Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Be The Light with Ryan Rogers

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Shawn French has done it again. Take a listen as he sits down with Ryan Rogers who is a retired infantry Marine, the author of the war memoir “Lions of Marjah,” a public speaker. Last Fall, The USA withdrew from the Middle East leaving behind SIV's and even American Citizens. His translator Kamran was one of those left behind for The Taliban to take aim at. He and others hid in attics and other places in order to save their own lives.  Listen in as Ryan tells a story that you only see in the news…  Ryan is also the host and founder of a top rated podcast called Choices Not Chances Podcast. You can connect with Ryan on: Instagram: @choicesnotchancespodcast www.choicesnotchancespodcast.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/shawn-french/message Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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And they were set to go get my guy. They were going to go out into Kabul, risk it all, pick my guy up and come in, and then the Abbey Gate exploded. And SIVs were the least of everybody's worries, right? And now it's like in my mind, too, it's like, what about the American citizens that are there? What's up, y'all? Sean French, back with another episode of the Determined Society podcast. Today, I am jacked up.

It's one of the first. I got a retired infantry Marine on the show. He is a war veteran, the author of The War Memoir, Lines of Mariah, a public speaker, as well as a host and founder of the Choices Not Chances Podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored today to have this gentleman on my show, listen to his story, and some of the things that he has to tell us that we just see in the news. We, as Americans, of times we have the disadvantage of not actually living the lifestyle that we're seeing on TV,

right? This gentleman right here, I can't wait for you to hear a story. I'm going to shut up now. I'm going to welcome my boy Ryan Rogers, the show. What's up, homie? Hey, man, how's it going? Grateful to be here, honored. Happy to sit down and have a conversation for a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, you can see how excited I am. You know, we met on LinkedIn, dude. I'm all jacked up. I got, I usually have high energy. but I'm really excited about this show. You know, initially when you asked me like, hey, what's going to be the main driver

on the conversation of the show? I'm like, well, I like to talk about, you know, people's stories and their adversity and their triumphs. My listeners love that, but they love authenticity. And once I dug a little bit deeper into what you had going on, man, like, dude, your experiences are super powerful, man.

And I want to give you the, floor, dude. I want you to, you know, tell everybody, you know, who you are, where you're from, you know, what you're doing now and just what you've been through. Check, yeah. So I'm Ryan Rogers. Yeah, I'm retired infantry Marine. I did a pretty wild deployment. I deployed five times as a Marine, as an infantry guy. And, you know, it was the light of my life. I love, outside of my family, it was the joy of my life, was leading, you know, these national treasures and war and that's what we do and um i was retired after after a deployment in 2010 i was actually retired in uh in 2014 um but in marja uh afghanistan which is what the

with the memoirs uh kind of covers is our seven to eight months with my squad you know uh fighting for the city of marja in afghanistan in 2010 so um it was a wild deployment man um i did deployments before that and never had seen you know i had never been able to be in a in a kinetic situation where they said oh go do your job now you know it was always a lot of rules and a lot of stipulations and a lot of uh you know things rule you know just rules that you have to follow in all my other deployments and not all of them were all combat but when we got there we were fighting a determined enemy that had numbers and had weapons and and so we got it on and um and it was wild i remember uh in the in the opening you know days of marja everything in my life uh in the

marine corps and in my life was never as bad as what they said it was going to be ever um and that one was was worse than they said it would be they you know they they just were there to fight and um and so it was good i mean there was a lot of uh human psychology learned a lot about human psychology both on on my you know on friendly side and on enemy enemy side i learned um I learned a lot more about my job and the practical application of war. And it was amazing. But one thing I took away early in the deployment, I took some books with me. And I'm always kind of been a reader, but late bloomer, as it turns out, as it pertained to my job.

But one of them that pertained to my job that I took with me was lone survivor by Marcus LaTrell. And I was reading that, you know, at night after firefights all day, I'm reading that. and kind of learning from from his situation and then and then later on that would be a beacon of hope for me to say if this dude was able to make it he's able to put this down now he's able to give back through his foundations and his podcast and that's something i can do too and so um yeah so we did the we did the we did the deployment and i came home and um uh during the deployment you know i was talking about writing a book i told everybody dude we got to write about this somebody has to write about this is insane Marines haven't done this since Fallujah, maybe.

