EntreLeadership - #339: How to Serve Something Greater Than Yourself with Jason McCarthy

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

This week marks the 18th anniversary of September 11, 2001, a day that forever changed our nation. And for a select few like Jason McCarthy, that tragedy ignited a call to service that completely altered the trajectory of their life. In response to 9/11, Jason enlisted in the United States Army and went on to earn a spot in the elite Green Beret unit. And it was his military service that ultimately inspired the launch of his gear company, GORUCK. Tune in to hear Jason’s story, a true testament to the power of resilience and daring to dream big dreams. But most of all, it’s about what it means to serve a cause so much bigger than yourself.   entreleadership.com/podcast GORUCK website GORUCK rucksacks GORUCK events Episode #332: Why Ramsey Solutions Is Built to Last Free download: Chapter 1 of EntreLeadership Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week marks 18 years since a tragedy that forever changed our nation, September 11th, 2001. As Americans, this is a day we will never forget. And for a select few, September 11th triggered a call to service that completely altered the trajectory of their life. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Alex Judd, and today's guest is one of those select few. In response to 9-11, Jason McCarthy enlisted in the United States Army and later earned a spot in the special forces. It was out of his experience that he would envision Go Ruck, a gear company which would ultimately become centered around people. This story is a testament to the power of resilience and what it means to serve a cause so much bigger than yourself.

And it all started on September 11, 2001. That was the big wake-up call. And I mean, it's like I don't want it to happen, but it did happen. And it changed the course of my life. And I feel like it injected our nation and a lot of us with a greater desire to serve something bigger than ourselves. So it was a hard decision. And my grandfather had been in Korea, never talked about it. My uncle was a helicopter pilot in the Navy.

I didn't see him enough. It just, the military was not a part of my life. And so it took a while to figure out what that meant. And it took a while to find the courage to actually sign on the dog. line and say, send me. At some point in that journey, you make the decision that not only do you want to be in the Army, you want to be a member of the Green Berets, you want to be in the special forces. I've always wondered, what is it about the wiring inside someone or what is it about that person's DNA that says, I don't just want to go hard. I want to go all in special forces and

take this to a whole other level. What was the driving force behind that? The prequel to signing up was I spent about a year and a half going through the application process at the Central Intent. intelligence agency. And, you know, I just recently graduated from college, and it seemed like a great fit, right? Like, it could be. You know, I was also really moved by Mike Spann's story. He was the first cash for me. He was a paramilitary officer for the CIA who was a Marine before that. And read the story, and I just, I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to be that guy in that position serving America. And so went through that whole process, which is long and lengthy, and it's intentionally so. And I kept asking about the special activities division or the paramilitary arm of the CIA. And finally,

this guy, you know, I got pretty far in the interview process. And this guy, he's like, look, let me break it down for you. We don't hire the paramilitary division. You have to go through the special operations community within the armed forces first. And it was just that moment of clarity for me that, okay, that's what I need to do. So I went and found a recruiter. And, you know, there's this stigma against, not is a stigma against the military, but there's that old thing about, you know, go to war or go to jail. It's kind of left over things from the Vietnam era that, thankfully, you know, good on America, we've been able to kind of squash, right? I mean, try spitting on a soldier that comes home now and see what happens. It's not going to go well, right? And that's a testament

to our society. But when, you know, there's still that sort of stigma of go to war or go to jail, well, I'm here to tell you, I mean, after 9-11, there was a long line to get into the military. So there just weren't the officer billets quickly enough that that I could have gone through. I mean, I felt like the wars were passing me by, and I wanted to be a part of that. And so enlisted, but I specifically went through with a contract that had guaranteed me slots to become a green beret, and there's a big if you pass all of the schools, if you pass school one, they let you go to school two. If you pass school two, they let you go to school three, et cetera. And that that pipeline ended up being about two years and some change before I was officially a Green Beret,

so an Army Special Forces soldier. And up to that point were those schools and those different levels to get to kind of the level of Green Beret, was that the most grueling thing you'd ever done? It was certainly very grueling. No matter who you are, you will reach a point where you have to really dig down deep and find your why. And if you don't have your why, you will not choose to stay there because they don't force you to stay, right? I mean, you have to every day, every mile, every step, every new iteration,

