Jocko Podcast - 93: American Made With American Hands. The Value of Grit and Perseverance. Pete Roberts and Origin USA.

Episode Date: September 18, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening.  0:06:42 - Who is Peter Roberts? 0:26:45 - Lessons and Fortitude in Career in "New Media" 1:10:23 - Building the Origin Brand. 2:16:31 - More thoughts on the struggle. 2:18:53 - Support JockoStore stuff, Origin Brand Apparel, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. 3:05:15 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 93 with Echo Charles and me Jock O'Neillink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I was lucky and blessed to have had the honor to serve in the United States military during a time of war. I fought alongside U.S. Army soldiers, sailors, and Marines on the United States military during the time of war. violent battlefields. And I saw with my own eyes, my generation of warriors uphold the proud tradition

of the American fighting man. America's military has a storied history of bravery, ingenuity, and grit. But its most important tradition is the tradition of victory. America's military wins wars. It is as simple as that. If our nation deems it morally right and existentially necessary,

then our military is unstoppable, of course, and rightfully so. The credit for victory is often given to the men on the front lines, to those that are taking the fight to our nation's enemies in close combat. That credit is well deserved, but it is not the only credit that needs to be bestowed. Because it is a simple fact that many of the most critical victories in America's history were won not only on distant bloody battlefields, but were also won right here at home in factories, fields, and farms. You see, our ability to produce, to design, grow, build, and manufacture has been just important to our nation's victories as our ability to fight. And throughout history, when Americans marched to war, we marched wearing boots made by American hands. and we wore uniforms that were cut and sewn in factories like this one.

Our body armor, helmets, and weapons have been the products of American work ethic, skill, and determination. The best planes, ships, and vehicles in the world that carry us to war and then support us on the battlefield, they only exist because Americans built them. Without the American worker, there can be no American soldier. So let us never forget that the freedom we cherish so dearly is a gift not only from our American service men and women, but it is also a gift from the American worker. the American worker who toils in fields in factories in shipyards and on job sites the American worker who gets up day after day after day not only to build and create products but also to build

our economy the strongest economy in the world which gives us unmatched influence and gives our great nation the ability to make the world a better place. I could not be prouder to stand here today and be a part of this opening. I could not be prouder to be a part of this company, origin, which like America itself will succeed because of the power of the American worker. It will succeed because of the power of American grit and origin USA will succeed because of the unmatched power of the American dream. And I would like to thank all of you, especially America's workforce for making this dream possible. That is a speech that I gave today in a town called Farmington. Maine and I was at the opening of the new Origin USA factory. Now as I've been saying, we are now in

league with Origin USA and tonight I have with me our new partner and our new friend Pete Roberts, who as you will see has shown some pretty incredible fortitude. in the business world and who I believe is just getting warmed up. So, Mr. Pete Roberts, founder of Origin USA, black belt in jujitsu, by the way, and also black belt in making things happen. Welcome to the show, man. Honor to be here. Everything you just said, man, just captures everything I feel in my heart and mind, for sure. And hearing that speech live was phenomenal.

You know, it was awesome walking around the factory and meeting people, meeting the workers here. I mean, just we came in and Jill, she was, it's a week of vacation, what's she doing? She's in here working. She's working. And, you know, just, and I wasn't even really, didn't really know what I was going. going to say but after coming up here meeting her seeing the rest of the people grinding to make this happen um yeah i realized that i realized exactly what i was going to say i was going to talk about the fact that literally men on the battlefield you're you're you're propelled there by

american workers and that's what this that's what this represents and uh you know we'll get into how all this kind of came together in this kind of perfect storm yeah yeah We'll get there, but we'll get there in a little while. Okay. Because first we've got to know a little about, a bit about you, and you're crazy ass, which I say with all, you know, in the most complimentary possible way. Yeah, man. So tell us about just growing up, like, get me from, like, birth to high school.

What was that all about? Absolutely. So it all started in Sparta. I'm for real It's real Spartan blood For real Yeah I know my What's your

What's your Because Roberts isn't No Angelakis I'm Greek Actually mom's in Anne She's Greek So she's clearly Greek Because I met her

She's Greek And she made that Baclavah Today Yeah No I thought she might Pull out a Spartan sword At some point It might attack me

Yeah Which I was cool with Instead Instead she's pulled out A big thing of Baclavah And I ate it It was like Sugarcoated

Lives don't care. Did you feel guilty of it? No. I wanted more. Yeah. I know you came over here like, where's all the bacclaw? I'm like, it's gone. Then I looked over.

There's six pieces left. I had four of them. That's awesome. No, I'm a half breed. Just half Spartan. So no, uh, yeah, man, I mean, like the rest of America, you know, my, my grandparents emigrated from Sparta, Greece, in the early 1900s, Great Graham, lived to 105.

Legit. Credit. Yes. She wasn't even on jaco white teeth. She had some other things going on. Powering through it. No, she didn't need to be. She had the Mediterranean diet.

Nice. Even my son got to meet her. She lived for a long time. That's awesome. Yeah, so from a young age, I got to see the American dream from my mom's side of the family, you know. When we were kids, I was born down in Massachusetts, Gloucester, and moved up here when I was a young kid. My mom wanted to get myself and my three siblings out of Massachusetts and into the woods just because she saw some shifts happening she didn't like.

So she brought us up here and said, make a go of it, basically. And what business or whatever, what to date? What's your, oh, I saw, I got to see my, my family built some pretty, pretty cool businesses down of Massachusetts. So being an entrepreneur was something I always admired, but didn't realize I wanted to do that until a little later in life. But my, my, my family down there, my grandfather had a sub shop, you know, super sub. For those of you, I don't know, that's one of those things where they call it different things across America.

Yeah. A sub in New England is the same thing as a subway sandwich. Right, right. Also in New England, you call it a grinder. Do you call it a grinder? A grinder would be, I think technically, oh, no, that's not a hot sandwich. That's hoagie. A hoagie.

A poor boy? A poor boy. Yeah, that's another one. A poor boy. Yeah. It's another word for it. So sub. Yeah.

So granddad owned a sub shop. A few. A few subshops. Was very successful with the sandwich making. Nice. I got to see that. My cousins built a big multi, multi-million dollar company. And I had to watch this from away because I moved up to here to Maine when I was eight years old.

So I wasn't cultured in that at all, in the business world. I didn't have anybody to teach me about business. And I just got to see it and not be directly part of it, which, you know, I always wanted to be, you know. But I always looked up to them and whatnot. And both from business perspective and athletics, you know, they were very good athletics, my family, and my uncles and cousins and stuff.

So I looked from afar up here in Maine in the woods in an old farmhouse down a dirt road with no neighbors, cows in a field. Yeah, that's where I grew up. And then high school, you said I know you're athlete, How tall are you? 6.3 and shrinking. 6.3 and shrinking.

Yeah, man. And what's your max? What are you walking around at right now? Right now I can tell you exactly. 253.0. Yes. But you played, what did you play? I, in high school, three-sport athlete in college, football,

Division I for a couple of years. Not the best experience of my life, learning experience, but not the best. Why wasn't it the best experience in your life? You know, I was real good at it, football. I was not passionate about it. Oh. But I still worked my ass off.

Because that's the thing, you were kind of, even though you were this big jock. I was. You were also an artistic guy, right? Artsy-farty. I was an artsy-farty kid. I got along with everybody, the jocks athletes, all the artsy kids. You know, I liked everybody. I could appreciate everybody's talents.

Were you like drawing, painting, what are you doing? Everything. Drawing, painting, welding, sculpting, everything. Just doing everything. Yeah. And tackling people. Yeah. Getting tackled.

Played tight end. Were you more passionate about art than you were about football? For sure. For sure. And so you were playing football? Like, was it just one of those things where you're like, hey, I'm good at it and I'm getting a scholarship? So I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing?

Yeah. So back in 1990. Back in the day, as I say. Oh, back in the day. Yeah, no, it was back in the day. Some will remember hockey fans, Maine's hockey team was phenomenal. They had the Korea kids on there. And they were, that that team took gifts.

And what happens when you get gifts and people find out sanctions? So I went into college and they had like 10 scholarships. So I didn't actually have a scholarship until my second year. college kind of had to prove myself and I worked my ass off and then I fell into the politics of college football and I saw the ugly side of the politics of college football and uh what and what are you talking about because I'm the only guy sitting at the table that it didn't apparently play college football as busy in the teams yeah yeah after it what do the what does that consist of like you're trying to get to be in this certain position starting or is that what we're talking about

Let's say like, okay, so I was supposed to start. I redshirted my freshman. I was supposed to start. Tight end got into a bar brawl, right? And during the summer, couldn't play the first few games. And it was me and one of my friends. And we were both freshmen. And he was a big kid, local kid.

He had to play in the NFL. And we were kind of like fighting for the first spot on the depth chart. And a depth chart, for those you who don't know, is like kind of where you stand. Right. You know, and you see your name on there, and you see everyone else's name, and you want to be the top guy, right? Did they break that out for every position? Oh, yeah.

Okay. Oh, yeah. Every position. Check. Yeah. So a little pressure to perform. Man, I stayed after my freshman. I put on 27 pounds of like hard-earned muscle.

No illegal substances. Squats? McDonald's. Squads. Squads. Squads. Maybe like, Pete, go eat some food at McDonald's. So what did you go from what weight to what weight?

Man, I think I came into college at like two, it was like $2.25 and you went up to? No, less. Oh, really? 10 maybe. Oh, dang. At high school. And then, yeah, and then just earned it in the gym. I remember my tight end coach coming up to me and saying, hey, you know, Steve was his name.

He's out in, uh, he's out. He's like, you're going to be starting this first game. And I'm like, shit. I mean, I stayed like worked my ass off, you know, stayed during breaks and everything. And I was a good athlete. Yeah. And what's cool is that you're actually going as hard as you can.

Yeah. That's something you weren't even that passionate about. No, but I committed to it. You just wanted to win. Yes. Yeah. No. You look at yourself on that depth chart,

even if you don't necessarily like what you're doing, you make the commitment and you drive. And I didn't want to be number of, too you know so it's super competitive college sports so anyways like my tight-end coach like you're starting the first game i'm like yes call all my family call all my friends tell them what's up make sure everybody has tickets yada yada yada yada like a day before the game the coach comes to me and says pete i got to talk to you and i said okay he's like i've just gotten a huge argument with a head coach and you will not be starting in the football game i said okay why he goes

basically told me politics my friend still a friend of mine local kid he came in on a full ride local kid big kid had probably a better frame to build on and basically what the even though maybe i You know, it's college. We have different gifts. The head coach shut it down and said, nope, he's not starting. My coach is like, he should start. He's performing better.

You know, he's strong in the weight room. Hand clean and 300 pounds. The kid's ready to go. He should be starting. They got a huge fight. Almost got fired. The coach at my tenant coach, I almost got fired. He said, you'll be playing a lot in the game, though.

But he'll be starting. Guess how much playing time I saw? None. Zero. So that was the first game of the season, you said? Yeah. And so then what happens? You grind out the rest of the season?

Yeah, man. How's your attitude? I worked my ass off. You kept grinding. To earn. Did you ever start? Here's the shitty thing. It already sounded pretty shitty.

It's pretty shitty, dude. Here's the shitty thing. Man, I couldn't. I'm telling you, I had full. Football PTSD after this. I didn't watch football for 10 years. They put it on television, I'd walk out of the room. I'd just hang out, do something else.

They'd be watching the games. My son loves football. My family loves football. Couldn't do it. I had like a, just aversion to the sport to make a long story short. Good because it's been 45 minutes. We haven't even made it past. Shut up.

No, hasn't been? No, my, my scholarship, the money like, Like some of the money hits your account, right? And like shit didn't kick in for like my food and everything and my coach, the head coach, who was a narcissistic guy. Love coming to the weight room and just like waving his hair and, you know, one of those guys. You know one of those guys. Yeah, college, yeah, echo. He's like, I'll take care of it.

Pete. It's fine. Everything's happening. Okay. A week later. Coach still, this isn't, you know, I'm on it. I'm on it. I'm talking with the AD.

everything's good week later going coach it's still like man I'm stressing you know like I'm gonna have to get a job like what's up with this he goes I need to talk to you in my office said okay I sit down in his office your scholarship money is not going to kick in really I overgave title nine had kicked in uh and he over gave now is he being truthful with him me or did he find a new recruit that was better? Did he push me out? Who knows? I don't know why, because the kid behind me ended up starting fullback the next year, right? So maybe I got pushed out. Maybe he overgave. Fact of the matter is that bastard lied to me and didn't fall through with his word. And that will never happen again. I will never surround myself with those types of people

and that lesson I carry to this day. I think about it a lot. It's one of those moments in your life that kind of changes your life. I said, you know, I'll tell you something. I worked my balls off for you in this program. I'm ready. And this is what I get.

That excuse? Out. Out of the office. I grabbed my cleats, handed it up my buddy, Chad, Rogers, and walked out the door and didn't look back. And that was that? Yep. So that was your sophomore year?

Yeah, that would have been my redshirted. It was right after my, yeah, sophomore year, yeah. So what are you studying at this time? Studying a new media, which was really new because he, remember the internet hit in like 97, 98, it became hot, right? Really? There's a date on that? It's pretty ambiguously.

Like you can call it 97? That's when it became hot, yeah, for sure. Like, I think so. Okay. for sure. I'll take you guys word for it. That's what it was like the internet. Yeah, yeah.

Everybody needs, everybody had to happen. AOL.com. Yeah. Netscape navigator. But you could really surf the web. Okay. Find websites and stuff. Yeah, and website development and this flash it came out,

macromedia, all the stuff. So anyways, I was into that. I discovered the computer thing and fell in love with design on the computer. and although I was a sculpture major I used to weld up crazy looking shit I actually zippered the cold post dude I did

for like my final project you want to know what I did I built this big friggin zipper on this like canvas and I erected it and I zippered up the goalpost I'm talking the like the like a giant real zipper real zipper you know like the

thing you hold Dude, it was this big. I zip my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my teacher. They allowed you to do that? They didn't have a choice. I just went out and did it. Savage style. Yeah. And what's that like street art? I don't even know. Gorilla art. Yeah. It was weird. I think I got some of that frustration out. Yeah, for

sure. Ring it up. Yeah. I have never made anybody that. Do something my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, did you get graded on it? Yeah, dude. So how did you not tell anybody? Because what happened was is I erected it in the practice field and my teacher she walked over with me to look at it and she looked at me I bet she said a plus wait like after you did it listen like you did in there's like hey come look at this oh like what you think she goes she looked at me she goes she goes what she didn't think it was possible bro when you said like I zippered my goal plus I'm sitting

here thinking what is this some slang term that I don't know about does that mean hanging hanging toilet paper off of it like what is What does this mean? It means zippering. That's what it means. I wish I had a photo of it. I wish you did. We didn't have digital cameras back then.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that teacher was cool. She was, I remember her name, but she was cool. And you left it up for the practice guys when they showed up? I had to pull it down. She actually pulled me aside one time and she's like, you drive this class, how what you do and how you act, everyone is going to follow, basically. She was pretty cool, but I was a little vengeance time. I'm giving you.

Props. Zipper that shit. Dipper it. Zipper it. You ain't nothing's happening here. How tall as a goal post? Man, that thing was tall. 35 feet, 30 feet?

Probably more than like the full goal pole. Yeah. That depends. The practice field. Somebody helped you. It varies. Fully zippered. I am not even kidding.

I put that, I put in the, and I built it out of like wood laminated band saw like all the lugs and I had to fit together perfectly and that whole zipper part had the zip. It was functional? Yeah. A giant zipper. That's good.

I told my teacher I was new, she's like, impossible to make it function. Okay, let's see. Yeah. Like I said, fortitude. I mentioned that earlier. And at this time, are you, what's like going on personally, personal life? Wasn't you with your high school sweetheart at this time? I was, yeah, yeah.

So my wife, Amanda, my bride, we got together when we were 16. 15, 16, through a difficult situation. We became friends, and we've been together ever since. They were drawn together by a difficult situation. And you stayed together through college. Absolutely. And she wasn't looking at you like, like, I need to get away from this guy. Yeah, the zipper guy.

