Shawn Ryan Show - #197 Bob Parsons - Founder of GoDaddy & PXG

Starting point is 00:00:00 They had VC or an MVA come out of a spider hole and threw a Chikom at this guy. He picked it up, went to throw it back in, and went off in his hand. Arm gone, side of his head gone. People were starting to get a little uncertain about the war, but they weren't like they were when we came home. Guys coming home, throwing with signs that said names,

Starting point is 00:00:23 Nazi, murderer, baby killer killer don't forget baby killer feel like your soul coming out of your chest mr. Bob Parsons and a flush welcome to the show good to be here son man I'm really excited to interview you I've been been watching GoDaddy, you, all your companies for decades now, and I just find you to be a fascinating human being. So I just want to say thank you for making the time and coming into Nashville and knocking this interview out with me. I think it's going to be awesome.

Starting point is 00:01:02 It's my pleasure, brother. Thanks for having me here. It's my pleasure, brother. Thanks for having me here. It's my honor. But everybody starts off with an introduction here. So Bob Parsons, United States Marine Infantry veteran who received the Purple Heart in the Vietnam War, self-taught programmer who started Parsons Technology in your basement in 1984,

Starting point is 00:01:23 growing it into a $100 million revenue company before selling it for $64 million. Founder of GoDaddy, the world's largest domain-name registrar, which you sold for $2.3 billion, CEO and founder of Yam Worldwide with ventures like Parsons Extreme Golf, Scottsdale National Golf Club, and Harley-Davidson of Scottsdale. Philanthropist who alongside your wife Renee founded the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation in 2012. Trailblazer in psychedelic assisted therapy using it to confront your own PTSD and funding over 19 million dollars in research to help others. That's super close to me.

Starting point is 00:02:06 I did that. I did an Ibogaine experience in Mexico and totally changed the trajectory of my family life, my business life, every aspect. And New York Times bestselling author of the book, Fire in the Hole, self-made billionaire ranked 338 on the Forbes 400 2024 list with a net

Starting point is 00:02:27 worth of $3.9 billion. You're a husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Welcome home. And you have a quote that I read that I love and it says, I believe I was born a dreamer. I know I was, yeah. When did you come up with that quote? I just, I've always been a dreamer. So it was when I was taking a inner child workshop,

Starting point is 00:03:03 one time trying to find myself. This is way back when. And I had to write myself a letter. And the letter was from me now or then to when I was a young child, when I was a young boy. Wow. What would I say? And then how would I write back? So, I did that. And then I had to write about myself, the different parts of me. And that's where I, you know, I just sitting in my hotel room at night, just when I was writing this for the next day's class, I just remember thinking, I believe I was born a dreamer, and I was. And so that's how that came about. Pete Slauson And it's stuck with you ever since.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Dr. John Baxter Yeah, sure. It has. And as a matter of fact, I used that paper that I turned in, that is the introduction to my book or the preface. in. That is the introduction to my book or the preface and the letter to the little boy and the letter back and then about myself. And the letter about myself starts exactly with that. I believe I was born a dreamer. Pete Wow. When did, what is the letter to yourself? What did you say to your young self? Did I say to my young self? Yes. You know, it's said that, you know, I am writing to you for many years in the future, and I know more about you than any other person alive. I know everything you're going through a tough time in your life. I know that

Starting point is 00:04:57 my mother was insane and Dad wasn't around much. And so I just never understood it as a kid, but I was scared most of the time. And I told my younger self to hang in there, because you know more about the right thing to do than anybody's going to tell you and to just hang on. And that one day, believe in yourself and never stop dreaming because more than anything, that'll be your salvation. That's powerful. So that's that's that letter.

Starting point is 00:05:47 What did your young self write back? Well, didn't write much. We had to write it with the left hand, you know, our non-dominant hand so it looked like a young child. And it basically wrote that, thank you for writing to me. I cannot wait to be you. And I'll see you when I grow up. And what was that for?

Starting point is 00:06:17 That was for an inner child workshop. And I was just trying to get rid of my PTSD and deal with it. When did you do that? Oh, God, it had to be in the 90s sometime. In the 90s? Yeah. Well, we'll dive into all the therapy and getting better after war trauma. But Bob, I would love to do, I mean, I know you know this,

Starting point is 00:06:48 but I want to do an expose on your life. And so we're going to go through childhood, the Marine Corps of Vietnam, and all your business ventures, and some life lessons you've learned. I'd love to know about your values and all that stuff. But before we kick it off off we'll start with something light so there was this back and forth conversation uh from your assistant and us about the condom story i don't know anything about it i didn't want to know anything about i just want to hear it

Starting point is 00:07:18 directly from you and the little i do know about it, it sounds hilarious. So what is the condom story? Well, the condom story is when I was a junior or senior in high school, I had never been with a woman. We talked about it day and night, but I've never been with a girl. And this is, I'm growing up in East Baltimore, so my buddy Danny Thorne, who's a year or two older than me, who was my total advice on, he told me everything I needed to know about women. Most of the stuff, totally, totally wrong. Like he told me, he said, you know, when you go down on a woman, right, and I see, I don't even know what it looks like. You go down on a woman.

Starting point is 00:08:15 There's a lot of ways to do it. He says, you move all that hair to his side. This is back when, before the shaved, right? Before the hair is side and you kiss, you're going to see something that looks like the baby Jesus kiss it. And so anyhow, that was the advice I grew up with. So Danny was getting her home base action from this girl named Tony. And Tony was, she lived with her mom, it was her and her mom, and her mother was going out of town for the weekend. And so Danny arranged with Tony that he and her would have the upstairs. And Tony's girlfriend, Pauline, said that she wanted, she was ready to plunge her head. And

Starting point is 00:09:03 that she was ready to plunge ahead. And I'd be just the guy that she wanted to do it with. So I thought, oh my god. It's here. So I'd go ahead and it sounds good to me. So the first thing I did the next day was a Monday. I remember I went to the pharmacy, and I had just enough money to buy one condom, so I bought one condom. And so, I'd go home at the end of the day and I'd have this condom squirreled away,

Starting point is 00:09:39 you know, and I'd pull it out and I'd sit it on my dresser and I look at it and they look at me, you know, and you know, and each of us, each of us wondering what the other one's thinking. And so finally the day comes where it's Friday and I come home, it's three o'clock or so, and I go ahead and take a bath. We didn't have a shower, so I took a bath and I got all ready to go out and meet Pauline, so I put on my best clothes. They weren't much, but they were my best. So I go ahead and do that, and then I pull this condom out.

Starting point is 00:10:26 And I guess by then it's four o'clock. And I pulled this condom out and I said, shit, I take it out of the package, right? And I look at it and I go, wow, that's it. So I'm looking at it and again, it's looking at me. And I remember thinking, and it's my first time, and you can just picture the condom saying to me, it's my first time too. So we take in the, as soon as I pulled it out, I'm hard as a rock. I mean, I'm thinking about this, I'm ready to shoot through the roof, right?

Starting point is 00:11:05 So I take this condom and I think, I wonder what it feels like with this thing on. So I put the condom on and I put it all the way on. And I thought, you know what? I'll just leave it on. And that's the way when we get ready to have sex, I'll be ready. So, I go up and meet them and so forth. And so from, that was about six o'clock, we were going to get together, and I had done went flaccid then, and when I went flaccid, the condom rolled all the way up,

Starting point is 00:11:54 and it rolled up in my pubic hairs. Right? So, so I'm there with Pauline, Danny and Tony go upstairs, but we're on the sofa. She's got this little club basement, you know, fixed up. And so we're on the sofa there. So I reach over and I kiss Pauline,

Starting point is 00:12:17 and we start smooching. And man, I think it was like a switchblade. The only difference was, Sean, it didn't unwrap the way it wrapped up in the pubic hairs, didn't let them go. So instead, it hung onto every one and it just pulled with the force of, it felt like somebody took my pubic hairs and glued them to the bumper of a Chevy and floored it. Oh my gosh. So first, I was going to, I said,

Starting point is 00:12:53 I'll just tough through this, I'll just tough through this. And I did, and then it got blinding. And then the season spy would have talked. So I went right to the floor, and they had this little bathroom with this little door with a little latch on it, this makeshift toilet. So I could crawl and get into there and shut it and latch it and try to get this thing off.

Starting point is 00:13:19 I can't get it off. I mean, it won't come off. You know, my penis is like, and I'm saying how Marys are fathers. I'm doing everything I could think of. And I mean, nobody ever talked to me how to get rid of a heart. I was thinking of Mother Superior, who was the nernarliest woman I ever seen. I think about it, and maybe what it'd be like to have a sex with Mother Superior, didn't matter. So eventually, I mean, she knocks on the door, Pauline knocks on the door, she says, is everything okay? I said, sure, it is. I'll be right out. I'll be out. Don't worry. I'll be out in a minute. So eventually, I

Starting point is 00:14:06 think it took me 20 minutes to get it off, but I finally got it off. Hair's everywhere. And I put it back on. And I got pulled myself together, went outside, and she's long gone. She left. He lost her. I lost her, yeah. That was the first. So I lost her, and I still remember my buddy Danny.

Starting point is 00:14:36 I never told anybody what happened way back then. Never told anybody. He said, how did you fuck this up? I said, it was a sure thing. And she told all her girlfriends that what we were going to do and then we sat down and I kissed her and then I locked myself in the bathroom and I did it. And then of course, I was... Pete Never sealed the deal with that one, huh? Pete Yeah, I killed the deal totally.

Starting point is 00:15:13 Pete Poor Pauline. She messed out. Pete Well, I'm hoping someday, I don't know where she is, but if she is, hoping she gets the book or she says, that's what happened. Wow. Well, you know, there's an old saying, two is one and one is done. That's what the record taught me that. Yeah. But well, that clears that up. The condom story.

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Starting point is 00:18:31 Got a patreon account. That's a subscription network. We've turned it into quite the community and You know, I started this show in my attic in my house and then we moved here and now we're getting ready to move into in my house and then we moved here and now we're getting ready to move into a Lot bigger facility that's out on on smakerage and we'll make a better guest experience But patreon has been with me since the beginning and they've they've really supported me with what I'm doing And and they're the reason that I get to be here today with you. And so one of the things that We do is we offer Patreon, somebody in Patreon to ask each and every guest a question. And so this is from Nate. Hi, Bob, I really admire your journey and what you've built as a fellow US Marine. I've come to believe that owning

Starting point is 00:19:23 your own business is the ultimate form of freedom. But honestly, the most daunting part for me is figuring out what to build, how to find that unique idea or opportunity worth going all in on. How did you approach this early on? Semper Fidelis. Semper Fi, Nate. Well, buddy, listen to it.

Starting point is 00:19:44 The way I've always done it was I did what I liked. I did what I liked, and my dad, for all his faults. I mean, he had a lot of good ideas about certain things. But one of the things he said is you always should do what you love, because when you love something, it tells you all its secrets. And I believe that. And that only stands to reason, Nate, because when you do what you love something it tells you all its secrets. And I believe that. And that only stands to reason, Nate,

Starting point is 00:20:06 because when you do what you love, you're going to work harder at it. And you're not doing it just for the money. And, you know, depending upon why you're working, right, why you're doing what you're doing, that's going to determine how successful you are. And you'll never be successful if you're just working for the money because you won't do the things you need to do to be successful because they're counterintuitive. So there you have it. Man that's great advice. I would a hundred percent agree with that and I'm doing what I love and

Starting point is 00:20:41 where this takes me just continues to surprise me every day. I can't even believe I'm sitting down here with you. But, but, so let's start, let's get into the, let's get into the interview. So you grew up in East Baltimore. I did. Yep. Brothers, sisters. I grew up in East Baltimore. I had a younger brother, younger sister. Mom and dad, of course. We never had much.

Starting point is 00:21:16 Mom and dad were gamblers, and neither one of them were that good at it. So we were always broke. I mean, always, always broke. And if that bought anything, it was always on credit and they always would go sing with the interest rate. So which means we would even, we even had less. So if we needed to have anything, we had to figure out how we were going to, going to work and earn it and earn it and how we're going to make money and get what we wanted to get. We did things like newspaper routes, shoveling snow, running errands, working in filling

Starting point is 00:21:53 stations, construction, all that kind of stuff. My first business is an interesting story. It was a lemonade stand. One day, I'm probably about eight or nine years old, and I go ahead and decide it's one of those hot days that they get in Baltimore that you could see the heat wave off the tar street, you know, Asheville Street. And when I did that, I decided, man, I'll make lemonade. I'll have a lemonade stand out here today. Well, Mom wasn't around. It was just me. I was the only one home.

Starting point is 00:22:38 So I go ahead and get this pitcher out that she had. And I knew that lemonade was lemon and sugar and water. So I get this bottle of lemon out, and she says it's called Real Lemon. And I fill this thing up with lemon, and then I put a lot of sugar in it, and then I put put water in it and I mix it all up. No matter how I made it, it just didn't taste quite right. And then I get the idea, maybe that's the way it's supposed to taste. So I just put more sugar in it, right? And I just keep mixing it up, mixing it up, mixing it up. And so I go outside, I put this, had this little table,

Starting point is 00:23:26 I set this little table up on the base of a porch, and I put this little sign up, lemonade, five cents, and the lemonade pitcher looked beautiful, I mean, it looked beautiful. It had like a little sweat on it, and I mean, it's just, it's perfect. Well, this is back during the days, when back during the late 50s,

Starting point is 00:23:48 when the insurance guys, life insurance guys would walk debit routes, right? And they'd collect the weekly premium, because that's the only way you're going to get it, and he's Baltimore. You go knock on somebody's door, and they get it from him. So, this guy's name is Mr. Hill, H-I-L-L,

Starting point is 00:24:06 and he's got this little pork pie hat on, he's got his sports coat slung over his shoulder, got his tie undone, he's walking, squirting like a hog, right? So he says to me, he goes, and kid, he says, man, can I use this today? I said, he says, man, can I use this today? So I fixed him a lemonade and he gives me a dime, told me to keep the change and it was, I couldn't believe my luck.

Starting point is 00:24:35 So he takes and he knocks this lemonade back and he seems to wave. And he's waving around. His eyes bulge. He spits his lemonade out in the street. And he goes, a skinnysaur's fucking lemonade. I remember that. And he goes storming away. And I thought, maybe it just isn't that bad.

Starting point is 00:25:12 Maybe he don't know how it tastes. So the next day, the lady, a girl across the street, Suzanne, she comes over, she buys a couple of lemonade, takes it over, home, comes back and says, my mother says you have to give me my money back. So I give her money back and same thing. And then nobody would come near my lemonade stand. So the guy comes over. Later my mother comes home and she says, what are you doing?

