Digital Social Hour - How Military Training Shapes Top Entrepreneurs | Cole Fackler DSH #602

Starting point is 00:00:00 If you're in need of quality new tires and have been searching the internet for a good deal, look no further than your local Big O Tires. For a limited time, when you buy three tires, you'll get the fourth free on select set of tires. And because we know that tires can be an unexpected expense, take advantage of no credit needed financing made easy. They work with multiple lending partners, so the financing is tailored to you. Remember that when you buy three tires, you'll get the fourth free only at your locally owned big o tires the team you trust when you were defending these high-level people were there any attempted attacks on them

Starting point is 00:00:34 there was one um during the day wow during the broad daylight broad daylight but they have such i mean they had such a protection detail militia outside of the u.S. Like Trump has teams just monitoring him 24-7, right? Yeah. So you were probably like undercover and people didn't even know. I think I stuck out a little bit. Yeah, I think I stuck out a little bit there. And I mean, they knew it was early in the war, in 05. And so, I mean, they knew who we were.

Starting point is 00:01:04 Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting. And here's the episode. All right, guys, we got Cole Fackler here today, founder of GBRS group. Thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity. We were just talking about surfing. It's one thing I've done the longest. I just turned 40 last February, but ever since I can remember,

Starting point is 00:01:33 I've been in the ocean surfing probably since I was like four or five. Wow. So you grew up in Virginia. Did they have waves out there? Hurricanes. Hurricanes, storms, definitely chasing all those is what creates a surf on the east coast but i grew up swimming competitively and with pisces so love the water love the ocean and can't get enough of it damn uh what's the biggest wave you've caught biggest wave i caught uh was i was in say 2012 i

Starting point is 00:02:02 was on the north shore of hawaii uh place called log cabin so it's about a mile offshore of from pipeline legendary break and um we're actually out there uh doing some training and the surf got big enough the eddie i cal almost went on it was right in that time window for that big wave contest in waimea but But we ended up doing some toe-in surfing. The legend Ken Bradshaw, he was one of the pioneers in toe-in surfing. I was out there with him and got towed into like a 45-foot wave. Holy crap. So what exactly is toe-in surfing?

Starting point is 00:02:43 It's where a jet ski pulls essentially, you know, a wakeboard boat type rope, and you have a board strapped onto you, and you get enough speed and get towed into a big wave. That is crazy. And you're a mile out of the shore. Yep. So you can't even. I mean, there's a lot of jet skis. There's a lot more training to go into.

Starting point is 00:02:56 It's not just get a jet ski, get a rope and a towboat and jump out there. No. I mean, these guys are legends, like professionals. They've been doing it their entire lives. That's insane feet that is seven times my height yeah i mean there are a lot of pros out there that day um cole christiansen john john florence i was just lucky enough to be out there that wave hadn't broke in about eight years no way yeah so it takes a certain size swell and it doesn't happen every year so wow so a lot goes into it to get to that point yeah i mean everything from being comfortable in the ocean to your team procedures that you wipe

Starting point is 00:03:32 out what to expect people to pick you up and you know it's it's progressed a lot in the safety equipment um from jet skis to flotation and everything else nice would you say you're a bit of an adrenaline junkie? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely adrenaline junkie. I like pushing my limits. Yeah. You like that moment of like your life's on the line almost? Yeah. Not recklessly. Definitely mitigating some of the risk with the training, but I definitely like pushing my limits. I was always from a young kid, always searching for a bigger wave, bigger wave, bigger wave and just wave, and just enjoy it. So that mindset kind of took you to the military then, right?

Starting point is 00:04:10 Yeah, yeah, it did. I grew up competitively swimming year-round and just always was super motivated in training hard and being the best I could. I'm a sore loser, so I didn't like losing. But being a part of a high-performing team was what pushed me in the military um the patriotism I was in I was in high school as a senior in high school uh in history class when 9-11 happened oh wow I watched it watched it on Dang. It was hard to grasp what we were watching and seeing.

