Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - 12/26/2025

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Our Final Full Auto Friday for 2025! I'd like to say I went out with a bang, but instead I just tried to be consistent. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions in 2025, I hope that my answers have helped someone out there. Don't forget, I'm an idiot, and my answers are only representative of my own experiences. See you all out there in 2026. Today's questions: -How do you deal with being hurt by those you love? -How do you hold someone accountable without them being personally offended -Are the SEAL Teams racist? -Closing thoughts on 2025 Enjoy! Today's Sponsors: Brunt: Listeners get $10 off their entire order with code "clearedhot" at checkout. https://www.bruntworkwear.com Pique: Go to https://www.Piquelife.com/clearedhot  

Okay, got the red smoke. Okay, copy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. I'm all winter, baby. Give it to me. I need it. You're cleared hot. Copy, cleared hot.

What's going on, everybody? We did it. We've arrived at the end of the year. Time for a little reflection, refresh, hopefully sitting down, laying down, hanging out, getting some time with family. 2025 coming to an end. The last full auto Friday for the year. Shit's falling apart.

Look at this. The sign in the back went out. On an episode, we were recording yesterday, just fritzed out in the middle of the conversation. I looked at it cornered my eye. I could see Michael and he was just walking behind me as we're talking. So good timing. That sign was going to get retired anyway in about two weeks. Got some pretty cool stuff coming in about two weeks.

I don't know if people get the chance to see it in two weeks, though, but it'll be done by then. But you know what? That's how it goes. Sometimes the lights go out. Good timing. Solvable problem. All problems have solutions. as long as you can figure it out. Let's dive into this. Last Q&A, traditional for today.

This first one's a little bit of a long one. I couldn't even screen grab it. It was so long, but we're going to dive into it. But I tell you what, I picked it because this applies to every person I've ever met and every person that I think that is ever going to be. The subject line was, how do you deal with hurt? So let's dive in. A little bit of a long email, but away we go. I am writing this because I'm generally trying to figure out how to deal with being emotionally hurt and looking for ways to cope with the pain that I may not have found yet, come across or otherwise tried. In other words, in your personal experience, how do you deal with emotional pain? If there's anybody out there listening to this watching the show who has

never dealt with emotional pain, please reach out to me. I would love to know how you navigated your life avoiding that, because I certainly haven't. Sometimes I feel like I've intentionally found my way into it. It wasn't intentional. just really bad decisions layered on top of each other. Pretty good at doing that. But yeah, if there's somebody out there who has figured out a way to avoid this, please let me know because I have questions for you. I will attempt to keep this short, although it would be rather difficult.

I'm 34 years old. Had a previous long-term relationship that I maintained out of a status quo, but not because I loved them. And actually, I'm going to chunk this up and answer as I go or put my thoughts into this as I go because otherwise I'm going to forget. The status quo, that stuck out to me, that sentence, because I truly believe that if you want to be exceptional in your life, you're going to have to do exceptional things. You're going to have to hold yourself to an incredibly high standard. And that doesn't have to be the standard that other people expect from you.

And another word for that would be the status quo. The status quo in almost every aspect of life that I look at is average, or to use the term my daughter does, it's mid. And I don't want to have an average life. I don't want to have a mid life. I don't want to look back and be on my deathbed and have regrets specifically of things that I wish I had had had more time to do. Or I wish that, you know, at this phase in my life, I had always wanted to do this, but I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. and putting it off. And then I realize I get to a place where I'm not physically capable of doing it anymore.

Or the people that I would want to do it with are no longer in my life for whatever reason. They've timed out because of old age. Social circles move on. All of those things. This episode is brought to you by Brunt Workwear. I am enjoying working with this brand. Of course, on the day that I'm doing this ad read, I didn't wear the boots that they sent me. They sent me a pair of the omens, which is a slip-on boot, the first pair that I've ever actually had.

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Listeners are going to get $10 off their entire order with the code cleared hot at checkout. That's Bruntworkware.com using the code cleared hot. Order today and let them know you heard it here on the show. Speaking of the show, back to the show. average is a passing grade okay but is that what you want life to be and i can only speak for myself i don't when i look at the status quo to me i often feel like that is the baseline entry position from which you need to really level up from there you need to try harder you need

to put in more work it's great if you can meet the status quo but a lot of the times if not always the status quo is defined by other people's thoughts, by other people's expectations, by other people's standards. Why do you want to live by those? That's a question for everybody listening. I don't want to because I don't want to be average. I don't want to have average experiences. I don't want to have average relationships. I don't want every aspect of my life to be just average because just being good or good enough. to kind of cruise down the middle of the road, although enjoyable and maybe it will get you less stress and less failure.

That's not what I'm looking for. To each their own, but screw the status quo. Set your own standards. And I'm not saying you have to, plenty of situations I'm sure where the status quo was socially acceptable or expected is going to be fine. And I'm not saying in every aspect of my life I'm looking to be an outlier. That's absolutely not the case. But in big things, I just like everybody else, hear societal standards, expectations, all of those things.

