Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 3 - Sean Hughes

Episode Date: June 26, 2017

Sean Hughes is a retired Naval Officer, currently working in the technology sector. His route to the Naval Special Warfare community began at the service academy in Annapolis, and included a deployment with the fleet Navy prior to being assigned as a SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman) detachment Officer in Charge. Sean hosts two very different websites. The first, www.chartwellwest.com is a blog that received millions of views during the election cycle of 2016. The second, www.care4us.org is a beacon for families that have special needs and challenges not understood by most. A modern day renaissance man.

Episode three, here we go. Let's start with a disclaimer. And I just want to put this out there so people know what they're getting themselves into. In my mind, my podcast, you know, this whole creation, like I said from the very beginning, I don't know where it's going, but it's definitely not a military podcast, you know, in air quotes. I'm super proud of the time that I spent in uniform, but I also don't really define myself by that time. And I'm sure I'll talk about military stuff. And I think it comes up just kind of naturally in conversation often, but this is not like a military-centric podcast, and I'm not a military-centric person. So just want to throw that out there. If people are looking for something that's die-hard military, you're probably not going to find it in the next

few hours or days or weeks or months. So just wanted to throw that out there. So today I got to sit down with a friend named Sean Hughes. Sean's an interesting guy. It's funny. I just got finished saying this isn't a military podcast, and I talked to a guy who was in the military. So Sean served in the military. He served as an officer and had a much different route into the military than I did. I enlisted when I was right out of high school. Sean went to the Naval Academy. And I say interesting because he served with the Speck War community for a long time, but didn't come through one of the traditional routes. And by that, I mean, he didn't come through the Buds program or the SWCC program or the EOD program or any of the programs that are associated with.

special operations on the Navy side of the house, but yet served in a position where he was the officer in charge of a SWIC detachment. And I find that, you know, not coming from the same pool of people, it gives him some good insight because, you know, he came from a different route. So he's got a different set of glasses on to view that world. In addition to that, Sean's a voracious writer. He has a blog called Chartwell West, which is linked. to in the note sections of this podcast. And during the election, it was highly focused on politics, which is something that I don't follow closely because I don't have a true grasp or understanding of at this point in my life. I'm trying to play ketchup as fast as I can, but for a long time,

I really ignored it. Sean didn't. So he was writing some crazy stuff. Crazy not in a bad way, crazy in a good way. And a couple of times, it went extremely viral. I'm talking, you know, millions of people actually getting eyeballs on something that is written from a laptop at someone's house. You know, it's incredible for this day and age. In addition to that, you know, Sean's got an amazing family. My wife and I get to hang out with them often, but his family has some unique challenges. He has a son that is severely autistic, which before I had met Sean and his wife, it was not something that I had some experience with. And I've seen firsthand the challenges and the strain that comes with that. And I think what they've done with it is amazing. You know,

instead of allowing it to be an anchor to their life, they're trying to do things with their experiences to help others, which is something that I hope that I'm maybe able to do with the, you know, the challenges and struggles of my life, maybe lateral of that or turn it into something that somebody else can draw some lessons from. So we talked about all that, you know, talked about, you know, who the guy was, what he ended up going into the military, why, you know, the driving force behind that, how he served in the military, transitioned over to his, what would I describe it as, his love of politics, or he actually might say his dislike of politics. Either way, he's very vocal about it. And then ended up talking about autism. So about 90 minutes of

random topics. Let me know what you think. I'm looking at danger close now. Tell me on the beginning of Sean. Like everything pre-going, going to into the Navy because I want to talk about that for sure, but I want to hear about everything that led up to that. Sure. I'm from Atlantic City, New Jersey, which is a weird town. It's a gambling resort town in New Jersey, about two hours south of New York City, about an hour east of Philly.

Grew up there. It's a really kind of odd place that very few people leave. But I grew up on the beach. My dad was an ocean lifeguard and a rowing coach. in the winter. And it's this really interesting culture where everybody, everybody's a lifeguard, everybody's a lifeguard, everybody runs around in an ocean that's got a hundred years worth of wrecks and carnage underneath it. And that's how you learn when you grow up. And then I joined the Navy Day teen. Actually went to the Naval Academy.

Atlantic City is like Las Vegas east, right? I think if they were, that they would be excited to hear it described that way? Well, I've never been there. You know, my only experience with Atlantic City is when it shows up in movies. And it looks like, not, I guess, like the strip in Vegas, but there's casinos. Yeah, it's a really weird place. I actually went to Atlantic City High School for about a year before they threw me out. And it's a, it was a hundred yards from the Golden Nugget Casino, the high school,

until the building got condemned and they knocked it down and moved it a little farther away. And, you know, it being close to the beach and the casinos was tough for, a 15-year-old who looked like he was 30. Aren't there rules prohibiting certain things from being in proximity to schools? Well, there's four buildable miles of land there. That's it. It's, I mean, it's like, you know, Coronado out here. It's, it looks a lot like Coronado, minus everything nice about it, and then replaced with casinos. And it's got some really cool parts, but it's, it's a hard place. There's only 30,000 people who actually live in it, but it holds a million people.

like because of tourism. At all. Seasonally though, right? Like, it's not bursting with a million people. In the summertime. I think it'll, it'll entertain much more than that door in the year, but in the summer it'll hold a million.

I mean, it's got 10 or 11 massive Vegas-sized hotels. Yeah. So do you have any military family at all? No, no. It's for the military thing. Like, none. I mean, other than like my grandfather fought in World War II, like everybody else.

So what drew you towards the Naval Academy of all things, which for people who don't understand about the service academies, well, actually, since I didn't go to college, I can't speak very intelligently about this, but from what I understand, they're harder to get into than a traditional school. Like the process is more difficult. I mean, I've heard everything from people getting recommendations from congressmen to help with their application letter. Yeah, you actually, you have to get nominated by a congressman or the president or the vice president or. or a senator. So each... Which one of those did you go with? It's... I went with Congressman Bill Hughes. I was hoping you could say like the VP, but... Not related to me.

Same last name. Same county. But it's... So my dad was a rowing coach. He coached all the way, when I was young, he did it like for free until you get better and better and better until finally somebody hires you and pays you. And he was coaching at University of Pennsylvania, which is a really, really big rowing school. Ivy League school.

And I wanted desperately to go there, but he was still coaching, like, for free and living underneath the, he's living underneath the stadium at University of Pennsylvania. My parents split when I was really young before I remember. So I would go, like, my weekend visits with my dad was, like, in a hobo slum underneath the stadium at University of Pennsylvania. And he got, like, the Notre Dame kid that was on the football team, Rudy? Like, almost exactly like that, except for not as nice. like it was the Notre Dame was like the Hilton of that version of living underneath the place

whereas my dad's was like cockroaches and a hobo fridge underneath the bed like a hotel fridge can hold like three out of a six-pack yeah yeah and so he got a job that would actually pay him at the naval academy that was his first like paying he was a crew coach at the academy yeah yeah and I rode I went to a really really big rowing school in high school oddly Atlantic City, New Jersey, has some of the biggest rowing in the country, like so much so that I didn't win a race when I was in high school, then went to the national championships and got third because the two boats that beat us all year were from the same town.

Wow. And then so I was kind of a lower-level blue-chip recruit, and when my dad went to Annapolis, I went and visited them, and I was like, hey, this looks really, really cool. Patriot games came out. I thought that was awesome. And that was how I ended up in the Navy. It's one of those nepotistic things where I was a good enough recruit, so I feel good about it.

And I actually got a nomination from the congressman without any help, because what they do for athletes is they'll go find a congressman somewhere that doesn't have anybody who applied. Like if you're a blue chip, full back. They get the roll the decks out. They're like, okay, we're on to the Cs now because the bees are full. Congressman Jones and Montana has eight people in his whole district. and 15 billets to the Naval Academy to nominate, so they'll go get that. And I have always felt good that I didn't have to go that route, so I felt like I actually got in, and I graduated, so it was good.

I rode for my dad for a year, which is a nightmare. I was, as soon as I didn't know, you rode for your parent as a coach. I have been, like, an assistant coach for some of my son's team, and I know that you have actually done some of the same stuff. I find it extremely difficult to coach my own kid and very easy to coach other people's kids. It was the exact same thing in college. Like my eight-year-old doesn't listen to me when I coach him on baseball.

I played about 10 billion baseball games. He's played seven, and he's not going to listen to a word. My dad was on the 88 Olympic team. He was a coach for the Olympic team or manager. And like he was my coach in high school. He ended up being one of the winningest women's coaches in the history of collegiate rowing, and I wouldn't listen to him. I knew better.

And that's just nature of it. And I look back at that and that's just, Poor guy. Poor guy. Yeah, it's funny how you don't come to the realization that you were a little asshole until they're like, you don't know, late 30s, early 40s. Yeah, it's funny. For a little while I was irritated that like I had to listen to my dad as a coach.

And that's, yeah, if there's ever a time to look back and go, man, youth is certainly wasted on the young. That's one of them. What did you get your degree in? I mean, most people probably don't realize that the Naval Academy itself is an engineering school with engineering backgrounds. So I ask every Naval Academy officer of this, and it's funny, the answers you get like, oh, you know, oceanography. Like, oh, interesting. Yeah, I was one of those guys.

So I was so woefully underprepared for really kind of A-level college. I had good SAT scores, but, like, the little Catholic school I went to didn't, like, we didn't have any AP classes that I knew of. Maybe they were there. I didn't know where they were. I didn't take calculus or anything like that. Most of the kids that went there were like applying to MIT and other places. And I was like Rutgers, which is a fine school, but not the caliber other places. I was in the Navy or nowhere else.

