Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - The Conversations Nobody Wants to Have | Full Auto Friday | 8.21.2026

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Four questions this week... An F-18 simulator is going into the coffee shop sometime in September. I don't know why either. Carrier landing competition to follow. The opener is about reaching the age where you become the caregiver for your parents. Medical directives, DNRs, wills, trusts, and why the hard conversation needs to happen before you need it. A 33-year-old sold everything, traveled the world for eight months, and came home with no next goal. I never had a plan either. Not knowing what comes next is fine. Being paralyzed by it is not. A guy got promoted over his best friend of 22 years and won't have the conversation that could save that man's career and a large payout. What you allow in your presence is your standard. Someone asked why I haven't covered the killing of Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar. Straight answer on what I make and what I don't. And a listener found out his wife spent a year with a coworker. He is trying to save the marriage. I could not do what he is doing. Today's Sponsors:  Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95. AG1:  https://www.drinnkag1.com/clearedhot\

Okay, got the red smoke. So the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. All right, here we are. Another Friday. Another Q&A. I think I have everything in front of me. I've got my coffee. Questions notated.

Opener. We're good. What else is new? F-18 simulator at the coffee shop progressing. Got an update the other day. Mid-September, it sounds like, is going to be the installed date. I suspect that that will be more towards the tail end of September. But pretty soon.

soon, we're going to have a pretty awesome F-18 simulator in the coffee shop. You might ask yourself, what does that have to do with a coffee shop? And the answer is, I have absolutely no idea. J.T. talked me into this. And we're going to see how it goes. Are we going to do an aircraft carrier landing competition as the first event? Of course, we absolutely are. How are we going to run that?

I have absolutely no idea. But we will figure it out. I think that's all I have, update-wise. Yep, pretty much all I have. Okay. some questions and then I was emailing with somebody back and forth. Specifically, they're going through something in their life. And they asked me to cover on something that I think is actually important and not talked about that much.

But essentially it says this. Maybe one Friday you could talk about being at the age of becoming caregivers for our parents. This is not something that I think most people look forward to. But if you have parents, it's probably. something that you may at least find your way into at some point in time. And I get why we don't think about this that much because it's not something that's necessarily enjoyable. I mean, spoiler alert for anybody else out there. Life is a terminal event. Nobody's making it through this. But not a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about the end of their life or the end of

their parents lives. And I have found that by not having those hard conversations, and by hard conversations specifically, I can use it as an example what my sister and I just did, mostly my sister. I was there kind of listening because this is her specialty. But she was making sure that the medical directives for my father are in order. He's getting ready to turn 80 in January. I'm not saying I have forecast or foreshadowed. something traumatic happening. But life does happen. Bad things do happen.

And I have found, and I think this is an example of having a hard conversation that maybe most people don't want to spend a lot of time allocated into thinking through, which is what do I want to have done if I am in a position where I cannot answer for myself, whether it's how do I want to be buried? if I'm having a medical emergency, do I want to have a DNR or do not resuscitate? There's financial aspects of that. If your family has a trust, there are aspects of that who, you know, is the trust up to date, all of these things. And it's actually not a bad idea to touch base on all of these things as we get farther into life.

And my sister specifically was talking with my dad a lot on the medical side of the house. What does he want? What are his desires? because even though the way she was describing it, especially if you have a DNR, and this is my understanding of what she said, so already over my ski is talking about this. But what it sounded like is that, you know,

the DNR paperwork, if you have an emergency, that's great if you physically have it on you and somebody can show that to the first responders. But and my brother-in-law, Jason, I think, was saying a lot of people will have them on their refrigerator. which is cool, I guess, if it happens at your house. But if you suffer a medical event and you're at dinner or you're somewhere other than where that DNR exists, the likelihood is that you are going to, or the medical responders

are going to do everything they can to attempt to revive you, keep you alive, and get you to a higher level of care. So it seemed as if it was a great idea on one side. And then not that it was flawed, but there are certainly situations where, you know, you might have to get through that phase of getting to a higher level of care. And then the appropriate family member, the, I don't know, what would it be for a DNR, the executor of the DNR or just somebody who has access to it, your legal representative can go and then show that at the hospital. And then perhaps if you were to crash at the hospital, that would be a governing document that they would respond to.

Point being in all of this, none of those situations that I just described are going to be easy for anybody that's involved. It's horribly traumatic for the families. You should expect it to be so. That's okay. It's emotional. And again, not all the people want to spend a lot of time thinking about losing their parents for exactly the reasons I think we all understand because that's a horrible life event and circumstance.

Having the difficult conversations up front, I don't believe they will make those situations necessarily any easier. But at least you have an understanding of what the person who may not be able to advocate for themselves once for themselves. When we used to go on deployment, it would be we would have to redo our wills every time before we went. Pretty detailed as into disposition of the body.

What do you want to be buried? Do you want to be cremated, uniform if you were going to be buried, all sorts of things? And I saw situations where people spent the time and effort and were really detailed in those where it, wasn't necessarily as detailed. And the impact on the family, I would describe it as. Maybe they wouldn't.

But from an outside perspective, it seemed like it was tremendously helpful because it's tough to make objective decisions when you are compromised emotionally, that compromised emotionally. And how could you expect not to be if you're talking about a loved one in a situation like that? So the hard conversations up front, I can't sit here and say that it makes anything any easier. but it can be a little bit of relief, a little bit of taking a burden off of your shoulder. It's just one less thing to think about. And it's an interesting journey. And we were out at dinner the other night and I was looking at a menu.

