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Tim Crockett
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John Hope Bryant
Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a production of the Black Effect podcast network and iHeartRadio. Hey hey. This is John Hope Bryant and this is Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio. The podcast series season two are our highly anticipated every week Ministry of Finance if you call it. And I want to thank everybody for again making this so well received here and around the world. As you know, when I bring a guest on, it's pretty special. I normally do these solo, pretty much. Today is one of those days. I've been looking forward to this. This is not only somebody who works with me. I see my Operation Hope pin on today. So we're in the Operation Hope corporate offices, the global headquarters. Actually, somebody works with me at Operation Hope principally, even though he's embedded in all of my life. And now you get to know him, and I'll take you behind the curtains of how things work at a very high level. Introducing you to an extended member of my family, both my organizational family and a friend. So my friend, family, friends of Bryant, Tim Crockett, an honor to have you with us.
Tim Crockett
Thank you.
John Hope Bryant
So Tim Crockett is structurally, organizationally, he is the head of Corporate Risk and security, or Risk. Corporate Risk and corporate security, I guess, is the way it's really. Is that the title?
Tim Crockett
Chief Risk Officer.
John Hope Bryant
Okay, there you go.
Tim Crockett
Risk covers everything.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah. Risk security. Tim Crockett is one of these guys that you read about in the British spy novels who can, you know, like Jason Bourne movies or something, who can kill you with a pencil. Right. And he's got a pencil on him. You're gonna learn more about Tim as we go here, but you might be asking, okay, wait a minute. Is this the wrong podcast? Like, this is money and wealth not, you know, security and health. Right. What's the deal? As we talked about when I brought my wife Shaitra on and we talked about how health is wealth, that things are often connected and correlated. So one of the things I like to do is to bring folks behind the curtain of how things work, whether it's financial systems or models in financial systems, Financial structures, economic structures, business structures. Here's brand structures and personality management structures and corporate organizational structures. And what no one talks about with, which is you see the folks walking around with the little earpieces on, and, I mean, there's a time when you want physical security and you want folks with the uniform on and you want them walking with a clipboard on. That's a deterrent. It's a process. They're really managing retail threats. Now you, Tim, you tell me when I get this wrong. They're managing retail threats of security guard.
Tim Crockett
Yes.
John Hope Bryant
In a uniform.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. There's a number of things that fall into that category. Yeah. Your providing safety for your customer, your employees, and then to some degree, brand and reputation.
John Hope Bryant
But you want that person visible and obvious.
Tim Crockett
Yes.
John Hope Bryant
All right. And a Police officer is another example of retail security, by the way. High regard for police officers. But you want that person obvious, invisible. There's a badge, there's a uniform, there's a police car. There's lights and sirens. You want that to be a deterrent. You want bad people to say, maybe I shouldn't do that. I see this bad guy over there, right?
Tim Crockett
That's it.
John Hope Bryant
All right, so what about the guys with the little earpieces on? They got on sunglasses, they got on nondescript clothes. They don't want to draw any attention to themselves whatsoever. And Tim's the next level above that. He's just stealth. When he kills you, you think you're still alive. But we're going to have some fun with his background, all that stuff, because he was literally British Special Forces. And it really is quite fascinating. But. But this whole level of why would somebody like me need a guy like him? Why would a organization like mine need a guy, need an organization like his or him? Why. Why might you have specialized security firm associated with you? How is that tied to wealth?
Tim Crockett
How does that.
John Hope Bryant
And is that tied to insurance and risk management, all that kind of stuff? We're going to get into all of that. So as you grow and as you develop, you can also be thinking holistically about how to protect and how to keep. Because it's not about what you make, it's about what you keep, the wealth you create. Because I'm convinced all of you are going to create wealth again. People keep telling me, John, you keep giving us game in areas that no one ever told us about. Or people. Somebody last night told me, like all these wealthy folks, whatever, successful people don't tell us a gatekeep. They don't tell us how things really operate. You see it, but you don't understand it. I'm trying to unpack this so you understand it now. To understand it, you need to understand him. So if I had to give one word for Tim Crockett, beyond kind, gracious, consistent, a good guy. I actually really do like him. A good father is resilient, like, consistent, committed, credible character, good character, resilient. Resiliency runs through the whole stream. Like, he just doesn't give up and he doesn't let. I've never seen him flustered, actually. And he sort of is the kind of power I like. You can power, you know, you got real power. You don't need to use it. Like, you don't need to, like, flex. It's just an is. And that comes with a quiet Confidence, you always know. You know how I love the power of quiet. Remove the noise. So, Tim Crockett, tell the audience, let's set this up a little bit because we're going to talk about. By the way, the reason all this all came about was he just crossed the ocean. The Pacific Ocean, right?
Tim Crockett
Pacific, yes.
John Hope Bryant
From San Francisco to Hawaii, where he just got. Where me and my family just came back from on a retreat. We got there in five hours on a plane. Eight hours. It took him 45 days because he was rowing a boat, a 20 foot boat, no motor on it, with the sun across the ocean, with storms. It was not. There was a hurricane that came from. It was an earthquake that had come from Russia or something. And there was concern that was going to turn into a tsunami. You were on the ocean when that happened.
Tim Crockett
We rode into the Big island under a tsunami watch.
John Hope Bryant
So we're going to get, we're going to get into all. Because he actually got two Guinness Book of World Record entries because of this. Right.
Tim Crockett
One still under contention being the first father son team to row the Pacific. But my son, yes, he's getting credited with being the youngest to row the Pacific.
John Hope Bryant
And this is the second time you've done this.
Tim Crockett
Yes, I did the Atlantic back in 2018, but I did that solo.
John Hope Bryant
I told you. He's like a, like a living Jason Bourne. Like, like, like John Wick or something. So we're getting into the what and the how and the who. You should be listening. Like, what. What did you just say, John? We can't row across a lake. His brother, his brother just, just roll. I just went on a diving lesson in, in, in maui. Went down 40ft for 45 minutes. I thought I deserved an award. This dude has did 45 days on a rowboat where one false move and you're done. Like, if anything happens to you out there, you're done. There's no one to call when you're taking a plane from Hawaii is the most remote landmass in the world. One of the reasons I go there, you take a plane from the West Coast, Los Angeles to Maui or to Hawaii. You went in Honolulu?
Tim Crockett
No, we went into the Big Island.
John Hope Bryant
Big island. And there's seven islands, I think it takes five hours of continuous flight at 600 miles an hour, whatever it is. And if anything happens to the plane, no one wants to really think about this, but there's no place to land. No, it's just water. So can you imagine being in a rowboat? I mean, it's more than a Rowboat, But I mean, an unpowered vehicle for 45 days. Okay, we're gonna get into all of this. Let's now back up and tell the audience a little bit about. So we're gonna have resilience. Your backstory. Talk about resilience, really anchoring it in this most recent endeavor of yours. And then talk about risk management, how that relates to wealth protection, creation, growth. And to the extent that we can talk a little bit about how we came together and what does that mean and all that stuff. Some stuff we can say, some stuff we can't say. Right. But you're smart. You fill in the blanks. Your background. How does someone get into this field? And I believe, I think I met you through the FBI or something like that. I mean. I mean, somebody. I mean, when the FBI recommends you, you know, you do hot crap.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, that's where the referral came from a little over two years or so ago now. And it was around the HOPE Global Forum, obviously. Very high profile event. I call it kind of Davos for financial Literacy. We've got some big names, all of which bring a certain amount of risk to the event. Not alone. Not to mention sort of the risk that surrounds yourself and so forth. And that's why I got asked to sort of come in and help manage that risk. Not only for yourself, John, but also the event. A lot of moving parts, something that I was very experienced in. I've run some events where there's 17,000 people in attendance and the executive team have a certain exposure that needs to be managed. So that's how we met. We spent three days together during the HOPE Global Forum. We hit it off, and I think it was about three months after that we decided that we wanted to look at the institutional or the organizational risk that Operation HOPE carried at the time. Obviously, the last seven years, there's been a lot of rapid growth. So we figured out how best we could approach that at a strategic enterprise level.
John Hope Bryant
Strategic enterprise means the mothership company.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. All of the big things that any established organization or business or family office need to sort of address.
John Hope Bryant
Well, we call them our family offices on another podcast episode, but that's a whole another conversation about family offices.