And it was tough. I got a history degree, which I loved. I love history. I still love history. It's a big part of what I write now. Oh, you love history. Yeah. But it was actually by, like I have a, everybody graduates with a bachelor's of science because of the engineering classes that they have to take.

but you can also get a humanities degree. I have a bachelor's a science in history, which is weird. And just so people are not confused, what are some of the additional things that would happen at the Naval Academy as opposed to going to a traditional four-year school and coming out with a bachelor's degree of some kind? Because it's certainly not your standard experience that one might get here in San Diego at UCSD or SDSU.

Not unlike some of the experiences, you've had. I don't know if I'd make that analogy. Well, it's, it's, the best way I can describe it is it's like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat. It feels great when it stops. And that's, the first year that you're there, you're just on lockdown. The squared off meals, which I've seen late.

Go ahead and describe that one because I've seen a couple, I mean, maybe it's even 60 minute pieces or just stuff on television where they follow some of the academy people. And of course, the yelling in the halls and the senior recruits, you know, know, hammering in the junior ones, but the one that still just blows my mind is the squared off meals. Yeah, so you got to sit down and with like the first three inches of your seat, so only the back of your ass is on the first three inches of the seat. And you're not looking at your plate and you got to like you put your, it's exactly what it sounds.

It's a literal use of squared off meals. Like you take your fork and stick it in the plate and then bring it up at a 90 degree angle. Without looking at what you're sticking your fork in though. Yeah, but I realized really, really fast. And this is, you know, kind of indicative of things to come. I realized quickly that they got in a lot of trouble if we didn't eat. So I used to like purposely miss my mouth and drop the, drop the food on the floor. And like for two meals in a row, I didn't eat anything.

And this poor squad leader was like, okay, look at your fucking plate. Strong. It's called an outside of the box solution. All right. Figured that one out. Sometimes you've got to take two steps back to go six step forward. Yeah. And that was, it was a, the whole thing is, here's a billion rules.

You're never going to be able to follow any of them. We're going to crap on you for all of it. We're going to inspect your room and find something wrong. We're going to throw it all over the place and scream at you. And you're going to be resilient. And eventually you figure out that it's a bit of a game and you learn how to play it. And that was, that's kind of the lesson of the first year. The shitty thing about it, though, and I'm swearing.

It's the internet. Good, good. Just between you and me. The hard part. about it is that there's, you know, 20 credit hours of class stuck in there, too, as a freshman, and you're not allowed to sleep except for between 11 o'clock and 5.30 in the morning. And that's the thing that you don't realize is that sounds like six and a half hours of sleep, no big deal, until you're not allowed to sleep any other time except for that.

And so... I mean, Draco would say you had a luxury. He's like, you got two extra hours of sleep. It's weak. He's also an autonomous robot, and thank God he's on our side. And a good friend, but yeah. Yeah, he would look at the 530 and say, what took you so long? Yeah, he's like, I've already run a marathon and worked out four times. Yeah, but they have guys, like my roommate was a little teeny guy, like a hundred pounds, and he used to stick himself in his laundry bag and like zip up the top and go to sleep. Like those are the things you learn how to do. Do you take anything else away from it? Like, when you look back now, do you still do, I mean,

because, I mean, you know, I went the traditional boot camp route, right, which is eight weeks of exactly the opposite of what I thought it was going to be because I had the full metal jacket, you know, I mean, that's what I, there's no movies about Navy boot camp. I mean, let's be honest. And then you go there and you understand why they're not leading the summer billet. I mean, we showed up and I would describe Navy Bootcamp as as you learn some terminology so you can speak the foreign language that is military jargon. You learn the rank system and you learn how to fold clothes in March. And that was the vast majority of what I did in Navy boot camp.

So I don't really have necessarily any takeaways from that indoctrination experience. They came a little bit later on, but I still do fold my T-shirts that way. That's one thing that stuck with me. Same here in my socks, too. The one weird thing about, not the one of many, many weird things is that the Marine Corps Service Academy is also the Navy Navy Navy so Naval Academy so Marine Corps officers start off as at the Naval Academy just like the ones that go through there's a certain amount I forget what percentage it's like 8 10% something go into the Marine Corps so the Naval Academy plebe summer which is our version of boot camp

same amount of time looks like Marine Corps boot camp with the exception of it's not drill sergeants who have been to war and learn life lessons it's like 21 year old kids who are a year and half older than you and actually probably it was MIT or the Naval Academy and all of a sudden they're just shouting full metal jacket lines at you and you know it's funny because it works I didn't know any better

it beat the hell out of me emotionally at first and and then I figured it out like I wish I could be like I was way cool and then I figured out fast I was a blubbering idiot for like a month and then I got kind of figured it out a little bit I almost think that's the point of any of those

indoctrination time periods is just to, it's your lateral transition from living in your civilian life to, hey, welcome to the military. None of this makes sense. You can't do right or wrong. We're going to yell at you either way. And you're going to do what you're told. I mean, it's kind of like, hey, this is the way that your life is now.

Yeah, one way or the other. And the other thing that, like, the one, like, lesson, psychological lesson I learned, they did this thing. And I thought it was so stupid at first. But then I understood the point of it. They made you memorize, like, the days till how long it was till, like, Thanksgiving, or how long it was until the graduation for the seniors that year. How long it was going to be to Christmas?

And they had, you had to know how long it was by day. Anytime anybody asked you, you've got to run and get shit on. With the variety of other things, too. Like, there's, like, the cow is the cow or something like that? Yeah, I forget what those things are called. They're from the, I could never remember any of that stuff. And memorize like the menu in the morning and somebody goes out. Menu you had to do and I had to do that.

I never memorized any other stuff. I just realized I'd get it wrong anyway and I was willing to take the hit. But like today's thing was a psychological trick that refused to let you take it one day at a time. And the minute you stopped having to do that, like the psychological shift to be able to go, it's just about today. And nobody's going to go. It's 89 days until the next time I can sleep outside this building. or like the fun thing that they did after everybody says goodbye to their parents. I'm waving.

Nobody can see me wave. Yeah. For those who can't. Yeah, for those who can't see us because we have no video camera here, Sean's waving to nobody. Like, they start playing, like, Christmas songs as you're walking back into the building because anybody that's any further away than, like, New Jersey, isn't going home until Christmas.

How many people broke down and started crying that first night? I saw a kid just crying, crying when they heard the Christmas songs. We had a kid leave. this was the joke, his name was Redmond. I think it was Redmond. Probably better if it's not. Yeah, it might be. But he's like a legend.

He left the first night in boot camp. He left, he jumped the wall and never came back. And like, we got through three hours in the morning and they were light one count and they didn't catch it. And they all had like all the detailers got, they figured it out, they ran into the room and figured out something was wrong. But like for the next four years, like Redmond like underpants started because you had to label all your shit.

Yep. Like, and my buddy, this is a weird story, but my buddy told me one time he came home for Thanksgiving and like his dad came downstairs and his tidy whiteies with like, it said Redmond on the elastic band. The legend of Redmond lives on. God, that's a disturbing sight picture. Nobody ever remembers what the guy looks like

because you was just day one of boot camp. Name lives on forever. Legendary dude 20 years later that we still talk about. That was my first day at boot camp, we got in late because it was in Chicago and they buss us over there and you know that you get your haircut, but I was a water pole player for years. So I had had buzzed haircut for like six years. So the lady just looked to me and she's like, get out of here. But people were losing their mind at that, right? Because it's, you know, and they do that so you lose your individuality.

Yeah. Everybody's the same and everybody's equal. But you don't know how ugly your head is. Like I have the ugliest head in the world and I got about two years left on earth with hair. Yeah. I know what that looks like. I know mine looks like. I just because like I said, I shaved it for so long. And I'm laying in the, I had a bottom bunk. You know, boot camp, you basically spend zero percent of the time by yourself. And I was laying in the bottom bunk the first night, just wanting to go to bed. And I couldn't sleep because this asshole in the bunk next to me was crying.

And it's like, what's going on, man? You're not helping. And you're not helping me. You're not helping me out. At all. Like, I'm trying to get my beauty rest here, man. You screwed up my program. And I mean, yeah, there were people who had cried themselves to sleep at night.

And I'm like, I worked for my dad when I was younger, and we worked really hard. It was a physical job. Most of the days at boot camp, I was just like, this vacation. It's funny you bring up the one part where you're never alone, because that's the thing that's still to this day, like on deployment, you're never alone either. Like, you're just not. That's, I was on a ship one time, one time. I was never alone. And then all the other deployments I did with, you know, your type of folks, I was never alone then.

and there's a weird emotional thing that goes on when you're not alone. And the first time you are alone, like, some people can't watch war movies. If I watch that stupid scene from the castaway where he's alone for like the first time looking at the ground, like it wrecks me. It's a weird emotional kind of thing. It's funny you brought up to the psychological game that they would play by trying to get you look at the whole pie instead of just slice right in front of you. It's a mountain.

People ask me all the time because I spend the time as the buds. instructor and I try to be honest about, you know, what my goal was there. And your job is to select and then later refine the people that you want to work with. And part of that is to get people to quit. And, you know, when you're in buds and somebody quits, it's like they just disappear. Like, where Bob go? Oh, all right. Redmond. Yeah. But then you get, as an instructor, you can hang with that kid, which is what they are. You can hang with that kid for a couple days. What do they call? They call it X-Division or what? Something like that, yeah, as they're processing out. It's, I mean, it's more than the ringing the bell and the sign of the paperwork.

is the beginning, but it takes a few days. Actually, some of the guys are there for five, six months. They go out to San Clemente Island to get shot up by some munition. To say, yeah, to say that they have discipline problems with those individuals, the forgotten souls would be an understatement. But, you know, I was curious why people quit. So I spent time talking with people who gave up, not in an attempt to, you know, do any type of sociological project, but because I wanted to make more people quit, like, and especially

in Hell Week, or I just as an instructor in general, I want to, and that's what it's for, That's what we're trying to do is weed out people. And time and time again, what got people to quit was looking at things in an undigestable amount. And especially when they were driven to a low point, whether that was physically or emotionally or lack of sleep or hypothermia or a combination of all of them, it was the fact that they weren't thinking about, hey, I can get through this evolution and then we'll just see what the rest of the day has for me. They got really, really cold and realized they were in the third day of buds and I can't do this

for 177 more days and boom they're gone. At that moment you can't think about it's, dude, there's a weird analogy and it will probably get into this, but like my boy, my boy, Aden, who's autistic, one of the, like trying to get him down to sleep is hard and the amount of time I've spent in the dark sitting next to him trying to sleep. The one thought that makes me fall off the edge is that this is the next 50 years of my life. The minute I have that thought, it breaks. Yeah.

