Shawn Ryan Show - #197 Bob Parsons - Vietnam War Veteran / Founder of GoDaddy & PXG

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Bob Parsons is a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and was awarded a Purple Heart. After graduating from college, he founded Parsons Technology, which was later sold to Intuit. He then founded GoDaddy, which became the world's largest domain name registrar. He later sold a majority stake in GoDaddy and founded YAM Worldwide. He also founded PXG, a golf club company, and The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation, which supports marginalized populations. Parsons is also the author of the bestselling book "FIRE IN THE HOLE!". Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://www.tryarmra.com/srs https://www.identityguard.com/srs https://www.betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. https://www.blackbuffalo.com https://www.boncharge.com/srs https://www.meetfabric.com/shawn https://www.shawnlikesgold.com https://www.helixsleep.com/srs https://www.hillsdale.edu/srs https://www.patriotmobile.com/srs https://www.rocketmoney.com/srs Bob Parsons Links: X - https://x.com/DrBobParsons  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drbobparsons  YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/ThinkFast126 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebobparsons/ Website - BobParsons.comBook by Bob Parsons - As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases (paid links): Fire in the Hole!: The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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or someone close to you please contact connects Ontario at 1866 5312,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge that MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They had VC or MVA come out of a spider hole and through a through a chikom at this this guy. He picked it up and went through a back and it went off in his hand. Arm gone, side of his head gone. People were starting to have a little uncertain about the war but they weren't like to worry when we came home. Guys coming home throwing with signs and names Nazi murderer. killer don't forget baby killer you're like your soul coming out of your chest mr bob parsons and the flesh welcome to the show

good to be here son man i'm really excited to interview you i've been i've been watching go daddy you 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 in coming into nashville and and knocking this interview out with me i I think it's going to be awesome. 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 and the Vietnam War, self-taught programmer who started Parsons technology in your basement in 1984, 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 and psychedelic assisted therapy, using it to confront your own PTSD and funding over $19 million in research to help others. That's super close to me.

I did that. I did an Ibegain experience in Mexico and totally changed the trajectory of my family life, my business life, every aspect. New York Time bestselling author of the book, Fire in the Whole, Self-Made Billionaire. ranked 338 on the Forbes 400 20204 list with a net 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 it 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 an inner child workshop one time trying to find myself. This was 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, you know, I was just sitting in my hotel room at night. 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.

And stuck with you ever since. 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. 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. Wow. 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 just said that, you know, I'm writing to you for many years in the future. And I know more about you than any other person alive.

I know everything there is to know about you. And I know that you're going through a tough time in your life. I know that 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, anybody's going to tell you, and to just hang on. and that one day, you know, believe in yourself and never stop dreaming because more than anything, that'll be your salvation.

That's powerful. So that's that letter. 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 when I grow up.

And what was that for? 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 know you know this, but I want to do an expose on your life. And so we're going to go through childhood, the Marine Corps, 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, we'll start with something light. So there was this back and forth conversation from your assistant and us about the condom story. I don't know anything about it. I didn't want to know anything about it. I just want to hear it directly from you. And the little I do know about it, it sounds hilarious. So what is the condom story? Well, the condom story. The condom story,

is when I was a junior or a senior in high school, I had never been with a woman, you know what I mean? We talked about it day and night, but I never, never, never been with a girl. And this is I'm growing up in these Baltimore. So my buddy Danny Thorne, who's a year or two older than me, who is my total advice on, you know, he told me everything I needed to know about women.

And most of the stuff, totally, totally wrong. Right? 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. There's a lot of ways to do it. He says, you move all the hair to his side. This is back when before the shaved, right?

who fought a hair at his side, and 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. Nice. So Danny was getting her home base action from this girl named Tony. And Tony was, she lived with 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, you know, to plunge your head. 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, you know, 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 his condoms squirrels away, you know, and I pull it out and I'd sit in on my dresser

and I'd look at it and they'd 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 to where it's Friday and I come home, it's 3 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 for, you know, to go up and meet Pauline, so I put them in my best clothes.

They weren't much, but they were my best. So I go ahead and do that, and then I pulled his condom out. And I guess by then it's 4 o'clock. And I pulled his 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 could just picture the condom saying to me that's my first time too right so we take in them I as soon as I put it up

you know as soon as I pulled it out I'm a heart as a rock I mean I'm thinking about this I'm ready to shoot through the roof right 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

So I go up and meet them and so forth. And so from, that was about 6 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. And it rolled up in my pubic ears. Right? So I'm there with Paul Lane, Danny and Tony go upstairs. 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 Paul Lane and we start smooching. And, man, I think it was like a switchblade. But the only difference was, Sean, it didn't unwrap the way it wrapped up in the pubic hair. didn't let them go. So instead, it hung on to every one, and it just pulled with the force of,

it felt like somebody took my pubic hairs and collude them to the bumper of a Chevy in Florida. Oh, my gosh. So first I was going to, I said, 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. floor. And they had this little bathroom with this little little door with a little latch on it. It's just a makeshift toilet, right? So I go crawl and get into there and shut it and

latch it and try to get this thing off. I can't get it off. I mean, it won't come off. You know, my penis is like and I'm not letting you. And I'm saying how Mary's, our fathers,

I've been 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 norliest woman I ever seen, thinking about it, and maybe what would be like to having sex with Mother Superior? Didn't matter.

So, eventually, I mean, she knocks on the door, only 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 the minute.

So eventually, I 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. Nice. And we got pulled ourselves together, went outside, and she's long gone. She left.

He lost her. She lost her. That was the first. So I lost her and I still remember my buddy Danny. I never told anybody what happened way back then. Never told anybody. He said, how did you fuck this up? It was a sure thing.

And she told all her girlfriends that she told all her girlfriends that I, I, what we were going to do. And then we said then I kissed. her and then I ran into the, like myself in the bathroom and I did it. And then, of course, I was... Never sealed the deal with that one, huh? Yeah, I killed the deal totally. Poor Pauline. She messed out.

Well, I'm hoping someday, I don't know where she is, but if she is, she gets some bulk 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 I taught me that, yeah. But, well, that clears that up, the condom story. Wow. What a great way to start. Let's talk about something that actually brings a lot of stress this time of year, banking.

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BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. All right, so a couple things. One, I got you a gift. Vigilance League gummy bears, legal in all 50 states, at least until RFK makes them illegal. It's just candy. But yeah, we make those. Like I said, they're made right here in the USA. And then one other thing to knock out, I 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. at 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's been with me since the beginning and they've they've really supported me uh 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 um 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 U.S. Marine, I've come to believe that owning 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. Super five, Nate.

Well, buddy, listen to it. 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, you know, about certain things. But one of the things he said, 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 it only stands the reason, Nate, because when you do what you love,

you're going to work harder at it. then 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 100% agree with that. And I'm doing what a lot of. I love and 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, um, so let's start. Let's get into the, let's get into the interview. So you grew up in East Baltimore. Yep. Brothers, sisters. I grew up in East Baltimore. Um, a younger brother, younger sister.

Um, mom and dad, of course. And we never had much. Mom and Dad were gamblers. And neither one of them were said good at it. And so we were always broke. I mean, always, always broke. And if Dad bought anything, it was always with credit, and they always would goose him with the interest rate,

which means we would even have less. So if we needed to have anything, we had to figure out how we were going to work can earn it and earn it and how we're going to make money and give what we wanted to get. And we did things like newspaper routes, shoveling snow, running errands, working in full stations, construction, all that kind of stuff. But my first business is an interesting story. It was a limited stand.

And so one day I'm probably about eight or nine years old. And I go ahead and decide it's in one of those hot days that they get in Baltimore that, you know, you could see this heat wave off the, off the tar street, you know, asphalt street. And when I did that, I decided, man, I'll make a 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.

So I go ahead and get this picture around. 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's called real lemon. And I fill this thing up with the lemon. And then I put a lot of sugar in it. And then I put water in it. And I mix it all up.

And 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 I just put more sugar in it Right And I just keep mixing up Mixing it up mixing it up

And so I go outside I put this At this little table I set this little table up At the base of her porch And I put this little sign up Lemonade 5 cents And the lemonade

Pitcher looked beautiful It made it look beautiful It had like a little sweat on it. I mean, it's just, it's perfect. Well, this is back during the days when back during the late 50s, when the insurance guys would, life insurance guys would walk debit routes, right?

