EntreLeadership - #393: How Not to Build a Business with Jason McCarthy

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

Between coming up with your initial business concept and building your company into what it is today, you probably had to wade through a good bit of learning how not to do a few (or 100) things. That���s certainly what happened for former Special Forces Sergeant Jason McCarthy on his journey of starting the GORUCK brand a decade ago. What started as an idea to create and sell no-frills, tough-as-nails backpacks became something much bigger. Tune in to hear how Jason’s early adventures in business helped him find deeper meaning for his company.   entreleadership.com/podcast GORUCK website #339: How to Serve Something Greater Than Yourself with Jason McCarthy GR1 rucksack How Not To Start A Backpack Company by Jason McCarthy 10 Days of Intentionality Things to Delegate to Save 15 Hours This Week from BELAY 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

Hey, why do you want to own and run a business? Is it because you want life on your terms? You want to get rich? Is it because you want to fast track your way to the top? Maybe it's because you want to be in charge, have more control. Maybe you want to be in a spot where you can tell other people what to do. Are you tired of moving slow on building wealth and influence and, you know, you're just ready to fast track and hit fast forward to success?

If so, I don't want to be a customer of your company. Because if those are your reasons for owning a business, then it's all about you. And no one wants to follow a leader whose purpose is to just build their own empire. 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, Daniel Tarty. Look, if you're in this thing just to make a buck, you won't last. You have to have a stronger purpose than just making a profit. If you're not convinced, today's episode,

it's going to highlight exactly why profits will never take you as far as purpose when it comes to why you're getting out of bed every day. My guest today, back on our podcast for the second time, is Green Beret and business owner Jason McCarthy. Jason found it go-rug. It's a backpack company that I can promise you isn't just another apparel company. Jason and his team are on a mission. They have a big sense of purpose. And today, Jason's building a remarkable company. But it's been a long, hard journey with lots of struggle, fear, and failure. I was under the assumption in my own brain.

I will check a box and I will go serve our country and then I'll get out and I'll go make a bunch of money, go be a consultant or go be a whatever. I didn't really realize that I would evolve. It would change me. And it changed me for the better. When you got out, did you have a season of, I guess identity crisis. What is my purpose now? You know, I'm out. What's next? Or was it just an automatic, like you just continued with that purpose into the next thing? Oh, no, life was a total mess.

How so? This is kind of what, so I recently wrote a book called How Not to Start a Backpack Company. I've been looking at it. And it detailed part of the, what that transition was. So at the time, basically, I'd gotten married in 2004 to my wife, Emily, and she was in the CIA. And I was in special forces. We were in training at the same time. And then I ended up in Iraq while she's in various parts of Africa. She ends up in West Africa while I'm, you know, in other parts of West Africa. You know, we're both serving at that time. And my goal was to kind of skip to the end, meaning we thought in 2008 is when my enlistment was up, that I would go live with her in West Africa and it was going to be sort of perfect, right? And by that time, I thought that I would transition and go to the CIA to sort of

serve in the same organization. It's a little bit easier to coordinate if you're working for one master instead of two because the army doesn't really care if your wife works in the CIA, you know, and nor should it really. I mean, it just kind of can. It's not built like that. And so thought that, hey, I'll end up, go over here, live here for a year, and then come back, I'll go to CIA training at whatever, and then we'll figure out what's next, you know, the next adventure of service around the world. Well, life kind of came crumbling down in West Africa. And I was there for like three months. And then I flew back home with a divorce en route and who's going to get the dog. And Emily's still over there. And I'm crashing on my buddy's couch in New York and

figuring out what to do next with my life. So really, I had no more job, which means I had no more mission. I didn't know what I was going to do in the future. And I'm going through divorce. And I don't even have the dog. You know, I mean, it was, it was pretty bad. Yeah, it was a bad country song, man. No more mission. Just to think about the phrase, no more mission, almost feels haunting. And I think a lot of us have been in that place.

We're going, what is our mission now? Yeah, it does. It does sound haunting. And I can feel those, I mean, there's plenty of triggers in my mind of just the places where I was and just feeling hopeless and lost. And so it was even worse because I had felt so purpose driven and I had this clear mission in the Army. It's really hard. Working in the Army is really hard, you know.

And I say that not from the standpoint of we should ask for easier lives. I say that from the standpoint of that's great, right? You have this mission and it's hard and you believe in it. And you show up and you do that work. And it's really rewarding. It just getting that rug pulled out from under me was, there was a large gap between where I was and where I was now and not a lot of time had gone by in order to sort of process that. You know, I think this year more than ever, a lot of business owners, you know, most of our

listening audience, business owners between two and 200 employees. And they start out with a mission. They have this sense of purpose. We're moving forward. We're busting through obstacles. and then 2020 for a lot of people has been a rug pulled out from under us moment. And I've talked with dozens of business owners in this last season who are going, I thought I had a mission and now I don't.

And they're in the proverbial couch in their buddy's living room and evaluating everything in their life going, what do I do with this? I'm curious, what were the significant components in that season for you that were the stairs steps or the anchor points that that started to move you back towards a sense of purpose. Was it just enough time had to transpire or were there key people, were there things you read?

Like, how did you get traction in that season? The first thing that I did was I moved in with a really old friend. He was in New York and, you know, wasn't, say, the best lifestyle for me to roll into, right? I mean, he was a bartender and that was, you know, he was trying to get acting gigs and all this stuff. So it's, that was a little bit, it was not perfect from that standpoint, but by the way, life is never perfect. What was perfect was

we go way back and he knew me and I could share lots of stuff, my whole everything with him, and he just loved me unconditionally. I mean, by the way, that's what a dog does for you. So get a dog, you know. But really, at that point, it just takes time. I mean, there are certain things that you can do. The best thing you can do is just keep moving. And yes, sometimes you have to make sure you're going in the right direction. But in the absence of even knowing what that looks like, I dare say that moving in the wrong direction is better than just standing in the middle of the road hoping that the world changes.

