Force Recon to Navy SEAL Tier1 | Mike Sarraille | Joint SMU Experience and Elite Leadership

Summary

Tier1 Podcast: "Force Recon to Navy SEAL Tier1 | Mike Sarraille | Joint SMU Experience and Elite Leadership"

Host: Brent Tucker
Guest: Mike Sarraille
Date: December 8, 2025

---

Overview

This episode of the Tier1 Podcast features an in-depth conversation between host Brent Tucker, a former Delta Force operator, and guest Mike Sarraille, who brings a unique perspective as a former Marine Force Recon, SEAL officer, and Special Missions Unit (SMU) operator. The two explore themes of personal evolution through military special operations, lessons in elite leadership, building high-performing teams, and the realities of post-military life and transition. The tone is candid, authentic, and laced with veteran camaraderie, drawing on specific events and formative moments—including joint experiences between elite units and transitioning from the battlefield to the boardroom.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unpredictable Career Path of a Tier 1 Operator

• Early Military Aspirations and Influences

  • Mike shares how youthful curiosity and emulating a quiet, disciplined Force Recon Marine inspired his enlistment.
  • Quote: "Like any other kid who read the books and watched the movies. I think you're questioning, do I have what it takes to be one of those guys?" — Mike Sarraille [07:25]

• Joining and Transitioning Between Units

  • Details his trajectory: Force Recon Marine → Marine Scout Sniper → SEAL → Tier 1 operator.
  • Marine Corps’ delayed entry into SOCOM led to funding and equipment gaps, influencing his eventual transfer via a lateral move to Naval Special Warfare.

• Necessity of Adaptation

  • Experiences of constantly adapting to new environments, teams, and missions; didn’t plan far ahead while "in the fight."
  • Quote: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans… every three to five years, it's always wrong." — Brent Tucker [05:24]

---

2. The Impact of Organizational Culture on Special Operations

• Why Culture and Structure Matter

  • Reflection on the detrimental effects of the Marine Corps' "every Marine is a rifleman" ethos, which denied specialized recognition and resources to elite units.
  • Quote: "Strong cultures, when they're too strong, there can be a lot of negative benefits... performance follows a bell curve. It's just not everyone is the same, and that's okay." — Mike Sarraille [10:24]

• The Role of Combat Support/Logistics

  • Both guests stress respect for the unseen support echelons enabling operator success.
  • Quote: "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics." — Warrant Officer, via Brent Tucker [10:59]

• Lessons from Operation Eagle Claw

  • Discuss SOCOM’s birth out of failure, the price of logistics failures, and lessons that echo in today’s operations.
  • Quote: "Eagle Claw... the amount of lessons learned and how that operation has shaped our special operations forces to this day are just insane." — Mike Sarraille [13:11]

---

3. Inter-Service Rivalry and the “Brand” of Special Operations

• Evolution of Public Perception

  • How media and films shifted “special ops” fame from Green Berets to SEALs; banter about Charlie Sheen and the enduring joke that “every Green Beret is a boy who wanted to be a SEAL.”
  • Quote: "Top Gun 1 opened the funnel for young men and women that wanted to be fighter pilots. Top Gun 2 brought America back to American nationalism." — Mike Sarraille [24:01]
  • Quote: "Even the Green Berets were just rolling, laughing [at the SEAL joke]. It was a good liner." — Mike Sarraille [24:52]

• Respect Among Elites

  • Ultimately, deep mutual respect trumps rivalry at the Tier 1 level. Both note that banter and competition sharpen the edge, but joint work reveals cultural similarities, not differences.
  • Quote: "The best way to describe it is they're both ice cream, just slightly different flavors." — Mike Sarraille [67:57]

---

4. Leadership: Nature, Nurture, and the Making of High-Performing Teams

• Born or Made?

  • Debate over whether great leaders are innate or developed, with consensus that formative experiences, especially mentorship and exposure to good and bad leaders, are decisive.
  • Quote: "I do believe that leadership is oral, like plagiarism... You watch great leaders, try to emulate what they do, and create your own system." — Mike Sarraille [43:29]

• Culture is Fragile

  • Observing that culture is hard to gain, easy to lose, and never static—requires constant reinforcement, especially as organizations grow and evolve.
  • Quote: "The biggest mistake anyone can make, military or business, is to think that culture is one and done." — Mike Sarraille [37:27]

• Tier 1 Leadership Standard

  • Elite leadership standards in SMUs shape post-military performance. Even the worst leaders in Tier 1 are often better than the best elsewhere.
  • Quote: "Those were my most formative years because the leadership was so solid. Even our bad leaders were, by orders of magnitude, above the bar." — Mike Sarraille [50:46]

---

5. Lessons Learned—Failure, Humility, and the Everyday Warrior Mindset

• Failure Is Universal and Instructive

  • "Bloopers" and mistakes (forgetting guns, dropping mags, flashbanging teammates) are shared with humor and humility as vital learning tools.
  • Quote: "I've done everything wrong inside a house... I've flashbanged my teammates, kicked a hollow core door, tripped—I've done it all." — Brent Tucker [64:44]
  • Quote: "I remember all the bloopers more than I remember the successes." — Mike Sarraille [64:44]

• Leadership After Action Reviews

  • Story of an external Tier 1 operator producing a game-changing AAR—leadership’s willingness (or not) to accept tough feedback drives true progress.

• Obsession and Sacrifice

  • Both discuss the sacrifices made—family, personal well-being—in pursuit of professional excellence, and how experiencing a true high-performing team is transformative.

---

6. Transitioning Off the Battlefield—Business, Giving Back, and Personal Growth

• Business and Parallels to Special Ops

  • Mike describes his journey founding and leading veteran-focused executive search and consulting firms, and the challenging transition to corporate “combat.”
  • Quote: "It's nuanced, but at the end of the day, you're dealing with people... I'm focused on progress, not perfection." — Mike Sarraille [54:48]

• Executive Search and Leadership Development

  • Helping veterans transition into civilian executive roles, leveraging military-derived talent assessment and leadership models.

• Giving Back and Pushing Limits

  • Organizing global expeditions (Triple 7: 7 skydives on 7 continents in 7 days) to honor the fallen and raise charity funds—sharing leadership and planning lessons.
  • Quote: "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics." — Mike Sarraille [99:11]

---

7. Cross-Pollination: The Value of Joint, Inter-Service Exchange

• Joint Rotations & Mutual Learning

  • Both units benefit from authorizing formal and informal exchange; reveals similarities in standards and underscores the necessity of iron sharpening iron.
  • Quote: "What is a shame is that we don’t talk more... at the end of the day, we wear the same flag on the shoulder. Iron sharpens iron." — Mike Sarraille [73:04]

• Trading Best Practices

  • Stories about after actions, sharing hard lessons and vulnerabilities across the entire SOF enterprise.

---

8. Reflections on Officer Development and Military Structure

• Advocating for 'Mustang' Officers

  • Both argue that the most effective leaders are prior-enlisted ("Mustangs"), thanks to practical experience rather than purely academic commissioning paths.
  • Quote: "We need more Mustangs... serve four years enlisted and go officer. They'd be way more ahead of the curve." — Brent Tucker [84:56]
  • Quote: "Universities are entrenched... but a college degree took me completely worthless. I could learn more for the three years I was in college, still in the military, becoming really good at my job..." — Mike Sarraille [84:59]

• Responsibility of Enlisted to Mentor Officers

  • A shared responsibility to bridge the culture gap—not merely the "officer problem."

---

9. The Everyday Warrior Project and What’s Next

• Books and Content Creation

  • Discusses the process of writing (e.g., The Talent War), podcasting, and launching initiatives with Men’s Journal to translate elite mindsets to a broader audience.
  • Quote: "I learned more from the guests... everyday warrior practices came from people I served with and tried to emulate." — Mike Sarraille [96:21]

• Extreme Expeditions for Charity

  • Triple 7: 7 jumps, 7 continents, 7 days—record-breaking fundraising event for Folds of Honor and others; lessons in planning, execution, and adaptation.
  • Quote: "The victory is secured before you even step onto the battlefield." — Mike Sarraille [100:30]
  • Hints at "Seven Continents, Seven Days, Seven Scuba Dives" project in the works.

• Power of Technology and AI

  • Mike observes that AI will play a massive role in the planning and execution of future complex projects, encouraging its adoption: “...you’re an idiot not to use AI.” [107:13]

---

Notable Quotes & Moments (by Timestamp)

• On Planning and Adaptation:
  "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. He must think I’m a comedian at this point..." — Brent Tucker [05:24]

• On Humility and High Performance:
  "At that place, you... think you're the best in the world. It's just you should be better... But on an individual level, maybe I wasn't that good. But I was part of a high performing team, and I'm proud of that." — Mike Sarraille [64:10]

• On Leadership:
  "Leadership is a lifelong process... you are from your parents all the way up to your bosses at a young age. Bad leaders have been some of the best for my leadership development..." — Brent Tucker [44:32] "Leadership and culture are a contact sport... you learn more from being in the arena with great leaders in action." — Mike Sarraille [47:05]

• On Inter-Service Respect:
  "The best way to describe it is they're both ice cream, just slightly different flavors... there are organic strengths at one place more so than the other, but that's also a design of what they're focused on..." — Mike Sarraille [67:57]

• On Lessons from Failure:
  "I've done everything wrong inside a house... But I was part of a high performing team and I'm proud of that. But I remember all the bloopers more than the successes." — Brent Tucker and Mike Sarraille [64:44]

• On Planning for Record-Setting Expeditions:
  "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics... We had a battle book of contingencies." — Mike Sarraille [99:11]

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Mike’s Recruitment and Early Recon Experience – 07:25–10:59
• SOCOM, Eagle Claw, and the Value of Logistics – 13:11–16:12
• Inter-service Rivalry and Cultural Brand Shifts – 21:54–25:01
• Green Berets vs. SEALs: History and Mutual Respect – 22:22–24:52
• Transition to Navy and Tier 1 Experience – 31:13–35:27
• Leadership and Nature vs. Nurture Debate – 42:56–46:51
• Building High-Performing Teams and Obsession with Excellence – 50:46–54:48
• Post-Military Business and Leadership Consulting – 54:48–56:47
• Triple 7 Expedition Planning and Execution – 97:14–104:27
• On Team Culture and Leadership Lessons from Joint Service – 67:57–73:45

---

Conclusion

Mike Sarraille's story, told with Brent Tucker’s facilitation, is a compelling blend of humility, tactical insight, and practical leadership lessons. From questioning himself as a “kid who read the books and watched the movies” to becoming a model for what post-military excellence can look like, Sarraille emphasizes that elite performance, whether on the battlefield or in business, results from continual adaptation, disciplined culture, and relentless team focus. Their discussion is punctuated with laughs, stories of hard-earned lessons, and an evident mutual respect that defines the top tier of special operations.

---

Connect With the Guest

• Mike Sarraille: Everyday Warrior Podcast | Author: The Talent War, The Everyday Warrior
• Charity Mentioned: Folds of Honor
• Triple 7 Expedition Documentary: Anticipated 2025 release

---

For those pursuing their own elite journey—military or not—this episode is a masterclass in leadership, humility, and never letting go of the drive to improve.

Transcript

[Brent Tucker]

Go. Now say everything we just said again, verbatim. We've got this. That's right. We don't. I never end up using that beginning stuff. Ah, that's not true. I've used it before. I don't always use it though. But Devin said that we probably shouldn't have done it because she was watching some of your episodes and she goes, I don't think Mike's funny enough to do some of that. Pre recording rules.

[Mike C]

You watched a couple of my episodes.

[Brent Tucker]

Those are his words, not my one.

[Mike C]

You're like one of ten people now. Awesome. If you buy my book, you'll be number 10. Only the kids won.

[Brent Tucker]

All right, let's get into it.

[Mike C]

For the special forces res.

[Brent Tucker]

Welcome to the Tier one podcast. This is amazing. Dude, check this out. Welcome back to the Tier one Podcast. I'm your host, Brent Tucker, owner of frcc. Go to FRCC shop to get the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon. Use promo code FRCC15. That's FRCC15 to get 15 off. Also, I'm part owner and human performance TRT for the best. For the very best. And testosterone and peptides. Go to HP trt.com and use promo code tier1 to get 20% off.

