Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 85

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1. Injuries and setbacks, how do I know if what I want to do is worth it in the long run 2. How do I motivate my significant other 3. I'm a 10 year LEO and am starting to question how long I can continue to do this job Enjoy

Hello, everybody. When this episode comes out, I'm pretty sure if my math suits me and the calendar is correct. It is going to be Christmas-E. So whoever you are out there, whatever you're doing, I hope you have at amazing holidays. Having said that, we have one sponsor for today. Let's get through that and then get into some Q&A. Today's full out of Friday episode is brought to you by Benchmade Knives. Now, you want to ask yourself, what kind of knives do they have? Well, they have a lot of knives from indoor stuff, which is probably their newest. Actually, you could probably use a lot of their knives indoors. I can't think of a single reason why you couldn't. However, specifically, they're doing stuff in the kitchen. They have some amazing cutlery options. All of them are customizable. So I think one of the things I enjoy most about Bench-May knives is how much you can customize. But they have indoor stuff, outdoor stuff, everyday carry stuff, and kind of everything in between. They also all come with lifetime maintenance and sharpening, which is something I don't know

if most people actually take advantage of, but you should. knives or tools. Treat them like you would want to be treated and treat them like your life might depend on it at some point in time and I think you'll be very happy with how long we treat you. So like I said, a wide spectrum of offerings. What I suggest you do is go to Benchamay.com and check out what they have to offer. It's obviously too late to get somebody a stocking stuffer or a present under the tree for this year. But you never know. Next year's around the corner, birthdays, special occasions, all sorts of stuff. Oh, they also do like laser engraving too. It's very cool. I've had a couple of those done, and they're very nice.

It's a nice touch. Go to benchman.com. Check it out, and let's do this. Full out of Friday, 85. Here we go. I'm looking at danger close now. Ladies and gentlemen, here we are. It's the day before Christmas.

Perhaps I'll try to keep this one a little bit more family-friendly. In case you want to put it up on a 72-inch TV next to a roaring fire in your Christmas tree and have all your family surrounded in, pajamas and slippers and robes. I don't know where I'm going with that at all. But perhaps I'll do my best to not use the big boy words, the adult words. I'm just kidding. I would never actually recommend playing these episodes around children, especially

anywhere near the holidays. But like I said before in the ad read, I hope you have a great holiday. And I tell you what, I was going to start today's episode. I was thinking about it. Every once in a while, I'll go through and I'll pull some negative commentary from social media or, and I've done this before in the past, negative reviews of the podcast on YouTube's, YouTube, I don't think there's two, YouTube and iTunes, and I'll go over them, and I almost did it this time.

And I do it because, one, I think it's hilarious. I actually think that reading that commentary is, for one, it's comical for me, and it gives me the opportunity to respond. But the reason I almost did it, as opposed to actually doing it, is I didn't want to start off negative. And the reason that I think I was going to go down that path is I had an interesting interaction on social media a couple days ago. And it went a little bit like this. I put up an episode with Nick from Monday, and this person's comment was boring. I wish you had died in war, Andy Stumpf. And I saw that. And I was like, God damn.

And I think a lot of people seeing that, and there was a few people, there were a few people who actually on my behalf kind of went back of this individual. And the first thing I'm going to say about that is, please, if you ever see comments like that on my social media, do not feel the need to defend me or say anything to those people. Save yourself the time, energy, and effort, right? Even if you think that that comment may hurt my feelings, that's okay. And let me be clear. I have feelings just like everybody else. I'm not bulletproof. Occasionally things that people will say will burrow themselves into me like a tick and I do my best to avoid that. But sometimes that is just what happens because that's the journey that I'm on being a human being. Now, this particular comment didn't hurt my feelings at all. And most of the time, they don't at all.

