REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 475. Opportunity In Uncertainty Ft. Jason McCarthy (GORUCK)

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

In today's episode, Andy and the crew are joined by the founder and CEO of GORUCK, Jason McCarthy. They discuss how Jason's training as a Green Beret helped him build the GoRuck brand, the best way to deal with the uncertainties in business and life, and the importance of having an optimistic outlook toward America's future.

What is up guys, it's Andy Purcell and this is the show for the realest, say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusionsusions of modern society. And welcome to motherfucking reality. Guys, today we have a special full-length episode. Before I get into our special guest, I just want to cover the basis of the show. This is full-length. This is what you see on most podcasts. It's a bunch of people having a conversation. That's one of the formats that we have of the show. Other times when you tune in, we're going to have Q&AF.

That's where you get to submit questions and I answer them. You can submit those questions too. Guys, email those questions into askandy at andyfusilla.com. Or now that we're on YouTube, we just started on YouTube uploading the full-length episodes,

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Now, we do have a very special guest on the show. Actually, we've got two special guests. One of them is not Sal. I can make it more awkward. I just sit here in silence. Yeah. One of them's definitely not Sal. Well, I mean, welcome back. That's my welcome back. Dr. Sal. Yeah, there's Dr. Sal. Stayed in the Holiday Inn Express last night yeah i'm ready to rock so

we got sal but we also have uh a very very good friend of ours jason mccarthy who is the founder and ceo of go ruck uh you guys might know go ruck it's the weighted backpack event organization it's been around since 2008 changed hundreds of thousands of people's lives uh very very excited to have you here on the show, man. How are you? I'm good, man. It's great to be back first form. Yeah, it's great to have you here. Jason's been here a number of times, but this is the first time he's been on the show. He likes to tag me in the Go Ruck videos and tell all of us doing 75 hard that we're a bunch of pussies for not using rucks.

So I figured since I'm starting 75 hard today and I committed to Jason, to you guys that for outdoor cardio, I'm going to rock the entire 75 hard. Um, and I'd like you guys to join me. If you guys don't have a ruck bag, we sell them at first form. Uh, you can order them from Jason. They're awesome bags and put a weight in them and it makes your cardio quite a bit harder. GoRock.com. Yeah. How about that for an hour?

So that's the show. Great show, guys. Thanks for that. So, dude, you know, dude, you built a tremendous business. You've had an amazing life story. You're from Ohio. Let's just start, you know, how you grew up and how, you know, your story, your personal story about where you came from Ohio. Let's just start how you grew up and your personal story about where you came from. Yes, I'm from back in the Midwest. The air is nice here, even in February.

Yeah, it is. From Southern Ohio in Dayton, my mom was 18 when she had me. My dad was not too much older than that. And that caused some waves in the family, as you might imagine. But ultimately, the dust sort of settled. I moved with just my mom because I got divorced to Gainesville, where my mom was on a full tennis scholarship, all that stuff. The interesting thing about that is I became the unofficial mascot of the women's tennis team at the University of Florida, Go Gators, from the ages of about you know three to six let's say something like that and you know i was gonna

say if you were like in your 20s that doesn't sound terrible sounds better right yeah i'm like how'd you do this tell me this story but uh but yeah but you know bounced around a lot as a kid which kind of is there's a lot of adversity baked into that. That wasn't the easiest thing ever when your mom's 18 years older than you are. And you know, I love my mom to death, love my dad to death, still great relationships all around. My grandparents were really inspirational, all that stuff. We moved to Florida and I mean, to kind of get to more of the meat on the bone, like graduated from high school in 97, same as you. And then 2001, graduated college and really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. That's May of 2001. And, you know, it's really easy for me to look out at the world now and see a lot of people and it's like, what should I do with my life? You know? And I think that was, I don't ever want to forget how terrifying that was. And from my vantage point,

unluckily, what happened was 9-11. And so that was kind of just a call to arms for me. And it changed the course of my life. Out of tragedy came this desire to serve our country. So that was not a natural thing, right? Like we're definitely going to war. What should I do as part of that? I knew what I needed to do, but that didn't make it easy. So it took two, I eventually enlisted in October of 2003. So it took a couple of years to finally- But you felt called right away.

Immediately. Yeah. Immediately. And so the first casualty of the war was a guy named Mike Spann, who had been a... He was in the Marine Corps, but what got published was this is the Johnny Walker Taliban uprising at the prison there. And what was talked about was that he was in the special activities division of the CIA. So I was like, okay, great. I'm going to go do that. That's the guy I want to be, because choose your role models carefully. And that's who I want it to be, which is an odd thing. I mean, someone dies, they die a hero and you say, send me, I want to go do that. But that's just where it was for me.

And I'm not alone in this. There was long lines at recruiting stations and all that. And so I went through the CIA process and I kept asking about, how do I do that? That's what I want to do. And finally, this guy, we're in this Arlington or Northern Virginia, those nondescript CIA type buildings that you can imagine. And you're having the 10th one-on-one conversation in the multi-year process that was the CIA hiring process. And he's like, look, we don't just bring guys off the street to do this. We take them from special operations and then they come here and then they do that. And I'm like, all right, that makes a lot more sense now, right? I guess I got to go back and do that. It's like this huge reset. And I basically felt like a total idiot

and a total failure because at the same time, then I started to get doubt creeping in. Like, okay, do I really want to do this? Because the CIA seems also kind of safer than, hey, I want to go beyond the ground force into, like, what really pushed it was the invasion into Baghdad. I mean, I signed up. I wanted to go to Afghanistan. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be on the team hunting and killing bin Laden. And then, but once the Iraq stuff kicked off, I was like, man, these wars are passing me by. And most importantly, I will regret this for the rest of my life if I

don't do this. So it didn't necessarily, I mean, yes, service is a great thing and the country depends upon all different kinds of service. We could talk about that for days, but ultimately, what mattered the most was the voice inside my head. I need to go and do this. And if I don't, I will regret it for the rest of my life. And so made it through the decision, I should say, to enlist in the army in a time of war and started that process. And it was a very, very challenging one. How was it like, because this is not a life path that you saw yourself living before this happened. So how was it like just saying, okay, I'm joining the army, the first day you're there,

it's kind of like a shock, right? Well, I mean, it was terrifying in a lot of ways. There was the whole, I did this and I'm a man and I'm a grownup and I can do this. And then there's the reality of telling my mom in her kitchen that I had done this and the tears and the no and the, how do we get out of this type of, not really what she wanted, but that's a mother's, God gave her the right to that reaction. Yeah, for sure. You know? And like that casts a little bit more doubt into it. And my mother became one of my biggest supporters, of course, and always has been. But that's just a really, really difficult conversation to have. And so there was the delayed program.

So I had a little bit of time. And before I go in, of course, finally, what year is that? Eight years later after I met Emily in 95, say, and this is 2003, I finally told the girl that I loved her after I had enlisted. But there's a delay from when you go in. So I have a few months. So I got to tell mom I've enlisted. The family's got to find out. I got to make the sort of rounds about, well, why are you doing this? What's going on? Tell the girl that I love her, finally. I mean, and we had gone to the same high school together. We graduated together. She was on the girls' tennis team. I was on the guys' tennis team. And she babysat my siblings

when I was visiting my dad in Ohio over the... So I was just a total coward is really what it boiled down to. But you make this one thing and you start to contemplate your own mortality, which is a great thing to do. And it's like, I got to get this off my chest for sure. And so then I've got that sort of swirling around in my head at the same time. And then it's like, get on the bus up to Fort Benning. Here you go. It's going to be awesome. And so everybody brings all their baggage with them everywhere they go, right? No matter where you go, there you are.

And I'm at basic training. And it just turned into a cold Georgia winter. It was a lot harder than I expected. I'm like this college kid. I'm smart and all this stuff. Ask me, I'll tell you. And nobody cares. Nobody cares, man. And it's so great. You're just there and there's a thing going on and you're going to deal with it. And so it started there. It evolved to airborne school.

I'm still writing letters to Emily and to my mom and basic training, all the things. And the hardest part was not the physical stuff. The hardest part was not that. It was just the, you don't always be leery of the people that say, I'm going to go do this hard thing in order to find myself. It can be a gateway to that, but just doing the hard thing is not like, oh, I'm going to go backpack in Europe for six months and find myself. That is not how it works. No, it's not. It's not.

Like, it's going to be worse. It's going to be a lot harder than if you have a degree of confidence. But when you're younger, you have to do these things. I mean, when you're older, too. But when you're younger in your formative years, you got to get out there and say, send me. And you go try these things and give them your all and pour your heart into it. And it becomes easy to pour your heart into the army

when you're there and you've got to be there. You might as well succeed because failure is way worse than success. And you're there. There's no other option. But it's just processing this whole buildup in my own head of, I'm probably going to die. I'm probably going to, my mom was right to cry in the kitchen and try to get me out of this. And this girl that I love that I'm now dating, I'm probably going to turn her into a widow. I mean, just all these things are not productive at all. But the beauty is, is that learning how to take those on and to deal with them, there's some perspective that comes from that. Like, this isn't all about me. There are worse things than dying. It's going to come eventually. And it just really sort of you know i signed up for revenge and that was a powerful motivator i mean hate is a powerful motivator right it it just cannot endure and it's not healthy

it can't endure it's definitely a temporary motivation it will get you it's like you can get all souped up on 500 energy drinks you're just going to pay for it yeah in a different way like you can't do that right yeah forever and build whatever it is that you can't even do it in business. Like in business, like, you know, when you're, when you're first starting out a business, it's natural to look at the people you're competitive with and think, I want to fucking smash them. But what happens when you smash them all and there's nobody else to smash now, what, what are you going to do? Yeah. Drink more energy drinks. It doesn that's right. It doesn't work like that. It's temporary. Yeah. And so revenge was a very, very powerful motivator. But the special

forces qualification course for me was over two years long, the whole kind of basic training, airborne school. And then it starts. There's selection and there's phase two and all these different things that go into becoming a Green Beret. And what they teach you is that it's not about you. They teach you a lot. They teach you how to teach yourself, really. But it's just what it became about, especially when I got to my team, and especially when it was just about them.