And quite often, it's just not enough. And I think that's okay. So set your own standards, man. You create your own status quo for yourself. Don't allow other people to apply that over the top of you. It's like a glass cage you're putting yourself in. No, no, no. Build your own cage.

Build your own prison. that way you can be the warden. And if you don't like to view, you can move the window. All right, back to the email. Since being a child, I've had trouble opening up about love and being vulnerable enough to admit that I'd love another human being. Three years ago, I met the most amazing woman in the woods after a random unplanned camping trip that left us in the same state park for a weekend.

A little serendipity there. It was the most magical moment I've had in my life and I thought about her every day. I could write for days about our beginnings. It's stupid lovey-dovey stuff. so I'll move on. It may be stupid, but I'm glad you had that experience because it sounds like up until that point, it might have been a fairy tale hallmark movie that you were watching. I'm not saying everybody's going to have that in their life, but it's pretty cool when you do. I know exactly what you feel like. And yeah, you could talk about it forever. I'm glad you had that experience,

especially from somebody who is self-describing himself as being a little bit hesitant to open up and be vulnerable when it comes to love. It took roughly eight months of occasional check-ins while I denied my feelings before she inserted herself into my life and traveled to my state to see me. So in spite of you being closed off, this woman pursued you. Good for you, sir. After another weekend together, I couldn't deny how I felt. We then dated. It was heavy, fast. Within the first year, she spilled her guts and told me how she felt. I didn't reciprocate. I was afraid to be vulnerable. We continued to date. She then introduced me to her boys from a previous marriage. She let me into her life, even though I had. hadn't told her I loved her or how I really felt. I sold my house up north, move south,

and we got a place together, hoping to continue to grow our family. I'm going to pause this here and put a pin in this and say, I understand to a degree where you're coming from a hesitation to be vulnerable, especially as a guy. You know, we want to go back to the status quo or societal expectations. And I think this might be changing a little bit. But certainly, Certainly, depending on the community that you were potentially raised in or that you may have worked in, yeah, vulnerability or expression of emotions for guys can be expected to be a little bit more muted, right? A little bit more stoic. Keep that stuff to yourself. We don't want to hear about it.

And your job is just to work, work, work, work, work. I get that. I'm not so sure it's the key to a fulfilling life. But if you're not used to being vulnerable, if you're not used to expressing your emotions, I think that can be a tough one. But I guess what I would pose to you is this. Would you rather have somebody tell you that they loved you or show you that they loved you? Because I don't think those are the same things. I think it's actually really easy to just say to somebody, I love you, and then you could treat him however you want to.

All of your actions could not be aligned with that statement. And I would say, because again, I can only speak for myself, what do words mean if actions don't follow on top of that? I don't think much. And in my own life, when I find that, you know, a divergence between speech and action, I really start to pay attention because it's not what people say in my experience that shows you who they really are, even though it can and you should listen, especially to see if what they say aligns with their actions. But it's really what people do. How do they act? Especially in moments where they think nobody is watching. That's what shows me who the real person is. And that's true of everybody. So the actions you were taking, although you hadn't told this person that you loved

her, you sold your house, you moved south, and you guys got a place together, hoping to continue to grow your family. That to me sounds like somebody who loves the other person. So I'm not trying to tell you what you need to say or what you need to do, but just remember, you know, and it's probably going to be hard being on the other side of this equation. If somebody is telling you that they love you, and you're not reciprocating, that's going to be tough. I would feel a little bit weird about that, I guess. But also at some point, I would just ask the person like, hey, what's going on? I mean, do you not love me?

You know, you seem like you want to be with me. We're talking about moving in together. You want to sell your place. What's going on here? Is this just something that you're uncomfortable saying if you had a bad experience in the past? But that's just me. I like to talk stuff out. Show this person.

Or I'm glad that you showed this person that you loved. them. And just remember, actions and words are very different things. So maybe you have a little bit of work in one area, but in the action side of the house, you know, seems like you were doing a little bit better. So you don't have to beat yourself up with a meat cleaver here. I now felt, I now felt, so it sounds like after you sold the house and moved in together, I now felt the ship had sailed. It felt so weird to bring up, to bring up as the time moved on. And I think you mean the vernacular, love. She replaced the word love with the door and I thought that was okay. Did you really think that was okay or did it just make you feel better that you're not using the term love yourself? Because

I feel like you realize that that was a shift and I say that because you brought it up. Is it a lesser term? I don't know. Who's for me to say what words mean to people? It's different for sure and you noticed it and honestly it seems like it has nothing to do with you feeling like that it was appropriate and a lot to do with you feeling better because then neither of you were using that word. So that particular issue sounds like it's a little bit on your side of the street, which is totally fine. I got a lot of issues on my side of the street. It just gives you something else that you can target to work on and be better. As time went on, she grew distant. I could feel it. I know it was my fault, but I was still afraid to open up. Be careful assuming blanket fault for things that

you may not necessarily understand why they are happening. All right. I'll get a little bit more to that here as we go. At the same time, another man came back into her life. They had an affair years before I met her. She was the other woman. She ended things with him and closed that door. She thought they were done.

