The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 501: Andy: Stumpf—Gray Noise

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Andy Stumpf knows what it takes to operate when everything goes wrong. A former Navy SEAL who served with SEAL Team Six, Stumpf spent 17 years in the military, including a tour as a BUD/S instructor responsible for training hundreds of aspiring SEALs. He was also shot at close range by an Iraqi insurgent with an AK-47—and somehow came back to serve again. In this episode, Andy pulls back the curtain on the world of special operations and the psychology of becoming a SEAL. He reveals what he learned about the candidates who ring the bell, the methods he used as an instructor to get them to keep going—or make them quit—and what it really feels like when an AK-47 fragment shatters your sciatic nerve. It's a conversation about fear, pain, endurance, and the strange things that happen in your head when the stakes couldn't be higher. Andy is the host of Cleared Hot, one of the most popular podcasts devoted to military life, special operations, and the people who have lived it. Big thanks to our terrific sponsors American-Giant.com/Mike—American Giant makes clothes that last, and they make them 100% in America.Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order. American Giant—American Made. K12.com/Rowe—Find a K12-powered school near you and see what's possible for your child with K12's Career and College Prep. Digs.com/MIKE—Less rework. Less confusion. And a much smoother build experience for homeowners. Get 40% offyour first 3 months

Hey guys, it's the way I heard it. I'm Mike. You know, Chuck. Hi, Chuck. Hello. You know, there are two kinds of interviews in general. They're probably more than that. But in my experience doing this now, there's the kind that leaves me feeling like I learned a lot from an expert in a subject. And I feel much smarter as a result of talking to this person. And then there's the kind of interview that leaves me thinking, you know, I have a lot of. I have a lot of had no idea really who this person was. And now I really feel like I know him. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you spend some time with him and confused him with someone else, I believe. It's such a weird, funny story, and we'll explain it as we go. But my guest is Andy Stumpf. And Andy did, has done and continues to do one cool thing after the next. 18 years as a Navy SEAL, served with SEAL Team 6. multiple combat deployments, lots of, oh, what do you call them, metals, accommodations. Yeah, I think five bronze stars. Five bronze stars got shot pretty badly, recovered remarkably, went back as an instructor in

buds. Buds, yeah. He's that guy, you know, and then he gets out of that, and then he's like, now what, and jumps out of a plane 8,500 times and gets one of those wingsuits, you know. I've probably seen the videos of these. God, these people, they're just flying through these alpine valleys and landing in these meadows all over the world. And you watch these things on YouTube or wherever they pop up and you shake your head and you go, what kind of nut job would do that? This kind of nut job.

Yeah. And then, of course, because he's all that and more, he's running a black rifle franchise out there in Montana. And he's got a podcast. And the podcast is called Cleared Hot. And I've stumbled across it a few times and just instantly liked the guy. He's just a likable dude who has lived a big life and written a terrific book called Drownproof. And full disclosure, I thought a guy named Greg Stumpf was coming in here, who I met many years ago, a green beret. And when I learned it was handy, I was like, oh, oh, yes.

Okay, this will be fine. I figured we'd chat for an hour about this, that, and the other. Two and a half hours later, I was like, I think I barely scratched the surface. But with respect to your time and Chuck's and mine, I cut it short. That was damn decent of you. We're calling this episode gray noise, because at some point in it, apropos of whatever we were talking about, Andy looked at me and said, you know, man, you need the gray noise.

And I'm sitting here trying to remember exactly what I said that would inspire him to say that, and I can't remember. But I like the turn of phrase. So what do you say? Gray noise. You need the gray noise, man. Andy Stumpf, so glad I got to know him. Stick around.

I believe you'll say the same thing, two and a half hours hence. Right after this. Pardon the interruption, but I just want to take a quick moment to thank my friends over at American Giant for continuing to prove definitively that high-quality clothing can still be made in America for a fair price. They've been at it now for 15 years. So clearly, they know what they're doing. And what are they doing exactly? I'll tell you. They're sourcing locally grown cotton and they're building factories in towns across the nation where they can find and hire a local labor force that cares about.

making a quality product. It's simple. It's not easy, but it is simple. Consequently, when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant, you're not just buying a sweatshirt or a t-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. I also want to thank them for putting the MicroWorks logo on a limited line of T's and sweatshirts and donating the proceeds back to my foundation. We're using that money right now to fund our next round of work ethic scholarships. And I'm grateful. Check out the high quality staples, the hoodies, the tees, the denims, built to be worn

year after year after year at American-giant dot com slash mike. It's quality you can feel and a true American success story. You can be proud to support. Use code Mike at 20% off your first order at American-giant.com

slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. American Giant. American made. And I do apologize. My producer gave you one of the magical glasses, which is heat activated and reveals my face, apparently. It goes away as it gets cooler.

So, yeah, you're drinking from my noggin, dude. Thank you. Not all ideas, scale. The etymology of your surname. Do tell. I guess German. Germany somewhere. I haven't been able to trace it back an incredible distance.

Many years ago, I'm going way back in the telemachine for me. An aunt, I believe. I mean, an aunt? An aunt, depending on where you hail from. I swear in Salt Lake, there are genetic, not genetic, but familial records that go back. For whatever reason, that's the repository. Oh, it's the Mormons, man. They kept track of all this.

Probably. So four or five generations in the U.S., he's your as we got back from Germany, but that Stumpf is, I mean, my father's name is Vaughn. Vaughn Stumpf? I have an uncle, a great uncle that I've never met, who changed his name because his birth name was Adolf Stumpf. I'm not joking. That was a good call. That was a good call. He went by Audi for the rest of his way.

I bet he did. So I'm going to guess, given that name's popularity, really. went off the charts on the other end over the end of the bell curve that Germany is largely where we draw our lineage from.

I'm guessing the gene pool is deep. Yes. Stuttgart. I love the story you shared with me off camera. We'll revisit that in a second. But I got one for you too,

full disclosure. Okay. A guy called Stumpf. Yep. Reached out to see. I didn't think you were really going to tell him, but I'm going to tell him.

There's not that many of us. Well, this guy, was Greg Stump. Okay. I just had a trace recollection of meeting him, maybe 15 years ago. He was a Green Beret, and he got shot up, and he was running some sort of organization in D.C. And I had something to do with it once upon a time. Sorry, it's sketchy.

It was a long time ago. But I remember the name. Stumpf, you know? And I'm like, oh, yeah, that guy, Greg Stumpf. And like, I checked him out online. And I'm like, yeah, he was great. Let's have him on. So we booked him.

But it was you. That's fair. To be honest, that's totally fair. He probably would have been more interesting. Green Berets are fascinating. They know so much about warfare in general, let alone their tactical prowess. They're utterly, I was going to say, unexampled. And I guess that's fair, because all you guys live in a different sort of vertical.

And it seems like, can you have? Less than you would think. But the person out, like, you know, Ev. I'm assuming, given your shirt. I call him Wee Man. He could stand under this table and not touch his head. I believe he is. I actually call him micro-s-F to his face, because I think he's the shortest S-F person to

have ever have lived. Special Forces. Correct. Green Beret. Odd that they chose a painter's hat. To really round out the uniform, don't you think? How is that? Well, he is, I've known him for quite some time.

He's one of my best friends. I have watched him toil for years in his journey through private to public company and just building and scaling, scaling back, building, scaling, scaling back. Watched the wrong people be brought into the rooms. You need to bring the adults into the room now. Shockingly enough, the adults really cared about themselves and less about the company. My opinion, not his. I'm speaking for myself, not for Evan.

It sucks to see somebody who has built something so impressive, struggle to be able to enjoy it because he's still so just in the trenches with it. I had him on, I guess a few years ago, I guess. I think it was a. Did you use a booster seat? No, but we were long distance. So it was, it's such a prophylactic, you know, these. I mean, I was so glad when we were locked down to have the ability.

Yeah. Right. But it's just so not. It's way different. It's totally different. Totally different. But he was great, and I was struck by this idea that he was building a coffee company with a green beret attitude, you know, and it was informing the way they marketed it. And I was trying to get to, you know, how else do you think about business that sort of rhymes with the business of, you know, being lethal. And he was still kind of sorting it out. And as I watch the whole thing continue to evolve. It's not easy what he's trying to do. No.

The lethality is a very small portion of any of those worlds. So special forces for people who don't know because people confuse this all the time is the painter's beret. It is specifically the Green Beret. And they'll probably recognize the movie with, I want to say Eastwood, but that wasn't it, John Wayne. Yeah, which inspired generations of people to join the Green Berets. We had Charlie Sheen and the documentary known as Navy Seals, which also got many generations of people. I'm not sure for the right reasons. It inspired something.

The only scene in that movie that's accurate is when he's so drunk, he's laying face down in the ocean with a stripper's high heel shoe in his hand. That's about the only accuracy there. But special operations is all of that. The job I used to do, Evan's job. The lethality is the tail end of just coming from a career that solves problems. It's just nonlinear problem solving is all it is. Then you can apply that to a mission set where you get to take a ballistic tool with you

and use it or not, depending on the problem that you are presented with. But it actually is. I don't want to say it's simple, but it's not easy. But that is what that world is. It's just problem solving. What years were you over there? So I joined in 1996, so I had a good amount of time pre-9-11,

which I'm thankful for because I got to watch the evolution of that community. Yeah. And then the last day of June, 2013, they medically retired me. You were shot close range, AK. It was like four. five medals. What is it? Was it bronze stars? Yeah. What do you do for bronze star exactly? How does that happen? Hell if I know. The award system is so weird. If you look at a bronze star from World War II, and I'm not talking, people are going to get very upset at me, but they can do this

exercise. Do a Bronze Star review from World War II and then do a Bronze Star in general review from the Global War on Terror. I feel like I would give mine back for a cocktail napkin, just a nice thank you because what they were getting, you know, it's like single-handedly charged several machine gun nests without any cover, nude, you know, wrestled somebody to death, picked up the machine gun, ran it several kilometers, and somehow sunk a destroyer, Bronze Star with me.

Like Audi Murphy stuff. It's insane. I'm appreciative of the awards. You don't have a heavy hand in it. So the direct answer is there is no specific guidance in the military. If you do this, you get this. If you do that, you get that. It's very subjective.

Is it weird in the way that I talked to, you know, Clint Romishay? Not well, but I know who he is. Yeah, he wrote a book called Red Platoon. Keating, Fort Keating, right? I think he, oh God, they were outnumbered four to one. He got out, ran back in. got his dead buddies out and just was instantly tapped for that, rightly so. And I've talked to him and I've talked to Gary Sinise and met a bunch of other guys.

And there's just this, there's an awkwardness about receiving such a thing. I just left the Medal of Honor Museum in Texas. Really? We were just there for Black Rifle, actually. Uh-huh. Yeah, and I can explain them. Yeah. Oh, boy.

So we're looking at a World War II Bronze Star. So the Bronstars, yeah, I mean, again, for people who don't know this, the Bronstar is the highest award that you can get for both combat and non-combat operations. So the V device is what separates whether or not your actions occurred under enemy fire or in a combat environment. But you can, the citations will start one of two ways. It will say for heroic achievement, which would be a Bronze Star with a V or for meritorious achievement, which is a Bronze Star without a V. beyond that, above a bronze star, everything is assumed or by doctrine has to occur in combat. There's no silver star with a V, which is a really good way to, when you see people wearing those engage in very interesting conversations about the story behind it.

Yeah. Or Purple Hearts with the V. No, there's none of those things. It's just what they, the difference in what those people did was extraordinary. And then again, after leaving the Medal of Honor Museum, we were there three days ago. Black Rifle was celebrating the 100th birthday with eight veterans. So there's a banquet hall there that you're able to rent out and it gave us access to just walk around the new facility in Arlington. I left that, never wanting to speak of my own military service again. Well, you've made the point better than I could. I just, I'm sorry, my submarine captain that

sunk a train, still trying to figure out how that happened. Wow. Yes. He had a flag of all the ships. and on the bottom center is a locomotive. I don't know if it was on a boat. I want to know, did he, was there a bridge going around and he torpedoed that and it fell in? It's the most fantastic thing I've ever seen. He sunk a train. That's what it says on his citation.

That's fantastic. It is. And there's the, you know, at the dinner table, we had a living metal of honor recipient from, I believe it was in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The guy, bum rushed to suicide, bomber. Grab him, drug him away. the vest came off detonated his feet.

I think he was one of the few people to live. Cartwheel him 50 yards away. You know, multiple. I'm like, can't beat that. Yeah, you got me. It makes you not want to say anything about any of your service. Let's just focus on those people. Do you ever think about the way recognition kind of migrates in and out of the military

or maybe, I don't know, tactical to practical awards versus. trophies, the proliferation of recognition, we all have to get something, the absurdity of the ribbons, like, whatever it is. I've never really thought about it, but I would imagine it kind of started in the military. And how did it get so deep into civilian life? I don't know. There's a lot of confusion about it. The problem is, you know, we had the bronze stars up. That is a particular medal in the global war on terrorism realm that people don't understand the difference between a V and not having a V. And it happens so often where somebody will have a bronze star without a V, which they should be incredibly proud of. And what they did is enough.

And they will start talking about how it came from their combat service and all of these things. And I don't dig too deep into the pool because you'll go crazy. But it's not a good thing that people don't understand that because it can be manipulated. And quite frankly, I can only speak from my experience and only the community that I came from. The award system is not as pristine and clean as people would like to think. At some point, and this is my opinion, I'm not speaking for the Navy, but early on, I'd say around 2003 or four, the award system at least became loosely tied to the advancement system. So let's say you are the officer in charge of an element that is overseas.

And the person who held that role before you and the unit that you are replacing got X award. And they go to a promotional board and they are highly promotional because of that. You then go hold that role. And maybe you didn't do anything that would necessarily be commensurate with that level of award, but you get it because you're in a leadership role.

And then it starts becoming an expectation. And then awards start being in some sense tied to the rank and position that you're holding as opposed to the actions that you are supposed to take to justify them. And that happens on the enlisted side as well because you have to hit leadership wickets to be at least eligible for advancement. And as soon as that happens, the validity of the system, at least in my opinion, is broken to agree. The idea that the best path for the most people is a four-year degree didn't evolve by accident. No, that was a deliberate attempt to convince an entire generation that they were doomed to a second-class life if they didn't go to college. And you know what?

