Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Navy Seal Gets Arrested, Joins The French Foreign Legion, & Escapes Death | Taylor Cavanaugh

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Navy Seal Gets Arrested, Joins The French Foreign Legion, & Escapes Death | Taylor Cavanaugh

From a very early age, I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I was sent to SEAL Team 7. I go to Iraq on bail. It was a zero tolerance policy, so I took a general discharge. And so it was that moment, I decided to join the French Foreign Legion. You make some phone calls first. No, there's nobody to call. You go with your bag and your passport, and you just bang on this big iron gate, dude, opens the slot.

He's like, who are you? Why are you here? We would come across people. They build up whole cities, and we would burn all their structures down and go on to the next one. When you're doing this, do you have anything idea how insane? uniquely unique. I knew I need to write this story, man. I also knew from a very early age I wanted to be a Navy SEAL.

Very early, seven. I knew I wanted to be a Navy SEAL, and that commando life kind of spoke to me. And I was partying and getting in trouble. I got kicked out of high school and some other things, lost some scholarship opportunities. And long story short is I'd make it into college and stack up even more problems,

stack up even more arrests and all this. What are the arrests for? Man, drunk at Publix. driving on a suspended just knucklehead shit right nothing bad you know drug arrest you're not you're not burglarizing houses no i'm not robbing shit it's just you know partying and shit like that right but it stacked up enough by the time i was i get kicked out of multiple universities and finally end up piecing together a degree from university california santa cruz and when i went to go to in the military i'm like all right i'm done with this college shit time to go they're like

bro, you're on probation and, like, have pending court cases. You can't go in the military, bro. Why didn't you try and go in straight from high school? It was just, like, in my family, not that my dad went to college, but my mom, my grandfather was a Naval Academy graduate. It was just, you go to college. It was just kind of that. It was an extension of high school.

And where I went to high school, it was like 99 percent, pretty affluent area. It was, hey, everybody goes to college. You're not going to go to college? That's crazy. Well, usually when you, also when you graduate college, you kind of go in as an office or don't and that was the plan. Okay. So, but I had gotten so many tattoos and when I went into the Marine Corps and they said, dude, you can't even enlist.

So I wasn't, I had no neck, no hands and stuff at that time. But I had a huge percentage of my body was tattooed. And the Marine Corps said, nope. That's funny. You're out. We heard that yesterday. Really? Like he had a hand tattoo.

Well, he had tattoos. Yeah. No, no, he was all tattooed. But he had the hand tattoo, right? And he was like, yeah, he's like, I had tattoos. And I couldn't go into the Marines. And then he tried something else. actually he's still trying right yeah yeah he's he's like 21 yeah he's waiting for he's waiting for

some waiver some yeah waiver or something yeah yeah and so i they said no they said i couldn't even enlist even though i had a degree so i said i'll go to the army army will fucking take anybody man that's solid i'll do ranger or or or green beret program that'll be perfect they looked at my background my criminal background and we're like dude there's no way we're not taking you and i said whoa and that was the moment where i realized oh man And mind you, before I went into the, to the recruiter, I had request, got a lawyer, requested to go to jail after, to commute my probationary sentence, which was like three years. So I went to jail for about four months up in Santa Cruz County, you know, lockdown facility,

you know, you know how those counties can be kind of weird, mixed bag of people. So it was an experience, but that cleared up. So when I was trying through all this, I had no probation. All the dispositions of the cases were good, but I still had stacked. up enough shit to where it was just there like administratively I was a pain in the ass yeah you look like a maniac yeah they're like dude what is this like and I wasn't even telling them the full story I was like you know it would have looked like some lord of the ring shit but I would have right in there with like full honesty so I was being strategic about it but after I licked my wounds

for a few days and got out of that depression hole at my mom's house you know feeling like a loser I'm living at my mom's house and riding my bike around because I didn't have a license I'm going going, all right, I'm going to try the Navy. I wanted to be a seal anyway, but I was having been afraid to go because I was afraid to fail seal training and end up on a ship, which is where you end up. Growing up in San Diego, I knew a lot of guys, all American wrestlers, water pole players, everybody went to seal training. Nobody ever passed.

So they end up chipping barnacles in the Navy. And I wanted a gun and I wanted to deploy. And so that when I, it was my last option. So I really did. I painted myself into a corner. They said, you know what? we can actually work with this. You can pretty much only be a Navy SEAL or like some super low-level job because you can't,

you have drug charges, so you can't be a medic, you can't do this, you can't do that. I was like, all right. So I started the process of going into the SEAL, like, training and getting the contract. Okay. So how long, I mean, so they do take, they do take you in. Like they, I mean, so you go to, what is the, the, where they, is it Paris Island? Where do they send to the, no, that's for Marines, but they, so they take, send you to MAPs, Military-anches processing station, which is like attached to the federal building.

And I strategically went through that piece and got into the Navy. Then I had the ability to do the SEAL screener test every week and work out with activity seals, retired SEALs, guys who were in the Naval Special Warfare Motivator program, formal program for the region of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, that triangle. So I was working out and like, dude, I lost. I was too big getting out of jail like 2.30. I trimmed down to about 180 in like six weeks. Sir is puking every day, running, really putting out there. And I took a screener test once a week for about 40 weeks. And what's that?

It's a 500 meters swim. It's a maximum push-ups, maximum sit-ups, maximum pull-ups, and a mile and a half run. So that, and I, so I did that every Monday. And that shit turns into like a warm-up. Serious, by the time you're, like, moving through seal training, it's, that's nothing. So when that's making me think it's a regular job. Yeah. Like this is making me think, you know, honestly, there's nothing wrong with working at Walmart.

Like these guys get off at five years. They got, you know. Yeah, it spoke to me, man. I wanted to operate, you know. And what do you know? Lo and behold, one day I got the waivers, tattoo waivers, conduct waivers. And then I got a seal contract and I shipped on that and went into the pipeline. Okay.

So what, so I, you know, I keep thinking about that. I know you've seen this that he's like a, I don't know, whatever, he's got the white hat. And you've seen it. It's the one where the, he's like a top Navy guy and he gives a speech. Oh, McCraven. That's a amazing speech. Yeah, McCraven. That is a good speech.

That's a Texas guy. And he's talking about SEALs training, right? Yeah, he's talking about SEAL selection and making your bed and all this stuff. And, you know, it is. It's some good. There's some poignant lessons you learn in the SEAL training. pipeline. It sucks selection pipeline because it's long, man. And it's 18 months front to back. If you do it the fastest, you can do it, which I did. By a lot of luck, mind you. It's boot camp eight

weeks, special warfare division, base gun and water demolition preparatory school near Chicago, which is about eight to 16 weeks. If you do it the fastest, you can get out in eight, if you test high enough. Then you go fly out to buds. We flew out with about 400 guys. We got about 48 graduated. So that was, you know, in through that whole thing. And then you go into SEAL qualification training, which is seven months, which is cold weather, mountain warfare, combat, combat, land warfare, skydiving, halo, low visibility operations. Tink, Tunk, Tunk, SIR, and that's seven months. You could fail through any part of that, all that whole pipeline. And lo, behold, one day, you know, you're graduate again getting sent to a SEAL team.

That's a trip. is it so is it is it failing or is it you bowing out saying i can't do it like you know like i will see the things where they you know they're the guys are just like that's it i'm done and they walk away or is it like you know they give you an assignment and you guys you know they're six teams and you're in the last team and you guys fail like how does it how does that they choose you look you get the fuck out you're not that's a good question the beginning quitting mostly at the beginning where they're just the kicking the nuts the freezing you know the green helmets and all that stuff then part of that's failing some guys just can't run fast enough or swim

fast enough simple as that you know and but a lot most of it is psychological and that it's the cold they wake up most guys quit before evolutions or after not during surprisingly enough most people will quit in the anticipation of what's going to come not really what comes so that's the beginning and then as it goes further into the pipeline it becomes more technical but but still single man in all those tests are individual so it's it's you know going through even all the way up till you graduate you have single individual tests that you can fail okay so i mean once you you get through it you're you're sent to a team and what happens yeah i mean what where was you where were you sent to seal team seven and so it's usually grouped up about five

six guys you get to pick your coasts you get to pick east coast or west coast and some guys get sent to Hawaii for a seal delivery vehicle team, but that's very specific. But yeah, East Coast or West Coast, and then you get allotted to your teams just kind of by where you fall in the year and the deployment cycles and all that. I got sent to Seal Team 7, which is where I wanted to go. So I felt like I was on a divine wave. And it's a trip, man, because then you go right into getting your qualls, you know. I went to communication school at the beginning.

Then I ended up going to J-TAC school, which is coordinating bombs from the jets with the pilots. and then sniper school, you know, pretty fast and, and everybody's doing that. Some guys are doing this and that. Some guys are specialties. They're all the specialties. And you kind of consolidate in a platoon and then you start your workup, which is, you know, getting ready for a deployment, which is about four to six months. So they, deployment, they send you somewhere. They send you to, I'm assuming not Afghanistan.

But at that time they were. Oh, really? Yeah. Is there any water? And is there? Oh, yeah. No, I mean, seals are in Iraq. Seals are everywhere.

And I would just assume it would be somewhere where there has to be some kind of water landing or something. Sea, air and land. Oh, see, I don't know what it's next to see. And so why that actually changed. It's actually interesting why that became because it used to be UDTs in World War II, underwater demolition teams. Okay. And it was a couple officers, Commander Condon being one, which they're in Vietnam. And they're like, hey, this underwater stuff is, we need to go on the land and handle some

business and so they morphed it into seal sea air and land amphibious amphibious force and so that's it was vietnam where the seals were actually created 1962 and from that point on it was seals were all over deserts mountains jungle and so i was actually we our platoon was sent to yemen so we were sent to yemen for seven months doing uh the ops out there right now doing the mission out there which is a trip, man, because finally I was there. It was about, shit, man, four years to the day, three and a half years when I was walking out of jail to where I was actually on a deployment as a seal.

So it was... That's supposed to be surreal. It was a surreal, you know, he's sitting in the sniper tower and the morning prayer starts at three, you know, four in the morning. It's like, ah, and I'm like, what? Smoking my cigarette going, man, this is a trip, dude. Like, life comes at you fast. But it just goes to show when you put your head down.

