Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 188 - Andy Stumpf

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

Andy Stumpf - former Navy SEAL with a 17-year career, including time on SEAL Team 6. He is also a public speaker, podcast host ("Cleared Hot"), and entrepreneur. He was medically retired in 2013 but continues to be active in the military community and various sports like jiu-jitsu and hunting. This episode with Andy Stumpf explores discipline, leadership, and navigating uncertainty - from his book Drownproof and SEAL training mindset to broader conversations about war, leadership, and information overload. Andy and Cam also touch on modern habits like screen time, personal standards, entrepreneurship, and risk-taking, ultimately focusing on growth through doing hard things and living with purpose. Follow Andy:  https://www.instagram.com/andystumpf212/  Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Andy Stumpf’s New Book: Drownproof 00:14:27 – Recruitment Process & SEAL vs Team Guys  00:21:09 – AUMF: Is the Country at War or Heading Towards it? 00:32:04 – Humanitarianism of the President and Our Country 00:37:20 – The Effect of LESS Screen Time 00:42:20 – Paralysis Through Lack of Reasonable Information 00:48:51 – Our Current Countries Candidates  00:57:40 – Andy Frisella, Leadership Strategies, and Real Life Standards 01:03:16 – Running a Coffee Shop and Podcasting 01:09:29 – Andy’s Book Tour and Success of the Book 01:14:16 – F**k, Marry, Kill: Jiu Jitsu, Wingsuiting, and Andy’s Helicopter 01:16:17 – Risk and Danger for Growth 01:19:20 – Andy’s Goals in Life Now 01:21:44 – BUD/S & Doing Hard Things 01:23:40 – Who Inspires Andy 01:25:36 – Final Thoughts Thank you to our sponsors: Good Ranchers: https://www.goodranchers.com/ use code CAMERON for $25 off your first order Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 10% your order MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off

Every step I take I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel. Gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I'm moving so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is the Keep Hamer Collective with the Honorable Andy Stomph.

Let's be careful with the words that we use. Also, is it live? James, is this live or is this recorded? No, it's live. We're live. Okay. This is going over the airways right now. We can't edit this.

Are you guys with me? We would not do that. But look at this, dude. Double copies. Look at this. I can double fist this shit. You could if you wanted to. No, I just read both.

So here's... They're identical. Your new book. Yes. Drownproof. Yep. But here's all I know. If you write a book like this,

you got a good title, you got this name right here. Yep. You got this name. You got this name. that name. So we got, let me get through it. Joe Rogan.

Yep. You're the author, of course. Then you got Jack Carr. Yep. Then you got Jocko Willing. It's not bad, right? I don't, it doesn't even matter what the in this book. I don't think that's true at all.

I think it matters. I think the content matters. Oh, okay. Because with me, I'm like, if I could just have those people, then just blank pages, probably still sell. I will say the color way. The color way, the blue and the blue and the, gold. I'm a fan and I love that picture. This is so do you know who just won the national championship in basketball? No. Michigan. Do you know what their colors are? I'm going to guess

blue and gold. That's right. So perfect, perfect timing. Okay. But no, your book. So we're going to talk about here's what we're going to talk about. Also for you for you for those that don't know, oh wait, it was in this one. You say there's a say they're the same. Maybe they're not. Maybe they are. But I know there's a little your bio. Where was it? Oh, yeah. Andy Stumpf joined the most elite counterterrorism unit in the military. Seal Team 6 in 2002, the unit is tasked with conducting the nation's most critical missions while Andy was on a combat deployment. An Iraqi insurgent shot him at close range with an AK-47. Doctors told him to be years, if ever, before you cover the use of his leg and return to full active duty. And also, now you're a black belt in jujitsu. So, you're a black belt in jiu-jitsu. So

Wrong again, doctors. Technically, they didn't say that I couldn't do jujitsu, so. Yeah, I know, but it was like a negative spin on your future. They were trying to limit me in the way I thought about myself. And I don't like that. Nobody does. We don't like self-limiting words, right? Throughout his 17-year career, Andy executed hundreds of combat operations throughout the world

in support of global war and terror. G. Watt is what we call it, right? Indeed. He was medically retired in June of 2013. His awards and decorations include five bronze stars. medals, four with valor, valour, yeah, the Purple Heart, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps commendation medal with Valor, three Navy and Marine Corps achievement medals, two combat action ribbons, and the presidential unit citation. Dude, that's quite a resume.

So if you go on AI and you make me a good resume, though, that's what it spits out. Dude, this is incredible. So I just wanted to share. you know, just so people can understand who we're talking to here. You're a beast. And it's a huge honor to have you here to talk about your book. Your book comes out on Tuesday. Yes. A week. What day is today? Today, Tuesday. We don't know. A week from today. Today is our last day. The last day on earth because our, our amazing president is going to nuke everyone. All right. Thank you for this podcast. But anyway, so tell me. me about the book. You're a badass. I love it. Okay, those are your words. You've known me long enough

that you know I do not use those words when I am talking about myself. I usually go the other direction. So the book, nobody believes me still when I tell this story. One of your previous guests trick me into writing this book. His name is Mike Glover. I do know Mike. He said to me for years, he's like, hey, you should write a book. And I said, hey, I think you're an idiot and your ideas aren't any good. And he came to me with an idea that I actually did think was interesting. Mike, for those of you who don't know, was a Green Beret and then an agency contractor afterwards. And he said, let's write a book where we pick seven to ten topics. And what we'll do is we'll each write what we feel about him, whatever, leadership, communication. And we would figure out a way

maybe his would be italicized or bold and might be in a different font. And we would go back and forth. So it would be this conversation from the special operations world, but from two different people from two different communities. I said, okay, that actually is interesting. So we set a time and date on a calendar where we were going to get together and we were going to share our work. And that date came and Mike had nothing to share because he never wrote a single word. Oh, okay.

He's helping you get it going, did your book going. So he did that for you. I haven't been able to get him to be truly honest about if he just didn't do it because he didn't want to or that was his goal. But I had written, I think about 35,000 words. And Mike had found a guy who specializes in making, I'll call it a book pitch, like a PDF document that they can send out. I don't know the official name for it. A deck. Probably yes. Yep. Sent what I had written to him. He created a deck, found our mutual literary agent. She shopped it to publishers, said, maybe 90 days to six months, probably here back because of the cycle that I guess they're not

always accepting pitches for books. Yeah. And I think within two weeks, St. Martens came back and said, we're interested. Wow. And then I realized, son of a bitch, I have to write the rest of this by myself. Yeah. Yeah. So it really was, Mike, tricking me into a concept that I liked. And then at about 35,000 page, I think it's 77,000 pages. Words. That too. Yeah. Words are, same thing, they're interchangeable. Well, one word per page. Totally. Triple spaced.

I was about halfway done, and I actually really enjoyed it. Here's something most people don't realize. The average American family eats nearly 40 pounds of imported meat every year, and most have no idea they're even buying it. But Good Ranchers does things differently. Good Ranchers partners with local farmers and ranchers to deliver 100% American meat straight to your door. It's pasture raised, has no antibiotics, and no added hormones. It's the kind of quality you can actually feel good about serving to the people around your table.

But the reason I'm bringing them up today is because they just launched something I've been waiting for, custom boxes. Now, instead of choosing a curated box, you can build your own box with the cuts your family loves, steaks for grilling, chicken for weekend dinners, or whatever you reach for most. When you start your plan, you'll get to choose a free meat that will be included with every order at no additional cost. And with my code Cameron, you get $25 off your first order. That's free meat with every order and $25 off your first order with my code Cameron when you start your plan at good ranchers.com. Good ranchers.com American meat delivered. Out in the mountains, there's no room for wheat gear. When I'm packing out meat in the heat,

or loading up for a long-range training trip, I need a cooler that holds the line every time. That's why I use grizzly coolers. These things are bareproof, rugged as hell, and keep ice locked in for days, literally. I've had coolers on the trail, baking in the sun, still holding ice after hauling out out quarters. That's performance you can count on.

Whether you're running deep in the backcountry or just stacking meat for the weekend, Grizzly is built for that grind. Right now, you can get 20% off at grizzlycoolers.com with the code, keep hammering. And that's all one word. And I'm not going to spell it. Keep hammering.

Again, keep hammering. One word for 20% off. Don't roll with weak gear. Go Grizzly. The first thing I ever did that was, I'll call it public facing out of getting out of the military, I started a blog called Confessions of an Idiot. because I know I no dude I read those you were freaking so the one there wasn't there one about like thongs or sandals maybe yeah I I remember I used to read those I thought you were an awesome

writer that's how that's how I remember I always enjoyed writing I struggled in high school from a GPA perspective not because I wasn't uh I didn't enjoy being in school I just didn't care because I knew I was going to go into the Navy so I my friends were taking their SATs. I never did. But I always enjoyed my English class and I had a really cool teacher. So the blog was the first attempt at writing, I guess. It's easier once I started doing the podcast, as you know, or maybe it's not the same for you. I can get my thoughts out way faster verbally than writing because I'll write a lot and then I kind of trim away. Yeah. So I carve away out a little bit. That's the way that I write. But I really enjoyed the put in the other 40,000 words down. I really

enjoyed it. And I didn't have like a guillotine over my head, like a tight timeline. So I chipped away at it on days that I wanted to write. I did 500 words or 2000 or whatever. And I knew, I knew the skeleton of what I wanted to write about. And next thing you know, here we are. Sort of published, bish. I mean, I guess you have an arc copy. It's a big deal. We know what that word means. Yeah, that's great. The physical copy itself. No, it looks, it looks amazing. Yeah, I mean, and it's, there's some great stories in here. I've been a fan of your writing forever. So I've read a lot of what you've written, not since I kind of forgot about that. The confessions of an idiot. Yeah. Is it still out there? Oh, yeah. I never took it down.

