Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #17 The importance of Flow States, Being In The Zone and Accountability with Andy Stumpf

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

Andy Stumpf, retired Navy SEAL, Skydiver, Wingsuit, and Basejumper and host of the Cleared Hot podcast, shares his unique perspective on life. Andy on Instagram Twitter and Facebook Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on Twitter and on Instagram Get 10% off at Onnit by going to Onnit.com/Podcast         Onnit Twitter        Onnit Instagram

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shit for fucking Red Bull. He is, he's the fucking man. He's an absolute savage in every way, shape, and form. He has a wealth of knowledge in many things. He has an incredible podcast, Cleared Hot, which I've become a huge fan of. But let me backtrack first. I heard him first on the Joe Rogan Experience with my buddy Tate Fletcher, and they absolutely crushed it. He was on the Joe Rogan Experience again about a month ago or two and crushed it himself solo. I mean, this guy could talk for hours, and he does on his own podcast. He's got some great solo casts, and I could have spoken to him for hours. I'll for sure have him him back on very interesting guy and has a wealth of knowledge in many areas i think you'll

be able to gravitate and really resonate with quite a bit of what he's saying um accountability keep that in mind that's a fucking massive piece accountability all right enjoy any stump in the house finally blowing up yeah finally i don't know if i'm gonna blow anything up i've been i've been trying to get you uh since i was running my own show out in vegas and then you fucking up and left to montana i wish i'd done it years ago yeah is it absolutely incredible well when i arrived here yesterday i could have stayed home for this weather. I will say that. It was snowing last night. I'm in Texas. I'm looking. I'm thinking I could take t-shirts. I brought t-shirts. And there was about three inches of snow on the ground. So yeah, you guys are getting a little bit of the weather I'll go home to. Going to France for a week where it's

going to be freezing rain. That's going to be fun. And then back home where it's going to be snowing for the next four months. And yeah, it's the good life. Yeah, the good life. It is the good life. Are you doing any ranching? You got any animals? Are you just hunting up there? My wife is an equestrian lover since she's probably in her maybe single digit age.

So she had two horses in California. And before people start thinking that we're exceedingly wealthy and I'm driving around in a Bugatti. Each of these horses cost us $500, not $50,000 a piece. She wasn't riding a Clydesdale to work? No, but then there's also the upfront cost of a horse. It was 500 bucks each and then they eat more than that per month and then you have to stable them. So she kind of lured me in with, oh, this is how much they are. And then the monthly came a little bit later on. So she is more into the animal scene up there. I don't follow the equestrian scene very much,

but apparently it's huge where we live in Montana, in the Flathead Valley. For me, the animals that I am more interested in have antlers on their head and big racks. And I like to sneak around with sharp pointy things and launch them at them at a very high rate of speed. However,

no more of that for another 10 months. How long are the, uh, the seasons up there? Are they pretty standard or are they, are they, they're standard, uh,

you know, you know, before anybody thinks that note, I'm talking about, I've been bow hunting for exactly one year. And by that I started in August. So I'm in my first year of bow hunting. You're a seasoned veteran.

Seasoned, seasoned veteran of research on the internet. It opened the first week of September and the season closed the weekend right after Thanksgiving day. Okay. And that's about it. And from what I understand, that's pretty standard, but I guess states, the wildlife division in each state,

to my understanding, determines the number of animals that are available and also the window that you can hunt them in for Montana I think we're pretty much game over for the animals I'm interested in until next September okay which sucks but yeah you got what a month two actually yeah you get a month of just bow hunting which is what I okay what I love doing so you have yeah you get about 30 days out there you don't have to wear an orange vest because it's just bow hunters and it was i mean i think it's as close as you can get to heaven on earth i had so much fun i went elk hunting in uh northeastern oregon like not long ago a couple weeks ago did you get one

week i didn't see an elk until the last day, Thanksgiving day. I saw the ass of one elk and it was fucking gone in an instant. And I was so heartbroken. Like if I should have good instincts, they're very smart. And the fucking deer are standing around like for selfies. Like they don't give a shit. They're like, yeah, we're good. This year. Like I said, I just started.

You want to talk about a learning experience? I had never seen an elk in person. I had never been anywhere near an elk. I didn't know that they, they behave in certain ways only during certain time periods. I didn't know that they were herd animals except for in the rut where they're individual. It was crazy. I was just, again, I'm not smart enough to remember things, so I write stuff down. I have an entire book full of notes like, okay, this is what I saw. This is the behavior. Just so I can read that again next year after I've forgotten everything that I learned this year

and try to get back up to speed 5%. It's been great, man. But at the same time, I loved California. And I don't even know how we got on Montana because we were talking about how we eventually, I think we linked up over Twitter because I heard you on Joe's podcast. And then I think I hit you up asking you something

about your blood measuring. And then back and forth from there, it was like a keto measuring kit or something like that. I was asking because that podcast you did with him to me was fascinating i don't know anything about the ufc but you get on there and you're crazy articulate talking about stuff i was like i'm the only one everyone else is a moron yeah i've heard that that's actually no what i would assume it is it is the opposite dude i'd be blown away by how many i've been blown away by how many people are like you know i thought you were going to be half retarded and you're like oh i get your level and be like

yeah no there's too much that goes into it you could fight at a bar and be half retarded i don't think you could get to a place like the ufc and not because you guys again from the outside it looks to me like you're playing chess you know it is thinking a few moves ahead everybody i've ever found it gets to a high level has you just i'm sure there's a white elephant or black elephant whatever the term is but i'm sure there's a very stupid successful person i haven't encountered them yet they always have this high level of intelligence and the ability to i would say forward to think as opposed to just to react to what's coming at their face that's what i see time and time again there's too much to learn otherwise you know it's yeah there's a lot there but yeah yeah we started we started dating on twitter yep and um classic

i had heard 2016 romance i mean that's where it all starts on the internet exactly that's right and uh i heard you and tate fletcher on rogan's and that was fucking phenomenal and i fucking love tate it was so great because he's like you know tate's just dropping like everything eddie bravo would you know he's talking about 9-11 he's talking about the inside i try to hold a neutral facial reaction when people talk about those things but inside there's conversations that i'm having and i didn't i mean i loveate to death. I met him probably a month before that randomly on a very small

CrossFit centric podcast. And I didn't know he was going to be on it and we just happened to be, Wellborn was with me, the guy I'm here to speak with. We were sitting at a picnic table

and there was this dude with the biggest beard that I've ever seen in my life peeling an orange. And he introduced himself. He's like, hey, I'm Tate. Hey, I'm Andy.

And he just starts talking about Periscope, the Twitter app. And I'm like, and he introduced himself he's like hey i'm tate hey i'm andy and he just starts talking about periscope the twitter app i'm like and he's filming himself peeling orange i'm literally i'm just like what in the hell is going on here it's like i got a thousand people watching me peel this orange and i'm like what are you doing what is periscope so then i download it and then i'm literally sitting across the table through periscope watching him peel an orange the guy right across from me i'm like i get it okay so we go ahead and do the podcast. He and I hit it off.

He introduced me to Callan and Schaub. So I did the fighter and the kid. And then the next thing I know, I'm sitting across from Joe. To this point, I had still never listened to a podcast. I had no idea what we were doing. I thought we were just sitting down having conversations. And I said this when I was with Joe. I'm late to the game to everything.

