Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Sam Mackey - The (Almost) Record Setting Navy SEAL Sniper

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Sam Mackey retired from the U.S. Navy with over 20 years of service in SEAL Teams, having served first as a Sniper at SEAL Team Eight before pivoting to SEAL Team Four. During his career he deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Uganda, Cameroon, and more. He's NEARLY a record-holder, having taken a shot at the title (literally) with a particularly long-distance engagement during his time in Afghanistan. Today, he's the CEO and Co-Owner of Outsider, a high-quality outdoor lifestyle brand that's encouraging people to get outside, be bold, and live free. Outsider Drinkware: https://shop.outsider.com/ Wolf 21- Check out what they have to offer for the best sleep of your life: https://www.thewolf21.com Use Code: "clearedhot" for 30% off of your 1st order The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

Good morning, everybody, and welcome back. Today's episode is brought to you by black rifle coffee.com. Let's go to their website right now. I think last week's episode, I was telling you about the Father's Day Code, and it might have expired by the time I got there. So right now, though, we're current. And it looks like you can out add the rounds, which if you're not familiar with that, it is pretty much the stuff that you're going to find in a lot of hotels.

It's the ready to go. You plug it in there, some water, and boom, you're good to go. So you can add those to your. coffee club subscription as well. If you scroll down, you can go through and spend as much time as you want on the types of coffee they have from light to dark, and you could put those in your subscription. Apparel gear, coffee bundles, and coffee samplers. Now, I always make a point of talking about the coffee sampler because it's been the best gateway for me to expose new people to the brand. And the bundles are cool once you figure out what it is that you like, because you can combine those things, and you're off and running.

black rifle coffee.com it's an amazing brand founded by amazing people that continue to get back to the veteran community and that's why I love them so much in addition to the fact they make damn good coffee

my guest today is Sam Mackey I put Sam through buds and have absolutely no recollection of it he does remember it though and he had a pretty comical story about it

so obviously if I put him through buds he comes from the seal community he's out now did his 20 years He talks all about his career, so I'll leave that to him. And is now the CEO of outsider drinkwear. And we talk about it and how we reconnected actually through that product that we sell to coffee shop. And I'll put a link in the show notes so you can check it out if you want to.

It's very cool. They're some of the best sellers in the store. And I think it's because, one, the technology is cool, but two, we laser etch them and engrave them. So they are unique to the coffee shop, a little bit of a souvenir action. So enough of me run on my mouth. Let's let Sam speak for himself. episode number 241 with Sam Mackey. Enjoy. Let the run smoke.

To the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, one a minute. When was the last time we saw each other? Probably 2006-ish. Maybe. What were we doing? You were a second phase instructor.

Oh, fuck. I apologize for my behavior. Oh, no. What class were you? 266. 266. Okay. So we lost our last officer.

and pool comp. But right before pool comp, you were beating all of us and you let everyone go. Hold on. That's not the correct term. Shit, what do we call it now? Remediating you guys for a failure that I don't remember, but certainly was legitimate.

It felt a lot like we're getting our shit pushed in. What did I have you doing? I don't know. You let the whole class go, but you kept back the OIC and I because I was his swim buddy. Yeah. And then you beat us for, I don't know, 30 minutes. Then you looked at me.

He said, Sam, or Mackey, you might just fucking make it. Beat it. Recover. I got up and ran away. For clarity, Michael, I have no recollection. We saw hundreds of students. I don't remember you as a student. But I distinctly remember some of my instructors.

And not a single one of them has ever been like, oh, yeah, I totally remember you. But I was in the third phase when an instructor came up to me and said, are you part of this class? I was like, fuck you. Nailed it. I ran into Bobby Holland not too long ago. He was our in-doc proctor. And I know it's not in-doc anymore. Is it P-T-R-R?

No. So it was P-T-R-R, I think, and then it was in-doc, and now it's Bo? Boads orientation. I believe. I could be wrong. In classic military form, I bet they do exactly the same things. Exact same thing. I mean...

Like when I went through, it was surf torture. When you went through, it was surf. conditioning. Oh, is that what it was? Yeah. The activity is exactly the same. The only thing they changed is the name. I mean, why? Why does this happen? It's just get wrapped up in the bureaucracy. I was never involved in those conversations. My suspicion would be, I mean, so the Seale community, let's say it's 2,000 people. Michael, can you look up how many people are in the U.S. Navy? I bet it's less than, it's a fraction of a percentage point of people in the Navy. Yeah. But we still answer, meaning we, the community,

still answers to the big Navy. My suspicion is that the vernacular changed because they have to get... Okay, yeah. So, holy shit. Michael, what, so... Look at all those officers just... I know, it should be doubled, right? Yeah.

Michael, what would be 2,000 percentage-wise out of the 328,000? What would that be? Let me look. Because that's the size of the active... Well, that's the size that they were... shooting to have it be right it's less than a percent oh it's way less than a percent it's going to be a fraction of a percent but i was over there speaking of naval spasher war here did you see the what is it point six point six percent hmm good numbers yeah well so the doctrine

and the paperwork i bet you has to be still approved all the way up oh i'm sure so if point six percent of the people are actually experiencing it 99.4 percent of the people have no idea what the fuck it means and they probably don't like seeing torture on a document. Yep. That's my guess. Did you see the, I'm going to call it a post, I don't even know what it was, that came out last week for Pride Week for NSW? I did.

That's getting a little negative attention in the community. Does Naval Special Warfare need to have a social media presence? No. I would agree. Because if they didn't, they wouldn't have to worry about that particular social mindfield. And I don't know what is, I don't know what they gain by having it.

Because, and I've never looked at it. I'm full clearly before I start talking shit about something I know nothing about. I like to do it a lot. Yeah. Never once have looked. Michael, God, I'm glad you're here. Not because you do your job well, but because you have access to that computer. Can you pull up, let's, what do you think is on this Navy SEAL Instagram page? because I've never looked at it

nor have I but I want to now because it'll lead to my suspicion and my suspicion is not a single goddamn person has ever joined because of the social media because there's so many other people who have either gotten out or people who are in who have

their pages who are going to be putting out their experience as opposed to like a polished overall naval special warfare probably went through eight different approval filters before posts go out or TV and video and movies and all that shit. I would assume, once again, I've never looked at this page, but it has to be a recruiting tool. So it's everything sexy that someone might want to see. I bet it's not even that sexy.

They don't even show people picking up brass or taking out the trash or pulling weeds out in front of the team. Michael, it'll probably just be just be Naval Special Warfare. Okay, that's why I had to look up. What did you look up originally? Navy sale Instagram. Oh, that's going to net you some gnarly ones. Okay, let's see what we got here. So I thought they might go the memorial route, you know, have pictures of, you know, dead guys, but that's a little... No, yeah, okay. A flag. We got a two-star chatting.

This is kind of what I thought it would be. Yeah. And I could, I mean... I met Tommy Norris a couple weeks ago. Yeah. He's a cool cat. Keep going down, Michael. Let's see what we got here.

I mean, there's a little bit. So a guy exiting an aircraft, some winter training stuff. Okay. Okay. This, this to me, in my opinion, and all that counts for, is in line with what my uneducated opinion is, which is nobody's probably joined the SEAL community because of something like this. No. Because of this page. So it does give the community, though, a great opportunity to step all over their crank, which is.

Right? It really gives you the opportunity to just fuck right up. So why'd you join the Navy? Charlie Sheen, of course. Me too. Dead serious. Yeah, I was joking. No, I'm 100% serious.

I did see that early. Man, I had a conversation with my dad. I still remember the conversation. And so he was in Vietnam. He was on the Mark I's, you know, where we worked on the Mark Vs, which I'm sure they're at Mark, whatever it is now. his experience in the Navy wasn't great. He was in the Brownwater Navy, so he was an insertion or extraction platform for seal.

So the first time I ever heard the term, it was from my dad. And it just was like this insatiable curiosity and desire once I started figuring out what it was. And I don't know why, because people always ask me that, well, what was it about it? And, you know, at 11, I couldn't tell you. And at 46, I still struggle. But probably something to do with, it was clearly difficult. I was like, okay, that's interesting. clearly the odds weren't in my favor,

which was also interesting and motivating to me, which is not for a lot of people. Their exclusivity of it, and let's be honest, it just fucking sounded cool. Yeah, grip and rip that thing. It's water. That's a hose water from Montana. Can you tell them?

It tastes like freedom. You're living pretty free around here. I mean, I saw... In the whole, like, 30 minutes you've been here? I got here yesterday. I did some exploring. I saw an El Camino with bucket seats bolted. in the back. No helmet laws, weed dispensaries, casinos in every gas station and a restaurant.

I mean, it's like, this is like lap belt country. You know what I mean? Like 96. You're living free. On Fridays, they do a, have you experienced this, Michael, the Callis Bell cruise, which I don't know how, I don't know how to describe it without talking about it in terms that people would think I'm being very negative. It's on the, if there was a teeter-totter or a scale, it's on the redneck side of the scale? I can get down with that. I saw this, I'm going to assume this truck was lifted 24 inches. And in the bed of the truck was somebody sitting on a motorcycle as if they were riding it, but just facing the wrong direction. And I don't know if it was strapped in, but they were like burning rubber. I'm sitting here looking at this. I was just about to ask if it was

on the motorcycle. I don't know. Okay. Because all, I just wanted to not be near it for when the person either hit the brakes or gassed it and they came tumbling off that thing. It was like five feet up in the air. So yeah, I guess if there's freedom to be had, then It is what it is. This convention on Fridays doesn't have a safety officer, I take it. They do burnouts directly in front of the police station. I'm telling you, you're living free around here. It's a good look.

I think sometimes the cops will flash the lights, but it seems like it's just a main street that kind of come back and forth. What is the origin of it, Michael? Do you know what it's all about? I think it was from COVID when everything was shut down. People were kind of trying to protest a bit. And so by driving around in their cars with their masks, Yeah, yeah, going down Main Street. Just ripping Mainers.

Yeah. Yeah. So Friday, that's what happens in the evening. Every Friday. In the summer. Yeah. Winter time, CalSpel Cruise participation decreases, it seems like a little bit. I can see that.

Yeah. So, yeah, the social posts for the spec warfare, I don't think there's anything to be gained, but I think there's a lot that could potentially be lost. So I just have some, you know, know, information from a buddy that's still in, and that post came out. He's like, hey, did you see this? And then I believe it was the Commodore of Group 1, right? Or Warcom, whatever it is out there, sent out a, appear to be a text message. I got it in the form of text messages and it lined up,

so I don't think it was an email, transferred over to text message. And it was a justification statement, essentially. I think I saw it, too. There's a signal group where it probably got, it may have been ripped from that or like cut and paste it from them. thoughts on the explanation? I just thought it was interesting that if you make a decision and then immediately feel like you have to justify it to 2,000 people, especially putting it in your position authority, you might regret your decision. It might be backpedaling a little bit. I also don't know if there's a way to make a decision in the SEAL community that's going to make everybody happy. There's no way.

Yeah, it is. Besides, you can grow your hair out and not shave your beard. Even that was contentious. Dude, early on, people were just like, that's ridiculous. Why would you do that? You're undisciplined pieces of shit. Now, however, yes, that is true sometimes, but it had nothing to do with the haircuts and beard.

That was long before that came into effect. There's no way in that community to actually say or do anything that's going to please everybody. Not a chance. But I don't know, I don't know the value of that particular post for the community. Like, was it net positive? net negative. I would assume that's a negative question, right?

And then who do you, who do you cater towards the support? Because it was the message I ran was clearly like, hey, we're catering towards our support personnel. Same one I read as well. And so, but their orders say, you know, so-and-so, seal team eight support and the other or seal team three, whatever, you know, and everyone else's order say seal team eight if you're a trite and where. So I think we should put emphasis, or not that my fucking opinion matters anymore, put

emphasis on the Trident Wairs because everyone else is in a support position. That's my thought. I can understand that train of thought and at the same time, the SEAL teams wouldn't be able to do shit without the support personnel. And I'm not justifying the Commodore's statement. I'm saying I think he exists in a tenuous balance. And he maybe should have shopped that idea around a little bit more. Not that I, here's what I also bet, that the Commodore doesn't have the login to the Instagram post.

