Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Parenting, Progress, and Hunting Monsters

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

xNormal Friday programming today, some real-world challenges submitted by listeners. 1.  A father reflects on losing his cool with his kids in a chaotic Costco moment and seeks advice on managing stress and anger under pressure.  2. A jiu-jitsu practitioner questions his skill level and gym promotion practices—wondering if he's ahead of the curve or just a product of attendance-based promotions. 3. A young federal law enforcement officer opens up about the mental toll of confronting humanity's worst while grappling with the decision to start a family

What's going on, everybody? We find ourselves again on Friday. So let's do some Q&A. Straightforward programming for today. Questions followed by answers from an idiot. Maybe that would be a better Friday name for this segment. Who knows? Let's go. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. All right, again, so I've tried to pick some different categories, not trying to till the same dirt over and over a again. And I actually know before I even get into answering the emails, thank you to everybody who continues to reach out. It's actually really humbling that people, A, would even care what I think or B, take the time to send in questions that they have. And I hope that the advice that I give, well, first off, I hope people recognize that I'm just, I can only speak through the lens of my own

experience in my own life. So I don't speak for anybody else. I don't speak for any other community. I try to be very open and honest about the multiple failures I've had in my life and the limited successes that I have had. But it is humbling that people take the time to reach out. So I hope that the answer is in some way, shape, or form help, I would imagine, or I would say first the person who reached out, but then anybody else who might actually be dealing with the peripheral situation in their life as well. Here we go. With that, I've listened to you and Jocko for many years now. I know the principles of ownership and had a moment with my kids that I'm not proud of. Well, sir, welcome aboard. Guess who else has had some experiences like that? Yeah, me. My young kids and I

were out shopping on a busy Saturday morning at Costco. I'm going to stop you right there, sir. I am not religious, not because I have anything against religion. I've said this many times and probably will continue to do so. It just hasn't landed with me. And maybe that means it's not my time. And I'm very thankful that people can be so devout in their faith. And oftentimes I'm envious. So the faith that they have, the ability they have to believe that deeply. I don't know what hell looks like. But I think it would be a combination of seven-year-olds playing soccer or Costco on a Saturday morning. Again, this is a hypothesis.

But both of those situations are some of the most brutal that I've ever had to live through. And I would say don't go to Costco on a Saturday or a Sunday because, fuck that. There's one not far from where I live. And I just don't want to be around that many people. It is insane. The number of people that can be drawn. on into a Costco. I don't know if they put something into the air or the little snacks that they give out on the ends of the rows. But man, what a challenging environment. Hell on earth. So yeah,

you're out on a busy Saturday morning at Costco slash hell. It was a stressful cluster fuck of a situation. Huh, no kidding. I was sleep deprived and in the heat of the moment snapped on my kids for not listening. For clarity, they were being amazing for their ages. They just couldn't understand what I needed them to do, which is 100% my fault. After we got out to the car, I made sure to apologize for my mistakes and praise them for being awesome. I find myself overwhelmed and stressed out, especially when I've had little to no sleep. I lose my shit and revert to anger, and I don't want to continue being that asshole dad. My kids are my life, and they deserve a dad who can keep his cool when he's had no sleep.

It's weird because under other types of high-stress situations, traffic accidents, medical emergencies, etc., I thrive in them. I'm calm. I'm in control, and I can't. take command when required. But when sleep is sub five hours, I become Gunny Hartman. I'm going to have to look up who that is. What TTPs, and for the listener, that means tactic, technique, or procedures, have you seen work for guys that learned that way under similar circumstances? So I'm going to guess that you are in the EMS first responder world, it's because of the situations you described, and you said you can take command when required. So you're dealing with those, it seems regularly. I'm going to assume that's occupational, not somebody who has the worst luck ever.

and consistently stumbled upon these things. And I bring that up because you've been trained, how to operate in that environment. You've probably been through many courses, through many educational systems, through screening processes, professional development. And that's why you can respond in that way. And I wish there were courses like that for parenting,

because I would sign up for them and I would take them. My children are older now. I understand how a calendar works, but somehow my oldest son, Riley, turns 21, one week after this episode is going to be coming out. And I cannot believe it. Every time I look at him, I literally just left the coffee shop and I saw him there. And I see there's a picture I have of him when we lived in Virginia Beach and it was raining outside. And the only thing he was wearing were mud boots that because he was so tiny were well over his knee.

