Jocko Podcast - 442: Breaking Records and Saving Lives. With British Special Forces Soldier, Dean Stott

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

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This is Jocko Podcast number 442 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The phones are blowing up with requests for help. We've never said no to a family, whether they can pay or not, said Dean. A former British Special Forces soldier and friend of Prince Harry has flown to Israel to help evacuate people within 24 hours of Hamas attacking. Dean Stott, who is a member of Britain's elite special boat service, The Special Forces Unit of the Royal Navy was on the ground in Tel Aviv almost immediately helping after Jewish friends asked him to help.

Stott, 46, and his team are helping people anxious about the deteriorating situation, get to Bangurion Airport, or leave via Jordan. His wife, Alana, is mastermining the operation from their home in California. Two years ago, the husband and wife team helped evacuate people from Afghanistan. and Stott evacuated the Canadian embassy in Libya in 2014. We know how to do extractions. You need to get in fast because you don't know if airspace is going to get shut down, Stott said from Jerusalem. I saw it on the news and within 30 seconds we were getting calls from friends.

We just got home from Disneyland. I was there in 24 hours and helping the first family. And that right there is an excerpt from an article by Ben Clerkin. published on October 13th, 2023 in the aftermath of the Hamas attack in Israel. And you may recognize the name Dean Stott. Dean was a British soldier, as mentioned in the article, a member of the elite commando unit,

the special boat service. We completed multiple combat deployments around the globe until he was injured in a parachute accident and forced to retire. But while he did retire from the military in 2011, he was far from actually retired. In the following years, he built a business in the private security sector where he dealt with extortion,

kidnapping, civil war pirates, military coups. In 2014, he planned and executed the evacuation of the Canadian embassy in Libya, rescuing four diplomats and 18 military personnel. On top of all that, in 2018, he set two world records, the fastest bike ride of the length of South America and the fastest bike ride on the Pan American Highway. And he covered much of this in his book, Outstanding Book.

It's called Relentless, which we discussed when he was on the podcast about three years ago, episode 270. So if you want to hear about his past, you can listen to that podcast 270. You can get his book, Relentless. But for tonight, Dean is back here with us to discuss. some of his latest efforts, which include not only evacuating people from Israel, but also some new adventures into entertainment and assisting veterans and victims of human trafficking with mental health and a host of other trials and tribulations. Dean, you've been a busy man. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

So prior to the Israel evacuation when you went in there to help out, 2021, Afghanistan, what did you guys do over there? Because I know you got some people out of there as well, like quite a few people. Yeah, so we were back at home and obviously everyone's seen everything unfold on the news. We were working with a number of agencies. You know, we had a lot of connectivity on the ground. I had an organization I was working with, and they had a medical facility. It's been open for the last 10 years.

And so we had the footprint, but we weren't really physically getting involved. I was offering advice and then I think we talked about last podcast I was going to do a challenge I was looking at kayak in the River Nile and while I was doing this training process I got introduced to a gentleman called Jim Ross who was like, it worked for epic kayaks

one of the best kayakers in the UK trains the GB team but his wife Annabelle Ross she was ex-military worked with the UN and she had a friend and I need to get the name right Saraya Paxad was this woman. She was a woman's rights activist. And she basically set up one of the first underground schools in Afghanistan back in 2000 and sorry,

1998. Yeah. And then in 2001 when obviously the troops came in, it went to full, full scale. But she's, you know, back in 2009, she was listed in a one in a times 100 most influential people there's photos of her with condoleez of rice and america turned her back on her she was trying to get out and they wouldn't do anything about it so she reached out to annabel who knew obviously mine and alana's story with the previous evacuations and she said can you can you help us so alana and anabel were we're coordinating and this lady sarah said you know she wanted to come out so do you remember

like when she contacted you yeah i remember when annabel contacted me it was literally you know WhatsApp and Signal is a great tool in all of these stories, whether it's Israel or Afghanistan, the amount of WhatsApp groups you had. So she messaged and said, look, we've exhausted all our options. You know, can you help? And so I put onto Alana, and then Alana started making some phone calls with the guys that we had on the ground and some of the other agencies. And unlike the Libya evacuation, unlike the Israel evacuation, this was very much almost

like a paper exercise. It literally it was a box ticket exercise. Do you have a passport? Yes. Do you have a host nation? Yes or no. If not, you know, where can we actually potentially take them? Do you have family in any other countries that we can take it to? And so

literally that's what it was. It was a paper exercise and Alana managed to get her paperwork. But the issue we had is she ended up turning up at the airport with 19 gills. She said, I'm not leaving about these gills. And so there was a lot of dialogue back and forth.

We were also having to communicate with the British forces, the adjutant of the Parachute Regiment. We were also communicating with the American forces as well. And so, you know, looking at it from an outside, you would have thought that the U.S. military and the UK military had had a lot of communication and crossover. A lot of the actual communications was coming through through third parties, whether it's private security industries or what.

So we ended up in the end getting, her out. And because... What about the 19 girls? And the 19 girls. We got them out in the end. And in the end, their host nation wasn't the US. We got into Germany. So that really then started the whole waterfall effect. Because as soon as people realized that we were, we were back on the radar. We were getting phone calls all the time. And Alana and I were having to really just stagger through the night. Because as you can imagine with the time differences as well from the US. So I think at one point, we had something like 68 WhatsApp groups. And we had every... everything from the British Boxing Association,

telling me the Afghan boxing team were at risk. And so what you had here is, because it was on the world stage, you had everyone almost jumping at this opportunity to leave. There was those that were eligible to leave who had worked as interpreters for the UK and the US forces. But there was then, I think it was the wording that you were potentially at risk

because of what you did or the Taliban. So things like Soraya, You know, yes, she's at risk because, you know, these underground schools, Taliban don't want any of that. And so we were dealing with all sorts of requests. And at the time, as you would have seen, there was a lot of veterans who wanted to get involved. There was a lot of non-profits now getting involved. I had everything from, you know, the real housewise of Orange County, but it wasn't really the real house of Orange County. But, you know, similar sorts of groups who wanted, who had funding and wanted to help any way possible.

So it was great to see humanity, to see the amount of people wanting to get involved. But it then started to become a really messy situation because you have to make sure that all that relevant paperwork is in place. You can't just take people out. You can't just give them the wrong advice. Tell them to go to the Pakistan border and things that. So we were really trying to have to navigate that and sort of ease people's, East people's minds, because it was a difficult one because we had to say no to a lot of people because they didn't fit the protocol.

They didn't have the right paper. It didn't have a host nation. But other people were saying yes, without really understanding the nuances involved with these evacuations. So you have a thing called the FAA, which is the Federation of the American Immigration Reform. And they are now investigating so many groups, non-profits for human trafficking. because people were just wanting to help but not really understanding the aftermath. So what we're seeing now two years later

is a lot of people manage to get into Pakistan without passports, without the right paperwork. But there's an agreement between the Pakistan and the Afghani government now is that they have two years to get their paperwork in place. If it's not in place, then they go back. And that two years is now coming up. And the Taliban know that.

So there's a lot of people now who were helped by these groups who really didn't understand what they were doing who now were going to end up going back. So for us, for me and Alana, it was difficult because, and it was heartbreaking because we had to say no to so many, but we couldn't compromise what we do. Because like I said, this is just one country. We've done it.

We do it all over the world. So for us moving forward, I didn't want to be investigated for human trafficking. And as, you know, Alana is an ambassador for human trafficking. herself so we had to be really airtight what was your reaction when you saw Afghanistan going down like that after you fought there yeah it was it was hard to watch you know we've been there 20 years you know what was different about Afghanistan compared to likes of Israel Libya Sudan and all these other places is a fact that the other evacuations was a crisis response it's because there's been an incident like the Hamas incident we had a foothold in there for 20 years

It wasn't a surprise that we were leaving. And so for me, I think there was just that rush to get out before September 11th. I think it was disrespectful to the servicemen and women that had been out there, the servicemen and women that had fallen, their families, and also disrespectful to the Afghanis. You know, that's one that stands out for me. You know, we went in there to help. And, you know, you look 20 years on, did we make much of a difference?

I think we may have done But I think They It only took them nine days Nine days to capture everything That we'd be taken in 20 years You know each province was falling Each city was falling

And so for me I think it was disrespectful And it was handled Very poorly Yeah It certainly was handled very poorly And to make real changes Like in a country like that You've got to stay there for a long time

And, you know, we hadn't taken, America hadn't taken a combat casualty in I think 18 months when we were there. So it's not like we were embroiled in some crazy combat. It was sort of a police effort that was going on and really from the rear just reinforcing what was happening and keeping a level of stability there. And everybody that had been there or even paid attention to what was going on there knew that the Afghans weren't ready to. to handle the Taliban. It's the same thing that happened when we left Iraq. Everybody that fought in Iraq, when we left Iraq, everyone knew what was going to happen. And yet still, we just walked away.

And it doesn't take a huge contingent. It's like when you're at a, hey, Echo Charles, you're a bouncer, right? You were a bouncer back in the day? No doubt about it. How many bouncer does it take to keep a club of 300, 400, 400 people, 500 people, under control? How many people, how many bouncer does it take? Six to eight. six to eight bouncers and you can control six to eight hundred people and why is that well because

those you know the person that causes problem he knows he's going to get dealt with by the bouncers and so that's kind of what you have in these countries it was like yep hey we we're not the bouncers aren't participating in the game right maybe a little bit maybe here in there they shouldn't be but they're not they're not actively participating in the game they're just making sure that the game is being played correctly and it's all good And if someone gets out of line, they remove them. So that's kind of the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. You had, we were the bouncers.

The party was going on. We were making sure that it was, people were behaving properly. No one was abusing anybody. No one was getting harassed. Making sure no one's getting out of control. And that's what was happening. And after a while, you can go down to three bouncers. And after a while, you can go down to two bouncers.

But in terms of countries, that can take generations to get there. And we just for some, well, I guess just for purely, political reasons in both those cases it was oh yeah we're gonna leave now and we just left just all all bouncers yeah yeah all the bouncers left and by the way there's gang members in there like known known gang members that are drunk and maybe a little coked up yeah and maybe they've they've been you know had a rough day too so they got problems they got like mental issues and but they're in there with normal people yeah and what's going to happen to the normal people exactly what happened in in in Afghanistan.

The normal people go, well, I guess the bouncer's left, so I'm just going to do what this freaking thug tells me to do. Otherwise, I'm going to get my, you know, I'm going to get freaking stuck with a knife. I think there's also the fact they've underestimated their enemy. You know, you look at history.

The UK being over there three years. Actually, when I was there, the Taliban, the Afghans, hate the Brits more than the Americans. You know, we haven't been able to defeat them. And so, you know, I think it was a lack of respect for the Taliban. It was a lack of respect for the Afghanis. But the other

failings as well is the fact that you know at the airport, they had a database of all the names of the people that have been working with the UK and US forces and they just left it. And so when they flew off, they just literally handed them back over. I'd say

like now obviously, like the Taliban, we were actually working with Taliban agents during this whole process as well because actually at the time the world was like the Taliban didn't want there to be an incident during this handover because they told the world you know we are better you know the Taliban from 2001 you know to Taliban 2021 are two different people that's the way they wanted to show to the world so they didn't want there to be an incident obviously it was ISIS K that that

came in and did that so we were actually working with these Taliban they were helping us you know get as people from safe houses which people aren't unaware of of. And again, it was just the fact, because the world was watching, it was so easy for the lights of ISIS K. You know, there was a hotel called the Barron Hotel. So you had the Abbey Gate where the incident was. The Barron Hotel was about a mile from the Abbey Gate. And, you know, it's almost like a processing centre for everyone who wants to go out. And they were just telling everyone to stay in that hotel and we're like that. So for us, we had alternative options with safe houses. But again, the Taliban, they were trying. And they were, they were

during this process, which people don't seem to understand. I think they're always the bad ones, but it was the ISIS K that took advantage of that. Yeah, and the Taliban's like, oh, the bouncers want to leave? Cool. Yeah, hey, we'll help you out. What do you want? You want some drinks on your way out? What do we need to do to get you out of here?

Let's go ahead and proceed. We'll take over. We got this. Of course, they're going to escort the bouncers out the door. So as you're getting this, how many people did you end up getting out of there? There's over a thousand people we ended up getting out or assisting getting out. And some of them as well, a lot of them, a lot of them, are even our clients, but there's a lot of security companies that, you know, I talk about the big five,

probably the big five out there. And they have, they're rubbing shoulders with insurance companies. And so when these big corporates, oil and gas, NGOs, you know, want assistance, they obviously listen to the insurance provider and said, you need to go with these guys, you know, the multi-billion pound industries. But I've seen it before the failings in them. They don't actually have plans in place. And actually one of the big five didn't realize it weren't actually insured for Afghanistan.

And so when they pressed the button, they couldn't do anything. And so, and I'm talking some of the biggest names out there. And so literally they then had to look at who else was available. And I've seen it in all of these countries to go to. The biggest players always fail. It's always the smaller security providers. Yeah, but it's something that I, it riles me up. It riles me up because, you know, they are charging six, seven figures something.

of these crisis management evacuation plans and actually when you scrape the surface it's not actually in place and so for me my advice to these corporates is yes when you have insurance you know challenged ask questions to the security provider you know ask them questions

because they're you know these security companies they have rotations and you know another guy will come in in six months has he proven those roots is he pen tested you know I did one once for a client out in Columbia a big mining company and I sat down with a security provider. Because that's what we do. We sometimes come in and can help security companies. You don't want to come in and take over. We're not that big, but we can offer our advice.

And so I knew, I asked him for his evap plan from the mine. And, you know, he showed me this Google Maps. Google Maps. I was out, okay, perfect. I said, well, let's, can we prove this route tomorrow? He said, yeah, I knew it was rain in that evening. That road was impassable. And so I said, So what's your secondary option? He said, we don't have a secondary option. And so for me, these are things you want to be, these corporates. They don't actually read the terms and conditions, the small print. And they soon realize actually these security companies aren't responsible,

we're taking them out. And so, yeah, there's been a lot of failings and errors. And that was really highlighted your Afghanistan when one of the biggest providers really realized that they actually weren't insured. So what's the name of your company that does that? So if I have a company and I have people overseas and I've got insurance, But this seems like a really smart thing to do and I work with a lot of international companies if you're looking at your security situation You know you have insurance. You know you've got a plan. Yeah, but to have somebody a second set of eyes come in and take a look at that plan and review it

That that seems like it would be a very smart thing to do what's your company that does that where can people get that So that that's literally we me my my wife. We don't actually hit with SCI which is stock consultancy Inc So we're very we don't even have a website because it literally is all word of mouth who managed to build up a reputation where people tend to come to us. It's been quite interesting because we are a husband and wife, some of these big organizations can be quite dismissive. And then actually, they end up coming back to us eventually. But with us, we don't need to have a huge company.

You know, there was a back in 2013 when the Prime Minister of Libya asked me to come help. I managed to upstand 150 SF guys from around the world. So we can upscale and downscale depending on what the task. So where we have the luxury is, in fact, we have a great network around the world. And we would find the subject matter expert specific for that region. I wouldn't just have the same team deployed everywhere around the world because, as you know, there's cultural differences along the way. So for us, that's what we do. And we tend to come into, it's like a security vulnerability assessment, see what it is you have,

and identify where your vulnerabilities are. You know, it's not just in these corporates doing evacuations. We now work in family offices as well. You know, a lot of these family offices are unaware of how risk they are, whether it's from cyber or from physical. And so, yeah, that's what we do, just bring a team in, and we will just design the team around whatever their task is. You know what red cell is, right?

Yeah. Yeah, you guys are like doing full-on red cell in a way. Maybe not the physical part of red cell, but the mental drill. Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, the mental side of red cell. I don't know you ever seen. It's quite interesting. When we speak to clients, they tend to come to us with problems. And I want to say we're like fixes, but it depends on how you interpret that terminology.

But there's a show actually, I think it's called Scandal. There's a woman called Olivia Pope. And she just basically helps whether it's politicians, big corporates that are going. And this is very similar to what Alana does. Alana behind the scene. She's done a lot of forensic investigator due diligence. She has access to the free letter agencies, the dark web. So you tend to find it, I'll give you an example, maybe a company that's going to go public.

You always tend to find, just before a company goes public, some dirt comes out. And, you know, it's corporate espionage. And so Alana and her team, and she has, again, a great network. They will come in and try and fix those problems. So when we jump on these calls and have these meetings, I always say to the clients, because they see me front of the house, they think they're getting Dean Stott. And I'm like, well, actually, I know it's going to be doing everything else. I said, if you see me, then it's all gone wrong.

Because I've actually come to rescue you. And so over the years, and again, we don't need a website. We're just literally getting referrals from people like, well, these people may be able to help you. But I had one once with JPM, Chase Bank, one of the directors, one of head directors is that, well, why do I call you and I don't call this big security company? I say because it saves you one phone call because they all tend to call us anyway. So what I found in the security industry when I started out, there was a, there was the big five companies. And they would, I would get a phone call.