You hear all this stuff about, I wasn't fighting for America, and I was fighting for the guy next to me in the foxholes. It's all true. It's not that you don't love America. You love America more than you're willing to die for America. But it's not about that. It's not like, man, I'm just, you know, they're shooting at us and like, gosh, I just love America, so I'm going to shoot back.

Like that's not how it works. And service to that mission and loyal to that mission of the guys around me that, I mean, they're the reason why I'm still alive. They're the reason why it was a lot of tough love. But they're the reason why they shaped me so greatly. And it was transformative in my life to the point where I feel like now all I do is I just, Oh, I'm just trying to pay it forward a little bit more every single day. Because when you're on a team, you wake up and every day there's this feeling of just probably not good enough to be here. I better really work my ass off to be average on this team. Because if I don't, there's just this enormous fear of failure,

AKA they're going to throw my shit out in the hallway and say, get off our team. Or the team sergeant would say, get off my team. Or there's just, someone's going to get killed and that's going to be my fault. And so it's just iron sharpens iron and you're just in that environment. And that's what it is. And that's my definition of service is how that feels when you're in that kind of an environment. You're willing to push yourself for something greater than yourself. How much do you think all of these things that you learn have carried over to your business, which has become wildly successful? It's inseparable. I mean, it's a factual statement that Go Ruck would not exist without my time in the Army or specifically Special Forces. I mean, just technically, I mean, rucking is the foundation

of Special Forces training. It's not what you see on Discovery Channel about log PT and people yelling at you. It's silence, except that rucksack is, it's given you a lot of lessons. You're in the pine forest of North Carolina, first by yourself. They want to make sure that you can operate autonomously. You're not scared of the dark and stuff. And the first spiders and all the cobwebs that are all over your face the first time you do land navigation, which, oh, by the way, that's definitely going to happen, that you're not going to run away scared or quit or suck your thumb in the corner or whatever it might be. But then it's about, you know, the rucksacks get heavier,

but the demands on your role on the team, do you play well with others, right? It's just this kind of evolution to, okay, you know, phase one, basically individual, a little bit of team week thrown in. Phase two was like our version of ranger school. It's very doctrinal. Okay. So by that, I mean, you learn how to do ambushes and you learn how to do raids. It's all doctrine. You have to know

doctrine in order to know how to do, you know, unconventional stuff. You have to learn conventional stuff. Phase three was your job. So for me, it was radios and computers and stuff, more technical with a lot of PT thrown in. PT, physical training, is the love language. Better be good at, right? Phase four, which is probably the most interesting training I think going, is they turn an enormous portion of North Carolina into this live war game. It's called Robin Sage. And it tests your ability to think on your feet, to adapt, to be unconventional in nature. And it's an evolution. And the rucksacks, by the way, get heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier. So by the time you're doing Robin Sage, it's a 18 to 24-hour infiltration or insertion with 125 pounds plus on your back,

like excruciating. And they've built you up. But in that time, they've also built up your confidence. You've built it up yourself by going through these gates. And so there's this idea of, are leaders made or are leaders born or are they made or how does that work? You can always get better is my answer because wherever anybody started day one, if you stuck with it, you were always better the day you graduate. You're a king of the world. And when my wife at that time, Emily, who had graduated from the farm at the CIA five days before my Green Beret graduation, when she came, and I didn't get to go to her graduation, but she got to come to mine. And when she came

to that graduation in Fayetteville, North Carolina, that was king of the world moment, man. I mean, that was just like we had done these things. And this is the same girl that you had to work up the courage for 10 years to ask out. That's fucking awesome. Just pure cowardice. Eventually, I had to figure out a way. Yeah, listen.

Figure out a way. It's kind of like what you were talking about in the meeting this morning, dude, and what you talked about last week about people having to work up the courage to approach. Well, I mean, it's a skill. You have to develop that skill. Yeah, and that same lesson Sal was talking about in our meeting in regards to business, because a lot of young people, they're timid. We were talking about this on our rec this morning. They're timid or they lack the confidence to go up and say,

hey, this is something that I'm thinking about or that I'm concerned about or I'm this or that. And, um, it's funny because like, it's such a, it, it could come down to your, your relationship, your wife, your husband, your fuck, your job, any of these things, it all comes down to that same mustering up the courage to like, just go dude. You know what I mean? Well, you have to learn. I mean, communication is the key, right? I mean, I think the older, the older I get, the more I realize like how valuable a skill of being able to communicate actually is. Like communicate your struggle. It's an amazing

solution to at least step one to figuring out your struggle. If you have a problem with your husband or wife, like we need to communicate that, you know, but being able to go up and have the courage to be able to have that conversation with somebody you admire or somebody who is your boss or leader, that's a skill. And you develop that skill. And in order to be the leader, to have the conversation downstream, if you will, you have to learn to have the conversation upstream. You have to communicate up and down, and that's a learned skill.

So being able to go through those little scary moments, specifically as guys, with girls, hot girls you know when you're younger you're like holy fuck man i gotta ask i gotta ask well if you don't ask you don't know the answer might be yes it might be no but it might be yes you know she might have to be a cool moment yeah yeah especially after all that time you wanted to talk to her that you didn't yeah i mean well it was even worse than that because we were totally in the friend zone yeah i mean I mean, good friend zone. Yeah. I mean, she worked- That's a hard thing to break out of.

She worked for my mom at tennis camp in the summer. She was the camp director. Yeah. I mean, it's nuts. She was your Wendy Peppercorn. Exactly. Do you know what that is? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It's actually, she calls me Squints Pal Doris. No way. Yeah, she thinks that I- She's like, you remind me- You guys don't know way. Yeah. She thinks that I, she's like, you guys don't know this is, this is Sandlot. This is the Sandlot movie. If you haven't watched it, go watch it.

I mean, it's just what a total victory that kid got. Hell yeah. And eventually he got the girl just like I did. That's right. He had like 10 kids. We have three, but same now. No, that's cool, man. So I, because the, the story gets better though.

So you get your green beret, you serve. Where's your first deployment? So first deployment was Iraq in 2007 at the same time that Em was in Africa in 2007, 2008. And yeah, Iraq 2007, like height of the surge. You know, it was like, it got real fast. And by that, I mean- How old are you? So that's 2006. I guess I'm born in 1979. Never do math in public. I think that's 27. Close enough.

Yeah. Close enough. Still young. Still young. And it's hard to go back in time and remember what it felt like when you'd watch the news or something. And at the end of the news hour, they would show a picture of, you know, the fallen servicemen and women who had died that day or that week. I mean, that was just part of the consciousness and was happening every day. It was, you know, that was what the election was about then. That was just American blood was being shed, and I'm in special forces.

We are going to be in the fight. Not we're supporting the fight. Because you look out at the army or the military, it takes all different kinds of service. The fifth special operations force truth is most soft missions require non-soft support. It is a team effort. That said, for every trigger puller, there's seven in support. The trigger pullers are the ones that are taking most of the risk as it goes. And that's the life we choose. That's our lot. That's not to say there's a hierarchy. That's not to say there's a hierarchy. That's just to say, that's our personality. This is who we are. We want to run to the guns.

And that doesn't make it easy. And the more I've gotten along this path and the more that I've had real talks with Green Berets, where when you're serving, you don't have these kinds of real talks like, hey, were you scared before we went in that house? You have those later. And I've talked to people that are just national treasure level heroes for what they've done. And they're like, I was scared to death. When you know you're going in that house, scared to death. And these are people, you just figure out a way to go in anyway. It takes a lot of courage, but you do it. And that is why being around those people, those kinds of people, is why I just believe so much in our country and our way of life. Because at every turn, Americans have said, there's been a class of us that have said, send me. It's come in all different kinds of forms, but send me. You're very optimistic about Americans and their resiliency

and their love for this country. How do you feel about it currently? I feel great about it currently. I think that America, if you look at the history of our country, it's not like you get 10 great leaders in a row, right? You get great leaders where you need great leaders. And the rest of the time, it's people, you know, we wring our hands too much talking about stuff that doesn't really matter that much. When it gets real, that's when you get the great leaders that just seem to emerge. My take is that it's not they just emerge out of thin air. There's an undercurrent to this country that is very, very, very strong. It's really easy to forget about it.

It's really easy to forget about it the more time you spend on online chat forums and social media. Or watching the news or anything. Or watching any of that stuff it's very depressing and what i find is that there's so many great people out there just living a great life and really trying to pay it forward and they they do things like ask their neighbors how how's it going like oh you need to borrow a saw great here you go like let me come over and help you you know this is stuff that goes on and like if someone doesn't get any like no i mean someone posts that stuff it's gonna go nowhere it's it's like not

even worth it's just there's just this undercurrent of people and you know i'm again i'm very fortunate that i'm i have a lot of green berets in my life and people in in the special operations and veteran community and and and in the sort of, my dad was a 42 year union guy in Ohio, like same, same great vibes about that kind of work ethic and those kinds of folks that are just doing the work and, and just living a great life and happy about their lives. And my dad sucks at Facebook and he doesn't have Instagram and, you know, every once in a while, it's just, that's just not his life. And so there's that underbelly of people that are just doing great things. And I just really believe in our way of life. And

yeah, I'm a believer, man. I think it's interesting. I met Jason February of 2020 at Wapalooza. That's right. Dude was drinking a Budweiser, right? And he's the only other guy, one of the only other guys drinking beer. I'm like, well, fuck, I'll go meet this guy. And we ended up talking for like an hour and a half. Thanks to Jason Kalipa.

Thanks to Jason Kalipa, my guy who doesn't drink beer. But, and it was right, literally, I don't know, maybe seven to 10 days before you realize that the world was going to go fucking stupid. And we were going to see all the stupidity in America all unraveled in the first 60 days. And it was right along the time when our friendship was just evolving. And it was really cool because I got to see and listen to Jason's perspective through social media or just religiously, how he's always been optimistic about the American people. He's an extremely, extremely well-educated historian on America.