[Mike C]

So for more behind the scenes content.

[Brent Tucker]

Follow us on Patreon and watch me.

[Mike C]

Make fun of Brent most of the time.

[Brent Tucker]

But also just the inside scoop. Just tier one number one is the handle. We got it. Today's episode is brought to you by Elevated Operator. At Elevated Operator, they believe in mental clarity, balance, energy and deep rest. Shouldn't be hard to find. They should be part of a daily life. They that's why they craft premium American herbal wellness products from mood boosting tablets like Battle Buddies to energize and calming teas for day or night use. All made in the USA from organic ingredients. As a veteran founded brand, they're committed not only to quality and transparency, but to real results. Check them out@empled operator.com and use code tier one to save 15% on your first order today. I also use their products. I use this every night to get to bed. It's their night ops ceasefire. Please go support them. With us today we have Tier one operator, fellow Tier one Mike C. Good to have you on, man.

[Mike C]

Thanks for having me.

[Brent Tucker]

I really appreciate you coming on. I don't, I really don't know why but, and, and, and you know, we've made it clear that, you know, it's. We call the Tier one podcast but you know, we're building a Tier one community, tier one husbands, you know, tier one employees, tier one business owners, tier one friends. Everything in you do in life, that's, that's the mentality. So obviously if it was a truly a tier one podcast, we'd have about seven guests. So we, so we also had a necessity. Can't do that. But you were one of the first people I thought of. And when I called you and said, hey, I'm starting, I'm starting my, my own podcast. Yeah, I need people, you immediately said, help and say when, when do you need me? And I really, really appreciate that, Mike.

[Mike C]

Well, you were there for me. I mean, it's been, I haven't seen you and I know we've stayed in touch since 2021 when we did that awesome 20 year episode for 911 with Rich Divini.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Mike C]

Glenn Cowan, a JTF2 operator. We had a 2 4sts operator. Eric, Eric Ballister. We went deep, man, that was, that was cathartic in a lot of ways.

[Brent Tucker]

It was really cool because that was a 20 year anniversary of September 11th. Eric Ballister was a, was a controller for us. And that's, and he's the one who kind of wrote me into it to sort of say, hey, are you interested in doing this? Well, September 11th is why I joined. So even though I wasn't necessarily interested in doing podcasts at the time, I'll forever be interested in doing anything in remembrance of 9 11. And when I got pitched to me, hey, we, we got someone from the Navy, the Air Force, you know, the Marines, if Canada, you know that, you know, we need an army representative. I'm like, okay, you know, count me in. And it was really cool. But if you'd have told me at the time, if you'd have pulled me this side of the time, be like, hey, Brent, you don't know this, but you're also going to be doing podcasts in the near future. I'd have looked at you crazy. I'd be like, no, you punch me. I want to do this.

[Mike C]

Yeah. Oh, never say never.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Many times.

[Brent Tucker]

What's the, what's, what's the quote? If, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

[Mike C]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean, I've said it time and time again, like, and I always finish it with this. He must think I'm a comedian at this point because I, I clearly have no idea what I'm going to do every three to five years. Because it's always wrong. It's always wrong.

[Mike C]

Yeah. I mean, if anyone said, you know, Mike, you're going to basically end up in human resources, and then, hey, Mike, you're going to end up in data centers. I, I would have laughed at the person. Laughed at the person.

[Brent Tucker]

It's. So where, so where did it start? So where did it start for you? And how were you wrong your whole life? Because just, just skip ahead a little bit. Yeah. You were in the Marines Scout Sniper, Recon, enlisted officer, Navy SEAL into a special missions unit. And I'd imagine from the very beginning, the next step probably wasn't on your radar, you know, until it got there. So. Or, or maybe it was. Maybe you're better at telling the future than I was.

[Mike C]

No. You know, I think when you're so engrossed in the global war and terror while was going on and the speed at which it, it moved, I don't think you'd be very good at your job if you were laying plans for your future.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And I, I don't want people to think we're, you know, myopic. You know, we, we are very good at planning. But I didn't imagine a world outside of the military until all of a sudden, it's time to get out. And my choice was, and I really had a luxury was, hey, I'll go do my MBA to give myself two years to figure out what the hell.

[Brent Tucker]

I want to do.

[Mike C]

And I don't know how helpful that was, but I appreciated my time there. And it's been a fun journey. There's been a lot of failures, a lot of successes, but I think I've finally landed where I'm supposed to be.

[Brent Tucker]

All right, well, let's, let's figure out how you got there. Why'd you join the Marines? Start right from the beginning of military career. Why did you join the Marines? And what year are we talking about?

[Mike C]

Yeah, you know, the military. Like any other kid who read the books and watched the movies. I think you're question, questioning, do I have what it takes to be one of those guys? And, you know, had a very short stint the University of Colorado Boulder, which. It is not hard to focus on the extracurricular activities when you're in Boulder. Skiing, partying, and actually got myself kicked out of the Naval rotc. But at that unit was a. There's something called a MEP Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program.

[Brent Tucker]

All right.

[Mike C]

And those are active duty Marines still in active duty that they sent from the active fleet to finish their degrees and then become officers in the Marine Corps. And full circle. I ended up becoming one of those guys. But there was a Force Recon guy. I think There was about 20 active duty Marines there. You know, a lot of them were those prototypical loud Marines. And then you had this guy who was just an absolute beast, who was quiet, he was nice to everyone.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And I gravitated to him, and everything about him was impressive. And as I was starting to fail out and he saw that and he knew I was interested in special operations, didn't know the SEALs or Marine Corps. I was leaning towards the Marine Corps. He basically took me under his wings, like, hey, man, this ain't gonna work out for you, but you'd be an exceptional Marine, and they will give you that focus, that discipline and that accountability that you lack right now.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And he helped me enlist, and so I went off and ended up becoming a recon Marine. Like him, Scout sniper, lots of schools, and loved it. I. I loved the Marine Corps. But this is prior to 2006. Okay, so they were not part of SOCOM. Right. Did not do my research. I don't regret it. But back in the 80s, when SOCOM was being formed in the wake of Eagle Claw, Right. Al Gray was the commandant, and he refused to admit that there were any special Marines. Every Marine's a rifleman.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

Which that's. That's false. It. It defies, you know, Power's Law. That. Right. There's an exponential performance that can be measured across your force. And some people are in a higher tier.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

Middle tier, and what we call the. The bottom feeders.

[Brent Tucker]

But it's so disheartening because. Because when they. When someone at that level makes a statement like that with. With such an error. And I hate to say it, but. But it's. But it's true. Nowhere else in any other form would that be accepted. There's not a football team in the world's like, nah, everybody's a quarterback. No, not everyone's a quarterback. Not everyone's. The point guard is nowhere else. Everyone's the CEO. There are. There are jobs and there are levels to every job. And it was. It was. It was detrimental to the core. And I hate that because I'm actually a big, you know, fan of the Marine Corps and its culture. I am.

[Mike C]

Yes. And. And, you know, strong cultures, when they're too strong, there can be a lot of negative benefits or negative things that come out of that. But, you know, you basically said it, all performance follows a bell curve. It's just not everyone is the same, and that's okay, but everyone has a sense of purpose. I mean, people are so fascinated with operators. What they rarely see are all the logistics administrative intelligence professionals behind us that set us up for success. And I couldn't imagine a world without the combat support. We sort of lumped them all into combat sport. I couldn't imagine a world without those guys.

[Brent Tucker]

My. I've never forgotten it. And also one of my. My first team leaders in SF was actually a warrant officer. And he told me something that made no sense to me when he first told it to me. I have to be less than six months on a team. I just heard him say this, this quote one time. It's why it stuck with me, because I was like, that makes no sense. He goes, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. And I was like, again, like, that makes no sense. And the older I got and the more experience I got, I was like, that man was brilliant. Because he's absolutely right. All the guys in team rooms arguing.

[Mike C]

Over tactics and it's the 1% advantage. If we do this, it gives us a 1. Which.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

I'm all about testing and learning and evolving.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

But you're absolutely, you know, uses that quote all the time is Glenn Cowan, who we just got in. In again, much like people ignore combat support and how they set operators up for success, like on target. I don't want to say it's the least hard part. It's the most kinetic.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

And you guys are very good at what you do. You know, I'm an officer. I'm sitting back here with a radio, which I enjoyed my job. I took that seriously.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Hell, I was one of the few officers that carried Satcom, so I didn't need a. I've seen the pics operator. But how do you get a force of 60 to an insertion point? What are the assets and how are they timed and sequenced to make sure there's no gaps? How do you get them out and how do you do that for probably 10 different combat operations going on throughout Afghanistan all at the same time or simultaneously? That's. That's where the difficulty lies.

[Brent Tucker]

It's funny because we, we actually just referenced it before talking about this. Why was socom, you know, why was there even a need for socom? Well, you know, Eagle Claw didn't. Didn't work out, but it didn't work out because of, because of tactics. It. We failed on a. On a global scale because of logistics.

[Mike C]

You know, so I speak to companies a lot. I tell that one story all the time.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Because for, for the audience, Operation Eagle Claw, the failed rescue attempt for the American Hostages being held in Tehran. It, it was a watershed moment from which SOCOM and JSOC were born. And I mean helicopters didn't make it to, to the, the rendezvous point or the desert one site. And it was not the, the Delta guys. And I had the privilege of interviewing General Jerry Boykin for one of my books and just listening him and you could still see the weight of the failure on him. Again, not to their, their doing, but the, the amount of lessons learned in how that operation has shaped our special operations forces to this day are just insane. Great story.

[Brent Tucker]

It's, you know, coming from that place, it, it's crazy how the weight of that. Because getting to talk to those older guys every now and they still carry the weight of, of, of that operation. Like it's just, it's a. Because it wasn't their fault. And they know and I know and you know, America knows. If the boys would have got on target, everything would have, would have been okay. And they didn't even get a chance to get on target. And they trained and trained and trained. It was really, it's really a sad story.

[Mike C]

Do you, you remember the story about the British contractors that came and tried to leave a case of beer? They left a note behind because they couldn't find the Delta Force guys. And what I was told was they had walked off and they were already doing an after action of how does this, how do we make sure that this never happens again? But on the note was to you all from us, all for having the guts to try.

[Brent Tucker]

Having the guts to try. Yeah, that's right. Actually that's, that's where that comes from. Yeah, just it. So what 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 tastygains.com and enter the promo code tier one. That's T I E R. The number one, and get 20% off your order. What do you think was. Was tangibly the result of the Marine Corps getting late to the game in Special Operations and throwing their hat into socom. What, what was the negative. What was the negative effects of that?

[Mike C]

So one, I mean, the most obvious is funding in recon. I was still carrying a M16 as the point man. Of course, I would have my M40, A1, my sniper rifle if I needed it on that mission, but I was still carrying an M16 with a starlight scope from Vietnam. If you even look at that thing at night, it's like so fog here, like how this thing is useless, but I think it makes me look cool, so I'm carry it. And then we'd end up working with some SF guys. And this is in the late 90s or SEALs, and. And they're carrying M4s with optics. They have night vision. And this actually sort of weighed into my decision to eventually go over to socom. The easiest route was a lateral transfer because Marine Corps is the men's department in the Navy.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

To. To. To the Navy. But also what I found was they were statistically older, more highly educated, more fit. But that said, the Force Recon in the recon community, I mean, that was some of my most difficult schools. Their combat dive school was more difficult than phase two of, of which is our dive phase for. For buds.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

It may be. Arguably I'm skewed because I'm already a combat diver before I go to. To buds, but.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

It was a different school and those guys were so good. And it's not to say the Force Recon wasn't used in South America in the 80s and other operations. But when I had eventually left the Marine Corps, I was selected for that MESA program and I ended up at Texas A and M. That was a culture shock. Going from San Diego to College Station, Texas. The war kicked off. In fact, I had. After my first year at Texas A and M, I went to Marine OCS, finished Honorman came back, and that was August of 2001. And less than one month later, 9, 11 happens. And talking with my recon and Force Recon buddies, they're like, bro, we're not the vanguard or being aggressive as the missions that are going to the SF guys in the Naval Special Warfare. And that's when the decision was cemented. Okay, so I started doing research. How do I take a commission in the Navy? And it was actually easier than I thought. And that's, that's how I ended up in The SEAL teams.

