys would agree with is that if you put something in front of us that is meaningful enough, you're not going to stop us. The training program selects for people that look at obstacles as an adversity, not something that can't be figured out. Like we might break our head open going through the wall as opposed to just walking around it, but we'll get our way through.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So you end up doing all this kind of crazy that you just mentioned. You're flying airplanes. You end up teaching sweep floors. You get your base Jumping, you get into wingsuit flying, like all this stuff. My journey through professional skydiving and BASE jumping introduced me to some massive brands. And through those brands and the projects we completed together, I found myself sitting there across the table from Joe Rogan. Our first discussion covered a lot of ground. I was sitting there because of the skydiving fundraiser. Joe eventually suggested I start my own podcast. An idea that was. I was originally resistant to.

[C]

I believe he also suggested to somebody else they start a podcast. Yeah, he.

[A]

He certainly did. But then the. The thing is he. If you go back to that time period like he suggested, everyone.

[C]

Oh, I tell people that. Thousands.

[A]

Everyone he tell. Told everyone, like, you should start a podcast. And he was right, you know, to a lot of them. Yeah, a lot. There's probably. There's probably some. I wonder what the number is. I wonder how many people actually started a podcast.

[C]

I do think he probably told thousands. Less than three. Like probably high twos, high two digits, I guess. Again, as you know, there's the concept of having a podcast and there's the reality of having content that's due every week.

[A]

The two are not the same, no doubt. Speaking of BASE jump in here, Alex was an amazing man and I feel fortunate in so many ways that I was able to spend time with him that I did. Alex also served in the Navy as eod, Explosive Ordinance Disposal Tech. He also screened and completed selection for development group and was assigned to a squadron just down the hall from mine. We did not work directly together and I do not remember our paths crossing while we were there. We connected when we were both stationed back in San Diego, first over skydiving, then through BASE jumping post service. He had attended the Wharton School of Business and was preparing to move into a CEO role in the gas and oil industry in Texas. Alex learned a BASE jump before I did, but I was able to dedicate more time to it due to pursuing it professionally. And we progressed in the sport at different levels. Both learned in Twin Falls, Idaho. You end up doing a bunch of trips with him. You go to Switzerland, you go to Italy, and Alex becomes your main jumping partners partner. Countless hours hiking through some of the most beautiful terrain on earth. Having multi hour conversations about life, our past, our futures and everything in between. We shared fear. Fear at exit points together, exhilaration and landings, and tears of laughter when one of us did something stupid. I've always had a few friends. I've always had few friends, but he was one of them. In June of 2018, I was camping with my family for A weekend in an area that did not have cell service service. As we were driving out, my phone exploded with notifications as soon as we reached coverage. I remembered stopping the car and looking at the locked screen of my phone. I could only see the names of the people who'd reached out, not the messages they had sent. But before I unlocked my phone, I already knew what had happened. The combination of names was not random and they were all tied to a specific social circle. I knew Alex was dead before I read the messages. Alex had gone to France with his wife to attend a wedding. While he was there, he arranged to meet a mutual friend for a quick jump at a well known location. The jump did not go as planned. Alex impacted a ledge and was killed instantly. I felt a sense of responsibility for his death because I was in a way responsible for his involvement in the sport. I had introduced him to Miles, made sure he was on the trips, and given him the suit he was eventually killed in. I've asked myself countless times if he would be alive today had I not done those things. I suspect he still would have found his way and perhaps the outcome would have been the same. But I was deeply involved with his progression and cannot shake the sense that I have a fingerprint on his death. Even though I was thousands of miles away, I spent a lot of time considering my own path forward after Alex's death. Was the benefit of BASE jumping still worth the reward for me? I came to the realization that I had moved past the place where I needed to silence, needed the silence that BASE jumping had provided. I still needed the silence. We all do. I've just found other outlets that provide it. I have not BASE jumped since Alex's death and I do not think I will ever return to the sport.

[C]

It's a tough one. That was a tough day. You ever had one of those where you were out of coverage and you come like it was. I can. I know the exact road and spot I was on and it just exploded and I looked down. I'm just thinking, that's weird. I haven't heard from that guy in a while. That's weird. I haven't heard from that guy in a while. That guy had never hear from. And yeah, I knew he was gone before I swiped it up.

[A]

Yeah, I've had those. I've had, you know, the get done with something and have seven missed calls from, you know, Warcom or traditionally not

[C]

to tell you happy birthday.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely know what's happening and you just dread, like you look through the number of people that called you. Like, which one of these guys wants to give me this shitty news that I'm about to hear? God knows what it is, but I know it's not going to be good. Yeah, the. How long did it take you to recognize, you know, I'm probably not BASE jumping again?

[C]

When we moved to Montana, there's no drop zones up there, so my currency in skydiving was limited or decreasing, which is okay as long if, like, if I was going to put on what I'm wearing now in a parachute, I could go jump 10 years from now. Skydive San Diego would be fine. The wingsuit stuff is all tactile based and it's all visual based. There's no altimeter you're looking at. You're literally in flight. Like, do I have the angle to clear that tree? And if not, hopefully you planned and gave yourself an out. Or you can change your trajectory and increase speed and lift and all those things. So you got to be super current. So I already knew that it was going to be tougher. I talked to the other person. I don't know if I put it in the book, but there was a mute. Yeah, there was a mutual friend that was there who watched this happen live and actually dedicated a really immense amount of time to go back to make sure. He got his video cameras because he didn't know what was going to be on them, but he didn't want that to end up on the Internet. And he and I talked about it really deeply because he, when I spoke to him, he's just like, I'm never, I'm never doing this again. Like, and I can't even imagine watching that happen in real time. And that really got me thinking about it. And then I ended up on the phone with Alex's mom a few times. And, you know, she's asking me, like, why did this happen? Why was he doing this? And those are questions that are hard to answer to somebody else. But I left those conversations asking myself the same questions. And what is it that I'm actually getting out of this? Is it that I want to be able to call myself a BASE jumper? Or I want to, like, put a brand logo on a wingsuit, you know? Or is it, is it the content that matters? Again, do I define myself by what it is that I do? Because people really will try to romanticize the risk associated with, with BASE jumping, and it's not a safe sport. It can be done as safely as possible, but it's not a safe sport. And that has to be taken into account. But you can also romanticize that a little bit. Right. And try to leverage that against whatever it may be, a bigger paycheck or a larger project or whatever it is. And after those conversations, I just. You know, and then I was. I had spent a weekend with my kids, who were young at the time, and just kind of looking at them, and I would say within 30 days, I knew that I was gonna. That I was going to hang it up. And I love doing it. I mean, I'd be open to going back to the bridge and jumping with miles in that controlled and contained environment. But zipping up in a suit in Switzerland and, you know, it's. It's an odd moment when you rock forward and you realize you pass that point where there. There ain't no rocking back, so you better push as hard as you possibly can and perform. It's just not worth it to me anymore.

[A]

So you're hauling ass, like, through those like. Like ravines and. Right.

[C]

Which are way steeper than it looks like on GoPros. On GoPros, it looks like they're really flat. The angle of most of those is incredibly steep. The steepness in the speed is your margin to detach from the terrain broadly. What happened to Alex is. Is he misjudged the angle and got his suit to a place where it. It kind of stalled out. So he was over terrain that he could not escape an impact. It did.

[A]

I was skydiving, and as you know, I'm not a great skydiver.

[C]

Tell me more.

[A]

Because we went in the wind tunnel, But I was like, I should have.

[C]

If I send you the video of that wind tunnel, would you mind adding this to the. This was in the same. It was the day after this that he broke Dudley's neck.

[A]

I.

[B]

But what.

[A]

What this makes me think of is I was, you know, like a team guy, and we were parachuting, and, like, we all sucked. You know, we were. Bunch of, you know, well, if you

[C]

do it for two weeks every year, that's what's gonna happen.

[A]

But I was, whatever, the last guy to go out, and I'm trying to link my buddy, you know, like, hey, let's link up, you know. Cool. So I go into, like, a full track to link up with him, and he jumped out quite a bit before me, and, like, I was hauling ass, and I tracked past him. Like, I saved myself and him, you know, from myself. I don't want to make it here. I'm saying, change your direction a little

[C]

bit and Went past as opposed to through.

[A]

I was barely able to do it because again, I sucked and. But my man, I remember thinking, holy. Like, you are an idiot. And. But that's the kind of feeling I get if you. I can't even imagine what you feel like when you're going by trees and like, oh, there's a moment where you go, oh, I'm not going to be able to turn anymore. And I imagine that's quite exhilarating. And I also imagine it must be followed up sometimes by this is a really risky business that we're getting into right now.

[C]

Especially when you have close calls and it happened. And one of the things that I question or questioned a lot and probably still do is I was with Alex when he had some close calls and I wish that I had taken it, like almost grab the dude, not slapped him around a little bit, but maybe depending on how we react, like stupid close calls. And again, it's all tactile, it's all vision. Why did you make that choice? Did you. Because you have to go out there. Like if you're standing on the edge, you want to feel the air. You want to be there at a time of day where the air is rising and coming up. You can jump if it's, if it's descending, but you're going to have a weight. It's called the start. It's the difference between vertical and then the lateral separation away. And it's like somebody's hand pressing on your back. And if you have a, a non consequential exit where there's thousands of feet, like you're going to be okay. But if you have rising air and you have a good start, I mean, you only need a couple hundred feet and you can jump over stuff where as you're in the middle of that start, you're like, this is the end. Like, I'm actually going to die now. And then your suit kicks in you,

[A]

I was going to say, because you need to gain enough speed where you can maneuver.

[C]

There's a couple where you've put. I'm pushed off and I'm looking down the rock and I'm like, well, this was a fun ride. And then you're like, oh, I got it. And you're out of there and. And then, you know, you got a little p ring. Maybe change your pants. Not a big deal. Always hike with an extra pair of pants. Wear dark clothing. You know what I mean? Echo. Those have to leave a mark on you though. And if they don't and you don't learn from that. I wish I had been more forceful in some of the feedback. The mistake that he made. It was a mistake that he made that took his life. I had seen him do it before and it's like, so I was sponsored at the time, right? So I get all these wing suits and it's like, I don't know. If I hadn't been able to give him so many suits, would he have been there? That. You know what I mean? But those are the questions I ask myself. Yeah, it's tough. It. It. In all the conversations I had with other people, I left most of them with just questions for myself, where I landed at the answer. It just. It doesn't provide for me what it used to. Then it's just not worth the risk.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of that.

[C]

I mean, you've never tried it. It's a super uneducated position to come from. You know, it's like, we should go give it a try.

[A]

Not, not, not, not, not my jam.

[C]

It is not most people's jam. And I fully support that.

[A]

Yeah. Fast forward a little bit. In 2007, I said goodbye to a friend, a man far better than myself. We completed BUDS together and later stood shoulder to shoulder as we received our Tridents. He was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, and his body told the story of that death. I didn't want to look at him. I tried not to. If you didn't know him, maybe you would have not have noticed the difference. I did. I wanted to. I tried to remember him for who he was, not what remained. I watched his wife hold his hand. I watched her kiss his lifeless head for the last time. I watched his eldest son as his eldest son stood on his tiptoes, his hands on the edge of the coffin, straining to look over the edge. What he saw was the remains of a man who would never again have a chance to hold him, to comfort him and to raise him. A man who would miss the highs and the lows, his trials and tribulations, his own journey from child to man. He saw his father for the last time. It tore my heart out. It hurt more than failure, more than disappointment, and more than getting shot. Every American needs to witness that scene. Every American needs to experience that pain. We would be a better nation for it. Once you've seen it, once you have felt it, you will never forget. Jason Dale Lewis June 30, 1977 to July 6, 2007. Father, son, husband, friend, seal.

[C]

Hardest part of the job in my Opinion, at least.

[A]

Where was that? Where was the service?

[C]

Connecticut. You know, the people at Dover, they do a good job, but sometimes they're starting with a incomplete building block. And if again, nah, I think you would have known. I. I don't know your thoughts on this. Is it better to remember them as they were or is it better to go see them as they ended? I'm curious your personal thoughts on that because both lead to it for me at least. Really different geometry and how I am able to kind of deal and process with it.

[A]

I'm not sure, man.

[C]

I'm not either.

[A]

I had one of my. Well, you know, one of our guys got killed. Not. Not one of my guys, a team guy got killed. And I was at the memorial service and I was with one of his cl. I wasn't close to this individual, but one of his friends was there who I'm good friends with and he was like, you know, like the service is going on and, and my buddy is like telling me, you know, that's not him, he's not in there. Like that kind of thing where, You know, I think that leaves a mark

[C]

as well, especially when they look drastically different than the person. You know what's wild about that is that son who was reaching over the coffin, I follow him on social media. He's like off living his life, posting pictures with women, God bless him, looking exactly like his dad.

[A]

Crazy.

[C]

And it's like that. The fact that Jason will never get to know or see that. Yeah, I've always, I've struggled with funerals. It's not that I don't have the respect and that I don't want to go, but I, I'd also like, I didn't want. He had an open casket funeral and I didn't want to walk up in front of that. And we were kind of talking with people and got kind of navigated into the line of walking by and then before I know it, it was so. It was unintentional. Another guy I wrote back about in the book was Dave hall and he. He died by suicide. But again we're at the service and they open and they open the casket and again they do the best job that they can, but like a new day pretty well, you know, an unnatural look in position for sure. And I, I just, I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is because I struggle to remember what they were before. And maybe that's just me. I don't know. Maybe some people can. I have so much more experience with Them before that last visual. That last visual has his hooks really deep.

[A]

I actually think. I think more about guys as they were. Like, as they were.

[C]

I try to, but that thought always for me, tailed. And again, maybe this is just me. And I'm sure the answer to that question as to which one you should do or which one is better is completely dependent on the individual making that choice. But hardest part of the job, for sure. I think.

[A]

I think maybe in my head, just that idea of, like, that's not them, is sort of like the resounding thought of, like, yeah, that's not them. Like, yeah, they're not. That's not that guy, you know.

[C]

Ekko, do you have anything funny to say before Jocko and I start crying? This is where you step in and stab yourself.

[A]

This is your job, dude.

[C]

Stab yourself accidentally so we can laugh at you for poor knife skills.

[A]

That used to be, like, a key part of Ekko's job in the early podcast was like, we would do the most heavy freaking podcast, and it would be like, I would not want to go home.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, thinking about this horrible thing that we had just talked about, you know, from some atrocity or whatever, and, you know, be like, echo, say some dumb, you know, and please somebody. Yeah. And it actually was good, you know, because I felt like people, even people like, listening to the podcast would be like, dude, I don't want to. Like, I don't want this in my head for the rest of the day.

[C]

They're driving straight to work and just quitting their job and going to a bar.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we don't want that. So, you know, it's rough. Anything, Echo?

[C]

Charles, what are your thoughts on that? Echo, have you ever had to go to funerals? Open casket versus clothes?

[B]

Yeah, I did, actually, as a kid. One of our friends died in a car accident, like, in the back of a truck scenario. Yeah, I think think you're right because since that's like. I think there's like a bias in your head, people. People experience it different, but it's called availability bias, where the most accessible image is going to have the most sticking power, you know, so since that's such a jarring image, it's always going to kind of take precedence a lot of times. So I don't know, man. Kind of both make sense to me.

[A]

It's going to be weird when, now that there's so much more imagery and video of everyone and you have, you know, and they're recreating, like, you can make someone come alive with AI, like, legitimately, I've seen some AI stuff that is crazy. I mean you see 10 years ago or five years ago, like you'd see it in the movies. They'd make someone come to life. Right. But. But they're going to be able to do that now with, with people.

[C]

I don't know if our brains are ready for that.

[A]

I don't know either, man.

[C]

I don't think the human brain is evolving. At the pace of technology we might really outstrip our ability to deal with this stuff.

[A]

Yeah, there's. You don't need that much either to make someone come to life and that, you know people, you've seen those. Like there's a, there's a app right now that can just take your family picture from 1952 and just like make them do some kind of basic movements and they look like they're looks like a short five second video. Right. And all meanwhile, everyone in the picture is dead except for maybe one person.

[B]

Yeah, I did it for that video that I did for you guys for the 10 year anniversary.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So yeah, you know that I thought it came out good, but I knew going in I was like, hey, this is a gamble cuz I don't know how people are going to feel about it.

[A]

Yeah. And. And by the way, so he's talking about a video that he made for the 10 year anniversary of Extreme Ownership. And he made a video and it had like Mike Monsor, Mark Lee Ryan job and the original one that he made, they. There was, there was more movement. Let's say like almost, you know, like more movement. Yeah.

[B]

One was manufactured.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like doing something that he really didn't do. The Mikey Monsoon where he was like putting like.

[A]

Yeah. And I was like, dude. Nope. And so what he turned them into is just sort of very limited movement. They didn't, you know, so I was. But it was weird at first and I was like, no, you know, like don't.