And before that, who knows? So got home, started drafting up the book. Got like, we talked offline a little bit. I got like, you know, a third of the way through it and realized, you know, I'm a Marine in the infantry. I'm not a writer. And at that point, you know, I was dealing with some blown out of your drums and some psychological damage.

And so the Marine Corps ultimately retired me. And then I went to school. I went for creative writing. I went for, and when they asked me what I wanted to do, I said, you know, I wanted to fight wars. I didn't want to do any of this, you know, so what do I want to do now? I don't know. I want to help the warfighter. And that means I need to speak and that means I need to write.

And that means I need to build a social media podcast, whatever it is, because that's where they are now, the digital age. These Marines are on Instagram. They're getting their information just like everybody else. So, you know, years ago, I decided right when they retired me, that's what I need to work towards. And so I took the writing. I took speech drafting and speech writing. I took public speaking. And then for my bachelor's, I took Homeland Security to stay in the vein, anti-terrorism and intelligence fusion. So release the book. The book had a great review. And then, you know, I had guys I didn't even know that I served with hitting me up saying, hey, man, keep doing good work.

We love this. You know, really was hoping somebody would put something out for our generation. and so that kind of lifted me up and pumping me up like hey i knew i knew i could i knew i could you know inspire these guys and help these guys so i called up matt sharette who was um if you read the book he's my he's my next you know next in command of my guys of my squad he's my you know assistant patrol leader my apel and i called him up and he's a full time he's got a full time gig is a heavy diesel mechanic working on forklifts and stuff down on the coast for the oil business and I call them up. I say, I mean, I know you're busy, but I'm doing this and I need somebody to do it with me or I'm doing it alone and I'll hire somebody, but I'd really rather

it be you. And he was like, bet, run it, let's go. And so we purchased the equipment to do a podcast, kind of got our feet wet covering the book a little bit in the first couple episodes. And then it was like, not saying about me, this is about keeping it current and helping these dudes, whether it's helping dudes in transition, bridging the military civilian divide and incesting veterans during their time of transition, whatever that, I got to go get that. And I have the ability to help them.

And now it's just kind of going. We're our second year podcasting, and we've been rocking people. I mean, we've had a lot of, a ton of guests, some SF guys from third group, seventh group. I got some 10th group guys coming. some CAG guys. I've had infantry Marines. I've had, my brother is the principal in a small school in Appalachia, Ohio had him on, some of my mentors. And so, and then some current hitters that are

out there still doing work and helping us understand the transition that the Marine Corps is going through and different service branches. So, no, it's been great. That's kind of, that's kind of me. That's kind of my platform. And I guess we can go forward. there. Dude, that's awesome. So first of all, ladies and gentlemen, for those that you're listening,

I mispronounced, it's Marja. I am sorry. All good. Jackass. And I will admit when I'm wrong, or I will, you know,

be accountable to myself always. So Marja, my apologies. Second of all, you mentioned something in the very beginning right after I introduced and you talked about,

you know, you were honored to be here. I appreciate that, but I'm honored to have you. I appreciate that. First of all, again, I want to thank you for your service.

I want to thank you for doing the shit that nobody else wants to do. There's a lot of people in America that are too lazy to get up in the morning and work out, much less go in firefights all fucking day and get back and work on their self-development and then set a mission and a promise to themselves when they got back to the homeland to write a book, to do a podcast, to be an influencer of substance, you know, and to speak on behalf of these people. Man, I got to tell you, you know, I saw a video on LinkedIn and I'm going to, I'm going to, want to preface this for the listeners. Everybody remembers when we pulled out. We pulled out our troops.

We pulled out our embassy. We absolutely left. And all these people, right, and when there's this big outrage, I don't know if you guys, think back to what was it last fall. When every the whole, the country was in an uproar because we pulled out of the Middle East. And there was people left there. Right. Now, a lot of these people helped the United States. soldiers translate they were our allies were there and we left them fucking behind and you're about to hear a real story of this one of Ryan's you know translators who turned into a friend talk to us about Cameron man yeah so the in 2010 the deployment that I was referenced in the deployment that though that the memoir lines of March is written about

Cameron was 18 or 19 years old, young man from the Poshnir Valley who wanted to bring peace, stability, and democracy to his country. And he knew that if he went and tried out and got the schooling, he said from very, very early on that he wanted to do that for his people, for his country, and for his family. And so in 2010, he comes out and he does the necessary schooling. and he gets attached to third battalion six Marines, Keelow Company. And inside a Keelow Company, he floated between, you know, a couple of platoons, but he was mainly with my platoon. And he was a warrior, dude.

