Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - From Ranger to Rancher: Picking a Fight With Big Food | Patrick Montgomery | Ep. 473

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Patrick Montgomery served in the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2010 to 2014, deploying to Afghanistan the day after the Bin Laden raid. Six weeks into that first deployment, his brother-in-law, also a Ranger, was killed in Paktika. Patrick escorted the body home. He got out, went back to school at Mizzou, and in 2016 founded KC Cattle Company, a farm-to-table Wagyu operation that went from selling steaks out of a pickup to a national brand after Food & Wine named its hot dog the best in America. He now runs Valor Provisions, a membership marketplace connecting American farms and ranches directly to consumers, and writes children's books about historical figures. This one covers the death notification and why clarity matters more than comfort, what it does to a family when a service member does not come back, and the nephew growing up with no memory of his father. From there it turns to business. The 2019 article that dropped half a million people on a website holding 40 packs of hot dogs. The pandemic surge, the inflation crash, and the structural mistakes that cost him. Then the bigger fight: his argument that four companies control most of America's protein, that foreign ownership of our food supply is a national security problem, and that the fix comes from the bottom up. Valor Provisions: https://valorprovisions.us/ Today's Sponsor:  Black Rifle Coffee:  https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Firecracker Farm:  https://www.firecracker.farm

Okay, got the red smoke. To the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. Dude, Rangers right now are talking some serious shit online about the seal community. It was not surprising. Why, though? Why do we have to do that to each other? I think it's like, well, it's kind of a measuring contest, right? Is it, though?

I figured after the GWAT, all we realize... So I'm glad I served prior to 9-11 for a little bit. it gave me a really good insight into what the pre military or pre pre military pre war military look like and absent an enemy or a core competency was fighting each other and i don't even mean the other of course we were just lobbing like infighting within the teams kind of do oh my god so all the odd number teams are on the west coast so one three five and now seven i i wouldn't share information with a dude i went to buds with he was on the other side of a chainling fan i could watch him we would park in the same parking lot and hit a stupid code and walking.

We did enough in fighting, let alone, I'm sure that just the, like I said, lobbing just shit grenades into other communities. But at this point, man, after 20 years, what are we doing? It became, you know, when I first came in, it was the army's green and we're blue and Marines are red. And then they just pour us all into the soup of post 9-11. And we worked awesome together. And we all shared information.

and we all helped each other. And we all got better because of that experience. And now that it's winding down, do we really have to? Well, you know, I think one of the things, because you guys catch a ton of flack for books and Hollywood and everything else. Well, it's seals are writing books. What are you even talking about? I have no idea.

I have no idea what you are talking about, Andy. If I saw you buy one of the coffee shop today, I would have just given you one. No, I want to support, right? Like, I think it's important. And, you know, to that point of like, why do we do that? It's like, you guys crushed it at marketing, right? And I think we're all kind of a little bit like we talk about the quiet professional. Yeah.

Which is different than the silent professional, by the way. It's different. It's different. And like, you know, I think everybody, you know, got tired of the war stories for a little bit. And we're kind of at this point. I like, at least my internal groups, like, I feel like a lot of that's stopping. Or it's like, hey, I was this community, you were this community. You tell me a story.

I've got a one up it. It is the vocal. minority, I think at this point. And people keep sending me, it's a particular podcast, which I can't remember the name of, and that's not throwing shade at them. I just can't remember it. And they're basically saying like, oh, yeah, you know, well, this objective I was on, the seals fell short, this, that, or the other. I'm like, welcome to the reality of combat operations. Find me a military unit that hasn't stepped all over their crank a few times. And I'll give you my net worth, which is really low sum of money, by the way, so it's not going to be that much. But, I mean,

I mean, you know, they want to throw shade on. It was one particular objective. I don't think they named it. Of course they stayed broad but tried to be specific. And it's like, listen, guys, do we really need to go into the Tillman incident and talk about internal issues in our own communities? Like, yes, you can point at me. I don't want to point back at you. Let's just all accept that we did the best that we could.

And as communities, which are just comprised of individuals, sometimes you fall short. Hopefully you can learn from that. But what are we doing? Well, I think humanity in general, especially at this time period, is not the best. It's self-reflection, right?

And being like the plank in nine-eye before I start talking poop-poo about somebody else. Yeah. It does trend, though. And the silent majority on or silent minority online, like it is the loudest across the board. Man. How do you like being in business?

It depends on the day, right? Harder or easier than the military? stuff. It's way harder. Like exponentially harder. People, it's funny because I'll talk to like my mentors and they'll be like, pet, like, you've done way harder this. I'm like, no, I haven't. It's so different.

Yeah. I am currently in the middle of just getting kicked in the teeth on business stuff. Not that the mechanics in the day to day, but we made some mistakes on the structural back end when we first created the entities that control the operation, which are now coming to fruition. which there's no time machine. You don't get to go back. Nope.

You do get to write checks, though. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. I like to call those tuition payments. Same here. That's the only way that I've been able to not ask myself, should it be toothbrush or six shooter in the morning? 100%.

I mean, some days, like, there's no, there's no just like constant homeostasis when you're owning. It's either like you are down, down, and your life is miserable. Or you're like this. new mountain top that you never reach before. There's never like just a man, what a average day I had at work today. I tell people I was just in Arizona doing a speech for an organization and we're talking about leadership. I love talking about leadership with civilian organizations. And I think a lot of people when they hear that I publicly speak, they think I'm going to take the leadership model and try to

explain it. I actually use caution and I tell people maybe don't replicate at all the military leadership model in the civilian world because you guys don't have the buy-in that we did. I mean, it takes a fair point about two years to get somebody from the initial sign on the dotted line into a team. They're going to be there probably for the right reasons. Having said that, my Bud's class honor man ended up chopping people up with his wife. And, you know, so there are outliers, right? Maybe we're not. There's bad apples in each organization. We're not all there for the right reasons every filter, you know, has small holes. There's weeds in every lawn regardless of the size. But if you think you can take the way that we could very authoritatively or what would be the best

word, directly push people at times, if I tried to do that, I tell people, I'll give them the choice. I'm like, okay, 16 guys, seal platoon, overseas deployment. 30 employees coffee shop, average age 22, 98% young women. Which one do you think is more challenging? And they actually all guessed correctly because it's not the SEAL platoon. Did you struggle with that like shifting mentality of like how you treated a SEAL platoon versus like, hey, no, I'm a leader of people like this where if I say the wrong thing, it doesn't go over very well sometimes? Fortunately, I had about a decade to reorient my compass. And I own the coffee shop, but the smartest thing I did was develop a management team that manages the shop.

So I'm in there. And one of the main reasons I'm in there is I want the staff to see that I care. And what I try to do every day, whether they realize it or not, when I come in, I'll see something that needs to be done and I just go do it. And I say nothing. Whether it's trash on the floor or today I went in there, we were having a good day. there was a line. So I go hop up to the till. I tell people I'm not very good at this thing,

but we'll get through this together. And also I need your drink order to be really not complex. I fall apart when I have to work at the freaking the Shopify. I'm like, wait. But I can do it. I can do it.

But I don't ask the stuff, hey, do you need help? I just hop in there and I do it. And sometimes it's, again, you know, picking up trash or putting the chairs back where they need to be or sweeping up crumbs on the floor. And then I'll go check in with a management team

for about 10 minutes and I get out of there. Well, and those are the lessons you learn for the military, right? Like how much it means to subordinates when you do a job that you're asking them to do, right? And you have... Dude, it means everything. Everything. And also always be looking for work. There's always something to do. The proactive versus reactive mindset. And again, I don't know if they see it or not, but I'm not going to stop doing that. And I think that it probably is noticed to a degree. And that's the best that I can hope for. But I really, I really focus on spending more time with the management team and then all.

also staying out of their way. Yeah. Because when we first opened, I think I probably was a little bit too accessible, not in a bad way, but maybe a little bit more involved. And what would happen is, is people would come to me with things where they really should have gone to the management team. You did problem solving for them instead of letting them kind of figure it out on their own? Well, I was...

Or making them ask the right questions, maybe? Yeah. I think all of those things, the one thing I know that I did that reinforced the management's role, though, is I always, and I'm glad I did this, when they would come. to me with anything, I would say, that's a great question, but I need you to take that to Connor, the manager. So I didn't end up in between. It's a fair point. Well, otherwise, you're undermining the people that work for you. Yeah. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Before I talk about what they have to offer, let's talk about a members-only give away that they're doing. Now,

you're not going to see this if you go to the website because you need to be a member of one of their exclusive clubs, which we can talk about in Will. But here's what it is from the 21st of September, which has already passed through October 15th. They're doing a Sisu Eddie Barrel Sona give away. Again, this is for club members only. You're going to get one free entry for being an active subscriber. Then you can get additional entries with loyalty points for a chance to win a premium C-Suit Eddie Barrel sauna complete with a cedar bevel roof and a 4.5 kilowatt H-U-U-M-Hum heater,

which is almost $9,000 in value. Now how to become a member? Super easy. Head over to black rifle coffee.com and hit on the top bar, subscribe. They'll tell you about the clubs that they have. There's an ECS club, exclusive coffee subscription. I like to say it's Evans coffee subscription. There's a build your own box, meaning what coffee you want, delivered where you want on the interview you want. There's the shirt club, and then of course there is the sticker club.

All of those are going to count. So not only can you satisfy all of your coffee needs at blackwifelcoffee.com, and not only can you support a veteran founded brand that continues to give back to veteran organizations, you can get yourself entered to win this sauna, which looks pretty awesome. Head over to black rifle coffee.com. Go to town. Don't forget, Christmas is literally right around the corner. Start thinking about that now. Black Rifle Coffee.com.

Back to the show. It's the transition out of the military, at least like I got out in 2014. It was the, you didn't learn anything during, what was it, taps. Is that what it's called? The transition assistance program. That's it. Right. And I remember the guy came in, you know, he was like a civilian dude just,

raked to cigarettes. Look like he probably hadn't held down a job in quite some time. And he's talking about resumes. And then he's talking about how the civilian workforce sees veterans. And he's like, I'm going to be honest, guys, nobody wants to hire you if you were in a combat MOS because they think you're all crazy and you're going to come in the workplace and shoot everybody up. And I'm like, has there been an instance of that happening, by the way? I'm sitting there. I'm like, man, this is how the civilian world sees us. And it did take. I think that guy's full of shit. I think he was too. But like also a point on like civilian contractors and how tough it is. to sometimes get rid of the bad ones

because you're having this guy influence every single person that leaves in insulation. Yeah. And that's the mindset they're leaving with. And then you wonder why they don't see themselves in a positive light of like what they experience in the military and how it's applicable to the civilian world of seeing what a really good leader looks like

and what a really bad leader looks like, right? Because you definitely see plenty in the military. I mean, I get there's probably that running the TAPS program for people listening who aren't aware. I think it was a two-week program. 10 days, but like Monday through Friday, so 10 total days? I think he was 10 days, and then you had to go, you know, see all the places. Yeah.

Full disclosure, I had all the signatures by the end of the first day. I did not attend the other nine. Yeah. And also I didn't attend the first day either. I just got all the signatures. My personal theory actually is I think the military should get rid of the two-week offboarding, turn that completely over to NGOs, and you should have about a three to four-month offboarding with an entity outside of the military.

I actually think they would do a way better job. I think that's a fair point. I did like it because I don't know, have you used SkillBridge at all? I thought that was pretty cool. That popped up. Is that software? No, it's an internship program.

So, you know, they have it for, you know, the teams and Regiment does it through, I think, Three Ranger Foundation or something like that. But essentially anybody that is in any branch of the military can apply to spend the last six, I think it's three to six months that you're in. And he's working a company. Oh, I like that very much.

We've had like probably 12, 15 different skill bridge interns, you know, Navy Army. I even had one guy in the Air Force that was like the last guy to do his job before Space Force. And I was like, I always forget that's a thing now, Space Force. Would you volunteer to be a door gunner on the spaceship? It'd be pretty sweet. I would reenlist for that. There's like five fears and I'll admit this one is space. It is absolutely terrifying to me.

Why? Just the absence of like anything. I think there's something up there. Fair enough. It is vacuum. There's something though, right? And I'm like, I don't know why that is terrifying, but you're like, it'd probably be a really quick way to go. Like, if something happened, it's something like you're going to sit up there and suffocate, like, it's what, negative some on degrees Fahrenheit in space?

All of my technical knowledge from space comes from the movie Armageddon, so I'm hesitant to lean on that. especially on the internet. We'll definitely get corrected. But you know, the contractor they bring in for the TAPS program, I know that's probably not a high demand job. And maybe that's not that guy's first choice. But what a level of influence they have. And I would so much rather see that person leaving people there with hope or inspiration

than the message that they put out. It's one of the things I'm struggling with. Actually, I guess it goes a little bit to the inter-service rivalries that I'm seeing online. or even really large platforms that have seemed to shift to everything is broken. Everything is not this, that, and this is broken and this, it's everything. It's the totality. Like, man, life is hard enough. Business is hard enough.

Like, you're going to get uppercutted right in the chin. Like, let's, can we use our platforms to inspire some hope for, like, positivity? I mean, that's what I want people leaving the military with. I want them to feel good about who they are and what they did, not, hey, be careful because everybody views you as crazy because they think they're going to come to the office and be a shooter,

which is not, again, I don't, maybe that's happened. I don't know the single case where that has, though. Percentage-wise, I mean,

it can't be high. No. Maybe some type of veteran background. I've heard of a couple over the years, but it's like, they told, they said, hey,

you're going to, they're worried about you being a potential shooter. And like, your only position that, works for you is, you know, police force or, you know, security guard. And you're like, there's so many lessons you learn from like a combat MOS that, like, okay, maybe it's now how to clear this room and do CQB properly or throw a fragonade, but. Neither of those work well as a cop or security guard, by the way.

Especially in today's world. Yeah. Especially in today's world. Oh, I don't even think cops get grenades. No. Security guard would probably actually have a easier time getting away with a, actually probably. And CQB.

