The LFG Show
Talking with movers and shakers who grew up with nothing and worked their asses off to achieve success. Let's 🤬 Go!!!!
The LFG Show
Stop Ringing The Bell And Start Winning ft. Coach Ty Smith
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Pressure is everywhere right now… and most people are folding.
Margins tight. Emotions high. Decisions matter more than ever.
And the worst advice you hear?
“Just grind harder.”
“Just relax.”
Neither one works when you’ve got real pressure on your back.
So we brought in someone who actually lives it.
Ty Smith — combat-decorated Navy SEAL, platoon leader, and entrepreneur — breaks down what it really takes to stay composed when everything around you is chaos.
This isn’t theory.
This is battlefield-tested mindset.
We get into why modern life feels like constant pressure, how perspective is disappearing, and how to rebuild it FAST through service, contrast, and gratitude.
Then it gets real…
SEAL training. Pool competency. Why the water breaks people.
What that teaches about staying calm when your business, your money, and your life are on the line.
If you’re an operator, a founder, a media buyer, a leader…
this is the mental framework you’ve been missing.
NO MONEY. NO HONEY. 🐻🍯
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WHAT WE COVER:
• Why life feels more pressurized than ever
• The hidden reason people lose perspective
• Why most people quit SEAL training (and how that applies to business)
• Pool competency and composure under chaos
• Alignment vs hustle (this will change how you operate)
• Why chasing outcomes pushes success further away
• Impostor syndrome vs authenticity
• Trauma, PTSD, and integrating your past
• Psychedelics, veterans, and mental clarity
• Masculinity and leadership in today’s world
• How to stay centered when everything is moving fast
• The scariest moment Ty experienced in combat
This episode isn’t just motivation…
It’s a recalibration.
TIMESTAMPS:
If you’re carrying pressure in silence… this one’s for you.
Subscribe to The LFG Show for conversations with the top 1%ers in business, mindset, and performance.
Drop a comment:
Where in your life do you need ALIGNMENT instead of more effort?
NO MONEY. NO HONEY. 🐻🍯
Sponsor Messages
SPEAKER_00Newsbreak is the fastest growing local news app in the United States with over 50 million monthly and 16 million daily users checking in throughout the day. When you sign up, the Newsbreak team reaches out with White Love Service to get you onboarded and making money right away. Up to$5,000 in matching ad credits, quick account approvals, and dedicated account management to help you find early success. To learn more and sign up, check out the link in the description below. Don't waste time. Sign up now and let's fucking go. Ringba is the leading inbound call tracking and analytics platform for marketers, brands, and paper call teams. It gives you real-time reporting, intelligent call routing, and fully customizable call flows backed by Global Telecom Access in more than 60 countries. With enterprise-grade reliability, a powerful API, and no contracts or set of fees, Ringba has become a go-to platform for performance marketers worldwide. To learn more and to sign up, check out the link in the description below. Get goaded and let's fucking go. Guys, pressure, high pressure. I don't know if we've ever lived in a more high pressure society than we live in now. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We have, I'm really, I feel like I'm in the presence of greatness. I really feel that you can feel the aura with uh Ty Smith who we have here. This gentleman is a combat decorated Navy SEAL, platoon leader in a Navy SEAL, successful entrepreneur. And he's going to talk about how to handle pressure in these kinds of environments, not just for entrepreneurs, high-level executives, men, anyone who's dealing with pressure. And man, it's really an honor to have you here, man. I don't think we've ever had a combat decorated Navy SEA on the LFG show. Let me shake your hand. I really keep it. I want to thank you for your service, man. My dad was some he was a retired Marine uh during Vietnam, you know. So I really he was a platoon leader. He won a lot of a war. She was decorated then. And uh anyway, it's just I I value that, you know. I think that we've lost that as America, the the the the kind of um what do you call appreciation for what our military does, you know, keeping us safe and giving us this freedom. So I really mean that from the bottom of my heart, man. Really appreciate your service. And I mean, if the level of service that you've done is something else, man, you know.
Service Culture And Perspective
SPEAKER_01So thank you, David. I really appreciate that. And you're right. Uh, the warrior culture, as I like to call it, in the United States of America has been completely unappreciated and sort of emasculated and neutered in the United States of America over the last four to six years. And it's something that we need to fix because I think it's a national security risk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I'm not trying to go off subject here, but you know, one thing uh about Israel, I read up, I read this book called The Startup Nation, right? I don't know if you've read that book, but it talked about this is like 15 years ago. It talked about how Israel is such a tiny country, so powerful, and talk about like they're 1% of the world's population, but half the billionaires, right? It talked all this stuff, and then one thing that they said, you know, success leaves clues. We say that a lot on the LFG show. One thing they they they they tied it to out of many things was that they had this uh system where you don't go straight from high school into college, you had to spend two years compulsory in the military, right? To serve. And I thought that was pretty interesting. And I thought that you know you you develop like national pride doing that, you develop skills, and then you go off and do whatever you're gonna do. But then I think it gives you this national pride, man. I mean, so I'll start there. I mean, you think America should do something like that? Or what do you think about the whole system? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01100% absolutely. It bothers me to my core when I witness Americans that make me feel as though they don't appreciate this amazing country that we live in. You know, we live in a country where it is absolutely possible for you to go from being zero nobody to the president of the entire. You can't do that anywhere else in the world. You can look on YouTube any day and witness a young person wearing probably over a thousand dollars worth of gear, clothes, handbags, or fancy wallets, iPhones, but they're complaining about how their voice is being suppressed in the United States of America where they're being discriminated against and held back in the United States of America. And it breaks my heart because I think they look foolish standing there doing that, considering they're wearing$150 jeans,$300 sneakers, you know, multiple thousands of dollars on a handbag. And so they're clearly winning, but they're complaining that they're not winning. And I think that's because they don't have contrast, they don't have perspective. So they should earn the right to complain about their country, the amazing country that they live in, by going out and serving the country for a couple of years. So if you want to go and do two to four years in the military and then come back and complain about your own country, that's fine. You've earned the right to do that. But until you've served this country and the people in this country, I think that you should keep your mouth shut because you're actually spitting in the face, in the faces of people that have served the country, good, bad, or indifferent, right? But I think you got to earn the right to talk down about your own country.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great point. You really realize something too. I forgot about uh when I first got into this industry, we're internet marketing, affiliate marketing, digital marketing industry, right? And our goal is to create an action, have people click on an ad, right, to drive revenue for the end advertiser. I have a buddy of mine, I don't know if he still has it. He had a contract with the Army back in 2016, U.S. Army, and it was for recruiting efforts to try to recruit people. And I think the payouts were pretty good, man. But I would say that this is it's always good when you've you promote a product that has that benefits society, right? And I think that um I could see like now in this day and age we live in, I mean, already the cost of living's through the roof, right? We talked about pressure. You got a lot of economic pressure going on. Kids, I think when they get out of college or before they go to college, if they they stay, they spend those two years, four years, and they make some money, they serve it, and you come out with an edge, right? And really, life is about having an edge, is what it comes down to. So I would say that it's something for people listening to this that are media buyers, look into that because I believe they still have those programs in place. Probably not just the army, probably all the military branches, and you can create a sort of win-win by doing that.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And I like to tell people that the United States military is actually a really good deal, right? I retired after 20 years years of service at 38 years old. Wow. I still get paid a really decent amount of money every month since I was a 38-year-old. I don't have to work right now if I don't want to, but I do because I do what I love. But I also have four college degrees, none of which I paid for, right? And I learned leadership at the highest levels possible. I learned how to help and how to grow other people, which obviously are skills that are critical to being a successful entrepreneur. And so everything that I have in my life now, I owe to my family, the people that raised me, of course, and to my career in the military and my leaders that I learned from throughout my military career. And I like to think my life is pretty good these days. And again, it wasn't something that I did on my own. It took a village.
Why Most Quit SEAL Training
SPEAKER_00Yep. Now I see that. So we let's talk about contrast. Or you talked about contrast before. And I agree with you that unless you've experienced some sort of hardship, it's hard to appreciate what you have, right? And uh, I guess we're saying a lot, a lot of spoiled. They don't realize that, hey, they we're in the greatest country on earth. Like, you know, make the most out of it. But so you were in the Navy SEAL, which I don't what percentage of people make it that make it through, right? Can you can you talk about that? I think that's the I want to talk about the mindset behind all that.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, the training typically has uh historically an attrition rate of anywhere between 80 and 90 per I'm sorry, 85 and 90 percent of the candidates that try SEAL training fail to successfully navigate the entire pipeline and actually make it into the SEAL teams.
SPEAKER_00So what when did you ever have and I want to do I was looking at your your your Instagram and social media, you you talked about swim combat. I never even knew about swim combat, right? But that sounds crazy intense, but like and that's one of the phases, I think, right? But what was there ever a point where you're like, I'm I I'm gonna give up, or did you never put that in your head? And why do why do most why do 85% of people give up? What is it?
9/11 And A No Quit Decision
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good question. So I think it's really important for me to to to you know let the audience know that when I was 18, I tried SEAL training for the f the very first time. As soon as I got into the Navy and I didn't make it, I quit a day in the Hell Week. I wasn't too cold, I wasn't too tired, I was just scared. And I had never seen anything or experienced anything like that in my life, especially when you consider I grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, right? Um, fortunately, I knew how to swim because my mom would always throw me in bodies of water, but I had never experienced that level of man, that level of intensity, that level of consequence. And so I was just scared and I was I was a dumb kid and I ended up quitting and I took orders over to Sardinia, Italy, where I stayed for almost five years because I was having so much fun. Now, here's where the answer to your question comes from. I had been in Italy for about four and a half years as a military police officer, and I was actually gonna, I was having so much fun, David, I was gonna get out of the Navy and stay in Italy. I was just gonna go to University at Rome, build my life there. But one day I was at the command and a Red Cross message came across, and my command master chief alerted me and let me know, hey, your mom's sick, she's in the hospital, we're sending you home. And so I got tickets, got on a plane uh to go home and visit my mom. And about, I'd say three hours into the flight between Rome and New York City, the pilot comes over the loudspeaker and says, ladies and gentlemen, really sorry to announce this, but we got to land this aircraft immediately. We don't know what's going on. All we can tell you is that there's something happening in America and all airspace globally is being closed. And so I ended up, they they downed us, uh, they grounded us in a small city, probably about 45 minutes outside of London, if I remember correctly. I got on a train, got my ass down to the MC at London, checked in, called my command, let them know that I was okay because they were freaking out. And I ended up hanging out in London for a couple of weeks while the airspace was closed until I could actually get home to visit my mom. And that day was September 11, 2001. Well, I was in an airplane flying into New York City. Fortunately, not on one of the planes that that crashed. And so when I got back to my command about two and a half, three weeks later, my command career counselor found me and basically said, Hey, I hope you're in shape because I've got orders for you to go back to SEAL training. You're leaving immediately. Because I've been trying to get back that entire time. That command had some administrative issues. And so I was having a hard time getting that package approved. But surprise, surprise, a week after the terror attack of 9-11, I had orders in hand to go back and finish the job that I had started. And so when I got back to SEAL training in February of 2002, at that point, oh no, man, there was no question. There was no question in my head. In fact, the only thing that I knew for certain at that point was that I was gonna be a Navy SEAL. And if that, if the instructors had anything to say against that, they were gonna have to drag my lifeless dead corpse off the beach before they got me to voluntarily ring that bell again. So when I went back through training, I was 21-ish, almost 22, I think. And I just laughed throughout the whole thing and I was grateful for being there because I knew I was gonna make it.
SPEAKER_00So it sounded like your attitude, right? You just had this attitude where you appreciated the opportunity, you're like, I'm gonna take full advantage of it, right? It's just you say that's it was that.