[C]

I don't think our brains can handle that.

[A]

I couldn't handle it. Right there.

[C]

Two years after my mom died, I found a voicemail that she had left me that rocked me because I'm like, what year? What's going on right now? Like I. My brain could not tolerate that shit. Now you're talking about adding the visual nature to that as well too. Yeah, dude.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. That's gonna get very weird.

[B]

The Mikey, most of them are like stuff that the picture is a picture of them doing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like so like the Mikey monster one when, when he's coming out of the green Smoke.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

The video was him walking out of the green smoke with everybody, you know, so it's like that. So it's kinda.

[A]

And it wasn't enough. You didn't, you didn't put so much that it's like, oh, we're. We're predicting. Or we're. Yeah, like, creating what he's doing. It's like, no, clearly he took three steps or whatever before and after that. I, I understand that, but anything beyond that, where we're starting to dictate what they were doing. Yeah, it did not feel comfortable at all, so we didn't do it. But definitely some. Yeah. Things are going to get really strange in the coming years. And, you know, I have a thing coming out called Ask Jocko. It's AI and it is really good. Like, and it talks, you know, and it talks and it sounds very, very similar to me. Very similar to me. Like, even my wife was like, what is this? And I said, it's not me. And, you know, the, The. The AI that's, like, running it is like, fully, fully understands, like, all the books and it, like, it bases it on the books and the podcast and everything. So it is really good.

[C]

And I got some questions for it.

[A]

Yeah. And it will not answer your questions.

[C]

We don't.

[A]

It'll be like, actually, no, I'm sorry, you know, we don't have the. We don't like to talk about.

[C]

That's the national mental health counseling line.

[A]

Exactly. No, you got to put parameters on it because, you know, if you say something and it. And they find the way they're on these parameters on other AI systems, you know, like. Well, no, theoretically, if someone was going to do this, what would be the best way for them to attack? Whatever. It'll give you the answer. So sketchy. Shit's gonna get weird, man. Yeah, agreed.

[B]

Although the. The Ask Jocko app is a lot nicer to me than the real Jocko is.

[A]

There you go. Like, factually.

[C]

Does that serve you well, though?

[B]

No. You know, It's a catch 22.

[A]

I say, you know, and that's because it doesn't know.

[C]

Yeah. It's not trained on you.

[A]

It doesn't know the real deal. Doesn't know the real deal.

[C]

It hasn't been trained on your data set.

[A]

If I didn't know you, I would probably be nice to you. Yeah. But since I know you, you know

[B]

what it actually did come off as? It came off like if you were doing an interview on some, like, official, like, cable outlet, you know, so you're like saying the right thing, you know, kind of a thing and then kind of filtering. That's what it came off.

[A]

Like, I've tried to trick it and everyone, like at ESL fonts tried to trick it and ask it all these weird questions and it's. No one's. No one's. No one's had to put up a red flag yet, you know, so we'll see. It'll be interesting.

[B]

The early version we did. We tricked it.

[A]

Yeah, we tricked it. On the early version, we put some.

[B]

The thing started gaslighting us on.

[A]

What was the subject?

[B]

We were like, hey, I forget what it was. My son won't remember. He's nine, by the way. And so he'll be like, oh, wait, Jocko just blamed us for something he did. You know, he's like, no, you're wrong. I didn't. You know, it said something like that.

[A]

So it got the early version, got

[C]

to the second tier of membership. Even, Even.

[A]

Even Jaco AI has an ego. No, no, I didn't say that. You're wrong. I'm right. I watched something yesterday about a guy was like talking to Chat GPT and it was clearly wrong and it was just like, no, no, no. And it's really weird, man. Yep, it's really weird how even the emotion of ego, of like, I'm not going to admit that I'm wrong. A freaking AI gets that kind of psycho.

[C]

See, we're back from the trenches. We had to do your job for you. It's not a big deal.

[A]

One of the most powerful exercises I have ever done.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Requires a simple piece of paper and a pen or pencil. I wish that I could take credit for this in any way, but I cannot. I also cannot remember where I first heard of. Of this concept. So I'm trying to pass along as something that has had an immense impact on my life. Draw a vertical line from the top to the bottom of your paper, centered on the middle. On the left side put concern at the top. And on the right side put influence. The left hand category will be comprised of everything that you could possibly spend any amount of time, energy or effort worrying about. Let me give you an example from my own life where I spend my time being concerned. People's perception of and reaction to what I do, other people's behavior, current events, social media posts, business competition. Will I make enough money to pay my bills? Am I good enough partner for my wife? Am I a good enough father to my children? What will people think of me? Will I fail? Will I Succeed. What is going to happen tomorrow? Who's going to be president? As you can tell, the list could go on and on forever. The right hand column influence is going to be much shorter and far more powerful. Powerful. What can we as individuals actually put down on the right hand side of the paper? I've tried to look at this from every angle possible, and I keep coming back to a single answer. Literally, the only thing we have, we each have absolute and total control over in our lives is ourselves. What do I mean by that? I mean you can control your behavior, you control your reactions, you control how you speak to yourself. You can control how you set and approach your goals, you can do your best to control your thoughts, but that's it. Why was this so shocking to me when I first tried the exercise? Well, I created the list for the first time. I came to the realization that I spent nearly all of my time and most of my effort trying to control things that I was definitely concerned with but had zero influence on. A simpler way to put it, I was wasting my time.

[C]

High 90th percentile of time, by the way. That one sucks. And I actually will literally do this when I. If I get to a place where I'm struggling, like, okay, what is. I'm like, oh, whatever, payroll. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. List it all out. Cool. This is. And I can actually bounce it off my calendar, like, what I've been doing with my time. And then I have to go over here and be like, okay, me. It sucks. It's the same thing as the realization when I had my bird taken the first time. Like, you can't control what happens to you, but you have complete and total control and how you deal with it. And that sucks because it's right back in your cord.

[A]

That stings, doesn't it?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's also mean, like, the list that you were rattling off, I could have wrote four.

[C]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

And how many. How many. How much time are people wasting, you know, on social media today? It's totally insane and getting aggravated and get. You know, we. We did a podcast one time, and I was talking about, like, because I was reading some comments and it was, you know, some political comments, you know, and. And, you know, the blah, blah, blah, blah. And you. And I'm like, I said, echo. I said, when's the last time you looked at another person and said, fuck you.

[C]

You never do in person. Because right after that, you fight. Yeah.

[A]

Like, what does it take to get you to say that now? Can you imagine you're in your house and you're looking at a computer screen filled with bots and you're random stuff and you get so freaking emotional that you write fuck you. That's crazy.

[C]

I don't have to imagine it. Just go online right now. It's like greetings and salutations.

[A]

Freaking crazy.

[C]

It's insane. And they'll blame it on, well, this person did that or said that or this person or the. And like all. Again, that's all left hand side of the category stuff. I wish I could say, well, actually pretty much nothing. That book that I wrote is of my unique creation because I don't think I've ever had a unique idea in my entire life. I read it, try to repurpose things that have helped me. I don't remember when I found that, but it is. If people actually spend the time to do that, it's kind of. It's pretty shattering. Especially if you think you have your stuff together. Because the left hand side of that column really sucks up a lot of time and it doesn't do anything.

[A]

Doesn't get you anywhere.

[C]

No.

[A]

Besides emotional, frustrated, wasted time or out

[C]

of time having accomplished nothing. Yeah, that's a rough one. That's a good tool though.

[A]

Freaking scary. And again, I'm reading the total highlights of this book. Get the freaking book, people. Order it. This chapter is called I solemnly Swear. The horrors of war and combat are real. Fortunately, so is the treatment and help. Everyone has a cup unique in both dimension and capacity. Some can hold more than others. But eventually, if unchecked, regardless of who you are are, it will overflow. When that happens, you will need the help of others. Thankfully, this country is bursting with patriotism. There are countless organizations, initiatives and individuals lining up, ready, willing and able to help. I can't imagine the struggle and pain that many veterans face on a daily basis. I know it is real. Hard numbers tell me so. I cannot fathom a place where the thought of taking your own life seems like the most viable option. But I do. But I know that for many, it is their reality. We will all have struggles. It is your choice whether or not they define you. Embody the principles and ethos of your previous service and face them head on. Many think that reaching out for help is weakness, when in reality it is a sign of incredible strength. Although there is no shortage of outlets for help, the first step must be taken by you. It is not the responsibility of others and organizations to help you get better. It is yours. If it doesn't work the first time, try again. If it doesn't work the second time, keep trying. Giving up is never the answer. What a freaking crazy scourge that this has been for the veterans. Something that is almost like totally foreign. And I was talking to an old Vietnam seal after a SEAL killed himself of one of our generation and he was like totally irate on the phone with me, like, what the is going on? Why the is this happening? And I'm like, man. He's like, we never would have thought about this. We never would have done this. What is going on? It's freaking crazy.

[C]

He might have said that in the moment. If you look at the veteran suicide numbers, a lot of them are actually from that generation as well. And that may be as they're. I mean, my dad was in Vietnam, he's turning 80 next year. Right. So it might be a little bit more as people are getting to that phase of life where their body is just painful and hurting. But I don't understand necessarily what's going on with it either. I think military service is absolutely a privilege, not a right. I think it should be very hard to get into. And if you go down that path, I think you should go into it with eyes wide open. But the trauma that will be associated with military service, it doesn't have to destroy you. And that seems to be the narrative. I hate the veteran broken toy narrative. Like if you served in combat well, we have to make every accommodation for you. And the accommodations are great. And there are like 50,000 service based organizations for, are loaded with cash that will help you, but nobody can make you do that. And you don't have to, you don't have to live with that for the rest of your life. I personally feel that whatever you would describe my experiences as where they were traumatic or scary or whatever it is, they made me a better version of myself. And I know that a true disorder for some people, they can't make their way through it. But if you look at the data, it's about single digit percentage that will have those lifelong struggles for life if they put the work in. So post traumatic growth is just as important as post traumatic stress. But almost all of that emphasis is on that front end and not on, on the tail end or focusing people on that journey towards that. Because I do think you can, it can make you a better person.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I absolutely agree. And I also think it can totally wreck you. And that's one of those things where you see like when someone has whatever, whatever little rupture in their system. Right. And sometimes going through something hard can. Can solidify that little rupture. And sometimes going through something hard, like, completely blows it apart. They get destroyed.

[C]

And there's experts out there that can help you on both sides of that, though. I mean, asking for help for guys at least, and from our community, at least when we were in. Probably not talked about, you know, very much. I wouldn't say that there was like a stigma associated with it. I remember when I was getting out, they were really talking more about integrating family units and counseling and therapy and all of those things. And those things are all great. But if people think if they go to therapy and that's actually where the work is done. Sorry. Like, that's where you get sent home worth homework and you have to work on yourself. And it's a super long path. And some of the things that the country asks us to do are really gnarly. You know, maybe don't expect to be doing high fives and backflips on a rainbow, you know, after talking to somebody for an hour. It could take years. But you also could be such a better version of yourself and therefore a better husband or parent or father or. And all of those things. I have never been told no when I have asked for help in almost every phase of my life. And somehow we have an incredibly large cohort of our peers that gets to a place that they either think that they don't have anybody to say I need help from, or they're not willing to. I don't understand it.

[A]

Yeah. And I would say when I was in. I think I retired about three years before you. What year did you retire?

[C]

Thirteen.

[A]

Yeah, so in 2010, I retired and, like, I don't even remember any, like, mental health being discussed in any way.

[C]

That's probably not good.

[A]

Yeah, I don't remember. I don't remember anyone saying, like. I remember we filled out some kind of a form before we left, which

[C]

I'm sure guys did super honestly.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Depending on what they had to do after filling out the form.

[A]

Well, Tony Fratty's, he showed me his form that he filled out. And these opening line was, this is a cry for help. So I knew that this was being taken very, very seriously because he was not being serious. He was like, literally just making fun of the whole process, which is probably not the best thing to do. But that's what he did because we were having a good time. But, yeah, I don't. I don't remember any, like. Like thought that these. That guys were going to need, you know, help Now, I do remember guys that we. That had some. They got in trouble, you know, and the thing is, guys got in trouble in the 90s.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, your jackass got thrown in jail in the 90s. You didn't look around and be like, well, I have ptsd from what? Oh, no, I don't. I'm actually just a freaking young jackass.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And at some point, it's pretty. It makes it a little bit more digestible when they go, what the hell are you doing? Like, well, you know, I'm freaked out, or I was mad or I was gut, whatever. And people start saying that. And then people are saying, well, is that an excuse or is that. Is there something real here?

[C]

Two things can be true.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, and plus, how can you tell? Because you can't read somebody's mind. Yeah. How could they possibly have ever thought that with an occupation that asks us to do the things that they did that mental health wouldn't probably be a component in that? Like, hey, guys, you have a super normal job. And we're not the only people who struggle. Again, first responders, people who deal with that, I mean, largely just. We'll call it trauma. The. The stats are what the stats are.

[A]

I mean, yeah, I told the story on one of my podcasts, but I. I was in. I was out for dinner, and I have a guy come up to me and he's like, hey, like, I need your help. And I was like, yeah, man, what's up? And he tells me a story, and I won't go through the whole thing, but, you know, he'd been in a hostage situation, hostage got killed, partner got wounded, perp got. I forget. I forget he got killed or whatever, but it was just shitty. And he. Of course.

[C]

What.

[A]

When they go through that, what do they do? They take his badge away, they take his gun away. He gets put on admin, like, so they're basically telling him, you're all screwed up. And. And I'm like, oh, are you second guessing your decisions right now? And he's like, yeah. And I go, cool, that's normal. And I'm like, are you having some bad dreams that you wish you would have done some different, different things? And he goes, yeah. And I go, that's totally normal. Do you. Do you think that everyone's looking at you like you did something wrong and you feel bad about that? He's like, yeah. And I go, cool, that's totally normal. And the look on his face as I told him, like, bro, this is just normal. You've gotten an incident where the hostage got killed and a perp, you know, your partner gets wounded, of course you're gonna have some night. I was like, you're having some nightmares. Yeah, that's totally normal. And I think for guys to recognize, like, oh, this shitty feeling that you have, that's normal. And that is, to me, very helpful for guys to realize that. It's kind of like, I used to tell fighters, taking them before they would fight and be like, oh, you know how you're super nervous right now and you've, like, got bubble guts and all that stuff? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, that's totally normal. Totally normal. Totally normal that you're having that. And when you tell people that it's normal, people go, oh, okay. Like, oh, got it. Oh, when you're going into combat for the first time. Oh, you're feeling nervous and scared. Yeah, yeah. Guess what? That's normal. It's okay. You got done with combat. You're home, and you're driving down the highway, and you're looking at this car that's trying to get close to you. Like, you might want to drive it off the road right now.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

That's normal. Don't do it. Yeah, but that is normal. And I think when people realize. And I think that's what, you know, one of the things that happened after World War II, those guys got to drive home on the big ships together and debrief and like, oh, you were scared shitless. So was I. Oh, you freaking. Had to kill some person that you maybe think didn't deserve it.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

So did I. Like, yeah. I feel bad about that. Yep. Okay. That's cool. Me too. Okay, cool. We're on this boat for six weeks. Six weeks. We're gonna debrief all of our problems, we're gonna get home, and then we're gonna carry on with our lives. And we realized that all that was running around in my head was the same that was running around in your head.

[C]

And.

[A]

Okay, that's kind of normal. Oh, and, you know, hopefully we can talk in three months ago. Still having some weird dreams. Yeah, dude, for sure. Okay, cool. That's normal. That's normal.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

Got it. And I think a lot of times what people feel is I'm not normal. There's some. The. The thing that they feel is there's something wrong with me.

[C]

Yeah. They're holding themselves to a standard that's not realistic. The stoic person that is in, like, unaffected by anything. Right. Teflon. It just bounces off it's really okay to not be okay at times.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, It's. It's bizarre, you know, when you, when you, as a grown adult, you're supposed to be able to, like, control your emotions. And it's very scary when all of a sudden you're like, you know, hear the national anthem and you start getting tears in your eyes. Oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm telling you, there's nothing wrong with you. Oh, you got some feelings when you look up at that flag or you hear some certain song or whatever happens that reminds you of some buddy that you had. That's freaking normal, man. That's just the way it is. And I realized this, had a guy on my podcast. I was in World War II, Korean, Vietnam, and he got a Purple Heart in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

[C]

Three three Z's.

[A]

Yep. Tom Fife was his name. And he was. And he was started off as a private soldier, enlisted guy, and then he moved up through the ranks, like a second lieutenant in Korea and then World War II or, sorry, in Vietnam. He's a battalion commander. And I'm talking, you know, we're going through the whole thing. We're having the podcast, we're talking about war and, you know, all the stuff. And I, you know, he's all good, and we get to Vietnam and, you know, he's talking about what his battalion do, what kind of operations they were doing, what the op temple was like, all the normal stuff. And then he says. Then I said, oh, well, how many casualties did you take in your battalion? And he got choked up. And I was like, oh, oh, okay. I'm always gonna feel like this when I think about my guys. And that's perfectly okay. I think it's normal.

