#82 - The Ocean Doesn't Negotiate: Inside the Toughest Training Pipeline on Earth w/Chris Rullie

The ocean doesn’t negotiate, and neither does life when your plan breaks. We sit down with Chris, who trained for the SEAL pipeline, finished Hell Week, survived pool comp, and then watched a herniated back end the path at third phase. What follows isn’t a sad ending; it’s a hard pivot. He walks us through the mental frameworks that kept him from quitting—monking out, removing distractions, breaking big tasks into fives, and resetting after every small win—and how those same tools helped him rebuild a new mission.

We unpack BUD/S beyond the myth: why boot camp deconditions you, how prep school rebuilds you, why the thermal core pill matters, and what calm-under-stress really looks like when an instructor is tearing your rig apart underwater. The hardest hit wasn’t logs or the cold; it was seeing a best friend ring the bell in the dark. From there, we follow his transition to college and a technical role in global infrastructure, and the long, honest work of finding purpose without a trident.

That search forged Project Linear, a veteran-owned performance brand designed with military, law enforcement, first responders, and elite CrossFit athletes. Chris breaks down the details: low-to-no compression mesh liners that don’t choke your stride, two-inch hems that glide instead of band, anti-odor and antimicrobial fibers derived from volcanic ash, chafe-free seams for body armor, and ethical, certified manufacturing. No hype, no shortcuts—just gear that holds up under plates, breaching, rucks, and long trail runs. Instead of pouring cash into ads, he outfits 220-mile mountain events for veteran suicide awareness and supports the Navy SEAL Foundation, keeping the focus on community and the quiet professional.

If you’re rebuilding after a setback, training for something hard, or just tired of apparel that fails under real use, this conversation hits home. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review with the biggest lesson you’re taking into your next training block.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Night Dive Fear And Ocean Vulnerability
• 0:45 Meet Chris: SEAL Aspirations And Boise Move
• 8:45 Family Of Service And Father’s Legacy
• 20:45 Training Mindset: Monking Out And Discipline
• 28:40 Boot Camp, Prep School, And Standards
• 39:00 Hell Week Reality And Mental Games
• 53:00 Pool Comp: Finding Calm Underwater
• 1:06:30 Open Ocean Swims And Night Dives
• 1:14:30 Third Phase, Land Nav, And Injury
• 1:24:45 Getting Dropped: Identity, Loss, And Reset
• 1:36:20 Transition To College And Corporate Life
• 1:41:30 Birth Of Project Linear And Design Ethos
• 1:56:00 Fabrics, Tech, And Real-World Testing
• 2:08:30 Community Over Hype: Veterans And Partnerships
• 2:20:00 Manufacturing Realities And Ethical Sourcing

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

We're swimming in the middle of the night and shit. And we stop, we're checking coordinates. I mean you can't see fucking shit. I would not be able to see you right now. Like you have a dive line between like me and you, all of a sudden we feel it's And I'm like, what the fuck? I see this just a slightly more black wall, just go like this by me. You're vulnerable as fuck in the water. You accept you're in the middle of the fucking ocean, in the middle of the fucking night. There's things that will want to kill you. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01: 0:44

Dude, all right. We're gonna we're gonna have a pretty cool conversation today.

SPEAKER_04: 0:48

Yeah, I'm stoked to be here. Thank you. This is absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 0:51

Yeah, thanks for coming. Um wanted to have this conversation. You're buddies with a fellow guest we had on. John one of the his life story is out of control. Yeah, I've re-actually listened to his episode a couple times, and then every time I've re-watched it or listened to it, it that what that man has gone through as a child and overcome is incredible. But he recommended and said he's got it, you good buddy wants me to come on and talk. And I want to talk about a couple things. You went through SEAL training, yes, sir. Ended up getting injured phase two, phase three. Phase three, going into phase three. You made it through phase two.

SPEAKER_04: 1:28

Well, technically, the injury occurred before Hell Week. Uh, I just didn't know what happened.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34

Um, and then my back went out uh in third phase in land nav.

SPEAKER_01: 1:38

So I want to jump into that. And then you have a new brand.

SPEAKER_04: 1:43

Yes, sir. 100% veteran-owned uh Boise brand. We just launched six months ago. We're 100% veteran owned. All of our athletes and affiliates are military law enforcement first responder. Cool. Period. We don't we don't do any any models, anything like that that are unless they're prior service.

SPEAKER_01: 2:00

Perfect. I love that. I'm a huge, obviously, an advocate for veterans in law enforcement first responders. We give everybody an opportunity to um come on. I got some other gifts. There's actually a local Christian-based uh brand here, and I actually met her at one of our one of our um what do they call it? Farmers markets. Nice Golgotha brand, right? Love it. So I don't know if you're familiar with that, and I got some wild chaos swag for you, but the the Golgotha is really cool. I'm actually rocking one of their shirts. I see that. So they went kind of grunge punk gothic in a way, which is obviously Golgotha's where Jesus was crucified on the hill, and you know, it's I think it's what stands for the the the place of skull, I think is what it translates to. So they go more of like retro, old school, and I think it's I very punk rock feel very, which I love because I feel even though there's nothing wrong with any Christian brands, it's all very clean, which is what I love. But then to see somebody bringing back some just some awesome apparel, some punk rock stuff, kind of what we grew up with, but with a Christian base to it. Yeah, this stuff um I I yeah, so I allow other veterans, law enforcement companies to send us some swag or gear, and we hand it out to guests just as a kind of a thank you for them um serving this country. And obviously, you're one of them. That's why I wanted to have you come on and talk about what we got going on here. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04: 3:28

Thank you so much for that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:29

Yeah, dude. So let's just jump into this, bro. Yeah, we've never met before, right? Which is true fashion of wild chaos. I'd say 90% of my guests. Yeah, it's the first time meeting them.

SPEAKER_02: 3:40

It's the wild down the chaos together, right? It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

And that's where a lot of people are like, bro, like these conversations you have, they're like, Man, do you did you know this guy ahead of time? And I'm like, never met him before.

SPEAKER_02: 3:51

Never before, just a friend of a friend. Exactly. So all the great things happen, right?

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

It honestly is, man. And I feel this is the most genuine, authentic way to get to know somebody instead of we might get there one day where it's I have a team and we're doing all the research and all the bullshit that comes along with all of that. Um, but I feel this is the most genuine way to get to know somebody is to put you on camera in front of thousands of people.

SPEAKER_02: 4:15

That's okay. We're gonna have a conversation. So no pressure. All right, bro.

SPEAKER_04: 4:20

At all. Who are you where you're from? So, yeah, so my name's Chris Rooley. I originally grew up south of Seattle.

SPEAKER_00: 4:26

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 4:26

Um, when I was about 21 years old, moved to San Diego to train for the SEAL pipeline. Uh so that we can certainly get into. Then about four and a half years ago, we decided to pick up from San Diego and move here to Boise and restart because, you know, as most people know from California was uh just a kind of a wild place, especially during COVID.

SPEAKER_00: 4:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 4:46

I always explained it's basically ripped the band-aid off the state and kind of exposed it for what it was, and it just was just not safe for the kids. And I just decided it was time to go. So we we got here about four and a half years ago, reset the balance. I mean, stayed in the career field that I was in. Same with my wife. She uh is transaction coordinator, so she you know does stuff remotely regardless. And really, uh, you know, the emphasis on the brand really started here, just continually being outside trail because I'm a big trail runner, big avid trail runner, um, did race to Ubi Creek and all that stuff, always been at an athlete, just endurance-based, you know, a lot of lifting and CrossFit style stuff. Um, but yeah, that's really where it started was just being kind of fed up with what was offered. And I had been iterating with a couple brands. Um, but this was about four years ago, and I'd provide feedback and you know, they would just kind of kick to the curb and say, hey, sorry, that's you know, not really relevant. And so I said, Well, I'm just gonna make it for myself then. Uh and then I kind of reached into to my you know nexus of of people and my contacts who are still in the military, uh, very close with a lot of SEALs, a lot of team guys, and you know, full disclaimer, I'm not a SEAL, I do not claim to be one. I think it's very important um that people, you know, say that, right? Because there's a lot of stolen valor, right? A tremendous amount, and and not just you know, folks that you know maybe express that they did something that maybe they didn't, but even before you go in, right? It's a it's a tremendous um disservice to that community. Um for it, for example, when I and we can get into this, right? Um when I went in to get my SEAL contract, right? Because this was about you know 2009. So they had basically changed over the the process of going into BUDS from well, you got to go into the Navy for X amount of years, get your rate, do all that stuff, and then you get selected to go through the BUDS pipeline into do your PST, which is your physical screening test, do your ASVAB, do your C sort, which is your psych test, and ASVAB is your educational you know, screening, and they'll take the top percentage and push you in, right? So it was it was basically a trial by fire to get in.

SPEAKER_01: 6:56

Um Did you know you wanted sorry me to interrupt you? Did you know you wanted to be a SEAL?

SPEAKER_04: 7:00

So yeah, that that goes way back. So uh we'll take take a few steps back. So um I grew up, uh my dad was a major Green Beret.

SPEAKER_01: 7:10

Oh hold okay, all right. This is why I love these. We're just peeling apart. We're just gonna peel these.

SPEAKER_04: 7:15

You're only onion, man.

SPEAKER_01: 7:16

What is it like growing up as a gr with a Green Beret father?

SPEAKER_04: 7:20

Um, it's exactly what you would probably anticipate. Um quiet professional. Okay. Right? Um, just doesn't say much, but it's always those quiet ones you gotta worry about, right? Um after he retired, he became a sergeant, Sheriff's Bartman. Okay. Um, and did that until he retired. So the man just worked service his whole life. Okay. Um, and and just to just to throw in like just the life of service, just the the cornerstone and the you know, my so my dad passed away from cancer. Oh, sorry about that man. Yeah, and it was about nine years ago. Um, on his you know, his final days, the nurse came in and she was in tears. And I had been with him for you know every day. Like I I was going, I was finishing college and um it was very challenging. But you know, I I I like to tell this story because so many times people overlook, like they just say, Oh, thank you for your service, or you know, hey, we take it for granted, like what these individuals do every single day. And it's it just couldn't be and it bleeds into the brand every single day. And we'll talk about that, but just the the the capstone to kind of my dad's life of service was you know, he was on his deathbed, right? He was you know, he was in the hospice, right? We knew what was gonna happen. Yep. He passed like I think a week or 10 days later. The nurse was in tears, and I was like, Hey, are you okay? And she goes, Your dad saved my life and my daughter's life, and I can't stand seeing him like this. It gives me chills. She sank him down. Yeah, I got good shit. It's it's unit's unreal. How so? So him and his partner had got called to a domestic abuse um location, right? So he gets there, they kick in the door, and the husband is beating the crap out of the four-year-old daughter and her. And my dad being prior green bree. He's also he was also a black belt and numerous. I mean, martial arts was huge in our family. We grew up with all that. I grew up basically Kung Fu, Kajukempo, all that stuff. And you know, he would lead that. But long story short, right? So they end up beating, beating him up pretty bad, right? And and saving their life. Like they were on the edge of death, like essentially, because the guy was in a drunken range, just out of his mind. And so this this nurse came up and she's just bawling because she's like, It's difficult seeing my hero die. And I was just blown away.

SPEAKER_01: 9:33

Your dad saved this woman and her daughter, and she ended up being his hospice nurse in his final days.

SPEAKER_04: 9:38

It was unreal. It's like God just said, I I want you to be there with him. It was unbelievable. Like, and I'm just like, I'm chilled out, dude. I can't. It's unreal.

SPEAKER_01: 9:47

So we have a saying in this house, and we call it god shit that you can't explain. That's a very that's a that's when there's weird things like that that happen. My wife and I will look at you and be like, that's god shit, because there's no other way of explaining it.

SPEAKER_04: 10:00

There isn't, there isn't. I mean, you you can science it up all you want, but it's unreal. It was one of the last people he saw because after that, basically, you know, he go he went in the bed and yeah, he just was kind of out of it on morphine and all that other stuff. So um, but yeah, I mean, I like to tell the story as hard as it is, but to me, it's just the fabric of what I got to grow up with, the privilege that I got to grow up with with a service, uh just a role model like that. Uh, my brother is still serving in the National Guard. Um, the SEAL piece came up because my dad initially um went into the Navy. Back then it was only a two-year enlistment. Yeah. Um, he went in to to basically just to pay for the rest of his life because he just didn't have any ability to care for himself because his parents passed away and all that other stuff. So uh basically went in, got his two year, or got his uh finished his two years, but during he tried to go try out for buzz, but he had sinus problems. Okay. He didn't ever go into the pipeline, but they did screening back then and he just couldn't do it. Um, so he ended up finishing his two years, gets out, gets his degree, goes back in, and becomes a major green bray. So enlisted college officer, full retirement, just crushes it, hammers it. You know, I grew up wearing the jungle type two camo camis. Just I mean, there's pictures of me just thinking I'm Rambo and all the I mean, you know, and during this time in the 80s, it's like you got Rambo, you got Schwarzenegger, you got all the things that every everybody just takes for granted, right? But um, you know, I got to I got to grow up in that environment, right?

SPEAKER_01: 11:26

Did you get to keep a lot of your dad's stuff like camis and things?

SPEAKER_04: 11:28

We have bags of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:30

Good for you.

SPEAKER_04: 11:31

It's it's um, you know, the sea bags are full of them and all the other stuff. We got a lot of stuff, and we'll we will never let it go, right? Um but yeah, so I got to grow up in that environment, and that is a standard, right? That that that balances you as a human being. Um and I mean we can go all over the board with this, but the point is is to answer your question, yeah. I grew up basically with a with a target to go to Buds because I I wanted to accomplish I wanted I I felt like there was unfish unfinished business that that I wanted to go do. My brother was never, you know, he he didn't want to go to to do the seal stuff. He he's I'm a water, I'm a creature of the water. Like, and we can talk about this, but like one of the last uh things that you do during Hell Week is around the world. You're basically boat, you know, you're you're paddling, you're getting your your butt kicked at, you know, basically every mile on the beach. And we basically finished that, right? And it's I don't know, I want to say that's like Friday, uh Friday morning at maybe like one in the morning, right? So you you finish how you secure Hell Week at like 11 that day. And so we're like hours from finishing. And the instructors are like, Ruy, you still like the water? I'm like, who y'all instructor? And he's like, You're that everybody, really still likes the water, and so unfortunately, everybody got everybody, everybody had everybody had to serve, but I was like, fuck it, I don't care. That's me, man. Like, you can beat me all you want, dude. You ain't gonna ruin it, so whatever. Um, but yeah, so I I I kind of felt like there was unfinished business there, and you know, we can dive into that, but I I would say uh for sure one of you know the proudest moment was finishing Hell Week and laying in my bed. I was the last one in my room, by the way. So nobody else was in there because everybody else had quit. Uh my legs were up, and I got to call my dad, and uh and I just had that conversation with him, just hearing him gives me chills again, just because you know, back then we nothing we weren't like taking pictures of each other, like you know, like it is now, like you take pictures of everything. I wish that the technology was there that I could have captured that moment and I was so out of it. Like by that time, even by like basically Tuesday night, like you're basically a zombie. You're just you're just a living body moving.

SPEAKER_01: 13:35

Let's start from the beginning. Yeah, if you want to be a SEAL, walk me through from start to finish. Like you get a contract. Obviously, things have changed.

