The Bossticks - Navy SEAL Clint Emerson On Resilience, Mental Toughness, Being Aware, Survival, & Life As A Solider

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

#460: On today's episode we are joined by Clint Emerson. Clint Emerson joined the Navy in 1994, serving as a SEAL operator at SEAL Team Three, the NSA, and SEAL Team Six, before retiring in 2015. He is currently and author and runs a crisis-management company, Escape the Wolf. On today's episode we discuss personal resilience, mental toughness, being aware, survival, & life as a soldier.  To check out Clint Emerson's new book The Rugged Life click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM This episode is brought to you by Feel Free from Botanic Tonics. If you are looking for an alcohol alternative try this euphoric kava drink and get 40% off your order or subscription by using either code SKINNY40 or code SKINNY240 at www.botanictonics.com  Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

But whether that's for hunting or whether that's for self-defense. I mean, I would love to say, hey, you know, here's the top three things. But I think it's bigger than that. You have to just keep an open mind and start early and tell yourself on a regular basis, I'm not raising kids. I'm raising adults. We always say it, though. I'm raising three kids.

No, you're not. You're raising three adults. And the minute you get your mind wrapped around that, the better they will be at facing life. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Clint Emerson. This is a powerful episode, guys. Clint Emerson is an American hero. He is a retired Navy SEAL that performed on SEAL Team 6 before retiring in 2015. Now a very acclaimed author. Many of you may be familiar with one of his best selling books, 100 deadly skills. He has a new book coming out, The Rugged Life, and we're talking all about it on today's show. We're talking about life in the military, what it's like to be a seal, talking about life skills, talking about how to protect yourself, talking about how to be aware. And we just really like this conversation as well as Clint. It's a very well-rounded conversation. I think you guys are going to enjoy it immensely. With that, Clint Emerson, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Michael's so excited to interview you and so am I, but before Michael gets his 600 questions, what is the way a woman my age, your daughter's age, should protect herself in 2022? What are some things that they should do? Oh, boy, that's actually a big question. I mean, we got a lot of time. Yeah, that's a big question. I think first and foremost is being an asset versus being a liability is kind of like the

broad spectrum way of looking at this, you know. I think every female should start taking on skills that are more holistic in nature. We tend to focus on, oh, self-defense because you're a female. But, you know, as we discussed, I've got a daughter. I know she can take care of herself. and I attribute most of the problems out there. It's usually anchored like bad parenting. These days, I feel like taking the time and teaching them at an early age,

you know, just basic awareness, it doesn't just help for security. It helps for everything. Like personal awareness. Like look at yourself before, look at yourself in the mirror before you walk out the door, right? And ask yourself, am I presentable? do I present anything that makes me, you know, a target? Little things, right? Like what? Give us some examples.

Well, I mean. Actually, I really want you to get into it. I talk to my, so I am by no means an expert. No, Clint, I'm a little oblivious. One of the reasons I wanted to move out of L.A., it started getting a little dangerous over there. I could say that because I lived there. Right.

But I would tell Lawrence, he would go on these walks and I was like, you know, you see all these people head down, phone. This is an area now, or this was, is still, we're not there anymore, But in aerial, it's not a place you want to be walking around with their head down anymore. It just, you just don't. And I think a lot of people take for granted the safety that this country affords them because they haven't been in areas and places like you've been where you've seen how terrible the world can be. And we live in this kind of protective bubble.

I think you're starting. So whenever anything happens over here, people are shocked. I'm like, this can happen any moment, anytime. Anyway, you never know. That's right. You're exactly right. And I think we're in interesting times. We've been rolling from crisis to crisis to crisis.

But yeah, if you take. the last 20 plus years of how much we have been rolling through different global events and all of that, yeah, when you break it down at a very independent level, awareness is key. And we focus on a lot of technology. As you mentioned, head down, not knowing what the hell's going on around us, you know, and back to look at yourself in the mirror before you walk out the door. I've got a teenager, and every teenage girl that walks to the door, they feel like they've got to have their abs showing, and they've got their tight little yoga pants on and you're going to get targeted, right? You're going to bring on the wrong attention or the attention that maybe you are looking for that.

There's always going to be one nut job in the mix that's going to take advantage of that or think that you're communicating something that you're not. I think overall that awareness piece is so important to preventing most of the issues that you could run into. after your personal awareness is then cultural awareness. You know, every day something is changing. You know, we were joking about how California is one way in Texas is another. That's cultural differences and how you can get away with one thing in one place, but not the other. So knowing that protocol and that etiquette also prevents you from getting targeted,

not seeing the wrong thing, sticking your foot in your mouth, getting canceled overnight. It's an interesting, you know, set of problems that our kids are kind of growing up and involved in. because there was a time when you could speak your mind and sticks and stones break your bones and words never hurt you. And those are the things that were taught at one point. But it just seems pretty rare now, right? That time exists on this show. Well, there you go. Let's bring it back. Yeah, let's bring it back. Do you think that because of the obsession with the phone and people's addiction to the phone that the awareness is getting worse than it was? Oh, yeah. I mean, I date myself, but when I was a kid, I didn't have a phone.

barely had, yeah, I had a skateboard, you know, and I had BMX bicycles, and I was outside all the time and taking advantage of whatever events or activities I could. But now these kids are buried in their phones and three or four different app discussions going on all at the same time. I can text my daughter, and she won't respond to text. But if you go through Instagram or any of the other, yeah, any of the other platforms, the main one, I think they all. I'll chat with is usually a picture of the ceiling. It just check in, right? It's a picture of wherever there is that thing Mimi was showing us. It's like where it takes a picture for four seconds or five seconds. Yeah. Yeah, I know that. We're dating ourselves too. We don't understand that one either,

but our sister was showing us that or her sister. You pull your phone out and it takes this, like, it gives five seconds and it takes a picture and that's it. Right. And it's using the front camera and the back camera. So you see what that person's doing and you see what's going on behind them. Not kind of us are going to know what it is. But I know exactly what you're talking about. There's all these forms of communication other than the normal forms of communication they're using. And it's kind of scary, you know. I just just scrolling today, you know, it's a great source for education and awareness.

But I remember somewhere like Forbes or one of those that I follow, like posted the top 20 apps that a parent should know about. And I probably know about two of them. That's how fast this stuff is moving, you know. But Snapchat is still popular. for them to communicate on just to collect the trophies or whatever the little awards they get as long as they stay in touch with someone every day. And then you've got TikTok, you know, is the other place where they're communicating regularly. But I think, you know, we have to be, as parents, obviously way on top of it and stay educated and have access to their phones

and make sure you're tracking them and all that good stuff just to ensure their safety. You mentioned your childhood. Yeah. Did you always know that you wanted to do what you do now? when you were little? Which part? The right books or be a seal? Be a seal. Yeah.

No, I did. I mean, I was 10 years old. I grew up overseas. So I grew up in Saudi Arabia. What? From, yeah. Wait. I know, strange.

You grew up in... You got to pay attention to my briefs, Slime. No, I read the brief, but I didn't see the Saudi Arabia part. You were born there? Clint Emerson grew up in Saudi Arabia. First sentence. Normally I read the meat of it, Michael. Yeah.

I'm just kidding. Just put you on the spot. Saudi Arabia? Saudi, yes. I moved over there in the second grade from Dallas to Saudi, and then I was there until high school. As I mentioned, I got... Remind me of the circumstances of how you found herself there.

My dad got hired by Ramco, which is, you know, used to be the biggest oil company in the world, but, you know, who knows if that's true anymore? I don't know. I haven't kept up with the Saudis. You know, growing up over there, there's not much to do, so you get really good at being a troublemaker.

