Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 027 - Mike Glover

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Mike Glover, former Green Beret, leader of men foreign and domestic, discusses building resiliency through hardship. Cam and Mike talk over the struggles of veterans in today’s world and need for scarcity in our ever-growing easy lifestyles. Enjoy the listen!   Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Connect with Mike Glover: https://www.instagram.com/mike.a.glover/ https://fieldcraftsurvival.com/   Thank you to our sponsors: Santa Cruz Medicinals: https://scmedicinals.com/ use code KeepHammering for 15% off Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% Black Buffalo: https://blackbuffalo.com/discount/CAM use code CAM for 15% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping First Light: https://www.firstlight.farm/ Use Code Cam15 for 15% off your first order Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv Bass Pro/Cabelas: https://www.basspro.com Timestamps: 0:00:01 The competition in the tactical world 0:07:16 Preparedness 0:11:40 The mindset of being prepared  0:12:51 Building Resilience Through Overcoming Adversity 0:21:29 Outstanding leaders 0:23:50 Leading men 0:25:49 Business and Military Leadership Communication 0:36:47 Self-Reliance and Security in Crisis 0:42:23 Protecting kids 0:51:41 TBI's Impact on Veteran Mental Health 1:00:00 Don't depend of the government for veteran help 1:08:19 Life, Purpose, and Suicide Prevention 1:09:36 Find your tribe 1:14:28 Rewilding 1:20:57 We need scarcity in our lives  1:27:10 Finding the Right Balance

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Use code CAM for 15% off your first order. Hoyt archery has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005. And personally, I really don't care what bow you shoot, what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mine. Because I know if I get one opportunity with my Hoyt, it's going to pay off. All right. I'm here with Mike Glover from Fieldcraft Survival. How's it going?

Good. Thanks for having me. Thank you. You're doing the ketone IQ. Have you done one before? I have and they taste horrible. But they're so good. I mean, the ketone ester, that's good for the brain.

It is. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's got a, well, let's just a unique flavor. Oh, my gosh. But if it gets our, our, our, and our brain warmed up yeah as i can't talk then i guess it's worth it well thank you for coming and you're here in well springfield oregon but you flew into eugene and he did the lift run shoot now we're podcasting thank you so much no thanks for having me it's so far it's been an amazing time

and man it's so simple and and so uh impactful at the same time so it was it was awesome thank you i uh yeah i mean And I've been, it's crazy because my son was in the military. I followed a military. I got a lot of people friends and people I respect who are in the military. And it's one thing that's, I know it's a hard, I don't want to say business, but field to earn respect in. Yeah. And almost everybody, or no, every person I've come across, talk to or seen comment,

everybody respects Mike Glover. Oh, why is that? Well, I see the other side of that as well. But I think overall, there is a way that you have to play the game. I mean, the whole idea of being a quiet professional and then trying to make a living for yourself post-military, that is a, it's a confrontation that you're bound to run into. And so what I like to see is a lot more guys from the military are coming out. and not afraid to talk about their experience. And I get it.

There's a toxic side to it. I've seen it. I've experienced it. I've been in it. But I think consistency is key. And I started doing social media. I didn't have any social media. I mean, when I worked in the military,

we weren't allowed to have social media. And then when I transitioned into the CIA, we didn't have it. I mean, we weren't told we couldn't. have it but you just knew you just didn't do that but as I transitioned um when I first started social media I was one of the first guys that I remembered there might have been some outwires in 2015 timeframe that was doing social media I mean Tim Kennedy was in the reserve component of special forces I was a sergeant major he was in my j3 shop at our unit which is the operation shop

and he was teaching me how to do social media and so I I've been consistent, I think, where others have gone high and right, depending on the on the time frame. So I don't know why that is, but I just hope I'm seen now as positive and leaning forward and being a positive influence. I have been a negative influence. I have gone through all the woes, but I think I've adapted well. What do you mean negative? How so? Well, I think that, you know, if you look at the tactical space, it's very competitive because a tactic,

or a solution yielded from one's experience is based in ego. You know, like if I told you this was the way to do it, and then you said, well, there's another way, and you said, well, there's only one way. Right. That's based in ego and a lot of the industry is very toxic. And so you'll see that.

But then you'll see guys who are just moving forward and they're trying to push, like, I think tactics is an open form for discussion. I think if you're one person who says there is a one end all, be all solution, you're wrong and you're not open-minded. Right. And so, you know, I've been involved early on and thinking, well, there's only one way to do this. Right.

I have the background. I have the experience. Like, I've changed my whole mindset on civilians doing training. Because, you know, if you're a military guy and you're talking about killing people and self-defense. it's likely because you did it. And if you're a civilian, you don't do that. Right.

But there's civilians now who have good gun handling. They are efficient in movement. They know how to shoot, move, and communicate. And so why don't you listen to those guys? And you should. I think you should listen to everybody, respectfully, and take what you will and then leave what you don't or won't. Yeah, I could see, like, because a military guy who's had,

so much training, so many reps, actually been through the fire, and then you see somebody who's acting like an operator. You know, they got all the military, they got everything and probably if I was in the military, I'd be going, who the fuck is this guy? What is this going? So I could see how that could be an issue. Yeah, I mean, because men, men have egos. And if you guys have earned the risk or went through, like I said, went through the fire, that should mean something compared to just a civilian. But I get it. I mean, I have guys who tell me they know more about my career than my lived experience in my career. They're like, well, you didn't do that. I'm like, well, I actually was there doing that thing.

So it's a unique space. But I think I've overcome a lot of that. And at the top, you see a lot of guys that are influencing positive ways. And the guys who are circling the drain. Yeah. They're doing the same old thing. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I know it's probably a hard trap to get out of. Yeah. And it exists in every space. It does. You see it in hunting. You see it in overlanding. You see it in every space.

I think with anything that's hard earned, you know, where you've got to sacrifice a little bit, there's going to be a separation and serving the military is no different. That's a big sacrifice. So anytime somebody could give more and do a little more and then the people at the bottom who haven't, they want to be up there too. So it's, I mean, that's just how life works. But point is, is I have so much respect for what you're doing. doing and what you're offering, just the society at large and trying to, you know, I'll just

reference your book prepared. And it's a manual for surviving worst case scenarios. And I've been reading it and it's just a great book. And it's, I mean, so much respect for you putting this together to help, essentially to help people. Is that your goal? Yeah. Like I could, I told, I've told buddies recently like man we could have just stayed in our old jobs and and made good money and not had any issues right no confrontations and played it safe but when I started fieldcraft survival post this experience in the military in the CIA I wanted to create something for myself that brought me purpose I mean serving in the military we didn't have social media we weren't doing it for the gram right we were doing it because that's what we

wanted to do i mean we wanted to selflessly serve and we had a duty and responsibility to the country so that 20 years of experience when you come out of that you're like what do i do next and a job a nine to five that doesn't feel like something special and and so i had to create this thing where you know i was i was thinking you know survival in the modern sense isn't like primitive it is it is It isn't bushcraft. It isn't tactics. It's collectively all the things and a lifestyle. So I live that lifestyle of preparedness because I was in the military.

And if you are in the military or have an experience no matter your job, you go through a cycle and journey of physical fitness, planning, preparation that prepares you for the conflict, which is the worst case scenario, the war. So I was like, man, there's nothing like that in civilian society. So I started the company, Philcraft Survival, kind of figuring out what that meant to me. But as I developed it and evolved it, man, it's a lot of the things that I thought it was about. It wasn't. It wasn't about the EDC pistol in your waistband.