And they collect the weekly premium, because this is the only way you're going to get it in these Baltimore. You go knock on somebody's tour and they get it from them. So this guy's name is Mr. Hill, H-I-L-L, and he's got this little pork pie hat on. He's got his board coat slung over his shoulder, got his tie undone. He's walking, he's squatting like a hog, right? So he says to me, he goes, and kid, I says, he says, man, can I use, can I use, 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 can't believe my luck. So he takes, and he knocked his lemonade. back and he seems to wave. And he waving around. His eyes bulge. He spits his lemonade out the street. And he goes, that's a kid that's the worst fucking lemonade.

And he goes storming away. And I thought, maybe, maybe, um, Maybe it just isn't that bad. Maybe he don't know how it's my face. Yeah. So the next day, the girl across the street, Suzanne, she comes over, she buys a cup of lemonade, takes it over, home, comes back and says, my mother says,

you have to give me money back. So I get her money back. And the same, same thing. And then nobody would come near my lemonade stand. So, so, can I, can I, comes over. Later, my mother comes home, and she says, what are you doing? I said, I'm selling lemonade. She said, you're selling lemonade? I said, yeah, she said, how did you make it? And I said, I took the lemon bottle and I poured it. She goes, I keep vinegar in that bottle. Oh, shit.

So I made lemonade with vinegar, and she helped me make a better lemon. they actually tasted good. Nope, weren't already done. Yeah. Nobody even wanted it for free. Nice. So anyhow, that was my first business, utter failure. So you said your parents are gamblers.

What would they, what were they gambling in? Anything they could? Anything. Horses, sports, numbers. I bet that mom would go to bingo all the time, but there 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. Yeah, he was in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, the Fiji's. Did you guys talk about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. And he was, had all these, 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, the Japanese suicide sub, two-man sub, screwed into the side and blew it up.

Oh, wow. And I said, how were you there to, you knew they were going to take a picture? He says, you all, 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. And it wasn't that they waited for him to get off the ship. They just were able to. And so he had that.

Part of what he did was drive a bulldozer, I believe. And he said, they sounded like the Japanese Euro sandal like washing machines. He said, and he said the Marines had it to tough. He said, but he helped build the airfield and stuff like that. Wow. Wow. What else were you into as a kid? It sounds like life was pretty rough.

You know, what kind of stuff were you into? Well, you know, I was a terrible student, terrible student. And I fell out of the fifth grade. And nobody can ever take that away from me. but I, 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 going to go, I'm going to go home one time, a kid would say, hey, Roberts, can you hear me that? Or something I would.

I'd hand it to him. She got Robert Parsons just staying at school. Why? So, anyhow, it was the last day of school. And me, this kid named Frankie, his kid named Anthony, and everybody got their report cards. It was when in Baltimore Days hotter and shit, you know. And it was maybe June or May.

And I went to San Luis. Elizabeth's a Hungary. And so all I was looking for was a nun-free summer. Sister Brenda handed everybody to report cards. And then said to me, Frankie Nancy says, use three, wait here, I'll be back later. And as I take his line out, and there you go. And then I'll process your whatever is going to happen.

But she didn't say we failed. So, Anthony's saying, I remember him saying, what I wonder what Sister Brenda wants us to stay back here for? 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, 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 it'd take all the way down and then across the street, it's where she'd meet the parents. Well, my father, every, every year on the left-state 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 and you know for passing and then we'd bring us home so um i was thinking there is no way i'm going to tell my father i failed so 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 it was fencing off the convent.

And I could see Sister Brendan the class coming down, walking down with them. And everybody's happy with their report cards and so forth. And I said to her, the thing I had in my favor was I knew about Sister Brendan. a very lazy nun. I had some inside information. She would never, during a 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. And so she did the same thing with this. She took and let the class go, and the nunnery in the class turn right, and you're going to walk now by herself. And she went back to crucifidey on holy threesome. Right? So I just stood as a nunnery in a class turn right. And she went to go. I just stood as a man. And I was halfway wondering, worried that the class was going to see me and the people were going to go, what are you doing, and so forth. They didn't even notice me. I mean, I could have been one of the bushes.

So they were too worried about themselves and the report cards. So they started away, kept walking. I followed them. And I go down the block with them. And I cross the street where my father is. My father is already there with my brother looking at his report card. And my father says to me, 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 hurt strange noise, you know. And I said, I said, no, dad. This year, if you passed, you didn't get a report card. That's when the lie came out. No, no. You keep in mind, he's holding my brother's report card. And he goes, he says,

smoking pheritons right then. He takes a puff and he says, I get in the car. He says, not a problem. So he takes us to the sporty goods store. I know in the store to a good store, I'm on death row. So he says,

my brother's got a bunch of stuff. My father's going to put most of that back. Just pick one thing you want. And then I, he says to me, Robert, don't you want anything? I said, dad, I, I, I got plenty. I had nothing.

So he says, I'll get something. So I got this first baseman's mitt, you know, 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.

There's a report card. And then he's me. You know, she says, where's the report card? Same thing, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And she says, I never heard of such a thing.

that you know 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 so I went and sat on a sofa and I waited for a school to call what a school never called no they never called I waited all summer long and they didn't call all summer so 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. I said, all 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. As a matter of fact, one time I went to tell my dad what was going on, and then he goes, So he's got the newspaper up. It's hot as there's no air conditioning in the house. He's sitting on his sofa that is covered in plastic. So when they know he's from my mother, he's sweating his ass.

Smoking his dirt. So I say, Dad, I'm going to tell him. Dad. And he drops the paper, and I see these eyes bulging out, sweat running down his face. I said, never mind. about the door. So anyhow, so first day of school,

I get in, we go with Miss Maui, the neighbor lady. You know, she had this little red beetle. She was this big, large woman, and she 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 had one class for each grade. And I get in the line with the sixth graders. And I didn't know what else to do. And I look over in the fifth grade class, there's Frankie and Anthony.

And there's motion to 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 or third graders. 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. 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. 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'm old sister. And I wish I could tell you I was a lot better. I was a little bit better, right? And I remember when I got my sixth grade grades, I showed them to my mother. And she goes, well, this is nothing to be proud of, but she did pass. And I like it 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 Jim

class. I was a scene. year. It was probably March or 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. Right? And so I took in, with that, I was sure I was going to. to fail. I mean, this time, I wouldn't 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. Agarice, his name

He was a Greek guy. And 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 the sign of papers for me to join. Oh, really? And she said, and maybe this will be what you need. And it's during a height of the Vietnam War.

That was in 1968. 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

a 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

and they had took me back door those days and so you know I got accepted and there you go you were going to war huh you knew you were going to go to war yeah I thought it 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 what age 17 I was 17 yeah 17 years old

joined the Marine Corps to go to Pieddam and what did you what was your job description in the Marine Corps was 0-3-11 buddy nice is the number familiar oh yeah very familiar yeah I was in 0311 Aggie was in 0311 Michael was in 0311 and um

so and then crazy shit happens and we come home, Aggie gets in a tussle at a par, his mother owns gets stabbed the death. So he never even went. And then me and Mike went. I went to Delta Company, 26 Marines. We're in Quangnam province. And then Mike, he went to the first Marines somewhere.

And I don't see him anymore. And there we go. Well, it sounds like the Marine Corps was very, very, transformative process for you and 100% give it a lot of credit yeah you know the one thing I'll say is you know it was um you know they did more for me than I ever did for them and um 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, you know, to believe in myself and that I can accomplish more than

I ever dream possible. And I always help 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 in August. And six months after August, Vietnam.

Wow. Wow. So you went, basically, you went through basic training, your infantry school, O311 school, and then right to theater. There you go. How was boot camp for you, basic training? Well, boot camp took me a while to get adjusting. But after a while, I got adjusted foot just fine.

you know. I mean, the food was great. And I still remember that ice cold chocolate milk. And, you know, for me, it was the food of Paris 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 last. and I had a drill instructor Sergeant Little. He said, Farses, you better, he was screaming in my ear, g-ha-ha-ha. And it was pissed at me because I wasn't. What did your parents think about, and your siblings think about Vietnam? You going.

Well, you know, my dad said he wish he could go in my place. And mom, you know, you have to understand. It was a very different mom. My mother was, when she was a young girl, she was beat a lot by her father and so forth. So she was abused in that sense. And so she didn't have a lot of, she had a lot of beat out of her. So I remember when it was time for me to leave for, for, to catch the plane at Friendship Airport, which in the Baltimore, Washington then.

