Start With A Win - 1% Better Every Day: Embracing Failure to Achieve Gains with Rick Hogg

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

A lifetime of dedication to greatness has earned Army Veteran and entrepreneur Rick Hogg a multitude of accolades. As owner of War Hogg Tactical, Inc., co-author of The Firearms Training Notebook: 1% Better Everyday, and founder of In Honor of Duco Project, Rick proves himself a superachiever by setting an example of excellence.Instead of being defined by his rank or position, Rick defines himself by his core values and encourages those in leadership positions to do the same. He has achieved his success through a daily commitment to setting goals and establishing a plan to accomplish them. In leadership, Rick teaches the power of repetition and the importance of fully supporting his team. In this way, they achieve greatness together through a common vision. But business isn’t the only area of life to which these principles apply. In order to be successful in one area, achievement must be a motivating factor at all levels, including physical fitness, family, and spirituality. One of the greatest lessons Rick has gleaned from a life of challenging, life-threatening situations is that each day is a gift and should be lived to the fullest. Main TopicsThe mindset of a superachiever (02:40)Using failure as an impetus for growth (05:55)Rick’s transition from soldier to entrepreneur (08:46)Building incremental gains into life and business (11:40)The importance of writing a daily plan of action (14:50)The Wheel of Life and the need for growth in all areas of life (21:38)  Episode LinksFirearms Training Notebook: 1% Better EverydayIn Honor of Duco ProjectConnect with Rick:https://www.warhogg.com/https://www.instagram.com/warhoggtactical/https://www.facebook.com/warhoggtacticalhttps://twitter.com/warhoggtacticalConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Coming to you from Brand Viva Media Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Producer Mark, good to see you, buddy. Oh, good to see you too. Yeah. Yeah, this week is almost over. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I've been traveling lately. I was in Boston. Boston?

Boston. Had some chowder? I had some chowder, some lobster. And I made it to Mike's Pastries. Do you know Mike's? No, I don't. Dude, the best cannoli in the world. Oh, yeah.

I don't spend a lot of time in pastry shops. Yeah. Listen, listen. I look like I spend time in pastry shops. You look like you spend time in the gym. Does he have protein pastries? No, but you know when you want that free day or the cheat day? Oh, there you go.

This place has been around since like the 30s, you know. After your chata. Exactly. Nice. Well, hey, I'm excited about our guest today. Today we have Rick Hogg on the podcast, and he's the owner of Warthog Tactical Inc., co-host of the Range podcast, and founder of the In Honor of DUCO project. He's also the author of the firearms training notebook, 1% Better Every Day. Rick is

a 29-year U.S. Army Special Operations combat veteran, including being a Special Operation Forces canine handler, which is super awesome. Awesome. Yeah. He's also gone through 13 tours, 13 combat deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as serves as special forces advanced urban combat instructor. So I'm sure you guys are going to have a lot to talk about. So I'm just interested to hear, Rick, welcome to Start With A Wink. Yeah, welcome, Rick. Yeah, Adam, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Hey, thank you for your service, both military and law enforcement. So, appreciate it, guys. And thank you for your service. Yeah, thank you. And, you know, in the memory of your dog, Duco, thank you to him as well. And, you know. Thank you, buddy. That's

incredible what you guys have done. And let's, this is a really cool conversation. And, you know, it's, that's, that's incredible what you guys have done. And that's, this is a really cool conversation. And I've had some other special operations folks on here before some professional athletes, really, you're super achievers, super achievers in what you do, how you live your life, how you perform, just being the best that you can be every day. So I want to really unpack that and really kind of what's in your mind every single day, because you think differently than the average Joe walking down the street and you want to continue to improve yourself and those around you. So with that, why don't you give us a little bit of your background, Rick, tell us, how'd you get to where you're at? So real quick, you know, I grew up in New Hampshire,

wrestled as a kid, joined the army in 1988 Spent 29 years in the military. Here's the thing In 2001, so obviously I was still active duty. I knew back then I wanted to start a firearm training company So, you know when you look at the whole transition piece, I at least had that piece ironed out Um, I didn't have all my business savvy about me. We're still learning every single day But that's just kind of a quick, in the nutshell, taking that military experience over to the entrepreneurial world. And yeah, man, you talked about making yourself better

and that's a mantra we live by. How do I make myself 1% better every single day? And that's attainable for people. If I sit there and go, hey man, I want you to do something astronomical, they go, oh, I'll never get there. Or the people that do, hey, man, I want you to do something astronomical, they go, oh, I'll never get there. Or the people that do, hey, I'm going to start working out on the first.

