The Daily Stoic - Nick Palmisciano on the Crisis in Afghanistan and Serving the Common Good

Episode Date: October 23, 2021

On today’s podcast Ryan talks to Nick Palmisciano about his recent trip to Afghanistan to help rescue American interpreters, the philosophical implications of practicing Brazilian jujitsu, his journey after leaving the military and becoming an entrepreneur, and more.Nick Palmisciano is the CEO of Diesel Jack Media, a full-service marketing agency. Nick is also the Vice President and one of four founding board members of Save Our Allies, an effort that rescued 12,000 refugees in the final 10 days of the Afghanistan Mission. He was one of the twelve men that physically went to Kabul to assist with the evacuation. He spent six years of his life serving as an infantry officer in the United States Army. In 2006, Nick created Ranger Up, the first military lifestyle brand, which kicked off a decade and change of veteran entrepreneurial endeavors focused around digital marketing and social media. Blinkist is the app that gets you fifteen-minute summaries of the best nonfiction books out there. Blinkist lets you get the topline information and the most important points from the most important nonfiction books out there, whether it’s Ryan’s own The Daily Stoic, Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, and more. Go to blinkist.com/stoic, try it free for 7 days, and save 25% off your new subscription, too.Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com /stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.SimpliSafe just launched their new Wireless Outdoor Security Camera. Get the new SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera, visit https://simplisafe.com/stoic. What’s more, SimpliSafe is celebrating this new camera by offering 20% off your entire new system and your first month of monitoring service FREE, when you enroll in Interactive Monitoring. Again that’s https://simplisafe.com/stoic.Uprising Food have cracked the code on healthy bread. Only 2 net carbs per serving, 6 grams of protein and 9 grams of fiber. They cover paleo, to clean keto, to simple low carb, to high fiber, to dairy free to grain free lifestyle. Uprising Food is offering our listeners ten dollars off the starter bundle. that includes two superfood cubes and four pack of freedom chips to try! go to uprisingfood.com/stoic and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Nick Palmisciano: Homepage, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics. Something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week

ahead may bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I just wanted to thank everyone for supporting the new book, Courage is Calling, it's meant so much to me. The book is off to an amazing start. If you haven't read it yet, please do check it out.

We still got some of the bonuses up available on dailystoke.com slash pre-order. The book debuted on the bestseller, so it was just awesome and I so appreciated. And so when I sat down to talk with today's guest, it brought me way, way, way back because I remember way in the depths of the American apparel collapse, I had just begun researching and starting to write ego as the enemy. And I hopped on a quick flight out to Fort Bragg where they put us through a bunch of cool paces. We got to drive in a Humvee simulator.

Got to stand on top shooting the 50 caliber machine gun as if I was in Iraq or Afghanistan. We did some simulated parachute jumps out of one of the jump towers. Got to see a whole bunch of awesome cool soldiers. It was part of an event for this great organization called American Dream U that helps veterans were transitioning out of the military back into civilian life. I was a speaker. I was talking about some of the ideas in the obstacles way. Also, the transition that I had gone through dropping out of

college. And one of the other speakers was someone I had known for a long time, I was a big fan of his websites and some of his apparel. And his name is Nick Palmoschano and he's the creator of Ranger Up. This really cool lifestyle military brand, nonch manure, formerly of West Point as they'll talk about in today's episode. Then he got an MBA from Duke. He also has a full service marketing agency called Diesel Jack Media. And he's the vice president and one of the founding board members of SAVE our allies, an effort that helped rescue more than 12,000 refugees in the final days of the evacuation out of Afghanistan. So when we talk about Stoics being sort of real participants in world events, Nick is a wonderful example of that. In today's episode, we nerd out about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, we nerd out about being entrepreneurs.

And we talk about a whole bunch of other stuff. It was a great interview, crazy for me to think that it goes back all this time, as I mentioned, I tell the story briefly, but we had this very strange experience together. We went to an MMA fight and then MC Hammer was there. And I don't know. I'll leave that to the episode. I will give you my wonderful interview with Nick Palm-Mashano. And you can follow him at at Ranger Undershore Up on Twitter. He's Instagram, nippalmachano. That's NICK, P-A-L-M-I-S-C-I-A-N-O.

And you can of course go to RangerUp.com. He sent us a couple of years ago, a bunch of stuff that my kids love, a bunch of hilarious t-shirts. And then they also make some really cool momentum morey stuff, which you can check out as well. Ranger up is great and it was good to talk to Nick and I hope you like this interview.

I'll be man, man. I've been good, man. Yeah, it's been kind of a wild ride lately, but good. Well, I wanted to talk about that, but I thought we'd start off with something easier because I think about this every time I see something that you or your wife tweets. I started training in Jiu-Jitsu maybe like 10 years ago now,

and I really, really enjoyed it. I did it very consistently for three, four years. And then I got out of it when I moved to Texas and then I never got quite back into it after I had kids. Then I was just starting about thinking and doing it again and then the pandemic happened. And a guy came by the bookstore a few days ago who was a black belt and he has a

jujitsu gym down the street. He was talking about kids classes. So walk me through why I need to start training again and what I and my family will get out of it because there's something obviously you do a lot of and I think has some philosophical lessons in it. Yeah, there's a couple things that I love about just grappling in general. So, you know, I started in judo in 1987, became a pretty accomplished judoka, then started wrestling in high school, you know, and they went on to wrestle briefly at West Point and then I was on the Army judo team and then Jujutsu came in vote, which is basically

the ground portion of Judo taken to the infinite level. And then MMA and I got involved with cornering Tim Kennedy. And it's been a ride. I've been grappling for a long time. What I love about grappling in Jujitsu in particular is that I live a very full life. I'm involved in a lot of things. A lot of stress, a lot of things to think about

when I'm on the mat and when I have a 250 pound man trying to choke me unconscious or break my arm. I am not thinking about any of those things. I'm not thinking about conversations to have with employees. I'm not thinking about payroll. I'm not thinking about a new business venture or a book to write or a movie to work on. I'm only thinking about I need to get this 250 pound man off of me and then get on top and start you know, doling out some punishment of my own. And so far better than you know, watching Netflix or

you know, some other kind of mind numbing thing like you're using your body and you go to this like zero state where it's primal. And so like it's a great way to shut off for 90 minutes while simultaneously, getting in better shape. The other thing that's great about it is, no matter how good you get at it, there's always somebody better and there's always something else to learn.