I was a little bit busy and distracted. Social media, super late to the game.. I'm late to the game to everything. I was a little bit busy and distracted. Social media, super late to the game. Podcasting, late to the game. You just got your first email last week. I mean, I've been doing email for a while. You'd actually be surprised. If you wanted to shut down the modern-day military, Microsoft Office is the way to do it,

not actually with a nuclear strike. If you pull the plug on email and like... ...door when the power goes out. Yeah, so podcasts i i didn't realize that if you want to learn about something you can literally go to a free rest resource and listen to world-class people talking about it and since i found that it drives my wife nuts she's like will you take take your headset out i don't want to take my headset out take it out i'm learning leave me alone there's more information to break down like i said i'm okay okay i'm probably 10 years behind the game on this i got some time i need to kill so i if i'm not doing something that requires like

active thought i'm just trying to absorb as much information from avenues that i never would have had exposure to it's my favorite part about doing podcast stuff or just being involved in that world it's it's never ending you go as far as you want road trips and flights are probably my absolute favorite time to listen to a book on audible and grind through a bunch and it goes so fast yeah so fast yeah i agree but of course i waited until like the last minute to discover that so well you're not too late to the game everybody's jumping on so did rogan tell you uh to start a podcast he suggested that it wouldn't be a bad idea and i am a believer that i've never had a unique idea in my entire life

so what i do is i listen to smart people and i mean i've been told his podcast is successful i don't know i mean i think he's probably copying what i'm doing even though he's on episode like 1050 and i'm on episode 22 well i think he does three a day, every day of the year. The dude is a machine. You've got 1,000 in a year. Yeah, the dude is a machine. But yes, I met him. I talked with him.

It was obviously before the microphones go live and then after. Crazy, nice guy. Generous with his time, generous with his knowledge. Got to know him a little bit. I'd say I'm very fortunate to have become friends with him. When a guy like that says, hey hey this might be a good idea and who comes from that world maybe you should think about doing it yeah you know so i started doing it and yeah i have no idea where it's going i have no idea what it's going to be but it's fun it is

fantastic and i'm not just saying that because you're sitting in front of me but i've loved cleared hot right out the gate wealth of knowledge in knowledge in there. Obviously, you've had great guests. We'll use wealth and knowledge very loosely. Because I don't know if there is. Yeah, I did it because I want to understand more about me. And I want to talk with people like you who have a totally diversion background. To me, it's all about what you do in what I call the valley. I see, especially with, or especially,

I had people hit me up on the internet because I say especially wrong with the X in it. Especially. It's especially is the way you're supposed to say it. Thank you. Fuck you, internet people who constantly send me emails about that. No, thank you.

Yeah, actually, thank you. I didn't know I was saying it incorrectly. But I see people most often in two different types of peaks. One is they're getting ready to set a goal and they're very vocal about it. The second peak I see people most often in two different types of peaks. One is they're getting ready to set a goal and they're very vocal about it. The second peak I see people on, especially with social media because you can be so selective, is the achievement of a goal. I'm not interested in either of those things really. Actually, I'm more interested probably in the goal setting than the achievement of the goal.

But what I really like is the valley. What happens in between those two places? Because in my opinion, that's where you find out who you are because that's where the struggle and the grind and the adversity if you only watch fighters getting into the cage like that's all you knew about the ufc was you turn it on for the fight how much do you really know about the ufc nothing or your journey as a fighter and what it takes right to actually be a fighter that to me it's so much more interesting than hey look at me i'm so successful here's my car it's like get get out of here i'm four percent body fat year around i'm so

ripped i just dieted for this picture for 180 days and i'm unhealthy and look at me and it's like no let's talk about those 180 days that to me is what is interesting and i mean i think that's the power of social media like you and i randomly connect and here we are finally sitting together probably a year and a half i think after the first time we ever bounced back and forth there you go it's been a minute i thought it was going to be even longer with the with the move to montana and no i'm just coming out here but flown you up there you'd never left that's the problem yeah honestly i don't it's the podcast that never on a podcast would have had to come up there like yeah hey well maybe you need a co-host down the road or something like that and i could

just fucking sit in there and be a ranch hand i'm game i'm open man i have no idea where it's going uh and you know what i i love sitting down with people but i also love the questions that people ask a lot of them are military based because a lot of people have questions about the military. You know, currently 0.05% of people are actually serving in the military. So I get the questions. I try actually not to answer most of the military ones because I would love to keep, I would love to eventually be a guy where people look me up and they're like, oh, he was in the military. You know, like I'm very proud of that time, but I would rather do something else with that time and be known for that than just a guy, oh, he's one of those military guys. I don't want to be that.

Yeah. I'm kind of the same way on fighting. If somebody wants to ask me questions on fighting, sure, I'm happy to talk about that. It's not an issue at all. But that chapter is long over. It's what I did. It's not who I am is what I try to describe. But what I find that people will pay attention to and when they ask questions, I try to relate it back to something

that I have personally experienced or something that I've personally seen with my own two eyes. And then again, on top of that, what I think is the most important is just being honest. Like I'll be the first to admit my failures and my struggles and where I have messed stuff up.

And I think if you don't have that or you're not willing to do that i just i don't have time for it so well that's like all these you know the spiritual gurus who've got it all figured out and you never hear how fucked up life was for them or that they still struggle all the time and i think a lot of people write me and aubrey and thank us you know for talking on facebook live and talking about the shit you know the valley talking about where we're this is going wrong week in and week out there is no hey i fucking finished yeah right i'm so woke i don't have to work anymore like no dude there's fucking always struggle i want to be woke i actually don't know what that means i'm gonna help you level up

i'll teach you all about that after this podcast. But I'm telling you, the valley is where I find out who I am as a man. If your life is super comfortable and you have everything provided to you and you think that everything should be provided to you, I don't think you're anywhere near the limit of the potential you have as far as even being a contributing member of society. And I'm not saying people need to go run out into the woods and get lost and cover themselves in face paint, even though if you're going to do that, please tag me in the picture so I can see it. I would love to see that journey. It worked in predator. It did. But just, I mean, my theory is go and find difficult things to do and find,

set a goal. Here's your starting point. And then dig in and just revel in that journey to get you there a day at a time, a foot at a time, an inch at a time. That's, to me, so much more valuable as a person and I think important as a lesson for others. 100%. Well, that's a great segue into kids because you're talking about an idea that a lot of millennials, for better and for worse,

are labeled as wanting, wanting deserving you know thinking they should have everything handed to them and i'm not saying that's the case i got plenty of millennials that bust their ass for friends what is the age range for a millennial what is it's up to 30 now so it's like so basically a lot of people in their 20s okay born in like the 90s then yeah okay because you're you're about the same age as me what how old are you 54 oh wow i was way off i'm 35 we're right we're generation x emotionally i'm about seven i believe but my driver's license says 40 as of october you're allowed to drive as a seven-year-old but yeah this idea that that and this goes into kids because how should we raise our kids and this

is something that i've loved listening to cleared hot is the fact that we live in a fucking sugar-coated bubble boy protect everyone participation award yeah don't say this don't say that and the pc world that we're moving towards is handicapping children and it's not just millennials it's fucking even the generation before them that's really looking to get fucked because there's there is no challenge we're taking this we're taking competition away from competition yeah we're not allowing children to fail and to learn from their failures and fucking mistakes like i talk about this a lot like a lot of times you look back on a mistake or a shitty spot in your life and you're like i would not have leveled up or grown from that had i not experienced that it's the best thing that happens yeah that was an amazing piece that allowed

me to grow and change as a person uh this is and this is where i think i start viewing the world differently from most and not from all and i don't make a character judgment or a value judgment on it, but it's tough for me to sit back and, you know, my son is going to go into college in, I hope he'll make the choice to go to college. I'm not going to force him. My theory is that, you know, I want to provide for him the opportunity and enable him and empower him to make those choices. But if he goes to college, you know, I look at what's happening in what people consider to be higher education. And again, no character or value judgment on it, whether or not you swing left or right. I don't care what people's political beliefs are. Be whatever it is that you want to be.