Because, man, I'm sure you have run into stuff where, you know, you, you know, having a background. And people are like, dude, you can't do that because this, you have, there's no way you're going to be able to do that. I go, dude, people don't know what you, what's possible or what's not. If you just have that delusional confidence and just power through, man. Yeah, I was just thinking it's funny because I've been, I've had so many of those moments, you know, when I first would first got out and was like hired to go have lunch with a bunch of, um, entrepreneurs, which, you know, you know. was, you know, like this guys call you up and say, we'll give you two grand to fly in here. We'll fly you in, just have lunch with us. It's like, why?

And then, of course, then I'm walking through the airport and I'm thinking, I was laying in my bunk in my cell five months ago. You know what I'm saying? It's like not knowing how I'm even going to pay my bills, these guys are going to cut me a check for a couple grand to have lunch with them. But that is, that surreal, and you're walking through the airport, which I don't know if anybody else gets this, but from being in prison for their, for their, 10 years, walking through the airport is the coolest thing for me, you know, and obviously we have different experiences, like, but I'm just like, you know, everybody is like, this is such an amazing, you know, it's such an amazing place. And you go and you jump on a plane. And I'm thinking, I couldn't walk to the rec yard without permission a few months ago. So yeah, I just remember

thinking, this is surreal. This feels crazy inside. Doesn't now, but it did for a long time. Yeah. And it's, it's important to remember those moments, right? Oh, yeah, I think about that all the time. It's always important. And I think guys who go through some shit and those rough patches and a lot of it's self-induced. Let's be quite honest. We do it to ourselves. No one can do to us what we do to ourselves. It's true.

But it's important to remember those rough moments because, man, it makes you appreciate the good ones. It's so easy to forget that shit and just take, walk through the airport for granted or waking up in your own house. Yeah, you suffer more in your mind than you do in reality. You cause yourself your own problems. Oh, 1,000%. it's total perception right your perception is your reality you know the world is a mirror not a window so what your internal state is that's what you're going to see yeah i'll get cut off you know i'll have that split second of anger and then i think it's like bro you you're lucky you're out

of prison right now like cut me off we're good i didn't get an accident it's fine i got plenty of time i thought you're good like the little things that would have drove me nuts before nothing you know that that meter gets moved yeah and that's where I was at for a while but you know just like you said it starts to wear off yeah it starts to wear off and that's kind of what happened to me and my path is you know I'm there really locked on I get out now things are getting a little more loose right I'm still focused on work I still doing whatever but now I'm out partying a little bit more now I'm doing stuff that I'm still working hard and locked on but now the speed wobbles kind of start you know kind of start drinking your own Kool-Aid not super cocky or like but just not as locked

on as I could be and also selfish in that do you have teammates and stuff like this and people to be thinking about other than yourself and I was pretty much kind of doing what I wanted and leading into that year I started getting a little more head of my skis I hit a guy in a bar right hit a guy in a bar one time and why what happened if I said something smarter whatever on the way out you know and it had been building kind of all night and it was just kind of I just one learned looked hit them and man that's all it took because that turned into an aggravated assault that turned into a felony charge that turned into you know a mountain of shit falling down i have a top secret clearance all this shit they're flying people up from the command to mitigate the problem you know

it's on the video and long story short man now i'm facing i'm getting sued for half million dollars civilly and because they broke the dude's overall eye socket right so there's that piece right and so i'm paying for surgery and all this which is fair right is it is what it is he was fine but it then i also have the criminal side where my plea deal is six plus three right six plus three they want to throw the book at me a seal punches this guy in a bar they don't want that so that's what i'm facing so i'm hemorrhaging cash i have really good attorney and this and that and so i'm fighting this case while still active duty still training still flying back go to court cases you know it seems like hey figure that shit out and whatever they end up allowing me to go on bail i'm on bail they go

i go to iraq on bail so the the team wrote a letter the court said okay just how divine intervention work the judges changed and stuff and so it kicked the can down the road and long story they were like hey we're going to let him go to iraq and so i'm in iraq now and this was 2015 stressing man right some they everyone's looking forward to coming home and I was not I actually volunteered to stay out longer dead serious I was I volunteered to stay out there longer I even thought about joining the Kurdish Peshmerga and I was just stressing so hard because man my plea was six plus three they weren't budging off it it had already been almost a year and they still hadn't budged so I was concerned coming back because I had a jury trial coming up and well then one

day that jury trial came and lawyer was like hey we got a deal for you right and i said okay what is it so he's like you got to pay all the restitution all the stuff you know pretty much was my rack check sold my truck all this stuff and they're going to max out two misdemeanors i said fine i'll sign it because misdemeanors i could maintain yeah i could maintain but it was maxed out formal formal probation checking in no drinking no drugs know this checking it not being able to leave the city so it was strict I don't know how and I was too immature to even follow the rules right how old how old are you about probably 29 30 okay so it should have been more mature but I wasn't I was still was still some lessons I had to learn there was I still lack self-awareness still was selfish so I was locked on

for like a month and then you know I start going out with girl again and I'm like maybe I'll just a little and then that slippery slope and then I'm like okay then I'm like okay then I'm I'm on a date and at a Jimmy Buffett concert and get in another altercation. Not a fight, but I'm in a golf cart, and the cop pulls me over in a golf cart, and I try to run. Dog, they sick the dog on me. I fight a German Shepherd off. They tasers in me.

I'm pulling tasers out. They get you tackled. Longs and short, it turns into snowball shit, right? I'm all tatted up, blasted, running. There's hundreds of people watching this go down, mind you, at a Jimmy Buffett concert out in the parking lot. And once they, I went in the, they smashed me, too, when I got. got in the car. Once I got in the back of the cop car, I was like, I'm

right. I knew I was like nailing the coffin. There was no coming back from this one and I was right. Then I started that process of fighting that. I'm not going to say anything. No. I was just going to like, you know, it's like I

hear people, you know, I'll listen. I'll talk to somebody and I'm thinking, what the fuck are you thinking? Yeah. But then again, I have to remember that, wait a minute, didn't you get multiple cases and keep continuing to commit crime on you know you just get so cocky and brazen and every time i would get away with something i became more brazen then it was like i'm so smart you're not i got to catch me yeah like they're fannies i know what i'm doing i got this even though you've

already been caught multiple times yeah i just brushed it off but you're same thing i was 29 30 31 just thought i was so smart yeah and it's like dude not that it won't happen this time yeah yeah right last time that was that was because of that but not this is it's it's yeah it's it's it's it's It's arrogance. Yeah, it's a total arrogance. Every major problem I've ever caused myself was always based on, you know, always arrogance. You can throw all these other things in, but in the end, it was just arrogance.

And those decisions are always made based on my pride. Yeah. It was just stupid. Yeah. I can't, I agree 100% is, it was selfish to my teammates, to my family, and we forget that the decisions we make affect everybody else in our lives, right? It's not even just us. And so I went through that case.

Now I got multiple attorneys in three states, two states, hemorrhaging cash. They're trying to extradite me. Federal Marshals are in a van trying to extradite me back to Idaho where I had violated the first time on a other violent crime. I have, it ended up getting dropped, down no misdemeanor, simple, cleared that up. But I still had the violation. So I ended up going back to jail. This was the second time. So I had gone to jail the first time in Idaho as an Act duty seal, took vacation to go to jail.

Then got a year later, now I'm back up there, but this is the last go. But these are like five, 10, like a couple days. Yeah, these are like a few weeks. Okay. A few weeks that pop. So nothing crazy, but just, you know, in and out. I walk out of jail that time. Now I'm clean, right?

I signed my DD-214 on a general discharge. Well, actually wasn't even that. It was a steroid charge that got me kicked out. Navy Jag saw this, this, because I was getting out of that case, too. And they're like, this is not getting away. So Navy Jag and NCIS blasted me. and they test me for drugs, I passed. They test me for steroids, sent it up to the Olympic testing center, and I failed.

Zero tolerance. It was what it was. I knew I was playing with fire. So I played a fire. You get burned. So I got caught. It was a zero tolerance policy. So I took a general discharge under honorable circumstances and exited the military.

Now I'm out, free and clear. But you tell you all out of the other case, right? I cleaned it all up. The Jimmy Buffett case was cleared up? I cleaned that up. Yeah, I cleaned it up with some good attorneys and some. good contacts. So that got clean up, because it wasn't really anything terrible I did. It just kind of got snowballed. So when they actually got pieced out, I paid a little fine,

and that was it. So now I'm free and clear going into the civilian world. I start working on a massive, I had used some of my contacts. I start working for a massive, the largest private residential developer in the United States, on the largest project in the United States, $750 million project. I'm drinking out of a fire hose, but okay, good. Now I got the girl. friend in the life and I'm doing this and I'm going okay I'm good but I start stacking bad habits I'm doing Adderall Xanax alcohol every day and that's going on for about a year then cannabis kicks off so I do a lateral move and we launch a cannabis distribution company in California now I'm doing all that stuff still raising raising money and traveling around meeting meeting people

and opening a facility now I'm snorting every night now I'm starting every night for a year i didn't miss a day i'm pretty sure but i was you know i would do emails and stay up till two o'clock in the morning and get up at four takes a matter all i can keep you going and you cannot bend reality that long right and the thing i could do is i could lie to myself i'm like look i'm in the high rise i got the money i got the girl like i'm good and everybody's like oh he's crushing it still so i mean nobody's trying to to rain you in and say what the fuck are you doing you know how it is it's like we're doing it and then you know you're the last one that sees the speedwobles. So that's kind of what happened to me. And I went face down, literally smashed my head

open on a table, slice my thing on my girlfriend, she's screaming. And I'm like, the boss, the venture capitalist boss found out. It was just a lot of things came crashing down at the same moment. And so then I'm out, right? Then I'm, I'm out. You're an asset. Then you were a liability. And that's exactly what happened to me, just pretty much overnight. I move. I go to Hawaii and I'm pretty much just trying to lick my wounds and wait for the next opportunity and thinking the call is going to come and no call comes right the no the emails get cut off and this and that now the money's running out and now i'm homeless in my truck suicidal i have a shot off shotgun on my on my side right here going i'm just going to blast myself dude this dude

i was like exhausted about trying so hard to be successful and whatever is a girlfriend around no she no she's gone right that's gone now and so i got nothing i got no title no money no nothing no gas in the truck i was like dude going native for a limited time at McDonald's enjoy the tasty breakfast trio your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax

available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery and then I had that authentic voice of God I say speaks to you and it was like yeah man you're being a huge pussy like sack up you have some more to give let's do it and so it was that moment

I decided to join the French Foreign Legion that's serious it was so Eight days later, I was in France, man. Because that's what, because that's what everybody would do. That's the most reasonable thing, bro. That's the, so I had known about the French Foreign Legion when I had gotten out of college and I was out of jail. And I was trying to figure out if I could get in the military. And I realized that I might not be able to get in.