So that was kind of like my first taste of like taking risk. And then when you start taking more and more risk, you tend to like it, right? And that just started with trouble making. And then after that, we were traveling through Germany. And there was this dude sitting at the bar near our gate. I went to the bar to get a Coke, right? Because you can't have Coke in Saudis because Coke was started by a Jew or something like that. So they don't allow Coke there.

And so usually the first thing, the first layover, the first airport, we stopped out. out of Saudi, it's like, you know, get a Coca-Cola, right? There's this guy sitting at the bar. He's got tattoos. He looks real cool. I'm like, hey, I was a curious kid. I'm like, what do you? What is that tattoo?

He's like, it's a trident kid. I'm like, what's a trident? He's like, it's a symbol that represents the seals. Like, what's a seal? He's like, where are you from, kid? Like, I live in Saudi and blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, he goes on to tell me. He's like, well, do you remember when we bomb Libya?

I'm like, yeah, actually I do. I was in the Boy Scouts. and I was color guard for Vice President George Bush, and he was on the podium in Saudi, telling all these families of American families that, hey, if Libya ever retaliates, it's going to be here because it's the closest target, closest Americans to hit from Libya to Saudi, right? And so he was like, hey, we'll have C-130s and all this if things get out of hand and get you guys back to the States. And so I tell this guy, that's story. And then he turns around goes, okay, well, then you understand. When those B-11s had to go in and bomb, they had to go in really,

low. So me and my buddies took out the anti-aircraft guns and all the guys that manned it, right? I'm like, what does that mean that you took the anti-aircraft guns out? It's like, well, we went in and we killed everybody and then we blew the things up and left in the cycle of darkness. And I was like, that's cool. And this had to be one of like the, was this one of the older seals? How old do you think this guy? What year was this? This is in the 80s. So this is like one of the old, like maybe like, could it be Vietnam guys? No, a little bit. You would think, right? He probably was a Vietnam guy still in the SEAL teams, but here's the best part of the story. I finally grow up and become a SEAL and then go to SEAL Team 3. Seal Team 3 at the time concentrated solely on the Middle East.

So I start asking all the old guys, have been there forever. Hey, you guys, where's this Libya operation, you know, taking out any aircraft guns and this and that? They're like, never happened. I'm like, oh, must have been the guys out at like SEAL Team 6 or something. So then when I end up out at that command, so I started asking around, hey, anybody around here, know any stories or got the, you know, any operational history notes from, you know, these operations taken out any aircraft guns before we bomb Libya. No, never happened. So, you know, anyway, my whole passion and dream was driven probably by a fraud, you know, drinking at a bar and an airport in Frankfurt. It wasn't. Just some guy. Just some guy.

It never happened. So, you know, but hey, kids got to have dreams. But you were attracted to it, though. Yes. There was something that was attracting you to it. Do you think when someone comes to you wanting to be a seal that they have to have that attraction to it? Yeah. I think you've got passion is what's going to get you through it.

No doubt about it. If someone is, let's say a 10-year-old little boy comes to you and he's like, I want to be a seal. How do you even explain, or an 18-year-old? How do you even explain what it entails? Like, how do you even give them the tools to understand? what they're going to have to prep for. Correct us if we're wrong because we've talked to a couple guys like yourself that have been through the teams. And a lot of them, like a common thing is that it's not just about physical strength

or attributes. Like you have to have the mentality. The whole pregnancy, every single time I weightlift, I either eat two things. The first thing is protein pancakes, which I've told you guys the recipe on this podcast, or I do Ariel Lour's protein oats. and she talks about this on her Instagram. It's like a fourth cup of oatmeal. It's two scoops of protein powder. And then I add hemp seeds with a little bit of water.

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So good with berries on top. In this protein, and this is very important to me, I am a fucking protein snob, is no added sugars, no sugar alcohols, and it's soy-free, gluten-free, and non-GMO. There are a lot of proteins out there that are not soy-free. Look into it. Your mind will be blown. Ready to shake up your protein ritual? Our listeners get 10% off during your first three months at ritual.com slash skinny.

Ritual even offers a money-back guarantee if you're not 100% in love. But when you try these protein oats, I know you will be. Visit ritual.com slash skinny for 10% off your first three months. Enjoy. Yes. First, like education-wise, I mean, these kids, these days with the power of Google and everything else out there, finding out what seals do and all that obviously is very, very well known now. And then how to prepare. Yeah, I mean, I always say, hey, it's the 90% mental and like 10% physical, right? You'll hear different numbers. percentages on that. But the point is, is it really is all in your head. You know, when you're

facing the unknown every day, that's where your heart, passion, and you really got to want it, because the unknown and the anticipation of the unknown is what usually drives people to quitting or having self-doubt, and then they end up not making it, you know. So my Bud's class, 203 started with roughly 180-something guys, and then like 27 originals actually graduated. So, So the weed out. Yeah, it's pretty significant. It's a real weed out. I mean, and it has stayed the same for decades, and it works.

And now they've tried to massage it like, hey, we need more seals. But it doesn't matter how they massage it. The attrition rate stays the same for the most part because of that Pacific Ocean, right? What are some things that people quit over? My experience, I mean, some of it was just they go through a full. day of getting their ass kicked and they wake up the next morning and they go, this isn't for me. There's another, that was just day one. Right. They're just like, holy shit, I wasn't expecting that. So maybe I signed up for the wrong thing. But don't you kind of, I mean, as a seal yourself

going into these situations, you kind of want those people out maybe, right? No, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You wouldn't want somebody like that to make it through. You want the guy that keeps going, right? That's it. That's what matters. It's, so you could have a high performing collegiate athlete show up to buds and a lot of them quit because they're not used to being in a position where they don't do well at something, right? So if they were a great swimmer in college, but now you're doing a, you know, a 10-mile soft sand run and you're at the back, then they're like, I'm out of here because they've just never, they've been winning for so long in life that they've gotten to that to face that failure to face that weakness it pushes them right

out so a majority of your seals you know coming out of buds or by the time they get done they're more like triathletes right they have this well-rounded you know human performance capability of running swimming and being you know ant like right pound for pound strength that's how it used to be you know now that they've really taken human performance and nutrition seriously in the military, now the guys are coming out. Not only are they triathletes, but they're built like freaking NFL linebackers because they're starting to implement good, you know, human performance measures and parameters and not just beating people.

They're building soldiers, professional soldiers. So, you know, but you're still getting your ass handed to you, and that's why the attrition rate stays the same. and it all goes back to being cold, wet, and sandy, right? You just, you make someone cold, wet, and sandy for more than 24 to 48 hours, you know, a bunch of people are going to quit. And sleep deprived, right? Sleep deprivation is a huge part of Hell Week.

So that's what you hear about the most. Wait, yeah, what do they do to- Lauren, you're out. No, no. Oh, I'm out. I don't love Sandy either. Yeah. Wait, so when you say sleep deprivation, is there, like, tactics that they use on you?

Hell Week has a. It's a tradition, but it's also one of the main weed-out components of first phase. So a portion of this is breakout. Breakout is you're sitting in tents. It's the night that that hell week is beginning. You don't know when exactly it starts, but you just know that it's coming. And so people will start quitting right then and there. Once again, it goes back to that anticipation of the unknown.

Before anything even begins, they're just like, it's just too much the anticipation. Right. They're just like, yeah. Because it's been built up. And every time you could even know what's going to happen. But the scene, the guys you're around, you know, and like they say, panic is contagious, right? One guy starts freaking out, then another guy will freak out. And before you know it, you have, you know, dudes quitting together.