Yeah, because there's some good shit in there. Two of those posts got read on the floor of Congress without me knowing about it. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. I think it is. Yeah. Who read that? One time, I want to say Joe Kent now it's got the guy kind of remind me of Joe Kent. It wasn't Joe Kent. It was a guy from Virginia. Yes. That's right. He was a seal, wasn't he?

He was a seal. And the first one that I wrote that was read, it was called, what is it, a debt that cannot be repaid. And so I put the blog post in the book in between chapters just to get people a better idea of who I am in contact with him. That was the first one that I put in there. Also, it helps with word counts. Not a big deal.

Hey, if you already worked your ass up to write it and put it out to the oil, it's got to close. Let's put that in. Yeah. And the blog, I'll waste that. The blog posts were a couple paragraphs each. It wasn't like I was writing a like a Steinbeck novel. Yeah. But yeah, somebody, you know, the internet's a weird thing, right? You hit upload, whether it's written word or doing a podcast. You never know where it's going to go. Yeah. And then I remember looking at the blog. There was a man who was killed overseas. And I had kind of received that news as I was eating breakfast and it wasn't my old swatter and it wasn't somebody i knew directly but over a bowl of cereal i wrote that in about five minutes with my kids at the table with me hit upload close my laptop

came back at the end of the day i'm like what the actual is going on this thing has been shared a hundred thousand times and which i'm like i have no idea what that means but this is definitely wildly outside of my control and yeah that ended up being read um pretty wild but yeah that was the first written word that somehow eventually morphed itself into this book. Well, that should be a good example of how what a great writer you are and how powerful the words that you share can be. So, I mean, I would just encourage everybody to go get this book. Order. Did you do an audible or no? I did. Yeah, I did the audiobook. I was able to read it. That's rough. I didn't find it to be bad. I got to do it in my own podcast studio. I can't read. That's not true. You can read well.

will see yeah oh no i forgot to mention too with your accomplishments i wanted to say thank you for your service to our country i appreciate all you've done but you did forget you also took me skydiving that was i did well there's always a second book right maybe that'll be the cover that was fun that i forgot about that too till right now but yeah yeah we've we've we've hung out a bit Yeah. It was fun. Now, it was a wild process. You know, people ask me why I wrote that book. And the number one thing people say, given my military background, they'll say those experiences sound so incredible. Yeah. But I'll never have them. Which mathematically, they're correct because very few people have a low enough IQ to want to go down the career path that I went down.

So mathematically, most people won't experience those things. And those experiences definitely change the trajectory of my life. But if I go to my deathbed and don't, do anything with those experiences. It only changes me. Right. What's the point? So that is an attempt of my wife read the book. She goes, you know, first off, I really like it. She goes, most of the books I read, though, they have like this hero's arc where it starts off, you make mistakes and then you climb out of the valley and then you're successful. She goes, yours was more just a descent down into more mistakes. She said, it's not wave tops. There's no war stories in there. It's my best attempt to take 17 years of service in that career field and the

lessons that were learned and the tools to solve problems and to put them into a template so they can be tools for other people and they can throw them at whatever problems you have in life. Because they still work everywhere outside of the military. I think the ones that we refine and work on the most in the military are the ones that probably work best in that high stress, high consequence environment. But hey man, if they work there, they're going to. be just fine in the business work anywhere and that's it i mean that's is my attempt to do something with the experiences that largely changed my life in the hopes that somebody else can apply that to a problem that they have and it changes the outcome of theirs yeah not i mean i don't see how it wouldn't

work that way because the amount of stress and the training and the preparedness that you have to have to to take on the job that you had before um there's nothing in the civilian life that's probably going to be anywhere close. So yeah, those tools, those lessons, yeah, they should be able to help about anybody. And just to give people confidence. Just like, I always like, when I read things that people went through crazy things and overcame them and succeeded or survived and succeeded, it just, I can, you can always find a common thread to tie back into something you're doing. So you can always learn or at least have a mindset that you didn't have before just by by reading other, you know, excerpts or what you just said honestly is the difference um again you know statistically if you look

at people who try to become a seal if it's in the summer months 75% are not going to make it 85% in the winter months aren't going to make it just because it's colder physiologically though they all take the same tests like the people that graduate and the people that don't all go through the same pipeline together and they arrive at day one together physiologically if you could make it to that day you have what it takes to graduate like we're not turning you into some incredible physical machine in training you're actually probably on like a little bit of a decline physically so the difference is all upstairs and it's the mentality and that's a choice and it's some of those things have to be learned by being out there and struggling but others you can

just change the way that you view things and it can drastically shift the trajectory of your life yeah no that makes sense um it reminded me like so where where is like the special forces community now as far as like you know you always hear about our generations are getting soft or weaker whatever how is the recruitment process and is it getting harder to to make seals and rangers and guys like that or is there i don't think so i the guys i talked to are still in will pretty much all say the same thing it's still the training program works yeah for all of those pipelines that you're talking about. And it was interesting going back as an instructor.

You could play a character if you wanted to or you could just realize your job was to apply the curriculum because the curriculum does its job. It's done it since the 40s. And generations have shifted in the U.S. since the 40s. And that program is still finding the right people and sifting out the right ones. And I would say from what I hear people who are still in say that they are more capable and probably more badass than the generations before. Really?

Dude, they're doing stuff I never even thought about. I mean, the world is evolving around them, but it's still the right time of people that are there for the right reason and they're getting after it. There's one part in the book, or you mentioned there's a, you talk about the distinct difference

between a seal and a team guy. Oh, yes. So I thought that was, I think that's a big deal. Don't you think that that's like, as far as if you're going to predict success, of a seal isn't that it I would say long-term for sure and your ability to tell me what that means so one is a job title and the other one is the way that the person conducts

themselves right you know seal is something that ends up that's stupid that ends up on your name that if you earn that title and it's I don't mean to be diminutive towards the title at all it is difficult to achieve but also for people out there go on Amazon and you can buy yourself a Trident I think you should buy one and wear it out in town and get a mini one for your suit lapel. You can be a seal too. I mean, actually, anybody, it's like you can get one on Amazon. Go to town.

It's a title. If you earn it and it is hard earned, you will carry it for the rest of your life and it'll open doors for you. Some of them you're qualified to go through and then some of them you're probably not qualified to go through because people don't have a really good understanding of actually what it means outside of the military, which makes sense because there's not that many of them. A team guy is somebody who cares about the mission. and their uniform, they might look like shit.

They might not be able to find their trident. But when shit goes down and things are difficult, they're the person that you're looking for. They're not there for a resume bullet. They're there for the person to the right and the left. They're there because they're bought in on what this country stands for and what the job is. Those are two different people.

Right. Yeah. One's individual. Yeah. There are people who come through. And again, people can do whatever they want to with their experiences. people stay in the teams for four years and probably 40, I guess that would be possible.

Some people legitimately come in, it's a bullet point on a resume. And for other people, it's eight bullet points down. And again, that's kind of the difference between a team guy and a seal. In my opinion, everything I just said is purely just my opinion. I don't speak for anybody else. Yeah, no, I understand. But I get what you're saying. And that example did stand out for me because then I thought about it.

And I'm like, okay, that makes sense. Look at what you do. There's bow hunters and then there's bow hunters. Yeah. You might have a real tree wrap on your truck. Yeah. And you might have all of the gear and you have no time invested. You don't train.

You don't know anything about your bow. You don't actually even care about the animal that you're out there hunting. And then there's people like yourself who dedicate your entire life to that pursuit. Same title, perhaps. Right. Not the same person. I got it. Yeah.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Because I just think that you could like even at a regular corporate. setting. There's people who are, you know, more solely focused on how far can I get in this thing? Or can we, what's the objective of the business? Like can we, how can I help us win? All win. And so that so that should make sense to about anybody. I hope so. I just like that. Yeah, that's covered too because and especially in military setting, not again in corporate setting,

whatever, who gives a fuck. But in a military setting. You say that to you own the business. Then you're like, God damn it. Why don't people care? Of course. Yeah. Like my business. Yeah. These guys better give a But anyway, in the military, though, it's all, it's not all, but a big part of it is, you know, you're supposed to, I think part of the things that the approach you guys take is you'd be willing to die for your teammate. They'd be willing to die for you. That's how it has to work. I mean, I hope that that doesn't happen and we're not asked to do that. What I will say is that is a little bit, you know, the military and military service. I know, you know, one of your children went in and served and the Army is different than the Navy, which is different than the Marines and different than the Airs and different than the Airs and different than the Air. Air Force and absolutely nobody even knows what Space Force does. So we'll just sleep. I've heard they do a lot of like internet type stuff, which I don't think is space unless it's cyberspace, but I don't know. They're uniforms, tits. They're great. Great camo pattern. Great. I don't know why you need camo pattern for the internet, but like we're going way off. Yeah, way way off topic.