It wasn't about the tourniquet you had in your pocket. It was about all the things collectively. And that brought me satisfaction. And I think framing that together and putting it in a book that was digestible. and made people who looked at survival, looked at preparedness as something radical or extreme, they read that and went, oh, I think I could get on board with this.

This isn't crazy. I want to take care of my family. I want self-reliance in my life. So this isn't a bad thing. Yeah, I mean, it's not extreme, but didn't the FBI think so for a while? I mean, didn't they screwed with you a little bit on your Shopify? Yeah, they deleted my Shopify.

All my accounts got surprised. us and that that happened over the course of years of like constant battling. The lesson learned after the fact was, man, I'm really good at adapting because they wanted to sink us and they didn't. We swam. Right. And we learned a lot and that made us more self-reliant. We partnered with good people that got it. I mean, all the people that canceled us, there was somebody there standing up saying, hey, we'll take you on board. Like we don't believe in that. We'll take you on board. And it also made me realize that politicians, no matter what their affiliation, could weaponize the government against human beings in this country. And yeah, Mike Glover is a popular guy on social media.

So I could say and put people on blast and put the government on blast and get some satisfaction out of getting some things done. But how many people don't have that opportunity? How many people were suppressed and then their entire businesses and lies were shut. down and then that's sad so we learned a lot from it yeah no that's i mean you have you prospered now you know i remember reading that years ago and and hearing that that's what was going on and uh it's just that's why it feels so good to see you blowing up now because you did you you had to adapt and you overcame and that's the i was wondering your mindset or what is the key mindset when you're thinking of being prepared you talked to

about, you know, the everyday care you talked about is it, but is it mostly just a mindset, just like looking at something and just with, I don't know, just interpret situations? What do you think is the key to being prepared? Yeah, the foundation is a resilience in your mindset. And, you know, mindset is complicated. There's a lot to it. You know, I tell people often it markets well, but the tangible reflection of that, the tools that you can add to your tool bag, it's like, what do you mean? You say mindset is all the things,

but how can I have a better one? And so I distill in survival mindset to resilience. And resilience is the ability to literally stand back or crawl back to your feet when you've been knocked down. And that is an experience that is common to all. Most people think that going through trauma, going through difficult circumstances, overcoming adversity, that is unique. It's not. It's common to all.

When you understand the benefits of it, you intentionally put yourselves in those circumstances. So when we do the lift, run, shoot, what we're doing in a simplified format is overcoming adversity and building resilience. And you reflected in your book, Endura, where you talk about. how you could do these things and it's so simple. It starts with action like one step. And when you understand the benefits of that and you go, wait a minute, so overcoming like a difficult workout

or a climb up a mountain will make me better in my life? Yes. And so foundationally, resilience is the key. And we recommend people expose themselves to weaknesses. It's one of the reasons why I'm here. I mean, if you dial 10 of your close partners or friends and you say, hey, would you like to come on the podcast, there is a 10 out of 10 likelihood that the people there from the lift run shoot will find a deficiency in those three things.

They're a good runner, but man, they can't lift weights, right? They could lift weights because they're very strong, but they can't shoot a bow. And so they immediately identify their weakness. and if they're willing to volunteer and expose themselves to vulnerabilities, they become better. Like right now, sitting here after going through that experience, I'm better.

I know what I got to work on. It's a great reset for me going, all right, you were exposed to weaknesses, you were suffering going up that hill, your cardio sucks. This is not where you want to be. And so I have to make change.

And that builds the resilience for survival. Yeah, that's a great point. And not everybody wants to put themselves in that position. Yeah. I mean, nobody wants to hurt. Nobody wants to feel inferior in any way. So we kind of insulate ourselves from things like that. But that doesn't help us down the road in the long term. It doesn't help us be prepared for when shit does hit the fan because, you know, and I've heard it say, I mean, I've had different guests here say you got to, there's chosen suffering and unchosen

suffering. So you put yourself in the situation of chosen suffering. It prepares you when it's unchosed and you just have to deal with it. And that's pretty much what you're explaining. right yeah i mean i look back at my military career in some of the schools that i've been through some of the selection processes i went through and i i soon discovered that the suffering that people went through in the selection or that process of determining who's supposed to be there who's not was determined not based on the moment but based on every moment before then you know every step every suffering um every embrace of the suck, all of that made the test easier.

And that's basic preparation in life, right? And so that whole methodology is a very good way to adopt a good sound resilience in your life. And I just, it's basic, right? And you go out and you learn the lesson because you go, man, I just suffered a lot. You go back and you adapt and then you don't make that a mistake again. Yeah.

But a lot of us because we're so comfortable, and complacent more so than we've ever been in human history don't want that discomfort yeah yeah we're in that by default makes us complacent yeah i i get that i understand you know when hearing you talk it reminds me so much of jaco because he's your friends with jaco right yeah yeah and then i know and you have a great friend network because i've heard from andy stump and uh josh smith at montana night company everybody talks about how good you are but uh but but I know Andy talked about, we did a podcast here, I think for his podcast a few years ago, but he talked about, I think, in Buds, how it seems like it's 135 hours and you're just

trying to make the guys feel like this is going to last forever, which if you just break it down, it's like, oh, I got to get to lunch. From lunch, I got to get to dinner. You break down in small little chunks. It doesn't, but their job to get people to quit is to make it seem overwhelming. but instead of overwhelming, let's break this down into this challenge right here. This is what I'm doing.

And it feels like it's that mindset, just how you're interpreting whatever obstacle you're facing. Yeah, it has a lot of do with how you process and perceive the world around you. A lot of people can get overwhelmed and in stressful conditions. They obviously do. A lot of Americans aren't conditioned for stress. And so they have an experience.

that they'll rise to the occasion, but we know that's not true. Right. And when you're focused on a 500 meter target, but obstacles are coming at you five meters at a time, then you're easily going to get overwhelmed by the circumstances. So yeah, it's small goals, small moments in time, even breath to breath. I mean, going up the hill, I know the tactics, right? I know how the, I know the tactics to not quit. but when you look uphill and you have 80 pounds on your back and I see you and you're 100 meters

ahead of me and I look down at the ground and I'm like man this is I'm suffering I know one step at a time one breath at a time manage your heart rate continue to move and you'll be fine stop take a break you get five breaths of break and then continue to move so I'm going through these strategies on my own accord in the absence of being conditioned for that type of movement. Right. But otherwise, if I was in a similar space with being somebody else, I could look at the top of the hill and go, that is unachievable. There's no way I could be there.

And then I'll turn around and I'll start walking downhill. And a lot of people don't realize like life, you're always fighting uphill. And that's the point, like, accept that reality, you know. You're not special because you have suffered in trauma, except that reality, harness that energy, and then focus on something beneficial and making you better. Do you think you learn that in the military or did you know it before? So I think I knew it before. But that's the household I grew up in. You know, I ran away when I was 16.

I joined the Army when I was 17. I was like you grew up in a broken home. And that made me more resilient. I mean, a lot of kids who grew up in broken homes, that is the benefit. Now, what you do with that, what you choose to do with that, I think you reflected, I just love your book. That's why I'm harnessing this as a reference. But when you talk about the boys who bullied you,

those boys that bullied you, their outcome was choice. and they made poor choices. And that led them to a bad outcome. They chose to be those evil or bad people. And they had a broken home. And so on one side, you feel empathy for them. But on a personal side, being that person, you have a choice, right? You have free will.