Nope. I bet it was, well, I was about to say I bet that the idea was at least pitched to him beforehand. Oh, it was the PAO office at Warcom. Yeah, I'm trying to think, like, what are the odds that it actually was? It certainly hit his desk after. Yes, sir. Yeah, who knows?

Who knows how involved he was up to that? I don't know. So Charlie Sheen, huh? Yeah. Yeah, I saw that movie, I was saying, in the fourth grade-ish. It's a good time for a man to see that movie. Yeah. That's what I thought.

And then I always stuck with me. I was boxing the whole time. My whole childhood I boxed, I wanted to be a professional boxer. Then I got in a lot of trouble and ended up in juvenile hall. And then on probation, then I joined the Navy to end my probation. I figured, shit, if I'm joining the Navy, might as well go be a seal. What does the career of a professional boxer look like? I mean, everybody knows who Mike Tyson is, but there's one of those.

Yeah. It's a long amateur career and then you get your pro card and then you start with like four round fights, you know, not your seven or eight rounds or ten rounds or whatever. And then you just build on top of that. And if you keep collecting Ws and you work your way up. How long does that take, though? It all depends on your amateur career. Like, for example, if you go to the Olympics or whatever and then you come out and you're going to start up the ladder,

little further than someone who didn't go to the Olympics, right? You're to have a pretty storied amateur career if you're in the Olympics. Correct. Yeah. Where did you grow up? Mainly in northern California, Bay Area. Okay, where in the Bay Area? Nevada and Marin.

Okay, yeah, I'm from Santa Cruz. Okay, gotcha. All right. I didn't know there's a deep boxing culture up there. How did you get into that? I moved next to a boxing gym in the fourth grade. Or it's maybe like a mile down the road. That'll do it.

I just rode my bike down there and went in one day. and they started to let me clean bags and things like that. Then I just started boxing. What kind of troubled you get in? I got arrested for selling weed to an undercover cop. Now you could just walk down the road and buy it, right? But no, I was working. How old were you?

17. I need to hear more of this. Tell me the tale. Okay, so I was working at the gap and security. So I stood out front and just made sure. I was going to say, this story sucks because it started with I was working at the gap. But you were doing security, so it's better. Tell me more.

Retail's not for everybody. I get it. And my manager at the time's like, hey, I got a buddy that's going up to Tahoe who wants an ounce of weed. I'm like, yeah, sure, no problem. Give him my number. And then I met him in a movie theater parking lot at like two in the afternoon. And it was off. He had a high times magazine sitting there in the passenger seat.

I walk up. I'm like, tight cropped haircut. Oh, I mean, he looked. everything about it was wrong. But $300 is $300. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I got in this car and sold him an ounce of weed.

Well, an ounce is 28 grams. I sold him a 32 gram ounce. So for hopefully he was a return customer, right? And then about four or five weeks later, I'm in history class, I think it was. And my assistant principal walks in with a cop and says my name. I'm like, oh, man, I'm toast. And then went. So no indication at that moment, though, that you were fucked.

You made the sale and then you left. Yeah. Did you think you'd gotten away with it? Yeah. Okay. When I was getting arrested, I thought I was getting arrested for something else. What else did you think you were getting arrested for? Selling weed, but in a different customer.

Yeah, exactly. So you were an entrepreneur at a young age. Correct. And then went to juvenile hall for two weeks, spent six months on house arrest. How was juvie? Yeah. Well, they were redoing, rebuilding. renovation, whatever you want to call it, the juvenile hall at the time. So we just had to sit in

ourselves all day, every day. Solo cell? Yeah. So I did a lot of reading. What was everybody else in there for? I don't know. Do you communicate with like mirrors so you can see each other's eyes and like throwing notes across? Yep. We had flyers. We call them flyers in the biz, but but, uh, so that all wrapped up. My dad got stationed up in Seattle, Washington, so moved up there. but I got expelled from school, so I homeschooled. For weed again? Expelled for school? Yeah, all this is in the same incident.

Okay. Right? I was expelled from school, went to juvenile hall, was on house arrest, going through all my court shit. And then my dad got stationed up in Seattle, so went up to Seattle. And but since I was expelled, I was homeschooled and I was on house arrest. I had nothing to do, so I took tons of classes. And so I was able to, I had enough credits to graduate high school already,

but I didn't want to move my senior year and not go to school. Yep. So I went to the school and I took, I think, two weightlifting classes, ceramics and Homek, my senior year. It's a well-rounded schedule. Yeah, it was a block schedule, you know, so I had to show up at 11, left at like two. Were you still selling wheat? No. Absolutely not. Okay. And then... Scared straight, if you will. I was, yeah. And I lost my driver's license. I mean... Okay. And everything like that. So, while I was on probation, then I talked to my probation officer, and I said, hey, if I joined the Navy, will that in my probation.

I get my driver's license back. I'm like, sure. I'm like, all right, cool. So I walked in the recruiter and joined the Navy. Did you have any issues, given your record? At the time, no. My dad was 06 in the Coast Guard. He went in there and helped the situation a little bit.

I have no clue what was said or what was done. We haven't had that conversation. But I was able to join the Navy. But I do remember at the time they had felony wage. What year was this? Oh, three. Yeah, they were not going to say they would take anybody, but they were looking for people hard. And so then went to boot camp, and it showed up at boot camp.

It's dark January in Chicago. Yeah, it's horrible. Some guy that can't even see his dicks yawn at me, I'm like, man. How do you know he couldn't see his dick? Because his belly was so big. Okay. I said, I mean, maybe with a mere modern day technology, who knows? Selfie.

They say it's more slimming If you take the picture from below You know what I mean, Michael? If you want to talk about dick pics He's the guy We call that the Brett Fav and the biz Yeah, the Favra Yeah

And But then whatever made it through boot camp And then went to Buds And then that was my first time And I got dropped at the beginning of second phase So you made it through Hell Week Yeah And then

What'd you get dropped for? Time runs Okay Some sob stories You would have had to fail a tremendous amount of time runs. So I failed, I think, one before and one after. You should get two per phase. So I failed one before, hell week, and one after hell week.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. So then I went to Brownshirt Rollbackland, and Match Chief Wilbanks was running Brownshirt Rollbackland at the time. I don't know if you remember that name at all. And I told them, like, hey, my foot messed up. I had a stress fracture in my left foot, was on crutches. Well, Matt Chief Wilbanks retires.

Two other guys come in, and they're like, hey, you have a person. performance role you're classing up on Monday while standing on the O course and crutches. I was going to say it would clearly be a medical role. Yeah. And, well, it wasn't. And then classed up, failed the run that Monday. And then they're like, hey, we'll give you two weeks till class up day, a second phase or two, three weeks, whatever that is after Hydro Hell Week and all that. Classed up, second phase, failed the run and got dropped.

Huh. How was that board process on the way out? It was pretty shitty, man. I felt like I was getting a raw deal. Yeah. And, but it is what it is. Did they give you the chance to advocate for yourself and explain what had happened? I don't remember all that much.

I remember walking in the first phase classroom and, you know, being in front of the board. And I don't think they let me do much talking. Yeah, I was never, I had never gone into one of those boards until I went back as an instructor. And I didn't often go in just because we did less of them in second phase and in first phase. and I don't know I'm going to say that the student had some degree of impact on the trajectory in the manner that the student would probably want to see it go but they had a huge impact if they said or behaved in a manner

that was not becoming of what we wanted to see to fucking end it right there because they you know they're excused they kind of talk to them and they're excused the conversations that are had when the student is outside like fuck that guy like you'd see people come in there and on a second phase board with like serious attitudes which i didn't understand the students yes not the staff and i'm talking the staff i went in there i'm like no excuses i mean you know the yeah i need that's what you have to say yeah it's my fault yeah you know all of that right and uh but i couldn't imagine going there as a student with an attitude you have no idea really i watched

it go from because there's a little bit of a pre-brief because it's usually who was it was the operations officer who was making the final decision and they will usually have somebody from each phase and maybe two people from the phase that they're in you'd brief the opso like this is a student this is what we see going on and you kind of like it's like anything else like this is probably what we'd like to see it's their decision and i i had i have seen more than once where you go in there and you brief hey this is a good dude like this is what we want to see let's consider a role and they come in and act like a fucked hard and eject

like changing the course of the board in their trajectory because they they had too much hubris they literally too much ego they couldn't get in there and just own their shit and I don't know why if he's if a guy's doing that in a student role imagine what it could be like if he's you know when he gets to the teams potential to be a cancer you know probably not going to be any better yeah right sure and so I think that's right call what happened to you after that board though I went to Cigonella Italy and so far this story's good yeah Yep. Did you have any say in that, though? Yeah, I picked. And I picked a place real far away because I was ashamed of myself. You know, I'm like, I didn't make it through. This sucks. And I ran for the hills. And I always wanted to go to Italy, you know, because I went there one time and before that. And so I'm like, I couldn't be too bad. So I went to Signal Italy and was a gate guard where every day was the worst day in my life, checking IDs. Did you have to go to like gate guard school, MP school? I went to that before Buds.

So that was your rate. Correct. Yeah. All right. And then. How long into that process did you decide you were going to take another shout at it? Well, I wanted to go back right away. But I got in a little bit of trouble.

Tell me more. So this is actually pretty entertaining. The one thing I got in trouble for, I got in trouble for a couple little things. But me and my roommate, who's now still in the teams, he was a gate guard also. We worked in night shift. We'd get off work. We'd go work out and go to bed and sleep all day and rinse and repeat. Well, after we're working out, we'd always eat tuna and rice with like a can of green beans in it or something like that.

That sounds disgusting. Yeah, with ranch and barbecue sauce in there. I still eat it to this day. It's glorious. Fuck is wrong. And then, so we eat. Well, he took his small bed out of his barracks room and put a big bed in there. And he had a computer.

I didn't have a computer. And so we were in there watching a movie and fell asleep in the same. in the same bed, right? And we didn't have shirts on. We just had like our workout shorts on or something like that. Where, and the actual fuck is this started going? So, so just happened to be the morning that they were

doing inspections on the smoke alarms. So some CB walks in, and we're both in bed together, right? And he's like, we got a, we got a couple of gays here. I need to tell somebody, right? Yeah. So he told our chain of command. And so we get brought in the next day and get in trouble. And we go to a DRB for being gay.

I mean, what was your explanation that? Like, hey, guys, it was super hetero. Just me and another dude in Ranger panties with no shirt on watching, fuck it, some, whatever, how to lose a guy in 10 days. It was probably the notebook. But I forget how it started the DRB. and they accused of as a bunch of stuff like other nonsense and then there is one

Like what other nonsense? Just skip and work because we didn't come back one day because there was this train really long source There's a little spot we used to go party And it's known to the train Take a couple hours

So if you get stuck on the other side of the tracks It could take a couple hours We got stuck a couple times Okay And so they blamed it on You know That's just skipping work So anyway, and we didn't have the best reputations.

We weren't the most, you know, we were not the best gate guards or military police officers. Yeah, it sounds like there was a lot of tuna fish and gay shit. Yeah. And then, that's exactly what it was. And then at the very end of the board, one of the chiefs that was on the board, he's like, hey, I got something to say. And he's like, this isn't, I didn't want to say it because it's going to, you know, this is something else wrong that they did.

but I walked in the room one morning when I was just like doing my barracks rounds and there was girls in the room like local national Italian girls and they were topless so I can like he's like I know they're not gay so it all got dismissed

what year was that well four I feel like Don't Ask Don't Tell had been repealed by then I don't think so Michael will you look up what year Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed yeah because I feel like in the modern day military it's kind of the wild west yeah there's no way nowadays

I don't think it's a disqualifying. Not that I don't think it ever should have been a disqualifying factor, but what did you find, Michael? 2011. Okay, so you were pre-2011. And so that ended. So, hold on, though. You're in bed. Let's paint the picture for the listener.