And I'd go to Friendship Airport. and before that I was out at that night before and my mother comes in and she says dad just got up and went to work. He didn't even say anything. No kidding. No. And then mom said, well, I'm going to, I'm going to the racetrack when Aunt Bert. Don't get yourself killed.

That was it? That was it. And off they went. And so I called. called my brother. I mean, not my brother, my cousin. And he'd give me a ride to the airport. And they had, there's 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 ever used to. So I didn't bother me too much. And then to Pendleton. Holy shit. So you got no sundoff from family. No.

Wow. Were you guys close at all? Family? Yeah. No. Me and my brother. Where do you fall in the birth order? I'm first.

My brother's second and my little sister. And now, They're all passed, except for my little sister and me, and she and I are close. That's good to hear. What's her name? Beverly. I mean, was there any communication once you got? Did you write them 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, um, um, uh, once in a while, um, um, uh, Um, Paris would write me a letter, but not much. Wow. Well, let's talk about, let's move into Vietnam. What, what was it like landing there? Well, man, I'll tell you what, that place smelled different than any place I ever smelled in my life.

It must smell like rot. So we spent our, our first night guard in the rear area, and that's just some, some place to put us, you know? until they trucked us out to our unit. And we were with Delta Company, First Battalion, 26 Marines, first platoon, second squad. And I got to my squad,

and we're in Kwangnam, rice pad is as far as you can see, right? And it was quite a place. I remember, I got the guys were staying in a tent, a canvas tent. And so I had a bunk and a couple guys. I think it's like a Marine Corps rifle squad.

It's about 12 guys. 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, you know, 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 this ambush. So they were killed and there was four of them were killed. One of them was seriously wounded 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 to Bush for six weeks That was the most senior guy? Yeah Wow Yeah What did you think about that? Well, at first You know, we were going out on our first night

Sam Bush And I sat down and I mean, I went outside the hut and we had this, we're at the very top of Hill 190 and you know what means it's a Hill 190, the number is it's 190 feet above sea level. So we're at the top of this and right at the top was this old French fort there

or this was wall with shells 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 to hell am I going to survive this? Because the Army and Navy and Air Force their tours are 12 months.

Marine Corps is 13 months. I don't know shit from China. 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 haven'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, 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 you.

Yeah. That's, you know, it's interesting that you say that because, you mean, you're the only other person I've heard that articulated that. And that's kind of the way meant to inject my own experiences is 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. Yeah, it takes the fear totally out of it. But what it does, though, is you can do your job. Yep. You can do your job. And so that night, we went on a first ambush. So you had, you had come up with

that mindset before any fighting had even started. Excuse me? 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. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I did.

I've been in so many different types of situations, you know. And it's just, we're just, you know, it's just, this is 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, 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, he said, how can you do your job if you worry about, you worry about, you worry about you know, 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. He lives down in Austin, Texas.

I love the guy. So anyhow, but none of us told each other. No shit. Yeah. Which has had that mindset. So anyhow, so we go out, we get a first ambush. We have a corpsman with us. And then a sister squad, we're in a, we're just outside a village in a pagoda.

And then... What's a pagoda? A pagoda is, it's like a little religious place. Okay. Where they have altars and stuff like that. At least that's what we call them was pagodas. And so, and then about a clicker, a couple clicks from us was another pagoda. and we had a sister squad set up there.

And after we were set up on this ambush for maybe, maybe 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'd do a wait a while, let it get good and dark, and then there'd be a first move. And then we'd set someplace else, And then there'd be another move, and then we'd set in for the night. And the deal would be to move so nobody knows where you're right. So anyhow, that was the thought.

So this squad, our sister squad, is in this other pagoda, and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose where they are. And we get the radio call that they sprung their ambush. they had a fucking VC or MVA come out of a spider hole and through a chikam at this guy

and then he picked it up and went through it back and it went off in his hand shit yeah so he's pretty fucked up and so to get there with the cormant because they didn't have a corman with him

so we get there we run through this through this fucking rice paddy Ever walks through a rice paddy? No. Well, I'll tell you what, rice paddy is 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, water would be like about maybe a couple of feet deep, and then the mud would be a foot or deep or so. So you'd go down in it and every kind of vermin you can think. of us going to crawl 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 choking me. It's magazines are choking me. I got them in like a bandalero 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. Trying to check an eye that's not there with a hand that's not there. I mean, it's crazy shit, you know,

that you see you in war. And the squad leader is this guy named Blackwell. And he starts, he starts, just standing in this rice paddy, and he's thrown up, and then he's just standing there. And it's just a helicopter. This is coming in. This Huey's coming in, and it's going to 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. But we hit a rice fatty tank and go, and this, and he snaps him out. out of it. And then I saved his ass and saved my own ass. But

so then we took in and they told us to go back out. It's a different ambush place. And after this guy Hunt gets taken back he had a medevac back. And by the way, it didn't kill him. He didn't die.

He uh, I've seen him at a reunion. Yeah. No shit. Yeah. And so so I take in we sat in with the sister squad which we weren't supposed to do it all but we thought we'd get some sleep

so the next morning the sun breaks nobody's answer to radio is where we are and the hell we're doing what the fuck her fired a 50 caliber machine gun over her head

then we motored back and it threw her ass out and I 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 half his face blown off you know it didn't it didn't didn't didn't didn't were you numb to it before it ever happened no pretty much yeah pretty much but but the the the 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. So, and to this day, I'm still close to them. I talk 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

But then I hit a A this grenade. We call him J.coms. It was set up as a trap. And my buddy, what the fuck's his name? Because my mind just went blank, but he'll kill me. I forgot his fucking name.

We'll get there. We'll get there. Maybe it'll come back. He steps over a trip wire, and I hit it. And so I caught shraping both legs and left elbow. And then I got medevaced out all the way to the Naval Hospital in the Kusko. So I was there for a couple of months or three. I don't even know how long.

If it's okay, let's go. Let's go. I want to get to that. Okay. Get a little more descriptive. But what were some of the other ambushes that you guys had done? We are walking. one ambush and Brownie sees all of a sudden where we're at, we're going through this village, right?

And it just got dark, right? And we're going through this village. And two NVA soldiers, both with NVA rifles, black pajamas, all mine yards, come running right at us. He turns with his M60 and takes them both out. I mean, and they were dancing like the halls. And so, yeah, so, and then that night, at night, right then, you know, we sweep towards the area where we had the activity come from. And my place was, I was sweeping towards where there was the hoots that I think that they came running out of.

And I took a hand. grenade and throw it, right? And only it didn't go as far as I thought it was going to go. And it landed, but it landed on the other side of a Rice-Fatty Dyke facing away from us. So when it blew, it blew away from us, right? Guys, Lagatik and George, the squad leader, scared the shit out of him. He turned around and go, do you just fucking throw that?

And I said, yeah, I did. And they go, well, don't throw him more 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 him? He says, fucking ain't right.

You got to carry it. He said, just give him to somebody else to throw. And I said to him, Suppose we're getting over them run. And he says, then you can throw them. 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 was where there was jungle and so forth. So I never spent some time there, but it was all during the day. But it was mostly just quiet being in the dark. With seven guys. Well, seven and then ten and then 12 and then that sort of thing. And then, I mean, it's just so many things. Like the first night I was there, I shot a snake.

you know we would sweep and body count was a big thing so we'd sweep through the rice paddies and we 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 and because this is this is an EVA

that we did kill they always would have something around a piece of rope around her neck to be pulled the way by somebody else. No shit.

Yeah. So... That's how they would collect their dead. Yeah. Yeah. They would nuisance them and track them through. Yep. Wow.

So, I mean, these guys have more stories, 100 more stories than I do 100 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 this other squad. So, so we take in the, we take in this squad, squads, as a snake, anyhow, so the snake's coming down, and it's just when it's about two or three feet. Because I'm thinking, surely he's going to go

left to right, right? This thing is coming like he's going to bite me in the balls, right? So I put my right, and automatic. I'm a and all this water comes flying up and it hits me in the fucking eyes and I'm moving

and I look and I get my eyes clear and I look left and left right. Nobody's there. They're all into water. Oh fuck. Well I didn't hear the end of that forever. And then George was nice about it later because the next day he said

Next time, don't shoot the snake. So anyhow, that was that night. So it's just crazy shit that happened. I remember one time we were on a day patrol. For some reason, now there's a whole company's coming out and it's the day patrol where the whole platoon that was pre-rolesment. Me and two of me, Proctor and a guy named Pavlovich

were sent to get water. So we go into the village. and we 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 him, like a small coaxe come in, 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 going to believe him. You know what you fucking believe me. And Proctor and the other thing are dead. So there's been all the 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, right? Provilovic goes, suppose these are poison. And then Proctor goes, who gives a fuck? So that's one of my happy, happy stories about the place. But crazy shit, crazy stuff. Did you get into any firefights?