SPEAKER_01It was also, you know, I I I went away and got about another four or five years of of mental maturity. Yeah, right. And I had to depend on myself to train myself, knowing what I was getting back into. I didn't have anyone else to depend on. So I had to grow up on my own. I didn't have anyone to help me do it. And lastly, I was just as angry as every other American was that day when we were attacked. And I knew somebody had to pay for that. And I took it personally and I was gonna make them pay.
Combat Swimmer And Pool Competency
SPEAKER_00So that's uh yeah, the attitude I think that I'm gonna do this, right? I'm grateful. And I think for gratitude is one of those things that I think is is very uh under underrated, right? Is what it comes down to say, and you and you and I try to, I have a you know, I have two sons, right? And I want my sons, I want them to be better, I want to be better versions of me as a man. I want them, they're gonna carry my legacy, right? So what I'm trying to instill in them, uh my two-year-old is a little too young, but he he's learning though. He's talking great gratitude. My son every morning tells me what he's grateful for before he goes to bed. You know, and and I feel like man, he's he's he's wild, man. But uh, that's helped him a lot. Be grateful and breathing, doing these, these, these, these techniques, and they're like simple things, but they work, man. But um, I was gonna ask you, with that being said, I s this thing with the the swim combat blew me, blew me away. Can you tell the audience what that is? And how I don't, it's this sounds crazy because when you're underwater, that's one thing, right? Like it's like you're in this, like it's like an alien territory, right? There's always fear going on, right? I think as as a normal person, but you have like people hitting you, they're trying to like rip off your survival, like your oxygen. Can you explain that? And like because I just think that blew my mind away. Uh and the the mentality you have to have, right? Maybe tunnel vision, like nothing's gonna, nothing's gonna get in my fucking way. I'm gonna figure this out, right? Can you explain what that was and what you had to go through and what the mentality is to survive something like that? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So, what you're referring to is the second phase of SEAL training, which is called combat swimmer. And combat swimmer is just another way of saying it's the the naval special warfare way of saying combat diving. So the second phase of SEAL training, budge training, basic underwater demolition SEAL school, is where students actually learn the art of combat diving and they start out doing non-combative diving where you know you've got 2080s on their back, and uh, they're basically just learning how to dive. But about halfway through that phase, you really move into combat swimmer. So you stop diving with 2080 civilian dive tanks, you start training with a Drader dive system, which is about the size of your chest. The dive, the oxygen tank is only about that big. Uh, and you're breathing 100% pure oxygen. It's a rebreather system that actually sits on your chest instead of on your back. And now you're starting to learn the tradecraft of being a real combat swimmer. First, we get you qualified in the water, underwater as a diver. Then we teach you the art of how to be a combat diver or a combat swimmer. And it is not an easy phase to get through. You know, you were asking what gets a lot of people out of SEAL training? Well, it's the water. That's what makes us different from everyone else. The Army Green Berets, the Army Rangers, these are some of the baddest dudes on the planet. I would not want a group of even 12 Rangers out hunting for me in the middle of the night. Let me just tell you, right? Um, but make no mistake, what sets us apart from all of the other special operations group is our capacity in the water. When it comes to comfort in the water, experience in the water, capability as a special operations commando in the water, that that's where we're cut above everyone else. And so cold water can change your life, right? So it can change your mind. That cold water gets a lot of guys out of SEAL training, but also water competency and your ability to be comfortable underwater. And the evolution that you're referencing is one of the final tests you have to successfully navigate at the end of the second phase or the combat swimmer phase of SEAL training. And that test is pool comp pool competency. And that is where you know you're wearing the 2080s on your back, the civilian tanks, and you have to go to the bottom of the pool and you have a blindfold on. So you you're wearing a dive mask, but it's completely blacked out on the inside, so you can't see anything. And you've got your breathing system, your regulator in your mouth, and you're breathing, and you're sitting on the bottom of the pool and you're just waiting because the instructors are going to simulate a surf hit. Hey, you were on the ocean floor, you were doing something, um, and you got hit by a rogue wave underwater that allowed the ocean to just have its way with you. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna panic and kill yourself and probably your dive buddy too? Or are you gonna keep your composure? Go inside your mind and work your way out of that problem without killing yourself, without injuring or killing your dive buddy. And so while you're down there, you're just hanging out waiting. And eventually, eventually, just when you can't take the anxiety anymore, there's gonna be about three to five instructors swim down there and whip the ever-loving shit out of you underwater. And yeah, they're ripping the regulator out of your mouth, they're tying the hose, the hoses in knots, you know, that you may or may not be able to get out so that you can get back to your air. They're spinning you all around in different circles. You're bouncing off the bottom of the pool, they're pushing you about and just being really, really mean to you, David. Yes, and it is up to you as the individual operator to keep your calm throughout the entire thing. No matter what happens, keep your calm. Don't let them knock you off of your focus so that when they're finished with you, you can keep your composure, get back on your knees and work the problem. Okay, what's going on here? Yep, okay, I got a knot in my lines. Can I get this out? What else is loose? Can I get my regulator back to my mouth? If I can't get the knot out, can I safely and calmly make the decision to get out of the rest of this gear and get up to the surface safely the way I've been taught, so that I don't actually cause my lungs to explode in my chest if I do it wrong, right? Um, so it is not an easy evolution to pass. And if you are even a little bit uncomfortable underwater, that evolution will get you out of there, even though it's toward the end of the second phase of the three-phase budge training. So guys end up getting kicked out of training all the way from beginning to end. And believe it or not, there are some guys that get to a SEAL team and they get kicked out of there. Everything's a test, and the test never stops.
Mindset Transformation And Alignment
SPEAKER_00I love that you ended that way. Everything's a test, and it's test that never stops because uh as entrepreneurs, you know, you work with a lot of high-level executives. We're talking offline about you work a lot of Fortune 500 executives. You just did a keynote at Hershey's, right? With with them. Uh, you talked about Microsoft, all these, all these companies. And I think uh as an entrepreneur, man, there's there's only certain X amount, I forgot the stat, but X amount of people that try to start a business are able to survive, right? And I I did an interview two months ago with um uh with a gentleman who said that only 0.4% of businesses actually make it to eight figures a year. And I thought I I knew it wasn't that it wasn't gonna be that high, but I would estimate it two to three percent because we we have uh some mutual uh friends, right? And they're doing pretty well, you know, revenue-wise. Right. But you kind of get jaded in the sense that you when you surround yourself with people that are doing really well, you start thinking everyone, it's actually good to be surrounded with people like that, but it's not like you forget, right? And I think that the reason I'm answering this question, we talk about pressure, this pressure uh environment that with a high pressure environment. Obviously, you're underwater, you're getting beat up, right? You're a navy SEAL, you're in all these combat situations that you successfully manage. What do you think is the is it all mental? Like what is the difference between success and failure? I guess it goes back to the question I asked you earlier about what why do people not make it through Navy SEALs, right? Why do people aren't successful in entrepreneurs? Because I think it's all connected, right? It's a mental game and it's a test on their rents. Wait, what's your answer to that?
SPEAKER_01100%. The difference is mindset. And so with most of the high-level executives that I work with today, that's what we're working on. I'm helping those men and women to actually complete the journey through and experience a mindset transformation that allows them to reach alignment, the kind of alignment that allows you to live your wildest dreams, right? Like I no longer chase goals, I no longer seek outcomes, I seek alignment so that all of my goals come to me. Everything that I would chase in life, it comes to me. I don't have to work so hard for it because I'm already aligned. And I think that that's what it's all about. And it took nearly 10 years into my entrepreneurial journey in order for me to learn that. In fact, what really helped me get there over the last year and a half was a piece of advice that our mutual friend gave me as one of my mentors and coaches. And he said to me, Ty, you I don't think you realize yet who you want to be as a businessman. And I can remember when he said that, like for a second, my ego stepped in. I was kind of thinking, like, what the hell are you talking about? I don't know who I know who I am. Just for a half a second, and then I literally asked my ego to. Go sit in the corner and wait for me to finish taking this feedback. And then I meditated on it, I prayed on it, I thought on it for a few months and it finally landed. That that light bulb finally went off. But that's where I truly realized wait a minute, the reason why everything is going so well for me now, and it has been over the last several months is because I finally reached the alignment that I have been working toward over the last several years. And now that I've reached it, I got it. That's a light bulb that's never ever going off. And now I understand how to help other people get there too. It's not, it's not going to be easy, but I can help people get there. That alignment is also what enables me to help run as many businesses as I run. And people ask me all the time, how are you helping to grow five different businesses? Just because, well, I figured out what my alignment looks and feels like. Every one of the businesses that I'm helping to grow is something that I truly love and care about. Like I am that idea. And so it makes sense that I'm doing that, whether it be keynote speaking engagements where I'm talking about what we're talking about right now and other things that are really important to me, like entrepreneurship and leadership and mindset transformation, or whether I am working with high-level executives and helping them to experience a mindset transformation that allows them from going great to truly the elite in their craft because it all comes down to what is in your head. That was the difference between the first time I tried to navigate SEAL training as an 18-year-old and got my ass handed to me. And the second time I went to navigate SEAL training as a 22-year-old and crushed it. It was mindset. I had gone through a mindset transformation over that four years that enabled me to accomplish this massive, hairy goal. And as human beings, we have to understand that we have to continue the journey through mindset transformations throughout the entirety of our lives. So, so if you can zoom out with me for a little bit, this is for everyone listening to the podcast and watching the podcast. If you can really zoom out with me, like out into the stratosphere, I believe that the way this planet and the way all of us were created was with balance. There's got to be balance in everything. There's got to be balance in everyone. And there are signs of it all around us. We've all heard the sayings as above, so is below, as within, so is without. I can go on and on and on. There must be balance. And I think that the journey of seeking alignment, that's really what you're looking for. You're you're looking for, hey, what is what is my balance? How can I get to my balance so that so that no matter what I'm doing, I am aligned with a frequency that allows me to get there bigger, better, faster, stronger. And that's why I spent a lot of my time working with executives on doing that, because the way I see things is that hey man, if I was a poor, not so educated kid coming out of East St. Louis, Illinois and 18 years old and joining the Navy because I had this dream of becoming a Navy SEAL and everybody swore I couldn't do it, but I went out and did it anyway, then there's no difference between me being able to accomplish that goal as a result of a mindset transformation and a prospective entrepreneur coming up with an idea and going from being poor to an eight or nine-figure entrepreneur based on a mindset transformation they went through. And so I think that the difference between good and bad mindset, the difference between winning and losing mindset, the difference between being broke and being wealthy, it's all mindset.
Find Your Fruit And Model
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree. And there was a lot you said there, right? And I want to talk about alignment because as you were talking, I was thinking about my journey as an entrepreneur. You know, I got to start, I'm 46 years old. I got started as an entrepreneur late. I was I worked for other people, helped make them money. And then I I started, I became a consultant, which is really a glorified freaking employee. You know, so you're 1099, you get some tax advantages, but anyway, I helped make people all this money. And I think that for a I I didn't really break change my mindset to maybe I was 35, 36, where I can go off on my own and do it. You know, I was making people, I was I was getting paid, you know, multi-six figures, which I thought at the time was a lot of money, right? And um, but I I don't know if I believed in myself that I can do it on my own. And I don't know, something happened, exchange of events happened, like, well, I I can do this on my own, right? I mean, it's like you, I guess when you when you decide I can't I can do this, I can be a Navy SEAL at 22, right? I didn't do it at 18, I can do it now. So I tried on my own and it didn't work out, right? But then then I was more, I guess I was more mature. I was like, I was like 36 at 35, 36 at the time. I've been through the experience. I'm like, man, I can freaking do this, right? I started doing math. And I know a lot of like the you talk about the swim combat, there's mathematical equations about your breath underwater. So I started doing math. Okay, I earned this much doing 50 hours a week at consulting. I earn the same amount doing five hours doing the side thing. I'd it's just a math game, I think, bro, right? Right. If I put the same amount of effort, it's gonna work. And it wasn't as simple as that was. But the point is, like, I think it came down to alignment. I wanted to make X amount of money, right? And I'm like, I would reverse engineer sometimes on uh one time on a napkin. I'm like, hey, if I can get this, these buyers to buy this amount of leads here, do this, do that, I can hit those numbers. And I've reverse engineered it, man. So what the question I'm trying to ask you is that was like a sense of me aligning with the buyers and hitting their KPIs, their targets. But let's say there's someone watching right now, whether they're a media buyer or they're an entrepreneur or whatever they are, they want to make X amount of money. Let's say they want to make a million in their pocket a year. What would your advice to them? How do they do it? How do they find that alignment to make that whatever number that is happen? Great question.