Starting point is 00:04:47 So that was a part of the driving force to go in the military. The patriotism, being something bigger than yourself, being a part of the American dream and protecting it, everything from freedom of speech to providing protection just for every American. It was that terrorist event. You know, a lot of people lost families and we wanted to make it right. But just again, protect the U.S. from the terrorism. Yeah. That event was such a catalyst. So many stories of people joining the military after that happened. Yeah. So what was it like when you joined? Was it an immediate fit or did it take some adjusting?

Starting point is 00:05:29 So I graduated high school about eight months prior to going into the Navy. It was a pretty... If you're in need of quality new tires and have been searching the internet for a good deal, look no further than your local Big O Tires. For a limited time, when you buy three tires, you'll get the fourth free on select set of tires. And because we know that tires can be an unexpected expense, take advantage of no credit needed financing made easy. They work with multiple lending partners, so the financing is tailored to you. Remember that when you buy three tires, you'll get the fourth free only at your locally owned Big O Tires, the team you trust. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest?

Starting point is 00:06:04 We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life. Click the application link below, and here's the episode, guys. Straight shot, went through boot camp up at Great Lakes. At that point, we had to go to a Navy rating school. So briefly, we went to San Antonio for two weeks before getting to Coronado and going to buds, which is basic underwater demolition seal training where the,

Starting point is 00:06:32 the notorious how week goes on and all that. So it was, it was a pretty straight line from going in to getting to buds. And I was lucky enough going through buds. I didn't get injured, didn't get rolled back. And that, that happens from getting to buds. I was lucky enough going through buds. I didn't get injured, didn't get rolled back. Uh, and that, that happens from time to time. Um, but there's nothing, um, more enjoying to be in California on the beach going to buds. Yeah. How many started your hell week and how many ended? We had roughly 180 ish people start, start in our buds class. And I say 22

Starting point is 00:07:09 originals finished. Wow. So from that, you know, 180 ish originals, 22 finished. There were some from classes ahead of us that rolled back into our class, whether it's injury or failing one of the key mark test. Yeah. So they had a little experience. Wow. So only about 10, 15% lost. That is very low. Is it usually physical? They can't keep up with the physical side of things or is it more mental? I say it's more mental than physical. They'll get you physically ready. It's more of the mental side and not quitting and getting through it. I mean, there was everybody from middle Kansas to Alaska and every other state with every other kind of background. Wow.

Starting point is 00:07:52 Single parent, married parents, brothers, single kid. A lot of wrestlers did good. But every different walk, life build, and people that may not physically look like they'd pass they pass interesting that that mental toughness really is is what gets you through it yeah that must have been interesting for you to meet all sorts of people because you grew up in virginia your whole life right so you didn't really talk to other people no i mean i competitively swim in and competing growing up i did some traveling nothing too far west from virginia yeah a lot

Starting point is 00:08:26 of up and down the east coast okay so you were really good at swimming i was yeah i swam year round for probably from when i was six all the way up until i was about 15 dang had a shoulder surgery when i was 14 i mean we were swimming year roundround roughly, say, over 100,000 yards a week. Holy crap. So you were a distance swimmer? I was a sprinter. Oh, you were? A lot of our practices, we'd swim 10,000, 15,000 yards of practice.

Starting point is 00:08:55 But I was in the same year group with Michael Phelps. Oh, God. And him growing up in Maryland, swam against him and grew up around a lot of greats yeah that's legendary did you see him rising to that level i didn't realize at the time it took my mom to tell me she's like you you swam against him i did i mean i didn't know you didn't even know no 14 15 and that age like you know you don't know um we're both that age. And he went on to do great things. He had the perfect genetics for it, plus the work ethic. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:33 I was always competing against those six-foot-plus guys that were like 12, 13. They had the good genes. So they have an extra inch on you every single time they... Yeah. It didn't discourage me. My dad always said, someone out there is always training harder than you, longer than you. That was just the motivation. I had this rocky theme in my head. It's like, no, that you, longer than you. That was just the motivation. I had this like rocky theme in my head.