You know, she's very understanding. Apparently. Yeah. Yeah, you know the corny line, like, you complete me? Like she I tell people Like she If my glass is a little full

She just dumps them out And if it's running a little dry She puts it back in So And she always has You know what I mean So she's brutally honest And

You know Just my soulmate No that's awesome That you guys were You know I knew that But it's kind of cool That you guys

Stay together All that time Now Back to your major And now you're You're not playing football And now you're sitting there in college. You're studying new media, which no one knows anything about.

I didn't even know anything about it. And we actually hired the professors, my class. Really? We had a committee of students, and we hired the freaking professors. And so then you're learning how to do what? Build websites, stuff like this? You're learning things like, it's when all like the first software hit, you had like this Maya.

And you could do 3D animation. They built like, I don't know, Toy Story and Maya or something. You had like flash macromedia. Remember the flash websites, all the animation? Yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. So I learned about that. So how did you make the jump from that to going into business in that arena?

I was good at it and I was passionate about it. And what happened is my sophomore year after I got done playing football, I went right to a marketing agency, sold myself on the spot and got hired on the spot. And I became their lead with. web developer. And you're like 19? I was 19 with blonde hair. Nice. Yep. They were like, who is this kid? For the record, when I was 19, I had blonde hair too. No kidding. Yeah, coincidentally. A lot of similarities. That's cool. Well, a lot of Hawaiians have blonde hair. So 19 with blonde hair. Yeah, man, I walked in and I just sold myself. Okay, so then how did that morph into your own business.

Yeah, so I work at that. Because you're in a cush job. I take it if you're the lead at 19 years old. Cush job at 200 bucks a week, buddy. Raking, which I needed to. It was pretty legit for you though, right? Yeah, because it was either that or the YMCA. Yeah. You know, and I did work at the Y.

But, uh, yeah. I mean, it was, I cut my teeth at this ad agency where I learned from this really good graphic designer Brad who started his career doing people. paste up. So paste up is like when you're designing an ad, you actually have to take an exact. So all the little tools you use when you're in like Photoshop and other programs, those are real tools, real life tools. So he'd take like the knife and he cut around the picture and then he put that and then like the typography. So I cut my teeth under a real designer. Not many people get that anymore. So I learned from a master of design and how long did you stay at that agency for? I think I think I

I was there till I was 19, 20, 21, three years, I think. And then I moved back and I started my own company here. And that was just inspirato. What made you say, you know what? Because you must have seen a pathway at the agency to take over or not even take over, but just to move up the chain of command and get paid more than 200 bucks a week and all that. I did. What in your brain clicked were you like, you know what?

I'm not working for the man. Yeah, absolutely. I'll tell you that. I got to go back to give you that, though. Raking blueberries and throwing hay. Manual labor. Throw hay for a day and get a $10 bill. You're going to work very hard not to do that.

Raking blueberries in Maine, which is a staple of us, Maine is. That's tough work. You're bent over in the sun in the blueberry fields. And guess what you do for your first week? You earn your rake. So what does that mean? There's a different job that's worse like picking or something? And you've got to buy the rate.

Oh, you're in debt. You're in debt. You start to give you the rake and you have to work it off. How much you think that rate cost them? I'm doing the math. I'm like with every rate. It's like this is tough, but I like it. So when I walked into my interview at this marketing agency, this kind of a pompous, you know, kid, I said, he said, what do you want to do long?

term mark I said starting up my own business I'm gonna own my own business and he goes you don't want to do that you do not want to own your own business you know you know you don't know what it takes to survive in a world of business and I said okay proceed then I learned and sucked the knowledge I could all the knowledge I could I just sucked it and sucked it and sucked it and sucked it and then I moved home and started. And what city was at it? I started, well, I started the business out of my college apartment.

It was about as big as his table. I was the man though. I had a little, a Mac, the black one, Wall Street. Remember that one? There was a Mac called Wall Street? It had like a, it was black and it had like rubber on the sides. You know what I mean? So you were the man?

Yeah. That you had that. And I think that thing caused me some issues because it was very, tough to have kids. I sat that thing on my lap for hours on hand. And I'm telling you something with radiation, man, I had to practice a lot to have kids. Practice was good, but it got a little tough when it's like, we can't have kids. So, but yeah, man, I started the business out of my college apartment, my first Insight New Media Marketing Agency, a new media company. And just started hammering. And I was fearless going after accounts and clients, you know, and, you know, and

Two years later, I find myself in Park City, Utah, sitting in the front of the president of Rosic Nahl Quicksover, selling them an idea like Bill Gates that didn't exist yet, and telling them what I could do, and then they gave me the money to do it, and then we did it. And the rest is history. So everything, until the recession.

So everything was rocking. And so did you, so you were in your college apartment, but then where'd you end up? I ended up here in my hometown. And you had space? You got an office in all nine yards? Yeah, well, I started in a barn. And it was me and another guy, my first hire.

And then we moved into kind of like a double-wide trailer house. You know, we call it a double-wide. Did it have a skirt? Yeah, oh, yeah. Okay. You're good, then. Fing it right, dude. Vinyl skirt.

Are you kidding me? Who doesn't have a vinyl skirt? Got to keep it real. So we went there, and then we moved into a basement in town. This is like the perfect progression. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then we hired a few more.

And then we moved into a beautiful, we had built out a studio where, man, it was on, we actually designed it and built it out. Because you were making legit money now. We were. How many employees are we talking about? I think maybe seven or something. Okay. Something like that.

Yeah, if that, yeah, yeah, probably 22. 22, 22, 20, 22 years old. Yeah. Six employees. Yeah. Custom design. office space. Man, we did everything.

You want to hear something? I didn't know if I should say this. Okay. You ready for this? You may have to edit this out. All right. I handled two governors' campaigns in Maine, 22 years old.

They wanted like the best design, the best marketing, so they came to these youngans. And we had this one guy, uh, less Otten. Should maybe you not say the name? It was in national news. It's hard not to. You can cut it out. Understood.

Really nice guy. If it's in national news, then no. It's national news. Okay. Really nice guy. Right after Obama's first term. So Les came and he wanted us to handle his campaign. And so he wanted a logo that was circular like Obama's logo.

And so we did a, I designed myself, a circular logo, which green and blue, very similar feel, not even close to the same, but it was round. And who had done a round logo at that time? Next thing I know This thing ends up on CNN All the national news stations And they have like the two logos They have Obama's logo

And Les's logo I just got a influx of emails And phone calls people like rip it Because remember how that first Term for Obama Remember how hot that was? Yeah Yeah

Why were people negative Were they were negative on you? Because they were like We ripped it off And I was like Really? Really? So it was around

Don't make a round logo. Yeah. Especially after the first Obama pick. Don't use circles. Don't use circles. Exactly. That's what they're saying. Don't use circles.

So anyways, it was, it was an interesting time. There was a little bit of stress. Did he catch heat for it? Obviously, I guess. Yeah. Because no one really cared that you. No, no one even knew. They're like some, he wasn't like, oh, my ad agency made it up.

And I thought it was great. No. Well, he, you know, what they, you know, kind of a little bit. He did that. but he had an advisor that said this is the right direction and whatnot. So it was interesting times. So what was the heat? Dude, the heat was like national media like ripping you down,

people digging down who designed it. Like the company that designed it and just like tearing you up. They found your yearbook picture or whatever. It was a bad. It was a strange. It was like 15 days of like holy shit. Like we're going to survive this as a company. You know, and we did.

Yeah. Yeah. And so you, you survive that. Yeah. And I guess your lesson is like from that, that you can survive things. You're going to, like, it's interesting. I just caught that you said 15 days. Yeah.

Because guess what? 15 days, no one cared anymore. Is that pretty much? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I see that a lot in the news. You know, people, something will come up.

People freak out about something. And I'm like, yeah, wait a week. Yeah, wait a week. Four days. No one cares anymore. There's like some other meteor that hit the satellite thing or whatever. Yeah. So, you know, it was, it was interesting. You know, we were young, you know, in naive, you know, I mean, I think all entrepreneurs start out naive, honestly. And from a leadership perspective, you're in a leadership position. Yeah. Right? For the first time. Yeah. And you have a team of six people and you're the man. Yep. And I'm trusting.

Oh. You see, you say that with a little hesitation. Yeah, I trust that people will do the right thing. Are the people that are working for you, your age, a little younger, just all the same age? Year or two difference. Okay. All young. So now you said recession. What happens there?

Well, we were kind of like booming as a company, building some incredible, we would do interactive touchscreen kiosks and all this really, really cool shit with that nobody was doing it. Recession hit. we lost 65% of our business overnight. I mean, what's the first thing you cut in a recession? Advertising. You're not supposed to, but you do. It's the wrong move, but it's the move that everyone makes.

Yeah, man. I'd probably make the same move. Where can we cut costs? Ad spend. Right? Stop that. Anyways, the recession hit, and we had built this company from, like, the ground up,

just funneled the money back into the company, built, built, built by equipment. build this deal do all this stuff i'm like oh shit first time i thought about like these guys bought houses here have families or starting families moved away how long had the run been at this point this had been this is a five-year run that's a good question when was the recession eight or nine this is six seven-year run okay so yeah these guys had established their lives they established their families up here. Yes.

You were the form of income. You're how they're paying their mortgage. Absolutely. And I felt that, you know. I don't know if that's weakness, but I'm sensitive to that, man. If I promise somebody something like this company is your future, I mean this company is your future. I will stop taking a paycheck, and that's not the right thing to do.

You got to always pay yourself, right? I will stop taking a paycheck to make sure you get your, And that's what I did. And what I also did is I took out a line of credit. It was the first money I had taken out from the bank ever. And I used that money to keep things going to try to get through the recession. And I didn't want to lay anybody off. What I had them do was I had them start designing in-house projects.

Because by the way, the next thing that you do after you cut advertising, the biggest cost to just about any business there is is your people. People. So that's the next thing that gets cut, but you're saying you're not going to do that. And I'm young. Yeah. And learning about business as I go, you know.

So, no, I'm not going to do it. No, they, some of them bought houses and stuff, you know. Like, I'm not taking away their livelihood, you know. I'll find a way to just get through. Right. You know? And I believe I had the fortitude to get through, you know. But, and there's the but.

They didn't. And here's why, because. I had them start working on these in-house projects. And I was training jiu-jitsu at the time. And so I was going to develop a platform so that an academy could build a website based off of a templated system for their jiu-jitsu school. And it was going to be badass.

And we had done this for like Raziknaldi and Dina Starr. We were like one of the first companies to build online tools to build things. Make sense? Early 2000. So when you go on and you look at some programs, product and you want to, there's a little customization that can be done to it. You guys to design things to move the mouse around and change the color. There's a bunch of those now, by the way.

There's a bunch of them. There was none of them. Okay. It was zero. And so we started building this thing. And you're building this thing, but you're not being paid for it yet because eventually you're going to sell it. So you're just, that's what you mean by in-house project. Exactly. Now, did jujitsu take a little bit more of my time than it should have? Yep. These things happen. It's happening, man. Yeah. Did I think about it more than anything else in the world? I did.

And just real quick, how'd you get into jiu-jitsu? Well, after football, I stopped playing football, and I was like, man, I need to fight. Like, I need to, you know, I always had this desire to fight. Maybe all men have that. I don't know, but I felt like extra, like extra. Like, I need to fight. So I'm like, taekwondo. So I started fighting in taekwondo and achieved that in about two years.

like okay now what and then I found Jiu Jitsu and I got choked out by a 150 pound kid and I was 285 pounds and I was like that's a convinceer I'm in couldn't figure it out I came at him with every bit of athleticism the kid choked me out almost cold yeah I had what just happened and I bought into it so anyhow anyways I was passionate about Jiu Jitsu and I I had this perfect plan to build this system. And they started getting salty about it. Now, is that because they felt like there wasn't income? It's because they weren't getting paid by the project,

getting commission or something like that? What were they getting salty about? They all got salaries. So what were they getting salty about? The fact that they were working on my pet projects. Those words, my pet projects. They were also salty. I had two very young kids and my wife in the office,

that the kids were in the office, and they were, you know, playing with their stuff and doing what kids do. They're being kids. My company, my office, my kids, okay, they found that a problem.

So out of the... And what was your relationship? Because this, this, I'm just assuming right now that you got a bunch of people that are working for you that are around the same age as you. Yep.

And so I'm guessing that you were kind of bro- We were super bros. Super bros. Super bros. Super bros. Immature kids. Right. Talented immature kids.

I mean, you're talking about like, hey, let's shut it down and go snowboarding. We've got two inches of pow-pow on sugar loaf, you know, and we need to hit that. And that's what we do. We just shut it down, grab the snowboard. You know, Rosignaud would send us like $10,000 in product. We just go up. We just rip on the mountain.

Hey man, just get the work done. Oh, you need, yeah, man, no worries. Just make sure the work's done. Yeah. Very loose. Super bros. Super bros. Poe, pow.

Yes. Hitting the pow pow. That's what we call it. The powder. So, yeah, man, the relationship was not a boss worker, employee relationship. It was a creative. I always wanted to, we had a foos ball table. Give me a break.

I mean, this is a creative agency. Yep, yep, yep. But when shit hits the fan, the fingers go to one person, this guy, right? So, all right, I'm ready to sustain this thing and make it happen. They weren't. So one day, I'm in my wife's office, and the whole crew gets up and hands me a paper. It's a thick paper. They're like, we'll see you on Monday to talk about this.

because they thought they weren't expendable. Okay. So they're giving you an ultimatum? Ultimatum. I was like, I turned white for a second. I was like, okay. And they walked out. Were you, did you anticipate this at all?

No. No idea. I will never be caught off guard like that again. Yeah, that one's gonna sting. That one's gonna leave a mark. This is a mutiny, you know? It's a straight up mutiny. Straight up mutiny.

Yep. Okay, my wife is an emotional being. We sat down and we read this paper and it was a list of demands. A list of demands about profit sharing how the company was making all this money and it wasn't being filtered down to the employees. And about my kids and how they cannot come into the office anymore because they make noise. A whole list of demands. They can't concentrate when they're playing first.

Booze ball. Yeah. And, yeah, amongst other things. Young, stupid kids. Yeah. And I was one of them. Yeah. Because I was naive.

So we started looking to this thing and I was just like, wow, it's like getting punched in the face. And my wife went zing, and she spun up. And she's French-Canadian and she's, you know, anyway, she spun up. I said okay. Did she speak French when she's angry? No. Okay. I wish that would be kind of hotter.

That'd be a bonus program. I'd be like, babe, can you speak French? Just make her mad so she could yell at you in French. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we did is we just, we sat there and looked at each other and we're like, what? What? And I said, did they have any idea we just took out a line of credit to support this place to get through the recession? Do they have any idea we don't have any work?

any work. So what do we do? Recon. We opened up their computers, logged in, and started looking for all the interaction between the staff. And wow.

What they thought of me. I was sad. I was like, wow, this is sad. Made me feel like shit. What did they think? I mean, they thought I was like some type of miser, like, like squirling away cash and resources.

Because I was, I always kept a straight face, a happy personality and they had no idea how much in the hole we were. Yeah. And I can imagine that you're trying to actually protect them from the stress of business. Yes. And in doing that,

you didn't communicate to them what was actually happening, which meant that they created what was happening in their own minds, which was obviously wrong. That shit. Them creating what they think, I think reality is in their minds when they don't know all the facts. There's so many times in business, when I talk to businesses and businesses are going through transitions or there's something happening and, you know, they'll be asking like, well, do you think we should tell, you know, the employees what's happening? Right.

And I'm like, well, you have two choices. You can tell them what's happening or they're going to make up a story. They're going to make up a story and it's not going to be good. They're going to think worst case scenario. And so the open communications is how you prevent this kind of thing. And obviously you're 22 years old. That's pretty awesome that you were in the position you were. And obviously you can look back now and it's pretty simple to see what the solutions were.

One of them you were, you were broying out with these guys too much. And this is a fine line, you know, because, you know, in a SEAL platoon, I had bros, lifetime brothers that were, you know, three or four ranks below me. But they were professional. And they understood the line between and they understood. and they respected the position. And then there's other guys that were, you know, that same rank, lower rank that I couldn't give that kind of closeness to.