SPEAKER_01Figure out what your fruit is. Number one, what is your fruit that you're supposed to go out and multiply? All of us have fruit. You have fruit that other people don't have, I have fruit that other people don't have. I got to figure out what is my fruit, what is my purpose? Because look, I I've started businesses that were successful, and I had a business that was my biggest business, that was my biggest dream, and it failed. And I realized after the fact that wow, no shit, that business failed. It was completely out of alignment with who I am and what I really want to be doing with my life. I was trying to prove something to myself with that particular business. No wonder it didn't work out the way that I thought it would. And so I think that we have to figure out, hey, what is it that I'm supposed to be doing? Not what other people think I should be doing. And in some ways, that's easy. If you have an idea for a business that you want to build, and that idea makes you so excited that you can genuinely say to yourself, that's something I would do for free. And I would do it every day, all day for free, because that is just that's whatever that is, that's who I am. An example of that would be one of the businesses that I help to run is a weapons manufacturing company. No shit. I'm a gun guy. I love guns. Of course I run a weapons company. So we have to figure out hey, what is my fruit that I have been given that other people don't have, that I can use that to go out and multiply. And I think that that's step number one because you can come up with a great idea that is a viable idea. It doesn't necessarily mean that that particular idea is the one that you're supposed to launch. Doesn't mean that I've had plenty of good ideas that weren't necessarily in alignment with who I am. And so when I try to execute on those ideas, they feel more stressful than anything. Whereas everything that I'm doing now, it's stuff that I would do for free. I just happen to make a living doing it. There's nothing stressful about it for me. I'm doing what I love doing. And so I think that's step number one. Step number two is exactly what you said, David. Figure out the model. I guarantee you, there is a model that fits that idea. And once you figure out the model that fits that idea, well, then it's just a numbers game, assuming you do all the other really, really hard stuff, like figuring out messaging and positioning and you get that through product discovery and customer discovery, and then you figure out your go to market. But I think the first two most important steps is figure out what your fruit is, what is your purpose? Why are you on this planet? And then figure out the model that matches it.
SPEAKER_00Man, I love it. That was great. You make me really take a trip down memory lane and go through my journey, right? And it's like, you know, I sometimes I wish, I'm like, man, I see these young guys. This is what messed me up back then. I would compare myself back then in my mid-30s, right? And it wasn't good, man, comparing yourself, right? Like it would, it would hold you back. And as I got older, I'm like, I don't give a fuck. They do what they do, I'm gonna do what I do, and I'm gonna stay in my lane. And I think it's like a mental maturity, is what happens, right? And then what I'm trying to say is that goes back to the swim combat. I mean, I know it's easier said than done, but all that stuff is noise, right? People hitting you, it's a noise. How do you not react to the noise and let them take you where they want to take you, right? That's what I'm trying to teach my son at six years old because he's very emotional. I want I'm emotional too, man. And I want to really, I I think that what you and you tell me, correct me, I'm wrong, but you've learned how to control those emotions so that you can use your brain, your logic, and not use that reptilian side to react and create your self-destruct, right? Am I right or wrong, man?
Authenticity Beats Impostor Syndrome
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there are two parts to what you just said. First and foremost, brother, don't ever compare yourself to anyone else. Because when it comes down to it, nobody compares to you. No one. And that allows me to talk about something that I think is extremely important, and that is the necessity for authenticity. Be yourself all the time, 100% of the time, 24 hours a day. Because if you're not, you're cheating me out of the experience that is you. Wow. I can't get you from anywhere else other than you. And here's something that's really, really good about always being yourself. We hear a lot of our brother and sister entrepreneurs and businessmen and women talking about imposter syndrome. I had it bad when I was running ComSafe AI. I built this venture capital back generative AI company. And I think more than anything, I was proving to myself that I was more than a jock, I was more than a SEAL team operator. I could go to business school and go do all this stuff. That was completely out of alignment with who I really am. And I'm glad I did it. But I took the long way around to learning that, yeah, no wonder it felt like I had imposter syndrome that entire time because I was being an imposter. Yeah. And the flip side of that coin, it's really, really hard to have imposter syndrome when you're not being an imposter, when you are simply being yourself 24 hours a day. And that's critical. And here's the thing your followers need that consistency. And by your followers, I mean your entire kingdom, the people you were put on this planet to have some kind of effects on their lives, family, friends, the random person that you bump into in the street and they they happen to ask, Hey, how's it going, David? And you take the time to stop and tell them how's it going? And then you talk to them and you want to hear how they are doing. This is a brand new person that you just met, but that person is now a part of your kingdom because God didn't make a mistake by you meeting that person. And so now this is an opportunity for you to serve that person, whether it just be, hey, you were a random human that actually took the time to do what most people don't do. And that guy stopped and talked to me. You don't know what that person was going through. They could have been getting ready to head home and go commit suicide. But because you took the time to be a human and had that conversation with them, maybe you gave them the gasoline that they needed to keep going a few more days, right? But anybody that is within your orbit or your kingdom, as I like to say, they need consistency from you. They need to know who they're gonna get and what they're gonna get every time they deal with you. And when you're in a professional environment, that helps your direct report because in your absence, they learn, they they get to still move the ball forward because they've learned how you think, how you operate. And so they're less gun shy about making decisions that they have the authority to make without having to talk to you about it first. Another example of why that is good when you look at it from the personal side is some how can I say this? If you are a married man, think about the value that your spouse can get from going to a work event with you and sitting back and observing you be the same man that you are at home, especially if you're a good man at home. So for your family to be able to sit back and see, wow, dad really is the same person. Well, like my husband really is the same person at work as he is at home. That makes me feel really good. It makes me feel very secure, very confident. Again, I know what I'm gonna get and what everyone else is gonna get when they're dealing with that person. So that is something that a lot of organizations ask me to come in and talk to their executives about. Because, as you can imagine, at really big companies where people are getting cut really, really big checks, it's very easy to lose sight of who you are because you're spending all day performing. Yeah, because you don't want to lose that lifestyle. You don't want to lose your job, you don't want to lose that title, you don't want to not get that bonus. And so you're acting all day. But what you don't realize is that you're actually pushing your goals further away by doing that, and you're cheating us out of the experience that is you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that that was powerful, man. I mean, yeah, like my hair rising on my artists. I think it's a message that people don't really talk about, or they get there's so much about when you say one thing before we got you like grind culture is dead, right? And we're we're so taught as entrepreneurs, grind, grind, grind, hustle, hustle, hustle. And I can't, you know, I I've done it, right? And then I can tell you where things really took off for me is when I did, I was like, you know what? I'm not taking on that client because I they just don't, there's no alignment. They want to take advantage of me or they want to treat me like crap, forget them. I don't need that. I don't need that energy in my life, right? When I started taking on a mentality like that, where I wasn't going after every single crumb or morsel, and I was kind of looking for bigger, like bigger fish, and not just bigger fish, but people that are like aligned with me. Right. And not just in terms of uh, I mean, spiritually too. Spiritually, uh gold-wise, I mean, everything, right? It just made my life a lot easier. And I think that's something that's it's hard, it's scary to do that because it's hard to turn away money, right? Especially if it's good money, but you've I think for the long term, the the the the mentality, you have weight off your shoulders. Like some there's no such thing as free money, right? You might have someone maybe giving you that, but it's like it doesn't feel right. So it it sub constantly messes you up, right? So I feel like when you said that, that's that's when things really started to shift me. Even with the LFG show, man, we we're ourselves on the show, man. We really this is how we live. We go, man. You we try to schedule for like two months, you and I, right? Right. Always around, always moving around. But like that's how we live our lives. And I think that that's why we've had success and we keep pushing it, man. But with that being said, like what is your advice to someone? It's kind of like you're stuck in that kind of, and that was me as a consultant. I was living, yeah, I was making good income top line, whatever. But I once I stopped kind of acting, that's when I started to be myself, that's when I started to make even 5x, 10x more money, right? Right. So, what's your advice to people like that? Maybe they're in a corporate environment, or maybe they're doing something where it's not aligned with them and they're just doing it maybe to put food on the table and they're scared to make that leap.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a good question. I think that the first thing that you have to consider is, hey, how do I feel? Right? How do I feel in this role when I'm at work, when my when I'm with my colleagues, when I'm with my family, how do I feel? When I'm at work around my colleagues, how do I feel? When I'm at work and now I'm specifically with my leadership, how do I feel? We have to understand that our feelings dictate our actions. And so if we can find a way to gain control of our feelings by utilizing our thoughts and what we allow ourselves to think, we're at the starting line, right? Because if you can't if you can't look at where you are right now and be honest with yourself about where you are right now and how it makes you feel, you're just lost. But if you can be honest with yourself and admit that you feel out of alignment or off balance, or I feel like I'm kind of in the wrong place, or yeah, I'm making all this money, but I'm not happy. That is where you start. Because you can lie to everybody around you, but you cannot lie to yourself. So are you willing to tell yourself about how you feel? And once you determine that, yeah, this I'm not happy, I'm not in alignment, I don't have balance. Well, now it's time for you to figure out why and get up and execute on it. And some people have the ability to have those come to Jesus conversations on their own. A lot of people do not. It requires help. But I think that what's most important is that you identify the point, which is like, hey, I'm I'm not happy. I feel like I'm out of alignment, I feel like I'm off balance. Things don't feel as good as I I feel like they could feel. Um, and then you got to identify, hey, what what are these things? Well, I I work too much, I'm not spending enough time with my family. Okay, that's important to know. Um, well, I work so much, so I don't I don't work out a few times a week. No wonder you feel like shit. Okay, well, what else is going on? Well, I work too much, and when I'm not at work now, I got to do all this stuff on the honeydew list. So I notice my diet has gone shit. Yeah, okay, that'll make you feel like crap too. Let's write all that stuff down. Let's figure out all of these things that you know are keeping you out of alignment. And just like anything else, whether you're talking about, now I gotta go do this dive and I got a plan, or now I got to go execute this presentation and I got a plan because I built the presentation. I've got the PowerPoint, so I'm ready to go do it. Well, now that you've got this all lined out and you understand the chinks in the armor, now it's time to get up and go do something about it. Now you got to go execute on those things, but it starts with figuring out, hey, how do how do I feel? Am I willing to be honest with myself and admit that something is wrong here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. So I was gonna ask you. So you you do this with your clients, right? You take inventory on this stuff. I do, absolutely. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, how do you actually because a lot of everything's easier said than done, right? And I tell you one thing. Uh, I've been at, I don't know if you've been to any Tony Robbins events, I've been to several of his, right? And I love Tony Robbins. The only issue is that it's almost like um you take a shot where you're like, you, you're, you're it's almost like a drug. You you come out of there pumped up, ready to take on the damn world, but then it that's not really where the magic happens. It happens if by you applying executing, right? You can give someone the damn the playbook, but they don't utilize a playbook, it doesn't freaking matter, right? So the the people, the one percent that I've seen actually succeed with that stuff are the ones that actually execute it, right? So, I mean, what would let's say just give, I mean, I know that this is what you do for a living, right? You call you you help people identify that, but what's like a tip you can give to the audience? I mean, to to help them kind of take inventory because we're living in a world with a lot of noise, right? And especially people watching, they're they're in front of screens all day long, which I think is not good either. 12 hours a day, blah, blah, blah, 18 hours a day in some cases, watching these stats. It's like a drug, ups and downs. Some people are taking Adderall, taking all the stuff, right? You know, so what's your advice for them to kind of take that proper inventory?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think that everyone has this vision of what their dream life looks like, right? If I had a billion dollars in the bank, this is all the stuff that I would have. And this is how I would live my day. If I didn't have to worry about money, like I would probably do this, this, and this every day because I love those things. And I would go over here and help these people. And, you know, if I didn't have to worry about money or working in time, then yeah, I would work out four days a week. I was write all that stuff down. Everything that you believe is your dream, your dream life, even if you just say, okay, I'm just gonna envision a 24-hour period of time, write all of that stuff down. After you finish writing it down, ask yourself a really important question. Why am I not doing this shit right now? Why do I gotta wait until I get a billion dollars in the bank to start living this way? Because here's the thing if you make The decision. You decide. No, I'm going to start living this way now. I'm going to start living in my heart. Like I already have all this stuff, and my life is already that good and perfect. And I'm going to allow my physical movements to reflect that as well. Because again, my thoughts control my feelings. My feelings then dictate my actions. Your outside world, believe it or not, has no choice but to conform to what you are putting out into the universe. You said it, it's spiritual, brother. We are all frequency and vibration and energy. And again, there must be balance. As within, so is without. So if you can articulate on paper what your dream, your vision is, and you can allow yourself to start executing on that now with what you allow to go in your brain, your behaviors, the outside world has no choice but to conform to that. So if you write out this plan and you deduce from this plan that I am a king, wait a minute. Well, it's so it's so easy to see it because it's right in front of me now. I'm a king. I don't so I never have to worry about money. And I'm gonna get exactly what I want. And those people are gonna do exactly what I I asked them to do because I'm a king, and that's what that's what a king does. That's how a king moves, that's how a king thinks, that's how a king breathes, that's how a king behaves. And you can keep yourself in that belief that the outside world has no choice but to conform to that. Before you know it, you're gonna look up and people are gonna be treating you like you are a king. Outcomes are going to reflect that of a king. Finances are going to start to reflect that of a king by way of the opportunities that come to you. And so again, it starts with the mindset, right? And can you articulate on paper what you want your dream life to be like? Start acting on it today. Articulate on paper all the reasons why you're not doing all that stuff right now. Because a lot of it you can be doing right now. Sure, if you don't, if you if you're if you don't have the billion dollars already, you're probably not gonna go out and buy a Ferrari. But you can recognize that, yeah, I'm a king. I can drive whatever car I want. And for right now, I drive this car and I'm really grateful that I have this one. And when it's time for me to get that Ferrari, I will have it. And I'm just gonna relax in my faith that it will happen at the time that it's supposed to and not a moment before. But for right now, I'm gonna be grateful for the car that I do have to drive because that's how you have to think. That's how you have to feel. And if you can allow yourself to live in that way of thinking, in that way of feeling, I'll say it one more time. The outside world has no choice but to conform to you.