And it's fascinating that the kids and seniors exist on the same area, at least on this particular menu. It's like kids and seniors. I was thinking about that. It's like, well, you know, at the beginning phases of your life, you need somebody to help you with a lot of things to include ordering your food. And as you get this tail into life, you're going to need people to help you with a tremendous amount of things. Maybe not necessarily ordering your food, but helping you transition into that phase of life and then whatever comes beyond that. And then whatever is left behind from that as well. So it just, I don't know why that one particularly stuck with me on the menu.

Maybe probably because if I'm being totally honest in my head, my first thought was you go in or you come into life and you go out of life in diapers, which I didn't mention at the dinner table because I didn't know if that would be great to talk about over appetizers. But that was my first thought. That's just the way my brain works. I'm just being honest. But it's an interesting story arc that we are all on our way through. Have the hard conversations. Today's episode is brought to you by Willys. You may say to yourself, well, what is Willis? It is a THC-invused social tonic. Having said that, please do your research, personally, professionally, know the restrictions and requirements of your occupation.

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Back to the shell. talk about the details. Ask the person what do they want. And then what I think is even harder is if they want something that might be different than what you want, if they have a DNR or they don't want to attempt a resuscitation and you happen to be there, your natural instinct and reaction is going to be for everybody to want to do everything that they can to help sustain that life. That's a tough one. I'm not here to tell anybody what to do in that moment, but I have always found a little bit. a little bit of, I'm not going to say peace, but that was at ease a little bit more understanding

and knowing what an individual had at least expressed that they wanted less and why, because less decisions for me to have to try to make and there's a lot of uncertainty associated with that. So hard conversations, get all the legal paperwork done, have a will. The trust, I don't know why some people have a trust and why some people don't, honestly,

I don't understand necessarily what it does. But all the medical stuff, go through all that stuff, make sure that the people who are going to be responsible for it know where that stuff is at as well. It's all fine and dandy to do those things. But then if you store it in a filing cabinet that you don't tell anybody about and they need it, it's going to be tough to find. So have those conversations. You may not enjoy them, but might be helpful later on. And on that note, let's dive in to question number one. Dear Andy, love the book, enjoy the podcast.

and thank you for your service. You're very welcome. The vast majority of it was my pleasure. I'm 33 and grew up near Seattle where I had a stable, well-paying engineering job. I never intended to stay at that job long, but got stuck there during COVID. And once COVID began to wind down, I quit, moved to San Diego and became a seasonal beach life card. Hell of a life transition. I'm here for it. At the end of my first season, I sold my house, my truck, and most of my stuff to travel around the world for eight months. I'm here for this too. This is amazing. taking a trip like that had been my goal since I was about 16 it was incredible I traveled with my girlfriend at the time but once the trip was over we moved back to san diego and have since split up that's a bummer but hopefully you guys had a good time on your trip lifeguarding is great and i still do it part time but the pay for living in southern california is not enough to get by on so i took the first

okayish paying job i could when i got back and that i am overqualified for but it seemed fun and fit the bill. The job has gone off the rails in more ways than I could describe, and the market is a dumpster fire, so I've been struggling to find another engineering job for over a year now. However, what I've been struggling with the most is finding a new coherent direction in life. Now that I've finished that trip, what was once my overarching goal for almost half of my life has now become accomplished. And now I'm not sure what's next. I've considered trying to become a firefighter, but I recently herniated a couple of discs in my neck, and I'm not sure how sustainable that path would be given how physical the job is. Southern California is beautiful,

but the path I'm on of working two jobs for exceptionally mere pay also doesn't feel sustainable. I've also considered starting my own woodworking business, but no zero about business. And between my other two jobs, I don't have much more bandwidth. Nothing is impossible, but it would realistically take years to get it going. So my question is this. when you transitioned out of the military how did you figure out a new direction in life did things fall into your lap did you have a plan at least an inkling of what you might want to try next thank you yeah so when i got out of the military i sat down and i penciled out the next 10

years of my life and every left-in-right turn that was coming my way i had planned for it primary secondary, contingency, even emergency. I'm completely joking, by the way. My honest response to this question is, if you figure out how to best find a new direction in life, please hit me up and let me know how you have done that. Because the reality is the only thing I was utterly certain about when it came to the trajectory of my life

was the step of going into the military and pursuing that occupation. When that came to an end, I don't think I can honestly sit here and say that I was able to or, yeah, was able to specifically in the past or currently am able to. Even in the modern, as I'm sitting here reading this to you right now, I cannot point to my new direction in life. I've said this maybe quite a bit recently, but I would say in the last, year or two, I think I have an idea of the impact that I would like to have, and that is purely to be, to the best of my ability, a positive impact on the world around me, to try to make the

world a better place, to try not to remove hope from people, and to be open and honest about my own experience, mistake, and journey so other people can realize that they're not alone in what they have gone through or what they're going through. We're actually probably defined by our similarities and not our differences. And to show people that it is okay if you get lost. You don't have to lose all hope. There's no reason to lose hope when you get lost because as long as you keep moving, I think you're going to be okay. So I wish I could tell you I did A, B, C, and D and that I had thought about those things. I have said this many times and it's 100% true. If you had given me an unlimited amount of time when I exited the military to think,

about what the next 10 years of my life would look like and to write down the things that I would do for a living. What it has evolved, so I got on 2013, so we're coming up on 14 years being out of the military. In those 14 years, I dabbled a little bit into the things that I probably would have put down on that piece of paper, but the reality of my life today, I don't even know if I would have been able to estimate the things that we're going to go on that piece of paper, or that I'm sorry, that I'm doing now that would have never shown up on those pieces of paper. I never, everything I do right now, if I had had that unlimited time, the things I do right now wouldn't have been on that list. In a million years, I never would have guessed that I would

be involved in a brick and mortar business, specifically the coffee shop. I didn't even know what a podcast was when I was leaving the military. So the odds of me putting down on that, that I would create a podcast or do anything public facing a content creation, if you will, zero percent that I would have put that on there. The skydiving and base jumping, I definitely dabbled in that for sure. And I knew that was something that I really enjoyed outside of military. And I did pay the bills doing that for a good number of years, but I have since put that down. Public speaking would have never thought about that it was going to end up doing anything remotely like that.