Perfect example is, you know, in most rooms, I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that I'm like some dominant guy because I'm not. But in most rooms, I hold my own regardless of who I'm rolling with like I'm not embarrassing. But then, you know, when I go and visit my buddy Tim Kennedy for a week and it's like Tim and three of his friends that are all world champions in Jiu-Jitsu. It's as if I've never done the sport. It's as if I know nothing. And there's something awesome about that is that, you know, whereas, you know, on a regular day, people are like, man, that guy is really tough. I can walk into a place where I'm the novice. It's humbling because it's literally kicking your ass. Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the great things. I think it's also healthy for, I think especially

men to get in there and get your ass kicked. Because, you know, and do a little asking, kicking of your own, because, you know, we kind of live in this world where everybody has this bubble of what they think they can do. Like, men tend to assume that they're experts in fighting, like that they're some innate fighting gene that they have. Whereas, you know, like I've been fighting since 1987, and when you go up against somebody that has never fought,

it's like everything they do is slow motion. Everything they do, you anticipate. Not to say. That's embarrassing how naturally bad you actually are at it. That's what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah, super bad. Yeah, every instinct that you have is the wrong instinct. And it burns out your energy.

And next thing you know, you're in a worse position. And like, you know, it's not a natural thing. You have to learn it. You have to have discipline. You have to work out just like everything else. So everything that you have to learn it, you have to have discipline, you have to work at, just like everything else. Everything that you want to become expert in requires discipline on a daily basis. There's that Yogi Barrel line about baseball that it's impossible to think and hit at the same time. I feel like fighting is, that's even more true because the stakes, although,

yeah, getting hit with a fastball is not something you want to do, but the stakes are higher in fighting or at least more primal because you're literally two people fighting for literal domination of each other. Yeah, and you absolutely degenerate to whatever you actually know. And what I mean by that is like there's a lot of fancy moves I can do against beginners or fancy moves that I can do given time. And I think that's true of most people that train, but when you're actually tired and it's actually a you know an intense moment where adrenaline's up and you have that you that fear if you will of losing or being injured or something.

Even though I know, I don't know how many, 100-some odd, 200 moves or whatever, I kind of go to the same five or six things when push comes to shove because those are the things I've done 10,000 times. And so, you know, I think, and not to completely change subjects, but it's one of the reasons why whenever I watch situations where whether it's like, you know, police officers or military or firefighters and you watch them and you're like, you know, why did he make that decision or why did she make that decision?

Like, when you've actually trained, you realize that you're never as good as you wanna be, and you fall back on whatever it is that you've done the most because you go to lizard brain mode. All of them. Haven't they done studies that like police officers who are trained in grappling are actually much less likely to use deadly force because they have either the confidence or the acumen or just they've done the emotional regulation that prevents them from escalating to the

final option so quickly? Yes. And the same thing with military members is people that have extensive hand-to-hand training tend to pull the trigger less quickly in environments that perhaps don't call for it. Because, again, if you don't know how to fight, if you don't know how to pin someone to the ground and keep them from moving,

then everything is a life or death situation. But if somebody puts their hands on you and you can feel instantly, they can't move you, like you don't have that same anxiety level. And so the more that you train in bad environments, and this goes for everything, whether it's shooting or jujitsu, or any of the martial skills, the more you train in bad environments, the more comfortable you are when it really matters. Right, so here's my excuse for why I stopped doing it. And you can call me out on my bullshit or maybe you can just give me a solution

because I really did enjoy it. So I'm as an introvert and as a writer, I sort of need solitary time, sort of meditative experiences that allow me to think. I'm sort of turning off my mind but I'm also turning on my subconscious, right? And so running or swimming or biking has always been that for me.

So that I have to run every day for sort of professional, but also personal reasons. Like I'm just much less pleasant to be around if I haven't done those. I get it. Yeah, I get it. And so, so I have to do that. So when I was, you know, when I was working on my first book and I sort of left my job, I had like so much time. I could be like, well, I'm going to run to Jiu-Jitsu then do Jiu-Jitsu, or I'm gonna do Jiu-Jitsu,

and then maybe run in the after. What I found, it was an increasingly harder sell to tell my wife that I needed, you know, two to two and a half hours of Ryan exercise time in the course of a day. So that's why I was thinking about the kid part of it because then either we could do it together or it's sort of a family activity,

that was what was getting me excited about the idea again. Yeah, so I mean, it's great for kids. It's actually a phenomenal sport for kids and I think it helps with all other sports, regardless of what they do down the road. So all of my children have participated in jujitsu how many do you have and how old are they and when did they start? I have six. What? Yeah. So you know my my wife came with a couple I had a couple and

and we we had a couple together so total of six. The oldest is 20 and about to be 21 and the youngest is six. So, yeah. And they all did it and what was that experience like? Yeah, they've all done to Jetsu and actually all of them that have been able also have wrestled. It's been very different. My oldest is like, he wasn't passionate about it. It was very like, OK, this is one of the things that I do. And didn't really get hardcore into grappling

until his senior year of high school. He went hard after wrestling and finished his season pretty well. And then has continued to grapple on his own where he wasn't heavily engaged in it. For most of his childhood, it was just a thing he did. My second oldest kind of the same thing, like he enjoys it, it's fun, but he did. My second oldest kind of the same thing, like he enjoys it, it's fun, but it's not like, like with me grappling was like, you know, I lived,

breathed, was willing to die for it, you know, when I was that age, my daughter, who is his 14, she's the hardest core. So in middle school, she finished kind of like second in middle school for the state, boys and girls, for wrestling. And she's gone to camp, she's upset, she missed a year for COVID. She's already doing wrestling camp now, gearing up for her first high school season.

My other daughter who is 13, is more into Jiu Jitsu. They are completely different girls. My older daughter is like Bill like I am, you know, just, you know, short stocky, you know, all, all kind of like muscle. And my younger daughter is Bill like my wife, you know, long, lanky, you know, kind of like legs for days. And so because of that, you know, she's great at triangles. She catches, she catches triangles and she can move people with her legs and You know, so they just have like different like the cool thing about grappling is like different people with different builds Abilities strengths weaknesses can find their own game

and then you know my My 12 year old son and my six year old son are, they're both very athletic, very aggressive. And I think they're going to probably dominate the sport and be into it just based on what I've seen thus far. Has been cool as a family to have, like, I must be cool about it is like something you would necessarily do together, but it is like a domain in which you're all at different levels like you're

saying like you got you're all studying the same thing. I guess that must be a cool family experience. Yeah, it is because everybody understands, you know, every single, nobody just starts off being good at grappling. So, you know, when, you know, when one of my kids doesn't get the result they want, like, I've been there, like, you know, they know they know I've been there. But the journey is, is, is really fun. And, you know, it's like all things, right? So, you know, is really fun. And it's like all things, right? So, you know, you and I have talked about this before, you know, people that focus on a result tend to never be happy, people that enjoy the journey of kind of improving and getting better and investing time and things that they believe in tend to be happy. And so, you know, watching my kids go from not being able to hit a single

