Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - You Fall to the Level of Your Training | Full Auto Friday | 8.28.2026

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Recorded two of these in one week because when this drops I'll be in Maine at the Origin Immersion BJJ camp. So Michael gets another pass. Nobody knows what he does with his time anyway. First question comes from a firefighter who watched a man beat a woman in a McDonald's parking lot. He called 911 from behind a block wall and did not physically intervene. He's been carrying it ever since. Good and bad is the wrong lens for that. Capability is the right one. What you can actually do under stress, not what you picture yourself doing. Range, training, tools, and why a black belt is not magic. Plugging holes matters as much as making them. Second question is one I've never been asked. A 15-year-old found out his mother has an OnlyFans page because his baseball teammates were passing it around school. Live your life however you want. The consequences didn't stop with her. A police officer who wants out and thinks nothing he does translates. It all translates. He just needs to stop telling himself otherwise. Today's Sponsors:  Ridge:  For a limited time only head to https://www.ridge.com and use code "Clearedhot" at checkout for 10% off your order AND a chance to win Ridge's biggest sweepstakes ever Spartan Forge:  https://www.spartanforge.ai

Okay, got the red smoke. So the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. Good morning, everyone, Friday. I know what some of you were probably thinking when you woke up this morning. Have you liked the Friday episodes? You're saying to yourself, hold on. Last Friday, you did an episode by yourself. So this Friday should be a negligent discharge Friday with Michael.

And you're right. If we were going along that line of thinking, you would be correct, mathematically, linearly. Yes, all of those things. However, I need to record two of these things in one week because when this comes out, I'll actually be in Maine at the Origin immersion BJJ camp, which I think everybody should check out if they possibly can. It's pretty cool. I think this is Leah and I's fourth year going. It's a lot if you're a BJJ person, Brazilian jiu-jitsu person. Three sessions a day, open mat after every session. If you want to, I think a day off on Wednesday in between. Yeah, it starts Sunday. A couple days, day off, Thursday, Friday. Yep, that's how it works. It's a lot. It's a real buffet platter, if you will,

and you can pick what you want and take the rest that you want, which I highly recommend for people going there the first time. Point being, in all of this, is that sometimes the schedules just didn't line up. And I don't know what Michael's off doing. I don't know what he does with his time. Nobody who watches this show. It knows what Michael is doing with his time.

To include potentially Michael. I don't know if he knows what he's doing with his time. So, any who, we are here, knocking out a regular full out of Friday. Maybe next week we'll do an ND Friday with Michael. I don't know what that does to our routine, but we're just going to go ahead and take life

as it serves it to us. Here we go. Question number one. Andy, I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I'm recently purchased your book at this point of about halfway through and I found it to be full of great advice.

Awesome. Glad that you enjoyed it. I'll put a link to the book in the show notes in case anybody watching the show didn't realize that I wrote a book. And this is what I wrote it for, people to find meaning in it. That was my only hope. I'm emailing today because I would like some feedback on a situation that I was involved in and I would love to hear your take on my actions.

For background, I am a firefighter working for the city of Chula Vista, which is something that I am very familiar with. I lived in East Lake San Diego, which is also known as Chula Vista. I think it's a different zip code and I'm not sure where the locals draw the line between one or the other. People like to really church it up and say that Eastlake is the fancier. Chula Vista. I'm pretty sure it's all just Chula Vista. Regardless, call this southeast San Diego. One morning, on my way home from work, I witnessed a man beating a woman in a parking lot of a McDonald's. I witnessed this from my car and pulled over to the nearest parking lot that I could get to. This happened to be a gas station next to the McDonald's parking lot where the man was hitting the woman.

The two parking lots were separated by a five-foot block wall. I called not. 911 and proceeded to describe what I saw. This happened in an area down the street from the station where I work in an area that I am very familiar with. I have responded to many shootings and stabbing's in the area. I was not in a hurry to get my ass kicked, much less stabbed. So I proceeded to describe what I saw to the dispatcher from the far side of the block wall, but did not get involved further, in parentheses, a decision that I would regret later. My thought process was, was to call in people better trained and equipped to handle the situation rather than make the situation worse for the woman or myself. I was eventually subpoenaed to testify, and he was sentenced to one year in prison.

During the trial, the defense asked if I had done anything to intervene in the incident, to which I replied, no. I've had a lot of doubt since then of whether I did the right thing. Should I have done more to intervene? Did I make a good decision by not getting further involved? any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Well, let's get into it. There's actually quite a bit going on here. I don't know necessarily why the defense would ask you that question.

They probably understood exactly where you were involved in this situation. And that was as a bystander who witnessed it and then made the call and visually could describe what they saw happening. but you did do something to intervene in this incident. And that is you actually called 911 and reported it to a higher level of response in your own words that you would rather. What were your exact words here? Call in people better trained and equipped to handle this situation. So in your question, you said, did I make a good decision by not getting further involved?