Writing a book never would have had that down as something that I was going to do. And I mean, here's the reality of as I sit. again right now answering this question. I don't have, I've never had a vision board. And for those of you unfamiliar with that is, right? That's the things that you're, you know, throwing darts at, looking at aspiring to in something that is aspirational or inspirational. You look at those things, whether you want to achieve them, to acquire them, whatever it may be.

I've never had one of those. And maybe that's something that would help me determine the direction that I want to go. I don't know. but the last thing that I had that I was aiming towards was the publication of the book. And that came out in April. Beyond that, and I knew that there would be some publicity associated with doing that, the content creation associated with doing that. That was the last, we'll call it mid to long-term goal that I had. The process took about two years.

So we'll call that a mid-term goal. I don't have anything else beyond that. I don't have a second book that I'm working on or even the desire to do one. I don't have another brick and mortar business that I am actively looking at or ideating around trying to create. I can't think of any out of left field idea that has been absorbing a lot of my time or trying to reverse engineer or find my way into. I think if anything, I'm trying to do the things that I do now better, maybe even in real. removing things, whether that's stuff that is absorbing bandwidth or efficiency in processes, I think I'm focusing more on that than I am. What is the next thing going to be for me?

Now, having said that, I think you said you're 33. I got 15 years on you. So I have a little bit more time in the workplace. I have a little bit more experience of bouncing around left and right than you do at 33. But I'm here to tell you. And what I would have liked to have told probably my younger self was not knowing exactly what you want to do next is totally okay. Being paralyzed by that is problematic, but it's okay to not have a specific answer. I don't know if the things that I do now are what I will do for the rest of my life. But I do know that I will be active for the remainder of my life. And when I do find something that interests me, if it is compelling enough, I will move towards that.

And then I can say yes. And when that does happen, I'll be honest with anybody listening to this or watching this. I'll say, hey, this is what I'm looking at doing. And I'll be honest about how I approach that, how I plan for that, and how I try to pursue that. But right now, I don't have it. When I was younger, that was very unsettling to me. It's not unsettling to me anymore because, A, I have enough things to do that I could work on being efficient at. But B, I know I have enough of the tools necessary to be able to figure it out in the future.

And again, I am in a different economic situation that you are at. Again, the decade and a half from now you will look back and I bet you will be in a much different economic situation than you are in currently as well. When I was 33, I was still in the military. I mean, I was an 02E at that point. So a lieutenant JG over probably. 14 years at that point. So we'd have to go to the internet and find the Excel spreadsheet and bring the two together, time and service and rank.

Might have been making six figures, probably a little bit less, but maybe close to it. If you added in the special pays before taxes, obviously. So the economic situation then is different than the economic situation that I'm at in my life right now, which gives you a little bit of breathing room, depending if you can be smart with the money that you do make. Spoiler alert. It's not what you make. It's what you spend. So manage your spending and you'll be amazed what you can do with your income. I would say for you, worry less about 10 and 15 years from now. Obviously in the moment, make sure you have everything you need to be able to survive. And Southern California, by the way, I get it. I know what you're talking about. The prices there are Southern California prices. They only, I I was going to say they only make sense in Southern California. I'm not sure it even makes sense in Southern California. It is just what people are willing to pay. And I understand why, because it's a beautiful place, whether activities, all those things, sunshine, totally get it. It's ridiculous. So,

unless there's a compelling reason for you to stay there, you could also look at transplanting somewhere else where what you do make may be able to get you a little bit farther down the road and might be able to reduce a little bit of that burden of income every single month. So just food for thought. But I would look at your next few steps as opposed to the end destination of your journey. Let that, if it's blurry right now, if it's hazy, if you use the example of a landscape, if the mountains, you know that they're there, but it's a foggy day and you can't see them, that's okay. If you roughly know the idea that they are at, and that is your end state, take a few

steps in that direction. And if it doesn't go your way, lateral, go another way. And if that doesn't go your way, lateral again. I would say try to make 45 degree moves as opposed to 90, where you're not making any forward progress. At a 45, are you getting as far as you want to with every single step? No, but are you heading in the right direction? Yes, and that's a beautiful thing.

You have the tools. Lifeguarding is great. Being an engineer is great. Between those two things right there, I'm telling you, you have the tools necessary to figure this out. So, best piece of advice, take a little bit of pressure off yourself. Don't try to put yourself into an artificial pressure cooker of time that only you are applying. Twist the dial on that a little bit.

Let a little bit of the steam out. Take some of the pressure off and experiment. The younger you are in life, I personally think the more room you have for risk in experimentation. Because if you're wrong and it doesn't go your way, you have more time to recover. I would not give that advice to somebody who is in their late 60s, early 70s, or maybe just getting ready to retire, fixed income, inability to maneuver the way that you can. My advice would be different. But for you, man, I would swing for the fences. I would try things if they interest you.

And don't look at it. Is this going to be the end for me? Like, oh, man, this is interesting. But how long is you going to be interesting for? Who cares? Go do it for as long as it's interesting. You have no idea the opportunities that will present themselves when you do that. for me, that is actually how I have found my way to where I am now.

