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Episode Date: May 15, 2026

A soon-to-be 40-year-old wants to face his fear of skydiving and use it to teach his anxious five-year-old that fear is normal but it doesn't get to run your life. I break down the difference between gambling and accepting calculated risk, what to actually look for in a drop zone, and why pushing yourself smartly and incrementally beats trying to be a badass for an audience that isn't watching. A guy who grew up homeless and couch-surfing wrote in about feeling like he came back from a war he never fought. We talk about why trauma isn't owned by anyone, why your past doesn't have to be your identity, and why if the community you need doesn't exist yet, you might be the one who has to build it. Last question is about discipline. A husband, father, and plant manager who used to run ultras can't find the hours anymore and wonders if he's lost it. He hasn't. His life changed. The goalpost has to move with it. Plus the book hit the Times again, and I'm headed to Virginia Beach. Enjoy Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here: ⁠https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com⁠   Today's Sponsors:  Willies Remedies:  Order now at ⁠https://www.drinkwillies.com⁠ and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off of your first order + free shipping on orders over $95, and enjoy life in the high country. AG1: For a limited time only, go to ⁠https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot⁠ to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!

Okay, got the red smoke. So the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. What is going on, everybody? Traditional Q&A for today. I think I got four in front of me. Is there anything else going on that I could bring you up to speed on? I don't think so.

I'll open today with the same thing I've been opening with the last few weeks. Thank you very much for all the support with the book. I actually got word yesterday. It made the Times again in two categories. So the New York Times bestseller list, it was both in the business category and the advice how to, which is the original category it made for the written. But this was audiobook. So more than I could have ever expected. What else?

I am going to be in Virginia Beach. Oh, this is what ties into Virginia Beach thing. I have a newsletter now every two weeks. If you want to sign up for it, I'll put a link in the show notes for a one click. You can follow it. Otherwise, it's just clearedhotpodcast.com. It's one of the options. Every two weeks, just because I don't want to write it every week.

I don't also always have something to say every week, newsletter worthy. But somebody reached out to me today because I had talked about briefly on social media. I'm going to be in Virginia Beach at the Ironclad headquarters, which is the production company that hosts change agents, the other podcast that I do. I physically record that just on the other side of the TV. There's another studio space over there. But I'll be out there doing some in-person stuff and they want to do a book signing. leave it's on Monday in the evening. Somebody said, hey, why don't you put that in the newsletter?

My emphasis in tone, not theirs. They're very kind. And the reality was, well, that got booked after the newsletter came out. So sometimes that happens. Maybe I should be more active on social media. I don't know. I haven't been that active lately because I had to be super active leading up to the book release. I feel like people got tired of hearing from me. I got tired of hearing from me. So sometimes you just got to take a breath. Take it easy. I think that's about it. Yeah, newsletter if you want to join. Thank you for the support with the book.

Amazing, as always. And yeah, let's go. Four questions. We're off. Today's episode is brought to you by Willie's Remedy. Before I get into this, this is a new category of sponsor for the show. And I'll be very clear here. You need to be an adult with the choices you make around these things.

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in the high country. Educate yourself on the requirements of perhaps your profession or social choices and make sure you make a good decision. Back to the show. Question one, Andy, I'm turning 40 this year and I'm feeling pretty excited. Looking back, I feel like I honestly crushed it in my 30s. I was able to break the cycle of generational poverty. I'm not rich by any means, but I am financially stable and able to provide for my family. I got married to a fantastic woman, bought a house and have two beautifully or beautiful and healthy little boys.

I reached a milestone of 20 years of working in EMS, currently as a paramedic with experience in two major cities and various specialty certifications. I am currently transitioning into a different career in nursing and hopefully moving on to an advanced practice role in the not too distant future. I have to say, I have a pretty great life and I am proud of what my wife and I have built together. I have worked hard in my 30s to overcome obstacles and fears that help me back for some time. I feel the anxieties and doubts were a major thing holding me back when I was younger, and I've worked hard to change that over the past decade. I'm not entirely adverse to taking risks. I ride motorcycles both on and off road. I am an amateur recreational scuba diver.

I have competed in BJJ tournaments over the years, in parentheses. I've wrist-locked a few white belts, too. I'm not perfect. Some people say that wrist-locking is a dirty submission. As somebody who has been wrist-locked many times, I feel like with most generational trauma and bad things that happen to you, but just pay it forward a little bit. Let that rock continue to build momentum going downhill.

It's a joke, obviously. It's a legit submission, less likely to get on higher belts, but that doesn't mean it's not real. And who else are you going to practice on if you're not going to practice on white belts? Don't be a dick about it, but I think you're going to be okay. However, at least one fear still exists in the forefront of my mind. Skydiving. The thought of skydiving is both fascinating and absolutely terrifying to me.

Just writing this email, I can feel my palms start to sweat and my heart rate elevate. I have a modest fear of heights as a kid, but overcame that as an adult. I absolutely hate roller coasters, but obviously skydiving is another level of intensity. Again, I am absolutely terrified of the idea of doing it by myself, but then I watch other people do it in videos and it's almost mesmerizing, such as the trip you did a few years ago, jumping on every continent and less than seven days. And it makes me feel like a huge pussy. Writer's words, not my words. I'm just doing my part in reading it. One major consideration I have for pushing myself to do something I'm terrified of is watching my oldest, who is now five grow. He is an amazing little dude. He is very intelligent and has a brilliant imagination. He has an ability to hyper-analize almost every situation he is in and consider several small details. However, with that ability to hyper-analyze, he also has some pretty significant anxiety.

