Speaker 1: Oh, beat force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software A Gradio Special operations,
Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the community.
Speaker 1: All right, hey, everybody, welcome back to software AP Radio.
Speaker 1: We have a special guest in studio today, a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Comal robocon Comal has been a guest
Speaker 1: on the show before. For those of you that don't know,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't you would never guess by looking at Comal.
Speaker 1: You is an Army Army veteran of the tenth Mountain Division,
Speaker 1: went on to build Silicon Valley startups during the first
Speaker 1: dot com boom, and is now a venture capitalist and
Speaker 1: best selling author. Rebirth was his last novel, and he
Speaker 1: has since finished a rewrite expanded version of Love Yourself,
Speaker 1: which I just saw. The new cover looks amazing. And
Speaker 1: that book comes out January seventh, January seven, so look
Speaker 1: for that for pre order, and please please give that
Speaker 1: a purchase. The pre orders do matter for us, right
Speaker 1: And yeah, I didn't come all and I were out
Speaker 1: at dinner the other night and he had the idea
Speaker 1: to interview me, which is nice. At least I know
Speaker 1: it won't be too adversarial, I hope not. And then
Speaker 1: if you want to follow Kamal, which you should on
Speaker 1: his Instagram, it's Kamal Robiconte Kilo Alpha, Mike Alpha, Lima
Speaker 1: Romeo Alpha, Victor India Kilo Alpha, November Tango. Still still
Speaker 1: got it, man, I'm impressed. I was like in my
Speaker 1: head trying to do that while you were doing it.
Speaker 1: Still got the phonetic alphab but sometings you just can't.
Speaker 1: You can't know. And then before we kick it off,
Speaker 1: we've got our great Club Summer sale going on right now.
Speaker 1: So if you guys are interested, CEC Summer nineteen is
Speaker 1: a discount code for the software listeners, So check that
Speaker 1: out and without further ado, I'll turn it over to Kamal.
Speaker 1: All right, So the whole point of this was, you know, look,
Speaker 1: I've known you now, really we've been really close for
Speaker 1: about three years now, right, I've got to see very
Speaker 1: the human side of you, like the you know, like
Speaker 1: I know your kids, I'm close to your kids, and
Speaker 1: you know I advise your company. You know, we're going
Speaker 1: flying together if we've done some stupid things together, have
Speaker 1: some crazy drunken nights together, shoot a lot together, and
Speaker 1: you know, like you truly are a brother, like someone
Speaker 1: I know I could call in the middle of it,
Speaker 1: you know, from a Turkish prison, and I would know
Speaker 1: you would come get me. You know, there are very
Speaker 1: few people like that. I think in anyone's life. You
Speaker 1: can have a big group of friends, but the amount
Speaker 1: of friends that you can actually call In fact, there's
Speaker 1: a big You and I live in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Is that big yellow sinus says, you're the friends that
Speaker 1: you can call it for m are the ones that
Speaker 1: matter right for him? And the bucket, a lie and
Speaker 1: a shovel, you know, no questions. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: like so I've seen this, this whole side of you.
Speaker 1: And before I knew that, before I got to know
Speaker 1: the side of you, I need the public side of you.
Speaker 1: I thought'd be fun to share this side of you
Speaker 1: that I know to your listeners by actually learning more
Speaker 1: about you as a friend. You know, have you actually
Speaker 1: met which is a fun story, is we both have
Speaker 1: a close friend. In comment Tucker Max, he wrote this, uh,
Speaker 1: really funny books called assholes finish first and I hope
Speaker 1: this sir beer in Hell. Yeah, and he's he's a
Speaker 1: currently smart guy and these books are. But you know,
Speaker 1: he's like, look, man, I did in my twenties where
Speaker 1: every guy wishes he did, and I just wrote about it,
Speaker 1: and they're really funny books. And I told him I
Speaker 1: was gonna be spending time in New York and he said,
Speaker 1: I got I got a guy to for you to meet. You.
Speaker 1: Guys are getting a lot great. So he emailed intro
Speaker 1: it us and I remember you replied back, and I
Speaker 1: remember looking at your signature, Okay, Navy cel Flies Planes,
Speaker 1: best selling author. I'm like, god, God, this guy's gonna
Speaker 1: be full of himself. Like when I was like, gosh,
Speaker 1: sh it, like it's going to be one of those,
Speaker 1: you know. And and we met up for sushi when
Speaker 1: that this afternoon, Oh my god, you were anything. But
Speaker 1: I sometimes joke at you about your humility, you know,
Speaker 1: about who you are, what you've done, and who you are.
Speaker 1: And we just hit it off, and you know, then
Speaker 1: we bought it over some serious drunken nights. Do you
Speaker 1: remember some of them? Some of them when at the
Speaker 1: Bowery Hotel comes to mind where vanished, Oh my god, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I took a girl and vanished. It was so funny.
Speaker 1: We were at the Barie Hotel and these you have
Speaker 1: this thing that you have no fear, but it just
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. But like it's it's fun watching
Speaker 1: it with women. We'll be sitting there talking and then
Speaker 1: Thesese four beautiful women's in and Brand will just leave
Speaker 1: over talking to them. Next thing, you know, he's pulling
Speaker 1: out his phone and showing them photos of his plane
Speaker 1: and this and that. Next thing, they're all around us,
Speaker 1: and I remember we were like drinking and drinking, and
Speaker 1: usually it's not like they're like, yeah, whatever, buddy, like
Speaker 1: sure you have an airplane and fly a plane and
Speaker 1: like prove it to us. Oh, here we go next,
Speaker 1: and man, we were so drunk, and I remember, like,
Speaker 1: next thing, I know, I see you holding a girl's
Speaker 1: hand and stumbling like literally that's stumbling out keeping each
Speaker 1: other basically just steady as like, and you were gone.
