Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - "Free Money" Is Costing Someone | Full Auto Friday | 10.23.2026

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

A Marine veteran with no combat time or service injuries asks what I think about his stepsons' VA disability ratings and whether he should file for the same "free money." I break down where that money actually comes from, what the deficit and national debt look like, and why I'd tell him to stick to his morals. I also address the people who feel the need to qualify their service.  A listener pushes back on last week's censorship conversation and cites an FBI arrest as proof that some speech has to be stopped. I walk through what the First Amendment protects and what it doesn't, why an arrest for incitement is a consequence rather than censorship, and I repeat the question I've been asking for years: show me one example where censorship was a net positive. A 25-year-old whose father coached him from high school through college writes in about losing the sport he loved, feeling behind in his mid-20s, and worrying his fiancée will be collateral damage while he figures it out. My advice is simple. Share all of it with her. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors:  Surefire:  https://www.surefire.com Ridge:  One thing to pack, five ways to power! You can find Ridge's Power Bank at Best Buy or our listeners can get 10% off at https://www.Ridge.com by using code "clearedhot" at checkout.

Okay, got the red smoke. West of the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. Come on winter, baby. Give it to me. I made it. You're clear it hot. What is up, everybody? We're back.

It's Friday. Most of the time I usually start off. What a horrible sentence. Most of the time I usually start off. God, one of those days. Just one of those days. The two weans have been kicking my ass. Beans is an amazing addition.

His nickname is Piss Fingers. because he likes to piss in places he's not supposed to. Hovey's just hobby. Amazing. He sounds a lot like an old grandma these days. Leah said this morning just moaning, oh, oh, just being harassed by a puppy. It's going to get there.

We're going to be okay. That's probably the biggest update I have. I think we got fooled by the Pinterest photos of two dogs curled up lovingly, only loving on each other, never losing their mind. on each other in the middle of the night because of incidental contact on the bed. We'll get there. It's been a journey. And on that journey, let's get into another one.

Let's have a traditional fallout of Friday. Just Q&A today because Michael is off in Portugal, you know, caring about only himself, which he normally does. All right, here we go. First question, man, I got in some trouble for this topic about this time last year. My own fault, though, I'll explain why. Mr. Andy, first, I appreciate your. podcast now just for the content, or not just for the content, but for your perspective on most topics. My question, sorry if I take the long way around the barn here is I served in the Marine Corps

for seven years, all non-combat, 93 to 2000. I hope that everybody out there realizes, I'm speaking specifically to the military members here, and actually, you know, I take that back, I'm speaking to everybody, those who serve and those that haven't. you do not need, in my opinion, to clarify and quantify whether or not your service was combat or not. The willingness to raise your hand, to serve your country, to move away from where you grew up, unless for some reason you got stationed right back where you were. I guess that would be awkward, unless that's what you were looking for. For me, I don't care what you did with your time.

I don't get into the exercise of competitive service, competitive suffering, competitive combat experience, any of that stuff. I am appreciative and grateful for everybody who has been willing to be issued the American flag on their uniform for whatever period of time that you were able to do it. And I'm not saying that you are not proud of your service, but I have met many people who hesitate, especially in audiences or around people who may have served. who may have served in a more combat-centric role or a more kinetic time period, they feel less comfortable talking about their own experiences because they didn't share that level of combat exposure or combat experience. And I don't think that you need to be that way. The service itself is what is important. Can it be different? 100% for sure. But don't get into that game of quantitative and qualitative assessment of what the value of your service was in

comparison to somebody else. So I digress. My MOS was being a computer geek, so the majority of my time was spent behind a desk. I kind of discovered how I feel about that. Moving on, the nature of the beast dictated that we did jarhead stuff from time to time. All that stuff does inflict wear and tear, but I didn't have any service-related injuries. Side note, the reason I left the military was primarily due to my now ex-wife. I don't think enough emphasis is put on the spouses in the role they play in the well-being and mental state of the servicemen. I tell you what, I tell you what, I would agree with you on that, but I would go so much farther outside of the military and just say that I am of the opinion. And I have a failed marriage as well.

I've been very open about that or at least my going through that. The decisions we make with the people that we are going to spend our life with can enhance or alter the trajectory of where that life is going to go. And my point in saying that is take the time, have the conversations, go to premarital counseling, ask the questions, try to resolve any uncertainties or doubts, if there is any, if there's not spectacular, before that level of commitment. Because I couldn't agree with you more, especially in the military, especially if there are children involved. the role that the significant other, the spouse that they play is absolutely critical. And in that particular instance, I couldn't agree more that enough emphasis isn't placed on the role that they play and the importance of that role that they play.

Those people don't exist without them. It wouldn't be possible. But be careful with the decisions that you make with the people that you're going to spend the rest of your life with, hopefully. Cut to a bunch of years later, my new and improved wife has three boys. The two younger ones enlisted in the military, one in the Corps and one in the Coast Guard. Both completed their four years honorably and both were non-deployed. They both broke a bone in drunken, dumb assery, but no other truly service-related injuries. They have both put in disability claims to the VA.