If you're looking at the bed, I was on the UDT right. The UDT right of the bed. Shooter's left. Yep. So a door opens. you come to No, we sleep through the whole thing We have no clue

Oh my God So we go into work and we get brought in And like you guys are gay I'm like okay And they're like no seriously You're in trouble You're like for what? I was just napping

Yeah We always hold hands when we sleep On top of each other It's a polite thing to do I'm a power bottom Oh God Okay So that all blew over

And then You gotta pick your terms better. You're talking about trains and blow it. It's all, it's all, I'm just painting the picture for everybody. All right. And so that all, um, blew over. And then still no orders to buds. I got orders to Tinker Air Force base to go, uh, be a gate guard there. And I was just thinking about just getting out of the Navy. And, uh, um, then we got a new chief and he just, I think he was a master arms at butts. And I had all my package ready to go. Everything was good to go. And just got denied denied denied what was the reasoning for it being denied or did it just come back

denied they just came back to nine like yeah the command didn't approve it and uh but then this guy uh came in his name was ron vidari i think he lives in san diego now um he came in and told him a story a real cool guy like riding harley he's just a good old boy and uh went to work one day and one evening and then um i've told him the story a hundred times you know i'm trying to go to buds and he's like let me see what I could do and then got a call I want to say maybe like eight nine in the morning after my shift and like hey you need to come down to the station or whatever it was called and went down there or the I said why and this this gal was telling me oh you have orders to buds and I told her I'm going to walk down there if you're lying to me I'm going to kick you right in the

fucking cunt and that's good for career progression to tell them that so then they she has me on speaker your phone. So now I have orders Buds, I go and I get more trouble. But it all smooths over, and I was able to go to Buds. And then I went back to Class 266 and just made it right through. How was it the second time versus the first? First phase was easy. Well, because you knew it was coming, right? Even how weak? It's, I mean, it sucked just because it's hard, you know? But other than that, no, it wasn't bad. Okay. And then did it become more difficult as you progressed past first phase and it became things you had never seen before? No, I don't think so.

Okay. I just, I was very, very determined after being in the fleet. I'm like, I'm not doing that again, you know. It's one of the,

the people who go and they want to be a seal and they're not given the chance to do so, bed roll, performance role, or even just quit. When they come back, especially if they've had a few years into Fleet Navy,

which is not what they signed up for, it's pretty hard to get rid of them. Yeah. They're like, fuck this. I don't want to go back to whatever it is I was doing before. I mean, it was,

there was no option. And I thought Buds wasn't even that hard then when I went back with that mindset. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's fair enough. Yeah. How'd your class do as you guys were coming through your second phase?

We did well. We lost our last officer in pool comp. So then we were an all enlisted class. And I think we did pretty good. We're a little wild. Got a little trouble as a class. But I don't think it's anything someone hasn't done in past. Yeah.

How many people did you graduate with? I remember the number 17 original guys, you know, that started in Doc or whatever. But I want to say maybe around 30-ish. Was there SQT at this time? Correct. Okay. Yeah.

I went through STT, which I think was the first attempt at Group 1, managing all the train. It used to be at each individual team. And getting your tried was a very different process than it is now. So you are pipelined into SQT, 18 months-ish? Yeah. How was that? I liked it. It was a lot of freedom at the time.

we got BAAH so everyone moved out of... Which is housing? What is that same for basic? Housing allowance? Yeah, basic housing allowance, even though it's BAH. Yeah. I don't know. Basic allowance housing? Huh?

Maybe? I don't know. But yeah, we got BAAH, so I got a little condo on PB and a couple blocks from the beach. Just live in life. It was great. And you were probably finally learning stuff too. Exactly. I enjoyed STT because, you know, third phase tactics or basically don't shoot

the person next to you and don't get a safety violation. When I went through STT, you was like, hey, this is how we do this and this is why. Now we're going to do it for weeks. I thought it was fucking awesome. I loved it too. And we went to, let's say we had Alaska first. So I thought that was cool.

You know, it was February in Alaska and learned a boatload there. Then we went right into a static line and free fall. Out of O-Time. Yeah. I think we're maybe, I don't know, the fifth class somewhere. There was only a handful of classes before because everyone else used to have to

go to Benning, right? Yuma. Yuma. Yeah. Well, Benning is Static Line. Yeah, that's why I'm saying we did both of them. Sorry, yeah. Your static line course is what, about a week?

If that. Why most three weeks? So we did a couple days, you know, or maybe a day of jumping off the platform in PLF and then weather moved in. So a day got canceled. So then we just did three or four jumps, the minimum you need. Yeah. I think it's three or four. and then went right into free fall.

So I still only have three or four static line jumps, whatever that minimum is. You have no idea how lucky you guys are that that system was set up. How many stack line jumps do you have? Probably close to 90. For my first two platoons, I was in free fall quality. I got free fall quality at the tail end of the workup

in my second platoon. I had an OIC or officer in charge who loved air stuff because he was free fall qualified. So we would do two weeks of jumping all day, every day. But I wasn't jumping out free fall. I was on just hookup, you know, stand up, hookup, shuffle to the door, laying on the ground wondering whether or not my knees are ever going to function again

as you hear people like hooting and hollering as their free fall under canopy. Two platoons in a row of that. They would just do a low pass and then go up and then everyone jump out and burn past yet. We'd be on the port side of the 130. Mm-hmm. They would spit us out at like 1,200, climbed out to DHS. dude, spit the free fall jumpers out all day, every day for two weeks. It was horrible.

I'm glad I never had to do that. Yeah. If I never statically again, you know. Yeah, and that's, so I started jumping on my own because of that experience. So I challenged the military course. I had a couple hundred jumps at the time. And a message came out like, hey, if you're a civilian jumper, you can come challenge the curriculum.

Because you used to have to go to Yuma. Really? Yeah, you'd go, I believe, I didn't go through it, but I believe back in the day. So the Army is the proponent for free fall, the JFK, school and it was in Bragg. That's where the, like, one of the first wind tunnels is. Yeah, I've been to that one. Yeah, totally inefficient.

It's, I think they took a horizontal one and flipped it vertically. It's not cutting edge technology. And the air was horrible. Correct. Yeah. Then you went out to Yuma for, I think, another three weeks. So you guys did everything, I think, in three weeks. Probably a week of static line, two weeks of free fall. Something like

that. I think we got 40 jumps, maybe three weeks of free fall. That's awesome. And then, yeah. So, then after that, I forget what training blocks we went into after that, but to your point, I thoroughly enjoyed SQT, especially land warfare and small unit tactics. Oh, that's awesome. And then we went to wherever you go to, go to the Kill House, Laguna. Mount Laguna.

Yes. How about the radar dish? Yeah. Yeah. Went there, and I love CQC. And so the rest of SQT was great. Then we finished on diving, which is super chill. Yeah.

That was our last thing. Okay. What did you put on your dream sheet when you were in buds? every West Coast team you're about to say you went to the East Coast didn't you? Oh yeah so

so then I thought I was getting fucked with because there was that's when the SO rating first came out and so we all graduated Buds and became what E4s right? I don't know that's post my going through

we came E4s and then we were able to take the E5 test at the beginning of SQT right after making it E4 and then so we all take the E5 test and they're reading down the list and like here's the people that made it and they're like read everybody's name but mine and uh or like me and a couple of guys and I see was just fucking with this and so everyone made E5 and then you know we do our dream sheets and I put all West Coast teams and they're going down their list like so and so and so and so one so one so one so team three team three Mackey eight I'm like I need another's a fucking SEAL team maybe you know and then I go out to Virginia Beach and you know I really really they didn't like it that much for the first week or so, then deployed right away, but then got home, and then I fell in love with it. I put two four and eight on my dream sheet,

because I figured as a California kid, let's try something else, Team 5. We filled them out in second phase. When did you guys fill out your dream sheets? SQT. Really? Yeah, I think so. Maybe the last week of Buds.

What was the flash to bang between filling it out and getting your results? Like six months. Okay, so, well, if not more. We got our results on the island. In third phase, they broke us up into small groups. Everybody got to go get wet and sandy. Thank you so much.

And then we got like remediated as a group and an instructor who was from that team would come over and was like, hey, this group of people is going to fill in the blank team. Okay. So that was actually probably only six weeks. Ours took a long time and had normally a long amount of time. I have no clue. But SKT is not short though. They have plenty of time. So you get over to Team 8.

What year did you finally check into Team 8? Oh, eight. Okay. And then right on to a deployment? Yep. So check in, and then a week later went to U-COM, because the teammate was deployed. What the hell is a U-COM?

Europe? Yeah. Okay. And I didn't know anything about that. At the time, I think everyone that was in Iraq was in Sauter City doing the sniper overwatch thing. I'm like, all right, let's go. And because when we graduate SKT, they're like, hey, who's going to teammate?

A bunch of us raised our hand. And they're like, hey, who wants to deploy in a week? And I raised my hand. And with one or two other guys. guys because I didn't have shit plan for leave, you know? Yeah. And I only knew about Iraq and Afghanistan, then go to Ucom to free up an older guy to go to Iraq.

But that's when Russia invaded Georgia. Remember that? I do. And so we pushed out to Romania and chilled on the Black Sea and did some training ops out there with the Romanians and things like that. What did you guys do with the rest of your time? Was it a six-monther? Yep, but I was there for maybe three of it.

Okay. And we spent on the majority of that out in Romania. Huh. What were your first thoughts getting there after that whole training pipeline? When I showed up to the team, no one was there besides the civilian deputy ops. Yeah. And he introduced himself as the acting CO of SEAL teammate. Shut the fuck up.

And I'm like, he is not the acting CEO. I'm like, man, like his appearance wasn't well kept or, you know. like, this is a, this is really interesting. So then I get, then I, a week later, you know, I'm deployed. And I'm telling everybody about this. Like, hey, I'm at the CEO. They're like, where did you meet the CEO? I'm back of the beach.

And then I told him who this guy's name. And then they all laughed at me. Then I had to go like, fuck with this guy for the next year after I got back. But it was great. A good group of guys. And, you know, since I just did a half of a deployment, I was, when I got back, I already knew all the older guys and built some report. I was able to go to sniper school right out the gate.

No shit. Good for you, man. And so everything worked out well. And then where'd your career go after that? So I did five pumps at eight and then went to land warfare and then back to eight for another pump. Group two for two years. Then did a pump at Team 4 and then went to ATC and retired out of there. Okay.

So you did your full 20. I was retired in February. Okay. That's awesome. Where'd you guys go on your deployments at 8? Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa. How was Africa? Shit hole, you know.

What'd you guys do down there? A lot of fit. Okay. Foreign internal defense, which is basically teaching partner for us. Yep. And then in Somalia, we were going on some ops. You know, every once in a while I'll get Western, but it's pretty tame. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. How was your Iraq and Afghanistan? appointments? They were great. I loved it. Iraq, you know, we were doing DAs. We were doing the TF mission, you know, with Delta, and we was doing DAs almost every night. So it was absolutely awesome. Yeah. And then got home from that, and that's when we surged Afghanistan. So our troop pushed out all our new guys that we had just received when we got back, pushed out all our new guys except one medic and reloaded and went to Afghanistan, I think like five months later.

Damn. That's not bad. No. It was great. And then that's when your name came up again. Like, oh, yeah. Do you remember Andy Stumpf? Like, yeah.

He keeps dropping benzos on spotters and in the party before it starts. Not always. So that's the last time I heard of a good day. I do like shooting a javelin at people, though. It's like brings, it sparks joy in my heart. It's fucking awesome. I've never done it. I've seen it done.