That feels like the world is spinning and it's spinning you backwards. And, you know, I mean, I started applying to business schools at that time, didn't really know how that was going to turn out. I'd already gotten a few nose. So I applied early to a bunch of schools, three schools specifically. I'm not going to list them even though I'd love to. I've gotten over it, right? But luckily, you know, it was one of those things where I got accepted into Georgetown's business school and was just really grateful.

And that sort of was the, it's kind of, if you keep fishing, you'll eventually catch a fish. And so it really was just about keep getting after it and trying to. buying new stuff. And, you know, frankly, stuff that would usually take me now a couple hours would take me weeks. I mean, do an application to a business school. It's not that hard, right? But it took forever. It just thinking and hyming and hawing and, you know, wringing my hands and stuff and just generally accepting that it was okay for me to just kind of not do that much, right? I just wasn't in the right mindset. It makes sense to me, though. In a season of my life where I was dealing with a broken period, a couple years of not having a mission. It was extremely inefficient.

You just, you stumble and you falter, and it doesn't feel like you're gaining ground quickly because you're questioning every step and you're taking, like you're saying, because you're not. Two hours drags out into two weeks, you know, with a lack of mission. I noticed in all those experiences, you mentioned unconditional love, being with somebody who knew you, putting yourself into an environment at Georgetown where you're around other people who are moving forward. and all those experiences, you were avoiding isolation. I think isolation is one of the biggest enemies when we don't have a mission. And I know this is a big deal in the military, you know, depending on each other and not being

alone. You go alone and you die. Say more about that. There's a lot of forces in the universe that are, we are pushing collectively in the wrong direction. And it's not to isolate any one of them specifically. But when you look at what is a friend, what is a community, right? Let's define our terms.

Something that exists online exclusively is not a community. It's a chat forum. So that word has been malused for the purposes of trying to make people feel like they're a community. A friend, it's the same thing. You know, I have, what, 5,000 Facebook friends. At least I say Facebook friends in front because it's a negative modifier of the word friends, right? because it's not real friends. It's okay.

They serve a purpose, right? There is the ability to link up and organize with people. But the fulfillment and the rewards in our lives will come from real world interactions with other people in service to something higher than ourselves. And that can be just being part of a community, you know, go outside, go for a walk with someone, go for a ruck with someone. I mean, if the online stuff works so well, then, you know, You don't even need to talk to your wife, right?

Just chat with them over text. I mean, it's ridiculous. And so, you know, I think that in our brains, we're getting a lot of dopamine hits, if you will, right? From feeling connected, but we're becoming increasingly empty with greater ability to isolate ourselves. So we're becoming so wealthy that we can afford privacy. But what we're finding is that it's not all it's cracked up to be, right?

And so that's taking its toll on our psyches. And it's hard. It's harder than living by yourself in an apartment, you know, on your computer, by yourself all day, in Zoom meetings. And, oh, by the way, let me just call whatever the food delivery services and it just magically shows up on my door. And I never have to leave, right? It's a terrible, terrible recipe for a life.

and we have to figure out a way to break out of that. I agree. I hope listeners and especially leaders are tapping into this idea of what, like, we have to bring people together now more than ever. And I don't know exactly what it looks like if you're trying to figure out how to work remotely. We're swimming against the grain on that. I mean, we open back up as quick as we could, not being reckless, but we're getting people in our building.

And as best we can figure out in compliance with local government regulations, blah, blah, blah. but we believe so deeply in the power of this authentic connection and community and relationship and how that builds trust and it builds a team that we can't afford to say we're just going to this is just the new normal and we're just going to isolate we can't run business that way you know the most valuable thing you have human resources are your people as a leader that's what you have you have your people and your job is to take care of them and you're the first follower of your mission. And so you organize them around and you say, okay, this is how we're going to do this together. Without the human interactions, you're, I feel like a lot of people, I know because we're living

this as well, we're going to the well of the connections that we had in the past. And so it feels okay to zoom our parents in Ohio and get the kids on. And, you know, it's like, okay, it's good to see, you know, Grandpa Jay and Grandma Leslie, it's great, right? But it's missing something. And when you translate this to work, it's sort of, we still know the people that we were working with, you know, six months ago. And so we can kind of go to that well. But there are ways that you can get adaptive to doing this. I mean, if you look outside is a healthy place. Right now, more people need to get more outside. And so at Go Ruck, what we're doing is we're kind of removing some of the office work or the office hours from, hey, you have to be here from nine to five, which we don't

really run that type of a culture anyway, but people don't have to come into work here. There is a remote option, but we do have a lot of outdoor walking or in our case, rucking meetings. So, you know, I mean, Steve Jobs was really well known for his walking meetings. I mean, just wait until people realize they can get fitness out of putting a little bit of weight on their back. Call 20 pounds. And you can go walk and talk with someone next to you. Like, you're not going to get. the virus like that. I mean, I'm not a doctor, so I don't assume this is exactly foolproof guarantee, but there's plenty of evidence out there that 7,000 cases in China were studied, and there was one documented case of outdoor-to-outdoor transmission. In 1918, they put the kids outside in schoolhouses,

in their winter clothes. They said, hey, kids sacrifice and suffer in silence because it's cold out, but this is what we've got to do. There was not one documented case of kids getting, you know, the flu back then. And so there's a... ways to adapt to this, but the point is, is that as a leader, you need to continue to establish these connections. And I just don't believe that online connections are strong enough. I think you're going to build a network of mercenaries, and that's just not what you want. I agree. Well, and I think in what you're saying there is that health is more than just not getting the virus. I mean, there's so many aspects to health, you know, so we need to pay attention to that aspect, but it can't be

at the expense of all the other things that matter. Yeah, I mean, There's a lot of stuff out there. Your emotional health, I mean, hypertension is up, depression is up, loneliness is up. And this is significantly up over generations now. And it's a really big problem. And guess what? The pedometer in your watch and those things, the health scans that you get and the pills that they give you to solve this problem, they don't work.