These guys come out. They're not allowed to have a weapon. And they roll with us into the breach. And he did that many nights. And one night in particular that I'll talk about was a bad night, you know, bad situation ended up good. but Cam's with me and he's rolling with our teams. And we go on just a basic patrol and we're on a way back from patrol.

And we get a fragmentation order, a frago. And a frago is simply like, hey, something came up. This is a short and condensed order of what I need you to do. And basically it was that they had some fighters hard pointing a, hard pointing a rather large building with several weapons and guys. And it was just outside of like our firm base, maybe a click or two outside of our firm base. And so that's too close for comfort.

And so I was fragged to go, you know, investigate that. And so we get over there and we're other side of the road, about 450 meters away. We're looking at them through nods. And sure enough, they got a sniper on the roof. They got a machine gun facing the other way as the sniper on the roof. And then they had guys at each corner of the building. So in my eyes, as a grunt, they're not supposed to be there. And I'm about to drop mortars on.

I'm not even getting close to that building, right? So I started generating a, you know, a fire mission to send back to the cop and we just take these guys down. Nobody will get risked. I'm super stoked about it. Yeah, sure. And then one of my counterparts, Afghan army squad leader, his name was Wundee Goal. He came up to me and he said, you know, this is no good. These are friendly forces.

These are local militia. Problem with that was local militia didn't check in with the Marines like they're supposed to. So how do we know that that's local militia or not posing or whatever? Well, when I report that to hire, they're worried about an international incident and say, hey, you've got to go investigate this. You can't drop mortars. So now it's like I got a building that has no cover, no buildings, no rat lines, no trenches, no microtrain, trees, no anything for about 300 meters in all directions of it.

And I got to close that at night and hope that they don't get the drop on me. And even if they are friendly, if they already got the drop on me if they're on the roof. And if they interpret me as enemy, they could just make an ass. accident. Anyway, long story short, we push another squad out. I'm looking across this thing. It was amazing. It looked like a video game. I'm coming across with Cameron and four Marines. And we're just, you know, we're spread out and we're just stalking straight up to them. And I had a sister squad come out. And they hard pointed some buildings where we were at in the trench looking, you know, observing. And so as we're closing on the enemy, every one of them's got lasers on them,

you know, from that other squad. And the deal was, hey, if they hit me, I'll be okay. No. knowing that that whole squad's dumping on them. And we made an on-call target with their grid so the motors would drop that nobody would get away if they hit us. Right. But I was the one that was out there with my team and Cam, and we're like, oh, man, this is so fucked, right? Cam has no fucking weapon.

Like, Cam has no, they're not allowed to have weapons. That's a fucking souly, you do. They're solely putting their trust and faith in us. And some units and some special forces units, some guys do get them interpreters once they've, our rules for our area and our ISAF and NATO rules didn't let that happen for him. So here we go. We're closing and we're like 200 meters and now we're 100 meters and now I see them and

these guys are asleep on their rifles. And I told Cam, I'm saying, you know, you say every single thing that I say, the way I say it to the best of your ability. And we get closer 25 meters now. I'm coming up and there's like a ramp of dried poppy stems because they had just harvested all the opium or the poppy. And I run up those stems and I muzzle thumped the guy in the corner and boom, he goes over the wall. He falls down and now Cam's saying everything I'm saying. Hands, hands, hands, you know, we're going in. A couple, I don't know if we

flashbang them because they end up being 23 guys in there, some some 40 weapons, mortars, RPGs. And they actually were friendly forces. They ended up being made a boo-boo and didn't call in. And so, but Cam that night with four of us going into a certain food bar situation right there, right there with us. Let's do it. You know, like, I got you. And so, so that attachment grows. And anybody that's been to combat, it doesn't matter in the nationality, the color of the skin, the political, a mindset of an individual. When you are going into combat together, you grow an intimate relationship with people. You're fucking right.

And so, yeah, so fast forward. And I get a call from one of my, you know, one of my sawgunners like, hey, Cam's in trouble. You know, you need to do something. And I'm sitting in my garage in my studio. And you're home. You're home. You're like. Yeah, I'm at home.

