Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I would say that's the biggest parallel between, you know, seal teams or special operations and super successful entrepreneurs is that they just will not quit. You know, every one of them, you know, has gone through bankrupt, multiple bankruptcies. They've been in positions where they're putting their, their power bill on a credit card, you know, to try to survive. And this is 10 years into it after they've owned three businesses that made millions of dollars and they lost everything. You know, and these are guys that just, you know, it's like quitting and failing isn't an option or, you know, failing is just a pivot. It's not a finality. Reaffirming that mindset as being one that's really necessary and crucial for being a successful entrepreneur, coupled with really, really intelligent and wisdom and experience driven ideologies and strategies to approaching business and realizing that there isn't really a playbook to it, which is what I find probably the most enjoyable and fascinating about entrepreneurship, is that, you know, all of that burden rests on my shoulders, which while stressful, there's nothing more rewarding than when you're the guy that has to make the decisions and you're the zero or the hero and you make it.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: My next guest is a modern day badass, an ex Navy seal, a world renowned dog trainer, a best selling author and the host of the Mic Drop podcast. But how much could we possibly have in common with a cat like that? With so many accomplishments, you're about to find out on the Uncommon Souls podcast. Help me in welcoming my good friend Mike Ritland. We touched a little bit just before when we first met. We talked a little bit about.
You were a, a moderate average athlete.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: As a kid and played a bunch of different sports. Is it. But one of the sports I noted that you participated in was you were a swimmer.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: So when you were growing up, does it seem like you, amongst other fellow seals, were either into water sports or some kind of extreme cardio sport? Because it seems like obviously even to gain entry into something like it's a lot more than. Yeah, a cardio capacity team, obviously, but that's a baseline. Did you see that?
[00:02:27] Speaker A: A lot of that sort of. I would say.
Well, two things. One, the, the entrance test, physical exam wise or physical test wise is not very reflective of training. So I would say, you know, for the, like, the test is really not that hard to pass. It's a 500 yard swim, a mile and a half run, max pull ups, max sit ups, max push ups, and the, the swim. I don't even remember what the time is. I think it's something like 12 minutes or something. And the run same, it's like 11:30, I think for a mile and a half, which is not fast. Okay, push ups, it's 42, setups is 52. And pull ups, I think is six.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: So those timed or just you have.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Two minutes, but, you know, so that by itself, the only, I would say relatively challenging part that I've seen surprise guys come in is that it's all back to back. You do the swim, the pull ups, the push ups, the sit ups, the run, and there's very little break between it. So that can catch some people off guard. But, you know, if you're not destroying that test, you know, two, three, four times the. The numbers that are required to pass training is going to be extra challenging. Now, having said that, to your question, it's really all walks of life there. There is a significant contingent of athletes that are in swimming, water polo, wrestling and football. Those are probably the four most common ones.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: But you see, you know, cross country runners, you see, you know, even tennis players or whatever. You see some people that grew up on a farm, never played any sports. You see some, you know, Ivy League lacrosse players. I mean, you know, I mean, even in my first platoon, we had a guy that graduated with a master's in finance from Columbia and was on Wall street and joined at 30, which he had to get an age waiver. You know, so was on Wall street for a number of years, very successful, and just kind of woke up one day and felt like a. And decided he wanted to do something way different and more hardcore. And so, you know, but. And everything in between, you know, you have all walks of life. And that's the other part of that too, is even some of the most talented and gifted athletes that I saw. Because, you know, spending three and a half years as an instructor, you have a good idea of kind of what's going on as a student, but nowhere near like you do when you're behind the curtain as you see the innards. Yeah. But what you realize, again, even as a student, but especially as an instructor, you realize trying to bet on or predict who's going to make it and who doesn't based on just kind of what you see is a fruitless effort. You'll be surprised both ways every single time. You know, there's guys that you would swear that's a solid dude, great athlete, you know, hard worker, humble team player, gonna make it for sure. Quits three hours into Hell week, you know, and then you see this country bumpkin that's built like a thumb, barely passes the test, isn't very bright, it's clumsy, you know, doesn't get along with guys very well, you know, and that guy is, is sitting there at the end of training.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: No any better than to pass.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it just has had a choice but to, to finish, you know, growing up, you know, type of stuff. So it is really weird and very inconsistent and very unpredictable. So while there is a significant, you know, portion of the, the population of SEAL students and seals that ultimately make it through, there is a wide variety of backgrounds.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: So in your experience then with water sports and then martial arts, you're into martial arts as well? Still?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Still, yeah.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Okay, so how much of that played into it and how did you end up actually getting into the martial arts aspect? Because you say you were an average athlete.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: You know, at what point did you get into the martial arts and kind of what, what spawned that?
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Sure. So the, the average athlete part kind of ebbed and flowed a little bit, I would say. I was a good swimmer, but I wasn't. Well, up until seventh grade I was pretty competitive statewide with kids my age, you know, because we were in, you know, year round USS swim clubs and competed, you know, all the time, went to swim meets all over the state and even a few outside of the state. And, and you know, I could hang with even the, the best guys. I was competitive. But I got really burnt out because I started at 5. I took most or part of 7th grade and all of 8th grade off and then joined the high school team in, in the fall of ninth grade. And in that window of taking that time off, they catapulted ahead of me. And now I was pretty average.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: I still, you know, a three, three or maybe. Yeah, three of the four years I, I went to state, but I didn't podium. I, you know, I competed, but was certainly nothing special.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: That's more typical of today's youth sports that end up being year round and all these AAU leagues.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah, back then it was a little more rare to play. Especially in my hometown. There weren't a ton of sports to play like my high school. They have a soccer team now. They didn't like, we didn't even have a soccer team.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Certainly didn't have lacrosse, didn't have water polo, had just kind of the main primary sports. But where the martial arts component came in was my freshman year.
I was pretty small for my age. In 9th and 10th grade and I got jumped when I was in, in my freshman year pretty bad. And, and it just, you know, that was a pivotal moment for me in a number of ways. But one of them was, you know, wanting to join martial arts and get some sort of involvement into some sort of combatives, to be able to do better than I did that time, you know, and it was, it was a really unique and neat experience and opportunity for me because it wasn't a commercial outfit, you know, it was an underground dojo that was run by a female who was like 5:2, but weighed probably 140 and was just kind of a brick shithouse.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: And in a sentence of type, yeah.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: You know, and, but was very competent. And, and it was based off of traditional Okinawan karate. Her sensei was a, was a Vietnam Force Recon, you know, multi tour combat vet and was a total, total badass, hard ass, very competent guy. And, and so it was real old school, very traditional, super strict underground. Like she taught it in her basement, you know, so there were no advertisements. There were, you know, it was like total word of mouth. Love it. And my dad actually came across her. She was, she was hired. My dad worked for John Deere for 40 some years and there came a point where they put a bunch of emphasis on physical fitness, put a bunch of gyms in there, in their, in every one of their facilities. And they hired trainers to come in. And so they hired this gal. And so that's how he found out about it. And then he mentioned to her like, you know, hey, my, I have a son that, you know, is interested. You know, is that something, you know, you could work out or whatever? And she said, said well, I'll interview him and meet with him and see if he's even cooler.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: So you can't even just sign up?
[00:09:40] Speaker A: No, no, you know, nothing to do with, with money. It was all about, you know, the passion for the, for the sport of it. And, and so, you know, I met with her and, and she said, you know, we'll, we'll try it out and see how it goes. And, and it was neat because it was almost kind of the Karate Kid type of relationship of, you know, I didn't have a job at that time, didn't have any money. And, and so I worked the, the dues off. You know, I mowed her yard and cleaned her house and did chores around, around the house and stuff to, to pay for the training and whatever. But what was really neat about it, this was before in even the first UFC ever existed. And back then I didn't know of any other. I'm sure there were some, but it was very rare to see hybrid gyms that would do multiple different disciplines. And she absolutely did that. So like, in the summertime we would do stick, like Filipino stick fighting and knife fight, you know, scream up, you know, and knife fighting and, and do all of our training outside. We're super hot and nasty out in, in Iowa. And then in the winter time we were in, in the basement and we would do more boxing, wrestling, French foot fighting, judo, you know, so we mixed a lot of other things into it. It was really like a kind of before its time MMA gym. What was even cooler about it is that she understood just like I think any good MMA coach understands today that everybody, you know, has different styles and, and games, you know, to, to the way that they're going to approach their competency. And so the way that she would, you know, focus on certain aspects of training with me is going to be different than the 38 year old female sheriff's deputy that's going to be different than the, you know, 50 year old, you know, father of five that, you know, or, you know, or other kids or, you know, whatever. There's maybe 12 to 15 of us, I think, that trained there.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, because you can only handle.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah, so many.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Doing an individual plan for so many people.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: She, and she did have two, two black belts and a brown belt that, that were at a high level. That also helped out a lot, you know, but she kind of tailored, focusing on different disciplines that suited your body type and athleticism and stuff like that. So it was really groundbreaking for, for its time. Yeah, but she was also big into some of the kind of that traditional Okinawan, Mr. Miyagi kind of karate stuff of like walking over broken glass and really doing a lot of like mental strength training. And, and, and the training was also really intense. You know, most of the, of the classes, you never knew how long they would be. You had no idea, you know, what you'd be doing. Sometimes it would be a lot of calisthenics and not even that much training, not very often. But you know, she would call them smoke sessions. You know, she, she was married to a guy who was in the army and so there was a lot of influence of that kind of boot camp type of mentality also kind of buffered into it. But, and for belt testing too, you know, sometimes she would say, hey, on March 17th, you're going to be up for, you know, purple belt or, you know, whatever. And, and other times, you'd walk in for a normal class and it would last three hours and you'd get shark tanked by the entire crew having no idea that you were testing for the next belt. And then at the end you get a belt, you know, so it was, wow. It kind of always kept you guessing and on your toes and. But to be able to experience that at 15, 16, 17, 18 was, was really helpful for kind of connecting the physical and mental piece and I think for sure played a significant role in my ability to go to Seal Training as a brand new 18 year old and make it so. You know, I'm super thankful for, for that opportunity and being able to be a part of that as I get older. I, I reflect on it fairly often and, and just feel incredibly lucky that, that it was there, you know, because most, most kids didn't get to experience.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Something so in, in that. And I'm, I'm quite familiar with some of those trainings. A lot of what I did too. And I also felt like it was a lot before my time too, training on, you know, apartment, tennis courts and you know, crap like that. Overly hot, not much of a mat to land on and stuff like that, but it's, it's significantly practical.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Did she have anything to address with you in particular regarding your motivation for doing it and do you, was your motivation to kick ass or was it. I know, you know, in traditional martial arts it's all about being the peacemaker. Was that your, was that your intention or did she do any of that?
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I told her the primary motivator for wanting to do it and I think she was empathetic towards that and you know, but definitely made it clear that this isn't about, you know, picking fights. And you know, I think because Karate Kid was such a big part of guys in our age range, our childhoods where there was so fewer movies and shows the way that there are now. You know, you had Rambo and Commando and, and RoboCop and Karate Kid and you know, Predator and it was like there weren't thousands of movies on Netflix to choose from. And so there were some kind of key double A personality, cool guy movies that were incredibly impactful, I think for our age, age range. And, and so there was, I already kind of had an understanding of what, what the mentality was like, but she definitely, you know, questioned me on, on why I was there and, and made it abundantly clear that, you know, one that she runs the show. I mean, we would, excuse me, bow with eye contact, you know, Going in and out of the room was really, really regimented in terms of rank and file and, you know, kind of like formations in boot camp or, or police academies.
Like when, when you, if you got in trouble and had to do push ups, like even something as simple as you had to turn your belt around so that none of it would touch the ground. Almost like a flag.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: When you're putting your belt on and off, if any of it touched the ground, like, she would take it from you and you'd have to earn it back. I mean, it was like super strict that way and I loved it. I mean, it was, it was really impactful and formidable for, for that, that age that I was at, you know.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: But how did you. Actually, was there a lot of sparring nowadays? It's, it's gone one way and then it's kind of come back the other way where there's a lot more emphasis on ground fighting because you can go so much more intensely.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: In your training, but, you know, you only want to be hitting the head so many times when you're working my tie and stuff.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially in teenage years. I mean, even as an adult, it's not great. But especially children, you know, there's been enough studies where, you know, full contact to the head.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: But there weren't then.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: I mean, weren't in my time either.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we did a fair bit of sparring, both ground fighting, judo wise, wrestling as well as we would put headgear on and use gloves, and they were boxing gloves, not MMA gloves, so. But there definitely was. And that was the first time I had ever really been in a fight where I was fighting. You know, like I'd been jumped a number of times where it was just trying to survive. You know, there's dozens of people just kicking the. Out of you. And so it was the first time, you know, that I had ever kind of really been in a fight where I was fighting back anyway. And yeah, the first sparring partner I had was, I don't think she, she was in her 30s, I think, but it was a woman. She was bigger than I was. She was a sheriff's deputy. And so for me, you know, growing up as a, not a farm kid, but as a, you know, a more kind of rural environment, farm kid type in Iowa with, you know, very kind of gentleman type of upbringing, I'm like, wait, you know, I'm supposed to hit a woman like this already?