No doctor actually solves anything. They give you something so your body can solve it. That's how it works, right? And what we're missing are these kind of, however you want to view spirituality, we're missing these spiritual connections, these kind of magical interactions, because humans are social animals. We are designed to be in a pack around each other. When we starve ourselves of that, it's really hard for the metrics of the world to say,

hey, you need to go do, you need to eat dinner and talk to the person across the table from you. Put your phones down. You need to go for a walk after dinner. Hey, guys, you need to get together, not just work out in your garage staring at some screen that's going to tell you that you did a nice job after 20 minutes. But you need to call your buddies up and have them over your driveway and go toss some sandbags around for 20 minutes or 30 minutes and have some beers or some coax or some whatever when you're done and just shoot the breeze a little bit, right?

There's no money in that, right? So marketers are not out there saying, hey, you've got to go do this. it's not for sale. These best moments in life are just not for sale. You have to share them with other people. And so some businesses are built around getting people together, and that's great, but you still have to take the responsibility to do it, and it's not top of mind. We've created a culture of buying stuff, and you just can't buy that.

I love that. I couldn't agree more. I'm also thinking about when we're leading teams, that's also true that some of the most meaningful team experiences that build trust, that build unity, that make us feel safe to depend on each other, are extremely high drag if you're just measuring the bottom line. They're not experiences that if you're looking at operational efficiency, you would design into the machine and say, hey, let's take an hour and a half and just go for a walk and just catch up. And maybe the whole time we're not talking about work. We're talking about your family and how

things are going. And you and I know that bonds that are created in the trust, ultimately there is an ROI on that. There's kind of this counterintuitive component to that. And I love how you're just saying that it's not, can't put a price on these things. You can't sell the most meaningful moments in life. It's that connection with each other is what you're saying. Yeah. And people have to take responsibility to do this, though. You cannot get this staring at a Zoom call in your apartment, calling for taking food all the time. It doesn't work like that. You have to actually break the mold. You have to get people out and about. And if you're in a position of leadership, like leave from the front.

Don't hide behind the glass all day long. You've got to get out there and encourage people to come meet up. And to me, you know, that means come meet me outside. Let's go for a walk and talk about this. Yes, there's a lot more friction. Someone might have to drive to meet up. And, you know, it's like we glorify easy too easily, right? Yes.

Oh, this is so easy now. Everyone's on screens all day long. I mean, be careful what you wish for with this, because before too long, we're just going to become one with the screen. We're going to pay a price. And that's just not where we want to be. I mean, that's not a life and a way of life that I want to lead, and nor do I think that it works. I want to come back to your story. You're a man without a mission, but you're trying to get traction.

You get plugged in at Georgetown. You're starting to sense this new, purposeful season in your life. What happens from there? Oh, no, it was still very messy. Okay. So Emily had moved back from West Africa and we were still kind of fighting over the dog and we were separated. And I was at Georgetown and kind of trying to pretend to people at Georgetown that my life wasn't messy and kind of going to class and making new friends, but still very reserved, you know, wasn't ready to just throw myself into anything. Because once you get hurt, you don't want to get hurt anymore. So, you know, it just created some distance. for me, except between me and the dog. I did end up getting the dog. It was the nicest thing anybody ever did for me was when M gave me the dog. Java was his name. And so I am moving forward by the world standards, but what's that worth? Right. I mean, I'm in the process of getting an MBA at Georgetown.

Great. Right. You know how much that meant to me at that time? A little bit. Not a ton, a little bit. It was something to do, right? It was some structure in my life. It could have just as easily been, you know, I dare say a construction job would have been great for me as well. Would you say it was a distraction or a drug or form of therapy to keep you just moving forward? Yeah, of course. It was just the structure of you need to show up and do this thing. Now, the part that was lacking for me was any type of physicality, right?

So that's why I said, you know, a construction job would have been really good for me, too. like something to take my mind off of my mind. And I've found that physical things are excellent and really the only thing that can get me to shut my mind off. And that's one of the great struggles that I have now still is, you know, being on the other end of what I went through back there is, you know, how do you live in a moment that's, how do you shut off work stuff? How do you shut off the problems that you're trying to solve and just enjoy the moment? And I found that physical exhaustion is really the way to go. So to sort of continue the narrative, though, from Georgetown is there were problems to solve. Go Ruck was still kind of a hobby.

So I was incubating it, but it was not something that I knew how to do. I didn't know anything about manufacturing. I didn't know anything about starting a business. I didn't know anything about any of operational stuff. I didn't even really want to be in business. It was just kind of a distraction and a hobby. At that time, was it just backpacks? Or were you also thinking about this challenge concept?

It was only the rucksacks, the backpacks. And they didn't come out until May of 2010, which was the very end of my first year of business school. So there was some work on them, but I could not speed it up. And I wasn't really in a position to, even more cash necessarily couldn't have sped it up. I just didn't know how to do it. And so there was a team that was in Montana that was working with me to build some prototypes. But then those prototypes had to get to scale manufacturing. And that was a completely different.

different thing. I had to start completely over with a manufacturing shop. I didn't know any of this stuff, you know? And so there were just huge gaps because it wasn't an emergency for me, so to say, because I was in business school, but my emergency was not anyone else's priority. And so time was a blessing. It really was. And a lot of things were going on in life at that time where time, having Go Ruck to incubate while I was in business school was good. If all the pressure would have been on business school, that would have not been good. If all the pressure would have been on Go Ruck, that would not have been good. Hey, what if I told you that you can have an extra 15 hours every week? Time to think, time to prep, time to focus and work on the business, and not just

in the business. Seriously, you can reclaim 15 hours every week by just delegating five tasks. Now, hear me out. To do this, all you got to do is think of these tasks that you can delegate. Maybe it's emails, scheduling, booking travel, planning, meetings, expense reporting. That might sound a little scary to hand that stuff to somebody else, but guys, delegation is the cost of your sanity. And it's the linchpin to the survival of organizations everywhere. You guys know that. So our friends at Bollay, they help you do this.

