Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 39 with Brian Bishop

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

Rapid-fire discussion and commentary from listener-submitted questions. We do our best to keep it to under five minutes per answer, we often fail. 1. What should I expect/advice for those entering service in a "peacetime" military 2. The company I work for is becoming more "woke" by the moment, what should I do 3. How do I motivate my subordinates in law enforcement when I don't have any motivation myself 4. Advice for someone who survived a traumatic upbringing and doesn't see a future in marriage and children Enjoy

Okay, got the red smoke. I like how can you have a different beanie. West of the smoke. West up of smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. I like how you have a different beanie for every episode. Because people were commenting on your Beyond Beanie.

Oh, they were. That it was both fashionable and likely serviceable. Yes, it's a nice beanie. Beyond does good stuff. They do. They do. They do some great stuff. Are you ready just to dive in for this Friday episode?

Anything you want to cover? Thoughts before we go? I got five questions, as usual. No, just that today's a great day. I feel good today. It's a good day. All right. Do you feel good today?

I feel good today. Do you feel liberated? I feel lighter. Do you feel like there's a huge weight that was taken off your shoulders? Yes, yes, I do. All right, let us begin. Okay. Firstly, thank you for all that you've done and continue to do through the multiple

social outlets. A little background. I recently earned my SO, which stands for special operations contract, and will be shipping to Great Lakes following my graduation from college in May to begin the pipeline. I know you, as well as many of the men you served with, began your careers in the teams prior to 9-11, and have heard from many team guys, or have heard many team guys expressed that with no combat, things were just different in many ways. With high-profile conflict winding down and only a select few units doing anything other than FID, which stands for foreign internal defense largely by with and through a partner force. What advice do you have for future new guys entering a peacetime military? Thank you again for all you do, including drinking Brian Bishop

under the table. I don't really think that that was in the email, but it's, let's, it's, oh my God. That was actually in the email. Peace time military. I experienced it pre-9-11 and then into post, drastically different. Yeah, we both served during Clinton era. Correct. And it was different. The training was extremely difficult before.

It was as realistic as I think they could make it. But it was from an optic in the rearview mirror. Specifically in the SEAL community, I would say Vietnam. I mean, we were doing Riverine Cross. Not that we, you know, SEALs and maritime forces shouldn't do this stuff. But it was heavy combat swimmer, closed circuit dive, an open circuit. diving over the horizon, over the beach, and zodiacs. And most of the tactics were Vietnam-based tactics. And that's because that's the last true environment that a large-scale percentage

of the seal community that was involved in. And it's certainly many of those things changed after 9-11 and after engaging in combat. So there certainly was a difference, is what like this person points out. I have a few tips for peacetime military, but I'm curious on your thoughts. Yeah, I think that's a good example of resorting back to legacy tasks. You guys, you know, and as well as we were doing the same thing, a lot of what our legacy tasks are, a lot of shipboarding, search and seizure, amphibious, you know, kinetic amphibious raid force stuff. So, I mean, that's what we were designed for by. How much of that did you do post-9-11?

Zero. Correct. I did exactly the same percentage of everything that I described before. Right. Yeah. Except for I did cross a few rivers. Generally filled with human feces. My record clearing them without contacting any of that is not 100%.

I'm just going to say that. Yeah. I'm going to own that one. I may not have successfully jumped over shit rivers every time. I may have accidentally ran off a ramp on a 47 and fell into a shit ditch because we weren't all the way on the ground yet and I got really excited. And I thought the crew chief was like, yeah, go. And I was like.

And you went. And I went. and I fell about four feet off the back ramp right into a shit ditch. So, yeah, good times. Yeah, what would you tell people to focus on now? Because I'm not going to call the military, a peacetime military, but I'm also going to say it is very different than what I would consider the apex of the kinetic operations, which would probably be seven through 10, depending on who you were with and what theater.

