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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Tier One podcast. I am your host, Brent Tucker, owner of FRCC. Go to FRCC Shop and use promo code Tier One to get 15 off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon.
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B
And I'm Drew Tucker, taste tester at first responder coffee, cigar and cast company. Visit us at FRCC Shop.
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I invite you to join the Patreon there. There's behind the scenes content, there's a
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B
fitness forum, a gun forum.
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It's all brought to you by Cobalt Kinetics. And Cobalt Kinetics has a weapons expert in our gun form ready to answer
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B
all your technical questions.
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A
Join the Patreon and as always, this episode is brought to you by Human Performance TRT. Go to hp-trt.com use promo code tier one. That's T I E R, the number one. And get 20% off your testosterone and peptides. Don't wait any longer to get in the best shape of your life. Get blood work done, find out what you need and be the best you can be for yourself, for your wife, for your kids, for your family, for your employment. There's so many health benefits to getting your blood work right. Please stop struggling. Get it done. All right, Drew, let's go. Welcome to the Tier one Podcast.
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B
This is amazing.
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A
Dude, check this out. With us today we have Justin Klon, author of the Innovator's Handbook, a field manual he wrote about his experiences with a few small companies that he's worked for. You may know some of them. Nike, the Delta Force, Under Armour, Lululemon, Harvard, CIA, darpa, Apple, Kanye West, Gwyneth Paltrow. The. The list goes on. You're either the luckiest man in the world to work with and around all these people, or you're the most interesting man in the world.
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B
Well, I'm definitely a problem solver like yourself, so I think that's why we're here. Long history of that. Both of us.
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A
Yeah, I'm, I'm glad you said that. And clearly I'd like to maybe take credit for your problem solving centric way of thinking with your exposure to the Delta Force.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Yeah, I've, I've, I've said it before. Just the number one attribute you can have as, as a person is being a problem solver. If, if you take Delta Force Operator, for example, we can teach you how to shoot. We can, we can teach you how to lift heavy weights, we can teach you how to skydive. Being a problem solver is more of a almost to one to on one hand, and I Want to get your opinion on this and an innate thing that you're born with to some degree, some people are just better naturally at problem solving than others. But is it, is, is it something you're born with? Is it something you develop? Is it C is a little bit of both. What do you.
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B
I mean, it's definitely a perishable skill. I mean, we were talking yesterday about you as an instructor in CQB and doing all the force on four stuff you do and coming from the best unit in the world, you know, it's a perishable skill. And I think we, we agree that the more reps you get in problem solving, the more experiences you get, the more diverse you're able to apply them in different environments. And you touched on that as a cornerstone of a tier one operator, is ultimate problem solver. And that's what I experienced with your unit as well.
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A
Yeah, I think it's something that through your life experience, your education, your and your life lessons education which kind of goes back to experience when we talk about at a. Not on your job at an early age, which allows you to be a problem solver at an early age. Yeah, but you're right. And then you couple that with true experience on the job or different jobs and that's what really culminates a true problem solver. But we talked about this before the show. It's just not something that gets talked about enough. We talk about people like leadership training. We're so enamored, whether it be the business world or even parts of the military, about leadership training. I would, I would scrap all that because I, if, if you spent this much time and you don't know how to be a leader yet, I, I just, I've just never seen anyone take a, a leadership class.
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B
Right.
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A
And go from being a poor leader. He took a leadership course, now he's a great one. Like it's, it's just not going to happen.
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B
They're usually teaching templates and you know, methodologies, so to speak.
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A
You know, I would teach problem solving and again, you're not going to take someone that has no ability to problem solve to a magical problem solver. But it is something you can move the needle on and it's so important in every aspect of business, combat and life.
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B
Yeah, well, and you have to have an aptitude for it. It has to be something I think like you touched on. You grow up in an environment where you either have to be adaptive, you have to be facing things that are uncomfortable and you work your way through Them and a lot of times I think the best problem solvers, at least speaking for myself, my dad was a fighter pilot, Air Force fighter pilot. And so high processing. He was also a chemical engineer. He looked at everything as a problem to solve. And so I got exposed a lot to how would you approach that differently, you know, kind of a thing.
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A
I'm, I'm a little concerned but I want to be that, that old guy that says, well, we were great and this is why we're great. The next generation is going to suck. But I'm, but whenever things change, I am interested to see if it, if it, if it changes either for the better or continues. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. We were talking actually thinking like being problem solvers as, as a kid, all three of us, same generation. You had to be a problem solver as a kid because here was, here was the problem. Get out of the house.
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B
Right.
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A
You have no money.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You have very little resources to, to, to make it a good time. Don't come back and the street lights are on. Good luck.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You didn't know that was a problem necessarily at the time. Well, well, well, you kind of did. You knew it was a problem. Let's, let's go figure this out.
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B
Right.
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A
And, and that's what we did. Like every day as a kid you're
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B
problem solving, trying to entertain yourself, trying
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A
to entertain yourself resources on a limited time frame and you made it happen and the creative kids figured it out.
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B
Yeah.
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A
This generation doesn't have that. But what they do have is, they do have video games. Video games is, is problem solving.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So I don't want to just be like, hey, well you know, we're, it's, we were the, we were the last set of problem solvers. I do think it matters that it, I do think, think that it matters that one is a real life problem solver and one's virtual and I don't know if it's going to translate, but I don't know and we'll see.
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B
Well, in real life there's consequences, right. When you get in trouble in real life there's consequences and trouble might just mean, you know, there's a kid that wants something you have and you got to figure out how do I keep what I have or this kid's going to take it, you know, I mean in just kid or you've got to get somewhere, you know, or, or I don't know, you.
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A
Yeah, I get what you're saying.
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B
Today in the virtual world, they're basically like, they're on their couch, they're on their chair.
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A
There's no consequences of that.
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B
And so.
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A
So the stakes are much lower.
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B
It's different. Yeah, it's totally different. You know, I mean, and they have their own problems, right? They're facing different problems, social problems, relationship interaction stuff. And it's complicated.
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A
But. Well, let's. Let's dig into it and let's. Let's see where your, where your problem solving began. How. How did you get. And I believe your. Your first big opportunity was with. Or. Or I shouldn't say big opportunity, but opportunity to work with a big company. Was. Was Nike correct?
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B
Right.
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A
How'd that, How'd that come about?
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B
Well, I grew up doing martial arts from a young age, and I got invited into Nike at the headquarters to start a martial arts program for the corporate, you know, after work, kind of like, hey, we think it'd be good to offer this as some kind of, you know, they have a big, obviously athletic program there.
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A
Okay.
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B
And, and employees in the organization are encouraged to work out as much as they want. I mean, there. That is a plus in that organization.
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A
Like that.
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B
It's good culture, health, wellness, all that stuff. I mean, not to sidebar it, but it's like you could be a runner, you could be a cyclist. You go out for two or three hours, be gone at lunchtime for an extended period of time, and you could come back and just work late, you know, so it's, it's, it's.
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A
I like that. Big boy rules.
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B
So going in there and bringing a program in was, Was a great opportunity as a young man. You know, I think I was 24, 25 when that was first offered to me. And so were you.
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A
Were you a black belt at the time?
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B
Yeah.
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A
And were you teaching already or you just happened to have a relationship with someone?
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B
I had, I had a school, and I was teaching around town, different. At different facilities. And yes, somebody. Somebody invited me in. It was. Again, we'll probably. This will be a through line through this conversation about somebody I knew offered me an opportunity, and that. That was the gateway.
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A
Yeah, I'm gonna spin that a little bit. Yes, it was someone you knew, gave you. Gave you an opportunity. And I know what you mean by that, but. But if we left it at that, it would, it would make it sound like it's more purely luck. Don't get me wrong. Don't be wrong. There's. There's always a little bit of. Of. Of luck involved. Heck, there was luck involved where I Got to where to where I got to, Yeah, a certain amount.
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B
What do they call luck? Opportunity meets preparation.
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A
That's right. Opportunity meets preparation. As, as a young man, if you weren't a black belt, if you hadn't dedicated yourself to your craft, you would not have gotten that opportunity.
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B
That's true.
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A
If, if you'd have went 95% in and you were a blue belt, you, that's not a black belt, you would not have gotten an opportunity to go teach at Nike. So it really just goes to if, yes, some people just get lucky and that's, and that's life. But I don't think it's, I don't think it's odd that the people who prepare the most for the people who work the hardest happen to have those lucky opportunities more than other people. You agree with that?
- [11:56]
B
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, it's something that you've committed yourself to, it's true, and become some level of expert. I mean, your whole show is based on a tier one mindset, right? It's commitment, it's pursuit of a center of excellence, to be the best you can be at whatever you're doing. And so for me at that time, you know, I was, I was training to go to world championships in full contact martial arts.
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A
Love it.
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B
And here I am in proximity to the world's biggest sports company and somebody inside basically sees my hard work and knows my personality and goes, hey, I think you'd be a good fit here. Then you have to prove yourself, right? Over and over and over in life.
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A
It's what I try to stress to our young listeners, to anyone that I meet. And it sounds, I'm sure, cliched to some people, but when I'm like, hey, I don't, you know, you kind of talked about the tier one culture. I don't care if you're flipping burgers at McDonald's, you'd better be the best burger flipper in that place because you don't know, you know, who you're going to meet, what, what an impact that you're going to have on, on someone.
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B
Right?
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A
You'll never be the manager without that mentality and you'll never own a McDonald's for that mentality or for you. Like I said, you don't know what life brings. You went, you went from black belt karate, but that Nike probably wasn't in your bingo card for that year, was it?
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B
Not at all.
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A
But there it is, right? I love that part of the story. So you go to Nike originally just to teach martial arts.
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B
Yep. And I mean just talking about bingo card, I mean not to jump ahead, but what I learned over the my adult life is I had no clue where I would end up in the future. I never, I never imagined in an epic year unit or anywhere else. But when I look back at three year increments, what I learned about 10, 12 years in, I have no idea where I'm going to be in three years. And when I look back in three year increments, it was for, for whatever reason, it was about three year periods. I would have never predicted the list on the COVID of that book.
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A
So I think it's really funny that you just explained it like that because I've explained it similar and another interviews or conversations and I used, and for me, I used the five year time gap and almost every five years, five years later, I'm in a place that I would have never. Even though it's in the military. But before five years, before 9, 9 11, we'll call it 2001. Yeah, earlier 2000. If you just say what are you going to do in five years? I mean, well, I'll be still be at a feed store. Well, I was in the military. And if you'd have told me, you know, at that point, then you're going to be a Green Beret, like, no way. I mean, I'm in the National Guard Air defense. I'm not going to be a Green Beret.
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B
Right.
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A
And then from a, you know, being a green braid in the Delta Force. And then even when I was in the Delta Force, he was, hey, you're going to be in Syria. I'm like, we're not, no one's doing anything in Syria.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And then even at some point, hey, five years later you're gonna be out of the military. And I'm like, no, going to be here till 30 years. We're just really, really bad at fortune telling.
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B
Very true. I remember that spin up to Syria. But yeah, and I mean three years for me is probably because I'm less patient than most people. I mean my reputation is a little more like 0 to 100 in 2.5 seconds on most things because I get called an accelerator a lot of times because it's like I either want to let's move fast and let's break it or let's win more or less. And if we break it and we want to keep going, we're going to learn from breaking it and how to improve it, refine it, totally change it, whatever, whatever the process is so spontaneity is big for me, which leads into that whole ambiguity and kind of adaptivity. And again, that's another aligning principle for us about problem solving. I mean, it's on the back of the book, right? Because when I came to the unit, they were said, be a problem solver, be highly adaptive, be a high speed learner. You know, those are kind of three guiding principles for me. And so getting into Nike, it was, I'm teaching a class and then I'm interacting with executives and you know, people that are coming in and experiencing what I'm doing, what I'm bringing to them as a subject matter expert on that topic and that, that built relationships, I guess. And so everything also to me, problem solving and relationship are kind of intertwined as well. And, and you know, your network, your connections, people talk to you about things and hear your lens on how you view the world. I mean, you know, the followers, you know, the people that are tuning into your show, they appreciate your view on the world. They appreciate the experiences you bring to the perspective on world events, to the stories that you're sharing, the people you bring on and the lens you put on things. It's that relationship building through a problem solving lens. And then where do we take that? You know, that's where innovation happens, that's where growth happens, you know.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And, and that's kind of what I'm always chasing is how do I build a relationship with someone where, you know, we have things to work on together and then create something new out of it that improves people's lives, saves lives, changes the game, breaks a paradigm, whatever, you know, gets people unstuck, which again, a lot of things we've talked about, that's one of you. Seems to be one of your driving principles is like getting out of being stuck. Why are people stuck? You know, I don't have time for that.
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A
You know, yeah, there's. And people get stuck for a myriad of reasons and I don't. And I've been stuck before in life.
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B
Yeah, we all have been.
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A
I don't, I don't get mad or frustrated at people getting stuck. I get frustrated at the length of time that, that they'll stay there and you can stay there until it feels comfortable. And that's, that's when it's been too long. It's been way past the point of, of being too long.
- [18:24]
B
Right.
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A
How did you go from teaching them combatives to, you know, being essentially a representative of Nike at the Delta Force?
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B
Wow. Yeah.
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A
Connect those dots.
