Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 161 - Kick off to 2021

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Kicking off 2021 the right way - laying out goals and a strategy to complete them, followed by likely the only solo Monday episode of 2021 tackling Q and A. 1. The most important lesson I learned in 2020 2. Has being a SEAL helped me post-military, or was what made me capable of becoming a SEAL the most important aspect that has "propelled" me 3. Bolt action rifle/optic selection 4. 5 Characteristics needed to be a man 5. Are we facing Civil War, thoughts on preparation 6. An explanation of the new podcast logo 7. An officer-involved shooting in Ireland - what would I have done 8. 3 small daily habits that have a greater positive impact than they may seem to Enjoy. Get out there and start crushing 2021 Athletic Greens Helix Sleep Magic Spoon Better Help

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's 2021, if you can believe that. We're through the dumpster fire of 2020. But let's not pretend 2021 may not be that much better. Who knows? I'm hopeful, but who knows? But I digress. Let's talk about the brands that help make this podcast possible. Today's episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. And the best and simplest description I can give you of this product is that it is fantastic. nutritional insurance. If you're like me, which I'm sure damn near everybody is when it comes to time, it gets a little bit compressed, or you could talk about time in a different way. You could say stress, whatever it may be, time stress. It becomes difficult to maintain your effective nutritional habits. And make sure that your bodies are getting the nutrients that it needs to thrive, let alone survive. It could be your schedule, it could be your sleep, exercise, fill in the blank. I touch. All three of those from time to time. And that's why I love athletic greens.

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dot com slash clear todd and that's it my guest today is me now normally on mondays i do i don't like to call it an interview i'll call it a conversation i release those episodes and then fridays i release q and a and i was looking back and i realized that since i started doing the full auto friday which was about halfway through 2020 and even before that i hadn't had the opportunity to really sit down and unpack a standalone Q&A episode, which are actually some of my favorite, because it forces me to challenge myself and really articulate what it is that I believe and why. This is likely going to be the only one I can do for 2021 because I have a substantial amount of guests already lined up. And next Monday, we're going to be right back to conversations being

released on Monday morning. So I'm going to take this opportunity. I'm going to get through as many questions as I can. I tried to pick different categories. And I think the best thing to do would probably be to open with my 2020 review. Actually, I don't know how much I'm going to get into 2020 review because I feel like I did that a lot in 2020. I'll open with my 2021 goals. And I'll explain why in the episode. Let's do this. Episode number 161. Kick off of the year 2021. West of the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. What's going on, everybody?

As you probably heard in the intro, this is going to be a standalone Q&A. I'm not going to limit myself to how much time I give to the answers. I think I'm looking at my laptop in front of me. I got one, I got ten questions. If I get through them all, I get through them all. If I don't, I don't. I don't even have any idea how long I'm going to go for. But I'm going to open with my 2021 goals.

And I'm not going to lie to you. The reason that I'm doing this is so that I have an additional level of accountability. By openly talking about the goals that I have for this year, it is my hope that in those moments that I think we all have, or specifically I can tell you right now that I have, where I have a choice between doing what I want to do and what I need to do. I'm hoping that this level of accountability will help me. to go down the path that I need to do versus what is what I want to do, which is often not what I need to do. Hopefully that made some sense. So let's lay it out. My goals for 2021. I've talked about

goals quite a bit on the podcast. I think your goals should be large to the point where they scare you. Now, the goals I'm going to give you, there's actually really only three that encompass my 2021. But in this umbrella, just about everything that I want to do is covered. Do they scare me? I'm not going to say that I have a level of fear, but I do question whether or not they're possible, which is another way of saying, you know, there's a chance of failure. Chance of failure often means a little bit of fear involved. So these are right where, this is right where I need them to be for myself. So number one, and these are not necessarily an order of importance. But when I was writing this out, these are the order that they came to me. 2020 was pretty devastating financial year for just about, well, I'm not going to say everybody, because some organizations and individuals had banner gears.

For me, it was a year that dipped for sure. On a professional level, my 2019, I'd say I spent a third of my year doing public speaking, traveling around the world, as most people can imagine, the guillotine of 2020 cut that off. There's a financial consequence to that. and it was very impactful. So my goal for 2021 is to increase my financial stability. Now, I got a question. I'm going to actually kind of jump in here because it ties in a little bit. One of the questions was about money. And it says, not really a question, but please just dive into financial goals, advice, and strategy. We'll love to hear your thoughts on money. It's something I struggle

with more than almost anything else. So to the person who asked this, I don't think that you're alone in that. struggled with money. I'm not going to say throughout my life, but at times in my life and my financial stability strategy and money in general, my thoughts on it have changed over the years. Everybody needs some level of money, obviously, for basic essentials, somewhere to live, food, clothing, all of those things. I get that. I don't by any stretch of the imagination think that money is evil, but I've landed in the place. that I believe money is not the end-all, be-all. And I can look back at some decisions that I have made in my life

that were specifically and directly tied only to making money. Because for a long time, the thought process in my head was, I need to make X amount of dollars. If I make X amount of dollars per year, I'm not going to be broke. I'll be able to do whatever it is that I want to do. And I don't look at it like that anymore. Because to me, like I said, although money is critical and it's essential and you need it for life, it's no longer about

what you make. It's about what you spend and what you spend it on. Because I know some people who make a volume of money beyond what I think it's probably or likely possible I could ever make per year. But they also spend a commensurate amount of money that they are essentially broke. because if you have a Lamborghini in your garage, but you can't afford to put the gas in it, are you actually rich or wealthy? I would say no. So it's not about what you make in my mind now. It's about what you spend and balancing those two things. And I cannot give this person goals, advice, or strategy because I am not a financial expert. Throughout the course of my life, I have invested in things like IRAs, I have invested in real estate, and I have made money and lost money on both.