I didn't know where each choice was going to take me, but I said yes, because it was interesting. And that actually is my litmus test for the things that I do now and the people that I sit across the table and talk to. When people reach out to me, if they seem like an interesting person, if the conversation would be interesting, that's it. That's the litmus test to sit across the table for me. So give it a try. Scare yourself a little bit. It's okay to fail. Be risky. You're at a phase in your life. Don't gamble and make sure your risk is calculated,

but you're in a phase in your life where you can take a little bit more of a chance. Hopefully that helps. All right. Question two. Totally shifting gears. Andy, I've got a situation. I'd love to hear your take on for a full auto Friday. I've been with my company for going on 23 years. And my best friend has been there almost 26. When I started, we had around 11 locations across the country. I was roughly sales guide number 22 and the company was doing somewhere between $75 to $100 million a year. When he started, there were nine branches and maybe 10 sales guys. We've both been pretty integral to what the company became.

He started an entire region out of his garage and grew it into something substantial. I started a completely new division of the company and helped build that from the ground up. Today, we are just shy of $1 billion in annual sales with almost 200 salespeople. For most of those years, we were peers. He was also a mentor to me early on and eventually became one of my best friends. We've been there for each other through a lot of professional and personal highs and lows over the last 22 years. Here's where it gets complicated. About five years ago, I was moved out of the division I created it into national accounts.

At the time, it felt like a demotion and was pretty good kick in the dick. Looking back, though, it was probably a change I didn't know I needed. I eventually decided I could either be pissed about it or reinvent myself within the company. I chose the latter, worked my ass off, and today I'm probably in the best place I've ever been professionally. That highlights to me and hopefully highlights to a lot of people that, again, you're not responsible for what happens to you in life. But you are responsible for what you do with it. there is such an an opportunity here to go one of two directions you could take the kick in the dick using your words not mine even though those just became my words because i reuse them the demotion

it could you could be pissed you could harbor a grudge you could undermine everything that you had built into that point or you could look at that situation and double down and in doing so what did you do you built yourself into probably the best place that you ever had ever been professionally. Again, your words. Same person, same situation. It's what they do with it or what you do with the environment that you are in that determines that outcome. Back to the email. My buddy recently went through something similar. His region was taken away from him and he was moved into acquisitions. On paper, it sounds like a promotion, but in reality, it wasn't. The difference is that he hasn't responded the way to it or to it the way I did. He seems checked out and frankly,

he's mailing it in. At the beginning of this year, I was promoted into a director role and given a small team to manage. One of the people on that team is him. As you can imagine, going from being peers and best friends for 22 years to him reporting to me wasn't exactly seamless. He didn't like it at first, but we worked through that part and I thought we were in a decent place. Now we're eight months in, and I'm seeing some things I can't keep ignoring. He's letting customer follow-ups fall through the cracks. He's not staying on top of acquisition targets. People at corporate are waiting on him for things they shouldn't be waiting on.

I keep hearing excuses for why things didn't get done. On top of that, there's been a pattern of putting personal expenses through the company. I have already had several hint, hint, I know what you're doing, conversations, and finally one very direct, dude, fucking stop expensing personal shit conversation. But I haven't had the real conversation yet, and that is you need to step it up. You need to start performing again. Here is exactly what needs to change. And if it doesn't, your job could eventually be on the line.

There is another wrinkle that makes this even harder. We both have potentially significant payouts coming when the company eventually sells. There is a performance clause tied to those payouts, and he is getting dangerously close to putting 26 years worth of work and a lot of money at risk because of how he's performing right now. I truly love this guy like a brother. I value the friendship far more than being his boss, and the last thing I want to do is destroy a 22-year friendship. At the same time, he's putting me in a bad position professionally. At some point, if I continue overlooking things because he's my friend, then I'm not doing it. my job either. So my question is, how would you have the get your shit together or you may lose your

job conversation with someone who has been one of your closest friends for 22 years? Was once your mentor and peer and now reports to you. And how do you separate being loyal to your friend from your responsibility as his leader? Especially when you genuinely believe the hard conversation might be the thing that saves both his career and a significant financial payout he spent 26 years earning. I'd love to hear how you'd approach it. Man, okay, there's a lot here. I have one question for you. God, I wish we could sit here to have a two-way conversation about this. Here's my question. Why haven't you had this conversation yet? You identified that his behavior, he, your words, is getting dangerously close to putting 26 years of worth of work and a lot of money at risk because of how he's

performing right now. What are you waiting on? Are you, waiting for it to get worse? Are you just hesitant to do this because of your personal relationship? I mean, there's a lot going on here. You're in a leadership role now. Let me see if I can find there we go. Your director role and given a small team to manage. Let me ask you this and be objective. Hopefully you hear this and you can think about this. Do you think that other people in the company are noticing the change in his behavior, the lack of performance? How? How do you think? How? he is behaving, mailing it in, acting like this because he feels slighted due to his new position. Do you think that other people are noticing that?

If that answer is yes, who do you think that those other people that may be saying nothing to you in that moment are looking at and thinking, what the fuck, man, why aren't you handling this? That's right. It's you. because you're the boss. I understand the complications of having close personal friends that end up reporting to you because the environment that I worked in in my previous career, we were very, very close friends, especially with the cohort of people that you kind of went through training with,

started the additional training, and started growing your operational career. But there are leadership roles inside of the military and operational unit. And oftentimes two people could have been the best of friends for 10 years, but you're the same rank on paper. One leadership role opens for that particular rank and one of you is going to have to take that role. That means that your best friend or best friends are now still going to have to report to you and you are going to have to manage the difference between your personal and professional relationship. I get the friendship aspect. But dude, if you really care about this person so much, 22 years worth of friendship, and you see him getting ready to flush 26 years worth of work and effort down the toilet

and a large check, what are you waiting on? Nothing is going to get worse if you have this conversation. I suppose his attitude may, his performance may, but. Flip the situation. What would you expect from a friend of 22 years? Would you expect them to blow smoke up your ass? Or after a two-plus decade relationship, would you expect that person to tell you the truth?