Yeah. And I never went to the... I think I could pick up a javelin or read the manual and figure it out. You 100% could. But I never went to the school. You had to go to be javelin-cold, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And I never did that. Yeah. I mean, that was more... The reason I started doing that is because, I mean, by 2010, the last appointment I did over there, they understood the range of 556 and 7662. So when they stay outside of that and they'll hit you with IDF or they'll, you know, launched PKM at you fucking plunging PKM fire sucks

a lot of dick for people who've never been on the receiving end of it. It's all the dog. You're just like, it sounds like it sounds like to me like a belt-fed 300 windbag. It's just the fucking snap of that round. I think it's a 30-0-6 round.

Very equivalent to it. Originally, Russian-made 30-0-6, fully automatic, of course. It's one of my least favorite things to be shot at by. But they'd hang out at 2,500? Yep. And I'm looking around. I'm like, what's that tube over there?

Traded an Army ODA, straight up a half-shell helmet for a clue, the launching mechanism. What? Yeah. I flew around in the helicopters and found a guy who would trade me for a fucking half-shell, got to half-shell, launched the first one like a few days later, and then they started just sending me all the javelins in country because nobody else would shoot them. How many do you think you shot? 14. 80,000 times 14. It's about a mill.

Yeah. enough. Good work. Yeah. Thank you, taxpayers. They'll lock on to anything over 10 years old. And I know that because I tried a nine-year-old. And it just didn't work. I'm joking, obviously. He's eight and a half. But I actually, I wouldn't, I wouldn't start the party or ended before it started. Most of the time, you, like, they're sneaky as fuck. Were you at team three? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, sometimes you're getting shot at, and because of the echoing in the valley, it's like, does anybody know where the fuck this is coming from? Unless you got good bullet splash coming out here or something. Which we didn't. It's because they were launching over your head. You're hearing the snaps. But then you hear the echo of the snaps coming the other direction. The number of times I've been shot at where I've just sat down and been like,

can anybody fucking see where this is coming from? That's an interesting feeling, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I would sit behind a rock and hope that I was facing the correct direction. But yeah, I mean, I think the longest it's ever taken, and this is obviously from a distance of the exigent threat is lower. But like maybe five minutes. To find them.

Yeah. to even like narrow it down. And then they're like, okay, you're two ridge lines away. What weapon system do I have that's going to go out 2,000 yards? 2,500 yards. Nothing until I found one. Now, zero chance of miss them. There's never a zero chance.

Yeah, sorry. Very slim chance of missing. It's on the missile once you launch it. Okay. So originally you're just looking through the clue and you, when you engage the missile, you'll hear the lithium. It's like a liquid lithium battery. It's like, and that charges the missile.

Then you're actually looking through the warhead of the missile. And it's not the best image. And it's a little bit offset. So you're looking through it naked eye, and you can cycle through what you're seeing. And so it's like naked eye and then the image, black and white. And it'd be a little bit off. So you'd be like, naked eye. Okay.

And you're like, there it is, motherfucker. And then you bracket it down, hold down the trigger, and it'll flash and lock. Whatever it's locked on, it should hit. But I'm not an expert on missiles. I don't know what it, like, because it's heat-teaking. So I don't know what it does if, like, the person goes behind a rock. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Or if it loses that, and I don't care. So, because you're going to set it, right? If it locked on that thing. But if it locked on the heat signature, like, I remember, fuck, there's a couple good ones. What we have? I'm a good 3,000, probably 3,000 yards away. And there was, we had another high ground element. And we watched this Taliban element maneuver to get eyes on them.

They had no idea that we were to like their 90 left. So I'm watching three dudes like set up a machine composition. Well, I'm just like putting my shit together, getting ready. I'm getting all the guys up there. They got their binoes. Fucking launch that thing. And the move is you launch it and throw it to get your binoes because you want to see what happened. And it takes longer than you would think.

You're like, motherfucker, I missed again. Boom. What's the hang time? Depends on the distance. Yeah. and whether or not you do top attack or direct attack, because it'll go up and come straight down to defeat armor or direct attack.

It kind of arc straight in. I think I had this one on direct attack, and these three dudes were like, would have fit in the space between you and I, and it fucking impacted directly on them, and you just see torsos like flying. It was so glorious. I'm jealous.

So it's like I'm not going to pass up on that. If that's ending the party before it starts, I'm okay with that. That's just the rumor that got out to us. Like, you remember Andy Stomph? He's just killing everyone with javelins and no one else is getting in a firefight because just ending them before it starts. Yeah.

Yeah. Rule one of the firefight is win. I agree. So it was funny. Were you guys out of Collot? We were out in Navajar. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

In the middle of nowhere. I mean, we basically built that fob and I heard it got turned over, I think, to the A&A or AMP shortly after. But when we first got there, we were. co-located with the A&A. It's not awesome. Yeah. We, I did a stand out at VSP Bog.

Bog. I don't know if I ever heard that one. In Zabool. Okay. So, and it was right by Fob Lane. Okay. Remember when Brendan and Aunt Looney and when that hill, that was the deployment we were on. Yeah.

That was a turnover op, wasn't it? Correct. Yeah. Yep. And it's right, I don't know, maybe five miles down the road from there. I was back in the U.S. when that happened. My mom was, she had passed, I think, from cancer at that time. But I got sent home from that on a Red Cross message.

That was a rough day. A lot of his platoon had made it back. And I was the one who notified, like, everybody had come in and here. Like, I can't tell you what this is about. And they're all kind of knew what it was about, but they just didn't know who. That was a rough fucking day. Yeah. That was pretty brutal.

Yeah. But, yeah. So just retired in February and now started a company with a friend and doing that and living a lot. life. Yeah, how did you work your, what did you, as your career was coming to an end, when did you start thinking about the next? Like, what's over this seal horizon? About my 16 year mark. Okay. Right around in there. I started going to school. What ranked you retire at? E8. Okay. Mm-hmm. I never did my trip chief. Couldn't make nine. Zero desire. Yeah. And I'd say about my 16 year mark or so. I started going to school, got my bachelor's degree,

and thought it was pretty easy, so I got my master's, and then I was fishing with a friend, and we're having a beer, and he looks at me, he goes, you know what, I don't think you should ever work for anybody ever again. And I'm like, well, what the hell else do I do? He's like, you need to start your own company. And so he told me, you know, if you want to move to Texas and become wealthy, you can start a concrete company, HVAC company,

electricity company or plumbing company. That's apparently the route to financial independence in Texas? according to my friend. Did he do any of those things? Yeah, so it all makes sense because he would be able to help me out, you know, get started. He owns a very large excavating company. Oftentimes you hear people give that advice and they work in like tech. No, no.

They're like what you need to do to be rich is concrete. Like, motherfucker, you're, you type ones and zeros all day. Yep. No, he is in that industry. Okay. You know, and at least he's proximal to it. Correct. And he's obviously very good at it because he's done very well for him.

And so then I went back to Virginia Beach after that, found someone that poured concrete, a company, and just went and worked for free and poured some driveways, learned all that. While you were still in? Correct. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Did you enjoy it? No. Not all that much. I asked jokingly because my dad was a brick mason. Yeah. The amount of concrete I have spilled all over myself. I was pushing, it was, we used, he called it mud, which is different. I at about 12 was why he set this up like this.

I'm going to blame this all my father. In extreme ownership fashion, this is my dad's fault. Would you ever allow a 12 or 13 year old to take a wheelbarrow full of fucking mud through somebody's living room? No. Okay. Well, that happened. How that worked out.

You know how it worked out on their fucking carpet? Freaking, whack! And I think my dad, if I remember correctly, my dad, dad was out on the roof. So I'm sitting there watching as this liquid fucking mud is going into vents on the floor.

Oh my goodness. And I'm looking at my, I'm like, there's no reason to freak out at this point because I can't put this genie back in the bottle. Just go grab a couple paper towels and clean it up quick? No, the only thing I was thinking of was how do I open this conversation with my dad? And, uh,

walk outside. Hey, uh, dad. I need you to come see something for Clarit. it's not good and I definitely fucked up and he stood there and was just speechless I think of a room twice this size the entire floor is covered with just like

sloppy fucking mud and it just runs oh because I had made it so and I was not good at making it when I first started a liberal use of the water when that thing hit I mean I'm telling you it like went it was like a tsunami hitting corners and just like fucking making these breakers as it went down

I believe they call that the slump like the how dense you know, or watery the concrete was? I just looked in amazement as it would go over the vents and then the vents would reappear because it was obviously siphoning. Yeah. That's what you get. So how'd you clean it up?

The only way you can clean that up, which is with a new floor. There's no cleaning it up. Yeah, no. It's not. I mean, he, I don't know if he made me pay for it. In hindsight, looking at that, he should have never allowed me to do that. Through a house? Dude, we did some wild shit.

My uncle. No tarps. Just cold boar through the house. Susie's in there making pancakes. I mean, maybe he had these aspirations that I had a skill set that I didn't. A member of my family, and I don't want to say it was my uncle because I want to be sure. But my dad told me the story. His father was a brick mason.

His father's brother was a brick mason. Somebody else in our family was, too. They lost their license because instead of getting a jackhammer to tear a chimney down, he put a chain around it and attached it to the toe hitch of his vehicle pulled on it it started coming

snapped the chain and went through the fucking house so stumps apparently have a legacy of just detonating people's front rooms I was not there for that but that story was relayed to me for my dad many times so I don't

I look back at some of the stuff he let me do I would be mortified to let my children do those things just standing on top of three-story chimneys and he hands me a jack car. He's like, yeah, just shave it off. Just as I'm up there and just like carving the shit off into people.

And I look back, I'm like, oh, we didn't even put plywood down. I think I was just making divvits in their grass. Same time, it was glorious, you know. It was, I knew how to use quickie saws. I mean, it was an awesome environment to grow up in for sure. Like you get to boot camp and people are yelling at you. I'm like, this is easy, you know, as people are crying themselves to sleep in boot camp. Oh, my God.

Did that happen to your class too? Yes. And there was, you know, I was young. I was 19. And there's guys in there well older than me, you know, like 25, 27, didn't know how to shave or anything. And they're just sorry saps of human beings just laying there crying themselves asleep. Did you have anybody who got kicked out for peeing in their bed? No, not that I remember.

We did. Really? Yeah. On purpose? Was he pissing the bed on purpose to go home? Never asked the guy, but that's my suspicion. I felt like we did. didn't have a lot in common.

If someone would have told me that early on, like, hey, you just pissed a bit a couple times. You can go home. There's a chance I would have done that. Well, also, though, why sign the paperwork to begin with? Yeah. I don't know. You show up, and it's interesting when you show up, you know? It's not that interesting.

Yeah. No, it's different, you know? So at 16, you lifted your gaze up a little bit, started thinking about the next. Yep. Other than the concrete stuff, what you do? That's pretty much it. And then I went hunting with my now business partner, Jay Cutler, the quarterback, not the weightlifter. And they...

How was he? He's great. Okay. Yeah. I've heard he can be kind of an asshole. Who, Jay Cutler? I've heard so. No.

He's the most selfless, nicest human being out there. Okay. Extremely, extremely, extremely nice. There's also a good chance that I'm remembering that I'm thinking Jay Cutler as somebody else. Probably. Okay. Yeah. Super, super great guy.

We were hunting, and him and his business partner at the time came up with outsider. And they wanted to make an outsider. door media lifestyle brand, making their money on the written word, add revenue, so on and so forth. Pumping out, have a bunch of writers, have them all pump out a bunch of articles daily, right? Digital or print? Digital. Okay. And then they were talking like, hey, to accompany our organization, we should have some products.

And there's this carbon fiber cooler that could work and we could make some drinkware to go with it. Yeah. And the carbon fiber cooler, or sorry. and then over the course of the five days we were hunting, I kind of got brought into the fold. And they're like, hey, you know, how long till you retire? What do you have going on? You know, how about you do this on the side for now?

I want to see how it goes. And then the drinkware landed. I started working on the cooler. The cooler never came to fruition because we couldn't get the resin in the carbon fiber. Correct. This is at a time where Yeti is still in the market too, right? Correct. Oh, yeah.