Military service is, it is different. About 15% of military occupations actually have a role in direct combat operations on the ground. And I don't make that delineation to try to say that one is more valuable than the other, because I think something that has often forgotten in special operations is all of the ancillary personnel that actually make the job possible. I don't service the vehicles, the helicopters, I don't fly the helicopters, I don't put them together, I don't buy the bullets, all of the stuff that we have, the support personnel, the traditional conventional military forces that are the battle space owners that we come in and honestly a lot of the times cause problems because we come and we smash shit and they're the ones who are living there and they have to deal with it.

Special operations wouldn't exist without them. But there is, like we say in the Navy, there is a difference in the job that I had and then somebody who does, let's say, 20 years on an aircraft carrier. That job probably in many ways is harder than the job that I did, but it's unlikely that they will be asked to go somewhere in a remote location and potentially give their life for their buddy in one of those. So, you know what I mean? It's different. It is. It's important, but it's different. It's important. They're both equally important. One can't exist without the other. Um, but the military has so many little subsections and divisions and so many differences. A lot of times people paint it with a broom.

And I'm like, oh, it's just all gray. I'm like, oh, there's some blue, there's some green. There's, it's, it's tough. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, um, I get that. And so in speaking of then today's climate, I asked you about the younger guys coming in, whether they still got what it takes compared to like the older generations. You say they do. So I'm wondering though, what does, are we a war? I can't remember before a war or if this is a skirmish, what is it? But does a situation like this, how does that impact people serving?

Like when they see that the public, like from what I see, and I don't know if this is my algorithm, but not very many people, people are on board with this war. How does that for people who are serving, you want to, I don't know, I don't know. You tell me how it feels, but what is a situation or an environment like this do to people in the military right now? Before I answer that, I think it's important for people to realize this country hasn't actually declared war since World War II. But things like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, what's going on right now, those. things are still happening. Post 9-11, it's been the use of the authorized use of military force,

A-U-M-F, and every president, in my opinion, since that has been put into place, has manipulated it and operated outside of the boundaries of what I think it was designed for. So we might be involved in what looks like wartime activities. Not a war. Technically, not a war. Which rags the question. How is that possible? Some people wake up when they have to. Some people wake up because something in them refuses to stay still. Spring has a way of exposing that. New light, new ground, new work to be done. Out with old excuses, and with the new standard. If you're lacing up boots before sunrise, loading up a pack, stepping into the garage gym, or logging miles while the world's still quiet, you don't need soft fuel. You need something built

for a rebellion, the discipline kind. Black Rifle Coffee didn't discover grit in 20, They were founded on it. Built by veterans who understand early mornings, quiet courage, and doing hard reps, nobody applauds. The ready to drink cold brew is made for motion. Just black. Clean, direct, no nonsense. Vanilla, smooth, bold, still all business. Throw it in your truck, your range bag, your pack. It's ready when you are. And when the season demands more, grab Grapex or Wild Frost for. from Black Rifle Energy, zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine, no crash, no compromise. This isn't about trends, it's about renewal, raising your bar, new season, sharper edge.

Find Black Rifle Coffee at Walmart, Target, Kroger, your local Black Rifle Coffee shop or online at Black Riflecoffee.com. And use code, keep hammering for 10% off your purchase. Fuel the Rebellion and keep hammering. If you haven't already noticed, I'm pretty into routine. I lift, run, and shoot every day. And I usually stick to three meals, big portions, elk meat and potatoes kind of guy. I'm not someone who's constantly fueling throughout the day unless it's coffee or an energy drink. And that's just how I've always operated. But since Mountain Ops sent me their new big sticks, I found myself reaching for something between meals a lot more. I started throwing a couple in my truck to have after a long run at Piscca or a fensers. And I'll be honest, they actually taste pretty good, which isn't something I usually say about meat sticks. They're made with whole muscle beef and pork. So the texture and flavor

feel like real food, not something overly processed. Each stick has 20 grams of protein, and it's a big one at 2.2 ounces. So when you've been putting in miles, climbing and grinding all day, it actually gives you something back. It's not just a quick bite. It's real fuel that holds you over and helps you recover. I still eat the same way I always have and nothing is replacing that. But when I need something quick that still lines up with how I live and train, this is what I reach for. Mountain Ops, big stick. Get 20% off today using code cam at mountainops.com.

How can you essentially be at war without being at war? I thought our system was based off of checks and balances. Is it not? What do we have going on? Now, to answer your question to the warfighter? Yeah. If I'm being like brass tax honest, nobody really wants war except for the people that fight it. Yeah.

And I think a lot of people want to understand that. But as a young service member in an occupation like that, you don't want to die, but you want to be tested. Yeah. You want to go. And it'd be like going to the bow rack and that's all you ever did for 30 years. but you hear other stories of the people that came before you who were out bow hunting. Yeah, killing bulls. And you're just practicing.

You have the paper bowl, though, right? You're like, oh, that thing is always broadside. That's how hard could this be? And it's probably not a healthy mindset, but I understand it. Yeah. You are, you're seeking out crucibles. You're going into that career field and you want to be tested. What I find is interesting is that after those people, and I'll put myself in this category,

after some time there and after you get out and get a little bit of time away from the machine, you start getting real hesitant about committing American forces to environments like that because you understand the costs to a degree that I don't think you did when you first got in there. So to answer your question about how it's impacting people, it depends. People actively serving, I would say maybe less of an impact, maybe more of an impact when they come to the end of their contracts that they're on, the retention might go down. And I'll be curious to see what happens when it comes to enlistment numbers.

I think that's where you'll see those metrics. But I would say the vast majority of people, specifically in combat arms, are tightening up their bootstraps. And so I think what I heard you say, and this is what I would believe, too, is that it's different. When we say war fighters, are we talking about guys going out doing the hardcore shit, as opposed to like those are forward type forces as opposed to like support type people because one can't exist without the other however the job responsibilities are different and the and the mindset because I know when Tanner was in it's like they used like they're make him get the COVID shot or whatever he

wasn't going to do it and they they're supposed to be going deployment they said we can't go in deployment if you don't get the vaccine so he got it because it's like that's all they care about to your point. All they're, all they, all they're, the only reason they're in is to be deployed and go fight. And so he's like, didn't want the vaccine, but did it because he couldn't imagine his guys going over there. Something happening. He wasn't there. Yeah. So they use that to pressure him in because they know that guys like Rangers or Seals is like they would do anything to go. That's all they care about. As weird as that sounds. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you get older, you start thinking about the younger generation,

like, hey, hold on, Mr. who's not going to listen to me because I was your age one. Pump the brakes. Let's think twice. You start thinking a lot more strategically, I would say about the bigger picture than you do when you're in, which is like this super myopic tactical focus. Yeah.

But then I was thinking like, so the people who aren't without mindset to go and to kill the bad guys, because most people aren't killing the bad guys essentially. They are, you said they're just as important, which I agree, but they're not. It's just different. It's a different role.

So for those people, I was wondering, like, they're more susceptible to being impacted by maybe what's going on back home. Maybe. I don't know. I can't really, I would have to hypothesize or make a total wild-ass guess on that. I just hate people. I hate thinking about people who volunteered to be in, like, what we call it the greatest army in the world. They volunteered to do it. And now I hate that this climate would make them think that they made a mistake or maybe people don't want to,

like their job isn't valued. So anecdotally, I can say that some of that has to exist because I've been getting emails from people in the military or those thinking about going into the military. And they'll ask for my thoughts on the current conflict. And I always respond the same way like, listen, my thoughts actually don't matter because I'm not the one looking at either exiting military service or signing on the dotted line. You have to ask yourself, what do you want at a military service? I do think there is a stark difference.

You and I are old enough to remember 9-11. and the pictures of people around the block at recruiting stations, not everywhere. But let's just say the Marine Corps had a great numbers month, probably September and October and November and December of 2001. I'm not seeing those pictures now. Right. And I'm hearing, you know, after 9-11, just about every allied country associated with the U.S., if not every allied country associated with the U.S. was like, hey, what do you need? You want to go fix some people up?

Let's go. We'll take my car. That's not the environment right now either. Right now we can't get anybody to do anything. And again, I am not an expert in strategic anything, global politics, but I think it's an interesting data point that things are different. And I think that we should look at that and people way smarter than me should probably go figure out why that's happening. Yeah. Because it is different.

Yeah. Don't you think it's the commander in chief in calling out saying NATO's worthless? All these countries are cowards. Can't believe you're not doing anything. Oh, hey, we need your help. Wait, you don't want to help? After I just raked you over the coals, what are you talking about? You don't want to help.

