Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 196 - Kevin Estela

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

Kevin Estela is the Director of Training for Fieldcraft Survival. A lifelong outdoorsman with over 2 decades of teaching in the great outdoors, Kevin is well versed in bushcraft and survival skills. Kevin is the former Lead Survival Instructor of the Wilderness Learning Center under the late Marty Simon and the author of 101 Skills You Need to Survive in the Woods and over 150 published magazine titles. He regularly hones his capabilities in different environments around the globe including arctic, desert, and jungle with the most emphasis in the northern forest. He joined Fieldcraft after 14 years of teaching public high school history. Rounding out Kevin's background is extensive training in Filipino Martial Arts, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and completion of numerous pistol, shotgun, carbine, and precision scoped rifle courses. A student for life, Kevin is constantly pursuing more knowledge and experience to impart to his students. https://trustandwill.com/clearedhot https://drinklmnt.com/clearedhot https://betterhelp.com/clearedhot https://tenthousand.cc  

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Let's talk about my guest. Kevin Estella, currently the director of training at Fieldcraft Survival. One of my favorite companies, obviously, due to my friendship with Mike Glover, but beyond that, what the company actually stands for. And Mike actually connected the two of us. I'm very grateful that he did. Kevin, now, was a professional educator and a writer. He worked in academia for 14 years, teaching, and got to a point where he wanted to move on

from that environment. and he describes it at length on the podcast, so I will not. And now is teaching survival full time for fieldcraft survival. He does a great job of explaining who he is, where he comes from, and what he does. So I'll allow you to get into the episode. Episode number 196 with the man himself, Kevin Estella. Enjoy him. So we were just talking about how much of a slave driver Mike Glover is and how you have no time for anything.

and you're expected to work. What was, would you say 120 hour work weeks, which I'm not even sure on the math on that. I'd have to have Mike check the math because he's my quantitative. I would say it's at least 80 hours. At least 80. I'm half Asian, but I'm the worst Asian at math. I don't know how it came up or how he and I started making that joke.

I'm basically, I'm pretty sure he said, well, I'm Asian, so I'm great at math. And I just took the ball on that one and ran with it. Terrible drivers. Great at math. I've been around some great Asian drivers. Mm-hmm. And also some guys that's, bucket math that are Asian. So, you know, we'll just put that in the category of stereotype.

Mm-hmm. Where do we begin? God, I don't even know. Uh, you know what, you know what should start? Actually, I'm going to grab your book and throw it on the table. Yeah, sure. Because this book is awesome. I'm glad you like it, by the way. I'm glad you like it. Full of things that, uh, I would say most people should know. And that, uh, you know, even after a full military career, even in special operations, I'd say you have a good 60 to 70 percent. But there's some other great stuff in there as well. But dude, before the book, because if you start reading about the book and what you got you interested in survival, you got to tell him about your dad, man, and his upbringing. It's an unbelievable story that needs to get to Hollywood at some point.

And I'll say it's one of those things as a little kid. People were like, there's no way in hell that happened. And I'm like, absolutely, the town is still there. people still talk about it. It's been documented in other books, but from different perspectives. And it's the whole idea that in January of 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army marched into the Philippines. And it was shortly after the bombing in Pearl Harbor. And what happened was my grandfather, who was not American, he was Spanish Filipino. He said, I need to move the family into the jungle. And I need to move into the jungle because I don't want my family to be used as leverage since he was somewhat controversial and political and outspoken.

He's like, I can't let them hurt my family. So he moved them onto the property into a ravine where they had a cave system and they lived in that cave from 1941 until 1945. So this was my father, my uncles, a number of people from the town. And when people say, oh, an invading army could never do something like that. It's like, yes, as a matter of fact, they did. And multiple families in the Philippines hid from the Japanese. And it was not, it wasn't one of these, these things where it's like Red Dawn, where they're going and actively engaging. It was purely defensive because, I mean, you're dealing with a bunch of, of civilians in the Philippines who are fighting against a very mentally hardened opponent.

And they did not want that. So, so my dad grew up, he was born in 1939. He grew up the first few years of his life in the jungle in a freaking cave. And when I tell people, I'm like, yeah, my dad grew up in the jungle in a cave. They're like, no, he didn't. I'm like, yeah, he's a cave man. And at one point, literally, pun intended. Yeah, and at one point, he actually got whooping cough.

And there was no modern medicine back then. So they used local folklore and books to find the local herbal remedies to treat that. But, I mean, he almost died on multiple occasions because what kind of living conditions are in a freaking cave. And they went out and they hunted at night and fished at night and hid during the day. Can you imagine how that? that would change your perspective of the world? Even to this day, my dad's 82 years old. Even to this day, every single night

he checks under every single bed, he checks every single door. He, I mean, as a young kid, I always thought my dad was paranoid, but if I were put into that situation, I could understand, like, he never was diagnosed with PTSD, and I don't think he would ever want to have that label.

But there's no doubt about it, he was super, super vigilant when I was a kid. And I mean, even when I travel, like I'm gonna talk to him tonight, You know, and he's probably going to be like, well, make sure you lock the doors. He always says that. You know, like, it's like, Dad, I think we're beyond that. We're in Calisville.

I think we're good. But I mean, also lock the doors. Just lock the doors. You know, we got a little bit of meth up here. It's a hell of a drug. Never tried it. Seen some people who are on the ride. Doesn't look good.

Yeah. You're usually swinging the signs on the street corners, huh? There is a man. And, you know, I'm not an expert at creating signs or holding them in traffic. This man, though, basically has a Steinbeck novel. written on the front and backside of it. Two things. Sir, it's too small for me to read unless I'm right at the light.

And two, I'm trying to read it, but you turn it too fast for me. All right? So you really need to slow it down. I'd like, it's something about 5G causing the root of all evil. That's all I can tell you because I can only get a sentence or two down this thing. It's very narrow. It's small. I need a bigger sign and just, how about I'll flash my lights when I'm ready for you to flip it?

Oh, it's five, I don't know. know apparently 5g might be the root cause of all evil i'll let you know if i can ever i'll text you me like hey this is the other side of the side it's between 5g and chem trails you know apparently those are spraying all the population maybe there's some tied together yeah i've never been much of a tinfoil hat guy so i can't really get behind that stuff within the survival community there's absolutely a lot of folks like that and you just kind of have to measure your statements with them and try to be a have as good of a poker face as you can because sometimes i'm like what are you telling me well i think you did a good job of addressing it. The magazine article that you sent me, what was it,

recoil magazine? Yes, yes. You, they asked you about preppers, which depending on what experience you've had, maybe somebody who has only had one experience with what would be called a prepper encountered a tinfoil hat person. That's probably going to give you an inaccurate idea of what that entire community is as a whole because, I mean, you can describe it better than I, but there's a difference between preparation and paranoia and prepper doesn't have to mean a guy who's lining the inside of his house with tinfoil to keep the alien wavelengths out it could be like you mentioned in the article fill your car up when it gets to a half a tank as it posed empty preparedness not waiting for the alien invasion or whatever else preppers what are preppers worried about by the way

because i bet you you bounce into them every once in a while you know there are so many there are So many folks out there that have their own idea of what their survival or long-term emergency scenario is going to be. And I mean, living in Utah, obviously, I'm among the LDS. And the LDS has such a network of emergency stores for their members. And they have. Do they? Oh, my gosh. If you've never seen the LDS survival manual, it's about 150, 200 pages.

And it goes into the nutritional content of all the foods you can store, how long they can store, how you can lift up your table and put food inside the legs. and how oh it's i wasn't even aware they had a manual it's phenomenal and for for what it's worth i mean whether you guys are into the religion or not you don't have to be just pick up that manual and i mean they did their homework so the preppers i mean you've got some that that believe that the government is going to come in and take everything from them you've got some folks that believe that the russians are coming you've got some folks that believe that the the super volcano is going to explode whatever it may be i like the idea of prepping as a virtue because on a large scale on a large scale it's definitely something that that is important for you know like the longevity

of your family but on a small scale wake up in the morning and throw a lighter in your pocket guess what you're prepping you know you're prepping for something yeah i view it as a positive term not a negative term and as long as you don't encounter tinfoil hat people it's a positive term yeah when you encounter the guy who sleeps every night in the homemade bunker that's camouflaged and then he's out there raking to make sure that there's no footprints i don't want to hang out with that guy yeah and they're And they're probably sizing you up too. You know what I mean? Like they're probably thinking about how they can take your job.

I'm the Manchurian candidate. I served in the military and so therefore I still have deep ties to the government. And I'm controlled by 5G. Obviously, that's what that guy's saying through an Xbox controller somewhere in Washington. Yeah, you're a deep stater. Yeah. Yeah, it's a wild world out there. And I think, let's call it the last two years.

I suspect this would be a good question for you. The volume with people taking a look at preparation for the first time. I'm going to imagine it looks like an Elon Musk rocket taking off. It has been phenomenal. And this is the average person. Like Mike Glover always says, he's like, I want to get the person who is on the far end of the political spectrum, who normally wouldn't want to have a conversation with me. I want to get a person like that in a class. And guess what?

They're showing up. And what's interesting is, regardless of who you want in office, they're showing up with the same interest, the same idea saying, I want to know what I need to do to survive in my car in case it gets strained on the side of the road. road. And guess what? I don't care who you are. I'll teach you because my goal is I want to level up everyone to have that sense of security because I know then that we don't have to divert our precious resources and police law enforcement, you know, police fire EMS to help those folks if they can help themselves. But yeah, it's gone through the roof. And, you know, it's interesting because it's not only based on politics, it's also based on age. You're seeing more and more parents saying, I want to get my kids involved sooner as opposed to what it used to be where it was like, I don't know.

I don't know if they're too young for it. It's like this pandemic affected everyone regardless of age. So it didn't matter what your age was, what your sex, your creed. Everyone right now is taking an interest. And you're no longer paranoid because guess what? It's happened to everyone. And we're seeing more and more folks outdoors. So so that's a good thing.

It's interesting, you know, listening to you talk about the people that you're seeing. I mean, today is yesterday the day before a terrible example due to what's happening in Afghanistan and how politicized and finger-pointing that has become. But then you look back to past before the election cycle or the last electoral cycle, even when it came to Trump, the politicization of everything that was said and everything that was done and the finger-pointing. The hard skills that you guys are teaching, they actually don't give a shit in what side of the aisle you sit on. Like you said, your creed, your ethos, your sex.

your age, starting a fire doesn't give a shit about any of those things. Shelter. Being able to source clean water. Like, you know what? No one gives a shit about your political beliefs. So I can, you know, it's probably one of the few places right now. I'm sure there's other great examples of things that are hard to politicize. But survival skills, like, I can't think of a way you could.

Right. Actually, well, this is the way we start a fire on the right. We use a counterclockwise. It's like, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. Dude, we got to go back to your dad. So your dad grows up in that world because I, and again, in the reading that I've done in the book and in the article, it talks about the influence of your father.

Yes. It's not like he went to a survival course. And when they made your grandfather, when they made that decision or he made that decision to go out into the jungle, I mean, was he just school of hard knocks 101 out there figuring it out? He carried a Mossburg 22 that was fed through the buttstock. So it was like a Browning Auto. But it was made by Mossburg and he carried in 1911. And that was it. Like when people talk about, oh, I got my AR-15 or I got my AK or I got whatever for their bugout rifle, how about a 22 and a 45 ACP?

You know what I mean? Like that. I mean, but also, yeah, take the AK too. That's an excellent. That's a fine quail rifle. Just make sure you aim high up on the neck. Yeah. And I'll tell you, there's some crazy stuff that happened along the way that.

just couldn't have been included in that article because there wasn't a space. Like he was friends with the negritos. The negritos translates to little black people. And in the Philippines, if you read like the conquest of the Philippines, it's a book from the 19th century about the negritos. They're like, they're black with kinky hair. And I'm thinking to myself, that description never fly today. But historically, that's what they were called. Yeah. And they were essentially aborigines. And my grandfather met these aborigines. And what they did is they showed him a poison in a plant that was, within the Dita family. And he would hollow out the 22 bullets, fill it with poison.

And that's what he was using. He's like, I don't need to shoot the person center mass. I could hit him in the leg and they're going to die. That's savage. It was total badass. So again, picture this, right? Like you're a kid, right? You're me at four or five years old.

And my dad being my dad, he's telling me these stories by the bedside. And I'm like, I don't care about throwing a football. I don't care about, you know, catching a, you know, any type of, you know, sports balls, like, like baseballs with the catch. or anything like that, I want to learn these skills. So yeah, my grandfather, he went in there. He moved the whole town. They occasionally sent folks back into the town, but the town was being destroyed. The Japanese, they moved in. They occupied my father's home and everything got destroyed. When they got back, there were holes in the wall, bullet holes. I mean, everything that had clean

water was was soiled. I mean, it was terrible. And my dad for the longest time was like, you know, war is hell. You know, because he's, I saw it as a little kid. It is hell for sure. Did they know like the cave that they lived in for the four plus years? Did he find that on the fly? Was he a dude who was like, you know, was, I mean, I mean, there's a lot more than finding shelter, obviously, the water source, the hunting.

I mean, seriously, were they just figuring this out and refining as they went? No. So the history of like the Estella family in the Philippines, like my, my great grandfather came over from Spain at the age of 14. When he came over from Spain, he bought like a small piece of. a land and he started growing coconut, abacab, bananas, you know, things like that, and eventually grew it out. Well, they had this piece of property that my grandfather used to patrol or walk around with like a bolo machete and a 45. And he knew the land. But in terms of finding that

location, it was ideal because it was at the base of a ravine. They did hear footsteps on the top of the ravine throughout the day, but they also had a facade that they could put over the entrance of the cave and that's where that's where they hid so it was there they knew about it um but it was it was an ideal uh i don't know if any cave could be ideal even if you're in like a 2,200 square foot five bedroom cave it's still a cave at the end of the day that's right that's right wow so your dad spent some very interesting years in that cave i mean it had to have touched him for the rest of his life like you said with lock the doors look underneath How old was he when he left the Philippines?

26. What did he leave for? What was the reason to leave? So after the war, my uncles and my father, they had to go on with their lives. So they entered the local military school and they all pursued different things. One became an attorney, one became, I'm trying to recall what one of my uncles was over there, like a business owner. My father went to medical school as so many Asians do. But what was interesting was that my dad was,

when he joined medical school, he never wanted to kill anything after being through the war and after wondering, you know, what is the meaning of life, right? Like he was blown away by it. So to get everyone through schooling and to get them over here to the United States, the family sold off pieces of land. So every time that one of my father's brothers would go through schooling, they'd still have a piece of land, go to school. And then next, you know, the plantation got smaller. I don't even think there's really much land and over there anymore that my family still has. but in any case my dad came here in 1965 and when he got here the what blew him away everyone was blonde he's a crazy blonde fanatic he loves he loves blonde women my woman my mother is is blonde and he he almost did not come to Connecticut because he landed in California and he's like oh my gosh

I cannot leave yeah I cannot leave and then when he got here he couldn't believe that you go to a supermarket and there were multiple brands of every item in every aisle because I mean in the Philippines by the time he left there were still people that didn't have hot running water they didn't have flush toilets and he was he believed that the United States was the greatest country in the world and he was so eager to become a citizen here and he's one of the proudest citizens to this day how long did he practice medicine for he's still practicing bro what is his specialty he's internal medicine okay he had home in office for a long time so my mother and my dad were working as you know doctor and office manager

She's a doctor too? No, no, she's the office manager. I was going to say, Jesus. Yeah, my mother never went to college, but she's one of the smartest women I know. Very, very business savvy. Well, there's a difference between educated and intelligent. Absolutely. And this is coming from a former teacher, right?

So, yeah, my dad is still practicing. And he said that as long as he has air in his lungs, he will continue to practice. Because the family motto is to the last drop. And it's basically, you do not give up fighting until the last drop of blood is out of your body. And that's what my grandfather instilled in him. And that's what my dad passed on to me, which explains my work ethic because I will continue trying to help people until I can't do it anymore. And he wakes up every morning. He does push-ups in his underwear, which drives my mother crazy.

I can see that. Picture an 82-year-old Filipino dude doing push-ups in his underwear. But, yeah, he still will practice medicine until he can't anymore. And he loves what he does. So, God bless him. That's amazing. And I feel like you may have received some pressure to become a doctor when you were younger. Yeah.

You know, it's kind of like, and I mean, he's from your pedigree, the Navy SEAL that was the astronaut and the doctor. Oh, God damn it. I'll remember. Johnny Kim. Yeah, Johnny Kim. And, you know, the, the meme is like. He is known as one of the largest underachievers in the SEAL community. Really?

No. Are you kidding me? I don't know. I'm super gullible. I'm also half Polish. Like, from L.A., and you listen to his podcast with Jocko, not the most amazing upbringing, which he didn't really tell. I don't know him personally, by the way,

but listening to him talk, he didn't really tell anybody about what he had grown up through. Makes it through buds, was a corpsman, does some amazing stuff in battlefield medicine. Let's just go to Harvard. Goes to Harvard.