you have to choose to be there. And what was the driving purpose? What was the driving fuel for you? I mean, I wanted to be on the tip of the spear and service of America. I mean, I wanted to be the guy that was, you know, send me. You know, and the Lord asked him, shall I send who will go? And I said, send me. I mean, that's, that's engraved on a, on a statue in Fort Bragg as well. And it's just, you know, that's one of the rallying cries of our community. And so that spoke very deeply inside of me. And, you know, it was really still fresh after 9-11. And it just, it was a slightly different time. And I mean that because when you have these big moments that you can rally around, people will really rally around them. And it's really, I mean, I feel grateful to have lived through that

part of American history. I read something you wrote that says, I would wish war experiences on no one, but its perspective on everyone. What does that statement mean to you? I mean, war is where you find the absolute best in humanity. It's predicated upon the most banal part of our existence, right? But you will find the absolute best of selfless service and sacrifice and honor and duty and country. and it's a different way to live a life. Nobody's chasing the Joneses.

Nobody's worried about the stupid things in our lives that don't matter. You're worried about the guy to your left and you're worried about the guy to your right. And that really builds a sense of camaraderie and a spree to core that, you know, my time in special forces, to me, the more that I've had time to reflect upon it. I mean, it's just concentrated America. It's America at the tip of the spirit. It's America at our best. And it's just, it's in small group. There's a degree of intimacy that you have in that small group in war that I would wish

that perspective on everyone because we'd probably be a little bit nicer to each other. We'd have a little more empathy, right? And we'd be willing to do more things for more people besides ourselves. And so, you know, the only thing in my life that I've been able to relate it to, because that's a lot of what, you know, I've spent my time and my career after the Army doing is trying to relate some of these lessons is, you know, people think out there, or people talk about how there's this huge divide between the military and the civilian worlds and nobody could ever understand what it's like and to be in war and all of that stuff.

And part of that is true, right? I mean, if someone's shooting at you and you're scared to death like I was and you figure out a way to just fight through it. That's something that you take with you for the rest of your life. But from the standpoint of sacrifice and putting others above yourself, I mean, being a father is very similar. You would happily trade your life for theirs. The harder questions are, what will you do with your life to better support them and to better support the mission that you're on together? And so in that regard, it's a very similar. journey. And so I think that a lot more people can relate to it from that standpoint.

I can already hear in hearing you talk about the early stages of your story, how seeds were being planted that probably manifest themselves later in the building this business. But it was at around the same time that you started to kind of have the idea of building gear, specifically not for wartime use necessarily, but for civilian use. explain to us where that idea came from and how you started to kind of scale that and what happened next. The idea was kind of Baghdad meets New York City, both, both in one. I love that. Go Rock at a certain point became an idea.

And, you know, my wife was a diplomat in the Foreign Service and she was stationed in Abidjan Coat de Vois, which when she told me she was going there, I had to look it up too. It's in Western Africa. It's by Ghana, you know, a few countries. of Morocco. Okay. So you're in Baghdad and she's there? Is that correct? Correct. We were, it's a really long and winding story, but we were, you know, went to high school together, didn't date in high school, eventually got married while I was in the army, you know, eventually got divorced, you know, got remarried some years later, have few kids running around now. It's just, you know, life's a very real place, people, right? I mean, it's, it's messy.

And you've got to love it because of all of that stuff and just take it in stride because, you know, if you're sitting out there wondering if someone's life is perfect, it's never perfect, right? And so you just got to embrace it. And so Emily was there and I was fresh off of my deployment to Iraq and went to visit her for Christmas leave 2007. So I started building her a go bag. And what a go bag is is what we would use in war. We would put extra bombs, supplies. You know, and you put it in the trunk of the Humvee when you go out on a mission. You have it there just in case. And just in case means in case your vehicle is disabled, you need to fight, in case you run out of what you have on your person, stuff like that. So this is literally just you looking out for her and just saying, I want to make sure you're safe. I want to make sure you're prepared at the worst happens. That's exactly what it was. And, you know, she's, we are equals in every sense of the word. I mean, she's, she didn't like need my help or whatever. But, you know, she had different skills. I had different skills, and this was just second nature to me.