Maybe bangers. I don't think they should get frags. Neither of those should get frags. No, it would be pretty. Yeah, fragn grenades. They are fun, though. They're fantastic. I wish they blew up into a fireball like they do on TV and movies. Why can't we create that in today's world? Because they're not strapped to a 55-gallon drug with gasoline like they are in the movies. Be a little tough to like rock in and carry out. No, I remember the first time I saw a frag go off for real. I just said it was on San Clemente Island where we were throwing him in training. It's like, crack.

in a little dust cloud. You're like, it's so boring. It really was. Yeah. It really was. Business. Did you go to school for business? Yeah.

Did it prepare you for everything you were going to encounter? Nothing. It prepared me for nothing that I encountered. You know, so I got out and I planned on becoming a large animal bet. And I didn't really want to get out, right? But why did you get out then? Politics. It was like the 2011,

2012 time period. So I got out in the last day of June, 2013. What politics are you talking about? Just kind of the white gloves that they're starting to put on us. Like, well, we needed to be able to call in air to ground munitions. Oh, you're talking about theater-specific guidance. Exactly. So my brother-in-law got killed at my first appointment.

And, you know, I had three sisters growing up. He was, I wanted to be a seal before that. So maybe that's why we fight with you guys all the time because we're jealous that we didn't try. That's my joke I use with green berets. Yeah. Anytime I have green brad buddies on, and it only works once because now they know the joke, but I say, do you know what all green brays and seals have in common?

And they'll say, what? I said, they both wanted to be seals. I'm like, fuck you. But like I said, it only works once. You can only leave him at that one time. Then they know it. Yeah. And now you just sit in the podcast.

Yeah. So that happened. And that was one like directly related to that specifically. What happened? He was the number one guy, assault element. A Ranger as well? Yeah, Ranger. And it was its eighth deployment.

He was an eighth or ninth deployment, June 14th, 2011, Pactica. And they were doing like a pretty cool mission set at that point. Like one company of Rangers would rip out and do something pretty sweet for six months instead of like our normal four-month rotation. And it was his company. And they were in Pactica. he was number one man, you know, leading his squad up, and the ISR missed a dude with an RPK, like, up on the rooftop. Like, literally first round, hit him above his side sapper and went straight through his heart.

So it was quick. But that was four weeks, six weeks into my first deployment. You were overseas when that happened? Yeah, I brought him home. How did they notify you? Okay, this part's kind of funny. I didn't want anybody in regiment to know, like, he was my brother-in-law. mostly because he's like if I was a turd, I didn't want it to negatively impact him.

It's fair. And then also, if I was really good, I didn't want him to be like, well, it's because everybody knows. Like, you know, it's me. Yeah, judge me for me and not by the last name or familial ties. I get that for sure. Yeah, 100%. So he had, when I graduated Rasp, they were already deployed, right? So I graduated right around St. Patty's Day.

And he deployed about two weeks before that. And he had given the NCOIC that was back, and they'd do like a draft for all the different companies when you get down there at the headquarters building. And he had told the NCIC, like, excuse my brother, like, put them in, you know, first or third platoon. And so I knew that he was going to try to do that. And one of the guys I graduated with also had a brother in Deco. And so I had told my buddy, I'm like, hey, Jesse, will you like, please make sure that your brother puts me on their top of their draft list? and so we got down there and he was like actually pretty best to me

for doing that and so I ended up to point to K&R about four weeks after that actually the day after the bin Laden raid and then I was on a mission near Kandar I can't remember where we were at

I think we were south of K&R and it ended up being like a dry hole right and I'm a new guy in regiment so I'm just like trying not to mess anything up or, you know, make sure I don't do anything that reflects poorly on myself because being a new guy in regiment is terrible. We got back and I'm doing the new guy stuff. I'm like filling waters, camelbacks, like, you know, putting ammo and back. Looking for work. Like what I'm talking about. Yeah, 100%. And, you know, that was the cool part

about having Jeremy. He's like, dude, being a private sucks and we do that on purpose. You want to be highly motivated to go to Ranger school. And how do you get there? You're the best PT score. and you do exactly what other people tell you to do that have a Ranger tab on their shoulder. And I was like, Roger that, that's easy enough. And so I'm doing all that. And my squad leader gets called out of the ready room by our first sergeant.

I'm like, hmm. He pops his head in like two minutes later. He's like, Montgomery get out here. And immediately, I'm like, oh, God, where did I screw up? Like, I'm thinking about phone calls ahead. And if I broke a OPSEC or something, and they pull me out. And it's my CEO, my first sergeant.

and my squad later and the CO is like, hey, do you have a brother-in-law on Bico? And I was like, yes. And he's kind of like beating around the bush about what happened. He's like, hey, he got in a firefight, he's injured.

This like tangent goes on for like two minutes before I'm like, hey, all due respects her. Like, is he alive or dead? And our first sergeant jumps in and is like he's dead. Like he got shot about the side sapper. They should have just said that. Yeah.

I understand the. that they're under, but for anybody out there, whoever has to deliver a death notification, clarity of verbiage is incredibly important. I've seen people, and I don't think it was intentional strung along with hope because the person was saying they were lost or they were gone. And I can't even fathom being on the other side of that reception, but what that person I think is doing is they're grasping onto every level of. hope. And I'm not saying being a dick. And I'm not saying you have to rip the band-aid off. But you need to be definitive in what you're saying and clear in what you're saying.

You're spot on. Because that's exactly where I'm like, okay, he's injured. Like, does he have a tourniquet on his arm? Like, is he in surgery right now? But my first earned, like, one of the best leaders I ever worked for. And he understood that. So finally, he just jumped saying he's like Montgomery's dead, you know, round hit him above side sapper, you know, went straight through. Sorry, he's gone. And, uh, I was, Those are injuries where if that had happened in an operating room with world-class specialists and he had fallen onto the table, it's unlikely that they would ever to be saved. 100%. Yeah.

And you get plenty of time to think about this stuff after the fact, right? So you get to read the DAC reports and all the other different stuff and think about the what ifs. But, you know, the crazy part was, you know, the first thing that popped into my mind was my sister was like not, she wasn't in Savannah. she was back home in KC. And I'm like, I don't really think I fully understand how the notification process works. Like, do you guys need this info? Because she's not in Savannah right now. She's in Kansas City visiting my parents.

And so that, that like turned into a whole thing where, you know, it took him almost two days to find my sister and tell her. And so I flew up to Boggham and met up with his body in that time period. And, you know, I look at it like this now. It was the greatest honor I've ever had. And I will say, like, you get to see a part of America when you do that. It's really tough to see right now, right? Especially when you get on social media or whatever. But like all you hear about is the bad shit that we as Americans do to each other

or, you know, left and right and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like when something like that happens, you know, of course there's like, especially being in Kansas, right? We bury them at Fort Leavenworth. You have Westboro Baptist, right? And that was a big thing back then. But honestly, it's like white noise is like 15 people who show up. You know, the thing I remember is like 400 motorcycles, shutting down the entire interstate with like 50 police officers escorting his body.

Like the governor showing up. And even cooler than the politicians is just the random people, right? Hundreds and hundreds of random people. But that's the part that, you know, it'll stick with me forever. on the aspects of like, man, there's so much good that's just not talked about. To your point about bringing optimism, it's like that good still exists,

but unfortunately, it's the loudest 10% that we hear most often. Why do you think the negative is so capable of drowning that out? Oh, man. Because think of, I'll use Instagram as just a visual medium. Well, you're talking about capturing

and you see it sometimes, those processions in flags and people who never met the person but were touched by their passing, lining the road. I mean, that stuff is incredibly compelling. But it gets drowned out. I wonder if it's just a volume,

not meaning like a dial volume, but just an overall like in the bucket. The volume is full 90% with the negative. I'm going to screw up the same. Our PR gal, she used to always say this because I was always trying to pitch good, like good news, right?

She's like, what's the bad stuff happening in the world, right? And you're like, ugh. But good news, like bad. Bad news doesn't sell, right? As far as the media goes. I think that's starting to change, though. Like, you know, Biss and I actually met like through some Hollywood stuff and going through that process.

It's a weird statement, by the way, this sounds. Did you guys have clothes on? No. Okay. I was going to say, what type of Hollywood west side of Hollywood? Only fans and a couple cameras? Yeah. He, they're looking.

for positive shows. They're looking for like good, wholesome movies. The funny part is I don't even think they know how to make them anymore, right? Because it's just been 20 years of, you know, how far can we take the special effects and the bad news and the wow factor?

And I feel like that's starting to shift. Like people are so just like, man, corruption everywhere I look, bad news everywhere I look. And it's like, well, you know, only if you're looking at your phone or your TV or whatever else. Well, you don't have to ignore the corruption

that clearly does exist. or the bad things that clearly do happen in the world. But I don't know if you are truly benefited by focusing exclusively on those things. Like how many conversations, well, excluding this podcast, like, how many conversations do you have on a daily basis where people are like immediately just start going down conspiracy theories, bad news, politics? Like pretty few actually. I still have a lot, man. Well, I'll stop them. And I'll just say, I totally support you believing whatever you want to.

But I don't want to invest any, any, I get the passion that you have, and depending on what it is, you know, whatever, left or right of the political aisle, whatever the issue is, there are certainly some people that I know that you can tell, like, for this person, this is their thing. Put a flag in the ground and they always want to talk about it. I'm like, listen, I would rather enjoy spending time with you. I'm not going to, though, if this is, or I'm not going to engage in this conversation, if that's what you want to do. Let's talk about anything else. People probably say about me with how fired up I get about food and corruption, but, you know, we'll probably talk. about that maybe a little bit if I can get you. So are you saying there's corruption tied to food or these two separate topics? No. No. There's, yeah, there is corruption tied everywhere, especially in business. But food is like, you know, it's the steak I've planted it, right? And that's just seven years of like watching out, creating Casey Cattle Company, almost watching it get destroyed. And then being like, man, there's some really nefarious shit happening in this world. And I think

this might be a bigger fight than anything I did on the military side. So, yeah. How did your continued service impact your family post your brother-in-law's death? Did that change? I mean, how could you not have it? I mean, that you become a Gold Star family at that point. I'm sure, having never experienced this as somebody who has a sibling serving or a child serving. And that's one of the biggest things I look back on my life when I was in the military.

I didn't realize what I had put my family through. I was so myopically front-site focused, pun intended, I guess, on that's all I'd ever wanted to do. And then I was doing it at a level that I didn't even think was possible. Gone all the time. Deployments. I'm like living my absolute best life. Yep. And had no idea.

I was probably aging everybody that cared about me in dog years. If we were lucky, double dog years. If it was, you know, realistically. But I can't even fathom. Good, right? That's delicious. This is the Andrew Herberman. I don't know if you say Yerba Mote or Urbamate, but whatever.

It's the matina. It's very good. Trying the mint one. It's fantastic. Yes, the mango key lime also crushing. So no relationship whatsoever other than Andrew's an awesome dude. And he sent me a bunch of it. So thank you again, Andrew.

But I can't fathom what the multiplication factor must be once you lose a family member. it's really hard and honestly like I don't know if you could do the job if you were seeing like okay the funeral happens there's a big party you're literally having the mortality of a thrown in your face yep yeah but then it's like okay I got to get back to work I moved in what I said my sister and Jeremy had their first son like right before that deployment so he was six months old like when that happened he's you know turning 16 here and I October, which is just like mind-blowing because it feels like yesterday. But I moved in with them, like after that happened. I moved out of the barracks and moved in with them. And it was the right thing to do. But man, I think there's a reason like we have to keep a little bit of like a,

you know, I'm not saying anything. My sister doesn't know. Like we've had these conversations where I'm like, man, you know, I think that kind of wrecked me as a person, right? And, you know, because they weren't like a couple where, I mean, you see lots of these in the military where they hate each other, right? I looked up to him in their marriage, right? They had a really strong marriage. And, you know, she was 25, he was 26 when he died. And, you know, at the time, he's six years older than me.

And he'll always remain, like, older than me in my head. But here I am, like, at 37, I'm like, she was a baby, right? And she's lived so much life since then. And, you know, but, you know, how do you comprehend that and deal with that? And then, you know, that was a bad couple deployments for first bad and second. You know, we ended up losing four more guys on those two deployments. And then, you know, two of the guys I graduated, Rasswood died. You know, I mean, they came and replaced us and they died on that deployment.

And it just a wrecked me, man. And being so close to it, I wouldn't change it. Like, it all happened for a reason. Like I think about it ultimately led to, you know, bad choices of me leaving regiment. But I'm like if I, if that wouldn't happen, because all I cared about was being a ranger, right? So you're like, you know, how did it affect my family? Probably not positively. But the only thing I cared about was like getting back to work.

And that I think I would have stayed in, right, for probably forever. And I'm like, man, if I would have done that, I don't think I would have gotten married. I don't think I'd have my children. and I wouldn't have this company that I believe in, you know, clearly more than I believed in the war in Afghanistan at this point. So, yeah. How's his son doing? He's good. He's doing really good.

He was over for, I had him and his first girlfriend over for dinner and had some stakes on Friday night. And, you know, it's just so funny. Like, he's tall and Jeremy was my eye, right? For the audience, would you say, 5'3? I think you're confusing the other cattlemen. Oh, Greg? Yeah. Micro seal.

He can stand. Full-legged and not hit his head on the bottom of this table. He told you to tell you that he's, what was it, tall, good looking and blonde. Is that it? He is trying as hard as he can to be confused with his business partner, Tim Shih, at all times. He just wants to be called Greg Shihi. He's going to be screaming at whatever. device he is listening to this.

He's on vacation, so at least you can't come find me. Well, I'm back there. But yeah, so he's 5-9, right? He was 5-9. Everett's probably like already like 6-2, 6-3 is just a great bean, right? Like he'll fill out at some point. I'm like big-time swimmer, you know, which is funny because Jeremy was, you know, he played water polo that like that was his sport in high school, along with some other swimming and activities.

But he's doing really well. And can you imagine growing up having no memories of your father? Because I'm not going to assume it's six months that he has no memories of his dad. He's got none. But I will say like that is one thing a lot of it. Jeremy's buddies got right was like they continue to pour into that kid. You know, one of them, one of Jeremy's former PLs bought a shotgun for him right, like a Benelli 20 gauge.

and he calls me, he's like, hey, you think calling, you don't get mad at me if I do this? I was like, just send it to my house. Irrelevant. Right? Like, just send it to my house. Irrelevant. Add to cards.