They were, and you wrote in air quotes, successful, and one got 80% disability, and the other is now at 100%. Their claims are purely based on non-provable evidence. ailments such as tinnitus, anxiety, etc. I have a moral problem with this as I feel it is just taking advantage of the system and it feels like fraud. Their take on it is that it's free money and who is it hurting? My wife would like me to try to file a claim to get this free money. But again, I have a moral problem with it. Your thoughts? Question mark. Now I mentioned before I started this got myself into a touch of hot water last year around this time it was actually December so a little bit later than this time period 100% my fault I was having a conversation

I forget with whom we were talking about VA disability benefits and the fraud associated with that I made an offhanded comment we were talking about the percentages and I said something along the lines of oh yeah it's probably at 50% if not more that is a completely In the moment, comment that I made, I made a video correcting that I don't believe that 50% of veterans are actually fraudulently trying to access VA claims because I don't actually believe that. But what I do believe is that there is a contingent and segment of individuals that do that. I think anybody who has been in the military who has interfaced with the VA benefits program realizes that there are. are people that are being 100% transparent and legitimate. And there are others that are trying to game the system. I don't think that that is a revelatory statement. I think the discussion point and

perhaps the argument could be what percentage point would you align to each one of those categories. And that's not for me to do because I am not directly involved in this. I'm not somebody who rates this. I'm not one of the medical examers that you go to to have your appointment that leads to your eventual rating. But what I'll say is this. There are groups of people out there, VSO's veteran service officers, I believe it stands for, that are doing everything they possibly can, working as their, like, core mission to get people the benefits that they rightly have earned through military service.

And if you go online yourself, so you can just double check the veracity of what I am saying, there are communities of people who are doing everything they possibly can to drive their disability rating as high as possible aiming for 100% and beyond that 100% permanent and total. There are organizations that you can pay to help you with that. There are Facebook support communities that you can take a look at from the periphery and I'm not going to tell you how to view them, but maybe just go surf into the tide of what they're talking about and how they're talking about it and come to your own conclusion. I'll leave it as bland as that because I don't want to bias anybody. It goes back to my comment.

The manipulation of the system is real, but we can have a conversation about how much. And that's probably true of any system that there is at all. Before I get to the morality of this, which I mean, that's a tough one. I'm not here to tell anybody how to live their life. and I don't want to give anybody else their morals. I can give you my feedback on how I feel about this. But one thing that stuck out here is that their take on this is that it is free money and who is it hurting.

Well, where does the money come from for disability benefits? It comes from the United States government. It is funded, and I looked this up because I wanted to get just some stats to not support my opinion here, but perhaps just educate for those that don't know who maybe do think that this is free money and that everybody associated who did serve is deserving of this money, which, again, is not a decision for me to make it. And I'm not going to argue who deserves what and who doesn't, because again, I'm not part of the system that makes that determination. But today's episode is brought to you by Surefire. This is your monthly reminder that half of every day occurs in

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Every Surefire product is engineered, machined, and assembled here in the USA. Go check out everything that they have to offer at surefire.com. Back to the show. Here's some stats for those who might think that this is free money. total spending on income security programs for veterans, which is mostly disability compensation, is approximately $200 billion per year with service-connected disability compensation accounting for $186 billion of that total. And that is directly what they were talking about with the 80% and the 100% disability.

That is the service-connected disability compensation rating that they received. Key breakdown of veterans' benefits in disability spending. Out of total veteran income security programs, roughly 186 billion is spent directly on service-connected disability pay. The overall VA budget, the Department of Veterans Affairs total budget request has risen past $400 billion, with the Veterans Benefit Administration portion reaching roughly $227 billion. So the benefits administration budget is more than half of the entire Department of Veterans Affairs total budget. Not by much, but over half. The driving factors.

Growth is driven by an aging veteran population. Very true. So more people as they age are going to be taxing the system that they rightfully participated in and deserve to be cared for. Higher average disability ratings. And in parentheses, with many veterans filing for multiple conditions. I don't know anything about people filing now or before my time in service at actually. specifically when I got out when I did the physical evaluation board, medical evaluation board process, the P-E-B-M-E-B process, which a part of that was going to my VA rating appointments while I was still in the military and it was one complete package and the VA ruled on my compensation rating and the Navy ruled on my disability rating. Ah, man, it's been a while.