Becomes a doctor. Well, maybe space needs medicine. So it becomes an astronaut and is probably going to be the dude who plants the flag on Mars. I mean, I don't know. So yeah, I use the term underachiever, very tongue-in-cheek.

Well, and that was the big, meme joke about him, it was like Asian parents, is that all? Oh shit, that's a great meme. You know? I don't think I can say that though because a white person's saying that would be like, that's racist. I'm giving you half credit. I can't give you full credit.

You technically said it. So I'm half racist apparently because I'm half Polish. So, uh, but yeah, my dad never really pressured me to do it. He said that modern medicine today is very political. It's not the way that it used to be. Everyone thinks that it's glamorous, but, you know, you've got to constantly fight the insurance companies to get paid. And it's, you know, it's something that he found very, very rewarding.

And he enjoyed having that bedside manner and working with people. And he always respected his profession where he would go to the hospital, never without a suit on. Like he would, he would always go dressed up to the, as best as he could, because he's like, that's what they deserve. Do you remember seeing pictures of people like flying on airplanes in 1970s? Business suits. Dude, they're just fixing their tie up. Definitely the little handkerchief sticking out of. the pocket cuff links they're to the nines yeah and then now you go on social media but people are all

pissed i got thrown off the airplane for wearing this and they're basically their entire clothing could be surmised as an eye patch like it's enough fabrics like you should be pitched off the airplane or it's what i experienced today where it was a very heavy set person in a pug shirt and the pug was getting eaten by their ass um okay you know what i mean like just she sucked in so yeah it used to be like a like a, like a, like a, we live in a strange, strange time, Kevin. Yeah, for sure. Now, I love those old pictures because people were, it was like an affair.

It was a to-do to get on this flying machine. And I think my favorite part, though, is that, you know, smoking in first class, but. Classy. Yeah, well, not in the back. And we'll make sure that, you know, that smoke from the front doesn't go into the back from all these nice barriers of air. Right. Come on, people. Yeah. Different time for sure.

That's awesome. Your dad sounds like the type of doctor that everybody would want to encounter when they need some help with internal medicine. Yeah. My friends in high school, some of them would go to him. And they'd tell me and I'm like, you're telling me that you're going to my dad. And my dad would never tell me because of the hipah laws. And my friends would be like, yeah, you know, he would come in and, you know, do a physical. And he'd take the blood pressure cuff and put it around my neck and start screwing around.

Like, you know what I mean? Like he had a way to just mess with people. But everyone loved him. They called them the dock, you know, like. And my friends loved going over because he still has a slight Filipino accent. And the things he would say just would crack people up, like jokes that he never got the punchline right, you know, which I tend to watch. Those are the best kind. Yeah. Yeah, those are the best kind.

That is awesome. So you, before we even talk about the survival stuff, you started your career in education. Correct. And again, based off of what I was reading, it sounds like some of those stories and the history of your own family lit this fire or passion for you to have just. just a pursuit of history in general. Yes. Because that is what you taught, correct? Correct.

Correct. I taught for 14 years and two months. And I taught at Bristol Central High School, famously where Aaron Hernandez, the New England Patriot, went to school. And now we have an amazing rising star who's like seven foot four. He's going to be a basketball phenomenon. Donovan Klingin. Shout out to you, buddy.

Good kid. Amazing kid. That's too tall. He's amazing. Like he's such a nice kid. And it's funny when you watch him sit in. a desk because he can't sit in a normal desk. Well, what's average door height?

Oh, my gosh. I mean, does he have to duck? I mean, your door in the studio, he'd probably be okay. He crack his head. Yeah. So, yeah, I taught for all that time. And I enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong.

You know, I always believe that history was, was something that more people needed to understand, but not necessarily, like, just strict regurgitation of like, oh, what date did this happen? And what, it was more important to understand why something happened then or why. something happened there as opposed to just that it happened then or there you know what I mean so so I enjoyed every minute of doing of doing that I enjoyed working my co-workers and interacting with the kids there was obviously a bunch of nonsense that we had to deal with in the past year and a half with wearing masks and being told that you know we're you

know we're gonna have to worry about these kids transmitting the virus to us and we're like these kids don't catch it you know like yeah so overall it was a good experience So you very recently stopped teaching full-time and transition to teaching survival full-time. Okay. Less than a year. Damn. Okay. So you got to experience that environment.

You know, in watching my own kids at the end of, not this last year, the end of the year before was when COVID, I remember at least hearing about it. And essentially, our school system up here overnight said, hey, we're going to go remote, which was we're going to meet each other on Zoom for a few minutes. and basically your attendance is good. And basically, they said, whatever your grades are at right now, how about we just lock these suckers in? And it was like a month. So basically they went to summer school for, or I should say, summer vacation. Because they would log in, hey, everybody, log out and go do whatever the hell they want to do.

Yeah. Which I'm okay with. Then we go through summer and they start talking and we get emails from the school. Hey, we're going to do both in person or remote, in person, mask required, social distancing, some bizarre setups when it came to, you could only eat lunch, I believe it was with certain people at certain table, very structured in comparison to before.

So my kids all chose online school. And I feel like they did that based off their experience of the end of the school year, the year before. And lo and behold, they started getting what's known as a curriculum sent to them and a syllabus, and they hated it.

Yes. Online school did not serve I have three kids, almost 18, just turned 16, just turned 13, boy, boy, girl. It didn't do well for any of them. Not that it can't do well for anybody,

but I don't think that they took really any monumental step forward when it came to their education. And I can't imagine from the teacher's perspective, it was that much easier or more effective either. No, and quite honestly, if you talk to the teachers, the only way I can describe this is kind of like, talk to middle management and talk to employees

that interact with people on the retail floor. or talk to say like a police chief versus the police officers that are on the street. The teachers, and I don't like using this term, but the teachers that were on the front lines, right, dealing with the kids, they wanted to be there. They wanted to be in person. They were willing to risk everything to do that or risk, whatever you want to call it, you know, for a 99.99.99% survival pandemic. Many times they were told that they couldn't do something.

And that was the most frustrating part. We realized that kids were gaming the system. They realized that if they said, you know, oh, I don't feel like my mental health was good. Boom, instant out, right? Instant out. And then what was the most, I'd say insulting component of the whole thing was the lack of consistency and the arbitrary enforcement of social distancing. You do have to social distance on the bus.

You do not in the hallway. You do in the classroom. In the cafeteria, you all have to face the same way, but you can sit next to people. During fire drills, oh, don't worry about the one way. hallways, which was brand new. Now, imagine this one. Like there's a, I saw those for the first time in a grocery store. Oh my gosh. There were arrows pointing, and I'll be, I'll be honest, the opposite direction that I was going. Yes. I didn't realize it until I was halfway down the aisle. Yes. That was a new one, one way grocery shopping. Yeah. So, I mean, the arbitrary enforcement of all

the social distancing was starting to weigh on people. And as you mentioned, with the distance learning, it didn't really give the kids the rigor that they needed. It was, it was trying to unroll too much at once too much of a of a shift from what they were used to. And a lot of these kids understood how they could game the system. They could sign on, check out. Yeah. And as you mentioned, uh, there was, it was very difficult to give anyone a failing grade. And we were told how you can't fail students because, you know, how horrible this is. It's like this student never showed up once. They didn't put in any effort. And I'm supposed to pass them. And then the answer was, well, you have to be empathetic. You have to understand. And I'm like, this is not flying with me. And it was weighing

on me and it made my decision that much easier to leave in October. I didn't realize too, you know, so where we are in Calispell has areas that are much more remote. So the schools were offering to tablets, right? Because if they were going to offer remote learning, there's a lot of kids that didn't have access to the devices, but the tablets alone still didn't give them access to the internet at a lot of places. So it highlighted some pretty severe discrepancies in people's ability to even engage in the online curriculum. There are some people up here. I mean, I'll keep it super broad, but some families that have shattered apart.

And I know of a family where the time is split for the kid, but for a long period of time, the kid was staying in a tent. Oh, my God. With one of the family members. And guess where you're not going to have a great online learning environment where there's probably no fucking Wi-Fi? Right. I mean, how is that kid being served? He's not. He's being failed by the system.

No. And, you know, what happened, a term that came about was technological triage. If you had a smartphone that could connect to the internet, you weren't getting one of the school provided or district provided technological devices. And the experience wasn't the same. I know I can't look at my phone for hours and hours and hours at end, but I could look at a computer a lot longer. And you get multitask on a computer. Pull up windows, get on the internet. And you can type out homework assignments. So it definitely brought up, you know, how far behind we are in, the society as advances we want to admit we are as a culture. We definitely are not doing things as well as we could. But what's interesting about this is the idea of snow days. It's pretty much gone now because you can learn from home on a day that there's snow on the ground because you have technology. So that's something that a lot of kids don't like is that. I feel like snow days sometimes were just for teachers to go, you know what? I'm taking this day for me. I love that. I will not lie. And there are many teachers out there. And I,

I feel like I'm throwing all the teachers under the bus, but it's well known. If we knew that we were getting pounded with snow, like Superstorm, blizzard, whatever, I knew a lot of teachers that were like, I'm hitting up a liquor store, and it's going to be a sit-at-home day, and, you know, that type of stuff does happen. Hey, I think anybody who teaches kids deserves a sainthood to begin with, so if they know they're going to have a day off and they want to have a little snow martini, go get some, wherever you are out there. You're not all heroes wear capes, you know. Some of them go to school and they teach other people's kids.

And some people's kids, to include my own sometimes, are horrible. Yeah. How'd you settle on or the path to becoming a history teacher? What does that look like? Do you go to school and most of the courses you took in college were for history? Well, when I went to college, I was undecided. And for a long time, my plan was going to be lawyer. I was planning on going to law school.

I was pre-law. I actually was supposed to go to a law school convention in the Twin Towers, the Saturday after 9-11. Oh, wow. My senior year was 9-11, and I went to school about 50 miles from Ground Zero. Senior year of high school or college? College. Okay. Yeah. So I'm 41. And I remember on that day, like, no one knew what was going on. Like, we didn't know what was going on. I just recall thinking to myself, I'm like, do I want to interpret the law or do I want to enforce the law? And for a while, I contemplated state law enforcement, federal law enforcement, local law enforcement. And I just, I was screwed up in the head. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So then I was like,

like let me just continue with what I do know and that was being a student. So I went to grad school and I started doing research papers and, you know, and now I'm a struggling grad student essentially like a lot of these these guys in higher ed. And I was like, let me just substitute teach. And as I started substitute teaching, you know, the kids would ask me questions like, hey, mister, what's what's going on? What are you working on? And I tell them and I noticed that more and more kids are paying attention. I'm like, maybe this is something for me. So I took the exit exam for becoming a teacher. I'm like, let me just see if I know this stuff. And I passed with like two points away from like this high level distinction. And I'm like, I guess I know history. But then what freaked me out was that the entrance exam had math. And I was like, damn it, I'm going to need to know how to do like all this math again. Oh my God. So I ended up taking the entrance exam. I passed that.

Now I was offered a job, a long term subbing job. And I thought, oh, man, you know, my ticket's paid. I'm good to go. And they said, hey, you're not highly qualified to teach high school history. And I'm like, I'm teaching out of it. at a college right now. I'm teaching Western SIV. And they're like, oh, but you don't have the pedagogy classes, the classes on how to create a lesson plan. I'm like, are you serious? So I had to go back to grad school again. Really? Oh, it's terrible. And, you know, the good thing

is, is that, you know, as going back to grad school, interning, I got a chance to get a second master's degree. So I started off teaching eventually with with a high level of educational credit to my name, which started me at a higher pace skill. Still not great because, you know, teaching doesn't pay enough. But, you know, it was, that was my path. A lot of folks will go in from the, from the get-go in college, do four years and then become a teacher at 22. And what I will say is that mine was a little bit unorthodox, but it was the right

way, ultimately. Because I got in at a point where I felt like I was comfortable. I knew the content. I already had some experience in the classroom. and it was the right way to go for me. I've heard a lot about, generationally, the differences. And I saw the first time I guess I really saw it concretely

was when I went back to become a buds instructor. And students were coming in. And I think I had been in the military at that point, about 10 years. So yeah, I was in my mid-30s. They were in their late teens, early 20s. So I did notice a difference. But it was, it's not a great Indian.

of cultural or not cultural age difference because that environment one you're already listed in the military you're in a selection course it changes behavior i think is what i'm trying to say it's almost like this you will a forced amount of respect at least to the person's face oh yeah whereas in the schooling environment i feel like that might have been non-existent so i'm curious because you hear a lot of people bitching about uh what is it generation z or uh what the hell is the after generation I don't even know what they identify as and you can take that identification statement a lot of different ways, right? So, I mean, it's one, it's one thing one day and another thing another. What I will say about the kids that I saw, I mean, I was never in the military, but I had a lot of students that I saw on, I'm like, oh my God, they need to have something, some type of consistency. They need to have some type of discipline. And some kids that were, you know, the quote unquote troublemakers in high school, they came back squared away and I was like, damn, I'm proud of you. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.

Like they actually shook me in the hand. And they looked me in the eye and I'm like, wow, you never would have done that before. You know what I mean? Like it was it was powerful to see them transform like that. But the generation absolutely, I mean, in 14 years of teaching, I didn't see multiple generations, but I saw a couple. And I'll say that I did have a few students at one point that were they were children of students I had before.

But I'll say that the kids now, their attention span isn't as great as it used to be. And their ability to problem solve and create. creatively think has changed a lot too because they have this device in the palm of their hand, which is Giving them all these different impulses and different You know ways of seeing the world every seven seconds so they can't concentrate so the point where if I were to say hey, you have to read a paragraph in that book Many kids would say oh I I lost track after two sentences and that's not an exaggeration really? Yeah, there there were I mean listen, there are definitely kids that have severe learning disabilities where when they're given a passage in a book, you know, the special education teachers who are close to angels in my opinion, they have to

go through and they have to cross out anything that's not essential. But there are some kids that just by the fault of their own hand and the fact that they don't like to read, I mean, they're reading and then here's their phone, reading, here's their phone and you can't have their attention for more than two sentences. And it's something I wish I could revert because you know, I wish kids would just pick up a book and just read. But I mean that device in their hand is so damn attractive. Isn't it amazing too that that device gives you access to a breadth and depth of information and knowledge beyond the capability of the human brain to even retain it. And we as a species can't figure out how to use it

in a healthy manner. It's more entertainment than education. And I would tell the kids, I'm like, Guys, when you go on your device, ask yourself, is this information or is it entertainment? I said, just break it down into those two. Yeah. And if you're saying that it's more, it's more entertainment, maybe you want to spend more time getting informed with it. And they're like, oh, I don't know where I could find this information. I'm like, that device that you're making TikTok videos on for how many hours a day,

guess what? It's right there. It's just a different app. Correct. Yeah. Did you notice any similarities between the kids that you taught that were, really high level achievers like that cohort and then similarities between those that were the problem children or the bottom cohort whether it be upbringing parenting broken home oh yeah yeah

yeah i mean there there were always the exceptional kids the ones that that had these these horror stories that that rose up and improved that they could become the valedictorian um but i always noticed that the level of parental engagement really defined the kids like if if parents were super wealthy or or very low income, if they didn't care about their kid, their kid was gonna act out. They were gonna seek attention. If that parent at the, say, like the lowest level of society in terms of economics really cared about the kid.

And if that parent at the highest level, living the affluent lifestyle cared about the kid, then the kid tend to do well. Like there's a difference between being like a helicopter parent and being a parent that is working alongside the teacher to help the kid get the best education possible. Like when a parent would come in and say, hey, what can I do to help you help my kid learn?

That sounds a lot different. It is a lot different than what are you going to do to help my kid? Oh, yeah. Those are two very different things in very different parents. Very much different parents. So, yeah, I saw that that was the defining component was, I mean, it didn't matter if you had one parent or two. As long as you had someone that was there showing the kid the value of the education and giving them the idea that it's not an immediate payoff. Like you're going to be doing something for four years that will define what you do after high school.

If that parent could kind of give them a glimmer of, hey, look, you're going to live this lifestyle, you're going to do this, I'm going to help you. I want you to succeed. That kid succeeded. That really defined, you know, the kids that did really well. Did you have to deal with at all? I mean, I'm going to assume the answer is yes, but you had, we kind of touched on it, you know, when you said, I don't know what they identify as. Yeah. I'll be honest. This era of pronouns and, I mean, I don't. It goes beyond pronouns, but I mean, I guess that would probably be the most recognizable. Everything that goes with that, I really struggle to understand it. And I can't even imagine from a policy perspective what must have been thrown at you guys and gals, the teachers, or maybe whatever the teachers identify as, because I can't say guys.