They've got virtual assistants and bookkeeping services. They can even have people help you with your social media strategy. These guys are awesome. They're good friends. You guys got to check them out. And guess what? They're offering a free download right now. of things to delegate that are going to save you 15 hours every week.

15 hours a week? Man, you can run a company with that. So to get your 15 hours a week for free, well, now you've got to do the work. But the resource is free, and to learn how you can do that, text belay to 3196. That's the word belay, B-E-L-A-Y to 3196 to get the free download. And then just like that, you're going to be one step closer to reclaiming your sanity. I want you to say more about this. It's fast company. I mean, they have good articles, and I enjoy the, there's some mental candy in there, but the concept we should go fast. That to be truly successful, we go from zero to 100 in a nanosecond. The benefits of going slow, the crock pot, the barbecue, letting it go low and slow and marinate and the flavor and the richness that comes out on the other side of that. What were the benefits for you? Why do you say it was a good thing? that it didn't go fast.

I just, I learned a lot in that process that has benefited me since. So I learned about every facet of the business. I had to consider every facet of the business. And, you know, Go Ruck, it's impossible to remove the special forces way of life from my thinking and how I approach problems. And it's called tactical patience, right? There's this idea that, oh, there's the bad guy. You go rush into the house.

you go fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, all the time. Well, that's not really how it works. I mean, there is a time for that. But over the course of a career, the best soldiers are not 18 years old. They're not 22 years old. They are very seasoned. I mean, you start to get to be around 30. You know, say you've been in for a while, 10 years in special operations,

you're probably this perfect combination of mental and physical in terms of your ability to still lead troops into battle. And that's 10 years of doing that work, right? And so your job is to mentor people along the way. And what you learn is you learn when not to pull the trigger. That's tactical patience. You learn when not to storm into the house because you've got a weird feeling about it.

You learn when not to get other people killed. And the translations to business are pretty straightforward like that. that, right? I mean, if things go slower, then you're able to kind of make decisions with a little bit more thought behind them. And out of the gates, I mean, the planning is vital. You do need to have a plan for a business to start a business, but it's going to evolve a lot. And so your ability to evolve with it, to learn as you go, if you're going on hyperdrive, I hope it's not your first time and that you think it's always going to be like that. Because rocket ships don't really happen in a sustainable way.

And the good idea that you think you have to race the world on, I mean, oh, everybody's going to see this idea and they're going to come after it and they're all going to get it. I mean, I just don't see that. It's really hard. And I feel like that's like one of those things where, you know, if you Google what people are searching for, like things that we're afraid of, it's terrorism and all. these unnatural deaths by, you know, now it's the virus, I get it. But, you know, before there was this thing about what people are really dying of and what we're afraid of. And they're just not the same thing, right? Like, you should be afraid of diabetes and heart disease and all of this stuff. And you should not be afraid of lightning strikes and terrorism, right? Well, business is kind of the same

thing, right? We're afraid that everyone's going to come rip our ideas off. We're afraid that someone's just going to come and swoop in and just put us out of business tomorrow. And really, what we should be focused on is just building a really strong foundation and a solid team that rallies around a really good mission, but being adaptable to the marketplace. I've seen this. You've seen it as well. Young entrepreneurs are the ones that are thinking about starting out. They tend to overestimate the value of the idea, like the novelty of, I've got this idea. The truth is there's really no new idea. they're all variations on another idea. There's an old book that's ancient,

and it says that there's nothing new under the sun. You know, so I think we kid ourselves when we go, I've got this idea, and the secret to success is me getting this to the market before anybody else possibly could conceive of this. And if it's not the idea, what is it? Because I think it's more around that purpose execution thing. But speak to that person who's thinking, like,

but Jason, I've got to get this out fast because this idea is the thing. Okay, let me tell you what's going to kill your business. This is what will kill your business with your great idea is do you really, really believe in that idea? Do you really believe in the mission that that idea represents? And if you do, then it really doesn't matter what happens from that point on. It will succeed. It will fail.

You'll learn no matter what. But if you're not on board, and I'll tell you, if you are on board, you have about 100% greater chance of success. And I mean really on board, not sort of, I think I can make a quick buck off of this. Or, you know, if you're just kind of like plugging holes in the dam or whatever with new ideas and chasing after them to make a buck here and a buck there, you're just a mercenary. And mercenaries don't lead fulfilling lives like you do if you fully commit to a cause and a mission that's bigger than yourself, that you can rally other people around to that mission. And so that's fatal. And that's where I was. I was staying in the middle of the road on Go Ruck for a while.

And eventually I had to say I'm actually all into this. And so, you know, since that time, there's been good years. There's been more challenging years, if you will. But it's the commitment to the mission for the last decade that has been what's allowed us to sustain. That's allowed us to build a great team around it. And you take away some zeros. you add some zeros, either way, it's not really going to feel like what you think it does.

It's more about are you fulfilled in the mission that you're driving forward? I love the question, do I really believe in what I'm doing? And I know that's been true for you with Go Ruck. I want you to speak to our audience about this, because here's a guy who is thinking about this concept of a backpack company, but it wasn't just a backpack. It was clearly about something where you're not a mercenary. It's a purpose. It's a calling.