There was a ruling from each, both the Navy and the VA. It allowed it all to happen at once so I didn't exit the military. and then have to go through the process. I believe there were eight appointments that I had to go to. It could have been six. I don't know if that's current anymore. But it all happened in once as opposed to finishing one, getting one decision and then having to interface and wait sometimes potentially months

if you need to go see a specialist and then getting your rating farther on. So there have been legislative expansions like the honoring our PACT Act and annual cost of living adjustments. Cola, which so it's not all the service-connected disability. compensation, but that is a part of it. And again, that's, that's probably the inside of the veterans filing for multiple conditions. So that's where the money comes from. The comment or the belief that this money is free and isn't hurting anyone is so objectively wrong. You could argue what hurt means, but the free aspect of that is so objectively wrong. It comes from taxpayer

dollars. So every U.S. citizen paying tax to a fraction of a degree, whatever percentage of what you pay, some of that is going towards this. And when somebody would say, well, who is it hurting? I suppose you could change that to if somebody, and I'm not claiming that these people are fraudulently putting in for their claim, but if for the people out there and there are people out there who are gaming the system and their response may be, well, who is it hurting? The answer, or who is it wronging? The answer is the citizens to your left and right. Is it to a massive degree?

No, it's not to a massive degree. But really small things can add up to end up being a really big problem. The U.S. federal budget deficit. The U.S. federal budget deficit. Like I said, one of those days for words, which is the next tab I looked up. Because let's look at how this free money that isn't wronging anybody is really tally. The U.S. federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2026 is $1.99 trillion, or approximately $1.992 trillion, according to the final data released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Let's add to that. And the total gross national debt has surpassed $40.38 trillion.

So, yeah. Is the money? free. Should we care about the future generations that I'm not even sure you can dig out of a 40 trillion dollar hole? Having said that, I'm not an expert in economics or accounting. And if my 26 business prowess shows me anything, it shows me that I don't know shit about doing business. But I think I understand, or I'm trying to understand, a P&L and money in versus money out. And I can tell you at a private business capacity, what happens when your money out consistently outstrips your money in and you keep loaning against that or borrowing against it, I should say. And then eventually the people that you're borrowing from or the person or the bank or entity, whatever it is, says no. And they put their

hand out and they say, you need to pay me back and you can't. In the private world, they're going to take your shit. And they should because you made an obligation to pay them and you're falling short of that obligation and they need to be made whole. That's my opinion, at least. Why people shift that philosophy when it comes to our country, I don't know. Maybe because, I guess for me, like I said, I don't even understand the deficit for the year being $1.99 trillion. That number, just write that out. It's ridiculous. And then write out 40.38 trillion. What? I don't even understand that math. You'd have to get rid of so many of those zeros until it gets to a figure that I could understand. But if we want to work or I should say, I guess, exist as a nation, maybe we should get a handle on this particular P&L. This money isn't free. This money is, I think of this as what my children are going to have to battle their way through. And not just my kids.

Their kids, kids, kids, kids, which I won't be around for, but I certainly had a hand in digging the hole that they're going to have to put the dirt back in if that's even possible. And like I said, I don't even know if that is possible at this point. So the money isn't free. Who are they wronging? The taxpayer, in my opinion. Now, you said, your wife would like you to try to file a claim to get this free money. but again, I have a moral problem with it. What I would say to you is this.

Stick to your morals. I agree with you. I hold the same opinion, not of your sons or son-in-laws, because I don't know them. I don't know their particular situation. I don't have any access to the paperwork that they put in. And also, most importantly, I'm not the one who made that decision and I'm not a part of that system. That system exists. I'm going to let that system do its job.

Would I love to see some enhancements and refinements of that system? Yes, I absolutely would. But that's true of every government system that we have. I really would like to look for some efficiencies. So maybe we can start pulling back a little bit of this margin in right size, even if it's incrementally, the P&L. So the rating, I'll leave it to that. But your morals, I agree with your morals on this.

I do believe in right and wrong. I do believe that there is sometimes gray area, but probably one of the things I have said the most since I've started this show is that I believe in integrity. And I believe in telling the truth. Whether or not your son-in-laws are doing that, I'll leave you to make that judgment. But if you personally don't feel like you have service-connected disabilities, I would say stick to your morals. Another way that you could answer this, though, is go through the process, but just answer objectively, honestly, and let the system net for you the result, and that way you can say to your wife, listen, you know what, I'll go and I'll try. But you answer every question honestly,

every questionnaire honestly, and if they give you a rating, that's the rating you have. And if they don't give you a rating, then that's the rating that you don't have. But, you told the truth, you stuck to your morals, and then that way you will sleep well at night. It's so easy, and I've been the person in my life who has said, who's it hurting? And I can't think, of course, in the moment right now, the exact example of when that happened, but I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I fall short of the person I want to be less frequently than I did when I was younger, but I'm just, God, just a train wreck sometimes as a person.

I've been this person. I've been called out for being this person, not when it comes to veterans benefits, but just in other aspects of my life where it's just so easy to say, well, who does it hurt? Why does it matter? And having people call me out on it. And it sucks because the snapshot thing you want to do is defend your position.

But if you actually just sit there and think about it, you end up feeling oftentimes like an asshole because you're in the wrong. And you took the easy path as opposed to the correct path. So I like your more. You know, stick to your morals. But also, you know, don't feel the need to quantify your service. Don't get into the competitive suffering and service category that some people do. I'm appreciative of the fact that you are willing to serve our country.