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Not fair.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I don't, I don't know. It wasn't Even a not fair thing. I was just like, this doesn't feel right.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: I mean, it's not fair because you're. You're. You don't know how. How hard to go.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I'm, like, unsure. And then she could see that, and I think. So she's like, fucking do it. You know, and so she leans back and just cracks me with a fucking right cross. And I was like, holy shit. That went out the window right away. My. Yeah. My apprehension for. For sparring with a woman. But yeah, so it was. It was. It was enormously helpful. But, yeah, we did do a fair bit of sparring. We also did kind of keep the. The nod to the traditional katas that. That you see in. In karate specifically, where it's, you know, the choreographed movements that you learn and have to memorize for belt as part of belt testing.
Didn't spend a ton of time on it. It was more just, again, kind of a nod to the tradition of it. But, you know, we. We wouldn't. Most of the training we did was either pad work or sparring or, you know, technique drilling.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: And that's. You were lucky.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: At that time, for sure. We've seen where that's gone now.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: And so when you say you were jumped, and I. And I haven't spoken to you about this, but I'm. I'm curious because you said you were in a. You were like the minority in your school and not.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Not the minority, but it was a big school. It was about 2,500 kids, and it was like a 60, 40 split racially.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: The town that I grew up in, it was about 75,000, 80,000 people or so. There was only two public high schools in it.
And. And the. The town was kind of almost like out of a movie. It was like, there's the east side and the west side, and there's a river that split the town in half, basically. And the west side was predominantly white, east side's predominantly black. And this is in the. In the early 90s when they decided it was too kind of segregated. Not obviously by intention, but just historically.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Yes. Culturals.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And so they. They wanted to. To shuffle the deck a little bit. And so they started busing kids from either side to the other side to mix it up a little bit. And it just didn't go very well. And so it was also around the time where the Malcolm X kind of resurgence of cultural and historical influence in certain aspects of our society saw that kind of reemergence and The Rodney King issue 92 happened. And so there were a bunch of riots because of that also. And so, yeah, it was just, it was a bit of a powder keg that way. And. And so, yeah, the, the first time that it happened really bad again, I was a freshman. I was coming back from lunch, I was running a little behind. And so it's a three story high school. I was on the third story, I was getting ready. I swung a door open to hit the stairwell, which is all brick, by the way. And so as soon as I swung the door open, I took one or two steps down and all of a sudden CR got blindsided in the side of my head. And there was about 40 or so students that were two by two, single file running up the stairs, just rioting basically, and just beating the shit out of anybody who was white and just wrong place, wrong time. And so I got just gauntleted all the way down three flights of stairs and somehow managed to stay conscious and on my feet and made it down and stumbled into Spanish class all, you know, bloodied and up. And, and so, yeah, it was, that was an impactful moment for me as far as the, the drive to go in.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: But yeah. And so how did it affect your perception and perspective in terms of race? Because I know at that time too, there's still a little more debate. There's. And in, in schools where there's issues like that, they're kids, so, you know, they have, they have an idea of how they want life to be and it's never, never proper. I'm just curious how that affected your.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: So for me, it was actually, it was, it was more confusing than anything else because one of the great parts of my childhood was that, you know, very, very healthy family environment. You know, my parents are still married to this day, and I, you know, even as I sit here now, I've. I've not once ever seen my parents fight, never argue, never raise their voice at one another, almost to like a. How is this even real degree, you know, Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So I've got two older brothers, a younger sister, and our family. Growing up, it was very Leave it to Beaver. Like, you know, we were, I would say, low middle class, you know, certainly didn't have excess money. But we weren't, you know, struggling to keep the lights on. It was just kind of middle of the road again, super positive environment. Parents were just such an amazing balance of being just strict enough to keep you between the lines, but not so overbearing to where it fostered a reflexive type of indignance or insubordination towards authority. And so none of us really got into trouble. None of us ever got into drugs or, you know, drinking or, you know, anything crazy extraordinary too, because you see.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Families that are like that and there's always one that goes in some direction or there's whatever that's interesting.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: No, it just, it was, it was an amazing childhood. And so, you know, for me the, the downside of that was probably a skewed perception of reality as to how most of the world operates.
And yeah, and so that was a really, for me was the biggest thing was just I was, I was shocked that that could happen at our, at my high school, you know, and you know, my, both of my parents attended that same high school growing up. You know, my all, all family members did, my aunts, uncles, you name it. So yeah, it was just weird, you know, it was confusing and I didn't really know what to think of it, you know, so I wouldn't say that it necessarily swayed me from a race perspective standpoint in any direction. It, I just didn't understand it.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: This took you longer to figure out how it really was? Maybe.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
And you know, the rest of high school was pretty shitty, frankly. You know, I don't look back at my high school years, you know, from a positive standpoint to a large degree. There were some certainly good moments with the swim team and other things. But from that point on I was, I was pretty nervous going to school, you know, and there had been a few subsequent incidences of, you know, finding myself alone in a bathroom and three or four dudes come in and it's game on. And yeah, so it just, it kind of made you grow up overnight a little bit. And, and it, the one thing that I will say that I am actually thankful for, you know, being in that environment at that age, was that it did make you street smart a little bit. You know, it, it kind of woke you up to, hey, not everybody's your friend. And just because somebody's smiling or being nice doesn't mean that, that they're not trying to stab you in the back, you know, and, and you know, look over your shoulder, keep your head on a swivel. It, it gave me a kind of a renewed sense of situational awareness that, that I just didn't have before, you know, so that was beneficial.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: But yeah, it brought that way you were weaned for sure. And it added that other element of real life, I guess.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it just wasn't very sort of an extreme. Yeah. You know, most people, they kind of, that, that stark contrast is after high school, going to college or, you know, whatever. And for me it was kind of like a light switch. It was, one day I went to school and everything was like Disney World. And the next day it was like prison, you know, so sounds like a.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Prison kind of environment.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: It was, I mean, like you could, you could score, I mean, pick the drug, you know, 20 minutes, you could find just about anything. I mean, I saw, I mean, people had guns in their lockers, you know, ship cars are getting broken into in the parking lot, stuff getting stolen. I mean, it was weird, you know, because like, I think most people think, you know, small town Iowa, you wouldn't have that, that type of environment or influence. But the thing is, you know, especially the town that I grew up in, which is Waterloo, it's in the Northeast. It's kind of perfectly set in the middle of Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. So you got five enormous, you know, Midwestern cities that have a ton of gang violence and crime. And so a lot of times the, the lay low spot was staying with family, you know, in, in our town. And so I mean, we had drive by shootings and gang violence and, and things that you just, I think most people again, would never expect, right. To see in a, in kind of a rural or sort of rural town in Iowa. But, but it was so interesting. Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: And you, so you mentioned movies in terms of your martial arts stuff as you got older. Were any of the movies that were out then inspirational in terms of getting you for sure decide that you want to get in the military and do what you did?
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean all of them really. Rambo, Comm, Navy seals, the Rock, which that came out right before I joined. I mean, I was already enlisted in the delayed entry program when that came out. But yeah, there's, you know, kind of all the usual suspects, show wise, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, even Miami Vice, which isn't really related, but still just kind of that running and gunning type of, type of thing. You know, some of the James Bond stuff. Yeah, it all was impactful.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: So is that, was that a beneficial thing or. Because I think I know movies are, are nuts. So some kids, depending on how old you are, are going to, you know, buy into the whole facade. And then like you said, even as an, when you come back into an instructor, you, you see things quite differently. And obviously life is not like the movies in terms of a inspiration point. It was advantageous then just to get you Motivated. And it didn't. None of your dreams were shattered to learn anything?
[00:27:41] Speaker A: No. I think obviously Rambo and Commando are ridiculously far fetched. Navy Seals is to a certain degree, but it's actually surprisingly accurate even today from a culture standpoint. Like the busting of each other's balls and, and all the silly one liners, you know, the trust me with your life, not your money or your, or your wife, you know, type of stuff that they would bust each other's balls and like driving over the bridge and one, you know, in a topless Jeep and one dude jumps out of the back, off the bridge into the water, you know, just for shits and giggles, like dumb shit like that is, is like. I would say that that movie does a pretty good job of capturing the, the culture of the SEAL teams, of the personalities. And so, you know, I knew Rambo and Commando were, were not realistic.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: You know, so no, there was, there wasn't like a huge surprise. The only, and I wouldn't use the word shattering, but the, the one kind of letdown I would say from a, from a, you know, expectation versus reality standpoint was, you know, what you do in the, in the regular SEAL teams is a little vanilla for what the expectation was like. I think especially back then when there wasn't online, there was no Internet presence to be able to do the research. Now it's probably much less so. But you know, I thought that there would be more Jason Bourne, James Bond kind of stuff. And that's pretty exclusively at Seal Team 6, you know, so you still do some of that, but it was a little more conventional. Not drastically, but there were some more conventional aspects of it than I was expecting.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Describe that like for, for laymen, because you even may contrast between SEAL Team 6.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah, so, you know, so they, they break the military special operations groups, they all fall under socom, which is Special Operations Command. And even that's a little confusing, I think, for a lot of people because even though we're, we're in the Navy and, and we're Navy seals, you actually fall under the command of Special Operations Command, which is more like its own branch of the military than it is anything else. While it's technically not, it's more like that than it is anything else. So all of the military special operations forces from all the branches fall under that command. And so, you know, an example of some of the conventional stuff like say in Iraq, you know, when we're in what, what the army would call in Garrison, which is when you're kind of at a large forward operating base where there's command leadership, there's generals and you know, that's where it's basically safe.
You know, all of the infrastructure that's kind of where the, the central brains of, of the military are at as it relates to the, the area of operations. You know, like making sure that your uniforms are pressed and, and that you're not in name name tagless fatigues. You know, you're not in your operational cammies. You're in your, what we call dress cammies with you know, bloused boots and your boots look good and you have a fresh shave and you know, up to standards haircut and your hat's tight and you know, stuff like that. And then some of the missions too were, I wouldn't say boring, but they were, it was just like a lot of observation and you know, special reconnaissance type stuff where you're observing a target for three to five days and then you go do a direct, direct action. Whereas while there is some of that at the Tier 1, Seal Team 6, Delta Force etc, there's a lot less of it. You know, they're the guys that are, it's this high value target. We're going in quick, hitting it and getting out. You know, with every asset known to the US Military at your disposal. The, the tier three regular special operations units, there's less of that. It's not that there's none of it right. It's just sometimes you kind of get the shaft. Like it's kind of like I would say if you, if you use like college sports versus professional sports as an analogy or even within College Division 2 or 3 versus Division 1, you know, you're just not, you don't get quite the same resources. Like yeah, you're playing the same game. You know, you've got some guys that are at, at the same caliber level that, that you know, Team six and, and Delta Force have, but they have basically a blank checkbook for everything. I mean for gear, for training, for assets, for platforms, I mean, you name it. But they also have, and this is both units is that you know, you can't even try to go there until you've been a regular, you know, military person for a certain number of years. So reasonable. Yeah. So that's the regular SEAL teams. Every time you, you start a platoon, you are starting with the lowest common denominator. You're always going to have a handful of dudes that are fresh out of buds, never deploy every time. So you're kind of starting over every single deployment Cycle. Once you've done two, three, four platoons, then you go to, to SEAL Team six. And so their, their lowest guy at least has several deployments, has been a SEAL for, you know, five, six, seven, eight years.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: So the baseline of knowledge is going to be significantly higher and they have everything that they want and, and three of everything.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: And how much control do you have over how some of those operations go? Because it seems like from a perspective where I was in law enforcement and in a certain division, that same type of thing where we were given hand me down equipment and you know, got the training, but just had to improvise and figure out crazy ways to accomplish the same things that somebody would with all the equipment. Is that something that you were able to leverage your creativity and kind of, you know, step up and say, you know, I want to put my stamp on this operation, or was it all dictated?