It's something greater than yourself. yet Jason, hundreds of companies make backpacks. It's just a backpack. How do you make this something that's about purpose? And people look at Ramsey's solutions. They go, you guys are on a crusade. You're changing lives. It makes sense that you guys would have purpose or, you know, these bigger, you know, kind of high profile, highly visible, make a dent in the universe kind of organizations. And I think about a guy who's running a sanitization company in Kansas. He's like, yeah, but we just do the work. It's just a commodity. But you could say, the same about backpacks. How do you connect? I mean, clearly, you figured out how it wasn't just about the backpack. It's like the backpack's a vehicle that allows you to accomplish this greater purpose is what it seems like. Yeah, I mean, it just, it was never going to be just a backpack company. That's sort of the big joke, right? I was just never going to run that company. It was, there was no amount of money that I wanted to, I mean, go compete with, what, Jan Sport or something and build backpacks and try to get people to wear ours because of what, some cool marketing fad, or we shave a couple

pennies off, or we get the right influencer and stuff. I just, I'm not willing to chase that. So there had to be something greater. And that was the big kind of holdup for me for, you know, officially the idea for the company, which was so valuable, right, was late 2007. And it wasn't until May of 2010 that we even had rucksacks for sale. So then I was still hugely hesitant about why am I doing this? You know, it was kind of a reaction against, you know, I'm still going through divorce. And the summer 2010 is when kind of drove around to 48 states to try to figure out some meaning and kind of got some, but it wasn't from being just a backpack company. And so then I just went back to the same kind of special forces way of life and brought people together in the real world and we got to put the product

in use and that's what transformed the company in my heart and so from that point on i was i was very committed to to what go ruck could be and could do for the world well you say it transformed you and your heart and your team i can say it transformed me that night was so monumental when we went i did the 12 hour challenge i bought a backpack but what i experienced was something that thing that I'll never forget. And to this day, if I need something and it's 2 a.m. and I'm in trouble, I know I can call Cliff Neely, who did that challenge with me. I know I can call Walt Yates. I know I can call John Falcons. I know I can call Tim Smith. The bond that was created with the guys that I did this with through that experience was like nothing I've ever experienced. And I still have the backpack that

hangs in my garage and it's got the bricks in it. Sometimes I go ruck it around. But it reminds me of the connection. It reminds me of the transformation that I went through on that night, the crucible experience. You guys added a component to your business model that made it more than just backpacks. And I wonder if you have a business where it feels like it's just backpacks, it seems like a modification to the model sometimes is the difference between just being a commodity and just another company and actually tapping into that purpose. You had a lot of ingenuity there to think about, okay, we're going to wrap this experience around a backpack company. Speak to our small business audience about this out-of-the-box thinking and how you connect experience

to a product or service that helps you tap into that greater purpose. Yeah, I mean, the first thing that you do is you do it, right? I mean, figure out what, and it doesn't have to be, hey, this has to be a revenue-generating experiential type thing. It's just you've got to do something for your people. to be in this experience of spending all this time at work with these other people, everyone's easier to work with if you do something great with them. This is a challenge that everybody faces,

especially when you're building a team, you're an entrepreneur. How do I get and keep everybody on the same page? Well, create experiences for people to go through. And trust falls and stuff sound great. And you block it off on the calendar and you say, man, that's really expensive, do I need to do that? And we've never done that at Go Ruck per se, but we've also, you know, have kind of the built-in stuff where we get together, we go for rucks on Wednesday nights, and we work out together

Friday mornings and not everybody shows up all the time. But you've got to bring things to the real world for people. It's a little bit of outside of work. And, you know, I mean, it's a little bit messier with Go-Ruck because there's an event's side to our quote business and there's a gear side, but the event side is really about building a community. And so the business that's the real work is inventory management and cash flow and the selling of wares, you know, selling of rucksacks and other stuff that we build now. And the community side is what kind of unites us consistently. And so it's a consistent thing

that we have where people know what our northern star looks like through the experiences that we put on. So I just encourage people to do something and get behind it. People and founders, whatever, they think that, well, people won't like this or, you know, there's always the guy that's going to complain at the very beginning because, you know, of whatever, right? It's not about that. Get the people who want to come. You want to go for a hike once a month? Great. Go for a hike once a month. Tell people, tell people you're going to go and invite them. It's a really easy way to, it's a simple way to get more people to show up than none, right? Go do something and invite them. And over time, what'll happen is the people that show up will probably become, the bonds will strengthen, they will deepen,

and that will become contagious. Well, and I think it has to be authentic to who you are. You know, we think about the stuff like Trust Falls and you go, that sounds cheesy. It might be cheesy because it's inconsistent with you. I think about our founder, Dave Ramsey. He's a gun guy and he's often inviting us like, let's go shoot this weekend. Saturday morning, I've got some land. Let's go out here and shoot. Or he's got, he's a water skiing guy. He's got a lakehouse and he'll invite people down and say, let's just come down and get on the boat and goof off. So those things make sense because that's Dave Ramsey. That's who he is. He's not coming over here and doing something that's like, well, we heard that doing a trust fall or fill in the blank, cheesy objective,

you know, is something we should do as a team building, Because if you're starting with a team building exercise, that's the wrong starting point. And go ruck and rucking around with bricks in your backpacks is it's a part of your DNA as the founder and it's a part of the DNA of the organization. Yeah, those two meld over time. You know, you create the culture through action. And so, you know, what happens then over time is if the founder is a gun guy that likes to go water ski as well, you end up getting, that's a broad net, right? I mean, this isn't a super exclusive thing. I mean, some people might not want to go shoot guns. Some people might not want to go water ski.