He's a very well-educated human on the history of just politics and war inside America. And it's really good to hear his perspective because it's hope, you know, where we see a lot of the negative because we live a lot of our lives on social media. And I think Jason and part of the Go Ruck experience, which is really cool, which is where I appreciated Go Rucking is you need to get outside and go see the world and go experience the breezes and the snow and the sunsets with a little weight on your back. You get a lot of reflection. You see a lot of good people. It was just a really good time to collide with you. And I think to Andrew, to your point, he's got a different perspective that I think is very, very valuable specifically for the American people today.

I think his perspective is pretty spot on. I mean, look, dude, the reality of the scenario that we're in is we're in a scenario where I believe that the media and the politicians profit off suppressing the unity that people naturally have in reality. You know, like when you walk, this is why I always say on the show, like when you walk into a store or in public or you go somewhere, it's not like what people see on the internet. It's not even close to it. You know, people aren't attacking each other. People aren't, you know, like screaming racism shit to each other's faces or whatever the flavor of the day is, you know, of controversy, people are generally pretty fucking cool. And I think

that, you know, like you said, Sal and Jason, both, I think, you know, getting out in the real world and being around regular people and kind of like not listening to people who profit off of us being divided and believing that we're all shitty, that they profit from this. When you remove yourself from that avenue of propagation, you start to look at things in real life. I actually agree with what he's saying. I think that it's the reality. I think most people in America are fucking great people. I think there is a light, a big light that is shined on the worst parts of our country. And I think that most people are trying pretty fucking hard to be a decent representation of what, of what America should be. You know, when I go to the gas station and pump gas, or when I go to a restaurant and like, I see good people, I don't

see, I don't see bad shit. And it doesn't matter like if they're Asian or if they're black or if they're white or if they're fucking whatever else they happen to be. Like I see the people that get along and value the fact that people from all different cultures can, you know, function under the ideals of what this country is supposed to stand for. And I, so I,

I have hope too. I, I just, when I look at have hope too. I, I just, when I look at some of the younger generations, I wonder, and this is where a little concern comes in for me is, you know, like when you and I were both the same age, um, we share a tip. We, we share, I think a parallel ideological value system, uh, for the most part. And, you know, all of our friends do, right? Like we're all the same kind of people, but like, bro, every single one of those people I know is our age. So like, when I look at like the concern that I have, it's concern for the younger men and women that are under 30 years old, wondering how they feel. Do they still have a sense of, you know, like you're calling for

America, right? Like, um, Andy, that like, this is what, I mean, my generation, our generation was so soft and was like, you fill in the blanks until nine 11 happened. And then we answered the call to service. And now all of a sudden we get a pass. No, no, no. I'm not saying that. I agree with you. I agree with you i agree with you there's there's every every fucking old gary v says this all the time bro yeah gary v says this it's a generational thing when you get to a certain age uh you know like our fucking parents looked at us and they're like fuck these kids are pieces of shit like you know and like they're right their parents looked at them and said the same shit and like like i And I wonder how much of it is just us saying that because it's the natural thing or how

much of it is actually real. Because it's hard to know. It's hard to know. Part of me says it that the more you say it, the more you will believe it. And if we kind of take a leap of faith and we say, look, I might not be able to go online and change the nature of America through, you know, on Instagram or whatever TikTok of the day is, but I know what I can impact. And if you have faith, and I know you guys do because of how you lead your lives, if you have faith that you can impact others, and I know you are because I know a lot of

the lives that you are impacting. And then you make a list of your friends, right? Put me on that list. And you say, there's a lot of other people out there that are fighting the same fight that we're having. And you know what you're doing? You're raising the next generation's leaders. And those leaders are the ones who will lead the ones who are not being led like this.

And that, to me, is the hierarchy. The true freedom is to break free of these chains of thinking that life is going to happen in instant gratification and that this is all about your value exists in this metaverse or on your phone or in this digital world. Your value exists in the real world. That's right. And it exists from you to yourself in the mirror and to the people who you respect who are around you

and to the networks that you have and the people that you have and where you put your time and your energy and your faith. And so when I say keep the faith, I mean, there's a lot of us out there that are doing this. Right. And the more that we believe in ourselves, the more that becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah, that's a good point, dude. Yeah, that's a really good point. I like what you just said about you're leading the future leaders. I like that. And that's real. That's real shit. Because just like in business where you're not going to get every customer, you're going to get certain customers that are then going to replicate out for your business, right? When people discover GORUCK, you're not getting 100% of the people. You're getting two out of 100 who then recruit five more each, right? And so that's how business works. So it makes sense that that's how that will work too, to me. I mean, this is the sort of classic special forces mission, right? While I have you,

this is because every time I go on any platform, I make it real clear how much I owe the special forces community and how much of my life is impacted by that. And it's a way to kind of say, hey, find something bigger than yourself and by that. And it's a way to kind of say, hey, find something bigger than yourself and serve that mission. It doesn't have to be this. But the SF mission is you work by, with, and through others. You go in. So the first, you know, the horse soldiers into Afghanistan right after 9-11 in the boneyard of the Soviet empire, they went in there and worked with the Northern Alliance in order to defeat the Taliban. They didn't try to go in and say, hey, we're just going to do this ourselves.

You work with others. You train the trainers. You force multiply others. And so the more that we're able to do that in our network of people, that's called mentorship. Mentorship implies, sometimes it's judgment-free, sometimes it's judgment free. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you got to hold people to account. Sometimes there's, you know, it comes in all different kinds of flavors, but like, that's all we have. I mean, you're, you know, your, your nieces and nephews, your, your kids, like my kids, these, this is all going to belong to them. Right. And we can absolutely set them up for success. And I know lots of kids and I know lots of parents who are raising their kids right.

And I know lots of parents that I think maybe could improve that a little bit. Yeah. And I think it breaks my heart when you see kids that are way over beast or super inactive or all these things that are not there. They're not really choosing that. They're being born into that. That said, keep the faith, man. There's a lot of us out there

and we can impact what we can impact and just keep fighting. Yeah, I like that, dude. I think it's true too. I think it is true. What do you think about, well, moving on from the special forces and your experience there,

tell us about GoRuck, dude. Where did this idea come from? How do you start a GoRuck? You know what I'm saying? He wrote a book about it. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of.

I got a signed copy. Yeah, that was a pandemic sort of, I got to do something. Let me dig up an old journal and bookend it and all that stuff. I wrote a little book called How Not to Start a Backpack Company. It's so little. We printed it once. However, I did some copies and I think it's on Audible now or whatever. It wasn't. It's just like I needed to get that out for me. But it was mostly just to catalog the struggles of it. Because people look at stuff and they think that the beer fridge at HQ has just always magically been that way and payroll just magically got... It's just like, oh, this is just what it is. Our revolution is their baseline type

stuff, but you got to go to the next generation and talk about what the revolution was like. And so it was... I'm a totally accidental entrepreneur. That sounds familiar. Yeah. It sounds familiar. I'm a totally accidental entrepreneur. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, it sounds familiar. Shaking his head. Accidental entrepreneur. I never had a lemonade stand as a kid. I was playing sports and doing all that kind of stuff, whatever.

But as I was in between my deployment, so the first one was to Iraq, second was to West Africa, and Emily was in a different country in West Africa. But on Christmas leave between those two, I went and visited her at her diplomatic housing in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa. And Emily was in a different country in West Africa. But on Christmas leave between those two, I went and visited her at her diplomatic housing in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa. Right. And I was like, man, it was really weird because it's coming from this war. Like you have your gun trucks and you know you're at war in Iraq and you have your team. Like this is what's up, you know. And I went to Africa. I'm like, man, this is what's up you know and i went to africa i'm like man this is like the the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up just from the vibe like but it wasn't we're not at war

at all it just i didn't know what to make of it basically which is in some cases a lot worse you know and so i went to emily's house and you know did you know normal things that any you know house husband would do like base fortification and increased security posture. And I made her a couple of go bags. So for us, the definition of a go bag or a go ruck was when you go out on a mission, you would put a go ruck in the trunk of the Humvee in case your vehicle was disabled and you had to fight. So you have extra radio equipment, bombs, guns, ammo, water, extra supplies, right? And so I just took that knowledge and said, okay, well, you need to have this just in case because she's a smoking hot five foot five and a half, let's say. Girl in Africa meant

to operate autonomously. Yes, she had a dog, but meant to operate autonomously. The cavalry ain't coming. And so how do you set her up for success? I didn't want her to die. And so, hey, here's some stuff. Put this in your car at all times. Keep this in the house at all times. Use this just in case.

And there was just basic house husband stuff. And I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Cause I knew at that point it was about, I had about another year in, it was like, I, something's got to give here. She's in the CIA. I'm in special forces and that ain't going to work, you know? And so I was going to transition out. And then I was finally going to go back and get that ground branch job that I had originally sort of said, okay, I guess maybe go get that. And I met the people. She's like, oh, while you move to West Africa, you should do the go-ruck thing. Like, what does that mean? But, you know, Emily's always been my muse in life amongst so many other things, but it was like, okay, well, I guess I can build go-rucks or go-bags for people. I can

teach them how to put, you know, better cameras up in their house. I can show them some security posture and all that stuff. And so that was the origins was just like, go do the go-ruck thing. And then I went back to America and it's like, okay, great. Got the idea. It's basically done now, right? And so it was like, all right, well, I've got to figure out this import-export business to West Africa and there's diplomatic pouches and there's all this stuff you're kind of not supposed to use and ended up, you know, not going there. I'm like, maybe just figure out how to do the bags. Right. Like, cause I know nothing about bags, except the thing about special forces is you will become an expert of your, your gear, an expert, because, you know, choose the wrong socks. That's how, you know, that's how Napoleon lost at Waterloo, right? Like choose the wrong footwear. You're out of the fight, have the wrong gun. You're definitely dead, right? Stuff like that. And, and so you become an expert of all

things, especially rucksacks as well, because you spend all your time, you have weight on your back. Like, Hey, I'm going to sprint into combat with no weight, uh, and just jog in and take care of the bad guys, said nobody ever. That's not a thing. You always are carrying weight. And so I was like, all right, so build this bag. Why not? So how do I do that? I don't know. I remember Googling how to backpack designer. There was this ad on YouTube. It was very primitive at the time. Anyway, I'm like, okay, well, how hard can this be? A terrible question to ask yourself because it's a million times harder. If you know how hard it's going to be, you're never going to do it. Might as well just do it. Those are the questions that you want to find out the answers to when you ask yourself. So did what probably pretty normal. Put an ad in Craigslist, New York City for a

quote backpack designer because that's how you do it, I guess. And found some applications, found this design team out in Bozeman, Montana, because the economy was terrible, which by the way, is a fantastic time to take a chance on stuff. And they had been laid off from their job in New Zealand because selling bags down there was rough or something. I don't know. And they were trolling the internet looking for work. And I mean, I can play these, we can play Connect-A-Dot for till forever. But ultimately years later had a bag that I basically believed in, right?