To have the conversation with you where you're talking about the things that you need to hear versus the things that you want to hear. I don't think it's accidental that this person's behaving like this, and I don't think that they're oblivious to it. But right now, they're getting away with it. And you know why? It's because you've been friends with them for 22 years.

What would happen if this person was working for somebody other than you with this level of relationship that you have, and this was his performance? My guess is it would be addressed much quicker and the person might be let go. And by the way, if this person ends up having to be let go and they, don't get their monetary payout and you are the person that has to let this person go, that's not your fault. Their actions, their consequences. And again, you're not responsible for the horrible things that happen to you in life.

And I hate to tell you, but shifting around inside of an organization in the grand scheme of things, I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but in the grand scheme of things, that's not a horrible life event. Can it be a life-changing event, maybe through money or you have to, move somewhere and the impact. Yes, I get all of that. But let's, let's be honest here. This guy's acting like a bitch because he doesn't like that he got moved around. You got put in that same situation. What did you do? You built yourself back and you are now his supervisor. And here's something that's going to sting. And I hope that it does. What you allow in your

presence is your standard. By letting this person get away with this subpar performance because they are your friend, that is your professional standard. I don't give a shit what it says on your business card, what it says on the plaque on your wall, you know, honor and integrity and, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever it may be. It's all bullshit. This is your standard because you see it. And you're not doing anything about it. Leadership is hard. It's supposed to be. It's meaningful. And I don't think anything negative is going to come from this conversation. I do think a lot of negative things will come from not having this conversation. I would be shocked, quite frankly, if others haven't seen you deviating from your standard because of this personal

relationship. I would be shocked if they didn't equate the two and say, your name is not Bob and his name is not Frank. Those are the names I'm going to use. Like, man, like Frank is a man, he's really not been great for the last eight months. But Bob's not doing. anything about it. I don't think many of them would be sitting there, scratching their head wondering why. I'm like, wow, that's weird. He treats everybody else differently, but this guy is just getting away with stuff that is unacceptable. I wonder why that is.

Yeah, they're connecting the dots on that. Is that the leader that you want to be? Is that what you want to be putting out there as the culture of your organization? Because whether you're saying that's the culture of your organization or not, that's what your actions are showing. What are you waiting on? if you have to let this guy go, that's not on you. That's on him. And I would simply say if the situation was reversed, or even beyond that, a 22-year friend that you have this level of relationship with, what would you expect them to say to you?

Somebody that you valued and respected that much, if they saw this. and let's say let's be as gracious as possible that you didn't realize that this was happening even though I don't believe that that's the case with this individual what would you want them to do the answer is you would want them to tell you especially if you didn't realize it and this huge monetary payout was waiting in the wings assuming that you could get to the point where you were going to get that payout uh yeah you would wish that they had had that conversation a lot earlier before that. So here's how I would approach it directly. Why? You have a 22-year history. You don't have to be a dick, but there is absolutely no reason why you need to round any edges

on what it is that you are saying. You've known each other long enough. You've had enough personal and professional experience together to tolerate that conversation. If he doesn't take it well and if he can't see, maybe not in the moment, but in a moment before he makes a rash decision that you are actually acting in his best interest because you care about him, then there's nothing that you can do for this person. And they need to suffer the consequences for their actions. And now I get it. Yeah, this is just a job. Totally understand. Okay. Well, how you do anything is how you do everything. And leadership, this is what it looks like. This is what a leadership challenge looks like. We could erase the professional aspect of this and make this into a family situation where it's an extended family member where you've known for 22 years. Maybe they married and this, that of it. I could totally change this until it had nothing to do with professionalism. It's still going to be a hard conversation. I still would recommend that you attack it directly.

And it still is what a leader is supposed to do. You are either a leader or you are not. Don't confuse that with being in a leadership position. Because if you are in a leadership position and you are not taking the actions that you need to, you are simply in a leadership position. The two can actually be in the same place. For sure, you can be a leader in a leadership position. And that's amazing.

And that's what I'm advising you to do. or you can do the opposite of that, your choice. The 22 years of equity that you two have built up, that's what allows you to hit this directly on the head, on the nose. If you don't, you are burning leadership capital and equity with everybody else around you. So if you do hear this, do me a favor. Don't ruminate on it for 90 days. If you hear this, pull this due aside the next time you see him,

sit him down and have the conversation that you know you need to have and then let him make the choice. And that's all I have for question number two. So it's brought to you by AG1. There is no right time for better health. There's just now. AG1 is the easiest and most impactful habit you can implement this year. Sustainable health is about consistency, not about perfection.

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show. All right, question three, definitely shifting gears here again. Hello, Mr. Stomph. I'm curious if you would cover the story of, I'm going to staff sergeant, I believe I'm not familiar, super familiar with Army ranks, Staff Sergeant Logan Melgar's killing. If not, why? The story runs much deeper than the killing itself and as I am confident, you know. I have reached out to Sean Ryan, no response and to the team house about this. I find it confusing and irresponsible that these and similar platforms will not dive. in to this story while covering similar and more sensitive in nature events. Anyhow, I thought I would try it with you.