[C]

I think it would be abnormal.

[A]

Exactly. If you didn't exactly.

[C]

At the. The perfection. Again, I think people are holding themselves to an unrealistic standard. And I think what you just described and being open and honest about that is probably the most important, important thing that people who are dealing with that can actually do. And so recognizing that, it's like, oh, this is normal. It's maybe been going on longer than I think it should have been. Let's reach out to these resources that are all going to say yes to you, by the way, if you reach out. But nobody can make you make that call.

[A]

Yeah. I think another huge beneficial thing is talking about it, talking about these things. I was. I realized this from writing eulogies, which I was always seemed to be the guy to write the eulogies. And and when you write a eulogy, like, you're gonna sit down there and you're gonna freaking cry all. You can barely be able to be able to write, but you're processing it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you're gonna. You know, you're gonna show it to your buddy, make sure. Hey, what do you think of this? Did I miss anything cool? All right. You're crying with your buddy, and then you get up, and you stand up in front of a bunch of people, and you gut through it, and you get mad, so you don't, you know, act like a. In front of your bro.

[C]

So now he's actually. He's going backwards now. So we're Now. Now we're actually causing generational trauma in people. Yeah.

[A]

Like, hey, you got to get through that thing, man. You got to get through that thing. And so you do, and then you get done, you turn around, you walk off stage, you cry your eyes out again. It's like, okay. But when you do go through that process and then you're talking about it and you see your buddies, and eventually, you know, that emotion starts to quell. It starts to relax a little bit. And again, there's nothing wrong with that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I think some people feel guilty because they don't feel as bad as they felt, you know, a year ago. Well, am I forgetting me? No, you're not. You're processing. You're a human. This is. What's. This is. What's. This is normal.

[C]

Life shouldn't be a competitive game of suffering. Like, there is no suffering Olympics. I know. I. You know, doing the audiobook. Interesting journey, by the way. Sometimes I'm like, this is actually not that bad. Who wrote this? You know, other times, I'm like, who. Who wrote this? I don't know. May. May change the words. Here I get to the last chapter about my mom. Holy.

[A]

Yeah, I thought.

[C]

I'm. I'm just like, Alex. It was Alex, too. And then talking about Dave, Like, I'm just. The guy's like, oh, we're doing great. We're ahead of schedule. And I'm just like, I'm gonna need about seven days off right now. It's tough, man. It's tough.

[A]

It's tough. And it is. It is forward momentum. Like, it's forward movement. It's processing it, and it ultimately is helpful, and you have to. You have to. It hurts to do it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, every time, it hurts to do it. But if you don't do it, I think it causes way more hurt and way more damage.

[C]

So I agree.

[A]

Get it out there. This next section, use with caution. And it says not everything from the military is applicable to the civilian sector. Many things, whether equipment or systems, are not designed for and do not perform well outside the military ecosystem. Some things can be used with caution, and some things should be avoided at all costs. The AAR process, the ARR process is an example of what I believe has immense overlap and value, but that is not true of all things. In my opinion, the military, the quote military leadership model is at the top of the things that should likely be avoided.

[C]

Sorry, I know that's kind of your jam, but.

[A]

Well, you know, it's. It's actually perfect. It nails it because that's one of the. One of the most difficult things that I had to overcome, especially early in. After I left the military was overcoming the stereotype of the quote leadership. Military leadership model, which people think is like, oh, if you just bark orders and tell everyone what to do, everyone just do. Does what you tell them to do.

[C]

It's the Full Metal Jacket.

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

Honestly, it's like the best worst movie for setting stereotypes.

[A]

And what's interesting is there were some people, especially in the beginning. I still get it occasionally now. Like, I remember I was one of the earliest companies I worked for is a guy, you know, the CEO of the company says, I can't wait till you come in here and whip these people into shape. And I said, hey, man, if you're looking, if that's what you're looking for, you should find someone else, because I'm not whipping anyone into shape. You whip slaves, and slaves do not perform optimally. They actually rebel against you and kill you. But that idea of military leadership and what people think that is, it's. It's dysfunctional. Does it happen in the military? Yes, it does. Does it happen in the civilian sector? Yes, it does. Is it functional in the military? Nope, it's not. Is it functional civilian sector? No, it's not. It happens. It. People get away with it more in the military, and the reason they get away with it more in the military is because you only have to survive for two years. You have to survive for two years. If you're working for an authoritarian leader in the military, he's only going to have his job for two years. It takes you six months to figure out that he's an. Then you start saying, wait a second, we need to confirm that this guy. Oh, this guy's definitely an asshole. Well, should we have a mutiny against him? If we do that, our platoon's Gonna look bad. We might not get the best deployment. So let's just keep our mouth shut. The guy continues to be an. You still do a good job because you're a bunch of squared away guys. You accomplish whatever mission you get tasked with. You make your boss look good despite. Despite his terrible leadership and he gets promoted. And that's what happens with the oftentimes doesn't happen all the time. And usually there's generally speaking that does cap out at some point because you can only burn so many bridges and look out for yourself so much before you get that reputation. But.

[C]

But in what you just described is nested what the civilian world can't see because all they see specifically from spec ops is success, success, success. Because I think I almost wrote your exact words. The team succeeds despite who the leader is. But the outside, it's like you guys are tasked with doing the impossible and you always succeed. So therefore, and this is the jump that they make, that is a mistake. Any leader in the SEAL teams, therefore, must be a great leader everywhere. And you guys have this secret sauce. And I worked for the best leaders of my life in the SEAL community and the absolute worst. And from a unit, if we were standing there out at quarters, you know this as well as I do, almost everybody at the command could be like, awesome dude, awesome dude, awesome dude, piece of shit. But in the picture, if you show that to civilian, they're like, these are the most impressive leaders and warriors we've ever seen.

[A]

Yeah. And by the way, that's the guy that's in charge. And that's why they were so successful.

[C]

And so if you think. And again, there's something else too, and I've heard you talk about this a lot, so I know that you agree it's the buy in, like for our community, the crucibles that you go through to even arrive at that place, like, you're there for the right reasons. Right. You understand why you're there. You've been through multiple years of training. You're with your peers, you're a high functioning team. You're high functioning individuals. You can get away with a little bit more of being directive in nature at times because everybody there is so incredibly bought in. I have 40 people who work for me at a coffee shop. The average age is 20 and they're female. That is way harder than leading at a SEAL team. Let me just tell you right now. Yes, consequentially, probably not as dangerous, but oh my God. The complexities of leadership in that environment far exceed the SEAL Community.

[A]

Yeah, the interesting thing about that is like, you know, and we were talking about this a little bit before we hit record today, but the SEAL teams is filled with a lot of, a lot of individuals, you know, a lot of individuals with their own ideas, their own egos, their own emotions. And if you ask, you know, generally speaking, if you say, hey, we're hit this target and you ask 20 guys in a platoon how you think we should do it, you're probably going to get like 20 different courses of action, right? Yeah, you might get 30. And so, you know, one of the, one of the black belt moves that I talk about when you want people to buy into something is, and I did this throughout my career and I learned this from one of my platoon commanders was he didn't tell us what the plan was, he told us what the goal was and then said, come up with a plan. And therefore the plan wasn't his plan, it wasn't the command's plan, it was our plan. And we were a hundred percent bought in. And that's kind of the way I always tried to operate. Because, you know, I don't even have to ask you this question to ask you if, like when your boss told you to do something or are you telling me that you are 100 bought in with every, you know, every time anyone told you to do that?

[C]

From 30th percentile.

[A]

Yeah, it's like low 30th percentile. And that's another thing that people think like, oh, when you're in the military, oh, you just tell someone what to do and they're going to do it. No, it's so far from the truth. What you actually have to do is lead. Now listen again, can I get away with it? Look, if you're an E6 and you work for me and I'm a chief and I'm like, hey, Andy, I want this done like this. And you're like, well, it doesn't make sense. I go, shut up and do it. You're going to shut up and kind of do it kind of half ass. And when something goes wrong, you're going to look back at me and hey, this is what you told me to do. It's just terrible. It's terrible. It's terrible. Leadership doesn't, it doesn't. Look, it'll work for a moment in the military, it'll work for a moment in the civilian sector to be that kind of tyrannical authoritarian leader, but it is not a long term solution. The idea, this, the thing that you put in quotes of military style leadership or whatever. It is not real. And not only is it, not only do you not want that, not only do you. Should you not want that, but it's not the right thing. Because if I'm telling Andy, hey, go do this thing right now, the way I'm telling you, I actually want you to say, hey, Jono, that doesn't make sense. That. Well, why not? I told you to do it. No, but here's. Here's the secondary effects that you're not thinking about right now because you're on the front lines with me. So here's some adaptance, adaptions we should make to what you're saying. Oh, thanks, man. Appreciate it. Go. Go do what you think is right. So that's the kind of thing where, you know, there's a great book I covered on this plan. I think. I think I did four podcasts about this book called. What about one book is. Yeah, it's called. It's called the Psychology of Military Incompetence. And, yeah, it's.

[C]

So I'm going to add to cart.

[A]

Yeah, add to cart. Add to cart.

[B]

And.

[A]

And what's crazy about is when I first saw it, I was kind of like, oh, what's some. Some psychologist going to know about military. Right? And this is. Guys, I'm not going to read this. But of course, I was like, well, let me do a little research. Yeah, the guy was in World War II, was wounded, was. Then he became a psychologist afterwards. And what he laid out is, again, this is something that we talked about before we hit record is people have, like, certain personalities, right? And there's some people that have a very authoritarian mindset. And those people, when they see the military from the outside, they're like, oh, I'm gonna go do that. Because when I'm in there, everyone's gonna follow me. They're gonna have to follow me. They're not gonna be able to question me. And they. That the military attracts that kind of person. And what sucks is that person can actually do well in a garrison environment. When it's like, oh, we're gonna get ready for this inspection. Watch you guys out here at this time. But where their brain implodes is in combat when all of a sudden you don't have control everything. The enemy gets a vote. The weather gets a vote, the weapons systems get a vote. And by the way, the people that you bark orders at and they listen to you when you're in garrison, I want you out here for inspection at 0400. And he's going to show up because he doesn't want to get in trouble. When I'm like, Andy, go charge that machine gun nest. You're like, bro, I ain't charging that machine gun.

[C]

That is the correct answer.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. So, so those people that have that authoritarian mindset, they perform well in non combat situations, but in combat situations they fall apart. And meanwhile, the guy that is like open minded and free thinking, that guy does terrible in the Garrison mindset. He's like, why the hell do we got to be in here at 4 o'?

[C]

Clock?

[A]

It only takes us three minutes to get our freed uniforms on. That guy is terrible in Garrison, but in combat he's like, wait a second, why would we go up charge that machine gun? That's when we could just sit over here on the flank and put, you know, indirect fire on him. Okay. And so you get this, this mindset that that is, is a stereotype of military leadership. And it's so bad. And again, this is at Echelon front, one of those things that, you know, we had to fight, we're pretty, pretty much through. We don't have to do it too much now because there's enough information about us out there. But yeah, the, the idea that you're gonna bark orders and everyone's gonna be on board, it just ain't happening, man.

[C]

For that Garrison leader too, I would say be really cautious using your coffee cup. Oh.

[A]

Because people like Andy have a very creative mindset.

[C]

Give it a wash if you're gonna leave it at work. You know what I mean? There are other ways to be insubordinate.

[A]

Oh, Lord. A little bit of SEAL training you talk about here. There are five potential outcomes for a BUDS trainee graduate. The holy grail for all graduates, for all students. Number two, quit. Number three, performance drop. Number four, in the performance drop. Each phase of training, there are very structured test gates. You know, you get the run this one, the obstacle course, all these testing things. Number four is medical drop. Injuries happen during training. Death too. I don't think there's ever been a student who attempted SEAL training who is not nursing an injury of some kind. And some injuries cannot be worked through. And then five is admin drop. Academic tests and buds as well as physical tests, not college level courses. And the aptitude test given to attempt the pipeline generally ensures an ability to pass the academic requirements. So but things like tragedies, personal life,

[C]

those things can happen.

[A]

And then the disciplinary issues. And so you talk through, through those various things and you say, although there are five potential outcomes for a student student. One is clearly the most common and by multiple orders of magnitude, and that is the quitting.

[C]

Sweet, sweet sound of the bell.

[A]

And you were a BUDS instructor. You know, after you got wounded, you needed to heal up and so you went and became a BUDS instructor. You talk about some of that, some of the things that you surprised you, how structured the training was, shocked I.

[C]

When I was, I don't know your experience, but going through as a student, I just assumed that the instructor staff had carte blanche to do whatever they want.

[A]

100%. That's what I felt like.

[C]

And I also think that when we went through that might have been a little bit more true because. Or they were more cre. I mean the first remediation, to use the acceptable term, the term by Mike Mir, who was beating the ever living out of us at the time at the 618 barracks on a weekend. Yeah, he used the term beating. We were there for hours. So he either was operating outside of the purview of the CO's desk, which is what I think it was, or out of the guidance, but every day is basically a three ring binder. I was shocked. You know, you're out there and surf immersion, like you're gonna be out here forever. And you know, at nighttime the lights are on, facing the students. There's a suite of doctors back there. Like there's, there's a guy over checking the temp and an instructor like, well, we got six more hours that we can have you in the water. But then a guy whispering in his ears like, you got 90 seconds and then you got to pull them out. All right, Burn sprints. Which you think that you're punishing them, but you're warming them up. So you know what I mean? So there's a lot of stuff that you think that they're just making up and it's literally just, okay, one Alpha, then we'll do one Bravo and then work our way to one Charlie. And it's just, it's shocking actually the

[A]

thing you were talking about with Mike Mara, that they had a name for that, it was called Extra Buds, which it wasn't. They didn't call it that when I went through, but I, I heard that term.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think that got tightened up in the, in the past couple years. The extra BUDS was very becoming. Very, very extra.

[C]

The curriculum works.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

The job of an instructor is to apply the curriculum. You don't need to do anything on top of that. I mean it's been the Same since whenever the training started, largely, it works.

[A]

And then the injury rate. You talked about how that surprised you.

[C]

Shocked me.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

As a student, if somebody either quits

[A]

or get hurt, just disappear.

[C]

See you later. Like, run into Echo. I mean, this scenario would definitely play itself out. Echo and I would be running to chow chatting. You would stop training after chow. So I'd run back and have a conversation with Jocko because we successfully made it through. I would. In that scenario, I probably would never think about you again or ever see you again. And that's just the way that it was. That's not like you're just. It's an individual team journey. Right. Like, you need a boat crew, but it's your personal journey to get through training. You just don't see the guys. You get a lot of time around the injured people as an instructor because they augment the classes. But, man, the obstacle course chews people up.

[A]

I was talking to Jason, who's the PT guy that eventually came to the teams and. But the guys that would work at buds, like, I forget what injury it was. It was like patella femoral syndrome. Right. Happens to like that. The BUDS medic guys, they would see literally dozens and dozens of cases of paternal patella femoral syndrome a week, which

[C]

is probably a career for somebody else.

[A]

And. Yeah. And he said, like, in the guys that work in, you know, professional athletics would literally see like, one of those every six months. And here you see patellofemoral syndrome. Dozens of cases a week. Yeah, because that's what the grind is there. Fast forward a little. There was additional cohort of students that I had the opportunity to spend more time with than when I went through training. And it was this group of students who had made the decision to quit that I learned the most from the departure from Bud's training. Command can make can take days, even weeks. During that time when these students were grappling with the decision they had made and the consequences that came with that decision, I had time to talk to them. For the most part, I found them to be incredibly open and honest about the why that led them to quitting. I suppose that I was catching them at an emotionally but vulnerable state. And I always approach the conversation with no judgment and only a desire to understand. Very rapidly, I recognized there was a pattern in what they would tell me. They didn't use the same words, and the stories were certainly not all the same. But a singular theme rose to the surface repeatedly. I would say things like I was too. They would say things like I was Too tired, I was too cold. It was too hard. Although the reasons may sound different, they all, they are all verbal expressions of the same thought process and mental failure. What those students were describing, whether they realized it or not, was not only the moment that they broke, but the reason for it as well. As an instructor, I had a variety of tools at my disposal. I had water in the form of the Pacific Ocean sand, physical exertion, sleep deprivation, telephone poles, boats, obstacles, runs, swims, in a variety of physical exercises. I could also combine those tools assuming I stayed with within our acceptable training guidelines when. What I came to realize over time, especially when especially time spent with students who had quit, was that it wasn't the tools used in isolation or even in combination that drove students to the point of making the decision to quit. It was the students themselves. What these students are describing is the exact moment in which they allowed their view of time to override their decision making process. They're describing, describing the moment that they, the student allowed the optic and lens on their goal to be forced open to its widest possible aperture and then decided that the distance between where they were and where they wanted to be was too much. They stopped focusing on where they were and started focusing on how much further they had to go. If the lens gets wide enough and the distance seems far enough, a tsunami is coming. If you let it, it will smash you into the rocks and before you know it the bell will be singing you a lullaby.

