Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 158 - Steve Weatherford

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

Steve Weatherford is a former American football punter who has been a member of the New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets, and New York Giants. He won Super Bowl XLVI as a member of the Giants. After leaving the NFL, Steve went onto broadcasting and has since started and grown an incredible fitness and supplement business, WeatherfordFit. He is also the host of his podcast, The Steve Weatherford Show.

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Let's talk today about my guest. Steve Weatherford. Damn, this man is fascinating. And he is inspirational in so many different ways. We met through the power of the internet. He nominated me, and I forget the exact program it was for, but I think it wouldn't have been in like a men's health thing. Back in 2015, the year that I did the Wingsuit Jump to benefit the Navy SEAL Foundation.

And I saw it when he tagged me on Twitter. and I responded to him and said, thank you. And we started communicating. And eventually one day we met face to face. Of course, what did we do the first time we met? I took him skydiving. We did a little bit of wind tunnel. And then we jumped out of an airplane and had stayed in contact since.

And like I said, inspirational human being. Played for years in the NFL. He's a punter. He can kick the shit out of a ball. But he's also a family man, an entrepreneur. He's writing a book. he is all about pushing himself and exploring things for personal growth. He's an amazing human being.

And he happens to have a business partner that lives damn near in the same town that I do. So he happened to be in the area. Of course, I'm going to grab him up. Episode number 158 with Steve Weatherford. Enjoy. I'm looking at danger close now. All right. Well, you still live in Cali, so I don't even know if it's,

if it's safe for us to talk about your ARs. Well, for the time, oh, I got a bolt action. I'm a total nerd, though, man. You guys are the coolest people ever to me. Because once I started to, like, actually get a check that had commas in it when I got into the NFL, because I'm from Indiana, is as soon as Barack Obama was about to get elected,

and he was talking about assault rifles and all this other stuff, I went out and bought, like, three cult. I took one of my game checks and spent the entire game check on guns that I thought were going to be illegal, and now I'm stuck with like six A-R-15s that are set up A-Cog style and only have one son. So I've got to teach my daughters how to get it done.

You're not the only person who went down that path. There's a lot of people. I think I'm probably speaking to quite a few of them right now. There is a rifle manufacturer that I've started working with. And I think in the future something will come to view for like a partnership. But they were talking about multi-tens of millions of dollars of back orders right now. For the same reason that- Oh, right now.

That you're talking about. Well, and I get a little if you when it comes to social media because people will repost like tweets and stuff, but I also know how I use Photoshop, you know, so I can do the bubble and make it read whatever you want. And I am pretty sure, though, he essentially came out and said he was going to go directly after assault rifles, which is an interesting term because what is an assault rifle? I'm asking you, man. I just barely know how to use them.

I have a gun case full of them, and I'm not kidding you, Andy. YouTube videos to figure out how to disassemble them. That's not uncommon actually for gun owners because most guns don't come with a manual that talks about how to take it apart, how to clean it, how to put it back together. Maintenance storage is another big one that most gun owners miss. The last stat I read was 50% of gun owners don't have a safe. Why do you think people like you are so valuable though? You know, I mean it's kind of the same thing that that would create.

I don't get into that space though. I actually avoid it. But you're still very valuable to people like to your first. friends I'm not saying necessarily just on social media but if I've got questions about guns oh yeah hit me up you would definitely be one of the people I'd be like hey so what do you think about this I've got like Ryan Mickler's not a guy that has as much experience as you but a whole lot more experience than me he knows his way around things that go bang right yeah I mean here's the deal dude I grew up in Indiana so I grew up around guns but I didn't go grow up around

AR 15s I grew up around shotguns and I don't think my dad ever had a handgun see I didn't really grew up around guns. I didn't really, my dad would hunt. We actually lived south of here in Missoula when I was much younger. So you're from up here? Not really. I'm born and raised in Santa Cruz. My dad, it's it, you know, there's deep military ties in my family. Navy on my dad's side, army on my mom's side. My mom did not serve. My dad did in the Navy. My dad's dad's dad, all Navy, surprisingly enough. And my dad was on the first squadron of patrol boats in Vietnam and had some lingering effects from it for sure to the point where my mom was basically saying to him you will either figure this out or you're going to be navigating life by yourself so we came to

missoula i believe in large part because he found a veterans association counseling group and i know they were getting deep into some stuff you actually probably would like like deep sweat lodge type stuff like physically mentally taxing so we lived i barely remember it i mean i think we were maybe like six, seven, eight. I remember there was snow and getting in trouble for throwing snowballs in cars and running. And it's, it was,

that was the reason we moved there, but the rest of my time was Santa Cruz, California. So he had rifles and we would, I remember hunting with him one time and I saw a pistol a few times, but the opposite experience of you. Like I was not around guns all the time when I was growing up.

I got that education later. Like, how did, how did you, like, at 11 know that you wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I'm sure that's a question a lot of people have asked you, but... One of the most common, and I, so obviously, because I get that question often I'll think about it, I have no good answer for that. It's an uncommon narrative for people. They'll often say, well, how did you know that? How could that possibly be? And then, you know, we had these big cage areas, like buildings that were rectangles like this, and it was just row after row after row of cages, and you put all of your issued gear in there, and it's basically

chain link fence that separated them so you could sit there and just talk down the cage area and you'd hear people talking about it it was the single most common narrative of the people that I served with at a super early age they hear about it they read a book about it and boom they're off and running was it the eliteness of it that that attracted you or was it had to have been a part of it or i didn't know about i mean i was too young at 11 to understand the alpha portion i do believe um looking back that there was some level of the exclusivity some level of the fact that the odds were stacked against me. Because even then, pre-9-11, we're talking in the 80s now when I was researching it. The attrition rate was what the attrition rate was. I mean, it has moved around a

little bit, like a tick higher here and a tick lower there, but it sits on average. It's 75 to 80% of students who attempt it, don't make it through. From when they started the program until, you know, 2020, there was an essence of that that was intriguing to me. And that's probably atypical for a lot of people too like to me when people says or when people says when people say hey you you probably can't do this i was like right why don't you just hold on a second yeah yeah right right i'm gonna give this a shot so it was all those things and i mean as a young young man i mean most young men want to be but we play army i don't think it's that uncommon you know how do you uh i feel like i'm interviewing you but i'm very interested man you know i mean interview way we'll go back and forth yeah is uh is for you when

you were coming up and you decided that that was your goal. I mean, for me, when I was about 12 years old, I decided I wanted to be a pro athlete. I've watched the movie Pistol Pete a thousand times. Did you know football specifically? Or you just, I didn't even touch a football until I was 14. And so that was like kind of like my point to saying this is I knew I wanted to be a professional athlete, but I think every little boy thinks that. And so the question I have for you is, how did you stay so resolute to that? Because a lot of people say, like, hey, I want to be a Navy seal, but then they don't take the action required to put themselves in the percentage chance of that happening. And the best thing you could have done, I guess at 11 would have

joined that junior high, naval academy type of thing that. Yeah, which they didn't even really have in Santa Cruz. A lot of people will express that that's what they want to do. And there's a reason why the attrition rate is what it is. And the thing is, so in first phase, you wear green helmets and you ring a bell to symbolically quit. It's actually a paperwork. signature you have to do. It's a symbol, which the sound of that bell, it becomes an incredible motivation. Later on in training, you hear people ringing that bell and a small portion of their soul comes to you and you put it in the furnace. It's a dark way of looking at it, but it works. Correct. And when we were in third phase, the final phase of training, the classroom for third phase,

So when I went through was directly across, they called it a grinder, which is naval terminology for a large concrete pad. Because why would you call it a large concrete pad? You want to grind somebody up on it? So it's a grinder. And that's where all the, there's white flippers. It's a really iconic portion of the seal pipeline because you go and everybody stands on their flippers. And, you know, every day there's more flippers open. So we're in third phase.

Hell Week is going on. and you'll get 15, 20, 30 quitters on a shift at the beginning of Hell Week, and they all stand at the bell and ring. And by the time they were done, we were getting our asses handed to us by the instructors because we were just screaming and joy at the people who were having their worst moment of their life. And again, it's a dark thing.

So you had like a nucleus of guys that were like cheering and almost being like indignant towards the adversity that they were putting you through. Not indignant. Like, celebrating it almost. Definitely not indignant. I knew, you knew the adversity, and you knew that you had made it through something that was grinding other people to dust.

So my class, we had 180 start, 18 of us made it all the way through the pipeline. So in that third phase classroom, we were in there losing our minds in joy. It was just, I don't know, it's an incredible sensation of what that bell means as it shifts its way through, but every person who puts their helmet underneath the bell is a stud. You know, like in the modern day, when I went through, there was no pipeline. I went to boot camp with no guarantee of actually getting a shot at Buds. And I think it was in the fourth week. They put in this VHS tape that was grainy and had like the lines come across the screen until it settles. Sure. And it's, it was like the Frogman, UDT. And you watch this five-minute video and a Navy diver

comes up and goes, hey, who wants to try out for this program? People raise their hand. You go do a swimming test, running test, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups. As you can tell, not a very robust screening. And the numbers you had to get on the pull-ups, I think were like 12. Pass that, and then you have to go pick a school. Because the attrition rate at Buds is high enough that the Navy realized we need to train you before you go to Buds, not after, because the people leaving Buds are not in a great

headspace. So I picked the shortest possible school that I could use. to get to Buds, which was a radar scope operator. If uranized life depended on me using a radar scope, we're both dead, just so you know. Because all I did was like soft sand runs, PT, that's all I did. That's all I cared about.

And then I got to Buds and started that pipeline. Now you can go in, and I might be describing this a little bit off because I didn't go through this, but you can get a contract going in, and they will put together boot camp divisions, like probably close to 100 people, if not more. of people who are going to that pipeline already.

Then after boot camp, you go across the street in Great Lakes, and I think it's a eight or 12-week training pipeline to get ready to go to Buds, which is competitive, because they have more students who want to go than slots available per class. So they compete for the slots, and the attrition rate is still 75 to 80%. So every dude who rings that bell and puts their helmet down is already a stud. So it's a combination of, you know, in high school, how did I stay focused? I didn't always, if I mean, you know, I didn't really study in school.

I was all fucking off with my friends to a certain degree and then I started to dial it in as it got closer. But, I mean, I would wake up early and go to the gym, go to 24-hour fitness. Some of the most embarrassing moments of my young adult life were at 24-hour fitness in the morning, running next to two older women who I thought were extremely attractive. Have you ever been on a treadmill and stepped off the portion that's running? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, full backflip in front of people that I didn't know

and I was not emotionally prepared as like a 17-year-old man. I think I actually never went back to that facility and I used my membership at a different one. But I did all that stuff. So you can be physically ready, but I think the biggest differentiator is between years. Yeah. And I don't know.

What made you different? I have no idea. I don't feel different. I feel, I understand that, but you have to, after seeing so many people, and not just in like buds and failing, but so many people go into combat, and I'm sure you saw some of your brothers that were hardened that did not respond the way that maybe they were trained to respond or they should have responded. What made you different? Not that you're perfect in all those combat situations, but you went over there, what, 17 different combat? Oh, no, no, no. I went over eight combat tours.

Okay, eight. So of those eight combat tours, I'm sure you saw some of those guys like I just described. So what was the common denominator between the guys that made it through, also the guys that went on combat missions, and then the guys that responded advantageously for the team? There's got to be denominators. Well, combat is interesting. I hear people or I have heard people talk about, you know, a long time ago, there was a guy named S.L. A. Marshall. And people can do their research on whether or not they think his information in his study to use air quotes was legitimate. I'm going to put him in the category of a fiction

writer versus a nonfiction writer. Problem being he was positioning it as nonfiction. What I will say is some interesting things happened. It seemed like a person who, in my opinion, at least, would fall into the category of stolen valor. He was in the military, but his record and the things he did, especially under the microscope of looking back on it. It doesn't stand the litmus test. But even though a lot of what he was doing,

I consider to be total bullshit, they made legitimate training corrections that improved soldiering. So it's a little bit of a mix. But one of the main things that he did or said that he did is he would go interview soldiers coming back off the front in combat units. And he came up with a statistic that startled people at the time, and it was essentially

less than a quarter of the people will actually be comfortable firing their weapon at an enemy soldier. And he would make that determination off of a single interview with a unit. And I believe he would talk with individuals as well. And because of that, you know, to talk about the positive that came from that, prior to that time period, they were using circle bullseye targets for target practice. Post that information, they looked at it, and they started using man-shaped silhouettes. And the firing rate of individuals on paper, it looks like, increased until you get to Vietnam, and it was in like the 90th percentile. One of the issues I have, which brings me back to your question about how people perform in combat is, if you ask somebody one time how they performed,

it's not indicative of how they're going to perform every single time. I have seen guys, and myself included where you have days or nights, you know, and maybe it's because you have some emotional stress or you're worried about whether or not legitimately your rent check is going to bounce. And you're an emotional place where you have less capacity and things happen and you don't respond the way that you want to. You don't live up to the standard that you had set for yourself or that others probably had. And then the next night, when your head is in a clearer spot and you're pissed about how you had acted the night before, you perform better. So it's not a baseline. I've seen incredible bravery from people,

and I've seen people freeze. And I've seen that happen in the same person. And people could probably say that I did the same thing. You know, I leave my career and my performance to the judgment of my peers. It has to be that way. So I think it's important to realize, though, that it is a sign wave.

Performance in combat is, I mean, you'll see people who are phenomenal, but they're not always. Just like, you know, and your background, professional athletes, sometimes you rise, the occasion and sometimes the occasion eat your lunch, you know. I think the biggest common denominator would probably be a willingness to put yourself aside and care more about the people to your left and right. I feel like that's what marriage is, what you just said, a willingness to put yourself aside.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you think about it, though. Like my mentor, when he was coaching me on my marriage, he says, man, if you want to have a great marriage, you have to give up the right to be right. and I feel like that's kind of combat, you know, is putting myself aside for the betterment of the team, for the betterment of the family, for the betterment of the legacy, for the betterment of the kids, it doesn't mean that you don't get your needs met. It just means you're willing to put yourself aside for the betterment of the team. Pretty interesting, man.