But that was kind of the buildup, I would say. So it's not like that now. but it's it's not peacetime either we're still highly engaged in a lot of areas around the world but as pointed out the number of units actually engaging that is smaller yeah very much so yeah you don't see large scale stuff going on anymore i would if you're going to have a career in special operations in particular this guy's case seals like you will you know if you if you continue your career and go up the go up the food chain and get to you know the upper echelons a special mission unit level you will definitely get what you signed up for.

And you will have it at the lower levels because things often fluctuate. I mean, like, look, we thought we were done. We thought things were ramping down. And then look what happened. Syria popped off in Operation Inherent Resolve. Lasted, I don't know. What?

I mean, I know there's still elements of it going on. So news flash people when everyone said, oh, we're completely out of Syria. Not true. It's like when they said we left Iraq. We never really did. We never really did. No.

We just ramped things. down to a minimal level. Yeah, minimal level. So I wouldn't get confused by the fact that you think that nothing is going on because it's not being covered in the news, which I think is a great thing. I don't think it should be as popularized in the media as it is. So, you know, for a lot of reasons, mainly operational security stuff. But, yeah, don't get confused.

There's still a lot to do. And realistically, like, because I did pretty much everything I did was FID related. There are frustrations that you're going to have conducting unilateral operations with a partner force. You and I have discussed them like your GPS class example. We'll just give it in frustration. Yes. There are many, but they're also your key to unlocking the door to kinetic operations. Yes. The by with and through. Correct. And they are also, it's a double edge sword for intel, but you will get access through a partner force to human intelligence. assets that you would never ever have access to by yourself. So yeah, I would, I would say don't bet the farm on the fact that you're going to think you're going to sit around to be

bored once you get to, if you get to a unit. And I would add that even if it does go back to peacetime, enjoy the journey. Most of the hard training that I did leading up to 9-11, it served me incredibly well post-9-11. And you'll have a chance, specifically if you go down the SO pipeline, you have a chance to pick something. you want to do? Do you want to be a long-range marksman? You could go the sniper route. You could go the com guy route and you could become a J-TAC and get incredibly good at working the radios and send him back intelligence. You could become a master of explosives, a master breacher, understanding the true, I would call it an art form less than a science when it comes to breaching.

You could become an air god guy. You could go down that. You could do whatever you want to do, and all of that training is awesome. So do the best that you can to master your craft. That's what I would say, peace time or wartime. And then also take advantage of the fact that the military has a great amount to offer, educational benefits, health benefits, incredibly stable from an economic perspective. You're going to get paid first and 15th, or you're going to have some cash. Not that much when you start, but it's okay. It'll build over time. So all those things are still going to exist. You're going to get on-the-job training. You're going to learn about leadership. You're going to get taught about leadership, discipline, and tech, all of these things, that's all going to happen

whether or not there is wartime or peacetime. So enjoy the ride and focus on those things as well. And I think you'll be set up for life afterwards regardless what you choose to do. Yeah, absolutely. Those are all great tools to have that you can't learn anywhere in the civilian world usually. So yeah, absolutely. Enjoy that ride and enjoy the journey. Moving on question two. This is an interesting one. This is right in your wheelhouse hashtag racist hashtag white supremacist for you. I have a question and would like to hear all of your opinions. People are now submitting these to Andy, Brian, and Nelson.

So he needs to come back on. As you know, our country is largely divided right now. And I'm going to stop right there and say, I think that depends on your optic and what news source you pay attention to. A lot of us, I think, are divided. But at the same time, I think a lot of people are still very close together.

I think a lot of people will still accept their neighbor regardless of their belief. However, the division leads the news because they're trying to sell Utide Soap and Budweiser. Of course. And it seems the majority of us are silent, whether we be left, right, or center. I myself consider myself a conservative as it shares many of the values I believe in. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and as you know, many of the cities are democratically run. The company I work for has always taken a liberal stance but hasn't pushed too many boundaries until 2020 post-George Floyd. Once all the protesting rioting occurred, my company started taking many stances that supported Black Lives Matter or any movement that aligned with the left's agenda.