[Brent Tucker]

I had recon guys in my SF selection class at the end of O2 because not, not a whole lot, but we had some. And some of that things you're talking about, they weren't a part of socom. You know, they were afraid the, the war is going to basically not be open to them as, as it is in other units. And they wanted to, for what, you know, one reason, another one come a Green Beret. But I will tell you, every single one of those guys that I, that I remember that tried out for SF made it as. As you'd imagine they would. They've already been through a selection process and they were good guys and I would, I got. One of them was my roommate throughout the Q course and he was just a wealth of knowledge and we would pick his brain all the time. So from early on I've, I've looked up to Force Recon Marines because the few that I got to interact with early in my career represented your community very well. And they went out and crushed it.

[Mike C]

And they say, we had a lot of Marines, Recon Marines go to buds and, and pass. I mean, the running joke was for 1st Force Reconnaissance Company. They called the Air Force PJ community the 1st Force Retirement Company. So a lot of them would, would jump and become Air Force pjs, which I, I hold the PJs and the CCT community in very high regard was always impressed by them. They were squared away. But I think that was a byproduct of not being part of SOCOM at the time. Doubt that is happening to the degree it is now. Now that the Marine, Marine stood up marsoc, the Raiders. And I could not be happier for him. The funny thing was, so during phase three of SEAL training, we go to Pendleton to use the rifle range for a rifle qualification. And there's some Marines on the same range. They're using the, the 25 meter range. And I see some guys I served with, I'm like, dude, what's up? How you doing? One of which ended up we're with, with you guys. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? He's like, we're with something called, I think they called it MARSOC Debt one.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay. Yep.

[Mike C]

And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, it's a test to, to get into socom.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Mike C]

And I was like, mother, so you guys are going to socom. And I just went through Hel. You know, God's laughing at me.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. And so that was, that was. You may have already said, but you want to ensure that being a part of SOCOM is kind of what drove you to, to, to, to change over. And when you did that you were an officer when, when you went to.

[Mike C]

When you went to enlisted in the Marine Corps. And you know, funny when people would always ask like, you know, what's, what's recon? It would be like, it's sort of like the Navy seals, but for the Marine Corps. Maybe my ego was hit a couple times.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, the Navy SEALs have ruined it for everyone in that aspect. I get that all the time because usually if someone asks, normally I'll just say the Army. But if, if they, if they, they push me down to at least a Green Beret. The over half the time I get is that kind of like a Navy seal. And then I have to go, yeah, it's like an Army Navy seal. It's just they have owed, they've owed the moniker for special operations to the public eye.

[Mike C]

We, you know, it's with.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm not even mad about that. I'm not. It's just, it's, it's, it's funny, but it's not.

[Mike C]

He. Tell you what, I guess we, we are very good at marketing to fill the funnel for, for candidates. But yeah, I mean the overwhelming majority of the books that I read when I was young were all about sf, Mac V. Sog and, and I mean, yeah, you guys were the godfathers of special operations for, for the US Wasn't.

[Brent Tucker]

Alive during that time. But I've done a, I did a, you know, a history on, on SF and, and, and I've, yeah, I read a lot of special operation books and talking to the generation before me, it does seem to. I believe you're right. If you go back to John Wayne and the Green Berets and Mac V. Sog, even though seals were a part of the studies Observations group, it was very Green Beret heavy at that time, or at least the way the way people looked at it and portrayed it. So the 70s seem to have a, a very SF heavy present. Everyone knew what a Green Beret was in the 80s. You still had Rambo claiming to be a Green Beret. He had Arnold Schwarzenegger and Predator, you know, saying these were Green Berets from Fort Bragg. I knew them. And it's. Have done a lot of hard data on this, but sometime around the, the time that Navy SEALs came out with Charlie Sheen and then it kind of, they kind of took the torch at that point and we never got it back.

[Mike C]

Charlie Sheen is, is. That's why we, we owe him everything. We owe him everything.

[Brent Tucker]

Right? Yeah, I'm. That's not that, that's, that's a half joke, but, but it's not so true. I remember watching that, that movie as a kid and going, oh, hold on, never mind. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, new. A Green Beret. But like, these guys are Navy SEALs. But the same way that Top, Top Gun brought a whole new generation of, of, of young men wanting to be fighter pilots. I am a fan of, of special operations in movies and books and promoting. Otherwise, these young men don't have anything to look up to.

[Mike C]

There's going to be a case study on Top Gun 1 and 2. Top. Top Gun 1.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Opened up the, the funnel for, for young men and women that wanted to be fighter pilots. And then Top Gun 2 brought America back to American nationalism. Without a doubt. People, people were proud to feel like an American again. And I interviewed Glenn Powell, you know, on my podcast about that, that movie, and he felt a lot of pride about it. But you know, funny joke. I was with a bunch of SF guys and SEALs and they were giving each other shit. This had to be about a year ago. And one of the seals leaned back and he said, you know, deep down inside every Green Beret is a young boy who wanted to be a Navy seal. And even the Green Berets were just rolling, laughing. It was a good liner. But you know, both communities. And this is where I had more appreciat because I worked with the SF community downrange quite a bit and was always impressed. I got to be a guest instructor at the, the Q course. Oh, did you about. Was it two or three months? I was living out of the Marriott.

[Brent Tucker]

That's awesome. And remember what phase.

[Mike C]

So phase two, which I, if I'm remembering correctly, was small unit training at the time.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Mike C]

And we were putting some ensigns who had graduated SEAL training through it prior to going through what we call the jazzy course, the Junior Officer Training Development Course.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

Which basically we're teaching them how to be a Ground Force commander. And I, I did that role as the director of that for about six months and loved it. But so I get to see that aspect. But then also go work with the SFAS guys who laid out the process, this attribute based process that they were assessing for their final selection. And I was amazed by what you guys had developed. And A guy named Lt. Col. Brian Decker was instrumental in, in changing that assessment based off those as those attributes. And then I Got to go observe Robin's age for two weeks. And that was.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, that's very cool.

[Mike C]

Just the mountain yards and. Yeah, the, the, the. Just the whole, the whole, you know, two weeks of that was. Yeah, that was a lot of history.

[Brent Tucker]

A lot of people don't. I don't know. People are familiar with special operations, the Green Brace, they probably know about Robin Sage. But until you've been a part of it, I don't think people know the size of which Robin Sage has executed. Like a whole county in North Carolina becomes a part of this massive exercise for, for Green Berets. It's, it's really amazing.

[Mike C]

Unless you're the sheriffs and somebody didn't read you into the exercise going on. I'm sorry, you guys had two guys shot.

[Brent Tucker]

We had two. Yeah, we had two guys shot and killed. Or if one I know made it because I met him. I met him later because he got recycled into my Q course. So I know he made it. And I believe one did die. That was, you know, 25 years ago. So I'm, I'm a little, little vague on that. That's why I believe happened. And usually. And this is when I knew that, hey, like, this is definitely someplace I want to be. I knew enough about the army, even though I was in the, in the army only a few years, that happened to Robin Sages. If I remember right before, before I went to Robin Sage and we were all really concerned. We were like, this is good. I know it sounds selfish, but hey, when you're a student, you want to go to Rob Sage, you hear about how great it is. Like, this is going to ruin my Robin Sage. Like, there's going to be rules on top of rules on top of rules.

[Mike C]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And you know, the only rule that they really implemented was all the students. They, they gave us like particular, like either New York firefighter or New York police baseball hats to wear, and that signified that you were part of the exercise. And that's all we did. And they continued the exercise. And I was like, that's. That's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. Simple, effective, but. But, you know, it. It's been going on for decades. We've never had this problem. So let's not have a massive rejoic. React. Knee jerk reaction to something that. That happened. And I thought that was, that was really indicative of the community that I was hoping to be a part of. It's small of sorts, but it really shows the community because as you know, especially after a career of this one incident can cause catastrophic effects and that aren't necessary. And we see it time and time again.

[Mike C]

You just said it. The knee jerk reaction for which everyone feels the ripples.

[Brent Tucker]

The, when you went to what SEAL team did you end up going to?

[Mike C]

So on the West Coast Seal Team 3, okay, from 04 until oh, 8.

[Brent Tucker]

Had you as an, as an officer, you're, you're, you're a hybrid. I'm sure you guys still call it a Mustang. I don't believe that's an army term. It's a military term. I don't know whether you felt it or not, but we do treat Mustangs differently. Especially a Mustang with, with your pedigree. So it's, I'm just trying to think as, as a team guy. If, if you were to come on my team, you get mixed feelings because you're like, okay, so this guy has this background, Force recon enlisted, but he's still an officer that's now in charge. And it's, this is the, this is the. I don't think everyone understands the difficulty that I've always given officers respect about. You're going to show up as a new guy and even though you have all that experience as a Navy seal, you're, you're still a new guy, but at the end of the day, you're in charge. So you have to walk this tightrope between. I don't know anything about being a Navy SEAL like you guys do, but at the end of the day, I'm also in charge. And that's a, that's a tough, it's a tough line to walk. Good guys can do it. Not everyone can.

[Mike C]

Yeah. And you know Mustangs, I, I put them into two camps. There's no middle. They're either great or they were just completely awful.

[Brent Tucker]

What do you think that that makes them awful? That they're too enlisted or they, or they, they forget everything about them. What is it about that they couldn't.

[Mike C]

Ditch that part of them, they couldn't.

[Brent Tucker]

Dislisted part of them.

[Mike C]

That you're not one of the boys anymore.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

And the, the others that were great already knew the system, they knew the culture. They, they understood what their new role was.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

That you're not making the calls. Your, your platoon sergeant or your platoon chief are, are, are tactically in charge.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

So to answer your previous question, when I got to team three, did coming from the recon community being a sniper matter? Absolutely not. But I ended up with a great chief who literally came up to me in the halls meeting me for the first time. He's like, hey, I heard your Marine sniper. I'm like, yes, I was, Chief. He's like, let's go get you a weapon suite. So it's rare that an officer gets. That's right, you know, their cyber suite. And I got to go on the trips and it ended up paying off just right in the urban environment. I got a lot of gun time. But you know, team, Team three, I can't say outside. Just the boys who I loved.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And I. And some of my strongest friends are still from Seal Team 3.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Didn't like the culture, didn't like the leadership.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Which eventually led me to two paths. I started researching and I had. I got to be part of some historic deployments like the Battle of Raman and the Battle of Solder City. Like, very fortunate because, you know, when, when, when you join a football team, you want to get into the game. I got into the game, but at that time I was researching SF National Guard, was it? Which is 19th and 20th. 19th, yep. What is that? What does that look like? Called the Marine Detailer. Said what. What would it take to come back? Unfortunately, I have to go back to the basic school, which is like nine months, and then school of infantry. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's awesome.

[Brent Tucker]

Right?

[Mike C]

And then even looked at like becoming a National Guard, a 10 pilot.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And it was around that time, while these deployments are going on, SEAL Team 3 got the opportunity. I don't know if it was our whole troop or just our platoon to go out to DamnaC. And they were going to train us in CQC and urban warfare. And that's when I think I got the bug. That's the first bug that bit me. And it was so overwhelming, the level at which those guys operated. One, I'm like, God damn, I wanna, I wanna see if I can be here. Two is like, I don't think I have what it takes because I mean, they're moving at a speed and just a, like a well orchestrated, like just synchronous execution that I had not seen in the recon community or the regular SEAL teams. And. Yeah, and that's when the bug bit me. And I think I started because of my tenure to, to put an application in. But part two was I came across a after action review because when we were in the. The Battle of Ramadi, one of the damn that guys had come out named Jim. We'll leave it at that.

[Brent Tucker]

I believe Ramadi happened twice, like 03 and 05. That two.

[Mike C]

That was Fallujah.

[Brent Tucker]

Fallujah had two pushes.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

Thank God we were not there because that was what.