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B
Yeah, exactly. Well, Just briefly touching on it. My, my great grandfather started a manufacturing Business and in 1905 in Portland, Oregon and he had a printing business and he worked with leather and, and sewing soft goods. So great grandfather, grandfather took over the business. My dad left the military to run the family business when his dad passed away. So I had the fortune of growing up hands on, learning how to make things. So I was a maker. Yeah, Learned how to run a sewing machine, printing presses, work with soft goods, industrial sheeters. You know, we had this like 5,000 square foot warehouse of cutting equipment and sewing equipment and all kinds of things that was aggregated over 100 years basically. And that hands on allowed me to have conversations with people at Nike because as a problem solver, as somebody who's always looking to improve things, people would come to my class, they would ask me questions. Of course, being young, that was recent for me growing up in the family business and being hands on with equipment and making things that, you know, customizing things that I wear. So as I'm now in this product company, I'm taking that opportunity to have conversations outside of class, have coffee and, and again build relationships. Over time, people would in the development pipeline at Nike be like, hey, what are your thoughts on this? Hey, how would you approach this? I started working with more athletes. You know, I ended up being able to work in the cycling area where, where I was coaching cyclists as well. Got to get some exposure to Lance Armstrong's agendas back when he was winning Tours and, and again leading the world in human performance. You know, the other through line of, you know, your, your, your prior workspace is optimal human performance. I mean you're doing it with TRT right now, you know, for health, wellness, human performance, peace of mind, all the things. And so Nike opened a door to me to having more access to the best performers on the planet. And so through the relationships, working in that space and trying to help improve things as kind of a servant mindset, eventually I got invited into the innovation space and like, hey, you know, you know how to make stuff, you know, and that's a rare skill set today is like hands on, you know, being, being able to get your hands dirty and, and fumble through how do you make this, you know, and, and you guys again, in your workspace you're constantly customizing your equipment.
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A
Yeah, it's, you know, here's, here's, I, I, I got in on the, on the tail end of that. Where we still had to do it was if you want, if you wanted a cool, unique pouch, go to the sew shop. So. So your. Sew your own one up. And the. We had a, we had a, A guy there that was a. He didn't like this term, but it's fine. A seamstress and a tier one seamstress. He was kind of hard to work with of sorts. And he never wanted. And, and looking back, I get it. He wasn't going to do the work for you.
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B
Right.
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A
But if thankfully. Thankfully. Exactly. It all. It all depended on the attitude you came in with. And as a new guy, if I don't. If I didn't know how to sew and they're like, hey, go take this to Gary. And I assume Gary was gonna either help me or, or really do the lion's share work because I don't know how to do any of this. Yeah. If you came up to, to Gary with the Gary, can you do this for me? Gary's just gonna be a problem. But if you came up to Gary to, hey, I don't know anything about this. Can you help me through it? And you know, and I will if you just, if you guide me, I'll do it. Gary would be the most helpful person in the world. And it's all. So how you approach Gary.
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B
Gary sounds a little bit like a Jedi or something, like Obi Wan Kenobi. He was teaching without teaching.
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A
Yeah. And so my early days there, it, you know, guys would be up there after work just reselling their kit, sewing up new kit, new pouches no one had ever seen. Pouches that no one was ever going to build for us because it was only a problem unique to the equipment we were using.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it's something I've always, I've always admired, which is fabrication. I was in cars early on.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And me too. You had friends that could fabricate certain things for their cars that no one else had. Metalworking, woodworking. The common denominator of sorts is machinery, because machinery, one, will break and you have to fix it. And two, the machinery allows you to create things that no one else can have. Those are all. There's, there's going to be a common theme here of problem solving.
- [23:53]
B
Totally.
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A
And we're going to, we're going to figure out how you get there. But getting hands on things and as
- [24:00]
B
you talk about vehicles. Right. Modifying vehicles.
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A
Yeah.
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B
All comes back to the human body, you know, human performance. Anyone who's driven on an individual basis to perform their best have. You have to be your own chief scientist. You have to be your own chief, like chief instructor. You Know, because the only thing that can get you to maximum performance is your own discipline, your own commitment, your own research and focus. Because everything has to be adapted to you to optimize it. You know, you have general inputs.
- [24:34]
A
But I'll give you. I'll give you one more. And we kind of talked about, when we're talking about the we were kids scenario, problem solving, unfortunately, especially early on, everything you just said and everything I just said, couple it with a lack of resources, right? Because. Yes. Whether it be pushing your own body or fabricating, whether it be wood, metal, cars, I really think about it for cars. Because when you have a lack of resources, again, you get really creative, almost as any. I couldn't pay someone to put my headers on my car for me, right. So I had to learn how to put headers on me and my friends. Like, we can figure this out.
- [25:17]
B
I was there, too. That's right.
- [25:19]
A
You go to the human side of it and you're trying to get better at a lower level, high school, college, whatever it is, and you have limited resources and you're essentially testing with your own body and having to figure out, okay, I've been doing it this way, I'm not getting the results I want, or I could get better results. Now I'm going to do it this way. And they will figure it out with a lack of resources until they find what they want. And then when you have this amount of experience behind your belt, I think it's a good thing that you have that problem solving those experiences under your belt then. And then couple some resources now to that guy and you have something dangerous, in a good way.
- [26:01]
B
Exactly what you're. You're building a model that says you have to earn your. You have to put the reps in to earn yourself to the level to where the resources now want to collaborate and work with you. Because you've proven, hey, you know, just like getting selected, right? Like there's layers through the selection process, you know, if you're not to the standard, you're not going to get to the next layer, you know, and every time you get to that achievement, you're proving to, you know, the cadre or whoever, you're being overwatched by this guy is me, you know, meeting or exceeding the standard. And the harder you work, the more committed you are, the more unbreakable you are, either mentally, emotionally or physically, the more those resources go, that's our guy. Yeah, we want to pour into that guy. We can, we can shape and mold and develop that guy to you know, a high level, a higher level. And you just keep going in every arena, whether it's in the military, whether it's in, you know, civilian world, whatever it is. That, that is again, a theme of becoming a center of excellence, becoming a best in class, becoming a tier one performer, you know, so.
- [27:12]
A
Yeah, and, and anytime you circumvent that process and you add resources, especially abundant amount of resources before that foundation is set. Yeah, it's nothing good ever happens. And, and I say that because we're going to put a pin in that for a second because there's a story that I'm already thinking of that, that, that you have. I don't know if, if, if you're connecting those dots yet, but we're, we're gonna, we're gonna come back to that, which is why I really wanted to make that point. Here at the Tier 1 podcast, we're excited to have Tasty Gains as a sponsor. A company with values that aligns with ours. I take their products every day, three times a day. And if it wasn't a product that I didn't take personally and believe in and a company with integrity, then they wouldn't be sponsors on this show. Creatine helps the body produce more ATP, which is an energy molecule that your entire body runs on. It helps improve your physical and mental performance in all aspects of life. Let's be honest, creatine powder sucks to take every day. With the creatine gummies, you can take them with you anywhere and they taste great. Every batch is third party tested, so you know you're getting exactly what you pay for. Go to tasty gains.com and enter the promo code tier1. That's T I E R, the number one, and get 20% off your order. So you go at some point. Pick up on where you're at with back with Nike.
- [28:45]
B
Yeah. So through the relationships, through the hard work and you know, kind of connecting dots within that community of people seeing the potential because again, we're talking about potential. I'm young and I'm getting exposed to either senior leadership or executives who see my potential. They see my work ethic, they see my passion, they see my capability of understanding the culture. I'm a fit and I have a unique, maybe combination of skills or just a mindset. And so finally, at some point, I get invited into the innovation space, you know, and largely, if not only, you know, thanks to Tinker Hatfield, you know, who's I talk a lot about, who's been a longtime mentor and kind of became My boss, right. He kind of brought me in and gave me the opportunity to prove myself, more or less because again, I didn't come out of the corporate pipeline. I, I had been at that organization for 10 years working with athletes and being kind of a outsider of development processes and talking as a bit of a subject matter expert. But I haven't, I'd never really been an official capacity in the product pipeline. So.
- [29:57]
A
And real quick, not to interrupt you, but I don't want to go too far away from the name Tinker Hatfield with, without letting people know they heard that name and they may not realize how much they know that name. Sure. So well, Tinker, who is Tinker Hatfield again? Everybody knows him. Everyone knows his product. You just may not know his name.
- [30:22]
B
Well, a little known basketball player named Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan and Tinker, I've heard of him, they kind of became synonymous, you know, in Jordan's first year or two of, of professional basketball. And so, you know, Tinker designed most of Jordan's shoes that he played in, you know, and, and that's before that. Tinker was designing things like the Air Max and you know, helping shape the culture and the, and the, the product design of, of, of the company, more or less.
- [30:55]
A
And so what, what year are you there when, when you're starting, when you're introduced to Tinker, Roughly what year is this?
- [31:05]
B
Tinker and I started to become friends through cycling, probably around 2004. I was working, I was doing a documentary on a cyclist who was a friend who had cancer. And so Tinker and I had known of each other through my teaching of different classes at Nike in the performance space. And then we knew of each other. I mean, obviously he's a legend at the brand. So, you know, of course everyone knows him.
- [31:37]
A
Yeah, he has to walk around like a God, small G. And he's around Nike.
- [31:43]
B
Yeah, well, people think of him that way, but he's super humble for sure and love to hear that. And yeah, and I mean, honestly, I knew, you know, we had probably shared hellos, you know, in a friendly way at the fitness center, you know, in the gym over the years, as I did with a lot of executives who'd seen me around for 10 years and knew that I had, you know, subject matter expertise on product and performance. Really it was, I'm at this cycling event. I didn't know Tinker knew of me on the level that I was about to find out. But basically I don't think I've ever shared this, but it's like he came Walked up to me at this one week cycling event called Cycle Oregon. And he goes, Justin Klon. And I'm like, yeah, of course I know. He is like Tinker Hatfield. You know, I heard what you're doing here, you know, on this, for this, this, this person that's doing the event and why don't you come over and, you know, have some drinks with us tonight and let's, I want to learn more about what's going on. And, and really that became the catalyst of the last 20 years of, of him becoming really a, one of my most influential mentors and friends, you know, over the last 20 plus years. But you know, that that's where it started and it wasn't, it was an arduous journey to get into Nike innovation. Even though I'd met him and become friends with him as a, as an athlete, you know, we were two guys riding bikes and we'd go out and ride and one of my rules, you know, which maybe can be applied to other people is growing up in martial arts, I always had kind of a, a humility of, you know, you show up to the, the training space, a new training space somewhere in the country or the world or whatever, because I would go to Asia and train on occasion. You don't just show up and announce yourself and say, hey, I want to take class. You know, you basically, sometimes you show up and you grab the broom and you start sweeping the floor, you know, until you're invited to join the workout, you know. And so when I would end up training with executives at Nike in those first 10 years, I never took a dollar from any of them because I basically, in my martial arts, my traditional martial arts mindset, I said, you have knowledge and experience that I want and you're coming to me for knowledge and experience. So we're going to have an exchange. And what that did for me over those 10 years of relationship development was it leveled the hierarchy, it flattened it because, you know, you're this successful business person at this organization that shapes culture in the world and you're coming to me for input on how to perform better in this, in this action. And so, and, and to be honest, some, some of those people that came to me that wanted to hire me or whatever, I, I'd say, no, I don't want your money. I want, I want to have an exchange of knowledge and experience. And some of them said, no, I want to pay you. I just, you know, and it was a transaction for them, you know. Right. And, and that, and I was like, well, it's probably not a fit. You know, there's other people that are better to be hired for that and so, so you know, not, not getting lengthy in the story but no, I,
- [34:59]
A
I love that, that part of it and I don't know if you intentionally did it then maybe look back and, and you can put terms to it, but you took the money transactional piece out of it. Which, which they're used to. They're used to. I'm here, people below me are here. I, Our, our connection is money and our transactional, our transactions are monetized and that, that keeps me on a, on a pedestal. Whether they mean it to it or not. That's just kind of, that's how society
- [35:34]
B
or it's employer employee.
- [35:35]
A
Exactly.
- [35:36]
B
And that's what I wanted to remove that and. Right.
- [35:39]
A
And by keeping it knowledge transactional.
- [35:43]
B
Yeah.
- [35:44]
A
Evens the, the playing field.
- [35:46]
B
Yeah. And, and I don't know, I mean maybe I grew up in a reasonably comfortable, you know, middle class life. Right. Not with excess and not with, you know, a silver spoon. But you know, my parents kind of gave me a foundation that was like you have enough, you don't have needs in that regard. And so without seeking excess, you know, I was never chasing something. I was, you know, and for whatever reason, relationship and understanding others was always again another driving force. I want to understand what makes people tick. And so as a coach and then later as a product creation guy or an innovation guy, you know, and again getting back to your unit and I think why I was kind of welcomed in at the level I was was was always a dedication to. I want to put myself as best I can in someone else's shoes, see it through their lens. And how do I serve these guys? Like I'm in the product pipeline. And so back at Nike bringing that coaching mindset, I understood the needs of the athlete. I understood how to get dirty and make stuff. You know, prototyping much like you're talking about like, you know that, that equipment modification space of like you're not going to do it perfectly and, and it's not, it's going to be a copy of one every time you guys are doing it for. You know, what I, what I really took from your world was those modifications can mean the difference of a tenth of a second, as you like to say. And that's life and death. And I, I in the Nike pipeline, a tenth of a second is winning a gold medal.
- [37:27]
A
It's winning a world first place in second place.
- [37:30]
B
And so you know, when you, when you start to add the depth and the layers of what a tenth of a second means in, in, in a result, you know, the weight of that for an athlete, it's, it's, it's their entire world focus. You know, for a soldier or an operator, it's, it's am I coming home tonight? Is my buddy coming home with me? And you know, not to get ahead of the story, but those are where my world's merged.
- [38:01]
A
Right.
- [38:02]
B
And you know, we'll get to that. But, but back to the Nike thing, you know, I got, I, I, no one ever invited me in to just, hey, come join innovation. It was, but what that exposure to Tinker in that group gave me was like, I want to get a corporate job, I want to work at Nike. Like I want to stop being a coach and I want to be a part of this machine. But then what I learned, you know, and we've talked a little bit about like sometimes when you lose, you win.
- [38:33]
A
Yep.