Thank you for your time and for your service. I get emails like this a couple times a week, not on this particular incident. I am peripherally familiar with this story. I know this involved seals, and I believe there was a green beret. that was involved as well. But essentially, from my understanding, Staff Sergeant Melgar was murdered overseas. And I have heard a variety of stories

to include there was issues with op fund. It was retribution that he was going to come forward with information. It doesn't matter. The bottom line in the end of that was murder. I wish I could say that in the military, that was the singular example of something like that happening. but it's not. And the short answer to the emails like this that I get is one, I, in doing this for nine years, do not routinely, if ever, sit down and do an entire episode with just myself breaking down an

incident or a situation. And the reason for that is I can't keep up with them and I am not intimately familiar with all of them. What I would 100% would be willing to do is to sit down and have a conversation with somebody about this so I could ask questions in real time, become more educated about it. It's not the topic that I am not interested in covering. If anybody has watched the show for the last year, I recently had Ross on the author of the political article about Operation Red Wings. I have had Matt Bissonette on.

I've had Rob O'Neill on. I am not afraid of covering any and all issues in the military. The issue is I am not familiar with all of them. And I understand why certain people reach out on these topics. Sometimes they are closer or are closely tied to the situation and they don't feel like it's receiving the coverage that it should be receiving. Sometimes they are just interested in that particular branch. of the military or that military unit. Sometimes it's the combination of those two things.

And I get that. But my simple response to you is this. One, this is not the type of content that I generally create, which is, again, creating essentially a short documentary where we go chapter and verse. My understanding is this has actually already been adjudicated. I didn't research it before this, meaning I didn't research the verdict and the punishment that was associated with that, but actually I know for a fact this has been adjudicated. And I believe that there are people in prison for this. The sentencing may not be commensurate with what people would want it to be. Again, I'm at an arms distance from this from even a conceptual knowledge understanding.

I understand why people reach out. I understand why they get connected to particular topics. like this. It is a mistake to think that everybody else cares about the things that you care about so deeply at an equal level of measure. And it's not that I don't care about this. I am obviously just not as closely tied to this as you are. If you have a suggestion or for people out there, if you want to write an email like

this and say, why haven't you covered this? the answer is likely going to be, I didn't even know about that to begin with. And you probably know about it because it's touched your life. This situation occurred after I was out of the military and it didn't directly touch my life. Is it horrible and horrendous? Fuck, of course it is. Does this make the SEAL community look good? No, it doesn't, even though it was the actions of a few that I don't believe speaks for the greater community.

That's my personal opinion. For people who have an issue that they want covered, and I'm going to tell you right now, I'm not Sean or the team house, the tact and manner with which you reach out is going to largely determine whether or not people take you up on what it is that you're talking about. If you come off like a dick, and I'm not saying you did in this email, but if your opener is, hey, fucker, why haven't you covered this and you've covered all of those other things, you're probably not going to get a response. So think about a different approach. Again, I'm happy to sit down and talk with somebody one of the attorneys, the family member. I'm totally down. But that's the type of

content that I create. I am not in any way, shape, or form against bringing light where I think light needs to be shined. And to me, it needs to be illuminated in the show, shadows. That's where cockroaches are and they need to be destroyed. You got to be able to see them first. When communities fall short and I'm here to tell you as much as, man, this is insane to see the vitriol online right now in the veteran community just lobbing it back and forth, which I refuse to participate in, mainly because there is no community that is immune from things, not specifically like this, but from their shortcomings. And if people want to sit there and talk about the validity over one over the other. I'm like, you go ahead and spend your time doing that.

What I would rather do is spend my time trying to be a flashlight where possible and when I can and talk about those things where communities fall short because I believe through that a level of integrity can be restored through the transparency and as opposed to pretending like things didn't happen, communities can be brought closer back to center where that place where what I would like is the people that they serve have an immense amount of respect and belief in their integrity. Having said that, individuals inside of these larger communities are always going to have instances where they act outside of the core values of those communities.

There is not a military community in the United States military that hasn't had that happened multiple times. So I do the best I can. For the person who sent this email, if you have somebody you'd like me to talk to about this, I am more than happy. but I don't know anybody directly involved. So if you do, send them my way and I'll do the best I can. That's all I have for number three.

All right, last question for today. Hey man, long time listener. It's got to be weird hearing from people you don't know asking for advice like this. But it feels weird for me to ask somebody for advice that I had never met too. So fuck it, I guess. It's a good opening paragraph. I like it. My wife and I've been together for over a decade.

We've had our ups and downs like anybody, but I always thought we were better at communicating than most. Apparently that's not the case, as I found out recently that she's been having an affair with a co-worker for the last year. I found out because the other person was so angry that she broke contact with him that he exposed the whole thing in a less than discrete way. So now we've got far more people involved in this than I would like. I'm dealing with another man throwing a temper tantrum like a child after blowing my life up. I have the images that he sent me of the two of them together and copies of their conversations that I've read all stuck in my head. And on top of all of that, I'm trying to figure out where to start in repairing our marriage. After a long conversation with her, the day it came out, I have decided to not file for divorce yet and to see if we can make it through this.

I want us to be able to build something even better and stronger on top of this mess. She is still who I want to spend the rest of my life with, if at all possible. People can think what they want about that, but I'm trying to make the best decision for myself in my future and whatever happens. I'll stand by it. We've been communicating better than we have before than we ever have before, and the honesty is helpful. I've got a shitload of work ahead of us, but I've got hope. Obviously, I'm struggling right now, myself. I go back and forth between numb, furious, embarrassed, and so low that I barely want to get out of bed in the morning.