Starting point is 00:25:43 I said, I'm selling lemonade. She says, you're selling lemonade? I said, yes. She said, how did you make it? And I showed her. I said, I took the lemon bottle and I poured it. She goes, I keep vinegar in that bottle. Oh, shit.

Starting point is 00:26:01 So I made lemonade with vinegar. And she helped me make a butter lemonade that actually tasted good. Nope, weren't already done. Nobody even wanted it for free. So anyhow, that was my first business utter failure. So you said your parents are gamblers. What were they gambling in?

Starting point is 00:26:29 Anything they could? Anything. Horses, sports, numbers. Mom would go to bingo all the time, but that was a more social thing than a pure gamble. But, you know, that's what they would do. Yeah. Yeah. And your dad was a World War II CB in Guadalcanal.

Starting point is 00:26:58 Yeah, he was in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, the Fijies. Did you guys talk about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. And he had all these pictures. And he told me he says, yeah, it was a rough, miserable place. Had a picture of his ship that he took from the beach. And it's a Japanese suicide sub, two men sub screwed into the side and blew it up.

Starting point is 00:27:30 Oh wow. And I said, how were you there to, you knew they were gonna take a picture? He says, yo, we knew it was there. They couldn't do anything to the sub because the moment they touched it, they would blow it, right? So they just all got off the ship

Starting point is 00:27:43 and then the one that they waited for them to get off the ship, they just weren't able to. So he had that, and he was part of what he did was drive a bulldozer, I believe. And he said, they sounded like the Japanese Yuro, sounded like washing machines. He said the Marines had it the toughest, but he helped build the airfield and stuff like that. Wow. What else were you into as a kid? It sounds like life was pretty rough. What kind of stuff were you into? I was a terrible student, terrible student, and I failed the fifth grade.

Starting point is 00:28:32 Nobody can ever take that away from me, but when I failed the fifth grade, Sister Brenda—I was in parochial school—Sister Brenda was a nun and she didn't talk much, but she sure hated me, because she kept me almost every day after school. She would just turn around and I'd think, man, I'm gonna go home one time, and this kid would say, hey, Roberts, can you hand me that?

Starting point is 00:29:02 Or something I would, I'd hand it to him. She'd go, Robert Parsons, you're staying at school something I would I'd hand it to him. She go Robert Farson's your stand So anyhow, it was it was the last day of school and me This kid named Frankie his kid named Anthony and Where everybody got their report cards. It was one of them Baltimore days, hotter than shit, you know? And it was maybe June or May. And I went to St. Elizabeth's in Hungary. And so all I was looking for was a nun free summer. Sister Brenda handed everybody their report cards.

Starting point is 00:29:42 And then she said to me, Frankie and Anthony says, use three, wait here, I'll be back later. And as soon as I take his line out, then I'll, you know, and there you go. And then I'll process your, whatever's gonna happen. But she didn't say we failed. So Anthony's saying, I remember him saying, what was it that Sister Brenda wants us to stay back here for?

Starting point is 00:30:08 And it occurred to me, I said, because we failed. And so, she took everybody out to meet her parents. And the way this was set up, St. Elizabeth's occupied one big city square block and she would walk out if you were facing, I don't know the direction, but if you face in one of the directions and you go at the left side, you go all the way down and you go, you turn by the nunnery or the convent and take all the way down and then across the street to where she'd meet the parents. Well, my father, every year on the last day of school, he'd pick up me and my brother and my sister later, she was involved in that. He'd pick us up and he'd take us over to a sporting goods store or something and we'd buy something

Starting point is 00:31:06 for passing and he'd bring us home. So I was thinking there is no way I'm going to tell my father I failed. So as soon as she left, I left. So she's going left, I go right. And I run through the schoolyard, down around the side over where the parents are, up around the side of the convent and up against the wall or this black fence where they were fencing off the convent. And I could see Sister Brenda in the class coming down, walking down with them.

Starting point is 00:31:41 And everybody's happy with their report cards and so forth. I said to her, well, the thing I had in my favor was I knew about Sister Brenda. She was a very lazy nun. I had some inside information. She would never, during the few times when I would go home one time with everybody else, she would break off and go right into the nunnery. She never walked the class all the way down. So she did the same thing with this. She took and let the class go, ran to the nunnery and the class turned right and was going to walk down by herself.

Starting point is 00:32:19 And she went back to crucify the unholy threesome. Right? So I just stood and I was halfway wondering, worried that the class was gonna see me and the people were gonna go, what are you doing? So forth. They didn't even notice me. I mean, I could have been one of the bushes.

Starting point is 00:32:40 So they were too worried about themselves and the report cards. So they started away, kept walking, I followed them. And I go down to Bach with them, and I cross the street where my father is. My father's already there with my brother, looking at his report card. And my father says to me,

Starting point is 00:32:59 Robert, where's your report card? And I said, dad's sister didn't give me one. He says, you didn't give me one. He looks at me like a dog that heard strange noise, you know. And I says, I said, no Dad, this year, if you pass, you didn't get a report card. That's when the lie came out. So, so, he kept in mind, he's holding my brother's report card. And he goes, he's smoking peregrines right then. He takes a puff and he says, I get in the car. Not a problem.

Starting point is 00:33:34 So he takes us to the Sporty Goods store. I know, but in the Sporty Goods store, I'm on death row. So he says, my brother's got a bunch of stuff my father's gonna put most of that back. Just pick one thing you want. And then he says to me, Robert, don't you want anything? I said, dad, I got plenty. I had nothing.

Starting point is 00:33:58 So he says, I'll get something. So I got this first basements for a young kid. And so we go home, the same thing happens with my mother. My brother comes in, gives him his report card, gives her the report card. And then he hands me the report card. She says, where's your report card? Same thing. And she says, I never heard of such a thing

Starting point is 00:34:25 that if you pass, you didn't get a report card. And I said, I pulled it out. I said, my call sister. And she said, I'm calling that sister. I said, well, if you think you should feel better, call her. So I went and sat on a sofa, and I waited for the school to call. Well, the school never called.

Starting point is 00:34:43 No, they never called. I waited all summer long and they school to call. Well, the school never called. They never called. I waited all summer long and they didn't call. All summer. So, I'd have my buddies that I'd be playing ball with or something. They'd say to me, Robert, what's wrong? I said, nothing's wrong. They said, oh, something's wrong. I said, nothing's wrong. Now I knew if I told one of them, it'd be all over the place. So I didn't tell anybody. So fast forward to the first day of school. Matter of fact, the one time I went to tell my dad

Starting point is 00:35:16 what was going on, and then he goes, he's got the newspaper up. It's hot as there's no air conditioning in the house. He's sitting on a sofa that is covered in plastic, so it would stay nice for my mother. He's sweating his ass off. Smoking and starin' and so I said, Dad, Dad, I'm gonna tell him, Dad.

Starting point is 00:35:41 And he drops the paper and I see these eyes bulging out, sweat running down his face. I said, Dad. And he drops the paper, and I see these eyes bulging out, sweat running down his face. I said, never mind. Paper running down his face. I'm out the door. So anyhow, so first day of school, I get in. We go with Miss Mowey, the neighbor lady. She had this little red beetle.

Starting point is 00:36:03 She was this big, big, large woman. And it looked like there was 100 kids in that car. You could hardly move. But anyhow, she pulls up. We all go in. I get in line. And St. Elizabeth's had one class for each grade. And I get in line with the sixth graders. and I don't know what else to do.

Starting point is 00:36:28 And I look over in the fifth grade class, there's Frankie and Anthony, and there's motion in me to come over. I'm going, I don't even want to look at them. So they're ringing the bell, and then they start moving in, you know, the first graders, second graders, third, fourth, fifth, and then time for the sixth graders. And I'm at the end of the line, or none that year, is Sister St. Thomas. She pulls me out of that line, she says to me. She puts me against the wall. She's got her nose about maybe two inches from mine.

Starting point is 00:37:04 She says, Sister Brenda told me what she did. And I thought, all right, there it is. And she told me what she did. And I said, I didn't say anything. And she says, and she didn't know what to do, so she passed you. No shit. So that's how I failed the fifth grade, but I didn't have to repeat it.

Starting point is 00:37:28 You moved on to sixth. Yeah. And she said to me, she said, if you give me any trouble, you're going right back into the fifth grade. Said, I want sister. And I wish I could tell you I was a lot better. I was a little bit better. Right?

Starting point is 00:37:43 And I remember when I got my sixth grade grades, I showed them to my mother and she goes, well, it's nothing to be proud of, but you did pass. I like it better when you get a report card. I said, so do I, Mom. Oh, man. So at what point did, when did you get interested in the Marine Corps? I got interested in the Marine Corps one day at the end of gym class. I was a senior. It April, and I had discovered alcohol, and I had discovered, rediscovered the opposite sex, and neither have ever been known to help grades in school.

Starting point is 00:38:40 And so I took in with that, I was sure I was going to fail. I mean, I mean, at this time I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. So I had two buddies say to me that they, you know, they were going to go talk to the Marine Corps recruiter on Conklin Street, would I go with them? And I said, sure, I got nothing to do. So I went with him and there was a guy named Mike and a guy named Aggie, Agarus, his name was, he was a Greek guy. And we take him to go meet this recruiter

Starting point is 00:39:24 we take and go meet this recruiter. And he had us at, hello, buddy. And so I joined right with the boys, right with them. And my mother had to sign the papers for me to join. Oh, really? And she said, she said, and maybe this will be what you need. And it's during the height of the Vietnam War, that was in 1968.

Starting point is 00:39:43 Man, it was, every war was rocking and rolling then. And so I went and showed all my teachers when I could finally get my orders, because the Marine Corps recruiter said, you know, we check your grades and this and that and the other thing, you know, and we won't take you unless you're top notch and so forth. And so I thought, you know, probably not get in but I'll do it anyhow. Well, I could have had no head. They took me back to our nose days. Um, and so, so, um, you know, I got accepted.

Starting point is 00:40:21 And, um, there you go. You knew you were going to war. Huh? You knew you were going to war. Huh? You knew you were going to go to war. Yeah, I thought I was. And then, you know, like the idiots that young guys can be, you know, we all said, man, we hope it's not over until we get there and well, we got our wish. So you must have joined at what age? Seventeen. I was 17, yeah. Well, we got our wish.

Starting point is 00:40:45 So you must have joined at what age? 17. I was 17, yeah. 17 years old, joined the Marine Corps to go to PNOTOM. And what was your job description in the Marine Corps? What did you sign up for? 0311, buddy. Nice.

Starting point is 00:41:00 Is this number familiar? Oh, yeah. Very familiar. Yeah. I was in 0311. Aggie was in 0311, Michael was in 0311. And so, and then, crazy shit happens and we come home, Aggie gets in a tussle at a par, his mother owns, gets stabbed to death. So he never even went. And then, me and Mike went.

Starting point is 00:41:22 I went to Delta Company, 26 Marines. We were in Quang Nam Province. And then Mike, he went to First Marine somewhere. And I don't see him anymore. And there we go. Well, it sounds like the Marine Corps was very transformative process for you. 100%.

Starting point is 00:41:46 Give it a lot of credit. Yeah. You know, one thing I'll say is, you know, it was, you know, they did more for me than I ever did for them. And everything I ever accomplished, ever accomplished, I'd have never done it without the Marine Corps because they give me direction. They give me the importance of understanding responsibility. They give me the fact that to believe in myself and that I can accomplish more than I ever dreamed possible.

Starting point is 00:42:24 And I always hoping for that. So how long was it from when you signed in, when you signed the documents that you went off to Vietnam? I signed the documents probably in April, maybe May, April, May. And then I went, I was inducted in August, and six months after August, Vietnam. Wow, wow. So you went, basically you went through basic training,

Starting point is 00:43:01 your infantry school, 311 school, and then right to right to the theater. There you go. How was boot camp for you? Basic training. We all value our freedom, privacy, and financial security. But cyber criminals don't. Hackers, scammers, and thieves are trying to steal what is rightfully yours every day. I'm always looking for ways to protect my family and to keep their personal information secure, which can be tough in my line of work. This is why I trust Identity Guard.

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Starting point is 00:45:56 I still remember that ice cold chocolate milk and You know for me it was the food, the food at Parris Island was stuff up. And so, you know, I liked it. I was able to do it. And I would have been a rifle expert. I was a rifle sharpshooter. And I was doing okay until I had like two rounds left and I had a drill instructor, Sergeant Little.

Starting point is 00:46:27 He said, Fire says you better even scream in my ears. Arrrrr! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha What did your parents think about and your siblings think about Vietnam? You going? Well, you know, my dad said he wished he could go in my place. And mom, mom, you know, you have to understand my parents, they were very different. Mom, my mother was when she was a young girl, she was she was beat a lot by her father and so forth. So she was abused in that sense.

Starting point is 00:47:09 And so she didn't have a lot of, she had a lot of love beat out of her. So I remember when it was time for me to leave for, for, for to catch the plane at Friendship Airport, which is in the bottom of Washington then. Airport, which is in the bottom of Washington then. And I'd go to Friendship Airport. And before that, I was out at night before, and my mother comes in and she says, Dad just got up and went to work. He didn't even say anything.

Starting point is 00:47:39 No kidding. No. And then Mom said, well, I'm going to the racetrack when it burnt. Don't get yourself killed. That was it? That was it. And off they went.

Starting point is 00:47:54 And so I called my brother. I mean, not my brother, my cousin. And he'd give me a ride to the airport. And they had a lot of guys there, they had their girlfriends and sisters and family and mother, signs and all the sort of thing with me, which is me. But see, the hell of it was, so I was used to so I didn't didn't bother me too much and then to Pendleton. Holy shit. Yeah. So you got no sundough? Family? Yeah. No.

Starting point is 00:48:45 Me and my brother. Where do you fall on the birth order? I'm first, my brother second, and my little sister. And now they're all passed except for my little sister and me. And she and I are close, so. That's good to hear. What's her name? Beverly. I mean was there any communication when she got, did you write up letters or anything? Yeah, yeah they write letters and mostly it would be my brother and my sister would write me letters and my buddies, some of them would. And once in a while,

Starting point is 00:49:31 parents would write me a letter, but not much. Wow. Well, let's talk about, let's move into Vietnam. What was it like landing there? Well, man, I tell you what, that place smelled different than any place I ever smelled in my life. It smelled like rot. So we spent our first night guarding the rear area and that's just some place to put us,

Starting point is 00:50:04 you know? So they trucked us out to our unit and we were with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 26 Marines, 1st Platoon, 2nd Squad. And I got to my squad and we were in Quang Nam, rice paddies as far as you can see. Right, and it was, it was quite a place. I remember I got the guys for staying in a tent, a canvas tent, and so I had a bunk and a couple guys, And so I had a bunk and a couple guys, I think it was like a Marine Corps rifle squad, about 12 guys.