And one of the things that you were mentioning there about the same person responding different ways, I've absolutely been that person. I retired in 2015, and then I was doing an ESPN radio show in York. And so I retired. I went and got a TV job, which is how you and I connected. Yeah, that's right. So I was doing TV. I was doing radio.

And it was probably week eight of the season, and I got a phone call. And I'm literally in the studio like we are right now, ESPN studio in Manhattan, and I just got done doing the recap, or not the recap, but teasing up the Patriots and the Jets the next day. they were going to play in Foxboro. This was a Saturday at about noon. And I get a phone call, and it comes up on my phone. It says, Jets front office. And I'm like, oh, crap.

Because I said a bunch of really nice things about the Jets. You're like, did I just record this live? Somebody's ears burning? And then when it came time to talk about their quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick, I was like, man, they're doing great. Their defense is like one of the most menacing in the league, but their quarterback. Have you seen this guy try to throw it over 30 yards?

It's a freaking joke. So you gave him the sticks a little bit? Yeah, so then we go to commercial break. My phone rings this Jets front office. And I'm like scrambling in my brain, because I know what I just said, but in my mind, I didn't think it was that bad, not bad enough to get a phone call. So I answered the phone call. It's Mike McCagnan, which was the GM at the time.

And he said, hey, Steve, how are you doing? I'm doing my radio show right now. He goes, are you in Manhattan or New York, New Jersey? I said, yes, sir. He goes, what do you think you could be in Foxborough tomorrow for the Jets Patriots game? I'm like, yeah, I think he wants me to like. come and do the pregame show. You know, like on the sideline.

That's what my head was going. Like, you're going to be there to commentate or. Yeah. And he's like, I'm like, yeah, sure, I can be up there. He goes, what's up? He goes, well, our punter has an infection in his leg. And we don't know if he can play tomorrow. He said, can you come to the Jets facility in the next couple of hours? And I go, well, my show's got about another hour to go.

So let me finish this up. So I got off the phone with him. I called my wife. And I said, hey, grab my purple suit and grab my shoes out of the garage or in this bag underneath this other stuff. I went home, grabbed my stuff. to tie a bow on this story, I went there, met the team, and my quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick, the guy that I was literally just gunning on national radio.

And I'm like, hey, so what's up, guys? So if you struggle on the first three downs, just guess what, Ryan? I'm going to come in and bail you out, because I've seen you try to throw a ball over three yards. It was so embarrassing. But the point to the whole story is for 10 years as a professional athlete, and sure there was a couple games where I crapped the bed and didn't perform. But after 10 years, knowing what you. have and kind of like for you as a as a Navy ceiling maybe for some of the guys or

gals listening to this show is you've responded in a way that made you feel well you've responded in a way that has built your business you've responded in a way that's changed your body you've responded in a way that's benefited your marriage but if you don't stay vigilant to that routine that got you to that space where your head was that when you went to combat and you responded in the right way it's because you had more than just muscle memory you had the confidence in your preparation that when you went to go take the shot, you were confident in everything being prepared. You didn't second guess it, just like that guy that was interviewing people when

they came back from combat is that's how they responded one time. And so when I played in this game against the Patriots, I crapped the bed, bro. I was so bad. I averaged 39 yards a punt. I think I could average that. Yeah, it was bad, dude. It was bad. And I'm not kidding you. On one of them, my first punt of the game rolled for 15 and it still ended up only being like a 43-yard punt. So I had just the most heinous game. But you had also been out of the NFL. Exactly. Think about it.

I was sitting on my butt for two months. In my mind, I'm retired. I'm not exercising that mental, that physical. Because in my mind, I've conditioned myself to be like Bruce Lee. Because, I mean, think about my position. I only got 4.3 plays per game. And I'm definitely, I want everybody to hear me right now, I'm definitely not here to talk about how great I am. I was a punter.

I essentially had a front row seat for these games. I mean, I will say that I am an elite athlete, but punters are not elite athletes. And so my point to mentioning that to you guys is I had 4.3 plays per game and I made $197,000 a week. And so if you break that down, that's $50,000 a punt. So to bring this back to like Bruce Lee, holy shit, man. You really, yeah. I mean, if you want to talk about like who's the highest, my dad's like a big numbers guy. And he's like, I think you're the highest paid person on the planet.

Because you only. Per play. Yeah. Well, not even per second. Think about it. I only play seven seconds in a play. You know, they snap the ball, and that takes about a second, and then I handle the ball for 1.2 seconds.

So two seconds, the ball is gone, and it's usually in the air for, you know, four or five seconds, and then a couple seconds to tackle. I have seen some of your plays that went a little longer when you were laying the heat on people, taking them down. Yeah, come on. People are going to Google it. I'm going to be like, Andy, you think this is laying the heat.

So do not Google Steve Weatherford or tackling. In comparison to other punting cohorts, for sure you were laying the heat okay so thank you for the honor Andy I am the toughest kid on the short bus you know that's what that's really what it is I'm on the bus and so exactly what you were just saying about putting those helmets underneath the bell I'm a badass too you know what I mean and and all the men listening to this have had that moment in their life where they responded favorably where they prepared and the moment of execution was there and they did it and they feel good about themselves but then then they just relax and it's kind of like you know a lot of

a lot of speakers will talk about the the thermometer for your life and that's why I'm so interested by you because I look at your life and then you know I look at where we were at a couple years ago when we created our friendship and then where you're at right now and what you're doing is you're you never sabotage at least from the outside looking and I'm sure you'll speak to this but it doesn't look like you are adjusting the thermostat in your life like in high school it might have been at 82 when you were fooling around and then you dialed it in And then you got into the seals and then there was a next level of discipline. There was a next level of sacrifice.

There was a next level of vision. And because of that, that was able to obviously take you through everything that you went through in Navy SEAL training camp. And the same thing for me. I hate comparing my life to soldiers' life. But I just believe there's a lot of community aspects to it that helps build who you are. And not just for like that moment when you have like the M&M like it's your moment. But also moving forward from there, you've done an incredible. job on building on who you've become. And I feel like so many men are getting confused on what the

purpose of life is, is we're never going to be. Like as fathers and husbands and men, we're never just going to be. And if you are, you are just being, you're getting passed up. That's when those dudes are ringing that bell and leaving that place. And like you said, they're amazing. They're studs in their own right. But they made a decision. They made a decision to let their current circumstances predict their future. They made the decisions based upon their emotions and not their commitments.

You made a commitment when you were 11, 12, 13, 14 years old, you will not be denied. And then I'm definitely not telling you what your mindset is, but just becoming friends with you and then knowing a couple Navy SEAL buddies and then knowing some elite performers

and athletes and things like that, I believe it's the mindset of you won't be denied the one that won't be denied. Like you just, you're not willing to accept anything else other than being a Navy SEAL, being world-class consultant, being a freaking pilot. Like, you're a sicko, dude.

You know what I mean? Think about that. Like, think about all of the different certifications and experiences. And one of the things that inspires me the most about you isn't just the works that you've done, but it's the way that you're paying it forward. It's the way that you're trying to teach other people, not how to be a Navy SEAL, but how to up-level their mindset, how to up-level their relationships. because at the end of the day, man, alignments to me are the number one most important thing in life

because as an entrepreneur and then I'll stop talking for a minute. But as an entrepreneur, I made a lot of mistakes in pursuing the assignment of success, meaning like, hey, I want to go build a supplement company. So let me go make friends with a bunch of fitness people and supplement people. And I'm making friendships with them based upon an assignment that I want to execute, like an operation that you would want to. execute very targeted but the problem is and this is why as a Navy SEAL SEAL Team 6 was successful and why business some businesses aren't successful is because

they create alignments based upon that assignment instead of creating alignments and then and then pursuing an assignment so for you and your Navy SEALs you guys were forged in a fire and it helped build character traits in you that inspired the men that were next to you and then the next SEAL group that came up Dude, you were a part of the most elite seal team pretty much of all time. I mean, I don't know, but from my opinion, from just a bystander, the best of all time. But what made you guys successful and what made the different COs pick you to put you on these different, it's because of the character traits, not just the synergy of the guys, it's the character traits that help them to get identified.

And once you identify or discover a gift, then it is your assignment. assignment as a leader and my assignment as a leader to develop that gift, discover, develop, and then what happens when you guys to go to Afghanistan to save our country and to save our future and to give my family a legacy? You deploy, discover, develop, deploy. That's what the SEALs is. And I think for me in my life and for the rest of my life, that's what I believe my calling is, is to help other men discover their gifts, not the gifts to help your gifts be like Andy's gifts or Steve's gifts, but help you figure out what your unique fingerprint is. There was a study done in Switzerland two years ago that proved that 99% of

our DNA is exactly the same. There's a surprise me. There's only one percent of our DNA that's different. So why do we spend so much of our life trying to be like Andy Stump or trying to be like Steve Weatherford or trying to be like Ed My Ladd or trying to be like Andy Friciller or Ryan Mickler? We're running on a treadmill that's going to kick you off because you're not built that way. You know, so I choose to live a life to surround myself with people like you that have discovered their gift at a young age and have developed it and have deployed it. I feel like I'm the same way, but you have more gifts inside of you. And that's why you keep doing all these different things.

If you guys go look at Andy's website and go look at the About Me section, you will feel you will feel so inadequate initially. No. Andy, don't tell me how I felt when I read it this morning. I'm not telling you how you thought. I'm just saying people shouldn't go there. I'm not saying that they should feel that way, but I'm just telling you, man to man, when you read somebody's bio like yours or maybe somebody's bio like mine, it's really easy for us to disconnect ourselves from the possibility of living a life like that. But there was a decision that you made at a young age to burn the boats.

You're not going to accept the plan B. And because of that, you stayed in the fight. And like we were talking earlier, like it's the guys that laughed with you when you were in that grind. on that grinder that allowed you to grow through that process. And this is the last thing that I'll say and pass it back to you. But there's a scripture in the Bible, Romans 5, 3 through 5 that says, when you rejoice in your suffering, that suffering produces endurance. And that endurance produces character and that character produces hope.

And I feel like that's like a one, two, three, four step process for you and I to continue, A, to do what we're doing, but then to give other men a real. really simple blueprint to how to achieve and make change and transformation in their own life is when you're going through suffering, I think everybody in 2020 has gone through some form of suffering. I think you're supposed to. I think life is supposed to be a large portion of working your way through that suffering. But if you don't rejoice in that suffering, and if you go through that suffering alone, you'll never rejoice in it. Think about trying to go through Bud's training by yourself. Well, first it would be impossible because it required team evolutions. But yeah,

if you were just there. Even if it didn't then, even if it was just a set. number of things that you need to do over four days and it was mapped out for you knew exactly what it was oh the easiest way to get people to quit would be to isolate them and then just what do you press and press happen in 2020 right now is the government and leadership is forcing us to isolate and because of that isolation the way that god created you and me was to be in relationship the greatest memories that and i i don't know you that well but i could forecast that the greatest memories that you have in your life are shared with relationships your children your wife your brothers, your dad, just look back at like the really formidable experiences of your life.

They were more special when you shared them with a relationship and to kind of like circle this back to that alignment that I was talking about. Something transformational happened in my life when I started to pursue men and business relationships that had the same character traits that I did. And when you can create alignments based upon character traits, then when you go into battle or you go into launching that business or you go into a really tough season in your marriage, you have that brother to talk to and kind of like what we were talking about with the seal training. If you don't have somebody with you,

you are never going to be able to unlock your best self because it's men that help you see what the, what the amazing gifts and blessings and talents that God gave you that you don't know because you're sitting here in front of me with a with a resume as long as my arm, but you're like, well, I'm not any different because you only. live in your own mind. And in comparison to my cohort growing up, it's I, it's average. Right. It's, you know, I was thinking when you're talking about the memories that mean the most to me and I was thinking back right now, I can't think of a single, single meaningful memory that's just me. Right. Like there I was by myself, it's none of, nothing that sticks out in my life. It's like that.

I tell you what I think makes it tough for people to live their life as who they are. as opposed to who other people are. That's beer. Is that okay? It's a keg of Guinness. You can grab one if you want to. For those of you that didn't hear, Steve said he just needed something wet in his mouth.

Here I am. Here he is, people. How amazing he gets and how much I admire him. And then I tell him I want to sit in my mouth. And the only thing he's got is Guinness beer, and it's about 11 o'clock in the morning. We're in Montana. Let's do this.

Yeah. I'm not saying you have to have 15. I'm saying it could be a breakfast, a lunch, or a dinner. It's generally considered to be a meal in a cup or a can. Cheers. What I think makes it really tough for people, to include myself, I'll get caught up in this, to live your life the way you want to as opposed to chasing or comparing other people

is these damn phones with the apps on there. Everything is comparative. And I need to be very clear. Like my life, my life has wavtops and trenches, for sure. And it's, I just like anybody else, if I'm going to engage on these platforms, which to a degree, if you are doing business or are involved in that world, you're going to have, you're going to touch them to some degree. I don't know many people who are completely off of them. They might have people who do it for them or they might outsource it, but you still have a choice.

You can show the wavops, so you can show the troughs, or you could only show the wavops, which I see a lot of people do. But I think it's important for people to realize that every life is going to have peaks and valleys. I mean, you may not know this, but I'm 18 months into a divorce, almost 19 months. one of the biggest troughs of my life for sure. You know, issues with my kids. Some of the biggest wavetops, some of the biggest troughs and how they have responded to that.