Because I remind myself, what I remind other people very often is that even when people say offensive things, you still have. the choice to not be offended. So instead of being mad at this person or being angry at this person, what ended up happening is that I actually felt really bad for this person. It actually makes me really sad on one side or to one degree and then hopeful on the other. And of course, Instagram where this occurred is not the environment to have this type of back and forth. And I think eventually the person ended up blocking me because I was actually going to make a comment in return. and before I had the chance to do so, I was unable to find them. So I think that's how that works when somebody blocks you.

But I digress. That comment is a spicy one for sure. And it highlights, I think, the anonymity of the Internet and the ability for people to say things in a consequence-free environment. I've never once had anybody say anything like that to me, to my face. But also, even if they did, it's not something that's going to elicit the response that they would probably want. Because like I said, I read that comment and it just made me feel bad. Not because of what they said. I feel bad for that person and where they are in their station in life.

I just can't imagine feeling like that is what you need to spend your time doing. It's saying that to somebody else. And I don't know if maybe they just wanted a response. Maybe they needed to get something off their chest. Maybe they just had an incredibly shitty day. And they wanted to pass that rolling rock downhill to somebody else. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what it is. But the hopeful aspect of this comes from is that I hope that this person, whoever this person was, and maybe, actually, I'm going to assume that they actually listened to the podcast because they made a comment about one of the previous episodes. Hopefully this message gets itself to you. I'll talk about myself here for a second. So I'm in my 40s now. And I can remember being in a place in my life. where I would say some dumb shit like that. I would say some stuff that is just so out into left

field that was completely and utterly based in my own lack of maturity, in my own insecurity. And it's a really easy way to keep attention and focus off of yourself by constantly chipping away at other people. But let me just tell you, you're going to grow throughout the course of your life. And I hope that you will arrive at a point in time in your life where you can look back at messages and comments like that and realize how much farther you have to go in the growth of being a person. Like I said, I'm in my fourth decade at this point. The first decade, I'm going to kind of say, when it comes to understanding who I was, I'm going to put that as in the wash category. The second decade, you know, the 20s, actually it would be the,

the third decade would be the 20th, I suppose, because 10, 20, yep, carry the one. You know, in my 20s, I had a very, very different understanding of who I was, what I thought of the world, what I thought of my opinion in the world, my station in life, the value of my own beliefs. And then to my 30s, that started changing a little bit because I had some more laps around the sun. Then into the, you know, late 30s, 40s, and I look back and I wish now, I wish now that I could go back and have a cup of coffee with my former self and say, hey, man, you have a lot of growth that you need to have as a person. You have a lot of room for improvement as a person. And your life would be so much better if you focused that excess energy that you have on yourself, as opposed to making a single comment about anybody else in their life.

And I hope that's what this person has the ability to do, is to grow. and become a better version of themselves because I don't know anybody who is truly just crushing life who takes the time to do those things. And I know I've said that a bunch and maybe people are tired of hearing it, but it's really true. And if people take the time to sit down and think about those that inspire them or motivate them or get them to do better in life or have goals that they want to try to match or exceed, they're not spending any of those time doing those things. So for the individual who wrote that comment, I almost dedicated this episode to that negativity, but I'm not going to because in the end of the day, I feel sorry for you,

and I don't mean that pejoratively. I feel sorry that you're in a place where you feel that you have to express yourself like that to somehow survive. And I hope that you can take those incremental steps and make that growth towards the person that you become, as opposed to the person that you are behaving as now. And I didn't want to dedicate the episode towards negativity because last week's episode was pretty heavy. Maybe this episode we can focus on being not so heavy. So let's move on from social media and get into our three questions for today. Question one, long-time listener, first-time caller. I'm a manager at a horse ranch and I've played all the sports growing up. I've hiked across the country, been obsessed with Jiu-Jitsu for the