But I don't know if I want him to go into that environment because of the things you described. We need to create safe spaces from ideas. Whereas my theory is I don't look for safe spaces. I make them safe when I walk through the door. And I teach my kids to do exactly the same thing. And your words don't hurt me. They might be hurtful and they might hurt my feelings, but I'm not going to break my face because you said something to me that I don't like. Like, you know, your eyebrows are terrible. Like, oh, like I'm going to, I'm going to be okay. So in my opinion, I'm used to working in an environment where you're always looking for angles, angles to, you can call it an opponent. You could call it an enemy. I'm looking for an angle to maneuver on you.

And what I see in that environment created where competition, you know, we can't keep score because that's going to make people feel bad. We can't say these things. It's an artificial environment that the people that I used to square off with and the countries that support those individuals will look at that and go, ooh, that's a great angle. And they'll leverage against that. We think we're doing the right thing, but it's artificial. Nothing in the real world supports fairness, supports equality, supports that anybody else in business, especially when you start talking global business, they don't care how special you think you are. They don't

care about your feelings. You need to be able to get out there and get your nose bloodied and get back up again. And when you remove that learning process of, to me, I didn't go to college, probably couldn't have got into college, strong 2.5 GPA in high school. Powerful.

Yeah, you and me both, brother. 2.5. Hell yeah. Yeah, grew up in Santa Cruz. I was doing other things at the time. I know Santa Cruz well. Yes, yes. Itrew up in Santa Cruz. I was doing other things at the time. I know Santa Cruz well. Yes, yes. It's a very interesting environment.

But, I mean, it's just, I see what's being created. If I hadn't have left Santa Cruz, it's a very insular environment, I would have had a different perspective of the world. And the perspective of the world, as much as I believed it to be true, it doesn't make it valid outside of the boundaries and borders. And I just see us setting up this long-term, if you look a few moves into the future,

how far do we want to go with this? The only way the environment works is if we close off our borders, not only physically, but information-wise as well too. Because our little ecosystem that we're creating is not going to survive in an environment where people will look at what we're doing and say, little ecosystem that we're creating is not going to survive in an environment where people will look at what we're doing and say, oh, that's great.

I'm going to crush you. I'm going to take what you think is your strength, flip it on its head, and it's now going to be the biggest weakness of the country that you have. So I cheat my children the exact opposite. And it bothers me. They use words like triggered at my son's school, who's 14. And so he'll say that to me in the car, and I'll stop the car, and I'll pull over and be like, listen, don't use that word. You can have an emotional reaction to something, and that's fine. But if you have an emotional reaction to something that somebody said, don't run away from that.

Go right towards it. Figure out what it is that the problem is. I'm always here for you. Let's talk about what you believe. And at the end of the day, if you don't agree with what the person said, good, that's fine. Because we live in a place where you can have a disagreement and it's going to be totally fine and yeah political correctness and safe spaces in my personal opinion the biggest threat to this country yeah and look no further if you're if you're kind of wondering where we're going with this i'm sure a lot of you obviously are fans of

the rogan experience jordan B. Peterson has really been- Love that Canadian son of a bitch. He's right on the front lines. Yes. He's balls deep in the trenches of it, teaching at university level. He has some excellent videos on YouTube. There's one where it's, I think it's 17 minutes long, and it's Jordan B. Peterson was right. That's the title of it.

17 minutes long and this woman who's also a professor i think at the same maybe not the same school at another school in ontario she was reprimanded from the top down and she brought in a fucking recorder into into her meeting to get scolded might have been some legalities there records these guys but it's fucking amazing right and so she records these guys telling her that i think she was teaching a psychology class or something like that and she she got in trouble for playing a jordan peterson video just for playing his video and she said i wasn't taking sides i was showing this is one way people think of these things and this is the other way she wanted to show the argument and they were saying and this is exactly what Jordan says they are limiting the

ability to even have that conversation they don't want that argument and it's and she's like what are we preparing these kids for when they leave the classroom do you think people aren't going to fucking say these things shouldn't it be shouldn't what happens in the classroom be an insurgency on your mind? It should be full on, hey, this is something I totally don't agree with. And here's something I totally agree with. Now let's battle it out with no value judgment of right or wrong. Let's just think about, I mean, that's the conversations I try to have with my kids. Like, don't buy into that. Like, no, words don't hurt you. Getting hit in the face hurts. There's a difference between somebody offending you and somebody hurting you physically.

And understand the difference between the two. And oh, by the way, if you see somebody physically getting hurt, step in and do something about it if they're not willing to. These are the lessons I try to constantly reinforce to my kids. And it scares me thinking that in three years, my son will be, actually four years, he'll be exiting high school and trying to figure out what he wants to do next,

and I don't want to send him into an environment where you can't think and talk and have conversations because you're labeled, they slap some label on you that some people put importance to, and to me, they slap those labels. I would laugh and be like, that's awesome. That's a funny word that you're using. It has no meaning to me whatsoever, so get fucked.

But I worry. I'd almost rather hope that he goes to a trade school and learns to do something with his hands and to think and manipulate stuff with his hands than go to a place where a small segment of people controls all of the thought. I'd literally rather, you know what,

just go to college on YouTube, man. I mean, go and just promise me that you'll get 50-50. 50% of stuff you don't agree with, 50% of stuff you will, and battle it out. You'll be such a better person, in my opinion, than a person who sits there and is like, yes, tell me more of what I already believe. Restrict what I'm allowed to think. It's just such a narrow myopic view. And I'm telling you, based off of the world that I came from, we would try to push our enemy a percentage point at a time and get them to be comfortable that one inch backwards and one inch backwards well eventually you're a mile down the road and nobody realizes it until you're standing at the front door like hey guess what i won and that's the danger i see that our

country is going towards yeah look no further than canada they already can't use uh he she male male and female pronouns they're they're creating new language i love it when people try to tell me the words i'm allowed to use yeah yeah but you touched on another good thing uh taking offense and i think it was uh was it eleanor roosevelt that talked about that like with somebody i forget the fucking quote so i shouldn't even have brought her name up but um there's something along the lines of when someone says something to you it's your choice 100 basically like and if you take offense that's not on the other person that's on you the fact that you took offense i used to i used to get pissed and riled up when mma trolls like kingsbury you fucking suck you can get your ass i will fight you where are you it's like fuck you you wouldn't say that to my face bitch you know now it's just comical it's like oh i see

you've never been in a fight before and you want to be included in the conversation and whatever the case may be with that person wants you to respond they're trying to goad you into responding yeah but but if i'm to take offense to that that's on me. That's on me for being just that easy. I can't be that easy. I got to be stronger than that, right? So again, I'll go back to the things that I say to my kids. I have two boys and a little girl. They get along less than 1% of the time.