But if you get someone in charge, whatever it is that you enjoy doing, invite people to come and see you in your native environment where you enjoy it and show them what your passion looks like in that world. And that's always fun for people. I mean, it's to see how people live their lives and how they spend their time and where they spend their time and what they're passionate about. that's fun for me to see of anybody, whether they're a boss or whether they're not, right? And so you can get people on board with you, go spend some quality time with them like that, whatever you like to do. I mean, we can't just prescribe it here, right? I mean, you have to be true to yourself. And in those, that's why you're in charge. Yeah, you've got to be excited about it. Well, and I think it's great for continuing to nurture and build the relationships with the existing team. I want to hear about your

team-building process and how you hire people. What are you looking for when you're bringing people on board? Because you have such a strong purpose. It's a mission. You're not looking for people that can just so. You're not looking for people that can just run a marketing campaign. Is it typically former military? Is it people that have had an experience with your product? How much does that show up in the interview process? Yeah, I mean, it shows up a lot. It's a little bit different from the first girl I ever hired, Polly Brown. God bless her. It was like, you know, a friend of a friend, and we met up and she had just gotten out of college and needed a job, but had just a great attitude, right?

I mean, just a big smile and she had a dog and I had Java. And lo and behold, you know, like, okay, when can you start? You know, because I didn't know what I needed, but I knew I needed someone else to come in. And it was basically attitude was everything. Can you kind of solve problems? Okay, you're smart. I get it. You've been to school and stuff.

That's great. You have a good attitude? Awesome. That's a great starting point because I don't even know what we need yet. As we've matured a little bit more, you don't want to suffocate people, but you do have to manage expectations a little bit more. Like everybody doesn't get to do everything. And that's how people are more successful.

So this is kind of what the job is. This is the scope of the work that we're doing. But those are kind of more technical. The cultural side is where you get people to stay for longer periods of time. it's, you know, increased retention, if you will. And when you get people that are really bought into the mission, you know, it's not something that you just say, like, oh, I really believe in the mission. That's great.

But how does that manifest? And so you say, okay, well, do an event. Have you tried rucking? When I was a kid, I didn't understand it when people say, learn more about the company before you go interview. I'm like, well, how do I learn more about McKinsey before I go interview at McKinsey? Right. You know, it's like, okay, it's a consultancy.

they solve problems. Like I don't know how to do more. Now maybe it's easier. I don't know with Google and all that stuff, but seemed a challenge at the time. And so here, the people that understand more of our why and have been around for a while,

that's one way to do it. And then there's other people that you meet who are newer and you have to sort of assess cultural fit a little bit more. So it's kind of coming at both sides, but ultimately we're looking for people who will commit to

the mission. We have found some of our best team members are people who previously were impacted by what we do as a customer. That's what you're saying. It's changed their life to some degree. And they have a passion that is fueled out of an initial transformational experience they have. And then they want to be a part of the crusade as they come on board as a team member. I've seen that too. Sometimes that leads to someone not being a great fit though, too. How so? Well, it's still just you have to give someone their left and right limit. I mean, passion is not enough. It has to be there, but you can't just have passionate people. I mean, if you guys have a pretty big reach there and lots of people love what you're doing, you can't just rank people on the passion score and hire that way.

You have to, you have to kind of set people up for success. And I mean, part of it is the company can evolve over time and people's fit can evolve over time as well, right? It's like, yes, if, right? I mean, so this is normal in the selection processes of like special forces and other special mission units is, look, you did great in this selection process, but you need to go get these other skills before you come back, and we would love for you to come back. Oh, we agree, yes. I mean, because you're talking about the blend of passion for the mission and skill, and I think you're hitting on a great point, which is you can't just look at that passion, and then you've got somebody that's an idiot, and they don't have any skill, and they're reckless,

but they're all in on your mission. I think it's one of those things for me. I go, okay, if I had to pick one direction I'm going to skew a little bit more than the other, the biggest mistakes I've made are when I went after skill and talent, and there was so much talent, such a pedigree, but then they didn't have passion for the mission. They came on board, and six months later, we're all miserable.

I agree 1,000 percent. And right now, you're looking at the greatest market for hiring great talent that's existed in our lifetime. I mean, just with all of the people that are out there, I mean, really smart people are out there looking for meaningful work. I think that you have to lean towards passion for the cause or else you're hiring mercenaries. And you don't want mercenaries. You want people that are true believers. And so you have to kind of assess and test yourself how is this person the right fit?

You guys make one of the coolest products. And for people that don't know, they don't cut. any corners. I mean, these backpacks, this apparel, first of all, they're bomb-proof. I mean, you can't destroy them. They're triple stitch, reinforced, made in America. I mean, every aspect that the zipper, the liner, the pockets, I mean, these guys have thought through everything. And this thing for me is one of those, like, if the house is burning down and I can just grab a couple things after the kids, of course. You know, like, I want to grab this because it's such a incredibly made product and the experience that I had with this was just so meaningful for me. So you

You guys need to check out their stuff. It's fantastic. Going forward, Jason, what is the biggest challenge today and what is your vision for the future of Go Ruck as you guys are scaling? I know the book's coming out. I know you guys are continuing to make great apparel and do these events. What's the vision? Where do you see this in 10 to 15 years from now? Yeah, so I think the risk, the threat to us is that we just start running Go Ruck like it's a business. Hey, we've kind of, we have some great products. That's awesome. People know that we do this other cool stuff, but we can just really manage the business, right? Dollars and cents and profit and ROI and all of that stuff. And I, as we've evolved, I mean, there are times where you have to get,

I mean, this year specifically in COVID, you have to get pretty tactical, pretty fast because the business was changing before our very eyes, right? I mean, travel, gear way down, training gear way up, events, not so many this year, right? Participation numbers of events way down. So we had to pivot a lot of stuff to get to just sort of transform the business a little bit, just what we were focused on, if you will. And that leads to tactics really quickly. Like, this is how much money's coming in. This is, this is how we're doing. This is just kind of a microcosm to say, though, that you have to keep aligning around the mission of the company. And for us, it's really building communities, getting people to put a rucksack on, find some friends, and embrace the suck.