year or so, and have high hopes to one day become a firefighter and get into hunting. Needless to say, I'm a bit adventurous and athletic. 25 years old, I started jujitsu in October of 2020 and fell head over heels in love with it. Come October 2021 during a local competition, I felt a pop in my knee during a weird move during the match. Fast forward a few months after getting an MRI, and of course, I tore my ACL. I'm right now about a week after surgery in feeling incredibly discouraged. The pain has increased over the past few days, and I'm going absolutely. stir crazy having to sit on my couch and do practically nothing. I sit here in pain on the couch and

legitimately question if it's all worth it. I'm not going to kill myself about jujitsu football hiking, etc. Is it worth it? I can't emphasize enough how much this sucks. Is jiu-suitzu worth it? I fell in love with it. No plans to stop until I get a black belt. But if I have to do this over again, I will sincerely question that. I know the answer, is it worth it? But I guess I need some advice. Do I accept that things will never be the same for me athletically? Will I always have the mental hesitancy going forward? Or do I strive to get back to where I once was? Could use some encouragement and advice during my shitty time.

Thanks for the podcast and all that you do. Part two of this question. My fiance and I are thinking of moving from the greater Seattle area to the Flathead Valley. Any advice on things to look out for and consider it before us doing so? Thanks. So we'll get to both of these. The first one, the situation that you're in right now, which I'm going to describe as largely mental as opposed to physical.

Yes, you're a week out of surgery, but what's crushing you right now is not your physical limitation. It is the conversations that you're having between your ears. First off, give yourself a little bit of time. You're very active. You're 25 years old and you played a bunch of sports. You've hiked. You've been obsessed with jih Tzu. You want to become a firefighter.

You want to get into hunting. Yes. All of those things are amazing. I can't express actually how nice it is to hear somebody that is that connected with and tied to physical activity. I am exactly the same way. emotionally, I come apart a little bit when I don't get to be physically active. So I understand how you're feeling. I've never had a major surgery. Even when I got my little on the job injury in my previous career, I still didn't have a surgery with that, but I had a bunch of time sitting on the couch thinking about ho-hum, so-sum. So, sorry and all of those things were directed to myself like oh how could i possibly be here what could i possibly do nothing's ever going to be better and you get first off you got to get rid of all that bullshit so have a pity party and throw a good one you know have like some matching uh tablecloth and napkin and stemware and all that stuff have a great pity party and then be fucking done with it okay um you're going to need a little bit of time obviously i'm not a doctor uh and what i do know

about medicine I learned from watching house on TV. So there's going to be a certain amount of time where your body which got cut on and cut into is going to need to recover. I don't think it's uncommon for you to have a little bit of pain and for it to oscillate post-surgery. But what I can tell you is this is that you have the ability to do other things other than just sit on the couch. So specifically when it comes to a knee, I'm going to give you one example of something that I have scene that worked really well for somebody who had a knee surgery. If you have access to a concept two rower, and if you're anything like me where you need to find a way every day to break a sweat for an emotional fix, let alone a physical fix, I watched this guy literally after a major

knee surgery, get onto a concept two rower, strapped one leg into the rower and put his other leg on top of a frisbee that was turned upside down. So the convex side of it was on the ground. And he slid back and forth and he would row at a really high. intensity actually. So he was getting an incredible workout in while managing his, I'll call it his bad leg or his injured leg at the time. But he worked his way around that injury. So obviously don't do anything crazy, but do everything you can to include potentially that example that I gave you to work around the injury that you have. You know, lower body injury, that sucks, but you had an amazing amount of time to maybe work on your pull-ups or your bench press or anything that doesn't

require the use of that leg. So like I said, pity party first. I think that's, you know, it's actually probably critical to work your way through that self-loathing and pity. Then put that shit behind you and start figuring out ways that you can start building yourself back. For me, there are specific physical activities that I absolutely hate doing. I'll give you an example from my, from my old life working for CrossFit. I hate handstand push-ups. I absolutely hate them. I was never good at them, which is probably why I hated them. But if I was in your situation and I had the ability to stabilize my leg, that is something where I would probably spend a lot of time and effort. I would be doing pressing. I would be doing seated presses. I'd be working on handstand pushups. I'd be doing everything that I could to fix the deficiencies because they were the only thing in that moment that I had the chance to work on. So don't forget that. You know, you always have an opportunity to improve yourself somewhere. As to your question as to whether or not it is worth it, that is a question that only you are going to be able to answer. I can tell you being in the jiu-jitsu world now for just a little bit over three years, I've certainly hurt myself and almost every injury.