Speaker 1: I was end up having to pick up the tag
Speaker 1: FI over that. And then that night it was a
Speaker 1: funny night friend, right we did, I mean, what little
Speaker 1: I do remember about that night after that moment, especially
Speaker 1: it was we we ended up going to my favorite
Speaker 1: cocktail bar in the city. It was Atta Boy, and man,
Speaker 1: that place is like a time suck you. You walked
Speaker 1: into the atta, boy, there's no light. It's like Vegas,
Speaker 1: you know. The time you walk out of there, like
Speaker 1: the sun is rising. What just happened to me? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And actually like thanks to you, you know, like I've
Speaker 1: gotten new um, like one of my favorite express in
Speaker 1: the world. You know, like just flying to the back
Speaker 1: seat in your in your planes. You know, just like
Speaker 1: dog fighting with you know, top gun instructors and current
Speaker 1: Navy pilots and so forth. You know, you're just just
Speaker 1: the kind of you know men you surround yourself with,
Speaker 1: you know, like I come from. You know, Army was
Speaker 1: a long time ago for me. I was a teen,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't you know, just years. And then
Speaker 1: I got out into college. So like my circle is
Speaker 1: more like all techys and Hilkon Valley people and so forth.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's great to be around men who
Speaker 1: have done who you know, who've been proving themselves, you
Speaker 1: know that don't sit there and bitch and moan about
Speaker 1: like you know, the latte being too cold or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I really enjoyed this. So anyway you write, I
Speaker 1: read Red Circle, which was amazing, and then but my
Speaker 1: my two favorite books have been actually amongst Heroes, which
Speaker 1: was such a great tribute, you know, to the men
Speaker 1: that you knew. I remember reading that just being blown away,
Speaker 1: like each person's story and who they were and we
Speaker 1: lost them, and it's like you just felt like you
Speaker 1: felt the loss when you read about these guys. And
Speaker 1: then my favorite book by you actually is The Killing School.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was like reading an action movie,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was running reading about the sniper program.
Speaker 1: So you were a kid living on a boat, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's very interesting you became a seal, so you
Speaker 1: already you know some seals I I've met. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know how to swim. You were at home in
Speaker 1: the water. What so, what was it? What did you
Speaker 1: grow up in a boat? I mean, my my dad
Speaker 1: came from some where, you know. It's like the apple
Speaker 1: doesn't fall far from the tree, right. My dad was
Speaker 1: really really good hockey player in Canada as a teenager.
Speaker 1: But kind of growing up in this sixties environment where
Speaker 1: everyone's kind of and look, I think every generation has
Speaker 1: their thing, right, Like now, it's it's easy for us
Speaker 1: to point to the millennials and try and blame everything
Speaker 1: on the millennial generation and all this this kind of
Speaker 1: social change is happening. But back in with my dad,
Speaker 1: he and my grandfather who lived lived to ninety past
Speaker 1: away last year's amazing, amazing guy, blue collar Canada, electric
Speaker 1: guy that became worked his way up to white collar,
Speaker 1: then became an entrepreneur, built a big mobile home resort
Speaker 1: community outside of Toronto, done really well for himself. But
Speaker 1: back then he's just this hardcore fifties kind of guy.
Speaker 1: And my dad wouldn't cut his hair, and he threw
Speaker 1: my dad out of the house. My dad went from
Speaker 1: Toronto to Malibu and lived in Malibu like burn and
Speaker 1: d of cards on, you know, on the weekends with
Speaker 1: his buddies in the sixties. Yeah, and ran a small
Speaker 1: landscaping business. Then was driving his I think it was
Speaker 1: a Chevy truck up to his place he end up living.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because he's was a landscaper and he was
Speaker 1: living in I forget some famous Hollywood person, I believe, guesthouse.
Speaker 1: It was like Kato Kala. He was living in this
Speaker 1: guesthouse running his business, you know, landscaping business, growing, god
Speaker 1: knows what else, you know, back in the sixties, and
Speaker 1: then met my mom and her best friend who were
Speaker 1: hitch hiking home to the valley, who were like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there was seventeen or eighteen at the time,
Speaker 1: you know. My dad was like probably nineteen twenty and
Speaker 1: he's like a year older my mom, but picked him
Speaker 1: up hitchhiking, end up getting my mom's phone number, had
Speaker 1: a relationship my mom, my grandmother. He's like, oh, come
Speaker 1: to Canada with me. Come to BC British Columbia, which
Speaker 1: is like interior BC. Whistler is interior of Vancouver, where
Speaker 1: I was born, was even more Cranbrook or Kimberly, British Columbia.
Speaker 1: It's like really like interior British Columbia, about a couple
Speaker 1: of hours from Banff National Park, really up in the
Speaker 1: mountains of the Millino where he was going up there
Speaker 1: because there was an opportunity. There's a big mining boom
Speaker 1: going on in construction boom, and so my grandma's a, well,
Speaker 1: you can't, You're not going anywhere with this guy, you know,
Speaker 1: unless you're married. So they got married and he moved
Speaker 1: my mom to kind of know where British Columbia, Canada.
Speaker 1: You kind of describe it as kind of like the
Speaker 1: Alaskan Frontier as kind of i'd put it. You're literally
Speaker 1: up in the mountains, streams, animals everywhere, and my dad
Speaker 1: end up getting into construction. But I'll do a quick
Speaker 1: sidebar because it's a it's a funny story. My dad
Speaker 1: before he got into construction and kind of self taught
Speaker 1: and learned all the different trades. He took a guiding job.
Speaker 1: He's not a hunter, and I remember he told me
Speaker 1: this story and that summer I have a picture I
Speaker 1: have to show you. He's at this hunting lodge in
Speaker 1: British Columbia and the guy put my He's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you want a job, Like these wealthy guys from like
Speaker 1: New York and everywhere else are coming here to hunt
Speaker 1: big elk and deer and bear and all some sorts
Speaker 1: of other stuff. And my dad's like, I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about it. He's like literally his first day on
Speaker 1: the job. As the guy's like here's the path. Just
Speaker 1: walk this path all day, camp here at night and
Speaker 1: you're gonna run into ship, like you're gonna see stuff.
Speaker 1: And my dad was like okay, and he was like sure.