And so I knew from an early age because I grew up in a difficult situation that I was going to be better, especially when I went to basic training at the age of 17. and I saw guys that I expected to be men and they were acting like children. They were crying. They were crying over wanting to be home with their girlfriends. They couldn't take it anymore. They were quitting.

And I'm like, man, this isn't even hard. Yeah. You know, and so I already had the resilience built. And that's beneficial. I mean, all those exposures in the military, you know, my experience compared to somebody who didn't have a military experience, I'm not better.

I just had more opportunities to fail. Right. And through those opportunities, I learned a lot about myself, which recalibrated my position in life and makes me more resilient moving forward. Yeah. And now you're trying to teach those lessons that you learned. That's the point with the fieldcraft survival, right?

Absolutely. You know, in the chapter leading the book, it's resilience. It's a mindset. And people expect, oh, I thought we were going to talk about the truck gun or the EDC pistol. Like no, no, no, we're talking about how it starts. And it starts in your head.

It starts in your body. It starts in your spirit. That's the first step in preparedness, not the tool. That's just, that's an enabler to your success. But it isn't the start point. Who stands out and you had a long military career? I didn't look at how decorated by assuming you've had 15 deployments. I'm sure very decorated.

Who like stood out in your military career for being somebody who taught you valuable lessons or who stands out in your mind during that entire time? Do you have anybody? Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, through every single position from the infantry into special forces as a sniper, as a team sergeant to sergeant to sergeant major,

I had many experiences where I had people, that I was surrounded with that were good people, good leaders. I had team sergeants that taught me, hey, this is how to take care of the boys in garrison. I hate saying that, because it's almost disrespectful to say somebody was good at garrison. What's that?

Well, there's garrison and there's combat leaders, there's combat leaders, right? And a garrison leader, trained. Yeah, they understand the paperwork. They understand the administrative side. But that's important. It's important to understand, like, if you want to be a well-rounded leader,

you can't just be good in the trenches with the men. You have to be good at all. Right. And so I had the opportunity with good leaders in my life to learn both sides of the house, which when I was in a leadership position, allowed me to train and mentor my guys and counsel, talk about their short-term. and long-term goals and then set that aside and then, you know, free fall into the MSS, the mission support site and do the job and then be the guy on the ground.

The older I got, the more senior I got, the more leadership positions that I attained, the more I just got out of the way. Because if you're an effective leader, especially in special operations, where you have capable men that you're surrounded with, the best thing you do is facilitate their success. And if you're micromanaging any process, you're just getting in their way. Right. Yeah. I think that holds true for almost anywhere. I mean, there's people who, I mean, I was just thinking about athletics when you're talking about that. Like you can't just be good at practice and not good at games. You can't just be good at the game and then not show for practice.

So you're talking about kind of being good at everything and then knowing. But with leading men, leading men is also a whole other challenge. what's the key to successfully leading men do you think me and Andy talk about this in our leadership seminars when you lead a group of men that have buy-in who weren't voluntold but volunteered they're men that you want on your team right on your side when I've been in leadership positions as a team leader

and the commanders in extremist force as a team sergeant running a sniper team, what I realized is men are driven differently, but in the military experience, it's only a few certain segments. Like if there's no money guys in the military. Guys aren't driven by the paycheck. Right.

They're driving by purpose. They're driven by the fight, the mission. So once you identify that, it's not difficult to incentivize your men to do the job. But as you get in a senior position, you've assimilated the team because you've gone through all the hardship. And when you got the team, you let the boys do the job. Yeah. And what I, one of the most beneficial things that I realize is communication is key in all things. Most things that fail in business and life in the military, certainly,

where there's a breakdown was because of the lack of communication. Right. So you can communicate too much. There's such a thing. But I think when I saw my team kind of getting running us astray they would start straying all over the place. I'm like, dude, what are you guys doing? I realized they needed guidance. They needed synergy. They needed anasmus check. So I'd bring them together. We'd hash out all the details. We'd have the meat and then as they broke apart, their morale was increased, their focus was attentive, and they did the job better. So you got to be good at bringing the team together and then allowing them to kind of, you know, start to do their thing and they'll slowly come apart and then bring them together again.

I think that's key because communication is what's going to break down a team, certainly. And I had real good communication with my team. And that's what made me effective as a leader. but there's also anomalies. We talked about it yesterday. You're going to have guys that are just sometimes the wrong people. And when you identify those guys,

they're the problem children. You got to take them. You got to separate them because they will demoralize the team. And if you don't identify that, if you don't extract them, they're going to be voted off the island and it's going to be a painful process to do that.

Yeah. So, yeah. Why, you know, everybody talks about communication. Why is it so hard? Why are those hard conversations? Just people avoid them. You know, because I've worked with in construction, and it's not military, but it's the same type of thing.

Nobody wants to have the tough conversation. How have you been able to be good at that? You know, early on, when I was an E5, I was a sergeant when I was 20 years old, and I was airborne, Ranger qualified. I had the tomb identification badge, had all the badges. And in the 90s, that was the thing. It's like you were judged based on the badges you wore in your uniform.

Yeah. Well, I know guys even look at people in uniform. And I mean, that's like your resume. It's your resume. Yeah. And yeah, there's a reason for that. And when I went to E5 school, we had females integrated into our unit. And I was in the infantry.

There was no females in the infantry. But we had, um, support females that were going to E5 school. And nobody wanted to talk to them. And I was like, okay, so I'm in a designated role in leadership. I have to communicate to them. One of the things that I do is like, I'm clear and concise with my messaging.

There is no abstractions. There's no gray. I'm clearly communicating and telling them what my intent is. And I go in there and I'm like, All right. Ladies, let's talk about the issues. You guys, there's a problem because there was issues they were having with leadership. I'm like, what are the issues?

And we made a list of the issues. And as we made this list of issues, I was like, these are pretty easy things to address. Like you say, you don't have light bulbs. Has anybody went to the closet to see if you have light bulbs? No. Okay, well, let's go fix these things. And I'm checking the blocks, right? And for people to feel heard, all it takes is a little effort, right?

Hey, what is the problem? Here's the problem. Let them talk. Let them get it out of their head. Okay, let's address that problem. Let's fill the gap and fix it physically or come up with a plan. And when you do that, it's like, oh, my God, this is magic. It's not that hard.

Yeah. My mom, who's Korean, I learned this from her. And this is where the whole tiger mom comes from, right? There's an analogy called Tiger Mom, where it's like if you grow up with an Asian mom, it's a different life. But it's true. Like my mom would look at me and go, you're fat. I'm like, straight up, just like that, huh? That's what we're going to do.

You're fat. I'm like, okay, you got a booger in your nose. Okay, you got something in your teeth. And people were taken back by that. Yeah, just calling it like it is. Yeah, calling it like it is. Yeah. But that was so impactful for me.

And where I've gotten in trouble in communication is being too direct tiger mom. Okay, got you. Yeah, right? Yeah. And hurting people. So it's men who shouldn't, you know, they act tough, but you can still get your feelings hurt, right? No matter how tough you are. And sometimes it's that maybe.

Yeah, it's an all ego. It's all related to ego. But also, like, if you're that guy, like my tiger mom was the, she's the best mom, right? She meets the standard. So in order to be critical of somebody's position to tell them they're fat or that are not good enough, you better be the best.