And it's, I've talked a little bit about it, but I leave most of it to handle in my own personal life privately because I am the one who has a platform and a microphone sitting in front of me. And it is not fair for me to say anything about anybody else who doesn't have the equal platform, which is why I've been honest that that's the situation that I'm going through,

but I leave all details to be worked. out between the individuals. But it's tough. I'll get caught up, you know, scrolling through social media and you sit in the back here, I'd like, yeah, it must be nice. Oh, nice car, you know, oh, hey, it must be nice, this, that, or the other. And it, uh, if you let it, I think that'll scramble your eggs a little bit. A little bit. Well, it, I think you and I might have an advantage because we're, I mean, I'm in my 40s now. How old are you? I'll be 38 in about a month. I know, but I feel like a kid, bro. But you have enough laps around the sun that you can look at social media and see through what it is.

Well, I've also had a lot of the things, and not to sound like arrogant or anything, but I had a lot of the things that I thought would make me happy. Yeah. Like a Mercedes and a big house and like everybody knowing who I am. And man, dude, three years ago, I was in a really dark spot. Yeah. My point is we're older. My biggest concern when it comes to people living their own life is I look at how

social media is impacting my kids. Yeah. They don't have that filter. They don't have the ability to see. You know, TikTok is a weird example. I don't even have it on my phone, but I watch my daughter's interaction with it. And she's following this young girl who has, I think, 160, 170 million followers. And I will watch the videos with her sometimes.

And it worries me because my daughter will try to reach out to that person or comment, and she's concerned and she'll see that this person has a beef with somebody else online. Neither of these people my daughter knows, but my daughter's invested it. I'm like, oh my God, what's going on here? Like, this is dangerous. This is nothing to do with you or as a young woman or, you know what I mean? Like, it's concerning to me. And I think it can derail in, I don't know.

Social media, what I see is a lot of people on a lot of wavetops, which is absent the suffering that you're talking about. I try to share equally, wavetops and troughs because personally, I think life's supposed to be a grind. everything that I value the most in life are the things that it hurt me the most to achieve and I think that if you avoid that if you I do know people well I can't say I know anybody who's completely avoided it but I can see again and I'm making kind of an assumption

but I can see people who take the easy path they avoid the struggle they avoid the grind and it doesn't lead to a well-rounded human being in my opinion well I'd be a polite way to put that yeah I'm agreeing with you and it really It really comes down to something that you're really good at, and I've formed a decent relationship with,

and that's discipline. Yeah. You formed a better relationship with discipline than me. Yeah, you say that just because I'm, like, leaner than you or maybe I have bigger arms, but... Both of those things are actually true. Your arms are the size of my legs. Well, think about this.

I'm incredibly inspired by what you've done with your voice. For real. You know, like you can talk about it, and here's a deal. It requires, there are absolutely days. Andy, I don't even have to ask you that you've done podcasts that you haven't wanted to do podcasts. Oh, for sure. And honestly,

where was the last thing I actually wanted to do was open my mouth and talk to anybody about anything at any time. I mean, well, think about this, dude, you just said it. How hard has it been for you?

And just being real, how hard has it been for you? To reach out and do all the normal grind that you do when you're going through this valley with the person that you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. That's hard, dude. It's hard to give to pour from a cup that feels empty.

It's hard to pour from a cup when you're starting to question what's in the cup as well. The whole process, it was my decision to initiate the divorce process. We had been together, married for 18, together for 20. It's a long time. That's half your life. It's half my life. It was half my life at that time. And there were some of the darkest periods where I legitimately was questioning who I was

as a man, more so than anything, any seal training or any of that stuff. You know, the impact that I was going to leave on my kids, the impact that an unhealthy failed relationship would have on the thoughts for my kids going forward. I thought so much about the decision because I don't want my kids to be afraid of relationships or afraid of marriages. What I want them to do is have examples of good, healthy, growing, you know, symbiotic relationships, not the opposite of that. I'm not going to characterize the previous relationship, again, because I only, only one that has the microphone. But it's, yeah, it's rough to give anybody anything when you're not even sure.

who you are. Yeah. And that's really, that's one thing that I found it tough for me. And this is actually, I haven't even said it on my own podcast or social media. When is this podcast coming out? Monday. Okay. Well, I guess we'll just announce it here. I'm having another kid. That doesn't surprise me. You have 14. Yeah, well, I got, I got five. I know it seems that way. But God's giving us another baby coming in May. And to speak to that, when you were talking about your marriage and you were talking about your kids and you're talking about social media and how it really makes you nervous when you see what your daughter or your son or even your significant others consuming on social media, you know for a fact that it's going to

influence what they say. It's going to influence who they become. And so I have found this to be really effective. I guess this would be actionable and practical for everybody to listen to this right now. It's one thing that I've been able to do that's really kind of protected me because you follow me on social media. Like I share quite a bit. I would call it probably almost hyperactive sharer. But one of the ways that I've been able to develop a relationship and a discipline at the same time with social media is the same way like the foods that we eat. Like you're really hardcore into this jujitsu and you understand how important the consistent investments that you make every day. Oh, it's the key.

And how that will develop you as a man? You have to build the equity. And as an athlete, well, how is that any different for us as leaders of our home and leaders to our children and our wife and our friends? If we are not filtering what we are consuming as social media, the food that we eat is important, but I'll tell you this, I know for a fact I can eat like crap, but if I'm staying on my other routine that is dialing in my spiritual, my mental, and all those different categories that make me a good leader or a great leader or a poor leader, if I can stick to those, food doesn't matter. But one of the things that I have noticed that has been more toxic to me than any other variable that makes sure. who I am is social media and who I follow. So the actionable tip would be go and look at Instagram and the people that you follow and if they don't make you feel better or do better, don't follow them.

Yeah. Like why are you following them in order, you're almost like programming in disappointment. You're programming in I'm not enough. You're programming in depression. You're programming in. I don't have what they have because like you said, the majority of social media. you want to be good at social media, share your wave tops. It's an algorithm that is proven.

But I've literally seen a picture that I've posted and then I'll post the same picture six months later knowing that it's going to get about the same amount. It's like one of those viral videos. Yeah. But if you put in the caption, the Instagram caption, God, Jesus, Trump 2020, any of those things, Instagram will make sure that people don't see that because I can go from getting on average, I don't know, call it 5,000. thousand likes and a hundred comments. And if it's a post with the same picture, different caption,

Instagram will make sure that people don't see that. So my point is, Instagram's playing us for a fool. And we're just diving into it. They're not alone. Let's just say that whole ecosystem. For sure. It's not just Instagram. I'm singling them out because they're the jugger nut. I haven't watched it. I haven't watched it. But I have the preface of it and how it's reconditioning everybody. And their main economy is your time and attention. 100% targeted that's the currency yeah that is the currency that they're after 100% and uh i watched that and then looked at my kids it's almost you know it's almost i guess i've never really thought about social media input as almost thinking about it as a food source 100% well i've never i've

never made that the way the way your body looks as a reflection of the food that you put in it the words that come out of our mouth are reflection of what we put into it yeah you know so like waking up in the morning and going straight to your phone to see you your text messages and your emails, guess what you're doing? You are allowing the world to tell you how to feel about you, how to feel about life, how to feel about business. There's a scripture in the Bible that says, do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's literally what we need. We are so conformed to the patterns of this world. Just think about the narrative shift on social media. And I was a part

of it too. We're on social media. And all of a sudden, this whole Black Live and Matt thing blows out and they divide the country racially. And then after they accomplish that, then they divide the country politically. And then this is the country that we live in. Are you freaking kidding me? There is not another country on this planet that people will be like, dude, F this country and then still stay there.

Are you kidding me? Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world. So all of the narrative on social media and the narrative on the media and the narrative on all these different sites that we go, go to, they're conforming our mind. But you're going to get mad at the media? You're going to get mad at Black Lives Matter or these different things that are anti-American? No, get mad at your, like you can get mad at them, but don't sit there and keep taking the vitamins. Yeah, don't take the vitamins because guess what? You're going to wake up a month, two months,

three months from now, you're going to be depressed and you're going to go from like, hey, I had a pretty good life to I'm really well informed and I'm depressed AF. And let's add to that a pandemic, social isolation. Uncertainty about an economic future. There are so, I mean, I would, if I got to choose 2020, the scent of the candle would be dumpster fire. I'm trying to get somebody to make it for me. Burnt hair and baby turd. Yeah.

I mean, could it really get any. I mean. Could. Yes. My answer is yes. What's going to be next? A tidal wave? I'm choosing to rejoice in my suffering because I know my suffering will build endurance.

And I know essentially what that means is like, you can handle more. You go to Navy Budd's training. You can handle more because you're rejoicing with your homeboys. And that suffering and that suffering leads to endurance. And that endurance leads to character. And that's what you and I as leaders, we really ultimately want to do is lead and influence people. But you can't lead and influence people unless they respect you. And you can't do it for them.

And the thing people have to understand is because I get asked this all the time. They'll say mental toughness. Are you born with it or is it taught? And the answer is yes. you're born with a requisite amount, but it can also be taught. You can expand who you are as a person. To use that cup as an analogy or a metaphor, and I use this a lot when talking about post-traumatic stress

and how people will behave in combat and how two people can experience the same thing. It'll have a catastrophic effect for one and not an effect on another, but you could use it for physical capacity as well. Let's say you and I started off with two cups, identical like that, and you took the path that you took with discipline. through diet, through exercise, through pushing yourself. What your body's physically capable of is that cup getting a little bit bigger, microscopically, time, you know, days, weeks, years, all of those things.

The person who doesn't go that path, their cup stays the same size. So then you're able to tolerate more as a human being. Buds is a good example. And it doesn't throw you off as much. It doesn't throw you off. It's the same stimulus, but you handle it different. Correct. So, you know, you go through buds and yes, I think you do come out of that.

with an enhanced understanding of mental toughness. But the mental challenges don't end at that end of six-month process. It's an entire career of trying to figure out problems that people think are impossible in high-consequence environments. And you have to deal with failure. You have to deal with loss. Sometimes you get to deal with success. And that's an easy one.

You just slam the cup down and you're good to go. But it's all microscopic improvements that have to be done by the individual, both mentally and physically. That equity has to be put in. You can't just put a cup on a table and come back five years later and say, well, why can't this hold any more volume? Right. You have to do the work. It's got to be stretched.

Yeah. Stretching hurts. Like you're doing. Over time. You're doing jiu-jitsu. Which is also known as folding clothes with people still in it or involuntary yoga. Well, there you go. To speak of stretching.

I'm sure when you first got into this, you were like. Oh, get smashed. Bro, my flexibility's got. I mean, you probably saw a lot of things that needed to get improved. But flexibility was probably nearly one of the first. first things that you notice, because it's not power. You're pretty powerful, dude. You're aggressive. You like the noise. Your opponent just uses

that. They're like, oh, you want to play that game? Oh, you're really strong? Cool. I'll use that against you. That's why I haven't ever gone to Jiu-Jitsu because I'm really strong and I take pride in that. And that's the thing. That would be the hardest thing for you to get over. But once you did, you would be a nightmare. Just given, because I had my coach on recently and it was that we were walking here. I trained Jiu-Suitz, literally a block away. I want to go see the gym when we get done. Yeah. And we're walking over here. and it was him and one of his fellow black belts in their talk.

I'm like, the two biggest lies in jiu-jitsu, strength doesn't matter and weight doesn't matter. And they both just laugh. And you're like, you're telling me if I'm big and strong that that doesn't matter, like it absolutely does. And trust me, everybody wishes they were big and strong. But if you rely on it. If you rely on it, your learning curve goes like this,

and then you fall off. Whereas the person who shelves their attributes and puts themselves on a low trajectory towards a distant horizon, there's a point where that, like, maximal strength output and this low trajectory meet, and one person's journey in that particular art, jujitsu continues on.

And the other guy, generally, from what I have seen in my limited time, two and a half years, they start getting really frustrated because they're not willing to shelf that attribute and trust the technique. And a lot of the times, I think it's just insecurity between the years.

Yeah. Well, that's interesting you said insecurity, because I wrote down a couple of things when you were talking. I call it steady stacking, is when those promises that you make to yourself, you just keep keeping them to yourself. And obviously, kind of like what you're saying with Jiu-Jitsu,

is your skills will improve. But one thing that I've noticed during these different processes of, you know, like you becoming a pilot or becoming a seal or becoming, you know, world-class speaker or world-class consultant, these different things that you do, the process was very, very similar. And I think for me, one thing I've noticed about myself as I've gotten older and I continue to say,

set like these goals kind of similar to what you have lofty goals of self-improvement but also helping people along the way while you're doing it's not just about you you're sharing it with other people and I'm doing my best to do the same thing but one thing I've noticed is I trust myself more you know like in the NFL I feel like my mentor said this to me the other day is everything in the middle feels like failure I'm sure that when you were a navy Navy SEAL and you were like the height of when you were operating at least for me even when I was my best in the NFL, I felt like I was failing. But now when I look back on that chapter of my life, like I never felt like you were failing or

you were afraid of failing? Because I think there's two different things. I felt like an imposter. I didn't feel like a failure. Imposter syndrome is real. I had that my entire career. I didn't know that. Well, we could talk about that, man.

I actually think it's a good sign. I think it means you're critically aware of where you are. You're aware that you're surrounded by people who are amazing. And it keeps you up at night that you don't want to let them down. So I mean, I guess you could describe it as imposter syndrome. I don't think either you or I were imposters. It was just that recognition. Like, I have to do my absolute best at all times or I'm letting the people down around me.

That's interesting because for me, I definitely obviously felt like an imposter, but I was really good at the skill that I did. Like for you, you were really good at, if I could just put myself in your position as a Navy SEAL, I felt really good at my ability to operate. Like my ability to be a great leader, my ability to shoot well, my ability to shoot, move and communicate would be the number like the three. I feel great about my ability to do that. But in a weird way, in a dark way, I didn't feel like I was valuable. I felt like my skills to communicate and shoot. And I felt like those were my value to people. And if I didn't have those, then I was worthless.