Speaker 1: As ship he's walking down the path freaking big elk
Speaker 1: jumps out bear like everything. He sat there and these
Speaker 1: guys are like, you're the best guide to the world.
Speaker 1: My Dad's like total greenhorn, but he said that's how
Speaker 1: he kind of got to start. And he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would just I would just take him down this
Speaker 1: this trail and like ship would just come out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: out of the woods. Actually, let's let's fast forward a little.
Speaker 1: We grew up in a boat and you how old
Speaker 1: were you? Well, all fast forward and I appreciate you
Speaker 1: as you're being a good, good host, not letting me
Speaker 1: go down the rabbit hole. But my dad built a
Speaker 1: construction company from scratch, built half of the the new
Speaker 1: ski Hill and Kimberly and in during the Savings in
Speaker 1: Land's crisis, lost everything and it was devastated. I remember
Speaker 1: being five years old, six and we had things like
Speaker 1: I remember we you know, we were port and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we we we we had stuff. We
Speaker 1: had a house and on the lake in Idaho, on
Speaker 1: Cocolala Lake, and it all went away and my dad
Speaker 1: tried to fight. It ended up to clearing bankruptcy. And
Speaker 1: he and my mom had always had this dream to
Speaker 1: sail around the world. We actually had a boat which
Speaker 1: we lost in bankruptcy. It was I think it was
Speaker 1: a sixty ft sparksman Steven's beautiful boat, and we had
Speaker 1: a Vancouver lost it all, I remember we So their
Speaker 1: plan was, hey, let's do this. Life's too short, let's
Speaker 1: buy a boat. It's it's actually an affordable living solution
Speaker 1: as well. So we bought a boat in Vancouver. Prior
Speaker 1: to that, we had moved to Washington State. I actually
Speaker 1: went to school a couple of years in Washington State
Speaker 1: town called Blaine, and it was it was for me
Speaker 1: because I remember, and I can't believe they make kids
Speaker 1: do this, but I remember having to go up in
Speaker 1: front of the whole class in third grade and get
Speaker 1: my free lunch ticket. And I was like the free
Speaker 1: welfare kid. Right. It's just like terrible, like in front
Speaker 1: of the whole class too to have to do that.
Speaker 1: But then we we bought the boat because again my
Speaker 1: dad was kind of had a really good He's always
Speaker 1: been an incredible builder. He followed the construction boom down
Speaker 1: to California. So he we bought the boat in Vancouver,
Speaker 1: sailed it down to to Ventura, California, like got the
Speaker 1: tail end of a hurricane on on the way. It's
Speaker 1: like my mom was like, Jesus, is this what We're
Speaker 1: gonna all die at sea here off the Oregon coast.
Speaker 1: We had the tail end of a big hurricane in
Speaker 1: between Hawaii and the coast, and we literally shut shut down,
Speaker 1: like dropped the sales sea anchor for like almost two days,
Speaker 1: drifted a thousand miles back, but finally made it to
Speaker 1: made it to California, and then I lived in Ventora
Speaker 1: Harbor on a forty seven foot catch at my own
Speaker 1: rear stateroom um sixth grade until I finished high school.
Speaker 1: Looking back, it was a great environment. It was a
Speaker 1: little you know, again, you're kind of like people you
Speaker 1: go to school and they're like and the bus came
Speaker 1: to the harbor and picked us up, but it was
Speaker 1: still like you're kind of the boat kids. And there
Speaker 1: was a pretty big community of kids that lived on
Speaker 1: boats in the harbor, so that I think that made
Speaker 1: it a little bit easier, but still, like to me,
Speaker 1: I thought of it was like normal life. But my
Speaker 1: friends were like, it's kind of crazy. You know, you're
Speaker 1: living on this boat in the harbor with your family. Now,
Speaker 1: how's we when you join the Navy. When I joined,
Speaker 1: I joined at eighteen. Maybe I joined at seventeen and
Speaker 1: turned eighteen. I forget. I remember having to get my
Speaker 1: dad's permission, but he had I had left home at sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I think I did need his visit permission when
Speaker 1: I was like approaching eighteen and still seventeen. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I signed the papers and I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: Navy seal, So you knew back then, you know, I
Speaker 1: what I always wanted to do, honestly was be a pilot.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a fighter pilot, and since I
Speaker 1: could remember, I wanted to flyer planes. And then I
Speaker 1: saw the movie Top Gun, which made it even made
Speaker 1: me even more crazy to fly. Like I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a fighter pilot. My problem was I just didn't
Speaker 1: have I didn't have great grades, and I had this
Speaker 1: weird academic record because living on the boat, like we
Speaker 1: took a trip. My parents pulled my sister and I
Speaker 1: out of school. We went to Mexico for a year,
Speaker 1: and so I had this like weird in school, out
Speaker 1: of school, good grades sometimes just getting by the rest
Speaker 1: of the time. I was kind of when I think
Speaker 1: back on my school and I remember because I you know.
Speaker 1: I remember when I was writing The Red Circle. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, Mom, I was the draft she was
Speaker 1: reading and she's like, I see it here. You're thinking
Speaker 1: that you're a good student. And she's like, let me,
Speaker 1: let me send you your report cards. And I still
Speaker 1: have them, and they I think we even published them somewhere.
Speaker 1: But it's like Brandon needs to pay attention and more
Speaker 1: in class and stop talking to everybody. Um. But she
Speaker 1: and I didn't have good grades. It's like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: Like it's it funny how your your mind kind of
Speaker 1: patches stuff together in history and and sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: we remember things differently. It was important. I'm glad my
Speaker 1: mom made me journal on our sailing trip, so I
Speaker 1: had the journals to look back on. We had our
Speaker 1: ship's log. My dad was like religious about keeping a
Speaker 1: ship's log, so I had some really good source material
Speaker 1: to look back on. What made you want to be
Speaker 1: a seal at seventeen? So I got a job when
Speaker 1: I was twelve thanks to my mom. She comes home,
Speaker 1: I think she's always trying to like steer me into
Speaker 1: out of trouble. She's like, hey, this scuba diving boat
Speaker 1: needs a kid to work part time. In the summer
Speaker 1: and on the weekends to just help out. And basically
Speaker 1: you're kind of an intern on the scuba diving boat.