Start today. You're alive today. You're breathing, right? Go do something right now. Awesome. And naturally, the whole purpose is being 1% better. It's just not physical. It can be mental, spiritual, financial.

But yeah, it's just make yourself incrementally better every single day. And especially the entrepreneur, every single day I'm learning something. I want to make my business better. How do I get better marketing? How do I get my website better? How do I do work social to my advantage? Well, good luck on that one, but yeah. Oh yeah. But no, I mean, that's the whole premise behind Warhawk Tactical and what we're doing and the message we're trying to instill in people. You know, we've got a Patreon page as well. We've got a great group of patrons. We do a bi-monthly Zoom call with those guys and it's, hey man, making yourself that 1% better. That's attainable. People can go, yep, I can do that. And you'll also hear me do,

you know, with the podcast, especially on the Warhawk Words of Wisdom. So we've got on the range podcast and then we've got a couple offsets of it. So between me and my co-host, but on the Warthog Words of Wisdom, I always do to my listeners and viewers an accountability check. Did you drive fire? You know, have you done? Yeah. Have you done your dry fire, dry fire, live fire training today? Have you worked out? What are you grateful for? And what was your act of kindness? And just, Hey man, have you done it or not? And you know, if you try to strive for those, man, life, life's hard enough. Life becomes easier. Life becomes more enjoyable. Let me jump in there for a second, Rick. Let's unpack that a little bit because a lot of people struggle in life or they, they have this feeling that they're struggling in life, but you're

looking at it as I'm going to keep getting better. I'm going to move forward with that. I'm going to move through it. And I mean, you had 13 combat deployments and I mean, you're, you're sitting here telling me I'm going to get better every day. I'm going to get better every day. Obviously you've, you know, you've seen and been through a lot of crazy, horrible things in your life, but you're continuing to look for the growth in life, the growth in yourself, the things in your life, but you're continuing to look for the growth in life, the growth in yourself, the growth in your mind, your body, things like that. How do people get out of their misery and go for growth? I mean, what do you tell somebody who's not in that point where they're like, yeah, I'm killing it, but they're down on themselves?

You got to flip the switch, right? Right. But you need failure in your life to get gains. Okay. Because you see a lot of people, you know, if you're always successful, are you really putting the effort forward? But when you sit there and have that stumble, right? I call it a stumble, you know, or if you sit there and say, I have a fall, dust yourself off. What's the teaching point from that? That's the key thing. Too many people look at these failures or struggles or whatever issues in their life, but they're not learning from it. Okay. For example, I'm on my third web platform, right? Part of it was ignorance on my part. Part of it was just business stuff. Did I sit there and go, oh, I don't need a website. No, you need a website in business,

right? Just using that as an example. Do we have struggles? You look at, what to say with our last issues we had in 2020, how many people had dramas there? Okay. What did you learn from it? Did you get caught with your pants down? Okay. If you did, I'm not saying it's okay. I'm saying, what did you learn from it? And are you prepared? Here's a prime example, North Carolina, we have hurricanes all the time and people are always complaining about it. Well, do you have a generator? Do you have water? Do you have, you know, food? Do you have the necessities that you know, this thing's going to happen. So to me, it's just look at the failures you have learned from them. That's the key part. That's the key takeaways. You have to learn from them

and then boom, let's start incrementally getting ourselves better. I like that. So, I mean, let's just face it, folks. Stuff's going to happen. I mean, yes, there are hurricanes. We just had one hit Florida not long ago and up the East Coast. You know, people get sick. People get injured, things like that. And the question is, do you do something about it? And do you prepare for the next time if you can minimize that potential? What is that definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But sometimes we live in, you look around and you're like, why does that person continue to hit their head against the wall and go, I have a headache and complain about that? Because they continue to hit their head against

the wall, you know, figuratively here. But I mean, the reality is, and I love what you said, the thing that I'm hearing is you're saying, do something about it. Measure, manage, react, you know, put those action points into place. And you've learned a lot going from military. And I get this question a lot. I'm sure you get this question a lot, coming from military law enforcement to the public sector and then becoming successful there. I started two businesses along the way as well. But people are like, how did you make that change? And I'm like, I never changed. You're a problem solver that takes action. I mean, what do you tell those people that are like, how did you make that change? And I'm like, I never changed. You're a problem solver that takes action. I mean, what do you tell those people that are like, how did you do it, Rick?