I sold a house in Virginia Beach at the peak of the market and then bought a house in a subdivision of San Diego as the trap door was just getting ready to open on the financial crisis or real estate crisis, I should say, in 2006. Actually, I take that back. We bought it in 2007. So that was a fun one. So that ended up being a short sale where instead of getting money for equity. in the house that we had put in, we wrote them a check. We actually essentially broke even and then took a tax hit. So I'm not going to give anybody advice or strategy on how to invest. The biggest thing that I do when it comes to money is try to keep track of, or the advice that I guess that I would give,

small piece of advice that I'm going to give for this is keep track of your expenditures and really limit yourself to excessive purchases. That is the one thing that I have struggled with over time. And you know what gets me? These sons of bitches more often than I care to share. Fucking Instagram ads. They know me. It's almost like these social media companies are collecting data on my browsing

history. It's almost like they're targeting me with, these ads because sometimes this shit comes up and it's like I have to have it. The reality is I don't have to have it. And what I have found is that those small purchases in the aggregate, you can completely lose control of those things. And before you know it, you're spending far more than you realize, then it bumps up into your spending equal, if not more than what you make. Then you're flipping into credit card debt. And all of that to me is just an absolute disaster. And somehow, I have completely gotten off my 2021 goals, which we're going to start with increased financial stability.

with the goal of stability. That's where the underline is in the notebook in front of me. I want to be stable, meaning if 2021 turns into 2020, that's okay. I will do everything I can to put myself in a financial situation for myself and for my family, that if 2020, 2021 turns into a whirlwind or a roller coaster ride, that's going to be okay. And I think the number one thing that I can do is try to, I don't want to reinvent myself again, and I don't feel like there is a need to. I did that getting out of the military and working for CrossFit and then leaving CrossFit and doing aviation and then skydiving instruction and then diving into public speaking and then starting a podcast. So the reinvention, I don't have a problem with doing that at all, but I think I'm at a point where I don't necessarily need to reinvent myself.

I need to double down on the things that I'm doing. you're listening to one of the things that I need to double down on or should double down on. My goal for 2021 is to double the size of the podcast. And I don't even know if that's possible. Now, there's an economic aspect of the podcast. Obviously, the episode's open with ads, but I'm going to put a disclaimer and a warning out there for anybody listening to this, thinking of starting a podcast for the economic benefit. Number one, it's probably not as big as you think it is.

And number two, don't start a podcast with the hope of making ad revenue. I didn't even know that ad revenue was a thing when I started the podcast. I ignored it and pushed it away for almost 18 months. And it is now something that I will attach to the podcast, but I refuse to let it change how I think about the podcast, why I want to do the podcast, the frequency with which I have guests. I'm trying to keep the podcast pure because I find it to be. incredibly rewarding and enriching. Like I said, I've made poor decisions in my life when I just chased money. And I don't want anybody to go down this path just chasing that money because it won't be rewarding and enriching. And if you choose to go down the path and explore your beliefs

and have conversations with other people, that's what I would want it to be. Having said that, like I said, there is an economic aspect of this. If I could double the size of the podcast, which I don't even know if it's possible, it would increase the economic benefit to myself and to my family, and it wouldn't really matter what would happen for public speaking or any of the other things that I used to do. So that's one of my goals. Second goal, and again, not an order, is I want to compete in a jiu-jitsu tournament once a quarter. And even just having written that out and saying that, I don't actually think it's possible because I'm not going to really dedicate the time and effort to go to these major tournaments until travel is back to normal and, you know, everything does. down with COVID. And it's not an issue with COVID. I'm not concerned with that. It's just,

I would rather have it returned to normalcy than have to jump through some crazy hoops during this time period. I could care less about the outcome when it comes to these tournaments. And the reason for it is, is that I don't really care about the color of the belt that's around my waist. And I don't really care about winning or losing or getting a gold medal that's not actually gold. I care about everything that is involved in getting ready to prepare for a jiu-jitsu tournament. Because really what I have for myself is a health and wellness goal for 2021, and that's tied into competing in jiu-jitsu. I try to train five to six days per week for at least an hour to two hours per day,

which is that might sound like a lot to people, but it's not that much. I usually do it in the middle of the day. But I want to tie everything together. In a jujitsu tournament, it's based off of, and I actually haven't competed in a jujitsu tournament. So pretty sure it's age, belt, and then weight. The last one is the one that I'm carrying about. I want to have a walk-around weight all year long, which will tie me into a strength and conditioning program all year long. So the jujitsu goal is actually a hidden fitness goal, because if I'm going to compete every quarter,

what I don't want to do is have to cut a drastic amount of weight. I'm not a fan of really changing my dietary habits or my rest habits. And I also don't want to go into a tournament or a competition setting feeling like shit. So what I'd rather do is get myself to within a few pounds of my competition weight, which would be the healthiest walk-around weight that I could be at, which right now is about seven to eight pounds underneath me sitting at the table right now. I think for me I'll probably, you know, walk-around weight for me is about 205. So let's just say there was some COVID snacks and some COVID couch time watching Forged and Fire.