SPEAKER_00Man, you yeah, you got me really thinking. I I I the law of attraction, right? I know this was popular like 15 years, but it's it's so relevant. And I there's so many times, and chance has been with me, people that know me. I'm like, man, I I I gotta, I'm gonna, I'm gonna find this, I'm gonna find this person. I don't I know they're at the show, I don't know where they're at, I'm gonna find them. Literally, two seconds later, we find them. Crazy stuff, right? And I'll visualize, okay, I want to make this center mountain next month, dah, dah, dah. This is what I read, I put in my head, boom, it happens. So I started thinking, I gotta think bigger than what I'm thinking because like the things that I'm thinking of, they're freaking happening. So now the next thing's like, how do I think even freaking bigger, right? It's not necessarily thinking bigger from a financial perspective, but maybe maybe more experiences with the family. It doesn't have to always be financial, it'd be what's gonna make me feel good, right? And um, I can't emphasize enough. And I think that once you start getting in that vibration, and I think a lot of what's helped me out is meditating consistently. That's right. Um, you have I do this thing called the hour of power in the morning. I live on the beach. I that's awesome. I get to sit down sometimes. I go out there and I meditate. When I do that consistently, life is freaking great. I tell you what, I struggle with though, where I struggle with because of my schedule being as erratic as it is. I have two or three weeks where I do this. I did Pilates a couple days ago. Like I'm working out, I got feel good. Then I'll go to like an event in Las Vegas and it's like go, go, go, go, go, right. And I go hard, man. I'll be out to four or five in the morning, then I sleep two hours, I wreck my body, and I go through this cycle. So that's that's the issue that I have, man, is that you know, then that kind of throws me off. But for the most part, when I'm when I'm locked in, boom, I just attract this stuff. Even when I'm out there, like I'm still doing it. But that that's one of the things. And I want to talk to you about that a little bit later, man. But what's yeah, what's all yeah, a lot of stuff I just put out there. What's your well no? I was I was gonna ask you, why is it an issue?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What it's only an issue if you make it an issue. Yeah, it is only an issue if you say it is an issue. Yeah. So I try not to look at things that way. When you're in Vegas and you're doing that stuff, are you are you happy? Are you doing what you believe is your job? Is that a part of your job? Like you're networking, you're you're meeting different people that are in the industry, and some of these people you're gonna work with, and some of these people could become vendors. So you're doing what you do for a living, and assuming you love doing what you do for a living, why give yourself a hard time about having to burn a midnight oil from time to time? You're doing what you love doing. This is how you provide for yourself and for your family. Why give yourself a hard time about doing it? So I don't give myself a hard time about anything anymore. I focus on gratitude and flowing. I just want to flow. So if my schedule dictates that I can't work out for a week and a half, I'm not gonna give myself a hard time about it. Obviously, I'm supposed to be here doing what I'm doing right now. So, why would I give myself a hard time about being there and doing that thing? I'm I'm I'm here, right? Clearly, this is where guy wanted me to be right now. That's why I'm right here. So, why would I give myself a hard time about it? So it's only an issue if you make it an issue. Because here's here's the truth, David. Like you're 46, I'm 47. As far as late 40-year-olds are concerned, like we're doing all right. Like we're pretty 100%. We look pretty good. I feel pretty good, right? So you look great, man. Thank you, brother. It's only an issue if you say it's an issue, and so that again, I am very cautious of how I think, how I allow myself to think, how I allow myself to talk to myself. Yep. I will only talk to myself like I am a king. I will only treat myself like I am a king because a lot of people don't realize. So everybody has gone through trauma. Every single one of us has gone through trauma. Some people have gone through more trauma than other people. So by the time we get to our adult years, we're all kind of messed up in some way or another. And a lot of people lose sight of the fact that that young man or that young woman, that little kid that went through all of that trauma and went through all of those experiences that that made us who we are today, that little kid is still in there. That little boy that got beat up all the time is still in you. That little girl that got picked on and told that she was ugly all the time when she was a kid is still inside of you. And so when you're talking down to yourself, you're talking down to that little boy that's already been traumatized and beat on enough. Now it is your job to protect that young person. So I'm very cautious of what I allow myself to think, the kind of content I allow myself to take in. And like you, I am an avid meditator. I love to meditate first thing in the morning and at night before I go to sleep because I want to take control of the flow of my day. I want to take control of the tone, the frequency, the vibration of my day from the moment that I wake up in the morning. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think you you gave me an answer. And I I love I loved your your response. And and I think what it comes down to is that I'm on this routine when I'm home, right? I meditate, I do this, I work out. And then when I go, I kind of I kind of allow myself to get off. And listen, if if if I sleep less, and I had a a coach who told me the same thing. When you when you go away, that's when you need to meditate the most, right? So I just got to carve out the damn time. That's the thing. If I if it if I can go do two sets, like some push-ups, three sets of push-ups, whatever, I'll feel good. So it just comes out of carving at a time. So next, what am I in? We're in Vegas in two weeks. When I'm there, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you know I did it, man. I'll tell you when I slept two hours, I'm gonna meditate for 10 minutes, I'll go to the gym for 15 minutes, and I think that'll give me, it'll make me feel good. Because I what it does, like subconsciously, I get like, man, I should have I get I get mad at myself, is what it comes down to. I beat myself up. But if I do that, you know, I feel like, hey, I it's it's a little victory, right? And life's about little victories.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. But don't forget the point that I'm making is that if for some reason you can't find that 15 minutes, don't beat yourself up. It's okay. Yeah, stop beating yourself up. Yeah, don't ever beat yourself up. You've been beat up enough in this life. That's true.
SPEAKER_00Don't do it to yourself. I love it, man. This is great. I I you know what I used to beat myself up a lot, baby. I took probably my mid 30s, late 30s. Maybe it's I don't even know how long, but my dad's very this is probably one of the only times I actually do that where I just admit it right now. But I think that's a big thing, and we're taught that way, we're conditioned that way, right? Right. And I'll go into something else, man. You're making me think of all this crazy stuff. My mom's a Venezuela right now, right? She's she's uh she came to America when she was 25. And I talk about this a lot on the show, about that, the the Hispanic, uh very good work ethic. But there's a lot, there's a lot of scarcity mindset when it comes to you're taught be an employee, work hard, earn your nine to five, work all these hours, right? Be a W-2, whatever the hell. So like when I first went as entrepreneurial journey, and I feel like that's what held me back. That's why I didn't go into this journey until I was in my mid-30s. I probably would have done it sooner, but I was taught, oh, you know, make work at a corporate company, big company, be secure, that kind of thing, right? But that wasn't in me. That's not where my happy place was, right? But the point is that um, you know, I still see that sometimes or the scarcity of mine said, Why did you spend money? Like, I don't let it, it used to bother me. I used to get like pissed over. Now I let let her talk, I don't let let it like affect my bubble, right? Is what it comes down to. But I think that's a big thing, is that we're like you said, that that little kid inside of you, it's all those trials, it's all your conditioning, right? It's how do you, and there's good parts of it, but why do you take those negative parts that aren't serving you anymore, right? And unwinding those things, right? So you can be your best self.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and understanding that there's no reason, there's no proper reason for you to beat yourself up over anything. Everything that happens happens for a reason. Again, if you zoom out a little bit and look at things from a grander stage, you'll see that all is well and well indeed. So there's no need for you to be beating yourself up. And you've already you've already been redeemed for everything you've ever done wrong. You've already been redeemed, you know, especially if you believe in God, you've already been forgiven for all of it. So there's no need for you to beat yourself up over anything. Now, that doesn't clear you of the responsibility of learning from those things. But we certainly shouldn't be beating ourselves up over it. Learn from the mistake that you made, uh, change your behavior so you don't make that make that mistake again, and leave it behind you because holding on to it, that's it's it's low frequency.
Psychedelics For Trauma And Clarity
SPEAKER_00And again, that's going to keep you out of alignment. Low frequency, like it's high frequency, what we want. Yeah, now two things I don't want to forget about this, but you were talking about we're talking about inventory, right? What what are your thoughts about? I've never done this, I've heard about this, right? I mean, I'll be scared as hell to do this, honestly. But there's I guess I'm talking about substances, like mind-altering substances that kind of get people to take inventory to look inside. I hear about this ayahuasca. I don't know if that's the same thing about this. There's a frog thing where I don't know, I think you suck some frog venom. I don't know if that's the same damn thing, but I hear people do this and like they come back, they think there's like, oh my god, their life has changed. Like, I don't know if that's true or not. I've never done anything. I I'd be scared to do that crap. But what are your thoughts about that? Is that is that stuff would you recognize that valid, or what is that the best way to take inventory? Or what what are your thoughts?