SPEAKER_04: 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:45

In the Navy, they're allowing guys to try to go shreckly Navy SEALs right by this point. Yeah, I think they did the same with the Marines, like you could get a recon contract.

SPEAKER_04: 13:52

It's the same with the Swick guys, the Airbnb. Yep, all the different, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 13:57

Which I feel is great because there was a lot of dudes that were joining the Navy and they're washing out and they're becoming like a cook on a ship.

SPEAKER_04: 14:01

Well, th well, think about this. Like, if you're if if you're talking about recruitment, right? Like you you know that 90% of those dudes are washing out, right? Or quitting. I mean, you're getting educated, you know, extremely high performing people, and the Navy basically gets to pick because basically when you quit, like they, you know Needs of the Navy, needs of the Navy. And you got these super overqualified dudes. I mean, we had guys going in with degrees that were going enlisted. They were going enlisted, they were not going officer because they wanted to go do the job. I mean, that's like the biggest piece. Like, my best friend is is is deployed right now, he's a team guy. Um, you know, he went the you know, he went enlisted to officer, and he's like, man, I'm not gonna be able to do the job anymore. You know, I'm not gonna be able to do what I want to do is kick indoors and do the stuff. And you know, that's from my understanding, that's that's basically why all these dudes, even with degrees, they'll go enlisted because I just want to keep kicking indoors and do the job. Which makes sense, right? That's the that's the that's the mentality, that's the DNA of the individual. That's why you become a SEAL. I mean, that, and that's you know, a hundred percent. So, yeah, so you the question, right? You know, how did this all start? I would even back up before I go in, and I would say, you know, when I moved to San Diego, I did it intentionally, right? Everything to me, and this is my life purpose, this is my business sense. I look at it as a chessboard. Everything is a chessboard. Not that you, you know, everybody's like a pawn or whatever. It's not metaphorical. I'm saying life is challenging and complex, dynamics between human beings are are challenging and complex. Accomplishing something like getting through Hell Week or getting through even second phase, which I'll talk about. That was even more of an accomplishment for me. Um, may maybe because of my dad the diving piece, um, but some other things too. But um, you know, everything's super complex. So I I saw the the trajectory in the ability to get into that just even getting into that, getting into the program, being successful. I needed to isolate myself. I needed to monk, basically, right? Remove every single distraction that that I could possibly think of. I'm going to San Diego, it's full of nightlife. The only industry they have is bars and restaurants. You're surrounded by college chicks. Like, what what are you going to do to stay focused? Right?

SPEAKER_02: 16:12

You're not hanging out at Pacific Beach. I worked there. Yeah. I've been in many fights at PV. 100%.

SPEAKER_04: 16:19

I hope I didn't kick you out, okay? Um, so I'm and I can say the I can say the name of the company because they're not around anymore. But yeah, so I I basically moved there. I became a bouncer for Typhoon Saloon. Oh, no shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 16:33

Yeah, no shit. You I know you've been there because I you seem like the type thing with like 80s hair metal. So, you know, Wednesdays all day.

SPEAKER_04: 16:40

Yeah, Fred's Mexican Cafe, all the good stuff, right? So I became head of security, so I was managed like 45 guys, 40 to 50 guys a night. Okay. What that allowed me to do, that was intentional. It's not because I, you know, uh couldn't go do some other thing, right? It I did that intentionally because I was working from five o'clock until three in the morning.

SPEAKER_00: 16:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 16:59

I couldn't drink, couldn't party, couldn't do shit. Kept you out of trouble. I had to work. I go to sleep, I'd wake up, I'd have the whole day to myself, nobody's in the gym, nobody's on the trails, nobody's on the beach. I got to get up, I go for a six to eight mile trail run, I get in my car. This is after I moved, uh, just a little bit down the way. Because before I, when I originally started, I'd literally run from my house, it was about three to four miles, and I'd get to the workout facility. But but at this point, once I started to get closer to being pulled into the program, I'd go for a six to eight mile trail run, I'd get my car, go to the gym, I would swim a minimum a mile. And and like right now, and I'll just stop and I'll just say if I had the feeder like training programs that are out there, like the Warriors Calling and places like that, my life would have been so much better. I'm sitting there watching like these old ass YouTube videos on the combat side stroke and all these other things. I'm trying to figure it out. Naturally, I'm a water person, right? Like I would ditch school to go cliff jumping, right? That's me, right? Personality type. Of course. There's logs. I don't give a shit. Let's jump in, let's have some fun. It's freezing. I don't care. Let's jump in, right? So um, so I would get there, I would swim a minimum of a mile, combat side stroke left, combat stride stroke right, backstroke, uh a breaststroke, right? Then I would do an hour of drown proofing, underwater travel, drown proofing, like what is drown proofing? What is drown proofing? Yeah, uh, it's when you see the videos, the dudes are tied behind your back and you're jumping in and you're bobbing, taking a breath, you go down, you do a front flip or a back flip, and all sorts of different dynamics, right? So that's drown proof. Is this in the ocean or in a pool? No, this is in a pool. Okay. This is in a pool. Um, but it serves you well when you get in the ocean, right? Like just uh really what it's all about is just being confident and calm in the water because that's what will kill you in water. I mean, a riptide comes and pulls you.

SPEAKER_01: 18:47

If you just float, you're gonna go with it, you're just gonna you're just gonna be out of it.

SPEAKER_04: 18:49

Go with you know, go with it and you know, try to stay parallel to the beach, and then once the rip rip rip current get out of it, and then you swim to the swim swim to beach. But problem is people they panic and they start freaking out. Uh man, that we can go a million different places, but um yeah, so I would get into the pool, I would do those things, I would do the drown proofing, I would get out, hit the sauna, then I would weightlift, and then I would run home. Or at this point, I'd get in the car and go home, right? I'm putting in three, three and a half, four hours a day, literally working out. It's intentional, it's purposeful. Uh you have to do that. And um, you know, many people will say, like, what's the one piece of advice for training you'd give me? I would say, remove every single distraction that you can. And they're like, Well, you know, my wife, and she's gonna crush me again for this, but it's true, right? Um, she's my wife now, right? So I not only made it right, but it was a fantastic relationship. Like, she she definitely emotionally supported me every weekend. I was with her during training. It wasn't like this wasn't anything I so it's kind of a disclaimer to that because I think some people will hear that and be like, oh, well, what are you saying? Like, you know, uh, you know, a partner isn't good to have during this trip. It wasn't that. It was from I wouldn't date her, I wouldn't make her my girlfriend. Okay. I was like, we can date, we can, you know, whatever, hang out, we can, we can go to dinner, we can do those things. But I for some reason I just in my head, I was like, as soon as I give you a title, I have responsibilities. My mom and dad stayed married, right? No divorce. Like, I watched them like out the very committed, right? And they always say, like, if you grow up in that environment, you're more likely to have that yourself. So um, the long story short is you know, I basically told her, I can't make my girlfriend, I gotta stay focused on this. And to me, it was removing the possibility of having a um other commitment, some other commitment, other than accomplishing what I needed to do, which is elsewhere. Which 100%. And er people would think I'm crazy, but I liter but I got to go through that and I got to watch during Hell Week, before Hell Week, even before first phase, where people are like, fuck this, I had to fight with my wife. I I gotta go.

SPEAKER_01: 20:56

Oh, bro. I mean, not I'm not throwing shade on women because I love my wife's my best friend. 100%. Well, when you have a goal like that and you're young and dumb and you have all the distractions and everything's pulling you in every direction, the last thing you need to add to that is a woman.

SPEAKER_04: 21:07

Well, your emotions will will pull you in a million, a million ways.

SPEAKER_01: 21:10

Yeah, and then you start to drama, you start that's where your headspace is, you're not paying attention to things, you're missing minor detail. I I'm a hundred I think that's a great decision.

SPEAKER_04: 21:18

Like that's that's a very 21 years old, right? And it's like, okay, right? And it's not that I'm immature, I mean I'm basically an ape running around, right? The man at that age, right? Sure, we're all private. But at the same time, I had the direction and the you know, uh the want and the need to go attack this objective. Yep. And I did. And and it served me extremely well, right? Good. So see that's where it started, right? A lot of training, uh, and purposeful and intentional um construction of my environment to ensure that number one, I got the contract I wanted as soon as I could get it, and two, that I was going into the pipeline as strong mentally and as strong physically as I could.

SPEAKER_05: 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 21:57

Um, and yeah, so went into boot, did all that stuff. And by the way, if you're listening, you're going into boot and you're, you know, going into a special operations pipeline or selection, you're gonna get out of shape in boot camp. We were literally working out in in the laundry room at night when the instructors were leaving, when they would leave us and we're just you know standing watching our stuff, we're all just getting a pump in the in the laundry room. Pull-ups on the bars, uh basically the piping, you're doing pull-ups, you know, sit-ups, air squats, all the things, and you know.

SPEAKER_01: 22:27

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_04: 22:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:29

I've never heard this before.

SPEAKER_04: 22:30

So if you might hear some things you've probably never heard, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 22:33

So if you're you going being in top in at what you could do by yourself, being top Navy SEAL ready, going in the Navy boot camp, you are actually becoming unshaped.

SPEAKER_04: 22:44

You come out in shape. Every single person is so pissed off because you're just like, what is going on? Yeah, dude, because they can't they they can only work out work you out so much, right? They can only condition you so much because of all this nonsense standard stuff. Okay. And it's like you they even put you in your own little special division, right? They're like, oh, these are all the SO candidates. So you're not in a normal platoon? No, no. They put you in your own, your own, they basically put you away from all the other Navy and your own your your own segment, like you're some some special thing, and and it's like, okay, um we're getting out of shape, number one. Number two, we're all bored out of our mind. Number three, when you beat me, we're just like, what is this? You know, it's it's it's absolutely you. I mean, think about this. You you you you have these people that are just I mean, my swim buddy who uh is a wild story, dude quit right before a swim. He's a swimmer, he's a junior Olympic swimmer. Okay. Um, but you you have those types of people coming in that are the highest caliber athletes and remarkably intelligent. I mean, I was by far the dumbest dude. That's fine. Like, I'll I'll admit it. Like, it's okay. I'm creative, right? But no.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

Like, I've always been that guy. That's okay. We're making it. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02: 24:00

We're making it. Thank you. No, yeah. I show up at class and be like, what in the fuck am I doing here?

SPEAKER_04: 24:06

Yeah, yeah. I got other things to do. No. Um, but yeah, you got these remarkably intelligent, extremely athletic people, and you put them into an environment where there's I mean, there's standards, right? There's standards, but these people are different. They're a different breed, they're a different animal. They just came through a pipeline that accepts 2% to because back then it was roughly like what 2 to 4% of the applicants that would for the SEAL pipeline. You do you get your SO contract? Oh, no shit. That's it. It's that across the nation. And I'm literally going to San Diego doing my PST every Monday. There's 120 to 130 people every single Monday trying out for an SO contract. I went there for my first time, and you know, like I'm like I said, I'm monked out, right? Like I was doing doing what I needed to do. I was technically a little bit low, a little bit older, going in at like 23. Is that old? I mean, not necessarily, but you know, for you know, we we would see a lot of folks, and this is another surprising thing that I think most people don't realize is that I I don't know the specific uh statistic on it, but just looking around and remembering a lot of the dudes that are around me were older. Okay, and I don't know if it's a maturity thing or or what, or or just in life you're realizing like fuck it, I'm gonna do the hardest thing I can find. Yeah, a little bit of both, I think is probably probably probably and I and I think um but but yeah, so you're surrounded by all these old you know, 20s, you know, early 20s, and and so so yeah, I mean that that's kind of how it started. We went in and did that, and yeah, I mean, just a lot of a lot of hard work to get in for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 25:41

So Hell Week, once you're in, you make it through boot camp, which is crazy because I never I never would have pictured you guys are getting out of shape being at boot camp, but I think it is a navy boot camp.

SPEAKER_04: 25:52

100%.

SPEAKER_01: 25:53

So you then you get ready for Hell Week.

SPEAKER_04: 25:55

So no. So outside of boots, so you go what's called a prep school, right? Okay, so prep school is uh if I recall correctly, I think it's three months. Um doing a prep school. You're they're basically reconditioning you into your physical shape. So you how bad were you?

SPEAKER_01: 26:08

How bad coming out of boot camp to go to school? Terrible.

SPEAKER_04: 26:11

Like I remember the first thing I did was get in the pool. Okay, because I know that that element will destroy you if you don't do it right. Running and swimming. If you cannot do those things, I promise you'll wash out. I promise you'll quit. I watched an officer quit in second phase the first day in the pool when we were doing buddy breathing exercises. Dude, and and I'm telling you, they don't want to see an officer leave because they're highly invested in those individuals. A lot of money put into that tons of money in those guys. I mean, enlisted, they'll be like, all right, see ya. You know, an officer be like, You sure you don't want to go back down there? You know, you know, put your put your mouth ease in, betch, get on there, you know. Like they'll do that. So um not saying that they have any stand any differentiation of standard. I'm just saying, like, it's difficult, I'm sure, watching, you know, someone quit, especially in second phase, literally right next to me. Just gets up out of the pool. I can't do this. Dude just made it through Hell Week. Dude just made it through Hell Week. He's in, he's in pool, like you're in warm water with some 2080s on your back, and you're you're sharing a rebrand, you know, you're you're doing some buddy breathing exercises, and that's too much for you. And it's like that will ruin your career. It's over. It crushes you. So the water is the first thing I did. I got in, I swam, and I'm like, I'm out of fucking shape. This is fucking horrible. I just, I literally, I'm like, how do I monk out here? How do I do this? And I'm like, I gotta reset the life balance. I'm sitting there just fast as possible. Any chance I get, I can work out. Any chance I can get. Some dudes would go on leave because they're, you know, right out of boot. You know, you you go to prep school and you're sitting there and you're working out. A lot of dudes would take some leave or they would go be with their girlfriends or their wives and all that things. I was like, fuck that. I no one, no one was even at my graduation. I didn't want anyone there. That was literally my request to, and I and I, and I regret that because um, and again, it comes back to making your only priority success um and removing every distraction. I I told my parents, I was like, I don't want anybody at my graduation. My dad was like, What's up, man? Like, I was like, Dad, I want you to go to my SEAL graduation. Okay, that's what I want you to do. Gives me chills again. Um, we're getting a lot of chills on this, on this, but it it it brings up you know how intense and how committed that I was. So I I didn't want my wife there. She was just you still, you know, technically we're dating, but yeah, um, I I didn't want her there. I didn't want my parents there, I didn't want my friends there because to me, and and I got to ask, hey, where's your and I was like, this isn't the goal. The goal is to fucking achieve, and that's it. That's the standard. That's all, that's all I want to do. It was like that was all that's the only thing that mattered to me. And nothing else was going to distract me, nothing else was going to be seen as a small achievement. Now, I'm not saying you don't take wins, especially during buds, but anyway, that's how deep it went. So I was out of shape, uh, had to recondition myself, and basically all you do for three months is eat a shit ton of food and work out three times a day. That's all you do. You're running in the morning or stretching, you're working out, vice versa, and then you're swimming. You're literally getting all the three elements you need. People are like, How do I train? That's how you train. You run, you swim, you lift. Yeah, that's how you train. And you you develop your mental toughness in the pool. Because the 100% and and also running.

