Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 55

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

Rapid-fire Q and A submitted from the listeners! A variety of topics with a five-minute time cap per answer, sometimes. 1. Should the military change/modify its standards in order to be a viable option for more recruits 2. How did you handle the pressure of being a new guy, and what did you look for in "new guys" when you were in a leadership position 3. When should I start seeing a counselor 4. How can I motivate people to make positive changes in their lives without being an asshole 5. How did you manage ear protection while overseas/hunting Enjoy

Good morning, everyone. It's Friday. You know what that means. We're going to do Q&A, but first, let's take a few moments, if you will, come on a journey with me. Let's talk about the sponsors that are actually making this podcast possible. This episode is brought to you by Benchmade Knives. Headquartered in Oregon City, Oregon, Benchmade Company, has been manufacturing high-quality cutlery for over 30 years. They were established in 1987. If you don't believe me, do the math yourself. Benchmade takes pride in the fact that they manufacture an heirloom product, with the potential of being passed down from generating. to generation with proper use and care. Each knife carries with it a limited lifetime warranty and free sharpening in maintenance throughout the life of the knife. And I think I talked about this last Friday. It's a service that I don't know if a lot of people are aware of, and not many certainly take advantage of it. The company puts a strong emphasis on family values and tradition, encompassing the people

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might be afraid of the explosion, the controlled explosion in their hand. If you have the money to be able to put a suppressor on your pistol or rifle, I highly recommend it. It will change the experience for you. Silenceorco.com. That's it. Let's do this. Close now. Five questions for today, everybody and I received an email or a message that suggested, hey, maybe pick some lighter topics every once in a while. And I looked back and I realized, damn, maybe I do pick some heavier or darker topics. So today, maybe a little bit lighter, maybe a little bit of a change of pace. And before I forget, people have been consistently hitting me up saying that the older episodes of the podcast are not showing up in the Apple Podcast app. I think I found a solution for that.

out to both Apple and to the hosting service that I use. Hopefully, within the next day or two, if you've missed the earlier episodes of the podcast, you should be able to go right there if you use Apple Podcasts or an iOS device, and you should be able to get the entire library. Hopefully, I would say by Monday's episode, which you don't want to miss. But I digress. Here we go. Question number one.

Hi, Andy. First off, I would like to say thank you for what you do, both in the podcast world and what you did before in the SEAL teams. My question is, with the military standards to join, I myself was a heavier set 18-year-old, who was a very athletic student who played football and wrestled, and I wanted to join the military, but I was told I was too big to make the required height and weight requirements. But back in the 1970s and 1980s, some branches would take heavy guys and send them to the roly-bole, his words, not mine, squad, until they made their standard, and if they didn't make the standard, they got rid of you.

Do you think that this practice should be brought back into today's military with the lack of acceptable standards that the military wants? So a few things about this. When I went to boot camp in 1996, I think they were still playing around with this because I very specifically remember people who were, I'm going to put them in the heavier set category. They were being told what they were going to eat and when they were going to eat it. They had a very limited menu, and by that I essentially made salad paired with some calisthenics. it was a rapid weight loss diet for the majority of those individuals. And it was so long ago and I actually didn't pay attention to it at the time. But I think if they didn't lose the required weight, they did get rid of them.

I don't believe they called it the Roli Bowley Squad. I think they called the Salad Brigade. But I'm not quite sure. I am pretty sure that it existed in the time period that I served. Anytime people ask me about standards for the military, my baseline belief is that I am good with changing a lot of things about the military. Maybe they spend more money in recruiting in certain areas under the guise of or the express purpose of diversity. I'm all about that.

Maybe they change the words that they use when it comes to recruiting in the way that they approach people. Totally about that. The one thing that I'm not about is them changing the standards. and I'm a little bit curious about the last sentence in your email. Do you think that this practice, and again, this is the practice of the Salad Brigade, do you think this practice should be brought back in today's military with the lack of acceptable standards that the military wants? I'm curious what you mean by the lack of acceptable standards that the military wants. I would like to believe that the military has acceptable standards for the execution of the occupation.

I believe that the end state or what the job is going to be, and I look at this from a greater military perspective in the community that I came from, seal training in the seal pipeline should prepare you for the world that you are going to enter and operate in. If it's not doing that, it's doing a disservice to every single person in the community and those that are preparing to enter the community. So the real world demands of the occupation need to drive the standards that are set for entry. The military is an option for all citizens. And I say that knowing that many people don't meet the standards. And I think that's okay because it should be an occupation that is extremely difficult to get into. If you're colorblind, if you have flat feet, if you have asthma, if you have blood-related issues, significant health history, I'm sorry. You're not going to be able to get into the military.