We would start getting emails from higher-ups and HR stating how we're a company that has values of equality and love, etc., which in parentheses sounds good to me. But it was clearly evident that it meant you had to share the same values that the liberals were presenting. Groups started forming specifically for LGBT-slash-minority, slash women, anything else they could think of. We are now supposed to attend monthly meetings to discuss specifically the political climate and what we can do to not discriminate and how we are to accept everyone and everything regardless of our beliefs. New email signature guidelines have been released where employees are allowed to have Black Lives

Matter and pride with the rainbow in their email signature. So that's laying the foundation of where this guy is working. Or gal, actually, I don't know. from my stance. If people want to support BLM, LG, BTQ, etc., then it's your right to do so so long as you don't push it on me. I was always under the impression that work is a place that you're not allowed to bring these things into as it's a place to produce and focus on the goal of getting work done, not sharing your opinions and pushing it on others. This has been killing me internally because I know I could simply speak out and voice my opinion, but I get the

drill and I know if I do, I will be outcasted or worse, held back from promotions, potentially fire due to being that guy. I find it extremely unfair that during our meetings that individuals can say, thank God, Trump has gone, and others say he's so stupid all while chanting for Biden, and I just sit and wonder, how is this allowed? I feel it's extremely unfair that in a workplace this is being allowed and it's getting worse. I never wanted to leave this state, but I have been exercising what options I have to get out. Can you please share what? your thoughts are on this and if you feel it's warranted. Wow.

There's a lot there. Yeah, let's unpack that. So, man, that was a lot. First of all, my personal opinion on business is I never push religion or politics. Religion or politics has no place in business, in my opinion, because... I share that opinion with you. Yes, let's just, let's leave that separate because there is, you know, you're going to have customers from different walks of life, all of which that may enjoy your brand, enjoy your product,

fill in the blank service that you're providing through your company. And the last thing you want to do is polarize yourself and cut your business in half. So from a business standpoint, extremely ignorant, in my opinion, and not a good way to go. Politics and business, or I'm sorry, politics and religion will never be included in anything I do because I will not polarize my customers. So from a business aspect, I think it's dumb. And then if we just continue to go down the road on this, like, all of us have choices every day when we wake up in the morning. Like you can choose to participate in something.

You can choose to speak out, not speak out. You know, if that's your livelihood, I completely understand your level of discretion that you're, you know, that you're exercising right now. However, if you, if this situation is causing you to be, it's killing your job. satisfaction and killing your you know you know fulfilling your you know your your purpose I don't know why this person you know if this person is in love frustration is what I get out of this yeah so it's eating away at all those things you just mentioned I would assume I'm speaking for that person when I say that yeah so I

would say you have two two options you can try and exercise some change and do it in a diplomatic way like this this could be an opportunity right now to you know do what we you and I always discuss which is how a rational conversation, both sides be objective, exchange ideas in a civil manner, everybody take a look at everything, all the angles, all the points that are presented, and then maybe that helps reshape your opinion on things. Like you did a really good job of that in that post post capital thing that we did where you fucking nailed me a couple times and I was completely, I was completely, you know, I had to stop and say, damn, that's a really good point. And then I was

processing that. And I was like, man, he really kind of moved my perspective on that. So if you can have that kind of exchange, then that's good. But if you can't have that kind of exchange and you're going to be silenced or censored or cancel cultured or doxed or all of the lovely things that have been happening as of recent, then I'd say your other option that you need to probably take a look at is maybe exiting out of a toxic situation for you. If you can't exercise change in a positive manner, then you should probably exercise an exit strategy. Yeah, I agree. that last part because I've talked about this recently, you know, if somebody is an asshole, and I'm using this as a metaphor, not an example of the people that you're talking about,

but if somebody is an asshole, that's on them. But if you choose to interact with that asshole consistently knowing that they are, that's on you. Correct. I agree with this person that my personal thoughts on people's beliefs, whether it, and I'll use the examples that they're using, BLM, the LGBTQ, and I actually think that there's more letters that go with that. I just don't know it off the top of my head. Fill in the blank. whatever you want to, I don't care what people believe. If people want to call themselves a unicorn, you can call yourself a unicorn. As long as you don't try to compel me to do things with your beliefs. That's where I draw the wine. So I want people to be happy. I want them to be fulfilled,