Starting point is 00:50:52 And there was not 12 guys in the squad, there was like seven or, yeah, seven. And maybe even less because it was just the guys that were there and then us. And what happened is that they were ambushed a couple days before we were sent out there. We were sent there as me and a couple others were sent there as replacements for the guys that were killed in the sand bush. So they were killed and there was, four of them were killed. One of them was seriously wounded.

Starting point is 00:51:35 And to a man, it was all the senior guys. So the guy who was the senior man, the new squad leader had just turned 19 and had been in the bush for six weeks. That was the most senior guy? Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:51:53 What did you think about that? Well, at first, we were going out on our first night in the bush, and I sat down and I mean I went outside to hunt and we had this we're at the very top of Hill 190 and you know means it's a Hill 190 the numbers it's 190 feet above sea level so so we're at the top of this and right at the top was this old French fort there this was wall with shows in it and stuff. So I guess the French were overrun there. And I sat on this wall and I kept starting thinking about, how in the hell am I gonna survive this? Because the Army, Navy, and Air Force,

Starting point is 00:52:39 their tours are 12 months, Marine Corps 13 months. I don't know shit from, I know all about this place. The guy who I'm replacing, you know, I mean, the guy who replaced the squad leader, you know, he don't know either because, I mean, he hadn't been here much longer than I do. And so it didn't look good. So I started, I started, you know, I got scared for just a little bit. And then it occurred to me that I probably wasn't going to survive it. I was going to die there. And I mean, it was a hard thought at first, but then after you accept it, then nothing bothers

Starting point is 00:53:29 you. Yeah. That's, you know, that's, it's interesting that you say that because, I mean, you're the only other person I've heard that articulated that. And that's kind of the way, not to inject my own experiences, because they're irrelevant right now. But I mean, that's how I dealt with it too. I just always assumed I was already dead. And so, it kind of took the fear out of it.

Starting point is 00:54:05 and so it kind of took the fear out of it. Yeah, it takes the fear totally out of it. And, but what it does though, is you can do your job. Yep. You can do your job. And so that night we went on our first ambush. So you had come up with that mindset before any fighting had even started. Excuse me?

Starting point is 00:54:29 You had come up with that mindset that you're already dead before you ever pulled a trigger, before you were ever shot at, before you ever saw anything. Wow. Yeah, I did. I did. Because I've been in so many different types of situations, you know?

Starting point is 00:54:48 And it's just, you know, it's just what it's going to be, you know? And so anyhow, so that's the thought that I had. And the interesting thing is I'm friends with most of the guys in that squad, there's seven of them that... Five. Five of them. And most of them tell me the same story. No kidding. And they said, I never told anybody. I mean, one guy who's a squad leader, the guy that was a squad leader, he turned out to be marvelous, but he had the same thing. He said, how can you do

Starting point is 00:55:32 your job if you worry about whether you're going to live or not? Right? And he says, that's just not your problem at the moment. right? And the machine gunner, same thing. You know, this guy's name is Brandy, lives down in Austin, Texas. I love the guy. So anyhow, but none of us told each other. No shit. Yeah. We just had that mindset.

Starting point is 00:56:00 So anyhow, so we go out, we get our first ambush. We have a corpsman with us and then a sister squad. We're just outside a village in a pagoda. And then- What's a pagoda? A pagoda is just like a little religious place where they have altars and stuff like that. At least that's what we called them was pagodas. Then about a couple clicks from us was another pagoda, and we had a sister squad set up there.

Starting point is 00:56:37 After we were set up on a sandwich for maybe an an hour or 45 minutes or something. But it was before we did a first move, you know, because we would go out, we set up an ambush, we do a wait a while, let it get good and dark. And then there'd be a first, and then there'd be a first move. And then we set someplace else and then there'd be another move and then we'd set it for the night. And the deal would be to move so nobody knows where you're at. So anyhow, that was the thought. So the squad, our sister squad is in this other pagoda and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose

Starting point is 00:57:26 where they are and we get the radio call that they sprung their ambush. They had a fucking VC or an MVA come out of a spider hole and threw a Chai Comm at this guy and then he picked it up, went to throw it back, and it went off in his hand. Shit. Yeah, so he's pretty fucked up. And so to get there with the corpsmen, because they didn't have a corpsman with them.

Starting point is 00:57:57 So we get there. We run through this fucking rice paddy. Ever walk through a rice paddy? No. Well, I'll tell you what, rice paddies the shittiest thing in the world to walk through. I think God put them there to say, don't walk here. So the mud would be like about a,

Starting point is 00:58:21 water be like about maybe a couple of feet deep, and then there might be a foot or deep or so. So you'd go down in it and just get every kind of vermin you can think of. It's what crawling around in there. So we're running through this rice paddy. I got my gear halfway on, halfway off. It's my first night in a bush. I don't know any way that it ought to be. It's my first night in a bush, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:58:48 Anyway that it ought to be, it's choking me, it's, the magazines are choking me. I got a man like a bandolero like you see in the Old West, you know. Stupid, but nobody was there to show me. Yeah. Right? So we get there, this guy is hurt horrifically, not dead. Arm gone, side of his head gone. They're trying to check an eye that's not there

Starting point is 00:59:15 with a hand that's not there. I mean, it's crazy shit, you know, that you see in war. And the squad leader is this guy named Blackwell, and he starts just standing in this rice paddy, and he's throwing up, and then he's just standing there. And it's his helicopters coming in, his Huey's coming in, and it's gonna land right on him. So I see it, I run and grab him and push, push, push, push, push, and misses him and misses me. And, but we hit a rice fatty tank,

Starting point is 00:59:58 and go, and this, and he snaps him out of it. And then, so I saved his ass ass. And saved my own ass. But then we took in and they told us to go back out to the Sephardim Bush place after this guy Hunt gets taken back, medevac back. And by the way, he didn't die. I see him at a reunion. Yeah. No shit.

Starting point is 01:00:26 Yeah. And so I take in the... We set in with this sister squad, which we weren't supposed to do at all, but we thought we'd get some sleep. So the next morning, the sun breaks, nobody's answering the radio as to where we are. And the hell we're at. They're like, what the fuck? We're firing a 50 caliber machine gun over her head. Then we motor back and they threw their ass out. That was my first night in the bush. Wow. I mean, so how did that, I mean, how did that experience sit with you? I mean, that's mission number one. You see a guy, well, gets his arm blown off, gets

Starting point is 01:01:18 half his face blown off. You know, it didn't. It didn't. Didn't, didn't. Were you numb to it before it ever happened? No, pretty much, yeah. Pretty much, but the thing was, the crazy thing was, is that those guys were the first family I had. Just that little bit of time. I fell in love with those guys. I mean, they were my brothers. I mean, it happened like boom, like that.

Starting point is 01:01:55 So then to this day, I'm still close to them. I talked to them once a week, certainly once a month. And so your guys' mission said, your mission set was to go set up ambushes. That was it, yeah. How many ambushes do you think you set up? Oh, not a lot, not a lot. I mean, I was in a bush for a month and then I got wounded. And then I got wounded. And then I got wounded, but then I hit a Chai Comm, Chinese Communist Grenade, we called them Chai Comms. a trap and my buddy, what the fuck's his name? Because my mind just went blank, but he'll kill

Starting point is 01:02:53 me. I forgot his fucking name. We'll get there. We'll get there. Maybe it'll come back. So anyhow, he steps over a tripwire and I hit it. And so I caught shrapnel both legs and left elbow. And then I got medevaced out all the way to the Naval Hospital in Nicosia. So I was there for a couple of months or three or I don't even know how long. Let's, if it's okay, let's go, let's go. I want to get to that. Okay.

Starting point is 01:03:26 Get a little more descriptive, but what were some of the other ambushes that you guys had done? We are, we're walking one ambush and Brownie sees all of a sudden where we're at, we're going through this village, right? And it just, it just, just gotten dark, right? And we're going through this village and two NVA soldiers, both with NVA rifles, black pajamas, the whole nine yards,

Starting point is 01:04:01 come running right at us. He turns with his M60 and takes them both out. I mean they were dancing like dolls. So then that night, that night, right then, we sweeped towards the area where we had the activity come from. And my place was, I was sweeping towards where there was the hoops that I think that they came running out of. And I took a hand grenade and threw it, right? And only it didn't go as far as I thought it was going to go.

Starting point is 01:04:54 And it landed, but it landed on the other side of a rice paddy dyke facing away from us. So when it blew, it blew away from us. Right? Guys, Ligatic and George, the squad leader, And the guys, Logatic and George, the squad leader, scared the shit out of them. They go, they turn around and go, did you just fucking throw that? And I said, yeah, I did. And they go, well, don't throw anymore tonight. And so the next day, George tells me to don't throw any more hand grenades. I said do I still have to carry them? He says fucking they're right you gotta carry them. He says just give them to somebody else to throw. And I said to him suppose you're getting over them run and he says then you can throw them.

Starting point is 01:05:42 How were you guys moving around at night through that jungle? Well where we were, the only time I went through the jungle was during the day because there was rice paddies on one side, there's not a lot of jungle on rice paddies located. And then the other side is where there was jungle and so forth. So I never spent, I spent some time there, but it was all during the day. But it was mostly just quiet, quiet and being in the dark. With seven guys.

Starting point is 01:06:21 Well, seven and then 10 and then 12 and then that sort of thing. And then, I mean, it's just so many things. The first night I was there, I shot a snake. We would sweep, and body count was a big thing. So we'd sweep through the rice paddies, and we'd put up illumination, you know, that comes down on them parachutes, and we'd look for bodies. So of course we didn't find any. Because this NVA that we did kill, they always would have something around a piece of rope around her neck that they pulled away by somebody else. No shit.

Starting point is 01:07:06 Yeah. So... That's how they would collect their dead. Yeah. Yeah. They would noose them and drag them through. Yep. Wow.

Starting point is 01:07:19 So, I mean, these guys have more stories, a hundred more stories than I do a hundred times. But I mean, so we start sweeping and I look and there's this big fucking snake in the water and swimming right towards me. I mean, it's swimming right fucking towards me, right? And it's my squad and it's other squad. So we take in the, we take in the squad's It's my squad and this other squad.

Starting point is 01:07:45 So we take in the squad, the squad says, snake, and anyhow, so the snake's coming down, and it's just when it's about two or three feet, because I'm thinking, surely it's going to go left to right, right? This thing is coming like it's going to bite me in the balls, right? So I put my rifle on automatic, I'm like, brrrr! And all this water comes flying up

Starting point is 01:08:12 and it hits me in the fucking eyes and I move it. And I look and I get my eyes cleared and I look left, left, right, nobody's there. They're all underwater! Oh fuck, well I didn't hear the end of that forever and then George George was nice about it later cuz the next day said next time don't shoot the snake no so anyhow that was that was that So it's just crazy shit that happened.

Starting point is 01:08:46 I remember one time we were on a day patrol. For some reason or another the whole company is coming out and it's a day patrol where the whole platoon was free of the West. But me and two of me, Proctor and a guy named Pavelovich, were sent to get water. So we go into the village and they would get water right. So we go into the village we got everybody's canteen right and so we go in and just when we go to get water we can see this kid he's coming out he's got like one of these trays in front of

Starting point is 01:09:22 him like on like a small kid like small coax coming, the wooden trays, and he's got a burlap strap holding it up, and he's got burlap covering it. You know what he's got in there? I swear to God, you're not gonna believe it, you're not gonna fucking believe me. And Proctor and the others, they are dead, so, he's been on popsicles.

Starting point is 01:09:42 He had fucking been on popsicles. He did, he did. as vanilla popsicles. He had fucking vanilla popsicles. He did. He did. And so I take and we take, and before you know it, this kid had everything we had of value. Bread, cans of bread, cigarettes. I mean, we're just eating one popsicle after another.

Starting point is 01:10:01 Pravolović goes, suppose these are poison. And then Pra and then Proctor goes, who gives a fuck? That's one of my happy, happy stories about the place. But crazy shit, crazy stuff. Did you get into any firefights? fights? You know, the one that was the most was we surrounded this village, small village, and in it somehow they figured out that there was a squad or part of a platoon of North Vietnamese in the village, and we caught them there during the day. And so we're in there, and we're on the side, and there's a machine gunner's side that we're at. And so Browning is on a little mole not too far from us. And George says, get you Parsons and what the fuck is...

Starting point is 01:11:12 Bryant, the guy's name is Bryant. He goes, you and Bryant run the machine gun ammo over to Brownie. And so we did. And then this fucking gun starts taking off and shooting at us. We dive, we're landing, and this dyke is shooting over top of us.

Starting point is 01:11:35 We get up, we get this stuff over to Brownie. And the funniest damn thing happened is I thought about that night, that day many, many times, and I cannot remember what happened. Oh, shit. And so I go to a reunion. I ask one of the guys there, I said, you remember what happened, right? And he says, oh, we killed every fucking one of them.

Starting point is 01:12:06 I said, did we? I said, I was there one. I said, yeah, you were there. I said, anything unusual happen? No, I don't remember. I mean, it's like it didn't happen. I remember giving the gamma, the ammo to Brandy and his kid Goodwin, who was right where his egg hunter.

Starting point is 01:12:24 And no, that's it. Nothing. Nothing. Brandy and his kid Goodwin who was right where his egg on her and no. Is it? Nothing. Nothing. Totally blocked it out of your memory. Totally. I'm just curious, did you, did that incident come up during any of your psychedelic journeys? No.

Starting point is 01:12:41 Never? No. Wow. Nope. Nope. Nope, didn't. And that is the only, to the best of my knowledge, the only incident like that. And firefights, exchanged rifle fire a couple times, but not a lot. I mean, I've seen light combat, I mean, compared to most guys. Especially the guys who were up around the DMZ.

Starting point is 01:13:07 And man, when I got wounded, I think I had about, I probably saved my life. Do you think you killed anybody that night? I don't know. I mean, how would you know? Do your... I mean, they weren't close like me to you. Yeah. Right?