They tell on each other more than 99% of the time. It's unbelievable. And I'll sit back and I hear them and they're needling each other. And I know what they're trying to do. And so one of them will come running to me. Daddy, this person just did it. I'm like, all right, get everybody over here. Let's sit down and we'll talk about it. I'm like, okay, hey, what'd you do? Well, I did this because she did. I'm like, okay, stop. I'll have a conversation with her about what she did. But anything that you do in response to what somebody else does, we're going to have a conversation about that because you always have a choice.

You have a choice when it comes to arguing with people. You have a choice when it comes to getting upset. You may not have a choice about what they say, whether or not that upsets you, but you have a choice with what you do with that anger. You can lash out with that anger or you can internalize it and figure out why it bothers you and then move on. But let's keep it constantly going back to the fact that whatever you do, that's your choice. And don't look at somebody and say, hey, they made me do it because that's not flying in the stump house. You made a choice to do what you did. And we'll go and address what the other person did later on. But it has to stop there because it's the classic. Why did you hit your sister? Because she said this. I'm like, cool. Well,

I'll go talk to her about that. But why'd you hit her? You know, like, let's go back to that. Because I'm like, nope, stop. There is no because. There is no because she, like, no. Let's talk about you. And I mean, I think it makes a difference. You have to have that accountability.

It's so easy to say, well, I had to. I mean, I have in every moment of my life, even the ones that were incredibly time compressed, there's always time to make a choice. Always. And you've had to think on the fly quite a bit. I've had a few moments in my life where I didn't have a lot of time. But I mean, the choice is always there. And, you know, in the environment that I came from, if you make a choice in an environment, regardless of how time compressed it is, if you make the wrong choice, you stand accountable for your actions.

And I've been there in military circles, you know, where investigations are going on. And if somebody stands up and says, well, I did this because somebody told me to, or I did this because of somebody doing this, it's like, no no you stand accountable for your actions so it and my parents were like that for me and it was reinforced when I went into the military and I think it's I just think that level of accountability and not looking externally for the motivation to the actions that you take like that's the kids that I want to raise like and I think if we could change people in this country to think that way we would be be a far, far better nation. 100%.

And you touched on something there, too, that can be extrapolated into the positive is not waiting for the external motivator. Yeah. Right? Because what do you do when it's not there? It's you looking in the mirror. Like, don't look for external motivation.

You need to, you know, it comes to, like, when you talk about, I talk about leadership often in front of organizations. And it's funny, every organization wants to say, well, we do this, like, when you talk about, I talk about leadership often in front of organizations. And it's funny. Every organization wants to say, well, we do this, so we do this type of leadership. I'm like, uh-huh, yeah, tell me more. And then I'll go work at another company that goes, we do this type of leadership. I'm like, uh-huh, yes, tell me more. Because there's only two types.

There's good and there's bad. Everything else in between is total bullshit and it's an excuse. It's either effective or it's not effective. So inside of that, I think there's only really two types of ways to lead. One of them is external, micromanaging, which is the same thing of having to constantly look for other people to motivate you. You need that person over your shoulder to tell you what to do, how to do it, how fast. And then when your internet connection goes out

and you can't find the Instagram meme Facebook page, that's an interesting pairing of words. When you can't find that source meme Facebook page. That's an interesting pairing of words. When you can't find that source of information, you don't have any motivation because just like a micromanaging leader, when they're over your shoulder barking at you, you'll do the minimum amount of effort to get them to go away. When they leave, you're doing God knows what. Probably not what your job is though. Versus the other side of the coin. So that's pushing people. You can push your people or you can pull them. And that's inspiration. And I have people that I've worked for that I haven't seen in probably close to a decade that I still think about when

things get difficult because I am still trying to live up to the example that they set. They had such an impact on me that absent them physically being there, I'll still do everything I can not to let that person down. It has made me a better person. And that's what saves you when you're in the valley and you don't have cell service and you can't find the external. You know, it has to come from inside.

And I see most people, they want to consume that motivation instead of derive it from themselves. Yeah, I'm blown away by how many people on the Facebook lives, you know, they'll ask me what keeps you going when your motivation is down or what does this, what does that? And guess what? Everybody has those times.

Everybody. And I don't deny the fact that I'm not, that I don't struggle with the inner bitch as Rogan calls it. And Kevin Ross said the same thing, but at the same point, that's not my kick in the ass to go look for it online. That's not my kick in the ass to say, oh, you know what? I really need John Wool for one of the great trainers here and on it to put me through a workout like no that's that's just the that's the knocking on the door for me to find it inside to

push myself through something i and i feel like people have been taught or conditioned or i don't know the word i feel like somewhere that mechanism in a lot of people, and maybe that's the concern that people have with millennials. I don't know. That they can't flip that switch and switch back and forth between a balance of external

and internal motivation and discipline. And I don't know what that comes from. But I would say that if you, most people's arguments or concerns with millennials, I could probably derive that and boil that down to, you know people's arguments or concerns with millennials i could probably derive that and boil that down to you know the internal versus external argument and i don't know i don't know where that was lost well i think it's in school and i this is a conversation i had with

ben greenfield yeah about was i figured you know when i went up to interview him in spokane that it was going to be like captain fantastic you know 10 kids all off the reservation everyone's homeschooled he was that's too many kids he was he only has two twins he stopped there intelligently he's like all right we got twins we're good never have 10 kids but uh you know that was he gets dude dude finished high school k through 12 homeschooled finished at like 15 or 16 years old highly intelligent graduated college early as well and he saw the the benefit of that as well as the downsides right and he's basically in school you're taught what to think not how to think

and i don't know if you've seen captain fantastic but it illustrates beautifully what's lost in our current education system his job ben greenfields is when the kids are home from school he's fucking 100 dad he's done with all his work he's not on his cell phone he's not emailing people and it's full-time being dad and making sure they understand the things that are not being taught in school like how to fucking find and forage food in the wild how to fucking shoot a bow how to do all the things but playing a team how to do these things how to think critically in an environment with no boundaries. 100%.

Yeah, I agree, man. In California, I actually think all schools in the U.S. are doing the Common Core curriculum. My kids will come home, and I can't even help them anymore with their – math is usually the one that they need help with. I can't explain the algorithms that they're using or the way that they're doing math. So I feel almost helpless when it comes to that.

So I try to supplement that with, all right, here's how you read a map. Here's how you start a fire. I mean, believe me, I think the most important classes I ever took looking back on my life were probably, the only two I use every single day or three would be math, English, and typing.

Those are the three most important classes that I ever took. But I went to a lot of other classes, which I think rounded me out as an individual. I'm glad I have that basis of knowledge, but you can also find that in other places besides school. But school, again, is a contrived environment. Class starts at 8, it ends at 8.45. This is the subject for this class. I don't see life being that way. Life doesn't have, well, I guess it has start and stop. They're generally hard start and stop as well. Once you reach the boundaries of either, I think it's pretty much go until it's stop.