Tim Crockett
In order to kind of protect that upside can often get forgotten about when people become and start to experience success. With success comes elevated risk. And that's really where become a target. Yeah, you can become an individual. An individual as a target, as in the person, but also the role, the institution, and everything else that goes along with it.
John Hope Bryant
So when you're around the king, the king is on TV right now in the uk or you're around the Crown Prince of Norway, another friend of mine. You're around Quincy Jones, gotta rest his soul. Are you around President Clinton, former president. Are you around the current president? Are you around? I mean, any high profile person you're gonna see, hopefully you won't see, but you're gonna notice a presence. We call it a bubble. And they have a body man. And Tim would be, in this example, my body man. If you see me at the form flowing, Tim won't be very far from me. And Tim sees everything around him. He's got eyes in the back of his head. When I wake up in the morning, I don't know when he sleeps. When we have in the morning, he's at the front door. I go to bed at night, he's leaving me at the door. And he's there, but he's invisible. And it's something I never thought I'd need. But it becomes a time where it becomes obvious again. Things don't make any sense until they do. And at a certain point you need a banker, then you need a private banker, Then you need financial planners and you need accountants on top of that. Then you need auditors. It's a big leap. But at a certain point you need a family. There's some between the auditors and accountants, all that stuff. Lawyers, at some point, private bankers. You'll need a family office if you keep building wealth. But that's, that's a big leap. By the way, you're in a family office again. I'm going to do a podcast just on family offices. That's, that's a lot of wealth you're managing. Typically you're talking about liquid assets of, you know, give or take $50 million. Then you need a family office. Let's back up and talk about why you like. Why would the, why would the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or we want to say it, you know, the CIA or whoever recommend a guy like you? What does it take to be recommended? Where does that credentials come from? You were in what we call the, effectively the British Special Forces, is that right?
Tim Crockett
Yeah. So the current of your SEALs, the.
John Hope Bryant
Equivalent of the, of the, of the Navy SEALs.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. In the UK it's called the Special Boat Service. So was it UK being a smaller entity? Obviously our Special Forces is smaller as well. And I initially joined the Royal Marines and then from there transitioned at a very young age into the Special Forces, specifically the Special Boat Service. So I spent most of My adult life either in, on, or under the water in some fashion.
John Hope Bryant
Ah, that's why you're so comfortable in the water, right?
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
What attracted you to that?
Tim Crockett
Again? I think it comes back down to sort of personal attributes OR traits. My SART major back in 40 Commando, which is where I came from, was in the Special Boat Service and he recognized, I know whether it's my character, my aptitude or attitude, and he's the one that actually said you should consider a career in Special Forces. And he was the one who encouraged me then to go forward and attempt.
John Hope Bryant
You need to be recommended for that is my guess.
Tim Crockett
No, anyone can put in the recommendation. You have to do a minimum of sort of two years within a. A fighting unit, commander unit. And then once you've reached that sort of level of maturity, you can apply yourself. But it's a, it's a closed branch, it's a volunteer branch. So just like the Navy seals here in the US you go through a selection process and if you wish to leave, you can voluntary withdraw. Ring the bell.
John Hope Bryant
What he's really saying is if you're a punk and, and you can't make it, you wash out. So they don't need to select you. You sort of, you're self selected because you made it toward. Through an impossible, rigorous situation. Okay, that was very elegant way for you to say that. Okay, so we're going to fast forward so we can get to the meat of this. So you come up through the ranks, you select yourself, you get selected, you're in British Special Forces, and at some point you say, been real, it's been nice, and I'm out. Is that right?
Tim Crockett
Yeah. Like I said, I was very fortunate. I think I was the third youngest person to pass election back then, and I had a very full career. And because it was such a small unit, you kind of hit that ceiling. Because there's no opportunity for promotion, you'd have to sort of wait your turn, right? And I'd sort of hit that ceiling. And I was still young enough to pursue a second career. I'd done all the work, all the jobs that I wanted to do.
John Hope Bryant
So wait a minute, back up. So you hit a ceiling where you thought you couldn't go any further in effectively the Special Forces of Britain. Even though you're very good at what you did, you're like, okay, I can wait around for 20 more years.
Tim Crockett
But yeah, it was on my timeline. Like I said, I'm not one to sort of sit there and wait.
John Hope Bryant
So what I want the audience to Hear is you can be a upstanding, successful, highly intelligent, brilliantly talented, gifted, obviously well connected white male, proper British white male, and still hit a wall, hit a ceiling. You're like, okay, I need to pivot. So you pivoted like, I'm not gonna wait here 20 years, I'm gonna do something else. And what was it, something else?
Tim Crockett
Well, when I first came out, I didn't quite know what it was gonna be at the time. There were very few transferable skills other than experience that you had. You didn't have that piece of paper.
John Hope Bryant
To bring with you somebody with a pencil that doesn't work very well in the corporate suite.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. So there was, there was very little call for underwater knife fighting guru.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
So it was trying to figure out where I would naturally fit. Yeah. So I gave myself 12 months to experience what we call the circuit, that security realm of work. I knew I wasn't.
John Hope Bryant
Sorry. Sorry for audience. What the heck's the circuit?
Tim Crockett
Yeah, it's just, it's what's called those that work in security but in a.
John Hope Bryant
Very specialized, specialized area. This is not the security guard.
Tim Crockett
And globally, you could probably. Back then, this is pre 9 11. You could measure that group globally as less than 300 people did experience.
John Hope Bryant
By the way, no disrespect to the security guard at Albertson or wherever. My mother was the security guard at my elementary school, so no disrespect attended. This, this is a whole nother. This is a whole nother situation. I'm just trying to. He said there's about 300 individuals in this back then community globally.
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
Unbelievable. Okay, so, all right, so I mean, everybody's getting a little bit of a behind the scenes of the movies you all watch, right? You just pick the movie. I just watched one of them last night. Well, special forces, CIA securities, you know, elite services, seals. You're getting a backstory. Okay, so 300 or so you work, you spend your time doing that. You go, okay, that's not really my drill. You end up with CNN embedded in Afghanistan or some crazy thing dodging bullets.
Tim Crockett
Well, one of the first jobs I had was actually for the BBC and I was looking after a investigative journalist doing a story on the illegal logging trade in Brazil. It was 10 day job, thoroughly enjoyed it. Running around the Amazon jungle on this nice yacht, making tv. And then that came to an end and fast forward probably six.
John Hope Bryant
So you're doing security for high end.
Tim Crockett
Security for some time. And again it was kind of providing that safe platform from which then the TV crew Could do their job. The bubble. The last thing they want to be doing is worrying about safety, security, logistics.
John Hope Bryant
Pirates, worrying about pirates on the ocean. So he creates a bubble, a secure environment which is both physical. Which is physical. Electronic, electrical, electronic, digital, physical material, weapon, weaponry. Right, okay. I'm just telling you what he's not telling you. Okay, so now you pivot to.
Tim Crockett
So kind of is. By then I was gravitating more towards project management. And then six months later, 9, 11 happened and the world literally got. And my world literally got turned upside down. I was working on a project in Indonesia for oil company. And because of the. The coalition going into Afghanistan, kind of the. The Muslim world erupted in protest. And obviously Indonesia was a majority Muslim country. So they started to go after and look for America.
John Hope Bryant
Was it called the Arab Spring? Is that.
Tim Crockett
No, no, this is. This is way before the Arab Spring.
John Hope Bryant
Way before it. Okay.
Tim Crockett
And the project got canceled. So I'm now sat back in the UK wondering what am I going to do next? And I was actually looking after Pat Cash at a classic tennis tournament in, in London. And somebody asked, oh, this is your client? Yeah. Someone had asked me, like, you've worked with the Journal with journalists before. Are you interested in going to Afghanistan? So I was like, yeah, sign me up.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah, sure, no problem. Bullets flying over your head when you're laying. No big deal.
Tim Crockett
Ten days later, I found myself in Kabul. And yes, the news team that I was happened to be looking after was cnn.
John Hope Bryant
And you were embedded deep in Afghanistan.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. The correspondent I was working with was senior correspondent, very eager, had a great work ethic. And we went all over the country, news gathering and through a set of circumstances, I helped recover some material that provided an opportunity then to come to Atlanta. And I was supposed to come here and help set up all of CNN's training, by the way.
