Transcript
00:00:00You've done a lot of hard things in your life.
00:00:03A couple.
00:00:04Why was getting out of the military the hardest thing that you've had to do?
00:00:11No one ever prepared you for it.
00:00:14When you get in the teams, any military, especially special operations, it becomes your identity.
00:00:20It becomes the only thing you do, and it becomes a justification for everything you don't do.
00:00:24Why don't you do this? Because it'll affect the end state.
00:00:27When you transition away from it, you never thought it was going to be hard.
00:00:30You thought you were going to transition, you were going to find that same love and passion and energy you had for being in the military.
00:00:36And then when you don't find it, it's a huge fall from grace.
00:00:39But I mean, you hear these fairy tales of this billionaire is going to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to live on his ranch and to do nothing but tell war stories and shoot coyotes and whatever.
00:00:50Any place you want to go, they'll pick you up because of your background, because of your resume and all these different things.
00:00:55And when you get out, you quickly realize that's all a lie.
00:00:59No one's going to pay you to do a compound assault.
00:01:01No one's going to pay you to skydive.
00:01:02No one's going to pay you to assault a cruise ship or whatever else you did.
00:01:06They don't exist.
00:01:07So I've spent my entire adult life developing a skill set nobody wants.
00:01:12What am I supposed to do now?
00:01:14I don't know how to do anything.
00:01:15You want me to go to Home Depot?
00:01:15Like, what am I supposed to do?
00:01:17I've avoided getting my picture taken for 20 years.
00:01:20I've avoided conversations with normal people.
00:01:22I don't have a Rolodex because I've never opened myself up to anybody who wasn't inside of that 12-man team.
00:01:27I don't have anybody.
00:01:29I don't know the CEO of Apple or Google.
00:01:32I don't know any of these people.
00:01:34There's nothing for me to do except contract.
00:01:36That's it.
00:01:37Which just keeps you in the same system.
00:01:39It's the exact same thing.
00:01:40You're with the same people, the same deployment schedules, same routine, and you just chip away until you're too old to do it anymore, and then you just fizzle out.
00:01:49That must feel to a lot of special operators like they basically can't ever leave.
00:01:54Exactly.
00:01:55Even the guys who do leave, the majority of them, they're either miserable or they transition to a job that's so similar to the military.
00:02:01It's like they're still in.
00:02:02What like?
00:02:03Contracting.
00:02:04Agency work, Blackwater, Triple Canopy, stuff like that.
00:02:07You're basically doing a very similar job.
00:02:10You get paid a little bit more, or the guys just come right back in.
00:02:13We've had guys get out and go to Goldman Sachs and try to reinvent themselves.
00:02:16They make it six months, three years.
00:02:19Nope.
00:02:20Right back in.
00:02:20No way.
00:02:21Oh, yeah.
00:02:23They miss it that much.
00:02:26I mean, Wall Street trading feels a lot.
00:02:28It's probably the closest thing that you can get to war in the finance world.
00:02:33If the adrenaline of million-dollar movements every couple of seconds on a market isn't good enough for you, you've got to get back into something with a bit more of a kinetic energy.
00:02:43Kinetic energy is what it is.
00:02:44You need something where you have a little bit of risk of dying, right?
00:02:49You've never felt more alive than when you're right on the teetering edge of death.
00:02:52And once you feel that and you survive it, okay, more of that.
00:02:56Whatever that was, I need to feel that again.
00:02:58Doesn't matter if it's skydiving, if it's combat, if it's whatever else.
00:03:02You're chasing the adrenaline dump.
00:03:04I need to feel the adrenaline, whatever I'm doing.
00:03:08What does that feel like?
00:03:11You ever been in like a bad car accident or almost in a bad car accident?
00:03:15Yes.
00:03:16When you get done, your hands shake a little bit.
00:03:18Oh, I can't believe I made it through that.
00:03:20It's one of those.
00:03:21And then it becomes, of course I made it through that.
00:03:24I've been training to make it through that.
00:03:25And then it's almost like an ego check, like how close can I come or how successful can I be with everything you do?
00:03:34How much can I plan?
00:03:35How much can I dedicate my life to buy down as much risk as humanly possible to be effective on the battlefield?
00:03:40Whatever that battlefield might be.
00:03:42Are you saying that being a soldier, being a special operator is essentially a war equivalent of an extreme sport that people decide to do recreationally?
00:03:53Exactly.
00:03:55Exactly.
00:03:55You'd be surprised how many guys do extreme sports, why they're in, or that was what they did when they came in.
00:04:00Like mine was skateboarding.
00:04:01You got guys, Andy was big into skydiving, base jumping, wingsuiting, all of that.
00:04:05How many guys come from the MMA world, ultra competitive worlds, and we get inside there.
00:04:11Okay, well, if I mess this up, there is no bronze model.
00:04:15If I mess this up, I'm going to die or worse, you'll die.
00:04:19Other people too.
00:04:20Other people die.
00:04:21How much of a different energy does it give things if you're someone that's an adrenaline junkie that's happy to do dangerous things for yourself?
00:04:33But your decisions and your actions are almost going to put somebody else in danger too.
00:04:39Does that make it more exciting?
00:04:42When you're putting your friends' lives in danger, that's where it's not exciting.
00:04:46You're trying to buy down as much of that as possible.
00:04:48And that's really what they want you to do is just obsess over your craft where you can control all the variables because it makes it safer.
00:04:53And that's where a lot of the leadership really don't buy off on that.
00:04:57If you want to make skydiving safer, make it mandatory to skydive more.
00:05:01And he'll tell you the same thing.
00:05:03The most dangerous person in the military is a skydiver with 180 jumps that thinks he is a ninja.
00:05:10He's not.
00:05:11If you want to make it safe, have thousands of skydives and jump every single week.
00:05:16Jump every single month and stack those years over years and then you buy down the majority of the risk.
00:05:20I think he said he'd done like 3,000, something like that, maybe more.
00:05:25He's got to have more than that.
00:05:26I'm at 4,000.
00:05:27He's been jumping longer than me.
00:05:28Yeah.
00:05:28Yeah.
00:05:29I mean, but that's how you buy down the risk.
00:05:31Got to do it more.
00:05:32Got to fight more.
00:05:33Got to shoot more.
00:05:33Got to jump more.
00:05:34Got to operate more.
00:05:35So me and him, we had this conversation two days ago.
00:05:37And he goes, do you think if we limited how much combat people saw, you wouldn't have such a huge fall from grace, anxiety, suicide, ideation, all those things?
00:05:48When they leave it, if you could compartmentalize them and not let them burn the candle at both ends, do you think that would be better off for them?
00:05:55I said, absolutely no.
00:05:57They need it.
00:05:58That's how you get really, really good.
00:06:00Could you imagine if I locked you in a room, I never let you play another team, and then you just played on the Super Bowl?
00:06:05But in this Super Bowl, if you lose, you die.
00:06:07That's not very good.
00:06:08I want to play every single day.
00:06:10We're doing two a days the entire time.
00:06:12Getting ready to go.
00:06:13Buys down the risk.
00:06:15And it increases your confidence and confidence in the entire team.
00:06:17That's where you see level two unlock.
00:06:21When everybody truly believes that you have covered all your bases.
00:06:24I couldn't burn another rep.
00:06:25I couldn't spend another hour.
00:06:27We're as good as you could humanly be.
00:06:29We're good.
00:06:30We're unstoppable.
00:06:31How many times have you been on deployment and seen somebody that shouldn't have been there based on expertise or disposition?
00:06:41Andy came through and explained an awful lot about what his selection was like, and then he went back and was the guy with the bullhorn as opposed to facing it.
00:06:50And you think, well, this is supposed to weed out people that aren't supposed to be there.
00:06:53It's incredibly rigorous.
00:06:55But it can't be perfect.
00:06:57It simply can't be perfect because it's unable to replicate what you're actually there to do.
00:07:01So, yeah, have there been any times when you've got out there and thought, that guy's not, you shouldn't be here with us?
00:07:11So, there's definite times when you get people inside the team you wish were not there.
00:07:17You just do.
00:07:18Like, you get there and you're like, man.
00:07:20But it goes back to, you know, I had a mentor.
00:07:22He used to talk about being clonable.
00:07:24Would we be better off if I had five of you?
00:07:27If the answer is not yes, then you shouldn't be here at all.
00:07:29I don't even want one of you.
00:07:31So, why they might not be the best guy for the job, if you can compare them to all the other guys you've worked with, they're so much better that it doesn't really matter.
00:07:40The group and, you know, the strength of the overall collective is going to make up for whatever deficiency he might have.
00:07:44If it's a cultural thing or a personality trait, those are harder to navigate, believe it or not, because everybody can perform.
00:07:51If you're not going to find a guy that can't shoot, move, communicate, skydive, dive, do all the things, he might not be a 10 where this guy is.
00:07:58But he's a solid 8 no matter what.
00:08:01His personality I just don't like.
00:08:03So, I was learning about the way that bands form, I've been thinking a lot about music over the last couple of years, and many times you might have someone that's a savant guitarist or an unbelievable bassist, but they're a shithang on the tour bus.
00:08:22And what you don't see, I suppose, the job is not finished in the bounds of what you do professionally.
00:08:32It's, well, how do you impact the morale of the team?
00:08:35And what's the energy that you bring when you're on your way to a job and on your way back from a job?
00:08:40And how do the debriefs, are you keeping in touch when you're not on tour, whether you're a musician or a comedian or a special operator?
00:08:49Like, are you WhatsAppping every so often?
00:08:51Are you kind of keeping that connection?
00:08:52And what's the sort of vibe that you get?
00:08:54Or do you just low-key irritate everybody?
00:08:57Or is it just a mismatch of this one particular type of personality?
00:09:00Maybe if you were the different group, your annoyances wouldn't annoy quite so much.
00:09:05You know, you could have people, there are certain people that are universally annoying, and there are some people that are specifically annoying.
00:09:10Like, idiosyncratically annoying.
00:09:11Yep.
00:09:12But whatever it is, it's like, hey, this particular node doesn't slot into this particular network.
00:09:18You get that.
00:09:20At a certain level, we do a draft.
00:09:23So when you get to the tier one organizations, they draft you.
00:09:25No difference between you and football or anything else, they break you off.
00:09:28Performance, performance, culture, trust, all those different things.
00:09:32And you might get a guy that checks into your team.
00:09:35He's there for six months, two years, whatever.
00:09:38It's just not working.
00:09:39Sometimes they will lateral transfer him to a different team.
00:09:42Perfect.
00:09:43Like, his personality is perfect.
00:09:45The cultural doesn't clash.
00:09:47And just everything makes sense for them.
00:09:49You see that, I won't say often, but often enough the way you remember it.
00:09:53Can you explain how the different tiers in things work?
00:09:55I have an understanding of this from the British side, but I've never really learned it when it comes to…
00:09:59Very similar.
00:10:00Okay.
00:10:03So you think baseline, everybody will say they are higher tier than they actually are, right?
00:10:09So a lot of people will say that the SEAL teams are a tier two.
00:10:13They're not.
00:10:13It's a tier three.
00:10:15It's…
00:10:16A lot of it's based off your parent unit and your response times to catastrophic things.
00:10:22Okay.
00:10:22So if you're anywhere on the planet within 36 hours, you're quite high.
00:10:26Yep.
00:10:26Or sometimes you're on a 30-minute recall.
00:10:29And that's where you live for months throughout the year.
00:10:3130-minute recall.
00:10:32That page goes off.
00:10:33That text goes off.
00:10:34You're on an airplane.
00:10:35In 30 minutes, you've got to go.
00:10:36No fucking way.
00:10:37Oh, yeah.
00:10:38And anxiety just boosts.
00:10:41But I mean, like, you know, really, it isn't much.
00:10:44And I was just talking about this not too long ago.
00:10:46You get more funding, but really what they do is, for the tier one organizations, they cover all the logistics.
00:10:53They put you inside of Disneyland, all the ranges, all the assets, all the intelligence folks, the human performance, the best gyms.
00:11:00Everything you could imagine is inside of a compound.
00:11:02They stick you inside it and they try to lock you inside it.
00:11:05Just come here and only focus on the craft.
00:11:07Because as soon as we tell you to go, you're going to have to go at 100%.
00:11:10Go.
00:11:11Get ready to go.
00:11:12The other ones, it's a very similar workup routine.
00:11:16It'll be a year, two years long sometimes, and then you'll forward deploy, do operations for X amount of months, 3, 6, 9, 12, whatever the unit deployment cycle is.
00:11:24You come back, rinse, and repeat.
00:11:26In tier one organizations, it's just a constant revolution over and over and over again.
00:11:31It's amazing.
00:11:32How long were you doing that?
00:11:34I joined Navy in 2002, and I retired in August of 2019.
00:11:39So right at 17 years.
00:11:41And how long?
00:11:42Tier one side, 2010 until 2019.
00:11:45So you did nine years of being on call within 30 minutes, basically.
00:11:49Not the entire time, but every year you spend a significant block of that on the alert schedule.
00:11:54Right.
00:11:55It's amazing.
00:11:56Why?
00:11:57Because you matter.
00:11:59Because you wake up every day, you're watching the news, you're hearing all the intel briefs, and you have a dude stuck up in your locker up in the team room that you're actively just hunting with your friends all day long.
00:12:08And you're just waiting for some dude to send out a text, and you're going to go, yes.
00:12:12So you're going to have little co-words with the wife, like going fishing with the boys.
00:12:16Where are you going fishing at?
00:12:17I have no idea.
00:12:18But take off and go.
00:12:21That is the coolest thing you can do in the military.
00:12:23Why?
00:12:25Because it's just like in the movies.
00:12:27You've seen the greatest war movie ever made, Navy SEALs.
00:12:29In the middle of that wedding.
00:12:30That's what everybody wants.
00:12:31I want to be in the middle of that.
00:12:34The pager goes off.
00:12:35Got to go.
00:12:36Right now?
00:12:37Right now.
00:12:37Leave.
00:12:38And three people from the party leave.
00:12:39Yeah.
00:12:41It's a lot of pressure, but it gives you a reason why.
00:12:43On those days you don't want to get up, you're going to get up.
00:12:46The team deserves it.
00:12:47The mission deserves it.
00:12:48The nation deserves it.
00:12:49Get up and go.
00:12:50And now that I'm out, I get to see these savants throughout their craft.
00:12:54I got to go down and talk to Houston Rockets, Kevin Durant's over there, and you get four gold medals.
00:12:59I mean, one of the greatest, it is the greatest score in Olympic basketball history.
00:13:05And you get to see what they do day in and day out.
00:13:07The Steph Currys of the world, the LeBron James, Michael Phelps, Tiger Woods, all those people.
00:13:13Do you see parallels between what was constructed for you guys and what is constructed for them too?
00:13:18They just self-made it.
00:13:19They live in isolation.
00:13:20They broke out a routine that just super exceeds everybody else's minimum standard because nobody else can maintain it.
00:13:26So if you, if I drop Steph Curry in on that table right there and I was like, walk me through a typical day in the life of Steph Curry.
00:13:33He's got a minimum shot routine.
00:13:34He's got his warmups, his workouts, his massage therapy, the cold plunges, like whatever he does, he just does it unbroken for so much longer than everybody else.
00:13:42That's why he's able to hit that level and maintain it for a 20-year career where the average lifespan at NBA guys, four and a half years, coming up on 20.
00:13:51It's not a fluke.
00:13:52That's not luck.
00:13:52It's not genetics.
00:13:54Yeah.
00:13:54Like at a certain point, like people want to say, like, must be nice.
00:13:58There ain't nothing nice about his schedule.
00:13:59Nothing.
00:14:01He's been living that unbroken.
00:14:02That's why you know his name.
00:14:04But I also say, like Michael Phelps, he's a freak.
00:14:07He's a freak.
00:14:08Genetically gifted, for sure.
00:14:10His discipline is why he has all those gold medals.
00:14:12If I would have given him a baseball bat at eight years old and never put him in a swimming pool, you'd still know the name.
00:14:17That's why you see him when they transition out and you're like, Michael Phelps, golfing.
00:14:21He's an amazing golfer.
00:14:22Just imagine if you've been doing it since he was four.
00:14:25He'd be Tiger Woods.
00:14:27The work ethic, the discipline, and the passion it takes to hit that level, it's universal.
00:14:32There's a cool thought experiment.
00:14:34Brian Klass wrote a book called Fluke, and he's talking about realities that are convergent or coincident.
00:14:42And he's basically saying, if you were to run reality back a thousand times in all of the other universes, in how many of them would you have got an extraordinary outcome?
00:14:54Talking about this.
00:14:57I get the sense that someone like Michael Phelps is like 900 of the thousand universes.
00:15:01He becomes world-class in a thing.
00:15:05And the goal, I think, should be to try and construct a life where, in as many universes as possible, you would have ended up with the kind of outcome that you're looking to have.
00:15:17I say the same thing.
00:15:18If you live the routine, if you look at every rep they've ever burnt throughout their entire life and you just replace with a different medium, that is the recipe for success.
00:15:26If there's 10,000 hours, they've logged so much more than that.
00:15:29I mean, you break 10,000 hours down, four hours a day, was it roughly eight years?
00:15:33Break down eight hours a day, roughly four years?
00:15:36That's why I tell guys, once you get into your lane, if you sacrifice everything else for the first four years and you lay down those 10,000 hours, you can find a balance point for the rest of your career.
00:15:46That's just not what I did.
00:15:47That's what most of the guys didn't do.
00:15:49Drinking, partying, chasing women, doing the whole thing.
00:15:51Just, you know, set your hair on fire and run around throughout your early 20s.
00:15:56Not what I wish I would have done.
00:15:58So you've got to make up that time on the backside.
00:16:01Just be a pro.
00:16:02Be a pro early.
00:16:04Yeah, a lot of the time at the live shows that I do, young guys typically come up and they hear me talking about, well, I'm trying to use other fuel sources than just putting my foot on the gas pedal.
00:16:18I'm trying to give myself time to be creative because there's leverage in creativity that there isn't in white knuckling it.
00:16:24In fact, we did manage to white knuckle something today, which is one of the few times in my history that I've white knuckled creativity, but it's very rare.
00:16:30And that's huge step changes because of what I do.
00:16:34Maybe if you were somebody that's doing a special kind of battle plan for you guys that's in the intelligence side and they're trying to come up with the perfect operation to reverse engineer exactly, that's it.
00:16:47You know, that's the guy that you probably actually need in a hammock for a couple of hours a day just thinking about shit.
00:16:52But for the most part, and in most industries, and even him back in the day when he was learning exactly how intelligence assets move and what the different ways that this geographic region relates to this particular culture and what this guy did in his background, he was doing his eight hours a day.
00:17:06And young guys come and ask because they're hearing me talk about, I'm trying to use different leverage functions as opposed to what I did for the best part of two decades, which was like nose grindstone, just doing that, eating shit.
00:17:21And I'd be, I'd typically ask them, you look pretty young.
00:17:25How old are you?
00:17:25He goes, I'm 22.
00:17:26Like, bro, I don't mean to be that patronizing asshole that was to me when I was 22, but you're made of rubber and magic at the moment.
00:17:36Like you're indestructible.
00:17:37You can do, you can do 14, 16 hour days for multiple days in a row, then have one day where you have a bit more sleep and then run it back and run it back and run it back.
00:17:47And yeah, the gains of front loading your skill acquisition and setting down those paths of least resistance, what do I expect?
00:17:59You know, how many guys that end up in the SEALs were probably in some form of sport as a kid, some degree of disciplined routine?
00:18:12Probably many.
00:18:13Now, I know that there's some, Andy's told me, just total tearaways seemed like, how the fuck is this redneck guy that never did?
00:18:21But even within them, you can see something, there's some sort of spark that seems to sort of lock them in.
00:18:27But yeah, defining your paths of least resistance by setting your habits early, I think, is a, it's a superpower.
00:18:33It's, it's a way, it's a superpower that you can give yourself.
00:18:37It becomes routine.
00:18:38It becomes easy.
00:18:39You don't even realize you're doing it.
00:18:41I, I have an, I have an amazing support group on social.
00:18:49It's amazing.
00:18:51I'm shocked with the amount of people that hit me up and they say this phrase, I just can't get up that early.
00:18:57You have a $1,200 phone in your pocket.
00:19:01The simplest feature on it is the alarm.
00:19:03Just set it.
00:19:04And he goes, I can't, man.
00:19:05I always hit snooze.
00:19:07I've never hit snooze my whole life.
00:19:09I have no idea what you mean.
00:19:11So I'll give him a tip.
00:19:12Instead of putting it next to your nightstand, because I know it's where it is, put it in the wall, eight feet off your bed.
00:19:17Once you swing your feet out to unplug the phone, just continue the movement.
00:19:21Next day, lay out your clothes the night before.
00:19:23Get your bottle of water next to your bed.
00:19:24Get your pills all laid out.
00:19:25Everything you have to do in the exact order you're going to get dressed.
00:19:28You watch how fast your morning routine closes.
00:19:31Like I can be in and out of that house, rushed or not rushed, four and a half minutes.
00:19:35I mean fast.
00:19:36But I've also had to live my life like that the whole time.
00:19:40Like as soon as you feel the momentum getting created, you're like, I just have to follow the routine.
00:19:44Very easy.
00:19:45Like I got to get it early.
00:19:46I jumped in an Uber and I drove here last night just to make sure I knew where the building was, make sure I knew where the stairs were, right?
00:19:52I don't want to walk around.
00:19:53I don't want to be unprepared.
00:19:54So that's why I'm not late for anything.
00:19:55I show up.
00:19:56I dirt dive the night before.
00:19:57I know the traffic patterns.
00:19:58I know everything's going to happen.
00:19:59And then I just show up and do it.
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00:20:56Is it exhausting to have that on at all times and be unable to switch it off?
00:21:04I've been working the last couple of years, been dial it down.
00:21:07I talk a lot about dials not switches.
00:21:07It really doesn't sound like it.
00:21:09You should have seen me before.
00:21:11Tell me what was before like.
00:21:14You want to see a panic attack, grab somebody who is living that alert.
00:21:20Surgeons have it, ER docs have it.
00:21:22Like, if that phone rings, you have to go watch a dude who lives his life like that go to zero bars or his phone dies.
00:21:28Panic at the disco.
00:21:30Because if that thing goes off and your phone is dead, there's no excuse for it.
00:21:34You're just constantly checking it all day.
00:21:35If your phone goes off in the next room, I jump and grab my phone.
00:21:38Everybody else does too.
00:21:40Put it back away.
00:21:412.30 in the morning.
00:21:43Try to fall back to sleep.
00:21:44It's so hard to sleep because you're such on edge.
00:21:47You're waiting for that moment to come.
00:21:48You're waiting to spring out of it.
00:21:50You've just got to learn how to power it down.
00:21:51It takes a long time, though.
00:21:53How exciting is being on a plane going out to do an operation when you've only had 30 minutes to get ready,
00:21:59but you've been thinking about it for a couple of months or years?
00:22:02It's amazing.
00:22:03I mean, even on a helo flight on a normal deployment, it's the greatest thing you'll ever do.
00:22:08It is.
00:22:08There is nothing that I've found so far that can replace that feeling of sitting on a helo, flying 30 seconds out.
00:22:17You get the call and you just watch all the guys.
00:22:18Thousand-yard stairs.
00:22:20I mean, they might as well be smoking cigarettes with their feet kicked up.
00:22:22They are so calm, so ready to send it.
00:22:25It makes you feel eerily comfortable.
00:22:27I don't care what happens when that ramp drops.
00:22:29We are golden.
00:22:30It's just great, but the pressure to get there, that's all it is.
00:22:34A lot of it's kind of like meditating.
00:22:40You sit on a helo, the whine of the engines, the smell of the fuel, nobody's talking.
00:22:46Guys will put in iPods, or they won't.
00:22:48They'll just sit there, and they'll kind of just blink, stare out, and you'll think about everything you're about to do.
00:22:52The moment you land, when you get off the helo, where you're going to sit, the helo backblast, blowing all the dust all over your hair, everything.
00:23:00You think about every single detail, so when you get there, if anything happens, I've rehearsed this 50,000 times.
00:23:05It feels like you're omnipotent at a point.
00:23:09There's not a single detail you have not thought of that I haven't thought of that we all collectively have not thought of.
00:23:14So if anything goes wrong, switch.
00:23:17Just make it happen.
00:23:19But you have to think about it a lot.
00:23:21You have to be obsessed.
00:23:23You don't find a lot of guys that do that job who have extracurricular activities.
00:23:27I mean, when I got there, they make you sign a piece of paperwork.
00:23:29You're not going to try to get a college degree.
00:23:31You're not going to try to get a real estate license for your first four or five years.
00:23:34I forget what it was.
00:23:35We just want you to do this.
00:23:37Nothing else.
00:23:38So they realize the price of obsession and the benefits of obsession.
00:23:42And even if you don't, once you get there, when you see the guys that have been doing it, it confirms it.
00:23:48They are amazing.
00:23:49They just are.
00:23:51You think growing up in that community, spending all that time in the teams and then getting to the varsity level, that it would be roughly the same?
00:24:00It couldn't be further apart.
00:24:04Everything they do is purpose-built.
00:24:05Everything they don't do is purpose-built.
00:24:07Their morning routine, the workouts, the recovery, what they drink or don't drink, and then how they compartmentalize stress.
00:24:14I've never seen anybody do it better.
00:24:16How so?
00:24:17They can block it out, no matter what happens.
00:24:21You're on the middle of an op.
00:24:22You come back.
00:24:23You've been gone for four and a half months, and you have an email.
00:24:25Your wife just left.
00:24:25You took two kids and moved to Missouri.
00:24:30You go right back to work.
00:24:31I'll solve that when I get home.
00:24:33They won't even care.
00:24:34They don't even think about it.
00:24:35You've seen that happen?
00:24:36More times than I can count.
00:24:40Compartmentalization is like the number one strength.
00:24:42How bad is it going right now?
00:24:43I don't know.
00:24:44I don't even think about it.
00:24:45Just block it out.
00:24:47It's hard to do, though.
00:24:48When you get a family and you get all the other people that are drawing your time and attention, your bandwidth, it becomes hard to block out.
00:24:54I'm surprised, in some degrees, that there isn't a rule that you are not going to get married or start a family while you're inside of the forces.
00:25:02I said that for years.
00:25:03I said that for years.
00:25:04In a perfect world, they wouldn't.
00:25:06In a perfect world.
00:25:07You know that K-pop stars aren't allowed.
00:25:09They sign away on their contract when they get created as a group.
00:25:14I think it might even be to be celibate, but it's certainly to not have a partner, absolutely to not get married, absolutely to not have kids.
00:25:23One of the interesting things, South Korea's got the lowest birth rate in the world, and one of the reasons that some demographer friends of mine think that that's the case, is that the single most powerful cultural export and cultural influence in Korea is K-pop, and all of the K-pop stars are by contract, unpartnered, and childless.
00:25:46But if you can do it to people that do coordinated dances on stage, I would expect that there would be a tier that you would get to where the government says, "Hey, while you're here, I'm afraid you're in K-pop mode."
00:26:03I used to always say, "If you could build a lab, and you could build nothing but premium assaulters, what would you want them to be like?"
00:26:12James Bond. Orphans, no wife, no kids, no external commitments, just focus on this craft. I mean, that's why when you look at James Bond, he's not-
00:26:19Ah, he's focused on fucking women.
00:26:21He is, but he's not getting married. He has nothing. So you get the hybrid between him and Neil Macaulay from Heat.
00:26:27Can't get attached to anything, you can't walk away from 30 seconds, you feel Heat coming around the corner.
00:26:31It's that kind of comparison. But then what do you want them to be able to do? Because you can't have it both.
00:26:37You can't have people that have no empathy, because you want this Captain America, this superhero figure that saving babies and killing the bad guy and wrecking the princess and all this nonsense.
00:26:48Is that really what you want? It's not what the enemy have. They don't have that at all. What do you want? And I feel like people can't make up their mind.
00:26:56It's really interesting. You know, the last few years we've seen walk at that in here. Go on.
00:27:03I've been waiting so long to drink one of these.
00:27:05Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to allow you to enjoy this without me distracting you.
00:27:09Just in case you're one, you can't find these in Virginia beach.
00:27:15There it is.
00:27:16Cousin, that's good. Good for you. Congrats.
00:27:19Thank you. Um, you know, we've never seen kinetic encounters be as widely broadcast as Russia, Ukraine, Middle East, even this year, this year rockets going through Dubai hotel windows and stuff being shot down over airports.
00:27:42I'm kind of fascinated by the collateral damage that is, has always been a part of a war.
00:27:53Uh, the, or another way to put it would be sort of the, the ugliness, even forget the collateral damage.
00:27:58Cause I'm aware that with modern war techniques, you would like to think we can minimize those.
00:28:05There can be precision that's done.
00:28:07And I think you get into a discussion that that's probably pretty, pretty honest there.
00:28:11But another one would just be, there are certain elements of war, many elements of war that are just messy and very ugly.
00:28:20And that includes the people that are doing it.
00:28:22Uh, and it's strange now to think that there's a level of sort of sanitization that many people from a country who want to, who wouldn't want to be invaded or attacked.
00:28:40Are also unhappy with the, the people who are doing it on their behalf, who are the shield, uh, or the spear that are ensuring that they stay safe.
00:28:53I don't like the way that they're doing it.