He worries about a lot of things, like earthquakes, major storms, plane crashes, and other horrible things. My wife and I work hard to reassure him and talk through solutions such as our family's meet-up point in case of a fire, or how the emergency crews may respond to an incident or other things like that. It helps a little bit, but he's still anxious about things. My thought was that perhaps sucking it up and doing a tandem skydive would be a good way to show him, and maybe myself, that it's okay to be afraid and it's a normal feeling. But you can't let that fear control your life and miss out on experiences. The best way to get over fear is to face it head on.

but how can I expect him to take advice that I don't take myself? Just curious to hear your take on this. I appreciate any insight that you can offer. I'm going to go backwards a little bit before we get into the skydiving. Of all three of my kids, I don't think maybe Tyler. My middle son was the one who would more closely align with what you were describing for your oldest. And that would be an ability at a younger age to potentially, the over process what I would call not statistically anomalous events,

but low probability statistical events, usually revolving around a catastrophe of some kind, and then to develop a little bit of anxiety around that. I'm not an expert in this world. I'm not a mental health coach, therapist, counselor, any of those things. I think having anxiety and fear around certain things in your life is totally normal. I think fear and anxiety are completely baked in natural human responses that from a perspective of evolution probably help keep us alive. If you don't have fear of things that are dangerous, then that can take your life, you probably are going to be more likely to having your life taken or doing something irresponsible or not thought through.

And that's not going to really help when it comes to passing genetics along. Anxiety, the difference between fear and anxiety, again, not an expert. they are different. I don't have the ability to sit here in real time to really necessarily explain the difference between the two other than to say maybe fear is something that you have in the moment with something that you are facing. anxiety, maybe more a fear related type of response, but something in the future that is less existential that's in your face. Doesn't make it any less real. But again, I think those two measurements or those two emotional responses, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So I don't think you should be.

aiming to be absent in those things. And don't worry for people out there who have children who are not showing a level of anxiety around things like earthquakes and fires and all that stuff. People grow and process at different levels. They'll come to understand the gravity and the situations like that and the danger associated like that as they get older. And I would also say don't worry too much if your child is hyper-focusing on it to a degree. I will say there's probably a level of healthy self-exploration and their own thought process and context of the world and understanding and good luck having a conversation with a five-year-old, a deep conversation with the five-year-old about statistics and probability and all of those things. I'm not recommending

that you do that. I have tried it. It goes exactly the way that you probably would think that it would. The person who has the better, the better understanding and vocabulary and a little bit more of an optic on those situations is going to have a really hard time explaining it to somebody who is five with a different vernacular and a different understanding and a different sensation of time. And they're still probably experiencing almost every other day their dark night of the soul, which is the worst thing that has happened to them up to that point in their life. They've just had less days than the older person has to experience those things. And those things, when you have horrible experiences and you work your way through them,

it helps you understand your ability to react to catastrophe. around you. So a five-year-old doesn't have that. There is, though, in my opinion, a point where you can have a child that does have an unhealthy focus on those things. And as parents who aren't experts in child psychology, I would say if you feel it is getting to that point, and I am not saying that you are in this email, but just for any parent out there where perhaps this level of anxiety resonates a little bit and it could be beyond that. Perhaps it is intrusive thoughts that they can't get out of their head or it's all that they can focus on. Consider bringing in somebody who is an expert in those things. There are absolutely people that exist in that world and they can be hugely

beneficial. From a middle son, we didn't bring in an expert. He it would express from time to time or have questions about those type of things. And as he got older, got more experience, his optic on life and time shifted, the conversations became less and less. And I would say he has a very healthy, very well adjusted understanding of statistics and consequence and risk and all of those things with the things that you mentioned. You know, the plane crashes, storms, earthquakes, all of that stuff. Not to say that won't happen with your son. Realize if you have some level of worry, go get an outside opinion from somebody who is an

expert, which isn't me. Now, to skydiving. Would it be a good way to show him and perhaps yourself that it's okay to be afraid and it's a normal thing, but you can't let fear control you? Yes, just understand there's a difference between gambling and accepting calculated risk. Gambling in this instance, I'm going to narrow this down specifically to talking about skydiving. And I wouldn't even say that this is necessarily gambling. If you find a drop zone, if you go into the internet and you find a drop zone and you were just to go there without doing any level of research to pay attention to nothing there, whether it's even just a cursory look,

at an aircraft or just paying attention to the tandem master or the operation in general. Do they seem like they're drunk? Do they seem like they're druggies? I wish I could tell you that I haven't experienced both of those things on a drop zone. I have. They're very rare. And even as somebody getting ready to participate in an activity that you have no experience with, you have experience being around human beings.

So participate in your own experience to the degree that you can. If you are uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form with the person that you're about to trust your life with, don't trust your life with them. We live in a world where you can get other information and go other places and do other things. So make sure you, even though know nothing about the evolution, participate to the best of your ability. So I would say if you were to just throw caution to the wind, you go to a DZ, you pay money, pay attention to nothing, that would be a little bit more like gambling. Now, calculated risk. I mentioned going on to the internet.