Like, hey, you're going to quit? Yeah, I'm going to quit. Let's get a hell out of here. I don't want to do this. It's also like reinforcing that it's okay to quit, right? Yeah. That's the big thing, you know, is the bell, right? the bell doesn't care about you right

don't you know the bell we have to ring a bell to quit right like when you have to go and you have to ring out right so you have to ring that bell and the beauty of the bell is that the bell doesn't care about you the bell doesn't know who you are the bell isn't going to look at you and kind of like a are you sure manner it's not going to ask you any questions it doesn't give of two fucks about you and you're gonna ring it and you're gone. And that's exactly what it's for. You've ever have people ring it and they're like, oh shit, I shouldn't run it.

I didn't mean to ring it. They probably have it. I never. It's like too puck, they're out. Yeah. I never witnessed it because I'm never near the damn thing and I made sure I wasn't. Is that the mentality you have to, like I was gonna ask you about you personally when you can think back to how you were thinking about that process while you were in it?

It's like I'm not getting near the bell. I'm not putting them like, how do you mentally prepare for it? Quitting is one of those things that will stand on your shoulder from time and time and try and whisper in your ear, right? Especially when you're miserable. Like, man, I'd rather be in front of a fireplace right now. Toasty warm with a platter of donuts and some hot chocolate, right? But, you know, you have to just push through those moments and keep on going. But a lot of guys, they get the best of themselves.

They create the self-doubt and they figure, oh, my God. I got six months of this, right? And it's six months of every day of just something that sucks. And you can either embrace the process and keep on going and surrender to it and be like, fine, you've got me. And that's pretty much what I did. I was like, surrender to the process and say, hey, yeah, do whatever you want to me. And in the back of mind, you hope that everything they do to you is safe.

You assume it's safe. You're like, oh, they're all seals and seasoned guys. and this is the United States military, no one's going to let me die, even though it has happened. But I literally just said, here, take me, and let's see what happens. I think that's pretty much what most guys end up doing, whether they notice it or not. What are some mental tools that you developed in there, whether it's a mantra or a meditation or something that you did when you were going through this that you think has really helped you throughout your life. I think being more task-based, I think that's what it was. I didn't look at,

I didn't look or think about a finish line, that six-month finish line. It literally became, I just want to make it to lunch. Okay, now I want to make it to dinner. Okay, now I want to make it to breakfast. Okay, now I want to make it to lunch again. And in between those meals are a whole lot of requirements that you have to meet, but you always knew that those were there. Right. And so it was real easy to start going, I just got to make it to lunch. And now, before you know it, you're at lunch. You're eating, you know, you don't even get time to get a plate. It's just put on a tray and you just eat off a tray. And then off you go. You're like, all right, all I got to do is make it to dinner. So getting that more of a task, task-oriented mindset, and I tell

people all time. It's like concentrate on those three to five meter targets, the ones that are closest to you, the tasks that are most important that need to get done right now. And it's the alligators in the boat. I got to deal with those first before I can deal with the alligators just outside the boat. And then once I deal with those now, I can deal with the alligators inbound. And so I think buds and a snapshot, that's what you end up doing, right? Just dealing with what's in my face, getting through it. And then I'll worry about what's coming next when it's actually in my it sounds like you just look at what's the priority tackle that and then what's okay what's the next priority tackle that you can't look at it like as a whole or it's too overwhelming in that

situation yeah you know so so what are some things that would maybe be really crazy to someone like me who hasn't obviously been around seals a lot that you guys do when you're training like what are some you said you mentioned wet and sandy and sleep deprivation but from a micro level, what do those things look like? Once again, in buds or basic underwater demolition seal training, and that's the weed out that we're talking about. You know, when you're cold, wet, and sandy, you know, things that you may not know about is we get nut to butt. Instructors will say get nut to butt, right? If they think anyone's, there might be someone in the crew that might be getting, or, you know, student base that they feel might be getting hypothermic. So what they'll do is

make you sit down, spread your legs, and then your buddy will sit between you, and then the guy in front of him and the front of him. So you're nut to butt with one another sitting down. For body warmth. For body warmth, right? And then to add to that. Can you and Michael show me right now? I'm just going to go ahead. As long as I'm, you know, behind him. Clint, turn around. I got to show you how it's done. Yes, please. Yeah, like we were talking, I was scrolling. I saw some interesting stuff on y'all's podcast. The other thing that goes along with that is peeing on each other. So you get nut to butt and then it is more than a delight to feel the warmth of your buddy behind you

peeing all over you. When you're that cold. When you're that cold, you don't care. And you just start to look at it as, hey, it's a tool and you use it, you leverage it to once again get to that next meal. And you know that you're going to be getting. getting wet and sandy within minutes, right? So whatever gets on you at that moment in time, it's going to be rinsed off, you know, pretty quick after. So you get out of buds. What yours is this?

It was 96. Okay. Yeah. So this is right before everything starts to pop off with 9-11 and not right before, but right before. What are you doing right when you get out? Get out of buds? Yeah. Like where do you, where do you go from there? Okay, so you'll graduate, and for me, I was a corpsman, which is a medic in the Navy. I had to go to an Army medical school, and then I went to jump school, you know, jumping out of planes, and then you circle back and you check in to your seal team. A lot of guys, if you're not a medic, then you're just going to jump school and then straight to your seal team. So all my other buddies that I graduated with were already in the teams had been there probably, you know, six to eight months before I actually showed up. And then at that point, you know, in the old days, I guess you could say you still hadn't earned your trident, right?

The whole goal is to earn that bird that you wear on your uniform on your chest. And it's a big deal. And back then, you showed up to a seal team. and all of the chiefs could grade you, right? All of your senior enlisted guys would run what's called a chief's board. And it would be all the senior enlisted guys in a room. And then you come in and sit down and then they're allowed to ask you any question that you should know the answer to,

whether it's, you know, the velocity of a 556 round or a 50-Cal round or they might pull out a map and say, orientate it to north and tell me where you're at right now. So it's really just this oral exam like no other and it goes forever. You know, everyone's trying to stump you. And they're asking you everything about all the different departments within that SEAL team. So you're getting, you know, air ops type questions. You're getting maritime questions. You're getting land warfare, explosives, everything you could think of that you should know.

Then when you're done, you do what's called walkthroughs, right? So then you go to each department. So you go to Air Department, they've got all the parachutes laying out, and usually there's flaws, right? So you're inspecting all this stuff, and then you have to find what's wrong with it, right? Then you'll go to ordinance, and they'll have every single weapon already broken down into pieces. Most of the weapons parts are mixed up, and now you've got to put all the weapons back together again, right? And you'll just go around, you know, and you go to diving, and then they'll have all of that scuba equipment out, And then you've got to fit there and troubleshoot it all, put it all together,

show that you know what you're doing. Once you pass all that, you still don't get your trident. Now you're in a platoon, right? And then you hang out with the guys and those guys that you are going to deploy with, they're the ones that ultimately decide when you're ready to get your trident. And one day you're told, hey, uh... And you can't deploy until? Yeah, you know that you're probably going to get your trident before you deploy.

Okay. But it's up to your peers to decide when. Are the guys who are above you really gnarly? Are they all different kinds of personalities? Is there a personality across the board that's the same? One thing that has been very much a theme this pregnancy has been flannels, big oversized flannels. I want them like boyfriend style vintagey flannels. And I love wearing like a black, tight, flattering dress with a huge flannel.