but I also would appreciate if people gave me that same grace and allowed me to be happy and fulfilled as well. Correct. By not trying to compel me to do things. When it comes to the business world, man, I mean, the leadership of this company, and I have no idea what company this is, I'm really glad that we went to a, like an anonymous template. Because I really have no idea what sector we're talking about. They get to set the rules. I mean, that's kind of the deal, right? A private organization sets the rules for how they want the conduct of the organization. And what I would hope is that they have an actual set standard that you could look at when it comes to these things.

If they can actually publish a standard. because if they publish a standard and these are in violation of those standards, you can sit down and have a very open and honest conversation. If they don't have a standard that's published or when it comes to the email guidance or guidelines, man, you're getting into some murky water. And I feel like, based off what this guy described or gal, you know, maybe this particular organization is blowing in the wind a little bit. So they're chasing the trend. I don't know if that's a good way to describe it. Yes. To me, as a business leader, I would say that's very dangerous.

Again, people can believe what they want, but believing what you want and being a microphone for who you are in the business world, I think are two very different things. When you sign on for an organization to work for that organization, you are agreeing to meet their standards. Yes. Which is why I go back to this. If it's in their standards that they are allowed to be this way and you knew that going in, well, then I'm going to have that conversation with you about listen. You voluntarily signed up for this. I don't want you to not have a job. but if you're choosing to engage in an organization that you know is like that,

well, that's on you. Correct. If you go to this organization and they're changing who they are and pulling the rug out from underneath you, that's on them. But then you have the choice with how you want to deal with it. So tough situation for sure. I don't think this is the only person that is dealing with this right now,

and you have to come to the realization or conclusion that if you're not happy where you are, and I've had this experience in my life, I don't care how much money you get paid. You're going to end up hating the people that you work with. you'll end up maybe or maybe not. This is an example of what happened with me. I worked less hard.

That would be the polite way to put it. When given the opportunity to undermine people that I didn't enjoy, perhaps I took it. And that sucks for everybody. And you're going to feel like shit at the end of the day and it's not going to do well for the business. So I will go back to what you said. I think you nailed it.

Potentially look at moving on to an environment that suits who you are better. But what I would avoid is seeking out an environment that is exactly in line with your beliefs, I do believe that these conversations are beneficial. I think that they will help move the business world and our society forward, but we have to put a lid on, you know, a perfect example being in the military.

You don't get to come in and behave in this manner because they don't want any interest in the politics or religion, in my experience. Correct. Because you, to a degree, waive some of your ability, for one, like you can't go to a political rally in your military, uniform. That's one of the things that you waive the right to do if you join the military,

but you know that going in. So it's like, huh, you know, we don't do that shit here. Find somewhere that, uh, that challenges you, that's not an echo chamber, but it's going to give you a little bit more satisfaction. Yeah, I mean, exactly. If you're in a, if you're in a larger corporation that has a published human resources handbook and you go through that handbook and find that what is going on culturally within the company right now is against the guidelines that was set forth and written by the founders of the company that are passed down in the human resources handbook, then you have some legs to stand on,

and you can maybe address some of these issues in a positive light and manner and say, hey, take a look at this. This is not in line with what we're supposed to be doing here in the office. And if you're in a small startup, as you alluded to, and if you're sailing a pirate ship on the high seas, your captain's your captain, and you have a choice, get off the boat or continue to fly the flag.

So those are options, really. And neither of those necessarily will be easy. No. But there are options. Question three. I've been in law enforcement for over 15 years now. I'm currently in a leadership role supervising a squad of eight officers. Morale in my department is an all-time low.

I wonder why. I know this is true of law enforcement in general, but I work in a very left-leaning city. And I realized when I selected this that the word left comes up often or something. Some of these might be similar. That wasn't intentional, nor am I going at the left. So don't fucking freak out people. Too late. DMs are already hitting.