And so it was really kind of a, it was a strange time for me mentally when I decided to retire. because I was still healthy enough to play, but I was in this mental space where I've done a lot of these different things in the NFL that I thought would make me happy. I thought would fulfill me. The end state, if you will? Yeah.

And dude, holding this trophy, 47 miles, you know, Lombardi trophy, 47 miles from my hometown, you would think, surrounded by your dad, your mom, your grandmas, your sisters, brothers, you know, all that, did you feel different about who you are? I was still very proud of myself, but to kind of circle it back to everything

in the middle feels like failure. I felt like my career was pretty successful, but I never felt successful as a person. It's kind of like when I honored you before we hit the mics. I'm like, dude, you got to be one of the most decorated Navy SEALs of all time. He's like, oh, no, no, no. I'm not, though. I mean. But still, think about it.

We have as men, we have trouble receiving honor from other men. We just want to sluff it off. We work so hard to get it. Other people completely fuel themselves. off of that honor, whether it be... It's an empty tank, though. Yeah, whether it be real or fake. That was me, though.

That was me. I thrived off of other people telling me how great that I was. So it makes sense that when I'm around people and I'm holding a trophy and everybody's getting to be a part of the success that myself and my team created, I felt so good about myself. But then later on the night, this is February 5, 2012 when we won the Super Bowl in Indianapolis was against Tom Brady, and we won 2117 last minute, and I'll never forget how... This was when you were playing for the Giants.

Giants, yeah. Wasn't it like a Hail Mary pass? You're thinking of 2008 when they beat the undefeated Patriots. That was in Arizona when we beat them. There was also... It was like the last second, though, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

It was the best way to beat the best player of all time. And can we be honest, the most handsome player of all time? He is so handsome. He's so dreamy. I can't even hate on him. I know. I've met him twice. And he's a good husband and a good death.

I get lost in his eyes. I don't know what else to say. And he's so tall too. I know what I'm saying. He's like minute bowl, but I just get lost in those eyes. Tom Brady's dreamy. I know.

But we beat him. I digress. Yeah. I digress. So we beat him. And I remember having those moments with my family where it was just like, man, I'm a little boy.

You know, felt like you were a little boy and everything everybody ever wanted for you, you got it. And everything you ever wanted for other people, you were able to give it to them too. I knew I was going to be able to buy my mom in the car that I'd always promised her and all these things were going to come true.

But I'll never forget, Andy, going back to my hotel room because in the NFL, they don't let, even if you're married, your wife come to your room because of all the different things, et cetera. So I remember going back to my room about 2 o'clock in the morning after the after party and everything.

I remember walking up to the window, Circle City, Indianapolis, and looking down at all of the people, just celebrating and high-fiving and taking shots and just, you couldn't hardly see the, the ground of Indianapolis from the 17th floor that I was on. And I remember taking a deep breath and just,

and before I could blow it out, I just remember like talking to God and being like, this is it. Like, this is it. I don't feel any different. It was like almost like a wave of depression came over me because all of the discipline, all of the sacrifice, all of the execution, everything that I needed to do to to do that thing and to be great, I did it. And so now, now I should feel different about me, not just about my skills. Because for the longest time, I thought I needed to improve my skills and be generous with people

and, you know, be the most philanthropic person in the NFL, which I did that. Walter Paiton, a man of the year award, the fittest man in the NFL. I won that twice by muscle and fitness. And the only reason I mentioned those things to the listeners right now is for you guys to understand, there's nothing that you're going to achieve in your life that's going to make you feel different about you. If you're looking for extrinsic validation, you're never going to get it. And I believe a lot of us are searching for that on social media. And guess what?

Your waftops are never going to look like somebody else's wavetops because your 1% of your DNA is different. You can do things that that person can't do. But if you spend your life trying to be like you or trying to be like somebody else, you're going to fail at it. So why not be one of one? Why not be or why work to be a second best? carbon copy of you or anybody else. But I feel like that's what social media is doing to us.

It's a tough path to walk. I think, and I think it's even more so because the person has to put the steps in front of them and lay out their own path. And they don't trust themselves. Yeah, and it's, it lets be honest, it's more enticing to follow a map that somebody has drawn or written for you than to try to navigate it on your own. Because if you're navigated on your own and you make mistakes, who is to blame? Right.

And that's a tough pill to swallow, man. Yeah, this ownership, man. I mean, that's kind of like what, you know, Jock Willick, I don't know him, but that's his thing, man, is owning. Extreme ownership. Extreme ownership. I like to mess with him. I'm going to write a book called Extremely limited ownership. Extreme ownership, volume two.

Yeah. Bigger and better. Chapter 1. There are no bad leaders, only bad teams. And I'll publicly, like, harass him about it. I was like, Jock, I need you to write the foreword on this. He's like, yeah, that's fine. Whatever.

Write it and I'll do it. Yeah. He's a good dude. I'm impressed with him too. He seems like a pretty impressive man. He's a guy who I think is perfectly suited for the social media platform. He keeps it short, succinct. He's on his topic.

And I think one of the things that he, I never served with him directly in the SEAL teams. I've gotten to spend a lot more time with him post. We just, like we're crossing coasts and different units. And it's, I think he's always been interested in leadership. and I think he'd also be the first person to tell you that the leadership principles he talks about, he didn't create them. You know, the community, we both came from the same pot of soup

and the stuff that he talks about and really dives into at a more granular level, which is definitely unique to him, the way that he is taking those concepts and then just going down and down and down and down. That's unique to him for sure. The concept itself came from that community, but I can't think of a better message

to be spread on that platform. Exactly. I mean, he puts up black and white pictures of his watch in the morning. He's on brand, dude. That's what it is. That's what I'm saying. He's on brand. He's not post, he'd never seen him post a picture of, you know, sunsets occasionally, friends that are core workers that he's lost along the way, a little bit of a motivational opening, again, black and white on Monday morning, and a little bit of stuff about his family. I mean, that to me is a wavetop.

Actually, it's not even a wave top. That's just a person who is presenting their message on brand, however you'd want to describe it. He's disciplined and on brand. Consistent. And it has an impact. I know, I mean, I've seen people with, you know, Jocko tattoos. It's like, damn, get you some of that. I mean, that's like, wow.

It's impact for sure. Yeah. Where people that will go on, like, get on the, you know, the Jocko hashtags and look at people who've lost 100 pounds or 200 pounds. It's, that to me is why I think these platforms are so powerful. It's just the other side of that coin that scares a crap out of me. It seems like, to agree with you, it seems like Jocko has a very good relationship with social media. It seems like he has a plan with social media and it seems like he sticks to it on

social media. And the funniest part about that is if you had had me bet on like the one team guy who probably never would be on social media, it probably would be jock. Yeah, he's found he's found what works for him and what doesn't draw him off of the purpose. Yeah. I heard him describe once and I think it might have been on Joe's podcast where he's basically saying he feels like a leader again. Like he has not necessarily subordinates but a community of people that he's involved with which for somebody coming out of the military who was in a leadership role that would be hard to replace to just drop yourself out of that and try to laterally shift and integrate somewhere else that'd be difficult to do but he's found a good home for sure it's crazy that's the stuff i love seeing yeah my daughter

watching tic-tok for hours at a time i don't love i don't love seeing that yeah no i get it man i've got my son's just turned 13 my daughter's 11 i've got another daughter that's 7 another daughter that's another daughter that's two, and then I'm about to have another son. I was going to ask, do you guys find out before? It's a boy. So my first is a boy, my last is a boy, and four in the middle. Are you sure it's going to be your last? No.

I was going to say. How is sick is that? How sick is that? I mean, think about it, Andy. You were talking about social media. Have you ever looked on social media where I'm golfing? Have you ever looked on social media where I'm surfing? Have you ever looked on social media where I have some hobby that is for me?

No. I don't, man. I truly do, man. I know everybody loves their family and their kids, but to me, and it's shifted in the last three years, but to me, kind of like what I feel like maybe you might be experiencing right now is your kids are getting older. Man, I look at my son. I have five summers left, dude. My oldest is 17, 15, and 12. I have, I mean, his birthday is one day after mine.

So next year, he will no longer be considered a child in the eyes of the law. And he could go and leave Montana, go do whatever he wants. to do and it is shocking and startling how little time I have left. And to be honest, it's even more compounded because when it comes to the divorce, he has sporadically talked to me over the last year and has spent no time with me. It's been tough, huh? It's been very tough. And I, I mean, I see a counselor every week. I try to talk to as many people as I can about trying to figure out a way to maintain boundaries but be healthy to take the long-term or It is tough, especially when you have to think about maybe he's going to be gone for a few years.

And he has to net. He's, I mean, 17 and a half, not 17 to half, but over 17. I mean, I remember being there. You think you know a lot, but you're missing a little bit of mileage around the sun. But he'll get that over time. And I hope that he changes course and comes back. I think the only thing I can do is be true to who I am and hope that he sees that. But that's a long, tough, painful path to sit yourself on.

Yeah, I mean, here's a deal, man. brother, I don't think it's going to be years. And I want you to also know, like, as a father, what you're doing and how you conduct yourself in this season is going to teach him everything he needs to know about who you really are. Because it's easy for you and I to lead when we have a winning season. You know, like when you're the Giants and you're 13 and two and you're going into the last game of the season, you know, you're going to go to the playoffs. So like, everybody's got a great attitude. You know what I mean? You don't have to be like, come on, guys. Let's give it our best effort. What about the seasons when you're three and 12? And that might be a

season that people that are listened to us right now or maybe a season, you know, a day here or a day there, you might feel like that. But I think it's important, kind of like that verse Romans 5, 3 through 5. It's just been really thick on my heart for the last week. And that's why I keep mentioning it is, man, I feel like it for this year that we're in and for this last 18 months period that you're in. And then for me personally, if I can share something vulnerably, dude, I'm in marriage counting right now. Yeah. So that's why I'm talking about it the way I'm talking about it because I'm in that season, bro. And I think that. And I think That's a natural thing, by the way. I know a few people, I'm not going to say a lot,

but I know a few people who are resistant to the idea of marriage counseling. And to me, it's like, dude, you were a professional football player. I was a professional. If somebody is interested or has questions about those things, you would go seek out a professional in whatever fielded is you have questions. Anybody who tells me that their marriage is perfect or they're in an expert in marriage, like immediately one eye goes up. I'm like, okay, buddy. And so when you have problems, go find the professional. Well, there's also a difference in between an expert in something and somebody that's good at doing it. Oh, for sure. You know, like how many instructors did you meet on your come-up that could tell you how to do it, but they couldn't fart in a win. You know what I mean? You know, I actually found it to be the other way. There were so many guys who could operate at an incredibly high level. It couldn't teach you.

Very few of them were able to take their personal ability to perform and replicate it in other people, which is an interesting conundrum because it's like, well, I want the community to generationally grow. And you're a phenomenal operator, but you can't teach. How much long-term value do you actually have? We need you, but we also need the people who can generationally pass his knowledge on. It's almost kind of like, man, just keep the operators in the field and have them teach the teachers. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting balance that it can falls back on leadership to make sure that they have both, right? Both edges of the sword are sharp.

That's good. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's a tough season, man. I'm definitely going to be praying for you on that. But like to that verse, rejoicing in our suffering. Like 2020 for me, I got a supplement company. We didn't have supplements for two months. There's some suffering there, bro.

You know what I mean? There's suffering there. You have a business that sells something that you don't have. Was it a supply chain issue? Yeah. Yeah, it was just like when this whole pandemic thing started and they wanted to like double check our ingredients because we have some of them, you know, shipped in from different locations to batch.

So it was a mess. But, man, I just learned a lot about my marriage. I learned a lot about who I am. I mean, this is a three and 13 season. You know? I think just about everybody. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple people that are that are knocking it out of the park financially.

But then when we talk about how God really created us to live in relationship, like are they getting that portion of their life filled as well? Because a lot of the people that you and I will meet and a lot of people you probably work with as a consultant are extraordinarily good at creating money. They're extraordinarily good at creating wealth. But how good are they at doing marriage? How good are they at doing relationship? How good are they at time? management and discipline. And so we as a society will honor and praise those people that are so

good at that one thing like a Navy SEAL, like a pro athlete, like an entrepreneur that builds a whole bunch of success there. But it's almost kind of like, well, if we get really successful in one area, then we definitely don't need a coach for like something like marriage. But think about how many coaches you had when you were on your come-up that taught you how to shoot, that taught you how to do this. World-class coaches in every single discipline. Yeah, probably 11, 12, 15 different coaches. And every opportunity. Exactly. I was a punter. I was a punter and I had 11 coaches. What? I mean, not just for my punting. I was going to say, but I had 11 coaches that were watching me. And if we actually want to go through my individual coaches, I had an acupuncturist, I had a flexibility specialist. I had a sports psychologist. I had my own special teams coach, the assistant special teams coach. And then all of the guys in the training room that are making sure that you're healthy for practice or games. So point to being is like, I look at my life in the season that I'm in right now and where my marriage is,

it's not elite. My body is elite. My discipline is elite. There's a lot of areas of my life where I'm compartmentalizing my excellence. I'm compartmentalizing my discipline. And then when I get to the at home, and I know a lot of men will connect with this, is like, man, we operate so hard during the day when we come home. We just want to, you know?

Take the body armor off. Right. But that is our opportunity to lead. You know, so it's not, I don't want, I don't want men to hear this like you're, you have to lead. when you're exhausted, but it's about creating the blueprint for a life that you want to live, but understand that that life, that marriage, that business, that body that you want, it might be two, three years away, but understand that steady stacking, keeping making those investments, and then eventually things will change for you. But if you don't rejoice in your

suffering, meaning having hope for the future, because that will build your endurance to to sustain that and then and then when you sustain that you're giving yourself enough time to build the muscle because you have capacity and now you can build character aka muscle and once you build muscle men can notice you know when i walk into a room this is not being self boastful but i'll wear a shirt like this that's a little bit tight a little bit small your son's your sun shirt because yeah my son shirt i shop at baby gap because when i walk into the room i want people to know that i'm disciplined i want people to know that i'm goal oriented i want people to know that I will pay the mother flipping price. But I wasn't doing that in my marriage.