How did you guys? How did you guys navigate that? Well, we're not even allowed to say, all right, guys. We're supposed to say, all right, class, which makes me feel like I should be like a 19th century school teacher standing in front of the classroom on a. podium but uh we i mean it was tricky it was definitely a minefield because when did the minefield start wow i mean it was there were students that were on the fringe so to speak that were testing the waters and i remember one years probably four or five years ago we were told if a student identifies as as one you know uh one sex over the other they're allowed to go into that particular

locker room and all the coaches like i was a track and field coach all the coaches are like this is going to become very difficult because how do you how do you tell a bunch of say girls or guys there's going to be someone in who is biologically different who's going to be looking at you in your room like it was tricky but we actually would get in trouble if we said no you are you must go there um you must go to what you are biologically assigned oh yeah that was something that came up and also if you were to say andy like hey i want you to call me spider i would have to call you spider in the class fucking way yes absolutely. What would happen if you didn't? Well, if I didn't, then they, I probably would have received a letter in my file. But like if you said, please don't call me Andrew and you said, call me Andy and said, if I insisted on calling me Andrew, I would have gone in trouble. But if a kid said, I want to be called, and this really did happen. I want to be called, let's just say, like Jane Doe instead of John Doe. I'd have to call John Jane. You're telling me if I came into your class and said, you have to call me Huckleberry milkshake, that you would have to have to. do that.

What the fuck, man? Do you see why I was really ready to leave education? Like, I always say that I was born like five centuries too late. Like I should have, I remember, like, at least five decades too late. Like I should have been, you know,

Main Street Americana, you know, growing up and teaching. But man, I'll tell you, it was definitely tricky. Well, where does that end? I mean, so they test the waters there and not that it's maybe, I don't know, I don't know if anybody views it as a a battlefield, but let's say they win that engagement and that you are compelled to say those

things. Otherwise, there's a punitive measure. Like, where does that stop? Where do you, where do we say, listen, this is unreasonable? Yeah, those are the kids that become the adults that hold up the sticker on the side of their car when the cop comes to the window and says, I'm only cracking my window X amount, you know, and I haven't seen that one yet. Is that a new thing? Oh, yeah. They where they say, I'm not opening my window. I'm not being arrested. Am I being detained? I mean,

there are people that deliberately will challenge state troopers and cops that are running radar and say, I'm not opening my window. I'm not complying. And it's a breakdown of respect for authority. That's what it comes to. And it becomes attention seeking behavior. And what people need to realize is that just because you have attention doesn't

mean you have respect, right? But attention is, it's a byproduct of like all these apps that we're on. I mean, I like using Instagram. to get out the survival message and show some cool gear. But I also know that it is, it's absolutely manipulative. And kids at a young age who are seeking attention are getting that reinforcement. And now they're seeking it elsewhere in their lives.

And it's so unhealthy. I would imagine, I mean, so would you guys ever have gatherings of just the teachers or staff? Oh, yeah. Was there a consensus in how people thought about this? Or was it actually contentious behind the scenes? I mean, let me put it this way. The teachers are all professional and, you know, there were questions. Like, is this really what we have to do?

Like, like, honest questions. And, you know, sometimes I'll say that like some of the teachers, you know, they, they were a little hesitant. Some of the older teachers, especially, the ones that for 30 something years, like 30 is the goal of the number of teaching. 30 something years, they did it one way. And they're like, I don't know if I can continue doing it this way. And, you know, many of them retired because of some of these policies that came through. Do you think that the educational system is, better or worse for those type of changes?

I think, I think, and this is going to be controversial, I think it's worse. The reason being is because we're catering to the needs of a few. And I understand that people are going to say, oh, but you know, it breeds conformity. Well, guess what? As a social studies teacher, my job is to teach people how to be good citizens, right? And, you know, you have the right to express your opinion and you have certain inalienable rights that no one can take from you. But when you start forcing people to to abide by, you know, your beliefs or your feelings, you know, what's that expression?

Your rights don't end where my feelings begin. Yeah. Like that's really, I mean, as someone who views himself, I'm registered and independent, but I'm very libertarian in a lot of ways. I'm like, damn, I hate the idea that I'm being forced to do something like that, you know. And just because your feelings are hurt doesn't mean that, you know, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong, you know. Well, what kind of arrogance does it take? for somebody to think that they're going to navigate through life and never be offended. What kind of arrogant asshole are you that thinks that you're never going to approach something or hear something

that doesn't go 100% with what you believe or that you don't think that it's off color? I mean, come on. Now, here's my favorite one, right? This is like one of the final nails in the coffin this year. I would always, as a teacher, I would always throw out at least one line of criticism, I would always give at least one level of challenge to a student whenever they make a statement. Now, I'm very much, you know, pro 2A. I've been shooting firearms for, geez, I don't know how many years for decades.

And even if a kid said, I think everyone should have guns. I would say, everyone? And he'd be like, well, you know, it got to the point towards the end of my teaching career where if I questioned even like, the slightest bit, I'd hear from a parent. I heard you were being very threatening to my child. Like, threatening. They would use that language. Threatening. or, you know, intimidated.

You intimidated my kid. And I'm like, I was sitting behind a desk or I was, you know, kind of with my arms upon the desk just being like, do you believe everyone? You know, and they, and in. Those were my favorite teachers in high school. And the ones that would push back on the ideas that you had because, of course, at 17, I had some pretty well thought out ideas for at least five or six seconds. I had put thought into it.

But I was definitely sure that the world revolved around my ideas. How else you're supposed to figure out the separate the wheat from the chaff, the bullshit from without being questioned? Right. And that was my whole idea. I said, look, and I made it a point to never express my views in the class. If the kids asked me in my opinion, I'd be like, guys, it's not my time or place right now to talk about that. I want you to form your own opinion. It's, that's more important to me.

And eventually, like, the kids found out about what I did through, you know, parents that knew me or whatever. And like, they would say, oh, you do some cool stuff on the weekends. I'm like, yeah, I do. But let's talk about that after. Like not during the school day. I didn't want to do that, but a lot of these kids did not like the fact that their arguments were being challenged and it wasn't really much of a challenge. It was just an affirmation like, do you believe that? And that alone would get parents fired up that I would challenge a kid. Meanwhile, I that's exactly what they should be doing. That's what the whole role of education is is to make your argument better because guess what I like a good argument. I like having friends that fall on different lines of the political spectrum and I like having arguments with them because ultimately at the end of the day, we're friends. You know, and I know that we're not going to. That's a lost skill, though.

The ability to have an argument or a heated or a passionate discussion starting as great friends and ending as great friends, if not better friends. And the ability to navigate that emotional spectrum. That shit is a few and far between. Yeah. I used to love it. And I, after a while, like towards the final months of the teaching career, when I knew that there were those parents that were just going to detonate. if I did anything to their kid, I was kind of like, you know what? I know that this, this can only go one way, you know, and I, and I wouldn't give in, but I just want to challenge at that point. I'd be like, your kid is not going to get as good of an education then because I know that that kid is super sensitive. I'm going to work with the kids that are open to discourse. Because some kids, they came in with their, their mind already made. And no matter what I was going to say, I was an adult, what did I know, right? You know, if here's a 14 year old kid or 18 year old kid or whatever. But yeah, I, I, I miss that aspect of teaching. I miss the aspect of having these good discussions where you start

seeing discussions between two kids, but then the ones on the fringe, they start saying like, wow, I never thought of it that way. Well, guess what? That's the whole role of having this debate or this dialogue. And that's sadly missing today. What was your favorite age range of kids to teach? I started teaching freshmen and I liked the freshmen because they were young and naive. And I could set them, I could set them on a course. I could set them on such a course early. on and they didn't stray from it. By the time I got to the sophomore class or the juniors, they knew everything. They knew the system. They knew how to play the system. The freshmen still had the fear of authority, right? And I could give them the good habits. And I love teaching

the freshmen, but I also like the seniors. The seniors were at that point where they realized the value of what they were doing. And they knew also that they needed my letter of recommendation for college. And some of these kids, like I just, I podcasted one yesterday who's in the Air Force Academy now. And he's, he told me yesterday on the podcast. He's like, yeah, you were a mentor to me and I'm like, damn, you know, there, I know there were kids out there that that use that term mentor. And I kind of just was like, oh, I'm a mentor. Like, whatever, you know, but it means a lot to a lot of kids. I like the seniors that realized, wow, when he was, you know, expressing this or when he, I was always one to red, red pen everything. Oh, and the kids hated that. They're like, damn, you are, they're like, you crossed out an entire paragraph. And, and I'm thinking of this one girl, Chloe. I'm surprised you can use a pen that's any color whatsoever without being racist. Not to get in a tangent. Not to get a tangent. There is a movement and people are going to say bullshit, but I promise you there is a movement to use purple and green instead of red because red is a threatening color. Is it though? It's not.

Is it though, you little bitchasses? Dude, I can't even tell you like from and now keep in mind all this time in education, I'm living in two worlds, right? Like I'm going to school. I'm teaching kids and on the weekends or during the weeknights, I'm training, right? I'm shooting. I'm doing jihitsu. I'm doing Filipino martial arts. I'm training survival skills with guys

and police, military. So I'm living in these two worlds and I'm like, this is like, how do I balance that? You know, like, yeah. You're like Bruce Wayne. In the daytime you have your suit on. And at night, you're standing on top of a building

in Gotham City fighting crime. Well, I guess the analogy there would be just two very different worlds. Two very different worlds. As long as I'm the Christian bail, Bruce Wayne and not the Val Kilmer one or the Ben Affleck. Val Kilmer one had powerful nipples, though,

on his suit. He did. Yeah, he did. And the, I mean, what was more impressive in that, though, was the cod piece that Robin was rocking. My God, that guy was just carrying around Muldier under his pants, man, just Thor's hammer down there. Yeah. I don't even know how he could climb a building with it weighing that much, but I digress. We don't need to go down that rabbit hole because we could talk about that for hours. Absolutely. When, so you're talking about what you were doing on the weekend, when did you start doing that? Or was that something you were doing going into college well into your earlier years? So, I mean, like formal education-wise, is outdoors education.

Like I learned from my dad a whole bunch of stuff. And I would go camping with him and like my friend Jared and, you know, my friend Harley and, you know, Ernie. Like in middle school, we'd go ride mountain bikes, right? We'd mountain bike everywhere, put our fishing poles on the, on the handlebars, you know, trying not to hit branches along the way and, you know, eat and shit along the way. So we did a lot of that as kids. And then in high school, I started working at an outdoor retailing store.

And I was like, all right, this is cool. I'm learning the products. I'm learning the technical aspect. And this is all in Bristol? So I started, this is, Bristol is where I lived. Uh, the outdoor store was in, uh, West Hartford, Connecticut. So like 15 miles away, but all in Connecticut. All in Connecticut.

Yeah, all in Connecticut. So, um, you know, I learned how to canoe and kayak a new Hartford, Connecticut on the Farmington River. I started really getting into paddling and whitewater kayaking. And then, uh, I was like, all right, let me just formalize my outdoor education, right? Like I would do side trips with my buddies up to Maine out to like, uh, you know, Mount Katata and Mount Washington, Mount Manadnach, things like that. And I was like, let me just see if my outdoors education is, is worth anything or, or, you

Do I need to change my path? So I went to like the main primitive skill school, Jack Mountain Bushcraft. And I'm learning like from these experts, these primitive guys and these bushcraft guys. And I'm like, okay, so my dad taught me some good stuff. This is great. Well, April of 2006, I met my mentor, Marty down in North Carolina at a product testing weekend. That first off, my parents were like, you're driving in North Carolina to hang out in a mountain with a bunch of dudes. And I'm like, I met him online.

Don't worry. It was on blade forums. My parents thought I was freaking crazy. You know, like I drove all that time to just play with knives in the woods. But I met my mentor, Marty, there with his wife. And I'm sitting in on a class with him. And he's like, oh, yeah, this is an old German foot trap. He goes, I don't even know why I'm showing you guys this, but it's kind of cool.

And I was like, this guy is different. There's something cool about him. So I went up almost 15 years ago to the day in August. I went up to Shattagay, New York, which is on the U.S. Canada border. Like, it is as north as you can go in New York. And I took a week long survival class with him and I was like, damn, this guy knows his stuff. He was a Vietnam veteran. He was infantry.

He specialized in booby traps. Like he was a career army survival instructor. And I'm like, this guy knows his stuff. So all throughout that year, all my friends from that class and that we were affiliated with, we'd all go on camping trips together. All my friends, the instructor, his wife. And the following year, that's when he, he's like, hey, you need to come up for the basic class. I'm like, all right, I'll come up for the basic class. I'm like, but Marty already took it.

He goes, no, no, you got to come up for it again. I'm like, fine, all right, whatever. So I go up for the class and he's doing introductions around the table. And he goes, by the way, that's Kevin. He's my new instructor. I'm like, okay, I guess I'm an instructor now. So, uh, so yeah, it was literally the same year that I started teaching in the high school. I was also teaching the survival skills.

And traveling around locally doing my own little thing here and there. And, uh, how would people find you if they wanted to take courses on the weekend? Dude, that was back. the day it was all online before Facebook before before Facebook became popular outside of like the college communities right yeah people would just call Marty he had advertisements in like old like American survival guide for a long time he used to advertise in there soldier of fortune i believe he advertised and it was like in the classified section so there wasn't even a photo or anything like that was like want to learn survival skills and call this number call this number

meet me in the woods and yeah and they and believe me for a while the government was checking out all of survival schools to make sure that they weren't putting out any anti-government information. Meaning they would send people to attend the courses? Here's a no bullshit story, right? This is this is one that blows a lot of people's minds. So, so Marty was an edible and medicinal plants expert. Like he was the foremost expert in North America, thousands of plants. You couldn't walk, you couldn't walk a yard and find, you know, have Marty stop and say,

like, oh, here's, you know, only a couple. I know. He would tell you 30 different plants in your backyard, right? So he's out on a plant. walk during a course and he's got a line of students and remember it's up on the US Canada border so now he's got a line of students and one of the border patrol agents comes by who knew Marty and was like oh Marty what are you up to he's like oh I'm out on a plant walk whatever and the border patrol agent looks down

the line of students and it's like hey Jeff or whatever the guy's name hey Jeff Jeff and Marty's like I don't have a Jeff in my class what is this so next you know this guy who Marty knew is I don't know I'm gonna make up a name Carl right crazy Carl crazy Carl steps forward he's like oh hey and you know and he knew the Border Patrol agent. Now, Marty was a no bullshit guy. Like, he carried a 357 cross-draw. He carried a gutting knife his entire life.

Like, people knew that this dude. Powerful combination. He was a guy that, yeah, he was a capable dude. And he had these hands that were like bananas, right? So he's like, Jeff or Carl, you know, we want to tell me what happened. He goes, Marty, I need to be forward with you. And he pulled out his credential. He's like, I'm working for the FBI.

He goes, it's my job this summer to check out all. the major survival schools to make sure that no one is is being, uh, you know, anarchist or anything like that. He's like, I'm going to report back to the bureau and tell them that you're squared away. He's like, I am so incredibly apologetic. Like, please, please, you know, don't hate me. And Marty said, this is what I want you to do. I want you to go back to the bureau and tell them that they need to fill up every one of my courses. Sell out every one of my courses. Like, this guy's putting out some suspect shit. We need to double the amount of agents we're sending. Yeah, but I'll tell you, like Marty was for someone who was, for someone who was

from that generation, right? Vietnam vet. He passed away last year. He was very, very untrusting of the government. And being on the U.S. Canada border, one of the things that happened, we had the camp kitchen up there 200 yards from the border, and Marty would always rake the kitchen. Well, he raked a very, very fine-tooth rake, and he locked it away in a storage closet, and he replaced it with a wide one. And he went out on one trip, came back, and it was re-raked with the wide one. And he believes that it was someone from Department of Homeland Security Checkup So

Yeah Son of a bitch Yeah so so that was Again that was the influence I had in my life That's one of the guys I dedicated the book to Yeah And I'm learning from Marty who is super distrustful of government And now I'm listening to the government

By way of the local board of ed And I'm like I can't trust the board of Ed You know I can't I can't believe what they're telling me to do right now So was it a hard decision for you to make To give it up? Yes Absolutely. Mike Lover contacted me after reading the book, after podcasting me, contacting me last year in June. And he said, hey, I want to pay for your travel out here.

I want to give you this, this, this, this. You're going to basically run your own company, you know, in terms of training director. And I'm like, man, this sounds really good, right? And this was right after Marty had passed away. And, you know, I'm a firm believer that you sometimes you just have to trust the signs, right? Marty gave me a shot at becoming a survival instructor in 2007, right? And I was like, here's an army guy who's giving me a shot at something that I've wanted to do for a long time. And I loved every minute of it working up there for five years. Well, here's another army guy, Mike Glover giving me a shot of doing that.