I was like, I was like, just, here's the FFL. I'll pick it up. And so it is fun doing stuff like dad. Like I get to, you know, take him turkey hunting and do this stuff. But I think the cool parts, like Colleen to do a really good job of compiling the memories that people had at Jeremy right after it happened. Like she created this Facebook page where, you know, anybody that knew Jeremy could go on there and just tell a story,

about them. And she did so many things like that in the moment that I'm like, I would have never thought of that, right? And that's why females are way better at some of that stuff than we are. But that's one of the best utilizations of the social media platform that I've heard of, by the way, resound, like a living memory that anybody who knew could add on that so that the younger generation can look at that at some time and appreciate it. Fuck. He's a stoic kid, too. So it's always like when he does ask me questions about his dad or whatever. It's just always interesting.

He doesn't show emotions, right? And I'll be interested to see as he grows. Like, I think it'll end up being a positive thing for him. Not in the aspect of like, it's never good for a kid to grow up without a dad, but like, man, you know, his dad stands on. He walks 10 miles high to Everett and what a way to remember your dad, right?

stands on the shoulders of giants for sure. I was trying to think that one. I was like, man, I'm just going to say something, 10 feet tall or something. Everett is his name? Everett. Has he expressed any desire to join the military? None. Good man.

Yep. Not that I would ever try to talk anybody out of that. I'm still fully supportive of people who want to join. We still need people who want to join, but his family has gone ahead and paid the tab on that one. They have. And, you know, Colleen brings Everdown down. to Tybee every year for the death date, which I've always thought was really cool. And like a bunch of Jeremy's old friends, I've gone down a couple times, but they all go down and stay in the same house,

right? So like Ben's, or Jeremy's old platoon sergeant, you know, one of the best squad leaders from one of the other companies, you know, a lot of them are still active, still doing the job at, you know, other units. And whenever they can, they come down. And just what a cool opportunity. to like go hang out with those guys and just hear you know when he's when he's in kansas city specifically he's hearing you know about who jeremy was as a kid or high school or whatever and then you know he gets to go to these events with the guys that worked with them and he're a different side of his dad is you know he turned into that man essentially man man i can't even fathom that so how long uh when did you join when did you get out

july 7th uh 2010 this one i left that's when i left to go to to Basic and then I got out November 14. Okay. Yep. What kind of contracts do they make you sign in the Army? Four year to start with? Yes, four years, but I got lucky Obama was trying to kick people out. And they had a deal where if you were trying to go to college and got like an approval letter, they'd let you get out up to like eight months early.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. You could slide your EAOS. Okay. Yep. So I apply, Missouri's got a really great deal, a great, great one to talk about on this podcast. Returning Heroes Act. So anybody that had a home record of Missouri

and deployed to a combat zone for 30 days, you can essentially go do your undergrad. And they give you, I think it's like $6,500 a semester. Is that a bachelor's? The undergrad? A bachelor's, yeah. And I think they give you, I think it's $6,500 grant. But the cool part is they cap your college tuition after that

at $50 a college credit hour. So, like, I had a good plan. and now, you know, to the, to the taps guy that was like, you're all a bunch of dumb-dums that, you know, can't do anything. You dumb shit. Yeah. Oh, thanks. Super pumped now for my next phase of my life.

I can't wait to be a civilian. But, you know, I had a great plan. My wife and I were engaged at that point. Actually, funny story. And I love throwing her in the bus like this. We dated when she was a freshman in college. And the day she broke out with me, I dropped out and enlisted. Take that.

Yeah, take that. I didn't like college. And, you know, we both needed to grow up. And I was like, man, the war's at its prime. We're, like, going back in Afghanistan. So we were engaged. I was going back to become a large animal vet. How'd you pick that, by the way?

I didn't want to sit behind a desk, which is ironic because now I spend 14 hours sitting behind a desk on a computer. No, no, I get not wanting to sit behind a desk. Of the array of options of error. large animal veterinarian is certainly on the menu, but I feel like it's maybe off to the side. Did you, have you loved animals growing up? Also, when you say large animals, is this like cow size?

Yeah, like cows, horses. Like I wanted to do anything on that because I almost did a small animal side because I figured out, like the reason I didn't become a vet is at that time period, you pay $180,000 to go school and then you graduate and you make like $55,000. That's a large answer. Rough math. Yeah. And I was like, man, these are things you think about when you go to school a little later in life and you're not distracted by beer and women.

And I couldn't, I worked at a small animal clinic because that's where the money's at. So I was like, well, I'm going to go get a job at a local small animal clinic and see if like, this is the path I want to do. Yeah. I like the medicine side, right? Was answering your point as kind of combining like, hey, I'm going to be outdoors, right? And on top of that, you know, the science is fun. And you don't have to worry as much about being sued. on the large animal side,

versus if you screw up a surgery on a person. And so the large animal side, you don't make any money, but the small animal side, I mean, that's rough, dude. You literally, you're doing neuter spays and cleaning teeth. Or putting animals down, too. Or putting animals down, which sucks. Yes. Like, I did that a bunch of it.

And I was like, man, I'm still working through my own stuff. Like, I want to be. Man, my dad just had to put down his dog. It was a fantastic life. My dad claims he was 12, but also my dad, I can't determine whether he's a liar or he's crazy. Maybe both. That's actually where I've landed. He's just a metrodome that's like, crazy liar, crazy liar, crazy liar.

And like sits in the middle. I think the dog was 16 for a lab. That's old. But I mean, that's a lot of time to share with that animal and you go in and you have to make that choice. And the people euthanizing them are going through the journey with you. I don't care how stoic you're trying to be. Yeah. You're still putting an animal down.

You know, God, that's... And the vet's kind of good, like, a lot of... What I figured out is, like, a lot of us actually don't like animals. They like the science side. And so, you know, the things that sometimes behind closed doors, you're like, man, I know some callous people in my life that have killed a lot of human beings. And I'm like, you might be the most callous person I've ever met.

So... I mean, maybe that's the mechanism they develop to... I mean, you know, it's your average vet. I bet you they're putting down at least an animal a day. It's kind of invisible, right? Because you're only there for the time that you're there. Like we have a miniature docks and we take him in. He gets, we're there for 30 minutes.

I don't know what happens the rest of the day. But. So he's like probably like when I was working there, it was like four a week. That's yeah. Man, if they're Monday through Friday, that's almost one a day. I mean, that's pretty consistently. And yeah. And I'm always like the part I struggle with is I'm like, dogs hate bets.

Right. And I'm like, when did you? just be better off, like, doing it at home. You know what I mean? Probably assuming that you don't mess it up. Don't mess it up. Anyways, way off topic. But, you know, the large animal side, didn't do it for that reason.

Still, I'm in my undergrad doing animal science because, you know, it's like, well, this is what I should do to become a large animal vet. I'm doing a minor in entrepreneurship because I was like end goals, like, hey, I'll just own my own large animal or mixed practice. So I should probably understand. What did they tell you in the educational system of entrepreneurship? You literally got like a, I think I took two courses. I don't even know if I actually finished like my minor did it. You learn like the 30,000 foot view of an income statement and a balance sheet.

And how to problem solve, which was very like it was a very corporate minded version of problem solving, which is not what you should have as an entrepreneur. Like you got to be very flexible. You have to be nimble. You have to be so nimble. And so when I decided I wasn't going to become a vet, my wife's my sugar mama at this point, she's working at Smith & Wesson in Columbia.

And I'd ever want to, she's like, I just want to stay on with them. Like, can we, I want babies, I want to stay on with them. That's what I want to do. I don't want to work in corporate America. So I'm like, hey, you got to pay, you got to pay the bills when I go to school.

And then, you know, we'll figure it out after I become a vet. So now I'm not becoming a bed. I'm like, I better go get a day job. I'm like, well, there's not a ton of like great job. There are some. There's actually some really great jobs. If you have an animal science undergrad, like think the cattle feed world, there's a lot of stuff for like, you know, the big ag selling pharmaceuticals or whatever.

None of that really appealed to me. So I started applying for jobs based off my military experience. And I got one in Kansas. City, an interview in Kansas City that I think it was three total, and the last one was like a panel interview. And the main guy, at the end of it, it's like, what questions do you have for me? And I didn't really understand what the job was. I understood, like, there's some Ocones work here. It sounded, it was cushy, right? You started like 95 as a W-2 employee. It wasn't, you know, contracted. I was like, I don't understand what you guys do day to day. Like, could you walk me through

what your normal day looks like. And I think they're taken back a little bit because I'm showing vulnerability on my side. That was kind of the intention of my question to them. But also, I genuinely didn't understand what they were doing. And it sounded like kind of glorified security guards in places like Africa. And the guy looks at, you know,

the other two guys that are interviewed me, and he turns to me and he's like, if we're being honest, it's convincing corporal worth the money they pay us. At this point, I'm like, I told you, you, I had a great plan. I knew I was going to live. My wife had the bills covered for the time being. I'm not taking out college tuition or student loans, but I was missing the boys, man. And this was

at Missou. And my first semester back was when all the Ferguson stuff happened. And then the in campus riots on, or not riots, but sit in at Missouri or all that stuff happened, which is a crazy story in itself. But people don't prep you for that part. Like when you, exit as a younger guy from the military of like you're going to go back to college and you're going to be surrounded by these people that have no worldly experience or perspective on how grateful they should be to be on this college campus. And that was the toughest part. So I'm like, I'm already in the back of my mind. Like I might just go back in. Right. Like I might just finish my undergrad. I might just go back in. I haven't told this to my wife yet. I was going to say,

you got somebody else you should probably at least throw that across the bow of. in that interview made me do that because I was like, this sounds miserable. Like, I don't want to do this. And so I called her on the drive back from Kansas City and I was like, I'm either going back in the military

or I'm starting a company. She's like, I guess tell me what company we're starting. And so that was Casey Cattle Company. And the whole premise there was just like, it sounds cliche at this point with like how many D to C meat companies there are. But this is 2016.

And it was just farm to the table, right? and I'm like, I'm sitting in this college classroom where they are grooming the people that do mass production of food in our nation. It's 1% that provides food for the, not only the other 99%, but about 60% of the world. And then I'm married to like an OG crunchy lady, right, like that's eating organic and cares about where our food comes from. And I'm like somewhere in between at this point. I'm like survived for like with MREs where the ingredient list.

is like this long for months on end and I did all right fitness wise and health wise. But I'm like, why doesn't anybody ever talk about like how our foods produce, you know? And so that was kind of the original idea. It was like, let's bridge a gap between agriculture and the end consumer. And that led on the Casey Cattle Company saga and the end. I'm just kidding. Do you think it's possible talking about those college students who don't have the worldly optic because they haven't been out in the world yet.

Do you think it's even possible to give them that level of appreciation? Or do you just have to accept that they're in a different season of life and that they haven't developed yet? I didn't hold it against the kids in there. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think 18-year-old should go to college. You have no idea who you are as a person. Like, why are you about to go spend a pile of money to get a degree that you may not ever actually pursue, right?

Do you think they should be allowed to join the military at 18? I think so. They still don't know who they are. 100%, but like, have you read the book Wild at Heart? I can't remember what the author's name is right now. It is possible, but I have no recollection of it. It's a more Christian-centric book, but the arc of the story is like what every boy in some former fashion takes to become a man.

And I think a lot of what we miss in today's society is like that way to test your grit, right? There's never like a point in your life where you're like, you're now a man, right? You've done X, Y, and Z. 18th birthday. 18th birthday, right? It's like, oh, I need it. My children is, listen, just so you guys know, the only thing that has changed is the way the law is going to treat you.

Because if you think you wake, my daughter just turned 18. I'm an adult now, dad. I'm like, sweetheart, sit down. In the eyes of the law, you are, in fact, an adult. Have we had some galactic shift between last night when you went to bed and this morning? No, we haven't. So I can appreciate the headspace, but just realize now, when you make mistakes, it may not be me there calling.

You're going to be dealing with that directly. That's the biggest ship that has occurred. Okay, how is it like the teenage years having a daughter? How was that? What's the worst thing you did in the military? It's worse than that. Yeah. That's what I'm worried about.

It's amazing. It is so beautiful and amazing and so utterly mortifying and terrible at exactly the same time. especially when you meet their first boyfriends that they bring home. And I may or may not have told some of her boyfriends before that I will literally kill them if they step out of line. I mean, you kind of have like a pretty serious face too. Like I remember I remember the first time meeting you when you were opening your retail store. I don't think he likes me. Everybody says that to me.

I just kind of have an RVF, I guess. That's what my daughter tells me. I'm glad you said it. It's a little bit of an RBF, but then... I don't mean to be that way. That's just, that's how I came out of the box. Like, you're genuinely a nice guy once you talk to you, but at first you're like, man, I feel like you're just staring daggers through me.

I am inherently distrustful of people. That's probably like a pretty solid thing to have, though, when you're meeting... Oh, I did it over dinner, too, allegedly. Just sitting there cutting up steak. Hey, just so you know, if you ever mistreat my daughter, I will actually kill you. and you know, pass the salt. How do you like your steak done? Yeah.

You know, I got, I have four kids, two boys, two girls. It's going to be, how old are they? Seven to three. It's a wild journey, man. I enjoyed being a father more and more and more. And it has continued to do. So as they got older, I mean, you know this. For the first few years almost, they don't really need dad so much.

It's mom. you know, I can bottle feed, but mom's, you know, got the inherent equipment to be able to do that at all times. And, yeah. Yeah. I remember when we were living in San Diego, my oldest son came up to me and he said, Dad, can we get dirt bikes? And I said, I need you to say that again, but around your mom. Louder. And then so we went and got dirt bikes.