Pulling questions from my email. So there's no like underlying strategy here. This just happens to be the way that I pulled him. The city council is openly anti-police and the department seems to go out of its way to punish officers at every turn. Your interview with Sean Rogers touched on a lot of those issues. Young officers are leaving at an alarming rate. And I do not blame them. I'm halfway through my career, 30 years, so he's just over halfway.

So leaving now would be a huge financial loss, not to mention pension insurance, etc. I feel stuck. How do I motivate my officers when I don't have any motivation myself? I can't lie to them and tell them it's going to get better or that the department has their back when I know that isn't true. How do you improve morale in a situation that seems hopeless? I love being a police officer and I can't imagine doing anything else. but I honestly don't know if I can do this for another 15 years.

Oh, man. We're diving deep today. Yeah. Heavy lies the crown. Leadership 101. You have to continue to lead your men. You have to continue to end women in this case. And so you have to continue to set the example.

You have to continue to keep morale, find ways to keep the morale up. Like, you're only limited by your own creativity. So do what you can. It's an absolute shitty place to, like rock and a hard place situation to be in. And, you know, I wish I had better, I wish I had a little bit better advice for you. But the simple fact of the matters, we're back to exactly what we were at with the last question. Like, we all have choices. We all wake up in the morning.

Life is easy. We just don't like the choices that we have to make. So. And I'll say on that, because I see this in military members. Like, oh, man, I'm at 10 years and one day. I'm in for 20. Don't underestimate your ability to do amazing things outside of your occupation now. I never thought when I was in the military that I would actually be doing any of the things that I'm doing now. I never thought that I would have been a sponsored skydiver or base jumper or traveling the world talking about leadership and teamwork and the combination of the two and how you build teams or fuck sitting here doing a podcast.

I didn't think I would be able to do any of those things when I was in the military. So I know that you are now closer to your pension. You know, every day that ticks by, you're past the halfway point. And I'm not telling you to leave your job. This is just for anybody who is in a job that has, I'm going to call it a carrot at the end of the rainbow that you're looking at. That carrot, and I thought this way when I was in, seemed amazing. And it seemed like the value was, you know, I had put so much time in that I needed to continue to see the course. so because I wanted that value of that carrot.

And now I look back and that value of that carrot is dwarfed by the other things that I've been able to do because I expanded my horizons. So just that's like a long way of saying don't feel trapped. Even if you have to leave this job and exercise that choice, you'll probably be able to with the drive that I'm sure that you have be able to accomplish perhaps even more than the value of that pension and find another way to get insurance. I see so many people trapped in that, specifically military. people. They don't know what to do because they're like,

ah, fuck it, I might as well stay in. Yeah. You know, I mean, you get a little military retirement. How much is that for you? Yeah. So the, yeah, no, those are all great points. Don't, you know, two things drive your decisions usually love and fear.

And fear drives a lot of people's decision making process. And yeah, you're, that's a hard place to be. I've been in that place. You've been in that place where we've been like, okay, I have this many years and invested in this organization or this entity. what am I going to do? Like I, you know, jumped ship with, you know, 10 years in the Marine Corps.

I was halfway through. I was halfway done. I was halfway to the little tiny pension at the end of the rainbow. And, and- How many guys do you know, though, that that pension, they will slog it out. No. And they think it's, I wish. I wish they would change it from military retirement pay

to military pay that you get while you find your second career. Yes. That would be the more accurate. description transition pay yeah and it don't get me wrong it's great that they that pay exists and they deserve it but 20 years and that's the carrot that you're hanging your hat on what if at 10 years in and you still want to be in the military you start thinking about the next and in your off time you start building and creating and develop yourself shit you might have two carrots by the end of it you know i'm just saying don't get front sight focused on that one you mentioned you know