And so that's one of those things that, you know, we talk about a lot with companies is it's different for the different people in your company. So I'm not saying you can't bro out with people. And also, that doesn't mean you don't have awesome relationships with your people because that's what you want. You want to have awesome relationships with the people that are working for you because they're going to do that much more for you and you can do that much more for you. for them and it becomes a functional winning team

because everyone cares about each other. Exactly. There's a dichotomy there. You know, are we being. There's a line. Are we super bros? What is that line? What is that line?

And that line is the thing that you need to figure out and what makes it really hard with the relationship piece is that it's different for different people. And I had some guys that was an E5 in a seal platoon and I was the lieutenant and they were my total bros. And there's another guy that's an E5 and I gotta keep a little bit of distance just so they make sure that they, they stay professional.

Right. And so this is challenging stuff and great lessons learned for anyone running a business, especially young people. But it's not just young people because I see seasoned CEOs asking these same questions.

You don't learn this shit in college. I'm sorry. You know, like being an entrepreneur, businessman or woman, whatever, it's learned. You know,

you may have a gift of something or accounting, maybe a good salesperson or good of marketing or something, nobody's born with a gift of being an entrepreneur. You know, it's built, it's crafted over time and you have to fail and fall flat on your face and get punched in the face to figure it out. But what's good is,

unfortunately there's those lessons that your parents tried to teach you but you didn't listen to and they go, man, I was so stupid. If you're even aware of them and that's what's good about, like someone that's hearing what you're saying right now, they might not recognize it

before. And this is a chapter in extreme ownership, right? Dikotomy of leadership. And you got to be, you can't be so close to your people that one's more important. We go through this. Right. But the awareness of it is it gives people a percentage chance of maybe instead of falling flat on their face, maybe they just stumble and they're able to recover. Right. So this is, you know, classic. I fell flat. Yes. Dude, it hurt too. Okay. So what happens? So I was, I was sad, man, at first. then I got angry and then I got even no no I basically what it was is we are not expendable heed these words and these demands and we'll talk to you Monday morning okay so what happens

we do a little recon get into the computers see the communication between all of them what they thought about me what they thought about my wife what they thought was going on with a company. Half an hour later, I'm in my vehicle, divide and conquer. You're not going to tell me, because in that paper, it said, do not come and see us individually. Do not seek us out. Do not try to separate one of us and have a conversation. And that's exactly what I did.

By the way, from the employee standpoint, this is a horrible move. They are making as bad of a mistake as you were making. as a leader because what they should have any one of them could have done is said Pete bro I got to you man let me tell you what's going on yeah this is what we're thinking we don't know what's going on with the company you got us working on these random projects that are like your projects we should be working for other companies yeah can you tell us what in god's name is going on so we can move forward that's what nobody was that mature and you could have brought them into a room and said hey guys I apologize for not telling you but let me tell you what what income we have on the in the next six

months nothing nothing so this is what we're going to do to try and survive you could have given the plan, they would understand why you were doing what you're doing and it would have been good. So both sides of the chain of command there are actually making grievous mistakes. Bad mistakes.

And I learned from that that was, I mean, I'm a transparent person as it is. You can ask me anything you want and I will answer it. I was just a dumb kid though. I didn't want to show weakness to them is what I was thinking. Because I didn't want them to feel like

they needed to go find another job. I didn't want them to think that start talking like all the company's going to shut down. I was making my own stories. I didn't trust they would make the right decision if I told them this. So I just carried on to try to push through. And you're right, it was a mistake to not share it with them.

Because it would have been, we were bleeding as a company, but they were in the blood I was trying to keep in. It would have been easier just to let them decide what they wanted to do after, in hindsight, telling them where we were as a company. how the recession had affected us. But I didn't. And so I divided and conquered.

Meaning, you get in your car. Drive to the first one's house. Knock on the door. John, we're going to talk or you have no job. John's still with me right now. He works for origin. Sweet. I was pissed.

I was so pissed. I was crying a little bit. I was pissed. You've been so pissed like you're just like, you cried? Yes. Negative. Next question.

Really? Not even when you were a kid? I mean, I'm a kid. I guess, I guess. I'm talking about being a kid. Seven. I'm talking like 20, what am I, 23, 24, something like that. Pissed.

I was in the teams at that point. We're not crying. Okay. It's not happening. This is one tough dude. Whatever. Echo. I'm having a conversation with you.

I know. I'm so pissed. I'm related 100%. Have you read it so pissed you, like, started crying? Honestly. Crying is not like, anger does not lead to tears in my, for me. Crying is weakness leaving the body. No, seriously.

Like, you know, if something is sad, okay, I get it. But being angry, that's, that's, okay, but you know, everyone's a little different. I was a kid. Yeah, yeah. I was a kid. You're a kid. Yeah. Jockey's either.

You remember, I didn't have, I didn't have a mentor. either like when I was a kid I didn't have a I had I had one mentor my friend my my my buddy's father because it was a single single mom who was yeah it just we as kids we a lot of the time we raised ourselves I didn't have a mentor I didn't have like a father figure around all the time to see how to so I just I I worked off of pure drive and emotion yeah yeah and again I'm trying to be a jerk no I'm having fun with it but absolutely but so you're so pissed So pissed. You've got freaking tears in your eyes.

Yeah. And you go to John. I'm like, you fucking, you want this job or not? Because if you say no, you're not talking to me, you do not have a job. And you've got a new house. Okay. So he had. He's in the car.

Okay. One down. One down. One in the game. Still in one of the game. Got it. As I drove to the other's houses, they either didn't answer the door and hid or answered the door and said, I can't talk to you.

and closed it. Okay. These are kids. You know, like that's what a kid does. These are kids, which is a message to everybody. Yeah.

When you don't want to talk to somebody, you're not solving anything. You know what I mean? You know, yes. Now, I'm not saying that there's sometimes where I'm so mad at you

that I'm like, Pete, come back tomorrow, bro, because right now it ain't gonna go good. Yeah, exactly. I'm so mad I could cry. Yeah. Or something like that.

That sounds really sensitive, man. Would you actually do that? That is weak. But that is that the point is though Seriously if there's if there's a problem And you're not gonna talk about it You're gonna sound like that kid right there that answers to the way I can't talk to you right now

It shuts the door that's that's not a way to get anything solved are there times where you need a little bit of distance Yeah because people are hot headed. Yes that happens as long as you know you're gonna You both know that it's solveable You know like I feel like with respect to business and stuff like like if you're working with a client you may like bang heads with a client and be like all right listen we need to we need to shut this down and discuss it like in 48 hours that's learned over time yeah not when you're a kid you just want to get after like ah I freaking even your approach was super hardcore and this is again you know people a little bit aggressive yeah people people want to hear me say like that's right

you go in there and you say you either talk to me now or you don't have a job yeah the i was It's already bleeding though, so was that the right choice? I don't know, but the approach for me would be like, hey, let me explain to you what's going on. And then you can think more about your decision because right now I'm telling you what you've decided and what you've presented to me is so far off base that if this is what you want to make your decision based on, I'm telling you what I'm going to have to do is let you go. Because I haven't told you yet, but we don't have any money. And I'm paying you out of my own pocket. Right. So if you don't like that and you don't want me to pay you out of my own pocket

or anymore, I'm actually good with that. But if you want to have a job and you want to try and make this thing work, let's have a conversation. And that's close to exactly what I would say now. Yeah, exactly. 100%. The reason I'm making this point is because I had a guy hit me up on social media the other day. Yeah.

He asked a legit question. And he pre-preface the question. He says, I'm a very direct guy like you, meaning he's direct like me. Okay. And he says, and I give feedback. and it makes people mad, it rubs them the wrong way. And I'm just, you know, I wrote back, I go, look, man, I'm direct on Twitter, which is 140 characters.

And I'm answering 720 questions in, you know, rapid fire. And so, yeah, I'm direct when someone says, what is your, what does your average daily diet consist of? Steak, next word, you know what I mean? Yeah, but you're direct, you're not an asshole. Yeah, yeah. But it's also like, I'm having. fun. Like that's, that's the fun part of, you know, interacting with people through social media.

That's not how I'm treating another human being face to face in a real relationship when we're trying to build something. Then I'm using tact. I'm using maneuvering. I'm manipulating the situation. I'm setting things up. I'm being the most tactful person. In fact, not only am I not going to rub them the wrong way, I'm going to rub them in a very nice way. So they feel good about the conversation that we had. Disarm them and have a real conversation. The point is, is that, you know, Like you said, what my little quote was is what you would say now. Back then, you're young, you're bleeding. I'm bleeding.

You're pissed off. Yeah. And you say, you know what? They're a wife nagging at me about finances. Yeah. You know how that all builds. Two young kids. Don't sleep through the night.

You know, it's, it gets, it gets tricky and you're trying to maintain this. So just FYI, that, what you just said, you just said, you know how it is. And to be honest with, I don't know how that is. Because I was in the military. I got a paycheck every two weeks. Yeah. I had kids. I had health insurance taken care of.

I had a house taken care of. It's a huge. It's actually a feeling I don't know. So I, yeah, don't know that feeling. I can only imagine, I can only imagine what I would be thinking if I was in your shoes at 22 years old with a wife, two screaming kids, and I don't have any money. So yeah, check. Okay.

And get some. I will tell you about that feeling. It's a feeling I'm never going to go back to. As we, as I divided and conquered, it did not go my way. So. Meaning that the people were saying, they can't talk or they hid. I can't talk to you. They left their house, their homes, whatever.

So I made a decision what to do when I talked to my wife. She's like, what are we going to do? I said, well, I said they all think they're expendable except they're not because there's not a person in this world that is so good

they can't be replaced right you get got it got it they think they're not expendable there's not a person's world that is so good at their job they can't be replaced did you hear that echo yes sir just just saying almost none

but yeah you're right there's a lot of talented people in the world So what did I do? Hefty trash bags. Get some. I went up to that studio and I scraped their desks individually into trash bags and it felt good. I didn't even mean to say that like, but it felt good. I literally just scraped it, tied it up, went to the next one.

My wife just pushed it all into the bag. This is good. Therapy. Yep. We dragged all the shot. I didn't even care what was in the bag. I don't care what they had on their desks. My property.

Your shit. In the trash bags. Didn't organize nothing. Just scraped. Dragged them down the stairs. Gently? Because I'm getting the feeling this was not a gym. Dragged them down the stairs.

We were in this like studio, you know, third floor studio that we had built out for us. Beautiful. Right. That Monday morning, the art director, who I cut my teeth with, came down. He lived in Bangor, Maine. We say Bangor. Came down, and we were sitting there, and it was glass, like the glass. And it's like you can see through it being inside, but from the outside you can't.

They all got out of the same vehicle, kind of giggling and chuckling. Like, they own me. They own this company. And they walked in the door and there we were sitting there with the trash bags. And they went from giddy to guilty to sadness and their faces turned white. There's your shit. Take it. And that was it.

Done. That was tough. I said a few words. But I was not going to be held hostage to this situation. in business, I say you've got like 40 years of being a maker. I did a speech recently at an innovation. I wrote a speech for an innovation expo. You know, zero to 20 you're learning, 20 to 60 you're doing,

and 60 to 80, hopefully you're enjoying the fruits of your labor. Anything good in life takes 10 years. So my first 10 years had passed, but I still had 30 to go. And so I knew I wasn't done, but the pain of the situation and the experience, I grew exponentially overnight. We had salvaged a small part of the company, which was this, we called it webware. It was like online software. Like everything is now, like the cloud, but there was no cloud. There was this system.

I was able to salvage that because it had like a cool little customer base of some high-end customers. And they paid monthly. It was just like reoccurring payments, right, just to use it. And so I found a buyer for it and the negotiation took a long time. And in that long time, we had no income, no money. And so what did I do? I started selling shit, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, snowmobiles, Every non-essential item I owned got sold, trying to maintain keeping my home, right, which we had built my wife and I in the forest, which was our dream home, just a tiny little 1,500 square foot timber frame, borrowing money from family and in our parents, and them knowing the situation we're in so, them actually just like giving us food,

or whatever that whole time I had to maintain like the super composure to try and sell this thing all this shit happening in the background and I think it was like eight months and I finally sold it $200,000 I think it was which was cheap for what we had built extremely cheap but I was in a position where we had nothing left had freaking nothing left you know it was super super challenging and I could have easily turned to substance abuse which I didn't I've never been into substances I could have easily just fell off the deep end and felt like a failure which I knew I wasn't my wife wanted me to go find a job she's like that's what I was about to say I can't normal normal hey you go get a nine to five

I can't do this. I can't do this, Pete. I can't do this. During that eight-month stint, you've got to figure something. I said, babe, I will find a way to make this work. And I believe everything happens for a reason. It happened for a reason. And I just kept that in the back of my head.

And I pushed and pushed and pushed forward. And it wasn't freaking easy. Like, it was super, super hard, like on us. But she stood by me. Unwavering. She stood by me. Never once did she want to leave. Did she not believe in me?

Or not trust me? Which is what I needed. And like I said earlier about filling the glass back up, it was empty. It was bone friggin' dry. Bone dry. and she just put a little bit back in. And we kept moving and kept chugging. Now, during that time period

where you're looking to sell the old company, are you hatching plans? Or is you got to be 100% focused on just selling this company? My creativity dove to the bottom of the ocean, done. I was, I don't, I've never experienced depression, you know, but I get it I felt

a little bit like a failure I felt a little bit like a failure but I knew I wasn't so every time I had a negative thought I would just push through it I just pushed through the thought and what got me through a lot of that was training jiu-jitsu

where I could expel my energy and use my creativity which I thought I had lost in jujitsu. It's a very creative sport, art. And that kind of kept me, I guess I kept those endorphins flowing so I could maintain some stability. But tactically, your focus is sell.

It's got to maintain this, make it look good, let's show them the numbers that are coming in for our few clients and what the projections could be. That's all you're doing. Yep. That's all you're doing. you're thinking when you sell that thing you're going to have enough and you'll figure it out later but you're not worried about it right now exactly so you make the sale i make the sale for the first year we get a monthly check oh it's like five grand a month or something not the full amount just like five grand a month so during that time i decided to just take 12 months and figure out what comes next And in that 12 months, I traveled around the country, training jiu-jitsu and filming a thing we call BJJ Weekly

because that's what I was passionate about. And so we travel around and film technique and train and all this stuff. And it was like an excuse to train jiu-jitsu. That's it. This newsletter. And after that 12 months and traveling around, it just struck me what I wanted to do. years earlier I had designed this logo for a ghee brand off the cuff came to me I get my ideas in the morning one morning I sat down and just boom done five minutes you know sometimes you can have a client come in

we used to and I'd spend a hundred hours on the friggin logo you know people don't realize how much logos cost and sometimes you just nail it like 10 minutes done finished it just like getting hit by lightning just boom done that's what happened with this origin thing i wanted to start a brand because what i had done and what i had learned and over that year of driving around and training and reconnecting with myself and my family was that i loved building brands and products i loved taking something from nothing like a drawing in making it into something. And I had an aversion to the screen

and in that space because of the new media thing. I was always on a screen. And I just, I told the man, I need to like do something physically, like have something physical. I need to have a physical thing to do because I was an art major and I'm an artist and I zip up goalpost. I need the thing to do.

So in Jiu-Jitsu, I had seen that the uniform hadn't changed. I don't know. They've been wearing kimonos for a thousand years. But, you know, judo, hundreds of years, Jiu-Jitsu, 100 years in Brazil. Same thing, same, same them thing. 100% cotton, uniform. This is what you wear. And I was like, why?

Why do you wear that? You got under armor with, like, wicking stuff, and you've got air helmets instead of, leather helmets and you know just all these innovations in other sports in jiu jitzu had shit we had nothing like wearing a bunch of just straight cotton balls and you know sweaty soaked in ghee that stretches and stinks bad it sucked and and so to start i was like okay i got to start i got to start meaning you you know the vision you see that geese haven't progressed right you know that they can be made better.