SPEAKER_00: 29:23

Water's gonna test you real quick how tough you are.

SPEAKER_04: 29:26

100%, man. And and also running. Running's critical. Like uh, you will you will be surprised when you go on like a six to eight mile trail run um when you're alone with your thoughts and you start trying to you starting to do you you starting to have a dialogue with your with your conscience and yourself or God or or whatever it may be, and you'll be surprised. Um, I mean this that's literally organically how this brand started. I was on a trail run and I was so pissed off because I just gave feedback to two brands that just basically just set it aside and was like, hey, your information isn't correct. They literally had like two or three interviews with me about the same fucking topic, and I told Them the same thing. And they basically just kept coming back to me saying, Tell us something else. I'm like, I don't need to tell you anything else. This is the fucking problem. Fix it. And I just got sick of it. So I did it myself.

SPEAKER_03: 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:10

But yeah. So that's uh so you got prep school, and then from there you got to test out a prep, right? You gotta you gotta complete uh it's basically a uh an exaggerated PST score, it's a little bit longer swim. You have to achieve your time.

SPEAKER_01: 30:22

Are there dudes that don't achieve that? 100%. Really?

SPEAKER_04: 30:25

Yeah. And you generally speaking, from from my understanding, it's it's it we had a couple guys that were just immature. Okay. They kept fucking around and they kept getting, I'm sorry about the language. All right, gotcha, brother. Yeah, I got you.

SPEAKER_01: 30:37

That's a lee. You're good.

SPEAKER_04: 30:40

But yeah, like um, you know, they would they would basically quit and and bait and and they're they wouldn't make it, right? But at the end of the day, you knew they were fit enough, but they just had other things they wanted to go do. They're just like, well, this isn't for me, you know. It's not it's not, it's not for me.

SPEAKER_01: 30:53

So and then off the hell week you go.

SPEAKER_04: 30:55

No, and so no, and then you no, and then you I know, and so then you you know you pass that, and then you go into buds, right? So you're going to basically end doc, right? Indoctrination.

SPEAKER_02: 31:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 31:07

It's pre-buds. Okay. It's uh I I can't remember the exact duration of that. I want to say it was uh three weeks or four weeks. I I'd have to look back, but it's basically an introductory introductory to buds. You start learning the cadence, and you're not in first phase yet. You're not actually working towards hell week. You're just you're learning the the cadence, and you basically the culmination of the I want to say it's three weeks, I'd have to correct myself. It's been a long time. Yeah. Um, but the point is the internet will correct you. Yeah, that's fine. Um, that's fine. I'm sure, you know, there's plenty of uh plenty of plenty of warriors out there that'll get me. Oh, well, so you're going through this, and the culmination of it is basically like uh an animal they call animal PT, and it's basically just like an introduction to boats logs, and and you're doing some you know stuff. But that's where my first injury actually occurred was even before first phase where I tore my labor in half. Doing what? So buddy bear crawl, buddy, buddy bear crawls basically. So Willbarrow, buddy Wilbarro is up and over the berm. My buddy, you know, my my swim buddy trips, falls, and my left shoulder goes pop, pop, pop, and I couldn't move it. I was like, oh shit. And I was like this, and I was just like, oh fuck. And so, you know, I'm moving my my fucking hand around with my other right arm, but super numb, couldn't feel damn thing. Anyway, um, when I was ended up getting processed out, like I was like, hey, you guys want to check on my shoulder? Check on my shoulder, literally looked like a paper towel had been ripped in half. 180 degree labor and tear, completely torn. I was like, holy shit, like okay and you didn't even get washed out for that. No, I didn't tell him I was hurt because if you tell him you're hurt, you're gonna you're gonna get you're gonna get see med dropped, yeah. Med dropped, you're gone. Um, so then then you go into first phase. That's when first phase happens, and then you work towards Hell Week. I believe Hell Week starts on week five. What the hell's first phase? What is first phase? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:53

Oh, it's I had no idea that there was so many iterations steps to get be just to get the buds or to Hell Week.

SPEAKER_04: 33:01

So my my understanding and and my uh absorption of Hell Week is basically everything you do in those first three weeks leading up to Hell Week compressed into a week. So you got so you got stuff like your your timed swims, your your four-mile timed run on the on the soft sand, you got drown proofing is like I think it's the first day, right? That's when they tie your hands. You got your underwater, you know, 50 meter down and back travel underwater. You got that going on. Tons of dudes blocked out during that. That's so funny. Um, they just basically pull you out and slap the shit out of you and wake you up. Are you done at that point? What's that? Are you done? Do they no? If you touch the end, you you you pass. A lot of them will touch it and then they black out, and then they'll pull them out of the water, slap them, tell them to get fucking line. And that's literally that's that's what happens. It happens all the time. I mean, it's tough. You got to jump in, do a front flip, you can't kick off the end, swim down to the you know, 25 meter, kick off, come back, so 50 50 meters full, and you know, it you know, people block out. That's just how it works.

SPEAKER_01: 34:05

That's how I'm going out. Um that's it.

SPEAKER_02: 34:07

That's it. I so yeah, yeah. At that point, I am going out. See these limp fish just getting thrown out fucking water by these shark instructors, and it's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_04: 34:16

But yeah, nobody, nobody got hurt, but people have died, right? I mean, in training, it does happen, unfortunately. Sure.

SPEAKER_01: 34:21

Yeah, they I heard a thing a while back that they give you like this little pill to swallow.

SPEAKER_04: 34:25

That's during Hell Week. Yeah, so that's that's an internal thermal regulation pill. So they they will give you uh basically a pill, and sometimes you'll shit it out, right? But they'll give it to you, and we can get into this, right? So this is they basically give it to you Sunday and uh make you make you take it, and it basically gives you your core reads your core temperature. Um, and so when they're giving you surf torture and shit, they know if you're you know hypothermic and all that other stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 34:47

Is this something that they gotta come up and like touch you with like a thing?

SPEAKER_04: 34:49

Or is it no, it's all it's all you know within a radius. They can yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 34:54

Really?

SPEAKER_04: 34:54

Yeah, so they don't have to touch you.

SPEAKER_01: 34:55

They're just monitoring everybody right there. So that dude can just not even be saying and they can just pluck him out if his body core attempts get too low or think about some asshole that's pretending like he's hyping out.

SPEAKER_04: 35:04

The instructor's gonna fucking call you out. It's a mind game. Everything's a fucking mind game.

SPEAKER_01: 35:08

Oh my god, I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_04: 35:10

Oh yeah, you you you definitely um I mean that's that's these are just trying to get dropped without quitting, and then they bad, or they're trying to elicit some sort of emotional response from an instructor, trying trying to do that, perhaps. I I don't want to throw anybody bust. I don't know why people do stuff. I'm not claiming that. I'm just simply saying if I was an instructor, that's that's what I would fucking observe. I'd be like, I was like, this guy looks like he's hyping out, but his thr, you know, his internal body temperature says otherwise, right? So yeah, so so anyway, so yeah, yeah, that's that's basically what you do to get into Hell Week, and then then basically So now we're in Hell Week. Yeah, now we're in Hell Week.

SPEAKER_01: 35:43

Good Lord, man. I had no idea there was that much. Okay, so now we're officially in Hell Week.

SPEAKER_04: 35:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:49

You got a torn labrum.

SPEAKER_04: 35:51

Yep. Oh, wait, so before we get into Hell Week, so um this you're gonna want this story because you know, for the record, right? I I definitely want to to clarify this because you know, I think it's important um for me, um, and and may the people that know me, right? Yeah, if you don't know me and you got opinions, like cool, whatever. Um, but you know, a few days before Hell Week started, we were doing um, we were at the O course doing a log exercise, and I'm had sent you a couple pictures, I think, and during my submission process. But it's logs, right? So you're chest carrying, you're doing lunges, and you know, you boat crew full of seven dudes, and you know, that's you know, that's who you got. And the next thing we do is we're chest carrying down what we call demo pit road. It's basically this soft sand, fucked up road. That's just it's just soft sand. Yeah, it's all it is, it's super deep, super soft, it's absolutely terrible. And we're just going down to demo pit, which is uh where towards the culmination of Hell Week happens. And I don't I don't want to say too much because I don't know, you know, I don't want to expose too much, but you're going down that road, and by the time we were done with that log PT, three of my uh three of my classmates had quit, right? So we're down three dudes. We're carrying a fucking log. There's four of us, and we are so tired, and we are so far behind everyone else. Everything's a race, everything's a race, and when you're behind, you get your ass beat. Like that's just what happens. The most unusual thing, we were so far behind everybody, we didn't get our ass beat once. Not once. I don't know if it was because they could see that we were fucking putting out still, and but we were so far behind because fucking, you know, the dudes quit, so almost, you know, we're we're we're doing it half, half, half power, you know, basically. But we're basically rent my we're we're going up and down, and my body's just wrenching like this for miles. We turn around and we come back, we finish the evolution, I'm in excruciating pain. I don't know what's going on. We put the log down and I couldn't stand up. I was literally like this, and I'm like, I can't breathe. I'm like pushing myself up. Come to find out I had herniated my L5 and L4. And so now I have spinal sinosis, reactopathy, nerve recompression. That's important because it is it's important for me because number one is the most painful thing I've ever I've ever experienced, ever to this day. Um, and it's also just clarification for people that know me where you know there's times where you know, and this is like the repercussions, right? Like the the aftermath of of this, where I go in like a bull and I just want to, you know, just accomplish the mission. But you know, like there's times where I the last time my back went out, like my daughter's in the car. I couldn't get out. I was literally on all fours of my neighbor had to come out and take my daughter, and I had to crawl into my bed and lay there. And I'm basically there with painkillers for a couple days. Yep, you know, and I get surgery, all that stuff. But so that had happened. So I ended up herniating both discs um the the basically three days before Hell Week starts, two days before Hell Week starts. Oh my god. And um, I get th and I got chits for all this, right? So if anybody wants to see receipts, I you know, I got them. I don't I don't really care. Yeah, but you know, it's important, right? Because people are gonna come at you and say stupid shit. But um, but at the end of the day, so we started Hell Week. Um, and you know, I'm a young man, I'm recovering, right? Doing my thing, and my back's feeling fine. It throws out again at what we call the beach gate, and this was at Tuesday Tuesday morning. And so we can we can stop here if we want to we can revisit that earlier. But but yeah, my back did my back went out at uh Tuesday morning around one or two in the morning. I mean, I don't know the exact times, you don't have watches during Hell Week. Yeah, um, because they don't want you to fucking know anything, they want you to think that it's endless and it feels endless. But this is Tuesday morning, and my back goes out, they throw me in the med bay, and you basically now I don't know what the exact statistic is, but my understanding is you have exactly uh I I want to say 60 minutes total in Hell Week that you can spend in med. And if you go past that, you're done. Like 60. 60 minutes? 60 minutes. I uh but it could be less. It feels like it should be less. But anyway, I was pretty delirious at this point. It was Tuesday, but I got thrown in Medbay and they're like, oh, he's just having back spasms, right? Throwing back. That's cool. Like, I got a chip for that. Like I got it all, I got all the documentation. But anyway, so we can get into that, but I'm just saying, like, those were the two the first two instances of where my back fucked up. And and I knew exactly what happened. It was because of the the log PT and the the chest carry, but I completed the fucking evolution and I made it to the next day and I got into Hell Week. And then Hell Week starts on Sunday. We uh you know, late at night. Um, and they and we can stop there if you have any questions. But I got a million questions.

SPEAKER_01: 40:25

But yeah, okay, so you you're do they start you in the middle of the night? Like, how does it start? Just depends.

SPEAKER_04: 40:31

Um I mean, technically it's it's all a game, right? For sure. So they put you basically in a giant room. I I want to say somewhere around noon. You get there at 1200, and they basically put you in. That's when they start briefing you. They give you the the thermal pill I was talking about to monitor your and regulate your internal core temperature, and you're basically sitting in that room and until shit gets goes down. So you're sitting there for hours, just just waiting, just waiting for shit to happen. Okay. Um and it it's at that point towards the towards as it gets closer to the evening, and we had we had a very unique uh breakout, uh, which is when it all starts. They put us in the barracks, and apparently there was a which I don't know the full details because I didn't investigate this. I just heard about it from other people, and it was so unusual. We had a silent breakout, they couldn't use any any any percussion, any like any gunfire, nothing, because there was some sound ordinance in Coronado that night of all nights, and the instructors were trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_02: 41:34

So we got stuck in the barracks like breakout was supposed to happen like hours before it did. Uh and we're all looking around going, What the fuck?

SPEAKER_04: 41:43

Like, what are we doing? The oddest sound was hearing doors slam because you knew people were quitting, because they didn't know what the fuck was going on. Dudes are quit Yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_01: 41:53

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So these dudes are like gonna be a Navy SEAL. They go through all these little prereqs, they make it in the Hell Week, the night it starts, they're just quitting before it even because they because think about it, like you know what's coming. Bro, I would feel like the biggest bitch on the planet, dude.

SPEAKER_04: 42:13

You know, it I would say the most people quit is when you're sleeping. You wake up and your bunk mate won't be there anymore. They're just gone. And you're like, where do they go? They quit in the middle of the night. Really? Where do you go? Well, think about it. Like, if you want to exit, like you don't want an audience, you don't want to exit. And like um, many people will say, like, hey, what's the hardest thing about buds? I know you're gonna ask me that at some point. Is it the log tour, you know, the surf torture, the logs, the boats, what is it? The hardest thing by far was seeing my best friend quit three helmets. I think he was the third helmet from the end before uh during Hell Week. So if he would have just held out three more, three more people, he would have made it. And it was it was actually right before my back went out. Uh I was at a very low place when my back went out at the beach gate on Tuesday morning. It was only it was maybe 15-20 minutes before my back went out that I'm under the boat and my uh my boat when somebody in my boat crew is like, Hey Ruy, I'm like, what? And he was like, dude, your boy just your boy just quit. I was like, what? And I look over and I just see a shadowy figure and the bell ring, and I'm like, fuck.

SPEAKER_01: 43:23

I'm just like how what does that do to morale, especially because I mean, I don't know how tight you are with your scream extremely tight.

SPEAKER_04: 43:30

How is it with your boat crew or with you as an individual?

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

As an individual, I mean, because I everything that going through Hell Week is created to make you quit physically, mentally, they're draining you on everything. Yeah. So when you're seeing these dudes, especially if you're calling this dude a buddy and you see him ring the bell, I mean, what does that do to your morale?

SPEAKER_04: 43:52

If well, my best friend, it was it was hard. It was really hard, and it was challenging because you know, it's your boy.

SPEAKER_05: 43:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 44:00

Uh, I will tell you, I don't care how good your power of observation is, you could see, like I said, my swim buddy, you'll never know who makes it. You'll never know. Like you, you'll look around, you'll try to evaluate people's character. I've heard this before. You'll there's no fucking way you can you can guess.

SPEAKER_01: 44:20

Yeah, I got buddies that are SEALs and that they were like, dude, when they went through, they would say, like, this out of shape, country hillbilly, like he ain't last in a day, and they're like, strongest dude mentally in the whole entire like outperformed everybody. Then you got these guys that are showing up like odds and they're done the first day. You just it's all mental.