But, you know, their ability to communicate gets better. And then their ability to physically do things gets better. And then so then you're out exploring life and doing. and stuff. It is my oldest is now 23. He'll be 23 in October. My middle son turns 21 on Wednesday. Yep. Um, we're all dressing up in old suits. And he wanted to do, uh, a Wall Street 1980s, 1990s up to whitefish. He went to a thrift store, got a three piece suit with a leopard. I'm like, son of a bitch. All right. My wife went to the thrift store. I found a power, a woman's power. I'm like, really? I was just going to wear flip flops. Sure. Like, damn it. Now I have to do this.

So my brother-in-law comes into town tomorrow. We're going to go shopping. They're randomly coming in here. So, like, there's this confluence of family coming into town. And then my daughter just turned 18. But it's cool, man. Is it easy to make that shift from, like, okay, because I'm in the stage right now where it's like carrot or stick all the time, right? More so for the boys.

I have a really hard time even threatening a stick with my daughters. I would advise against it, to be honest. I've learned that. you just the my relationship with all three of my kids is independent and unique with all three of them with my boys I can be much more directive much more similar to the way we were used to being talked you can talk shit with them I made the mistake with my daughter of talking even just in an elevated tone of voice once when she was younger and you could just see it was like a flower wilting and I'm like oh man never ever again you've had two boys like completely different right yeah like one of them's a total knucklehead. Yep. And he's like one side of my personality where, you know, he'll square up to fight me. Yeah.

That's not going to go to go his way. Right. And then the other one is like, dude, if I look at him wrong, right? And it knows he disappointed me to your point. Yeah. And then, but my daughters, man, like my daughters, everybody told us like, at least at that age, they said it'll flip, right? And daughters will be tougher when you get to the teenagers.

It's just more complex. I wouldn't use the word tougher. Yeah. And I tell parents, you know, be careful what you wish for because you do oftentimes hear parents saying, oh, you know, I can't wait until they're older. It's the volume of problems is not any less. Just changes, right? They're way more complex. I mean, you're talking driving, drug, sex, and alcohol.

Yeah. At this point, just hope it doesn't all occur in one second. Seriously. I mean, especially with the boys. Dude, you remember being their age. The fact that you and I are here, luck. Pure luck. Pure luck.

They're going to go through all that stuff. And now is the person, again, later in life, existential dread. It never stops. But the things you are dreading, you know, I guess when my kids were younger, I would worry about them accidentally doing something, you know, or falling and getting hurt, whatever it is. Now my existential dread is being involved in something that could have a lifelong downstream cascading consequence. Yeah.

It's really easy to screw up parenting. It's something that I think. I think, you know, to your point, like, being a good dad's one of my, it is my highest priority next to being a good husband. And I think we're starting to see a lot more dads like dad. And I think the fruit will be worth it for our future generations. It is, because how old are your kids? Getting ready to be 23, getting ready to be 21, and just turned 18.

Okay. Because my nieces and nephews, all my sisters are like significantly older than me. so we're ranging from like 12 to you know 19 and that generation is so much different like my nephews like rarely drink right they're way more same as my kids as well too that well you can look it up um the alcohol industry is getting way late on the chin right now which i and this is a tough one this it was funny talking about humberman he asked me a question on in a show he goes, I can't believe I'm about to ask you this on my show, but is there an argument to be made for drinking alcohol when you're younger? And the reality is this, I regret a lot of the

things, my behavior, but also some of my core memories in the community that I came from were in situations involving alcohol. Could we have replicated those without it? Maybe, but maybe not to that degree. So I can see both. I'm not advocating or telling people to go in any direction, but my kids are the same way too. And that, you know, I'm sure we can talk about corruption as much as we want to. I don't know if our system is fixable from the top down. But I think the answer to the corruption is from the bottom up. And that's what you're talking about.

And I think that is where the hope and inspiration can come from. Like they're going to church. They're drinking less. They're conscious about like, hey, maybe I should like think twice before, you know, I do anything with this girlfriend or boyfriend, right? just way more conscious of and more mature than I was. Like I was out just partying like a freaking rock star. 100%.

And to your point, yeah, it was an absolute miracle. And I even made it to the point where I could join the military. So I do, I think that is the optimism. And I think is like us as fathers and mothers to make that a bigger priority of being good parents. It's like, because my childhood is like, you know, and I think that's the other part when you become a parent is I had a lot more, you know, parents screw things up, right? But you have a lot more forgiveness because now you're in this situation where you're like, I'm going to do better, but I at least understand where you're coming from in this situation. Because it's hard. It's really hard.

And but the more we invest in these kids, you're 100% correct. I'm telling you, I think it's the answer. If we can keep the world from falling apart, will they grow? You know what, though? I was talking to my dad about this, who's the ripe old age of 187. I think every generation feels like at some point they are on the precipice of it all coming down and falling apart. I think that that is there. And maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe that reminds you of your mortality or maybe the finiteness of life or how little time you have. But we'll figure it out. Like, I mean, don't get me wrong. Our country, if you go online, depending on your feed, it's, you know, America no longer is what it was founded upon, were the largest purveyors of terrorism in the world at this point, were the bullies of the world. Cool, whatever, believe that if you want to. Or the other side of that where we're living up to or doing our best to live up to every example of what it is to be the lighthouse of this country and what it was founded upon. There's probably equal measures of both that could be considered true, depending on the person. but it's it's not possible to be perfect,

whether as a parent or as a society or as a country. I think we're malleable enough as a country. Like sure, the tires are not the tires, the wheels on the track may rattle and shake a little bit, but I don't think they're going to come off the track. I think it's recoverable. People always think like we've never been here before, but there have been similar instances like throughout history

and I don't want to try to name them off the top of my head because I'll probably screwed up and then, you know, the people will know. But I think you're right. One of the things I think about often is just like we're terrified of the unknown and change, right? Like it's just built into our DNA. And we are at this point in civilization where things are just going so fast and information is instant all the time. And I think that maybe that's more so the case is that our brain's not designed to just perpetually be bombarded with that. My kids, though, interestingly enough, with the, my middle son is a good example.

He deleted all social media off his phone. He'll download it on Sundays to check in or one day on the weekend to check in, but managing it differently than people of honestly our generation. Or even my dad, my dad's on Instagram, which I tried to warn people. It's a matter of time until he's either live streaming while taking a shit by accident or posting a picture that he probably shouldn't. And the latter already happened. Posted a picture. or probably my phone detonated with get a hold of your boy. Check on your boy.

I think I saw that post, actually. That was a pretty good one. I tried to warn people. I just don't understand. I've known that man for my entire life, actually. But he uses more social media. His metric might be more Facebook now than a lot of my kids. Yeah.

So they're figuring out, you know what I mean? They're their cosmonauts that were launched into this ecosystem. It's all they've ever known. They don't remember a world pre-internet. Yep. We're going to figure it out. I believe that. And I believe that it's a good time for people to have faith, right?

Because, like, if you are just looking around the world and that's the only thing that you think exists, it's pretty easy to press. But if you're looking at your family, you're keeping your priorities straight, right? Just keep your head busy with good people around you and, you know, trying to propel the world in a better direction. If we're all doing that, like, you know, things are just going to start going better eventually. if you tune out the naysayers on all sides because, you know, most people in America are good, despite what they believe in, right? You can disagree with somebody and still like them. And that person could still be a good person.

They don't have to be your enemy. More often than that's the case. Yeah, sitting around and complaining about what you don't like in the world is everybody's right if they want to do that. But my question is, when you're done with that, what are you doing to directly impact the world? other than just rehashing, reposting, re-sharing, being a megaphone on the things that you see that you don't like, okay, you put your gloves on? You're tying up your boots to get in there?

Because if you're only going to sit there and complain about it and put no effort into it, it's not that I'm not going to listen to you, but you're making the problem worse. And you're not doing anything to make it better. I mean, I picked a fight with food, right? Like there's no shortage of corruption that exists in that industry. and, you know, I was, Casey Cattle was damn near bankrupt when I started valid provisions, right? And- Talk me through the Casey Cattle journey.

Yeah. So this 2016, founded the company. 2017 was like half-year sales. I'm literally like just selling strip stakes out of the back of like a pickup truck. Where were you getting the meat from? Did you want your own cows? I had a Ranger buddy. Actually, we were Palm Bears for Jeremy's funeral.

Is where him and I met. He was getting out and he was one of Jeremy's team leaders and I was just getting in. And so he was done in Austin, Texas going to UFTE. And he literally used his student loan money and wouldn't bought like his foundation genetics. Hell yeah. Right. And the guys crushed it, Ranger Cattle. He's a character.

So yesterday in Boseman. What's that? Did the cows wear berets? No. But that would be cool. First off, if French painters have. that isn't cool. Yeah.

And I say this to all my green bray buddies. How could you get, and I'm going to put Rangers in this too. How could you have such a badass occupation, but such a goofy hat? Wait, do you guys wear hats? Yeah. Like,

what do you guys call your like standard uniform that you just wear to work like every day? What's that one called? Oh, shorts and T-shirt. Okay. With flip-lops. Oh, geez. That is really the working uniform.

Yeah. If you're in camees, it's just a cover, but it's the traditional Cambo. to take a cover. Yeah. Incredibly badass human beings wearing a French painter's hat.

I just have questions. Especially if you don't know how to shave it, right? That is true. There is a huge divergence. Some people, like Nick Lavery, it's just like, he's crushing. Like, can't even see his eye.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I can't decide, like, because Rangers were black, and then I should reframe that. Rangers wore black berets, and then they switched to the tan, right?

after the entire army switched to black berets. And then obviously green berets are wearing their green berets. Airborne's wearing red, correct? Yeah, maroon. Merroon. Whatever. Move. The maroons are not bad-looking, like that guy's in the 82nd and all that. I like the tamburays.

They're cool. If you knew how to wear them. I'm just saying it's a French painter's hat. It's a good-looking French. It can be a good-looking French. Opinions will vary on that. We might have to agree to disagree. Well, in the standard on it, where you're like,

supposed to wear it level. That's what it looks like. Oh, you're supposed to? Yeah, you're supposed to. There's some people who are out of regs. Trust me. Most of us were out of regs, right? Um, but I don't even, how did we get on outranger cattle? Yeah. I asked if the cows got to wear berets. I actually think a cow wearing a beret would be pretty dope. You can get little straps that go underneath its horns or under its ears. I'm just saying product idea. Be good Instagram post. It would be. Ones that have not gone through selection, don't get the tan. beret once in what would selection be that's up to you guys i don't know i mean you get selected but it's not when you're standing on four hubs right so you maybe that's what you get as your last

parting gift is your beret your bray yeah yeah i guess you just have like the head taxidermine with the bray on it i would probably buy that gregg has one of his bull's heads taxidermine in the restaurant we went to last night gregg is a weirdo it's like how did you even find somebody that would tax it or me at Bowleshead. Like, that thing probably weighs like 300 pounds. I think there's styrofoam. No, I mean like, oh, you mean the bowl. Yeah.

300 pounds is exaggeration. But like when you, because you're, you're getting the entire hide and there's still like so much flash on that thing. And like, have you fleshed out like a deer? Yeah. Like, do those hides are when they're wet. Oh, yeah. When you came out.

Yeah. It's crazy. So, um, anyways. Okay. So you're getting your, you were at that time, you were selling stakes from Ranger cattle. Yeah. And we were buying like our, our, um, so Casey Cattle was more of a distributor. Well, we were buying our seed stock genetics the same time, right? But there's,

it's like, it's like bourbon, right? What does it even mean seed stock genetics? It's like, uh, are you talking about tubes of bullcom? Exactly. No, there's a lot of sexual innuendos in, in our work. There's a lot of, there's a lot of sperm. I've seen the pictures of dudes with their fist and a large portion of their arm, not visible. I'm not going to lie. That is my favorite. class I took in college. I don't know what that says about you as a person, to be honest, that you like fisting beasts. I mean, you're up there to you. Like, and it's, it's in, it's in the anus. It's not in the other hole, right? So you're up there and you're like,

you're basically grabbing her entire uterus from inside the anus. And then with the other hand, you have this rod that's like this long. It's just got a little, you know, plunger on the end of it. And their cervix, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a, Chinese finger trap, right? So it's, it's about yay big. And there's this like little tiny hole like that. And then there's like seven rings that you have to manipulate that thing through there. And if you like stab her, you know, she's going to die from an infection or at least get an infection. So it's a... Listen, whatever you want to do on Saturday night is your choice. For those not like watching this right now, you should see the look he's giving me.

Well, first off, I'm going to make a clip out of that that removes all. reference to a cow. We'll just see how that goes. We'll just say Saturday night with a ranger wearing a painter's beret and have your description. Or you can piece in the part we're talking about with this and Hollywood and this. Yeah, it's, uh, you're in there.

You're in there. Let's just say a hand surgical glove is not enough. But that's a lot of where they perfected the human side of fertility treatments was, was cat. There's like a lot of science that happens because people, Like, you know. I mean, they're mammals, right? Mammals.

Yeah, actually very similar placenta, almost the same placenta as females. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of sexual windwindows. We spent a lot of time talking about teats and utters and, yep, all the things. What was the movie, the bowling movie with, uh, oh. He's like, I milked your cow this morning. It took a while to get it going because we don't, we don't have any.

female cows. It was with Bill Murray. What was the, God. Damn it, Ari helped me. Today's episode is brought to you by Fire Cracker Farm. Two things that I want to say about this. First is not even actually about the product. This is about the family, the man and his family, Alex,

who are behind this brand. And when I say that, I mean every aspect of this. Working together as a family, family farm, working together to create these products, to shift these products, to get them out to the people who are ordering. them. That is actually what I love the most about this. Now, the second thing is that this is the best salt that I've ever used. And I use it on everything. I use it literally every meal of the day. This morning, I made some eggs for breakfast, and I put a little bit of vanilla salt on there.

It's a little bit hot, a little bit spicy, but not too much. For lunch, I had some leftover tri-tip steak. Guess what I put on there? The vanilla salt again, because it's actually my favorite. And for dinner, I'm making tacos. And on that, I'm going to put the pineapple salt. Now I get it. That might not sound great to everybody, but those are just two of the options that they have to offer. You can make cocktails with these things. I've had them on seafood. I've had them on oysters. I've had them on every type of food to include fruit now.