If you guys haven't watched Forge and Fire, you need to go online and immediately watch every episode possible. Enter the Forge. It's what I like to say when I turn the TV on. But this, again, is an accountability step that I can throw onto the calendar at a macro goal of the year, four pins on the calendar, but that I can cut that into a quarter. And I can look at the things that I need to do to maintain that walk around weight. and I can structure it to micro goals. And then I can have a little bit of micro failure. I can give myself a Monday through Friday, train hard, Saturday and Sunday, reward myself,

not going completely off the reservation, but reward myself a little bit for that hard work. And then the effort, and it just, again, helps keep me accountable. I'm going to tell my teammates and my coaches about it so they can help keep me accountable and then have those concrete things to work towards. So, compete in jiu-jitsu once a quarter, but that really is just a fitness, health and welfare goal hidden in a competition. And the last thing, and again, by far not the least, because these are linked in order, is I want to maximize my experience with my kids.

I get limited time with them, and I love the time that I'm with my kids, but I want to have more than time. I want to have experiences. I want to have things that make memories with them that will last for a lifetime. I look back at my own upbringing. I'm not, I didn't come from a family that was divorced. But I don't really think back when I think about both my mom and dad. My mom passed in 2010. I do wish I had more time with her.

But when I look back in the memories that I have, they are of experiences. It's not a log of running time that I have with each of my parents. I think back and I remember the things that we did together. So that is the final goal. for 2021 for me. Financial stability, compete in jiu-jitsu, and maximize experience with my kids. And on that note, let's dive into these questions. First one, what was the most important lesson that you learned in 2020? I didn't learn any new lessons in 2020, but I did have some lessons reinforced or some beliefs that I had reinforced. The number one and the most important,

important one is this. What you will actually have control over in your life, the number of things that you will actually have control over in your life is incredibly small. It's so few. Specifically, inside of that, and maybe the thing that, maybe the only thing that you will have complete and total control over in your life is yourself. And that includes what you say and what you do. 2020, I would say for most people, was largely out of their control. At a huge, at a large optic, you were being told where you could go and what you could do. Or where you couldn't go and what you couldn't do.

There was a financial impact for almost everybody, an occupational impact for almost everybody. Uncertainty, you know, 2020 may as well be relabeled uncertainty. It might be a good little asterisk to go in the history books. But in everything that I just mentioned, and regardless of what was happening around you or to you, you still have complete and total control over yourself. You may not be in control of what happens to you, but you are always at all times in control of how you react to that. And I think that that is important for people to take on board and to think about. if you emotionally react to something, whether it be the election or the pandemic, that's a choice.

You do not have to allow your emotions to be in charge. In fact, what I would recommend to people is they try to detach themselves from their emotions, taking control of specifically what they say, probably online the most, and also what you do, because it's very dangerous. Why? You're not objectively thinking. You are not in control your emotions are, and you're surrendering control to the one thing that you always have control of, which is, again, you. 2020 was a huge reinforcement of this. I could always point at something that was happening around me and say, well, my life sucks because of this. Or I could take control of myself, my actions, my behavior, whether it be the information that was coming in or the actions that I took because of that information.

and steer my personal ship, which is the only ship that I can steer in the direction that I wanted it to go, regardless of outside influence, pressure, or situation. There are, in my opinion, a lot of people who either don't want to take responsibility and accountability for that fact that you have control yourself or they don't realize it. And they are swayed by information and they go up and down with the tide or around like, the merry-go-round or the roller coaster, however you would like to describe it. And I think the world would be a better place if people took more ownership of their actions, thoughts, and the things that they say, as opposed to surrendering that control to somebody else. That is a choice, and it's a choice that only you can make. And that was the most important lesson that was

reinforced to me in the year known as 2020. Question number two. has being a seal helped propel your career outside of the military? Or has what made you capable of becoming a seal propelled you? I guess this is sort of a chicken or the egg question. I guess it could be. It's a good question, though. Has being a seal helped propel your career outside of the military? Yes, it would be a dishonest answer for me to say to anybody, that the acronym seal does not help open doors. Even in the, you know, 20, 21, I was just about to say, yeah, the first quarter of, you know, 21st century, with more information coming out about special operations in general and the now contractual requirement for all seals,

once they make it through buds to write a book shortly thereafter, which gives more people exposure to the community, wherein it was in the past, there was much less exposure and I would say much less hype as well. It would be dishonest to say that having that history doesn't help because it does. And that's actually a very dangerous double-edged sword. And I've talked about this before. Having the career or occupation of having been a seal on your resume, it has the ability to open doors that the individual holding that resume is not prepared for or capable of walking through. But sometimes they do. And it actually, in my opinion, becomes a problem for anybody who would try to knock on that door after they were

there, after they have it slammed in their face once an organization or an individual realizes that being a seal actually doesn't mean shit in the outside world. Now, there's another layer of this, too. people will often, because you were a seal, they'll give you more rope than they should. They'll make excuses for you instead of holding you accountable because, oh, hey, you used to be this high-speed badass Navy seal, right? Oh, hey, you know, don't worry about that. You know, he's, we'll give him a different set of standards because of his background. Wrong answer. That is a recipe for failure for the individual that you're giving more rope to.

And it's a recipe for failure for your organization. If you bring somebody on board, they walk through one of these doors that they're not capable. or prepared to walk through and they have a negative impact or outcome or in your organization, which will eventually terminate and then being let go. And then guess what?

The next time a seal knocks on your door with a resume, you're going to remember that first person that came through. So to a degree for the individual asking this question, yes, it has helped me propel my career outside of the military. I'm sure some people found this podcast

because of my background. I know for a fact that some organization have me come in and speak when it comes to things like leadership or integrity or teamwork because specifically of my military background. So it absolutely helps for sure. Having said that, opening the door, walking through the door, you're still left with the ability or the need to perform. And this is where, you know, people can fall short. And that's where what made me being capable of becoming a seal, that has helped as well. Now, there's no secret sauce when it comes to becoming a seal.