- [38:35]
B
That'll probably be another through line in this conversation, you know, is, is failures or teaching moments and there are opportunities for, you know, are you going to be stuck like we talked about the start of the show, Are you going to problem solve your way to another level kind of a thing. And so, you know, that exposure that Tinker offered me to come in and work on a cycling project with Lance's Deliverables to win Tour de France's, you know, it gave me a, a real taste in my early 30s of like, wow, being a part of this machine. Behind the scenes, I want this. And so arrogantly, as a young 30 something who is married, had two kids, you know, I'm established a little bit in life, I think so I think went to world championships in martial arts, lost the gold, I like to say, on a decision, you know, at the world level, you know, I'm thinking I'm somebody now. I'm in, I'm in the Nike innovation kitchen, which is cool. And you know, it's problem solving and it's, it's moving fast and dirty and getting things done. And it's like me growing up in my dad's shop, you know, and it was all relatable to me. So at one point I just say, tinker, I want to come work in your group. And he's like, looks at me as a, as an elder statesman, a village elder if you will, looks at one from the young in the tribe and goes, oh well, you know, people that are working in here that they've been in this game for 10, 20, years, you know, they've earned their way in here. You know, they've cut their teeth out there, you know, And I was like, I've cut my teeth. What do you mean? You know, and. And I'm like, I deserve to be in here. You know, look at the things I've done. Look what I've contributed in here. In my little moment early on of my. My youthful arrogance of thinking I'm somebody here. And he goes, and again, in the wisdom of those that go before us, that achieve levels that we aspire to, he didn't. He didn't slap my hand. He didn't shut me down. He didn't put me in my place, you know, again, why I respect him so much. He looked at me and goes, okay, tell you what, go home this weekend because it was a Friday. He goes, write up a job description. Come back on Monday. We'll sit down with, you know, Michael Donahue, who runs the innovation group for him at the time, who's still in the organization and, you know, is a legend in his own right. We'll go and talk to him and we'll discuss you coming in as a role. And I'm thinking, yeah, sounds good. I'm excited. And I go home and I start to do a little more research because I've been in the organization for a long time. I think I know Nike Innovation because I know all the people in it. At the time, there was only 20, 25 people in this organization. Now there's thousands of people in the innovation machine at Nike. It's like, things. Do they grow into these uncontrollable objects, so to speak, or hard to control? And so at that time, it was a very small tactics unit, more or less. And so special tactics kind of thing. Fast moving, highly adaptive, you know, kind of clandestine in the way it worked in the organization. And I started researching on the Internet, Nike Innovation, and I start reading, like, from an outsider point of view, which I had not done. Nike Innovation, the soul of Nike, you know, it shapes how sports move in the world. And. And it just hits me like, whoa. Like, I didn't even think of it in these terms. And I thought, whoa. Like, who am I? I mean, it literally just took the wind out of my chest, and it humbled me.
- [42:22]
A
Yeah.
- [42:23]
B
And I just, you know, get emotional here actually thinking about this. I haven't thought about it in a while, but I literally, in that moment was like, I don't deserve that. Like, who am I to think I deserve to go in that space? And I went back on Monday. And I said, tinker, I totally apologize for like asking you for that. And he's like, what? I was like, nope, who am I to think I deserve to come in here? You know? And I was like, I'm just going to go through the pipeline, I'm going to go through the organization. And he's like, you sure? Yep, absolutely. The short version of what follows Next is about 80 coffee interviews over the next year of just getting, you know, kind of interesting, you know, because in my early 30s, I didn't have a college degree, I didn't have any work experience in the corporate world. Okay. I sure as heck didn't have any sports industry experience with any other brands. I was told by other, you know, mentor executives at Nike, this is the hardest organization in the world to get into. Maybe you should try Adidas or go to any of the other competitors where it's easier to get in. And then because you have all the relationships here, work your way back to Nike through another company that's easier to get into because then you have the credibility of being in the industry. And so I did try that and didn't work out either. So, you know, the short version of that hard year of I gave up coaching, wasn't making any money, wasn't getting any, any welcome invitations into Nike. I didn't fit, I wasn't a designer. I didn't have any of those kind of traditional boilerplate, you know, kind of outline, you know, check boxes. And so a year later I went back to Tinker and I said, can you just give me an opportunity to work on a project so that I can put it on my resume officially? And he did. And as these things work out, you know, the next six years, you know, was in Nike innovation and it, it set the, set the foundation as a full time commitment to what led to everything else that's, you know, in that book and the books to follow.
- [44:34]
A
But I want to, I want to talk to you about that and see, looking back, just my perspective on hearing that story and, and what you think would have happened. So right off the bat,
- [44:51]
B
to be
- [44:51]
A
honest, I love that Even as a 30 year old you're like, no, I kind of do. I kind of deserve to be here because I want people to know, to want to be eager, to want to be hungry, to think they can do something that maybe they can't. Of course that's within reason. Yeah, but it sounds like in that and Yuri's like, well, a lot of people cut their teeth and it kind of, we're gonna go back to problem solving. You're now in. In a. In a debate, and problem solving and thinking on your feet quickly is what. Is what people who debate do. And you had a quick answer for that. You're like, well, no, let me explain how I cut my teeth differently, but let me explain how I cut my teeth. And so whatever you thought of on. In the moment and pleaded your case for, you want them. You want them over, you know, at least to a point where it's like, all right, well, let's do that.
- [45:51]
B
It's true.
- [45:52]
A
And then when you. When you went back and you started looking more at it holistically, I think you realized you. You got too close too quick. You almost skipped a step of. Of sorts of. And so when you. When you get close to people, they become friends, they become normal people. So you can't see the force through the trees.
- [46:18]
B
Yeah.
- [46:18]
A
Like, you don't. You don't really actually see how hard of a process this is. One opportunity you have.
- [46:27]
B
Yeah, you're right.
- [46:28]
A
Here's where. Here's where. Here's where I wonder if you wouldn't have come back now. Again, like, you can't change life, and bad things happen for a reason, and that'll. That'll come back into play again with this story. What do you think would have happened, though, if you'd have created that position, came back with that. With that same mindset and pitched. Do you think. You think you'd have got it? You think you'd have shortcutted into that job? You think that opportunity was there? It seemed like it was.
- [46:57]
B
I think it was.
- [46:58]
A
You almost talked yourself out of it at the same time.
- [47:02]
B
I 100 did.
- [47:03]
A
Yeah.
- [47:04]
B
And I'll tell you what I. What I benefited from. And, and this is another recurring theme is. And you. You nailed it with your observation is if you skip a step, there's a reason. There's steps to get places. And lots of people that are wealthy and successful skip steps. That's. That's a truth.
- [47:24]
A
Right, Right, Absolutely.
- [47:26]
B
And. But they also don't fully develop all the time because they missteps. And. And they don't become whole, but they come. They can become great.
- [47:36]
A
Yeah.
- [47:37]
B
But they miss a wholeness to. To. To their totality. And so what I learned through the suffering and the. And the, the lack of opportunity in that year is I was humbled further, and I came back and I basically said, tinker, I'm not taking no for an answer. I need an opportunity here, because I had. And that humility literally, I can tell you that first year of working in the innovation space. It's a space where, because the people that have arrived there have earned their right to be there through successes. And you know, people from Apple had come there and you know, they had impressive resumes. Yeah, they work on their time, on their hours. And that space, it was a unique space in that corporate model because some of those guys would roll in at or 10 in the morning and they leave at 3 in the afternoon. But that was not an indicator of how much they worked because they're the kind of people that had to go home and work in their own workspace in private and get creative and tinker with things, you know, and, and prototype things. And so that in that environment at the time was very out of the box, you know, essentially. And so I became this guy was so grateful to be there that I was there at 6am every morning. I mean I woke up excited to get there because I was like, I don't know how long this is gonna last. It's like a 30 day commitment, you know, to like get as much experience as I can.
- [49:06]
A
Yeah.
- [49:07]
B
So I was there at 6am working and I was there until 10 or 11 at night and. And part of being there late at night is after a week or two, my. The way I was brought up in prototyping, kind of like what you're talking about with Gary of like going in there and fumbling through your stitching and cutting things and reshaping things. I had a process of making things in a dirty way that I had learned, you know, and it didn't fit in that arena. And so when I would try to go do stuff during the day of like, you know, Tinker or Eric Avar somebody, you know, Avar worked on all the Kobe stuff, you know, okay. They would say this is kind of how we do things. And. But my mind needed to piece things together in a certain process that was familiar to me because I was being overwhelmed with new, new, new language, new culture. I was trying to adapt and also be perform well. And so what I found was it was easier for me to stay after hours and everybody left to muddle through ugly stitching and ugly methods. But my methods, when I would have something done as a prototype and I'd go show it to Tinker, Eric. Yeah. You know, they'd be like, that's interesting. And then they'd take that, that rough prototype and they'd sketch an evolution of it and then they'd be like, see if you can modify it like this and I'd go back in there and you know, so it became this back and forth to where they saw like this guy thinks differently. He has a different process. He's not traditionally through the pipeline the way we typically, you know, guys from design school or, you know, girl, you know, he's coming in from a different door. He's got a different set of experiences. He seems adaptive, he's learning, he's, he's trying to integrate into how we do things but keeping his own identity, you know, which again, those are things I learned in the tier one community. Yeah, those are kind of, they're looking for individuals that can fit into the machine at a high level, but they're not just cogs in the machine. You know, they, they've got to be, they've got to be individual, individually capable on a very high level, but then they also have to integrate at a very high level. And that's, that's a very, these are unique. These are the things that separate average performers, even really good performers to great. And you know, who do we rely on, who's going to take the game winning shot, you know, that kind of stuff.
- [51:36]
A
So I kind of always have equated it to this. Special Operations loves to think outside the box. You get to, you hear that a lot. But that's, that's not, that's not the end or should be the end of that statement or maybe it's more implied. And so how I describe or draw it up as I go, yes, we need to think outside of this box. But there's a bigger circle that encompasses this box and that, and inside that circle is. This is reality. So outside the box is unconventional thinking, but you have to stay in the circle of reality.
- [52:21]
B
Right.
- [52:22]
A
And you get these really innovative guys, these really creative thinkers that go outside the circle and they're just, they're, they're just dreamers or they don't fully. Their ideas will never come to fruition because they're not grounded in reality. And it's, it is a, it is a fine line between creativeness, thinking outside the box, but being rooted in reality. And that's where your performers, you want to grab, cultivate and, and bring underneath your wing.
- [52:51]
B
That's. Yeah, that's a great observation. I mean, you come from the applications group.
- [52:56]
A
Right, right.
- [52:57]
B
And there's a reason why you guys are combat applications group.
- [53:01]
A
Yeah.
- [53:01]
B
Grounded in reality. But.
- [53:03]
A
Right. I mean, haloing out of the back of a C130 on a, on a Harley Davidson is thinking outside the box. For sure. But it's, but that's also out outside the circle. We got to keep it, we gotta keep it in the circle.
- [53:15]
B
Leave that to Red Bull
- [53:19]
A
or, or Fast and Furious 12.
- [53:21]
B
That's right.
- [53:21]
A
You know, leave that to those guys.
- [53:24]
B
Yeah, the.
- [53:25]
A
What, what was it you, you said, hey, you know, give me a project just to put on my resume. What would it end up being? A project or base or just helping out on other projects?
- [53:38]
B
I mean, early on it was being a bolt on, you know, value add, you know, merging kind of my subject matter expert with the different performance backgrounds I had. But you know, once I'd gotten kind of okay, this guy's proving to be valuable. He works hard, he thinks differently. You know, he, he in the, in that early 25, which again I'm proud to be like, be able to say before it became a big, a bigger machine in the machine. Yeah, you know, there was the innovation kitchen of 25 people at the time and then there was Tinker special projects group. And so, you know, which was four or five individuals. And so I got to be part of that special projects group. And then I, you know, I'm reporting to his, he, he assigned me to his brother Toby who, who was in the bigger innovation space and to learn, learn the tr. Learn the trade, learn the craft that Nike Innovation models. And that's when Toby was working on this, this early generation kind of military boot iteration, you know, is based on this Nike free outsole articulated bottom, you know, circa 2004, 2005. And you know, again, everything's relationship. How, how did Nike start working on that boot? Well, you know, rest in peace, Major Oliver. There was a man, Tony Oliver, who was married to the head of the fitness group, that head of the fitness group, Beth Baumgartner at the time, later Beth Oliver, Tony's wife. They were high school sweethearts. Beth was the one that had originally brought me into Nike to teach martial arts. So again, another full circle moment 10 years later. And so Beth's husband Tony was at a get together with a bunch of Nike leadership. And here he is, Major Tony Oliver Ranger. He's overseas doing his operations and he suggests, hey, our boots suck and they're heavy and they're not comfortable. And you know, what if you guys took this, this type of bottom and put it on one of our boots, you know, that would be awesome. I mean it was literally that idea at a kind of a dinner gathering. And Toby took that idea and he prototyped, literally just potato headed a, a Nike free bottom onto a A boot like upper, more or less. And, and Tony took it overseas, you know, for like a six month rotation kind of a thing and wore it, gave it back to him. And so Toby had had one or two generations over the first six months of kind of exploring this as, which is what Nike does. They're constantly, the archives at Nike and innovation is deep. You know, 10% is what comes to the world, 90% sits on shelves. And so this may have been something that they never thought would go to market and you know, but Nike wants to explore these things. If they have somebody who has subject matter expertise and, and they can give good feedback and there's a passion and a commitment, it becomes relational. So Toby was basically like, we don't do anything with military. You know, why don't you take this and see what you can do with it? So literally that was the incubator moment of me getting this early prototype boot which then evolved into, you know, changing the paradigm in military boots into lightweight, you know, high speed.
- [57:10]
A
That's right.
- [57:10]
B
Runnable boots later. But
- [57:15]
A
I even had a pair of, of Nike combat boots, you know, so it's funny, you're on a podcast years later on a project you work with on a podcast, a guy that had in combat one of your boots. Yeah, of course, as nothing's, nothing's ever that easy, is it? You would think you, you have the brand of Nike, which is cool, right? I mean that's, everyone won something cool has that, has that. I want to be a part of that factor. You'd think it would at this point it would just sell itself. You just throw a Nike swoosh on a, on a, on a tan boot and, and just watch, watch the army eat it up.