You're not defined by your job or your position. Too many guys that either come out of either the military or law enforcement, they're defined by that job. Hey, man, yeah, I was in the military for 29 years. The military did not define me. I was not tied to my rank. I was not tied to my rank. I was not tied to my organization. I'm Rick Hogg, right?

And it was, like I said, I had a slight advantage, I believe, because I already knew in 2001, I was going to start a firearm training business. People go, oh, you're just in that space because that's what you know. No, this is my love. This is my passion. This is my why. This is what gets me up in the morning to pass my skills on to other people so that God forbid they're in a deadly force encounter. They're coming home. And especially my law enforcement guys, they are under-trained,

right? And they don't have the proper mindset. They don't have the proper leadership backing them. You know, you see them too quick to throw these guys under the, under the water there. And it's like, no, man. I tell every single, especially my LAO classes, every single class I teach, I said, I back the people I train. I said, God forbid you're ever in a pinch. I said, just send me your footage. I said, I'll review it. I'll take a look at it. If I dub it's clean, dude, I will back you 100%. And it goes into that leadership. I hate to say it. I've challenged the chiefs of America. Hey, back your people. Here's the rope. Don't sit there and go, all cops are bad. If you got a bad apple, then do something with them. You do proper disciplinary actions, but don't punish the majority for one

small minority that's causing dramas. That's just poor leadership. And how do we fix it? I hate to say it, but you've got to do an institutional change. And a lot of times you look at a lot of these companies, why are they failing? Why are they going down? Because they need an institutional change. They've got poor leadership at the top, giving them poor examples, and they're sinking the ship. You know, it's interesting you say that. I'm in the middle of recording a leadership course called Leadership Factory. And in there, we talk about modeling the behavior that you want to see in the people in your organization. And it's fascinating when I listen to you open a show with those imperatives

that you believe in every single day and that repetition to continue to raise the bar incrementally and to continue to improve yourself incrementally. And I'm talking to everybody out there, the business leaders of the world that are listening to this podcast. And I know where you're listening from because we get those metrics. Are you doing something to incrementally improve yourself, to incrementally improve your people? And Rick, it's interesting. You talk about that 1% improvement. I've heard of that called Kaizen. I've heard that called aggregation of marginal gain, some different things like that. Tell me, how do you instruct people to build that into their business, for instance, or their life? It's easy.

So again, you can't see it, but I'll show you here. My notebook, right? This is the key. I'm a pen and paper guy. Yep. If you don't put pen to paper, you're never going to have any gains. You're not going to have any accountability. So if I ask somebody that goes, oh man, I want to lose 20 pounds, or I want to have a million dollar business, show me your plan. Well, you know, I haven't quite, but you've got no plan.

That's a familiar excuse, isn't it? That's it. I mean, they'll stutter and do all this other stuff. By putting pen to paper, number one, there's two things that happen. Number one, it holds you accountable, in my opinion. Number two, it's therapeutic because now we're actually putting things on there. The key people need to understand, and this is the beauty with being 1% better every single day. If I put a goal of X, hey man, I want to make $100,000 in my business this year. Okay, cool. You know what? If you crush that goal at six months, you line it out and you stick another one on there. You can always get better. You can always grow. Or if you sit there and go, Hey, I didn't make this. Okay. Now you

got to take that step back and go, let's look at some matrix. And what was my, what issues did I have? Did we overspend? Did we not calculate right? What was the issues dramas? And I think too many times guys just aren't putting the pen to paper and holding themselves personally accountable. And then same thing, if you've got a team underneath you, what are you doing for that team building? So going back to the military, you know, back when I was a squad leader, team leader, you know, any position I had, you had your little book with all your pertinent data on your guys, right? How many, you know, here's a question for leaders out there. And again, it's, it should be that three to five, you know, person leadership model. What's your, what's all the guys, you know, what's their wives names, what's their kids names.

You know, what do you know about your people besides just your, your inner work actions? What's their values? What's their morals? You know, are they religious? Are they not? So you got to take all these things into consideration people don't you know so if you're sitting there being you know cussing like a sailor and you have a guy that's highly religious for example dude you're causing friction right there just because you don't know where he sits at so know your people if you know your people cool i can take their strengths and weaknesses i can use them for my advantage. And I'm going to have a team that's going to crush anybody.