and he just decided to go play in the rain in the nude. That's the kid that I see every time I look at him. And I don't know if that will ever change. And somehow he's 21. Like, what the fuck? In between him being 21 and those mud boots, I wish I had courses on parenting, on keeping my cool,

on knowing what to do when confronted with unknowns, with situations that you don't know how to deal with when you are sleep deprived or you're hungry or stressed or the combination of all three of those things. And it doesn't exist, to my knowledge, maybe somebody could create that course. Again, I would highly, if somebody can create that course, reach out to me. I'll have you on the show and we can push as many people towards that as possible. But objectively, when I look back at my parenting, I hope I did a good job. I hope I made the right call more times than I made the wrong. I hope I had more successes than I did failures. And that's for somebody else to judge.

Most days I feel like I was holding on with my fingernails sliding down the face of Everest that was covered over in ice, just trying to hold where I was. But I digress. If your professional career is in the, I'll call it first responder EMS world, think about all the training you've had. That probably has something to do with why you behave the way you do in those environments. I think we can agree that there's really no course for parenting, but I think, You have already in your email identified one of the key triggers. So you need to go onto a journey of self-education. The trigger.

And I'll read your sentence. They deserve a dad who can keep his cool when he's had no sleep. Sub five hours, you become Gunny Hartman. Okay. You have identified one of the main triggers that causes you to lose your shit like that. the subpar sleep or less sleep than you need, that is real. It seems like the younger you are, the better you can deal with that. As you get older, man, sleep is a weapon.

It's a superpower if you can get eight and a half hours of sleep, seven and a half hours of sleep. Not everybody can do that, obviously. So I would, my advice, when you, when I look at the, these situations, and I view this through the lens of my own situations with my kids, mistakes and failures are going to happen to everybody. Anybody who thinks you're going to live your life without those things, you're not, you don't have an understanding of what life actually is. They're going to happen. My goal is to have them happen as infrequently as possible and to not repeat them as often as possible. The only way you can do that is to take a situation

like this and reverse engineer it. Why did this happen, right? The what? We already know what happen, but let's focus on the why. You do that by being objective. What led to this? You've identified what led to this for you and what leads you to be in this situation often. That is your sub five hours of sleep. My advice to you would be is this. You have identified that as likely the main trigger for you or the main environment that you will find yourself in for you to lash out. So in any day that you are going to find yourself, or you do find yourself in that sub five-hour sleep or around that area, the first thing that you need to do is be hyper-aware of the fact

that you are going to be a little bit more on edge or more likely to have an outburst like that. And even though I was joking at the beginning of this, going to Costco on a Saturday morning is, in fact, hell on earth. But if you went there knowing it was going to be stressful and knowing that you got less than five hours of sleep, you are loading up a situation, you're levering things in the direction towards an explosion.

I'm going to assume that you don't often find yourself with sub five hours of sleep. So when you do be acutely aware of who you are and how you react in that environment and put yourself into a situation where you're much more likely to succeed. Reduce stress on those days. Dude, go to Costco on Sunday or go to Costco on Monday. Now, I realize life happens and maybe Saturday was more optimal for you to go because perhaps Sunday you were going to be busy. But if you force it on a day where you're in this headspace and you have an outburst with

your kids and you feel horrible about it afterwards, was it worth it to force it? Would it be better for you to reschedule, to reorient your calendar to allow you to do it on a day where you're in a better mental headspace? And my answer to that for me is yes. So when I have days that, and we all have days where I either sleep like shit or I'm stressed out, I'll have a conversation with myself in the morning, a literal conversation. And if I'm at a place where I recognize that I am not in an emotional state, to make good decisions, I will literally tell myself, I am not making any decisions today.

If a business decision comes up that needs to be made, I will delay it. I will push it until I am in a better headspace. Now, there's obviously a crisis, right? A metaphorical building is on fire. You need to get some water on top of that. Anything other than that, I am pushing off. I'm pushing it off because I'm not the best version of myself. I know that I am not in a place where I am thinking clearly. I'm not thinking objectively. I'm not emotionally stable. And those three things that I just described

are not characteristics of somebody that I want to be making decisions that impact other people's lives. So I wouldn't do it. I think it's an amazing thing that you identified how you were behaving and you brought it up to your kids and you apologized to them.