Except then I had to figure out how to get it built to scale in America and then figured out like, well, how much does this cost again, right? Once it had gone through that, because in R&D, I didn't consider the cost side at all. I just want to build the best stuff on planet Earth that I possibly could that would make my buddies proud that I served with, that I was now kind of

regretting not still serving with. Because I'm not a good enough Green Beret now because I'm not still doing Green Beret stuff. That's the curse that we all have. I don't care if you do five years or 30. That's the curse. You're never good I don't care if you do five years or 30, that's the curse. You're never good enough of a Green Beret. So I want to make them proud forever. So it better be pretty damn good. And if they have it in Afghanistan, the straps better not come off and better hold the weight well, all that type of stuff. So then you start the scale manufacturing problems, which is completely different. It's like, wait, this is going to cost what? I mean, it's cost me what I wanted to charge. And if you went to pick your- You mean it's not free to make a shit? I mean, it doesn't cost $2 and you sell it for 50 bucks?

That ain't how it works, man. Shocking, huh? Or you go to the store and you're like, oh, well, this OGO backpack that the ones that you see at the software conferences that cost 50 bucks or the North Face one that, you know, Sara Lee Cupcakes bought out, whatever time period, that cost 50 bucks. And you got different software companies on those and they just give them away for free and they cost 75 bucks now. Like, 75 bucks, that's expensive, right? And I'm like, whoa, this is costing me a lot more than that. And I'm like, well, what's, how am I going to, um, challenge number one. Yeah. Challenge. Well, at this point we're chatting, it's like, we're restarting the challenge series. If we're at challenge number one, you know, cause I thought

the challenge was, you know, get this thing built to standard. Yeah. Which took years, years, years. So you're telling me when you have an idea, you don idea, it just doesn't materialize into a business? Well, you didn't give up after six months. Yeah. And the thing is, is that it's easy to say, when do you say it's good enough? And this is a real existential question because, you know what I mean? Great art is never finished. It's only abandoned. I think that's Da Vinci, right? And Steve Jobs, great artists ship. At some point, you have to actually ship. It cannot be just- It doesn't count until you do. That's right. And you have to accept the fact that I might have to iterate this, or I might have to

accept the world's judgment. And then you're back into this conversation. You're not just doing this for yourself with your sewing machine in Ma's basement, blogging about it. You have to actually come up with something of value to somebody else, put it for sale and sell it. And then people buy it or they don't. And that takes a little bit of courage too. Who bought your first one? Well, this was a great time. Hold on. This was a great thing that we talked about on our ruck this morning. What happened when you launched? Silence. You didn't get yelled at. Absolute silence. That is the deadliest killer of them all, silence. And it was something where

I'd spent years and years at this point and find a website designer in a place. The place that had built the Rucks was also going to pick, pack, and ship it for me, which is a big no-no. If someone's promising to do all sorts of different stuff, just realize you better have someone that's your people that you see there, quality control there, which ended up being how to get one of my old teammates who had transitioned to the guard to drive in an hour one way periodically to check all this stuff because it was in Colorado. Anyway, but the biggest thing was silence. It was like, I knew that this was awesome. I knew it was a good story that could be a thing, but the biggest problem was me. I was not really willing to, at that time, share anything. I'd set up my first Facebook account

an anonymous pseudonym because I still wanted to go be a better Green Beret by being Jason Bourne or whatever. And I'm like, well, I can't have a real name out there if this is this. And you don't get to have your cake and eat it too in this case. And so eventually I had to kind of pick and choose, is this something that I actually believe in or not? And it's like, yeah. It's really interesting because we used to, when we first started our social with First Form, the fear factor of actually being out there

and getting behind it, we used to wear Luce Libre the mask. And it was a thing that we would would nobody knew who was behind the mask and we would make all the content at first form because we didn't really want to associate our names to it exactly just in case just in case right like it was kind of like holy fuck man like we're going out there well let's just put these masks on nobody will know who it is yeah and for the first i don't know better part of maybe three or four months until we got comfortable doing it we were the leg Legion of Boom with Luce Libre mask on our head. So that fear, even now my social handle is Mr. Fursella because at the time you didn't want it to be Sal Fursella

because if my friends really knew what I was doing, I would be judged. God, it's such a power. I mean, the fear, I still have it. The worst thing that I could get would be a note from somebody that I served with or somebody tells me that somebody that I served with was somehow disappointed or embarrassed because they knew me or because I served with them. That's just a huge thing that's highly motivating for me. It's the same thing. I was not strong enough at the time of the launch of GoRuck to sit and say, I'm willing to just all my chips all in. I had to figure out if this was actually for me. But at some point, you have to decide because it ain't going to work out if you don't. But I think you realize in that evolution of

figuring out who you are and who the business is that unless you go all in, you stand no chance. Yeah. I also figured out that I was completely empowered to do this on my own terms and I could do it the right way. I don't have to build disposable stuff that sucks, that's going to break. I don't have to, just because fast fashion became a thing that we studied in business school and it's like, oh, look at what a great business this is. I don't care. I don't believe in fast fashion.

I think you should build better stuff and I think you should stand by it. I think you should have it mean something. Put some soul and some heart and some love into it and really give it some meaning and say, this is worth this. And I don't want to play the commodities game. The disposable goods bullshit. Race to the bottom, man. I agree, dude.

And I sleep really well because I know that we leave it out on the mat. And R&D and new product development and all that stuff, it is behind the scenes. It is in our R&D center, the folks that are testing our gear. And there is blood on that mat every single day. And we love each other and we fight it out. And once we eventually get to something where it's like, all right, are we going to go another round today or is this good? And it's like, that's the vote.

And there's a vote. It's like, nope, let's go to the mat, right? And so then we go to the mat and it's like, and then it leads to better products, better things that we then, in our souls, we believe in. And when you believe in something, man, then you can get into conquering the world. But it's like, when you don't believe in yourself and you try to go find yourself

on a six-month backpacking trip through Europe or wherever it is, Southeast Asia, like, you know, the beach or whatever movie, right, like, I'm gonna go find myself in that same beach that DiCaprio was at. Like, good luck with that. That is not going to work out for you. That's such a common thing right now. Like right this second in society, there is a plague of that. These people think that they can like go on an adventure and discover themselves. Bro, you have to build yourself. You got to create yourself. And that shit is fucking hard.

It's not fun. It's difficult. And like Jason's sitting here talking about, the longer that you delay this process, the longer you delay the reality that you have to fucking forge yourself into what it is you're trying to become, the longer you delay that,

the less likely likely it's ever going to materialize. That's my opinion. And I see this with like, this is a fucking trend on social right now where people are literally totally, I actually talked about this in our meeting this morning. They're totally abandoning reality for this fucking delusional social media shit. We're like, I see these people going on these adventures and they're like, oh, I'm disconnecting. How are you disconnecting when I'm watching you twirl around in the motherfucking rain talking about how you're living your life?

Like, bro, you're putting on a play for people on the internet that you don't even fucking know. And while you're putting on this play for these people on the internet that you don't fucking know, your life is passing you by and you are losing your opportunity that you have, which is your time because you're trying to entertain people and convince people that you are somehow more enlightened or more free or whatever the fuck y'all think you are. But like, you ain't fooling me, bro. And you ain't fooling Jason. Like, bro, this shit is fucking hard. And you are going to have to suffer. You're going to have to.

We talked about this too. We should have just recorded the fucking ruck, bro. Because there's not a single person out here. Like, all the people that you admire, all the people that live great lives, all the people you read about, all the people they make movies about, all the people who have impacted society, all the people who've created, every single fucking one of those people has suffered immensely. And the reason that you admire them is for the struggles that they went through, not the struggles that they ran from and danced around and put on a play on social media,

discovering themselves. Like, bro, I, I'm be real with you. And this is going to piss some people off. But I'm so fucking sick of that shit. I'm so fucking sick of it because it's the most inauthentic shit that we see on the Internet. Oh, I'm enlightened. Look at me. I'm disconnecting. Oh, you're putting it right there.