[00:33:36] Speaker A: I would say it's a, it's a hybrid and that it's kind of a, here's what needs to get done. You guys pitch the, the concept of operations, you know, so, you know, within the confines of here is the mission, you tell us how you think we should do it and give us three options and then we'll pick one of them. So it was kind of a collaborative effort, which is nice. Yeah. And I think, you know, it, it does two things is, one is it gives some skin in the game and some autonomy for the operators to, to feel like they're making decisions, because they are.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: But it also gives the leadership the warm fuzzy of, of keeping guys kind of between the, the lines and not doing just crazy off the wall shit that's going to get everybody killed because they're trying to be cowboys, you know, so I think that's a pretty good balance as far as the gear goes.
I would assume not unsurprisingly, a lot of it is dependent on who the president is. Was, you know, so like I, I was in a unique position where I did my first four and change years under Clinton and then I did eight years under Bush. And then I came back as a trainer even though I was a civilian. I was back on the west coast when I was the trainer for the West Coast SEAL canine program under Obama. And so I got to see, you know, different.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Three different administrations.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and it was blatantly obvious where the priorities of the government are in each one of those circumstances. So, you know, right after 9, 11 and like from 02 or, you know, even. Yeah, I mean, from 02 to, to 0607 it was kind of the, the golden cruise box era of. It's like, what do you need? Well, we need boots. Well, here's five pairs of them. You know, like, oh, you guys want to train here? Well, here you spend an extra week there and stay in a five star hotel with max per diem. You know, it was like, it was just. There was so much money thrown at the global war on terror. Especially in those first few years where, going from Clinton where we're kind of bootstrapping things and beg. Borrowing steel and you know, taking retired equipment and borrowing from other platoons because we're doing this block of training and they're not. So we need some of their stuff. There was a lot of that at first.
Not long after 911 the floodgates were open and you could, I mean like they would send us as a platoon to REI with a government credit card, you know, and we just be like, yeah, we'll take one of these and five of those and six. I was just like, you know, especially.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: After being squashed for so many years.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you're getting, you know, mountain hardware and arc stuff and Solomon boots and I mean like, you're just Garmin GPS and watches and you know, it's like it was just a heyday, you know.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: So were there any, was there any, I wouldn't say dissension, but was there any like professional discourse or arguments politically? Because there's so much that controls what, what goes on and within a team, let's say within, not necessarily organizationally, but within a team. Did you get a lot of that?
[00:36:33] Speaker A: 0. Which is weird to think of now. I, I do think that, you know, our, our entire society has become so hyper focused on politics and, and, and the divisiveness of it that I don't know how it is now. I don't know if there's more talk within the operators in platoons, the guys, you know, the sled dogs that are going overseas doing it. I have no idea if they talk about politics more than they did. We didn't talk about it at all.
Keep in mind, you know, the four years prior to 911 there wasn't really anything to talk about. You know, I mean even within our society it was kind of the, the last four years of the naivete that existed with political correctness and. Yeah. And not thinking that we could get attacked in the homeland and then we get punched in the face. And so, you know, for a long time after that everybody was pretty much on the same page too in terms of what we're doing is, is right. It's just we're all, you know, focused on, on the same thing. And, and so there, there was really very little of that. I, I do know that especially during the COVID shutdown years and the, you know, booting people out for not getting the shot and like that, that kind of polarized the communities. And I would say that percentage wise, I think it's, it's pretty right leaning within the military. There's, of course, exceptions, but most of the guys who are the kind of tip of the spear guys tend to be pretty similar politically that way. But it, there's, there's very little talked about it. I mean, I'm curious not to turn it on you, but if, if it's that way in, in within police departments, if guys talk about, you know, and.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: I'm kind of like you though, I, I've got out of police work about the same time you got out of that.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Too.
I think the police departments have an entirely different problem right now. It's a lot less political, I would imagine. Yes. And I think the same thing. I think police departments usually are bred from people that are leaving the military. It's, it's, you know, it's kind of a, a transition, you know, career that makes sense for a lot of folks. So there's tons of military guys there too. So I would say it's generally right leaning as well.
I, you know, I'm the guy that just, I try to avoid politicizing stuff. I, I love great ideas and it's just hard to find the people that'll talk about ideas instead of.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: Turning it red or blue. Yeah. Yeah. So I do think it's, I do think it's discussed, but I don't know how much it would affect the job.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: And it's type A's too, which. My next question was about getting people because you're essentially being sent. And so in no uncertain terms, you, you, you're given a mission. Even if you have input, the mission is the mission. You must go. So my, my first question was whether or not anybody was, you know, apathetic or, you know, resistant to the cause, you know, for what they were doing. But if that's not the case, then how, how did you manage you either as a trainer or you amongst the team of taking all type A's to work together. Several as, you know, being subordinate to one another essentially. You know, how does that happen when you take that it has to be type A deluxe. Right. In terms of people they select it is.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: But I would say that it may come as somewhat of a surprise to a lot of people in that even though it's very much that way, everybody is still both receptive to and completely understanding to the fact that there's a hierarchy and, and it will always be followed. You know, so whoever is, wherever your position of authority is, you know, what you're responsible for, you know who's above you, you know who's below you, and, and everybody's. At least when I, you know, my, my time in everybody was pretty good about sticking to that.
Having said that, Special Operations is a pretty unique entity within the military in that while that is the backbone of the way things are, there's not only an allowance, but in, I would say, an encouragement to think outside the box, come up with new ideas. So I think that the leadership, again, like, overwhelmingly, I had positive leadership experiences. Not every one of them. There was a few that I don't think did a good job. But generally speaking, the SEAL leadership that I fell under did a really good job at encouraging and incentivizing people to do that, to think outside the box, come up with other ideas, and they would listen. Now, they may not implement it, you know, sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn't. But I think, you know, everybody had a, had a good understanding of, you know, what they were allowed to kind of push the envelope on or not. The other neat thing is kind of in that hybrid of the leadership says, here's what needs to get done. You guys figure out how to do it. I think it kind of scratches that that itch or, or satiates that desire to want to have some level of autonomy and not just be a, a stormtrooper that does exactly what he's told. And so, you know, because some of these missions are pretty complex and very dynamic and incredibly difficult. And so, you know, there's a bonus to saying, hey, you guys are all sharp, independent thinkers. I don't know how we're going to do this. You guys tell me, you know, and so there was a lot of flexibility for ideas. And, and there were even times where there was one instance in particular in Iraq where we told our oic, we're not doing this.
You know, he, like, he wanted us to go. We had been going way ahead of the 1st Marine Division, and this was in the early onset of the invasion, where there were still lines, you know, conventional lines, you know, front lines, etc, and so we would go miles ahead at night of where the front lines were and scout out the route that the 1st Marine Division with tanks and APCs and big heavy artillery equipment, et cetera. One making sure that the bridges were going to be passable, that there weren't any surprises, that, you know, none of the bridges or choke points and roads were, you know, rigged with explosives or whatever, and just make sure that it was going to be okay. But there was one night in particular where there were just a bunch of things that were wrong and didn't make sense and didn't seem like they were good ideas. And he kind of had that like, well, they told us we need to do this, so we're going to do it. And once some of the senior enlisted leadership started to really kind of get into the weeds, we were like, we're not doing this. This is stupid. We're going to do this instead. And so we, we kind of pivoted and said, no, we're not doing that. We're doing this instead. And then he was like, yeah, wow. You know, so I think, you know, it's one of those things where it is a bit of a blue chip and, you know, you can't do that every time. But as, as you prove your competency and, and intellect operationally with leadership, that gives them more and more obviously confidence in your ability to, to challenge them on certain things. And again, like, that can't happen very often and especially when it. It. I mean, that's the only time it happened. But they're, you know, I think they're willing to listen when you're not bucking the system constantly. And it's like, no, that, like, I'm putting my foot down on this one. And we were all kind of in agreement where it was. We're basically like, what are you going to do? You know, like, we're not going. You can't make us do it. You know, you can't make us do what you're asking us to do the way you're asking us to do it. We can accomplish the same goal by doing it completely different, and that's how we're going to do it. And he was just like, fuck, okay. I guess you guys, you guys got it. You know, so.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: But that's, that's really admirable because, I mean, just leadership in business and everything.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Else generally doesn't work that way.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: So how is, how does the leadership. How do you promote within. I know there's, there's a, you know, there are people that come in as officers and.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: So how do they develop leaders? Because I know the military has Taken shifts from you're going to damn well do it and you know, I'm going to, yeah, kick your ass until you do it. To a more of a understanding leadership, to the kind or gentler period of time we went through. So yeah, how did those, how did those leaders. Or is it a different style of leader that they.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: I think it's, it's such a results based entity that, you know, the proof is in the pudding. You know, your, your reputation and your performance do all of the talking.
Coupled with, you know, going back several decades, I would say it further highlights the caliber of men that started the SEAL teams and the tradition set upon its inception where you had just incredible men, incredible leaders, incredible war fighters going through Vietnam for, you know, an over a decade long period that really laid the foundation for the reputation and how we do business as a community. And I think the SEAL teams has done a remarkable job at maintaining that culture and passing it down. And so how leaders are developed is very much a monkey see, monkey do type of application where you know, young junior officers are inspired and influenced by senior officers who were the J. Jo or the Jr. Officer who were inspired, you know, by the generation, you know, keep going back and back to where. Because you know, the SEAL teams were created in 1961, you know, catapulted right into Vietnam drinking from a fire hose, right into the lion's den. And they prove themselves over and over and over in that unconventional capacity. And so I think like I said, they've just done a very good job at, at maintaining that standard of, of developing leadership where you know, these junior officers are put into platoons with guys who show them how to do it.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: So it's almost by accident that you had open minded, strong willed, but open minded, team based leadership because I mean there's, you can be a great operator and be a terrible leader.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, the, the crux of, of how it has maintained that kind of level and caliber of excellency is that hybrid of, you know, we're, we're trying to develop a mission plan for something that, that borders on insane, you know, or almost or like there's a lot of people that would say that this can't be done and we're going to figure out how to do it, you know. And so I don't know that I'd necessarily say it's by accident. It's just that we were put into positions where we were kind of having to figure out a way to do something that's not doable and we managed to do it, you know, and so I think when you, when you surround yourself with that, coupled with the selection criteria, I. E. Buds is that, you know, I had Ben Milligan on my show who's arguably, he is a former seal, and I can't or won't say what he does now for a living, but we'll just say he's still very relevant in. In that type of realm.
But it's. It would be easy to argue that he's kind of the foremost authority from a historian standpoint, on the inception of the SEAL teams and the entire history of it. And hearing him kind of outline.
He's got a book out called Water Beneath the Walls, which is really good if you're interested in the historical aspect of the SEAL teams and special operations communities. But hearing him walk through how Hell Week was developed for BUDS and how BUDS kind of came into its own. It was really out of necessity, is that there were a few missions that needed to be done that were basically impossible or thought like if we can figure out a way how to do this, we need to do it. And so that's where the SEAL teams kind of were born out of and managed to pull it off, you know, starting back in World War II with the underwater demolition teams on D Day. So, you know, some of it, I think, was just by necessity. I wouldn't necessarily say it was by accident. It was just this needs to be done, who can do it. You know, and these guys volunteered to try and they pulled it off and that set the. The standard for everything else.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: That makes sense too, because it's. You're not talking about doing a. A standard type of job function. No, it's so extraordinary that you have to have a leadership quality and a team.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: Mindset in order to succeed at all.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: So I. Yeah. And there are, you know, the, the conventional, you know, Navy War College and, you know, different leadership training programs, but they're more about checking the box for promotion and, you know, making sure that. Right. You have the qualifications technically to. To advance. But. But where the real bread and butter or, you know, where the donuts are made is on the ground with the guys doing really, really dangerous and dynamic missions and figuring out. And so, you know, trial by fire and that, you know, if a leader is not up to snuff, he's. He's going to disappear really, really quick.
And same with the, with the operators too. You know, the tolerance for mistakes and subpar performance is, I mean, less than zero.
You really don't get any. Do overs you know, and if you fuck up, you may get one more chance if you have a good reputation and have some time under your belt of being a solid performer.