And on that, that's all I have for question number one. All right, question number two. This one is in response to the negligent discharge or a negligent discharge topic that Michael pulled up ambushed me with as he always does on those. episodes last week. All right. Hey, Andy and Michael. I'm listening to you guys talk about the old lady in the UK who got arrested for her sign at a protest. And I wish I could pull up this image and give you the exact reference to the audience now. I don't have it because Michael pulled that up. He could probably pull it up in an instant. I'm sorry, I don't have it. I suppose you could go reference last Friday's episode. I'm pretty sure he put it up. If you don't want to do that,

the best way I can describe it is I believe that the woman, very elderly woman, was holding up a sign that was in support of Palestine. She was arrested, and I don't have granular detail beyond that. Now, I'm going to read the first sentence again because the second one could make it seem like I'm making a hard right here. Andy and Michael, I'm listening to you guys talk about the old lady in the UK who got arrested for her signed at a protest. Now, I, of course, don't agree with that. However, I wanted to push back on your sticks and stones argument and your belief that censorship is never is never necessary argument a little bit. First, for clarity, did I say that censorship is never necessary? I didn't say that. What I said was, and what I've always said, is can you show me an

example of where censorship was utilized and the end state was a net positive, where it wasn't a power grab or power move by one side or the other, by one entity or the other? I never described it in terms of being necessary. So let's be precise with the language and argument that we are going to use. I have no problem unpacking it whatever depth you want how I feel, but I just want to frame how I feel correctly before I get into it. There is no doubt that words cannot cause physical harm. I usually say that too, but I will say this. They can cause emotional harm and they can be hurtful to people, but not in the sense of doing physical damage.

I suppose emotional damage could manifest over time. but you continue. What about words which encourage violence? Do you agree that people should be free to promote physical violence, especially when it includes explicit instructions and directions on how to execute harm? For example, a man was arrested by the FBI recently for providing encouragement and instruction to a school shooter in British Columbia, Canada. Could the argument be made? that that is a violation of someone's free speech.

Is there a crossover between free speech, censorship, and planning or encouraging a crime? Canada has, in my mind, some pretty reasonable hate speech laws that I think many Americans would find violating when it comes to free speech laws. Truly just wondering what your thoughts are on this. Sorry, if I didn't articulate this well, I have bad brain. That was their words written as read as they were written. Okay, let's go back to this. I think you misunderstand the First Amendment. I'm guessing this person is Canadian, perhaps not,

but let's cover exactly what freedom of speech means through the lens of the First Amendment in the United States, which at a broad level, it means it's your ability to express yourself, your beliefs, your thoughts, your convictions. But if anybody out there thinks that it's a free pass that is without consequence, You are very, very wrong. So let's break this down here just a little bit. For example, a man was arrested by the FBI recently for providing encouragement and instruction

to a school shooter in British Columbia, Canada. Do you know why he was arrested? Because that shit's illegal. He's free to say that to express himself. But that is not protected speech under the First Amendment. So let's get into this here. just a little bit because I want to unpack for everyone what the First Amendment does and does not protect. Let's ask this question first. Does the First Amendment protect consequences from your speech?

The answer to that is no. The First Amendment does not protect you from the private or social consequences of your speech. What the First Amendment actually does is protects you against government restrictions only. It protects individuals solely from censorship, punishment or retaliation by state, local, or federal government agencies and public institutions like public universities. It is the protection of ideas. It shields political, social, offensive, and controversial speech from being banned or criminalized by the government, except for narrow exceptions, like true threats, incitement to imminent lawless action, defamation, or fraud. So the reason that person was arrested is not because they were being censored.

They used their free speech to try to promote an illegal activity and suffered the consequences of expressing those ideas. Here's some things not covered by the First Amendment just for people's edification. private and social consequences, which are not covered. The First Amendment does not stop private actors from reacting to what you say. You can face severe non-governmental fallout, including private employment. Private companies, bosses, and non-government employers can fire, suspend, or discipline you for making statements they dislike. You hear that, that they dislike.

Not that they're illegal, that they purely just dislike or that violate company policies. Social media and tech platforms. private platforms such as Facebook X or YouTube have the legal right to delete posts, moderate content, or ban accounts for violating their terms of service. Of course, public backlash. Private citizens, customers, or groups can publicly criticize you, boycott your business or stop associating with you. And private schools and organizations, private educational institutions and private clubs are not bound by the First Amendment and can enforce their own speech, dress, or conduct codes. There are legal consequences, also unprotected speech. The First Amendment also does not protect you from legal consequences if your speech crosses into categories that the law does not protect. First one, defamation.

You can be sued in civil court for making false statements that damage someone's reputation. True threats and harassment. You can face criminal charges or civil protection orders for direct threats of violence or severe harassment and incitement. you can be prosecuted if your speech is intended to provoke and is likely to cause immediate lawless action. So back to the question. Truly just wondering what your thoughts are on this. What I just read and I googled that because I didn't want to try to do that off the top of my head. And I looked at some different results and found a good one that I feel described the freedoms associated with the First Amendment and the limitations.