I know the reasons behind what she did, and I believe that she's being honest with me now. Having said that, she's still responsible for what she did. She still made the choice again and again to lie to me, and she still chose to be with him every time they were together, and a year is a long fucking time. The feelings of inadequacy, the anger, the disgust, the betrayal, the deep hurt, and the self-loathing are all ever present. So is my hatred for this guy. He is clearly not stable.

But I still can't stop comparing myself to him and wondering if I'm actually good enough to be loved by anyone. Am I adequate as a man? If she and I do end up getting a divorce, will I ever find someone else or will I have to experience the rest of my life alone. I don't do much outside of my work, so I can't think of where I'd even meet someone, and I'd almost rather be alone than try out any of those goddamn dating apps. I think she and I can make our marriage work, and I can learn to trust and feel loved by her again, but I don't know how long that will take or where we needed to start,

or where we need to start making it happen. I'm not sure if you've ever experienced anything like this personally, but how do I get past the feelings of inadequacy and betrayal that follows something like this. I can't think about anything else for longer than a few minutes, and I'm becoming acutely aware that the only thing I've really done with my life outside of my job was to be her husband. I can't really find a starting point to begin working on, though I know there's a lot to be done. And I have more doubts and less confidence than I think I've ever had. How many marriages that you have been aware of that dealt with infidelity were able to get past it? And to the best of your knowledge, how did they do it? And how do I forgive? I thought a lot about forgiveness and I want to

forgive her and making the conscious choice to forgive her every morning when I wake up. But I don't know how or what exactly that looks like or if I'm just deciding or if just deciding it makes it so. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. All right, there's a PS here, which stands for Postal Script. I've started therapy for the first time in year. She's about to start therapy herself and We're going to find a couple's therapists soon, so that's covered. And enjoyed the book. Not germane to what we're talking about here. Holy cow.

Okay, there's a lot here. Before I get into this, I, let me just talk about myself and my own personal position on this and who I am as a person. I would not be able to do what you are attempting to do. So I'm probably a little bit biased when it comes to how I'm going to answer this. I there are people and this is not to minimize or justify anything by in any way but to me there is a difference between somebody who fucks up and makes a mistake and goes outside of their marriage and somebody who is in essentially a relationship for a year and again I'm not trying to quantify those things and also for clarity I wouldn't be able to survive either of those I would not be able to

work my way back from that as a person. Again, that's my own. I'm just trying to be honest about who I am and how I view something like this. So what you are attempting to do is not something that I would be able to do. I know myself well enough as a person. Trust is essentially what we are talking about here. And for me, when trust hits zero or it goes to bankruptcy, when I publicly speak, I talk about trust in terms of a bank account. And you're going to have deposits and withdrawals. Some of them can be micro. Some of them can be macro. But I don't know anybody, really, who has ever said, you know what? Yeah, I completely and utterly lost faith and trust in this person. But I was able to give it to him back. I haven't had that experience. Maybe you're that

person. If this works for you, more power to you. I am not here to tell you what you should do. I will give you some suggestions or the way that I think about this. But I couldn't do what you are attempting to do so. So I have very little input and guidance on how you should navigate this going forward. So I'm going to be broad in my answer. The first one sounds to me, though, like this happened very recently. So what you're describing, the feelings of inadequacy and anger, the disgust, the betrayal, the deeper, the self-loathing, and they're all ever present. You hate this guy? Yeah, no shit. Yeah, it sounds like you should hate this guy, for sure. I think that's fair and valid. And I don't know anybody who would argue against that. There are people out there, well, maybe he

didn't know that you were married, this, that, or the other, mm, co-worker probably knew. So, therefore, probably didn't care or valued his own desires over everybody else's. Leave it at that. I don't think it's uncommon that this is all you can think about or you can't go for more than short periods of time without having these type of thoughts. And that's where my, my assumption comes in that this happened relatively recently, which I think that revel,

revelation, that relevation, my goodness, hold on, it's time to have a cup of coffee. I can't even get the word out. Okay, let's try that again. That realization that the world that you were living in the day before and the world that you are living in today, we'll call that a band-aid getting ripped off, that very, very, very big band-aid that had some very, very, very sticky and adhesive on there. And I think it took a lot of the skin with it. Yes, you're going to be raw for quite some time. My first piece of advice was something you nailed in the postal script. you're going to work on yourself, she's going to work on herself, and you're going to find

couples therapy. Awesome. I see absolutely no downside to that. A year is a long time, man. And again, I'm not here to tell you what to do. That is not my place. How do you know she's being honest with you now? Again, I think there is a difference. One is not, I'm about to say one is not worse or better than the other. Because again, I personally would not be able to survive either. But a one-time whoopsie versus a one-year relationship is not the same thing. And for a year, imagine how much energy and effort had to go into living two separate lives. I would I would be curious why she broke contact with this individual. Maybe their relationship wasn't going the way that she wanted it to. Maybe she was crushed by the guilt of what she had been living

for the past year. I'm not so sure. But if he hadn't acted like a child, your words not mine, would you have ever found out about this? Is she being honest with you right now because she wants to be, or is she finally at a place where she has to be because she got caught? And she realizes that the choices that she was making for a year might cost her something that she had been building for a decade. I have no answers to any of these for you, but this is how I think about this. I think it's great that you guys are communicating better right now. But the why behind that, I think, is important. There's a lot that would have to go on to lead a double life like that for a year.