But you don't actually eat. And so you say, okay, I want to make the best ghee in the world. Yeah. That's the vision. Yes, it is. And you have to start somewhere. You got to start somewhere. So I didn't know anything about textiles, but I knew about design and I knew about the human

body and, you know, how the human body worked. And in college sports, you learn about that a lot, you know, mechanics, mechanics of the body. And they retrain you how to run in college. like they you all run the same you do exercises so you're all striking forward striking with your foot you all run the same and so i designed like a ghee pants and it was like the cowboy cut because i knew that in jujitsu when you're like you're you're squatting a lot and on your knees and the material pulled up your up your leg but pulled down your butt so you're like got plumbers crack which sucks so i designed like so the knee pads came up to

your hips so when you squatted it would pull from your hips right instead of a cross to the top of your leg and did did some cool innovations like that and then I was like all right time to go so we launched a geet we we we imported this ski from Pakistan one ghee I was in the basement of my house and I was like we're going to start this brand so I hit in the basement sucked here comes a guy We shot a photo. We saw some photos off it. And I launched it through BJJ Weekly. And boom, 40 grand.

I was like, wow. But you didn't have any geese? No. None. No geese. But I wanted to prove that we could do something different. And I trust that I could make it happen. No, we'd have any geese.

There's like 200 geese sold. I've got something. something here. I've got something good here. And I knew a new adventure was going to start. And my wife spun up. In a positive way? No. Oh. She just like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm starting a key brand. And she like got sick. Like I don't know, she might have an anxiety attack at first. Like you, you, you can't do this again. You can't, you know, you can't start another company. You know, it's like just, and I use this word lightly being around a war hero like you. No war hero. Pure, I promise you that.

PTSD of business. Right. That's a real thing. Like she had like PTSD of business because of what we had gone through and selling everything. And the feeling you get that you keep, you get, you keep this feeling. For me, I used it for drive. For her, she used it for, I don't ever want to feel that again. That makes me, like, ill.

For me, it was like, I'm never going to feel that again. I'm going to make sure I never feel that again, and I'm going to do something about it. So I did it anyways, started a company, origin, and that's when it began 2011. 10 or 2011 so how do you start it so you got one ghee you sold 40 grand worth of one

key that you didn't have right what's what do you do next and did you know at this point you wanted to make them in America had you figured that part out yet no no I let me take that back or you figured you'd make them in America I wanted to make them in America and so I started like calling all the factories and in Maine

Like hey, you know, you guys sew stuff. Yeah, cool. Can you sew this? No. Okay. For those people that don't know, Maine has traditionally had a lot of industry up here manufacturing. Big time. Especially when we were kids.

Yes. You know, big brands up here that build a lot, you build all kinds of stuff. Bass shoe, 10 minutes away, sold out. Dexter shoe, Hayden shoe, Lou Hayden. You know, San Antonio shoe passed away. Man, huge company. LLB, LB, New Balance, 20 minutes away. So rich heritage in manufacturing,

but apparel in Maine, a little different. We made shoes and we wool fabric and stuff like that, but apparel wasn't the norm. So what I did is we were in that basement and we're like, okay. And I just gotta make this note that all those, a lot of those companies that you're talking about that had built all this stuff here

for all those years, a lot of them had left. Yeah. So that's the critical situation. Except all of them had left. L.L. Bean, they still make some stuff here. The rest left, gone. New balance still makes some stuff here too. Yeah, new balance does.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, new balance is awesome. So I was like, okay, we're going to make a belt. That's what we're going to do. We're going to make a belt. Jiu-Jitsu belt? Yeah. Yeah.

So there was this guy. guy in Lewiston who ran this company and I called him up and like I need some sewing machines. He's like, okay, well why don't you stop by? And Lewiston, Maine, one of the manufacturing hubs of Maine at one time, walked in and he's like, what do you need? I was like, this is what I want to make. It's a belt for martial arts. It's like, okay.

And I said, I just need a machine to do that. And like I got 500 bucks cash I can spend on it. Can you give me something to practice with? and so he sold me a machine, showed me how to thread the bobb in, showed me where it went, pulled through the needle. And I'm like, okay, okay, we filmed it.

So we knew how to do it. So we're like filming him doing this. And like, okay, so we took the sewing machine and then I put it in my basement next to the desk and I'm like, yeah, a sewing machine. And my wife was just like, shaking her head.

What did I do? Luckily, we had sold a pre-order so we had sold $40,000 in geese that didn't exist. So she had gotten off my back a little bit. So that machinery sat there and as we looked at trying to like make this ghee and I didn't say, oh, we're going to make a ghee in America. I just said, right, we're going to make a gee. We're going to change the ghee.

We're going to change the ghee first. So we started the import game. Everybody else is doing it. Everybody's telling me manufacturing's dead. I did a few phone calls. Pretty much everybody's like, yeah, you can't really do that.

And so I was like, okay, you know, and the whole time I'm thinking like, something's not right here that I can't do this. And I just couldn't put my finger on what it was. So I imported, you know, in 2011 and May we started in 2011, into 2012.

Did a few batches, did the whole, hey, limited edition batch thing. Gis, but we promoted it with the innovations we had. It was still shit, you know, when it comes right down to it. What the Ghee was? Yeah, man, it was still shit. It's still using old textiles that exist. So you design the, well, you said you imported one from Pakistan.

Yeah. And then what did you do, like, cut it up and redesign it or something? Or did you send the design to them and they send you the finished product? So I designed like everything in the illustrator, like a tech pack. like I want this here, I want the knee pads here. They got to fall here, the belt loops because I don't want to untie the, all this stuff. And then they send it. Done.

Yeah. Okay. Finish. So, you know, in Pakistan, they're like the manufacturing, for martial arts, it's like the manufacturing hub in this little city called Sailcott. They're actually like almost like migrant workers. There's a ton of factories, jiu-jitsu factories. But the workers are the same. Oh, the same.

guys in there? Yeah, all the same guys. They rotate or whatever. They rotate around. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got a contract over here. We're going to make 500 geese. A good bunch of guys show up there. They work for pennies. Yeah. And pennies. Yep. Yep. So we did the importing thing and we started to grow rapidly. We started to make money. And at that point, my other business, I was making kind of that monthly income and then I got kind of like a chunk of money, like 100 grand. I was like, all right, cool. I can like take your business. I can like take your deep breath and really push this thing. And so I pushed it.

And we started selling more and more. Then I came out with this really cool backpack called a Mundial backpack, Mujal backpack, technical backpack. And we sold a ton of them, thousand of them. And then we came out with this product for grip training. We weren't patenting anything. We were just, I was like, boom, because that's what I did. Like once I got on a row was like, like design this, design this.

And we were just selling, selling, selling. and during this time I was also competing you know because I'm male say no more it's jujitsu and you want to test yourself

against the best in the world so I was training hard I had ended up winning the let me let me digress for a second I had seen another company release a product for grip training

that looked exactly like ours what was the product though with your grip training Yeah, it's called an ring hang. So it's like the ghee and then collar and a sleeve. Yeah. It was cool. It was awesome.

And I was like, those bastards ripped us off. And I wasn't thinking of my manufacturer or anything about it. I'm just like, man, another company ripped us off. I should have patented that, you know, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So I was competing. I ended up going to Canada. I won the World Pro Trials.

I was a Brown Belt at the time. won the world pro trials in the black belt division because they you know they they put the divisions together as you know for that was in 2012 now they i think they separated them now again but so i got to go over to abdhabi and compete in the world pro and as a brown belt in that black belt division i'm sitting there before my match and i'm supposed to fight shanji hibero and the quarterfinals of the open division sweet and And I, I'm going to say this. It was bad seating.

Like the seating of the brackets was not good. Okay. Like I had in my bracket a guy from Brazil, J.T. Torres, Shanji, and maybe And Andre Galvan. And so J.T. didn't want to fight. So I fought the other kid from Brazil. and he was much smaller and I was athletic and good

and I ended up winning and then J.T. just kind of like didn't want to fight so then he coached me against Shanji we had a war. It was good man. I had a last couple of seconds man. It was very close. For those you who don't know, Jean-Gie's

multiple-time world champion. One of the best of all time in Jiu-Zitsu. Big time. Awesome guy too. Awesome guy. Awesome guy. So, but the seating was bad like Lovato wasn't in it. Like, there was a couple other guys, I don't know, just, my division could have been tougher and I would have gotten my ass kicked a lot earlier. Okay?

So, but we had a war, and it was awesome. And maybe I would have won if I had worked harder. Or maybe I would have won if that girl from Poland didn't walk by me right before the match with an origin geon and a different logo on the back. And what was on my... So your cut of a ghee, like the ghee that you designed. Yeah. And you see a girl from Poland who's competing.

She walks by. Yeah. It was actually, it was the pants. Yeah. It was the pants. There's a logo, different logo on the back. But our whole thing. Your design, but different logo.

Yeah. I knew it was my manufacturer. and then everything clicked. They ripped off the orangut grip trainers. Okay. Okay. But what am I to do

because I'm locked into these guys now? So I had to strategize. So I went out and lost in the quarterfinals. Got on an airplane, worst freaking flight of my life because I'm an ADHD kid and I can't be stuck in a freaking seat

for 14 hours. That sucks. and on the ride back I was talking to J.T. who I'd become good friends with and he was kind of like in a tricky position in life. He was still with his instructor in Maryland and just didn't know kind of what to do. He wasn't progressing and he was telling me like, man, I've got to get, like, I have to do a full workout before I can actually train with the guys because he was so good. He just wasn't getting it, you know? And you know the mecca of Jiu-Jitsu.

you know is California. I go so far as to say San Diego. San Diego. That's where he went. Yeah, San Diego. That's where he went. So he was figuring his whole thing out. SoCal for sure.

SoCal, yeah. Yeah. He was figuring his whole thing out. And all I'm thinking about is like this problem. I'm like, man, I think I'm going to build a factory. We're on the airplane. He was like, he's looking at me like, yeah, yeah. I want to build a factory.

Screw this shit. This is bullshit. I said, I'm not competing anymore. I'm done. And all he wanted to do is win the world championship. So we kind of like helped each other a little bit in that plane ride back. Like kind of, you know, bouncing ideas off each other. Decompression.

Decompression. So I got back and I Skyped my manufacturer. And I was like, over Skype. I'm like, this is bullshit. You freaking, I didn't say that. So you fucking ripped off our intellectual property and sold it to other brands. And he said, business is business.

Dang. You ever have a defining moment in your life where you just turn on? And you're like, yep, done. I knew at that moment what we were going to do. like it was clear it became clear and I knew the challenge in front of me and I knew it was insane and I knew it couldn't be done and I was like it's happening props so so uh I got to tell you a little bit of what happened right after right after that I went out to the world championships to compete because I had already signed up and that was going to be my year we were there

And there was this brand there and I walked up and I walked by and I I did a double take. I was like What? And I looked for the right and there's our Mundial technical backpack right there But with red with some of their logo on it. I went up to the guy and I was like Dude I said got any original ideas And everybody there's a badass except for this guy who doesn't do jujitsu who does nothing right just some chubby dude who wants to capitalize on the success of combat sports and jiu jitsu's growth in california and i'm not going to name the company and i was like

that is a week i said in bullshit i said get some original friggin ideas i went down walked down myself and uh the deco our business partner and any his wife and my wife were down there. And I told my wife, and spin did she ever, she went up there and she flipped out on the guy. Amanda bringing it, she's bringing it 5 to 103 pounds of fury. French Canadian fury. Done. It was awesome.

We flew back and the picture was already clear. This was just like added motivation. Just added motivation. I called one of my buddies Tim and and John was already working for me from my last business. The sole survivor. The sole survivor moved back to Farmington. What we did is we grabbed that like that tape you put around trees

when you want to flag trees to cut Maine. You got a flag the trees to cut. We kind of, I'm like, all right, John. I have seven acres of property which is, okay, listen, Seven acres is not a lot of property in Maine. You can buy property in Maine for $500 an acre in some places private sale. So let's just make that clear.

Seven acres is not a lot, but we have seven acres of land in the woods. And so I like flagged out. I'm like, we're going to build a factory here. We just flagged it out like this. And this is based on the architectural design that you're engineered put through for your factory. Yeah, right.

So you was like, I think a factory should be about this big. This looks like a factory's eyes. That's so awesome. I called a buddy and he brought his chainsaw over and they're just like, all right, let's just do it. And we just started cutting trees. My father-in-law came over with a chipper. We chipped it out.

Okay, we stumped it. We pulled the stumps out. We're pretty resourceful up in here. And you ever heard of Yankee ingenuity that term? For sure, that happens. So what do we do? We cleared it. We did a little bit of earthwork.

I got on the compactor and compacted all the sand and poured a slab. Had some guy, some company saw out a bunch of eastern white pine and had my buddy build a barn factory barn. And we just spent, I don't know, 18, 16, 8. I don't know how many hours. We slept in zero hours. Around the clock, we just built this thing from the ground up. Myself, my brother, friends, family. And we just, we did it.

We built it. Then we stuck a sewing machine in there. That sewing machine that you had. We're like, what are we doing? And that's where it began. And we, you know, the thing is, is like, if you, listen, I'm all for planning. I like to plan. the what's going to happen and then I like to like you say execute it I like to execute that plan

but do it and I like to lead the plan and I'm shitty when it comes to like I'm always making sure everybody's living up to their expectations like as part of the plan if they bought into it you better fully bought into it there's no room for like slacking like if I'm working until midnight you're working until midnight right you're not leaving So that's what we did. And I'm a pusher to you, like a push, push, push. I like to see how much I can get out of somebody to push them to their potential and see where their breaking point is.

So I can learn about the person, but also get the best out of them. So we did it. We built a factory. And that's where it started. So then comes what? What's next? Sewing machines? Yeah.

And sewing machines. And you started looking for staff that knew how to sell. Yeah, exactly. So we didn't have any lights yet. We had one sewing machine and we're just like, okay, this is how we're going. This is how you sew. And I found this old timer, Bill, who came down and he's like explaining the different types. He's been in the business for 40 years fixing sewing machines.

And he's just like, you know, in his accent, he's like, you know, you got a single needle machine and a double needle and you've got the locking stitch and a chain stitch and, you know, all this stuff. And I'm just like, whoa. And so I just absorbed, he became completely. absorbed in that, right? Learning about sewing machines. I learned how to run them, how to fix them, what they were good for, the different types of feeding, you know, all, all, everything about sewing machines. I was like, cool, I know about sewing machines. Now we need some fabric. So I started looking for fabric. Guess what? They don't make fabric in the United States. They don't make fabric that we needed in Mexico.

They don't make fabric in Canada. Shit, they don't make fabric for Jiu-Jitsu geese. And I was like, what are we going to do? What would you do? You would just build a factory and you have all these sewing machines and what would you do? So your only option at this point

is you got to order the material from overseas. Got to order the material from overseas. You got it. That's what you're going to do, right? I was like, screw that. And so I started looking for like weaving. And so I just, you know, I was looking for weaving. Like, hey, hey, hey, you guys weave. Can you weave some fabric forest?

Yeah, 100,000 yards. You know, 12 bucks a yard. I'm like, no. So I'm just looking, looking, looking, looking. And did you ever order any material? I did. Okay. Because you had to sell geese.

I mean, you had to make some money. We got investment into this thing now. Right. And I didn't, I had, I didn't take a paycheck for like the first two years of business. I didn't take a paycheck, maybe three. I didn't pay myself once. Every dime I just dump back in, dump back in, dump back in. Weaving was impossible, right?

You're not going to freaking weave material. So I, I did, I imported material for that first year. And we figured out how to make a ghee. and it was a pain in the ass and that first week we finished the week and I called Deco and I said

we made five pairs of pants this week and he's like not really high production dude I was just like what am I doing and I kind of started you're telling that story you like legit we're questioning

oh I spiraled down like oh my god you thought you were going to make 200 geese in the week or gey pants in a week and you make five five pairs of pants i was just mind-boggling mind-boggling and jill was my first picture she's still with us today the one you were talking about earlier yeah dude i did not know what to do i was truly at a loss for i didn't have anybody to like teach me about how to manufacture like how you should set this up up because the knowledge had disappeared out of the state. It was gone.

The folks that used to do that stuff, either they've passed or they've moved on, they're snowbirds, they moved to Florida, whatever. They weren't around. So I had a lot of late nights by myself in my basement with a glass of whiskey. I started to have that feeling come back of that, like, failure feeling. and I didn't know what to do. I was like, what did I get myself into?