My thoughts are that it strikes a very good balance between freedom of expression and not being told you can't say that and the consequences that can come from freedom of expression. Freedom in and of itself is inherently dangerous. Are people going to say things that could be considered dangerous, insightful, or wrong? Sure. Am I the judge of that? No. Thankfully, we have a system in place like I just read out with some already categories that are carved out and mechanisms in place to decide those things. But I am not that person. So every example that you provided to me in the short email fell into the category of non-protected speech. And I talked about the consequences of that. And you mentioned the FBI arresting the person, which is a great example of a consequence in action.

as I said, freedom is inherently dangerous. It can get a little risque at times, a little risky even, both, both the ours, if you will. I would rather have people offended than censored. I would rather have the most disgusting idea brought into the public spectacle so that the consequences can be swift and also public, then have somebody censored. And I will end my answer to your question by, again, being very clear about what it is that I said. Can you provide for me an example of censorship being a net positive? If you can, please write back to me and give me that particular example of where telling somebody,

that they are not allowed to say a word benefited in the long run society, whether it's books, ideologies, ideas, whatever it is, right? Hit me with that and perhaps I'll change my mind. Up until that point, I think that the system that we have in place works well. It's not easy to tolerate at times, but I think it's working well. And that's all I have for question number two. Today's episode is brought to you by Ridge. Most of the time I'm talking to you guys about this, it's about their wallets, which are fantastic.

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Just head to Ridge.com and use the code cleared hot and you're all set. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please do me favor, support the show, and let them know that the show or myself sent you. Speaking of the show, back to it. All right, question three, a little bit of a longer one here. Good morning, Andy. for some context, I'm 25 years old. I live in a coastal, we'll leave the state out with my fiance, about five or six hours away from my family.

My brother also lives in the same state about two hours away. But we honestly never talk. That sucks. Remember that cell phones have both a call feature and an answer feature. Hopefully there's no inherent rift between you and your brother. You don't get to pick your family. Hopefully your family dynamic is a good one. but don't miss out on time.

I try to do a lot of connecting with people when I am driving my vehicle to and from places because it's an opportunity for me to do two things at once. And it's better than me just staring off into space, listening to music, which I do sometimes. Sometimes I'm just sitting there staring into space, wondering, questioning my life's choices. Do that a good amount of time as well.

But living with regret or if something were to happen and you were to regret not reaching out to your brother, that sucks. I don't want that for you or anything. anybody else. So moving on. To understand the state I'm at, I feel it's necessary to unpack a little bit from my past. Ever since I could remember, my parents raised my brother and I with strict morals and values in our house. That's awesome. Fitness and sports were held in high regard and seen as a non-negotiable. My brother and I played many sports, but soccer became the frontrunner very

quickly. My father played soccer back in the 80s at our local Division III college. After his playing days came to an end, he stayed on the coaching staff as a volunteer. He would continue coaching from 1983 all the way until stopping in 2024. That is a good run. Although not a paid coach, he was technically the longest tenured staff member in program history. Again, for as long as I can remember, we attended games home and away. We're at all of the post-game cookouts, met and knew all of the players growing up. It seemed like almost every weekend, at least during the season, revolved around this team.

Our family name and soccer were rarely mentioned outside of the same sentence around our town. the sport truly became part of our identity. Back in 2013, my father also started volunteer coaching on the soccer team at the high school my brother and I attended. My brother and I are five years apart in school, so we were never able to play together at the school level. Fall of 2013 was my brother's senior year. And my father said that his inception into coaching our high school team was so that he could be closer to my brother during his last competitive high school season. At first, it seemed like a very cool idea. But looking back, and in my opinion, there couldn't have been a worse or more selfish

decision on his part. My brother went on to finish his senior season and was recruited to play at our local college that we had been raised around. My father didn't leave either coaching position, both at the high school or collegiate level. My high school career started in the fall of 2015 and ended in fall of 2018. My father was on the coaching staff all four years. At that time, I don't think I had ever experienced a stress like that in my life. Showing up to practice each day wanting to let loose and play freely,

but feeling like you had to be the standard or example because your father is there is a lot to handle. Looking back, I understand that this was the root of a lot of my stress and anxiety during those formidable years. I made that sport or the sport that I loved not fun anymore. It made the sport that I loved, not fun anymore. Things were awkward with teammates. This guys that were my friends were now being barked at by my father in practice. And I felt like I was caught in the middle. I feel it inhibited me from reaching my potential.

I was afraid to make a mistake, afraid to disappoint, and afraid to fail. I'm going to stop here and just have a thought out loud. And this is for the person who wrote this in, who was doing a great job of describing how that situation made you feel. But I also want this question to go out, or this statement, I guess it would be, to go out to the potential fathers who may hear this, who may be in a similar role to this father. I don't think your dad put himself into this position to make you feel that way.