John Hope Bryant
He just. That was just so smooth. That was just so. And if I didn't know the backstory, we would have just kept on walking. I don't know how much of this he can tell you, but I'm going to try to tease us out of them. I don't make my man uncomfortable. Can you tell them what you can you give them any sense of what you discovered?
Tim Crockett
I helped recover Bin Laden's video library and then hand carried almost 200. 200 VHS tapes from Kandahar all the way back to Atlanta.
John Hope Bryant
Okay. I mean, talk about making smart sexy. Talking about what's like, smooth is cool. My brother, man is completely smooth. Run that. Because it was. If this was anybody in my family, we have T shirts like I discovered Bin Laden's tapes. We'd market the heck out of this thing. All right, let's back up. Serious thing. This is a very serious thing. And by the way, thank you for your service. You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, healthcare, retirement options and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.
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John Hope Bryant
You stumbled on or found somehow discovered in the midst of your work in Afghanistan the video library for Osama bin Laden?
Tim Crockett
Not quite. I was just responsible for verifying it and then bringing it to the US.
John Hope Bryant
Which was, which was highly risky because.
Tim Crockett
People wanted this was probably when when this young Afghani Afghani photojournalist came to us. It was probably three, four weeks after the Murder of Daniel Pearl. So the concern was that this was a.
John Hope Bryant
The Wall Street Journal reporter was murdered. Right.
Tim Crockett
So this was a concern that it was a ruse to grab another journalist, meaning your client. Yes.
John Hope Bryant
So a setup to get the tapes, but really the setup maybe to grab you and your journalist.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. So highly risky. And this is where it comes back into the principles of risk management. Not what you think of just financial risk. There's physical risk, obviously. So the more, you know, on the front end, you can plan accordingly and mitigate that risk. And that was really my role in helping recover that.
John Hope Bryant
How long did it take you to get them back?
Tim Crockett
So it was kind of two parts. This gentleman came to us on a Thursday. We went down there two days later. Within 10 hours, we confirmed that they were the real deal. Another 24 hours later, we'd recovered them back to Kabul. Within two days, I think they were dubbed, and the correspondent was heading back here with those original 57 tapes. And then when they got back here, they scrolled through. This is kind of the humorous piece. When you scrolled through some of the tapes, there were a lot of western B movies.
John Hope Bryant
Oh, really? We thought that Salman bin Laden was watching. He was watching just old American movies.
Tim Crockett
Cowboy and Western movies. But one of those tapes had actually made it back in that original batch, and someone had scrolled through it, and halfway through, spliced in the middle was essentially how to put together a rocket launcher. So at that point, the investigative team here said, we want the rest of the tapes. I then got asked to go back a second time and recover the equipment.
Advertisement Voice
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
John Hope Bryant
Back up, back up. Slow down. You went back to Afghanistan? Are you out your dang on mine?
Tim Crockett
Well, I never left. I. Basically, we were ripping Kabul. So you went back to Kandahar, but.
John Hope Bryant
Went back to Kandahar. Went from the frying pan to the fire to go back in where you just escaped essentially by the skin of your teeth, where it might have been a setup to go back to get more tapes.
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
So this is where I tell you, this is like they say when the. The Titanic was going down, that the band was playing. The band of the Titanic was playing as the ship was sinking. And I've always said that was not cooling the gang, because Cool. And the gang would have been wrapping up their chords as the ship was sinking and heading toward the light rafts. So, look, it takes a special kind of dude to do what he just said. Again, if I hadn't pulled this out of him. What did he say? Something happened in Da, da, da. That caused me to be back in the States. You would have missed this entire thing because he has no need to brag. In fact, discretion is a key to his position. He literally is a black box. He hears it, he doesn't say it. I pulled it out of him and he, from a security place perspective now he can talk about it, but I want to respect his, his ability to say or not say that. So you go now, you go back in to Kabul. Kabul. Kabul.
Tim Crockett
Kabul, Kandahar. Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
You went from Kabul to Kandahar, which again, frying, frying pan to the fire where people eat bullets for dessert. Or somebody's teeth, you know, grinding the bullets for dessert. So you go back in to get some more tapes and you return a second time with the second stash.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, and actually we stayed a little bit longer than we planned because they're.
John Hope Bryant
Gone in 28 minutes.
Tim Crockett
So their concern was that the, the original tapes got brought back and created a week long documentary series with.
John Hope Bryant
The.
Tim Crockett
Correspondent and the team. It was called Terror on Tapes.
John Hope Bryant
So you can watch this on tv, by the way, pull it up on the, on C Span, I mean on YouTube.
Tim Crockett
The first episode was going to air on the Sunday night. And their concern was that while CNN International wasn't streamed in Afghanistan at the time, it was in Pakistan and just across the border from Kandahar as Quetta, which is a short two hour drive, if that. So their concern was if I was still in Kandahar at that time, that the risk would go through the roof.
John Hope Bryant
Oh yeah.
Tim Crockett
But there was an opportunity. When we recovered that second batch of tapes, there was actually another set of tapes that documented Bin Laden's journey from Kandahar to Tora Bora as the sort of coalition was tightening that noose on getting hold of him and the whole anaconda of the battle in Tora borna. So these 11 tapes, sorry, people don't.
John Hope Bryant
Know what an Akanda is. Very quick.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, it was an operation to sort of try and kind of get the final remnants of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and obviously bin Laden. And obviously that was. If you watch any of the movies that document that now as he slipped over into Pakistan and where he was found.
John Hope Bryant
So what you did was on the road to capturing bin Laden. It helped to gather additional intel to ultimately capture and kill bin Laden, a terrorist who brought down 9 11.
Tim Crockett
Well, I think from CNN's perspective, the material that they got a hold of showed that you're dealing with a very sophisticated adversary.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
Tim Crockett
And not someone that was just interested in fighting Americans or the coalition in Afghanistan. This was a global concern. Yes. And essentially, fast forward a little bit, having brought those tapes back here and then when you started to look at what the rest of the investigative team had gotten hold of from other correspondents across the space of maybe the last 10 months or more. Yeah, it's actually, we pieced it together and you almost had a. An education system, a curriculum for Al Qaeda, curriculum on terrorism.
John Hope Bryant
We had how to be a terrorist.
Tim Crockett
We had instructors notes. We had instructors instructional videos.
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
Tim Crockett
Student notes. And you could see that this was a very sophisticated organization intent on obviously trying to damage and conquer the West. So I think that then elevated the Western's understanding of. Of who, who we were really up against.
John Hope Bryant
Yes.
Tim Crockett
Obviously, once CNN had extracted the. The newsworthiness of the tapes. Yes. They were then passed on to the government where they could then have their analysts piece it together with probably other pieces of information.
John Hope Bryant
So see, you guys don't need to watch action adventure movies. You just watch my podcast and then go and see. Only go on YouTube and look at the back, look at the results of what this guy actually helped to do, because it's all there on documented. But by the way, as you're listening to all this, you can think about a half dozen action movies that you love that have brought you in the Middle east or Africa or someplace, Latin America, you know, with three guys or ladies or whatever, battling quietly behind closed doors forces of evil. Thank you very much for your service. So you come, you come to America and I'm going to do this pretty quickly now so we can get to the meat of this. You know, when you're bored, things take all day. But when you're, when you like somebody, you're enjoying it, things go really fast. And so things are going really fast in our episode. And I want to get to the meat of it before we're done. So you come back, you're given this great opportunity. I'm not going to tell your business. You say no to it. As I recall.
Tim Crockett
Yes.
John Hope Bryant
Which was unheard of. This was. I think CNN gave you this opportunity or some broadcasting network gave you some major opportunity and you're like, nah, I'm really. I'm not ready to go push pencils. Well, I'll kill with a pencil, but I got to push a pencil. He doesn't kill anybody, by the way. I'm just saying he has capacity to. Ok, so now there's a series of choices and changes that. Because we could talk about Crockett just for the Next hour and a half. That leads you to us. Connecting.
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
And before we connected, though, you'd already done one of these crazy ocean crossings. When did you do that? 20 years ago.
Tim Crockett
No, 20. 18.
John Hope Bryant
It was 2018. Okay.
Tim Crockett
Seven years ago.
John Hope Bryant
Seven years ago. Okay. And why'd you do that? Because you could.