I just, I mean, I'm no expert. I can't see it being helpful. I'm no expert on foreign diplomacy either, but I know how communication works. I always view stuff like that. I try to pull it back to at least something I have experience with. So I look at it from the lens of being a father. Yeah. If I were to, like my kids, right, if I were to talk to my kids that way and tell them,

I don't know necessarily a perfect tie-in as an analogy, but whatever, something happens, and that's the feedback that I give them publicly and privately and then turn around and say, I need your support and I need it right now. Yeah. You know as a parent, that's not going to work. It's a tough sell. It's a real tough sell. Or try that in business where people are not related to you by bloods,

who they have even less sense of obligation. I don't understand it. Me neither. I have a hard time not being pissed, depressed, kind of sometimes. Like, what the fuck is going on? What's your attitude on it? Like, what do you think about, like, where we're at and kind of the language the president is using with his tweets and posts and things like that,

talking about the Iranian people and just a humanitarian aspect of it. All I can say is it deviates from every leadership characteristic that I was ever taught. And I've worked for leaders who spoke in that way. Sometimes their behavior was a little bit better than their speech. sometimes it directly aligned with it. And getting people to be bought in was really tough. Getting people to give their last measure is really tough. I think our country, I know our country is going to survive.

I think every generation is like, this is it. Yeah. You know, like, for my dad's generation was probably electricity. He's like, oh, we're f***ing. Right? He's not that old, but he's getting pretty old. Yeah. Or, you know, one of the stories I heard told once is that, you know, the printing press was originally thought it was going to destroy.

intelligence. Yeah. And in the end of the day, right? But it was just a new technology. And people are saying this now about the internet. Like, we're going to figure it out. Our country, I think, is durable enough to survive just about every administration. But I don't think that that means that we should have free license to drive it to the

farthest point of the cliff and take a look over that. I don't see the utility in doing that. Because for every four-year cycle, one, there seems to be an opposite rebound in the other direction but two why why push it that far where if you have a sneeze the next thing you know one of the tires it's over the edge why do that i don't know i don't either is a game of chicken it feels like and iran you know them dying is like a great honor they would love to be killed probably depends on who you ask yeah yeah belief systems for some of them for some of them but i just it has this whole situation has me wondering i've always thought

we were the good guys, right? I wanted to believe that. I thought we were. That was a messaging that I was receiving back. Like when Tanner joined the Army, very proud, I'm like, this is amazing. I'm very proud of my son to serve our country, greatest country in the world.

I love America. Stuff like going on right now, I'm wondering, are we the good guys or are we the bad guys? I think it would have depended who you ask for the last 250 years. Mm-hmm. Because even in the moments, I think we were the most pristine beacon for what freedom and possibility could be at the expression of that, you always have another side of the coin. So depending on you want to use Iran as an example or radical religious sects that are sect C-T-S, not S-E-X-S, very different parties, very different parties for sure.

Yes. A lot of those have very anti-Western views, right? And so you're never going to get to a place where everybody agrees, like, you know what, the U.S. is this beacon and this is everything we can be and this is awesome. I still believe we're the greatest country in the world. I think we're just having some speed wobbles right now. And I don't know why, but I don't think the skateboard's going to destroy itself. Okay. Well, good.

I hope you're right. I wonder sometimes. Like today at 8 p.m. Eastern. I wonder. I wonder sometimes too, but also, is there a benefit to getting to that point sometimes in your life where you got to sit down and question and reflect? Like, I think it's a good thing that you and I will sit down and be like, what in the hell does it actually mean to be an American?

I thought we were supposed to be this. And now it appears that we're doing this. And what's interesting is that you and I can have that conversation. And I could have that with somebody who is staunched on the other side of my religious beliefs. And I'd be like, okay, at the end of the day, like, I think I understand where you come from. I'm not going to try to kill you over your beliefs because guess what? That's part of what this country has founded on as well. And then you go online and no part of that listening aspect is there.

It's just people yelling at each other in hatred and negativity. It's wild out there, man. Yeah. No, I'm just blown away by just everything right now. I just, I can't, you know, the generals being let go, the secretary of war. So the U.S. military is very top heavy from a leadership perspective. Yeah. The officer ranks are very top-heavy as well.

I don't think it's a bad thing on both the enlisted and officer side that they actually take a look at what is needed versus what is there. Right. It's okay to trim a little bit of the fat in the military. During a war? We're not at war camp. Oh, right. No.

During a skirmish? Well, you have to look up how many admirals and generals there are. I think we can absorb losing a couple. Now, I'm not saying you should fire them just for like general purpose. Yeah. But what the general public probably thinks is that they were opposed to whatever the president wanted, so they're gone. That could be true, but because there's almost no transparency about why the action took place. And even if there was, would people believe it?

Yeah, I don't believe anything nowadays. So where does that leave us, though? I can't believe anything. No, so when I see something on my phone now, that's just what I'm like, no, probably not true, probably not real. So it's like, it's like 10 different, check, 10 different places. Try to get like some common thread of something similar in each of the messaging. And they're like, okay, maybe this, this is probably what it is. But you can't just read something and think that, God, can you believe this?

No, you can't believe that because it's probably not real. So it's such a crazy time on, I don't know what to believe. The more time I spend off my phone, the better I feel. Yeah, for sure. In January, I did, have you ever met Chad Wright? You have to. Yeah. Have I met him? Longbeard.

No, I know who he is. He's the Forrest Gump of the Navy Seals. No, I've, he's amazing. I've corresponded with him. I saw him at, I went to America Fest like years ago. And he was speaking there. Yeah. So I saw that.

Such a cool dude. He came on this show. I think it was in December. And we started talking about screen time. And we both pulled out our phones. It was not an impressive moment. Yeah. It was not. And so we had a pact in January, which, by the way, I fully dominated him every single one of the weeks. It's not a big deal. We don't have to celebrate it.

Yeah, or even bring it up. Yeah, but it means something should be brought up and people should be shamed. Let's not bring up that you dominated him on the screen. Every week. Every week. We won't bring it out. One hour per day is what we were trying to get ourselves to. That's good. It was actually really damn hard to do it, especially if you have any type of crossover in business. online. Yeah. And it was just phones that we were tracking because you can do a lot of the stuff on laptops, but I tell you what I found. A lot of the time wasting stuff on your phone is way less sticky on your laptop by design. So you spend way less time doing it. Yeah. So the final week, I think I got to 49 minutes, it was the healthiest I had felt in as long as I can remember.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the only thing I changed that month. Well, I mean, I'm sure there's something to it because we just get addicted to like what's going on now what's going on now what's the latest did you hear anything to what would you know it's like especially with this this not war thing it's like you never know i mean you expect to like look say you know and read about a nuke or something so it's like it's like not to not to like okay now what i mean yeah but yeah it's it's definitely healthy healthier not to be on it for sure i also find that the interactions that i have have with people online are very different than I have in my real life. Yeah, definitely.

Just the way people talk to each other. Disagreements are actually really civil, but also the verbal word is way better. You can hear the inflection into anybody out there maybe had a text misinterpreted by their significant other, not that I ever have. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just start smashing the call button because it's not what I meant. Yeah, I'm so pissed off. Yeah, I know.

It's a man, I don't know. I know I've got a lot of hate since I've been kind of critical on the administration with this war and all that. It's I love blocking people. It's so fun because it provides dopamine for you. They don't know. I mean, I don't know them so I don't give a f*** whether they follow me, right? So it's so fun to think about block, delete whatever gay message they sent. And I never have to see their face or name again.

I don't even know who they are. And to think about them going to their phone to try to go to my page and be like, Wait, what? Wait. Hey, is Cameron Hage's page? Did he delete it? No, just you dumb fuck. That's fun. A lot of them, though, probably tell themselves like, yeah, I got Cam.

He couldn't take the smoke that I was bringing. No, I just love it. I love, and the dumber they are, the more I enjoy it. I think this country was founded on people being able to be idiots in the public square, and you bring all ideas to the middle, and you bring ideas into the light. Because the cockroaches scurry away it. It's, yeah, man, I don't know.

The internet is the best, worst thing human beings ever created. So powerful. It is a very useful tool. I mean, it's changed all our lives. 100%. But, God, dang, it can be a crazy place, too. You have to make sure it's working for you and not the other way around. That's kind of what January taught me.

January. Oh, yeah, you're, you're, it's almost like a sober October. Yeah, except. Not sober, not October. Totally. And not alcohol. They don't even do that anymore. Why don't they do that anymore?

They're not tough. They're too weak, just too weak. Right? What I've heard is what he's known for. Okay, so here's another hot take. When you're deep in the back country and everything depends on your gear, your knife can't be the weak link. That's why I teamed up with Montana Knife Company to build the keep hammering packout.

What matters to me in all things is performance. The packout is built to do one thing really well. Break down animals efficiently. The blade shape gives you control when skinning. The steel holds an edge and it's light enough that you don't think twice about carrying it all day. When you're tired, cold and working on an animal miles from the truck, simple and reliable are everything. Montana Knife Company is American made and that matters to me. I know Josh Smith personally and he doesn't cut corners.