00:28:55It's being done in a manner that seems uncouth or barbaric or, uh, insufficiently empathetic.
00:29:03And, um, I, I'm just interested in what you think about this additional level of, of scrutiny around, not just what happens, which is one part of it, but the way that it happens too.
00:29:16Like I, I, I, I want you to, I want you to care more about this and you go for every percent that I care, my effectiveness goes down by.
00:29:25However much more than a percent I would imagine.
00:29:28Um, how do you come to think about that?
00:29:30From the U S side and I'll say from the five, I side, UK, same way you put the soldiers at such a disadvantage tactically because you're trying to mitigate all the risk to civilian populace.
00:29:47They put that first and foremost.
00:29:49Okay.
00:29:50So anything like collateral damage, that is the number one thing they're concerned with.
00:29:54They don't want to kill women.
00:29:55They don't want to kill kids.
00:29:56They don't want to kill innocent by sinners.
00:29:57And they put you at significant risk to try to avoid that.
00:30:00They didn't do it in world war two.
00:30:01They didn't do it anywhere else, but they're doing it now.
00:30:05I just wish people would shut their TV off and just say, thanks, but you don't really want to see what happens.
00:30:09You don't, you're not going to pick up a gun and go do it.
00:30:12You want to sit here and shine a bright lights at us and point fingers.
00:30:15I see what they're doing in Australia to Ben Robert Smith.
00:30:17And I've watched him.
00:30:18I watched the UK do it with my buddy, Jamie, and just you string these guys up.
00:30:22Like they're criminals.
00:30:23What, what is it that's happening with these examples?
00:30:26War crimes and stuff like that.
00:30:27Like my buddy, J22SAS, him and his whole team got wrapped up on a triple murder charge saying they killed innocent Afghans who had AKs were shooting at them and enemy fighters.
00:30:38And they spun up this whole campaign.
00:30:40They gave him a silver star equivalent for the operation.
00:30:42And then two years later, he can't come to the U.S.
00:30:45Because he's got a record?
00:30:47Yeah.
00:30:48So we've been trying to, we're trying to fight it right now.
00:30:50We're trying to get someone to give him a visa to let him come to the U.S.
00:30:53And right now they won't.
00:30:57It's crazy.
00:30:58Now Ben Robert Smith and SASR in Australia, they're doing the same thing.
00:31:01He got the Medal of Honor.
00:31:03Like he is a, he is a legitimate war hero.
00:31:05And they're trying to string him up because they're saying he murdered Afghan civilians.
00:31:11I haven't seen any, anybody get, I've never seen a murder.
00:31:15Never.
00:31:17People don't do that.
00:31:18It's not a thing.
00:31:19And people think it is.
00:31:20And World War II is a thing.
00:31:21World War I is a thing for sure.
00:31:22Vietnam, probably a thing.
00:31:23It's not a thing now.
00:31:25Why?
00:31:27Too much technology.
00:31:28Too many eyes in the sky.
00:31:29You can't do it.
00:31:30You feel like you're under CCTV surveillance the whole time.
00:31:32100% you are.
00:31:33So you're saying that it's not, it's not necessarily the guy, that guys wouldn't want to.
00:31:37Oh yeah.
00:31:38Or that guys wouldn't.
00:31:39It's that the likelihood of you being caught is so high that you know, if I do this.
00:31:44Yeah.
00:31:46And I don't want to confuse murder with actual war.
00:31:51But what you would classify as murder to me isn't murder.
00:31:55That guy has an AK.
00:31:56He's shooting out of a second story window at us.
00:31:58And if we go in there and kill him and he threw the gun six feet that way, you're saying
00:32:02he's unarmed.
00:32:03No cousin.
00:32:04He was just shooting at that window.
00:32:05He just shot one of our dudes.
00:32:06And now you're saying because I plugged him that gun six feet over there, that he's not
00:32:10an enemy combatant.
00:32:11Yes, he is.
00:32:12They know how to play the game.
00:32:13They're screwing with you because you've never played it.
00:32:15Okay, tell me about what's happening from an enemy combatant standpoint where they're
00:32:20trying to manipulate those rules.
00:32:22Because now they know.
00:32:23Because we fought that war for way too long.
00:32:25It started in Afghanistan.
00:32:26It spilled over to Iraq.
00:32:27So you'd see these guys.
00:32:29They'd shoot out of the windows.
00:32:30You'd run in.
00:32:31You'd do a whole raid.
00:32:32You can't find a single gun in the house.
00:32:33And you're like, how is this?
00:32:35When I was outside the house, I saw you with a gun.
00:32:37Now I'm inside the house.
00:32:38I don't know where the fuck they are.
00:32:39I don't know where it is.
00:32:40And you find a false wall with RPGs, explosives, everything in there.
00:32:43And you're like, oh, well, yeah, he's got a drop cloth.
00:32:46Pulls it down, throws it on there, slams it back up.
00:32:48There's a big poster or a painting behind it.
00:32:50And you just don't check.
00:32:51And now we get really, really good at searching houses.
00:32:53Now we really get to see him.
00:32:55But somebody else comes in there.
00:32:56You plug a guy in the corner.
00:32:57You take your photos.
00:32:58There's no gun next to him.
00:32:59You're going to jail for that.
00:33:00There was a gun in here.
00:33:01No, his wife grabbed it and shoved it in there.
00:33:04That's how it happened.
00:33:05Why do you need to take photos?
00:33:07To justify the kill?
00:33:09Yeah.
00:33:10Because ultimately you're going to pay them money at the end of the day.
00:33:12Every person you shoot in Iraq or Afghanistan gets a cash payout.
00:33:16Well, they don't.
00:33:17The family does.
00:33:18Right.
00:33:19Yeah.
00:33:20It's crazy.
00:33:21Whether they're a combatant or not?
00:33:23Whether they're a combatant or not.
00:33:25How much is the money?
00:33:26I don't remember off the top of my head.
00:33:28I mean, for a while, I think we were paying like $5,000 for a door.
00:33:30If you blew their door, you had to pay them money.
00:33:32It's an expensive door in Afghanistan.
00:33:33I've seen some of the doors on video in Afghanistan.
00:33:35They don't look like $5,000 doors.
00:33:37No, they don't.
00:33:38But I mean, to them, it's monopoly money.
00:33:40They just throw it out there.
00:33:41Winning hearts and minds.
00:33:42Winning hearts and minds.
00:33:43Why?
00:33:44Why are we winning hearts and minds?
00:33:45I'm not here to win hearts and minds.
00:33:46I'm not here for that at all.
00:33:48I'm not.
00:33:49Not a bit.
00:33:50I don't care about hearts and minds.
00:33:51And I know that makes me sound cruel.
00:33:52I'm not cruel.
00:33:53I'm one of the nicest people I know.
00:33:54But you can't play the game like that.
00:33:56You can't.
00:33:57You must go out with both hands tied behind your back.
00:33:59It's crazy.
00:34:00Because now they've been in the system so long, they know exactly how to manipulate it.
00:34:03They know exactly what to say.
00:34:05They're going to get thrown in jail for two weeks.
00:34:08They're going to get fed three times a day, more than they ever have in their whole life.
00:34:11Hot shower.
00:34:12Clean bed.
00:34:13Air conditioning.
00:34:14TV.
00:34:15They'll get released.
00:34:16And now they know the exact process.
00:34:17When do they get thrown in jail?
00:34:18Whenever you arrest them.
00:34:19Right.
00:34:20Okay, so you're basically glorified police.
00:34:23Yes.
00:34:24Unless you, unless it's Osama Bin Laden, like somebody else, like an actual terrorist network.
00:34:32If you're just out there door to door, gangbuster style, Baghdad, 2005, just hitting every house.
00:34:37You're just wrapping up as many military-age males as you can.
00:34:39You find the AKs, you have all the atmospherics, you know what they're up to.
00:34:43And if they don't have a gun, you're wrapping them up.
00:34:45What's atmospherics?
00:34:46Well, I mean, all their deep, so everything they're saying on cell phones, emails, radios,
00:34:51you have all that.
00:34:52So you build out your profile.
00:34:53So I know exactly who you are.
00:34:54I know exactly who your neighbor is.
00:34:55I know you're banging his wife.
00:34:56I know everything.
00:34:57So when I get there, you don't have a gun.
00:34:59I wrap you in, take you in for questioning.
00:35:01You don't give us anything, but now you know exactly what our tactics are.
00:35:04You know where I have to put you.
00:35:05You know exactly what to say to get released in 48, 72, two weeks, whatever it is.
00:35:10They go back out there.
00:35:11They spread the gospel to all their friends and now they know.
00:35:14And they get really good.
00:35:15It's like the Somali daycares of the Middle East.
00:35:18Don't get me started on Somalia.
00:35:23That's a place you never want to visit.
00:35:25Why?
00:35:26Hmm?
00:35:27Why?
00:35:28You ever seen Black Hawk Down?
00:35:30Mm-hmm.
00:35:31Most realistic world movie I've ever seen.
00:35:33That's exactly how it is.
00:35:35How's that?
00:35:36It's lawless.
00:35:37It's lawless.
00:35:38Do whatever you want to.
00:35:39It's like Lord of the Flies.
00:35:40They can do whatever they want to.
00:35:43If I dropped you in Mogadishu right now, Bakara Market right now, they'd cut your arms and legs off.
00:35:48Why?
00:35:49Because you're white.
00:35:51Nobody's going to stop them.
00:35:52Why wouldn't they?
00:35:53Hmm.
00:35:54Cut your head off, put it on Al Jazeera, burn an American flag.
00:35:57They'll go off and chew a bunch of cotton, go to sleep, wake up tomorrow and do it again.
00:36:00They don't care.
00:36:01It's lawless.
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00:37:20The mutual level of danger that you need to be able to match on both sides.
00:37:33If you are made to adhere to a particular set of rules that basically makes you less effective at your job and more likely to be injured or killed, all in the name of optics.
00:37:50It's a weird one, man.
00:37:51It's a weird one because I understand that you're supposed to be better, right?
00:37:56You're supposed to go in adhering to the law.
00:37:58It's the same reason that seeing a police officer who's texting while he drives feels particularly egregious.
00:38:04Like, hey, dude, you enforce the law, okay?
00:38:08I feel like you're supposed to adhere to it.
00:38:10Come on, baby, you're better than that.
00:38:11Yes.
00:38:12Put the phone down.
00:38:13Yes.
00:38:14However, I wonder whether or not the modern world is incompatible with some of the ugly things that need to happen in war.
00:38:27Mm-hmm.
00:38:28And anybody who's been to Afghanistan, anybody who's been to Iraq or any of the wars, they know.
00:38:34If we really wanted to win that war, we could win it fast.
00:38:38They don't want us to win it fast.
00:38:40I don't know who doesn't.
00:38:42Tell me more about this.
00:38:43What do you mean?
00:38:45If you grabbed all the five eyes, so US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, if you just grabbed us and dropped us into Iraq and said you have six months to close out the entire thing, could we?
00:39:00One hundred percent.
00:39:02They don't want us to.
00:39:03And I think that's for a bunch of different reasons, but one of them is you don't want to see what that actually looks like.
00:39:08Like you don't want to watch special operations and all of this, the whole military might push through Fallujah and clear it all out.
00:39:16They don't want to see what clearing Fallujah actually means.
00:39:19Like when you hear the Marines cleared Fallujah, they don't know what that means.
00:39:22What does it mean?
00:39:23They went door to door and killed every single male that was still there.
00:39:27Everybody who's willing to fight, they killed them all.
00:39:29That's how you clear the village.
00:39:31Mm-hmm.
00:39:32So they gave them, told them the time, get out by this day.
00:39:35If not, we're pushing through and anybody who's left the fight, we're going to kill.
00:39:38Mm-hmm.
00:39:39And that's what they did.
00:39:40That's how you do it.
00:39:41People don't want to see that.
00:39:42People don't want to live that.
00:39:43They don't want to realize that's a reality.
00:39:45So all your grandfathers are fighting in World War II.
00:39:47I promise you they weren't handing out Hershey kisses and handshakes.
00:39:50It's not what they did.
00:39:51They had flamethrowers for God's sake.
00:39:53You think they're getting us a flamethrower now?
00:39:56Mm-hmm.
00:39:57No.
00:39:58We can't even use Claymore mines.
00:39:59There's a whole bunch of stuff we used to use back in the day, and because now it's too cruel and unusual,
00:40:05Geneva Convention threw it out.
00:40:06A bunch of munitions you can't use, rounds you can't shoot people with, a bunch of different weird stuff.
00:40:11Is that being adhered to by the other side?
00:40:13No.
00:40:14No.
00:40:15They're blowing you up.
00:40:16They're doing whatever they want to.
00:40:17Suicide vest on children.
00:40:18Like, they do whatever they want to.
00:40:20That makes it very, very hard to fight.
00:40:23So for you, you run in.
00:40:24You're a dad.
00:40:25You're a husband.
00:40:26You're a friend.
00:40:27You're an uncle.
00:40:28Little kids all around.
00:40:29You have no idea if they have a suicide vest on now.
00:40:31Are they holding grenades for their father?
00:40:32You have no idea.
00:40:33It really makes you lose trust in people.
00:40:38Because now you don't know.
00:40:40As soon as you drop your guard, one thing happens.
00:40:42You're like, I'll never let that happen again.
00:40:45Technology advances.
00:40:46You get new pieces of tech.
00:40:47And now you can see through clothing.
00:40:49You can buy down the risk a little bit.
00:40:50But they get very, very smart.
00:40:52See the smart bombs.
00:40:53They try to sneak through TSA all the time.
00:40:56They understand exactly what we're trying to do.
00:40:59And you're trying to counter it every single day.
00:41:01How frustrating is that as someone whose life's on the line and also is trying to dedicate their career to doing this well?
00:41:07It's a big cat and mouse game.
00:41:09I move my piece here.
00:41:10You move your piece here.
00:41:11So you've kind of accepted this as the cost of doing business that you're going to have to adhere by a set of rules that the other side doesn't have to.
00:41:18You're not allowed to pick the ball up.
00:41:19You have to kick it.
00:41:20Yes.
00:41:21But they're allowed to pick it up and run with it.
00:41:22Mm-hmm.
00:41:23That's exactly how it is.
00:41:24It's like, do you really want us to win?
00:41:26Or do you really want us to engage in this 20-year war because of all the technological advancements that are coming out of that war?
00:41:32Advancements in armament, ISR platforms, body armor, life saved medical devices.
00:41:37But really, war creates a lot of money.
00:41:40A lot of people became billionaires really, really fast because of the war.
00:41:44Mm-hmm.
00:41:45Which is it.
00:41:46All these companies sprung up and Raytheon, Boeing, everybody is involved.
00:41:50Everybody is making just piles and piles of money.
00:41:52And he's saying that protracting out, extending an enmeshment between two different sides, that's the sort of thing that would continue to grease the wheels of that and blasting through quickly would end the money printer.
00:42:09Yeah.
00:42:10I mean, it's like what, it's like what Trump's doing in Iran right now.
00:42:13He doesn't want to be in there for 20 years.
00:42:14I want to go in, I want to smash you, show you I'm not going to take this shit anymore and then I want to leave.
00:42:18Yeah.
00:42:19Is it going to work?
00:42:20I have no idea.
00:42:21We've never tried it before.
00:42:22We always put in these long drawn out conflicts that we know you don't need to.
00:42:27What would you do if you wanted to end the war in Iran quickly?
00:42:30No, you don't know what I'd do.
00:42:33Well, you're allowed to.
00:42:35This is hypothetical only.
00:42:36We're playing Sydney as civilizations and you need to end it quickly.
00:42:41Nobody's going to like my answer.
00:42:42It's just not.
00:42:43It's not.
00:42:44If I say one thing, then I'm on the Israel side.
00:42:48If I say this and I'm against it.
00:42:49If I say one thing, then I'm on the Israel side.
00:42:52If I say this and I'm against it, you're always going to be put across.
00:42:55Let's forget that.
00:42:55Let's say imaginary country in somewhere that's in the Middle East that doesn't exist.
00:43:03Are they building nuclear weapons?
00:43:05Sure.
00:43:06They're going to use them?
00:43:06Sure.
00:43:07And we know they have them.
00:43:08Sure.
00:43:10Press the button?
00:43:11Mm-hmm.
00:43:15Yeah.
00:43:18Yeah.
00:43:19There's no other way.
00:43:21This isn't.
00:43:22Drawn into a 20-year campaign, doing the entire thing, or all the countries all come to the
00:43:27line and be like, we can't let this happen.
00:43:29We can't.
00:43:30We can't.
00:43:31Everybody in agreeance?
00:43:33Okay.
00:43:34Can't do it anymore.
00:43:35And what if that's not a threat?
00:43:40How would it not be a threat?
00:43:42They don't have it.
00:43:43They don't have the materials.
00:43:43They're not able to make it.
00:43:45The nuclear armaments on the other side's not a concern.
00:43:48It seems to me like if you're unable to use that, unless you can drop the fat man equivalent,
00:43:56then it becomes a much more difficult operation because then it does look a lot more like presumably door-to-door stuff.
00:44:05Or you could just fly in black ops with some really cool dudes in multicam and snatch a president out of their house in the middle of the night and call it a day.
00:44:12That's happened recently.
00:44:14Pretty cool job.
00:44:16Do you know much about it?
00:44:16Were you excited sort of tracking that?
00:44:18Oh, I was, no.
00:44:20But nobody jumped up faster out of their chair and cheered than I did.
00:44:23I was so stoked for him.
00:44:25That's a cool job to do.
00:44:26Why?
00:44:29Snatched the president out of his house in the middle of the night.
00:44:31No one else is pulling that off.
00:44:33Nobody.
00:44:34Do you think anybody's going to fly a black hawk and land in the White House lawn and run in and grab Donald Trump and bring him out?
00:44:40No.
00:44:40I think lots of people have probably thought about doing that.
00:44:42Nobody's going to pull that off.
00:44:44Nobody's pulling that off.
00:44:45That is a unicorn raid.
00:44:47Are you, yeah, are you surprised by what was done, what you know about how it was done?
00:44:55No.
00:44:56Pretty standard procedure, just done at a very, very elite, precise level.
00:45:01That's what they do.
00:45:03That's what they do.
00:45:04Everybody, everybody who was involved in that was like me and everybody else who ever did that job.
00:45:09You are praying that that is going to happen.
00:45:12That's your Super Bowl.
00:45:13Oh my God.
00:45:14If, if you had an opportunity and I promise you they'd all say the same, no, and you'd say the same thing.
00:45:18Right now you want to be on the helo.
00:45:19Yep.
00:45:19Cut off a finger.
00:45:20Done.
00:45:21I'd cut it off right now, jump on a helo and I'd go.
00:45:24100%.
00:45:24Yeah.
00:45:26I mean, that's the only reason you're on the planet.
00:45:28You want to do things like that because no one else can pull them off.
00:45:31It is, but it shows the, really the strength in military.
00:45:36He will do it.
00:45:38He will.
00:45:39My last, my last rotation was Trump's first one.
00:45:43And I don't know what he says on those phone calls.
00:45:48I don't know how he, he avoids conflict.
00:45:51And I think everybody thinks he just wants to go to war, wants to go to war.
00:45:54We got spun up on a really big op that I ain't going to talk about so don't ask me.
00:45:58He canceled us on the ramp.
00:46:00We were getting ready to jump in and send it.
00:46:02And they canceled us on the ramp because he worked it out with a phone call.
00:46:06I don't know what he says.
00:46:07I don't know what he does, but he does something.
00:46:11Probably says something like, don't make me do it.
00:46:13I'll do it.
00:46:14Don't make me.
00:46:15Somehow they come to their senses and somehow they solve it.
00:46:17That's one of the kind of catch-22s of having a leader who seems to be at least somewhat predictable and a bit bombastic.
00:46:29That he actually might press the button.
00:46:36People are severely concerned that he might run for a third term.
00:46:41That would be kind of the domestic equivalent of doing this.
00:46:43But even the fact that you think that he might be the sort of guy that would go for a third term, that's internally.
00:46:53And what do you think he would do to someone that's the enemy?
00:46:57And I don't know whether anybody on the planet has the IQ to play like seven-dimensional chess of,
00:47:06I'm going to construct this incredibly unpredictable, very gregarious, outgoing guy who seems to say things that almost might be like a WWE character if they were the president.
00:47:20And then what that means by playing that game is that people will believe that I'm going to be like that so that then I don't actually need to use the threat because they believe the threat more.
00:47:30Not because they think that I'm aggressive, but because they think that I'm kind of crazy.
00:47:36That's what I don't realize.
00:47:38Is he crazy or is he just crazy enough to make you believe he'll really do it?
00:47:42Crazy or genius is the question.
00:47:45It's hard to know.
00:47:46Effective is what matters most, right?
00:47:49Effective.
00:47:50He's avoided more conflicts than anybody I ever served under.
00:47:55He just has.
00:47:56If people knew the amount of conflicts he's avoided, they'd give him more praise than they do.
00:48:00But he's not able to talk about them?
00:48:02He just doesn't.
00:48:03I don't know why.
00:48:04You think that it would be something that he could flex, that he would be able to talk about this was how close we got to this thing, we have come to a deal, da-da-da-da-da.
00:48:10I think he's done that so many times, it's just lost in the ether.
00:48:14Like he didn't even think about it.
00:48:14It's just a Thursday.
00:48:15Yeah.
00:48:16He's like, eh.
00:48:17Like the whole Maduro raid thing.
00:48:19He's like, yeah, send him.
00:48:21Do I think he lost sleep over that?
00:48:22No.
00:48:23I mean, like he has full trust and confidence in the force.
00:48:27Yeah.
00:48:27You know what?
00:48:28I'm sick of it.
00:48:28Send him.
00:48:30Knocks him out.
00:48:30Great job.
00:48:32Get some all cheeseburgers.
00:48:33Yep.
00:48:34See you guys on Tuesday.
00:48:35I think it's, yeah.
00:48:38I don't, based on what I know about Trump, he's not the picture of health from a physical training standpoint.
00:48:44No.
00:48:46Psychologically, do you think that he would make a good special forces operator?
00:48:49No.
00:48:49Why?
00:48:54Because ego gets in trouble quite a bit.
00:48:56I don't know if, if he wasn't a leader, I don't know how good he'd be as a follower.
00:49:06If you don't have overall say, how well can you get in line and perform?
00:49:10And that's why the ego gets in the way.
00:49:11Yeah.
00:49:12If it's not your plan, will you still adopt it as your plan?
00:49:15That's a, that's the thing a lot of guys have an issue with.
00:49:17That's where you see the ego come in.
00:49:20And I had a mentor, actually a really good friend.
00:49:23His name's Brad Gary.
00:49:25Retired out of the team.
00:49:25It's not too long ago.
00:49:26An amazing guy.
00:49:27But he says a quote, culture eats strategy for breakfast every day.
00:49:32It does.
00:49:33You can have the greatest-
00:49:33Does he run the mind gym?
00:49:35Does he run the Navy SEALs mind gym?
00:49:38He was definitely there when it-
00:49:39What's his name?
00:49:40Brad Gary.
00:49:41He was on Sean Ryan not too long ago.
00:49:43I want to say, is it Brad Jacobs that did some mental training stuff?
00:49:49We had, we had a, no.
00:49:51Who's the guy that works with SciComm?
00:49:54Rob Moore helped to publish his book.
00:49:55Fuck.
00:49:56Brad someone.
00:49:57Anyway.
00:49:58Yeah.
00:49:59Culture eats strategy for breakfast is so true.
00:50:00Well, it's just aligning the incentives, but it's aligning the incentives at a group level.
00:50:05Right?
00:50:05Hey, this is how we do things.
00:50:08Not we need to just enforce these things.
00:50:11This isn't happening top-down.
00:50:12It's happening bottom-up.
00:50:13But we also have the routines that are built in top-down.
00:50:17Exactly.
00:50:18I don't know how well he'd do if he wasn't the one coming up with the plan.
00:50:21If he disagreed at all, how loud would he vocalize it?
00:50:24I don't know.
00:50:25As an only child, I can fully empathize with Donald Trump in that regard.
00:50:29If it's my way or the toys are going out of the pram.
00:50:32I've had to learn to desensitize, deprogram that.
00:50:37What do you think is the biggest misconception that civilians have about what special operations
00:50:43looks like day to day?
00:50:48I think a lot of them watch the Expendables and think that's what you do all day.
00:50:52Picking your teeth with a bowie knife, throwing stuff in there, or it looks like zero dark 30,
00:50:57walking around playing horseshoes with pop collars and camis.
00:51:00It's just more routine than you think it was.
00:51:07More structured than you think it was, but a lot more lawless than you think it would be.
00:51:12More like a professional sports team than a military organization.
00:51:18That's what it feels like.
00:51:19Oh, yeah.
00:51:20I mean, you're rarely in uniform unless it's a promotion or unless you're at a funeral.
00:51:24You don't put them on.
00:51:26Most guys are in relaxed grooming centers, long hair, big beards.
00:51:29You don't take your photo.
00:51:30You're not on social media.
00:51:31You're not writing books.
00:51:32You're not, you just live that life.
00:51:34And to them, it's no different than playing our professional baseball team, football team.
00:51:39They show up every single day trying to earn their seat at the table every single day.
00:51:42And they put the group before themselves and everything to do.
00:51:45If you do that, you'll be a successful player.
00:51:48And I've never met anybody that was worth his weight that was not obsessed.
00:51:55Nobody that I would ever clone that didn't wake up every day going,
00:51:57I can't believe I get paid to do this.
00:52:00You don't get paid a lot.
00:52:01But if I'm honest now, and I think everybody would say it too, 90% of the time, if you had the financial means, you'd pay to do that job.
00:52:09If there was a club you could join and do that, I'd swipe plastic so fast.
00:52:15It's an amazing experience.
00:52:18But I think a lot of people think that you're kind of like a caveman.
00:52:24There's no empathy.
00:52:27You know, people aren't well-educated.
00:52:28They're not well-read.
00:52:29They're just grunts.
00:52:33Too many tattoos.
00:52:35Say too many cuss words.
00:52:36Dip too much Copenhagen.
00:52:37Spit it on your floor.
00:52:38They're kind of just brutes.
00:52:40All the guys I worked with, all the guys I looked up to, they are, they're more philosophers than anything else.
00:52:47Some of the conversations we've had around those tables have absolutely changed my life.
00:52:50Just training methodology, just thought-provoking conversations, like the way they analyze targets and people and navigating human terrain.
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00:54:00Have you seen this chart before?
00:54:01I have seen that chart.
00:54:07I'll explain it to you.
00:54:08So it's the prevalence of violence perpetrated by IQ standard deviation.
00:54:18So 70 to 79, 80 to 89, all the way up.
00:54:21And basically, it's asking the following question.
00:54:26Have you been in a physical fight or deliberately hit anyone in the past five years?
00:54:30That's the question.
00:54:31And the prevalence as a percentage is linear going down.
00:54:37And when you get to the middle of the distribution, it's somewhere between 11.4% and 7.9%.
00:54:42So what's that?
00:54:43Let's call it 10%, something like that.
00:54:4510% of people with 100 IQ have hit somebody or been in a physical fight within the last five years.
00:54:51And it goes down and down.
00:54:53But if you're talking about wanting somebody who has got quite elite mental capacities as well, 5.2% between 110 and 119.
00:55:052.9% between 120 and 129.
00:55:08And I saw this tweet that said, the percentage of guys with 130 plus IQ who both enjoy books and bar fights is incredibly small.
00:55:15And that is why you can't mass produce elite special operators for the military.
00:55:22Yeah, it tracks.
00:55:24I don't have 130 IQ for sure, but I do like reading books and punch people in the face for sure.
00:55:30Nothing wrong with that.
00:55:31Nothing wrong with that.
00:55:34They're way more constrained than you would imagine.
00:55:37And then sometimes they, a lot of times you don't want them to be.
00:55:43Like, to me, my special operations guys don't have flat top haircuts.
00:55:47They don't blouse their boots.
00:55:48They don't say, sir.
00:55:49They don't salute.
00:55:50They have all the ability to do those things.
00:55:52But the job's filthy.
00:55:53Like, why would, why would, I don't want a Kindle doing that job.
00:55:56Is it seen as sort of unnecessary pump and circumstance and ritual that doesn't contribute to the outcome?
00:56:10Like, to, to jump through those hoops, to do the.
00:56:13Oh, you mean play the song and dance?
00:56:15Yeah, of course.
00:56:16Do the dog dance?
00:56:16Yeah, yeah.
00:56:16Yes, sir, no, sir.
00:56:17The clean shaven, the no tattoos and stuff like that.
00:56:21They only do that as a punishment.
00:56:22Anytime anybody does anything wrong, cut your hair, shave your face.
00:56:25That's why we hate it.
00:56:26That's why most guys, when they get out, they grow a beard, grow their hair out.
00:56:28They're like, I am sick of this.
00:56:29I'm never doing that again.
00:56:30Okay.
00:56:31They run that for a year and then they shave it all and whatever.
00:56:34They go back to normal.
00:56:36But no, I mean, it's the, you can't tell me what to wear mum equivalent of being in the special forces.
00:56:42Have you ever seen the name?
00:56:43It's got a bunch of green braids sitting around, hands in pockets, hands in pockets.
00:56:46It's the only reason I went through selection.
00:56:48I want to be able to put my hands in my pockets and spit Copenhagen on your floor and grow a beard.
00:56:52No, like I want to be a one for sinner.