I'm retired at this point. I'm in school or I just graduated. And I'm like, okay, I'll see what I can do, you know. And I start making phone calls to people and nobody. What can we do? What can we do? Nobody? And so I went to the media. I wrote an op-ed and got picked up by Fox News. And it was a small little op-ed, but it worked because people started calling me from the State Department, NGOs, started reaching out through social media, trying to find me through their marine connections. I ended up getting connected with a retired lieutenant colonel by the name of Jonathan Myers.

And I did a podcast with him that's on my channel as well that talks all about this. And he was one of the guys helping me, you know, setting teams up through, through organizations like Pineapple Express. And they were set to go get my guy. They were going to go out into Kabul, risk it all, pick my guy up and come in. And then the Abbey Gate exploded. And SIVs were the least of everybody's worries, right? And now it's like in my mind, too, it's like, what about the American citizens that are there? We have American citizens.

This just isn't interpreters. We left citizens. too. And so that's the uproar you see in the, in the community and in the warfighter community, especially, because we have an ethos that say we don't ever leave anybody behind. And hold on one second. I want to interject real quick. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell the audience exactly what you're talking about. When you say left behind, what exactly happened? They, you know, they're probably no, but I want you to say it. You know, I think everybody has maybe an idea of what happened, but there's very conflicting reports on what

happened. It seems like a big blame game to me. Marine Corps wants to blame State Department. State Department wants to blame the White House. The White House wants to blame the State Department. State Department wants to blame the Marine Corps. You know, it's just this big finger-pointing game and nobody wants to hold accountability for it. But essentially what happened is, and this is only knowing what I know. Of course, there's probably sensitive and secret information that may sway the opinion. But a lot of people forget about that. And they're like, oh, fuck the government. They don't know what they're doing. But if they had intelligence that suggested, If we didn't sooner be even worse, then you may sway your opinion on what we did.

And I'm not saying they did. They probably didn't. But knowing what I know, what we had was a 20th anniversary of a forever war coming up that the president wanted to take a political victory on, I got everybody out by this date. And then we projected that to the Taliban and starting cutting backdoor deals, expecting the Taliban to be our outer cordon and the Marines to be our intercord. We have Taliban operatives gauging who comes in and out of our inner Marine cordon where all these babies, women, children, and SIVs are trying to get out of the country.

And Abigate explodes. Shit goes to hell. Everybody's freaking out. And it takes some wealthy operators that start up a Pineapple Express, start buying airlines to fly in there themselves to say, okay, Mr. President, if you don't want to do it, and nobody wants to take responsibility, we will do it. And that's what happened. And the United States left.

And everybody remembers the last couple birds going out, these people were so desperate because they knew what the Taliban was going to do to that area, that they're holding on to the side of a Hercules and then letting go because, well, you're not going to make it. And we remember seeing it in the reports. And that's what happened. It's truly a humanitarian crisis. But what happened was as soon as we were gone and Pineapple Express got their last couple of people out.

And then the Ukraine happens. everybody forgets that there's this has been a year that these people have been going through this and some of them are American citizens and some of them are people that helped us for 20 years try to make things better and so when we leave people behind you know on the battlefield you don't leave people behind you risk at all you make sure everybody comes back because because that's what you vow to each other and in this situation you know again there may be things that are classified that we don't know about. And I do know that they tried to urge American citizens to get to Kabul and get out for weeks. But when you're in a, that country is not just like here where you can jump on the interstate and be there in a couple of hours, especially when it's folding to the Taliban across the country.

So the good news to report, like you said in the video that you've seen is that after a year of being in touch with Cam and him hiding in everywhere from cars to basements to add. and reporting to me and staying in touch with me all the way along the way. He's out now. He's safe with his family. And I'm going to have him on the show to talk about things I don't know about the atrocities that he witnessed over the last year and try to bring a point, at least a humanitarian point on it. If people want something humanitarian or against women's rights to go fight against,

let's do the, these are real humanitarian crisis. And I'm not saying we don't have our own issues. And I want rights for women just as bad as everybody else. But these women are absolutely being oppressed again because we're not there. I don't know what the answer to that is because I disagree with forever worse too, Sean. I don't think we need to bleed America's sons and daughters of liberty dry so that every place can have a chance to be like us. But to breathe some hope to ignite a spark in a generation, I think that's important. man you know um i'm the last person that's qualified to even comment on that you know i'm just i'm blown

away by the story right because i think at some point you know everybody i'd like to say everybody in america right i mean i'm sure there's people in america that said all right cool get out of there it's not our deal anymore and they didn't even think about well there's not just american citizens there but there's actual citizens and interpreters from other countries that are there to help our soldiers that are stuck there right and that are hiding for their lives every single day. Like literally, truly, and it's not an exaggeration. No.