Speaker 1: And she's like, I already like through your name in
Speaker 1: the hat if you want to go down there and
Speaker 1: meet the owner and Captain Bill, like come down anytime
Speaker 1: they're they're going to pull in, you know, this day whatever.
Speaker 1: And at the time, I had really my first job.
Speaker 1: My dad kind of nudged me into getting this job,
Speaker 1: and it was I fucking hated it. It was I
Speaker 1: was the janitor. Basically I'd sweep and mop this boating
Speaker 1: store every night and it was like for nothing. But
Speaker 1: I think those jobs teach you a lot of humility
Speaker 1: because I knew. I was like, this is not what
Speaker 1: I want to do. Yeah exactly. I go down and
Speaker 1: meet Bill and he was like, yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: do it, Like be here tomorrow six am. We're going
Speaker 1: to pull out for a day trip to Anna Kappa
Speaker 1: Island and see if you you know, we'll give you
Speaker 1: a share of the tips, the cruise tips, and to
Speaker 1: see if you like it. And I remember going out
Speaker 1: there and all that to do was like help people
Speaker 1: with their gear equipment when they got out of the water.
Speaker 1: I'd help them off with their their fins. I learned
Speaker 1: how to fill scuba tanks. I'd help tie the boat
Speaker 1: up and I had a blast. Like I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is really fun. And then I got like my split
Speaker 1: of the tips. It was like forty or fifty bucks,
Speaker 1: and that's twelve years old. I'm like, yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: was on a lot of you. So I was I
Speaker 1: was hooked and the crew was super nice, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was a you know, they they were
Speaker 1: definitely feeling me out and not like I remember Mike,
Speaker 1: this Irish captain is kind of like, give me a
Speaker 1: lot of ship. And yeah. They were kind of testing
Speaker 1: me out to see if I had what it takes
Speaker 1: and I was into it. So he Bill was like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you want the job at chairs, So I started
Speaker 1: there and became a very accomplished diver, like thousands of
Speaker 1: dives in the span of probably twelve to you know,
Speaker 1: seventeen when I when I worked that boat. Did you
Speaker 1: find the seal dive stuff challenging after this or no? No,
Speaker 1: I was always a good diver in this in the seals.
Speaker 1: The thing is these kind of dives, and I told
Speaker 1: about it in the book Mastering Fear, which would you
Speaker 1: encouraged me to write. I remember the first so the captain,
Speaker 1: this guy Rogers, one of the captains, He taught me
Speaker 1: how to dive in the ocean. And it's like the
Speaker 1: first season I was working on the boat. I remember
Speaker 1: being at this island called sam Miguel. Was shark infested
Speaker 1: water like that. There's a big seal, sea lion rookery habitat,
Speaker 1: and what eats what feeds on them are great whites
Speaker 1: like this crazy captain Mike had done a great white.
Speaker 1: Our county got as sponsor to go out there and
Speaker 1: chum for days for blood and he was gonna jump
Speaker 1: in the water and spear this great white like crazy guy. Man,
Speaker 1: he was crazy, but no sharks ever showed up. Now
Speaker 1: we're anchored out there for the night. The weather got
Speaker 1: too rough, so we had to move the boat in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and Mike shakes me awake
Speaker 1: at two in the morning. He's like, get your wet
Speaker 1: suit on. You gotta go dive and get the anchor.
Speaker 1: And I've done that before in the daytime to speed
Speaker 1: things up. Sometimes the anchor gets really wrapped up on
Speaker 1: the reef and it's faster to send a diver down
Speaker 1: there and UNWRAPID. Well, that that was like during the
Speaker 1: daylight and good visibility with like people around. Now it's
Speaker 1: like two in the morning, and I'm like, it's like
Speaker 1: sharks down there, man, and I know the visibility is
Speaker 1: going to be like barely see your hand in front
Speaker 1: of your face. I was terrified, but this was kind
Speaker 1: of like the Navy seal training, right, So I had
Speaker 1: to confront my fear. Dive down in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night and I was probably thirteen years old and
Speaker 1: get this damn anchor unstuck, and it's like the chain
Speaker 1: is wrapped around this like truck size ledge. We would
Speaker 1: blast a bunch of bubbles up in the surface. Then
Speaker 1: they would know to pay some slack. And then I
Speaker 1: was swimming around and get it free. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: got my dive light and there's like sea lions whizzing
Speaker 1: by me. I could tell the biolumin essence like like
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I just want to get out
Speaker 1: of as fast as possible. Thankfully, the sea lions were there,
Speaker 1: so I knew the sharks weren't around, but I did,
Speaker 1: you know. I got through that and It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that wasn't as bad as I made up in my head,
Speaker 1: but it was still scary lesson by the way, it
Speaker 1: wasn't as bad as you made up in your head. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so you know, fast forward by the time I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, I remember taking I would dive with double
Speaker 1: seventy two tanks. I would be like eighty ft of
Speaker 1: water at night, shine my light in a hole, and
Speaker 1: there's like the lobster the spiny Lobster Hotel, and I
Speaker 1: would take a breath. I would take my tanks off.
Speaker 1: I would take a breath out of the rag regulator,
Speaker 1: set it down, and swim in the hole eight ft
Speaker 1: underwater and hold my breath and grab as many of
Speaker 1: those lobsters as I can stuff from under my armpits.
Speaker 1: And now they're going bonkers and they're stirring everything up,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, where's where's the way out of here?
Speaker 1: You know, and swim and put them in my bag
Speaker 1: and like do it all over again. Like I was
Speaker 1: just crazy. This is the stuff that I would do.