SPEAKER_04: 44:39

It's it's I mean, obviously, I'm not speaking for you guys, but no, well, first of all, it's not us guys. I'm not a SEAL. Oh, yeah, yeah, but I'm just talking I've never been through buds or any of this shit.

SPEAKER_01: 44:47

I'm just talking general. Guys have been through there.

SPEAKER_04: 44:49

For sure. No, but you'll never you would never be able to know, right? Um, but yeah, you become very close, and I mean, naturally, right? Naturally, you're you're going down a very difficult path and a life-changing event, and you you're gonna gravitate towards certain personalities and certain people, and we're still good friends this day, right? He's a great human being, he's a firefighter now, he's serving his his country, serving his city. Like, and and I'll just say that too, like if you do quit, right? If it doesn't work out, because I'm in the boat, right? That I'm in the I'm in I'm in the group that didn't make it, right? I never quit, ever, but at the end of the day, I I washed out because I couldn't complete land navigation. I have fucked up back, shoulder, and we can talk about that too. But regardless, if you do quit, if if it isn't for you, that's not the end of the road. That doesn't mean you're a bad person, doesn't mean you're fucking weak. Like go contribute, go do what called you into the pipeline in the first place, which was service, and and and go go see go push that, you know, go push that uh power and that that effort towards something good because most likely they're good people. So um, so yeah, it it was very challenging. That's definitely the hardest part was seeing my best friend quit, but it definitely crushes morale. Now, it is a double-edged sword because I will also say, um I I I attacked Buds, I attacked Hell Week um with anger. Like some people were like, What got you through? And it was me being pissed off. Literally. I would literally be at the O course, and you know these well, that's like one of the most daunting things because you're just waiting for these giant blue trucks, these F-250s, F-350s to pull up, they're full of instructors are gonna beat the shit out of you, and you know it's coming, and you just see people just pissed off or just upset, and they're like, Oh shit, just like waiting nervous, and I would start to get mad. And it's like that. I don't know, I just wanted to fight. I'm not saying I direct that instructor ever, I would never recommend that. And it was never like that. It was to me, it was like, you're going to have to kill me. Like, you can do anything you want, you're gonna have to kill me. Period.

SPEAKER_01: 46:53

There's just no, there's a like that's the only mindset going into that sort of course in job field is you I at least for like my how the kind of the idiot that I am with everything, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna die trying this. Yes, 100%. And if I don't, then I'm I'm never speaking of it again because something happened or I got or I got hurt, just physically could not finish. But yeah, any courses that I've had to go through, any of that, I'm like, yeah, I'm you I'm not quitting. Like, fuck you.

SPEAKER_04: 47:20

No, it's uh yeah, it's like that's the mindset, right? And it's like, well, what did you learn you know most about buds? And it's like um, you know, it's less about what I learned about myself, and it's more about what I confirmed about myself. Like I knew that you'd have to fucking kill me. You're you're not gonna get me to quit.

SPEAKER_01: 47:38

I like that. I've never yeah, I like that you were.

SPEAKER_04: 47:40

Well, I mean, it those perspectives I think organically just come from the experience, right? So I appreciate that. Um, and it's truly how I feel, and that's how I arrived at kind of that mantra was you know, it was never like and and I and and that's some advice I guess I would give too, right? If you're trying to look to go through one of these pipelines and you know the big crux of it is is Hell Week, right? Naturally, right? Tons of people wash out. Like you get a very, very small percentage after Hell Week, like even less after pool comp. Like you're basic, you know, they have a they have a I'm not even gonna say it, I don't even want to say it, but it has a saying. There are sayings, right, when you when you finish pool comp, but there there is a there's a saying. I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it because I don't want to I there's you know there's there's certain things that I guess that should stay in the community, you know. I get it, I get it. The point is, is um very small percentage wash out after after pool comp. But um, but yeah, it's like if you're going into something like this where you're like, hey, I want to go see if I can do this, I want to see what I'm made of. Like, I think I can do this, and man, I just need to be pushed. You're gonna you should choose something else. Yeah. But if you're one of those people who are like, fuck this, you're gonna have to kill me. Like, I don't care what you do to me. I don't and and this is the thing too, is like you might think like those instructors hate you, but think about it from their perspective, and I don't know if this is necessarily true, right? I don't have any confirmation of this, no one's ever said this to me. It's just my observation of kind of putting myself, you know, as much as I can in their shoes from an instructor's perspective. This is an evaluation of people who are going to be fighting next to you in a very small tight unit. Right. So with that in mind, you you have to think like it is their absolute responsibility to wash out as many people as possible, not because they don't like you. It's not because they they think you're an asshole or that you're you know, you suck, which they might on some for some people. And um, we had certainly plenty of those people that had bull bullseyes on their back uh because they claimed to be a seal before they got in, or they were or they were showing tridents on their social media or some stupid shit like that.

SPEAKER_05: 49:50

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 49:50

But but yeah, like um, you know, I don't think that any of those structors have any malice towards you. I think it's just their job to filter and make sure that the person fighting next to them is the most qualified individual.

SPEAKER_01: 50:02

I think that's a completely standard way to look at it.

SPEAKER_04: 50:07

Reasonable reasonable.

SPEAKER_01: 50:09

Because you guys aren't a line unit. You're not a grunt where you got 50 dudes and you got everybody to rely on. Someone's gonna pick the torch and keep running with the flag. Like, you're two, three, four, six guys.

SPEAKER_03: 50:22

That's it.

SPEAKER_01: 50:22

You know, in certain scenarios, it might just be you and another buddy sitting on overwatch and watching something for you. You gotta trust the dude, you know, he's got your back. I get it. I wouldn't want some half-ass guys rolling through because I've gone through courses stuff before I'm like, how the fuck is this dude making it? Like this guy, when I went to Afghan, there was guys that when I was contracting over there, there's guys in our course. Wow, a lot of law enforcement guys that have never been in a military setting before. And we were like, what the fuck? Like, dude, and I'm like taking notes like noop, noob. I'm like, this, and they would make it through. I'm like, oh, so like I the whole entire time I'm like picking like, okay, that's a marine, he's a grunt, he's a gr there's a corpsman, there's another marine, and I just but built my application. Yeah, I built my own team with just Marines and a Corpsman, and then like we were I was I felt good leaving the wire, especially if we're just in like a land cruiser driving around. I don't want some cop from Nebraska, no offense for a cop from Nebraska, but he's never done anything in his life, and like he's flagged me four times on the range, and I'm like, I get it. Like, I'm not trying to compare myself to any team, but yeah, it's like when you're when your life depends on other dudes, 100%, and you don't have a platoon of them having your back, yeah. I I get it.

SPEAKER_04: 51:30

Yeah, so I I would just say that, right? Sure. I mean, those I mean they it's the best intentions, right? It's to qualify the the most qualified, but uh, but yeah, so and then you know Hellweek's can Hell Week continues and and and we we go from there, but yeah. Interesting, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 51:46

So what what was it like getting the word that you were getting dropped out of buds?

SPEAKER_04: 51:52

Oh well, you know, that was kind of a quite a quite a long process, right? Because well, because I finished Hell Week. Yep, you know, we do that and we go to second phase and we, you know just pool? Yeah, it's pool. I would like to touch on pool because yeah, it's very that's that's the that's I mean, people think Hell Week's mental. I mean, try being underwater for 20 minutes and have an instructor that fighting you, tie the shit out of your you know, your 2080 lines and you pull your regulator out and beat the shit out of you underwater for 20 minutes, and and you gotta perform the exact functions of the operations over and over again until you until you can fix it and uh ascent, you know, FSA free swimmer ascent to the top and you know, say you're okay.

SPEAKER_01: 52:31

I think the average American or uh the average listener realizes how quick you find Jesus in a pool.

SPEAKER_03: 52:41

For sure.

SPEAKER_01: 52:42

I I was I grew up upstate New York on the Sailor, I've considered myself a very strong swimmer. Yeah. So when I was in the Marine Corps, even my first introduction to like military swimming at boot Marine Corps boot camp, I thought was the funniest thing in the world because I that's where I didn't know like there was a difference between dark Marines can't swim. And I you know, I didn't know. I was like, if there was like our drill instructor made this joke out of it because he's this short little black guy, and he's like making this whole ordeal out of him. I'm looking at my buddy, I'm like, what are you talking about? And my my rack mate was like, Yo, black people can't swim, and I'm like, What? And then I figured it out at the pool the next day. So then I go through all the I just blow through the phases, like you know, and they're the last phase or fucking with I thought it was all hilarious, it was nothing for me. Then when I got to the fleet, I ended up going through what the hell do we call the swim program the quiz? Maybe McQuiz. Well, somebody will fact check that. So I got selected for that, and it was supposed to be one of the hardest schools in the Marine Corps to go through. And I go through this and it sucked. But because they're I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04: 53:42

Nothing you can't handle, right? Nothing you weren't conditioned for.

SPEAKER_01: 53:45

But it was rough. Like, yeah, I'm talking you just you just want a breath so bad, and you're just getting a sip of air in before you're getting sucked back under. Oh yeah, you're fighting, you're trying to put your goggles back. I mean, so it it will you will find Jesus very quick in the water. And I can't even imagine the level where you guys are starting at. Like, probably our top tier hardest phase of that course is probably the entry level for butts.

SPEAKER_04: 54:12

Well, what's wild is you get your you basically get your open and your closed circuit certifications.

SPEAKER_01: 54:16

For breathing apparatus. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 54:18

So your open, your, your, your open circuit is like your 2080s, right? Those are the natural things for for listeners is that's gonna be your your your cylinder on your back, right? It's got your compressed air, you're you're breathing the breathing the air in and you're you're blowing it out the regulator and the bubbles go away, right? Rebreather, right? The dreger, uh, I think it was the LR5, but that's the chest uh rig, right? And it's got it's got little things that look like dipping dots in it. It's called soda sorb. Basically, you're exhaling and it's scrubbing, scrubbing out all the nasty stuff, and it just pure oxygen, and you got a little pure oxygen tank right there, and you'll just hear a little but the point of that is you don't express any bubbles, right? Because it's completely clandestine. So that's a rebreather. You're rebreating the how long does that last? The rebreather, it depends on depth, right? Okay, yeah. Yeah. So I don't I would have to look back. I mean, it's been over ten years since I've done it.

SPEAKER_01: 55:05

But I mean you get 10, 15 minutes at kind of a few feet, or is it a few years? Oh no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04: 55:10

I want to I I I want to say you get I want to say you get like 90 to 120 minutes at uh less than if you're between zero and twenty feet. Oh. Because that's the thing. If you go below twenty feet, I believe it's twenty feet, it's it's considered an excursion because then you're you're using more oxygen and pressure and everything. Yeah, and so you you're true, you're basically just skimming under the water the entire time. And that was like truly super, super fun, right? Like we're we're diving in the middle of the middle of the night, like learning with these rebreathers. Like this is after pool comp, which pool comp's the one where and I don't think it gets a lot of light, right? You like Hell Week is like the big thing, like if you can just get through that, and it's the fun stuff, right? It's like you know, everybody, everybody wants to talk about that, but again, like even in pool comp, like I had an officer quit and he just couldn't do it. And that's not even the test. You're not even in your your your OC you know one through eight, like uh open circuit, right? Um, and you're not doing any of the competency stuff. You're just we're just doing buddy breathing, right? So buddy breathing is basically like you know, um one, you know, you're you're you're going under the water and one guy is attached to your your rig and you're you're showing a regulator. So you're taking a breath and you're letting your buddy breathe on it while you're working, and then when you need one, you just you know, two taps on the on the regulator, you slowly take the uh regulator, and then you get a breath and you just kind of repeat.

SPEAKER_01: 56:31

Is there ever a time where you were like like where you're running out?

SPEAKER_04: 56:35

So what's really funny is that reminds me, um, I actually got certified in high school. Okay. And to get certification, you go, you always have a dive buddy. Yeah. You always, I mean, even in the civilian world. So I mean, I'm in high school and we're diving, uh, and this is in Washington State, so it's fucking freezing. Absolutely fucking freezing. So um, but you know, I'm young and I don't even care, right? So um I'm down there with this lady uh and we're swimming and we're doing our thing, we're we're you know, scuba diving around. Um, my rebreather starts um free flowing. And if you don't know what free flowing is, basically your regulator gets lodged open and it's just expressing all of my fucking air. And so it's going, I I hear noises, I'm under the water, and it is muffled, you know, like whatever. I'm just chill.

SPEAKER_02: 57:20

I look over my this swim buddy, this lady, she I was in high school, she was probably if I had to guess, she's probably in her late 30s. She is freaking the fuck out. And I'm I'm like, I'm the fucking one with no air.

SPEAKER_04: 57:34

Yeah, like what are you doing freaking out? Yeah, so so I'm like, I'm you know, I I think I was 16 at the time, 17 at the time. I'm just like, okay. I'm looking at her, I'm like, and I'm just like, calm down, calm the fuck down, and I'm I throw my regulator and I'm holding my breath and I go, I just reach over slowly, and on these rigs, you have a secondary.

SPEAKER_00: 57:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 57:57

Yeah, so so I'm just like, it's okay. I'm just gonna reach over, I'm just gonna grab that secondary, and I'm like, it's okay. I put it in my mouth and I start breathing, and I go, let's go to the fucking surface. We get to the surface, and my dive master was behind us the entire time. Now, people were like, Why didn't he interject? And it's the same reason you don't interject you you don't go and when someone's drowning, go immediately up to them because they will grab you and you will both drown. For sure. Actually, the most effective way is to dive under the water, grab the person's legs, spin them the direction you want, climb up them, and then you reach over them and then you rescue them, right? Because they'll drown you every time. Every single time. Every time. So um he was he he he looks at me and goes, You pass. You're getting your certification today. I think you had to do four dives. He gave I got my certification, my first dive. He's like, You're qualified, you're certified. I obviously I did the rest of the dives. But so yeah, it was a really funny story that translated later in life because you know, uh, you know, you're doing ditching dons and stuff like that where you're under the water and you're you're basically ditching your gear and you're sharing oxygen with your buddy, and you're doing all these like all the and then you'll do like your night dive where your mask is blacked out and all this other stuff. And those are all leading up to you know, pool comp where you're you know, you every 20 minutes you jump in and they they basically fuck with your your lines in your regulator. They tie it in knots and do all this other shit, and you have to you have to ditch your rig and then undo the knots and and you put it back on and then they'll keep fucking with you for 20 minutes until they until they give you a a non give you a knot you can't undo, but you have to go through all of the functions, right?

SPEAKER_01: 59:40

20 minutes under the water, just getting yes. How exhausted are you at this point?