Tim Crockett
No. So the serious seriousness of it all. So I'd reconnected with an old military buddy of mine in late 2017, I think it was just over social media. We hadn't spoken for probably over 20 years. And just reliving the good old days, we actually served together in the same unit. First Gulf War and then also being on the Royal Marines boxing squad together.
John Hope Bryant
Okay.
Tim Crockett
He was super heavyweight. I was a heavyweight. So we used to spar together quite a bit. So we got quite close.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
I hadn't spoken to him for over 20 years. We reconnected, and then it was about six weeks later that I come to find that he had died by suicide.
John Hope Bryant
Oh, no.
Tim Crockett
And lost his life. So that kind of sparked in me the need to do something more, not just to honor his memory, but draw more attention and hopefully some resources for addressing the mental health crisis within our veterans and obviously the wider military community. I didn't quite know what that was going to be. And then it was about six weeks later, another friend of mine that I'd served with was actually rowing from mainland Europe to mainland Latin America as a team of six.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
And it was just disappeared down that Google rabbit hole kind of, and came across ocean rowing. And I thought that's what I want to do.
John Hope Bryant
Raising money, essentially resources and visibility for this good cause of mental health.
Tim Crockett
So that. That when I talk about resiliency and especially ocean rowing, it's having that strong why. And that was my why.
John Hope Bryant
Everything with you has a strong why.
Tim Crockett
But I think that's so important for when tackling anything that is a struggle. I. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm will get you so far. Like, discipline will get you so far. But again, you need something that's bigger than that to keep pulling you through. Again, those. Those low points.
John Hope Bryant
And that's interesting. And we never talked about this. At least I don't recall that we have. Is that why you relate to me so well? Because of our strong why around here?
Tim Crockett
I think it's a strong factor. Yes. Again, I hadn't really thought about it, but that's certainly, I think, why you and I connected and why we get on so much.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah. So the strong why, once you explain to the audience what the strong why is, we never talked about this, it's very powerful and it's a great lesson for anybody listening.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. So I, Yeah, when I started it, it was. Because obviously we. It was reported 22 veterans were taking their own lives each and every day. And across the, the months and years, obviously those numbers have gone up and down and they're probably very much underreported. The mental health crisis.
John Hope Bryant
Well, certainly, by the way, if you're in this group of 300, you really can't talk about it. So literally. And if you're a CIA officer, whether you die in the field or somehow unfortunate situations come to you, literally, it might. Other than a placement of a marker at CIA headquarters, the world hears nothing about it.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, no, it's only just recently that kind of this stigma, this concern around mental health is sort of broken past. Like you said, those dark corners of an institution, people don't talk about it. Certainly the male community are much more reluctant to talk about it.
John Hope Bryant
No, but I say on top of that, Tim, on top of that, a lot of places where these folks work because of confidentiality, because of secrecy, literally, unlike a soldier or a police officer or a security guard or whatever, somebody in law enforcement, military service, if they get killed in the line of duty or they die, there's a news flash as something. There's a parade, there's a presentation of the flag to the family, and there's a nobility about it. There's medals, all kind of thing. But oftentimes, this group of 300 around the world, they live in silence, they serve in secrecy, and often they die without recognition.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, true. Yeah. And to some degree, when you're in that community as well, and this is the important piece of trying to break that stigma, it could be viewed as a weakness.
John Hope Bryant
Yes, that's why you're saying that, that there's also. This is acknowledgement and recognition now, so that the stigma is now going away. So now it's not viewed as a weakness it so much anymore. Okay, got it.
Tim Crockett
And if. And, and sometimes it's tied to what you've seen, what you've experienced, like the loss of people close to you. Yes, there's that aspect to it, but it's also a fear. And this is where I'd like to sort of tie it more to. Again, this podcast and the word that Operation Hope does is the financial piece, because often that's not talked about. That is a stressor. Like debt is a stressor. So if you have things that you're trying to wrestle with and then you have just life and life Stresses adding to that, that's often why so many people will resort to taking their own life or giving up.
John Hope Bryant
You know, I had not put this together yet until you said this, but the minute you said that, I'm reminded because we have a hope inside the workplace at Atlanta Police Department. And they found that one of the highest bankruptcy rates amongst professionals, sorry, financial stress rates, which leads to bankruptcy with law enforcement. But they can't talk about it. And you often will see a law enforcement officer moonlighting in the evening at a club or whatever. They're trying to make extra money because they got too much month at the end of their money. By the way, I think it's a huge security risk to have the law enforcement officer essentially arresting somebody at 2 o' clock in the afternoon and theoretically maybe protecting them at 8 o' clock at night at the club. I mean, it's not inconceivable it's the same guy. Right. So I hadn't thought about how it extends everywhere. Of course it does. Makes perfect sense. So it's not so much the physical threat of the job they're doing or their service, or maybe it is what they saw. But on top of that, you've done all this for your country or for the world. You're traveling around the world, you're helping people, you come back home, stack of bills.
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
Your wife, your wife's screaming at you or whoever your kids are, like, I need school fees, whatever. And that wears on you on some of the people.
Tim Crockett
And a lot of people don't realize if you've served your whole career, like 20, 25 years, you'll get someone that is very experienced in that specialized role, whether it's security risk or again, flying planes. And yet they've not learned the basics of financial literacy.
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
Tim Crockett
And they've come from a world where they may have gotten free housing, they've got free medical and dental. Everything is sort of being meals, care.
John Hope Bryant
Of meals, meals, clothing, transportation, everything.
Tim Crockett
And then all of a sudden, in a very short period of time, they're just put out literally in civilian street. And you've got to try and figure this out.
John Hope Bryant
That can be depressing.
Tim Crockett
And it can be depressing. It's a shock to go and sort of transition and ask any military from in any part of the world that management of that transition is not very well done. They may get a 60 minute class on finances and just let loose if that. Yeah. So it's very easy for individuals to all of a sudden get themselves into trouble or have no idea of how to get a mortgage, how to manage their finances and everything else. And then you've got to realize some of these people that have spent their whole career in the military, they're pretty beaten up when they come out. So then health care costs, so that'll go through. Yes, you've got the VA and all the rest of it, but there are some things that there's just a matter of urgency where they've got to get work done. And again, they haven't planned for those costs. So in a very short space of time, they can go from being in this tight knit unit where they're very well looked after to literally drowning in debt.
John Hope Bryant
And, and if you and audience, you may not know this, you cannot keep your security clearance in the military. If you have financial stresses that are now obvious, bankruptcies, collections, it may risk your security clearance. You can't be in the military in the United States if you have these stresses. And so if you're around the military bases, the mouth of the military base, the entrance, you'll often find check cashers, payday loan lenders, rent to own stores, title lenders, liquor stores, all this stuff, because they're either trying to prey on somebody who they know is going to get a paycheck every two weeks and who cannot afford to get into financial trouble. So the payday here is an advance on your paycheck or whatever, but they know they're going to get it repaid. It's the federal government or you got a liquor store or somebody selling illicit, good, illicit drugs or whatever, trying to help you medicate, if you will, your depression. And so the same thing that happens in underserved neighborhoods, urban neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, happens at the mouth of a military base. By the way, this goes back to the Freedmen's bank of why Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, General Sherman, Secretary of War Stanton, tried to create a bank for formerly enslaved people chartered to teach free slaves about money. Because in the camps, yes, this happened back then in the 1800s, in the camps you have financial predators on payday, yes, they got paid, would show up even though the blacks had paid less than the white soldiers, would show up at the camp trying to separate the soldier who just got paid, who's financially illiterate, from their dollar. And so the bank was created as a way to domicile the savings, to protect the savings and put it. Tim, thank you so much. I hadn't even thought about all this stuff you're triggering all. And so that's how the Freedmen's bank got originally created was a protector, a protection of the savings of these soldiers. In this case, the black soldiers, formerly enslaved people who are not financially illiterate, never taught about money. They're out in the middle of nowhere being preyed upon. I don't know how the predators find them way out there dodging Confederate bullets. People do anything over money to try to separate these guys from their wallet and befriending them as if they're a friend. That's even worse. Now you got somebody acting like they like you, but really they're trying to take your money. Take your money. You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.
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John Hope Bryant
Okay, so you're doing this to help raise money for this good cause of mental health. Depression, anxiety, financial stress. What's the name of the nonprofit at the moment?