He was staying with his wife. That was the end. Well, he left his wife and he reached out to her. Funny how that goes, isn't it? She did not keep the door closed. It hurts so bad to think about it, but she didn't protect the relationship. from the relationship from outsiders like I did.

How do I say this without sounding like a dick? I don't know, so I'm just going to say it. Why do you feel like you were protecting the relationship from outsiders? And she wasn't. You were unable to express how you feel or unwilling to express how you feel. you noticed that she was becoming detached and she ended up reconnecting with somebody previously in her life that she had already had an affair with. So what were you doing to protect the relationship other than shutting anybody else out

or everybody else out to include your partner? That's not protecting your relationship. That's not investing in your relationship. That's not doing the hard work. That's not having the hard conversations. That's you being on an isolated island by yourself, watching the world pass by, refusing to interact with it. Okay?

Sorry if that stings a little bit, but you weren't protecting anybody or anything because of your unwillingness to participate. You might have cracked the door open for her to have doubt in her mind, to her to have questions in her mind. And it is not your fault that this person went out and started or had an affair. well, I can't, whatever term you would want to. Cheated on you, whatever term you would want to use. It's not your fault.

That doesn't mean, though, that you didn't have a hand in creating that situation. You certainly didn't cause it, right? Like you didn't physically go make it happen. But in the equation of your relationship, you were one of the integers. And that has to be taken into account. I found out through an anonymous email from someone in her circles. It hurt. I wanted to leave.

I said goodbye to her boys, packed a bag, grabbed my dog, and drove off. I lasted two hours. We're now still living together as we figure out what's next. I've opened up to her. I've never loved another human being like her. It is an indescribable feeling. If I had to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand. You'd be surprised.

I think a lot of people would understand even just the description you have already put out. I'm not great with words and could never do it justice. I had things that I had written to her before, but never shared. She knows now. Where we stand today is the hardest part. She feels an immense guilt, wants to run away thinking it will stop all three of ours pain. That is a strategy that never works. Just extend the timeline long enough.

Running away from something, as opposed to dealing with it. I'd say this all the time. If you don't deal with your stuff at some point, it's going to deal with you. This is an excuse. I just want to run away. It will make your life easier. No, it'll make your life easier because then you can disappear and try to reinvent yourself and never deal with your BS, which is exactly what you should do. You are at a fork in a road.

And I would love to say that life is about the fork in the road and you have an easy choice and a hard choice. And that's not the case at all. Sometimes your choices are you're at a fork in a road where there's a half a dozen. And it's horrible, bad, not very much fun. This is going to suck. This is going to be hard work. And this is going to be miserable. And you get to pick which one of those you want.

There's not always a good and a bad, black and a white. And that's kind of the situation that you're in right now. She should feel guilty. I'm glad that she does. At least that means that she cares. if you care about somebody and you want to be with somebody, maybe don't go start another physical relationship with somebody outside of that, unless you are one of the people that can tolerate or is willing to at least have that discussion first, and that's the dynamic of your relationship.

For me, that would never work. But live your life. And if that works for you, go ahead. But if you don't do that, yeah, I think you should feel guilty because you were kind of an asshole. And by that I mean you were really an asshole. And I'm talking to her, not you right now, by the way. So yeah, she feels guilty and wants to run away think it's going to be the end of pain for her sons and for you.

No, that's total BS. And you're on guilt island right now and you're having a little bit of a pity party. Get off of that and start doing the work you need to do. On the other hand, she still wants to try for a future with us. And that's what I want so bad. But she needs to be sure she's willing to give me all of her heart and that there's no what ifs. The door to the other side would be closed. She's planning to move to a rental across the street to get space, but keep me in her life as she figures things out.

As we navigate this, I hurt every day. I've grown up in the masculine culture thinking men shouldn't cry, that they shouldn't feel emotions, and I've never developed the tools to deal with something like this. Well, guess what, buddy? Now's the time. I know what you're talking about, the masculine culture. And this is where I would call, you know, there's masculinity and then there's toxic masculinity. I hate the term toxic, toxic masculinity because I don't even think the characteristics that they describe associated with that.

I wouldn't even call them masculinity in the first place. It's just toxic behavior. And by the way, there's also incredibly toxic femininity. Feminimimony. Why do I? Feminine. Feminity. I think you know what I'm talking about.

My mouth's not working today. Toxic masicalism. Toxic feminine. Femininity. Wow. I think I got that outright in one of those six of 10s. You're welcome, everybody. It goes both ways.

If you bury your emotions, if you don't deal with the things that happen to in your life, and I'm not saying you have to go see a counselor and a therapist, how about just acknowledge and recognize that when you are frustrated or upset or having a down day, you can be capable of reflecting, looking inward, voicing how you feel to a trusted friend, a family member, spouse, partner, whatever it may be. working your way through those issues. Instead of doing what most men do is dig the biggest hole they can with the backo, throw all that stuff in there, jump on top of it like it's a trampoline, bury it down and hope that it never bubbles to the surface. And guess what? It does. I don't know.