leg, take down to mastering it, or never having one match to winning a match. All those little victories, I remember them, my wife remembers them, the older ones remember them. So everybody's kind of a long for the journey. But also very candidly, I want my children to be able to defend themselves, and to not be in the worst case scenario, if somebody tries to place them

in that scenario. And so just a generally healthy sport to be around. Well, it's healthy too, and that you might seem like it's dangerous, but the extent of the injuries you're going to get are like broken fingers, maybe a broken arm, broken toes. You're not getting, you know, CTE or concussions for the most part. It must be, you can sort of feel good about them as they're doing it. You can sort of feel good about them as they're doing it. Absolutely. Yeah, it's actually one of the safer sports. You know, the continuum of danger in sports is boxing, number one,

football, number two, soccer, number three, and then everything else drops off significantly, significantly from there. I want to say Jiu Jitsu is like 30 or something. Yeah. Most of the time when there's a Jiu Jitsu injury, it's going to involve either an arm joint, but not, people aren't typically snapping arms. It's more like it got a little hyper extended and you need to take a week or two off as opposed to, like any kind of serious injury.

And with kids, that never happens. Kids never real, you know, they have a different speed than, you know, kind of idiot adults that take things too far. Now, all the injuries that I ever had were against actually less skilled people who were trying too hard. Always. Yep. Yeah, I mean, I mean, perfect example.

Tim Kennedy, who is as elite as they come and grappling. He recently had a torn ACL, and it was because of a less skilled person that was trying something, and Tim didn't, was trying to be nice and didn't want to crush him, and the guy kind of tried to throw Tim in a weird way and Tim planted his foot and next thing, you know, you know, he's got a torn ACL and he needs surgery in the whole nine and, you know,

he called me and was, you know, super upset about it. He's like, man, if you had thrown me, you know, I'd be perfectly fine right now. And it's because unskilled people do crazy things and it's it's a life or death for them whereas You know like if you and I rolled I don't care if you tap me out like my my Personal ego is not tied into how I do in practice or who gets me or who I get like it's all practice like we're there for practice Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. There you are.

I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo, just the name of you. Now I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keep a Bag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do.

So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know.

So I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night. But I'm taking these questions out of my head and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This Is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcast. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. Yeah, I think one of the lessons one of the most sort of humbling and inspiring things I found in Jiu-Jitsu, which again would be something I really wanted

to teach my kids and I'd be curious how you've seen this lesson sort of manifest. Is I have found, you know, you walk into a gym and the best guys or women are the kindest, the quietest, the most generous and the most secure in them. You think it would be intimidating that these are aggressive people. These are killers with a killer instinct kind of a thing. And it's almost as if the competitive drive in Jiu-Jitsu is turned inward

as opposed to outward, which is interesting in that it is a directly competitive sport where you're trying to break your opponent. But for whatever reason, there's not, I just never found that sort of jockey like, let me bust your balls or let me humiliate you or let me show you why I'm better than you. And ironically, again, it's the insecure people who are new that you have to be worried about. Yeah, I mean, I think that there are so few people that reach the elite level that you need each other. Like you know what you've earned, you know who you are,

you know what you've accomplished, You know who you are You know what you've accomplished. You know what you're capable of and to get better You know, you're not gonna get better training with somebody that doesn't know anything like you're getting better training with somebody It's better than you or at least is at your level or can push you and so you know The only real matches are when, you know, you and somebody that's your equaler better says, hey, let's go hard on this one. Like this one, we're going to treat this like a real match, we're going to treat this like a real fight. But let's try to win. And those are really valuable training experiences and you have to do those sometimes, but most training, especially, you know, after 40, you can't operate like that.

If you want to play jujitsu, you can't be going 100% every single time. It's how you get hurt, it's how you make it not fun, it's how you push other people out of the sport And so you know ultimately you want people to join your sport you want people to learn and you know Like I can get on top of a white belt and make their life miserable and make sure they never come back again But then you know no one wins right You know, and so you got to let you got to let people play you got to let people get in dominant positions and kind of work your way out of them and explain how you did it. I find that most high ranked people are pretty good, good human beings. And in fact, a lot of black belts now have a policy where they're not gonna promote

somebody to brown belt or higher unless regardless of their skill level, if they don't think that they're people of character. Interesting. Yeah, my last, actually, I might have to, but one, one of the things, obviously, with stoicism, there's this sort of sense that it's very masculine, that it's only for guys, that it's all, but your wife is very good at jujitsu, and actually some of the most sort of skilled grapplers I've ever seen have not, have not men. Obviously you can't really speak to her experience, but both your daughters are in it is also interesting to me. It's not just for guys. No, so my wife is a badass. She's actually, I believe, I haven't done the research, but

I couldn't find anyone else. I believe she was the first wrestling coach in North Carolina that was a woman. And basically what happened was we lost both of our middle school wrestling coaches on the same day. One got a job off her elsewhere that he'd been trying to work at this place for like 12 years. And the other had recently gotten married and decided, you know, I don't, this takes up so much time, I want to devote it to my my marriage. And so all of a sudden we went from having two great coaches to having no coaches. Well, Suzanne had, you know, she had been wrestling with me for years as part of improving her Jiu-Jitsu game. And she's a accomplished wrestler. And so she said, well, you

know, our girls need to have a wrestling coach. You know, do you think I can do it? I said, absolutely. Like, you're, you know, you're very technical. You know how to teach. And frankly, I think there's nothing that's going to be better for, you know, 12 and 13 year old boys than getting their butt absolutely kicked by a woman. And 110 pound woman at that. And that's exactly what happened. She basically went to the middle school and said, I'll coach. And then other coaches came on board eventually, but

at the very beginning, she was the wrestling coach by herself. And she smoked a bunch of teenagers on the first day of practice and all of a sudden, there was a lot of respect. But I will say this generation is so much better than my generation. There were very few women in wrestling when I was a wrestler.

When a woman joined the team, it was like, hey, let's run it off. It was a whole big off the team. Yeah, it was a whole thing. That was a thing that I never participated in. It was actually a conversation I had with my coach when I was captain of my high school team. I said, I'm not going to do that. You know, like you've taught me that, like if people don't quit for the wrestling team,

then the wrestlers, and we got to go the same way. And to his credit, he actually said, you know what, you're right. But it was definitely a thing in the early 90s to try to make sure that women were not on the team. Whereas now... And the whole humiliation of, oh, I was beaten by a girl or what if I lose to a girl as if... That was a huge, huge... That was a huge, huge, huge fear. And, you know, now it's just not like that.