Find a drop zone or drop zones. near you. Click on their information, read about their operation. A lot of the things that you're going to read, you're not going to understand. Take a look at the jump aircraft. Does it look to be modern era at the very least? Do they have an operation that has been there for years? Or is this a startup? Do they have a bio page where you can take a look at some of their instructors and potentially their experience and qualifications? You may not understand all of those things, but it's nice to be able to take a look at. Use some AI tools to research drop zones in the areas near you. Look at online reviews. Use the electronic tools that we all have access to that most of the time we end up working for

instead of making them work for us and do as much research as possible so that you can identify and mitigate any potential risks. Skydiving is inherently unsafe. And I don't mean to say that you are walking a razor's edge every single time you participate in the activity, but let's be honest about what it is. Human beings don't inherently have the ability to fly or to reduce terminal velocity free fall speeds to something that will be life sustaining without equipment. At every stage of the skydiving operation, there is risk involved from getting into the aircraft, whether or not the pilot is qualified, current competent, all of those things, the mechanic working on the airframe where there could be a failure, the people that manufactured your equipment,

the other jumpers that are going to be in the airspace around you and with you potentially, once you exit the aircraft, the material and equipment that is on your body. All of those things have human interactions associated with them. And I do believe, after somebody who has been jumping since 1999 with thousands of jumps, it can be done as safely as possible. And I am not trying to romanticize the risk at all. But I think to talk about it openly and honestly, it's a behavior that has more risk than most daily day-to-day activities. The statistics are greatly in your favor when it comes to pilots and aircraft and modern skydiving equipment and the FAA certified rigors that are going to manage the repack of your reserve and take a look at your equipment every time that you give them your gear for that repack and the other jumpers and the training program, all of those things.

But there's risk involved. There is additional risk involved as opposed to living your day to day life. So that's all I mean by saying that. I'm not trying to turn anybody off to it. But you can mitigate along the way for each one of those things. And that, I think, is what is important. At the end of that assessment and mitigation, what you were going to have left is this residual amount of risk left over. And in the world where you do your research and you go to a drop zone that is well established,

that has a robust training cadre and protocol and a variety of different from AFF or doing individual people jumping on their own who initially start off with having an instructor on each side and you're flying your own canopy to I've seen static line programs to first jump courses to canopy coaching to advanced multidisciplinary coaching in the air to tandem all of those things you can easily search and find I have no idea where you live otherwise I would try to point you towards one of these. So if you want to reach back out and let me know where you live, I can try to give you a suggestion. But the point is, we have tools that can really help you assess and analyze your options that are around. Then this is the point where perhaps you could have the

conversation with your son and say, listen, this is something that scares me. But I'm going to face this fear head on. But I'm going to do it from a very responsible manner. I am not going to gamble because I am, this is me talking about myself personally, I am willing to accept risk in my life, calculated risk. What I'm not willing to do is gamble. Those are two very different things. I am not willing to, at least to the degree that I can control it, turn my life or the continuation of my life over to chance. I will participate in activities and have participated in activities that people sometimes and sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly will assess them to be inherently unsafe or less safe than they feel comfortable with. And that's fine. I can accept that wherever they

view it from. I'll try to meet you where you are and I can explain what it is that I'm thinking and what I'm going to do and with no expectation of you participating or supporting what it is that I am doing. But recognize the difference between those things. My personal risk tolerance and any Anybody else's who might hear this is not important. Don't get into competitive risk. I wasn't going to say assessment and mitigation. Don't get into competitive risk acceptance. Don't try to one up somebody else.

So you can seem like you're a little bit more of a badass, probably to just yourself more than anybody else. Because nobody else telling you right now, most people are so busy with their own life. They could care very little about what you are up to. But you can lie to yourself and tell yourself that everything in life is a competition that everybody else. in life is paying attention to. They're not. Spoiler alert. If you feel comfortable accepting

less risk than somebody else that you know that seems very similar to you, please be okay with that. At the end of the day, nobody, I guess somebody could put a gun to your head and make you go skydiving. I have seen the documentary point break to a degree. I guess that happened a little bit. Johnny Utah sorted it though, not a big deal. Am I sure Johnny Utah? I don't know. if I would sort it in that way. Just because somebody else is comfortable accepting more risk, don't talk yourself into their level of comfort. Listen to yourself. And at the same time, I would say this, push yourself safely and smartly and incrementally. And I think that's good advice for just about everything that you do. Martial arts, business, relationships, push it a little

bit. And that doesn't mean be risky. Continue to try to evolve and learn. So let me get back on track. I'm getting off track here a little bit. This is a great opportunity to explain to your son that he is not alone in the anxiety that he faces in that throughout the rest of his life, he is going to be faced with things that might make him fearful or anxious. And you can talk to him about a couple things here. One would be all of the things that you are doing to try to assess risk. mitigate risk so you can make a decision based off the residual, the residual risk that is left over. But two, why? Why are you doing that?