SPEAKER_04: 59:45

Um I don't care how honestly, it's just a fucking fight, dude. Like I wrestled, I wrestled a lot. I mean, not that that really makes a lot of a lot of difference in this situation because you're under the water, but the funny thing is is you're calm. You're calm, right? Have to be you. You 'cause if you if your heart's racing, like you're fucked. There's just no way. You can't you just can't hold your breath.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:06

Right? There it you you're you're undoing knots, you're and on top of this, you're going through every single iteration that you have to you have to do everything proper, everything perfect. Check you know, check check your uh uh check the air, make sure it's on all the way, quarter turn back, check your regulator, bring it in your mouth, check your straps, make sure you got a two, you know, three foot loop or a three f three finger loop there, three finger loop there. Um your dive belt's good to go. I mean, you're you're going through all of these functions that you have to do, and if you fuck up one of them, you fail.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:38

Are your instructors are they just immediately worst worst case scenario, or do they like come in and they they're turning your air off first, and then you are they walking so in that 20 minutes, I mean they're not just coming in ripping masks, ripping.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:51

Oh no, they are. Yeah. So that so right in the right in the beginning, right in the beginning, you basically are standing on the pool's edge, check right, check left, check forward, jump in, right? Um preferred in the water, in the water. Get in the water, you go to the bottom, and you're basically crawling around on the bottom like this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:08

Are you blindfolded? Uh no, you have your mask on. Okay. Um, I believe it's blacked out. Your your mask is blacked out, though. So you're blindfolded. So you can't see shit. Yeah. And you got your mask on. But you have to crawl around basically on your on your knee, hands and knees, and you're just going back and forth. And sometimes, as soon as you're in the water, I'm assuming that's when the time starts.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:25

But the instructors will just fuck with you, right? Because they're just you just know that they're just sitting there just swimming, just above you, and you they're just gonna come down, they're basically just gonna fuck you up. Like they're gonna. I don't I don't want to say too much, right? But let's just say yard sale, right? Like your shit's going everywhere, water's going anywhere, you might get an elbow, you might, you know, whatever. Like shit's happening, you're underwater. So that's basically how it starts. Is basically you you just turn it just turns into like this tight, you know, spin cycle. You're just getting rolled, and just maybe your head gets slammed in the back ground, maybe not, you know, the bottom of the pool deck.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:02

I don't know, all sorts of shit, weird shit happens.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:04

But 40 minutes of that, huh?

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:06

Well, that's how it starts, right? And then and then it goes into the technical. I mean, you're always getting you're always getting attacked, right? But ripping off your regulator, you know, fucking with your air, tying one side in a knot, tying the other in a knot, shoving shit up the back, you know, fucking with your straps, like and you have to fix all the problems under the water without air, find your air, put it in your mouth and breathe, and then rinse and repeat. Um, I will say, like I said, um, may have said earlier, um, I the proudest moment was calling my dad, right? After Hell Week. So, like I told you, like that was by far, like that'll carry me the rest of my life. Um, but finishing pool comp almost felt more of an accomplishment because it was the unknown. Like, I knew about Hell Week, I knew that it was gonna suck. I knew that I was gonna you know just go in and fight and someone's gonna have to kill me to get me out of there. And sure enough, I made it through and that was fantastic. But pool comp is one of those unknowns where you they don't talk about it very much. How are you gonna get training on it? I mean, you might get training on it now because there's all these feeder pipelines, which are absolutely I mean, how spoiled are the kids now?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:13

I mean, it's just for the feeder pipeline.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:15

So, like the warrior calling, like out in San Diego where they're learning, you know training, they're do they're doing legit training before. Yeah, they're they're getting, you know, a little bit of surf torture. They're getting, you know, you they're they're getting some of the the fabric of the training that you're going to encounter. So that muscle and that mental memory, right? I'm assuming that's really a good emphasis on. And I don't know a ton about them, but um, because I, you know, uh I hope to learn more, right? I hope to that the brand actually gets interjected with some of those groups because we we'd love to support them. We're we're doing a lot of great things with like Navy SEAL Foundation, there's a few others. But um, the point is it's super spoiled, right? Super fucking spoiled. I I was going to a pool and I was watching like Stu Smith and all these fucked up YouTube shit videos of like trying to learn how to do shit and you know, on my own in San Diego, and now now here you are, you got all these things where you can prep school. Prep schools, feeder pipelines, all these amazing things, which is absolutely phenomenal, right? Get a mentor, get training. If you have the ability, the resources, if you know somebody who's gone going through it or have gone through it, go go do it, go become best friends with them, take a mentor. But um, but yeah, I I felt I felt that completing pool comp was almost more of an accomplishment than Hell Week because it was something that was extremely challenging, that was still washing people out. For sure. And it I mean it's fucking hard, right? Pool comp is no fucking joke. And um, I actually I actually got this sleeve tattoo the day I finished pool comp, I fell asleep on in the chair. I'm not fucking kidding. John Sibin, amazing tattoo artist out in San Diego. I don't know if he's still out there, dude's a beast, and it was so funny he grew up in Tacoma next to me. Um he's like, he's laughing his ass off. He's like because I woke up, I was like, oh shit. He's like, bro, I've never seen anyone fall asleep in the chair. I fucking passed out. Well, he he he did my whole fucking outline, my whole, which is I mean, there's a lot of ink, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, I passed out on the fucking chair. I was so tired. I bet. Um, but again, the commitment. I scheduled my tattoo for the day that I knew I was gonna pass Poolcom. Like that that was just my fucking mentality. I was like, I'm gonna fucking schedule something that's gonna be permanent, and I almost got my ass beat for it because I came in on I came in on Saturday and Sunday over the weekend to help the guys that didn't make it because on Monday you get one last try to to pass to OCA. You get two more attempts on Monday, you get two on Friday. If you don't pass that, you get two on Monday. If you don't pass that, you're gone. Oh god. Um, so so you know, if you're a good dude, you come in on the weekends and you help help people where you can.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:48

Well, I'm sure your instructors and everybody's watching.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:50

Yeah, and they also saw me come in with new ink.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:52

I was gonna say that probably wasn't the smartest that's it wasn't, no, it was a fucking horrible idea. Especially if you have an open wound, you're in the sand and just MRSA and everything else that's in those barracks. And yeah, it probably was not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:03

I told you I was a young, you know, young man. I was basically a fucking ape. So I said I don't give a shit. Been there, yeah. I was like, oh no, fuck that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:10

Like, and that's what this whole tattoo's about is basically just like, you know, just I mean, God's favor the strong, like you know, all sorts of shit in there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:18

But but yeah, I came in and feel better. I got a I got a huge portion of my back done the night before we went to a gas chamber just to get out of it. I was like, I don't want to do this gas chamber, I'm gonna get blasted anyways. And I show up and they're like, we don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:31

You're like, fuck, that didn't play out the way I thought. Yeah, yeah, no. And naturally, right? Naturally, yeah, naturally, zero zero fucks given. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:39

Typical Marines. Congratulations, get in line. I was like, damn it. Yeah, I knew I was probably I knew the chances were slim, but I I should I shot my shot.

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:48

So before before we move into like third phase, right? Um, I will say one of the worst beat downs that I got in BUDS was in second phase. So you are learning, right? You are learning all the dynamics, the pool dynamics and stuff like that. We are in this classroom, right? And we are taking apart our rig, taking it like the dreger, like doing all the things, learning all the things. And we're wet and sandy. We're fucking wet and sandy. And they made us do backs, bellies, and feets. If you don't know what backs, bellies, and feet is they go backs, you have to we're in a classroom with chairs and shit and tables. We're wet, we're sandy. Maybe maybe backs, you have to jump on your back, bellies, you have to move to your belly, feet, you have to get on your feet. Yeah, backs, bellies, feet. There's backs, bellies, feet, just fucking forever. In a mic. Just beating the shit out of us, push-ups, all sorts of fucking terrible shit. We sweat so bad. It all all the steams going to the ceiling, it rained inside. It was fucking raining. And I was like, holy shit, it's raining inside. It was wild.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:51

That's how bad they'd be used. That's how wet we were, dude. That was it was just a it was a wild story.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:59

I still have scars on the inside of my legs from from from Hell Week. I mean, um, you finish Hell Week, it's basically you know, open wounds. You it smells like the fucking smell in the barracks, it smells like it just smells like flesh. It's fucking disgusting. I'm not kidding, dude. It is nasty. It is fucking nasty. Um people are just like piece together and I mean everything's open wounds. You got fucking bumps and fucking shit everywhere. You get I'm sure there's some sort of disease running around in me from that, but absolutely nasty. But um, but yeah, so that was a that was a pretty bad beatdown.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:32

I did you do any offshore swimming?

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:34

Uh like out in the ocean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:36

Oh fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:37

Did you do any at night?

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:38

You do that every week. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:39

Well, okay. Legit question. Yeah, sure. Were you ever just terrified?

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:43

No, oh no, but I will say there was one time where I was like, because look, like so this story is pretty funny. So we're we're we're doing our dregger dive. So after you pass the pool comp, you start doing, you know, you practice dreggering it in the middle of the night and shit, and we're out there, you they just come out to a boat, and then you're they're making sure that you know how to navigate straight, right? And skirt the, you know, they call it skirting the the shore, and you're basically just like 10 or 15 yards off the basically where the you come out of the water because you remember you're draggers, so you can't go super deep. You have to stay within like basically 20 feet, 20, 30 feet. So you're just skirting the shore. But anyway, we're out there, we're diving around, I'm my swim buddy, and all of us, I mean, you can't see fucking shit. Like you have a dive line between like me and you, okay, right? And you have a tack board, and the tack board's like your navigation board, and you have a you have a chem light that you snap, you open up, so you can kind of see the coordinates, you can see the direction, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:33

You have a compass or you got a watch or it's basically on the board. Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:36

So there's a compass, there's a you know, a you can't lose it and all that. Well, yeah, it's all right there. Um, but you also have a a line attached to your buddy. I would not be able to fucking see you right now. Yeah, right. However, we're swimming and we stop, we're checking coordinates, all of a sudden we feel this whoosh, and I'm like, huh, what the fuck? So you accept, you accept you're in the middle of the fucking ocean in the middle of the fucking night. No, there's you know, whatever. And you know, again, whoosh, and yeah, and I just I just remember looking over and I just see this. I like I couldn't see you, but I see this, it's just a slightly more black fucking wall, just go like this by me. And I just look at my my dive buddy, and I just kind of get close, and I'm just like, you know, you see that shit, and he's like, No, it's like you got you feel it, and he's like, mm-hmm. And I'm like, oh fuck it. And we just kept going, right? That was an interesting moment because at that point, you know, you just kind of accept like you're I'm sure you can relate, right? When you're hunting, like there's things that will want to kill you, right? If you're not you're not smart.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:42

But here's the thing, man. I'm on land.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:45

I feel like if you got a gun, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:48

A gun, or I could try to juke something. Like, I I feel on land, I have I have a chance.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:53

You're vulnerable as fuck in the water. There's nothing you're doing. Like that. That's why I asked, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:57

That would probably be the hardest thing for me, honestly, out of out of anything would be I would just be like, just wandering around, yeah. Especially you're right on shore, so you're you look like a sea lion just cruising up and down the shore. We are talking San Diego, so it's not like you don't have great cruising everywhere.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:16

Plenty of creatures.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:17

Yeah, so that was an interesting moment. Um, but yeah, that I I would say just that that wave momentum that just pushed me, and I was like, well, fuck. All right then.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:28

And it came back around, yeah, because I looked and I just see this black wall, and I'm just like, what is whatever, man. Like, fuck it. You know, you're again just a stupid ape and apparently one that can swim.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:42

That that gives me anxiety. Just I have uh a Marsok buddy that he came on and he was doing a swim. They're out on the east coast and they were doing a night swim, but they had like packs where they're on the top of the water. Sure. Dry bags. And he got hammered by something. Yeah, just smoked him in the ribs. He was just he like looks around, he thought he was a swim buddy. Oh shit. Like ran into him, he was like, yo, like, what are you doing? And he looks up at his chem light and his buddy's like 20 yards from him, and he was like, just kept going. So that's where that's where the mental battle for me would end. If if anything touches me in the water out in the ocean, done. Yeah, nope, not out of my element.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:21

I'm not gonna say it touched me because it didn't, but I definitely I definitely had gotten pushed by the wave. Yeah, yeah. It was pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:26

That's that's why I had that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:27

It had to be something big because I mean, literally just feeling that push was I mean, that's a lot of that's a lot of force with a lot of volume. Just I mean, you're in the middle of the ocean, right? That volume has somewhere to go, but apparently it went towards V. So it must have been closer or larger both. I legit, that gives me anxiety. Yeah. So that was an interesting, interesting thing. But yeah, so then we, you know, we get into third uh third phase, and again, you your question about open ocean swimming, right? You're doing your open ocean swimming. Well, um uh, you know, in third phase, traditionally they would, you know, swim at the island, right? It's a five and a half nautical mile swim. Gross. Fucking forever. Gross. I mean, we're stuffing Snickers in our wetsuits and eating them and shit when we're eating like swimming, it's unreal. I was oh yeah, you stuck the little tricks and shit you guys are doing. You stuff all sorts of food down your wetsuit, and you're just crushing food the whole time. Even like uh, I mean, even when you know that you're doing stuff on land, like we'll bury caches of fucking food like all over the beach, and we'll know where it is, and you'll just crush food. Yeah, there's no amount of calorie that'll satisfy what you're burning and buds.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:27

Oh, I couldn't imagine. No fucking amount.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:29

I mean, you could you just eat for days, you just eat piles of food, and some people are like, Don't you get sick? And you're like, No, dude, you just can't get enough fucking food. Just can't get enough food. You just eat the whole time if you want if you could.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:39

Oh, yeah. You're shit. I mean, I'm sure the calories that you're burning just from shivering. Oh, God, you couldn't even replenish the that that amount of calories.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:46

And what people won't tell you, too, is like, you think first phase is fucking cold, second phase is fucking cold. You're fucking freezing, and because you're in the fucking ocean all the time, just the thought the entire time. You're just freezing, and they don't give a fuck. You're just in the ocean. And when you get out of the you're just gonna get wet anyway, you know. So uh yeah, that's that that's good stuff. But um, yeah, so we did our we did our five and a half nautical mile ocean open swim, completed that, and then we went to the land nav. Um, you know, I've never besides my best friend and very close people, I've never really talked about this, but that's where my back basically threw out.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:21

I was we saw so in the water, and you're doing first are you second phase, right? Are you feeling like your back tweaked at all? Is it no man really messing with you or are you just back up phase?