But there's no barriers. You can drift as far as you want to. And I just, I wish more people would drift. Yeah, you got to find some shit out for yourself one of the things that i liked in that movie was he sent his kid off to travel the world and joey diaz actually spoke about that yeah he's like all these fucking kids trying to go to college he's like get a fucking job for a year save your money you know figure out what a dollar means understand that understand what it means to work, and then travel, spend that money, see the world,

see other cultures, see what's going on outside the box, and then figure out what you want to do. That would shrink the artificial bubble, and it would get people to push back against safe spaces and political correctness. I read a stat not too long ago, and I'm sure I'm going to chop it, but I think it was 20% of people in the U.S. will get their passport. 5% of them will use it damn which is crazy because most people in the u.s and again no character or value judgment

associated with this think we are the center of the universe and if you haven't gone out and seen how other people live their day-to-day and get in a, you know, I went in 2013 to Kenya to build some schools. And there was a woman who walked to the hospital for miles away, gave birth, and that afternoon put the baby in a wheelbarrow and walked home. That is different than the birthing experience in the United States.

Slightly. Slightly. The rest of the women, you know, some of them came out, not the rest, but some other women came over to help. But they were spending the vast majority of their day trying to find potable water. And the water that they were considering potable, I would not say was potable. You look at the environments that those people live in. I've been, you know, to places in Africa. Obviously, the Middle East, I spent a large portion of my adult life.

And you see these things that people, the baseline of their life. Like, this Middle East, I spent a large portion of my adult life. And you see these things that people, the baseline of their life, like this is their best day. It changes your perspective on the worst day of where we live here. But you can't really articulate and describe that to someone. They have to go over and see it with their own eyes. And a lot of people will look at, you know, they want to put more weight into things that veterans say. And I'm always cautious with that. You know, being a veteran doesn't dispel, you know, dispel or not dispel is not the right word. It doesn't give you some crazy amount of knowledge. It does. It's not some banner that you should be able to wave. It just gives you generally more data points on other places in

the world, which changes your perspective. Yeah, far different. And your appreciation. Because I notice in myself a difference in perspective will be a difference in appreciation. If you want to really appreciate the small things, go to a place where they don't have small things,

where their daily goal is to try to sustain life. Yeah, fortunately, I met my wife on a tour, a goodwill tour for the troops to uh in kuwait and iraq yep and i've done about 10 of them and where'd you go in iraq uh we've been there twice the second time we stayed at saddam's palace that was a fucking trip we watched the ufc fight in saddam's palace i was like what the fuck they had pizza and cookies oh man my diet was off the rails yeah we cleared Saddam's palace in the first invasion, so we were there for that stuff. And, yeah, man, that country was haves and have-nots.

Gold-plated faucets versus no running water. Yeah. It was bizarre. Yeah, they talked about how he filled the pond, right? Yeah. Because they can't, Allah cannot see sin over water. There you go. So we're going to fucking put this whole thing under water.

And then he took water from every surrounding town for a week or two. Nobody could fucking have water while he filled this man-made pond. Good guy. Strong. It's a strong move. Yeah, he ruled with an iron fist for sure. Yeah, don't go back to Iraq. Don't go to those places

but yeah you know going back to what you're talking about like when we were flying over in afghanistan and looking at the opium farms and things like that and you see like every little hut is smaller than the garage my mom's detached garage that i was living in maybe it was like a quarter of the garage yeah so we had four of these huts going for us when i was complaining about making shit money in the UFC and living in my mom's garage. And most of those people are lucky to have a light bulb. Yeah.

Well, look at India. Everybody's complaining about fossil fuel consumption and shit like that, and I think we can let the market shift that. But in India, they're still burning cow patties as their source of warmth. Millions of people are burning shit each night to stay warm. I bet that smells good.

Yeah, right? Next time you light a fucking Yankee Candle Company candle. Totally. Do they make that flavor in Yankee Candle Company? Like I'll take the Indian cow patty, please, for a pack of five. It's on clearance. But, you know, again, so I pack of five. It's on clearance. But, you know, again, so I bet you when you went over there,

and like you said, flying over Afghanistan and seeing the baseline standard, you get home. I mean, I've been on flights all over the world, and my best flights are the ones that come home. I'm so thankful of the small things. But you got to see it with your own eyes. I don't blame people for not understanding. I guess I would say I blame them for not adventuring and figuring it out for their own.

Again, with no... People are like, you're an asshole. I'm not making a character judgment on it or a value judgment. It's just there's value in character to be found there, and I wish that more people would go headlong into that. Yeah. It doesn't matter if you're in a small town or a big town, you're still in the confines of this place, you know, and they're

all different. The variety it's fucking us is big. Yeah. There's a lot to explore here. Santa Cruz is a good example. The best part about growing up in Santa Cruz is leaving. And if you don't, you will have a skewed perspective of the world. We moved to a town that has 20,000 people in Montana. My children will be shepherded to leave and go and look. But I mean, they've already been to Europe twice. I mean, they travel with me because I refuse to let them think that the US is the universe. You have to see the board for what it is. There's a lot of other pieces on the board. 100%. So let's dive in. Let's dive in pieces on the board 100 so let's dive in let's dive in okay like that let's dive in let's go to skydiving and base jumping okay because because

you're you're kind of known for that and i would love to fucking be able to get out there with you at some point i'll take you for a tandem that's easy we just got to go to san diego that's that's two hours of your life so we spoon for the entire entire flight yes i'll be a big spoon okay the little spoon i like that uh do i have to cut weight i'm currently right at 220 just tell me you're 200 it's fine okay yeah because i could do a weight cut by law probably you need to let's just tell them you're 200 all right what's the worst that could happen you're gonna hit the ground before me so i'm not worried about it yeah you got it you got a little cushion there maybe the extra 20 pounds gives you more cushion i took uh steve weatherford who was the punter for the giants for a tandem and he was a big boy surprisingly enough as most people in the nfl are i thought i could feel

warmth as we were falling because we were re-entering the atmosphere at a speed like the space shuttle like the front of it was red. Holy cow. Man, we were moving. So if I can handle that, we can definitely go for a tandem. But yeah, I spent about half of my year jumping out of planes or off of objects. Currently. I'm going to put an egg timer on that.

I think maybe two or three more years. I'll be comfortable. I'll always jump, but I will approach how I jump differently when I'm not, I don't want to say stuck, but let's just say in the middle of the endorsement game or the endorsement world. Because right now it helps me pay the bills,

and so I'm going to pursue that. And then hopefully in those couple years I can find an offshoot or an avenue where I can accept less risk and do it more on my terms as opposed to like, all right, I got to get some social media stuff. I owe some pictures because most endorsement deals in these days are social media stuff, pictures and things for brands to use. And if I was independently wealthy, I would still jump. I would just only jump in my American flag suit and when I wanted to, as opposed to having to like, you know, kind of schedule stuff out.