Anybody who hasn't had it happen at some point in time. And it's never really pretty. That's not a good picture that day when that happens, right? It's a mess. And guess when it usually happens when you're not at your best and your life isn't going best? So deal with it. And if you are a parent, If you're a father, don't teach your kids that it's not okay for men to cry. There are things in life that probably deserve tears. How about the death of a family member, but the death of a parent as a baseline starting point? You want to teach your kids that you should be emotionless when you lose somebody that has

that level of influence and love and station in your life? I mean, come on. And again, if you're a parent, do you want to teach your kids that they should have no emotional range, that they should always be stuck at a five on a stereo equalizer, that, you know, highs and lows are bad and just no emotional response and be robotic. Okay, I guess that would be a recipe for a joyless life. That's what it sounds like, at least. Don't do that, right? It doesn't have to be like that. I would say men are defined in many ways by their ability to feel their emotions and then act or not act upon them. In crying, I mean, come

knock it off. It doesn't need to be like that. I hope you can shed some light on things you've done just to get through things day by day, whether it's during buds or hard emotional times in your personal life. What gets you through a hard day? I want so bad to be with her, the boys, and continue to grow our life. I'm capable of forgiveness and rebuilding trust, but it needs to be what her heart wants, not mine. Really hoping you have an answer. I know there's no magic silver bullets, but occasionally you give good advice. I could really use it. There's a lot in here. And I'm glad that I I parceled it out here a lot. But there's more to it than this, than the email itself or the specific question that

you asked here. I know people who have been able to recover from infidelity and I know people that haven't been able to recover. It really depends on the people. And honestly, from what I've seen, it really depends on the people's both sides, willingness to openly engage in discourse and clear the air and determine what it is that happened, the situation and environment that led up to those actions. And all of this, by the way, is going to suck and it's going to hurt.

And you're going to have feelings of anger and resentment. And somebody might feel regret or their own anger and resentment. And they mean me bad at you and people are going to be wanting to point fingers. And I did this because you did that. And this is gnarly, right? You're going to be in a pig pen throwing mud everywhere. And it's going to get on everybody. But I don't know if I've seen a situation where it has worked long term after infidelity.

where that didn't happen and you didn't work your way through slinging all the mud that needed to happen. Actually, you bring in an excavator and you start pulling the mud out. You guys get to get in the shower later on, hose, whatever it may be. Clean the stuff off and be able to move forward. If you leave that skeleton in your closet, it's going to eventually come out. And I would rather, for you, work through this now and do all of the hard work that's going to absolutely suck. and make a determination based off of that work, whether or not both of you are willing to put the work in

that is going to be necessary, not only now but in the future to make this work or not. I'd rather have you make this decision now after what's called it, and I'm not saying six months is going to be a time period, but let's just say for easy math, six months you work your way through this and you make that decision versus six years down the road where your lives are even more intertwined,

and this still pops its head up again. So what my biggest piece of advice is, whatever you guys are going to do, put the work in now, the beginning of the work. The work will continue for the rest of your relationship. And I think that's true even in a healthy relationship without infidelity. But you guys are at a place where there is some space and garbage between the two of you. Also for you, you know, she needs to determine if she is actually capable of shutting that outside door to other people. Your email sounds great, and I am glad that you were able to vocalize to this person how much you care about her.

But are you willing to put in the work yourself to become over time less vulnerable? Because I am not an expert in women. They are a fascinating Rubik's cube to me that I can't figure out. I love my wife, Leah, more than I have the vocabulary to describe. I don't understand her completely. And I think that's okay. But what I do understand about her is that she doesn't want to be told that I love her just one time. It's something that especially if you want to hear from her, you need to start breaking down these eternal barriers and find a way to be able to not only verbally but physically.

And that doesn't have to be sexual in nature. I'm just talking about showing an alignment of the words that you. you finally were able to tell her this one time, which by the way isn't enough, right? This is going to be repeated over time and this will help you grow as you're able to do this. It's going to have to align with your actions as well too. So you have a lot of thinking that you need to do as well. I understand where you came from and the culture that you grew up in and you understand that now as well. So what are you going to do with it?

There's work on both sides. I don't think that you being emotionally closed off is enough for. you to say that the affair that you caused this to happen. Was it corollary in nature? Did it help anything? No, it didn't. But she's the one who has to put the work in and figure out why that happened. Is it going to happen again? Can she fill the gap that she obviously thought existed that she was trying to fill with that other person? And honestly, buddy, you mean to take, look in the mirror and ask yourself, and you know, again, this is not causal. Again, corollary. but is the gap that she thought existed was that largely due to your inability to express yourself

verbally or physically? And again, that's what I'm saying. There's both sides. Then you can come together and talk about where you think you want to go and how you want to get there. The communication, the work, all of that is essential. So that's the relationship advice that I would give you, which I am not qualified to give in any way, shape, or form. I have been divorced. I am remarried. I am not perfect in either of those relationships. I am trying to take the lessons learned and mistakes of which there were many in my first marriage and apply them to my marriage to Leah because I want to be a better person. And it sucks doing that because you can look back and it's so easy to point the finger in somebody