- [57:59]
B
Nothing can be further than the truth, you know, from the truth on that one. Yeah, I mean maybe one of the most complicated stories in Nike history, to be honest. You know, really. And I mean, and you mentioned out of the Box and you gave a great analogy and it's. I don't know if it's ironic or coincidence or whatever, but at the time I entered into the Nike innovation space, we literally had shirts called Kill the Box. And so that was one of the whole. That was like a mindset that that small group had of recognizing there's a box. And of course, you know, the comedy internally was like shoebox and all that stuff. But it's out of the box thinking, but love it.
- [58:40]
A
If you've ever been to any of my tactical training classes, then you know how adamant I am about the use of white light and the importance of a quality high powered tactical light. That's why I use Cloud Defensive tac lights. You can't hit what you can't see and neither can the bad guys. Clearly identify your target and simultaneously overwhelm his vision with hundreds and even thousands of lumens. Get serious about defending yourself and your family. Go to cloud defensive.com and use promo code tier one to get 30% off your order. That's right, 30%. You won't find a better light than this and you won't find a better deal than this.
- [59:22]
B
The journey to the unit was about, from that point, I think it took about two years, you know, to end up there. And it was not an easy two years because again, we didn't know, we didn't know in the organization. You know, I didn't come from a military background, obviously. It's a clandestine unit that no one knows how to get to or anything of that nature. And, and again, God's always got a plan, you know, and, and fortune favors the brave and, and, and all of these statements. And so we, we took the natural steps. We were constantly iterating, you know, so basically that became my responsibility, that project. You know, here I was not, not a senior member of that organization. I'm an emissary of Tinker and Toby, essentially. You, incredibly protective overwatch, you know, and,
- [60:13]
A
and so yeah, originally army units turned it down because they didn't, they didn't believe in the durability of the boot. Correct. With the 82nd. Wasn't interested in it.
- [60:25]
B
Yeah, we, we built some early round samples that we felt good about and you know, because we're Nike, as you say, you know, we found our way to Dallas swat, which had a TV show at the time. We found our way to LA swat, which, you know, does tons of missions in that space, you know, for sure, high risk stuff. And the feedback through those units and we, you know, we worked with the local SWAT teams as well because it was, it was like, hey, the more feedback and the more interaction we get, the better we can make this product. It was like no one, we didn't turn anyone away ever. It was like every piece of information had to be cataloged essentially because everybody's opinion matters, you know, you're still going to aggregate the larger percentage of outputs, you know, and, and you're going to have to run it through science and rationale. But, but yeah, those early SWAT units were like, nah, this is too lightweight, too flexible, too soft, too not, not durable enough, not protective enough. Maybe it's good for a driving shoe or something like that, you know.
- [61:24]
A
Yeah, you were a little bit a, you're ahead of your time really. Because what you end up finding out, you know, obviously later I, I, I was issued those boots. I love those boots. Lightweight boots became the norm. Yeah, but you guys were a little bit punished for, for your free, for your innovation being ahead of your time. Because they hadn't accepted it yet.
- [61:48]
B
Oh man. I mean I probably need to write a book on, on the whole story. I mean I have, I haven't accessed these mental files a lot, a lot in a long time. So just talking about through this, it's like so much detail is flooding back because I know that you understand so much of the familiarity. But when those SWAT units turned us down, then somebody gave us an access to the 82nd, you know, and we, we literally talking to the command at the 82nd and they're reviewing the boots, which you know, is always a multi month process. It's not like overnight and then they call us back and they're basically like these are too saw. I mean two flexible, two not protective enough, not durable enough. These aren't going to last an 18 month rotation. Which is what more of the big army needed. You know, more or less. They needed that, that reliability on a product. And so.
- [62:34]
A
And I agree, I agree with that. Yeah, that I agree with.
- [62:37]
B
Yeah.
- [62:37]
A
But within special operations and SWAT teams, especially SWAT teams, yeah. You're going from your Bearcat into a house and back. What you need is, is lightweight speed grip.
- [62:48]
B
You need a sprint spike, basically. Yeah. You know, and that was everything. It was, that's what it evolved into. It was a paradigm shift. You know, it was a mindset shift because no one was using those tools at the time. As obvious as it is now, I mean we literally found ourselves, you know, Natick was tons of resistance. It didn't meet AR670 dash one, you know, it didn't meet regulation, it's not polishable. Well now it's a suede boots, a desert boot, blah blah, blah. Can you blow some how you know this and that, right? It's, it's not a rubber outsole, it's like a foam, you know, all of these critical kind of assessments we ended up ourselves at was ntc, you know, out there in Nevada, you know. Yeah, yeah, we got an invite down there because that's where a lot of people were doing their train ups to go to the desert, more or less. You know, it's intense environment and this sergeant Major there of just a. A standard unit, basically, you know, again, these were the milestone memory makers that we took back to Nike of, we're onto something. Keep going. This Sergeant Major, first he goes, this thing's too flexible. It's not protective enough. It's not going to hold up. And I said, sir, will you just, you know, please test it and validate your. What you think?
- [64:09]
A
Right.
- [64:09]
B
And he did. And he wore them for a week. And, and, and he gave us the first really critical benefit. And he said, you know what, this bottom's way too flexible. But what I learned is when I'm walking over rocks and loose terrain, it's a sensory shoe. I can feel the ground. I can. So when I'm about to, like, twist my ankle, I feel that I'm on this unstable surface and I change my footing.
- [64:35]
A
Right.
- [64:36]
B
And that was huge. And that piece of input helped us shape adoption, you know, going forward, because we started reframing what this tool is. And so, you know, eventually, you know, one of the guys that we found inside Nike as a developer came from 19th group, you know, the reserve soft unit. And so he opened the door for us to take a first round of boots to a soft unit up at. Up in Berkeley, Washington, I think they were stationed at the time. And, and that was a break. And that was the next breakthrough moment of like, you know, we basically showed up with boxes of Nike's got military boots for us, you know, and everybody's excited, like, we're going to have the Michael Jordans of the military. This is going to be great, right? You know, and this is another routine thing that we'd experience. They'd open the box and they'd be totally disappointed because it just looked like their grandfather's, you know, jungle boot, you know, and then they'd. They'd be. And I'd say, we'll pick it up. And then they'd pick up the boot, and it's super light. And they'd be like, wow, this thing's so light. Then they start flexing it and bending the top, and there's not a whole lot of support and rigidity to it. And then they're disappointed again. And then I'd say, we'll put it on. They put it on. They light up again. And every one of them would just start sprinting, you know. Right. And they, man, I could run a marathon in this thing. And so it just changed the mindset to what it could do, what, what it could. How it could benefit, you know, the user, more or less.
- [66:02]
A
And so I Love that story. What is, what is every kid from when I was a kid to when. When the heck, probably to my kid now. What do they do when they put on new shoes? They, they, they run in them.
- [66:17]
B
You're right.
- [66:17]
A
And they stop real quick. See how fast they could stop.
- [66:20]
B
Yep.
- [66:21]
A
We got Green Berets give a dude Nike boots and whether they revert back
- [66:25]
B
to exactly the image. That's right.
- [66:27]
A
You still, you still do the same thing.
- [66:29]
B
I mean, we recorded guys because it became like we got, you know, we had to capture this, this enthusiasm as well. Take it back to Nike because again, right, we're getting pushback from the military of like, we don't want this thing because it doesn't meet our standards. And Nike's going, what are we doing here? You know, are they even asking for it? You know, and so again, this is an example of the innovation team trying to problem solve and be like, we know there's a thing here. And you know, we had guys like yourself that were high speed mindset, you know, we hadn't got to your unit yet, but they're like, keep going, you know, encouraging us because, you know, at 19th group at the time there was guys going to unit selection and they were walking a ton. And so, you know, they're like, dude, I'm walking eight hours a day sometimes, you know, getting ready for this. And, and these boots changed my life, you know, kind of a thing. And, and so every time, you know, we. Anyway, what the, what the stepping stone to the unit was just to move forward a bit was.
- [67:27]
A
Yeah.
- [67:28]
B
Again, credit to Bert Jess Shout out out there. I haven't talked to Bert in a long time, but hopefully he'll see this and reach out. But he was, he was a chief of staff for a general at the Pentagon and, and we joke that he had been at a, what we call a richest man in the world conference somewhere in Colorado or something, representing the military with, you know, captains of industry. And Phil Knight, Nike founder, had met him and invited him to come speak at Nike. So he came and spoke kind of an all hands meeting at Nike. And I listened to him and I'm like, I got to talk to that guy. And so fortune favors the brave. You know, I go trolling through the building in the conference center after he speaks and I find, you know, Bert's talking to leadership at Nike and I'm, he's got his uniform on, so it's easy to pick him out. And I walk in there, I'm like, sir, can I have a word with You. And I'm like, I want to give you a pair of these, you know, and, and like, because we're, again, everybody, every chance we got, we're looking for, like, adopters, you know, and, and, and he's like, well, let me, you know, like everyone in the community, I gotta vet this before I'm gonna bless it or push you forward without verifying, you know, yeah, you're Nike, but is this a great product, you know, or not?
- [68:44]
A
Yeah.
- [68:44]
B
Six months later, he's like, these things are great. How do we get these for everybody? And I was like, well, you know, we're not getting the, the uptake. We need. We need to get to the Michael Jordans of, of the military. You know, that's what we do here at Nike. You know, we work with the Federers, the Jordans, the Kobe's, you know, and that's, that's how we introduce breakthrough products to the world. And Bert said, you got it. Give me 24 hours. And 24 hours later, I had an email in my inbox from somebody, you know, from the unit who was running, you know, CDD at the time.
- [69:19]
A
And I, I never thought of it that way. And ironically, you guys used what the recipe of success from, from Nike, which is go to the top and people will want what they have. And it's so true. You didn't stick with your tried and true methods, which is. It's gonna sound bad. I don't mean to call them the bottom, but, you know, it's a pyramid, and you started at the bottom. And we're getting push.
- [69:56]
B
The pyramid's the biggest at the base, so that's the most users.
- [69:59]
A
Right. And that's what I mean by that. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that.
- [70:03]
B
Sure thing. Respect.
- [70:05]
A
But the. But you're absolutely right. At any. Anything the Delta Force uses, just because we use it now, Special forces groups and rangers are going to want to use it. And then when special forces and ranger groups use it, then the rest of the military is going to want to use it.
- [70:23]
B
Just looking over your shoulder at the pyramid.
- [70:25]
A
Yeah, on that. It's a pyramid.
- [70:27]
B
There's still a triangle there.
- [70:28]
A
And the. And I just want to correct the record for one thing. You said, you said, you know, he referred that as like the, the Richest Men in the World conference.
- [70:37]
B
Yeah.
- [70:37]
A
I believe that's held at Bohemian Grove, but that, that's the subject probably for another podcast.
- [70:44]
B
I think they shut that place down allegedly during COVID But we can, we can topic jump.
- [70:51]
A
No. No plot twist. Yeah, that is A topic that's, that's a topic topic for after, after the, after the show actually.
- [70:59]
B
Roger that.
- [70:59]
A
Yeah, but. Oh, that's.
- [71:00]
B
Or the next show maybe, or the
- [71:02]
A
next show or the live. Yeah, you know. Oh yeah. Some of the topics that we've, that we've covered are live topics all day long. From Bohemian Grove to MK Ultra to every. To conspiracy theories that, that we've been talking. It's been, it's been a lot of fun.
- [71:18]
B
There's no end to the narratives that are available today for sure. But.
- [71:22]
A
But yeah, but I love that you guys. And when that was the mentality, hey, we need to get to the Michael Jordans and then that's. And that is how this is, is going to proliferate to the military. And you're absolutely right.
- [71:34]
B
Yeah, no for sure. Well, I mean I'm. The fact that we got connected and that, you know, this is the first place I'm talking about anything from the book and you know, for me, my loyalty and my kind of service and you know, the honor that I had of just, you know, it sounds like I'm blowing sunshine, but it's really foundational for me is like, you know, I credit most of my innovation problem solving to Nike's methods and, and means in being mentored by, you know, those who came before me at that organization and that I still have relationship with and then being able to merge into, you know, the Delta kind of method. It basically married from a life and death and a gold medal perspective. It showed me all the through lines of how. How similar those organizations are by, by the way they problem solve, by the way they're committed to excellence. By the way performance is everything. By the way you just the appetite or the acceptance of, of mediocre. It's just that it doesn't exist in those, in those.
- [72:51]
A
It doesn't.
- [72:52]
B
They're.
- [72:52]
A
They're such an anomaly because I, I rail against the government for its inefficiency. There's a lot of things to rail against the government for all, all good reasons that they do to themselves. But the Delta Force is a government entity, yet they are an anomaly. Their culture is unlike anything, anything in the government. And I credit them for changing the trajectory of my life with the way I think and what's acceptable to me. And again, it's a weird way to talk. It's something magical and it's really hard to explain it unless you've lived it. And knowing that we have that shared experience is one reason why I knew I could play on your Emotions. When I heard that you were possibly gonna go to Andy Stump's podcast before mine, I said, no, you don't. Don't you remember your time at the unit?
- [73:58]
B
Sorry, Andy, don't rescind my invitation next week to your show, please. Luckily, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get there before this airs, I think. So he won't.
- [74:08]
A
You won't know until it'll be too
- [74:10]
B
late, until I break it to him in person.
- [74:12]
A
But, well, it and, and facts.
- [74:14]
B
Nothing but respect for Andy, of course.
- [74:16]
A
You know, in fact, it's actually probably best you do it this way. You'll, you'll, you'll start up warming up with, with, with mine. You're bringing me and then, and then Andy will do a much better job. I can't. I have nothing but respect to, for that guy. He's one of my favorite guys in the space. Not just in the space, in the world. And that's how highly I think of him. I really do.
- [74:40]
B
He's a very graceful operator in a very complicated world. He bridges the sides better than anybody I've seen from all the communities, whether it's extreme sports with his squirrel suits or base jumping background.