And you know what? I won't be afraid to say it. And like I said, you back your people. You stand behind them. Hey, man, here's the rope. You can either hang yourself with the rope or dude, the rope just sits there and it's just, it's nothing. But you have to empower your people to do great things. And if

you do that, they will do great things. But if you don't, they're just going to be mediocre. So that, I mean, you know, your people back, your people, trust your people to perform, hold them accountable. And let me, let me ask you this on the accountability piece, because you talk about writing things down, you know, the. The biggest challenge that I see with people who write their aspirations, their processes, their actions, things like that down, well, first of all, they write down goals and they don't ever put an action plan in place. But ultimately, they don't go back and measure these things. How often should people be checking in with that notebook?

Here's mine right here. With their notebook to go, where am I at? How often should that be happening, do you think? Daily. Why do you say that? Because that's how you keep yourself in check, right? So let's say I want to get set for the next day. I'm writing down what I have to get accomplished that next day, the day before, right? And then as the day's progressing, actually, I'm in there what I have to get accomplished that next day, the day before. Right.

And then as the day is progressing, actually I'm in there the whole time. I'm putting tally ticks or notes or, Hey, I had a phone call with this guy. Hey, would we, you know, would we talk about what we discussed? What's our next action plan? Follow-up stuff like that. So you're always living in that thing. It's a living, breathing document. So you're always in there adding to, and then, oh, by the way, when that, you know, three o'clock in the afternoon brainchild idea comes along, boom, I've got somewhere to put it.

So it doesn't slide away, especially when you're dealing with multiple traumatic brain injuries, where your brain doesn't function a hundred percent like it needs to, man, that thought could be there. You could have that million dollar idea. Then it's gone. And he's like, Hey, what was that? What was I thinking of now, dude, you put it in the notebook and you're always referring back to it. So that to me, that's my daily, I'm always in it. That's my checks to keep me straight throughout the day. Do you, do you check that right before you go to bed then also is, or what do you, I mean, how do you wrap up your day with that? Is there, I mean, do you do, do you do gratitudes or anything or I mean, what? Yeah. So I try to start my gratitudes first thing in the morning.

Okay. I want to start my day with, Hey, how am I, what am I grateful for? Right. And it's just not the same. It's got to change. Right. And we'll kind of get into that towards the end, how I kind of, if you want to say, kick the whole day off with a win, because it'll, it'll steal a little bit from that.

All right. But you know, Oh, I'm grateful for my house. I'm grateful for my family. Come on, man, dig deeper. Give me some juice what you're grateful for, right? You can do the same benign things and you can say the same things day after day. Is that really what you're grateful for? Or are you just going through the motions to check the block? Now there's power in being grateful for stuff. And that's what people I think fail to do is we're a very, look at our society, right? Where everyone's nitpicky over everything.

People got super thin skin. Who cares, right? Be grateful you're alive right now. You're breathing. Man, it's a great day. Now, how am I going to capitalize on that day? That becomes a question of the hour. But to me, how I wrap the day up is, yes, when I'm going to set myself up for the next day's success, hey, man, is there anything I did

not get accomplished? Right. Okay. That's a good one. And then do I have to carry something over into the next day? Because again, as entrepreneurs, things come up, things happen. And hey, man, that phone call that was supposed to happen with somebody, they never call back. Now you're okay. Now I've got to divert this to try to catch them the next day to go, hey, man, what happened? You know, just shoot me a courtesy email, or we got to rebalance schedule, whatever the case may be. But to me, that's the final wrap is, all right, let's look at what did I get done today? Did I truly get myself 1% better? Because yeah, you're going to see a little box in there. Did I work out? Did I check that box or did I not? That's critical for people. Did I get my

dry fire, live fire training in? Check that block. The whole purpose with that one and how we came up with the firearm training notebook was, especially my LEOs, they did not have a plan for what they were going to do for the range. You're in a job that will kill you. You're telling me you're not putting time and effort in to make your skills better to bring yourself home at night? Quit being selfish. You're being selfish to yourself because when you get killed out in the street, there's your family stuck, right? Because you didn't want to put the effort in. I'll tell you what, though, Rick. I mean, as somebody who has been on the street in those critical incidents, and I've spent, gosh, what is it?