If not, you're, you're going to disappear quick, you know, so that the bar is so high performance wise and, and that never goes away. You know, it's not like, okay, I've got a good rep now, I can kind of back off. It's like no, your, your pedals wide open all the time and you got to prove yourself and, and what we call earn your trident every single day, you know, and that never changes. So I think it just kind of self perpetuates a high caliber of, of individual in every aspect of, of rank.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: So I can see now how a leader would then be, I mean that leader is accountable for the success of the mission and for the men that they're leading.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: So, and they understand what it's going to take. So I can see just almost by default you'd want to hear what everybody else had to say about it.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean you want as much input as possible. Like ultimately, yeah, you're the one making the decision. But yeah, I mean, I mean not to make everything parallel to dog training, but I've seen that in the dog training industry when it comes to police and milit canines, when you have people with, you know, years, decades even of training experience that's only in police and military type of training and their, their blinders are on a little bit as it, as it relates to thinking outside of the box. When you encounter a, an operational or behavioral problem or a hybrid of the two. And sometimes you'll find, you know, a 23 year old female agility trainer, you know, that's doing something that figured out a way to get a dog to get through something that you would have never thought of because you're so hyper focused on this is how we've always done it. And you know, so, so bringing in new crops of people from all different walks of life that are intelligent, motivated, self starter, you know, proactive type of guys. You know, that's why I think most special operations has the reputation that it does because it attracts those types of people and it, it is a breeding ground for innovation that way because at the end of the day, you know, the only thing that matters is mission success, you know, and to have leadership that says here's, here's what needs to get done. You guys figure out how to do it. Like there's a lot of power in that, you know, and, and one that rarely gets exercised. I wish more conventional military and law enforcement, you know, took that same type of approach to certain things because I think everybody would be better off for it. But, but yeah, it's just, it's a, it was a really, really unique and, and phenomenal experience.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: So do you think that since you talk about the, the need for interesting new ideas and creative thinking and everything else, how much does diversity play into? And I'm not talking about forced diversity, but I just meant having a woman on the teams, you know, how knowing that they think so differently, could that be an advantage or how often is that even likely to ever happen?
[00:53:16] Speaker A: And yeah, I would say, I would say from a, I wouldn't discredit that aspect. You know, from a gender diversity standpoint, I think, you know, good ideas can come from anywhere. The asterisk I would throw in is that, you know, the, the minimal physical requirements to be able to do that job from my perspective, exceed what, you know, any woman that I've ever met. You know, that's not to say that there aren't some out there that can, I'm sure that physically there are some, you know, CrossFit, you know, high caliber, you know, world class CrossFit athletes that physically could, could probably do that, do the training, the, the one flexibility and, and I think unique freedom that the military has, unlike really any, any other aspect of our society.
One, it's not a business. So, you know, the bottom line is irrelevant. You know, whether or not it's making money or, you know, you're spending money appropriately or whatever, that doesn't really play into account. Yes, there's budgeting, but that can be, you know, augmented or, or changed. To me, you, you have this unique freedom to, to ask yourself one very simple question that's going to drive whether or not you do everything. And that is, does this make us a better and more competent war fighting machine? If the answer is yes, then you implement it. If the answer is no, then you don't. And what I would say about adding women to, to existing special operations units, and I want to caveat and I'll expand on the existing part in a minute, is that, you know, let's say hypothetically that you find the, the female or females that physically can, can make it all the way through training having absolutely no standards lowered or changed or, or what have you for, for them to succeed.
Excuse me, and now they're embedded into, and woven into the fabric of, of our regular special operations units. Is that the complexity and the hassle that, that is going to infuse into the community is not worth adding one or two or a handful of people. Yes, it's hard to find, you know, men that can successfully complete the training.
But I don't see if you look at it, risk versus reward, it being worth it. Now here's where the caveat comes in, is that I'm not saying, and I don't believe that women shouldn't be allowed to or be in special operations capacities. I just don't think that they should be put into existing all male units that have decades of only being male units. You know, Israel I think is a shining example of how to, how to incorporate that other element. Because the, the reality, especially in the Middle east and in a lot of other cultures, frankly, worldwide, where we're in, in combative operations, women have a, an ability to get into places and do things that men can't. And so there's a tactical and strategic advantage to having them in those roles. But I think, and the way Israel has done it is they have all female special operations units. I'm all for that.
I just think that they should start their own special operations entities and be all female. You should keep it with all male and all female because back to that point of like the extreme double or even triple a personality, if that even exists, you know, that that's what you're filled with. And you're filled with, you know, 20 to 40 year old men in the prime of their life, you know, full of piss and vinegar and testosterone. And now you put them in an environment where they're not around any women for months at a time and now you throw a very physically capable, physically fit woman in the mix and, and it's going to cause problems, you know, it just is, you know, and people can say that it shouldn't, you know, well, that shouldn't cause problems. Well, whether it should or shouldn't is irrelevant. It will, you know, and you know, you can see that on liberty when guys go out and there's, you know, more guys than there are girls at a, at a bar environment where that just doesn't mix well, you know, and, and the way men treat women is different. They're, they're going to be, even if it's completely subconscious, they're going to be held to a different standard. There's going to be accommodations made. Guys are going to try to, to get involved with her. And, and even if you make it illegal and say that it's unacceptable, like it's, it's, it's going to Be a distraction. It's going to be a distraction, you know, and one that, that again, I don't think is worth adding, you know, a couple of numbers to the SEAL teams for that, you know, for that disadvantage. So again, I would just say all four female special operators. I just think they should be in all females.
[00:58:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great idea, too. It's more than just saying no. I mean, I, I appreciate, you know, you've thought out a lot of this stuff and I'm, I'm trying to, to walk the tightrope without getting into anything political or controversial. I didn't mean to like push you to that, but. Oh, I mean, I appreciate you explaining.
[00:58:28] Speaker A: No, I mean, I'll, I'll give you my opinion on anything political or not. Yeah, I'm not scared.
[00:58:33] Speaker B: Okay, good. All right, good. So what would you say is the single differentiator between somebody who, you know, as a kid, you want to sign up for the SEAL team, you know, you have to, you have to enlist and everything else, but your whole idea is, I'm going to be a seal. So what, what do you think is the single differentiator if it's, if it's not a specific physical fitness kind of a frame?
[00:58:55] Speaker A: That is the million dollar question that everybody that I know of within the community and even outside the community that wants more special operations fighters have been trying to figure out. And the short answer is, nobody really knows.
I can say, personally, I think that one of the, I think more accurate sayings I've heard is it's a common man with an uncommon will to succeed is probably the closest thing, but it really boils down to just an absolutely unwavering level of determination to finish whatever your task is, you know, and, you know, some people have that in some ways that you think would transfer over and it doesn't, and some people don't have it in ways that you think would transfer over and they still manage to make it. And again, you know, as an instructor, having seen hundreds, I mean, a couple thousand, well, trying to think how many students went through during my time, it was over a thousand that tried to make it and, you know, a couple hundred made it over a three and a half year period.
There, there really is not a common denominator other than a guy that just will not quit. The burning question is, is why, you know, what is it about him that that makes him not give up no matter what happens? And none of us can seem to figure out the, you know, kind of the, the exact answer to that yeah.
[01:00:23] Speaker B: Because I mean, we could make a whole lot of headway with that answer.
[01:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and again, you know, like the, the Department of Defense has hired psychologists and you know, sports performance professionals and you know, nutritionists. I mean, you name it, you know, people who have done all types of data testing and, and I mean, just, they've thrown everything at it trying to figure out what that common denominator is to try to find a more streamlined way to select for it and, and just have not come up with anything. You know, so I, you know, I do have a little bit different theory as to the, the reason for that. I think. And not to get too far in the weeds from a kind of evolutionary biology standpoint, but I really think in that vein is that, you know, if you look at human beings as a species, for that matter, you look at any species and you know, I would ask anybody, you know, what is the primary function or goal of any species?
Survival, survivability, Perpetuation. Right. So with that, you know, now imagine the lack of self preservation as a genetic code. Right? That's, that's funneled into any species genetic makeup is that a lack of self preservation to me is going to equate to the survivability of a species being in, in threat.
[01:01:46] Speaker B: Right. Or threatened by demise on its way. Yeah.
[01:01:49] Speaker A: So if, if the lack of self preservation, which I think is, is probably pretty apparent and genetically woven into to most special operations guys or high level first responder guys, if that's a common trait in human beings, I don't think human beings would exist. And you know, Darwin would, would argue that, you know, adaptability, and I tend to agree with him, is, is what survival of the fittest is about. Adaptability, not strength. You know, and so for a species to be able to adapt, it can't really lack self preservation or you're gonna have a bunch of kamikaze, you know, specimens that just don't give a shit, are reckless and we lose as a species. So I really think that there is only so many percentage of the population that possess all of the required traits coupled with enough athleticism and coordination and all of the kind of things that need to be there outside of just pure genetic makeup that exist in a way where they're all together and you're presented with an opportunity to go to training and you volunteer to do it and you have the desire to do it.
And so I think no matter how hard you try, there's just only so many people that have everything in the level that they need to do it. And I think it's always going to be that way.
[01:03:11] Speaker B: It's an A level personality. So do you find yourself.
I always would be in a situation where it was really traumatic, whether bullets are flying or it's just a grotesque scene or a whatever. And at work, you just have a different frame of mind where I feel like if I had driven up on this circumstance, let's say body parts everywhere, whatever things that I'm sure you've experienced, it would affect me differently on a personal level if I was just Joe civilian driving by it versus being in business mode where something needs to be handled or somebody needs to be defended or, you know, we need to cordon off things. I need to assign people to do this or that.
[01:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:53] Speaker B: Did you find that you had kind of that split personality? Is that sort of a survival mode? Or do you find that's where PTSD kind of comes into play with a lot of the guys who have seen all that stuff and just can't make that separation?
[01:04:08] Speaker A: For me personally, no, I did not experience or, or kind of realize any type of compartmentalization in that regard. I think, again, going back to kind of the genetic makeup of the guys that have all of the different things that need to be there to. To make it through, it's kind of a hard wiring of.
To a certain extent, you're always kind of in that frame of mind a little bit. Of course, there are, I wouldn't even say exceptions. I would say there are levels to it, you know, where, you know, especially when you're deployed. And I think that's one of the.
One of two big differences between military and law enforcement is that, you know, when you're in the military, one, your rules of engagement are far more lax. And there's. There's a lot more leeway to, to be a cowboy than there is here in the United States as a law enforcement professional. But also in that, you know, when you're in the United States, you know, your training, you know, when you get on a plane and you land boots on the ground somewhere overseas, like, you're always switched on there and that never turns off. So there isn't that 12 hours of being switched on and 12 hours off, it's six months on and then a year and a half off. Right. But even with that, you know, there are certainly times where I rolled up on, you know, bad car accidents or, you know, saw things, you know, in society that if you had a trigger that was going to put you in that mode, it would do it and you know, to me, I never felt like I was really going back and forth. I, I always just kind of felt like it was more hardwired and, and kind of always there, but knew it.
[01:05:42] Speaker B: Was something that you were able to tolerate.
[01:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah, now that's just me, obviously, you know, I can't speak to anybody else's experience, but that's, you know, reflecting on it, that's what makes sense to me.
[01:05:51] Speaker B: But that's interesting. So what, what got you into the dog thing? Because you, I mean, now you're an entrepreneur, you've got a business and everything else. And I'm super curious to get into that and, and how your previous experience in the military affected all that. But how did you, your interest in dogs come about? And tell me a little bit about how that transition happened.
[01:06:11] Speaker A: So, growing up in Iowa, I was inundated and fascinated by duck dogs. You know, mostly labs and retrievers doing blind work with, you know, retrieving ducks. And duck hunting is a big popular thing in Iowa. And I never got super in the weeds with it. I had several close friends who, them and their dads had, you know, four or five dogs and did a lot of duck hunting and whatever. So I was around it, but never really a part of it.
But I was always fascinated by it. But to a degree where I think goes beyond the scope of what most kids would think of and appreciate, which is kind of the. I was awestruck by the capabilities of the dogs. A lot of it was from kind of an olfactory standpoint of just seeing dogs like walking. And you know, we, we had a black lab growing up and you know, walking him, you know, in the middle of winter and seeing him like air sent something and then, you know, trail it for, you know, 15, 20ft and then head snap and would dive down six inches under, under the snow, there's like a half eaten ketchup packet or something. You know, like, you're just like, what the, like, how, how is that even, you know. And so I just marveled at something that stupid and that fascinated me and made me really interested in, in that aspect of it, as well as their ability from a physical grit standpoint of them being able to, you know, break ice and get in the water and not hype out and, you know, run through, you know, thorn, thorn bush, you know, or, you know, gnarly scrub brush that would, you know, deter us from walking through it. And they just plow right through it and, and just their personality. I was just, you know, I think a lot of kids Growing up, you know, like dogs and are dog kids growing up, but I was at a different level, a higher level of, of my fascination with them.