- [74:58]
A
Yeah.
- [74:58]
B
To you know, your prior kind of JSOC community kind of a thing, you know. Yeah.
- [75:03]
A
And, and with a, a hint of like high level, like, like intellectual comedy that just his, his type of humor just, just cracks me up.
- [75:15]
B
Yeah. A little public service announcement time here for Andy Stump. And yeah.
- [75:20]
A
Yeah, I called him the other day. He was in Costa Rica. I said, what are you doing to Costa Rica? He goes, well. He says something like, well, it's not gonna BJJ itself. You know, BJJ doesn't do itself. Like you barely have to come down here and do it. That's just a classic on a mission. This is a classic Andy answer that even a simple answer of I'm down here doing a BJJ tournament turns into a joke with Andy.
- [75:44]
B
Yep. He's quick witted and always has a sense of humor on everything.
- [75:48]
A
You know, so you get, you get to the unit, you know, you're is. What do you think the. You might have already said it of sorts. Through, through the life and death. That's not what I mean by this question. The life and death aspect of it, culturally, what are the differences or maybe just a drastic similarity between Nike and the Delta Force? Because take some of the things, you know, the, the, the obvious differences away from it, but there's some obvious similarities as well, you know, best in the world. High performers, the term you like to use, centers of excellence. And I would believe, and we'll get to others first, but I really wanted to, to spend time on the Nike and Delta Force. But we're going to, we're going to touch on, on the others. But this is me the lion's share of, of, of the topic.
- [76:40]
B
Nobody knows it better than you. So grateful to be here.
- [76:44]
A
But you've seen, but that's, that's a great point. But of sorts, it's really why, really why I wanted you here. I have, I have seen at a deep level, one center of excellence. You've seen at some deeper levels, but sometime at a wave top level, a bunch of different centers of excellence.
- [77:03]
B
You know, if I.
- [77:04]
A
So between those two, what's, what's similar? What's drastically different?
- [77:09]
B
Well, I mean, one thing that I'm thinking right now is the interesting thing about Nike is Nike is the big army. And you know, tier two and tier one units all rolled into one.
- [77:20]
A
Okay.
- [77:21]
B
And because it's a commodity brand that makes its success at scale by selling, selling sneakers as they will say themselves. We sell shoes here.
- [77:32]
A
Yeah.
- [77:32]
B
That's what keeps the lights on, keeps them in business. The army protects America's interests. You know, it protects freedom around the world. Everybody that signs up and, and goes and deploys and does that job, it doesn't happen without that. So it's a machine that has to run. It has to run well. So there's the two similarities on a scale difference.
- [77:55]
A
Okay.
- [77:56]
B
And the U.S. army is only as great as it can be because it has a Delta Force, because it has Green Berets, because it has a Ranger. So it has a whole tier system.
- [78:05]
A
Right.
- [78:05]
B
Nike has the same tier system within itself. You know, it has its own elite problem solving. You know, go to unit that, that's taking on their biggest problems.
- [78:16]
A
Yeah.
- [78:17]
B
Their hardest problems. And only certain people are trusted with that. And then those people become kind of a. That's why there's a special projects angle on there.
- [78:26]
A
Yeah.
- [78:27]
B
And it scales down. You know, they even had a boutique silo within the Nike brand called, you know, it basically dealt with tier one and tier two doors, you know, which would be like small sellers for very specialty products, more or less.
- [78:45]
A
Okay.
- [78:46]
B
So then that becomes a specialty unit within the organization. You know, they're still responsible to sell things, but Nike as an organization is still looking at like, how do we react quickly? How do we handle really complex problems? How do we solve things for specific athletes to get them gold medals, you know, and Your unit is like, if it's a, if it's a hostage rescue situation, you guys are the ones doing it. You're the best in the world at it. And so. But yet you're only effective and you're only funded if the army correct. Is operating at its a high efficiency level. If the army's failing, you guys are not autonomous from it in the regard of being free of, of the complexities of that. And so, so those are where a lot of similarities and, and differences. You know, the mission's obviously different, but right. Macroing out and I mean I touched on a little bit in the book, but you know, fast forwarding after I spent time with you guys and built trust and built relationship and had and was able to kind of represent the, what I interpreted as an outsider on a, on a deep surface level of how you guys work, what the priorities are and being able to be the emissary or the messenger and go back to my organization and go, here's how they work. Here's, here's how we can serve them. Here's how we can help them be better. Like we serve our athletes. At one point, you know, Mark o', Neill, who was in the command position at the time I was working out there, you know, I, again, I always want to check in up the food chain. You know, I, I having approvals, having the interests of the people that make the decisions. Hey, I just want to check in, make sure this is okay. I mean, you know, that way you're building trust, you're building like, hey, transparency. I'm not running rogue here. And so at some point, I don't remember who asked for it, but I'm going back to Nike and reporting to the CEO because it's, the project hasn't been adopted into a, a category at Nike. It's outside of any normal business. And so we're working as this autonomous team within the organization. And literally Phil Knights blessed it and said, get them, get Delta whatever it needs, you know, so we had carte blanche of all resources at Nike to, to build anything, no limitations, you know, just get them what they need. We'll figure out how to translate it, you know, which was.
- [81:18]
A
I love that.
- [81:18]
B
That was one of the coolest things, I think that of my whole career of having the full support of an organization behind me and it's a huge responsibility is like, don't F this up. Like, you know, don't make promises you can't keep, you know, so I was very judicial about making sure that I checked in a lot. And so in that check, those check ins, at some point, Mark Parker, CEO of Nike, Mark o', Neill, CEO of the unit, essentially, they both said, hey, one of them said, can I talk to your leadership? Because I think it was Nike actually that basically asked, can we come in and talk to you guys about how you stay out of reach of the bureaucracy of the greater organization that you're a part of? And because. And it might have been Tinker that incubated this idea because he's in charge of innovation, like Mark o' Neill would be in charge of making sure that, you know, you serve the big army, but you're not captured by the big army. You're not controlled by the big army. And so here I am in the middle and basically like asking both sides, hey, can we, can we broker this conversation? Yeah. And it led to, you know, Nike's jet flying into Southern Pines and, you know, posting up for a couple days and, you know, getting kind of a. Bringing in leadership from Nike and getting a real like, look behind the curtain at the unit, you know, which very reserved for very exclusive access, you know, and, and it was because at the time, you know, the two organizations saw the value and like, hey, we're two best in class organizations in the world. What could we really do together if we put our heads together? And so the conversation and the other congruency was, you know, each organization was about 25 years old at the time. You know, it was around 2005, 6. You know, the unit had been around about that time.
- [83:22]
A
77.
- [83:23]
B
The Innovations team had been about that at Nike. And Nike's Innovation group had always, we called it at Nike, falling out of orbit, you know, or the gravitational pull of the Earth pulls that orbiting satellite back into, you know, the planet and it has to be relaunched. Yeah, is the way kind of the model we were talking at the time. So how do we stay in orbit? How do we stay out of reach? How do we stay relevant, you know, to, to our, our deliverables, essentially. And so I think a lot of it was obviously things that didn't align. And when you talked about, we just slap a swoosh on it, these things will sell like hotcakes.
- [84:05]
A
Right?
- [84:05]
B
You know, I don't think this is crossing a line, but, you know, Nike's responsibility as a, as a public shareholder brand was they had a rule of not getting into bloodsport. You know, it kept them out of mixed martial arts for a long time. UFC had come, okay? And so, you know, part of the decision of not having a Swoosh on the bottom of the shoe was. Somebody had painted a picture of an operator walking into blood and then stepping on a tile floor. And all said, now there's a blood swoosh on the ground. And it's like, we can never let that happen, you know, kind of a thing. And so, so those were very stark differences in the mission and the, and the, I guess, responsibilities, if you will, is that. I don't think they're. They're diametrically opposed because we were looking for ways that we could serve each other to the highest levels, but we were also respecting each other's responsibilities to the arenas, to what makes them successful. And I think that ability to acknowledge, hey, you guys do what you're best at. And, and we'll. We'll protect that and respect that. And, and we can support each other in those lanes, you know, and that. And that's an interesting, that's an interesting responsibility and agreement. You know, it is.
- [85:32]
A
But that's where they miss the marketing, because they had, they put that poster up at the PX of a Nike boot.
- [85:39]
B
Yeah.
- [85:40]
A
With. With a blood imprint on. On tile with the swoosh being the leftover. Oh, you couldn't have stopped guys from buying it.
- [85:47]
B
They could. Millions bigger, a lot faster. You're right. You never know what could have been.
- [85:53]
A
What could have been. I, I'm normally quick to, To. To bash that sort of corporate thinking of, of wanting to stay away from that, because my initial thing is, well, how, how, how. How dare you shy away from what it takes to protect this country?
- [86:15]
B
Yeah. Amen.
- [86:17]
A
But I, I get it. At the same time, I don't agree with it, but to some. But I get it. So I'm not gonna.
- [86:25]
B
I guess this is not gonna be overly critical. This is an example where truths can be complicated even. Right. Even though I think we agree that most truths are not complicated. Right.
- [86:35]
A
Because you really try. You're trying to be a. You're trying to be a family brand, a brand for everyone. That, that, that one. That one can be a little complicated. But. But it also goes to this. And we talked about this. It can be. If you want to make it complicated, it can be complicated. But it doesn't have to be.
- [86:55]
B
It's true. You know, it opens the door for other brands to be bold and to own that space, which, again, leaves room to expand the marketplace. Right. Because then a brand that wants to be confident and stand for that.
- [87:08]
A
Yeah.
- [87:09]
B
Can differentiate themselves and it allows people to align with it.
- [87:12]
A
My argument, it's easily Defendable. And I don't, I don't mind someone being concerned and bringing that up and be like, hey, just so you know, okay, awesome. Like, yes, let's collect all these, all this data and let's be prepared and have a full picture of what we think we're getting into. Yeah, but I believe that one's easily defendable. Yeah, but, but the, but what I really want to talk about is that they didn't let that scare them away from the space. They're like, all right, well let's problem solve through that one. Let's not put a swoosh on the, on, on. We're still going to provide them with what we believe. The, the best footwear possible that is unique is niche. It's something that they, that they need. It's a lightweight footwear that makes our soldiers faster on the battlefield. We'll just put on the side, not on the bottom.
- [88:02]
B
You're right.
- [88:03]
A
I mean, and they stayed in the space and I want to, actually want to end on or not end, but you know, finish on that note that it didn't, it didn't scare them away. They just problem solved through it.
- [88:13]
B
And again, that's a great acknowledgment because again, it would be embarrassing to say that they walked away because it was a difference of beliefs. And that's what we live in today. Right? Like beliefs are so polarizing and divisive. Whereas Nike's willingness, you know, and again, credit to the unit, them welcoming Nike's leadership in, them taking a risk on a brand like Nike, who maybe doesn't stand for the same things publicly that they do.
- [88:41]
A
Right?
- [88:42]
B
Saying we see value in this, we're going to test the water. And I can tell you 100% that for the rest of my career to this day, Nike leadership, Mark Parker, Tinker Hatfield, Toby Hatfield, they, their experience coming to the unit gave them a reverence for the life and death commitment that soldiers commit themselves to out there doing the service in the world. It was not lip service to them. It gave them a perspective on service that, that they didn't get from sport, you know, that they carried into sport as to, let's keep, you know, winning a football game, winning a Super Bowl. It's, you're competing, but it's not combat, you know, and there's been those conversations a lot about like, you know, your soldiers on the battlefield, you know. No, yeah, there is battlefields out there and it's, it's a different thing.
- [89:42]
A
But I want to fast forward a little bit because I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to tease people with, with all these other big brands and never get to it. We're not, we're not a four hour episode.
- [89:55]
B
I'll just have to do a part two.
- [89:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there'll be, yeah, easily be a part two. But yeah, I definitely want to bring up that you go from essentially bringing a boot and into the Delta Force, almost similar to Nike. You go to introducing Nike to mixed martial arts, but you use that as an opportunity and you're there to give a service, to make the most of an opportunity and you go from, from that to all sorts of things. What would it be? Reflex, Cognitive, medical. I mean you really.
- [90:40]
B
Technology.
- [90:41]
A
Technology. It didn'. It didn't stop there.
- [90:44]
B
Biomedical.
- [90:45]
A
Yeah, yeah, it didn't stop there with, with, with the boot. You stay in the building for, for years helping out at different organizations. From our selection and training to cd again, it's the medical offering.
- [90:57]
B
Did a hemorrhage control device that the unit, you know, fielded first. You know, another story for another time, I suppose.
- [91:05]
A
Yeah.
- [91:06]
B
So we don't get too deep into the unit history with external providers, shall we say.
- [91:13]
A
But, but just, but again, goes to, you know, one, one, one step can lead to another, can lead to another. But you, you have to put yourself in, in a position and once you're there, if you, if you show your worth, if you have problem solving skills, if you have a work ethic that's, that's, that's worthy of not letting go, you will set yourself up for success. It's not because you were lucky. It's because preparation, preparation met opportunity. And that's why.
- [91:50]
B
Yep.
- [91:51]
A
Truth which leads me to. You end up leaving the unit. And just again, quick story of that. But, but you lean, you, you leave it. I'm not, I'm not on bad terms, but not on good. Just suddenly, just suddenly there's, there's, there's a culture shift, there's a command shift and like anything else, when there are contracts involved, we're like, all right, thanks, thanks. See you later. It just, it just ended abruptly.
- [92:22]
B
And I'm an aggressive guy and. Yeah, I guess I was a bit aggressive.
- [92:27]
A
Yeah. And when things end abruptly, they can do things to your psyche and they can, you know, the whys, that's, that's where you can fall into depression. Why did this happen to me? What am I going to do next? You know, you're a provider for your family.
- [92:46]
B
Yeah.