I don't know if we can answer this in terms of good or bad because there are a lot of variables. Would it have been a good decision had you gone and physically inserted yourself into this and were able to subdue the individual, maybe take him to the ground, hold him there until cop showed up and the woman took no more damage? Sure, I guess that would be considered good or better. What if you had gone over there and you got flatlined by the guy? Or like you said, the guy pulled out a knife or he pulled out a gun

and it escalated to the point where there was a loss of life for both you and the woman. We're obviously going to the extreme hypothetical here when I'm bringing this up, but let's put this into the realm of what is possible, especially when it comes to human behavior in incredibly emotional states, maybe altered states as well when you introduced edge weapons or ballistic weapons. Possible for sure, probable, very unlikely, I would say. However, if you had done that, I don't know if that's good for you, for the woman. for life in general and everybody that you are involved with in your own personal life. So maybe

just we should not view this through the lens of good and bad. You did take action. You called 911. I'm going to assume that you were not the first person to see this. And I would like to assume that you aren't the first person to call. But I bet more people saw this than called it in. And that sucks. I can't and I don't. want to give anybody advice on to how and when they should get involved in physical altercations that are optional to them, meaning you weren't ambushed and have found yourself in a situation that you must deal with. This is a situation, I guess you could call this an ambush of information to begin with, but you physically weren't involved with this. You had the choice to get physically

involved or not to call it in or not, and you took the appropriate actions. And I think think based off what you have described, you might have made the correct decision for you. And again, not good or bad, but this all comes down to the individual. What are you capable of doing? For anybody who follows a show, you know that I love Jiu-Jitsu very much. And you probably understand my military background and that it involved firearms. And I love firearms very much. Now, the firearms rules when it comes to conceal carry are different in Montana than they are in California. You can get a concealed carry permit in California. It is a lot more arduous.

It is more restrictive. Where I live in Montana, it is a constitutional carry state. Even when it wasn't when I got my CCW here, I think I got fingerprinted, went to the sheriff's office, filled out some paperwork. And the thing was at my house, I think within about a week. It's a shall issue or was a shall issue state. meaning unless you had something exceptional in your record, they shall issue you the concealed carry permit. So that allows me to have tools,

which is all these things actually are, whether you're talking about an edged weapon or a gun, these are tools that can be used to help people or to harm people. They can be used for exceptional amounts of good and they can be used for exceptional amounts of evil. When it comes to this, If I'm putting myself, I'll put myself in your situation. But this is not advice for anybody else.

I have talked about it on the show before. I have physically involved myself in a situation. Not like this. It was an extremely intoxicated couple at a restaurant where there was a child involved. I'm not even going to describe what ended up happening in the parking lot as a fight because it really wasn't. I mean, the cops responded pretty quickly. It basically held a person down on the ground. there were no exchanges of punches.

It was, this is before I started Jiu-Sitsu. I would describe it as a really shitty wrestling match. Today's episode is bought by Ridge. You know Ridge already. They make amazing power banks, wallets, luggage, and premium everyday gear. Ridge is back with their legendary sweepstakes for the sixth year, and this time it's bigger than ever.

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Back to the show. I am not able, as a person, to not interdict or interject myself into situations like this. if I was in this situation, there is a very, very high likelihood that I would have called 911 for sure, but two would have physically involved myself in this. But I am comfortable with my physical ability when it comes to being involved in a situation like this. So I've been a black belt in jiu-jitsu now for two years. I'm going to say the same thing that I say every time. It's not magic.

Having a black belt is cool, I guess. but if you think that that makes you some Jedi at fighting, I don't know what to tell you other than there are a lot of things other than grappling that can involve themselves in a physical altercation. It's great if you have your black belt and maybe they can tie it around you when you're in the ambulance if you can't get through kicking and punching range

and you get knocked the fuck out on your way in. Cool black belt, right? Again, I'm not saying it's not an amazing skill set to have, but let's be honest about what it is and what it isn't. It works amazingly well at the grappling range, meaning physically touching one another. Beyond that, you either need to be so close that they can't hit you

or far enough away that they also can't hit you. That middle range, that kicking, punching range, just go watch a UFC. They don't hang out in that range. There's a reason for that. When they do hang out, let's use Gaichi and Max Holloway as an example. Holy shitballs.

Holloway points at the middle. of the ring, they both step in there and they lived in that middle space until Gachi took a little bit of a nap. What an absolute legend, though, both of those. And they're professional fighters. They knew what they were doing. They understand the risk and complications. They stood there in that middle range and just banged it out. Now, what if they had stood four feet apart? Yeah, that doesn't work, right? And what if they had been so close that they couldn't swing at each other? That doesn't work either. I'm just trying to highlight that middle range. There are some jihitsu schools that will teach you how to travel through that range.

But in most of the schools that I've now been able to travel the world around it, I'm only seeing largely open mats and talking with some of the instructors. I'm not getting a full look at the curriculum. But I think it's a safe assessment to say that they focus on the grappling range because jiu-jitsu is a grappling art. Some schools start standing, some don't focus on takedowns at all. Point is, if you're not really comfortable in that range, if you don't know how to punch, if you don't know how to kick, if you don't know how to protect yourself, you as an individual and I have no idea your training background.

If you didn't feel comfortable involving yourself in this situation, I think you made the correct decision. If you feel bad that you didn't, my advice to you is simple. Look at what happened and where you feel deficient. Not as a person. What tool do you wish that you could have had in that moment that you could have applied to that situation? If it was the ability to fight, then go learn how to fight. And I'm not saying you need to get into fights, but the capability to be violent, in my opinion, as a man, is very important. And everybody I know that is incredibly capable of violence avoids it at all costs because you know that it hurts.