Like, literally, if the Taliban, the Taliban rolls a sensor on their asses, and they find out their cooperatives, they're dead. Yeah, or if you're, or if you have a certain bloodline. Shit, man. And I'm going to get more into that with my podcast with Cam. I'm excited to listen to that, dude. I can't wait for that, to be honest with you. I'm, like, I'll share the shit out of that show, dude.

Like I can't wait to hear that. Yeah. It needs, it needs to be brought up. I mean, and, you know, on the show, I also had something that came out of the fall was, I had,

there was a Marine that made some YouTube videos about his pop, had a little following on LinkedIn. His name's, uh, Stuart Scheller. And, he made some video. Yeah,

Stuart Scheller. He made some videos right after the, the withdrawal went bad. And, um, about the Marine Corps and about the generals needing to take, to take accountability and how this is unacceptable. And if we don't hold them accountable or hold ourselves as an institution accountable,

we'll never stop and break this, this trend. And they relieved him within 24 hours of his command, tried to put him in a mental hospital, put him in the brig, ended up kicking him out. 17-year lieutenant colonel took his retirement. In a mental hospital for being, for the most sane. They wanted to get him checked out because, yeah, yeah. The most sane comment he's probably ever made in his fucking life.

Maybe. Wow. And so he went at him with two or three more videos, you know, and now he's very political and helping the GOP and endorsing candidates up and down the East Coast and some out in the West Coast and bringing light to some of these very, you know, same issues. And it's courageous. I had an interview with him on my podcast where we go into it in depth about the comrol and the communications and the planning failures that, that, that came about. And it's not as a way to say, you know,

ooh, tis, Tis, Marine Corps. It's as a way to say, I love the Marine Corps, and I gave my entire adult life to it. However, it will fall if we stayed this way. Yeah. Wow. And so it's more of, it's more of an instinctive or a reactionary, uh, protection instinct to say, hang on, we, we got to fix this.

They've been looking to get rid of us since the beginning. Let's don't give them reasons to. Yeah. Let's hold accountability. And accountability may just look like an after-action review. I'm not saying retire somebody. I'm not even saying any of that. What I'm saying is let's look at it seriously.

Identify the shortcomings. Identify where we messed up. And then publish that and say, yes, we messed up right here. And we got to not do it again because this time ended badly. That's accountability at some levels. And that's okay. But to say, no, he gave me the order. Well, damn, you're the one in charge of Marines.

You're the one who 13 people got to get letters home now. So maybe you should weigh in a little heavier and say maybe this wasn't a good plan. Because once you sign off on the plan, you signed off on the plan. Now you take full command responsibility of the plan. And that's, I think that's Stuart Schellers drive. And whether I agree with how he did it, we have certain ways that you can go about these things. I may take issue with how he did it without requesting masks. But nobody else was saying anything at any level.

And so it's like, it's one of those, one of those tricky situations. So anyway, there's, there's not just me. There's a, there's a wealth of people across the internet trying to influence this for change, trying to identify the bad and highlight the bad to bring in and usher in the light, right? Because one of the first things you have to do is identify that there's a problem and what that problem is before you can make any plan towards fixing it. And so, yeah, so that's not all of, all of what my platform's about. but my platform involves veterans and involves helping veterans.

And a lot of veterans took this, took this poorly. A lot of veterans did not agree with the way that it fell out. And so it's something that I mean to talk about. No, I agree with you, man. I, for one, I can say, because it's my opinion that was handled very poorly. And it was concerning. It was saddening. But I just got to acknowledge you, man.

And it's like one of those things where I like to kind of just stop the interview for a little bit sometimes and just look at somebody and just like, I appreciate you and I'm proud of you. I appreciate that. No, absolutely, man. No, thank you. Because what you're doing in response to everything you've been through is something very special. And, you know, there's a need out there and you're getting out of it. And I'm assuming some of it's uncomfortable for you, right? Because you have to find your own voice and you have to be 100% authentic to you.