- [92:46]
A
There's a lot of things that go along with that. And a consistency of this podcast inadvertently, but seems to be story after story. If they make it to this podcast, it's because they're a tier one at something. Yeah. And what is evident is just because you're a tier one person at something doesn't mean you go through life and nothing bad happens to you. In fact, it's the opposite. Because of the type of life you live, because of the type of aggressive people we can be. We can hit some really high highs and we can hit some really low lows.
- [93:31]
B
Right.
- [93:31]
A
But it's how you deal with the low that matters and ensures that there's. There's more than just one high point in your life.
- [93:39]
B
Yeah.
- [93:40]
A
What, what is it? That, that. How'd you deal with going from one of the most secret organizations, most effective organizations in the world to now going, I, I don't know what I'm going to do. How'd that affect. Yet how'd that affect you and how'd you deal with it and what happened next?
- [94:01]
B
I mean, to be honest, it's interesting because I mean, and again, I don't shy away from the truth ever. You know, it was conflict of personalities. After years of being a part of different aspects of the organization and we talked about it and all my relationships for the most part are in good standing. It's just there came an end and essentially the statement was this guy's too aggressive for the unit at this time with where we're going. And what that exposed was when they sent that note to Nike. Now Nike's got to review who is this guy Justin and what's he doing for us? And so the short version of it is the unit sent a very vanilla kind of statement to Nike. No color to it, you know, no slander to me or anything. It's just we're just not going to work with this guy anymore. And it wasn't because of any major event, but when Nike had to review kind of, well, what, okay, so what's your role in innovation? You know, and let's just say that tinker who works outside the box and that's what's made him the legend that he is. He, he doesn't get hung up on, on restrictions and threads and you know, it has to go through these means. So the assessment was this guy, Justin's working a little out of the bounds and we don't have an NDA with this guy. We don't even have a non compete with this guy. And he's got access and he's Been representing us at the highest level with the highest level government organization. And Tinker just said, you know, we're going to have to not, you know, we've got a clean house right now and clean this up. And because of my relationship and my gratitude for all the. Everything that he poured into me, I just took it as like, I'm not an enemy of the organization. You know, I don't. I don't feel wronged.
- [95:55]
A
Right.
- [95:55]
B
It's, again, some things that we didn't lock down that no one really thought was a priority.
- [96:03]
A
Right.
- [96:04]
B
Revealed themselves. And it became a boilerplate issue probably on both, Both organizations. And, you know, for somebody that's an outlier, that does things unconventionally with the best interests in mind of all the players, I wasn't a fit anymore. And, you know, it didn't black. It didn't blacklist me from the industry, you know, but I had to walk away. Like, here I am, part of this very elite in both organizations, you know, and. And it definitely, like, I went home and sat down and just looked at the sky for a while. Like, you know, how. How am I, you know, I've been doing this for some years now, and how do I redefine myself? What am I going to do next? You know, I kind of got blindsided. My wife at the time was. She went through the seven phases of grief. You know, she got blindsided by this. Now our income's taken away, employment's taken away, health care is taken away, all these things. And it's like, wow, okay. And in some ways I felt relief because I was dealing in a very ambiguous space. You know, the. The business unit at Nike had not been solidified for this deliverable. So I was constantly winging it for the organization. And, and so what that did is it put everything to rest. Like, I didn't have to figure it out anymore. I didn't have to figure out how to get this adopted in Nike anymore. I didn't have to deliver things to the unit anymore. I was no longer responsible. It was literally just handed off in a phone call. It was done. And, you know, and Tinker even at the time said, you know, we're not going to work together anymore, but you're still invited to this trip we're going on next month, you know, with the family, you know, and I'm like, cool, yeah. You know, and credit to me, I just. I just didn't skip a beat and didn't take it personal. I just said this, right? I'm going to change gears. And I'M going to reframe this whole thing. And we never. We never had a lapse in friendship with any of the people I mentioned, you know, Avar, Toby, anybody, you know, they're still close friends this day, and we're continuously. And they, you know, and so when Under Armour reached out to me that same year and said, you want to come do special projects for us? And I literally called Tinker and I said, are you okay if I take this job? And he said, absolutely, you know, because competition makes us all better, so go help them be everything they can be, you know, because then it helps us be better, you know, and so that. That was kind of a blessing, which led to the next four or five years, you know, and then that took me to the east coast and put me in closer proximity to DARPA and the agency, and, you know, I ended up at Harvard, you know.
- [98:40]
A
Yeah.
- [98:41]
B
Doing innovation with them.
- [98:43]
A
So I love how you handled it because have. Had you decided to become bitter and. And go scorched earth with it because. Because you felt like you were wronged.
- [98:55]
B
Yeah.
- [98:56]
A
You're all those. All those big companies you just mentioned, you didn't know it at the time, but you would have been blacklisted from the industry and.
- [99:04]
B
Yeah.
- [99:04]
A
And you would not have gone to Under Armour and all those other opportunities there. You'd have just pulled out from underneath you unknowingly because. Because you felt wronged.
- [99:16]
B
Right.
- [99:16]
A
And when I say it's how you deal with things, just let me elaborate on that. I don't expect someone to get their dreams taken from them and then just be like, I'll be okay because Brent told me I'd be okay. And I have to, you know, and I have to put on this smart. No, hey, it's. You're going to stare at the sky for a little bit.
- [99:40]
B
Yeah.
- [99:41]
A
Take a few days. Take. Take a week. This is going to. I don't really mean it like this. I don't. I don't want you to, but I get it. Yeah. You want to. You want to. You want to go to a bar, have a few drinks, clear your head? Yeah, sure. Do it. Don't go finding bottoms of the bottle after bottoms of the bottle. That's not going to do it. I don't mind a temporary
- [100:06]
B
woe is temporary insanity. Yeah.
- [100:08]
A
I don't mind a temporary woe is me. That's human.
- [100:11]
B
Yeah.
- [100:12]
A
But what I really want to
- [100:15]
B
warn
- [100:16]
A
people against is go do that. That's almost therapeutic to some degree. Yeah, but. But, man, just know the longer you Stay in that the harder it will be to get out.
- [100:31]
B
Don't get stuck.
- [100:32]
A
Don't get stuck. Don't get stuck. That has to be a temporary place and you have to know that going in or your wife has to recognize that okay, you've been, you've been stuck too long. Let's, let's go.
- [100:45]
B
Yep.
- [100:45]
A
So. Well and, and I don't expect people to be robots.
- [100:48]
B
Credit to credit to credit to the guys in your community. You know like that unit, your unit. Even when I got relieved of my responsibilities and, and part of it was for four plus years I'm carrying the highest standards of both organizations in unknown ambiguous innovative deliverables where there's no roadmap. And I'm the sharp point for both organizations in that space. So I felt a huge relief of like I had to let go of it like I'm not carrying this anymore. But you know one of your team medics, you know from that I'd spent a lot of team time with on his time off you know he can't, he flew out within a month to check on me and be like spent a week at my house.
- [101:35]
A
Yeah.
- [101:36]
B
And was like I just want to make sure you're okay.
- [101:38]
A
Yeah.
- [101:38]
B
You know and, and that to me again showed the, the depth of character for the guys. You know. And again everybody that I worked with closely except for one person, you know I, I, I stayed close friends with you know or, or at least in relationship with that it wasn't a mark on my my with your unit, you know. And so you know and again other organizations it's rare for someone to come out and be concerned with someone else's well being and the fact that just to show that part of what's ingrained in the culture of your world of like guys looking out for each other and that showed me hey it shows two things.
- [102:23]
A
The type of culture the unit has but also you have to be a person worth checking on. Yeah Worth investing there. And you did that you know as well. So it's a, it's a, it's a two sided coin for for sure. So you, you get a little credit for, for that as well for how you carry yourself now represented yourself. You know obviously you went to you know you went to lululemon yet a 90 day sent there but you, you gathered a lot of data for furthered there is a store of the future. Is that what they were interested in on that one? Yeah, that, that, that's an interesting story. We have to come back for for
- [103:03]
B
some of these Stories non Nike, non Delta. Next.
- [103:07]
A
Next few stories I want to hit just because they're interesting. You ended up spending some time with darpa and we'll just hit this fairly quick. But because it was interesting, TBI stuff
- [103:20]
B
is where it started.
- [103:21]
A
TBI stuff where it started, it started
- [103:23]
B
with athlete Wellness, okay, around 2010. But by 12 it had turned into TBI sensors. And you know, and then ironically you had, you had been on the receiving
- [103:37]
A
end receiving some of those sensors.
- [103:39]
B
So here I was on one side of the aisle, you know, with the guys. Jeffrey Rogers, who was a Caltech guy and then became a DARPA pm, and now he's at IBM as a fellow was, was again prototyping these quick turn sensors that evolved into something that found its way to your unit and didn't
- [103:56]
A
really didn't conduct it just now. In fact, it wasn't just the boots. There's. There are two products you've been involved with that are, are our path crossed, if you will, through your products.
- [104:07]
B
Right.
- [104:09]
A
There was a, there was a project you guys were on where you wanted to put sensors on, on soldiers.
- [104:17]
B
Full sensor package, biometrics, 2012 circa.
- [104:22]
A
Right?
- [104:22]
B
Yeah.
- [104:22]
A
And, and at first I was like, I don't know what you need that, that, you know, as, as you're telling me this, I mean, I don't know what you need that data for. And then you mentioned one particular operation that we've talked about several times on this podcast. When you brought it up, I went, nah, I get it.
- [104:41]
B
At Neil Roberts.
- [104:42]
A
I get it.
- [104:42]
B
Yeah. Roberts Ridge.
- [104:43]
A
Roberts Ridge. So explain how what that technology was, was being, was being developed for and the reason behind it, which of course is Roberts Ridge.
- [104:55]
B
Well, I mean, once I got kind of invited into the Tier one community, you know, I started working with Dev Group guys and guys from the 24 and you know, kind of the full JSOC kind of access. So one, one of the guys that kind of became a good friend of mine for years that retired out of, you know, Dev was good friends and he was on that, that operation with Neil when he came fell out of the bird, you know, and, and because I had. My whole thing is always not be a gatekeeper like whoever's in my circle, how do I give you as much exposure to everything I know so you can absorb as much as you can. So this particular, you know, retired Tier one guy, I brought him in as kind of a contractor because what, what he did was he brought credibility to every room as a door kicker.
- [105:44]
A
Right.
- [105:44]
B
And, and so I literally would take him to factories in Asia to give him exposure so that he would have industry hands on knowledge of how this stuff works. And so, so in our brainstorming back and forth with our, you know, overlaps and kind of the different groups, we were taught we had this whole access to a sensor package, you know, and we, through the conversations, his familiarity obviously being a part of that was like, you know, if we would have known more about Neil's condition, you know, it would have given us more information to act more judiciously. Again, that word with how urgent we need to get there, what's his state, is he alive, is he dead, you know, what are the circumstances and how do we need to respond? And so it basically just opened the whole conversation around. Information means better decision making, you can problem solve better. In fact, Kanye used to say this, the more information I have, the better I can, the better decision I can make. Which sounds very, you know, diametrically opposed to what people think of Kanye. And, and they're not wrong, but, but he's a smart guy and, and there's a lot of little anecdotes and, and, and quotes that I took away from him. But, you know, and so Neil became kind of the muse, if you will, or that, that, that operation became the, the, the North Star for us, building this whole full body sensor package and then working with a DARPA PM and spending six months writing this complex white paper with JHU apl, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. And we got assigned a Ph.D. and you know, we're working out of Under Armour and we have this kind of scientific level biometric package that we've got and we just, as always, everything is about pushing the boundary to the highest level. I mean that's, that's the worlds we come from. Like, if we're gonna do something, let's do it the best we possibly can and then work our way back to reasonable. But let's go unreasonable to start, right? And not, not ungrounded. But what is, if we were gonna have a dream scenario, how could we fully outfit an operator with every sensor, you know, breath rate, eye tracking, you know, muscle tension, emg, ecg, eeg, all the things. And so we literally just decided, let's just put the full package of everything that's available, state of the art that time into a proposal and then, well, how are we going to use it? Well, everything's research and data. You know, DARPA is a, is a problem solving operation, but it has to deploy to the Defense Department. You know, it's not a Copy of one. They're not doing things in a copy of one. It has to have a downstream. How is this going to affect the defense? You know, all the branches essentially potentially they do do small units solutions. They do do things that are unique for sure. But that's a difference with DARPA versus other maybe the CIA and solving. But.
- [108:58]
A
Well, I like the, I like the, the idea of it now that, now that you've got expanded on it is this. We track locations. That's not a secret. It's what ATAC does. We've been doing it for a while. It's what Blue Force tracking does. That's open source. We try to at least we want to know the locations of our soldiers for battlefield tracking, which is a good thing. But when you brought this up, I realized, well, just knowing a soldier's location isn't really a full picture of the battlefield. If I could have more information, I would have just that I would want to know beats per minute, respiratory rate, oxygen levels. You can just actually just stop there for a second. Because with communication or not, when someone over here is, you know, they're. And of course we'll, we'll have things with. Within normal parameters and when someone goes too high or too low, you'll get alerted and say, hey, something outside the normal is happening over to your, your troops over here.
- [110:08]
B
Right.
- [110:08]
A
So without radio communication I can go look at that. Obviously if, if, if the harps, if the beats per minute turn to zero. Yeah, that's. I know their location, but without, with only their location, that means nothing to me.
- [110:22]
B
Right.
- [110:22]
A
And if they unfortunately die and can't give me any radio communication and they're on a forward observation, they're detached from me. How do I know to push resources over there to them? I mean, that's just once. There's a lot of scenarios you can, that you can come across. But at least in special operations in it, there's Red Wings, there's Neil Roberts, there's. There's a lot of special operation missions that you could overlay this on and
- [110:56]
B
say, hey, Chapman, you know Chapman. Yeah, Chapman.
- [110:59]
A
On, on the same one.
- [111:00]
B
Yeah.
- [111:00]
A
And say, man, we, this would really have been good information to have. So we can make good decisions.