And then when I was in Iraq, there was a, a bomb dog that, that saved a group of marines in the air in one of the areas we were operating in. And that was the light switch moment for me that, you know, growing up, being very passionate and interested in dogs and then seeing that and, and that was just kind of this inst. Handshake of, you know, passion and work. And I was just like, I, I need to get into this and couldn't get enough of it. And so for the first several years, it was all a hobby. It was just something I was interested in. I was not doing anything with it in the military.
And at that same time, after I'd gotten into it real heavy from a hobby standpoint, then I went over to be an instructor and it was, you know, where we were putting kids through. Buzz was basically co located with the kennel facility for the west coast multi purpose canine or seal canine program. And so that's serendipitous. Yeah. So, you know, I introduced myself to them, started, you know, doing some training with them and just hanging out with them and watching training and, and just not really getting involved in an official capacity, but just being around it and being interested in it and asking questions and, and talking with the guys. And then ultimately I went on a training trip with them through this decoy course and, and did some other training trips with them and, and then that's when they offered me a position as a handler, which at that time I had already bought my property here in Texas, had planned on getting out because I had gotten the, the lung disease called coccidia mycosis or valley fever, and I'd lost 40% of my lung capacity. They tried to medically retire me or offered to medically retire me, and I kind of weaseled my way out of it to wait until I could get a college degree and have both my kids born. And then was at a big crossroads of do I stay in and be a handler or do I stick with the plan of getting out and starting my own training company. And two things were at play. One was I honestly was not confident in my ability physically to be able to continue to do the job, given that they tried to medically retire me me for my, my lung condition, which, you know, still exists to this day. And I, you know, the last thing I wanted to be was a liability to any of the guys. And, and so that was a big doubt I had, a big self doubt I had. But then the other thing too was I, I've generally taken the what's going to give me the most bang for my buck approach in big life decisions. You know, what's giving you the most juice for the squeeze kind of thing. And, and I felt like as, as awesome as it would be to, to be, you know, with a dog and go overseas and, and do canine handler deployments, I felt like I could make a bigger impact and do more good owning a company where we're training dozens or hundreds or thousands of dogs and handlers and people. And so it was a tough decision and it's one where I wouldn't say I regret not being a handler, but that's for sure. One thing that I, I would have loved to have done at least once, but you know, I didn't, you know, and the reality of it is is if I had, I probably would have stayed in for the full 20 instead of 12 and I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now, wouldn't be in the position I'm in, you know, so I don't look at it negatively or again, like a regret. It is something that I wish I had done, but I don't, I certainly don't dwell on it because, you know, it's not like I can change it, so.
[01:11:32] Speaker B: Right.
[01:11:33] Speaker A: But yeah, so, you know, going back to when I first got out, which was at the end of 08, started the company in, in the fall of 09 and I've been doing it ever since. When I first started out, it was pretty hyper focused on government contracts, military working dogs, police dogs, even explosive detection dogs. And you know, for that first half a dozen years or so, it was, it was pretty solely or exclusively geared towards that started the Warrior Dog foundation kind of out of necessity. There were just, there were a couple dogs that needed to be retired and they were going to euthanize them if me or none of the other guys in my position would take them. So I just said, yeah, shit, I'll take them. Yeah. And so that again, it wasn't some plan I had, it was more out of necessity. And so I just, just did it and now it's turned into where we've, you know, taken in hundreds of dogs and, and have been going for 15 years now.
[01:12:27] Speaker B: But how do you leverage those dogs? Are you just caring for them, letting them do their thing, or do you, do they have a task? It seems like those kind of dogs would want to be doing something still.
[01:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah, so, I mean, an official capacity. No, the key is just like with human beings is good nutrition, lots of time outside, sunlight, exercise, physical stimulation, and some sort of mental stimulation. You know, the nice thing with a dog is that you hear that a lot. People like, oh, my dog needs a job, he's bored. You know, mental stimulation is mental stimulation. You know, you and I can rationalize and put a title on having a job. Dogs just need to be mentally satiated. And so as long as you're accomplishing that, which we do, then the dogs are in a good place and it's not a problem. But, but it is a lot of work taking dogs in because the dogs that we take in are all ones that have bit people they weren't supposed to and kind of got, got to a point with their, their entity where they, they opted to euthanize the dog instead of continuing to try to work through problems or whatever. That's where we step in and we take them. So, you know, we're getting the Hannibal lectures of the dog world a lot right out of the gate, you know, so all of you know, pretty much every one of my staff members, with only a few exceptions in the last 15 years have all been bit, most of them several times, you know, and it's not, it's not a nip where it, you know, kind of breaks the skin. I mean, it's like put you in the hospital with 90 stitches type of bad, you know, so. Or, I mean, I've been bit a bunch of times too, but yeah, so it, it's dangerous, you know, and you got to recruit people from significant or specific backgrounds that, you know, it's not just, you know, a mom and pop doggy daycare place with, you know, flimsy kennel panels. It's, you know, it's built like a supermax prison. And everything's epoxy coated concrete with rebar reinforcement. And, you know, it's, it's a lot of work, you know, and it's dangerous. But, you know, to be able to walk up to the kennel facility and when we have 30 dogs, 30 spaces that are always full, we have a waiting list of, you know, a dozen or so dogs at any given time. You know, to be able to walk a loop around and see 30 sets of eyeballs that are looking at you and, you know, that, you know, if we hadn't taken, shouldn't have been, they'd be dead right now, you know, so it's super rewarding. It's tough, but it's rewarding.
[01:14:46] Speaker B: And you make it sound easy too, like, well, I just jumped off and decided to just, you know, start the company and train thousands of dogs. So how much of that entrepreneurial journey did you leverage? Some of your, your skill set from either childhood or the seals. Because entrepreneurs also are kind of a rare breed and most people can't do it. And as we know, most businesses fail in the first three years. 90 some percent.
[01:15:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:12] Speaker B: And you obviously have beaten that. So how did that happen in terms of just building it from the ground up? And, and what did you leverage to get to get that?
[01:15:21] Speaker A: I think that, you know, I didn't know anything about business. My degree is in criminal justice, you know, so a lot of it was trial by fire and learning the hard way where I think I leveraged the skill sets from upbringing and the military was just in that I don't care how bad it gets burned in the boats, cutting the safety net away. And I'm moving forward and I'm not giving up, you know. And I've had a very unique opportunity in selling personal protection dogs for the last 15 years also to high net worth individuals where just kind of along the way I've. And it was a completely unintended consequence, something that I didn't even realize was happening until several years into it.
But a lot of the lessons learned and strategies that I applied to business I really picked up from customers.
I have sell a handful of dogs every year for 15 years. It's a pretty decent rollout Rolodex of very powerful, very successful individuals who have a lot of experience and a ton of wisdom. And it's such a unique business transaction. It's really unlike anything else in that, you know, especially for people that are in that high net worth kind of category. You know, they have their houses remodeled, they have staff, they have maids, they have nannies, they have, you know, groundskeepers, they have assistants that live with them, personal chefs. I mean, you name people that are in their house, see their day to day intimacy kind of stuff. But the big difference between all of those people and the dog is that, you know, I'm adding a family member. So the amount of trust that they have to basically just hand over to you is that you're putting a dog who, you know is a family member who also is, is potentially dangerous to their children.
You got to trust somebody pretty significantly to allow them to do that. But you're also seeing these people, you know, unlike say, remodeling somebody's house, like, yeah, you're in these people's Bedrooms and their kitchens and what have you, but not while they're there. You're not interacting with them. You know, so now it's like, I'm teaching their kids, I'm interacting with their kids, I'm teaching them, I'm teaching their wives how to handle the dog, what to do, what not to do. And, you know, you're seeing these people when they first wake up in the morning or when they're putting their children to bed. It's like it's such an intimate transaction that there's a lot of trust that's built very quickly. Yep. So in that same vein, you know, inherently, they're all business guys. They love the game of it. And so, you know, as we're going through the turnover process, a lot of the discussion kind of in between teaching, you know, what I'm trying to turn over to them, it's, you know, so tell me about your business. You know, what do you do? What are your goals? What do you want? You know, and after 15 years of that, you know, you glean some, some pretty significant insight as to what works, what doesn't work, what the parallels are the commonalities of people who are successful versus versus not. And I would say that's the biggest parallel between, you know, seal teams or special operations and super successful entrepreneurs is that they just will not quit. You know, every one of them, you know, has gone through bankrupt, multiple bankruptcies. They've been in positions where they're putting their, their power bill on a fucking credit card. Yep. You know, to, to try to survive. And this is 10 years into it after they've owned three businesses that made millions of dollars and then they lost everything. You know, and these are guys that just, you know, it's like quitting and failing isn't an option, or, you know, failing is just a pivot. It's not a finality, you know, and so, you know, reaffirming that mindset as being one that's really necessary and crucial for being a successful entrepreneur, coupled with really, really intelligent and wisdom and experience driven ideologies and strategies to approaching business and realizing that there isn't really a playbook to it, which is. Is what I find probably the most enjoyable and fascinating about entrepreneurship, is that, you know, all of that burden rests on my shoulders, which, while stressful, there's nothing more rewarding than when you're the guy that has to make the decisions and you're the zero or the hero and you make it.
[01:19:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's exciting.
[01:19:33] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and it's There's a lot of adrenaline, and I think that's where a lot of law enforcement and military vets struggle is when they stop doing that and they do something really mundane that's not exciting. It's depressing. You know, you go from, you know, having your life on the line day in, day out to, you know, pushing papers, selling health insurance or whatever, and.
[01:19:55] Speaker B: Right.
[01:19:56] Speaker A: That's hard for a lot of guys, understandably. And so the neat thing about this is it replaces that, that itch and, and desire to have. Exciting, exhilarating, a lot of shit on the line, lots of pressure that I have to perform under. I still get to experience that and different risk. Yeah, but I, you know, I'm one of the types of people that, like, I need that to a certain extent. You know, obviously there's an unhealthy degree of it, but.
But yeah, so I guess kind of circling back to the question is that it was a combination of those things. You know, the wisdom and guidance that I've gotten from some amazing entrepreneurs along the way that have been clients of mine, coupled with, you know, spending from 18 to 30 in the SEAL teams is a pretty unique and beneficial time to, to be around, you know, a couple hundred seasoned combat veterans who are really showing you how to be a man and be a, an accountable performer. And, you know, so all those things combined, it's just kind of the perfect storm for. For success. And so I, I will say, you know, I, I owe any successes that I've had to a lot of people. You know, I've had a lot of help along the way with, whether it's really incredible teams that, that I've been fortunate enough to have around me, or people who have given me really, really sage advice and guidance to be able to navigate some of the uncertainties of business that I really just didn't know how to handle. So definitely wouldn't be here without both of those things at a. At a high, high degree.
[01:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Being humble and curious is, are some, some great attributes that you have also that a lot of people lack.
[01:21:41] Speaker A: No, I appreciate it.
[01:21:42] Speaker B: So. And so I remember when, you know, we, we started doing our security thing. It was a different aspect of it when you're doing private wealth protection. And so everybody that was fascinated with the business was like, oh, man, you know, must be in all this EP training and you're doing all this stuff. You know, I'm like, no, I'm trying to figure out how to run a business. Like, I'm. My, my level of study is Completely in a different area that, that most people would think.
[01:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:22:09] Speaker B: Did you find yourself doing that because you obviously had to train yourself how to be really great at training dogs also?
[01:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:22:16] Speaker B: But then once that's over, did you find yourself just diving into books and talking to people to learn business more, more than anything else or.
[01:22:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, sort of, I guess I would say, you know, the. Just like with a lot of things, maybe even most things in life, you know, with dog training, you, you really never stop learning. You know, it's kind of like jiu jitsu in a way in that the, the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know.
You know, there is a, I think a.
Not a breaking point, but a happy medium where you, you kind of feel like you at least have it figured out where you're good enough to. Where you don't feel like you're an imposter, you know, or like, I'm in over my head, I don't know what I'm doing. You know, like, there's certainly for years feeling that way, like, man, I don't know what I'm doing. Not as a business owner. I mean, again, because I grew up with it and spent years as a hobbyist first. I mean, like, I wouldn't have started the business if I wasn't at that point, even then of feeling like I understand it enough to where I feel comfortable putting my, my family on the line, you know, I'm not going to do that haphazardly. So. But even then it's like I still continue to learn even, even now, you know, certainly not at the same learning curve as I did in the first five or six years. But, but, you know, every dog I train, I learned something, you know, and so it's more paralleled than it is like, oh, I'm not really focused on dog training from a specific standpoint. And now I'm hyper focused on business. You know, I put myself in a tough position where I didn't really have a choice. I had to do both, you know, because you're still having to, to train dogs and put on seminars and work with police departments or military units. When I went out, you know, my company that I started, I got the training contract for the West Coast Multi Purpose Canine, you know, SEAL program. And so, you know, going out there similarly, it's like, you know, you're not taking your foot off the gas as a trainer out there, you know, but still having to do business development and contract bids and website design and, you know, answering calls with, you know, potential clients, customers, whether it's government or private, you know, so the first several years, I mean, I was the kennel master, the kennel hand, the ranch hand, the landscaper, the business development guy, the social media guy, the, I mean, account secretary, I mean, the accountant. I was, I did everything.