And to your point with Stuart Schumann. seller is like you may not agree with how he did certain things but i tell you what that joker could drop dead today and you could say i live my authentic self like i did this the way i knew how to do it and i think that a lot of times man when you start on this journey of you know social media podcasting and and speaking like you're doing and writing books it's like man you we cannot we cannot sit there and think of how is this going to be received because if we do that where it's never going to be received well. Well, we'll never be authentic. No,

never going to be authentic. We're going to be sitting there thinking like, okay, like, you know, how do I, how do I be what they want me to be? Man, fuck that. That's right. You know, there's been so many times I've been approached like, hey, you should really try this. This is a really good stuff. I'm like,

no, no, no. Like, I'm going to be me. And like the first two seasons, you know, my podcast was like me trying to feel like I had to be somebody different. I'm going to say this on the air because I want everybody to understand that. Because there's a lot of people coming to me and saying, hey, love your shit. Love your show. I'm like, this is garbage. Because this isn't who the fuck I am right now.

Like, like, truly like, I know like the bulk of it's me, right? But the questions I was asking, the conversations I was having. It's like, man, it wasn't 100% who I was. Now it's like, whatever I say right here on this interview and I put out there into the world, it's how I feel. Right. And I got to live with that. Mm-hmm. Period. But I'm not going to change who I am for anybody else. And what I really love is because, you know, when you're starting to do this and you're getting your message out there, man, you know, you're the same dude on air right now.

Then you've been in the in the DMs. You're the same dude that I talked to prior to the show. And I think you could probably agree the same for me. Like, yes, this is a podcast show. but we're going to be 100% authentic and we're going to get our message out and I'm super glad man I am so grateful that our paths crossed

because like I told you prior to the show like I've never done a show like this I've never done a show like this and you know and to your response like hey like we don't have to go that route I'm like no man like I'm excited for this because this is different I watched like five of your shows

and I'm like good information I'm like, I don't know where I fit in with this guy's, you know, content, but I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we did it. I know that's why you asked the question too. You're like, hey, like, what's going to be? I'm like, all that motherfucker watch some shit. Like, it's like, you know, I go on the guest's story, right? What their, what their experience is.

And, bro, I would have went this route a long time ago had I met somebody like you, right? So to me, it's always, you know, I never liked a pigeon. haul myself to a certain, like, hazy content. Yeah, yeah. No, it's like, hey, we're going to have real conversations. Yeah. You know, I, I talked to a lot of my people and it's like, where do you, a lot of people say, you know, like, where do you come up with who you want to talk to?

And like, where do you come up with your content ideas? And it's like in my garage when I'm on the phone with my mentor. Like, yeah. And then something sparks in that conversation and we go down this, you know, this rabbit hole. and we end up, you know, I end up, I have, you know, all these, you know, sticky notes and things all over my desk. And it's like, anytime I have an idea or I read a book of somebody I want to contact or that's been a lot of it. I'm a reading. I read, man, that's what I love to do. And so, and I try to push that because you can learn so much. It's like you're getting learned experience on something that you've never had the experience or the opportunity to experience.

And it's huge. You know, you grow up your whole life, hopefully hearing that knowledge is power, but you don't really understand that until you understand it until it clicks and you go, oh, hang on a second. And then for me, that was when I first went to school and I realized I knew nothing about anything. And the more I learned, the more I realized I knew nothing about anything, right? So.

Yeah. That's a funny, like, dude, it's so funny because like, and, you know, I say this all a time. And a lot of people go like, okay, but you know what I mean, right? you know what I mean. I'm like, no, I don't know what you mean. I'm not a mind reader, right? Here's what I say.

Like, knowledge is power. Nah. Applied knowledge is power. Right? And it's like... I would say so, yeah. But let's say this. Let's say you read a book about an experience in sales,

one that you've never had selling something you've never sold, whatever. Well, yeah. You now have that knowledge. Do you have to apply it to mean something? probably probably but you have the knowledge now and if the opportunity came up and said hey do you want to sell a 1.7 million dollar crane and you're like who i've never done that but i've read all about it that's what i'm saying it's not so you're saying that's the application of the knowledge yes yes absolutely man because not everything is you know two plus two equals four dude right it's not always going to be like i read this book or have this conversation with my mentor and be like okay now i'm going to apply this knowledge right away I do believe knowledge is power, but I also believe applied knowledge is even more powerful, right?