So made her one to put in the car, made her one to keep at the house, you know, a safe house of sorts. And, I mean, they love a good coup d'etat in Africa. So these are really real things. And right after she left a couple years later, there was, you know, RPGs and machine guns in the street and the, you know, the president ended up at the Hague. So it's a big, I mean, these are real threats. And I just wanted her to be prepared. I mean, I love that girl. I wanted her to be prepared and as safe as possible, given the risks that were at hand.

So we were there and we were still married for the first time. And, you know, she was like, oh, you should do the go-ruck thing. And what she meant by that is I was planning on going to be there for a year after I got out of the Army and stay with her and I didn't know what I was going to do. So I was going to, you know, provide some of these to the embassy workers or, you know, whomever there, build a business out of the bag. Some of the bags, right? You were just going to build some of those bags for them.

Is that what you're saying? Correct. I was just going to populate the bags with some supplies that they should have and maybe do a little bit of consulting on, hey, this is what you should do just in case. So that became, you know, how to teach people about the special forces mindset, the special forces way of life, if you will. And so, you know, my marriage came crashing down. You know, we've been married for four or five years, never lived together, skip to the end, wartime deployments. It just wasn't meant to be at that time. So went back, was sleeping on a buddy's couch in New York, kind of continued the

idea for Go Ruck though. And it just manifested first into, hey, design. and build or get built, I should say, a bag, because I don't know how to sew. So, you know, it turned into that whole process, and, you know, that was a couple years of not really committing to it. So Go-Ruck was just a hobby. It was a bag. And I knew that I could do something to take the military to the civilian world. I mean, Special Forces is not an overly militaristic type of place. I had not come from an overtly militaristic style background, and yet I'd learned a lot. So combining those. two worlds felt really natural to me. And it was something you were passionate about. But hold on a second.

You kind of breeze past the idea that like, well, my marriage fell apart and then I moved to New York and I was staying on a buddy's couch and I just started this company. Like that seems like a pretty crucible moment where it almost seems like, I mean, there are a lot of people out there that would not have the resiliency or the fortitude to keep going even, much less do something productive. So where did that come How did you keep going after hitting such a roadblock? To gloss it over and sort of call it easy or something would be a gross misdiagnosis of that situation. It was very, very challenging.

And things that would take me a day now or a month or six months would take me two and a half years then. I mean, it was just one of those things where, you know, I was lucky and a lot of good things happened to me at that time. And I was, I got over my own ego about not asking people for help. You know, I call it my buddy and said, hey, my marriage is crumbling. Can I come sleep on your couch? That's a humiliating thing. It's a very humbling thing to have to call anybody, even your best friend, and ask. And, you know, those are the things you have to do. I mean, what else was I going to do? I mean, I could have moved back in with mom. You know, that, you know, that could have happened.

I could have just sat around and felt sorry for myself. But I had to at least do that. somewhere. I mean, I basically, you know, was on a one-way ticket back home from Africa and had to figure out the bare minimums in life. And so it was really challenging. And I was lucky to kind of be able most days to put half a step forward and then, you know, some days a full step back. But, you know, over time, more days of half a step forward, it adds up. This audience is big enough. We've got thousands of people listening around the country and around the world that we know at any given time there's someone listening to this that is going through one of those crucible moments, one of those crisis moments. Speaking from experience, what advice would you give that person?