You know that it's dangerous. You know that there is risk involved. and you also know that you can win a fight and still end up going into the hospital in the next ambulance. It's great when we go and we put our ghee on or we do no ghee and basically board shorts and a rash guard on a padded floor inside of a rule set where you're actually training with one of your friends and nobody is actually trying to hurt anybody. That's amazing. in an environment where it's concrete and sharp edges and there's no padding to be found anywhere and you're dealing with somebody who already is emotionally escalated, potentially in an altered state, and they'll take your face and try to crack it open on the sidewalk.

Please don't confuse those two environments. One of them can prepare you from a technical perspective for the other. But please don't confuse the two. You also have to be capable and comfortable with getting in the middle. with getting in the mix and being aggressive and being violent. And I am not an expert in anything, but in my own data point of one traveling through the world, seeing people confronted with these situations

and seeing the whole gambit of the fight, flight, freeze, fawn, seeing it all and seeing people very shocked and surprised by the reaction that they had. They had who they thought they were, and then they had who they actually were when they were confronted with those things. And not to diverge completely, but if that happens to you and you feel one way about yourself and then have this stark realization that you landed somewhere far short of that, it's okay.

Close the gap. There's solutions to every problem, like largely. But you can find ways to close that gap. And sometimes it can be a tool. But also introducing a tool into this environment may not be the best thing either. So some capacity at being able to control other human beings, I am not seeing a downside to that. Again, I will highlight this again. I'm never going to say jiu-jitsu is magic.

It's really fun. I really enjoy it. Some of my best friends participate in it. But I don't lie to myself and tell myself or anybody else that it is this perfect self-defense or even offensive tool. You have to layer other things on top of it. And I always talk about defense in terms of range. There is the range where we can't touch each other, where tools can be a belief.

holistic tools can be useful. Then there's a closer range where the, you know, the kicking, edged weapons, and per clarity, edge weapons scare me far more than guns. I don't recommend people go to Google images or do some searches of the difference between a gunshot wound and somebody who's been the victim of a stabbing or a slashing attack. Holy cow. Knives scare the crap out of me. And then there's the grappling distance. My recommendation is to be at least competent across all three of those. Otherwise, there's a huge gap and you might find somebody who's a game lives in that gap. And then you might find yourself in trouble. Back to your question, though.

Sorry, just digressing a little bit. And I just, I don't want people to think that violence looks like it does in the military where it's all, you punch somebody one time and they go flying backwards, that people are going to comply or shut down just because they get hit once or even if they get shot. That's another one you see. Somebody gets shot and they go flying backwards. I have watched people with my own eyes eat rounds and kids. keep coming and you are thinking to yourself what in the actual fuck is going on here it happens especially again in altered states so i just don't want people to think that there is a magic to self-defense or fighting it's a gnarly profession for those who do it professionally they have had a lot of

stitches a lot of bumps and bruises a lot of broken bones along the way and they're training in controlled environments for short bursts in fights in fights in fights in other controlled environments. Take all that stuff out of there and imagine how much worse that stuff can be. The point in all this is, and this ties into your question, is you have to answer for yourself, what do you want to be able to do? And what do you feel comfortable doing? I am not going to give people advice and say, hey, you need to go get involved in this.

I wish I saw that more. I'm not going to lie and say that I saw or that I wish that I saw far less of people doing this when they see something happening. and for the audio-only audience, I'm holding up my camera as if I'm filming an incident because that is pervasive all over the U.S., at least, and probably the world, there are oftentimes so many people that are there that even if they were untrained due to a volume, the volume of people being able to overwhelm and at least stop a situation from getting worse, it's, I can't say it's always there, but it's often the case, but they don't. They film, and I don't know in their head if they're filming for documentation.

Maybe that's, I would like to believe that's what they're thinking. But I'm not going to lie to myself. I don't think that's what some of them are thinking. Some of them are filming that for content. They are literally thinking to themselves in the moment, I'm going to put this on the internet. And that sucks. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, but to me, that sucks. because the more hands you have available,

the more impact you can have. And again, I'm not giving anybody advice. I am just saying I wish that more people were willing to get involved. But I also understand why they don't want to. They don't train. They've never been exposed to violence. They're scared.

They're confronted sometimes for the first time in their life with physical injury that could come at the hands of somebody else who might be. completely unhinged. That is scary. That should scare you because that means you're paying attention and you realize the risk and potential danger involved in getting involved. Like I said, for myself, I can't stop myself from putting myself, again, situation dependent. Am I going to run at somebody who has a tool in their hand if I don't have a tool that at least levels the playing field. Probably not. Probably going to have to figure out a different way to maneuver and handle that

situation. But idly standing by doesn't work for me. And that's okay if it does work for you. There's no judgment there. But the gap between those two things, in my opinion, at least, is training and exposure. Those two things are not going to turn you into Jason Bourne and assassin. But They will help you in those moments of fear and uncertainty, especially if you have tested yourself with micro, I don't want to say aggression. We'll call it micro hardship, micro uncomfortable situations. It will help you bridge the gap between being paralyzed and taking action. And taking action might end up saving somebody else's life.

to the person who wrote this in, you took the action that you felt comfortable taking, which again, dialing 911 and reporting this, I guarantee you more people saw this than called it in, which sucks. That's a horrible statement about our society, but it is true. Or humanity, maybe not even our society, but just humanity. Some people will see that. They'll turn their head to the right and they'll look over and they'll see something like that and they'll say, no, and just turn their head back to the center line and continue on with their day.

again not going to tell you how to how to live your life but if you were in that situation and you were getting your ass handed to somebody and you needed help what would you want that person to do not expect them to do but what would you hope that they would do so if you the biggest thing here is I like the fact that this is sitting with you and I like the fact that you are questioning what you did versus what you could have potentially done make sure though You are actually equipped to do the thing that you are about to do. Like I said, if it's a large volume of people, you could overwhelm somebody like this. But you would need to put a plan together and get all those people to move.