It worked. A lot of people borrowed a lot of money to pursue an education that simply wasn't right for them. Well, today, parents and kids are finally beginning to realize that a four-year degree is not the only path to success. And that's why I'm happy to recommend exploring K-12. K-12 powered online schools offer career and college prep programs that are designed to help students find their full potential, no matter which path they choose. If your kids looking to get a jump start on a real-world career before they graduate high school, K-12 lets them explore fields like IT and healthcare, business, and, of course, the skilled trades where the opportunities are voluminous. They get a head start on real, relevant skills and hands-on experience while they earn their high school diploma. That's a game changer.

And look, if college is their goal, K-12 can help there too. They provide experienced counselors to help your student choose the right school, navigate the application process, even find financial aid and scholarships to cut down on the future debt. It's about helping your kid turn their potential into an actual. plan. Go to k12.com slash row to learn more. That's the letter K, the number 12.com slash row. The letter K, the number 12.com slash row. Well, look, I'm asking you this because I think a lot about honorary degrees. I think about degrees a lot. You know,

a college degree. It's a thing that, you know, my foundation deals with a bunch. It's very elitist. Well, somebody who has neither an honorary or a real degree. Well, I remember I graduated from a community college a long time ago and then a university after that. And I owed them $330 in parking tickets. And before the commencement, they called to say, pay up. There's no, there's no degree. You know, you're just going to be on stage.

You'll get an empty thing. Yeah. And I thought, well, you can't, like, there's no way you can't give, not give me the degree, you know. I don't think I've ever told you this, Chuck, but I went down like the rabbit hole of just like resentment and weirdness. And I wound up going to see a Sticks concert with my friend instead of going to graduation up in Madison Square Garden, Jeff Wilson. Right. And they, they mailed a degree to my dad's house. And I remember he called me, said, oh, I got your receipt in the mail today.

Like my receipt. Because, you know, receipt degree, whatever. I'm like, oh, man. And so now, just, and people have invited me to speak at graduations a bunch. And I've been offered honorary degrees. And I've never really been able to do that just because that, for me, that's where it started to feel like, what are we doing? Why, like Maya Angelou, God bless her. She had a lot to say and she said it beautifully.

But she had many like 40 or 50 honorary degrees. What does it mean at that point? Well, in her case, it meant that, you know, she was referred to as a doctor and a credentialed. It's just so odd to me. I agree. I don't understand it. Yeah. I don't understand a non-honorary degree, let alone.

I don't understand the point of it. Why bestow that on somebody or gift that? What are they supposed to do with it? I don't know. I guess you hang it. But my point is, I think it all, it's like that movie with Keaton, multiplicity. Like if you look at the guy you described before, the guy who sunk a train, okay, under insanely hazardous conditions. Let alone many other things that he's thinking.

Who assumed all the imaginable risks? Yeah. You know, and put his life and his men's lives on the line, did whatever they did, sank all those things, and then just to train to let everybody, okay, that guy gets something. He got the Medal of Honor. Okay. There you go. Yeah. Now everything is lesser than.

Everything is a version of, okay, that was pretty brave. Yeah. Not quite a brave. And then we're in this crazy chronology, this crazy hierarchy. And I don't know, man. It just seems like an odd way to order our lives. I agree. And then like I said, the system I described, what if there wasn't any bravery, but the advancement board is six months away?

What do you do? Right. It breaks the system. And everybody is aware of it. I mean, I know I am not the only person that feels this way. Maybe I'm the only person who wants to say it publicly. But it's the reality of what it is. And it sucks because I don't.

I think, I would hope that those things mean something because I've watched people do things that they got those type of awards for. And I don't have the words to describe it. And yet you talk a lot about, I mean, you've got words. Your podcast is, you know what, maybe. I try to get other people to talk more, though. I've noticed. I've noticed. But you're the guest here. So. No, I'm not saying here. I'm saying on my own show. Okay. I'm fascinated by other people.

I think you're probably the same way. I think it's easy to host a podcast and talk for hours, especially if you're legitimately interested in other people's life and experience. I'm the most resoundingly boring person that I know. And you could ask my children. I think they would agree with you. Well, here's how boring you are. And I don't know you, but we just met.

You literally fell over yourself confessing that you saw me in a hotel restaurant a month ago, eating. and you knew you were going to come here to see me, but you and your wife, you just sat there and observed. She wasn't observing. She was focusing on eating. I was concerned about your safety. I was just making sure you were okay. But you didn't walk over to say hello.

Never. You were enjoying a private moment. Why would I do that? Well, I can only defer to the species to which I believe you belong. and suggest that what you've just espoused would put you in a very skinny minority. Some buses are shorter than others. You know, some have flavor windows, some do not. Have you ever walked up to somebody you've recognized or were curious about out there in the wild and just said hello?

Do people come up to you these days? I have never approached a celebrity, even when I have worked a celebrity, even when I have worked. in environments when they're present. If the meeting is natural, I will say hello, but I leave them to do their thing. And that's just based in, I think, people in that world. It's fascinating to me. I know some relatively famous people, and I can see the struggle of them living a normal life, whatever that means.

But as an example, I was at an archery event with Joe Rogan. He was trying to get to the bathroom. Oh, Joe can't take a piss. It took 30 minutes for him to go maybe 30 yards. And I remembered that. And he's the kindest man. He stopped and said hello to everybody, shook their hand, took pictures, all of those things, because he's very appreciative of it. But I know he wanted to take a piss.

Yeah. And I remember that. That left a mark on me for sure. So I just let people do their thing. I knew we were going to sit down in a month. And I could tell you a weird story. It's probably one of the more awkward stories that you've ever had to open with. So, you know.

No, man, but you could have made it so much weird. As we discussed, you could have simply walked up, taken a piece of sushi, put it in your mouth. Or just touched it as I was talking. Yeah, just touch, walk up, touch food and say, you don't know me yet, but you will. Just a sip out of your wine glass and just walk off into the smoke. That would have been amazing. Yeah. It's not me, though.

But you thought of it. Oh, trust me, I thought of a lot of things. It doesn't mean I'm going to do it. My mind is a, whew, not a place you probably want to go visit. I honestly don't know what I would have done. You walk up, you just put your hand on my meal. Yeah. And say, big fan.

And I just walked away. Yeah. I just don't know what I would have done. What would anybody do other than sit there and probably paralyzed shock? I like to think I would have applauded just to say, good for doing something that's, you know, it's rare to see something you've never seen before to experience something. It's just brand new. I'd rather let you have a nice meal. You guys seem like you're having a good time.

Yeah, I was there with, what's her name? Mary. I've heard of her. Yeah. People do come up to me a little bit more now, and I always just thank him for doing so. And, you know, usually they want a picture or these days they'll ask me to sign the book. And of course, I mean, what am I going to do other than say yes? The book is drownproof.

Groundproof. It has nothing to do with the water or swimming, but, you know, catchy. Is it actually a word, Andy? Or is it two words? It's a word in common usage. Drownproof. It is a physical. evolution at buds, and I think it was actually called Drownproofing.

I think it's a word. On the title, it's one word. Because you guys go through all sorts of, you know, delightful little crucibles. That one actually isn't that bad, assuming, and I'm going to put a huge asterisk on this, that you are comfortable with the other, there it is, that you're comfortable in the water. Now, so this title picture nerds people out. And I have to tell the story of the picture, too. So the person who took that used to be a seal.

He became a very high-end photographer, and he had access to the training facility because of that, because he was a known entity. So they let him come in. He has an entire book of images that would just blow you away. Well, let me just say that as images go, that's terrifying. That was one of my favorite evolutions because your head is only above the water for about a second. So that's all you can hear them yelling at you as you go back down to the bottom, which is why if you're comfortable in the water, but for people who are on

audio only. This is a portion of the evolution called drownproofing. In the picture, their feet are tied together above the ankle. Their hands are tied behind their back with a similar piece of rope. We don't do that to them on the first day. Coming in hot. It's a crawl, walk, run training pipeline. People think it's ultra high speed. It's not. They probably spend a week just holding their hands behind their back. And then I think we start with the Velcro straps that you can undo. Eventually, so you have to bob for an hour, which it is if you can relax and control your breathing. exceptionally easy. You exhale to become negatively buoyant. You bounce off the bottom, come to the top, grab some air. Somebody yells at you for a little bit and you just

you go back down. So it's opposite, Phil. You exhale. Exhale to go down. You get your air on the way up. Then you have to swim the length of the pool with your arms and legs tied behind your back. It's not that hard either, but it's different. You need to keep more air in your lungs to maintain that positive buoyancy. You're basically dolphin kicking. Then you come back and I still don't understand why we do this, they start bouncing again. They throw a mask into the pool. You have to wiggle your happy ass over there, pick the mask up with your teeth, and then Bob with that in your mouth for an indiscriminate amount of time. Then you have to do a front somersault, and then it's over. Again. Why do you have to do a front somersault? Everything beyond the swimming back and forth,

I don't understand. I think comfort in the water. Also, what is not shown in this picture, there are instructors in the water, and it's a one-to-one ratio. Oh, a somersault underwater. Underwater, yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like, you're like, notia hominici. Now get out? Yeah.

And dive. I mean, yeah, the job requires a variety of physical skills. Sometimes the Somersault is one of them. There is a robust safety net for the students. It's one to one. One student is watching a student as they're in the pool. So one's on the pool deck. And there are instructors all around.

There's dive medical officers on the pool deck. It's really not that bad. If you are comfortable in the water, which is actually what this is testing. How many people sign up? try out who aren't comfortable in the water and how many of those somehow power through on a percentage basis. I don't think there's any studies on that one, but I think we can hypothesize it's a single digit percentage. It's got to be. I was a Bud's instructor for 18 months in, I don't remember why I was out there. The training facility abuts the Pacific Ocean with large sand berms.

There was a student standing out there on the sand berm just marveling at the Pacific Ocean. So I walked up and said, what are you doing? He said, I've never seen the ocean before. He did not last long. Jesus, what was he thinking? That is a question I've been asking myself and my children since they were born and I was young. It's some pretty high cotton from Joe, who wrote, if the world went completely sideways from a zombie virus outbreak and we had to put together a militia to save the human race. Andy Stumpf would be my top draft pick. I will say this. He wrote nearly five paragraphs. it was an incredibly personal endorsement and they had to pull what they thought, I don't know what they thought people were going to get from that,

other than maybe somebody good to have on a team if there's a draft pick, but... Did they leave the rest of it somewhere in the book? No, no, it would have been the entire front cover, which I don't know if that sells. If I'm being honest, and I always try to be, especially in these commercials, there's a lot about AI that makes me uncomfortable. I don't like the way it's impacting the publishing industry or the film industry or the music industry or frankly anything artistic. What I do like are companies that are using AI to make hard work more productive. That's exactly what Diggs is doing.

And the entire construction industry is now paying attention. Diggs has built a software tool driven by AI that keeps builders from Diggs. drowning in reams of disconnected information from toxic text threads to rogue PDFs. It simplifies everything by taking blueprints, takeoffs, homeowner approvals, all that stuff, and putting them in one place. So when you need to know the exact tile option that a homeowner approved weeks ago, you don't have to call three people or scream at your dashboard for a half hour. You just ask digs. And the AI finds the answer in two seconds. This technology is a lot of the technology is a is saving builders 40 to 50 hours per project, which is why Diggs is expanding like crazy.

Full disclosure, I haven't used the product personally because I don't build houses for a living, but if I was having a home built, I would absolutely insist the builders use Diggs. I've also met the owners of the company, Ryan and Tye, they're awesome. I've kicked the tires and I've personally invested in Diggs because I think they're going to be huge. Go to digs.com slash Mike. save 40% off your first three months at DIGS.com slash Mike. Can you dig it? Do you still have the entire quote?

I do. Is it framed? No, but I'm going to, with some of the worst reviews of the book, I'll just do them side by side. That's great. I love it. People's internet behaviors and actions are fascinating to me. Oh, man, me too.

I love to see the expression of just humanity coming up. part. Yeah. I got a raving one-star Goodreads review that is several paragraphs, and I currently have my producer framing it to go in the studio, because it just warms my heart. Well, look, I mean, it's a way to take your power back. I had a lot of interesting mail years ago. I paid my dues at CBS for a while, and then on the QVC cable shopping channel, you know. Strong. Yeah. Three years there. How was that? Well, I tell you, it was. It was instructive. Looking back, I actually, I didn't talk about it for years.

And then when I started to talk about it, it was kind of funny and kitschy. And then the more I thought about it, the more I realized, well, it certainly wasn't buds, but it was a training ground for sure. I bet. And it was sleep deprivation. And it was very, live TV is very uncomfortable. And we have no training at all. And they're just bringing you things and your job is to.

kill eight minutes at a time. It's not exactly mortal stakes, but it's a weird set of muscles to develop. Yeah. And you either do it or you don't. And, you know, like so many useful things in this ridiculous industry I learned there. This has, what, eight lessons, eight life lessons to keep your head above water. That's pretty clever, too. I didn't come up with that. Did you come up with the lessons? I think so. Did you do anything, Andy? It could be argued.

I mean, how far back in time do you want to go? I like to set the bar low and then trip over it. Well, I don't want to dwell on all the combat stuff because I think you're probably sick to death of talking about it. You'd be underwhelmed by it anyway. It's not what people think. Okay, what is it? You're making the best decision you can in the moment with limited information,

and then you get the rest of your life to think about it. It's about what it is. This is a pure eye. I can do so much better than this, but to get shot at close range with an AK. What flavor is the pain? The best way I can describe it, you're old enough to remember this. Remember the Bash Brothers, Kinseko and McGuire? Oh, yeah.

We're talking peak juice, not early, when they were somehow evading the drug testing program, if there was one in baseball. If you would have given either of them a baseball bat with about a nine-inch nail sticking out of it and let them wind up. That's what I think. I've never tested this.

But in my mind, this is the way that I could describe it. That's about what it felt like. Where to get you? Hip? Yeah, high up on my left hip. Spunned me towards the person that was shooting at me.

About a year later, I found the belt that I was wearing that night because they cut most of my clothes off me. The second round that that guy shot at me, I'm thankful that it spun me towards him, and then I pushed off with my foot. I ended up stuck under a vehicle just watching a guy shoot at me,

very super heroic, just pinned because of my gear. And just like, ah. On the positive side, here's another star. Yeah. The second round, the guy shot at me, traveled down my belt, about six inches burning it along the way. And then the copper jacket of the round is still attached to my belt. So had it not spun me, again, this is a hypothesis. That one was higher. I couldn't have put a tourniquet on the one that did hit me, but it missed my femur. It missed all the arteries and veins. the second round had it interacted with my pelvis, very unlikely that we'd be sitting here today. Those are generally fatal and excruciatingly painful. Can't even imagine.