00:56:54And you're allowed to do special things.
00:56:56You said it's more lawless than people might realize.
00:56:59What do you mean by that?
00:57:03Everything's black and white.
00:57:05Special operations, find a way to live in that gray area.
00:57:08But gray area navigation tours, running every 30 minutes.
00:57:12We will find a way to navigate through the gray area to get to the end state.
00:57:16As long as we know what the why is, what we have to get accomplished, we'll find a way to get there.
00:57:20And sometimes that's not pretty, but I mean, I'm pretty honest.
00:57:23I'll break every rule in the book right now if it puts a team in a better position.
00:57:27Even if it puts myself at a disadvantage or threatens my career, maybe even my life.
00:57:33If it's good for the group, I'll do it anyway.
00:57:35But not lawless in a sense like people aren't, people aren't murdering people.
00:57:40There's no rape, not a lot of drugs anymore.
00:57:42Like, but not, uh, there's not a whole lot of guys who transition to be police officers.
00:57:50Too constraining?
00:57:51Too constraining.
00:57:52I don't want to be constrained.
00:57:54I don't like it.
00:57:56Because everybody asked me when I got out, like, well, I don't want to be a cop.
00:57:58You can go to FBI.
00:57:59Absolutely not.
00:58:01I love those guys.
00:58:02They're amazing.
00:58:03Nothing but respect.
00:58:04I can't do that job.
00:58:05I'm in the gray area too much.
00:58:07You know what I'm saying?
00:58:08But I'm open and honest about it.
00:58:09I don't hide that a bit.
00:58:10I think this is what I was trying to get at before when I said, um, the modern world being
00:58:13incompatible with some of the ugly parts of war.
00:58:16If you're focused on outcome, if you're focused on the ends, the means can sometimes become up for debate and the ends are often not scrutinized, but the means are by people.
00:58:31Does that make sense?
00:58:32Mm-hmm.
00:58:32Yeah.
00:58:33Yeah.
00:58:35And I'm trying to, if I had a way to word this.
00:58:43I've never seen anything in my military career that I would even put morally questionable on any level.
00:58:49Not for a cop, not for a fireman, not for a school teacher.
00:58:51Everything has always been above board.
00:58:53But there are times where you just want to hoist a black flag and start slitting throats.
00:58:58You just, you just do, right?
00:59:00I can't believe we're going to put this dude in the back of his helicopter and let him lose.
00:59:03I, I, I can't believe we're going to let him do it.
00:59:06Because you know that he's a bad guy.
00:59:07Yeah.
00:59:08Or some of the things you see, some of the things you know that you're doing, you have, because it's not an assault on you, but some of the stuff they do with children, it's just, it's so disgusting that if I, if I didn't have that flag in my arm and I was just a tourist, I'd kill you.
00:59:23If I could get away with it right now, I'd just kill you.
00:59:25But because I have this flag on my shoulder, now I can't, and now I resent the flag because I can't do to you what I know needs to happen to you.
00:59:31How does that feel, that systemic constraint when you've got righteous anger?
00:59:41It's hard, man.
00:59:42It is.
00:59:43It's hard, especially when you've lost friends or, you know, extortion one, seven happened in August of, extortion 17, had a whole troop get,
00:59:55killed, Hilo got shot down, killed everybody on board, 31 guys.
00:59:59Having to back those guys up on deployment in that exact same place, living in their beds.
01:00:05If I'm being told, I just wanted to kill everybody and to not be able to do it, it's hard because you have the opportunity.
01:00:12It's like, at least not doing anything bad now.
01:00:17Okay, I guess I've got to put you in handcuffs, so you're on a Hilo, drop you off here, they'll put you in a detention center for 10 days, they'll release you.
01:00:23Like, okay.
01:00:25They wouldn't do that to me.
01:00:27If they wrapped me up and put me in handcuffs, they would saw my head off in 15 minutes.
01:00:30Now we all know it.
01:00:32It's not fair.
01:00:34Have you been tracking this fallout after Rob was on Andy's show, talking about the Osama raid?
01:00:42Yeah.
01:00:43What do you make of that?
01:00:48I hate the fact we're even talking about it, if I'm being honest.
01:00:51Like, they did such a good job about not talking about it.
01:00:54I mean, Rob was my first team leader.
01:00:57So, I know Rob.
01:01:00I owe a lot to Rob because Rob drafted me and brought me in.
01:01:07I wish nobody would have ever said a word.
01:01:09When they left to go on the raid, I didn't know where they were going.
01:01:12Were you on compound or whatever it's called?
01:01:14I was in his team.
01:01:16Yeah.
01:01:16So, you didn't get chosen?
01:01:17No.
01:01:18Motherfuckers.
01:01:18Two junior.
01:01:19Yeah.
01:01:20How?
01:01:21You know, we'll say we rack all the teams, we'll say there's seven guys.
01:01:25One to seven.
01:01:25They took twos and above and took them all from every team.
01:01:29Those are the guys.
01:01:29Oh, interesting.
01:01:30It's the first time they ever did it.
01:01:32So, it's closer to being in.
01:01:35How many people in total are?
01:01:38Can't talk about it.
01:01:39Okay, fine.
01:01:40We'll talk about it off screen.
01:01:41Way less than you think.
01:01:42Cool.
01:01:43So, it's closer to me, what it sounds like.
01:01:45I'm loving the sports analogy.
01:01:47It's more like having a league of teams.
01:01:51And then you've got the Steph Curry or the Kevin Durant from each team.
01:01:57Yep.
01:01:57And then you're able to take the top filtering.
01:02:01Does that not create, surely that must create a-
01:02:04A lot of animosity, a lot of resentment.
01:02:07Some of that, but yeah, because you know, hang on, who the fuck was?
01:02:12I'm number fucking six, am I?
01:02:13More so, complexity that the verticals of the teams have got culture baked in.
01:02:22And as you start to take people, I mean, perfect example.
01:02:27When players come together to play for their national team, when they've played for rivalrous
01:02:33local teams, that doesn't always work well.
01:02:38Like, and sometimes a team which has the maximum player stats for each individual player, but
01:02:47not the cohesion, doesn't necessarily perform as well as a vertical team that does have the
01:02:53cohesion with somebody that's got less experience or whatever.
01:02:57Look at me, sat in the stands talking about how the special forces should be around.
01:03:02I mean, that's how it's always been around.
01:03:05Take a team, take a troop, take a squadron, whatever it is, and you go out and do the thing.
01:03:09They cherry pick from inside of the same squadron and none of us knew.
01:03:13I don't know.
01:03:14If we knew they were spinning up on something and they would tell us like, it's some bullshit
01:03:18training mission, but it was my first cycle.
01:03:20I had just gotten through selection and all of them are like, enjoy your first rotation.
01:03:24He's like, you ain't missing shit.
01:03:26Trust me, this is going to be a dog and pony.
01:03:28We're going to waste our time and nothing's going to happen.
01:03:30Promise you.
01:03:31About five days before they went to go do the thing, we all came in, had a big blowout.
01:03:37You know, dudes are buying new watches, buying $1,000 sunglasses because they didn't think
01:03:40they were going to come home.
01:03:41We all thought they were going to go get Gaddafi.
01:03:44So when Obama walked out and did Newton's announcement, I was in my living room with my wife, with
01:03:49my shooting buddy on speakerphone.
01:03:50And as soon as they said it, screaming, like so proud.
01:03:54Because you knew that that was.
01:03:55Oh yeah.
01:03:56Oh, so happy.
01:03:57Never been more proud of my fucking life.
01:03:59Oh my God.
01:04:00And then we came back and everything started to roll out.
01:04:04News cameras everywhere.
01:04:06They're coming to people's houses.
01:04:07They're out in town.
01:04:08You go get a beer.
01:04:09They bump into you.
01:04:09Like they're constantly trying to dig in to see who you are.
01:04:12They're trying to film you.
01:04:13I mean, it became a zoo and it stayed like that for a long time.
01:04:17Has it ever been more highly scrutinized than around then?
01:04:22No.
01:04:23It was unlike anything else I've ever seen.
01:04:24That kind of launched the SEALs to some degree, I think, in the public consciousness.
01:04:29I mean, they had a couple of big ones before then.
01:04:31You know, they had June 28th with Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor.
01:04:35That got into fanfare.
01:04:37I mean, that was an operation gone wrong.
01:04:39In 2009, they had Captain Phillips.
01:04:41They rescued Maersk, Alabama.
01:04:42That was another huge one.
01:04:44Same squadron.
01:04:45So yeah, like been knocking these things out for a bit.
01:04:48So when that thing happened, the thing that pissed us off the most is right after, you
01:04:52got to think, May 2011, that happened, August 2011, another squadron gets shot with an RPG,
01:05:00whole troop goes down.
01:05:01The amount of people and the people today that say that was an inside job, I wish I could
01:05:08launch you in Afghanistan to a raid and kill you.
01:05:10It is the most disrespectful thing I've ever seen.
01:05:12Why do they think it was an inside job?
01:05:14Because apparently that squadron knew too much about the UBL raid and we got to kill
01:05:18them off the fact that people say that, you got 95% of those guys are all married.
01:05:24So now all their kids, they all read that shit.
01:05:28They read those comments.
01:05:29They watch those YouTube videos of these disgruntled fat army guys talking all this nonsense.
01:05:32And now they don't know.
01:05:34It's like, mom, did, did the government kill dad?
01:05:36No, no, no.
01:05:37He's like, this guy's a green brain.
01:05:38He says he did.
01:05:39You're like, oh my God, here we go.
01:05:41It's the Sandy Hook parents equivalent in reverse for war.
01:05:49It is.
01:05:50Causes a lot of doubt though.
01:05:52Causes a lot of doubt in people.
01:05:53You're like, that's absolutely not possible.
01:05:58It's not possible.
01:05:59No one would ever do it.
01:06:00Nobody.
01:06:01Yeah, it seems to me, I mean, again, sat in the row Z of the stands talking about what
01:06:07the fuck goes on in the American military country that I've only just moved to.
01:06:14The fact that things are heavily scrutinized, that war stories have got a kind of allure
01:06:20and romance and sort of sexiness to them means that the dose response of information being
01:06:27put out is so unusually magnified.
01:06:32And yeah, with the Osama bin Laden raid, you have every single second of potential information
01:06:38is going to be just, it's game tape.
01:06:40It is like game tape in some World Cup final.
01:06:43And there's a critical mass that you can reach of information.
01:06:48And when you get even close to that, you basically have a kind of nuclear self-sustaining reaction
01:06:54where it just generates more and more and more.
01:06:57And yeah, I watched Rob talk on Andy's show and I'm like,
01:07:02if nothing else, this is going to create an awful lot more nuclear reactions.
01:07:09Really wish you wouldn't have said it.
01:07:11You're thinking about all those guys that are still in.
01:07:13They're the ones that are going to have to deal with that.
01:07:16I had to deal with it.
01:07:18And Rob does Rob things.
01:07:21You know, guys got out and they wrote books.
01:07:23If you weren't in that command, when those books dropped, you have no idea the hell we
01:07:27all went through.
01:07:29Why?
01:07:30Oh, anybody who had association with them.
01:07:32We had guys comb in the ceilings for bugs.
01:07:36You know, they leave listening to devices.
01:07:38I mean, it was, it was so, because nobody knew who was feeding them information.
01:07:42So once they separated out and they started writing the book, they're like, okay, well,
01:07:46somebody's communicating with them.
01:07:47They knew too much active information that is happening now.
01:07:49And you could tell with some of the emails going back and forth, they were following guys
01:07:54home.
01:07:54Oh, there was, there was, I didn't realize this.
01:07:56Uh, some of the people who had been in and then got out and were then allowed to talk about
01:08:03what had happened, included information that they couldn't have known, had it not have
01:08:08been passed on from people who were still inside.
01:08:12Wow.
01:08:13So now you got everybody just pointing fingers and stuff like, you're talking to him, you're
01:08:17talking to him, can we just go back to work, man?
01:08:19Let's just go back to work.
01:08:21I wish nobody would have ever said a thing.
01:08:23Just kill him, put it up on news.
01:08:24He's dead.
01:08:25Don't say how, don't say it was a compound raid.
01:08:26Don't do any of that.
01:08:27Don't say how, don't say who.
01:08:28But then on the same side, we got to be honest.
01:08:32Everybody who's in special operations right now, today serving.
01:08:35The only reason you're in there is because you read a book, you watched a movie or something
01:08:39from somebody in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Black Hawk Down.
01:08:44Isn't that the only reason?
01:08:45Isn't that strange?
01:08:46It is.
01:08:47You're telling him not to, but the only reason we're all in this building is because somebody
01:08:50like him wrote a book.
01:08:50How many people have wanted to become Navy SEALs?
01:08:54How many people have become Navy SEALs?
01:08:55Not many, but a lot of people have tried.
01:09:00I mean, somebody asked me the other day about David Goggins.
01:09:03And they're like, what do you think about David Goggins?
01:09:04And I'm like, when I was in the teams, he was different because he was a, he was a poster
01:09:08child.
01:09:08He was an athlete for the Navy.
01:09:10I'll say between David Goggins and Jocko, those two people have probably put more people
01:09:17in the services over the last 10 years than anybody else in the last 50.
01:09:22They just have millions and millions of people have read their books, seen all of that.
01:09:27They've become cops, firemen, Navy SEALs.
01:09:29They've joined the Coast Guard.
01:09:31Yeah.
01:09:32They all do.
01:09:33Like they did it right.
01:09:34They did a good job.
01:09:35They put them up on a pedestal.
01:09:36They weren't talking about war stories.
01:09:37They weren't doing all this stuff.
01:09:39But you take that and then you take the actual operational side of it and you're like, well,
01:09:44you're okay with, they do that, but you can't do that.
01:09:46Why?
01:09:47I don't know if people are okay with anyone.
01:09:50There's a degree of, and I only, I'm on the real periphery of this shit, but my YouTube
01:09:57every so often feeds me veterans talking about veteran drama shit, and it seems like there
01:10:06is a kind of noble silence that's expected of anybody, especially as you get up toward
01:10:10the higher tiers too.
01:10:14And it would be an interesting question to ask those people, would you rather people adhere
01:10:21to the noble silence, would you rather veterans adhere to the noble silence, or would you rather
01:10:27have however many more million able-bodied men trying to serve their country or their community
01:10:35and the police or the FBI or the special forces?
01:10:42It's hard to figure out because you look at like the UK, very, very small.
01:10:47Only very small, not very, very small.
01:10:50Very, very small, small, vast, but England is small and how they conquered all of that,
01:10:59pretty, pretty incredible.
01:11:00Yep.
01:11:01The accent helps.
01:11:01They do.
01:11:02The accent helps.
01:11:03They don't give their military enough credit.
01:11:05There's not enough people growing up in England that want to grow up to be in the services.
01:11:10Dude, there isn't this.
01:11:11I need to, it is unbelievable to me.
01:11:14I remember the first time that I started coming to America and the first time that I got on an
01:11:18internal domestic flight from somewhere in America to somewhere else in America, and you hear them
01:11:23come over the tannoy and they say, uh, we would like to invite, uh, active military and first
01:11:29responders, uh, to, to, or whatever it is to get on the plane first.
01:11:33And I'm thinking, I have never, ever heard that the idea of a veteran community.
01:11:40Uh, I once wore a black rifle coffee shirt, uh, getting onto a plane.
01:11:44This is a few years ago.
01:11:45And, um, it's, uh, khaki green with gold print, like classic sort of military common thing.
01:11:52And it's got the American flag on one arm.
01:11:54And as I walked past, there was a older gentleman, really nicely dressed, one of the early rows.
01:11:59And as I walked past a bigger guy, short hair said, thank you for your service.
01:12:04I'm like, uh, and you know, there's all of these people behind me.
01:12:08And I'm like, I, my t-shirt has just given me stolen valor and I have no idea how to fucking
01:12:12wipe this.
01:12:13I wanted to, I must remind, I'm actually British.
01:12:16Like there was no way for me to, but I remember thinking there is such a, uh, reflexive response,
01:12:25especially maybe among older generations to just revere people who served in the military.
01:12:31And it is whatever the opposite of that is, like actively ignored, uh, or kind of looked
01:12:39down on as if you did something a bit stupid, like, uh, you weren't smart enough to go into
01:12:44whatever else.
01:12:45That's why you joined the military.
01:12:47That's precisely, that is exactly how the British military veterans are seen.
01:12:53Exactly how they're seen.
01:12:54Big population in America, same thing.
01:12:56But now they appreciate it because we got attacked here and 9-11, a lot of people have
01:13:00forgotten about that, but I mean, I try to remind the guys often.
01:13:04The only reason we're not speaking German is because of the military.
01:13:07Like we are.
01:13:08The only reason we're all actually free is just because the military, nobody really wants
01:13:11to uncork that.
01:13:12So the reason we're free right now is because nobody really wants to fly over here and find
01:13:16out.
01:13:18That's it.
01:13:18Yeah.
01:13:19They just don't.
01:13:19If we did not have the military that we do, we would have been taken over a long time
01:13:24ago.
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01:14:36Can you try and find, it's going to be a little tough to find, it's a YouTube short, and it's a guy talking about, do you know who has the number one Navy in the world?
01:14:45And do you know who has the number two Navy in the world?
01:14:48Do you know who has the number three Air Force in the world and the number one and the number two?
01:14:51It's a guy kind of ranking all of the different things.
01:14:54He's on a podcast.
01:14:55And it is so fucking cool.
01:14:56I think the U.S. Coast Guard is the fourth biggest Navy in the world, and then the Navy is the first biggest Navy in the world, and then something else is the second biggest.
01:15:09This country has got, and he basically makes the point, America as a country is so overpowered militarily.
01:15:22And every time that I think about that, I also think about that video, I can't remember who the Admiral is, but the Someone Else Will Raise Your Mothers and Daughters for You.
01:15:31You know that video?
01:15:33I've heard it, yeah.
01:15:34It is, there's a Metro Booming, like, hip-hop edit of that, which is kind of a bit gratuitous, but it's, holy shit.
01:15:42I mean, if you want to talk about what the sort of best elements of American culture, yeah, let's go on that one, actually, with the Black Rifle edit.
01:15:55I'm sure this will be good.
01:15:56We have been honed into a machine of lethal moving parts that you would be wise to avoid if you know what's good for you.
01:16:04We will not be intimidated.
01:16:05We will not back down.
01:16:07We've seen war.
01:16:09We don't want war.
01:16:10But if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you, so help me God.
01:16:16Someone else will raise your sons and daughters.
01:16:20Bro, bro, I got goosebumps.
01:16:24Oh, burn them to the ground, dude.
01:16:26I love that.
01:16:26Yeah, that's it.
01:16:29Bro.
01:16:29Fixed bayonets.
01:16:30That's one of the, that's one of the sickest lines.
01:16:34You got, I mean, freedom isn't free.
01:16:38Freedom ain't free.
01:16:39You have to be a formidable adversary.
01:16:42If not, they're going to take everything you have.
01:16:44They just don't.
01:16:45You got to be ready.
01:16:47Stay ready.
01:16:48What are some of the adaptations that normal people might not realize special forces operators go through when you become hyper-optimized for combat?
01:16:59Depends on how far they take it.
01:17:01Some guys adjust their entire lifestyle.
01:17:03Everything.
01:17:04People they associate with.
01:17:06The time they wake up.
01:17:06The time they go to bed.
01:17:09The majority of the guys are suffering through something.
01:17:12It could be alcohol.
01:17:13It could be prescription pills.
01:17:15It could be injuries.
01:17:17Everything.
01:17:17And what are they typically coping with?
01:17:21What's the thing that is causing them to use?
01:17:25Injuries obviously make sense, but psychologically.
01:17:31I'd say for me, I'm probably the quintessential dude.
01:17:36I kind of represent everybody.
01:17:38I'm not a unicorn by any means.
01:17:39I'm a product of the culture.
01:17:41Hard time sleeping.
01:17:43So you start taking AMI in every night and that doesn't work.
01:17:48Your memory starts getting shot.
01:17:50Too many TBIs.
01:17:51You get put on Adderall.
01:17:52Now you're taking uppers and downers and then all the pain elements and start avoiding surgery.
01:17:57And then you have a hard time trying to balance being a full-time husband, a full-time father, being a full-time Navy SEAL or pilot or whatever else you're trying to do.
01:18:06So you start to compartmentalize everything.
01:18:09I can't be a husband.
01:18:10I can't be a father right now.
01:18:12I can't be a best friend.
01:18:12I can't be an uncle.
01:18:13I can't be a son.
01:18:14I can only do this one thing, so I'm going to compartmentalize everything else.
01:18:17I'm going to shift it away.
01:18:18And then when I get done, I'll reintegrate.
01:18:21As soon as you try to reintegrate, you can't.
01:18:24The wife's off her routine.
01:18:26You're late for the bus stop.
01:18:27She's got her whole schedule set.
01:18:28And now you drop back in and you just screwed it all up.
01:18:31Now you don't feel like you're at home.
01:18:32So what do you do?
01:18:33You just run back into work.
01:18:34Start pouring all your time back in there.
01:18:36And you feel this big dissociation between the thing you're actually fighting for.
01:18:40Because now I can't even be around it.
01:18:42Because I don't feel at home there.
01:18:44I feel like I'm staying in an Airbnb.
01:18:46I feel like I'm staying in my aunt's house.
01:18:47Like I'm trying to creep through the kitchen.
01:18:50Like I open up the refrigerator.
01:18:52It doesn't have anything that I want in here.
01:18:53Because I haven't been grocery shopping in eight months.
01:18:57Well, now I'm too ashamed to ask her to buy this or buy that.
01:19:01And you're on another trip.
01:19:02I think people would be shocked with how much the guys are on the road.
01:19:06Minimum 270 days, 325, 350 a year.
01:19:11I mean, they are gone, gone, gone.
01:19:13And even when you're there, like that typical morning,
01:19:15we'll call it day in a life, random Tuesday in Virginia Beach,
01:19:18up at five, clearing the gym, 530.
01:19:21Work out, 530 to 630, eat breakfast, go do a recovery session.
01:19:26That could be a float tank, a cryo chamber,
01:19:28e-stem, cold plunge, whatever.
01:19:31Go back up, 10 a.m. briefing, train for three, four hours, eat lunch.
01:19:35Train three, four hours, eat dinner.
01:19:36Drink a couple beers in the team room.
01:19:38Go back home, 9 p.m.
01:19:39Kids are already in bed.
01:19:40Your wife started taking a shower.
01:19:41She's watching Netflix.
01:19:42You go in.
01:19:43You're asleep in 20, 30 minutes or at least half asleep.
01:19:47You wake up four, five, six times a night.
01:19:49Can't really fall asleep.
01:19:50Wake up, five o'clock, do it again.
01:19:52Over and over.
01:19:53So your kids don't see you for pretty much the entire week.
01:19:56If you're lucky, you'll come in 630 at night.
01:19:58They're in bed by eight.
01:20:00You're two-hand texting, frantic.
01:20:01You're trying to pack your stuff, trying to do laundry, about to leave in a day.
01:20:04You're just never really, truly present.
01:20:07And that's when everything else starts to happen.
01:20:09The injuries stack up.
01:20:11Sleep deprivation stacks up.
01:20:12You're on a shitty diet.
01:20:13Now you're drinking too much.
01:20:14You're popping these pills.
01:20:16And it doesn't feel like you're doing it to excess.
01:20:17The doctors have given you this stuff.
01:20:19You just keep eating them.
01:20:20Like, oh, I feel better.
01:20:22Three or four days, you feel worse.
01:20:23Eat another Adderall.
01:20:26Wake up and do it again.
01:20:27Do it again.
01:20:28Do it again.
01:20:28And a lot of it is, it is egocentric because everybody around you is better than you are.
01:20:33And you feel like, I have to see them see me work.
01:20:37Like, I want you to notice that I am in here before you.
01:20:41I'm staying here after you.
01:20:42And I want you to know that I know I'm not great, but goddamn, I'm trying.
01:20:46It won't be for a lack of effort.
01:20:47It won't be for a lack of commitment or discipline.
01:20:49I'm going to show up every day trying to be better than I was yesterday.
01:20:52And that's what everybody has.
01:20:54You just get really used to just being inside of that thing.
01:20:58And you sacrifice, guys become the best at hiding injuries.
01:21:03Catastrophic injuries.
01:21:03What are the most common injuries?
01:21:05Shoulders, hips, knees, TBI, neck, low back.
01:21:09And what's this from?
01:21:10From shooting?
01:21:11Everything, skydiving, climbing, the boats, everything.
01:21:16It's just, it's rough, man.
01:21:17It's rough on the body.
01:21:18And now you don't sleep.
01:21:21And when I say don't sleep, I mean realistically, like actual sleep, two hours a night.
01:21:28Like you don't sleep.
01:21:30And a lot of that is, you think when you get overseas, we're on vampire hours.
01:21:34So you don't see the sun for three to six months, however long you'll be overseas.
01:21:37But you wake up at five in the afternoon and you drink coffee all night.
01:21:43You get back home at 5 a.m.
01:21:44You eat breakfast and you try to go to sleep.
01:21:46Now the sun's up.
01:21:46Your body gets that dose of vitamin D and now you're just chasing it.
01:21:49Are you using light therapy, SAD, lamps or any sort of equivalent when you're over there?
01:21:55Well, we didn't have Wi-Fi for my first three or four deployments, no.
01:21:59It should be better now.
01:22:00But back in the day, they couldn't even prescribe you vitamin D because it was a hormone replacement.
01:22:05That's what they classified in the military.
01:22:07Now it's different.
01:22:08But I mean, fingernails falling out, hair falling out.
01:22:11Why?
01:22:12Not seeing the sun for six months.
01:22:13Like literally not seeing it.
01:22:15You turn into a bat.
01:22:16Yeah.
01:22:17And you feel like death.
01:22:19Face all sucked in.
01:22:21Food's terrible.
01:22:22Like you got a food allergy or like, dude, I can't, I couldn't eat a boiled egg right now
01:22:26if you gave me a million dollars.
01:22:27I've eaten thousands and thousands of hard-boiled eggs.
01:22:31I'm not exactly, thousands of them.
01:22:33You get a receipt, you're like, I can't eat this food, dude.
01:22:35I can't.
01:22:35What are you eating?
01:22:36Hard-boiled eggs and white rice three times a day.
01:22:38I'm just going to keep going.
01:22:39It's exhausting, man.
01:22:43It's surprising to me that everything would be so optimized in the buildup
01:22:48and then seemingly so like under-optimized once you get out there.
01:22:54And also, why, why is no one, probably the single biggest performance enhancer for anybody is sleep.
01:23:01Because you don't always get to dictate when you're going to go.
01:23:05But when you're at home and you're training, how come that's not more prioritized?
01:23:09You got to think about, so see you on a training schedule.
01:23:13We'll say you get up at five, you run through the entire day,
01:23:16and we'll say you're doing a night profile at night.
01:23:18You're not even going to get geared up for that night profile until 8.30 at night.
01:23:22That's going to go until two or three in the morning.
01:23:24So when you wake up, you're still going to clock in and do a full normal day.
01:23:28So you can either come in at six, you can come in at seven,
01:23:30or you can come in at five and just live the exact same routine.
01:23:33So a lot of guys have hammocks in their cage area.
01:23:36They'll just sleep in the cage.
01:23:37They'll come in to the cage.
01:23:40Probably a quarter size of this room.
01:23:42Everybody has their own.
01:23:43So all your gear's in it, guns, bullets, bombs, all the stuff is in there.
01:23:46But they'll string up a hammock and they'll just sleep in it.
01:23:48Guys, Tempur-Pedic mattresses on the floor and they'll just sleep in it.
01:23:51Because it's easier than having to commute to go back home to then come back because you're
01:23:55losing half an hour each way or maybe more.
01:23:57Exactly.
01:23:57I go in, I wake up my wife, my alarm clock goes off.
01:24:00She's like, why are you getting up?
01:24:01You got to have this awkward conversation.
01:24:02Jump back in the car, just drive back in, rinse and repeat again.
01:24:05So a lot of times guys just stay there.
01:24:08You get used to it.
01:24:10But when it's happening in the moment, you don't realize what it's doing.
01:24:13Like you'll watch your weight fluctuate.
01:24:15Like, you know, everybody gets overseas.
01:24:17Everybody tries to get big and jacked on deployment.
01:24:19You come back home and it's like, I can't maintain this.
01:24:22I'm not sleeping.
01:24:23I'm not eating right.
01:24:24All the stuff starts to happen to you.
01:24:26You start to erode a little bit of yourself.
01:24:28You go on these stints where you get really, really jacked in great shape.
01:24:31Like, oh, I can maintain this, but your sleep is garbage.
01:24:35Because you're pushing too hard.
01:24:36Yeah.
01:24:37And it's one of the, like, if I talk to anybody else, like you're doing too much,
01:24:40you need to break it down.
01:24:41You need to take two weeks off.
01:24:42Don't do anything physical.
01:24:44My mental health will just spiral out of control so fast.
01:24:47I have to stay on the routine because if not, then my confidence drops.
01:24:51So I know I need to sleep.
01:24:53I know I shouldn't do anything in the gym today.
01:24:55I know I shouldn't.
01:24:56But if I don't, my confidence drops.
01:24:58Then what?
01:24:59Then what do you want me to do?
01:25:00Constantly chasing your own-
01:25:01Feedback loop.
01:25:02Vicious.