I had no blueprint to grow in my marriage. I had no blueprint to grow in my faith. And then three years ago, in San Diego, when I moved from New York and I retired and I got out to San Diego, I was able to get around some really mighty men that taught me about relationship. They didn't teach me about religion. I grew up in church. And church was always to me as like, I went there and felt bad about myself. Like, you read all. of these commandments that you're not supposed to do, aside from murder, I'm really good at all of them. You know what I mean? Like, is this a recipe for a good time? Or what are we doing here? So I always had so much guilt and so much shame every time we prayed or every time we went to church.

And the only time I would pray was before football games or before I would eat. And so that never gave me solace. You know, like when you're by yourself and you're depressed, I don't want to go to a God that has a whole bunch of rules that will make me feel bad. And so that. And so, you know, like, when you're by yourself and you're bad about myself, but to get back to these men that really introduced me to a relationship with God, a relationship with Jesus that allowed me to take that shame and that guilt that I felt from cheating on my girlfriend, fiancé, who is now my wife, doing all the heinous things that I did, the drugs that I did, the cheating, the stealing, all these things that I did, I had so much guilt and so much shame built up around it. And then to make it all worse, you don't really know who you are.

retire from football and you get into media and you start creating relationships with people like you you and all these other amazing people and you just feel so inadequate you feel so empty when you're around them but they think you're amazing because of your resume but you don't feel that way about you and so it was when i really entered into a relationship with jesus that that to me things made more sense and i never felt like i was alone anymore i never felt like when you're in those empty moments And when I talk about like celebrating the suffering that you're in, it's celebrating that knowing that it's going to lead to something.

It's like the season that you're in, Andy, right now, knowing that it's going to lead to something, knowing that this divorce is going to lead to you being able to live your best life, that your ex-wife is going to be able to live her best life. Because ultimately that's what you want for the children of your kids. It's what I want for her too. Yeah, that's what I mean.

The children of your wife, the wife of your children. The children of my kid. That better come way later down the road. But that's what you want, man. Like, I know that it's not working out from a relationship standpoint, but I know that you love and honor her. Like you show that by not speaking about that relationship in here. So this is for the listeners, but it's also for you, man, is knowing that this is going to lead to something beautiful. This is not something that's going to mark your life in a bad way.

This is going to be freedom. This is going to be released. And this is going to allow you to selectively go through this adversity with your wife, with your son, with your family. and you're giving your son permission to live his best life and you're leading with honor while you're doing this. And that's important because a lot of men when things like this happen, they plant seeds to create division.

And it says in scripture, a house divided cannot stand. So granted, you're not married to her, but you still have a home with her. You still have a house with her. And they'll always be our kids. Exactly.

I've had those conversations with all three of my kids. You know, the legal description between the relationship, your mom and I is changing. But I will always be your dad. Right. She will always be your mom. My one hard rule with them is I, since the day that I have left.

And I wish I had done a better job about this when I was still there. But I will not speak negatively about her. I will not bring negativity into the conversation. And it already has led to, you know, interesting in things that I think I have grown from. I mean, it really does. You're going to inspire a lot of men through this process, though, man. That's what I'm saying, because you're building this capacity to go through what you're going through. It's a pretty interesting mirror into yourself.

Way harder. I guarantee you this is way harder than anything else you've ever done. From an emotional and mental perspective, for sure. You can't control it. Yeah. When you're an operator, you can influence the result. When you're, when you're here, it can feel isolated, even like more isolated than the isolation that we're already in because, man, I know your heart. I know you have a father's heart. I know you just want to be with them. So, man, I feel like I'm here just to remind you, man, that season that you're in is actually going to benefit your family. It's going to benefit your ex-wife. It's going to benefit you. But I think. think the amazing thing that you don't see the writing on the wall right now is is the more the more that you show up with integrity honor and accountability for your son and for those kids and for your wife that they can just see not what you're doing but who you're becoming because that's what we talked about earlier yeah it's not about what you're being or it's not about being it's

about becoming and and that's what this uh i feel like this 2020 if we decide to look at it for every person here in our voice is if we can look at it for what it is and celebrate in that suffering that will lead to endurance and that endurance will lead to character, that character that is gonna be revealed, not grown in you, but the character that's gonna be revealed in you is gonna give hope. That's the last part of that scripture,

is gonna give hope to other people. Because nobody wants to go through what you're going through. And it's not like what you're going through, you can see the positive of it right now, because everything in the middle feels like failure, but I believe that this is something that's gonna unlock you guys in a special way. To the point where you come and you sit and you do a podcast, you're freaking ready to do it.

You're charged up to do it. Yeah. I know it's like doing a podcast or doing a TV show or playing a game when you're like, I would rather be anywhere, literally anywhere other than right here. Yeah. Yeah. Did you seek out that group of men or was it an accidental encounter? Because it seems like it was definitely transformational for you.

Yeah. In the most major way, man. They were just guys at church, man. They were just guys at church. And I feel like when I retired from the NFL, I didn't realize how important that brotherhood was because I had that brotherhood since I was four I was an athlete at four yet we should talk at least a little bit about how you got into the NFL in your career I mean how did that it's not that exciting but it's an interesting path yeah I touched

a football for the first time when I was 14 years old and I'm gonna guess not to speak negatively about punters but when you first touched a football that your first thought wasn't I know what I want to do I want to kick this ball never Never. I was saying, the path to an NFL punter is an interesting one. Nobody says at 12 years old, I'm going to go to the NFL and be a punter. It's going to be amazing. In the Super Bowl, I'm going to punt it to the two-yard line and Tom Brady's going to hate me.

Oh, golly, shucks. No. I want to catch a touchdown, man. That's what I'm saying. So how did you? So I was on the soccer field. I was 14 years old. I was 108 pounds.

This is in Terre Haute, Indiana. And the football coach, which was like the biggest deal in our school. It's Terre Haute Indiana. Football was a big deal. And so when he came onto the soccer field, all the guys were like, oh, Wayne Staley's here. And so he comes up to the coach and he's like, hey, our kicker and our punter graduated,

and we don't have one. Do you have anybody that has a strong leg that you would let be our kicker? And the coach outstretched his arm. He goes, over there on that third field, I know he doesn't look like much, but he's a rocket for a leg. So the coach starts walking over,

and he gets across to the second field. And I'm hearing the story second hand, because obviously I didn't know this is going on. I'm just over there doing my thing, skinny little kid. And he gets across the same thing. second field and he looks back at the coach and he goes this guy i looked like so anyway so he has a conversation you were a bean pole yeah and he's like hey kick that ball for me and i'm like where do you

want me to put it he goes just kick it as far as you can i kick that thing the freaking pluto and he goes all right you think you could kick that through uh through uprights i go yeah no problem so i come to practice the next day he puts a helmet on me i'm 108 pounds i'm five foot eight so it's not like i'm like short it looked like somebody put a golf ball on top of a tea and pop that thing on my head. And my first ever live rep as a fuel goal kicker, Mike Canada was the long snapper. He's 275 pounds.

And in high school, that's gigantic. He chewed tobacco during practice. That's gigantic anywhere, Steve. Yeah. Well, maybe in your ex-c cohort, yeah, 350 pounds. 275 is like kind of normal. But the point is, it's like one of the biggest dudes I ever met, and he chewed tobacco during practice.

This guy was hardcore. So he snapped the ball, they put it down. I kicked it. and that ball never got 18 inches off the ground. And it hit Mike Canada in the left ass cheek so hard that it left an imprint and he chased me off of the field. So my first ever field goal kicking extravaganza, I got chased off of the field.

And that's how it all began for me, man. It wasn't like I kicked it and it was like, oh, this guy's amazing. I was amazing, but I had to get over the nerves of like, I don't want to let all these other guys down. And so I kind of referenced it earlier about Bruce, Lee, but he was one of my heroes growing up as a kid because he was able to, I actually just put something on Instagram earlier today.

It was a quote that Bruce Lee had. I'll share it with you guys. He was an interesting cat. Ah, he's the best. You will continue to suffer if you have emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic. If words can control you, that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.

I feel like that's like a word for where you're at and where I'm at right now. More than likely where all these men are at that are hearing our voice right now is... I feel like that's a good face tattoo. Yeah. Come on. Just ride the forehead and just right down like post-malone it, right down the side of your face. I want the forehead, dude. I got a big forehead man.

It's prime real estate. Tattoo it with some big old font on my forehead. But, man, that to me is he's just telling you. You're going to continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that has said to you. And I think that's the same thing on social media. That's the same thing on media, on TV. And the same thing on like Netflix. I mean, you see everything that's getting produced on Netflix.

I was getting off the plane yesterday, arriving here in Montana, which I wouldn't think that Montana is like a haven for alternative lifestyles. I have no problems with people that are gay or any of that stuff. But my point is, is if we have an emotional reaction every time we see something that doesn't fit our lifestyle, you and I are going to be really upset everywhere we go. And I believe that's one of the most major problems right now in America.

Yeah. Everybody's offended. Everybody's offended about everything. And it makes your cup the diameter, I believe, smaller. So that quote. Emotional reaction. Yeah. That quote is also the key to surviving in combat, not having an emotional reaction to the things

that are happening around you because, A, you can't control it. You can only can control yourself. And you have to make logical decisions based off what's happening. happening around you, not your emotional reaction to what's happening around you. I mean, that's actually deep at quite a few levels. Yeah. Yeah, Bruce Lee is deep, man. I mean, another quote that he says that I love and it really kind of spoke to me because I was a punter, but don't be the guy that practices 10,000 kicks one time. Be the guy, and you live by this, be the guy that practices one kick 10,000 times. And I believe for us as men just sitting right across from each other,

that's what we do. You know what I mean? We pick something that we want to, not just do, but something we want to become. And for me, in my life right now, I want to become a great husband. I want to become a great husband. I want to become a great leader. I want to become a great dad. And I know the best way for me to get to that point is self-leadership. You know, we all want to get better, become better leaders.

And we go to, you know, go and spend a week with the Navy SEAL to learn leadership skills and go to this thing and take this online master class and all these different things. but people fail at leading themselves. They want to go do all these other courses to learn NLP and these different tactics, but at the end of the day, they're poor leaders. Like, you can look at them and look at their body and look at how they live their life and look at their habits

and tell that they're poor leaders. Yeah. And that was me. I was a poor leader of myself, and that's when I got into relationship, that's when things changed because when I was alone, I didn't feel alone anymore. I felt understood.

I felt like I had a purpose. I felt like when I die, I feel like there's something that's going to happen. I know God's going to ask me a question with all the time and all the talents that I gave you, Steve. What did you do with them? I want to have a good answer. Yeah. I don't want to be the person because I do believe I'm blessed.

I do believe that God has given me gifts. And every single person that's hearing this, he's done that for, but it's up to you to discover, develop, and deploy those gifts. And that's what I think life is about. And then the second thing God's going to ask me, you know, when he takes me home is, because of your life, how many people accepted me? How many people believed that I was the son of God, that I was sent here to give men and families an example of how God wants us to live in relationship

and how God wants us to love and how God wants us to be generous and how God wants us to forgive our wives and how God wants us to grow as leaders? That's when things started to make more sense to me. Because, I mean, how much more of our trophy case do we need to fill, bro? I mean, we're 40.

We can do another 40. years of this and guess what? I know exactly what you're going to do and I'm going to do. We're going to be fruitful with our time. We're going to be fruitful with our talents. But for what? I want to build God's kingdom here on earth. I want to tell everybody that I know about Jesus Christ and what he's done for me. And if you choose, you know, to want to know a little bit more about that, shoot me a DM. And I'd love to have a conversation with you. But at the end of the day, I could come on here and we can have all types of conversations about the great things that I've done and the supplements that I want to sell you because I need to make more money to

make up for my losses. But at the end of the day, man, you guys can go to Weatherford 5.com to go get some gut probiotics and turn your health around. But just like we talked about earlier, man, unless you start to change the thing that you put into your life, the output is going to be the same. And so three years ago, I started to change what I put into my life. And it wasn't just going on Instagram and unfollowing people that made me feel inferior or intimidated or less than. It's more than that. It was about actually creating like a training blueprint game plan like the same way you did to to get better at something to become a commercial plia to be able to drive it. You know, these million dollar planes.

You had to be able to earn the skills, but then to trust yourself. And that's what I feel like I've been doing for these last three years is I'm on this this vision quest, this spiritual journey to like make life make sense because I'm I feel super blessed. I've achieved a lot of things. but through achieving a lot of those things, I realize that those aren't the goal. It's in the becoming, not in the doing. Like, God created us to be human beings, not just human doings.

And I feel like for type A men like you and I, being still. I'm a A minus B plus. You're a freaking A plus, bro. B plus. I'm still chasing you. You slow down so I feel a little bit better about myself. Is the Weatherford 5?

Is that based off five kids? That was the number that I wore. I was going to say because if it was based off the kids. I know. Well, I actually told my wife, I'm like, do I need to change my Instagram tag? Now, some nerd in his mom's basement is going to charge me 10 grand to get Weatherford 6. Oh, they've got four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Somebody's just in there banking it.

I tried to buy at Steve the other day. And this dude has like. That's just straight up at Steve. At Steve. That's a powerful one. I know. So I've been DM in this dude and he never messaged his back. He's got like 4,400 followers and he only takes pictures of like trees in his dog.

And I'm like, dude, I don't. I told him straight up, Steve, if you're listening to this, I will give you $10,000 if you give me at Steve. I will buy you a tree and a dog too. Matter of fact, my pimples just have puppies. Man. Okay, I'm going back to the NFL because I'm fascinated. So you start kicking, field goal kicking first. From that point on, is that what you specialize in?