Starting point is 00:09:48 It's like, no, that's not going to happen. I love that, man. Any other sports you played? I mean, I grew up, I was very fortunate. I got to play a lot of different sports. Lacrosse, baseball, basketball, name it, instruments. Played violin for like 10 years. Yeah?

Starting point is 00:10:01 Okay. 10 years is a long time for an instrument. I didn't last that long. No. So I was lucky with the exposure that I got it's only a child too yeah you got a good mindset man because instruments were tough for a lot of kids in my school none of us made it past like two years yeah no i enjoyed it and hopefully one day i pick it back up yeah i'd love to see that man i tried doing the trumpet yeah it just grossed me out man you know what i mean like your spits literally in that well i played the alto sax for a while yeah yeah it just grossed me out man you know what i mean like your spit's literally in that well i

Starting point is 00:10:25 played the alto sax for a while yeah yeah it's gross right yeah that long tube you gotta clean it nope yeah i'm good with that man um so how long did after you joined the military did you start getting deployments and stuff like that so went in 2003 uh showed up to the east coast at co team 10 and 04 her first deployment was 2005 it was a pretty quick turn oh wow yeah graduated buds and went went straight over to team 10 we jumped into a workup where you hit a number of skills and training trips leading up to those deployments where'd you get sent to iraq oh yeah do you remember that pretty pretty vividly arriving and stuff yeah um. We're in a big C5 where that nose opens up. Yeah, in the movies you see those, right?

Starting point is 00:11:09 Yeah, yeah. And the picture in our head was like, we have to be prepared to get off the airplane and get into a gunfight immediately. Wow. That's not what it was. We landed by any means, but a big C5 kind of dive bombing down. So no ground fire would hit it right into Baghdad.

Starting point is 00:11:30 And we had all our gear prepped and stuff like that, but it wasn't like that. I mean, you could, there was definitely a different smell. You could hit about like 4,000 feet, smell a little different, just open sewage and different stuff. But we went there and did some protection detail stuff for the presidents, PMs, prime ministers, and got a lot of exposure, direct action missions where we hit different targets. Did some stuff with Jocko. Nice. We're kind of spread out somewhat.

Starting point is 00:12:00 Main base was in Baghdad, but kind of went out west, linked up with the West Coast guys. So we're all East Coast, even numbers, West Coast, odd numbers, out of San Diego. And there were probably a handful of different SEAL teams. And so it was busy. Wow. So every day was like you didn't know what to expect. It was a new thing. I mean, it was either it was a bounce between protection detail and the prime minister's presence or doing nighttime type direct shot direct action raid missions when you were defending these high

Starting point is 00:12:29 level people were there any attempted attacks on them there was one um on talabani during the day wow during the broad daylight broad daylight but they have such a i mean they had such a protection detail militia outside of the u.S., people that were there. His protection detail got all into it. Oh, wow. So he had a team, and then you guys were just kind of monitoring that team? Monitoring and kind of more central, closer to him. So it was kind of a whole exterior force that they had, and they got into it.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Dang, that's intense. Yeah, you don't realize Trump has teams just monitoring him 24-7, right? Yeah. So you were probably undercover, and people didn't even know. I think I stuck out a little bit there. Yeah, I think I stuck out a little bit there. I mean, it was early in the war in 05. And so, I mean, they knew who we were.