You're fucking setting up a tripod to film this shit like who the fuck are we fooling here yeah like dude there's going to be so many people in 10 years 10 12 years that are going to regret wasting their entire fucking youth on bullshit and they're going to say fuck i don't know why nothing ever worked for me. I don't know why my ideas never came to fruition. Well, because the minute it got hard, you didn't stick it out for two years like Jason did to put a product out. And then when it came out, which we're going to get to in a second, you get fucking silence. And then you keep persevering through it. That's why your shit didn't work out, bro. You're too busy dancing around pretending like you're living your life. Dude, this was no different. And I know I'm

getting off on a fucking rant here, but this was no different than when I was building our first company, Supplement Superstores, bro. I was 19 years old when we started it. The first three years I made $0. The next seven years I made $695 a month. I didn't make shit. All my fucking friends, they were getting fucking jobs. They were getting their college jobs, right? They're making 60 grand a year, 70 grand a year. They're calling me a broke motherfucker, telling me when am I going to get a real job? They're taking vacations. They're quote unquote living their life, right. And I'm doing this bullshit. And here's the thing. Those same people that did the same shit, which is the same version of the

shit that I'm describing now, which is this, Oh, I'm fucking free, but I'm going to record it all. Right. The same, those same people are the same fucking people that now hit me up and ask me if I could fucking hire them or hit me up and say, Hey, I want to work with you guys or hit me up. And their life is a complete fucking disaster because they fucked off for when they had the opportunity. And there's so many young people right now that I, and I dude, you fucking can disagree with me all you want. We have a lot of young listeners, but there's so many young people that I see fucking biting the wrong bait in reality, not understanding that like what you do now is going to compound over time. You started go-ruck in 2008. It's 2023,

bro. This shit doesn't happen in one day or one year or fucking one week or one month. It takes pure grit and perseverance. And if you want a life that you admire, that you're going to be proud of, maybe you should consider that you shouldn't spend your entire life pretending like you're more enlightened than everybody and disconnected and more spiritually heightened by dancing around in the fucking rain, telling us that it's authentic when you're recording it for the internet. Sorry, it doesn't make sense. It just doesn't. And I know where you're like, we talked today you have the ability to see where people are going to go 10 years from now down their life i had the same

ability bro i can look at these people and be like i can tell exactly where the fuck you're gonna end up i don't know man it's a plague right now yeah i mean so the thing is is like you can't you can't fake yourself yeah and and that the biggest, that's the biggest thing that they, they, they will weed out people who are in things for the wrong reasons in, in, in training. Yeah. Right. They'll weed people out just because it gets hard and you can't fake yourself. And so the thing is, is that you have to, there's this, there's this big gap in, in the, though, is that people don't understand all of the steps or they don't want to pay attention to them. But there's no such thing as I'm just born confident.

I'm just born a leader. I'm just born this way. It's just very incremental. And you make these steps and then you're ready for something that's more challenging in life. And then the big maxim though is there's no real self-made people, but to be a great teammate, you first have to be a great individual.

And so there's this glorification of the I, the individual that's out there, like look at me, all this stuff I'm doing. But to be a great individual, you have to actually do stuff and hard stuff. And I say this as a matter of fact, not like shaming people into doing whatever. You have to do this. You have to ask the girl out.

You have to, the things that you know that you need to do, those are the things that are the good place to start. And wherever you need to go to get there, make the incremental steps to get there. And there's no silver bullets. There's no kind of, if someone's selling you as this, like, hey, the world's full of nails and here's a hammer. I'm the only guy selling a hammer. That's a problem. That ain't going to work. No. You have to get to the point where, okay, yes, you now have done some hard things to where you can't fake yourself. You know this to be true.

And then you have to say, okay, so what do I believe in and what mission do I want to be a part of? And so, man, that's where the real magic comes in because we need each other as people. Being on a team is a lot better than being by yourself for your whole life or for the greatest moments of your life. Are you by yourself? No. No. You have to invest the time into other people, into the networks of people that you have. Don't believe all the news, but the study, I think it was the 85-year Harvard study or whatever about the secret to life's happiness is relationships matter a lot, right? And it's one of those things where invest in others. That's what you're going to think about on your deathbed. Yes, you have a drive inside of you. You guys have drives inside of you that's

like you want to change the world, conquer the world, bigger, better businesses, more impact. At the same time, you're probably not going to think about how many zeros are behind in your bank account on your deathbed. You're going to think about the two of you. I don't even think about it now. Amen. Yeah. Amen, right? But it's like the team that you get to do this stuff with that's so rewarding. The crew that I push sandbags around with in my driveway this whole weekend, I'm sitting here sore right now because we were pushing sandbags around on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. It's like, push some sandbags around for an hour, drink some beer in the driveway, talk about our lives. Our kids are running around. It's a beautiful day in

capital freedom in the universe, also known as Florida, right? That's one it's awesome. It's really rewarding for, for, for me. And at the same time, that kind of also fills the cup up to go get back to conquering the world and trying to get more people to live this way of life that, that I, that I cherish and really deeply believe in. Dude, my, my, my re and by, by the way, I fucking love that. I wish I was drinking beer with you guys. The, the, which by the way i fucking love that i wish i was drinking beer with you guys the the which by the way just so you know i did drink a lot of beer when i was on vacation a whole lot still good for anybody for yeah it's fucking great yeah i actually didn't i send you a picture tell you how great it was because i said like on the show last week i think i'm done

with alcohol forever because it'd been like a long time, but I was lying. I'm definitely not done. But dude, where I get irritated with this mentality of what we were just talking about is like these people, that's fine. I'm cool with that. If you really want to live your life and you want to be a free spirit and you want to float around a fucking whole life, create great friendships and do these things, fucking cool, bro. I get it. But where it gets me, dude, and where I get irritated with it is when those fucking people think that they deserve what the fuck we have or what you and I have or we've created

when they haven't done none of the fucking work and none of it for any amount of time. Like that irritates the fucking shit out of entitlement. Bro, it fucking irritates the shit out of me. And it also irritates the shit out of me when I see young people who say they want all these things, they want to build something, they want to be successful.

They want to do this, but then they're fucking buying into the, they're, they're eating the wrong bait. Like, if that makes sense, like, yeah,

but so, you know, I think people are so starving to be a part of something bigger than themselves. No doubt. No doubt. Starving for this. I know that I was,

I go back. I was, I was, I go back, I was, it was such a. Well, the basis of your company is that the basis of our company is that it's the same, you know, it was such a stressful time in my life between the whole buildup, my, my senior year in college to what job am I going to get? And, you know, you know, I grew up in the eighties was influenced by, you know, the people that were working on wall street and, you know, you know, the Gordon geckos, you're supposed to get out there and make a, make a ton of money. And that's, that's what, that's what it is. That became, I thought I was going to be a consultant and solve business

problems. I do solve business problems. I'm not really a consultant, you know, but it's like, it was such a, a deeply emotionally challenging time for me because I did not, I had all of this energy, I had all of this passion. I really wanted to do something special with my life. And I just did not know how to do it. I didn't know where to start. I got a lot of no's from, I mean, I applied to name a place, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, the big type of places that I

thought my quote, quote background had prepared me for. I mean, I got people that told me I was, I was way too like relaxed or chill. I didn't have the drive to be at Goldman. I mean, no fault to them. It's just like, there was just the people in the front line and probably I didn't know how to interview. I didn't know how to sell myself at all. No, bro. If you let them see the real you, they would have fucking said, bro, you're way too intense. Exactly. So then you overcompensate. I don't know how to present this. And I was really bad at that. You're an authentic human, bro. At that stage. And I was trying to like, God, what am I supposed to say? Because I didn't, but, but the truth is I was not a good fit for that. Right. And the no was great. Right.

Two great answers in the world, yes and no. Maybe an uncertainty or the worst because they just eat you from the inside. And there's so many people out there that want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And we have to, at times, we have to cut them a little bit of a break. Meet, like go, and you guys do this. You meet them just a little bit closer to where they are. And you say, hey, check it out. Find something that you believe in. Pay your dues. Spend years there. Learn the place before you have this big grandiose opinion about, you know,

the big bosses suck and they don't know anything. Like pay your dues, but go to some place that you believe in. Like's there's almost no bad as long as you get to work hard there's almost no bad job in your 20s because you're gonna learn a lot of shit you don't know anything yeah if you choose to yeah i think that's what we're going through and to andrew's point earlier to jason to your point it's not the zeros in the bank account the best thing that i feel we get to do every single day is go back and invest back into this community and helping these young people find their path because- Bro, it's everything.

Yes. It is the most challenging thing that we do. The gray hairs exist on my head for those exact same conversations, but it is the most rewarding because there's nothing better than watching somebody commit to becoming personally excellent, becoming a best version of themselves, taking their life serious, taking this opportunity, you know, and, and running with it because it makes you feel empowered by their action to go out and change the world. And that's the invigorating part about what we get the opportunity to do every day is, is feedback into the youth and see who bites, you know, and believes i fucking love that i dude what i love dude more than anything is when i fucking see someone who i didn't actually believe in step the fuck up who i saw like in the beginning like dude i love to be

proven wrong about people i fucking love it and it's actually a testament to how i really think about people too because if i if they did because, if I was really how people think I am, sometimes I would hate that motherfucker for proving me wrong. My favorite thing in the fucking world is when these fucking young people who I think cannot fucking possibly fucking step up when they step the fuck up and they prove me wrong, bro. It's, it's like the coolest fucking thing ever to me. I'm like, dude,

all right, there's fucking hope here. We will have our moment. Our generation will have our moment in mass for the next generation. Yeah. That's my belief. Yeah, I believe it too. I believe it too. So dude, getting back on your story, because it's incredible. I'm sorry that we went off on the rants. Silence. Yeah. All right. So how'd you manufacture non-silence? All right. So I got a website and I got three bags and a hat on that website, right? Three bags and a hat. That's what I got. That's a good start. That's a really good start. And I'm like, okay, my first idea was a terrible one, but it was definitely a one of action. I'm going to get in my truck with my dog and drive to 48 states. Meet people,

get into a venture, try to sell backpacks out of my truck. I bought the sport rack up top because I definitely didn't have enough room inside of the extended length expedition for all the stuff I was going to sell. And then I had them ready to ship me resupplies as I was selling them through that whole summer. It was pretty sweet, the plan that I had in my own mind, of course. Drove around to 48 states, sold exactly zero, zero backpacks, got a lot of opinions from people. So if you're in SF or you're in the army and say you're at the range and you're not shooting well, everybody has an opinion about why you're not shooting well. And when you're shooting well, it's like nobody's got an opinion about anything. They just watch like respect. And so this is one of those things. Everybody had an opinion about,

well, maybe if it was this and maybe if it was that. And the bottom line was I thought that I needed to drive around to small men's shops, something like that, where I could have one-on-one conversations with people and sell them on the virtues of this very expensive rucksack, which cost, was for sale for $295, right? Unknown brand, hey, made in America, Special Forces roots, all that stuff. But $295 is $295.