I used to think people were psychopaths for putting salt on fruit. Then I tried it and realized, as with most things, I was completely wrong because I had never tried it before and had formed a deeply held opinion with no experience. Last thing I'll say is this. Christmas is right around the corner. It's time to start thinking about this type of stuff. For me, the best gifts are the ones that I use every day. And like I said, I use this salt at every meal today. Go check out what they have to offer and support an amazing family living the American dream.

Firecracker. Dot Farm. Back to the show. I can't either. Whatever it was, it was amazing. Was it the one where the guy has one hand? Yes. Yeah, because he...

He's lucky something. I don't remember. Whatever it is, though, that just when you're talking about the teats, the guy is, yeah, it took me forever to get started. Kingpin. Yeah, it's a bucket of milk. Yeah. There's a lot of funny things that happen in that world. And then you bring like, you know, the world's best hot dog, which we're about to get.

And then things just spiral out of control. Okay. When you start talking about weeners. And that was what put us on the map. I mean, we're maybe shipping 20, 30 orders before that. And then. Per day? No, no, per week, right? And so this was like 2017 to 2018. And one of the things I figured out pretty quickly is like, you know, people love strips or buys a filibre damean. Well, that's about, you know, 8 to 12% of the carcass. 70% of that carcass is ground beef. And people buy steaks to ground beef one to one. So we created that hot dog in 2019. Yeah, spring of 2019. And we did like, I don't know, 200 pounds.

Who are you getting those from? Or was that your own product? No, we have a processor that we worked on the recipe with and really nothing special other than like we put actual high quality beef in the hot dog. Instead of lips and assholes? Exactly. Exactly. And then...

Which I believe is the actual ingredient list on an Oscar Meyer weiner. There's some weird things that can happen in the protein world on the USDA and we'll get there because this is what gets me fired up. But we created that hot dog. Hands down, war cellar when we created it, right? And I'm like, oh. you know, whatever. And the only marketing I was spending at that point is, I mean, we were broke. I

didn't have any loans at this point. I had, you know, I cash flowed it. We took a little bit of money from a guy I knew from regiment. There's just like a friends and family loan, right? It's really tough to get capital for like an entrepreneur, right? It's a little different if you're buying an existing business or if you're, you know, your routes are essentially, you take angel money, you know, you pitch to venture capital. And you can hopefully get, sizable enough that you can then go work with the bank after you have a prudent track record. But I think it's one of the things we need to fix is just the lack of availability of capital for good ideas in this country.

It's a tough balance because the stats on entrepreneurial endeavors, most of them fail. So it shouldn't be overly easy to get the money, but I don't think it should be an impossible reach. It shouldn't be impossible. It's a tough balance. It is a tough bounce. For smarter people than us to figure out for sure. Yeah. I want to come back to that.

Okay. Because I think capital is like one of those. Anyways, we created that hot dog. Hands down were seller. But what we were spending money was just sending it to publications for review. And so we were maybe down to like 40 packs. And we'd sent one to food and wine. We didn't hear anything back.

I didn't even, what you just described, I actually didn't even know was possible. What would you call the product? The hot dogs? Yeah. Just a whole 100% Wagyu Beef hot dog, right? Should have been Pat's Weiner. Pat's weiner.

We send it to food and wine. We hear nothing back like incredibly common in the PR world. They just eat a good pack of hot dogs. They're like, thanks, right? And it's August 1st, 2019, and we had no idea this article was coming out. I'm literally, I'm at a neighbor's property helping them put it in fence. you know, I still got the Shopify notifications on my phone at that point. Started making a little bit more of a chime.

It was like a perpetual like ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. And it's maybe five minute drive back to my house because I'm like, hey, I'll be back. Like something's happening. I need to go check my computer. I get to where I have like steady cell phone reception. I call like the gal that's doing the PR for us. And I'm like, hey, did something in? She's like, I don't think so.

I'm like, well, something's happening, right? And I make it back to my house. in that five minutes, I opened the computer. We have like half a million people on the website, and we'd already, you know, had like 2,000 orders come in. First off, if you're lucky your website could handle that traffic. Shopify, it was crashing because the way, I didn't know this at the time, but the way Shopify does, or at least at this point,

I don't know if they still do it this way, but they would allocate server space, right, based off here. And so as like our traffic's just going like this, it'd like crash and then it'd come back online, crash, come back online. You're also lucky that you didn't hard stop what you were selling at the physical inventory limit of what you had. Yeah, we allowed back orders, right? Yeah. And it was funny because I was doing my MBA at this time as well.

And I'm doing a case study on the Oprah effect, like as this is happening. Oh, like the gifts shows she used to do at the end of the year. Holy cow. And it would like, she would go talk about like some widget, right, that a mom and pa place would create. And it would literally wreck their business. Yeah. Because they didn't know the volume was coming. It was the best worst problem they could ever think of.

More exposure than they could ever want it. And they, again, website crashes. And B, they don't have the physical product to deliver. It's almost like a selection, right? Yeah. So, you know, I get home. I tell my wife, I'm like, I'm shutting down the computer because, you know, I let it go for like an hour and it wasn't stopping.

You know, it's like continuing to trend up. And at this point, I'm like, all right, I'm starting to have, like, panic. We had 40 packs of hot dogs in stock. You guys are good. Sounds good. So I'm like, call my Ranger buddy down to Texas. like how much beef can you get me in like the next three weeks? You know, we had some that were ready on our property.

But, you know, there's like a whole logistics chain that happens to this. I'm sitting there doing the math like on a napkin and I'm like, it's going to take me at least 12 weeks to get this done. There's one and a half of us to work there. I have to ship all these. Like we're not working with a 3PL. And, you know, I tell my wife I'm shutting down the website and she's like, dude, put your big boy pants on.

I want to stay home with the kids. And, you know, she was pregnant with her second. when this happened. I was maybe paying myself like once every six months. And so we did. And the part I like to talk about optimism, like, here's what I remember the most is like, I'm calling my mentors. I'm like, what do I do here? Like, do I fake the funk with our customers? They just ordered from us about it. And they're all like, don't tell them like it's going to take, basically their advice, I don't want to make them sound like that. Their advice, was you need to fake it till you make it, right?

Make them think you're bigger than you actually are. And I was like, man, it just doesn't feel right, right? And looking back with hindsight, like the only thing I was good at in the marketing world was just being authentic and transparent about the things we do. And so I just, I sat down, I typed up like a two-paragraph email. I was just like, look, there's one and a half of us that work in this company. I had 40 packs of hot dogs in stock when this happened. I can't thank you enough for, like, believing in us.

So no, we're not a scam. Like, I didn't just steal your credit card info. It's going to be a bit, though. I was like, but it's going to be eight to 12 weeks. And no big deal, if you want a refund, just reply to this, right? And in my head, I'm thinking, you know, somewhere between 50 and 30 percent are going to reply to that email. No, zero. It was three percent over that entire 12 weeks.

But, like, the cool part was the emails that came back. And I'm thinking they're the people canceling. They were just people that are like, I'm so thankful that this, like, can still happen in America. Or, like, somebody just had an idea and when got after it. and found success. And so to your point, like, maybe we always think the world's bad, but like all these people are applying, and they're just genuinely happy to support.

And they're buying a $25 pack of hot dogs, right? We did get plenty of people who are like, you're a criminal. I'm like, do you realize how much it takes me to ship a single pack of hot dog to California from Missouri? We lost money on every single one of those orders. Because we built all of it off of the law of averages, right? So it was like, hey, here's our average order value.

Here's what we're building in for shipping. So like we had this outlier of 12,000 single pack of hot talk orders. We lost money on every one of those. But what we gained was, you know, a customer base that like what we stood for, right? And the product, the product was good. So people came back. And then the pandemic, right? How big was your order for shipping labels?

Your paper stock order? because that's a lot of labels I say this as somebody who uses Shopify too for the podcast stuff yeah when you find something that hits and you're like oh no I don't have enough shipping material oh no I don't have enough label paper

oh my gosh that was such a hard lesson in the logistics right yeah because you're right like UBS and FedEx will buy your shipping labels and so that part wasn't bad but like boxes liners gel packs dry ice I had to go hire

people, which like I asked you about like how was that transition. That was the toughest part for me. I made a lot of mistakes. Like what's my job as the CEO? It's culture, core values and enforcing those. And I did not understand that at that point. And so I made a lot of mistakes there. It's tough. I mean, I can't say I didn't totally understood it either. Like I said, the biggest move that I made that was successful and probably was by accident was just offboarding that to somebody who specifically had that role who could be that beacon for people working underneath them. Yep. Yeah. If I had been that person. person, would that be a rough ride?

That would have been a rough ride? How did it, so you get that huge spike, how was it when you came over the other end of the bell curve? Did you get a lot of repeat customers from that or a lot of new ingrained business? That was the part I was most scared of was, okay, I'm hiring on full-time employees. Yeah, this is a flash in a pan or it's sustainable. Like, are people going to like the product and come back and buy more? And there was a moment there because we essentially caught up beginning of November.

we went straight into the holidays, which is always like our best time of year. And it was good, but it was like, you know, maybe 30% of these people are coming back. Which, from my understanding, that's a pretty good recaptory. It's pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty good.

But then we went straight into the pandemic, right? That was, what, February or March that we started having a lockdown? I just thought it was 2020 through essentially 2022, right? And this is like when the story shifts from, like, like all of the pain points that led me this idea for Valor. Because, you know, where did Valor come from? It's like, it's just getting kicked in the teeth with, like, starting this business and having no idea what I was doing as a business owner with Casey Cattle Company.

And then understanding, like, this is why your farm and ranch in Montana or BFE, Kansas, or Oklahoma or West Texas can't go to the end consumer. And the pandemic was, we three-ex the business that first year, right? because in, I'm trying to think here, timeline, I think it was March, that March or April of that year, where one of the big packing houses had a COVID outbreak, right, picked up national media. They shut down, so did one of the other big packers. So two of the big four shut down and protein evaporated from the East and West Coast in two weeks, right? And then on top of that, we were like, this was all over the news news that that, like,

do you remember the feed yards and they're just killing animals because they didn't have anywhere to take them? I do remember seeing that. We were getting a lot of phone calls from like all the nightly news places like, hey, why are they doing this? Do you want to like come on for an interview about this? They didn't have anywhere to take them. You have gears on the teeth on the gears are flying off. It's a system that has to keep moving. And those feed yards are razor thin margins.

Yeah. And you're putting, you know, somewhere between depending on the price of corn, you're putting somewhere between $1.50 and $2.50 per head per day, right? Multiply that by 100,000 animals that is on a feed yard, right? So that happens and we exploded, right, when that happened because all these customers, a lot of which were on the east and west coast, they were going to their grocery store and they couldn't buy protein. And so they came online and they're buying from us.

And so like we went from harvesting four beef a month to eight beef to 12 beef to, you know, We're doing a potload. Now we're doing two potloads a month. You know, it's almost 100 head. And this wagyu, right? And it was, you know, the price of cattle was starting to go up at this point. And, you know, that's going to lead into this story. But, like, we were scaling significantly.

And here's where I made a lot of tuition payments is I thought, like, everything I was touching was turning to gold, right? I already know where you're going. And I can't fail. I can't fail. Did I tell you about the other great idea I just had? 100%. And I'm like, nothing I can do won't work, right?

And I didn't start the company for the money, right? I wanted to make like a comfortable wage, but like I was just never, especially when I was first getting out of the military, I was just, you know, I was happy as an E5 with the salary I made, right? Like, and I started this company to justify being, no run cows, not because I necessarily cared about, you know, scaling it to compete with the big four.

And so when I had this, like, huge influx overnight, it was like, for the first time of my life, I had, like, a little bit of money. And all of that got taken away in, like, a year and a half because inflation hit in 22. And, like, I know every business is like, oh, inflation, but I'm telling you guys, like, what happened in the ag world was just insane. and it's continuing to happen as you're seeing with your beef prices at the grocery store. And so it went from that. And then on top of that, the show Yellowstone came out. It convinced like every hundred millionaire and billionaire in the country to go buy a ranch. And they all chose Wagyu beef, right?

So where I was like throwing a couple hundred thousand a year in our marketing budget, these guys are throwing millions. And it's a tax write off. So they don't care. They don't care what their metrics look like. They just drown you. And so all that was happening. And then on top of that, like, I was falling apart as a person, you know,

because, like, there's all those things I hadn't dealt with from the military. And when, you know, I went from this to, like, my marriage is hard. I've got my third kid on the way. Like, I'm not having a paycheck. You know, my employees are, like, some of them with a good reason because I was falling apart. But, like, I'm not taking a paycheck. And then it's like, oh, I need a pay raise and I want equity on top of that. And I was like, man, I got a big cultural problem going on here.

And this is my fault. And so all that's happening in like 22 time period. And I was like falling apart as a human being. And I continued to make a lot of mistakes until 24 when it was like, I can either quit. And I think the catalyst for that was like, what am I going to do if I quit? like I'm quasi decent at the marketing stuff. I'm okay operations, but I hate it. Like back in the military, be a cop, right?

Like, what am I to do? And I'd probably make three times as much money if I went and became a marketer, right? But I'd leave the house early in the morning. I would get home later than I do right now. I'd work a billion hours a week. I'd probably be working for a company that I don't believe in.

Would I be happier? Probably not. And that was what I said alone. It was like, man, I'm going to, I'm going to go pick this fight. Our country is controlled by four players that, you know, two of which are foreign-owned, right? You're talking about in the ag world? This is beef, right? And protein in general, four companies control 85% of the protein in this nation.

Is that because they control the infrastructure behind it? Yeah, they control all of the logistics. even vertically integrated in the beef world, at least, like to the feeder cab level. Which actually, from a business perspective, makes sense vertically integrating. It does. It does, but, like, you know,

for a commodity to work, you need a truly free market. Yeah. And we don't have anything close to that. And I would argue, like, you know, we're talking about ag, but that's unanimous across the country. Whether you're talking about electronics

or microphones or whatever the case may be, like, at best you have an oligopoly. like the big four. And at worse, you have... People may not recognize it, but just because it has a different label doesn't mean it's not controlled by that big four or something that was purchased and absorbed by them

and they let them keep the branding on it. People are always blown away by that. There's hundreds of brands. Yes. You're not going to see JBS sold at your grocery store. It's going to be under 100 other brands. Yeah, people don't realize that it titrates back to those four that you're talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. So that ended up being the fight was like, all of these other D2C me companies are popping up like Little Belt, right? Him and I met during this time period, and my whole premise was like, I got really good at the logistics and marketing side of this, and I don't have enough capital to backwards integrate for, you know, feeder calves, and we were talking about this last night over dinner.