The minute I go, hey, I'm just here hanging out with them, and this actually in and of itself isn't bad. I'm just laying down, closing my eyes. The minute that switches, just like you said, to the, like, I've got nine more days of freezing my ass off in here. The minute I go, I got 50 years left of 8 o'clock to 9.30 at night being this, I fold. And I start getting frustrated and it's over.

I think that applies to almost every activity. Like you look at people who, January 1st, they start a diet. right or anybody who wants to start something new and if they can only focus on some crazy end state say it's losing 50 pounds if all you look at is your number in relationship to that 50 you're fucked but if you can look at it one half a pound at a time or maybe a quarter you know what I mean to get that success in the ball rolling downhill momentum wise I mean I see it in people who set goals in their personal life I see it in people who set like business goals as well too like they like okay this year we're going to are we're going to increase our revenue 25 percent we're going to go from

know, X number of billion dollars. And all they focus on is that gap and not the daily incremental stuff that will actually close the gap. And I find, I mean, literally my job as a Bud's instructor, there's two opposing forces. My job was to get into the ears of the student and say, hey, think about the big picture. The student's job is to keep their world old super small and not listen to me. And, I mean, I'm telling you, you could see it. If you could see that seed of doubt planted in the student's head and then, of course,

to attack and, you know, fertilize it and water it and help it grow. And I mean, that's really all it was. At the end of the day, that's the conclusion that I came to is the vast majority of it was how they approached their goals. And if you could just get them to think about too much, they're done. And then they spent, I mean, I've run into quite a few students that didn't make it. And the level of regret that they have is palpable because of a decision they made at a low point where they broke.

And even physiologically, just the impacts of cold and wet. Like that just, you know the dark, the darkness, right? Like operating darkness, everything feels horrible and it's never going to end. Yeah. Even when you're not in buds and you're like, I had the fun thing of never being trained and having to operate. Yes. That's a different story altogether. Yeah, we'll get into that too.

And I think you might have had the less painful route, so therefore better. It was less painful. That's for sure. I don't know how effective it was. Yeah. But you know, like to this day, though, Like for myself, when stuff sucks, I mean, our lives are just like anybody else is right. It's a sign wave of up and down.

Like maybe it's physically painful or maybe I'm doing something I don't want to do or maybe I'm slogging my way through something that I know I have to do but I'm not good at it. Like the cue that I give myself is nothing lasts forever. So, you know, this sucks now, but it's going to end. This hurts now, but it's going to end and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I mean, that's what I tell my kids too. I'm like, listen, just put one foot in front of the other and never stop. that forward momentum.

People think that there's like some magic formula or recipe to be in a seal. I mean, that's it. It's, you know, think small, one foot in front of the other. And you look back at some point and people like, how'd you do that? Like, one step at a time.

I mean, that's what it comes down to. So Naval Academy, what did you want to do when you joined the Navy, though? I wanted to... Because I know where you ended up. I wanted to be from the Naval Academy. I didn't want to be at the Naval Academy, and I wanted to be a former naval officer.

And I can say that honestly, because that's actually not what ended up happening for a long time. But I was not, I didn't start for any of the right reasons. And I even service selected, that's what they call what you get called to do. I service selected the wrong thing for the wrong reason. I service selected pilot, believe it or not. I can actually see that. I mean, well, Top Gun was out, let's be honest. I did it because it was one of those things where, like, hey, I'll regret not selecting pilot if I don't do it.

And the funny thing was is I went to flight school and we got in one of those cycles where we were bogged down forever and nobody was flying. They had a— Oh, just like a downtime in the schedule? Yeah. And it was weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks at a time where we weren't doing anything. And I just got bored and I bounced. I pulled out about halfway through the training and went and just. to where it went to drive ships.

And like all of that, I've reconstructed that. I've told myself a bunch of lies about it in the past. And I've really landed on what was a really interesting precursor to other future problems is I was not, one, I wasn't doing it for the right reasons to start. And two, I'm not built well for downtime. And I've had to work a lot on what downtime looks like and how to get through that. And so the combination of those two is I just wound my, myself and exhausted myself and balanced. I did like 13 or 14 flights. And I can honestly say

having worked through it. I don't regret it because of the path that it ended up taking. Yeah. I'm annoyed that I quit, right? That's an honest thing. I'm annoyed that I quit. So it's that duality of like I'm happy. I wouldn't trade where the route ended. It was a fascinating, amazing experience that would never have had if I went into a career flying planes. But at the same time, it's the only thing in my life I've ever bounced on it, ever. And that was... Yeah, I struggle with idle time, too. Like, I do much better. I think it drives my wife nuts. Because I do great with, like, a checklist and being task-oriented. And without that, I don't, I just struggle with the idle time, too. Maybe it's, I have too much time to spend thinking about me

or what, you know, the demons between my own ears. But yeah, yeah, I do much better with a, with a purpose and a direction. So you eventually, ended up, like you said, you alluded to, like, you didn't actually go through, like, the Bud's experience, but you started working very proximal and then with Spec War. So, fill me how it went from the Naval Academy to you being on deployment with team guys. Yeah, I have probably one of the weirdest Navy careers. And I can't say for certain, although I'm pretty certain, that I don't know anybody who worked in Spec War. I was a naval officer for 15 years.

11 of those I was in Speck War and always actually in operational team guy billets Which is for people listening insane if you didn't come from the Speck War pipeline Yeah and it was I can say is I don't know I would know I don't know I don't know any I don't think anybody's done it If they did I'd know them So was it was a weird experience I started driving ships I did that for my first deployment we were actually it was I hated it but it was probably the most important deployment I ever had because I went from the hey I bounced from flight school I needed to understand a little bit about how to have some some discipline oddly even after the naval academy I still needed some more discipline and 9-11 happened and we went we went to the gulf and we were supposed to leave on september 12th on the ship I was on

what type of ship was it was a destroyer okay and I learned how to drive it and I got qualified I'm a you know card carrying surf warfare officer, that's my designator. And we were supposed to leave on September 12th. September 11th happened, and we just got stuck out there forever. And we shot the first missile in the whole war. Tomahawk missile came out. Oh, into Iraq. Yeah, no, into Afghanistan.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm sorry. Well, it shows you how good my memory is. This is October 2001. We were right off the coast of Pakistan. Pakistan didn't give us overflight rights, so we were dueling with, you know, Pakistani warships. We hadn't done that since World War II.

What does a Pakistani warship look like? It's small and gray on the horizon, and they didn't seem too threatening to us. I was going to say, I think you could have taken them. I'm an ensign. I don't know anything. I'm like, hey, I'm on my first deployment. I'm dueling with a ship, and it turned out to be fine,

and we ended up launching. So then we're doing this thing for like 100 days. We're hanging out doing support for the carrier battle group that's their air support, and we're on three-section watch. So it's six on, 12 off. For a hundred days, we don't step foot on land. And you're not supposed to eat like a beer after 45.

We had two beers or 30. I don't know where it is. Probably rocked. We had two beer days. And we finally pulled back into Port and Corpus Christi after 100 days underway with no missiles left. And like I, there's been people who'd been doing surface Navy stuff for 30 years who didn't see what I saw.

And never seen one flight for real. Yeah, in four months. and like we were wrecked and we went and we sailed right home we stopped in cans for three days Australia I don't remember any of that that was I'm sure it was fantastic and we steamed right back into San Diego and it was like I what I learned on that deployment was that like there is nobody is as tactically proficient and as physically and mentally tough as a team guy that's my experience but that life that is on that ship is for a special type of person.

And that's not easy. And I learned, like, that was hard. I came back more strung out from that deployment, not from like a combat and saw blood and guts and all kinds of stuff. But just from a, if your life for a hundred straight days is six on, 12 off, you start talking, you come home and your wife's wondering why you're talking on the radio and your sleep. It's just weird.

I, so I spent 14 total days on a naval vessel after 17 years in the Navy. and that time was spent transiting from Guam to Australia on the Kitty Hawk, which is a very old aircraft carrier, maybe one of the first nuclear aircraft carriers, perhaps. It got decommissioned for sure. They're calling it the shitty kitty. I actually think it was the last non-nuclear, but somebody somewhere will correct me. Yeah, probably somebody who served on the boat, and I remember we had nothing to do, like no job responsibility.

But this story isn't particularly about that. It's kind of tying into the people who work and operate on those ships. they go through a substantially different type of stress, and I would say it's all mental. So I was nothing to do, so I was running on a treadmill overlooking the huge hangar bay underneath the flight deck that the elevators go down into. And they had just done the, I think they call it the shellback ceremony or something when you cross the equator. So the point of that being, we were in the middle of goddamn nowhere.

And I watched a guy go to the wall and pull a fire extinguisher, and then sprint and run holding onto it off of the ship. I'm not laughing because it's funny. I'm laughing because I understand. Yeah. And I mean, the fire extinguisher was buoyant. Did not pull him to the bottom as he thought it would.