Starting point is 00:13:18 Got it. How many years were you there? In the SEAL teams? In Iraq. Combined? uh and the seal teams in iraq combined so we went back in 07 back in 09 in iraq it was probably combined two and a half years of deployments multiple times yeah so did 11 deployments total damn um throughout the i got medically retired after 17 and a half years. Um, but between Iraq, Afghanistan and a few others, um, it was a lot, but I Iraq was about two and a half

Starting point is 00:13:52 years, Afghanistan, probably a year and a half or two. Holy crap. 11 is the most I've heard. It was busy rotations. Like there was a cycle that it was just you knew where you were going 24, 16, 24 months out. And then there were some other unplanned deployments that we had to do. That must be tough because you're at home and with your family and they just say, oh, you're getting sent off again. Yeah, it is. It's extremely tough, especially when you can't tell them where you're going to go. Oh, you're not allowed to tell?

Starting point is 00:14:24 On some of them there are definitely some things that you know we couldn't where it's like I'll call you and I don't know what I'll call you but I can call you that's crazy you're on some point your own family yeah holy crap I didn't know it was like that yeah so I mean when I was at SEAL Team 10 there for roughly six years and then went to a selection process to kind of the special mission unit at development group and went through that selection and then spent another seven years there and then got medically retired and even at the at that unit did a number of deployments a little bit faster cadence got it so i didn't know there's stuff past the navy seal i

Starting point is 00:15:04 thought that was no it's all part of the SEAL teams. Naval Special Warfare Development Group is kind of just another step up from that. And going through the selection process there again is definitely tough and not everybody makes it through, but super funded, and they do a lot of good stuff. Interesting. I was lucky to make it. Was that tougher than Hell Week? It was in the sense of you're just as tired physically, mentally, but they want you to make decisions that will result in people's lives.

Starting point is 00:15:40 Wow. High-pressure stuff. Yeah. Bud's is more, I say, physically taxing. I mean, although I said mental is the biggest part of it. But Bud, you show up with the right stuff. You do what they ask you to do and you get through. And I don't want to make it sound that simple, but it is.

Starting point is 00:15:58 Going through that other selection, it's way more pressure. Wow. It's like the next step, almost like if you went up for the NFL draft and everybody's got your eyes on you, but you have to do all these different tests and how you rank out, they can cut you at any point. So it's like that.

Starting point is 00:16:14 So it can be a big ego blow too if you don't make it. Everybody knows who makes it and doesn't make it. Yeah, because you can't hide it, right? No. That's what happened with Dan Bazarian, right? Yeah, I'm not fully sure on his story. I know he made it through BUDS. I'm not sure.

Starting point is 00:16:30 I think he got injured or something, and then they found out through the medical records. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think a typical, like, I don't know, college athlete could pass BUDS training? D1? Yeah, I'm sure they could.

Starting point is 00:16:50 On the schedule that you have to perform i'm not sure i mean i would like to say yes but there's a lot of people that surprise you that just mentally they're right they quit because you can't factor that in the physical side like you said i mean yeah d1 athlete could pass kind, I say the standards, but just the day in, day out. And like, it's not just the physical standards, it's everything else. Yeah. I remember when my dad, my dad was in the Navy actually. So he would try to get me to join, but I couldn't do the pull-ups and the push-ups, dude. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:17 Those were hard. I was a twig in high school. I was 132 pounds. My best friend, DJ, he literally was like 130 they're 130 oh he's 17 too like him and i were 17 18 so hard to hurt 17 18 year old but i mean he he was skinny now he walks around like 240 and jacked wow yeah i was picture this because i was 130 pounds but i'm also 6 5 so i was literally a twig like i was a track runner distance yeah and i just couldn't even do like 10 push-ups in high school it was pathetic or two pull-ups you gotta start somewhere

Starting point is 00:17:49 i know yeah that's all but what was the minimum you need to do like i think 50 they said 50 push-ups and 10 pull-ups yeah that's about right yeah couldn't get there i don't even know if i could do it now man hey there's some running too but The running would be easy for me. I hate running. Really? Swimming was easy. You do those two-mile ocean swims every week. I grew up also doing some triathlons with my parents and that kind of thing.