You know, like, what are you doing? Like, how do you, what am I doing? And then I figured, like, I cannot, basically, like, I can't do this alone type of situation. And in a conversation with my father-in-law, I was like, Joe, man, I need to talk to somebody who's, like, been there and done. that like done built something from nothing and he's like Pete he's like I've got a friend

that he did some work for and his bulldozer my father-law's a heavy mechanic repair heavy machinery mechanic and so we made a phone call to this guy John I'll leave his last name out and John said yeah I'll meet with Pete he said here's the date and time meet me at my lake house so I showed up at his lake house and I sat down and he shook my hand and he said let me tell you something you're not fucking special i'm already peat down just i'm using his words you're not fucking special your ideas aren't special and nobody gives a shit i was like okay motivational speaker getting after it you nobody gives the shit yeah i said reality check yeah i was like he goes what's your problem

I said, man, I, I, we need money to like, he was like, no, you don't. I said, no, we need, we need, we need money to, like, do this, to, like, learn how to do this and build this and, like, make this happen. I need money, the capital. He goes, Pete. Were you in the back of your mind thinking you had good capital investor right here is a big guy to the lake house and maybe this guy's going to throw two Gs at you? No. No. I wasn't there for.

financial a financial uh i wasn't looking but that was the solution that you saw you didn't think he was going to come from him you just thought i need money for this thing only solution got it i need money and as he kind of like beat me down and this guy ran like a 50 million i think they're a hundred million dollar company now at that point it was 50 million dollars and he was kind of retired and doing his thing and giving his time to me for me for free to help another kid from industry main succeed. He basically educated me and two hours educated me and I walked away from that meeting like with a plan, a plan of action. What was like, what was the big takeaways? He told me I need to basically find out who I was and do a personality

profile. And he goes, you're probably, what did he say? An INFJ, something like that. He like guessed it. Or an INAJ. I'm not even exactly sure what it was. So I did my personality profile to find out my strengths and weaknesses. And it was spot on.

I was like, holy shit, this is kind of like crazy. And then he told me, you're not all in you don't really want to win at this i was like no i do then go all in how much do you how much do you believe in it because there's a million frigging people like you he said there's a million people like you and a million great ideas and less than one percent are willing to go and chase it and go all in and do it are you one of the those people. And if you are, solve the money problem and solve the rest of the problems. The next day I was at the bank signing my home away with my wife by my side.

She was stoked for a $200,000 loan. That was tough for her. Two things. As you were saying them, there's a big difference. You put them together, which is when you put them together, it makes sense, but chasing your goals, chasing your dream, and being all in. It's not in the same. Not the same things. Now, if you're all in and then you have to chase it. You don't even know what else to do besides chase it. But I think some people, they chase it, but they're running like half speed.

Yep. And I was a half speeder. Yeah. It's awesome. You got to be uncomfortable. That's basically what I took away from that. And he's the one that told me, he said, Pete how old are you? I said, I'm 30.

What's your problem? I said, we're gonna get John on the podcast at some point. I'm stuck. Yeah, I said, I'm stuck. He goes, you got three more chances. He's like, I'm 60. You got three more chances.

He's like, if you believe in it, then he's the one that told me, everything in life, everything great takes 10 years to build. Go build it. And be committed, because it's going to take 10 years to build it. But if you believe in it, you have to go all in.

And if you got to put up your house, put up your house, you'll work your way out of it. Eventually. So that's what I did. I followed his advice and I went all in. He also told me the moment you stop growing, you die. He said, if you stop growing, you will die. the moment you want to do something different than what you're doing, the moment your mind wanders to wanting to be somewhere else,

your business also dies. And you need to recognize that. And that first meeting with him was just, I just changed my game. And when I signed my name on that loan, when I signed my home to the bank to receive that check, I was laser focused. It's like being in the woods on an early morning hunt

when it's dark and the sun is coming up and the leaves go, right? As the sun hits the leaves, hits the trees, and you're waiting, right, for the deer, for whatever you're hunting. That's what I felt like about business. The same feeling you get from that, I felt. laser focused and it's like

everything just opened up like my mind opened like the synapses connected and I was like a new a new entrepreneur I was like new and that's what I mean by like you can't you're born an entrepreneur you're not born an entrepreneur

you need to get punched in the face and John punched me right in the nose it was awesome so the next step is you order some material but that's not your long-term plan. Right. And the next thing you do is you go,

we got to make this material for ourselves. We've got to make the material. I had called every used textile company in the United States, every used textile company to try and find this machinery. We had to weave our own fabric. It wasn't a sustainable model without weaving our own fabric. they're all like, it's just not going to happen. I'm like, what is it to get set up?

Million dollars, right? 750 grand. This is to buy a brand new loom and get the operational experience in there that they're going to send you from the factory after they build this loom. They'll send you a guy that's going to help you run it and get it all set up. We just need a million dollars.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's just not going to happen. So I was like, okay, in business, it's like boxing, like, it's like jih Tzu. It's all about the angles. You know, and people get so stuck on like one angle, they could only see that one angle. And I just had to like, I had to step to the side and I had to see this angle. I knew Maine had a heritage in weaving. I knew there was weaving here at one point. And so I went back to that same old timer in Lewiston, Maine, who had sold me my fur sewing machine. And I sat in his office and I said,

said, you know, were there any looms? He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, a weaving loom? Like to weave, fabric? He goes, get in my truck. I get in this truck. We drive up one street and get out in this massive building. It's like, I think total square footage was like 1.5 million square feet.

Good Lord. Mostly abandoned. A few businesses in the front that they've refurbished. And there's a museum there. And then walks in and he introduces me to this woman, Rachel. And he says, Rachel, this is Pete. He's looking for a loom. And she goes, well, follow me.

She made me sign a release. We went up these stairs and into this old mill five. and the floorboards, the windows were all broken. The sawtooth building, you know, the sawtooth mill buildings, the windows were all broken. The wood was all punky and like all bent up and splintered. You had like watch where you're walking.

And there's this big green, nasty thing sitting in the middle of the floor right there in this whole place. And we walk over to it. She's like, I need to get rid of this. And I'm like, this is a loom. She's like, yep I said, holy shit Where's the rest of them

They shipped them overseas A company in India bought us bought out the mill and they shipped everything overseas And she goes, I kept this one I kept it here because I wanted to put it in the museum So we didn't lose our heritage Dang I said

Can I buy it? and she said yeah I said how much she said 3,000 bucks I said okay done man and this is like I just want to point this out the the floor is all broken the windows are broken

and the loom is like rusty right oh dude this thing is not like this this thing is a disaster when is the last time it was used how many years ago oh 80s it was it's an 83 it's like a 1983 I don't know when the last it was used but it hadn't been had any love for a long long time most of the parts were stripped

off of it it was like a frame just like an infrastructure I said okay I'll buy it I'm gonna buy this loom yeah so you've got to be a little bit naive to be in business and think you can accomplish anything that's the bottom line and I'm just pretty pretty driven and naive to think that we could weave fabric But I believe we could. So she sold me it. And then I called my father-in-law and I said, I got a loom. It's on the third floor of this old mill in Lewiston, Maine.

And we need to get it out. And I got a quote on moving it, and it was $25,000 to move it. And I'm like, we're going to move it. And he's like, okay? So I got a bunch of friends. We went up there, took nine guys. eight hours to move it from the middle of the floor to the edge of the building. And we had another friend who had a crane and we ended up getting it out and onto a trailer

and put it in the factory. And then we were like, what are we doing, dude? And it was awesome. It was awesome. So that's where it started. You know, it's, I always believe. believe like if it was done it can be done like if it if you know in Maine we have this thing like Maine at one point was 90% fields how to become 90% fields you know 100 years ago hands in daylight

hands and daylight right how are these mill buildings built hands and daylight that's it these people they got after it I mean why because if you don't you don't you die die. That's it. You're going to die. So you've got a farm. You've got to know how to build a house. You got to know how to start a fire. Like that culture of New England is still rich, you know, it's still passed down. We burn wood. Everybody burns wood. We build our own shit, you know, houses, everything. That's what we do. Why is everybody saying we can't manufacture? We can't weave. We can't cut and sew. That's bullshit. If they did it, we can do it because they They did it with a lot less.

I found a guy, Lenny. When that mill shut down, he had a contract to go over to Pakistan, of all places, to teach them how to run the looms that were purchased. And a month later, it was 9-11, and he didn't go. And he stayed here. Thank God, because... He's the last. He's like the last one left that can actually get this thing going and make it work again.

I asked Lenny, how many people know what you know? He said, a whole bunch. I said, well, what's a whole bunch? He's like like five. So Lenny passed his knowledge on us weaving and pattern making for textiles and all this stuff. and that's a whole other story maybe for a different time. But we started weaving fabric. And we became vertically integrated

and we started making the product from rock cotton from Tennessee. What did it feel like the first time that thing created? Like fabric. You must have been. Dude, we freaked out. We were just like, he's just like, we had the, we had to make pearl weave. And so we did.

We made pearl weave. We like took the pearl weave apart. That was, uh, like from the imported fabric is like, we just picked it apart and Lenny looked at it and figured out what size of thread, you know, yarns and the weight and everything. So we just recreated it.

And he turned it on for the first time. You know how long it took to clean that thing? 40 man hours to clean it. Like it just needed cleaning. Before we did anything, cleaning, then we had to buy all the parts or have a machined and just to get it going in. He turned it on for the first time.

And it was like, I looked at John, my employee John, Lenny. And I said, holy shh. And then, and there it comes. And it's just pooh, and there's the pearl weave coming off the loom. Man, it was so exciting. I was like, nobody's ever done this. Nobody's ever done this.

And I was super proud. I was like, we're, we're freaking doing it. We are doing it. And then we announced it to the world. We thought. We still got a lot of work to do But Now we announced it to the Jiu-Jitsu world

That's it man That was it I don't even want to tell you the challenges after weaving How do you color this stuff? How do you do this? I mean there's so much I was telling you before When I was in the Seaglet teams

In the early 90s We didn't have the custom gear Right you couldn't buy this stuff on the internet From these tactical companies right So we made stuff And we had parachute rigors which are the people that pack parachutes, but in a parachute loft,

you've got a nice medium duty and sometimes a heavy duty sewing machine. And so we would make our own gear. And us guys, like, we would kind of get into it a little bit. And I had us, a lot of seals would have their own, you know, sewing machines.

And, you know, you'd make gear. And some people would be good at it. Some people would get really good at it. And I was not one of those people. And because, you know, there's these little threads. And you've got to get these things. Everything's working right.

You put it through the thimble and through the whatever. It's all this stuff. It's all this stuff. Yeah. And so, and every time I'd like start sewing, it would just, you know,

fall apart. Birds nest and just mayhem. And when I see like the loom, yeah, with, it looks like, stress you out, one billion threads coming through these little things and,

and they're flowing through. And then you look on the other side and all that craziness. There's like these hundreds of thousands It looks like little pins that are moving and things that are pulling apart. It's crazy. And then it comes out the other side and you see this pattern. Yeah. And it makes me, it actually does stress me.

I see it. I go, man, I can't be in here for too long because I'm freaking out just thinking if I get too close to these things. Oh, yeah. My presence will cause disturbances in the force and things will go wrong. I'm not allowed to be in there for very long because I'm like I'm not I'm got a I've got an issue, you know, a subliminal issue with threads. And so I keep I even today I said keeping a little distance from the machines Yeah, I don't want to foul them up you guys have the magic

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, like stayed away from that but you had to see that and and to even imagine it like you know again As a novice person working with a sewing machine as a young kid the how hard it was for me to do it and then like I was watching Jill the other Wham, wham, wham, just hammering you just it's like a such a good craft such a good skill to have and and and just to see that the loom and all those different parts you're saying yourself well for one thing like good luck like somebody wants to do what we're doing oh go yeah do it you have fun with that one not happening not happening by the way we bought the last loom in the u.s so you're screwed yeah you're screwed yeah absolutely and and the last bit of knowledge which exists yeah man and so then you know you you You take and you start weaving it and now you're starting to sell geese and how's business going now.

Now you're able to put on something made in the USA. 100%. And that's from the dirt to the shirt. Yeah. Rod are ready. Dirt to shirt. Right? I mean,

yield to finish. Because the cotton is coming from Tennessee Delta region. Tennessee. Spun in the Carolinas and shipped up to us. That's like the old school. Freaking right. It is. the way it's supposed to work.

That's old school. Making shit, you know? I mean, I talked today a little bit at our grand opening about like, Mainers, generations of folks that put their hands on something, right? They're makers. They need to make something. And they're trying to cross-train these people to type on a computer, you know, do mundane. mundane office type of tasks, filing papers, answering the phone and call centers.

These people want to make shit. We're known in Maine for being some of the best crafts people in the world. The products that come from Maine are some of the best products in the world. And to be part of resurrecting that heritage is incredible. You know, and it is our ultimate mission, you know, to resurrect. our heritage and manufacturing and build old world level quality products and stand behind it

stitch every stitch every yarn in the weave and that's what we're all about and that's what origin stands for with a little bit more modern look and feel but sourcing

and manufacturing 100% in the U.S. And we won't compromise on that ever. Like other companies do, when they get greedy and they say, well, it's time to look at the numbers. It's time to increase the margins and we've got to import some of this stuff. Nope. We're just not doing it.

It's just not happening. I was in at Bath Ironworks for the christening of the USS Michael Monsor, obviously named after Michael Monsor. And it was awesome for me. You know, I enlisted in the Navy from down in Portland and to come back 26 years later and see what you're talking about, what I knew existed. in New England, in Maine, and seeing the pride that these shipbuilders, the iron workers, the pride that they took in that ship named after a saint of a human being. And, you know, that's one of the things that I tied to origin, because I knew what you were doing up here. Yeah.

And, you know, to kind of get to how. we ended up joining forces. It's funny because you know, you were just some guy, you know, some crazy guy up in Maine, in my opinion, that I'd seen a couple of your videos and I've seen it, I see a dude, you know, you have the video that shows you pulling this freaking loom out of this factory. And I'm just thinking to myself,

this guy is insane and I think I like him. And I had actually, the funny thing is, for my gym in San Diego victory, MMA, I wanted to make Jiu-Jitsu geese in America. And so I was like, okay, this, I looked around, I find one guy that's doing it, it's you. Like three or four years ago, we went back and forth on email and, you know, nothing ever came of it because I was busy, you were busy, and just nothing happened. But I always just remembered, hey, you know what? This guy up in Maine, he's, he's doing what, he's doing it the right way. And what happened was the way we actually got connected was

I was on a Facebook live, just talking to people. And someone says, what kind of ghee should I get? And I just rattled off. I go, hey, man, if you need a ghee, you're starting jih Tijuana or you're good at Jih Tzu or you just want a good glee, I go get a guy from origin. Origin, main.com. I go, get a ghee from there. I go, this crazy guy up there, he fixed a loom. I can't say it without laughing because he's so crazy.

I'm like, he took a loom out of a broken factory and he refurbished that thing with his team. and they built, you know, they're doing it. They're building it. So if you need a ghee, I said, I try and talk to this guy because I had. I had reached out to you a couple times through various, even since the time I asked for, for geese, I'd said, sent you an email or something. And I said, you know, I'm trying to talk to him. If anybody knows this guy, his name is Pete.

I go, tell him, I said, what's up? And this, this awesome woman that listens to the podcast, her name is Sarah Armstrong, and she's super squared away, you know, professional with, with a big company and she you know she had communicated me with the various things over the over the past year that I've been doing the podcast and whatnot and for what she said oh I'll take that for action and she contacted she called me it's what'd she say she just said uh you basically she's like have you heard of this guy jocco willink and dude I'm sorry I had my head up my asked for the last five years trying to build this factory.

No factor. And I was like, you're like who? No. And then so, you know, what do I do? I dig. I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, this guy is making some waves. This is awesome. And so, uh, I did a little recon. Yeah. And then I reached out to you after that. And, and what's awesome is, like, I had no idea what we were going to do. Yeah. Um, you know, we went back and forth a couple times on email and then finally you're like hey man let's let's just go to Skype right let's do Skype because we'd been today you know do want to do something you're like I want to do what do you want to do I'm like well let's figure it out send me an email about this you're like how

about we do a Skype call so I I have my meetings like scheduled and I'm working all day sure and I blocked two hours I'm like you know what this is probably going to take a while to get this conversation going to walk two hours we're just going to get on Skype and make this happen or figure out what we can do. So we end up talking on Skype for four hours. Talking, laughing. Talking laughing. Yelling.