Yeah, they're looking at it saying, that's a fucking backpack. Whoa, and then wholesale's 50%, and I'm making basically nothing off of that. Awesome, right? But hey, saying that's a fucking backpack. Whoa. And then wholesales 50%. And I'm making basically nothing off of that. Awesome. Right. But Hey, it'll get the word out, whatever, but this is definitely going to work, you know? And what I realized was at the end of that summer, which I refused to stop short because I'm too stubborn, right? There was some other people that were around and everybody had left. It was scorched earth, right? Cause they're brought on someone to take photos, brought on someone else to help with the sales, someone else to help with

all this stuff. By then it was me and my dog. Bad country song, me and my dog and a bottle of whiskey at the campgrounds, literally in Wyoming. Okay. And it's like, this business model is terrible. How about let's not do that anymore? And so what should it be? And what I did not know was anything about Facebook ads or Google AdWords or whatever. And frankly, that's something that I was never going to get good enough fast enough in order to make this worthwhile. And truth is, I didn't really want to get good at it. Let's be real, right? And so it was like, but what I do know how to do is to build teams. I know how to embrace the suck and I know how to teach people to embrace the suck. I know how to basically show them what they are capable of way more than they could possibly ever know that they're capable of.

So how about you meet me on the street corner at 1 a.m.? It's called the Go Ruck Challenge. Details not forthcoming. Started out at five to six hours. It became 10 to 12. Then it became 12 plus hours. And it was like, details not forthcoming. Oh yeah, bring this rucksack and we're going to stuff it full of bricks at the start point. How does that sound? And what happened was Fight Club with rucksacks was born. And it just became this kind of, I mean, the business, we had to build around it and I can go into all those sort of, hey, the first price of the Go Ruck Challenge was half the price of the rucksack and you got to keep the rucksack. So you got 12 hours with a Green Beret, aka at that

time, me, in awesome leadership, team building, excellence, lessons underneath the ruck and you got to keep this ruck that I basically somehow net lost money on but at least it was something man like we were and and all of a sudden that was the energy that became go ruck was it's about pushing a little bit harder it's about let's do it together it was a team event never a race so what you're saying is you had to get out there and get your fucking hands dirty. Very. And lose money. Yeah. And lose money.

And lose money. And convince people to do really hard shit in the middle of the fucking night. Bro, I fucking love it. So my first time, my first experience with Go Ruck that I ever heard of you was from our cousin, Michael. Michael, yeah. Yeah. And he did one of your, I think it was a 24 hour deal. Did you do 24 hour deals? So they're referred to as light, heavy, and hard did one of your, I think it was a 24-hour deal. Did you do 24-hour deals?

Or was it 12 hours? Yeah, basic, tough, heavy now because it's the Go Ruck Challenge underneath that. But the heavy is 24 hours. This happened about 10 years ago. It was early on. That was probably the 12 plus. But the 12 plus sometimes turned into 18 to 20. You just didn't know.

There was no end. You even got Cousin Greg to do it. He did? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, but that was where I first heard about it. Yeah just didn't know. There was no end. He even got Cousin Greg to do it. He did? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, but that was where I first heard about it. Yeah, it was cool. That had to have been like 2010.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe 11. Maybe 11 or 12. Yeah. I remember he had his little, because your first t-shirt was like the go-rut gray t-shirt with the, you know. Everything from a long time ago is now 2010.

It was 2000, like last week, but I switched to 2010 now. But yeah. But like last week, but I switched it to 2010 now. But yeah. But the underground experience, I think is an important thing to note here is you had to pivot and say, okay, well fuck it. I'm not going to go sell around to these,

you know, bougie men's boutique shop. Let's get back to my roots. I mean, we tried the non bougie ones too, which are like hunting and fishing stores. You know, we try,

we tried them all and none of it. In all fairness to them. I remember you went out and made believers of these people by doing it yourself. Or arguably different people at that time, right? Because we went after the crazies. We went after this really niche group of people that it's the same. And so it's the same type of person that signs up for special forces in a time of war or not and says, send me. And this is why I talk about belief in America, belief in our way of life, because what I found in my veteran transition at that time, which became the veteran stereotype transition, aka really hard, was I needed to find something to believe in because I had left military service and I wasn't doing the CIA thing. And my marriage was, you know, in the crash and burn stage. Later, I got remarried to the same girl. It's, you know, it's, it's a, it all gets crazier, but at this point it was me and my dog basically, and no money money because I had poured it into everything. And it was just one of those things where America is full of people that at that time still wanted to show up

and do really hard things. And I thought that was reserved for special forces. I thought I will never be as cool as I was in special forces. That is where the awesome exists. It's only there. And the rest of my life basically sucks because other people suck because they're not green berets, right? And that's me looking at life through a straw and feeling sorry for myself. And what I found was, look, I mean, the basic truth is I never would have signed up for the army without 9-11. Am I glad 9-11 happened? No. I'm just telling you my life is profoundly richer because of the things that happened in the wake of that tragedy. And so I don't sit here and take some sort of high ground, like I served in the military and other people didn't. I have zero high ground. I would not have done it without

this. The point is, is that there's a lot of people out there and life is a you know we all we all there's lots of different ways to to serve and all of that stuff but there's a lot of just crazy people here that want to do really hard stuff and like want to serve other people and are just good fucking people yeah and it's so easy to forget about that man it is and and every time i led a class you know you go on facebook you get angry a class, you go on Facebook, you get angry, you go to a Go Ruck Challenge, you get inspired. And that's what it was. That's why 75 miles a weekend between two classes and the recons and driving around leading. Because the next summer, I was driving around, not the same exact route, but I was leading Go Ruck Challenges all over

the country in the same truck. and up and down the East Coast, New York and Boston and DC and all this stuff. And that was just awesome. And it was exhausting at the same time, but just so awesome. I had this purpose and really the fuel was the people that showed up, man. I'm just like pouring my heart out, giving everything I can of the lessons that I had learned from my time in, in order for them to, we say, building better Americans. That's what we were doing. I just want them to experience a day in the life of my boots. It took away all my prejudice against whatever it was. You didn't serve, or you didn't serve well enough, or you didn't go to Iraq when

I was there. My time was harder. Whatever it is, these things that go through our head that have no productive value for ourselves or for others. And I just found a bunch of good people that want to whoop it on. And at that point, I was like, okay, now I believe in GORUCK because of these people. What you find when you serve other people is the more you serve, you get greater returns that encourage you to serve even more. In which case, then you're on a really positive loop in life. And that was really rewarding. And that's the loop that we're on.

And it's a really awesome loop to be on. I fucking love it. How about that driving around the country? Yeah, no, no. Mind you of anything? No, it's awesome. Jason and I met. Sal rode all over the country and what

the fuck was that thing nissan maxima man 2010 nissan maxima but i mean to your point they're gonna ship me goods i'm gonna sell so much shit oh yeah yeah bro i'm gonna be in manhattan kansas just send the pallet now yeah it's the same fucking sound identical it's the same fucking story it literally is literally the same time i'm sitting here laughing because like we're, we're literally crossing truck stops. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm getting my fucking ass beat. You're getting your fucking ass beat. And I think, well, man, like, you know, well, you know, you know how it is. You tell yourself the stories. Well, the next call, the next call, the next call. But I want to highlight something because we share this with our people all the time. Like if you want them to care about you,

you have to care about them first. And I think when you start to find that real true service leadership, that servant leadership about the world is you have to give in order to receive. And I think that's where, where I went wrong or we went wrong, where you were going wrong is you were expecting everybody to buy the bag before you, when you pivoted, then you said, listen, I'm just going to go give these people what I got. Well, and it's amazing what they'll give back. Don't you think that comes though? So, so I agree with you on that. I think that comes though from all the work that you put in, just to get to that point, right? Like it's all necessary. Yeah, bro. Like he's put in fucking five years of work to sell zero bags. So like eventually you get to a point where like,

dude, when you were riding around the country or riding you know fuck we were 10 years into our business you know what i'm saying so like people you know it's it's natural to think like hey dude like look at all this cool shit i did and then have nobody care it's like a total kick in the balls bro you're like fuck but and that's where most people will stop most people will stop there. They will not do what you did. They will not do the, I'm going to make this work no matter what I got to do. And they will not do the get out, press flesh for lack of better terms, meet people, shake hands, do the work with them. And dude i i think that's the key i think that's the key to our business as well i think i think our people and everybody that's involved they work hard and they do things and other it helps people progress and dude i just love i i fucking love

the fact that it was so hard to get to like i, I know you probably don't love it as much, but you do now. Right. But like, I love that you went through all these phases and all of a sudden it's like, fuck this, I'm going out and I'm meeting people. And then it became this thing, you know, wouldn't exist if that,

I did not want to, I did not want to run a backpack company. My heart was not in it. And so it was better because of the adversity. Yeah. I want to highlight two things. One, I mean, personally, I only support one other fitness brand and it's Jason's.

Yeah. And because I understand his story and know it. You know what I mean? I believe in what he's doing. I know what he's been through. I believe in the company. I'm a buyer of the product. Like, I love the mission.

Yeah. You're an actual customer of theirs. Yeah. Without question. And it wasn't, you know, it was started over a beer, built into an understanding. Then I'm buying bags for all the guys and going through the whole process. Then I'm tech, you know, it's, it's, I believe. And I think that's an important piece that you create the belief. But two, you go back to the communication piece, you know, where you learn to have the tough communicate, the hard communication, you get a little better at it. And I think where the pivot happened, at least for me, is I was so tired of just being rejected. I have to pivot something. I have to keep going back in. But I wasn't going to quit. And I learned a lot about myself chewing 22 cans of tobacco on the road and 27 spitters in the floorboard. But what you learn is to continue to have a different conversation, but never quit to show back up to have the conversation. And through that, you create that community. And my first, you know,

my first bond was actually a green beret in all things, uh, in, uh, uh, Colorado. No, no. Well, Travis, yeah. Travis Wilson. That's kind of funny actually. Um, but two of them, but Dwayne Clifford and, and Travis Wilson, but it was, all right, man, I got to talk about something else. Like these guys don't give a shit about my protein powder. How about them as humans? Like, I'll just start talking about them. Then they became their friends, you know, and then becoming their friends, you became, you know, and then it was almost like they bought from you out of, I don't know, pity. I didn't give a shit. We wouldn't even fucking be here for one for those two dudes.