I mean, ask for help. It's really that simple. I mean, you can't judge yourself by what you used to do or what you think you should do. It's just you got to find some small victories, whatever those are, the smaller, the better, because you can't just conquer the world in a very short period of time when things aren't going well. And the problem is, is that our perspective shifts, and the more down we are, the more we're looking to throw Hail Mary's. And that's just not how it's supposed to work. I mean, if things are going really poorly, and you need to just focus on one step after the other. And this is true in business war, love, and life. There's so many parallels between all of them. It's just because human nature is at the core of it and focus on the smallest things

that you can focus on and get some momentum behind that. I love it. So in the midst of all that, you start with something that was a hobby and then becomes a little bit of passion project. And then these bags kind of start to become a business. Explain how kind of the first stages, the very scrappy stages of starting to build and then sell these bags. Yeah, I mean, the process of, I mean, I found a design team that was based out of Bozeman, Montana, by putting an ad in Craigslist New York City in 2009. I mean, it's kind of crazy, right? And then never met them until a couple years later, but, you know, started napkins-catching ideas for them. And then they would sort of transition that, translate that into line drawings and into patterns.

And then they would build the rucks. and we built like six versions of rucksacks up until, say, 2010, and then had to figure out a way to get that scaled manufacturing, which is a completely different process. And now it's, of course, I know that. And back then I didn't. I mean, R&D is completely different than building at volume. It's just a different ecosystem,

unless you're really big, as people would think, about big brands, and then you have them both kind of lockstep, right? Yeah. So started over, with a vendor and, you know, the first shipment of rucks that they sent, which was every dollar I had and then some was, you know, rejected 90% of them or something and sent them back and said, you got to fix them and do all that stuff. And, you know, you're paying to ship 500 rucks across the country a couple times. It's not fun. You know, but quality was always one of those

non-negotiables for us, like special forces life or death quality. I mean, my buddies were absolutely testing prototypes of this in war. They were going to get some of those. earliest versions. So, you know, I would make sure a buddy and I would check all of them. I mean, as much as you can possibly check a rucksack, we would check it for quality control stuff. And, you know, the other problem was once we had them and they were good, nobody wanted to buy them because they were expensive and they're built in America. And we're a new brand and upstart. And there's no value statement in people's minds about who we are or what we do or why they should pay 300 bucks for a rucksack. I love how casually you just.

say the problem was is we started a business, but no one actually wanted to buy what we were selling. I would call that a problem. But it occurs to me that you're like, okay, I knew that I wanted to make these bags, but I kind of knew I had a sketch on some paper, but I didn't know how to design them, so I figured it out. And then I didn't know how to actually build the design, so I figured it out. And then I didn't know how to actually do the R&D for scaling that model. So I figured it out. And then I didn't know how to sell them. Like, you have an unbelievable figure it out factor. Most of those hurdles, I feel like most people would just hit the eject button and be like, okay, this wasn't meant for me.

Did that come from the military or is that just natural wiring? Is that in your DNA? Where does that come from? I mean, first, there's too many eyes in there, right? I mean, there was always, you know, I didn't figure out how to sew. I made friends with people, right? So to properly answer your question, I mean, I think that people should do what they're good at and what they love and what they're passionate about.

And I think that usually those are pretty, interconnected, you know, you're passionate about what you're good at and vice versa. I mean, I love listening to people play the piano, but I'm not a, I'm not a piano guy, you know? And so, look, I mean, there's upbringing. Is it nature or nurture? And to me, it's always both, because people are born a certain way, and then they evolve. And the more that you do, the more that you learn, the better you get. And so the classic special forces mission, though, That's the only most important job I had out of college and it shaped me, right? It shaped my outlook on the world and how could it not, given how great that community is and the people who serve in it.

The classic special forces mission is you go into a foreign country and you work by with and through local partner forces to achieve a desired in-state, to achieve your mission. So you're constantly working with others. You're building out networks. You're getting them to do the work for you, but you're going with them on those missions. So that part just kind of came naturally to me, and that's been kind of the foundation for how we've grown Go Rock. And the no quit thing, I mean, I think that that's a lot of people have various degrees of threshold.

And it's not as simple as I was born with this threshold. Because, look, you go through and you accomplish something, you gain more confidence. You go through, you accomplish something else, you gain more confidence. You fail, you get a setback, you revisit why you did that, you come back stronger. That's how it works. And, you know, if you're not looking for the shortcuts and you're looking for the long play, you can do anything you want in this world. And so, you know, that's been this series of it. I mean, there's been so many failures. There's been a lot of dark, really, really dark day set, go rock. And yet the key was, like, you can lick your wounds for a night. a week or whatever, but you get back up and you keep going because the initial passion, the foundational passion, is there. And I love that, Jason, because so much of what you just said is now central to what GoRuck stands for as a company. You say over and over and over again in your marketing, your branding, everything you'll put out is that you are a people-first organization. Explain why that's so important to you and explain what that actually means in action.