Yelling. Laughing more. After I got off, my wife goes, it sounded like you were talking to you. That's not good. She was a little scared. And it was just,

you know, it was awesome. For me, it was, you know, the things that I believe in as, as an American. as a person, as a New Englander,

it was like you had the thing that I didn't have, right? Like, you know, for instance, we're making things, we're building things, but we don't have vertical integration. We weren't doing it the way I want to get it done. And so, you know, I'm saying, hey, like, let's join forces. Yeah, absolutely. And from my perspective, of course, I was like,

this dude is for real. deals. I was like, I would have told my wife. I was like, man, this guy, he's, he's on another level. And we had, we had been, like, looking for somebody. I remember talking with the Deco, and it's like, in Jiu-Jitsu, it's like, you've got all these world champs. And then you have, like, the flavor of the month guys with, like, the fancy jiu-jitsu stuff. And we just, it just was never part of our plan to sponsor Jiu-Jitsu world champions, right? Because what we were trying to build is, like, much bigger than that. It's like, man, we've been talking for like a year. Like, we need to, we need to find somebody or partner somebody with somebody that like represents origin

through and through in multiple ways. This isn't possible. We will not find this person. It's not possible. And then we talk. You know, we were talking earlier today. This was, this was classic. Because I didn't remember this. So for those of you that know anything about negotiation, whether you're negotiating a car, purchase, or whatever, one of the things, one of the tactics of negotiation is you don't give a number first.

So if I want, if ECHO wants to buy these sunglasses, and he says, how much are these? I don't say they're 10 bucks. Because what if he was willing to pay 20? Right. So,

so, you know, if he says how much of these, I go, well, you know, what are you willing to pay for him? And then he should say,

well, you know, I don't know, what are they worth to you? And so Pete and I had the textbook. It was more than that, though, because it was, it was, the strategies is like, what do you got to do while? You've got to devalue or show value. So, you know, going back and worth, well, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, but, you know, it's like, you know, back and forth, battle, battle, battle. Yeah.

And then I caved. So we were trying to figure out the value of whatever of something. And, and I'm like, well, you know, like, you know, like, you know, just give, I mean, if you had to, what would you say a number would be for that? And he's, you know, he gives me X. And I didn't remember doing this, but he told me that. And then I remembered, he says, you know, the value's probably X. And I went, you're weak.

Yeah. He's just broken. We both started laughing and staring at me. Because we've been playing the game for like so long. And it was like, actually that is what like both, I think both of us realized. Like, we were just, let's just get it. Let's do this. But actually, you know, I'm busy.

you're busy. Yeah. And so we and we actually, we both definitely got along. We, we, I mean, I think both of us felt really solid about the other person, but we didn't quite figure out how to, we couldn't figure out how to make this work. Yeah. Right. Um, you know, he's got something that he's put years of blood, sweat and tears into. I've got something that I've been doing my, my life has been to get to here. And so we just couldn't quite figure out how this is going to work. So we just We just, you know, we kept in touch, a little bit of conversation over the next, you know, couple months, and then I knew I was going to Maine.

Yeah, you kept, I gotta ask you something now. Yo. You knew you were coming to Maine. I knew you were coming to Maine. Neither of us, like, we didn't text back and forth until the last minute, because I knew the date you were coming to Maine. Uh-huh.

Did you, were you planning on a meeting when you came to Maine the whole time? I definitely knew we needed to meet. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, you were icing me. You put me on ice, too. I thought I was putting you on ice.

We were both on ice. Yeah. So that was an all. That was like the meeting. We were awesome. Awesome. We met up in Portland. We had dinner.

We actually both brought our wives. And my wife is always too busy to do anything business-wise with me. So she was super stoked to even be around and meet a man. and everything. And, you know, we sat there. Our wives don't even know what they were doing because you and I were just getting after it. We were in the zone. And at the end of the night, we figured out and we shook hands in. And I knew right there we were good. We crafted a deal. That was awesome. Yep. It was awesome for both of us. It was awesome for everything that both of us want to achieve. And it turned into not even both of us, it just turned into us. Exactly. And that

was awesome and I think one of the best like lessons learned from for me what is just an incredible opportunity that's how I see opportunity in crafting a deal is making sure that you're both getting what you want and you're both a little bit uncomfortable so that you continue to feel a little bit of the struggle to make sure you can take it over the goal line. Right. You're too comfortable. You become complacent. Bite off a little more than you can chew and you're going to be chewing for much longer.

So that's something that was important. It was awesome. Yeah. And so just so everyone knows, I mean, I've been saying it like we're partners, you know. We're partners with the podcast and what, what Echo and I have been doing for the last a couple years and what origin has been doing for the last five years seven years five five years 11 six years yeah six years and and at the end of the night when we got done eating our stakes in Portland main uh we shook hands and and this whole you know you've described it as like a

perfect storm which is what it feels like to me it is a hey man i was born in glossed there you go it is the perfect storm you go we are the perfect storm yeah um and and so that's that's That's what's going on is that, you know, now we've got this and we join forces and that we both complement each other's, you know, in terms of our business, we compliment each other's weaknesses. In terms of our personalities, we compliment each other's weaknesses. And we're, and the best part about it is the whole time that we're doing it. We're actually laughing our asses off at each other and having a great time, which is what it's all about. So that's where we're at. That's why we're here, by the way. Yeah, that's why we're here, by the way. In Farmington, maybe, in the origin factory, 20,000 square feet, we're going to end up with how many employees in here?

In a year, how many employees are we going to have in here? Oh, probably in a year. I don't know, 30, 40, 50? I mean, somewhere in there, you know, between 30 and 50. That's in a year. But remember, this is a start. We're starting. And so in five years, we're going to have a lot of people.

Oh, yeah. And people ask, what are you going to make? Everything. And I say, we're going to make everything. Everything that I use in my life, I want it made here in America. From the shorts to the hats, everything. And that's what we're going to do. Beanie's, uh, pants,

thicker hoods, pants. You know what? I was at a store the other. day, you know, like a hardware store, but a big one where they sell work clothes. And I said to myself, you know, let's just, because obviously I'm thinking about this all the time now, you know, it's hard, hard to look at work clothes and you say, of course, American workers, they would want to wear American made clothes. Where are these clothes made? They're not made here. They're not made by American hands. So I think we're going to be in a take no prisoner scenario and we're

going to get after it or not just going to take no business we are going to chase the big dogs look out look out listen and look out and that's not that's not like an ego thing that's the truth yeah listen and look out yeah and like I said today when when you when you rekindle the fire yeah of manufacturing and the you rekindle I mean just talking to Talking to the employees here, this is what they want to do. 100%. And this is what they're made to do. That's right.

And like you said, they want to take these things and build them with their hands. You've got it. And that opportunity has been taken away in the last 25 years, and we're bringing it back. And that is awesome. Appreciate that. Glad to have you. It was part of it. Awesome.

That's what we did, Echo Charles, right now. My brother. Speaking of. what we do sure why don't you do what you do i have a after you ask a question do do you find it poetic that the origin logo is that circle remember when you're getting shit from the politician guy that's funny you know never thought about that and now you have an origin logo that's a circle it is a so that kind of in and of itself is like a circle Yeah, it's actually, it is a wave.

It's actually like a rip curl wave. Is that what that logo? It's the flow, the jiu-jitsu flow, the surf flow, the snow. It's a wave is what that is. It's breaking. Symbolic is what they'd call it. I was going to say ironic, but that's not ironic. No, symbolic.

No, symbolic. We'll go with symbolic. So, yeah. And no one even remembers that, I don't even remember who that politician was. It doesn't even matter. Nope. They're going to know that origin symbol. That's right.

In the industry, or we call that layers. True story. Anyway, speaking of layers. Got it. And support, by the way. Support this podcast and yourself. OriginMane.com. Speak of the devil.

That's how you could support. Yeah. Good to know. What do we got? Gis. So that's the thing. From the beginning, people ask, what's the Ghee to get? We know.

We know now. 100%. 100%. 100%. you know how you have like a hierarchy you know the hierarchy only has one glee now yeah but you have multiple selections though yeah so yeah we do things absolutely boom hierarchy yeah we're we're about to like blow up our manufacturing um in this new factory again grand opening today lots of product coming right

on the geese side of stuff ramping things up over the next what time frame we've started ramping uh over the next four to four to eight weeks let's say We're going to be hiring another 16 people. We put another loom in the factory. So there's three looms now. And we're going to be weaving ninjas. Like, for real. It's like, I don't even want to elaborate.

Just come to Maine and see anytime in the factory. Come and check it out. I like it. When are these shorts coming out that I'm wearing? Oh, boy. Because they're straight up my best shorts now. The best, yeah. We're going to make it happen.

Dang. Made you want some dates. Yeah, no, well, hey, I get that all the time. Hey, when is the, you know, X, Y, C coming out? Hey, so now's on you. A little bit, you know. But, yeah, these are straight up the best shorts. Well, it's not actually that hard for you because people say, when's that next?

Oh, you're talking about the, the gear side. Yeah. The merch. Yeah. The merchandise. And I do believe that it might be a little bit more work on Pete's end compared to on my end. A little bit. But, hey, you know.

But I don't know from a, from a, if you go from like the level that you're, currently cruising at. Yeah. Maybe you both have to travel the same distance. To get the work done, relatively speaking. I think you're right. And yeah, but not just geese, right? No, no.

All sorts of, you know, apparel. Everything is, you know, like our t-shirts are knit. Like, we have a partner that knits, nits all the fabric like six hours away or something. Everything's sourced and made here. You know, we make all our own compression apparel, like cut and sew. sublimate, dye sublimation, everything.

You say compression apparel. Yeah. I still call it a rash guard. It's a rash guard. I know I'm just making that clear. You know why I say compression apparel. Yeah, because I know it's not just a rash guard. This rash guard is for surfing.

Right. But, but like the like the pants. Don't we still call it in the Jiu jits community? Don't we still say, yeah, I got a new rash guard. Oh yeah. We still say that. I'm just making sure.

Because I wasn't like hearing someone at the gym saying like, did you check out this new compression. But in the weight room, there is. They do say that. Yeah. Right, I see like in football. Football, yeah.

Like you'll see some company that's advertising compression gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'm like, oh, you mean a rash guard? Try your marketing, employee on me. You got to remember, like, every textile is different than what you're used to. Like the warpwick we use are our textile for the rash guard or tights or whatever else. It's different. And you just called them tights.

I did because spats. I have no idea what a spat is. Because I'm sorry. I was going to say out in California, it's definitely called spats. And I don't even know where that word comes from. Bro, I knew spats is when you tape your ankles. It's a spat around the cleat. Yeah, yeah.

You spat your leg. But why do they even call that? So I bet you, I bet you, wait, did the spats go down your leg like tights and then around your foot? It was just tape over. You know, you take your ankles, but instead of your ankles under your socks or whatever, you tape over your shoe over everything. Which they's trainer stopped doing because. So why don't we call them compression pants? Yeah, because I'm gonna be, you know,

earlier we got kind of like wrapped around or we got sidetracked about me being sensitive about something or not being sensitive. Tights. You're not down for tight. As a dude, right? We're not wearing tights. Yeah, compression pants.

Yeah, compression pants. That sounds good to me. Compression shirt. See? There you go. Compression shirt, compression. And rash pants, rash guard pants. That doesn't make sense either. Does it?

Even though they do prevent rashes. Just if you serve. Yeah. Or do Jiu-Jitsu Matt Byrne? Okay. You know why people, you know why a lot of people wear compression pants and compression shirts in Jiu-Jitsu? The prevention of the disease. The funk.

Yeah. Right. They don't want the hing horn. They don't want that. They don't want that. They don't want, you know, whatever MRSA. Yeah. So people wear that.

And, you know, the people that I know that wear it, they seem to believe in it. Oh, yeah. Just the level of, it's not like, uh, like the, what's the sun protection rating? SPF or whatever. UPF, UPF, UPF, right? UPF50. There's no anti-ringworm percentage rating, right?

Right. It's just a general anti-microbial. Right. Like certification. But that keeps it from growing in the material. What I'm saying is if you wear like a compression shirt and compression pants, then you're not rubbing your skin against some savage. that came into the gym with ringworm.

Right, right, right. So we have less percentage. Or rolling with him too, by the way. Yeah, or rolling with it. Put a triangle on his ringworm on his neck or something like this. Yeah. You don't need that. You don't want that life.

So that's a good reason to wear compression gear. The rash cards. Cross the board. And the rash guards like they're now. They're not like the rash guards you're used to. The ones you put on and then they untuck and then you tuck and then you tuck me in, they're designed to stay tucked in. So you put them on and the way the fibers.

flex and bend with your body. It's not your mother's or grandmother's rash garden. So when you say tucked in, because you don't really tuck in a rash guard, right? Or do you? You're talking about under the ghee? Yeah. Oh, under the ghee.

Yeah, that's a whole new world right there. Yeah. Some places make you wear rash guard under your ghee. Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't know that. I think it's good to have a rash guard under your ghee. I know a lot of people think that. It's not traditional.

I mean, it's for a dish. Yeah, you're tradition. Why do you like it? I like the barrier. I like the, I like the, I like the key house. From rash or the, I like the barrier between the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, the, you can't, you, you get more use out of it. You, you, you, your, straight performance. Performance.

Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Absolutely. The geese slides a little bit better on a rash guard than it does your skin once it's all sweatyed up and sticky. Right. Right. So, that's why I use it.

And I'm a hairy Greek, dude. That's right. That's right. That's right. They don't want that. You know, Noreet would be happy if we all wore rash grudge.

She's our black belt at our gym, female. And she is still a girl. So things like chest hairs. Yeah. She's not happy about those. She begs me to wear

you know, something under my geek. She's so far failed. She failed on my brain. But, you know, The other thing is, we didn't talk about origin, main.com is supplements. Yeah, absolutely. So on the body and in your body.

There you go. That's it. There you go. We're going to put everything you need on your body and everything you need in your body. Crill oil? Yes, really, that's the one. Now, it's krill oil and then it's super krill oil. One of the things that, you know, you'll be happy to know that Pete and I, we like to make things happen.

And, you know, obviously I'm a big fan of krill oil. for instance. So, you know, I used to be a fan of white tea, a big fan, and I drank it a lot. And eventually I said, you know what I need? This Jocko white tea. And so I had a similar thing happen with krill oil. I want to have krill oil, good krill oil.

So you know what we're making? Good krill oil. Yeah. Actually, we like to call it Jocko Super Krill. So, Jocko Super Krill. we're making that awesome quality on top of that we got a little

again little we need joint maintenance right we need joint maintenance when we are active when we're training jihitsu when we're jack and big steel our tendons and everything a little bit sore sore we might not admit to it in public

just like we wouldn't admit to crying on a public situation ever I'm comfortable with my masculinity you must be I'm over here holding next night. No, don't cry. My wife says, Pete, the only time you cry is babies and belts

when someone gets promoted and someone has a kid. What about weddings? No. No, funerals and weddings, no. So we got another thing we're coming out with. It's a jaco joint warfare. For your joints, go to war against the pain.

Inflammation. and lubrication Degeneration Yeah man All that stuff All enemies Yeah And I've been kicking it

For since we Since we originally formulated And I got the samples I went on it Hardcore and it's Legit Let's the board I think about that

I have like Bad back From sports and stuff Herniated disc Bulging disc Didn't get surgery Severe arthritis I can train seven days a week if I wanted to as a matter of fact we have our

immersion camp this week train every day gets on every day that's it joint warfare yep keeping it real so that stuff we it's being manufactured we I've been on the samples for what a month and a half and now it's been being manufactured in America check and very close by Right. By a partner. Right. And so it's going to be on the website now. Pre-order it and that way we can get to get a feel for how much.

Because we've got a bunch coming. We need to figure out how much of a bunch is that actually means. So kind of like with Jocko White Tea, I didn't do that. I just said, oh, there's Jocka White Tea for sale. It was gone. Yeah. And then I ordered some more. And then that was gone and people were really getting angry because when you, you know,

when you have Jocko White Tea and then you don't have it, all of a sudden, you know, things start going sideways. Yeah, absolutely. So you gotta get that back straight out. So anyways, you can check those things out. OriginMane.com. They'll be there. Joint warfare.