01:25:03Is your mood and health better when, because it seems like being overseas in some ways
01:25:08might be a little bit easier because there aren't the distractions.
01:25:12You're sort of locked in.
01:25:13Yeah.
01:25:14But you're also vampire mode with shitty food and all of the other issues.
01:25:20Best time you ever had in your life.
01:25:22Being overseas.
01:25:23Most guys will tell you they sleep better.
01:25:26Now, because I'm out, I've got a bunch of different modalities that help me sleep better now.
01:25:30But I sleep way better overseas than I do when I'm in town.
01:25:33Even now?
01:25:34Yeah.
01:25:36Way better.
01:25:38Always.
01:25:38You just do.
01:25:39I can't remember what movie it is.
01:25:41Maybe it's Rambo or maybe it's The Expendables or something.
01:25:46I know it's a cliche, but it sounds like it might be true that there's a guy who comes back home after he's been on deployment or he's been on some sort of operation and he's struggling to sleep in the bed.
01:25:56So he decides to sleep on the floor and just put his arm under his head.
01:26:00And it kind of feels a little bit like that.
01:26:01You become conditioned to have one particular type of environment and one that's objectively better is subjectively alien.
01:26:11Yeah.
01:26:13Man, I miss it.
01:26:14You make me time travel right now.
01:26:15God.
01:26:17It is the most fun you'll ever have in your entire life.
01:26:20It is.
01:26:20Like, even all the bullshit, the sleepless nights, A&B, and whatever else, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
01:26:26Give me $10 million right now to erase those memories.
01:26:28I wouldn't touch it.
01:26:30Not a chance, dude.
01:26:32But in the moment, it all seems like it's worth it.
01:26:33I just wish I was able to find a better balance point.
01:26:37Because for me, I wasn't able to.
01:26:39I had too many things that were weighing on me, too many things in the family.
01:26:42And it became so much easier to be overseas and to isolate, not throw up family photos, limit the times you're going to FaceTime, limit the times you're going to call home.
01:26:51Because in the moment, the last thing I want is for that window to light up.
01:26:57I've got to run over there and deal with it, and I don't want to think about orphaning my kids, making my wife a two-time widow.
01:27:02I don't want to do that.
01:27:03I can't have that inside of me.
01:27:05So it sounds selfish, but I've had a lot of amazing mentors that have said the same thing.
01:27:11If you think that I'm thinking about my wife on that helo flight in, I'm not.
01:27:15If you think I'm wondering what my kids are doing, I'm not.
01:27:18I'm only thinking about that dude because I've been staring his face for the last 72 hours.
01:27:22That's the only thing I'm thinking about.
01:27:24The helo flight in, the walk-in, the patrol, atmospheric, everything.
01:27:28That's the only thing I'm thinking about.
01:27:29It's like compartmentalization again.
01:27:31There's an interesting study that I learned about that was looking at attachment styles, and they brought people into a lab in any classic psychological study fashion.
01:27:41The study began before people realized the study began.
01:27:44We're in this waiting room together.
01:27:46And over the far side is a computer, and the computer begins to just drift a little bit of smoke out.
01:27:51Just a small amount, like it might be about to catch fire, something like that.
01:27:54Before they'd gone in, they'd done an attachment style assessment on all of the people that were in there.
01:27:59And there were some that were anxious, some that were avoidant, and there were some that were securely attached.
01:28:03What was interesting was the anxious people were the first ones that noticed that the smoke was coming out of the computer, but the avoidant people were the first ones out the door.
01:28:11And that explains why you need, in a Dunbar number 150 person tribe, why you need a variety of attachment styles.
01:28:22You need someone the type of vigilant who's always watching that ridge where sometimes the animals or the enemies come over, but you need other people that are decisive.
01:28:30And one of the skills that the avoidant side seemed to have is an ability to compartmentalize.
01:28:38So the anxious people would be more likely to think, I mean, it's okay, should we, can we leave?
01:28:44Are we allowed to?
01:28:45Whereas the avoidant people are like, it's just a wily coyote, it's just a puff of dust, and they're gone.
01:28:49And what I thought was interesting about that was, I imagined that I was putting together a police force or something, and you want the SWAT guys and the ERs, you want them on average to be avoidant.
01:29:06You want them to be able to compartmentalize what it is that they've got going on.
01:29:09Like, nope, I don't need you right now.
01:29:11This person needs me to look after them.
01:29:13But you want the detective to be anxious.
01:29:15You want him to pay a level of attention to things where they can't switch over thinking and ruminating and ruminating.
01:29:22It was behind the kitchen door, you know, like that's, and it's just interesting to me that the things which you are praised for in public, you pay for in private, and your inability to switch that sort of stuff off, you know, like those adaptations that you've gone through, and the same traits and focus that make elite operators effective can probably make normal life and relationships extremely difficult.
01:29:51It does, because at a certain point, you start to think that everything is just a time suck or a bandwidth suck.
01:29:59Like right now, this conversation we're having, it doesn't make me better at work.
01:30:03It doesn't.
01:30:04In fact, it just makes me want to go to work to avoid this right now.
01:30:07It really makes you just want to stay on deployment and not come home so I don't have to deal with this shit.
01:30:11And then you start to spit and venom.
01:30:14Talk about trauma, like it sacks up inside of you, gets the right, you guys got yards of beer in the UK, yeah?
01:30:20That's just trauma.
01:30:21It starts to come out of your mouth.
01:30:22It's hate, it's hostility, it's all this stuff.
01:30:24Before you know it, you can't control it every time you go home, just launching it.
01:30:29Well, the only place I never launch is at work, because everybody else is the same as me.
01:30:33We talk about the same things, we only speak in movie quotes, we're on the same workout routine, we fight together, shoot together, sleep together, do everything together, and I never feel like I'm outside of the group.
01:30:42I never feel like I'm a bothersome, ever.
01:30:44Every time I come home, I feel like this is not my place.
01:30:47It's not my place because I'm never here.
01:30:49You don't realize that where you're inside it.
01:30:51Like, I don't realize that I've been gone for 300 days this year.
01:30:54I wonder why I don't feel like this is my house.
01:30:57Like, every time I come home, you change the, you change, well, how do I have all these pillows?
01:31:02Every time I come home, there's another pillow.
01:31:03Change the bedspread and all this stuff, like, you just, you never really feel like you're there.
01:31:08You just recompartmentalize, right back to work.
01:31:10Also, you're asking an awful lot of a partner, right?
01:31:12You're saying, hey, this connection that is going to be almost entirely severed, except for a few brief moments here and there, across an entire year.
01:31:22When I come back, I want you to immediately drop into this.
01:31:26I've got my problems to go through, but I don't want to have to deal with the problems that you've got because that's additional capacity that I've already blown.
01:31:34Well said.
01:31:35That's exactly what it is.
01:31:36So now when I talk to the guys, I tell them, like, unless you lasso a unicorn, which I did, I mean, she was into it.
01:31:42She was in the Navy.
01:31:42She was married to a SEAL that got killed.
01:31:44Her dad was a SEAL.
01:31:45She knew the culture.
01:31:46She knew what she was getting into.
01:31:48I wanted.
01:31:49It was like she was bred to be the wife of a SEAL.
01:31:53For sure.
01:31:53Yeah.
01:31:53It's like I wanted that picture-perfect life.
01:31:56I wanted my dream job.
01:31:58I wanted the house, the 2.5 kids, the Labrador, the white picket fence.
01:32:03I want everything taken care of.
01:32:04And every time I come home, I just resent it.
01:32:07Like, I know this is what I want.
01:32:09You need so much attention from me that I cannot give you.
01:32:12And she just kept going.
01:32:14She'd show up.
01:32:15If a tree fell in the house, she'd fix it.
01:32:18Navy SEAL of wives.
01:32:19I don't know how to do anything.
01:32:21I don't know who cuts my grass.
01:32:22I don't know who to call if a tree does fall in the house.
01:32:25She does.
01:32:25She handles it all.
01:32:26So I got to focus on my craft the whole time.
01:32:29What sucked is trying to reintegrate.
01:32:31Because now it's like, hey, job's done.
01:32:32I've got a couple weeks off.
01:32:33Let's all be a happy family.
01:32:35And I don't know how to do it because I can't shut off.
01:32:37You're too hypervigilant.
01:32:39I'm on a 10 all day long.
01:32:40I'm too hand texting.
01:32:41Just checking my phone.
01:32:42Checking my phone.
01:32:43Checking my phone.
01:32:44Hey, I was going on vacation.
01:32:45I can't go on a vacation.
01:32:46But no, you just came back from a diploma.
01:32:48I was going on a vacation.
01:32:49I'm not going on a vacation.
01:32:51I'm going on a jump trip.
01:32:52I got to get better at skydiving.
01:32:54Not sitting in the Bahamas.
01:32:55I don't know what that does.
01:32:56It doesn't make me better at CQB.
01:32:58No, not doing that.
01:32:59So we avoided that for the majority of our marriage.
01:33:03We just did.
01:33:04I couldn't justify it.
01:33:05That doesn't make me better at work.
01:33:06It doesn't.
01:33:08I wish I would have done it.
01:33:10But I tell the guys, if I would have spent my first four years
01:33:12really focused on the craft,
01:33:14I probably wouldn't have thought that I needed to burn
01:33:16all that time and all those reps later on in my career.
01:33:20I don't know, man.
01:33:20I understand what you're saying.
01:33:25I get the feeling that that might be a comforting myth
01:33:28to tell yourself.
01:33:31That if only I'd done it another way,
01:33:33I could have made it work in this manner later on.
01:33:37I get the sense that it is less like the pursuit of mastery
01:33:43and more like an addiction to work.
01:33:45that I just need to keep it going.
01:33:48Obviously, again, I'm now in row triple C at the fucking back
01:33:51of the stadium.
01:33:52I know enough people.
01:33:53I know people in bands and bands are the same.
01:33:55You're on the road for 180, 200, 250 days of the year.
01:33:59Jimmy Carr is, I think he's doing 425 shows this year.
01:34:06What?
01:34:07Because he matinees the shows.
01:34:09So he'll do a 6 p.m. show and then an 8 p.m. show.
01:34:12He did, how many fucking dates did he do?
01:34:15He did like 100 and something dates just in Australia.
01:34:20It's absurd.
01:34:20It's absurd.
01:34:22It has to be obsessed.
01:34:23It has to be.
01:34:24You do.
01:34:25And the same thing goes for,
01:34:26the interesting thing about the comedian thing
01:34:28is typically they're traveling on their own
01:34:30or traveling with one warm-up, warm-up and tour manager.
01:34:33And I think there's a minimum sort of group size
01:34:39that you need in order to be able to make a microculture.
01:34:41And I think that's what really embeds people into it.
01:34:44It might make it easier in some ways,
01:34:45but probably makes it harder to integrate.
01:34:47It makes it easier than on the road,
01:34:48but harder to integrate when you get back.
01:34:50And that's where, if you look at people that are in bands,
01:34:53people that are in sports teams, professional sports teams,
01:34:55that is what's particularly difficult, I think,
01:34:58because you have created this new life.
01:35:01It's you and your five bandmates.
01:35:03It's you and the squad of 15.
01:35:05That's us, and this is what we do.
01:35:07And that reintegration is incredibly difficult,
01:35:09I think, to bring that back across.
01:35:10I think that's where the struggle comes in.
01:35:15But yeah, man, the prospect of trying to come back
01:35:20and doing this thing that you know that you care about
01:35:22and that you know is noble
01:35:23and that you're doing for the right reasons
01:35:25and that you're trying to make the world
01:35:27and your country a safer place
01:35:28and to then come back and to have struggled to,
01:35:32I mean, again, as you said,
01:35:33you've got, it sounds like,
01:35:34as close to a gold standard partner,
01:35:38fucking bred for this.
01:35:41Maybe bred more to be a seal's wife
01:35:43than you were to be a seal,
01:35:45by the sounds of things.
01:35:48It really does surprise me.
01:35:50I'm not suggesting this,
01:35:53but it does surprise me that
01:35:54if the military cares that much
01:35:58about the integration and the performance,
01:36:03because presumably if there'd been,
01:36:04if everybody had had a partner like yours,
01:36:07which still had shit ton of difficulties,
01:36:10the guys, there have to be many, many levels of hell
01:36:12below the one that you did
01:36:14when it comes to what's happening relationally.
01:36:15That can't improve their performance
01:36:17when they're away.
01:36:19So if that's the case,
01:36:20why aren't the army trying to have
01:36:24some sort of X-factor pop idol thing for,
01:36:28hey, we are going to help you find a partner
01:36:31and we're actually going to help you
01:36:32and your partner to make sure that
01:36:34for the person that gets into a relationship
01:36:35with a special operator,
01:36:37they have the psychological accoutrements
01:36:40that are appropriate for them
01:36:42to actually be able to deal with this
01:36:43and they're going to be able to support you,
01:36:45which would make you into a better person.
01:36:46It seems to me in very few areas,
01:36:50it's such an overbearing incursion
01:36:55into somebody's life, right?
01:36:56Like, you mean that you're going to try
01:36:58and screen partners so that I get that,
01:37:02but when you're talking about,
01:37:04oh, the most important military operations
01:37:06on the planet,
01:37:09I mean, if you're covering everything from,
01:37:11you said,
01:37:12I's are dotted,
01:37:13T's are crossed,
01:37:14every single bullet and bomb and tactic
01:37:16and I've worked at thousands and thousands
01:37:18and thousands of jumps
01:37:19and I've drilled this thing over and over again,
01:37:22a huge impact on your performance
01:37:25is going to be your relationship to your kids,
01:37:28what reintegration looks like
01:37:31when you get off duty,
01:37:32who it is that you choose as a partner,
01:37:35all of those things.
01:37:36So I don't know,
01:37:36maybe this is two softly, softly skills
01:37:38and you can always just like spit and sawdust
01:37:41and grit your teeth
01:37:42and ambient and add all your way through it
01:37:45and it kind of doesn't really matter that much
01:37:46because like, okay, whatever,
01:37:47there's going to be some collateral damage
01:37:49that occurs relationally,
01:37:50but fuck it,
01:37:50the guys will just show up anyway.
01:37:51That's why we select people
01:37:52who can compartmentalize
01:37:54and put that stuff to one side.
01:37:55But it seems to me that
01:37:56even the capacity for compartmentalization
01:37:58could be used more effectively
01:38:00if it wasn't being drained relationally.
01:38:04Does that all make sense?
01:38:05Yeah.
01:38:05Do you know what the divorce rate
01:38:06in the SEAL teams are?
01:38:07No.
01:38:07Over a hundred percent.
01:38:10Because people get remarried
01:38:11and then run it back
01:38:12and then get out again?
01:38:13Mm-hmm.
01:38:14Brilliant.
01:38:14The first guy,
01:38:15first troop chief I had on his fifth.
01:38:18That's impressive.
01:38:19My business partner now is on his third.
01:38:21Totally normal.
01:38:23Most guys have been divorced at least once.
01:38:25At least once.
01:38:26Wow.
01:38:27It's just,
01:38:28it's cost doing business.
01:38:29And a lot of that is
01:38:30because guys come in so young.
01:38:31Like we did a thing
01:38:32where we didn't take any guys
01:38:33that were in the Navy prior.
01:38:35You had to come in basically off the street
01:38:36or straight out of college.
01:38:37We didn't want guys had any fleet time.
01:38:39So you think the majority of the kids
01:38:40that show up between 18 and 21,
01:38:4222 years old,
01:38:43what do the majority of those guys do?
01:38:45They marry their high school sweetheart,
01:38:46some chick they met in college,
01:38:47some chick they met in San Diego,
01:38:48who's there on college, whatever.
01:38:51And then you move her to a place
01:38:52she's never been,
01:38:52no support system.
01:38:53And then you leave her there
01:38:54for an entire year by herself.
01:38:56You come back home,
01:38:57you're distant,
01:38:57you're not connected with her
01:38:58and you just keep putting her through it
01:39:00over and over.
01:39:01She has one deployment,
01:39:02maybe two.
01:39:02And she's like,
01:39:03I need for you to get out.
01:39:04He ain't getting out for you.
01:39:06No, he didn't even know your middle name
01:39:07if we're being honest.
01:39:08Beat it.
01:39:09You get a divorce.
01:39:10It's like,
01:39:11you're not worth it right now.
01:39:12I'm on this speeding bullet train
01:39:13on my fingertips right now.
01:39:16I'm not jumping because of you.
01:39:18I'm not.
01:39:20Sacrifice must be made.
01:39:21And usually you sacrifice
01:39:22the ones you love the most.
01:39:23That's what I did.
01:39:24Those are the times I regret it.
01:39:26I wish I would have had
01:39:27a better balance point.
01:39:28But in that time,
01:39:29I couldn't justify it.
01:39:31I couldn't.
01:39:31I didn't have it in me.
01:39:33And I think that's kind of
01:39:34the excuse I came up with.
01:39:36If I would have lived,
01:39:37if I would have had the mentors
01:39:38I had later in my career
01:39:39when I first got in
01:39:40and I would have followed their path,
01:39:42I would have found the role models.
01:39:43I'm going to sit there.
01:39:44I'm going to ride your coattails.
01:39:45I'm going to live your routine.
01:39:47I think I would have found
01:39:48a balance point.
01:39:49What would have been
01:39:49the biggest differences?
01:39:53Really just being a pro.
01:39:54I'm going to live a routine
01:39:55from the day I show up
01:39:56to the day I leave.
01:39:58Not going to drink to excess.
01:39:59And that's really the difference
01:40:01is there was so much
01:40:0280s and 90s
01:40:03special operations spillover
01:40:05when I came in the early 2000s.
01:40:08Drinking, fighting, fucking.
01:40:09That's what you did.
01:40:10You traveled around
01:40:11like you were in the Rolling Stones.
01:40:13Every bar you went into,
01:40:14beating up college kids,
01:40:15stealing their girlfriends,
01:40:16doing that over and over and over.
01:40:17Because you're single,
01:40:18it's fun, it's normal.
01:40:20But you're not training
01:40:21at full capacity.
01:40:23We're training hard
01:40:24and then we're going to
01:40:24burn this thing to the ground.
01:40:26Later on in my career,
01:40:27the guys that were just,
01:40:28they set the standard
01:40:29for the most lethal people
01:40:30you have never met in your life.
01:40:33Two drinks in a single setting.
01:40:35That's it.
01:40:36You never saw them drunk.
01:40:37They never wore flip-flops.
01:40:38They beat the brakes off you
01:40:3924-7, 365.
01:40:41They could always perform on demand
01:40:42and they truly just lived it.
01:40:45Were they the best husbands
01:40:46and fathers?
01:40:46No.
01:40:47I hope they are now,
01:40:49but it certainly appeared
01:40:50that a lot of them
01:40:51had a balance point.
01:40:52But they had been living
01:40:53this professional life
01:40:54like a LeBron James
01:40:55or Kobe Bryant
01:40:56the whole time
01:40:57from 19 years old.
01:40:58As opposed to a rock star life.
01:40:58Exactly.
01:40:59They were a monk.
01:41:00Like you never saw them at a bar.
01:41:02They were never shit-faced.
01:41:02They never got a DUI
01:41:03and they could send it.
01:41:06You don't need to say who it is.
01:41:07They might be active
01:41:08or out now.
01:41:10Who is the person that,
01:41:12what is the archetype
01:41:14of the person
01:41:14that's been most impressive
01:41:15to you?
01:41:15The single operator
01:41:16that you've seen?
01:41:17What are they like?
01:41:21Probably the most clonable.
01:41:22Oh, man.
01:41:23I can't even say that.
01:41:25Like the best guy?
01:41:30I don't know how,
01:41:31I don't know how they are at home.
01:41:34You think you know
01:41:34how they are at home
01:41:35because of how they interact
01:41:36because you got to think, man,
01:41:37the majority of those people
01:41:39you spend a decade together with.
01:41:41New guys will come in and out,
01:41:42but most of the guys,
01:41:43you're spending seven to eight years
01:41:45unbroken just together.
01:41:46Hopefully you get the 10-year mark
01:41:48and then you have to rotate out.
01:41:50The best guy I have ever seen,
01:41:52the most well-rounded.
01:41:54An amazing shape.
01:41:56An amazing high school wrestler.
01:41:58Transitioned over to MMA.
01:41:59An amazing skydiver.
01:42:01Amazing shooter.
01:42:02Culturally,
01:42:03if you could mass produce
01:42:04and make a thousand of him,
01:42:05I would press that button right now
01:42:06and I'd drop him
01:42:07on every corner of the earth.
01:42:09Just the best.
01:42:12But he lived that routine.
01:42:13His routine,
01:42:14and here's where you know the difference.
01:42:16Everybody,
01:42:17you talk to anybody
01:42:18who's ever worked with a SEAL,
01:42:19if we get overseas,
01:42:20we come to a new base,
01:42:21very first thing we ask for,
01:42:22where's the chow hall,
01:42:22where's the gym?
01:42:23Chow hall and gym.
01:42:24I'll figure out everything else after that.
01:42:26Chow hall and gym.
01:42:26Where is it?
01:42:28Everybody shows up
01:42:29and everybody does a lift.
01:42:30Everybody.
01:42:31I don't care if you're a marathon runner,
01:42:32whatever.
01:42:32They all do fitness
01:42:34first thing in the morning
01:42:34and then we focus on hard skills
01:42:36the rest of the day.
01:42:37That dude
01:42:37and a bunch of other guys
01:42:39would show up,
01:42:40they would get that lift in,
01:42:41they'd go straight over to Fight Club,
01:42:43they'd do Muay Thai or BJJ for an hour,
01:42:45they'd jump in a cryo chamber,
01:42:46they'd jump in a float tank,
01:42:48they'd get E-STEM work done,
01:42:49soft tissue work,
01:42:50they'd go eat breakfast,
01:42:51then go upstairs to the 10 a.m. meeting,
01:42:53then do CQB for a four-hour block,
01:42:55eat lunch,
01:42:56another CQB for a four-hour block,
01:42:57eat dinner,
01:42:58and go home and be a husband or a father.
01:43:00They did that unbroken
01:43:02the entire time I've known them.
01:43:03Long before it was cool.
01:43:05Long before you could look at guys
01:43:06like Michael Phelps
01:43:07or Steph Curry for inspiration.
01:43:08They live that routine unbroken
01:43:10because you go on these pockets,
01:43:13like you go on these trips,
01:43:14shooting trips,
01:43:14jump trips,
01:43:15whatever,
01:43:16and we'll say you go to Arizona
01:43:17on a three-week trip.
01:43:19The guys who hate jumping
01:43:20might do
01:43:2150 to 75 jumps in three weeks.
01:43:25The guys who are really into it
01:43:26will do 250.
01:43:29They jump all weekend,
01:43:3010, 12 jumps a day,
01:43:31every single day unbroken,
01:43:33and they're just stacking their resume
01:43:35over and over and over.
01:43:36So when you call them,
01:43:37you're like,
01:43:37hey, I need for you to pull this off.
01:43:39There's no warm-up.
01:43:40There's no mulligan.
01:43:40I can't go back and re-jock.
01:43:42I can just send it all day long.
01:43:44That's how they lived.
01:43:45And when you look at them,
01:43:46like if I could just press the clone button
01:43:48and make a thousand of you,
01:43:49I could do anything.
01:43:50You want to end the Iran war?
01:43:52Top of the regime.
01:43:53Done.
01:43:54Right there.
01:43:55That's a good question.
01:43:56That's a good question.
01:43:57For most,
01:43:59for most conflicts,
01:44:01what is the number of
01:44:03special operators,
01:44:05tier one special operators,
01:44:06that you need
01:44:07to be able to topple
01:44:08pretty much any regime in the world?
01:44:10How big is the regime?
01:44:15Let's say the size of,
01:44:16it can't be Russia or China
01:44:17because it's going to be insane,
01:44:19like the size of any
01:44:20normal mid-sized country
01:44:22with a semi-competent military,
01:44:23like Middle East-y type stuff.
01:44:26It's not even really the operator.
01:44:28It's the supporting assets.
01:44:29It's the helo pilots.
01:44:31It's the drone pilots.
01:44:31It's the air coverage overhead.
01:44:33It's everybody in between
01:44:34that makes the whole mechanism roll.
01:44:35But when we get off camera,
01:44:37I'll tell you how many guys there are.
01:44:38It's so very small.
01:44:40Like if people knew how small it was,
01:44:41they wouldn't even think it's cool.
01:44:42They're like,
01:44:42it can't be like that.
01:44:44It's somewhere in between
01:44:45astronauts and F-1.
01:44:47There ain't many, dude.
01:44:48I mean, there's not.
01:44:49If you look at the whole scope
01:44:50of the military,
01:44:51zero, zero, zero, zero, one percent.
01:44:54Like we're not talking
01:44:54hundreds of people.
01:44:56It's very small.
01:44:57So when you get them in there,
01:44:58it's like,
01:44:59you don't need a whole lot.
01:45:00I mean,
01:45:01on your typical,
01:45:03you know,
01:45:03I'm dating myself
01:45:04with Afghanistan and Iraq,
01:45:05but I mean,
01:45:05your typical assault
01:45:06on however many people
01:45:07in a four-story compound,
01:45:0912 people.
01:45:1012 people,
01:45:11you can do anything.
01:45:13You don't need a lot.
01:45:14You just need 12
01:45:15really badass dudes.
01:45:17They can get it done.
01:45:18Just let them loose.
01:45:20Who were you
01:45:21the day after you retired?
01:45:24Hmm?
01:45:25Who were you
01:45:25the day after you retired?
01:45:28Lost and alone.
01:45:29I was coming off
01:45:30a pretty bad injury.
01:45:31I had a really cool transition.
01:45:35Got out on a Friday
01:45:36and on Monday morning,
01:45:37I was starting a contract
01:45:38with the Air Force.
01:45:40Three weeks before that,
01:45:41I'd been electrocuted.
01:45:43So went through
01:45:43a bunch of surgeries
01:45:44and got really,
01:45:45been electrocuted.
01:45:46Oh God,
01:45:47have you not heard
01:45:47that fucking story?
01:45:47No,
01:45:48tell me the story.
01:45:49God.
01:45:52Okay.
01:45:56I get in a bad jump accident,
01:45:59dislocate my shoulder,
01:46:00it spins through,
01:46:01it shreds the entire thing,
01:46:02and now I'm on
01:46:03a medical retirement board.
01:46:04So I've got to get
01:46:04all these surgeries.
01:46:06In the process of that,
01:46:07they found out
01:46:08I was taking
01:46:08all these medications,
01:46:10a bunch of them
01:46:10you couldn't take together.
01:46:11So this new doc comes in,
01:46:13he's like,
01:46:13hey,
01:46:13we had a serious problem,
01:46:14dude.
01:46:14I was like,
01:46:15what is it?
01:46:15He goes,
01:46:16you can't take
01:46:17these four medications together.
01:46:19It'll give you a stroke
01:46:19and you'll die.
01:46:21Well,
01:46:22I've been taking those
01:46:23for nine years now.
01:46:25I ain't had a stroke yet
01:46:26and he went,
01:46:27okay,
01:46:28here's the deal.
01:46:28I'm going to send you
01:46:29to Walter Reed.
01:46:30It's this nice program.
01:46:32You'll love it.
01:46:32It's a medical detox facility.
01:46:34So you're going to go there.
01:46:35We're going to wash you
01:46:36out all the meds.
01:46:37We'll put you on a couple ones
01:46:38you maintain long-term.
01:46:39We got to get you
01:46:39all these meds.
01:46:40What it really is
01:46:41is a psych ward.
01:46:43So I show up there,
01:46:45bright-eyed,
01:46:45bushy-tailed,
01:46:46really just a shell of myself
01:46:47but not realizing
01:46:48what I'm going to do.
01:46:49And they start taking
01:46:50my shoestrings,
01:46:51take all my stuff.
01:46:53And I'm looking around,
01:46:54I'm like,
01:46:54what is going on here?
01:46:57And then,
01:46:58you know,
01:46:58had these nice nurses
01:46:59but there were
01:47:00fighter pilots in there.
01:47:01There were green berets in there.
01:47:02There were all these people in there
01:47:03and you could see them.
01:47:04One of the guys
01:47:04had really bad Parkinson's.
01:47:05He had an injection ride
01:47:06out of a fighter jet.
01:47:08I mean,
01:47:09jammed up.
01:47:09I couldn't speak nonverbal.
01:47:11And I'm looking around like,
01:47:12why am I in this room?
01:47:14Like,
01:47:14I'm good, dude.
01:47:15Like,
01:47:15I didn't realize
01:47:16how far I had fallen.
01:47:18Like,
01:47:18what I looked like at the time.
01:47:20Face all sunken,
01:47:21185 pounds,
01:47:22just like,
01:47:22not who I used to be.
01:47:25So he put me
01:47:26in this hospital bed.
01:47:26Essentially strapped me down
01:47:28for 31 consecutive days
01:47:29and I do a full med washout.
01:47:32By day
01:47:33three or four,
01:47:34I'm in full detox mode.
01:47:35I don't realize it.
01:47:36I think I have food poisoning.
01:47:38I'm thrown up in the bed.
01:47:39I piss all over myself.
01:47:41They're changing my sheets,
01:47:42blotting me with the wet napkins.
01:47:44I mean,
01:47:44doing the whole thing.
01:47:45I just keep apologizing.
01:47:46I'm so sorry.
01:47:47I don't know what I ate.