He cares about quality, doing things right way, and about building. building products here in the USA that actually perform in the field. That's why I trust this knife. If you want to check it out, head to montananinef company.com. And right now, podcast listeners, get 10% off any knife with code cam 10, CAM 10. To keep hammering packout, built for the backcountry, built to work. We've got a limited all-black packout dropping January 8th. quantities are tight and they won't last. Get yours now. I've been shooting Hoyt for over 20 years now,

and they're a lifetime partner of mine. That's not something I take lightly. I stay with partners that prove themselves, and Hoyt continues to do that year after year. They shattered the industry standards and built the AX90, the first 90-pound bow to exist and be offered to consumers. Why? Because they have pioneered more advanced. and archery than any other company of their time. That's why I work with them, because they are the best. For me, I want the most energy I can shoot in a bow. I want a heavy arrow hitting hard. To do that, I like to shoot 90 pounds. I shoot a 90 pound bow because I want a hard hitting arrow delivered with enough force to push through, say, a rib or the edge of a shoulder blade.

Because it's bow hunting. Not every shot is going to be perfect. But when the animal reacts, or maybe I don't make the most perfect shot, I still want to deliver a lethal arrow and a 90-pound bow gives me more room for error. If you shoot 60 and I shoot 90, I will kill every animal you will kill at 60 pounds. But you won't kill every animal I will at 90. That's just the way it goes. That's why I shoot the most poundage I can. And for me, that's a 90-pound bow. You can't pull 90?

Don't worry. Most people can't. Hoyt makes bows for hunters at all levels and they're all the best on the market. Hoyt will never rest on their laurels and bring subpar products to the market. And that's why I love working with them. The 90 pound bow to multiple iterations and while I was impatient, they were not. They wanted it perfected. That's who they are and that tells you a lot about the people working there. Unfortunately, they don't offer discounts on bows, but if you want to grab some Hoyt merch or selected accessories, you can use my code, CAM, for 20% off. If you're serious about archery and you want something you can rely on, shoot a Hoyt. Go find one at your local dealer, select the bow rack here down the street for me,

and try it for yourself. Get serious, get Hoyt, and keep hammering. Do you know Jo Kent? I only met him in person one time. What did you think of that situation? I don't know what to make of it. And to be honest of you, that is my favorite answer as I get older. Did you see Chappelle's last comedy special?

No. First off, that dude can tell a joke. Yeah. Nobody's business. Yeah. One of the things I love about comedy is that you can nest really important societal conversations inside of those narratives. And he does a good job of that.

He does a great job of it. And he was talking about, I don't know, is a completely acceptable answer. And the world we're living in being bombarded by people saying the opposite of that. I know for sure. Instead of I feel. I think. I hope. Those are way different things than saying, I know.

And what he basically said at the end of it was he's really uncomfortable and distrustful of anybody who says with any level of authority that I know. Because how much do we really know? I have no idea what Joe got his eyeballs on. Um, immediately, and I knew this was going to happen. He was attacked and it was like, oh, he was going to get fired for leaking information. Anyway, I have seen no validity to that claim, but man, that that led the headlines. His wife was somehow compromised. So therefore he was being manipulated via her.

I haven't seen any proof for that either. But it's amazing. These are like way up there on the headlines as this is happening. I don't know what he saw. Um, and until they'll never going to disclose to us the raw data that he had. had the ability to take a look at. And since we don't have the ability to see what he saw, how can you say anything other than, I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. It definitely puts the administration in a tough spot because they're selling one message. He's saying that's not accurate. Yeah. And then from somebody on the outside looking in, then you're like, is this true

that the satellite imagery of that area has been, like turned off. Like we can't see. So this is what I read too. We can't see. We turned off like say Google imaging. Okay. So we can't see the damage.

They've inflicted on our bases. Yeah, but it's not real time. There's usually like a 30 to 60 day lag and that stuff anyway. They say you can't look at that area now. Yeah, some people say the world's flat too though. It's true. So there's that.

But then so even with messaging with Joe saying, no, there was no nuclear threat there, everybody else saying there was, uranium, blah, blah, blah. If you even look at like even the latest example of like the pilot rescue, there's two completely different narratives on that. Iran saying that we were going after the uranium, it failed, they stopped it, we're covering it with this rescue of the pilot. Yeah. That's one example, two completely different stories.

How would any of us know what the fuck to believe about anything? maybe that's the goal is to paralyze people through absolute lack of reasonable information. So we all get to this place of general malaise and like just whatever. We're just cows being sheltered along. Yeah. Yeah. But if cows could pay taxes. A lot of taxes.

Yeah. So we're just cattle, but we got money that they take. People should Google the tax rate. that the revolutionary war was started over. You had 3% or something? At peak levels. Yeah. In comparison to what tax rates currently are.

I know, I pay like 50. Yeah. Well, that's because you're wildly successful. And it must be nice, Camel. No, we got a new thing. What's our new must be nice? Didn't you say you had a new one? I do.

Yeah, when people say it must be nice, they're like, hey, you have a helicopter, it must be nice. I just write back, you have no idea how nice it is. It's probably 10x nicer than you think. I love that. That unwinds some people. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, it's a, you know, this misinformation or disinformation or AI or like this time

where we don't know what we're looking at whether it's real or not. Maybe this has always happened and they're just way better at it now, but man, it's crazy. It is crazy, but I would hope it gets to the place where people realize they should be slower to act. than faster. Because if you can't be sure, why would you make a bold, committed move on something that you are not sure is actually real?

Like, give it a beat. Just give it a beat. Yeah. Yeah, the pilot one is interesting. I had heard that narrative of the nuclear material. But I also thought, though, that last year when we did the bombing,

that we had destroyed the nuclear material creation capability. Forever. Obliterated. And this is where it's like, man, this, control of narrative like is this accidental is this intentional or either one of those actually a good thing is it something i don't know man well i just get confused they say we regime change liberate the

iranians um that's our mission and then another statement would be like we want the oil we want all the oil and you know wipe them all out very different statements from the same person so very different statements i mean i just don't the messaging is not the what do they call it's never a tweet it's whatever the truth true social yeah today an entire an entire population is going to be annihilated first sentence i totally murdered what that said last sentence god bless the iranian people there was some stuff in between there but as far as bookends go whoa i just don't so there's nobody back there who can rein him in i don't know i have never even smell the air that goes on in the i don't understand what i thought was is that our country

in the founding documents were designed some call a constitution indeed yeah were designed to make sure that one person couldn't do that checks and balances yeah yeah um so tell me like i'll just say when he was elected you know i voted for him obviously um his when his cabinet choices came in. I was supportive. I thought that, okay, those are good. You know, Pam Bondi. Of course, Tulsi, I've always loved Tulsi. Um, Cash Patel, I wanted him in there. Dan Bonchino. I was like, and now it's like, I mean, is anybody going to make it through four years? I don't see anybody keeping their job for four years. Uh, if I was, I'm not a betting person, but if I was, I would put more money on nobody making it through four years. Yeah.

And so what changes because was I duped on that these would be good candidates for these positions or what? It's like, because then I listened to Pam Bondi talk about the Epstein files and I'm just like, want to kill somebody. Hey man, the Dow's over 50,000. Oh, that's right. No, I don't want to kill anybody. I forgot.

We're, we're bawling out. So it's fine. Can you believe that she said that in front of, and in the back row were victims. I know. who raised their hand and said that they had never been spoken to so the move there the way i look at that i'm like okay what would i have done there i've said you know what senators congressman i want to take a 15 minute break and the reason i want to take that break is i'm going to go over there with my staff and i'm going to get names phone numbers email addresses however the f you're going to get in contact with them

and you'll never be able to raise your hand again and say that you haven't talked to an investigator and then we'll get back what i wouldn't have said was anything about the stock market I just don't. So what happens? I mean, you know, because like how does she say that? Yeah,

well, it's like I get that these people, they know. I mean, I would think for myself, I don't care who's telling me what I'm going to say how I, what I feel. I don't care what happens or who's telling me I can't say it.

Like in that situation, if Trump said, hey, um, deflect to the Dow stock markets that's more important don't talk about the victim i'd be like no way and that's why you'll never be in a position for that job cam so how does why does somebody bow down to to that is that because they want that position and it's just like it's an ego play that would be my guess and and they and and let's give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they

maybe they think it'll be different for me. I can make a difference. Right. I'm not going to be susceptible to these things. I've never lived a second in any of those roles. Yeah. But even if you want to be gracious, like I look at how or why she would mention the Dow

in that particular hearing. And they are so just non-sequitre things. Like how in the, is that coming up? And what I land on is she was given talking points that she had to stay inside of. Yeah. And if you get outside of those talking points, your job and tenure here is probably going to come to an end pretty soon.

Right. And yeah, at that point, I mean, you're stuck. So they're basically threatened. It's a threat. I mean, I bet you it's passive aggressive. Yeah, for sure. Passive aggressive, for sure. But yeah, I mean, what's going to, you know, I would imagine the role of attorney general is pretty prestigious.

Yeah. Head of DHS, pretty prestigious. And, yeah, it's taken from you. And probably based on the history of how the current president talks about people on their way out, it may not be painted very well. No, no. And, you know, then on the, so on the other side, as I said, I'm friends with Tulsi. And, you know, she's come under question, too, because she was so anti-war forever. And it's like she was all, especially Iran.