So I'm covered for my contractual obligations. You talked a bit about when you're on with Tate on Rogan's, about the feeling you get when you do that. And I don't know if you've ever read The Rise of Superman. You're talking about the flow state? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Yeah. And so people have this idea that guys are adrenaline junkies and that's what they're trying to do. And they clearly- I despise that term. They clearly illustrate that it's really an addiction to flow state and it's not even an addiction much less as it is this thing brings me peace this thing brings me stillness and whether the whether you word it in the way that a yogi does or somebody from the far east they're trying to fucking tackle the same thing you know many paths lead up the mountain and that's your path

up the mountain is that correct it's 100 correct i do enjoy the sensation of flying i mean how could you not have a smile on your face at 120 to 150 miles an hour forward when you're flying face first it's impossible not to smile i've tried doesn't work every picture i'm just like ah so i do i do enjoy that but um and i think i talked about it with Tate and Joe on that podcast at the end of those trips where you're just two to three weeks of finding the line

putting your toes on the line and just fighting all of your internal warning mechanisms and everything strips away I don't care if the mortgage check is going to bounce I don't care if I've gotten into an argument with my spouse or somebody else. When your toes are on the line and you're getting ready to just crouch down and push off into the abyss, none of that is on your mind. It's the clearest, cleanest headspace that I have been able to find. And it has impact so far beyond

the jump itself. I'll come back from one of those trips and my stereo equalizer is from a 10 down to a 2 for months afterwards. And it's because of the flow state. It's not because of the adrenaline. Is there adrenaline associated with that? Sure. But that's not what I'm looking for. But people, it's hard to say that

because so many people associate adrenaline with it because they see the videos on YouTube like, oh, you have to be an adrenaline junkie it's like yeah well a lot of those people are are the ones that are saying that that have never done shit either i also find that to be the case um it's why i don't like talking about the risk very often i i do believe that there are people who want to romanticize the risk and then define themselves by that risk because they've never had something else. I've had enough risk. I've done the risk aspect. And I know there is risk in what I'm doing, but I also spent a lifetime learning how to analyze, assess, and mitigate risk. So I do a dangerous activity as safely as possible inside of the parameters that I set for

myself. Not because I'm trying to scare myself or be pumped up with adrenaline, even though those two things happen, those are kind of like, they're corollary to what it is I'm trying to do. I'm after exactly like you said, I'm after what it does for my head and then what that does for my ability to be in a relationship with my wife or to be a more compassionate parent for my kids. It just turns the volume down you're like all right and that will make no sense unless you've done it and if people are thinking about do it don't do it because it's dangerous that's that's one way to give advice don't do it i'll do it you can watch me do it people have asked me people have asked me to teach them how to base jump, and I never will. I know myself, and I am willing to, like I said, assess, mitigate, and put controls in place for that risk.

But I don't want to take somebody or pull somebody into that environment because I would feel responsible for them. I'm not going to stop somebody from doing it, and I can point them in the direction of people who are far more qualified than myself to teach them. And I'll be more than happy to kind of check in from time to time to enjoy the journey but i don't want to be the person responsible for that yeah outsource yeah it's not a bad look well and i don't have honestly in my own opinion i don't have enough experience in comparison to those who are out there to teach like just go to this guy he's a freaking burning bush you know don't don't waste your time with me. This dude's literally on fire. And what he says, just do it. Yeah, I kind of get that similar feeling

and a lot of what you gain from that with psychedelics and plant medicines. And a lot of people ask me, and it's like, hey, bud, this is something you go to a shaman for in the Amazon. This is something you go to, you know, a guy with a wealth of knowledge far more than myself. And yeah, I'm not responsible, right?

However, I do respect your journey and down that path. It was one of the reasons I was so interested with when you sat down with Joe. So again, I took a hard right that most people don't take early in my life. But again, growing up in Santa Cruz, we can go ahead and we'll call it plant-based medicines. but maybe not done medicinally yeah i don't know if i had glaucoma or a headache at the time but it's uh you know whatever people will go and say to get their card but um maybe it was different i mean i was young growing up in an environment where that was kind of the norm and you know and then i went into an environment where it was like hard and fast like go ahead and mess with this if you want to you're out of here so it

was and then of course the medicine that you get there is hey i have a headache well here's literally 5800 milligram motrins make sure you eat something with this because otherwise you'll shit blood yeah like uh awesome that might rip you up inside but your pain will go away it will and and i mean i still to this day will go through my bags of the gear that i had when i was in and find bags of 800 milligram motrins it's just like a a Pez dispenser, just wham, wham, wham, wham. But that's military medicine. And, you know, maybe that needs to, the medicine with that needs to be used with air quotes. And one thing I learned by being injured on the job is that there's a reason why they call medicine a practice, not a science. The more I'm out and the more it fascinates me to hear people to go on that journey, the more I'm out and the more it fascinates me to hear people to go on that journey, the more

I would be more interested going down that route than the traditional prescription route. It just seems, I mean, I'm not a rocket surgeon, you know, but I'm sitting back. I'm like, wow, what's this problem over here? What's it caused by? What are these people getting prescribed these things for? Okay. You know, and I'm sure people can go too far, you know, a hundred percent on the other side of the house too, it's like which one of the end state is worse for you i'm just too much of a pussy to put my feet in the pool well there are ways to dip your feet in the shallow end for sure i worry that i'd be like oh this is awesome and you'd be like next time i see you i haven't heard andy for me in like five years and then they'd be a documentary on a dude in the like i'm in the desert and all i do is wear clothing made out

of feathers since like the beard down to your ankles yeah maybe shouldn't have hooked that guy up you took it too far buddy yeah yeah yeah there are extreme levels to anything and and uh certainly when you deal with something um like ayahuasca or psilocybin, there has to be a fucking respect level there. Even cannabis. I misused cannabis when I was around the same age. Who didn't? I mean, you misuse everything when you're between the ages of 15 to probably your early 20s because you're so far stuck into seventh gear

and you're an idiot, especially if you're a man. You have more testosterone than any body should ever be able to contain. And I look back now, I'm like, like wow i was probably not a good human during those time periods yeah yeah but fucking around and exploring you know if i look at old people that i recommend cannabis to and they're like oh i can't you know i had this cookie and uh i was in outer space for for 12 hours and i hated the feeling it's like well yeah but i mean if somebody introduced you to alcohol you wouldn't start with a bottle of jack you know or if you start with way fucking less or you took a pill a prescription anything and ate the entire bottle that's gonna happen but i know a lot of

people who are like that too and you know my my mom passed away from non-smokers lung cancer which the survivability rate is like zero percent the treatment for the cancer would have killed her i think regardless of the cancer it was really it was like do you want to die from trying to kill the cancer or do you want to go out peacefully so she ended into hospice and the really the only relief that she got was through the the brownies my dad was making for i've seen it firsthand the effect it can. The highest level of medical care that the physicians in modern day medicine could provide was doing nothing for her. So most people would say, oh, you went the old school route or whatever you want to call it. She found so much peace through that. She recovered her appetite. I've

seen it firsthand. And once you've seen that or experienced it in and of yourself, it's tough to make that argument against it. But responsibility. We party a new year's eve party many many years ago my dad made some brownies he made them extremely potent and found my uncle paralyzed in a chair you know he could but he didn't die no he didn't die i was still that thing going for it i was in the military so i was i mean i think I was hammered at the time, but I wasn't messing around with any of that. And then the stories from the next day. I think it was my great uncle was like, yeah, I was driving home.