Starting point is 00:18:13 So open ocean water was good. That was just relaxing. I wasn't worried about it at all. That'd be probably the hardest for most people though, the swimming part. Two miles in open ocean. So you can't even drop out if you wanted to. I mean, there's definitely guys that quit on the swims wow i mean there's safety boats and things yeah yeah i heard

Starting point is 00:18:30 i don't know which branch of the military was but they make you go underwater and then some people pass out or something that's part of buds oh you have to do a 50 meter underwater swim that's where you'll see guys like start to pass out at the end and there's instructors that basically are guiding you watching you there and wow grab you but for you you probably did it without passing up yeah you had the swimming background yeah my swimming background my first 50 meter underwater i did when i was 10 dude that's a whole uh like yeah like the olympic size pools yeah i don't know if i could do that in one shot, man. That is intense. Wow. I used to dive at the bottom of the pool, 13 feet for fun.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Yeah. Touch the floor and come back up. The risks we took as kids. Yeah. Missed those days, those innocent days, you know? Just, you don't know how close all of us were into probably dying. Yeah, no. You ever miss that innocence though?

Starting point is 00:19:22 I do. And I try and preserve it in my kids. I try and preserve it so they can be creative and fun and no rush into this world. I remember people always saying, don't rush to grow up. I don't want them to rush to grow up. Yeah, I feel that. Do you feel like you grew up kind of quick? No, maybe.

Starting point is 00:19:43 I mean, a mixture of growing up. I think the discipline that a lot of the sports, I got out of a lot of the sports probably had me grow up a little quicker than normal. Yeah, that's the thing when you pursue professional level sports, right? You got to start at an early age and you give up some freedom.

Starting point is 00:20:00 Yeah. I mean, my practice, I was doing eight practices a week. Holy. So there are doubles during the week. Yeah. And I was lucky enough that my parents would take doing eight practices a week holy so there are doubles during the week yeah and i was lucky enough that my parents would take me to 5 a.m practices 5 a.m damn that is early yeah high school started seven so you were doing it before school started you were committed man is that did you want to become like a professional swimmer that was that was definitely a goal um at one point to try and make it to the Olympics and go that route.

Starting point is 00:20:26 After my shoulder surgery, I got exposed to high school and women. I was like, hold on, this is a whole new life. Why didn't anybody tell me about this? Yeah, I was a woman, man. I've had an interesting sports, say, career exposure because after that I went went to cycling and like road biking road racing competed at that so i've always been in some sort of competition mindset nice what are you planning on doing now any marathons or anything no no i mean since the military it's

Starting point is 00:20:59 like i've broken my legs three times oh shit had four shoulder surgeries and had a number of other surgeries and holy crap it hurts so that medical retirement it wasn't just one incident it was just a compilation yeah i mean those are the surgeries like being blown up shot everything you know landing hard at night doing skydives and jumping a whole combination thing oh wow so when you were skydiving you the parachute didn't go off in time or something? No. I mean, I never had a double malfunction, which the two parachutes in there, there's main and reserve. Yeah. I definitely had some malfunctions with mains before and had to have some cutaways.

Starting point is 00:21:33 But it's more landing at night. I'll just say in the middle of the desert. Can't see? Can't see normally. I mean, you have night vision, but still hit the ground hard. That is scary. So you're literally jumping out of a plane. It's pitch black, and you don't really know what you're landing on.

Starting point is 00:21:50 Sometimes. That is crazy. Yeah, sometimes. Training, usually you at least know kind of landmarks where you're going to land, but sometimes those trees look real small until you get to them. They're like 15-foot cactuses. Damn, and that's nuts. And if you get injured, no one will evenuses damn and that's nuts and if you got injured no one will

Starting point is 00:22:05 even really know because it's black and dark out real world i mean there's all comms and there's contingencies too like training wise there's control measures like you get injured there's planes in the sky usually you land together so okay yeah how big was your group that you were landing with on these i I mean, it ranged. Nothing bigger than probably 30, 20 people. That's a pretty tight squad. And you were with Shipley during these? Some.