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:33

No, man. Like I'm young. I don't I don't know if that's what the deal was. I mean, over time it definitely has degraded. Like it's like I don't deadlift, you know, more than 305 is all I do. Like, period, bench, deadlift, whatever. Like, I uh that's I'm such an intentional person. I work out in my garage and I literally have 305 pounds. I don't have any more because I know if I go above that pride bullshit like that, I'm gonna fuck my back up. So um, so no, I mean, uh at this point, like very rarely would give me any any problems, but when it threw out, it threw out like it fucked my shit up. But I was but I was young, right? Um, I don't really again don't know the attributes, and obviously I have all the chits and all this stuff, and you know, it's important to say that, but yeah, third phase, land navigation, you go to Mount Laguna, and everybody's like, hmm, Southern California, baby. It's just nice and warm. It's just nice and fucking warm. It's like, go to Mount Laguna in the fall or the winter. You tell me it's nice and fucking warm. Please, please do. Yeah, no, it's fucking freezing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:31

Well, they don't realize it's also the high desert and how the sway of temperatures and I mean, yeah, I mean it snows like crazy out there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:37

Yeah. I mean, so there's a reason why they go there, right? It's it's it's uh challenging terrain, it's fantastic. I never grew up with any land navigation skills, so I actually really, really enjoyed like learning how to how to navigate and doing the classwork because I was I wanted to be educated, and that's kind of funny too to talk about because this whole time you're basically getting your ass beat, but then you finish Hell Week and you start learning intelligent things diving, logistics, underwater navigation, land navigation, things and components where you're actually being educated, right? You're you're being equipped to do the job, and you're learning all these components that are going to be exponentiated when you go into SQT, which is SEO qualification training. Okay. That's what you go into after BUDS. Um, I don't know how long it is, but I believe it's 18, 18 months after BUDS. So another basically the total pipeline buds to that is two years. Um, but that's when you you maximize those elements that you learn early on in BUDS. Yep. And then you expand out and you become better. So I was really excited about land navigation and I did very, very well. Um we had a um initially we had the training session, then you have a practice day, um, and then you you go do the testing, and you have two days of testing, and I ended up failing the first day, which sucked, right? I was like, fuck, I gotta do this on Friday. Do it on Friday, my back throws out, and I am so fucked up. And I'm I'm I'm just basically saying to myself, what am I gonna do? And I'm trying to move. And when you're back throw, what were you doing? Well, it's just it as it does today. It just it just fucking seizes up yeah, and I'm on the ground. And I'm like, fuck, what do I do? Anyway, I I'm able to I I fail, right? I failed it, I fell failed a course. End of story, right? I'll take ownership. Like I could have passed it the first day and I didn't, right? I could have done it. And I think that really what it came down to was we had a practice day and I fucking crushed it the second day. I failed it, and I was like, or the the first test day I failed it, which was Thursday. I was like, oh shit. Right. I was a little nervous. I go on a four going to Friday, fail it, back goes out. But at the end of the day, like um, you know, to your question too, like, what does it feel like to be basically dropped, right? Okay, so at that moment and it sucked. It really sucked. Like I knew that I I just that physically it was it was over.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:48

I mean you're so you're laying there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:50

Yeah, I I actually crawled into one of the bathrooms because I was freezing and I was and I couldn't move. So I found my way to one of the because they have these little bathrooms everywhere, they're basically outhouses.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:03

And I just remember laying in that bathroom and I was like, this fucking sucks. This really fucking sucks. And uh outside of my best friend, like I I don't know if I've ever told anyone this, so I guess everybody knows now, but but yeah, I ended up failing land navigation and and that that point, you know, you go and you basically get evaluated, right? And I get dropped naturally.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:26

Did you know you were getting dropped, or was there home?

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:29

No, no, it was really weird because um I mean, yeah, like they like you fail, right? And you go back to to base and everybody's getting ready to go on the the bus to go to the airport to fly out to the island to learn your your weapons training, which I never got, um, which I was really looking forward to. Um and it basically pull you off the bus and then you get you know reviewed and I get dropped, right? And naturally, like I failed in the story. So and that's okay. I mean, it is what it is, and at that point I um I have to I I I get pro I I was sitting in my barracks in the third phase barracks just waiting for somebody to come get me, and I literally was there for like a week and a half. And I was like, they forget about me, and and and I don't know what was going on, and then I it basically goes through and then I have to, you know, um transition out, right? Transition to what we call the dry side, which is like the general navy side, so away from the SEAL, the the wet side is what they call it, which is right along the ocean. So I go over there and I'm in I'm in this basically intermediary phase where they start evaluating you for your medical and trying to to to basically need the navy, right? Yeah, like that's where you go. But mine was different because I'm there and I have all these chits of injuries because you know I was thrown in medbay during Hell Week. I'd throw in Medbay the week before Hell Week because I that's when I threw me back out. They all they document nothing for my shoulder because I was hiding that, right? You don't want to expose your injury. Everybody's fucking broken, right? Don't think that you should feel bad for me or feel bad for anybody who gets injured. Every single person that goes through BUDS is fucking injured.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:04

For sure.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:05

Every single person. So that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is I had a light paper trail of the injuries, and at this point, um, there was there was a little bit of criticism, and I and I I learned this later, but there were so many people that were injured going into the fleet from BUDS that basically big Navy was like, what the fuck are you guys doing over there? The people are coming here and they're broken. What is going on? Can't use them. Can't use them.

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:32

So I ended up getting evaluated, and sure enough, L5, L4 ruptured, spinal stenosis, ridiculous, nerve root compression. Um uh my shoulder, like I said, was completely torn in half. 180 degree tear, which I I got that repaired as soon as I got out, but um, but yeah, it it basically just started the course of of being uh physically evaluated, and um they basically said sorry, we can't use you, you're fucked up, and that was it. Damn.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:00

Yeah, so what did that do to morale? Like, how's your where's your mindset at that at that point?

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:04

Yeah, um, super challenging. I'm sure that uh a lot of people can relate to this, whether it's at a at an extreme level, like like what I felt I went through, and there's much more extreme levels, right? Like the guys that serve, and I mean, uh you know, and do and they're in the teams and in the military and do the do the thing for a long time and get deployed like yourself and do those things like you guys come back and go through the transitions very challenging. So all I'm simply saying is um, you know, uh my transition out was was me trying to figure out what the fuck am I gonna do. For sure. That was everything. And when I say everything, it was fucking everything.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:41

Yeah, like I that's why I ask you. I I don't want to think that I'm asking like, oh, because you didn't make it, and because you know you're good, yeah. Just because of your response, it's like, you know, there's guys that do it for 30 years, 20 years and get out, but everybody it does me personally, I could give a fuck, right? Like how long they did it. It a transition's a transition, especially going into something so set and goal-oriented, and like this is your life, yeah, and then now all of a sudden that just got ripped from you. Like, what's like now you're like, there wasn't a plan B.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:15

No, there wasn't. And I get that question quite a bit. And what I will say is the most challenging thing was was not transitioning out so much as it was um you you become so accustomed to wins every single fucking day. Every time someone quits, it's a win. Every time you get through an evolution evolution, it's a win. Big wins. And and and and that that like you you just you just see the attrition, and you just see I mean you get so used to winning, and it's that uh fracturing that you do to get through it. And I will say that's a another piece of advice that I would give somebody going through these pipelines is you you manage the the totality of the job or the totality of the work by breaking it down, right? So if you have a hundred push-ups, you can do this in training, whatever exercise you're doing, or whatever you're doing, running miles, whatever. You have a hundred push-ups. Some people will get, you know, I'm just gonna push out a hundred. Fuck that. Push out 40 and then push out 20, push out 10, push out five, break it down as small as you need to do until you just start getting those little wins. And the next thing you know, you hit 100. Right? That's how you do it. I'm at the O course, I'm just gonna, you know what, fuck it. I'm just gonna wait until I see somebody quit. We're doing log PT, I'm just gonna wait until somebody quit. I'm gonna feed on that, right? And I'm gonna use that to say to myself, now I'm gonna reset. And that's an that's a great, um, that's a that's probably one of my best, most learned lessons, too. Was you know, and I talked about the quiet guy you gotta worry about. It's definitely one of the one of the best stories because there's this master chief that is absolutely I mean, within that community, renowned. I mean, he's so respected. He's a legend within the community. Okay, he is not physically daunting at all. He'll he's the guy that'll come up to you at the bar and be like, hey man, like I just want to talk to you real quick outside. And but he's an absolute murderer. Fuck yeah. And you know, you're just like, all right, nice person, like let's go, let's go talk.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:21

And he just sits us down, our class, and he's like, I just want to, and his voice is not very he's not like he's just like, hey guys, like you know, I just want to give you guys a little advice, like when you guys hit a wall, just mentally reset.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:36

Just reset. And so I I tell people I extend it's not that's not my that's not me talking, that's him. That's just me repeating that amazing advice that he gave me. So when I was in training, when I would see someone quit or I'd get through an evolution, I would take that win and I would just mentally reset and say, We're fresh. It's fresh. That shit sucked, that shit hurt, but I got a win. And I reset. So yeah, so mentally just resetting, breaking things down like that, critically important. Obviously, I isolating yourself and then um learning how to just reset the mind when when you get that win, or you get through 10 push-ups or five push-ups, or whatever it is, you're running 10 miles and maybe run four, then maybe run three, and then maybe run two, and then maybe run one, and now you've done ten, right? You've completed it. But you get used to that reward system of winning. And I think it if I you know because I because I never quit, right? So I had that mindset still burned into my soul, like I have to go do some I have to go win some somewhere. Um and so I got out and you know, I really struggled because you know I got so close, right? And I really wanted it more than anything, but now I needed to redirect that effort and redirect all of that pent up aggression because I'm very aggressive just naturally. Football, wrestling, like all the things that contact, like that's jumping off cliffs. Like I seek that and I and I enjoy it and I feed it. So now what the fuck am I gonna do? Right. So I get out and I'm like, well, you know, I guess I can go to college. So I did that, went and got my degree, and I went and got in entrepreneurship, which is serving me very well now in the brand. And um, but yeah, for me, that's the advice because a lot of my friends are getting out right now, right? They're just at that point where they're retiring, they're getting ready to retire. And man, they I'm realizing that these dudes are my good friends at least. I only speak for them and the conversations I have, no one else, but the conversations with I am that they feel the same way I did. Like they're like, dude, like what the fuck do I do with this, with all this standard, with all of the things that you know, waking up and doing this, and I guess that that's that's true for any career, but when you're in that environment, like you're at the nth degree of of challenge, in the nth degree of you're on the bleeding edge of everything, yeah, right. I mean, you you're you're you're literally in a in an area where the most small minute uh amount of people have been, and like now what do you do? So I you know, for me it's like you have to have a target. Yeah, I'd had the target. So I was like, all right, well, I'm gonna get a degree. And like I said, like I clearly made my my girlfriend, my the girl's dating my girlfriend, and we ended up getting married, of course. And so obviously she's you know amazing human being, and for sticking through that with me. And yeah, she was such certainly a comfort in a rock every weekend. I'd go see her and be with her, but um so we get out, we're dating naturally and doing all those things, and um, and that and and and and again, like that's how committed I was. Like, I literally did not make her my girlfriend until I was out of the military. Like, I knew that the battle was over. I she stuck it out, she stuck it the fuck out. Yeah, I'm good. That's a good one. She's uh she's also a redhead, so if I fuck around, she fucks me up. Yeah, she'll kill you all.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:09

I'll die.

SPEAKER_04: 1:28:09

Yeah, it's over. So I I I know my limits. I know my limits. Um, but yeah, so um she's amazing. So I ended up getting my degree, and then I started the corporate world. Um, currently still in the corporate world. Doing what? Uh infrastructure, global infrastructure.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:26

Like what?

SPEAKER_04: 1:28:26

Explain it. Uh everything that powers a city, a building, a managed sales teams basically helping them understand how to work with with uh end users, with contractors, and you know, I don't want to you know go too far into that, but I'll I'll just say like um, yeah, it's pretty technical, you know, data center, data communications, uh distributed and attendance systems, like um switch gear, panel borders, all the you know, different variations of uh divisions of electrical stuff. So um, you know, all the different specifications that go into building data centers and powering cities and powering buildings and basically everything besides concrete and wood. Um, you know, we're gonna have to talk after this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:03

Okay. Yeah, I might yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:05

Yeah, glad you brought that up.

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:07

So which leads me into the brand, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:09

It's like uh which is the brand is what you've mentioned the brand several times, you've not dropped a name.

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:14

Yep, pro well, you know, this is about the experience, but it's project linear. Okay. That's our handle, that's our website. Can I open this? Yes, sir. There's something very there's something very special in there for you. Something that no one's even seen, no one even knows it's coming.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:27

Really?

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:27

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29:28

Well, good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:29

And uh it is uh so there's obviously some articles in there from from our brand. Um, and our brand specializes in performance active wear for men currently. And um we iterate and develop all of our gear with athletes who are military law enforcement first responder team guys. We have a meridian PD guy here, Chris Jacob, which is an absolute tank. If you go on our website and you see some massive beast lift lift. Like a shit ton of weight. That's Chris. Yeah, yeah. It's absolutely phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:04

What was so okay?

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:05

So yeah, there's something there's something super special in there for you that you'll see outside of the clothing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:11

What was your motivation?

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:13

There it is. There it is. The patch? Yes, sir. So that patch is actually made by a veteran-owned company called Moral Decay Patchwork.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:22

They're all handmade in America. Leather. And no one's even, you're the first person to have that. Um, we are launching that. So for your listeners, they're gonna get a nugget. We're one of 25 on the 7th of November. No shit. Yes, sir. And so they made those for us, especially. They're just a phenomenal organization. Uh, again, veteran-owned. Uh both husband and wife are both veterans and law enforcement. Now, the husband's law enforcement. So true service people. And that really ties into the brand, right? So every single athlete and affiliate that we work with that we have on our website that does work with us, military law enforcement first responder, zero exceptions. Zero exceptions. Um, every single piece of gear that we iterate is with military law enforcement first responder. It is a true premium offering, meaning every single fiber of our of our gear has anti-odor, antimicrobial, and anti-pilling technology. So why do we do that? We do that because when we iterate, right, with the field, with our development group, we call them. Everything has a natural tie to the military. So we call it our development group. Navy SEAL, right? A couple other guys in the SWAT teams. We also have a top five CrossFit athlete in the world, and Scott Tetlow, who's also active duty Navy. Most people will know Scott, right? Like he's performed at the highest level. He's uh he was the men's demo team captain a couple years ago. Like he contributes to the board. He has an amazing programming schedule. Like the guy's extremely sought after. He's a he's a renowned uh CrossFit athlete, but also a service member, right? Yes. Zero exceptions on this. So we iterate with him, iterate the folks like that. What do you need? The anti-pilling is mainly because the fibers break down, right? When you're wearing a rig, you're wearing a body armor, you're wearing weight vest. Um, it breaks those fibers and you get all the little balling, the pilling on your fibers. We don't want that. We want shit to work. So we add an application to that that prevents it from doing that. The anti-odor, antimicrobial, um, we leveraged a uh an organic derivative from volcanic ash, which has a natural anti-odor, antimicrobial uh properties to it. So your gear won't stink. So we got guys, why we do that? So guys go running out in the outdoors, or I mean, I got a couple buddies that I gave shorts to that are deployed that are you know in some um humid climates and it doesn't stink. They can literally wear them for days. Um, it neutralizes the bacteria, right? So it doesn't stink.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:55

Almost like a merino, like a merino wool.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:57

So merino is a natural organic um, you know, antimicrobial, anti um anti-odor, antimicrobial, but also has a natural thermal regulation property to it, the merino wool. I will give your I'll give your listeners another nugget. Um, we have our next series coming out in April, which will be a natural cotton bamboo blend. So bamboo has similar properties as merino wool. It's naturally thermoregulating, it's naturally antiodor, antimicrobial, and it also adds a layer of SP SPSF50, so it's sun block resistant as well.

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:31

Shit.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:32

Yeah, these organic compounds are wild. But so we do that, right? Um, we do that for reason, for purpose, because we want your shit to work. We don't want it to fall apart. It's not cheap, it's expensive. Me and my wife have completely funded this. We have no outside investment, which is exactly what I want.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:45

Let's uh yeah, let's talk about that, man. Because this is wild chaos, and we get into the guts of everything. And when you first reached out, I was like, all right, cool. Yeah, like I wanna I want to check this out. But then after I was reading your are you like petrified? Are you just shitting your pants as I'm opening these bags with a good?

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:06

Um they're knife proof. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:10

Oh, these are shorts.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:11

So they're shorts, yeah. They got the two in ones.