Like, there are women on every wrestling team I've seen. It's accepted, every coach accepts it, and I will say this, I personally believe that women's wrestling and women's grappling saved Olympic wrestling. Huh. There was a period of time where, you know, like, the oldest Olympic sport, you know, got cut from the Olympics in 2016. People forget that. And there was a huge movement to bring it back. And I've heard through the grapevine from

a lot of people that the reason that it came back was because of the interest in women's wrestling. And women's wrestling is now the fastest growing individual sport in America. Wow, that's fascinating. All right, last jujitsu question. All right, I'm ready. One of the things that another sort of parallel to stoicism that I've liked I sort of found it inspiring,

for people who are not familiar sort of how jujitsu gyms go, it's kind of like CrossFit and that you sort of go, there's like a warm up, and then there's like a set of instructions for the day. Like here's the lesson, and then there's like the rolling or whatever, right? And then the questions.

But I just love the idea that it's basically like, you at any level of any proficiency anywhere in the world could drop in at a jujitsu gym and like the same process is happening. They're all doing the same lesson, but more or less the same format. I just loved the sort of the image of like all these different people on different different places, but on the same journey, just meeting up all over the world. There was something sort of inspiring and I think similar to the journey of self-improvement and philosophy that we're all on,

which is like, look, classes are everywhere, choose to show up or not. Yeah, and they're, you know, when you put it like that, you know, it's absolutely true. Like, you know, every instructor has their own flavor on things. You know, maybe, you know, maybe they snap instead of clap, or maybe they're an anti-clapping gem or whatever, but there is a process.

And it's a familiar process. And I, you know, I absolutely believe that, you know, people in the Jujitsu community feel very comfortable. And in fact, you know, couples that are hardcore into Juj-Jitsu almost make it part of their vacation. Like if they go to the Bahamas, they also want to find Gracie Bahamas or whatever.

And Bob, you hit it across Fitbox or what? Yeah, yeah, it's just part of the experience for people. I'm not one of those people. I'm on vacation, I want to do nothing, you know, but it's where all different. Now, no, as you're traveling for business, you might want to stop in or if you're traveling to the channel yourself, that sort of thing.

Yeah. Well, cool. So let's talk about your life as an entrepreneur, because you and I met at that American Dream Youth thing where you were talking to veterans who were transitioning out of the military. Did we meet there, or did we meet years earlier with Tucker? I think we'd met over email before, but that was like, that was where, I don't even think

we both knew we were going to the thing, but we both bumped into each other at Fort Bragg. Okay. And then I remember we went to a fight and then MC Hammer was there. It was all very. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But talk to me about your journey. I stole his limo that night.

Talk to me about your journey to entrepreneurship because that's not what most people do coming out of the Army Rangers. Yeah. coming out of the Army Rangers. Yeah, so I left the military and I went to... And I must have been 26 or 27 somewhere in there. I think I was 27. I left the military and I went to Duke University for business school, so not a real degree in MBA. And I'm not going to say waste a couple of years there, but it was more an education

and interacting with the cohort than it was I was learning anything critical in these classes. While I was at Duke, I volunteered with the ROTC and I taught them small unit tactics and army combatants. It was just a thing. It was fun to kind of stay connected to the military in some small way. Then I got a corporate job at a Fortune 100 company and I was working at John Deere and I was still local so I continued doing the ROTC thing. And so every morning at 6 a.m. I was at Duke in the wrestling room and I was teaching combats. And one day a couple of the kids were like, you know, combats. And one day, a couple of the kids were like, you know, man, I really want to wear some military clothing, but all the t-shirts out there are skulls and snakes

and death from above. And it's like way too hardcore. And I'm in college, and I just want something that's kind of like cool. And so, you know, I've been teaching these kids for years. core and I'm in college and I just want something that's kind of like cool. And so, you know, I've been teaching these kids for years and I went to Michaels and I got some heat transfer paper and basically like made some cool shirts for them just out of heat transfer using Microsoft paint, you know.

And they thought it was great and, you know, they were just like, hey, you know, you should think about doing this and actually, you know know hiring a designer and doing it properly and I kind of like thought about it wasn't super excited about it but you know it stayed in the back of my head and then I got more and more bored with the corporate gig and so I was like you what? Let me launch this little hobby and the hobby was called Ranger Up. And people started writing me from Afghanistan and Iraq saying, man, this is great. You know, I'm so glad there's finally something like this for us. And it became a bigger, a bigger part of my life to the point where, you know, at the peak of me being a quasi entrepreneur, my life was, you know, get to work of me being a quasi entrepreneur, my life was, you know, get to work at 7 a.m., leave the office by, you know, 5, 6 p.m.,

come home, you know, have dinner with my ex and then from, you know, 7 p.m. until 3 a.m., I was, you know, filling orders, working on designs, working on marketing schemes, whatever. I just lived in this loop of three, four hours of sleep a night, two jobs. I got to this inflection point where the company was getting pretty big, but it wasn't big enough to really support the life that I was living, but also I had no more time. At this point, I had hired a couple of people,

and I had a little warehouse because there was no more room left in the house for a shirt. So I got a little warehouse. My boss called me into his office and said, on a Friday, and said, hey, great news. You're getting promoted. It's going to be $100,000 raise. And I don't come from wealth by any stretch of the imagination. I'm the son of immigrants. And certainly, my parents worked very hard, and we had a good life, and we were middle class by the time my dad retired.

But the idea of making the kind of money I was making was attractive. But I just did not like my life. And so I thought about it all weekend. I kind of called a couple of people, talked to my dad, and then on Monday I came in, and I told my boss that I was quitting. And everybody was like, are you crazy? Like, you basically have run the playbook

for the right thing to do to have the right kind of life. I did West Point. I was in the army. I did the right things in the army and then Duke and now at the Fortune 100 gig. And it's just like the only time in my life where I was unhappy was like making all this money and being in this company that I just didn't feel like I was making any difference.