He doesn't seem to be that type of person, even though I don't know him at all. But that is the net result, at least for you, for him being in that role. For the fathers out there, consider that. It is so easy to want to be there and to have a hand in everything. but his description of wanting to be able essentially to fly free for a little bit, to let loose, to be passionate without having to worry about being judged, not only through the lens of others, but through the lens of his father being present and that ecosystem that it creates, that's incredibly valid as well.

I'm not saying don't be your kids coaches. I'm not saying that at all. Just consider that your optic on why you're doing something and what it provides might be different than the optic on somebody else in a different position. And it might be providing the opposite of what you want to them to a degree. Just food for thought. I'm not telling anybody what to do. I think both sides of that coin are true.

And I think both sides are fair. It's a balancing act for sure. Back to the email. However, I pushed through. I still tried to find any way to repair my relationship with this sport. and to me, that meant forging my own path at another college. I tried to get recruited by other schools, but none of them worked out. This crushed me during the process.

I distinctly remember sentences from my father like, you can email who you want, but you're going to redacted and playing. It looked more and more likely that the walls were caving in. My future was decided and my only path would be the same as my brother, attending our local college being coached by him for another four years, in suffering the same level of stress and anxiety all over again. Ultimately, this was my fate. There is a unique aspect to Division III sports program.

Unlike Division I, they cannot offer athletic scholarships. I did not know that until this moment. You can be invited to try out for the team during the recruiting process, but you are not guaranteed a spot, which was always the practice at Redacted. However, going into my senior year of high school, something changed. For the first time in program,

history, they were offering guaranteed roster spots. I was offered one of these spots prior to my senior year. Don't get me wrong. I was a decent player. I trained every day, made sure I got my reps in, and stayed fit doing extra work outside of practice. However, I couldn't help but wonder if this spot was given to me because I truly earned it or for the last name that I had or have. That's a tough spot. Even if you completely and utterly just crushed and dominated it, there's always going to be an aspect of doubt internally for you and honestly externally for some other people viewing the situation. It's a tough one. And I don't know any other way around this. There's no, that you're not unique in having somebody who is in a leadership role at a place where you either

do or don't want to go and you get offered a role there, especially if other people are not offered or they don't have enough slots available for sure. 100% chance that somebody out there that that's the narrative. That you didn't earn it. It's a sure last name. It's the nepotism, this, that, or the other. I'm not so sure that that's avoidable. And I'm not saying your dad should recuse himself,

even if he did recuse himself from the process and somebody else sent the offer to you. It's still going to look the same to the outside because they're not going to understand this perspective. So that's just something you're going to have to deal with with this particular situation. fall of 2019 was my freshman season at the school it was probably the worst three to four months of my life i was afraid to go to practice afraid to make a mistake afraid that i wouldn't live up to this family legacy at this program that seemed to exist at other coaches telling me i should be starting when i couldn't even compete a pass because of my stress it was crippling i really lost myself during this time since i felt like i wasn't upholding my

legacy in fitting in on the field, I tried to make it up off the field. I was at every team party every weekend, drinking with them any time there was a chance, dabbling in recreational drugs, anything that I felt would make the team feel like I belonged. Furthermore, I ended the first serious relationship that I had ever been in, which started my senior year of high school to try and fit in with this team, doing things that completely defied who I was and what I wanted to stand for. It's a powerful, powerful paragraph. I remember being a young man of this age and didn't go to college, obviously. It was already in the steel community.

And actually the first chapter of my book directly addresses me participating in things or a thing underage drinking. And then the fight that ensued afterwards, which I was not directly involved with, but it certainly was building directly in front of me. I said nothing. Why? Because I was trying to fit in with the people that I was with. I was trying to be the cohesive team member that I thought that was supposed to be. I was the youngest, the most junior. I didn't think that I had a place to stand and speak up for what I thought was right. And I was completely wrong in my assessment of that. And I'm glad that that happened to me. As I wrote about in the book, it changed the trajectory of my life on a personal and professional aspect. and I'm grateful for it.

Those are tough, tough places to be, especially when your brain is not fully formed. What I can say is this is I look back on situations that occurred before that night when I really got in trouble with regret. Not like life-ending, you know, tears in the shower regret, which is the shower is the best place to cry because, you know, did you just get soap in your eyes

or it's just, you know, the water, you're just washing your hair. Anyhill, I wish, I wish I had done things differently. I wish I had said things differently. And I hope my goal is, is that in being honest and open about my experiences when I was younger, that somebody in your situation, it may not change your behavior in the moment, but maybe when you find yourself in one of these situations, which most people are going to find themselves in a place like this, where there's a social gravity pulling you towards something that you don't necessarily agree with. that doesn't really align with who you are,

but you do want to be accepted by your social circle, or you do want to be accepted by the close, close-knit nature of the team, that maybe hearing somebody else talking about the wishes that they had changed their behavior and expressing a feeling of regret for how they did behave can help you not feel that way in the future. It's going to be tough, and I get it,

but I do wish I could go back in time and change those behaviors. So if you're put in that place, stand for who you are in what you believe in or do it as often as you possibly can. Perfection is impossible to do the best that you can. But stay true to who you are. In spring of 2022, COVID hit and shut down school as we knew it. None of us knew what the soccer program would look like after that time. After a lot of reflection and attending therapy, I decided to stop playing.