[01:24:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:24:42] Speaker A: And it was tough, you know, but I'm, I'm glad that I did that. And you know, I mean, not to piss on anybody who, you know, gets handed a better opportunity where they have a big investor that, you know, dumps a ton of money and kind of shows in the ropes. I mean, even, you know, I had, you know, some of that early on that it ended up biting me in the ass more than it helped. But, but it was still a good learning experience. And.
But, you know, the thing that I would say is it's kind of like, I think, to be a successful entrepreneur. I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I would say that it's enormously beneficial to have been in every step of the process and, and have done everything that you're going to be hiring somebody to do at a level to where you're going to know whether or not they're good at their job or not or good enough to, to stay on. And I think it's kind of like, you know, bringing you or I to manage McDonald's when we've not been the fry guy. Didn't, you know, we haven't done any of those jobs. Like, you need to know every job that you have within your umbrella of your, your business or businesses, at least to a high enough degree to where you, you know, if somebody's cutting the mustard or not.
[01:25:58] Speaker B: Not to mention the lack of respect you get right. When you try to hire somebody, tell them what to do, and they know damn well you have no idea.
[01:26:04] Speaker A: Yeah. What their parents to do. Yeah. So.
So it was beneficial in that regard. And so, you know, as I continued to, to learn dog training wise and again, even to this day, still continue to try to hone my skills, you know, that the business aspect, you know, was, was really drinking from a fire hose for the first several years. And I made plenty of mistakes. You know, looking back on it, I still wouldn't change anything because I know what I know now because of the struggle. And I know I wouldn't appreciate where I'm at now near as much if I hadn't struggled the way that I did for a number of years. And it certainly wasn't an overnight thing.
Like I said, I've been doing it since 09, 16 years come August this year.
And I'd say really for the first 10, it wasn't until about 10 years into where I really felt like, okay, I think I have this thing figured out, you know, a business wise, you know, dog training wise, like I said.
[01:27:06] Speaker B: I kind of feel like the business is stable at the very least.
[01:27:09] Speaker A: Yeah. To where it's like, okay, I, you know, I got a good handle on things and, and kind of no matter what happens, we'll be able to figure it out, you know.
[01:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Great feeling though.
[01:27:18] Speaker A: It is. I mean, and it's life changing, you know, because the, the stress that when, you know, when you have a family who's dependent on you succeeding and, and you know, you're kind of going all in.
And especially going from such a disparity of where I came from. I did spend about nine or ten months as a company man for ExxonMobil right when I first got out, just as a springboard out to start the dog business. But it was basically like the military in terms of safety, security, benefits, you know, longevity, etc. So to go from being heavily micromanaged, you know, where everything is dictated and you know, you know, your paycheck is this and you're going to get it on this day and you know, here's the expectation, you know, everything you're told, everything that you need to do and what you're responsible for to where now there's a complete absence of that. It is a huge kind of slap in the face almost, or a wake up call of like, holy, like, I'm at the helm for all this stuff and like, yeah, I can take off whatever it is I want and I make my own schedule. And you know, that's, I think, kind of the funny paradigm shift that a lot of people see. And like, you can take whatever. It's like, yeah, you can, but you won't. But, you know, owning a business is like doing prison laundry. You never run out of things to do. Like, and that's one of my favorite movie scenes of all time as it relates to the entrepreneurship is it's of all movies American History X where Edward Norton is in prison and he's kind of shooting the. With this black guy. And it's a weird scenario to begin with because you have this, you know, skinhead and this black guy like being friendly with each other. But, you know, Edward Norton is getting all frustrated of trying to fold laundry and get it done faster and whatever. And the other guy's like, dude, chill the out. Like, it's not going anywhere. Like, no matter how much you do, they're just gonna drop another load in your, in your table. So just chill out and go through the process and, and whatever. And I think is as dumb or, you know, simple as that may sound, there's a lot to that, you know, being an entrepreneur and, you know, especially even now, I mean, I've had people like, dude, take a vacation. And you know, I have taken some vacations over the years, but it's difficult for me to do that. It's easier now because I have very capable, brilliant teams. I mean, I have, you know, I have five businesses and each one of them are their own entity, but they're synergistic. And so, you know, I do have some employees that wear different hats for more than one business, but each business has, you know, its own set of employees that, that, you know, manage certain things for me. And, you know, so because of that, I can now take some time and whatever some of it is having kids at home still, you know, when, when I no longer have kids at home, that will be a chapter turn also in that regard will be easier to travel and kind of take some time for me. But, but the point I'm trying to make is that especially early on, you know, when you're several years into being an entrepreneur and you're burning it at both ends, you're super stressed out and people can tell, you know, your own family's like, dude, you gotta throttle back a little bit. This isn't sustainable. And you're like, I don't have a choice. You know that 0 to 50 is not the same from 50 to 100. You know, 0 to 50 is a kick in the nuts all day, every day, and you don't get to take a break. And I couldn't. I wouldn't want to. You know, it's like, even if somebody paid for me to go on a vacation, I'd be a basket case the entire time, staring at my phone, wondering what's not getting done and how far behind I'm going to be when I get back. And, you know, and so, you know, you hear that a lot, I think, on social media with, you know, some of the Tony Robbins types of, you know, entrepreneurship conferences and stuff, and talking about life, you know, life, work, balance. And there isn't any at first, you know, I don't, I don't know how you could make it if you're starting from nothing and kind of the guy doing it without A lot of help. Even with a lot of help, you know, it's. It's difficult. So.
[01:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And I, you know, I remember my, you know, my first catastrophic. Catastrophic event at work happened when I took my first vacation in year five.
[01:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so, you know, you can imagine. Okay, I'm swearing off vacations again too, you know, so everything falls apart. Of course, Murphy's always around somewhere.
[01:31:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:31:40] Speaker B: So before we get off of the dog stuff, what is something that is potentially untapped? Because I've heard you talk about the extraordinary abilities that dogs have and, and you've leveraged them for different things. You may have your specialty, but is there something out there that's been untapped in terms of something that somebody could do with dogs that hasn't really been leveraged yet?
[01:32:02] Speaker A: I mean, there's nothing that comes to mind that hasn't been leveraged yet at all. I would say that there are some detection capabilities that I don't think have been leveraged near to the degree with which they could on a large enough scale to where it's super impactful.
I do need to be careful in how in depth I get into what those are because of the national security implications of if you know some of the techniques that I'm talking about, doing it would give you insight as to how to try to defeat them. So I'll navigated in this way where I will say that from a detection standpoint, there are, I believe, some brilliantly developed detection capabilities that, that enable dogs to search, we'll say, like container ships from overseas, shipping an amount or a volume of them. That, that would boggle your mind.
I won't get into how that's done. But that, that's the thing that comes to mind the most, I think.
And a secondary one which is. I've actually talked about this on 60 Minutes 15 years ago. But the way to use choke points, funneling and cordoned off areas in association with.
I think, I think that there's. It's actually a patented term now which is vapor wake, which. So maybe I shouldn't even use it. Whatever. The gist of it is air scenting for explosive detection, target odor and then sourcing it with a moving target. So let's say somebody carrying a pressure cooker bomb in a backpack training dogs to locate somebody who's walking as opposed to it's planted in a trash can by the door or whatever. So a lot of similarities in training wise, obviously, as anybody can imagine, that does anything with dogs. There are Some, some differences. But anyway, my point is, is that specifically as it relates to like the Boston bombing, because when I was on 60 Minutes, it was right after that happened. And so they actually flew me into New York to do an interview on how did this happen, how could we prevent it in the future. And I talk about using that type of air sensing explosive detection training technology, which it's been around a long time, but basically like let's say you have, we'll say the super bowl since it's coming up.
So you use a buffer zone where you cordon off the area around it far enough to where if it's a vehicle born or a foot, you know, human foot traffic born, ied, that it's not close enough to affect the inside of the event, whatever that safe blast distance is, you've got a cordoned off area around it entirely. Now that's sealed and you have choke points, however many you can man going in and out. And everybody that goes in or out has to go through these, monitor that.
[01:35:13] Speaker B: Ingress egress or limit it to where it's not so porous. Right.
[01:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you're putting these air scenting explosive detection dogs at those locations so that anybody who's carrying anything, they're going to pick up that odor trail, it locate source long before they could detonate something.
[01:35:28] Speaker B: And.
[01:35:29] Speaker A: Right. And that needs to be done several days in advance. So once, you know, once it's cordoned off, you sweep the entire thing with a team of explosive detection dogs, EOD professionals. Okay, it's cordoned off. We can with relative certainty guarantee that the interior of that is, is safe. Now anybody coming or going is going to be, you know, air scented by explosion of detector dogs.
[01:35:52] Speaker B: And so is it a numbers game still? It seems like I, my perception of it is, it seems underutilized even for the, the general intention, you know, whether it's narc dogs or bomb dogs or whatever. It seems like there's just so few of them within each division or department or whatever.
[01:36:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, because the, here's the tough reality is that, you know, if you take law enforcement, which is overwhelmingly going to be the, the tasked personnel to execute things like that, you know, how often are they doing explosive sweeps? Never, you know, unless the President's coming in and Secret Service says, hey, we need augment, you know, we're doing a.
[01:36:34] Speaker B: Big area special events.
[01:36:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, even big police departments usually, you know, they may have a couple of bomb dogs, but they're going to have, you know, 40 narcotics dogs. Because what's happening while they're running dogs on cars all day long and in schools and, you know, meth houses and whatever. And so the bulk of law enforcement from a state, local and even federal municipality standpoint is primarily narcotics detection. Now to your question. Yes, it's a numbers game. That's a big part of it. I think the solution is having a federally funded mobile task force that does that, you know, that basically you're in charge of doing events. You know, I would kind of T and E it with that and then say, okay, now let's kick it down to the state level where each state now has a unit that, that's what they do. Right. So you've got a federal unit that maybe has a handful of independent groups that can go do that for any given event, that writes the playbook, sets the tone and protocols for now, your SOPs and all. Yeah. And then that trickles down to now every state depending on state, you know, California, Texas, New York maybe would need more than one, one unit, you know, but then that way the states have some skin in the game and, and that's how you're going to increase your numbers. The nice thing about those dogs too is they don't have to be pointy eared bite dogs. They can be labs, retrievers, springer spaniels, padded ales, you name it.
And so your ability to have those kind of numbers is drastically increased. Whereas if you're saying this dog needs to be a dual purpose bite and detection dog, the number of dogs that have the genetics for that high level of detection work and that high level of apprehension work, those are hard to find. There aren't tens of thousands of those on the planet. You know, there's not even, I mean, there's thousands, but not tens of thousands, you know, and those thousands need to be on the street with law enforcement and in special operations and military units and such. So if you're just doing explosive detection, you can use any dog that would pass that selection criteria for a detector dog, which, there's lots of those. I mean, I've actually pulled dogs out of pounds that have gone and worked for TSA for airport bomb dog security. Not a bunch of them, but a few of them.
[01:38:48] Speaker B: That's cool.
[01:38:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:38:49] Speaker B: So cool story.
[01:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, to me, like, they, they're out there, you know, usually the dog that's a total pain in the ass as a pet and gets surrendered to a shelter because he just has too much drive and, and his nose is on the ground like an anteater all the time.
[01:39:05] Speaker B: Something out of the Jeep off the bridge into the ocean.
[01:39:07] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[01:39:08] Speaker B: So, yeah, so I, I'll pivot a little bit and I know your, your time is limited too, so I want to make sure I cover. I'm curious about your thoughts on the new generation of people and how it affects military training and the amount of discipline it takes leads into entrepreneurship, leads into AI.