Tim Crockett
It was Tame the Kraken. So my analogy that the Kraken is a giant Norse mythical beast that would drag ships and sailors down to the bottom of the ocean. And that was my analogy for PTSD and stress, mental health conditions and so forth. So tame the Kraken.
John Hope Bryant
Tame the Kraken. How do you spell Kraken? For my US Audience?
Tim Crockett
K, R, A K, E, N. Is it available now?
John Hope Bryant
Can they go on the website?
Tim Crockett
The website's still there.
John Hope Bryant
Tamethekken US but the nonprofit that got the benefit from this the first time, the mental health.
Tim Crockett
So the 2018, 19 row, I had a charity on each side of the Atlantic in the uk it was called Combat Stress, which is one of the first organizations to help address mental health issues. Set up in the UK after the first World War. And here in the US it was called Give an Hour. Whether you're getting clinicians, psychiatrists donate their time to help veterans get into some sort of program as quickly as possible. So those were the two organizations I was supporting.
John Hope Bryant
So anybody watching this, if you have a skill, you have a talent, you've got mental health abilities, you're a nurse, you're a doctor, you're a clinician, you're a psychologist, you're a financial advisor, you're a financial leader, you can volunteer. You can volunteer at Operation Hope for the financial side, but you can also volunteer for these organizations to help these military veterans and special office special operations officers to manage through the civilian parts of their lives, which nobody prepared them for. All right, in the last 15 minutes we have left, everybody wants to hear like, okay, blah, blah, blah, tell me about going across the dang on Ocean in 45 days. So let's get to that. You, you, you announced to me one day, you made me need a little time off. You do this little, this little, this little boat ride from San Francisco, as I recall.
Tim Crockett
Yep.
John Hope Bryant
And you had an Operation Hope sticker on the boat?
Tim Crockett
Yeah, well, it was on several parts of the boat and the website and everything else. So, yes, after doing the Atlantic, the plan was always to do more. But then we had this little thing called the Global pandemic that got in the way. So that need to continue to scratch that itch has been there for the last six years or so. Yeah, I thought Pacific is the next. I thought it would be easier. Short challenge, sort of. It's. I can be in the US and just See finish in the US as well. So didn't have to go to another country.
John Hope Bryant
Could be easier because they landed going to Europe. Yeah, we'll just do the Pacific.
Tim Crockett
So. So the planning and the logistics were going to be a lot easier. So I thought.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
And yes, we, we left out of Sausalito on the north side of San Francisco Bay, rode underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and then actually was 48 days or 47 days and change when we arrived. Then in Hilo on the big island of Hawaii.
John Hope Bryant
And I would text you every now and then, hey man, let me know you're alive. Did a shark get you? I mean, what do I need to send somebody? If something happened to you, Popes wouldn't know for days, right?
Tim Crockett
Yeah. So anyone has rowed both oceans will say that it's harder. The first half of the row is harder than the Atlantic, but the second half is a lot easier. And this is all relative to sea states, how big the waves are, how much sun you've got and everything else. As you pointing out, we're on a little 24 foot boat, completely self sufficient. We have to take our own food. We have marine batteries and solar panels that provide power that will run a water maker which kind of desalinates the seawater because you wouldn't be able to carry that much water with you. But that second half of more favorable weather and sun and all the sort of things that we were waiting for never happened. So when you go, I think out of the 48 days we had three days of sun.
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
Tim Crockett
We probably had a couple of few days of kind of mixed sun. So we had to be very conscious of our power because if we couldn't run the water maker, we didn't have water.
John Hope Bryant
Yes.
Tim Crockett
And without water we couldn't rehydrate our food. Couldn't.
John Hope Bryant
Or yourself.
Tim Crockett
So there's that whole Maslow law in terms of you can go three minutes without air, three days without water, you can go three weeks without food. So when it came to power management.
John Hope Bryant
And how we were, can the average person go three weeks without food? Is that true?
Tim Crockett
That's what they say. Yes.
John Hope Bryant
I was told that most people, most societies are seven days from anarchy. Seven meals. I'm sorry, from anarchy.
Tim Crockett
Well, that's the difference between, well, the body, what you need actually physiologically versus the psyche.
John Hope Bryant
Got it.
Tim Crockett
People go three hours without a snack of some sort and I'll start to go a little bit antsy and get angry. So, yeah, we had a lot going on, managing all of that and Sometimes communications and sometimes we had this little satellite dish, it's called a bgan. The newer versions of these are like what we see with Starlink, which you've.
John Hope Bryant
Installed on my stuff. Starlink, yeah.
Tim Crockett
So but to get up onto satellite you need a stable platform.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
Tim Crockett
But when the boat is rocking and rolling on, on big seas. I think some of the biggest seas we had were 40, 50 foot waves what coming out of San Francisco because like you said, we had two hurricanes on the nowhere near us. But even 150 miles away it can have an effect on the weather systems that you're in. And we had a big weather system to the northwest of us, so we were stuck in all of that. So we were like in a washing machine for 45 days or so during the crossing. So there were times that we literally could not get up on the satellite to connect and send messages back and forth.
John Hope Bryant
And a 30, 40 foot wave, unless you ride it, it's going to crash over you. Yeah, it can flip you.
Tim Crockett
It can do. I think within the first two days we almost capsized three times, which slows down when you get to those sort of conditions. It's not safe to row. It's certainly not safe to row with my 19 year old son. So we would deploy this piece of equipment called a power anchor, which is like a giant parachute that would grab the water and turn the boat into the waves. So yes, you still got the waves crashing over you, but they're not side on where the, the risk of sized and rolled with big waves.
John Hope Bryant
So this piece of technology, this, this anchor, water anchor essentially would. Which literally points you into the wave.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, yeah. So you run it off the, the bow, off the front of the boat. So that's the narrowest part of the boat itself and it just then holds you. So the wind is always going to push you further. So you just literally hold you in the water and the waves will just crash over you, but in a, in a, in a safer fashion.
John Hope Bryant
Okay. And you had a little place that you could retreat to to sleep.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, we had two little sort of cabins which were watertight, which is part of the, kind of the, the safety that's built into the boat. So if you were happened to be cap. Capsized, you've got these two bubbles of air that would then kind of pop you back out on top of the, the water and heat exhaustion, heat exhaustion, salt sores. Again, you're in a wet, humid environment and occasionally it would dry out whether you're in a cabin or not. So you're always damp. But salt water, not that particular, not all that clean. But obviously as this, as the water dries, it leaves behind salt crystals. So it's almost like sandpaper. Anything that would chafe from your toes in your shoes to your crotch, your sat. So it's your feet, hands and backside always wet and in contact with the boat. So you'll get sores and those sores will get infected. So again, there's a certain amount and.
John Hope Bryant
There'S no pharmacy out there.
Tim Crockett
Pharmacy. We have to take our own medical equipment. You'll get infection, infected blisters that you have to deal with. So your body is just fighting this as you kind of have to deal with the environment that you're in as well.
John Hope Bryant
And now you're worried about your son because you want him out.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. That was the one thing that I probably didn't fully appreciate. So when I did the Atlantic, I was solo. So I knew myself, I knew how far I could push myself. I was also a medic in the military, so I could attend to any of these issues. My son, again, he's not had any of these big life experiences. He's never been in that situation before. We did some training. We did obviously our own preparation. So I knew I was comfortable him coming out on the water with me. He was competent and he was fairly confident in tackling what we had. But again, still a big unknown for him. What I didn't fully appreciate is that parental need to look after your offspring. Yes, yes, I was going to look after him, but that being hardwired into you is different. When there's another team member, a crew member, and you're sharing the workload back and forth, you're rowing for two hours, I'm resting for two hours and vice versa. But when you're in big Cs and the prospect of this other stuff going on, when it's your son now just different, I'm gonna worry more.
John Hope Bryant
Yes.
Tim Crockett
Any little noise I hear out on deck, I'm gonna open the hatch and make sure he's okay.
John Hope Bryant
Yes.
Tim Crockett
So that was much more wearing on me emotionally than kind of than if it was just someone that was a crewmate. Crew member.
John Hope Bryant
And psychologically, I mean, it might change some of your decision making.
Tim Crockett
It did. I was much more measured and risk averse. And then I were than I was when I was a solo.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
So the sea conditions on the Atlantic forced me to go on power anchor a couple of times. That's literally because the wind was blowing me in the wrong direction. I chose or we chose to go on power anchor probably three or four more times than we perhaps needed to because it was just. I didn't want my son to be out in the darkness with the prospect of getting capsized.