Speaker 1: And you know, fast forward, my dad we went on
Speaker 1: this big family sailing trip. I had a lot of
Speaker 1: boning experience. My dad and I were going like just
Speaker 1: butting heads. It was kind of like the sixteen year
Speaker 1: old and I made it as from Ventura all the
Speaker 1: way by Mexico mainland Mexico down to Acapoco and then
Speaker 1: Acapoco to the Marquesas Islands and the South Pacific, then
Speaker 1: to Tahiti, and then my dad and I had this
Speaker 1: massive blow up where we almost like it got physical
Speaker 1: and my mom was crying and then we just kind
Speaker 1: of it wasn't like we had this family talk and said, look,
Speaker 1: it's you really don't want to be here. You made
Speaker 1: that clear before the trip. We think it's time for
Speaker 1: you to go. And so I was sixteen and pop
Speaker 1: a t e d left home. I found my parents
Speaker 1: and I both found a boat that needed help sailing
Speaker 1: to HeLa, Hawaii. It was a catamaran called the Shiloh,
Speaker 1: and I jumped on that boat, grabbed my backpack and
Speaker 1: a couple hundred bucks. Never looked back. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie, like I I wrote about it
Speaker 1: in Mastering Fear. I you know, I cried myself to
Speaker 1: sleep probably the first three nights, like scared shitless, but
Speaker 1: I was on my own yeah, and then, you know,
Speaker 1: to make a long story longer, I was at the
Speaker 1: point where I got back and build the owner giving me.
Speaker 1: He let me live on the boat and finished high school.
Speaker 1: He wanted me to be a captain. I had. I
Speaker 1: had taken all my prep courses to four a hundred
Speaker 1: ton masters Captain's license. I was going to take the
Speaker 1: test on my eighteen birthday, but I just realized I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be I wanted to get out of
Speaker 1: the harbor environment. I had my best friend I lost
Speaker 1: to drugs, crystal math. It was like seeing him take
Speaker 1: a nose dive, and I just needed to get out
Speaker 1: of that environment. Like I knew that, I knew that
Speaker 1: I had good mentors on the boat, but outside of
Speaker 1: the boat, my kind of peer group was going really
Speaker 1: in a wrong direction, and I didn't want to go there.
Speaker 1: So I looked to the military, and I couldn't qualify
Speaker 1: for any of the academies to be a pilot. And
Speaker 1: then I found one of the guys that was a
Speaker 1: regular on the hardcore trips. We had like a diving
Speaker 1: version of You've Been to Bones Fest where we fly
Speaker 1: the crazy plants. We had like a group of guys
Speaker 1: twice a year that would come together on this diving trip,
Speaker 1: and we do like seven eight dives a day. We're
Speaker 1: typically a normal passengership. You're doing three at night, we're
Speaker 1: playing poker and drinking whiskey, and I'm like in heaven right.
Speaker 1: One of the guys said, hey, you've heard about the
Speaker 1: Navy Seals, and he gave me this book called Rogue
Speaker 1: Wyer and yeah, Marsinco. So we actually had Marsinco on
Speaker 1: the show before. Oh he was a trip Yeah great,
Speaker 1: even if he's in the seventies now, he's still a trip,
Speaker 1: great guy. It's it's sad to see kind of how
Speaker 1: he's been treated by the community actually, because he has
Speaker 1: really a great he's a legend, you know, and and
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a shame to see like
Speaker 1: the guys, you know, guys are suffering. I mean, this
Speaker 1: a whole another story we can talk about, but it's
Speaker 1: a shame to see these guys kind of eating him
Speaker 1: alive and taking cheap shots when the guys like a
Speaker 1: hero and one of the found like really founding fathers
Speaker 1: still seems six but I so I read this book
Speaker 1: and then that was it. I was like this is
Speaker 1: my way out. I'm going to be a seal. I
Speaker 1: can do this, and I wanted to prove it to myself,
Speaker 1: Like there was a sense I always felt more American
Speaker 1: than Canadian, but I to be honest, there was this
Speaker 1: like part of it for me was great, I get
Speaker 1: to serve my country, but the selfish part was I
Speaker 1: want to see if I can do this. What not
Speaker 1: many people can do, like it's washout rate. And so
Speaker 1: that was a big driver for me behind becoming a
Speaker 1: seal and joining the Navy. And it was a tough
Speaker 1: road because I back when I joined you could not
Speaker 1: get a guaranteed contract, so you had to take a
Speaker 1: job like a regular Navy job, and then apply. Once
Speaker 1: you got into the Navy and into the system, some
Speaker 1: guys are like, screw and I'll be a cook and
Speaker 1: I'll go to a two week school and I'll try
Speaker 1: out right away. But I was like, at least I
Speaker 1: think I was smart enough to go. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do to go that route because if something messes up,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a freaking cook for three years.
Speaker 1: So I took this the aptitude test and scored high
Speaker 1: enough to get into a couple of different programs, and
Speaker 1: one of them was Search and Rescue aircrew programs. So
Speaker 1: I got guaranteed air crewman at Search and Rescue, accelerated
Speaker 1: advancement to non n c O to E four and
Speaker 1: a big bonus, and I was like, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to do that. Like that's a cool job in itself,
Speaker 1: you know, in hindsight, because it was an undermanned job,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to let me leave to go be
Speaker 1: a seal, So I had to really fight to get
Speaker 1: out of that job. It took me almost four years
Speaker 1: to get the seal training, which I finally did, and
Speaker 1: I joined the Navy in ninety three and I got
Speaker 1: the seal training in n How did you prepare for
Speaker 1: seal training? Oh, man, I did not prepare for steal
Speaker 1: training other than, like I would say that majority of
Speaker 1: people that make it through like they've been prepared through
Speaker 1: their life experiences up to that point. If you have
Speaker 1: any experienced diversity, you're really gonna have a tough time
Speaker 1: and probably wash up training because the training is adversity
Speaker 1: seven days a week, and you have if you don't
Speaker 1: have the like personal mental skills to deal with that
Speaker 1: stuff showing up your fucked physically. I was in terrible shape.