[Brent Tucker]

What year we were was.

[Mike C]

The Ramadi push ended up in radi in 05.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

And they were still setting the conditions for. For a push. The difference between Radi and Fujia is that they gave a grace period to civilians, non combatants, to get out of the city completely.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

Rati didn't have that luxury. They were going to do the fight with the. The populace in place because Ramadi is. Is larger than Fuja. And then ended up during the. The push into Ramadi in 06. Well, damn. That guy had come out and basically said, I heard what you guys are doing. I'm a sniper. I want to go on one of the ops. And this guy was phenomenal.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

Just every, you know, like that force recon guy, you look at the guy and you're like, God damn right. And he went out, I think, on like two or one ops, but he basically went out for 72 hours of sniper overwatch missions. And he had written a after action review. And our leadership buried it because he thought that he was denigrating what we were doing after Battle of Ramadi, Battle of Soverder City in 08. Ended up at the jazzy director position. And somehow I came across that it was. Somebody had saved it on like, what do we call the common drive. Okay. And I started to read that and the guy had identified the lessons learned that we either one couldn't identify after seven months there, even after the Battle of Sauder, that within 72 hours, this guy picked off and he praised us in a letter. I thought it was eloquent. Had picked off all the potential threats that he saw. And I was so amazed that within such a short period because of his breadth of experience, that he could produce something like that. I don't know why it was not put in our hands. Even if he did denigrate us. It's worth reading, right? And one of the scenarios he predicted was he feared a grenade on a roof scenario. And it ended up happening to us and we ended up losing a guy and a few got wounded to include myself.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's if you really think about it. There's a lot of things going his way, like experience and just the vantage point from being up and away and, you know, all the boys on the ground, you can't see the forest through the trees. So there's just. They're just seeing what's in front of him. He had the prime position. And man, what an awesome operator. He had the mentality to say, hey, I can let. Because he could have just been focused on his job too, but he decided to ride an AR with, with a wide angle viewpoint of what was going on. And that's, I can only imagine, ego, Ego, it's got to be the only thing that would, would bury that.

[Mike C]

Well, there's two things there. One, the reason he could identify that is because we were so, we had such a siloed group think mentality going on.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

Or two, and I think two is predominantly one is true, but so is true two that we had a culture where you couldn't push against authority.

[Brent Tucker]

When I, when I go out whether, whether it be to, to businesses, SWAT teams, tactical units in general, I talk about culture a lot. And the, we had a unit sergeant major whose big pulch was big push was culture. And again at the time I thought that was an odd thing for him to push because like you're pushing something we've, we've already won. We, we have culture. Like why, why we be like going to a bunch of guys who are already in, in shape and preaching fitness. And he was absolutely right because now that I've seen it, it's the hardest thing to gain and it's the easiest thing to lose. And if you don't preach culture to someone, has good culture and you're not aware that you might lose it, that you protect it at all costs because once you lose it, like I said, it's so hard to gain. It is so hard to gain.

[Mike C]

The, the biggest mistake anyone can make, whether it's in the military or the business world, is to think that culture is one and done. Hey, we've set the culture. We're good, we're moving forward. Culture has to evolve. And you've heard the phrase, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. While behavior which is driven by culture, each strategy for lunch and culture has to evolve. And if tradition is part of your culture that is no longer relevant to the environment in which you're operating, you've got to exercise it like a cancer and evolve the culture. Additionally, if you set the culture at 100 people and you grow to 500, it's got to change.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Mike C]

And you've seen this success can be the biggest disease. It feels good, but it can also be a disease where, well, hey, we operated in Iraq this way.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Mike C]

We're just going to take that template and lay it on top of. I'm just Afghanistan, which is a completely different environment against a completely different enemy.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

And unfortunately you've got to learn the hard way that if you didn't evolve to the new circumstances, the environment, the enemy, you're going to get hit hard. You may be successful that first 5, 10, 15 ops, right. But you're going to get hit.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. I call that the, the way we've always done it mentality.

[Mike C]

Worst words that can ever come out.

[Brent Tucker]

Of anyone's eye is it is the worst. It's the worst thing. And success, what you're talking about is true, but it's, it's also very true when you don't understand why you had that success and let's keep it, you know, to the battlefield, but it goes across to all elements of life. If the reason you had that success tactically is because you weren't opposed to. Yeah, if they just laid over, well, it didn't matter what your tactics was, you could have came over. You could have came in an orange jumpsuits and broomhop, broom mop handles and, and you know, you'd have won the day. So it's, it's. Why was that tactic successful? Just not that we were successful and I hate to say it, but the American military gets unopposed a lot. Just through sheer numbers, through helicopters, through surprise speed, surprise violence of action. And, and, and the war on terror really did show us that we did have, we did have some, some things that needed to be addressed and it took us too long to address that because we were so successful for so long. But the few times we were opposed, there were, there were lessons learned to be there. And even at the, at its highest levels we didn't adapt as soon as we should have. We can, we can say that now in hindsight, but you know, you don't, you don't know it at the time.

[Mike C]

I always love talking to the essay the older guys who, who were operating in the, in the 90s and then just happened to, to, to still be around the global war on terror. And some of them were like we were fucked up at the beginning, right? We were fucked up.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

We caught up to the speed of war. Right. But you know, a good story in that vein is I had a mentor. His name was Brigadier General Howard Prince and this is when I ended up in Austin. So he was a West Pointer Calvary. He actually was with the Calvary reinforcing the Marines in Way City, which is a little known fact. The army was very involved in Way City and a mortar landed near his leg and destroyed his leg. He still had his leg, but it, it destroyed the, the function of it. So the army sent him back to get his industrial organizational psychology degree at the University of Texas, went back to West Point, taught for like over two decades, stood up the leadership center at West Point. But he talked about Vietnam and how the army led during a drafty military. And he essentially, you know, brought it down to this that if somebody didn't obey an order, the sergeants would take that person around the, the back of the building and beat the living snot out of him. He said it was interesting that when they went to an all volunteer force, they stuck with that mentality. And what's a volunteer going to do? He's going to be like, screw you, I'm out at the end of my enlistment.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

He said it took the army, who arguably Army Marine Corps, wrote the manual on leadership 10 years to change the culture to lead in an all volunteer force. And I found that phenomenal that with the leadership being the foundation of these two organizations, it took the Army 10 years.

[Brent Tucker]

I was going to save this, this talk for, for, for post military career, but we're talking about leadership right now. We'll get into this and we'll, we'll hop back in the military. Just, just blatantly. Can is a leaderboard or can a leader be trained? Because that's, that's really, that's really the discussion we have to have right now. I mean, I mean we're going into, you know, a little bit of Jurassic levels. But you know, tell me what true leadership course George Washington went to. Tell me what true leadership course Alexander the Great went to. Tell me what true leadership course you know, Genghis Khan went to. I mean there's a lot of leaders in history that you could argue were, were just born that way. And they, but we have this, we have this incessant concentration on we gotta build leaders. Build leaders. But I don't know if we're, we've, we've concentrated at the end of my career, we concentrate on leadership more than anything. But I'm not sure we move the needle. So are we doing it wrong or can it not be done?

[Mike C]

So you know, you're essentially bringing up like nature versus nurture. Yeah. And I don't speak in absolutes. Are some leaders naturally born? Possibly. And there's an argument to be said that somebody has genetics that makes them physically superior or intellectually or emotionally superior and that that probably holds true. But I, I tend to lean towards nurture and what you don't look at with Genghis Khan and George Washington or any other leader you just mentioned is who were all the coaches and mentors in those within those individuals lives that built them into the person that they were.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

I do believe that leadership is oral, like plagiarism or, or, or visible plagiarism. You watch great leaders, you try to emulate what they do that you then put a spin on and create your own leadership system. We all have our own individual beliefs in leadership systems. But you know, I can't say I was a born leader and arguably I don't know if I was a good leader or not. That's for my guys to decide. But if it wasn't for my mom, it wasn't my dad, it wasn't all the Marine Corps leaders that I had above me and all the SEAL leaders that I had above me, which were phenomenal. And I still talk about certain leaders I had during my latter years in the military at damn, they were formative on who I was and the fact that they would hold me accountable on the spot. Not to from this external discipline perspective, but hey, let's talk about what just happened and you know, through the Socratic method trying to drive home like let's, let's change your thought paradigm on how you approach these things.

[Brent Tucker]

This is, this is just Brent Tucker's view on leadership. I completely agree with you. Leadership is, is a lifelong process. That, that is that you are from your, from your parents all the way up to like your, your, your bosses at a young age. People don't always like to hear this but, and maybe it's just through my experience, but rarely does anyone ever disagree with me. Bad leaders have been some of the best for my lead, for my leadership development. Because usually when you have a good leader, you don't really know that he was a good leader at the time. You might, but rarely do you go like I want to emulate everything that leader did. You might pick up a few things from him. But when you have a really bad leader, you walk away and it is just seared in your personality now. And you go, I will never do that and I will never be like that. So all those, all those people are your mentors. But this is what I think about leadership courses, even with that being my mentality. If you put leaders are born and when I say leaders are born, they're made throughout your life. But I don't, I don't disregard leadership training or courses. But I think people have to have a reasonable expectation of it, which is this. If You're a bad leader and you're 35. You go to a leadership conference, you're going to leave that place a bad leader. You're a bad leader. However, I think you can get basically a 10% deviation, a 10% better of what you were. You're not going to change who you are, but I think you can be a slightly better leader with more tools and with that being the expectation going in, that's what I think you can be. And at 10% and even that's huge. 10% if you could get at a corporate level, 10% more production out of your team and those are massive numbers. If you can get a 10% better at a tier one level, where do you get 10% of anything? So that's where I view leadership and what it. Leadership, leadership training and what it can really do for you.

[Mike C]

So the, the schools are great to expose you to leadership philosophy, frameworks, systems. I completely agree with you. At the end of the day leadership and culture are a contact sport. And so it's. When I say that it's like the ojt.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

You learn more from, from being in the arena with great leaders in action, you know, in the pursuit of goals and targets and the continual reinforcement of the day to day things. The discipline, the accountability, the consistency, the routine. I think that's where it's reinforced. But no schoolhouse in, in the army, the Marine Corps, the military as a whole is one big leadership incubator. But your point we've got in, in having been in the private sector and having you know this is basically what I do now, right. My chief talent officer at a data center company Overwatch. Mission critical. I freaking love it. We're about 43% vets and it's. We call ourselves paramilitary like a walking HR nightmare. We're good. We're kind, respectful and empathetic and professional. But if you know, culture is huge to us. We've got these nine tenants that are the handrails and we evaluate people performance management. On. Yes. On, on. Hey, did you drive the revenue target that you were supposed to hit? And things along those lines. That's, that's fine, that's necessary. But we evaluate them on the performance management or are you assimilating and demonstrating these behaviors associated with these nine tenants on a daily basis and it's okay if you're not. Let's, let's have a conversation. But I'm obsessed with leadership and culture. I'm obsessed with high performing teams and what I think a lot of people get wrong about High performing teams is. Yeah, there are some attributes. Two high performing teams. There are also some very harsh realities that normal average people can't understand. The perfect example of, of that is. Have you ever watched the Last Dance?

[Brent Tucker]

Bits and pieces. I haven't seen the whole, I haven't seen it all the way through.

[Mike C]

But yeah, go, go watch it because it's a perfect example of the harsh realities of you. What were they, six time world champions and people that watch it, they're like, God, they were so dysfunctional that like it was a failure of the system. Note that was the system and it wasn't a failure. Yeah, it was designed to be uncomfortable and to be very direct and if you weren't carrying your load, they were going to hold you accountable. And most humans, 99% of humans don't like that uncomfortable nature.

[Brent Tucker]

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 and go to clouddefensive.com and use promo code tier one to get 15% off your order. And they will donate 15% to FRCC's nonprofit the Cat 2 Foundation which provides free training and support to first responders across the country.

[Mike C]

I'll let you.