It got picked up by a helicopter thrown in the brig. And I don't know what they did with him after that. But that life, I remember watching it like, holy shit. Like the, whatever is to drive you to that point is no joke. Like another group that people that I spent some time with,

I did 30 days on a submarine. Yeah, that's even worse. Holy cow. I did three days on a submarine, and I might have, if you could jump off of a submarine, I might have. I mean, they were, you might have. I did.

There's no natural light whatsoever. I mean, like, it's just, again, it's a different breed of people. And, you know, people focus a lot on the team guy aspect of the Navy or like the fancy spec ops jobs. I mean, I got an immense amount of respect and more respect for some of those people than, you know, some individuals that I've worked with in my own community. Like, it's insane the job that they volunteer to do. And not only do they volunteer to do it, they're damn good at it.

Yeah, and so to that point, by the time I'd gotten done with it, when you're driving a destroyer in the middle of a carrier battle group that's doing, I mean, I don't know where you were at the time, but you might have been over there somewhere, too. What year? 01, into 02. I was just going through screening. I'm making it feel old now.

But the thing, like you got a helo's in the sky. you got boats everywhere, you're controlling a hundred different things, and you're tactically aware for six hours a day, sorry, six hours out of every 18 hours, you're up and running operationally in a different way. But what I know is when I eventually moved over into spec war, understanding how to talk on the radio and to move people around and to stay ahead of the problem and to stay focused for that long.

I learned that drive in a ship, and that's kind of a funny. Well, I tell people this all the time, too, especially when I do public speaking stuff. It's, I can't give a unique definition of teamwork from my time in the SEAL teams. Like, the definition is exactly the same. The only thing I can give is some practical application stuff that can make it better because nobody fails. I mean, teamwork, right? And I have a group of individuals working together for a common goal. Close enough.

You know that if you're a business executive, you've read it somewhere. You learned it at the Naval Academy. You're supposed to learn it on a ship. nobody fails at being able to talk about what it is everybody fails at being able to actually apply it and it's i mean those are the same stuff everything you just listed as the same stuff we harp on inside of the team so again it's to dispel this unicorn environment that people think that we lived in it's all the same stuff it's just how you apply it eerily similar and so i got done like the the transition into that i got done from that and i was i i had one i owed two more years um you

the 05 after Annapolis. I had two more years, and I had one, I guess, one or two criteria for whatever my next billet was, and it was not on a ship, and then San Diego. Which you achieved both, but so how did that work out? I mean, talk to me about your introduction and time in spec war. Yeah, so enter Special Boat Team 12. They had a billet for a training officer, because that's a second tour division officer tour in the surface fleet.

In the teams, it's a grisly old LDO or Warren officer who's been to war for 50 years and knows everything and just sits there and tells people how to run through training operations. So I showed up like a week before I was supposed to report, and I have, there's two, I think there's two important ground rules here. Only team guys named by name or people I'm talking directly to, you, they're dead or they've written books. Fair enough.

oddly there's more there or have or are present governors of states that ran on platforms of being a team guy got you got you already know exactly you're talking about but everybody else just go throw it in the google machine you'll figure it out oddly there's more books than than people i've worked with that are deceased i guess that's a good thing i'll bet there's more books about combat than combat experienced but there's a lot um so i i walked in and i'm like hey i'm your new training officer and you know squirly team guy across the table sits there and starts cracking up laughing like boot jg walks over to sbt 12 which is for you as you guys don't know it's a it's a small boat fast boat command that's run by these guys called swicks which are combatant craft crewmen they run and

operate these boats which are part of speck war as well yeah yeah the ecosystem the only permanent members of speck war are seals and swicks and they don't have any officers the only officers are seals. So like the whole entire wardroom is seals. They've got some warrant officers now, but when I was doing this, it was all seal officers and like one or two surface warfare officers that were like hold over from the brownwater Navy days of Vietnam, John Kerry style, or like PT109 JFK stuff. Solid handlebar mustaches. Yeah. And so I walk in and the guy looks at me and the master chief, the ops master chief looks over me. He's like, can you swim? And I'm like, yeah, I grew up doing ocean rescue.

Like here's where chance and providence kind of combined. And so like not only can I could swim, but I can swim pretty good and in rough stuff and be comfortable. And then he's like, can you shoot? And I couldn't shoot. But I lied. I was like, yeah, I'm good. There's only one answer to those questions in that environment. And that is in the affirmative.

Yeah. At Mass Chief, I can shoot. I can swim. Dude walks over to the board, the magnet, the ops office board that you know. so well that's got different color magnets based on what type of animal you are, grabs the name with hues on it, and sticks it on top of this line of other people under the title Okinawa. And he's like, yeah, we need a dead OIC.

I don't got a chief for that one. You got a first class. And it's not that. How bad can you fuck up Okinawa? Well, the answer to that is really bad. But that's what we call lateral transfer of duties. Right there. So a week later, I show up, and on one cubicle, this goes into the, like, there's actually

one other thing. If you are, in fact, a press correspondent, also clearly a Navy SEAL, I can also say my name. So I go into my cubicle, and on the right side is Eric Greiton's, president-governor of Missouri. And on the left side is Kaj Larson. They're the two seal OICs of the two sister detachment. that are going to the Pacific world. And there's me. And I can't do anything.

And at least I thought I couldn't do anything. I wasn't tactically sound. I couldn't do. I didn't think I knew how to do any of this stuff. But yet you were there peer via position. Yeah, technically slightly senior because I was like a JG and they were both ensigns. And like I could see the looks on my guy's faces when I walked in the cubicle,

like khakis with the swopin. They got one dude that looks like a Hollywood movie star. on the one side, Kaj, and like is the water polo god and can do everything? I played against him actually in high school. Yeah. Never won once. On the other side is Gretens, who's a seal, road scholar, Ph.D. Yep.

And I walk in and they're... So you're outmatched on both sides. Both one at a physical level, the other one at a mental. They're like, fuck. This is awesome. Let's get this going. And I got this, you know, E6 LPO slash who had thought he was going to, to run the debt who hates me already.

But like the cool thing was is over time, you know, as the movie goes, I won them over with my diligence and work ethic. Not really. But what happened was, you know, we, we, things went okay. And I learned pretty fast. But the good thing was, is once we got on the water and once we got in operationally, as good as those guys were, they'd never actually been on deployment and they hadn't done stuff. And they learned fast and they got good.

and they taught me bunches about tactical stuff and small arms, but like running an operation, I could do. I could get that stuff going. And the other thing was, is like this is the secret to, I think the two secrets of my entire time in spec war is I wasn't Frogman, and I didn't try to be Frogman. I knew it.

But at the same time, and you could probably attest to this, not every Frogman is a dude who you need to strive to be like. And, and you, Yeah. They come in all flavors. And some of those guys, the smartest, most effective human beings I've ever been with in my entire life, we're team guys. And some less so, and some not even really effective at all.

And I'm the perpetual kid brother that, like, you're going to put me in a room with 10 guys. I don't care who they are. I'm not sniffing jocks. Like, we're going to play. And you could probably roll me in the corner and put me to sleep if you wanted to. Maybe. It might not be that fun for you. but we're all going to be okay and we're all going to be peers,

and I'm not going to do that. I can't believe I'm working with you guys game. That combined with the fact that I also didn't try to be fake frog man. You know, what I tell people is there's weeds in every lawn, regardless of the size. We have amazing people like you articulated, and we have, we got some problem children, for sure. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's not about job title anyway. respect competence. You know, I worked with it, and I'm sure you realize this, even on the surface warfare side, you work with a variety of people, all of whom mostly don't have the same

background as you. Like overseas on the ground, I'm working for Army guys submitting mission approval to Army guys maybe getting picked up by reservists or air force. I mean, like, you're talking to everybody. And so you can't just rely on job title. You have to rely on competence, you know. And that's, and hopefully the people you were working with, that's all cared about too because I've met some turd team guys that were not competent and they were treated as such and they were eventually kicked out of the community. So it's a lot more about how you can conduct yourself than the metal object you wear on your chest. Yeah, even near the end, it would still be guys that just weren't interested in working with it. Very, very few because by the end

I'd been there for so long that people kind of like, hey, yeah, let's give it up. So what did you Thank you your time in Speck War. It was the most, I think the most important time in my life by far. That deployment, we ended up going to Africa instead of Okinao. At the last minute they redirected us, like this Gilgan's Island was supposed to be to go pick up some guys after some exercise in the Horn of Africa. And it turned into a seven-month, ridiculous, never seen anything like it. It actually wiped out the whole, hey, I'm not a team guy, and I don't know what I'm doing

because nobody knew what they were doing. We were in a place nobody ever was doing that nobody in the teams was even doing. Figuring it out one day at a time. Sinking, it was an entire deployment of crashing, sinking. Eric Schellenberger, who's no longer with us, he passed in a diving accident. He sank a crane while we were out there,

and not like a small crane. Like one of those big, you see it, you know, 40-foot cranes. He sank it in the harbor. but not before he sank the forklift. I was going to say, I knew there was a forklift in there somewhere. Sank the forklift that was trying to get out the ATV that was trying to get out the jet ski that we had. And like that was just one thing after that. Like you're in places that man hasn't been with industrial machines forever.

So like you drive across something in your entire car sinks up to the windows. And you're trying to figure out, how do I get a 3,000? pound piece of machinery out of the dirt when there's nothing even powered by gas for 50 miles. Yeah. You're looking for simple solutions to complex problems? Yeah. So after that, like after that six months, it was like I had, I'd been through kind of the ringer. And when I got back, I had sent my resignation in before I left.

and when I got back I was kind of renewed. I'm like, I may even want to think about putting in like a billet for buds or maybe sticking around or figuring out something else. I got back. They had, they had to extend like a couple months. They canceled my extension when I was gone and didn't tell me. So I had a week to get out of the Navy when I got back. Yes, that is so Navy right there.