And so I jumped into being a real entrepreneur and almost bankrupted myself. I got a divorce. I was a, you know, for a period of time. You know, I was a single dad with a one year old and a three year old. I mean, when I tell you that it was a challenging period of my life, that is a gross understatement. And there was a moment where I had $57,000 in credit card debt, and about $1,300 left in my bank account. And I still had these two toddlers and trying to figure out how I was going to make it all

work. And I told myself, instead of saying, I'm going to go back to the corporate world, the decision was, if I don't have more money in my bank account on this day, next month, I have to get a second job and I'll figure out how to restructure things to make Ranger Upwork. And, you know, I worked harder than I ever have in my entire life. And I just made every phone call I could and tried so many different things and ended up landing a pretty cool article in the military times that kind of

skyrocketed us forward. And the next month I looked at my bank account and I had $1350. And I actually got a little emotional about it because as silly as that $50 was, it was a big win for me. And then the next month, I had 1,500, and the next month I had a few thousand, and then fast forward about 18 months. And I was buying a nice home in Chapel Hill,

and I was very fortunate that all of the work paid off, but even if it had it, I was committed to the journey. And I think that commitment is really important if you actually want to succeed as an entrepreneur. Yeah, I was writing about this in the book on Courage that I just did. I think people expect that like, oh, this person was in the army,

you know, this person's been under fire, you know, this person has all this training. I think we assume, or this person's trained in fighting. I think we assume that sort of physical courage from physical courage, moral courage follows it by moral courage. I mean, the courage to pursue a business or to bet on yourself or to take an unconventional path, but it's not true. And in fact, it may be that the other stuff is even scarier than, than the physical feats that people are sort of regularly capable of doing. Yeah, you know, I'll tell you that, like I think it very much depends on the individual and what they have gone through. But for me,

the fear of letting, you know, in particular, my kids down was the hardest part. And it kind of stays with you for a longer period of time. When you have a business problem, a real business problem, or you're in a startup, the solution comes over months and years, not days, not hours, whereas anything that happens when you're talking about physical danger tends to be a very

short duration. And certainly the intensity is higher, especially if you're in a situation where your friends are dying or something like that. And thankfully, I was never in a situation where one of my friends or soldiers was hurt. But, you know, so like I'm not comparing them in terms of danger, but the emotional strain of being in a, is this going to work situation? Is very significant. You know, and I, it breaks more people than you would expect. And so, I was talking to a whistleblower recently and he was saying something like,

this is a private conversation, but he was saying like, look, if this was about like leaping off a cliff, like deciding to go public with something or deciding to quit my job or running into battle, he's like, that would have been like one thing I did once. He was like, the thing was, I was having to choose this every day.

They were like, sign this paper and we'll leave you alone. And I had to say no. And I had to say this, no, no, no, no, as they came for my houses, they came for my parents' houses, they came. You know, he was like, I had to choose it every day. And that was the grind and the terror of it. Because, you know, I couldn't,

if I just said it once, that would have been a moment, but it was, it was, that it was months and months and months of it. So I can only imagine what that, that period of struggle was like for you. Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, it's weird because on the one hand, I want to tell you that it was a nightmare, but on the other hand, I think I felt most alive during that period of time. And I think that one of the great things about being an entrepreneur and you know this,

is you really are making or breaking it on your own. And so I think your best comes out when it has to. I mean, I 100% feel like in times where my business is really thriving, I have to remind myself on a daily basis, like get in there and fight. Like, you know, be as good as you are when things are bad. But, you know, when there is a crisis, when you have to perform, like, you know, you just take it to another level. And so I think a lot of the things I'm most proud of in business, you know, happened in moments where everything was shitty. You know, it's, it's, when it's, when, when there's plenty of cash in the bank account,

it's just iteration. Oh, that iteration didn't work, no problem. Like we'll just try another iteration when there's very little money in the bank account or you owe more than you have, you can't miss. And so there's something exciting and horrifying about that all at the same time. It makes this gig fun.

So as far as moments of actual sort of punctuated courage, it's sort of courage under fire, danger courage that we're talking about, walk me through what your experience was. I know you just sort of recently got back from Afghanistan. You're a part of the civilian group that helped rescue people. Was it during the final weeks or when did you go? Yeah, so I mean, you know, again, and you know this because I know a lot of your friends. When you have weird friends, weird things happen to you. And so I have two friends, one named Chad Robyshaw, who used to be, he was one of the first Ranger Up fighters back in the day, we sponsored a lot of MMA fighters.

Chad was a Strike Force champion. And Chad now runs a pretty hefty nonprofit called the Mighty Oaks Foundation. And then another friend, Sarah Varardo, who runs an organization called the Independence Fund for badly wounded veterans. And so Chad calls me, and I'm sitting with Tim Kennedy because I'm currently writing his book with him and Chad calls me and is like, hey, you know, my interpreter is is trapped in Afghanistan and you know, we want to get him out, you know, can you help? And then, you know, I'm taking him back and you know, and you know, he tins there and so he's he's talking to both of us and you know, I'm taking a back and, you know, and, you know, he tams there and so he's talking to both of us and, you know, we're all friends and he's like, you know,

what do you think? And Tim and I both say, like, you know, do you have a plan? Like, what is our mission? Like, I don't want to just, like, go and hang out, like, you know, and say, oh, I did it, you know, I was there. Like, what are we going to do? And then, Sarah Burato called almost immediately there

after and kind of had the same ask. And now it's like, everybody jokes around. You have that friend that shows up in the white van with no windows and the door flies open. And he's holding like a gun. He's like, get in. No time for questions. Like, do you get in?

Well, you know, these are two people that Tim and I both were willing to get into the van for. And so I called my wife and I said, hey, I need to know what you think about this. You can say no. And, you know, we're going to go try to get some Afghan and American citizens out in Afghanistan. And she's like, well, what's happening over there is horrible.

There's nothing I can do about it. So you and Tim should go and do what you can, but if you get killed, I'm going to be really pissed. And so I flew home that day. My wife and I celebrated our anniversary. And then the next day, I was on a plane to Abu Dhabi, sitting next to Tim. We got into country in Abu Dhabi, where that was our host country.

They had a relationship with one of our friends that allowed us to operate on it there. So, in total, 12 of us showed up. And about, I want to say, two hours after I landed in Abu Dhabi, I was sitting on a landing strip on a plane heading to Kabul and over the course of 10 days of operations, 12 guys evacuated 12,000 people into our host country. We represented 10.2% of everyone that got evacuated from Humid Karzai International Airport. And, yeah, I mean, it was just an absolutely insane,

insane situation, you know? So the plain lands, you know, like the door opens up and most of the time, if you've ever been on an airstrip, which I'm sure you have, everything is perfect, it's neat, there's no trash, everything's controlled. Well, you know, I get out of the airplane, there's a dude and like an emgator. I hop in that, we're driving like under moving planes because like there's no time everybody, like all of the normal military things, like in a regular environment,

there's no way civilians are landing in H. Kaya and just doing whatever they want, but these guys were like, you know, both DOD and DOS were like, hey, you guys have planes and like, you're not idiots and we're a known quantity, we know who you guys are. Here's a landing strip and a hanger. And so we had our own hanger and we were integrated into everything that they did because we were able to get two C-17s from our host country

and then we were able to get three other chartered planes. And so we're 12 dudes with five airframes in a place to bring people. And so, you know, we basically operated 24-7. We slept, you know, like an hour or two here and there. There were kind of three teams. There was one team that stayed in UAE. There was one team that Tim was a part of that went in and out of the wire constantly. And then there was a team that was like the conduit between those two. And that was the team that I was on,

which was we were in Kabul at the airport loading people onto planes, checking manifests, making sure nobody was getting on a plane with, you know, any kind of weapons or anything like that, helping people get through the gates. And so, yeah, man, 10 hard codes is crazy. Yeah, it's the worst thing I've ever seen. Well, you know, it's weird about it. It's, when you watch it on the news, obviously, it's terrible.