And I'd get a phone call from three of those big companies. And they would say, oh, are you available for Uganda next week? And I know that they're all bidding for that one contract. And then when they get it, they then come to you. And so there's a lot of guys out there like me working on the ground who actually do the way. work. And so with these big companies, they tend to market up because they have they have overheads, they have offices, they have staff that they've got to pay. And so the price inflates. And so why I explain to clients is, well, if you come to us, you take out the middleman,

you know, and it's at least 50% reduced price and you're still getting the same product. Yeah. But I think it's just that whole perception because they're multi-billion pound industries, because they have some of the biggest insurance companies behind them, they think these guys are the best, but they then still go, you know, come back to us anyway. So was the the people that you got out of Afghanistan, was that business or was that voluntary or was it a combination of both? That was a combination of both. For us, we, actually, Alain and I didn't make a penny. The organization, I mentioned, that had the medical facility. They, of course, were having to make money. But it's really difficult because

And it's a hard one. I think, you know, the Canadian embassy, I charged $7,000. That was it because that's all I needed to get them out. You know, the Israeli evacuations, we didn't make a penny. And so for me, I don't like to take advantage of people's misfortune or being in a situation because not all of them could afford it. So, but what we can do on that reputation, no, we get that later on. And so when some of the big corporates come, but don't get me wrong, if there's a big corporate

and they have deep pockets, then yes, we would utilize that. But where we try and get people out there for free is there's chartered flights. And some of these charter flights are half full. And I'm like, what can we get these people on? And that's what Alana manages as well. She sort of navigates behind the scenes, finds out where there's seats available, and we can get people out at no cost. because those who have money can get out.

Those who don't or don't have much money really struggle and they are just as at risk as the others as well. And that's where I try to distance myself from the emotion. I'm very good at actually distancing myself from notion. I don't even really know. That's what I've had to write down the people's names because I don't, it's not because I have no empathy. When I'm on the ground, I can't get emotionally connected.

to them because when it comes to situations I don't want my emotions to blur my vision on my my decisions whereas alana does alana gets emotionally involved which is how you know she's a woman she's a mother and everything else so so she's like yeah we're getting them out for free I'm how we get them out for free but she'll work out away so if we can make money then of course because we still need to pay the boots on the ground but majority of time we will try and and and minimize that cost. But I get upset when you see organizations that fly in planes and they're charging $5,000 a seat.

I'm like, you can afford that plane, you know, just get them out. You know, the PR itself would benefit you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So moving to Israel, October 7th, how'd that go down from your perspective? So Alana and I had been invited to Disneyland.

There's a place called, I know you heard it, Club 33, It's like a private members club within Disneyland. Yeah, I've never even heard of it. Echo Trance? No, yeah, no, I don't know. No? I don't know. Oh, Google Club 33. It's like Walt Disney's little private members club.

So when you go to Disneyland, it has all these, you see the little 33 on the doors, and these hidden bars and restaurants behind the scenes and stuff. Yeah. I think it's actually some, I don't know how expensive is. It's quite expensive to be a member, but you have to obviously visit so many times a year. and to maintain your membership. And so for us, we got invited as friends. We never took the kids.

You don't queue for any of the rides and things that. So Alana and I were in October 7th, were in Disneyland, of all places. And my phone started firing up. And I could see it was sort of unraveling in Israel. It wasn't until the next morning I woke up and we put on the TV. And, you know, everyone now realized

you know the aftermath of what would actually happen on October the 7th and I got a text off a good friend of mine who's a big lawyer in New York and a Sri Lankan guy and his his his auntie and uncle were on a on holiday in Bethlehem and you know the tour guide in Bethlehem's like no we're going to carry on with a tour and obviously he's like no I need to get get them out and so before I'd even turn around to Alana Lana's already booked me a ticket to Israel I was that oh she goes I think you need to go out there You know, because time is of the essence. We didn't realize, you know, we didn't know what was going to happen.

We didn't know whether the airspace was going to shut down, which makes it more difficult to go in. But unlike Libya and Afghanistan and some of the other places, Mozambique and places were being to before, I'd never been to Israel. And so I'd never actually ever been into the country itself. So where is, like, Libya and Afghan, we had infrastructure in place. We had safe houses, we had security providers, we had drivers, we had local fixes.

I didn't have any of that in Israel. I had a couple of names of security providers. Guys I knew I'd worked with on the circuit. And so I sort of messaged them. And so Alana put me a ticket. It was Turkish Airlines. We went straight to the airport. And by the time I got to the airport on October 8th, this was like just about noon,

Turkish Airlines had already canceled their flight. You know, all flights to Israel were cancelled. And now all the American airlines had canceled their flights as well. So we started heading back home and Alana's still looking online. She doesn't stop. And then El Al, which is an Israeli airline, had now opened up all their flights. They literally opened up more flights to get as many Israelis back to Israel. So she says there's a flight this evening in Al-al.

So turned straight back around and went back to LAX. And as I was in the queue, this lady actually, So every operation we have, you know, so Afghanistan, you know, the Brits called it, Pitting, the Americans Operation Allied Refuge. We called it Operation Allerman. I always give it a name. You know, the Canadian embassy was Beaver Tail. And so when I got to the airport, this lady just gave me this little book, Zohar. So that was the name of this operation for me, was Operation Zohar. But you could sense as well, as soon as you got to the airport, there were families there. People were upset. but there was actually families, full families, going back out.

You know, normally when you go into places like this, everyone's wanting to come, come out, but there's people actually wanting to go back in. And I'm stood in the queue and Israeli intelligence, this gentleman comes up to me, two of them, and asked Alana to step back as he asked me questions. And he said, so who are you going to see? And I said, I don't know. He's like, okay. He said, do you have a letter?

I said, no, sorry, I don't have a letter. he's that so who are you and I said oh we're SCI we're a security company he said great said do you have a website I said no I said no I don't have a website so this guy I'm being fully transparent to him he's like this guy's pulling a wall over my eyes I'm stood there literally 511 head to toe look like a PMC I said no we should be specialised in evacuations and he then googled me and he then went off and his friend then said to me he goes are you in MI6 I said look at me I said I'm too big for MI6 and he actually came back and

and waved me through. So that was the hardest thing about getting into Israel. Was that once you were on the ground there? Is that taken off? That was actually taken off. That's before you can even get on the flight. Yeah, that was the LAX. No, that was the hardest thing.

So I knew once I'd got through that, I'd be fine in London. And actually, he pulled me aside just as I was bored in the plane and wish me the best of luck. And so Alana went straight. Alana headed home, you know, she then started messaging people we knew from the Jewish community, people in London and New York and L.A. It was a 13-hour flight to Tel Aviv. I landed and, you know, everyone was cheering on the plane. And already my phone's, you know, flying.

So the atmosphere going in, this is October 8th or maybe 9th now? Yeah, this will be probably landed on the morning 9th, yeah, because of the times a difference. And people were cheering as you were coming in. People on the flight. People on the flight were cheering and clapping that they sort of come home. Wow. Yeah. Which for me was serious.

It was so different from the other projects that we've done because, A, we knew who we were getting. We already had a name of people. We already had a plan. We had infrastructure in place. This was almost like, right, we need to go in and sort of do it from the inside out. But when I landed in Tel Aviv, you know, it's a beautiful place. The sun was shining. And as I said, my phone had now fired up.

Alana had, I think Alana had over 50 families that needed assistance. You know, that's literally just through the network. We knew the Jewish community. So she gave me my first address, which was just outside Jerusalem. So landed at Tel Aviv. One of the guys I'd messaged that was coming in. He had a driver pick me up and drove me straight to this family. So just so the audience aware, so October to 7th,

it was right in the middle of a sucked holiday. It was a big Israeli holiday. So there was 10,000 families alone from New York and Boston in Israel. So there's a lot of families there. And so we were trying to literally coordinate and help them. But actually atmospheric-wise, in Jerusalem, because it was so close within 36 hours of the actual incident, there was a huge presence of police and military on the ground.

Everyone had guns. And so it probably was the safest place on earth. And so we helped coordinate getting people out. What was difficult with this was, again, it was the flights. It was the chartered flights. Flights were getting cancelled. But you then also found that flights were getting cancelled because, again, people wanting to help. I remember I got introduced to a lady from one of the YPO's in New York,

as a young president's organization, so very successful businessmen and women. And she said, look, I've chartered a flight. I want it full. So we ended up having this flight. But actually, the flight she charted was one of the original flights, wanted the domestic flights. and they just sold it to her. And then so we had people already on that original flight

and now taken off. And then she was about to charge double. But in the end, Alana managed to get them all on for free. But because flights were opening and closing, you had to be quick and you had to be online. So there was a lot of elderly people there who don't really understand the internet. And so you had to make decisions in buying in tickets.

And so Alana, you didn't have time to then liaise with the son daughter back in New York and London. He literally had to make that decision and buy it. But again, with this, because I call it the media monster, what the media monster was portraying on TV, so actually what was happening on the ground with two different things, yes, in Gaza, it was about to go off. But actually in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem was very safe.

So I'm going to these people, these families, you know, and elderly people and say, look, I've come to get you out. And they're like, oh, no, we're happy to stay. And I'm like, well, you need to speak. your son and daughter because they're literally going mad back at home so but there were the people that wanted wanted to get out um we had i think the first four days because of the time zones alana would literally give me lists and names of families um and by the time i'd done that in the day and i was just about to rest new york woke up and then and then l a woke up and i literally would have my my next

list of people. So the first four days had very limited sleep. And I'm breaking protocol. And I think it's when I message you, unlike the other evacuations where we already had, as I said, people to get in. And we would fly in under the radar and come out until the job was done. We obviously had to make people aware that I was there. So if any people did need any assistance, that they can contact us. So totally against my normal protocol, I was on social media and in Atlanta sort of jokes because I was like yeah yeah I'm within 36 hours quite safe she's like yeah she goes for you it's safe but for others it's it's not and um and I remember doing a a couple of tv interviews in like the Jewish chronicle and and I'm in the old

city of Jerusalem probably the most holiest place in the world and you know I actually said on TV I said look I'm I'm not a religious person um but I do believe in good and bad and And so I'm just here to help and get people out. Because it was very difficult. When you first got there, it was so raw. The Jewish people were so angry and things that. And so then on social media, you're seeing dialogue going back and forth. People telling us, I hope you're not rescuing these.

Hope you're not rescuing them. You know, for us, as we touched on with the later on, I just finished filming in Jordan. We did an episode in Jordan. And so we had fixers, drivers, I knew the colonels in the special forces, I even knew everyone up to King Abdullah, who runs the country. And so we had the option of getting people from Israel over to Jordan. That was an option for us.

It wasn't an option really mainly a lot of the Jewish weren't comfortable with that, but people, Christians, Catholics, Buddhists, they were happy to do that route. But in fairness, we did get a lot of Jewish people across King Abdullah Bridge into Jordan and out and Amman. So again, people didn't realize that actually the Muslim community were also helping, but the media portrays something different. But going back to social media, I think I sent you and a couple of the military influences my video.

I said, do you mind share and just let people know we're here? And this is where I see the good in social media and the power of social media. I then get a, you shared it that morning. I then get a message of a lady called Elizabeth. She goes, I don't know if it's going to go to you, Dean. She goes, I'm a big fan of Jocco, and I've just seen you on there. And she goes, we're in the old city of Jerusalem.

We're a Bible college. And we have 15 students. We can't get out. And so within 45 minutes of that message, because literally the old city was just around the corner. I was having a cup of tea with her and a husband, Matthew. And he was, they're both from Huntington Beach originally. He's a pastor.

They've been out there for eight years. And they've run this by. college and they had 15 students 14 American and one Indian and it exhausted all their options all the flights were canceled they couldn't get them out but they're under so much pressure from the families know to get them out yeah because the weird thing is at this time like October 7th 8th 9th like it was impossible to tell what was going to happen is Hezbo going to get in this is Iran going to get in this is it is this going to be the beginning of World War III which it certainly could

have become so if you're some random parent in here and you your kids over there going to college at this school, you want them out of there. And that's what you were trying to make happen. Yeah, it's true because at this point, you know, there was the trouble in the South with Gaza, as you rightly mentioned there. Hezbollah, no, because I think where the Israelis got the green light from the UK and the Americans to wipe out Hamas and terrorists, you know, that doesn't just end with Hamas. And, you know, Hezbollah.

So it was an opportunity for them to get involved in the war. So that was the worry I had because at the moment, the airspace was still open because with Hezbollah and Lebanon not being involved, you can fly in via the north. But should they get involved, then that whole airspace would be shut down. And so that was the worry people were having, as you're right. They put, you know, if this escalates, there may not be an option to get them out by air. And we always look at the three options. There's the land, which was the Jordan, there was the air. And we were already looking at options for Cyprus as well.

And so, yeah, these couple were destroyed. And she said she woke up that morning and she prayed and she picked up my phone. She said, I wonder what jocco would do. That's what she said. She literally said, I wonder what jocco would do. And she opened up and she saw me there. So I went and spoke to them. I said, yeah, it's not a problem.

We can get you out. We can help getting you out anyway. And so again, Alana gets emotionally involved. She knows all their names of the kids. I still don't know any names. And 48 hours later, you know, it sounds very sexy. There's me dragging these suitcase. with 15 students straight out of the old city of Jerusalem and yeah we all got them out at no cost back home

So how are you funding this? I mean even your flight costs two thousand three thousand dollars to get over there You're staying in a hotel somewhere you got it. What are you doing to fund this? Yeah, so we we reached out to be born Alana set up a go fund me page and actually what she then did she know we had to look at the bigger picture moving on forward because people with messages are like a you a you're a nonprofit because some corporates can write off their tax if it's a non-profit. And so Alana Googled EvacuationSupport.org and no one owned the domains to that. So we bought the domains to EvacationSupport.org and we will now moving forward turn that into a nonprofit. And the reason for that is A, it gives people the option to be able to donate,

but also that incident I had at LAX is if I go to LAX and then the guy asked me, do you have a letter? So yes, I have a company. And this is our mission statement. It sort of helps for that. So that's what was born out of that issue in Israel. We managed to set that. But we had non-profits who were able to take the money and then Alana could utilize that for the flights.

And then how long did you spend on the ground there? So in the end, I was there just less than 10 weeks. By the end of the first, I'd say five days, everyone who wanted to get out was out. Everyone who's now in wanted to stay in and there was still a lot of flights coming in. The reason for me, the rest of the days I was there, we actually then... Did you say 10 weeks? Sorry, two weeks.

Oh, two weeks. Sorry, two weeks, yeah. And the rest of the time I was there, we were then establishing safe houses, confirming the routes in and out, doing a handover with the Israeli guys as well. Because the reason I wanted to leave is I have to remain impartial. and it was very difficult to remain impartial in a country at that point. And the reason I had to remain impartial is because I didn't know if my next protocol was Lebanon. And so for me, once I realized that the infrastructure was in place, everyone who needed to get out was out.

And we had, you know, should there be any additionals, we could get them out. And then that was it. And I then pulled out then after two weeks. What was the atmospherics when you landed on the ninth people you said were angry? what were they like? What was the atmospherics and the attitudes like before you left? Obviously, they've had time to absorb what was going on. Again, you know, the troops are now starting to form up in and around Gaza,

and no one really knew what was going on. I think for me, one that surprised me, you know, if you asked me prior to October 7th, you know, were one of the best intelligence services in the world, I'd say the Israelis, you know. In fact that they hadn't seen this, it still surprises me. So for me, I think there was an element of embarrassment.

It was an element of anger still. So that was still boiling up in a lot of people. I stayed in the old city of Jerusalem. And, you know, you've got the Catholic quarter, you've got the Muslim quarter and the Jewish quarter as well. And they all still live together. But all the shops were shut as well. You know, it was just about to be their busiest time of the year.

And so I think a lot of people wanted a quick resident. But then that's going to happen. I think obviously Israel see this is an opportunity and You know they want to take out her mass and they'll continue to do so Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see the post-mortem from the Intel side on how this happened and To me it's one of it seems like it would be one of these cases where You know when you can't see the thing that's right in front of your face or the thing that you just it's such a massive attack with You know guys with paragliders and stuff like this it's almost inconceivable yeah and so they're just not looking there they're

looking for this little attack here or what little attack could happen over there they're not thinking about this massive attack that's going to take place all coordinated very well so very very disturbing to see um when when you what advice do you have for people that are traveling to other countries maybe it's for work I'm always surprised at where people go for vacation like, you know, I spend enough time going into places that are nasty. I don't like to go on vacation. I don't even like to leave, really. I don't even like to leave San Diego.

Let's be honest. But if I have to go, but if you, when you've got people that are either going overseas to, let's say, a questionable or a unpredictable, dangerous area, what advice do you give to people that are traveling like that? I think for me is do as much research before you leave as well. well you know we do a travel security advice training you know whether it's for corporates or individuals and every time there's an incident it's because of naivety people are not understanding other people's cultures and that's why i see all the time and so i always say it's not it's not the uk it's not

america things are done differently but do your research but don't it's very difficult because you know we have like you know dot gov. u.k you may have one here like travel invites if you listen to all that he probably wouldn't leave san diego you know even i'd be quite scared to go you know so all these countries are beautiful but every country as well has the good places and the bad places you know i was in new york at a wedding two weeks ago wearing a scottish kilt oh my god i've never been so scared in my life you know what i mean so the uh and it's the same in these other places there's beautiful places and the places you stay clear from so really just get educated on that but on the cultures as well um don't get caught short you know you've probably seen that the turks in

K-K-cost guys with their ammunition in there. That's right. You know, just simple things like that, you know, jurisdictions of what you have here in US aren't the same abroad. But that's all I would say is just get educated. What I tend to do as well, you know, some of the top tips I give them, I take a little, you know, if you are nervous, take a little doorstop, you know, rubber doorstop from Home Depot, just kick it behind your door because you don't know who has access to the room

keys. You know, when you go to these hotels and they want to take your passport, you don't want to leave your passport. So go there, have photocopies of your passport already. So you're still giving them what they want. And so, yeah, so we go through a whole list of things to do from the moment before you leave, the moment you arrive and coming back. And then, you know, again, try and enjoy yourself as well, whether it's vacation or business.