Starting point is 01:13:31 Or, you know, I can't like when Branny took those two NVA out, I mean, they come, yeah, I mean, I could see that, but I didn't do anything like that. Was that the first engagement when the two Vietnamese charged you guys? Is that the first engagement you've seen? Yeah, I think so. No, no, it was one before that. What was the one before that? One before that there was a bunch, there was some NVA about maybe a football field or two away from us in a village and we started firing on and they firing that back and nobody got hit and plus my knowledge we never hit anybody. So the first time you saw Americans kill the enemy was when they charged you in that village? No they weren't Americans they were they were

Starting point is 01:14:18 NBA. That's what I mean they were charging you guys. Yeah, yeah. Yep. What did that feel like for you? You know, in some ways it was exhilarating. Some ways it was. To see it? Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, I was like part of the team. I mean it was just, that was, I mean that was it. I mean I didn't do much for the team, but I was part of the team.

Starting point is 01:14:57 Did you think much about it afterwards? No. Later on in life? No. No. No. No. Later on in life? No. And you know, and to be honest with you, the stuff that, some of the stuff that I've seen that fucking rocked me was stuff that happened later. I went in combat.

Starting point is 01:15:28 You know, I mean, it was just the whole idea of the war. And I mean, I remember seeing those two guys who look like dolls, dead dolls, right? But their legs are all contorted and shit. Where was this? This was the same episode. Oh, okay. Yeah, same episode.

Starting point is 01:15:57 If you're looking for a war hero, brother, I ain't the guy. Well, I'm just fascinated in Vietnam. I mean, that was you guys and your generation. That was what really inspired me to become a SEAL and go overseas for my generation's award. Vietnam, baby. So I just have a ton of respect for Vietnam vets. Vietnam baby. So I just have a ton of respect for Vietnam vets.

Starting point is 01:16:27 Yep. So I got a whole story. What was you ready? You want to take a break or whatever? Yeah, let's go into let's let's let's start where you got wounded because you're a Purple Heart Vietnam recipient. Yeah, so I go to, one of the things I have, I've got a good memory, which is unusual, I mean, I'm not remembering anything on that. I had time when me and Bryant were running and running and I'm over. I remember, I remember, they carried me back and they couldn't get a... Yeah, another night, I had a guy got wounded. Point man hit a trap. He was walking on a rice paddy dyke, right?

Starting point is 01:17:24 And I helped carry him back. And the reason we had to carry him back is because his legs were hurt. And his legs were hurt. And he was obviously going to live. And the war business of the war was really good, some other place and all the choppers were busy, at least that's what I was told. And when I was wounded, the same thing happened, right? Only I wasn't walking on a dike, I was walking on a path through a village. They'd take and get me to this road. And there were these two guys in a road, and they'd shoot me full of morphine, I think it was.

Starting point is 01:18:16 And, I mean, I didn't give a fuck about anything. And one interesting thing before that, which is a fun story, I take and I get sent back because I got cut in some barbed wire or something, I cut all my fucking fatigues up. I only had one pair. So the company guy, he sent me back to the rear that day, and he said to get a whole new set of fatigues and to get a haircut and then come on back. A haircut? Yeah, it didn't.

Starting point is 01:18:54 I had to get it all cut. So I go back, I get my haircut, and then I go to where the fatigues are, and there's these two rear area guys, they're over in storage fatigues, and it's this big warehouse, and I said, I'm here to get some fatigues. And they said, well, do you need a chit signed by the colonel? I said, well, where's the colonel? Said, well, he's up in Dong Ha, which is 100 miles north. And I said, well, I got to go back to the bush.

Starting point is 01:19:33 And you know, his pants are all ripped up. So they said, brother, they'll hang us if we give them to you. He said, we can't. So finally after, you know, it was useless arguing with those guys, I start walking back and I start walking back and I come through this area where there's a Quonset huts. Well, it must've been there, one of them was there

Starting point is 01:19:56 in one of the Quonset huts like it. I opened a door up and I go in and it's like fucking candy land in there. So I take and open one of the lockers and it's got a brand new set of fatigues in it. I try them on, they fit me. I take mine off, put them on a hanger, hang them in there. And then I go ahead and I look on one of the mattresses, it's a rubber lady, an air mattress. Not a rubber lady like you get at the pad shop. Just a rubber lady. So I take all the air out of it and then put it on my arm and then I take and start with all my new pockets.

Starting point is 01:20:46 I start stuffing Marlboro's and Winston's in it because those motherfuckers would take all the Marlboro's and Winston's and then send us out like L&M's and salums and cans and nasty ass cigarettes. All the shit. So I go back and these guys are saying, where the fuck you get that? I said, never mind, I just got it.

Starting point is 01:21:09 So I gave him some cigarettes and so forth and I blew that rubber lady up. And so I only had it for like two days. And then I got wounded. So I'm going away in a case, hey Parsons, who's going to get your rubber lady? I said, you guys decide. Nice.

Starting point is 01:21:31 So let's talk about the day that you got wounded. Is it as much detail as you can remember? All right, well, the thing I remember the most is these guys driving me with no headlights on through these dirt roads to get to the field hospital. They had some country western music going, I remember that. They were singing, I thought they were fucking loaded. And I didn't really give a shit, but they were, you know, as long as they were there taking me.

Starting point is 01:22:08 So they take me to the field hospital and immediately cut all my clothes off. And then they do a triage. And I guess they determined I was not seriously wounded. And then they put me inside this big tent. I mean, and it was cold as shit. I mean, it was so cold in that tent. And because it was going from outside, it was like 80, 90 degrees inside, 60, 70. So I remember they kept moving.

Starting point is 01:22:49 I was laying on just a canvas cot, and they kept moving it closer and closer. And they had all these buckets of water. And they put me on this x-ray machine because I was wondering what the water was for. And when they took me off the x-ray machine, they washed it off. And then the next thing I know, I was in surgery. I don't remember anything after that. Then the next morning I wake up, bed is soaked, pissed all over, and a corpsman says, don't worry brother, you're just, we're just so busy,

Starting point is 01:23:27 we don't have time to put a catheter in you. And so I put one in me and then changed sheets, and then a colonel come over and said, congratulations, you're just purple heart. Wow. In the actual operation, the ambush that you were on, can you describe how you were wounded again? Yeah, I hit a tripwire. Hit a tripwire. Hit a tripwire, it was on the left side of me, and it caught my shrapnel here and in my left elbow. And I remember the surgeon saying, you know, you had a piece of, big piece of shrapnel go into the joint and didn't damage it.

Starting point is 01:24:11 Wow. So, I was lucky. I mean, I was lucky as I can be. Were you conscious the entire time? No. A little bit. Just a little bit. For the explosion?

Starting point is 01:24:21 Oh, the explosion. Yeah, I was conscious most of the time. I didn't go out. I just remember when that fucking thing went off and I went down on the ground, I turned to George because I was learning to walk point then. And so Bryant was walking first. I was walking second. And I said, Jesus Christ, it fucking hurts.

Starting point is 01:24:52 And then it didn't so much, and then it did, and then they shot me with morphine, and of course I didn't hear it so much. I seen it, you know. Didn't know what happened at first. You're disoriented totally. Did you think you were gonna die? No.

Starting point is 01:25:15 You knew you would live? Yeah, I thought I would. Thought I fucking would. Oh God, and the guys, the guys always got pissed and started fucking putting a zip-o to this village. And he says they got, George's squad leader got in a little bit of trouble for that.

Starting point is 01:25:39 And he said he was in trouble. And then the North Vietnamese had a big push through the area that we were in. I wasn't in it no more. But we were in and they forgave him because he was a good fucking Marine. Jesus Christ, he was good. About a couple days after, they set up on this bank in these reeds, and they sent a squad of NVA come through and started coming out, started coming out of the water. They opened up on them, they killed them all.

Starting point is 01:26:26 And then they were ordered by our captain, Captain Morehead, they go all the way down, to go about a mile or two out of sight, and then turn around and go a couple clicks in, then come all the way back and reset up in the same spot. And they did. And when they did, they... An hour or two later, the company,

Starting point is 01:26:53 the rest of the company came through. And, of course, these guys, being the fucking knuckleheads as they were, opened up one of all of them. And they said, George said, there was a fucking hell of a fight going on all of them. And they said, George said, there was a fucking hell fight going on all night. And there was a fucking gunship was going around. And when the sun shone, he says there was bodies everywhere and where there weren't bodies, there were drag marks.

Starting point is 01:27:24 and where there weren't bodies, there were drag marks, you know, and... Wow. Yeah. Well, Bob, let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, we'll talk about your coming home. Well, talk about... We gotta talk about the hospital first. All right. We'll pick up at the hospital.

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Starting point is 01:30:55 M-E-E-T, Fabric.com slash Sean. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states, price is subject to underwriting in health questions. All right, Bob, we're back from the break. We're picking up at the hospital. Yeah. Well, I'm back at the hospital and Think you think about a military hospital in wartime you see a lot of

Starting point is 01:31:36 a fucked up dudes boy and Man it's just really, really screwed up. And seeing this young kid was a Marine recon. And he was out on some long distance, LERP they called it or something like that, long distance. Reconnaissance. Reconnaissance, yeah. And he hit a bouncing Betty. You know, it's the only time I've heard of one or heard of anybody hitting one, but I

Starting point is 01:32:23 heard about him all the time, but never actually anybody, you know, fallen victim, but that's what he fell victim to. And you know, Bounce and Betty, it's a rocket on the inside of a pressure plate, tread on it. As soon as you tread on it, as soon as the weight goes off, that rocket's coming up. And it's, I mean, you're fucked. That's just, that's the order as to it. And it blew his blew his ass off. And he was, he was completely paralyzed. And the guys would take turns,

Starting point is 01:33:06 he was sandwiched between two boards and a device that had, you know, opening for his groin and this was his tail. And we would take turns turning comic book pages for him. And I felt so sorry for that guy. And I mean, and other stuff you'd say, you know, it's just so fucked up. The thing I remember, one of the hardest things is about that. I mean, whatever brought the war home, that did. I mean, you know, he spent some time

Starting point is 01:33:46 in a military hospital, you'll see. Navy lost my payroll records, so I couldn't go off base. I used to say to some of the guys, I had to had some civilian clothes and some money to go off base. And I'd say, can you lend me some money and your service? And so I could go on liberty and say,

Starting point is 01:34:18 I like you, man, but not that much. Oh God. Geez. You know, I read somewhere, or maybe I saw it on an interview, I can't remember, that you think that you had a guardian angel. I did. I did. Why did you think that? So many things happened that just come out okay.

Starting point is 01:34:47 Like another time we're in a firefight in a village, right, again nobody's hit, nobody's done anything. Me and this dude named Pavelowich, we go into this hooch, searching for Christ knows what, and in there is one of these little tables. And it's a long table. It's about maybe four feet, five feet, four feet tall. And on it is a bowl, one bowl. And in the bowl was an undetonated tonk ring from the night before, when we had this guy named Cook. And Cook was one of these guys go to

Starting point is 01:35:39 jail or join the Marine Corps for stealing cars. And so he, you know, was back on the Marine Corps for stealing cars. And so he, you know, that's back on the Marine Corps, doing what it could to, you know, fill them ranks. And so anyhow, he fired it, didn't go off. Somehow landed there. But our boy Pavelowicz moved his fat ass and tipped the bowl and, and they had this wooden floor put in, I mean, somewhat this kind of a crappy wooden floor on the altar. And this thing, you hit the wood, didn't explode. Motherfucker.

Starting point is 01:36:21 Now that got my attention. Yeah. Now that got my attention. Yeah. So I go outside and I go, there's no way I'm going back in there. Period. And so Cook goes back in there and they used to have on a helmet, they'd have these big black rubber bands, straight pieces of rubber, and they would keep bug repellent, bug juice in them. Right?

Starting point is 01:36:47 Well, Cook put the died M79. Holy shit. He put an unexploded round? Yeah, it was the M79. Yeah, so he puts the M79 round in it, we're walking back and you could see he's got, you got about two, three guys and then one guy walks, you're watching him and he's back about maybe 20 yards. And then 20 yards, the closest guy, and he's walking with this thing on his head.

Starting point is 01:37:28 I kept waiting for his head to just pull. Holy shit. And he made it. He made it. What the rest of the time with that damn thing. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, let's talk about, I mean, I am curious. I mean, do you feel like you had a relationship with the guardian angel? I did. I did. And I still do.

Starting point is 01:38:00 And it's just the stuff I've come out of. Like, for example, for example, I'll give you this. Okay. I'm on Okinawa. And I get sent to Okinawa to get processed back to Vietnam, back to the unit. And it's been a couple of months, or maybe three months had been, and I really don't know, but it was around then, okay? So I take and get to be, this doctor there got to be friendly with me,

Starting point is 01:38:42 I thought he was a good dude. And so, so when I got to the point where all my wounds were healed, I said to him, I went I said, Doc, I'm ready to go back, you know. And he said, you ready to go back? He says, Parson, you don't have to go back. He says, you don't have to go back. He says, I'll keep you here for the rest of the war. And I said, no, I want to go back. I want to be with those guys.

Starting point is 01:39:13 I mean, they were my family, right? I loved them more than I ever loved a lot of mine. I mean, we were closer, even though it was just a month. So he said, okay, and he signed off. And the day that my orders come through to leave for the next day, a payroll record showed up. A payroll record showed up. My payroll record showed up. And so they said, go off base, enjoy yourself.

Starting point is 01:39:53 They might have given me $700, $800. I don't know how much they gave me. It might as well have been $20,000. You know, Okinawa beer was a dollar. You know, do anything you want. I mean, it's just a lot of money. So I take in, you might have figured out by now, I'm never much of a rule follower. Yeah, you figured that out?

Starting point is 01:40:16 I'm figuring that out. Okay. All right. So I go off base. I'm supposed to be back at midnight. It's about three in the morning. And I'm walking down the street. And it's raining like hell. It's almost coming down sideways.

Starting point is 01:40:38 And there's a guy walking back up the other way, coming right towards me. It's Blackwell, it's that guy I saved on the first night. Are you serious? Dead serious. And he told me that was his third heart and he didn't have to go back. So he was in G2, which is orders

Starting point is 01:41:02 and all that sort of stuff, intelligence. And he said, I can get you, the guy that runs this little printing press and goes back and forth and delivers orders, I can get you that job. He says, because the company Gunny and I are tight. And he said, and by then I think he was staff sergeant and he says I'll get it done and he says when do you go back and I said I'm sorry I'm in a club tomorrow morning and this is like three in the morning he says I don't think I can all rock and get it done that soon and I I said brother that's

Starting point is 01:41:42 okay that's okay because I was kind of looking forward to seeing the guys anyhow. So we part. I tell him where I'm at, so forth. We part, and he goes this way, I go mine. And I go back, immediately get arrested. I take me to the officer today. And the officer today goes, you know, he's this young second lieutenant, he's got the shit jobs, talking to butt heads like me.