If you were a trained individual, now we might be talking about something that you could interrupt and have an immense impact on a one-on-one situation and everything in between those two things. So if you wish you had had the capability to do more, man, What a better recipe for what it is that you should or could. I'm going to say, again, tell you to live your life that you could work on. And a question for the audience out there. What is the downside to being the most capable person possible? Mentally, emotionally, physically, from a skill-based perspective, what's the downside? How is that going to hurt you?

Statistically, you will probably never encounter situations like this, and that is a very good thing. but if you do, all of the time that you put in is going to rise to the surface, right? We don't rise to the occasion as people in situations like this. You fall to the level of your training. And if you don't have any, it may be a good idea to do the 911 call versus going and physically inserting yourself. So just food for thought. Does it take a lot of time? Yeah.

Do you learn a lot about yourself along the way? You really do. do you find things and learn things that have application outside of that skill set that you are focusing on that will impact everyday life for you? Yes, you absolutely do. I really don't know a downside to increasing your capability in as many different areas as possible. Your life will be better for it. And if you find yourself in a situation like this, you will at least have the opportunity should you choose to to make a difference in somebody else's life. life as well. And in addition to this, I'm going to add something to this because I think it's

really important. Most of the time, people focus on the violent aspect of situations like this. This situation, although not anomalous, statistically, is unlikely for a lot of people to encounter. But what isn't unlikely for a lot of people to encounter is somebody needing help in a medical situation. And in the tactical space, there is so much emphasis that is placed on creating holes. I think there should be equal, if not more, in plugging holes. So not only should you, should isn't the right word. Not only would I recommend that you focus on a very aggressive or your capabilities in the violence category, I would put an equal, maybe not an equal amount of time. A lot of when it comes to being able to help people in medical situations

is having the appropriate equipment with you because tools really help there as well. And you can find all this stuff on the internet. The vast majority of this stuff is not restricted or regulated in any way. You can get vehicle medical kits, headrest, medical kits, glove box medical kits. Throw one of those in each one of your vehicles. You never know. The life you save actually might be your own. But you can, if you are a first responder to an accident, maybe there is somebody there with a higher level of care, but you have a medical kit that you can give to that person. And in that kit is a tool that would help save somebody's life. These are easy fixes.

This is just money, not even necessary. Well, it would be time until it shows up at your house. And hopefully you wouldn't encounter that situation before it actually gets to your house. But, and then you could assist the person and use your medical training. If they're dealing right, you're triaging stuff, the airway breathing, circulation, all of that stuff. I even think that's actually changed. You're looking for blood.

You're doing a blood sweep. You see spine control. Whatever it may be, you can focus on those things and end up saving a life that way as well. So it's, you're more likely to encounter that situation than you are something like this. But again, what is the downside to being prepared? What does it cost you other than money and time where you are learning things that can impact positively every other aspect of your life and can potentially have the ability to save others?

So don't be too hard on yourself. You did what you could in the moment. But if you don't like how you felt about yourself or you felt like there was a gap and capability there. Dude, there's your recipe. Go fill it. All right, question two. You want to talk about a transition of gears here. And I don't know if I've ever actually answered a question like this because I've never received a question like this. And in the first sentence, everybody will understand why. I guess it's a little bit more of a new phenomenon, but this is not something that I had to deal with growing up. So here we go. Let's get into this.

Recently, a close friend of mine was confronted with the fact that his sister has an only fan's account and a quite large following in which she films and provides adult content for sale through her page. The way my friend found out is what disturbs me. My friend has a 15-year-old nephew who is in high school. He went to school recently to discover that a group of teammates that all play high school baseball together had discovered his mother. only fan page. Only fan? Yes, only fans? I don't know, whichever the way you say that.

Not only that, but his teammates were sending and sharing the link and picks of his mother all around school. It gets worse. Everyone in his family was oblivious to his mother's online activities and was a complete shock to everyone. However, the boy in this situation briefly ran away from home until he was returned home by police. Then refused to return to school until truant officers got involved. Upon the boy returning to school, he made a violent threat involving a firearm against the boys who were sharing the picks of his mother. The boy was expelled in an investigation between the school, CPS, police, mother of the other kids involved. ensued. So that ensued. Long story short, the other kids that were involved at school were expelled

as well for sharing the content. I don't know all the details. I'm repeating what my friend has told me of the situation up to this point. I cannot fathom putting myself in this situation and having to deal with other students finding adult content of my mother. Unfortunately, what I have found online is stories like these are becoming more and more common in the modern era. Hence, I have never been asked this question. I didn't have to grow up in this type of environment. I think people understand now the, maybe my opening to this particular question. I've come to realize that there's going to be an entire generation of children now that have to grow up learning how to navigate only fans' moms. I am very perplexed because I tend to be very open-minded and I don't want to tell anyone how to live their