Man, what a hard company to compete with from a market share perspective. Correct, right. And so the cooler never came to fruition, but the drinkware did. How close did the cooler get? Real close, right? I might go back. Just couldn't get it across the end zone? Yeah, I might go back in a year or so and take another stab at it.

But our drinkware came out, it came out clean and they're very high quality. and so then I kind of took on the drinkwear salesman role on the side, right? I didn't kind of. I did take on the drinkware salesman role. Still active duty. Correct. Yep. And then there was an SEO problem or something happened internally,

and that part of the business wasn't doing well. Not the drinkware side, but the other side. And so then at the time, the other gentleman, Sorry, I'm from with this. The other gentleman with Jay, he had a non-compete in a sports realm because he started rival sports and sold it. Then he started 24-7 sports and sold it. So after he sold, he had a two-year non-compete. That non-compete ended.

Then Jay bought the company and brought me on. Interesting. And then I moved to Nashville and now doing it full-time. And what's your role now? I'm a CEO. How's that job, tree? it's great yeah it's i mean i say that i'm full of shit it's more stressful than fucking combat you know it's the most stressful thing i've ever done we did our seed round um and i'm assuming

that has something to do with going public no no or you're just raising money for a company yep correct um so did our seed round it went really well and um so now we're hitting the gas pedal so i i look at 2024 is our first year yeah um and everything's going well um Do you ever think you be a CEO? No. I never, yeah, never thought about it. You feel qualified to do it? Yeah.

Where do you think that comes from? That feeling of being qualified to do something you never done. That's a great question. I think just the figure it, the fuck out factor. Yeah. Hopefully before the bank account hits zero. Yep, exactly. And I'm a good store of money.

Okay. Speaking of that, fun fact here, during this transition of me coming on and all of that, And before raising money, you know, we were pinching pennies hard. When I say we, I mean me. And because I was a one-man show, you single-handedly kept outsider alive for. Oh, the coffee shop. No, no, my coffee mugs. Yeah, that's what I mean.

The coffee shop did. I wasn't buying. Well, technically, I guess I was. But they were being sold at the coffee shop. Correct. We sold the shit out of those things. Yeah. And so I emailed or I found you on Instagram and you have a little email deal on your.

I do. motherfucker, Michael, I told you to take that off. I could be passing bad gouged because this is like two years or a year and a half ago. It might have been. Yeah. And so you email me right back and you're like, hey, I'll... I'm going to the bottom of this shit right now. I'll take 50 of these and 50 of these and you reordered, you know.

Because we were selling them. Every month or so. So I'm like, oh, shit, Andy. You know, I'm making like $7 grand a month or $5 grand a month off you. I do have an email button, you bastard. I got you. And that's what cap us to float. for a bit.

Well, that's awesome. I had no idea. I remember the email, and we were at that time, the reason I ask you if you feel qualified to be CEO. Because I don't. But I don't feel qualified to do anything that I do. I just, I fucking stumble through life and fall forward more times than I have fallen backward. Under the same guys of like, we're going to figure this out, I just wish I could learn faster sometimes.

Likewise. Yeah. But we were at a time that we were looking for products that we could spend. specialized with the Montana aspect. Because I would say I own a Black Rifle Coffee, but that brand is nationally recognized. And I've been to a bunch of Starbucks, and they sell those cool mugs that's the Ohio or whatever it is. It's like, son of a bitch, why don't we put the Montana logo on there? Holy shit. People bought them.

Yeah. They bought a lot of them. Yeah. Well, I'm glad we were able to help out. I had no idea. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And since then, everything's going very well.

What's been the biggest accelerator to your guys' growth? Tractor supply. Worked out really well. Okay. Is that like a retail store or retail chain? Tractor supply. We're in a thousand tractor supply stores. Oh, that's awesome.

Yep. And about to be in a bunch of pilot and fly in Js and we're working in negotiations. In the gas stations, right? Correct. We're in negotiations with some very large major retail stores, you know, big box stores. So hopefully that comes to fruition. but received a couple good POs, and then it just became steady, you know, more private labeling drinkware like I did for you than anything else at this point, which is great, you know. What do you guys do that laser etching?

In Arab, Alabama. Arab, Alabama. They need to work on that from a name perspective. If you would have said that, I was not going to guess Alabama. Yep. So it's just outside of Huntsville. Okay. So due south and Nashville.

That sounds more Alabama-ish. Yeah. And so that's where my fulfillment center is. So they do all the laser etching down there. And so we private label drinkwear. And my thought process behind all this, you know, we have a great name. And just like a band, you know, a company, you need a great name, right? And we're an outdoor lifestyle brand, you know, and sells products and high quality products. And the drinkware, you're right. Yeti's a monster to go up against. Dude, their market share has got to be huge. Absolutely. And I've, you know, Jay and I were talking like, man, I put a, you know, veteran owned and personality behind high quality drinkware. I think we can take some shares, right? Yeah. And especially after, you know, Yeti sold and now they're buying everything and coming out with all sorts of shit. But anyway, they saw, who did they sell to? an investment group out of China Interesting I said that but I'm probably wrong Okay

Someone overseas Okay And and I think some of one of the original brothers bought back in But I'm for a small amount I'm not too sure though But that was my thought process on it Just put a name and a personality Behind high quality drinkware

Because everyone's buying it anyway Right everyone's buying Yeti or Hydroflask or what have you And not only that Ingenuity And that's why we have the rotating handles so the coffee mug, the handle rotates, so the coffee mug fits in your cup holder of your truck. Yeah. And that has been enough ingenuity to shift people over to us.

What has happened with the digital side of the house? Is it put to bed? Correct. Yep. For now. Okay. You think it'll ever come back? Yes.

I do. I'm not sure if it's going to be in the same application, but I really, I do like the written word articles about, you know, national parks, hunting. fishing, you know, and just, I was thinking just follow the calendar, follow the hunting season, you know, and what people do in their, you know, outdoor lifestyle. Yeah. And just have, you know, some good articles about that. I'd like to bring that back in.

I like the written word, too. It's, I can do audiobooks. My preferred medium, though, is just physically touching something. Even digital, I guess even though to me, though, man, there's still something lost by not having, like, an item in your hand. I'm not advocating you guys go to, like, print magazine type stuff, but there is something compelling to just an awesome article that you can flip your way through. And there is a lot of it.

Again, it's another saturated market. But I think if you differentiate yourself, I think you can stand out. Yep. That would be, and again, this is a guy who does no shit about shit. I mean, it's working. Yeah. So I'm going to keep going, you know, for sure. And we have a backpack cooler coming out super sexy and cool.

They'll come out the next couple months. I don't know if those words go together. Yeah. You know, backpack cooler, sexy and cool. When you see it, it catches your eye. I mean, you use whatever verbiage you want instead of sexy. Is this a picture of like two dudes and tidy witties laying on bed together? Because that was sexy.

That was earlier in your life, though. And there's a spot up top for your can of tuna. Backpack cooler. Okay. And developing another piece of drinkware that's super unique. So excited to get that out probably in the next, I don't know, 90 days or more. Awesome, man. Yeah.

Yeah, well, we'll keep buying the stuff for the, this. Sure. Keep selling well. Appreciate it. Our retail, I have a retail manager. I basically do what she says. She comes to me with ideas and I just go, uh-huh. That's great. Okay.

Yeah. Try to manage cash flow. Like make sure it's like, hey, let's wait on this a week to all those things. That's awesome. But yeah, to going, you know, in line with that. So now private labeling drinkware is, it's working very well for us. I think the ability to make something unique for individuals. in a market that is

uber saturated I think that's one of the little things that you can do to kind of make a difference God fucking Yeti is a monster man They are they They I think they did 1.7 billion last year And 1.2 of it was in drinkware

I don't even understand numbers that are that big Yeah 1,700 million That's how many millions there are in a billion Or in 1.7 billion And I mean Stanley

to a little perspective, Stanley did $750 million last year. I would still be okay, even though that's a smaller number. I'd be okay with that. With the $750? I could settle up for that. Assuming that my output wasn't $800 million. Because it's not what you make. It's what you spend.

That's a fact. Yeah, for sure. That's another scary thing. Like, I'm not used to these numbers, you know, raise money, you know, raise quite a bit of money, spending, you know, large amounts of money. on POs and so on and so forth. That's the stressful part. What do you owe the people that invested? Are they investing because they believe in it or do they want an ROI on that? Like, do you have to pay them back quarterly or how does that work? I'll more than likely pay them back upon

acquisition or typically. Is that the goal to build it to big enough to get sold? Correct. Who would likely, who would be the candidates to consume something like that? I'm not too sure. Okay. Hopefully I've Drinkware space, obviously though, okay. Obviously a larger company, you know,

but I don't know. I can't answer that question. Okay. So, but pay them back upon, you know, acquisition, hopefully 10x their money,

right, and, and or dividends around year four. Okay. All right. Say you're, say that you are acquired by somebody,

and they're like, hey, we're going to roll this into one of our divisions. You don't need to be the C anymore. Here's your awesome exit package. What do you think you do next?

I'd reload. I'd just start another company and do it again. So you like the entrepreneurial journey? It's just a game like anything else. I'm starting to figure it out. And by the time we get acquired, I think I'll have a very firm grasp on it. And so the next time it's just going to be easier.

Do you think it's harder to have a system in place or harder to find like that product that has runway in front of it? Or are they, you know what I mean? Like how many versions of a, trying to think of a product that maybe is tough to innovate on a fucking pain window for a house, right? Is it harder to find, like, and identify somewhere that has unrealized potential, or is it harder to develop that system that you could then apply to kind of wherever you want

to go? Does that make sense? I think it's the system. Okay. Right? Because everyone's systems different, and it's, you know, your weird algorithm that works in my feeble little mind, right? And how can I explain that to somebody else? It's going to be extremely difficult. So I think the system. Okay. What about yourself? man, nothing I do is similar. Yeah. I do agree with not, I don't think I would be a good employee working for somebody else again. But people who, they hear that, like, I'm going to be my own boss.

It's like, yeah, you report to yourself. Yeah. So I don't know if there's ever free and clear of being out from underneath the boss. Because at the end of the day, like, you have got to check in and log in and do the shit you have to do. Yep. The podcast is easy. Mm-hmm. I mean, you're sitting in here in this room.

And for people who have no idea how big of this room, it's not that big. It's an office studio inside of a building. There's curtain. It was, I think, a therapist's office before. Feels like a courthouse. I got a little anxiety walking in. For sure.

I mean, there's definitely people who have probably been sentenced to death in this building. Not in this room, but in this building. But I don't, Michael, what would you say? Is this 30 feet by 20 feet? Yeah. It's not very, not huge. Not very big. Not big enough to have, like, a movable wall.

TV on it and, you know, for example. Yeah, for example, I may have just had a company that I work with try to take over all my real estate for the fuck you in the ass podcast that they were trying to get me to do. That's what I, that's my name of it, not theirs. How'd that work out? You don't see the wall in here, do you? No. They got told to come pick up their shit.

I was a little bit heated. But it's a lot of lessons learned along the way. But I was talking with my wife about this, you know, starting a podcast is easy. what's hard about doing a podcast is figuring out who the fuck you are and how, like, what you want to do. For me, I'm like, I'm going to be myself because I don't have time to play a character

and I love having conversations with people, but you really could do it on an iPhone. The audio is going to suck, but you could do it on an iPhone. So you have to figure out the mechanical requirements of what you're going to need. But it's basically me and Michael. Michael's been coming in the room now

for a couple years, which at the end of this, at least our section, the camera switching, that'll all be done. It used to be how I would record it, give it to Michael, and he would go through

and watch the conversation. But I used to actually do that before my, I would sit back and listen to the conversations that I had just had with somebody. Not a great utilization of your time.