I was like, Marty just exited my life. Mike Glover is like, hey, I want you to join this company. And I'm like, hmm. So I flew out to Arizona. We taught a class called Bug Out on Foot. badass class and I was like this is where I need to be. And then when I got back and even though I tested negative in Prescott, and I'm like, this is great. I'm going to be able to go right back to work. State of Connecticut was like, oh, you came from a COVID hotspot. You have to quarantine for two

weeks. And I'm like, I tested negative. They're like, oh, it doesn't matter. You know, you've got quarantine. I'm like, I want to go back to work. They're like, oh, no, you have to quarantine. I'm like, it was already done. I already made up my mind. I'm like, I'm done. And, I thought I was going to finish out that school year. I thought I was going to say, all right, I'll do 15 years. But as the year went on and the craziness just ensued, I was like, I'm done. Would there have been any benefit? I don't know anything about the teaching structure.

There's no pension or retirement at 15 years, or is there? It's a very modest one that I won't receive until I'm, say, like, 55 or 60. Okay. So it didn't, it didn't really matter. I just knew, like, I started thinking like, all right, I'm 14 years into my career. If I doubled my teaching career, if I did 28 years, that's a lot of time to be dealing with this nonsense. And I was like, I could do that or I could be working with these folks like Kevin Owens and Mike and, you know, and George. And I'm like, damn, I want to work with folks that, you know, they see eye to eye with me.

They're never going to call me crazy for the stuff that I do on the weekends or how I train or what I want to do. And I was like, I got to make that decision. So I told my principal, I was like, Pete, I'm like, I'm really, I just want to be perfectly clear. Like I love you guys, but I can't do this. And I gave him the letter and he's like, dude, he's like, number one, congratulations. And that meant a lot to me because here's a guy that has been a friend of mine for a long time. The fact that he congratulated me first. But he knew that it was a right decision.

And a lot of the teachers knew that too. They're like, you're not going to last in teaching. And they didn't mean that because of lack of ability. They just knew that my mindset in the way that I viewed the world and the way that I had very little tolerance for certain nonsense that was being pushed away. They're like, you're going to find something. something else. And everyone that I know from teaching is happy that I made the move. They said that the kids still talk about me, which I miss those kids to death. Like, they definitely were the energy that that made me want to come in every single day. I don't miss some of the helicopter

parents. And I miss that, that community environment. But I, I know that I can always go back there. And, you know, that's something that that means the world to me. Obviously, neither of us are fortune tellers, but you got 14 plus years in education. If you had to make a guess as to whether or not the nonsense is going to continue to get worse or stabilize or maybe the pendulum back in the other direction. Where would you put your chips on a long-term bet? I don't think it's going to go back. I really don't. People always say like the pendulum is going to shift all the way back. It's like, no, it's never going to go back to where it was. It's going to stop somewhere halfway in between. I mean, for a long time, the threat was school

shootings. Like I taught 25 miles away from Sandy Hook. And I remember the board of Ed was like, oh, we're going to make the school the safest school ever. And it's like, we have doors that have windows in them, right? We have doors that have like, there is no way that they were making it more secure. And they're like, oh, but the main entrance, I'm like, are you willing to put up a security corridor where you have two buzzers to get in? Oh, it's going to cost a lot of money. And it's like, all right, are you willing to get rid of all ground floor for windows? And oh, no, no, we are never going to go back to the way that it was. I think what's going to happen is it's just going to get more and more and more outrageous. I think a lot of the parents are going to start pulling kids and they're going to say that homeschooling

might be a better option because they don't want their students to get. Endocrinated. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Don't get me wrong. Like there are teachers out there that are definitely phenomenal folks. But I will absolutely say that there's a double standard in academia where if someone had up a political sign of say like a popular president within academia no one is going to complain about that but if someone has up a unpopular president with those in academia guess what that teacher is going to be getting a letter in their file for having something in an environment that's considered like a very you know passive environment kids can't leave you know out of uh all the courses that you taught over those 14 plus years

what was your favorite time in history to teach about Oh my God, I love teaching the Mongols. I love teaching the Mongols because, you know, it was just the fact that you could take it from so many different perspectives. You could talk about his leadership. You could talk about the concept of an empire getting too big that it has to collapse because you can't maintain it. You could talk about the unconventional warfare that he was brilliant at. You could talk about the fact that, you know, probably what, one in five of us have Genghis Khan DNA because the dude got around. The kids love the Mongols

And the best part was when kids would like Leave me pictures of like I drew these Mongols for you Right And like meanwhile If I were if I were a different type of person Getting a photo Getting a picture of like a dude of his head cut off

I'd probably be like I have to report you I'm like dude that's awesome You know and I and I love that about the kids Is that they they used to call me the mama bird They're like we're like a bunch of baby birds Just eating all this information up And like you're like the mama bird telling us about, you know, dead bodies during the Spanish insurrection.

I'm like, that's awesome. Genghis Khan was politely described as a savage. Very much so. Man, he, people wonder, you know, how was he able to do the things that he did? And it's like, well, take a little bit of a peek at his tactics, techniques, and procedures and level of savagery and things he was willing to do or his people were willing to do that would not be socially acceptable anymore. And therein lies the answer. how he was able to travel and conquer the way that he did. Yeah, amazing horseman.

And he drank fermented mares milk, which the kids all knew about. And, you know, that's the other thing. Like, I would not shy away as an educator talking about things that other teachers would be like, you can't talk about booze in your class. Why not? Every culture has some understanding of it. Every culture or most cultures have their own very distinct version of it. So he liked drinking fermented mares milk.

I'm going to talk about that. because guess what? Why would they limit you talking about that if you watch the Super Bowl? Like 50% of the commercials are like Bud Light. I know. It's the nonsense that I walked away from. Yeah, I don't, I mean, well, I never would have been able to go down that path to begin with. Kudos to you for lasting almost a decade and a half.

Where did you find martial arts? Because you mentioned J-Jitsu, and I'm not familiar. Did you call it Kali? Yeah, Sia Kali. I am not familiar with what that is. Yeah. Well, Bill and I are both in it. Bill does some weird shit.

I mean, I think we can agree on that. We're talking about rapier. He's been on the podcast. Yeah. So being half Filipino, I, you know, in my late 20s, I was like, I want to, I want to study Filipino martial arts. And I was good friends with a police lieutenant in town. He's like, you got to meet these guys at the end of Lake Avenue. He's like, they swing knives at each other.

And I'm like, that sounds awesome, right? Because as a kid I did, as a kid, I did like, Ed Parker, Kenpo karate. And I messed around with some taekwondo in college. And I was like, all right, I'm going to. go train in Filipino martial arts. So I went to the school and they're like, oh, so what do you do? This is my instructors at the time.

At the time they were gurus, which translates to teacher, so a guru rich guru zoo. They were like, oh, you know, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, I'm a high school history teacher, but I also teach wilderness survival skills. And they're like, oh, we have that in our curriculum. And I'm like, no, you don't. I'm thinking like, oh, here's 30 bucks.

I'll get a free ghee and I'll get like a month's worth of a membership. And they're like, no, we really do. And they brought out the, this manual that we have. And it's like, okay, you should. have a flashlight on you at all times. You should have this. And I'm like, holy crap, they really do have this. I'm like, maybe I found my place. So I started training in Sayakhali in 2007, 2007. And I was like, this is really great stuff because it's a complete martial art system. It's, it's, you know, the motto is all blade all the time. And people think, oh, you guys only

use blade. That's not what all blade all the time means. It means that any time in any fight, a blade can be introduced. So you have to respect it, right? So when people say like, oh, it's a gunfight or a fist fight, it's like, it's just a fight. You know, I, because at any time, someone could pull a gun. And now is that fist fight's still a fist fight, right? So I started training in that. And then along the way, you know, it was like applied self-defense, kind of like a, like a hodgepodge of jekundo, Western boxing, and a little bit of grappling, like

Eric Paulson style grappling. And then my instructor was like, we need to do some Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So he brought in Chris Smith, who, you know, at the time was like a three or four, three-stripe purple belt. He just got his brown belt when we started, we started doing Jiu Jitsu, and I'm like, this is really cool stuff. So, I mean, I've been in the Jiu Jitsu game for a while, but it's always been like a secondary or tertiary art. You know, I've never really been able to do the full deep dive in it as much as I want to. But I started training in Filipino martial arts and I'm like, damn, this is really a complete system because there's stick grappling, which is some of the most painful stuff I've ever felt.

There was flexible weapons where, you know, you're using things like, you know, the quote unquote rock in a sock or we call it the tropo. There's spotty daga, you know, long, long stick and blade. There's, there's, you know, Panatuckin, which is like a hidden knife type of technique. And then there's Dumog, you know, Filipino trapping, lacade, you know, there's kicking. There's some leg sweeps that are absolutely vicious that are legal in jiu-jitsu, by the way. I'll have to show you them later on. And people don't realize that they're there. And then they're like, what the fuck was that?

So there's, that was something that I did along the way. And, you know, getting back to the teaching thing, it was funny because I'd go back to school after training and I'd have like a black eye or to have bruises on my forearms from like bashing sticks or whatever. And the kids are like, what the hell's wrong with you? Why do you have? What are you doing on your weekends? Yeah. Why do you have an ice pack in your rib? It's like, it's like, dude, I dislocated a rib last night, slip rib. And you're like, and you came into work. I'm like, yeah, because it's work. And the kids are like, I called out when I had a tummy ache, you know? So, so yeah, the martial arts stuff was was around 2000. And I've been involved in it since and then the craziest thing in the world and this is the thing that that people don't realize In the Philippines, that's where Siak is from and in 2012 the founder of Syak the late Chris Siak the third guy that's that's dedicated in the book He's doing a seminar at the martial arts school that I'm attending So he's doing the seminar and I'm telling my dad my dad you got to come down there's all these Filipinos in Bristol You're gonna love and like my dad is a guy who on vacation is talking to the Filipino weight staff and he's talking to the But everyone is a brother to him, right?

So he comes down, he's wearing a Siak shirt, and he walks right past the guys at the door. They were kind of making sure that like back in the day when there used to be challenges at these events, like no one is challenging the founder of the system. So my dad walks right past them. He goes right up to the founder and everyone's like, who is this guy?

Like this old Filipino dude that's going right off to the instructor. And he goes, he's looking at the shirt. And he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, Sayak. He goes, are you related to a doctor, Syok? And Pima on a 2-1, Chris Ayak goes, he was my grandfather. And now my dad is like touching him on the arm, which that's a big no-no, right?

He's like, he's like, just so you know, I was your grandfather's intern. I used to date your grandfather's secretary. And now it turns out that the founder's father, Bo Seyak, was best friends with my uncle in the Philippines. And what they used to do is they'd go out and they'd raise Helen Manila. They'd go out to bars. they would pull up in their car and leave the door open while they're in the bar. And it was kind of like an unwritten rule like, go ahead and touch my car and watch what happens. And now my dad is telling him all these stories.

And they're like, he's like, oh my God. So I didn't realize. And this is where I, some things in this world as much as I'd like to fancy myself as an educated person, someone that wants to be able to reason things and logic things, how the hell did our families, how were they so close in the Philippines, drift away and then come back together? Like I'm a firm believer that some things do truly happen for a reason. And the most powerful thing that happened in that whole exchange between my father and that the founder of the system, within Filipino martial arts is a concept called a Monopo, right? A monopo translates to hand please or hand sir. And the whole idea is, is that the hand that I use to write my checks feeds my family. It's also the hand that I can use to pull a trigger.

I can use to pull a blade. So when you ask someone for their hand, right, you can learn a lot about a purpose. by the way that they shake someone's hand. Well, we as practitioners would monopoe, right? And it's the process of like taking the hand and putting into your forehead. It's like, give me that knowledge, right? It's just like a sign of respect.

Well, the founder of the system did it to my dad. And I almost had a heart attack. I was like, did that just happen? And one of the most powerful photos on my favorite photos, I'll be buried with it someday is the three of us. My father, the founder of the system in Maine, in the center. And it's like, damn, how did this, this, How did the stars line up where we all got back in the same room together?

It was awesome. Some crazy fortuitous things that do happen in life for sure. And I see, I'm 43, getting ready to turn 44. And I see them a lot more now than I did when I was younger. When I was younger, it was just like, I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm basically awesome and that's why these things happen. Idiot. Total idiot.

That's crazy. Yeah. All right. Survival. Yes. Working for Glover. I'm sorry. It's going to be a long stretch of probably being underpaid and overworked.

I mean, I think we kind of opened with that. Where do you start people? Where do we start people? Yeah. That's what I assumed it was going to be. But somebody comes, I'm assuming at your courses. Yeah. As you mentioned, diversity of age.

Mm-hmm. What's the word we're supposed to use? Is it gender or sex? You come from the world of academia. I'm trying to leave that behind, bro. You know, sex is biologically defined. This is the teacher answering. Sex is biologically defined.

Gender is how you want to portray yourself. Okay. So I'm going to put them all out there. We'll say age, gender and sex. Religious belief, political belief, experience in the field, experience or exposure to survival. Yeah. There's probably some people there that are maybe brushing up and other people saying, man, I don't know anything.

Where do you start? I usually start off in the class just taking an interest inventory. I want to know why are you there, right? And I want to make sure that these classes, that can be anywhere from like six people to 24, right? I want to make sure I hit the same, I want to, I want to hit their need and their want before the end of the day, right? So a lot of the classes are like nine to four and four o'clock is kind of like our hard stop time, but it never means that that's where the training stops.

I always tell people like, if you got to catch a flight, catch a flight, we'll keep training afterwards. We start with mindset and I usually start with like, what do you guys have in your pockets right now? you know, there are folks who are cell phone. Yeah, seriously. I got a cell phone, but in my car I've got this. I'm like, no, no, no, what do you have right now?

And they're like, but in my, I'm like right now. Yeah, you no longer have access to your car. Correct. And then they realize the importance of having different layers of defense, right? Like final option kits, first line kits, second line, and so forth. And then they realize, and it's usually some of the best learning. They learn from each other like, oh man, you carry a flashlight? Why do you carry a flashlight?

And it's like, because I can't see in the dark, you know? And until I can see in the dark, I'm going to carry a tool that allows me to be capable in darkness. Oh, why do you carry, you know, a turn kit? Well, I drive in a car and most accidents are going to result in massive bleeding and probably want to be able to stop that. And now people are taking notes frantically. And it's amazing to watch them learn.

And then the funny thing is I usually tell people, hey, we're taking a working lunch. You did not pay for me to watch you eat. Yeah. And people are like, wait, wait, we don't get a break. I'm like, you can call it a break if you want, but I'm going to talk during the 15 15 minutes or 20 minutes because your time is valuable to me and your time is valuable to you. And that's when people are on their phones and they're buying stuff that they saw four hours earlier in the day.

So we usually start with like that and understanding the concept of readiness. As defined in the book, readiness is awareness, preparedness and willingness. And I usually explain like, listen, there are people in life who are aware and they are willing but they're not prepared. Flight 93. They know that something bad is going to happen. They get that beverage cart. They wrap things around their arm.

And they're willing to take the fight to the terrorists. Guess what? They became ready. And they said, let's roll. There are people out there that are willing and they are prepared, but they're not aware. And those are people that are the black belt and jujitsu who decides to go out and get polluted at a bar. And now they're a white belt because they're that drunk. Right.

And there are people out there who want to get into a boxing match and they've never done any distant management or strike. Exactly. Right. You know, they throw those giant haymakers or they temper tantrum on people's face. Yeah, they wake up in the hospital and, like, what happened to my ground game? Like, you never made it to the ground, buddy. That's right. That's right.

And then there are folks out there who are definitely aware, and they are definitely, they're definitely prepared, but they're not willing. And those are the folks like that sad excuse of a law enforcement guy who was outside the school when there was a shooting. And he's like, yeah, there's a shooting out here. There's a shooting out here. And now kids are dying because you're not willing to do your damn job. Funny you bring that guy up. Whatever happened to him? I have no idea.

Hopefully he's being shunned because I don't see how you can look yourself in the mirror. If you signed up for that job and you are portraying yourself, that's your identity, that you're going to be a protector of kids and you let kids die. I'll take it a step further. And it would be hard for people to find a more vocal supporter of law enforcement. Some of my best friends here in the Valley, the guy who got me into Jiu Jitsu, I was actually rolling with him today. He has so many hobbies that Jiu Jitsu falls much more lower on the list. So I see him infrequently on the mats. However, today we linked up.

So, I mean, I believe in what they stand for. Somebody has to stand in that gap. Somebody has to enforce the law. But let's talk about the officer who was physically incapable of doing so because they're fat as fuck. And there's a lot of ways that people try to describe that without just saying that. Yeah. I'm okay with fat shaming.

I used to be fat. I was a fat little kid. And then I hit puberty and I was like, I don't want to be that way. I'm not saying I advocate fat shaming, but I'm saying let's call it what it is. You're not capable. If you are a first responder who is going to need another first responder, if you have a cardiac event while responding to something else, there's an issue there. And it's a gap in what you're talking about. They're not prepared.