If not every injury was completely my fault, either my ego getting the way and preventing me from tapping or just doing something stupid or going too, hard or trying something that required more technique than torque and giving it the opposite. And I've definitely had, you know, I've had my arm in a sling. I've had my ass on the bench watching class instead of participating in it. And it absolutely, it absolutely sucks to do so. So I know what you're talking about. But don't limit yourself to thinking that things will never be the same for you athletically. Actually, before I get to that, the answer, which you already identified is yes. the things that you enjoy doing, Jiu-Jitsu, football, hiking,

all of those things, are they worth it? I would say yes in my life, but my theory on life is this. If you gave me the choice to arrive at somewhere between 80 and 90 years old, where I would be injury-free, but also free of major life experiences, versus barely getting across the finish line in my 70s, and my life was just wrung out and squeezed full of every experience

humanly possible, I'm going to take the 70 over the 80s to 90s. Because to me, the experiences, the journeys, the lessons learned, the failures, and the things that I get from participating in these activities is worth it to me. I don't want to live longer absent those experiences. So I personally believe they are absolutely worth it. And I feel like you might land in that category as well. So now things never be in the same for you athletically. First off, you're 25. So relax. You're largely still made out of rubber. And when it comes to recovering from sport-related injuries, the advances in what's going on right now are unbelievable, whether it be stem cell or IV-type therapies, the combination of, like, things are trending in the right direction and you still

have time on your side. And one thing I have noticed, you know, having been your age and now about 20 years past that, is they may not be the same for you athletically, but you may be able to find ways, and actually for longevity and efficiency's sake, if you can find ways that allow you to complete the same goal or end state, but you do it perhaps with more technique, which allows you to have a lower intensity, which is probably going to extend that runway of longevity. That's going to be to your benefit. So, yeah, you know, as the as the calendar flips over for you, things will change physically, but I don't think that changes what you can actually accomplish. You know, you have no plans to stop until you get to black belt. Let me tell you this, from what I've seen,

from people who, and having conversations with people who started at White Belt, and achieved a black belt, they look back at their game, for lack of a better word, or how they trained or how they sparred with their partners when they were a white or blue or purple or even a brown belt, and how they train now, they're completely different. Athletically, their approach is completely different because a lot of them start talking about longevity and what they want to do to be able to do this activity for life or for years. or for as long as possible. So I think that's natural anyway.

When you're 25, you've got a ton of attributes. If you are able to make it to your black belt and let's say you're 50, I'm not saying it will take you to 50 to get there. But if you're falling in love with it, you'll probably still be rolling with your 50 when you are 50. And you're not going to be doing an attribute-based jiu-jitsu match or competition or roll at that point. So don't rely on those attributes and allow these things that happen along the way.

So maybe you got nudged a little bit to the left, right? Maybe you're a little bit left, of course, where you want to be right now. But look at the road in front of you. Maybe it gives you an opportunity to realize, oh, I should take this left. Or you can rehab and work hard and train and get back to right where you were before. I think the opportunity for you to be physically right where you are pre-injury is totally possible, especially given your age. So don't discount that at all. You just got to give a little bit of time. And the biggest battle that you're fighting right now is the the one that's between your ears. And trust me, I know exactly what that feels like, but it's a battle that you can win. And my advice to you would be to start making small tactical victories against yourself. How are you going to do that? Get up off the couch and find something that you can do that's going to give you that physical release, physically exhaust yourself, probably help you sleep a little bit better. It's probably going to help you recover a little bit better. And incrementally apply that. Don't go smash yourself every other body part other than your leg. Start slow and set a realistic expectation.