Had a very deep heart to heart with my head coach, opening up about how I felt my spot wasn't earned but given based on my family name. as much as he pleaded that that wasn't the case, I didn't want to listen. He even offered to ask my father to step away from coaching to help me relax. It was apparent that my father loved this program and sport too much, and I didn't want to be the one to make him give up. After I stopped playing, he continued to coach for four more seasons. Did you ever talk to your dad?

I haven't continued through all the way into the email, but it's good that you want to talk to your head coach. And I get the conversations with your parents can be difficult, especially about things like this. And you know your father's passionate. I mean, obviously, his name is largely synonymous with soccer. He played. He coached the longest tenure.

He coached for four seasons after you left. I get it. But I'm trying to put myself in your dad's shoes. I don't have a sport that I'm as passionate about as your father by any stretch, nor the athletic ability to really be good in any sports. I, Oh, man. It might be soul crushing.

It might be hard. Actually, I'm going to flip those. It might be hard to hear you express how you felt about that. But it would be soul crushing for me as a parent to hear that my presence there was making you feel the way that it was. I would step away. But people often make choices. based on the information that they have at hand. If he didn't have that information,

it's not his fault if he didn't step away. And maybe he wouldn't have stepped away. At least he could have made a more educated decision. And it's not right or wrong. Hopefully, you guys have connected and talked about this to some degree. And if you haven't, I would highly suggest it because I don't know if this is really water under the bridge at this point. It seems like it had an impact on your life.

If I was your father or as a father, I would want to know. I say all this because for many of those formidable years of my life, I spent it obsessing and identifying myself with the sport. Some partly due to my love for it, but mainly because of this pressure to uphold an expectation that our family had. I never really explored anything else outside of it. I graduated and finished school with a bachelor's in marketing, but I never gave a hard thought on what I wanted to truly do with my life after.

It was never a big topic of conversation and being, anywhere besides our hometown wasn't really a possibility that was brought up in my family. Well, my brother moved to Redacted back in 2021. That's when I started opening my mind to the possibilities that exist. Now, in my mid-20s, I feel behind. I feel like I'm still exploring what I really like or want to do and haven't pinpointed yet. Okay, spoiler alert. I just turned 49. I'm going to read your sentence here. I feel behind. I feel like I'm still exploring what I really like or what to do and haven't pinpointed it yet. Yeah, guess who else feels exactly the same way? Me, I have no idea. It's such a hard question for me when people ask me what

I do for living. What I say is I own a coffee shop because that is the easiest most precise way to answer their question and I can answer pretty specifically about the nuts and bolts of a coffee shop. And most people don't have a lot of questions about what goes on in a coffee shop because they've been in one before. When you say I host a podcast, like, oh, really, what's it about? I'm like, fuck, I don't know whatever the guest wants to talk about. I struggle with that. How did you find your way into that? I'm like, oh, man, through a series of twists and turns and left and rights and none of them were planned.

You know, I do public speaking. I'm back into aviation. I love participating in jiu-jitsu. I love traveling the world and doing jihitsu with my wife. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what I do for a living. And I am still constantly looking for things that I enjoy doing. Now, one thing I can say, and I've said this before,

I have recently, within the last year or two, maybe a little bit more than that, determine what I want to point my life in the direction of, and that is having a positive impact. I want to be a positive impact in the world around me, but I'm still searching for the mechanisms that are going to allow me to be able to do that. podcasting being able to sit here and have essentially a one way conversation with you is one way to do that but that you're not going to hit an age at least i didn't where i flipped a calendar page

and i was like oh yeah totally nailed it i know exactly what i want to do with my life how i'm going to do it and and only these things are going to interest me as i've gotten older my interests have changed the things that i want to do or how i want to spend my time oh my gosh they have changed so much and so the course that I've taken through life has changed with those things. This pressure that you're feeling, though, just understand if there's a vice, you feel like there's a vice on your body, if you were to follow with your eyes and you would look up at the vice and you find that little T handle that is applying the pressure, you're going to see a hand on that. But if you follow that hand down to the elbow and then come back to the shoulder, you're going to recognize it's attached

to your own body. We're our own worst enemy at times. You, you're, are applying this level of pressure to yourself. You don't have to. You do not have to have this figured out. I don't think you ever have to have it figured out. Maybe figure out what your purpose is. And then you can figure out the priorities associated with that. And then maybe the specifics of what you want to do. But it's okay at your age and life to not have it all figured out. Moving on. I'm in a job that I don't like in an area that I'm not confident I want to live in and have no sense of community that I'm a part of. The worst is that my fiancee is the opposite. She's in a health care job that she plays an important role in with coworkers that depend on her