Let's see. 20 or, yeah, 29 years on the range training law enforcement myself. You're right. You look at it and you go, okay, if you can, and this doesn't have to be about law enforcement and firearms training or anything like that. This needs to be about what do you live and die by? And are you working on being the very best you can be with respect to that? And we all have to kind of hold up the mirror and think about it. If you're working at the grocery store and you're the meat cutter or whatever, are you the very best you can be

about that? And how do you improve yourself every day through repetition practice of the basics is essentially what you're saying here. Sure. But there's another part you're missing. What's that? You're being selfish looking at the self because I've got to look at, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a grandfather. How are you putting effort towards them? And here's the thing. I was not that guy. I was very selfish when I was in the military. There were times that I should have gone home and I'm lying to mama going, they're not letting me. And they're going, hey man, you need to go home. Oh no, she's good. I'm lying to both ends because the job had me hooked that hard.

Now it's taken a lot of time to figure that piece out, but how are you balancing? Great, you can be the best entrepreneur in the world. You can be crushing it. You can be making gazillions of dollars. Great. How's your home life? Totally.

Are you putting the effort in there? So, I mean, this whole 1% better, it's all encompassing, right? And that's why I say it's a difficult thing to explain because I don't know where everyone's sitting at. Hey, if I got the single guy, I got it. You're running your life for you. But man, if you're married, are you putting the time into your marriage? Are you actually communicating with your wife? Are you spending time with the kids? What are you doing to build your kids? How are you making your kids better? Because society out there will crush those kids. And those kids are looking for role models. And it should be you. Are you putting the time in? Are you so invested in building this business that you've just dropped all of that? And now

you sit there 20 years later going, why does everyone hate me? Well, because you put no time into them. Or why did everyone leave me? You incrementally left that relationship instead of incrementally improving it. Well, it could be more than just incrementally. It could have been a full dump. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Totally. So it's fascinating for our listeners. We talk about some of these concepts on a regular basis with respect to, and I even pointed out in my book, Start With a Win, it's called the wheel of life. So Darren Hardy, who is a great friend, he was the publisher of Success Magazine for many years, he took a Paul J. Meyer concept called the wheel of life, where you look at

the eight components of your life and you measure all of those. Because really, your business is only one part of your life and you measure all of those. Because really, your business is only one part of your life. You got all these seven others, your faith, family, friends, finances, health, fitness, all of these different aspects of it. And if you're not focusing on putting into those every single day, you're going to come out of balance. And what Rick talked about here, and if you draw it in a circle and start with the middle and go, you know, zero be in the middle, 10 be in the outside, where are you on a one to 10? Where are the flat spots of that tire? Cause a flat tire does not turn. So it's, it's just, it's fascinating. So this is a great reminder, Rick, we really appreciate you, you really reiterating that.

That's incredibly important. I do have a question for you though, that I ask all of our amazing guests, Rick, this is important to me. And I love your answer to these things because you are a super achiever. You're, you're one of those that goes in and says, all right, here's how we're going to make this great. But how do you, you know, when it comes to making your day great, how do you start your day with a win? I started first thing. As soon as I take that first breath of air into my lungs, I thank God that I'm alive. Then I ask him for the wisdom, power, and strength to guide me through the day. And then I go, hey, what am I grateful for? And with that,

dude, here's the thing. My every day starts with a win because I'm on this side of the dirt. And that's what guys don't realize, right? I don't care what dramas, what issues, whatever else I got going on. You take that first deep breath. I'm alive. Great. Now, how are we going to get out there and crush the day? And again, I'm very much of my faith. And yeah, I ask God to give me that wisdom, power, and strength, and he guides me along the way. Doesn't mean he doesn't put hurdles and issues along the way. But yeah. And then, you know, what are those? I want to sit down and go, what are those three things that I'm grateful for?

And oh, by the way, they're going into here. Awesome. Rick Hogg, owner and founder of Warthog Tactical, a great warrior in this world. Rick, thank you so much for our freedom, for your service to our country, for all that you and your organization do. And thank you for being on Start With A Win. Thank you, Adam. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win.

Make sure if you listen to this show on a regular basis that you subscribe or follow us wherever you listen to this show on a regular basis that you subscribe or follow us wherever you listen to your podcast. Make sure to give us a review and a five-star rating, as well as to head over to adamcontos.com for all the great content and great resources. Until next time, remember, start with a win.