So you asked what did I thought of it. like that was the most amazing, you know, kind of formative experience in my life. I wanted more. I had to get out. Actually, I didn't want to get out anymore. I started selling like air conditioning contracts because I had to pay the mortgage because I had no time to find a job. I finally got, went over to Wall Street, which is what I intended on doing before I left

for deployment, but it was weird because I kind of my heart wasn't in it. And I think the telltale thing for me was like six or seven months after I got. now Operation Red Wings happened. And, you know, I had people, wives of guys that I worked with calling me up and asking me, like, what's going on? And I just didn't know anything. I was out of the loop, and it wrecked me. It's a tough spot to be in, for sure.

Yeah. And so right, you know, after about two years working on Wall Street, I got recalled back in the active duty. It was a different story. But I'll answer the question. It was, I think it's one of those things that's a paradox. I wish everybody could have it, but everybody could have it. It wouldn't be what it is.

That's very well put. I couldn't put it any better than that. I mean, do you, so the experiences that you had, I struggle with this one personally. Like, I look back at, I've spent the very formative years of my adult life, you know, doing some, you know, what most people can think, consider to be slightly bizarre things. And it nets a lot of experiences that I struggle to make sense of, and I not only make sense of it, but how do I take those experiences and then do something positive with them, not only for myself, but try to help other people with those things.

And it's because I spend a lot of time thinking about it, I have found a lot of impact from very small things from that community that has helped me to this day going forward. I'm just curious if you've had that same experience from being around that community. So I think the thing that I would define, like the ethos, you guys have an ethos that's written out. I know you probably say it to yourself before you guys go to sleep. There wasn't one when I came in.

I actually don't even remember when that became part of, they had to memorize it at buds. I have that man. See, this is all part of the fun for me because I get to be the outsider that makes, you know, pokes fun. Go for it. Get my ass kicked and it's kind of fun. And then I come back for more.

But the, the, the, never out of the fight was, this thing that I see it every day. I work in the tech sector now for big tech. Every day people quit on problems really, really fast. It's almost their first option. Yeah. And encounter any type of hardship or, you know, struggle whatsoever.

Nope, I'm not doing it. I'm out. Yeah. And that was the thing that, like, that is a massive variable for people, whether or not you quit on those things, just little things. Like this, and then my job now, we're going to run an A, B, test to see if this, you know, customer experience on the product we built works and maybe it doesn't go right. Well, you know what?

Push the test. Don't worry about it. We'll be okay. And it's like that mentality where it's like, fuck no, we said we're going to do the test. Do the test. We do tests even when they're hard. And like now I'm talking about like, this is the talk we have on the pier when it's a little bit choppy. And we're going to, hey, we're going to go board that boat over there. And, you know,

dangerous. Let's call it. Uh-uh. Nope. The chief or the OIC or the LPO, somebody goes, nope, it's time to go. You know, the never out of the fight is just, again, another way to say, just put one fun in front of the other. Yeah. Same thing. Again, so when people ask me all the time, you know, what are you looking for at, Buds? You're looking for people that use failure. which is a certainty for every human being on a daily level, to use it as a motivation or a stumbling block. You know, we want people who use it as motivation and that people who use it as a stumbling block,

they peel off and they end up probably quitting on an A-B test somewhere at the, you know, like you either learn that lesson or you don't, and the difference in your life I have found to be monumental. And you need, so the other thing, like the other thing is you need that meaty thing to bite off on to actually go do. That when I was working on Wall Street, I worked for, you know, Merrill Lynch, UBS, two really big firms right when Wall Street was crashing.

I was so miserable there because I'd gotten out of that, like here's this, here's this massive task of fighting the war on terrorism. I was, when I left Africa, I was the task unit commander, which is the funniest thing in the history of the world. When I got back and gave my after-action report and threw on the swoop in, they commented at me and goes we really have to take a look

at who we've got out at these places that's a lot how thin is our manning chart man I swear to God that was what he said I'm like

okay I feel good about what I'm about to tell you now and like and so what I felt in those times

in between when I was out that three years which I was a wreck I didn't have that purpose and the purpose doesn't have to be service

it doesn't have to necessarily be fighting terrorists and rolling up bad guys. It's got to be something that drives you and something that gives you to have to give your own, your all every day. Or like for me, I just, I've self-destructed quickly. Yeah. Where do you, I mean, where do you think that's taught? So I think there's a, there's a internal human thing that I don't know, I think you can strengthen it or weaken it. I think I just look at the differences in my kids and there's a binary thing. Like I look at my youngest and there's a fight there.

Like it's just there. There's a fight and he wants to go do it. And it doesn't mean everybody's cut out for this type of work. It takes all types to make the world go around. But for those that are, like I think it starts internally. I don't think you can make it from zero. Like there's got to maybe there's got to be a little flame. but you can spark it, right?

But I also think that if those people that are seeking the challenge and they don't find it, they often run into kind of self-destructive stuff. Well, because they have the drive. Yeah, they have to drive and nowhere to go with it. They're just bouncing off walls. I mean, I guess I asked you that question because in my own mind, I think it really starts with the parents as well, too, like trying to find out, you know, stuff. Again, I'll talk about my kids.

I'm like, don't focus on the job title of what it's like, because I hate that question. What are you going to be when you grow up? I mean, when you asked me that when I was eight, I said oceanographer. When nine, it was probably firefighter. Ten, it was probably cop. By 11, it was team guy, you know, but it's like, I, it- By 25, it was ex-team guy. Yeah, by 25, it was ex-alcoholic team guy, you know, broke ex-alcoholic team guy. But it's, you know, I want my kids to have that sense of purpose because I think at the

end of the day, that's the only thing it matters. Like, I see so many people who hang their hat on a job title or a position, it's like, you only rent that time. I don't care what the job is. You're just renting it. But the ability to find out what makes you tick and then pursue that. And then another thing I try to reinforce with my kids, it's like, don't listen to what anybody else says.

Dive in with both feet. You know, you only get one lap around the track. Don't sit there towards the end of it and regret the fact that you didn't push whatever it is you wanted to do as hard as you can possibly go. But I think it has to be taught because I don't think they're teaching it at school. Yeah, I think taught is a good word for it. I think almost harvested, right? There's this thing where you got to, you got to, it's less of a,

you know, you can't plant a seed, but you can water it. Yeah. And you can tend to it and you can create the environment for it to grow. Because I just know the different environments of my life and the seasons when it had nowhere to grow, how dangerous I was to myself and to the others that cared about me. Yeah. What, all thrust, no vector, just bouncing off the room. Yeah.

Yeah. Please recall me back and send me to Iraq so I don't destroy my life. And, you know, that articulation right there isn't going to make sense to the vast majority of people. But, I mean, yeah, it makes sense to me too. One of the things I struggle with the most when first getting out of the military was watching the news. And just watching what was going on in the world and realizing I had no ability to impact it whatsoever. It just crushed me to the point I couldn't watch TV anymore. Yeah, and I can't watch the movies from the new movies.

movies, the new movies that are, you know, about the books that the guys... I don't even know what you're talking about. No, never heard of them. I can't watch them. And people are like, oh, I guess it must be tough for you because of what you've seen. Like, no, it's tough for me because I really, there's parts of me that really misses what I did in that space. And that movie is going to make me only remember the parts that I miss. And it's going to not make me remember what it's like to be away from my family for six months at a time. And ultimately what ended my time

was my son's diagnosis. And I couldn't deploy anymore. So I still wanted to keep going and I had to have to bounce. That was tough to deal with. Yeah, life doesn't really care about your personal aspirations or your own purpose or drive.

Life might throw you a curveball on that one for sure. While you were in, did you follow politics closely? Nope. So not at all I was old I barely even voted I don't actually I don't I don't know how many times I voted as an active duty thing part of it was like I believe that we're the officer core we're not supposed to be any political and part of it was I was just lazy young and stupid I actually didn't vote either and maybe it was a stupid reason why but I felt is the action arm of foreign policy you should have no say in which direction it is pointed So I actually voted for the first time in this in this last election, which was interesting.

And you broke it. I did. That was all on me. But no, but I asked you the political question because, you know, you have a very successful blog called Chartwell West. And I'll put that up in the link. But, I mean, to say that the vast majority of the posts are political in nature, and you definitely research it and you have strong feelings, I'm just curious how far back that

goes. So I will not attempt to describe your political beliefs. I will let you do that because I'm sure I would absolutely mess it up and I would mess it up intentionally in an attempt to make fun of you. So where would you define yourself on the political spectrum now? And do you think you're on the left or the right when you were in the military? I started off far right. I actually, when I got out and when I was working on Wall Street,

I was the chairman for whatever, for whatever it's worth, like the acting chairman of McCain's campaign in, in Atlanta County. Would you say it's fair and a fair assessment that probably the majority of the military leans more right than left? Yeah, I think it's a self-selecting personality type. And like that's natural and I don't think it's bad at all. I think it gets a little screwy what they do with their behavior with it.

But like as a mindset, I actually think it's good. So two questions then. So you said you started off on the far right. where would you describe yourself now and then talk to me how that it falls into your into your blog so i'll flip the questions because i think that's how it works for me the blog started so i i i have a um a slight addiction to uh data numbers um and it's it's been around my whole life i used to keep statistics when you know we'd be playing wiffleball games and and like calculating people's slugging percentage.

It's a, it's, I don't pretend to understand it. It's in there somewhere. It's why probably some of my kids are off. There's a DNA thing going on. Well, but I think when it comes to the purpose of the blog, though, I mean, again, my experience in the social media pool or even understanding the blog space is super thin, super thin. But I see people putting up stuff all the time or reposting stuff, and you can't trace it back to anything that is what I would consider to be reputable.