And we could get into why it happened. Who's to blame for what happened? But it is interesting. The stories we choose to tell ourselves about these things, right? Sort of one read, for instance, on the pandemic, because that this is the most colossal failure in human history, we screwed it up from start to finish. And there's elements of truth by that. But you could also look at, hey, the invention

and the rollout of these vaccines is, you know, a scientific achievement on par with the moon landing. You know, it's like, you could look at Afghanistan as this colossal failure, it's America in decline. It's also, you know, a feat of logistics and humanitarian rescue operations on feet with Dunkirk, right? Like, it's this weird thing where I wonder how we're going to look at it historically,

and it is both terrifying that civilians such as yourself were involved, and then also inspiring along the lines of Dunkirk that civilians such as yourself were involved. Yeah, so for me, I don't know that I, and I don't want to make it political because I think that either party would have screwed it up. Sure. I don't think I've ever been more disappointed

in the government, but simultaneously more inspired by the American citizen. Sure. Because I was on the ground because of the friends that I have, because I'm a known quantity, because of social media, because of a lot of dumb things that you and I both know are not all that important. It could have been any number of other veterans that are more qualified, that have more skill in the area that I was executing.

But the whole veteran community was trying. People were making manifests and they were communicating and they were building groups. And once they figured out, hey, Nick Palmachano was on the ground, Tim Kennedy's on the ground, we were getting consolidated lists from people that we trusted, that we were then connecting, trying to get a hold

of people on WhatsApp. And once we had locations, we were clearing it with the joint chiefs of staff and department of state. And once they were cleared, we were clearing it with, you know, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Department of State. And once they were cleared, we were going out and getting them. And, you know, it was like every single veteran that I know was trying to do something to help, whether they were in a situation like I was,

where I could physically be on the ground, or they were in DC, and they could, you could physically be on the ground or they were in DC and they could, you know, maybe rattle some cages and get some, some senators or congressmen to help where they were sitting on their couch on WhatsApp trying to help put together a spreadsheet like everybody was trying, you know, in a weird way, it was very 912 in that, you know, the community was coming together. It's kind of like the, you know, when you watch like during a hurricane or something, you watch the sort of the Cajun Navy or, you know, everyone comes together and does stuff. And you're just like, this is heroic and inspiring. Also should not be necessary. Should not be necessary.

Yeah. There is no way that 44-year-old Nick Palmachano should have been in Kabul, just straight up. Right. Like, honestly, even when I was asked, I was like, yeah, there's no way that's going to be possible. And then like, I'm on a plane, and then I'm in Kabul, and then I'm like, and not only was it possible, but when I tell you it was necessary, it was necessary and they were happy to have us. And so on the one hand, I'm like, how do we get here? But on the other hand, I give DOS and DOD a lot of credit for, because it's not very government to say, you know what, we need the help. Right. But I will tell you, the one thing that I really wish that the press had covered was how bad the situation was because it is the worst thing that I've ever seen.

The most desperation I have ever seen, people were literally throwing babies over the wall trying to save their children and kids were getting stuck in concertino wire and bleeding out and and like it was that level of desperation and The troops on the ground had to deal with that, you know 24-7 for weeks, you know playing God Deciding who gets to live, like a really... Sure. ...a truly awful situation that probably was glossed over by, you know, all of Western news.

So, what is that? Because that's been my feeling during the pandemic, too. This sense of, like, how is a country that was on paper the most prepared in the entire world that has every resource, every thing you could possibly need, but we failed so, not only we failed miserably, I was liking it, I was just talking to someone, it's like, what's two things, one, it's like you have a super talented team, you know, like a great team with a bunch of great guys and all the talent in the world that just can't execute.

But then it's also, this is the other sort of boogie man that I think we're struggling with as a society. It's like you have a really, I was saying like, we're the Brooklyn Nets, right? You have the best players in the world and then you have one whack job, like basically a perpetual locker room cancer that is now destroyed like three teams in a row. I don't even know how to get into the vaccine stuff. Just Kyrie Irving sucks. Like Kyrie Irving, character is fake,

Kyrie Irving, you put him on your team, he will tear it to pieces. That's what he does. We've got that vibe right now as a country. It's like, you know, people want to talk about America first. We want to talk about being bad. And it's like, you can't when you have, it's not just dead weight.

When you have people trying to go in the other direction Yeah, I think You know, and there's a lot of theories around this, but like I believe Strongly and I like I say this as a person that that you know in many ways makes his living through social media I think social media has become a very bad thing. Because we can surround ourselves only, you know, with people that think exactly like us. And human beings yearn for conflict. It's defining for us. And society is so good and so in many ways so easy now that there

isn't a natural conflict in our lives. People are not, you know, I know everybody likes to kind of pretend that like things are bad right now and life is bad and you know the economy is terrible and all that. But you know it really isn't. There's more opportunity now for more people regardless of education, and there ever has been in human history. And in the absence of actually having conflict, people look for it. And so here you have a group of people on both sides of the aisle that profiteer off of creating conflict. If you actually look on Twitter and you look on Facebook, and people are talking about, on both sides of the aisle, are talking about that we need a civil war.

I have seen several civil wars in my life, and I gotta tell you, we do not need a civil war. We need to have picnics in neighborhoods. And also, who do you think is, my joke is like, who do you think is fighting in this civil war? Yeah, who are these people? Like, I mean, and I always ask people the same question. Like, you know, whenever somebody's like,

yeah, I think we need a civil war. I was like, hey, are you, you know, hey, your neighbor's, you know, a liberal or conservative, whatever the person is. Like, your neighbor's liberal, right? Yeah, yeah. Are you ready to go shoot him in the face and shoot his family and kids in the face? No.