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Or check them out on Insta at Ula-Lux. I stocked their inspo and I got daily fashion and lifestyle and SPO. Plus, you also get fun behind the scenes content, prizes, giveaways, and more. You're going to use Code Skinny at checkout for 20% off your order. Shipping is free for orders over $50 within the United States. UlaLux.com use Code Skinny. There is an underlying common denominator of with every team guy you'll ever meet. I think it starts in buds and, you know, we all have kind of a dark, twisted sense of humor and I think we're all pretty thick-skinned, but personalities are, there's a whole variety, you know, you've got, you've got nerdy seals, you know, you've got, you know, more of your

jock-like seals, you know, which we would call 60 gunners. They just carry the big machine gun because they're dumb. But there's a lot of, there's, there's a lot of personality, a lot of levels of intelligence, but the one thing you know is the same between all of us is that no one's going to quit. And that is key and that is essential to winning in combat. You don't want someone anywhere near you that's going to turn around and run or hunker down and not shoot back, right? I mean, that is ultimately what Buds is for is to get a war fighter. And that's a mentality thing, not a physical thing. Have you ever seen someone quit in war? I actually did have a new guy in a platoon. I was in a leadership position. It was the kickoff to Iraq. We went over. My platoon took down

the largest gas oil platform in the world is out in the middle of the Persian Gulf. Saddam, you know, the first war we learned, he lights everything on fire. So George Bush knew that, hey, if we're going to go back into Iraq, then we have to prevent those environmental disasters. So the priority was securing the oil and making sure he didn't blow up the offshore platforms, any of the metering stations because that's what he did, right? So we go in and we successfully take down two go plats and the metering station on the Alphal Peninsula simultaneously. It was the largest naval special warfare simultaneous hit ever.

And this is, was this your first deployment? No. No, no. This was like, giving the example. Yeah, yeah. And then so the point being is it was successful, right? You know, it ended up being a huge success. We get back to Iraq.

and now it's time to start moving north. And one of the guys, after doing this great successful up, new guy comes up to me and he's like, I'm out of here. I got a wife, I want kids, I want to go to college, this isn't for me. I'm looking at him like, what? Are you crazy? He's like, yeah, I'm done. You don't try and talk someone in to staying when they do that, right?

It's like, okay. It puts everybody else over us, right? Oh, yeah. But how do you just go home after that? Is there a wait? No, it was pretty rough. I mean, like, you do that. You're done.

So your Trident gets pulled off your chest. The MPs come get you with that? No, no. It's not like going AWOL or anything like that because, you know, being a seal is voluntary. You can quit anytime. But, you know, quitting has a price. So Trident's pulled. All his gear is taken away from him.

And he has given regular Navy uniforms. and then he has to put those on right then and there. And then he starts working in a big Navy capacity until he was put on a plane from Kuwait back to the States. Yeah. It was a weird thing. I couldn't believe it because he was one of the funniest guys I had ever met my life.

Like this kid would literally pack costumes. Any training trips we went on, he'd always have a new costume in his bag. And once he would put it on, he would go into character and he would not come out no matter what, right? And we're going out on the town, right? This guy would put on his, he had this outfit, these super like tight little shorts that he'd like pull up to his nipples. And he had a pet monkey and he dyed his hair black and then he split it, butt cut it down the center. And he comes out of the bathroom.

We're all about to go out for the night. And this is how he's dressed, right? He's got his pet monkey. and he goes into this like, you know, somewhere on the spectrum kind of act that you probably can't get away with these days. And he would not come out of character. And at first you're like, dude, okay, enough of that. And then when he doesn't stop, then it just becomes funnier and funnier. But he was pure entertainment, a great guy. But he had a moment after that go-plat and something scared him or something gave him a dose of reality of what?

he had signed up for. But to go through buds and make it through all that, I mean, and get your trident and get on a deployment and your first deployment is combat, like, that's unheard of. Like you, in our community, going to war is the pinnacle of your career, right? You know, it's kind of the opposite for almost every other career out there. But here's a kid who's getting it served to him on a silver platter, and he just goes, I'm out. Yeah. In a weird way, like that's why you're there, right? Like you are signed up to go fight for your country. Right. And then the moment happens and you're like, I don't want to do this. You know, we had our friend Nate on this show recently and he's had multiple deployments. And we, a big topic of conversation is, you know,

guys like yourself go over to these places and see some of the worst things that, you know, you can see as a human being. And you come back and it's like this, there's not a lot of, you, you'd think there would be more support. But, you know, in his story, like, you know, he kind of came back and I was like, okay, like, thank you. You're done. like, let's get going. He really struggled with it. Like the trans, I mean, luckily now he's fine, lives out here in Austin,

but the transition for him was really tough. And I imagine, and this is just me thinking, I imagine there's maybe more support in the SEAL community, or am I wrong about that? You know, it really depends on the era of, you know, the guy, you know, when you get out, what job are you leaving from in the SEAL team? And do you have that core group of guys that will,

you know, you're leaving them. So they're not around when you get out, right? I mean, you can move to an Austin or a Dallas where there are other, you know, seals and stuff and hope that, you know, they'll help you with the transition or something. But ultimately, no, we're still on our own, just like any veteran, right? I tell people all the time, that point of getting out, when you go into the personnel office, I'll never forget. Like, I always compare it to the ID cards, right? When you're in the military, you've got this what's called a cact card. It's white.

It's got a colored picture on it. It's got all these cool little barcode things. It has a computer chip so that you can access, you know, top secret emails. And it's cool, right? You're like, yeah, this means I'm in the military. That's about all you have, but it means a lot to you. And you show up, you have to turn that in. And then they hand you this little, it looks like a Blockbuster video rental

card. It's laminated. Your picture is like blurry black and white. And then it just has the bare minimum on it. It has no computer chip. It's not cool. You're going from literally hero to zero in the exchange of your ID cards. And then they say thanks for your service. That's got to be so, I imagine that's so tough in the way he described it as like you, he was saying like you will never experience a greater rush than going to war. People like me can. can never relate to it. But for yourself, he's like, you know, he got out and it's like, if you've experienced that and all of a sudden the next thing, you know, you're like, you're just... Going to happy hour with some friends, it's probably a weird just a position.

No, yeah, it is. Yeah. I mean, I'd tell people, I transition. I'm transitioning every day. Like, you're sitting in a bright white studio with pink flowers in front of you. This is a little different. I'm drinking sparkling water. I mean, having lifesavers. Like, it's a little bit, But it's a little bit of a different experience I can imagine. Like, I mean, that's got to be jarring. Yeah, it was. Now, I'm six, seven years into this. So, but every day is a transition.

And I still kind of look at like, okay, just got to make it to lunch. Then I got to make it to dinner. And then I got to do it all over again tomorrow. Just make it to lunch, make it to dinner. So I think, you know, a lot of guys kind of lose that, that path. They know, they've done it before. they know how to do it. They just got to learn to get back on it. How do I get myself back on a path where tomorrow is kind of an unknown? But the more you keep going, the more you make happen,

before you know, you've got a full schedule and you know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. That is the big difference when you get out. You can start scheduling things. I'm reading this book about Orthodox Jews. And in the book, she says that one of them left, the religion. And she went and she visited him and she said, how are you doing? And he said, I'm really depressed. And she said, why? And she said, he said, I was told what to do my whole life. I was told how to eat, when to eat, what to eat, what school to go to. Everything was told what to do. And then I stopped doing that. And with freedom comes great responsibility for yourself. Did you feel when you got out of the military that you

had all this freedom and free time that you weren't used to, your day was set up for you, and now you don't have that anymore. That's got to be kind of a mind fuck. No, that is. That's a great comparison. And, you know, I would caveat that the SEAL teams is very entrepreneurial, right? So there's a lot of free thinking, creativity that goes on, that lends to why we are, you know, successful at what we do. And so you're kind of, you're kind of, of train to think outside the box and be a self-starter and make things happen for yourself, even when you're a new guy, right? I mean, it is ingrained in you. The new guy mentality, if everybody took on the new guy mentality, they'd be better for it. And that is,

show up early, stay late, volunteer for everything, shut the fuck up and keep your ears open, right? Five keys to success are right there if you're a new guy in the SEAL teams. But there's a lot of that you can take when you get out. You know, I'm up early. I stay up late and I try to get as much done during the day. And I still, keeping your ears open really just relates to continue learning when you don't have anything else going on, research something new, especially if it applies to your business or whatever it is you got going on. And, you know, you just, yeah, you have to take charge of yourself. I have a question that I've always wondered. When you go over there with all those men and there's no feminine energy.

what is, or maybe there is feminine energy? Like, is there like hookers? Like, what, what, what's, what's up with you? I want to know. Listen, you've had a big fascination with hookers in the last like five episodes. What's going on with you? I just want to know, I just want to know if there's any kind of feminine energy over there. And if there's not, how does that mess with the men?