life or judge them. My concern is that a mass majority of these women get into this adult content space and don't consider the repercussions or consequences later on in life for their decisions or don't realize that content now lives on the internet forever. I can't imagine being a teenager having to deal with that or the everlasting emotional trauma of having to deal with that. I'd be very interested on your take about this topic and how you think we could better protect instances like the one above from happening, or do you think it will slowly become normalized in society and culture like pornography already has through the internet? Wow. What a question. I guess start at the bottom. Do I think it will slowly become normalized in society and culture

like pornography already has through the internet? I think that's already starting to happen. I have been to only fans exactly and precisely zero time. Times, times, whatever. Is it only fan? Only fans? I don't know with this random S's pluralization. I have never been to the website. I don't even know if they have an app.

If they do, I have never downloaded it because that's not my jam. Having said that, I, much like the person who wrote this in, I'm not here to tell anybody how to live their life. If you want to go out and create adult content like that, I am not a prude sitting here, going to sit here telling you that I think you're wrong in what you're doing. Because it's your life to live. You have your choices to make. But I will say the consequences that you get to suffer, both positive and negative, from those choices are 100% yours. Or I would like to believe that they are, but they're not really, especially when it comes.

comes to this type of content in the internet world that we live in. One thing I will say is this. The mom who is doing this or anybody of that age, anybody who grew up in the modern era, and this is something that I reinforced to my children as they were growing up into a world where they don't remember the internet not existing or smartphones. And that is everything that you send through the internet, just assume that it lives forever. There are countless examples of this, whether it is an off-color joke,

a video of you in an inebriated or altered state, making an ass of yourself that only one person needs to retain. Assaults, abuses, I mean, the pornography, I don't even know what OnlyFans is, When the people say OnlyFans is just adult content, is that just a softer way of saying pornography that's on your phone? I don't know. I don't understand this vernacular. I don't buy that an adult in the modern era doesn't realize that these things will in fact live forever on the internet. It's like the content that I make, that I'm sitting here making right now.

After this, I'll do the two ad reads that I do per episode. I'll put them into the episode. I'll finalize the render on the video. And then I hit upload and I put it on the variety of platforms that I upload to. After I hit that arrow, the up arrow or the upload button, I no longer have control over where it goes. And I understand that as somebody who creates content. It could find its way to somebody who is very offended by what I say, which has happened. It could find its way to people who agree with what I say, which has happened.

It could find its way into being cut up into shorter form content and things can be taken out of context from a very long form conversation. And that can be weaponized to either support or attack a position that has happened. And that's the way that it goes. I know that when I hit the upload button. I do not accept that there is an adult out there in this level of content creation, specifically talking about what I think occurs on only fans that has an expectation, a realistic expectation, that there isn't at least a high likelihood or probability that that type of content is going to exist outside of just the individual that is consuming it. I just don't accept that. You could say that if you want to,

but I think you're a liar. Or you're just utterly not paying attention to the world that we have lived in since the late 90s when the internet started exploding. I just don't buy it. And this falls into the category of I can't even fathom what it would be like to be a child at the age of, I think it was 15, which, my goodness, being a young man and a young woman as hard enough as it is. I cannot even fathom. Layering on top of that, one, you had no idea that your mom was doing this stuff. And two, finding out that your peers are not only consuming this, but spreading this content. Yeah, I probably would have run away from home too for a bit and then refused to go to school

because I don't want to confront those people at school. And the layer that's deeper to this is I've seen this with my own children. At least when I was in school, I mean, there was some gnarly shit that happened as it does when young men and young women are at this age. But at least at the end of the day, I mean, you got to go home and you got to escape it. And the person, I guess, could come try to continue to do whatever they're doing. They could knock on your door and then your mom or dad's going to get involved.

They could call you on the landline. But other than that, you at least got a reprieve for call it 12 hours. Anybody with kids can tell you, especially with the smartphone, it's 100% connected at all times. So not only is this stuff getting spread at the school that you were at, all they need is one friend at a different school, which then continues and continues and continues. And you might end up getting messages or just you're constantly being bombarded by people that geographically, you're nowhere near that you're never going to meet and you're still being bombarded with this

information. That is a layer of just pressure that I am so thankful that I did not have to grow up in. Because like I said, being 15 years old is hard enough as a young man and young woman. then finding that your mom is creating this content, then finding that the people at your school are spreading it or consuming it. Yeah. I probably would have made a violent threat too. Not that I was capable of violence, but can you imagine the level of frustration and anger associated with this? And this for me is that jump between, hey, if you want to go live your life the way that you want to, that's fine. But accept the consequences of your actions. In this situation,

the consequences of your actions are cascading downstream to your child. You didn't think about that? Are you that fucking selfish and self-centered? And I'm not saying I want people to be poor and on the street. But do you need to sell your asshole and feet pictures online to do that? I mean, I don't know. Is there a step in between the two that wouldn't have this level of impact on your children? and I don't care how much money you're making. I hope you're making all the money in the world.