leadership i agree with you and this person mentioned there's a couple of things I love about this email. One, the guy or gal saying, I love being a police officer. Awesome. So then you are probably a great person to do the job. And you said that you can't lie to your people, which is such a huge mistake that I see leaders make. Because guess who knows when you're lying to them? Your fucking people do. They see the environment as you do. I'm not going to say that it doesn't suck for law enforcement right now. But what I'm going to tell you is I think you have far more supporters in the American populace than you think. I think there are far more supporters than there are detractors. And I have no doubt that the situation

sucks right now. But I think it will get better because it's not going to have a choice too. Because there's going to be a pendulum effect. And regardless of the political leanings of the people in power, if it goes too far, there has to be a correction that is made or the shit's going to fall apart. And I don't believe that this country is going to fall apart. So it will get better. But in saying that, I don't think that's going to be a matter of months or potentially even years. But the young officers who are leaving, that sucks because they would be the ones to shepherd that next generation in and to see this change go on. And I agree with you. You have to, you got to lead by example. I think that's the best thing that you can do is be honest with your people about the environment that

you are in and then set the absolute best example humanly possible and try to hold on to as much as you can the good officers that live up to every ounce of what people want from a police force or a law enforcement organization and keep those in there and hold the faith. I think I'm I truly believe at the bottom of my heart there are so many more supporters than detractors and that it will get better. I agree with that. It always seems to right itself somehow. But yeah, if you're that first line of leadership, because he mentioned he was in charge away eight officers. Correct. So that's like a team leader level position or you know squad leader position or whatever to equate it into a military perspective or lens you are the first line of leadership so anything if you wear your emotions on

your sleeve in front of your guys and it's you have a negative attitude and you are not setting the example and exemplifying what a good police officer is even in the face of shitty administration That's going to become, it's going to become a disease that just will sweep through your team and infect everybody, destroy morale, and then nothing, it'll be a race to the bottom at that point. And it'll, you'll, you'll exacerbate people fleeing the department if you don't set the example and lead by example every day. Agreed. All right. I want to pull us back into our sweet spot that we're known for, relationship advice. By the way, I got, I got some DMs.

I got some good DMs last time. What should I do? I am 23 and have doubts about my relationship, due to some issues being brought up. My parents divorced when I was 12. This was shortly after my dad lost his job during the recession. It was a nasty divorce with almost every single conflict coming from my mom. I watched a woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally become manipulative and sinister.

She put him in over $100,000 in debt on top of doing anything she could to get full custody, purely to get child support. I watched her drain him financially, and even though he tried to hide it emotionally as well. I was also told I was only as good as the child support money I brought in when I would express that I saw through her lies about him and wanted to live with him. I dealt with law enforcement more than I cared to remember.

She even lied about me hitting her to get me thrown into juvie because I wanted to leave and go to him and later dropped charges because she had lied. This has caused many issues in my relationships. I often have trouble trusting women. I also fear losing anything I gain financially if I get married. I often feel detached from emotions because of how the woman who love me the most treated me. I usually flee any relationship that has any of the same signs my mother had. I'm scared to ever have kids because I never want them to go through what I did. What would your

advice be to someone who has gone through a traumatic relationship and does not see a future in marriage or children. I'm like, is he talking about my ex-wife right now? He basically just described my ex-wife. Here's what first thing I'm going to say. I often feel detached from emotions because of how the woman who loved me the most treated me, I want whoever wrote this to read that again

and then think back about their mother for accuracy when it comes to this sentence. Did she love you the most? I wasn't involved in any of this. I'm getting your email blind from somebody reading this objectively. It sounds like the exact. opposite of that sentence.

And then I will turn it over to you. Yeah, it's a, wow. Okay, well, first of all, you're 23. So let's start there because a lot of people have been DMing me about relationship stuff. Why wouldn't they? You're the Oracle of our time. Apparently.

Apparently. So, evidently. So, yeah, the, here's, and this has been a topic of discussion amongst people in my inner circle as well, especially my friends of late, As a matter of fact, I just had a really great conversation about this last night with one of my close friends that's female. And we were talking about how hard relationships are and divorce and everything like that. And here's what I think.