So that's when the French Foreign Legion came on my radar. I have a quick question. Yeah. Maybe Don't. But what exactly is the French Forum Legion? That's a very good question. So it's about a 200-year-old institution that's in France, it's unique in the world of its kind, except in Ukraine now it's a little bit different. But only foreigners, and it was made by an old king to get foreigners who are causing problems in the bars and stuff back onto the battlefield, fighting for France with the carrot of French citizenship.

That's the whole thing. They take guys with checker backgrounds. They're a little bit more loose, you know, tattoos and stuff. They look past, but they are strict about who they take. They're not going to take sex crimes. They're going to do all Interpol. They don't want huge issues with international arms trafficking, drug trafficking. So it's about one out of 15 guys actually get selected.

And it's that selection process, which is interesting because a lot of people don't know about it. So what happened? Do you fly to France or did you make some phone calls first? No, there's nobody to call. There's nobody to call. You show up. It's old testament shit, man. You go with your bag and your passport and you just bang on this big.

Iron Gate. There's only two places to do it right outside. It's like some Wizard of Oz shit, man. And so you, it's on the outskirts of Paris. I gave myself like five days to flush my system of the, you know, all this stuff. And man, psychologically at this point, man, I was low. I was

like, staying in a hostel man thinking like, bro, I lost my life. I'm like smoking cigarettes outside going, just looking at the gray Parisian sky in the fall going, God damn, dude. I was crushing it

and now here I am with nothing But I was like This is what I got to do man I knew it for my story And I went in So you get you go with one bag Some toiletries and some other stuff And your passport

And you go knock on the door And a dude opens the slot He's like We? I'm saying I'm saying Jezui si for La Legion You gotta speak French In the Foreign Legion right

I didn't know any French showing up there So This is insanity bro Yeah so I showed up And a guy with a gun in a green beret. He's like, okay, takes my passport, told me to sit down, waited about five minutes for this Russian, this Ukrainian dude to come in and then pulled me to the back.

We walked down. It's like an old castle. Fort Nogent is down the outsource. It's like a old medieval castle. And we walked way to the back to the barracks. And the first thing they tell you to do is get up on the pull-up bar. It's like nine o'clock at night. I hop up on the pull-up bar, crank out my pull-ups. He goes, oh, I get down. How many pull-ups? Matt, probably did like 20 or something. But he just told me to get off. And then he gave me an IQ test. That's usually what they do. A really preliminary, like five-question, really simple IQ test, and then pull-ups.

And then you wait, man, and you wait. Did you – real quick, sorry. Did you ever see Fight Club? Yeah. Did you ever see Fight Club? I've seen pieces. The guys are showing up at the front door, and they're like, you're too fat. And then they walk away.

Two days later, a guy's still there. They walk out. You're too this, and they keep yelling at them to leave. Get out of here. Get out. But if you stay there long enough, they're like, get your shit and come on. it like that's they're really like that too the bMI they send people away for being too fat all the time they're just open and be like too fat get out of here because it's the bMI matters right the foreign

legion is a running unit too they run and i hated running so i knew it was going to be painful for for me but walking into that barracks holding facility was a trip because the energy's weird you got guys coming out of jail you got guys running right from some problems you got guys that want the romance of it and the combat or whatever you got a mixed bag of people. Some people are doing it for the money. So in that room was a couple Ukrainians, Belarusians, Thai guy, Mongolian, Lithuania, a couple South Africans, Nepalese, me, you know, and then some scattered dudes from different countries in Africa. That was in that one little room. And I'm like, okay, man, this is a trip. I'm 34, mind you, going into a military

selection pipeline. So I was like, this is going to hurt. This is going to be painful. going back down to the bottom, which was a hard part. I'm, man, I'm going back down to low man on the totem pole boot camp, you know. And so it was a humbling experience. And they, this is pre-selection. The first interview, the interview process is the hardest part in the Foreign Legion. They go, who are you? Why are you here?

Right. That's the, like, they need to figure out who you are. You tell them your story and you, if you don't, better not have too many holes in it, you know. And then they'll give you an IQ test, a bigger one. And at that point, they give you a fake name. So this is an interesting part of the Foreign Legion. You're required to take a fake name. At least so. I'm good with that.

Yeah, I was like, I'll take it. And you can stay with that name for the rest of your life if you wanted and get French citizenship and just live over there on a fake name forever. I didn't need that. But for this, for this first two, three years until you can get your passport back, I was Trent Clayson born in New York City. So they're picking, they're picking an appropriate national names. Yeah, yeah.

I wasn't going to be like King Pong. or some shit, you know, they knew. So they pick your American name, and that was me, man. Nobody even knows your real name after that point. And they just call you by your legion name, they call it. And then you'll go through some more physical screening test, but the medical is hard, too. They're checking teeth, feet, all this stuff. Did you have the golds?

No, not yet. That was later. But they probably would have taken me anyway because I have good teeth anyway. And so then we're often running to the selection in Oban to the, to the headquarter regiment, which is down near Marseille. Okay. So what, I mean, how long until you're actually, and this may be a stupid question to it, but this is actually, this is part of the French military, right?

That's a good question. So it's the Legion, the Foreign Legion, you actually, when you join, you swear allegiance to the Legion, not France. Okay. Which is kind of unique. But it's like the redhead stepchild of the military, but it is a French military. But it is a French military formalized organization. And they are actually like given assignments and you're going to fly in.

You're going to do protection. Oh, they've been fighting it every war since Algeria to Afghanistan. Every single war, every single conflict. They're like the first end because you got to remember. I was just thinking, are they like cannon fodder? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because there's no political pressure for foreigners coming back in body bags.

Oh, that's horrible. Right. So they have no. And the dudes there want it, right? That's the reason I was going there. I'm like, send me, dude. I was already going to kill myself, so let's do this. I didn't want to die, but I'm like, well, if I have to go out.

If I got to go out, let's do it with my boots on. I was just thinking it's like World War II. You know, the Canadians are there. They've got, you know, in World War I, when we made Puerto Rico, you know, a territory and gave them all citizenship, what part of it was we need like 50,000 troops. Oh, that's interesting. So they bring in the Puerto Ricans to be part of the military, and they send them They train them.

They send them over during World War I, but they're cannon. They're cannon fodder. Like, you know, send those guys. Like, in, with the Canadians, they were given the Canadians all of the worst assignments, like the shitty assignments. But they were performing so well, it got to be the point to the point where, okay, don't use, stop using these guys as cannon fodder. They're now hardened like, like coffin nails.

Now give them the things that we have to get done, you know. So, but it's funny because I was thinking the same thing. So the foreign, at least like, let's sit there, man. Yeah, man. And there's been a lot of foreign, you know, foreign legionaires that have died in combat. And, man, the Indochina and Indochina, it's just a powerful history. The heritage there is powerful. It's a very fascinating organization because, man, you have all mystery, right?

You don't know, people don't know. You hear some stories about hazing and dudes dying in Africa. So walking in there, I was scared, man. You know, I was like, dude, what am I walking into? I know there's going to be a lot of Russian speakers. There's a lot of guys from Eastern Bloc countries. It's a heavy percentage is so that culture there's tough, right? Tough kids coming from tough places, poor areas.

But I knew I needed to use it as a vehicle for self-development. It was time for me to think, like, big boy time out. I needed some big boy time out. And it's like prison with a gun. They're very strict. they're you know you walk across the grass wrong there they're going to put you in jail they're very strict about formal presentations and and being how your uniforms and all this stuff so i go through the selection at the headquarter regiment it's and they have these things called

gestapo interviews the gestapo interviews it's kind of a coin term but it's the interrogation piece where they're really going to crack down on on who the are you why are you here they're like why is a navy seal here right because i brought them my dd214 they're like why They don't want problems with war crimes or United States government and all this shit. So they really want to get to the bottom of what the hell is. And it was funny because I told these guys, I was like, no, I've never done drugs in my life. Which is what you want to tell any military organization. And I didn't have any drug thing.

I had drug charges, but no convictions, right? And it was funny because they had done, they did their searches. They have whole teams do all their open source searches and stuff. And they're like, you never done drugs for it? I was like, nope. And they pull up a picture. I don't know where they got it from. It's because I was, you know,

CEO of this cannabis company. And it's me standing with like bags, right. They're like, what's this? I'm like, never touched the stuff. Never smoked it. And so they're like this guy.

They're like, well, he sticks to his story. So he's smart enough to know that. So they offered me a contract by at the four days, eight hours a day of just getting blasted by these guys. The most of anybody. I was had the longest interview process.

So they offered me a contract. It's like a five-year contract. We sign it, and then I started the boot camp, and it's, you know, rustic out in the mountains of the Spanish, French Pyrenees and cold, man, psychologically very difficult because you feel isolated. You're like, I'm sure you felt like this. You know, when you're president, you think about what you lost, where you were, who you were, or whatever that is. Now here you are alone. And that whole piece that I was working through. But I earned it.

That's what I really came to terms with is I earned right. you're at you earn your reality man so when i was there i was like well this is just what i have to go through and go back to the basics literally strip it down hey navy seal come clean this toilet a lot of that shit so i and that was what i earned though so i requested the mountain regiment they have a mountain infantry regiment and that's where i got kind of directed to they are very more deployed and this and that so i thought mountain okay infantry let's do that i'm thinking i'm wondering where they're going to send us and stuff. I get there, the first place they send us, they go, you're going to South American jungle.