And like I said, it's an option that is. available for everybody, but you may not meet the criteria. And that's okay. I think that's actually for your safety and the safety of the force. So again, I'm going to fall back on. I'm not sure what you mean by the lack of acceptable standards. Do you mean that it shouldn't be acceptable to limit people to a weight standard in the military? Because I would push back on you on that. Being morbidly obese in the military, even being, well, not morbidly, moderately obese in the military, not a great idea, not a great concept, especially if you have a job that is related to combat in any way, shape, or form. So I think that there should be very strict standards across the board.

Height weight? Yeah, they should exist. I don't think you should be seven feet tall and going into a submarine or the cockpit of an F-35. Flat feet, I don't know much about that, but I know it's a disqualifying factor for some reason, and I'm assuming that they have a good reason for that. Like I said, color blindness. Yes, you're going to be going to need to be able to determine the differences in colors. There needs to be an intelligence test associated with this. Maybe perhaps there shouldn't even be an emotional quotient, an EQ and an IQ test that is associated with this.

And the standards should be high. Should the military discriminate based on the ability to make those standards? Yes, they absolutely should. Should they discriminate on race, gender beliefs, any of those things? absolutely not. The two very, very different things. But should they hold the line on those standards? Yes, they absolutely should. And I actually wish that the standards for the military were even higher and they were even more difficult for people to achieve. And I know right now perhaps there's less people who are interested in and joining the military. So the conversation might be around,

well, maybe we should accept a little bit of laxity in these standards. No. To me, that is the perfectly groomed, picturesque, paved road to hell. It might look good at the beginning. The path might look like it's going to send you where you want to be, but that is not where we should be. I think the standards, again, should be set by the battlefield or the execution of your job, and they have to at all times be adhered to and held. Question two. I'm currently in my apprentice phase at one of the more prestigious firms in my field, and I often feel that I often feel very inadequate. The other guys at my job are great at what they do and have so much more experience than me. I always have eyes on me and I feel under a microscope from my management

and my coworkers. I want to be the best I can at my job and to be an asset to the company, although I find the mental pressure gets to be overwhelming. In your experience in the SEAL teams, how did you handle the pressure of being the new guy? And later in your career, what did you want to see from your new guys. This question speaks to me at a very deep level. I remember being brand new in the SEAL community. It was so hard to describe. I was serving with people who were my heroes. I was finally a part of a community that I had heard about and read about and studied about and dreamt about for years. And then there I was surrounded by people who were on their fourth deployment or workup. Sixth, eighth.

10th. My first LPO, which stands for leading petty officer, it's a bit of fall into the junior middle enlisted leadership. The next step above, that would be the chief petty officer. Then we start going into the officer leadership. He was on his 10th deployment, workup and deployment. I mean, I struggle to even be able to describe the experience that this individual had in every aspect of what a seal is supposed to be able to do. Land nav, winter warfare, weaponry, skydiving, fill in the blank. The dude was a complete utter badass. And I felt the exact same pressure of the microscope. I know exactly what you're talking about. And in the seal community, your reputation, it's not everything, but it's damn near close to everything. And your reputation

is built off of performance. Both of those, they either pave the robe for you towards where you want to be or where you don't want to be. And fortunately, you know, people can make corrections as well. I think it's important to note that I know a few people who have gone down the wrong path course corrected, maybe from a catastrophic incident or they were sat down and counseled, and they made a change, and they got back in the right direction. So one of the beautiful things about these situations is, you know, if you make a mistake, which you might, it's correctable, as long as you recognize mistakes that you make in these situations, and then you learn from those mistakes and change your behavior. So back to your question. How do that handle the pressure

of being a new guy and later on in your career, what did you want to see from your new guys? What I'll say to you is this. You may feel inadequate and you may feel like you always have eyes on you. Realize, though, that everybody who is above you in this organization, they have been where you are and they probably have some understanding of that. The level of you having a microscope on you might be a little bit less than you actually think it is. It sounds like to me, some of this stress is a little bit self-induced. And that's okay. And that's why I picked this question because I felt exactly this way when I was a young seal as well. There was the external pressure and then there was the internal pressure. And I have always been my hardest