[C]

It's honestly as simple as that. Yeah, shockingly enough, it's the world's best laboratory on why people quit. And it was, I mean not every student. Sometimes the life happens, but almost always they just. I couldn't take it anymore. I quitting on Monday of Hell week. I couldn't make it to Friday. Quitting on the second day or first day of first phase, which to this day still shocks me. Like what the fuck did you think you were signing up for? At least make it to the lunch of the first day. Do you think I'm joking? I am not joking.

[B]

It sounds funny, that's all.

[C]

If you're not a student, it is funny. But like what but God, paper could be written on what you thought this was going to be. It's all versions of I just couldn't take it anymore. And once you realize that that's all I would do, would just talk to students like, man, you look cold. And it'd be Monday of Hell week and my watch is set to Sunday at like 2:00am, you know, so because they're Looking at your watch tube like, yeah, guess what, dude? I was a student also. So, like, man, we got a lot more to do. We're going to be here for a really long time.

[A]

Did you catch that echo, Charles? So he would set his watch back so they'd think four hours had gone by.

[B]

But it.

[C]

But do you know how I learned that trick? Because instructors lie to me too. And as with all good generational trauma, it is passed down. I mean, you could scream at the students, you could get them physically exhausted, but it's. If you can get them to a place where they start asking themselves, how much longer can I do this? The likelihood of them quitting just went through the absolute roof. Shocking. And then once you get one and other people, especially if they have put some level of faith into the guy who just quit, if he can't do that, what is he, what am I not paying attention to? If he can't do it, there's no way that I can. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with any of the tools. It's just the student is actually the student's worst nightmare. It's the most powerful tool you can use against them. And that to me applies to everything in life.

[A]

How would you pid like a weakness?

[C]

Like physical? Or are we talking like when you,

[A]

when you would you just. Pretty much every guy in the class, you'd be like, hey man, this is going to be a long week for.

[C]

Oh, yes. Multiple times you can tell when somebody's paying attention to you and when they're not. And the person who would just shut me out, which is the correct move or minimum, you know, the deal, whatever I ask you, the question is who you are, of course, but get through that environment. The ones that would sit there and engage with you at a deeper level and they're the ones who are starting to think about it. That's how you know that you have cracked the door a little bit. The ones where it's just Teflon, you're like, next. Moving on to the next one. The gut, the guy. I don't know how long I can do this. Like, well, you're in the middle of a nine day evolution. This is like the third day into hell week, right? Which is actually only five days. But they don't, you know, and they know that too. But it just. Did you just slam it open and you know, it doesn't have to be hell week. I, I mean, just imagine the likelihood of being able to graduate if you have a stack of 3M you know, little notepads. And the first one says 182. And you put that on your wall, and after the first day, which does suck, by the way, you rip that off and it says 181. Like, how many. How long are you going to be able to look at that mental picture? Which is exactly what I was saying in the book. Like, this is where I am and this is where I want to be, but this is all I'm going to focus on versus a dude who's like, oh, I don't actually have that. I just. I just, you know, do what we're doing and we get to the end of the day and you don't have to count at all because at some point, one plus one equals two plus another one and another one, and you're at 182. But I tell you what, the dude who was counting down the other direction, he's not there.

[A]

Did you ever have a guy that. That you talked to that you got to quit, that you were like, damn, that might have been an okay dude.

[C]

Buds isn't selecting for okay dudes? If I was looking for good dudes to fill up the seal teams, I could go to your average 711 on the street corner and find okay dudes. You're looking for guys that can do the job.

[A]

I had that conversation with someone the other day. Like you. You. That's what we're trying to find out. Yeah, that's literally what we're trying to find. As a matter of fact, I talked to Dakota Meyer the other day, and I was like, hey, man, if guys are, like, afraid to die, then they don't really want to do this job.

[C]

Actually, I think it's okay to be afraid to die if you can control that and do what you still need to do. It's, you know, if you're paralyzed by that.

[A]

Fair enough. Fair enough.

[C]

Psychopath. Well, this little peek into jocko psyche there, you know, to go to add on to what you're saying, like, and I. Because I did have that question as to, huh, that kid probably could have been awesome. Come back when you're ready, because they may not just be ready. You might just need a few more laps of life experience. And I wrote about Mikey in the book because his story about quitting the first time and coming back, people forget that you can do that. That's never talked about. And so again, you don't have to define yourself by these failures. He made a decision. I was able to record a podcast with his dad, which was awesome. He's honest. He's like, yeah, it wrecked him by putting more logs on the fire until he was able to go back. So, yeah, if you're a good dude and you don't make it on the first try, the come back, you know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Mark Lee, by the way, same thing.

[C]

Really.

[A]

Mark Lee quit first time he went and was like, totally distraught over it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And worked his ass off and came back and kicked ass and was a freaking awesome guy. In a platoon, that just means they

[C]

weren't ready to the first time through.

[A]

That's all it means now that that makes total sense. And I mean, you do not. That's. That's the thing that we have in the teams is like, the guy, look, man, it's going to be shitty. It's going to be cold, it's going to be wet, it's going to be miserable, it's going to be scary, and we're going to have to get our on and go again. And like, the feeling that you just know that that team guy is. Is with you, man, that. That is as good as a feeling as you could get. And very rarely would you hear about a guy that, like, would not drive

[C]

on, you know, he had one in my first platoon.

[A]

Yeah. Like I said, very rarely. It happens. Very rarely. And when it happens, it's like, dude, like, it's a shocker, but it does happen. And that's the whole reason that Drake or Cough Draper Kaufman made Hell Week is like, I want this to be so bad that on, you know, when we're getting ready to go on the beaches in Normandy or wherever, like, guys aren't going to give up.

[C]

Did he put himself through it?

[A]

He did indeed.

[C]

Good.

[A]

Did you know that?

[C]

No.

[A]

So he got. He made it. And then they had a massive attrition rate and the Navy was starting to look at what the hell's wrong with you? And he went, funny.

[C]

They're still looking for that.

[A]

Actually. He went through the program himself and he was like 35 years old or something like that when he went through it himself. And it just so happened when he finished, just literally secured Hell Week. It just so happened that the base commander had gotten a call from whoever and said, like, what the hell is wrong with this training? Look, why aren't any guys making it through? And he. The base commander, I think it was the base commander. Don't quote me on the story. It's in Ben Milligan's book by Water Beneath the Walls, Freaking outstanding book. Calls him in and he's like, you Know what's happening with this training? Why are so many people quitting? He's like, I just went through this training. It is totally makeable. And I'm 36 years old or whatever, so yes, it is.

[C]

It is very makeable.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

It is what I would call actually relatively simple, yet not easy.

[A]

Yeah, don't quit.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

This is the whole thing I've been hearing.

[C]

So you know what people will ask me because I talk about this concept, they'll say, well, why don't you teach this theory of breaking things down like that to begin with? Which I don't think it would actually make a difference because it's something that requires practice or that you have already inherently learned in your life. And there's a huge difference between understanding a concept and living it. This makes things digestible. How I break it down and talk about like breadcrumbs and chunks, it makes it digestible, not less painful. So you still have to go through the pain, but you are working through it in a digestible chunk that you're still fighting against yourself with. I don't think it would change attrition rate.

[A]

And by the way, I think they do tell that to guys. They might, they'll tell guys like, hey, just make it to the next meal. Whatever you say that in the book, they make it to your next meal. I think that's what you were focused on. Yeah, just make it your next meal. Like that's totally like obvious. And they tell guys that, hey, you know, like just, just go do the next evolution. Just make it through the next evolution. That's all you got to do. Especially in Hell Week. Because in Hell Week, like you don't fail a run, you don't fail, you get punished for it, but you're not going to get dropped from it. So like just keep freaking going. Yeah. And you're going to be all right. And that's kind of what you say here. If you can recognize and weaponize the most effective tool to make people quit, you should be able to reverse engineer the process that has the opposite effect. And then you talk about some examples from your life of chunking, chunking things up, you know, like whether it's moving a pallet of bricks, whether it's making it through hell week, which I just talked about, you know, those are things that you have been able to chunk up. The personal one, you say, I've never been had a lower sense of my own self worth and place in the world than I did about halfway through the nearly two year divorce process. I do not possess the vocabulary needed to describe what it feels like to be reduced as a human being down to a number on a piece of paper and then have that number be argued over. Add young children into the mix who are being fed a narrative that has, at best, a casual relationship with the truth paired with limited time together, and you have a very heavy situation. There were days where I felt. Where it felt as if the force of gravity had increased threefold. Days where I woke up more exhausted than my lowest moments in the seal community, lying in bed, trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the day. There were days when I questioned whether I was good enough human being to deserve to be a father, to deserve finding another partner. And days where I pondered whether or not the world would actually be a better place without me. There were days where I questioned everything that I thought about myself. Days where I stared into the abyss of heartbreak, wondering if there was a bottom. There were days where time seemed to slow, where it seemed like every piece of information, every interaction I was having were only negative. There were days where I felt like I was standing at the bottom of a mountain. And boulder after boulder continued to tumble down the mountain, only to crush me. And others where it felt like I was being pulled under in quicksand. In those moments, the single largest threat and the biggest enemy that I was facing was not someone on the other side of a divorce proceeding. It was myself. Myself. It was and remains the lowest point I have ever been in my life. Dude, that's a freaking.

[C]

I actually think we should abolish seal trading and just force people to go through divorces. Dude, the attrition rate would be higher. That's the hardest thing I've ever done. It was the absolute worst. Not from a physical perspective, but from an emotional perspective is the single hardest thing I've ever done.

[A]

It's gnarly, and it's just day after

[C]

day after never ending for almost two

[A]

years during COVID And then you got the kids involved. So there's. There's, like, parameters on what you can do and say, and there's supposed to behave.

[C]

Not everybody follows parameters, Jocko. Imagine your entire life, though. Literally, that Excel spreadsheet thing, that's real. I remember that. That was actually the crux of all arguments in the mediation that lasted almost two years.

[A]

It's basically money.

[C]

It's money. What is. What are you worth as a person? Okay, how do we spread this out amicably or depending on the state that you live in, you'd hope it's 50. 50. It's not 5050 in Montana, let me tell you. And it's just like everything you've ever done, you've ever tried gets jammed in this Excel spreadsheet, and then you argue about whether or not you're worthy to get a percentage of that or somebody else is. It's. It's insane. It's the absolute worst.

[A]

Yeah. And you got to be looking at, like, kind of what I was saying earlier, how you dig yourself a hole, and at some. Some point, you look in the hole, and you're like, wait a second. I don't know if I can get out of this thing.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't know where the top of the hole was at the end of that process. Yeah, there's no. There's not even any sunlight. You're just like, okay. And somehow I got down here, and I forgot where my shovel is. So it's just me. No, it's the worst, man.

[A]

And so you talk about. The reason you talk about that is you talk about, like, how you basically, One step at a time.

[C]

How do you use this concept, regardless of what's going on?

[A]

So what did it look like when you're going through this horrible divorce?

[C]

So, again, because of the COVID stuff, we'd have zoom calls, Right. And, you know, let's say, hypothetically, one side hires a financial expert to try to value you as a person. If you don't agree with that, then you have to hire your own financial expert that values you as a person and argues against their value, and you're paying for both. It's pretty fun. And then you're having these calls where people are arguing back and forth, and you just feel like less and less and less of an actual human being and more and more and more. More about a number. And I remember just sitting there thinking, I don't know how much longer I can sit here and have people talk about me in this manner, as if I'm not on this call, which is the dangerous headspace that those students get into. And I just flipped it. I'm like, okay, you know what? No, we're not going to do that. First, I'm going to get up, go for a quick walk here. I'm going to come back. I'm just going to get through this call. This call sucks. I'm going to get through it. We'll see what comes next. And not think about the remainder of the week that had three more days that were scheduled for calls exactly like that. One step at a Time? Yeah.

[A]

Did you have any outlet? Like, did you.

[C]

Jack Daniels was good friends.

[A]

Were you drinking hard?

[C]

I didn't drink anything during that. As one of the first things that I realized that I couldn't do that Jiu Jitsu, people are like, why did you go train for, like, seven days a week and four times a day?

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

I mean, honestly. Yeah, yeah. It was during. It was right during that time period. And again, couldn't travel very much. Not that Jiu Jitsu was supposed to be happening, but, I mean, whatever. It's a social club. It's hard to say what was going on behind the door. And there was a group of people who took health very seriously. And it's like, hey, if you're not feeling well, don't come in. And we would get together almost every day, just train our asses off. Helped tremendously. And, you know, to go back to the BASE jumping chapter, one of the things that BASE jumping always gave for me was not like disassociation, but you can only think about what's going on in the moment. So you don't have to worry about if you had an argument or bills or any of that stuff, because you're like, am I going to hit this tree or not? I live in life at three seconds in front of my face. That, for me, helps clear a lot of the stuff out of the filter. Jiu Jitsu, not the same level of intensity, but I don't know how it is for you guys. It's a little bit harder for me to get there at this point because I'm thinking about a little bit more stuff, just because I understand. Understand a little bit more stuff. But you can be in the moment, which is the same thing. It helps pull away that stress.

[A]

Yeah, my. My Jiu Jitsu mind is very, very, very empty. Yeah, like. Like, I'll literally get done training, and someone will be like, hey, what was that thing you hit over here on that second round? I'm like, I have no idea.

[C]

You and I are similar. Then People will ask me that after all. I'm like, I actually don't know what you're talking about.

[A]

No idea.

[C]

How did you do that thing where you got around to my back? I'm like, I'm going to need you to replicate what you did, and there's a good chance I'm not going to

[A]

do the same thing, which is like, that's the meditation thing. Right? You know, because people like, oh, you need to meditate. She can clear your mind. I'm like, freaking get out there and have somebody trying to kill you for, yeah, you know, eight five minute rounds, your mind's going to be pretty clear.

[C]

I don't know what I would have done absent that because I had found Jiu Jitsu before that process started. I, I don't know, maybe I would have become a botanist or something or long walks out in the Montana hillside.

[A]

And you said alcohol cutoff was a conscious decision.

[C]

100%.

[A]

And what, what, how'd you get there?

[C]

I mean, I don't know if you know this, but we drank a lot of the SEAL teams and I have seen it destroy enough people's lives and I've made enough bad decisions when drinking. That is first chapter that I knew that it was going to be hard enough. And that one is like, why would you want to wake up feeling like shit, having to go through any of those conversations? I need to be able to think clearly because this is probably going to be the time where I need have the clearest level of like, lens and objectivity not only in this situation, but also on myself as well.

[A]

The more I did Jiu Jitsu, the less I drank.

[C]

I've always had like, like I can casually drink or not, I can turn it off for years. It never had its hooks in me like that. And as I've gotten older, older, I don't even have the desire to drink.

[A]

Yeah, me neither. Yeah, definitely don't. And it's, yeah, very lucky I think, because I think there's some guys, when I talk to them, they're like, dude, how do you do it? Like, I'm like, damn, dude, I don't, don't even think about it anymore.

[C]

Well, there are some people also who are genetically predisposed.

[A]

True. You know, Jack, one thing you mentioned here is developing a mentality that doesn't allow you to quit is actually quite easy. Knowing when you should is truly hard because there's plenty of examples. And, and you know, some people get that mentality of hey, I'm never going to quit and they're digging a hole. And you had to make that call. You know, basically with your relationship, your, your ex wife.

[C]

Like I made it 10 years too late, a decade because I would stand there, literally stand in the mirror and be like, really? You're going to quit? It was the currency that we were judged by for almost two decades. I'm really good at positive self talk. Wake up in the morning, be like, good morning again, you piece of shit. What is it today you're gonna fall short of? So you're Just brushing your teeth away.

[A]

You legit looked at your marriage as like, if I get divorced, I'm quitting.