How do you feel about listening to yourself talk? I hate it. I fucking can't stand it. For one, I don't sound anything like what I hear myself. Likewise. Yeah, which,

then I realize I'm like, oh, but anybody who's ever met me or heard me, that's what I've always sounded like to then, so I'm the weirdo in the situation. Point being, It's like a one-person thing. Like even Joe, you know, he's got a huge podcast, arguably the largest one in the earth.

He works with Jamie in that studio, and they basically kind of do it on their own. There's a whole ecosystem around it, and I'm not trying to diminish that. But the actual produced product is two people. Not that hard from a leadership or managerial perspective. For ours, we just have our bin. Totally. Yeah. And he does it all just like Michael does.

Yep. Again, so not crazy. No. You don't have any have a crazy structure in place. You want to have a workflow in place. Like, how are we going to do this? Make sure we hit these buttons in this order. You know, I do public speaking, which is me managing that.

So it's not, like, that's not a tough architecture. Is it mainly motivational speaking? I don't think I'm a motivational person, so I wouldn't say that. The tour that I actually enjoyed the most when I was in was as a buzz instructor. Not initially. I really enjoyed being a Land Warfare instructor also. Isn't it weird to think... My most rewarding tour that I did was the 18 months I did as a Bud's instructor

because I had direct impact into what the future of the community was going to look like. I don't think you have that as a dude behind a gun. You can do some awesome stuff, assuming you randomly get to deploy in a place where that's actually going on. And you know as well as I do. And that's a crapshoot. It's a crapshoot in the vast majority of the time that's not going to happen. People think that every seal is just like steeped in combat. I'd say 40% of team guys have probably seen combat.

And that's diminishing rapidly as we progress out of the GWAT. Now it's just the old guys. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Which is, and people worry about that. And like, when I came in, there hadn't been combat in this old community for 30 years. We thought we were awesome.

We saw so bad. But, no, we fought an enemy that was generations behind. So the podcast, the public speaking, I do mostly on, I focus on leadership. Who's your clientele? mainly? Fuck, it spans the gambit. It's been, I've been all over the world multiple times at this point.

I did for two years, it was like the banking world was hitting me to work with their executives. But I have spoken at oil and gas, banking, sales, marketing, you name the tranche. At the end of the day, leadership is leadership. What are your wickets that you hit? Do you have three main points that you like to talk about or? So I always, obviously the organization that I'm going to speak at, they get to decide the direction that we're going to go.

So it really depends on what they come back to me with on that. But what I focus on more than anything like the guiding principle is leave people with something that's actually practical, not conceptual. I mean, the concepts are great. But if I can't give you a tool that you can apply in real time to make a difference in your life or your ability to lead people, what the fuck are we doing? What tool is your go-to? I think before anything, you have to define what it is. You know, like what is leadership? And then characteristics and principles of leadership and kind of just a template of how to make a decision, regardless of what kind of decision it may be, ways that you need to be thinking about yourself as a leader, whether that's controlling your tone of voice, the rapidity of your speech.

You know, one of the biggest things, when I did my last appointment in 2010, I told myself I was never going to run because I noticed when I did run, everybody else ran too. And if you're going to run, if you take somebody with no or limited experience and you shorten the amount of time they have to make a decision, you as a leader are the person who's setting them up to fail because you're robbing them of that opportunity to make time. So a lot of it is just being, I mean, at the end of the day, leadership, in my opinion, starts with who you see in the mirror every morning. If you can't accept the fact that you are a leader or you don't think of yourself as a leader, the rest of it's dog shit downstream. So it's a combination of all of those things. But that's just all me You know what I mean? Like they hit me up

I coordinate all that stuff So again there's not You know what I mean Like it's not a lot of mechanical stuff there The hardest thing I would say Is the coffee shop Where you're at today Because we have about 40 people

Who are employees Vast majority of them Are mid-20s if not younger And they're there for a variety of reasons And some of them just don't give a fuck Yep And that's okay Because who does give a fuck at 20

They're still in coffee Yeah. And I try to tell people like, hey, talk to our managers. Because sometimes it's churn rate. It happens. And I tell them, like, listen, we don't need to be overly concerned with churn rate because this is not a vocation for people. Maybe there's somebody out there was like, I was born to be a barista and this is all I'm going to do. But for everybody else, I think it's a short station life and they kind of move on.

And I'm totally fine with that. But I also look back, dude, the easiest environment you'll ever work in is the one that we did as a leader. because people are so fucking bought in and they're screened and they're refined in crucibles and selection courses it's like go do this and they're like okay I think about that so often

oh my goodness I'm like why don't we just take a platoon you know and start a business we used to do we would sit around and talk about what would happen if we took a platoon of people and put them into the cubicles at IBM first off we thought we'd have people

running out of windows within a week just based on the way we talked to each other. And then of course we would channel and create a mutiny. Because everybody would want to be on our side. But it might be at the detriment of IBM. We might auger the company in.

I mean, you just need a very big carrot. The problem is, if you take a platoon and you start a company, the problem isn't going to be with the guys in the platoon. It'll be with all the other layers of things that you need to hire and scale. Yep. Because you're never going to replicate the level of buy-in that we

had in the community. And it's actually a mistake. And I cautioned organizations against this now when I will go and talk about leadership. And it's not something that I've done until recently, but I caution them against using military leadership models in the civilian world because what they don't have is that buy-in. And you can't recreate that. So you shouldn't take, not that the concepts are incorrect, but they're not the same if you're applying it to people in the people we have working at the coffee shop, there are teenagers on their first job. There are people who are probably working there because they can't find any other job, or it's the most convenient. People who just want to pay their bills.

Probably a couple people who are super bought in on the Black Rifle brand. They totally dig. All of those things. They all require a different approach. Whereas in the world that we came from, it's like, hey, fucks, stick, go do your job. Let me tell you, the hey, fuckstick doesn't work there. It works. It works in the teams.

Only in the teams. Why buy in? You know, but I think there's a different layer there, right? So, yes, you can be crass and you can use that verbiage because everyone's already bought in, right? And the train's moving with or without you as a leader. But I think on a micro level, you also have to be a servant leader to each individuals and deal with their personal issues, get to know them. And that really, I guess, puts a bow on or completes the pitcher.

of the leader in the SEAL teams, how well they do not just tactics, but how well they know their people, and how big is their ability to influence those who work for them? It's not as highlighted in the teams because of all the things that people went through to get there in the first place. In the civilian world,

when you strip out all of those levels of people having to blood, sweat and tears and sacrifice and grind for that. You strip that away and they're just there because they're going to pay their bills. You have to be that person that gets to know them. You have to be that, for one,

the servant leadership thing, like, that's the only way to go. Yep, 100%. God, I worked with some assholes. And I always make this point, too. The best leaders that I ever worked with were in the SEAL teams and the fucking worst leaders

that I ever worked with were in the SEAL teams. Same boat. Right? Like, how is this possible? How is it possible? You know what another thing that the differences that you didn't see in the SEAL teams that you will see in the civilian world,

how many times did you guys have mission failure? I mean, zero. Yeah, none that I remember. But we worked for the shittiest leaders we've ever seen. So the outcome never changed, right? And so from an outside perspective, somebody looking into that organization, they'd be like, holy shit,

these guys are the best leaders ever. What they're not seeing is that when we were working for leaders that are the opposite of, everything that I think makes a good leader, they're successful in spite of who they are, not because of who they are. Because the rest of the people on their team cares so fucking much about the mission

that they will do everything possible to make that person successful. You come into the civilian world, that shit ain't happening. They're like, oh, hey, by the way, I just let the air out of your tires in the parking lot. Was your gas tank? Was that for a human fecal matter to go into?

Because I just took a shit into your gas tank. Just shoved it. So likely you drive a diesel pickup The hole's a little bigger. Yeah. You know what I mean? No, like, we never failed. So it's easy

And I see this with organizations. I've literally seen it Not phrased this way. I'm going to take it down to what I think is the brass tax. A leader in that organization will say to somebody, Oh, you were a Navy SEAL, come lead in our organization. Because that person can point to success after success after success after success. And again, they might be a piece of shit

that had a team underneath them that was literally succeeding in spite of them not because of them and then what happens is you get a shit leader who had a trident who goes into an organization who steps all over his dick horrible experience

and what happens is that organization closes the door on everybody else that might be behind them have you seen that? Yes I haven't seen that yet give a time I think

another really really hard part about civilian life and business is it's the lumbering dinosaur. Everything takes so long. It can. Yeah. It can. You know, and I want everything and I want it now. We operated at a different pace, man,

in a different environment. And this goes back to the support personnel. We know we're making fun of the pride flag that God, it wasn't so calm. Whatever the fuck it was. Naval Special Warfare put it up. The teams don't do shit without support personnel. That's a fact. Yeah. So

that doesn't really exist in the same capacity in the civilian world. But if you find the right people, you can move pretty quick. Correct. It's a different pace of life. I guess it wouldn't be my organization running slow. It'd be organizations that we work with running slow. Or I'm going to say work for there are customers of always, right? Because you have Johnny over here who works his 9 to 5 doesn't really give two shits about his job all that much, you know, but that's You know, he's the face of the company I'm working with, and I have to get through him, you know, to make a sale or something of that nature.

And they don't give a shit about me. They don't care. If we sink or, you know, become huge, they give two shits, right? So that's just learning to work with that has been interesting. It's a different pace of life. Yeah. I've been out for 10 years now. I'm more accustomed to it.

You've been out for about 10 minutes. Yeah. At the longest, yeah. You miss it? No. Do you? Fuck no. I'm so glad that I did what I did, though.

Yeah. But I'm so glad that I left. I just, the amount of freedom you have when you're out, you know, I just got my disability and everything. So I'm up and running and like that, everything's, that chapter's behind me. Books closed. Yeah. And it feels great. How long have you been married?

Fuck. 2010. 14 years coming up on? Yeah. I'm going to hope that your wife doesn't listen to this episode because you're going to be in trouble for not knowing the answer to that question. I got asked what she does for a living. She owns her and now I know, right, because I fumbled fuck that up too. I'm going to hope that you did know before you were just struggling to say what it was.

Yes. That's a lie. Yeah. That's a lie. I might have. Is. Oh, she's a writer, but she's not a writer. She owns her and company does business development.

Okay. For government contracting. And you have been out, you got out in Feb? Correct. Of this year. Correct. Of 24. Okay.

So I was going to say, how does she like it with you on the outside? But maybe it's a little bit too early to tell. I think so, you know, home a lot. Being home a lot was an adjustment. Yeah. You know. You forget how much we were gone. Yeah.

And you also. It's amazing. So if there's a valley in between you being home and leaving and coming back, there's a lot of shit you can fill in that valley that you don't deal with when you're gone. Exactly. Like moving. This is the first move I've been around for. Any kids?

Yep. Three. They are four, six, and eight. Three little girls. They're the light of my life. I love it. Right now, they'll be the bait of your existence in about 10 years.

They're going to destroy you. I'm going to say they're not, you know? They're going to destroy you. I have a 16-year-old daughter. They're going to fuck your life up. I don't know because, you know, I just bring a level of crazy to the relationship. I get them all wound up. I love, you know, and I think they're going to.

That's because the oldest is eight. Yeah, correct. Bring crazy to the relationship when your daughter is 15 and gets her driver's license. Maybe I'll just match their crazy. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I'm just going to do it well. You will. You'll be fine.

You know, the thing is, I don't think there's a right or a wrong. I think if your heart is in the right place and you're not an abusive, fuck, manipulative piece of shit. I think it's hard to fuck them up Like if you have unbridled, untapped love And you're supportive and you're engaged in their life I think you're gonna be okay I do tell you what though like these

Always be the example You know the people are just like wax poetically Like you know be the stoic example For your children and they will follow your lead It's like so you never had kids huh That's what you think right in this book Because I've tried to be the best example I can be for my kids I swear to God they don't pay attention to anything I do

right, but God help me if I slip up at all. They're like, well, you did it. I'm like, fuck. You know, when I tell people I have three girls, initially they're like, oh, sorry, what'd you do? You know, or something like that. Yeah. And I'm like, man, I love it more than anything. And I think with girls, it's simple. All they have to know is that their father loves them more than anybody else in this world.