And not to be critical of new generation because it's just so entirely different that it's difficult for each generation to understand the next. And we all have shortcomings with each new generation anyway. But it seems like the generation since you have daughters and you know, you grow up getting instant answers to things you, you know, we used to. My son said if something, he put it perfectly. It was like I have a, some kind of a blissful ignorance to what I could accomplish so that I could follow my dreams and have this vision of what I could become. Because I haven't seen, you know, if I wanted to be the, you know, on stage with this famous band, that's great. But if I'd saw, If I see 8, 10 year olds outplaying me, then I'm discouraged all of a sudden. And these kids see this every single day, what they can and can't do. So they grow up differently and the work life balance. One of the other guests, when you talk about powers that was here, you're interviewing people and they talk about work life balance in their first month. So there's just a different idea of how work needs to be accomplished. And yet we know some of those old school standards that you're describing that you came up through are part of a necessity of life. And there needs to be some kind of collaboration. So how do you, how do you square all that in, in terms of raising people in this generation? Do you feel like you've learned a lot about how that is and how can we bend to accommodate that? Or do you think it just has to be more. This has to be an old school. Somebody has to jump back to a previous generation and go back to swing the pendulum in order to have success.
[01:41:14] Speaker A: I'm actually, and this may surprise people, they.
I'm actually very encouraged by subsequent generations for two reasons. One is going back to what makes SEAL candidates successful.
I think that, you know, the, the type of people who are driven and proactive and self starters and whatever. I, I think it's largely genetic.
And this isn't a nature versus nurture. It's more of a, it's a they complement each other and that, you know what? One of the biggest things I've learned in, in both dog training and in special operations is that, you know, you'll be able to relate to this more than most people that I explain this to. But genetics are the amplifier, right? So say you have a, a 5 watt amp or a 200 watt amp, right. The power that you have in that amp is what it is, right. The equalizer. Right. So the, the power, the wattage of the amp is, is nature.
Nurture is the equalizer. You know, those are the sliders that you're adjusting tone and gain and mid and bass and whatever and, and, and that you have control over, right? You don't have control over the wattage. It's fixed.
[01:42:26] Speaker B: Right.
[01:42:27] Speaker A: And so with every individual and dog like you're always going to be limited by their genetic potential, no matter what. Right? No amount of training is going to exceed somebody's genetic potential.
And just like there's only so many people that have all the characteristics that have what it takes to be a Navy Seal or any other special operations or high level first responder, there are only so many people that have all the characteristics that are genetically woven into their code that are going to allow them to be entrepreneurs. And I think because technology has advanced so much over the last two decades and you and I really can't even try to comprehend what it would be like growing up now versus when we did. I don't think it's even beneficial to try or to really even make comparisons. And it's really more about, you know, figuring out how the game works now and being encouraging and you know, instead of, and I'll be the first one to admit I've been guilty of this for a long time. Until fairly recently of back in my day, you know, the.
Was the Clint Eastwood movie where he's.
[01:43:37] Speaker B: The old, oh yeah, get off my lawn.
[01:43:39] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever. I can't remember the name of the Torino. Yeah, yeah. Being that kind of just salty old grumpy that, you know, says you guys are, you know, whatever. There's of course some of that when you see kids doing the dumb that they do. But rest assured, the generation ahead of us thought the same thing about us. They saw us in the 90s with, you know, pink hair and grunge haircuts and lip rings and riding skateboards. They're like, dude, our world is doomed.
[01:44:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we just didn't get recorded fortunately.
[01:44:08] Speaker A: Right. You know, but you know, we, I think we, we did all right. And I think they'll do all right. You know, and I think one of the nice things and, and for me an encouraging thing about Mother Nature is I think she has a way of, of self correcting as necessary. And I think you even see that in, in our society culturally right now you're seeing a, a kind of rebranding of, of you know, what people want and the, and, and values that they want instilled in their families and, and things of that nature. And it ebbs and flows and it roller coasters up and down a little bit, you know, but I, I think that, you know, there's some brilliant young gen, Gen X or Gen zers and I don't even know what the next one is but you know, millennials, Gen X or Gen Z. Is there another one yet?
[01:44:57] Speaker B: I don't know.
[01:44:58] Speaker A: What is Alpha? Alpha?
[01:45:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:45:00] Speaker A: I mean that's maybe a bit of a misnomer. I don't know they should be called Alpha, but I say that jokingly, but.
[01:45:07] Speaker B: I was gonna say you just undid everything you just said.
[01:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, obviously it's in jest, but, but no, the, I am encouraged by, you know, there's a lot of innovation and there's some very brilliant young minds out there that, that, that kind of, that same like thinking outside the box with E commerce and AI and you know, things that I think we don't understand to the degree that they do are able to take advantage of some of these new technologies and, and I think it's an exciting time for humanity. I think you got to be careful. But I'm not worried about it and I, I don't view it as like all hope is lost and, and as a species that we're spiraling the drain. I really don't think that, you know.
[01:45:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm glad to hear that too. Like I said it, I mean because it inevitably we have to figure out how to coexist and be encouraging, you know. You know, because we're all still part of the same group.
[01:46:04] Speaker A: But to be clear, I do think some people still need their ass kicked and there is a time and a place for that. You know, pain is a universal language and sometimes that's the only one people understand. I don't think it's, it should, you should default to that.
You know, I think setting, just like with dog training, setting up an environment where it's easy for the next generation, kids, dogs, whatever, to learn and do the things that you want them to learn and do and then positively reinforcing that should be the majority of, of the Interaction.
The analogy I like to use in dog training is, you know, with young kids, it's like if you're trying to teach a child algebra and you put a book down and, and ask them to, you know, work out a few problems and they get them wrong and you smack them, you know, how likely are they to, to learn that material in a way where it's beneficial and it's deep seated and it's positive and, and they can go far with it if they're basically trying to do it to avoid being punished. Right. It's not a very, it's not a very ideal learning environment, you know, so whereas in the transverse, if they get something right, they get a donut or they get to play on their iPad or you know, whatever it is, they're going to be motivated and incentivized to learn. Now the caveat is if you put the book down or let's say you say, you know, hey Johnny, I need you to clean up your room. You dad now you need your ass kicked. There needs to be a consequence for that, you know, but to me that, that's the, the balance is that, you know, when, when you're, when somebody's pushing boundaries, super disrespectful or even to a dangerous degree out, out in society, then I do think consequences matter. And, and you know, in dog training there's the, the pure positive trainers that only do positive reinforcement. They do no positive punishment. They, they don't even withhold rewards. You know, it's, it's only, you know, when the dog does what I want, it gets, gets rewarded. And I think it's a flawed system for most dogs. I think there are anomaly dogs out there that you can get away with with that. But if you have a young, driven, you know, a personality dog that's very capable, there has to be a balance. And it's, it's the yin yang. And you know, the, the idea of good without the presence of bad doesn't really work. You know, if all you eat is ice cream and steak, that's going to get old after a while and, and same kind of thing. It's like good isn't really good without the context of bad. So, you know, not to get too far off on a tangent, but I do think that that relates because there is an element of keeping our society capable that, that I, I do think there needs to be some more consequences than there are. I didn't try to just do a basic instinct moment with my leg crossed there, but probably looked like it. I Was trying not to hit the mic camera. No, I mean throw it in there. I think it adds for the comedic value maybe, but, but just don't put.
[01:49:01] Speaker B: On my face because I didn't want, if I got caught looking, I don't want to be in that position.
[01:49:04] Speaker A: Meat gazer.
[01:49:07] Speaker B: All right, so some random questions, some quick ones. One, you're a serious dude, but you're inquisitive. What cracks you up? Because I would love to know you.
[01:49:16] Speaker A: The office type of humor.
[01:49:18] Speaker B: All right.
[01:49:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean to me like I can't think of a more brilliant, brilliantly written show that, that I think is actually a good litmus test for whether or not I'm going to get along with somebody is if they understand, appreciate and love that type of humor, we're probably going to get along well. If they watch it and they're like, I don't get it, I can almost guarantee you we're not going to hang out. Yeah. Just plain and simple, you know. But I think types of comedy and the different types of comedy says a lot about, you know, your personality and not in a bad way. Like I'm not clowning people that don't like the office. I just, you know, in terms of who I'm going to probably get along with. I, I love sarcasm. Really Dry sarcasm. I think it's kind of a Midwest thing. My dad is, is masterful at total smart ass dry sarcasm that if you didn't know it you'd be like the, is his problem but he's not serious like ever. You know it. So I, I just love that, that type of, type of humor.
[01:50:18] Speaker B: More of a sophisticated awkward.
[01:50:20] Speaker A: Yeah like you know, the super low brow obvious dumb entertainment stuff isn't really my, my bag. I like the, the more kind of intellectual. You kind of have to know. Dennis Miller I think is another good example of, I mean even. There's plenty of times where he'll say something. I'm just like dude, I don't even know what the he's talking about, you know. But I think that kind of educated humor is, is, is fun.
[01:50:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's more fun. I think I always like comedians that use you that you can't emulate.
[01:50:48] Speaker A: Right.
[01:50:49] Speaker B: If you just say dude, I'm not even gonna tell you why it's funny. You just have to check it out because there's no way I could do it justice as opposed to a joke teller or something.
[01:50:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:50:58] Speaker B: And then what kind of music? And we touched on this a little bit but obviously I'm a music Guy, I was a musician before I cut all my hair off and yeah, did the police work stuff.
[01:51:07] Speaker A: We got a picture of you with long hair. Do you have any of those?
[01:51:09] Speaker B: Oh, I do. I've got some.
[01:51:11] Speaker A: I'd love to see that.
For me, pretty much everything except most country and, and this may unpleasantly surprise people, actually, of the country that I can stand, it's more of the pop shitty country that most people that like classic country hate. And I don't like much of it. You know, there's a handful of like Chris Stapleton songs, which, not that he's pop country, he's kind of an anomaly in, in, in today's day and age, but just some of that, like Sugar Land, you know, type of catchy, you know, a couple Jason Aldean. So, you know, like, again, I know that a lot of people who are purists in the country, like, they, they absolutely abhor that type of music. But most country, I just, I just don't like it. Especially kind of the old school traditional stuff that the purists would like. I, I find it, but for me just very depressing and not enjoyable. Like, I just, I can appreciate the talent, but I just, I like music that, that like kind of from a dopamine standpoint, spikes it as opposed to brings it down. And so really anything that has that effect that really like just gets you going, whether it's, I mean, most of it, I would say, is heavy metal, hard rock, you know, the, the 90s, heavy metal is, is a huge genre I'm into and have been ever since. But even some of the 80s hair bands I definitely like. And some of the 70s, more classic rock and roll, Led Zeppelin type stuff, I even re. I really love classical music. I've got to be in a certain mood for it, but like, I'm not going to lift to classical music. But.
[01:52:54] Speaker B: So you're describing kind of gym music really, right? Yeah, something that just kind of gets you.
[01:52:58] Speaker A: Yeah, for the most part. Even, you know, hip hop or gangster rap, some of the older stuff, I, I do find myself being kind of irritated by some of the, in the last really better part of 10 years almost. It feels like some of the newer rap stuff to me doesn't seem as talented. It probably is and maybe it's just me getting older, but when I listen to, you know, like back in the day, guys like, like, you know, rock him or you know, Iced Tea and Ice Cube or you know, even NWA or like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg back in the 90s, like I like that kind of. Kind of hip hop. I guess some of the stuff nowadays seems more like breathy and kind of a hybrid between R B a little bit, and I just find it kind of irritating. But what else?
No, I guess I'm not really into jazz either.
Some of it I. I appreciate the talent, but most of it. And this maybe is a reflection of a sliver of ocd maybe I have. I find jazz irritating.
[01:54:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:54:09] Speaker A: In some ways it's like. Then there's actually a funny line since we were talking about the Office where Angela somebody says, like, oh, it's stupid. She goes, no, you're not stupid. Jazz is stupid. Just play the right notes.
And I was like, holy, they got.
[01:54:25] Speaker B: That from Spinal Tap.
[01:54:26] Speaker A: Oh, did they? Yeah. Well, that's news to me.
[01:54:29] Speaker B: All the wrong notes.
[01:54:30] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, so to me, a little bit of off the cuff improv that way is cool.
[01:54:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:54:39] Speaker A: When it's so overdone to where it's like I can't even make sense of it, then that's when I don't like it.
[01:54:43] Speaker B: Yeah, everything has that. I think there's a point in any art where, you know, if you're really into it, you can get educated enough to where you can actually hear and understand it that, you know, high, high level musicians are just compelled to keep pushing, you know, boundaries and hearing other things. There's. There's people with some crazy ears that can just hear all kinds of stuff again. Yeah. I. I also plead interact on some of that stuff that sounds like noise that somebody can appreciate.
[01:55:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:55:11] Speaker B: So they can hear it.