critic. The criticism and the things that I will say to myself are head and shoulders above far and away worse than the things I've ever been in a counseling session. I want to perform. My biggest fear in the seal teams is that I would let the people around me down. So my headspace in that was, one, always look for work. I was always looking for something that I could do that would be a benefit to the team. Now, I'll give you some examples that in the SEAL community, I'm not specific or sure of specifics that you could do in your field, but think about these things. It's easy as you grow in the SEAL community. You know, you work in combined work areas. There's actually a lot of time spent in an office and common areas where there's garbage cans and

trash and sweeping that needs to be done or cleaning up that needs to be done. I always, as a new guy, tried to make sure that I was never asked to do those things. I was always looking for that type of work. Why? Because I didn't want people who were more experienced than me and the people who had already earned their position in the team to be doing those things. And here's the cool thing about that. It was actually kind of a race because even some of the most senior people were still willing to do those jobs, and I actually had to race them to get those jobs done. And it gave me even more respect for those individuals, and it made me want to do those things even more. It had nothing to do with being a seal and everything to do with being a team player. So I was always looking for work.

I would try to be the first person at work and the last person to leave. I would try to learn everything that I could about the training block that we were doing, and I would try to answer questions myself before going to my leadership because you can overwhelm leadership with questions that you probably could answer on your own and they're going to get a little bit frustrated and tired with you if you're always coming to them for answers as opposed to being a self-starter and finding them on your own. I tried to understand what was expected of me. I tried to understand my left and right boundaries and then I tried to at all times meet but most importantly exceed the standard that was expected of me. I tried to be as quiet as possible. Now, I'm going to put an

asterisk on that because anybody who served with me in the SEAL teams would probably say that I was a ferocious smart ass, which I would totally agree. And my mouth did, in fact, get me in trouble quite a few times to include being stuffed in lockers for hours at a time, taped up to spine boards, a variety of things. All of those earned completely by me. But I worked as hard as I could. I I made performance, the focus to the exclusion of everything else. And it was at a time in my life where I was able to do that because I didn't have a lot of anything else in my life at that time. And I tried to be the best team player that I could possibly be.

I tried to have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and an insatiable desire to perform. And that's the best advice that I can give you. Look for work. Understand your job. Be the first person on the job site and the last person to leave. and when you're given a task, execute it, meet and exceed that standard. Because if you do those things, you're going to be the model employee. And then later on in your career, what do you want to see from your guys?

Exactly those things. Let me tell you, the best way that you can teach your people to do those things is to embody them yourself. I've told this story before, I think on the podcast, at least when I was at development group. And I was a brand new guy at Gold Squadron. And I would go into work early and I would often go for a run before work. And I was trying to be the first person at work. I wanted to be there. I wanted to get the workout done so then I could focus on whatever it is we were going to do that day.

And I remember one day I was feeling pretty badass. I was up. It was a wintertime. Not the warmest out. The sun wasn't up yet. And I was getting ready to start my run. And my team leader was finishing his run. And I remember thinking, God damn it.

He never said a word to me. He just gave me the old head nod, hey, what's up? A, you know, the very quiet acknowledgment, acknowledgement that we both saw each other. And what did it do? It fired me up even more to work harder. Didn't say a word. Didn't yell.

Didn't tell me this is what I needed to do. Didn't write down somewhere that this is the standard he expected. He set the fucking standard, quietly, professionally with his performance. And so what ended up happening? We had a ridiculous competition of who could get to work earlier and go for a run, which is idiotic in the end, because both of us, I think we're just ending up being very tired. But it drove me just seeing that, that one action, that somebody, instead of telling me

what they expect and not doing it themselves, they were setting the example. Their words and their actions were commensurate, and it drove me to work harder. That's what you should aim to be as a leader. And if you do those things, your people, they're going to give you whatever you would like to call. They'll go the extra mile for you. They'll give you a high. 110% even though that's not possible. But that's what I looked for in the new guys, is that ability to learn, that ability to prioritize their performance, the ability to look for work, show up on time in the uniform of the day, prepared to do the job.

Exactly what you should be doing now. And then if you focus on that, when you get to that leadership position later on, you'll have a great understanding of what that takes and you'll have an appreciation of your junior people when you see them taking those steps. And that is what I recommend, sir. Question three. I've been listening to you since your first time on the Joe Rogan podcast, and I particularly like how open you are when talking about topics involving mental health. I am 20 years old and have recently started a career as a paramedic.