Starting point is 01:42:18 And he's going, why can't you be back? And I said, I'm going back. I just was in Vietnam. I always wondered, I got to go back tomorrow. And I lost track of time. And he goes, get him the fuck out of here. So they take me back. And I fall asleep.

Starting point is 01:42:35 I slept for maybe an hour and then I fall asleep with the hangover from B. Jesus L. And then I had orders stationed in me, Blackwell got it done. Wow. Yeah. I mean, that happened. I mean, to me, that's, we're like the fifth grade. I mean, it just repeatedly have happened like that. And I think my angel's there. Still to this day? Yeah, I think so. I think, hopefully I'll meet him or her or it. And it'd be kind of nice one day. I know whenever I meet her, he's going to look more exhausted than I do.

Starting point is 01:43:20 Oh man. I get pictures just going, fuck! I was going to take the night off. Let's talk about coming home. Coming home was hard. I'll tell you what I did. When I had just about two months left, they disbanded my unit I was with, 9th Marine Infibious Brigade and marched them, didn't send them home, sent the guys in it

Starting point is 01:44:09 that were coming in, the new guys, transferred them all to that unit and they all went over to Vietnam, right? And this unit, the guys coming home, they put them in this unit and they brought it home. So it was like they brought it home, but they didn't. It was so farce. Did you follow me there? Yeah. And I get sent over to the, I get sent over for processing where I get to get processed to go back to Vietnam. Now I didn't want to go back then and the reason I didn't want to go back then is because

Starting point is 01:45:00 I had been in touch with the guys. I had been in touch with the guys. I had seen them, they were on a helicopter ship just off side barrier island. And they, you know, I told them, I said, guys, I had put two requests to go back, to transfer, to leave this unit that I was in. Because I wanted to be with them where I'm so fucking bad. And Blackwell left, he left and he says, I says, goodbye.

Starting point is 01:45:31 I said, you're going home? He says, yeah, I wish. He says, I'm going to go back. And he says, I can't stand it here. He says, at least I understand it there. I'll see you, buddy. And so anyhow, I take in both times, this company gunny that he told me about, my request to transfer got approved by everybody,

Starting point is 01:45:58 and gets to him, he calls me to his office, rips it up so she gets self-killed. It never got approved. And so I was getting ready to go back, but I didn't want to be with a bunch of new guys. I want to be with them. Right? So I'm in the processing area, and this place is like a zoo. And this is one lieutenant, first lieutenant, and then

Starting point is 01:46:24 they run around like you don't know what's going on. So I go over to him and I said, Lieutenant, I can do this job. You need some help here. And I said, you know, I'm going to rotate a couple months anyhow. And he said, all right, we got the job. He said, where's your ID? And I give it to him.

Starting point is 01:46:47 He says, I got it all taken care of. So I went right away and started processing guys. And what I would do was I would take guys and put them on planes that were coming back and so they could go home. And guys that were coming there, I would confirm their units. And one of the things that bothered me so much is I would see these guys that were like assigned to 9th Marines

Starting point is 01:47:20 and guys going up around the Z. And, you know, it's just... I mean, there was no place there that was a walk in the park for the Marine Corps, but there were some places that were much worse. And while I wasn't that much older than these guys, if I was older than them at all, you know, I had the experience, which aged me a bit. older than these guys, if I was older than them at all. I had the experience, which aged me a bit.

Starting point is 01:47:48 And also from being intelligent and knowing what was actually going on there, I would just look at these guys and I'd feel terrible. I mean, I would feel terrible because they you know, they had this little tinge, you know, they're a little excited and so forth, and they're walking straight into fucking hell. Man. Yeah. So I remember that. Time went up and I went home.

Starting point is 01:48:25 And then when we went home, it was a different place. Different place than when we left. When we left, it wasn't... I mean, people were starting to get a little uncertain about the war, but they weren't like they were when we came home. There wasn't anybody taking it out on the guys coming home throwing shit and with signs and names. Nazi murderer, right? Drug addict. And the ironic ironic you know fucking in our war crowd calling us drug addicts those fucking dope addicts and on and on and on and baby killer don't forget baby killer

Starting point is 01:49:13 and then on and on so i mean you know it's just and then those of us that weren't confronted with that we see it on news anyhow so you know it's just it it just, it just feel like your soul coming out of your chest. And you know, at the time I knew it bothered me, but I didn't think it bothered me to the extent that it did. You know, because I got to the point where I had people come up to me and they'd say, Hey, what's your in the Marine Corps in Vietnam? Sean, I start crying. That's when you fucked up.

Starting point is 01:50:00 And so and then one of the things that I found, I was doing the book and I took some mushrooms, psychedelic mushrooms, when I was working on the book. And I had a flashback. I had a flashback, baby. And it was a flashback, not to Vietnam, but to when I was in troop processing. Seeing those guys, I mean, it bothered me to the core. And, you know, well, you know, I'll never say I don't have a cry. I have.

Starting point is 01:50:48 But I've never cried like that. And I don't cry over it again since. I mean, it purged me somewhat. So, anyhow, and then I just went to work in a steel mill, shoveled steel, and it was a hard job. And then I got another job, applied for a job as an apprentice, machinist apprentice, and this guy that set me up to hire was this old guy named Roy that it was with the Union so long that he had, you know, he had

Starting point is 01:51:39 tenure. He couldn't be fired no matter what. And the guy wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't talk to me. And, you know, I'd say anything to him, he'd say, leave me alone. And he would set his machine up every day so he was running this huge turret lathe, right? So he was making, milling down these lathes for ship seagon liners, right? To do propeller shafts. And he would sort of come all the way up, but never touch it, just go back and forth,

Starting point is 01:52:13 back and forth. And my job was to help him. And so after a couple months it is, I went to, I seen an ad by the University of Baltimore where I could go there with the GI Bill and I didn't have to take any of the entrance exams and my high school grades didn't matter. I mean, I couldn't have got into Harvard with an AR. I mean, I couldn't have got into Harvard with an AR. So I went to the University of Baltimore. I go into the registrar's office and I said to him, I said, I want to register for college.

Starting point is 01:52:57 He said, what do you want to major in? I don't know. I said, well, nobody in my family went to college. So I went, he says, go see this counselor. And I did. And it was a huge line to see this guy. I'd about have been just getting to see him today if I got into it. I mean, I never got to see him.

Starting point is 01:53:20 And so I went back in the guy that registers offices. You can, if you can sign a waiver, you can pick your own major. I said, why don't you tell me that? I said, you have a list of majors? He gave me a book, I opened it up. Verse one, accounting. I said, what's accounting?

Starting point is 01:53:44 He said, well, do you like numbers? I said, yeah. He says, you go with math? I said, reasonably. He says, you're interested in business? Yeah. He says, you should make sure you're in accounting. So that's what I did. And, you know, had I opened up a pack of words, I'd have been a zoologist. And I said to him, sure. And it got to be a very fortuitous choice because I loved it. And it was very solitary. I liked that.

Starting point is 01:54:15 And I graduated magna cum laude. Wow. I'm now one of the school's biggest benefactors. Wow. Man, what a curve. Yeah. So I did that and I went to... What was it like for you in school as a combat veteran at that time? Um, yeah, went to... What was it like for you in school as a combat veteran at that time? You didn't talk about it. You didn't want anybody to know?

Starting point is 01:54:53 No, no, it wasn't that you didn't want anybody to know, you just didn't talk about it. Nobody asked you about it. Did you stay close with your guys that you served with? Yeah. Many of them live close? No, no. I mean, they live, one guy lives in New Hampshire, another guy lives in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Here's the other guy that hit the trap.

Starting point is 01:55:20 He lives in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Another guy, two of them live in Florida. Another one lives in Iowa. And Brownie, Brownie the rascal, he lives in Austin. How did you get through? It sounds like that was the hardest part for you coming home. Was. And so, you know, there's a lot of veterans today that are dealing with similar issues and can't fit back into society. How did you get through it? The thing I did was I worked hard, and I buried myself in my work.

Starting point is 01:56:11 You know, everybody that has any degree of PTSD self-medicates in some way, shape, or form. I think they do. And my self-medication was always my work and my studies. So I had to turn things around when I was in college. I worked for a firm that commercial credit leasing court worked for them. And they would send me to schedule the assets of companies they were looking to buy. And then I'd schedule the assets, schedule the leases, and then come home. And this was in the 70s. And what I did one day, another day, another fortuitous thing, was I was looking at this

Starting point is 01:57:24 company in Redwood City, California, and I was going to get my work done and I had a 12-hour layover until I was going to catch the flight. And so I wound up on a Stanford campus and I went to the bookstore and I bought a book on how to program in the basic computer language. And I bought it. And went to the airport. Matter of fact,, first I went to Fisherman's Wharf and looked at a charcoal and

Starting point is 01:58:15 showed this little Chinese kid lighting the firework and a bunch of other kids standing by, some older kids holding their hands over the little kid's ears and Sarah G, oh, Kermis, you know, it's just wonderful. The guy just caught it. Artist named Y. Ming. And I asked the guy, the guy said to me, he said, you know, this is about seven-fourths. I said, how much is it? He said, 10,000.

Starting point is 01:58:40 And how many? It might as well have been 10 million. And so I said I see you later. And by the way, when I did the deal on Parsons Technology, I bought that painting. No kidding. I tracked it down, baby. Worth. I have it in my bedroom and I see it every day.

Starting point is 01:59:02 Nice. Yeah. And not only I bought it, the original is now in a museum. I bought an artist's lithograph or so forth, which is, I'm told, the best you can get. It didn't cost nearly 10 grand, but the memory is what matters. Yeah. 10 gram, but the memory is what matters. So anyhow, I read the book, or the Sally and Parts of the Book while I was waiting, and wrote my first couple programs on the way back. And based on that book, I taught myself how to program. And I eventually switched to the Pascal language, sold my Apple computer and bought an IBM,

Starting point is 01:59:50 and then started my first business, which was called Parsis Technology. Wow. Just going back, you had mentioned everybody with PTSD self-medicates, one way or another. I think so. How are you self-medicating? I buried myself in my work. No drugs? No.

Starting point is 02:00:12 No antidepressants, booze, none of that? No, just work, baby, work. And then when I first started getting Parsons Technology off the ground, I wrote the code for a program that would take care of home finances, I call it money counts. And it got to be pretty good. And then I quit my job. I was working, I started this leasing division

Starting point is 02:00:46 for this company. And if I had stayed there, this was like November, no, October. Had I stayed there through the end of the year, I'd have got $50,000 when I got a bonus. I quit. And the reason I quit was, I figured I could just, I had just enough time

Starting point is 02:01:14 if I worked hard to write a tax software program, do a 1040. And I got it done. But to get it done, I would work 60-hour shifts. I would come in to work, let's say, 8 a.m. Monday morning, work 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, and then work half a day. And when I say half a day, I meant half a day. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:01:47 Yeah. I would know I needed to stop by, the reason I needed to stop was because I started to hallucinate. I'd like to see a dragon walk across my desk. Holy shit. So you buried yourself in work, started your technology company. I mean, I think, I think a lot of people just from my generation, I feel like

Starting point is 02:02:18 entrepreneurship is a, but I feel like it's the only segue, you know, to really bury yourself into and into kind of leave the... what am I trying to say here? You have to be willing to, for me myself, a Navy SEAL, a CIA contractor, that's just some shit that I did and It took me a long time to to I mean people expect a certain body style a certain attitude a certain demeanor, you know when you are in those type of communities and warfighting communities and and it's almost like a fucking trap that you're in. And it wasn't until that I had discovered entrepreneurship and started doing what I

Starting point is 02:03:13 love, like you were saying at the very beginning, that I started getting better and I started putting more importance on what I'm building rather than the past and in eventually coming to the realization that I I'm not a seal. I'm not a CA contractor. That's just some shit that I did this is who I am now and I mean, did you did you find that when you? Became an entrepreneur? Yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, that was the only thing I was interested, I talked about.

Starting point is 02:03:50 I mean, I don't think I owned a Marine Corps cap. I mean, anything like that. Not that I denied it, I didn't. You know, if somebody's going to talk to me about it, I talk to them about it. But that wasn't going to, you going to take care of my family, put them where they needed to be, and so forth. To me, that was the only way. What got you interested in coding? It was just a random book on a shelf, and you just decided, hey, I'm going to take a peek at this?

Starting point is 02:04:22 Yep. Especially back, did you say the 70s? 75. I'm gonna take a peek at this. Yeah, especially back. Did you say the 70s 75 Wow See but you buy a book on coding you read it You work Three and a half days a week and then you build this entire Empire Eventually, yeah, how long did it take you to get traction on your business? On Parsons Technology.

Starting point is 02:04:49 That first year I did the tech software. In one year? One year, well no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I was doing it for a couple of three years before that because it took a while to build it and know how I wanted to do it and what I wanted to do for the software to be right, you know, and you know, it couldn't be buggy and then on and on. It couldn't be like, I couldn't make my lemonade with vinegar anymore. Yeah, so anyhow all those things, you know, I needed to have things just so.

Starting point is 02:05:29 Yeah, and so it took about three years, three years for that. And so that third year, when I got the tax software done, I made quarter million dollars that year. I'd never seen that kind of money in my life. Quarter million, I mean, yeah, $257,000. Wow. The next year, I made $2.5 million. The next year, I made $5 million. Next year, I made $7 million. I mean, and then it just, I mean, I've never missed too much since. How did you get it out there? Was it just you?

Starting point is 02:06:07 Yeah. It was just you. Just you and my wife. So you built it. How did you? Magazine ads. You bought magazine ads. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:20 Holy shit. Yeah, I was spending, early on I was spending $55,000 a month on advertising. How early on? Well, this is my third year. I mean your ads, your GoDaddy ads were phenomenal. You know? Did you come up with those? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:49 Me and a group of other people together. Yeah, together. So you got a knack for marketing and advertising as well? More that than anything. What was the first ad? The first ad? Yeah. For what? For Parsons Technologies. Okay. Yeah. First ad. Let me tell you how I bought it. Okay. I'm in the basement and this is, I'm still working the other job. And I have this magazine call me. And they say, now, one of the things I always

Starting point is 02:07:29 did, I always paid my bills. Always paid them. And they said, I've taken the, let me see. Let me see. Okay, they called me, it's called a computer bargain line out of Fort Dodge, Iowa. And this was a rag. I mean, one of them little rags would look like a magazine cover. I mean, a cheap magazine cover. And inside it'd be like print, like newsprint, and have different stuff for sale, cheap, all sorts of deals. And that's what it was. So they said, we have on the outside front cover, we've got that ad.