Because it's human nature. It's got to mess with the men. There's got to be a lot of testosterone going on over there. Well, you guys heard of the village, the village people, right? Yes. I'm just kidding. Oh, oh, oh. Like, what is that?

Well, you know, we're Navy guys. So we tend to immediately get put into a certain corner that, hey, you know, you're all hanging out together. So does that mean? Oh, I didn't. But no, that is not even close. So feminine part is highly missed. No doubt about it. But it's not that there's a lack. I mean, I was pre-Google, you know, pre-Porn Hub. So one of the most important things that made it onto your there was a cruise box, right? And it would be full of porn, right? And that thing, and then as soon as you got to wherever you were going, one of the new guys was in charge of building the Spank Shack, right? And this could be a conics box in the bottom of the ship and a nice, dark little kind of humid environment with curtains, you know, camo, you know, basically your camouflage. What a job. Yeah, camouflage poncho liners, a box of porn, and a flashlight. So, you know, there was, Hey, listen.

Yeah, whatever it takes to get through the day. But what about the energy of the husbands that are married and have wives back home? Are they, like, really missing their wives? How does... Sure. No, I just want to know how it works if you're in a relationship or you miss that feminine energy. Yeah.

No, it's tough. I mean, it's interesting in the fact that once you kind of go into work mode, it takes a while for, you know, missing your family to kind of roll in because you're with your first family and your home, your family back home becomes your second family. And that sounds horrible to say, but that's reality. Those guys you're with are your family. And that's all that really matters. But there is enough of like, you know, the horsing around and messing with each other to the point where you will turn back to home because you need something new. And that's certainly the moment when you miss people.

You know, every guy has a different way of dealing with. Some do not just call home because they know if they do, that's going to kind of create that missing yearning, oh, I wish I was home kind of thing. And then others make calls all the time and they get through it just fine. But yeah, everyone misses their families, everyone misses their significant others. that does not go away.

But the bigger piece to that is we also, in the back of my mind, know that everything we're doing is for them to begin with. It's not for, we have a whole lot of fun, and most guys love taking all that risk, and they become addicted to it. What's superseding all that is the fact we're doing it, you know, for our families at the end of the day. Is it hard or challenging for someone that's been in the positions you've been

and to come back home after seeing some of the things you've seen and see fellow countrymen, country women fighting over what many would call petty things, right? Like you go and you see, you know, even buddies make sacrifices and people lose their lives and lose their loved ones. And you come back and we're fighting over, I don't know, just trivial shit in this country. Does that make your blood boil? What if I told you right now that changing your mood was just as easy as changing a song on your phone, getting on there, clicking a button and just saying, okay, I'm in a good mood now. I'm in a relaxed mood. I'm in a tired mood. I'm feeling like I want to

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advantage of their 365 day guarantee today. Go to hapb.com slash skinny. That's HAPB-E.com slash skinny to save 25% on your order. Happy.com slash skinny. You know, I don't get too emotional about it, but I do have moments when you realize, like, there's a very small percentage of people who serve their country, and then the rest serve themselves. And that's just kind of how, that's by design. You know, this country is built on capitalism. And so there's a small percentage that go out and maintain that freedom and democracy so that others can capitalize. and, you know, it's actually a, it's a rare cycle we have, you know.

And at any given moment, it's only 6% of our population that has served, you know, in some capacity. If you add law enforcement, all that into it, then it's, that percentage goes up. But, you know, people who have been in the military or in the military right now, I think it always hovers around 6%. Well, then I mean, also I can imagine, you know, war is so. far away from what touches the average Americans daily life. When I say so far away, I don't even just mean like far in thought. I mean, far in proximity, right?

Like it's, it's been what? I mean, besides 9-11, the last time there was an attack like that on this country, in a significant way, it's been, you know, most people weren't alive to even know what happened, right? Right. So I imagine, it's like most Americans can't even contextualize, like there's wars going on right now. You did so far, you don't even, you know, you can't even fathom that it's a that it exists, right? So it's like, okay, that's somewhere else. That's not my problem. I don't have to think about it. But it does affect that 6% and it's a very significant way. And that 6%

make it possible for people in this country to not have to think about it, right? Yeah. And I wish more people would look at it that way. I mean, it's, I understand why they can't because it's just so foreign to them. But at the same time, I think if there was more understanding of what people like yourself go through, there'd be a much greater appreciation for how well we have it here. No, you're dead on. It's a, I kind of, I kind of, I kind of always default to Israel. I respect almost, you know, everyone in that country has to serve. Now, it's only two years, but hey, that's something, because in two years, you really understand, they all know what it's like to be a member of their military, they all know what it's like to

serve their country and put that patriotism and that allegiance actually into action, right? we all grew up pledging our allegiance to a flag, but very few actually know what that means or knows what it feels like to do it. It's a great feeling. Like I tell people, if you have the opportunity to serve, you should in some capacity.

It doesn't have to be the military. There's lots of other ways to do it, but you certainly should do it because it is an overwhelming, awesome feeling of pride for the red, white, and blue if you just go do it. So let's transition at this point

because speaking of serving, you obviously learn a ton of valuable skills, just life skills. And we've lived now through a couple crazy times and moments. And I think the scariest thing to someone like me was realizing not only how helpless we were, right? Like people like us, but how helpless the majority of the country was. And you know, you talk to guys like you and Tim, they're like, yeah, okay, like we're not running out for toilet paper as the first thing. That's not the first thought that we go to if we have to survive. basic skills.

Yeah. And you've written a bunch of books on this and we're going to talk about it. But just are there certain skills that you're like, listen, you should know these type of things in any situation regardless because you never know when something's going to pop off. Yes. So as we talked about before. How do I get the toilet paper? How do you make toilet paper? That's what it all really goes down.

That's that's the, that's the, that's the, be capable. It goes back to the beginning. Be a capable human. being and you can pick whatever category you want and then start being capable. If it's, if it's self-defense and shooting and all these other things, sure, then go down that path and be capable in that vertical. You know, in others, it could be, you know, be handy, you know, be a handyman again, like know how to fix something. And in order to know how to fix something, you got to know how it works. And we've kind of forgotten all that because it's so easy to just, you know,

whether it's, you know, I kept my receipt, I can just go replace it. I mean, you know, and of course, if you bought a product, you don't want, and it breaks, you're going to want the replacement. You're not going to take time to fix it. But there are plenty of opportunities to, you know, take charge and be more capable and be more self-reliant. So, you know, like you brought up, 100 deadly skills was all about surviving seconds, minutes, days. And now with rugged life, I kind of sat back and like, you know what, the odds of a good day going bad for someone are actually pretty low, because I'm not a fearmonger. Most of us are going to go through life, and we're not going to be served some huge,

tragic event. But we may need to know how to do some other things that a pandemic certainly identified. And now when you've got the back end of a pandemic and you've got now a war in Europe, and supply chain issues, a pandemic that's still going on in China, which has shut down a lot of manufacturers, all of a sudden it's like, well, wait a minute. Yeah, being able to palm strike someone is good and everyone should know how to do it. But I also probably should know some other things that actually help the home and help the family. And that's where, you know, this pandemic is what spawned the idea for the rugged life and to get people to go a little more analog again,

because we're so digital. We rely on our phones to have food served to our front door or make sure our coffee's ready. So all we got to do is walk inside, grab it, and leave. You know, all that convenience has made us lazy and complacent. But they're missing like a cool part of the whole thing is that if you do it yourself, there's this satisfaction gratification thing that you get out of it

that you don't get from just buying it or just, you know, ordering it on your phone. There was two things about the pandemic that scared me more than anything else. The first was how quickly people were willing to give up their basic freedoms and rights. And I've said that a million times, right? It was scary how many people just blankantly said, for safety, we're going to just sacrifice everything that's, again, so many of sacrifice. But it's like what I said earlier, with freedom, it comes responsibility for yourself.