And is involved in their life. Yep. Yeah. And they'll be just fine. I mean, I think there are a few other steps, not that I know what they are, but I think you'll find those steps along the way. As a concept, I think you're in the 10 ring. Yeah. For sure.

So, yeah. That's how I look at parenting. And I love being a father. They're cool at that age. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. I have a 16-year-old daughter now, an 18-year-old son, almost 19, and a 20-year-old almost 21. Oh, wow.

It's a different journey, man. Yeah. You're in a different arena. Yeah. Now we're worried about things like grandkids. And, you know. Yeah. I tell you what, man, your optic on life is like, fuck.

How would you feel about becoming a grandpa? Like, if you got the news this weekend? It would depend on which kid. The oldest one. That would feel a lot better about that than the 16-year-old. Yeah. I mean, I don't, A, I don't know if I'm ready for it, right? Like, I'm 46, but also maybe that's an awesome age to be a grandpa.

I would be happy. Mm-hmm. but I would be really concerned for him. Yeah. Not for one reason and one reason only. I know what it takes. Yeah. And I know what that future will look like and you're going to sacrifice a lot of maybe who you want to be and personal life choices in order to be a good parent.

Yep. And not the easiest road. I couldn't raise kids when I was 20, you know, 19 or something that. nature. I don't think we're supposed to be raising kids at that age. I waited, I think I was 31, 32. I was 32. I'm 40. I just turned 40. So yeah, I was 25. 32, okay. That's pretty young. It is young. I got married too young. I get married at 23. I'm remarried now. It was too young. I mean, I don't think I knew who I was. I'm definitely a different person now than I was at 23. I'm not saying it can't work, but you can definitely, there's a lot more

opportunity, I think, to grow apart because I don't think you're formed as a person yet, male or female. But it's, I have thought about the grandkid thing for sure. I mean, I love, first of all, though, I'd love kids. Yeah, me too. Some people are really weirded out by kids. And I don't know what, I don't know if they had a bad experience or they come from, like, an only child.

I think it's a learned behavior, I would assume. Learn from where, though? Their parents, you know, maybe that's how they were raised and that's what they're moving forward with and they're they almost do it subconsciously yeah i think kids are so cool yeah like well you know you go out to dinner and kids are sometimes running around doing kids shit and people like oh i'm so sorry i'm like for what like i don't care and i also have seen complete and ferocious asshole is like you better get your kid in line i'm like i will shit in your gas tank sir and i will put a can of tuna under the front seat it's going to be my new trademark

i would go with the hubcap inside the hubcap is where you want to put fish really Why is that? Because it's harder to find. I mean, but will you get the aroma inside a HUDCAP as you would? I'm going to suggest you do an A-B test on that on your own. It's inescapable. It's inescapable for sure. God, yeah, the thought of being a grandparent.

I mean, I don't know how far away I am from that. You're not too far away, I would assume. Yeah. We'll see how it goes. Long game, nine years, right? Yeah, and that, to me, I thought about that, you know, at 46 and my oldest is 21, we can still do some pretty cool shit together. You look at, Michael double-checked me on this.

Didn't Al Pacino? I was just about to say Al Pacino had a kid for clarity. He did not have the child. His girlfriend just had a kid. I think he's in his 80s. Odds of seeing their kid graduate high school, exactly and precisely zero. Yeah. Can you look at it from Michael?

Yeah, he's 83. He just had a kid. brand new brand new kid is he just snort in Viagra yes you know what I mean 100%

like I wonder 83 you still want to get after it like fuck I mean I'm gonna say yes also Robert De Niro at 79 Amor Winners had it won late 79 and 83 though I mean they're not

I don't know either of them I'm gonna assume they're not dumb mortality is real for us all at what point does it become irresponsible? As far as like, how is a guy at 79 or 83 going to have a meaningful role in a child's life when they're likely going to be fed with fucking applesauce. Unless they're sharing it. They can share the gerber, right?

Or Gerber. One apple sauce for you, one apple sauce for me. You're right on that line of irresponsible, you know, because, yeah, you have a child. You want to carry on your legacy. But it's not going to be yours. your legacy because you had very little impact on that young human beings life. Yeah. Right?

So. Like I get the enjoying the procreation up to the point of having the kid. There are ways around that, depending on your personal beliefs. And I'm not talking about abortion. I'm talking about fucking birth control. Like you could still enjoy the act of like creating a child without actually creating a child. I don't know, man. Yeah.

Or do they just not care? I don't know. I would not do it. but I mean I'm sure he has grandkids you know very old you know I would assume so and who made me great grandkids that could fill that void if you want to have a child in your life you know have your great grandkids over I can't fathom any version of an 83 year old getting down that is not stomach turning have you heard of soaking yeah oh Michael trust me now you just talked about this Michael just reached for his microphone because he's like, well, let me educate you because he has a doctorate in understanding the ways of soaking. So I'm hearing that there's, all right, I just read that there's the soakers, the soakies, and then the shakers. Oh, yeah. The jump man.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like I would be the best shaker in the world. But why would you want to be? Well, I would put a, you know, noise cancelling headphones on. How would you know when to start or stop? Maybe like a kick. and I'd have eye mask on, I'd have a camelback,

and I would just be rocking that sucker, you know, sweating. Did I tell you about the number of Mormons that reached out to me who claimed that soaking is not real? I had the couple reach out to me that claim it was real. I did get some of that as well. The older generation of Mormons seems to not be able to fathom that that is something that is real.

Is this jealousy? talking or denial. They're just mad they didn't figure it out. Yeah. It could be a mixture of all those. The younger generation basically says yeah, that's legit.

So let's assume the truth is somewhere in between. We have an AC version. The truth is probably near to be. So yeah. No, we've gone down the rabbit hole on soaking. We've watched some videos.

Wait, so there's videos on the act of Serbian. No, Jesus, man. Well, you said you watched videos? We watched videos of a guy basically interviewing BYU students. I've seen similar ones that. Yeah. I also don't, I mean, it's like, okay,

it's staged, not stage, edited, not edited, I don't know. I've had enough direct and personal feedback now that I believe it to be real. I mean, how deep does this rabbit hole go? I mean, you got to think about your furniture, right? You can't have an Amish-made bed out of oak because the shaker is not going to, you know,

be able to perform that role. This has to be an IKEA, loose screws. I think they're under. From what I've seen, it's like a bunk bed or they're underneath the bed kicking it. The jump man is working like under the bed. I've pictured myself at the end of the bed. You know, maybe some words of encouragement.

Hold on a second. And you're a fucked up version of this. You're at the end of the bed with a fucking noise-cancelling headset on and an airplane sleeping mask. Cable back. You know, properly hydrated. just dripping sweat oh my god i mean i'm just a good friend i guess i don't know

you gotta pay me to stop i don't i couldn't i couldn't do it you couldn't be a shaker i want no part of any of that shit i mean it's like what what are you doing at this point what if your best friends i came in i need a favor i don't fucking know you just became a shaker i can't i saw it i mean maybe i can't get myself into that that mindset of because here's the thing So it prohibits sex, apparently. I don't know much about the Mormon religion, but apparently premarital sex, right? Prohibit it.

So you're telling me that in their fucked up skirting of the line, they'll do everything but move back and forth. There's penetration, but you're not going to move back and forth. But if somebody else, like... It's just how they justify in their head. It's like, just go get a goddamn hotel room and do it. You know what I mean? Again, I'm not a religious person.

So I'm like, why would you just do all those steps to work your way around a technical description while at the same time you're physically doing the same thing that you're saying as pregnant? Shitter get off the pot. Yeah, I agree. So if they're under the bed, do they manually push with their arms and the knees? I mean, it would depend on the bed. You can't get much momentum down there. Maybe the bed's up on blocks. Maybe.

You know what I mean? How much work? Maybe it's the top bunk and only the top bunk. And there's desk underneath there. They move the desk out. And you get it the jumpman's job? to figure this out? Like, does he set the stage? I mean, if it has any pride in his job.

How the fuck can you get on this? Michael, what are your thoughts? As far as what you would do as the jump man? Yeah. I always imagined that it was a bunk bed and the jump man's or the jumpers on the bottom with the feet on their... Hold on. The jump man is the shaker.

Yeah, the shaker. Is lying on their back with their feet. On the bottom bunk? On the bottom bunk. With their feet on the top bunk. and then they're basically just doing reverse squats. Do you have any idea how many Mormons are screaming at us right now at their fucking car radio or whatever? Can you imagine the quads on this shaker, though? Yeah, you'd have to be in pretty good shape.

Going to the gym would be a good place to find the jump man. Yeah, actually. See the dude just wrapping out four bills? Just like, excuse me, sir. Do you want to do a cool down set? Do you know what soaking is? You're just watching the leg press all day, waiting for the right candidate.

Human beings are so fucking stupid, man. My God. What was the highlight of your steel career out of the 20 years? I really liked being a land warfare instructor out at Fort Chaffee. What'd you like about it? I like small unit tactics and the problem sets that we'd throw teaching people how to navigate those problem sets and set themselves up for success for the next, you know, inevitable issue that's going to arise. I really liked it.

Yeah. Was the teams what you thought it was going to be before you came in? Yes. More so probably. Yep. Yeah, it was definitely more than I ever thought it would be or could be. I don't know if there's much you could, like, obviously, it's not as much as Charlie Sheen and Navy Seals. It's pretty, pretty close.

That's about 50 people's career, gym. Have you ever gone back recently and watched that? No, I haven't watched it in a long time. Go back and look at it through a tactical lens. Oh, my God. Probably one of the most realistic pieces of cinematography ever written. No. You'll go back.

You'll just go back and watch it. All of it is fucked. And maybe it was great tactics at the time. I don't know, but they come in through the skylight, and they, you know, when they're doing the hostage rescue. Holy shit. So a guy comes through the skylight. And then Charlie Sheen comes in the front door with a group of folks.

Charlie Sheen is the one who comes through the skylight. I'm pretty sure. Okay. I'm going to have to rewatch it. Yeah. And then he breaches, shotgun breaches the door horribly. Doesn't even attempt a mechanical usage of any kind. Just straight to the shock.

You're talking about somebody who's kicking the party off before it got started. I'm like, everybody heard that. No, it's a cinematic tour to force. I suggest going back in watching it. Legitimately, though, just be like, okay, let's view how tactically savvy this is and how is a stand-up over time. Get some popcorn. You will fucking laugh your ass off.

I will do that. It is horrible in every sense of the word, and I love it. I'm still here for it. It'll still pop up on Netflix every once in a while. I don't have anything to do When's the last time you watched it? I don't know, probably last week This morning

No, it's not a morning movie It's more of an evening movie I bet you though that got A full generation of people in Oh for sure Yeah That's why I joined Yeah

There's a couple other Contributing factors But that's the main reason Yeah, it was a cool profession to have It's I still strive for though I just wanted to be what I did. I don't want it to be who I was. Oh, correct. Yeah. I've seen some people struggle on the on the exit from the military and I don't have any right to speak for

anybody else, but I I think the more they tie their identity to the job, the more difficulty they seem to have navigating whatever their next is going to be. I completely agree. And I also think it has to do a lot of that has to do that struggle with the point in the person's career that they got out. If they, you know, did one or two pumps, they did two pumps, four pumps and got out, and they weren't fulfilled. And then they go do something else. They're going to miss, they miss everything about it. They miss being in the platoon hut. They miss everything. I don't miss a fucking thing. Yeah. And maybe it's the, after 20 years, you're just ready to leave, you know, mentally.

But you have to be mentally ready to leave. So I think guys that got out maybe a little bit before they should have and are the guys that struggle the most. Are you glad that you moved away from Virginia Beach? Yeah. I think it's tougher when you're right there and you see the same people and they're having the same conversations and everywhere you go. It's like San Diego. You're going to run a fucking team guy. Almost everywhere.