Right. I mean, Go-Ruck is a gear company. by mechanics. I mean, we build rucksacks, we build footwear, and we build clothing and apparel and all of that stuff. But, I mean, at some level, a company becomes an extension of the founder's personality and what matters to you matters to the company because you create a certain culture. And I just never wanted to be just a gear company. It just never appealed to me. I mean, And my initial goals, which we talked about before, I mean, after 9-11, I was going to go be a case officer for the CIA or a paramilitary case officer for the CIA and be serving wherever America needed me. And I can imagine that life. I'm going to have a bunch of friends who live that life now and, you know, check in from time to time. And it's always like, man, I wish, my only regret is I wish I had more than one life to give from my country, right? I mean, it's like I wish I could do more. And that life, I would be. no less or more happy. I mean, I'm happy. It's just a matter of how life goes sometimes. But it seems like the people are at the core of what you really want to be involved in, huh?

Yeah, I mean, that's always what it's been about. I mean, America, what are we? I mean, America, when you say America and everyone says, I love America, right? I mean, what does that mean, actually? Right? You can't love America but hate Americans. It doesn't work. America is us. It's all of us. And it's our way of life. And so I'm willing to fight for that way of life. And I'm willing to fight with a gun and I'm happy to fight without a gun, right? I'd rather be in peace. And so you start to say, how does that translate to a company? And, you know, America needs people that are willing to put others before themselves.

We need stronger communities. These are sort of really grandiose notions that it really just means stronger relationships are at the core of that, right? I mean, the more that we get focused on privacy, and by that, I mean, you know, you don't know your neighbors. You're not a part of your community. Everything gets delivered to your door, and it's just a very sterile life like that. I mean, we're missing out on something. And so I'm all for fitness and getting together and putting a ruck on and doing some work together. As an equal, part of that, I'm all for sit down at the dinner table and talk to your family, invite some friends over, and sit and talk.

talk to them. Go out to dinner. Talk to them in the real world as people. And I think that that kind of stuff really fills up our souls. That's just a non-negotiable for us, just in terms of the desire to impact people's lives. How does that, because I think so many people listening this probably hear what you just said and they give a massive fist bump and they're like, yes, I agree with that. I want more of that in my country. How does that? affect day-to-day leadership? How does that affect teamwork? How does that affect hiring? How does it affect business in general? You have to have a strong culture to really attract the right person more easily. I mean, what do you stand for? Right? I mean, there's two great answers in the world. Yes and no.

Maybe is the world's worst answer. I may be like working here. That's just not what we're after. You want people that are passionate. To inspire passion, you have to have a strong culture. You have to stand for something. That doesn't mean that you have to pick one fringe issue and just stand for that, but it could mean that. It means that you have a way of life and people are attracted to that. And it becomes easier through that filter to see who's just not going to work in this kind of an environment. And, you know, one of the things that we have is, you know, there's a lot of autonomous decision-making that happens. People are empowered to do that.

And that requires somebody who actually wants that. There are plenty of people who do their best work if you outline something and then they go execute. And we have some of those people as well. There's also just an adaptability factor. And so, you know, people come through our hiring process. We put them through our events. Foundational to everything in special forces was physical fitness. And it's not like we're just out here every day, all day, rucking together and never working.

I mean, I spend a lot of time in front of a screen at work. But there is that kind of we all need to be more physically active, and that's part of our culture, right? When we're done at the end of a day, there's a fridge full of beer. So we talked about kind of you getting to the point where people weren't buying the bags, but clearly now, I mean, bags are selling like crazy. So how do we bridge that gap? And then where did events come into the picture in the story of how you were building the business? It's kind of an accident. So a buddy in business school, we were just at the start of some class, and there was this other event series out there called Toughmutter.