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 the machine gun is the side that turns to Zend, I mean, 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? Bryant. The guy's name is Bryant. He goes, you and Bryant run the can of machine gun ammo over to Brownie. And so we did. And then his fucking gun starts taking on, they're shooting at us. We dive, we're laying against us. Dike is shooting over top of us.

We get up, we get this stuff over to Brownie. And the funniest damn thing happened is I've thought about that at night, that day, many, many times. And I cannot remember what happened. No shit. And so I go to a reunion, I ask one of the guys there, said, you remember what happened, right? and he says, oh, we killed every fucking one of them. I said, did we? I said, I was there one night.

He said, yeah, you were there. I said, anything unusual happened? No. I don't remember. I mean, it's like it didn't happen. I remember giving the ammo to Brandy and this kid Goodwin, who was right one and his egg on her. And no, is it?

Nothing. Nothing. Totally. Totally. Totally. I'm just curious I mean, did you did that incident

come up during any of your psychedelic journeys? No. Never? No. Wow. Nope.

No, didn't. And that is the only to the best of mine is the only incident like that. And firefights exchanged rifle fire a couple times but not a lot. I mean, I had not seen light combat, I mean, compared to most guys, especially the guys who were up around the DMZ.

And, man, when I got wounded, I think I had about, I'd probably save my life. Do you think he killed anybody that night? I don't know. I mean, how would you know? Do you're... I mean, I didn't, I mean, they weren't close like me to you. Yeah. Right? Or, you know, I get like when Brandy took those two NBA 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 anything? 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 NBA about maybe a football field or two. away from us in a village. We started firing one, and they were firing that back, and nobody got hit, and the best of 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 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 accelerating. Some ways it was. To see it? Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, I was like part of the team. I mean, that was, I mean, that was it. I mean, I didn't do much for the team, but I was part of the team. Did you think much about it? No.

No. Later on in life? No. And, you know, and 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, you know? I mean, it was, it was, it was just the, the whole idea of the war.

And, I mean, I remember seeing those two guys who look like dolls, dead dolls, right but the legs are all contorted and shit where was this it was the same same episode oh okay yeah same episode if you're looking for war hero brother I ain't the guy well I'm just fascinated in Vietnam

I mean that was that was you guys and your generation that was that was what really inspired me to become a seal and go overseas you know for

my generation's award Vietnam beg me so I just have a ton of respect for Vietnam vets yep yeah so I got a hell of story when you're ready

you're going to take a break or whatever now let's go into 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 me and we're not remembering anything on that. I had time with me and Bryant were running an ammo over. I remember, I remember they carried me back and they couldn't get a, they couldn't get a,

Yeah, another night, the guy got wounded. Point Man hit a trap. It was walking on a rice paddy dike, right? And I helped carry him back. And the reason we had to carry him back is because he was just 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 were busy at least that's what I was told and when I was wounded it's the same thing happened right only I wasn't walking on a thike I was walking on a path through a village so so I'd take and get to this to this road and there's these two guys

two guys in a robe and they got me, they just shoot me full of morphine, I think it was. And I mean, I didn't give a fuck about anything. And one interesting thing before that, which is a fun story before that. I take, and I get sent back, because I got the cut in some barbed wire or something, I cut all my fucking fatigues up.

I only had one pair. So the company gun, 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 did. I got it, I had that, get it all cut. So I take in them, I go back, I get my hair cut and then I go to where the fatigues are and there's these

two rear area guys, or we're starch fatigues. And it's this big warehouse. And I said, I'm here to get some fatigues. And they said, well, you need a chit signed by the colonel. I said, well, where's the colonel? He said, well, he's up in Dong Ha, which is hundreds of miles north. And I said, well, I got to go back to the bush. And these pants are all ripped up.

So they said, you know, brother, that's this. They'll hang us if we give them to you. So 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 go through this area where there's the Quonset huts. Well, it must have been there. One of them was there in one of the Quonset huts. I opened a door up, and I go in, and it's like fucking candy land in there.

So I take an open one of the lockers, and it's got a brand new set of a 15. 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 is a rubber lady and an air mattress. Not a rubber lady like you get at the bed shop. Just the rubber lady. So I take all the air out of it and then put it under my arm and then I take and start with all my new pockets. I start stuffing marlbrils and Winston's in because those motherfuckers would take all the marlbrils and Winstons and then send us out like L&Ms and Samms and Cants and Nasty assigarettes.

All the shit. So I go back and these guys are saying, where fuck you get that? I said, never mind, I just got it. So I gave them some cigarettes. forth, and I blew that rubber lady up. And so I only slept, had it for like two days. And then I got wounded. So I'm going away in a case.

He says, hey, Parsons, who gets your rubber lady? I said, you guys decide. Nice. So let's talk about the day that you got wounded. Is in 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 right to get to the

field hospital and they were they had some country Western music going I remember that ever singing they were I thought they were fucking loaded and I didn't really give a shit but you know they were you know as long as they were there taking me so they take me to take me to the to the field hospital and And immediately cut all my clothes off. And then they do a triage. And, you know, I guess they determined, you know, 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 of 60. 70, so I remember they kept moving. I was laying on just a canvas cot, and they kept moving it closer, closer.

And they had all these buckets of water. And they put me on, put me on this X-ray machine. It's 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, and I don't remember anything after that. Then next morning I wake up, bed is soaked, pissed all over it. And the carman says, don't worry, brother. You just, it was just so busy.

We didn't have time to put a catheter in you. And so I put one in me, and then change sheets. And then a colonel come over and say, congratulations. You're just a verbal heart. Wow. in the actual operation, the ambush that you were on. Can you describe how you were wounded again? Yeah, I had a trip wire.

Hit a trip wire. Had a trip wire. 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 big piece of shrapnel go into the joint and didn't damage it.

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.

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 it. 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.

And then it didn't so much, and then it did. And then they shot me with morphine and then, of course, I didn't hear it so much. I've seen it, you know. Didn't know what happened at first. You're disoriented totally. Did you think you were going to die? No.

You knew you would love. Yeah, I thought it would. I thought I fucking would. Oh, God, and the guys are with got pissed. They started fucking putting a zip boat to this village. And he says they got a George squad leader, got in a little bit of trouble for that. 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 anymore, but we were in and he forgave him. Because he was a good fucking Marine. Jesus Christ, he was good. Like about a couple days after, they set up on this bank. and 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.

And then they were ordered by our captain, Captain Moorhead. They go all the way down to go about a mile or two out of sight, and then turn around and go, you know, a couple of clicks in, then come all the way back and reset up in the same spot. And they did. And when they did,

they, um, an hour or two later, the company, the rest of the company came through. And of course, these guys, being the fucking knucklehead says

they were, opened up one of them. And, um, and they said, George said, they was the fucking hell fight went on all night.

Damn. And they was, It was just fucking, a gunship was going around. You know, and when it's on shown, he says there was bodies everywhere, and where there weren't bodies, there were drag marks, you know. Wow. Yeah. Well, Bob, let's take a quick break.

And then when we come back, we'll talk about your coming home. We'll talk about the hospital first. All right, we'll pick up at the hospital. There you go. buddy. Perfect. Whether it's with your besties or date night, get to all the hottest concerts with GoTransit. Go connects to all the biggest entertainment venues

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Yep. Well, I'm back at the hospital, and think about a military hospital in war time. You see a lot of fucked up dudes, boy. And, um, uh, man, it's just really, really, really. skirt up. And seeing this young kid was a Marine Marine Rukon, Recon. And he was out on some long distance.

Lurtpe called it or something like that, long distance. Reconnaissance. Yeah. And he hit a... a bouncing Betty. You know, it's the only time I've heard of one or heard of anybody hitting one, but I heard about them all the time.