There's a level of mental toughness. There's a level of how you set and approach your goals. There's a level of being able to tolerate physical discomfort, work ethic, and everything that I just described can be learned, practiced and refined, playing organized sports when you're young at any age. Go play Pop Warner football as an example. I'm not saying that as the example. And you're going to start learning about those things.

and those things are selected for and looked for in a pressure cooker in the initial process to become a seal. And if you have those things, whether you're a seal or not, I actually think that's the recipe for success. The ability to look at adversity as a motivation as opposed to a stumbling block. the ability to tolerate failure and not have it be something that destroys your motivation or desire to continue forward or try again. All of those things, again, are they're looked for in the pressure cooker of the seal pipeline in the very beginning. But they're not unique to me. I'd say everything that I had listed is probably present at high-level performers. if any occupation, both athletically or in a business world.

So having the combination of the two is, I think, the apex that you want to try to arrive at. Actually, I'm going to take that back because I don't want people to try to be a seal so that can help open careers outside of the military. So I would say if you have both of those things, that's an amazing recipe for success. If you want to go be a seal, go be a seal because you want to be, not because of what you think it can do. do for you afterwards. But the things that I learned, you know, that I talked about, teamwork, work ethic, dealing with adversity, all of the stuff that I listed. I learned that working on a job site with my dad when I was at the age of 11.

So anybody is capable of learning those lessons, but to effectively learn them, you have to go out and you have to push yourself. So number three, changing topics slightly. I saw something recently you posted about Christensen Arms. I am considering buying one of their bolt actions, action rifles for hunting. Any suggestions? What would you suggest for scopes? The show is great. I've spent 12 years in the healthcare in that episode with Fly Girl RN was epic.

Nikki was awesome. I'm glad we were able to sit down. I'm glad you enjoyed the episode. bolt action rifles and Christensen arms specifically my experience with Christensen arms started hunting season 2020 and I was kind of blown away carbon fiber technology is leaps and bounds ahead of the last time that I had checked in on it they sent me two MPRs or modern precision rifles 308 and 300 wind mag I had a suppressor for both it was a game changer for hunting season I was actually letting other people use the suppressed 308. So there's one, two, three, four people that I know of that got animals with

that 308. And they were amazing. Bolt action. So the NPR is a bolt action, but it has a collapsible buttstock. And so what I would say is you have choices. Even when you say bolt action, you have choices. There are buttstocks that would be more traditional, like the long lines of like Remington 700, whatever the material may be, whether it be carbon fiber, whether it be plastic, but it doesn't have any articulation. It is just a traditional stock for a bolt action rifle. Or you have the Christensen Arms MPR type rifles that are articulating for cheek weld, for buttstock, and they fold to break down the overall length of the rifle so you can transport or carry it. When it comes to hunting, because I'm assuming, well, actually that's what

you said right here is for hunting. People ask me all the time about everyday carry pistol caliber, specifically, and I always talk about the end state first. So if you're going to hunt, I'll be able to give you better advice if I know what type of animal you want on. If you're a deer hunter only, you know, it'd be, I'd say, 6.5 Creedmoor, 308, even 300 windmag. If you want to, that's probably a little bit of overkill for a deer. If you're going to go for the larger animals, you're going to want to be looking at a larger caliber rifle. 300 windbag. I'm going to tell you right now is my personal favorite, so I'm always going to default for that. But I start with that desired usage. Then I'm going to try to figure out the caliber that goes with that desired usage.

And then the last thing I'd have you consider is wait when it comes to the rifle itself. If you are looking for a very specific rifle for a very specific animal or hunt and you're going to pursue that for many years, I would get a rifle that has less variables, meaning Get that solid buttstock, less pieces that can articulate, which means less pieces to break. You still have your choices when it comes to material for, again, weight. And if you want to have a little bit of variability and you want to use the rifle for different things and you want to have it for different people, get one that articulates a little bit more. So, like, for example, the 308 for my son, my middle son to shoot it, I need to mess around a little bit with the cheek weld so he can get the proper eye relief. So the buttstock and sheet will need to move a little bit so I can get his eye directly.

in line with the scope. So food for thought. There really aren't any wrong answers. So go end state, work it backwards, figure out caliber, and then figure out how specialized you want to become in that. When it comes to optics, I've played around with a lot of optics over the years. There's nothing worse than putting shitty glass on top of an amazing rifle. And well, you know what would be worse than that is putting amazing glass on a shitty rifle. So you can go in both directions. The Christensen arms rifles are very high end. So I would recommend investing in glass for the desired end state. Not everybody needs a 5 to 30 variable scope. Some people are great with just a straight 10 power or you want something along the lines of like 7 to 25. There's

everything in, you know, again, end state. How comfortable do you feel shooting at distance? What distance are you going to limit yourself to? These are all questions you need. to ask yourself when it comes to picking both your optic and your rifle, actually. And the company that I prefer and that I have on both of my Christensen arms is Maven. And I don't know how many people have heard of Maven. I think the whole name is Maven Optics. And the reason that they haven't is if you go into a Cabela's or a Dick Sporting Goods, you're not going to see them in the firearms section like you often do. You know, the rifles are on the wall, the pistols are the case and there's all this glass you're going to have your leopolds in there uh your you know your swarrow