He's like, you know, because in business school, they teach about synergies and all that kind of stuff. It's just these buzzwords, right? What does that actually mean? Well, I'll actually tell you now, right? Because it's not a completely fluff. But so there was this event up and coming called Toughmutter. They had not run an event. And Go-Ruck had nothing.

I had nothing to lose, right? So, you know, it was coming to not too far away from D.C. And she's like, you should send them a note and see if you can work together. Synergies, right? And so I sent them a note and it just ended up being good timing. I went up and met the co-founders of Tuffmutter. And we started a handshake partnership where I was going to kind of build out fight clubs before Tuffmutter would go on.

And that turned into the Go Ruck Challenge. So what that meant was that they, tasked me to go out before the second ever tough mudder after we got a bunch of special forces guys to run the first tough mudder together in in pennsylvania which was may second 2010 i went out to san francisco and there were you know 18 people or something and that was the first ever go rock challenge and then we went together to the tough mudder that was you know two weeks later in lake tahoe but after that first go-ruck challenge, it's like this is what go-ruck is.

This is how we're going to build go-ruck. Because my goal was to take pictures of the gear and use and sort of share those pictures. And I thought, oh, well, people will eventually buy them, right? Great. And I didn't have the how. I didn't know how to connect it. But that eventually became the challenge took on a life of its own.

And the go-ruck challenge, which now we lead 700 a year all over the world, you know, became the sort of engine of growth and the monetization side kind of remained the rucks. And in the early years, though, there was a little bit of on the cash side of the hustle side was if I launch more challenges, more events, I'll get more cash today. And since I'm leading the event, it's going to be free for us, right? Because that's how it works. And so I can use that cash to put down payments on inventory of rucks that I need to build because, you know, Eventually, if you're big enough, you can get things like net 30 payment terms on building gear.

Well, when you're small, they want half down up front and then you owe half when it ships. So you're just burning cash and then you're burning inventory costs. So there was this kind of magic combination of the two that led us hustle our way forward without running around chasing the venture capital circuit. So the events were supporting the gear, the gear were supporting the events. That sounds a lot like synergy, man. Call it a buzzword if you want, but that sounds a lot like sense. You know, hustle isn't always about, you know, the drag in the growth curve forward in

Excel. Sometimes there's real work to be done to make the synergy actually work. Yeah. So I love that because you have your MBA. You clearly understand the strategic side of business. But it sounds like the thing that actually got this thing up and running was just getting out and not, it wasn't sitting in a room with a whiteboard and brainstorming grand ideas. it was just kind of doing stuff. Is that a fair assessment? And why do you think that was the case?

You have to differentiate yourself. And, you know, if you're willing to work harder, good things will happen. And that doesn't mean, so someone out there listening, it's like, yeah, that's right, work harder. That doesn't mean that forever you should work from seven until midnight and, you know, neglect your family, neglect your life, make yourself miserable. It just means at that time in my life, I had a lot of time. I mean, I was single. I had a dog. Thank God.

I had a dog. And that was my life. I skipped a lot of business school because I was working. I did the bare minimum in a lot of classes because I was working and I was flying out on a Thursday and doing 75 miles in a weekend, counting all the site surveys and recons and stuff. And then, you know, I'm taking a flight back, drooling on myself Sunday night and, you know, going to my friend's house, watch my dog. They're shoving like two houses worth of food down my throat from the whole weekend.

And I go home and pass out. And like, I don't want to go to school morning, man. It's not happening. I'm not necessarily proud of that because I wish I had done more. Like, that was just the reality. There was a lot going on. And I know there's a lot of people out there, right, where, you know, you've got a family, you got kids, you got someone who's sick.

You're taking care of, you know, life happens. And you got to take the long play. And at that time in my life, I just, I had a lot of time. So you have to be willing to waste a lot of time because I certainly did. But it was through trying a lot more stuff. I mean, and it goes back to sort of the way of life that I learned in the Army in Special Forces.