Starting point is 02:08:18 It's normally like $12,000, $14,000. If you can get me creative in a couple of three days, it's $5,000. So they thought I had money. I never had the money. So I took it and I said, I'll let you know in the morning. So I looked at it and I called my wife and I said, I just got a feeling that this could be it. So I said, let's do it.

Starting point is 02:08:55 And then I said, if it turns out it busts. Because every add I ever had run up to that point was a bust. So we decided to do it. And I pay, I get in a local ad firm and they do an ad and I sold my software. I had sold it for like $99, $79, six and a, on and on and on and on. Now I was selling it for 12 bucks, when it said 12 bucks.

Starting point is 02:09:32 And then it said no shipping, no, it's not copy protected, remember copy protection? It says it's not copy protected. It's not copy protected. It's not copy protected. It used to have agreements that you had to be part of if you used it that would signal that you could only use it like a book. You couldn't make copies and give it to people, on and on and on. I said in mine, you can do anything you want to send me 12 bucks.

Starting point is 02:10:11 So the ad said, money counts, but it only costs $12. So I did. Blew it out of the water. Well, first couple days, I mean, after the magazine come out, there wasn't anything. And then there wasn't anything. And then there was, you know, half a dozen orders, then a dozen. And then you ever see these ads where you see the mailbox of stuff with orders of checks?

Starting point is 02:10:39 That's the way it looked. And then there was a box ad, it said a box next to it. And so, oh my God, I think I made 20 grand on that ad. And then I took my wife and I and the kids, we took and did a mailing and we broke every direct mail roller there was, just mailed a place that had that ad printed up and mailed it to everybody on that ever inquired, said to us, we got

Starting point is 02:11:06 a 30% return. So then I took and I think I added a $3 shipping charge, didn't matter. Then I added, I made it $16 instead of $12 and made the shipping charge $5 and left it that way for a couple of years. And I would get big ads made up in all the big magazines. And that's how Parsons Technology made it. How long was it before, with Parsons Technologies, how long was it before you started hiring people?

Starting point is 02:11:51 It was right after I quit my job. Right after I quit my job, actually before that a little bit. And my wife would have some of the neighbor ladies would help her and they'd all be down there taking orders and they don't have their hair and curls and change the dungeon. But it was, they did a good job and they were happy to make some money. I was happy.

Starting point is 02:12:18 I was launching this company and then eventually, eventually I had, oh my God, I had a thousand employees. And holy shit. Yeah. A thousand employees. Yeah. It might've been 500. You know, I had to think about it.

Starting point is 02:12:40 And then you, you sold it. I sold it to Intuit. My wife and I we got together we decided we would sell it for For 40 million if we were ever offered it and Intuit offered me 60 I Knew enough to tell him I was insulted I knew enough to tell him I was insulted. And most I could get him up to was 64. So I was owed him for 64 million.

Starting point is 02:13:11 Wow. In what time frame? Ten years. Ten years. I started it in 84, sold it in 94. Well I mean where did you learn your business since? It just comes naturally to you? Sellin' lemonade.

Starting point is 02:13:30 Sellin' lemonade. You know, it's just workin', tryin' to make a living. How long was it after you sold Parsons Technologies that you started GoDaddy? 90, 95, 96. What time frame is that between the two? Couple years. Just a couple years? Yeah. What was the inspiration for GoDaddy?

Starting point is 02:14:01 Well, really there was none. And it sounds crazy. What happened was when I did the deal with Bars of Technology, after that my wife didn't want to be married anymore. And to be honest with her, I wouldn't be married to me anymore either. So she finally, she took all she could and in the And to be honest with her, I wouldn't be married to me anymore either. So she finally, she took all she could and she fucking boomed in my ass.

Starting point is 02:14:32 So I moved to Phoenix, Scottsdale so I could work and I just had a non-compete assigned. I had to honor it only their non-compete was I couldn't work period. So I honored it and when that thing came came due came up, I started working and started my own job, started to start a company. And I like being in the hunt. I like being out in the business stream. I like doing stuff.

Starting point is 02:15:21 I like being active and having myself on the line. You like doing stuff. I like being active and like having myself on the line. You like the risk. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. And so, and I like to risk but not too much risk. So I started that and at the time, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew the internet was going to be something. I knew that was going to be an area where there was going to be opportunity. So what I did was I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know exactly what.

Starting point is 02:16:04 So I hired about maybe 10 or 15 people. And we tried a bunch of things. I named the company Joe Max Technologies, believe it or not, after a dirt road. Now why did I name it after a dirt road? Name didn't matter. We didn't do anything. I would send people to, they would go to a business meeting at the Chamber of Commerce, and people would ask you, what do you do? And they said, we don't know yet. And I said, you know, I have never talked to anybody

Starting point is 02:16:36 that don't know what they do. And so. Who did you hire? I mean, if you didn't know what you wanted to do and you just knew that you wanted to be in the internet business at some capacity, how do you even know who to look for? Well, I just, I just would look for people that were looking for work. Any particular job description or? Not really.

Starting point is 02:17:03 Not really. Not really. I mean, people that knew a little bit about tech and that sort of thing. And they were the people that I hired. And some of them actually were with me till the last day. Not many of them, but some of them. And so I went ahead and we tried all sorts of things. We tried building intranets, extranets. We tried doing education.

Starting point is 02:17:34 We tried selling other people's software, tried selling hardware. None of that stuff worked, but one thing worked. And the one thing that worked was building websites. We could build websites and make some money. Not a lot, make some money. And the money that we made when we started doing these websites, there was one problem with them though,

Starting point is 02:18:06 and that is they didn't scale. You had to do the work of building a website in order to make the money. And so what we did was we built a software program called, we called it website complete, was the very first one. Was one of the first companies and guys in the world to do this.

Starting point is 02:18:31 And that would be, you could take and do, just put some fill in the blanks and this and that, and just think of write the code for a website. Very primitive, but you'd have a website. So we'd do that. And then the next step was where things looked like they were going to... Every website needs a domain name, needs an address, needs a SeanRyan.com. So then what we did was I went to auto website companies, I mean, auto domain companies, and they were all

Starting point is 02:19:12 pain in the ass to deal with. So we had one of our engineers went ahead and just filled the applications to do that for us. So we could become a domain name registrar. And not in a domain name registrar, it's not in the sense where you take and you have to buy a bunch of domain names to resell, although you could do that.

Starting point is 02:19:43 It's more like the DMV selling vanity license plates. Once you get a vanity license plate at the DMV, it's yours as long as you pay the annual fee. That's the way domain names work. The only difference is you have companies that can do that and they're called domain name registrars. So we started doing that. And then what happened was the dot com boom. And the dot com boom, there was so much noise for the dot com boom, nobody even paid attention to you.

Starting point is 02:20:28 Not even close. And so, I mean, the noise, you could see like these stupid Super Bowl ads where they were playing a piano like chopsticks and because they didn't have time to run an ad, but they bought it. I mean, making an ad and stuff like that and and it got to the point where it got to be it just got to be stupid and then what happened was when when I did that I had about 38 38 million I split it with my wife she

Starting point is 02:21:00 deserved every nickel she got and I I moved to Arizona, best move I ever made. And I then worked on making this company work and renamed it GoDaddy. And then the way that came about was I was just, you know, the name Joe Max Technologies, it's just very forgettable, means nothing. Go Daddy didn't mean much more, but at least it's fun and easy to remember. And so me and Gal that I still work with, we come up with that one night after about a third night. We tried it. It's Fat Daddy, taken's fat daddy, taken.

Starting point is 02:21:45 Big daddy, taken. Go daddy, using the AOL, go keyword and the word daddy available. Bought it for $8.95. Damn. Yeah. So that's what I did. I started with $38 million and then I started losing money. I said, I'm not going to worry about this company until I get down to $30 million.

Starting point is 02:22:18 Then I said, $20 million. $15 million. I don't know why. Sorry, I'm choking up here. No, it's all fine. There's a lot of pollen out. So anyhow, so I decided I was gonna go to, till I get down to 15 million, then 12, then 10, then

Starting point is 02:22:51 eight. And I think eight or six, I decided I'm going to close the company down because it didn't look like it was a snowball chance in hell this company ever making the turn. And then so what I did was I sold I sold my original company. I mean this sold all the furniture and stuff had really nice furniture, stupid furniture don't make you no money. And moved, bought a horse farm, an area where it was legal for breeding horses, but it wasn't legal for developing software. That's a fucked up source. Phoenix is, right?

Starting point is 02:23:34 So I bought this big sign, I had to pay to call it to go to any ranch. Put it right on the wall. And then I decided I went to Hawaii by myself. And I was gonna decide how I was gonna shut it down, how I was gonna pay any severance, how I was gonna pay my creditors, and then what I was gonna do. how I was going to pay my creditors and then what I was going to do. So I

Starting point is 02:24:10 went to went to Hawaii. Went to Hawaii, I was in the epiphany happened. More and more I was there. I didn't want to shut it down. The epiphany happened where all of a sudden, one day, this guy comes up to me and he's the happiest can be. Throw the keys in here, hey, old Miss Morrison, da da da da da da da. And I said, I'm doing great, buddy. And I think this guy's parking cars probably has nothing.

Starting point is 02:24:47 Right. He's the happiest guy in the world. I got six or $8 million. I'm miserable. And I was, what's wrong with this picture? Ah, so I decided at that point to go back home and not shut it down. And as the company goes broke, I'll go broke with it. I decided I could always park cars. But then I decided, you know what? I'm not a big time gambler, but I like craps. I said, I'll go to Vegas and just work on a table.

Starting point is 02:25:18 It sounds like a fun life. So I would do that. And then this is about January, February, and then October, or maybe later that year, the dot-com crash happens. And when the dot-com crash happened, GoDaddy was born. And then I had instead of guys waiting in line to, I mean, instead of not refusing to sell me anything at any price, I mean, every week,

Starting point is 02:25:51 at least one or two companies were doing business with Vanish. I mean, Vanish disappeared, fucking gone, baby. You don't even know where they were, no forwarding address, gone. And so we just, things started, instead of us trying to buy advertising, I have cash standing in line to give it to me. Damn. We take in October, we wait and they, we turned the company, we became cash flow positive

Starting point is 02:26:30 and never missed a month since. Well for somebody that was just telling me. Now tell me I don't have an angel. Mitigated risk, you just went from 38 million down to 6 to 8 million. Yeah, well that's because I'm a knucklehead. The valet Parker decided, is the one that made the decision for you, of hey, fuck it, I'm going to do this. Go back, willing to lose everything, the rest of your money, and then you blow Go Daddy

Starting point is 02:26:58 out of the water. Yeah. Yep. And so I sold GoDaddy until 2011 and sold 71% for $2.3 billion. And then sold the other 29% for almost $2 billion. Wow. Yeah, so. Wow. Not bad for a young guy from East Baltimore.

Starting point is 02:27:31 Not too bad, not too bad, I would say. You've done well. Yeah, so anyhow, I mean, the ads all, they all happened, there was just funny as shit how that came about. I love them, I love them. You want me to tell you funny as shit how that came about. I love them. I love them. You want me to tell you the Genesis how that happened?

Starting point is 02:27:49 Yes. So I'm running GoDaddy and I am never quite sure why our business just stalls where we got, we got a, um, 16% market share worldwide. I said, we got, we got the best prices. We got the best systems. We got the fairest policies. We got the best customer service. What are these other dogs? Why they why they still right in business? so I hired a market research firm and it's a kind of look at it for us and

Starting point is 02:28:33 They they come back with an answer They said the reason those people aren't doing business with you because those people don't know you exist You only advertise on the internet these These people are only reachable on direct media. I mean, on conventional media. So what I did was, that was in August, I said, all right, well, you know what? I had a $10 million war chest built up and I decided the Super Bowl was right around a corner. Let's make a Super

Starting point is 02:29:07 Bowl ad. Damn. And then you see, the Super Bowl ad back then will cost you three million dollars. It costs you way more than that now. It costs you like 10, 12, something like that. Maybe even maybe far more. So but anyhow, so what we would do is we took and I could not understand how you would give people's attention, people to look at your ad and people want to buy because they're at a Super Bowl party, your ad is only on for 30 seconds. And then after 30 seconds, they're talking, they're drinking cocktails, some are, some

Starting point is 02:29:57 aren't. There are certainly some, a lot of them aren't even paying attention to the television and all that. How are you going to capture their attention? And then one day I was with my second wife and I'm watching television and I've seen an ad from Mike's Hard Lime, and I knew, I knew. And what the ad was, you got three really good looking women at the end of a bar. And caddy cornered them is this guy. He's got his hunched over, his mic hard lined, and he's got a little bit of drop in the

Starting point is 02:30:39 bottom. And he's looking around, looking around. And instead of him holding you know, holding it up and letting it run down, he sticks a 12-inch tongue down and sworls it around and then pulls it back. And the bartender says, ladies, what do you have? And they point to him and we go we like one of those and I said that is it baby oh god I said that is it and um so so we uh did our first did our first ad we did a spoof on the Go Daddy Girl.

Starting point is 02:31:25 She didn't even have a name then. The media named her the Go Daddy Girl. We named her and she was at a hearing by a Super Bowl board of censors or whatever she was. whatever she was, and they were trying to decide if they were going to approve her being in an ad. She was going to be in an ad, and it was just hilarious because the guy running the whole show, his name was Booth Coleman, I think he's past, but he was an older guy. And he says, ma'am, what are you going to do on the game?

Starting point is 02:32:21 And she stands up and she goes, I could do something like this. And she, her bra, tank top strap snaps. And it was a spoof on Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, right? And she stops it. And it's just, it doesn't go, you know, all the way. So you see nothing, you see nothing. And, you know, you look at it, at it, it's filmed at a distance,

Starting point is 02:32:48 see things that blurred the cleavage, on and on and on. A lot of the ad is shot from behind. So Fox News said they would do the ad. And then when we sent them the actual ad, they said, no way. And so, you know, we said, they said, you know, we had guys with me said, why don't you, why don't you just say they denied it and you can, you know, people might want to see that didn't get approved. No, no, I wanted to run it because I had bigger aspirations. So anyhow, so we went ahead and did that, that minimized the ad shooter from the distance

Starting point is 02:33:30 and on and on. And so he's taking oxygen. And I had a line in there that said, where there's a woman up there on the dais with a booth, and she says, "'Those are not real.'" And he had, and then, so I had to change it. She'd say,

Starting point is 02:33:54 "'May I suggest a turtleneck?' And so anyhow, they approve it. And three days before the Super Bowl, they call me back and they say, you want to buy another spot? And I said, really? And they go, yeah, we got a spot open just before the Super Bowl. And it could be a very good ad or a very big, very great ad. And I think it was Buffalo playing filly or something like that or Patriots.