Business is slightly different, but it is vacation. You know, don't listen to the media monster. So is this a service that you offer to private individuals if I am going on a trip to somewhere? and I want to make sure that my family is going to be safe. Do you offer like a little assessment? Yeah, because we can do everything from the actual intelligence before you go on the ground, give you some atmospherics and actually say,

actually maybe you want to look at another holiday spot. But then, you know, and we've done it with some of the family offices, before COVID, especially the lot of the British children, they used to have like a gap year. University used to go traveling around Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia and things that. And the parents used to be like panicking. So we would come in.

And we would give those kids or those families that travel advice. We do an intelligence picture. Now, we have everything from track it. We have apps where we can actually track them as well. And you can actually geo-fence certain cities. So, for example, if you're in Mexico City, we've had the elections recently and there's trouble in the north. We can geof-fense that and send you up-to-date information.

So you're still being updated as and when you're on the ground. And then if it gets to, you know, to the extreme and the parents are still not happy, then we can put a team on you. But we also have a protective surveillance teams as well, which is, you know, everyone sees the closed protection capacity where you physically see that person. There's a new set up now, it's protective surveillance where you're still delivering that, but they don't actually know you're there. You know, there's a Saudi princess in London at the moment. You know, she thinks her dad's let her go to London, to university on her own. She's got a six-man team on her all times.

She's not aware of that. So literally we can upscale and downscale. depending on the threat and even if there's no threat just sometimes just to ease the minds of the parents but we've done it before where actually you know i've said to the students when they're traveling right if you've got any trouble just call me and then before you call your mom and dad and then you know we we can work it out you know because what i deem is potentially dangerous risky my my you know they have a different uh different element of risk from me they're a bit more risk averse than i am yeah yeah of course and so sometimes you know i can sort of ease their minds

before they start flying the balloon up. Do you offer insurance, like extraction insurance? We work with some insurance providers. Now, what I'm trying to do now with some of the insurance providers is actually say, well, look, if we come in and assess their evacuation plans and their mitigations and they're adhering to it, surely you can bring their premiums down. You know, it has to be a win-win for both. Why are we going to do it?

We're still paying insurance. But yeah, we do the track. I'm back to the travel. We can either do it for families or we can do it for corporates. You know, one of my clients used to be Siemens Energy. He used to go around the world. And if they had to have engineers to go out to medium to high risk, we would come in and give them advice as well.

So, yeah, we sort of cover the full spectrum. And they're going into places like Saudi Arabia. You know, a good one with Saudi is, you know, if you're a religious person, a Christian, you want to take your Bible, that's good. But if you have more than one Bible, you're a preacher, you get arrested. They're like, oh, I didn't know that. You know, so again, it's just that knowledge of the countries.

You know, there's the basic travel security awareness, but it's all about cultural awareness. That's one of my biggest things when I'm preaching or teaching. What's some strange things that you've had to unwind for, like, a high net worth individual out there? Oh, wow. We've had everything from embarrassing, seeing, you know, these ultra high networks who are like in the public eye, and then there's an incident gone on on a super yacht and the press are waiting you know back on

the port you know can we get this person out of their country we we have we have all sorts you know I just some of the things that come across our desks me and alan I'm like surely this is like a movie and and it's not you know obviously I'll be mindful of what I say but some of them like you know some of them will gamble off a super yacht drunken and they're like right okay yeah next day like I made a mistake I said yeah so we'll come in and and try and fix things. I mean, a lot of it, you know, again, without, a lot of it's a lot of it's stupidity as well.

It's not understanding your, your atmospheres or where you are. You know, where we're trying to help some of these family offices now is you have different family offices, the second and third generation money, you know, the dad or the granddad, they're fine, but it's... That's because they worked for it. They worked for it, yeah, yeah.

And then the recipients now, the kids are just driving around in There's something like the first generation makes it, the second generation keeps it, the third generation loses it. Yeah, yeah. I've heard that. Third or fifth generation then loses you start again. Yeah. And that's, again, it's like, you know, when I speak to these families, obviously, these grandadads

or dads are like, you know, we're fine, but their Achilles Hill is their children, you know, and they all have a digital footprint now. You know, they're all, you know, you look at a stupid example, the Kardashians, the incident in Paris. They literally told everyone, they showed everyone all their jewels. They showed them where they were staying. So they had only had one security guy and they went to Paris. And they were obviously doing photos, doing selfies, showed everyone their jewelry, where they were.

But they only had one security guy. And he ended up going out, I think they ended up splitting up. He ended up going out and then the room got broken into. How much is money did they lose? I don't know, millions. It was millions. But again, again, it's the social media thing. We have in like the UK, we call it, you know, your soccer, like our Premier League.

They have like an award ceremony each year in London. So all the players from Manchester United and Liverpool up north come down for it. So all their houses get targeted by the Burgliss. So for me, it's with some of these family offices, is understanding your online presence. And Alana actually, she has a program. So back in the UK, the thing called soccer, it was like the equivalent of the FBI, Special Operations Crime Agency.

And she taught child exploitation online protection, teaching you how to be safe because with human trafficking, it's all the grooming elements, you know, targeting for kidnap and ransom. And so these families, they will pay, but you shouldn't have to. And a lot of family offices will look at the linear family,

but actually, and have no protection on them. their nieces, nephews and brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws, and they're the ones that get targeted, and they'll still pay. So they get targeted for, like, kidnapping? Some countries, it's kidnapped ransom, yeah. Yeah, they'll target them and to kidnap them, take money, especially in the Latin American countries.

It's quite rife. And you do all this work without a website around this. Yeah, literally how it's, all word about. Yeah, my earlier years was, you know, I took the risk going out and doing jobs that were quite, quite risky. You know, obviously the bite ride then raised my profile and then people then, you know, realized, actually Israel was like, it was interesting because when I went to Israel, people were messaging me like, oh, you're, you're back in the security industry. I was like, I'd never left. I was actually chatting to one ahead of stations in the Middle East,

a CIA guy and he's out, I've just Googled you. I said, don't Google me. I said, there's two there's two Dean Stott says, the one that the world sees, you know, the books, the guest speaking and you know the TV show but that's only 30% of what you see 70% you know and so really that sort of no generated more work and I think did think people thought I had taken that sabbatical and was still on that sabbatical but I just never never really left do you or you I know you said you don't need many people to do it but do you ever think do you have like a number two person that you're going to bring up that could kind of run the business at some point so you don't have to go on the ground

and all these places? Yeah, I have guys, my number two is now. You know, for me, I have to be mindful of fact that we have a family. You know, for me, the great thing about working with my wife, Alana, is if I'm on that flight, she's green-lit, you know, so she's giving me her blessing. You know, one of the things, after the Canadian embassy,

you know, I was only home 21 days in a 365-day calendar, and we've got the whole Ying and Yang balance completely wrong. When the communication between us broke down, I thought she wanted me to be away, and she thought I wanted to be away. And so from that moment on, things changed. And so everything we do now has to be cleared between Alana and the kids. And they explain why daddy's going to have to go away.

So it's more those high-profile ones that I'll go out. But if I don't need to be there, I can put someone else on the ground. I do like to be on the ground for the very first time with a client, you know, to get the infrastructure place. and then just sort of hand off. But yeah, I'm 47 years old now. I'm getting old and my kids need me more at home. But yeah, actually, Alana, she's generating the most income, really,

just on, I said she should set up a website called nosybitch.com. You know what I mean? Because they can find anything. Yeah, it is crazy what's online. It's totally insane in the way that I think AI is really going to up that ability to collaborate and correlate all that information that someone has out there and just like put together a profile of someone and be able to do what you want with it.

Yeah. It's scary. And actually it's scary that what you can actually find just open source. That's what's scary. You know, I've done some security vulnerability assessments for some clients before and about giving any names. There was a gentleman, a big hotelier. And he, you know, he'd go online and he's donated so many million dollars

to university, local university. Here's him and his family, photographs. You start following her on Instagram. You see where she is on holiday. And actually went to his house. And we did security of vulnerability, a beautiful house and had all the right technology in place. He had the alarms.

He had the buzzer. He had the cameras, all the sensors. But his mother-in-law and father-in-law were staying. We were very elderly from India. And they were deaf, pretty much. So every time he buzzed, they just let you in thinking it was Amazon. So I was like so literally had you know thousands of dollars of this in Technology but there's not being used right and then I could see actually he was a when I was doing his assessment

I could see he was a cyclist he had a couple of bikes and so I then started following him on Strava I mean literally again you know his names on his real name I mean it's just literally the route taking him back to his house so sometimes you can have all this infrastructure in places just again it's just everything is on online you don't have to do a deep dark web you can get so much information just through open source. Craziness. So last time you were on the podcast, we covered your book Relentless that I talked about.

And then you guys ended up, because that was a British release of that book, you guys ended up relaunching the book here in America. How'd that go down? Yeah. So when we finished your podcast, prior to coming on the podcast, I mean we'd only been in America about three months.

And so my book had launched in September night, 19 so it was almost like 18 months really by the time I came on the podcast and and I get it you know 18 months has passed so I said to the publisher said look I'm about going Jocco's podcast I think people magazine were also doing a four-page special on the family I said look be good to get some books in place for demand and they just just brushed it off they just brushed off you took me to number one on Kindle and then I just got loads of messages like how do I get the book and alana alana's the entrepreneur alana's like spoke to the uh the publishing house and they said well you haven't launched in the US yet. I said no. He said, give me a price. And so they offered her a price and we bought the rights for the US, North America. I mean, as you see, difference between the two books is, I then get a brand ambassador for 5-11. And so I said, look, we're relaunching in the book in the US. We're going to Americanize the book. So in the UK, we have like Serrano Fines on the front of that.

I don't even know Sarano Fines. Is it? SES Explorer. He's one of the most famous explorers. is in the will you know he chopped his he chopped his toe off in the antarthe with frostbite and just carries on he's an absolute like legend but here in the u.s no one knows who he is and so we we got yourself to endorse the book on the air we got admore mcraven yeah and bear grills but when we were doing the book covers it was like that book cover is very UK it's very dark and apparently America is about light and hope uh what 511 said and so that book doesn't actually that actually I did a bike ride it says world record breaker and so we we sort of watermarked the cyclist in the background but that that image with me with all that

that ammunition around my neck and a mini me would never make the shells in UK but yeah in UK I make the shelves in the UK just UK is is almost like 15 years behind the US you know things that you when you start talking about like plant medicine and marijuana is illegal still in the UK you know they you know they're not going to have with guns on their on their front covers. Really? Yeah. So which is,

which is why it's very, very American. So we, yeah, survive at heaven. That is a very American cover. It's a very American cover. Just a dude with a freaking machine gun. And a big smile on his face.

And he literally says what it is, is obviously he's ridden a bike and that's his will record. There we go. So, yeah, so you gave us inspiration for that. And then my wife went on and wrote, you know,

I laugh because I say I'm an author. I had a ghost writer. You know, if it was left to me, I'd still be on chapter one. I was too busy. My wife then went on and wrote her biography and a few books as well. How did the ghost writer process work? What do they do? They interview you, basically?

So we're not, yeah, no, actually you get to interview them, yeah. So when I got in and we signed a deal, they said, right, we can present some ghost writers to you. You know, you interviewed them. You see how, all of them is that chemistry test. And the first guy they brought in was a guy called Gerant Jones, Jez Jones. So I don't know if you heard of 75 hard with Andy. Oh yeah.

Yeah, Jez wrote 75 hard for Andy as well, yeah. And so I didn't know that at the time, actually. And so, but Jez was a, he does a lot of fiction on the Roman Legion stuff. He loves military history. But he's actually served as a reservist. So he knew the terminology and the slang of the military. And so we just, we just hit it off. And so it was quite an easy process for me.

you know once we started and we had a really tight timeline we we got signed up in February it had to be you know the first or completed by May which is which is short so him and I would have a phone call every day he would you know he said start from the beginning so I start from the beginning I'd just be talking to him and then he'd do an hour and then that evening he'd write three to five thousand words and we just keep repeating this and then he'd send me the first first first look first proof and then where where he may have misinterpreted me, I'll just correct him and send it back. And it was actually really good because for me, I'm very,

um, I'm very particular like details. And so I would be talking about something and I'd just be going on and on and on. Probably about this podcast, let me just keep talking. And whereas he would like that people don't care about that thing. Yeah. But I'm always thinking on the mindset of my friends from the units of the teams reading it.

And he said, majority of people don't care. And so that was really good in the fact because of people, but they read it said it flows. And so if it was me, it wouldn't flow well. That's an interesting argument. So when we wrote Extreme Ownership and Leif was putting all these details in about the, you know, the max effective range of this weapon and all this stuff. And I was like, bro, no one cares about that.

But what's interesting is Jack Carr's book, the whole Terminalist series, it's like the most granular detail about everything. And that's one of the things that people really appreciate about that. And I mean, those are two different types of books. I mean, obviously, Jack Carr's books are fiction and they're meant to entertain and they're sort of for people that are that are into that military stuff. Whereas the book Extreme Ownership and Dicotomy Leadership and Leadership Strategy and Tactics, they're for normal people that don't care about the max effective range of a freaking 50-Cal. So, yeah, but when his book came out, when Jack Carr's books came out and Leif was reading him, he's like, dude, you should have let me put. my stuff in here. We were laughing about it. But yeah, that kind of detail, it is interesting for people

that are into the military. But for people that aren't in the military, it can be a little bit like we don't care. Yeah, I think with mine as well, because the books really almost like free, it's in free phases. It's my childhood and military. Then there's the private security up until that time. And then the world records, you've almost got three different books in one. So we didn't have time to put in detail. And so actually, I don't even go beyond selection. I don't even about anything in special forces because at the time you know our sf disclosure is very different from the US you know you very tight restrictions on what you can and can't say and for me i didn't want to compromise my brothers that were it was still in and so yeah that's why we couldn't

really go into too much detail on certain things so how'd the relaunch go you got it back out there yeah got it back out there yeah as you know they they fluctuate um they go up and down and my plan is is to write another, I don't know it was relentless too, I think of another name. Because obviously we have, you know, we have other stories, we have other evacuation stories and we have other will record challenges.

And so it's almost like mirrored apart from my childhood will be taken out. And so that common theme, lessons learned from the previous book going into the next book. So while you're doing that, you end up in this TV show in Australia called SAS Australia.

and you're in season three and from what I understand you got offered that job early and you said no to it at first and then you end up coming back and saying yes what went down with that? So in the book I think it's chapter 14 or 15 actually

no it's actually later on it's after the chapter 16 which is called dead of divorce the conversation we're having I took us about back in 2015 I get an email from a gentleman called Andrew and he's like Andrew Slater and he represents

a company called Minow Films and he said look we're looking at doing this TV show do you mind if a fly up and your name keeps coming up do you mind if a fly up and come see you so he flew up to Aberdeen and him and I sat down and he told me about this concept of the show and I think here in the US it was called selection it was the same one of his selection with

Marcus Capone and he said look we're looking at doing this show explained the sort of premises of it and he said would you be interested Wait did that show come out in America there was a show called selection Marcus Capone was the host of it. Yeah, yeah.

He's been on the podcast. I didn't even know we had that show. We didn't even know that. Yeah. I didn't even know that. No, yeah. I think they did one episode here. Dude, how did they miss that?

That's crazy. Okay. Yeah. So for me, I didn't really have anything to reference it from. You know, back in the 90s, there was a show with a guy called,

ex-SAS guy called Eddie Stone. And it was called S-A-S-U tough enough. And it was like, it's embarrassing. You know, so for the S-F community is sort of look at it and roll their eyes. And so that's what I was quite worried about because, Again, when I've, I'd only been out four years now and everything I was doing, I always, it's interesting.

I didn't want to upset the community. It's all about what my, you know, staying, staying, keeping the community on side. And so I said to him, I said, look, I can do this show, but it needs to be cleared through the MOD. But a good friend of mine who was in C Squadron with me, Aunt Middleton, he just, he got dishonory discharged. He then, when he came out, he ended up assault and a police woman, ended up in jail. So it was a whole spiral of errors. So he'd not long come out of prison. And so we're struggling for work. And then another good friend of mine, the other host, Jason Fox,

he suffered badly with PTSD. And so in the security industry, he couldn't really work either. And so I messaged him. I said, look, I've been approached to do this show. I messaged them and a few other guys. And they said, look, yeah, we're happy to go along with this and see what happens. I got in touch with the security cell with the SBS, sort of made them aware, you know,

because all I don't want to do is flank them. They get upset when you surprise them. And within a week, I was back in Libya on the ground, and I get an email from the SF disclosure cell saying, step away from this project. And so for me, I did, because up until this point, I was still flying on the radar. I hadn't done the bike ride.

No one really knew who I was. And so they went on and then filmed it. They went on and filmed it and never told the disclosure cell, which flanked them. So they ended up eventually all getting persona on Gras. But actually ended up being the biggest show on Channel 4 in UK in 10 years. It was huge. So although the SSF group were slightly upset at the time, recruitment.

Yeah, recruitment went straight up. So these guys ended up doing subsequent show. I got asked again to do season two. I still wasn't interested. Were those ones in Australia? No, they're still in UK. So the first two seasons were in the UK? I think they're on season, what are now, eight or nine now in the UK.

Yeah, it's still going on. So they then sold it to the Australia. And then also now Fox have got it here in the US. So it's now in multiple countries. Is it on TV right now in America? It's on TV now and I'm Fox. I call it Special Forces Toughest Test or something. Yeah, yeah.

So my change in decision was when I was, when I was looking at doing my next challenge, it doesn't matter how many will records you got or how many millions you've raised for charities. It's like how many Instagram follows you got? And I was like, really? You know, are we having this discussion? And so for me, I managed to keep the AMOD on side.

You know, they fully endorsed my book. You know, it went through with no issues. And so for me, in their eyes, they all knew that I turned down an opportunity as a quick fix to TV and then sort of done it this way. And I've always given back. And so I said, well, then SAS Australia reached out. And they said, look, we're doing this show.