Speaker 1: I just got off a six month deployment on the
Speaker 1: U S S. Kittie Hawk. You know, it's not very
Speaker 1: many place to swim on aircraft care let alone even
Speaker 1: run besides the treadmill. And I had just kind of
Speaker 1: got along and went on this deployment. I was partying
Speaker 1: We're pulling Australia Thailand. I'm like, oh, this is my
Speaker 1: last go around with the guys, and I could do
Speaker 1: the minimum standards for the entry test. And then when
Speaker 1: I got when I got my orders, it was five
Speaker 1: months into deployment. I remember I was in the Middle
Speaker 1: East and the Persian golf and I got my orders,
Speaker 1: like yes, I finally got my class date. And then
Speaker 1: when I got back, took leave and then checked into buds.
Speaker 1: And it took me about one second to realize I
Speaker 1: was not physically prepared for this at all. And it
Speaker 1: was hellish, like the first six weeks was my body
Speaker 1: was destroyed. I was not in shape. I was last
Speaker 1: in the last group on the runs, last group on
Speaker 1: the PT. The instructures all knew me by name. You know.
Speaker 1: There was a thing called the Goon Squad where if
Speaker 1: you don't keep up, you get put in the goon squad,
Speaker 1: so everyone's drinking water and stretching. After a six mile
Speaker 1: beach run, you're you know, doing bear crawls up and
Speaker 1: down the sand burns and jumping in the water like
Speaker 1: it's just torture. Showing up for five and at five am,
Speaker 1: a normal start time at five am PT session, you
Speaker 1: would show up at four am because you're in the
Speaker 1: remedial PT group. It was terrible, man, So I was
Speaker 1: not prepared for Buds physically mentally I was physically. It
Speaker 1: was tough. I mean, imagine being we started two and
Speaker 1: twenty with class to fifteen and we ended with I
Speaker 1: think just over three finished. But imagine the beginning being
Speaker 1: singled out of two guys, and the structures are like
Speaker 1: you're not going to get a break and go get
Speaker 1: to eat lunch until web does another few. You push up,
Speaker 1: you get maybe like one percent of the group is
Speaker 1: given you sympathy. That's some encouragement. The rest just like
Speaker 1: you look around there like why don't you just quit?
Speaker 1: And ended, and the suffering for all of us, you know,
Speaker 1: like fucking thanks guys. But it was it was a
Speaker 1: tough thing to deal with because I was an E five,
Speaker 1: you know, I had some seniority in rank, and I
Speaker 1: knew that'd be older than some of the guys too.
Speaker 1: Yeah I was. You know, i'd see the average ages
Speaker 1: like one, maybe some Naval Academy guys, but I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like two. I think I turned
Speaker 1: twenty three in buds and yeah I was. And so
Speaker 1: being in that situation where you know you're kind of
Speaker 1: dragging your poor physical performance is punishing other people, it
Speaker 1: really sucked to be in that situation. But I just
Speaker 1: knew that early on in in that first week where
Speaker 1: I was going through all this, one of the fastest
Speaker 1: runners in the class quit one morning. We got up
Speaker 1: like after a weekend. It was Monday, and he went
Speaker 1: to ring the bell to quit, and it just dawned
Speaker 1: at me, is like, that's the fastest guy in the class,
Speaker 1: Like why and I think it's I forget his name,
Speaker 1: but you can see his face clearly. Why is he quitting?
Speaker 1: And I don't know if I asked him or just
Speaker 1: kind of the rumor mill got back, but it was
Speaker 1: like he just he didn't like to suffer like the
Speaker 1: cold getting yelled at. But he was like The instructors
Speaker 1: loved him. He was the fastest runner, always getting rewarded.
Speaker 1: They'd always call him out by name. Why can't you
Speaker 1: be like this guy? But at that point I knew
Speaker 1: it was mental. I'm like, Okay, I just have to
Speaker 1: suffer through this. And it's a it's a game of
Speaker 1: like persistence and suffering, you know. It's it's the same
Speaker 1: thing and building companies. Many thing like it's like having
Speaker 1: build companies myself and not invest in you know, startups
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurs. In the end, I was talking to a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, He's like, what is it that you
Speaker 1: know your best investments. I'm like, it's always comes down
Speaker 1: to the person the found her. And it's like and
Speaker 1: when if I get the feeling of this person was
Speaker 1: born to do this, I will back him or her
Speaker 1: every single time they do it, whether they fail or not.
Speaker 1: That I wanted back next time, next time because the
Speaker 1: person was just committed. It keeps going, keeps going. Eventually
Speaker 1: they learned and they hit it. It's funny, right and
Speaker 1: anything in life, that's what it comes down to, know.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's my kind of my own story, right.
Speaker 1: I I kind of got out of the military, started
Speaker 1: this my first startup, and you know, raise some money,
Speaker 1: and even now reflecting, I'm way more I get my
Speaker 1: partners way more credit now than I did then, because
Speaker 1: then you're just like piste off, you know, because you know,
Speaker 1: we the business broke up during the last recession total
Speaker 1: ship show, and it's easy to kind of blame your partners,
Speaker 1: but I'm in reflection, it was just partnership is all
Speaker 1: like being a relationship where it's worse you don't get laid, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's that yeah, at least in most partnerships.
Speaker 1: But I definitely I definitely wasn't getting laid. I was
Speaker 1: maybe getting fucked a bit. But I just realized that
Speaker 1: they weren't. They were smart people, just the chemistry was off.
Speaker 1: So it's really I think really invested all into my
Speaker 1: kind of knowledge and entrepreneurial journey. It's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I went to that Harvard OPM class. I realized
Speaker 1: that you are who you hire. So you hire for
Speaker 1: culture and you train the companies that our team focused
Speaker 1: companies hire and train from within. The companies that are
Speaker 1: kind of like I focus, where it's individual focus performance
Speaker 1: and they really don't care about the team You could
Speaker 1: think about an airline that depicts this scenario perfectly. Is
Speaker 1: the difference between Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. You know,
Speaker 1: Southwest is a team environment. People are happy there. You
Speaker 1: can tell where you go to United, it's totally different.