I was like, South American jungle, not. All right. So we went down there for four months and some change and doing deep jungle operations for interdiction of illegal gold mining and drug trafficking. It was wild west, man. How does the French get that assignment? All right. So a lot of people don't know this.

France has French territory in South America. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Nobody knows. It's called French Gann. Oh, French Gann. Okay. French Gann. It's on the border of Brazil and Suriname. And it's for gold, man.

And they found a bunch of oil down there, too. They use the Euro. They speak French. It's part of Europe. A lot of people don't know. It is formally part of Europe in South America. I never put that together. A lot of people don't know that.

I didn't know that. I was flying there. Google in this place. And it was de jungle operations for months. You're doing 14-day patrols, in hitting gold mines every day of wrapping people up you can't arrest them too you got to catch and release these because you can't walk through the jungle with them you know and they old ladies and we would come across people they build up whole cities and we would blow up all their shit and

burn all their burn all their structures down and go on to the next one i understand what are they doing they're coming on to french territory and they're mining for gold so you just have to go in and you just you just destroy their whole little yeah mexif village and tell them get the out like I mean but they don't have a standing like police force there they have to send you guys in every once while yeah they that's the standing police force is kind of using us it's so deep to get in there it would be hard and so spread out like the amazon jungle is intense man just those guys with how they get in that equipment is ingenious they're building whole huge diesel engines and stuff but it's also they're ripping the part out of the jungle because they dig these maps massive mercury pits and they, and they, how they strip the gold, however they process it. It's brutal on the environment. So the French don't like it. Also, France, if you want to mine gold down there, you better be paying your piece.

So they have legal gold mining operations down there. So that's why France is like, this is all. And we would bring a lot of demolition on some of them, blow the shit up, burn the shit, sledgehammers. I mean, we're humping in quickie saws, sledge hammers. It's some of the hardest patrols I've ever done because you can't even. to carry enough water man so are you just going in there like you find the village you guys set up camp and then just like go in in the middle of night go in the morning and just arrest everybody how many people are in these like villages it depends a lot of them most are men

some of them are mixed with men and women and we know their families or whatever they're just trying to make a living right they're just trying to do the thing but it's like we got a job to do too so I'm like so is it 50 a hundred I mean so no no we would come across like 10 to 15 Okay. 10 to 15, sometimes smaller, sometimes smaller. And we'd walk, and it doesn't even matter what time of day. We'd come across in the morning, boom, hit it, burn everything, go on to the next month. And then just march in 14 days and back, we're sleeping in hammocks, bringing water purification tablets, chlorine tablets, and filling up water in the brown rivers.

I never felt so healthy in my life dead serious. I felt amazing, man, drinking that water. I thought I would be, but I was felt great. bro, slept great. It was actually not a bad situation. And I like working. It was a good situation because, dude, it was like finally clearing my head a little bit, you know, about all the shit I lost and where I was. It was like, at least I'm here doing this, right?

And so it was healing. That part of it was healing. It was hard, but it was definitely healing. Yeah. I mean, that's, I was going to say that's the whole thing when they sent you up into the, you know, mountains or whatever. and they're, you know, clean these toilets, do this, do that. I mean, it's just to humble you, but when you get completely kind of gutted and you do get humble, like, that's the best feeling of the world, being humbled and coming

back, you know what I'm saying? In my opinion, you know, I've got guards talk to me like I'm a dog, inmates talk to me like I'm a dog, and then you come to that realization, like, I should be here. Like, I got no reason to be upset about this. Like, I'm supposed to be here. Yeah. You know, and then you start feeling better. Then I immediately felt better, just like you were saying, when you start.

thinking, no, this is, I got myself here. I should be here. You start feeling, to me, that's like some of the, I felt great about myself. All the shit talking and feeling like crap in my past started to kind of just melt away. Yeah. And that was the truth for me. I needed it. I needed to experience that just baptism and humility, for lack of a better word.

That's good. I like that. I'm stealing that. Yeah. I'd use it, man. I needed it. That's what it was. It was just like a washing over of.

you know, and then washing me. Also, I just needed some time and distance from everything else to burn off, burn away some carmic debt. And so by the time we got back, you know, it's wintertime. And it's funny, we were down there during COVID. Nobody knew what the fuck that shit was down there, no. Nobody knew. It didn't exist down there, bro.

So we were all okay, too. So we get back and then they posture us for internal domestic anti-terrorism mission. internal in France, which is, a lot of people don't know this, too. They use the French Foreign Legion and some other units in France to patrol internal interior of France for anti-terrorism domestic presence purposes. So they got sent us to Nice, French Riviera, which was not too bad. So I'm just patrolling the French Riviera with a gun. And we did that for two months.

Where'd you go after that? So we stayed there for two months and we did that. Come back to the basin. And mind you, we're at our home base for the most part. in between these missions and stuff so we're training we're a mountain unit so we're going up into the french alps training and man i got my ass kicked up there man the french alps i'm not built like a billy goat man i'm built for like the jungle's perfect for me slow deliberate movement the mountains man i get my ass kicked that was some seriously tough training is it air

thin or like is it that high yeah it's just the marching with the weight up the hill it's just tough for me, man. And some of those Nepalese guys and stuff, they're just like Billy Goats, dude. And so it's hard to keep in pace with them. Humbling. That was a really humbling experience being a Navy SEAL, having, you know, done and then experienced some courses that I'm failing, right? Failing some of these, some of these mountain courses going. I'm also in my mid-30s, but there's guys in their mid-30s still crushing it. But you got to get acclimated to that type of training. But we're marching up with, you know, seal skins on skis and marching with people up they see my Instagram I got pictures and stuff all this stuff on there of really moving with

way up mountains with skis and skiing with guns and all this type of shit it's you know kind of sleeping in igloos up on the mountain like real real mountain operations and dangerous like just while we were there man we had a handful of guys die from avalanches from rocks collapsing on them it's dangerous and that happens about every year up there so how long how long I mean were you assigned anywhere else? I mean, how long were you, said you signed a five-year contract? Yeah. So that's about, so this is coming up on about two, three years, ish, right?

Okay. Where we're out now. So they send us on our next deployment, which is, I'm ranking up, mind you, as this time's going. I'm going to selection courses, ranking up and ranking up. And now I come back from a promotional course and they say, hey, you're getting picked to go to the Russian border. in Estonia with NATO. So we sent a contingent of French Foreign Legionaires to Estonia with NATO on the Enhanced Ford Presence Battle Group.

And there's some also a picture. We're rolling out with like 86 tanks, man. English tanks is crazy. I'd never seen movements like this. Hey, real quick, just wanted to let you guys know that we're looking for guests for the podcast. If you think you'd be a good guest, you know somebody, do me a favor. You can fill out the form. The link is in our description.

box or you can just email me directly. Email is in the description box. So back to the video. Are there any other Americans there? Pretty much me. Pretty much you. I was just thinking myself like pretty much me. It sounds like a movie. Like it's like what like do you have it when you're doing this? Do you have any idea how insanely unique this? I knew I need to write this story man. You haven't written the story? Well the books get well the books in the process right. So the books in the process because man it's a it was an interesting experience I knew it was powerful and it was a trip because I'd be like in the woods that enhanced forward presence battle group was the English Danish French and the Estonians grouped up so it was a trip we'd be out on

you know some exercise in the woods and I'd come across an English guy and he'd see the French flag and he's like oh we and I'm like hey it's all good bro it's a trip and he's like what the are you doing out of here dude you know I'd have those moments where it's funny they're like Hey, mate, what the You're taking a piss or what? So, but still challenging because you're still in the Foreign Legion. No matter where you are, it's that discipline, it's that grind. You know, you're treated a little bit different than normal French military.

It's just a little bit more of a grind, I would say. And that's because of the culture. Like the culture, like I said before, a lot of leadership is Eastern Bloc countries, you know, Moldova, Romania, you know. hungry a lot of hungarians are pretty chill though but ukrainians it's a tough tough guys coming from tough countries tough lives and they push that that culture down and it works though it keeps it keeps uh the discipline tight people don't get loose you you don't lip off or get weird in the form of it'll crush your soul like they'll make your life absolutely miserable if you if you want to they don't have some stuff for you to do you'll be outside painting rocks white all day

or breaking big rocks into small rocks. I had one thing where I wasn't marching right one day. And the general, the colonel saw me with tattoos. He's like, hey, the American with all the tattoos, he was marching like shit, right? And so that turned into me for three days in the rain and snow, stacking rocks up to my, my level of pyramid as tall as me. In freezing cold ice rain for three straight days, 16 hours a day, in a place where there wasn't rocks. Right. Right. So I was marching with a backpack like 15 minutes to get like three rocks in the back. That was just for not marching right. They don't mess around there. So you people told the line.

So what, so you were in at the Russian border? And so how long was that, did that go on? And what was that? Why were you there? That was five months. Five months? Yeah. So that was five months. Yeah. So that was five months. Flexing on the border. Right. Flexing on the border show force. Okay. That was right during the Ukraine, that whole invasion. That was that time. And mind you, this. This is the time, too, where I, for this entire period, man, I still wasn't happy, right? That was the piece where I was like, man, I still have this, like, feeling of, like, void or something. And that's when I went, I got to look internal, right? There's no more external things. Navy SEAL, I still had some pieces.

I need to, now I'm here, and I'm the only Navy SEAL Legion Air ever to me. And now I'm not, still not, maybe I'll go fight in Ukraine. And I just had all these pieces. I'm like, dude, what the. am I, where am I going to go? I'm just running from myself. So in that Foreign Legion Barracks room, I decided I'm just going to look internal, fix my daily processes, is just try to be happy with myself. And I started waking up early. I started self-reflecting. I started reading Stoic philosophy. I started building a system supplementing correctly, working out right,

but every day, no days off. That was the difference. I just decided to lock it on. Guess what? I started feeling better. And so that's when I started to tighten up this process. that you know I call the blueprint tighten it up and my life started to get better I stopped having bad days I stopped you know having doing dumb shit

that caused me shame and regret you know it's not perfect we all still got things to learn and but it was getting a lot better than what's and why did my life keep falling to pieces right what was I doing that I needed to unlearn that's when I decided

it was about that Estonia time a little bit before that when I really started to lock it on in Estonia training out in the freezing and stuff being outside just trying to get it done and then coming back from Estonia that's when I really ratcheted it down and really kind of went into this man I think I could go into this you know teach people how to do this because I was suicidal had lost everything and now I feel

great just just without external validation just in my daily habits so this whole time I mean from the seals, you know, the seals, you know, exiting the sales, I'm not sure how to put that, you know, working with entrepreneur, this, you know, this, the startup company, the, you know, the cannabis company, the, you know, all of these different things. What are your, you're, now you're in the, the French Foreign Legion. Yeah. The, what are your parents? Yeah.