Yeah. And that whole idea of readiness is something that we try to drive home. And it's the idea that, look, you don't have to overnight become this black belt. You don't have to overnight. It's not even possible. You can't go to one seminar and train with a seal and say, I'm a seal. You know, but that's... I mean, I sell that package.

It's very exclusive and expensive, though. Yeah, that's... It's about 100G and you will get your Trident. We start Friday, we end Sunday. No big deal. But you don't have to get it pinned on you, right? It's bad. I mean, there's, there might be additional add-on fees.

We can add that exclusive experience. No, I would never do. It's, yeah. But, yeah, that's the type of thing that, that we start with. We say, listen, you don't have to go leaps and bounds overnight. Just become a slightly better version every single day. That's the whole idea of the 24-hour clone. That's the whole idea of were you successful today at becoming better?

What's the 24-hour clone? 24-hour clone is a sci-oc concept. Bill is a believer in this one. And I'm always going to bring up Bill because he's a good friend and he's a sci-ac brother. 24-hour clone is the idea that let's say right now, and I'm going to talk to you, Andy, right? So right now we can clone you perfectly. There's now a perfect clone of you there. And that clone has all of your physical attributes.

It has all of your knowledge. It has every, it's a identical clone physically. mentally spiritually, it is you right there. At midnight tonight, you have to fight that clone. Now, you can define how you want to fight that clone. That fight can be an intellectual fight, can be a physical fight. It can be, you know, a debate, right? What are you going to do between the time that you wake up and that midnight when you have to kill your clone? If you can't kill your clone, that means that you did not improve yourself from one day to the next. And by the way, at midnight, you get cloned again. So the whole idea is every single day, you have to become a better version of yourself. And

And you cannot say, well, I kind of did. I hated that answer as a teacher. I hated kind of, maybe sometimes. I was very much black and white, absolute binary. Not that type of binary. We've got to be careful. Yeah, I got to be careful with that term, right? So I would tell kids, I'm like, guys, I'm not giving you a chance to sit on the fence.

You can't say sometimes. Even if you don't agree, I want you to argue it one way or another. Or my favorite was, you know, how many people are for gun control or abortion or whatever? And when the kids would say, I'm for this. I'd be like, okay, you're writing in this if you're against it because I want you know to the other side. Well, the 24-hour clone thing is, are you better than you were in the morning? And it's either yes or no.

There's no easy way out of that one. I really like that headspace because that focuses on slow, incremental, but long-term growth. And the metric is you, right? Like, there's no doubt about it. There's dudes out there that are amazing runners. There's dudes out there that are great power lifters. There are guys out there that can choke you a thousand different ways. Well, what about you, right?

Like, don't compare you. yourself. Teddy Roosevelt used to say comparisons to the thief of joy. And you know what? If I compare myself to the kid that's half my age, I'm going to be really upset because that kid's probably a stud, right? Not saying I'm not a stud. But I am saying that I would rather compare myself to myself every single day and ask myself, did I get better? Did I learn something? Did I pick up a book and read a new page of something? Did I do more pushups today than I did yesterday? Did I do anything to become better? That's the only comparison that matters. That's only one. I think. I, and And I think that's what's some of the most insidious portions of the TikTok, the Instagram,

because it no longer becomes comparative or a reflective mirror of yourself. And that 24-hour rule, it's everybody else at their best moment with filters on. I was having my daughter, like, show me and explain to me these filters. Let me just tell you, I've known about these for like seven minutes now. Holy shit. Yeah. Talk about body image issues, right? Holy shit, man.

Oh, yeah, this one is for your skin. This one changes the color. your eyes. This one just transforms your face to be to look better. Yeah. I asked him, what do you mean by look better? She was like, you know, look better. I'm like, no, I don't know. What, what are you talking about? Holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Gals are not the only ones that are using it. Guys are using it to filter their skin color to give them like a more distinct V shape, right, to make their calves bigger. Like there's there's guys out there that have the same body issues as women. Yeah. You know? And it's, I mean,

We are talking about human beings. We're most jacked up species on the face of the planet. Tell me about the baggy challenge. Oh, dude. Did Mike, was this your idea or was this Mike's idea? Okay, if it were my idea, the baggie would not be a quart size, right? Which for clarity is a sandwich size, right? Yeah.

So every time. You can kick that mic over too if you want to put. Yeah, so it's not like just right up in my grill. So every Tuesday we've got a company meeting. Every Tuesday we get together. And usually it's filled with hijinks, right? Like we're very squared away as a group of folks at Fieldcraft. You know, Mike or Dedy, they run it.

And it's squared away, right? Kevin Owens is chiming in from North Carolina. And, you know, he's usually. I'm so stoked. He's got the Fieldcraft East out there going. We all love Kevin Owens. He's one of my favorite people in the world. I wish I could be in two places at once to work in Utah and North Carolina because I miss

him to death. So we got this meeting on Tuesday. And Mike is sitting across from me. And he goes, Kevin, you're doing something. That actually sounds exactly like something Mike would say. Yeah. And he goes, one bag, 72 hours in the desert, and you have to do it in 30 days. I'm like, Mike, within 30 days, this is the hottest time in Spanish Fork, Utah, man.

I'm like, can I do this like when it's a little cooler? He goes, nope, 30 days. Find out the week. So now it means readjusting all of our schedules. Like, oh, I can't teach this class now because I'm going to be in the freaking desert. He goes, only what you can carry in a Ziploc bag. I'm like, can I have a knife on me? He goes, can it fit in the Ziplog?

I'm like, oh, my God. So now I'm on this, I'm on this mission. He's like, all right, you can have clothing on you, but you can't bring extra clothing. So like what you would normally wear. I'm like, all right. So if I'm going to the desert, I'm wearing long sleeves, I got a wide broom hat. And I'm going to wear, you know, basic clothing. He goes, all right, that's good.

He goes, 30 days. It's going to be in Spanish Fork. So when I did it, it was in July. The lowest temperature was 99. The hottest was like 106. I've got a photo, actually a small short video. It was 101 in the shade at the high point in the day. And he said, all right.

You know, at the end of 72 hours, he goes, oh, it's 72 hours. It's not three days. He goes, because three days, you could start at, say, like, four in the afternoon and be done when the sunrise. He's like, it's 72. I'm like, oh, my God. So I said, fine. I want it to be over at 7 a.m. in the morning. So when I fall asleep that night, I wake up and I'm like, I'm done in an hour.

And you're out. I'm out. So I packed this, this bag with like all the essentials. I carried a small Swiss army knife. I was going to say, what's the, what's the thing? It's in this bag. Okay. So, I mean, I can break it down by needs.

Obviously, I'm Filipino. I'm going to talk about knives. I had an SC knives, Azula, that I didn't even use the original sheath. I made a duct tape sheath for it because the sheath took up too much space, right? So I had that knife. I had a Swiss Army knife with a saw. I had a couple fire starters, but Utah was under a fire ban as I did this. So I couldn't even have a fire at night.

Which you only would have used for cooking, I'm assuming it. Because, like, 99 degrees. If you're kicking out, like, feed up by a fire at 99. degrees you have problems yes exactly yeah so and I mean at night it got down to like the 70s or 60s it wasn't that bad but I mean it was a pretty decent temperature swing so I had a couple fire starters in there just for concept right because I wanted to be able to say look I'm doing this you can oh and by the way the whole idea behind the Ziploc bag he said when he was in you know doing the work for the government he said that they had a similar kit that

fit inside of a Ziploc bag and practically you could take the contents of a Ziploc bag and disperse them throughout your your pockets in your kit and that's what you're reasonably carrying every single day. So I was like, all right, I'll carry a fire starter because I usually carry one every day. I'll carry, you know, certain things. So I had cordage with me. I brought electrolyte tablets. I brought sleep supplements because I was like, I'm not going to sleep.

It's going to be uncomfortable. So I brought the Wolf 21 supplement that Mike is now pushing, which that stuff knocks you on your ass. I just tried it for the first time last night. It said take an hour before bed. And I'm glad that it had that warning because I was like hopping in bed doing some computer work at like the 45 minute mark. Yeah.

And then like gravity increased rapidly on my eyelids. And it was slow, shut the laptop and just done. Yeah. And people are like, well, but it's a, it's a substance you're putting in your pack. I'm like, guess what? It's my rules. I'm the one out there in the desert. This is my sandwich bag, bitches.

Yeah. Hell yeah. So I took, I took like two of those gummies every single night. And oh my God. When people were like, you slept how many hours? I'm like, I slept better out in the field than I do at home. And they're like, how? I'm like, Wolf 21, man.

So, uh, so I put those gummies. in there. I had some basic fishing kit. I had an emergency bivisack, which when you get it from the company, it's about the size of like an old 35 millimeter canister. You'll never be able to repack at that size. So I was like, I'm just going to buy one and throw it in there and I'm not going to touch it until I need it. That's the move actually. Yeah. Yeah. So buy one and buy one, pack it and then practice with another one. So I had a whole bunch of like basic stuff in there. And then for the final day, I knew like, all right, I'm used to intermittent fasting. I knew I knew I could go like 30. 36, 37 hours, whatever, before I start feeling it.

Well, the production crew comes out because they've, of course, you got to get content. It's fieldcraft or a media company. So they're like, we need you to come out and we need you to cook the fish that you caught. I'm like, it's a hundred and five. And they're like, but we're not going to be here all day. So you got like, you got to come out. I'm like, oh my God. So now it's 105.

I'm building a fire. I've got like one of the guys of the fire extinguisher and like, like super, super careful because like I can only build a fire so, so big without like on this private property without getting in trouble. And now I'm like, oh my God, I was planning on eating at a certain time. The final day I was like, I'm just going to bring ghee packets, right? Clarified butter. Like, it'll just give me a little bit of energy.

I'll do one every six hours. And then that will just get me through the morning. When I got back to the studio after 72 hours, Mike and all the guys were like, you look well rested and you look well fed. I'm like, I just, I ran it by the numbers. I was like, I'm only out for 72 hours. I'm going to sleep for at least 24 of them. I'm like, I got to be awake.

in the day. I'm going to take a siesta at the high point. I'm going to fish every single night. I kept the fish alive from night one until the second night by just keeping it on a stringer in the current because I knew if I pulled it, it was going to dry out. So like I just I just gamed it. It was just a strategy the whole time. And and then the best part is Glover is like, he's podcasting me, right? He's like, oh, yeah, you did a great job. And they have all this food for me. And like, and Amber, who's like our like family and home like, you know, Preparedness specialist, total sweetheart. She's a nurse.

She's like, oh, you have a donut. Like, she's giving me all this food. It's so good. And Mike is like, all right, we got a podcast. Everyone got out. So we're sitting across the table just like this. And Mike goes, by the way, I got another challenge for you. I'm like, you're fucking kidding.

Like, I didn't say it because like, whatever. Mike's like, you're going to do another challenge. But it's going to be two people in one bag. And you're going to do it in the next 30 days. Oh, my God. So he then sent me into the woods with, Ricky, who's our HR gal, and he's like, you got to keep her alive for whatever. I'm like, all right, no problem.

But then we had another meeting and they said, how great would it be? This is Kevin Owen's idea. And I'm just going to set the record straight. Everyone's like, how could you leave Ricky? I'm like, it wasn't my idea. Kevin Owens was like, Kev, it was really boring watching you do that 72 hour challenge because you knew what you were doing. And like there was no drama.

You're not someone who is like pity me or whatever. He goes, it was kind of boring. He goes, how great would it be if during the next 72 hour? are a challenge when you're with Ricky, you leave her after 48. From a content perspective, it would be amazing. And it was. I got hate mail for that. After it was all said and done, I had people saying, that's toxic masculinity and this and that.

And I was like, I was like, you realize, they're like, you didn't ask permission to, to leave her. You didn't have consent to leave her. Wow. This is, you know, meanwhile, the whole time, the whole concept of the second one was me empowering her. and then I came back later that night and I camped 10 yards from her. She had no idea that I was even there. But I was like, I'm not going to let anything happen to her.

I just want to see that she can make her through. She actually kicked ass on that second one. She was taking the snare wire. We weren't snaring anything. She was catching crickets, putting it on the snare wire, and roasting it and eating it with Chalula. So you tell me, like, like Ricky was a total stud when it came to that. But man, I got a lot of hate mail for that one.

And I was totally fine with it because I was like, you know what? Is it really? And by the way, you didn't ask permission to send me this message. So whatever. Eat all the dicks. That's right, the whole bag. The entire bag and then find another one for the next time you put your foot in your mouth. Yeah.

So you have this baggie. So let's go back to the first one. Yeah, you got it. You get dropped off. What's your first move? What was your strategy? Shelter. Shelter right away.

Started at 7 o'clock. And the way that it kind of. AM or PM? A.m. Yeah. So 7 o'clock AM. Where it was in Spanish Fork, there's like a rolling mountain range. It's at like 5,800 feet.

it goes up to, I think, seven grand. And I knew that the sun was going to track along the horizon. I'm like, all right, I've got a little bit of shade, but it's not going to last very long. So I made a quick sun's shade structure out of the emergency blanket. I'm like, I don't need that to cover over. I just need it to block the sun. So I turned it with the reflective side out because I didn't want heat reflecting back in. I wanted the heat reflecting back out.

So that was my sun structure. I made that. And before the sun got too high, I started taking all these sage brushes and things like that and I started making the betting for it because the betting was on the ground and it was still cool at night. So I was like, first thing is shade. And don't get me wrong. Like I went into it well hydrated and I had food in me. So I was good. So I was like, next thing, I need to get my water. So after I made the sun structure, the shade, I was like, all right, I'm going to go down to the creek. It was about a half mile away. And I took Reynolds oven bags because Reynolds oven bags are a great water

container, emergency container, super, super lightweight. And back in the day, and back in the day, like old, like old survival manuals used to say, I'll carry an unlubricated condom. Well, number one, it's embarrassing as all hell to go into a store and buy unlubricated condoms because they're like, damn, you're rough on that poor girl. You're into some sick shit. Yeah, right?

So, you know, so they're like, oh, you should carry unlubricated condoms. But, you know, if you remember from health class, you need a lot of volume of water to fill up that condom, you know, and I was like, and the other thing, they're always like, oh, never carry one in your wallet because it's hot. And I'm like, I'm going to be in the desert

where everything is hot. So I'm going to carry something that's meant for hot, right? An oven bag that could be like 400 degrees and still survive. So I carried those. I carried these water tablets. And now I've got this like three gallon container of water. I'm like, that's my emergency water. If for whatever reason I start puking because I eat something nasty, I want it at my shelter.

So I took my shirt off. I make a backpack like a homemade camelback. And I transport the three gallons of water in the shirt back to my, my shelter. And I'm staying there. And I'm like, all right. Now it's like 10.30. and the sun is, it's as hot as hot can be at 10.30. And I told the media guys, I'm like, guys, every day from 1030 to 2.30, do not expect anything from me. I'm not going out. This is the

hottest time of day. I'm staying in my shelter. I'm sleeping. And it actually worked out fine, because by the time that the sun hit like 23, 3 o'clock, it had worked its way around the shelter. And it woke me up every single day. So it was like, it just worked out perfectly. So that was that first day. And then I was like, let me go down and see if I can catch fish. And I, I, I, I made a long, long leaf willow or narrow leaf willow. I made a giant, kind of like a 10 car rod. And I caught a couple trout. And I was like, all right, I'm not going to have them today.

I'm not going to eat today, but I'm going to keep them alive until, you know, I can at least say, well, I ate halfway through. And if I survived the first half, I can survive the second half. Yeah. And then media company, right? Mike is like every day you got to go up and you got to do a live and like answer questions from people. I'm like, I'll do that. That's cool. Like people probably want to know. But it meant me climbing out of my shelter going up to this exposed like kind of ridge line where I could only place I could get service. Sun is beating down on me and I'm answering questions for like 45 minutes getting dehydrated in the process. So that was part of the part of the challenge. But it was just boring like just waiting around and knowing that like I see sunlight. It's 20 degree cooler in my shell. shelter. I can't go out there. I can't go and collect, you know, golden currents. I can't go out there and collect more mullin that I was eating. And by the way, I got by with a lot of edible plants. Yeah. And that was like a total homage to Marty. I was like, I'm going to show that you can, you can get by with edible plant knowledge. You don't have to always, you know, kill the dove,

which by the way, I made a slingshot when I was out there. It didn't make it into the final video, but there were doves, the Eurasian ringneck doves that are highly invasive. I could have killed, fuck. I mean, I could have eaten. I could have eaten. really I would have come back fat as all hell. But I was like, I don't know if these were, and I didn't know at the time what the law was in terms of like the invasicest. Right. And I was like, imagine, imagine if I'm doing this, this great challenge, which was going to be really cool for fieldcraft and say like, hey, look, this is what we can do. We can show you how to do this.