like fill in the blank there fuck there's so many different optics they're going to be in there one you're not going to see in there is maven and the reason is they're direct to consumer and what that allows them to do is cut the price point down so christensen sent me like i said a 308 and a 300 wind mag i have maven rs fours on both of those they are a five to 30 variable scope again i like shooting at distance so i like having that variable power all the way out to a 30. Not everybody needs that, and they have a variety of scopes that can fit whatever your desired end state may be. And what I'll say is this. I have looked through some of the highest quality glass on Earth, and Maven is right there with them. So spend a

shit ton of money if you want to at a retail store, or you can save yourself a ton of money and still get incredibly high quality glass. So best of luck with your choice. And Hit me back up and let me know how your hunting season goes. Switching gears again. What would you say are your top five characteristics of what you feel it really means to be a man? In which, if any, do you continue to work on the most? This is a hell of a question. And I had to take some time to write this one down.

And anytime somebody asked me to write out a list, I always feel like the list is incomplete. Because the more I think about it, the more things that I could add. and I'm sure after I hit the record button again to end the recording on this, I'll have a thought of like, oh, I should have said that. So if this list isn't like your list, that's okay. These are the five that I came up with when I was first thinking about it. It's not complete by any stretch. Number one, and these are, I'm going to say these are ranked slightly in order. I'd be open to people moving things around, depending on which one spoke to them the most.

But to me, these are largely in order. Number one, integrity. You have to do what you say. And your word, it has to mean something. As a man, you have to be a man of your word. If you lose your integrity, and I say this looking at people I have dealt with who have lost their integrity in my mind, I really, really struggle to put any faith back in them. So guard against your integrity.

Number two, honesty. Tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Don't lie. I mean, we all, trust me, we all lie. Little white lies are rounding the edges on stuff. And I think we all are smart enough to realize that there's a difference between that and being a dishonest person. Integrity first and then honesty. Tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, and tell the truth.

Number three, I think as a man, you have to be loving and compassionate. You have to have, well, take a step back. I hear toxic masculinity and masculinity and all these things. And I think a lot of the times people look at men is that they have to be like this bulletproof persona. And I don't feel like that is the case. I think that there's times maybe you should act like that, if the situation, demands it, but as a human being, as a man, you need to, in my mind, be capable of immense love and compassion. You have to be in touch with your emotions. And you have to ensure that you are

emotionally available. Nobody wants or needs an autonomous robot. And I am of the opinion that if you live your life pushing away your compassion and your love. You are not by any stretch of the imagination going to live a fulfilling and rewarding life. Number four, I think you have to be an objective and critical thinker, which ties into the last one, which was loving and compassion. You have to be in touch with your emotions, but you can't be run by your emotions. The ability to maintain control of yourself, to maintain control of what comes out of your mouth, to maintain control of your actions and not be hijacked or allow somebody else to take control, has to be maintained at all times. So, number one was integrity.

Number two was honesty. Number three was loving and compassion. Number four was an objective and critical thinker. And number five, the fifth characteristic, what I think it really means to be a man, is that you have to be capable of violence. but I do not think you should be a violent person. The reason I say you need to be capable of violence is that the path to be capable of violence is a long one. It's not easy. You're going to get humbled a lot, which is going to make you more appreciative.

And the more capable you are of violence, in my experience at least, the less likely you are to actually engage in violence. But if you want to call yourself a man, you need to be able to take care of not only your but those that you love and care for. The only way that you're going to be able to do that is if you are capable of violence, because life might present you in a situation where violence is a reasonable response. I am not saying that it is always the reasonable response, but life might present you with a situation where it is a reasonable response. And if you are not capable of violence, then you are not capable of taking care of the people that you love and care for. And that's it. That's my list.

Speaking of violence, next question. Andy, with this changing world and civil war being considered a very real possibility that many wouldn't be prepared for, would you consider doing an episode on home defense? Thoughts on bugging out if you can't, fortifying and staying put, et cetera, I think your skill, mindset, and experience would be, would greatly benefit many on this topic. There's a lot of info out there, I know, but I'm sure many of us would value your insight. Thank you for considering and for your service. I am not going to do an entire episode on home defense, and I'll tell you why. I'm not an expert on home defense. I understand the broad concepts, but there are a lot of people out there who specialize in things like home defense, thoughts on bugging out, skills.

I'm going to give you a great example. Good friend, Mike Glover, fieldcraft survival, is a reference and resource for things exactly like this. Not only does he have, you know, content, they offer courses. So you can dive in as deep as you want to. And when I have questions about this stuff, or if I want to, you know, kick around a concept or an idea when it comes to say Home Defense, I call Mike. He is an amazing resource and reference. Use those people. I'm not the expert in that world.

So let's talk about this Civil War, though. With this changing world and Civil War being considered a very very important. real possibility that many wouldn't be prepared for. I'm going to work this backwards. I'm going to agree with you. Actually, you know what? First, I'm going to disagree with you. I personally do not think that a civil war is even remotely close. I do agree that a lot of people are talking about it, and the term has been thrown around a lot. But I think the reality or actuality of crossing that threshold is like statistically anomalous or damn near impossible. Would people be prepared for it?