[01:55:12] Speaker A: And I think, you know, the last, better part of 10 years of a lot of the rock and heavy metal stuff, to me, all sounds the same.
For that matter, even the band names are all kind of the same. Like, there's nothing really distinguishable about them. Whereas, you know, to be a teenager in the 90s. And to me, you know what. What is kind of the true mark of a great band is if it's on the radio and even if it's a song you've never heard by them within four or five seconds, you know who it is by. By the. The sound. And now it's like it's so overproduced and digitized and. And whatever. Is that it all kind of sounds the same to me.
[01:55:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:55:52] Speaker A: You know, Alice in Chains, you know. You know what they sound like? Nirvana. You know what they sound like? Soundgarden. You know what they sound like? Metallica, Pantera. It's like Van Halen. Yeah. It's Such a unique. And there's so much personality and, and kind of personal flavor to, to those bands.
[01:56:10] Speaker B: And they're kind of innovators too, that you're talking about too.
[01:56:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:56:12] Speaker B: Kind of moved the sound into a completely different direction.
[01:56:15] Speaker A: Y.
[01:56:16] Speaker B: That has been stagnant, you say, 10, 15 years, I'm thinking, and maybe 20 years, 25 years even. @ some point it just got.
[01:56:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:56:24] Speaker B: Really, really redundant.
[01:56:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the digitizations made a big difference because if you go back to.
I think what made all of those bands so unique was, was the largely the tone. Right. You know, from a guitar standpoint, you know, back then when you have a pedal board, like there's. There's obviously millions of. Of combinations that you can put into a system. Whether you have a Marshall or a Mega Boot, Mesa Boogie or you know, an Orange or, you know, whatever brand you're talking about, they have such distinct sounds. Now you can get a Spark and download any amp you want. I mean, there's thousands of combinations in one box that's this big with an app connected to it that you can make it sound. You.
[01:57:13] Speaker B: You'd think that would diversify it.
[01:57:14] Speaker A: You would think. But. But it, it tends to wash it out to all just end up sounding the same, you know. So I think that's part of it. I think that's where technology, for as awesome as it is in some ways and I think where. Where something like the Spark actually is beneficial is. Is maybe for more guys our age where I always wanted an orange cab with a, with an orange amp that distorts it like that British crunch, you know, awesome sound or the triple rectifier Mesa boogie. Just crazy 0mid, all bass and. And treble and you know, you're scooping the mids to the point where it's non existent and it has such a unique heavy metal sound and, and just you know, like to. To have that like you had to buy the whole setup.
[01:57:59] Speaker B: Right.
[01:57:59] Speaker A: So it's like if that's what you had, well, that's your sound.
[01:58:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Not to mention in your house, part of the, part of the whole sound is. I mean you can turn on a Marshall, but if you're playing it on one, it's still not. Right.
[01:58:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:58:10] Speaker B: So I mean, part of the sound is the overload, right.
[01:58:14] Speaker A: You know, and, and yeah, whether it's, you know, you're heavy on overdrive. I mean, whatever it is is that, you know, now it's like there's. It all just kind of ends up being the same, you know, which which sucks, you know, but I, you know, I'd be curious to know if, you know, guys in their early 20s now have favorite bands. You know, I mean, something as simple as buying CDs or even cassette tapes. And the album art, it's like, when was the last time you, you saw an album come out where you could look at a picture and know that it's that album? Yeah, I. It's been 30 years.
[01:58:52] Speaker B: Or we used to memorize all. I mean, we knew all the people in the band. Yeah. You know, this six piece band, you know who we knew the keyboard player was, because that's kind of what you.
[01:59:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:59:00] Speaker B: And that might be old Manish also, but I think, I think music is going to retroactivate a little bit. And I see a little bit of a movement now where guys are coming out saying, you know, hey, we just did this gig, you know, no click, just, you know, three dudes, you know, playing some blues or whatever. And there's kind of a beauty to that. And I think, you know, the pendulum swings a lot. Even though we're moving forward, it kind of. People start to appreciate because if you can, if you can create a tune without being able to play an instrument or even sing very well, then I think there's going to be a movement to support real musicians again. I hope so.
[01:59:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:59:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think at least a cult of us might have that appreciation.
[01:59:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:59:42] Speaker B: So you started playing guitar at what point?
[01:59:45] Speaker A: It was early, early high school years. Eight. Eight. Ninth grade.
You know, I wanted a guitar for years and my parents are not, not gonna get me one. So I mowed yards for a few summers and saved up enough money to go to a pawn shop and get a shitty beat up Fender Stratocaster and a little PV practice amp. And there's no YouTube at that time, didn't take any lessons. So I'm listening to songs that I liked and trying to figure them out. And sucked. And it took forever to learn. You know, even basic like nirvanas like come as you are, you know, it takes a month to figure that out when you're, when you have no idea what you're doing.
[02:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:00:25] Speaker A: And you know, but that's. Yeah, that's how it started. And you know, I wouldn't really say I was in a garage band. I mean, there were two groups of guys that we kind of messed around with it a little bit, but only really played a handful of times together. And we were horrible to the point where we didn't even want to keep going, you know, so except the drummer. The drummer was phenomenal. And he, I think, is a. Is a professional musician.
[02:00:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's great.
[02:00:53] Speaker A: But yeah, he was so far ahead of us. It was just like, dude, what are you doing here? Like, go somewhere else where the guys that you're playing with are going to be, you know, closer to your caliber because this isn't that group.
[02:01:05] Speaker B: So you still play around. I saw a guitar in your studio, so you just.
[02:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still play around a little bit and. And you know, with the invent of YouTube that's made it pretty handy to learn songs that I've wanted to play or learn. And I still, you know, like, I can't read music.
You know, I don't know a bunch of scales acoustically. I'm not really a chord guy, you know, it's more electric and more like cool rhythm stuff that I like. The occasional partial solo that's easy enough for me to figure out.
So it's really just a hobby. It's not. I don't take it too serious.
[02:01:42] Speaker B: Well, that's the beauty of it. You need to do the parts you love and whatever. If you ever decided you wanted to learn how to read music, YouTube will still be there.
[02:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I still enjoy doing it. I have one at the studio. I have one in my house and, you know, I'll pick it up, you know, once in a while and just mess around on it and have fun and. Yeah, I still definitely enjoy it. But, you know, whether or not I would, would maybe at some point in the next few years when things settle down a little bit, personally and professionally, kids, business wise, then maybe I would put a little more time into getting better at it. I could see myself doing that maybe. Cool, that'd be great.
[02:02:20] Speaker B: Let me know when you do. I will check out anything you do.
[02:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I appreciate it if you had to pick one amp, right? And not a spark, a traditional tube amp that is there one amp that you would then.
[02:02:31] Speaker B: Well, the only one that I bought was that Marshall, because I just have. And you know, I. I'm not a good enough guitar player to really justify having a bunch of amps either. You know, I was, you know, I was a musician by profession, but was a studied drummer and learned keys because I went to school for music and stuff like that. And then once, once I got older and started getting back into music and realized that even old people, the singer is still going to show up three hours late for a session. And I just said, screw it. So then I started teaching myself the rest of the stuff. So it, like. Like you. It might take me five times as long to complete a tune, but now I'm just writing and recording my own tune, so that's cool. I always wanted that Marshall sound, and I thought it would be, you know, that's just the. The ideal sound. But I also have a great appreciation for what a Les Paul sounds like versus the Strat. But I think the Strat kind of gives me a little bit more of that funky option. And I still have the, you know, the DAW with all the, you know, different plugins and stuff. So again, I. I have the Marshall, and that's. That's what I'd say. I, you know, just have that Infinity Tour. But I'm. I'm older, too, so if those marshals were. Were all the rage, you know, coming in through that mid and late 70s, from the WHO and, you know, Kiss to Van Halen, before he got his own EVH51, too. Yeah. You know, but he. Even. He was starting out in Marshalls, and just, you know, the walls of sound that he had in those late 70s were just fascinating to me.
[02:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[02:04:00] Speaker B: So, all right. Was there anything that you're working on that you wanted to bring up? Mention that anybody?
[02:04:05] Speaker A: I mean, really just. I mean, it's all the same stuff that I've been working on. There's nothing new coming down the pipe. You know, obviously, the Mic Drop podcast, I've been putting a little more time and effort into just trying to be a little more consistent with it.
[02:04:19] Speaker B: It's really successful something, right?
[02:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, guest selection is. Is everything, you know, and I think, you know, that's really what sets the. The stage for quality content or not, is having people with good stories who are engaging, charismatic, good storytellers and that people want to listen to. You know, I mean, that's what makes a podcast good or not good, I think. You know, but so there's that. There's the team dog online training, the team dog food treat supplements. Those two are things I continue to work on, especially the dog food is something we're going into our fourth year and that a lot of things are kind of transitioning into that being the main, main focus from a big business standpoint.
Then I have obviously, the Warrior Dog foundation that I still oversee and. And is on my. My property and, you know, kind of handle all that, and then the personal protection dog. So it's still all the same stuff I've been doing, and I'll just continue to. To Keep doing that until I either don't have to or don't like to or maybe both. And. And yeah, just kind of continuing.
[02:05:32] Speaker B: Well, I'll, I'll link all that stuff. So obviously we have all that kind of stuff, so, you know, hopefully our audiences are, are different. I'm fairly certain they are, which is why I think it's great, you know, and I appreciate you. I know you're a great storyteller as well and have a lot more than we could cover in a couple hours to talk about. So I appreciate you being able to bend and not break and not be able to just spit the acronyms and look across the room at somebody with a quizzical look on their face.
[02:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
In the same vein, I appreciate you having me on because I've done enough other shows where it's so hyper focused on SEAL training and my experience in that. And a little bit of it is cool, I think, especially when it's tied into other stuff. But I, of course, for me it's very refreshing and enjoyable to do one where it's not just so hyper focused on like the in the weeds military stuff. You know, we've just already done so much of it, so it's nice to answer other.
[02:06:27] Speaker B: Well, I know there's a lot more to you, so hopefully not really. We learned a little bit more.
[02:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pretty simple.
[02:06:32] Speaker B: All right. Well, you have, you have badass gifts, so this is the best I'm. That I can do because usually what I'll do is. And you're not too far from me, but. But usually a taste of footwear, so I know you're not a big time sipper, but you say you sip with your dad, so. Yeah, I'm going to give you two things, so.
[02:06:47] Speaker A: Oh, am I going to get in trouble on the way home with them.
[02:06:50] Speaker B: If you open them, so.
[02:06:54] Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's awesome.
[02:06:55] Speaker B: First one, the first one.
That's a Fort Worth company Blackland whiskey. And I don't know if you like Rise or not, but their rye is fantastic. They have a really unique taste.
[02:07:07] Speaker A: Awesome.
[02:07:07] Speaker B: And I don't know if they're going to be, you know, a big dog one day or not, but. But I really quite like them, so I'll give you that. And then the other one was actually a surprise because this one's for you and your dad.
[02:07:19] Speaker A: Oh, shit. Well, thank you. Yeah. There's a company called Templeton Rye that is right by where, where I grew up that's real popular. You can't go wrong with Blanton.
[02:07:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[02:07:27] Speaker A: So that's very kind.
[02:07:29] Speaker B: Take the horse and, you know, open that and share that with your dad, because I know hope, you know, maybe it'll last a long time, because I.
[02:07:35] Speaker A: No, it for sure will. And it will definitely be enjoyed immensely between he and I, so I. That's very kind. Thank you very much. Yeah.
[02:07:42] Speaker B: I appreciate you being here, brother.
[02:07:44] Speaker A: My pleasure. Awesome. I'll try not to dip into those on the way home, but please don't.
[02:07:50] Speaker B: What's it take? What you gonna do what you.
[02:07:58] Speaker A: And.
[02:07:58] Speaker B: Great rules a confidence make to make you do what they want when they.
[02:08:08] Speaker A: Won'T be the fool.
[02:08:11] Speaker B: A diplomatic base.
[02:08:13] Speaker A: Is the one to see it through.
[02:08:17] Speaker B: Don'T let those bigots take you off your game or just a lot of.
[02:08:20] Speaker A: News Sit here in the front seat.
[02:08:23] Speaker B: Baby, we eat Ain't that sweet? Take a little honey from the money be but don't pay the pool.
[02:08:32] Speaker A: An.
[02:08:33] Speaker B: A political magical potion A missing piece at the end of the game A slow roll see the truth and soul motion I never found a 60 fre like fire finding motion the truth lies between blurry lines if you're gonna call me back.