Well, I got a scholarship to kick field goals. I had six field goals over 50 yards. And were you punting at the same time? Yeah. Okay. So kind of a dual role? Yeah, I didn't get a lot of attention for punting just because Terre Haute, Indiana, and back then it was VHS tapes. They're not going to, like, film your punts, time your punts, and then send it to the people.

So, like, in order for you to know what a great punt was, you kind of, like, need to be there or watch the film. Yeah. But a 61-yard field goal is a 61-yard field goal. For sure. So it was really easy to gain attention for field goal kicking. I had quite a few college scholarships. I ended up going to the University of Illinois because they were going to let me run track there, too. I was a decathlet

and because punning, if you guys haven't noticed, it's not like, I'm a punter. I never wanted to. I never wanted to. However, when the checks came in, I loved being a punter because you'd see,

you'd see the linemen walk in and like with a neck brace. I was going to say the wear and tear and mileage has got to be a touch lower. And the sick part was, is like, I was making more money than some of those linemen, you know, because they were like, well,

they were young guys. And if you get a, if you get a really good punter and a really good kicker, like one of my good buddies just signed a contract extension with the Giants kicker making four million a year are you serious four million a year so if you break that up over 16 games because we get 16 checks during the season yeah that's 400 grand a game that's a hundred grand a kick well actually slightly under if it's 4.6 plays so so so so point is man send that send that 17 year old down to uncle steve for a summer i'll teach him to kick some field goals man

he loves soccer too he's got a foot on him i'm serious if he wants to learn how to play it is i promise she was not too late. If he can kick a soccer ball, he can kick a football. That would be fun. My mother wouldn't let me play football because she thought it was too dangerous. Same. I was like, hmm, I'll show you. I was 100 and 8 pounds to do. She was right. I was probably like, I weighed 150 when I graduated high school, 6 foot 150. Yeah. I gained weight really fast. I graduated high school at 220 and I never took steroids. I was really proud of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're a big boy, though, too. Yeah. I went from 5'8 to about 6.2. I'm 6.3 now. But yeah, I went from 108 to 220.

So how was the draft like? I didn't get drafted. I mean, I kind of knew I was. Well, I mean, you're a punter. Don't they have to draft you too? Or do they just basically walk him with like, here's your contract? Yeah, they're like, hey, well, after the draft is over, then they'll have six, seven, eight teams message you or call you.

I was actually going to say, I can't remember. Not that I've watched a lot of the draft, but I don't ever remember seeing a kicker draft. No, that's typically in the sixth or seventh round when everybody is drunk. So, yeah, my draft day was really uneventful. And I kind of knew it was going to be that way. I ended up signing with the New Orleans Saints, and I was competing with a Pro Bowl or Mitch Berger

when I first came out. And, man, dude, it was such a blessing. He pulled his groin the first day of training camp, and I blew it up. It's kind of one of those things, man, where opportunity meets hard work, man. I was prepared. You know, I was prepared for that moment,

and they had 50 punters in preseason that year, and I finished number one, and I still got cut. Because after training camp was over, the Pro Bowl punter said, I'm healthy, and so they cut me, and I went to Atlanta to try out for the Falcons, just got done with the workout. I was at that time, Jim Mora was the coach, so I was about to sit down with Jim Mora, and my phone rang, and it was the Saints. It was their general manager, and I thought he was just calling to say, hey, good luck, you did a really good job. He's like, hey, where are you at? I'm like, oh, I'm in Atlanta, I just got done working out for the Falcons.

You didn't sign anything yet. Long story short, the punter that said his groin was okay, came out for the first day of practice. Perhaps wasn't as okay. It wasn't okay, but you want to know how smart this dude was, is if you're on the roster opening day and you're a veteran, your entire salary for the year, a million bucks for him, was guaranteed if he was on opening day roster. So he just hustled him. Nice chess move. Yeah, he got a million bucks. Oh, I got another good story for you.

So you want to talk about a chess move. So this is my first training camp ever, and it was coming down to final cuts. And I kind of thought maybe I might make the team. but I thought it was maybe a 50-50 coin flip because I was doing everything that I could but this guy was like the best in the league so you know it's like cutting Tom Brady because the young guy's doing good you just don't do that so the night before final cuts I'm walking and we were in a college dorm I'm walking through the hallway and everybody's kind of like on pins and needles most nights everybody's laughing yeah whatever it's a pretty life altering decisions

are being made that night you're about to make a million or maybe 10 million dollars or nothing So it's pretty somber night And everybody's nervous Because if you show up at your locker the next day And there's a note in there You gotta go see the coach So probably not for a high five and a playbook No, no, it's actually

Bring me your playbook And leave So thanks for coming out You're gonna need to find a new place to stay And that's truly how it is I mean it's you would talk about Seeing some men that look like Their whole life just got ended

Because the reality is some of these men just like you, they're good. And they're just on the wrong team at the wrong time. Or maybe the wrong era. Like fullbacks. There's no fullbacks in the NFL anymore. But back in the day, fullbacks were a commodity. We just passed the ball too much.

So it could just be the wrong era. But point is, I'm walking through this hallway. And I look over in a guy that's been in the league for 11 years, and he knows he's going to get cut tomorrow because there's a young guy that's just playing really well. So he knows he's going to get cut. He says, hey, rook, come in here. He goes, I need you to do something for me.

And he's sitting there at a table, and it's a college dorm room. So he's sitting at like this tiny little college desk, 360 pounds. He's a rook come in here. And I'm like, oh, okay. He's like, I need you to slam this on my foot. He's like, what?

I look over, he's got an 80 pound dumbbell that he took out of the weight room. And he wants me to drop it on his foot. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do that. And he's sitting there drinking Jack Daniels. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do that. He's like, come on, man. I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.

And I had no idea why somebody would want you to do that. So I like scampered. out of there real quick. And then about five minutes later, he found one of our other teammates that took his, he put his foot, like you open the door and he put his foot in there. And he found somebody to take the door and slam his foot like six times to break his foot. Yeah. So when he wakes up the next morning and his pink slip in his locker, because he knows it's going to be there, he's going to go on injured reserve because they can't cut you when you're injured. So he injured himself and then got his million dollars and he had a policy. And I won't say.

his name because he'd have to pay the money back. He'd a $5 million policy that he, if he got a career ending injury, it would pay. It would pay him $5 million. If I was smart, Andy. Some people play checkers. Some people play chess. I'd have told that dude, give me $100,000. I'll do whatever you want.

Because I didn't know whether or not I was going to make a team. 100 grand. Yeah, I'd been like 10% of this and the policy. Yeah. At that time, I had never gotten a check, Andy, with a comma in it, ever. How does that feel like the first time you get one? Oh, I took a, it was like right when we first got like camera phones. I took a picture of it and since it's all my buddies from college, I'm like, I'm loaded. Did you immediately go out and buy a Porsche?

It was like, no, it was $14,000. That's a kind of money, though. Actually, yeah, well, I had to pay my dad back for the wedding ring that I bought for my wife because we were engaged and you had to pay your agent. By the time it was all said and done, I think I got about $4,000 out of that first check. What do most agents take? Three? Three percent. Yeah, three percent for sports agents.

I don't know where in the hell I just got 20 from? Because that would be a great agent. You got 20 from Hollywood agents. You got 20 from marketing agents. So example, let's say Killcliff calls me and like, hey, we want to do a deal. 100 grand. We're going to sponsor all of your podcast episodes for a year. Sometimes they come straight to you and you don't have to give anybody a cut.

But when I was in the NFL, they would be guys going out and looking for those deals for me. So if they go out and get me $100,000 deal or $5,000 deal, they just made $1,000. So it makes sense for them to go out there and get as many deals as you can for. us and you get 20% to me it's like 20% of something I didn't have before totally good deal but 3% for sports agents and the way those sports agents really make a lot of money is a getting a lot of clients but getting the bigger clients and then getting those clients deals yeah 3% of a massive number is 100 million dollar deal it's 3 million bucks and a hundred million dollar deal is not like that crazy they're happening every other week to me it's a little

crazy. It is. I mean, baseball is crazy. $300 million. And the difference is, Andy, it's guaranteed when it's baseball. It's guaranteed when it's basketball. It's guaranteed when it's soccer. It's guaranteed when it's hockey.

And it's football. It's week to week, because I mean, is there any way you can get it to be guaranteed? Probably at a much lower dollar rate? Well, if you have, if you have leverage, a quarterback has leverage. So that's why you see these quarterbacks get $120 million deals with a hundred of it guaranteed. Because if they're like, well, if you don't give it to me guaranteed, then I'm out. Yeah, I'll go.

Go shop somewhere else. Punters? Not so much leverage. They're like, Steve, we don't know how to tell you this, but there are exactly 1,000 people in line out the door trying to get your job. So take it or leave it, buddy. Yeah. And it's the truth.

So are the pros what you thought they would be? I mean, what was that experience like becoming a professional athlete? I'm assuming there's travel involved. Yeah. Just the whole ecosystem. I think it's a big money game. That's the one thing that I realized. that I didn't really realize before is it's a business.

You know, there are franchise owners that would like to win, but it ain't important. Then there are guys that want to win. Jerry Jones, he wants to win. He also wants to run business. John Mara, the Giants owner, he wants to win. You weren't the Giants for the majority of your career, right? Four years.

Yeah, four and a half years. Okay. So I was there for four and a half. I was with New Orleans for two and a half. I was with Jacksonville for a year, and I was with Kansas City for a year, and then the Jets for two. Okay.

So yeah. Skipped around a block. So I got to see Casey. I got to see Jacksonville. I got to see New Orleans. I got to see the Jets and I got to see the Giants. And from a culture standpoint, the Giants were just far and above anybody else. Just I think it's because a leadership, but they've been a franchise since like the 30s.

You know, and so there's just a lot of rich history there and a lot of culture that impacts the community off of the field, which is something I thought was really cool because it's great to. win but how are you leveraging that to change anybody else's life and they did the best job out of all the NFL franchises in my opinion to make it impact people further than just the game would Eli talk a lot of shit before you guys never Colts never not even when it was his brother never he'd never talked ever so I did a commercial for Reebok years ago and Peyton and Ely were there and I think I heard them combine say three words yeah they were so quiet Peyton Peyton is really funny Eli is it was a

craziest thing I used to have lunch with him every Friday because we would get out of work at about one o'clock on Friday and as soon as practice was over everybody left really quick but because I in my mind I didn't belong to be there I always did extra work you know even as a punter so we would stick around and I'd do some weight room stuff some acupuncture cold tubs on and stuff and then I would always end up in the cafeteria at about 2.30 and that's always when Eli would finish all of his film and we would sit in there and it wasn't never we planned to be there at the same same time, but we always ended up eating lunch together on Friday. And every once in a while, somebody would join us. But when it was just him and I, he would dominate the conversation.

You've been here with me for about an hour and a half. I talk a lot, right? Yeah. I have no problems carrying the conversation. But when it was Eli, he would talk the entire time, funny stories, movie quotes, all that. But as soon as somebody would sit down, even if he was best friends with that other person, zip, nothing. It was crazy. But he was a really, really good leader. And the one thing I admired about him was I would believe one of the one of the character traits that would make a great soldier would be his ability to stay composed when everything around everybody around him is losing their head absolutely critical fourth quarter he was incredible and isn't it interesting to to watch that permeate through everybody that's around there how much

culture oh but just to see and I so for us a lot of the times we were not physically next to the people we were working for and oftentimes we're very disaggregate one z-to-zies off pretty deep you got your own compound and there are some emotional moments some tenuous moments and you'd hear a guy come over the radio it's just like it is largely involved in the same situation that you are involved in you know the same risk to life and they just cool calm and collected over the radio and it just deflates everybody gives so much confidence there's yeah and i've seen it the other way too where the guy's screaming on the radio. And I've seen this a lot on, not to speak negatively about law enforcement, but I've seen it where they'll show a chase or afterwards where the person is calling in and their emotional state

is escalating. And everybody who is responding to that situation, their emotional state is escalating as well. Just that power of influence that you have and the control of your emotions. Self leadership, man. Yeah. That's what it is. Easier said than done. And practice in constantly be maintaining an awareness of yourself. Actually staying, again, logic over emotion. The ability to look from above, Mjako describes it as watching yourself from six feet away, which is it's not easy to do.

Damn, I was hoping that he would sit there and just talk smack about his brother when they played the Colts. Never, never. Self-awareness, that's what I'm hearing you say when you were speaking just now is like... Like critical, critical self-awareness. Well, knowing where you're at, because how can you and I lead other people

either in combat or a family or a business. Unless we have awareness to where we're at, because we have to have awareness to where we're at, to lead ourselves, to lead other people. And that's one thing that I don't know if Eli had a ridiculous level of self-awareness that he knew when he was starting to, his emotions were getting away from, or if he's just built that way. But that's one thing I noticed he did really well.

And I would assume that soldiers do really well is they, they practice getting out of, I mean, that's, I would say. That's why the trading is so difficult. They're in an artificial environment trying to replicate the stress. Right. And done properly, I think you could match and sometimes exceed the stress of real world environment. For sure.

Done improperly, it's a waste of time. And then you see these evolutions where everybody is failing. And it's like the point of the evolution is to fail, not to learn, which to me is completely pointless. Everything should be targeted. But, you know, critical self-awareness when it comes to leaders, I always use a chessboard analogy. You know, there's 64 squares on a board, red and white or red and black, or whatever your game may be. And, you know, people, their first day on a job, they don't even

know that they're in a square, which is okay. But eventually you'll see, oh, I'm in a square, and there's some other squares around you. And that's still not enough for a leader. You know, a leader needs to see their square, every square on their team side, and then every square on the competition or the enemy's team side, and then how their pieces are arrayed. But when people get lost, you know, the first thing you got to do is look down and see where you are. You got to find where your feet are planted before you. What's my 20? Because if you don't have that, you're like, hey, we need to move. Like, well, move from where? Like, it's actually a pretty critical thing to know not only where the enemy is or competition, but where you are. That's the starting point for it all.