She talked about, like, you know, how much bigger they were, how much. more capable they were than Iraq or Afghanistan. And it's like, so then she's, you know, she's put in that position to testify about this, this nuclear arms potential. Really interesting choices of words, too. Very, and I'm on her side. So I'm like listening through this lens of she's just saying that, you know, she provided the information to Trump.

It's his decision as a president. And my thing is like... Not only his decision. Yeah. His decision alone. Right. So... Only the president can determine whether or not a threat is imminent.

That's, and that's the way I understood it. So I'm like, Tulsi did her job. She gathered the information. Here's the pertinent information. Here's what we found. There was, there is no threat. But here's the information. You have to decide whether there's an imminent threat or not, right?

In her opinion, she said no. So to me, she did her job. And so I'm siding with her, but some people would say that, you know, she should have resigned, you know? And then what are you going to get replaced with? What I would say to that is like I could see her in that position and I haven't talked to her about it, but say that you can't make a difference if you quit. So does she believe that she can make a positive difference and help steer this in the right direction or correct direction in her opinion by being involved? Because if she's not there, then what?

That would be my assumption. Especially after Joe left too, because, you know, then it's like two people who I, in my opinion, from the outside, be like, this seemed like high quality people. I want them involved. Then if he's gone, she's gone, then who? Just some talking head that would do whatever. That whole situation is weird. I reached out to some people who worked in the intelligence world. And they essentially said that she was very selective in the way that she used her.

her words. But the intelligence community individuals that I talked to were like, listen, the intelligence community's job is to help them decide whether the threat is imminent or not, or come to the president and say, this is an imminent threat. Because what do we do if all of a sudden, if it's just, again, this one guy is like, Mexico is an imminent threat. Yeah. So what? Now, what? Yeah, attack them? Yeah. What about Canada? Yeah.

Or Greenland. Like, hold on a second here. I don't think that that's how the system is supposed to work. The one guy making the call. Correct. Well, yeah. And so, and then for people that would say, because people railed on her a little bit, saying, no, that's her job to say whether there's imminent or not. And I, then I would rebut that was saying, she couldn't say, hey, they're an imminent threat.

We need to go to war right now. And he'd be like, okay, no, it's still his decision. Yeah. So it doesn't matter what she says. He's going to make the decision. And so she could say, because you're saying that if she says there's no imminent threat, we should, that should dictate whether we go to war, then you're saying that if she says there is, then we're going to war no matter what else anybody says.

And that's not true either. Neither of them are correct because I don't think it should come down to one person. And this again goes to how were we in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years and didn't declare war? This goes back to the authorized use of military force. And what it allows presidents, or in that case, an individual to do without much oversight. Right. And if we're able to do all of this stuff and it comes down to one person and maybe or maybe not, we elected a crazy person, that's not good. No.

And it's what it feels like, where it feels like we're at right now. Yeah. Man, it's pretty, pretty frustrating, but I hope. Yeah, because you think about, is there just loophole after loophole? We talk about these checks and balances to keep everybody in line or to make sure we're not doing crazy things. But with so many like, oh, no, this isn't war. This is a skirmish. Yeah, we can't go to war without Congress approval, but this isn't a war.

It's like there's always like some weird loophole to get by it. Because we allow it. Yeah. And it's like, why is this okay? Why are people in Congress right now support or not? I don't know. I don't know what we do. I don't know either, man.

I wish I had a good actionable solution or answer for people. I don't know. But I think the answer starts at a much more local level than screaming at the ocean and hoping your feet don't get wet instead of moving out of the way. Yeah. I was recently sitting down with Andy Frizzella, who's awesome. by the way, founder and owner of first form. And we were talking about largely this type of stuff.

And I asked him, I said, big fan of his too. Yeah, he's awesome. I said, do you think it's too far gone? And his answer was no. And he goes, I know how we're going to get out of this. And I said, well, let's hear it. Yeah, would you mind sharing?

Entrepreneurs is what he said. And I was thinking about this. And I think he's right. So his business is large, hundreds of people. He sets the culture. at his business. He brings in experts. He invests in his people to educate them, additional job skills. I want a coffee shop in Calispo. We have 40 people working for, like in totality, not like serving coffee at one time. But they're all young, you know, 17-ish to early 20s. I get to

set the culture of that store. I get to determine what type of leadership that I show to the people that work for me to have an impact in super malleable phases of their life that they can take wherever they go next and take it with them. So it's, I mean, again, this isn't a light switch. This solves all the problems. But for people who are like, I can't do anything about the government, so I'm not going to do anything. You need to look inward in where you're at and have an impact locally. You got a guy who works for you. You get to set the culture, right, on what you expect, what you're going to tolerate, what's acceptable language. You can invest in your people. That, that has real world impact.

It's just a long time down the road. And I do believe that our country is strong enough to get us down that road. But if you really want to have an impact, stop screaming up at the moon and start looking around to the community that you live in. Yeah. I think, didn't you used to have an old t-shirt that said be the example? Yes. Yeah.

I did. I used to wear that shirt. But that those words are so key. Yeah. How do you want the world to be? How do you want people to behave? How do you want people to react? act be the example in the book that I signed for you at the bottom thank you it says what you allow

in your presence is your standard right which is a bitch yeah or another way you can say it is what you walk past is your standard I don't walk past politicians and I don't think it would go well if you did and you actually tried to hold them accountable so I'm not saying do that but in your own life and you know how how often and I am so guilty of this I'll yeah I'm just going to go ahead and complain about our politicians in my personal house is a mess, right? Like, start, don't be shitting in your own kitchen. Like, let's make sure your own house is an order. I have three kids at my own that I can hopefully put out into the world and they can do better than I did. You know, there is an ability to have an impact. It's just not at the level that each of us wants to have it at. But

collectively, I actually think that's how we're going to reorient the direction the country goes. Yeah. No, I agree 100% agree with that. And there's another thing I always rely on, which I tell these guys sometimes the standard is a standard yeah here's here's what i expect get there get out what other accommodations do you have their cam for people with differences yeah i mean standard is a standard there are no i don't give a but uh i get that one all the time what do you think about having women's sales i'm like listen as long as the standards are exactly the same and as long as the standards come from the real world demands of the job not some bullshit made up standard yeah what does it actually require these are our standards does a bullet flying through the air at thousands of feet per second give a

shit what's between your legs no okay does the guy to your left or right care no how are you going to get there to be on somebody's left or right you either meet this standard or you do a different job yeah that's all that matters i remember i was talking to eddie galliger about standards and he's saying like obama wanted to create more seals i can't remember when this way he's Obama wasn't the first one. And it was like, so to get more 500 more seals, you're, you're lowering the standard. Hypothetically, yeah. And then, but in Eddie's point, I think is what he said is like, then those aren't seals. Like I said, you can go on Amazon. I'll send you a couple. I'm going to send you a dozen tridents, Cam. Give them to your guess. Be like, hey, just so you know this is a part of

congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah. No. Potentially, that's how you have standard slip for sure. And it wasn't just in the SEAL community, they wanted to increase the number of special operations personnel. They were expecting that from Rangers, from the Marine Recon, from Air Force, PJ, CCT. And you just can't mass produce special operations.

It's one of the known truths. It just takes time. Talk to your son about like, okay, cool, you made it through Ranger School and you told these things. Did you feel like you were fully ready to go? They'd be like, no. Maybe five years down the road, you're less of a danger to your friends and more of a danger to your enemy. Yeah.

So, I mean, that was felt probably military-wide. What I really like about specifically the SEAL community's response is they didn't modify the curriculum at all. And the throughput stayed exactly the same. Oh, that's perfect. And I think they might have brought in more students, but mathematically the average is held. So that would really be the only way if you want to get more on the bottom end of the filter, you can have to increase the size on the top. That's about it. No, I get that. And I'm good with that. Yeah. Because as long as the standard staying the same,

then we're still getting the same type of, you know, for the military, it's getting what they need. Yeah. Yeah, just a crazy, crazy time. So you mentioned your coffee shop back there. How is, like, tell me about your businesses. Like, when I first learned of you, it was on Rogan talking about squirrel suit shit. Like, you know, flying off mounds in a squirrel suit. I call it gliding and not really fly. You are descending at all times, but... Yeah. So then we went skydiving and that was fun. Went to lunch at like Red Robin or something.

Probably, yeah. Yeah. And that was cool. Seeing you in camp now. But yeah, so now you're like got this Black Rifle Coffee thing going. You got your podcast. You got two podcasts. Is that right?

I do, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about what's going on. So the ones I've been doing the longest. The cleared hot podcast, which you've been on twice. Yeah. The last time I actually think I saw you.

We were sitting over there. Yeah, of little chairs. And it's funny because the first time I never heard your name and how I got into bow hunting was listening to you talk with Joe about bow hunting, which I texted him some pretty, you know, awesome and clear questions about what was boe hunting and what isn't. And so that kind of got me started in that. But so I, my own podcast, I do another one with a production company called Ironclad called Change Agents.