[C]

Jocko. There was a time in my life where I looked at giving up on anything that was quitting. It was the only currency that mattered with the people that I cared about most in my life. And that doesn't work. I mean, toxic relay. I hope everybody has a fantastic relationship, but toxic relationship exists. Let's take a no quit attitude to that. Where's that gonna go? Yeah, you know, and also what example and what I realized. And this one pisses me off till this day. And I never give any details really about the divorce. There's two parties inside of that. I have a larger platform than she has the access to, so I just always leave it very bland. And I own my. I own my share of the divorce as well, too. But If I waited 10 years too long, what example did I set for my kids when it comes to if the relationship which. And I've had very deep conversations with my kids, and they're all like, yeah, just so you guys know, when you guys were arguing, we were just sitting on the stairs listening. Right. Like, kids are way more attentive. They hear more, they see more. Like, don't think you're hiding anything from your kids. They see it like, what example did I set for them by trying to have be Johnny no quit. You know, it's like, yeah, you're on the football team. Don't quit. You're in a relationship now for over 10 years. It's really falling apart. It's unhealthy in many, many different ways. But, you know, just stay in there, buddy.

[A]

Yeah, I actually wrote about that in the book Leadership Strategy and Tactics. It's like, no one wouldn't quit. And you definitely need to look around. There's sometimes where it's like, oh, if you don't quit, it's only going to get worse.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Fast forward a little bit. There's nothing I value more than my children. But I do not tell them they are special. Instead, I tell them that I am proud. I tell them that I am proud to be their father. Proud of who they are and proud of who they are becoming. When they fall. I don't rush to pick them up. I rush to make sure they are okay. And then I do my best to teach them to pick themselves up. Up. I teach them to value work, honor, integrity, and family. We discuss accountability, responsibility, and the consequences of words and actions. I do not shield my children from the ups and downs of my own life. I want them to see me challenged physically, mentally and emotionally so that they understand that it is okay, that it should be expected, that it is essential. My kids are the single most important job I will ever have. It keeps me up at night worrying about whether I'm doing a good enough job. I hope it keeps you up at night too. The most important lesson they will ever learn to me is to never, under any circumstances, give up. When they succeed, it will be due not to luck or good fortune. It will be from hard work. It will be because they know that the rent is due every single day and they're prepared to pay it. They will learn these things from me. At least that is my hope. And then you have this author's update.

[C]

Oh yeah, my kids were super young when I wrote that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, when I was giving you

[C]

a verbal update on this before talking about my oldest son and his choices.

[A]

When I wrote those first few paragraphs, my children were much younger. My oldest had just become a teenager a few months prior and their problems now that I have the ability to look into the rearview mirror, were far less complex. I hear parents saying all the time that they cannot wait for their kids to grow up. I understand the sentiment, but all I can say in response is be careful what you wish for. I obviously don't love my children any less, and it's certainly fun to enjoy activities they were unable to participate in at a younger age. But as they grow in age, the potential problems and issues they will face grow in complexity. Your kids are going to be exposed to drugs, alcohol and sex just like we all were. At this point, I think the best you can hope for is that it doesn't all happen in a single experience. Their social circles will develop develop into an influence that dwarfs your ability as parents and they are going to be connected to them nearly 247 I heard an amazing quote recently about smartphones and that is something that I think all parents should consider. Especially when you when you your children approach you because everyone in their friend group is online and they communicate via social media apps. When you give your children a smartphone, you are not giving them access to to the world, you are giving the world access to them. It is a terrifying concept and it is 100% true. I feel like a failure as a parent. I know of no other way to put it. I've done my best to model to my children everything in the opening paragraphs and more often than not it seems like water hitting the side sheet of a metal building sliding off to the bottom and forgotten about. My children have seen me reinvent myself multiple times as opportunities present themselves. They have seen me at my low points. And when things appear to be going well, I do everything I can to model an example of hard work. Doing what needs to be done to allow for us to live the life I think we want, spending the time to needed to accomplish the work that needs to be done, sacrificing personal wants and desires to make sure that they have what they need, and being responsible with my time, energy and effort. They have seen me sweat, bleed, cry, succeed, and fail. And yet it seems like the majority of the lessons the of I am trying to pass on them are lost or just simply discarded. I do not want anyone reading this book to think I am. I have parenting figured out or that I am even a successful parent, because I truly do feel like a failure. The more I try to help, the worse things seem to become. When I step in to be of assistance, it often ends up being an opportunity to be taken advantage of. Or at least that's how it feels. I have three children, each on their own unique trajectory. I know they will find their own way in life. I just no longer know how much of a. An impact I am able to have on them. It is so easy to write those first paragraphs. Talking about parenting in a virtuous manner, laying out a playbook for developing the perfect child, prepared for life and ahead of. Ahead of them and ready to tackle any obstacle for the parents out there struggling. I feel you. I'm right there with you. And maybe this is the way it's supposed to be. Maybe this is the only way it can be.

[C]

Children sharpen their teeth on your bones.

[A]

Yeah, it's. I remember, like, we've been doing this podcast for like 10 years, and so my kids, 10 years ago were kids.

[C]

Yeah. They would do what you said.

[A]

Yeah, to a degree. The funny thing is I didn't really talk about parenting.

[C]

Yeah. Because.

[A]

And I remember telling Echo, like, dude, the jury's out, bro. Like, who knows? Like, you don't know what your kids. And I had new people growing up who had kids, man, that just completely went off the rails. And I mean, good people, good families, good people. The best, like, parents. If you. If you drew out what a perfect parent would look like, these are the kind of parents. And they'd have three kids, and two of them would be totally on track and having great lives, and one kid would go completely off the rails. And I mean, like, heroin addiction, like any. The worst thing, jail, like the worst things you can think of. And so, man, it's a. It's a tough job. And to your point, like, the amount. And some people get so freaking bent out of shape when I say this kind of thing. But, like, you, the amount of influence that you actually have is very hard to judge.

[C]

It decreases over time. That's for damn sure.

[A]

Yeah. You know, I think I've seen my kids kind of, like, I would say come back, you know, Like, I think

[C]

that's the way because as soon as they go to school, they're actually with their peers more than they're with the parent more often. That's where I say it starts to shift. But I have found with all three of my kids, it's two out of my three because they're a little bit farther in the journey. They do come back. But God damn, that ship drifts over the horizon for a little bit.

[A]

Yeah. And that's, you know, I was. I always say, you know, you gotta let your kids brush up against the guardrails of failure. Right? Like, they're gonna make mistakes. They're gonna do dumb things. And another thing is people think that their trajectory of their kid is so permanent. Like, you know, I can't believe my kid, whatever, doesn't like jiu Jitsu. Like, I've had that conversation with people, had that freaking conversation with Echo Charles. You know, he's like, dude, you know, I brought. I brought my boy in here yesterday. And like, dude, he just was like, didn't want to train at all. And like, I don't know, like, this is, you know, like, what?

[C]

And I go, I go, I go,

[A]

how old is he again? And he's like six. And I'm like, bro, freaking chill. The five. Yeah, he was five, dude. But that's the way people feel. Like, they feel like, oh, this is it.

[C]

This is.

[A]

They're off the. They're. They're never going to train. They're gonna be good. They're gonna be a bad human being. It's like, no, dude, actually, it's not that big of a deal. And kids are gonna hit the guardrails. Look, there are sometimes where your kids are gonna hit the guardrails with such force they're going to die or they're going to, like, really ruin their lives.

[C]

And that's where parents step in.

[A]

And that's if you're there or.

[C]

And that's why you put, in my opinion, all that equity up front. So hope. Because a lot of the times where they're going to hit those Rails, you're not going to be there. They're going to be more with their social circle in those drug, sex, alcohol moments with poor decision herd mentality. That's where the equity comes in. And it may not be enough. Right. Like horrible happens to people and their kids, but it also may be enough to change the trajectory of their life. So you can't give up on that front end just because you don't see it right away. But I could not put that in there without the author's update because it. How easy. Oh, this. Just virtuously do these things. Wake up every morning and wear your robe and go out and harvest your own oats and make it for. You're like, shut the up, dude. You're like barely trying to get the sandwich in the kid's face on the way to school and like doing the absolute best you can. And as it gets older, their personalities develop more, their interests develop more. They, they want to be with their friends more than they want to be with you. Yeah, it's. Yeah. I don't know how my kids will respond to, you know, like, I feel like it's being ignored or taken advantage of, but the reality is that's what it feels like on the receiving. I'm just being honest about my journey through parenting.

[A]

Yeah, it's weird. I had Rana, my middle daughter, on this podcast and man, it was good because like you said, there was no, there was no me being able to say like, oh, and then I did this great move as a parent. Then I did this other great move as a parent. I was like, no, no, no, here's. Oh, let me tell you how bad I screwed this up. And I screwed up bad. You know, like, you know, one small example. Taking a six year old girl and bragging to your friends about how heavy she is. And being like, oh, wait, no, lift her up and feel how heavy she is and how dense she is. And like, you know, you literally, in my mind, just truly stoked that my daughter is like a mutant. And me thinking how cool that is and her as a six year old little girl thinking, oh, I'm, I'm dense, I'm heavy. Like, that's just fucking awful, man.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know, like, that's what I did. And then of course, you know, I forced jiu jitsu down their throats and, and then, you know, I always talk about the jiu jitsu thing, but that wasn't the only thing. It was like, you know, academics, like, this is what you're going to do. This is The. This is what we expect, like, all those things. So I definitely went overboard, and I will say I kind of caught myself, you know, right around, I guess the girls were maybe like 11 and 9 or something like that. Maybe. Maybe 10 and 8. But, like, I. I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, there's. This is. This is. This is not going the way it should be going. You know, this is not going the way it should be going. And the same thing with my son. I was, like, brutal. Yeah. With him as a kid, where it's

[C]

like, what, you think you can be with boys, but damn, you can mess them up, too.

[A]

Yeah. And so I just. Yeah, it's. It is a really difficult thing. And I. This is what I've discovered, though, is to the best of your ability, believe it or not, the way you interact with your team should, as much as humanly possible, mirror how you treat your kids. So for me, what that meant was, like, when. If you worked for me, it was, hey, you know, you're responsible for this. Hey, how do you want to do it? You make it happen. Here's the end goal we're trying to make. Hey, here's the parameters you're allowed to work with. And don't do this, Andy. Don't do that. Okay, cool. You got it. Cool. I trust you. Go get after it. And you got to do that with your kids. And it's really scary because if I tell Andy, the team guy, hey, you're going on this trip, hey, don't do anything stupid. And you do something stupid.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

You know, we. You get in trouble, we write you up. Like, there's a method. But when you. The same thing I just said earlier, like, you feel like your kids. Oh, that's the trajectory of their life, and if they mess up, then it's going to ruin everything. And so you're super paranoid, and you over parent and you over protect. And so you got. And then you micromanage them. And when you micromanage people, just like when you. If I micromanaged you in the teams, if you work for me in the teams and I micromanaged you, what would

[C]

you do with your cage?

[A]

Exactly. Like, it's not gonna be good. So when you micromanage your kids, it's the same thing. Like, you're gonna get pushback. You're gonna get, for lack of a better word, rebellion. And so it is a very difficult challenge. And just like leadership, you know, with decentralized command comes a level of risk. Because if I tell Andy, you work for me, and I Tell you to do something, there's a chance you do it. There's a chance you do it. Maybe some similar to the way I would think it needs to be done. There's also a chance that you do something totally off the rocker and you do something that's stupid or illegal or immoral. And now I got to deal with this shit. And it's a problem. But the counter to that is like, oh, I'm just gonna micromanage you and not make, let you make any decisions. And now you're not a responsible human, you're not a good leader, you're not yourself. It's a problem. So that's the delicate balance that we have to follow as parents, man. And it's so much harder because the emotions are so much more drastic with your kids.

[C]

I agree. So I would add to that. Don't expect something from your kids. You can't model yourself. I, I think the most important teaching tool for your kids if, if you want to tell your kids, hey, you need to be disciplined and you need to have a clean room and yours looks like rati. You know, like, I mean, how.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Or like, you know, we got to be careful. Like let's, you know how you feel. Your body is important and you have like Cheetos orange stained fingers at the time. You, I all. You could have all these virtuous lessons laid out and they see you doing that. The actions have to align with the words just model to the best of your ability so they can ignore at will your best attempt to be a parent.

[A]

Yeah, it's, it's rough.

[C]

And then though sometimes you'll see it. They'll be in a spot and you're like, they make the right call. You're like, fuck, yes.

[A]

It's good.

[C]

Yeah. My middle son one time just, just. He is the one who, like, who will stand up in front of like a bully or stop it or protect his brother and sister. I'm just like, that's yes, yes.

[A]

Yeah. It's such a, such a, such a journey, as you said, you know, with

[C]

these kids, they will sharpen their teeth on your bones.

[A]

Jack, going here to the book. In my first platoon, I met a man who I still believe had the single greatest impact on my military career. His name was Dave hall, and he was everything that I'd ever thought a SEAL could be. He was finishing his 4th platoon and was physically preparing to complete the selection process that I would attempt myself years later at development group. Group. He was a point man, a sniper, comms Guy freefall qualified jumper, free fall, jump master, static line jump master and likely had many other qualifications that I can no longer remember. Dave was also a student of history. Not only American history, but history of warfare. He understood not only tactics but also where those tactics came from to include their strengths and weaknesses. Dave's standards were grueling. You either met them or you suffered his wrath. One thing I always appreciated about Dave was not that he not only did he hold himself to the same standards he expected from others, but he also expected himself to exceed them. In your first platoon, fresh out of BUDS and the additional training required to earn your Trident, you possess just enough knowledge to be a danger to yourself and everyone else around you. Not your enemy, but your friends and co workers. The job is expansive. The book knowledge and practical skill based on required to truly operate at a high level takes about five years to acquire. Up to that point you need mentors and that's what Dave was. For me, working with Dave was not easy. He had a tongue that could be sharp and a fuse that could be short. But he was fair. If you did the job well, you would know about it. If you did not meet the standard well, you would also know about would take me over 10,000 words to list chapter and verse. The situations he helped me me through, the mistakes he allowed me to make and then helped me correct and the sheer amount of information about the SEAL teams and what the job entails that I learned from him. He was the true essence of a mentor. The way he treated me shaped the way I treated others. When I was in a mentorship role later in my own career, his approach to problem solving in a tactical environment impacted my own approach. He was truly everything that I thought and SEAL could and would be at that point in my life. I had not considered the concept of being drown proof, but if I had, he would have been the individual that I used my as my example. He killed himself in October of 2020. I'm going to be blunt because Dave would not have it any other way. Dave had a problem with alcohol. A lot of us did. As I mentioned in the first chapter, it has never ceased to amaze me how much trouble you were guaranteed to get in for an alcohol related incident while at the same time working in a community that absolutely pushed a drinking culture. You won't find that culture anywhere in doctrine and I can only speak for the time period that I served, but it was there and it wasn't hiding anywhere other than in plain sight. I do not blame the SEAL teams or the community for anyone's alcoholism. But I do believe it is fair to say that the environment could and would be troubling for people who were predisposed to alcohol abuse. The words that Dave used to describe how he felt about himself would bring a tear to any man, especially those who knew him well. Although he was my standard and the standard for many others, he found himself in a place of feeling unworthy because he could no longer hold them himself. He was in pain, he was suffering, and it seems that toward the end, he had at least started to reach out to a few people. I'm not sure to what degree he opened up and asked for help, but I do have no doubt that all of them would have given him their last breath and drop of blood for him if he had asked for it. In the end, alone and isolated, he ended his life. At the funeral, the sentiment was the same from all his friends who assembled in Florida. I wish I had known. I wish that I could have done more,

[C]

Suffered in silence for years. Stuff that happened in his military career I didn't know about. Had, like, lost jobs. It had impacted him professionally. And, you know, he'd come up to Montana and he had visited, and it wasn't like crazy abnormal behavior, but you, you know, maybe something, but not enough. Like, five alarm. Alarm bells that are going off. But, yeah, I mean, for years, he. He legitimately is what I would consider to be the standard for a team guy. He was that for me in my first platoon. Like, we were. I was a com guy, my first platoon. And this is funny because this ties back into when the skipper gave me my bird back. We were in Korea at Foul Eagle, and I was part of a reconnaissance element. We were swimming out of a Zodiac to overwatch a vessel. Very, very traditional SEAL skill set here. We decided not to wear wetsuits. So that was a really chilly evening. You really huddle with your friends well in those environments. Did a com check before we got on the mark. V. Everything's good to go. Like, you know the deal. Like, you got your radio, you got your crypto, all this stuff. Com check, good to go, right before you get on the boats. We get on, we swim in, we go up, I go to make comms. The coaxial cable is missing one of the ends, the twist on ends, and it's just got the little nipple sticking out of it.

[A]

You're a new guy. Com guy.

[C]

New guy. Com guy.

[A]

Good times.