And they don't base anything they write in anything other than feeling an opinion. So for me, at least, when I consume that type of information, I'm more interested in the stats and the data and where this. Something grounding. Something that I can say, all right, that seems to be a legitimate source. I understand your opinion on the matter. I have no problem with it. I'm not going to argue with it about it because I've learned that that's futile.

But at least anchors something for me into the ground that is in, like, math or science. I don't know, something that I consider to be more concrete than, hey, I'm upset and I'm going to scream and repost the first thing that I see that agrees with my position, regardless of where it actually comes from. You can look at the, I just look at the bottom websites. I'm like, yeah, I've never heard of that, you know, the truth about Hillary Clinton. com, like, oh, that's probably not going to be illegitimate. And they're like somebody I know that I'm related to will repost it and all, oh, dear,

so sorry, I cut you off. Talk to me about the blog. So it's, it started with, in 2015, after I was finding myself going into, to a similar kind of tailspin. I transitioned into the tech sector and I got to use the data stuff and all that stuff as part of my job. But like I wanted to kind of stay involved and write

and it was a bit of amused. I've always written but I've never done anything with it. So I started pulling apart data and doing kind of deep data pieces on some models that I'd built. Like an example would be I built instead of a historical ranking index of presidents, I took economic, you know, a broad range of economic or societal data and built an algorithm out of it and then ranked the presidents, wrote a piece on it.

Or I actually pulled apart, like the data behind gun violence, wrote a piece on it. And the idea was to not have it be politically bent. The idea was have it, start with the data, follow the data. What if it were my job to fix this problem and it had nothing to do with politics? Start with that. And what I learned very quickly on that, that both sides were full of shit. I can't argue that. So both sides were full of shit, and then the presidential election started.

And the... Where would you say you were on the political spectrum when it started? Were you still leaning pretty far to the right? I was excited to vote for a Republican presidential candidate. Okay. And I didn't know who it was going to be. I was going to be very forgiving of whatever Republican presidential candidate was selected.

Because over time, one of the things that I learned that the... there is truth behind the idea that each dollar more you spend on government becomes less effective and the data supports that logic supports that reason supports that and um i also believe that like the entire one of the things that the entitlements cliff that we're driving to is a very very difficult problem to solve um and what do you mean by the entitlements cliff so we are we're um we're so much of our federal budget right now is already um um we're um we're so much of our federal budget right now is already allocated towards either debt or things like Social Security or Medicare, Medicaid, that at some time in the very near future, the only thing that the federal government is going to be able to do

is to pay those things unless we figure out how to reform some of that stuff. And what I had, just looking at the two sides of the argument, the conservative side of that argument, felt better to me. And to a degree, if I looked at the people we'd had come up from the conservative side, I felt like from a moral perspective, I thought they were decent human beings, and I was okay with that space. And then, you know, somewhere along the line, the phenomenon of the Trump campaign started, and it was the worst thing imaginable for me trying to stay objective, because you have to remember, I'm from Atlantic City. I was going to say, I think, and I think it's important, too, like when people can articulate where their beliefs come from, because

you and I've had, what I haven't mentioned yet is Sean lives across the street for me. So we've had conversations about politics and they were very interesting when it came to the time of the election. But you have had some very close family relationships with Trump and it puts you in a situation where, and I'm paraphrasing things that you told me that like, it doesn't really matter what anybody says or if he's right. You just, you know what I mean? Because of your personal feelings and the things that have happened to your family, that's the way it is. I have a very similar situation with the other candidate. Yeah, and like it's one of these things where I wish,

I wish I could do it all over again and be more objective because I feel like I lost my objectivity in it, and I've reflected a bit on it. And the analogy I use is the eight-year-old pool party analogy. None of those kids have left the pool. They've been in there for three hours. You know they've pissed in it. You know they're all, they're swimming in a pool full of urine.

But the minute one of them gets out, stands on the side and takes a whiz into it and you can see it, everybody's got to get out of the pool because you just can't, in all good conscience, like there's something that trips there. And what had happened for me over the years of living in a town where Donald Trump had owned most of the casinos, about half at his height, and just kind of observing the behavior. which was one kind of thing that bugged me, but then hearing the new package that was coming out, the new version,

it was another analogy, the guy you went to high school with who you know is no good wanders into your office and he's your boss now. He's got a PR agent too. Right, and you just can't live with it. And so kind of the emotional fits that I went through and the evolution that I traveled down in the writing and the blog did a couple things.

One, like, it certainly was no longer objective to some degree. It then became very politically partisan, which was never the intention. Your blog for a while was extremely political. Not that I didn't appreciate it at all, but it was, yeah, I mean, it was definitely, it was a scalpel as opposed to a broadsword. Yeah, yeah, and I've, and so the interesting thing is, you know, I've had some time to think about it. wouldn't change necessarily anything I said because it's in the moment. And I still think as political

blogs go, it was still mostly benign and objective and fact-based. I mean, it wasn't fake news. It was any of that stuff. But I definitely went down a course of advocating for one versus the other. For sure. That I wasn't happy about that either. Like I wasn't excited about my vote. We had those conversations. It's, you know, the choice between. something you're not really fired up about and something else that you're not really fired up about. Yeah, it was hard. So did it swing you from the right to the left? Do you think inside of yourself? No, so I actually, what it, it swung me over into like a complete economic

based libertarian bet. Because here's, what had happened is the one side of the campaign used a very, very clear binding of the Appalachian thread to the south and the, and the, and the, and the, deep south to drive a populist vote, right? And it's not, it's a strategy. It's a very clear strategy, it's not new, and you just have to be willing to go to a place or allow others to go to a place on your behalf in order to bind it, and he did.

And so what I struggled greatly with that message, the message of nativism and internal, like focus internally, foreigners are the problem. I struggled with it, because it's not, that materially isn't based in anything that is supported by economics or data or any of that other stuff. And I've moved very libertarian. Like that's the, like, and I wished. The one first person I wanted to vote for was Gary Johnson. Like, it's just, it's tough to vote for somebody who's getting 3% of the vote, though. Yeah. How do you think things

would be different if Hillary had been elected? Well, I mean, what do you think? I mean, obviously, we're asking that question right now. What are we five months in, four and a half months in? I mean, slightly unfair, but do you think it'd be different? So I think it would be very, it would be much more similar than people think. So the policy that's being driven is largely a dismantling of all of the executive actions of the last presidency. Yeah, he's trying to definitely unwind some string. Right. And honestly, like, that's the way the system works, though. If you're not able to actually get it passed

into law, then it's very easy for the next person to pull it apart, and that's by design. And so we should not be surprised by any of that stuff. We should expect it. We should expect things like to be moving out of climate agreements. We should expect things like trade agreements to be changed. We should expect all that stuff. That's in the office. And I have this weird thing where, like, if it's something we ought to have expected, I don't get outraged by it. Yeah. What we also, but what would have, which that's different, but what it would,

what I think would have been similar is there would have been the same level of, like the whole email. I don't think it ever would have died. We'd be going through the email server thing with, you know, a panel reviewing it and looking at it the same way we're going through the Russia panel. Yeah. And what it would be, and I actually wrote a whole piece on that, like, here's what a rational criticism of the candidacy of.

Hillary Clinton looks like. It looks like we're never going to be clear from the shenanigans of 25 years of being near the White House if she gets elected and it's going to hinder our ability to do important things. And so we got that. And it was also my criticism of Trump and that I didn't believe that I believe he put big enough targets on him for people to be able to stop anything important he has to do. I find it's fine that it's so pervasive and that it's just, it's so constantly being talked about that I'm less and less interested every time that the topic comes up. I just see it as a catastrophic waste of time and taxpayer dollars. And I agree with you. I don't think that if the other side of the coin had won, I think it would have been something

else. The scrutiny would have been to the same level. I think they've been going after him to the same level. It would have been almost as easy. I mean, I don't know if it would have been easy. I mean, it's not the ease at which we've moved into like in people, impeachment talks is, you know, that was the, that was why, that was my, that was why I thought it was a bad idea. You think you'll actually get impeached? No, I don't think so. I, I, so here's, here's. So, where, what do you think it'll look four years from now?

I mean, or even in six-month chunks or 12-month chunks, however you want to do it. I mean, what do you, what do you think it will look like? I, I think there's a really big open question that says, who's the Democratic leadership? Because right now, Hillary Clinton appears to be wandering back in. which is mind-blowing to me. Right, right. And like, if that's going to happen, you got eight years of Donald Trump. I think that it, I wrote a piece today that was like, hey, stop predicting because

nobody knows anything anymore. Theresa May just called an election because she figured she could consolidate power and then lost. That was a voluntary election. Yeah. It's just so everybody knows. The UK has the ability to go, hey, my polls are really high. The other party sucks. I'm going to go win all the fucking seats.

She did that and then lost. She lost seats. So here's my disclaimer. I don't have any idea what's going to happen. I don't think that they'll find smoking gun type stuff for impeachment unless he gets itchy. Like it wouldn't have even been close if he didn't fire the director of the FBI. If he didn't fire that guy, this is mostly done. And they're just messing with guys that he already fired to see if they go to jail or not.

I just wish, and I get why he uses Twitter. I understand it's a medium of communication, and it's actually pretty cool that the president of the United States can have a direct communication without going through a press corps or whatever it might be. But God damn. Some of the stuff that he says, like, I just, I want to write back to him, like, can you put your phone down

and start acting like the president of the United States? Because I have inherent respect for the office of the president of the United States, but the person sitting in the seat still needs to earn my respect. So there's a, this is going to, there's, there's a fascinating phenomenon that's happened with my blog where I became a bit of a symbol of like,

here's a reasonable conservative person. Let's all the entire world that wishes that conservative people sounded like this. Let's all follow him. And I love it. Like, it's great. I appreciate the audience. It's fantastic.