Do you want to come on it? And it's right in the middle of COVID. It was quiet here And so I said, yeah, why not? I thought, well, it helped me with the exposure And then when I then launched the next challenge. So yeah, I went out and filmed SES Australia, which was great.

And ironically, when we talk about the Afghan pullout, the Afghan pullout was in August, halfway, you know, beginning of September, I flew out to Australia and had 14 days quarantine in a hotel in Sydney. And I was doing a lot of, you know, was back here and I was in Australia and we were still coordinated because although everyone had left on like the 31st of August there was still a lot of people to get

out so I utilised my time in in in quarantine there yeah Australia was locked down oh really hard right yeah really I I knew it I had family in Australia and my one of my families in Melbourne I think they're the most locked down city in the world and I know they were distraught but when I landed it was like a scene out of E. You know, everyone was there in the white suits and the mask. The military would take you from the plane and they would then process you onto the coach. I mean, there was a blue light escort on motorbikes to the hotel. The military would process you threw it into your room and you have 14 days on your own in your room.

You have one phone call a day with a nurse. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Plenty time to do podcasts. Plenty time to do evacuations. That is just so crazy, isn't it? Yeah.

And one of my... Especially, I mean, look, it seemed crazy at the time to me. I know Echo Charles thought it was kind of crazy because we were over here, cruising. It's cruising, March. But, yeah, looking back now with all the information that they have, I mean, they just did the Anthony Fauci testimonies and stuff yesterday. Did you watch any of that stuff? I saw some clips. I saw some clips from it.

It's just crazy to see that they, that what they did. And especially, again, for people that were into it. I mean, people that kind of bought into the whole thing. The government really took a hit and the media really took a hit as far as trust goes. But yeah, I can't imagine getting,

what is it called, quarantined for 14 days after you get escorted to a hotel. So you had to stay in your room. What did you get room service or something? Yeah, so what they do, they would drop the meal at the door and they'd knock on the door. But we, you know, luxury, obviously,

the production company, they asked us if you wanted any... So I asked for like... Steak. Yeah, well, no, yeah, but also gym equipment. I wanted gym equipment in the room. So that was all there ready for you. So I was actually getting to quite a good routine.

I'd get up, do some PT. What's crazy? It's like, what about sunlight? What about fresh air? We had a balcony. We had a balcony, which was good. But one of the hosts, we had 14 days in there, and then we would then move to the site and do 14 days wrecking and 14 days filming.

But literally, everyone had to be in the one hotel, you know, all the crew and everything. And we get tested every day. If there was one sign of COVID, they would shut the whole thing. down. But on the 13th day, on the 13th day in this first hotel, we get tested before we leave. And one of the guys tested positive. So I was at, how? As you've been here for 13, so he did 27 days in quarantine, came out literally on the day we're about to start filming. And out of all of us, he's the one that's all about conspiracy theories. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's like, it's coming through the air, you know, the air vents. It's that. So yeah, it was, it was strange to see and

witness. But for me, it was perfect. I got into routine. I was able to help with the evacuations. You know, I actually did Jack Carls podcast remotely from Australia as well, yeah. That's classic. And then the format of that show is just like a bunch of challenges.

Yeah, the original concept was what they wanted to do is, because I helped help with the treatment back in the early days because they were presented to me and I was like, okay, you know, it needs to be a bit more like this, you know. But there's always fine now, especially TV. There's a fine line between all. intensity and entertainment. So the very first season back in UK was they literally got 20 members of the public. And they're all fit guys and gills and they push them through these.

And it's not like selection. You can't do that in 14 days. But now what it's sort of escalated into is they're almost like celebrities that have messed up in their careers or sports people. And this is like redemption. And so they come on. And so, but they all have backstories as well. So we're, as we're doing the, as we're doing these, uh, these tests with them, actually, the good thing

to watch is when they're back in the dorm and, you know, and they're tired and they're hungry and, you know, hear their back stories. And then we have them in, you know, we'll take one at a time and we'll sort of have to keep them in like a boot camp scenario the whole time when they're back in the dorms. Yeah, what I would say was good about the show is they actually have no interaction with anyone. When we start filming for the 14 days, all they say is a DS. So if they need to change their mics, they're hooded. They're hooded. They're hooded. They're hooded. and they get changed and not allowed to talk to anyone. We don't want to sort of keep them in that bubble.

You know, and you don't want to break that bubble at all. So that's one that's quite unique. It's like a big brother scene. So when they're on the base, there are cameras everywhere. And it's when you start seeing the friction between some of the contestants. And then we have like an interrogation room. It's a very similar to this. Actually, have a mirror behind us with his cameras.

I mean, the person there. And then we just, they're tired in the house. hungry. I mean, we start talking, asking them questions. And we may bring stuff up on social media from their past and then, you know, and then they'd start breaking down, really. And that's, that's what people have. So it's a reality TV show. I enjoyed doing it. It was a good experience. And it was my first exposure to TV, which then worked perfectly on for the next one. I was researching the TV show. And you started with 17 people, 10 people voluntarily withdrawn, is quitting, right?

Yeah. VEW. Some of the people that voluntarily withdrew, Olympic swimmer, Olympic diver, an actor, a rugby player, a comedian, a singer slash actor,

and a model. People are a little, you know, okay, I get a singer, an actor, oh, comedian, whatever, but Olympic swimmer, I mean,

that person has definitely put in some work and Olympic diver, anyone that's a rugby player? So when you, were you surprised when people would quit? Yeah, it's interesting to see what people's breaking points are. I actually talk about, I do a lot in the fitness area.

I call it clean PT and dirty PT. So a lot of these, everyone has this, everyone thinks there's a lot of synergy and crossover between professional sports people and the special forces community. Yes, there is certain crossovers. There's actually a lot of differences as well. So here in the US, you know, you have a professional footballer.

He has to play 60 minutes. That's right, 60 minutes in that. easy 60 minutes so he he basically knows that all I need to do today is perform for 60 minutes on the build up to that you know he's he's he's having a good diet you know he's he's when he finishes that game he's going to have a good shower he's going to have physio massage his calerific intake's going to be on point you know everyone's monitoring his diet you know his motivations are money the crowd and things that take him into a special forces environment you got no one cheering you You know, you don't know

When it's going to end When it's going to end You know, you may Your calarific intake is low Your sleep deprivation is low And so there's a lot of differences Between the special forces community A special forces guy

Can quite happily go into Professional sports People's environment It's very difficult to go The other way around So I call it the clean PT and dirty PT And there's a whole book in itself Probably on that

Yeah. Yeah And You also had some people medically withdrawn. There's another term that's in that show. It's called cold. Cold, like you call, like, weak animals.

So are these people that you guys got rid of, like, you're allowed to say you're out? Yeah, I think we, and they also, they let their students choose as well. And sometimes we play mind tricks. And then it's like, right, you'll pull them in and say, right, who do you think is the weakest person? Who do, who, because we will only see a certain amount. You know, we won't see what's happening on behind

closed doors. You know, I remember once when I was instruct on the Commando course, we had a guy and we gave in the Commando Medal. We thought this guy was, I mean, some of students came out as after this, that guy was useless. When you weren't there, you know, we called them DS Watchers. You know, when you're there, they're performing.

And so that's why we give them an opportunity. It's like, right, you know, you tell us or who do you think shouldn't be here and why? And they may see something we haven't seen, which is quite good. Now, we do it on our Special Forces selection, We have the jungle phase, which is six weeks, you know, four weeks in the jungle. And so naturally, you know, it's people that don't get on well with each other.

So you may have a rubbing with your DS and you might not see eye to eye, but what they then do is they make sure they swap instructor for the final week, for the final missions. And because if there is any of that sort of relationship breaking down, you know, it gives him an opportunity to say, right, yeah, I agree. or actually I disagree as well. Yeah, and the Rangers do this. And they actually have incorporated some of this into SEAL training now where they,

you force rank everyone in your class. Okay. Where they say, yep, there's 20 guys left in our class right now. Here's the number one guy and here's the number 20 guy. And they're looking at it. They don't make any hardcore decisions. It's not like, oh, echo's the bottom guy and everyone thinks echoes the bottom guy.

We're getting rid of him. But it just allows a little bit more. Or like you said, for the instructors to go, oh, okay. So and there's going to be some kind of a trend. If there's some kind of a trend. Yeah. Because look, like, oh, yeah, I don't like Echo, but you like Echo. And it kind of all comes out in the wash.

That's all good. But if there's everyone hates Echo, it's like, maybe we should pay attention to Echo. So that's, it just gives a little bit awareness to the instructors. But I know in Ranger School, American Ranger School, they, you can peer someone out. So if all of us don't like Echo, we're like, hey, get. put Echo is the bottom. If we all get along, today Echo is going to be the last,

the bottom guy, because you have to force rank them all the time, like regularly. And then tomorrow I'll be, hey, everyone rank me at the bottom and then we rank you at the bottom the day after that. So that way we all stay

because we're taking care of each other. But it's really easy. I think it's called peering someone out. You can peer someone out in Ranger School. So it sounds like you could peer someone out in the SAS TV program. Yeah, we could pier someone out. And, you know,

there's some that literally, especially when we know what's coming it's like you're on your last you're on your last legs actually you perform well you know leave now but they would they would either voluntary withdraw or we may get to a stage actually like we've got too many which is why I said it's almost like a reality TV show there's an element

of it's the truth but actually you know and they're screaming and shouting them you know our special forces selection no one shouts it you no one needs to shout at you so you know but again it's that that offensive and entertainment needle yeah that's what's interesting about seal training is there's some guys

with yell and scream at you and some guys wouldn't. The guys that wouldn't scream at you were way more horrible and sadistic. You know, the guy that would just walk over and be like, go ahead and get down on the ground. You're like, oh, no. The guy that's, you're like, okay, cool, you're going to yell at me, but it's all good.

And some people would be intimidated by that. Some people wouldn't, but the guy that just comes over and goes, hey, I need to talk to you. You're like, damn, this is going to hurt. And the people that passed, I guess, this thing, where you had a motorsports presenter, a rugby player, and a women's rugby player.

Women's rugby, yeah. Bro, women's rugby is, they don't change any rules. It's just on. Where I live, they play women's rugby sometimes out in the fields, and you drive by there. Dude, they get after it. And male, I mean, man rugby, of course, right? Like you, did you play rugby?

I played rugby, yeah. Bro, I went to a rugby game, and look, I get it. I'm a little bit more mature right now that I used to be in terms of age but I watched that game I'm like dude every interaction I was cringing thinking oh ACL oh PCL

like it just is gnarly we're not allowed to play sports in the special forces because there's so many injuries anyway they can't afford to then you guys having sports injuries but there's dispensation there's one rugby match a year and it's the SAS versus the SBS

Oh he must just murder each Oh my God, yeah. And it's literally, we have a thing called... What's it called? Dispensation. Dispensation, basically, is being green lit from direct to special forces. These guys can play one game together. And we have a thing called the Oracle where both units come together in December.

And we spend a week together. Anyone who's not on operations or deployments will be at the Oracle. And you talk about operations throughout the year with the units, lessons learned, the future of the Special Forces. Everyone is in there. And then we go, then we have the rugby match. But the England rugby team train the guys, you know, the two teams over the next sort of two weeks.

And they fly you in from wherever you are. You're a rugby player, you're playing. I remember literally passing selection about two days before, and you're on the team. And it is gnarly. Oh, yeah, guys, stitches in their eyes. I remember one of the same majors, like, you know, swallowed his tongue. But we got to the point where I remember one year,

going to Hereford. And these two big Fijians were coming off this helicopter. And I'm like, you're not in the special forces. But what they were doing, there was anyone attached to the special forces were coming in. So in the end, we're just like, no, you have to be badged. And the origins of that game came from 2003. They had the Australia Wheel Cup, Rugby Wheel Cup. And the SES had the center team over, the British SES.

The SBS sent a team over. The Australian SES had a team, New Zealand SES and the South Africans. And they went and had a rugby tour around. That's sick. Yeah. And then what they did, they continued that tradition that the SES and SPS would play every year. Who won the big one with all five? I actually don't know who won them.

No, I don't know. I'll find out. Because, I mean, New Zealand's full off. It seems like they would have an advantage, right? Yeah, they're in the Aussies. I actually thought the Australians, like rugby was their biggest one. Actually, you've got cricket and I don't even see Australian rules football. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's Nali as well. Yeah, that's another Nali one. Actually, and then they have rugby leave, rugby unions, like their third or fourth sport. But yeah, but as you're right, the all blacks, the Kiwis. Yeah. They're literally born with a rugby ball in their hands.

Hell yeah. Yeah. We got a guy working at origin right now. Leo. He's from, he's from New Zealand. And he played rugby, like pro rugby, yeah, all day. The, like, I was just saying that the people that won was like a motorsports presenter, a rugby player and a women's rugby player.

Did you, as you're watching this stuff, because you were an instructor in selection and you get to, you know, learn about people and see their breaking point. Yeah. What similarities or differences did you see with these civilians? I think for me was that their motivations.

You know, I always find on selection, you know, what is your motivation for being on selection? I don't know it's like here in the U.S., but I know there's some guys when I went on selection, there was guys there who literally, from the age of five or six, always wanted to be a raw Marine or parachute regiment and go SES or SPS.

That's literally their lifelong dream. You know, I actually fell into the military by accident and ended up in this position by accident. So I never put myself on that self-induced pressure. But these guys would go on and, you know, some of them would only go on because their dad or their brothers were in and they didn't have any other choice,

which I don't think is the right motivation because when it's hard, as you know, you need to dig deep. And so for me, these guys, some of them when they failed and that's literally what they've always wanted to do all their life you know they would end up leaving the military you know um so for me was it was was the motivations you know some people were either to prove themselves or to their families and and these these contestants we had they all had different back stories and as well they had you know someone were heartbreaking there was

the i think it was the diver the gill and she was she was a ninja she literally just she she got in the end we did break in the end she voluntarily withdrawn but i didn't mean she was going to stop but you know her sister committed suicide. You didn't hear about that until you had her in an interview room and things like that. So she was doing it for her sister. What made her quit? She just couldn't keep up with the pace in the end. In fact, we had a Mib, you know, the medium inflatable boats and they were doing pushing them above the head. And actually, remember, they dropped it on her head. And so I think she had a bit, had a bit of an injury. And then she also had, she was still a professional diver. She had competitions coming up as well. You know, had a pro boxer in there who did

his shoulder and it's like you know there's an element of right this is just a TV show you know I do have a career outside of here um so for me it was more their their motivations but yeah they did the female rugby girl you touched on then she was strong honest you were strong and I used always to wind the guys up you know I mean but um yeah whatever their motivations were but again there were you know as you know it's 80% mental 20% physical um and it was good to see see that sort of crossover it Yeah, one thing, you know, the guy that has wanted to be a seal his whole life and some other guy that just like, oh, my ex-girlfriend said I couldn't make it. And you don't know which one of those guys are going to make it.

Because somebody's just like, oh, my dad thinks I'm a loser. I'm going to be a seal. And that's enough for him. Someone else is like their grandfather, you know, ran out on the family and he's going to make it to prove him wrong. Like, it just, it just really, D actually want to do that job. You really want to make it for whatever that freaking reason is. Like some people, you need to be patriotic. You need to be doing it for selfless sacrifice and service and all that.

Some dude, no, dude, my girlfriend dumped me for a seal when I was 20 and now I'm going to go be one. Like, that's the kind of stuff. You don't, you can't tell. You can't tell what's going to, what's going to get someone through and how far they're going to make it. Only they know. Yeah. And also where they've come from as well. You know, a lot of them come from humble.

beginning you know I remember you know it's true but for me it's the same the people that I've seen like you'll end up you let you have a guy I knew guys in the seal teams that that were from billion dollar families billion dollar families in the seal teams and of course I knew guys that you know grew up in foster care in foster homes and never had two nickels to rub together and so both those ends of the spectrum you would get guys that would make it you'd also get guys from both those end of the spectrum, that wouldn't make it. Yeah. So I always say there's no rhyme or reason, but sorry, I cut you off.

No, no, we had, we had, remind me of an officer we had in 5-9, Commando. Camel Cahoon, I think his name was, you know, again, from money. And he would donate, you know, for the love of the job, he would donate his wages to charity every month. And we're allowed. What about charity starts here? The guys are all skin. But no, I think you're right.

There's those, you know, some come from humble beginnings and some, literally, that's all they've wanted to do or they wanted to test themselves. For me, I only joined the army because my father told me the last two minutes. And I then never looked back. You know, I always wanted to be a fireman. I didn't want to be in the military. So, yeah, people have different motivations and end up on that finishing line. Crazy.

So now you went from that TV show. So when did you get done filming that one? So we were filming that in September, October of 2021. And then it aired in something like January, February 2020. too. So when did this next TV show come together? So when I was a when I was doing the bite ride, and you mentioned Prince Harry earlier, Prince Harry and I did a promo video together at Kensington Palace to really sort of promote the bike ride. And there was a woman there, Ashley, who was with that production company. She now works with another production company called Emporium. And they have a show on

Netflix called Inside World's Toughest Prisons, whereas the guy goes around the world and he's an ex-convict himself. And he goes into all these prisons and he sees. and the differences. And I think it was on like season seven. So they were then wanted to do something about the forces. And so she always remembered me from that interview with Harry. And so she reached out to me and to Alana about three years ago. And it was just before I'd finished, before I started filming SES Australia.