I hope you're making fucking million dollars a day. Is it worth it to put your family through this, to put your son through this? Do you think this is over for him? Do you think this isn't going to potentially have lifelong impact when it comes to people for the remainder of his life, potentially putting these two things together, connecting the dots on this and confronting him with this? That's the life that you potentially want to have for your son, for money, I mean, I can't answer that for you or for anybody else, but I hope you at least asked yourself that question before jumping into a medium that's going to live forever in the digital world that we live in. I don't know what to say about this other than put yourself. Before I say this, I've failed at this a lot in my life.

I'm trying to do better with it now. but before you make a decision, try to put yourself in the shoes of the other people that it might have an impact on, at least momentarily. And then you don't have to do that for every decision. Like, I don't need you to do that to decide what you're going to eat for lunch. But if you professionally, you know, if you get offered another job somewhere else and it might require you to move and lift and shift your family, that'd be a good place to sit there and obviously involve those people in the discussion.

but think about the impact that your opportunity could have on the others that you care about the most deeply. I'm going to assume that you care about your family deeply, even though actions in this situation may show otherwise. So if you, I mean, there's always time. There's always time to think through things like this. And I know there are people out there who are in a bind or who feel lost. and they will say, you know, I can do whatever I want to. This is my body. Totally agree.

Do whatever you want to with your body. And they don't know what to do. And maybe financially it's like, this is the only thing that I, it allows me to stay at home or whatever it may be. Whatever justification you want. Cool. Assume all those things are true. Great. But what are the downstream consequences?

What is the money worth? Is it really the only option that you have? Is that who? you want to be at the end of the day. I say that without judgment. If that's what you, I don't, I know that the porn industry exists. I know that only fans is a thing. If you want to do that, I don't care. I worry about people who get into it really, really young because I remember how little I knew about the fucking world when I was really, really young. And the things I thought about then are not the things that I think about now. My perspective on time then was not the perspective on time that I had now.

but this is an adult who has had those laps around the sun, who has had those life experiences, who has that greater context on things and is still finding their way to doing this. And again, I'm going to judge you as a person, but I am going to judge the impact that your decisions had on your son. That's horrible. And it's also potentially inescapable for the rest of his life. That's the example that you want to set. That's the parent that you want to be.

It's not for me to answer those questions for you. Those are questions for you to answer for yourself. I think we have to educate. I was going to say kids. But I mean, given this example right here, no, fuck that. That woman made a decision on her own. And I just, I don't accept the fact that it didn't at least occur to her that this would potentially happen. You've had enough exposure to smartphones and the internet and the way things.

And then enough, again, countless examples of things from people's past being pulled forward. Just look at political cycles when literally teams of people just dig through the ether on the internet and try to find stuff to either disparage, reframe how somebody, you know, everybody knows what I'm talking about. Everybody knows that this stuff lives forever. So for the mom, you don't get a pass on that one. But I mean, you also can't as a parent, and I'm not talking about, this parent who's making this content, you have to be honest about this stuff existing. I talked to my daughter about this type of stuff. Her view on people who create this type of content, at least when I have conversations

with her, I'm not worried about her going down this pathway. She has expressed extreme distaste for people who create that kind of, it's not her thing. It's not her jam. I'm not going to say distaste for people who make that type of content because I don't think that's her issue. I think her issue is the content itself that is created. But you need to educate young men and young women that this stuff is out there. You also need to educate them on how addictive this can be as well. I think I've read some articles about just the amount of money that people have spent on this stuff.

How deep down the rabbit hole full on addictions if they're parallel to chemical addictions. It's gnarly. It's a newer technology. It's not new technology, but it's a newer technology. We'll figure it out, of course. I don't know if this is a control type issue, whatever it may be. But what sucks about this, even those other kids, they got expelled for this, that doesn't remove the burden from the 15-year-old.

It doesn't change anything in his life. Because, again, he still can be bombarded 24 hours a day by those same people. They don't have physical access to him. They'll have digital access to him, and that sucks. For the mom, live your life however you want to. But fucking be better than... putting your son in this situation because you did. He didn't ask for this. He didn't know about this. And now it's inescapable for him. Being a parent is really hard. You are the example for your children,

whether you want to be or not. What example did you just set by doing this? How has his life been changed in its trajectory because of your decision. And you can say, yeah, it's my life. I can do what I want. Totally agree with you. But it's now impacting people that you should care more about than yourself. And that's all I have for question number two. Today's episode is brought to you by Spartan Forge. Stop messing around if you are an outdoor enthusiast. If you are a hunter, if you are somebody who spends your time outdoors, and you want to treat it like what it is, a professional indebted. A serious endeavor. You want to plan. You want to gather intelligence. You want to utilize all the technology that is available to you as the consumer. So whatever it is you're planning on doing, you can be the most prepared. I've talked about Spartan Forge a bunch. One of my best friends is the founder, Bill Thompson. It's designed, I think, originally as hunting software, but this is hunting software that I use for aviation, for all of the stuff that I'm getting ready to talk about. Probably most importantly, the LIDAR and UAV mapping. So incredibly high,

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sun exposure deer prediction journaling cyberscout uavs and lidar it is unbelievable spartanforge.a i upgrade your outdoor capabilities all right question three i know you're busy so you or your team will probably never see this ha ha ha Surprise, cockbag. I don't have a team. Well, I do. And I see them when I look in the mirror. That's what my team looks like. I used to have Michael, but he's quitting. He's not actually quitting. He is moving on with his life and I totally get why he wants to do that. He's going to go have his own adventures. It's going to be awesome. Is Michael going to be awesome because of his adventures? I don't know. That might be beyond his capability. But you never know. He's like a young bird that we're releasing into the wild.

and what he comes back as nobody really knows. Anywho. Yeah, I don't have a team. This is just me. However, I recently watched a conversation with DJ Shipley. For those of you who haven't seen that, I did a change agents episode. I work with Ironclad, the production company, and it is over on their YouTube channel. I think we chatted for about 90 minutes.