John Hope Bryant
Yes. And so, audience, I need you to listen. This relates to health insurance. It relates to life insurance. It relates to the choices you make when you're 30, 40, versus with a family and when you're 20 and you're on your own. And I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who made a couple hundred thousand dollars when he was 20 and he was about to get married, and his wife was like, well, what'd you do with the money? You made a couple hundred thousand dollars a year? He said, I spent it. Right. I was enjoying myself. I had no responsibilities. I had an apartment, I had a nice car, and I made it and I spent it. That's the whole point of being 20 years old with $200,000 a year is to enjoy yourself. By the time he got married, he had to think about getting a house and getting insurance. And now he's more measured. Now, he is a guy who's got ADD and tissue deficit disorder, and he's not a party animal, but he loves life. And up until very recently, he would just go and go on these elaborate vacations. And recently he said he's gotten more measured. He still goes and has fun still. But it's a. It's not. He's not trying. He's like, he's trying to. I'm trying to save money. Now he's at a different point of his life, and now he's concerned about his children, concerned about his wife and making sure they've got what they need. It's not just about his immediate gratification. So it's similar analogy that when you're on your own, you took more risk than when you had somebody you had to care for and be. Be concerned about your protection and theirs. It's the same philosophy.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. No, the same principles apply. Yeah. And that was one of the things that. It wasn't planned when we went into this. When he agreed to row with me, it was less about the actual row. Yes. We still had our mission about raising awareness for veterans mental health. We hadn't even considered the prospect of world records and everything else. It was having that shared experience in his. At his age, 19, like I said that I think the. The previous youngest was someone like 24, 25. That's a lot of life between those, like, five years.
John Hope Bryant
Yes.
Tim Crockett
And the opportunities now that will be allowed or afforded him having done this, number one, he knows he can attempt anything.
John Hope Bryant
Yes, he's got cool points out the yangi.
Tim Crockett
He's got the cool points.
John Hope Bryant
Every date works for him now. Every date. Every date. Tell me what you did last week. What is the most exciting thing you've done? When I went to a concert for this rock band, what did you do? Well, I went and rolled across. How many miles is it?
Tim Crockett
It was about 2,400 nautical miles. So it was about 26, 27 normal miles.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah. And his confidence goes up, his self.
Tim Crockett
Esteem goes up again, his confidence in himself and the ability to now tackle anything he couldn't do or apply himself. Now there's a flip side to that. He can't come up with the excuse saying I can't do that.
John Hope Bryant
Exactly.
Tim Crockett
Yes you can. Exactly. And you'd be amazed that whatever you struggle well at, again, it can be very life affirming and so forth. So yes, that was kind of a secondary aim for me was to instill that in him. I knew he had the confidence and the competence to do this, but he had to learn that himself. So I think coming out of this now, literally the world is his oyster and all those other sort of things that like being able to plan, manage risk, like have project management, project management again, budgets. Yeah, budgeting, like I said. All of that now translates from ocean rowing into time management, time management, risk management. Yeah, it all environmental and management and like building for the future, like I said, having that resiliency, knowing that you can't control everything but you control what you can control and that's yourself, your mindset, all those things will translate into, like I said, building generational wealth. Start planning now and you can just tackle so much more.
John Hope Bryant
Again, we're running out of time. There's so much I want to cover, but we're trying to do this in five minutes or so. It's been fantastic and some pleasant surprises. You're in the middle of the ocean. It's all about mindset now. You're trying to help people with their mental health, raising money, mental health. You may wonder about your own. You're in the middle of the dang on ocean, you're half pregnant, you can't turn around. Was there any time when you said to yourself, what in the heyo am I doing?
Tim Crockett
No, that didn't, didn't cross my mind.
John Hope Bryant
Did it cross your son's mind?
Tim Crockett
It didn't cross my mind on the Atlantic when I was by myself, but I think we were day three and because of the conditions we were in, and again, we're exhausted. We're both exhausted. My son said, I'm not sure if I can do this.
John Hope Bryant
Wow, about 30, 30% in.
Tim Crockett
And like you said, three days in. Three days in.
John Hope Bryant
So not 33 days of 47 days.
Tim Crockett
But we'd already. So it's around about 100 miles off the coast is that point of no return, because that's the limit of the Coast Guard helicopters coming out to rescue.
John Hope Bryant
100 miles off the coast is the limit of a rescue from the Coast Guard.
Tim Crockett
Now you can pull a beacon and then maritime law dictates that any ship close by, any ship close by will come to your rescue. But then that could still be a number of days away. Now, I knew that he was just going through a little bit of a wobble because he'd never experienced it. Day one, at 5:30 in the morning, he's still asleep in a comfortable hotel bed. Literally 15 hours later, we're tackling 50 foot waves. And that was relentless for those first few days. And he came to me and thought, I don't think I can do this. And I said to him, well, if you want to give up now, you've got to come to that conclusion. I'm not going to make that decision for you because you'll then go through the rest of your life thinking, well, could I have done it? Spoke to his mom, he spoke to his sister. And then I also told him, I.
John Hope Bryant
Said, look, you had a sat phone, satellite phone.
Tim Crockett
But I also told him, I said, if you decide that you want to get off the ride now, it's still seven to 10 days of rowing to row back to the coast. And I told him, I said, if you do that, I said, we're going to be through the worst of it anyway. And then he sort of went, okay, I'll carry on.
John Hope Bryant
You know, by the way, let's give your son some credit. What's his name?
Tim Crockett
Harrison.
John Hope Bryant
Harrison Crockett. Crockett. Okay. And people can go to your website and see some of this stuff that you guys did.
Tim Crockett
Yeah, you can go to the website, go to any of our social media. If you go to Instagram, kind of the whole story is, what are they looking for? So it's tame. The Kraken. Aim the Kraken.
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John Hope Bryant
Okay, so again, it's so much here. And I mean I talked to you a couple times, didn't I? No, no, I talked to you. Or was it text messaging?
Tim Crockett
Text messaging back and forth?
John Hope Bryant
Was it physical call? No, I think I talked. Did I talk to you physically one time, voice to voice?
Tim Crockett
No, I think it was you sent me a voice note.
John Hope Bryant
Voice notes.
Tim Crockett
You sent voice notes and you sent.
John Hope Bryant
Me a voice note back.
Tim Crockett
Yes, that's right.
John Hope Bryant
Right. And you saw me sent me photos. Well, that's where I saw the opera show logo. What was the worst moment and the best moment or moments in this 47 days?
Tim Crockett
Well, the best moment is easy when you finish when you get off the boat and you're reunited with your family, friends and so forth. That that experience is just other than our own company, we hadn't seen Another human being for nearly 48 days. So that is just a great experience.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
Tim Crockett
And it wasn't too far before that. Only literally a matter of hours, which was. Was probably our worst for me, for Harrison, was probably that time when he thought he was going to give up. We're coming into Hilo, the Big island, and there was a patch of water that is it the currents, the weather systems, the wind, the waves are all messed up. And it's not something that you can pull off a chart or pull off a.
John Hope Bryant
There we go. In between the Hawaiian islands. I told it's very dangerous.
Tim Crockett
This is sort of size of kind of Hilo Bay. Okay. And it's because you've got the currents sort of whipping around that. That part of the island, but also the weather systems that are coming off the mountain, the volcano. And we were we. The day or literally the 24 hours prior to that was our biggest day. I think we did like 60, some odd miles and then we kind of just rolling. You're rolling. Yeah. And we just ran into what felt like a brick wall. We thought we were going to get to this. This buoy that sort of marks when we would like, literally turn in because we have to manage the currents, because Hilo Bay. To the south of Hilo Bay, rocky shoreline. To the north of Hilo Bay, rocky shoreline. So if you don't get the approach right for the last 10, 15 miles, you're gonna end up on the rocks unless you get rescued by a safety boat. So the approach is very sort of critical. And I'm talking with my weather writer.
John Hope Bryant
And planning, by the way, Everybody just know 70% of the world is water. Just to be clear, 70% of the world is water. And human beings have only explored 5% of the 70%. Most of that is unexplored, completely different world. Separate podcast idea for another time. Go ahead.