It sounds really counterintuitive. But in matters of violence, being on offense is safer. So if someone ambushes you, you are supposed to get up and counter ambush. Period. The end. That is straight up doctrine. And, you know, everyone loves a war movie and everyone loves sort of war analogies, but what does that mean in your life? What that means is when you get knocked down, as hard as you can possibly get

knocked down, you have to pick yourself up in charge. And that, it was just a series of moments like that in the first couple years. And it was a huge volume of time that I had to dedicate to this, because I didn't want to fail. Man, that's huge. I'm having trouble sitting down. right now. I'm so excited. So in preparation for this interview, me and our director of media, his name is Zach, we got to do one of your events. It was a go-ruck tough. And for the people that are listening to this, I mean, what it is, is it started at 9 p.m. and went to 9 a.m. It was 12 hours. We walked, I think, almost 20 miles with 30 pounds on our back across the city. They had us picking up

sandbags. They had us jumping in the river, doing bear crawls. I mean, it would. insane. It was emotionally draining, mentally draining, physically exhausting, and amazing all at the same time. I told people the day after it was dreadfully amazing. So number one, if you're listening to this and you're into that kind of thing, you've got to go do one of these events. You have to go find one in your area. But I'm curious from you, it was so fascinating just to sit and watch the team that we were doing it with that night. It felt like a giant social experiment, just watching how people reacted to the pressure, to the stress, to working with strangers. What's the biggest thing that you've observed or learned about people in hosting these events and putting on these

events over the course of several years? That's a really good question. I haven't been asked it like that ever before. And the biggest surprise to me, and maybe this is relevant given, you know, should women be in special forces stuff and all of that is in all of my training. I mean, I went through infantry training, and then I went through advanced infantry training and special forces training. And I never went through training with females. I worked with them, and obviously my wife served in the government at a very high level. But I just, I never did that type of stuff in the Army, never served with females. And yet, from the very early stages of Go-Ruck, I just, I wanted it to be inclusive.

Like, I don't care if you're young old black, white, male, female, pink polka-dotted, whatever. I don't care. Like, can you do the work? You want to do the work? Let's do it, right? And yet, you know, what I've been most surprised by is just how somehow in the middle of the night at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. before the sun comes up and it's just that miserable time when everyone's tired, you can find the smallest person who, you know, wasn't able to carry all the weight and wasn't able to be the biggest, baddest stud underneath the log that you carried for two hours or whatever. And, you know, all of a sudden that person will be the greatest motivator for the team, like the best leader that the team has and we'll just task organized and will direct. And what I've experienced over

time is that that is usually females. And they're not out there doing nothing either. You know, a lot is expected and everyone who shows up does that. It's just, you know, we underestimate too often, a special forces guy will say, how could a girl ever do this job? I mean, it's just those are, those are things that you would think. There's things that I've thought, right, from back when.

And I've just, I've seen amazing things come from people that I would not have expected it. And that will really lift you up in your life. Because you know, when you're walking around after doing your event, right? You know that there's so many more people out there that have so much more in them

than they, knew possible, but that you shouldn't judge them based upon just how they look. Yeah, that was my biggest takeaway from the whole night is that people are capable of so much more than what I gave them credit for. It was unreal. I can't wait to do another one. I need to, we need to check it out right now. I need to sign up right now. We're talking about, we just need to sign. Are you motivated people? Are you motivated? That's right. That's right. Related to that, the idea of servant leadership is really popular right now. You have a very unique perspective on this. How do you define servant leadership and what does servant leadership look like in action?

I mean, we have a thing. It's called it's not about you. And so, you know, I don't know all of the buzzwords and I don't study enough on all of that. It's hard to keep pace with all of the trends. And yet what I will say is the kind of leadership that I learned was from the guys that I served with. and those are my benchmarks. And so those are the guys that, whether you were an officer or an enlisted, no matter what your job was, you were on the gun trucks on the mission. You were held the standards that you wouldn't ask someone to do something that you couldn't do or wouldn't do. You know, you train together, you fight together, you live together. And the more that we have that type of mentality, the better.

in hearing your story what is the encouragement or action that you hope people will take out of hearing what you've been through and what you've been able to do i want people to be more active and i don't just mean put a rucksack on and go do miles it's just in your life i want you to be more active you can do it right we spend a lot of energy you know being tired it's just there's so many things it's such a beautiful world. There's so many great places. There's so many, there's so many great trips that are within 50 miles of your house. There's so many great people that you haven't seen in too long. There's so many mountains out there that you can go climb. There's so many cities to explore. There's so much cool stuff out there to go experience. And watching TV and playing on your phone is not experience. It's just not. It's a substitute for boys.