You like that, don't you? I do, yeah, yeah, it's good. There's a layer on there that's deep. Deep layers. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one person that's going to get this layer is Dean Lister. Yep, yeah, yep.

Trebouge. I'll leave it at that. Oh, Treboget. Well, you know Treboget. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A lot of moving parts. Senator Trebusier.

Yeah. Gotta keep them grease. Gotta keep that joint. It's true. Also, speaking to jacking steel, kettle bells. So when we came here,

we're in Maine right now, if people haven't gathered that already. Up in camp, no, like big weight room, kind of. There's a little fitness center there. Yeah,

first night we get here. One guy's like, hey, I brought my on-it kettlebell. Oh, yeah, 72. Yeah.

John. John, yes. Yeah, it was John. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. On a kettlebell, the gorilla, the ones I just ordered by the way. Legit.

They're ship. They're on the way tracking. Anyway, yeah, that's the good ones. You do kettlebells? I don't. You stop lifting, though. Oh, that's right. I stopped lifting.

Too massive. Well, kettlebells? Too massive. I don't want to bring this up because we talked about this pre-recording. So you weigh $2503 right now, as we talked about. You used to weigh $2.85. And I asked this question, and this is a good question that everybody should kind of hear the answer to. could the 250 pound pete beat beat the 285 pound pete in a grappling match and your answer was

100% the smaller guy wins yes why is that i mean lots of reasons you're more flexible more better positioning better escapes because it's less mass burning less oxygen because you have less muscle mass and for me i would wear the 285 version of myself out. So it's, I stop, man, I love lifting weights. I love lifting weights, but for me, Jiu-Jitsu fulfills the void because it is resistance. You're always working.

I never feel out of shape, well, unless I have too many whoopee pies. But do you do anything to work out besides Jiu-Tzu? No. Do you run? Do you sprint? No. Dang. Just pure Jiu-Jitsu. do, Dean Lister tells me that. When Dean Lister doesn't want to work out,

doesn't want to do any, you know, sprints, he's like, I get, I get it from Jiu Jitsu, Jocco. That's my best thing. So now you're supporting his argument. Now I am. Now I got to deal with that. Well, Pete Roberts said, you know, we'll talk about

someday how Jiu Jitsu makes you unathletic. Oh, really? That's a whole other talk. Interesting. And I have facts on why it makes you unathletic. What it keeps you it keeps your body together your core together your muscle strong so what does it do to make you on athletic It's slow movement you slow you start when you start jit-to you your body slows down your mind slows down your muscle slowed down Whatever you had for fast twitch turns a slow twitch because you're pulling and tugging and you're moving slow

I used to be able to dunk a basketball so every dunk so I can't touch the rim now I think we need to I will go ahead and defend the jiu jitsu I over here on my side of the table, because if you continue to do cleans and you continue to squat, yeah, and you continue to do sprints and mobility drills, and agility drills,

you can keep that athleticism. I think you're right. I know you're right, Jack. That's what I did when I competed. I had a strength and conditioning coach. Sprint, lift, push, pull. So I guess big picture is one of those deals where it kind of confirms the idea that you don't have

to be athletic to do good in jujitsu generally speaking no but if you want to do some kind of athletic competition including but not limited to jujitsu it helps to be athletic jack some of steel yeah i'm kind of glad that you kind of hit him with that because when i said i stopped doing like legs and stuff like that i got a lot of crap for it yeah by hand you know i i i did a lot of squats in college well yeah you played college football hell yeah i i I'm scared of them. I like hack squats. Hack squats, man, for sure.

You got bad knees or something? Bad back. Bad back. Dude, my back. Yeah. The last time I squatted and I hit the floor. Right. Of course, bad back.

Bad back from years of major. And personal question. Does your ego not allow you to get in there and do 185 pounds for some higher reps? Nope. I'd do that 100%. But you still? I still don't like it. I do hack squats.

I still don't. I still don't like it. But I mean, it's steel is great. Yeah. That's the bottom line. Yeah. It is great. I just get a through Jiu-Jitsu, man.

I push. I do, you know, every time I step on the mats, it's six, ten-minute rounds, and I train through the break. So I'm doing 12-minute rounds. Nice. I make sure to get six. Yeah. And I get it. As things free up and my son wants to lift as he started the summer, I'll get in with him and we'll

get in with him and we'll press some. And we'll press some iron. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That sounded pretty, pretty fired up. Yeah, look, you want to go live right now. Look out.

We'll press some iron. We'll press some iron. But kettlebells don't get you that big. I mean, I'm sure under certain circumstances, they will. But they do get you athletic. I think so. Yeah. He's like a hand clean.

You like hand clean them, right? Yeah. The jump and snap. And the other big thing is when you, like, for a kettlebell snatch, it's a swinging motion. And when it gets to the top, you have to stop it. Right. Because otherwise you're going to rip your shoulder out.

So you have to use all this, whatever that kind of muscle, what is it? Echocentric or something. What is it? Concentric? Whatever you got to do to stop it at the top. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to stop it. So it's using all these muscles to make that thing happen.

That's cool. Yeah. I'm going to do it. Yeah, it's cool. I can get fun. It'll get fun. Like when you start getting like the balance and then, you know, it's like there's some momentum.

You got to create momentum. Then you got to balance a momentum. It's like all this stuff. It gets fun. I said the true test of how strong somebody is is a hand clean. Yeah.

You could bench a lot. You could squat a lot. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of things that you could say that. Like, for instance, you know, it's a good on overhead squat. Oh, there you go. Oppop body, the body, back core. If you got a guy that can do massive big weight

or medium weight high reps, overhead squat, that's legit too. Yeah, but on a hand clean, you've got to use your speed also. It's speed. Yeah. It's a whole explosive. So you could just go straight to the snatch. Yeah, right. But then again, the snatch, you need the balance at the top.

That's coordination. And you need, you know, all these other things. And it depends on what you mean by strong, too. So you know how like, I guess, you know, in certain circles, they call strength power. And strengthen power are two different things. And it's like, okay, so what are you talking about? So I dig it. And I agree, actually.

But this is also 20 years ago. Yeah, exactly right. Even another point to consider. I think that's a really good change. Yeah, agree. You said hang clean, right? Hang clean. Knees.

That's a real good metric. Yeah. The solid metric. Yeah. For sure. Deadlift, another solid metric, by the way. Yeah. Deadlift.

Yeah. You guys. Deadlift. Raw strength. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Because consider, remember, like, when you're a kid or maybe old school kind of

philosophy, it's like, hey, you know, you get the old timer and he's like, how strong are you? And you're like real strong. We're so, okay. Pick that up. You know what I mean? Okay. You can pick it up. You can.

You're strong. Deadly. Yeah. Yeah. And then the. And then the step, too, is pick it up over your head. You got a lift. You deadlift?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I don't. No. Just kidding. Yeah. Oh, dude.

Sometimes. Let's not do this again. Anyway. You guys did deadlift. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Don't get too nuts with that, though. Who was it? I was just talking to somebody there. Squads of dead lifts. It was Ed. Yeah. He was like, hey, you know, my back and stuff. I was like, I don't get crazy with dead lifts.

No. But you can talk to plenty of people that say, oh, I had a back. bad back and I deadlifted and now it's healed. Right, right. Plenty of people say that. Absolutely. Don't get crazy with them. Don't get crazy with you good general strength.

Like your back's bad a lot of times anyway, even just anywhere in your core is because when you have like some core or your back or something, when you do stuff you adjust to not use it, you know? And that's when you get too. Yeah, because you don't use it anymore. So now when you do something, you're grabbing the cranberry juice from this side, you're going to put it over here. You got up on the floor. Yeah. You know, you're like, how did I do that?

I didn't even want cranberry juice. That's the worst. That's sugar in a bottle, bro. You shouldn't be, that's your body's way of telling you don't want that cribby. Right. Yeah, man, I dig it. Maybe you're grabbing it from here, putting in the trash can or something like this. You know?

I'm just saying that's why though. So you go deadlift, not heavy, not crazy. Just like your body's like, like any lifting, it's like your body just getting used to it. So boom, you're used to picking stuff up. I want to try it. Do it. I like it. Try the kettlebells too. And if you want the cool ones, and when I say cool, it's like you look at them in there, cool.

Yeah. like irrefutably cool on it that's the ones the gorilla one actually don't do the gorilla on the animals one do the chimp one first yeah is what is about me that isn't straight to zombies you're just super strong there's a way we know the zombies have the same categories yeah yeah and I forget what they're all called but like zombie when I look at the the legend versus the gorilla yeah ones or the primate ones yeah to to the zombies yeah I wanted the ones that look crazy and evil yeah yeah yeah I guess that's no big surprise it makes sense I get some real question yeah

I think we all here collectively know why you want the zombies. Technically, so, but that brings up a good point, in my opinion. All the different categories. Primal Bells, that's the chimp, you know, all the things. Different zombies, all zombies, legends, werewolf. Cyclops. Cyclops, like all the legends. So boom, pick your category, but that's the cool ones.

I recommend. What else? Check them out. Hey, man. Jump ropes. All kind of, actually, it's kind of good you go in there. and they have all kinds of workout stuff like stuff you know how bro you know how when you get into a workout maybe not you you're not like this but like like I got into the kettlebells and it became

fun you know you know how like um if something becomes fun for me I stop doing it to do something that sucks well dang this is it's more boring more psychologically challenging but they got all kind they have like the maces and you know all the workout stuff or whatever anyway that's a good on it dot com slash jocco check out that stuff and man get after it even if you're getting bored man you got some interesting stuff to work out with. Highly recommend. Awesome. Also, if you like these books, Pete didn't write a book.

Wait, have you written a book before? I wouldn't be surprised. I wrote a long-ass paper when I couldn't sleep over the last year, but it's all a book. So, yeah, a little bit different. But anyway, a lot of times, Jock will review books on this podcast. People like to get them. if you're one of those people out there go to the website

joccoopodcast.com section books from the podcast click through there to get the books that's a good way to support it takes you to amazon or if you're doing any other shopping do it through there big support small action small action big reaction nice also subscribe to the podcast google play we still feel the need to say that yeah because what some people aren't subscribed in the event of yeah you know it's it i guess it's just our guess my guess

there's probably hypopathy hypothesis speaking is my hypothesis what i'm saying there's probably a marginal group who's like hey who's jocco i heard him on joe rogan or i don't know i seen him on whatever be like i'm going to listen to the podcast and it's like okay cool let me listen to another one okay cool maybe I'm not down you know he's kind of weird or just maybe they don't understand like oh I can subscribe to this like I can just get it'll tell me when it's coming right because a lot of people don't listen to podcasts yeah I got a question for you about that have you thought about because you this is number 90 yes have you thought about breaking the podcasts into categories to speak to your audience because you cover such a broad audience

when you say breaking them you mean just another section like cutting them up no no no the full podcast but like where you're covering books where you're talking about business where you're interviewing somebody breaking them up that way yeah they are authentic

because it's not a linear right you don't have to listen from one right up to the night I recommend when someone says hey you know I just heard your podcast I heard I just listen that podcast you just put out I want to listen to the rest of them.

Should I go backwards? Should I go forward? And I tell people start at one. And most of the people that I talk to that are into the podcast, they're like, that's the right advice. Tell people start at one. If I said, Jocko, I want to listen to your business-related podcasts. Could I do that or no?

What we are going to do, and I have this in the background going, it's something that I've been trying to get done for a while is we're going to kind of archive where you're going to be able to maybe figure out, oh, I want to listen to business. Boom. And here's a podcast. Here's a section. Now, whether or not we, like, chop them up and put them into one group, not yet. Not yet.

Yeah. Not yet. Yeah, it's not organized, we'll say. But, you know, it's one of those things. You got to manually look, you know, because it'll say what it's about. In fact, the pocket, it's straight up by timestamp. Yeah. I saw.

I saw that. So you can kind of do it that way. But no, not organized. Like if you're and it makes sense though because if we're talking about a book and people like oh I love world war two love it. Yeah yeah and boom on it. There's 10 podcasts in World War II. Yeah. And they can just get after it and then maybe, you know.

Just an idea. Good idea. Pete is in the house big time. But yeah, subscribe. That's a good one. If you haven't already, how about that? If you haven't already subscribed, that's a good one. Also YouTube subscribe to that one.

Yeah. That one's a little bit more like make sense to be like, hey, subscribe to you. And the big thing that you might not know is if you're not subscribed to YouTube, there could be things that are not in the podcast. So let's say you like the podcast. You're listening to it. And you go, yeah, well, I've heard all the podcasts. I don't need to get YouTube. You're wrong.

Yeah. Because there could be things released into the YouTube that have not been released. Yeah. For instance, deleted scenes. Deleted scenes. Which is us talking off the record about things like people that have certain, you know. What? Issues.

What kind of issues, bro? Nothing, bro. Lack of squatting issues. Yeah, bro. See? Yeah, and I said I stopped squatting because of, actually, technically the story goes, I stopped squatting because my wife said, hey, your legs are like real big and it looks weird. That's funny because my wife said you're starting to get an old man butt.

Dang. Cold blood. Yeah, that's kind of the same thing. What is that even mean? I don't know, dude. Dang. I don't like it, though. I don't know what it means

that I don't like it. I'm squatting. You need to get on me off. I'm squatting. Yeah, yeah. Or like kettlebell swings, boom. Yeah, that's what they say. The regular one?

They say that the regular or the Russian kettlebell swings. Postterior chain. I knew you were coming. Yeah, I learned that. All that stuff. Either way. Yeah, the deleted scenes,

that's what he was giving me shit about because I stopped squatting. Actually, I didn't stop squatting. I stopped squatting like hardcore legs. You know what I'm saying? stop squat. The point is, is you stop squatting. Yeah, I know, man.

Anyway, yeah, deleted scenes are on there. Excerpts, too, you know? Like, let's say you were like, hey, I liked that part. And people still email me about that, by the way. Or they're like, hey, what was that part? Or what episode was that from? That part where whatever. So instead of having to scour.

See what I'm saying? Just share the excerpts, easy to find. So, yeah, that's a good to subscribe to YouTube. Also, Jocko is a store. It's called jaco store. Jocco store.com. Guess what's on there? Everything.

Potentially everything. But as of right now, there's some shirts on there, women's stuff on there, patches on there. You put them on your hat. Interchangeable Velcro patches, if you will. Rash guards. Awesome. So now they have two options, huh? Jocco rash guards, get after it.

Trooper Darkness rash guards and origin rash guards. Yeah. Just like that, the selection just vastly wide. And eventually they're going to be, and this will be, it'll all be. Kind of melt together as one big, vast option. A place to just go and. It's basically going to be a melting pot of awesomeness. Yes, indeed.

That's it. Simple. Indeed. Yeah. All that. So, Anne, some hoodies on there. Yeah. I think we should consult.

No, he, I'm going to tell you. you. I already know what he's going to say. He's from Hawaii. What, you want a lightweight hoodie? No, he, so he made hoodies and I'm from New England. It's always like, oh, you make a hoodie. You can wear it in like a full-fledged Arctic storm. Yeah, you better have a heavyweight cotton hoodie. So his,

his hoodies are like, they're cool for SoCal. Yeah. They're good for Hawaii if you even have hoodies in Hawaii. They're like a fall hoodie, I guess. And even that's like my guess. I don't know. That's why I'm saying we should consider. I mean, his is like, his consultation things. when I consult him like, hey, it's like mixed in with a scolding. So, you know, I get the scolding first, then the info like maybe.

I want to make, I want to make a really, really badass flatlocked hoodie. Let's do it. What is a flatlock? Wait a second. Flat seamed hoodie. How could we possibly do that? Where are we going to get someone that knows how to make flat locked awesome badass hoodies? Oh, wait.

We're sitting in a factory. That's right. Awesome. can make it happen. There you want. That's good stuff. Also, psychological warfare. Previously, a few minutes ago, we talked about joint warfare for joint degeneration, inflammation, all that stuff.

Overall, we'll generally speak in something. Supplementation for your body. Yeah. Sometimes you need supplementation for your mind, don't you? For your mind, yes. Full on. So in your campaign against weakness, psychological weakness, you know, you're trying to get up every day, right? Stick to the diet.

Can that help me with eating multiple whoopies Yes, yes, yes. Actually, there's a specific trap for that. I'm definitely interested in that because that's been my one struggle as a human. What is a whoopi pie?