[Brent Tucker]

Take it from here after I set the stage. So you do go from, we'll just call it from the white side to the Navy Special Mission Unit side. I'll ask a quick question before that. Do you think you could with what you do now and, and you know, you, you, you do you develop leaders, you what, what your understanding of culture and professionalism is. Without that tier one experience, could you still, would you still be as qualified today without it?

[Mike C]

Yeah, it's an easy answer. Absolutely. Not that those were my most formative years because the leadership was so solid.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Even our bad leaders were, were, were just by orders of magnitude above the bar from what I had experienced previously in the military. And I love the entire military.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

I like you talk about infantrymen. Hey, soft shapes, environments. Infantry will always win wars right into to go to war as an 18 year old with like three months of training, I, I had seven, seven years of training before I finally got to war and I still felt When I got to a combat zone, I'm like, I have no clue what I'm doing.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

It just takes time, it takes iterations.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I love your mentality. I, I, I do. And I share it from, from my conventional experience to my special operation, my white size special operation experience to my tier one experience. I don't look down on any of those experiences. They all molded me, they were all great. But until someone really sees a true high performing team like a true one, and for us in our pass, it's that jump from regular special operations to a tier one unit, I don't think people don't really understand what it's like to be obsessed with your job, to be obsessed with being a professional, with, with what it really takes to be good at your job. I thought I did, I thought I did as a Green Beret, but it wasn't until I went to the next level. I saw men that were obsessed with being the best in the world. And they showed me by emulating them, this is what it takes to be successful over here. And I, I really, I couldn't have, I couldn't have gotten there on my own like I really couldn't have without seeing what an obsession of, of your, of your profession truly looks like. And at times, yes, it's an obsession that, that comes to the detriment of your family. Unfortunately. I also saw men who did a better job of walking that line and, and did it right both ways. But it was, it was really, really eye opening to see a true high performing team and what it really takes to make it so, to correlate that that's what it takes. And so now when you go over there and you, you show people, because you have that experience in that culture, I'd imagine it's kind of hard in the business world to, to relay that, to relay that to them because they haven't seen it. So how do they see it other than just you driving it?

[Mike C]

So, you know, there's, there's a lot of parallels between the military or special operations in the business world and there's a lot of things that don't work. One, I have deep respect for people that never served, that have built companies. I call them warriors within their respective professions. They've been in their trenches for 15, 25, 35 years. They have their own scars. And the interesting thing about the private sector is we used to say we had more money than God. If you wanted something, we find a way to get it somewhere in the budget. It is the most resource constrained environment I've ever seen into a business. Money is oxygen, and the second you run out of it, you're dead in the water or things are very difficult. So there are so many nuances, much like there was to our jobs, that, I mean, you're talking about systems, you're talking about, you know, HR compliance, you're talking about process and procedure, you're talking about organizational design. You're. This is not easy. Like, I would rather deploy another 10 times than start another business. But I'm only eight years out, so I've got to give myself a little grace. It takes time to become very good at business.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

But there are so many nuances to it. And I've started my own company and I was successful in selling it to, to the company I'm now with. They asked me to come on about two months after they had acquired it. They said, hey, would you be the chief talent officer? And after a little research, the answer was absolutely. But I've learned so much within this last year of being with them, from the operational side to the sales ties to the finance side. It's nuanced, but at the end of the day, you're dealing with people right now. Am I trying to create a tier one unit on the business side? No. That took them decades to become what you guys have become. This company is six years old. I'm focused on progress, not perfection. That iterative improvement, quarter over quarter that slowly dials us in. And with that, which we don't have the luxury in the military, not really of do we have the right people in the right seats. Even if somebody's been with the company from the early days when it was scrappy, there wasn't a lot of process and procedure. We didn't have the robust or mature systems. Are they the right person now? And that's hard. That's hard. But you've got, you've got to get those people off the bus very quickly or maybe move them to a mitigated role, playing to their strengths. And those are difficult decisions. I can't say I really had to fire anyone in the, in the military, it took a grace of God. You had to have a package like this to, hey, we've just spent millions on this guy and you want to fire him? And so that's very difficult. In the military, where we came from, that moved pretty quickly. On the white side, it was like an act of God to get somebody relieved. So start small, build from there. You know, also set your people up for small victories. It's like the milestones. Reverse engineer where you want to be. Create the milestones to get there. Don't seek shortcuts or hacks. Just follow the process and you will develop people along the way.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's. That's so true. When people come and talk to me about, you know, whatever selection they want to talk to me about, I never talked to anyone about selection. I just figured, show up like a stud. I have enough military experience to know everywhere I've gone so far, they've given me the answers and just execute and just give you some of my, you know, I'm a nice guy and I treat everyone with respect. But I'm sure, like you, as nice as you are, you have an inner a hole voice that, that gives a different response in your mouth. Gives to people sometimes. And when they come up to me, ask me a lot of questions about selection or even. Sometimes even on the business side when it's just. It's clearly they're just looking for a shortcut and they're just looking to be given the answers. I think to myself, you're already not the person for the job. You're already looking for shortcuts. You're already not willing to put in the hard work and go after it. Don't start a business and don't go to selection. Because through your question, just by the.

[Mike C]

Questions you're asking, your mindset, your mindset.

[Brent Tucker]

Your mindset is wrong, especially in an information where we have information at your fingertips. And you're asking me questions that I know. You haven't even googled this yet. You haven't taken step one of it. So I completely. Complete shortcuts is an indicator to, To, To a characteristic problem. It is the. The answer is always hard work.

[Mike C]

So now they're smarter.

[Brent Tucker]

Hard work.

[Mike C]

You want to bring this to, like, modern society. Everyone's using, like, GLP1s semi glue tied.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Great. It's a tool and it's working for you. It's a shortcut. It's a shortcut that works. But the second you come off that, you've not created the habits, the behaviors, right. You're still eating like crap. Well, you're. I mean, you're eating like crap when you do want to eat because it reduces your, Your, Your hunger, you'll go right back to where you were the same off that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. You got to, you know, you got to. You got exposed to the tier one side on the Navy at first, but you got to spend some time over, over at my side of the house for For a few years. Correct.

[Mike C]

Really not. So it was, I think six, seven months.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay. It was, it was probably felt like a few years.

[Mike C]

I'm sure we used again, living out of the same Marriott, living out of the same area. Racked up points.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, racking up those points.

[Mike C]

I freaking loved it. I loved it. And you know, there's a healthy rivalry, right? But then, because they, they really did a good job of like, hey, we're gonna go introduce you to this squadron. We're briefing on their capabilities. You're gonna do this. I got to. Ended up getting to deploy with you guys, but I had just come off deployment and got back on July 3rd. You know, you'd mentioned being obsessed by her job. I ended up getting divorced because I, I was obsessed. And the command was my first family. Right. My family, my actual family was the second family. It was just. Yeah, I. I mean, dude, I had to go in on weekends just to keep up with those guys and get work done and things along those lines. Maybe that was a little self imposed.

[Brent Tucker]

But it is self imposed in a weird way. It's self imposed, but without that self imposedness, if that's a word, then. Then you will fall behind. So it's because no one's going to tell you you have to do that.

[Mike C]

No, the mob, the mob mentality will definitely reinforce it.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

And you know, it's interesting, the thing that drove me is like the same thing. Like whenever we'd be on the Hilo going in, I'd always say a prayer. And the, the genesis of the prayer was, please don't let me be the guy that lets the team down. It wasn't saying let it be somebody else, but it was. I just didn't want to be that guy who let the boys down. And maybe I did a couple times. I'm sure it did happen. But, you know, July 4th got wasted because I'm fresh back from deployment and I basically had to go check in. Like July 5th, July 6th. I'm wore out, man. Yeah, I'm wore out. So I go and in my counterpart, you know, who was. I helped him get checked in at our place, went down there, met me, got me checked in, introduces me to the squadron I'm going to be with. And one of the very senior enlisted said, hey, we're running your house. Go get your kit. And I'm like, you. Are you serious? He's like, yeah. And I'm like, okay. So I still have my kit. Hadn't even unloaded the mags from the deployment. I was Just on, right. We go out to one of your, your houses and it's a full troop run. And they're like just, yeah, lock and load. Moved to, to the tail. And so, you know, I'm putting the radios in, screwing them in. I'm at the tail. So I turn and just cover the six as if, you know, it was realistic. And I took a knee and checking my, my two push to talks. And all of a sudden the mag falls out of my gun and it's almost like the boom. And the five guys at the rear of the train all look. And I look down, look over at them, pick it up, seat tug, make sure it's seated. And they all just sort of lean over and look at each other. And I'm like, maybe they'll forget that.

[Brent Tucker]

I've seen it time and time again. It's. It's. It's never cool. No, it, it happens to everyone. But it always seems that it'll happen to you at the worst. At the worst.

[Mike C]

There's old magpuls with the clear window.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, God.

[Mike C]

Which you know, the plastic gets. I'm already making excuses. So the run goes fine. Impressed. What I would have preferred is to go up in the rafters. Watch. Let me see how you guys right, execute. But I'm like, hey, you're not going to be in the house. I know that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

So they're doing the, the, the debrief. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna make it through this. There'll probably be some side talk going on, but the senior enlisted, who was great.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

He's like, hey, guys, does that wrap it up? Okay. Hey, one last thing. I just want to give a hip pocket class on how to properly a magazine into your rifle. And I'm like, okay, there's two choices right here. I could be like, oh, I just, you know, I still got dust. I'm like, okay. I'm like, yep, that checks out. That's fair. And I think the boys appreciated that, right? Didn't try to make excuses. It.

[Brent Tucker]

Not detrait stories. But I, I can't help it. It reminds me. We had a. We had a new TL on our ODA and we were doing some, some, some WIC operations from a Zodiac to a bls. And it was, it was his time to get on the Zode, ride it in and do the BLS things. And as soon as we go, you ready? He goes, yep, ready. Because we're kind of starting out a couple hundred meters off and, and pushing from there. And he Gets and he, he saddles the side of the Zodiac. He goes, ready? And as soon as he looks straight, he did something manipulate his weapon. Now we're in the water. He drops his bag right into the ocean.

[Mike C]

As soon as he says it never looks cool.

[Brent Tucker]

Ready? Yeah, just. And it's, you know, and it's the officer. And of course, the truth is we always like to make fun of him because it's fun, but it could happen to anyone. It just happened to happen to him at that, at that time.

[Mike C]

You know, the further I get away from that life. And that's always part of your DNA. There's just. It is, you know, one things I come to the realization of, like, at that place, you, you guys think you're the best in the world. It's just you should be better. Yes, that's right. And, and arguably you are. But on an individual level, I'm, I just, I'm like, you know what, Maybe I wasn't that good. I'm like. But I was part of a high performing team and I'm proud of that. But I remember all the bloopers more than Ikes then and all the failures more than I remember the successes.

[Brent Tucker]

I tell people all the time, I, I am really good. I was really good. But also I've done everything wrong inside a house. I have tripped inside a house. I have tried to jump over furniture. Missed. Fell on my face. I have flashbang my. My teammates. I have. I've kicked a hollow core door straight through and got my leg stuck in it and got my leg ate up with, with paintballs, you know, and then hopped with one leg to try to continue to, to open the door. I've done everything.

[Mike C]

Forgot your gun.

[Brent Tucker]

What happened? Why would you bring that up? Why would you bring that up? I forgot my gun once on a patrol in SF before, before I was infallible in Tier 1. But yeah, I've done, I've, I've done it.

[Mike C]

All right, that's happened.

[Brent Tucker]

You know what's funny? When I forgot my gun, had to come my team sergeant and be like, hey, it luckily was just like a short patrol, a short trip to Bagram that was like 30 minutes away at the time and back. I'll make excuses. I was the only combo guy I was worried about. Everyone's combo. Forget my own gun. Anyway, at some point I got to go to my team Serge and be like, rick, I forgot my gun. And you should know it at some point. And Rick laughs and there's like two deployments to go. We'd been on the same team for a while. He goes, remember we did that, that, that re enlistment ceremony in Iraq? I was like, yeah, I remember we stopped in the middle of the road and we had the flag. He goes, go, go back and look at that picture. And you know, it's like, all right, well, why? He goes, everyone has a gun on. You know, who doesn't have a gun on. In my own realistic picture, me. I forgot my gun going on a resupply route back. So I'm not going to give you a hard time on this, but now we're even. Don't, don't, don't forget it again. Because I've never forgot it again. Never, never forgot.