And it's worse. And, you know, I have a phone too. I have all the social media accounts and all of that stuff and I'm on them. But we have to learn how to moderate ourselves and still be more physically and socially active as people. So, you know, be more active, move more. Take more steps. Move more. Right. And then the more that we start to focus on all the cool things that we can do at any budget, by the way. just do more stuff, the less will focus on, you know, all the things that just don't matter in life. Final question for you. You've been a part of the special forces. So you've been a part of the backbone of American democracy and freedom. You're now a small business owner. So you're a part of the backbone of the American economy. Is the American dream alive and well?

The short answer is America's best days are in front of us, period, the end. Without turning that into just, you know, a buzz type of statement or an empty statement. I mean, we need to get back to the roots of serving America. And you don't owe your country nothing. You don't owe your community nothing. And in fact, many of you have it in you and would be really fulfilled as people if you would just dedicate your life to a cause that you felt passionately about. If you don't worry about what you're starting salary is, if you don't worry about, if you don't worry about, if you can make ends meet, I get it, right? But if we start to focus on what makes us happy, and if we start to just do more of that for each other, and if there's a huge call to service,

what's happened to the JFK, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. What's happened to that? These are generational things. We have to see them. We need a resurgence than that, not just because it's great for the man, right? I'm not talking about that at all, the man being America, which, by the way, it is. It's actually great for you, too. It's great for you to serve something greater than yourself. You know, God, family, country stuff, right? I mean, some level of those three things you can relate to, God, family country, and serve those and go after those. And, you know, all the other stuff is just noise. And so, you know, it would be nice to see more people, more young people, because they're our future. And it's really easy to kind of know that

and see that every day as a father. And they're our future. And we have to bring them up with that kind of mindset. And to do that, we have to also live it. Well, from myself, on behalf of our entire team and on behalf of our entire audience, thank you for your time today, but more than that thank you for your service to our country. We're all better for it. Thanks, Jason. Thanks for having me, guys. It never gets old. The story of someone who had a compelling vision of a future that did not yet exist and did the work necessary to create it. But I think the piece of Jason's story that just takes it and magnifies it by a level of about a hundred is the fact that the theme of service is woven throughout the entire thing. And I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity,

right now to recognize the men and women who listen to this podcast every single week and are either currently or have previously served as a member of our nation's armed forces. On behalf of Entree leadership and the entire Ramsey network, we recognize you. And we are grateful for your sacrifice that made it possible to experience the freedoms that we get to live out every single day. Well, hey, if you enjoyed this conversation with Jason, many of you are aware that the story of our organization is very similar. Dave started this company at a card table in his living room because he was compelled by a sense of purpose, by a vision that was bigger than himself. And he built that company from a card table in his living room to what is now a 900-person organization

that is changing the financial and leadership landscape around our country today. Now, if you want to hear Dave talk about that entire story, I've got two options for you. We provide the link to the interview that he just recently did. The link to that interview is in the show notes. So go check out that interview. Also, Dave talks about this entire story of what it looks like to build this business in the book, Entree Leadership, and our team has made it possible for you to download the first chapter of that book for free. If you want to download that chapter, you can text EL Book to 33444. That's EL Book, No Spaces, to 33444, or click the link in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast.

If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. For a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the link that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm Alex Judd, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like the Chris Hogan Show. I am so excited to be able to talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to talk about your money, your life, your dreams, and your goals. You know why? Because I'm your coach. Whether we're talking about building wealth, paying off your home early, investing, paying for college, and guess what? How to become an everyday millionaire. We're going to focus on taking your calls because you mattered to,

me. Together, we can do this. This is the Chris Hogan Show. To hear full episodes, just search Chris Hogan wherever you listen to podcasts or go to Chris Hogan 360.com.