and say, well, this happened because it was this person's fault. Like, yeah, maybe. More than likely, you had a hand in it. So that's on the relationship side. How do you get through a tough day? one step at a time. And the hardest days of my life, I remind myself that nothing lasts forever. And actually, even on the best days of my life, and I don't know if this is healthy, but it's a constant reminder to me. Nothing lasts forever. Things could be going catastrophically bad

or just amazingly well. Reminding myself that that is a moment, right? You could take a snapshot of that and wherever you're at, you'll have a memory of it. But the snapshot might be different the next day. It might be higher and it might be lower. Nothing is permanent unless you make it permanent. it. Put the work in and when days get really hard, don't think about the whole day. Get to lunch, get to breakfast. Pick small things that you can focus on that allow you to build some momentum, trick yourself as essentially what I'm saying, and put your life into a more digestible chunk. Right now, this situation that you have described seems huge. There's a lot, and it is huge, because there's a lot of things that both of you need to work through. And this is not something

that's going to be measured in minutes or hours or probably even. days. But figure out the steps you need to take, but then don't think about the months. Don't think about the weeks. Don't think about the days. Don't think about the hours. Break it down into minutes. And I don't mean like stare at your watch, but what's something small that you can do now that's going to net improvement and positivity in your life in this situation later on? Do that and then find the next one. Maybe you need to start writing down your thoughts. Maybe you need to find somebody that you can talk to to help you unpack this for yourself that can that can help you with your communication or connect you a little bit better with your emotions. I would 100% recommend

in this case you guys get a relationship counselor. Actually, I would say both of you should probably be talking to somebody and then you should be talking to somebody together. I'm not saying either of you have mental health issues. There are just people that can help you make sense of stuff like this who aren't some idiot on the internet. So getting through. through a hard day for me starts with the recognition and realization that not every day is going to be hard. And if I can get through today, tomorrow at least has another opportunity for me. And maybe it's going to be an uppercut in the balls. Maybe not. Maybe it's just going to be a jabbing somebody or somebody kicks you right in the front of the shin, which I don't know,

you know, I would take the shin kick over the ball punch because one hurts less for less. But it's tough, man. I get it. And everybody out there is dealing with this. You are not dealing with anything that is unique. You are not dealing with anything that other people haven't dealt with. And you are not dealing with anything that is insurmountable. So remember that. Put the work in now. Otherwise, it's going to come back. And that sucks. And that's all I have for question one. All right. Question two, shifting out of the relationship. Let's get back into kind of like business leadership here. Hope this message finds you well. I grew up working in my father's construction company and property management company at 14.

spent about five years working for larger general contractors in April of 2025. I stepped back into the family business in an office-based role managing rental properties. As I got involved, it became clear that two critical areas weren't being managed well. First and foremost, awesome job identifying those. It's funny how when you're not six inches in front of your face, and let's assume that the family business is run to the best of their ability and they're good people trying to do good things and run good business. You bring somebody in from the outside. They're even a part of your family.

And because they have this fresh optic on the situation, you're able to identify two critical areas that weren't being managed well. That's the value of bringing somebody in sometimes, people. It's when you, I mean, the worst division I've ever had in my life is when I'm like this, just problems smashed up against my nose. That's why I'm a fan of having a social circle, having mentors, having people that you can trust, especially with different experiences because you can bounce stuff off of them. I have been shocked, shocked, countless times by the number of times I have reached out to somebody and said,

hey, man, like, I'm dealing with this and I can't figure it out. And the answer was so glaringly obvious to the person not directly involved. So I'm stoked that you were able to identify this. And that is just, it's a little bit of advice for people out there. Reach out for help far and wide. I mean, like, don't share any trade secrets. but you'll be shocked at some of the clarity and objectivity you can get from people who are just not grinding their nose off. So the two areas that weren't being managed well.

Accounting and delinquency collections. These both have to do with money operating capital. So yeah, we need to get these under control. Leadership clarity around expectations has also been lacking. And this can be tough and this could tie directly into the accounting and delinquency collection problem as well. Which made accountability difficult. Yeah, that's how that works. When there is little to know clarity or there is uncertain around expectations or roles

and responsibilities or authorities, yeah, it can make accountability very difficult. I was tasked with fixing these areas and working with the employee responsible for them. After reviewing the work, there were clear issues, missed deadlines, incorrect processes, or process I, and repeated failures to follow through. I tried to coach and correct things, but the standards continued to be missed. Eventually, in a meeting with my father, I pointed out these failures. While my concerns were valid, my delivery wasn't. And it left the employee extremely frustrated with me. Man, if you could be a fly on the wall where I have poorly delivered leadership messages in the past where the message actually was completely lost and the person didn't hear anything that I was saying because my delivery was. was so poor. And I think the only key point that was identified at the end of that meeting was that I was an asshole. And they were probably correct to assume that. Here's the thing, though, if there's no clarity around expectations, roles and responsibilities, and it seems like here

there's maybe a system error or a structural or procedural error, if there's no clarity around those things, meaning if you were to ask somebody, what are the roles and responsibility? And I actually recommend this, by the way, sorry to cut myself off mint sentence, but I want to get this out before I forget. This is a good litmus test for anybody who is a manager or supervisor. Sit down with one of the people who works for you and just ask them, hey, what are the roles and responsibilities of your job? What are the structures that are in place? What are the processes that you need to be following? If they can't answer that very clearly and concisely, you have work to do as a manager or or as a leader, because this is how you can hold yourself accountable to the people that work for you.