Yeah. So does the pain, how does it linger? I was just about to say it wasn't that bad. But it wasn't that bad. By the time I got to the hospital, so eight Americans got hurt on that objective that night. I was one of the least injured. We were flying in TF160th Little Birds to load the people up to get them out of there. And some of that was blue on blue.

That was not all enemy. It was a breaching charge that was detonated when American forces were close. It was gnarly. By the time I got to the hospital, I took a Bradley fighting vehicle in the back of one with a guy who had been shot in the hand. My ankle actually hurt worse than anything because the round interacted with my sciatic nerve. And so it short-circuited it from the point of impact all the way down to my ankle. So my chief complaint when I got to the hospital was actually my ankle. I felt like that Bradley somehow I'd been taken outside, roll over my foot, and then put me back inside of it.

So the doctors were very gingerly, you know, cutting off my shoe, cutting the pants off, exposing everything, putting me into the x-ray and the cat scan and then looking at me. Nothing. There was nothing. Not that they could see it. And then they were asking about the pain. and like yeah it's right i couldn't move my left leg for about a year i was a hemipelijic for about a year so inability to really control my left leg and then hemipeligic so one yep yeah of course i just don't hear that word a lot i didn't know it until the doctor told me this is essentially what

you're dealing with the nerves grow back though about a millimeter a day or an inch a month and so i started regaining function in my leg but for probably two years it felt like my my leg was dipped in gasoline and lit on fire. What did they tell you in terms of recovery? What did they tell you to expect? At that point in my life, I had never heard so many educated people tell me, I don't know. They didn't know if it had completely severed the nerve. They didn't know if, if you ever watched ballistic gel when a rounds going into it, those

concussive shock waves. That can interact with the sciatic nerve. They didn't know if they clipped it. So to their credit, I'm glad that they didn't promise something that couldn't happen. They just said, listen, we don't know. It will grow back at a millimeter a day, about an inch per month. If you were to regain full usage, it would have to grow from the point of impact all the way down to your ankle. So maybe, but also maybe not.

And I still have a loss of sensation on the outside of my left leg from just below the knee cap down. So that's about where it ended. And it's been that way ever since. Was that it for your career? Were you out of the fight? Nope. I went to Buds and became an instructor for about 18 months. That's where I picked up my commission

and then I redeployed again with SEAL Team 3. How many SEAL teams are there? So odd numbers are on the West Coast. You got 1-3-557 and then evens are on the East Coast. 2-4-8-10. Development group is on the East Coast, and then there's an SDV team out in Hawaii. 24-8-10.

Where's six? It's on the East Coast as well. Nobody talks about that. Not that many people. You realize you just skip right over an even number. Yeah, it's our. arguable whether or not it exists. There's not been a lot written and talked about it. How many are on a team? In a team?

Man. So I've been out for a while. I can only talk about one I was in. So a team will have usually eight operational elements that's called a platoon. In that will probably be a platoon will be 16 that can then be further divided into eight, which can then be further divided into four mutually supporting. along the way. So 8 by 16 and then there is the headquarters element and all of the support network associated with that. So probably 250 to 300 total people.

Yeah. I was surprised the first time I heard it. I don't know, but when you say team, seal team six, my first thought is, oh yeah, six guys went in there, you know. But that's like watching Deadliest Catch and going, oh yeah, the Crab Fleet,

it's six boats. It's like, no, it's like 120. There's a lot more than you think. I like the six, though. Well, you know what? The cameras do make a big difference. How often did you go on those boats? The first season, I spent six weeks up there.

We didn't know what it was. Yeah. We didn't know if it was a show or a miniseries or a movie. And the network was, I mean, there was no real reality TV at the time. There was like Survivor, which is a competition show. So the network figured, well, there should be a prize for the, one who gets the most crab. So I went up there.

There is. It's called money. Well, it's bigger than that. It's called living. Yeah. We didn't understand any of it. Yeah. We went into a completely alien world with a $250,000 prize for the winning boat, which made the Coast Guard lose their minds because they're already flying around at Jayhawks, risking their life to pluck these poor guys out of the Bering Sea.

When things go sideways, which is every day. And so they see this weird bunch of Hollywood douchebags show up with some ideas for a show, putting cameras on this boat, but not those boats, making deals with these captains, but not those captains, inciting total, like, if it were Star Trek,

this would have been the ultimate violation of the prime directive. Just like, show up and infect everything with your filthy money. and your dirty fame and your promises of whatever. And so we didn't know. And we learned fast. Six guys died that first year. It's rough.

Six funerals. And suddenly you're like, wow, what are we playing at? So I worked on the boats and filmed on the boats then. And then I was trying to get dirty jobs on the air at the same time. And that wasn't working because it was off-brand. But by the time they saw the totality of what work TV might maybe could be, they ordered both, but I couldn't host both. So when in doubt, picked them on with your name of the title. I always just imagined you slightly off camera narrating with a lapel mic.

You know, we went up there several times after that to interview captains and to do a show called After the Catch, which was, yeah. And of course, there were spinoffs and a lot of adjacent things. But yeah, I went another way. I went the full dirty every week, a couple new jobs rather than, you know, the doc. And in hindsight, credit words do, you know, the network was right. That show didn't really need a host. It just needed a voice.

And I was happy to do that. Dirty Jobs is a fantastic show as well. Thank you. Watch many seasons of it. Damn near killed me. Good fun, though. That's your own fault because of what you were choosing to do. You know, I'll tell you... Last I checked you were the one volunteer to crawl into some of those spaces.

No, no, no. For sure. But really, the... People have said nice things over the years, except for people who stalked me in restaurants and don't have the decency to come up and, you know, say a lot. You're welcome. Yeah. But running into guys who were in Afghanistan, in particular, it seemed. I don't know what the military channel really was all about, but there wasn't a ton of stuff to watch. But the Discovery Feed was alive and well.

And I probably got 100 invitations in 2008 to come over and do a burn pit alone with so many other suggestions. And when I ran into people who would pull me aside and say, you know, watching that show over there, helped. I was awesome, man. You should be proud of it. Yeah, I am. The AFN network, armed forces network, no idea what they decide, but discovery for sure is on there. It's basically you have that and the Band of Brothers series that you watch ad nauseum. But I cannot, you want to have a

little piece of home when you're over there. You need the downtime. You need the gray noise, not to be diminutive to the show at all, but you need something that is familiar that you can just, kind of connect with at least a little bit emotionally and mentally for the off times. I'm glad you didn't do the burn pit stuff. That is, uh, man. Why they ever thought that was a good idea to begin with doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You know, I know it's been talked to death, but just so people understand. Yeah.

What exactly was it? And just how damaging has it turned out to be? I mean, I think the severity of what it was or the totality of what it was really depends on where you were. At a place like Bogram, I would imagine they had a little bit more of a sophisticated trash sorting system, if you will. Let's not call it much more than maybe just piles over here that probably got burned to. Maybe they burned stuff separately. But if you were to get out in the western areas where you're in these fobs, where you're just out by your lonesome, everything you consume, everything that comes out of your body, every expendable item that you're going to use

is going to end up in a pit. And it's going to be lit on fire. and I can still taste what they smell like. And if you, it has the most distinct smell and taste, which I cannot describe, but I would recognize it instantly. And my, my associate with it was very brief.

We would pass through or be near, but I remember looking back and watching these just blacker than black plumes of smoke that seemed to be incredibly close to the Ford operating bases, which does make sense because you don't want to go, take the stuff two kilometers away where you're outside of effective gunfire

where you might get ambushed. But the smoke is just rolling over the heskos, which are just these large containers that have rocks them that are ballistic barriers and just rolling over the top of the birthing areas, maybe just a little swirling here and there, maybe just making the entire back of it just black and ashy.

Yeah, it's a great idea. As far as how dangerous it is, I don't think they've figured out yet the long-term consequences of that. Yeah. But the cancer rates are statistically outside of every model that I have ever heard when it comes to the exposure. A lot of people dying in their late 30s, early 40s, maybe even sometimes in their late 20s. Crazy.

Yeah. We had the whistleblower. The whistleblower on the podcast, Dan Clare at the DAV, remember? Of course. He was the guy who blew the whistle on the whole thing. Yeah. And who else? Scott Mann.

Scott Man, Green Beret, yeah. Yeah. You know Scott. I know who he is, but again, never had any interaction with him. Well, you know, I mean, that's kind of an interesting pivot because Scott, he wrote Pineapple Express and basically orchestrated it from Florida, I think, where he was living at the time. Yeah. When everything went to hell, it was it, Abbey Gate, I guess. Yeah.

And when I look at what he's doing with his life now, it's books and it's lectures and it's, he's done a pretty good job. I think, of distilling everything or a lot of what he experienced over there and making it useful somehow. And it feels like you're singing out of that same hymn book to a degree. So I guess if there's a question, it's how does that happen? How do you go from getting shot in the hip accumulating half a dozen brown stars or whatever it is to hang it out with Evan Hafer and Joe Rogan? And now you got your own podcast cleared hot, which is awesome.

And then you and I have done a change agents episode. It's not a big deal. That's actually the first time we ever spoke. I think about this, I've had Scott on change agents. Oh, really? Yeah, I did a remote interview with him. That's why I'm familiar with what his name is. Yeah.

Yeah. How does that happen? I don't know. You can't figure out anything else to do with your life, I guess. No, there's an inciting incident somewhere. Somebody somehow, something. I can't point to an incident. I can point to a.

realization of my life within the last few years that I just want to try to have a positive impact. That's really, I don't know how I'm going to do that, but that is what I would like to try to do with the remainder of my life is just to do my absolute best to try to make the world 0.0001% better than when I came into it. I did my fair share of destroying plenty of things along the way, hopefully for at least a net neutral, not a net negative. But what got me there is my military background is not, it's not unique to me. It's who it's ingrained. in who I am, so it's not interesting to me. The people that I grew up in almost 20 years of very formative years in my young adult life, it just, you know, it's cool. That's what I did. I know all

the stories. Other people, though, are far more fascinated by it, which I understand, of course. But probably the most common thing they'll say is, oh, man, those experiences must have been so incredible, and they'll follow it up with, I'll never be able to do that myself or have those experiences. And I was thinking about it, not like sitting down a focused thought, but just over time, if I go and end up on my deathbed and had the realization that I did have experiences that at least mathematically are unique for a lot of people because many people are smarter and choose other career fields. And it is a unique type of person that wants to do that for a living.

But those experiences were tremendously formative in my life. And they are the key to how I think through problems and how I think. I try to live my life. If I don't do anything with that and it only impacted my life, I think I would be very regretful on my deathbed. So my goal is to try to take those experiences and put them into a package or a delivery where people, they don't need to have the AK-47-Hose Konseco batting practice, but they can learn from that career and do something with it. But I can't think of a moment, like a formative moment where that became my shift or, This happened, and so I said, this is going to be my true north.

It was slow over time. Was it fun? The whole band of brothers thing, when you were in the thick of it. Yeah. It's like fun, even a word you can. Oh, it's the most fun I've ever had. It's the funniest shit I've ever seen happen. I watched one of my closest friend run into a room that was used as a bathroom,

slip into piles of human shit. And I was supposed to follow them, but instead I just closed the door. And he, I heard him. dry. I was combat ineffective for at least five minutes because I was crying, laughing. Just dying. I watched a man running full speed get closed line by a closed line. Under night vision gongs, where you can't actually see shit that's thin like that. Feet up in front of him. And again, five minutes of hands on my knees just tears. Like, hold on Tom and Jerry. All the time. And you have limited depth perception when you're walking around. So watching people to stumble over and fall or just

You know, the classic taking a step off a step you don't know is there, but he's almost blown out all the CLs in their leg. It was the absolute worst and the absolute most fun that I've ever had in my entire life and the funniest stuff I've ever seen happen. It's the most beautiful and the most horrific thing I've ever experienced, all wrapped in one. And what's crazy is it can flip back and forth in about a quarter of a second. Yeah.

Interesting. Because you said about a half hour ago, that's not all it's cracked up to be. It's, you know, but... It's not all it's cracked up to be. The combat is what a lot of people focus on. And, I mean, it is, again, making complex decisions on limited information where you get the rest of your life to think about it. There's a burden to being put into that environment, and I'm glad that most people don't experience that. However, I do personally believe that being in that environment can make you a better version of yourself. It doesn't have to destroy you.

I wish that portion of the narrative got equal amount of traction as the broken toy narrative often does with service members. But it isn't all this cracked up to be. It's not like the movies. People would be so underwhelmed at how little we run, how slow we actually move, how little we actually say. I knew the people with me so well, I could tell who they were by their shadows in my night vision goggles.

We're not running around. I wish grenades would take one of these oak barrels and throw them up into the air into a fireball. It's just not the way it is. It goes crack and it throws dust up in the air. I wish it looked as awesome to get shot at as people think it is. It sucks. You try to find the biggest rock to hide behind humanly possible. It's just not what people think it is. And then in that same breath, it's more than they could ever think it would possibly be. If that makes any sense. Well, how much did you ruck? How much were you carrying? Oh, probably body. That last deployment At Team 3, at Development Group, you're lighter.

And they got way lighter after I left. When I was at Team 3, I was probably body weight plus 90 to 110 pounds minimum. What? Yeah. Body weight plus? Yeah, plus 110. I had my primary weapon. I fashioned a backpack that made myself look like Buzz Lightyear.

I had two javelin missile tubes. I had the javelin missile launcher on top of that, the clue, and then I would put my 300-1-Megg sniper rifle on top of that, too. And that was my backpack for little activities. You got out in 16? 13. Last day of June, 2013. What do you take?

Where do you put... I'll get to the lessons later, but where do you put the... What do you put the risk? Like, processing and living with... that level of risk has always interested me because I think it seems as though the only way you can manage it is to tamp it down. We can't live in a constant state of fear. It's boring, frankly, it's exhausting. But when you get out of that whole environment, how do you not get bored with the banality? I mean, this might lead into my choices to be a professional

skydiver and wingsuit base jumper for a few years. Oh, there we go. But the risk thing, that is something that is not shown in the movies and TV shows. If they give us enough time, you'll plan for 72 hours to 96 hours for a single objective that may, that should and hopefully occur in a single cycle of darkness. So you are going through the MDMP process or the military decision-making process and the ORM process, operational risk management as you are planning and it's contingency planning. You're looking at weather.