It came out maybe a month ago. It was an interesting conversation for a couple of reasons. I'm not a veteran, so I can't even begin to know where you guys are coming from when discussing leaving the military and finding a new path in civilian life. I'm currently having my own conflicts with my career. I'm a police officer, but I want out. I want to find a career I can truly love and still make good enough money to comfortably live. Man, what?

Welcome to the journey. Yeah, finding something you truly love and still make enough money to live comfortably. Man, please let me know if you get a good recipe for that one, because I'll take a look at it. But as a police officer, I don't have any other skills that can translate to a regular civilian job. I also think it would be extremely hard to leave policing. I know once I leave it, I'm going to miss it. But as of today, I want out of law enforcement entirely. I think there's a lot of true things in here.

Yes, you are going to miss it. And that's okay. When you look back on things in your life that have been meaningful or that you got some sense of purpose from or a sense of an identity from, that's totally normal to when you look back on that, have a sense of, man, I miss that. because essences of that job or parts of that job are probably awesome. You really look forward to it. I'm sure there was a reason why you wanted to get into it in the first place and were fulfilled when you were able to accomplish those things.

So yeah, you're always going to look back, hopefully, and say, damn, I miss that a little bit. I think we all do in phases of our life. I miss a lot about military service. I'm also glad, though, that I am no longer serving in the military because it has allowed me to get exposure to a vast array of things that I never would have been able to had I had stayed in the military for 20 years, 30 years, or some people stay in for longer than that.

One thing jumps out at me from this email, and it is your words. I don't have any other skills that can translate to a regular civilian job. Says who? Who is telling you that? This is an example of how powerful the words we use to our words. self can be. That sentence, I do not have any other skills that can translate to a regular civilian job, is completely inaccurate. There was a time where I probably felt the same way about my military job. If you look at the actual job of what I used to do, what is what is the actual

execution of that job look like. Well, there is a process called the three FEEA process, fine, fix, finish, exploit, and analyze. It takes a team of people to complete this process, and it never ends because after the exploitation and analysis of intelligence on target, you probably can derive another one. But the fine and fix, I mean, we're talking national level assets in times, intelligence, individuals, uh, nether, networks, electronics, all of this stuff. The finish piece. Crossing the threshold of somebody's door, likely at their house where they feel the most safe at a time of night, hopefully where you can utilize your tactical and technological advantage.

And then deal with the situation accordingly. That's the job. That is really what the job comes down to. All of the other stuff that we do is a slow march cascade. funnel to the finish piece. It really is. All of the other schools, the professional knowledge, the training, all of that comes down to, this is my opinion, not doctrine in the military, but comes down to crossing the threshold of a door somewhere in the world because somebody or something there is compelling enough for you to be tasked to do so. How do you apply that to

the civilian world? You see how easy it is for me to even look at. You see how easy it is for me to even look at myself, and I've done this previously in my life, look at myself and say, well, there's nothing else that I can do with this. Well, what am I going to, what am I just going to go be a police officer? And let me just tell you how different the roles of somebody going in the special operations community and being a police officer are. They may, they both carry guns, got that, bulletproof vests, got that, vehicles and assets, all those things, got that, tactics involved in that, got that, all of that stuff. Check, we're on board. There are similarities. in those things. The execution of the job is completely and utterly different. I wasn't pursuing

people for violations of, you know, local laws or citations. I didn't have to know an immense amount about the law. I wasn't worried about people's civil rights. We got to do things that you would never want to do. I'm talking about explosively breaching or just the ways that we got to operate. You would never want to do those things as a police officer. Are some of those skills applicable, like the marksmanship and understanding tactics and, yep, great, but they 100% are. But they are such galactically different jobs that I caution people when they think that they can seamlessly jump from at least the special operations world into the law enforcement world. They might look a little bit the same.

They are not the same. Going back to this, though, I don't have any other skills that can translate to a regular civilian job. Really? Okay. How often on a day-to-day shift are you de-escalating situations with your words? How often on a day-to-day shift are you encountering an unknown problem set, a challenge, where you have limited information and you are solving it on the fly, tactically, personally,

professionally? You're working inside of a rank. based organization. So you understand not only chain of command, but hierarchy. I bet you are communicating up and down the chain of command. Depending on how long you have been inside of your organization, I bet you might have found your way into a leadership role. And you now have examples of both good and bad leadership from above you or parallel to you. Maybe they're at the same level of leadership that you are at. And you can either apply those positive examples that you have seen or avoid those negative examples that you have seen. I personally think that you have a tremendous amount of skills