And she said, look, we're looking at doing this show. Do you think Dean would be interested? When we put his name in the hat? And Alana said, yeah, of course. and we didn't hear anything of it. So then mum's passed, and then we got a phone call, and she said, look, you know, Dean's gone from 150 candidates in the UK down to one. And I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense,

because I literally, I've only just finished filming SES Australia, so why would they choose me? And there was some big names in there from the UK in the military community. And they said, oh, no, he looks like he's one of the fittest. So what is the concept of the show? And I thought, am I doing selection eight times over? And so they presented my name to Netflix. And said, this is our host.

And Netflix came back and said, we were thinking more of an American because it's Netflix Hollywood. And so I was then told that I had to fly to Dallas in November 21, which is great timing because I just finished filming in Australia. And so I was actually now quite comfortable in the camera. And I flew out to Dallas and I met four other two Navy Seals there. One was Ryan Bates, him and his pal. Actually, it's his pal they approached originally, and he asked Ryan to come along.

There was a green beret and a Marine Raider, I think was, a Marine Raider guy. And so he went out and we were doing a bit of go-ruck, a bit of PT, having a barbecue, and it's basically all about chemistry, you know, see how you guys get on. And then so when I came back, you know, and poor him, like, what's your fortstein?

And Ryan and I sort of really hit off. I said, you know, Ryan seems to be cool. So then it was Ryan. Ryan was then selected. Then we're going to have two hosts. And then right at the 11th hour, so you talk about Top Gear, the commissioner for the show commissioned Top Gear back in 2005. And he said two hosts doesn't work.

We need a full guy. You need a third person. So right in 11th hour, they're like, right, so we found these two guys. There are two YouTubers. And one of them was a guy called Cameron. There's a Ranger. No, he did four years and got out. But his YouTube channels are based on military equipment

and reviews of stuff. And so, and you know, this guy's quite confident. No, for me and Brian, we're all old dog veterans and you stick a camera in front of us and we start turning away from it. This guy is very confident in front of the camera. He's got a nose ringing and everything. I'm like, is this for Pop Idol?

Or is this for toughest forces on Earth? But actually, yeah, he was really good. And so I didn't really understand how the dynamics would work, but then actually when we started filming, I get it. I think it was a good decision to go from one, two, to the free. Yeah, yeah. And so you guys, and Ryan is, I knew him from the teams,

and he's just a freaking, just a freaking outstanding, freaking outstanding, dude. And you guys end up traveling, so the, so the theory of the show is, is your, it's sort of like the inside the prison thing, but this, you're going to go inside of, for lack of a better way of saying it, various special operations units from different countries around the world. Yeah, that's it. Basically, we go to eight countries around the world.

We visit eight special forces units, and we showcase what's unique about that unit, whether it's geographically where their place, what the threats are to them as a nation, or just the environment that they operate in. You know, we did everything from the Arctic to the desert to the jungle. And I call it top gear with guns. You know, we can't call it top guns because it's already gone.

But that's pretty much a concept. And we go to these countries and we get immersed in their training. We do training with them. for a week and then they showcase all the different things that they do and then we then do a mission profile at the end a final mission and so um for me it was the reason i wanted to do it was because i had an intrigue about other military when i was in i knew about the seals i knew about delta force um the s s s and the sps you know and maybe a couple of other units i wasn't aware about all these special forces units around the world and also the influence that the uk and us have

had on all of them. You know, when you go there and you're training with them, you're like, these TTBs aren't far from ours, you know, like when we went to Philippines, the NavSom group there, no, Ryan spent a year with them when he was in the series. I was going to say we've been training them for since NOM. You know, since we left Vietnam. We've been training the Filipinos. Yeah, and we went out to Colombia to hungla police and they're like their crest has got the unicorn and the line, which is very British. And yeah, it turned out the SES were the first ones to go out. So, so that's what. what I was interested in.

And also, you know, for me personally, my kids think I'm stolen valor, I think, you know, or a Walter Mitty. Because they were all born post-military. And that dad wasn't in the military. So for me, it was more to showcase to them. And personally, you know, I got injured out in 2011. You know, could I, know, what is the skill fate? Do I still have it?

And so, yeah, that was cool for me. How did you feel? I feel strong, yeah. I feel strong. And, you know, I just see on the show, you know, and I'm very competitive so I wouldn't let Ryan and camera beam you on anything physical

you know even if it killed me off camera was that in clip yeah but for me again it's you know I was having I was proper rubbing banging heads with the with the production because I now understand production and they're like yeah but we don't really need to do that

we can cut that and I think that no it needs to be done correctly I said I don't care what 99.99% of the world see I'm worried about what 30 are my best friends from my unicy because they are watching this with a sniper's eye Anoscope on top of that so yeah is I've watched a couple episodes to check it out and yeah seen but so Ryan was like he's younger than me he's probably like he's younger than me but I remember when I read two now yeah when I read so I'm fifth so I'm 10 years older than I think so when I retired I was like, you know, I'd look at the teams, you know, and you think I was, I was all stoked that

a guy like Ryan was in there. And then he ended up getting out and I was, I had a tear in my non-shooting eye when he got out, because it was going to hurt. So you guys, you guys went to Jordan. Yes. That's where you kicked it off, I guess. Is that where you started? Out there in the desert. And, you know, what's crazy is you had, you had to find these guys and you had to like, you had thermal. And that just, you just. is such a game changer man oh yeah it's not fair anymore like you said we the first thing was a hunter force me to chase down Cameron and Ryan and and what I really surprised me about this

show you know I got out in 2011 Ryan wasn't long after me but the advanced in technology in such a short period of time you know one of my biggest surprises was the weight of the body armor I'm like I remember you were and you remember first generation kit now it's just I'm like Is this a training one or is this a swimmer's one? He said, no, this is actually full ballistic. I'm not, oh, my word. And that was a great thing about Cameron, because me and Ryan, you know, I used to joke that when I was in Tier 1,

I'd just get, like, the signalers to dress me and just go out the door. And he was like, you know, he would show us about all this, just new equipment. And he was fully averse with all. So that was a big surprise for me. But the, but, yeah, the show, the first, actually the first episode they aired was Jordan. The first episode we filmed was actually USA, which is number eight. And what was unique about that is Alana gave birth to my daughter 24 hours before I went and filmed the first episode, which was hard. Because, you know, when you're in the units and you have to deploy, you have to deploy.

You know, and we literally, you know, but we couldn't move the show because we weren't working on productions time. We were working on these units time. And these units, you know, they're still got their other training and their operations. They literally had to fit us in. So we didn't have any, any, any, um, any, um, any, um, any, um, any, um, any, um, any, um, any, um, she gave birth to Harley and then 12 hours later, I was on a flight over to, to Destin. Damn.

Yeah, for two weeks. And what's the filming schedule like when you're out there? So you spend a week doing training and then another week doing like the full mission profiles and stuff? No, so it, it tends to be about seven to ten days filming, uh, normally a day of setting up. And then we meet the guys and then we just do all the, all the various, the training exercises. I mean, it tends to be about the full mission profiles on about two days, two days long. So it varied from country to country. You know, like Jordan, we had a bit more time.

Whereas Sweden, you know, and that was a thing. That was tough about this show. People say, what was tough for me, there wasn't anything that I did particularly that I thought was tough because a lot of this stuff, everything I'd done I'd done before, apart from the swamp survival in Malaysia. I've never seen anything like that. But you're going from, we're filming in Sweden in minus 30. doing a Sear course up there and then coming back to the US and then a week later you're in Colombia

and plus 27 plus 30 degrees in the jungle so it wasn't so much what we were doing it was the impact and the effect it was having on the bodies you know I think Ryan and Cameron they got DMV diary and vomiting four times in the different countries and so yeah that was that was tough and then also understanding

production understanding us and ours and understanding production You know, for me, I was just like, I was just stoic. I just, I just did everything I did. I, you know, the way I carry myself, I just wanted to make sure, you know, I was doing it correctly. Because for me, you know, he had really good balance because you have Ryan and Cameron flying the US flag. And there's me on my own flying the UK flag.

So there's that initial, there's that, that competition and, and comrider as well. So it was fun. It's like being back in the teams. Yeah. And the banter as well. And Ryan, I just don't think Ryan has an off button. He just keeps, he just thought it was a, And in fairness to Ryan, I think the showrunner,

the last thing the showrunner used to say was, remember, be funny. And I'm like, what, we're doing, a comedy. You know, I used to like, Joe, and then, but Ryan would play on it. He would,

he would love it, yeah. And it's a really, it's a really good balance between the three. I'm like, there's grumpy Jeremy Clarkson, who's like, I'm just giving you the details, and this is why we do it. And then there's Ryan clowning around.

And then there's Cameron, who's just like, yay. You know. Was there any, like, crazy mishaps or anything? Um, No real crate. That's good. I mean, because I was watching it and, you know,

anytime you're doing fast roping, anytime you're doing patrolling, anytime you're driving vehicles, you get knuckleheads driving vehicles, which were all knuckleheads. I'm like, oh, how fast can this thing go? Let's find out.

So I was thinking, man, if they made it through whatever it is, eight different groups and didn't like hurt anybody, I'd be pretty impressed. We had a few injuries. Ryan tore his bicep in Philippines. I'd like to say it was something sexy. It was playing basketball,

which is their favorite sport. I dislikated my thumb in the killing house in Austria, you know, you just fall over. And then I did the spy rig, you know, what's injured, you know, the nature of the job is dangerous anyway. You know, in the SPS, we used to have more fatalities and injuries and training than actually on operations if you train for real. But for me, you know, I'd done that before, which is fine. But then you're going to some of these countries where their health and safety standards aren't the same as ours. Bro, I saw like a trailer and it's one of those things where you're basically shooting. or it's a shooting drill

and it looked like they're shooting live fire at each other yeah yeah yeah that was in Malaysia with the GGK I remember the showrunner came over and he said oh Dean apparently these guys the SES taught them this and I was like

really but it was back in the 70s the SES used to do that as a as a training exercise and then they've obviously gone out no because the GGK is the Green Berets so they worked a lot with the Royal Marines that's how they built their

recognition. And so, yeah, it was actually stem from the UK. I was at, really? I said, I've not done that before. But yeah, these guys were, as a confidence test, would fire and they'd hold paddles next to the head or between their legs. And so I think that was the only one we decided that we weren't going to do of all the exercises.

But yeah, we, you know, I just gave my shoulder on the spy rig. There's nothing I could do. I had to go pro in one hand. But the only reason for that is because, you know, the malays. Asians are about four foot two, you know, their tallest guy. And so you're in a harness on this thing. And so, so there were injuries along the way. But, yeah, as you say, we had a little bit of downtime.

Yeah, being in the military is very abusive on your body. I mean, you're just doing stuff all the time, whether, I remember I was a new guy. And I was, we were doing shipboarding from, from Helos, right? So we're doing fast ropes. Yeah. And I'm a radio man. And so I got my body armor on. and I got my radio on.

And at this time, you did not put your feet on the rope. It was like, if you put your feet on the rope, you were a coward. And so what no one told me is, don't put your feet on the rope unless you're a radio man and you have an extra 30 pounds. So I would just come out and just basically fall 30 feet to the deck of the ship, fall down, get up and go set security. So stupid. So dumb.

And eventually people realized, hey, you're no. good if you fast rope onto the ship and hit the ground and freaking blow your knee out. You can't do the assault. So, yeah, we do some dumb stuff. And just, like I said, you do enough fast ropes. You do enough repels. You do enough jumps. You do enough whatever.

Hook and climbs. Just everything that we do running through the desert, night vision, carrying a down guy, a rough terrain. Like, you're going to have injuries. Yeah. And it's a pretty. That's why for you guys to do all that and get relatively. minor injuries. It's pretty impressive. Yeah, well, it was. Yeah, we put our body, our bodies through it.

But like I said, I think the toll was just those different environments. But funny you say that, when you look at the Malaysian, when I fast rope in with my legs open, because that's the way I was tall. And so, you know, and Ryan's like, showing off. I was that. But no, when I, when we did it, we had our legs open because we had to see between them. So, yeah, again, but we also had military advisors from each of the, you know, they were also watching as well, because they want to be coming across quite well because this what I think is great about this show remember US the first episode we filmed it's last episode is US Navy EOD and the guy called Craig Jungers and he was like the training officer and I remember when we turned up they were quite nervous because they

were basically told you're you're doing this you know I think other than top gun this is probably hopefully their biggest recruitment thing so they were they were nervous guys weren't unsure they also weren't didn't have anything to reference from because it's the first season so what is it you guys trying to do. Because we did it. We had other countries lined up like Japan, Brazil, Greece, and Japan didn't, Japan thought we were going to potentially make them look bad and that wasn't the purpose of the show. But like I said, the US Navy took the risk and the gammonet loved it and it's paid off for them. So recruitment's at an all-time low around the world, apart from the US Marine Corps, I think still hitting their numbers. And so for me, if we have a season two, I said to

to Greg, I think you guys, you know, you took a risk, took a gamble, it's paid off. If we have a season to the US Army Air Force, everyone, everyone's going to be knocking on the doors because this is a great recruitment platform for them. Yeah, EOD is a pretty relatively unknown entity in the, in the US Navy, and especially the part of the EOD that comes and works with special operations.

I mean, the EOD guys that we had that come to the SEAL teams, like they go through your whole workup with you. They're in the train and they're on the assaults. They're doing everything. Yeah, they're doing everything. So it's a pretty awesome job, but it's relatively unknown. And it's also, I mean, a job where you're walking up to bombs and disarming them.

It's sketch in many cases. I interviewed Craig afterwards, did some interviews with him on a podcast, and he was explaining to me that actually, and don't really think about it, they have to diffuse everything from a grenade to a nuclear weapon and everything in between. And whether there's on land or under water, I'm like, oh, my God. So actually, I think he was telling me from the time you step into the recruitment office or you're going through it's four years before you're even into it. That's probably the longest process I've ever heard.

Yeah, that's yeah. That might be the longest. Yeah. It's now because the Air Force, American Air Force special operations guys, their school is really long. But it's also it's kind of spaced out where you go to like this training and you make it through that and then you're kind of waiting around for the next school to start up. And then you go through that. And then you wait for the next school to start off. So there's a lot of start and stop.

I don't know if EOD is like that or not. The seal pipeline is just like you're in it. And you're just going to go. And you can't get rolled back, which I guess can hold you up. So in the midst of all this kind of newfound, this television type stuff, you also went down the path of the plant medicine thing. How'd that come about? So that sort of came about by accident.

With my bike ride, when I did the bike ride, we did it for a mental health campaign. And it wasn't just veteran mental health. It was everything for the whole society, post-natal depression, young children, teenagers. And so when I, you know, when Harry would ask if I would do it for mental health, I all of a sudden became a mental health advocate. And because of the success of that, we raised over a million dollars for the charities. I was always banging on the message about physical activity helps your mental state. I didn't really know much about the mental health space.

But because of the success of that, you know, the world records and everything we did, you know, I ended up becoming this mental health ambassador, especially for the veteran community. So when we came over here, Alana, my wife, she wrote a book called How to Ask for Money. She's not scared in asking for money. And the reason for that is, you know, and the way best to explain it, she helps a lot of veterans on their transition because we come from an environment where, you know, when we were planning operations in Afghan or Iraq and you need, you know, you need two Blackhawks, you need a specter gun ship, you need UAV, you need fast air, you need 30 guys. No one gives you a bill in the military, you know, it's a million dollars operations, it's automatically done for you. So you spent your career doing that and then you then entered the world of corporate, which is totally absolutely. alien to us. And so for me, I never used to feel comfortable talking about money. So Alana would

always do the contracts. And because also as well, with somebody... You were obviously not very clear about it because you did that evacuation in Libya for $7,000. Yeah. You should have had her run the invoices on that one. Oh, yeah. She still makes me suffer for that. But the thing is, I, you know, from our background, I don't see a price on the person's head. I don't see the value that. Alana comes from a corporate world and she's like, no, you know, there is a price because the problem is if you if you say right, this is the price and then you actually go do it, you know, it's after the fact they're like, well, you know, I probably don't want to pay that. So she sort of takes all that away from me. So she deals with all the contracts. I never deal with, you know, with clients on that. But when, when, with her how to ask some money, you know, on my bike ride, I'd never cycle more than 20 miles before I applied for the wheel record. She got me half a million pound sponsorship for that challenge. And it's know, I mean, raise over a million dollars along the way. And so she has her own formula. It's called Maps.

You know, she understands it. What's Maps stand for? Oh, I'll have to get her on. Yeah, yeah, I don't know that one. But basically, whether it's in nonprofit or whether it's in corporate, it's all about the mindset and the approach and stuff. And so because of that, because of the success of that, and she also now got honored the NBE from King Charles last year

for her services to vulnerable women in human trafficking. and also mental health awareness because of the money that she's raised. So that sort of really giving her that credibility. And for me, I think I was more happier than herself, more proud of than herself, because everyone sees me doing the stuff and always say that, you know, she's working behind the scenes. So for me, that she'd been recognized for all that hard work that she does do. So going back to your question about the plant medicine,

she now works with some of the nonprofits in helping them, working with her development directors and helping them achieve their target. for the year. So, you know, she helps them, trains them for 12 months, hits their targets, and lets them go off on their own. So one of them approached there called Heroic Hearts. They heard about me, Heroke Hearts, UK, they heard that I was in the US, and they said, look, you know, you guys are big in the mental health and the veteran space. Would you want to come on board in the sisters? And so for me, I didn't know anything about plant medicine. You know, I've never even taken any recreational drugs in my life and never smoked

before in my life at all. And so we were looking at doing ayahuasca last year. You're just going right in for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So looking at doing ayahuasca last year. Did you what was driving you to

feel like you needed to do that? Yeah, so I haven't had some conversation with people. I'm very fortunate I don't have PTSD. I don't have any addictions. But now and then, I would always see this red mist. Just maybe two or three times a year,

just out of nowhere. And where it would happen would be like, for example, if I'm in Israel or Afghanistan or Libya, Somalia, Yemen, all these places, I'm more comfortable in a crisis or in those situations. It's when I come back to the Western world and people are arguing about the smallest of things, the nif-naff and trivia, or people beeping their horns at me. That's when I see red. There was an incident back in Scotland that I was dropping my daughter off in nursery

and I was pulling out and the guy behind him was just banging his horn. And so I just got out and I just pulled him through the window. And then all of a sudden, the red mist, and there's nothing you can do to intervene. And then the red mist lifted, and I'll just like apologize. I just come from nowhere. I don't know where there's something underlying. And so Alana used to always mention this to me. So for me as well is I've been banging the drum about physical activity.