01:47:48I don't know what I ate.
01:47:49You know,
01:47:50day four,
01:47:50five,
01:47:51six,
01:47:52gets this pretty black nurse
01:47:53and she's like,
01:47:53oh honey,
01:47:54you don't know what this is.
01:47:56no.
01:47:57And she's like,
01:47:57it's going to be okay.
01:47:58I was washing out of all those medications
01:48:00I was on.
01:48:01Can you say what the meds were?
01:48:03Everything from Adabal,
01:48:04Cymbalta,
01:48:05Zoloft,
01:48:06Prazosin,
01:48:08um,
01:48:10ah,
01:48:11what were the big pain meds?
01:48:12Traminol,
01:48:12Toradol,
01:48:13Percocet,
01:48:14Vicodin,
01:48:15everything.
01:48:16Everything and anything
01:48:17you could be put on,
01:48:18I was taking.
01:48:18That sounds like something
01:48:19that might give you a stroke,
01:48:20yeah.
01:48:20Yeah.
01:48:21Well,
01:48:21I wasn't taking them in excess.
01:48:22I wasn't chewing them up.
01:48:23I wasn't snorting them,
01:48:24but I'd wake up
01:48:25and I'd take them all day long.
01:48:26But I had such bad TBI
01:48:27after this injury,
01:48:28really photophobic.
01:48:29I wore sunglasses
01:48:30basically all day,
01:48:31every day.
01:48:32If I looked at those things,
01:48:33I get a crazy headache.
01:48:34I get sick.
01:48:34I'd throw up.
01:48:35So we're going through
01:48:36all these different protocols.
01:48:38They washed me out of these meds
01:48:39and I wanted to die.
01:48:41When I finally felt
01:48:42what true sobriety was
01:48:44and because I was under this illusion,
01:48:45because I'm not drinking in excess
01:48:46like I did when I was
01:48:47in my teens and 20s,
01:48:49I'm good.
01:48:50I didn't realize
01:48:50popping all these pills
01:48:51is the equivalent
01:48:52of drinking a 12-pack
01:48:53every three hours.
01:48:54And that's what it is.
01:48:55I was stoned
01:48:55under the influence
01:48:56of a narcotic
01:48:57or under a prescription medication
01:48:5924-7, 365
01:49:00from 10 until 22.
01:49:04So this is,
01:49:05this is 2018, 2019 now,
01:49:08something like that.
01:49:09So we get washed
01:49:11out of these meds
01:49:11and while I'm in there,
01:49:12it's probably day 15 or 20,
01:49:14the Red Cross comes in.
01:49:16They're bringing in dogs,
01:49:17I mean, dog therapy,
01:49:18all this stuff.
01:49:19And she goes,
01:49:20can I get you anything?
01:49:22And I was like,
01:49:23I don't know.
01:49:24She's like,
01:49:24hey, we're doing art therapy
01:49:25next door.
01:49:26What about a skateboard?
01:49:27Can you get me a skateboard?
01:49:28She's like, yeah.
01:49:30She brings me a change of clothes.
01:49:31They sneak me out of the hospital
01:49:32and there's a skateboard shop
01:49:34right outside of Bethesda, Maryland.
01:49:35I can't remember the name of it.
01:49:36I think it's Siren or something.
01:49:38We walk in there.
01:49:38She sees my arm bandaged.
01:49:40She's like,
01:49:41what's going on?
01:49:42I was like,
01:49:43you got a skateboard in here?
01:49:43He gave me two off the wall.
01:49:45I sanded him down,
01:49:46went back,
01:49:46painted him,
01:49:47papier-mâché,
01:49:47all this stuff.
01:49:48And that's what started
01:49:49into what Tribe Skates was.
01:49:51It was my transition
01:49:52out of the military.
01:49:53I'm going to make,
01:49:54my mental health version was,
01:49:59instead of painting masks
01:50:00or anything else,
01:50:00I'm going to paint skateboards.
01:50:02So I'm going to get
01:50:02a skateboard team,
01:50:03going to start mass producing
01:50:04these things,
01:50:05all this stuff.
01:50:05But for me,
01:50:06it was the creativity
01:50:06of doing that.
01:50:08In that process,
01:50:09I found fracture burning.
01:50:11You ever seen that?
01:50:12You take a microwave transformer,
01:50:14you pop it out
01:50:15and you splice jumper cables
01:50:16into it.
01:50:17And then you hooked it
01:50:17to an octopus outlet
01:50:18and you flicked a switch.
01:50:20So if I sanded down
01:50:21all the lacquer off this table
01:50:22and I drove a 10-penny nail
01:50:24in there and there,
01:50:25I clipped these two things on
01:50:26and I poured Coca-Cola
01:50:27across this table,
01:50:28it would burn the wood grain
01:50:29and they would all connect.
01:50:31Right?
01:50:32You ever seen that?
01:50:32You make a cool pattern.
01:50:33Oh, a sick pattern.
01:50:34Right.
01:50:34I burnt everything.
01:50:35So I'm burning these skateboards
01:50:36and I'm knocking out
01:50:38some of the coolest pieces
01:50:39I've ever seen, ever.
01:50:42Getting really good at it.
01:50:43I don't realize
01:50:43how dangerous it is though.
01:50:45I'm not an electrician.
01:50:46I don't know.
01:50:47I'm not an electrician either,
01:50:49but it sounds dangerous.
01:50:50It looks more dangerous
01:50:51than it sounds.
01:50:52If you see the machine
01:50:53I was running with,
01:50:54it is so sketchy.
01:50:56But, you know,
01:50:57I'm not on Google,
01:50:58I'm not on YouTube,
01:50:59I'm not looking
01:50:59how dangerous it is.
01:51:00There's no chat GBT.
01:51:01Why were you doing this?
01:51:02Anywhere and everywhere.
01:51:04In my garage,
01:51:05in my backyard,
01:51:06everywhere.
01:51:06I'm just burning
01:51:07hundreds of skateboards
01:51:08at this point.
01:51:09And I've got my retirement date
01:51:11supposed to be
01:51:12like August 31st, 2019.
01:51:14We're on Father's Day.
01:51:15So what is that?
01:51:16July, June, July,
01:51:18whatever that is.
01:51:19June.
01:51:21It's Father's Day morning.
01:51:22I've been burning
01:51:23since 4, 5.30 in the morning,
01:51:26something like that.
01:51:26Got up early,
01:51:27knocking them all out.
01:51:28I mean, I got stacks
01:51:28of these things.
01:51:30And around,
01:51:30I'll call it 8 o'clock
01:51:31in the morning,
01:51:32my mind isn't
01:51:34the sharpest anymore,
01:51:35I get a call
01:51:36from an EOD guy,
01:51:37it's a bomb tech
01:51:37in the Navy,
01:51:38explosive warden's disposal.
01:51:40They have a retirement
01:51:41ceremony that's going on
01:51:42and he's got these
01:51:43huge paddles,
01:51:44like these 8-foot oars.
01:51:45And they wrap them
01:51:46all up with this
01:51:47decorative string
01:51:48and do all this stuff.
01:51:49And he's like,
01:51:50hey, can you burn them
01:51:50for me?
01:51:51And I was like,
01:51:51yeah, dude,
01:51:52come over.
01:51:53He comes over.
01:51:54One of the critical elements
01:51:55on fracture burning
01:51:55is you can't have lacquer.
01:51:57No stain,
01:51:58it's got to be bare wood.
01:51:59If not,
01:51:59it'll melt the lacquer,
01:52:01it screws up the entire piece.
01:52:03He comes over
01:52:03with this 8-foot oar.
01:52:04I'm like,
01:52:05oh, brother,
01:52:05you got to sand that off.
01:52:08So I unplug my machine.
01:52:10He plugs in a sander
01:52:11and starts sanding it down,
01:52:12getting it all off.
01:52:13I'm cleaning up my boards
01:52:15and part of that process,
01:52:16I've got them on easels
01:52:16and I'm spraying them
01:52:18with the hose.
01:52:18I got a big wire brush
01:52:19and I'm knocking off
01:52:20the ash out of them
01:52:21to clean them all out.
01:52:22Hose them off,
01:52:22hose them off,
01:52:23hose them off.
01:52:24So you can imagine
01:52:24my backyard.
01:52:25I've just got skateboards
01:52:27everywhere,
01:52:27drying in the sun.
01:52:28I've already washed off.
01:52:29There's standing water
01:52:30all over it.
01:52:31I'm essentially
01:52:32sitting on a concrete pad
01:52:33burning these things
01:52:34and we get done.
01:52:36My wife bangs on a window
01:52:37and she's like,
01:52:37hey,
01:52:38it's Father's Day.
01:52:39Gotta go eat breakfast.
01:52:41Last burn.
01:52:42Both my kids
01:52:43are in a bay window
01:52:44from me to that TV away
01:52:45watching me.
01:52:47I turn around.
01:52:49He had finished sanding.
01:52:51He'd unplugged his machine
01:52:53and plugged mine back in
01:52:54and it flicked the breaker.
01:52:55So they're laying
01:52:56on the ground live.
01:52:57I don't know it
01:52:58because I never let anybody
01:52:59be around me when I burn.
01:53:00So I mean,
01:53:00you can put these things
01:53:01in your mouth.
01:53:01It's not hooked
01:53:02to any electricity.
01:53:03So I grab them.
01:53:05I go to readjust them
01:53:05and lights me up.
01:53:09I got them in both hands.
01:53:10I contracted so hard.
01:53:12It shattered my collarbone.
01:53:14It shattered my scapula.
01:53:15It blew out of my finger,
01:53:17blew out of my palm,
01:53:18top of my head,
01:53:18came out of my thighs,
01:53:20one next to my ass.
01:53:21And right when I held it,
01:53:23right when it popped,
01:53:23it took a step back
01:53:24and I landed
01:53:25in that giant pool of water,
01:53:27ankle deep.
01:53:28Blew me up in the air
01:53:29and shot me across the yard,
01:53:30still holding on
01:53:31to these things.
01:53:33Him,
01:53:33because he's an EOD guy
01:53:34and he's smarter than me,
01:53:35had the wherewithal
01:53:36to unplug the machine.
01:53:38So when I wake up,
01:53:39I'm on the flat of my back.
01:53:40He's right in my face.
01:53:41He's like,
01:53:42do you know where you are?
01:53:43On the ground.
01:53:44And I remember exhaling
01:53:45and seeing smoke.
01:53:47come out of my mouth.
01:53:48My hair was real long
01:53:49at the time.
01:53:49It's all standing up,
01:53:50hair smoking.
01:53:51Hands are all smoked out.
01:53:52I'm like,
01:53:53Jesus Christ.
01:53:55He's like,
01:53:55how do you feel?
01:53:55And I was like,
01:53:56shoulders dislocated,
01:53:57something.
01:53:58I mean,
01:53:58shoulders like hanging down
01:53:59the hair.
01:54:00The whole thing shattered.
01:54:01Pieces.
01:54:02I stand up.
01:54:03I try to walk.
01:54:05I try to walk around
01:54:05for a bit.
01:54:06I tell the old lady,
01:54:07go get my keys.
01:54:07I'm going to drive myself
01:54:08to the hospital.
01:54:09Typical team guy fashion.
01:54:10She's like,
01:54:10you're an idiot.
01:54:11She's yelling at me.
01:54:12I'm telling her to shut up.
01:54:13Kids are running around.
01:54:14Everybody's screaming.
01:54:15He's trying to break down
01:54:16the machine so my kids
01:54:17don't run out.
01:54:18We get around to the corner
01:54:20and I've probably got to walk
01:54:21maybe 30,
01:54:2240 feet to my car.
01:54:23Not far.
01:54:25Date myself a movie quote.
01:54:26You seen Kill Bill?
01:54:28Mm-hmm.
01:54:28Do you know the five-finger
01:54:29death touch he does?
01:54:31He takes five steps
01:54:32and he falls over and dies.
01:54:33That's what happened to me.
01:54:35I stood up.
01:54:36I walked on the side of my house.
01:54:37I took one big step.
01:54:39She's inside.
01:54:39I can hear her run around
01:54:40with the kids
01:54:40trying to tell them all like,
01:54:42hey, dad got hurt.
01:54:42You got to take him to the hospital.
01:54:43Your grandma's going to come over.
01:54:45He's trying to break down
01:54:46the machine.
01:54:47I take a step
01:54:48and everything goes
01:54:48jet black on the periphery.
01:54:51I'm like,
01:54:51fuck, fuck, fuck.
01:54:52I take another one
01:54:53close in again.
01:54:54I'm like,
01:54:55I don't want to die
01:54:58in Virginia Beach.
01:54:58If you ask anybody
01:54:59who's ever met me,
01:55:00that is my number one fear.
01:55:01I do not want to die
01:55:03in Virginia Beach
01:55:04no matter what.
01:55:05Don't let me die there.
01:55:06I take my third step.
01:55:07I'm in a toilet paper too.
01:55:10This is going to be it.
01:55:11I take one more.
01:55:13Total blindness.
01:55:14I can't see anything.
01:55:15And my eyes are as open,
01:55:16as big as I can get them.
01:55:17I can't see anything, dude.
01:55:20Ears start roaring.
01:55:21I'm on the side of this house.
01:55:22Panic at the disco.
01:55:23I'm not screaming.
01:55:24I'm just freaking out.
01:55:26Like I'm looking up.
01:55:26I can't see an ounce of daylight.
01:55:28Oh my fucking God.
01:55:30This is it.
01:55:30I'm blind.
01:55:31Oh my God.
01:55:32I start hyperventilating
01:55:34over and over and over.
01:55:35As loud and as deep as I can.
01:55:37Probably 30, 40 seconds
01:55:38in my mind.
01:55:39It's kind of drifting off
01:55:40and I see a little pinhole of light.
01:55:42Yep.
01:55:42I just stare at it.
01:55:43I keep power breathing.
01:55:46And it opens up,
01:55:47opens up,
01:55:48opens up,
01:55:48and then boom.
01:55:49Like I have superhuman vision.
01:55:51I can see everything.
01:55:53I can see the texture
01:55:54from the brick
01:55:55from 40 feet away.
01:55:56I mean,
01:55:56I can see anything
01:55:57and everything
01:55:58and I can feel everything.
01:56:00Like I can feel my wife
01:56:01walking through the house.
01:56:02I live in a big brick house.
01:56:03I can feel her walking through it.
01:56:04Like it's,
01:56:06asking me if he's ever been electrocuted,
01:56:07you start to feel weird stuff.
01:56:10He gets me up in that car,
01:56:12not let me drive to the hospital.
01:56:14We drive.
01:56:15It's probably three miles
01:56:16from me to our local hospital,
01:56:18like the big one.
01:56:19Hit every single pothole
01:56:20in Virginia Beach.
01:56:21It was like he doubled back
01:56:22to try to get it.
01:56:23If you ever had a collarbone
01:56:25broken or shattered,
01:56:26that's the move, man.
01:56:28You can feel it.
01:56:29You're even moving around.
01:56:31The whole thing's just hinging.
01:56:33I mean,
01:56:33arms basically just swinging around.
01:56:34It's terrible.
01:56:35We get in,
01:56:36get into the burn unit
01:56:37and that was a time during COVID.
01:56:39So everybody in there
01:56:40has a mask on.
01:56:42Virginia Beach has
01:56:43probably the most gorgeous nurses
01:56:44on the planet,
01:56:46but you can only see their eyes.
01:56:47Beautiful mascara,
01:56:48crystal blue eyes.
01:56:49And now I can see it all now.
01:56:51So I'm processing it.
01:56:52Fingers are inside of you.
01:56:54I mean,
01:56:54they're doing all this stuff.
01:56:55They're moving my shoulders around.
01:56:56I'm screaming at them.
01:56:57Tell them to stop.
01:56:58And I'll never forget.
01:57:00I tell them this.
01:57:01They all laugh at me.
01:57:02This nurse swings
01:57:03her beautiful eyes in front of me
01:57:04and she goes,
01:57:05Mr. Shipley,
01:57:05I am so surprised
01:57:06you still have a penis.
01:57:09Jesus Christ.
01:57:10And she's like,
01:57:11oh, honey,
01:57:11when guys get electrocuted,
01:57:12everything comes off.
01:57:14Fingers go off,
01:57:15your nose,
01:57:15your ears.
01:57:16If you hit it with one side,
01:57:17your whole opposite arm
01:57:18will get blown off.
01:57:19It opens up your ribcage
01:57:20and she goes,
01:57:20and what we can tell right now
01:57:22outside of what's blown up on you,
01:57:24like you're good.
01:57:27So I make it through that,
01:57:28make it three or four more hours.
01:57:30They've got to lift me
01:57:31to a different burn unit,
01:57:33very specific.
01:57:34And when I get inside that one,
01:57:36this ER doc comes in.
01:57:39He's like,
01:57:39hey,
01:57:39I'm probably
01:57:40230 pounds at a time.
01:57:43I just rebuilt
01:57:44from this gnarly shoulder surgery.
01:57:45I've been in the best shape
01:57:46I've been in
01:57:46a very long time.
01:57:47So I feel like Superman,
01:57:49except now I'm at a hospital bed.
01:57:51He comes in,
01:57:51he goes,
01:57:52hey,
01:57:52do you know what rhabdo is?
01:57:53I said,
01:57:53yeah.
01:57:54And he goes,
01:57:54when you get electrocuted,
01:57:55your body goes through,
01:57:57it produces an enzyme
01:57:58very similar to rhabdo.
01:58:00All your muscles liquefy,
01:58:01they go septic,
01:58:02I got to cut them out
01:58:02or you'll die.
01:58:04Okay.
01:58:05And he goes,
01:58:06so I got to come back every hour
01:58:07and when your blood marker,
01:58:08that enzyme hits a certain level,
01:58:09I got to start cutting you up.
01:58:12And I'm sitting there,
01:58:13I'd been through so much,
01:58:14so many injuries,
01:58:15so many surgeries
01:58:16and all this stuff.
01:58:17I'm like,
01:58:17when you say cut me up,
01:58:20what does that mean?
01:58:20He goes,
01:58:22pecs,
01:58:22lats,
01:58:23quads,
01:58:23hamstrings,
01:58:24delts,
01:58:24biceps,
01:58:24triceps,
01:58:25shoulders,
01:58:26everything has to go.
01:58:27The bigger,
01:58:28I got to get it out quick
01:58:29because once it liquefies,
01:58:30it's going to go fast.
01:58:31I'm like,
01:58:32how sure?
01:58:32And he goes,
01:58:33as sure as I know
01:58:34the sun's about to set
01:58:34in three hours.
01:58:36Like happens to everybody.
01:58:37Like,
01:58:38oh my God.
01:58:40He leaves the room.
01:58:41I start hysterically crying.
01:58:43My wife is bawling
01:58:44and I just wanted a gun next to me
01:58:46so I could shoot myself.
01:58:47I,
01:58:48the lowest I'd ever been.
01:58:49I was already struggling
01:58:50with depression,
01:58:51everything.
01:58:53I'd leave that hospital bed,
01:58:54comes back in an hour later,
01:58:55checks my blood.
01:58:56He's like,
01:58:56so far so good.
01:58:58Be back in an hour.
01:58:59Back in an hour,
01:59:00back in an hour,
01:59:01back in an hour,
01:59:01doing the whole thing.
01:59:03And he came back in
01:59:04probably five,
01:59:05six hours later
01:59:06and he's like,
01:59:06hey dude,
01:59:07for whatever reason,
01:59:09not only is your enzyme marker
01:59:10not getting bitter,
01:59:13there's not a trace
01:59:14of in your whole body.
01:59:15He's like,
01:59:16we scheduled you
01:59:16for surgery next Tuesday.
01:59:18Going to put in a plate
01:59:19and like 15 screws
01:59:20in your collarbone.
01:59:21You can go.
01:59:23I mean,
01:59:23I was in a hospital
01:59:24four or five days
01:59:24but yeah,
01:59:27survive that,
01:59:28survive the electrocution,
01:59:29did all that stuff
01:59:30and that was really
01:59:31kind of the premise
01:59:32for tribe skates.
01:59:33That's how the whole thing started.
01:59:34It was all art therapy
01:59:35and yeah,
01:59:37that was the worst, man.
01:59:40I had to rebuild my thumb.
01:59:41My tendon got attached
01:59:42to the nerve bundle
01:59:43so my thumb got fused
01:59:44like this for about a year.
01:59:45We had to do a Z lengthening
01:59:47and open the whole thing up
01:59:47so I could actually
01:59:48move my thumb again.
01:59:50Caught my shorts on fire.
01:59:51Like it was,
01:59:52it was dicey, dude.
01:59:54That was my transition.
01:59:57So when I transitioned
01:59:58out of the military,
01:59:59that's what I had to do.
02:00:01So by the time
02:00:02I actually got my DD214,
02:00:03you are retired on a Friday.
02:00:05Here's your retirement paperwork.
02:00:07I started a job
02:00:08the very next Monday.
02:00:09I couldn't even put on body armor
02:00:10because I just had surgery.
02:00:12So I had foam plates
02:00:13and trying to teach these guys CQB
02:00:15arms and two slings
02:00:17just trying to pretend
02:00:18like it wasn't there.
02:00:18So I'd show up with double slings.
02:00:20I'd take them both off
02:00:21and I'd just stand there
02:00:22holding my kit like this
02:00:23because I couldn't move my arms.
02:00:24That's how I had to teach.
02:00:26That was my transition.
02:00:28Just hiding injuries.
02:00:30About as gold standard
02:00:30as you could get
02:00:31for making it worse
02:00:32than it already was.
02:00:33The worst thing
02:00:34that's ever happened to me.
02:00:34I had the best transition.
02:00:36You know,
02:00:36working with the Air Force
02:00:37was an amazing experience.
02:00:38That transition,
02:00:39that fall from grace
02:00:41was nothing I've ever seen.
02:00:44No one ever told you about it.
02:00:46I thought it was going to be
02:00:47the best thing that ever happened to me.
02:00:49Grow your long hair.
02:00:49I'm going to smoke weed.
02:00:50I'm going to do whatever I want to.
02:00:51Military doesn't own me.
02:00:52Yes, yes, yes.
02:00:54I've never craved anything more
02:00:55than I wanted to be back in.
02:00:57I knew exactly what everybody did.
02:00:59I do not want to be a civilian.
02:01:01I need to get back into work
02:01:02as soon as humanly possible
02:01:03and it wasn't an option.
02:01:06Now what do I do?
02:01:08What do I do now?
02:01:09I don't know how to do anything else.
02:01:10And that's when you really realize
02:01:11I've been developing a skill set
02:01:13that is useless
02:01:14to everyone else.
02:01:16Nobody needs this.
02:01:17You think Elon Musk
02:01:17is going to call me like,
02:01:18hey, I'm thinking about
02:01:19building a tier one assault team.
02:01:21Want to be on it?
02:01:22That phone call is not coming, dude.
02:01:24Nobody needs you.
02:01:25And now if you get out
02:01:26and you get on social media
02:01:27and you ever talk about what you did,
02:01:28then you get bastardized
02:01:29about the community.
02:01:30You write a book,
02:01:30now everybody hates you.
02:01:32Open up a podcast,
02:01:33everybody hates you.
02:01:35What am I supposed to do?
02:01:36I don't know how to do anything.
02:01:38I didn't go to college,
02:01:39didn't get a real estate license.
02:01:40I don't have a relationship with my wife,
02:01:42don't have a relationship with my kids.
02:01:43I've sacrificed everything
02:01:44to try to be as good
02:01:45at this one thing
02:01:46as humanly possible
02:01:47and I was trying to do it
02:01:48for 30 years
02:01:48and now at 17,
02:01:50I don't have it.
02:01:51I don't have any
02:01:52transferable skill set.
02:01:54What do I do?
02:01:55Spiral, spiral, spiral.
02:01:59Yeah, you didn't have
02:02:00any sanity check.
02:02:00I had no group,
02:02:01no reason to get out of bed
02:02:02at 5 a.m.
02:02:03I didn't have anything else.
02:02:05So when I'm laying there
02:02:06and rehab,
02:02:07I'm at my house,
02:02:08all gimped up.
02:02:09I get a knock at the door.
02:02:12I answer the door
02:02:13and it's my strength coach,
02:02:14Vernon Griffith.
02:02:14Best strength coach
02:02:15in the fucking world.
02:02:16Oh, I love this guy.
02:02:17He was my guy
02:02:18that brought me back
02:02:18after the shoulder injury
02:02:21from skydiving.
02:02:22Brought me all back
02:02:23and he shows up
02:02:24and he's like,
02:02:24oh God,
02:02:25are you still milking it?
02:02:27Shut up.
02:02:28We're like gimping
02:02:28in my kitchen.
02:02:29I sit down
02:02:29and I'm really feeling
02:02:32sorry for myself.
02:02:33I do not want
02:02:34to play the game.
02:02:35If my hands weren't
02:02:36as bad as they were,
02:02:36I probably would've
02:02:37killed myself.
02:02:38I couldn't do anything.
02:02:40I couldn't even
02:02:40put a trigger.
02:02:42I don't even know
02:02:42how I do it.
02:02:44And he's like,
02:02:45well, if you're done
02:02:46making excuses,
02:02:46what can you do?
02:02:47I was like,
02:02:48nothing, dude.
02:02:49I can do nothing.
02:02:50He's like,
02:02:51can you walk?
02:02:51I was like,
02:02:52I can barely walk.
02:02:53Yeah, I mean,
02:02:53I can walk.
02:02:54He's like,
02:02:54can you move your hands?
02:02:56Hands are all bandaged up
02:02:57and I was like,
02:02:57yeah.
02:02:58He's like,
02:02:58can you curl
02:02:59your wrist?
02:02:59I said,
02:03:00yeah,
02:03:00but I'm in double slings.
02:03:01I can't do a bicep curl.
02:03:03I can't do anything.
02:03:03He's like,
02:03:04cool.
02:03:04Pulls out this blue
02:03:05two pound dumbbell
02:03:06about that big
02:03:08and puts it in my hand.
02:03:08He goes,
02:03:09extend it,
02:03:10curl it up.
02:03:13Print your wrist,
02:03:14same thing.
02:03:15Looks like we can do
02:03:16wrist curls
02:03:16in 20 minute walks.
02:03:17We did that
02:03:18every single day,
02:03:19multiple times a day
02:03:20until I could
02:03:21pressurize my upper body
02:03:22and then we got back
02:03:23in the gym.
02:03:24Belt squatting,
02:03:24doing nothing
02:03:25with belt squats
02:03:25and lunges
02:03:26for eight weeks.
02:03:29Surgery all healed,
02:03:30now we can do upper body
02:03:31and then we just stayed
02:03:32on that exact same routine.
02:03:33So as low as I was,
02:03:35the only reason
02:03:36I was as low as I was
02:03:36is I didn't have a group.
02:03:38I don't have a group now,
02:03:39what do I have?
02:03:40I've got my family now.
02:03:41I don't have my routine.
02:03:43Get back on the routine.
02:03:44Back in the gym,
02:03:45living the exact same routine
02:03:46I've lived my entire life,
02:03:47surrounding myself
02:03:48with people better than me,
02:03:49naturally started
02:03:50to pull me out
02:03:50of depression.
02:03:51Anytime I've ever
02:03:52hit that bottom again,
02:03:53it's because I've been
02:03:54outside of my routine
02:03:55where I put my individual
02:03:56needs,
02:03:57what needs my group
02:03:58and the guilt started
02:03:58to really affect me.
02:04:01So I don't try
02:04:01to overcomplicate anymore.
02:04:02So my transition out
02:04:03was terrible.
02:04:05My rebuild
02:04:06looked exactly
02:04:07like it's been
02:04:08every day
02:04:08since I was 15 or 16.
02:04:10Back on the routine,
02:04:11don't break it,
02:04:12no matter what.
02:04:14Yeah, that's me,
02:04:15that's me getting electrocuted.
02:04:17Terrible.
02:04:18And what about
02:04:19the psychological changes?
02:04:22I understand
02:04:23that physiology
02:04:23and psychology
02:04:24are very closely linked
02:04:26for you,
02:04:27but I think
02:04:2850% of pro athletes
02:04:33get divorced
02:04:33within one year
02:04:34of retiring
02:04:36from their sport.
02:04:37I would imagine
02:04:38that the same thing
02:04:39is true for bankruptcy.
02:04:41I would imagine
02:04:41that the same thing
02:04:42is true for drug use,
02:04:44for reckless driving
02:04:45incidents or deaths.
02:04:50what were the biggest challenges
02:04:52that you were facing
02:04:53psychologically?
02:04:56I wanted to kill myself
02:04:57from probably 2013
02:04:59up until 2020, 2021.
02:05:03Every day.
02:05:04Every day, all day.
02:05:05And I didn't have
02:05:06a reason for it.
02:05:06I didn't know why.
02:05:08I was always a guy,
02:05:10I always looked down
02:05:10on people who committed
02:05:11suicide, just always.
02:05:13I'm like,
02:05:13what a selfish thing to do.
02:05:15Like, cry me a river.
02:05:16Because you see these guys
02:05:17and you're like,
02:05:18you've got your dream job,
02:05:20your wife's a 10,
02:05:2110 fingers, 10 toes
02:05:22on both your kids.
02:05:23Like, they're star athletes.
02:05:25Like, there's nothing
02:05:26for you to be upset with.
02:05:27Like, how could you do that?
02:05:28Why would you do that?