Right, right? So there's always a striving for perfection, and you better strive for that constantly and be at the top of the game. Like you said in your job, if you just walked off off the streets and you didn't have any experiences and you didn't bring nothing to bear,

the men ain't going to respect you. Right. You have to have clout. You have to earn. earn it. And when you've earned it, you have a position at the table. And then when you have the position at the table, if you're a clear communicator, man, those men will follow you into fire. They'll do anything for you. Right. I think we all can agree. No one likes a plumber's crack. My suggestion, groove life belts and longer shirts. But not only does Groove life have belts,

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I know it's very hard, but I don't know what it's like in the military. I would think, though, that when you mentioned the ladies that you had to lead to, I know me personally, I don't like to see a woman's struggle. And it's like in military, isn't that a big part of the challenge is if there's women there, it's going to affect decisions guys make. I mean, it seems like it's unavoidable because we're taught to protect women. So how can in the military, how can they be equals or are they expected to be? It's biological.

I've seen it on the battlefield. I mean, I've been on operations where we had female engagement team members. And those women were used to search the women. They were used to communicate through an interpreter or they spoke the language and they communicated to the women. Because you would run into women on target on objectives all the time. And you would see all the attention diverted to the woman. especially in conflict under fire right as soon as there's a a tick a troops in contact guys would like start diverting their attention to a woman and not focused on the fight so i've seen it and

i think that is one of the issues that are foresee with women integrated completely in this model and there are there are outwiring examples of that i mean lisa jaster who was one of the first three women to go to ranger school um she's a respected uh i think she's a lieutenant colonel now but she's a respected leader so from a top down position she's doing the thing and she's you know she's in a position of authority but when you're a troop on the ground yeah it can be conflicting and and i thought it was well one i had never seen a woman in the army for three years up to that point and then when i promoted d5 and went to that school i was like well this is a challenge this isn't normal i mean dudes you're like get this

done do what I say with the women you can't do that yeah and and so there are obviously our profound biological differences yeah you got to manage that yeah it just it just seems like no matter what you try to do it's just it's our genetic code to protect women yeah it's just like it's that seems like a very hard thing to do on the battlefield I can only imagine because I you know haven't been there haven't served but I just know how no matter what they say in society that you know treat them equal this or that is it's just not going to happen i mean men are ingrained to protect women but anyway i was just curious on your thoughts on that and what you've seen since you since you were in for so long um i do want to so i want to talk about your book again because it's just been selling so

well and it came out what is it two weeks ago now yeah this is the second week uh wednesday or tuesday yes two weeks total two weeks yeah and uh man i i looked at i looked at amazon It's kicking ass on Amazon. It should be on New York Times bestseller. We've talked about that in private. But man, making those liberal lists with a book that's, you know, it seems like society wants to keep people as consumers and weak so they can be controlled. This is the opposite of that.

This is like making you capable and prepared, as the title suggests. But I want to get your thoughts on this one part. it really stuck out to me. We're talking about police response time, you know, and what we can count on as a member of society, what should we be capable of, and what can we expect from the police? So you say here, the picture is even more dire

when it comes to police response time, so average response time in the city of Los Angeles in 2021 was 20 minutes. It's 10 minutes longer in Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Houston. The Virginia Tech shooter fired 175 bullets and killed 30 people in that same amount of time. So we're talking about 20 minutes. In Boston, Las Vegas, New York City, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Dallas, Miami, and Philadelphia,

response times are anywhere from six minutes to nine minutes. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 took 20 innocent children from their families and lasted five minutes. I mean, that's, you know, five minutes is a short amount of time. But so then in 2015, the shooting at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, lasted six minutes. The shooter was able to reload five times. Then the flip side of that time on witness in 22, Evaldei, Texas elementary school shooting

where 19 students and two teachers were killed in no small part because it took officers an unbelievable gun wrenching, 74 minutes and 8 seconds to confront and kill the gunmen. And then I'll just add this because it's important, but none of this details to criticize the first responders in any of these cities, they have a difficult job in tough places with budgets and stretch. So you're not really trying to make people look bad,

but it just kind of illustrates that you can't expect the police to be there immediately. So the point, I believe the point that you're making here is that we need to be able to take matters into our own hands in situations like that or eliminate risks or threat. Is that what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, when seconds count first responders are minutes away. And when you're going through. a crisis, it's happening. And when you get on the phone or somebody else gets on the phone and call 911, there's a response time. There's a lull.

And first responders have the most difficult job from everything I've seen, all the people I've talked to and all the people I train. I train first responders. They have the most difficult job because now, you know, the buy-in was we outsourced things in the name of efficiency. so we didn't have to do them ourselves. So that's why you outsource healthcare. So you don't have to get trained up on medical procedures and medicine. We outsource education because you can't homeschool because you got to work. We outsource our security because we can't take the law into our own hands.

We have to outsource that. And so the difficult thing that first responders now have to deal with, which the victims become civilians is the politicizing of the response for law enforcement, period. I mean, one of the reasons I got involved in this FBI debacle was because I started a group called American Contentancy

and advocated for a community-based organization that took care of each other, not vigilantes, but community first. You know, when we grew up in neighborhoods, they had community watch. Yeah. What was the point of community watch? It was the point of community watch

was to be vigilant and look out for each other as neighbors. We had it here called Neighborhood Watch. Yeah, neighborhood watch. There were signs up. Yeah. Neighborhood Watch. There were those signs now.

Right. They're all down. Yeah. They found high liability in that. I mean, we've created good Samaritan laws. And you look at Mr. Neely and the Jordan Neely case right now, they just charged a Marine,

former Marine, and he's going to be, he's indicted, but they're likely going to charge him with manslaughter for choking out a Michael Jackson impersonator. According to the national media, who had 44 arrest, who pushed a person on the train tracks,

assaulted a senior citizen. And so when you look at this, dilemma, it's not binary. It's not the one and a zero. There is places in this country where because a district attorney, because whatever political drama is going on, they've advised police officers not to do certain things. And even if they haven't, there is now a culture in policing across the country. Why would you risk your life, one, or risk getting charged with a murder to,

for doing your job. Yeah. And so when you take all those things into account, one, first responders are, I mean, I feel bad for first responders. It's the most difficult job in the country right now. But when you get put in the box like that and you can't even do your job,

like what incentive do they have to get involved? I mean, Yuvaldi is surprising, but is it really given the circumstances of this culture in our society? So what is that? that mean for you it just means you got to be self-reliant right you have to be willing to take uh your lives into your own hand and not be willing to wait the lull time the average response time for a first responder it means uh in the time of crisis and self-defense and an accident when you're stopping the

bleed when you're using situation awareness to get off the x whatever that means your life depends on you understanding that and yeah i mean I know you put up Mr. Neely's post on your page the other day, and that is a crazy one, too. I mean, how the media can paint it a certain way. And then, you know, people are judging this guy based on how the media is painting this picture. But or in San Francisco where we've had stores closing down because they're saying not to pursue shoplifters or not to do, not even stop them. It's just a crazy time. I just I get really you know obviously the school shootings is horrific but what's the answer there in your opinion because that's you know you want to protect kids but then you see first responders in this dilemma where we're waiting 70 minutes what do you think is the answer to to protecting kids in schools I mean let's take two two different examples here one federal buildings have you ever been into a

federal building and not gone through security. No. Yeah, because all of them are federally protected. Politicians, same. I mean, if you're a politician, you're surrounded by people with guns. Any federal building, take the capital building, for example, surrounded by people with guns. A lot of capital resources, taxpayers' dollars, go to protecting that. And when you go to look at a school, how are they protected? They're not protected at all.