I thought I was speeding on the freeway. I was doing 15, which is not responsible either. Don't get behind the wheel if you're in that state. But it was just, yeah, none of them died. They all had a pretty interesting story. My uncle was literally paralyzed he's like i can't move well you're moving your mouth i can't move my body use with caution probably a good philosophy for life in general use with caution yeah and know

why you know i the times where when i was in my youth and had done mushrooms in a non-ceremonial setting yeah that was 50 50 if it was a good experience or a bad like like and that was largely in part by not setting an intention not having a reason right like I'm gonna do this to have a good time and it yeah that's all I'm looking for you were looking for the party instead of the introspection yeah yeah and then later on you fast forward my work with Native Americans and things like that where you learn how to use these things with respect and you understand what's at stake like hey when this curtain gets yanked back you might see some shit you don't want to yeah but that's okay that'll help you if you're if your mind is set to understand like i'm gonna see this because

i need to see it i'm gonna see this because your mind is also the origin of those things that you're seeing that you don't want to see right and and that's what from my understanding is that correct i mean yeah whatever you see whatever you hide from yourself that's going to be revealed right so if you've been stuffing feelings and fucking blocking out childhood trauma and not dealing with shit that's there and that's revealed to you it's not by fucking mistake it's on purpose yeah right and you know people say shit like uh well i don't want to see weird stuff because they've seen fear and loathing in las vegas and there's bats everywhere and it's like look man that guy was taking everything under the sun yeah do a little bit of research

on hunter s thompson i mean yeah everything under the sun but if you if you see some if i see fucking puff the magic dragon fly by in a vision he's likely going to tell me something i need to know about myself it's going to be personal it's not going to be some random stuff that makes no sense to me that the introspective aspect of it is what i find fascinating and like i said i just it's i look back i'm like well i kind of know myself as a person this could be a very dangerous needle to thread so yeah it's uh yeah i have no problem i mean i i think if you can find out more about yourself again i'm my answer to most people's questions when they're having problems like just go into the bathroom and turn the lights on and look in the fucking mirror don't look out here for the

reasons why things are happening go address yourself first uh to use a example of an environment I can't stand right now, the political environment, where it doesn't matter what you say or what you do, it's thrown up and it's just crushed. And everybody is, every word that's said on both sides of the aisle is analyzed. And people just want to jump on board and laser-like focus what other people are saying. How well would your own life be if somebody took that spotlight and swung it on you? Like, if you're not prepared to have that happen to yourself, if somebody did that to my life, oh boy, and wrote up a list of the dumb things that I've said or the mean things that I've said or the inappropriate things that I've said or the times that I was an asshole, it would be gnarly.

And so I'm hesitant to do that to other people because I try to think of it from the perspective of they put their pants on probably the same way that i do unless they got some crazy pants i mean it's on two legs at a time yeah i don't know do they jump up and go for it and then fall on their face half the time but we're all human at the end of the day and i just try to judge people on the same standard that i'm attempting to every day judge myself and it's a tough one because you have to spend the time introspectively looking and that's tough when you have constant reinforcement of external an inch away from your face with your phone you can just search and

search and search and get lost in other people i'd rather get lost in myself yeah and that's fucking beautifully stated i think we just need to spend more time working on ourselves and more time in silence or alone or doing shit and that doesn't mean you know sitting quietly in a dark room meditating it could be on the fucking side of a mountain yeah hunting it could be in a room though it could be in a room too and i got no problem with that i do it daily i'm just saying for a lot of people that struggle with that idea there are different avenues you know but but still all being in the same boat of unplug your fucking phone yeah and spend some time alone and really you know you can contemplate what's going on or you can just fucking go quiet mind.

But both of those have deep value. Ask yourself how uncomfortable you would be if you lost your phone for 48 hours. And if people thinking of that, start getting anxious, that's a bad sign. You know, there's some,

to me, it's like, okay, maybe I need to go explore that because if I'm that anxious about that happening, maybe I need to figure out why that that is. Don't be that tied to it. I wouldn't enjoy it, but at the same time, go hunting, airplane mode, see ya,

I'll check in later today, and it feels great. And none of the experiences are coming through a screen, they're all coming through my eyes, out in the world around me. That's what I think, at least. Yeah, that's good thoughts. 60-30 chance I'm wrong. And I leave that other 10% for the variables.

Who knows? For the variables. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the military. Oh, boy. Okay. What do you want to know? Let's jump in here.

Yeah. I kind of like this story where you're talking about accountability. And I know we were talking about that earlier, but I wanted to dive into kids and make sure we got to that. Accountability. What happened to you? Was it when you were going through buds when the fight happened? Oh, you're talking about the little bar incident in Tucson. So I had made it through the SEAL selection program,

and it's a very important milestone in your career. You know, you graduate BUDS. People think if you make it through BUDS, you are a SEAL, and you're absolutely not. For people who don't know what BUDS stands for, it stands for Basic Underwater Demolition with a slash, little s. So little SEAL, big basic. You're going towards being a seal, but you're big into the basic pool. You don't know anything. You know enough to be

very dangerous to yourself and those around you. It's a selection process. It took another year and a half after that until I earned my trident, which is the metal pin that they pin on your chest. They do a ceremony, you get a certificate, and then they go into the military and they actually change your designator. And then you start becoming recognized as being a SEAL. So that's a monumental career milestone if you're going to go down the SEAL pipeline. So about six weeks after that monumental experience occurred, so I'm obviously just king dick, right? Biggest, baddest dude. I think I weighed 180 pounds at the time, maybe 170. Biggest, baddest dude. I could do no wrong. I've achieved

the peak of my life. I'm out of the valley. I'm onto the peak. I do my first trip with my first platoon. And a platoon is just an operational element of somewhere between 12, 14, 18, 20 guys now at a SEAL team. They're the guys that you work with for a year and a half, then you deploy for six months. Great relationships. And inside of that,

it's huge into the mentoring side of the house because we've got to pull people along because like I said, you're dangerous. You don't know shit. You know just enough to probably kill everybody and be the only one survived and go like, what happened? Where'd everybody go?

You just don't know enough. So we shepherded you along, but the guys in that platoon, I mean, you want to talk about worship or idolize. I mean, I would walk on fire if they asked me to because I just wanted, I was where I wanted to be, and then my next goal was just I wanted to be one of the guys. So we go on a deployment, or not a deployment, a trip to Tucson, Arizona. to be one of the guys. So we go on a deployment or not a deployment, a trip to Tucson, Arizona. I'm 20 at the time. We were doing, we were having a bomb. It's called

CAS, close air support, where you come in. It's actually where the term cleared hot comes from. The last radio call that you make as the guy on the ground for the pilot to release ordinance is you say, Hey, you're cleared hot. You own everything that comes off the aircraft. It's not the pilot's fault. It's your fault, which is why I actually love that term because it's all about accountability. So we were there in one of the days. I think it was one of the last days the weather came in or whatever it was, a mechanical reason with the aircraft.

We got notified at like 10 a.m. that we weren't going to be training that day. So obviously we went to a bar because it was 10 a.m. We went to an establishment that was designed for gentlemen. I was 20. I like those establishments. I've worked in a few of them. So it was a gentleman's club, if you will. And I was 20 drinking on a guy's ID in the platoon.