I mean, this cannot be a lot of fathers, but your father has to, your parents have to be like, what's going on? Yeah. Their friends don't have children in the French Foreign Legion. Yeah, my mom was just like, damn, dude. You know, but she gets, she got that I just have this like thing. But she just wants me happy, right? She wants to be happy and safe, right?

The safe piece was whatever. But she knew that I was probably safer in the Foreign Legion than, you know, being suicidal in a truck. So it was kind of getting honest and it's cool to be able to see come back and be in the United States and see her happy. seeing my you know i have relationship with my dad see them proud of me and doing the right stuff and it's during that time i think they were just happy that i had some direction someone was locked on in an actual purpose that's what i think anybody probably wants for their kids and and that's what i found there so i was grateful during that time to just have some time to burn and learn myself and mature a little bit so i mean at what point do you you know you get out your five years got to be

up what year is that so i just in december you know and it It was, I got out. It was this December? Yeah. I was just, because I've been doing it in my head. I was like, okay, a year and a half ago, maybe, maybe, maybe. Yeah, it was this December, you know, and it didn't, I didn't leave super on, you know, it wasn't super chill because I started doing a YouTube and I sent my YouTube out and the

Legion wasn't happy with it. And then it blew up. Then I was like, look, but I was getting a lot of, why, what, how does that conversation go? Like, where they take, could you come in here? They were fine with it until it blew up, right? And that's when it got big and they were like, okay, well, we don't know what this guy's going to say, right? And because I was, I never said one negative thing about the Legion. But it was, I knew it was my purpose to share my story. I just like, hey, man, this here's

where I'm at. I'm a former Navy SEAL in the French War Legion. I was suicidal. Now I'm good, right? And so I was, and a- Do you think that would be huge for them? That would be, to me, that'd be a draw for them. I was getting, there was recruiting magic. But like I said, they didn't have the control over what I might say, which I understand. I understand their side of it. and I was getting hundreds of emails from foreign, you know, veterans being like, hey, dude, I was going to kill myself and I didn't because I saw your video, so I really appreciate it. So that felt good and I knew I was not pulling anything down.

And I was like, look, I'm not pulling anything down. I got in a lawyer and we tried to fight administratively. He's like, dude, they're not going to budge. You're not going to budge. So it was, okay, irreconcilable differences. I was pretty much almost done anyway. Like, I was, I was burning time. So I was trying to prep my out.

So, you know, that we, we, we kind of. the contract and I left. You know, I left France. Do you're not a French citizen? No. And it usually takes about seven years and I didn't want French citizenship. So you have been kind of cool to have you could have dual, maybe dual citizen. Yeah, I didn't even want to mess with it. You required seven years. You got to route additional paperwork. I just had no interest in it. And I came back, man, and just started, you know, kicked off and went on to this coaching and mentorship thing. And it's extremely rewarding.

It keeps me accountable. It's seeing the change in people's been quite amazing. Well, how do you figure that out? Because that's, not something that a normal person knows how to monetize and you and I don't say that in a bad like you have to monetize like I can't I can't do it for free yeah it's like people are like get upset when there's commercials on on the channel it's like I can't do this for free bro so you know how do you figure out like did you talk to somebody or did you figure hey did you just sit down with a piece of paper say if I charge this much every month you know I you know I had a couple mentors in the process and and it was I said hey you know what's the what's the how do we

we how do I do this and it was after that it was you know building it with your own blueprint and okay right all I really cared about was putting out good information that was where I started like if I just put out honest good authentic information completely transparent about what's going on in my life and what's happened we'll see what happens and that's when I started getting the messages flooding in and then kind of didn't it's been a learning process but it's been extremely successful and I'm grateful because I have the ability to see people from, like, broken to, you know, now their marriages are back and they're, you know, off and, you know, for the first time in many years and, and are crushing it in business and stuff again. And so that's the piece is how we say, man, your level of success, it's never going to exceed your level of self-development. People, they're like, my business is failing.

I go, yeah, because you're failing. Like, your daily habits are shit. You're not, you're not training. you're not working out, you're not self-reflect, let's build you up. Don't worry about your business right now. It'll happen. And sure enough, they build them up and then their businesses start booming again. And that's the piece that's really cool to see is the R-O-I's yourself.

Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Especially, well, I think with maybe not every, you know, maybe not Ford. But you know what I'm saying? Like your success as a person within that organization and making decisions is certainly, especially if you're building a business that revolves around you, which, let's face it, most, not most. pretty much 100% of all small businesses are just revolve around one or two people that are running that business in them.

They're off or they're f***ed up. And I get phone calls all the time, a guy that, I get this one guy right now. Anyway, that his whole life has fallen forward, which is, you know, committed several different frauds. Yeah. You know, and he's like, you know, I don't know what to do. And I'm like, hey, you call the, you know, I'm just directing them what to do. And I'm trying to tell him, fix this, fix this.

And you can see it too. He can't see it, but it's like two years ago, I got a girlfriend on the side, started seeing her, started doing this. And then you can just, as he's telling the story, you're like, you didn't see this going, like, you're married, you have an obligation to your wife. You have an obligation to your employer. Like, so I start lying about this, lying to my wife, lying to the girlfriend, lying to my employer, lying to, you didn't think that might end up it. Like, nobody thinks that's going to end up in jail. Yeah. But it's going to end you up.

And, like, for this guy, you're going to prison. Yeah. You're committing fraud. You're lying to the people that you have obligations for. Yeah. So it's powerful. That's, I'm glad you brought that up because it's exactly right. It's these small decisions, man, if you better catch them quick, right?

Because catch that bad decision first. I'm not, nobody's perfect. I'm definitely not perfect. I'll tell you what, though. I've learned it hard way enough when I make a bad decision. I'm like, all right. Cut it, right. Boom.

Cut it. Cut that fast because you got to cut that train, man, because, like you said, that trail, that trail, man, if you don't, if you don't catch it and that ego, it's ego, I want this, I want my cake and eat it too. Man, you're going to fuck yourself, bro. Is that slippery slope? I always talk about that, like, the very, the first thing I ever did, so minor. It was, I just whited out a 30 day late.

Yeah. Next thing you know, you know what I'm saying? I mean, literally like it's like, it just, it did it was, you know, the whole slippery slow thing, but that one thing, then it's changed this number, then it's this, then it's this. And I kept getting away with it, which was the biggest, that was, that was the worst. Yeah. I wish I could have been caught right away. Yeah. I have probably never done it again, you know, but I get, you get emboldened by it. Like, I got away with this. I got away with that. Yeah. Like, then you start telling yourself you're too, you're good at this. It's okay. I got away

with it. Nobody's hurt. You start justifying. Next thing, you know, you're just this overblown prick. Yeah. Who's destroying every relationship, you know. It's, it's, it's, it's shitty. it's stacking carmic debt whether we like to know it even you could stack carmic debt just by not living your best life you don't even have to be doing bad shit that's that's the real part what people want to look at it you can just not be living you could do and be doing nothing illegal nothing whatever but if you're not living your best life you're not listening to that authentic voice that's kind of guiding you man i'll tell you what when i step out of line i get reprimanded hard and fast by the universe or whatever it happens fast to me

and powerfully because, man, that's probably what I need, right? And it's also just, it's very, because I know better, right? When you know better and you know what you're supposed to be doing and you're not doing it, man, standoff like, you're going to get blasted. Yeah, we were, I was talking to this guy. The other night, uh, uh, Zeskin, we went to, that's why, like, if you had told me you came last night, like, I probably, we probably could have gone to dinner. Um, but, uh, Zeskin came here and we were talking.

And he's, a Jewish guy who's, you know, he's rough. He's rough around the edges. Like most Jewish guys are rough around the edges. You know what I'm saying? Like the guys that grew up in New York or something. And we went to dinner and we were talking and he was just talking about just being maniac and he's importing like the largest importation smuggling ring and history. Like looking at, he actually got 30 years.

Ended up doing like 12. It got 30. And was looking at another life sentence case. Damn. Like he's in prison on a 30 years sentence fighting a life sentence. it's fighting a life sentence in another case ended up doing 12 years. But the whole thing what we were talking about, he said, he started talking about God and, you know, I don't know if you believe, maybe it's, you know, the energy or whatever.

He started going in and all that. And I was like, right. And he said, he said, I don't know why. He said, but when I started like working out and just not lying anymore and not, you know, all these little tiny things that seem so reasonable. Yeah. He's like, it just seemed like things. started falling into place.

Yeah. And that's how, like, what it is. When I got out, well, it really started when I was in prison, just doing the right thing and being, I used to say I was overly honest. Like, because in prison, you get yourself in trouble very, very quickly by not being extremely honest. Like, it's literally that whole, you know, you know, hey, bro, you need, hey, Cox, oh, you need something?

Yeah, I got to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, I mean, are you giving this to me? Yeah, yeah. Because don't expect it. I'm not getting you for anything. I got no money. I'm not bringing you back a bag of coffee because you gave me a couple of scoops out of you. So you have to be very honest. Yeah, no, no, bro.

It's cool. We're cool. It's like, okay. You know, it's the same thing. Even when I got out of prison at a woman that I was work where I was working, offered me, let me go pick you up something to eat. And I was like, no, I got a bag lunch from the halfway house. And she's like, yeah, you eat that every day.