Well, so you don't really want a civil war. And like, they're like appalled by the notion, but like, what do you think happens in a civil war? That's exactly what happens Well people don't understand what they're doing even civil put aside civil war like I think this is something that really struck me in In the 2020 election after the election comes in Biden clearly wins and and people start talking about these sort of desperate hate. Like, it was like, I don't think you understand what you succeeding at whatever it is that you're trying to do would be, right? Like, like, let's just say some of these lawsuits had worked, right? You would have effectively, ironically, you're accusing people of stealing an election

as you try to steal an election. But on top of that, like, like, I don't think people really thought about even as they're storming the Capitol. I don't think you think about, you're thinking about, first off, it's okay, you're going to hang Mike Pence. But second, you have now seized control of the government. I don't think you understand where that road ends. So people are, I think because people are used to playing

around on the internet, they think this is all fake. And then it's almost like on January 6th, they're like, how did I find myself here? You know the police officer who died with the blue eyes matter flag. You know, you never believe it. It's not. It's fucking terrible. The things that people are comfortable saying to each other on the internet are, I won't even say shocked anymore because I've been around it for so long. But, I'm a big fan of, I'm not gonna say anything

on the internet that I will not tell you personally. And just like the meanness of it, the mean spiritness, and even now like the vaccine debate, like I think it's crazy. I'm vaccinated, you know, I believe, I believe that, you know, vaccination is the right choice. I think that's what you should do. But I also am at a point now where I'm like,

man, there's a lot of people that want non-vaccinated people to like suffer in Hades. You know, it's like, I think we just need to take a step back. Like, I firmly believe that Americans do not like to be told what to do. I think that if we had not said like you have to do this, more people would be vaccinated. I don't know, I push back on you there. These people have had a year now to get their shit to get. I'm thinking about this with like police officers, right? Police officers in Texas have had access to the vaccine since December, right? And they're like 40% vaccinated now.

And like, what's weird to me is this idea that like, well, first, there's two things. One, you're going around sticking your head in people's cars, stepping into their home. You don't have a right to, to, to, to traipse in there with the deadly pandemic. Like screw you, that's not okay, right? That was my first take. But my second take is like, your whole job is enforcing laws that people don't like on them. And then society says, hey, by the way,

we want these people who we trust with the pat with essentially a license to kill. We want them not to cough germs on us and to get this basic vaccine. And they're like, who are you to tell me what to do? Like the irony of cops rejecting the idea that the lock and force you to do something you don't want to do. It's such a preposterous irony for me. It's almost too much to bear. No, you know, I do know, I do know where you're coming from there, but

I also, you know, it's like I can't force you, you know, like if I'm sick, and you have, and we have the same bone marrow, I can't force you to give me your bone marrow. Like you would call that, you know, an infringement. But we can force you not to drink and drive. Yeah, sure, sure, but I also think, you know, and again, like I'm saying this as a person that tells everybody I know get vaccinated. I think it's the right thing to do. I also think that the government does itself a disservice when it hides

some information you know, for example, as with all vaccines, there are negative side effects for a very limited portion of the population. And that information not only did the government not put that out in a place that was readily available, but they actually asked Google and they asked Facebook to keep some of that information from getting

out. Personally, I'm a big fan of maximum information. Hey, there is a .001% chance that if you have this particular heart condition, the vaccine might be dangerous for you. Or hey, there is something going on in Israel right now that they are studying that there are multiple studies talking about, hey, we're noticing some changes in some women's menstruation. Now, I know why people want to do that.

They don't want people taking that and blowing it up and saying, like, the vaccine's gonna make you sterile, because the grifters will do that. But as soon as the government gets involved in withholding information, it allows those people to have a significant amount of power. Like, I have always thought that the right thing to do was to say, hey, this is a new vaccine. We believe it is safe.

We've done all of these tests. We strongly believe, and the data reflects that it is much safer to get the vaccine than to not get the vaccine. However, here are these, you know, miniscule things that are potentially dangerous. And like, when you don't do that, you open the door for people that want to believe the worst things possible in society. The same people that don't believe we landed on the moon, think that the earth is flat.

Like you give those people some credibility. Yeah, no, look, I was saying this too. It's like, I would love for there to be no vaccine mandates, right? Like I think anytime we could not mandate stuff would be excellent. The problem is, uh, what do you do when society does, when people don't do the right thing, right? Again, like it'd be wonderful not to have a bunch of the laws that we have. And I, I've got to figure if we were at 90% Vax rates, the way that some other countries are, we probably wouldn't be having to have these conversations.

So it's like America has this problem where we take, we maximize for liberty, which I'm on all for, but then we minimize for responsibility. So like, you know, the governor of Texas is a real piece of shit. He, in many ways, but, like, you know, he's like personal responsibility is the way through the pandemic. Totally agree. But the next words out of your mouth have to be, and here's what every individual is responsible for. Instead, we have this kind of thing where it's like, we shouldn't be mandating.

We should be voluntary. And then it's like, also, here's all the reasons why the obligation doesn't fall on me, right? So it's like, it's like, look, look, it'd be wonderful. It's good to have an all-volunteer army. And so suddenly, there's a crisis and, you need more people. So it's this weird thing where we, and James Stockdale said this, that the flip side of like, well, how does that my problem is, I am my brother's keeper.

And we seem to have, like, we seem to have forgotten that. Like the same instinct that sent you over to Afghanistan, even though your service is over, even you got your own life, even that you've got your own kids to worry about. If we could all share that impulse, a lot of these things that people are objecting to as being mandatory would not have to be mandatory.

And they'd be more meaningful too. I'm with you. I'm with you on that. I'm a huge personal responsibility guy. And frankly, I love that messaging. And I wish that that had been the messaging from Trump. And I wish that had been the messaging from Biden. And I sure, I think, you know, but like, there's also this small part of me that thinks like if Trump was like, hey, go

and get this vaccine, that right now Democrats would be the anti-batteries. You know, I know plenty of left-wing people that have their own insane reasons for not being vaccinated. Yeah, yeah. It crosses party lines, it does. But I do think it started as a political thing, though. I really do. To me, that's going to be the tragic legacy

of his presidency among other things, is that not only is this vaccine polarized, but now health itself, for all public health measures are politicized. And instead of being able to be getting safer and better as a society, we're now, you know, they're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We're going to be fucking up all sorts of, you know, that's the irony of the military objection to the vaccines. It's like, you've been vaccinated more than literally anyone else on the planet. And suddenly now in the midst of the worst public health crisis in the hundred

years, you've got strong opinions about what's going, what, what, what they're putting in there. I got like the hep and the MMR vaccine, like, I don't know, eight times in one year because every time they were like, hey, do you have your vaccine card? I didn't have it with me because we were in the field or whatever, and they were like, hey, we've got you marked as red,

so we need to give you the vaccine. I was like, yeah, you know, what could, you know, I might be some super breeding ground for some new variation of hep because of all the vaccine I've had. Yeah, I mean, you just get constantly vaccinated. So I personally, I was so happy when my family got vaccinated.