I mean, I don't even think, look, from a military perspective, as somebody who specializes in physical security, the start point is creating a plan for physical security, which include a me use an acronym called a coca. We use obstacles. We use technology. We use all the things that we're not even talking about an armed person on site. Because if you build the building right or really,

Reinforce the physical security of the place right. That's the start point and you look at every embassy Across the country in Washington DC embassy row every single one of them are protected with technology with fences with gates with armed guards Mm-hmm. And we don't do that for our children and that's unfortunate and we think again one security officer and one school an SRO officer a security resource officer is the answer it's not The answer is revamping the physical security of all buildings, integrating a standard operating procedure, keeping that information sensitive because that's obviously going to be used to exploit and making it a harder target to kill. When you created a harder target, I mean, it was proven in the recent case of this trans person

who decided to go to a Christian school and murder teachers and children. she chose that school I mean one it's it's disgusting that it's not talked about as far as what her motive was right when when she down selected that school she did so because the other school had security yeah so she went to the soft target soft target yeah so it's like the start point is

security physical and then creating a standard across the country and this doesn't have to be a federal mandate this could be Samaritan in your community standing up and saying, we need change. I just talked to a guy at my personal security class that I taught in Calispell, Montana with Andy Stump. And we were there.

I was with Casey Hilderith and his family as well. We were there and a gentleman said, hey, a couple of years ago, there was a school shooting and you said you're going to teach people for free. And we did. We went across the country and put that out there. We taught active shooting and first response.

and he goes, you said, if we wanted to make change, we need to make this change ourselves, especially in our own community. And he lives north of Spokane near the Canadian border. And he said, on his own accord, as a father of children,

he stood up and said he wanted to be involved and he created a security protocol, coordinated for law enforcement and the school officials to work together because most don't. And now he's actually thinking about becoming a reserve officer and being the SRO officer at his kid school because his number one priority is the security of his kids like yeah one guy one guy making a difference making a difference

and you could do that too people could do that too yeah you know I mean is is so it's it's because there's not federal money available apparently is what it seems like because you said all federal buildings are protected by to the nines so is as twisted as it sounds I don't want to say they would ever make this intentional, but if they don't protect soft targets and they can use anything that happens at a soft target to enact more gun control, is that the motive? I mean, I don't know.

I would hate to think that they would be so messed up to think that, oh yeah, the more shootings we have, then the tighter we can get on this gun control stuff and get the guns out of the people's hands. I think it's completely deliberate. I mean, look, we did the math on it. And I don't know exactly the numbers off the top of my head, but we analyzed it. And it was something like $50 billion to kickstart this.

And we just gave $100 billion to Ukraine. Right. We're actually going to launch another round of funding to replace some of their striker vehicles at the cost of $300 plus million. So it's like, what are we doing? Right. You know, we're spending recklessly our money on. on things that aren't taking care of Americans.

And we have a, you know, the real systemic issue in this country is mental health. I mean, in the month of May in San Francisco, 74 people died on the streets of San Francisco from fentanyl overdoses. 74 from overdoses, 69 from fentanyl. So when you look at 74, the number for the total of people killed in mass killings, which is four or more, this year in 2023 is around 80 plus people so we're nearly at the same number of people who have died from fentanyl overdoses in one democratic city in san francisco on the streets they have died in one month as compared to what's propagated as the narrative of people are dying all over the country and mass killings well both are problems but what's the bigger problem right and both are reflections of men health issues that require not just money because I mean the the mayor of San Francisco just requested $1.3 billion to fix this problem this year last year she had 1.1 billion what's she fixing yeah I mean we we have politicians that are just

speaking out their ass they don't understand the totality of the issues because everything's politicized so nothing's getting fixed which is I think the downfall of everything that's taking place yeah I mean, there's not a time. A day goes by seemingly that Biden doesn't mention gun control, but I never hear him talk about fentanyl. Yeah. 100,000 Americans died for fentanyl this year.

And that's not even, yeah, it's just, I don't know. So you'd have to think there's another agenda. There's another agenda is to take the guns out of the public's hands. And I think when people say, like we talked about it before, it's about control. Like the benefit of being an American is you have inherent rights, you have a constitution that's protecting your liberties and freedoms to be what you want to be.

When I joined the Army in the 90s, it was like be all you could be. And they meant it. I mean, I volunteered for everything and could have been whatever I wanted to be in the military. As an American, your inherent right is to be free, to be left alone, to do what you want with your life. but now we're in a situation where everything you look at me every major metropolitan city in america every single one exponentially's gone up in crime statistics and violence statistics and murder rape all the things fentanyl overdoses homelessness everything is spiking through the

roof and it's like how is this working out for us and and it's not an american problem it is definitely a one-sided political problem where that That is the plan. Utter compliance and control. And we're seeing how that's working out for half the country. Yeah. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, it's, you wonder what the answer is with that.

But I think the answer is what you're doing is preparing people. It's, and enlightening people because some of these discussions just aren't, aren't being had out there. People aren't privy to them. Or because once you put it out there and you think about it and you have like the examples that you just listed, If you're being objective about it, you're like, wow, I didn't think about all that. You know, I mean, a lot of people do like you and I do, but not everybody has the same mindset.

So I think that your book, your teachings, your perspective is so important right now. I did want to get your thoughts. You know, we've talked about overdose and fentanyl and deaths. the military and the struggles veterans have what's you know we've seen the stats the 22 suicides a day what's the answer what can we do to help our veteran community yeah it's such a tough one now I mean what I've seen over the course of at least the last decade is a complete disregard and an sense of empathy and policy that makes change for veterans of foreign wars. I mean, I was in Montana in Calispell and there's a VFW.

Veterans of foreign wars, VFWs exist all over the country. You know what they are? They're bars. And what are they doing to help veterans? Nothing. And if you're offended because you own or manage a VFW, I'll tell you to your face, you're doing nothing. because if you're serving alcohol to a bunch of people who need help,

and that's the only thing you're doing because you're getting a tax right off, that's not helping veterans. And the profound issue that we're going to see this generation of global war on terror veterans that we've never seen before. I mean, there's examples of it from Vietnam with napalm and the things that they were exposed to Agent Orange that led to cancer outcomes that have killed a lot of, different veterans from different services and branches.

We're going to deal with that in the GWAT with TBI, traumatic brain injury. I'm diagnosed with TBI with PTSD from TBI and traumatic brain injury. And they base that off of a test, which is a cognitive test and also a scan. They're like, yeah, and there's a questionnaire, right? Have you been exposed? And most veterans who served, especially in combat arms, were exposed to concussive blast every single day because they trained for war.

And when you trained for war, because you grew up as a private and ranger battalion, and you did that for 20 years, what do you think is going to be the outcome? And, you know, they did, they've done this on NFL professional football players. The difference, free market capitalism, the difference,

multi-million dollars invested, And the majority, I think it was like 99. something percent of the NFL players, they analyzed, all of them had CTE. They all had traumatic brain injury, brain damage. Right. And the thing with TBI and brain damage. Because CTE and TBI are very similar. Yes. I mean, there's variations.

I'm not an expert on TBI and the differences between CTE, but my understanding is they're progressive. And you're saying that because the NFL is a multi-billion dollar endeavor, they're protecting their players. Yeah. And they're saying, oh, we're doing the right thing. Look at this. We care about our athletes. Whereas in the military, that same type of effort or caring isn't there is what it sounds like. Yeah. There's no, there's no investment. They're just stats. You know, when I get out of the military and out processed, the veteran affairs system is the most broken system in our government. And for anybody to say it's not, I mean, go to your local VA. If you're a civilian and you just don't believe me, go to your local VA, walk around and talk to veterans who are there. Ask them what their wait times are for appointments.