[C]

This is our ore, which is Operational Readiness Exercise, which I don't actually think means dick, but they make it seem like your career is over if you don't past this. Because I think they'll just give you another one. So my first move was I'll just stick that little nipple into the hole to see if it works. It doesn't. Just to save anybody time. If the coaxial cable strips. And Dave was the element leaders. Like, hey, did you make comms? I was like, well, yeah, about that. He had been a calm guy. And again, you know, not only, like, the understanding of tactics, like he was a student of history, but he was like the calm guy who could tell you, well, this is the frequency you need. He's like, in this situation here, they'll tell you in the book you should use a reverse dipole. But actually, what I've really found is an inverted be bounce off the stratosphere. And I'm just like, huh? Well, like, he's that kind of guy, right? Like, he knew his. Because he was the standard. And I was like, dave, I can't make comms. He's like, what are you talking about? He's like, just go point the goddamn antenna at the satellite and make comms. I'm like, the coaxial cable isn't working. And of course, at that time, we had a backup HF radio as well. All three of these pieces of gear were in my backpack. HF, satcom, crypto, probably a kick 13 that I, you know, had crippling anxiety about losing several times during that operation, which wasn't even real. And we had Elaine Grader, who was there with us, too, which is just like a cadre member that's watching us. And instead of jumping down my. For the next four hours, he showed me more about HF comms in an attempt to make, I mean, all sorts of stuff. Layering things out, trying to get angles, working through frequencies, trying to take apart the coaxial cable. It was insane. Never got pissed. And in the end of the day, we never solved it. The lane grader hopped on their walkie talkie, was like, hey, go back there and just get them a coaxial cable. Because there was supposed to be a follow on Combat Swimmer Operation. And, I mean, you could go so many different ways there, right? Like, crush the new guy. You're an absolute piece of shit. And instead, I still remember, like, him talking about the math and the formulas and langs. I'm like, to this day, this is almost 30 years ago that this happened. We get the coaxial cable. Shockingly enough, you point the antenna at the correct satellite and Comms really start working. So we go through all that. Later that night, I get my trident back. But that's. That's just the guy that Dave was like, he could have solved any of those situations. You just needed the right tool. Like his knowledge base, his standard, physically fit, always, you know, at the range, top tier. And everything that he did, understood, like breaching, jumping comp, like, all of that stuff. And then to come to find out that. And again, this is my words. He didn't ever verbalize this to me or anybody else, but it seems like he got. And based off of what he.

[B]

The.

[C]

Some of the written words that he left behind that he just. He couldn't live with the idea of not being able to live up to his own standards. And it took him to a place where he killed himself.

[A]

Do you ever see the movie There Will Be Blood?

[C]

Yep.

[A]

So the first time I saw that movie, I was like, so into it. And in the end. You've seen the movie Echo?

[B]

No.

[A]

So there's like Daniel Day Lewis. Daniel Day Lewis. And he plays this, like, totally control freak, manipulative, just businessman that's doing the oil thing and, you know, making everything in his world work for him. And then in the end, it's like. It's like the whole movie's like that. And in the end, he's an alcoholic and he, like, kills another guy drunkenly. And. And when I first saw that movie, I was like, this is just. This is stupid. This is ending ruined it. Because it did not compute to me that someone that. That was that smart, that manipulative, that much of a control freak would ruin their lives with alcohol. And boy, was I wrong.

[C]

Like, you never know what's going on in people's lives. That's the lesson that I took from that. And we. I mean, saw people that I hadn't seen in years, and almost all of us were just like, did you have any idea. Did he ever reach out? And because, I mean, you. I would do anything for him. And I wish I had done more, and I wish I had paid more attention to. I guess what could be seen in hindsight as the warning signs but would have been the what I wrote is true. If there had been somebody who I based the title of the book off of, it would have been him, because he just got shit done regardless of what was going on in his life. Until he didn't.

[A]

You know, the guys have killed themselves. I'm trying to think. I. Almost all of them. I was kind of. There's not one of them Where I go, oh, yeah. Well, I see. See that thing coming?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, it doesn't seem like I can't think of off top of my head. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That guy was in a rough place. I could really see that coming. Like, no, it's like, guys, where you go, wait, what the. How did that happen? Why? What are you talking about? That guy's in the right spot. I mean, damn. We've had two SEAL team commanders.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Kill themselves, which is, like, so hard to understand. That's the, like, the best job. You know, you're the. You're the commander of a SEAL team. You know, like, ah, man, it's so hard to understand. But then again, I go back to that, to that there will be blood. And what you just said, like, what is going on in someone's head? It's really hard to understand. The other thing is what things look like inside people's own heads. Like, I used to talk about the fact that, you know, you get someone that's like, you got some. You get some young team guy and he's going out with some idiot stripper girl that's, like, causing all kinds of problem in his world, and you just like, hey, bro, just break up with this girl. Like, this is not going to be good for you.

[C]

No way, dude. She's the one.

[A]

Yep, she's the one. The one. Or you get, you know, like, whatever that thing is, whatever they get wrapped up in, and you cannot get them out of it. Or, like, they get dumped. You know, they get dumped by a girl and. Same thing. They're in this totally distraught, distraught place in their world, and you go, hey, man, like, there's another girl. Like, go find another girl. And they cannot, like, get out of that. So the way that people get wrapped up inside their own heads is really, really scary. You know, another good example of that is, like, anorexia, right? Where you have this visual. You know, you look at someone and you can see clearly like they are damaging themselves and going to die. And in their own head. In their own head, they think they're fat. Like, it's. It's impossible to even understand. And. And like, they're getting told by the doctors, like, you need to eat. They get on feeding tubes and transfusions, like, all those things, and they still look in the mirror and think that they're fat. And. And I think there's so many things in life that are comparable to that, whether it's, you know, a financial situation. How am I ever going to get out of this? A Relationship situation, how am I ever get out of this? A work situation. How am I ever get out of this? There's these things that people get wrapped up in and it's so difficult to explain to them. Like, hey man, this isn't. This isn't. There's a way out of this. You know, it's kind of like the fact that I couldn't explain to my own daughter, who loves Jiu Jitsu more than anything. I couldn't explain to her when she was a little bit younger that Jiu Jitsu was cool. Like, I could not get that into her head. And, man, when people get that idea in their head, they get wrapped around something, it's so scary and it can be so freaking challenging to get them out of there.

[C]

I would add to that too, which I think makes it even more dangerous, is when they fall into a headspace where they think they're the only person dealing with it. You think you're unique in your struggles. Why say something to somebody? Because they're not going to understand. They've never gone through this. And you got to remember again, maybe the person you're going to ask for help do. They might be in the trenches with you because they might look like they have their together, but they barely maybe holding their station in the water. Reaching out and asking people for help is an essential and critical skill that people have to learn. And because human beings can do a lot of cool things, I've yet to meet one that can legitimately read somebody's mind. There's a couple people out there that claim that they can, but they're liars.

[A]

This is a huge point that you make in the book. You know, you're not alone and, and then you say this, you know, checking in on people, most of the time you're going to get brushed off. You're going to get the blanket on. I'm fine. Especially if you ask a man, don't stop asking. I have asked. When I've asked these questions, I open the conversation with how much I care about the person, what they mean to me in their, in their life, and how I am concerned if they continue to blow you off, they will continue to blow you off, but they will have no doubt that you care and that you left the door open and the light on for a conversation in the future if they need someone to talk to. I didn't have those conversations with Dave and I know I should have. I don't know if would have changed the outcome, but I know it would have. He would have Understood how much I care for him, how much impact he made on my life. My opportunity is gone. Please learn from my mistake and don't lose yours. I can imagine no worse feeling than thinking you are alone in the ocean with the weight of the water pulling you under, gasping for air and not recognizing that right behind you is a lifeboat full of people watching, holding a life preserver and waiting to think. Throw it to you. All they need is for you to see them and to ask them for help.

[C]

Regrets, A man. I wish I would have had more conversations. Yeah, it's tough with guys and the difference between, hey, man, what the is wrong with you? And, like, hey, dude, like, let's go for a walk. Like, I haven't heard from you in a while. Like, what's going on, man? Like, our relationship is super important. You seem like you're dealing with some stuff. Like, what can I help you with? 2 very different. I've tested a variety of approaches, and you get some different answers depending the what the is wrong with you is not the one you should go with for clarity.

[A]

Yeah, you know, this is a. A problem that I have is human emotion. A problem that I have is, you know, going back to being in the SEAL teams. No one's going to tell me they're tired. No one's going to tell me they don't want to go on an op. No one's going to tell me they need more, you know, rest. No one. No one ever told me that stuff. I mean, I would have to pull it out and figure it out through, you know, sources.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so no one wants to tell me when something's wrong. No one wants to tell me they're in financial trouble. No one wants to tell me they've got health issues. They don't want to tell me any of that stuff. And so, you know, I am the master of receiving the answer. I'm. Everything's great. I'm fine. I am the. The master. And by that, I mean the worst. Like, I've gotten told by people like that they were in a terrible situation. And the only reason they're telling me about it now is because they're out of it. So they're like, oh, yeah, I was in a really bad situation financially, relationship, the whole nine yards, health. And, you know, I've been told. Told over and over, oh, yeah, everything's good. Yeah, everything's fine. You know, plodding along, doing the thing, blah, blah, blah, living the dream, that whole thing. And so if you have any advice on, like, how to Ask that question. I'm all ears.

[C]

What you're talking about, though, like, the position you were in, again, this is the uniqueness of the military. Like, the. Honestly, the reason they probably so likely hesitant to say anything is because of the respect level that they had for you. You nailed it when you said the kids counter intel. You need sources.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

You need. You need. And this is going to be something that takes time, but I know that you had this with the people that you worked with. You needed the ability to probably behind closed doors and secretly receive information from some intermediary. Probably going to be like the LPO or the chief about what was going on further down the ladder than anybody's ever going to expose to you. The hard part is in that, though, is how do you take action on it without disclosing how you got that? Information sources.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. So it doesn't surprise me that, that. And again, specifically in that setting. People can find that place, though, in parenting as well, too, because, no, I mean, no kids, like, hey, I really want to let my parents down today. Sometimes I think, like, on Thursdays, my kids are like that. That's definitely the headspace they go with. But, no, I mean, it's. It's tough. And I think it's more of a soft skill than a hard skill. And the world we came from is more hard skills and soft skills, man.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I'm also, like, if you don't call me, I don't think about it for a heartbeat. But if you. If you didn't call me for a year and you called me up like, hey, I need you to come and do this. Right? Like, cool. Look, I'll. I'll be there in, you know, 28 minutes, whatever, you know, like, I. My. My running mate, who I went through buds with, went through STT with, did three platoons with, was in training cell with at SEAL Team 1, who was my roommate that entire time. When I went to Virginia beach to Team two, I didn't talk to him.

[C]

Yeah, it's because we're dudes, though.

[A]

Yeah. I just didn't talk to him and then came back two years later and was like, oh, hey, bro. He's like, hey, what's going on?

[C]

Like, five minutes. Probably to catch up.

[A]

Yeah. Like, literally, like, nothing ever happened and nothing ever, you know, like, just. That's the way it is. And so, you know, when you don't, you know, continually reach out, like, you know, all the times I call you on your birthday to say, like, hey, Andy, just wanted to Let you know I'm thinking about you.

[C]

Totally. And Christmas Eves, I got you a present. Go yourself.

[A]

And, like, that's not. I know. It's.

[C]

That's tougher, though, because that's. That, you know, I mean, that's a little bit more remote. I think it's easier to do if you're in the social, and you can kind of feel the ebb and the. The flow. Right. Because there's ebb and flow in life, and you can tell when people are having a good day or bad. I think that's more reasonable if you're different coast and both, like, on a professional trajectory. I think that's more around the people that are actually physically located with them that can kind of keep a pulse on it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And he was totally fine. My point in saying that was, like, it's not. I don't. I don't expect you to ever call me and say, hey, bro, how's it going? I don't expect you to do that in any way, shape, or form.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I actually expect the opposite. Like, if you called me, I'd be like, oh, Andy must need something. Like, something must be going on. And if you never called me, I would be like, oh, yeah, everything's cool with Andy. Like, he's doing great. Like, that's what's happening. You. I only expect people to call me when something's going wrong, pretty much. You know what I mean? Like, people call me when they have problems. And so to. To.

[C]

Have you ever just tried reaching out, like, testing your own theory?

[A]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I need to do more of, like, oh, I'll do. Need to do more. Yeah.

[C]

The call of, like, hey, man, what are you up to? And the person's gonna say, what are you talking about? This is weird. And you're like, yeah, I know it's weird, but I totally miss you, and I love you, and I just want to know. They're just gonna be like, wrong number, but at least they'll know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think you're right. I think it's something. And I know it's. I know it's a point of. I always feel like, dude, I'm not gonna bother Andy or Echo.

[C]

Yeah. That's a lie we tell ourselves.

[A]

Yeah, maybe it is, because you are

[C]

an exceptionally busy person. Phone calls are, like, five minutes. I'm in the same boat. Right. And my dad lives a mile from me, and they're. A week will go by, and I won't stop by and see him. I don't want to interrupt. He's not doing anything. Sitting there talking to his dog, you know,

[A]

Jack. Well, reach out to your bros. Yeah,

[C]

more than once too.

[A]

That's the, that's the lesson here. Refining your stroke. I believe that we must take the world for what it is, not what we want it to be. I believe that when you encounter an obstacle in life, you must find a way through it, over it, around it, not ignore it. We live in a world of instant gratification. So you go into this, you talk about the social media, the, you know, the trying to get things, trying to

[C]

the ten year overnight successes must be nice. Ignoring every ounce of effort that gets you there.

[A]

And you got your secret to success in here. Do I come as. No, no shocker here. There's no replacement for hard work.

[C]

Indeed.

[A]

Just like everyone else, I wish there was a hack to hard work. Hard work requires delaying instant gratification and that can be challenging both physically and mentally, especially when contrasted with more enjoyable activities that seduce our attention. Time and effort. For as deeply as I wish that success did not require countless hours of effort to make microscopic and often imperceivable improvements in our personal and professional lives, I've yet to find a way around it. It's unavoidable. You're going to have to freaking get into it.

[C]

Why do people just avoid that reality? It's like they will put three times the effort in to find a hack to instead of just doing the thing that needs to be. I'm optimizing my life, bro. Like you just spent six hours doing something that would take you 30 minutes.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. My favorite example of that is Dean Lister, who hated cutting weight. And what he would do is he would go out to the world. This is in the, in the, the 90s to 2000s, you know, so there wasn't quite full Internet. So we just ask all these people and he'd find all these different methods for cutting weight and then take whatever seemed good out of each method, whatever the easiest path of each method was like to cut weight and we would end up having to cut, you know, 28 pounds in freaking three days or something ridiculous. Like I said. Well, no, I heard that if you did this salt bath and you cut the potato chips on Thursdays and then, you know, like he had these things

[C]

or if you show was tight for months leading up to it, you maybe would have to burn some water weight off the day before. But that's hard.

[A]

But he spent so much time doing exactly what he was like, looking around for what would be the easiest way to cut weight. Bro, the easiest way to cut weight is freaking watch your diet and work out.

[C]

I have people I know like, yeah, I gotta. I gotta optimize my email. You know, I'm looking for a way to integrate AI. I'm like, hold on, like, how many emails you get? They're like several a day. I'm like, answer the emails, dude. You don't need an AI tool. You just need to sit down in front of your computer and put your phone over here and answer the. Do the work.

[A]

Several a day. Yeah, you have. Fast forward a little bit. You have the tools that you need to succeed. The tools are not failing you. You are failing yourself. That's ten. That sentence stings. And it's a difficult one to write out because it's true. As is true for me as any reader of this book. I almost always have the tools and so do you. And I often have the knowledge. When I don't, it's easy to find. Where I have been known to struggle, stumble and fail is execution. There are countless reasons why this happens to all of us. But upon objective reflection of my own life, I have identified what I consider to be the two main culprits. Discipline and motivation.

[C]

You know anything about those?

[A]

I'm still working on it. I define motivation as the fuel that drives you. Some people are motivated through praise and recognitions. Others are driven by negative reinforcement and proving naysayers wrong. I fall more more into the latter category than the former. When I was young, people would tell me that my goal of becoming a SEAL was foolish. And when they did so, they had no idea that their words and criticism were stoking my internal fire. To this day, the most effective way to motivate me is to tell me I'm not capable of doing something.

[C]

Very true.

[A]

Little rebellious streak, huh?

[C]

I mean, as you could choose whatever you word you want to. Hard headed is another good one. Goal oriented.

[A]

Relying solely on motivation is problematic. It can and will fail you because it's more like the ocean tide than a bridge. Motivation ebbs and flows. It'll recede in return, but not always on the timeline we want or need it to. Thankfully, motivation could be outsourced. We live in a beautifully interconnected world. And with an Internet connection and device of your choosing, you can find and connect with what inspires you. Allowing you to throw logs on your own fire when your personal stock of fuel is running low. That kind of. I wasn't. I never really thought about that before, but then I think about how music, like when you listen to mute. Well, for me, when I listen to, like, certain music, like, oh, my workout is definitely going to be better now.