A whoopee pie is like cake and... With cream, right? Cream. I'm trying to sound like a Fig Newton commercial because it kicks a Fig Newton's ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fig Newton is like, if you put those two next to each other, they're in different planet.

Exactly. I thought Stig Newton's were healthy though. Allegedly. They're actually just a big giant block of sugar. Fig and cake, which is pretty much what a whoopi buy is, which is why my homie over here. You got a kid, you have a single parent family four kids. We were fighting over the food in the house, dude.

I've never broken out of that. And the whoopie pie was... We need a break me there. We can introduce you to a track called sugar-coated lies. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I'd be very interested in that.

We'll get you on the sugar-coated lies. I'm weak there. Yeah. And you'd think it'd be like Jocko yelling at you. Like don't, whatever, but it's a pragmatic explanation of what your mind is doing right now and what it shouldn't be doing and what it should be doing. And psychological warfare, that can help with that. Oh, big time.

Basically, it's like... Did you mention that it's an album? It's an album. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's an album with tracks. On iTunes. Jocco tracks.

iTunes, Amazon music, like all these things. Yeah. MP3. And you know what? You probably sitting here thinking like, okay, that that's a neat little idea that, you know, Echo came up with and made Jocko do this and, oh, cool. That album, number one spoken word album on iTunes for? I don't know. I lost trash shit.

Like 38 straight weeks. Are you kidding me? Number one. That's, yeah. Bad ass. No big deal. You know. Oh, shit.

Yeah. I don't know. It's awesome. And I will say that when Echo is like, dude, you just kind of, you know, just. just, you know, these things that I'm asking you about, you gotta just like, you know, hammer it. And I'll just record it. Yeah, it's basically like, okay, so I used to have this thing,

used to, not anymore, have this thing. Where, you know, when you're like, okay, I'm working out this day, this day, you know, I'm just through this day, I work out this day, and when it comes time to work out, and I have a gym at my house now. So I'm like, ah, maybe I'll do it. I meant to do it at noon. I'm going to do it tonight.

I don't feel like doing it around. I'm do it tonight. And then you know. No accountability. Nobody's watching. Yeah. You can do what you want. Yeah.

When I feel like a little bit more, drink some coffee, whatever. It's right outside, you know, kind of thing. I totally get it. Yeah. And that night turns into, hey, I'll do it tomorrow. So you basically turn a workout day into a rest day. And this helped you turn on your motivation to get it done? Yeah.

And it's, again, it's not like a motivational thing. It's like, okay, this is, it's jaco saying it. So, okay, there's that. But it's like it's saying, okay, this is what's going on right now. This is what you're thinking right now. This is what you shouldn't be thinking right now. This is what you should be thinking right now. Okay, there you go.

Gotcha. It's when you're like, oh, man. The thing that I find about them is because it is me talking. Yeah. I find it they're very, very tight arguments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't get done listening and you go, you know what, man, I still find a little hole in his argument, you know. I think there's one sugarcoat, this one whoopie pies and you're not going to be happy.

No, you're like, you know what, this is a big deal. Yeah. And I'm setting the whoopie pie aside. Yeah. You know, you might be the ultimate test case. Yeah. I will be the ultimate. I don't care.

I don't care who's around me. Ben, if, like, I get that craving for sugar. We were traveling the other day. What I get? Sweet tea. Oh, dang. Why? Sugar.

Sugar. But keep in mind. Baclav. Yeah. Bro. I'm gonna ruin you. No, your mom is. I know.

I can't. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. She's like, you know, you're like, hey, you want to try these things? And I know what it is. And you said, man, you got to try this baklava. My mom is. I go, bro, I know it's sweet.

Right. And you go, yeah, it is. I go to us. You never had Spartan Baclavai. Yeah, I was like, you know, no big deal. And, you know, we've been lately been saying, like, you know, the discipline won't allow it. That's the latest kind of between, between what and when we,

when we, you know, maybe see each other, maybe taking a path that we shouldn't be taking it. We're going off the path and onto the path of weakness. You know, I might be like, hey, I go, you know, that's cool and everything, but the discipline won't allow that. Oh, man. So. That's awesome.

You know, yesterday, you know, you're dangling this custom homemade, Baclavah. And my mom's there. And your mom's there. Actually like, and I know. I can see her. She looks like she arrived from Greece three days ago to make the baklava

for me. And I'm like, okay, I'll have one. Right? So I had one yesterday. And then the discipline wouldn't allow anymore. Today, I had nine of them. No, I didn't have nine. I think I had three of them today. I had three of them. Sugar-coated

Lies, Baclava. Get some. My mom's is going to get called to make baklava. Yeah, yeah. We'll be selling origin bacclobaugh pretty soon. We got the papal syrup going. But yeah, but keep in mind, though, with these tracks, you've got to be on that path, though. It's not like you're like, hey, I eat too much. Let me listen to this track.

It's not that. It's like, okay, my plan is to straight up clean up my whole shit. Like my plan is. So you've already found a bit of motivation. Yeah, yeah, you're motivated. You're on the path already. But it's on the weakness moments, the moments. week that you're like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna you know whatever it's that kind but yeah man i need that

i do we all do we all do that's that's probably why a lot of people get that album yeah with tracks you know what i do i'm like you rationalized you know what i used to do no no what i would do is this i'd be like especially when i was training for competition i'm going to eat this woppy pie i would eat it and i would run two miles yeah i was bad you'd earn it friggin right yeah i'd do that too. Like, normally I try and preempt weakness with hardcore exercise, which, by the way, often mitigates. Yeah, it takes a day.

Like, oh, I want to have a mint chocolate chip milkshake. Cool. I can have a mint chocolate chip milkshake as soon as I do 30 cleaning jerks. Okay. That I can respect. Without putting the bar down. I can do that. And that's cool.

But then by the time you get done, you're like, you know what? I don't even want that thing. Yeah. I infused my brain with discipline from the bar. It went from the bar into my hands and into my brain. That's a great idea. Yeah. In the simplest one is burpees.

Preemptive. Yeah. Burpees. Like, okay, you know what? I can have this if I do 100 burpees. That takes less than 10 minutes. We had this thing the other day and I talked about it. My freezer in my house broke.

And so we had, I have an RV and our frozen food was in the RV refrigerator. And I wanted some ice cream. And then I was like, ah, you know, It's all the way up to think. And I said to myself, God, what a lazy loser. You don't even deserve ice cream. I didn't have it. Because I said, you're pathetic.

If you're actually questioning whether it's worth it, go to the RV. You don't need this at all in any way, shape, or form. If you were thinking it wasn't worth 27 steps to get to the RV, grab the mint chocolate chip, Briars ice cream, bring it back down, scoop it into a bowl, let it melt a little bit, and then just sit there and get after it. The best. Yeah, so good.

Do you like a little melt to the ice cream? Just a little melt. I don't like it solid. Have you ever heard the term Gaines Bowl? No. Have you ever heard that term? No. Gaines bowl.

It's, it's, you basically take ice cream and you put milk in it and you stir it around. Yeah, that's what I do. That's what I do. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's all detach right now and consider what we're talking about right now. The pleasures of Gaines bowl.

The problem is. The chocolate chip. Ice cream. I would walk barefoot and two feet of snow to that frigging RV. Yeah, because that's my problem. Yeah. Look at this guy. No, he was that in that case, that's like, is that negative or positive. No, yours is worse. It's weird because you have a better result, but your discord or your path is worse because he was like, hey, I'm going to be weak. I have disciplined to eat it. But I'm too weak to be weak. That was him that day. Yeah. But you could, that's rationalized because the end, you know, the means and the end situation. The thing is I actually embarrassed myself. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know. That's what it was. I just humiliated myself and I said, I can't believe I'm even questioning the fact if I would take 27 steps to my RV to get the ice cream.

The fact that I'm even thinking that way, I don't deserve it. I should haze myself. This is ridiculous and pathetic and just stop. And so, yeah, I didn't get the ice cream that night. But the mint chocolate, for sure, is a real thing. And it's even, it's my favorite flavor.

Yeah, I don't even understand. Is my favorite flavor. Although when I was in Montana, Moose tracks. Moose tracks. Moose tracks. Moose tracks. That's the other, that's the other. Okay.

I'm not going to. No, I understand and I saw it and I dig it, but it's just, it's very surprising that you're talking about this right now. You can close. I dig it, by the way. You can close the moose track with a scoop of mint chocolate chip. I've never done that. That sounds deranged.

It's like it would push me over the head medley. Cheese and wine. Crapes. Oh, man. Cheese. Just close it. Just a finishing touch. Is that what we should do?

Is that what we should do now? One of my buddies in the teams is an awesome guy, badass wrestler, wrestled, was a champion wrestler in college and was on the Olympic team. Didn't compete for a variety of reasons that I won't talk about. But he was friends with Dan Severn. You remember Danny Seven? Oh, yeah, yeah. Early U.S.

And so I don't know why this just came to my mind. Oh, I know why I did. So he would say they knew each other. They were friends. And whenever he'd see Danny Severn, Danny Severn was a heavyweight. And this buddy of mine was cutting weight, you know. He was a big guy. He was like, whatever, like 200 pounds.

We had to cut to 190, whatever. And he would call Dan Severn a pot liquor. Meaning like you're just, you're a guy that's over there. You're eating everything. And when you get done eating, you're licking the pot. Right. And I picture you with the smile you got on your face. You are straight up pot liquor.

You get to the end of that bowl. You're like, oh, I'm getting the rest of this mint jargoner ice cream is getting into my belly now. My kids have followed the path of my wife. And they'll come up to me when I'm eating junk food. And they'll be like, Dad, you got mobs. Dad, and they'll just grab that fat on my gut. You don't need that. Oh, they're brutal.

Dang. That's kind of psychological. Warfare situation. Yeah, it is. I'm surprised you're not. Sometimes I feel like 84 pounds. I should be, huh? Yeah, yeah.

Scarred mentally. Actually, what do we say? That's the freedom part. The thing is, you got to be on the path. Right. So like, yeah. You know how they say discipline equals freedom, right? So, you know, you grab the ice cream.

Yeah. You're like, okay. I had to pull that one. Yeah. For the first time I was at a little like family get together. And there was a birthday party for a friend of the family, blah, blah, blah. And there was a grandmother there.

So a grandmother of one of these kids that had a birthday party, blah, blah, blah. So, and she's a German woman. And, you know, she kind of knows what's going on a little bit with the game with what's going on with everything. And so I'm sitting there and there's like, you know, straight up, this is rough.

You know the ice cream cakes? And then you can get a mint chocolate. Do I know the ice cream cakes? So the cake is a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. Talking to a fat kid, yeah. So I'm talking to a pot liquor. Yeah. So, so, so I'm like, okay, you know what?

I'm gonna get some of that men chocolate chip ice cream. It's got those, I don't even know what it is, those little black, like crumb things that. Yeah, it's like an Oreo or something like that. Like a cake barrio. That's in there too. We're talking, this is a situation needs to be, you know, we need to get in on this thing real quick.

And it's a little bit melted so it's soft. So anyways, I'm cutting a piece of the cake. Not a big piece, not a small piece, but, you know, like a medium piece, get it on my plate, stick my fork in it. And this woman, this German woman who's super cool, She's like, I thought you were about the discipline And I was like, dang And she called me out

And I looked at it and I said, you know what? I have the discipline And that allows me to have freedom Sometimes to eat Mint chocolate chip ice cream cakes Which I'm about to do Thank you. That's what you just say

This is the freedom part But like I said you gotta be on the path You gotta be in the game You can't just be like this is the freedom part Every single day No Doesn't work like that that way. Also,

Jocka white tea, you can get that. You know what it does. If you're going to start deadlifting again, you should drink a little bit more Jocka white tea because it will increase your deadlift to 8,000 pounds. And this is proven. Proven across the board. I'm on it. Everyone.

Books, I got some books if you want to get them. Extreme ownership. Book about leadership. Book about combat leadership. You can get that. you can get it for yourself and you can get it for your team and you can get it for above and below you

in the chain of command. It's going to make your life easier when everyone's on board. If you got kids or you know kids, you can pick them up a book called Way of the Warrior Kid and what that's going to do is going to lay out a path actually. A path. Yeah. That a kid who doesn't have a path,

most kids don't have a path. The book will give them the path and the path leads them to being stronger, smarter, and better. So my daughter read it, she loved it. That is awesome. And she is an individual. And she speaks her mind. And I was like, Chloe, no really.

What did you think? She goes, I love that book. And she came up and she wanted you to sign it. And she wanted me to get her copy back at home today, which I failed that. We'll get it tomorrow or something. Yeah. We'll get it tomorrow. Awesome.

That's, yeah, I appreciate it. And, yeah, straight up, like, when you ask kids, how did you like it? Which I always ask kids how they like it. And because you know kids, like you said, kids are going to tell you the truth. Yeah, yeah. And so, so far, I have not had a kid go, ah, marginal. Marginal. You know, marginal.

You know, all right. You kind of miss the mark, but, you know, yeah, entertaining about that, but, you know, whatever. They should make that shit into a movie or something. Oh, they're going to make it into a movie. Also, another book coming out, October 17th, Discipline equals Freedom, Field Manual, that will also show you the path. It's going to show you one path, the path of discipline. Grab that book.

If you need help of your business, I have a business called Eschalon Front with my brother, Laif Babin, and he was, we worked together. in the SEAL teams, Battle of Vermont. We took the lessons that we learned. We wrote that book, Extreme Ownership. And the reason we wrote that book, Extreme Ownership, was because we had people that we were consulting asking us

to write down the lessons learned. So there it is. If you want us to come work with you, it's Leif Babin, me, J.P. Denele, Dave Burke. You know who they are. Email us info at echelonfront.com. Also, if you want to communicate with us,

You can do that. We can all be found on something that we talked about earlier tonight, the interwebs. Sure. Twitter, Instagram, and that's facey boa. Echo is at Echo Charles. Pete is at origin. We're talking Instagram, are we talking Twitter? Instagram. Where are you at?

At Origin USA. Twitter. Where are you at? At Origin B.J., as in Brazilian DJ2. Awesome. I am at Jocko Willink. If you want to hit us up, you can hit us there. Echo any clothing, clothing. Clothing. Clothing. Clothing. Clothing. Clothing thoughts. We've got a lot of clothing thoughts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Closing thoughts.

Nope, that's it. Pete, the man. Great to finally meet you in person. I appreciate that. Right home. Thank you guys. Man, I'm honored to be at the table with you both and just mad respect for everything you guys do. Like that. I'm just glad to be here with you and experience this. Also, I want to thank my wife Amanda for putting up with my crazy shit and midnight ideas

and allowing me the flexibility to live this life, which is important in a relationship. and my kids, Kegan and Chloe, who are the ones I work for every day, day in and day out, that family. Good things coming. Yeah. Well, for me, you know, I wish I would have met you 20 years ago, for whatever reason I didn't. I wish I would have met you 10 years ago,

for whatever reason I didn't, met you six months ago, and just looking at what you've done, I'm telling you, and if I haven't made it perfectly clear today, what you've done to this point already is incredible. I don't even, it's the, the possibilities of you pulling off what you've already pulled off is incredible. And what's cool is it's like when a space shuttle takes off, the hardest part of the journey is that first part, getting, breaking away from gravity of earth. And what you've already done, you've cleared the gravity. of earth and now you're on track and it's it's you know just nothing but respect for what you did i know that you have used your hands to make this happen your mind to make this happen and i just respect

everything you've done so far talking to the team here and the attitude that they have everybody has that attitude and and just for me to come in and be a part of that is just outstanding i look forward to being a part of this team. I look forward to getting to know the team when I can come up here, which is hard. But to see the people on this team is phenomenal, and I can't wait to see where it goes. So thanks for coming on. And this is guaranteed not be the last time. And of course, to the military folks overseas right now, thank you. Thanks for allowing it us to make this podcast. We could not make this podcast without your service

and sacrifice to the police and all law enforcement to firefighters, EMTs, and other first responders. Again, you allow us to make this podcast and we are thankful for it. And finally, and of course, course to the working class of America thanks for doing what you do day after day working sweating bleeding building calluses while you build our great country thank you for holding the line and thank you for getting after it so until next time this is

Pete Roberts and Echo and Jocko out