You are looking at satellite imagery. You are talking to specialists. You're working with the fixed wing aviators that are going to provide the overhead assets, the rotoing assets working with them. Where can we land? How can we hide our signature? What's the best way to approach this? You're doing rehearsals, taping stuff out on the floor to the best of your ability to replicate

what you're going to be going into. All of that is to reduce the risk to as low as humanly possible. You have to assess and mitigate. And then the residual risk left over is what you have to put on your, mission approval slide. And I tell people this, they don't believe me. If you want to shut down the modern military, but specifically special operations, just kill the Microsoft Office suite. We're done. Because that's how we got mission approval. You take a PowerPoint deck, you drag it over to an email, and you send it to the battle space commander. But on that first slide is the risk associated with it,

because as the risk goes up, you are going up and level of authority to approve those type of operations. So Neptune Spear is an example that people would recognize. Cross-Bor. border into Pakistan without telling Pakistan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Presidential approval because of the risk associated with that. And if you talk to the guys that were there, they were thinking it was a coin toss one-way trip because they didn't know what they were going to get into. They didn't know if he was going to live up to kind of the bravado that he had put out, you know, going to go in fighting. Everybody's going to be rigged with suicide vests. The building's going to be rigged to blow. They didn't know. Very, and how do you reduce that risk, even in planning?

super ultra high risk they probably didn't say exactly that on the slide deck presidential authority a lower risk operation you might have a battle space commander that can approve that so we're always looking at risk and then you can mitigate it by being ultra current and ultra competent in your skill set i mean that's when you're not overseas you're training and then when you're overseas you actually are losing your currency and competency faster than you do back home because you are operating less frequently than you are training when you are back in the United States, depending on what element you are associated with. So it's a kind of muscle memory. You get to as lethal as humanly possible, as a unit and as an individual, hopefully the day that you get overseas,

because it's going to be a slow decline until you come back. Yeah. So I guess my question is, how do you turn that off just because the circumstances change? Turn what aspect of it off? It is a very objective and logical assessment of the risk. And I don't know if people should turn that off. I think you should look at risk objectively and logically. I don't know of anything in my life that I truly valued that came without risk or without work. And I think most people could probably say that. So I don't think it should be avoided.

But there's a difference between risking and gambling. And you need to be sure that you're not falling into one category or the other without knowing what's going on. Let's go back to jumping out of planes. Sure. wing suit. Yeah. Yeah. So were you jumping down

a plane in the military? That was my first exposure to it. Yeah. Static line jump school in Fort Bedding, Georgia, which I think is a three or four week course that I feel like could be done in about 48 hours. But the Army has its way with things. You practice falling down for a week, PLF, parachute landing fall,

hitting all the points of contact along the way. Then they put you in this swing landing trainer and you do all these, you jump out of a tower. I forget, I swear it's 34. feet or some they said it was the mathematical height that produced the most fear in people. So it's the, you hook up and you do the whole shuffling and you're wearing a fake parachute and you jump out onto it. And then one day you find yourself and wedged in between a bunch of army people in a C-130 flying over Georgia. You're 34 feet in the air? I think it was 34. Something around.

And you're jumping off a platform? So it's a platform that simulates. The platform just looks like a fire lookout essentially, but stairs going up. But it replicated. the doors of the aircraft. And you have to, it's a very coordinated, both military static line and free fall are very coordinated and synchronized evolutions. There's a jumpmaster static line and a jump master free fall.

You can be both, but each are individual skill sets. And you have to stand the people up. You get them to hook up to the cable. You have them check their equipment, check the person in front of them, the person behind. It's very coordinated in the jump master's giving all those signals. Then they approach the door.

and that tower allows a small group of people to practice that whole thing and the body position to jump out without the fear of being in an aircraft that's about a thousand feet off the ground. And your first jump? Yeah. Was there fear?

Oh, God, yeah. I think if I hadn't been wedged in between the person in front of me and I was dead center of the stick. I don't know how they fit that many people on a C-130. It was elbows and assholes, for sure. And once the line started going,

I mean, you're Lemmings at that point. The person who really has to deal with that emotional situation is the first jumper out, who is standing there because you get standby at about 15 to 30 seconds, and they're just like, uh, why am I here? Everybody else in the line, you know, once the cows start heading home to chow time, we're off. Yeah, follow him. Yeah.

How many jumps? I think I did 80 static lines in total, and I have about 8,500 free fall jumps. Yeah. I like gravity. I'm a gravity enthusiast. Like it or not, you know, it believes in you. Every time so far, I've jumped on every continent and it is undefeated. Every continent? Yeah. But not in the military. No. A few years ago, we did seven jumps and seven continents in just under seven days to raise money for folds of honor, the scholarship foundation.

You know Colonel Nichols? I don't know him personally, but we wrote him a nice check. Is he going to be here? Tomorrow? It's going to be here tomorrow at 11. Yeah. What are to be on to that? I'll already be on my way home to Montana.

You sure you don't want to hang around? 100% positive. Montana versus Los Angeles. Sorry. You know my buddy Josh? I like to think of it that you know my buddy, Josh. Fair enough. Have you been to his facility?

No, but I had him here right after the opening. You went to his old facility, though, right at his house? You've never been through Montana. Oh, I've been through Montana plenty, but it never was. worked out for me to, I mean, I've never been in the garage where he started it. Yeah. That's where he was when I met him. Is that right? Yeah. How did you guys get in each other's world? Probably the internet would be my guess. I don't actually remember. It might have been an introduction through Evan because he knows Evan as well. Are you from Montana? Mm-mm. I'm from

Santa Cruz, California. Huh. Traditionally known for their military recruiting. What are you doing in Montana? My ex-wife was from Montana. Montana people who have been born and raised there, it seems to be this gravitational pull to come back at some point, either to visit or to return. And I'm exceptionally grateful that we did that and put our roots down there because I don't think I'm ever going to leave. It's pretty awesome.

Where are you exactly? In Missoula? No, so Missoula is where Josh is. I'm 120 miles on the north end of Flathead Lake. So Calispell or, and it's weird. Most people haven't heard of that, even though that's the airport they fly into. Many more have heard of whitefish. Oh, yeah.

But essentially the western entrance to Glacier National Park. I got kicked in a head by a yak in Callisville. Why? Well, I was castrating it, so I feel like I had it coming. I mean, I would probably kick somebody if they tried to castrate me as well. It really rang my bell, and it freaked everybody out. So we stopped shooting for a bit. And I was fine.

But I had the access to the production van and did the drive, I know you know, up to the border. Yeah, up to Roosevelt. Yeah. Yeah, Dr. Roosevelt and down through Glacier back. And it is, it's about the prettiest place I've ever seen. I don't know why I would ever leave. Well, to be interviewed by the likes of me. Yeah, but I'll go back.

My wife was born and raised. My current wife is born and raised in upstate New York, and she worked in Alaska, and she, she's just a jiu jitzy suit nut. She's a world championship, jiu-practic practitioner and coach. And so she's been up in the Pacific Northwest, but not a lot of time down here. Every time we come down here, she says she wants to stay and move, and I just say, absolutely not. We're not. No.

I don't mind a two-hour drive in Montana because you'll get about 150 miles. A two-hour drive in L.A. might be 1.5, and she just hasn't experienced that yet. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I mean, I lived in San Diego for probably 15 years. I enjoyed it. I was up here all the time, but I'm ready for a sustained chain of pace. Jack Carr in your life?

We started buds together. same class. Get out of here. Yeah, know him well. He did not graduate with our class. It was a deficiency in mental and physical toughness, but... I'll give me your regards. He just sent me his latest book.

Yeah. Jesus, his books now, they come out in like... He sends a briefcase. It's basically like it's an ammo case. Yeah, it's like the nuclear suitcase. I mean, he's having so much fun with it. And he sat across, but he basically said, Mike, you know, I had two dreams.

I only wanted to do things. I want to be a Navy SEAL and a best-selling author. You'll tell you what, though, he kept that second one real quiet when he was in. I don't get those briefcases. My back is still sore from carrying him through buds, and I don't get one of those briefcases. Geez. I think he might listen to this, man, just so you know. Oh, I text him this all the time.

I sign his books in bookstores and write glowing endorsements of myself. Dearest Andy, thank you for being my inspiration throughout my entire Seer career, Jack Carr. I leave him all over airports, and then I take a picture, and I tag him in it. You should write, it's no drown proof, but I did my best. I will start doing that. Yeah. No, everything, I would say everything directly to his face because I do. And then every book of his that I signed, I have people send me his books to sign for him.

And I do. So, Josh, I'm so proud of him, man. I mean, I was so sad not to be able to get to his opening. But he came down here right after that. You know, he's raised for my foundation over $200,000. It doesn't surprise me. By he's in fact. You get two blades over there, yeah.

And this is Josh Smith. Yes, Montana Knife Company. Yeah, what did I call? Just Josh. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no. This is, yeah, so this is one of the ones he's done that. Oh, nice.

Yeah, so like 10% comes back to the foundation. I, you know, I didn't ask him to do that. You just came down. You sure you want to wrap this thing? Yeah, go ahead, man. I was going to say, because they come expertly rolled up in this paper. I mean, I assume you have one. I have quite a few Montana not company blades. I bet you do. Yeah. Isn't it, I mean, it's impossible not to admire the handywork.

Oh, yeah, these are the really cool ones too. But the enthusiasm and the amount people will... The brand loyalty. Yeah. That's what's bananas. Yeah, these are amazing. Isn't that great? Yeah, a lot of them, you know, they have the plastic, I believe it's a G10 handle, which is great. But the wood and the, the sheath is with it. He's killing it. I know. Yeah, I met him when he was, he forged my wedding ring with me. He helped me make Damascus. Yeah, it's just classic Montana story. No big deal. We just forged my wedding ring. He did. Okay, I guess you know him. Yeah. And, and, but he was just in the garage and he was talking about building, we'll call it MKC 2.0, which he built right next to that garage. Yeah. And I remember being there when they had laid out the floor plan and they hadn't moved in yet.

And I remember saying to him, so what's the next building going to be? And I remember him saying, oh, there's no way. A few months later, yeah, we don't have enough space. Yeah. Just exploding vertically. And he's vertically integrating all of that stuff. It's amazing. It's fun to watch him.

It's fun to watch Evan do his thing. What is your thing going to be? Is it going to be? I don't know. No, I mean, maybe is it going to be cleared hot? Is it going to, like, what do you? I do enjoy. the podcast because I am fascinated by other people. I love sitting down and talking with people

about their accomplishments, what they learned along the way, the mistakes that they made. Are you genuinely curious? Yeah. I, I'm... Then you'll do well. Yeah. And it's, uh, you exist in this world. There are cheat codes that you could do to rapidly grow audience, which I don't know necessarily are sustainable. And at every turn, I have avoided the opportunity to do so. because I want to be able to sleep at night. And I want it to be something that I legitimately enjoy doing. And, you know, it would always be great if the platform was bigger. But there's always, you know, somebody you can compare it.

Like, hey, Joe, you'll never believe it. I gained five followers. You'd be like, good job, buddy. Me too. Billion. And but I don't know. I was actually just thinking about that. The last thing I had in front of me that I was kind of working towards was the book.

I don't have a next thing that I'm thinking about right now. I'm enjoying the things that I do. I know what I want to do. I don't know the exact mechanism means or ways that I will necessarily do so. Well, I mean, with respect to your originality, there are no new ideas. This is true. So like when you watch Rogan, when you watch, have you been on Sean Ryans? No, we're connected, but I haven't been on a show.

Oh, I just did it a couple weeks ago. Awesome. How was it? Great. I'll tell you, man. I think in some ways he's important. I agree. To this space because he's tortured.

He's very curious, but he's very suspicious. Maybe that's the wrong word. No, I think it's the correct word. Well, he's skeptical of his own success, and he's very, he's always weighing and measuring why he's doing what he's doing. He's suspicious of the world around him, too, which I think is a, that's what I meant.

Yeah, not that the success part he deserves this, his success, and I do think it's healthy that he's constantly weighing and measuring it. What I enjoyed about it is he's not in a hurry and he's not scared of silence. And he'll discuss anything. And he's a weapons expert, which means obviously you have that thing in your brain, which will really keep you super focused on getting it right, whatever it is. is. Are you talking about autism? You know what? Maybe I'm talking about a spectrum. Attachianitism. It can nick you sometimes. It's not just that. It's that in conjunction with something that's

diametrically opposed. And in Sean's case, he doesn't, he doesn't really like conversation. He doesn't really, like instinct, like, like he's curious. Yeah. But he's not outgoing. And so, So when you bundle that skepticism, that kind of skepticism with that kind of curiosity, what you get is the most remarkable studio I've ever seen. Because on the one hand, it's free and easy and there are no rules. On the other hand, there is real production structure. His team is like buttoned up. And they have very specific things that they do that I would never do like a super specific handshake. very stylized way of marketing the show. It's great. It's just not consistent with his approach

to an interview. And in the end, you wind up loving it. Here's the best example. We have four cameras, three of which matter. We put one on Chuck because you never know. It's not even plugged in. I saw that. You never know. Sean has 14. Maybe he got a little bit more nicked by the Maybe. Maybe he got winged. Maybe. But here's the thing. He, I don't know him well. We'll text back and forth occasionally. He doesn't seem to be a man that dabbles. And I can appreciate that. He's either in or he's out. And I have nothing. Yeah. I mean, I'd probably recommend he has 16, but I mean, he'll get there. You know, if he sticks with it. He's built a compound. Yeah. He's built a lake. The range is right there. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's amazing what he's built. And, you know, here's the thing I want to ask you about, man.

And this, I think you guys will, you'll have a lot to talk about regarding this. But I ask him what's the most important thing on his podcast in terms of who he works for? He's like, no hesitation. He's like, me. It's me. I have to be flat with what I'm doing. I have to understand it. I'm like, okay.

Then who? And he says, my family. All right, okay. Then who? He says, my team. Like, okay. Then who? He goes, well, I guess my audience.

Like, okay. Where's the sponsor? He's like, oh, I don't know. There means to an end. September 19th, I flick across yours. So that's what, maybe a week, nine days after, Charlie was shot. And it was Friday.