Why are you? And you mentioned this in the email. It's exactly what you said, that it's okay to be afraid and it's a normal feeling, but you can't let fear control your life and miss out on an experience. Sometimes you can, and I'll get back to that because sometimes residual risk outweighs the experience you potentially may have on the other side of that. We'll talk about that here in a minute. But this is a great conversation to have with somebody who maybe is dealing with a little bit more fear and anxiety.

Because what you don't want is somebody to live their life controlled by those two things. I don't want anybody to live in that way because that sounds horrible. You are consumed in control by fear and anxiety. There are things that should scare you and will always scare you. For me, as an example, would be having a square down with a grizzly bear in the outdoor. with no tools or ability to do anything about that. And that particular grizzly bear is hungry. And for whatever reason, I look like a hot dog.

That's pretty scary. I don't ever want to deal with that. There's things that I can do to mitigate that for sure. But regardless, that's always going to be something that I have a level of fear associated with. I'm not going to be controlled by that, though. I will control my exposure to that. And that is the lesson that I think is really important that you can have at any age. And even for yourself, you said you're getting right.

to turn 40. What a better way to highlight this to your child that you might have concern for in this area than to go and do this and then explain the why, why you chose to do it, how you felt the fear that you had and why you thought it was so important to push through that. It's a great lesson for the child at 5. It's a great lesson for the child at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. This is a great lesson for life, whatever age you may be. I can't imagine something. worse than having your life controlled by fear and anxiety. You have an active hand in that. This to me, I think, is a perfect lower risk.

Notice I didn't say no risk. Lower risk way for you to do something, A, really cool for your birthday. B, really cool for yourself. And C, important and impactful, potentially for your son. I would even say, bring your son with you if you go for a tandem. The beauty of a tandem is that you're going to strap yourself to somebody who's qualified, who is responsible for everything. My tandem brief is very brief.

All I ask of passengers, we go over a body position that I would like them to, not in an incredibly rigid manner, but in a relaxed manner, just assume that body position as we exit the aircraft. That's all I really ask. That makes it easier for me is the tandem master to control the, relative wind and the presentation of my body into the wind so you can have a stable exit to pull your drug parachute, go through your systems check, and enjoy the free fall. Other than that, I ask passengers to do two things. One of them is impossible. The first one is smile. The second one,

which is impossible, is relax. Why is that impossible? Because they're about to do something that they have never done before, and I am getting ready to do something that I've done thousands of times, and there is an inequity there of being comfortable in that environment. So I ask them to relax only in the hopes that they do the best that they can. I have a pretty substantial data set of personal feedback on this. I have yet to find somebody who could really relax into it, but I think asking for it and reinforcing it is kind of a good thing. If you can smile, you're just going to enjoy that experience even more.

And really the job of the tandem master is truly for everything else. Dealing with the drop zone, making sure your gear is on correct, getting you onto the aircraft, where you're supposed to be seated, what you need to wear, this, that, or the other, all the way down to the ground. You can talk once the canopy opens. They can explain to you that phase of the dive. Getting to the ground and hopefully your son could be right there and see, hopefully, you having a fantastic experience that before that terrified you to do the

point where you were writing this email, that your hands were sweating, he can see the physical representation of what happens when you face, literally, I suppose, and metaphorically, your fear head on. I think that could be really cool. And most drop zones will allow that. Most of the time, the landing area is going to be very close to a place where friends and family could sit there and watch. And I think it is cool. And the experiences where I've had people come and they bring in full on extended family.

and children, everybody's excited. Everybody loves it. And oftentimes, actually, what ends up happening is in that group of people, people who were also interested about trying the experience, but were personally terrified, will see the change in the person that just got to the ground. And they'll end up doing a tandem jump that day, which is actually a win-win. It exposes more people to the sport or activity. The drop zone makes a little bit more money so they can continue to provide that thing for

people who are coming out there with an interest. It's just a win-win of. joy and excitement. And it's really cool to see. So I highly recommend it. I think you're doing the right thing for the right reasons or looking at doing, I'm not saying skydiving is the right thing. What I'm talking about is your mental thought process on how this could be impactful for you and the lesson that it could learn or you can teach to your son. I'm two thumbs up. Just use the internet, use the tools that you have, take your time, select a place that is well respected and well established. And again, if you want to reach back out and let me know where you live,

I can give you some suggestions. And then once you go and do your tandem, because I feel like I have successfully explained to you how this is going to be awesome, reach back out. And we can go from there. That's all I got for question one. Today's episode is brought to you by AG1. Well, guess what? We're into February. How many of you are still just jamming on your New Year's resolutions?

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Question two. First, I am not a warfighter. I never served. And while I feel an immense calling to, I have an almost. seven-year-old son and I feel my time has passed. I do, however, feel a very confusing kinship to warfighters. For many years in my younger life, I was homeless in couch-surfing across the country, sleeping on the floors of strangers in dozens of states. Out on my own in my late teens, 170 pounds dripping wet, with no ties to anyone. I developed what feels like a civilian

PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm going to stop here, even though this has nothing to do with your email. I have talked very openly about what I consider to be the risks of competitive suffering. Veterans, people who are first responders, ambulance personnel, 911 call center operators, people who are physically exposed to traumatic events do not have a monopoly on trauma. And I don't think you have to compare whether or not trauma comes from military service or something else in your life that you perceive to be an experience to be traumatic. As somebody who is not an expert in this, I am pretty sure that the label or diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and you could argue whether or not it's a disorder or

a natural reaction to trauma has nothing to do with where that trauma occurred. It's about the trauma itself. So just as a point to the the person who wrote this in and is hopefully hearing this, it doesn't matter if you were a warfighter or not. There is no civilian versus warfighter post-traumatic stress disorder. The things that caused it may be unique in those two worlds. But if you arrive at that end state, I'm not so sure it matters the path that led you there. I think what's important is the fact that you address it and what you do with it. So back to the email. It's been over a decade, but I find myself, to this day looking over my shoulder, sitting with my back to walls, sleeping with windows open,

which often ends with me in my underwear chasing raccoons and foxes away from my chickens and not human intruders. I don't know what to say about that sentence. That's one of the more odd sentence I've ever received, but I also took great pleasure in reading it because it sounds fantastic as well. Also maybe think of a different way to protect your chickens. I don't know. I don't have chickens. I take myself on 10 mile walks just to feel something. I put on 75 pounds of mostly muscle to ensure no one can fuck with me. Weight and ability to defend yourself are not the same thing. Maybe they're correlated in some way or because you'd be harder to deal with because you're bigger.

Don't confuse the two. Size is great. Knowing what to do with the size is more important, as an aside. I try to be tactical and assured in my choices and movements. I find myself doing SDRs or surveillance detection routes on my way home before even knowing what an SDR is. For those of you who listened to the episode, I recently did with John Kirooku, my wife also participates in SDRs. And she didn't know what an SDR was, again, surveillance detection route, until I explained to her what she was up to. She, in a way that

still seems impossible to me, routinely creates a different route to get home from the gym she coaches at. We do not live a substantial distance from where this gym is. It is not a massive amount of left and right turns to get from one place to the other. We share our locations on Life 360 and let me just tell you, I have seen her in places on the local map that I don't understand how or why she got there. I love her more than I have the vocabulary to describe, but it is a fascinating trait that my wife have. And it's just this unintentional SDR, which I actually, and I mentioned this to John, I actually worry, I don't, it's not a real worry, but it would be hilarious.

If for some reason she were to get on the radar of an intelligence organization, they might assume that she was in some way, shape, or form trained in fieldcraft because of the ridiculous nature of the way that she always drives a different way, at a different time. I don't know. Fascinating to me. So anyway, that's my aside on SDRs. But none of this is mimicking military tactics.

So this is you're doing your SDRs before you knew it war, but none of it is mimicking military tactics. Cool. Only recently did I draw the connection between my tendencies and that of servicemen. The only thing that feels like a direct connection is that I fucking love MREs, truly. That is wild. MREs, meals ready to eat. I did a series called Wine and Rations.

And the drinks I was responsible for, the rations, Sean was responsible for. We went outside of the military or the U.S. military world and they got some other countries, MREs. But I don't know how anyone, I guess. for everything that is out there, there's going to be somebody that loves them. But MREs, I have been at places in my life where I'd rather starve to death than eat another one. Or I could only consume the packets of skittles that came in them. They are not my favorite.

They don't taste great. To me, me personal preference. The fact that you love them, wow, that is a story. in and of itself. Please don't eat them too regularly. Look at the ingredients, look at the sodium content, and if you enjoy going to the bathroom on regular intervals, do not consume too many of those things in a row. Or you're going to experience what a lot of service members would lovingly call or not lovingly call the Clayman. And I'll let you Google that one on your own. Okay. I am making great strides consistently towards identifying triggers, modifying actions, and adapting into the stable

life that I didn't live in for so long, which for clarity, your attentiveness to the world around you, I think mirrors the stereotypical, which I find to oftentimes not be very true, but the stereotypical behaviors of veterans where it's back always to the wall, looking for doors, windows, all of those things, understanding the situational environment at all those times. but you didn't live in a stable environment. And military members often operate in non-stable environments, which is where that enhance attentiveness can come from, which can be overplayed and it can be overdone for sure.

So I don't think it has anything to do with paralleling service members. I think that the unknown nature of the environment that you were growing up in probably just parallels that unknown working environment of the military. It's the environment itself and the unknown name. of that that is driving those behaviors. You could strip away, I think, the soldiering aspect from that. Or keep it if you want to. I'm not saying that a negative way, but I think it has much more to do with the uncertainty of your upbringing than anything. I know comparative suffering is bullshit. Awesome. But I have a weird dissonance. I feel as if I have returned home

from war. But I am and have always been a civilian. Maybe my subconscious just connects the two because there isn't a cultural understanding of overcoming homelessness. I think I touched on this. I think it has more to do with the environment, the uncertainty, the challenges, and the dangers of being homeless than anything else, I can understand how you could feel like you were coming back from a war zone because a lot of those things that you are describing, that feeling of uncertainness is what defines operating in a war zone. When you come back from that, it can feel very jarring and it takes time to adapt to. So it surprises me exactly 0% that you would perhaps have something similar to that in your own life.

I have moved mountains and ran successful businesses and industries I had no right to be in during my transition out of homelessness. There was a day in particular where I decided to stop being the victim and to run my own life. And in doing so, I have developed and sold multiple TV and streaming properties, multiple album deals as a sync composer, created a podcast network with 14 series and over 300 episodes, and recently have broken into the major leagues. of the Nashville songwriting scene from my hometown 1500 miles away.