SPEAKER_01It is 100% valid. Okay. So um, two December ago, I actually went to Bayatiwana in Mexico with a group of four other combat veterans, primarily special operations commandos, and we went on a uh very formal psychedelic retreat by way of a nonprofit that is owned by one of my former SEAL teammates and his beautiful wife, Marcus and Amber Capone, and they run the Vets organization, V-E-T-S. And so over that five-day period of time, we got to participate in a real Indian sweat lodge, which was an amazing experience. Uh, but we also got a chance to take a journey using Ibegain from the Aboga plant uh that comes out of Africa, if I remember correctly. And then we also got a chance to experience taking a trip on five MEO DMT, so smoking the toad, as you referred to. And that was a hell of an experience. And I would highly recommend that experience to anyone that feels like maybe they have trauma they haven't faced and dealt with, and they want to grow from that. Anyone that wants to have a greater understanding of the unseen, because make no mistake, there is much more happening in the unseen world around you 24 hours a day than what is actually happening in the scene in this physical world. I think it's a good experience for anyone that is seeking understanding. A lot of people out there, especially today with all the madness going on in the world, I believe the enemy has given us all plenty of reasons to believe his trick and making us think that God doesn't exist. But I just refuse to believe it. So anyone that is struggling with that conversation, and I know a lot of executives that are struggling with that conversation, because just because you make a million dollars a year doesn't mean that you're not human, doesn't mean you don't still need God in your life. It doesn't mean that you don't still need to have a connection to your creator, right? It's a it's a really good way of gaining more understanding. And I ended up doing it. Guys have been telling me to do it for years because it was just something else for me to try. Because when I retired from the SEAL teams in 2016, I had a tremendous amount going on. My little sister had just died out of nowhere, she was 31 years old. I basically left this planet and moved on to her next mission. Um, I was just being diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress. I had a lot going on. I was in grad school, I was building my first business. I had a tremendous amount going on. And so instead of allowing PTSD to have his way with me, I SEAL teamed PTSD. I said, okay, I'm gonna go out and find and try every modality I can possibly find to get myself back to being a normal human being again. I'm not gonna let PTSD beat me. I'm gonna whip the ever-loving shit out of it. So you name it, I tried it. Floating therapy, acupuncture, hot therapy, cold therapy, like transcranial magnetic stimulation. I could go on and on and on. And for years, guys had been telling me, bro, that it that trip was life-changing for me. Bro, I don't even think about drinking alcohol anymore. Bro, I don't even think about being a womanizer anymore. Bro, I never have bad dreams anymore. Like for years, guys were telling me what they were getting out of this experience. And I, like you, was like, hey man, I'm anything stronger than weed scares the living shit out of me. No thanks. I'm not gonna do it. I don't even really drink alcohol anymore. So I think I'm good, you know, with the things that I'm doing. I individually invested 30 grand of my own money into psychotherapy outside of what the VA would fund. I said, okay, well, I'm gonna fund the rest of it myself. I'm gonna do the work because I wanted to be, I wanted to be a good person for my family, for my children, for my friends. And I knew war changed me. I knew that it changed me. I was not the same person that I used to be. And I wasn't thinking the way that I thought before the first time I experienced war. And so I wanted to do something about it. But anything stronger than weed, it I was just like, no, I like that that the idea that scares the living crap out of me. Like, no, I'm I don't even want to talk about it. But a few years back, I went through some stuff, and it was life-changing, the stuff that I was going through. And I'll spare you the long story unless you you asked me to tell it. But I woke up one morning and I knew I was ready. And so I called the buddy of mine. I called Marcus and I said, Hey man, I'm ready. And he said, Say less. I'm gonna have somebody call you in five minutes. I'm gonna get you signed up. You don't have to pay for nothing. We're gonna sponsor you. It's time for you to take that journey. And a couple months later, I was in Mexico on that journey and it was life-changing.
War Changes You For Life
SPEAKER_00Wow, it's that's crazy. There's so much to unpack there. Can you can you go back? How did war change you? Oh my god. Well, what war was what was the the ad was it? That's that was Iraq, right? The Iraq war?
SPEAKER_01Well, I spent a bunch of time in Iraq and Afghanistan and and some other places as well. Most of my combat experience came from my time in Afghanistan. When you experience something as heavy and as fatal as combat, especially at the level in which special operations commandos experience combat, it's an it's a it's a different type of awakening, right? Because you get to see the you get to see the literal definition of hell on earth. And there's a flip side to that that's really, really good, and I'll come back to it, because like I said, there's gotta be balance in everything, but you get to see and experience true hell on earth. A lot of people use that term hell on earth, but very few people know what it really means, what it really feels like. And war is hell on earth. Seeing your buddies get chewed up is hell on earth. Seeing, you know, a senior citizen running up to the base with a beautiful little girl with her hole this big in her shin because she got hit by a piece of shrapnel because a Taliban shithead dropped a grenade in the middle of the village and took off running, that is hell on earth. Those experiences change you forever. And you're never the same again. Ever. So even with all the work that I've done to recover from PTSD and traumatic brain injury, I'm still not the same. I just, you know, glory be to God, I found a way to reach alignment, right? It was like it was just like Ray was telling me, you got to figure out who you really are and who you really want to be. And he was right because I was fighting who I am. Because, like I said, no, that's hell unearthed, man. I we shouldn't leave that dude in Afghanistan. We don't want that tie coming back to the United States. He should stay in Afghanistan because he's someone different. And I had to realize that was a mistake. That was a really, really, really big mistake that I was making because that part of me is still me. Who the hell am I to shut him out of the room? That part of me saved my life. That that that version of me saved my friends' lives once upon a time. So why would I leave him shut out? That was a part of why I was struggling so hard. I was incomplete. Of course, I wasn't gonna be in alignment. I was incomplete, and so I had to learn how to embrace that side of me and figure out okay, well, then where does he fit on the couch with the rest of me's? Yeah, because there I've got layers. There's several me's in here, right? You've got the king, you've got the priest, you've got the warfighter, right? You've got you've got the academic, you've got the the psychotherapist. All of them are sitting on a couch. And so I finally had to get to the point where I opened the door, it was like, hey man, I'm sorry for keeping you locked out. Come on in, sit on the couch with the rest of us. Sit next to the priest, right? But sit on the couch with the rest of us. Uh because yeah, man, war changes you. Once you experience those things, once you realize that the worst thing that I ever could have imagined, it gets way worse. There's no way to unsee or unexperience those things. And so it changes who you are, it jades you, it changes the lens in which you view the world, the lens in which you view people. It changes how you think people are looking at you, right? It changes how you interact with people. When I retired from the SEAL teams, I didn't really I well, first and foremost, I hadn't slept in probably three years. Um, but I didn't want to talk to people, especially if you weren't a veteran. I didn't really want to communicate with you because I knew you weren't going to understand me and I wasn't gonna understand you. And that was a really horrible way of thinking, but I'd I'd kind of been conditioned into thinking that way. Um, I took life way too seriously, I took myself. Way too seriously, right? And that was a mistake. And here's a really good example of that mistake. You know, I have three children, 27, 26, and six. My 27-year-old, my oldest, my son, Ty, you know, I raised him like he was in the military, like he was the one in the SEO teams. That was a mistake. You know, I owe that dude an apology for the rest of my life. I'll spend the rest of my life making up for that and rebuilding our relationship. And well, I wouldn't say rebuilding our relationship. We love one another. We're still got a good relationship, but the bad feelings that I had in the years I spent beating myself up over that, it's always front of mind. And I'm being mindful of that when I interact with him now because I was like, yeah, I was somebody else. I wasn't at some point, I forgot how to turn the switch off when I would come back from a war zone. And so yeah, I was just being myself all the time, but I wasn't realizing that I had changed. And so I had to learn how to okay, I'm gonna let this guy in the room and have him sit on the couch with everyone else. But since he's in here, I gotta realize he's he's got a lot of he's got a lot of stuff that I need, actually, since he's here. How can I take advantage of that stuff without having to deal with the rest of this stuff too? It was my it was my responsibility to figure that out. And once I was able to figure that out and take all of those traits and combine them with the other traits that I worked so hard to gain over the last 10 years, everything changed. Everything changed. And I went, this is what alignment feels like. This is what Ray was talking about. Yeah, this is who I am, this is what I'm supposed to feel like, this is who I'm supposed to be. No wonder I am freaking flying now.
SPEAKER_00But it took me a long time to figure that out. Yeah, it's a journey, right? Is what it comes down to. And yeah, and I mean that that should thank you for sharing that. I mean, I know it's you know to go back in time, probably remember some stuff like even me remembering the stuff for my childhood, like that that brought up. I can't imagine the stuff you saw. I mean, uh in the war zone, and like you said, kids dismantled, people dying, people with friends, you know. I can't imagine that, man. So really appreciate you sharing that. And then you know things in perspective, right? I mean, we we as business owners, I think we we talked about taking ourselves too seriously. We take ourselves too seriously. I mean, we there'd be times hey, you lose money on a campaign or you lose money on a deal, you get screwed by somebody, right? I I used to it used to mess me up, man. Like I would it would mess me up for like days or weeks, and I would mess up bringing the thing home, right? And uh, as I got older, I realized how to compartmentalize a little better. Where, okay, let me learn from this, what can I do? But you're talking about like life or death experiences, right? You're talking about protecting your your your your comrades, right? If you do something wrong, they might die, right? So we're talking about much bigger stakes. So when you hear stuff like that, it puts things in perspective. Like, what the hell am I worried about? You could always make more money, right? But can you replace can you replace a leg and walked away? Can you replace a life, right? I mean, you can't do that, right? So I think that's why I'm glad that you're on here because it's I think it helps put things in perspective. Like, hey, this isn't a lot of stuff we're doing, isn't life or death. We can fix it, it's fixable. Be grateful back to the attitude that you you have control of a business that you can fix. Yeah, you may have lost a hundred thousand to your million dollars, whatever you did, but or you might have got sued, but you're still breathing. You can live to find another day. You still have the mental capacity, and maybe it just makes you stronger at the end of the day, based determining how you you you you you you uh react to on that, you know.
Gratitude As The Fast Track
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And you actually mentioned the key to all of this. Yeah, like I said, there's in there's a flip side to that coin of us warfighters experiencing heaven on earth because again, there must be balance in all things. Remember, good, bad, up, down, left, right, sun, moon. This is something that I realized over the last year, and it was a very powerful realization for me. I was meditating one day and I came out of that meditation, and for some reason, I had at the front of my mind worse hell on earth. And in that moment, I realized, yeah, but there must be balance. If there is a hell on earth, 100% there is a heaven on earth. 100% because there must be balance. I'm at least smart enough to know there must be balance. And if I have experienced hell on earth, there is no reason why I can't experience heaven on earth. And in fact, that's what it's supposed to be like. I'm supposed to be experiencing heaven on earth. I just didn't realize all those years that I wasn't that well, it's because you're out of alignment and you've got to go through these journeys in order to figure that out and get there. But the point is that if hell on earth is possible, so is heaven on earth. And you mentioned the key to it already: gratitude. And having gratitude 24-7 gets you into alignment faster than any other thing I can tell you to do. Having gratitude, focusing on gratitude, that will get you in alignment faster than anything I can tell you to do. And I mean, like really hyper focusing on it, being almost delusional, if not clearly delusional with gratitude. And so, what I mean by that is again, there's gotta be balance. Something bad happens. There's gotta be something good that you can learn from that or take from that, right? And so figure out what that thing is, and instead of focusing on the bad, focus on the silver lining. Doesn't mean that you ignore the bad because we don't want to be silly. We don't want to walk right into the bad again, right? I don't want to stick my hand back in that oven again. I want to be mindful of it, but it doesn't mean that now I got to beat myself up for the next five days over this bad thing, right? If anything, I'm gonna purposely focus on the silver lining I pulled from it over the next five days. And my gratitude for that silver lining. Gratitude is the key. We have to learn to be thankful even during our trials, especially during our trials. That's where we have to really focus on gratitude.