And you sat there and you said what you said, which I appreciated a lot. I thought it was really good. But you were like you went out of your way to apologize, not to the advertisers, but for the advertisements. Yeah. It dirties the water, but that's the water we swim in. Sean didn't get 14 cameras without sponsors and advertisers. That's right.

Or without an audience. And the audience, I think at this point, is conditioned to the advertising. But that subject matter that day, I wish I could have pulled those ads off of the schedule. But I couldn't. That's not the deal that I have with them. And you understand sponsorship relationships. But for the people out there listening, perhaps they don't. I'm sure there's a variety of structures.

But you essentially under an agreement. They're going to pay X amount for what you are going to provide for them. And for me, it's an Excel spreadsheet. I have it laid out for the year. I know what dates and what reads are going to happen. I can't control the events that happen in the world. But, yeah, I felt like the need to apologize because I have to take a break from somebody publicly losing their life

to tell you fucking toothpaste or whatever it was. And it grates on me at a moral level. It's also the game that I willingly chose to play. And if I tell somebody I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. I mean, you must be this tall to get on this ride, however tall that. And you are, and you're on it. But I ask because I think about that a lot, too. I love our sponsors.

I say no to about 80%. Yeah? Like, I have some hard stuff I won't do. I won't do alcohol and gambling. Not because I am not a fan of both at the same time, the times in my life. It's not something that I want to advocate for or promote. So those are hard-nosed. For me, God, I get a lot of online gambling ones too.

I'm like, just stop. Just say no for me. You can go ahead and just hit N-O. Or just drag it to the garbage bin, whatever suits you're fancy. I have to believe in it. And it has to be legitimate in something that I can stand behind. Otherwise, I won't do it. Good for you.

Yeah, I just won't do it. I only want to make enough money in my life to be able to say no to things so I can spend the time with my family that I want to. How much is enough? I don't mean specifically, but there was a great book written by a guy I admired a lot named Jack Bogle called Enough. Jack started Vanguard once upon a time. I'd add another great book that Huberman actually recommended to me, the art of spending

money. It digs into a lot of the why. Is it internal versus external? Is it status versus utility? Enough for me is, I would say, I don't know, to a six months buffer. It's where you don't feel like you're in a vice. where you don't feel like you have to say yes, because I've been in those places. When I got out of the military, I was working for a strength and conditioning company.

It was a great economic bump from getting out of the military, but I was really, really unhappy with the person I was directly working for. So after, you know, a couple margaritas, most good decisions come after that, I decided to, you know, share my thoughts about working for him over a text message, which is also good, and quit. and went from making six figures to zero, like legitimately zero. And the next morning I was in my garage looking at things I could sell on Craigslist because I knew I had to lower burn rate and do what I could. And I've spent many years when I was called like the E4 to E5 range in the military.

My children have no concept of what floating a check means because they pay for everything directly. But who hasn't gone to the grocery store on a Friday hoping you can buy some stuff and maybe you're going to get paid on Monday. and not knowing whether you can be able to pay your mortgage. And I hated that feeling, but I'm also really appreciative that I've had it for years in my life. And I don't ever want to be there again. But beyond that, I've proven to myself that I can make extraordinarily stupid decisions with money. Sure.

And I've bought flashy things that you instantly wonder why you bought it. The acquisition was where the dopamine hit came from. And then you're like, shit. How do I hide this for my wife? You don't. Yeah. That's the correct move, actually. So I know what?

A lot of my life is not necessarily knowing what I want to do, but being able to identify what I don't want to do. I don't want to have that feeling ever creep back into my life. And so, I don't know, enough is probably a half, half a year's worth of buffer. And hopefully that is enough to, for me, it's more, it's a more mental vice that I feel like I'm in. Yeah. How easy is it to look at a number of?

and say more, that's what I need more. Which seems to be a lot of people's number, by the way. You said, you have a million bucks. So I need $150 million. You know, I need $1.5 million, whatever it is. And I've been that person. I don't want to be that person again. So it's just enough to take a few spins off the vice,

not completely, but a few spins off. You need some pressure. I think we all need some pressure. You just don't want too much too often. No kidding, man. Yeah. Well, the way I think about it is, you know, I got lucky.

because dirty jobs and deadly's catch and really everything I did in the industry happened at a time when the industry was still the industry. I knew more or less how to navigate in that ecosystem. The world we're now like this. I mean, the idea that we're basically doing the Charlie Rose show, you know, I mean, it's the same. Do you guys ever talk about this during those years? Did you ever think something like this would even be possible? Or did you think the puzzle that you guys were putting together was always going to be the board? No, I knew it was going to change.

I didn't know how. I did one, I think, really clever thing early on that I stuck to my guns on and I'm glad I did. And that was insisting on a behind the scenes camera while we were filming dirty jobs. Arguably, some of the, if not the best footage was from the, what do you guys call it, the B camera? Well, I called it the truth cam. because it was always wide and it never stopped. And that guy's job, you know, and Taylor's had that job. Taylor's been camera A, he's been camera B, and he's been a wide guy.

And, you know, especially for a show like that, where you knew there was going to be the equivalent of a buddy running into a room and slipping in a big pile of crap and going down and me slamming. Like, we knew that was going to happen to the crew. We knew it. and it did. And I knew that I wanted to, maybe not make a meal of it,

but I wanted to share it. I wanted the viewer to see and constantly know that we were in the, we were trying to do something that was weird enough on its face, but we were also trying to do a show with no second takes.

And the only way to pull that off is to lower the standard and widen the aperture. And so that was, that was as close as I got to say, listen, something's going to come sooner or later, and it's going to turn traditional production upside down. And when that happens, I don't want to be completely lumped in with all the others. What do you think this becomes, using that same lens that you were able to recognize it was going to shift back then?

What do you see this type of content creation? We'll call it podcasting, for lack of a better term. What do you think that evolves into? Yeah, this is going to collapse under its own weight. Really? Yeah. Yeah, because... Just as volume, it's too crowded of a space.

Well, I think the first thing that will happen is you remember the promise of 400 channels. It's cable. Cable TV is coming. You'll have 400 channels. And everyone's like, man, that's a lot of channels. A thousand a day. They say, starts podcasts. Starts podcasting a thousand a day.

Well, they're five million now. Well, most of those are Joe's fault. Because he tells a lot of people to include my... That's why I started mine. He said, hey, you should start a podcast. My in the moment response was, I'll listen to you when you. have some success with yours. Well, look, he's, I mean, it's great advice, and I think we're still in a place where

if you want to do it, you should. But the cream's off the coffee, right? Like the cream's off the top now. And it's the quick and the dead. And you're going to separate the wheat from the chaff. So you think it survives, but there's a vast quality difference? Or do those at the top, call it the top 10% for easy math, they evolve into something else, or they're just the ones who survive?

Great question. I don't know what will happen to the one. I know right now there are probably 300. I think the top 250 or 300 are the ones that the big advertisers kind of look at first. Oh, for sure. Right? And then there's another tier and then there's another tier.

And then, honestly, it's not dissimilar from the publishing world right now. Most books, if you still walk into a bookstore to the extent they exist, The vast majority of books you'll see on the shelves will sell less than 2,000 copies a year, total. If not in the lifespan of the book. Right. I didn't know that until I started seeing some behind the scenes numbers of books working with my publisher.

Yeah. And I don't know how private the numbers are, so I'll speak broadly. But I got a little look behind the curtain into what average New York Times bestsellers. Oh. And I've played this game with some of my friends. I'm like, oh, it's amazing. Yeah. And I would say, let's go the nonfiction list, of which there is 15.

For the few weeks leading up to it, the publisher was sharing the numbers, even though they put my book in the advice how-to, which is a category of 10. But I would say, what do you think the number of 15 book is selling? The average answer is 50,000 in the week. And I'm not, again, not going to share any inside baseball because I don't want to get in trouble. But let's just say there's some zeros on there that need to be taken off. I'll share, because I don't care.

Okay. My mom became a bestselling author at 80. It's amazing. She's written three more bestsellers since them. And she grew up in a time when to be a New York Times bestseller, that's what success looked like. That was the rubber stamp. You are solid. That's it.

Right. So she writes every day for 60 years, just waiting for a break. She finally gets one, and now she's on it. And now she's number four. Bang. And next year, it's like, ah, six, next year, it's not. With eight and up, they all move around. And one day I said, mom, you know, honestly, why do you care?

You know, and she's a smart, savvy woman. But the answer wasn't satisfying. So I did something for her. And it's hanging on her wall now in a frame. I took the 15 top ones. She was number 11 at that. point. Which category do they put her in? Fiction or non? Nonfiction. Okay. The book was vacuuming in the nude and other ways to get attention.

I would be stopped by that title and might peruse. Great book. Now, yeah, this is an 82-year-old woman on the cover of the book in a kind of naked illustration. Like literally vacuuming with my old man sitting behind and just leering at her. I mean, it's really difficult to ignore this book. And so it's number 11. And I'm like, man, I know a lot of people. out this book. Now, there's a thing called Book Scan. You're familiar? I think those are the numbers that the publisher was sending. I personally didn't look into it. In the weeks leading up, they were kind of sharing because I think they were getting ready to soft launch it being just a total failure. Book Scan is the honest answer as to how many of this title sold this week. They don't

care if they were bulk sales. They don't care if they were independence. They don't care if it were major retailers. They don't care if it's Amazon. It's how many did your books? Yeah. The Times does not do that. Which a lot of people don't know. Well, to this day, a lot of people think that it is purely a sales list. They had to get sued to admit that it was an editorial choice, not a sales list. It might be on Facebook, Chuck. I might have taken a picture of this thing I'm about to describe, but it was, I took the New York Times list, and then I took the book scan list. And what I did was, I went down the list on the New York Times, because they'll tell you how many are sold.

And I would cross that out, and I would write in red pencil the actual number that sold. And so you could look at the list that was published, and then in the margin, you could see what the actual sales were. My mom's book went to number one. So I'm like, Mom, this is the world you're in. There's this thing called Book Scan, and then there's this list.

And then the Wall Street Journal has a list. And the USA Today, they all have a list. Now, the publishers are very enamored of the list, and the authors are too, by and large, because you're on the list, blah, blah, blah, sales, and so forth. But it's a remarkable game, and it rhymes a little bit with our first topic, which was trophies and awards

and how to think about what you do, and where do you put that? And are you really going to let somebody else rank it for you? And how do you think about your advertisers as well? All these things. You know, the point I wanted to make about the other thing was, I love my advertisers because if they weren't here, this whole thing would be behind a paywall.

And I'd be charging the people who are listening. Yeah. Because I don't do it for free. Because I don't have enough yet. Well, you shouldn't do it for free. People, no, but there, trust me, the must be nice crowd, will look at you and say, you should.

But if they were to switch places with you, the first question that I get asked generally about having a podcast is, hey, man, I'm thinking about doing this. How do you monetize it? I mean, have you ever been asked that? It's top two, if not the number one question that people ask. How do you monetize it? I was like, I don't know, do it five years like I did without a sponsor.

Yeah. And then maybe if you can not, oh, it must be so easy to do. Cool. Go do one then. And don't miss an episode for five years. And tell me how much you are enjoying it then. Yeah. And then you can maybe talk about advertising. How do you monetize it as applied to what, military service? You're a cop, you're a fireman, your teacher. How do you monetize that? TikTok. Yeah. Right. So we're in a very weird world. And everyone's trying to figure it out in their own way, I think. But I'm fascinated by the paywall. I'm fascinated by Patreon.

I haven't figured that one out, the Patreon thing. Look, I mean, your most loyal fans want more. And so you can give them more over here. You just charge them. For me, I just thought, I'm old school. I've been in business with lots of big brands. And really, the way I think about it, I look back, I figure I've been, I'm an advertising. That's really what I do. Every single thing I've done, every episode of Dirty Jobs,

every single show has been sponsored by someone. I didn't used to have anything to do with that. The network would handle it in the same way a publisher might handle, you know, whatever. But now it's all different. How do you monetize it? How do you think about it? How do you figure it out? Oh yeah, that's what, there it is. Chuck, look at you. You found it, dude. That's great. And this is true. Look at this. Hardcover, nonfiction, whatever that date was. Yep.

And you can see that's what the time said about everybody on the list. That week, my mom sold 14,693 books. Which is a tremendous amount of books. And she comes in at whatever, number 11. Up there at number one? 8,950. So I also got the inside look at the numbers of the week. Mine came out.

They put it lower than it would have been by sales. It wouldn't have been number one, but it would have been close. Yeah. So look, Matt, I think it's, I love a riddle. I love a challenge. I love the idea that a lot of people who listen to this podcast were watching me crawl through sewers 23 years ago. And I love the fact that many of them just found it this week. I love the fact that you told me.

me, I think before we started rolling, that your oldest daughter is welding. With the time change, she just got off her second shift. What's her name? Julia. Julia. Good for you, man. We're entering a whole new economy. Yeah.

As complicated and weird, silly, strange as podcasting is, we're about to get a shot of reality around the skilled trades. And I've been beating that from for a long time. can't tell you how many people I talk to every day who will tell me about their daughter or their son who we didn't think they were going to go this way but they're doing it and they're loving it and it's making they're monetizing it she did one interview one job before she had graduated the guy said he would have hired 50 people if he could have needs more welders than there are welders being produced where we live Josh is hiring as fast as they'll show up

I don't know. I am not smart enough to understand AI, and maybe there's a way, I mean, I've seen the factories at Ford and the major manufacturers that are doing a lot of the welding, and maybe they will handle that level of scale, but I don't think my daughter's ever going to go without a job.

Have you seen the dark factories yet in China? Tell me more. Oh, man. What do you mean dark factories? They don't turn the lights on? There's no need. It's all robots. Jim Farley at Ford told me the scariest thing

is opening the door and it's not loud but there's activity you can sense it and you can hear it but it's pitch dark and when they do turn on the lights it's hundreds hundreds of robots

putting cars together 24-7 where does that lead to a lot of cars a lot of cars man I get that I'm worried that Terminator might end up becoming a documentary

I would like to avoid that fate Yeah. What's scarier to you? Terminator, writ large, or The Matrix? Why can't they both be true? Oh, man. Terminator. Are you worried? Do you worry about AI? I don't know enough about it to have an educated, formed opinion on it. What I'm worried about AI in is the world that I spent 17 years in. It's creeping towards human off the loop. I mean, there's human in the loop,

which is what I think we have right now, AI type things or interacting with humans and helping them do their job. It's working towards human on the loop where we'll check with you right here at the end. Maybe you can hit this little red button

to humans off the loop. And I think that's where we work for our daily water ration for our robot overlords. Well, how do you think about I mean, when I asked you before how much you were ruckin, and the things you carried, that's a lot of tech on your back. I mean, the rifle, relatively low tech.