SPEAKER_01: 1:34:14

Oh, dope.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:15

Yeah, and again, that's where my journey started with this was iterating with other brands. And I kept telling them about the liner being fucked up because I lift weights, I have legs, yeah, but I also trail run. Like I race, I do Roby, you know, I've done it twice. I did it this last year in these, and that hem right there that you grabbed, yeah. Um, on most shorts and that liner, on most shorts, if you look in liners, you're gonna see like a basically just the stitching, the seam, right? And then you're gonna see like a little one-eighth inch hem. What that the problem with that is once it rides up, it basically acts as a rubber band. So I was like, well, fuck it, I'm gonna redesign this. So I basically created our hems with a two-inch surface area, which creates more surface area, so that hem will glide up and down your leg instead of rolling up and staying there, yeah. Yeah, which is great. But in addition to that, another problem with every single liner I've ever ran and lifted with was they're all a mid to high compression, uh, you know, nylon shitty liner. Um, because everybody's like, oh, the shell looks great. Well, if you just turn it inside out and you look, you're probably wearing the same fucking liner your buddy's wearing because they all just use standardized liners because it cuts cost, it's bullshit. And so what I did was I redesigned instead of a mid to high compression fabric, I went with a low to no compression so that it doesn't prevent your ROM or your range of motion while you're running. Yeah, also because we selected the mesh fabric, mesh when it gets wet, it gets sticky, so it sticks in spider webs to your leg. So when you start to sweat, shit doesn't move. Got it. And so anyway, this it's purpose, it's intentional. You have put a lot of thought into this. I I no stone unturned. There's I mean, all the way down to the zipper tabs have our logo imprinted on them, and that's that's this that's some some sexy stuff, right? Um, but this is why I iterate with with who I iterate with, right? Because those liners, right? So you got your iPhone XS Max pocket built into the right side liner.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:07

We did the same thing on the left side liner, and my buddy's like, yo, my phone's too big. It bounces around like fucking make it smaller. So now you have a small phone pocket. So instead of two big pockets on the right and left side of your liner, you now have an iPhone XS Max pocket on the right, and then the other side of the liner, you have a smaller pocket for the smaller phone or supplements, and then you have a hidden key pocket in your inner waistband. And then even in your zip pockets on the side, we put little pockets in there. Why? Because you put your cat card in there, you can put your your ridge wallet or whatever. Shout out to Ridge, they make cool shit, and everybody knocks them off. Forget them. For sure. Go with Ridge. Let's go. Um, but yeah, so so everything's everything's iterated well. Our shirts are I mean, it feels incredible. It's unreal. Yeah, it's super soft. So if you go on our if you go on our our um Instagram at Project Linear, you're gonna see a bunch of dudes kicking in doors, blowing shit up, which for your audience will probably love that. Um, why is that? Well, because that's who we iterate with. So we you know, we we s we send them shirts and go, guys, I want you to go beat the shit out of this. I don't want to know what you love about it, I want to know what you hate about it, go put it through the ringer. So you got guys blowing up shit, breaching doors, all sorts of shit. Even the seams that we put in our shirts, where we put them, are there for a reason. We don't put them down your collarbone because if you're wearing a kit or you're wearing a rig, you get fucking chafing on your traps. Do you think anybody at any of these big brands give a shit about you when you're wearing your rig? We're not making it. No, they don't no. No, and if they're turning anyway, I don't want to knock on them. I'm just saying we're doing things differently. We're doing them intentionally. Everything we do is intentional. Yeah, everything has a purpose, everything has a reason. Um, our our tank tops, right? Even even that uh, even your waistband, right? It's not a standard waistband. The waistband is 1.75 inches, which is at least a half an inch uh taller than your standard waistband. Why? Because we don't want it to roll, we want it to stay put, and so we did it that way. Why are your draw draw cords on the inside? Because you don't want your shit hanging out and dangling everywhere. You can tuck them in, you'd be streamlined. Um, so again, we just it's that attention to detail and that standard that is burned into my soul that will never leave, where I'm able to direct that energy and put my wins in something that's tangible, and that's what I did with the brand. And so um, you know, if you look on the tear tag, it'll basically say it'll say workout, wash cold, hang dry, repeat, right? Like the the what the tear tag, right? And then we also have a workout on there, but like everything is uh everything is intentional, everything is purposeful. Uh, but but yeah, even the seams to where they are, right? I mean, we're we're trying to challenge people. You open the bag, but there's actually a workout on the bag. What does that signify? Why do you have a workout on your bag? I do that because when you get our shit, I want you to understand that there is a standard. I expect you to work out in this. Not that I, you know, you'd have to listen to me. I'm just saying, like, I'm not just sending you a bag that is just holding your gear. Like, I want to challenge you. I want you to see a challenge before you even touch the item.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:39:11

Even if you don't buy my shit, like go do the workout, right? The div the workout was specific, it was designed for a reason. Um, it's it's basically a way to test yourself. It was so funny. My buddy and I started doing this basically here in Boise, where we're like, Oh, tank tops, bro.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:27

I'm in my tank top era right now. I got you, I got you, brother. I'll make we've had I've had some people that are like, I hate tank tops, like this is a bro tank.

SPEAKER_04: 1:39:35

Like, most people suck. We've can we've converted them. So we do a slight drop neck in the tank. So when you hold it up, it won't just be some standard bullshit like drop. We actually did a little bit of a drop neck. Why do you do that? Because when you're doing overhead movements, it doesn't bunch and you get greater range of motion with your arm swing. Well, why do you why why is your tank like a half an inch longer or an inch longer than everybody else's? Because I don't want a fucking belly shirt when I'm lifting my barbell over my head. Thank you, right? So anyway, man, I don't know. It's almost like we're my problem.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40:07

I dude, I go through I lift my arms up, my shirt, my belly. No, right. There you go, brother.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:12

I got you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40:13

This is a great idea. Are the all the are the workouts all different?

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:17

Or is it just it is it's all the same workout, and and just just from that. So from it, so from a production standpoint, it's just a cost, right? No, I can't like and we're self-funded, but the but the workout, it wasn't it, it was less about the quantity of the workouts, right? It was the quality of like that. It's a functionally sound workout, like you're deadlifting, you're running, you're jumping, you're pushing, you're pulling. Those are literally the functions you want to do. And so, like my training mindset, like how I train, right? I run a lot. Yes, I I I do a lot of endurance, but I also lift weight. My whole like mentality is if you're out in the middle of nowhere and you your buddy gets fucked up, are you gonna be able to save his life? Can you carry him to safety? Can you get yourself out to safety?

SPEAKER_01: 1:41:00

Have you seen the trend going around right now with moms? If you could just grab your kid and run, like just pick your kid up and run with him how you drive from California? No, sorry. But there's like this trend going around right now, and all these moms are kind of mad about it because they they're realizing they can't pick their kid up and run. But it's but you look at it and it's like you just saying that. Can you pick a buddy up? Yeah, okay, cool. Is your boy kidded out? How big yeah, but I mean, you you just break that down to a a a normal everyday woman or husband. I mean, dude, I I know some guys where I'm like soft. You had I don't know if soft's the word. I wouldn't even categorize them as soft, but I'm like, really, you got kids. You're getting eliminated in nature. Darwin is gonna catch you. Go and get you. But it's like, man, you're a father. Like you we we that's where I'm at. That's where my that's important.

SPEAKER_04: 1:41:49

Yeah, that that mindset of I mean, look, I'm not saying that you have to train like you gotta save somebody's lives here. Like, that's just that's how I like to train and position, you know, my objectives. If you're a per just think about like the your mental well-being and what you're able to accomplish. I always tell people, like, if you want a good idea or if you want, if you want to be creative or you want some intellectual dialect with yourself, go for a long fucking run and don't do a loop, do an out and back. Why do you do an out and back? Be intentional. If I do loops, you can quit anytime. If you go out and back, you know you gotta fucking come back. Yeah, right. That's exactly what I tell people when I when they're like, hey, how do I train for for running? I go, do out and back.

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:32

Don't don't get it, run to it, run your ass back.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:34

That's right. And even if you go to the end or close to it and you turn around and you're walking back, fine. That's your starting point. Fine. You got an extra couple miles walking, but you do loops, you're literally tempted with the opportunity to quit.

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:48

At the end point that you keep passing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:51

Finish line, finish line. Right. Yeah. So it's intentional, right? So yeah, we did that. We iterated with military law enforcement first responder. Um, we got Cody Dickerson, who's a who's a very, I mean, he just took ninth in uh beach brawl out in Florida, a huge regional CrossFit competition. Uh, he's also a you know military law enforcement guy. Um, and then we got a couple guys that are in the teams, a couple guys also in the SWAT units that I'm not gonna identify, but yeah, that's who I iterate with, right? And we support organizations. We just did a a couple amazing, amazing organizations. We did the 20 Mountain 220 uh with threebravo.org. Okay. It was basically it was basically an ultra, right? It was 220 miles. Gross. And we outfitted a Navy SEAL, and there were some CIA guys with them. 220 miles over 20 mountains wearing 22 pounds of weight in their rucks to draw awareness for veteran suicide that we lose 22 guys a day to veteran suicide. We were able to outfit them, and and that's another another piece to this, right? Like we're you go to Instagram, we got like 2,500 followers, right? I don't give a fuck about that because I could put five, 10 grand into marketing and pump those numbers. For sure. I'd rather take that money and send it to an organization because then I'm able to support them. We get visibility out of it, but honestly, this this whole brand, like the brand's great. We have a mantra like beyond the brand, right? Bigger than the brand. It's never about the brand, it's bigger than the brand. And I get, I get, I get kind of kind of get sidetracked sometimes or get pushback from from some folks around me. They're like, yo, like stop collaborating with organizations. Like, it's about the brand. I'm like, fuck that, dude. I want the more team team first. Team organization first. So we got to outfit them. They completed it. It was amazing, drew awareness. And then we just did another one with the Navy SEAL Foundation. Uh, there was a Southern 100 for SEALs, Huntsville, Alabama, all the way to Nashville, Tennessee. We outfitted their entire group and went the whole way, uh, drawing, drawing awareness, raising funds for that community, which is fantastic. Um, and then we're doing another one in Coronado next month. We got invited back. We've been doing some regional competitions, the Summit Games out in Utah, phenomenal organization, very challenging. But yeah, I mean, that's how we're integrating, right? We're not spending our capital on uh, you know, you hear the 80-20 rule. If for business people, that's that's a big one, right? 80% marketing, 20% product service. I don't fucking want that product or service. I want somebody that goes, I'm I'm spending 80 to 90% of what I what I have in the product, the development and the service. The 10%, sure, do what you want with it. I don't care how bright and flashy your stuff is, even our design premises designed for the quiet professional, right? The derivatives of the military emphasis, right? We're no bright logos, not fancy shit. Everything's intentional, everything's purposeful. And and that's what's giving, you know, giving me direction and the ability to to accomplish things and getting that sense of win. Because when you own a business, as you know, and anybody listening owns a business, you fail daily. You and you have to iterate, you have to adjust, you have to find wins. And honestly, this this has been the greatest conduit to not only support the community and say, hey, influencer, I don't, I don't care how many people you you have, I'm not interested in working with you. But I have a dude that got voluntoled by his wife because he's you know he saw a shout out on Instagram. That's that's Chris Jacob, he's a Meridian PD guy. We had one guy bail on us at the last minute for our photo shoot uh because you know it was a conflict of interest or whatever. And and and and one of the social media groups out here put out a post like, Hey, any military law enforcement, this is a brand new brand. We weren't even launched yet. It was like 24 hours for our first photo shoot, and I'm like freaking the fuck out because I'm like, I can you know I'm like, what am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_02: 1:46:24

Then all of a sudden, you know, he gets voluntole by his wife because his wife's like, Honey, you're doing this because he's law enforcement. He comes to the thing, he walks in, I'm like, You're fucking hired.

SPEAKER_04: 1:46:34

Yeah, dude, the dude is just ginormous, lifts a house, the most humble individual you'll ever meet, naturally, right? These dudes, like when we we just did a photo shoot yesterday with a marine double amputee EOD tech. Okay, so this guy, he he unbelievable human being.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:54

I know this guy, Jesse. Yeah, does his wife do sourdough and stuff? Yes, yeah, I I've met him before. I actually want him on the podcast. You should have him get his contact. We took a I will we took a sourdough course from them a while back, and his wife has a beautiful home. He's got a beautiful family.

SPEAKER_04: 1:47:09

You know, he's the most like one of the most intelligent people you ever meet. Really? Dude was a PA.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47:12

You get to spend as much time with yeah, this is him.

SPEAKER_04: 1:47:14

Physician assistant, disarmed bombs, humble as shit. Yeah, great dude. Guess what? His wife voluntoled him. We were at the Aaron Butler uh Purple Heart run in Eagle and we're supporting that, doing that organization. And that was the first first organization we got to support. We're out there with our stand, and his wife comes up and I think she's from Australia or New Zealand or something. She's got an accent. She's amazing. Yeah, yeah. And she's like, Hey, would would your would would your company be okay like having my husband be a model for you? I was like, Where is he? And she points to him like fuck yeah. And I was like, dude, like I would love to do this. So we just did a photo shoot yesterday, an amazing place, CrossFit Northside. Okay, they're great group. I'm calling these people out, not because it's like, oh, we're trying to, you know, drop a name. I'm doing this because these people, like CrossFit E3, CrossFit North Side, these organizations are intentionally going out of their way to support a tiny little fish that is linear in this huge fucking pond with endless amounts of marketing, and they're going, hey, come use our space for free. Come work with us. And I'm just like, it gives me chills because just the the human element, and again, just the the the ability for this brand to be a conduit into the community and support it's just been phenomenal. But Jesse gets voluntold, right? So so his wife comes up, like basically voluntels him to come do that. And if you're in the military, you know the term voluntole, like you get voluntole shit all the time. Like, does anybody want to do it? Yes, you all do. So, you know, so he agrees reluctantly because military law enforcement first responders, they don't want to be in front of a lens. So we're just at CrossFit Northside yesterday, working out, being filmed by an amazing photographer, Anya Stoll. You look her up. She again, human. I'm not drop, I want to be very clear about that because we don't spend a ton of money on marketing. A lot of this is a is a an exchange, right? Um monarch bag company is another one, right? They've really stepped up and supported us and done some some really good collaborations with us. Devon at Sigma Wolf, just on unbelievable media. Yeah, yeah. Putting out so we got some new content coming. But the point is this is like, I think when we hear authentic a lot, right? We have a term no AI needed, right? That's one of our premises when we go into create media. Like if you look at our images, none of it's photoshopped, none of it's AI. All the copy is written by me or my team, right? It's not just true grit born from persuasion and a fucked up input because you know, it's Hachi Pig all sideways on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, everything's real, right? We're out in Brain O'Dunes in the area. So I'm bringing up these organizations because number one, they're great, great people, great organizations, but a pillar is our community. And uh, you know, another pillar is our community being military law enforcement, another another pillar is our partners, right? We support all three of those pillars anytime we can because they've been there for us and they're just amazing human beings. Um, but yeah, so we did the photo shoot with Jesse yesterday, across it north side and Chris. Chris is deadlifting like 650 pounds, and I'm just like, you're what's wrong with you, dude? Yeah, I'm gonna call the zoo, I'm taking you back. Like I'm gonna trank you, taking you in. So super quiet guy, just super humble. You should have him on, guys. I'd love to. Oh, uh unbelievable, unbelievable. And um, but yeah, so did that photo shoot, and it was just so cool, just you know, seeing someone like Jesse who who has so much so many reasons not to to be in front of a camera and just say, fuck that. Like no, he's a warrior, dude. The guy's unbelievable. He's an amazing human being and just such such a gentle giant, dude's way taller than me. I'm like, fuck you, dude. Like this is the fixture, I'm just he's towering over me. But amazing human being, yeah. And the and it's but definitely been the most gratifying and funnest thing. And we look to do to do more of that, and and we want to do that, we want to grow and just want to be there for the for for Boise and be there for the community because that's that's why we're doing what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:14

That's pretty awesome, man. I mean, you are in a very tough industry. Like, we've been in the apparel world for a long time and box office stuff. It dude, it's uh it's hard. Tough. I've worked for a couple of big um clothing companies as far as like um their reach and their breadth, probably. Well, just on the fact of you know, like these technical apparel companies, right? More hunting stuff or lifestyle, and man, to the the grind that it is. And so let's get real right now for a minute. Yeah, let's do it. What's it like running a business with you from home for with you and your wife how involved is your wife? I'm sure that's that's the big piece, right? So that's the team. Always. So what's it what's the toll? Because I mean it's you got a great brand, you got obviously you got you're you're making a way here in the valley.