02:05:29And they never leave a note
02:05:30so you never know.
02:05:32Until it happens to you,
02:05:34it's just so hard
02:05:35to wrap your head around.
02:05:36I just woke up every day.
02:05:37I just didn't want
02:05:38to play the game.
02:05:38I want to hit the big
02:05:39reset button on Nintendo
02:05:40and start over
02:05:41in a different life.
02:05:42And that was both
02:05:42in service and
02:05:44out of service
02:05:45and during transition.
02:05:46The medication
02:05:47helped for a little bit
02:05:48so it was like,
02:05:49it was that quiet noise
02:05:50in the back of your head
02:05:51just kind of subsided.
02:05:52It was always there.
02:05:52I'd wake up in the morning
02:05:53like, nope, nope,
02:05:55just override,
02:05:55go to the gym,
02:05:56override and go to the gym,
02:05:57go to the range,
02:05:58do this,
02:05:59stay active like a shark,
02:06:00just keep swimming.
02:06:02Every time I stopped,
02:06:03things got bad.
02:06:04Don't stop,
02:06:04just keep going.
02:06:05Yeah.
02:06:07But once everything happened,
02:06:09we came off all those meds,
02:06:10I still had to be on
02:06:11quite a few of them.
02:06:13It wasn't a full med washout.
02:06:15We came off the hard
02:06:16like painkillers
02:06:17so I could feel all the pain.
02:06:18I was still on Sebalta,
02:06:19still on Adderall,
02:06:20still on a bunch of these things,
02:06:21blood pressure medications
02:06:22to stop nightmares,
02:06:23all this stuff.
02:06:27It's hard to quantify
02:06:28with how bad it was.
02:06:30Just everything you loved
02:06:33before you didn't have anymore.
02:06:35Didn't have the group,
02:06:36there's no group chat,
02:06:37no one ever can tell you
02:06:38to put it on again,
02:06:38there's no purpose.
02:06:40And now I don't have a job.
02:06:42What am I supposed to do now?
02:06:43I never planned on getting out.
02:06:45I never planned on
02:06:46not doing anything
02:06:47less than 30 years.
02:06:48I was just going to do it forever
02:06:48because there's nothing else
02:06:49for me to do.
02:06:50I don't like anything else.
02:06:51I don't have another hobby.
02:06:52I'm not a scratch golfer.
02:06:53I don't want to be an entrepreneur.
02:06:55I don't want to do a podcast.
02:06:56Don't want to write a book.
02:06:57I don't want to do any of that.
02:06:58I just want to do this
02:06:59and now I can't.
02:07:00What do I do now?
02:07:02I don't know.
02:07:03Circling the drain
02:07:03over and over.
02:07:06But I mean,
02:07:07now that you're out
02:07:07smoking a bunch of weed,
02:07:09doing a bunch of stupid shit,
02:07:11started cheating on my wife,
02:07:12started doing all the things
02:07:13that I shouldn't have done
02:07:14and all the things
02:07:15I didn't do in the past,
02:07:16I started doing
02:07:17during that transition
02:07:17and it just,
02:07:19it ruined everything.
02:07:22Everything I tried to avoid
02:07:24my whole time in,
02:07:25I did as soon as I got out.
02:07:29Right?
02:07:29Like everything,
02:07:31like everything that everybody does
02:07:32to get them divorced,
02:07:33they've usually been doing
02:07:34their whole career.
02:07:35I'm the opposite.
02:07:36I didn't do any of it
02:07:38until I got out
02:07:39and I was like,
02:07:39yeah, I have no purpose.
02:07:40My divorce burned to the ground.
02:07:43I wanted to be divorced
02:07:44because I didn't know
02:07:46how to reintegrate
02:07:47with my family.
02:07:48I loved her,
02:07:49loved the kids,
02:07:49didn't want to lose what I had,
02:07:51but I didn't know
02:07:51how to integrate
02:07:52because I didn't have any practice
02:07:54and I never looked at it
02:07:55like obtaining a skill set.
02:07:57Let me talk about
02:07:58being a good husband,
02:07:58being a good father,
02:07:59being a good friend.
02:08:00It's a skill set.
02:08:01You need repetition
02:08:01in order to be good at that.
02:08:03Like how are you going to,
02:08:04how do you raise kids?
02:08:06You got to be there.
02:08:07You got to show up.
02:08:08Are you going to be a good husband?
02:08:09You have to be there.
02:08:10Like the pen pal thing
02:08:11doesn't work in reality.
02:08:12You have to live together
02:08:13and I didn't have
02:08:14any experience doing it.
02:08:15So when I transitioned,
02:08:16like what's a job
02:08:18I can get right now
02:08:19that is going to get me
02:08:19out of Virginia Beach
02:08:20and away from this?
02:08:21Not because I don't want
02:08:22to be there,
02:08:22but because I don't know how.
02:08:24And in my,
02:08:25in that version of myself
02:08:27in that moment,
02:08:28the easiest thing to do
02:08:29was to separate.
02:08:30Let me get a job
02:08:31that's got me back in Arizona,
02:08:33skydiving as much as I can,
02:08:34working these contracts.
02:08:35Like let me just stay busy.
02:08:36It's a safe space.
02:08:37Yeah, it's safe.
02:08:38Let me get out of here.
02:08:39Worst thing could happen.
02:08:42Started a spiral.
02:08:44She got to the point
02:08:44where she was going to shit can me.
02:08:46Like she was over it
02:08:47all inside of a year,
02:08:48just like everybody else.
02:08:50And that's when I found out
02:08:52about Mexico.
02:08:53Ibogaine, 5-MeO DMT
02:08:55and all the things.
02:08:57And that was really like
02:08:58her last call for prayer.
02:09:01If you love me,
02:09:02you'll go to Mexico
02:09:02and do psychedelics.
02:09:03Did she find it or you?
02:09:04She found it.
02:09:05No way.
02:09:06She sent it over to me.
02:09:07It was a friend of mine,
02:09:08Marcus and Amber Capone.
02:09:10Amazing.
02:09:10We were in teams together
02:09:11and he went out
02:09:12to the West Coast
02:09:13and started preaching
02:09:14the gospel about Ibogaine
02:09:16and 5-MeO
02:09:16and everybody on the East Coast
02:09:18said the same thing.
02:09:19You know,
02:09:19we're all wearing
02:09:20Carhartts and flannels
02:09:22dipping Copenhagen.
02:09:23We're like,
02:09:23typical West Coast.
02:09:25Yep, he left the East Coast.
02:09:26He left the motherland.
02:09:27He went out West
02:09:28and now he's crazy.
02:09:29No.
02:09:30I'm so glad I went.
02:09:33So glad I went.
02:09:34We sat there
02:09:35and we watched
02:09:35this little infomercial
02:09:36and we knew their whole story.
02:09:37We knew the ugly truth
02:09:38and everything they had been through
02:09:39and he was so open,
02:09:41so honest,
02:09:41so transparent.
02:09:42You're like,
02:09:43okay, well,
02:09:45he seems okay.
02:09:46He seems like he's got
02:09:47a really good balance point
02:09:48and you call him on the phone
02:09:48and he sounds amazing.
02:09:51He was one of those dudes
02:09:52back in the days
02:09:54when I knew him,
02:09:55his eyes were as black
02:09:56as your shirt.
02:09:57If you wanted to topple
02:09:58a regime
02:09:59with just a single individual,
02:10:01like no rules,
02:10:01no mercy,
02:10:02you just slouch him.
02:10:03He was vicious.
02:10:05Like one of those things
02:10:05like,
02:10:06you ever walk through the SPCA
02:10:10and you see these pit bulls,
02:10:11faces all scarred up?
02:10:12You're not going to stick
02:10:13your hand in that cage
02:10:14and try to pet it.
02:10:15That's what he was.
02:10:16He ain't like that anymore.
02:10:17He can still be that guy,
02:10:19but he has full control over it
02:10:20and I think that's
02:10:21what everybody wanted.
02:10:21Like,
02:10:22I don't want to lose my edge.
02:10:24I don't want to be a pacifist.
02:10:25I don't want to regret
02:10:25everything I've done,
02:10:26but I can't control
02:10:28this version of me
02:10:29that I've now created.
02:10:30I just don't want to be
02:10:30at the mercy of it.
02:10:31Exactly.
02:10:32He found control.
02:10:34Maybe if I go down there
02:10:35and lick this poison dart frog
02:10:37or whatever they're doing,
02:10:38maybe it'll work for me.
02:10:39So that's why we went.
02:10:41What was that experience like?
02:10:43Um,
02:10:44my life was unraveling
02:10:48in the moment.
02:10:49Like,
02:10:50everything that could be
02:10:52going wrong in my life
02:10:53was going wrong right then.
02:10:54Like,
02:10:55everything.
02:10:55I was leading multiple affairs.
02:10:58One of the girls was pregnant.
02:10:59Everything that could be
02:11:01going wrong in my life
02:11:02was happening right then
02:11:03at that moment.
02:11:04I went down to Mexico
02:11:05with no intention of coming back.
02:11:06I didn't want to.
02:11:07I have a picture of my phone
02:11:08post-Mexico
02:11:09of me standing on a cliff's edge,
02:11:11looking down about 80 feet,
02:11:13jagged rocks underneath it.
02:11:14I came this close to jumping.
02:11:15That's after Mexico.
02:11:17After,
02:11:18because I knew what I was
02:11:18going home to.
02:11:19I was like,
02:11:19this isn't going to work.
02:11:21I'm just going to jump.
02:11:22There's no reason.
02:11:23If I slip in a fall right now,
02:11:24she'll get all my,
02:11:25all my medical,
02:11:26she'll get my life insurance.
02:11:27It'll just be an accident
02:11:28because I am not going home
02:11:29to face this music.
02:11:32But we went down there.
02:11:33I went down with a bunch
02:11:34of heavy hitters,
02:11:34probably eight,
02:11:3610 guys.
02:11:37This little compound in Tijuana,
02:11:39they had a bunch of team guys.
02:11:40We call it holding space.
02:11:41They're cooking the meals.
02:11:42They're sitting with you,
02:11:43kind of walking you all through it.
02:11:44But it's a five-day process.
02:11:49You get down the first day,
02:11:50they give you a drug test,
02:11:52which is kind of ironic.
02:11:53Go make sure you're not
02:11:54on Adderall stimulus.
02:11:55So you have to come off
02:11:56of all the meds.
02:11:57That was the thing
02:11:58that I didn't realize
02:11:59was going to be
02:12:00just like being back
02:12:00in that detox hospital.
02:12:02Coming off Cymbalta,
02:12:03if you've ever been on...
02:12:04What is that?
02:12:05It's an SSRI,
02:12:06but it's really for pain management,
02:12:10for everything else.
02:12:11But I was on that
02:12:12heavy doses of gabapentin.
02:12:14So when you're on
02:12:14that combination
02:12:15of gabapentin and Cymbalta,
02:12:16they call it the jolts.
02:12:17When you come off of it,
02:12:19your nervous system
02:12:20starts firing again.
02:12:20So you'll sit there
02:12:21and you'll just do this.
02:12:23You're just driving around.
02:12:24You're just jolting.
02:12:24Like hypnic jerks,
02:12:25in a way.
02:12:26But it's super frightening
02:12:28because you can't control it
02:12:29and you don't know
02:12:30they're coming on.
02:12:31So you'll go to get
02:12:31a cup of coffee
02:12:32and you'll just jolting.
02:12:33She's like,
02:12:33what the f*** is going on with you?
02:12:34And I was like,
02:12:35I don't know.
02:12:35I don't know.
02:12:36It's happening.
02:12:37But now there's no Adderall.
02:12:38There's no stimulants.
02:12:39There's no pain meds.
02:12:41There's no Ambien.
02:12:42There's nothing.
02:12:42So now I'm a shell
02:12:43of who I thought I was.
02:12:45And now I know
02:12:46I am really,
02:12:47truly dependent on these meds.
02:12:48I was probably on...
02:12:51At the time I went down,
02:12:52they were probably 40 or 50.
02:12:54The overall,
02:12:55I was taking 60 pills a day.
02:12:56We weaned off
02:12:57a couple of those things.
02:12:59The prazos in for nightmares,
02:13:00a couple of those things.
02:13:01But the core remained.
02:13:03A lot of pills.
02:13:04This is after you'd been
02:13:05washed out of them previously.
02:13:06Yeah.
02:13:07Because a lot of them,
02:13:07you have to stay on them.
02:13:08Like for them,
02:13:09like you're never getting off Adderall.
02:13:10You're never getting off Symbolita.
02:13:11You're never getting off this.
02:13:12Never getting off that.
02:13:13So we're still on them all.
02:13:15But now I have washed off
02:13:16of everything completely.
02:13:17And when you're truly sober
02:13:19for the first time,
02:13:20you get to realize
02:13:21the life you've lived
02:13:22and the injuries you've taken.
02:13:24Because now there's nothing
02:13:25masking it.
02:13:27Feeling myself get up
02:13:28in the morning was humbling.
02:13:31Gimping around.
02:13:32Limping.
02:13:32Just everything hurt.
02:13:35Fibromyalgia.
02:13:35I could barely hold a pencil.
02:13:36Like hands just shaking all day.
02:13:38It was embarrassing.
02:13:41From who I was a year and a half ago
02:13:43to who I am now, a shell.
02:13:45Like I don't want to do this, dude.
02:13:46I don't.
02:13:46I didn't want to go to Mexico.
02:13:48I kind of went just to shut her up.
02:13:50But yeah, I had no intention
02:13:51of going back.
02:13:53Probably get around there.
02:13:53They give you the piss test.
02:13:55You get one night of sleep.
02:13:56The very next day
02:13:57is you're going to do Ibogaine.
02:13:59So it comes from the aboga plant
02:14:01in West Africa.
02:14:02Grants this little shrub.
02:14:03You take these two pills.
02:14:04You write down some nonsense
02:14:06on a piece of paper you want to burn.
02:14:07Like things you're trying to get rid of.
02:14:09I can't write down any of my stuff
02:14:11because nobody in my group knows
02:14:13that I've been cheating on my wife.
02:14:15Nobody.
02:14:16They don't know I've got a girl pregnant.
02:14:17They don't know any of this stuff.
02:14:18It's just me now.
02:14:20I dropped that thing in a fire.
02:14:21Can you remember what you wrote?
02:14:25Self.
02:14:26Like what am I trying to get rid of?
02:14:28Myself.
02:14:29Dropped in a fire and let it go.
02:14:32So we go upstairs.
02:14:33They've got this sound booth going.
02:14:36It's like these disco lights
02:14:37are going crazy.
02:14:38They've got this yoga practitioner
02:14:40and this white linen thing.
02:14:42She's gorgeous,
02:14:42but she's playing these bowls.
02:14:44She reminds me of Ursula
02:14:45and the Little Mermaid.
02:14:46She's doing the whole thing.
02:14:49Like it's a lot to take in.
02:14:50And for us,
02:14:51it's so out there.
02:14:52It's so foo-foo.
02:14:54Like you're looking around the room
02:14:56at all the people that are in there
02:14:57and everybody's from your old line of work.
02:14:59You're like,
02:14:59did you ever think
02:15:00we'd be doing this bullshit?
02:15:03Like I'm so glad
02:15:04nobody knows we're down here.
02:15:07I lay back down
02:15:08and if you ask the guys,
02:15:10I probably made it 15 minutes,
02:15:11started snoring,
02:15:12dead asleep,
02:15:13thought I was asleep.
02:15:15That's when the whole thing
02:15:16started to happen.
02:15:17And it's so weird
02:15:19because some guys don't see anything,
02:15:21but the medicine
02:15:22goes through your body regardless.
02:15:23It kills all your addictions
02:15:25in a single shot.
02:15:26I don't care if it's heroin,
02:15:27gambling,
02:15:28sex,
02:15:28porn,
02:15:29women,
02:15:29whatever it is,
02:15:30all your addictions are gone in a minute.
02:15:32So I dipped,
02:15:33just for reference,
02:15:34I dipped two cans of Copenhagen
02:15:35every single day
02:15:37from the time I was 18
02:15:39up until that morning.
02:15:41Every single day,
02:15:42I dipped two cans of Copenhagen.
02:15:44When I woke up from Ibogaine,
02:15:45I've never touched it again.
02:15:47I love Copenhagen.
02:15:49I would put in Copenhagen right now.
02:15:51I can't even get it to form in my mouth.
02:15:53It's like my body is auto-rejected.
02:15:54I can't do it.
02:15:56I miss it.
02:15:56I didn't drink coffee for six months.
02:15:58I want to drink coffee.
02:16:00I'd get it right through my mouth one.
02:16:02No.
02:16:03I just wouldn't drink it.
02:16:04Weird.
02:16:05So I'm laying there.
02:16:06This whole experience starts to happen.
02:16:08You hear these bees buzzing,
02:16:09all this stuff.
02:16:11And I remember parts of the dream
02:16:13and it'll flash back every now and then,
02:16:16but it was like I was free-falling
02:16:18through a vertical wind tunnel
02:16:19and these dresser drawers were opening up
02:16:21and they were just distant memories.
02:16:24But you could shift your body over
02:16:25and fly and fall into it.
02:16:27And now you're inside,
02:16:28like it's realistic as a studio-ish.
02:16:31I could feel the temperature,
02:16:32the humidity,
02:16:33the weight of the t-shirt,
02:16:34everything.
02:16:34It's so bizarre.
02:16:35And you could just sit there and relive it.
02:16:38Like whatever's happening right now,
02:16:39I could just sit here,
02:16:39be in third person,
02:16:40just watch it.
02:16:42I could drop into who I am
02:16:43and watch the interaction.
02:16:44I could drop into the other point
02:16:46of you and live it through their eyes.
02:16:47Even if they're yelling at me
02:16:49or whatever,
02:16:49I could be them
02:16:50and feel the rage,
02:16:52understand why they were that mad
02:16:53and agree with them.
02:16:55Like,
02:16:56you fucked that up.
02:16:57You deserve that.
02:16:58I'd be doing the exact same thing.
02:17:00And it builds a lot of empathy.
02:17:02You're like,
02:17:02I totally get it now.
02:17:03I get why you were so mad.
02:17:05I get why I did this.
02:17:06I get why I did that.
02:17:07And it made you
02:17:08come to terms
02:17:09with a lot of your mistakes.
02:17:11That lasts for 16 hours.
02:17:15I mean,
02:17:15like you were in,
02:17:16you were in the medicine.
02:17:18I woke up the very next day
02:17:19and I have never wanted
02:17:21to teleport home
02:17:22so bad in my whole life.
02:17:24I've never been homesick.
02:17:25I've said I'm homesick.
02:17:27I don't get homesick.
02:17:28I don't.
02:17:29Now I get homesick
02:17:29because I've got a good relationship,
02:17:30but back then,
02:17:31never.
02:17:32And that was the weirdest thing
02:17:33because I knew how much chaos
02:17:35was waiting for me back at home
02:17:36because all this stuff
02:17:38is going to uncork.
02:17:40She's going to find out
02:17:41about all this stuff.
02:17:42There's no other way around it.
02:17:43And that was really
02:17:43the realization
02:17:44is I'm going to have to go home.
02:17:45And if she doesn't know,
02:17:46I'm going to have to tell her.
02:17:48That's just not going to be met well.
02:17:50They give you a full period.
02:17:52It's called the gray day
02:17:53where you're kind of
02:17:53navigating the medicine.
02:17:55You do group circles
02:17:56and all this stuff.
02:17:58And we sit around
02:17:59this big group.
02:17:59I woke up at like 8 a.m.
02:18:01the next morning,
02:18:01like fired up,
02:18:02ready to go.
02:18:02I'm Chatty Cathy now.
02:18:04Like I didn't want to talk before.
02:18:05Now I want to talk.
02:18:06I want to know what happened
02:18:07to you inside of that medicine
02:18:08because the shit
02:18:08that happened to me,
02:18:09I got to let out.
02:18:11We sit around that room
02:18:12and all the guys
02:18:13started talking
02:18:14and I'd known
02:18:15most of these guys
02:18:16for my entire career.
02:18:17Like my best friend
02:18:18was in there.
02:18:18My business partners
02:18:19were in there.
02:18:20I mean,
02:18:20like we really know each other
02:18:21and only a couple dudes
02:18:23knew how bad it was.
02:18:24Like, I mean,
02:18:25I had episodes
02:18:26while I was still active
02:18:27where I was sitting
02:18:28in my guest room
02:18:29with a trash bag
02:18:31sitting next to me.
02:18:31I was going to put it
02:18:32in my head
02:18:32and shoot myself in the head
02:18:33to not make a mess
02:18:34so she could resell the house.
02:18:35Like,
02:18:36I've told that
02:18:38in confidence
02:18:38to several people.
02:18:40They were all in that room
02:18:41and they were like,
02:18:42oh man,
02:18:42I'm so sorry.
02:18:43I'm so sorry.
02:18:44I can't believe
02:18:44that was happening to you.
02:18:46That next morning,
02:18:48me too,
02:18:49me too,
02:18:50me too.
02:18:51I was pissed.
02:18:52I was like,
02:18:52you were going to let me
02:18:53shoot myself in my guest room
02:18:54and you were never
02:18:54going to say me too.
02:18:56What's going on with you?
02:18:57And they start to open up
02:18:58and they start to talk
02:18:58about past trauma,
02:18:59childhood stuff,
02:19:00sexual abuse,
02:19:01everything.
02:19:03You've been carrying that
02:19:04for 40 years.
02:19:05He's like,
02:19:06my wife doesn't know,
02:19:07my kids don't know,
02:19:07my parents don't know.
02:19:09You start to see
02:19:10the correlation,
02:19:11the compartmentalization
02:19:12to the ultra extreme.
02:19:15Like at a certain point,
02:19:16you have to be able
02:19:16to share something
02:19:17and we got so used
02:19:18to just not doing it,
02:19:19you just held it inside.
02:19:22Then you do 5-MeO-DMT.
02:19:25You ever done 5-MeO-DMT?
02:19:27You should.
02:19:29You should.
02:19:30It's not like anything
02:19:31on this planet.
02:19:33It's super fast.
02:19:35It takes no time
02:19:36to build up,
02:19:37but they set you down
02:19:37and it's supposed
02:19:38to be a purge.
02:19:40And knowing everything
02:19:41I know now,
02:19:41and I've been down
02:19:42quite a few times now
02:19:43and I've taken guys down
02:19:44and hosted a medicine forum.
02:19:46Everything that conjured up
02:19:47from Ibogaine,
02:19:48if I would not have done
02:19:495-MeO
02:19:50and I would have went home
02:19:51in that state,
02:19:52I probably wouldn't be here.
02:19:55I had not come to terms
02:19:57and accepted everything
02:19:58that I did.
02:19:58I wanted to go home
02:19:59and confess
02:20:00and do all this stuff.
02:20:02I was disgusted
02:20:03with myself.
02:20:06Every,
02:20:07every vile thing
02:20:08I had ever said
02:20:08to my wife
02:20:09or my kids
02:20:10or relationships
02:20:10I had sacrificed
02:20:11and compartmentalization,
02:20:13I felt so guilty for it.
02:20:14And it was like
02:20:15that yard of beer,
02:20:16just trauma.
02:20:16It was coming out
02:20:17of my mouth.
02:20:17It was like,
02:20:18you know,
02:20:20those moments
02:20:20where you're sitting
02:20:21there brushing your teeth,
02:20:21looking at yourself
02:20:22in the mirror
02:20:22and you're like,
02:20:23DJ,
02:20:23I can't believe
02:20:24you've done this.
02:20:25I can't believe
02:20:26this is your reality.
02:20:27Like,
02:20:27you've actually done this
02:20:28and you have to live
02:20:29with this shit now?
02:20:30How?
02:20:31How did you get
02:20:32so far off track
02:20:33from where you were
02:20:34to this point now?
02:20:35And you're sitting there
02:20:36literally staring
02:20:37in the mirror
02:20:37just like this
02:20:38in disbelief,
02:20:38like,
02:20:39I can't believe
02:20:39you fucking did this.
02:20:41Like,
02:20:42this is,
02:20:42you're really gonna
02:20:43have to live
02:20:43through this.
02:20:46I can't,
02:20:47I can't do it.
02:20:48I don't wanna go home.
02:20:50I don't wanna look at her.
02:20:51I don't wanna break her heart.
02:20:52I don't wanna lose
02:20:53the things I have right now.
02:20:55I don't wanna face reality.
02:20:57And it kinda gets you
02:20:58worked up in a 5-MeO DMT.
02:20:59And we laid back there
02:21:01and you smoke it
02:21:03out of this crack pipe
02:21:04and it looks so intimidating.
02:21:05Like,
02:21:06it's in a little glass vial.
02:21:07I mean,
02:21:07you're heating up
02:21:08like you're smoking
02:21:08a crack rock.
02:21:10And as soon as you
02:21:11lay your head back
02:21:11when you exhale,
02:21:13it's like your whole body
02:21:14consolidates into a single spark
02:21:16and then it explodes.
02:21:17It feels
02:21:18and it looks like,
02:21:19you know,
02:21:19when Star Trek
02:21:20is taking off those trails,
02:21:21it's like that.
02:21:22And then you end up
02:21:23in stratosphere,
02:21:24just surrounded by whatever.
02:21:26It is the craziest thing.
02:21:28But the guy told me
02:21:29when he goes,
02:21:31he's like,
02:21:31hey,
02:21:31whatever happens,
02:21:32let it happen.
02:21:33If you think you're gonna die,
02:21:34die.
02:21:35If you think you're gonna explode,
02:21:36explode.
02:21:37If you think you're gonna drown,
02:21:38just drown.
02:21:39Just one big exhale
02:21:40and let it take you.
02:21:41In the moment,
02:21:42you don't do that.
02:21:43In the moment,
02:21:43you're like,
02:21:44you're trying to hold on to it,
02:21:46hold on to it.
02:21:46So I would throw my arms out,
02:21:48I would scream
02:21:49and then I'd ball up
02:21:50and I'd cry.
02:21:5110,
02:21:5215 minutes of like
02:21:53the ugliest crying
02:21:54you've ever seen.
02:21:55Uncontrollable,
02:21:55like throwing out,
02:21:57crying.
02:21:57Like,
02:21:58cry so hard you throw up.
02:22:00I woke up
02:22:01and I sat up
02:22:01and he looked at me
02:22:02and he went,
02:22:03that wasn't it.
02:22:06What do you mean
02:22:06that wasn't it?
02:22:07Like,
02:22:07that was everything I had.
02:22:08He's like,
02:22:10hit him again.
02:22:11You want me to do that again?
02:22:12He's like,
02:22:13hit him again.
02:22:13I did six rounds of that,
02:22:15back to back to back
02:22:17over and over
02:22:17and on the sixth one,
02:22:19this nurse came over,
02:22:21little Mexican nurse,
02:22:22super cool
02:22:22and there was a team guy
02:22:24sitting off to my left or right
02:22:25and he's like,
02:22:26you want to die, right?
02:22:27I said,
02:22:28yeah.
02:22:29He goes,
02:22:30then kill yourself.
02:22:31Do it right now
02:22:32with the medicine.
02:22:33Like,
02:22:33stop messing around,
02:22:34stop with all the theatrics,
02:22:35stop crying,
02:22:36just do it.
02:22:37Kill yourself right now.
02:22:40It is true.
02:22:41I don't want to go home.
02:22:42I don't want to confess this.
02:22:43I am.
02:22:44I'll do it right now.
02:22:45I'm going to smoke this
02:22:46with the intention to kill myself
02:22:47and I'm going to hold my breath
02:22:48until it kills me
02:22:49because I'm not going home.
02:22:51Give me that thing again.
02:22:52And now I went through
02:22:53with the intention
02:22:53I'm going to close
02:22:54this whole chapter out.
02:22:55So I envisioned
02:22:55the smoke was purple
02:22:57and as I'm smoking this thing,
02:22:58I can feel it going
02:22:59through my whole body.
02:23:00I'm trying to push it down
02:23:01to my tippy toes.
02:23:02I'm trying to coat my whole self.
02:23:04I held back
02:23:05and I held that thing
02:23:05as long as I could.
02:23:06I could feel my eyes
02:23:07starting to flutter.
02:23:08Like,
02:23:08it's really coming on.
02:23:09It feels like there's a,
02:23:10it feels like there's a cell phone
02:23:12this big behind your sternum
02:23:13and the whole thing
02:23:14starts to vibrate
02:23:15and you're like,
02:23:15you can't take it anymore.
02:23:17As soon as you exhale,
02:23:18the whole blast off happens
02:23:19and when that one happened,
02:23:21it killed me.
02:23:22Killed my ego.
02:23:23It reset the whole baseline.
02:23:25And when I opened up
02:23:26from that one,
02:23:26she looked at me and goes,
02:23:27that was it.
02:23:29How you feeling now?
02:23:29And I was like,
02:23:30I've got to get home.
02:23:31I got to get home right now.
02:23:33I got to see my old lady.
02:23:33Got to see my old lady.
02:23:34Got to see my girls right now.
02:23:35Got to get home.
02:23:36Got to get home right now.
02:23:36And then everything else
02:23:39kind of fell apart from there
02:23:41and we brought it all back together.
02:23:43And it was rough, man.
02:23:47It was so rough.
02:23:48It was so worth it though.
02:23:49If I wouldn't have gone down there,
02:23:51I wouldn't be here.
02:23:51A hundred percent.