And the next, you know, PETA or, you know, one of these animal rights groups comes after me for killing doves. And it's like every morning when I woke up, they were four feet away from me. And I had a slingshot with rocks. And on video, we've got video of me, you know, using this, this homemade slingshot and I'm slamming water bottles at like 30 yards. And like people are like, like, they're like, you couldn't have to kill those birds? I'm like, I could have, but I didn't know what the impact was going to be. Yeah. Right.

So it's like the actions were greater than me at that point. And it was like as much. And you know this as well as I do. Even though it's technically training, you know, and we want to make it realistic. In the back of my mind, it's always training. Yeah. Until it is real. So, you know, that was that was a consideration that I had.

What did you go with for water purification? Aqua tabs. Okay. Aquatabs, MP1 tablets, they're pretty good. But I like the aquatabs because there's not a three hour wait to have them. It's 30 minutes. You put one aquatab in 24 ounces or 25 ounces of water, let it mix for 10 minutes, and let it sit for 30. And that's what I used for water purification.

Normally, I mean, I'll use aquamera drops because that's ready in about 30 minutes. And two little containers, it's what I took up to Alaska when I did the three weeks off grid up there. Those two little containers will treat 120 gallons of water. How's it taste? Perfect. It's because it's, it oxidizes. And because it oxidizes, it doesn't leave behind like that nasty iodine flavor. That is some of the worst tasting water ever.

Those iodine tabs, have fun with those. Yeah, I used to carry iodine tablets because I thought everyone did. I was like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing in the world, iodine tablets. I mean, don't be going to be wrong. They work. They work. But they also make you not want to drink the water. Yeah.

There's that. And then there's the fact that if you don't seal that lid, anything that you have metal in your kit gets rusted. So if you have like an emergency survival kit and you have iodine tablets in there and they're not properly sealed, all your fish hooks are going to rust. Your knife blade is going to rust. It's going to turn everything yellow. So I use the MP1 tablets. They're pretty damn good. Did Mike ever tell you that he was soliciting online as to whether or not they should keep you in the field longer?

Yes, you did. That bastard. Listen, I love Mike like a brother. Should I extend him? Of course, I'm like smashing the ass button as hard as possible. Yeah. Oh my God. So Mike, it's funny because when we did the interview, he's laughing his ass off.

And I'm like, you know, I knew he wanted to do that. And he's like, we got to show off what you can do. And I'm like, Mike, I can do that without being in the desert. And, you know, the funny thing is like talking about long hours. in the 72 hours, I worked more in those 72 hours in the first three days than I would in a normal work week. So he, you know, my thing that I wanted to just kind of rub it in with Michael, I was like, I'm going to go to work on that Friday. The Friday I get out, I'm going to stay in work, you know. But yeah, he told me, he's like, yeah, we'll extend it.

It's going to be great. Imagine if he doesn't know when he's going to get out. And if that were the case, I would have, I probably would have killed all the doves. And if that were the case, I probably would have taken like our gorgeous table that we have in our fieldcraft meeting room. And I probably would have lit the fire on the table and rosed it there. Like, just like, what? You want him to stay out longer? You know, like, yeah, I love working for Mike.

He's unpredictable in a lot of ways. But I knew that he wasn't going to do anything that was going to be detrimental to me or to the company. So I just got to trust him with like some of the crazy stuff that he comes up with sometimes and hope that it all works out. Well, speaking of the company, what courses specifically do you guys offer on the survival front? The ones that you teach. Yeah, we're expanding. So we do a free Wednesday night class every single week, right? And we have locals up in Hebrew.

Up in Hebrew, yes. People come in from Provo, from Orham, from Salt Lake City, from Park City. Last night we did a knife workshop where I go over like all the different knife grinds, knife sharpening, you know, different styles of knives, like the history of knives, right? But then in addition to all these Wednesday courses, that could be like stop the bleed and land nav and things like that, we also do, you know, basic survival, right? which is not basic. We're actually changing the name to wilderness survival skills

because we've had people say, I thought it was going to be entry level. And it's like, it is. They're like, but there's a lot of information. I'm like, that's entry level. That's entry level. It's drinking from a fire hose, man. So we do wilderness survival skills.

We do another class called Modern Predator, which, you know, I always tell people, nine out of 10 emergencies last 72 hours, right? That's the whole idea behind the 72 hour zip block bag challenge. But if you want to last in the great outdoors, you need to put food on the table. And being someone who grew up hunting fishing, right? Learning the edible plants.

I like showing people like, hey, with just a few things, you can catch fish. You can trap. This is like this is how you clean animals, right? And that's one of my favorite classes to teach. And people leave that one with a sense of capability. That's amazing. Land nav one, land nav two. I set up a land nav course on that property in Spanish Fork that just is an ass kicker.

And I'm not going to give them the easy land nav. I'm going to send them through like steep terrain. I'm going to send them through water. I'm like some of the best lessons are just learned through doing. Damn right. And I thought I swear to God, I thought when I set it up, I was like, there's no one that's going to complete this in 90 minutes. No one.

And this guy came back beat red. He's actually took it because he's going into selection. He's like, I want to proof up on my land nap. He ran the course and he came back. And the way that the course works is you work from one UTM or MGRS grid to another. and you have to plot it out, and you have only so much time to plot it, and then navigate to those points. Well, this guy ran the course, and he came back with every single one of the proofs that was on the tree or on the bush.

They're looking for something at the coordinates. Yeah. And I mean, this guy, I was like, I got to make it harder. So we're going to probably do an extreme land nav where it's, I might even put a land nav coordinate underwater in the creek where it's very born identity. Yeah, it is. I forget which one of the Boren series opens up. He's like diving into the frozen water and standing there next to the fire with his emergency blanket.

Oh, that was one with Jeremy Renner. Yeah. It was in the born family, though. That was the worst one, by the way. Were any of them that good? I mean, I don't know. Well, I mean, you know, I got to say this about the born identity and this is a tangent and I'm terrible with this. Like I'm the poster trials for undiagnosed ADHD and like a look at chicken, right?

So, you know, that movie really defined kind of like that scene that is in so many movies where, you know, a guy's surrounded, mysterious background. He's got like 12 people around him. Next to you know, the next scene is he's kicking ass and he's standing over them with a gun like looking around. Like how many times has that been redone, you know? Countless. Countless, right? So, yeah, getting back, I digress, getting back to the courses, Land Nav, Modern Predator. We're going to do a two-day bushcraft class, which is going to be more like this is going to be a chance to learn the traditional skills, like how to bake bread, right?

How to set up a camp kitchen, a latrine, you know, things like that. I have heard the term bush crafting. Yeah. I don't actually know what it means. Oh, man. This is a political, political, fucking dumpster fire. Ready. I feel like you mean on the internet.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In fact, there's a, there's a website out there, a very famous. or within the bushcraft community, American Bushcraft website. And someone said the hardest thing about Bushcraft in the United States is all the typing.

And that guy got banned so fast because a lot of it is like laying out your kit and making like, they call it the flat lay. Like, oh, here's my knife and it's perfectly polished and everything's perfectly spaced out. The overhead picture, your EDC dump, fill in the black, whatever term. And trust me, I'm guilty of it too

because, you know, I like them. I like knowing like the status of my gear. But Bushcraft is technically like wilderness living skills. So it's not where we think like, okay, an emergency becomes a survival scenario if you don't resolve the emergency scenario. Right. So an emergency can be, you know, your car is hydroplaining. Well, now you turn into the skid. Well, instead of, you know, turning in, now you crash your car and now you're bleeding.

Well, guess it? Your survival scenario is putting that tourniquet on. Bushcraft isn't as dramatic. It's more like, all right, how did this? the voyagers, you know, survive canoeing all these supplies through, through like the Hudson Bay? How did the Aborigines build fire by friction? You know, it's not strictly friction fire and primitive skills. It's really these indigenous living skills that have been all around. Like, how did, how do people use bamboo and Asia to build jungle huts and things like that? It's more

long term, right? Very much so. Okay. Yeah. It's, think like, like for America, it's more like our frontier, Dutch oven cooking, right? Not. not the Dutch oven where you pull the sheets over your spouse. That's the traditional Dutch oven. That's the correct Dutch oven. That's right. But yeah, it's more the traditional living skills.

And it's fun, man. Like when I do bushcraft, I'll do a rum raisin bread that is inspired by like Ray Mears, who's like the godfather of English bushcraft. North American bushcraft is Morris Cahansky. Australian is Richard Graves. But I do a rum raisin bread where I use actual rum and people are like,

did you just make rum raisin bread by the fire? I'm like, yeah, that's how you live. And they're like, this is the best freaking class ever, you know? And when you get a bunch of like dudes that take this class because they've gone through the pipeline of learning wilderness survival skills, they show up with like the big knives of serrated blades and things like that.

And then you sell them like, hey, by the way, you're baking bread. And they're like, man, this is so lame. And then next to you know, when they make bread and they're like, you want to try my bread? You want to try mine? Like, it's funny because like you don't expect guys to like to know this. But when you're out on a canoe trip for two weeks, there's nothing that smells better than fresh.

baking bread when you get back to your camp, you know? So it's, it's, it's really the, the true preparedness skills that Mike wants us to teach at fieldcraft where it's all about self-reliance. Like, you don't have to go to the store if you have a campfire and a Dutch oven, you can make bread, you know, if you want to, if you need to take care of field sanitation, right, highly, highly underrated topic. How do you build a proper latrine? You know, how do you ensure that you're not, you know, shitting everywhere? Well, you, this is how you build a, you know, where going to hang your toilet paper and all that stuff. So I mean, Bushcraft is is really that.

It's not the emergency. It's not survival. It's like, how do you live with the land and use the resources? So you do that for two days? That's going to be a two day class. That's going to be a fun one. I think you guys need to do a week long of that. That's coming to. You know, we are constantly building out the curriculum. We're doing the 48 hour challenge where we're offering folks a chance to come and do the Ziploc bag challenge, but we're doing it for 48 hours. And it's going to be early October. so it's going to be a little bit cooler.

They will be by that time able to make fires, and we're going to have a community fire, and along the way we're going to teach them, but we're also going to torture them because we're going to eat while they're not. Of course. Why would you not? Go to In-N-Out burger

and get like the four-by-four animal style, you know? Make sure you're in visual eye contact with them as you're consuming this, preferably upwind. Yes. Yeah. One of the things I really love about Mike and what he's got going on is that Fieldcraft, it's like

it's like jenga pieces but you're putting them together as opposed to removing them absolutely so he know the mobility fits in seamlessly with the mentality of preparedness or preparing or preparation or whatever term

makes people feel more comfortable less assaulted if you will I don't want to use any red pen and the skills that you're talking about which you know you could have a bag in your car. If you have a vehicle emergency or whatever it may be, you could go from on foot to in your car to back to on foot. And they all tie together and build a more prepared person.

Yeah. A more durable person, a more malleable person. And that's what I love about it. It's not just one little thing. They all tie together. Yeah. And all those people combine build the community, right? And if you have a community of all like-minded folks that you don't have to worry about whether they can get it done, right? Like one of the things we always talk about in Syok is, is that person to get it done type of person, right? When they walk through the door, do you say, oh, damn? Or do you say, oh, damn? Like, there's two different ways of saying that.

For sure. Two different meanings. Two very different meanings, right? And I'm censoring that because that could be like an, oh, shit, you know. But Mike loves that idea of building that community because then it's kind of like you don't have to worry about that one person. They can handle it because we've trained them. Even the gear that we're creating as a company, like we're selling stuff that ties in line with what we, what we believe and what we carry.

But Mike is saying, I want to make my own because I think I can do it better. And he's making these mobility bags. And he's like, look, if I had this. I just bought one yesterday. Yeah. And he goes, if I had this, my friend would have lived or this person. Like, and he's grounding all of the stuff that we're selling in actual experience. And, and that's where, you know, people are like, man, you guys aren't just salesmen.

Like, like, you're doing this because you really mean it. And it's like, well, yeah, we, we live what we teach. It's not like we, we go in. We punch the time clock and we say, all right, I'm going to think survival now. It's like, even on the flight here, I'm thinking like, all right, I'm going to index how many seats I walk by from the nearest exit door to my seat. Like little things like that. People are like, man, you're always turned on. It's like because this is who we are.

Right. And that's what fieldcraft is. It's like you said the jenga. You know, we all are reverse jenga. It's reverse jenga. Yeah. You're building the tower, not trying to tip it over. And, you know, we're slowly like, like Ricky, my 48 hour or 72 hour challenge.

She's now getting into overlanding when she wasn't into that before, but by hanging around guys like Mikey Hernandez, you know, who's our fieldcraft mobility guy, you know, Mikey's like, hey, you should get this or, you know, George is like, oh, you should get this type of, you know, vehicle system. And now she's rooftop camping. And like, just by hanging around us, people are getting stronger and more capable. And it's phenomenal. And I love seeing that every one of those Wednesday classes when people show up and they're like, hey, can you look at my bag and tell me what I need? And it's like, they actually value the opinion. And when you say, why do you carry that? It's not just because, oh, Mike told me to.

They're saying, I carry that because, you know, nine out of ten emergencies. Like, they can actually tell you the why. Which it's so powerful, dude. Yeah, you'll hear people who will bitch about the fact that you guys sell products. And they don't realize that the products are the end state. You are educating people, equipping people in helping them become that better version of themselves. That 24-hour challenge. Part of that is having the appropriate tools necessary.

It didn't start with those products. It starts with the mentality and the things that you can do. But sometimes purpose-driven or purpose-designed equipment is spectacular. Absolutely. I don't have a, when I skydive, I don't have a parachute that's designed for skydiving and also water sports. You know, it's just not a good idea to come or rock climbing. It's like, hey, I'm just going to focus on this. So yeah, you guys sell stuff, but it's all purpose-driven.

And it starts with the education. You can buy all the stuff that Fieldcraft offers for clarity, everyone. Do no training, not understand what it's for, and you're Fuxville, just like you are right now. You can have all the high speed gear and not know how to use it, and you're not in any, you're not in a better position than, you might as well not buy it, I guess, if you're not going to take the time to educate and empower yourself.

Yeah, and to be clear, like, was it Colonel Cooper that said, you're, I think it was Colonel Cooper. He said, you're no more than a, you're no more a musician because you carry a guitar, than you are a gunfighter because you carry a gun. You know, so there are folks out there who want to, to just buy the equipment because it's the easy buy-in to the community. Like, oh, I've got this. I've got that. But if you're not taking the time, like you said, to learn how to use it,

it doesn't really matter because, you know, how many times have you seen people here? They're carrying bear spray on the outside of their backpack hiking a trail. And it's like, by the way, you're- On the outside, you should see the ones who have it on the inside. And on top of it, I got a list of pet peeves. Like, I can make a lot of people angry right now. But one of my favorite things is like, all right, let's go hike a trail. super windy with bear spray and let's not take into consideration secondary contact like like or the fact that that wind is going to you know negate the the power of that aerosol so there is an

instagram page which you will enjoy it's called overheard in whitefish and there are more than one example of people overhearing uh tourists which i have nothing against tourists the valley makes a ton of money off glacier park and all that stuff asking um do you do i apply this bear spray like I do sunscreen. Should I put it on before, do I put it on before we start the hike? Yeah. Extra, extra heavy in the taint, please.

It's like, yeah, it's just, it's like a spray tan, just a light dusting from head to toe. Yeah, real mild. My, he might hate me for telling this story. My jiu jitzy coach has a dog that has, comes from a trainer who crafts amazing animals, multi-purpose dogs. This dog, one morning, sunk his teeth.

into a can of bear spray that was on his kitchen table. I'm pretty sure Travis was in his tidy whitties at the time. I believe that's how the story went. But he woke up to the profuse nasal drippage, the eye burn. I guess they went outside, figured out what it was.

I believe this can of bear spray was orange, the fluid that came out of it. So the dog, Hank, I think, took it then into their living room. So he got it off the counter. I'm sure it popped it right. And apparently it didn't do too much to him. It was like in his mouth and he was slobbering for a little bit. And then he's fine and like, wait, wait, what's going on, guys?

Why is everybody outside? Apparently there was just orange all the way through his kitchen, dining room and living room. So like we're getting texts from him. Like they're like buying industrial size like dawn detergent to like spray on all this stuff and clean it. And we would go over to the house like watching the UFC. three months later and I would sit on a cushion and my eyes would start watering because of the fucking residual of this bear spray that was still in there like you'd walk into their house you're like god damn like you're cooking onions or you know like it was most important like they ended up

replacing all their furniture that was in there like got it like it was like on the TV and shit so yeah don't apply bear spray it's actually not for application it's for application on a bear Right. But overheard whitefish. I'll send you a link. Yeah, I got to check that out. I mean, and that's the type of thing. Like, we want to educate. Like, we're going, we're going next week to Alaska.