God help you go to Coronado. That's all it's going to be. I think a little bit of proximity away from that is a pretty healthy thing. Isolation, maybe not the best, depending on how you get out and when you get out. But not being there and seeing it every day, I do think helps. I was ready for a move. I lived in Virginia Beach for, I think, 16, 17 years. I was just ready for a change.

How'd you deal with that humidity? It didn't bother me much. Are you serious? Yeah. Fuck that place. I get it's human, but. It's horrible. Yeah.

Windows sweat at 5am. You're like, awesome. We're going to be in the kill house all day today. Oh, I mean, you're ringing out your socks. Yeah. No, it was horrible. Montana, it's not like that. San Diego, not like that.

That's why the East Coast teams are a little harder than the West Coast teams, I think. I don't think, I don't say, dumber, for sure, because they stay there. Yeah. Because you could rotate to a West Coast team. Yeah, but there's a lot of other things that come to play. Like, for me, like, okay, what point are you in your career? You know, do you want to move out there? And then housing, you know, housing price is different.

Is California housing expensive? I don't know. I'm never about a house there. What do you think BAH is there right now? Oh, shit. Three grand? I was going to guess five. Yeah.

It might be, depending. I have no clue. That was just a stab in the dark. Yeah. How long do you think you'll stay with outsider? For the duration of it. Okay. And I think it's going to be a, you know, five to 14-year gig.

That's a large... Why 14? Why not 5 to 15? Because that'll be 54. Okay. In 14 years. And that's when I want to be done. Okay.

What else do you want to accomplish? Like, what's left on your bucket list? A grizzly in Cody. Okay. Halibut. Is that a hard tag to get in Kodiak? No, I don't think so. This is pricey.

Okay. So Brown and Kodiak? Yeah. And just travel. I want my kids to travel a lot. You know, my wife and I have had the conversation lately how we feel about college. And, you know, what that's going to look like in 10 years. Yeah.

I don't know. And so just do a lot more traveling and a lot more hunting and fishing. The old guard of college being the mandatory step after high school. school, I think is crumbling a little bit. My wife grew up in a family of academics, her mom and her stepfather. So she was pretty directly pushed down that pipeline. Oh, hey, the economy is shitty. Go back to school.

School's not free. But apparently the money to go to school is damn near free to get. And it's predatory as fuck. And I don't know if saddling people with six-figure. of debt in their early 20s is the way to go. No, I don't think so. And I don't know unless you are going to get a degree and directly work in that field. Like if you're going to be an engineer, please go to school.

Lawyer, doctor. If you're going to make bridges, for the love of God, please go to school so I can drive over for them safely. Design aircraft also. Brain surgery, yes. I don't want a political science major operating on my brain. Other than that, man, I don't know how valid the argument is anymore that that is the pathway to success, the bridge to success. If too many people come to that realization, what does that mean for the higher education

system? Does it mean that it crumbles or do they have to evolve? Because I'd love to see the... So my first thought was crumble. I'd love to see it evolve. There's so much bureaucracy and money and like... That could be part of the evolution. Yeah. What does that look like, you know? I don't know. I don't know if the current system, though, is serving us very well. What I like to do is I want all my kids to start a company, and it could be one company that they all run right before the freshman year high school. And I want to be profitable by the time they graduate. Okay.

And then this is all right now, right? So it could change in a year's. And then I wanted to travel and go to some, you know, probably not the most desirable places so they can see what different. Like Portland. Yeah. Yeah, right. Dude, my son is in Portland right now. Michael, I'm going to show you a picture.

Is that the heroin capital of the world still? It might be. Yeah. He sent me... Is he living there or just traveling through? He's on his first vacation with his girlfriend, Airbnb being it. Average store in Portland. And it's just wooden cocks.

That's all he sent me. This is what my son is. is currently exploring on his own for the first time. He's like, this store is just crystals. Look at that shit. It's just crystals and cocks. These are handcrafted cocks? I don't know, but there's some work that went into those things.

I mean, those are nice. Yeah. But yeah, he's speaking in places that, you know, are odd. Mm-hmm. He's like, this entire story is just crystals and penis statues. I don't know what you expected. I wonder what the margins are. How many wooden cocks do you need?

Like, what's the target market for, you're a goddamn CEO. What's the target market for this? I mean, I would go for more display than the actual. So it's a showpiece. Yeah. Yeah, not for use. But I'm not going to tell people to live their life. You know, so use it if you want to.

And then it goes down to craftsmanship, you know, who's making them? How fast can you pump him out? What are you selling them for, you know? What's your overhead at the store? My wife gets a text. Lee gets in Texas. Hey, Michael. Apparently he went into Trader Joe's.

for the first time. He goes, it's just people with sideburns who smell like mustard. He's just living his best life. Yeah, good. Yeah, getting that experience on his own. They were going to camp in his car one day on the way back.

And his plan was to take a single sheet off of his bed. And that's what they're using. So Leah sees this. She's like, we have to stop him, right? And I was like, no. Let that shit ride. I'm with you.

It's a good-looking sheet. It'll work well. It's not going to die. Yep. Also not going to be comfortable. The best lessons in life probably should sting a little bit. So, yeah, we'll see how that goes. After leaving that Airbnb and they're driving, they're tired.

They're not going to more sleep in that car. I don't think so either. But I feel like they'll at least pull over and attempt it. And then they'll have to suffer through the, like, the 2 to 5 a.m. hour before the sun comes up driving. So brutal. I know. But how do you know that? because we've done it.

Yeah. They don't know that. Welcome to the fucking real world. I, I think as a parent, again, like I'm not going to let my kid, hey, you should go get shitfaced and drive your car with your seatbelt off. No. But this, we're well inside of safety boundaries, but it's absolutely going to suck. Send it. Get it.

Yep. I'm right there with you. No one's getting hurt. No one's going to get hurt. And if I stop that, what am I actually doing? not preparing him for anything awesome, you know? So I don't know, man. Parenting is a goddamn journey for sure.

I love it. It's a fun one. It is fun, but I tell you what, it gets more complicated as they get older. I can only imagine. The drug, sex, alcohol thing is real. Social circle influence is real. Social media influence is real. Here's the argument you'll get from your kids.

All of my friends have one, and this is how they communicate with each other. I don't want to be left out. Parents can take that. however they want, but that's basically the argument that you're going to get presented to you, how you go with it a parent is your choice. It's been interesting. All three of my kids have done stupid shit

with their phones. Really? And they've learned from it. It's like sending a stupid text message that gets screenshot that terminates with me in the principal's office. That's happened. The bullying thing, real for sure. Being unable to disconnect

and being habituated to hearing people. and picking up your phone. Yeah. Well, it happens all night long. So they don't get to sleep, right? All that stuff plays into it. How do you do with bullying? How'd you deal with it?

Directly. Yeah. As broadly as I feel comfortable answering, directly. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. At some point in time, if it goes far enough, it will terminate with me on your doorstep. And just like overseas, if that happens, you're fucked.

If I show up at your door, it's not going to go your way. Yeah, that, you know, that's something that does make me nervous. Because each one of my kids, they have their own personality, you know, and I think, you know, there's one in particular that's more sensitive than the others. And I'm truly worried about that. Same with my kids, too. Yeah, I'm truly worried about bullying in the future. They'll be okay, though, too. Yeah.

Because they may not be bullied, but they also might be around bullies. And this is something I've always told my boys. Like, if I ever hear that you have bullied somebody, I'm going to be fucking pissed. But if I ever find out that you were there when somebody was getting bullied and you didn't stop it, I'm going to be even more mad. Yep. So they're going to be around. It's going to happen in their life. That's the one misconception, I think.

And maybe most parents don't have it, but that they can shield their kids from everything? We can't. Is that your threshold for fighting? What do you mean? For your kids? Like, hey, you know, don't go getting fights. It's not however there is, you know, circumstances out there. I've always told my kids to stand up for what is right.

Okay. Do the right? I mean, people are, well, how do you know what's right? It's like, motherfucker for 99.9% of situations, you know what's right and what's wrong. Like, we can sit here all day long in chapter and verse, what is right and what is wrong. And most people would agree with you on that. That one's not that hard. Standing up for it, though, when the consequences may not be going your way or maybe you're outnumbered.

That's what I've always told them. Like, stand up for what you believe in. And if you're doing that, I'm always going to have your back. Yeah. Yeah, fighting on a principle. Yeah. Like, I, you know, I'm not somebody who's ever gone out looking for fights. You've probably been in a boatload of them, though.

Not that many. Really? I love violence, but I avoid it because it fucking hurts. You know the deal with boxing people. Like, boxing's great. Like, why does my face feel like shit? and I can't smell. Yep.

You know? Exactly. And also the people I know who are the most capable of violence and want no part of it. Because I know the physical and legal consequences that can come from that. I used to fight all the time. And that's where I'm at now. I want nothing to do with it, right?

And same thing with, you know, a conis kill. You know, like, hey, do you carry gun everywhere? You know, what about this? I do, and I don't want to use it. Exactly. Yeah. I never want to shoot somebody in the United States. Yeah.

Ever, you know. Having said that, if I had to, I would. Yeah, absolutely, but the, you know, I'm just thinking about the legal, legal ramifications afterwards. Dude. There's a $50,000 bill. If you're lucky. Yeah. If you're lucky.

And then there's civil court. Yep. You might come out on top on the criminal side of the house and still get fucked in the civil side. Correct. No, my kids have never seen me get into a fight, but I tell you what they have seen me do is de-escalate and walk away. Good. And be like, oh, yeah, you're right. You're totally right.

It's my favorite. Like, you're so smart. I'm so dumb. You're so good-looking. It's just like, just fucking. walk away. I'm not interested in doing that. And yeah, I could probably beat the ever-living fuck out of that person. And who cares?

Yep. Who fucking cares, man. I have a hard time. So, you know, I'm like, man, this is a lesson that this human being has never been taught. And maybe I'm the practitioner here. Time and place. Yeah. I'm not against, again, I'm not against fighting if the time and place is right.

I just think that the vast majority of violent confrontations can be avoided and they should be. especially in situations like bars, like the alcohol-induced fight. I've been in a lot of those, yeah. Who hasn't? Net gain out of that, zero. Yeah. Risk? Through the roof.

Through the goddamn roof. It's not worth it, man. It's not worth it at all. I agree. What else you're going to do while you're up here in Montana, man? So heading to Bozeman in the morning. Oh, nice. I went out last night, went to Whitefish with Josh Fields.

He runs Rocky Mountain Elkalls. Okay. He lives here in Calisbell, so he took me out down there and went to dinner. And this evening, I'm not too sure we're going to do. But then tomorrow morning I'm going to drive to Bozeman and meet some of my folks from outside of there. And then meet up with some guys for a happy hour at 4.30. Hell yeah. Have you heard of Land Trust before?

Yes. So meet up with those guys and some other business owners and then head to TAC and Big Sky on Thursday morning. Hell, yeah. She's got a whole Montana adventure going on. Correct. Yeah, I'm heading home Monday. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Well, shit, man, we've been at it for a couple hours. Let's let you get out here and explore some more Montana. I'll let you close it out. What do you want to leave people with?

Well, first of all, I appreciate you having me on. Of course. I love Montana. And if you haven't, go check us out at outsider.com. If your company needs private labeled drinkware, you could talk to Andy. We do a great job at it. And check us up. They do. Fuck, we've probably ordered hundreds at this point.

I crunch the numbers because I wrote a black rifle a pitch based off their own numbers that I've sold them because I'm trying to get them to buy more. And your numbers, I think, had you sell in like two and a half units a day and I think it was like $875 that you bought. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah, I bet you we probably outsell the national brand. So no big deal. We need to celebrate it. So, yeah.

Check us out. Hell yeah. Well, cool, man. Good to see you again. And let's get you back out. Enjoy it, Montana. Yes, sir. Thanks, brother.

Yeah, man.