Tim Crockett
So a very intense period where we have to wrap, and again, we're still taking turns because I'd rode so hard the 24 hours period we both had. We're exhausted and we're coming up, and I think I must have been suffering a little bit from heat exhaustion. And we should have been rowing kind of southwest, and I was rowing off northwest, and all of a sudden my messenger app on our kind of satellite beacon was pinging away, and it was the weather writer saying, everything okay, you're going in the wrong direction. You need to get back within the next, like 30 minutes, otherwise you're not going to make it. So that was, I think, a difficult time. Because I'm a little bit loopy. Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
Delirious.
Tim Crockett
I had to pull my son out of his rest period. We basically had to go two up. So we're both rowing at the same time for about an hour to bring us back on course.
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
Tim Crockett
While also managing, like, literally. I would row for like 15 minutes, have to retreat to the cabin, try and hydrate just to stop myself from collapsing.
John Hope Bryant
You could have, you could have missed the island.
Tim Crockett
Well, we would have essentially ended up on the rocks.
John Hope Bryant
In the rocks.
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
Which is worse.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. Because it was that critical for about a two hour period. But then we got back on. Once we crossed that, then we were home and dry.
John Hope Bryant
By the way, if he had missed the island, there's nothing else out there. Australia, which is how far away.
Tim Crockett
That would have been another 5000 miles.
John Hope Bryant
So they had rode 2500 miles.
Tim Crockett
Yeah.
John Hope Bryant
So it would have been another two and a half months before the next. Yeah, more than that. Okay. So the, the worst was reaching your physical and psychological and mental limits. And I'm sure that was tough, given how tough you are and also protecting your son and seeing him go through that. And the best, of course, was finally getting there again. It was an earthquake. There was an earthquake in Russia. It triggered a tsunami warning. I know, because we were monitoring that. You were monitoring that for us, even though you're rowing as we're going into Hawaii ourselves. And luckily that didn't create any drama for you.
Tim Crockett
It didn't. And there was nothing we could do about it anyway.
John Hope Bryant
Why worry about that?
Tim Crockett
So it's like, okay, we're probably perhaps in a safer position than, than those that were on, on the shore because Hilo, that area had obviously been devastated several times throughout history through tsunamis.
John Hope Bryant
Only you would say that out in the middle of nowhere in little peacups called a boat with no sails and no motor. I'm like, yeah, we're safer than people on shore. So here's some lessons that I, that I just heard. Never ever, ever, ever, ever give up. Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Take no for vitamins. Keep your mindset straight, tight. Right. Otherwise all will be lost. Faith is what you do when you don't have all the facts. Even the strong get insecure and lose it temporarily. Jesus Christ. There's a story of Jesus when he was being crucified. He said even though he knew it was going to happen, he knew this is preordained. He said basically, father, why have you forsaken me? I mean, he was in so much pain that even this man of almost complete faith. Well, complete faith had an insecurity. Dad. Yo, Pops. Like, why are you doing this to me, Lord? Why have you forsaken me?
Tim Crockett
Father?
John Hope Bryant
Why have you forsaken me? And then before he passed away, he said, forgive them, Lord. They know not what they do. He snapped back. But there was that moment. We all have that moment. Rainbows after storms. Never let a crisis go to waste. You only grow through legitimate suffering. So you pushing through that, your son pushing through that just makes that resiliency. Never, ever, ever give up. Makes you stronger.
Tim Crockett
Yep.
John Hope Bryant
Okay, let's now pivot. We're out of time, but let's spend a couple minutes on. Let's go back to why this is important for me and Operation Hope to do. Why? You know, 10 years ago, I didn't need this. 10 years ago, I'm just trying to make some money. What? 20 years ago, just trying to make some money. 10 years ago, I'm trying to build some wealth now. You got a brand? Maybe I'm answering the question now. You have a brand to protect. You have a reputation. Folks don't kill you now with bullets, but they. Sometimes they do. They. They can kill you with your reputation. They can kill you digitally. They can. They can hack your devices. They can hold your organization ransom, literally take over all your servers, your mainframe servers, and hold your organization ransom, and won't release it until you give them cryptocurrency or something. There's. There's a whole new world out here. Most of us. You sent me an email today that showed that there were 25 imposters running around on TikTok saying, They're me. Yeah, that was just earlier today, and.
Tim Crockett
That'S almost on a week, on a monthly basis.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah, yeah. People creating imposter accounts for me saying that they're me. Somebody told me that somebody, a friend of mine told me. I know why they didn't reach out to me. Said that somebody thought it was me and. And sent $25,000 to somebody because they were soliciting them. If you hear anybody saying that they're me and they're asking for money, it's not me. That's not what I do. That's crazy. Why is it. Maybe I just answered it part. Why is it important for an organization at this level, a guy like me at this level, or a woman, to have. Why is risk management cheap insurance for brand equity?
Tim Crockett
Yeah, well, there's two sides of that. Like, risk is often associated with all the bad stuff. That you just sort of alluded to. And that's important because. Yes, when you have a. Again, some notoriety, you have wealth, obviously somebody wants to take that. Yeah. You have people out there that they feel that they've been, I know, dealt a bad hand.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
And they want to take away what you have built or what the organization.
John Hope Bryant
Has built because they feel they. They just mean or they feel like they're desperate or they feel like they need. They deserve it or whatever.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. So we've got to protect all of that across all those different domains. Like I said, digitally, cyber, reputationally, physically. And not just through you, obviously, but also the organization, my family. Yeah. But then also there's the positive side of risk, because if you can manage all of the downside, you create opportunities. And that's often something that people don't realize. If you know where the Punji Pits are and the swamps and the deep water and the bad weather and all that sort of stuff, you can navigate a path where some people will fear to tread. So you can create opportunity.
John Hope Bryant
Gives you more confidence.
Tim Crockett
You can create opportunity by knowing, I know what the risks are. When you understand risk, you can then start to think, okay, if I do this, the upside could be that, and.
John Hope Bryant
You can go faster in the safe.
Tim Crockett
Areas, you can go faster predetermined, and you can exploit new territories. If you know how to manage risk in a foreign country which is now being developed, being in there first, that often will provide you with greater returns because you're in there.
John Hope Bryant
We do that in underserved communities today.
Tim Crockett
That's the upside of risk. So, yes, you want to manage the downside and protect against that across all those different domains. But then having that understanding of risk will allow you to approach things with more confidence, take on more of that risk. It's just like debt. There's good debt and bad debt that we've talked about plenty of times. There's good risk and there's bad risk, and we want to mitigate the bad risk and we want to exploit and take risk, educated risk. So if you do your research on a new country, a new piece of software and whatever it is, invest in it, you're likely to get greater returns.
John Hope Bryant
So when I go into an area, if I go into a risky area, risky community, a risky city, a risky country, or whatever Tim's doing, Tim and his team, they do a. They do a threat assessment and they do an analysis. They're working with the embassy, they're working with law enforcement. Again, this is all stuff you just don't see and they'll do a threat assessment and they'll say this one's okay or this one is not okay. We need to put a team with you, which you won't never see. And that allows me to not worry about it. Now think about it. I can move fast. I know that this path in front of me has been secured or been protected or at least the path that we're driving on is fine. So then I can go really fast. Don't spend my mind doing with a part of my mind managing risk or being worried about things.
Tim Crockett
Exactly. We want to remove that burden of risk or security or whatever it may be from you so you can do what you do best.
John Hope Bryant
But also this relies. It applies to even me sending an email. If I'm concerned that email can be hacked or that I've got some threat risk, maybe I don't send the email or I send it. But if I say, oh no, I'm in secure communication, I send the notes, send the text, whatever. So all this stuff allows you. I hadn't thought about the positive side of risk management before you write.
Tim Crockett
Yeah. And that's what I think small businesses need to pay attention to because if you. Because it's very hard to differentiate yourself from your competitors. But if you are good at risk management, you're more likely to get investment from bankers and outside like VC firms. Everything else which will help you grow, it will allow you to get more resources to do more. If you're a bit like blase about managing risk, then like banks, investors, they will do that. They'll be doing their risk assessment on you.
John Hope Bryant
That's right.
Tim Crockett
So if you're not like secure in what you do, if you're one way in your professional life, but your cavalier in your personal life, online, all the rest of it, your risk, that creates risk.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
Tim Crockett
And they're less likely to invite you. So like it's an important business trait to have. And again, it's not just about business or small business in your personal life as well, if, if you watch what you're posting on social media seem to be a certain way, like people lack trust in you because you've posted something online. Again, it can all come back to haunt you. And again, it's not about saying no to things, it's doing things thoughtfully, with intention and professionally.