And that scares people. And I think the reason. Because they don't know how to, they don't know how. Yes. And I think the reason they did that is the second reason that scared me is it really shined a very bright light on the majority of us who are incapable of taking, care of themselves when shit goes sideways, right? And I think that's why it's like people should hit the fan.

People didn't know what to do. And they said, you know what? I don't know what to do. So I'm giving up and letting somebody else figure it out. You know what? I'm going to Clint's house if something happens. I'm going to be like, bye, Michael. Me and the baby are going to go to Clint's house.

Michael can come. Yeah, I'm going to be there first. I'll be, bye, Lauren. But you know what I'm saying is I think like that was the two things. It was like it was a massive state of fear that everyone. was in and they weren't capable of handling the unknown, right? We weren't set up. And I'm saying the country, right? The world. And with that, they said, okay, well, since I don't know, I'm going to leave it to somebody else, you know, I'm going to throw whatever by the wayside, because I don't know.

And I feel like if more people felt more capable to deal with things as they go astray and we're more prepared for these moments, we wouldn't be in these moments. Maybe there's a little bit of entitlement. A little bit. Yeah. And it's just, It just, it goes back to technology and us being slaves to it certainly plays a big role in this. You know, it hasn't helped. I mean, don't get me wrong. Technology is great in so many ways. But unfortunately, when you're relying on it all the time and 99% of the time, it does

solve a lot of our problems until there's a crisis. Then all of a sudden, it's not doing anything for you, right? And I think that's, you have to find the balance. And that's why putting that book together was so important to include some technology into it. Because no one's just, I'm not saying, you know, go out and buy a cabin in the, you know, in the middle of nowhere and just start living. That sounds really romantic. But it's, it's far more work than people realize. And you're not saving any money when you do it.

I mean, it takes money to do that kind of stuff as well. I keep saying someone like me because I feel like I don't know a lot about war. When you go to war, what is that like? If you were to describe it to someone that has no idea or no context, like the first time you go and you've obviously completed all these different tasks to get there, what is it like? It's a combination of emotions. There's obviously this massive amount of excitement,

what you're about to go through and do. There's also, you know, it's coupled with fear. and fear is good. Most people think, you know, seals or the special operations community, you know, are fearless, but it's not the case. I mean, we just know how to take fear and embrace it and use it to increase our performance and more importantly, increase safety. And we are really good at not letting it consume us because then that turns into panic

and leads to bad decisions. And then before you know it, you know, you find yourself in trouble. So, yeah, it's an overwhelming, satisfying moment when I had the Commodore stand up there in Kuwait, and we'd already been there for a while. And most of us sitting around going, this ain't going to happen. They got us all sitting here ready to go. And it's probably all going to get canceled, right? Politics, you know, if politics go right, then there's no wars.

So you assume that presidents and secretary, Defense, Secretary of States, and all those, those headshed, they're going to basically steal it from us, you know, put us there, tease us, let us see the border over there. That's Iraq. We're going to be there someday and then take it from you. But it didn't. You know, we had a Commodore stand up and go, the train's left the station. Like, what's that mean? He's like, train has left the station. This is going to happen. And at that moment, it's like, holy shit, this is real, right? And then the other confirmation was we were staying on this little base in Kuwait. And before we even went and did the GoPlat, we already had, we had already been training for when rockets are inbound, right?

Into your base, you go to these bunkers. And so they do a lot of rehearsals. I'll never forget the first time you hear the PA over the loud system go, lightning, lightning, lightning. rockets inbound and it's like a computerized voice right lightning lightning lightning rockets inbound and it's you knew the different that was real because when they do a drill the drill was usually a human saying this is a drill go ahead and you know go to your bunkers or whatever so trains left the station and then you know then we hear you know lightning lightning lightning rockets and then it was like holy shit you know so you're you never seen a bunch of people run faster

than when you know there's a whole bunch of rockets about to rain down on your camp. And you hadn't even, man, even started the war yet. This shit was happening. You know what I always think about? I always think about whenever, like, when you're at war and let's say you're in Iraq, and there's innocent people and mothers and children walking around outside, what is your relationship to them? Are they nice to you?

Are they happy that you're there? Are you nice to them? Is it horrific? I mean, obviously, it's a horrific to watch, but is there any emotion that comes up between you and the innocent people that surprised you? You know what's been holding my big tits up?

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They wanted you there. USA. Yeah. They saw us coming in and we were taking out a dictator and now promoting democracy, which meant freedom, which means women get to go to school, women get to drive cars, women get to do a lot of stuff. And when people go war hating, they forget that aspect that. War is what allows some of those basic civil rights to now grow that never existed before, right?

So the beginning of the war was chance of USA, USA, USA. Now, like any war, as it goes on and on and on, and their economy goes to crap, right? Now, okay, they start to go, was this a good idea after all, right? So, you know, it's a difficult, it's a balancing act. But for me, later on down the road, once, you know, things got far more dangerous over there, I remember a little girl looking at me with like extreme hatred, right? And she probably was, you know, maybe 10 years old. That moment stood out because when I was a kid growing up in Saudi, I looked at the Saudis,

the same exact way. I couldn't stand them for how they treated my mom and dad. My dad would stand at the commissary in line, and there's a hierarchy in Saudi, men, Muslim men go first. So you could have three people in front of you at the grocery store in line, but a hundred Muslim men walk in that grocery store, a hundred of them are checking out before you. And my dad's a good old Texas boy, and he would turn red in the face and want to just basically tell them all to go to the back of the line, but he couldn't. And that's just one example. There's a lot of stuff that goes on over there.

That moment when I saw that girl, I thought about the 10-year-old version of me, and that passion, it was really hatred. You're like, I hate these people, right? But it's their country. So, of course, when I grow up and I become an adult, you start to realize, hey, that's just, that's cultural differences. That's how they do stuff. We do stuff differently as long as they don't impose their crap on us, and I'm good. But the scary part of that very short story, short version is that that little girl doesn't have too many choices, right? Me, I had a certain passion, a certain hatred.

I could have grown up to still go down, be a doctor, a lawyer, or whatever I wanted, because there's lots of opportunity here. But I will admit, that little bit of passion, that little bit of hatred, also was always there and took me down the path of becoming a seal, right? Now, take that little girl, those little boys, and they're all looking at us like they hate us, what options do they have other than to become the next generation of bad guys that we're going to have to deal with, right? Because they don't have many options other than to just hate us, right? And they're just born into war.