[C]

Or if you see somebody legitimately doing something awesome, you're like, okay, today. I mean, the Internet is the best, worst thing ever. You just have to make sure it's working for you, and you're not working for it. One of the beautiful things is you can scour the globe for things that makes your workout harder or better.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

The negative side of that is 98% of the time is going to be you being sucked into the rabbit hole.

[A]

Yeah. I define discipline as doing things you need to do regardless of you want, whether you want to or not. Discipline is action, regardless of outside influence, internal monologue, or motivation. Discipline is taking the micro steps along your path sequentially, which one day will lead you to macro success. Discipline. Discipline is easy to define and very hard to live. True statement there

[C]

can't be outsourced either. That one's on the control side of the.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Or influence, I should say, as opposed to concern.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's.

[A]

You know, it's like you can, like. And when you're in boot camp, you're gonna keep running because that freaking drill instructor, whatever, is yelling at you, like, that's imposed discipline. It has a short period of time. Short period of time.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's not going to be there for you in your personal life. You know, it's just not going to be there. You have to have the intrinsic discipline. My advice, Start small and focus on momentum. The opportunities to do so surround you in every aspect of your life. Each choice is a decision we make. We have at least two options. Easy or hard. You talk about this. Taking the hard choice or the easy choice. Talk about McCraven making your bed.

[C]

Wildly misunderstood speech, I believe.

[A]

Why is that?

[C]

Because it has nothing to do with the goddamn bed.

[A]

Oh, true parents are just like, yes, finally.

[C]

And the kids make their bed and they're still a sandwich. It's like, no, start your day with a discipline act and build momentum on that. It doesn't have to be the bed. Right. You could put your shoes away. You could do your laundry. All things my children ignore me on.

[A]

And people used to ask me, like, do you make your bed first thing in the morning? Like, no, my wife is in it. Like, I'm not making my bed while my wife.

[C]

Some people are into that.

[A]

Discipline equals freedom. Sounds good.

[C]

I heard somebody say that once.

[A]

Probably the best quote in this whole book.

[C]

You know, I quoted you, but then I think I said in the next sentence, I disagree. I didn't say I disagree.

[A]

I said I didn't want to do this, but we'll do Willink.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Says that discipline equals freedom. A statement that I agree with in concept.

[C]

Yeah. Describe it differently, though.

[A]

I frame it slightly differently through the lens of two choices. You have the choice of discipline or the choice of regret. Oh, I like it. Yeah, there you go.

[C]

You can regret not having freedom, you know, through your poor discipline.

[A]

It takes things longer. It takes longer to do things wrong than it does to complete them correctly the first time. That's a good nugget of advice for any human. Human beings out there. You kind of mentioned this earlier. Fast forward a little bit. You talked about the fact that, you know Mikey Mansour and, and meeting his dad, George, and you know what, what? And you know, he's on my podcast as well, and just such a great dude. And, and you know, I spent a lot of time with the family and what a great family. But, you know, to. To your point, you know, people don't. Lot of people don't know that he quit, but first time through.

[C]

And like, his unwillingness to give up, though, saved everybody's life on that roof that night. I mean, who knows? So many different things could have happened. But let's say everything played out it, but that person wasn't there. That's a completely different outcome. And yeah, that choice cost him his life, but it was because he was unwilling to give up. I mean, it. Yeah. People just think, oh, if you tried buds one time and you're done, like now. Some of the most amazing people, people from our community did not have success their first time, but they weren't defined by that.

[A]

Yeah, you say, although I never got the chance to meet him, his equipment and Medal of Honor citation were on the quarter deck of Seal Team 3. I walked past his shadow box every day. I would often stop to look at it and ponder the life he lived and the decision he made that ultimately ended so young. I wonder what decision I would have made if I were put in his shoes. Do I truly have what it takes to sacrifice everything I have and everything that I could ever have for someone else? I would like to think that answer to the question is yes, but none of us know until we find ourselves in that moment. Mike knew, and he answered the bell knowing that the outcome was certain.

[C]

I'd like to believe that I would take the same action, but damn, man. It's a difference between talking about Walking the path and. Walking the path.

[A]

Yeah, it's such, you know, that. That. That guiding legacy, you know, it's. It's very. When I read that, man, I was very moved. The fact that you were talking about this, you know, you're a. An experienced SEAL yourself, you know, with whatever time in the teams, and yet you as a wound guy had been wounded, guy had been conduct. Been to combat, and you walk by that quarter deck every day, and, you know, you see Mikey's gear there, and, like, that's doing exactly what it should do, which is setting the standard for the young frogman out there.

[C]

I hope it stops them in their tracks. I mean. Yeah. I mean, again, I'd like to think that I'd be capable of that, but, dude, I mean, how can you really know until you're in that spot?

[A]

Yeah. You know, it's wild is Mikey's sister. She was like, first of all, he lied to them the whole time he was on deployment. He's like, oh, we're just training the Iraqis. There's nothing going on. Exactly.

[C]

Safest deployment ever.

[A]

But, you know, like, Mikey's sister was just like, well, I wasn't surprised at all.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like, check. Me neither.

[C]

I would be surprised if, like, someone like Echo did that. You know, there are those that, you know, and then those. You're like, oh, he jumped off the other side of the building. That checks out while screaming, save yourself.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

You're welcome. That's how you bring it back from being so dark. You were supposed to do your job, so I did it for you.

[A]

Thank you again. Another point that you make in here, Nothing comes without a price tag. There is a cost to everything, even winning. And this is a rough chapter. This is like, you're back at the team. You've already been wounded. You're back at the team. You're getting ready to deploy. Your mom has cancer for the second time. Yep. And it's the bad kind of cancer.

[C]

For clarity, I'm not aware of a good kind.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But I get what you're saying.

[A]

Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

[C]

You know, likely terminal diagnosis. Yeah.

[A]

You're getting ready to go on deployment. Of course. Because that's what we do. I did not know if I would see my mother again when I hugged her goodbye at the front door of my house in the early morning hours of the day I left. I didn't need to be at work early, but I was trying to get out of the house before my kids woke up. It's Hard enough to kiss them goodbye in their sleep. It is nearly impossible to hold it together when they are waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs like my sons were. I do not know how to describe the feeling of wrapping around your. Wrapping your arms around your children and hoping that they can feel the love you have for them, but would never be able to verbalize the feeling of trying to pass every ounce of that love for them through your embrace while trying to hold back your tears and uncontrollable nightmarish thoughts of whether or not they would even remember you or your love should the next time they see you. It being a flag draped coffin, I barely made it around the corner before needing to pull my truck over. I could not stop the tears and I couldn't see that through them enough to drive.

[C]

Tough days.

[A]

Yeah. Leaving on deployment is a.

[C]

We got delayed that day and actually left it like late in the evening so people had the opportunity to go back home.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And for me at least the move is no because I cannot physically tolerate going through that again.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

It is gnarly.

[A]

Yeah. I remember my last appointment, leaving my kids just like turning and walking out and just being like you hold it together for another 38 seconds.

[C]

I drove like 60ft about how far I got it. Yeah, my a pretty in Toyota Tacoma. It's not a big deal. We don't have to celebrate at Echo. Totally stock. Probably V2.

[A]

Now you're on deployment. Yeah, it's a, you know, it's a good deployment, solid deployment. Things are going on, operations happening, kinetic deployment.

[C]

And.

[A]

Well, for anyone that doesn't know when there's something going on, an emergency at home, you get the American Red Cross. They. They send like a message. It's a way of getting information to troops that are overseas. And you get this Red Cross message. Of course there's not planned and there's like a choice, you know, you got to go home. Your mom is. Your mom is in a really bad way and they want to get you out of there, but at the same time you got another operation that's on the table. You say this. The decision was not easy for me. I care deeply about the people I was with, but the truth is that I love the job. And the fear of missing out was real. I recognized that there was risk involved with the operation. I could be killed or injured in combat. And mechanical issues with helicopters caused them to fail and crash at times, let alone from enemy fire. I also realized that if I did choose to go on the operation, it would likely be the last of my career. I've been experiencing nagging issues with my ankle the entire deployment, and I did not think it was likely I would be able to continue as an operational seal beyond that point. On the other hand, I could have accepted that the operation, that my operational career was over in that moment, put it all behind me, and focused on getting home. I felt a sense of obligation in both directions. In the end, I chose to go on the mission and accept the risk associated with that decision. I made it back to the base with limited time, but was able to pack and turn over my sensitive items and then begin my journey from Afghanistan to San Diego and then to monorail. When I got home, the world felt like it was on mute. 96 hours after landing back in the United States, I made it to my mom. My mother chose to stop treatment and enter hospice. My sister was able to provide for her the palliative care that she needed. I was not going to be able to provide anything. I obviously love my mother, but I had nearly zero emotional range when I returned. And I went right back to finding tasks to accomplish and then accomplishing them. My mother died in her bedroom in Santa Cruz, California. I was not with her in that moment. I chose to return to San Diego a few days before. If I had the ability to go back in time and change only one thing in my life, even given the amazing volume of my mistakes, the one thing I would change would be the final interaction I had with her. The last time I saw my mother, I hugged her in bed and told her that I loved her. She told me that she loved me back, then asked me to hand her the garbage can so she could throw up into it. That was it. That was the son I was capable of being in that moment. If you had transformed, transported me into a conflict zone, I could make any level of decision. I could reduce nearly any problem down to its core elements and make a decision almost instantly. I could take a life in the blink of an eye and not think about it twice. But I wasn't able to sit with my mother and simply talk with her, to tell her how much she meant to me and how thankful I was for everything that she had done for me in my life. For as much as my mother was the shell of the woman who had raised me, I was equally the shell of a functioning human being. I may have looked normal on the outside. I was anything but on the inside.

[C]

Zip phone audiobook chapter to read.

[A]

Jeez, you know, we took a few takes and that, you know, the. The the title of this section is like Winning has a cost. Right? And I, and when I made my notes on this, I'm like, winning. And I put that in quotes, air quotes, you know, what are we winning and what is the cost and what's the ROI on it? Yeah, that's a rough one.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And the amount of, you know, the, there's the real clear things that people in the military and law enforcement sacrifice, right? There's really clear, like, oh yeah, you sacrifice this time, you sacrifice this. You know, obviously if you get wounded, you get killed. You know, I, it's in the book. But like you talk about the fact that you're having trouble with your ankle is because you freaking had nerve damage from getting shot. Like, that's the kind of sacrifice that people think about. But the, this like level of personal sacrifice is something that can be difficult for people to understand.

[C]

I mean, it's difficult to go through. I didn't realize. I mean, the shell of a human part outside of my ability to function through the technical proficiency of my job was completely accurate. I didn't recognize it at the time though, like the muted emotional range. And I'm very clear in the book to say that it's not. The military is not at fault for that. Like, I signed up for my job, I knew what I was getting into and I worked myself very hard to get into that headspace because I was terrified I was going to do something overseas where somebody would get hurt, injured, killed, whatever it is, that was my fault. So it takes time to work into that headspace. But life overseas from a normal life issues is very easy. You have to worry about your bills, the, the washing machine went out, somebody else's, you know what I mean? Like, everything is gone except for this is what we're doing today and we're going to do it to the best of our ability. And that's where I go back to that place of just like what it needs. Okay, I'll just be task oriented because that's what I had been doing for almost 10 months. Completely devoid of any ability to be the human being that I wish I could have been for my mom. And yeah, I don't know how you quantify that. Is that a sacrifice? Is that the natural consequence of working yourself to that level of efficiency with decision making? Like the mission? I mean, I lied to myself in that moment. I was like, I'm letting the guys down. If I don't go on this. What's the reality is I wanted to go on it. Yeah, yeah, I Wanted to go on it. I could have. And it's. And so even then, like, later, like, then, that was my last combat operation. Even then, it's like, you're having those struggles. Is that the job? Is that the cost of the job? Is that the person is. You know what I mean? Like, it's. It's a very murky soup.

[A]

Is there any way to, like, anchor, you think, to not get in that mode? Would it even be good to not get in that mode? Like, you know, one of the stories that I've told is, you know, my wife. I was in Ramadi, My wife sends me a email, was like, oh, the kids want to see a picture of where you sleep. And so I had, like, the typical, like, little plywood bed in the building, and I went to take a picture of it, and I was like, oh, hold on. I opened up a bag and pulled out a folder and pinned up pictures of my family around my bed, took a picture of it, and then unpinned all those pictures and put them back in the bag. Because I did not want to be, like, seeing my wife and kids every day, you know, and thinking about them all the time. Like, I had plenty of to think about, and the. That I needed to think about was an absolute priority. And so, you know, to think that to not be in that mode might not be the best thing, or it

[C]

might be what you have to do to bring as many people home as you can. It goes back to the portions of your life are going to be unbalanced. In those phases of my life, that was probably the most unbalanced human being on Face Planet Earth. I mean, you could. You present me with a tactical problem. You're like, I'm gonna be able to solve that pretty quickly. You ask me to describe how I feel about something, and I'm gonna sit there staring at you like the Mac is turning on, right? Just scroll wheels, just like, what do you mean? What are. What are feelings? I mean, it took me probably six months before I started feeling like a normal person. And I don't think that's abnormal. I think that's what the job requires. I mean, that's. There's a difference between the price and the cost. That falls into the cost category for me.

[A]

Was there anything that kind of

[C]

allowed

[A]

you to start to refill the shell time, but no particular things?

[C]

No, I can't think of any one thing that would, like, kind of crack through that or fill it up more. I think it was just. I mean, it takes time to get into that Headspace. I think you just have to expect time to get out of it as well.

[A]

Yeah, I'm going to close out the book and again the book is freaking great. Especially the forward to it and the

[C]

discussion on discipline and freedom and things, you know, things put some great quotes

[A]

into this book, but I want to close out the book with this. I'm not one who feels qualified to tell anyone how to live their lives, but I will say this. Please be careful with what you are willing to strip away to become quote, successful at this point. I would rather see someone fall slightly short of their goal and be fulfilled and enriched human being rather than watch them achieve ultimate success and have nothing, including their humanity left when it is time and they arrive at their finish line. This is not permission or a suggestion to avoid hard work or to use an as an excuse when things become difficult. This is a reminder that success has nothing to do with what you have or what you may have achieved and everything to do with who you are. None among us will ever be able to tame the tides, currents and oceans of life. But I truly believe that we are all capable of becoming drown proof. You may not become an Olympic swimmer with a gold medal around your neck, but you will survive. And that is the first step. Once you have mastered the ability to keep your head above water, you will be limited only by your own imagination and self imposed boundaries. When your ability to survive is assured, I believe there is one additional step that can be taken and I believe it is the most meaningful metric of success that there is. You can share it. You can look around, look around you and identify others who are struggling. And you can teach them how to swim.

[C]

The end.

[A]

Helping other people out.

[C]

Man, I care a lot more now, older in my age and wisdom, how I accomplish things is an equal measure of what it is I want to accomplish. And I didn't think about that. It was just, just, you know, it was winning to the detriment, detriment of everything else. I care a lot more now about how I arrive at the destination. Yeah, and like I said, if I look at my own kids, I'm like, they all have their own aspirations. Would I rather have them get 90 of that and be just super stoked on life with a great supportive social circle and network work isolated and alone, but achieving a metric of success that everybody else thinks is important and they're miserable. I'm going with the former, not the latter.

[A]

When I went to college, I was already, I was like 28 years old or something when I went to College, I was in the teams and like, I took it as a personal challenge to like beat the teachers at their own game. And I. So I went freaking totally psycho, dude. I went totally psycho.

[C]

This all checks out so far.

[A]

Yeah. So I would be mad if a teacher asked a question on a test that I didn't know the answer to. It was so. And what. But what I realized post afterwards was that like, to get a 90 on a test would take like an hour of study. To get a hundred would take four hours and ninety days. Yeah. And looking back, should have been like, oh, cool, I'm gonna pass this class. Like, it's all good. And I could do hang out with my family or do something freaking useful. And it's kind of what you're saying, like the amount of effort that it takes to get to a 100% versus a solid 90 or an 85. And by the way, no one gives a shit. You know how many people have asked to see my freaking college transcripts? You want to know? Freaking zero. No one gives a. No one gives a. And yet I put all this time and effort into, you know, getting a hundred. And so this advice of like, hey man, like, what is it? What does success actually look like? What does winning actually look like? You know, in quotes and, and making sure that you're getting. You're doing. You're actually doing something worthwhile. And I think to your point, like, and I've. This is something I definitely learned in the teams. Helping out some other dude is way more rewarding than anything that you do for yourself for sure. And you know, when, when I got to see like, the guys that worked for me at some point, like, grow and do awesome. Like, that was so cool and so much cooler than like doing something cool yourself. And you definitely get to see that with your kids. Your kids do something cool like what you were just talking about, like, standing up for, you know, looking out, doing something that is so. That is the best, you know?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so the idea of helping other people out as the best return on investment, I totally agree with. And I think that's what you're doing here, man. With this book.