John Hope Bryant
There's so many things we could talk about. I mean, I thought we'd do 40 minutes. We could do an hour and 40 minutes. We're going to stop now because we can go on forever. But you're really smart and they introduce me a nice guy and lethal, which I need you. You're really smart and, and you're very, I mean the wisdom just keep on coming. There's so many overlaps between effectively what I do and what you do. And I hope you guys got something of this. Look, if you're a small business owner listening to this or you're somebody building a brand, watch what you're putting online. If don't post your home address, don't take your GPS off of your, your phone if you're posting stuff. People, people are bad guys are paying attention. Don't post when you're at home. Not away, not at home. And then say you're not at home. That's how people signal to go rob you because you're not at home. Like be thoughtful and don't post stuff you're going to regret later. Like, you know, get drunk in private. Just not literally. And there are cheap things you can do, inexpensive things you can do. There's software you can get off of the, off the shelf that will give you a layer of protection. Most, you know, Apple iPhones have encryption now. And if you're going to use, if you're going to text things that are confidential, don't just text it over. Like literally texting on phones was created as an afterthought by mobile phone companies is another. When I break down the mobile phone industry, I'll explain that, but it was, there's not a lot of protections around it. You're going to do that use a protected app that has encrypt, I don't want to name one, and I endorse them that has encryption tied into it so that there's some sense of that what you're communicating on a business basis is protected, won't get grabbed by somebody, some bad guy out of the sky. What are some other simple things that people can do to protect themselves?
Tim Crockett
Do you research? I know what the risks are. Everyone here in Atlanta. When I first came here, I came from Afghanistan. Within the first three weeks here, I almost got mugged.
John Hope Bryant
Wow.
Tim Crockett
And I was in an area that did not have outward signs that I was in a bad neighborhood because I hadn't done my homework right handed, my research right. I'd let my guard down and I could have got myself into some trouble. So know the risks before you go there.
John Hope Bryant
Yeah.
Tim Crockett
Like you could easily any, anyone will go to their own hometown and they'll say, oh yeah, avoid these areas because you know your own area.
John Hope Bryant
Right.
Tim Crockett
You go To a different city, different country. You don't know those areas. So time spent on research will help. Going to anything like a business venture, vacation, just travel, so education, especially today on your phone, Internet. It's free. It's free and it's easy. With AI, you can literally say, I'm thinking of going in this location. What are the top five top ten risks that I need to be aware of? Yeah, and AI will give you everything. Obviously, don't take it for gospel. Yeah, do a little bit more research, perhaps run it through another that will follow the link through and find out what their sources are. But very quickly and very easily, you can know what the risks are in different destination, different country, business venture and so forth. There's a lot of information out there. I think the problem from my profession now is not the access to information. It's being able to filter it, analyze it.
John Hope Bryant
There's too much information.
Tim Crockett
Too much information.
John Hope Bryant
A lot of it bad.
Tim Crockett
So to say that, oh, I didn't know. Again, that's not an excuse.
John Hope Bryant
These days you got to be dumb to fail. These days you got to really work at it, because the information is out there for everybody. If you take the time to analyze it, you knowsy like me, you'll come down to the crux of it. And as an entrepreneur, somebody may say, my God, you do nothing but take risk. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. By the time I do something, I run all the risk out of it. It feels very safe for me because I know what I'm doing.
Tim Crockett
That's the upside. Agitate.
John Hope Bryant
I've mapped the neighborhood, so to speak. Exactly. Tim Crockett, I love you, man. Thanks for spending this hour with me and enlightening the audience. I didn't realize how much overlay with financial literacy and wealth creation and money management and just life management. What you do and what. What we do, I have much compassion and empathy for. Well, thanks for, first of all, people in your profession and thank you for your service. Thank them for their service and your friend who passed away, may he rest in heaven, he's been remembered. And thank you for giving yourself your life so we might remember his. And we will make a. We made a contribution. We'll make another one. Now that you're back, we don't know you're going to survive or not, so we didn't want to give you too much money.
Tim Crockett
Now that you're back, we'll give you edge your bets.
John Hope Bryant
Exactly. And so thanks for all you do, and thanks for all that we will do. Going forward, we didn't cover a whole lot that we could have. But let's just say when I say business, business is not personal and capitalism is a gladiator sport. Like the stuff that he and I have seen just together in the last few years would gray your hair in 24 hours. Most people, like, it's just unbelievable. People are just unbelievably selfish, cruel, nasty, greedy, a lie. I mean, and you can't take that personal. I mean, it's unfortunately the nature of where we are in the world today and probably the way the world's always been. We're just seeing more of it. But focus on the light. Focus on the good people. Like, don't let the bad things taint you. Always go to the light. Meet people like Tim Crockett and your son.
Tim Crockett
Thank you.
John Hope Bryant
And you, I've met many, many, many, many of you. And I mean 99.9% of interactions are just leave me inspired. So focus on the good people and just manage the risk of the bad. Step over mess and not in it. Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Crockett. Go change the world. It's been Money and wealth on the Black effect network on iHeartradio. Go change your life. Today, Money and Wealth with John o' Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Tim Crockett
I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching the Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one.
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We sit down with politicians, artists and.
John Hope Bryant
Activists to bring you depth and analysis.
Tim Crockett
From a unique Latino perspective. The Moment is a space for the conversations we've been having as father and daughter for years.
John Hope Bryant
Listen to the Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola ramos on the iHeartRadio app.
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.
In this special episode of Money and Wealth, John Hope Bryant welcomes Tim Crockett—Chief Risk Officer at Operation Hope, British Special Forces veteran, security expert, and extreme adventurer. Bryant uses Crockett’s extraordinary life and recent adventure (rowing 2,400 miles across the Pacific with his son) as a masterclass on managing risk, developing resilience, and why risk management is fundamental to building, preserving, and generationally transferring wealth. The conversation covers everything from Special Forces mindset to practical lessons on financial literacy to surviving both literal and metaphorical storms.
Visible vs. Invisible Security:
Why High Performers Need Risk Experts:
"How does someone get into this field?…When the FBI recommends you, you know you do hot crap." — John Hope Bryant (12:12)
Resilience and Pivoting: Lessons in Overcoming Ceilings
Transference of Skills & Mindset:
Firsthand in High-Stakes Environments:
The ‘Kraken’ of PTSD & Financial Stress:
Transitioning Dangers:
Atlantic & Pacific Crossings:
Overcoming the Impossible:
Details: 48 days at sea, 2,400+ nautical miles, storms, near capsizes, equipment challenges, exhaustion, danger of missing the Hawaiian islands—narrated in vivid, suspense-filled detail (52:15–59:09, 64:10–73:14).
Psychological Resilience: Persevering under hardest conditions is likened to the perseverance needed in financial adversity.
Memorable Moment: On Day 3, Crockett’s son, overwhelmed, says: “I’m not sure if I can do this.” Crockett refuses to make the decision for him—reinforcing the lesson that resilience and persistence are choices (64:58–66:35).
Risk: Not Just Downside Protection, But Upside Opportunity
Practical Tips on Security for Wealth-Builders:
On Quiet Confidence and Real Power:
“He’s the kind of power I like…when you got real power, you don’t need to flex. It’s just an is.” — John Hope Bryant (08:10)
On the Strong Why:
“Enthusiasm will get you so far…discipline will get you so far…but you need something that’s bigger than that to keep pulling you through—the strong why.” — Tim Crockett (38:05)
On Invisible Service:
“This group of 300 around the world—they live in silence, they serve in secrecy, and often they die without recognition.” — John Hope Bryant (40:30)
On Parenting & Risk:
“When it’s your son, it’s different...I was much more measured and risk-averse than when I was solo.” — Tim Crockett (59:09)
On Resilience:
"Never ever, ever, ever give up…Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." — John Hope Bryant (75:33)
Tim Crockett’s story is a powerful real-world parable on why managing risk—whether at sea, in business, or in life—is indispensable to building lasting wealth, personal resilience, and generational legacy. John Hope Bryant expertly bridges the world of high-stakes security with practical advice for entrepreneurs, business leaders, and anyone striving to thrive while rowing through risk.