You can make sure that they have the tools they need, the knowledge they need, the combination of those two things, the systems, the processes. If they don't have the ability to describe their job well, clearly and concisely, you should never expect anything other than subpar performance because they don't know what their job is. And that is on you, one layer up as the manager and the leader. So you tried to coach and correct things. That's great. But remember, you're trying to coach incorrect things from a very hazy optic.

What I would do before that is I would actually go to your dad and ask to be shown the systems that are in place that you are going to use to coach and correct. what are the standards what are the procedures do they exist or are people just doing things the way that they were doing them because that's the way the person did it before them if standards and procedures don't exist this is your opportunity to shine give people a framework and a roadmap so they can do their job because otherwise what are you coaching and correcting to if you're just trying to correct to i want you to do your job better that's tough how against what standard Standards should be known. Standard should be published. And people who are going to be held to a standard should be trained and educated on how to achieve that standard. This is a whole ecosystem here.

You can't just cut a piece of this pie out and judge it in exclusivity. You have to think about all of these things and how they apply. I own that mistake of how I handled the situation. My question is, how do you clearly hold somebody accountable and communicate that they aren't meeting expectations without them being personal? offended. Sometimes you can't because people take feedback in different ways. And nobody likes hearing that their performance is subpar, especially when there's no objective standard. And you have somebody sitting in front of you saying, I don't think you did your job well enough. And in their mind, I was doing what I taught, was taught. I did it the way the guy who did it before me,

show me it's never been a problem in the past why is it a problem now all of those things that needs to go back upstream and you need to remove all of that from that individual's mindset what is the brass tax expectation when it comes to delinquency management or accounting this is an excel spreadsheet it really is but maybe this person doesn't have that or know that they should be using it because your standard an expectation might be different than the one that they are operating off because they were never taught and trained. When did you put the invoice in? Let's just assume this is invoicing, right? What net terms do you use? Are you net 15? Are you net 30, 45, 60, 90, whatever it may be. And then when something goes beyond that, what is the procedure? And this shouldn't be a

paint as you go, Bob Ross. This is, when this happens, you do this. Follow the system that we have in place. And if you don't have that system, guess what? Now is your chance to sign it. create that system for your family business. I'm going to tell you right now it's going to solve the vast majority of problems. And then it's way easier to counsel somebody when you can say, hey, do you remember six months ago when we laid out the systems that we expect you to use? And then we trained you on those systems. And by the way, don't train once and then just push them off into the wild trust.

But verify. Hold yourself accountable to the people that work for you. Check in constantly. just because they said that they got it doesn't mean you have to wait six months to double check. Maybe when you first start off, it's on every Friday. You're going to get together and have a review. Then every other Friday, then every month, then every quarter, right? There's ways that you can titrate this out and give them more rope and accountability and responsibility.

You're empowering them by doing so, but not until they're ready to take the reins. Then it's easy. Like, Bob. Bob, why didn't you follow on a delinquency? Okay, at X number of time period, you are going to send this template email to this particular person and explain the actions that you're going to be taken. You know, if we don't hear from you or have full payment within 14 days, we're going to turn you over to a collections agency. Okay, so good, you sent that, but why didn't you turn them over to the collections agency until 48 days later? That is something objective you can counsel people against.

You can remediate them, you can train them again. And then if you need to also document this when you need to because it will just help later on a life. trust me, especially if you need to make a decision where somebody's, they're not meeting the standard and you might have to let them go because not all people are capable of meeting all standards. And you're going to have to make decisions for the health of the business over the health of the individual occasionally. It's way easier to do that when you can actually sit somebody down and say, hey, remember when this happened and we took these steps. And it continued to happen and then we took these steps. And also along the way, you got a warning or a write up. And at the second or third time, or however you guys want to implement this in your business, then you make the decision to separate paths. The person's not capable of following the procedures that they need to for their job. So you can find somebody else who is. But you notice in all of this, it's not, oh, I feel like you are. I want you to do more.

It's all based on objective, not subjective standards and systems. That's the biggest thing. And how do you clearly hold somebody accountable and communicate there aren't meeting expectations without them being personally offended, don't be a dick. There are ways to deliver information, even the worst of information, without sounding like an asshole. And I say that as somebody who has far too many times in their life because I was angry in the moment or something else in my life delivered news in a way that rightfully so diminished somebody's opinion of me. And that's completely my fault. You can deliver life-altering information.