There are outliers. There are some good places that have good people and they've bucked the system, but the system is broken. And that's one of the reasons is because it's tied to a government institution. I mean, the bureaucracy that is the government is rampant. Free markets is the way you're going to fix this. Right. The way you fix this is you outsource it to both nonprofits and for-profit businesses that have an incentive, whether that's the profits or not,

to help veterans with real solutions, real scans. Try to get a CTE scan in the military. Ain't going to happen. I've asked for it. That's the only way to determine whether you have TBI, right? Yeah, you can do a CAT scan. You can do an MRI, but it's not going to show you specifically the focus on the brain and the damage. And I mean, there's not a lot of good outcomes, period, for CTE for brain damage.

But it's like knowing that you have a recessive gene that's going to lead to a bad outcome in the future. You now have the understanding this will happen to you and you prepare for it. So getting cognitive therapy, going through different protocols that aren't military protocols. The problem with the GWOT vet that's TBI is you can't see it. It's like you're missing your leg. Okay, we got that. We'll give you whatever percentage of disability. But it's in your head.

And as it gets worse and deteriorates, these veterans will fall apart. And people will be like, well, why are we seeing 10 years later a spike in suicides? Now it's 25 a day. That's weird. but what are we doing about it? And likely unless somebody gets behind it, we won't do anything about it. I mean, there's good organizations

and nonprofits that are Hunter 7 is one of them. There's a few organizations that are trying their best. But man, trying to promote veteran advocacy issues today, people don't care. Nobody cares about veterans today. Because, oh, yeah, we pulled out of Afghanistan. We messed that all up. So who cares?

I mean, it's the same generation that came after the Vietnam War. I mean, it's like, who cares? Yeah. And that's sad. Yeah. I wish I had an easy answer or a answer, any answer for fixing that. Do you, does, how does alcohol affect TBI? Does it exacerbate it or is it, I don't know the alcohol helps anything, but

is there a correlation between tb i and drinking that that you know of or is it just good to to avoid just in general i think a lot of you guys will be interested in this next sponsor first light farms is a new zealand base farm that ships elk meat straight to your door the reality is not everyone's going to fill their tag every year so first light farms is ready to fill your freezer with lean protein that is high in iron zinc and b vitamins to tell you the truth i've been pretty surprised at how tender the meat is from First Light Farms. And I guess it's because they have no natural predators in New Zealand, so the elk will have a pretty low-stressed life, and you can taste that in the meat. They're offering listeners of the podcast a 15% discount using code cam 15 at state club.

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Cabellas and buy everything they need. So I'm very excited that we've partnered together and we can help open up those outdoor and hunting opportunities to listeners of this podcast. Loopold Optics has been providing my binoculars and eyewear for the last few years. I like that it's an Oregon company and they make such high quality glasses all I've really used. And if you can't find what you're hunting, it's going to be tough to kill. So loophole optics has really played an integral part in my success these last few years. Thank you, Lou Pold, for supporting the podcast. Well, I don't think there's a correlation, but here's what I'll say. Just as there were NFL professional football players that were losing their minds, killing themselves, killing

members of their family and killing themselves, whenever I see somebody who kills somebody else, I immediately think, what was their emotional and mental state? What sent them over the edge? What was the tipping point? And when you see these veterans who are going through these difficult situations in their head, and they're wondering why they walk into rooms and don't realize why they walked in in the first place, when they start to break down cognitively, what do you think they do? They start hitting the bottle. They start hitting the drugs.

And that is a recipe for disaster and crisis. And that's where you see most of the veterans killing themselves. They kill themselves. I just happened. This happened to a buddy of mine. Last year, Stass or Sart first class, Ian Hall,

he had likely TBI. I mean, the only way, by the way, postmortem that you could assess if they have it is splicing the brain by actually doing an autopsy

and spicing the brain and looking at the physical damage in the head. They did that to NFL professional football players. I think they did it to junior sayout. And they discovered that he did have that. Yeah. Which is the reason, in why he had those manic episodes.

So, Sarn first class Ian Hall took his own life. There was likely alcohol on board or just on board. And he had likely TBI that led to that outcome. He was completely irrational on New Year's. This happened on New Year's Day, I believe. Posting about his kids on Facebook, everything's fine. And the next morning, he shoots himself in the head.

And you look at the the the the the the travesty in that. Yeah, it sucks. He's dead. But the travesty is what about all the other guys that are bound to come? Because we're not paying attention. Right. Yeah. That's that's awful.

I mean, it's, uh, I don't know. The wish over is like I said, wish there was an answer for that. So it sounds like to me, are there politicians out there that you know of that care and are trying to do good work in this regard i mean i don't know i think tulsi gabbert cares she's she's you know of any others you like you like crane latrille tulsie gabbert they're definitely at the top of my list for politicians who care and who have the ability to create policy that can enact change but I would say don't depend on the government. I would say, you know,

somebody's listening to this podcast and they have a nonprofit they know of that could help with these type of situations. Hunter Sevens, a good example. That's who we have to rally behind to help them. But even those guys, a lot of these nonprofits are struggling for money. Right.

Because, you know, for whatever reason, nobody wants to invest in their veterans. So if you're listening to this and you know an organization, let us know. And if you're listening to this and you want to start an organization, do that. I mean, a lot of the guys that I know who have TBI and we track, you know, my friend network full of veterans, full of concussive blast, we track each other. Like, hey, are you good? Hey, did you get this scan?

Hey, have you done your blood work? And I think, you know, like we did in the military when the military was letting us down, we depend on and lean on each other. And that's the best tactic. Checking in with each other is a big part. Check in with each other. And don't just check the block. I'm not talking about a text.

I'm talking about showing up. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. You know, you talked about communication earlier. And that's life. I mean, that's we're humans. We communicate.

We have this community that relies on each other, whether it's military or in my case. hunting or running or whatever but that community is so important that being healthy and i think it's your your point about veterans yeah checking in and showing up and caring yeah that's the biggest part probably because you always hear about you know and i i've known people who have killed themselves too and you always hear about it and then afterwards you're like shit could i have could I have called, could I have done something? You always have that regret, like what could I have done to avoid?

Because once they make that decision, it's over. It's over. There's no, and there's that time, I remember I was getting so many messages because for whatever reason, people were, either they followed me or, you know, I inspired them for some reason, but I was getting so many messages from people who were struggling with thoughts of killing themselves that I actually, I'm a bow hunter. fuck I don't know what the hell to tell people so I reached out and said what should I tell tell these people and if they're you know struggling and they're having these thoughts and they said well

just just buy time if you can buy time because nobody stays in that valley forever you know you you think that it's that you can't deal with it anymore you think that it's never going to get worse the only answer is to kill myself but you never stayed on there forever just like you never stay up here forever if you can get them out of that valley by just saying hey let me me check in with you later tonight i'll check in i want to see how it's going they'll come out of that mood or whatever that is whatever you know or if you said maybe they were drinking maybe they'll sober up a little bit maybe but whatever the case those thoughts they're not going to last forever so it's just helping them by time is is the advice i was given do you do you have any have you had to

talk to people that we're dealing with that yeah i've talked people off the ledge i've talked to myself off the ledge. I mean, I've dealt with this myself. And, you know, part of, part of this is understanding it's a chemical imbalance. I mean, this is just isn't mental, like in your head as a thought. This is a chemical imbalance. Alcohol, drugs exacerbate that chemical imbalance. And so the pendulum swings, right? And when you look at a lot of people, especially in the military, especially for my, experience, they check out because they think they're a liability. When you're no longer an asset to the team, your liability. And the first thing I've seen team guys do when they get injured or they have a family

issue or something goes wrong, like DUI, they start isolating themselves. And they realize the team is stronger without them and they don't want to be in a lot liability anymore. And so they check out, check out most. team guys that I've seen killed themselves, personal friends of mine, have done so because they felt they were a burden. And what I tell most of the guys that I've talked to is don't be selfish. Because what you don't realize is when you kill yourself, when you take your life, you are affecting the lives of your loved ones for the rest of their lives. And there's nobody

there to take care of them. You check out your kids, your spouse, your friends, your friends, family are left behind and that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Don't be selfish. You could you could discover or rediscover your strengths and be an asset for your loved ones. You're just in a bad law. You just need to pick yourself, pick yourself up and we'll get through this. But I call my friends out. I mean, guys that have called me and I've talked to them off the ledge, I've chewed them out.