Now, I've been going to some of these conferences as well on the stage. And for me, I wanted to almost at least try it to then at least have a thought. at the table or a seat at the table to then explain my experiences and how it can benefit people. So yeah, I was asked to do ayahuasca, but with ayahuasca you have to, there's a build-up phase to it as well, you know, you need to be coming off caffeine and all these other stuff. If you're on any medications coming off that, and then you have the process which can be between six and eight days, and then you have the integration. Well, for me, last year, when we were filming, it just, there was no way I could find a week

in the calendar. but also the production company got wind Ryan and I were chatting about it and Camman you know because it's quite prevalent everyone talks about it here on this side of the world and one of the production got wind of it and they rang Alana and said look Dean's doing illegal drugs and Lana's like

he hasn't done anything but again UK marijuana is illegal so for them they're not really don't really understand it so I put it aside and said look no I'm not going to do it I'll address it later so Alan and I have a podcast called Behind the Scene And it's a play on words, S-W-N. So we get people on board, you know, people at the world sees,

and then we bring their partners on, you know, and talk about success stories and how you can both have a relationship together and still be successful. And unfortunately, a lot of women have to put their careers on hold, you know, to have a family. And then there can be resentment where the husband's being successful and they're not. So we sort of showcase that. But we had a couple on called Marcus and Amber Capone.

You know Marcus. Yeah, they've had them on this podcast. who had run the vet solution. So I remember we were interviewing him, and Amber talks about how Marcus had tried ayahuasca, this psilocybin, and none of it was working. And she found out about iBegane. So the difference in ibegain in ayahuasca,

the ayahuasca is like the grandmother of the plant medicine. The ibergain is the grandfather, it's the masculine one. So he went away, and it's over a weekend. It's not done, you know, over a period of week. He went away, came back on the Monday, She knew straight away that he was his, back to the guy that she fell in love with and started, you know, she started crying. Wait, which one was it from? Ibogane.

From Ibogane. The Ibogane is the masculine one. It's the masculine one. And ayahuasca is the grandmother. The Ibugane's the grandfather. So I was like, my ears pricked up. Alan is already kicking my ankle and I'm like, okay. And so for me, again, you know, I'm not a spiritual person, you know, I don't listen to podcasts and things like that.

and I like to make my own decision. But I recognize, I respected Marcus and what he'd done. And so when I finished filming Heroic Hearts, who Alana was now helping fundraise for, Jesse Gould, who's the CEO, he said, look, I hear I begin probably more suited for you. And I said, yeah, it is, you know, just purely because I can only afford a weekend off.

And so he said, look, we have these four weekends coming up. And one of them was literally, this was on the Friday, one of them was the following Friday. and I said, just lock me in. And I was like, okay. On the Saturday, Alana and I were at Coronado Island with Marcus and Amber for their Vets conference that they had down there.

And I was on the table with DJ Shipley, another SEAL guy. And I had questions, and I was asking, they'd done I began, I was asking them questions. You know, for me, it's like, you know, when I'm doing challenges, you know, I like to go into a dark place and use that energy and, you know, and do it physically. I said, well, I come back and not be able to do one pull-up.

And they're like, no, it cleans you out completely. And so they were answering questions that I was asking. And I then went the following Friday. Alana dropped me off at the San Juan Capistrano train station. And even on the way there, I was like, I'm only doing this for you and the kids. I could see what I was doing. I was just, I'm not doing this for you. For me, I'm doing it for you and the kids.

And she knew what was happening. But she sent me down there. We then went across the border into Mexico. And the difference in ayahuasca, Iowack is very spiritual. It's in the environments in the jungles and stuff, and you drink it. Ibogaine's clinical.

You take two pills. You have an old EMT team there. You have doctors. They put injurvenous into you. You have mercury to surround your heart because your heart slows down that much. It's so powerful. It's the most powerful psychedelic out there.

So I went in with no, expectations. Did you ever smoke pot before? Never done anything. Never even smoked before in my life, literally. This is what it would be like for me because I've never done that. And everyone said, this is typical you, Dean. You've just literally gone in the deep end.

But the, and this is the first time I've talked about this publicly. And one of the gentlemen on the table with DJ with me, you know, he said to me, it's a thing called about leaning in, you've got really lean into it. You're going to see fears, but he says it's the same of going through. the door in Afghan and Iraq. You don't want to go through the door, but you have to go in and get through the other end. So I sort of took all these points on board. I never, again, listen to the podcast, never listen to other people's perceptions and what they got from it, you know, went in blind. And the eye began to last about six to ten hours. I was in it for 20

hours. I was literally in this in this state. And for me, I remember a start and you take the pill and you line the bed, they put headphones on you, you have an eye mask. and they start playing music. And, you know, I'd never had a baseline before because I'd never done any sort of recreational drugs. And the gentleman next to me starts purging, you know, because you can be sick. He's basically getting rid of some of the badness out of you.

And I'm like, oh my God, I'm not in it. I haven't even started. And then all of a sudden I just saw this spiral tiger coming in and this music player. And then that was me gone for 20 hours. And literally, it's really hard to explain. It's almost like you've been invited to a movie premiere. But you're the only one in the audience because you're the only one who understands the language or what's coming across in front of you.

But it took me back to everything. My childhood, being in a homeless home, fighting at a young age. My father getting custody. And it literally was just almost being like kicked in the bollocks a hundred times over. Literally all these messages, you know, these are messages you've seen. And so for me, it kept saying, no, try not be the entrepreneur. Alana knows what she's doing. You know, step aside.

let her do that. You know, for me it was about being the protector. And they said, look, we had to, you joined the military, you've got certain skills. And I was, and you can ask it questions. If you see something, you can ask it, you know, questions. What's it it? Just what you're seeing. You can ask the medicine what you're seeing.

And I don't know what it is you'll show me. I mean, it will maybe show you from another angle. And so for me, it was like, you know, I didn't want to leave the military after 16 years. I got injured out. And then the way it sort of presented it to me was like, you couldn't learn anymore. You know the skill sets you got, you had enough. And so, but then in the private security said,

it looked why I've learned from that. And it had everything all the way to me, even seeing Elizabeth checking her phone in Israel. It was, it was power. It was hard to explain. But I came out eight pounds lighter. But sorry, before that, you, they had to come to me because that evening we had to then,

so I went in on the Friday evening, seven o'clock on the Saturday evening, they started giving me papaya and banana to get me off the medicine because at midnight we were then going to have to fast because the next day we were going to have the DMT which is the most powerful psychedelic which is a toad and like I said I'd never even smoked before so even the guy had to teach me out to smoke a pipe

and yeah that experience it's not as long as the other it's like 15 minutes I remember someone being on Joe Rogan who did it and he thought he was living under the sea for six months and had a family It's like, it's the closest thing to be. Who is that? I can't remember his name. I remember someone referenced me, but I ended up, I ended up back in my mother's womb. I could see myself in my mother's womb and then it felt like I was being born again.

So for me, I'd no reference point, no baseline. But came back almost, yeah, eight pounds lighter and everything was a lot more clearer. You're a bit more present. I was more present with the kids. I was a lot calm. It's not to say you're not angry and it fixes everything. But it's almost like beforehand, it was like a light switch. I go from zero to to 10 with a switch.

Whereas this is a dimmer. And so you're aware of it. I mean, you just sort of then bring it back down. But the medicine's only a small part of it. It's all the integration, the stuff you do after it. So for me, and Alana picked me up from the train station, and she broke down in tears. She's like, I've got the dean that I knew from years ago.

And so from that point on, we said we would help in, the veteran space. I think for me is almost being a conduit, especially to the guys in the UK, but for the special forces community, and I was guilty as well, I see sort of like the beads and the hippie stuff around it and it sort of puts you off, which it can be off putting for the community, but it's actually not like that at all. But the fact that guys are going down to Mexico or Peru with suicide notes and coming back, ripping them up, guys that have been on medication for 10 and 12 years and not needing it again. It's impactful.

And you have lights of Dan Kretsch or Dr. Huberman, everyone in Stanford, you know, really now trying to push this through the VA. But then on the other side, you have the pharmaceuticals to see the success. And then the Ibergain comes from Africa as a plant. They're trying to burn down the forests in Africa. Literally? Literally. Why wouldn't they just turn it?

If you have to take it as a pill, why wouldn't they just start making it and selling it and putting it in the pharmacies or the hospital so you could do it because it because if it's healing and there's no financial game for them they want to keep you on the medication that's the thing that people are going down and they're literally from full on addictions or being used to have medications and not needing it again and you are just like hey i'm not addicted to anything i get mad three times a year yeah but i i didn't I didn't think I was going to get much from it. I probably gained the most from the group.

Again, I was more present. You know, beforehand, I would never be in a room, a conversation with other people. I could never have eye contact. You know, people, not they would bore me. I would just be, I just wouldn't be present. Whereas now I'm present, you know, this was a bad thing as well, is people rush back and go back into social media. Social media is a tool, but it can be quite dark.

So it's obviously, you know, and I come from an environment where I'm going into, places and you've seen dark things. So it's just that integration again. And so your brain is basically almost like cleared out and it's neuroplasticity. You're instilling new, new programs. You know, so get up, you know, whether you want to meditate, whether you want to spend time with your family. You know, it's just, there's lots of things I took away from it. You know, it wasn't so much about the anger thing. It's about being more present with my family, more karma. Is this happening in the UK as well? So from the, no, not at all in the UK.

So the UK, they will fly veterans to Peru. But, you know, it's interesting, what they say is, is it the plant medicine, is it amazing how many people out there have done it who at the moment is still as a taboo. So not many people are talking about. But, you know, some of the biggest entrepreneurs in the world, you know, your musks and things out, they've all been, they all do it. We were actually, Alain and I were at a birthday party in Topanga. a couple of months ago, her friend's 50th.

And she loved all the sound baths. She's very spiritual. And she put us on the table and she said, look, I'll put you guys on. Some of you are brits, you know, academic-wise. You got the same conversation. And I was chatting to someone and she talked about healing. And I said, oh, have you heard of I begin? She said, oh, yeah, I've done it three times.

And literally everyone on that table, all 10 people had done the plant medicine. But they didn't know, didn't realize. So for me, it's again, it's that's early stages. I know the vet the SEAL vets are doing a lot in the SEAL community, heroic hearts, they're doing a lot of all the communities as well, and they're really just trying to push it through and promote it. So I now sit on the board of Heroic Hearts, and I'll try and I'll keep banging the drum on this.

But again, I only did this back in November. I'm still learning, but it just means that I have a seat at the table when I'm chatting with some of these mental health experts. And I actually contradict what I said on the final bit is when I talk about physical activity helps your mental state, you know, post-plant medicine, the way you best describe it is you're like a, you're like a pan of water on the stove.

And so the physical activity is taking the lid off, you know, it's releasing that steam, but you're putting the lid back on. And so it's going to build up again. What the plant medicine does, it takes the pan completely off the stove. That's the biggest difference between them. So, yeah, so I've been banging the drum about physical activity.

it still works it's a short-term fix but then this this is a this is a long-term fix so whether it's veterans their spouses their children victim to human trafficking um yeah it seems like i would be very nervous to do this kind of thing i would not i like i have no desire to do this at all uh not that i'm against it because i know guys personally that have it has helped them out a lot so i'm super stoked for them yeah but it seems like uh yeah i'm not there i'm not there yeah I think for me, what it did for me answered a lot of questions to the present day. It's literally said you're on the path that you should be, you know, continue, you know, protect. Whereas some people go in it and actually give them the path forward.

But yeah, it's a scary environment, you know, it's not for everyone. And what I gathered from the time with mental health on the bike ride when I was doing a lot there is actually 75% of veterans, their mental health hasn't got anything to do with the time in the military. It's time prior to that's their childhood. It's just trigger points in the military. And so a lot of people here, it's not what they've experienced in me. It's a lot of their childhood trauma, which some people don't want to see again. Yeah.

Yeah. And a great example that is Marcus, because he was, you know, especially when you hear it from his wife, Amber, she's, he was just a totally different person than who she married. Yeah. And, you know, he came back. So I know it's, I know it's definitely helped out a lot of people. I'm not rolling down there to get it done. Ain't happen. So,

so what's next? What do you got on the, what do you get on the, on the gamut for the future? So yeah, we, you got something about an ocean row, right? Yeah,

so, so for me, I like to keep myself physically, physically active. So we, we obviously work in the human trafficking space, the mental health space. I always try to take a sport

that I'd never done before. And, no, we'll look at ocean rowing. It's not, it's not that popular in the, in the U.S., but in the UK is,

it's quite popular. There's a, famous race each December called the Talasca Whiskey Atlantic Crossing and it starts in the Canary Islands and finishes in the Caribbean and basically it's a row across the Atlantic and numerous teams get

involved. Four men teams, two men teams, four men teams mix, some people solo but this year they, sorry, last year they had the first one from Monterey to Hawaii. It's a race you know, it's a good distance yeah and so ocean rowing people start seeing more here

And these are just like super high speed rowboats basically? So really the timing of that they go in December because, you know, the tides and the winds are in their favor. But sometimes it doesn't. You know, if you have the winds against you have a thing called a sea anchor. It's like a parachute. You drop it in. And then wind pushes you back and stay static. And they're quite big boats as well.

They have like two cabins. You know, you have your comms kit in one, your navigational stuff. You have a bed in the other. How long are they, generally speaking? Oh depends if it's four or two man Yeah they're probably about I'd say about good 60 feet

70 feet 70 5 feet yeah Damn yeah they're big old beasts Yeah and so these So we're looking at a challenge But for me is like well what hasn't been Been done before And so no one's actually ever rode The West Coast of America

And so the plan is next year And we're literally just starting now So looking out for sponsors For beneficiaries It's in charities And the Surf Riders Foundation is one that we'll do it you know because they have stories all the way along that west coast that we can we can share

about and it's going to be about ocean conservation but we will start in vancouver and finishing mexico and tier one and you sleep on the boat somewhere you sleep on the boat it has cabin cabins in the boat and it's one end ones if the tides and winds are in your favor you just get you get rowing but when you're not you just start rotating between you but the one with this is it'll be me and alana you know so oh she's going to do it yeah she's going to do it with me so the thing is people, Alan is to get upset with the bike ride because, you know, when I finished it,

a great feat, you know, to 17 days off the wheel record and became the first man in history to do 100 days. But a lot of people, because you're from the SF community, it's like, well, of course it's his special forces. But I probably know 99% of ESF

who wouldn't do that bike ride. I'm one of them. Yeah. Whereas Alana, I know, Alana got burnt as a child, spilled a kettle on her, boiling water on her chest. And so literally she's had a life of surgeries

You know, when all the other kids were doing sport in school, you know, she had a compression vest for 18 months in hospital. So academic, you know, didn't do that, but academically just shot off. Shut off. But then she's recently had surgeries. It's now released her shoulder. So when I'm just taking someone who's never done anything before and trying to prove that, you know, with the right mindset, you know, the training and the planning, anything's possible. What does the training consist of for you and then for her? So for us, the hardest thing is getting hold of a boat.

We now, we've managed to find a boat, and so we need to get that ship from UK to us. You know, you have the concept two rowers. You know, they're pretty much the best thing is, it's like time in the saddle with cycling. So just keep doing that. But the, you know, the hardest thing is getting to the start point. You know, if you get to the start point uninjured, with all your equipment, you're 75% of the way there. And so that's what they say is that, you know, just get you to the start point. You know, hopefully the winds and the tides will be in our favor going from north.

to south but we'll also have to do some on water training as well so one of our friends he's the vice president of the ocean roman society chris martin so they're the ones who actually um with guinous records they're the ones who sign off on it so he's going to come out and do a week's training was on the water just get us through through the routines no thankfully i did um my yacht master as well i was in the sbs so i i have all the vhf radio stuff and the navigational stuff but i need to teach alanna on that as well will it take I mean just the rough guess um I'm anticipating probably about five to six weeks um yeah if if the tides and winds are in our favor so you keep the food on there for five to six weeks or do you get resupplied you have so where this one's slightly different is normally people

have a start point like Monterey and Hawaii so you don't have a support vessel no one's coming out to you because we're actually going north-south we don't actually need to be that far off the coastline we can be about three to five miles off off the coastline which which which helps in certain aspects you know we don't need all the safety equipment that these guys have the rest of the guys have but actually navigation is more difficult because more shipping lanes to go through but we can have boats come out and then you know maybe drop off some fresh rats but we would have yeah you know we would have fresh rations we could we could we could have fresh rations but we also have um arctic rations as well but you know already chatting with the surf riders

foundation this story is all along that coastline there's We can tell. So when you say stories along the coastline, you mean like, oh, you're going to go by Dana Point and be like, oh, this used to be a great surf spot. And then they built this freaking stupid whatever marina there and they wrecked a freaking great surf spot. All those sort of stories. Yeah.