02:23:52There's not a chance.
02:23:54Not a chance.
02:23:57You got to go.
02:24:00You're really not selling it to me.
02:24:01Bro.
02:24:02Okay.
02:24:03Let's say somebody's listening
02:24:04and they go,
02:24:06I'm not on 60 meds a day.
02:24:08No need to be.
02:24:08I'm not ex-war veteran
02:24:12with a ton of PTSD
02:24:13from being shot out
02:24:15and shooting at people
02:24:16and stuff like that.
02:24:16I don't have PTSD from that at all.
02:24:18Not an ounce of my experience,
02:24:20not a single piece of it
02:24:22had anything in the military.
02:24:24It went from my childhood,
02:24:25zero to 16,
02:24:27gapped it,
02:24:28and then it picked me up
02:24:29when I transitioned up.
02:24:31Gapped the entire experience.
02:24:32I've done it again
02:24:33four or five times
02:24:35and five of you with DMT.
02:24:36I've never had
02:24:37a military experience.
02:24:38Ever.
02:24:39Nothing.
02:24:40Trauma's trauma.
02:24:41The last time I went down
02:24:42with co-ed,
02:24:43males, females,
02:24:44civilians, women,
02:24:45everybody,
02:24:46everybody's on the exact same path.
02:24:48You got trauma.
02:24:49That's how you get through it.
02:24:50That is 15,
02:24:5120 years of therapy
02:24:52in five days.
02:24:54It's unreal.
02:24:55We've recently seen
02:24:56Trump sign that bill
02:24:58to fast-track research
02:25:00and he's literally got
02:25:01ex-seals
02:25:02stood around him.
02:25:04Did you not watch our film?
02:25:06Not yet.
02:25:07Okay.
02:25:07So Marcus and Amber,
02:25:09they're all part of that thing.
02:25:09They're really one
02:25:10that kicked off
02:25:10that whole initiative.
02:25:11We did a documentary.
02:25:12It's on Netflix
02:25:12called In Ways and War
02:25:13and that's really
02:25:15where the whole thing
02:25:16started from.
02:25:17Everybody got hooked up
02:25:18on there
02:25:18and got a bunch
02:25:19of Green Berets
02:25:20and a bunch of
02:25:21regular military fighter pilots
02:25:22are all in there
02:25:23and we just keep
02:25:24success after success
02:25:25after success
02:25:26and you see it
02:25:26and you're like,
02:25:27why are we not doing this?
02:25:29They've been doing it
02:25:29for thousands of years.
02:25:30Like, why are we not
02:25:31letting this go?
02:25:32And it's often
02:25:33a bunch of spillover stuff
02:25:34from the 50s, 60s, and 70s
02:25:35about psychedelics
02:25:36who are bad
02:25:36and they'll rot your brain
02:25:37and I don't know, man.
02:25:40I, but I know it works
02:25:41and I know that I'm not
02:25:43on a single medication.
02:25:44Nothing.
02:25:46Not a pain pill,
02:25:46not an SSRI,
02:25:47not an Ambien,
02:25:48nothing.
02:25:51Nothing.
02:25:53What do you think happened?
02:25:55It killed everything
02:25:56I had inside me
02:25:57that was bad.
02:25:59All my addictions,
02:26:00everything.
02:26:01So, I'm not addicted
02:26:02to anything.
02:26:03Anything I do now
02:26:04it's because I want to,
02:26:04which isn't necessarily
02:26:06always a good thing
02:26:06because I like to do
02:26:07some bad shit too,
02:26:08but it resets
02:26:10the whole baseline.
02:26:11Like, everything
02:26:11that I was struggling with,
02:26:13it swiped it all the way.
02:26:15That becomes an issue
02:26:16if you try to reintegrate
02:26:17and that's what I tell
02:26:18the guys now.
02:26:20The version of me
02:26:20that came back from Mexico
02:26:21was so far out
02:26:22from the person
02:26:23that my wife
02:26:23had come accustomed to
02:26:24for the last 10 years.
02:26:25She didn't believe it.
02:26:29If you watch the film,
02:26:30you'll get to see it
02:26:30in real time.
02:26:32When I was going
02:26:33through the Ibogaine,
02:26:34my wife hacked my phone
02:26:35and found out
02:26:37about all the affairs
02:26:38simultaneously.
02:26:39So, I don't have
02:26:40my cell phone
02:26:40for five days.
02:26:41So, the whole time
02:26:42I'm going through,
02:26:43she's getting lawyers
02:26:44and divorcing me.
02:26:46Boxed all my stuff,
02:26:48took it to the shop,
02:26:49dropped it off,
02:26:49threw up divorce papers.
02:26:50It's a hell of a reintegration.
02:26:52Cousin.
02:26:53Got an ultrasound photo.
02:26:55She's got it all.
02:26:56She saw everything
02:26:57I had done.
02:26:59Now, action.
02:27:00So, when I come
02:27:01out of the medicine,
02:27:03they give you
02:27:03your cell phone
02:27:03right before you
02:27:04cross the border.
02:27:05They give you
02:27:05a little script
02:27:05to say like,
02:27:06hey, I'm so happy
02:27:08to be on the other
02:27:09side of the medicine.
02:27:10I can't wait
02:27:10to come home
02:27:10and see you
02:27:11and explain everything.
02:27:12It's just too much
02:27:12to put into a text
02:27:13or into a phone call.
02:27:14So, I'd rather
02:27:15just not talk
02:27:15until I see you live.
02:27:16That's what you're
02:27:17supposed to say.
02:27:18So, everybody goes out.
02:27:19They all call their wives.
02:27:20Hey, hey, hey.
02:27:22Straight to voicemail.
02:27:24Well, typical.
02:27:25My wife never answers
02:27:26her phone anyway.
02:27:27Text her.
02:27:28Doesn't go through.
02:27:30Call her.
02:27:30Nothing.
02:27:30Nothing.
02:27:31Nothing.
02:27:31Like, three, four hours.
02:27:32Nothing.
02:27:34I'm getting ready
02:27:35to fly home.
02:27:35We're going from San Diego
02:27:36to Atlanta.
02:27:37Atlanta to Norfolk.
02:27:38We leave.
02:27:39We land in Atlanta.
02:27:41As soon as I put on
02:27:42my phone in Atlanta,
02:27:44I get a notification.
02:27:45The password
02:27:46to your Instagram
02:27:46has been changed.
02:27:50And I flick it over
02:27:51and it's my ghost account.
02:27:52I'm like,
02:27:52call.
02:27:55Now the password
02:27:55to email has been changed.
02:27:56I was like,
02:27:56oh, no.
02:27:59Shit.
02:28:00I'm not even going
02:28:00to have a chance
02:28:01to tell her now.
02:28:02Like, now there's
02:28:03no integration.
02:28:04Now I've lost everything.
02:28:05I went out to Mexico.
02:28:06I've got this new version
02:28:07of myself,
02:28:07but I'll never be able
02:28:08to show it to her.
02:28:09She's not taking me back
02:28:09after this.
02:28:11And then everything
02:28:13kind of went from there.
02:28:15Dicey, dude.
02:28:16Dicey.
02:28:19You want to hear about it?
02:28:23We land in Norfolk.
02:28:24We drive into the shop.
02:28:26I get out.
02:28:27My other two business partners
02:28:28at the time,
02:28:28all their families
02:28:29are out there.
02:28:30All the employees
02:28:31are out there.
02:28:31Hugs and kisses.
02:28:32And I can feel the tension.
02:28:34The other wives know.
02:28:35A couple of the employees
02:28:37they know because
02:28:38they've seen my wife
02:28:38bringing in boxes
02:28:39for the last three days
02:28:40stacked in my office.
02:28:41Still haven't got a hold of her,
02:28:42but I'm still not totally sure.
02:28:44Like, there's a chance
02:28:45that by some freak mystery.
02:28:50And then I get into the building
02:28:51and I walk upstairs
02:28:52and I open up my office
02:28:53and I mean floor to ceiling.
02:28:55There must have been
02:28:5625, 30 boxes.
02:28:58Every one was perfectly folded.
02:29:00Socks, underwear,
02:29:02black t-shirts,
02:29:02normal t-shirts,
02:29:03jeans,
02:29:04this, this,
02:29:05military,
02:29:05everything I owned
02:29:06was in those boxes.
02:29:08I'm like,
02:29:09I looked over
02:29:11and the other two wives
02:29:12are staying out there
02:29:12with my two business partners.
02:29:13I'm like,
02:29:14what's going on?
02:29:14They have no idea.
02:29:16And I just looked at them
02:29:17and I was like,
02:29:18gave him a hug,
02:29:20kissed him on the cheek.
02:29:20I was like,
02:29:20see you on Monday.
02:29:22Fist bump,
02:29:22knowing I was never
02:29:23going to see him on Monday.
02:29:24Went straight downstairs.
02:29:25We've got a big armory.
02:29:27Grabbed my pistol,
02:29:28shoved him on my waistband,
02:29:29jumped in my truck
02:29:30and drove.
02:29:31Got in my car
02:29:31and I was driving out to,
02:29:33it was a private beach
02:29:34on the backside
02:29:34of this military base.
02:29:35We used to have a house.
02:29:36We lived out there.
02:29:38It's a one-shot road
02:29:39and it's probably
02:29:39about a 20-minute drive
02:29:40and I was probably
02:29:4210 minutes into this drive
02:29:43and it terminates.
02:29:44It's a dead end.
02:29:46And she was tracking
02:29:47my cell phone.
02:29:48We had to share my iPhone
02:29:49so she knew
02:29:50where I was going
02:29:50and I got about
02:29:5110 minutes down
02:29:52and she called my phone
02:29:53and,
02:29:54dude,
02:29:55dude,
02:29:55dude,
02:29:55dude,
02:29:55my heart rate
02:29:55is at 190.
02:29:56It's like,
02:29:56I can't pick it up
02:29:58and I almost didn't.
02:30:00It's like,
02:30:01I pick it up
02:30:03and I was like,
02:30:04hello?
02:30:04She goes,
02:30:05where are you
02:30:06and what are you doing?
02:30:07And I said,
02:30:08Patsy,
02:30:08honey,
02:30:09I don't have the strength in me.
02:30:11I don't have the strength
02:30:12to see you right now.
02:30:13And she's like,
02:30:13where are you going?
02:30:14I said,
02:30:15I don't want to talk about it.
02:30:16I'm just so fucking sorry.
02:30:18And I hung up the phone,
02:30:19made it down there
02:30:21and backed into a parking spot
02:30:23and I put on a song
02:30:24and I told myself
02:30:26at the end of the song,
02:30:27as soon as it was done,
02:30:28I was going to get out.
02:30:29I was going to walk down the beach
02:30:30to the water's edge,
02:30:31waste deep water
02:30:31and I was going to shoot myself in the head,
02:30:33close the whole thing out
02:30:33and just be done.
02:30:34No,
02:30:35no goodbye,
02:30:36no sad story,
02:30:37no nothing.
02:30:37Just let me close this thing out
02:30:39and be done.
02:30:40And as soon as I backed in,
02:30:42she had already told
02:30:43two or three of the wives
02:30:44that lived on that road
02:30:45that I was driving down there
02:30:46they had jumped out
02:30:47with their husbands
02:30:48and had flanked me
02:30:49and were staged
02:30:50all around the vehicle
02:30:51because they didn't know
02:30:52what I was going to do.
02:30:54I guess they were going to try
02:30:55to apprehend me
02:30:56or something.
02:30:57What was the song you chose?
02:30:59Experience by Ludovico.
02:31:02You ever heard it?
02:31:04Yeah, you have.
02:31:05Guaranteed.
02:31:05We'll pull it in a little bit.
02:31:09That song had probably,
02:31:12God, man,
02:31:1230 seconds left,
02:31:13maybe.
02:31:14Maybe 30 seconds left.
02:31:16And she called again
02:31:17and I looked up
02:31:18and she was right there
02:31:19driving down the road.
02:31:20It's like,
02:31:21oh, fuck.
02:31:22Sitting on the back of my truck,
02:31:23got a pistol right next to me,
02:31:24just waiting for the song to end.
02:31:26Here we go.
02:31:26She pulls right up,
02:31:27walks over.
02:31:29I've never seen anybody
02:31:30as strong as her,
02:31:31ever.
02:31:32And she walked right up,
02:31:34opened my legs up
02:31:35and walked up,
02:31:35essentially crotch to crotch
02:31:36and leaned over
02:31:37and pulled my sunglasses off
02:31:38and then it exploded
02:31:39in hysteria.
02:31:41My eyes were crystal clear.
02:31:42They were green
02:31:43for the first time
02:31:43in a decade.
02:31:44She saw it.
02:31:45She knew that something
02:31:46had happened
02:31:46and we just laid there
02:31:49or stood there,
02:31:51held each other
02:31:52and just bawled
02:31:52and she backed up
02:31:53and she goes,
02:31:54how the fuck
02:31:54could you do this to me?
02:31:57I don't know.
02:31:59I don't know.
02:32:00I don't have any excuse.
02:32:02I went through the whole thing
02:32:03and I told her,
02:32:04I was like,
02:32:05I know there's no way
02:32:06we're going to work this out.
02:32:07I know there's no way
02:32:08you're ever going to let me
02:32:08see my kids again.
02:32:09I know this,
02:32:10I know this,
02:32:10I know this.
02:32:12I just want an opportunity
02:32:13to say goodbye to them.
02:32:14And she said,
02:32:17DJ,
02:32:17we've come so far right now.
02:32:19Look,
02:32:19we've been through
02:32:20so much together.
02:32:21We've been together
02:32:21since I was 22.
02:32:23We've been through
02:32:24so much right now.
02:32:25We don't have to stay married.
02:32:27You can't close this out right now.
02:32:30We'll solve it tomorrow.
02:32:33Let's go.
02:32:34Get in the car.
02:32:35Let's go home.
02:32:36Let's see the girls.
02:32:38Let's pretend like this
02:32:38hasn't happened
02:32:39and we'll deal with it tomorrow.
02:32:41Let's not ruin this for them.
02:32:42They're excited to see you.
02:32:44Let's just,
02:32:45we'll shelf it.
02:32:45She put all that shit
02:32:46on the back burner.
02:32:49Right after that,
02:32:49she goes,
02:32:50but before we do,
02:32:52I want to hear it.
02:32:53I want to hear everything.
02:32:56Everything what?
02:32:57Every detail.
02:32:58Every ounce of it.
02:32:59Every single person.
02:33:00Every single date.
02:33:01Tell me everything right now.
02:33:02That way I never have
02:33:03to ask you again.
02:33:06And I did.
02:33:07We sat down
02:33:08and we went through
02:33:09everything I had done.
02:33:10All the affairs.
02:33:12Everything.
02:33:13And we got through it right then.
02:33:15We went back home that night,
02:33:16reintegrated with the kids
02:33:17and we sat down
02:33:18on the edge of my bed
02:33:19and I scrolled through my phone
02:33:21and every person
02:33:22who was of conflict
02:33:23or potential conflict.
02:33:25I block and deleted
02:33:25their contact.
02:33:26Everybody.
02:33:27Family members.
02:33:28Anybody.
02:33:28Anybody who had been toxic
02:33:30in my life
02:33:30that I'd been trying
02:33:31to foster that relationship
02:33:32or anything else.
02:33:33They're different
02:33:34than SEAL teams.
02:33:35I need to control
02:33:36the controllables
02:33:36and right now
02:33:38all of this
02:33:38is a bandwidth suck
02:33:39and I'm not doing it
02:33:41ever again.
02:33:41That one guy
02:33:42that every time he calls
02:33:43my heart kind of drops
02:33:44a little bit like,
02:33:44God, what does this guy want?
02:33:45Block and delete.
02:33:46Block and delete.
02:33:47Probably 150 people.
02:33:48Gone.
02:33:49And then I told her,
02:33:50I was like,
02:33:51we don't have to stay married.
02:33:52We can get divorced.
02:33:53We can do whatever we want to.
02:33:54I'm just asking you
02:33:55for one singular day
02:33:57to show you
02:33:58that I've changed
02:33:58and then the day I don't,
02:34:00I want you to shit-hand me.
02:34:02As soon as it happens.
02:34:03We went and signed paperwork,
02:34:04signed a post-nup,
02:34:05all this stuff.
02:34:06I'm like,
02:34:06as soon as I do anything,
02:34:09she's got the house,
02:34:09she's got this,
02:34:10all my assets,
02:34:11giving her,
02:34:12take it all.
02:34:13I don't want a single thing.
02:34:14I just want one day
02:34:14and I take it set,
02:34:15I take it one day at a time,
02:34:17every single day.
02:34:18It's been the greatest thing
02:34:19to ever happen to us.
02:34:20We,
02:34:20our relationship is so badass now.
02:34:24If,
02:34:24if you sit in a room
02:34:25with me and her together,
02:34:27we'll be your two favorite people.
02:34:28She is a fucking unicorn, man.
02:34:31She is.
02:34:32She is truly my best friend now
02:34:33and I feel so guilty
02:34:35because I put her
02:34:35on the back burner for so long
02:34:37because I knew that I could.
02:34:39She never left,
02:34:40never strayed away.
02:34:42She is the ultimate team wife.
02:34:44And I just,
02:34:44I refuse to see it
02:34:45for the longest time.
02:34:47That is the thing
02:34:48that haunts me now.
02:34:48I don't have any PTSD.
02:34:50People are like,
02:34:50oh,
02:34:50thank you for your service.
02:34:51Like,
02:34:51don't thank me for my service.
02:34:52Like,
02:34:52I would have paid to do that job.
02:34:53I'm like,
02:34:54oh,
02:34:54you must be so torn up
02:34:55on the things you had to do.
02:34:56Like,
02:34:57no,
02:34:57no,
02:34:58not a bit.
02:34:58I loved every ounce of it.
02:34:59Even the bad stuff,
02:35:00I loved it.
02:35:01I love the people I sacrificed
02:35:02to be able to do
02:35:03the selfish things
02:35:04I wanted to do.
02:35:05Her,
02:35:06most of all.
02:35:07Hard man.
02:35:08But I'll tell you what,
02:35:09that medicine,
02:35:10that is,
02:35:11that's the only reason.
02:35:12You don't get to navigate
02:35:13through that with marriage counseling
02:35:15and talk therapy
02:35:16and date nights every Tuesday.
02:35:18That ain't gonna get you
02:35:19through that.
02:35:20It's not.
02:35:21And that was our big conflict
02:35:22is I had changed so much
02:35:24over those five days
02:35:24that she thought
02:35:26it was bullshit.
02:35:27She's like,
02:35:27there's no way
02:35:28you went from that guy
02:35:29to this guy
02:35:30in five days.
02:35:32Like,
02:35:32I don't know
02:35:33how else to show you
02:35:35except
02:35:35you gotta go do a journey.
02:35:37I got her to go down
02:35:38and do psilocybin
02:35:40and 5-MeO-DMT.
02:35:41Why the,
02:35:43why not the ibogaine?
02:35:45She thought ibogaine
02:35:46would be too strong for her.
02:35:47I'm gonna get her
02:35:48to go do ibogaine with me.
02:35:49We're gonna do
02:35:50a couple's journey together
02:35:51at some point.
02:35:51But I got her to do
02:35:52essentially the same people.
02:35:56Psilocybin,
02:35:575-MeO,
02:35:57and then we did it
02:35:58one together
02:35:58with psilocybin,
02:35:59MDMA,
02:36:00and 5-MeO.
02:36:01By the time
02:36:02we finished those,
02:36:04she knew exactly what it was.
02:36:05She's like,
02:36:05he's changed.
02:36:06For sure.
02:36:07She's like,
02:36:07you can't.
02:36:08Like,
02:36:09I just did psilocybin
02:36:10and she is so different
02:36:11from the person she was
02:36:12that everything
02:36:14made sense now.
02:36:15Why are you continuing
02:36:16to go back
02:36:16to do more ibogaine
02:36:17if you think
02:36:18that you've already
02:36:18made the realizations
02:36:20that you needed?
02:36:22The second time
02:36:23I went down there
02:36:24is because I was
02:36:25taking somebody else.
02:36:26One of my buddies
02:36:26really on a struggle bus
02:36:28about to end it all.
02:36:29And I was like,
02:36:30hey man,
02:36:31I'll go with you.
02:36:32I had no intention
02:36:33of doing the medicine
02:36:34with him.
02:36:34And when I got down
02:36:35and he's like,
02:36:35what do you mean
02:36:36you're not gonna do it?
02:36:37I'll do it.
02:36:38Give it to me.
02:36:38I threw it right down.
02:36:39No prep,
02:36:40no warm up,
02:36:40and just sent it.
02:36:42I was like,
02:36:42hey man,
02:36:43I told you,
02:36:43like,
02:36:43there's nothing
02:36:44to be afraid of.
02:36:45You cold barred ibogaine.
02:36:46Send it.
02:36:47I've gone down there
02:36:48two or three times
02:36:49to host,
02:36:50like,
02:36:52and then this last time
02:36:54we did it for the film,
02:36:55I had a buddy of mine
02:36:56who got shot up really bad
02:36:57on my second deployment.
02:36:58He was like an idol to me.
02:36:59And he was just struggling
02:37:00really, really hard, man.
02:37:02And I convinced him
02:37:03to go down there
02:37:03and I told him,
02:37:04I was like,
02:37:04I'll stop whatever I am doing.
02:37:06It's in the film.
02:37:07And I was like,
02:37:07anything.
02:37:08I don't care what I'm doing.
02:37:09If I'm on this fucking Rogan
02:37:10and you call me,
02:37:11I'll get up in the middle
02:37:12of the interview,
02:37:12I'll fly to San Diego
02:37:13and we'll go together.
02:37:14And he did.
02:37:15I couldn't believe he did.
02:37:16He called me.
02:37:17He goes,
02:37:18whenever you're ready,
02:37:18I'm ready to go.
02:37:21How's Saturday?
02:37:22And he's like,
02:37:23if you'll fly out here,
02:37:24I'll go.
02:37:24I was on a plane 24 hours.
02:37:26I flew out there,
02:37:27took him down to Mexico,
02:37:28did the whole thing.
02:37:29It's funny,
02:37:30you're on a hair trigger alert
02:37:31to go and kill people
02:37:32around the world
02:37:32for quite a while
02:37:33and you're on a hair trigger alert
02:37:34to go and save people
02:37:34and I began now.
02:37:35Amen.
02:37:36Like I get so much more benefit
02:37:38out of saving people
02:37:39through mental health
02:37:40than I ever did killing people
02:37:41and I love killing people.
02:37:43Best job you'll ever have.
02:37:44But now,
02:37:45you know,
02:37:46he got through
02:37:46that whole experience
02:37:47and then we made it
02:37:48probably another year and a half
02:37:49and he was ready to go again
02:37:51and it's the same thing.
02:37:52He's like,
02:37:53I don't know if I could do it again.
02:37:55I'll send it.
02:37:56It's all right.
02:37:57We went down again.
02:37:58I flew out to San Diego
02:38:00and I cold called him
02:38:01and I was like,
02:38:01hey man,
02:38:02do you remember when you said
02:38:03you needed me to go to Mexico with you?
02:38:05He's like,
02:38:05yeah.
02:38:06I'm in San Diego.
02:38:07The bus leaves from Mexico
02:38:08in 30 minutes.
02:38:10Don't let me down.
02:38:11He did.
02:38:12His girlfriend dropped him off,
02:38:13gave him to me,
02:38:13nothing but a backpack,
02:38:14we went down to Mexico
02:38:15and he's never been better.
02:38:19I don't know, man,
02:38:20but I do know that
02:38:21it's magic.
02:38:24When you take that medicine,
02:38:25you cannot believe
02:38:26it grows in the earth.
02:38:28You can't believe it.
02:38:30I can't believe that people
02:38:31have been using that
02:38:32for thousands of years
02:38:32and it has not been
02:38:33more mainstream.
02:38:35You can't quantify it.
02:38:37There's nothing on this planet.
02:38:38I've taken every drug there is.
02:38:39Everything.
02:38:39I've taken a bunch of weird stuff too
02:38:40during the transition.
02:38:42There's nothing like that.
02:38:44Every ounce of your addiction
02:38:45is gone instantly.
02:38:47It's crazy.
02:38:48What about for people
02:38:49who don't have addictions?
02:38:50Everybody has addictions.
02:38:52Sometimes it's your own ego.
02:38:54Whatever you have going on,
02:38:55depression,
02:38:56suicide ideation,
02:38:57substance abuse,
02:38:58women,
02:38:59whatever it is,
02:39:00whatever your thing is,
02:39:01you just don't feel right anymore.
02:39:04I'd go do that.
02:39:05What's the case
02:39:06for not doing it?
02:39:08If you're not healthy
02:39:09enough to do it,
02:39:10you got some pre-existing
02:39:11heart condition,
02:39:11you weigh 500 pounds,
02:39:13can't go do it
02:39:13because it drops your heart rate
02:39:14really, really low.
02:39:15I got a low heart rate
02:39:16at any rate,
02:39:17like in the low 40s
02:39:18and mine drops in the
02:39:19high 30s.
02:39:22I mean, it drops a lot.
02:39:24But man, I'm telling you.
02:39:26How many people come out
02:39:27and have had
02:39:28an experience
02:39:30experience that's so difficult
02:39:30that they're not themselves
02:39:31anymore in a bad way?
02:39:32Because I've heard
02:39:33about this psychic fracturing
02:39:35where people take LSD
02:39:37or psilocybin,
02:39:38even THC can do this
02:39:39for some people.
02:39:43I've never seen that happen
02:39:45unless people reintegrate
02:39:47back into the same
02:39:47toxic situation.
02:39:49So that's what I really
02:39:50try to encourage guys now.
02:39:51Like, if you think
02:39:52you can go down
02:39:52and take these four pills
02:39:53of Ibogaine
02:39:54and smoke around a DMT
02:39:55and go back
02:39:56to that same toxic marriage
02:39:57and go back to drinking
02:39:57a 12-pack a day
02:39:58and it's going to iron out,
02:39:59it won't.
02:40:00So that's what a lot
02:40:00of guys don't realize
02:40:01is you get a lot of guys
02:40:03come back from there
02:40:03and they get divorced.
02:40:05They realize, like,
02:40:05I've been married
02:40:06to this toxic chick
02:40:07who hasn't been my partner
02:40:08for 20 years.
02:40:10They get back to it
02:40:10and they're like,
02:40:11it has been you.
02:40:13I've been married
02:40:14with this whole time
02:40:14not because of me
02:40:15but because of you.
02:40:16And they get divorced
02:40:17and they flourish
02:40:17or they come back
02:40:18and they realize
02:40:19that their addictions
02:40:20got there,
02:40:21alcohol got there.
02:40:22Most of the guys
02:40:22quit drinking completely.
02:40:24Like, Rob quit
02:40:25drinking completely.
02:40:26Like, I was a professional
02:40:27alcoholic for a long time
02:40:28and it doesn't serve you.
02:40:30It's not a superfood.
02:40:31It's not going to make you better.
02:40:31I'm about social drinking.
02:40:33Like, I enjoy consuming alcohol.
02:40:35I just don't do it right now
02:40:35for a variety
02:40:37of different reasons.
02:40:39But if you do the work,
02:40:40especially the work
02:40:42going up to it,
02:40:42talking with the therapist,
02:40:44really getting your mind right,
02:40:45really, really thinking
02:40:46about your intention
02:40:47of what you're trying
02:40:48to get accomplished
02:40:48and really lean in heavy.
02:40:50Like, no different
02:40:50than going to a yoga retreat.
02:40:51Like, really, really live it.
02:40:53Like, be a method actor.
02:40:54Like, if Daniel Day-Lewis
02:40:55was going to take Ibogaine,
02:40:56live it like that.
02:40:58The benefit
02:40:59far outweighs the risk.
02:41:01It just does.
02:41:02I could not imagine
02:41:02not having it.
02:41:04I couldn't imagine.
02:41:06You got to go.
02:41:07I'll go with you.
02:41:07Fuck you, dude.
02:41:09You, me, Huberman?
02:41:10Come on, baby.
02:41:11I told him the same thing.
02:41:12I was like,
02:41:12you want to go down there?
02:41:14I'll snap my fingers.
02:41:14I'll get you down there.
02:41:15I've been talking to him.
02:41:16I mean, he, uh,
02:41:18he knows he's been-
02:41:19Conor McGregor just went.
02:41:21That is a really interesting one.
02:41:23So, I knew,
02:41:25I knew first hand,
02:41:26second hand,
02:41:28third hand,
02:41:28that Conor had gone.
02:41:29Um, and then I had it
02:41:33in the back of my mind.
02:41:34It was like,
02:41:35hmm,
02:41:35I heard that the way
02:41:38that he was convinced
02:41:39to get across there
02:41:40wasn't that he was going
02:41:41to go and do Ibogaine.
02:41:43I also heard that he didn't
02:41:44have a particularly good
02:41:45washout period
02:41:45in advance of it.
02:41:47Uh, now,
02:41:49what was interesting was
02:41:51that video,
02:41:53a bunch of videos
02:41:54that were on Twitter
02:41:55went pretty viral
02:41:56of Conor coming back.
02:41:58I have been saved.
02:42:00The Lord has spoken to me
02:42:01and da-da-da-da-da.
02:42:03And I was like,
02:42:04that's my Ibogaine talking.
02:42:07Everybody's like that
02:42:08when they get back.