No. I don't think that people would be prepared for the level of violence and the aftermath of that level of violence if it were to go down that route. I think if you took a busload of people over to Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria or. or any country that is experiencing a true war and drove people around and showed them what real kinetic violence looks like, I think they would shut the fuck up about civil war. I don't even think as a country, like we're nowhere near the north and south, getting ready to square off with each other. And I think in the modern era, it would be a more matter of left and right because I don't know if there's anything more polar. that the goddamn political aisle. But it's, I almost think that the internet is not responsible for

this, but the ease of interaction on the internet is what makes people talk about this with a laissez-faire attitude. Oh, we're going to have civil war. We're going to come into your streets. Like, shut the fuck up. You're not going to do that. This country is not going to get back to a place where you're taking up arms against your neighbors. Now, have you. said that, yes, I realize that there's pockets of this country that are almost defined by their level of violence. Okay? That is very different than a civil war. That is an issue that I don't have an answer for at all. And I don't want to see that happen. And I wish I had a solution or a way to help, but I don't. And where that is happening, that needs to be dealt with at that level.

I just really, when I hear people talk about civil war, I don't consider it to be a very real possibility. I do, like I said, people would not be prepared for, you know, you can have all the equipment you want. You can go buy yourself an AR, you could buy yourself some body armor, you can get yourself a cool bump helmet, some nods, fill in the bike. Get whatever high speed operator gear that you want to get. That doesn't prepare you for the actual Civil War itself. That doesn't prepare you with the aftermath and what actual ballistic and kinetic violence looks like at a large scale. You know, people that talk about, oh, there's going to be a Civil War in this country have never been in a place where there's fucking bodies in the street where you're

watching people and their carcass just burn in the middle of the fucking street because there's so many of them that there's no time to deal with it because you're engaged in a firefight. Like just get the fuck out of here with that. All right. Stop being keyboard warriors. Stop talking about civil war. I'm not talking to the person asking this question. I'm just talking about in general and the people that I do see who just throw this term out very casually. Stop talking about that shit and start trying to figure out how you can be a value add to the community around you, how you can be a better value add to your family or at your job. Instead of talking about breaking the country down and tearing it apart and killing your neighbor, flip all that on its head and start

trying to figure out a way that you can be a better neighbor, a better American, and you could be, I don't know, take the five characteristics that I gave you. Number three, loving and compassionate, it see if you can figure out a way to increase that as opposed to your bullshit online expressed opinion towards violence. Sorry, got off the rails, just a little bit. Okay, now we're really going to shift gears. Could you explain the new logo for the podcast and how you came up with it? It's pretty cool and I think all of your listeners would enjoy hearing about it. Let me tell you, I didn't come up with a new logo because I am an idiot and I am not creative. That is probably my, I don't I want to say it's my wink link. It's one of the things that I have identified I am not good at. I'm not good at branding. And I, like, if you gave me a piece of paper to draw out logos, I would draw dicks or stick figures with dicks or dicks with stick figures. However, that would work. That's my limit of my artistic capacity. So when it comes to the new logo, I reached out to somebody who is damn good at logos. And his name is John Dudley. So the new podcast logo is,

do to John Dudley and his team putting in time and effort to help me out. And the reason I did it, though, that's probably a better question. The answer is I was looking at the podcast and I was looking at my desire to hopefully grow it and I was looking at the questions that I get about the podcast and I get a ton of them about the old logo, which is a picture of me. It actually came from a rear-facing GoPro image of the world record jump that I did in 2015. But if you don't know what it is, it's just, it means nothing. And it's really hard to make into a sticker. It's really hard to make into a patch on a hat.

It's really hard to make into a t-shirt. So although the image was cool and it meant something to me, it was almost impossible to do something with. So it was looking at it from a professional optic and realizing it was actually limiting to a degree. And then talking with people like Dudley and Evan Hafer from Black Rifle, He helped me out a ton as well, super generous with their time and their resources. And created something that is a combination of stuff that I still believe. There's maybe an archery broadhead in there. Maybe there's an essence of the mountains.

Maybe there's an essence of a wingsuit wing in there as well. So it's still all me. It's just restructured into something that I think I can do more with. And I think it's a cooler logo. And instead of the logo meaning only something to me, perhaps it can mean something something to other people. So that's where it came from. How long have I been going at this before I keep answering these questions? Dear God, we're almost at an hour. Let us continue. Andy, hope your Christmas was enjoyable. It was. Thank you very much, and I hope yours was as well.

In the last few days, we are after having a police shooting here in Ireland of a young male that went on a rampage and sliced up a shop owner's face. Holy shit. When the cops went to his house, he refused to surrender and charged at the police with a knife in hand. He was pepper-sprayed and tased. Both failed. Five shots were fired. The first two missed and the last three hit. The young male succumbed to his wounds later in the day. To give a bit of context, our beat cops here pride themselves on not being armed, but we do have specialized units that are armed, and these were the ones that responded. In the last few days during the ensuing trial by social media, the young man has been labeled as having mental health issues.

My first question to you is, do you believe people can be inherently evil or does society attempt to label every bad action as mental health problems? I have been asked in the last few days because of my previous military experience, why were five shots fired? Is that not excessive? Or why couldn't he be shot in the leg or arm? I'm not sure what to say. In Ireland, our military at times work alongside our police service and are trained in the same firearm, procedures in parentheses escalation of force when to use force etc my second question is how would you respond wishing you continued success in 2021 thank you well damn that sounds pretty gnarly

slicing a shop owner's face with a knife goes back to the house sounds like maybe a little barricaded situation police escalated pepper spray and tase and he ends up getting shot and killed man that sucks okay but to your question do you believe people can be inherently evil or is society attempting to label every bad action as a mental health problem yes i do believe that people can be inherently evil i think you know but having said that i don't think they're evil all the time i look at people like hitler or i'm reading a book right now on charles manson and uh you know there's ted bundy or you could go down the list of people on earth who have just done fucking horrendous things to other human beings without, it seems like, any care or concern in the world. So, yeah, I 100% believe that people can be inherently evil. But like I said, I don't think they're always expressing that evil at all times. Doesn't mean it should be ignored,

that inherent evil should be addressed. And I am of the personal belief, based on my own personal experience that for those that are inherently evil, there is only one response. And again, this is my opinion and my opinion only. When you encounter somebody that is inherently evil, the only solution for that is a fucking moonroof in their head. You have to kill those that are inherently evil. You're not going to educate them out of that. It's, it, it is, I don't know what it is. I don't they came out of the box or is an opinion or actions that they became committed to later on. But in my experience, having encountered those people, they are not going to change. And that is the only solution that truly removes the problem and enhances safety for everybody else.