But start putting those small victories in the win category. And eventually what's going to end up happening is you're going to have a strategic victory over your mind. Takes time, though. I've been there. Totally possible to work your way out of this. Now, the second part of your question. Looking, moving from the greater Seattle area to the Flathead Valley, any advice of things to look out for or consider before doing so. I'm going to just say broadly, if you're going to go move anywhere from anywhere,

just determine why it is that you want to move and what it is that you're looking for. The Flathead Valley here in Montana is an amazing place. What I'll tell you, the number one thing that I hear people being resistant towards, especially locals, is people coming from elsewhere and trying to bring elsewhere here. So if you want to come to here being the Flathead Valley or anywhere in Montana, and I'll use that as an example because that's where I currently live, don't try to change where you're going to being where you're coming from. That's the number one thing that I hear from people.

And I get it. But I also understand that things change over time. I think what they're really trying to avoid is this drastic shift. But people in Montana, I think oftentimes forget is that the gig is up and the information has been out about Montana for a really, really, really long time. Maybe there's more people moving here now because of what's going on in the United States in general. but I don't think it's ever going to truly shift. But if you do decide to move here, you will be accepted much faster by assimilating with the culture here as opposed to trying to change it yourself.

Yeah, identify why you want to leave Seattle and what you're looking for here. If you are, you know, Montana people think Rocky Mountains only. There's some seriously flat terrain in Montana as well. Determine why you want to move. Is it because of water activities? Is it because of wintertime activities? You probably don't have kids yet, but if you do, you know, you need to look at the schooling system and all of those things.

So take those things into account and then just enjoy yourself and live your life to the fullest. And that's it. Hopefully that helped. Question two. Andy, I'm sure you've probably been over this topic numerous times and it's quite trivial compared to some you cover. However, here's my situation. I'm in my mid-20s and a stable job with a wife and our two-year-old son. I recently went through a tough period in which I suffered with anxiety and depression. I found myself having no energy or motivation and could see myself getting fat and lazy. Of the various approaches I tried to solve this, the one which worked the best was to switch my mindset to just stop being so fucking lazy. I forced myself to do a workout when I don't really want to, or to just drag my arse out of bed as soon as my alarm goes off instead of snoozing. What a difference this is made to me. I'm so much happier and physically fitter.

If I ever feel like I can't be bothered to do something, it now actually spurs me on to do it. I've been noticing more and more that my wife seems to be falling into the same pit that I was in a few months ago. Whenever I try to speak to her about it, she immediately shuts me down saying that I'm judging her for getting fat and being lazy, which I am. I have gotten through her initial shutdown a couple of times,

and she told me that she really does want to get fitter. And I know from previous experience with her, how much better this makes her feel, but she always has an excuse not to do a workout or to just sit on the sofa and go through social media for hours. Any advice would be much appreciated. Man, I feel you on this one.

Motivation is a pretty amazing thing. If you catch people when they have a really high level of motivation, they're unstoppable. But the thing about motivation and the bitch of it is, is it's like the tide. It comes in and out. And this is where, you know, I'll fall back onto what Jocko talks about a lot, which is discipline. Discipline can really bridge the gap when it comes to deviations and your motivation, and they both build on each other. Now, they also both have momentum. So you found a way to build momentum in a positive direction

through negative self-talk, which I deeply, deeply appreciate at a personal level. It's not the best form of motivation for people or the best way to spur action from people, but it works for some. It certainly works for me. Now, when it comes to your wife, I'm going to say, tread very carefully. I'm going to assume that you're not saying, or hey, you're getting fat and being lazy. I will assume that when you have these conversations, that you are being more gentle with your approach. And if you're not, you probably should start being gentle because that message is is going to be received a little bit better. Having said that, you should be able to have difficult conversations with your partner.