I lost my grandmother to COVID. To COVID, yeah, man, I'm so sorry. Yeah, I appreciate it, I appreciate it. Lost my grandmother to COVID. I was extremely worried about my parents. When they got vaccinated, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Lost my grandmother to COVID. I was extremely worried about my parents. When they got vaccinated, I was thrilled. But I'm weird, man. I'm not willing to say that people have to do it.

I think that I strongly believe that if we message differently, more people would. But I also think that private organizations can mandate whatever they want. Like, as a, there's no party for me anymore, but as a person that believes in the actual constitution and used to consider myself a conservative, I think you cannot mandate what a private business does. And so for private business wants everybody to be vaccinated, I think that's fine. Well, yeah, it's like, look, you do whatever you want. You just don't have a right to come sit

in the same small office with me in the building and business that I own. Yeah, yeah. Like to me, that's totally fine. Right. You know, you don't have people don't have to like it or whatever, but like that me, that's totally fine. Right. You know, you don't have people don't have to like it or whatever, but like that's within a business is right.

And so I think, I think very few people understand the difference between like the power of the state and the power of the individual. And I think because of that, so many of these conversations get convoluted, you know, like the right to choose this. No, no, to me, it's more like the average person who gets the Delta variant of COVID, in fact, seven to 10 people. So I think this is the real problem.

I think that we're struggling with. This goes to the idea of responsibility, which is to me, the responsibility of every individual is not to fuck up other people's shit, right? Like, I don't having the ability to externalize negative consequences of our actions. This is why I can't pollute. It's why you can't drive drunk, etc.

Like, I think that's where we struggle as a society. And I agree we have not messaged well, not just in this, but period, like in school anywhere, which is like, why you can't make your stuff somebody else's problem in life. Like that to me is the essence of stoicism, it's the essence of being a good person. It's the essence of being a good Christian is like, hey, don't, you know, it's like keep your stuff on your desk. You can keep your desk however you want, but when it starts spilling out into the world, that's a problem.

Yeah, no, listen, I agree with you. I absolutely understand where you're coming from. I, you know, it's just, again, I think the risk was absolutely worth. I mean, basically, if you're vaccinated, you're not dying from COVID. Yes. I mean, that's the reality. Like, you know, unless you have cancer pay, like I've no, I'm not dying from COVID. Yes. I mean, that's the reality.

Unless you have cancer, I've no, I'm afraid of this as a cancer patient. Yes, of course. You have cancer, you're extremely overweight. You have some other comaer been. 97. Yeah, I mean, but in general terms, you've got that second shot,

you are not dying from COVID. And people talk about kids. You know, kid, like a kid, somebody under the age of 15 is 11 times less likely to die from COVID than somebody that is vaccinated. So like in my mind, everybody that wants to be vaccinated is vaccinated except for the small group of people that can't

because of health conditions, they're immunocompromised, whatever it is. And so like those are the people that I worry about. But in general terms, like the people that are dying are people that decided that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. And I think that's their right if they want to take that risk. I think it's a bad risk. But here's where it's complicated, right? So it's a little better now. But as relatively

recently, they were out of ICU beds and even out of children's ICU beds in central Texas, in all of the nine counties of central Texas. So it's like, look, I'm vaccinated, my family safe, but now I have to worry about my son falling off the monkey bars because if he does, there's not a hospital bed where he can go. It all comes back to me. And again, I think this is beyond vaccines, but which is, I think a good place we can wrap up as all that you go. But it's like at the end of the day, right? We have to me, what the out what a man does, what an adult does, what a responsible person does, what a good citizen does is like, Hey, does my choice negatively affect other people? And when it does, that's a problem, right? And I think, well, I don't know why.

Maybe it's just so ingrained in you because of your military culture, you don't think that way. But I think people really struggle with not negatively affecting other people to the best of their ability, or that this doesn't occur. It's, yeah, it's not that.

So, like, I wanna make it's not that. So, like, I want to make it real clear, personally, that is how I structure my personal decisions. Oh, yeah, of course, of course. For the country, I am a big fan of maximum freedom. You know, there's the quote, I'd prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. And I'm certainly not trying to claim that getting the vaccine to slavery or anything like that. But in general terms, I believe that the American people

should be left to make their own decisions. And I think it's on us, people that care, people that have the ability to put out a message. I think it's on politicians to do this the right way. It's to put out a message like, hey, this is what we know. Like this is what we know. This is what we think is best. This is the right thing to do. You know, there might be dangers with it, but all the data suggests that the right thing to do is you know, there might be dangers with it, but all the data suggests that the right thing to do is to get the vaccine. And then if, you know, if people don't do that, you know, then by all means, like private, private business can say, look, you know, you're

a danger to the organization and like, you know, you can't work here unless you're willing to, you know, either get this vaccine or literally on your own dime get a PCR test every single week. You need to come in every Monday with an updated PCR test, you know, or, you know, or say the PCR test isn't enough. Like that is up to private business and I have no problem. A private business can do whatever it wants. but from a government standpoint, I get very nervous whenever the government is mandating something like this. Like, it just because I feel like the government has taken more and more and more freedom out of the hands of the American people and the name of safety. And I think that once freedom is taken, it doesn't come back. And so, like, you know, I think it is not smart to not have the vaccine.

And I frankly, at this point, with so many people that have it and have very, very few side effects, like I don't understand, and a logical person, I believe, should look at it and say, this is the right call. But I'm not going to hold somebody down and stick a needle in their butt either. No, it's fascinating. It's so fascinating. No, but I agree with your general discomfort. I'm just not sure what the alternative is at this point. But I hear you. Hey, I didn't want to tell you, man. I thought this was a video, I thought we were video podcasting.

So I have like a shelf in the background with carriages calling on it. Thanks. And like, you know, I just, I bought a bunch of sets of your new three pack for my employees. I was gonna give you like the whole, you know, the whole shit, and now it's just us talking. Well, I think we've got more in depth because I find I really go deeper on the audio ones and the video ones, but I'm sorry to miss your shrine to me.

Yeah, it looked nice. It was a pretty nice look, so I'll send you a picture. Man, you're you're trying to me. Yeah, I mean, they looked it looked it was nice. It was like a, you know, a pretty nice look. So I'll send you a picture. Ah man, you're the best. This was so awesome. I appreciate everything and hopefully we can roll one of these days. That was good, man. My new book, Courage is Calling is now officially a New York Times bestseller. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the book. It was literally and figuratively overwhelming. We signed almost 10,000 copies of the book, which just, you know, it hit me right here. And I appreciate it so much.

If you haven't picked up a copy or you wanna pick up a signed copy as a gift, please do, you can get your copy at dailystoic.com. Slash, courage is calling, or you can just go to store.dailystoic.com slash courage is calling or you can just go to store dailystoic.com. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.