And I'm not dishonest or disingenuous. So I think there's merit to it. But like, there's tons that I actually, appreciate about the change. For one thing, we needed a shock in politics. There's absolutely no doubt about that. We were becoming less and less and less effective. And I then jump into the whole Twitter thing. I actually love the idea of a president who tweets personally. And I go all the way back to before Teddy Roosevelt, it was taboo for the president to go and talk to the press

himself. That's what I'm saying. I'm super appreciative of the fact that, yeah, you could actually And because he's actually respond to some people and blocked a few. Yeah, which is another weird thing. I love the idea of it. It goes back, I can't believe the things

that pop out of his mouth. Correct. Like if I could, if I could, if I could craft better messages for him, and it would be great. So there's this weird thing.

I believe that we needed a shock. I believe that, that the blind belief that lubricated globalism is the way of the future has problems with it. There's, there's, you know, not to get too economically geeked out,

but like there's a guy named Danny Roderick, is Roderick's Trilemma. He's, he's not a crazy person. He's a Harvard Business School economics professor, and he kind of says that, like, hey, you can have globalism, you can have sovereign borders, or you can have democracy, but you can't have all three at the same time.

They don't work because of the impacts of it. And we're kind of budding into the reality of that, So the idea that we could take a reasonable step back from it, which it would probably take some of Trump's agenda to do, is great. But it just gets in all the other stuff gets in the way. And it makes it hard. Yeah.

What do you think the biggest threat right now is to the U.S. political system? The political system? Man, it's like looking at a deer that's dead on the side of the road and asking it, what's its biggest threat. like what's what it's it's hard because it's in it's in trouble right now i think we've i don't know i don't know how to get out of the nunnage of it like i i don't know how we get out of my nunnage i mean just it's nonsense i don't know how to get out of the political nonsense part of it i think confidence is an underrated um sorry confidence trust is an underrated portion of the social

dynamic. Almost all of this stuff is invisible. All of it, like we follow laws because we trust that they're in our best interest. We follow the government because we trust it. Like, there's 330 million of us. And there's a gun for just about every one of us. If we really wanted to, we could stop listening. And the threat is that the trust gets to a spot where nobody believes anybody anymore. And that's actually the very beginning of the truly problematic governance of men in the past. Like, that's where you start to run. I'd say we're almost seeing that on the horizon right now.

Yeah, and I don't complete the circle of, like, hey, this is how Hitler started. Because I just, one of the other things familiar with, you know, the Poetist, that's not his thing. That's, unless he goes nuts, right, unless he's gone nuts. and since I know him so well, meaning I've never been in the room with him. But just observing him, it doesn't appear to be his thing. Power appears to be his thing. It doesn't appear to be crazy, you know, genocidal nutsness.

But like, I don't know what happens in the next 30 years if we completely don't trust anybody to say anything ever again. We don't trust the news. We don't trust her politicians either side. We trust nothing. we don't trust the Supreme Court because we've been told that that's now a political. If we can't trust any of that, I don't know what happens. I don't know what 30 years looks.

What's 30 years and not trusting anything look like? I don't know. I mean, do you even make it 30 years not trusting anything? Or yeah, I mean, that's a pretty scary place to imagine it. And like I said, man, I think I see, personally, I think I see flavors of that already on the horizon. Just because I see most people not even willing to have a conversation with somebody whose opinion that may differ for them. Yeah, it's hard. Which is insane.

Like, what's the problem with having an educated conversation about an idea that you don't understand in an attempt to, you know, like, I mean, look at it from this perspective. The better you can understand your adversary, you'll know how to fight them. So, you know, instead of just pushing everybody away with a different opinion, I mean, I try to do this. I'll look for people all the time who truly hold different opinions than I do, and I just ask them why. Or, you know, tell me about it, why it is that you feel that way. And at least it gives me a better understanding, you know, and then if I want to, I could use it against. them in an argument because then I could research what they're saying to strengthen and bolster my position. I just don't see that. People like, no, you're different than me. I don't

want to talk to you anymore. Yeah, it's hard. And so we're an old government. Like that, we're not an old people. What kind of timeline you want to look at here? But when you, if you talk about standing constitutions or democratic governments, we're the oldest in the world and one of the oldest there's ever been in the history of man. Governments turn over quite a bit. and not always, you know, violent revolutions in the streets or that stuff, but they run into problems eventually, and the things that run them into problems tend to start with the erosion of trust in the social contract. And I am, believe it or not, an optimist, so all this bugs me.

I don't like to talk about it. I would like, and which is why I think, like, the next version of this is just somebody somewhere either side that's pretty squeaky, but does that thing, squeaky clean, but also does that thing where they have, you know, what Malcolm Gladwell calls is generous orthodoxy where they've got a point of view, but they're also willing to listen and not alienate people even when they're wrong, because that they're in lies. Yeah. The divide.

It's an interesting term. I mean, if I had to pick one word to describe how I feel about our country right now, it would be divided up, you know, for whatever emotionally backed reasoning or bad information-backed reasoning, whatever it may be. I've never, again, I don't have a lot of experience on social media, but my jaw hits the floor on a daily basis, the things that people say to each other and just how entrenched they are in their beliefs. And I just, it's at the end of the day, it's like the person you're arguing with is an American. Like, we're actually in this together. like don't light the house on fire while you're still in at people.

I mean, come on now. The things that have been, the things, like, right in the height of the election, the things that would come across the comments on my blog or all. Oh, it was wildly entertaining. I loved it. Like, there'd always be some guy with a, like, I like guns, everybody. I like guns. I like guns.

I have them. I like to shoot them. You know, other than Andy and probably better than everybody else on the block. But like there always, there was always some, you know, 300 pound bearded dude with an NRA t-shirt telling me he was going to cut me. Cut you, boy. I'm like, all right, show up. Let's go dance, you and I. Let's go for a run first.

I'll make it. You won't. Yeah, wow. So what's next for the blog? I know you have, is the redesign still ongoing or where are you going to be in a few months with it? So I think we're, we're. We're weekly now, which was a bit of a change. The redesign is kind of, we redesigned it to be a little bit more user-friendly and aesthetic.

It was built in a closet first, but, you know, if you get a million or so people on it, it starts to fall down. So most of that stuff was behind the scenes. But I think that I, the first book that kind of came out of it, so we adapted some of the, we, me, and nobody else. The Royal We? adapted some of the content. And so the first book is going out to publish.

Soon, I hope. We've got a couple options on that. And so I think... Do you have the actors picked out you want to betray? Because obviously this will be sold to as a movie. But it's all an essay form, though, right? So the first one is an essay. The second one is the Sean Hughes Warrior story of my version of sniper

overwatch and shooting people all over the place, which never ever happened in the history of the world. So it would be entirely fake in a novel. But so I think I'm the direction I'd like to take it in more. Like I'm done the political fighting portion of it. It eventually, and I can already see it right now, it starts to wind down and it starts to drive the wrong message of division and people stop listening. And I love the idea of kind of kind of. shifting into an optimistic way where you look into tech and advocating, you know, what's, you know,

the biggest economic opportunity for the next hundred years is solving, you know, how to make energy without burning dead dinosaurs. And that's a political thing right now. And so sure, we'll get into the politics of it. But really what's interesting about that is, sure it'd be fun to win that race. Yeah, no kidding. And we're kind of quitting on it right now. So, like, that's the type of stuff. we'll get into. And there's, I'm going to start doing a little more. I have, I have another book that it's about half done that I've got to lean into a little bit more, it's never going to get done. Please tell me it's like a romantic novella. It's a, yeah, it's a love story. It's actually, it is in fact a memoir of my deployment in Africa, which is, but by the way, which will end up

being more of a comedy. It's like, how many things can you break and how can you almost get yourself killed by accident with ever out, ever firing a shot or getting a shot at, in 200 pages or less. Did you start the blog for yourself just because it, I mean, so I have a blog to you, which is microscopic in comparison to yours, but I literally did it so I wouldn't argue with people, and I had an outlet to put my thoughts down and just launch it to wherever it went. Well, first of all, I wouldn't talk poorly about your blog. We write very differently. I love, your writing is, is fascinating.

It is like this, it's an assault on, your writing is an assault on every fragile part of my psyche. Like, I read it and it's like, I want to apologize to you for bad thoughts that I've had, like moments of weakness. Like, son of a bitch, that, that, like the 800 words I just write are tougher than I am. And it's, it's awesome. So I think, like, in any words of encouragement, that's, don't, please don't stop that. But my whole thing of blogging was I needed an outlet because me away from getting the machinations of kind of constructive thought is destructive for me. I know I have an amazing family, but it's not a light load. You know, we have three boys and one of them's severely handicapped.

And I need to be able to get inside problems and fix them in my head and articulate them. And the funny thing is, is, you know, I don't pay, that's not how I pay the bills. I, you know, build and deliver a part of one of the biggest software products in the world. You and I are in the same boat. Zero, I mean, I did the blog for me. It's free. There's no ads. Zero point zero dollars.

Yeah, I'm going to publish a book out of it and maybe another and another, maybe when I'm 50 years old, you know, which is way long from now. It's like two years? Ten, don't bury me yet. I'm still at least your second youngest guest. The plan is eventually just to not have to be in Silicon Valley tech world until I die. But the blog was started to get that stuff going, to kind of get the juices going. But it makes me better at my job. There's a reason, if you look at why they teach kids how to write very early,

it's actually not to learn how to write. that's really basic. It's to learn how to form your thoughts and think through things. And you know, I know this from what you write is that just going from A to B, I don't figure something out

until I write it. And half the time, I don't even know what I'm going to say until I'm done. Half the time for me, I solidify, like I'll have a question about something. And so I legitimately should have titled a blog,

stupid shit I hear in Starbucks. I actually had that typed out on the title line and erased it because I actually thought Starbucks would sue me. Yeah, but I would hear in public conversations or comments that were so, they graded against me so hard that I either had to argue or write it down somewhere. And in the act of writing it down, for myself, I clarified and solidified how I felt. Like I actually think the verbal argument would have been much sloppier because I didn't take the time to take a breath to step back and really put the framework out from A to B. like you're saying, of how I felt.