Like, let me get you some lunch. And we were in, and he, Colby's heard this. We were in front of a bunch of people. and I'm kind of embarrassed almost like you know and she was she was like I'll get it I'll get I said no no I said I'm okay I got my sandwich because you have you eat out every day you've got to be tired let me get you a sandwich and I went I said if you want to get me a sandwich out of the kindness of your heart but you do not expect that in a week from now when I get paid that I'm going to buy you a sandwich in return you expect nothing in return you don't expect me to come up with

money, return the favor. I said, because I'm saving money and it's, I'm, I'm doing everything to save money. I'm in the halfway house and I have a bag sandwich and I'm okay with that. Yeah. So if that's what you're saying, let me buy you a sandwich out of the goodness of my heart and I never expect anything in return. You can buy me a sandwich. Yeah.

And listen, you should just see everybody standing around. It's like, yeah. I'm the only guy who just, who's in a halfway house, by the way. They're all looking at me like, is this crazy? But, but she went, I'm going to get you a sandwich. I was like, okay. Because, you know, you should have to, it's that overly honest. But as a result of that, I'm going to tell you the truth.

You know, you may be unhappy about what I'm going to tell you. But you know for a fact, I'm going to be honest about it. I'm going to tell you the truth. And when I, Zeska and I were talking about it, when you start behaving extremely honest and truthful and things just for me, they started falling into place. Like, I'm not special. I'm not doing anything to make these things happen. but I'm getting the phone call that didn't come comes.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Something else comes. You know, I'm broke. Can I come up with enough money to pay this chick who's letting me rent a room? I get a phone call. Fly to Puerto Rico, have lunch with us. We'll give you a couple grand. Yeah.

The fuck does that happen? You know, I meet Danny Jones. Come on my podcast, you know, tell your story. You promise. I was like, nah, I'm trying to get out of it. Bro, you told me if I answered your questions, you would come on the podcast. I did say that.

You know, trying to get him to answer some questions about how to start a YouTube channel. And I was like, oh. So I go there, I do it. I said, I did tell them. I tell the story. Boom, two million views. Yeah.

You know, like all of these things just start happening. And I get a phone call, Patrick Bet David. We'll fly you out here. And then it's this. Then it's this phone call. Can you come and talk in front of a banking convention? The same bankers that I used to rip off. Yeah, yeah.

Like, didn't I steal, like, 15 million from you? Don't I still? owe you $6 million? Yeah, so we're going to pay you $6,000 to come back to us. That's insanity. But yeah, you just do the right thing and things start, not that I wasn't working hard because I'm a hard work. I work 60, 80 hours a week just because I like to work.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Which is, you know, horrific for anybody who wants to have a personal relationship with me. But that's on them. They should have known better. Yeah. Yeah.

But other than that, everything starts to fall into place and it just seems to start working if you just behave like a decent human being yeah which was an issue for a long long time yeah and it's a constant thing you have to stay press yeah you have to slips easy as shit that's your guys like us that always used to kind of push in the pace the the stand though the baseline is kind of like I'll just kind of say what I need to do to get things moving do what I want you have to be adamant you have to be deliberate about being that solid cat and the universe starts to work for you and not against you yeah yeah Yeah. I was going to say, I used to, you know, and listen to all I'm already slipping.

There's already times my wife and I are laying in bed and it's just like, I don't get much sleep last night. And, you know, she's like, we don't have to go to the gym. I'm like, can you roll over? And it's like, oh, you know, like it's now the excuses are starting to come. And then you kind of got to tighten yourself, tighten up. And like, what was I telling her the other day? Oh, spirit. I was like, I can't fly spirit anymore.

I just can't do it. And I used to fly Spirit on purpose. I'd be like, no, I can be uncomfortable for three hours on a plane. It's uncomfortable for 13 years. You have a shit. But now it's like, book me on Delta. I can't. I don't care of it.

I can't do it. I can't go on spare. You know, but it does start slipping up. I feel softer and softer, you know. But yeah, you have to give yourself a little pep talk every once in a while. You got to remember who you are. That's why I say you got to have a good blueprint. Have a good blueprint.

You don't build a house without a blueprint. don't try to build your life without one set the standard build it up make it simple and that's kind of what i show guys how to do is structure your day like this wake up at this time take these supplements right do this part here's your morning process win the morning right get that momentum early keep it get yourself situated then so we start setting those professional goal posts those personal goal posts start looking at that horizon start visualizing seeing clearly where you want to be. That's the other important part that people don't do. Really start seeing clearly where you want to be, who you want to be in that vision. And then we start fixing the body, right?

We start fixing the body, really at the same time, control the physical. Then you control the emotional and the mental, have that emotional discipline. And man, you have those pieces together. You're doing a lot better than most people. You're ahead of the game. Most people are a disaster anyway, especially like the kids coming up. It's horrific. Yeah, I was just thinking, I always say, like, when I got out of prison, I had a plan. I didn't know exactly how that was going to work. I just knew I had a, really, I had a goal. Yeah.

Like, here's the goal. Positive, I'm kind of feeling like I know how I'm going to get there. You know what I'm saying? Like, but if I'm just going to keep doing the right thing and it'll work out and it's been working out. And certainly not the way I expected. But yeah, things start to fall into place. I mean, yeah. You're looking at you makes me want to, I got to start working out more.

No, I actually do. We work out every single. And my wife and I work out almost, well, six days a week, except for on Sundays, we go to church on Sunday. But I'm telling you, the last month and a half, like so many things have, she's been gone for four days. You know, so many things go wrong. And, you know, or I have to leave for three days, you know, to go on a trip or whatever. It's, it's, it's, with our schedule, it's tough. But, yeah, I got to.

I mean, it's siding up the back rows, man. I see you judging me. Don't judge me. I see that judgment. I never judge. I almost switched the camera. And I'm why you're explaining to him. Did you see his face?

Well, I can just see him looking at you. I almost switched a camera to him and just cap it on him for a few seconds. No, it's, it's, let's work efficiently, right? It said you work accurately. People at the gym all the time, they look the same. Why? They're working out hard as shit. It's accurate eating, right?

You don't got to be super crazy about it, but there's like proportions, percentages and ways to eat that actually start, man. Exacerbating your results, man. Let's expedite your results. Let's get you on the program, bro. we'll die. Listen, bro, I'm old. I'm 50. I'll be 55. I'm like, I got people on the program 70 years old. Like a week or so. I'm like I got like a week and I'm 55 years old. Hell, we'll still tighten you up. You'll have blasted abs. It's easy. Yeah, when's your birthday? July 1st? July 2nd.

July 2nd? Because this video will be going out probably right before there, a few days before that. We're not going to beat, we're not going to be Julian. We're going Sunday. Sunday is the premium day. Right. So we'll edit this day. And I'll send it to Julian. Yeah. Boom. He'll be like, oh, that.

Yeah, I always talk about Julian. You know, like, we don't, like, I was talking about the other day where we were talking about, like, we don't introduce anybody anymore. Now it's just, and that was a phone call from Julian to Danny and I, listen, because I've looked at the analytics. I've done this. I've done that. He's like, we don't introduce anybody anymore. From now on, we just go right into it. And I was like, okay, Julie.

I'll talk to Colby. We'll try that for a little bit. Boy, God, by Julian, he's a, he's a, he's a word. work course, too. Man, he's a workhorse, man. He's working. He's got his, uh, his shorts are, honestly, nobody does better shorts. He's, he's driven so much traffic to his channel via shorts.

Yeah. And they're phenomenal. I mean, he spends a ton of time on them. Yeah, where we're, our shorts are just hacked. Hey, we got the quantity over quality. Yeah, we're good. Exactly. We're posting three times a day.

The best stories, less, like less, you know, dynamic editing. Yeah. More so just what the person's saying, how they're saying it, that's the most important thing. There you go. There's three instead of one. Oh, listen, it's smashing it. We're doing, last month was over 60, was it 50, 59,000 new subscribers. And we're, even now, even it dropped down because we had a few good shorts, dropped down a little bit.

It's still at a thousand a day. Yeah. A thousand subscribers a day. Like, I mean, that's, you know. It's pretty, yeah, solid. Especially if you look at our growth up until Colby started. smashing out these shorts we were doing it we were doing like two or three right yeah we're trying to figure we're we're doing like a couple like maybe three a week and we're testing different

styles we're paying somebody overseas that do hyper edits and things like that to see does it get more views does it not yeah and then and those were great short those were great shorts like super cool but they just didn't bring in any more yeah yeah there was nothing more yeah yeah i would spend two hours on a short and i'm telling right now it should have been it was amazing yeah it was an amazing short and then the same story colby's guy Luke would come in and just chop chop chop chop stick it in there and my short gets 3,000 views and his gets you know 95,000 yeah yeah I'm like I'm done I'm not spending two hours on a one minute short again yeah yeah yeah so you know but yeah these work efficiently

man that's what's about that's what yeah um how I got I got a bunch of questions um so I guess the first question I have is how long do you have today like do you have a specific time when you got to go somewhere. Man, I usually try to keep it at, you know, too. Okay, well, we're at about an hour. Yeah. Are we only at an hour? Well, maybe hour, 10.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if we got 45 more minutes. Yeah, I don't need to keep running and running, you know. I'm all good with whatever you guys got because I got to go to the airport at some point. Well, yeah, that's why I was trying to figure out. Yeah, because, you got 30 more minutes. Okay, Matt, are you good on questions? I mean, I'm curious to know what you have.

I mean, I got a bunch of questions. I'm fine, you know what his question. So if you can answer them long or short, however you want, just to continue on the YouTube space really quick, how long was it before you, like, went full time? Or like, how long were you doing it in the Legion? And then, like, so you leave. Like, what's that transition like going from Legion, kind of doing YouTube to having a sustainable business model on social media? Bro, I was making $20,000 a month before I left the Legion from a barracks room on just my coaching, right? just the coaching, so I was, I knew it was going to work, and it's just grown since then every day.

So, I mean, every month, it's just gone up. So I was, I probably had a month and a half, a month where I was actually in my barracks room recorded and like actually uploading. And then I was fighting that thing for like a month. So I was recording from a different place. And then I left France. So I've been doing it the whole time. Two uploads, seven to 15 minute videos, no edits, stream of consciousness. And I also do gym footage.