Like, you always talk to private equity guys or investors, and they're like, why don't you go buy mama cows? And there's that level where, you know, if you're buying feeder calves, you can make it make sense. But like to have 2000 head, especially in a place like Montana, because your stock rate's like 22 acres to one cowcalf pair. He was telling me that last night, which is crazy because Missouri is two to one. Oh, wow. Like huge difference.

And it's like that across the nation, just depending on the locale. But like you're talking to, you know, $50 to $100 million investment for $2,000 mom of cows because you have to have the tractors. You got to have the pins. You've got to have the acres. You got to have the property insurance. It's like all the things that go along. It's very capital intensive. And then on top of that, like in 22, we re-uped the green new energy deal.

And so this is really when Americans started seeing beef prices go through the roof was like a couple different things. One, beef consumption, like people figured out maybe it's not red meat that's killing me. And so beef consumption was going up by 20% year over year. But then on top of that, we re-up the green energy deal. and like what that caused was on the heels of these natural disasters, think like the wildfires in West Texas, was that last year or two years ago? I believe so. Droughts in Oklahoma, Kansas, wildfires up and up here.

On the heels of all of those, you would see these companies come in that are playing with government dollars. And they're like, hey, if you sign a 30-year lease, like, we'll write you a check for a couple million dollars every year. And I'm putting wind and solar on your property, right? And so you're talking to these ranches, and I'm talking like size bowl ones, right? Like 50,000, 100,000 acres. And they're converted to wind and solar like overnight.

And even if you believe in the environmental impact of cattle, and you're like, good. Beef consumption is going up 20% year over year. So what happened? there, all of our cattle are being raised in Brazil where they deforested a landmass the size of Vermont, New Hampshire combined,

to produce America's beef. So that's where I'm like, hey, let's just like think about this. You know, America's a place where cattle ranchers are highly regulated, right? Our beef world's highly regulated. And people care about the environment. It's not like that in the rest of the world. So all that's transpiring from 22 to 24.

Americans are feeling inflation, so they're pulling back on, you know, a $20 pack of hot toxic Casey Cattle company sells. And Bill Premus was like, let's just bring all these people under one, one flag. That's where the valid provision that came in. That's where it came from was like, hey, I want to be a cattle guy, but I'm never buying cattle again until I can buy it free free and clear from any bank or investors' money. And it was solely focused on, let's go tell these farmer and racher stories. And Greg was kind of the test dummy for us, right?

He was the first vendor that wasn't like our, our Wagyu products. And it's been awesome. And like not even like the growth side of it, but just it's getting noticed. I stopped worrying about making money and just started worrying about like, hey, let's fix this problem for America.

And it's got me on shows like this. I was in the Pentagon like a few weeks ago being able to tell people that can actually do something about it. That maybe it's not a good idea for China. control our pork industry and all of our proprietary seed genetics. I haven't heard that before that China. It's in the U.S., but foreign-owned, correct? So the infrastructure is here, but people don't realize that it's actually owned by China.

Yeah, like a lot of the times when you hear people reference that, like China owns American farm ground, a big chunk of that, like 450,000 acres is Missouri, Iowa, where they purchased Smithfield in 2016. Why do you think they focused on pork? Uh, poor pork is huge in China. Okay. So it was self-serving to a degree and probably they had the money to do it as well. Well, and I think, you know, I think it's strategic too, right? Like there's a, there's a healthy part of me that thinks we like actually lost the Cold War and the aspect that it's like, if you're running a dictatorship and this is where I just like to ponder and have no idea if I'm actually correct.

But like if you're a dictator or a communist country and you don't have to worry about elections, it's like, how are you going to beat America in an arms race, right? Like we're clearly the best of being innovative. It's like, man, I think it's Jack Carr's book, right, where he talks about the hubris of America. And that kind of led me down this, like, rabbit hole doing research about this. But it's like, if you were Russia and you're like, how am I going to beat the U.S.? You're like, they got those stupid elections every year, right?

Every four years, every two years for Congress. And we can't beat them on the United States. the arms race and they're crushing us on GDP. They're crushing us in every other way, right? But they had that soft underbelly that's their First Amendment rights, right? And they genuinely just like want to do well in America. And I'm like, man, they kind of took our bill of rights. And I would argue over a span of, you know, what, 40 years at this point? Like, is what, Berlin Wall came down in 89? 92? No, 89. But they've been very successful with just driving a wedge, right? down the middle of America where we spend enough time like tearing each other apart that it's like,

man, we're so busy with infighting. And now on top of that, they control critical infrastructure, right? Like our food supply. That's going to be a major problem if we're actively poking that bear. I mean, I think you could be right. I don't doubt that foreign governments have tried to be influencing not only day-to-day life, but politics in America for sure. I don't have a metric or a measurement of that. I'm pretty sure that we're doing the same thing externally as well, too. So I think that's the game that's been played. But I also don't want to put too much of that on the external forces. I do, I think that they're certainly trying. You think it's more internal? Like, I don't want to take the agency off the people and remove their, what I'll say, responsibility

to critically think. It's easy to, uh, Russian influence, Chinese influence. Russia and China, I think are a little bit different because China is obviously dynastic, you know. Russia, who knows what will happen after, I'm sure they have several people wind up after Putin. Or do I truly understand their government system? China, I think, has the advantage because they don't think in four-year cycles, like maybe two-year cycles for the midterms and things like that. So their approach can be much, they have a different optic on time, essentially. And I think they always have.

And again, I don't doubt that all that stuff is happening. I don't know if it's to the degree. I have no data either. But again, when I sit around and I ponder, I don't know how much. much can truly be attributed to foreign influence and how much should be attributed to people not critically thinking? It's more so why I say it. It's not to say like, oh, America, we're all screwed up.

I'm saying, hey, America, stop seeing yourself as left and right and start seeing yourself as Americans again that understand your bill of rights and have the ability to think outside of what a news cycle or social media tells you. Like spend some time with like the thing. that you care about that are a problem in America, right? You might come up with a solution to fix something instead of just talking about it. So it's more so why I bring that up is, you know, I'll put up a post like that every once in a while where I'll just talk about like, hey, here's what George Washington's Farewell Address said, right?

And it was like, beware of the divisiveness of a two-party system. Beware of fiscal debt. Beware of losing the morality and religion that the Constitution was founded on. Beware of foreign entanglements. And I always use that as like just a precipice to be like, hey, America, just like be kind to your neighbor and do good for other people. Right. And inevitably, it's always like one of the most controversial posts I put up. Like, you know, I get labeled as X or labeled as Y. And I guess next to you, I send an email on Easter talking about my faith journey. Yeah. That was the most controversial email I ever sent. God, that's wild. Isn't that crazy? But so for me, I've been around religion my whole life. It's never landed with me. And I'm not against religion.

I would describe myself as being agnostic. Dude, I don't know. I'm barely functional enough to sit here and hold a conversation with you across this table. Let's just go ahead and stop it at that before I. Andy, what was the creation of the known? I don't know. And it's funny. Religious people will reach out to me and some of them, not all of them.

Well, you're just not looking. It's like, it's not a matter of me not looking. Maybe it's just not my time. I'm totally open to it. I'm just being honest about where I am in my journey as a person. But I am not, I'm not offended by other people's journeys. To me, if you want to send an email out from your business about your journey through faith, I'm not seeing how that's controversial.

Well, not the good. And maybe that's, maybe I have the broken optic. Maybe I should be inflamed and upset about that. But I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to be. And I was only, like, I'm only a couple years. like that faith came out of hitting rock bottom. So to your point, like maybe it's just not time for you. Yeah.

Oh, I bounce off rock bottom all the time. Just a bounce dive. Just when you come up for air, it's like the drownproofing exercise. Like, ah, blah, blah, blah, right back down. Maybe that's why I went back. Like, where my faith grew substantially, it was like, it cushions that blow when you hit rock bottom a little bit. But yeah, in that email, it wasn't like, hey, you need to go find Jesus Christ, right? I didn't see it, but I doubt you were being dogmatic about this is the way you should live your life.

I ended it with, here's what resonates the most with me and why I think I chose this was like, imagine if we had a world where you treated thy neighbor like you treat yourself, right? P.S. Eat my weiner's. Yeah. Did you end with that? It would have been a good sign of. Missed opportunity. Unbelievable. I can consult with you for free on marketing. It would probably be good, man. I'll have you like do a guess. Maybe that'll top. My most controversy. Do you like dongs? Try our dongs. We did have our meat on the Today Show.

And who was, I think it was Hoda. She tried her like Flamignon live on television. And she put it in her mouth. And she goes, that's the best meat I've ever put in my mouth. And the funny. You just think through things like this first before we say them out loud. 100%. And the funny part is I didn't say anything because our P.O.

our PR gal, it's an all-female firm. And she's standing right next to me with her boss. And I didn't say anything, but she's like hilarious New Yorker family. And she's like, Hoda just said, you have the best mate she ever put in her mouth. My wife's standing there. And she's very used to sexual window windows at that point. So, yeah, no, all of that, no shortage of those opportunities. Man.

So under Valor provisions, you've basically created an umbrella. It's my understanding. Yeah, because I too am simple and can barely hold a conversation. I like to compare it to like if Costco and Amazon Prime had a baby, right? Like, how do the economics? Oh God, that's a dangerous thought. Right? So you can get two gallons of mayonnaise delivered to your house overnight?

100%, right? Except it'll be a half a cow. No, so the premise, like the economics behind it. Because what I figured out was like, hey, people want to support small farms, but there's only, X percent that they can pay over a grocery store price before you're only serving the top 1% income earners. Math is math. Math is math.

And so I'm like, how do we not have this model where I buy wholesale from them? And then, you know, I have to mark it up 50% to keep my doors open. And, man, Costco's crushed it in that. Like, they do a really good job of taking care of their partners. But their max markup on protein is low, low. Like, they lose money on probably every pound of beef they sell at Costco. I mean, it's a pure volume game for them, right? Well, they don't care because they make their money on membership.

Like, hey, I had a membership for a couple years. So that was exactly what I applied to Valor was like, hey, I'm going to create this deal and you can buy either an annual membership or a lifetime membership. That's how I keep my doors open. And then, you know, we take a flat 15% to cover our shipping on the protein. And the farms and ranches, the conversation instead of like beating them up on wholesale, is, hey, what do you need to charge on this to keep your doors open and have a healthy margin? Like, no, I'm not here to make sure that, like, you know, you can build a mansion, but, like,

what do you need to make to make this pencil? So you can hand it down to the next generation. Because they're evaporating at a rapid rate at this point. You know, 10% from 22 to 24 shut down on the independent farm side. Do you think that's something that hemorrhage can be stopped and rebuilt? Here's what left or right, because I've seen both, a lot of Band-Aids are coming out for an arterial blade. They want to talk about tariffs or, hey, legislation for X, Y, and Z or subsidies. The problem is the overall market, right?

We don't have a free market. On top of that, you know, we have a monoculture society where the only two things we produce and a majority of America's farm ground is corn and soybeans. It's like, hey, how much corn do you eat, right? Like, probably not that much, right? Well, be honest, I haven't pondered that question in quite some time. Maybe a cob here and there? A good cob on the grill is quite delicious.

I like Mexican street corn as well as one of my favorites. Not a high volume. Not a high volume. Not a high volume, but yet that is like a substantial portion of America's farm ground. What's it going to? It goes to feed yards, right? Some of it to feed yards, right, for feeding the animals, but more so like high fructose corn syrup, ethanol, plastics, seed oils.

All of that came about when we created this like monoculture society. So it's like we did that so we could export and sell it to China, right, for them to feed their pigs. And we increased GDP drastically. But that world's kind of falling apart. and it's the reason that we can't produce any of our own food anymore in America is because, like, this generation of farmers, like, that's been, you know, that was 1980s roughly that that change took about. And, you know, we don't know anything else.

Like, we don't sell equipment to go be a carrot farmer in America. It's just not a thing. And so it would be a drastic change to try to fix the entirety of the market. You heard RFK a little bit talk about this when you, when you're a lot of, you know, he was coming in. You want to get rid of the subsidies for corn and beans? If he were to do that, though, what would happen? Without fixing the overall market, it would be an absolute dumpster fire.

And you talk about a band-aid for an arterial bleed. That's not even a band-aid. You might be taking off the tourniquet. Yeah. And that might be a talking point that people can get behind. Like, yeah, we should do that. Okay. Can we investigate what the downstream consequences of that would be?

Yeah. I mean, the downstream consequences is all your road crop guys would go bankrupt. You can't produce corn and beans at the price that they're sold at on the commodity market without those subsidies. Especially in this, like, I mean, there's a lot of natural disasters happening in the states that we do those, right? And those subsidies are what keep these guys whole. Yeah, so your average farmer's 60 years old. His kids are like, I'm not doing this. Like, poor mom and dad.

Or the farmers, like, I'm not handing it over. to you. Because I don't want you to live this life. Is it a recoverable system? I think it is, but we just, I can't figure out if like, why it's not being fixed. And I'm actually like, I've gleaned some insights with recent conversations on this. I can't tell if it's not being fixed for nefarious reasons or for ignorance to like how food is produced and gets to your grocery store. And I'm starting to figure out it's the latter. I think it could be both. Probably. Most people, and I'll put myself in this same bucket, have no understanding. You walk into a grocery store.

You have no understanding of the supply chain. You could walk down and you can spend as much time as you want there and find the most obscure item, very likely, at least in the Western world. You have no idea. The supply chain that is required to get all of those things there for our leisure to cruise around and buy stuff that we don't even actually need probably. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. So there is, I think ignorance.