And that's, again, that critical self-awareness. Yeah, it's vision. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess, I guess in order for you to have vision for yourself, you have to first figure out where you're at. in order to cast vision. And if we look at like the seven days of creation in Genesis, the first day God created light so we could have vision. And the second day, God created the atmosphere so we could create culture. The third day, God created the land that we could stand on

so we can create structure for our lives. And then the next day, God created the stars and the water so we could have order to the structure that he created. And it just makes total sense to me, like when you look and you try to break down like really great leaders and what makes them great leaders. It's actually very hard. But I can point out people who suck.

Like, he did so quick. Yeah. And you watch a good leader here. And this happened to me all the time. I would just take notes. I have volumes of notebooks. They're not neon lights though. The leadership moves.

You sit back and you're like, how did you do that? Because the train wreck, you're like, who. I can see the train wreck coming, usually about a half a dozen steps away. Sure. And I can see the bad communication, the self-centered individual, the person who's just trying to bark orders instead of empowered. I'm like, oh. ego, right.

Oh, Daddy, here we go. Right. Because then all you have to do is crumble that person by overwhelming them with the task. And since they didn't empower any of their people, the entire team just spins off the rails. And then you watch a really good leader crush a hard training scenario. And if they task you to sit down and, you know, write the five things that that person did that made that possible, you're sitting there scratching your head because it's almost invisible. It's like a ninja. But it's so powerful.

Yeah. And they never seem like the people that are like barking or like super high energy. Well, there's a time and place to raise your voice. Right, but being a high energy guy doesn't make you a great leader. It can actually really wear down your people. Right. Because they'll become accustomed to that baseline. Because if you're already a high energy person and then something happens that's critical, you have to be a higher energy person.

To overcome it. Yeah, to overcome it. As opposed to just being pretty baseline. I mean, the best leaders that I ever worked with, regardless of what was happening around them, their tone of voice didn't change. Tonality. Yeah. And there is a time in place to raise your voice. You know, sometimes we did have to yell versus use the radio.

Another one was, I saw for some of the best leaders, they never ran, regardless of what was going on. Well, and there's a couple reasons. One, that that lets the people around you know that, hey, I'm in control of the situation. But two, why rush to a decision point? Why cheat yourself of time that you might need in a critical decision point? You know, leadership has gained or ability is gained through experience. And when you're more junior or you're younger, you need as much time as humanly possible. So why rush junior or younger people to a decision point when they don't have to be?

Because you can force them to fail just because of lack of knowledge and experience. That's good. Yeah. What I'm hearing you see is intention and strategy. For sure. Is what's the come from? Like what's your intention to be a leader? Because I feel like that is kind of the ultimate predictor of how you're going to lead is,

why do I want to be a leader? Do I want to be a leader so people know my name? Do I want, you know what I mean? Let's be honest. There's plenty of those in the SEAL teams too. Right. The best leaders I ever worked with, SEAL community. The worst leaders I ever worked with SEAL community.

Yeah, there were people who are like, I don't know if you know this, but I'm a pretty big deal. And I'm the boss of you and you're going to do what I say. And people in their back of their minds are like, well, we're going to murder this person overseas. Or, but generally what would happen is the training pipeline would get rid of them and you wouldn't have to be filtered out. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Because I feel like as a SEAL and as a professional athlete, A lot of our strategy is given to us.

Yes. So we don't necessarily get to write the playbook. We don't necessarily get to be the ones that create our operation protocol, but we're the ones that control our attitude, our effort, and our intention. And I feel like the third one, the intention is really what elevates leaders is, you know, there's the subdivisions of leadership and one of your CEOs might put somebody into that spot. But they'll get filtered out over time. Or murdered by their peers.

Exactly, because their intention is not congruent to the mission. It's about them. It's not about the mission. And I've seen that happen a lot of times with extraordinary, talented athletes and leaders, too. And the intention. Poor intention leads often to poor execution. Those two are very intrinsically tied, I would say. That's good.

Yeah, leadership is not easy. And it's another thing, just like personal development that I've heard you talk about, where it's about this struggle and rejoicing and embracing the struggle. There's no arrival. I have never once in my life sat down and was like, I'm there.

I'm the leader that I want to be. I could just write a column that's five times longer of the things I need to work on versus the things that I'm doing well. And I guess the goal would be to get as many of those over in the other column, although they never seem to really move over there.

But there's no arrival. And if you can accept that, I think you're better positioned. It's the becoming man. Yeah. You know, like this whole thing, this whole life is a process. I mean, the people that you and I meet that are 70, 80, 90 years old, they don't, they don't talk about the things that are so important to us now. Like the things that are so important to you and so important to me, those people never talk about those things.

And so I just want to be proactive in my life and proactive in my legacy that not just a sense of urgency, but a sense of intention that like the things that I'm doing, like sitting down here with you, you know, fly. thousands of miles to be up here. I was going to say you came up here, in your post you were talking about writing a book to solidify exactly what you're talking about, right, leave that legacy on paper. Yeah. How long have you been kicking around that idea?

I think kind of like the same thing as like when I was a little kid. Everybody wanted to be in the pros. I kind of think the natural evolution of retiring from the NFL and I think everybody's like, oh, maybe I should write a book. But I never really got really, really serious about it until this year when God really

placed it on my heart like what what my mission assignment is you know like what my purpose is I filled up the trophy case like quite a bit I mean there's other people my age that have filled it up more but I filled it up enough to know that playing game playing the game of life like that is not gonna work for me it's not gonna change things for me and so three years ago I recalibrated what purpose meant I recalibrated what impact meant I recalibrated what what fulfillment was for me it's not like you said it's not a destination, but knowing that I'm intentionally and strategically in that process, I know that

the impact that God is going to have through my life and through my struggles of addictions to drugs, addictions to porn, addictions to all these other things that like nobody wants to talk about as a man, but those are the things that hold all of us back. It's the shame and the guilt of looking at that thing on the internet or putting that powder up your nose or smoking that blunt or whatever your vice is or whatever the thing is. that you do when you're triggered, when you feel abandoned, when you feel rejected. Like, that is my purpose is to go speak to those men to let them know that they're not broken. They're not beaten.

They're not defeated. They're in a down season right now. They're in a valley right now. And if you can rejoice in the suffering that you're in, man, it's just going to lead to hope for other men. And that's what I believe my mission assignment is right now is to be a hope dealer for other men, for a hope dealer in their marriages, a hope dealer. I mean, I had no idea you were going through.

through what you're going through in your personal life. But I know that's, if that's not the reason, that's one of the reasons that God made this happen, you know, because we both wanted to do this. But this interview would have been different if I would have stayed in San Diego and been like, hey dude, let's just do this over Zoom. A whole lot easier.

Yeah, but your relationship. So less impactful though. Yeah, your relationship to me is important. And I don't know why. And I feel like that's one of the things about this lifetime that I feel like a lot of people struggle with. And I struggle with too is the why. We always want to know the why.

You know, like when I explain things to my wife for her to follow my leadership, she has trouble with that. You know, and that's one of the things that we're working on in counseling is I'm the leader of the family and I want to be treated that way, but my communication style with my wife is broken. I just assume because I create success and results in these other areas that you should just trust me. And I think she does trust me, but she wants me to be more patient with her to explain the why. And if she can understand the why, she didn't even necessarily have to agree with the why,

but if she can understand the why, then that's going to make it a team versus two roommates. And there's been a lot of, I don't want to say a lot of years, but there's been a lot of nights that I felt like a roommate. I know exactly what that feels like. Yeah.

That led into the decision that I have talked about. Yeah, it's, you know, explaining the why and taking the time, you know, there's value to allowing people to process and be heard. It doesn't mean you have to agree, but there's certainly value to that, and it will bring it into a more cohesive relationship,

at least in my experience. Yeah, I mean, I feel like wives, and I feel like just people in general, like my friends like you, like when you sit here with me, there's four things that are going to make you want to be present here, is if you're seeing, as if you're heard,

as if you're supported, and if you feel loved. Those are the four things I believe that as a husband and a leader that we get to get better at. We get to get better at making sure that our wife or our friends, that their voice feels heard. Because we're so good at giving directive because we're leaders.

But how good are you and I at listening and giving space to other people that maybe haven't achieved what we've achieved or are as type A as we are? And my wife is not that way. And that's okay, but I just assume that she should just trust me. And that's why, and I definitely won't call it a crossroads because we're going to fight this thing out. And we're in a good spot. But the point is, is like, I want to get in the arena with this pain.

I want to get in the arena with some of the things that maybe she is kind of pressed down and not brought to me during our NFL career because she didn't want to bring things to me that would maybe negatively affect my performance. And more than likely, probably pretty similar to you. Your wife probably didn't take exactly what I was saying. And the thing is, is those issues, you can put a bandit on that, but it doesn't deal with the underlying. Fester's, bro. Yeah. And so I believe that the more you and I talk off air, the more that we're going to relate, like, so much to our story. Seems like they're defined by their similarities, not by their differences.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, man, I'm just praying and believing for you and praying and believing for me and all the other men that are listening to this right now that are, and it's not just on you, man. Like, this is a partnership. It's, you know, you get to make improvements and you get to give space to your wife. But it's a team game. So I don't want any men to have any guilt. shame about the conversation that we're had. This this conversation is to give you permission.

You know, it's give you permission to take action in your life. It gives you permission to take a really serious look about who you are, not just the results that you're creating. Like when you're by yourself, who are you? Like, what is your identity? Like, what are your core principles? What is your, what is your mission statement? I think it's easy for us as businesses that are like, all right, well, what's our mission statement? What are our Easy for a business for like as a person. Yeah. Why even as an individual?

For family. Yeah, for an individual. Like I created something. I don't know how much time we have, but I could talk on this. How much time do we have? 30 minutes. Okay. Fire away.

That's funny. So about three years ago when I really got into relationship with God instead of hiding from him, you know? And I think the best way to relate that is, is like if you wreck your car, you don't want to call your dad. He's like, he's going to freaking, you know, when you're 16, my dad's going to freaking kill me. I did that. I know what it's like. But what would I, and that's how I viewed religion. It's like, I made a mistake. I don't want, I don't want to bring it to him.

I don't want anybody to know about it. Right. And now I've, I've entered into a relationship where I get to receive. I get to receive forgiveness. I get to receive peace. I mean, peace, I feel like is the most eluding thing for us is to know that who we are and what we're doing is right. Not like right and wrong, but like what we're supposed to be doing. doing like how God created us to love and how God created us to encourage and how God created us to

be disciplined. Like those are fruits of the spirit. Discipline is not something that isn't in the Bible. Perseverance is in the Bible. Discipline is in the Bible. Generosity is in the Bible. Faithfulness is in the Bible. Those are there's 12 fruits of the spirit and and I believe if we can look at those and not not for shame or guilt, but just to see the gaps in who we are, it's about the becoming. And now you have something else that you get to practice on for me personally, I'm terrible about being on time. I was even late today. I said I'll be there about 945-ish.

Here I roll up at 9-54. Granted, it's nine minutes. Yeah. But that is a personal struggle that I have. And it's not that I don't really appreciate your time. And it's not that I don't value you as a person. And sometimes it might come off as that is when people are late. But for me, I'm trying to get too many things done.

I'm FaceTiming with my wife and checking in with the kids and making sure that I get an Instagram post out. And, you know, every Monday morning I teach like a, a, like a, mindset devotional out of the Bible every Monday morning. So I do that. So my point to mention all that to you and to circle it back to a personal contract three years ago, I looked at my life and I looked at the men that I admired the most, you know, like the Andy Stumps and my dad and the guys that I just felt like, man, not that they have it all figured out, but what are the character attributes of these different heroes that I have in my life? And what are they? And I boiled it all down. All of these different people that I admired like Bruce Lee and Steve Prefontein and

You know my mentor now Keith Kraft is integrity Honor and accountability and so every day that I wake up and this is still active every single day This isn't something I I started doing three years ago and then I got off of it Every single day that I wake up It's not some super mystical morning routine I just look in the mirror and I remind myself who I am not because of what I did yesterday and I'm But I remind myself, I am a man of integrity. I am a man of honor and I am a man of accountability. I had a breakdown in my accountability when I was nine minutes late to meet you here.

Now, granted, I said 945-ish. And the reason I threw the is that the issue on there. The reason I threw the is because I know myself. And I knew I had enough time to get there, but I think that's just kind of like a thing I do to protect myself. It just rounds the edge a little bit. Yeah. It's kind of like having a little whiskey before you do it. Just prep the battlefield.

But point is, is like, I know I struggle with that. I looked at all these different men in my life and I said, man, if I could just have three character attributes that if I just focus on these, I know that they're going to unlock every other area of my life. Where integrity, if you want to build your body, incredibly important. Accountability, incredibly important. You want to build a business. Same thing. If I want to be a great husband, integrity, honor, and accountability, just like you do, saying like, hey, I'd love to have this conversation, but because this person does have an opportunity to talk back to me, I honor them and I choose not to speak. That's honor. And so that will give your relationship

six months from now, a year from now, the seeds that it needs in order to produce an incredible harvest, meaning an incredible relationship with your ex-wife to where you guys are co-parenting in the most supernatural way, because that's what God wants for us. He doesn't want us to have natural successes. He wants us to have supernatural successes. He wants transformation to happen in his name because if we're able to create it, where's the glory in God? There's no glory in it for God if we did it all ourselves. And you and I are so good at doing it. But when I partnered with him and now everything I do, I don't just have a good business. I have a God business. I don't just have a marriage. I have a God marriage because God is in the center of everything. And so when it comes to

And when it comes to perseverance or sacrifice, I'm leading myself with the Bible and relationship with God. And because of that, my marriage is being transformed. Because I'm not making sacrifices to be with her. I'm not changing who I am to try to fit with her. And I feel like that's kind of a struggle we all go through. It's like, how do I change me to fit her mold? Or grow together.