I don't think, I have no data to support this. I don't think anybody actually wants to be fat and lazy. I don't know anybody of the people that I do know, that I would consider to be extremely obese that are happy with where they're are in life. Oftentimes, and again, I have no data to support this, and this is a hypothesis or an assumption on my part, I feel like they get to a place where they just give up, because they feel like the journey back would be impossible. So for whatever reason, they accept the situation that they are in, but that acceptance doesn't come with happiness. So I understand

your motivation for having this conversation. I applaud it. I think it should be had. And you should be able to have this conversation with your partner. A couple pieces of advice. Figure out a way to put the phones down and put social media away, and it's going to net you a ton of free time with which the opportunity to do something physical is going to present itself. The social media time suckhole is so incredibly real. And don't get me wrong. I can get stuck in it as well, sitting there watching reels.

about Frenches. I could do that for hour, for not for hour, for hours. For whatever reason, and this is probably based off of what I choose to watch over and over again, my reels on Instagram is basically Frenchies and people fucking themselves up on skateboards, motorcycles, snowboarding, skiing, cars. It's amazing. Sometimes Leo look over and just be like, oh my God, how do you, how does it even get curated like this? And the answer to that is time, energy, and effort and passion. But it's all a waste of fucking time. I'm accomplishing nothing in those times where all gets stuck in that. And you'd be amazed at how fast the clock just ticks by. And the next thing, you know, it's too late in the night. I don't actually want to work out. Maybe I'll just have

some bonbons and watch some more Frenchie reels. So if you could find a way to maybe block off time where it's no phone time whatsoever, you're going to save yourself a ton of time. And another thing that I would suggest is instead of making this about you, comma, her comma, make it about you both. So ask her to join you when it comes to working out. Try to, you know, the rising tide lifts all boats. Try to use the positive changes in your life to impart positive changes on her life. Invite her and involve her in the things that you are doing. And it might be a struggle to begin with. and you might have some arguments to begin with. But what she needs is momentum.

So help her build that momentum. You're not going to be able to do it for her, but you can create an environment where it's much more likely to occur and make it about the two of you. So I would do, you know, when it comes to conversations like this, I would talk about, you know, the parent that you want to be or what kind of parent you want to be for your two-year-old.

Do you want to be the active parent that can be there on the playground and exhaust yourself with your children and play, hide, and seek, or do whatever it is that they want to do, from a physical perspective? Or do you want to be the type of parent that has to sit there on the bench and fill the never-ending hole of cinnibone going into your mouth? Because you have an addiction to food and you have no longer the ability to play with your kid. I mean, you don't have to

use those extremes as an example, but talk about the type of parent you want to be. For me, over the years, it's been awesome because my kids are now, I mean, shit, I've got 18, 16, and 11. I still want to be able to do things with my kids well into the future, tens of years from now. And I understand what it's going to take for me to be able to do so. And that really helps me with that motivation and discipline when they are waning. So food for thought, I would try those things. They're sensitive subjects for sure. But I think at the end of the day, if you can be consistent and constant and have it come from a place of love, she'll thank you for it in the end. Because I, like I said, I just don't know anybody that lands in a place of being unhealthy.

that has happiness come with that. But the people that I know they're most physically active, man, they have a commensurate level of happiness as well. So there's got to be something there. Question three, then I'm going to get everybody off to their Christmas. Here we go. So I wanted to run a question by you in regards to service and mortality. I'm a 10-year law enforcement officer.

I've been through the same things all cops have. Dead people, dead babies, domestics, fights, people trying to kill me, drugs, et cetera, and everything in between. Right now, that sounds kind of weird, but it's the norm for us. I recently had another experience of someone trying to kill me and used a deadly force for the first time and hopefully the last time. In parentheses, he lived. I did shoot him. Since I have seen a therapist, but I have questioned how many more times I can dodge the bullet.