I've only been working for about four months, but I have already seen some shit. Of this, I have no doubt, my friend. You have mentioned before that you see a therapist and counselor weekly and have talked about how it helps you. I have heard my more experienced colleagues talking about doing the same thing as some preventative maintenance. I like the idea of doing this, but I feel like starting now would be a waste of money because I would not have enough to talk about. So my question to you is, what was the catalyst for your decision to start counseling? And do you have any advice for knowing when to start talking to someone without waiting until you're going off the rails to start? Thanks for your time and keep up the great work.

So two questions here. What was the catalyst for me and then advice for someone to start without waiting? waiting until you're going off the rails. Your coworkers have defined this pretty well, in my opinion. Preventative maintenance. And I talked about this not long ago on a podcast, probably a full auto Friday, I believe. I consider counseling to be taking your car in to get serviced on a weekly, or not a weekly, but it would be a bi-monthly or every six-month maintenance schedule to ensure that they can kind of peek around. You know, change the oil, tighten some screws up, check the air in your tires, trying to avoid a catastrophic accident. So you go and you do those checkups to avoid the vehicle actually blowing up when you forget to put oil in it. That's the preventative preventative maintenance. So your coworkers have defined that

very well. And when you start thinking about it from that perspective, you realize, you know, maybe you don't have to wait until you have, you know, a notebook like this one. Like if you were to write down, start keeping a list of, man, this is some fucked up shit I saw today. So you keep a list of you're fucked up shit. Maybe by the time you get to a full page, that would be too much for you. Maybe it's a half a page. Maybe it's two sentences. I'm not really sure what it is.

But if you view counseling as preventative maintenance, you don't have to worry about what's on the piece of paper. And what I would say to you is instead of thinking about it from the perspective of, I don't really think I've seen enough to talk to somebody, maybe go talk to somebody and let them decide. Because I tell you what I'm not an expert in, that's mental health therapy or counseling. I really do see a benefit from it, but I'm not an expert in by any stretch of the imagination. I can talk about how it has helped me, how the objective third person perspective has helped me reshape my behavior, my speech, oftentimes the way that I think about things.

Those have been the things that have helped me the most. And I don't keep a checklist either because I don't want to, I don't want to store that stuff up in a bank account. That would be like negative equity, which is probably. a nonsensical term, but I don't want that amount, you know, in the negative gaining interest and momentum and weight. I'd rather go in there as often as you may be comfortable doing, so as perhaps as you can afford doing, and getting that checkup done and let a professional get in there with the flashlight and ask the questions that they know are going to lead both of you, hopefully to a better place. Now, to answer your question about how did I know or why did I start

seeing a counselor. For me, it was more, I started seeing a counselor from a relationship perspective before we moved to Montana infrequently with my ex-wife. And it was in those sessions where it was, I guess is the term couples therapy? I don't know what it was. We were in there. We were seeking help for our relationship. I enjoyed the process of openly talking and verbalizing about things that were bothering me or trying to have somebody else, at least specifically in that situation, trying to explain myself or what it is that I was feeling or potentially what it is that was bothering me to somebody who could maybe then reframe it to the other person in the room and maybe because it came from a different angle or from a different person, they would be able

to hear it. As the divorce progressed, I needed to talk to somebody. I was frustrated. I was probably dealing with depression for the first time in my life, small bouts of depression. And for me, that looked like just an unwillingness to get out of bed, an apathy, just a total disinterest in a lot of the things that used to interest me, a removal of interaction from my social circles. And I realized I needed to talk to somebody. I started talking to somebody because my children were talking to somebody. And I wanted to, all three of my kids have talked to a counselor throughout the divorce process. And they had different interactions with the counselor. Some were more pro. Some were more con, meaning my kids desire to interact with the counselor.

And I thought that the best thing that I could do would be, again, set the example and show them that I consistently am doing exactly what I am asking them to do for exactly the same reasons. And oh my God, I'm so glad that I did because it helped get me through the process. it was a sanity check. It was a sounding board. The key to all of that, though, is you as an individual being honest. If you go into counseling and you're going to cut corners or round edges on things that are bothering you, don't expect it to be a life-changing experience.

And also don't expect it to be a life-changing experience after one conversation. You have to go in there and you have to do the work. If you have a bag of shit that's on your back that's bothering you, You need to throw it on a table in front of you and wade your way through it. Not sit here and go like, oh, I'm not going to talk about that. That one bothers me and we'll push this one over here. This one looks pretty easy to talk about. So what I'll do is I'll talk about that.