But never actually anybody, you know, falling victim, but that's what he felt a victim to. And, you know, bouncing Betty, it's a rocket on the inside of pressure plate. You 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, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, and it, um, blew his, uh, blew his ass off. And he was, um, uh, opening for his groin and this was a tail. and we would take turns turning comic book pages for him and I felt so sorry for that guy and I mean and and other stuff you'd see you know it's just so fucked up

thing I remember the one of the hardest thing is you know about that I mean that whatever brought the war home that did I mean I mean You know, he's just spent some time in a military hospital. Yeah. You'll see. And Navy lost my payroll records, so I couldn't go off base. I used to say to some of the guys, I had to have some civilian clothes and some money to go off base.

And I'd say, can you loan me some money and your civvies? And so I could go on liberty. He says, I like you, ma'am, but not that much. Oh, God. Jeez. 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, so many things happened that I just come out okay. Like another time we're in a firefighter in a village, right? Again, nobody's hit, nobody's in anything. Me and his dude named Pavlovich, 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 a bowl was an undettonated tonk round from the night before

when we had this guy named Cook and Cook was one of these guys go to jail or join the Marine Corps for stealing cars and so he you know it's back on the Marine Corps was doing what it could to you know fill the ranks and

so anyhow he fired it didn't go off somehow somehow landed there but our boy Pavlovich moved his fat ass and tipped the bowl and they had this wooden floor put in

I mean this kind of a crappy wooden floor on the altar and this thing hit the wood didn't explode. Motherfucker. 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 the helmets they'd have these big black

rubber bands, straight pieces of rubber and they would keep bugger propellant, bug juice in them, right? Well, Cook put the DUD M-S- What's it, M-79. Holy shit. He put an unexploded round. Yeah, it was M-79?

Yeah, it was M-79. Yeah, so he puts the M-79 round in it. And we're walking back, and you could see he's got, you've got about two, three guys. and then one guy watching him and he's back about maybe 20 yards

and then 20 yards that's closest guy and he's walking with this thing on his head I kept waiting for his head to just holy shit

and he made it he made it of what the rest of the time when that damn thing's something oh fuck yeah yeah Wow. Well, let's talk about, I mean, I am curious. I mean, is there, is there, do you feel like you had a relationship with the Guardian Angel? I did. I did. And I still do. And, you know, it's just, it's just stuff I've come out of. Like, for example, for example, I'll give you this. Okay.

Okinawa and I get sent to Okinawa to get processed back to Vietnam, back to the unit. And there's been a couple of months or maybe three months. And I really don't know. But it was around that. Okay. So I take and get to be, this is a doctor there, got to be friendly with me. He was a good dude. And so when I got to the point where all my wounds were healed,

I said to him, I went and I said, Doc, I'm ready to go back, you know. And he said, you're ready 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. 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. My Purple Records showed up. And so they said, go off base, enjoy yourself. They might have given me $7,800. I don't know how much they gave me.

It might as well have been, you know, 20,000, you know, Okinawa beer was the dollar. You know, it's just doing 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, I figured it out? 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. And there's a guy walking back up the other way, coming right towards me. It's Blackwell.

It's that guy. I saved during the first night. Are you serious? That's 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 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 saying, I'm at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. And this is like 3 in the morning. He says, I don't think I can all right.

I can get it done that soon. And I said, brother, that's okay. That's okay because I was kind of looking forward to seeing the guys anyhow. So, you know, 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. They take me to the officer today. And the officer today goes, you know, he's this young second lieutenant's got the shit jobs, talking to butt heads like me. And he's going, why can't you be passed? And I said, I'm going back. I was going to go back. 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. I slept for maybe an hour. And then I fall asleep with the hangover from B. Jesus L. And I had orders the station of me back on Blackwall got it done. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, that happened. I mean, to me, we're like the fifth grade. I mean, it's 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. Oh, man. I get a picture just going, 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. And 9th Marine amphibious brigade. And marched them, marched them, didn't send them home, sent the guys in it 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 were coming home, they put them in this unit, and they brought them. it home. So it was

like they brought it home, but it didn't. It was a farce. Did you follow

me there? Yeah. Okay. So, so I take in I get sent over to the,

I get sent over processing where I get to get processed to go back 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 I had been in touch

with the guys. I had seen them. They were on a helicopter ship just offside 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 it. I want to be when I'm so fucking bad. And Blackwell left. He said, he left. And he says, I says, why? He says, why? He says, He says, this is goodbye. So 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, buddy. And so anyhow, I take in both times my company, Gunny that he told me about, my request to transfer got approved by everybody and gets to him. He called me his office. rips it up so you get yourself killed and never got proved.

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 faces like a zoo. And this is one lieutenant, first lieutenant, and then he's running around like, you don't know what's going on. So I go over to him, I said, lieutenant. I could do this job. You need some help here.

And I said, you know, and I'm going to rotate a couple months anyhow. And he said, all right, we got the job. He said, where's your RID? And I give it to him. He says, I can I get it all take care of them? 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 who were like assigned the 9th Marines and guys going up around the Z

and, you know, it's... I mean, there was no place there that was walking apart. 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. And also from being intelligence and knowing what was actually going on there, I would just look at these guys and I feel terrible.

I mean, I would feel terrible because, you know, they had to see these 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, and I, I, um, time went up and I went home. And then when we went home, it was a different place. Different place than when we left. When we left, I mean, people were starting,

they were a little uncertain about the war, but they weren't like they were when we came home. There wasn't anybody taking that out and when the guys coming home, throwing shit, and with signs and names, Nazi murderer, right? Drug addict. And yeah, ironic.

You're 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. 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'd see it on news anyhow. So, you know, it's just, it's just, feeling like your soul coming out of your chest. Yeah. And, you know, at the time, I knew it bothered me, but I didn't think it bothered me to the extent that it didn't. You know, because I got to the point where I had people come up to me

and they'd say, hey, weren't you on the Marine Corps in Vietnam? Sean, I'd start crying. That's when you fucked up. And so... And then one of the things that I found, I was doing a 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. Man, it bothered me to the core. And I, you know, well, you know, I'll never say, I don't have a cry. I have.

But I've never cried like that. And then I don't cry over it again since. I mean, it could purge 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 job as apprentice, machinist apprentice.

And this guy that sent me up the hire was this old guy named Roy, that it was with the union so long that he had, you know, he had 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's running this huge turret lathe, right? So he was making milling down these lays for ships, seagone liners, right? To do propeller chefs. And he would, so he'd come all the way up, but never touch it. Just go back and forth, back and forth. And my job was to help him. So after a couple months of this, 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. My high school grades didn't matter. I mean, I couldn't have got into Harvard with AR. So I went to the university in Baltimore. I go into the registrar's office and I said to him, I said, I want to register for college. He said, what do you want to major in? I don't know. I said, well, you know, nobody in my family went to college.

So I went, he says, go seat his counselor and I did. 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. And so I went back in a guy to register's office says, 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. First one, accounting. I said, what's the county? He said, well, do you like numbers? I said, yeah. He says, you go at math? I said, reasonably.

Says, you're interested in the business? Yeah. He says, you should make sure in accounting. So that's what I did. And, you know, had I opened it up backwards, I had a miniserologists. And I said to him, sure. And it's got to be a very fortuitous choice

because I loved it. and it was, you know, very solitary. I like that. And I, I, uh, I graduated Magnicum, Loudie. Wow. I'm now one of the school's biggest benefactors. Wow. He's just me.

Man. What a curve. Yeah. What a curve. So I did that. And, um, I went to, um, um, I went to, um, um, um, um, Yeah, 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? No, no. It wasn't it you didn't want everybody to know. You just didn't talk about it. Nobody asked you about it. Did you stay close with your guys that you'd served with? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Many of them live close? No, no. I mean, they live in one guy lives in New Hampshire, another guy lives in a, Mountains of Pennsylvania. He was the other guy to hit the trap. He was in mountains of Pennsylvania. Another guy, two of them live in Florida. Another one lives in Iowa.