I mean, obviously it has optics on it and stuff like that. The javelin launcher, high tech for sure. Well, only compared to the time we're in. I mean, we've come a long way from pointed sticks and slingshots. Oh, yeah. Right? We've come a long way from the time that I served. I've talked a lot with my buddies.

we never once, for a second, thought that a drone meant anything other than a predator or a Reaper overhead providing us imagery. I never for a second thought about essentially, which is a DGI off-the-shelf drone, that has been weaponized and is being command flown via command wire and killing other people. It's a missile. Or what they were able to do by putting them into the trucks and destroying the vast majority of the strategic bombers for Russia, that operation they were able to launch. What did you think when you were watching that conflict start and then not finish? I feel more than anything, we are at an evolutionary pace that I don't know where it leads. I mean, it used to be you'd see imagery of special operations soldiers and they're grabbing up to fold down their nods. And now you see it in its first person goggles.

Police departments are using them for entries to clear areas for hostage negotiation types. stuff, which, and again, they could be weaponized as well, too. I don't know the legality is associated with that, but if they have a barricaded shooter that won't come out and it would take the life of an officer, I mean, you could send a dog in, but those are officers as well. And again, that's the human, you know, that's a human on the loop at least. But at some point, somebody's going to take that human off the loop. And I don't know what happens then. I don't either, but I know if we still keep playing by the same rules, we're not going to out-manufacture. China. They built a thousand ships. We built three. We're not going to catch them. So the guys I've

been talking to who I reckon probably make you pretty nervous. They're all about asymmetry, both on the battlefield and economically. They're trying to build weapons that are very cheap, but very lethal and very expensive to take down. That's the only way. It seems, I don't know what the stockpile looks like right now after Iran. I know what I hear. It's hard to know what to believe, but it sure feels like it's a finite number of... It has to be at some point. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I don't know if there is a way other than the asymmetry that you were talking about. And I mean, that's a, it's been a military tactics since sticks and stones, you know, the asymmetry of even just the terrain. We're going to get above you, you know, we'll take a

smaller, more mobile force and attack from above. There's asymmetry there as well. So that's not that that's new. I don't know. I just, I don't, again, I don't know enough about the underlying AI infrastructure of that. And quite frankly, things are evolving faster than my imagination. So I don't know what to make of that other than to sit back and try to pick my job off the floor sometimes.

You know, it's adjacent to what you asked me before. Like, what do I think about the podcasting world? I think that there's too much information for the average viewer, listener, to process. If you follow six or eight shows, good luck, consuming what they create in a week. Right, right. That's where I feel like it's going to get noisy and strident. And I don't really want to be a part. I don't want to be that competitive at that level.

I'm more interested in, you know, if you get a few hundred, people who are genuinely interested in your worldview and the way you run your show, that's plenty. Agreed. That's plenty. And I think that's manageable. I don't know how a platform the size of Joe's, which is ungodly in nature, would it be better? I mean, I know what it would be better economically, wise, because of your CPM or cost per meal,

which people who are in the podcasting space can tell you, all about. That would be the further on conversation and how you monetize a podcast. First, maybe start one and do a few episodes. That's a cost per thousand for the record. But I like cost per meal too. Yeah. I think meal means thousand in some language I don't speak. But would you rather have an audience that size with no connection to it or an audience the size you're talking about in the hundreds of thousands where they're actually really committed? And it's a community. You 100% want an engaged audience. And it really, I mean, yes, there's a number where, okay, it's got to be at least X.

But once it's there, I'll tell you a true story that happened back in the day with Discovery. Ford was looking to make a play with a couple of shows that were big. an extreme home makeover was a big show. Ty Pennington, move that bus. You know, they were getting 8, 10 million viewers every week. Dirty Jobs was getting something like 2 to 2.5. But in the end, Ford went with me, and they went with Discovery, and they went with 30 jobs,

and it really wasn't even close because they had just started doing, this is a long time ago. It was like 2007. But they were really, for the first time, measuring engagement, which just comes down to, like, posture. Like, how are you watching Extreme Home Makeover? Engagement is different than audience size as well.

Well, sure. But it's so much more valuable. Agreed. That's what I mean. Do you want 10 million subscribers or do you want a million people who are engaged? I'm going with the latter every time. You'd be better off with 100,000 who were engaged. You're going to make less, but if you really want to make a difference, you will.

You might be surprised because in the end, it was Ford who said, look, we would much rather spend the same relative amount of money to talk to people who were leaning forward and watching the show like with their mouth open going, oh, my God, what's going to happen next? Then just kick back, you know, waiting for the little dopamine hit when the bus moves and everybody cries. And so, yeah. Now, Joe is, Joe doesn't count. No, I do love it when people will say, and there's not many anymore, I'm going to be the next Joe Rogan. And after I stopped laughing hysterically, and unfortunately, sometimes it's in their face, but I can't control myself. I'm not trying to be a dick. Like, pick a different example that doesn't scale.

Pick somebody else, please, for your benefit. Yeah. I love Joe to death, but he is, what is it, the black swan or whatever. You can't scale that. You can only do that. A, if you do it when he did it. And B, if you do it, how he did it. And who he was.

He came into it with an ingrained audience as well. That's right. And, you know, this, we talked about this at length. Joe and I did because he had fear factor at the same time I had dirty jobs. And the thing he did that I admire was that he pulled the pin when he pulled it. He didn't turn his back on Fear Factor or News Radio. He turned his back on the whole industry and said, I'm just going to do it this way. And I never did that.

I was a jagged little pill in my own way. And I'm like, look, I'm going to do it the way I want to do it, but I'm still going to stay on your reservation. And I'll deal with the advertisers and I'll deal with my bosses. And I'll deal with, oh, God, the 10% of all the other things that come along. with that industry. And I was so lucky because I have a great partner and I've got great people around me who are cool with it. But that's the real answer to your earlier question. It's, this ecosystem is going to collapse under its own weight the same way the old model did. I don't know when and I don't know what will ultimately facilitate it, but I do know the ones

who are left standing won't be the ones with the biggest audiences unless you're a true outlier like Joe is. It'll be the ones with the most engaged. I think it might be the 28 election cycle might be the beginning of that weight.

Maybe. And depending on how deep into the pond, some of those hosts want to go into the political realm, you tread with caution. Look at us. We're a couple of guys

who each have a podcast. My guess is I'll be on yours before long. If I can get you up to Montana, I'd love to have you. I'd always return the favor. But, you know, you can visit Josh at the same time. Of the five million people who have a podcast, how many have been guests on other podcasts?

I would say 100% of them. Yeah. Extrapalate it. 10 goes to 20 and so forth. And pretty soon. Andy Warhol's right. We're all getting our 15 minutes in relative terms. And I actually worry about the audience because they are the most valuable. And Sean and I kind of riffed on this for a bit too.

But it's like I put the audience at the top. What do you do to hold yourself accountable to them? Like what metrics do you use having them at the top? What's your litmus test for serving them appropriately? I never charged them for content. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people do.

A lot of people do. But my business model is, look, it actually goes back to the beginning where dirty jobs was programmed by the viewer. All the ideas for the show came from the audience. You had to get through at least one season with your guys, right? I did. Okay. I had to show up with the list when we finally went into production.

I knew, and the production company had some ideas too. And so that first season was us just far skumping our way on the air. Beyond that, though, you probably couldn't turn the spigot off of suggestions. Nope. And every show ends with me saying, hey, all right, so that happened. If you know somebody who's not afraid to blah blah, blah, send me a thing. So we had the largest chat room. We had the largest online presence at a time when, you know,

myth busters and catch were all hits. But that audience was programming the show. Essentially, they were hosting the show because I was really just a guest. I was just the FNG showing up trying to get through another day, you know. So I looked at the audience as hosting the show. and programming the show and of course watching the show and so

long before I was on socials I was in this chat room talking to Dirty Jobs viewers and we would do these fan meetups and all I would ever do with them is thank them for their patience and it's delicate though Andy because you can't

if you suck up to them they'll hate you audience capture you have to be for me it was Facebook and I know hey boomer what else you got going but that was like to take a disappointed angry or somehow disenchanted former fan who had an axe to grind and find their comment highlight it and then honestly and respectfully address it and then post it that works dude that really really works. It worked or not. God, I love reading some of the diatribes that you throw back at people

online. You have a way with the written word, sir. Not bad with the spoken word either, I might say. But yeah, to steal a word or phrase from the matrix that you mentioned, it's like wiping your ass with silk. Which one was that? That was the original one. That was the Merivindian, who was, they were at the restaurant. I forget exactly what he was. I was cursing in French. French was his favorite language, the Maravindian. Yeah. Like wiping your ass with silk. Yes. That's what I feel like when I read those responses. Thanks.

I've never tested wiping my ass with silk, but I feel like... Well, this is your lucky day. Chuck? Get the silkworm in here, would you? Where's my scarf that was my gift? I shall use it. I've said this a bunch. What's the name of the actor who was obviously in The Matrix? But he was also with Bail Bonds with Robert De Niro. What character did you play? Well, in The Matrix, he was the rat who...

Oh, I know exactly you're talking about. He was eating steak. I don't want to remember anything. That's it. Dude, that's the moment we're in right now. That's to me, I'm worried less actually about the Terminator fallout from AI. That's so cinematic and terrible that if it happens, oh, well, what... Matt Duran was the actor's name.

Duran? Played Mouse. Mouse. Yes. What a great character name as well. Well, when he's holding that steak, and he's like, I know it's not real. I just don't care.

Yeah. You know, he takes the other pill, and he enjoys the Impossible Burger, essentially. We are all going to be asked in some way, shape, or form to make that decision. When you realize the Picasso's not a Picasso, or that song you've been humming along was a total construct. Which is already happening, by the way.

The music is already charting. 14 are in the top 50 on Spotify. And what's crazier is those 14 AI songs have an Instagram page with an artist on them, also fake. And some of those pages have over a million followers. I don't know where that leads. Well, it leads me to answer your earlier question. That's in our world, too. There's only so much bandwidth for the average person.

person. And I just made the point. It's like, I'm now anxious. Like, why do I know what the straight of Hormuz is? Why do I need to know where it is and why do I need to know what's going on? Obviously, it's, you know, it's in the news and it's important. But everything, dude, every single thing is important and every single room is filled with experts who can't agree. And the fire hose of information is on full all the time. And we're all trying to drink for. from it. Not everybody. I think in that tug of war, you can always put down your side of the rope. So many times I have asked myself, is what I see online commensurate with what I see with my own eyes? And the answer has never been yes. So the less I consume, the better I feel. And I think

most people are like that. It's a participatory ecosystem. You can opt out. It's not easy, but you can do it. It's really hard. Good. The valuable things in life always are. In January, a buddy of mine, because in December, we did a show, I don't know how we got on screen time. It's like, all right, pull your phone out. Four plus hours. I'm certain it was definitely productive time, though. And definitely not on Instagram, just watching reels that are designed to just completely suck you into oblivion.

Of course. And we made a bet that in January, we were going to get our screen time per day under an hour. And the last week of January, I got mine down to about 40 minutes a day. Healthiest I felt mental health-wise in a long time. Dude, good for you. Chuck, who is he? Who's the guy who came in here and detoxed? Carlos Whitaker.

Yeah, you'd love this book. He's an Instagram influencer who went cold turkey. I end up living with monks and Amish people. I mean, I think there are things in between those two that would be enjoyable. But I can appreciate it. Here's the number I want to see on your phone. What do you get? I want to know how many unopened emails you have next to all inboxes.

3,691. Good man. Good for you. Is that 17,000? No, no. That's 40,000. How did you get back to me the first time we connected over email then? How did you even see that?

I thought you were Greg stumped. That is fantastic. I'm never supposed to be here. Oh, I'm so okay with that. That is fantastic. I've literally, I have 40,000 unopened emails. And when my partner looks at this, she just recoils. Do you think you would feel better, though, if it was at zero?

No, I don't because I got, I was anxious at 5,000 because I knew that in them were opportunities. Yeah. And old friends and invitations to weddings and maybe funerals. and I just was, I was tormented. And then it got to 10. And I was like, I'll just never, I could never do that. And now it's like, oh, let's see where you go. Where are you go?

So it's also part of the answer to your question. What happens here when we know, gosh, there's so much interesting. It's the curse of the curious. If you're genuinely curious, you're going to have to figure out a way to manage it. Otherwise, you'll never leave your house. That's right. Yeah. And there's a lot of cool stuff outside the house.

I'm curious about the world that I physically live in, that I can actually impact, which there is an argument on your phone. You can extend that reach. But to me, it's more that where I live in Montana. I value those experiences with the people that I love way more than I value experiences on my phone. Isn't it interesting how powerful geography is? What an impact it really has in our lives. And most people who don't move, I don't know how people form a worldview who don't move. Oh, I do.

It's a very odd worldview, but that's where it comes from. They exist in a bubble. What I tell people about Santa Cruz is it was an amazing place to grow up and an even better place to leave. And the military did a real good job of moving me around a little bit, except I wasn't really visiting places that had five stars on TripAdvisor. So I got to see the other side of the hospitality industry, if you will. Afterwards, I mean, I think I'm on my third or fourth passport at this point. And the more you see, I think the more grounded that you can become, the deeper that you can appreciate.

And I don't mean see on your phone because, like we were talking about, sure, COVID was great that people could connect digitally. This is so much better than looking at you through a laptop screen. It doesn't even compare to me, which is why I only do in person shows. as well, even for my own show. I just, and if people can't make it or they don't want to, I totally understand. But I would rather have this type of interaction than stare at a computer screen. It's real-ish. It's real adjacent. I know we're going long. What are we even talking about? I don't care. We're at an hour 51 right now. Yeah, I don't, yeah. No, we're not. Yeah. Correct. We are. Whatever. Numbers aren't real. It's a matrix. I don't remember anything.

given everything you've said. Yeah. What does jumping out of a plane and pulling your own shoot do for you? Maybe I was wrong to try and ask it through the lens of risk. Maybe that's too obvious. But 8,500 times, that's not a hobby anymore. It's not a job. Well, it was a job for a little bit.