Right. And I think the only- Independently, but also at, you know, but also at, you know what I mean, development and growth for both people, but at the same time, they're a conjoined pair. Right.

I don't feel like, at least for my friends and my brothers, we don't put nearly as much intention and strategy behind that growth or behind that, even that maintenance. If we would just want to call it maintenance, like a date night every Friday, would just be maintenance,

just an opportunity to connect, an opportunity to communicate, an opportunity to be seen, heard, loved, and supported. And so it started for me this year. I know I'm going off on a little bit of tangent here, but it started for me this year and really kind of like dating my wife again

and doing Fridays. And there were days that we would go out on Friday and we wouldn't speak for the first hour. But we were disciplined, man. We're going to do this regardless. We just sit there and we don't look at each other or all just sit over here, chew tobacco, and drink coffee and not look at you.

But we're going to freaking date night. And I'm the leader of this and we're going to do it. So if we want to make the best, out of us let's make the best out of us but we're gonna do this because I know that the more that we lean into this like going to the gym the days that you don't want to go to the gym or the days that you get the most progress the days that you don't want to be on the mats doing jiu jitsu or the role it's even you can break it down even further there are people who you know are going to smash you you're like but if I don't look at him maybe I'll just go over here the person you need to

roll with yeah this is the one that's going to smash you yeah when you get that visceral gut like I don't want to do this. It's like you should explore that. That's the path. That's the breakthrough. That's the path for growth, whether it's in jujitsu or whatever it may be. Go at those things, not away from them, which is so easy to say and so hard to do. There's so many different decisions that you get to make during the day.

And a lot of them, the fact of the matter is, men, we choose comfort, man. We let our emotions. Some do. Yeah. Well, I mean, I know I do, man. And it's, that's my flesh. I live 36 years a certain type of way. And now when I wake up in the morning,

and it's been three years on this, you know, on this, I guess I would call it a training protocol, but three years on this, and I still fight my flesh. You know, like example, I'm at my buddy's house last night. My wife's not around. I got an iPad. It would be so easy for me to go to pornhub.com, rub one out, and go to sleep.

That would be easy. Nobody would know about that. but that would affect my ability to show up the way that I want to show up this morning because I'd have shame and guilt about that. And I know that it would be that shame and that guilt from making that, because I made a commitment to not let that be a part of my life anymore

because it really created issues in my intimacy of my marriage. So I've planted my flag that I'm not going to go there anymore, but there were times where after I made that commitment, I still fell back. And, you know, I couldn't tell you how many, I tried to stop doing drugs or watching porn because that was the thing that when I felt sad,

when I felt rejected, when I felt lonely, you could go in the bathroom, put something up your nose or watch a video for 15 minutes and you would get that dopamine and that serotonin release in your brain. And for that moment, you're like, ah, I feel better. And then you look at yourself. I'm like, man, I'm disgusting. I got four daughters. And I'm watching garbage like this when I really should be going down and having conversations with my wife and letting her know that the marriage that we're in right now, I don't stand for it. This is not okay. It's not your fault. This is our fault, but let's do the work. And for a lot of years, man, my wife was unwilling to like get in that arena because she was hurt. I did some heinous things younger, like when we were, we've been together

since we're 17. Think about that. Yeah. I was with her in my teens, my 20s, my 30s, and soon to be 40s. So yeah, it makes sense that a woman that's been with me for that long is going to want to know the why behind a decision because some of the decisions that I used to make weren't best for the family. They weren't best for me and they weren't best for the marriage. And so when I tell you, it's been kind of a spiritual vision quest, but it's been a different type of personal development for me because we've had marriage issues in the past. But I've always tried to make changes in myself to fit what I'm. I felt like she needed instead of coming together and writing a mission statement for a mother flipping family. Not for my business. My business can kick rocks. This is my legacy, dude. My business will come and go more than likely in three or four years. I won't have the supplement

company anymore. Hopefully in two years. I'll sell it. But my point to that is that won't bring me fulfillment. So for me to go hide in the bathroom away from my problems instead of doing the work with my wife knowing that in two years it can be like supernatural. And when I say supernatural, not because I just did the work because God was a part of it. And God, through repetitions, scrubbed away the residue because when I decided I'm never going to watch porn again and I made a declaration, I actually talked to my wife about it. I'm like, this won't live in our hosts anymore.

It won't live in our marriage anymore. But I need support. This is how I need you to help support me through this. But getting through something like that with someone was the only reason that it was ever a possibility because I tried to beat it by myself for some. long. Like you said, try to go through buds by yourself. You can't do it. And that was something that I just couldn't beat until I partnered with God and my wife. And I had to make somebody in

heaven connected to me and somebody here for accountability here on earth because I don't care how holy you are or how much you meditate in prayer. God created us to need him. God created us to need relationship with him. And when we don't do it that way, that's when our life is like this. And so I still have downs and I still have massive ups. But my downs, they don't last that long because I have awareness to it. And I also understand how to get out of it, how to get out of that depression, how to get out of that overwhelm, how to get out of that shame and that guilt. Do you, I've heard Ryan talk about this, Mickler. Do you think that men and masculinity are under attack in the modern day? Yeah, 100% man. I mean, marriage is under attack. I mean,

They just let anybody do it now. So, I mean, not to get into that, a big, big discussion on it, but God created marriage for a man and a woman, period. You know, I'm all for equal opportunities and you guys want to have anybody who want to have an employment where we have employment. That's great. But that's something that was created just for us, for a man and a woman. If you want to have a partnership and a life partner, that's fine.

But you're asking me, is masculinity under attack? Dude, I feel like faith is under attack. I feel like our country is under attack. I feel like integrity is under attack. And I feel like what the devil is doing right now is just confusing everybody. It's just the spirit of confusion. Even the people that know they're Republican because of the narrative and social media and TV, they'll conform people to.

to vote a certain type of way because those people can't create their own ideals because they're being transformed by everything that's going on right now and masculinity included. I mean, if you look at- Confusion's an interesting one. It's, go back to my old job.

If you can create confusion with your enemy, you can maneuver. I don't know if people realize. It's real good. That's where movements are made is when you're looking over here and somebody slides, you know what I mean? Like that's what a smart enemy

actually does is they will intentionally confuse you or obfuscate what they're doing so they can make moves without being watched it's super dangerous yeah well i mean also like to our our daughters also there's a confusion there if we allow them to consume whatever it is that they want to consume they're they're going to be conformed and and the masculinity of what they think men want they think men want them to just twerk on tic-tok and that's how they find a boyfriend or a husband. That's what they're watching though. I know. They're being told the more sexual that you can make yourself and the more sexual

you can move your body, the more popular and successful you're going to become. That's scary. More feedback you'll get. Yeah. More views. The more likes. The more money. Irrelevant. All of that stuff. Yeah. It's, oh, man. I'll beat a young man to death who treats my daughter like that.

I agree with you, but what would life be like if, if, if that that won't happen because we're so intentional and strategic about how we raise them at home. I'm not saying we're going to do it perfect. Yeah. Because there's no handbook for it. I mean, technically there is.

It's called the Bible. But you actually, at least for me, I need somebody to help show me inside of that book with 7,436 promises from God. Which one of those promises works for the season that I'm in right now where I'm going through. a divorce where I feel so distant and disconnected from my son and I know that he loves me and I know

he love that that we have love together but I'm hurt right now like where are the promises that give me peace where are the promises that let me know that my tomorrows are going to be brighter than my today and and I need people to help me do that in order for me to come on a podcast like this and speak my truth I have to understand what my truth is I have to understand seeking a counselor for a marriage though or an individual awareness to find out kind of like what you said with the chessboard, let me figure out what freaking square I'm on. Okay? I know I can't lead my wife right now. If you don't know what square you're on, I mean, there's no problems that can be fixed from there. It has to begin right there.

Yeah, I mean, I also think, I feel like we've talked, I've said the word leaders so many times, but the greatest leaders, it's a good word. It is a good word. The greatest leaders meet people where they're at, you know, and I feel like really good speakers and really good marketers say the right words, but they're not invested. You know, you've had coaches and you've had COs and teammates that, regardless if they were above you or older or younger, they were able to get you to do something or become something by understanding where you're at. By seeing you and hearing you. And once you see and hear somebody, you can understand where they're at. And that's one of the areas that I'm working on is asking the right questions.

Yeah, leadership is not about putting together the team that, the perfect team that you want. It's about taking the team that you have and wherever they are and whoever they are, getting them to the desired end state. And another difficult issue about leadership is that people are influenced in different ways. Some are more so by words. You know, they are very driven by, they'll hear words. Of course, those words have to be commensurate with your actions. You can't say you need to be a person of integrity and then be having... Incongruency.

You know, you're talking about the value of relationships and then you're off having six or seven affairs while your co-workers are looking at you like, uh... Right. Okay, we're out. But other people are more driven by action and the combination of those things. And I mean, you're never going to have a perfect team ever. Right. What you need to do is figure out as a leader where you want to go. Actually, first, where are you?

Yeah. Then where you want to go and then bridge the gap. That's why it's so tough. I actually don't think you're wrong by casting vision first. They kind of go hand in hand. They do go hand in hand. But I think before you take action. Yeah.

Before you maneuver one step, you need to know both. For sure. And I think in order for you and I to be really excited about what's about to happen, it's got to start with vision. Yes. You know, because if it doesn't start with vision, be like, all right, well, now I'm here. We're going to go do some stuff. Right. I feel like if we start the process with where I'm at, I'll never start. No, it's going to be like a distant horizon. I tell people when they set goals, like if the goals don't scare you, like aim higher. Yeah. All the things, like I said, in my life that I have value are the things that I'm worried about or failure,

they all have consequence. Yeah. It's, you know, the stuff that I, or the stuff that you give for free, the things that you value the least, like wipe the table with that stuff. Right. Yeah.

And I feel like when you and I are 75, the consulting businesses and the supplement businesses, we're not going to care about any of those things, you know? And so I'm just, honestly, man, I'm just super thankful that where I'm at in my life and where you're at in our life, we're not 54. We're not 64, just figuring this out.

You know, that coming together and creating relationships and having somebody that's in your life that can give you hope, that hey, man, I'm either going through this same thing that you're going through right now, or I just came out of it, or guess what? I'm about to go into it. Because that's life. Everybody wants to get away from adversity,

but the guys that are real Gs, the guys that are really dominating life are looking for it. Yeah, they dive headlong into it. Yeah. because they understand what's on the other side of that. But they understand what's on the other side of that and to revisit Romans again, they rejoice in their suffering

because they know the suffering's going to lead to something. And so to me, from my family and what we stand for and what I want to celebrate before I take my last breath has nothing to do with business. This has everything to do with relationships. And that's kind of, I feel like, maybe you don't feel like, that this way right now, but there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel for the

relations. And I know you know this, but man, I just want to stand in agreement with you, that there is a beautiful relationship on the other side of what you and I are going through right now in this process is, but you'll never get to it unless you're rejoicing in the suffering and seeing the value in what's happening because divorce happens a lot. And unless you really dig deep on the people that have gone through it. Nobody, nobody looks at it as a positive thing, but I know for a fact. Some of my brothers wouldn't be living their life that they're living right now and wouldn't be the father that they are right now if they didn't get out of a toxic situation to be able to heal themselves, to get awareness to where they need healing, and then to

heal themselves, and then to get back into the fight in a way that they're proud of, like showing up with integrity. Not that you don't do this or I don't do. do this, but we have to be reminded every morning. That's why like my cue is when I look in the mirror and I'm brushing my teeth is to remind myself what I am, not what I'm gonna do today. I'm reminding myself in that moment, I'm a human being. I'm not a human doing. So there's nothing that I can do today that is gonna make me more valuable.

There's nothing that I can say today that is gonna make me a big piece of crap. I am who I am. I am who God created me to be. Now let me max this model out. Because it's different than any other model that he created. But what is my genius? What are my giftings? And how do I develop them?

Because I think a lot of people know what their gifts or their talents are, but they don't see value in them. Yeah. They don't see how that could impact other people. And they also don't see how they could monetize that to create a great life. I would agree. I would agree. Dude, I wanted to take you down to show you the gym. Yeah.

And I know you've got to leave it 1245. We're going to have time. How long was this? This is the longest. Oh, we're over two hours for sure. This is the longest one I've ever done. This is awesome. Yeah.

We could go on for more. So basically we'll just say this is the end of part one. There'll be part two at some point in your future. Where can people find you, though? Man, I would ask the place where you can probably get to know me the best is going to be my podcast or on social media. You have to give the name of the podcast. Instagram stories, the spot to catch me. It's at Weatherford 5 on social media.

And then if there's anything we talked about faith today and you guys are just curious about anything, text me. 949-763-59-34 literally any question you have or maybe you're curious about books that I've read that have maybe helped me to form my perspective or my opinion on my purpose and mission kingdom on this life um yeah text me man and uh and my podcast is the steve weatherford show where very similar conversations um i'd actually love to have you on here i'm game anytime um man i just before we go man i just wanted to honor you man you've you've been without really knowing it man you've been super inspirational and I'm glad that I'm able to come back into your life in a season where God has worked on me overtime for three years and man I know I know for a fact having brothers

that really care about you and your purpose not just your business your podcast and all this but people that really care about you and your purpose I'm glad that brought God brought me back into your life in this season versus a season where you're 13 and 3 you know I'm not saying It's a 16 at 0. I'm not saying it's a 3 and 13 season, but I know for a fact because I know your heart, I know there's days that it feels like 3 and 13. Oh, for sure. If not 0 and 16.

Right. So just to let you know, man, I'm freaking here for you, man. I know what that pain is like. I haven't been through exactly what you're going through. But the emotions of, oh, not without even getting into it because we've talked about a lot of them, man. There's light at the end of the tunnel and your best days are ahead of you, man. I really believe that.

I believe that as well. Yeah. And let's send all that positive note. Come on. Thanks, man. Yeah, dude. Appreciate it. Marketing is hard.

But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion.

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