SPEAKER_00Man, this is great. Yeah, I think when you have an experience, like a bad experience, right? Like, what be grateful because now you can learn so it doesn't happen again and it's not as bad. Like I remember times where I got burned by I don't know, I don't know what the number was. 10 grand, 20 for whatever the hell number is. Like, you know what? I used to get pissed off about it. Then you would attract more of it. It's that low free, you attract more of that crap, the negativity, right? Better, then you attract the positive stuff faster than you attract the positive stuff. But when I was like, okay, let me be grateful because what do I learn for this? How do I prevent this from happening again? And now I'm gonna be freaking bulletproof, right? And then man, you would be like, okay, that was a$10,000 lesson. Now it prevents all these bigger things from happening. It'd have been a$10 million, yeah. And that's something that really takes you out, right? So it could always be worse. It could always be worse, right? So I think that's great. A couple other things, um, and usually usually we do like 25, 30 minute podcast. I'm I'm growing because this is this is like powerful stuff. Uh all I was gonna say is, you know, let's talk about being a man, right? Uh and you I'm traded if you guys for all your the clients in these uh with the executive that you work with and high-level entrepreneurs, what what percentage are men and what percentage are women?
SPEAKER_01Most of my clients are men. I don't work with a lot of women, and it's not because I don't want to work with women. I have no problem working with women, but most of my clients just happen to be men. Yeah.
Partner With Your Ego
SPEAKER_00Okay. And the reason I asked you that is because there's uh as men, right? And I think a lot of it has to do with age and maturity too, right? I've noticed like a lot of stuff that I dumb, I'll I'll I'll say dumb stuff, right? Like dumb decisions, a lot of them happen when you're younger, right? I feel as you get older, you get more mature. But even so, entrepreneurs and high performing, I want to say high performing, like people that are, I think it's a lot with a lot of entrepreneurs, like athletic athletes, I think athleticism is a performance, right? When you're when you're making money, you're running teams, you're you're you're a you're a performer, just like you're like an athlete that's performing out there for a crowd or whatever, a musician or whatever, right? So there's eagle involved. And then when you talk about ayahuasca, and I don't want to be all over the place with this question, but one of my concerns is you know, Donald Donald Trump says something. I'm not trying to be political, but he says something that I agree with a long time ago. This is like back in the apprentice days. He said, Show me a man without an eagle and I'll show you a loser. And that's like a really, I'm like, that's that's poignant, right? And I started thinking about it like every successful man I have, I mean, they have this. I'm not saying they're ego maniacs or narcissists, but you gotta have some sort of ego. So my concern is that if I did this ayahuasca stuff, right? What if I lose my freaking ego, right? I'm more like lovey dovey or whatever. Like, I feel like it gives me a freaking edge, right? But it also can also screw you. Like, yeah, there's a book called Ego is the enemy. So I was like, where the hell do you find that balance, right? Is what it comes down to. And then what I'm trying to say is that ego a lot of times will ruin a man and cause him to do stupid stuff, especially when they're high. A lot of my worst decisions in life happen when I made the most amount of money, whether it was a big trade or a big deal I closed, done self-destructive stuff, right? Right. Do you see that a lot too? And what's your advice when with to people that are going through that? It's like, how do you navigate the highs, you know, and the low. I think the highs are more dangerous because I feel when you're low, you'd you get you get like a chip on you, like, fuck this, I'm gonna get out of this. Like, I feel men perform better when they're at their low than when they do at their high. I think the high is what can destroy a man uh that's performing high.
Masculinity And Modern Leadership
Defusing Conflict Without Violence
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a lot of writing out there about this. And you know, there's there's a there's a fascinating book by an author named Stefan Arnio. It's called Hard Times Create Strong Men. And he talks about that, right? So when things are going great and you're at your high, complacency sets in, right? So over time, the longer you're up there, the more complacent it is likely you will become, which means that you may not see that knife coming to stab you in the back. And now it knocks you all the way back down to the bottom rung of the ladder. And like you said, now you're pissed off. Now I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna go to the gym, and I'm gonna work harder than everybody else. I gotta climb my way back up to the top. So we hear a lot about the death of ego. There are a lot, there are a lot of people that talk about the death of ego. Thank you. Thank you. And how only with the death of I for I forget the philosopher that said something along the lines I think there's a book about that. Yeah, only with the death of ego can you reach true happiness or success or something like that. Well, I think that's wrong. I think that's wrong and outdated because sometimes you need your ego. So why would you want to kill that dude? Right? Yeah, like I said, nope, come sit on the couch with the rest of us sitting next to the priest, but come in and be with the rest of us because I might need you because you're right, you did save my life at one point. You're right, you did save my friends' lives at one point. So why would I kill that guy? So I don't think it is with the death of ego that man can actually start hypergrowth. I think it is with the partnership with your ego you can take off and begin to fly. And some psychedelic medicines, they that's what they help you to do. They help you to partner with your ego. I learned to partner with my ego because life handed me my ass and I had to start over, you know, at an age in which I didn't think I would have to start over. And that's where I began my spiritual awakening out of nowhere, and and I began to think in these ways and feel these things without anybody ever teaching me this stuff. But that's how I feel. No, you don't want to kill your ego. Sometimes you need your ego. What you want to do, especially as a man, is partner with your ego so that he doesn't run and ruin your life. And I spend a lot of time talking about this. I also spend a lot of time writing on this. So I completed my autobiography. It's titled Don't Ring the Bell, right? Like in SEAL training, stay away from that thing. Um, I submitted it to the Pentagon last August. I'm still waiting on publishing approval. Uh, and I'll be rolling that out. I spend a significant amount of time writing about this topic in my autobiography because, again, last few years of my life have been transformative. I'm also in the middle of writing a leadership book specifically for men. And it's going to be titled The Modern Man, the Navy SEAL's Guide to Mastery, Meaning, and Mission. I actually published a one-hour masterclass on this theory over the last couple of months. You can find it on YouTube, on my channel at Coach Ty Smith. But I think that men in general have been in trouble for a while, especially here in the United States. Masculinity in general has been in a lot of trouble over the last several years, to the point where I think it's become a national security risk. Because we're living in a time right now, especially in America, where we need men to be men, not boys, not girls. We need you to be men, which means that you are willing to pick up the sword to defend your neighbor because he is within your kingdom if he can't defend himself. And I think it's a national security risk because over the last however many years, masculinity has been castrated to the point where men are afraid to be themselves. Men are afraid to even just have a conversation out loud amongst themselves because they're afraid that you know a woman over her right shoulder is going to overhear them and accuse them of being sexist or misogynist or discriminatory. And it's caused us to become gun shy during a time where you kind of need us to be men, because throughout the, if if my math is correct, throughout the four years the Biden administration ran the White House, we allow about 20 million illegal immigrants to come into this country. And according to all of the intelligence sources out there right now, all of the three letter agencies, what we know, approximately 18,000 of those people are known and suspected terrorists. And when we zoom out even more, we take a look at everything that's happening in a world, specifically between Iran and the United States of America. What if even just half of those dudes side with Iran and they decide to start picking up the sword and actioning in October 7th that we saw happen in Israel, right here in American neighborhoods? You're gonna need to be a man and pick up the sword and defend your family and defend and love your neighbor, whether you like it or not. And so I think that that's an it's a very important topic, which is why I tell men, no, do not kill your ego. You might need that dude. You have to learn to partner with your ego. So here is a good example of how me partnering with my ego allows me to keep my frequency high, my vibration high. A few nights ago, I was at Moxie's with a really good friend of mine, uh current SEAL team operator, uh, very high-level guy. I will just say that he is one of the guys that is overseeing everything that's happening between the United States and some places in Latin America right now. And there was this dude, there was this Florida man that kept like kind of like going back and forth in between us and getting real close, like really giving us the creeps, right? Um, and he came and stood next to us. Um I'm certain this dude was on drugs, but he's just staring at us, like just staring at us to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm uncomfortable now. And so I turned and I looked at him. I was like, hey, brother, like, is everything okay? Like, can we can we help you? He's like, Yeah, why? And I was like, Well, it's I'll be honest, like it it looks like you're staring at us. It's kind of weirding me out a little bit. I don't know what's going on. And he puts his finger in my face and goes, Fuck you. Right? And of course, my ego wanted to get off the couch, right? But no, no, it's okay. You're not in charge. I'm in charge. We are partners, and this is where I'm in charge. And I'm not gonna smash this dude's face in, even though I could do it at the drop of a hat. I'm not gonna choke him to sleep, even though I could do it at the drop of a hat. I'm not gonna start screaming. No, I'm gonna tell the guy, hey, I'm sorry if I offended you, brother. I wasn't trying to offend you. Maybe that came out wrong. And you know what? It's on me. It's not on you. I'm just trying to explain that you're making us a little bit uncomfortable. Are you okay? Can I buy you a drink? Yeah, I'm just trying to find my friends. Okay, yeah, here, man. Let me buy you a drink. Let's have a conversation until your friends show up, right? Could have very easily allowed my ego to get me in trouble with this guy putting his hand in my face, giving me the bird. Like I he could have had a very bad night. I promise you, he would have had a very bad night. But where would that have gotten me? Exactly. Where would that have gotten him? And here's the thing that's low frequency as hell. You know why? Besides the fact that man, I fought no, I fought a lot of war, David, and I've learned that it don't change a goddamn thing. It don't. We didn't change nothing in Iraq, we didn't change nothing in Afghanistan, we're not gonna change anything in Iran, not gonna change anything in Venezuela. A very small percentage of people are making a lot of money while normal people like us are going out and dying for this badass country that we live in, but we're not changing anything. So again, balance, zoom out, now zoom in. What if I would have committed war against that guy in the bar? What would he have gotten from that? Nothing. What would I have changed? Nothing. And here's what's even worse. Here's an even bigger reason why it's low frequency. You remember when we were kids and you were you would hear you're gonna be you're about to get a spanking because we came up in the 80s and you got your ass and you did something wrong, and your dad would be like, This is gonna hurt you more than it's gonna hurt me. And when you're a little kid, you're like, How? You know what I mean? Like that belt hurts, it's not gonna hurt you. Now I get it. Because if I would have tuned that dude up, yeah, with the perspective that I have, with the knowing that I have that I'm a retired Navy SEAL, I'm a Brazilian jujitsu black belt. I've had how many MMA fights I've won how many, like, there's no competition between me and this guy. If I decide to action violence against him, there is nothing he can do to save himself. He doesn't know that. I do. So it is my responsibility to go that extra mile to tame my ego and go, hey, brother, I'm sorry. Like, are you okay? Can I help you? How can I be of service to this person? Because if I action war against him, sure, maybe I look like a tough guy that night, but I can promise you, for the next five years, I will be beating myself up over that. Because I'll be able to look back and go, you knew better than that. That dude had no idea what was coming to him. He was all he was probably on drugs, he was probably drunk, you had this background, you got all this stuff to lose, you're a leader, you're supposed to be setting the example. You knew better. Yeah, and that's what our parents meant by this is gonna hurt me more than it's gonna hurt you because you're gonna forget about this ass whooping 10 minutes from now, you're gonna be doing the same shit all over again. But for the next five years, because I love you so much, I am gonna feel like shit knowing that I spanked you. So we got to partner with our ego.