So many of those... But then it wasn't. Correct. It's really fun. It is enjoyable. There's an aspect of it being enjoyable. skydiving has a very different risk profile than base jumping does. And I don't know how familiar you are with the two, but skydiving is essentially more altitude.

You're jumping out of an aircraft, thousands of feet. You have a reserve parachute that's packed by an FAA certified rigor on a 180-day cycle now. And still can be dangerous. Don't get me wrong. I describe skydiving as it's an amazing thing to do until it isn't. And then you better be on your A game because it can kill you very quickly. And I've seen it happen. Base jumping is very different.

And I got a lot more out of base jumping, but it took me a while to figure out what it was the hole that I was filling. And that hole goes back to my old job. And I didn't realize that it was providing for me this even when I was doing it. But it was the ability to just put down for a limited period of time the BS of life that we are all bombarded with and focus on the next three seconds of your life. when you're on a helicopter flying overseas towards an objective that you think might get a little bit spicy and they give you the old one minute out, the argument you might have been having with your spouse on the sat phone bleeds away. Oh, the dryer's not working. I'll get back to that. Whatever it is, by the time the wheels hit the ground or the skids hit the ground and you are moving towards that objective, you are in the moment. And you are in that for an extended period of time. What I didn't realize is that by finding my way to that headspace and dialing down the static of everything else, it made me better at dealing with that static when I came back to it. So skydiving never provided that to me.

Maybe it would in the very beginning when you're first learning and you're just so focused that all you can think about is your altimeter. But I found base jumping about five years after getting out of the military. Are you jumping with a shoot or a wing suit? Both. So first you need to learn how to base jump, which the difference between skydiving and base jumping is the altitude. When I learned how to base jump, instead of exiting on average from an aircraft at 13,500 feet, AGL, I was jumping off the Parine Bridge in Idaho, which is 486 feet. Oh, there's no resurgence. You only get one. So you pack the parachute. You only have one in your system. You pack it very similar to the way that your reserve was packed by the FAA rigor, but I'm not an FAA.

rigor but I would take my time and I can iron pretty good. Not that you use an iron, but really just really just make those. You're packing your own shoe. Packing your own shoe. Yep. And 486 feet, we would test the wind by spitting and we would see where it landed. And if it went beyond a certain point, you're not going to jump. You don't do that in skydiving because it's abstract. You look like you're jumping into a painting. A postcard. Yes. 486 feet. I don't, sewing machine legs for sure every part of your body is. People look like people. Yeah. They look like people. The car looks like a car. You can see exactly where you're going to leave an indentation. And your mouth is very dry. And it's almost where you can look to your buddies and say, can you also hear my heartbeat?

Because it feels like it is the Marine Corps band playing in between my ears right now. Just, well, guess what else? You're not thinking about. Everything beyond three seconds. So for me, it had an immense benefit of me, being able to fill that. I'll call it a flow state because that's a term that people will understand. And a lot of books have been written about that, which is a very beneficial state to be able to get into for short durations of time. That's what base jumping was for me. I did enjoy zipping up in a nylon suit with a parachute and going to Switzerland and jumping

off of mountains and carving in between trees five or six feet off the ground at 120 miles an hour face first. I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy that. But the true benefit was the mental headspace that allowed me to achieve in those trips. And it would help for six months afterwards. Just it just unwinds and takes a wrap off everything. Is it addictive? I mean, I think anything could be addictive.

I am not an adrenaline junkie. I have some odd hobbies in comparison to other people's hobbies. But I also, even base jumping, I was doing an immense amount of, risk assessment and trying to mitigate as much as I could. Jumping all the time, currency, competency, flying my wingsuit as much as I possibly could, watching the weather, studying the weather, trying to learn more about weather and mountainous environments and how it, you know, you can get yourself in trouble if you jump off and all of a sudden you have a tailwind and it starts pushing you towards the terrain versus the morning wind generally as it heats and it's

coming up towards you. You've got to be, you have to be, if you're going to do it, you got to do it as a professional, is my theory on that. So people understand. Very different risk profile. from base jumping in a wingsuit. Yes. To diving out of a plane. Even in a wings. Huge. And the video I saw of you, I think you were raising money for seal family?

Yep. That's when I exited at 36,500 feet. With oxygen, obviously. Indeed. How cold is it? Can you find that video? It's not the best. Yeah.

It was about negative 50. Okay. This is you. This isn't my best. It started at negative. 50, right? Yeah. It got warmer as you got closer.

I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. It's not, because I was, this was in Davis, California at the beginning of the summer. This is a horrible exit. This is just my suit absolutely owning me because the plane was at maximum forward speed. That's a Cessna caravan. It's a 206. So you've got a GoPro screwed in your helmet. Yeah.

And a pilot with his foot on the gas pedal, essentially trying to just firewall that thing because it's at max performance. Strip down, that's the plane, with an oxygen bottle, an O2 Tech, and a pilot. just up there moving around. Look at you 10 years ago. I know. So young. Indeed.

There's my daughter. She's a older now. Unbelievable. Yeah. So why are you about to do what you're about to do? You're raising money. I was raising money for the Navy Steel Foundation. And it was actually, you know, it goes back to how did I end up meeting Rogan because

of this. The first time I ever met him, I sat down across from him to talk about this. An introduction via a mutual friend, and he and I just hit it off and have been friends ever since. Really? Yep. That's the guy who taught me to jump off of a 486 foot bridge. But yeah, that thing went up to 36,500 feet at an exit airspeed that was well above my skill and capability level.

So explain that. So the suit is big. If you want to, it was about the record I was going after, we knew we weren't going to be able to achieve the altitude record because the record before that was set in a turbo twin engine. So they were able to go higher. But distance. It was just under 18 miles. And so you want to have a suit that it gives you the ability to glide based off of the rigidity of your body because you are providing the rigidity for the wing, which is all it is. You freak.

Look at this. Yeah. Right there, I was just questioning why I do the things I do in my life. What are you thinking about right there? Seriously. Or is it just mission, mission focus? I was worried that one of the GPSs, I had two GPS sensors on my head. I was literally thinking, did I charge these batteries last night or these things fresh?

What if we do all this and I didn't turn it on? for take that. Classic. Just classic. I left the iron on. I left the iron on. Yeah. And so, you know, you get into the door.

I had, I couldn't even see the airfield. I had a rough direction of flight, but I totally, I probably could have gone another half mile if I wouldn't have messed this exit up. It was just the plane was going at a speed that was so fast. Oh, yeah. It spun you around. Yeah. It's a little bit of a flat spin, but I sorted it here in a second.

And then I just pointed myself towards the rising sun and just flattened out as much as I could. Now, you have no idea. of really where you're going to land at this point, do you? Nope, no altimeter either. Because there was a worry. Most of the time you have it on your chest strap. But because your wrists are normally be like where your watch is,

but in a wingsuit, as you can see, I'm zipped up all the way basically to the break in my wrist. So it's not going to go there. And the oxygen mask hose, I was worried if I had put a chest mounted altimeter on there that the hose might snag to it. So I'm just trying to remove variables. So I had to go with. Do you have a reserve? I have a reserve shoot in this.

And I had multiple audible altimeters in my ears. And this is you just, you flare up, slow your airspeed, and you deploy your parachute. That's 1700 feet. Yeah, I'm glad they put that there. It was much lower than that because I had just come back from a Switzerland trip not long before. I'm glad I had calibrated my eyes because I'm just cruising along and looking. I'm like, that tree. That's either a much bigger tree than I think.

I'm like, I don't know what altitude we're at. But we're going to go ahead and land. So there you land. 18.25 miles, I think it was. Just over eight minutes in free fall. So in 2016, how many people died base jumping? I don't know. I would have to go back and look at the stats,

but there were times when I went to Switzerland. And I hate to romanticize the risk of the sport because I know some people are drawn to it because of that. It was a terrible year. I remember there was a French guy. Yeah. Very famous. Well, it happened.

I mean, many people have died this year as well, too. It's been a pretty gnarly year. There's a Facebook group, the base fatality list. You get a number associated. He may not be able to log into it because you have to be, you got to be let in. You know what I mean? Well, just ask chat GPT. Yeah.

I mean, is there anything more hazardous than base jumping? Well, the participant number set is low, so it might skew it a little bit. You know what I mean? If there were more people who did it. Oh, like I could. I would say the most hazardous activity is probably cycling, followed by swimming. But those are just bulk numbers because so many people do it. But if you look at the per capita, I can't.

I mean, hang gliding is up there, but it's got to be base jumping. It probably is. I was in Switzerland with my very good friend and main jumping partner, Alex. And it may have been 2016. And we weren't intentionally doing this, but we were alternating sides of the valley. in Lauderdin, which is just this amazing valley in Switzerland that is covered with base jumping exits. And they don't care if you do it. They don't care if people die.

You get a landing card. You go to the local pub, the Horner Pub, and you get your landing card and insurance so they aggregate money to some of the farmers. So they'll cut into the wheat or whatever the agriculture and put a wind sock up. So you have places that you can land. You get helicopter insurance in Alex and I were we'd be on one side of the. valley and the helicopter would go and pick somebody up dead on the other side. The next day we would switch and they'd pick somebody up dead on the other side. It was, I think it lasted for a week. Somebody was dying in that valley every day for a week. It was gnarly.

How's the wife processing this? Didn't tell her. Not married to her anymore. I took all of my kids with me on a trip to Switzerland and they were right up there on exit points with me, watching me jump and they would be down there when I landed. well too. My kids have been involved in everything. I don't try to hide it from. I am who I am. And a lot of people would say, well, what if they wanted to do those things? Not a, not a single thing that I do has seemed to show any level of interest from my kids, whether it's military. My middle son wants to go. He wants me to take him for a tandem for one of his birthdays, which I'll be able to do. But other than that, no interest, though, in, hey, this is what I want

to do or this particular activity. Well, probably because you've been pretty consistent, you know, you're all they know. And you've assumed the risks you've assumed. And you're just the North Star. And that's what Dad does. The worst part about the base jumping thing is my buddy Alex, who's my main jumping partner, cost him his life years later too.

I think it was seven years ago now. He went overseas with his new wife to go to a wedding and snuck off to France to do a jump with a buddy. Never made back. It's rough. It's the last time I ever did a wingsuit base jump, much shortly after he died. You're done with it now?

For sure. I can't stay current and competent enough in Montana. There's no drop zones that support me being able to skydive at the frequency I would need to for it to be even remotely safe. So is there some tendency in you to replace it with something? Like how do you, that's out of your life? The headspace, yes. I know I need that headspace.

I found Jiu-Jitsu about the time that. I stopped doing base jumping. And you also live in the moment when your friends are trying to choke you or break your lens. So not to the same degree. And people ask me all the time, well, how do I, how do I find my way there? And my answer is it doesn't have to be prescriptive. I know people who have found their way into a flow state by playing music or meditating or doing a puzzle or Suduco. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be prescriptive. I can talk about the things that have worked for me, but you have to figure that out on your own. Jiu-Jitsu. was a diminished version of base jumping, but still the same benefit.

Yeah. Is Jocko in your life? Yeah. I know Jocko well. Travis Mills? I know Travis, and I've met him a few times. We go out to Jocko is a part owner in a Jiu-Jitsu company called Origin with, do you know Pete? I know Pete.

I know, Pete. How do you know everybody? I know everybody. I'm old. Clearly. I'm old and I'm curious. Yeah. So Jocko and Pete are partnered up.

They do an annual in August, essentially, Jiu-Jitsu, come Wadipaloo-A-Paloooooooooooooooooooo You know what I mean? And you show up there and it's for a week. And so that's how I really got to know Pete and Jocko even more. Because we crossed past peripherally in the military, but it's spent a lot more time together afterwards. And Travis is there. Yeah.

Well, and Travis is now doing jiu-jitsu, which is a heck of a thing for a guy with no arms and legs. Yeah, I think it's kind of BS because he's really limiting our ability to submit him. He's, you know, he's handy capable. And he's just really taking a lot of limb privilege away from the rest of us. limb privilege. Oh, man. Well, you tell Pete, I haven't forgotten him.

He came down. I interviewed him, God, how long has it been seven, eight years ago for a show called Somebody's Got to Do It? And we wound up going another way, but I still have the footage and I still want to tell the origin story. He's in it. You want to talk about an industry that has shifted. I know.

But, you know, that's why I spent like what Josh. has done matters yeah what evans doing matters what those guys are building up there and they're in main right they are yeah it matters and i'm just i share your curiosity for me i'm mostly curious to see what people i'm curious about second acts to be honest like you get the first one everybody stumbles into something yeah and then you get to figure out you know do you know do you you stay. But when I think of my mom, sticking around for, you know, writing for 60 years and then getting published, you know, when I think of Travis coming back and somehow getting past that, you know. Why limited to two? I don't even know what act I'm on at this point. I've reinvented

myself so many times. It's ridiculous. I was a professional pilot for a while. Flew jets, charter. I I have about at this point almost 4,000 flight hours, but about 400 of those are in a helicopter. I worked for a strength and conditioning company, public speaking, I own a coffee shop in Montana. I mean, why limit it for two? Just get out there, do stuff. Many chapters, big book.

Yeah, may not be well written, though. It's a pop-up. I'm pretty excited by it. Yeah, I had to outsource the pictures, but. Hey man, I really appreciate all your time. Of course. And coming out here. And yeah, I'll get to Montana this year at some point.

You probably know, oh, God, who's the guy? Rinelli? Rinella. Steve. Steve Renelli. Yeah, he's in Bozeman. He's in Bozeman. You can make a whole trip of it.

You could, if you're going to do that, fly into Bozeman and out of Calispell. Or reverse of that. Because Bozeman is east of Missoula. You could start there, travel over and see Josh, come due north, drive through the flathead valley by the lake and see me. and then you could just come in one airport out the other. Let's do it. What's his name reached out from Meat Eater?

Did you see that? His name's Roland. Okay. Yeah. I don't know that I did see it. Yeah. Yeah, Bozeman was a four-hour drive from Missoula, and Calisville is a two-hour drive from Missoula.