I wouldn't doubt that there's corruption, but ignorance. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, lobbying, right? Like, there's a lot of money spent on big food to make sure that it stays the way it is. There are some companies that drastically benefit from corn and beans, you know, being a very low price that is not changed with inflation. Yeah. Lobbying might be a good place to start with turning the tide.

un-corruption. Like, can we do that? Like, can we... I would like to believe that we could. I mean, as a thought exercise, and I have no idea what the impact of this would be, is what if we just, what if lobbying in this hypothetical world was illegal? Would that be a net positive or negative for society? I feel like it would be a net positive. However, I am talking out of my ass right now, because I have no idea. Like, I'm just starting to get exposed to, like, the political realm on this stuff as we start to have more conversations on the, the, like, food apple. And application national security side. So I'm very ignorant when it comes to D.C.

But I can't think of like a bad outcome, at least for America's populace that would come out of us getting rid of lobbying. Which at the end of the day, that is what our government is supposed to be serving, the American populace. An argument could be made that they have shifted their optic to supporting the infrastructure with the health. of the lobbyists to do so. I don't like if we get rid of lobbying and I would just love to see all political campaigns go away, right? Like or do you only get 250 grand per campaign hard stop? Hard stop. Would you cap the donation amount?

I don't know because isn't that one tied into the First Amendment? Isn't that what they said that your money is an expression or is a physical manifestation of freedom of expression? There was this Supreme Court ruling. What was that like 2014? that deemed like businesses had the same right to that as people? Citizens United, I think it was. Is that what it was?

I don't know. Again, I'm well over my skis when I'm talking about the depth of the political system. What I'm not looking forward to is I think in about six months, we're going to be back in a presidential cycle again. No, thank you. Yeah, man. That part wears you out because you can't escape it. Like, even if you're off of social media, it's what everybody's talking about. Or now they call you from local phone numbers.

They'll, you know, whatever company that they're hiring, I'm starting to get, for people who don't know, Montana only has one area code. It's 406 for the entire state. That's the entire state. Yeah. Wyoming's the same way. We're not the only state.

I can know that. But, you know, you can oftentimes tell the marketing calls or whatever it is because it's some 888 number, 8 under number. They started showing up as 406. They're so clever with technology on this stuff. Oh, it's just a constant back and forth. I would love to see that go away. I really do think, like, we can change this thing around.

I agree. And that's the hope that I want people to have. I think we can do it. Sitting there talking about how broken it is offering no solutions and no hope to people, I don't think is helping. I was actually, like, kind of impressed. I'm not going to say there were parts that made me sick when I was in D.C. a couple weeks ago, but I will also say, like, there are some aspects to what I saw, like Morgan LaTrell

and Eli Crane, they were showing up in support of, I was originally out there for, did you see Hakes says announcement a couple weeks ago about the testosterone deal for? Yes. Okay. So, which people went all up in arms about, I wish I had a baseline of my testosterone when I was in the military. Because when I first had it checked in my early 40s, I didn't have a baseline. Yep. So they're like, here's your number. And I said, awesome. Is it good or bad? Well, was it when you were 18, right?

Is it good or bad? And they said, well, this is what it is. And I said, I understand that this is what it is currently. Is it good or bad? Well, this is what it is. My son of a bitch. Which I'm asking them an impossible question too, because there was no baseline with which to base it on. Well, and people, I mean, they're shocker.

They're like blowing something away out of proportion. But the whole premise is that baseline. And then also like, you know, so much of the current medical system on when they're prescribing testosterone is based off a very old FDA study. And, you know, core medical, Sidney Gordon was like the one that was spearheading that. And we've done some stuff with them on the nutrition side because it's a huge part of your overall hormone balance. You can auger your testosterone and based off of what you eat and your activity level. Drastically. Yeah.

And so that's that's what they got involved with. is just trying to like, hey, it was the best thing I did since I turned 30. I went and did a TBI treatment when I was 22 or in 22 and I was falling apart. And the gal that was doing it was like, you should go get your testosterone check. And I was like, really? Why? Like, not looking good. Yeah.

Yeah. But she was spot on. Like, I was in the dump and I was sleeping terrible. I was like, I was like skinny fat, right? And I was like working out. But I just like, I couldn't, I didn't have the energy levels. My mental health was just wrecked and so much of that turned around. I think so much of our, because I was like really the first generation raised with like the ultra-processed food world.

And I think we're going to see a ton come out of that on how much it wrecked our endocrine system. We're already seeing this, right? But that's what, you know, we're getting to help out with is, hey, imagine if you're feeding warfighters an actual quality diet. And don't tell me it's expensive because you either pay that or you get to pay for all the treatment down the road from the increase in chronic illness. And I'm impressed with like just how quickly they're moving on some of that. And I think it'll be a huge reform. Like imagine if you had a baseline testosterone test, you're able to see what it was. Even just for my own knowledge and peace of mind.

Yeah. And like how much of what you did diet, lack of sleep, stress. like all of these things, how much did that impact it, right? I would love to be able to tell you. We have no idea. And so that was the whole premise. And I'm excited for them to roll that out.

And I get help out with the nutritional aspects of like, hey, stop feeding these guys food from the lowest bitter. And let's put a quality diet in their hands. So that it at least mitigates the negative effects of lack of sleep. you know, being in stressful situations perpetually, doing the things that you do. It's like, stop giving them unlimited cake, high fructose corn syrup, and let's increase that protein intake and give them some unlimited fruits and veggies. Yeah, it's interesting, guys like Morgan LaTrell, who do a term and say, I'm out of here.

I was impressed, man. You never know what's going to happen until you. like meet somebody in person. Yeah. And there's always like a degree of you that's like, like, is this going to be good? I think they are genuinely trying to make a difference for for the warfighter and those that are on the other side of that. No, I mean, his decision not to run for reelection.

You know, he got into Congress and I think one huge strain on family because they're traveling back and forth. But I'm hearing some undercurrents from people who are just saying, you know what? This system is just currently a little bit untenable. And I don't know if it's recoverable from the top down, but I do think it is from the bottom up. And I think we need to get enough of those people. And again, that's the generational thing where it comes in and slowly over time pops the pimple. He's off too for trying.

Yeah, for sure. I've never heard a good argument for why term limits don't exist. Because it would reduce the wealth of those who are serving at pickup office. I thought you're about to give like the one, have you ever heard the one where they're like, well, it takes like a full term to figure out how to do the job. Your stock portfolio crushing, yes. That's the actual answer, though. They would have to, perhaps it does take a level of experience. Okay.

Well, then let's stagger it a little bit. So we have mentorship, just like we pass along generational knowledge inside of the military. Maybe three terms then, right, versus two. But the real argument that nobody is going to say about term limits, the real answer is, well, it's way more beneficial to me. I can stay here forever and can become this nucleus of information, this controller of power, where I can never be levered out and then I can monetize that. That's the actual answer.

You're spot on. Another thought process I go down here is like we've kind of created this system where like sociopaths genuinely I have the loudest voice, right? George Washington, one of my favorite characters from mystery. We already talked about farewell address. but like the dude gave back a crown, right? Commander-in-chief of the entire Continental Army could have just been like, I'm the new king, right?

King George has that quote about like, if he gives back the crown, he'll be the greatest man that ever lived, right? Jokingly, and then he did it. And he did it twice, right? Once when he gave back Commander-in-Chief, but second, like, when he did, I mean, he didn't want to be president.

And then he comes back, does eight years. Who would? But that's what I'm saying. We need more people in politics that don't want to be. And I say that a little bit like I wouldn't do it. I think it would chew me up and spit me out. The current environment, I wouldn't be against it, but it would destroy your family as well.

If it was just about me, if people want to come at me, like, that's fine. You want to drag my family into this people that aren't volunteering for this as well? Just the tenacious, never-ending teeth that choose your life apart. And nobody's life is ever going to be able to withstand the scrutiny of the type of that is placed on you. Like, who's going to sign up for that? Yeah. There's nothing on planet Earth I care about more than my wife and kids.

And it's like... Even in Montana was she. I mean, it's... It wasn't just the candidate. It's the candidate in family, candidate family business partners. Like, dude. Crazy. Like, there is no gloves anymore on, like, what's fair and off limits in a political campaign.

And I wish we had a little better on the morality side. And, you know, to your point about critical thinking, like, we need to do better Americans. And I don't say that as a Republican or a Democrat. I say that. Like, stop getting your information from political campaigns. I, at the end of the day, my politics are very purple. I'm probably more socially liberal and fiscally more conservative. So a libertarian, I guess, would be the description.

But even with, let's say, a party that I don't necessarily align with is going to win or does win hypothetically in 28. Does that mean that I'm going to hope for the downfall of our country? No, regardless of whether or not I would vote for that party, I would hope that the party that party, I would vote for would get put into office. But if it doesn't, I'm not going to burn the country down and all of a sudden stop being on team United States. I actually want whatever administration it is to be as successful as possible for the American people.

Yep. Not, well, my team's not in there. So for the next four years, I'm just going to tear the country down. What are we doing? That mentality has made zero sense to me. And that's not. It's pervasive, though. I don't understand how it's gotten so pervasive.

Well, and how is your life? Okay. How's your life changed on a daily basis, right? When a president changes, like overnight, it's like, man, I get up, I go to work the same way. Maybe some things change with taxes. Sure. Maybe some things change with employment law. Maybe some things, you know, change for the poorer on regulation for cattle. But overall, it's like, I'm not going to just roll over and be like, it's the end of the world, right?

I'm going to get up and I'm going to go talk about the things I disagree with. But I might be wrong, right? they might be right. And what's always made this country so beautiful is the absolute melting pot of different perspectives, ethnicities, ideas. And we've gotten so narrow-minded with like a very slim perspective. It's where faiths help me out on that aspect. And I think like, you know, people are having a hard time.

You know, most people have never been in crazy stressful situations, right? Which is kind of good and also bad. Because they go co-black real fast. They do. They do. They go co-black real fast. It's like crazy. People think their life should be easy. And I'm like, who told you that? Yeah. I've just embraced the opposite being true. Life is actually about just suffering the best you possibly can and just keep going. And if you can somehow figure out a way to find some little squirts of joy, like a little lemon squirt of joy inside of that, celebrate that. Hey, turn lemons into lemonade, right? Like, yeah, because I think that's, that's the whole thing. And, and normally when you're going out and you're seeking these things that they make you uncomfortable. Like, I think humanity was designed to go do that.

And most people, they live in a three, a three foot world where they're scared to, you know, step out of outside of their house because of what they've seen on the news or whatever. And it's like, how do we teach people that's, that it's okay to step out of their bubble? I don't, that's something I don't have the answer to. but I think people exposing themselves to all call it a micro, not in a microaggression, but the micro uncomfortableness, micro hardship. That's actually the secret sauce, I think, is long-term exposure to things that aren't galactically hard,

but aren't also served up to you on a platter. I don't know how to reorient people's optic on that, though. I don't know where that gets instilled unless it's through the generational change, which I do think is what we're seeing. 100%. We're at a precipice with a, this plays into what you just said about kids. We're at a press face with like Valor where, you know, I either have to rate, I am raising money, but I'm very picky about like who we're taking money from on the side of, you know,

private equity venture capital works. We were talking about this at the beginning. Like private equity venture capital works in a very specific way with like what needs to returned, how you exit the business. Oh, they're not just, no, they're not huck and cash and saying, you know, whenever you're ready, this boomerang that back to us? 100%, right? And for us to do this mission, like this thing works at scale, but I am doing it for the right

reasons first, and the return comes from maintaining that more high ground as we scale it, but it takes time. It took us a while to get here. This is something I see people struggling with all the time when it comes to weight loss. 100 pounds overweight and they wanted it's why can't I get all this off in two months? Did it take you two months to put it on? Yeah. Let's have a reasonable expectation for change.

How long did it take us to get here? Maybe it takes us that long, of course, correct. What do you think about JLP wounds? Neutral. They came out so fast and they just like proliferated over. Overnight. Well, they didn't come out so fast. They were treatment medicine for diabetes.

They're being used off-label for weight loss. For the weight loss. But they've been out for a really long time. You know, I think, I don't want it to be a crutch for people. Yeah. What do you think about AI? Do you use any tools, AI, to enhance your research? Oh, 100%.

I think probably within the next five years, we see our first, probably several billion-dollar revenue companies with five employees. And the reason I ask that is that's a tool. Yeah. Why would we advocate for people not to smartly use that tool? I think what scares me is the long-term impacts of it. Well, again, this goes back to agency and personal responsibility. The long-term impact, for people out there who don't know this, I am not a doctor. Me neither, clearly.

So everything that you and I are saying, maybe. don't take this as medical advice. Yeah, I just like to ponder these things. From my understanding of it, there is a huge difference between people who take it and change nothing about their lifestyle when it comes to the weight that is lost, when it comes to lean muscle mass

versus bone density versus tissue, you know, fatty tissue loss. Yeah. And those that have used that as a tool to start building momentum and then they make sleep changes, dietary changes. They're in the gym working out.

Those are very different expressions of the same medication. Yep. based off of agency and personal responsibility. So it's like you can drink yourself to death with water if you drink too much, right? So again, is water lethal? Sure, depending on the environment. And if you don't know how to swim, maybe don't go fucking boating, you know, without a life jacket on.

But also, you have to have it to sustain life as well, too. So I think it's a tool. And I think some people are always going to be looking for the easy way. And if that's the way that you want to be, that's your journey and your arrival point can be blamed on nobody other than yourself. And maybe it'll work out spectacularly for you. I hope that it does. But other people who use tools for what they're designed for and optimized based off of that, I mean, who might have recommended against that? 100%.