I do money, every Monday and Thursday, I've never missed the day. All right. And just to kind of follow up, to get coaching, they're probably going to your website or Instagram to do that. Okay. So the first couple questions I have kind of will be more on the mentally, you know, mental toughness or whatever you want to call it. So what is your advice for men who are maybe at a low point in their life? Like how do they, I know you said the blueprint, but there's anything more specific or, you know, one key thing that you think will help most men. get out that rut yeah get up early get up early and be deliberate about your morning don't look

at your phone right cut away the vices right if you're drinking and doing all that shit cutting that away is going to help tremendously cutting away things that you cause you shame and regret right success is absolutely subtractive more than you know additive so start taking away things that aren't serving you anymore start start taking away things that are causing you friction in your life that was something that I, you know, learn and still am learning is, you know, what's causing you problems in your relationships, in your life, in your business, and all right, cut it, right? It's about that simple. You start making a decision about what's important to you.

Is it success or is it, you know, immediate pleasures and things like that? Because that's really what most men get tried up on. It's pleasure over purpose, you know, if you choose in pleasure, you're going to get burned, you know, and as your consciousness becomes raised, more and more and you become more aware of what you shouldn't be doing and you keep doing it and the the costs get greater so what are any some like the biggest you know i guess misconceptions or lies that you see about um you know self-help or like kind of kind of the same you know little niche that you're in the kind of people bettering themselves like what are some things that you see online

that are being said that you don't necessarily agree with if any man that there's some quick fix right That's not just kind of a grind because it's, it takes one moment to decide what you want to be in there, but it takes a lifetime to prove it. So it's going to take all these small, tiny decisions again and again and again. And you're going to be continuously confronted with this decision or that decision, that food or that food, that decision, that girl or not that girl, right? All these things that, you know, men contend with and women. and it's it's so you got to make the decision about who you want to be what's important in your life who's important in your life and start walking down that path because there's not an overnight quick fix it's going to take a while you know changing your body takes a while also you know

your self-talk you've been speaking yourself in a certain way for years and years and years it's not going to fix immediately there's going to be you're going to have to change some things some habits you're going to fall off the horse right that's the other people. maybe you won't but almost everybody does fall off the horse are you going to get back on are you going to reset or are you going to go okay i fell off now i'm going to fix it and not let it just tumble down and tumble down and also take it take ownership man it's you it's you it did it's you once you take ownership about why you're at it's not your ex-wife it's not your kid it's not your job it's not your situation it's you once once that is the truth then and that's it's easy to fix

then it's not easy it's simple right but it's not easy as was there a specific one point or one thing that you think kind of led you down the path of kind of stacking all these mistakes or kind of becoming unhappy or you think it's just like a slow progression or you think there's like any like one one like major root cause whether that's like in your childhood or anything like that that led you down that or man i don't know about leading me down but just choosing being selfish and choosing pleasure over purpose yeah that's that that that is as simple as you could boil it down man it's anytime you kind of said ego a little bit there man and that's exactly what it is it's man are you picking your ego are you picking you know what's better for you know everybody else other

than you and you're good things are going to work out more often than not if you choose purpose over pleasure it's just there's just no way around it so what was maybe more beneficial well actually i'd probably know the answer to that one so uh what's your your favorite part about the military whether it's the seals or the legion like why why why go do it because certain takes a certain type of person what's your favorite part part about it why do you enjoy it man i like the camaraderie i like some i like the lifestyle's kind of interesting you know it keeps things moving it's tough it's tough it's isolating it can't be lonely at times but it's very it's very rewarding and there's a lot of poignant moments with the guys you're

with it's about that guy next to you and that you have some really incredible bonds in that capacity that are unique that you really can't recreate anybody else that's that's definitely what i've always loved about it is it probably like something to do with like the athletic background being a part of a team sports team things like that you think yeah yeah and also this that warrior calling man i mean some people have that calling and and some people do i knew from a young age is what i wanted to do you know yeah um so how about a mission whether it's the SEALs or the Legion, that was maybe your closest call or like a near-death experience. Yeah, well, I almost died in Mexico, surprisingly enough, on a, on a bachelor party.

No, no, yeah. You wish you'd think. It was on a, for the G20 summit, Obama was down there, and it was 2012, and we were part of his special, special warfare maritime, like, interdiction peace or like extraction force. So anytime he was transiting or, you know, in car, they were worried about the cartels. They would have, you know, seals into some SWIC guys. We would be a couple miles out to sea and ribs fully kidded up, kind of like paralleling them. And if they were going to have any issues, we were out there, kind of out there for a week while during this little op and a huge storm came in. And I was jumping onto the boat.

We were going to have to go inland and take cover in the port. So I was jumping on in these huge swells at night, two in the three and the three. the morning way out to see and I hit the side of the thing and I went in the drink full kit six magazines one in the gun m4 wired my kit night vision helmet backpack everything pistol in the drink and like no flirtation and I was swimming man and I was heavy and was putting out I thought I was going to die for sure I was swimming I don't know how long probably was no longer than a minute and some change but finally I was getting away from the props and the chaos and a lot of stuff going on and I'm sinking and I thought well this is how it ends and right at that point

I kind of a hand came down from one of the smaller boats and I got it and it was one of my OIC and that was it man and I got I came out and that was pretty close bro um what kind of person do you think can become a Navy SEAL and what percentage do you think versus mental versus physical is it like the whole experience man I'd say it's at least 50 50 right people say it's it's mostly mental nah there's a lot of physical for sure. And who can be a Navy SEAL is somebody who could actually see themselves as that, right? If you can't see yourself as, you know, you see an instructor and you, like, the only

difference between him and you is time, right? But if you can't see yourself in that position, it's going to be very difficult. Also, you really got to have that calling of not just wanting to label, you know, not just wanting to be in the bar Friday night telling the girl, but actually want to operate and be in that sphere, that's going to be the most important piece that's going to put So why can't Navy SEALs take steroids? Like I feel like it would be beneficial almost. Man, it's control.

It's just control. It can't be dangerous, right? Dudes can do overboard. And, you know, there's a lot of dangers that come with it. And, you know, they want control. You're technically government property, right? So you can't be doing all this weird stuff. And, you know, I think they're a little bit more loose about testosterone and stuff now.

But if you're going to go off on your own and do stuff and they don't have control over it medically, then I could see well. then I could see why it's an issue. What was the hardest part about your seal training? Like the final day, was it like a final test or something that was like, what was the hardest part about becoming a Navy SEAL? Not a final test that wasn't so hard, but definitely Hell Week was really hard at the beginning and also just the volume of the running and the cold.

It was over time. You're just the volume, I'll say, just of how long it is. The Bud's selection piece was six months long. that's you're just you realize when you wake up cold every day it's just going to be like that for a while yeah how many navy seal teams are there like do the numbers do they mean anything um yeah how many navy seal teams are there and do like seal team one seal team two like does that have any significance yeah it used to be geographical location but it's also you know team one and two were the first two teams right and it's three and five or and so odd numbers are

on the west coast even numbers are on the east coast if people want to that's how that's how many are there like how many and current current serving navy seals is like a 100 200 500 like a couple thousand current serving navy seals the thing is about 2 000 usually about 2,000 2,500 about and the actual seal teams 1 3 5 and 7 are on the west coast 2 4 6 which is development group 8 and 10 are on the east coast and then you have sdb team and why that's all open source so it's not secret okay and i saw this uh as a as a real what is the worst thing that you saw as a navy seal man i've seen you know in iraq you see it's you know kids and things like that and that's pretty brutal you know and you come across you know

launching rockets and then they land in a town and you know you're coming across some chaos it's pretty brutal all right so that's navy seal so let's move on to the legion And the first question I have is actually for Matt, when you never consider going into Legion when you're going on the run. You know, I don't even think I thought about it. Although I'd heard about it when I was a kid, I didn't even think about it again until I was, I mean, and this is not that I thought of going. I was in prison, and there were a couple of guys there that had been in the military and they were thinking about going. And they were saying when they got out, they were going to go into the French foreign Legion. And, you know, Mike Hudson, Mike, there's a guy I interviewed, he was a drug smuggler.

He used to mock this guy who was like five foot two, this little tiny guy who was and worked out with him all the time. Eventually he stopped working out with Mike because he gave him such a hard time. But he used to talk about it all the time. And Mike would just, you're too short. They won't take you. They got a height limit. They got, you know, he was just brutal to this poor little guy.

And, you know, but, but yeah, there were several guys that talked about it. Like, when I got out, I'm going to go here. And I used to think, like, I mean, you'll be, of course, I didn't know any better. I remember thinking, well, you still have probation. Like, and you have, can you even get a passport? Like, I didn't know what I was going to be able to do when I got out. Like, can I get a passport? I'm a felon.

Does the United States want to give guys with felonies passports, you know? And so that's the, but yeah, absolutely not. Like, I'm not, you know, listen, I, no, I'm, you know. And the other thing is, like, running. Every time you talk about running. Yeah. I run, like, a. tank.

Yeah. Like, there are some people that look like, like beautiful gazelles running on the, you know, through Africa. Like they look like they were born to run, right? Like, I run like, and I'm horrible at it. I get that.

My feet are short. My whole body's short. I'm just not designed to run. That's all my stretcher questions. Yeah. I do have a question. We were talking about the whole training and, and personal development and mentoring and stuff

was I was thinking about West Watson. Yeah. What do you think of West Watson? West is great, man. I know Wes personally. Are you serious? Yeah, West is fantastic, bro. Dude, I've known Wes for a long time.

And Wes actually, you know, was kind of who opened my eyes to universal principles and things like that. Because if people don't, people can, you know, they might look from the outside perspective. But if you actually talk to him, I know him personally. So if you don't talk to him and actually watch his, all of his videos, incredible how deep he dives into actually universal principles all these all these really deep topics stoic philosophers all and it's packaged rough but if you know if you want to if you want to learn some

shit he'll drop some knowledge i so you know when i have a few i've been able to listen to you know what he's saying most of the time is i agree with his delivery no is so overreward overwhelmingly obnoxious that I can't watch it bro like first of all the stories stop I've been in prison you know you did not behave like this in prison you know the you know it's it's so over the top the the yelling at people calling them names you're a bitch you're this you're that you're a you know bro like what are you doing like man he's got his you know he's got his you know his delivery with me he's always been has always been straight up I got He's making money.