They're just born into it. So it's a war in itself is a, it's a, it's a, it's a very dynamic, but politically and, and it's just a, it's a, it's a horrible balancing act of trying to do something for good and not make things worse for yourself. But inevitably, you know, you look at Russia going into Ukraine, you know, do you think there's some Ukrainian kids that are going to grow up just wanting to kill Russians? Probably. And you hope that they get other options so they don't, you know, continue down that path. But, you know, every time you take these big steps, you know, there's something in return whether you like it or not. So that's why showing the flag and doing all the humanitarian stuff coupled with military operations is so important. And most people don't get that. And we do that. We're very, it's very rare for a country to go in, start, you know, try to, you know, try to, Basically, you start the war, you try to push out a dictator, and then immediately start building schools, start building wells, start getting, you know, a lot of things in place that were never there before to hopefully neutralize any of that emotional trauma you'd be causing by going in there and taking out the dictator in the first place. Yeah, it's such a, I mean, it's such a complicated issue. And I think many people in this country, they say, they're like, hey, we're sick of war. But again, they haven't seen what you've seen. And they're, and they maybe look at some of the dollars spend.

Like, okay, if we're spending that there, why can't we spend it here? But at the same time, like, once you've opened that Pandora's box over there, you can't, in my opinion, you can't just peel it all back, rip the carpet under. Because look at the, look at the damages now that we've done. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to have a plan, you know, and you've got to execute it from beginning to end. And you've got to stick to it on all fronts. War is the smallest part of it. You know, it's the recovery ends up being the big piece.

And if you don't follow through on the recovery, well, then yeah, you're going to end up probably, you know, in another fight later on. And the whole purpose is, hey, we want to, we want to go take the fight to them over there. We don't want that fight to come here ever again. And that's, it's 9-11 is somewhat easily forgotten, you know, unless you're approaching September. Then we all remember it. And then we move on the next day afterwards. but you have to remember that moment. We don't ever want that coming here,

and it's the whole reason why we try to go over there. If it does start with a war, that's not the goal is to end with a war. It's to end with recovery and dumping, unfortunately, a lot of taxpayer dollars into it so that we don't have to deal with them as an enemy again, you know?

And that's why politics and, you know, the State Department and all these folks that have to deal with it, I'm glad I don't have their job. I noticed that, too with Iraq. It's everyone was so outraged when the United States left. And it was all over social media like everywhere on Instagram. In Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, excuse me. Yeah. And everyone was so outraged. And then I haven't heard it's like people just stop talking about it. But

it's still going on, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had a rollout plan. There's some, there's the media, as you guys know, and, you know, they tend to, you know, take things to extremes. But, you know, you don't, we were, you have a rollout plan, you know, when it's time for you to leave and that we're talking about the military. And it's usually a two, three year, you know, to get everybody out of Afghanistan didn't happen overnight. And everyone knew that it was going to happen. And everybody was leaving already for a good year or two. Okay. But then it just said, hey, now. But the, right. But the, but, but, but, when we got to the last, what was it, 10,000 troops and you're finally getting to that date on

the calendar, and it didn't matter who the president was, that day was just going to suck, you know? Now, could things be run better on the ground, and there's a lot of debate there? I don't get involved in that shit, but I do know that there was a transition plan, and that transition plan was executed, and they started to move troops back to the states. And that was, you know, that was nothing new. It's just the media sometimes kind of takes things, twists and turns it. And then, of course, whatever happened over there, I wasn't there, so I don't put my opinion on it. But obviously, we had some trouble getting the last, how many ever folks out of there. What do you think, if you just were guessing, it's like over there right now? Culture's culture. We are never going to

change their culture. And frankly, it's not our job to change their culture. So when you have a culture, that has been man dominant for thousands of years. And I remember seeing the news saying, you know, the Taliban got the country back in 12 days. They took the country back in 12. I was like, no, the country gave the Taliban the country back. The country gave them the country back, right? And think about it.

It's very male driven over there, right? So if half the population are men, they go, you know, under Taliban, I got a little bit more control as a man, you know, and that's all they know, and that's all how it was, you really break it down to just barbaric ways, that's it. They go, well, Taliban will let the men be in charge again. Women and kids become second. Man becomes first. That equality thing really just doesn't set well because I wasn't raised.

that way. My dad wasn't raised that way. His dad wasn't raised that way. That's culture, right? So it was just inevitable. We can't change culture and we shouldn't. That conversation about culture I think is really important. I think you're right. Yeah. Torture tactics. You see all these movies and all these shows. Is this true or is it just, is it again the media just playing shit up? That's very debatable. I was never, seals are never put in a position where they have to deal with, you know, any of the interrogation techniques that are out there. Ever.

No. Huh. I know some guys that may have witnessed it or, you know, heard this or heard that. But, yeah, that's left to, there's actual people that are trained and educated on interrogation. And that's what they do for a living. And those are the people that are going to come in and do that type of thing. And as far as torture or enhanced interrogation techniques, personally, because I hadn't had any experience or anything with it, you know, do they work? I'm assuming it works to a certain degree.

I mean, just in sear training alone, you're told like everyone breaks. And seer training is like simulated that you're either taken prisoner or you're taking hostage and it's very scenario driven. You know, the one thing you learn is that everyone eventually breaks. So what is breaking mean? That means telling the truth. That means saying something you're not supposed to say or that your government said that you should never talk about. So if you're told in training, hey, you're going to break.

And by the way, if it's okay to maybe, you know, used enhanced tactics on us in training, then when you got a bad guy sitting there, I mean, what's the big deal? Really? People made a big deal out of something that's been going on in every government on this planet for centuries. It's nothing new. I think that my biggest problem with politics, like if you just call it politics, and I'm not taking one side or the other. But there's this whole world that people try to engage in that's like this make-believe world

where we try to pretend things aren't the way they are. And it's like this and you hold this whole idea. I'm like, well, it could be there. But at the same time, it's like, well, it's just not the way it actually is. Right. Like you have to face reality. It's this whole thing now about like facts over feelings. We have to acknowledge the facts.

Yes, you can respect people. people's feelings. But at the same time, like, we have to hold the truth and the facts dear, because if you don't, you live in this make-believe world where you set yourself up for all sorts of failure, right? Yeah. Like, I could say, you know, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to keep my head in my phone and I'm going to walk in an area that I know might be a little dangerous, but social media told me the world's safe and I, and I'm fine. And then someone comes and wax me over the head with a skateboard and takes my wallet and watch and does God knows what? And I'm like, what happened? It's like, this is a real world. There's a real world. There's real

dangerous. I also think there needs to be too more of a conversation around situational things. Like, for instance, things are gray. Things are not always so black and white. You can't put a blanket opinion on something. There's situations that require different things. Right. Yeah, you're nailing it, especially if you're anchoring that to, you know, enhanced interrogation tactics. Yes. You know, the person sitting there being asked questions that relate to national security or the next 9-11. You can't be worried about dumping a bucket of water on his face if that was the case, right? Yeah, it's either, oh, I'm going to make this guy uncomfortable until he talks,

or the consequence could be, you know, 10,000 people dying in the United States. I mean, that's the part that they forget, right? They focus on, oh, torture, you can't do that, human rights. But, oh, wait a minute, you're forgetting the reasons why, the foundation of enhanced. Well, and if they didn't forget it and at least presented it in that kind of way, I think many people, listen, nobody is condoning and wanting this type of stuff. But I think if you put it in that light, the light that it actually is in, you know, it's like, okay, like I can live with somebody being a little uncomfortable in light of it potentially

saving a bunch of other people. I don't think it's a little uncomfortable, Michael Bostic. I don't think it's a paper cut. So I read all these crazy books. I'm reading this book about Frederick the Great right now and about some of the things his dad did. that there's like the types of tortures we're talking about now compared to what people used to do in medieval days. Yeah.