No, fuck that. You get in there and you talk about the things that bother you and you need to own your mistakes and you need to work through the issues. Counseling in therapy is not about somebody else fixing you. It's about you doing the best you can to make yourself a better person. My description, and if you're a therapist or counselor, and I'm saying that improperly, Please feel for you to correct me. But that's what I feel like.

To round out the question, though, start doing that before you think you have any issues. I wish I had. I wish if I could go back in my seal career, I would go in at least and talk to somebody every couple of months just to make sure that I still have a grip on who I am as a person. And I'm not slipping or sliding in any direction that I may not want to go. Don't wait is what I would say. You've been at it for four months. Go sit down and have a conversation with somebody. And if money's an issue, maybe sit down and have a conversation with a friend or a peer that you really trust and start there.

I think you'd be surprised how many people are oftentimes struggling with the same things that you are. And there's nothing worse than feeling isolated or feeling like you're trying to navigate issues, problems, fill in the blank on your own. So treat it like an oil change, not a catastrophic break. And get in there as soon as you can. Two more. I live in eastern Nebraska along the Platte River. I hope I said that correctly. It's P-L-A-T-E.

I enjoy deer, turkey, waterfowl hunting, fishing for walleye, crappy, and catfish. What a terrible name for a fish. I take great pride in filling my freezer with good quality meat and sharing with my friends and family, as do I. My wife and I have had the pleasure of spending time in Montana and even stayed in the Calispell in Calispo at the Grand Hotel. And I have two co-workers that live in White Fish. We've been considering moving to the area. I do have a couple quick questions. One, have you ever considered taking the podcast on tour across states talking with people of all types?

Farmers, ranchers, teachers, police officers, just an example. Yes, I have thought about doing this. I love the idea of doing this. There are people that I know who have created basically mobile podcast studios at like sprinter vans and they've driven and they've navigated throughout the U.S. stopping and talking to interesting people. I love the idea. I don't like the logistics behind this. The people that you mentioned, the farmers, the ranchers, the teachers, the police officers,

I'm so fascinated by those occupations. And I think other people would be, too, if they understood the demands of those jobs and what those jobs actually enable the rest of us to be able to do. What I do like to be able to do is control the quality of the video, the quality of the audio, and the lighting in the studio. And really the only way to do that is here in the studio. And right now, I'm still in the design phase, but I'm building another studio, specifically for the podcast so I can improve all of those things that I already talked about.

And what I would rather do, you know, I take sponsorship dollars for the podcast. And I'm sure people probably think that it's, you know, well, maybe they don't think. I don't know. Oftentimes I feel that people think that it's, they think it's like some, you know, people are throwing gold bullion at me. And that's not the case. There's a cost to put this on, whether it's getting a laptop or better microphones or the hosting service or fill in the blank. Or what I want to do with the money is be able to full.

people out here in those occupations that you mentioned and let them share the experiences with the listeners to the podcast. So it's not that I'm against it. I don't know how I would manage the time and the logistics. And I think it might be easier to have those people come to me for a day as opposed to being on the road for months at a time. I do love the idea. Perhaps I'll consider it in the future. But for right now, I'm going to try to stay in place. Question two. What advice can you provide for helping motivate someone you care about to make positive changes in their life without being an asshole. Well, sometimes I think you need to be an asshole.

Sometimes I think people need to be told the truth. And actually, what I just said is not how I feel. People need to be told the truth. There shouldn't be a sometimes people need to be told the truth. The reality is, if you're a friend and if you care about somebody, you don't tell them what they want to hear. You tell them what they need to hear. Delivery is probably the difference between being an asshole or not being an asshole

or having somebody shut you out or actually listen to what it is. you have to say. So focus on your delivery. Having said that, there are times and there have been times in my life where I intentionally played the asshole because I wanted to jar the individual that I was talking to out of whatever station in life they were stuck in. And I had tried every other tact to include doing activities with them, trying to provide alternative to those activities, tried to, you know, take an unhealthy activity and replace it with a healthy activity. I tried it all. So the last ditch effort, knowing the individuals well, which I did, was I came over the top and I was the hammer and I hit him with the truth bomb. People like, oh, the truth hurts.

It doesn't have to hurt. But you can make it hurt if you need to. And a few times I have done that. Just be cautious making that your primary tool or the only tool that you have. I think one of the most powerful things that you can say to somebody is, hey, I deeply care about you. I love you. And I'm concerned about what it is that I am seeing. do everything that you can to try to help people.