Starting point is 00:22:35 Him and I split apart. We went to different groups. Sorry. You're good. DJ and I went to different teams when we went to development groups. So a lot of our time was spent apart during those years. But we were always big into skydiving in there and would do it on the weekends and push our limits there. Nice.

Starting point is 00:22:54 Where's your favorite spots to skydive at? Eloy. Eloy, Arizona, in between Tucson and Phoenix. Okay. They have the world's best skydivers and the most consistent weather um for the most jumps each day and it attracts people from all around the world wow anything it's pretty close by here yeah gotta check it out i've never done skydiving but it's on my list gotta go and go there like

Starting point is 00:23:18 their tandem masters everybody world class okay i like trying new activities. That one's been a fear of mine, but I need to conquer it. Getting in wind tunnel yet? Wind tunnel. Is that the indoor one? Yeah. They have one here. I haven't. Jump in there. You'd recommend that first. It's, it's a great training tool. Um, and you can expedite kind of your learning curve there. Cause you talk about going skydiving takes probably 15 minutes to get a the airplane right up skydive for a couple minutes canopy come down hopefully you land safely uh i mean that was probably 45 minutes you got one jump okay twice you jump in the wind tunnel for 10 minutes you got 10 jumps okay interesting y'all try that first you ever do the squirrel one where you wear the i haven't um i've i've known a lot of

Starting point is 00:24:06 world-class skydivers that have died and if they're dying doing that stuff i'm good i can push my limits other ways but i don't need to fly in proximity to cliffs and everything else okay so you have your limits yeah now especially now like probably 10-15 years ago yeah might have kept pushing that limit, but kids, wife. It's different now. Yeah, I'd like to manage not trying to kill myself doing something like that. That's funny. Any fears you have?

Starting point is 00:24:36 I hate bees and snakes. Bees and snakes. And you've done a lot, and that's your fear. I got attacked by three different swarms when I was a little kid, growing up cutting the grass, and I just hate bees. PTSD? Oh, yeah. From bees.

Starting point is 00:24:49 Yeah. Some people are allergic to bees. So, yeah. That's legitimate. Snakes. I'd say snakes are a bit irrational because they're not a common animal. But I'm cool with sharks. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:01 That's interesting. I got to go diving with sharks okay that's interesting i got i got to go diving with sharks um there's an awesome couple juan and ocean ramses she's been labeled like the shark whisperer and the way they break down the knowledge of sharks and how they control the water column they really kind of break every um horrible rumor about them really yeah so when you say water column what exactly are they doing so like the depth of the of the water so you know three feet ten feet however that is and the alpha type shark will can be at the top of the water column and they can tell like yeah i can tell if a shark's hungry like apparently you can see when

Starting point is 00:25:41 there's ribs and you kind of compare it to um pit bulls like everybody thinks pit bulls can eat you yeah it's like if you kind of break it down you know when a dog brings its ears back sharks have sort of the same telltale signs in different ways wow so you were like in a cage down there with them no cage no cage no cage dude that's crazy cage what if you saw one that was hungry i was relying on them to identify those and hopefully not get eaten and i mean they gave a few key things you're like try not to have your back turned to them yeah so you're kind of consistently swimming like 360 degrees around is it true you're supposed to punch them in the nose if they come on you they definitely said to push push their nose if they

Starting point is 00:26:21 get close and push them off so that's like a sensitive spot on them? Wow. Yeah, you see the statistics. They actually don't kill that many people as people think. A lot of the bites are saying the sharks may get excited because they're splashing or whatever. So a lot of the bites, they're just testing it to see if it is food or not. Unfortunately, some of those bites are catastrophic, but a lot of them aren't attacks. It's more they're curious.

Starting point is 00:26:44 Wow. So did you have a snake incident as well? No, I just don't like them. You just don't like them? I don't like them. A lot of people fear snakes. Some of them get big. So those ones I fear.