Like some of the fieldcraft guys are going to Alaska. We're going to interview a guy who was attacked by a bear, survived, permanently blinded by the bear. And we're going to podcast him. We're going to talk to him. And, you know, we're also fishing with one of his best friends who found him and was chased by the same bear that attacked him. And people don't realize, like,

Look, we are going to, our job is we want to give you the best advice. We don't want you to paint outdoors men, you know, with a, in a negative light, right? We want to show everyone to be like to be super prepared because, you know what, like those folks out there, like if when I, when I pass them on the trails, right? Like when I pass these people on trails with bear spray, I'm like, can you reach that? And I'll just ask them a question. I won't call them. I'll let them come to their own conclusion. I won't call them out.

I won't say, you know you won't be able to reach that, right? I will ask them if they can. And then they kind of come to that conclusion like, oh, maybe I should bring it around. And maybe I should take the plastic covering off the top. I mean, I just think if we can't apply that readiness formula, are you aware of how long it's going to take? Then, you know, people are going to prepare themselves the correct way. And if they truly understand the awareness and the preparedness, then they might be willing to put that where they need to or hike with it in their hand. And then you could say, finally, that they're ready.

Or at least be aware of the risk. Yes. Maybe they don't even want to move it, but at least they have a better understanding and they're making an informed decision, which you and I can agree with or disagree with as opposed to, I'm good. I got my bear spray right here. It's like trying to use a fire extinguisher with the safety pin still in. Like, yeah, you got a fire extinguisher.

You didn't realize that had a safety pin? Okay. Man. Yeah. So there will be a lot of people who listen to this that probably can't come to a fieldcraft course, but are interested in preparedness. They're interested in where to start. So I guess it's a two-prong question.

Where would you start people for information? And then what would be maybe five bare essentials that you would recommend, whether to have on their person or at least in a vehicle? Okay. All right. I would recommend starting at your public library. Public library for sure. And the internet.

But go to the public library with intent. Don't get sidetracked. go there and look for the old books that were from the early 20th century. The old Boy Scout manual is phenomenal. They used to show hand-to-hand combat in the Boy Scout manual. They did? Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

When I get back to Utah, I will send you photos of, you know, all sorts of amazing judo throws, right? So they used to show that. I would say look at the old old manuals, right? Before people had an incentive to sell the information. Like look up the industry giants, the ones that came, for us like Bradford andgers how to survive in the woods look up even though he's controversial look up tom brown junior's original book uh look up uh wildwood wisdom by elsworth yager look up um i mean god there's so many amazing books look up anything from from ray mirrors um i mean

there are so many phenomenal books get them and start reading them one page at a time go online look up what we're putting out through fieldcraft we're putting on a lot of educational content And we also have various tutorials on our locals page, our paid page, which is like five bucks a month. I mean, I show people like how to clean a fish. It's our most popular video because we're doing it. It was just totally impromptu. But realize that it's going to be a lot of information early on. So I would say if you're just starting, educate yourself first because you want to educate and kind of notice what all these different folks are saying.

Like look at Ron Hood. What did Ron Hood carry? What is Doug Ritter prescribed today? Notice where the similarities are, right? They might differ in terms of philosophy like leave no trace or, you know, scorch the earth if it means saving your life. But if they're both saying carry a knife and a fire starter, it's probably good advice. Yeah. And then from there, once you have that knowledge, start talking to your friends and start going online.

Because, again, that internet is an amazing resource. And feel free to ask questions to people that are already doing it and saying, hey, I'm looking for this. equipment. What do you think I should buy? Here's, and don't just say like, hey, what's the best boot? I get that question a lot. I'm like, okay, size 13. They're like, well, I'm not a 13. Then give me more information before you ask me what the best boot is. Are you going waterfowl hunting? Are you going hiking? Are you going hunting? Right. So, uh, and obviously the, the answer is flip flops. Of course, you know. Flip flops are the best boot. So yeah, I would say like go online and talk to folks who do it. And then the other thing is,

don't be afraid to go to one of these classes or one of these meetups. Uh, Whether you go to like Eastern Mountain Sports, R-EI, I get it. They're kind of granola hippie, but you probably will meet folks there that are going there with the same intent and they might have the same background. They might even be showing up carrying pistols. You don't even know about it. And they might be just like you. So I would say go meet up with folks because you can only train so much. It definitely helps have a training partner, right?

A training partner who's going to say, hey, by the way, I know it's raining. You're probably going to say, no, we don't want to, we shouldn't go. We're going, right? We're not fair weather guys. And you should train. That accountability is huge, though. Dude, it's that that right there, just having someone to just say, where were you tonight? Where were you, you know, at jiu-jitsu or where were you, you know, we're supposed to go to the gym.

Now there's no one there to spot me, right? Or whatever it is. That should weigh on you, right? And if these are people that you care about and they care about you, then they will hold you accountable. If you're talking to just strangers, they don't care about you. They're never going to, they're not going to fear insulting you, but a friend won't because a friend will tell you straight to your face. Like, by the way, you're slacking. You're getting, you're getting soft.

All right. So you get the correct gear. You meet up with the right folks. You do your reading. And this cycle is sick. This process is cyclical. It's never like, hey, I learned everything I need to know. And I trained here.

And I'm good. Well, you can always see things with a new set of eyes. You can always try something and use a training modifier. If you are used to using a knife that, say, is like a fixed blade with a very stout blade. well, try it with a folding knife. Try it with just a Swiss Army knife because you're not going to be able to dictate all the terms and conditions of your emergency.

Then from there, what I would say is teach someone, right? And this is coming from an educator because when you teach someone, now you realize, damn, this, I'm giving something that could be life-saving or could take someone's life. You found the holes in your game real fast

when you try to teach. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you're always worried out someone and be like, oh, bullshit. Or they'll ask you the one, you're like, God, I'm fine as long as they don't ask me fill in the blank. And it's always the first goddamn question.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And get this, right. It's okay to say like, look, I don't know, but let's learn together. Because guess what? You're both getting stronger. Now, as far as like the items that you should carry every single day, I never leave my house without a Swiss Army knife and a fire starter.

So those are one and two. I always have a bandana in my back pocket, right? Bandanas is multi-use tool. Flashlight is another one. And then, you know, the tools, the weapons. whether it's pistol or blade. You know, I usually have a strong side, you know, side arm and I have a other strong side blade. Because I know the...

You can't have two strong sides, cabin. Yes, you can do it. I cannot have a weak side. That's a mindset thing. I hate the term weak. Dude, it might not be as strong. I'm not amphibious. I can't use both of my arms as well as the other.

Have you, please tell me you've seen that interview of that basketball player. Which one? I need to see this. I need to see the people of whitefish and I've got to see this interview. I'll find it. I'm probably going to murder exactly. how this plays out, but I believe it was a D1 college player. Yeah.

And he was on ESPN or a local news station talking about how he can shoot with both hands equally. And he looks at the person square in the face. He's like, yeah, I can use both hands really well. I'm amphibious. That's like the guy who said that he can't have service members on the island of Guam because it's going to capsize, right? But yeah, no, that's just a mindset thing.

Like it's, you know, it's the idea that we, words matter, thoughts matter, right? And if I start believing that my left hand is weak, I'm going to believe that I can't do things with it. When we teach fire strength is strong, it's just. It's not as strong. It's just a dumb, dumb hand in comparison to my right hand. Correct. But I don't, I don't, I just have a pet peeve. I can't call it a weak hand.

I've, I've jabbed people with this and they've never said it's felt good. And I've done one handed chokes grabbing on the back of my neck and I've choked people out with one hand, one arm. So, I mean, it's, it's good to go. But, you know, we teach people like, okay, you can start a fire with your right hand. You can start a fire with both hands. You should be able to do it with your left hand. Because chances are if you break fall in an emergency, you're going to break your hand, right? You get into a car accident.

You're going to break your hand. You may want to learn how to use your other hand. And a Cyok thing is to call it the other strong hand. You know, so fire starter, knife, bandana. The bandana multi-purpose. I would say the flashlight's really important, but also the tourniquet. I mean, I've always got a turn kit in my bag. And then weapons to defend yourself, right?

Because the idea is, you know, I can only do so much grappling on the ground. I can only strike so many people. And what does your fight look like? Well, and as numbers increase in potential adversaries or opponents, the last thing that you want to do is be grappling on the ground anyway. Oh, my God, right? Yeah, you need space. I tell you what, one of the best things to do to, or tools to use to create space is a firearm.

People will back the fuck up. Yeah. And what I love about the training now is that, with the tools that are out there. I mean, you have guys using red dots on pistols, getting the accuracy that they used to get at with iron sights at three yards at 25. And all the guys that used to shoot 25B8 targets are getting that at 50 and 75 yards. So now, I mean, when you look at a, you know, an incident like a mall shooting, you know,

we always have people that come to classes and they're like, the average gunfight is three yards, three seconds, three rounds. I'm like, are you training to be average? You know, like, don't you know that your tool is capable of doing that? Wouldn't you like to be able to shoot? Is that a real stat? That's like one of the FBI stats. They say three yards, three seconds, three rounds.

Three yards, three seconds. That is a lot closer than most people would think. Yeah. I mean, it's what? Is that just over nine feet? Yeah. Or right at nine feet, double the distance that you and I are maybe. Actually, we're probably, well, we're socially distance.

Responsible or six feet apart. We are very responsible. Yeah. I mean, that's close. The three rounds. I mean, I always, when I hear things like that, and it's almost like you're laying the template or foundation in people's mind that they have to see this.

Correct. Like, okay, the guy was still coming. Why did you only shoot three rounds? Three yards, three seconds. You shoot until the threat is no longer a threat. Like, that's the way that I was taught. You don't have to count your rounds. Yeah, I guess you kind of can't in the back of your mind

because you can think maybe a good time for a tactical reload, but I'm not counting the number of times that I shoot somebody. Like, if I have to shoot somebody, have to shoot somebody it's I shoot until the threat is gone and then we'll move on to the next threat yeah and that's my concern about people being repeating that they think that that's how it's going to play out let me tell you what the real world thinks about statistics and now now they don't give a shit yeah and let me bring this back to the education world because that's like one of my identities right I'm an educator a lot of school resource officers are trying to convey that

to chiefs of police saying I'm in a building with a lot of friendlies the hallways could be over a hundred yards long and I still have a pistol which if I shoot this in a hallway I'm not going to be able to hear radio commands and I may end up injuring a friendly and now the push in many school resource officers is to get short-barreled rifles with suppressors but a lot of chiefs who are more political again this is the middle management versus the guys on the ground they're like you want to bring an assault right the term assault rifle into a school it's like you guys don't understand the threat could be at the other end of the hallway do you want me to get to that three yards three seconds you know like

It drives me crazy. You know, like, I would rather have them to be the best equipped version of themselves. Yeah. And realize, look, we're doing this because we love our kids. We're not trying to threaten our kids. I would say give them and equip them and train them on the most effective equipment possible for the not only worst case scenarios, but likely scenarios as well. Amen. What if the person who is shooting brings a rifle in and all you have is your pistol?

Amen. Like, you're going to run 100 yards towards a person. with a rifle and you only have a pistol, okay, and that's good in theory. Yeah. You know how many people are actually going to do that? I mean, hopefully the SROs would, but that's a heavy task to burden somebody with. How about at least level the playing field? And a suppressor is just a gentlemanly way to shoot.

Absolutely. They're not magic people. They're still loud, depending on the caliber of shooting. But, yeah, you could still hear radio comms. You could communicate at a level that is below yelling because your ears aren't going to be necessarily ringing. Yeah. I don't know. It's swimming upstream though, right?

Because you have to change that public perception. I don't know if that'll ever happen. And the thing for me is I have such a different relationship with firearms because of the community that I came from. I look at it probably the same way as somebody who does, you know, construction for a living looks at framing hammer. Yes, I realize that they're different, obviously. But to me, it's a tool. And you're limited by the person that is holding that tool and their training and their currency and their competency. Just like a framer.

I mean, if it's a guy their first day on the job, and I mean, your shit might not be straight. But that's what it is. It's a tool. And, man, again, there are so few things that I think are unable to be politicized because SBR, which stands for short barrel rifle. People, oh, it's an assault rifle. It's scary.

Like, well, first of all, it doesn't meet any of the criteria for an assault rifle, but technically it's not. The suppressor, that one, those actually trip people out a little bit, too. Like, why would you want that? Like, let's just do, let's shoot two rounds. the first will be suppressed the second will not be you tell me why we should have a suppressor

on our guns and make them any more lethal you know it's like come on people but I don't I don't think that that'll ever be changed I think that will be politicized and argued till the end of the end of the earth and it's unfortunate because it's a tool that could do amazing things in the right hands and it can do terrible things in the wrong hands too

yeah just just like modern medicine and that's another identity right I'm the son of a doctor and yet doctors kill more people and firearms every single year. Malpractice exists for a reason. Yeah. You know, so it's... The practice, not a science.

Exactly. Or a perfection, right? What do you think about the survival shows that are on TV? Oh, dear God. All right. So my experience... Because there's a variety of them. There are.

And I'm friends with a number of folks who have been on them. The survival community is very small. And I've been interviewed for a lot of them. I was interviewed for a loan. And when I was interviewed for alone, they said, well, what's your strategy? I'm like, I'm going to raid the other camps and burn them to the ground. And they're like, you're definitely not making it to the second round of interviews. Yeah, they said, they said you can't do that.

I'm like, but my goal is to be the last one, right? So I can't sneak into that camp and destroy all their resources and survive. And they're like, no. My strategy is sapatour. Yes, absolutely. I was like, I'm like, I absolutely would do that. I think it would be funny. It would make great TV.

I think what happens, and this is one of the faults of the networks, is that they need ratings. They need ratings. so they're going to ask people to take risks as opposed to mitigate risks. And that's the whole idea of a survival instructor. Let me give you the equipment that you need. So the risk of you not being without a fire is lessened. You have kit on you. You know how to make a fire.

Well, let's take a survival instructor and have them jump off of a cliff when they could just walk around. Oh, well, the walking around is not as exciting. So a lot of these shows, and I've been on pilots. I was on a pilot where they changed the rules of, of the game halfway through. Yeah. The premise of the show, it never, it never aired, but I shot it in, uh, Baja Mexico in 2016.

I had a novice. Uh, his name was Joel, uh, or William, uh, good kid. And another SME, uh, this guy who was on alone, a good friend of mine, uh, Joel Vanderloon. He, uh, he, uh, he had another novice and we both were told you have to cross the desert over three days. We're not telling you how far it is. Keep your novice alive. And if the novice gets to the final point, the show was called cold hard cash and cash spelled

like the hidden supplies, your novice will win 10 grand or whatever. Well, my novice is like, okay, let's do this. So we were moving. Like in my novice was like a triathlet. So we're crushing distance across the desert. We're moving fast. Every night instead of building a shelter, we found a tipped over car that was left over from the Baja race because it was in that area.

And we said we're carrying our shelter with us. We took the knife out. We cut the seats out of the back and we slung them over our backs. We're like, we're not going to waste time. We can spend more time traveling and less time building shelter. So we were getting pretty damn far. And then the production said, oh, guys, time out. Time out.

We got some local traffic. We got a halt production for a while. Now, they halted us where there was no shade. And we're just fucking cooking. Right. And I'm like, oh, my God. And Joel is getting tired. I'm getting tired.

That night, this is a true story. My God strike me dead. That night we're sitting around and I see Joel. I'm looking over and the camera crews right around us. He ends up puking and I'm like, oh my God. Now they're interviewing him and I'm like, why is he puk? And I could feel that I was about to puke and I don't know what the hell it caused it. Maybe some bad water.

So I go over to the other side. I'm trying to get away from everything and I start yacking and I'm hunched over and I see two feet standing in front of me. I'm like, these bastards, they've got a camera right in my face. So I was like, I'm not going to let them punk me. So I finished puking. I get up. I wipe my mouth. I'm like, well, that's over with.

And I go and I walk away. And they're like, that just happened. Like, did this guy just puke and like just brush it off? So come to find out when we finish the show, Joel, we got there early. We finished like 43 minutes ahead of the other team. Joel won the 10 grand. It was all play money because we couldn't take actual cash across the U.S. Mexico border.

The security advisor, who is on the, on our team because every team had a security guy and a medic, right? Usually one of the same. His name was Rydian Bridge. That's a hell of a name. The dude, he looks, he kind of like, if you ever seen Gone in 60 seconds, he's like the guy that they call Snake or whatever, right? He comes up to me, he shakes my hand.

He's like, yo, one tough bastard. He was British because he's like, I didn't think you were going to make it through the night that you pukes. But what the interesting thing is about all these survival shows, they have to manufacture drama one way or another. And they usually, it wasn't in my case, but I've talked to some other folks recently who were on popular shows. And they said that there's like a $100,000 clause where they say, if you don't do what we say, we're going to come after you for breach of contract. So a lot of these guys that are very, very proficient in survival skills are told, hey, you're going to do this with this.