In parentheses, not die. And should I keep doing this? How do you handle that kind of questioning in your experience? It has affected my wife. She has had some anxiety and also sees a therapist, but we have kept it away from our kids. I have since been cleared and been back to work on the street. I'd appreciate some insight. Thank you.

This is a great question. And I thought about this one a lot. And I suspect a lot of people who work and operate in a tactical environment think about this at least from time to time. How long can I beat the craps table in Vegas and roll the dice? And I've been there in Vegas watching people roll these incredible string of numbers. And there is a number that eventually, if you extend the timeline and the enough rolls, will always come up. And that is seven. So how long can you keep doing this without rolling a seven?

And the answer is, nobody knows. But it's a very normal question, I believe, to ask yourself. Like I said, I used to ask myself quite a bit. In the SEAL community, there are shore billets and there are sea billets. And another way to think of that would be a deployable billet or a non-deployable billet. An example of that would be deployable would be any one of the West Coast SEAL teams, 1357. A non-deployable billet on the West Coast would be as a Buds instructor. and you can have a sea to shore rotation.

And I think it's actually very, very healthy to find that balance before you bump up against those odds or something catastrophic does happen. Because although the math is in your favor, statistically the odds are in your favor, just like they are in your favor of swimming in the ocean, statistically the odds of being eaten by a great white shark are incredibly, incredibly low. But that doesn't fucking help you when you are in the jaws of an hour. actual shark. You can sit there and yell all the time like, I, you know, it's a one in a four million chance as you're being drug under water and chewed into pieces, right? The odds don't matter when you

actually encounter this situation. So it's good that you've identified that. And there are some things that I think that you can do if you are spending too much time constantly worrying about the next or the what ifs or whether or not you can do this and keep coming home to your family. And the first one that I would recommend is find an ability, or not an ability, find a position inside of your career that allows you to detach from the work on the street for a little bit. Not forever, but I guarantee you, and I know nothing about your department, but I guarantee you there is going to be an opportunity for you to go into a training role for a little bit, or at least lateral from your current position, and maybe just change the landscape or the chess board that you are playing on, and you can reset the

odds in your favor. A lot of people who come from a tactical world, they hate the idea of going to an academic place and teaching instead of actually being out there on the street. And I totally, totally understand that. I was resistant to it as well before I became a Bud's instructor. And I look back on it as the single most rewarding portion of my 17 years in the military. It was not operational at all, but I think I did more to be able to impact the future of the SEAL community than anything that I ever did in an operational role. And you potentially could have that as well. And it's a very, very impactful thing. You know, change what you do for a living inside of the law enforcement career field. You know, if you're, I'm going to assume you are, I don't know the exact

terminology and I don't want it to, I don't want it to sound demeaning. But let's say you're doing shift work in a patrol car, which trust me, I have nothing but absolute respect for people. to do that. But if that's what you're doing now, man, lateral to a different position. I mean, just the people that I know here in Montana, they have a drug task force, they have undercover officers, they have school resource officers, they have crimes against children task force, they have detectives, they have so many different things that really could, it could change your trajectory and how often you may encounter somebody who's trying to take your life, but still allow you to be incredibly connected. All of those are just options. I don't think there's a wrong,

and I don't think there's a right. What I do think is right is that you're asking yourself this question. What I think would be wrong is if this question became overwhelming for you and you couldn't get past it. At that point, I would say, hey, you need like a mandatory sit down and take a time out because your head isn't dedicated towards where it should be, which is the execution of your job and getting home to your wife and kids. But explore more of what your career has to offer. And think about taking that experience that you have over 10 years and imparting that on others so that they can perform even better when they get into situations like the one you had to use deadly force in. So there's always light at the end of the tunnel. I think sometimes what happens is the tunnel

turns a little bit and everybody thinks it's always just straight ahead. So you may need to navigate a little bit, but I have no doubt that you would be able to do so, still have a huge impact and do the things that you love because you could always come back to it as well. So keep that in mind. And that is it. Hope everybody has an amazing holidays. See you all on my. 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 could 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.