There's so many people I know that are unwilling to apologize to their children and it's just bizarre to me. Again, this idea that can be perfect somehow with a parent. Avoid the stress. If you have to go on those days and you're feeling this way, I would say, I'm going to assume you're still married, young kids.

I would say talk to your spouse. If Costco has to be done, again, there's some options. I would say, talk to your spouse and go by yourself. Talk to your spouse, you stay at home and watch the kids and she goes by herself. Again, could that be more stressful for either of you or less convenient? Yes, but do you want to feel like shit for exploding on your kids? I don't think anybody really wants to. So start thinking outside of the box based on identifying and recognizing what type of person you're going to be with that limited sleep. Don't look for stress. Don't try to swim upstream on those days. I'm not saying swim downstream, but maybe just try to tread water and stay where you're at. Not every day you're capable of being the best version of yourself.

So don't try to be. And that's the best advice. Reverse engineer and identify what is causing these things. You've already done that. So now when you identify it, put a plan of action in place to prevent having these outbursts with your kids. My number one piece of advice would be manage and structure your day when it comes to exposure to stress. And look at the things you actually have to do versus the things that you could put off until you are in a better environment to be the better version of yourself. So hopefully that helps. All right. This email was

hilarious. I think it said apologies for my drunk emails. If you haven't, don't go back and read them. I tend to think I'm funnier than I am and that everyone is my friend when I'm hammered. That's pretty much how being hammered works for most people. I heard you are a fresh black belt. So I have a jih Tzu question because you obviously now are an expert sensei. I am a fresh blackbelt and I'm not an expert sensei. I was just hunting with Tim Kennedy and he wants me to come teach a class at his school for an event we're going to do. I think it's in March for Black Rifle Coffee. I'll talk more about that when we have details. And I told him I'm not a coach. And I've never taught a class. And I don't think I know enough to teach a class. And I don't feel comfortable

coaching somebody, regardless of the color of the belt around my waist. It's, I understand that the belt means, it means something to me. And I understand it means something to other people. But coaching and teaching is just not something that I feel comfortable doing in that particular endeavor, maybe one day. But yeah, so I'm not an expert sensei at all. I've been at my gym for a little over four years and I am a three-stripe blue belt. For anybody who doesn't understand jiu-jitsu, it goes white, blue, purple, brown, black. Some schools do stripes. It's usually four stripes per belt. So you'll get a white belt and then there's a black bar on your belt itself and you'll get one, two, three, four after the fourth stripe, you're likely getting close to the next belt. So three stripes on a blue belt means he would have one more stripe.

to go and then he'd be knocking on the door of a purple belt. The gym promotions are about 85 to 90% based off attendance. Some folks are delayed for not showing commitment. Reasonable, this has caused me to doubt my belt and skill level. Most of the time, I come out on top in the rolls, even against our higher level purple belts and our brown belts. I see this as due to two options. One, I'm fucking awesome and should go teach seminars. I like where your heads out. Two, we are all promoted too early based off of attendance. So my question is, how should I go about rectifying my doubts? Thanks for any advice. I'm going to throw a third option in here. And this is again a hypothesis because I know nothing about you. I don't know how old you are. I don't know your athletic background. But attributes and weight play a huge role in this. So your high level purple belts and brown belts. Jiu-jitsu is amazing. Angles, leverage, weight distribution, but it's not magic. If you take a D-1 wrestler who has never done a day of Jiu-jitsu,

and throw him into an average open mat. He is going to fuck start most people on that mat, regardless of their belt level, because grappling and experience grappling is real. And athleticism, time in the sport, age, weight, that's all real too. So I'd be curious, when you say high-level purple belts in brown belts, are they the same age? Are they the same weight? Did they have the same type of athletic background? And here's where I would caution you. the outcome of your roles with other people can be telling of your progression, but it might have more to do with your mentality on the mat, your aggressiveness, are your partners not interested as going as hard and as fast as you are?