[Mike C]

It only takes one time.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, gosh.

[Mike C]

You feel so naked.

[Brent Tucker]

I can't tell you how bad you feel being in a combat. So without a gun. Oh, my gosh. The most, most people see us from, you know, from the outside or, you know, or they, you see the, the Green Beret versus Navy Seal, you. They have no idea how well we get along and how much we respect each other at a, at a team level, not a professional level. Same thing with the, the two tier one units. Just massive amount of respect. There's always going to be that rivalry, but it's not a Florida versus Florida State. Like, we hate the other team. They're so. I enjoy talking about this sometime because people always get to see the Internet, you know, this unit versus unit, who's better. We, when we get together, we never talk about who's better. There's no, there's no rivalry. There's always that, that, you know, that common respect or that jousting.

[Mike C]

Oh, that's banter.

[Brent Tucker]

But yeah, that's just banter.

[Mike C]

Just.

[Brent Tucker]

It's just banter. Love those guys. Everyone I've worked with have been stellar guys. You got to work with both. Even though you didn't. You didn't spend, you know, a whole lot of time. Is there anything that, that you would say that was either culturally different or just different or things were pretty much a carbon copy. You go to one, you can go to the other.

[Mike C]

You know, the best way to describe it is they're both ice cream, just slightly different flavors. No. So there are organic strengths at one place more so than the other.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

But that's also a design of what they're focused on in terms of, you know, whether you send one unit or, or another to, to go action a target, the results going to be the same. I mean, they're both very good at what they do. There was things. I was very impressed about your organization, just, you know, skills or muscles you had built over decades. But to. To play, like, hey, this unit is better than that unit. I call that a young man's game.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Only time I've seen that. So I ended up on a podcast as a friend asked who lives in Austin, and one of your comrades was. Was on. I know, it's just the. The Sheriff of Baghdad and the Barney.

[Brent Tucker]

Fife of Baghdad, as I call him.

[Mike C]

And my buddy, who was the podcast host said he saw me just shut down because he went into this rant about why, you know, this organization is so much better than that organization. I'm just like, bro, I. I never engage in that.

[Brent Tucker]

I know.

[Mike C]

I just don't care. Like, I move beyond it. I'm trying to revolve, like, evolve myself. But for the most part, funny enough, I was with another guy from. From my command. And we were in Austin at this real, like, swanky, like, lunch place, and there was these two other guys, and, like, we were staring at them, and they were staring at us. And eventually, I think they came up and they're like, hey, are you guys. And we're like, came out. They ended up sitting down. And my wife, who's pregnant at the time, I'm supposed to be home at, like, 1pm, right? I didn't get home till five. She let me have it, but we just sat there drinking. They were telling stories we were telling. I was telling very few stories. The three of them were. I was laughing at everything. It was. It was just that common bond that it didn't matter if one person came from this place or not. The mindset was the same.

[Brent Tucker]

It's so funny. Me and Devin were at. We're in Nashville a couple months ago, and we were at Kid Rocks, and there's this group of guys behind us, and I'm like, that's a team. And she's like, how do you know? And I was like, that's a team. In fact, I can tell you right now that over there, that's the new guy on the team. He's young, but he's not really getting crazy because he's new and he doesn't know what he can get away with yet. That guy's the new guy that's been here for a couple years, and he's. He's feeling like. Like they. You know, they've gone on deployment already. He's. He's gonna have a good time. He's. He's okay. That older guy who's quiet and just watching everything go down. He's the boss. He's gonna make sure no one goes to jail tonight and he still has a job tomorrow. We end up meeting these guys to a T. That's, that's who they were. They were a special operations group, tier one out there have having, doing some training.

[Mike C]

And I hate to say the stereotype, but it's like you fit the mold exactly.

[Brent Tucker]

You're like, okay, yeah, for sure. They're on the right age group. They're all in the right physical build. Their, their, their mentality. So even, even though they were, you know, a couple of them have a really good time, their professionalism just the way they care themselves. The only question is, is where are you from? I, I, I know what you do. Just where exactly are you from? And it's, and it's, it's so funny. The. Well, that's, that's kind of what I thought your answer would be, but had, but I had to ask you and I appreciate you. Yeah, you're giving your, your insight on that. Not I'm forcing you to say anything negative, but it's more. Was there ever a time? Because when I see the, the, the two cultures every now and again, I think I can argue, I think it's a good thing at times we can take it too far. This is going to sound like almost like a, it's something you're trying to say bad, but it's actually really good. I think there's times we can almost be too professional. And that's a weird, that's a weird thing to say. But there, there are, there are times. Profession. I guess to put it into a terminology, you can take it from professionalism to just being Rangerific, just like just exceeding a standard just for the sake of exceeding a professional standard. Do, do you think that is a little bit of, of. Did you find that indicative of, of the unit at all? Although I know I won't, I won't ask you where you went because I know where you went. No, you went to one of our, our, our, our most relaxed squadrons. So you may not have seen it there, but, but you would have seen the unit, you know, the unit culture as a general as well, especially being an officer.

[Mike C]

You know what, Brent? I, you're just not going to get a negative peep out of me.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, I, I know it was an unfair question.

[Mike C]

No, it's not an unfair question. It was just like. Yeah, okay, it was. If you don't think my guys asked when I got back like who's better, right?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Hey, dude, it's like, it is just. It's on par.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And I think that relationship has gotten better over the years. The joint operability it has. And what is a shame is that we don't talk more because. Hey, what are you guys doing here? What are you using? What's the technology? What are like in that sharing of best practices? Just because at the end of the day we, we, you know, we wear that same flag on the shoulder. Yeah, it's iron sharpeners. Iron sharpens iron. And that is any military unit. If they're going forward, I want them to succeed. So if I know something that they possibly don't, you gotta offer that up. And I just, I really, really liked the guys. I could have it. It was interchangeable.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

I. I could have seen a career there.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Just like you guys probably could see a career on this side. I just think arguably we have a cooler living surrounding area and beaches.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

But I mean, that's army. You guys always end up in the worst place.

[Brent Tucker]

I know.

[Mike C]

Dunk.

[Brent Tucker]

I know. And, and in fact.

[Mike C]

But there was a lot of advantages to that as well.

[Brent Tucker]

And there are, you know, when it. And we'll. And we'll talk about that offline. But yeah, there are advantages of that. But you're right. In general, the Navy always gets better bases. The army has, you know, crap, we need a lot of land. A lot of land is always in the worst.

[Mike C]

Louisiana.

[Brent Tucker]

Gosh.

[Mike C]

No, thank you.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Fort Benning. No, thank you. Fort Hood. No, thank you. It's only a few.

[Mike C]

Fort Hood is. Yeah, I'm close to there.

[Brent Tucker]

I. Ironically enough for Fort Bragg's one of our better ones because we have the southern pine side, the average side. And it's. And it's still not. And it's. And it's still not Virginia Beach. It never will be. And you. You got one of the better ones.

[Mike C]

Kids. My kids still live there.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh really?

[Mike C]

In Virginia Beach? Yep.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. The. Well, if I can't. If I can't get that out of you, which, which I appreciate that was you. That was super, super professional. You talk about, you know, the. We finally did get to cross pollinate and, and share some information, you know, and it's just out of necessity. You know, the global war on terror has both busy. Really busy for a long time. It really wasn't towards the end of my career that that I ever got to work with you guys without. And I love to. And, and I looked forward to it when I found out we were finally going to get a chance to do it and we did it more often. The, I can't say the way we should have been doing it because we were just so busy. But I'm glad to see as almost as soon as the opportunity presented itself. That's, that's one of the first things we did was get back together.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

And I loved it. I really did. I enjoyed whether we were the minority working with you guys, the majority always treated us great, you know, and vice versa. We got to, yeah, I almost said we got to learn a lot, but that, that really wouldn't be true. And I don't, I don't think they learned a whole lot from us like at a, at a, at a tactical level because they're, because they're that good. And I don't think I learned a lot from them, but not as a negative thing is saying that they were just as good as us and we were just as good as them. And so we just, it was a good thing. We could just seamlessly go work with, with the other one. And that's what I really took away from that. That was refreshing.

[Mike C]

You know, one of the one things I remember is I think there was an after action published every, every week. And this was. Yeah, like from SOCOM of like whatever the units in Iraq or Afghanistan were reporting. And they would put it into one document. And I really appreciated, I mean whether it was SF or MARSOC or SEALs, like guys were sharing like, hey, we messed this up or we're seeing the enemy do this. I used to remember looking forward to like it came out on like a Wednesday. I would like Tuesday night. I was waiting for that thing just to read through it. And people being vulnerable say, hey, we mess this up, this is why, this is what we think we learned. And please don't repeat the mistake.

[Brent Tucker]

So.

[Mike C]

Again, you know, I remember being young and like recon's better than everyone else. And it's just, again, it's a young man's game. As you get older, it's just like, who freaking cares, right? Like every, every organization is going to have strength. Like if you want the SEALs to do unconventional warfare, you want to know what the first and obvious answer is? Call SF and be like, hey, can you guys run a three week course on unconventional warfare? Because we're being tasked with this in, in this continent, you know, and that's.

[Brent Tucker]

That'S what the Raiders did. You know, as proud as the Marines are, as and as they should be, I believe they are way ahead of the game. Because they, they said, hey, this is. This is the focus we want to do, or we've been told that we're going to do whichever way it ended up. And they did. They reached out to SF guys, and a lot of SF guys helped them with that. And they are. They are, you know, further along because of it. And that was, that was refreshing to see as well. A lot of my, A lot of my senior buddies either retiring or getting tasked to go out there and help them. I was like, good. That's like, why reinvent the wheel? We've been doing it for 50, 60 years in SF, and it doesn't mean we were doing it right the whole time, but. But at this point, we are. We're pretty good at it, actually.

[Mike C]

You know, what I found fascinating is even if it was Tier one guys and they were moving into an area and there was infantry in that area, and we. We got some facetime with them, and they didn't care if it was a specialist. You got this Tier one guy saying, just asking question after question, like, hey, so tell me about what you guys are doing, what you're seeing. Tell me about this. I mean, they would just hammer them with questions. Not like, hey, I'm a. I'm an E8. I don't care what you have.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

Because they respected that they had boots on the ground.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And that they had experience in that region where we didn't. And I always found that fascinating. And you. You only found that to be true with certain individuals. But with like, even like an E9 asking a. E3 about his. His thoughts and what. His perspective, and in order to basically essentially say, what do you know that I don't know because you've been here for three years.

[Brent Tucker]

Because he knows a lot. He walks the same streets every day, and he's been doing it for almost a year. Like, what that E4 knows is invaluable because we're never going to give. We're never going to get that exposure, but we're going to be there for a little bit. I can only hope to know what you know about the environment. That's going to get more than likely, really dicey, really quick. And we'll take all the information that we can. And he has the keys. All that information.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

He knows. He knows the exact neighborhoods that are worse than others. He knows the reaction time. He knows how long you can stop until. Until you get to start taking sniper fire. He knows whether, you know, some. There are places where in Afghanistan were like, hey, the first snipers that come to you. They're all right. Don't worry about them a whole lot. But there are other snipers that just take longer to get here. And if you're here for this long, then those snipers show up and you better be, you better be moving pretty tactically when those guys show up.

[Mike C]

We wouldn't know that even in an urban environment. And again, this is like youthful arrogance because you think you're a brand new special operations guy and you realize very quickly in an urban environment you're like, oh, we do need the army that brings in their tanks and their Bradleys, their Abrams. Oh, we do need the Marine Corps that has 80 troops that can deploy on 5 tons and get us out within a 15 minute window. And that I know previous my experience in the late 90s was very different than the global war in terror because we realized we all needed one another. And that joint operability, I never really experienced that in the 90s until post 9 11.

[Brent Tucker]

I couldn't agree with you anymore when it comes to that. And again, it really comes with age.

[Mike C]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And understanding and experience all three of those things. When, when you got out, were you ready to get out?