I think our society is a little bit flawed when we have these metrics that you are expected to hit. Like, go to high school, play varsity sports, get a scholarship to college, go to college, jump right into college, get a degree in something that you may hate later. And then get out of college. find your person get married have 2.5 kids and get a golden retriever and a white picket fence and a minivan and a life in suburban hell so uh be good taxpayers like all these things like these are all societal benchmarks and we all participate in them in some way shape or form and i think it's a huge mistake to put that kind of pressure on you know people that are you know younger and coming of age like you do your most development as

you know, finding your path as an adult in between 20 and 30 years old. By the time you get to 30 years old, you've kind of got enough life experience now that you start figuring things out. And then in between 30 and 40, you are solidifying probably the adult you're going to be for the rest of your life. So I think people rush into marriage way too fast. Like I got married at 24, I think. Same. 23, actually. Yeah. And we were together for 10 years, dated for three. And I was three. and then married for seven. And then things exploded into a big fireball, which I'm not going to dive into at all right now.

Just realize there was a Christmas tree Thunderdome. There was Christmas tree Thunderdome with a mother-in-law. So that said, you know, take some pressure off yourself, okay? Because you've got a long road ahead of you. You're 23. Stop trying to run and sprint into some relationship outcome. Secondly, go to therapy. go to therapy. It helps. I can't stress it enough. Like, and you, you know what? You might have to find

your therapist that will help you the most because not all therapists are good, just like not all police are great at their job, just like not all doctors are great at their job, just like not all lawyers are great at their job. There's a lot, there's that 10% of subject matter experts out there that suck at their job. So I had to fire, I don't know, five therapists to finally get to one that I was like, damn, this person gets me, I connect with them. And they give you. me substantial tools to enhance the quality of my life and help me deal with these emotions and moving through them when they when they happen. So go to therapy because it sounds like you've got some substantial issues that you need to deal with. And they will only, if you don't address them

and you try and shove them down and pretend like they don't exist, they will manifest in other ways. They will fuck up your physical health. They will fuck up your mental health. And you will continue to fall down the rabbit hole deeper and deeper. So, take responsibility for yourself. Don't be a self-licking ice cream cone. Go get some help. Talk to somebody about these issues. And then relax, take a breath.

You're 23. Okay? You don't need to be married or be having kids probably for another decade. Probably one of the biggest pieces of advice that I would give to my younger self. I get asked this question a bunch would be to wait a little bit because I didn't know who I was at 23. No. I have 43 now and I struggle to know who I am.

but I know who I am better than I was back then. And I will say, having been now divorced for 36 hours. Good job, by the one. Yeah. How mad did that suck? It was a very challenging 20-month process. But I will say is I'm not against marriage. What I'm against is getting married before you're ready to, either as an individual

or getting married to the wrong person. Yes. I absolutely believe in marriage, but it needs to be at a time and place where you are secure and who you are, where you know who you are, and you've found somebody that you can grow together with. It was one of the biggest concerns I had with my divorce is that it would change my children's perspective on marriage. And I don't want that to happen. I've actually specifically discussed this exact topic with them about, you know, I don't want what's happening between your mother and I to impact your feeling about relationships in the future. nothing that this person described happened in that 20 months. It was brutal.

But when I read this, I'm listening to or hearing a kid being weaponized, which is so fucked up. So I'm sorry that this person had to live through this. I mean, it's exact opposite of what it's supposed to be. And I can see why they would have issues with having kids. But what I'll say to this person on that topic is you don't have to treat them like your mom treated you. You have the ability to recognize that the impact that it has had on yourself and to own that impact, not what that person did to you, but own what it has done to you and go to therapy and work through that because like you and I have talked about, there's post-traumatic stress and I believe on the other side of that bridge is post-traumatic growth. And you could end up being the most amazing parent because of what you went through. Yeah, I mean, people often compliment me on, you know, when they've had opportunity to see me around my son.