Starting point is 02:34:32 But whoever was, one of them was on a one yard line just when they did the two minute warning this ad was gold. And then our ad doesn't run. Doesn't run. And I mean, and they were like, maybe it's the next ad, maybe it's the next ad, maybe it's the next ad, never our ad, or an ad that never runs. So I get a hold of the president of Fox Sports, and I asked him what happened. He said, your ad was out of tenor,

Starting point is 02:34:58 with the rest of the ads we had to pull it. I said, really? Was out of what? Yeah. It was out of what? He said it was out of tenor. What does that mean? It means it just, it wasn't, it was, it shouldn't have been approved. Alright, so, so, yeah, I know, I felt the same way.

Starting point is 02:35:18 But I turned around to my buddy that, you know, he's my chief of staff. And I said to him, can we be this lucky? Can we be this lucky? That never happened before. So what they run instead of our ad, I'll tell you what they run. They run a picture of Simpsons and Bart Simpson, right? of Simpsons and Bart Simpson, right?

Starting point is 02:35:49 He goes in and he's stabbing a baby in a crib. That's what they run? Much more acceptable than a breast. So anyhow, that's what happens. So I get in touch with the president of Fox Sports, and here's what happens. He takes and he, you know, he go back and forth because we had our attorneys working on it and so forth. And so we got a deal. We got a deal with them. So I don't have to pay for the ad that didn't run. I don't have to pay for the ad that did run. And, you know, life is good. I mean, basically, the market share worked.

Starting point is 02:36:46 It went from 16% to 25% a year and held. Pew! So I mean, it was just great. So anyhow, so we take and, I'm there sitting them, sitting them at the table and these guys are on a conference call and I know ask sitting them, sitting them at the table, and these guys are on a conference call and I know ask for anything. Anything I'll get it.

Starting point is 02:37:11 Anything I'll get it. I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything. So here's what I think of. Are you ready for this? Here's the best I could do. I said, tell you what, give me a game ball, two game balls from every Super Bowl,

Starting point is 02:37:32 and we got a deal, and they go, done! Oh man. Wow. And that's how it came about. Yeah. So they made you named her the Go Daddy Girl, Wow. And that's how it came about. Yeah. Damn. So the media named her the Go Daddy Girl. Bill, I mean, it's just funny how it all came together.

Starting point is 02:38:02 Then you got a NASCAR, or I'm sorry, not a NASCAR, an IndyCar, correct? IndyCar with Daddy Capatric. I was playing golf with her Sunday, by the way. Oh, nice. Yeah. Nice. Are you guys pretty close?

Starting point is 02:38:17 She's a buddy of mine. And so it was me, my wife, and her, and another friend. And I had a nice time. Are you into racing? No. How did that come about? Well I was up in the Arctic and I was hunting and I was talking to the two guides and these guys, I mean, they're nowhere. And they were talking about the Indy 500, Dianna Capatric. And I said, wow, she's young.

Starting point is 02:38:54 She's in a man's sport. She is drawing a lot of attention. I said, she ought to be our spokesperson. So we reached out, we hired her, and then we were partners for eight years. Wow. Yeah, eight years, and she's now a member of my club, Scottsdale National, and good time.

Starting point is 02:39:22 I'll bet, I'll bet. What were you hunting up there? Grizzly. Grizzly? Yeah. Did you get one? So you sold Parsons Technologies, then you immediately started another company, then you sold ownership of GoDaddy, and then you moved into golfing. Golf.

Starting point is 02:39:44 Yeah. Golf and motorcycles. How, I mean, how much time was it? By this time you're a multi-billionaire. I guess I'm just curious, why do you keep moving into new business ventures? Why not? Hmm, I'll ask you. moving into new business ventures. Why not? Hmm. Oh, it's cute.

Starting point is 02:40:08 I mean, I'm addicted to it. I love entrepreneurship. Yeah. I love business. Yeah. I like it too. Keeps me going. I haven't worked for anybody since 1984.

Starting point is 02:40:20 I, um, um, just, just worked hard. I mean, it's just, you hit a point where you don't need anything more. Yeah, my wife and I, we move, we move a million to charity every other week. Every 14 days. Yep, every 14 days. And I think we've given a total of a couple hundred million, I know.

Starting point is 02:40:51 And we helped Semper Fi Fund, and then 10 million a year. We just crossed 120 million a year with them. I mean, 120 million with them. And you know, when it's all said and done, probably it'll all go to charity. How do you, I mean, how do you, I think that's amazing that you do that. And that's, you know, that's something I try to do here. I showed you all this stuff around the room and we've brought a lot of my friends on that have started nonprofits and psychedelics and healing and mostly combat

Starting point is 02:41:27 stress type stuff. And I just enjoy watching them succeed from, you gotta be careful I say this, because they built everything. I'm just a conduit to the public. I'm the advertiser, I guess, is the way you'd see it. And the traction that they get after they come on this show is just, it's tremendous. And it just makes me feel good to watch them succeed with all the exposure. And, you know, I think I'd read, was at 19 million you've donated to psychedelic research. And how do you, I guess what I'm asking is, the nonprofit game is tricky.

Starting point is 02:42:14 You really got to make sure that you're finding people that are doing the right things. And I'll lie people up for sometimes a year before I bring them on to make sure like, hey, is this money going to what it needs to go to? And is this guy, you know, I really enjoy finding people that are that are just really grinding it out. And I don't know, I guess I see myself in them. And I didn't have anybody to lift me up. And so I guess what I'm asking is how to every 14 days you're

Starting point is 02:42:47 donating another million, how do you find these these people that resonate with you or the companies that resonate with you, the nonprofits? Well I have a staff at our foundation. That's run by a very sharp lady by the name of Laura Mitchell, and she's been in that particular end of business for a long time, been with me a long time. She has staff, so they sort it out. I mean, if you're in a foundation, you're giving away money, your product, everybody likes it. Yeah, so you do have to be careful. But what we do is,

Starting point is 02:43:35 given the money to whatever the organization is that we're donating money to is only part of the contract, the contract you know we're also in touch with them monthly and they're assigned an individual from our foundation to be in touch with them and to you know help them in any way that they can and to also report back to us when the next time comes to where they knock on our door, if they did what they said they were going to do.

Starting point is 02:44:09 What's your success rate? You mean that of? Of nonprofits that follow through with it? Overall, close to a hundred percent. And I mean, do I have little disagreements along the way? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, I'm there to work it out. I'm not there to, you know, it's different than buy a pair of shoes, you know, like, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. You're a great person for doing that. Well, I thank my wife and there you go.

Starting point is 02:44:56 So how did you get into the golf industry? I decided to do it. I bought Scottsdale National and that was the first thing. You know, when I did the GoDaddy deal, I decided I was going to buy either a football team or a really, really nice golf course. And praise the Lord, thank my angel, I bought a golf course. So I love it. Do you play golf? I'm not any good. Who is? Who is?

Starting point is 02:45:36 Nobody's any good. Danica Patrick's pretty good, isn't she? She has her moments. Yeah, she has her moments. But you know, I bought Scottsdale National. It's just one of these deals where it became available. is 730 acres in Priem, real estate in Scottsdale, surrounded on three sides by, what is it, three million acres of land. Wow.

Starting point is 02:46:19 Government set aside, has one house on the property you guessed it very nice yeah very nice yeah well Bob let's take a quick break and then when we come back I want to dive into psychedelics which I didn't bring any I got you covered I got you covered. Good. the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month live zoom calls with me, exclusive merch, and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com slash Vigilance Elite. That's patreon.com slash Vigilance Elite. Thank you for listening to The Sean Ryan Show.

Starting point is 02:47:30 If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave The Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Bob, we're back from the break. I wanna dig into psychedelics. It's something that, like I had mentioned earlier,

Starting point is 02:47:57 it fixed a lot of things going on with my family. My son was six months old at the time when I finally decided to take that leap and It just totally changed everything for me. My family life, my business, old relationships opened me up to a lot of things that maybe I wasn't confident diving into before. I think would be a great way to put it. And sent me on a spiritual journey and found God and faith in Christ. Just so much good has come from since the very first time. And so,

Starting point is 02:48:49 I know for you, I mean, we had talked about your childhood, having grown up in a rough environment. We talked about Vietnam, coming home from Vietnam. I'm sure there's a lot of business stress. I mean, I can only imagine because I'm stressed out of my mind just with what I'm running. And, and, and I find a lot of peace through those and it took me. I guess almost 10 years, almost 10 years after I finally left doing contract work for the CIA in various combat zones to finally take that leap, it took you 49 years, if I'm correct. 49 years. How did you hear about psychedelics?

Starting point is 02:49:42 How did you hear about psychedelics? How did I hear about psychedelics? You know, when I was a kid in the 60s, you know, there was LSD around and, of course, marijuana, marijuana, I don't consider it psychedelic. There was, and then you had guys talking about mushrooms and other stuff, but I never did any of that then, because number one, I just, I didn't feel the need to, and I didn't, I was a little afraid of it,

Starting point is 02:50:17 because I didn't know much about it. You know, you had all these rumors that, you know, if you took LSD, you might try to fly off a building and you know, shit like that. So I didn't pay any attention to it. And I didn't even think about it, that it would have the medicinal properties

Starting point is 02:50:40 that it would do, even though in spite of, for millennia, we have other cultures that have used it to handle problems that we have all the time and they don't have it all because of their wise use of psychedelics. So the thing that made the difference for me was in 2017, it didn't happen until 2017, I read Michael Pollan's book, How to Change Your Mind. And Michael Pollan's book is a treatise on psychedelics. And it talks about, it doesn't talk about Iboga even though that is, that's granddaddy of them all baby.

Starting point is 02:51:26 Have you done that? No. I have. That was my first one. Yeah, I mean, you know, I haven't. And maybe one day. But I don't, I haven't so far. But I have, I read his book and you know, and I was and I was fascinated. I personally, the book reads like a novel, reads like mine reads. I could not get over that that could be a solution for me.

Starting point is 02:52:03 And so I told my wife, Renee, that I would like to try this. And she had me fixed up within two weeks. Are you serious? Dead serious. She had me hooked up. And it just so happened that she had been talking to a friend who had been talking to a friend who had a journey like this and on and on and on. And it's just everything just dovetailed together.

Starting point is 02:52:32 And so she introduced me to these people and two guides, work under the radar of course. And I met them in Hawaii. And I did for three days, I did three different types of psychedelics. First day I did ayahuasca. And you know, that's different. Yeah, you would never buy that at a soda fountain, would you? It had nasty taste and stuff. But anyhow, it is what it is. Some people swear by it. The second day, I did Magic Mushrooms.

Starting point is 02:53:22 And let's tell you a story that is funny. My guide, he made this, uh, he had this pot, this teapot, and he said this holds three large cups and I made it very strong, this, uh, magic mushroom tea, so you'll only need one cup. Now, I swear what I'm telling you, I'm going to tell you is true. I drank all three cups and I ate the tea bags. And I was righteously stoned. And I was here, there, and everywhere. You know, and did I have a journey? Yeah, I did. And it was all positive, some tears and so forth, but it was all positive.

Starting point is 02:54:16 And then the next day I took off, took a break. And that day my wife and I went and played golf and what I liked is it felt like the fauna like the bushes and the grass and that it all knew I was I was there and I was alive and what I've been doing and it was supportive and I never putted that good in my life And I never putted that good in my life. It was like whatever green I was on, it was like the grass would say, hit it here, Bobby. And I waited and it would bend right around into the cup.

Starting point is 02:54:56 I mean, it was incredible. Now, it never happened again or since, but it happened that one time. And so it was a great experience. The next day, it was LSD. And the LSD, I took a strong dose of it, and it had the same impact the other two did. It had the same impact the other two did. And I didn't have any hallucinations on that, but I sure had a righteous buzz and was happy to talk and feel good about things. And when it was all said and done,

Starting point is 02:55:45 my wife noticed it first. She said, you're different. You know, you're easier to talk to, you're easier to get along with, you, you know, it's, it's, it's, you don't have that temper, that edge about you is gone. And, and then I could then I could feel it too.

Starting point is 02:56:07 And then the people that I worked with also knew it. You know, they could see it. And so I made a sharp turn away from PTSD at that point. I'd like to say at that time, it had been 49 years since the war for me, and I finally came home. Wow. I'd like to dive into that a little more in depth, but before we get into each specific journey, I'm just, you know, what is it that, I mean, I know you found the book, but what was going on in your life at that time?

Starting point is 02:56:49 I mean what was, what sent you on the search? Well, brother, I had an edge about me that I didn't like. And I would lose my temper. And I just would hate myself for it, because it was no reason, it was always so stupid. And so, I mean, it was always under a quest. I knew that, first, I had a battle with some depression. I knew that, you know, at first, you know, I had a battle with some depression. I had fought this hard temper that I had.

Starting point is 02:57:39 And I just never liked being around people. I liked being alone, you know? And that's not a good thing. At least if you can overcome why you're like that. You know, it was terrible for me when days like the, like the days the trees fell. And that reminded, it was an experience I had in Vietnam. And I would always go back there on the 4th of July.

Starting point is 02:58:15 And I would do whatever I could to avoid fireworks, to stay away from that sort of thing. But it's stuff like that. And you know, I've been, my wife is my third wife. I mean, I've been giving my walking papers twice. And it's never a pleasant time. So and then, you know, and I knew that the women that I married both times were good women. I mean, there was nothing wrong with them.

Starting point is 02:58:43 But the problem was, the problem was me. What do you mean the day the trees fell? Okay, I'll tell you about the day the trees fell. We set up for ambush one night in a Yard in Vietnam. And we're, we're, it's all Vietnamese are buried sitting up, at least most of them are that I'm aware of. And so we had, we had a squad, a couple of clicks right of us, a couple of clicks left of us. And so I was facing just inward to this area where all these trees were, and I was leaning against the mound. And they were, there was, all of a sudden, when the right of us, there was a firefight

Starting point is 02:59:39 started. And then there was a firefight on the left of us, and there was bullets, you've been shot at many times. You know what it sounds like when a bullet goes by? Ssss. You know, it sounds like a beep or something flying by. But I mean, it was like, ssss. And it's going like crazy.