I say, bro, you don't even think about it. You are you're in a moment. right now, but if you're going to kill yourself, you will be the selfish, most selfish human being I've ever known. Don't do that. Don't do that to your daughter. Don't do that to your son. Don't do that to your wife. Don't do that to your mom. Like, don't be so selfish. And, you know, the most difficult thing is when a guy starts to display the signs, because there's signs, a lot of guys who are going to check out, the reason it's easy for them to do is because it relieves the burden when they know they're no longer going to be on burden on anybody's life.

There's that moment where they decide deliberately and they're like, I'm checking out. And then there's those recklessly emotional rants that lead to a tipping point where they take their life emotionally. I've seen both sides of it, but both sides have warning signs. When you start to see these random texts, these random calls, these random post, reach out immediately and show up. Don't just text them.

Like if you care about the person who's on the other end of that, show up. Yeah. I mean, me, Evan, Andy, or all the guys knew Neil Curry. And, you know, he ran Ready Gunner, friends and partners of Black Ruffle Coffee, friends of all of ours. And to see that happen, it's like there were likely warning signs. And we just couldn't get ahead of it. And sometimes that happens.

Yeah, I think it's like you said, feeling that burden, but it's not, you see the aftermath of it because they can't see that because they're gone, but you see the aftermath on all the pain. Yeah. And it breaks your heart. And I think, you know, I've never thought had suicidal thoughts, but I've like, when you do your job and I'll just, there's a parallel maybe to a military, but you've, so if I'm a dad, I've done my job, my kids are doing good, everybody has what they want. There's a place where you get to where like, have I done what I'm here to do?

The kids are good, everybody's good. What's the purpose? And it feels like if you're, even Jocko talks about, are you in the asset column or the liability column? So if there's that feeling of I did my job, I did what I was supposed to do, I'm no longer an asset, then there would be that question of how do I fit into this? But it's life is so, I don't know. I mean, you see the, I talked about the pain, but also it's like all these different influences that you can make on your kids or on their kids

or this whole journey of life. Who knows what could have happened if it's over? You know what I mean? If it's, if you make that decision and, you know, the suicidal thoughts win or whatever it is, it's like all the, that potential is gone. And it's, I think for me, you know, life is such a gift.

And, you know, my friend Roy, you know, he died. I see the aftermath of that. And your friends who have died, you see the aftermath. And it's just like if there's any way, you know, Roy just fell. It was an complete accident. But if you could somehow, somehow show, just share that gift that, that, that, and how they impacted people. That's the key.

But how do you do that? Yeah. You have to, I mean, guys have to remember, just like they evolved in the military. I mean, people evolve throughout life, period.

You have to constantly redefine your purpose. Right. And like, honestly, I woke up this morning, rejuvenated because I'm like, all right, I got a new focus.

I texted Greg Anderson, Greg Lapin, and, and Casey Hildreth, all guys that are my network, that are just savages, black belts and jujitsu, just really experienced guys. I'm like, guys, we need to level up.

I'm hanging out with Cam and Cam's 55 and he's doing this thing. I'm like, dude, I feel weak. I'm like, we need to level up. And it's like, and all of them are like, let's do this. Let's level up. And so when you, one part of that is surround yourself with good people, right? Find your tribe. Your tribe doesn't have to be 120.

It could be five guys. Right. It could be your family. When you find your tribe, start redefining your purpose and evolving yourself constantly. So people are like, oh my God, it's amazing. You wrote a book, man. You made it. I'm like, I haven't.

My brain doesn't comprehend the idea of making anything ever. Right. Like one of my employees, D.D. texted me and she said, or no, she called me. She said, so I just want you to take a moment and just reflect on the same. thing because of this accomplishment you talked about this years ago and it's like i already did that she's like when did you do it i was like i did it this morning like when i was drinking coffee it's just like oh yeah okay so you have to constantly read define and that that's what keeps you evolved yeah that's i think that's true because i could see that especially well writing a book

serving in the military yeah it's it's never that's just one chapter it's not you're not it's not over it's not who knows what the hell's going to happen down the road yeah so yeah resting on Laurels is kind of a I think that's a flaw that people have I like you I try not to yeah I want to be number one and sell all the books but it's just like that's over yeah I mean look at what next you're you built this keep hammering collective and where were you two years ago right yeah it's like you have completely redefine your purpose and you're starting from zero yeah and that's an amazing to be able to start from zero but be a few steps to the top of the mountain more is an amazing journey. It's like, oh, this is this new thing

we're doing? Yeah, we're doing this new thing. Yeah. At the ripe old age, we're just starting over. It's like, awesome. It's no different than Joe with his comedy shop there in Austin. You know, I mean, why would he do that? He doesn't need to do that. But it's like, it's that reinventing and new goals. And so, yeah, that's the key is the people I see who are the most happy and most fulfilled. they're they're starting over with things you know joe started bow hunting at 45 yeah you know he's he opened the mothership just this last year and so it's uh there's lessons out there if we're looking if we're looking well as they say you know what you seek you will find yeah you know if you're looking for shit to be depressed or upset about you're going to find it if you're looking for

new purpose and new goals you're going to find that too and like you've you've looked at our day yesterday and like as a way to hey I can get better this is great and that's that's all mindset I mean that's kind of what you're teaching with the book is you know is is your mind in the right spot yeah but yeah I mean this this conversation is taking a lot of different paths it's kind of I just wanted to talk about all that with you because I respect you know what you offer and how you look at things so much um did I read in here did you have parallels between weapons and hunting and being prepared or was that in was that in yeah we talked i talked about hunting and and i think the parallel that i used for the hunting segment was um getting off grid and getting

away it's kind of like the rewilding process right of just getting primitive but also if you want to be a a good hunter the tools that you use the preparedness all plays into your success and you know We talked about that, the hunt I did with Mark in Idaho. Man, I was ill prepared. I did not plan. When you hear guide, I'm like guided. I've done guided fishing trips, and I thought they were amazing because you didn't do anything. Like you sat there, they threw the pole in there.

They hooked the lure. They pulled the fish. They skinned it. You're like, I just got 50 pounds of halibut. That was easy. But I just did not prepare. And so we make those parallels. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I thought I'd read that in your book. And I do like we talked yesterday, too, I want to touch on this about the disconnecting. So you have a process for taking people away, getting rid of phones. Explain that to me. Yeah, I have a process called rewilding.