And obviously, you know, pollution in the water, you know, I'll leave that to them. I'll do the row and they can give us the stories. Yeah. That's legit. There's a two guys that brothers that paddled prone. paddling from Canada to Mexico. Wow. But what they were doing was like they would paddle and come in every night and set up camp

and camp for a little while and then go back out whenever they were ready and they did that whole thing just prone paddling. Wow. How long did that say then? You know. I forget how long it took but it was pretty impressive. Yeah. And you know they're on little paddle boards.

I mean those things are like 12 feet maybe. Maybe 14 feet for the for the one that they the ones that they used but they had it so loaded down with gear to camp at night Man, it was it was pretty impressive. They made a little movie about it to to make it work Now you got going on right now you got this podcast behind the scene Do you only interview basically partner like couples scenarios or no we did the first season? You know me and echo that goes behind the seed talk about all his extravagant efforts to make everything happen

it will get you guys on the concept came from it you know the in our special forces and I think it's the same ratio here is you know for every SF operator to go on the ground it takes seven other people you don't see

so it's really about promoting the team behind the scene and that was the play on words so we did one season of 10 10 guests and it was it was more couples. But actually, you know, behind the scene, we now can talk, so the second season,

I've actually now interviewed the, the major generals and the commanders of the units that we visited. Because the show's, the show's great, but what it, as you've seen a couple episodes, what it doesn't tell me is about the unit. You know, who are they, what their origins,

why were they formed? What was their selection process like? So, so behind the scene can either be successful couples or it could be, you know, what's actually happening on the ground. You know, Israel, for example, you know what are we seeing but actually what is going on behind the scenes so yeah it's a play on words and each season will be very different um i mean sometimes it may just be me and me and alana chan

um but yeah it seems to be it seems to be doing really well we're slowly uh slowly picking up traction um but yeah that's where the concept came from the origins of it it's just really get other people out are you going to record any while you're rowing your boat yeah there'll be some behind the scene one there i'll tell you we'll do it we'll do a special without a doubt. When are you going to try and do the row? So the aim is to do it summer next year. And the reason for that is our children broke up

from the summer last week for 12 weeks. And so for us, it's like, you know, what I want to do is actually have them sort of hand railing the coastline as well on an RV with a couple of members of the family. And then they can come out and say hi as well. So because I think for me, I'm used to being away from the family for long periods of time, for Lana, not just the physical aspect of this.

know what's going to be hard for her is that disconnect. Does she get seasick? I don't know. There'll be plenty of tablets. Again, these are all new things we need to test. My wife gets terribly seasick. Oh, really? Yeah.

And we were going to, I had that check in my hand. I was going to buy a sailboat. This is when we were young. And I was going to buy a sailboat for us to live on. Because, you know, it's real expensive to live in San Diego. So I had the check in my hand. I got a loan from Navy Federal Credit Union for, like, $18,000 and I was going to buy a boat of a 1913

Gaff rigged wooden schooner just the most ridiculous boat like 55 feet long and I thankfully I had like a moment of clarity as we were getting ready to drive up it was it was actually up in uh somewhere up in LA and I had a moment of clarity as the alcoholic say where I was like yo this is a bad, bad position. Because, yeah, if you know anything, because I was always like wooden boats because there's this romantic thing behind wooden boats. And I was all here, you know, we're going to live aboard a wooden boat.

Wooden boat, you have to work on your wooden boat every single day. And from bow to stern. Yeah. And you start at the bow. And by the time you get to the stern, you got to go back to the bow again. You got to start it again.

And it just never stops. And by the way, if you know, if you don't do, if you don't mow your lawn at your house, No big deal. You got some long grass. If you don't freaking maintain your boat, it sinks. Yeah.

So thankfully, I had a moment of clarity. We didn't do that. But the other thing is, which I don't remember if my wife disclosed to me or not, she gets terribly seasick. Wow. And so by the time we decided we weren't going to do it, and she goes, you know, it's probably better because I get seasick anyway. So I was like, yo, you might not want to tell me that before we buy a boat to live on.

I might ask a lot. I don't actually have to yet. It's, if people get seasick, it's terrible yeah like it's a it's a terrible thing I're going out to see on on a ship you'd see people that get seasick and you they would just be such rough shape such rough shape right on man is that get us up to speed is that where we're at yeah like it's up speed yeah we're just you know the other things we're doing as well we're looking at doing coaching you know guest speaking for me he's tried to share the knowledge of what we've

done and and um you know hopefully whether it's in corporate whether it's your own in development, individual growth. You sort of want to share that as well. So we're looking at launching them soon. And one other thing I'm working on the background is, is I'm 47 years old. I've never done weights before in my life. And so I get a lot of questions.

As do you know, how do I become an ABC or how do become an ESPS? And it's like, you know, what you don't see is the hard work we've done before. So for me, I'm looking at designing a website and a training app based around military fitness. because what I have the luxury of here is you have other fitness apps out there and whether it's a Ranger or a seal or a Green Beret and the content of that app is from the author,

from their own experiences. Why I have the luxury of here is I've gone around the world visiting the special boards and seeing their different types of training and so literally I've had everyone sending me in their training programs and non-gim related, don't need a gym, it's all, you know, as you know,

when you used to do courses, you know, I used to get tested on how many pull-ups could you do, how many press-ups dip, How fast can you run? How far can you you yomp? It wasn't how much can you bench press or curl. And then also I remember being in Cosby in 99,

and I'm not going to throw the USMC under the bus, but there was a couple of guys who were like Hollywood superstars. They were massive. These guys, I looked at them, even I was impressed. But then we went on operations, and remember having to climb up into a helicopter and rope, and they struggled. So for me, when I was in the military,

it was a balance of being able to pass those tests and pass them well, but also being able to perform my role. And so as we saw with COVID, when the gyms all shut down, everyone's having to improvise. So my aim with this fitness app is literally is basically putting together a training program. Or you can select the various, whether it's, you know, Dev Gru, CAG, SES, SPS, Royal Marines, Parachute Regiment, you know, how we can best prepare them if they're looking at going on them. So it's whether the audience is those who want to join the military. And I think as we're seeing, I know the DOD, the MOD, they're struggling to get people in at the right fitness levels and so target them you know there's those in the in the fitness industry anyway who just have

a general interest in in military and then obviously now the growth of tactical games you know shooting them and doing exercises so so that'll be my audience so for me it's just literally developing an app that people can can do and just you know learn from myself do you at least need a pull-up bar for this workout you probably would need a pull-up bar but it's it's not it's not make or break there there are other exercises you can do you can develop those muscles and So for me, I don't, I call it non-biased training. You know, if I'm busy, you know, it's hard. You know, I'm talking to guy gets up at 4.30 every morning.

But if your life's busy, you know, especially when I was traveling around the world, I would just improvise and do stuff in the room. But like I would do probably 500 press-ups a day, you know, 10 sets of 50, but I wouldn't do them all at once. I would do like a few emails and then I'd do 50. Or if I walk past the toilet, then I'd do 50. So before you know it, you're keeping yourself. Yeah, ticking over. So they're the sort of things I put in there as well.

Yeah, because everyone has busy lives, but that's not an excuse. You can still do exercises and stay in shape. And when's that? When are you putting that together? So I'm putting that together at the moment, and my aim is to have that launched by the end of the year. What's it going to be called? Ooh, that's a good one. I was thinking I have a tough.

No, tough. But it might, yeah, at the moment, it's just called tough. Okay. Yeah, right on, right on. Awesome, man. So where can people? People find you for the coaching and the speaking and stuff like that. It's Deanstot.com.

That's it, Deanstock.com and you get myself on Instagram here. And on Instagram, you're at Deanstott. On Twitter, X, you're at Deanstot, SBS. That's it, yeah. And then the YouTube and the podcast is behind the scene, S-E-E-N. Yeah. And that's with Alana. Yeah, we'll get a behind-the-scenes show as well, yeah.

At some point, we'll get Alana on here to share her side of this whole story. Yeah, yeah. The real story. Yeah, the real story, yeah. Because I think, you know, we talk about the plant medicine, you know, when I went on, you know, when you talk about trauma, I mean, Alana has more trauma. And actually, my Ibogaine told me to take Alana to the medicine, and she's gone and done hers since as well. So, yeah, it's quite powerful. Looking forward to that debrief.

Right on. Echo Charles, you got any questions? Yeah, a couple questions, please. So the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, journey, journey, journey. Journey, journey. Did you feel sick at all? Did you get sick at all? Because that's a big part of it, right?

A lot of the time where you can throw up and stuff. So you go in and you have to write down your intentions. What are your intentions? So for me, it was, a lot of it's about managing ego. That's where a lot of guys, you know, confront your ego. So for me, I wanted to be present. I wanted to, I wanted to be more open to my family. So you write down your intentions.

And it's really difficult because you have intentions, but you can't have expectations. It's quite a big difference between. And so you write down your intentions. and I had four intentions. And so I purged three times during my eye being, but I could feel it at the bottom of my stomach that there was one more, and then literally on the 20th hour,

yeah, I purged the fourth one. And is it like, you know, when you say you, obviously mean you threw up physically actually throwing up? Yeah, so with that one, you were thrown up. But obviously, you don't eat. That's why they're on the buildup to it. You know, the week before, you know, they tell you not to take caffeine,

not to have red meats and things that are. So there's a, there's a strict diet going into it and then on the day of it it's just certain certain foods because yeah they know that you're you're going to perch and so not really much comes up and then on the DMT is the same it almost feels like you know there's something coming out of your body so yeah it's just releasing it from your body and it feels like it's like the you said it's like the bad energy or whatever does it actually feel like that or are you just like oh i'm kind of nauseous right now and um you i felt it building up inside and i knew it was coming

A couple of times it surprised me. It just came from nowhere. But then a couple of times you feel it coming up. That's crazy. Other question. Dirty PT? Dirty PT and clean PT. So I realized this concept before too.

Because he played football and college. So he's Mr. Clean PT over here. Yeah. Kind of for real. Big time now. Yeah. Like he'll be like, hey, yeah, let's go train. I'll be like, well, today's kind of like,

I already did this. This is part of the rest period of my training program or whatever. But Dirty PT and just I want to make sure I understand it because it's interesting to put it into words like that because they're both like super beneficial in my opinion when I know about it which is very little right now Dirty PT is like hey let's see how you can perform under whatever circumstance whether you're starving fasting one minute sleep 10 hours it whatever right it's like under whatever circumstances We're gonna just see how good you can perform. Yeah, I think it's just no not what you're used to you know I A good example of one is a, so Steve Redgrave, he was a Olympic rower.

He had the most gold medals to the UK. This guy was a machine. On the concept two, he would literally just perform until he collapsed. He would fall off this machine. He did one of those ocean rowings and came off. You know, for him, he just couldn't. He wasn't in that environment. He wasn't an environment he was used to.

He wasn't getting the food and the sleep that he needed. So really, I think it's just the environment that you're operating in. And in the special forces where we are, you know, we go in thinking we're doing something. You think we're going to go on the ground and then you're going to, you know, move 15 miles to target area and then realize actually, you know, the mission's changed. We're going somewhere else. And so for me, it's just that uncertainty which the professional sports people don't really get caught out on. You know, the worst case scenario for you is you going to overtime. That's it.

Whereas, and, you know, you could parachute in. You could go on your ankle, you know, over your ankle. You then just got to strap up and keep going. So it's just two different ways of all. operating you know you guys are physically fit as it is just the environments that we have to perform in and so mentally some of them they can't they can't cope with it you know they are the Olympians in the gold medalist but they want their sleep they want their food yeah yeah and we can't cope yeah like that's essentially it where yeah where it's like hey you get into these physically and mentally unknowns

in like performance or whatever you're like yeah you just sort of shut down just because you're really not used to it at all. Yeah. Like if I'm doing five rounds or if I'm doing eight sets of something and Jocco comes in and says, hey, we're going to do a bunch of like pull-ups now. It's like, bro, that's not part of the program. I probably won't be able to do any pull-ups because today's not pull-up day. You know what I'm saying?

So it's like, yeah, it's a different approach overall even. You're kind of the shining example of great T, T, T, P. Yeah. Hey, whatever works, I guess. Bro, when you trained the other day? Yeah. Friday Friday Friday yeah I was like so surprised you trained why because you came to film and yet you you just trained no no that was Thursday so I trained I trained a couple rounds

and then Friday I really trained yeah but I was kind of surprised because normally I knew it wasn't you know what you were showing up there for you know you know I'm over here at that you kind of got hyped there okay well you know it was it was a good room right it was a good room I didn't see Keenan for a while I hardly you know I see Noah but I don't yeah you know so circumstantial so yeah Jumped in there a couple of them got height. But you are a really good example of Clean PT. Yeah. And that's a big deal too.

Like when you think about, I mean, we all, you always hear these stories like, oh, this guy was a college football player or he was an Olympic, I had an Olympic alternate gymnast in my seal training class that quit. Right. I mean, how strong is this dude? An Olympic alternate gymnast? I mean, that's ridiculous. And he quit. And I also have.

at a NCAA water polo player. Like those guys are studs, Quinn. And so you think to yourself, that's so weird. And I was like a below average athlete, you know, in high school, whatever, just a loser. And yet, I'm going to tell you what, I'm going to keep going. Get real dirty over here. Yeah. Keep going.

Because a lot of times. Kind of like, honestly, the mats of justice. You know, you've seen it many times. I'm going to keep going. I'm going. I think it's the ones. as you touched on, the ones that have overperformed in the sports industry, you know, they're used to success and getting their praise.

When you come in another environment, they're not used to it. You know, you know, gentleman Rich Davini, you know, Rich DeVin? Yeah, he wrote the board attributes. Now, he talks about that, how he had on paper, these guys were rock stars coming through Dev Group, but they always passed. They were always accomplishing. They didn't know how to deal with failure.

They didn't know how to deal with when things were getting hard. And that's where things, and that's what is. I find that similar to those who over successes in sport. And that being said, there's guys that were freaking tremendous athletes, athletes in college in any kind of sport, and there's total studs in the SEAL teams. Again, it's not a universal thing. It's just, it is more interesting when you see a guy that was a total stud.

Look, when you see a guy that's a total stud and was a college wrestler or a water polo player in college, like those guys, I knew those guys in the SEAL teams, they're freaking awesome frogmen. You kind of expect that, though. What you don't expect is someone that wrestled at Iowa or Oklahoma or something. Like, these dudes are, they're barely even human. You know what I mean?

They're barely even human. If you wrestle at Iowa, you're sort of, there's another category for you, you know? If you were a collegiate wrestler, you're sort of almost not human, you know? And then you can take that with many sports. Wrestling is a very obvious example, though, because of the abuse that you take. And then those guys show up and quit. Yeah. D1 wrestlers quit.

Yeah. So this is an idea that can show itself in many ways. Remember Jason Gardner actually said, essentially what you just said, studied, where he was like, hey, he said it real funny when he was on. He was like, some of these guys, they're not used to losing.

So they lose one thing and they're mentally just done. Me, I've been a loser from the beginning. I've been losing since I was like, kid or whatever but anyway yeah so it's like um okay so take a take a person which by the way is a little bit that's a little bit of extra humility coming from gardener because gardener's like kind of a stud yeah like gardener was a water polo player believe it or not he was like really good yeah and obviously he was being funny he's being funny and he's being funny and humble but he certainly wasn't a collegiate water polo player so yeah well well the idea isn't necessarily how good or junkie gardner was it's

more like hey i'm used to this adverse of not being on top all the time. You know, it was essentially that. So like, okay, so in jujitsu, for example, where if you're like, a lot of times, like big power lifters or something like this, someone who has a huge top end strength, they're used to that top end.

When I push this guy, he's even at the same size as me. When I push him, I know what's going to happen. He's going to go flying because I'm so strong and I'm very, very used to that. You go one round, two rounds, three rounds. Oh, one round, actually a lot of times. One round, that next round, your top end strength is now at about 15% and you're still strong but you're not used to that

discrepancy so you feel like oh my gosh i'm useless i'll never get it back so it's like mentally you're not you're not used to being there you know where like a person who is more just a condition person or a person who's just used to that kind of weird like discrepancy and strength or they're just they don't have a big discrepancy and strength their top end isn't that high anyway so when they get tired they're still at like 60 70 80 percent really you know but these guys who lose so so much of their strength. Bro, what am I gonna do? I'm useless, I'm worthless.

I might as well not even be here kind of a thing, you know? It's like they're just not used to that. And Jiu-Jitsu really exemplifies that. Because that strength can, the strength that you put into someone can be so easily absorbed. Yeah.

And it's just gone. And it's gone. It did, like you can't get it back. It's weird. Someone will work so hard. And the person that knows Jiu-Jitsu is using, you know, probably 10% of their Energy and the person that doesn't know J-Jit-2 is using 90 if not literally sometimes a hundred percent of their energy

To trying the full string and and they're trying to squeeze your head yeah like you cannot you're not gonna squeeze my head until I tap Yeah, you know I mean like from a headlock position of course right I had Sloan freaking choke my face the other days basically squeezed my head Yeah that that's a lot different This is a different scenario. He's got he's got technique too. It's not just strength. Yeah, it's not power lifter strength anyway and it's not it's technique too. Yeah, it's not it's technique too. Yeah, yeah not like you can put me in a headlock and squeeze as hard as you want I'm not tapping right you know okay I don't know maybe Magnus remagnusin or someone like that yeah yeah you can squeeze your head you actually yeah I feel like some of those guys who squeeze my head like this and crack it like that's how it feels I don't know but but for the most part yeah yeah yeah you're gonna handle

that for sure um but but yes yes so I think that's it though that that discrepancy that we're that certain people are not used to that that gets them For sure. Yeah. Any other questions? Echo Charles? No, that was it.

The dirty PT. I actually, I've learned to embrace the dirty PT a little bit more. You've grown into it. Yeah, fully. And a lot of times, too,

and it shows itself in little ways, right? Where, okay, so the other day I mentioned this, where I had already worked out. My workout was fulfilled for the day. Then my kids, they want to play soccer.