Starting point is 02:59:54 So he couldn't stand up. And then one of the guys in our squad, probably George, called in artillery. It must have been an NBA moving towards us from the front area, front of us area I was facing. And all I could see was, I could see, you know, I don't know how far out it was, maybe a couple hundred yards, maybe a hundred yards, I don't know. But it would be like everything would light up and then you'd see these trees, these palm trees just falling down, falling down and then and then on and on and on and on

Starting point is 03:00:34 and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and

Starting point is 03:00:42 and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and And that's what I'm talking about that particular night. That night was crazy. And then what was crazier about it, that particular graveyard, there was a squad of ours a month or so before I got there that set up in that graveyard and they all died because the North Vietnamese somehow or another. They were buried sitting up?

Starting point is 03:01:08 No, they weren't buried. They were just mutilated like sometimes happens. But none of us were hurt that night. Just the trees were just the trees were. What about the family life? I mean, two wives, you got kids, grandkids, great grandkids, you're running a major enterprise. I would imagine that takes somewhat of a toll on the family. Yeah, it does. It does. But, you know, I can tell you what the painful thing is.

Starting point is 03:01:51 What I decided was early on, it was... It might have been a good thing that I wasn't always around. Because of your temper? Yeah. temper. I mean, I never got physical, never once, but sure was verbal and loud

Starting point is 03:02:14 and that's I'm happy that with my angel I'm past that. At least 99%. Are you close with your kids? Yeah.

Starting point is 03:02:30 All of them? Yeah. How many kids do you have? Three. Close with the grandkids? Grandkids not as much. Great grandkids, haven't met them yet. Have met them yet?

Starting point is 03:02:42 Haven't met them yet. How old are they? They are, I think, two and a half and one, something like that. Do you want to meet them? Of course I do. Well, what's going on? Well, I will, but I will when I'm ready. Dead.

Starting point is 03:03:09 Gotcha. So you got all this going on in your life. You find Michael Pollan's book, read it, decide you're going to do it. Wife makes the connection. What are you seeing in your ayahuasca journey? What do I see in my ayahuasca journey? What I see in my ayahuasca journey You know, I've seen less than the ayahuasca journey that I did in the Mushrooms and the LSD and I think the reason for it is maybe you give me a lighter dose Anything get revealed?

Starting point is 03:03:46 Any epiphanies? In ayahuasca? You know, if it was anything, it's that I needed to change and I could change and there you go. But that is it. How about the psilocybin? Psilocybin had the biggest difference to me a number of times. And it seems to work good.

Starting point is 03:04:18 What did you see? What did I see? Well, I had that flashback of processing those guys to Vietnam. And then I told you when I was in troop process and just before I rotated home, that I mean, I could see those guys like I was there, like they were yesterday. I mean, like I was sitting here with you now. Was it look, was it looking at that experience or a different perspective? No, you know, it's just, it's just, I've seen the horror of it. I mean, just the, how that bullshit happens. And, and these

Starting point is 03:05:03 guys are walking into that and they don't have a clue. I mean, I've seen that. And I mean, if I had to tell you what my most stressful points were to cause PTSD, I would have never picked that. I just wouldn't have because I buried it. But it came out and it was one of the most profound. What else was revealed? That's it. The whole experience was Vietnam? Well, Vietnam, the war is rough for me. Being a kid is also a rough time.

Starting point is 03:05:50 But see, I was never, when I was a kid, I was never abused. I was neglected. And it's just as bad, maybe worse, I don't know. But I don't know, both times, But, I don't know, both times, both times, by the way, early on when I was talking about the introduction and that letter I wrote myself, I mean, it was everything I could do to tell you about it without crying totally. And maybe one day, one day I will, I'll be able to talk about it, but I mean it just wrenches my soul every time. So. You know, I think a lot of first borns, kids with neglect, kids that are abused. I mean I think a lot of them They become overachievers and like we're always trying to prove something on the oldest

Starting point is 03:06:57 It can relate somewhat But it's just When you were building all your companies, when you were in Vietnam, I mean, who were you trying to prove anything to? Anybody? Were you looking for some type of acceptance? Were you looking for some type of self-worth? You know, no and no. Self-worth maybe.

Starting point is 03:07:22 You know, it's tough to know what I was. I just know I love doing it. And that's an area that I think was a big advantage for me. I just loved it. And so I was willing to channel my energy and time into it and use that as a release to kind of self treat or self medicate PTSD if you will. I mean, you know, and you know, when you don't work 60 hour shift followed by

Starting point is 03:07:58 eight hours sleep followed by 60 hours shift followed by, you know, for a few months, unless you're a bit of a workaholic, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, that's what it was. But I loved doing it, but I didn't do it because I hated doing it. I used to look at my watch, and I never looked at it

Starting point is 03:08:16 and said, oh, it's four o'clock, I got another 12 hours left to work. I would look at it and say, oh, it's four o'clock. Oh man, I only have 12 hours I can work. I mean, that sort of thing. That resonates with me. But I mean, I guess what I'm saying is if you were neglected as a child, then, you know, all therapists go back to childhood. And they say that a lot of this stuff stems from childhood, a lot of, even

Starting point is 03:08:55 with a lot of war trauma, they dive more into, in my experience, they dive more into childhood than they do anything else. And so that's what makes me curious is if you built these companies to gain the approval or interest or just having your parents be proud of what you've built could be a major driver to a lot of people. And sometimes you gotta dig for it, but that's what I'm asking you, is if you think that, you know, by growing up rough and being neglected, if it was a driver in your business, in your entire life?

Starting point is 03:09:45 Well, you know, I think, you know, it had to be in the sense that I grew up knowing that if I really wanted something, I better be working for it, right? So that in itself is a driver, as opposed to somebody that's working with the silver spoon, right? And you're born with that, you know, they might not, you know, have that discipline.

Starting point is 03:10:10 It doesn't register. Yeah. So I was born with a dirty plastic spoon. You act differently with one of those. And what about your experience with LSD? LSD has been a different type of drug for me. I think it's been helpful. I tend to get a little with LSD, a little nauseous with it, but never so nauseous that I purge

Starting point is 03:10:52 and then move on to the next step, just nauseous. So, knowing that I've avoided it, but I still think having LSD, at the same time I had the combination of ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, or psilocybin and LSD, I think that is a powerful combination for me. And you saw the effects immediately, and your wife did. Yes. What did she see? You saw the effects immediately, and your wife did. Yes.

Starting point is 03:11:23 What did she see? Well, she seen I was kind of the guy she wanted to be married to. There you go. So you know, it's like, I was told once that every young couple that gets married, right, the husband thinks that, you know, doesn't want his wife to change and the wife doesn't want her husband, no, wants her husband to change and often they're both disappointed. Well, she was happy to see that her husband changed or maybe changed. And it stuck.

Starting point is 03:12:02 Yeah. Do you continue to use psychedelics? You know, I have, but I don't. I don't. I mean, I haven't in a while. My wife did a journey not too long ago with her sisters. They had some family stuff they were dealing with and it's been great.

Starting point is 03:12:27 And I'll tell you what, it's been, I mean, I love the woman tremendously, but since her journey, I love her even more. Have you guys ever done anything together? Oh, we have, we have. We have done MDMA. And done it twice, I think. But it's been a while. It's been a while. So why did you dive back in? Did you start to see any fall off from

Starting point is 03:12:55 what you've gained from your initial journey? No, I did because it was there. I thought maybe I could still be better. Did you have an ego death? An ego death. Have you heard of this? No. An ego death. Have you ever heard of 5-MeO-DMT?

Starting point is 03:13:12 Yeah. Have you done that? I have, and let me tell you a story with that. I've done that, and that's the kind that you smoke the... Toad bell. Right? Well, I've smoked it and did it three times smoked it felt nothing and and my my guide Who is my dear friend said this must be something wrong with this and he took a puff of it and was on the roof

Starting point is 03:13:38 So for some reason another that stuff doesn't affect me. No kidding. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what it is, but it's the damnedest thing. Damn. I did Ibogaine and then followed by five MEO DMT. And that was a total ego death of that. You legitimately think. You don't think in your mind, you are a hundred percent certain that you are dying and then you cross over into this other realm and Once you It's the most anxiety the most fear the most all of that stuff that I've ever experienced it it

Starting point is 03:14:19 Any one particular given point in time? Blasts for maybe 15 to 30 seconds, but it feels like an eternity. And I think a lot of people fight it, and maybe they don't cross over, but if you can actually let it go, just let go and actually die, because you are 100% certain you are dying. because you are 100% certain you are dying. You know, it's like your entire life. And it's hard to describe, but it's like, you just start letting go of everything, you let go of possessions and friends, and then there's like the final thing and the final thing for me was I

Starting point is 03:15:09 Was having a problem releasing My wife and my firstborn son. I didn't have my daughter at the time and that was my last thought before I crossed over was I can't fucking die because I Can't leave my wife and my son in this fucked up place. And then I let that go and you cross over to this other realm and man, it really opens you up to all the good in the world. And you know, I'd always heard about, it took me a long time to do this because I always thought psychedelics are just for fucking hippies.

Starting point is 03:15:56 And I definitely don't consider myself a hippie. But I've heard him talk about energy and good energy and bad energy and once I crossed over into that realm I could see like... I could see all of the energy flowing from the beach into the ocean, into the trees, the birds, the sky. I could tell that everything was connected one way or another. the sky, I could tell that everything was connected one way or another. But I wasn't hallucinating. It was more of an intuitive type of experience. I felt my best friend Gabe, that I was telling you about, whose Glock and flag is up there. I felt his presence.

Starting point is 03:16:42 We didn't talk, but I could just feel them and And That just that stuff just changed my entire life. It cured my addiction. I was a major alcoholic sucking down pills Valium Xanax ambient solanar Oxycodone any all of it anything I could get my hands on just a numb just a numb just a numb it out Gone like that haven't had a drop of booze since

Starting point is 03:17:13 Whoa, yeah it totally and then on top of that, you know, just being Just being on a on the platform that I've built in front of millions of people There was there were subjects that I've built in front of millions of people, there were subjects that I felt beholden to my audience. I have to, I can't venture into this because my audience doesn't want to see it. And it took all that shit away. It said, fuck it, just do whatever the fuck you want to do. And I started doing that and my business was already on a rocket ship and then, and then once I

Starting point is 03:17:45 didn't care anymore about anything but my own curiosity, my business just, it gave me the courage to say no to things. It gave me the courage to dive into new areas. It gave me the courage to, to start looking at the afterlife and what that looks like. We were talking about guardian angels. It spent me down a whole spiritual journey with that and looked into the universe and all kinds of shit and eventually landed on Christianity. And I continued to do self-maintenance you know it not on any particular cadence, but but I've done a fair amount of psilocybin and Man that stuff really cleaned me out to with a lot of the stuff that was going on between me and my wife and I

Starting point is 03:18:41 Think everybody should do this. I Think so. I think I think everybody should do this. I think so. I think it is one of the answers. I think when we start doing it as a people, should we ever stop doing it as a people? It'd be a renaissance. Why did you decide to do it again after your initial experience? Why did I decide to do it again after the initial experience?

Starting point is 03:19:15 You know, the first time it was I wanted to fix a problem. Second time, I wanted to get better, keep getting better. And now I feel I'm probably about as good as I'm going to get. So, I'm not doing it as much. Do you think you'll do it again? Might. I hope so. I hope so.

Starting point is 03:19:43 I'd like to do it with my wife again. What do you like to surround yourself with? Nature, when you do it? Nature, nature is one. It's hard to go wrong with that. And, um... And friends. Do you find clarity? Do you find answers? Not in the sense that there's something that I'm looking for. No. No. Do you go into it with intentions? No. No? No, no. Yeah, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, let me, you know, I was with one of the guides who was,

Starting point is 03:20:41 he was a guy that did my first journey in 2017, him and him and his partner. And I had thought about what I wanted to accomplish when he was there with me. And we went ahead and I had a journey and so forth. And I never thought I accomplished anything. But I accomplished everything. And I know you're going to ask me, you're going to say, what is it you wanted to accomplish? I don't fucking remember. And you're going to say, well, how do you know? Well, I did at the time I knew, but now I got my brain just, I've been eating chocolate chip cookies and they clattered my thoughts.

Starting point is 03:21:38 Oh, man. Are you a Christian? Yes. How did you a Christian? Yes. How did you find faith? How did I find it? How did you find faith? What does that mean? Faith?

Starting point is 03:21:53 How do I find it? Faith in God, faith in Christ. Or how do I find it? How did you find it? How did I find it? I think it takes an effort for me. But, you know, there's a saying, there's no atheist in a foxhole, right? I know that saying very well. Yeah, no atheist in a foxhole. And, you know, I mean, that's the best I can do.

Starting point is 03:22:28 Do you think that psychedelics is a bridge into a spiritual realm? You know, I think so. I think so. And, you know, I'd like to think that I haven't been able to really get in there as deep as is there available for the getting. Now, the one thing I can tell you, under the supervision of a doctor, of a physician, I've taken a strong injection of ketamine and have an absolutely total hallucination, almost geometric and stuff like that. I don't think I'll see anybody again.

Starting point is 03:23:15 I mean, pretty heady stuff. But coming through that, I don't have any particular thing that I come away with, other than love solves most things, violence solves nothing. And those particular things would be what I came away with that as. Well, I would say that's pretty profound. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I do know when I, um,

Starting point is 03:23:52 when I spend time and I, I, I study Christianity and I, I read about it, I get a feeling that I don't get from anything else. Me too. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Me too. Well, Bob, I really appreciate you coming in. It was an honor to interview you and, uh, and document your life journey. And, um,

Starting point is 03:24:17 I just want to say thank you again and God bless. Thanks brother. Well, I appreciate being here. You're quite a guy. You've had quite a life. And, you know, God bless you. I mean, you know, you could be an angel. I don't know about that. You are an angel. But thank you.

Starting point is 03:24:31 Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 03:24:39 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank an angel. But... Thank you. Yeah. Former MLB All-Star Sean Casey, aka The Mayor, keeps hitting it out of the park. Take my 30 years of experience.

Starting point is 03:25:08 Take the wisdom and knowledge I've learned from the failures when I got sent down my rookie year. All the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless. Keep charging. It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world. That matters. We talk about that. I don't know. I'm fired up. Baseball's back. And it's gonna be incredible. I love it.

Starting point is 03:25:24 The Mayor's Office with Sean Casey from Believe. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

Shawn Ryan Show - #197 Bob Parsons - Founder of GoDaddy & PXG

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