- [111:07]
B
Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Better decisions, more information.
- [111:10]
A
Right.
- [111:11]
B
And so, and, and we could, and
- [111:13]
A
we can, we could either save that soldier's life or we could, we could stop. We could also stop from losing additional life because, because we're making better decisions because of, of the, the more information we have. I think I thought that was very, very f. When we talked more about it, it, it became very fascinating to me on the surface levels. One of those things I almost, it almost shrugged off, I was like, I don't know, tell me more. And the more you told me, I was like, hold on, I love this.
- [111:44]
B
Here we are 14 years later and it's still not really fully deployed. It's incrementally deployed in some situations, but, you know, and so just to finish that story right, we wrote this whole proposal. We spent six months on it. We had DARPA involved, we had major hitters involved. Ultimately, the test package was going to be a fully sensory sensor, a team of fully censored operators doing, doing a force on force exercise in San Diego Stadium with a 24 capture video system, which was new to the NFL at that time. There wasn't a ton of stadiums that had that. So we thought in the dream package, which if it's darpa, we should dream big, you know, because let's blow people's minds.
- [112:30]
A
Yeah.
- [112:31]
B
So you could literally have screens. It would be like a, like a gaming, you know, arena where each operator's got a screen, you see all these biometrics on it, you see their first person point of view on how they're moving through the space. How much data could you collect in a training environment for that? How do you translate that to more effective operations? You know, so it, in the end it got squashed because nobody cautioned us or red lighted us basically on. At the time we didn't understand that JHU APL were the validators for DARPA Sciences. And it became a conflict of interest to have a JHU APL program writer right on. You know, they can't write the program and then approve it.
- [113:17]
A
And then approve it. Right. And so conflict of interest there.
- [113:20]
B
Yep. So after all those reps in that time committed to, to, to proposing that, you know, we had to, it got, it got shut down, you know, and then we got offered, hey, you can take this to Georgia Tech Research Institute, take it to another provider. They're going to want to put their fingerprint on it. It's probably going to take another six months to stand up. By that time the fatigue had set in with Under Armour, with, you know, the DARPA personnel, and it just lost steam, you know, somebody else's ball to carry at that point, which I experienced in future, you know, situations with writing white paper proposal paper proposals. But that's part of the, the uphill challenge sometimes in the DARPA community or the science community. But nonetheless, it's you know, I can, I can feel brains out there from this conversation. You know, startups are going, hey, we could do that, you know.
- [114:14]
A
Right.
- [114:14]
B
And yes, that. I mean, we were joking. It's like, like do it because it's needed, you know, and just to throw out there. We also touched on while information helps make better decisions, you know, we talk, we touched on the, the challenges that that information can bring. You know, if we talk about blast sensors and what, you know, when you guys got it and you maxed out the blast sensors, I don't know if we want to go into that within weeks. And they were supposed to last for months. And you know, the information became, the information became paralyzing. You know, instead of it, instead of it driving better decisions. It was like paralytic of like. Yeah, yeah, we do with that now.
- [114:52]
A
Information's funny in one, in one aspect.
- [114:56]
B
Yeah.
- [114:56]
A
Because you can ask for a bunch of information and it can just be useless at the end of the day. Not, not all, just more information isn't, isn't necessary. Good information, obvious, which is what you want, will drive better decisions. But then sometimes be careful what you wish for because information may, may reveal something that you weren't ready to deal with.
- [115:23]
B
Right, Absolutely.
- [115:27]
A
It's definitely one of those careful what you wish for things. But. Well, we have to have, have you come back because there's, there's one more thing because we, we'd get in that conversation, we'd talk another 45 minutes.
- [115:38]
B
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I'm holding now I'm like, okay, shut it down.
- [115:42]
A
And, and, and I want to, because that one's an emotional and near and dear subject for me, but it's career extension.
- [115:53]
B
Yeah. And career optimization, you know, combined.
- [115:56]
A
There's a lot to that. But for our listeners, I'm. I'mma go a different route. Something I think they would enjoy more, possibly because I'm glad you brought up Kanye West.
- [116:11]
B
Yeah.
- [116:11]
A
We don't often get to talk about Kanye west on this podcast, so I'm going to capitalize on this.
- [116:16]
B
Do it.
- [116:17]
A
And, and it's also just because it's, it's so different, you know, than, than the norm. Everything we talked about, you know.
- [116:23]
B
Yeah.
- [116:23]
A
Everyone could relate, could relate to everything we just talked about to some degree. Everyone can relate to Nike, everyone can relate to the Delta Force. If they're watching this for the military, darpa, all those things kind of connected.
- [116:35]
B
Yeah.
- [116:35]
A
But one of their questions may be. So with all the high performing organizations and there's a common thread there with With Apple, Lululemon, they're all high performing organizations. So they, I believe they can make that connection. Yeah, but they may be going there. Going. But I can't make the connection with Kanye.
- [116:52]
B
Yeah.
- [116:53]
A
And Gwyneth Paltrow. And we'll, we'll probably for, for another story.
- [116:57]
B
Sure.
- [116:57]
A
But, but connect the dots for us from all those organizations. The Kanye West.
- [117:04]
B
Well, I mean, just with that question, you know, there is a part in the book that's the last chapter about decoding Kanye, but of just one example of many. You know, I mean, in six months of, of working with him every day.
- [117:19]
A
Yeah.
- [117:19]
B
There's a lot of content that I could share.
- [117:21]
A
Yeah.
- [117:22]
B
You know, and I mean we were.
- [117:23]
A
How'd you get connected with him?
- [117:25]
B
His head of creative for six, seven years that prior worked at Nike as a footwear guy and he's become kind of a footwear legend in his own right. You know, Stephen Smith, we were friends and he. Connection points are a relationship again, back to relationships. Yeah.
- [117:40]
A
And how you deal with things.
- [117:41]
B
There's always a through line, you know, of relationship with, with all these stories, you know, Lululemon included. You know, the head of innovation knew me and was like, hey, do you want to come and do this? You know, and even access to Paltrow was, you know, hey, you know, how do I optimize my company? I got a 400 million dollar company, you know, and so it's talking business strategy, you know, and so, you know, these aren't like big reach. They're, they're, there's a common thread through this stuff of like deliverables. But Kanye, you know, when, after a few weeks of hanging out with him, I wanted to understand his story, right. Like what makes you tick, you know? You know, and he basically is like, he gives me this very well. He's always got a long story. You know, we relate to each other in that way. But he would say a lot like, I'm gonna take you around the meadow and through the woods and then I'm gonna come back and tie this all together. You know, he would kind of, you know, he learned to kind of warn people, I'm going to tell you five different stories at once and then tie it all together. And most people can't piece it together, but you know, where he is a center of excellence. I mean one, he's, he's obviously a huge culture shaper through music. Whether people love him or not. He, you know, he agreed. He affects a lot of people. Effect is influence, whether it's positive or Negative. You know, whether you react to it, you have a trigger warning or you think he's the greatest artist of all time. You know, even Elon Musk in an interview was asked one time years ago, who inspires you? And without missing a beat, he just said, kanye West. I mean, immediately, which surprised me. That was when I was working with Ye. And so, you know, his center of excellence that's, that is irrefutable, you could argue, is, you know, he got into that world through making beats. You know, he was just a kid, 19, 20 finds his way. Jay Z invites him into the studio, and he's a beat maker. And then within a short amount of time, Jay Z kind of blesses him, is like, you're the best, most gifted beat maker I've ever seen, you know, and so, boom, he's now a center of excellence for making beats for that rap game in that early day. But him being that guy who's always chasing performance in his own metric, you know, he, he's never resting. He is relentless. He's obsessive. He's. He's failing 20 times and succeeding once. You know, if he's failing, he may fail 100 times and succeed once, but his once changes a perspective, you know, so it's beats. And then he went from beats to wanting to be a raptor rapper, you know, and. Okay, you know, I pointed out in the book, you know, because again, what drives people to excel and exceed expectations is usually anger, fear, embarrassment. There's a heavy emotion.
- [120:31]
A
Yeah.
- [120:32]
B
You know, the, you know, the best athletes on the planet are either running from something or chasing something, you know.
- [120:39]
A
Right.
- [120:39]
B
And I think, you know, we're both
- [120:41]
A
at the same time.
- [120:42]
B
Yeah. And it's very rare that somebody from your prior workspace is a balanced human being. Like, you know, they, they had something driving them that was.
- [120:52]
A
You can't have balance.
- [120:53]
B
Unimaginable. Yeah.
- [120:55]
A
Yeah. I hate to say it. You can't. You can't have balance.
- [120:58]
B
To be great.
- [120:59]
A
To be great. Yeah.
- [121:00]
B
To be, to be beyond expectation to. It means you have a single focus. Yeah. Borderline obsession. And nothing is going to get in between you and that objective. I mean, you, you didn't get where you landed without that obsession, that drive that is hard to. For people to understand, you know, and
- [121:24]
A
not to, again, not, I think, you know, mince words. But the, it's more than a drive. You have to be obsessed. Yeah, it's, it's, it's more than, than just a lot of people are driven. But the. What was it? That, that con. What was it that Kanye needed from you?
- [121:46]
B
Well, he wanted me to build a footwear factory in Calabasas. He. He had purchased 300 acres in Calabasas.
- [121:51]
A
Okay.
- [121:52]
B
In the hills of, you know. All right, the hills of, you know, Topanga or whatever, that area. And he had this vision of building a factory, bringing manufacturing onshore. I mean, Kanye, contrary to the things that he brings upon himself, which are negative. Yeah. Routinely. And he's not doing that just to be provocative. He literally is just.
- [122:12]
A
That's a.
- [122:12]
B
He doesn't communicate in a way that inspires often. He, He. He's by nature provocative without intending to be provocative. He's not trying to piss people off, but he ends up doing that anyway. But, you know, he wanted to bring manufacturing onshore. He wanted to build things in America. He wanted to, like, have hands on where he could go and turn things out quickly instead of having it done overseas because he'd gone through the headaches with Adidas and understanding that things are made in overseas, you know, in different countries. Could be in Europe, could be in Asia. Right. And so I was like, yeah, we can do that. You know, we just partner with the best manufacturers and we basically say, hey, Kanye west wants to build a factory here. We pick who the best factory builders are. And, you know, people that know how to build quick turnaround factory, you know, manufacturing arenas, we bring them here. And we could probably, you know, turn this out in six to nine months with the right resources. So, you know, I, I looked at as, like, I can sign on for that. We can knock that out in six, nine months as a deliverable, and then I'm out, you know, because I'm not here to be on the Kanye west show, you know, and the film that came out, you know, in. In his. In whose Name, I think that just came out as a documentary about him in the, in the. In the movie space that was being filmed while I was there. And because, because of my work, my desire to work with units, you know, clandestine units and, and be a thread available to, you know, NSW or whoever, you know, agency stuff that I would. I just wanted to help be a problem solver. It wasn't in my best interest to be publicly exposed that way. I'm not, I'm not. I don't look for fame. You know, doing these podcasts is just to bring the book as a problem solving tool out to a community where people have always encouraged me to be like, hey, you know, you got great stories, you should share them. You know, I'm getting up there. So while I can still do the job and be effective, maybe I can open the aperture and build new relationships, because everything's relationship. And so, you know, he invited me to do that, and no problem, let's do that. And then once I got in there for a few weeks, he was like, do you want to be my CEO of Yeezy? You know, because, you know, he saw the way I was problem solving and organizing his disorder.
- [124:32]
A
Right?
- [124:33]
B
And I was like, I don't want to be your CEO, man. You know, you got a CEO. He's not from the CEO world of big corporations. He doesn't know how to speak to Casper, who was CEO of Adidas. He doesn't know how to work at that peer level. And I've reported to Phil Knight and Mark Parker. I know how to speak at that level. I can help him understand how to be successful.
- [124:56]
A
Right.
- [124:56]
B
I can be your advisor, you know, so I signed on as a chief advisor to Kanye's business endeavors. And, you know, for those months that I was there, it was like, I got exposed to all of his contracts, all of his, you know, and. And I always say I got the best Kanye, in my opinion, of his career, because, you know, he was doing the Sunday services every Sunday where he had a choir, and he's doing, you know, gospel inspired music. He's catering a breakfast for 100 friends and family. I mean, I got a very privileged inside access at a time where he was the most stable. You know, the Kardashians kind of nicknamed me the Kanye Whisperer because I could interpret what he wanted and it would keep him like, yeah, you know, instead of going on rants and losing his mind. So, you know, it was a he. And. And I brought in the language that we're talking about because as, you know, to build a culture, have a strong culture, you have foundational principles, you know, and like, when you talk about, you know, problem solver, when you talked about, hey, I don't need you guys, welcome to the unit. You know, command asset is going, yeah, be fit. Is the fittest human you can be. Yeah, be the. Become the best shooter you can be. But you said those are secondary, those are perishable.
- [126:11]
A
Right.
- [126:11]
B
I need to be a problem solver. Because no matter where you are in the fitness scale or the shooting scale, if. If you're. If you're doing an EP job or you're doing whatever, and it's something that's a little more pedestrian, I need to still be the best problem solver possible. And so you Ingrain those phrases and those, those, those frameworks. And so I could see that Kanye was so disorderly, even though he's, as they say, writing bars. That's, you're writing your rap lyrics and everything is words and language. I was like, you're surrounded by people that are not best in class. Like, they've, they've got their way here through something special and you saw that something special in them, but they're really not working at your level. And so you're, you're, you're not surrounding yourself with best in class. And you need to be a center of excellence. You are a center of excellence and you need to hold people to that standard, you know, and, and so, you know, I just, and he, he, when something resonates for him, he adopts it and it be. He almost like a parrot. Like he started just using the phrases. So the, the foundational principles that I came in with, like, let's be transparent with, with expectations. Let's hold people accountable. So let's have high accountability, which he's not great at. And then let's work, let's, let's be confident that we're best in class and we're going to align with people that are best in class. You know, if you're working with Jay Z, you're two best in class individuals, you know, but if you're working with this artist that you discovered who has no track record, then that remains to be seen whether they're going to be a best in class individual. And if you allow in too many people that are not truly best in class that just have potential. Right. You've got this really diluted environment and there's a lot of chaos and there's a lot of people trying to take advantage. And so I wasn't really well liked in his organization because I was exposing a lot, a lot of, you know, people that probably shouldn't have been there.