Oh, yeah. Because, I mean, it solidifies, you know, you're taking action on this knowledge, right? And the reason why I say that is because there's a lot of things that go on. Like, people can read book after book after book after book. And never do anything. But they, that's what I'm saying. Applied knowledge is power.

They sit there and they don't ever do anything with it. It's just like, well, I'm well, I'm well read. I'm like, okay, but what are you doing with it? What effect are you having with it? What the fuck? Like, who are you, who are you fucking helping now? Like, dude, we're put here on this earth to help people. Like, we're not meant to be selfish.

We're not meant to do this shit alone. We are meant to be there for people. Yeah. Like, when I, when I help people, like, I feel good about that shit. Like, truly, I'm not in this game for me. Like, I mean, because, dude, this shit's a lonely fucking road, dude. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And a lot of people find that out too late. Yeah. Yeah. 100% agree. Man, I love it, dude. I'm excited to listen to that show with Cameron, man. You know, it's going to be impactful. And you have my word, man. I'll share it. I just... Oh, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, I hope you do. And to your listeners, if you guys want to find me, as Choices Not Chances, Podcast, and you can visit any one of the social media's, Instagram, Facebook. I also have a

I have a website at www. Choices not Chances Podcast.com. And if you check that out, I've got some impactful stuff. And, you know, Americans always say, you know,

when things come up with the military and military guys, you know, they want to help. If there's any way we could help, if there's something we could do. Well, if you visit my website, you'll find that there's a special naval warfare corpsman who's

currently on murder trial for the third year in a row over a clear cut recorded by video evidence self-defense case and not to compound it and make it worse, but the case has been dismissed by two separate judges for undue command influence where the colonel, some colonel from D.C. comes down and threatens the defense attorneys for these Marines and this, this corpsman saying, if you go through with this and defend them, your careers affectionately over, and all of them quit. And then it came out in court that that happened. So when those things are happening and you're an American and you say, oh, I wish there was a way I can help.

Go to my website, read about and listen to the podcast about the Marsock 3. It's front line and center of my website and then follow the links by clicking on their picture and it'll take you to your member of Congress, the search page and you can put in your complaints about why this is even being picked up because the DOD or justice just picked it up again after being dismissed twice trying to burn these guys. see it for yourself. I have a retired lieutenant colonel who had been through the process with Marsock himself back in the day and was found innocent after a bunch of undue command influence and

different things were stacked against them. And these are the guys that are on the front line, you know, holding the line for for Americans every single day and they're not having justice done for them. And so if you want to help, if you find yourself and fancy yourself a patriot, it www. Choices Notchancespodcast.com, check out the story for yourself and make your own judgment.

I don't want to make, you know, you know, influence and influence you any more than I have to. Go read the story here about the story, watch the podcast, and I'm certain that you'll, you'll find some churning in your gut out of it.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think my boy, Ryan, gave you an action plan. Action plan. Right. Action plan. Go to his website, and I can assure you, Ryan, all of your contact information, is going to be in the show notes.

And they're gonna be able to click on whatever it is that you need them to click on. And man, I'm so grateful. We'll land the plane here, dude. And I just, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the show. You're doing some amazing things. And if there's anything I can do along the way

to help you get your word out, like I'm all for it. So, you know, I think ladies and gentlemen, you just heard exactly how you could best support him is by going to his website. Click on the links, watch the podcast, right? follow the links to see who you to make your complaints to make your own form an actual your own opinion absolutely and uh man i i just got to tell you dude um thanks again and ladies and gentlemen if you got anything out of the show um i'm gonna ask you to share it

share it on your social platforms tag us both please i'll share it back to my social i'm sure ryan will too um again his instagram is going to be in the handle i mean his instagram handle is going to be in the show notes so as you're listening to this right now go there copy and paste go hit follow immediately because listen you know you're going to want to you're going to want to watch what ryan's doing because one day he's going to be so goddamn big because he's going to be helping so many people and uh you know you'd be able to say the man i heard him on uh sean's podcast way back in the day so share the damn show please uh with that being said guys thank you so much and uh until next time talk to you guys soon be safe