I mean, he's obviously doing this. Somebody's paying. You know, I've got nothing but good things to say about him personally. Right. Bro, it's insane. He's always been on the up and up with him. I just lifted with him in Miami a few months ago. So, you know, for me, he's always been on the up and up.

His delivery is what it is. But, you know, he's got his market and his brand, and that's how it rolls. And it works. It does where you would think he would be more. He would open himself up to more. opportunity if he wouldn't be. Maybe, maybe not, right? Maybe maybe not because people want to be coddled and sometimes, you know, that's not what people need. They need to hear what they need to hear know what they want to hear. You know, it's not my delivery. It's my delivery is different, right?

Because a lot of my guys are military guys or whatever. Some are, you know, his, but for me, that's him. That's who he is. I don't, uh, it's, it would be forced for me to do that. So I have to be, you have to be authentic, right? Be in your authentic voice and who you are. and you know that's just how it is it's got to come across real hey sorry to interrupt the video just want to let you guys know that we're going to have an extra 15 or 20 minutes of content on my patreon it's $10 a month for about an hour's worth of extra content every single week back to the podcast yeah who is kind of your demographic or someone who are you trying to reach man i go for maybe anybody's CEOs veterans all in between people trying to get out of their cars

living. I got the whole spectrum, man, doctors, lawyers, guys who are business owners. And it depends because I have multiple tiers. Elite tier and then mid-level people who want to actually a little bit more time intensive than we do on the elite tier. And if they want, you know, something a little bit more casual, but they want to get their, they want to get correct, mind and body. We put them on the mid-level. And that's a good warm up. Are you doing this all remotely or it's all remote? All remote. Nobody's being trained in person. No. Okay. And is it all you? Or do you have a team No, just me. Every single DM, email, everything goes to me.

I'm on that thing all the time, man. I'm working like 19 hours a day. Just, you know, managing it because any single, every single email, contact form through the email, DM, everything. I don't outsource anything. And you've been doing the coaching how long? Since October. Since October. So almost a year.

Have you seen, like, in this period of time, have you seen maybe like one thing that maybe holds people back? from progressing and then on top of that maybe like your biggest success story like that you saw somebody go from the lowest of lows to you know yeah man a committing i've seen guys committing is the hardest though the people hold people back they'll still do half of it you know they'll be like oh do wake-ups this time or i'll do you know not eat not really dial the diet in or not do the morning probably if they do all of it it's pretty amazing because i've got guys who are homeless and now you know own businesses already in a very short amount of time you You know, or have fixed their marriages and got off drugs for the first time in 12 years and all that shit.

And the antsy, their body change. Yeah. Do you find that the people that pay for the top higher tier are way more committed and usually? Yeah, because you don't want to waste your money. Yeah. So they're going in. They're like, I'm not going to waste this money. Yeah.

And what's the, for like the coaching, like what's the time frame that they have to sign up for? Is it monthly? Do they have to commit to pay months? I do three, six or a year. Those are your options. Yeah. Because, you know, if you're a month, what are you going to get done? You know, three months, we can actually get some type of momentum because it takes a little while to build these habits, right?

And you're holding them accountable, like what, just texting group calls, like weekly calls or? Yeah, I do, I do weekly email check-ins for, this is the middle-level program, weekly email check-ins and I do zooms monthly, right? So I'll do Zoom calls with the monthly. And, you know, they can always hit me up in between. I'll answer whatever if they always have access to me. but the elite they do weekly zooms with all in addition to the you know yeah month of the weekly check and are they one-on-one or are they like group calls everything's one-on-one yeah i don't do any group stuff you good i'm good i'm just way better questions than i and i kind of like it's also

easier to think of those questions because i'm not caught up in the conversation because i'm like okay i'm writing down this right down this and there's like things like that i can think of tactically or I can look on YouTube and see, you know, what are other people asking, things like that. Man, it's fun getting people right, man. That's the thing is people come in there like, hey, man, I just, because there's so much information. It's like, dude, where do I start? Keto, carnivore, all this stuff. Man, I tried all that shit.

I felt like dog shit, right? So there's actually a particular way to eat. Your energy stays high. You can cut up. You can actually build muscle. There's a way to do this. Supplement correctly. There's a system, man, to do it correctly.

And, okay, I have a blueprint. I stick to it. Now I'm feeling better. It's nice to have some type of framework to work off of then winging it. It's guessing is not going to work. Do you have a, like, you know, that's some structured, but like, what's your vision for like the next few years? I'm like, you know, this is. I'm straight focused on this coaching program and I'm going to finish the book up.

So I'll just, but for me, I'll do some speaking engagements, right? Speaking engagements come my way. But I'm so focused on the coaching every day, man. I'm stacked with Zoom calls. And I'm just, I'm liking what I'm doing. I get a lot. It's tough, man, right? Because it takes a lot of energy to be able to, you know, exchange every day multiple times, you know, with on zooms and stuff.

And there's a lot of heavy information, you know, and I have, you know, guys going through serious shit, too, that, you know, are working through it. And it's a process, but it's what I committed to. And, you know, it's what keeps me accountable also. Yeah. And you said the book is on your life? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think, or not do you think?

what is like your social media so you're posting on instagram you're posting on youtube can you kind of get into a little bit more like what exactly you're posting yeah i'm tecab official on my instagram it's all my stories i'll do all my daily wake-ups so i record everything i do in the morning i record every process i do i'll do gym workouts every day and i'll do that's on the instagram story and the and the billboard story board so i just try to record my life and keep people, you know, engaged and fun, man. It's entertainment, too. This shit's got to be, like, not so heavy all the time.

There's lighter stuff and fun stuff, but, and also a lot of collaborations with guys who are well-known in the gym and shit like that. And then on the YouTube, that's all deeper principal stuff, right? And then long-form gym workouts with kind of big-name guys. And that's where I really, the bread and butter is where you can, you actually sit down and we can dive into some deeper principles. Like I said, man, everything I record is on one take, no edits. I never stop and I never re-recorded.

So it's the first take you always see since the first video I uploaded. Yeah. It's probably a better way to do it. Yeah. People, I've seen people kind of obsess over editing and doing. It's like kind of the same principle we do with the shorts. It's like, you know, why? Yeah.

I don't think it changes anything. I don't think you get any more views. I don't think the more, it's almost better if it's unpolied. Unless we're like filmmakers and we're like doing a. a Mr. Beast type of video where we have to it's not that type of content you know it's like it's more about who the person is and what they're saying what the topic is you know that's the message man they're trying to get to know you not the polished yeah yeah well it'd be different if you're shooting a film it's not like i'm shooting star wars here you know it's it's a commerce just

conversation people can sense authenticity a mile away now just but how many interactions they have yeah it's so much different now people can read body language like their masters at it so you got to come across as authentic and i hate all the edit people have these videos and it's like every they get one sentence out it's like nobody can just speak a paragraph fluidly or speak let alone 15 minutes right that's what people love about mine is I don't ever press stop so there's no cuts there's no edits it's because people have they don't believe what they're saying it's easy when you have heart and you actually live this shit man to just say it to the camera because you're just a conduit man to send this shit for real

that's why it's different people are saying this shit that they don't live and they don't really believe, and so it shows. I was just saying, we do have some clip, clip, but it's only because we're clipping out. Yeah, we have some clips. Cuss words. Yeah, we'll clip out some curse words. And then usually, we shouldn't have any issue with you, but sometimes if, like, someone's not a good, you know, they're not used to being on camera.

Yeah. And they're like, um, well, we'll cut that out to speed it up, just to, yeah, to not be distracting. Yeah. Or sometimes they'll say, they'll start to say somebody's name. They'll say it like four times and then they realize like, I shouldn't be saying her name or his name then like man can i say that over again because i i never talk to this person and i'm talking about them being involved in a bank robbery yeah you know from two years ago or three

years ago they didn't go to jail like oh okay and then we have to recut it but so are you going on like a press tour now or it's just kind of a podcast you do you do just periodically i saw you're on soft white underbelly yeah i do podcast periodically people reach out i'll sync up if it links up and i'll fire it out who we were talking to we were talking to uh yesterday um he was talking about podcast is like the best bang for your your buck because he was talking about like look let's say you get a you know what was it like oh yeah yeah he's talking about uh like you know he's talking about sales you got touch somebody seven times or you got to do whatever he's like you know a video online like a three minute news clip that gets 100 000 clips like or it's like you know

maybe a thousand 100 thousand hours whatever it is but if you get 25000 views on an hour long video it's like the amount of time an hour that you're spending that you're poor and relationship Yeah, that you get to be in front of somebody, $25,000 is worth more than $100,000. I agree, 100%. And that's why that time in is so about because people want to know who you are. And people want to do business and work with people who they know. That's the truth, man. So that's important to really get yourself out there.

That's why it's important to be authentic, man. Where can people find you? What's the best place? Man, you can always phone me on my website, taylorcavenon.com. A little bit more of the story, kind of what I do. and that contact form, like I said, goes directly to me. It doesn't go to anybody else. And you also have the option to choose what you want as far as program-wise.

Then, T-Cab official on my Instagram. I'm Johnny on the spot with those DMs. If you hit me up, you'll get me speaking with you and I'll answer you as quick as possible. And also, T-Cab TV, right? If you need, I have my contacts up there also. Drop something in the comments. I try to answer everything, but that's where you're going to. going to get some of the deeper principles and start kind of understanding the story because

the start they will go to video one you'll see me in the barracks room in the foreign legion all the way to now recording in tampa just yesterday hey i appreciate you guys watching do me a favor hit the subscribe button hit the bell so get notified of videos just like this please share the video also please consider joining patreon it's ten dollars a month we put exclusive content on patreon we just started doing it a few weeks ago also we're going to leave all of taylor's uh contact information, all of his links in the description box, you can just click the button, go straight there, subscribe, sign up, follow, everything. I appreciate you guys.

Please leave me a comment. I'll try and respond. See you. All right. Nice. Solid, bro. Thank you, man. Yeah, thank you.