02:42:08Everybody wants to become
02:42:10a psychic healer.
02:42:11Like, they want to do
02:42:11all this weird,
02:42:12they just do.
02:42:13I'll be honest,
02:42:1550% of the people
02:42:16that leave Ibogaine,
02:42:18they get their coaching license
02:42:19to integrate people
02:42:21either pre-integration
02:42:23or post-integration.
02:42:23Well, you've done it.
02:42:24I mean, you're front end
02:42:26of the funnel for it now, right?
02:42:27Yeah, I mean,
02:42:27I didn't go to any,
02:42:28I don't want to go down
02:42:29the rabbit hole
02:42:30with the whole thing.
02:42:30I don't want to do
02:42:31the whole coaching thing,
02:42:32but I mean,
02:42:32I've coached dozens of people
02:42:34to go down there now.
02:42:34Yep.
02:42:36Because I know it works.
02:42:38I mean, I've tried everything.
02:42:39I've done still eight
02:42:40ganglion blocks,
02:42:40I mean, 14-inch needles.
02:42:41I've done two SGBs.
02:42:44I've done everything, dude.
02:42:45I've done everything,
02:42:46that you could possibly do.
02:42:47SGB's fucking gnarly.
02:42:48Yeah, right.
02:42:49It's funny.
02:42:50That's better.
02:42:51That one actually worked.
02:42:53Still, the ganglion block
02:42:54didn't do anything for me
02:42:55except give me a droopy eye
02:42:56for eight hours.
02:42:56It is kind of funny.
02:42:58The droopy eye is funny.
02:42:59Yeah.
02:43:00Do you get both sides?
02:43:01Do you do one after the other
02:43:02or do you just get one?
02:43:04You would have done it
02:43:05on separate days.
02:43:06You wouldn't have done them together.
02:43:07I did three total.
02:43:08You must have got both sides.
02:43:10There's no way
02:43:10that they would have done
02:43:11three on the same side.
02:43:11No, they didn't just
02:43:12three on the same side.
02:43:13I didn't feel much benefit,
02:43:16but I was also
02:43:17heavy doped up then too.
02:43:19That might have managed
02:43:20to counteract it a little bit.
02:43:21Yeah.
02:43:22There's an interesting one
02:43:23for me with the
02:43:24one thing that I wish
02:43:25that I hadn't done.
02:43:26I was using laughing gas.
02:43:28I was using Nox
02:43:28while it was happening.
02:43:30And I wish that I hadn't
02:43:31because I wish I was able
02:43:32to feel the onset more.
02:43:36That transition
02:43:37I think would have been interesting.
02:43:39But you're not able
02:43:41to think about much
02:43:41when you're like
02:43:42sucking on a hookah
02:43:45that's filled with fucking Nox.
02:43:48Do you remember
02:43:49the needle going in?
02:43:50Yeah.
02:43:51The pop?
02:43:51Yeah.
02:43:53Dicey.
02:43:54That'll wake you up.
02:43:54Dicey.
02:43:55When he came in
02:43:56and he broke that needle out
02:43:57and showed it to me,
02:43:57I was like,
02:43:58you're going to shove that
02:43:59through my throat?
02:43:59And he's like,
02:43:59oh yeah,
02:44:00it's when I get it up
02:44:00on the TV screen.
02:44:01Yeah.
02:44:02Yeah, you can watch it.
02:44:03I was turned face
02:44:04to the ultrasound
02:44:05watching homeboy
02:44:06slotted in between
02:44:07two vertebrae.
02:44:09Yeah.
02:44:09Yeah, it's fun.
02:44:11One thing that I did get
02:44:12from that which was interesting,
02:44:14my HIV went up
02:44:15by about 40% overnight
02:44:17and it held for months.
02:44:19Wow.
02:44:19That was pretty interesting.
02:44:20I may also explain
02:44:22just how tuned up
02:44:23some bits of my nervous system were.
02:44:27It's interesting.
02:44:28It's interesting, man.
02:44:29I'm in Austin,
02:44:31which is kind of
02:44:32the home of the
02:44:33psychedelic spiritual tourist.
02:44:37And it's given me
02:44:38an interesting
02:44:39relationship, I think,
02:44:43to using psychedelics
02:44:47for healing.
02:44:49In some ways,
02:44:49it has made it more normalized,
02:44:51but in other ways,
02:44:52it's made it feel
02:44:53a little bit more
02:44:53like a fashion accessory.
02:44:55And to anyone else
02:44:57that's ever been
02:44:58in a communal sauna
02:44:59here in Austin,
02:44:59they know exactly
02:45:00what I'm talking about.
02:45:01I'm talking about
02:45:02the fucking ancestral trauma
02:45:05that they felt
02:45:06through their animus.
02:45:07I'm like,
02:45:07ah.
02:45:09I saw you in here
02:45:10two months ago
02:45:11and you're the same
02:45:12asshole that you were
02:45:13from back then.
02:45:14Yeah.
02:45:15And that's the integration side,
02:45:17but I don't think
02:45:17I've ever heard anybody
02:45:18talking about Ibogaine.
02:45:19There may be a dose
02:45:22or a compound
02:45:24or a plant
02:45:24that you can take
02:45:25which is inescapable
02:45:28from an integration perspective.
02:45:33But what made me think
02:45:34about the SGB
02:45:35was the integration window
02:45:36that you have
02:45:37for the SGB
02:45:37is real important, right?
02:45:38Six weeks after that,
02:45:40within six weeks after that,
02:45:41that's sort of re-imprinting.
02:45:46Yeah.
02:45:48It's interesting to me
02:45:50to think about
02:45:50this sort of stuff,
02:45:51especially as someone
02:45:52who cares an awful lot
02:45:53about mental health,
02:45:54who thinks about it a lot,
02:45:55who is a proponent
02:45:56of people going
02:45:57and doing therapy,
02:45:58of doing CBT or ACT,
02:46:00of people doing talk therapy
02:46:02and getting in touch
02:46:04with their emotions.
02:46:05I wonder whether part of it is,
02:46:07almost certainly part of it
02:46:08is fear.
02:46:09Like, fuck,
02:46:10like that sounds scary.
02:46:11That sounds really scary.
02:46:13What if something bad happens?
02:46:15Which is exactly
02:46:15what you're going
02:46:16to try and work through,
02:46:17which is the ambient fear
02:46:18of what if something bad happens,
02:46:20which is exactly how you're existing
02:46:21through the rest of your life.
02:46:24No balls,
02:46:27no blue chips.
02:46:28Anything worth doing,
02:46:29it's got to have
02:46:29a risk component to it.
02:46:30It's not worth doing at all.
02:46:32I mean,
02:46:32what are you afraid of?
02:46:33You're going to
02:46:33keep being the same
02:46:35depressed version of you
02:46:36that has been
02:46:37for the last decade?
02:46:39I mean,
02:46:40you've got to be willing
02:46:40to make a change.
02:46:41And that's what
02:46:42a lot of people won't do.
02:46:42They won't drop their ego.
02:46:44They go to the medicine,
02:46:45they come back,
02:46:45and they're like,
02:46:46there's nothing wrong with me.
02:46:47Like,
02:46:48I can drink.
02:46:49I can drink.
02:46:49I'm totally in control.
02:46:50Like,
02:46:51you probably shouldn't know.
02:46:52He's like,
02:46:53I'm only going to have
02:46:54two or three.
02:46:54Every now and then.
02:46:56Two to three turns to six
02:46:56really,
02:46:57really fast.
02:46:57Ask me how I know.
02:46:58Don't do it.
02:47:00If you're not really,
02:47:01really going to lean in hard,
02:47:02don't waste your time.
02:47:03Don't take up somebody's slot.
02:47:04It already costs a lot of money.
02:47:05There's thousands of veterans
02:47:06and first responders
02:47:07that are on a list
02:47:08to try to go down there
02:47:08right now.
02:47:09And you,
02:47:10because you have
02:47:10an Amex card
02:47:12are going to jump the line
02:47:12and you're not going
02:47:13to take it serious
02:47:13and you're going to give
02:47:14Ibogaine a bad name.
02:47:16Don't.
02:47:16If you really want to do it,
02:47:17do it like a fucking professional
02:47:19and go the whole way.
02:47:20Like,
02:47:21really,
02:47:21really do it.
02:47:22I've never seen anybody
02:47:23who is really focused on
02:47:25all the,
02:47:26all the training
02:47:28going up into it
02:47:29and really focused on
02:47:30the post-treatment integration
02:47:32who hasn't had
02:47:33a phenomenal outcome.
02:47:34What's the percentage of success
02:47:37and what's the amount of change?
02:47:39Ooh,
02:47:40um,
02:47:41they have the numbers for sure.
02:47:43I would say
02:47:43depression is,
02:47:48God,
02:47:49you probably pulled up
02:47:50on chat GBT.
02:47:50I'd say,
02:47:51um,
02:47:51I'd say as far as depression,
02:47:53PTSD symptoms,
02:47:54they're reduced by 80
02:47:56or 90% instantly.
02:47:57Like people,
02:47:58they,
02:47:58they can't even get out of bed.
02:48:00They,
02:48:00they couldn't even sit in this room
02:48:02because they're sitting behind him.
02:48:03I mean,
02:48:03just so hypervent,
02:48:04you can't even be around him.
02:48:06That to baseline normal,
02:48:08you'd never even tell who they are.
02:48:09Never tell.
02:48:10I mean,
02:48:11guys who,
02:48:12they break out in hysteria
02:48:14just crying all day.
02:48:16They don't know why.
02:48:17They won't tell you why.
02:48:18Baseline normal,
02:48:1912 hours.
02:48:21How long does it feel?
02:48:23It feels,
02:48:25I mean,
02:48:25how,
02:48:26how long does the high last?
02:48:27Like when you're done?
02:48:27The trip.
02:48:29Um,
02:48:30depending on how you are,
02:48:30your body weight,
02:48:3112 to 18 hours,
02:48:33some guys go longer.
02:48:34What's the felt sense of that?
02:48:36Many years?
02:48:36Or does it feel like you're there for 16 hours?
02:48:39It,
02:48:39you lose track of time pretty quick.
02:48:41For me,
02:48:41it feels like it's by quick,
02:48:43but it also feels like you've been here for a lifetime.
02:48:45Oh.
02:48:47But man,
02:48:48like you can stand up,
02:48:49like you know where you are,
02:48:50but here's the interesting thing.
02:48:51And everybody who's going down there will probably tell you the same thing.
02:48:53You wear eye shades.
02:48:55You can sit up,
02:48:56lift up the eye shades,
02:48:57look around the room,
02:48:58know that's you,
02:48:59know that's him.
02:48:59I can see the nurse,
02:49:00I can wave like,
02:49:01hey,
02:49:01I need to take a piss.
02:49:02They'll unplug your leads.
02:49:03You're hooked to an EKG machine,
02:49:04all this stuff.
02:49:05They'll hope you go to the bathroom.
02:49:08And then you can go back in,
02:49:09so to speak.
02:49:10So you can,
02:49:11there's a little bit of a pause.
02:49:12Well,
02:49:12some guys will have an experience during her trying to take a piss.
02:49:15And now they're like swirling around,
02:49:16they're screaming,
02:49:17like they're in the thing.
02:49:19But the weirdest thing is guys will talk about it.
02:49:22You'll,
02:49:23you'll be sitting there and all of a sudden you'll hear your neighbor.
02:49:25He'll say something,
02:49:26you'll look over at him and you're like,
02:49:27what?
02:49:28You'll have a full conversation.
02:49:30And then you realize you have the eye shades on.
02:49:33You look up,
02:49:34but you can see him,
02:49:35you lift him up and he is in the position.
02:49:37You can see what the eye shades and you'll watch everybody do this.
02:49:41You'll lift him back up.
02:49:42I can see right through.
02:49:45I swear to God,
02:49:45you can have a full conversation.
02:49:47That guy will wake up and he's like,
02:49:48what are you saying?
02:49:49I don't know.
02:49:52Put the eye shades back on.
02:49:53You're like,
02:49:53God,
02:49:54where are they on?
02:49:54Where are they off?
02:49:54Like you can't tell.
02:49:55You can see right through them.
02:49:56It's the difference between a boga and ibogaine.
02:49:58A boga is the root plant it comes from.
02:50:00It's essentially the same thing.
02:50:01I don't know if it's the chemical makeup or whatever,
02:50:04but it's the root of the boga plant.
02:50:06And it's two capsules.
02:50:09If you want to take a boost,
02:50:10you can take two or three.
02:50:11Right.
02:50:12But it's,
02:50:12it's just literally.
02:50:14Two pills.
02:50:15You go in,
02:50:15you take them like 15 minutes.
02:50:17You burn your little paper.
02:50:18By the time you walk upstairs,
02:50:19you're like,
02:50:19man,
02:50:21I don't feel anything.
02:50:22And then,
02:50:22and you watch everybody do this.
02:50:25Okay.
02:50:26Better sit down.
02:50:27They'll give you like a maraca.
02:50:28You start banging this thing.
02:50:29You're staring in a mirror
02:50:30and you can watch your whole face start to move around.
02:50:33Typically staring in a mirror is bad advice
02:50:35when you're on psychedelics.
02:50:36You think it would be,
02:50:37but that's how you reconnect with yourself.
02:50:39That's how you know the experience is happening.
02:50:40But you'll see everybody.
02:50:41They're sitting there beating this maraca
02:50:43and they'll come by and like,
02:50:44you feel anything yet?
02:50:44And you're like,
02:50:45I'm not sure.
02:50:46And you're like,
02:50:46you've been here for an hour and a half.
02:50:48You're definitely.
02:50:49I better lay down.
02:50:50You better lay down.
02:50:51You put the eye shades on.
02:50:52You lay down.
02:50:52Funny.
02:50:53But for me,
02:50:53I don't move.
02:50:54Most guys purge quite a bit.
02:50:56I had a guy just went down.
02:50:58He threw up so hard,
02:50:59he threw his back out.
02:51:00Like couldn't walk.
02:51:03They're not throwing anything up though.
02:51:04It's all their trauma.
02:51:05But anybody in that room,
02:51:07they'll give you,
02:51:08it's like a big bronze bowl
02:51:10and you'll throw up
02:51:11and you'll hear them.
02:51:13Oh, ting.
02:51:15You'll hear it bounce.
02:51:18There's nothing in there.
02:51:19All the practitioners will tell you about it.
02:51:21He's like,
02:51:21that's your trauma hitting the bowl.
02:51:24It feels like you're throwing up
02:51:25buckets of vomit.
02:51:26There's nothing in there.
02:51:27You've been fasting the entire day.
02:51:29There's nothing in your system.
02:51:30You're not throwing up at all.
02:51:31That's all your trauma.
02:51:32Wow.
02:51:32Purging it over and over.
02:51:34Same thing with five and meal.
02:51:35You get them just purging this bucket.
02:51:37Nothing's coming out,
02:51:38but it feels like it is.
02:51:39Like you feel like I'm filling up
02:51:40this five gallon bucket.
02:51:41Like you better dump it.
02:51:42What's the relationship
02:51:43between the Ibogaine
02:51:44and the 5-MeO?
02:51:4624 hours of separation.
02:51:47I don't know
02:51:48if they have any correlation.
02:51:49They've just paired
02:51:50these two together
02:51:50with this one particular clinic.
02:51:53It's amazing.
02:51:54What's this?
02:51:55You mentioned,
02:51:56if I'd just done the first one,
02:51:57the second one,
02:51:57what is it that the 5-MeO does
02:52:00that you didn't get
02:52:01from the Ibogaine?
02:52:02Think about everything
02:52:04you've compressed,
02:52:05everything you've compacted down,
02:52:06your trauma.
02:52:07You just buried it way down deep.
02:52:08Like stuff that happened
02:52:09to you in five or six
02:52:10so you don't even remember
02:52:11you've buried.
02:52:12And Ibogaine,
02:52:13it all comes to the surface.
02:52:14It gives you
02:52:15a photographic memory
02:52:17from the past.
02:52:18Like you relive it all.
02:52:20Like it's on the forefront
02:52:21of things you never thought
02:52:22you'd remember.
02:52:22You relive them
02:52:24right then,
02:52:24right there.
02:52:25And now it's flipped.
02:52:26So all the present trauma
02:52:27is now at the bottom.
02:52:28All the stuff in the past
02:52:29is up top
02:52:29and now you can't get away
02:52:30from it.
02:52:31I would just go home
02:52:32with that.
02:52:33I don't want to go home
02:52:34with that.
02:52:35The 5-MeO
02:52:36would let you strip
02:52:36it all away.
02:52:37So when you smoke that,
02:52:38it empties your cup.
02:52:40It dumps it all
02:52:40in one shot.
02:52:41It's like,
02:52:42you feel 15 pounds lighter,
02:52:43you wake up next morning
02:52:44and you're like,
02:52:46I feel amazing.
02:52:47I'm not on any drugs.
02:52:48I'm stone cold sober.
02:52:49I got no nicotine,
02:52:50no caffeine,
02:52:51no drugs,
02:52:51no alcohol.
02:52:52I've never felt better
02:52:53in my entire life.
02:52:55Even though my life
02:52:56is in chaos.
02:52:56I feel like that mean,
02:52:57everything's just on fire.
02:53:00I'm fine.
02:53:00I'm fine.
02:53:01I'm good.
02:53:02Yeah, man.
02:53:03It's great.
02:53:04It is so wild, dude.
02:53:05It is.
02:53:07I'm really happy for you, man.
02:53:08I'm really, really happy
02:53:09that you found something
02:53:10that's a new mission
02:53:11as well.
02:53:12Not only something
02:53:13that seems to have
02:53:14improved your life,
02:53:15but that you've been able
02:53:16to dedicate yourself
02:53:16to making other people's
02:53:17lives better as well.
02:53:18That's great.
02:53:19I just came back
02:53:20from Moody Air Force Base
02:53:21down in Georgia
02:53:21talking to those guys,
02:53:22the whole base,
02:53:23talked about mental health
02:53:24and all those guys.
02:53:25And it's cool
02:53:26because they expect you
02:53:27to be a certain thing.
02:53:28And when you get out there
02:53:29and you're like,
02:53:29we're just going to talk
02:53:30about mental health.
02:53:31Like,
02:53:31nobody wants to talk about it.
02:53:34Same thing
02:53:34when you're in teams.
02:53:35Like, I asked them all,
02:53:36how many guys in this room
02:53:37have ever struggled
02:53:38with mental health?
02:53:39It's over 1,000 people
02:53:40in the audience.
02:53:41Nobody raised their hand.
02:53:42Yep.
02:53:43I'm used to this.
02:53:44I was the only Navy SEAL
02:53:44with PTSD or trauma
02:53:46or depression or anything.
02:53:47So this will go over well.
02:53:49But we talk.
02:53:50But I mean,
02:53:51the amount of DMs
02:53:52I've gotten,
02:53:53even from the Sean Ryan thing
02:53:54and now all the other ones,
02:53:56it's only mental health.
02:53:57And it's some
02:53:58of the craziest stories.
02:54:01But I'm glad
02:54:02because when I was
02:54:02on my island alone,
02:54:03when I was in that guest room
02:54:05with that trash bag
02:54:05and that pistol
02:54:06about to do that thing,
02:54:08no one came for me.
02:54:09No one ever said me too.
02:54:10No one ever stood up.
02:54:12Got in front of the microphone
02:54:14with the bright lights on
02:54:14and said,
02:54:15it's okay not to be okay.
02:54:17No one ever said it to me.
02:54:18And we talked about everything.
02:54:20Not that.
02:54:22We talked and done
02:54:24everything together
02:54:25except talk about that shit.
02:54:27And I wish we would have.
02:54:28It would have made us
02:54:28so much better.
02:54:30Would have made us
02:54:30truly a dynasty.
02:54:34I just,
02:54:34I want everybody else
02:54:35to be better than me.
02:54:36I want you to understand
02:54:37that it is perfectly normal
02:54:38and that is part
02:54:39of the game you play.
02:54:40If you're in the military,
02:54:41you're a first responder
02:54:42and those are the guys
02:54:43I really get to see
02:54:43the most now.
02:54:44I mean,
02:54:45GBRs would probably train
02:54:461,500 to 2,000 cops
02:54:48a year.
02:54:49But I do speaking engagements
02:54:50for firemen.
02:54:51The stuff those guys
02:54:52deal with day to day.
02:54:56I feel guilty.
02:54:58Inside the military.
02:54:59I always love firemen.
02:55:01I always love cops.
02:55:02I love people of service.
02:55:03I love doctors.
02:55:04I love nurses.
02:55:04I love all those.
02:55:06I never knew
02:55:07what they dealt with.
02:55:08Not cops.
02:55:09Especially not firemen.
02:55:10Thank you for your service.
02:55:11I appreciate you guys.
02:55:12If anything happens,
02:55:13I'll call 911.
02:55:13I never thought about
02:55:15the horrible things
02:55:17they would see
02:55:17and then they're
02:55:18going to be home
02:55:19within 25 minutes.
02:55:22Firemen
02:55:22fishing kids out of a bathtub
02:55:24because the mom
02:55:25ran out of her pain meds
02:55:27and drowned all the kids
02:55:28in the bathtub.
02:55:2945 minutes later,
02:55:30he's giving his own
02:55:30daughter a bath.
02:55:32Compartmentalizing that,
02:55:33not telling his wife,
02:55:34not talking about it
02:55:34with anybody.
02:55:35The boys at the station
02:55:36ain't talking about it.
02:55:37They just,
02:55:37same thing we did.
02:55:39That's when I go
02:55:39and I reintegrate
02:55:40with those guys.
02:55:41This is your super team.
02:55:43This is your dynasty.
02:55:44You could potentially
02:55:44be in the same department
02:55:45for 20 years.
02:55:47Why are you not
02:55:48having open dialogue
02:55:49conversations?
02:55:50Why am I not able
02:55:51to tell you
02:55:51every one of my
02:55:52deepest, darkest secrets?
02:55:54You're not leaving tomorrow.
02:55:55It's just us.
02:55:56It'll make you a super team.
02:55:58You could build
02:55:59a dynasty right here,
02:56:00but you got to do it
02:56:00through open communication.
02:56:01You have to be able
02:56:02to say the shit
02:56:02nobody else is going to say.
02:56:03And it only takes money.
02:56:05That's why I push
02:56:05those 20 minute walks.
02:56:07I push the routine.
02:56:07I push mental health,
02:56:08the importance of it.
02:56:09And say it.
02:56:11It's totally normal.
02:56:12This is part of the game.
02:56:12You can't run into
02:56:13burning buildings
02:56:14for 20 years
02:56:14and not be scarred
02:56:15by something.
02:56:16Can't do it.
02:56:17Can't walk around
02:56:18with a gun on your hip,
02:56:19arresting bad guys
02:56:20and seeing the terrible
02:56:21things that people do
02:56:22and it not affect you.
02:56:23It's supposed to.
02:56:24For you to think
02:56:25that you're just going
02:56:26to override that
02:56:27because you're such
02:56:27an alpha male,
02:56:28that's not going to work, dude.
02:56:30Ask me how I know.
02:56:32Like, I thought
02:56:33I could override anything.
02:56:34Patient zero.
02:56:35Patient zero.
02:56:36I've seen some
02:56:36terrible things, dude.
02:56:38And I've buried them down.
02:56:38It's interesting to me
02:56:39that when you're going
02:56:40through a journey
02:56:41on plant medicine,
02:56:43the classic
02:56:45sort of overachiever,
02:56:46I will be able
02:56:47to hold this down
02:56:48mentality.
02:56:49Andy was talking
02:56:50about this
02:56:50when he came through.
02:56:51He was saying
02:56:51he'd created an identity
02:56:54of never being
02:56:56the guy who quit.
02:56:57I don't quit.
02:56:59That's not what I do.
02:57:00And that caused him
02:57:01to stay in a marriage
02:57:02for like a decade.
02:57:03that he shouldn't
02:57:04have done.
02:57:05But it's interesting
02:57:05that when you get
02:57:06to a situation
02:57:07like you're in Ibogaine,
02:57:09that pattern
02:57:11that you've spent
02:57:13an entire career
02:57:13and a life
02:57:14putting together,
02:57:15which is
02:57:16that clenching,
02:57:18that tightness,
02:57:19that didn't come in
02:57:23or it wasn't able
02:57:25to hold on.
02:57:27I tell the guys
02:57:28now,
02:57:28that's why I recommend
02:57:29Ibogaine for
02:57:30the alpha and all types,
02:57:33the guys with a super
02:57:33strong ego
02:57:34because I've tried
02:57:35them all.
02:57:36That's the only thing
02:57:37stronger than the ego.
02:57:39So you can usually
02:57:40try to wrangle it
02:57:41when using something else?
02:57:42Yeah.
02:57:42I mean,
02:57:43I can power through
02:57:43anything else.
02:57:45MDMA,
02:57:46weed,
02:57:46whatever,
02:57:47ketamine,
02:57:47I can power through
02:57:48all that.
02:57:49Not that.
02:57:51You are not going
02:57:51to be able to power
02:57:52through that.
02:57:53You just can't.
02:57:54Like whatever it's
02:57:54going to show you,
02:57:55it's going to show
02:57:55you can't steer,
02:57:56you can't navigate,
02:57:57you can't go,
02:57:58okay, cool,
02:57:58I'm going to sit
02:57:59in this black box
02:58:00and I'm going to
02:58:01think about nothing
02:58:01for 18 hours.
02:58:02Can't do it.
02:58:04You can't think
02:58:05about the things
02:58:05you want to think of.
02:58:06I tried to put myself
02:58:07in a black helicopter
02:58:08with all my friends
02:58:09and tried to relive
02:58:10all this stuff
02:58:11and see dead friends.
02:58:12Zero.
02:58:14Zero.
02:58:14That's all I wanted
02:58:15to see because I thought
02:58:16that is where
02:58:17my trauma lies.
02:58:18I was like,
02:58:19well,
02:58:19clearly,
02:58:19it was my love
02:58:21of the job.
02:58:22It was because I was
02:58:22so professional
02:58:23and I was such a patriot
02:58:24and now the loss of that,
02:58:26that's why it's caused
02:58:27all this.
02:58:28Nope.
02:58:29Not a bit.
02:58:31Nothing was traumatic
02:58:32about my service.
02:58:32Nothing.
02:58:33I think the majority
02:58:34of the guys,
02:58:35it's not the service,
02:58:36it's the fact you left it.
02:58:39You lost your number
02:58:40one love.
02:58:41That's what it is.
02:58:42You're suffering
02:58:42from a heartbreak.
02:58:43Not from PTSD.
02:58:44I didn't do anything
02:58:45that I'm ashamed of
02:58:46that ever really messed me up.
02:58:48I mean,
02:58:48I've seen a lot
02:58:49of terrible stuff,
02:58:49but it doesn't keep me
02:58:51up at night.
02:58:52Not a bit.
02:58:54That medicine,
02:58:56not saying it's a cure-all,
02:58:59but if you've tried
02:58:59everything else
02:59:00and you haven't tried
02:59:01plant-based medicine,
02:59:03probably give it a shot.
02:59:04Where should people go
02:59:05if they want to find out more?
02:59:07About plant-based medicine?
02:59:08If you're a veteran,
02:59:10I would go to
02:59:11Veteran Solutions
02:59:13or Ambio Life Sciences
02:59:16for straight Ibogaine,
02:59:175-A-Mio.
02:59:19Trevor and Jonathan,
02:59:20the best clinic
02:59:22I've ever been to.
02:59:23It's on a private compound
02:59:24right over the border.
02:59:25They've got shuttles
02:59:26running back and forth.
02:59:27It's super safe.
02:59:28Best food you're ever
02:59:29going to eat.
02:59:29I mean,
02:59:29Michelin quality food,
02:59:31amazing in-ground pools,
02:59:33overlooking the ocean.
02:59:34It's an amazing facility,
02:59:35but it's probably
02:59:35a 25-person staff.
02:59:37They've got multiple houses
02:59:38that are running
02:59:39consecutive,
02:59:40and they do it all week.
02:59:43It's a cure-all, man.
02:59:44They do the sweat lodge.
02:59:46They do everything.
02:59:47If I had to give anybody
02:59:48a gift to be the power
02:59:49of a 20-minute walk
02:59:50and if you have tried everything,
02:59:52call Ambio Life Sciences.
02:59:54Changed my life, man.
02:59:55That and Mary Unicorn.
02:59:58It's a beautiful story, man.
02:59:59I'm really glad
03:00:00that you're still here.
03:00:01Yeah, me too.
03:00:02Where should people go
03:00:03to keep up to date
03:00:03with everything you're doing as well?
03:00:06You can check out
03:00:07GBRS Group
03:00:07on all the social channels,
03:00:09YouTube, Instagram,
03:00:09all that.
03:00:10If you're trying to find me
03:00:10personally, it's DJ Shipley.
03:00:12I am only on Instagram.
03:00:14I don't do anything else.
03:00:15Okay, man.
03:00:16I really appreciate you.
03:00:17I appreciate you.
03:00:18Thank you.
03:00:19All right.
03:00:19See you next time, everyone.
03:00:21Dude.
03:00:25Congratulations.
03:00:26You made it to the end
03:00:27of a full podcast episode.
03:00:28You are not so TikTok-brained
03:00:29that you've completely
03:00:30dissolved into nothingness.
03:00:33Why not watch another one?
03:00:35Right here.
03:00:37Go on.
03:00:37Press it.
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