Do you have a more athletic background? Are you younger than them? And hopefully you're hearing what, I'm putting into this. There's so many variables that I would caution you against rating your belt progression based off of the outcome of the roles you have with upper belts. It is very real for upper belts to allow lower belts to work. And I'm not saying that's the case here. But it's also very real for upper belts to not really put in the same level of effort in a role as a lower belt and not fight for things because you're kind of exhausted for fighting for things sometimes. And that's not

always the case. And I'm not saying that's what's happening here. But let's just look at every possibility or many more possibilities other than just the outcome and why the outcome might be that way. To me, here's an example. I've used this before. We have a physician who trains jihitsu at the gym I train at. He is a black belt. He is a black belt. He is, 172 years old, it seems like. And competitive blue belts will give him a run for his money. And does that mean he is not a black belt? Fuck no. It doesn't mean he's not a black belt. The man I'm talking about, his journey is himself pitted against him, his former self. Obviously, you have to have an understanding of technical knowledge, the experience, knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu, all of

those things. Like there is a commensurate amount of knowledge that comes with the belts as you progress. But how can you compare maybe a young individual who wants to be competitive in Jiu-Jitsu with a hobbyist who is in their mid-60s in a totally different phase in their life? They're a professional, and they're there for physical conditioning and mental focus and health. Does the outcome of the role matter? If the blue belt can beat the black belt that's three times their age, does that mean that the blue belt should be the black belt? No. It doesn't mean, you know, you beat the guy, he's not going to take his belt off and tie it around your waist because it doesn't mean shit. But the blue belt needs to continue and learn. And one of the best

questions I've heard coaches ask is, you know, think about yourself six months ago, who would win? The answer should be the current version of yourself would be the version of yourself from six months ago. That's actually all that matters. The school that I go to, the belt progression is not based off of attendance, but I have heard of schools where it is. And I am not somebody who's going to try to judge one versus the other because I only have experience based off one methodology, which is not it's like, it's not anti-attendance. Obviously, you'd have to attend to be there for the coach to see your progression and learn all the things, but it is not highly based off of attendance. so I have no metric back and forth.

Some people should be delayed for not showing commitment. What I would focus on instead of anybody else's attendance is your own. And I also would go have a conversation with your coach. And this is something else I didn't realize either. There are schools where coaches are far less approachable. My wife Leah was telling me at a lot of traditional schools, it's actually poor form or not allowed for a lower belt to ask a black belt, role, which is not the case at the gym that I train at, so that was surprising for me to hear.

There's a lot of etiquette, depending on where you go, up to in, including maybe approaching your coach and having a conversation. Your coaches are people. They're paying attention to you, probably more than you realize and recognize that they are. Go talk to them. And the only advice I'll give you in this conversation is do not phrase it in any way, shape, or form as if you are hunting for your next belt. What I would say is approach your coach and ask them for specific feedback on what they would like to see you working on and then do exactly what they tell you. Don't worry about anybody else's attendance. Worry about your attendance. Focus on what they tell you to do. Don't do any more than what they tell you to do. This is a mistake I think people make.

When it comes to learning, my theory on learning has been this. If a coach tells me to do something, I'm going to do exactly what they say. If they say, put your hand here, I'm going to put my hand there until I have mastered that particular movement. And then maybe farther down the road after putting into practice, and it's a point where it's a muscle memory engrayment, maybe then I'll look at some little ancillary branches on a tree that may come out of that. I see so many people who are given foundational advice. And then what they do is they cork off into space and they're looking for these ancillary branches. things, but I want to go see this on YouTube and 16 moves from what you just show me this is possible,

but they can never get to that because they didn't master the fundamental move that it begins with. Be a good student. Do what your coach tells you to do and know more until you are at a place where you have mastered the fundamentals, and from there you can start handing branches to your tree. It's cool that you're coming out on top on high-level purple belts and brown belts. but again, who really gives a shit, right? Your journey is your journey. And if that is happening, let me tell you right now,

if you're beating high-level purple belts and brown belts and it's a mix of attendance and performance, your coach sees it. They recognize it. And I'll tell you this. A lot of people have told me, I got my black belt too fast. And I mean, I'm not going to argue with them.

I didn't ask for it. I didn't, I didn't proposition for it. I just showed up to class and I trained. But my coach's coach, we were talking about being a black belt. And he said, essentially paraphrasing a little bit, I hope you enjoyed all the other belts along the way. And I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, well, you're never getting another belt. So enjoy the one you have.