[C]

I'm trying. We'll see how it goes.

[A]

So that's where we're at.

[C]

Still owe you that bitcoin for the lies and the forward. That made me look good. But, you know, we'll get into

[A]

check. When's the book come out?

[C]

April 14th.

[A]

So April 14th. Here's the deal. Pre order the book right now. We'll put the link. Will you, though, hey, making a promise that I may or may or may not be able to keep.

[C]

I'm gonna text you the link I got you. For people. It's easy. Easy. You ready for this one? You guys are gonna like this. It's cleared hot podcast.com book.

[A]

There you go. So go there, order the book. And here's why.

[C]

Because, yeah, you know about this. Like, at this point, I'm still. Yeah, completely. So here's the process.

[A]

We want Andy to be a New York Times bestselling author because, you know,

[C]

do you get a plaque with that?

[A]

You do.

[C]

You get, like, make your own pinky ring. And you can just, like, it'll be. Be my version of being a ring knocker. You and I can sit here and

[A]

I'll tell you what's really cool about it. What will be cool about it is it's. That's like a high literary achievement. And for someone like us to have that is. Is pretty dope. You could just say me. I know you're trying to round the edges on that.

[C]

Somebody like you. How do I say you without saying it is funny.

[A]

Like, you'll go and like, there's. There's literary people and like that. That's a big deal.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And like, it's like, if I told you I got, you know, the. The Badminton Award in 1995, you would be like, oh, great. And that's kind of how you and I would view, like, oh, you're a New York Times bestselling offer. Like, oh, yeah, cool. Good for you. Is that good? You know, it's one of those things. But it. The cool thing about it is good advertisement for you. And it'll. When. If it gets on that list, then it. Other bunch of people see it that wouldn't have seen it before. Cool. And so I'm just telling everyone, please, if you would be so kind, go to clearhoppodcast.com book correct. And order this book ASAP so we can make Andy's day.

[C]

You know what I would like more than that, though. Like, again, like, the monetary. I have no idea what to expect from this process. I just hope, honestly that my mistakes and what I learned from them helps somebody else. I would take that over any list or. Or dollar amount, any of that stuff.

[A]

Of course. Yeah. And again, to. To my. My assessment, man, is you did that. You got a great book that clearly goes through some really hard things that you went through. You know, the kind of thing, you know, like, when it's not all rainbows. Like when I wrote Extreme Ownership. And it's like, okay, we'll just open this with me just com. Having a blue on blue while I'm in charge of. Let's start. Let's open with that. That's. That's going to be great. That's to feel great. And, you know, there's parts where I was reading this book, I was like, damn, okay. And I've told people this before, like, if you're going to do something good, whether it's a song or a book or a poem or whatever, shit's got to hurt a little bit, you know, it's got to be like exposing. Yeah. And so, you know, you do that. Like that freaking chapter we were talking about what it felt like to be going through your divorce. I'm reading that. I'm like, okay, bro, I think we get it. Oh, there's another nine examples. Like, shit's heavy, dude.

[C]

That was the wave tops. That was the Reader's Digest summary. The divorce for idiots, if you will.

[A]

So that's everyone order the book. Does that get us up to speed? Anything else right now? Anything else?

[C]

Tackled all seven continents recently. Years ago. So we're good. What'd you call it? A journey that we were on. Degradating our expedition. That we did. I don't know what the difference is between the two, but you're flying your

[A]

helicopter, just basically getting off after it across the board.

[C]

I tried to.

[A]

Yeah. You did the seven continent thing.

[C]

Yep. Triple seven.

[A]

Yep. With Mike and a bunch of other dudes. Just went out there and.

[C]

Yeah, it was cool.

[A]

Broke the world record.

[C]

I thought Antarctica was going to be the coolest. I tell you what, dude, looking down over freefall in over the Great pyramid of Giza. That's a tough one.

[A]

I saw that picture.

[C]

What else am I got going? Yeah, that's about it.

[A]

Where can people find you? You got andystonft.com Yep. You're on Twitter x@andy stumpf77.

[C]

Is it okay?

[A]

Yep. You're on Instagram andy stumpf212.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

And Facebook Andy Stumpf. And of course, you have the Cleared Hot podcast.

[C]

I do.

[A]

Which is on YouTube. And wherever you listen to podcasts, it is at Clear Top Podcast.

[C]

I think that's about it. That's about what I'm up to.

[A]

That's where you're at.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Echo. Charles, you got any questions?

[B]

Yeah, many, but we'll stick with this one. So talking about the, you know, the flight suit, the wingsuit wing scenario.

[C]

Tell me more. So can already tell. This can be a very technical Question.

[B]

Why did you start doing that?

[C]

Because it seemed to be the natural progression, and it looked awesome. Have you never seen the videos?

[B]

Yeah, I have, but then. And how old were you roughly when you started that, like, your first wingsuit scenario?

[C]

Oh, that was later on for sure. I think I probably had three to 4,000 jumps before I put a wingsuit on. So 30s.

[B]

So. Okay, then. So you had a bunch of jumps.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

A lot of experience. And then you're like, I'm gonna do the wingsuit thing. That first wingsuit scenario where. Where are you? Like, over the water or something? Because you're not jumping off freaking into the rocks, or are you.

[C]

I now have some questions for you.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

How would water change this scenario?

[B]

I don't. I don't know. It just seems.

[C]

Are you under the impression that you land that wingsuit without deploying a parachute?

[B]

You know, like on Point Break, the original one, they're like, hey, we're not gonna land on land. We land on water. So it's like soft. Dr. I don't know. That's what I was referencing. I guess subconsciously.

[C]

This is. Man, your. Your brain is an interesting spaghetti noodle.

[B]

Whatever. I'm just thinking of this stuff right now. I never been on a wingsuit.

[A]

No.

[C]

So you deploy your normal parachute. So the wingsuit, you zip it up. In an airplane, if you're skydiving, you have a main and a reserve parachute. So you zip it all the way up. Otherwise, it's just. It's compartments. You know what I mean? So your arms are free. So after you deploy your parachute, you unzip your arms and legs, and you're just flying your normal parachute.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And then you land. So the water wouldn't necessarily help you there.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

When.

[B]

I'll get the progression.

[A]

You look super confused right now.

[C]

The progression is this one day, you decide you're going to jump a wingsuit, and you put one on, and you exit an aircraft in flight and you work it out.

[B]

Yeah. But then you're saying that you have a parachute going.

[C]

If you want to do it more than once.

[A]

The wingsuit is just used while you're. Before you pull your parachute.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Unless you only want to do it once.

[B]

Yeah. But then you guys are, like, going through the. You know, the. Like, I don't. I don't get how you go from like, oh, yeah, I'm just gonna do regular skydiving.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

For lack of better term.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

And be like, oh, I'm gonna navigate in a wingsuit through the mountains and over the Trees.

[C]

So you skydive first. So you learn how to fly a wingsuit from altitude, which altitude is going to give you more time. I'm not going to say necessarily safer. But you do have a main and a reserve parachute. You get used to flying it. Most people start on a smaller. So you wingsuits come in all sizes.

[B]

Okay. So you work it out in like open air kind of a scenario. You're not going through mountains or nothing like this.

[C]

I guess you could.

[A]

That would be like one jump, huh?

[C]

Dude. Well, you wouldn't even survive the exit. Because the big difference is in BASE jumping, when you jump out of an airplane, it doesn't feel like you're falling because you're already. You have the forward throw of the aircraft you're not going from. You don't get the roller coaster like stomach coming up in your throat because you have speed, then you're actually speeding up in freefall. But if you watch from the ground, people come out of an airplane, it's forward throw, they're being thrown forward because of the velocity. And so you don't get this sensation of like when you BASE jump, you do get that. So your suit doesn't really fly for the first few seconds because it has to inflate and then have enough air passing over it to act like a wing. So at that. So first so you can skydive, then you need to learn how to BASE jump without a wingsuit so you can practice a zero airspeed exit. Then at some point in time you combine the two.

[B]

Okay, then. Okay, that's where, that's the. Yeah. The little point in which I'm asking this question when. So you were 30 something years old and you were like, okay, I got enough BASE jumping, enough skydiving, enough wings suit, enough. Yep. I don't know, Free air, whatever you want to call it, isn't that, let's

[C]

call it that free air.

[B]

Isn't that the biggest transition right there?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Okay, so you're 30 something years old and you made that transition because it kind of, it feels like it gets exponentially more dangerous at that point.

[C]

That's what choose your own adventure. You don't have to fly close to terrain. You can just fly straight out off of cliffs and all sorts of stuff.

[B]

Oh, and you like slowly make it to more challenging terrain. Yeah, it just doesn't seem like something like a 30 something year old person would do.

[C]

What age would be appropriate for, I

[B]

don't know, before, like, like 19, 20, you know, when you're young.

[C]

Oh, when you have no prefrontal cortex development.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Exactly. Yeah.

[C]

Why? What does age have to do with it? I would say you have a little bit more wisdom and probably better decision making ability at a later age.

[B]

Right. And 30 is like a later age.

[C]

That's what I'm saying. So it's the perfect time to start.

[B]

Well, I'm just saying with the risk and all that, it just seems like. Okay, so which brings me to my second question. Do you feel like it was like a coping mechanism of some sort? Because you mentioned something in buds. So you're about buds where you're like, oh yeah, if me, Jocko, Echo went to the cha hall and Echo quit, I'd forget them. Yeah, because you're so like focused kind of incidentally, like you have to be focused on this next task kind of a thing.

[C]

There's always. You're on your own journey.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, you're like. But you're kind of saturated with stuff that you have to freaking do.

[C]

Right?

[A]

And like I didn't read this part of the book, but I kind of mentioned it. But there's a thing that he talks about in the book which is like a space. Right, so the silence.

[C]

Yeah, the silence. Coping mechanism.

[B]

Wait, but buds, you don't have that space cuz you're constantly two different.

[C]

Like BUDS is a crucible though. You know, they're trying to, you know, the curriculum's trying to weed you out. Was it a coping mechanism? You might be able to describe it as something like that. I would say it was a headspace that doesn't have. I mean I've seen people who can get to the flow state is what I'll call it. Right. That's a traditional like yoga meditation, playing guitar. Like it doesn't need to be prescriptive on how you get there, but I think it's important that people do. For me, that was probably the most powerful way and it was just associated with something that I was already doing. I would say it could probably be described as a coping mechanism because I could think better after having a good like trip overseas for months afterwards. And I would struggle if I didn't find myself in that flow state for a little bit, just because the BS of life would bombard me a little bit more. So I guess a tool or coping mechanism depend on the angle that you were looking at it from. But an argument could be made for that, I think. If you were to jump in a wingsuit, would you go first over water or land?

[B]

Apparently that doesn't matter.

[A]

But it does not if you didn't intervene.

[C]

Do you know how to swim for that? It could matter. How's your swimming?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, My swimming. Strong.

[C]

Okay, good. In a wingsuit?

[B]

No. I don't know. I don't know. Well, before your intervention, I would have chose water, but thank you for that, guy.

[C]

You're welcome.

[B]

You're welcome. Yes. Good to see you, I guess.

[A]

Andy, any closing thoughts?

[C]

No, I generally never have any.

[A]

Righto, man. Well, again, thanks for joining us. Glad to have you back after nine years.

[C]

Let's do it again in 10.

[A]

Yeah, let's do it again in 10. Thanks for bringing.

[C]

Bring our walkers in here.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me.

[A]

Yeah. Thanks for your. Thanks for your service.

[C]

Same to you, man.

[A]

For the country, for the teams. And thanks for what you're continuing to do today, trying to teach people how to swim.

[C]

I'm trying, man.

[A]

It's awesome. Thanks, brother. Cool. And with that, Andy Stumpf has left the building. Some good lessons learned. And you'll notice in the low point of his whole life, there was one saving grace. Jiu Jitsu. That's true. So we're training. Yep. We're lifting, we're running, we're training the Jiu jitsu. And you know what that means. You need fuel. We highly recommend Jocko fuel. Protein is critical to life. Get yourself some protein. 30 grams of protein and ready to drink. 22 grams in a one scoop. By the way, I often do two scoops of powder. 44 grams, me. So that's what we're doing. Go to jockofuel.com. get energy drinks. Get whatever you need. Get creatine. Get on the creatine train. If you're not on there right now, what are you doing? What are you doing on honestly jocko fuel.com or go to whatever retailer you go to, we got it there. If we don't have it there, ask them for it. Jocko Fuel. The clean fuel. Also, since we're training Jiu jitsu, you may want to have a jiu jitsu ghee. You may want to have jiu jitsu rash guard. And you want those things to be made 100% in the United States of America with materials that are 100% American. So for that, you go to originusa.com and by the way, you can also get jeans, boots, hoodies. Rash guards already said that you can get pretty much whatever you need. Hunt gear, training gear, shorts, pants, just everything that you need. 100% American made. So go check out Origin USA and get yourself some gear.

[C]

Yep, it's true.

[B]

Also jocko store.com discipline equals freedom. Got more gear by the way. Discipline equals freedom.

[C]

Good.

[B]

Stand by to get some and get after it. Other things as well. We got some shirts on there, mats, some hoodies.

[A]

Pretty cool.

[B]

Also we have the shirt locker which is a subscription scenario. New design every month. People seem to be in that one into that one. The most recent design. For your knowledge. You can check this out on the website, by the way. Just click on the top where it says check out the shirt locker and see this stuff. But just said it's a discipline. Very simple, but it's discipline in red script. It's one of those ones where when you're representing it's like it kind of goes hard anyway. You got to look at to see it. Yes, that's it. It's all on Choco store Calm.

[A]

Also we got some books. We got Drown Proof by Andy Sumpf. I just read some excerpts from it today. So much in there. So good. Go order it right now, please. Drown Proof by Andy Stumpfs. Andy Stumpf. Also put your legs on by Rob Jones. And of course the need to lead by Dave Burke. Check those out. Echelon front, we have a leadership consultancy, echelonfront.com we work with businesses around the world and help them with all the problems that they have through leadership. If you need help inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com we have events like the muster. This is a two day, two and a half day leadership event. You can go and learn the skills of leadership live. If you can't make it to that, you can go to extreme ownership.com and you can learn the skills of leadership through online learning and online training and online interactive courses and online question and answer sessions. With me, that is extreme ownership dot com. Check that out as well. Also check this out. On March 21, a couple weeks away, 2026, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Mark Lee's birthday celebration. Mark lee would be 48. So this is the mark 48 event, which is a. Which is a very powerful thing because he carried that Mark 48 machine gun. If you know who Mark is, Mark Lee, the first SEAL killed in Iraq. Just an outstanding human being and they're having a celebration of his life. 48th birthday. Mark's platoon mates. Two of Mark's platoon mates are going to speak. One of them is lead Bob Holland. You probably heard of him. He's been on this podcast a few times. A few times. Founder and owner of Hooley Golf and also another guy that was in the platoon with Mark, a guy named Jake Kinebaum, another awesome dude that was in tasking, a bruiser and a friend of Mark's. So those two guys are gonna gonna do some speaking about Mark. And this is all, of course, part of America's mighty warriors.org so go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org if you can. Be in Scottsdale, Arizona, March 21st. It's going to be an outstanding event and it's in support of an awesome cause that is everything that Mark, Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee has put together. So check that out, please. If you're in Arizona, go AmericasMightyWarriors.org also check out Heroes and Horses.org and finally beyond the Brotherhood.org to connect with us on the interwebs. For andy, he's andy stump.com he's on Twitter x@andy stumpf77. He's on Instagram @andy stump212. He's on Facebook at Andy Stumpf. And then he's got the Cleared Hot podcast and a YouTube channel which is his podcast on YouTube, which is at Cleared Hot Podcast. And then for us, you can check out jocko.com and then on social media, I'm on there and I'm at Jocko Willink and Echoes at Echo Charles. Just don't spend too much time on there. Thanks once again to my brother Andy Stomp for joining us. Thanks for your service. Thanks for your sacrifice, bro. And everybody else, go pick up his book. There's a lot we can learn from it. And thanks to the entire military out there right now. Yes, right now. Risking your lives and limbs, sacrificing your freedom in order to protect ours. And we are grateful also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thanks for protecting us here at home and everyone else out there. You know, in Andy's book, Drown Proof, he talks about subpar behavior. And one of the ways to avoid subpar behavior is to look in the mirror and ask yourself some questions. Questions like what am I willing to to allow from myself? What will I allow in both thought process and internal monologue? What will I allow in both behavior and actions? What will I allow my word to mean? What aspects of my life will I allow others to control? What type of man or woman do I want to be? What is my standard and are my actions aligning with those beliefs? And I think if you ask yourself those questions and you answer them honestly, you will move your life in the right direction and you can become drown proof. That's all I've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.