And I've said this before and maybe people are getting tired of hearing me say this. But you have to be cautious. You have to be cautious wanting more for somebody than they want for themselves. And I used to see this all the time when I owned CrossFit Coronado. There would be people who would come in and they would talk about everything that they wanted to do and their goals. And we would start working on a meal plan. And they would talk about wanting to do extra training and all the things that they would want. So I would be spending a bunch of my time trying to put together a plan for them.

And they wouldn't do it because at the end of the day, they didn't want to. They wanted to talk about doing the plan. And they became an ask hole. They kept asking for things. And I was providing my energy for them. And it never went anywhere. I wanted more for them than they wanted for themselves. Don't light yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm.

There are times in your life where the best thing that you can do after you have exhausted all of your options is to cut negativity away. Exercise the cancer while it is small before it has too much impact. And sometimes that means people. But start with the other approach. Tell them how much you care about them. Tell them how much you care about them. Tell them how much you are concerned about what it is that you are seeing from them and then take it from there. Last question.

This one comes up pretty often. I can't help but wonder about what is what was done for ear protection while you're working in your old job. Is it normal for seals at other combat units to wear ear pro while on operation, foam or noise cancelling? If so, how do they remain alert for noise whilst, one of my favorite words, whilst sneaking around and face paint, as well as hear their radio and teammates? If not, how do they hear anything after firearms and explosives are deployed? It comes to mind since I struggle with this balance while hunting. Listening for elk moving through brush is clearly a worthy tactic, but so is not blowing my eardrums out. I've got buddies who don't worry about it and most have irreparable damage to their ears.

Curious is to your thoughts and experience. So yes, earpro is mandatory. And the units, they oftentimes, if not pretty much always at this point, it's a version of noise cancelling headsets. Whether it be a clamshell type like the type I'm wearing right now or it's just an inner ear type that does the same. It allows you to hear ambient noise, but it cuts off at a certain decibel level. So it's going to protect you from anything that could be damaging to your ears. Those are often directly hardwired into the radio. So you will hear the radio communication in your ear.

You can respond. I wore a set of Peltors with a boom mic on the left-hand side because I'm a right-handed person and I didn't want the mic interfering with my cheekwell when I was going to shoot my gun. So there's a variety of options. But the reality is, yes, you need to be wearing earpro. Otherwise, what you're going to have is what you mentioned, irreparable damage to the ears. Sneaking around, we didn't do a whole lot of that. And I never wore face paint, a single fucking time, except for it. in training pre 9-11 when I would just put it on pretty bitching designs if I think so.

I remember seeing guys like in a bank of mirrors just like putting it on their face, thinking about how badass we were going to be. And then it's basically in your eyes shortly after that because you're sweating your ass off. Completely irrelevant. Never wore it again. Not a single fucking time when I was overseas. And I wouldn't wear it because it goes in your eyes.

The noise canceling headsets are great. You can hear basically whatever you need to. And also you can always pump. They have adapters on the helmets where you can pop. off the noise canceling headset if you need to and then slap it back on. You can still hear the radio. You got to manage a little bit the sound of the radio and other people may be able to hear that, but you have the ability to take it off your ears for better hearing or clamp it back down.

And when it comes to elk hunting or hunting in general, be a gentleman. Let's go back to the second ad that I did for this full auto Friday. What do you want to do? What should you do if you can put a suppressor on your hunting rifle? I can't tell you. I saw this last year. The difference between successfully harvesting and not was having a suppressor on a 308. The first shot was missed. The animals did not know what had happened. Rechamber around. Take a second shot and boom. Drop the animal. Put a suppressor on your hunting rifle. They're worth the cost and they're absolutely worth the decibel reduction. And I'm telling you right now, it oftentimes will give you the opportunity for a second shot if you miss, which of course who misses, right? Answer to that is everybody to include. include myself. So stack the odds in your favor. It's like I was saying in the ad read at the beginning, you can be a gentleman with firearms. That way, you also don't have to worry about irreparable damage

to yours. So give it a look and the advice that I give people when it comes to hunting, because this is obviously seasonally based. Elk hunting, you're probably talking September, October. If you haven't made this purchase already this year, you probably should be looking at as your 20-22 season, because you're going to have to wait for the ATF tax stamp. It's going to have to go through the NFA process, and that's going to take you six to eight months if you're lucky. So plan ahead, but I'm telling you, be a gentleman. Everybody will appreciate it, maybe even the animals.

They might just stand there for you for another second. That's all I got for this week. Thank you, everybody. See you all on Monday. 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 cleardotpodcast.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