You've actually been on that one too. It's shorter an hour long. on people who are looking to make positive changes. The coffee shop is just over three years at this point. And man, that was what a journey. Yeah. Because that was a blue sky build. That was all the way from getting the property that it's built on,

finding an architect, starting from nothing, the permitting process, which is also known as taxes. Super seamless, by the way. Building that out, the build took almost a year. in the middle of COVID, which was, I can't even fathom how much. We probably paid 40% more for that building. Lumber quotes were coming in that were good for 24 hours. Whoa.

And it'd be up 40% the next day, down 60% the day after that. So, like, just blindfolded throwing a dart. Got that. I will say leadership at a coffee shop is harder than in the seal community. Yeah. If you think about it, though, the guys I worked with, multiple crucibles, they had enlisted, gone through the same. election they wanted to be there my average employee like I said 16 to mid 20s yeah I'm not aware of

anybody who wants to be a barista for 40 years if they wanted to awesome but I know it's a part-time job for most I know they're going to pass through um if I treated them like we used to treat each other in the seal teams I would never have somebody come to work I'd be all no shows no calls just wholly unacceptable way to treat and most of them are women by the way too so a totally different dynamic Um, so I got that. How is that hard? I hired a really good management team. Okay.

There's a difference, but I mean, I am one of the owners of the shop. Because I'm good around guys. I'm not great around not guys. I have a 17 year old daughter, so she teaches me the vernacular and I'll go in there and throw out words that I don't understand. Um, but I'm in there every day just to kind of make sure everybody sees me in there. Yeah. And, uh, and I help out as much as I can.

if they're, if they're busy, I'm going to be the first person to go clean up a mess that somebody's going to have to clean up. And I don't do that accidentally. Because again, what you allow in your presence is your standard or what you walk past. And I want to show them that you don't have to wait to be asked to do that. Maybe just always be looking for work. Well, when you walk by and you pick up a napkin, you know, on the floor, everybody sees that shit. And that's why you do it. Yeah. And it's just, and somebody has to do it. Yeah. So it's like, I'm the same way too. Like, and if you show them that the guy who's paying the bills is willing to do it to. I'm sorry, what was the excuse you were about to give me about how you don't want to do it?

Yeah, I like that. Well, the shop looks, I mean, I've only seen pictures or maybe video, but it looks incredible. I mean, I'm very happy with what we built. We have three bulls up on the wall. Nice. Two of them I shot. I wish you were there for the one that Mike Lever shot. I was crying.

I was laughing so hard at him. Yeah. We'll just say that make sure you use hunting ammo instead of target ammo. Really? I didn't. What's a difference? One makes a very small hole and doesn't expand at all. Oh, okay.

The other one is designed to expand to do maximum damage. I don't even know they had target. They do match grade ammo yet. There's a whole community of people out there who do. Oh, for the shooting competitions? Oh, okay. There's no reason for that ammo to be able to expand. So it's all for the ballistics.

Then it's like tax. Yeah. So a lot of guys go to tack, which is this total archery challenge, just long shots at ski resorts type thing. And you shoot light arrows that you wouldn't hunt with. But if you did, how many do you think you'd have to shoot a bowl with? Yeah, right. So it's like it's more like not for hunting just for for those like the tack thing. So I guess similar to that. I just don't do rifle stuff. So I didn't know. Just imagine having a quiver of field tips and how many would you have to? So we got it killed. Oh, we got it done. Yeah. I was... Took a while. I couldn't even see straight. He's like, where am I hitting?

I'm like, just keep shooting. I can't... Oh, that's rough. It's one of my best friends. I'm just tears. So yeah, we got, uh, the coffee shop is cool. One of these days I'll get you out there for sure. I'll be back on this show.

So we've got the two podcasts. I got the coffee shop. The book. Blackbell Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. That's just recreational folding other people in their laundry. That's cool, though. I still think it's cool.

Jiu-Jitsu is awesome. Awesome. It's how I met my wife. Yeah, she's a badass. She is legitimate, like, world-class level competitor. Well, like one of the best in the world? Blue Belt, adults. She was the best in the world. At Purple Belt, I think she podium. And now she calls it the old lady division, the master's division, which in Jiu-Jitsu, I think, starts at like 27.

Yeah, so come on. She's a multiple-time master's black belt champion as well, too. Oh, really? Yeah, she's legit. Jeez, stud. Yeah, that's awesome. God, you're just, I mean, you're kicking ass. And now you're going, you're going on Joe's podcast.

You've already been on Jocco's. You're doing Chris Willie. I think, are you doing Chris's for sure? Not for sure, but who knows? We don't know. If I don't get to and he hears this, that's your fault, Chris. And you should feel terrible. So we've got the book tour going on.

I mean, it's just an exciting time. And I want to see this hit the New York Times bestseller, even though they're a bunch of liberal co-cucks. It's not going to happen. It's not, no. Come on. I would love for it to happen. We were talking about this at lunch. I don't care about the monetary economics of the book.

Yeah. I don't have the ability to give Joe anything to say thank you. Yeah. Other than doing everything that I can to make sure the book is successful as possible. Same thing with Jocko. Like what am I going to give Jock? I don't know. Or Jack.

Like I have nothing to offer them other than being a good friend and saying thank you in the manner of you guys spent your time, energy, and effort to help me with this. I'm going to do everything I can to try to make it successful. But the NYT, I don't think they're huge fans of us. Yeah. We're not their demographic. But check this out. This is from Joe Rogan.

If the world went completely sideways from a zombie virus outbreak and we had to put together a militia to save the human race, Andy Stump would be my top draft pick. That was, he wrote like three paragraphs. What he wrote would cover that entire front page. It was so incredibly personal. And again, how do you, I'm sorry, like, Joe, hey, look what I just bought you? I'm like, what am I going to buy Joe? I can't buy himself.

You know what I mean? I struggle with that because like I own so much too. You know, it's just like, would you give somebody who, I mean, if he wanted something, he'd have it. Your best effort. I guess, yeah. I mean, honestly, that's all you can do. Drownproof, eight life lessons to keep your head above water. So you can read just fine.

Jack Carr. who did make number one times, New York Times, New York Times, but selling author of Risk Guy morning. Fiction list, though, fiction. Yeah, that doesn't. Do they count that? It's like a comic book, right? I feel like you and I could write a fiction book right now and be number one and two.

We love Jack. He's incredible. He's incredible. Yeah. Just joking. Here's what he said. Drown proof is a raw and honest look at the discipline and mindset required to overcome the challenges that confront us all from the demanding world of the

special operations of the high-stakes personal adventures to the world world of business. This book shares harder and wisdom for navigating life's toughest tests with the focus on resilience, self-reliance, and leadership. Drown proof is an exploration of how to keep moving toward your goal no matter of the odds from Jack Carr. That's awesome. Last one, Jocko Willick, U.S. Navy SEAL's number one, another number one New York Times best selling author. For sure, for him, yeah. He says this book is not some Paul's version of Andy's life. Is that kind of a dig? No. Like I said with my wife, she's like, where's the hero arc in this story? So that's very accurate then. Okay. It is a raw look at the

mistake shortfalls and harsh lessons that shaped Andy to the person he is today. I think anyone reading this will to learn from his mistakes and prevent them from occurring in their own life. You know what? I thought that Jocko wrote this book. Didn't he say he wrote this? On Amazon, he is listed above me on the name of the author. Well, no, I saw an Instagram post where he said he wrote this. That's because I called him out for stolen valor on a video, stolen author valor. That's what it was. What's hilarious too is I didn't tell him I was going to do that.

And I don't think a lot of people mess with him, but he and I are actually very good friends. Oh, you could tell he loved. He was like laughing. Yeah, so not many people are in a good spot. I didn't tell him I was going to do that. And yeah, I was like, walk into the mailbox. I don't know, like stolen valor. Bullshit.

Author stolen valor. He made that the next day. It had nothing to do with it. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah. Well, all that helps. This is all part of this awareness, this book thing, get this the vibe going for the book, the excitement, the launch date.

It's all so fun. It's pretty cool. It's like, what do we get? I mean, you know how many people have a goal of it? I want to write a book someday. You know what I mean? It's a big deal. Two year process.

Yeah. It's a big deal. It's like, I'm pumped. It's like, and I want people. And there's no greater feeling than when you put something out and somebody says, oh, this impacted me. It just made a difference. And if it doesn't, just keep that to yourself. Yeah.

If you're like, this book sucks. If this book sucks, I have a special email address. It's go for yourself.com. But if you can get this feedback, like, it makes people feel something. You know, you make them feel. And it's like, that's a powerful, powerful thing. And that's, I know people are going to have that same, that feeling from this book. And I'm proud for you.

So now this is the part everybody hates of this show. What's that? We don't even record this. It's going to be deleted, but James has some stupid questions for you. Okay. What do you got, James? I'm going to start off with a heavy hitter then. My favorite color is blue. Have you ever played Fri. Kill? What? Yeah.

Yeah. Mary Kill. So is a one night stand? Okay. Mary, for the rest of your life. Yep. Kill, never again. Okay. Is one of these choices going to be Oprah? They're not people. They're usually not people.