All of that is awesome. Congratulations on all that. I grew up with a no-account father that bailed when I was in fifth grade and a mentally ill mother that was incapacitated not long after. I have reparented myself over the past few years by finding role models in Western novels and have read over 25 a year for five years straight. I know I'm on the right path, but I am still struggling privately.

I have no community or brotherhood to work through this because no one can relate. I feel alien in the world I live in, but I have no desire to return to the world that I came from. No direct question here. Just curious to your take on this situation. Wow, what a fascinating email and a fascinating experience. I can't say I've ever received an email from somebody who had this background and was able to make the parallels and tie-ins to the uncertainty. of a combat environment or a war zone and the consequential things that can come from that. But I get it.

I think I understand where you're coming from. And my advice to you is going to be the same advice that I would give to somebody exiting the military or struggling with life post-military. And it is this. Don't allow not, this is not in your case, but this would be for somebody in the military. don't allow something that you used to do to be your only identity or to be the foundational item object principle, however you would like to describe it, of your identity. You can, if you want to, that is a choice, but from what I have seen, anecdotally with no hard data to support this, that the people who struggle the most are the ones that cling to something in their past, as their single most important and identifying feature. And I'm not saying, again, for the military member,

don't be proud of what you have done. Don't hide the things that you are proud of. I'm saying don't be limited by them. Do not put yourself into a prison of your own creation because you are unwilling to at least partially leave what you, you used to do behind. Now, I would change that advice for the person who wrote this in because I'm not going to say homelessness is an occupation. I don't think that that would be fair to say. I don't think anybody is looking to be professionally homeless. I know there are that the homelessness

issue is large and it's very nuanced and that there are mental health aspects associated with that, addiction aspects associated with that. There are countless organizations and individuals and money available to help and not everybody is looking for that. Again, though, I will land on. I don't think anybody's trying to be professionally homeless as an occupation. So that's where I have to change what I would say to you a little bit, but it's very parallel to what I would say towards somebody who was in the military. Everything that you went through and lived through was totally real. Obviously, you are you are still physiologically and psychologically working your way out of that garden. I think you're getting closer to the edge of that garden,

for sure, which is a beautiful thing because one, you're continuing to grow, you're moving forward, you don't want to go back in that direction, you recognize those things, and you have the ability to be reflective and understand some of maybe the potential negative impacts that come from being in that world for as long as you were. I think those are all fantastic things. But you also don't have to define yourself by what happened to you in the past. It seems to me, based off that last paragraph that you wrote, you've got some awesome stuff coming, through the windshield, looking at it in the future. You have momentum.

You have growth. You have things that you have built, which are going to lead to opportunities for you in your life. And yes, in the rearview mirror, you have some pretty gnarly stuff. I'm not saying forget about those things, but you don't have to be defined by them either. And if you can figure out a way to put down as much of that as possible,

I think it's going to free up a lot of bands. with for you to focus on what's going to come next. Finding a community of people that went through what you went through, I don't know if that's possible because I don't know how many stories there are out there like this where somebody was able to do that to build it into what you have described. I would hope that it's the norm. I feel like it's probably the anomaly. So you may not be able to connect with a community or a brotherhood specifically for. from that world. That's okay.

Community and brotherhoods exist in a variety of different worlds. And you can find one of them. Now, is that going to provide for you the closure, perhaps, of your past and your upbringing? No, it's not. But again, how are you going to find that community if this is something that happens to so few people? I guess there is another option there. instead of looking for that community, you could build it.

We live in an amazing world where people can build what they want to largely based off of just ideas. I have absolutely no idea how many people have shared experiences like this. But you could be the person that figures that out. You, instead of looking for the community, could be the lighthouse that other people are looking for that draws them in. you could build the exact thing that you feel like you are missing or it may not be able to exist but at least you will know the answer to that so you could look for community and brotherhood elsewhere and realize that the things that you want to get the support the understanding the camaraderie all those things can come from those other communities it may not give you the closure

right or you could seek to build it both of those to me seem very interesting and I feel like you're in a unique place like I said I've never received an email like this I feel like you are in a unique place to be the lighthouse. And that is what I would suggest. Reach out into the unknown and be a beacon for people who have gone through things like you have gone through and try to connect with them. I don't think I'll ever stop saying that the internet is the best, worst thing that human beings have ever created. One of the best things that I think it could be used for would be this. And also talking openly about your story and the things that you went through and what you had to navigate, the cost of that navigation, how you're still feeling it now, how it has informed your behavior even outside of being in that.

I think a lot of people can learn from that. I think there is not enough talked about people dealing with hardship very openly, talking openly about the absolutely soul. crushing things that can come from that or an environment like the one that you grew up in, but built from it. To me, the fact that you came out of it and you're doing what you're doing now, that's great. But where the real juices in that is how you did it and how hard you had to work at it and all of the things that you had to do along the way. I think oftentimes that's overlooked.

And I would, I think that's where the vast majority of the lessons in there have meaning and value. I can't create that community. I can't create that society. I can give you the hopeful, the nudge and the push to be able to do so, but I don't come from that world. So I don't know what advice to give you other than that. The third piece of advice, I suppose, would be.