I was thinking about it's like, son of a bitch. Everybody is on this journey, not everybody. A lot of people are on this journey to work their way through. the color belts as fast as possible so you can get a black belt. And the reality is, the color belts are the most fun because there's less expectation. You have way more room to just experiment and kind of do whatever the fuck you want to do. Like as a blue belt, dude, nobody really, nobody's expecting you to win ADCC, right? Like, go out there and fuck around and see what you like. Do you want to be a guard player? Do you like half guard? Do you like

pass it? I mean, work on whatever your game is. And as the belts get higher in the belt tree, the expectations are generally a little bit higher, the pressure is a little bit higher, people expect more from you, and it can be less fun if you let it. So don't worry about the time. Enjoy the journey along the way. Because when you get to your black belt, that's it, man. That's all you got. And there's going to be some pressure associated with that. And I mean, I'm not talking about it negatively. It is what it is. But enjoy the journey along the way. That's the advice that I have for you. Go talk to your coach. Ask for advice on what you should work on. and just really dial that in.

And I'm telling you, before you know it, especially if you are in, if you're an attendance-based school, if you're doing this reaching out to your coach and going to as many classes as possible, you're going to have a great balance of performance and attendance. So that next colorful belt will be around your waist one day. And then you'll have the crushing realization that it comes with no additional powers, abilities, knowledge, experience.

Yeah. you're just you with a different color fabric. So enjoy the journey. Last question. Shit, this one's longer than I thought. Here we go. Currently 25 years old, I've been working my dream job in federal law enforcement for three years. I have an amazing family who always supports me, the best friend group one could ask for, and a great girlfriend who, for some reason puts up with my bullshit on a daily basis. In general, I'm a very happy and positive person. Recently in my job, I joined a specialized unit who is tasked with tracking down and prosecuting the worst that humanity has to offer. The cases that I typically investigate involve child predators, which you and I share very similar ideals on how they should be handled, violent killers, and school slash mass shooters. My job not only includes investigating these individuals, but also researching their ideologies and attempting to find out why they do what they do. Fuck, that seems gnarly. You are waiting through the trash every single day. These tasks both involve taking a deep dive into the lives of these monsters, a job that I would not wish upon my worst enemy.

Whether it is interviewing the actors themselves, searching their homes, or reviewing their cell phones and electronic devices for criminal and explicit content, I often find myself face to face with some of the most horrible things that you could ever imagine. I am one who usually tries to see the best in everything and truly believes that most people are generally good in nature. But continuing to see this pure evil day in and day out has caused me to really start to question my faith in humanity, as well as the genuine good that I have always perceived to be present. getting near a time in my life where I hope to one day bring kids into the world, it terrifies me to know that this evil is out there and that no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to stop it. My questions to you are, as someone who worked in a public service and has faced a similar evil on the battlefield, how do you remain positive while facing these environments? Is there anything specific that motivated you during your time in the military to keep pushing forward against evil? and how did you handle having children during the same time that you encountered all of this? I absolutely love my job and consider myself a lucky man to be able to make a difference in the lives of others while getting paid to do it.

I can never see myself doing anything else, but I also don't want to end up later down the road one day being that burnt out negative guy that we have all known in these fields of work. Any insight you may have would be greatly appreciated. P.S. I stopped by the coffee shop a few months ago and I absolutely loved it. thank you for all the energy and effort you put into making the place as great as it is. It is a perfect addition of northwestern Montana. I agree, sir. You have amazing, in impeccable taste. I would love to drop off a patch from my unit the next time I'm town.

I would love to have it. Yeah, if you haven't come to see in the coffee shop, I don't know what to tell you. It's fucking amazing. It's 5,000 feet of awesomeness. Getting ready to throw up another elk on the wall from my Wyoming hunt last year. I'm going to put up Leah's antelope near the axes. That's right. We have axes in our coffee shop.

I'm not even going to bother explaining how that ties together. But I digress. How do you get into this? Okay, my questions to you. As someone who worked in a public service in his face a similar evil on the battlefield, how did you remain positive while facing these environments? Objectively, I'm not sure I did.

I am not sure that I always maintained even a semblance of positivity. If you immerse yourself, and I'm going to use the term evil, If you immerse yourself in evil, I completely understand how you can lose your faith in humanity and think that evil is the only thing that is out there. You can lose yourself in the bottom of the well and forget that the vast, vast, vast majority of people would never be found down there and they would be disgusted by the type of people that live in the bottom of the well. But if it's all you touch, it can color outside of the lines of what you think reality is. I don't know if I remained positive.