Like, you know what? You're fired. You don't have to say it necessarily like that. Sometimes you need to. But there are ways that you can have these conversations and explain to people that not only for the benefit for them, but for the benefit for the company and how it is not a good fit that we're going to go our separate ways. It's a lot of it is about delivery. Delivery. Delivery. Delivery is easier when it's objective, not subjective. And also, now when I have these conversations, when I need to, before I go into them, I think about putting myself in their shoes, not from their performance, but I start trying to think about where are they at in their life?

What could they possibly have going on in their life? And if I were them, what would be the delivery mechanism where this would make the most sense to me and leave me with the least amount of anger associated with the delivery or the information being delivered? How would I, if I was the person getting ready to be let go, want to hear about it? Now, you need to be direct in these conversations, but you can also be kind. And that's what I do. As I just play that game with myself, I'm like, okay, if I was a person that was about to have this very difficult conversation, how would I want this to go? I'm going to do the best I can as the person who's going to be controlling this conversation to match that. And since I have started doing that, it's not necessarily that it's perfect, but it has helped.

Because you can bring a little bit more empathy into it and you can round the edges. There's no need to be mean when you're firing somebody. There's no need to be overly emotional in any way. People, when they get this type of information, sometimes they cry. Sometimes they get angry. I've seen people shake. I've seen people want to fight. Don't engage.

You don't need to or have to engage. They understand that they are a person receiving information that to them in that moment might seem life-altering and life-changing. Give them a little bit of grace. But if it goes to that point, stick to your guns. Be direct. Be objective. And you're going to be okay.

And I'm super stoked that you're back in your family business. because I feel like you are going to have an immense impact. That's all I got for question too. Today's episode is brought to you by peak. 2025 for me was the first time in my life, the first year in my life where I kind of got into tea. And it's all right here. Look at this stuff. They have something for everybody.

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This person sent me a link to a CBS News article, and people can go look for this if they want to. You put in their Navy SEALs, discipline, racist memes. I guess that would be the way you could find this. So thoughts on this, and this person is referencing that. I clicked on it. I didn't read too deeply into it because I had heard about this a little bit. and my answer, regardless of what I had read into this or read in that particular article, it'll make sense in a minute.

So thoughts on this, the article, and any other racial issues in special operations command, or in the military in general. What would you say a person of color might expect in a spec ops career? And how would you, or how did you deal with this as a leader? I served in artillery from 91 to 13, which is a heavy, very heavily. minority dominated and I didn't see much of a problem. If there was, it generally took care of itself. So is there racism in the SEAL teams? Yeah. Are the SEAL teams racist? No. That is the same statement I would make in any community. The actions of a few idiots should never hopefully cloud

the action's reputation and standing of a community at large. They certainly can, especially when that community doesn't take out their own trash. But racism does exist in our society. Is everybody racist? Absolutely not. So this particular article, there was some memes floating around. It was a text thread. The individual that they were talking about was a black seal.

And I think he actually ended up getting separated from the military. But on the way out, they launched this. And they, I don't know if it was the individual. I guess they would be in the broader terms here. or the Navy as a part of an investigation on going into this. And it sorted itself. There was punitive measures taken and administrative measures taken. And I'm glad that there was.

You could argue about whether or not it was enough or too much. But the reality is little pockets of this issue, racism specifically, they absolutely exist in every single community populated by human beings on earth. I did not find the SEAL teams to be racist at all. If anything, they were a meritocracy. So to the question of what would you say a person of color might expect in a special operations career, I would say they can expect to have a special operations career and be treated exactly the same as anybody else.

Because at the end of the day, the standards are the only thing that should matter in that community. Are you going to get people that might bring some type of jaded view of the world based off of their upbringing into the community? For sure. You're 100% going to find that. Is it the majority? Absolutely not. I would say it's actually probably the statistical minority. Did I serve with some people that were probably racist? Yeah, but I served with some people who are idiots, you know, and I navigate life with people who are probably have racist undertones to a certain degree. And I have no ability to change how they think of the world or view the world, but I can call out an idiot where I see one.

And that's what the Navy did. They did an investigation. Like I said, there was administrative and punitive measures taken. I believe the person that they were talking about in this exited the community for other reasons. So this was tangential, not necessarily the cause. And I don't necessarily know what that means. I mean, if somebody feels this way, don't wait until you're on the way out, I guess,

to bring this up because then what people are going to say, they're going to start trying to confuse these two things. Well, they only did that because of this. It's like, listen, the best way, I'm not a doctor, by the way. I watched a lot of the TV show house when it first came out. So that's where I got my MD, take that into account when I say what I'm about to say next. I think the best way to probably attack a cancer is to cut it out when you find it. Again, I'm not a doctor.

But that approach makes sense to me. So what's the best way to deal with stuff like this? If you encounter it, do something about it. And I have, give you an example. And this isn't about racism. My dad was sitting across me, right? And a couple episodes ago when he was on, not just like a few episodes ago, the podcast, he made a stupid comment about Nazis and Nazism.