Starting point is 00:26:55 Yeah, some of the ones in the Amazon, those big ass ones. They're all over Florida too. Yeah? Yeah. Damn. Is that where you're at? No, Virginia.

Starting point is 00:27:04 Oh, you're still in Virginia? Yep. So you don't ever want to move out of there i definitely would but a lot of our families there so my wife's parents my parents kids so get them through high school and pick somewhere else we spend some time in florida yeah so enjoy how old are the kids right now they're 11 8 6 and 5 the 11 8-old are from my ex-wife and I. So we have a nice blended family. The 5 and 6-year-old are from my wife and I. Nice. And I had to have somebody push me around in a wheelchair.

Starting point is 00:27:35 Oh, yeah? Oh, shit. Well, we'll have them four. So one of them will grow up and take care of me. Okay. Any military aspirations for your kids? I want them to pick whatever makes them happy if they want to go in the military cool i'll definitely give them my personal take on

Starting point is 00:27:51 some expectation management but whatever makes them happy i'm good with yeah yeah yeah some parents really forced it on them you know yeah i mean i try and if they're interested in something make sure that they commit to a season yeah and i see it through but i'm i'm not going to be one of those things like you got to be the best at whatever you want to try yeah like give them the opportunity exposure if they naturally want to do it awesome nice how's the school system in virginia good um two of my kids go to private other two that that live about an hour away go to a public school, but both good. They all have their hurdles.

Starting point is 00:28:31 Yeah, it's cool to see your perspective of both systems, private and public. Yeah, it's interesting. Everything that they get, after-school activities, different educational opportunities. I mean, one's in in middle school now and the other three are in elementary and kind of see the difference um and all of them yeah how's the uh the business doing uh gbrs group right yeah gbrs group is good uh we're about to hit five years and in september it's grown really fast um so always adding to the infrastructure and learning and growing um it's been a huge learning curve but it's doing really well that's cool man we have

Starting point is 00:29:13 we're lucky we have an awesome team we've been fortunate it's been pretty organic with that team um but kind of got to a level now where it's like those strategic professional people have the experience is what we need yeah i've been been super lucky i think your company mission really resonated with people yeah uh you know we started started at the end of 2019 we really wanted to pass on our experience and knowledge to the next generations uh to make them better, safer, make our communities better, safer. Whether it was law enforcement teams or just kind of the two-way community as well. But, you know, we learned a lot of lessons in blood where a lot of people lost their lives. We thought we could add value back to those next generations and kind of discuss and be an open book like we weren't perfect but kind of discuss how we handled transitions or losses marriages kids and and a lot of our references aren't in the right way so yeah and no one will

Starting point is 00:30:14 talk about it like we grew up in like don't talk about it drink about it or do whatever you need to just show up and perform um and although that may work short term long term you know there's a lot of long-term effects when you're done with all of it and you look back, it's like, well, my family's gone. I have no relationship with my kids, you know, mixture of different things. So we really want to help and be honest, um, and give real world references, not a theory. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:30:39 That's important stuff to talk about. Cause yeah, these veterans come back and there's major family issues and social issues fitting fitting into society yeah so it's cool to see you really do that man yeah it's been enjoyable and the letters and messages we get it's crazy it's it's all around the world wow but i mean just people find dark times and to be able to talk about it or at least have a reference um and see somebody talking about it you know you're not alone yeah yeah that's a that's a worse thing when you're going through trauma you feel like you're alone and no one can resonate with you oh yeah yeah that community aspect is major i think just having like-minded guys that go through the same thing you went through yeah and it's a diverse team i mean we got all different branches of the military people there all different ages um it is a great team and very diverse team so although i may not have

Starting point is 00:31:28 an experience you know one of the other people that are team may and can really help so anything else you want to end off with or promote man no i uh i appreciate the time absolutely it was good so that was fun man thanks for coming on thank you awesome thanks for watching guys see you tomorrow

Digital Social Hour - How Military Training Shapes Top Entrepreneurs | Cole Fackler DSH #602

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