No, I give it. I mean, and Steve Calabrese, like there's a few people. Steve's another one. That were just these people that, you know, you create through just being and having good, strong conversations outside of anything else. We were talking about business, just life. It reinvigorated and kept me moving, but then it was a sale and then it was a friend and then it was a referral sale. And it was one of those things where that strength and communication back to it is like,

you have to learn that no might not be the forever. No, it might just be no temporary, you know, and keep showing back up and you never know how that conversation pivot will happen or really will change your life. But you have to continue to show back up and compete. Dude, I, I just hearing Jason tell his story, just like everything that you say, I'm just over here like, fuck yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, dude, it's very parallel to what we had to go through. I mean, the other part is we use the word hard, right? And hard means a lot of things, but ultimately it's about what's hard for you. I mean, you look at physical hard is not as challenging for me as say, the 50 miler, the whatever, the

125 pounds for whatever, like that's hard. But for me, it's not as hard as the, the feeling of utter kind of failure and rejection at, okay, so I accidentally kind of quit the army. That sucks. Bad decision, failure,. Teams back to war. Failure. Marriage, crash and burn. Failure. Friends, got awesome jobs now, at least perception-wise. Doing really well. Really perfect lives. Totally happy because you start feeding this narrative. And I can't even sell one damn backpack. Not one. Not one, right? I can't do anything right. And you get on that struggle bus and you start believing your own negative self-talk for too long, it goes real bad. And those kinds of emotional hard, they're hard, man. That is my definition of hard. Do those still happen to you?

Yes. Yeah. I think that's a i think that's a big misconception that people think that you go through it only in the beginning stages but i think there's staircases to that well it's important you know no i think it's super i'm not shaking my head because i disagree i'm shaking my head because people would think anything else yeah i mean i had bro this shit's fucking hard it's hard for me like i have fucking mental breakdown once fucking every month bro like thinking like holy fuck like there's this there's fucking hard. It's hard for me. Like I have fucking mental breakdown once fucking every month, bro. Like thinking like, Holy fuck. Like there's this, there's that there's this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, like it's, you know, and then you get like, like you're saying, bro, like if you start comparing, you're like, well, you know,

all my other entrepreneur buddies aren't having mental breakdowns. Right. Can't be because they haven't posted it on social media. That's real. I mean, and I say this from a place because like you become, you become stronger or tougher or more calloused or whatever it is, but you're not immune. And I think that's an important piece to understand as an entrepreneur. I mean, Jason asked me to speak last year at his go ruck games or in April. Right. Yeah. And I didn't go. And, and I had to call him and tell him like,

dude, I mentally couldn't go. Like I wasn't in a good place. And I had to call him and like check that down friend to friend. I to say like and it's you know i don't i didn't tell anybody else in the whole world except you i'm saying it now because it's like i had to come to the realization like i was not mentally in a place to be able to do it yeah and you know you you and it's not 2022 we had the best business year we've ever had in our whole lives 2021 best business year we'd ever had there our whole lives. 2021, best business year we'd ever had. There's no reason for me in April, or was April? April-ish to be in this mental place. But dude, I felt like I wasn't enough. I don't know what the fuck was going on, but that phase of life, it was smacking me in the face. And you have to be able to, I think, recognize it, understand it, but it is normal. It's not a one-time thing. It's a continual

process that you have to go through of rejection and failure, but then figuring out how to get through those moments so you can succeed. I mean, this isn't doing Mother Teresa had doubts about God. I mean, this is well-documented. I mean, everybody, if Mother Teresa can have, you know, question her faith,, let's give ourselves the permission to understand that that's going to happen to all of us. And the more that we go through something, and this is where you need support structures. I knew how hard that call was for you to make, by the way. But you need support structures around you. You need to have those things in place because you do actually need other people in your lives. You need your good relationships with your kids or

your wives or, you know, they all kind of ebb and flow a little bit just by the nature of life. But, you know, it's a dangerous path when you get in a bad place and you start getting in your own head and you stay in your own head and just your own head. And I've been there, man. And it is just, I've got a couple things where like, okay, feel this is a problem. I need to kind of, you know, not push on the gas right now. And that's kind of what you were saying last year. And like, it's like that has come because I've been through so many times of adversity in my life, which has not been perfect by any stretch, even though it's been rewarding and meaningful, but those are separate things. And I've learned this version of hard, this is going to take its toll on me. And so this is what I need. And sometimes just little stuff like, hey man, I need to take a deep breath outside and go somewhere for like

two hours or two days or whatever. Not usually two days, but two hours maybe. And I need it. I need it. I need like two weeks. Yeah. But still, you know, something's got to give. Cause if I go, you know, when you're in anger, you should like two things you should not do is act or speak, right. Or you feel whatever, if you're not in a good place, you should not do those things. So, you know, take a walk around the block or ruck around the block or do something. It's crazy what a fucking walk will do for you. So, you know, take a walk around the block or rock around the block or do something. It's crazy what a fucking walk will do for you. That was a good plug there, by the way. Yeah.

Well, it's well documented. What a good smooth. What a good walk will do for you. And it's even better if you're rocking. Yeah. It's always better. Always better. Because rocking is better than walking.

It's superior. It's definitely 75 harder. Listen, it's definitely 75 harder. You got to 75 harder you got to be careful i know this jail i understand this because i get tagged in it daily dude at first i thought you were listen andrew call me at first i was like at first i'm like hey man are we cool with jason like that's great and i could tell he was like inherently kind of pissed a little bit i'm like no no jay is he's one of us like that's fucking good man i'm gonna explain this

shit yeah bro once i fucking got it i'm like no i this is fucking like well if i go for a run he should be like oh you should have gone for a rock yeah like motherfucker i was running it was so funny because when you first started tagging me, I'm like, is he talking shit? Or is like a little bit. That's my love language. But, but dude, well,

I kind of liked it. I was like, I'm like, all right. And you know what? Guess what I'm going to do for the next 75 days. I'm a fucking rookie. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I mean, it was the people in your community that were doing your 75 hard challenge that just like had embraced it to take it up a notch. And I think it's, I think it's great. And you know what, for me, rucking, you can just kind of build it into your life. So if you're already going to walk, you can rock. This doesn't have to be so kind of sliced and diced and you don't have to drive to the gym an hour to do this. No, I love it, dude. You know, just bake it in, man. I will tell you, because this is something,

you know, I adopted in 2020, right? So I guess that's a late adopter, but I never- No, we're still early, man. Yeah. We're still early. I hope, and I hope we're part of that. But I look at, you know, I never was a walker. Like I never walked.

It wasn't like in my head, I'm like, who the fuck walks? Like you don't really work out and walk. But at the time- Old people with canes at the mall. Well, you know, but then I started. That was my perception growing up. Like that is lame. I remember my grandparents taking me to the mall in Dayton, Ohio with people that are walking. They're like, oh, they're just here to walk. And then the Simpsons did a whole spoof on that. And I'm like, I had the same perception. But in that 2020 timeframe, like right before everything kind of went bonkers, I found myself rucking. And then it was like, to get outside from all the madness and all the noise, rucking became not like something, it was like, this is what I was doing. I was rucking in the fields or I was rucking up the hills.

You still do that. I still do it. I mean, in my farm, it's my choice of exercise. I have a really cool gym at my farm. It's like badass. And I choose to ruck out there because it. I mean, in my farm, it's my choice of exercise, a really cool gym at my farm. It's like bad-ass. And I choose to rock out there because it's like the peacefulness of being out in the woods. And you know, when you're trekking through the leaves or through the woods and hearing it and being, you know, one with nature is my hippiness, but it's one of those things where I found so much peace in rocking because I was by myself, you know? And then on the flip side, then I decided to rock a marathon for my 40th birthday we found like 25 guys and we all went you know so like you we could you can rock with a team and have an unbelievable time you can rock by yourself and have an unbelievable time and it's amazing

what adding 45 pounds to your back will do to a 45 minute walk it's a fucking hell of a lot harder what the fuck did i do wrong then because that shit was not fucking great to me. That was a terrifying experience. I need to go by myself next time. I was dying. What the fuck are you talking about? Traumatized. You know what's funny though is like, you know, with just adding 45 pounds to your walk, I don't know, you probably have some calculation where it's two and a half times the value or caloric burn to the sense. But I will tell you, man, I just rocked during my 75 hard. It's all I did. I mean, I rocked the entire time. It was one of those things where I wanted to see how much progress I could make by simply really just walking. And it's one of the best shape I've ever been in my entire life. I just rocked. I found peace. It was cold. It was hot. I went through Christmas and Thanksgiving and Halloween.

I did it all, all rocking. And I had a fabulous experience. I actually looked forward to going outside, putting my shit on and going for a ruck. But the caloric burn by carrying that 45 extra pounds, plus the core strength of being able to hold it up, it's a hell of a workout. Oh, yeah. Well, plus we were talking in the locker room, dude. Because I used to do the weight vest. And then we went to intervals. And now I'm going back to the ruck. But like Jason was explaining to me in the weight room, you know, the ruck will also help with your posture, which we all need. And I could tell right away when I put the thing on, I'm like, you know, straightened out. Straighten out, load core. You know what I mean? It helps your core stay engaged while you're rucking. You know what I told you about that? I use

Will Grumkies. That's where I fucked you about that? I use Will Grump keys. That's where I fucked up at. Man, honestly, for anyone listening, 45 is a lot to start with. Yeah. If you're new to it or, you know, we went for, what, an hour? Yeah, it was. Point being, that's a lot to start with.