And Brownie, Brownie, they're a rascal. He lives in Austin. How did you get through? 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'd you get through it? Well, the thing I did was I worked hard. And I buried myself in my work. You know, everybody that has any degree of PTSD self-medicates in some way of shape, 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. And then when I eventually I worked for a firm that commercial credit leasing. Corp, 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, scheduled the leases, and then come home. And this was in the 70s. And what I did one day, when another day, another fortuitous thing was had had, I had, I was looking at this 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 a flight. And so I wound up on a Stanford campus. And I went to the bookstore. And I bought a book on how to play. program in the basic computer language. And I bought it. And

I went to the airport. Matter of fact, at first I went to Fisherman's Wharf and looked at a charcoal and showed this little Chinese kid lighting the firework and a bunch of

kids standing by some older kids holding their hands over the little kid's ears and she said oh I miss you know and it's just wonderful the guy just caught it uh artist named Y Ming and um I asked the guy a guy said to me said um you know this about so forth said how much is it he said 10,000 and I how many much will have been 10 million and so I see you later and um by the way I when I when I did the deal on parsing technology. I bought that painting. No kidding.

I tracked it down, baby. I have it in my bedroom, and I see it every day. Nice. Yeah. And not only I bought it, the original is now in a museum. I bought an artist 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.

matters. Yeah. Yeah. So anyhow, so I read the book or the salient 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, and then started my first business, which was called. Parsons technology. Wow. Just going back, you had mentioned everybody with PTSD self-medicates, one way or another. I think so.

How were you self-medicating? I buried myself in my work. No drugs, no antidepressants, booze, none of that. 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 called it money counts.

And it got to be pretty good. And then I quit my job. I was working, it was working, and started this leasing division for this company. And I, I, if I had, I, if I had, 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, what I got a bonus? I quit. And the reason I quit was I knew, I figured I could just, I had just enough time if I worked hard to write a tax, tax software program, do it 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, worked 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. I meant half a day. Yeah. Yeah. And then would, I would know, I would know. I need. needed to stop by the reason I needed to stop is because I start to hallucinate. I'll have to see a dragon walk across my desk.

Holy shit. So you buried yourself in work, started your technology company. I mean, I think a lot of people, just from my generation, I feel like entrepreneurship is a I feel like it's the only segue way, you know, to really bury yourself into and to 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... I mean, people expect a certain body style or a certain...

a certain attitude, a certain demeanor, you know, when you are in those type of communities and war-fighting communities. And it's almost like a fucking trap that you're in. And it wasn't until I had discovered entrepreneurship and started doing what I 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 eventually coming to the realization that 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 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. 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 wanted to talk to me about it, I talked to them about it. But that wasn't 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 want to take a peek at this? Yep. Especially back, did you say the 70s?

75. Wow. So 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 parcel technology? At first year, I did the tech software.

in one year. One year? Well, 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 on and on. It couldn't be, I couldn't make my lemonade with vinegar anymore.

Right. Yeah. So anyhow, all those things, you know, I, I, I needed to have things just so. 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 ever seen that kind of money in my life.

Quarter million, I mean, $257,000. Wow. The next year, I made $2.5 million. The next year I made $5. Next year, I made $7. I mean, I've never missed too much since. How did you get it out there? Was it just you?

Yeah. It was just you. It's you and my wife. So you built it. How did you? Magazine ads. You bought magazine ads. Yeah.

Holy shit. Yeah, I was spending, early on I was spending 55,000 a month on advertising. You know. 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. I mean, well, me and me and a group of other people together. Yeah, together. So you got a knack for marketing and advertising as well. More of that than anything. What was the first ad? The first ad 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

called me and they say now one of the things I always pay my bills always paid them. And they said I taken 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 ragged. I mean, one of them little rags who 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, right? And that's what it was. So they said, we have, on the outside front cover, we've got that ad. It's normally like 12,000, 14, thousand dollars if you can get me creative in a couple of three days it's it's five thousand

dollars now so they thought i had money i never had the money so i took and i said i let you know in a morning so i looked at it and i said called my wife and i said i just got a feeling that this could be this could be it so i said let's do it And then I said, and if it turns out it bust. Because every ad I ever had run up to that point was a bust. So we decide to do it. And I pay a kid in that local ad firm. And they do an ad.

And I sold my software. I had sold it for like $99, $79, $69, on and on and on. Now, I've shown it for 12 bucks when it said, tall box. And then it said no shipping, no, no, it's not copy protected. Remember copy protection? He said it's not copy protected. It's not, it's not copy protected. It's, you know, used to have agreements.

You had to be part of if you used it, that would signal that, you know, you could only use it like a book. You couldn't make copies and give it to people on it, on, and order, on. I said in mind, you do any guy, anything you want, to send me $12. Right? So the ad said money counts, but it only costs $12. Send it. Blow it out of the water. Right?

And, 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 in the mailbox of stuff with orders or checks? That's the way it looked. And then there was a box. They had to sit 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 mailroller it was, just mailed a place that had that ad printed up and mailed it to everybody who had ever inquired the census. We got a 30% return. Wow. So then I took in, 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 church $5 and left it

that way for a couple of years. And I would get big ads made up in all the big, 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? It was right after, 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. They'd all be down there taking orders and they don't have their hair and curl or she'd change the dungeon.

But it was, he did a good job. job and, you know, they were happy to make some money. I was happy. I was launching this company. And then eventually, eventually I had, oh my God, I had a thousand employees. Holy shit. Yeah. A thousand employees? Yeah. It might have been 500. You know, I have to think about it. And then you sold it. I sold it to Intuit. I sold it. My wife and I, we got together, we decided we would sell it for $40 million if we were ever offered it. And into it offered me $60. I knew enough to tell him I was insulted.

And most I could get them up to was $64. So I sold him for $64 million. Wow. In what time frame? Ten years. Ten years. I started in 84, sold it in 94. I mean, where did you learn your business since?

Just comes naturally to you? Selling lemonade. Selling lemonade. You know, it's just working, trying to make a living. How long was it after you sold Parsons Technologies that you started GoDaddy? 95. 96. What time frame is that between the two?

A couple years. Just a couple years? Yeah. What was the inspiration for GoDaddy? Well, really, there was none. Sounds crazy. What happened was when I did the deal with parts of technology after that, my wife didn't want to be married anymore.

And to be honest with their house, I wouldn't be married to me anymore either. So she finally, she took all she could and she fucking pooped my ass. So I moved to Phoenix, her Scuttsdale so I could work. And, you know, I just, I 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 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. I like being active. and like to have myself on the line, right? And you like the risk. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. And so, and I like the 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. 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 Talk to anybody 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? Not really.

Not really. I mean, people that knew a little bit about tech and that sort of thing. And, you know, they were the people that I hired. And some of them actually were with me until 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, extra nets. We tried doing education. 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 start doing these websites, there was one problem with them, though. 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, we called it website. complete was the very first one. I was when the first companies and the guys in the world to do this.

And that would be you could take in and do just put some fill in the blanks and this and that. And this thing you'd write the code for a website, very primitive, but you'd have a website. So it would do that. And then the next step was where things look like they were going to, Joe, every website needs a domain name, needs an address, needs shanryan.com. Right? So then what we did was I found that I went to all the website companies, I mean,

all the domain companies, and they were all 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, a domain name registrar is not in a sense where you take and you have to buy a bunch of domain names to resell, although you could do that. It's more like the DMV selling vanity license plates.

You know, once you get a vanity license plate at the DMV, it's yours as long as you pay the annual fee. Well, that's the way domain names work, right? 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 at dot-com boom, there was so much noise for the dot-com boom,

you couldn't, nobody didn't pay attention to. you. Yeah, not even, not even close. And so, I mean, the noise you can see like these Super Bowl,

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 and, I mean, making an ad and stuff like that.

And it got to the point where it got to be, it just got to be stupid. And then what happened was when I did that, I had about 38 million. I split it with my wife. She deserved every nickel she got. And I moved to Arizona, best move I ever made.

And I then worked on making this company work. And renamed it, Go Daddy. And then the way that came about was, I was just, you know, the name Joe Max Technologies, that's just very forgettable, means nothing. Go Daddy doesn'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 I bet a third night. We tried it's Fat Daddy, Taken. Big Daddy, taken. Go Daddy. using the AOL go keyword and the word daddy available. Bought it for $8.95. Damn. Yeah.

And so that's what I did. And I started with $38 million, and then I started losing money. And I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I'm not going to worry about this company until I get down to $30 million. 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, until I get down to 15 million, then 12, 10, then

eight, and I think eight or six, I decide I'm going to close the company down because it didn't look like it was it was snowballs chance in hell of this company ever making the turn. And then so what I did was I sold

my original company. I mean, I 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 of Phoenixes, right?