Speaker 1: And it it flows right down to the customer service level.
Speaker 1: Even when at the last recession, your Southwest, I don't
Speaker 1: think laid off anybody. They did it as a show
Speaker 1: to their team like we're going to stick this through
Speaker 1: this together, or the rest of the airlines were just
Speaker 1: like laying off a ton of people. The point on
Speaker 1: partnership is like, you really choose your partners carefully. You
Speaker 1: know the deal. I won't get into it on the show,
Speaker 1: but I recently went through another thing where at a
Speaker 1: side business and I just didn't didn't really probably listen
Speaker 1: to a lot of people and ignored a lot of signs.
Speaker 1: We're looking back in hindsight, I'm like, man, all the
Speaker 1: signs were there. Why why didn't I see it? So
Speaker 1: it's just about you have to choose your partners carefully,
Speaker 1: and and then it takes the blame when you choose
Speaker 1: poorly and be like, look, I'm as much to blame
Speaker 1: for this as anybody. Well that's a leader, honestly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one thing I wish more, just more entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: just politicians would learn like ultimately leaders the one responsible,
Speaker 1: not the one below. Right. So like, look, you make
Speaker 1: it as a seal, and you were the runt one
Speaker 1: in the group, which is in itself if you think
Speaker 1: about a great story. Right, So like the guy who
Speaker 1: was the shining star is the one who quit. And
Speaker 1: that's a hell of a wake up call. So it's
Speaker 1: and it comes out and it's mental. It's a mental thing.
Speaker 1: You just have to and the mental party. You have
Speaker 1: to want it badly enough. It's the same in building
Speaker 1: anything or writing a book a building company. You have
Speaker 1: to want it badly enough so that when it sucks,
Speaker 1: you don't. You still get up and you go and
Speaker 1: you push through it. Se you become a seal. You
Speaker 1: go up to Afghanistan, I mean, you do tours. You did,
Speaker 1: um what was the ship that was bombed? The oh Man,
Speaker 1: that was terrible. I remember that you were there and
Speaker 1: then you you know Afghanistan and then you've been in
Speaker 1: Iraq as a contractor. You know, you've done a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff. You can talk about and stuff you can't
Speaker 1: talk about. And then you get out, and you know,
Speaker 1: this is always interesting to me because I know I
Speaker 1: have enough friends with the military who get out and
Speaker 1: some of them going to do like amazing things, right,
Speaker 1: and some get very lost, you know, and it's and
Speaker 1: you're not talking about this. It's like it's the fact
Speaker 1: that you know. Our theory, my theory is that they
Speaker 1: don't have purpose if you if you're no longer on mission.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to you know, especially if we
Speaker 1: used to being on mission and we lose and if
Speaker 1: we don't have that, what we're gonna do? You have
Speaker 1: to create your own you know. So you created, You
Speaker 1: start a business, and like all the best business started small.
Speaker 1: You start a blog that you ruin. You know, you
Speaker 1: you wrote about what you knew and what you cared about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the reason I got into writing was it became very therapeutic.
Speaker 1: Even after I lost my first business, I started writing
Speaker 1: for magazines and I started blogging, and and then it
Speaker 1: started I realized, like, this is like very therapeutic. But
Speaker 1: to be honest, like in hindsight, I probably would have
Speaker 1: chosen a less public I put it would have put
Speaker 1: myself less in the public eye. But you know, like
Speaker 1: hindsight is right, just the amount of criticism and and
Speaker 1: it's a tough spot, like all of us are. Like
Speaker 1: I talked to Marcos Cetrell, Rob O'Neil, all the Seal authors,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure even Jocko gets it as well. As
Speaker 1: when you put yourself in the public like that, you
Speaker 1: become like an easy target and escapegood in many ways.
Speaker 1: And it's it has not been an easy path. Like
Speaker 1: I think back, I'm like, man, if I had to
Speaker 1: just build, like and I love real estate, if I
Speaker 1: just built a real estate business, and nobody would have cared, right.
Speaker 1: But the minute you're like, hey, I'm an abcal is
Speaker 1: my life story, You're fair game for the community, and
Speaker 1: I you know, look, I I'm proud of the service,
Speaker 1: and really, you know, outside of the deployments, my biggest contribution,
Speaker 1: and I've talked about over and over is my investment
Speaker 1: and sacrifice. I gave up my cushy shore assignment as
Speaker 1: a BUDS instructor to go teach snipers when I got
Speaker 1: recruited down there, and I at the time like I
Speaker 1: just felt an obligation to do that, and then did
Speaker 1: that and became the Sniper course manager, and and then
Speaker 1: I was just burnt out. It's like time for me
Speaker 1: to move on. Business is freaking hard enough without kind
Speaker 1: of like taking the Peanut Gallery kind of criticism on
Speaker 1: the side, right, Like you're dealing with real challenges and
Speaker 1: hiring and laying people off, losing sleepover payroll. Most people
Speaker 1: who haven't done it don't understand the way that you
Speaker 1: carry as a leader, you know, especially built something from scratch.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a friend of mine is quite successful,
Speaker 1: and it's very much of the public eye and was
Speaker 1: taking a lot of heat. At one time. He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: the only way that his wife told him something, He's
Speaker 1: like that let him sleep. She said, Hayter's gonna hate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know that That's been a big lesson for sure.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's like I heard Joe Rogan saying,
Speaker 1: like you think Michael Jordan reads his YouTube comments. You
Speaker 1: know he's he's busy being Michael Jordan. You know, like
Speaker 1: either busy doing ship? Are you busy talking about people
Speaker 1: are doing ship? It's always better be doing ship. And
Speaker 1: I think when I started to see this stuff happening
Speaker 1: in my own community, and it's like felt like we're
Speaker 1: eating each other live. I just I kind of removed
Speaker 1: myself from the whole thing, and I think that like
Speaker 1: some guys, it made it even worse because they didn't
Speaker 1: have access to me anymore. But I just had to,
Speaker 1: like it, just had to focus on the future, my
Speaker 1: my family, you know. And there's many businesses where you
Speaker 1: can run a small business and have a great life.