I remained motivated and kept my desire to do what we were doing because I loved smashing those motherfuckers. I don't know if it is possible to completely remove evil from the world that we live in. But it is possible to confront it and do something about it every time you encounter it. And that is how I think it is kept in check. It's not a perfect system, and it is unfair to the people that either choose or find themselves in that situation to confront it. But in doing so, you keep the vast majority of people on earth away from that level of evil. And from somebody who, I'm going to make an assumption here, I'll make a guess,

from somebody who has looked at this world and is living in this world, I bet that there is nothing that you wouldn't do inside the boundaries of the legal system, obviously, to keep other people from dealing with this. You are a barrier and a buffer between what you're finding in the bottom of that well and the rest of the people who live and thrive off of what they get out of the wall, from the top of it, not the bottom. I lived in a world where we got to take these fuckers off the chessboard, not in handcuffs, not in the way that you are limited in doing. And I had no interest in interviewing them. And it's also hard to interview somebody who the inside of their brain is on the outside of their head, which is the way I prefer it for people who are evil. But that's what kept me going, knowing that we were doing the best we can. If you look at, okay, so let's say evil is behind a dam and there are spouts of water coming out. At the very least, I was able to plug a hole here and a plug a hole there. Is it a permanent solution? No.

Should we always be working on building a better dam? And yes, we should always be doing those things. But that is what got me up, knowing that we had the ability to do that. Very few people have any interest in diving down to the depths that you are living every single day. But at least there are people out there like you who are willing to do that, who can plug the holes long enough that hopefully we could either in your situation, you could stop something in the future, investigate, learn something about these people, put a system in place, whatever it may be to find a more efficient way to plug some more of those holes. So I wish I could say that I remain positive while being in those environments, but I think a lot of the time I was motivated by hatred, hatred by the people who are willing to do those type of things to innocent people and my desire to fucking end them.

How did you handle having children during the same time that you encountered all this? It was not easy. And it's not easier after because those people are still out there, and I no longer have the ability to do anything about it. But, well, lets me sleep at night is the community that I left is constantly evolving. And it is full of people that are more capable and competent than me in every way than I ever was. They are orders of magnitude better at doing the job than I ever was. And they're out there constantly looking for these people. And I know there's people like you, or even at the local level, friends with a lot of local law enforcement.

And I know that they're out there. And I have seen how they become jaded because they're dealing with people on their worst days. And they forget, you know, their repeat customer, my term not theirs, rate is 60 to 70 percent. They're dealing with the same people with the same shit. How could you not get jaded? And one of the best ways I have seen for myself, but not only for those people, you mentioned you have a great friend group. That's awesome. Make sure that you have a friend group completely detached from what you do. If you find yourself in your off time talking about what you do on your on time with the same people, I'm not saying it's a horrible thing. I'm not saying you need to run out with your hair on fire into the street. But just be aware that you are, you're living in a churn where there is no work-life balance.

You have a work-work balance. And I think that can be dangerous. Find a social circle that has nothing to do with what you do for a living and pay a attention to who they are. I bet you they're bright, happy, healthy, meaningful people. And that's the vast majority of humans on Earth, even though you are spending your professional time sifting through the detritus and trash. So balance that with what you see in your social circle away from work with what you see on the job. Statistically, you are dealing with the anomaly. And that's easy to forget when you're constantly cannonballing into the job. that pool. My kids motivated me even more because I wanted to do as much as I could. My biggest fear

is that they would have to finish what I started. And I suspect that probably holds true for you as well if you have kids or are going to have kids. You don't want them to ever deal with this. And so it can be an inextinguishable fire of motivation underneath you to make sure that not only your kids don't have to deal with this shit, but nobody else's due as well. You know, the negativity, the burnt out guy, the negative guy, find things to do, find outlets outside of work. Be proactive in talking to mental health professionals. Don't wait until you're having issues. Take your car in and look under the hood before the warning lights start coming on on the dashboard. Mental health, be proactive. It's not a sign of weakness to ask for help. It's probably the most immense sign of

strength. Men are conditioned for whatever reasons not to do it. Don't be that guy. Reach out early, reach out often, and just take the car in and have somebody who's a professional looking under the hood. Take a look under the hood. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask for a break if you need it. And hopefully all of that made at least a little bit of sense. That's my advice. And hopefully it helps. And thank you for what you do. And if you ever need somebody, like we can do like 1099. You know, I don't need to be a W2 employee. But if you ever need someone to skin one of these fuckers alive with a potato peeler, I mean, I know a guy.

So reach out. Yeah, I'll put you in touch with them. That's all I have for Friday.