and loves the area. She even has family moving down to the area to be closer to her soon. All of that to say, I feel like I'm still figuring out who I am and what I want to do. And I have a sense of guilt that I haven't figured this out and that my fiancee in relationship could be collateral damage in this process. I guess I'm looking for any advice or recommendations on how to move forward. Hearing Michael recently decide to pursue a new path has honestly been one of the catalyst for me reaching out to you, given that he is my same age, rage, and generation. He will be missed? Willie? Will Michael be missed? We could do an entire episode about the number of ways that he has let me down over the years. It'd be a longer one though for me to go over the episode of probably how many ways I've let him down over the years. So any advice. I do have one piece of advice. And you may not like this one because this one might be a bastard. My piece of advice is this. Share how you feel with your fiancé. All of it.

Take this email and what was contained in it, your feelings, how you feel now that you don't know what you necessarily want to do, that you feel isolated, that you feel like you don't have a social circle, that you feel uncertain, and share that with the person, that you are moving in life towards spending your life. with. If she's your person, she will be able to help you or maybe just hold you as you navigate your way through this path. If COVID, which you mentioned in here, taught me anything about most humans, there's some psychopaths out there that do better by themselves. Most humans don't. Most humans do way better with some level of collaboration and collaboration. cooperation with other humans. And what better person to collaborate and cooperate with than your fiance? I think she's going to be receptive. She may be a little bit scared by how you feel. She'll probably be a little bit surprised, especially if you are a little bit introverted and you're

not sharing these things. But at the end of the day, is there even a world that exists that you don't think she will try to help you or facilitate you doing the things you need to do to answer these questions for yourself? Again, you don't have to have all the answers. It sounds right now like you have more questions than answers and more uncertainties than certainties. That is okay. You're describing my average Tuesday through Monday evening, which if you're putting that all together is every day of the week. I get where you're coming from. One thing I really try to do is share. Not with everybody, but with Leah for sure. And I'm not great at this. There are some things that I try to deal with on my own because she has her own life as well. And probably the most

bullshit excuse that I give myself is I don't want to burden her with anything that I'm going through because she has enough on her plate as well. She's my wife. She's the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with. To reverse that, and if I were to know that she had those things and she wanted to share them with me, but she wasn't because she was going to feel like a burden. I would feel horrible. And I would ask myself, what have I done to make her feel that way? Because there's nothing that I'm working on that is more important than me putting that down for whatever time is necessary to help my wife.

That's how it works. That's how you should be for her and that's how she should be for you, in my opinion, at least, for whatever it counts. So that's my biggest piece of advice is talk to your fiancé and be honest with her. I would say beyond that, you know, expressing that you don't necessarily know what you want to do, that you don't really like your job, that you're not really sure of the area that you are living in. Each one of those has aspects where you can explore a little bit, you know, you're in a job that you don't like. Okay.

What do you not like about the job? Is it what the job is itself? Is it one of the requirements or restrictions of the job? Is it physical in nature, not physical in nature? what other jobs could you potentially be interested in, right? So you have a question, you know, or a statement, I'm in a job that I don't like. Cool. Let's identify some things that you may like, right?

In an area that you're not confident you want to live in. Well, how long have you lived there? And would your wife be open to, let's say you're maybe not necessarily going to move right away, but go travel. Go for some trips if you can. If you have the economics to be able to do it and explore other areas. maybe not far away from where you live. Maybe you just need to look at a different area

inside of the place that you already live. I've had some wildly different experiences in my life, not moving from the same city or town, but moving to a different portion of it, whether it changed my commute, my efficiency went through the roof, I recovered time, whatever it may be or a different social circle because of the neighborhood.

Same city, different geography inside of it, huge impact possible for you as well too. The sense of guilt, you're putting that on your side, again, you have your hand on the vice. And your fiancee in relationship being collateral damage, my suspicion is this. That will only be the case if you don't share with her. The most effective way to make sure that's not going to be the case is to approach her as the partner that you want in life and share with her how you feel.

Now, it may be very illuminating her response. Maybe you get the exact opposite response that you're looking for. That could be pretty illuminating as to whether or not this is your person going forward. So it might not be all roses, but if this is your person, she's going to be there for you. And human beings are capable of amazing things. But I don't know of anyone that can legitimately read somebody else's mind, even though there's some bullshit artists online that can tell you that they can do it. So most people, and I suspect your fiancé would do anything she could to help you. But she doesn't know what to help you with or how to help you unless you sit her down or go for a walk or whatever, however you want to do it, and open up to her.

My suspicion is it'll actually bring you guys closer together. And that's the only advice that I have. And it looks like that's right on just about an hour. So we are going to leave it at that. See you guys all on Monday with a new episode. See it.