So again, find Brotherhood and Community Elsewhere. Build it yourself and try to draw people into that where you can have that connection. If you're not finding the relief that you want to you from any of those two options, go talk to a professional about the things that you dealt with growing up. They are trauma-filled for sure. Like I said at the beginning, you know, PTSD is not owned by people who made their living in either violent professions, law enforcement professions, ballistic professions. It's not owned by them.

It may be more likely that or there's a higher number of people associated with that because perhaps that type of trauma is more impactful in the short term or meaning that those instances can be shorter in nature. What you are talking about, it seems like it would be days, weeks, months, and years in nature. So that leaves a mark. I'm not an expert in how my brain works. I have found immense help at times in my life where I needed it by talking to people who are experts in how the brain works, not necessarily my brain, but just the brain in general. on making sense of why I feel the way that I do sometimes, making sense as to why I react the way that I do sometimes,

triggers that I might have, things that I feel uncomfortable with, maybe understanding why things make me uncomfortable or certain situations. I wasn't able to do those things on my own. So I'm always going to advocate for that third stool or chair, the leg of the stool. And that's the professional.

So hopefully that helped. I feel like you're on the right path. Once you get to a place where you feel stabilized, I think the most impactful thing that you can do as a human being is to teach other people how to stabilize themselves as well. And I think you are uniquely suited to do so because of your background. And I hope that you do. That's all I have for question number two.

All right, question three. I think this will probably be the last one for today since I've been rambling my ass off. Andy, a long time listener to the podcast. The book is next on deck on the reading list. Thank you for all the great content. Makes the commute to work very engaging and interesting. I do what I can. Take everything I say with a word of caution and an asterisk because I'm a moron.

Just keep that in the back of your mind. My question is about discipline. For background, I come from a place of being involved in athletic activity for most of my life. From high school sports to intramural sports in college to running ultra marathons, which are 50 and 100 milers, I can't think of an activity that sounds worse. and Ironman triathlons over the last several years. I know I can do it the early morning and after work training sessions, four-hour runs on Saturday and Sunday morning, nutrition, sleep, the works.

I am now 34 and married with a three-year-old and another baby on the way. I am an engineer managing a plant with the team of around 30 operators and maintenance technicians. I enjoy my job, but it is very demanding, often working 50 to 65 hours a week, middle of the night and weekend call-ins. After our son was born and my career took a big step up in responsibility, I have found it very difficult to consistently train and prepare for the ultramarathons that I really enjoy doing. I find that I am prioritizing family and parenting time and my work over training. I know that the answer is to make time, which means getting up earlier, but find that the

3.30 to 4 a.m. wake up calls in order to train, then be at work on time in order to have family time in the evenings are very difficult. This makes me feel like I've lost my discipline. However, I feel like exercise discipline in my work. However, I feel like I exercise discipline in my work in home life, which leads me to my question. Am I lacking in discipline or have I moved it to a different place? Good question. I would add to that. Am I lacking in discipline or have I moved it to a different place? Or have I moved to a different phase of my life or I need to reorganize my priorities and determine what is most important in my life and then array the time I have available to those things? So let's talk about discipline.

my definition, Andy's definition of discipline, is simply doing the things that you know that you have to do to be successful towards a goal, a target, an accomplishment, whether you want to do them or not. That's my definition. That might be satisfactory for some people and unsatisfactory for others. But this is at least the foundation of how I'll talk about this. discipline is often paired with motivation motivation motivation is cool we all have good days we all have bad days i feel like motivation is a lot more like the ocean tide sometimes you're flush sometimes you're empty because it comes and it goes the cool thing you know i mentioned in the last question the internet being the best worst thing ever you can outsource motivation you can watch people or listen to people or interact with people that are doing things that inspire you and motivation

you to do more. So that's a great, that's a great thing, especially in the moments where your personal motivation may be on a little bit of a retreat. And that happens to everybody. Don't feel like you are alone if you have days where you're highly motivated and unstoppable. And other days where getting off the couch seems like a little bit more difficult. We all have those. Okay. Motivation, outsourceable. Not forever, but it can help you bridge gaps. Discipline, not outsourceable. Discipline is not fun. Discipline is a grind. It's discomfort.

But you're never going to be able to get around discomfort. And this is something I don't know if people realize or if even I realized until later in my life. There's two buckets. Both of them are full of discomfort. If you are somebody who is disciplined and you are. doing the things that you need to do to accomplish whatever your fill in the blank goal may be, you are dealing with the uncomfortable bucket up front. You are doing things when you don't want to. You are changing things in your life or making life choices and prioritizations over other things

in your life, potentially even life experiences, because you have a goal that you are working towards. You are dealing with the discomfort bucket up front. If you skip that and are not disciplined, what you get is the discomfort bucket on the tail end when you fall short. short of what it is you wanted to accomplish or you fail or have to restart or fill in the blank. You notice that the bucket of discomfort is there and you have to deal with it in both of those situations, right? That's how it is. There is no, can we empty the bucket over here behind the bush and then just avoid the discomfort? Not in my experience, not from what I've been able to tell. I actually don't even think life is about finding the easy way through anymore.