- [128:08]
A
But I didn't have his best interests.
- [128:10]
B
Yeah.
- [128:10]
A
At heart.
- [128:11]
B
Yep. And so, you know, ultimately I put together a 10 deliverable executive kind of summary of things that I, I assessed over the first couple weeks that would benefit him. He approved it and he brought me in to deliver those things. And so my, my, my duration of there for a commitment was, you know, we agreed on a transactional, you know, rate and you know, I wasn't contracted, you know, to something that I could sue him for breach of contract. I just said every day I'm going to show up and you're going to pay me, and when you don't want me here anymore. I'll be out. You know, I'm not trying to hold you to any standard other than what you commit to daily. And he really believes he has the day when he wakes up. I have today to move everything I want to do as far forward as I can because I don't know if I'm going to wake up tomorrow. And that sounds crazy and it may not be what you what, what the world sees through a lens at him.
- [129:11]
A
Yeah.
- [129:12]
B
But he literally, that's why he is so obsessed and relentless and a bit unhinged at times because he, he operates from this space of desperation that he wants to move his projects at the speed of light.
- [129:26]
A
Did he ever get his, his shoe factory project to fruition?
- [129:29]
B
He never did.
- [129:30]
A
But why he has the money. Yeah, I believe he has you. What was it that, that kept some. Just, just. I'm just guessing but people like this usually are big idea guys.
- [129:46]
B
Yep.
- [129:47]
A
They don't really usually understand what it really takes they, to, to carry out these plans. The, the, the workhorses underneath them end up doing the lion's share of the work. Which is always a little bit ironic. Right, that you're already successful. You, you have all, you, you have money, you're just an idea guy. Everyone else carries out these crazy ideas of yours and then when it's successful, it's the idea guy that gets, that gets all the credit.
- [130:15]
B
Right.
- [130:15]
A
And well it's, it was the operator. You really didn't have much to do with this. With this. But is that is, does that general statement kind of sum up the project for sure.
- [130:30]
B
I mean that's, that's where you arise to some kingship.
- [130:34]
A
Right, Right.
- [130:35]
B
I mean I, I actually kind of started to translate that, you know, the Elon's and the Kanye's and, and the Bezos, they're modern day kings because they build these small kingdoms and their will be done in these kingdoms. And it's the equivalent of what we, that we don't have modern kingships anymore. And so they're willing these things through. They have people to go out and carry out their orders. They have resources and they're little micro kingdoms. And so ultimately why it didn't execute was like I said, he might have 20 ideas and one executes, he might have 100 ideas. He would say to people around him, I don't need your ideas, I have a thousand ideas a minute. You know, and, and that's probably true, you know, and so where we started moving on it, like he had the intentions, he had the warehouse spaces, you know, he had.
- [131:32]
A
Yeah.
- [131:33]
B
And as we started bringing in heavy equipment, you know, it's like, who's responsible for this? The. The bureaucracy and the structure that's required if you're not committed to building a very structured framework, which isn't his specialty, you know, organized organizational thinking and discipline, where. That's Elon's specialty. And he. He kind of would frustrate him because Elon could build companies and he'd be like, he has the ideas. Kanye is the ultimate creative, you know, but. But it takes that engineering, that ability to translate it into a schematic. Back to whiteboarding, you know, which we've talked about.
- [132:11]
A
I'm glad you brought that up, made that connection, because remember earlier when I said, hey, sometimes that's what happens when. When you miss a step. You know, you have. You had the drive, but you don't really have the experience. They miss a step of that solid foundation with the drive that turns into experience. Now you're a true problem solver. Now you're. Now you can be elite at something because. Because you did it the correct way with no shortcuts. Elon can do it that way because Elon built organizations as a young man from the ground up, and he took no shortcuts. Kanye did not. Started as an entertainer, got money, and now he wants to become a businessman. And he has shortcutted into money that wants to transfer over into business.
- [133:09]
B
Yeah.
- [133:09]
A
And as always, it doesn't mean it's impossible. I. I've seen the guys shortcut into the Delta Force a lot don't make it. Some have, and some have done very well.
- [133:21]
B
Sure.
- [133:21]
A
But those are. Those are outliers.
- [133:22]
B
Yep.
- [133:23]
A
And so usually the. The people who. Who miss that foundation and shortcut there. There's a reason there's. There's a process, and there's a reason he's an idea guy. And a lot of his ideas don't come to fruition because he doesn't know what it really takes to do that.
- [133:37]
B
Yep. No, and I mean, there's a. There's a part in the book. Right. About defining the problem is, is we talked about this a little bit about, like, what we. What someone thinks is the problem. And I think that's where Elon excelled.
- [133:49]
A
Yeah.
- [133:50]
B
Whereas he didn't shortcut by. By the term. Shortcutting, like cutting steps.
- [133:54]
A
Yeah.
- [133:55]
B
He saw a faster path to execution, so he redefined the path. You know, rockets into space. He. Or electric cars or whatever. He. He took the problem, set that. That normal people look at as these are the steps.
- [134:11]
A
Yeah.
- [134:11]
B
And how do we redefine the roadmap? You know, and that's, that's real innovation, you know, that's, that's visionary thinking.
- [134:18]
A
Right. Let's not, let's not confuse shortcuts with, with efficiency. Yeah. Because I mean efficiency is a shortcut. Yeah. But it's, but it's not, it's not the same. He's. Efficiency, which is something, which is something high level organizations are very focused on
- [134:35]
B
or better be like combat effectiveness. Right, right.
- [134:38]
A
That's the probably the last thing we'll. We'll talk about because it's just important. We talked about or hinted at a lot, you know, problem solving. And you brought up one of the things we talked about, problem solving. And in one of the. Your short YouTube videos that I was watching. Are those things released for public viewing on YouTube?
- [134:58]
B
Yep, the channels. I just put the channel up a couple weeks ago to support the book because that's the catalyst for the book.
- [135:04]
A
Everything. Okay.
- [135:05]
B
Everything's tied together kind of.
- [135:07]
A
It's one of the things you talk about problem solving, which really resonated. You were able to. It was something, it's something that I've always done, but you were able to verbalize it and define it, if you will. Which is one of the problems people have is they look at this as the problem and they start from the problem point or what I'll call the perceived problem point. This is now when it becomes a problem. So it's perceived. This is the problem point. Or someone else comes to you with a problem. So that is the problem point. But what you really have to do as a problem solver is step one is, is this truly my problem point now? This is, this is the point where I know it's a problem, but let's not, let's not take that for granted. Is this really the problem? Let's take a step back. Let's. Did this problem point show itself here? Because a real problem happened two steps ago.
- [136:09]
B
Yeah.
- [136:09]
A
And I thought it was really, really good way to, to look at that and for people to think about, you know, that are, that are watching this because like we talked about before as well, you can train yourself to be better at certain things and problem solving is something you can be better at. Most people are naturally better at it through experience. But you can take your experience at problem solving and make someone with less experience better at problems. They don't have to learn all the hard lessons you did. And so sharing things like that, I was like that's that is a great point about problem solving and trying to solve this particular problem is step one. Stop. Is this really the problem?
- [136:52]
B
Right.
- [136:52]
A
Is this really the beginning of this problem?
- [136:54]
B
And I mean, I hate to say it, but I think we learned the hard way the clearest example of that in relationships, if, if someone's been married and they end up in a divorce, you know, the thing that they think was the problem.
- [137:06]
A
That's a great example.
- [137:07]
B
The problem was actually a lot. It happened a lot sooner and it happened in more micro ways that accumulated to that breaking point, which became the quote, unquote problem. Yeah. You know, and you talk about it if you're advising a SWAT team and they're having a problem, and then because you have much deeper expertise and much. A much more complete set of reps, you're like, guys, you think this is the problem. But it actually, like you said earlier, two steps ago.
- [137:35]
A
Two steps ago. Right.
- [137:36]
B
The problem began here. And you think this is a problem because you just don't see it. You don't have the lens, you don't have the reps, the experience.
- [137:44]
A
Right.
- [137:44]
B
You haven't had enough outcomes that were bad or failures.
- [137:47]
A
Yeah.
- [137:48]
B
And I'm going to show you that if you eliminate these, if you address it earlier, you want to get to that. And that's wisdom. And that's, that's almost feels like you're an oracle. But to some people, like, you see the future. How'd you see. How'd you see that?
- [138:01]
A
You know, and, and because I've made those mistakes before.
- [138:05]
B
Yep. Right.
- [138:06]
A
It's not because I'm that knowledgeable, that smart, unfortunately. It's because I've made a lot of mistakes and I had. But I did have to learn from them. Them.
- [138:15]
B
And you realize almost every problem started before the problem that you're facing. Yeah. And no, I. And you know, it's. It's wise of you to see that that is a critical point to bring attention to for people to reflect on. You know, and I mean, that's the whole. The part of this book is like everything about. It's a bunch of problems I've gone through in a bunch of environments. And really the problems are not that different. They just present themselves differently because they do it in a different environment. If, you know, people may say, who cares about Lululemon? You know, it's a women's yoga brand or whatever, but. Well, you know, the way they ran their meetings was highly effective, highly efficient, you know, and it changed the way I wanted to do meetings. You know, and so I think a problem solver goes into every environment and goes, how do, how do I take something from here and get better? You know, that's a tier one mindset, right? Like, you know, back to the original conversation of like, whatever you're doing, are you doing it to the highest level you can do it, you know, and, and if you are, you will always bring exceptionality to wherever you end up. And, and people respect that, people appreciate that, you know?
- [139:29]
A
Yeah.
- [139:31]
B
You know, I don't know, it's. I always saw guys in your community, you know, that brotherhood, that fellowship, that team mindset of like when it comes to. If I was out traveling with guys and somebody was unloading something and they were done because they were effective and efficient and they got their shit done before anybody else, they were like, hey, how can I help you? You know, kind of thing, they're quick to go to the next guy. And it's like, that kind of stuff to me is so like simple, but it's so it. And I see that in their civilian life, they'll be at a house, we're having a barbecue and I'll see a, you know, SEAL buddy will be over and we'll be unloading a friggin cooler and stuff. And, and that guy will just be on everything, like, how can I help? How can I be. You know, and it's like, I know where that comes from, you know, and it's like, it's, those are the things that translate into the world that make that guy a high performer, that make that guy somebody that people want around.
- [140:28]
A
You know, it's, it's so small, but I really didn't mean, didn't intend to. But I'm going to expand on that a little bit. Please. Because it goes to, you go from this organization of high performing people and it gets so frustrating to leave it. And, and I wish I could think of a real good analogy off the top my, off the top of my head. But we'll just make up the, the party thing. So what they're so good at is if, if I'm unloading all the drinks and I'm gonna go put it in the cooler. Well, what's the next thing I'm gonna need? Well then I'm gonna need to put ice in the cooler and so then I'll have to go get ice. But if, when you're in and around those people, they look at you and they say, okay, he's taking the drinks to the cooler, what's the next thing he's gonna need. And they don't just come help you with those drinks because they've already looked. Oh, does he have more drinks? No, he doesn't need more drinks. So he doesn't need my help there. What's the next step? That I will help him with?
- [141:31]
B
Logical anticipation.
- [141:32]
A
So I will go get the ice. And as soon as I'm done putting drinks and someone just poured the ice in, I'm like, where'd that come from? And I look over, he's like. And I'm like, okay, I get it. It's, it's. It's hard to explain how, what, how easy that can be obtained. That's why it's a little bit frustrating. That's so easy to obtain. You just have to look for it.
- [141:49]
B
Right.
- [141:49]
A
But anyway, where can they get the book?
- [141:53]
B
Amazon.
- [141:54]
A
All right, Amazon. And before you leave, between all of it, you gotta have something for me. Give me a funny story.
- [142:03]
B
Oh, wow, man. Comedy is my weak point, man. Jeez. A funny story, it's more experienced, man.
- [142:11]
A
I feel like easy did something silly.
- [142:14]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [142:14]
A
But man, through, in and around all these. There's always characters at these high level organizations too, though. There's a lot of professional people. There's always characters.
- [142:24]
B
Oh, man, I don't know. You should have prepped me on that one. Comedy is my weak spot. I'm always a high speed, like, get in, dog with a bone kind of a guy. That's. My comedy is like, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Funny story.
- [142:42]
A
Yeah. I don't think I ever prep any. I'll never prep anyone for that question. They either watch this every, Every one of my episodes ends. Ends with this.
- [142:50]
B
See? And it's. What's funny is watching me struggle for a quick response. I need my Andy Stumpf character. Yeah, no character plot right now.
- [142:59]
A
Yeah, that's right. We're at it all.
- [143:01]
B
I'll come back to a comedy spoof when I come back the second time. How about that? I'll open the next interview with a.
- [143:08]
A
All right.
- [143:08]
B
With a comment.
- [143:09]
A
But we'll, we'll edit all that and I'll go, all right, I'm gonna give you a rarity. I'm. I'm gonna let you off the hook on. On one condition. That, that you come back, do another episode, and you start out the next episode with a funny story.
- [143:24]
B
You got it?
- [143:25]
A
All right, that'll work.
- [143:26]
B
Challenge accepted.
- [143:27]
A
Justin, thank you so, so much. It's been a pleasure, you know, hanging out with you since yesterday. And we'll, we're gonna do.
- [143:35]
B
We're gonna.
- [143:35]
A
We're gonna go do some more deep dives into these stories that we didn't have time for. Now back in the garage, smoking some cigars.
- [143:42]
B
Right on. I look forward to it.
- [143:44]
A
Absolutely. Thank you, Justin.
- [143:45]
B
Thank you.