And for people who watched the show, you know, I called him right there in the spot. Because that's the approach that I take. That was the moment to say something. That was the moment to have a level of impact, to maybe have a little bit of level of a thought. And we've talked about it a bunch afterwards. He's glad that I did. He realized that because I wouldn't let it go that there was an issue there and we weren't going to get past it until we talked about it.

that's the way you handle this stuff. So if you're a leader and you see this, do something about it in the moment, please. If you see dumb, dumbs doing dumb dumb stuff, correct them. What you tolerate in your presence is your standard. So sitting there quietly doing nothing because you don't want to be associated with this or all. There's nothing I can really do about it. Okay. Then that's your standard.

So if you're around people who are doing dumb racist stuff and you say nothing but don't directly participate in it, I got no time for you because you saw it. and you took the path of least resistance. And in doing so, you robbed yourself of your opportunity to have positive change. So don't be that person. Helen, guess what? The road to positive change sucks. It's a hard one.

Could it seem easier to take the path of least resistance and say nothing? Yeah, it does. What's that say about you, though? Who do you want to be? How would you like if you're a parent, and this is a question I ask myself, okay, if I don't do something in this situation, my kids were here watching this, or if I was to try to have a conversation with them about the example that I want to be in their life

and this one comes up and I have to explain my actions or lack thereof, what example does that set? Would I want them to repeat my behavior or would I want them to model my behavior? No? Tough questions. Really tough to have in the moment too, but also this stuff doesn't happen. It's like boom, boom, boom, and it's done.

This, to me, it sounds like from what I read in the article kind of went on for a protracted amount of time, plenty of opportunity to make a change. So yeah, there's racism in the SEAL teams and in special operations, but that they're not, those communities are not racist. It's just full of people. Not everybody's created equal with their beliefs. And I bet you that happens in medicine, religion, teaching, construction, fill in the blank.

How do I know that? Because it's full of people. And we are all a bunch of idiots walking around and meat suits, trying to do the best that we can. If you're a person of color or a minority and you want to get into a special operations career, meet the standard, perform. And your opportunities are going to be boundless. And you're going to be treated just like everybody else. And that's all I have to say about that. So I had another question in here, but I've already rambled on for long enough today. So I thought I would close this out. This will be the last full auto Friday for the year.

And I wanted to add something in here that I think could help all of us, especially in the environment that we are living in with the dissemination of information. And I've been talking about this when it comes to conspiracy theories or things around Charlie Kirk. I was just watching the latest Dave Chappelle comedy special. And this, what I'm about to say is not something that I created. I'm paraphrasing something that I heard him say. And I really liked it. Food for thought. It does seem like there's a lot going on in the world right now. And it does seem like that there are A lot of things in our world that could be associated with conspiracies. And conspiracies are 100% real.

People do conspire to do stuff, whether that is for their own personal gain, the benefit of their team, their business, fill in the blank. Is everything in the world a conspiracy? Probably not, right? Like the odds of everything being a conspiracy are statistically very low. I guess it's possible, but it's not necessarily probable. given the ability for anybody in the world to be a content creator and how sticky some of these ideas are. I have a hope going into 2026. And I feel like I have tried to do this to a degree, but I'm going to make sure that I always do this going forward.

And that is a hesitancy to say the words I know. meaning certainty absolute certainty in a belief especially about a situation that I know almost nothing about I'll use Charlie Kirk as an example and the horrific thing things that happened around that not only his death assassination but all the conspiracies that flew around that whether it be the bodyguards were involved or Israel is involved there. He was wearing body armor and it was a ricochet and the stickiest of ideas were prefaced with people with absolute certainty. I know this is what happened, a sense of definity that their belief was the absolute truth. And the more time that's played out, almost every one of those,

if not every one of those, has proven to be wrong. But it emotionally grabbed on to people. we would be so better served instead of just saying I know and I'm positive, just open the language up a little bit. I feel. I think. I believe. We'd be so much better off. I look at my life. There are so few things that I can talk about from an expert perspective. I actually don't feel like there is anything at this point. There was a time where I feel like I could have given and experts opinion on military things, specifically from the special operations world, specifically from the Navy side. I'm timed out. I'm not current. I'm not competent.

I am not attached to that world anymore. So I can talk about my experiences and things that I've seen with my own eyes. But I am not going to try to make any stances that are based on because I believe something deeply that it's the truth for everybody or the truth for a community. I think we would be so much better served if people could round out that vernacular. Because I want people to believe things and to feel things deeply. But it's going to calm stuff down if we can calm the language down a little bit. So just food for thought.

Your beliefs in life, whatever they may be, take stock of yourself and how you communicate those things to others. Are you somebody who I know or do you believe or do you think or do you feel? There's a difference between those things. So that's what I'm ended in my year with is thinking about stuff like that and my ability to continue to try to communicate in a more effective manner through that lens. Because the reality is this. I don't know for a fact, almost anything, except that gravity works every time I've tested it.

So far on all seven continents and Alaska doesn't have an ice wall. and the earth is round. And that's all I have for this Friday.