Probably by noon, we were well beyond the legal driving limit. And by 4 p.m., I mean, we were probably time traveling at that point anyway. We end up at an Irish bar downtown. Mind you, I'd probably been in a couple fistfights in high school. I'm surrounded by dudes who I think are the biggest, baddest dudes on the face of the planet. And an altercation, verbal altercation starts. One of my buddies gets drug outside by the bouncers and the guys laying on top of him. And he ends up in the back of the cop car. show up we explain to the cops hey this is what's going on my infinite wisdom i forgot that i gave him my full name where we were staying uh and so did a bunch of other people they let the guy out of the car in his uh state of mind

he thought the best idea would go maybe just have another conversation with the bouncers that would be smart right because there's probably some more things to discuss. Smooth things over. Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure the bouncer was like, great, here we go. So he comes over and was arguing with the bouncers. The rest of the guys, we were all leaving. We were trying to get back into a government van.

And I kind of hung back with another buddy of mine. I was just watching. I was across the street. And he mouths off. He turns around and he starts walking back. Well, one of the other bouncers, I think he had a leg injury, whatever it was. He had a crutch, and he just kind of picked the crutch up, and he picked it up like he was getting ready to basically brain the guy with the crutch.

So I started walking towards him. I had a Spyderco in my pocket because that's smart to take a knife to a bar when you're drinking, and didn't know how to fight, scared out of my mind. So I'd kind of take a step to the side, and I pulled the Spyderco out, and I just flipped it up and i put it up against the side of my leg i'm like listen man you don't want to do that he stopped he took a step back he's like whoa folded it up put it away started walking and the guy starts yelling for the cops he's got a knife he just pulled a knife so i hand the knife off to my buddy the lights go on and i have a choice right you always have time so you have a choice my choice intelligent thinking while you're hammered yeah so i thought my choices in this moment were run or run faster so i took run

faster and i bolt which guess what the cops apparently don't like that i guess when the lights come on you're supposed to stop so i take off running go down an alley and i just so vividly remember just doing my usain bolt down an alley and i hear the tires of the cop car on the rocks right behind me i grab this chain link fence my feet go completely horizontal and it's razor wire on the top and i just go right over the top that right there is still from that night pan straight into the razor wire clear it climb a tree onto a roof the best escape and evasion route ever i'm just making it up on the fly. I get to the end of the building, and there's like this tree overhanging the building.

I'm like, well, I'll just hang off the side of the building, and they won't see my hands. Cover and concealment, right? They can't see me. So I start hanging there. 30 seconds in, I'm like, damn, this sucks. A minute in, I'm like, I don't know how long I can hang on to this thing. So I eventually just let go. Can't see the ground beneath me.

Free fall. Fall on my back on the concrete directly in front of my entire platoon it's still walking so they pick me up i switch shirts with a guy we go across the street and we drink for two more hours as the cop cars are doing like it's like helicopters over we drink they get into another fight later that night guy pulls a gun on us get back to the uh one of my buddies got his ass kicked. People think that SEALs can fight. Some of them can, some of them can't. When you're really drunk, I don't think anybody can fight. So his nose got a little bit adjusted. We get back in the car, we go back to

the Air Force base that we're staying at. And the gate guard's just like, hey, is there an Andy Stumpf in your car? I'm like, fuck. So yeah, I tried on some bracelets and got read some rights, got charged with a few things. They let me go. And when we got back to the command, everybody's lined up, and it's all about what happened and why. And I had to sit there and try to explain why I took the actions that I did. And I went down the road of, well, I was trying to do this because he did that. And I thought I had to do this. And they crushed me. And the commanding officer took a pair of scissors across the desk and he slid it to me. I was wearing a Trident uniform, a patch, it was a patch Trident on my pair of camouflage uniforms. He's like, all right, cut it off.

It's like, fuck, what? Cut it off? I think I'd had it for six weeks. Cut it off. He wouldn't let me wear it for six months. He didn't take it from me, which would be an additional step. And I would have been kicked out of the SEAL teams. But you want to talk about a regrounding and a recalibration of accountability. And that regardless of what happens around you, you're responsible for your actions. And I look back, like we were talking about before we went live about mistakes, right? And having a mistake be a marquee moment in your life i think about that moment all the time and it changed the person that i am may not be sitting in front of you today if it wasn't for that moment but it was never since then have i ever tried to say i did

this because of it's i did this and these are the reasons why and if you have a problem with that come get some because it's on me and it goes no farther than that and that's what i try to embody my kids fuck yeah brother yeah i try it's a little fucker's got excuses everyone's got fuck man they're young beautiful brother they're young that's beautiful yeah but it had to have happened i would have walked through fire to try to help that guy and i still will walk through fire but i'll think it through a little bit more and i'll consider the consequences of my feet being burned and maybe try to like i don't know walk around the coals maybe that's an option yeah is there an easier path yeah hell yeah brother yeah well fuck man we we fucking flew right through that hour there you go what do you got

we got where can people find you you got uh you got some badass videos on instagram don't watch them i just cgi most that stuff uh yeah i mean i'm on all the so contractually obligated to be on all the social channels it's all a version of my name it's andy stump for some asshole on instagram has andy stump so i had to put 212 on there which people ask me all the time is my buds class number i'm the only seal ever to put their buds class number on either an email address or pretty proud. Oh wait. Yeah.

Every seal I know has some version of that. Yeah. But like, I literally was like, Oh, I guess I'll just be Andy stuff. It's like name taken. I'm like,

who is this guy? I want that. Yeah. So it's just, yeah, just do a search on the internet and just don't listen to half the stuff that comes back up. We'll,

we'll link to all that, all that good stuff in the show notes. And then of course, please check out cleared hot. It is a fucking awesome podcast. Just don't listen to half the stuff that comes back up. We'll link to all that good stuff in the show notes. And then, of course, please check out Cleared Hot. It is a fucking awesome podcast. It's been fun. I love the Q&As you're doing as well. I like them too. When people reach out, what I like the most about it is I have to sit and think and be

able to articulate what it is that I feel. Not just be passionate about something, but why. And can I figure out how I got to that point based off of the things that I feel. Not just be passionate about something, but why. And can I figure out how I got to that point based off of the things that I've seen or the things that I were taught? And then can I try to explain that in a manner that maybe somebody else could take something from it with? I love the Q&A, but I also, again, I've been sitting down with people that I would have never met with totally diverse backgrounds talking about awesome stuff. Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah, man.

Thanks for joining the On It podcast, podcast man it's been an absolute pleasure thank you guys for listening to the on it podcast i know you fucking enjoyed my man andy stump go ahead and check him out on his twitter instagram and all that fun shit we got linked to in the show notes please leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the podcast because it really helps people come to our show and make sure you check out any Stumpf's podcast, Cleared Hot. And when you enjoy it as much as I do, go ahead and leave him a five-star review

because it is fucking fantastic. Thanks for listening, guys. All right, guys, you've got questions. I've got answers. Every Wednesday at 6 p.m. Central Time, I'm going to be on Onnit's main page on Facebook doing a Facebook Live Q&A. The Facebook Live Q&A runs for 30 minutes.

If you can't make it at 6 p.m. Central Time, all you have to do is write in your questions, and I'll be sure to get those answered for you, either by writing it or talking about it on the Facebook Live, which you can check out at any point in time after the show airs. But be sure to tune in live if you can. We're going to get a lot of information rounded out, talking about the podcast, talking about different health topics, and I think you'll enjoy it.