So I bought this big sign. I had a paid it, called it, Dakota County Ranch, put her right on a wall. And then I decided I went to, 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. So I went to Hawaii. I went to Hawaii. I went to Hawaii, I was in the, If epiphany happened, more and more I was there, I didn't want to shut it down. Epiphany happened where all of a sudden, one day, this guy comes up to me. And, you know, he's happiest can be. Throw the keys in here, hey, oh, Ms. Forsons, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And I said, I'm doing great buddy. And I mean, and I think, this guy's parking cars, probably has nothing, right? he's the happiest guy in the world. I got six or eight million dollars, so I'm miserable. What's wrong with this picture? Ah. So I decided at that point to go back home

and now shut it down. And as a 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. said, but just work on a table. 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 a 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, at least one or two companies were doing business with Fadish. I mean, Fadish 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, you know, buy advertising, I have cash standing in line to give it to me. Damn.

And then so we take, and then in October, we wait, and they, they, they, they, um, we turned the company, we became cash flow positive and never missed a month since. Well, for somebody that was, uh, just telling me, you let's tell me I don't have an angel. Minigated 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 GoDaddy out of the water. Yeah. Yep. And so it's held GoDaddy until 2011 and sold 71 and sold 71% $71, 71% for $71,000. for $2.3 billion. Damn. And then sold the other 29% for

almost $2 billion. Wow. Yeah, so... Wow. Not bad for a young guy from East Baltimore. Not too bad, not too bad, I would say.

You've done well. Yeah, so anyhow, I mean, the ads all, they all happened. They were just funniest shit how that came about. I love them. I love them.

You want me to tell you, the Genesis heading, how that happened? Yes. So I'm running GoDaddy, and I am never quite sure why our business to stalls where we got a 16% market share worldwide. I said, 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 are they still writing business? So I hired a market research firm and to kind of look at it for us. And they come back with an answer. They said, the reason those people aren't doing business with you is because these people don't know you exist. You only advertise on the Internet. These people are only reachable on direct media.

I mean, in 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 Bowl ad. Damn. And then, you see, the Super Bowl ad back then will cost you $3 million.

cost you way more than that now because you're 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, right? And then after 30 seconds, they, you know, they're talking,

they're drinking cocktails, some are, some aren't. There's certainly competitive in all this. 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 I was, one day, I was with my second wife and I'm watching television, and I've seen an ad from Mike's hard name, Mike's hard lime aide, and I knew.

I knew. And what the ad was, you got three really good-looking women at the end of a bar, right? And caddy cornered an end of this guy. He's got his hunched over as Mike Hard-Lime aide, and he's got a little bit of drop in the bottom, and he's looking around, looking around. And instead of him, you know, holding it up and letting it run down,

he sticks a 12-inch tongue down and sworels it around and then pulls it back. And the bartender says, ladies, what do you have? And they point to him, we go, we like one of those. And I said, that is it, baby. God, I said that is it. And so we did her first dad. We did a spoof on the Go Daddy Girl. She didn't even have a name then.

The media named her to Go Daddy Girl. We named her. And she was at a hearing by a Super Bowl board of sensors or whatever she was. and they were, you know, kind of, you know, trying to decide if they're going to approve her being in an ad. And she was going to be a, she was going to be in an ad. And it was just hilarious because the guy, the guy running the whole show, his name was Booth Coleman. He says past, but he was an older guy. And she was, he says, oh, ma'am, what are you going to do on the game?

And she stands up and she goes, I could do something like this. And she, her tank top strap snaps. And it was a spoof on Janice Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Right? And she stops it. And it's just, it doesn't, doesn't go, you know. all the way. So you see nothing.

You see nothing. And, you know, you look at it. You know, it's filmed at a distance. See things that a, blurt 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, you know, do we hit guys with me? said, well, why don't you, why don't you just say they denied it? You can, you know, people might want to see that it didn't get approved. No, no, I wanted to run it because I had bigger aspirations. So, so anyhow, so we went ahead and do that, all that, that minimized the ad shooter from the distance and on and on.

And so he's taking oxygen. and I had a line in there that said where there was a woman up there and the day house with the booth and she says those are not real and he and then so I had to change it she'd say may I suggest a turn on neck 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 I go, yeah, we got a spot open just before the Super Bowl. And it could be a very good ad or a very great ad. And I think it was Buffalo playing Philly or something like that. Or Patriots.

But whoever was, one of them was on one-yard line just when they did the two-minute one. morning this ad was gold. And then our ad doesn't run. Doesn't run. And I mean, and we wait, maybe it's the next ad. Maybe it's the next ad. Maybe it's the next. Never our ad.

Or an ad 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. With the rest of the ads, we had the poet. 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 wasn't, it shouldn't have been approved. All right. So, yeah, I know, I felt the same way. But I turned around to my buddy that, you know, he's my chief of staff. And I said to him, can we beat us lucky? Can we beat us 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? He goes in and he's stabbing a baby in a crib. That's what they run? Much more acceptable than a press. So anyhow, that's what happens. So I get in touch with the president of Fox Sports.

and so here's what happens. He takes and he, you know, we go back and forth because we had her attorneys working on it and so forth. And so we got a deal. We got to deal with him. So I don't have to pay for the ad that didn't run. I don't have to pay for the ad that didn't run. and, you know, life is good.

I mean, basically, the market share worked. It went from 16% to 25% a year and held. 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 as for anything, anything I'll get it, anything I'll get it. I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything.

So here's what I think of. Is you ready for this? It was the best I could do. I said, tell you what, give me a game ball from, two game balls from every Super Bowl, and we got a deal. And they go, done! Oh, man. Wow.

And that's how it came about. Yeah. So the media named her to go-duty girl. Bill, I mean, it's just funny how it all came together. Then you got in, you got a NASCAR, or I'm sorry, not a NASCAR, an IndyCar, correct? IndyCar with Daddy Capatric. I'm playing golf with her Sunday, but. by the way. Oh, nice.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So... Are you guys pretty close? 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... 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, Dynica Patrick. And I said, wow, she's young. 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 did, we were partners for eight years. Wow. Yeah, eight years. And she's now a member of my club, Scottsdale National.

And good time. 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 move into golfing. Golf. Yeah. off of motorcycles. How, I mean, how much time was it? By this time, you're a multi-billionaire. What?

I guess I'm just curious, why do you keep moving into new business ventures? Why not? Hmm. I'll ask you. I mean, I'm addicted to it. I love entrepreneurship. Yeah, I love business.

Yeah, I like it too. Keeps me old. I haven't worked for anybody since 1984. I 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 a million to charity every other week. Every 14 days. Yeah, every 14 days.

And I think we've given a total of a couple hundred million, I know. and we helped Semperify 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 and what is all said and done probably at 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'd show you all this stuff around the room and we brought a lot lot of my friends on that have started nonprofits and psychedelics and healing and mostly combat stress type stuff and I mean I just I just enjoy like watching them succeed from not you're going to be careful I say this because they built everything I'm just a conduit to the public I'm the advertiser I guess the way you'd see it and 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 and you know i i think i'd read was it 19 million you'd you've donated to psychedelic research and how do you i guess what i'm asking is you know the nonprofit game is tricky you know 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 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 donating another million. How do you find 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. My name is Laura Mitchell. And she's been in that particular end of business for a long time. Been with me a long time. And she has staff, so they sorted it out.

I mean, you know, 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, you know, giving the money to whatever the organization is that we're donating money to is only part of 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 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. What's your success rate? You mean that of nonprofits that follow through with it? Overall, close to a coup 100%. And, I mean, do I have a 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 my pair of shoes.

You know, like, right? Yeah, that's amazing. You're a great person for doing that. Well, I thank my wife and here you go. Right on. 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 do, I decided I was going to buy either a football team or a real. 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.

Well, who is? 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. It is right now, it is 730 acres in prime real estate and Scottsdale,

surrounded on three sides by, what is it, three million acres of land. Wow. 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. Good. I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on vigilance. lead Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show and their support

allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on 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. 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 want to dig into psychedelics. It's something that, like I had mentioned earlier, 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 was wasn't confident diving into before and I think would be a great way to put it and and sent me on a spiritual journey and and found God and faith in Christ and just so much good has come from since the very first time And so I know for you, I mean, we had talked about your childhood,

having grown up in a rough environment, 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 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? I didn't hear about psychedelics. you know when I was a kid in the 60s you know

there was LSD around and of course marijuana marijuana or I don't consider a 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 need to and I didn't I was a little afraid of it 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 be, that it would have the medicinal properties 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, you know, and it talks about it. It doesn't talk about Iboga even though. That is a granddaddy of them all, baby. Have you done that? No. I have.