That's what will build meaningful communities for those people. It's really impossible to measure effectively. What's easy to measure is sales. You can measure it every day because they come in or they don't. But aligning around that and how to continue to keep that as our northern star and put more metrics around that. So I've kind of gone back to the drawing board on some of that. Part of it is how to get more media out the door that represents the brand and then how to engage other audiences out there. This is a great example, trying to reach like-minded people that want to make a difference

in the world and talk about our story. And maybe that's inspirational for people. We hope it is. but through partnerships and as media generates more stuff, whether it's books or a documentary or stuff like that, it's more stuff to talk about on other people's platform. And the other is just kind of community building fitness software, if you will, an app that would manage the community and activity out in the real world. Because that's really, for us, technology is a tool. And right now, everything is going online, right? Everything is just how many friends do you have on Facebook and you can scroll on Instagram all day long?

And it's not working. Right. It's working to keep you on those platforms, but it's not delivering fulfilling, meaningful lives for us. And we want to push people to go outside together in the real world and, sure, push some sandbags and some rucks around, but talk to each other, right? I mean, and that's really a really big deal. I mean, that's the continuation of the service element that I feel from having joined the Army and gone through that. I was on a small special forces team, right? And you get really tight.

You work out with the guys. You go to war with the guys. You eat with the guys. Your families get to know each other. You love each other because you spend time together in the real world and you're aligned toward a mission. And so we want to bottle that up and inspire and empower people to do that for themselves in the real world. and I don't want this to feel like it's some silver bullet because it's not. It doesn't have to be complicated either, right?

This isn't something where you've got to wait for the perfect moment to have two or three buddies over to your driveway. Like just get going and get started. So we're making investments in the media side and on the community side. And both are kind of designed around bringing more people into the community. I have to imagine in the season when an entire line of business on the event side is, put on pause, hopefully it's coming back soon. I have to imagine there's a temptation when you're thinking about your cash flow and profit margins. I know your product could have more margin in it if you guys cut a few corners and probably could cut some corners the consumers, most consumers

would not even notice. You guys are not the cheapest, but you're the best. But you don't. There seems to be a value. I imagine there's a value in holding true to the idea of making the best product even when it could be more profitable. I mean, if you just live your your life trying to shave every penny out of everything. I mean, that's one way to do it, but we would rather just keep focused on the community and the mission building. And frankly, you know, the special forces community from a quality of the gear standpoint, I mean, our stuff has to work for that community. And I know what that community is like. And I know how hard it is on gear, footwear, and apparel, and everything that gets put through the paces. And so, you know, something,

things are more important than money, so to say. And for me, it is just the reputation of go rock. I have told a lot of my story of my pass and my association with special forces in the Green Beret community. And at least at a minimum I owe to represent that really well and to do it, not just with words, but with the actions of the products. And so that's just something that is just a non-negotiable for me and for us culturally now. I mean, 10 years later, the team knows really well that we're just not willing to cut corners in order to shave a couple pennies off of whatever. I love the integrity in that. Okay, we have to close the loop because the last we checked in on your story, you and Emily are headed for a divorce and you're still lacking

this mission. Clearly, you've redeemed a lot of that. You started the company. You've got a mission. You guys have this purpose. You're changing lives. And but you and Emily what happened yeah it's a crazy story so we did get divorced there's one of the there's a table of contents for the the book that's about that time in my life the early days of go rock and it's it's like i gave her the signed divorce papers i'd kept this journal that summer and so i remember meeting her that summer we met because we're still kind of fighting over the dog but officially gave her the divorce papers that summer of 2010 it was on her driveway and in Jacksonville.

And then we ended up going for a run or something. It was just kind of bizarre to with the dog, of course. And it was just kind of bizarre timing, but, you know, we took a little break in service. I wrapped up my time at Georgetown, you know, graduated in 2011 and was kind of off to the races on Go Rock and was leading a lot of events at that time. I mean, all over the, all over the country and then a little bit overseas as well. And M and I didn't really stay in touch for a while.

and then we kind of did again, and she had moved back home at the same time that I was moving the company back home. You could say it was some big plan design of mine. Maybe it was, right? But that would probably involve the stars kind of aligned in that moment. So, you know, it was not just some, oh, we saw each other again. And it was 2012, say, when I moved the company from D.C. to Florida. And we saw each other again. And it was, you know, it's like, I've never understood these stories where you love someone and then you hate them.

Like it was never really like that with us. Love her still and I'll always love her. And it was just, you know, we just been through a lot. And so there was a lot of trust to rebuild and stuff like that. And it didn't just happen overnight. It wasn't like, oh, we're just back together and bam. But we did eventually get back together and we got a few kids running around now. And she's integral to the path and the way at Go Ruck.

And it's a crazy story. I think it's inspiring. I mean, you know, divorce is so prevalent these days, and you don't often hear, okay, we went through that just terrible experience, and it's so heartbreaking from what I know and the ones that I've friends I've had that have gone through that. But to get back together, I mean, I've heard, occasionally you hear that, but I just think there's something beautiful about the idea of second chances and grace, compassion and forgiveness and being able to move forward, whether it's with a spouse, with a former partner, with a teammate. I just feel like life's too short, you know, for us to carry these deep wounds with other people, our entire lives, if it's possible to work it out. The first step is you don't want to carry those wounds around personally either, right? So, you know, first thing that I had to make peace with, and I know Emily was the same, was just had to make peace that the past was the past. You know, it was really, really messy, right?