I don't know if I should $100,000 and they do it. So I really don't have a desire to be on any of these shows because it puts me in the receiver. position where I can't call the shots. Like if it were me on alone, I would be going to the different camps burning stuff. I'd be urinating on things. I'd be like leaving all. I'd destroy the camp because that would be me in control. But a lot of these producers are in control of the people that they put on the shows. And it makes some really solid folks look like total buffoons. And I feel bad for them. Now, the flip side of the coin is it's getting people interested in the outdoors. And as long as they're interested in the outdoors, I'm happy. But they need to understand.

and the outdoors is not what they see on TV. Right? One of the hardest struggles is gonna be collecting firewood every single day. One of the hardest struggles is gonna be, you eat a trout, well, maybe that's 200 calories. Well, that's one fish that you caught. You need about 2,000 calories.

You know what I mean? So they don't paint the picture the way that they should. And sometimes, like for some of the folks that were on alone, they'll say no fur, no feathers. Meanwhile, there's fur and feathers everywhere that they can catch. But because of the game, they wanna make it look a certain way, you're not allowed to get those things.

So it's, it's highly manufactured. Yeah. The best, the best shows, best survival shows, watch the ones that are from like 50 years ago, right? Where they're interviewing folks that are like the last of the breed, the last of the tribes, right? Like, look up indigenous tribes around the world and how they live because, man, those are the good ones. My first exposure to survival shows. Yeah. Was through a host, I'll make up a name, Bear Grills.

And- You mean Eddie? That's his real name. Eddie is this real name? I love how they will show like a stick and bow fire being made in one minute. Yeah. And they skip, I mean, I've tried it. It's not easy.

They skip the blisters, the time, the failed efforts. It creates this facade that it's much easier, much like the three yards, three seconds, three rounds. It can create this facade, I think, where people are like, oh, yeah, I could do that. It's like, bitch, you better give that a try. Right, right. And well, then you find out, and again, not to harp on him particularly, but, I mean, I read articles where they would do some stuff and then maybe be in the Marriott and then go back and do some stuff. Yeah, TV's a weird world for sure. Yeah.

So I will never discredit him for being an athlete. The dude is athletic. I mean, he, one of the youngest to climb Everest and super, super fit dude. I don't like the fact that he's showing risks that people shouldn't be taking. Now, Hollywood has, they have to be, they have to be a smart business. Hollywood does Hollywood shit. Yeah. And I get it.

Like, it's not, it's like, I still love the movie Castaway. I think Castaway is brilliant. I think the guys that were the tech advisors from Boulder Outer Survival School, they did a great job of showing like, like, okay, well, you don't have a knife. What are you going to do? You don't have a fish net. What are you going to do? I love the idea of how they showed he was resourceful without a lot of resources. Freaking amazing.

But yeah, a lot of these hosts end up becoming, you know, the public enemy number one in the survival community because Hollywood wants them to be very proficient with what they do and they're going to speed up the process in order to get all the production value in a day. So it's not uncommon to hear of like a Hollywood crew going to a rattlesnake farm buying rattlesnakes and then putting into the production notes. Oh, so-and-so is going to capture a rattlesnake after looking in the things. go to rattlesnake farm on highway 101. I swear to God. Swear to God. And, you know, it makes sense that Hollywood would do that to save money, but it's not authentic.

It presents something that will get people killed. You know, it's just, it's part of the nature of the beast that, you know, we live in in the survival community. Again, Hollywood will do Hollywood shit. I caution people, regardless of the size of the screen you are watching, content through, determine, like you have said, is this information,

or is this entertainment? Yeah. So, tell me about your book, man. Yeah. I was flipping through it the other day. It's, well, I'll let you tell me about it or people listening about it, but I think it's awesome.

Thank you. You did a very good job with it. Thank you. So my book is 101 skills you need to survive in the woods. That book, I probably should have started writing in 2012. Pamanuantuan, Tsyok. He said to me in 2012, he goes, when's your book coming out?

And I'm like, what do you mean he goes well he's written like 50 magazine articles like because i i write for a bunch of mags uh he goes you need to write a book and i'm like i don't know if i'm ready well he was kind of one that planted the seed that i should write a book um one of my friends craig caudill he's our resident tracker at fieldcraft he wrote a book through page street and he's like you need to write a book and now i've heard it from like enough people i'm like i'm writing a book so mike was probably on you too uh no i didn't know mike at the time because he's been on my ass he's like I'll do the audio for it, which actually would be amazing.

Mike's got a good narrative voice. It's either him or James Earl Jones. I mean, those are the only two. That would be a good one. Yeah, Darth Vader or Mike Glover, what? Yeah. Or maybe they alternate chapters. I'm just saying.

Yeah. Why put yourself in a box? Absolutely. So, yeah, the book, my friend Craig was finally like, I'm going to introduce you to the publishers. So it was in January of 2018. I got an email from the publishers. I was driving up to the Wilderness Learning Center. I was on the throughway in New York State and they're like, can you send us a sample table of contents?

I'm like, sure. So I pull over. I'm at a rest stop and I type out a table of content. It took like 30 minutes on a phone, right, typing in it. Sent it off to them. I get messages like, we need a sample chapter. So I wrote the hardest chapter that I could write, which was Landnav because I figured it's the most technical. I just want to get it out of the way first.

Biggest, biggest bully in the room, right, the Landnav chapter. So I finished that one. April, they said, we want the full book. You write a lot of magazine articles. At the time, it was like 100. They're like, you probably could write this quickly. We want it in three months. Like, okay.

So I was still teaching. April through July, I wrote the book. And I told myself, I'm going to write Monday through Friday. And I want to be done by Friday. I'll take Saturday off. And I will proof the chapter that I read on Sunday. And I did that every single week. I originally handed them 101,000 words.

Because they told me, they're like, we're not going to give you a minimum or a maximum. Just write it until you feel. good. And I kind of was like, it was slightly ego driven. I'm like, I want over 100,000 words in that book. Average book, by the way, for people listening is 80,000. And that's what it came out to be. By the way. I gave them 1001,000 words. And they're like, Kev, that's amazing. You need to cut it by a third. And I almost had a heart attack. I was like, how do I cut a third? God damn it, these are skills you need. Yeah, for real. And there were anecdotes, right? And people remember stories. Like, if I, if I tell you that, hey, I taught a guy how to do a winter, you know, fire and you have to

water and he hit the tip of his hat hit the tip of his hat against the cup of his water and it tipped and put his fire out guess what people will remember that I had to cut out so many anecdotes my niece illustrated the book she was only 12 at the time she no way yeah for real 12 years old and the funny thing is they didn't know that she was 12 so they're like can you tell your illustrator we'd like to contract her I'm like yeah when she's legal age you can contract her for now you can pay me and I'll pay her yeah I mean she's basically she's under my umbrella of my company we'll just go ahead and we'll work all that through me She actually, she actually turned 16 tomorrow and, uh, you're telling me a 12 year old,

Drew these. Yes, I didn't. Yes, I am. And now she's a, that's so awesome. Stunning. Well, and here's the best part, right? Like some of these photos, uh, like when it gets to like the animal skinning, they're, they're like, well, Kevin, you know, uh, you can't have photos of you cleaning a trout.

There's blood. And I'm like, how do you expect people to eat fish if they can't clean them, right? And they're like, well, can you have your, your illustrator, illustrate the fish. So now I'm sending my niece bloody animal photos. And she's like, uncle. Uncle. I don't know if I can. She's like, I don't know.

like did you really do this? I'm like just work with me here. Yeah. So the other thing about that book is I didn't want to appeal just to like the primitive guys. Like if you look at the the back cover you'll see a couple seals right. You'll see Kyle the four. You'll see Joel Lambert on the inside cover. You know, he recommended it both. I mean I would just I would go light with the seals. They're known to suck. I'd stick with

the Army Rangers green berets, you know. Well, Mike Lover might be you know tied to the next book. So yeah, I was like, I don't want to appeal just to the guys that are into survival from the military aspect or the bushcrafters. I want to get folks from all different domains, right? So, I mean, I've got on the back cover, I've got Kyle DeFour, I've got Terry Barney, who's a seer instructor. I've got Nicole Appellian who was on a loan or botanist PhD. I've got a lot of good folks on there. And I was like, that way, when people are like, well, I don't know if it's a good book. It's like, well, dude, you got 12 experts that are saying

It's a pretty damn good book, right? And then the book released in April of 2019. It's been in the top 1% of all books on Amazon since then. No shit. Yeah. So that's one of the ego things that I check it almost every day. And I'm like, let's see what folks have to say about it. And I love getting feedback from readers saying, you know, I was hiking on a trail.

We couldn't find her way. We remembered what we read in your book about building a shelter with a tarp. Here's our photos because we wanted to document it. And it got us through the night. Thank you. Man, that that type of thing made it totally worthwhile. Book number two, they wanted me to do a cookbook. And I was like, That's an interesting transition. Well, they're all, and the reason it's 101 skills is because they had a lot of cookbooks already under their, their docket. And I was like, well, what's going to track with them? What are they going to resonate with? I was like, let me give them a number. Because it was like, 101 barbecue recipes, 100.1. I was like, I'm going to give them 101 survival skills. They loved it. And that's how I sold the book to them.

but then they didn't want advanced survival craft. They didn't want advanced field craft. And that's what Mike wants. So I'm going to write a book now through field craft that Jocko is actually probably going to publish. And Mike wants it by December 1st because he's like, oh, you did the first one. You did the first one in three months. You can do the second one three months. However, you could do a cookbook too.

And it could be bush crafting recipes, 101 things you could make by a campfire. There will absolutely be a chapter on cooking in there. And it's going to be like for the guy. who has a dozen books that are all, this is how you begin, well, it's like, you don't want to just be average. You want to be above average. So they're in that book. I already have a few chapters done. There's going to be a chapter on basic rifle marksmanship, because it's a lost art. Everyone wants to go running gun and turn a whole bunch of money into noise. But let's talk about strict marksmanship. How do you, how do you shoot a rifle accurately? Because you might need to do that

put food on the table. There's a chapter on canoeing. There's a chapter on camping in the winter, which a lot of people don't like because it's painful. Well, guess what you learn a lot from So I'm going to teach I'm going to do a whole chapter on on winter camping. I'm going to do one on field repair because you use your gear enough. You need to sharpen knives, clean guns. You need to patch gear. There's going to be a lot of really cool stuff in that book that doesn't get talked about. But the beauty is is that we have the flexibility to talk about overlanding. Here's off road driving. Here's how you do break throttle modulation. Here's how you, you know, descend downhill. You know, here's how your vehicle can either steer. It can break or it can accelerate. You know, here's like like it's going to cover stuff that people want to know, but they didn't. You know, it's like, it's going to cover stuff that people want to know, but they didn't. You know. It's didn't realize they needed to know it, but it's going to stack onto this existing book and all the other books that are out there. It's going to compliment it. So I'm looking forward to that process, which starts pretty much. I mean, it's already started, but Mike is like, after your trip to Alaska, you're going to focus on the book. And I'm like, got it, buddy. It's going to get done. When you lay your head on the pillow at night, do you feel more fulfilled teaching this type of stuff

than you do teaching school? Both, I think, are very noble pursuits, but, you know, some people are more passionate about one than the other. Curious how you feel now after just leaving that professional, traditional, academic setting. This is a true story and this will answer the question with a story. I was at Blade Show this year and a guy came up to me and he was with his son. His son had some mental challenges and the son came up to me and gave me a giant hug and he's like, would you sign my book?

Would you sign my book? I signed the book. I talked to the son for a while and then the dad pulled me aside and he said, this pandemic really messed with my kid and he needed something and your book made him want to be excited about going outdoors again. And I've gotten so many of those emails, countless emails from people that are saying, this has given me something that has allowed me to connect with my kid,

or this has given me something that has made me understand why my husband does this. Like, I love the fact that people realize that these skills are, yeah, they're fun. And they will save a life. But on so many other layers and levels, they can bring families together. They can keep you safe at night.

They can build a sense of security. They can make you interested in, hey, I can survive in the woods? Can I survive on the street? No. So maybe I should go take some martial arts classes. I sleep very well at night knowing that I'm not teaching people to do something destructive. I mean, we're building fires. We're killing animals.

We're doing things to survive. But it's ultimately prolonging your life. It's not like I'm teaching people something where I say, man, I feel like I'm giving them a vice that they'll never be able to get away from. If you get hooked on the great outdoors, it's a great drug. So I sleep very well at night. And I look forward to going to work every single day. And, yeah, Fieldcraft is not a job for everyone because we do work crazy hours, like 8 o'clock yesterday until 9.30 last night I was at the office,

putting in ridiculous hours. But I know that what we're doing and skills like this are truly, truly survival skills. Like, they make your life better. And it makes me feel so damn good to do it. It's awesome. I wish that that would actually be my wish, well, other than I think everybody should have to endorse suffering and learn from it. My follow and wish from that would be that people can find something to do that gives them a sense of purpose and fulfillment that you just described. And I think it's

far too infrequent in the modern day that that people are able to find that. That's awesome. And I'm so glad that you were able to do so. It's powerful. And it actually will make you better teacher. Where can people find you? Wow. You can find me at Fuelcraft. It's from 8 a.m. until 9.30 p.m. every day. And every Saturday, every Saturday in Utah. No, but seriously, like folks can find me through Fieldcraft. You can go to Fieldcraft Survival.com. You can find them on my personal Instagram, which is at Estella Wild Ed, which is just short for my old company, Estella Wilderness Education. You can find me in Hebrew City, Utah. You can, many times when people come through our headquarters, you'll find Mike there. You'll find George Bell there. You'll find Kevin

owns there. You'll find me there. And people are like, wow, you guys are actually approachable. We're not freaking celebrities. We're just average dudes that like talk. Mike's got a lot of celebrity status. And there are a lot of dudes and gals that, you know, send him things and whatnot. There are dudes that want to jerk Mike off and they're not going. I'll say it. Mike knows it.

So, yeah, I mean, it is what it is. It's a tough comment to follow. I understand. You know, I'm speechless at this point, man. Damn. Man, I thought I was going to get out of this one easy. So yeah, I mean, people can find me on the personal Instagram. You can email me at Estella at fieldcraft survival.com.

Something that I'll tell everyone here is that I answer every email. Many times I might just give you a link. Depending on what I'm doing during the day, it might be a one word answer. But something that people comment about is that, wow, Kevin Owens actually replied back to me. Oh, my God. You know, Mike actually replied back to me. Like, we take the time to remember the folks that are training with us because you never know. I mean, how many other people.

people blew that person off and we don't want to pull you away from the fire right like in many ways like the logo that we have like like fire symbolic and survival well we want to bring you close to the fire we want to make you part of the bigger flame we want to make you part of this inferno because like you're the fuel that feeds us right so you know we will answer every single email but if you ask us for a dissertation like I'm probably just going to send you a link like yeah dude tell me about the difference between this and this I'm like here's a link boom you know what I mean and it's not to be snarky or dick or anything like that it's just I mean, we have very, very dynamic days at work where Mike might say, hey, we got to do this, this, this. And it's like, I only have so many hours in the day. I can't, even though I do believe in the 24-hour clone, I can't realistically clone myself and do everything. So if you guys get a short answer, it's not because I don't like you. It's just because I might not have time. Just please respect that. But every one of your questions will be answered.

That's awesome. It's a lofty endeavor as well, especially as the audience grows. Oh, man, dude, it's growing. It's tough. Closing thoughts by Mr. Estella. Dude, closing thoughts. Number one, thank you. Of course.

My pleasure. As soon as you guys reached out, I'm like, fuck, of course, obviously. It's just cool to connect. I mean, I've heard good things through Bill and I've heard things through Mike, and it's good to finally shake your hand. And, you know, I meant every word I said in that dedication of the book in the beginning.

I appreciate all the deeds of your past and present. Closing thoughts, I would encourage everyone out there to abide by that idea of the 24-hour clone, right? I don't care if it relates to survival skills or it relates to you as a person, a husband or a wife, right? If you can be a better husband or wife from one day to the next, do it. If you can be a better son or daughter to your parents, maybe they're ailing, then do that. You know, closing thoughts is never, ever stop learning.

I mean, it's very easy to get a stripe on your belt or get a promotion and think, that's it. I've made it. I hate the word settle. The way I'm going to settle is when someone puts my dead body in a box and I stop moving. And closing thoughts, I just want to thank all the students who have gotten me here. All the students at the high school, I miss the hell of you guys, and all the students around the campfire. I mean, you guys made me want to keep doing this when other people said, oh, my God, you should just focus on teaching the school. So I just, I appreciate everyone that's gotten me here.

And I stand on the shoulders of giants to be here. As do I, my friend. Yeah. Hell yeah. Thank you very much. Great time. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio-only platform or you're watching on YouTube.

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I truly appreciate it. Until next time. See you.