[Mike C]

You know. So my last tour was at the University of Texas, Austin. The leadership really hooked me up. Was going through a divorce. Had just gotten back with you guys. Was supposed to take an exo position of a squadron. But I, I realized for the first time in my career I needed to, to step away because the divorce was, was really distracting me. And my ex was supposedly taking the kids back to Texas. So they really, really took care of me. The deal was we're going to send you there for two years and then you'll come back.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

And at the, I was at like 19 and 3/4 years. Great guy who's an admiral now. And it was always checking in on me because he was concerned. And I'd always be like, hey, I'm fine dude. But you know, he's just an empathetic leader. And I realized that I didn't recharge.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And I basically said, hey man, I know him going back on the, on the deal that we made. But I'm like, you know, there's somebody that's younger, probably brighter, stronger, faster, full of more piss and vinegar that will do a better job. And like he didn't push back at all. He's like, submit your paperwork. I'll talk to, to warcom. And it was, he got it approved like that day. So retired and are there. You know, people say you don't want to die with regrets. You're always going to die with regrets, right? Do I wish it went longer in period. But also it was the fact that I was moving out of a troop and I'm like, that's where I want to be. That's the flaw of the military of like, I don't want, I don't want to be an xl. I don't want to be a commanding officer. Or give me another five, six years when my hip is totally destroyed, then I'll do it. And those are important roles supporting the guys on the ground. And I get it. But I, I just wanted to be on the ground with the guys. That's what I came in for. That's what I loved. And my career was beautiful in the, in the sense that I got enlisted, then I went officer and by the time I was there I was finally done with my troop commander tour. So close to my retirement. I'm like, I've had a great career and I miss the brotherhood, I miss, miss the boys. But it was just time. It's not a young, young man's game.

[Brent Tucker]

And I, I really think that's just my own. That's how I think we should get our officers. I just do. Like that was, that's a great career progression for you, you know, because you basically got to put, you know, all your time was, I can't say at a team level because how it's organized, but essentially at a team level. At a tactical level. Yeah, at a tactical level. I'm just, I don't know why we don't, does the military doesn't push for more of that. I think we need more Mustangs. I don't, I don't think, I think this, this main, this main net that we get our officers and future leaders from coming from a, a four year university. I don't think that four year university. And I'm just, you know, not, not to make it political or anything, make it political, but this is the reality of it. We're going to indoctrinate people for four years and in liberal universities that hate America and we think that's where we're going to get, you know, our best officers from. I'd rather them come in and serve four years as an enlisted person and go officer and they'd be way more ahead of the curve.

[Mike C]

So I'm going to go off here.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

What please do. I wanted to go this route. So within this Overwatch mission critical data center, we're a services company, we're consolidating all these services. Our primary line of business is trades labor to build data centers. The CEO guy named Kirk ofell, Navy submariner, good dude, visionary, one of the top voices in the data center space which trillions are being poured in. I mean data centers are finally in the front pages of. We're in this race for AI dominance against China. And so we wrote an article on Fox. It's an op ed about how four year education, the college it is dying and the need for like trade labor. And we basically were arguing for tax deductions for electricians, plumbers, things along those lines. But you're absolutely right. I mean when you think about it, you got a kid that comes out of high school, goes into ROTC at some university and they have exposure to officers and some senior enlisted but they're really going to classes, right? They're not indoctrinated. But wouldn't you rather. And I found a college degree took me completely worthless and I did well, I mean I think graduated with the 3 7. I was in honors programs and things along those lines. I was doing that because I had to be competitive to get officer billet to the seals. That's why I was doing it. But if you haven't enlisted for four to eight years you're basically getting to observe them like one big behavioral interview to be like yes, that man or woman can be an officer or they could be a senior enlisted. And it is just. I think the academies are entrenched. The officer course entrenched them. No, you've got to go get this degree. It served. I don't want to be totally negative here. It served very little purpose. I could learn more for the three years I was in college, still remaining in the military and become really good at my job while still going through a leadership curriculum. We've got to change this system because four year universities are on the decline.

[Brent Tucker]

I agree with that. And when, and it goes back to a culture issue. Those, those, those young officers who are indoctrinated at a young age have a different culture. And now the, in the enlisted have to either undo that culture and that all has to do with him. If he, if he understands the environment that he's now in, if he understands to, to take, you know, the advice of, you know, of enlisted person. But I'm telling you it's not just an officer problem that, that we have in the military incident. I, I take full responsibility for it. It's an enlisted problem too. We don't have the same enlisted people that used to do a good Job of walking that tightrope and saying, come here, sir, you're in charge. You're not really in charge. Come here. Let me mentor you and do that in a way that, that, that officer is open to that. We have senior NCOs that walk right up to you and be like, you're the boss. What do you want? Whatever you want, you're the boss. And for every commander that my enlisted peers and this, this, this kind of switch happened a little bit at an early age where they want to get mad at the officers like, oh, that, you know, he's, he's a horrible officer. I just take a different view on it and take responsibility from the listen side and say, well, he, he has an enlisted counterpart. If he's acting like that or making those decisions, he either doesn't respect his enlisted counterpart enough to take advice from him or his counterpart isn't giving him advice or pushing back. There isn't. We have an enlisted problem too as well.

[Mike C]

This, you know, to, to boil it down, and I don't disagree with you and it's, it's personality dependent. And one I'm going to tell you, I learned I had some, some great commanding officers that were again, formative to, to my development equal if not more so from the senior enlisted. The seas a phenomenal. I mean, how can you not look at a guy with 20 deployments and be like, hey, what should we do here? Because I have a clue. I don't care if you have 10 deployments. You're like, hey, I don't know what to do. He's like, yeah. And often they were, they were like, I don't either. This is the first time I'm seeing it. But we'll figure this out, right? One of the things that you know, right?

[Brent Tucker]

And we'll figure it out together.

[Mike C]

Yes, right. FDR referred to his cabinet as his brain trust. And a lot of people, just like a lot of leaders are the loudest people in the room. They think they're the smartest person in the room. We all know the joke. If you're the smartest person in the room, go find another.

[Brent Tucker]

Right?

[Mike C]

Because you're not sharpening your sword. A group of 40 people, I don't care if they're operators or business people who have very little experience, will collectively solve any problem more effectively and faster than you can.

[Brent Tucker]

Right?

[Mike C]

And the best thing with leader too is like, you know, we leaders speak last. It's almost like, let them all speak. I'm going to take his idea and her idea. I'M going to mesh those and be like, that's what we're going with. Let's do it. And you know what was unique about my career, too, is I was an FNG the whole time, right? Just when I was getting some credibility in the recon community, I've become a seal. Just when I was getting some credibility on the white side, right? I jump over here, I have a cup of coffee on the tier one side, and right when I maybe have some credibility, your career's done. And I. I think that shaped me in the sense of, like, just come in a room, listen, watch if you have something to. To contribute, yeah, I'll contribute, but I don't need to be the loudest person in the room. And you just said it. We'll figure things out together.

[Brent Tucker]

The post. Post military, you said what business did. What was your first venture? Post military?

[Mike C]

First venture was a couple things.

[Brent Tucker]

Want to talk about?

[Mike C]

So when I was going through the NBA program, I felt a little shame that I was getting this opportunity to get an NBA. And then guys were still deploying, and I'm like, so Admiral McRaven was the Chancellor of UT at the time. And so I. Technically, they signed him as my mentor, okay. And he basically said, mike, I'm busy as hell running a university system. If you got nothing from me, don't call me. If you end up in jail, you've got my number. And I appreciated that, man. And so I talked to him, and I'm like, hey, guys are having a rough time transitioning out. I'm getting this mba. So I stood up something called the Vetted foundation, okay. I had General Tony Cuccolo, a guy named Admiral Bobby Emin, who was also the director of the CIA. McRaven was helping out. We stood up something called. It was, well, the Vetted foundation, but basically it was an NBA light for senior enlisted and officers getting out. Nice. Where they would go to school at an MBA school for one to two months, gaining the financial acumen they lacked and setting them up. And we ran a program, a pilot for like 30 vets, highly successful. We got shut down due to Texas politics. I turned that into the talent war group, okay. Which was a executive search firm. What executive search is, is a company comes to us, they say, hey, we need a coo and we'll go out and find it. But we were placing veterans, and that was our niche. We will go find veterans, right? To. To place into that role and focused on small to medium businesses. And we placed. I think, you know, it was like Two years ago we had hit our hundredth veteran. Funny enough, more SF guys than my own community. And I do think that is because of the training, the unconventional warfare, a little bit of a different mindset. And that eventually got acquired. So, you know, one I found a lot of joy and we were doing leadership development, organizational design, talent consulting for. For companies. Well, we had a great team, but that then eventually was acquired by Overwatch Mission Critical. That brings us to this point. And the data center space is so. It has such national and national security implications, it's not even funny. I mean, it's a reverse parasitic relationship in that as these tech companies grow or manufacturing or investment banking and finance or healthcare and their reliance on technology, you need more data centers. So this is the fifth industrial Revolution. It's just moving at a speed that no Industrial revolution has previously moved at or could. We are behind on power, we're behind on labor. But there are some other things I did had a. You know, was Men's Journal's biggest initiative fell into that. I run some pretty awesome expeditions.

[Brent Tucker]

Yes, you have.

[Mike C]

We set world records. Yeah. And that's just getting the boys back together. And every expedition was in support of not only upholding the memory of guys we'd lost, but also fundraising for Folds of Honor, which is a great organization.

[Brent Tucker]

We'll talk about the. The Triple seven here in a second. But I think that little bit dovetails into. You got. You got linked up with Men's Journal.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. How'd that happen? And was the podcast, was that linked in with Men's Journal or was that something separate?

[Mike C]

It was. So, yes, I wrote books. They were not war books. And if anything is mentioned about it, it's usually self deprecating. Actually my first book was called the Talent War, hence the group. The. The name of the company. Talent War Group.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

How special operations and great organizations went on talent. And the focus of the book was attribute based hiring. And again I said it earlier, where did I learn that from the Green Beret community and how that translated to how companies could hire. And in fact the first story is it's I believe Travis Claiborne. I may be getting the. The name wrong. Flying in with his ODA and just looking down the. The Fusel Lodge at the guys trying to get sleep before they were stepping into a unknown environment. And he's like where the hell do we find these men? And then it goes into the attributes and everything so. And then wrote a book called the Everyday Warrior. A no hack self approach to life. Or I'm sorry, no hack. Principled way to live in life. I'm even screwing up the subtitle on my book, and that was written basically about all the amazing men and women I served with and the daily practices I saw them implement in their lives. And that I've tried to emulate very poorly. Most of the times that got picked up by Men's Journal to do an article. And so I did the article. They interviewed me, and they called back, like, two weeks later, and they're like, would you be interested in starting an everyday warrior initiative with Men's Journal? And I'm like, you know what? I. I love to experience as much as I can determine. Like, okay, yeah, that was fun. Don't want to do it anymore. And my response was like, hell, yes, dude. If we're. If we're driving impact for people who are trying to help steer their lives in a better direction, let's do it. It was massive. It was fun. But Men's Journal was eventually bought by Private Equity Group.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

As the story goes, things change.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And so we jumped ship with a friend of mine, John Wellborn, who's an NFL athlete, 10 years starter, and we jumped over to Sports Illustrated, then bought by private Equity group. And we recently said, hey, we think we're done. So I will keep the Everyday Warrior podcast. And I've taken a knee for about a year just due to the needs of this business. And I will keep that alive because I. Bro. I learned more from the guests than. I mean, the listeners learned from the guests. And I've had Kelly Slater, Sean White, I mean, great guests, NFL athletes, New York Times, bestselling authors to just learn. But I think that period of working for magazines, it was fun. I learned that side of the industry. It was never my main job. I did it as a hobby on the side. It's done, and I have no regrets about it.

[Brent Tucker]

Now, the. The triple seven jump.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

I was on the initial short list. I don't know if you remember that.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

I didn't go on it. It's not. It's not a big deal, Mike. I didn't. I didn't want to do it. Doesn't. Doesn't sound like an adventure of a lifetime, but it was seven jumps in seven days in seven continents. Correct.