Rewilding is the idea that right now we know this. Our society is being destroyed mental health-wise by technology. by social media platforms. The average teenage girl spends from three and a half to seven hours a day on social media. And that is destroying her ability to be resilient. 53% of teenage girls say they're depressed, they're anxious. And that's scary because that actually converts, correlates to suicide. and a lot of the things that we have issue with, I mean, emotions are driven by algorithms

from social media. So we pay more attention to our cell phones than the people in our lives than interpersonal engagement. I mean, if anybody doubts that, put your phone down and go into a restaurant and watch people. The last time I was in a restaurant, I was eating at five seeds, one of my favorite places to eat in Park City, Utah. And I was looking around and I had three couples around me and saw them and they were all on their phones.

And I'm like, what's the point of going to a restaurant with somebody you love if you're on your phone? Right. So the rewilding process is one resetting the dopamine that's immersed in you and getting back to basics. And like I told you, only a few populations in the world understand what this is. One, indigenous people who don't have technology.

Two, outdoor hunters who are disconnected. Three, military service personnel who are on operations and isolated. And I've lived and felt that. And there's been a true connection with nature is when you're not connected with technology. That's a process. And I want to walk people through that process. So I have a course called Rewilding. It's on Philcraft Survival's website.

And it takes people through that journey to basically rid the dopamine out of their system and start over, but give them the tools and tactics to make sure they understand what it's doing to them. And then when they need to do their own reset. It's like if you, you know, you grew up with Nintendo, the cartridge to get it to work when it was like blurry lines, you pulled a cartridge and you blew out the dust. Yeah. I think we need that mental hygiene. And I think it starts with a primal reset or rewally. I think that too, it's as similar to a drug almost, there are withdrawals. I mean, once you first set down there are phone,

it's like you're so used to like checking the phone. But once you get past the withdrawal portion and get to where you don't even, like when I go on a hunt, it's way easier to not get back on my phone when I'm back. You know what I mean? because you've got the you've you've beat those withdrawals basically and now you're like oh this is so much nicer without looking at this fucking phone all the time yeah so how long is how long is your rewilding process it's 72 hours and what we do is we recommend when we show up in the morning on day one it's 72 hours and then we wait until the the fourth day

that early morning to do an after action of the process. So it's three plus that next morning. And there's guesstimates here. Dopamine Nation talks about it. The comfort crisis talks about it. Really good books to read. Hubermans talked about it. But, you know, when you go on your phone, you get dopamine.

It hits. I mean, it's the same dopamine that's dripping in your brain that gives you that feeling. of euphoria and i'm not a subject matter expert at this but i know it metabolizes in your system it takes depending on the length of dopamine that you've got gotten or received it takes a period of time for that to metabolize and for you to rid yourself of that but the happiest i've ever been is when i haven't been on my cell phone for long extended periods of time and the more angry and emotional i've been has been tethered to the phone my daughter who's four she'll be four in August. She loves watching YouTube kids on the phone on iPad. And I said I would never like I'll

never let my daughter or son on social media platforms, period. Well, don't you think that no, I know they will not going in any social media platforms, period. It's not going to happen. So if you're listening to 10 years on the road, you are not on a social media platform. I promise you. Are you talking to your kids? Talking to the kids. That ain't happening. But when you, When I see my daughter interact with it, if I try to pull that device away from her or ask her, she gets angry. Right.

She gets emotional. And that's a driver that I think is creating obstacles and complexities in her life that we don't need. Right. I mean, you see these echo chambers of people talking shit constantly. It's like, what are they achieving? You can't even do a post on like, hey guys, I got this new thing. And then people are like, screw you.

I know. You shield. And you're like, what? What? Yeah. Like I thought this was like a social channel. And it's crazy, man. Yeah. We're in a different world today.

I agree. It's just, I think realizing the damage it can do or the negative attributes is a big part of how we get out of it. Yeah, education. Yeah, education. Another, I was just curious, what about food and drink during that rewilding process? Do you, what do you guys do there? Yeah, I can't. I don't want to tell too many secrets about it.

But one, we do intermittent fasting. We get back to basics. Yeah, that's what I was curious about. Yeah, we strip you down basically to bear necessities, and then we increase the protocol. You learn breathing, hot, cold therapy, meditation, journaling, all the things. But we will only eat meat and all natural. I'm vegan, though.

And you can have blueberries. We'll bring blueberries that for you. And we will do some harvesting ourselves. And we'll have animals. Yeah. Okay. We'll have a class on that. Nice.

And you'll be, it's amazing to see like, you know, day zero, nobody wants to do any of that. And they're like, this is stupid. Day two and three, you're like, I will kill anything to eat. Like, I'm licking my lips, looking at all these chicken, like, whatever it takes, I will do it. do that and that's very primal and it's because you need scarcity in your life to appreciate abundance right but when you live so good in america when it's full of abundance when you live in controlled rooms or boxes you drive in a box that's regulated at 70 degrees you arrive in a box you walk 10 feet and it's like 98 degrees and then you walk into another box that's regulated at 72 degrees like you're

you're living the most comfortable life. Yeah. I was saying I think that's why Jocko's so soft because he lives down in San Diego. He's so nice. He surfs at 72 degrees. He wears a body suit or a wet suit in the winter. He's so spoiled now. So soft.

Just kidding. So complacent. Yeah, just kidding. I don't know. He has overcome the comforts of living down there. When I ran down there, I was like, God, this is pretty nice. It's so nice. I'm used to the rain and the mud up here.

It's so nice there. I get it. why he i wonder always why he lives there but whenever i go visit him i'm like okay i get it it makes sense i'm just joking jaco please don't choke me out well um god mike this has been so good i always do i have i have your bow here something because i have to end this podcast with handing you your new boo oh let's do it let's do it thanks to the guys that uh what was the rack uh the guys the the archery shop The Boorak?

Yeah, Wayne at the Boorak. Yeah. Dude, Wayne. I know. He's the master, isn't he? He gave me those tips, and those tips are what allowed me to break the record. Well, so I always say, I want to talk to outliers because I want to learn, and I've learned so much from you. I'm so thankful for this valuable experience.

I mean, it means so much that you came all the way here to Springfield and shared this with me. But you are an outlier, and I want to give you your brand. and new Hoyt. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. And thank you for coming. And you know, with Wayne's tips, you put that to the test and you set the record. You're shooting so well. I mean, not only to the record shot, but all day you're shooting amazing.

And I shouldn't be surprised because, I mean, military guys like you, you definitely know how to handle a weapon. But, man, that bow in your hands was awesome. Yeah, it was a great experience. It's, it's, those tips helped a lot. Just those conscious like adaptations fixed a lot of issues. Mm-hmm. But the weight and balance of the bow was perfect. And like you said, like, you know, usually I see inconsistencies.

I'll see a shot land and a shot off. Yeah. But that, that balloon was surrounded. I know. All the arrows. And that was over 130 yards. I mean, so having a group at 130 is not easy. Yeah.

But you did it. And you've never had a Hoyt before, right? Never, never. Yeah. And I guess you're happy with how it's shot, huh? What's incredibly different is I've always used lighter bows thinking lighter is better. But you made the comment about like a rifle. If you have too light of a rifle, there's a point of diminishment.

Right. And I never realized the inconsistencies I developed a lot were coming from because it was so light. Right. So I think it just strikes a good balance for me. And it's a bow. I'm 240 pounds. I carry this thing in the back country. That's not going to be an issue.

Yeah, you're strong as hell. I know from lifting yesterday is like, hey, this guy, he can run the mountain, lift all the weights. I was like, I never saw you get fatigued. I don't know how many reps we did. And then, of course, set the record. So you're a badass.

Thank you very much. An outlier, everything. But mostly you're a good person, and I'm honored to spend time with you. Thank you for coming. Appreciate you, Mike. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you so much, man.

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