They're endeavors, usually. All right. Okay. So you're three to Firmary Kill, Jiu-Jitsu, wing-suting, or your helicopter. Okay, hold on. I've heard this played with people, but this is different with experiences.

One time. Yeah, one more time. Okay, so you would do it one more time. Yep. Mary is forever. Kill is what? Never. Never again.

I don't like this game. So the kill, I'll go with wings, because I no longer have the ability to stay current and competent in that, so that's an easy one. Good. I was going to say that. I hope you never do that one again, because that's a little sketchy. I'll go f-do it right now just to piss you off.

I'll go book a trip to Switzerland right now. Okay. Man, the other ones I really enjoy. I can enjoy one once. We'll go with a helicopter once jiu-jitsu for the rest of my life. Okay. What about Margot Robbie? Yep.

Oprah. Oprah. Michelle Obama. Jeez. Yeah, let's do that. Hard pass on all three. I'm sticking with my wife. That was probably smart.

See, we bring people down. Do you have anything else? Yeah, I got one more. Okay. Obviously, you've talked a lot about risk and danger being an important component for growth. Yep. I just kind of wanted to know how that opinion or that belief has been challenged

as a father whose kids are now getting closer to the age where they start making those decisions on their own. So I would probably clarify a little bit how I feel about that. Risk in danger, I don't think it is required. And I think a lot of people, I can use wing suiting as an example because a lot of people from the outside of that, they would look at that and be like, why would you do that?

You're out of your mind. That is so incredibly dangerous. And I will not sit here and tell anybody that that is a safe activity. Right. But I will say, I think it can be done as safely as possible. And what people never saw on a YouTube video or an Instagram video is that I would spend six months training to go to Switzerland for two weeks and then do an immense amount of jumps. And maybe two of those would actually end up being posted somewhere. And in that, you are managing, assessing, and controlling as much risk as possible.

Can you get a better wingsuit? Can you get a better coach? what can you do to reduce the risk down to as low as possible? And then the question is, is the juice worth the squeeze? So it's not this cavalier approach to risk. And even in my old job, in the military, people like, oh, man, you guys must have been fearless.

I'm like, I actually wouldn't want to work with somebody who's fearless because that would mean they're likely a sociopath or a psychopath. Like the things they asked us to do were pretty dangerous sometimes. And if you're not scared, I have some questions for you. Like, first question, are you paying attention? where you awaken the brief. Yeah. Because this might be gnarly.

And then the same thing, we do the same thing with a high risk operation is you analyze, assess, and mitigate on risk. So it's this constant cycle of where's the risk? What can we do to mitigate it? What's the residual? Can we keep going and going and going until the risk threshold comes down? And on the first slide of every military operation, it lists the residual risk. A lower risk operation is probably going to be able to be approved at

let's say a battle space commander level something like going into iran i bet you that was a white house call because of the high level nature of that operation and we can leave the narrative about was it for the nukes or rescue whatever it was for them to go into iran like that with the assets that they did in the daytime by the way very high risk i bet you that was sect if not uh presidential approval on that one um and again is the juice worth the squeeze on that. I have just found in my life when I can get to places where I am exceptionally challenging myself to the limit, not over the limit, but to the limit of what I'm capable of, that's been the most rewarding times in my life. Okay. The things that I have not worked hard for are the ones

that I value the least in my life. Yeah, that makes sense. I like that. Well, speaking of hard work and doing like what's for okay i got two questions what's the next goal like you do a lot of big things right you if like the seal the the wingsuit the books the coffee shops do jiu jihitsu that's all like that's big asks right so it feels like you need big shit to keep you like keep this train going what's what's next i mean clearly i need another helicopter yeah okay Yeah, I just like, because I'm, I can't do a regular life. I can't either. I can't.

But I bet you your life to you is regular. To me, I am the most regular person I know. I just do the stuff that I like. Right. And what I like, apparently most other people look at like sociopathic activities. Yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess we're the same there. I'm normal to myself. I don't feel like I do anything that's crazy.

I just am drawn to the things that I want to do. And then when I set that goal, a lot of people will look at all those stats. and say, I'm not going to do that. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm going to do that. Let's just start getting to work. Where did that come from? I think probably early on working for my dad when I was like 10 years old. He was a masonry contractor and easy job. Yeah, it's a super easy job. Let me tell you, after working for him for seven or eight years, I never learned how to make anything. I learned how to move things. And I was 150 pounds when I graduate high school.

So imagine me when I was 10 or 11 years old. And we would go to these construction sites and they would drop off these pallets of bricks. Like 500 bricks is on average. And they have tongs that can carry six at a time. Well, at that time, I could only carry one tong because I was so tiny. Yeah.

And my dad would be saying, hey, yeah, we're building a retaining wall or whatever it is. And all of these bricks that, by the way, are a quarter of a mile from where they need to be. That's your job. And you can look at that in one or two ways. an insurmountable task or you can get lost in the journey of every single one of those and my dad i think reinforced that for me and that to me is actually the secret of how you make it through buds or things that

are challenging you don't look at the totality of what you're trying to do you just live in the moment and you make these really small micro steps and before you know it as long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other you're there yeah so i think that's where it comes from i think you i remember you telling me at some point in our travels but you mentioned that to get through buzz because you were a buzz instructor i remember and uh you would say people look at it because what is it's like a hundred and thirty hours or something thing so hell week is uh sunday evening through friday afternoon and that's about where 75 to 80 percent of all attrition occurs okay they look at as a whole week right reality is you just need to look at it one meal at a time yeah that that's what i remember that

example you're saying like it's a breakfast you make it to lunch because they give you three meals a day right four midnight and it's just like you break it down you look at the whole hell week you're done over but yeah especially as an instructor because i could tell when people were looking at that and then a instructor stump would come like how long can you be this cold yeah and i'd set my watch to the wrong day in time because you don't get a watch as a student oh and it'd be monday early morning i'm like god it's still just sun just went down on sunday or it'd be tuesday morning and anything you'd be tuesday morning and it's like, hey, this is just Monday. And they're literally hypothermic.

Like, I'm going to be here with you for the next five days. And I, you're only going to get colder. How long can you be this cold? And it's just, they explode. Yeah, yeah. Except for the people who realize what he's saying. I just need to get through this interaction because I now have seen the game. I know I'm getting lunch.

I'm getting lunch today. Or if I can just survive him talking to me right now, he'll go talk to somebody else. Yeah. And either they can explode or not. But that's my micro step. Get through this interaction. and then we'll figure out lunch after this or dinner or whatever it may be. I think that's, I mean, that's the only way to get through, like, if you do a long race or

like even a marathon, like mile to mile. You can't think about, oh, I've got to do 26 miles. You should count it. You should have people at every tenth of a mile just holding you up a side. Yeah. Yeah. That would destroy you, I bet. Oh, it would.

Yeah. So, yeah, I like that breaking it down. Yeah. Good advice there. But, yeah. So who, like, who to you now as a grown man has done. so much. Like, are you still inspired by others? Are you still? Oh, constantly. Yeah, like, who inspires you? You do. I wrote that in the, uh, the arc copy that I sent you. I mean,

I can't do the things that you do. Um, one, I don't like running. I like fighting. Yeah. Um, and the best thing about getting shot is that my gate is super messed up. So I, I wouldn't, I was never into long distance running anyway. But I look at you do endurance shit that most people can't do. And if you're not inspired by that, I don't know what to tell you. Because to me, that just reminds me, especially if I see you, like, running for like 78 days straight, which I feel like is what you do every week. If I'm having a shitty day, a little pity party for you. I'm like, on six and a half hours sleep on my eight sleep and my sleep metric score was 80 and I got one shot of espresso this morning. I can't take it.

It's like, you little bitch. Yeah. If you, I mean, I draft off of other people for motivation all the time and I'm inspired by that. And I can apply that to. So when I watch you doing the endurance stuff, it's 100% inspirational. And I mean, this is the beauty of the internet, right? The best, worst thing ever. If I didn't have the internet, I wouldn't be able to see you do that stuff.

Right. So it can help me bridge times in my own motivation because I can cast a net out and look for somebody doing something amazing and remind myself, that person is probably just a normal person. who's put in an immense amount of effort, maybe I should stop being a little bitch and just get back on my horse. So I would say people at the apex of whatever it is that they're doing, inspire me. That's a good mindset to have.

Yeah, and thank you for their kind words too. No, of course. It means a lot. I mean, clearly you have mental issues for running as much as you do, but I mean, I can still be inspired by the fact that you do. I have mental issues for a lot more than that, but that's part of it.

But no, Andy, I was like, I'm so pumped you came. I'm so pumped to spend time with you to watch you shoot your new bow that freaking AX3 is so money. Like I said, after a year and a half off, I didn't do too bad. At least hit the paper. Dude, your form is tits. But guys, go get order Andy's book. You can order it right now.

All these pre-orders, pre-sales count for the first week sales. That gets us on New York Times. That's a weird one too. I know. Why do they do that for the first week, but then every week after that, it's just the seven days. That's really weird. I don't know.

If you don't make it the first week, oh, you're done. It's not going to happen. Yeah, thank you, brother. Yeah, of course. Thank you, man. Check out the book, guys. Keep hammering.