Speaker 1: So I think the challenge of entrepreneurship is like what
Speaker 1: do you want to do? Like, what's your purpose? How
Speaker 1: do you want to build a big business? What kind
Speaker 1: of life do you want to have? Because you kind
Speaker 1: of thought about it, I'm like, man, if I could
Speaker 1: just go back and just bodko, go buy a you know,
Speaker 1: five million dollar business and just chug it along. Like
Speaker 1: in many ways, my mom did that with her partner.
Speaker 1: She they built a coffee and team manufacturing company. And
Speaker 1: I understand why. They were older in their life and
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't want to deal with the We
Speaker 1: have enough issues dealing with five employees, why would we
Speaker 1: want to deal with all the other ship. So I
Speaker 1: kind of get it now, but it's really up to
Speaker 1: each of us to kind of figure out that purpose. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: I just read that Victor Frankel book Social Meaning, which
Speaker 1: I highly recommend to anybody if you ever read. Like
Speaker 1: any I've read heard so many great public figures refer
Speaker 1: to that book as a life changing book. And it's
Speaker 1: really very easy book to read too. It's yeah but powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was. He was an Austrian psychiatrist who was
Speaker 1: in Auschwitz during World War two and he lost his family,
Speaker 1: his wife, everybody. He came out and wrote about what
Speaker 1: is it? What was the difference between the ones who
Speaker 1: survived and the ones who gave up and just died.
Speaker 1: His purpose in camp was to get out and make
Speaker 1: this better for other people, for humankind, Like that became
Speaker 1: his Just when you have purpose, I'll get you to anything,
Speaker 1: you know, like whether it's entrepreneurship with sale training or
Speaker 1: Jesus how show it's you know, I feel lucky. So
Speaker 1: here's the thing you've you've you've had like we're like
Speaker 1: I think something like five episodes, right, So you're sorry
Speaker 1: almost it's amazing so that people are listening here know
Speaker 1: you quite well? What is something about you that don't
Speaker 1: know that what actually would be interesting and helpful to them?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you know as we're talking here
Speaker 1: about purpose. One of my big kind of when I
Speaker 1: go to the well of purpose, it's around being a dad.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have the traditional dad's story, right.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm divorced father, three kids live with their mom,
Speaker 1: but I have a great relationship with the mom and
Speaker 1: her husband who they've had more children with. But I
Speaker 1: think the kids give me when it's like all hell's
Speaker 1: breaking loose, and you know, just when you think you've
Speaker 1: had enough, like something some more bad news kids, it's
Speaker 1: always like, Okay, I've like my purpose. I want to
Speaker 1: be a good dad and leave my kids in a
Speaker 1: really good spot where they're independent, self sufficient. So and
Speaker 1: I don't think I've talked too much about that before,
Speaker 1: but the kids are really important to me in my
Speaker 1: life and kind of really kind of set my my
Speaker 1: true north, so to speak. It's great man, thanks for
Speaker 1: sharing that. So we could like do many different episodes
Speaker 1: of different parts. Yeah. Um, And for those of you
Speaker 1: that listening, Kamal is offered to host a couple of
Speaker 1: shows for us, So we're putting the schedule together now,
Speaker 1: but we've got he has some really cool guests lined
Speaker 1: up to kind of fill in on the show. So
Speaker 1: and this is kind of when when Jack left the show,
Speaker 1: Nick Kaufman and I talked about kind of the direction
Speaker 1: we wanted to take the show, and we want to
Speaker 1: get back more into this kind of storytelling and the
Speaker 1: experience sharing and less kind of into the foreign policy
Speaker 1: political side, which is still happy to talk about that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think it's like the last couple of shows
Speaker 1: you've guys have heard the last show being I interviewed
Speaker 1: Todd Robinson in his new movie coming Out, The Last
Speaker 1: Full Measure. This is the kind of direction we want
Speaker 1: to take take the show. So hopefully you guys, uh,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed the show, and you guys
Speaker 1: will be hearing from Kamal in the future. And again,
Speaker 1: if you want to follow Kamal, it's at Kamal Robert
Speaker 1: Kant on Instagram. I'm at Brandon t Web on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And again, the we're running that Create Club Summer sale
Speaker 1: on our Platinum Create and the code is CC Summer nineteen.
Speaker 1: So if you're if you're looking for a good gift
Speaker 1: for somebody for a birthday, or you want to get
Speaker 1: in for the holidays early and get a good deal
Speaker 1: and the Platinum Create you can get a Create club
Speaker 1: already announced this last show, but in case you missed it,
Speaker 1: we're basically consolidating all of our content video editorial into
Speaker 1: one site. Pretty sure we're gonna call it the Create
Speaker 1: dot Com, but we'll stay tuned for that. That side
Speaker 1: will be up in late September. So excited to share
Speaker 1: that with you guys. Everything aside from a special kind
Speaker 1: of team room member like paid member experience, will have
Speaker 1: most of the content will be free. I'm not so
Speaker 1: excited about that because we had a lot of really
Speaker 1: good content we've kind of like kept hidden away for
Speaker 1: a long time. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed
Speaker 1: that show. Come all, thanks for my pleasure. And you
Speaker 1: know I would say one thing, you know, my my
Speaker 1: goal here is, uh, look, you know I've been in
Speaker 1: the military, and you know I'm fortunate to be where
Speaker 1: I'm in life, and I wanna you know, I love
Speaker 1: helping other other veterans in any way I can, So
Speaker 1: I want to bring on guests I could actually help
Speaker 1: people either be better or make money or just whatever,
Speaker 1: like the you know, be better versions of themselves. So
Speaker 1: anything you thinks of interest, just message us and let
Speaker 1: let me know what kind of guests you'd want. Awesome,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks, thanks brother Pleasure. You've been listening to
Speaker 1: self readily here. New episodes up every when day and Friday.
Speaker 1: Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at self Red
Speaker 1: Radio