That was my first one. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I haven't. And maybe one day. But I don't. I haven't so far. but I read his book and you know and I was I was fascinated. First, the book reads like a novel. It reads like mine reads.

And like a, you know, and it's just I could not get over that that could be a solution for me. 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? That's serious. She had me hooked up. And it's 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.

And so she introduced me 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? I had nasty taste and stuff. But anyhow, you know, it is what it is.

And some people swear by it. The second day, I did magic mushrooms. And the, let's tell you a story that is funny. My guide, he made this, he had this pot, this teapot, and he said, this holds three large cups. And I made it very strong, this magic mushroom tea. so you'll only need one cup. Now, I swear what I'm telling you are 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. And then the next day I took off, it 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 it all knew 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. It was like whatever green I was on, it was like the grass would say, he didn't hear Bobby.

And I waited to go bend right around into the cup. I mean, it was incredible. Now, it never happened, you know, 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 was, you know, had the same impact the other two did.

And, you know, I didn't have any hallucinations on that. but I sure had a righteous buzz and was happy to talk and felt good about things. And when I was all said and done, my wife noticed it the first. She said, you're different. You know, you're easier to talk to. You're easier to get along with.

You know, you don't have that temper, that edge about you is gone. And then I could feel it too. And then the people that I work 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? 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 you know because it was no reason it was always something stupid you know and and so I mean it was always under a quest I knew that

you know it's first you know I had a battle with some depression I had fought this hard temper that I had and I just never liked being around people. I like 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. 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, my third wife, I mean, I've been giving my walk. 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 wasn't nothing wrong with them. 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 graveyard. in Vietnam. And we were, we're, so Vietnamese are buried sitting up, at least most of them are than 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 it was leaning against the mound. And they were, there was, all of a sudden, when the right of us, there was a firefight started.

And then there was a firefight on the left of us. And there was, you've been shot at many times. You know what it sounds like when a bullet goes by. You know, it sounds like beef or something flying by part of me. It was like, and he's going like crazy. So he couldn't stand up. And then some, one of our, one of the guys on our squad, My pride of George called in artillery.

It must have been NVA moving towards us from the 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 100 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 that must have been for like 15 minutes and then quiet and that was 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 they, the Vietnamese, somehow or another. They were buried sitting up? No, they weren't buried.

They were just mutilated, like sometimes happens. But none of us were hurt that night. Just the trees, 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 family. Yeah, it does, it does.

But, you know, I can tell you what I, the painful thing is, what I decided was early on, it was, might have been a good thing and I wasn't always around. Because of your temper? Yeah, temper. I mean, I never got physical, never, never once, but she was verbal and loud. And that's, I'm happy that with my angel, I'm past that at least 99%. Are you close with your kids?

Yeah. All of them? Yeah. How many kids do you have? Three. Close with the grandkids? Uh, grandkids, not as much. Great grandkids haven't met them yet. Have met them yet?

Haven't met them yet. How old are they? They're, um, I think, um, two and a half and one, something like that. Do you want to meet them? Of course I do. What's going on? Well, I will, but I won when I'm ready. Dad.

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. Right. What are you seeing in your ayahuasca journey? What did I see in my ayahuasca journey? You know, I've seen less than the ayahuasca journey than I did in the mushrooms and the LSD.

And I think the reason for it is maybe it give me a lighter dose. anything get revealed any epiphanies in the ayahuasca you know if it was anything it's that you know

I needed to change and I could change and there you go but that is it how about the psilocybin sylisian had the biggest difference with me a number of times

and it seems to seems to work good. What did you see? What did I see? Well, I had that flashback. I processing those guys to Vietnam. And then I told you when I was in troop processing 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 looking at that experience or a different perspective? You know, it's just, it's just, I've seen the horror of it. I mean, just the how that bullshit happens and these guys are walking into that and they don't have a clue. I mean, I've seen that. And I mean, and the mess, if I had, 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, rough time.

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 bother me. Early on when I was talking about the introduction in 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 firstborns, 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. It can relate somewhat. But it's just when you were building all your companies, when you were in Vietnam,

I mean, who are 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. 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. Yeah. And so, you know, 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, you don't work 60-hour shift followed by eight-hour sleep followed by, 60-hour shift followed by, you know, for a few months, unless you're a bit of a workaholic, right? Yeah.

Well, that's what it was. But I love 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 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 4 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'm just, I guess what I'm saying is, if you were neglected, 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, even with a lot of war trauma, they dive more into, in my experience, they died 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've got to 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. 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. Mm-hmm. Right? So that in itself is a driver, as opposed to somebody that's working with a silver spoon, right? And you're born with that, you know, they might not, you know, have that discipline.

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 in 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 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 salcid and LSD, I think that there's a powerful combination for me.

And you saw the effects immediately and your wife did. Yes. What did she see? Well, she's seeing, I was kind of the guy she wanted to be married to. There you go. So, you know, it's like, 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 their husband changed. Or maybe changed. And it's stuck. Yeah. Do you continue to use psychedelics? You know, I have, but I don't. I don't. I mean, I haven't, 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, and I'll tell you what, and 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. Yeah. So why did you dive back in?

Did you start to see any fall off from 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. In ego death?

Have you ever heard of 5MEODMT? Yeah. Have you done that? I have, and let me tell you story with that. I've done that, and that's the kind that you smoked the, right? Toad Bell. Well, I've smoked it and did it three times, smoked it. It felt nothing.

And 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. So for some reason another, that stuff doesn't affect me. No kidding. Yeah, I don't know what it is, but it's the damnedest thing. Damn, I did Ibegain and then followed by 5MEO DMT, and that was a total ego death.

You legitimately think, you don't think, in your mind, you are 100% 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 at any one particular given point in time. Blast 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. 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 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 it 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. 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. But I wasn't hallucinating. It was more of an intuitive type experience. I felt my best friend, Gabe, that I was telling you about

whose Glock and Flag is up there. I felt his presence. We didn't talk, but I could just feel him. and that stuff just changed my entire life. It cured my addiction. I was a major alcoholic, sucking down pills, volume, Xanax, Ambient, Cylanor, oxycoding, all of it, anything I could get my hands on, just to numb, just to numb it out, gone like that. Haven't had a drop of booze since.

Wow. Yeah, it totally. And then on top of that, you know, just being on the platform that I've built in front of millions of people, there was 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 I 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 once I 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 start looking at the afterlife and what that looks like. And 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. But, but, and I continue to do self-maintenance, you know, not on any particular cadence, but, but I've done a fair amount of psilocybin, and, man, that stuff really cleaned me out too with a lot of the stuff that was going on between me and my wife. And I think everybody should do that. 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 would 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? 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, you know, probably about as good as I'm going to get. So, you know, I'm not doing it as much. Do you think you'll do it again?

Might. Hope so. I hope so. I'd like to do it with my wife. wife again. But... 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 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. You know, wait a minute. Wait a minute, let me. You know, I was with one of the guides who was, um, um, he was, he was a guy that did my first journey in 2017, him and him and his partner. And, you know, I had thought about what I wanted to accomplish when he was, when he was there with me. And we went ahead and, you know, 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 where 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 clouded, cladded my thoughts. Oh, man. Are you a Christian?

Yes. How did you find faith? How did I find it? How did you find faith? What does that mean? Faith? 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 atheists in a foxhole, right? I know that's saying very well. Yeah, no atheists in a foxhole. And, you know, I, um,

I mean, it's the best I can do. Do you think that psychedelics is a bridge into a spiritual realm? You know, I think so. I think so. And I'd like to think that I haven't been able to really get in there as deep as I, as is there available for the getting. Now, the one thing I can tell you, under the supervision of, 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. Don't think I'll see anybody again,

and I mean, it's pretty heady stuff. But coming through that, you know, I don't have any 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.

So I do know when I spend time. and I studies Christianity and I read about it. I get a feeling that I don't get from anything else. Me too. Yeah. Me too. Well, Bob, I really appreciate you coming, and it was an honor to interview you

and document your life journey. And I just want to say thank you again, and God bless. Cheers. 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. Yeah.