Lauren, like it were gentle these days. No, you told me one about the rat in the stomach or something. Oh, no, there's also. Oh, yeah. Just putting the caged rat on top of the skin. Oh. I mean, listen. And don't feed it.

You know. It eventually eats. No, I mean, there's like also, I mean, humans have done terrible, terrible. I would say like this is probably one of, even with all the atrocities we face now, it's probably one of, It's probably one of the more humane times in world history, right? Like, there's a lot of horrendous shit that happens. But I mean, like, people used to people, like, peel people's fucking skin off, right? Just like take a piece, like string cheese.

Right. And then people also forgot that Al-Qaeda was chopping heads off on YouTube. Yeah. Right? It's so funny how they want to grade and critique how detainees with evidence that they're bad or treated when just a couple of weeks, maybe a month or however long it took to catch that guy, he was chopping heads off on YouTube. Or throwing acid on some little girl's face or something crazy.

Yeah. Or putting him in a cage and light, you know, that Jordanian pilot. Remember that video? It was so, it was like Hollywood, it looked like a Hollywood production walking him out, put him in the cage. And then the bottom of the cage basically lit on fire. So he burned from his feet up. You know, he couldn't get away from it either, right? I mean, the things that they were doing, and then for our own media to turn around and start critiquing interrogation stuff, is just, it's insane. So. I have this weird question. If someone wants more context of what war actually looks like, and you've seen it.

What movie or show is the most accurate if you had to pick one? Oh, God. Yeah, I don't. Or are there not? None that I know of. But then I'm not a very good movie connoisseur, to be honest with you. It's called Star Wars, Lauren. It's called Star Wars.

That's fair enough. That's fair enough. I just thought maybe there was a movie that you were like, that is exactly how it is. I can tell you that in my experience, it's not like this consistent thing, right? It's not all day, all night long like you would see in like a Vietnam era movie, right? Or it's all day all night, just constant, constant, constant. And for me, there was moments of just, you know, like laughing, you know, entertaining each other in those moments of boredom. But there are, there's those extreme highs, those extreme lows, I think, just like with anything in life.

I think watching this, this war in Ukraine kind of, you see it there too, right? There's moments when there's nothing going on in one city, while another one is just getting decimate, right? war is unique in that is not constant it's it wasn't consistent it was just kind of this unpredictable things happening sometimes you're getting ambushed sometimes you're the one ambushing them you know it's just you know but there's times in the middle where you're hanging out you know and your little uh your little camping chairs you know with your boots off for a second just trying to air your feet out you know and and kind of laugh looking to take it having a moment to actually look at each other eye to eye and and smile laugh and hydrate you know there's

Human moments. Yeah. I want to talk about your books before we do. So you have a daughter. Obviously, she's grown daughter now. We have a daughter. A lot of women listening to this show. If you were to prescribe a few capabilities

that you wish the majority of the general public had for safety and awareness, where would you have people start? Because this is over. I mean, like there's so much in this book. But to begin, just to become a capable, aware person. First and foremost, daughter or son, I tell people all the time, It's awesome having a daughter because I can teach her everything that I would teach a boy and

she will be good to go. She'll be respected and never made fun of, right? But if you do the flip-flop, you know, you could go down a different path, right? And we all know that. So if you have a daughter, teach her everything that you would teach her son. That's the first thing. Good advice. Yeah.

And don't hold back on certain things that you think, well, that's boyish or that's, girls don't do that. So, no. For example. For example, could be, you know, jujitsu. Could be boxing. Could be shooting. Could be shooting.

You know, send her off and, you know, let her learn how to use a compound bow, right? And some folks may be rolling their eyes at that kind of thing, but there's more to most skills than just the skill, right? It's, there's confidence you get out of it. There's knowledge. There's awareness. about yourself and what you're doing, right? I mean, there's so much that comes out of just going and learning and implementing the most basic of skills that become life lessons that they can leverage when they face the next task or the next goal in life.

So, but if you limit them, then they're going to limit themselves. It's that simple. So, and if you definitely say that's boy stuff, well, then they're going to think that they're not supposed to do boys stuff. And, you know, so my daughter, I feel like she's pretty capable when I compare her to some of her friends. You know, some of her friends don't even know how to use a washer and dryer, for example, right? She knows and has been doing her own wash for quite some time now. She knows how to shoot a gun. She knows what the difference between the rear side, the front side is, and she understands the importance of bullet placement, not the bullet, right?

I don't, as long as the bullet goes to the right place, it doesn't matter whether it's, you know, 5, 5.5. 6, 7, 6, 7, 6, 2, 9 mil, 45, right? Just put it in the right place. And, you know, but whether that's for hunting or whether that's for self-defense. I mean, I would love to say, hey, you know, here's the top three things. But I think it's bigger than that. You have to just keep an open mind and start early and tell yourself on a regular basis, I'm not raising kids. I'm raising adults.

We always say it, though. I'm raising three kids. No, you're not. You're raising three adults. And the minute you get your mind wrapped around that, the better they will be at facing life. You know, so that's kind of it at a 30,000 foot approach. That is incredible advice. I think that you can apply that to Zaza.

You should teach her the skills. We should both teach her the skills. No, and I also think that, like you said, the more important thing is so many of us walk around fearful. And I think the fear, a large part of fear comes from being. ignorant on how to either do things or take care of yourself or, you know, what to do in a tragedy. But even like, you know, obviously we keep firearms in the house. I tell my wife all the time, like, it's not something to be afraid of if you understand what it is and how to use it, right? It's something that, you know, you don't want to have to, you don't want to have to use.

But if you understand how it works and what it can do and how to, and how it can do it, then it's kind of like anything else, right? So many people are scared of these things of this country because they don't understand them. Yeah, you're right. And I think, you know, promoting a healthy self-discipline is key, right? It's okay to be curious about everything, but at the same time, make sure your kid, your young adult,

knows how to be more self-discipline-oriented, right? How to govern themselves, no matter what it is they're doing, because it's real easy, you know, what's the first thing you do when you get a toddler crawling around? We go and we take every cabinet and we put these little hooking devices

so that they can't, Instead, we should just be teaching them and saying it and repetitively, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, because that is the beginning of self-discipline. But if you put the little hooks and the plugs and all the things around, well, then now I don't have to say anything to that toddler. They're going to go and they're going to do trial and error and it's not going to work, but yet there's no self-discipline learned in the whole thing. So you're kind of coaching them from the beginning to just trial and error aimlessly

and not really thinking through, you know, should I do this or not? It takes us to say no, no, no, no, no. But sometimes, you know, moms that are busy or dads, they just don't have the energy for it, you know. But self-discipline starts with us saying no on a regular basis and being okay with that. Incredible advice in this episode, The Rugged Life, the Modern Guide to Self-Reliance.

Where can everyone find you, your book? book, pimp yourself out. All my books, real easy, can be found at clennemerson.com. Rugged life is out on shells now. Everywhere books are sold. You can also pick it up, obviously, on Amazon, along with the 100 Deadly Skill book series, that is available everywhere. And once again, the goal is to get people more self-rescue, self-reliant, orientated. And probably the mantra, I'd want everybody to walk away with it, to walk away with. with is really simple, and that is the more self-reliant you are, the less this crazy world will affect you. So just be more self-reliant. Clint, you're amazing. I'll be at your house

during you know, where do you get a compound bow for a two and a half year old? Yeah. Well, you know, you got to wait until their eye-hand coordination gets to a certain point. They don't want to hand them one right now? Yeah, not yet. Thank you so much for coming on. That episode was killer. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys. Do you want to win a copy of my book? All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. And someone from our team will slide into your DMs and send you a personalized signed copy of Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. You should also know it's available on Amazon, Target, and Barnes & Noble. We'll see you next time.