So you could do all that a day if you want, but I'd spend a day at least in each of those locations. Cool. Yeah. Where do you do your thing? Out of your house? So I own the Black Rifle Coffee Shop in Calispell, where I meet all the guests, and then we walk two blocks over to the studio, similar in a rented space where thankfully I had the Black Rifle guys helped me design a new studio insert for that. And then the Jiu-Jitsu gym I train at is down the block.

And I just try to stay in my triangle, man. Trying to make my triangle smaller and smaller. Well, you were way out of bounds today, brother. You were in the Republic of Santa Monica. I've spent enough time here. I know how to navigate among these people. So you said, Red Eye, you're out tonight? No, that's a smart morning.

Okay, great. Yep. All right, well, look, I'm going to keep you it, but I so appreciate it. I didn't even get to ask you the AI questions. What do you got? I know what AI stands for, and that's about the limit of my knowledge. I believe it's artificial insemination. That is another AI.

Or here you go, 10 questions. He's probably never been asked. Oh, fire away. What's something you learned from an incompetent person that you never learned from an exceptional one? Just keep going. I've met some really dumb, incompetent people, and they found their way to success by just not stopping. If you could permanently remove one word from leadership culture, what would that word be and why?

Oh, one word from leadership culture? There's a couple that have been bastardized. I don't know. I'd have to think on that one a bit. Go ahead. I'm not moving on until you. Give me a word. I don't care how long and weird this.

silence gets. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. And I'm just trying to think. Well, every the mastermind. Okay. Great. That's great. Yeah, because it's so it just drips with the over promise. And that word, there's so many other words. And I'm not saying those couldn't be done well, but a lot of the examples are just, it's, yeah, it's this false promise or guru or, or, I'm more offended lately by, you know, ideation. When the ideation elevates the synergies, and we can all get on the same page. Yeah, just verbally jerking each other off. What's a fear you had at 20 that turned out to be completely unjustified?

I didn't think I was going to live to see 30. When you've operated in environments where mistakes are costly, what ordinary civilian behavior strikes you as surprisingly reckless? Overthinking everything? That's great. What's a skill you've seen save more lives than courage? Simplicity and clear and concise guidance. Interesting. I wonder if this is, if that, if skills should be virtue. Is simplicity a virtue? No, it's a practice skill. You can choose it.

You can work towards it. It ties into the clear and concise guidance. And you can have simplicity in briefing, simplicity and tactic. Simplicity. on talking on the radio if you're in a disaggregate position. So the guy to your right, the guy to your left, things are getting spicy. Do you want him or her to have a firm understanding of simplicity or just balls out fearless courage? I don't want to work with people who are fearless because it means they're not paying attention or they're a sociopath.

Excellent. If every American teenager had to spend six months mastering one difficult skill, not necessarily military. What would you choose? The recognition and realization that you're not the center of the universe. Okay. That's good. But skill, like tangible hands-on.

It's a mental one, but I mean, it is breaking down complex tasks into the next step and not getting overwhelmed. Wow, man, what is the trick to that? It is literally that. It is hard to do, but it is easy to talk about.

It is chunking your goals into the bite that you can take. Most people, when I went back as a Bud's instructor, I didn't, it was, of my 17 years, I was there for 18 months. It was a single most rewarding position I held during a time where there was 10 years of sustained combat. And so much money has been spent on trying to figure out who makes it through. I thought it was fascinating to talk to the students

who decided to quit because they'll all tell you, this is all I've ever wanted to do. You'll never be able to get me to quit. Like, why are we not spending the money on that? 85% of the students don't make it through. And all the money, it seems to be, I mean, I don't know for sure, but it seems to me is being spent on the 15% that we'll make it through. Almost every single one of them. Outside of the, my mom has cancer and I have to go, which is like let us help you get out of here.

This training program will be back. Whenever you're ready, go handle life. I couldn't fill in the blank for any longer. Well, how much longer did you think you were going to have to go? Well, the instructors told me it was going to be forever. Do you think we can actually do that? No, but I got overwhelmed and I made a decision in that moment that I'll regret for the rest of my life because I've met these students decades later and that is what they expressed to me But it comes down to they have a goal they have where they are and this is all they see

What you need to do is lay out the breadcrumbs and then get out of the macro and into the micro My most effective tool as a buds instructor I was able to get people to quit at a rate that was astounding people and it wasn't with with water, sand, telephone poles, sleep deprivation, all those things helped. All I would do is talk to them about how much longer they were gonna have to do it. So what's the hack? Get to your next meal?

Get to your next. Maybe that's too much. Maybe in the environment where the instructor is trying to talk to you about, you're so hypothermic and your hip flexors are so tense from shivering because we have you laid in the ocean for hours on end that you can't even stand up straight. And I'm sitting there talking to you.

And it's Tuesday in the morning of Hell Week. And I'm saying, man, we just started. It's Sunday night. We got five more days of this. Because of course I set my watch to a different date and time because that's what the instructors did to me and generational trauma needs to be passed downhill. It's get through me talking to you.

Get to the next evolution. It again, doesn't have to be prescriptive. You just have to understand that how do you eat an elephant or how do you eat a whale? It doesn't matter. It's a bite at a time. The guaranteed failure, and you can see, it in their eyes. It's the difference we would go on conditioning runs. And I would say,

hey, we're going to go do a four mile run. Everybody keep up versus, hey, we're going to go run until I decide to bring us back. The mental difference in those two, by the way, we're doing four miles either way. It doesn't matter. But the mental difference in those two can either break some people or you get to a place of like, cool, just going to keep up. Let's get through this evolution. God, I'm going to mess this up. It's a famous study with a rat. Oh, yeah. in a bucket of water. Yeah, and hope is what keeps them alive. Well, you put one in and it treads and treads and treads until it drowns.

Yep. And then you put one in, and right before it drowns, you take it out. And then you put it back in and time it again. And it'll tread for twice the time. And that it starts to go and you pull it back out. And then you put it back in the third time. Hours. The goal of the Bud's instructor is to remove hope through the lens of time.

Makes more people quit than any tool we had access to. The goal of the butts instructor is to remove hope through the lens of time. That's freaking fantastic, dude. What's the biggest misconception civilians have about elite performers, that elite performers themselves know is not true? That they're superhuman, that they're other than what the person who has that assessment flesh and blood. And they have the same problems.

They have the same life struggles and issues. The people I served with were exceptionally normal by almost every metric, but they were sometimes asked to do exceptional things, but there's still people at the end of the day. If you could leave one lesson hidden somewhere

that your grandkids would discover 50 years from now, what would that lesson be? You're never alone. regardless of how much you may think that you are and you're not struggling through something that other people haven't figured out. They'll never convince yourself that you are.

Where did that come from? Friday episodes, like the one you happen to come across. I get hundreds of emails of people who I am speaking for them a little bit, but there's one of two buckets. I have a goal and I don't know how to start. That's a super common one. They can identify the goal,

they can't figure out what to do because they're right here they're looking at the gap it's going to be too much how do I monetize this thing again exactly exactly go that's guaranteed failure no it's like get a libson account get a you know what I mean there's so many steps along the way the other one is I don't have tell the truth be genuinely curious correct the other tranche is I don't have anybody else to talk to in my life which is another huge issue that I don't understand what's going on there. And maybe it's just easier to reach out to somebody you don't know on some of these things. These difficult conversations can be difficult. Yeah, I use the word twice there, but appropriately. I think you know what I mean.

I don't feel like anybody would understand. I don't feel like I have the answers to this. I don't have anybody to talk to. And I have gotten enough of these that I know there are a lot of people out there who think that. And I have lost enough friends post-military and the things that they have left behind that one of the main driving factors in my assessment, I don't have any data to support this, is that they landed in a headspace that was similar to that as well. Look, I mean, it's out of my lane, but it sure feels like that is right in the center of whatever post-traumatic stress really, really is. It's a lie, though.

They're surrounded by people who love them and would want to help them. And the stats are staggering. The Green Beret community has now lost more people to suicide than combat operations. I don't know where the SEAL community is along that spectrum, but I feel like soon we will join that club as well. You know, you gave me an opportunity to ask you about the SEAL Family Foundation. and I want to because I know they do such great work. Do you know John Galt?

I know the name. Famous character from an Ayn Rand book, but also a major dude. He helped me put together a few years ago. We took the whole gang here. Where were we exactly? Near San Diego. You guys were out in Hamul. Yeah.

I recognize the rocks. Those guys on the end. I forget their names now, but they, look at Taylor. What's he holding up? Very Charlie's Angels. That's just probably an M4 with the suppressor. I'm Charlie's Angels. You're Charlie.

We went through, I mean, thousands of rounds, small arms. Yeah, yeah. We had, you know, girls in the office who had never seen a gun, touched a gun, very uncomfortable. Shooting a Barrett. Shooting a 50-Cal at, what, 600 yards hitting the- Crazy. Yeah. Hitting the opening of a-

Champagne. It's not as hard as people would like to believe. Well, it's one thing to shoot at a target. It's another man. I mean, yeah. I tell people I'm the Navy SEAL sniper with the most confirmed misses. I can slap the shit out of a trigger. Hold my breath until I gray out.

And combine the two, of course. Oh, man. Well, look, the family- Do we get through our questions? Oh, you're talking about the SEAL Foundation. Well, say something nice about them before we go. Like make, I mean, why are they working? the support?

Well, I don't want to diminish other foundations. For me, the CLD DNA is obviously ingrained in the community I came from. If you have a family tie to a different, a green beret, a ranger, a Marsok, there's communities out there for them as well. So these entities, post-9-11, the statistics just don't lie. And the wars were long. And there's a difference between the price and the cost. And the family pays the cost a lot more than the service member does.

You don't realize that until afterwards. And these organizations, the military itself is not designed to help with offboarding and complicated personal issues. They're just not. And I actually, of the mindset now, we shouldn't expect them to be. I actually think this is the NGO space that I would love to see people. When you get out of the military for the next three months, you are working with this NGO. And they are going to help you with all of these things. Just take it out of the military's plate because they suck at it.

They're good at onboarding. Do your job. But when you leave, they're like, hey, go to this TAPS class for 10 days, which I got all the signatures required in 10 days in about two hours. I successfully graduated the course and then got on with my life. That NGO space is where the Navy SEAL Foundation lives. And it's everything from, I mean, it's everything. They have people that can help you financially. Healthcare.

Families of those who have lost a service member or a service member has been catastrophically damaged. scholarships, camps, vacations, retreats, bringing family together, therapists, like all of these things that you would want to be this nebulous pocket of care that the military cannot do. And I don't want to rely on the government to do it. That's what they do. And for me, the Navy SEAL Foundation, again, ties into the community I came from, so it's critically important to me to support them. But whatever, if you're an Army family, awesome.

There's 40,000 service-based organizations. You will find one that can help you with what. what aligns with you. So the last question, I basically said, you know, what should Mike ask if he actually does research and is genuinely curious about his guest? What would this question be? And this is what the AI told me to ask. Andy, when did we start treating self-esteem as a prerequisite for achievement instead of a consequence

of achievement? Oh, I have no idea. Okay, good. We're all out of time. Actually, you know what? It's such a perfect answer to such a stupid question, but it does bookend the whole thing perfectly because we started with trophies and awards.

And how in the world self-esteem, oh, man, we've just confused the tail with the dog, I think, in so many ways. Many of the people, not all, and those that seem to struggle the most confuse what they did with who they are. And that goes back to the ribbons in uniform and the special flare.

too you know it's dangerous shit man after two and a half hours you said it better than me all right well look we still got to get gregg stump in here at some time yeah i booked him for tomorrow excellent good yeah we're working our way through the stumps so record both and just release the one that's better uh i so appreciate it man that was really fun um i'd say keep the knife but would be simpler for me to ship it to you no i you got enough you might be surprised to hear this i have one of these. Give this to it a guess that doesn't have a direct line to Josh. Okay. All right, I'll do it. Yeah. I'll do it. And Black Rifle Coffee, hey, after nothing, man, but I drink it every day. I can't believe. What do I have to do to get Evan

back here as a sponsor? That's how we end this episode. Evan Hayford. Get back here. I'm on it. I can help you. I mean, whatever it takes, we're fans. Don't make me keep drinking Dunkin' Donuts. He's a fan of you guys, too. He speaks highly of you. No, we love it. him. He's terrific. Yep. Thank you for doing what you do, by the way. I've had your voice in my head for decades. Not in a creepy way. Not like watching somebody eat dinner way,

but it's you helped, and I'm sure you heard this when it comes to people talking about the Armed Forces Network and stuff. Probably not quantifiable, but you have helped in the things that you have done, whether you meant to or not, probably more than you could ever recognize or realize.

It allows people. to take a piece of home with them when they're at a place where for most of them all they wanted to is try to get back. You're welcome. Privilege, honestly. And a big part of this, of course, has nothing to do with monetization or sponsors, but just that. Like, me again, get a load of him. Get a load of Andy Stomp from America. Look what he's doing. Look what he did. Don't want too close. Can't hold a job. He jumps off high places for no clear reason and now he's got a podcast. You got him check to make sure gravity works everywhere. Like I said, I got all seven continents done so far, but not every object.

Folks, his podcast is called Cleared Hot. It's available wherever you listen to podcasts and you'd be a fool if you didn't check it out. I'm going to try and put this back in its little box. I don't have luck with that step. We could take care of that later. There we go. Hey, that's certainly longer than we normally go, isn't it? Did you ever say goodbye? No, I'm about to. I didn't want to wreck it. I thought he'd sit here and we could do the preamble right in front of me. We've never done that before. You want to?

I've done ad reads for other people's shows. Have you? Oh, yeah. If they have the same sponsor, I'd be like, I got it. Just throw a picture up there. I'm like, yeah, you know, thanks to AG1, you know, you can get your micro. I've done that before, too, and it didn't go over well. It's got to be the right person.

And you've got to know the talking points well enough. It was a radio show. It wasn't a podcast. Oh, okay. It was live radio. I don't mess around with the live stuff. Yeah. They let me go on Fox News live for about five minutes for the launch of the book,

and I'm sitting there. The only thought of my head is, don't be an idiot, don't be an idiot, don't be an idiot. And then his first question is about the political, you know, effects of what's going on in the Straits of Hormuz. I'm just like, oh. Like, I like grapefruit. All right, man, we are done. Probably out of cards or tape or whatever you use in there, Taylor. But, all right.

Sweet. And now, goodbye. When you leave a review, only five stars will do, not just one or just two or just three, we were hoping. Four more. Just a quick review with five stars two.