They want to play freeze tag and they never want to stop. Four hours I was out there. I'm like, I'm getting tired and all this stuff, whatever. But I'm like, no,

this is kind of the, didn't know the term I do not thank you yeah but it was dirty PT see what I'm saying okay part of the hey man bro you'd be surprised these kids nowadays they're running around freaking hours anyway but yeah but you can't ever say no to that like if your kids want to play you got to put you got to get in the game that I used to have that rule like if my kids wanted if my kids were doing something productive I would not put a stop to it like almost no matter what it was yeah there is one there is a situation that occur where my daughters can get real.

Look, like, loud. You know what I mean? Like, singing. Okay. Yeah, this is different. But I'm talking singing with the kind of overall goal of making me tell them to be quiet. That's their purpose. So they used that when they were younger.

I'd be like, okay, you're done. Because you know, you're cool. You kids are going to sing cool. Like, oh, great. Sing all you want. No, I actually had to stop. that it's not sing all you want it's single you want now when I tell you to stop it yeah yeah that's a good rule though like you can't kind of say no yeah yeah

because all because I don't necessarily feel like it or something like that it's productive brother they're kind of outperforming you yeah because especially if it's like oh they want to cook something I want to draw something they want to repaint something they want to build something they want to do whatever they want to do if it's something productive in the world you gotta as much as you possibly can say yes that's a good say yep go ahead and do it they want to freaking rip part the garden because they want to plant some tomatoes like Like that's the kind of stuff, a seven-year-old will come home.

Like, I want to pet tomatoes. And you're like, okay, here's the shovel. And they're ripping apart your yard and getting dirt everywhere. But you just got to, like, support. Support. That's what we're doing. What about this? And I'm saying this now off the top of my head because I just got asked to do this.

So my son likes to go down this canyon that we have and just start chopping down trees. Because you know all those, those knives, the extra knives and axes that we have. He got into those. He was like, hey, we should go chop down trees. Is he doing something with the lumber? No. Like, you got to collect that lumber. and then build a fire with it at night,

get a little fire pit? Yeah. Why are you making a face like, this is a bad idea? This is the best idea you've ever heard. It sounds like a great idea. I'm just saying how far off we are from that. We have the fire pit.

Yeah. It's not wood burning, but I guess. No, you got the fire pit, the wood burning fire pit. Oh, the one that we got. Yeah. No, I don't have that one. I think Joe has it.

Okay. Well, thanks. Good tips. Chop down the trees. Collect the wood, build fires, cook, you know, a hot dog. Sure. That's what we're doing.

Okay. All right. Good to see you. You're good? Dean, start right on. Dean, any closing thoughts, bro? No, no.

Not for me. I just appreciate you guys. Hopefully another three years and we'll have more stories. I just can't believe how I'll quit the three years has gone from being at your house and Memorial Day and yeah, lots happened. But now here is a citizen of America, a green card. That was a process. That's a whole podcast in itself.

Yeah, we'll talk about it another day. I've been through that a little bit with my wife. But you did it probably times five to get two Brits in the air. Yeah, yeah, four with my kids. Yeah. Right on. Well, thanks for joining us once again, man. Always awesome to see you.

Thanks for sharing your lessons learned. Of course, thanks for your service to your country, which is our strongest ally, the United Kingdom. And I guess now you're an American. You have an American. So are you an American now? I'm still, I'll end up having a dual passport. I have an American daughter.

Okay. Yeah, I have an American daughter. I have a Scottish son and a Scottish daughter, Scottish wife, and I'm English. So it's like to start of the joke. Outstanding, man. Well, thanks for doing what you're doing. Taking care of people and helping people out around the world.

Appreciate it. Good seeing you, bro. Thank you, buddy. And with that, Dean Stott has left the building. He actually left me with a cool knife here from Trained Monkey. and it says discipline goes freedom on it and it's got Dean Stott's little frog man symbol of the frog foot

sweet so still been getting after it Dean Stott when he when he said hey I don't use weights yeah I thought you're going to ask him about that I was about to but I didn't want to ruin the flow but yeah it's very old school and when I say old school I'm only talking about like

a few 10 years ago when I got the seal teams there was all kinds of people that didn't use weights Yeah all kinds of people What are you weights for pull ups pushups dips yeah sprint run swim that's it that's what we're doing Yeah fully and you know I've said this before where there's not just one approach to working out and I think that's well and same thing with diet Same thing raised kids same thing with spirituality same and I think that's why they always get into these arguments not always but a lot of the time they can do your arguments people have closed minds Yeah they're like no my way is the best because if you say your way is the best that means my way is worse than yours like bro that's you know it's on from there you know so but i do agree with that i agree like yeah i guess

pains me to say you don't need weights to be in great shape oh you definitely don't i'll tell you right now i can't bike as far as he biked i can't probably won't be able to row up there's a lot of stuff i can do straight up that the row thing sounds kind of cool yeah rowing down the coast of california it sounds cool right now you know if it's a big sea state it's me Five weeks, but also getting a resupply. I wasn't kidding. Like, can you imagine getting a pizza? Like, you're out at sea, and they just show up with a freaking triple cheese pizza.

Yo. I'd be so pumped. That's one thing. When you're going through basic seal training, you are eating cheese pizzas or pizzas, whatever flavor you like. Like with wanton abandon of any concern whatsoever. It is just pure enjoyment. all aspects of health

just they're not it's not that you're not thinking about there don't exist they just don't exist you're just I never when I was times where I would eat an extra cheese pizza

every day the whole thing yeah yeah just as just part of the day yeah like oh you get done we go to chow we get done with whatever

we gotta get done order pizza yeah and this is when you could order a pizza this is before 9-11 like the gates to the base weren't really secure

and like the driver from Domino's would just show up and just drive on wait you said this is during buds during buds yeah the we had a pay phone yeah yeah you have to call dominoes and they deliver just a stack of pizzas for the boys like there's something real nostalgic about a pay phone yeah no why not much it sucks actually i's like Incredibly, you're right. Not very,

especially you got like 30 guys living in a barracks and there's three pay phones or two pay phones, something like that. I think we could maybe call from like the quarter deck phone too because it wasn't a long distance call. So you can, maybe we just called from the, I remember I think there was a pay phone in that little barracks though.

But nonetheless, pizza is coming. Yeah. So you're just burning in the pizza. That's the point. Just burning it off. Yeah. And just,

and you just want to get more food. Yeah. You're just, it's so. Good. When you're in that lifestyle, you're literally just, everything you do is just physical activity. Everything you do. Yeah. You hear me say it. It's a mile to run to chow in the morning. It's a mild to run back. It's a mild to run to lunch. It's a mild to run back. It's a mild run. It's a mild run. So before anything else and your day has even been calculated, you ran six miles. You jog six miles. It doesn't matter. Like, how you get there, you burn the same amount of calories more or less. Yeah. So you're, you're, you can walk. So then you put in there a four mile timed run or an eight mile conditioning run or an obstacle course. course a swim yeah like a two mile two nautical mile ocean swim like how many calories are you burning for that and then you go and do a three hour dive with a with a hour and a half turtle back do you even know what turtle backing is it's when you're just on the surface of the water with your

dive rig on and you're just finning you're just swimming on the surface of the water because you only can dive for so long so if you have to go a long distance to get to the place that you want to attack you don't have enough air to be underwater the whole time so you just turtle back in for an hour and a half It's so unrealistic And then you go on bag and dive for whatever Two hours two and a half three hours You come up just where's the pizza

So if I was rowing down I think I'd do kind of a nightly scenario Just get to me send the Coast Guard out With a couple triple cheese pizzas Bro pizza's good Yeah, even you talking about, I mean, I didn't eat anything today. So yeah, pizza sounds. I'm tail end of a 48 hour fast right now.

So pizza sounding really good to you. I'm having go. So you can, there's 10 calories in a go. And I had a hydrate, which has, how many calories in the hydrate? 15. So I've had 25 calories. Yeah. Yeah, pizza sounding good for sure.

I saw that documentary, you know, the documentaries they have on buds. Yeah. And that's part of what they talked about. They said there's no relief in this scenario. There's only one moment of relief in that's chow or that's when they go eat. And it shows the guys like eating like just all kinds of crazy stuff. Cake guys just like but they're like half sleeping. You know, like or I guess like right after you eat you like guys are like nodding off.

They stiffen up and stuff like that and showing that. But I remember that. I remember thinking like, wow, that's freaking hardcore right there because literally no relief. It doesn't matter. Like except for eating. That's it. You don't even have the relief of sleep. Here's the funny thing during Hell Week. As the students are in eating, the instructors are outside waiting and they're like spraying

the windows with the hose. And you know what I mean? So that even though there's quote, no relief, you're just thinking, oh, as soon as this is over, which by the way, Chowas, I don't know how long Chow is in Hell Week, but it's not long. It's not like you're in there cruising. Yeah. Not like you're in there like, hey, can you? It's not a lunch break.

It's probably 20 minutes or something like that. And then and the hoses are going outside and you know they brush your teeth when you get out with a hose So you're just like So your relief is just filled with anticipation To get some. All right. Well, hey Pizza is not optimal fuel. Maybe if you're going through seal training Sure Maybe it's a good addition to your fuel, but you probably need cleaner fuel for life. I recommend

Jock Fuel. Go to jocofuel. Check out the new hydrate energy drink that we got, which is freaking amazing. How amazing is it? It's very amazing. It's surprisingly amazing. It doesn't seem feasible.

Yeah. It doesn't seem feasible that you can make something taste this good and have no sugar in it and have no artificial sweeteners. Because we got it done. Or colors, by the way. Yeah. And it's also clear because in order to have a cool color,

you need to put artificial, coloring in there. Yep. And you can add something, you can add, there's some things that have like a natural coloration, but then you're adding it for no reason. What are you doing that for?

Just for the color? Just for the color? So, no, we got the clean stuff. Hydrate. We got protein. We got joint warfare, super krill. We got it all.

If you want to get this stuff, go to joccofuel.com. Also, you can get it at Wawa. You can get the protein shake at Wawa. Friken so tasty. Vitamin Shop, GNC, military commissaries. Afees, Hanifers, dash stores in Maryland,

Wake firm, ShopRite, H-E-B, H-E-B down in Teh-H-E-H-E-B. They have racks at H-E-B. They have racks of Jocof-Fuel at Meyer. They have racks of Jocco-Fuel at Wegmans.

Go get some. Harris-Teter, Lifetime Fitness, Sheels, and small gyms everywhere. We got, you know, you know Action Jackson? Yeah, of course. Jackson, he's out there.

Him and Jareders out there and Chaz just getting it into every, like, niche gym nutrition supplier. If you want to get into that game, JF Sales at joccofield.com, get the good stuff for your clients, for your athletes, for your gyms. Jiu-Jitsu, CrossFit, powerlifting, Globo Gym, whatever. Get them the goods. JoccoFuel.com. Check it out. It's true. Also, origin USA.

Go on a, okay, so we can start with Jiu-Jitsu. Sure. Gis, rash guards, Jiu-Jitsu gear, made in America, by the way. But that's not all. So, jeans, I think as of right now, the front-running deal is jeans.

That's just me, because I don't go hunting as much as you at all. So it's different. But the genes are the front-runner. So Delta 6-8, these are the more athletic ones. Well, they're just lighter weight. Yeah, and they're more stretchy. Okay.

I know this because I was just wearing the factory genes. And this is fresh in my mind because I have some people in from out of town and then the question came on. So, yes, more maybe like an... What was the question? Like what kind of genes are like, what's up with these jeans? What's so special about these genes? So, yeah, I broke it down. And then a bald eagle flew in from overseas, from overhead carrying an American flag.

Yeah. releasing slaves from sweatshops and cleaning the environment all in one swoop. Yes, that is exactly what I'm just doing. Bestowing upon the earth the most comfortable jeans and hoodies and t-shirts and hunt gear. Is that what happened? Yeah, that's exactly. You should make that into a commercial. Maybe it will.

But yes, the last, yes, jeans, all different colors, but the significant thing is A, the quality, B, made in America or that could be probably flipped around right made in America quality everything's made in America though even the thread even the cotton grown made in America whole deal even the brass buttons brass right yeah there you go origin USA dot com check it out also we have a jiu jit to camp up in Maine and we do it every year it sells out real quick but right now we still have some spaces open for our law enforcement first responder military jiu jitoo training August 27 through the 31st in Maine come and get it come learn

some good tactics, defensive tactics, to keep control over people when you need to. So check that out. All at OriginUSA.com. Also, we have a store. It's true. It's called Jocko Store. Yeah, you made that up, didn't you? Jack.

He was advised unto me. So at Jocko Store, not only can you get Discipline equals freedom, shirts and hoodies and hats and stuff like that, you can get, you know, good, you know, we're going to represent on the path. It's true. But not only that,

we have something called the shirt locker, which is a subscription scenario. If you didn't know, different design every month. And I say this is the front running thing because this is something that apparently people are very, very into. Check. Giving me ideas and all the stuff for different designs. So I will give you a hint on the design, Jocko. Back to the book. But it has a theme similar to like the sugar-coated ice.

You know, it had a theme. It's like that. What's the theme? Can't tell you. You got to go to jocco store.com. Click on the shirt locker. It'll save the June shirt. And it'll have a little hint,

little sneak peek. Anyway, so yeah, if you want to know about that kind of stuff, go there. So yes, jocco store.com. That's called the shirt locker, but you can buy whatever other representation apparel items on there as well. Check. Also, primalbeef.com,

Colorado craftbeef.com. Awesome. Stakes. Get steaks. Get meat sticks. Get some burger meat. Check it. out you want the good stuff you don't want stuff that's coming from a factory farm you want

stuff that's coming from the good the goodness from the earth Colorado craft beef.com obviously from Colorado primal beef from the Shenandoah Valley Virginia just amazing steak go give it a shot awesome companies awesome people there you go also subscribe to the podcast also jaco underground dot com we're about to record a couple of those also we have a YouTube channel Jock Fuel it's a YouTube channel origin USA has a YouTube channel so what's what's happening psychological warfare you can get that flipside canvas dot com Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on the wall books obviously we just talked about this book a little bit today we covered on the podcast 270 Relentless by Dean Stott check it out also I've written a bunch of books

about leadership about war about laundromats yeah I wrote a book about laundromats called final spin you may have heard of it you may have read it you may have read it you may have laughed, you may have cried, but you learned. Also, I've written a bunch of kids books, Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, and five. Hey, we got a movie coming about that with a guy named Chris Pratt. You know Chris Pratt? Yeah, well, you're crazy. He's your bro, isn't it? Hell yeah, yeah. Really cool to see that coming to fruition. The screenplay is awesome, directed by a guy named Mick G. Terminator Salvation, by the way. There you go, amongst a bunch of other flicks. Great, great movement forward on that.

But listen, you don't have to wait for one year to see that movie. You don't have to wait. You can read the books. You can get those books to your kids. It will change the way they go through life. So check those out. Also, Mikey and the Dragons, also about face by Hackworth. You guys know the jams.

Hey, Eschelonfront. We have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to Eschlonfront.com for details on that. We have the muster coming up in Dallas, 16 to, 18 October also the women's assembly September 11th through 13th in San Antonio Texas Ft X's I think the last Ft X is or the upcoming FtX is sold out so if you want to come to one of these events go to Eshlamfront.com check events also if you

need help inside your organization we have a leadership consultancy that's what we do and you can find more information there at Eshlamfront.com we also have an online training academy about leadership life so if you want to improve every aspect of your life go to extreme ownership dot com take one of the free courses that's on there just go take it it's free I don't care go take it it's free that's it's gonna help you and if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families want to help Gold Star families check out Mark Lee's mom mama Lee's charity

organization America's mighty warriors dot org and also don't forget that General McFarland came on and he talked about a moment That is being refurbished by the 1-1 AD to commemorate and memorialize the men and women who were lost in combat in the Battle of Ramadi So if you want to help Restore and and replant that memorial you can also do it through America's mighty warriors.org As well don't forget about heroes and horses.org Micah Fink and then we got Jimmy Mays organization beyond the Brotherhood.org. It's really a it's a methodology of finding people from the SEAL teams and other special operations screening them, making sure that they are up to the task and then finding the right job for them in the civilian sector that's going to utilize the skill sets that they learned in the military

teach them some new skills and get them ready to get it done out there in the civilian sector. So that's beyond the brotherhood. org. Once again, if you want to connect with Dean Stott on the interwebs, check Deanstott.com. He's on Facebook and Instagram at Dean Stott. And he's on Twitter X at Dean Stott, SBS. He's also got his YouTube channel and his podcast, which is behind the scene, S-E-E-N. And that's with his wife, Alana, who's got a ton to offer as well. So check that out.

And if you want to get in touch with Echo and I, you can find a, You can find all my stuff at jaco.com. Also, I'm on social media. At Jocko, Willink. Echo is at Echo Charles. Just be careful because there's an algorithm on there. And it'll grab you by your pinky and then just pull in the rest of your whole soul. So watch out for it.

Thanks once again, Dean Stott for coming and joining us. And thanks most of all, of course, for your service. And thanks to the military men and women from the armed forces in America here, but also all of our allies, including Great Britain and the rest. We've stood shoulder to shoulder around the world with you all. And we thank all of you worldwide for your service and sacrifice. And to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, and EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all other first responders.

Thank you for your service, keeping us safe here on the home front. and to everyone else out there, just remember that there's choices we make every day. Choices we make every day to get better or to get worse. To build or to decay. To move forward or to sit and rot. Make the right choice.

Make the right choice. And you do this by getting up every day and getting after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. Until next time, Echo and Jocko. Out.