Like, we went to marriage counselors who were CIA marriage counselors. right? They've seen a crazy, oh yeah. I mean, they'd seen a thing or two because, like, it puts a lot of stress and strain on relationships, like these kind of wartime service all over the globe and big jobs, whatever, that require a lot of work. And the, I'll never forget the marriage counselor that we saw. She's like, I've never seen a marriage that had more grounds to have more stress placed on it, right? Like, this is the most stressful type of thing you could possibly do. I mean, we'd been married for five years and never lived together, stuff like that, you know, wars on different continents, you know, see on the weekend in three months, just stuff like that. And so it was one of those things where, and we were both complicit in that, right? I mean, by complicit in it, I mean, we had both chosen to serve our country. And we were not going to back down from that type of service, that honorable service. And so that came first. And it came first not.

in words, but in action. And there was some difference there. You want the most important thing in your life to be the most important thing in your life, but it couldn't be for us. And so it wasn't. And so each of us had to make peace with the past as the past. And we had to kind of accept that it was what it was. And we learned a lot from it and it was really painful. And if we can go through that and still love each other and like each other, there's still something there. And it's certainly not, there's no such thing as some fairy tale that you ride off and it's not hard, right? And we need to get it out of our heads that easy is good and hard is bad. Hard means it's worth it. So just keep putting the time and the passion and the energy into the hard things and you'll get a lot more out of it than constantly chasing

easy stuff. Jason, I'm so inspired by your story and what you guys are doing with Go Ruck and the mission. So many of our listening audience, a couple hundred thousand small business owners out there hearing this going, okay, it is hard. So I guess it's, it means it's worth it. But give me some encouragement going forward. If you had one thing to say in your final thoughts here to our audience, to encourage them, to emboldened them, what would it be? Essentially what you've said, like I feel like what we need to do is just band up philosophically as leaders. And we need to say, look, our job, this is supposed to be hard, right? Don't fall for the sirens.

Like don't start drifting towards those rocks or else the ship's going to crash and everyone on board's going to die. This is supposed to be hard. And you have the license from time to time to say, damn, this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. That's okay, right? You have the license every once in a while, you know, it's natural. You feel a little bit sorry for yourself.

you feel like, man, I didn't deserve this or whatever, right? And have your moment and move on, right? I mean, tomorrow is a new day and you need to pick yourself up and you need to get back on the horse and you need to keep going forward. And you need to do that for yourself and for your team. But the mindset is everything. You have to know that this is hard. Every once in a while, it's going to be a little too hard. And tomorrow is a new day. And pick yourself up and lead from the front again. I love it. Jason McCarthy, incredible words. Thank you for the encouragement. Thanks for the service that you've provided our country and are now providing to so many people through the story of Go Ruck and the experiences you guys create.

I'm excited about this book, and I've got to tell you guys, I'm a big Kindle guy and an audible guy, but this is one of those books you need to get the hard copy because it's got a bunch of cool actual images of Jason's journaling all the way through the years early on when he was building the company. And it's really neat to see like in your handwriting and little sketches and things that you were thinking about. You can just see the genesis of this thing. It's super inspiring. So tell people where they can pick up the book and how they can learn more. So right now it's on go rock.com. And we did kind of the publishing industry. And you guys have an awesome operation there.

We're kind of just figuring it out. But this was a different book. There's a lot of pictures in it because part of that summer in the early days of Goruk were about telling a story around pictures and words and the adventures of going on the road and visiting 48 states with my dog, right? I wanted to go see America. And so there's a lot of pictures and a lot of kind of sketches and some of the early business school case studies, if you will, on Go Rock with some commentary in there.

And then you still have to be able to read. So don't worry, it is a real book. But initially we just didn't have too much luck with the big publishing houses. And so we just released it on our platform. And it just, it's a different format. So the hardback is, it works for this for now. we'll probably get it out into other formats later in the year. And we'll take it from there. I love it. He is Jason McCarthy. The company is Go Ruck. The book is How to Not Build a Backpacking Company. Lots of

Fun. Check it out on goruck.com. Jason. Thank you for your time today. Thanks so much. Appreciate you guys. Wow. What an inspiring conversation. I love Jason's story. And I hope for you, after hearing that, that one of the things that's top of mind is purpose. What's your purpose? Why are you in business? Why do you exist? You guys know that's one of the six drivers of an on-tray leadership company. to have purpose and to make sure it's top of mind for you and your team, guys, it takes being intentional. So our team put together a free resource to help you out. It's called 10 days of intentionality. It's a resource you can download absolutely free. And this is a leadership challenge to help you kick the excuses, build discipline, and really get your whole team to be just a little

bit more intentional. So to get this free guide, text the phrase, get intentional to 33444. Again, text get intentional, all one word, no spaces. to 33444 or click on the link in the show notes. Well, 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. And for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the link in the show notes. Be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership, and you can follow me on Instagram

at Daniel Tarty. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, and it was edited and mixed by Will I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like the Christie Wright Show. Hey, all, I'm Christy Wright. You know, it's so easy to feel stuck. You live life, just going through the motions, doing dishes, doing laundry, carpool lines, and a whole list of commitments that bring you no joy. We say yes to what everyone expects of us,

and we have no energy or time for what we want. And let's be honest, most of the time, we don't even know what we want. Why do we live like that? God certainly never called us to. You know, I believe that the life God has for us is bigger and more amazing than any of us realize. That's why I want you to check out the Christy Wright Show. Every week, we will fire you up to break through what's holding you back and inspire you to create a life you love and are proud of.

Each episode will help you build confidence in yourself and the God that created you. To hear full episodes, just search Christy Wright wherever you listen to podcasts or go to ramsysolutions.com slash shows.