And guess what? There also are mental health problems. But I do think that society is doing its best to round the edges on accountability and responsibility. It's a really hard thing to say that this individual was killed because they ran at a police officers with a knife in their hand and it's their fault for what happened. But the reality is that's the truth. If you have a knife in your hand or you go and you shoot other people and then you shoot at the police and your life is taken because of that, that's largely, especially in a tactical world, it's a mathematical decision, not a moral decision. The actions that I took overseas or the actions that these police officers took, they weren't trying to make a moral judgment on the individual. They made a tactical decision based on the threat that was presented to them.

Now, can people with mental health problems have snaps and create a threat? Yes, they absolutely can. Let me tell you this right now. Nobody deserves to be killed by the police. But the police also don't deserve to have to make the choice to kill somebody trying to determine whether or not it's a mental health crisis or a legitimate threat in the moment's seconds, fractions of a second that they have to make. those decisions. I don't want to see anybody die at the hands of the police. And honestly, I don't want to

see anybody die at the hands of the military. But those occupations, they have an additional burden. Sometimes you have to make those decisions. But the individual getting killed, if they are taking actions that are a threat to others, an action is taken to neutralize that threat, that's not the fault of the police. I'm sorry. And that's my personal opinion. Are there variations of this? Could you give me an example of a situation? And I would have a different answer for that specific situation? Absolutely, I would. So this is not just an all-encompassing umbrella. But in general, I am noticing a trend where instead of saying that the individual was wrong for what they did, it is described as a mental health issue and the blame is placed on the responding

officers. And that is not correct. And that is not a burden that should be placed on those responding. Trust me, they have enough burden on their shoulders as it is. Again, it's an attempt to remove individual accountability and responsibility for your actions, which to me is the fucking road to hell for this country. I think we need to have an emphasis on individual accountability and responsibility when it comes to your actions. So hopefully I answer that portion of your question for you. Yes, inherent evil exists. Yes, mental health problems exist and everything in between. Moving on, why were five shots fired? Is that not excessive? No, that's not excessive at all. If you are going to take action, if you are going to engage somebody with a firearm,

and I can only speak of this from my own experience, if the threshold of hostile act or hostile intent was crossed and I was going to take a lethal action, I am going to continue. I am going to continue taking that action until what I perceive as a threat is no longer a threat. I'm not going to count bullets. I am not going to worry about how many rounds that I fire. I am going to continue to engage a threat until they are no longer a threat. This isn't the movies. If you actually pull the trigger on another human being, it's not the movies. People don't go flying backwards. They are not immediately incapacitated. They don't just drop to the ground more often than not unless you truly just shut their running lights off. So five rounds, engaging an individual with five rounds,

especially at the first two missed. So they were engaged with three rounds. That is not excessive at all. The criteria is threat, no longer a threat. You stop shooting when the threat no longer is a threat. Why couldn't he be shot in the arm or the leg? Well, that's an easy answer because that's fucking stupid. One of the dumbest things that I heard politicians say in the 2020 election cycle when it came to police reform is, you know, we're going to, we're going to train people or, you know, make it a standard where you shoot somebody in an appendage instead of center mass like they're trained to shoot. It's idiotic. And any time somebody says something like that, it immediately gives me insight into how much experience they have or more precisely put,

how little experience they actually have. Again, not the movies. And you know what? In the movies, actually, people are generally running around. You have any idea how hard it is to intentionally shoot somebody in a leg when they're running at full speed at like in a bleak angle? I mean, if they were running directly at you, it'd still be difficult. But put an angle into that or have them maybe moving left and right, you know, shoot them in the arm or shoot them in the leg. That's an idiotic statement.

For one, it's more of a risk to the backdrop because you're going to miss substantially more than police or law enforcement already. miss right now. Oh, and by the way, don't think that the accuracy rate is incredible in the military either. There's plenty of rounds going down range that aren't hitting their intended target. But don't make the target or the intended target small or smaller, which is going to increase that level of missed shots. It's just not as easy as people would like to make it out to be. And also, it's not any safer to shoot somebody in the arm or the leg. There's veins, there's arteries, you could smash bone, which turns into very sharp cutting implements that does an incredible amount of damage inside of the body. It's just one of the most idiotic statements.