that can translate to a regular civilian job. You have the best police officers I know, and I'm fortunate enough to know quite a few here where I live and train Jiu-Jitsu with a couple of them as well. They are not reaching for their gun. They're de-escalating. They're the most personable, affable, conversational individuals that de-escalate situations that could escalate just by how they show up. They are constantly being challenged. I mean, literally their radio goes off and they don't know what the person is about to say. And then they are off responding to a puzzle that is throwing itself at them at a thousand miles an hour. And they're doing the best that they possibly can. That's happening to them multiple times per day. They're interfacing over the

radio and in person, interagency, interagency, email, radio traffic, text, phone call. So every form of communication, reading body language of people that they are around, professionally developing themselves by going to different schools, taking on secondary and tertiary roles, ancillary skill sets, volunteering in other areas of the community. And everything that I have just mentioned, I'm going to assume that's possible or true for you, name a job in the civilian world where that wouldn't be beneficial. As it's somebody out there who employs people, do you, you may not be able to understand this, but those skills that I just talked about, those capabilities, as somebody who

employs people, you are a dream employee. Now, I might need to spend some time teaching you how to make coffee, which by the way, I'm not going to teach you shit about how to make coffee because I don't really know to. I can make a latte. I got you with a latte. Some of these other beverages that we serve at the coffee shop, I can't even find the button, let alone tell you what's in the thing. So I'm not going to teach you, but somebody else could. But you are instantly going to be a value add because of those skills that as an employer, if those are the raw building blocks that I have to work with, that's amazing. That is somebody that I can teach.

That is somebody that I can layer on job-specific training. And I don't even actually care what the job is. I mean, there might be some things that are technically outside of the realm of what you're good at. Like maybe you're not going to go fly a UPS 757, you know, or an helicopter or whatever it may be. because maybe you don't have a propensity for that, but I could stuff you into an aviation department tomorrow and find a role where you would be able to integrate,

given the skill set that you have, and layer on all the occupationally specific things that you would need later on. It might take some time, but holy shit, again, as an employer, if that's the raw building blocks that I get to work with, that's two thumbs up, man. Imagine two candidates,

same age, different experiences, you're coming with that level of experience and somebody else has none of that. Who do you think I'm hiring? Who do you think anybody is likely going to hire? The point of all of this is that I worry, and this is true of me for sure, that the most limiting factor in our lives are ourselves. If you talk to yourself like this, you're going to start believing it. And I'm here to tell you that it isn't true. The things that I do now, all of the things that I do now, which look absolutely nothing like the three F-EA process. Again, find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze. That's not what I do now. The book that I wrote, I don't have one in an arm's reach, was my attempt to take what I learned in the execution of my old job.

and drag that out of that old job to explain to people how universally applicable the skill sets are and those experiences. They are defined by similarities, not differences, in not the physical actions of the things that I used to do, but the core philosophies that make high performing individuals and teams function well. in that environment, you can drag that into any environment, a sporting team with teenagers. Now, are you going to need to change some vernacular? Yes. Are you going to need to talk in age-specific terms? Absolutely.

But are the concepts and principles the same? Yes, they are. That was the goal with the book. Not like, hey, look at this gun I have. It's how did we get a small element of people who are highly driven from, diverse in different backgrounds, align towards a single mission set, a mission statement, and then have them perform in an environment that is defined by its uncertainty with a robust amount of planning that you throw at the real world and the real world goes, yum, yum,

yum, yum, yum, and spits it out because the real world doesn't give a shit about your plan, and they're still successful. Those skills will make you a rock star in life if you can apply them properly. and you don't walk down hallways of opportunities and shut the doors for yourself, which, and I'm not trying to mean by saying this, is what you are doing when you talk to yourself like this. So that's step one. Change that sentence. I don't have any other skills that can translate to a regular civilian job.

Bull shit. Change that sentence. You have a tremendous amount to offer, given your individual. exposure and experience and your training to wherever you may land. Now, are you going to love it? That's the tough part, to be honest with you. Finding a new occupation where you're going to have the same level of purpose, depending on how much you find purpose from your job now. That's going to be a tough one. Have I been able to find something similar to when I was in the military? Nope. And I've given up trying because I know that the feeling that I used to get from doing my old job in real time,

in the real world environment is not possible to replicate. And that's okay. And I look back on those times and I'm appreciative that I had them. And, you know, it's okay to think back on those times. I don't know if it's a good idea to try to replicate that through every single phase and season of your life. But you will find you're an infinitely employable. Will you love every job? No.

Is every job designed to be loved? I don't think so either. So maybe start off with the transition. You know, you have time. It sounds like you're doing this on your terms. So explore things that you like. Go out there and dabble a little bit and ask yourself really hard questions. Like, what do I want to do?

If I don't do this anymore, what is it that I want to do? What turns my gears for me? What lights of fire under my ass for me? Answer those questions and it might help you narrow down the pool of professional options that are sitting in front of you. but don't try to replace what it is that you're doing now. We all go through seasons in life, just like the calendar, right? We're getting ready to go into fall. It's all right.

You know, change the wardrobe. Instead of wearing flip-flops, we're going to put some shoes on because the weather's getting a little bit colder. When it starts to snow, we're going to layer up. And then because there's snow on the ground, we're going to start to go snowboarding, which isn't even something that is a thought process in the summer because that is a different season that you are living in. You've got this.

and if you can change the way you're talking to yourself, you've got nothing but runway and opportunity in front of you. And that's all I have for this week. See you guys all on Monday.