It's been huge for me as well, too, just to sit down and, I mean, it's a challenge for one. And for me, it's great because I mean, I literally just do it when I want to. When I hear some stupid shit on the street, I'll write something generally. But yeah, it's had great impact, for sure. Just even, like, I have paragraphs that disagree with themselves with each other that change the way I think about the problem. Yeah, you argue with yourself.

I'm like, I just said that. and then I just said that, and that's stupid. So I'm stupid, and I need to rethink this. And, like, that's a cathartic thing. And I'm also, I just, if I got five minutes, I write. So I'm a volume writer. I think I asked you a month ago why you post a blog every week, and your response was, because I can't not.

Like you said, I think basically, if I don't, I'll explode. I actually have to keep it to once a week. Like, it would be, it would be nonstop if I didn't once a week. And so I do it. I get up, I get up Jocko style. I don't PT myself to death I write. My PT style is just running in yoga these days. I'm not much smaller than I used to be.

But like, I get up and I write and I got to get it out and it's done. But the good thing is, but when you do the blog and the book at the same time, you can transition back and forth. Yeah, I find too when I get in a time where I'm writing more than when I'm not, it's easier to maintain that momentum for sure. Yeah, there's a great book called The War of Art of War, the War of Art. Yeah, no, I read it. It's phenomenal. Yeah, like, it was a...

It is very different than the Art of War. Yeah. A different genre, for sure. You're going to find that in different category in Barnes & Noble. I'll probably be the only Naval Academy grad that won't lie to you to tell you. I've read Sun Tzu. Yeah. I've never read it.

Well, there's difference between reading it and understanding it, too. Many people have read it, few understand it. I don't read it. I read about five books a month. None of them are sons. Yeah. So I'm going to bend your ear for like 10 more minutes and I'll let you out of here.

But I wanted to talk a little bit about what you do with Annette because I think it's huge as well too. And I know that it has direct ties to your family. And it's, you know, it's unavoidable for you guys as a family. But I mean, just from the outside, I can tell that you guys are passionate about helping other people too. So talk to me a little bit into the level that you want to about, you know, what it is that it was. Like you said, it was time for you to get out.

And, like, what happened? And how did you get notified as well? Yeah. So I was in Iraq in 2009. Last deployment I did was with Alice Team 1. And I got, you know, Annette emailed me saying caller. And this is like the end of the war in Iraq, we had, like, I had more television. and telephones.

You had broadband. I get it. Yeah. It wasn't without danger. They blew things up, blew me off the toilet one time, which was pretty fun. But like,

for the most part, quality life was pretty good. And connectivity, which a lot of people probably don't realize early on, it was terrible. Like my first deployment to Iraq when the war kicked off,

we were not allowed to communicate. I was handed an eridium phone call when we were flying home on our first fuel stop. I wasn't able to talk to Jamie for like 90 days. When I was in Africa, we didn't even have,

him in the internet. Yeah. So I got out, it was like that scene from romancing the Stone. I was like, the Doobie brothers broke up. What the hell is going on here? But like, Annette email me, she's like, call me. And so I called her and she's like, hey, you know, I've been worried about Aden. I've been telling you I've been worried about Aden.

He hasn't been talking very much. And he's kind of stopped talking completely. And she went to get him checked out. And, you know, he was diagnosed autistic. And she says it. and like the lights go out, like not in a figurative sense, like the lights literally go out.

Our generator died. She's like, he's autistic. Lights go out. And I don't know, we were on shark base. That's, I don't know, you've probably been here. Yeah, neither here nor there, but, yep. And like, so I've got to go run down to one of the places where the generators aren't dead and get on a phone.

And then I talk to her, and she's, you know, she's upset and we're talking through it. And then I got to go, I hang up the phone and walk back. And I remember just thinking, like, I don't know what to do. I'm in Iraq. My wife's home with a four-year-old, a two-year-old and a four-month-old. One of them, eight, my two-year-olds just been diagnosed. And I can say, I can say Leif because, you know, he's written books.

He's a New York Times bestseller. So he was the, he was the ops boss then. And like, I talked to him. I saw him like big giant bison head of his in the distance walking back. I just talked to him and I know what to do. He's like, hey, him and the skipper got me out of there. He sent me home like two days later. Save my life.

Like those guys, I'll lay down on the street for either one of those guys. Save my life. Sent me home for three weeks. Reorganized ourselves. I had to go back. You know, I had a troop. I had to go back for the last three, four months of the deployment. But basically, when we got back from that, my wife and I were in a bad, bad,

spot. She was a wreck. We didn't know where to go. And at the start, we didn't know anything. You know, a lot of people get diagnoses with autism and it, like, it works out or it was kind of like a oversensitive diagnosis. Aidan's 10. He doesn't talk very much and he's got pretty significant cognitive delay. Delay is not even the right word. He's just reduced cognitive ability. And you've seen him. You've seen him almost every day. He's, you know, it's not, we're not in the story where like, hey, everything worked out. He's going to be with us. for the next 50 years probably. Yeah.

I mean, so, I mean, what does a diagnosis of autism in Aden's case mean? Like, what long term? What is his, what's optimal life for Aiden look like? So that's one of the hard parts about it is you don't know. It's just such a huge variable. Sometimes it clicks and they just improve. Most of the time by 10, if they're at the state that Aiden is at 10, it's a hard road. Like we're starting to get down to like near, near, you know, not impossible,

a very distinct outliers kind of turn around from here. But like each waypoint you go by, it becomes more and more clear. But the other thing is it's been eight years now. It's been eight years and we've had some time to live with it. We decided, and that decided, like after we stabilized ourselves and we both went through dark times and I, you know, I almost drove our marriage off a cliff because I was nuts getting out of the military Perry and couldn't figure out anything and was depressed.

We kind of stabilized, and she went back to school to get a master's degree. Her second, she's already got a master's. You know, very educated. She decided to go back to get a marriage and family therapy master so she could go and help people because, like, our experience early in this was us just bouncing off each other. Yeah, trying to figure it out in a fucking vacuum. Yeah, nothing, no help.

Bad advice, horrifying internet full of, you know, the... Yeah, oh, God. The Alex Joneses of the autism world. I can only imagine the rabbit holes that must be out there of information you could go down. I'm sitting in a trailer in Ramadi type in autism on the thing. Oh boy. Figure it out. And it's, so we got through that and we decided last year that like we need, we could do something

where Annette starts a practice and that could be her career. And then we realize like, hey, there's a, there's a calling here. You know, for us, it's a faith thing that says, hey, you've figured this. out to some degree and as much as anybody can figure it out go give back so we started you know a group called care for us it's we're actually sitting in the care for us building right now and so it's a free therapeutic center for people to get marriage family therapy to get group therapy to come in and connect because the thing that you don't you wander around in the dark for a long time and there's a billion things for the kids like aiden's got more therapy more insurance covered or state funded

therapy and schooling than like we could even get them to half the time we can't even get them to it because there's just too much of it. There's nothing for the families. And when you see these horrible, horrible things where it's like this woman abandons her, you know, a handicapped child or hurts or assaults their handicapped child, and you hear people on Facebook, people are sick, I can't believe this.

You know what my reaction to that is? I've never done it. I'd never do it, but I understand. Yeah, you get it. And so I'm here, like every time I think about that, I wonder who could have helped those people through it. because that's the worst version of it. A much more common version of it is the marriage falls apart and people wander away

or even a much, much more common part is people just live in pain and never get help. And so we started us. Carefor us.org is our number four. Care the number four, us. org is our website. We're up and running. We're a 503C nonprofit. And it's really starting to pick up.

We've got 40 or 50 families we engage with regularly. It's all give. How do you structure it so it's free? like where, I mean, it's got obviously it's cost somehow. How is that cost being covered? Yeah, the original, it's funny. It was a startup. So the original bootstrapping was the Sean Hughes Charity Fund.

It's right in checks. Yep. Which is actually a really interesting thing in the nonprofit world is you can't raise money tax-free until you're a nonprofit. And the things you actually have to do to get through to make nonprofit costs you thousands and thousands of dollars. Of course they do. Right?

So you've got to jump through these hoops to get the legal parts done, to get, like, websites up, to get a board together, to pay for, like, you know, bylaws and get all this stuff. And then six months into it, eight months into it, you finally get your approval. So we got approved. And now the cool thing is, is, you know, we've got a pretty good network of donors, and we've got some people who are out. We're funded through the first year. And the really cool thing is, you know, I'm as a tech guy who can make some software,

like there's we're going to start messing with that to build software that can help people help people's lives like materially well i don't know i mean people aren't very tied to tech these days and devices so oh wait yeah i think that could be actually huge uh on your website is if people wanted to donate is there the mechanism for them to do so yeah we are part of the paypal giving fund which is means that we are a a real live bona fide uh charity so there's a on the website there's a donate link um you can just click that donate link and donate through PayPal Boom. What's ended there? 90 minutes. Sweet, man. Thanks for the time. This is awesome.

Hell yeah. We'll do it again. All right, ladies and gentlemen and the intranet. That's episode three. That's all we have for today. Just like last time, you know, if you guys dig the podcast, do me a favor and just tell somebody about it. And if you are just finding it for the first time and you like it, do me a favor, go into iTunes and write a review. Or write a review on any of the platforms you might listen to this on. I'm not exactly sure what it does. but people consistently tell me that that's probably one of the most important things. So if you got five seconds, do me a favor, write one. If you like it, write a good one.

If you don't like it, write a bad one. I'm open to any and all feedback. And that's it. Talk to you guys next week. See you.