Let me back that up. It's not idiotic. I apologize for using that term. It's an uneducated, inexperienced position to hold. If you say things like that, it just means that you have absolutely no experience or understanding of what it takes to be in one of these situations. And you really haven't thought through what it means to actually shoot at another human being and why you would shoot at another human being. Okay. It's not safer to shoot somebody in the leg or the arm. Okay. Last part of this question. How would I have responded? If I was a law enforcement officer in that situation and you had gone through the escalation of force continuum, you had gone with your non-letal lethal, you had pepper sprayed, and you had tased, I would have responded

in exactly the same way. If this was my old job, I would skip the first two steps and I would have seen holding a knife and running with a knife in your hand at me. That is both hostile act and hostile intent. I would have taken lethal action and that would have been the end of it. And five rounds probably would have been extremely reasonable. So it's unfortunate that this individual was in this situation. And I, here's another thing that I think it would help if people wrap their heads around. It's okay to be empathetic of this individual and their family and also the police. Do you think that the law enforcement officer that took that life? Do you think they woke up that morning thinking, oh, you know what, today is the day. And I'm not saying

that there's not cops like that, because there's certainly seals like that, who their whole existence is, oh, I'm going to go get my fucking jihad on. I'm sure that there's cops out there who are trying to look and do the same thing. And they're wearing a badge for the wrong reason. But I don't think that's the majority. As a matter of fact, I think it's statistically a microscopic, a microscopic percentage of the actual community itself. So the individual who took that life, trust me, they're going to have to deal with some of it too. And I bet you they woke up that morning not thinking that they were going to be burdened with that decision during that day. It's okay to support that officer and also have empathy for the individual that was killed

and being able to support that family. It is a very possible thing to do. And if we wrapped our head around that a little bit, especially here in the United States, where we could mourn with a family and also still support the police for the difficult decisions that they have to make, we would be better for it. All right. Here we go. I'm going to do one more and then be done with it. Looking through the questions. What do we want to end with today? Let's end with what is or what are three small daily habits you would recommend people that might have a greater positive impact than it seems. This is a good one because 2021. We're firing it off. If you listen to the fallout of Friday with Trevor, we're talking about if you identify somewhere you can make growth, do it now. Don't wait for it. So, goals.

Three small daily habits. Number one, and this is what I try to do in my own personal life. Do something small and disciplined to start your day. Now, I was talking about this, and I get lost in the mix sometimes. It was either McChrystal or McRaven. I think it was McChrystal, because I think I said McCraven last time. It's one of the mix. Gave a speech at a college talking about making your bed in the morning.

And I love that concept. But what it really is is something small and disciplined. In the morning, perhaps it is get up when your alarm goes off the first time. Perhaps it is make your bed. Perhaps it is first thing in the morning, what you're going to do is you're going to go in and you're going to brush your teeth. What it is for me is just a little bit of a flick on the ball of daily momentum. Not the ball sack, because that would be fun too to flick that.

But no, I'm talking about if he had like a steel ball and just nudging it in the right direction. First thing in the morning and it has two directions it can go. It could go left or right. Left being undisciplined, not doing the things that I need to do, right being disciplined and working through the things I need to do. Just a small little nudge to the right. That is what I recommend everybody start their day with. Find what it is that works for you. Make it small. Make it disciplined. And make it something that maybe you don't want to do because then you'll know it's meaningful. Number two, this is one I work on every single day. Drink more water. And I bet people didn't think I was going to say that. But look right here right in front of me. I got my jug of water. And it's actually labeled. This was a Christmas gift. And I'm thankful that I have it because probably the thing I forget to do often is hydrate enough. And it makes me feel tired.

It makes my head cloudy. If my head is cloudy or not, I'm not going to say cloudy. I'm just not thinking as well. But if I'm not thinking as well and I'm tired, guess what I don't want to do? I don't want to do the things that I know I need to do. Maybe that's work out. Maybe that's fire up my laptop and respond to the business emails that I need to. Fill in the blank.

drinking more water my energy levels are higher my recovery is higher my thought process is better the only negative consequence that i have found is you have to pee more but those are first world problems so drink more water and number three write down your goals this one has had a huge impact on me and i've seen it have an impact on others i have a notebook in front of me i actually created a notebook for the podcast, specifically because of the impact that this has had on my life. I will sit down in the morning or the night before and I'll write out my daily goals because for me, there is power in the written word. And it also allows me to brainstorm in a moment where there's no stress.

I'm just thinking about what it is that I need to do. And it's terrible how many times at the end of a day I'll have to put down a bullet point for the next day because I first. forgot because in throughout our you know daily ups downs and left and right I completely forgot about something that I needed to do and it didn't hit me until the end of the day is like shit I needed to do that today what do I do first thing on the list for tomorrow then I check them off there's just power in that written word for me there's a level of accountability and I'll basically dedicate a page every day like is in this notebook for me I don't know what the deal is

I like to make little squares in front of them so I can check off what it is that I need to do. And I like looking back at the end of the day, reviewing what I did the previous day, thinking about what I need to do the following day. And again, I start off my day with a little nudge towards discipline. I stay hydrated. Or I'm trying to stay hydrated. I'm not going to sit here and lie to even say I do. I'm trying to do better. But all of that is so I can accomplish those things that I need to accomplish. So hopefully that helps you. Small discipline, drink water, and write down your daily goals. That's it. For the first episode, of 20, 21.

And I think I'll close with something I should probably open with more often. And that's a thank you to everybody who actually takes the time to listen to the podcast. I never thought in a million years I'd be sitting in a studio completely dedicated to talking into a microphone. I'm still consistently baffled that people want to hear what it is that I have to say. Because, God, I feel like an idiot, eight days out of seven. It's, you know, I'm struggling through life just like I think everybody else is, and I do my best to be honest about that. And for those of you that take the time to, you know, submit these questions or listen, all I can say is thank you. I hope it helps you in some way, me sitting down and doing things like I just did for the last hour or so.

It helps me immensely. So hopefully we can all try to grow together. 2021 everybody first week starts in 13 hours monday 13 hours from now get out there get it done that's all i have enjoy your week