It's about learning to enjoy the process and embracing the discomfort and learning to suffer well through that discomfort as well as you possibly can. Now, unavoidable discomfort. Pull that off the table there. Okay. So you described a lot in this email here. And I think it is important to consider at least what I added on at the end to your question. Am I just in a different phase of life? And I read to reprioritize the things that I'm going to apply discipline towards.

You said in your email, you know, you know that the answer is to make time, which means getting up earlier, but find that the 3.30 to 4 a.m. wake up call in order to train, then be at work on time in order to have family time in the evenings are very difficult. Not only could that be potentially difficult, it could be degrading in your performance in all of those other areas. the ultra marathons, the 50 and 100 milers, I will assume that they fill an important physical outlet and expression role in your life. Myself personally, the more physically active I am, I feel my mental health is intrinsically tied to that. I think a lot of men are like that.

If I'm sedentary, it's not that it gets out of control, but my mental health can slip trend downward. The more active I am, the more positive I feel. It's just an expression that I need. So I'll assume that you fall into that same bucket. But if you prioritize that for this early morning wake up call, because we all have the same amount of time, so I have to just make more time. What if those other things, performance at work, what if that suffers?

What if, yeah, you are physically present at the family time that you have available, but you're not mentally present because you're exhausted? I hope you understand that just because, because you make time for this, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is now going to continue to benefit your life and all these other phases that you are in. When you're younger in life and you are your sole responsibility and your goals are the most important thing to you and nobody else is relying upon you, go to town. That's the phase of your life where you can be ultimately and

utterly committed and convicted in the things that you want to do. Your life isn't like that anymore. And I'm not telling you to shelve this. I'm just trying to give you something to consider. You could make more time to exercise and end up physically making yourself sick, exhausting yourself, degrading your work performance, and although you might have the same amount of time available for family, the expression of who you are in that time could be worse. Well, not, worse is not the correct word I'm looking for. It could be less than the husband and father that you want to be.

Is it worth it? Or can we move the goalpost, realizing that physicality is in fact important for you, but perhaps figure out a different way to achieve that. Is there something you kind of laid out here, the four-hour runs on Saturdays, the nutrition to sleep, I totally get that, the early morning and after-work training sessions? Cool.

Is there a shorter race? Could you do a 10K or a 5K? Or could you set a target that still keeps you physically active but requires less overall time, which you can maintain your discipline to process, towards because, sorry, let me answer that directly. No, you're not lacking in discipline. That would be my direct answer to this. This isn't a matter of you not being able to do the things that you want to do. To me, the way I view this, this is a matter of your life shifting from a phase where you could be

selfish about your personal and professional goals to a phase where now you have more to consider than just those things. You have a family, you have people that are working for you and with you, you have a child. All of those have to come into your consideration. So, yes, try if you want to, getting up earlier, but pay attention to the impact that that has on everything outside of just the training for the ultras. And if it's not working, let's move the goalpost. You are setting this goal.

If it's not working, don't expect somebody else to move it for you. Get up, go grab it, and put it in the ground somewhere else. that you can control. For me, at my phase in life, one, I don't have a desired competition in mind. I don't compete in jiu-jitsu. I don't compete in shooting. I don't compete in skydiving. I don't compete. I try not to compete in anything. At a structured entering a tournament type level, I try to compete with myself. I try to be better today than I was yesterday by at least a fraction or a microscopic amount, but that's really it. And since I have already said that for me, the physical activity and mental health are

deeply tied, jiu-jitsu helps fill that role for me. But there are many days, especially when I travel on the road where I'm not able to do that. So for me, what I have moved the goalpost to or the flag to is I try to sweat every day. And sometimes that's not targeted towards anything. Maybe that's just I traveled for an entire day and I get to a hotel with multiple time zone changes. And the last thing I want to do is do anything. You want to order DoorDash, eat it, then directly go to bed, which is the worst structure, by the way. Not the DoorDash and eating it, but just doing that and then just laying down and you're trying to recover while your body is digesting food.

I will make myself go for a walk at a pace where I'm not in a dripping athletic sweat, but I will get out and I will physically move. If I arrive earlier, I'll try to hit the gym. And again, this is targeted activity towards nothing other than maintaining my momentum so I don't crumble emotionally. That being able to do that and understanding the value of that is me doing the things that I know I need to do, regardless of whether or not I want them to be done or not or I feel like doing them. So yes, you're totally disciplined. I get you wouldn't be where you're at in your life. And you're not perfectly disciplined, nor my, nor is anybody else. But you obviously understand the value and role of discipline in your life and you are utilizing it to get to where you need to be.

That's awesome. This to me is a bigger question about your life circumstances. You can be creative about this. What's your wife's interest in these type of activities? Could you train for a 10K with her and you're pushing your child in a stroller? I tell you what, you want to challenge running? Push a wind sale. some of these, you know, three-wheel tricycle baby carriers that are like the fricking spinnerker of a sailboat if you're going the wrong direction on the wind.

Run with that. I mean, can you, there are ways that you could do this and still accomplish what you want to. But I would spend more time asking yourself the question of why is it the ultra? Can I do something outside of an ultra with less training requirements that still provides me the same things that I'm looking for and then dive headlong? towards that. I feel like you understand discipline. The goal that you are working towards, just remember this, is self-imposed. So if it no longer serves you, go move it towards something that does. You have total and complete control over that. And that is all I have for this Friday. See you all Monday.