Staying Centered Through Highs
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love that. That's such a great, I never heard anyone say that partner with your ego. And again, I wanted to touch upon that because ego is such an important driver for athletes, for anybody, right? Business people, especially business people. We're talking to a business audience, right? And how do you tame that, especially when you're doing well? And again, my experience, when I've had my my best, my best successes, my best days financially, where I'm feeling the best. I had a therapist one time says, Dave, you get sugar highs, you gotta be careful with those sugar highs. That's where you get in trouble. Sure, we know it's just correlations, right? Absolutely. Where I would like, man, if I if I would celebrate, I come from like the old you know, wall for wall stream mentality, pound the phones, make money, go celebrate, you know, pop bottles, do this, do that, right? And then those are the nights I'd get in trouble. And um, I I've gotten better as I got older with that. But then sometimes those are the things that kind of they drive you like to keep you know, to keep pushing and then motivate other people. So it's that balancing act that I think a lot, especially a lot of men, have issues with. And then if you don't, like you say, if you don't partner with your ego or or really truly understand it, it's gonna take control of you. It's like it's like a wild animal, man. It's what it comes down to. That can freaking like a wild lion, you know. Yeah, you can have a lot of fun with it, you can do whatever it can protect you, it can fucking destroy other people or do whatever, but like and keep you on top of it if it'll it'll also eat you up, man, if you don't do the right thing. So I wanted to touch upon it because I feel like you have that mentality. I mean, you've been you're a combat veteran, man. You know, you've got all these accolades, Brazilian jujitsu, doing keynotes, or like how does someone like you balance it? Because I feel like that's something the message that our audience needs to know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I try to stay in the middle. So I try not to allow happenings or events of this world to push me too far to the left, where I'm gonna hang out in stress and fear and disbelief and doubt, low frequency, no bueno, no thank you. But I also, when something good happens, I try not to let it push me over here too far to the right. Because, like you said, too much happiness can become delusion. And now I'm dropping the ball in other aspects of my life. Yep. So I try to stay in the middle. Again, it's not that I'm gonna ignore that bad thing. I'm gonna be mindful of it so that I can learn. I'm just not gonna dwell. And it's not that I'm not gonna. Acknowledge that this really good thing happened to me and for me, absolutely. And I'm going to meditate on that gratitude for a while. I'm just not going to allow myself to be stuck over here because it can become delusional. So I like to stay in the middle. Yeah.
The Scariest Moment In Combat
SPEAKER_00This has been great. I'm really so grateful that you're on this here because I think this I think I have a lot of ideas. Uh me, but probably a couple more questions. But I think I want to do if you're cool with this. You know, we did a webinar uh about two hours, an hour before you showed up. And uh one of our sponsors, Ringba, talking about they have this feature called Ringba X, and they're teaching people how to use it and all these different ways to kind of utilize it for more revenue and to scale their businesses. But I mean we I feel like we should do something like every so often, maybe like get a webinar and let's talk about challenges people are going through, right? And I would just love that. And then yeah, because I think that's how you get real actionable results, right? Talking about and you get a group of it's probably mostly men in there, but like we'll talk about our share like experiences and go over it because I think that's what men do need then nowadays, right? And then even like a lot of us are fathers. I'm trying to, I want my son to be better than me. I don't want him to act emotionally. And I got so many damn fights when I was a kid, like physical fights. I grew up, you have to be tough, whatever. Like, so I'm trying to get him a you, he's learning jujitsu, right? He's in jack. Yeah, for business. I'm so happy about that. I heard like a lot of kids that start early, they get such an advantage in life, right? So I'm trying to teach him like verbal jujitsu, like like what you did. You disarmed that gentleman by your words, right? Before it escalates. I'm trying to teach him how to do it at six years old. And I'm I'm like, I gotta I need to do that myself too, right? I gotta practice when I damn preach, you know. So I feel like it's such a powerful message, and that's why I'm so glad that you're here, man, and that we should probably think about that. Yeah, I would love to do that anytime. Cool. We'll talk about it. So let me ask you a couple more things. And if you don't feel comfortable with it, by all means, I am in Spinboat, bro. Are there what what's the what's like the what's the craziest freaking experience you had? And then again, you don't have to if it's closely flying crazy. I don't know, freaking know like something that's not a normal person. I mean, I mean, Ray, what Ray talked to me about like you gotta get tie on, because by the way, Ray Sinla is what we talk about. Shout out Ray, man, for making this happen. That's my dog. Such a powerful message. But he he was like, You gotta get tie on. I mean, this guy's got some crazy stories. I don't know if I'll tell the story, but he's jumped out of helicopter, he's done this, he's done that, and like, and then when I interpreted was the freaking mental act. I mean, you've done something that I don't know what percentage of the population or percent of men have done this, maybe 0.000001%, if that has done what you've done, right? And so we want people here to have an edge. That and to me is the mental edge, right? So, like, what's a what's a fucking crazy experience that you can talk about? You went through in in there, and like how how the hell, how the hell do you deal with it? I mean, I'm sure you have your you have your adrenaline rushing, right? Which is like that could help you, could hurt you. You got your ego, you got nervous, you got all this stuff going on. Like, how do you tame all that shit, man? Yeah, in that in that in that experience. Sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I can share with you the moment I was the most afraid in my entire life. Okay, that's a good one. And the reason why I was afraid wasn't because I was afraid that I was going to die. The moment that I'm talking about, the reason why I was so afraid is because I knew in my heart that I was about to witness men that I was responsible for die. More afraid than I've ever been in my entire life. One of my boys is getting ready to lose his life right now. I will not survive that. I know it without a doubt. So in the summer of 2013, I was a platoon chief at SEAL Team One and I deployed with my boys to the Tangi Valley in Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous places on this planet, especially if you're American. And I knew the Tangi Valley very, very well because I had been there about two and a half, three years before that with a squadron from a national missing unit, a tier one unit. And during that time is when we experienced uh unfortunately the shootdown of extortion 17. The Navy Chinook killed 20 operators, 17 of them were my SEAL teammates. So this is a really dangerous place. And I knew what we were getting into before I took my boys back out there because the United States was retrograding. We were trying to pull everybody out of Afghanistan. And so our team and an army special operations team were the only two units in the area that were allowed to leave the base and go out and hunt. And so the Taliban knew that, hey, the Americans are getting out of here. Like we can we can come back home. And so we saw an influx of thousands of Taliban fighters coming out of the mountains of Pakistan down through the Tangi Valley to spread out back into Afghanistan. And I was reading the intelligence reports every day before we deployed 100 fighters this day, 200 fighters this day, 30 fighters coming down this pass every single day for about six months. So preparing to take my boys on that deployment, I knew it was gonna be a record-banging, a record-breaking deployment, like a banger of a deployment. I also knew that there was a very high likelihood that one of my boys was gonna fall. And again, that was my biggest fear. These are my best friends in the whole world. And before we deployed, a couple of my friends' moms literally cornered me at a dinner that we had before we deployed and made me promise I was gonna bring their sons home from Afghanistan. And of course, I had to make that promise, right? And so on one particular day we decided to kick the hornet's nest. So there was a small town within the mouth of the Tangi Valley that was a Taliban HQ. And we watched this village for several days with ISR footage and predator drones and all of that stuff, and we could see all these Taliban fighters literally inventorying all of their weaponry out in the middle of the village and them beating up people. And and you know, we decided we don't like that. Let's go get them. And so my ground force commander and I sat down, we built a plan, we submitted it to the Special Operations Task Force, it got approved. Boss told us go out there and go kill those guys. And so, because we were toward the end of the war, the rules of engagement were changing. And this is when President Obama thought that it would be a good idea to handcuff his own fighters by telling us that we couldn't go out at nighttime, we had to operate in the daytime. Doesn't sound like any leader I want to ever work for again. You know what? I'm just gonna stop right there. And so as a result of that, we were kind of forced to go meet the Taliban on even playing field because we own the night. Nobody operates like we do at night, on night vision, completely quiet ninjas. Nobody can do it as well as we do. But we had that weapon taken away from us by our own leadership. And so we decided, hell, we're gonna go anyway. This is our job, we're gonna go do it. And so we actioned this target. It went really well. We killed about 22 fighters that day, went heads up with them, broad daylight, and we won. But the fight was so intense. We Winchestered an AC-130 gunship. That means that the AC-130 gunship was out of ammo. They had nothing left to drop. And they called us up on the radio and said, You guys are crazy. God bless you. Good luck. You guys are incredible. Like, get out of there as quickly as you can because we have nothing left to drop to cover your asses. We were in a four-sided gunfight, getting shot at from all four sides, enemy fighters trying to maneuver on us, us maneuvering to keep up with them. And again, glory be to God, we won. But the fight was so crazy that our leadership at the Special Operations Task Force, they were only about 10 and a half kilometers away. So they could hear all this gunfire. They could hear the bombs dropping on the battlefield because 10 and a half kilometers is only what, like six and a half to seven and a half miles. So you can hear and feel bombs dropping on the battlefield. And the fight was so crazy, he came on the radio when we let him know, hey, sir, we're out of there. We got a full head count of the boys, we're getting ready to head back to our combat outposts. And he said, No, no, no, no, no, no. I need you guys to come over here to Ford Operating Base Shank and come and debrief me and the Command Master Chief on this fight because this is crazy what we just witnessed you guys go through. So we said, okay, yes, sir. So we went over to that forward operating base to debrief the Soda Commander and Command Master Chief on what happened. They're very happy. They were very proud, very impressed with the work that we did. We finished the debrief, and I said to the boss, to my ground force commander, sir, we need to get the hell out of here. I do not want to be on Route Georgia at nighttime. So Route Georgia was the only way in and the only way out of the Tangy Valley. And so, as you can imagine, it was littered with improvised explosive devices and different points on Route Georgia that were perfect for an enemy ambush. And so to speed up the story a little bit, we ended up leaving the forward operating base, getting everything together, getting the full head count of the boys. Like, yep, we're ready to leave this forward operating base and drive the 10 and a half kilometers on Route Georgia from this forward operating base back to our combat outposts, our small little combat outpost at the middle of the Tangy Valley. We were out there alone and unafraid. And so by the time we got on the road, we still had daylight, but not enough of it. So I didn't want anything to go wrong in this drive, which of course meant something was gonna go wrong. And so as we're making our way slowly back to our combat outposts, and you can't go too fast because, again, there's bombs all over the place. And the drivers got to be on the lookout, they got to be very aware. These guys are seeing the smallest, minute detail that looks off, and they're saving their friends because their situational awareness is that in tune with everything and everyone happening around them. And so we approached what I knew was going to be the ambush point. It was a very tight hairpin turn. And I had already told the boss, I said, sir, we're gonna get ambushed. That's where we're gonna get ambushed. And unfortunately, I was right. So as we're going through this hairpin turn, right? It's almost like a U. It hairpins back on itself. And on the outside of that turn, you've got this is all terrain. You've got mountains right on the outside of the road. And on the other side of the road, there is a canal that's like four feet deep that runs the entire way. And just past that, you have more villages and a bunch of trees. And on the right side where the terrain was, again, compounds, villages right on the side of the road. We don't know who's in them. We don't know what's gonna happen. As the vehicles get halfway through that hairpin turn, hell on earth started. This must have been a goddamn sniper of RPG shooting from the high ground, approximately 100 yards away. A Taliban fighter shoots an RPG. I'm in the RPG, a rocket papel grenade. So that's the one you see them put on their shoulder, and you know, um, and so he nailed vehicle one, which had my ground force commander in it with some of my best friends in the whole world. I was in vehicle two in the passenger seat, so I was in charge tactically, and he nailed that vehicle right on top of the 50 cal, took the gun out immediately. Now I got a big gun out of the fight at the beginning of an ambush. Fortunately, because of the type of vehicles we were in, that gun was mechanized. It was being