They're like, man, you guys have a really good dynamic. He's a really great kid. He's, you do a good job as a father. And I think the reason for that is, is because of the trauma that I went through. You know, I had a very abusive, you know, father, which I covered, you know, I think in the last podcast briefly. And, you know, that lasted the first nine years of my life. And then, you know, I watched him beat the shit out of my younger brother, beat the shit out of my mom regularly, beat the shit out of me. I often because I felt obligated to stop him, would antagonize him after when I'd see him.

him go after my mom or whatever, I would, I would antagonize him so he would turn his anger on me and I would take the beating so my mom or my little brother didn't have to. And so that was my childhood for the first nine years. And then my mom married a, my stepfather, who started out as a great guy. And then they tried to have a kid and my half brother was stillborn and didn't make it. And he is kind of an emotional fucked hard and like went way into his shell. And then he just stopped really he was projecting his anger in the situation out on my brother and I, and was just really, he just turned into a piece of shit. And so the most selfish human being on planet Earth.

And so that was my childhood and dealing with all of that stuff. And so when I had my son, I was like, I'm going to be the father that I never had. And so that's what I did. I was like, if I, you know, if I wanted to have, you know, I'm going to be the father. I'm going to set the example that I never had, that was the gap and the missing link in my life.

And so this trauma, you know, you can, as you said, you can flip it around and use it for its best good. Yeah. Don't fear marriage and don't fear kids, but don't rush into either. There is a postal script. Thanks for talking about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I recently got my second stripe after starting from listening to the podcast, comma, how many stripes does Brian Bishop have? Does it say that? No, I added that last part.

I have zero, motherfucker. Zero stripes. How many times have you gone to class in the last week? In the last week, none. You are a disgusting piece of shit. I don't really think so. How are you going to get better? Are you watching YouTube videos?

What are you doing with your time? I have been largely working to get product out the door that I have had on the drawing board for three years. So that's been sucking up a lot of my time. I will be... What's our next thing? We're going to Costa Rica, correct? Correct. We're going to go see Mr. Hickens down in Costa Rica.

Okay, so that's plenty of time. for you to teach me about what a piece of shit I am on. I'm not going to teach you. Henry's going to teach you. I mean, you do a good job of it as well. It's kind of like... I don't teach that lesson.

I reinforce that lesson. Correct. Yes. So Henry's the guide and you are the brick wall that I get to throw myself against over and over and over and over again. I look forward to it.

I'm going to fucking smash you. I mean, it's okay. That's all I had. I thought I had five. I only have four. That's it for the week. That's it. No,

you have to pick something else. It's five questions. Okay. stop fucking shortchanging the audience right now. Well, first off, you're on probation, which just got extended, and this is my show. I mean, no, it did not get extended. It's capped at 36 months, which we've whittled down to, I think, like, 30 now. That was already 40 minutes right there.

We're good. That's a standard full out of Friday. I hate that answer. I don't care. I'm the boss of you. You're not the boss of me. You're stupid. This is accurate.

Your face is stupid. I'm putting my balls on your drum set. You can go ahead and do that. I'm going right now. Go for it. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio-only platform or you're watching on YouTube. I appreciate that you take the time every week to tune in. People ask me a lot, what can they do to help me spread the word?

And the answer is actually embedded in the question. The biggest thing you guys can do to help me if you enjoy the podcast and you think it would be helpful to others is subscribe and share it with other people. And if you have the time, go on to Apple Podcasts and leave me a rating and a review. If you think the podcast sucks, tell me it sucks and leave a zero star review or the lowest stars possible. If you have a question, comment or suggestion, you can go to clearedhotpodcast.com. And there is a contact me button right there, which will land in my inbox. And the last thing, if people are interested in helping out, what you can do is fly the old flag. And by that, I don't mean an actual flag because I don't have any of those. I'm talking about t-shirts or sweatshirts or hats, whatever it may be.

Again, clear-thodpodcast.com, click on the shop tab. And hopefully something in there looks like it would be an item you would like to wear around town. And then you can tell people what it is when they ask you. But that is it. The biggest thing I can say is thank you. I truly appreciate it. Until next time. See you.