You can just start with a little bit less weight, man. Yeah, I just couldn't, but that's the thing, though. Well, also, bro. I couldn't, like, be a pussy. I mean, I got the fucking founder of the company here i'm like i got andy is my fucking boss like shit was hard for me too jason be trolling you here in a minute he'll tell you oh you don't need 45 pounds you'll be 20 minutes in the walk he's like but bitch you only got 25 if you've got like jason's got really long legs so his stride is like way out

i think it's important real. I think it's important. Real talk. I think it's important for people to hear you guys and us, you know, me and talk about that, that doubt and that frustration and those feelings. Because like people do assume that once you get to a certain point, everything's cool. Right. And I had one of the cool things about going to Mexico this last week was where I went, there were a lot of older people who were very successful who had exited their businesses. And, you know, I was talking to them and talking to,

you know, why'd you guys exit? What did you do? How was it? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And dude, talking to all these guys, like it was all the same shit. It was all like fuck man like you know, I put in 40 years to this and it was it was mental mentally a burden for me for that entire time and You know, I think it's important for everybody to understand that that's kind of the cost of playing the game Like that's that's the ticket that you're buying when you choose entrepreneurship, you are buying a ticket for perpetual uncertainty at all times. And, uh, a lot of the times you're surprised by great things, great things happen. I mean, how many great the highs. It's a constant state of problem triage. If it's coming to you, you're either creating something new because there's some bigger problem or someone's bringing you a problem. That's usually been the case since

forever and that's just your life. And so you get good at solving problems, but it comes at a cost. It never feel like you, it's hard to explain, because we have a lot of young entrepreneurs that listen to the show. It's hard to explain to a young entrepreneur that the uncertainty that you feel now doesn't go away. You know what I'm saying? But what will happen is you will become more skilled at dealing with the uncertainty. So it doesn't stress you quite as bad, but because you're traumatizing yourself, like going through this process early, when these do, when these problems do occur, there is like a trauma response of stress automatically. You're like, oh fuck. And then you're like, oh wait, we already dealt with that. We can fix that. That, and then it like calms down

quicker, but it never goes away, dude. It really doesn't. Like I, I, all the people I talk to, you know, Ed, uh, Ed Milet, who's one of my best friends in the entire world. He's who I talk to when I'm really fucked up. And one of the things that he talks about that is so true is writing that line. He calls it blissful dissatisfaction. It's where you are dissatisfied with where you are, but you're also grateful for where you are. And I think when you're in that proper balance, things are much more manageable. You know, you don't go quite as dark. Naturally, you and I and Sal and, you know, these guys here, we don't, we're not, like we talked about earlier, winning in high performance, that's the fucking standard, dude.

So like, how do you celebrate when you do what you've expected yourself to do anyway? There's no celebration to be had. You get to stay on the team. Yeah, that's it. That's what you get. Yeah. You get to continue to play the game. And that's, that's, that's a misconception. You know, people think that like when you built a great company like you have, right? Like that people, you know, it's this big celebration all the time. And it's like, no dude, the reason we built a company, the reason you built a company is because you you the excellence is the fucking expectation so as you describe go rock as a great company it's i always i cringe just a little bit

you know because i just that's not my my vision of it and i see you do the same thing when someone's like oh congratulations i know but i'm telling, it's a great company. Like, from the outside, you need to hear that shit. Like, it's important that you hear it. Because nobody ever fucking tells us when we're doing right, dude. We only hear the shit when it's bad. True or not true? Very true. Yeah.

True. So, like, dude, you're doing a fucking great thing. And you're improving people's lives. You're making a big fucking difference for people. There's tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who have gone through your events, who was their lives have changed. And they're, they're going to be able to look back and say, dude, life's hard right now. But remember when I did that fucking 16 hour event with Jason McCarthy, I got through that. I can get through this and like, dude, that's noble shit, bro. And like, you need to like, cause I, cause like,

dude, I have to be reminded of it too, but I'm just telling you, man, like it's from my perspective, I admire the fuck out of it. I think it's amazing shit. American made bags, you know,

soldier servant leadership. Yeah. Serve for the country. But I mean, I, you know, going back to it, nothing good comes through your door,

right? That's the role you signed up for. So I tell people all the time, you give your whole life to, you know, like you're, it just goes back to, like, I look at Madat and I have this kid that applied. This is real. This is real talk.

I'm so proud of Steve. Yeah, I'm so proud of Steve here. He was flipping pizzas at Little Caesars when we found him. Really? Not true. Yeah, true. The dude, he was a little graphic designer, Webster, filled out an internship for him, down little from little Caesars to gold medal of jujitsu, you know, to, you know,

huge piece of the real AF podcast. Like I get to walk in. He's not a huge piece. He fucking runs it. He's the first person I see every single day. You know, my family loaded up this weekend to go watch him, you know, roll around with other dudes, which he's come, you know, obviously complacent with. You're pretty good at it. it tell your you and your boyfriend are really good at it but the thing being is like that's what i show up for you know we got the wills and the errands and and all of you guys like i'll take those sandwiches every day as long as i get to see you guys win and that's the thing like that's what you sign up for and that's why you know you receive a compliment it's so hard because you're kind of like yeah i know why know why it makes you cringe. It makes you cringe.

You're right. I feel the same way, dude, because the job's never finished. It's never like, and you see all the holes. Like, yeah. When I look at what we got here, every dude, every single guest comes in here and they say the same exact thing. They say, holy fuck. Like this plate, like I seen bits and pieces of this online. Does it no justice?

They said they all verbatim. Do they not almost the exact same thing? Okay. Every time I hear it, bro, I'm like, I didn't say it. Cause I knew it makes you cringe. Cause I'm like, I watch it. I'm like, dude, he's cringing right now. Because dude, all I see is how we could get better. And all I see is where we're missing the mark. And that's what makes a good operator, I think, effective in business sense, because that's your job. Our job is to look for the holes, is to fix the shit that you're fucking up. And like you said about your life, it's the same with a company. Bro, we're not fucking perfect. You guys aren't perfect. It's like being an orchestra conductor and you're trying to get everybody to play the tune, but there's,

it's never perfect. It never, you never one time get it right. And, and, um, I guess it is a nice compliment when people think that it's perfect, right. Or they look at it and think that, but I mean, bro, I get what you're saying, dude. Cause like all the audience thinks it's magical. Well, doctor, here's the saxophone or whatever hell it is here play one missed tune you know and that's that's that's a whole that's a whole nother set of maybe take them all back and beat the fuck well no i mean there's a whole there's a whole nother set of problems because when you when you run a an effective company that people love and they appreciate and they feel like they're a part of and you know that a lot of times people don't realize how hard that is to produce. It's like going into

the nicest steakhouse in the world, bro. And you get the perfect service with the perfect steak and the perfect experience. And then you go in the kitchen and you see all these people working their asses off, right? A lot of people don't realize that that's a major part of every single company, right? That's the part I love. I love i love i love i'd rather hang out with people in the kitchen me too like the ones doing the work me too i love it i agree well bro it's been awesome to have you on the show man i hope you come on again i'd love to it's good it's great to see you guys and uh you know just really congratulations on all of your success here guys guys. It's wonderful to see you. How are you going to make me cringe? How are you going to make me cringe? How are you going to make me cringe?

I was about to know you, you motherfucker. Troll them out. Oh, fuck, man. Troll, troll. I know. I fucking love it. It's too bad.

I wanted to get his take on the China balloons. He is a war child. So between Ukraine and China, we could have got all we could have our old whole another two hours on china and ukraine here yeah bro seriously though man it's like real talk i am really proud of you no dude for real um dude i really appreciate you making the time to come up here i know

you're a busy guy you have a lot of shit going on. If you guys are unfamiliar with Go Ruck, check out their events. Check out what they do. How many events are you guys doing a year right now? We've put on about 10,000 events since 2010. We also have like 500 local ruck clubs, community-led and cities all over the country. And we put on hundreds of events, probably 500 now. COVID took a little beat. So people need to take a little hit on the numbers

of events, but we're still at 500 or so. That's a pretty good one. It's amazing. Yeah. Can you unpack how that works? So there's a go ruck community. You can go ruck on the weekends. You can sign up for a... Yeah. I mean, look, here's the thing. I mean, this makes me a terrible businessman, but ultimately you can buy a rucksack. You can fill it with, or you can use whatever one you have. Like how to get involved. It's like pay the fee, right? You know, share the thing, it's free.

Okay, here's the thing with GoRuck. I care about the way of life that exists in America. And I want to help us grow that so that we are more American than we are. It's like winning is the standard. Let's be more American, right? And so it's like the way that you can participate is to do hard things, put some weight on your back, go for a walk. For us, it's rucking. If you want to do it, even one up, get a buddy, go out and have your quote therapy session with your buddy. Talk about your lives or whatever, right?

We need this in our lives. Go pay that for it. Invite your neighbors to go do something, right? Maybe it's a driveway workout. Maybe it's have them over for dinner and talk to them, right? Maybe you do that with somebody else, right? But we need to get back to strengthening the communities where we are. And we like to do that through physical fitness with carrying weight and stuff. So that's how

you can really get involved. We build the best shit in the world. We've got a whole website full of it. It's great. But the thing that really matters to me is get out and get active and do with each other. Yeah, guys, check out their website too. Cause they do a lot besides just rucksacks now. Like this is a full blown, uh, performance, high quality, best shit possible, uh, apparel company. So check out what they're doing. Um, I'm doing 75 hard today is day one. You guys will hear this on day two. You should jump in and you should rock. Cause I'm going to the whole time. So bro, really appreciate you coming up. Thanks, guys. Yeah.

All right, guys. That's the show. Thanks for listening. Please pay the fee. We're from sleeping on the floor. Now my jury box froze. Fuck a pole. Fuck a stove.

Counted millions in a cold. Bad bitch. Booty swole. Got her on bankroll. Can't fold. Just a note. Headshot. Case closed.