[Mike C]

Yes. And let me preface this. You were just. You were just on Andy Stumps podcast.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Yeah. Andy, will he. I. I didn't listen to the podcast yet, but if you guys ever brought it up, you'd probably like. Yeah, Mike, Swirly is a really Shitty scat ever.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, compared to Andy, everyone is.

[Mike C]

Yeah, he's. He's one of those guys that picks things up really quick and it annoys you. And Andy's good, dude. So I missed being with the boys.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And Andy was one of the first guys I called, of course. And I had put together, like, a deck and a pitch, and I'm like, let me walk you through this. And it was, like, one minute in. He's like, I'm in. I'm like, no, no, let me. Let me finish the presentation. He's like, no, I'm in, dude. He's like, hey, dude, I got to do. Like, I'm in. Where do we go? And so we got a group of nine guys together.

[Brent Tucker]

He's such a good dude.

[Mike C]

He is. He's a rhetorical master. Like, there's no one better to have in a group unless you're the source of his. His focus. But, like, the second there's blood in the water, Andy is all over you, and the rest of the guys are laughing at somebody else's expense. So it took 18 months of planning.

[Brent Tucker]

Wow.

[Mike C]

What I learned from where we came, I applied to that. It was brutal. So this 7. 77 or 77 has been in the international skydiving community for decades. Many people have tried, and they all failed. Somebody did six continents in eight days, 14 hours, and something like seven minutes.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

And so it all was in the planning. Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics.

[Brent Tucker]

I was already thinking that we had.

[Mike C]

A battle book of contingencies.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

We had to go raise 1.5 million, and that was just a fly commercial. Yeah. And there's a good story here. So after 18 months, and I put on, like, 30 pounds that I didn't need to put on because I was nervous. 1. I just didn't want to fail. Guys are depending on me. Folds of honors depending on us to raise money. And we launched January of 2023, and we pulled it off with some major contingencies that happened that we hadn't planned for. And you talk about that brain trust.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

We had a doozy thrown at us that nobody could have dreamt of. And it was Glenn Cowan, the JTF2 guy, and Andy that saved the day. And I was just wore out at that time. We pulled the group in. I'm like, I don't know how to solve this, dude. And I'm wore out. And the guys went to work. But we did it in six days, six hours, and six minutes set for world records. What's funny is there was A Whiteside seal. Good dude who tried to do it the month after us and had a private, like 757.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

And Andy and I, he had went on the Rich Roll podcast, and we were listening. We're like, something isn't jiving. And I had spoke to him. He showed me his route, and the route didn't make sense. It was. It was like he was backtracking on the We. We. That was the hardest part. Like, what is the right route?

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

Because you have to start in Antarctica, the most wildest, the wildest variable, and knock that out first. Right? And he went on. They were saying things, and we're like, what? Like, this makes no sense. So they go to South Africa to stage to go into Antarctica. Can't even get into Antarctica. So they did six continents, and it was something like nine days. And he's a good dude. And they were also raising money. But it just shows like the. The. The. The victory is secured before you even step onto the battlefield.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, the. What was. What. What was it? What was the. The biggest hitch that.

[Mike C]

So we took a red eye. Antarctica knocked it out, went to Chile, Santiago knocked it out, and took a red eye from Santiago to. To Miami. Forgetting what day this is. It's like January 11th. So we were the last flight let into the U.S. we didn't know that when we landed. 6:00am Guys are turning on their phones. All of a sudden, the blue bubbles start popping up. All flights canceled. All flights canceled. All flights canceled. And I'm like, let me get off the plane. Because we had a group waiting for us. Operation Operational Support. And Andy and I are already talking. We're going to get our bags, which it was only one bag, the tandem rig. And what had happened was there was a IT issue with the NOTAM system. And FAA shut all flights in, canceled all flights within the US Going out or even within kos. And so Andy and I were like, hey, let's go.

[Brent Tucker]

What are the chances?

[Mike C]

Like you couldn't have dreamt, you know, the last time at that point, the NOTAM system had been shut down when 9, 11. So that was not in our contingency book. Andy and I are like, let the guys focus on knocking out the jump in Miami because we're tired. The risk continues to grow as we get more tired.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And we knock out the jump. Guys pulled in, and everyone gave a little pep talk about the guy we were jumping in honor of on each continent. So we pull the guys in, we put it out there. And Glenn Cowan's like, well, why don't we get a private jet stage? So the second the FAA lifts the restriction, we can go. And we're like, where are we going to get the money, Glenn? He's like, let's. Let's just call the good Americans who are behind us. You know, Joe, Andy, and I had gone on the Rogan podcast. We'd built a. A strong core of supporters, and Glenn got it done. He called, like three people. They're like, we've got a jet heading your way. We'll meet you out at some private airport right outside of Miami. And it got lifted. We got on the. The plane and where'd you guys need to go?

[Brent Tucker]

From Miami to Spain. So private jet from Miami to Spain.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. That's no small ask.

[Mike C]

So, you know, funny enough, while people had committed to the money.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Somebody still had to put the money down. And he's like, I've got this. And he, you know, and he's like, just, can we make sure the money is returned, like, within days as those people donated? I'm like, absolutely. So for the selfishness. And I remember everyone rushed onto the plane. We had one like 73 year old, wanted to make sure he had a good seat. And the guy's got all the really comfortable seats. And there's another guy named Boots, and we end up on the. The couch is like a perfect 90°L. And so you could see him. And I like being uncomfortable. And eventually, like, it's 30 minutes in the flight, and I'm like, boots, just take the cast, man. Lay out. I'll just lay on the fuselage. Coldest flight I've ever had. Guys are waking up. Like, that was great, right? And for some of us, it was our first private flight. And I'm like, you mother. Like, we fly private. I get the. But everything worked out, man. Oh, there is. I got to tell this one good story. Yeah. So when we landed in Spain, the cloud deck, it was a. It was a blanket. You couldn't see the sky.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

It was at 1,000ft and went to 3,000ft. So we get outside of Barcelona, where we're going to jump, and we're like, let's just get in the air. So we go to 13,000 and we're in this Porter, and two people joined us. So now you have like 11 people in a porter, and I'm like, just get me off this plane. So we're flying, and the pilot who doesn't speak English is like, okay. And Andy's looking out, he's like, I don't See, I can't see the drop zone in the U.S. according to USPA rules, you cannot jump in that scenario. Okay, but we ain't in the U.S. okay. If they watch the documentary later, you can pull our cards. So I think Boots was next to the pilot. He's like, where's the drop zone? She's like, aki, a key.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Andy looks another time looks back up into the. To the group.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

And just leaps. And there's a picture of me being like. And I'm just like, well, if he's gonna go, we're gonna follow.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right. Now we're all going.

[Mike C]

Like your mom says you jump out of a perfectly good airplane. If your friends do it, do you do it? And the answer is like absolutely freaking teams.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Mike C]

And everyone landed safely. Some guys safely in a farm field off dz. But four guys landed together. Some hit the dz. It just depended where you came out of the clouds.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

But you couldn't see anything until a thousand feet.

[Brent Tucker]

And a th000feet is not a long time.

[Mike C]

Cuz you're already sitting into your pack.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right. You should be already on. On. On your. On your down downwind leg. Thank you. Downwind leg base.

[Mike C]

Yes.

[Brent Tucker]

Upwind junk. Jogging the memory there.

[Mike C]

If.

[Brent Tucker]

If you're doing it right, that's. That's. That's what you want to be on.

[Mike C]

You know, it's. You don't need to do. No, you do your l. You land into the wind. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

It's not always done in that order, but it should be. It's ideally it's what you want. How much you guys end up raising to. To donate to fold of honor in.

[Mike C]

Across the course. Because then like I think in 2025 we released the documentary. We did like a little theater Tour taking all 2 million. We wanted in theme with 7. We wanted 7 million. But we may have a trip coming up this December. Seven continents, seven days, seven scuba dives.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh really?

[Mike C]

Yes. So have you not learned your lesson? We have it. And funny enough, AI wasn't. We didn't have access. So there was no AI.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Mike C]

And I'm like, hey, let me do a deep search on this. And it must be pulling from what we did in 777 and everything that was made public. It spit out the plan to include flights right down to the airline, the number, the departure time. There's still a lot of things you got to handle. But I mean that's the power we're in when people are like Oh, I don't like to use AI. It's not authentic. Like you're an idiot.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Mike C]

Like you. That is the whole point of AI to speed the process to identify holes that you don't have based off your experience. It was so. It's a beautiful thing.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Devin's slowly bringing me over to the AI camp.

[Mike C]

Emphasis on slowly. It's painful.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I was going to say what's next for you? Are you. Is that. Is that. Are you really thinking about doing that?

[Mike C]

Yeah, we are.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

And again we'll. We're gonna follow a very similar route. There's just one switch to it and hit Turkey, which is transcontinental.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

So you can knock out both Europe and Asia in. In Turkey alone and then continue on.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, thanks for asking. I am a combat diver, so I could be available for, for this one.

[Mike C]

You allow permission? I'm coming with. Carry his bags. We're not doing dry suits. We've already. We're going to do a vest heated vest.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Mike C]

With just thick mill wetsuits. In Antarctica, they're just going to be down to 25ft for 20 minutes. Back up. It counts as a dive. And then. And we've. We still have the 74 year old who just had like a triple bypass. This Guy's set like 10 world records on different things to include the highest tandem really went jumped from 42,000ft. Highest tandem record.

[Brent Tucker]

I know you guys jumped Antarctica first, but how. I mean, how's that for a jump? It's got to be kind of crazy for what? For Antarctica on your first jump on, on that. On the, on the triple seven.

[Mike C]

It was. It was. Hey one. You've got to feel blessed and humbled to even step on Antarctica. Not a lot of humans get that. The, the jump was beautiful and we thought that was going to be the marquee jump. It was over the pyramids in Egypt that everyone's like, that was by far. Andy freaking got like 10ft off the tip of the pyramid, which probably could have like you can't climb the pyramids. Yeah. So he. It's Andy.

[Brent Tucker]

He's close.

[Mike C]

Could have probably ended up in. In legal water with the Egyptian security forces, but that was by far the, the best jump.

[Brent Tucker]

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything, is there anything else that you want to talk about? Plug where people can find you and anything you want to promote?

[Mike C]

No. Appreciate coming on the invite and when you ask man, you, you, you were there for me the. The 20th anniversary and there was just. It wasn't even a choice.

[Brent Tucker]

So. Mike, I appreciate it so much. Thanks for going on the show. Oh, hold on. Before. Before we leave. This is a gift from Cloud Defensive, one of our sponsors. I'm sure you know. Oh.

[Mike C]

That is how.

[Brent Tucker]

How important a. A good flashlight and tac light is. Nothing like.

[Mike C]

Thank you.

[Brent Tucker]

Nothing like having a thousand lumens when. When you need to see something.

[Mike C]

I. Hey, I've got my go bag in my Bronco always thank. Thank God it isn't a knife because I had a carry on. So I appreciate that.

[Brent Tucker]

And next is from Brotherhood Blades.

[Mike C]

So I'll be checking that. That's okay. That's fine.

[Brent Tucker]

No, I already knew you flew in. We're. We're going to ship that to you.

[Mike C]

No, no, no, I can. I can check it.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, we'll ship it if. If.

[Mike C]

Well, not at all.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. And they. They. Yeah. Laserdon the tier one.

[Mike C]

That is great on there.

[Brent Tucker]

I always make the same joke, but it's true. No tactical guy has ever been given a knife and been like, I already got 10 of them. I don't need another life. I don't know what it is about knives. I'm not even necessarily a knife guy, if you will. I love them.

[Mike C]

I hate. I've got like, probably 50 knives. I need one more. Well, at least I didn't cut myself on screen. So that's. Represent your community.

[Brent Tucker]

You got.

[Mike C]

You got that out of the way.

[Brent Tucker]

With the bag drop. Yeah. For you. Once you can. You can handle equipment for the first time now. Absolutely. Thanks again, brother. And he's staying for the live. But you guys already know that by the time this episode drops. Thanks, guys. Bye.