Your willingness to try to build trust back from that situation is not something that I have. I would not be able to do that. So more power to you even for that attempt. time is really time and effort of you guys working together and working on yourselves individually are going to be the only tool that you have to reduce the feelings of inadequacy. The anger, you may be able to find a way to move through the anger or do something different with the anger. the disgust, the betrayal, the deep hurt, the self-loathing, all these things that you described as ever present. I think they will fade in time. I almost forgot to answer what your actual question

was when it comes to infidelity. I've seen this go both ways. I don't know. No, I do know of examples of both individual instances of infidelity and those that were, I don't know of anything of a year. That to me is a long time, but maybe half of a year, not that that's a short period of time. I do have examples of both of those blowing up, like an atom bomb and just destroying families and everything associated with that. and I can think of examples of where they have made their way through to the other side. But what I can't say is that I have been directly involved in that.

And so the outward perspective of what that looks like to me when they have been able to work their way through it, I can only say that as somebody looking at them saying they are still together, they seem to be happy in the moments that I see them. But that's all I can speak on. I don't know what it's actually like between those two people. And I don't think anybody does except for those people. It's a very private thing. I shouldn't have any expectation of knowing the reality of what that relationship looks like.

So I can say yes, I have seen examples of where people have found the way to the other side of this. But I can't truly answer as to whether or not it is, working for them. I do know people who have stayed together just for the sake of staying together because they didn't like the outward perspective of being viewed as two people that couldn't make it work. As much as that sucks to say, that's real sometimes. The outward perspective and judgment in that, I've seen it. I bet a lot of people have too. So possible, yes, but I don't know what type of timeline to put on this. What I would remove from your brain are questions like this. If I end up getting a divorce will ever find someone else or will I have to experience the rest of my life alone?

That question doesn't serve you well right now, especially if you are going to commit yourself to trying to work through this. There's no good answer that you're going to get from that. Nobody can tell the future. You have no idea what your life may look like. Let's say you get a divorce. You have no idea what your life may look like five years after that. I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not aware of anybody who does. But he likes to point at Nostradamus and like, oh, he got so much stuff right. Yeah, he got fucking thousands of things wrong too. Way more things wrong than he got right. So even the best guessers among us, yeah, you can hit some out of the park, but most of the time you're striking out at the plate. So those questions,

I don't think serve you right now because they are going to feed into your feelings of inadequacy. If you are feeling that way, betrayed or unworthy, of course you're going to be worried about your ability to even be loved by somebody else. So I would do everything you possibly can to separate those two axes right now. It doesn't serve you. You will be able to sort that if you have to cross that bridge. But don't cross that bridge until you need to where you get to that place. And the reality is you're going to have to do a lot of work on yourself to get through that anyway to walk across that bridge. And in that time, who knows what that will lead you to. A better version of yourself might lead you to different experiences, which is a different social circle. And the next thing you know,

you might find your person or you might end up spending the rest of your life by yourself. I really don't know the answer to that, but I do know that worrying about that right now where you already have this momentous thing in front of you, this huge task you're going to have to work your way through, probably isn't serving you that well. How do you forgive? I've thought a lot about forgiveness and I want to forgive her. I'm making the conscious choice to forgive her every morning when I wake up. Are you forgiving her or are you telling her? or are you telling yourself that you are forgiving her and then you still are dealing with

all of the things that have come from this? I'm not an expert in forgiveness. I do my best to let things go. I personally believe there is a step in between forgiveness and that is revenge. Not always has the best outcome. Just being honest though with my inside voice. true forgiveness is really, really hard because it's all on you. You have to put it down. You have to move past it. My main piece of concern in this, one, if you're able to do that, that's amazing. My main concern in this, though, is again, it goes back to the duration that she was living two lives.

Are you sure that's the first time this has happened? is she telling you what you want to hear now to isolate this to this situation and the hopes that you don't find out about something that happened in the past? Is she communicating this way in hopes that she doesn't lose everything but will then go back to that behavior in the future? I don't have any of those answers, but those are some of the things that would haunt me and prevent me from probably being able to work through something like this. I really don't think I would like to. I know I wouldn't like to experience this, but I really don't think I'd be able to survive it. I would make a different choice.

That I'm not giving you advice. I'm just being honest about myself. So you're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days. I would almost say don't take either of those incredibly seriously, especially for a good period of time. I think you are going to be on an emotional roller coaster for quite some time. And there's two people involved in this. And, you know, it's, I was going to go back to the email where you talk about, you know,

you understand the reasons that it happened. The reason that it happened is she made the choice for this to happen. You know, like, there's always a way that you can try to round the edges for this for somebody else. But the reality is, if you're not happy with the person that you are with and you want to be with somebody else, be a fucking adult and end the relationship that you're with before you go pursue the relationship with somebody else. that's what you should actually do. This is the bullshit pussy-ass way to go through this. And I'm not talking about you.

I'm talking about your wife. Sorry, I'm not trying to offend your wife. Hope that you guys are able to work it out. But I don't care what her reasons were. If she wasn't happy, if she wanted something different, be a fucking adult. Come to the table, have the conversation. And either you can make the change together or you go your separate ways so you're not destroying everything else in your life and you're not dealing with this situation.

It might be harder up front, but I bet in hindsight, it's going to look like it would be probably easier to go that path than dealing it like this with a larger social circle and people involved and knowledgeable of this than you would necessarily want. So for those emotional days, if you have a super high manic day or a really low day, do the best you can to not grab onto it. Both of those days are going to end at some point and your worst day will become better as long as you are able to say the course. and your best day probably won't be as good the next, but that's okay. Just try to ride it out until you can get to some level of stability. I leave you with my wishes for the best of luck. The journey you're on is not one I could do. I think it's one that very few could do.

But that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that it's going to be really, really, really hard. Draw a line in the sand for yourself of what you're willing to tolerate and what you aren't. and if behaviors start going past that line again, I would take action earlier rather than later. That's the last piece of advice I'll give you. See you all on Monday. I hope that that helped in some way, shape, or form.

See you.