It more so, like, I use it as just when I reference an hierarchy of, like, pharmaceuticals. And I'm like, man, there's sometimes you hear like the warning labels on these things. and you're like, there's obviously diseases that many Americans have that are awful, right? Like, I think I saw all stat the other day. The vast majority of them in the modern era, though, are based off of obesity and purely being unhealthy. So I would, again, this is me speaking personally if I was in that situation. If you're looking at all-cause mortality and you're likely going to die because you can't see your dick. And there is a tool that you could use to reduce all-cause mortality that, yes, of course, is not consequence-free.

but you could start driving that down in the hopes of making lifestyle change as a person I'm saying again speaking for me this is not advice for anybody else I probably would take that choice to help get it back under control but again it's going to be your agency and the actions that you take to build on top of that

yeah I think you think about like the food pyramid that I was taught as a kid right and it was 12 servings a grain 10 to 12 servings a grain a day and corn flakes get corn flakes right and I'm like man we just always assume that what we're being told is the right answer. And I'm like so much of my life

changed around just by changing my diet substantially, right? And cutting out all. And when I am not one of those people, it's like, I only eat like this. I like to enjoy life. I want to go out to eat. I try to stay away from seed oils. But, you know, the balance between living your life and, and choosing these things. But man, just like reducing my. inflammation markers and I was able to shed that weight. Also, I started testosterone, which helped tremendously. But just something I think about, like, seeing what an impact on my overall health, like controlling my food and getting rid of some of the things that, like,

I've been told since I was a kid, like, this is okay to eat. Well, maybe in very moderate levels, but it's just interesting. Trust but verify. Trust but verify. It's a term that works well in your personal life, business life. and on guidance that you're getting from government agencies. Trust, but verify. And everybody's different.

For sure. Every single person's different. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a wild ride, man. And the food side is like something we're just wholeheartedly focused on trying to make the economics fixed for America so that we still have, you know, make sure folks like Greg can continue to do what he's doing. Let's not worry too much about Greg. He does look good in a cowboy hat. I haven't flown the helicopter near his property.

The last time I was there, I was trying to chase cows off of his property line. How did you get into the helicopter? There's doors. Well played. War played. So I was a fixed wing pilot for a long time and really enjoyed it. And then I actually did it professionally for a little bit, getting out of the military. Obviously thousands of hours in helicopters in the back, being zero attention.

Really, I was like, let's have a. separation of responsibilities. How about everything cockpit forward? You handle. And really well, too. I need you on your egging. Cockpit back, I'm on it. And when we touched down on the ground, I'm out of here.

Right? Like, you need to get me to the ground, though. So, God, thousands of hours in helicopters, just paying no attention, sleeping mostly, just nodding off, as I'm sure you're familiar with. And I was at a speaking event and a guy had a helicopter there. And he said, hey, do you want to go up for a ride? This time, though, he was offering me the chance to,

sit up front, which is a different experience. He's like, oh, yeah, I'll let you fly. I'm like, I don't know if you know this, but I don't know how to fly helicopters. Don't worry about it. I'll do the critical phases of flight. I'm like, that's probably a good idea. Like the hovering and taking off and getting it actually into forward flight, which then is not very hard to control.

But it was cool, man. And it was a really short flight. And it just reinvigorated my passion for aviation a little bit, was driving around up here. And so watched one of the little Robinson helicopters, which is a very traditional training helicopter land at the, The city airport, and I was like, son of a bitch. Yeah. I just went over and started taking lessons.

Was it tough going from fixed wing to rotary? I am very thankful for the fixed wing experience that I had because I didn't have to learn everything about aviation while also trying to learn how to fly a helicopter. Okay. So all the licenses and knowledge tests that I had taken were still good to go. Interesting. Talking on a radio in aviation verbiage or in a pattern, super easy.

So when I went there, I could go literally go to a helicopter and focus for an hour on just helicopter stuff as opposed to meet with your instructor for 30 minutes. You're talking about your flight plan, the traffic pattern, what you need to say on the radio, different types of controlled airspace, weather, all of that stuff that I had already gone to. So you really got to focus your time on, hey, dude, we have an hour. Let's just go be in the helicopter for an hour. So I thought it didn't make it any easier controlling the helicopter because they are very different. But having the knowledge base already knocked out and still active, that was hugely beneficial. I always, every time I'm in a place, Montana, Idaho, I'm like, man, it makes, obviously I say this, you know, tongue and cheek because it's expensive. But you're like, it makes so much, how long would it take you to fly to Bozeman?

Under two hours. I've done it many times. So it was, you know, five hours and 15 minutes this morning. You get to go straight in the air. Yeah, you just get to go straight. First you had to go to Butte, then you had to go to Missoula, then you had to hook. North. Yep. Yeah, 100% where you're like, man. Like you make this massive L on the way to Bozeman. Actually, yeah, Calis Bell is up here. And Bozeman is actually like way over here.

Now, my son goes to college there. I've done it many times. That's a... And it's also like an exploration tool up here. Dude, there's nothing better. It's way better. You know, small, like the big wheeled, I think they're called Super Cubs where they can land on river banks and stuff like that. That's also really cool. But I mean, if you have a... The rotor arc on the helicopter, is 34 feet. And not that I would stuff it into a 34 foot hole. I would probably want double, if not triple that. But man, the ability to act, you're cruising along, that's awesome. Go back around. Because you guys got so much BLM and, you know, National Forest up here. Can't land in National Forest. You can't. That's what that was going to be my question was like,

what are the rules for stuff like that? You can see, have another rules. In private property, if you have landowner permission, you can set it down right at private property, which a lot of people, I have quite a few places I can land up here because I've just gone and talked to the property They're super cool about it. They're more interested and intrigued than anything. BLM, you're largely good to go. You need to make sure. Just double-check regulations and stuff like that.

But there's plenty of places. You can set it down. Does that change like per county for BLM ground? Or is it like a... I don't think so. Okay. Interesting. Usually they're in huge chunks anyway, so you can just kind of look it up per chunk.

Are you big... Do you spend like... Oh, God. touching the microphone. It's okay. Do you spend all fall hunting? No. Are you big hunter?

I don't have a time, too. I have an elk hunt this year and my wife drew a goat tag. Which my buddy was freaking out about. Apparently it's like a once in a lifetime tag, so we're going to do that. That'll be down in the Bozeman area. That'll be awesome. Yeah. That'd be really cool.

Yeah. My oldest loves the West and all he cares about is hunting and fishing. The West is a good spot for that. Was it 12 that you have to be to do big game? I would have to look that up. I did one El Cunt over the counter in Idaho. I'd go. You can buy like a $60 tag, right?

It's tough, man. We rifle or bow? It was rifle. You got to find them. It was a late season. It was like November. So, you know, no rut, no, nothing like that. As I'm coming off the mountain, there's like seven inches of snow that rolled in like

randomly overnight. And I was packed for like, you know, late fall, not seven inches of snow. I swear I was like, no, I was like, I'm never doing this again. because my whole unit burned up, wolves moved in. It was like, it was a pretty miserable hunt. Yeah. I was like two hours into the drive back home. I was like, I can't wait to do this again.

Elk are not exceptionally hard to kill. They're hard to find, depending on where you're hunting. So hard. Yes. Well, I didn't know you could use motorized vehicles on National Forest property. Again, check per state on that one. Well, it's all the locals. Like, I was like, I didn't have it.

And I was in Idaho. always following the law. There was like multiple times where I get up at like 2 a.m. And I'd hike up to get my glassing spot. You say you were in Idaho? Idaho, I think, does allow that. Montana? No.

That is probably tough to get a tag here, huh? It is a lottery for out of state, but your odds are better than not. It's possible. I think I'll text you when you have to put them on. I think it's April. Okay. And the only reason I remember to put mine is I have friends that thankfully text me, hey, dipshit one week away.

And I just write back, please keep sending me these because I can't do it right now. They're like dipshit six days, dip shit, five days. Usually I do it around dipshit day two or dipship day one. That's a good way to, that's good friends. Yes, and there's multiple because they know me. Because if it doesn't go off and I'm in front of my computer, it may not happen right there.

I totally get it. And honestly, I enjoy like any given day I have 800 unread text messages. Yeah. So it's always nice to have like other people there like that because you're like normal friends are like, you turd, you never text me back and it'll be like, or it'll be like a year later

and I'll respond to like a random question that's completely out of context now. I'll say I may not have texts you back, but I did see it and I thought of you. Which is true, but man, it depends. I am no busier than anybody else. Sometimes I am in places, you know, what I try not to do is text and fly.

That's a tough one. You know, texting and driving. Is there a rule for that? I don't think so. Hmm. You know, but I just think, you know, it's hard enough when you're driving. Yeah. And now we're talking three-dimensional.

Things can get a little western on. In mountains. Yeah, in mountains. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to be like right next to the mountain. You can give yourself a little bit of time, but. How does it like going up and over? It depends on the wind, more than anything. I'll stop asking flying questions.

Yeah, it's the wind of rocky a little bit. Cooler temperatures like any engine. You know, the turbines eat the cooler temperature better. You can have better performance, hotter days, hot and high stuff, density altitude versus altimeter altitude, all that stuff comes into effect. But totally manageable. Yeah. It's manageable. That's awesome.

What are you guys doing for the rest of your time up here in Montana? Are you flying out of Calisbeau? No. We're driving back to Bozeman tonight. Unfortunate. No, it's a beautiful drive. Like being a Missouri boy, it's like I love the mountains and just being out, you know, getting myself out of my usual scenery. so I don't mind it hoping I actually see some wildlife maybe on the way back this time.

Well, we're in an enclosed room so people have no idea how smoky it is outside right now. But it's going to depend. We'll see if it. I'm hoping that it's clearing up a little bit. I think the winds are shifting a little bit more out of the southwest. So maybe some of this stuff can blow back towards Canada. Yeah, that'd be nice. Did you hear that Trump was going to tariff Canada 50% unless they got the smoke under control?

I love it. Can you? It's wild. I didn't realize that tariffs were effective ways to manage smoke. It's a wild time to be alive, man. Oh, my God. I enjoy it. I enjoy it.

It truly is. Well, we've been out for a couple hours. Let's get you guys back on the road now that know you have to drive. Where can people find you? Where can people support you? Yeah. Ballard Provisions would be the big one, right? Go to valorprovisions.

dot us, Instagram X, all the big ones were on their newsletter. I do I get a lot of people that should tell me I should stick to talking about beef, but I write about all kinds of things on there. Also, there's an unsubscribe button. So yeah, let's go again.

You don't need to tell me you don't like. Agency and personal responsibility. You can just hit that button. Then you don't have to hear from me anymore. So those would be good places. You know, I always tell folks like, if you want to support ballot provisions are for the folks that are incredibly busy and don't have

to go find farmers to buy food from. But if you have the opportunity, like, man, at least go support your farmer's market, right? Go have a conversation with those folks. They need your help more than ever. Please do that. And secondly, you know, I, too, am an author now, the way that I am not taking money from

people that don't agree with my mission. Yeah, and mine has pictures. Get it. Throw it up here on the table. God, we should have had this thing up here the entire time. It's children's books. So we're talking about parenting. Yes. Yeah, so that's how I'm paying my bills.

George Washington. You know, he doesn't even have gloves on it. Where's his PPE? He has no eyewear? Do you like how I put him in a, it's forging valor, right? So now he's like at Valley Forge with the forge. Yeah. No PBE though, unbelievable.

Yeah, we talked about Wildeard a little bit, but just like a framework, everybody always talks about the successes of these folks, and I more so harp on their failures, right? Like French and Indian War, hanging people at Valley Forge. Like, I don't think kids need things color-coded. They need to be tomorality, resilience. You know, you can't look at somebody like that as a superhero. You look at them as a person that had a lot of failures and learned from those that turned them into indomitable spirit.

So we're writing a couple more of them, Teddy Roosevelt and Ben Franklin, two of my other favorite characters. Hell yeah. And then I want to go do the same for my buddies that didn't come back. That's awesome. Yeah. I love the Marcus Aurelius quote. How bad do you think?

Social media would fuck up Marcus Aurelius. If he was born in this era, would he be Marcus Aurelius? Or would he be like a dude screaming at someone on social media with a randomized picture? I mean, we can say that about like any of the philosophers. And sometimes I wonder how they would do. Man, it's a valuable question. Being bombarded by the globe, people just, you're stupid. What you're saying must be nice to be able to sit around and think all day, even though I don't think that's what they were doing.

Do you think we have anybody alive today that like 100 years from now, they'll look at, let's say 500 years from now, they'll look at like Marcus Aurelius, you know, Plato, whoever? Probably Mr. Beast. I mean, I don't know. They'll be like, he was their Oracle. He inspired them to do weird things for paper money that had no actual entrenched value. Yeah, which is also weird. Yeah. but we've got a while, so I'll let you get rid of me.

No, we're good. Throw me out the door. I would have loved to sit down with the Stoics. I also would like to fast forward the founding fathers just to come visit for a week. We'd have to be like, listen, we're not going to tell you about social media and cell phones because that's going to really fuck you up. But how are we doing as far as what you guys thought? Just give us a little, we do know how we do it. What do you think they would think?

I don't think they, well, specifically. I would want to ask them about just the government structure. I don't think they could have ever fathomed that it would be that big and people would serve in politics for that long. I think that would shock them. Yeah, it's supposed to be, you know, civil service. But again, also through that lens of 200 plus years, I mean, we're talking about a time of stove and candlelight to electricity, to flight to landing on another planet to, you know, the internet communication. Like today, guys, we're going to tell you about the light bulb. We'd have to titrate them in, you know?

Do you read at bedtime? Sometimes. I had to stop reading business books at bedtime because then my mind starts churning about all the things I suck at or need to do better at. And then you can't sleep. And then I just stare at the ceiling all night. So I read like history and I've got like a lot of philosophy and things like that because I read 10 pages and sometimes it's good and maybe I'll read another 10,

but most of the time I'm asleep. there's a really fantastic one about American history and it's told from like this lens of like the Constitution telling the story and it starts like way before the Constitution was signed or you know Columbus comes to to the America and goes all the way through modern history and just talks about from the perspective of left and right of good and bad like on each side where they're just like it was it's probably the longest book I've ever

though. It was like 2,800 pages. Jesus. It took me a year to read, especially because I was like asleep after like three pages. But I learned so much from that book on like, you hear like the 30,000 foot view on these things and this one like did a really good job about talking from both sides

about the secondary tertiary effects. But these truths by Jill Lipporor it was a good book. Sweet. I'll check that up. Yeah. Cool. Let's get you guys on the road. Sweet.