controlled by a computer by one of the operators in the vehicle. So fortunately, that operator wasn't on top of the vehicle and didn't get hurt. Also, we were blessed because he loaded the wrong round in the RPG. If he had loaded an HE round, a high explosive round, he would have killed every one of my guys in that vehicle. But because he loaded the wrong round, it made the vehicle hot a little bit and they they felt the heat, they felt the vehicle shake, they knew it had just been hit, but they didn't he didn't do any damage to my boys. Nobody got hurt. But unfortunately, that initiated the worst ambush I have ever survived throughout 20 years in the military, and it was bad enough that it scared me worse than anything I've ever felt in my life, because the two vehicles at the very front of our convoy were being there were two vehicles that were being driven by the eight Afghani commandos that we had to take out with us. Because again, it was a part of the rules of engagement that had been put in place for us at that time. That even though we can't trust these Afghani fighters and they keep turning on us, right? And and we can't trust them, you're still gonna make us go out with them fine. Okay, they're gonna be at the front of the convoy because we don't trust them. Well, because they were at the front of the convoy, as soon as the ambush started on a road that's this big, those guys literally bailed out of the vehicles and ran away and left those vehicles stuck right there in the middle of the road, blocking the rest of us. Can't go around to the right, can't go around to the left. Now we're stuck getting shot at with rocket propel grenades, RPKs, PKMs, AK-47s, right? Big bullets, a lot of them coming from all over the place, every direction, and we can't move. And as you can imagine, Murphy always shows up during times like that. So even though we had aircraft flying overhead that we could call in for support, comms happen to go down right there. So now we're in an ambush, we're stuck. I can't go forward, I can't go backwards, I we can't get on the radio and communicate with the aircraft ahead of us and ask for help. We got to figure out a way to get out of this on our own. Nobody's coming to save us. Long story short, we did fight our way out of the ambush. We were able to get everybody out of there safely and back to the combat outpost safely, but not before I had witnessed a couple of my boys doing things that were cowboy, but they were they weren't the most tactically savvy decisions they could have made at that point. And I'm not criticizing them, and I wasn't then, and I I wouldn't ever because they did what they thought was right to get us out of a horrible situation. And it worked. We got out of it, so who am I to argue with success? But they were things that I would not have done the way that they did it, and the way that they did it, they exposed themselves to way more danger than they had to. And in real time, as I'm watching them do this, it is my living nightmare. Like I'm about to literally witness some of my best friends die. And I know I'm not gonna recover from that. I will likely commit suicide after this deployment if I lose even just one of my boys. Uh again, fortunately, it worked out for us. We got back to the combat outpost and I did something that I never did. I sat down and I cried like a baby in front of my men. And I explained to them how much I loved them. I explained to them how bad some of them scared me. I explained to them how I wouldn't survive bearing even one of them. And I accept that and I'm okay with it because I get to bear the honor and the experience of being your leader. I explained to them the promises that I had made to a couple of their moms that I fully intended on keeping. And lastly, I explained to them the pain that I will never, ever be free from of having buried almost 50 of my friends throughout the entire entire global war on terror. I could be wearing like 50 of these bracelets right now, but I only wear this one because Johnny was really, really important to me. And I explained to them how boys, you're you'll never stop seeing their faces. I'll never stop seeing John Foss's face when I go to sleep at night. I'll never not see Kevin Houston's face when I go to sleep at night. That is pain that I will never be free of until I leave this place moving on to the next. And I don't want you guys to have to experience that. So please don't do those things again. Look out for your brothers, but don't put yourself in harm's way if you don't have to, because if something happened to you guys, I give you my word, I will not survive that. And when I did that, one of the most beautiful things happened, David. It was like I gave permission to the other senior guys in the platoon who had also been enduring that pain of having buried our brothers because we were lucky and unlucky enough to have, you know, joined the SEAL teams at the beginning of the entire global war and terror. And whereas these guys are on their first deployment, we're like, Yeah, this is my sixth. And dude's like, Yeah, this is my seventh, right? We've been doing this for a long time. We've lost a lot of friends. Those guys got up, they came and they sat around me, they put their arms around me and they had tears coming out of their eyes too. And they each told a story of which one of their best friends they will never stop mourning as a result of what we gave on behalf of this country. And my boys got the message and they loved me for it. They loved me for that vulnerability as a leader. Because, like, yeah, I might be a badass SEAL team leader, but you know what? I'm still a human. When I see one of my friends die, it fucking hurts and it never goes away. And they changed their behavior from that day on. They they tied it on even more and they kicked ass even more. And glory be to God, I brought every single one of them home safely, and I kept my promises to their moms. But that is the day I was more afraid than I've ever been in 47 years, bro.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, that was that that's like a movie scene. That's I I could visualize. I don't even know what my visualizes look what it looked like there, but I'm visualizing all this stuff as you were saying, and for you to have experience that, and I think it gets credibility to why you're on this show and why you're having success with what you're doing right now, the transition. Because I mean, and after you talk about all that, like I said before, all these numbers and stuff, it's like a it's like a game, it's almost like a video game, what we do as entrepreneurs, right? But we talk about life or death situation, that's some real stuff. So, like after this, I feel like, man, you get I have another edge just talking of like, you know what, man, it's not all that serious. Let's figure this stuff out. That's right, fix this shit. No one's dying over this stuff, right? If not, we're enriching people's lives with what we're doing. So, and that comes back to what we talked about in the beginning that that attitude shift and everything. But man, man, we can go on forever, man, Tyre. But uh, I think I think we're gonna have to do a part two. We're gonna have to do another. Let's do this, let's do this a webinar. We're gonna figure out a way to tie this in and just have these people just talk about what they're going through. And I think putting things in perspective is not that damn serious. There's solutions to this, that's a shift of mind so we can get there, right? And I think that's also an advantage. I mean, listen, you're you're 47, I'm 46, but your experience, I always feel this way. I feel like I I feel like I have the mind of a 65-year-old or something like mentally, physically. I feel like I don't know what my early 30s, whatever the hell, man. But I I feel like you, I mean, if I feel like I'm in my 60s, you must have the mind of a 100-year-old. And I say that in a good way, because like all the stuff you've been through, like all the stuff that people have never been through. So that there's there's a value, such a value to that. And uh man, it's been an honor having you on. This is like I can thank you, Ray. Ray was like, Dave, you gotta do this. I'm gonna do it, man. I've been traveling a lot and we we finally made it happen. I'm glad you're in you're in Miami too, but we gotta hang out more often.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. It's been down here since uh a few days before Christmas. I moved out here to raise my six-year-old daughter. She moved out here with her mom, and there's no way in hell is gonna let her grow up without me. And so I moved here too, and figure like I'm not gonna complain about being a single dude in Miami.
Coaching Offer And Closing Notes
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I was gonna talk to you about that, about Miami, and we talk about eagle and vices and stuff. I can we'll save that for the next one because that's I think that you know, Miami's the hottest city in the. I said this in one of the speeches I gave. It's the hottest city in America right now. Yeah, it might be the hottest city in the world. I mean, everyone's coming here, you know, for all this you know, the the tax advantages, right, the the weather, the policy, you can say the women, whatever. Great place for business. Yeah, we're closest to Latin America. You talked about that before, right? There's a lot of changes going on there. But anyway, that being said, I was just like, that's a whole other thing that when you have that kind of stuff, there's also a lot of bad stuff you can get into, right? It's like New York in the 80s, you know, it's a there's a rise of economic type, but then you have all this other stuff. So we'll talk about that uh next one, man. But is there anything else like you? We I know we talk a lot. Is anything else you want to wrap? Like one last thing. And like I've you the open the open floor right now. Uh anything else?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I would say that listen, if you are in a place in your life where you feel like you know you're out of alignment, you know that you're not balancing the way that you're supposed to, and you are interested in committing to a journey of a mindset transformation that helps you to figure out how do you get to your version of Heaven on Earth? Look me up. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram. I'm at Coach Ty Smith on YouTube and Instagram. I'm pretty active on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok all day, every day. I'm very findable. So reach out. Maybe we can work together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sounds good. And how does that work? If someone like I decide I want to work with you, how's it? What's the whole thing? I mean, how often do we meet? Uh, what's the whole kind of curriculum?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I have different packages for different people because different people have different needs. Um, and I'm running five businesses, but this business in particular, Hero Consulting, my B2B consultancy, is the company that we do leadership and executive coaching out of. And we have several offerings where I can work one-on-one with an executive, I can work one-to-many. So coming in and working with groups, doing executive coaching, keynote speaking engagements. Um, I help organizations with sand table drills so that I help them to figure out different ways to uh change up their strategy so that their go-to-markets make more sense and so that they're operating uh departmentally in a manner that's much more lean and efficient. And I also have programs where I work specifically with high net worth individuals that all they're seeking is a mindset transformation and to get to that next level of sharpness that they can't really find anywhere else, except for someone with my very unique background between being a war fighter and a successful entrepreneur. Because not every war fighter understands business at the level in which I've been blessed to learn business, but I have several different models, one to one, one to group. I have executives that I work with once a week, right? We sit down and we talk virtually for an hour once a week and several times a year. We meet up in person. I was just in Denver a week and a half ago with uh an executive from a publicly traded pharma company. It's really up to the organization what they want. And I build an offer around what they want and what they need. So I don't think I've built two offers ever that look identical because I'm not focused on just selling you something. It's a matter of, hey, are we in alignment? Can we even work together? Am I gonna be a good coach for you? Are you gonna be a good client for me? Um, then okay, well, now let's figure out what's going on. What do you need? And I build an offer around what that particular person or that group needs.
SPEAKER_00I love that. And that's cool. And that's an alignment with what you talked about earlier, right? And if you have a cookie cutter approach, it's not gonna fit for everyone. So you you customize it based on them. And that's what we do, like what I do with clients is the same thing. You know, where they're not gonna have the same campaign, they might be in the same industry, but they but the way that they're structured, they might have need a different campaign that involves more calls or more data than web forms. Like there's so it's it's gotta be customized. And I think that's one reason, like going back to why we've had success is because we do that. It's you gotta take that one on one time. You can't treat everyone like the same. Everyone's got different DNA, man, different structure, right? So I love that. Yeah, there's a lot of value to the audience, guys. I mean, again, we can talk, we talk so much about the technical aspects, but it all comes down to the mind. I'm really glad we talked about this because it's all the all success leads clues. The commonality I've seen in most successful people is that they got this mentality that's like they're unshakable and they know how to, you know, deal with the ups and downs of life, right? It's taking me a long time to get there, too. I've gotten, I'm not there yet, but I've I've gotten a lot better. I'm getting there, right? And surrounding myself with people like you and that, having that proximity, it helps me get there. So, yeah, birds of feather flock to three, guys. That's right. Iron Ty Smith, it's been it's been a pleasure, man. Again, thank you for your service. Your story's been amazing. You're gonna see more of them. This won't be the last time, guys. Subscribe to LLG Show, follow him, flopito. Your network is your net worth. We got a fucking crazy network of people. I'm not telling me your average motherfucker, I'm talking about people doing$300,000,$400,000,$500,000 a day in admin. People have made billions of dollars in sales, people exit their companies for about a billion dollars. We hit 100 episodes. Guess what? We're about to take shit to the next level. So you want to be part of it? Subscribe right now. Remember, no money, no honey. Fucking go.