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:14

Great. Everybody can see that. What is it? Because I and I'm asking these questions because, dude.

SPEAKER_04: 1:52:19

I know you've been there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52:22

Yeah. But nobody, but nobody talks about it. And I feel this is the best way to get people to connect to your brand is to know who you are and what it takes. Because cool, we look at Under Armour, but we don't know we we nobody knows who Kip is who started that shit in his garage or Bear starting it in his garage. Which amazing. You know, we're gonna get his story at the end of the week. But like, guys like that, like that's that's what matters to me as a consumer. Like when I'm gonna see this logo, yeah. You know, your logo here, yeah, which is great. Talk about why you picked this logo because it's important, it has a meaning. I hope it does. And so, so okay, let's start. Well, I guess we'll we'll get to the logo, but yeah, what's it like, man?

SPEAKER_04: 1:53:04

Uh like I said, it's uh it's a daily failure, right? And it's a daily the just you have to be creative, you have to be able to pivot, you have to this all is derived from caring, right? If you're doing something that you don't care about, like I started it's so funny how many how many things that I've been able to be successful at, Hell Week and all the other things, by just being pissed off. Like I'm pissed off, I want to fight, like you're gonna have to kill me. I was pissed off at the clothes. I I was pissed off because I wasn't getting what I wanted, and nobody seemed to give a shit. And so I just why weren't you getting what you wanted? Because I was providing feedback. I was literally on phones with people at these organizations, these brands, because I'm trialing their gear, giving them iterations and feedback, doing what my guys in the field do for us. And I literally keep giving them the same fucking response, and they just look at me like I'm an idiot. Because apparently people that run don't have legs, and so I'm like, okay, well, there's a market for it, and that market is me. If you like the gear, cool. If you don't, cool. Like there's other shit for you. In fact, that's literally our slogan is for the few. It's not for everybody, yeah, and I'm okay with that. Yeah, I didn't make this for everybody. If I did, I would have put a flashy color on it, you know, and just pumped a shit ton of marketing. I I'm doing this because I wanted to be satisfied. And that's it. Um the two lines are completely indicative of my experience of the military. Two is one, one is none, right? Two lines, team, always having a dive buddy. It's it's it's a team focus. We have a we have a mantra that we only say amongst ourselves and the team. Uh when we're dialoguing and we, you know, naturally, as a business dynamic, you know, we'll end it with one team. Because no matter what we say before that, whether we're arguing because businesses are like family, and when I talk about my team, I'm talking about my wife, who's extremely intelligent operationally, strategically, uh just scheduling like all of the things, she's unbelievable. Machine does not run without her managing the finances, doing those things. Aaron, who is uh a wizard with design. If you see something sexy, anything sexy that has to do with the design, including that beautiful logo you're holding, it's his doing. It's him. And when I try to design, I get put in the penalty box, and I'm okay with that. Because nobody's above anyone in in our group. We have Josh, who is a uh prior Air Force veteran who uh lives in Norway now, but he does a lot of our field um video videography.

SPEAKER_00: 1:55:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:55:46

So when you see some promotional videos where there's some dudes working out and it looks good, it's probably on a base, or it's in the mountains where the guys are training. Yeah, or it's in a gym where the guys are training. Every single person you see in those videos are military law enforcement first responder, because he goes and meets them. It's unbelievable. Um, but but yeah, it what it's like, it's very challenging. But um honestly, you you're winning every day because you're dealing with the the challenges and you have to overcome. Um and two, um, it's important, right? If you're doing something that's important to you that has meaning, like the two lines. I talked about it, team first, right? Two is one, one is none, always having a team. It's also um just psychologically about the two lines. One is they're they're they're parallel, but they're not quite aligned. Why is that? Because one line is who you used to be, another line is who you've evolved to be. You're always progressing, forward progression, you're always moving forward. That's why it's straight, that's why it's linear. It's linear, you're moving in a linear direction, in a forward direction, always improving. Um, so and it's also fairly dynamic, right? It looks like it's moving quickly. Um, so there's speed involved there. Um but yeah, I mean, everything's important, so the brand is easy, the challenges are easy, and also coming out of a furnace that is you know, a bud's pipeline, right? And yeah, I didn't finish, and that's okay, right? Like I never quit, but you know, I didn't get the didn't get the ultimate prize of getting to do the job. Um you know, these things are much easier. The challenging part is doing something like this with the financial strain. We take zero outside investment, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:57:29

So have you made it work so far? I mean, obviously you have to leveraged every asset we own.

SPEAKER_04: 1:57:33

Really? Um I think so. For the first two years when we knew this was coming, right? We iterated for about two years intentionally. Um, we did that because we wanted to refine the product. We wanted to know the industry. I come from infrastruc infrastructure, so I deal globally with all sorts of things and challenges, and it's a very technical field, but I knew that we need to make it right because if you are a small family-owned business and you're trying to do something like this, you better fucking better shoot a straight, straight arrow. Um, so we took our time during those two years. I was trading stock.

SPEAKER_05: 1:58:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:58:09

And so we did we did okay. Um we we were able to basically pay cash for our first round. Second round, we're leveraging assets, right? Which is what we're in the second round of production right now. It's coming out in spring. It's gonna expand the breadth. And this is again an your your your listeners are getting everything from us. You're uh but that's good because I I guess I I want less the surprise of dropping things, and I would rather have more sharing. Like we are a small business, we have no outside investment. If you like our product, share it. Wear it. Like that's what we want. If you hate it, fucking tell me. Send it back, I'll give your money. I don't care. But tell me why you don't like it so that I can fix it for the next person. And maybe you can come back and give it another shot. Like you're not gonna offend me. Um that's actually another mantra when we're iterating. When I send the guys the gear, I go, I don't care what you like about it. Tell me what you hate about it. It's literally what I do. Um that's how it should be. And so, but you know, that's not that's not really how it is generally. I mean, we're trying, we're we're you know, it's it's it's high performance wear, right? Like um, I I I want people to be better in the gear. I want them to perform better. I want them to not worry about where their keys are when they're running, right? If you're going on a trail run, you lose your keys, you're fucked. Especially if you're doing it out in back.

SPEAKER_01: 1:59:35

Uh-oh. Someone has lost her keys to my truck before. Well, we're on the touchy subject. We want to go on that one.

SPEAKER_05: 1:59:44

Uh-oh. My back. You could have probably used DePon's here too. Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_04: 1:59:50

But yeah, I mean, like, it's performance made for a reason, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:59:53

Um, but so here's a question for you for this the massive civilian side, because I've worked for Some you know, veteran brands. I've helped grow some and do things. A lot of questions that we get is man, I'm not a vet. I feel like I don't I shouldn't be rocking this gear.

SPEAKER_04: 2:00:10

That's a good point. Um, yeah. So how do we overcome that?

SPEAKER_01: 2:00:14

Or yeah, I mean, I mean, you're I don't make them feel yeah. So it's like, I mean, dude, I I would civilian or not, this is great gear and it feels incredible, and I can't wait to wear it.

SPEAKER_04: 2:00:23

Honestly, I would say I don't know if you should necessarily have that perspective, the perspective, and I'm not I'm not saying that you know forcing this a p perspective on you, but I would just say our intention is not to solely um our intention to support the community by way of military law enforcement first responder. It's not because we, you know, I want to exclude, it's because I want to give back to the community that serves. That's just my way. And if they and and I also don't want to turn this tables and be like, oh, give us the money because you're supporting a veteran on board. That's not what this is about. Um, what this is about is us iterating with those who are at literally the peak performance. I mean, I don't know anybody who I could have a conversation with and be like, are you a better athlete than a SEAL? Are you and then and they'd be like, Well, maybe, you know, yeah, all the time, you know. No, they'd be like, they have high fucking standards, they perform extremely well, right? If it's good enough for them, I I hope that it would be good enough for you. I'm going to the circle that I know of the highest performing individuals that I've ever encountered, and I'm saying, help me make this product the best it can be so that we can share it with everyone. Awesome. That is that is the perspective I would hope that they would see. Um, and then just know that you know, get involved, right? Civilian or not, like we have tremendous amount of people that come in and be like, How can I help? Yeah, how can I help? How can I support you? How can I support the group? And it's like just go and ask the community. Go ask Mission 43, go volunteer, go go do those things. We need you at events. The the the the purple heart run, right? Aaron Butler, like, go volunteer, go out and support. I promise you that those veterans are admiring your sacrifice for this community. It's just like I don't spend the money on us, go support the community, go get out there and do it, right? That's that's what I would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:02:20

And I asked that because it's it it always it always every time when I was working for previous companies, they'd be like, Well, I'm not a vet though. And I gotta have buddies be like, yo, hey, here's a code, go order whatever you want. But I'm not a vet, it'd always drive me nuts. And I'm like, dude, it's just veteran-owned.

SPEAKER_04: 2:02:35

It doesn't mean but just know this too. Like, you you heard how I mean, I'm only speaking for my brand, right? I mean, period.

SPEAKER_01: 2:02:41

I mean, I don't know any veteran brand that would exclude civilians, but uh the civilians for some reason get that feel, especially when you're veteran heavy on influence. So I just wanted to I want people to hear from you. It's like cool, because you know, I I've I battled it for years with other companies. We're like, guys, like we gotta like we we're so heavy on operators that your average Joe starts to feel like maybe a lot of cool enough enough.

SPEAKER_04: 2:03:06

Yeah, so it's never about that. And and and again, absolutely, and again, I would just say look at the great things, even us just being a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fish, a small family-owned business, no outside investment, no control. Yep. What we've been able to do just by supporting some organizations with our gear. Like, if you feel good about that, if that makes you feel good, if you know, support us or support the organization. Like, that's what it's about. Like it's never about sales, it's just about how do we use these resources to do something better than just sell close. Yeah, it's bigger than the brand, it's beyond the brand. That's a mantra, that's how we live, that's how my team and I organize, that's what we do. Is this going to impact one of the three pillars? Why are we doing it? Will it impact it? It literally is the north star to our decision-making process.

SPEAKER_00: 2:03:59

I love that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:04:00

And that's how we that's how we decide. Will it make an impact in any of those three pillars? If it's not, then we're not doing it. Yep. We're not doing it. Right? We have influencers like, hey, give me some money. I'll do one of these cool opening bag things, and I'll do a spin and then ghost face you in the corner or some shit. And I'm like, no, I'm good. I I would rather take those couple thousand dollars, outfit some dudes to go 220 miles, drawing awareness for a better fucking cause than selling clothes. Yep. Just so happens we make good good shit, but that's intentionally, it's it's there for a reason.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:33

How was it? Sourcing and finding the fabric.

SPEAKER_04: 2:04:36

I'm glad you brought that up.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:38

I know textile, like I know it's a bitch, yeah, and then especially with overseas manufacturers, because you manufacture out of Vietnam, right? That's what I saw. Yep. Which I and this is for everybody. If you're not ever been in an apparel business, telling an apparel small barrel company to go, hey, you should make it in America.

SPEAKER_04: 2:04:58

I'll attack that right now.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:59

Doesn't work.

SPEAKER_04: 2:05:00

No, no, I'll I'll I'll I'll enlighten you. Yeah. Uh, and so, right, my background's in global distribution, right? So I deal with MOQs, minimum more quantities, all the all the logistics, all the supply chain challenges, all things globally, right? I'd been doing that for a long time. I knew when going into this, when I was trying to source this, I wasn't gonna meet any fucking minimums here in domestic production. Think about this. America, producing textiles, right? When you think who makes the most clothes in the world, you're not thinking first go, yeah, America makes the most clothes in the world, right? So the ability to produce is already contracted, right? We don't have as many manufacturing facilities here. And people, yeah, of course, right? We can dive into the dynamics of that, but what I'm trying to express is there's a very small amount of producers, manufacturers, you have all these big brands, all these big brands, a lot of big fucking money. And they're going, I want to order a half a million units, and then you have us going, I want to order 9,000 units. Okay. That's a lot for a small business. I knew, first of all, I knew that that was going to happen.

SPEAKER_03: 2:06:06

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 2:06:07

But what I did was I reached out to 10 of them and I sent them the information, and I did not get one meeting because they asked you a question. What is your expected quantity? What's your minimum? Guess what? I tripled it. I went 3x above what I knew I could afford, never got a call. So to give your listeners an idea of what this looks like, uh, just in raw numbers, we ordered 9,000 units. Well, it was actually because we added some loss, uh, because they, you know, fucked up some units on the way, but it was somewhere around like 8,542 units or something like that. Total was what we ordered. The next smallest number was 356,000. Because it was on the manifest, right? There's a manifest that comes over. I saw the manifest. The next smallest number of units from one entity going to a company was 356,000 or 350,000 units, 350 something. It was an absurd number, but it didn't shock me because this is the same thing in infrastructure. It's the exact same thing. Yeah. So when everybody's like, oh, why don't you just produce domestically? It's like, you don't understand. Like, I can't afford a half a million units, right? Unless my quality is degraded, right? So even then. So how do I combat this situation, right? Intentional, purposeful. All of that technology card right there expresses to you what our manufacturing, where it is, and what goes into it. Okiotech certified, ISO 8000, all these other certifications. What does that mean in language, in common language? It's ethically sourced, ethically produced, no child labor laws. It's literally the highest standard of production that you can get globally.

SPEAKER_05: 2:07:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 2:07:40

Also, our manufacturer is in five countries. It's not just one little small little sweatshop house. This is an established organization over five countries. So, how does a little brand like me get them to take on 9,000 units? I pay a lot of fucking money, right? And I'm doing things differently. What do you mean you're doing things differently? Anti-odor, antimicrobial, anti-pilling technology. I differentiated the brand and said we're doing something different. Why does that matter? At the end of the production cycle, the textile uh organization of Vietnam had reached out because this particular organiz this manufacturer, it's global, right? They're a big, big organization. They also partner with up-and-coming capabilities. They're forecasting what is on the horizon, what is coming down the road, what is the best shit that people are making. And they asked me to do an interview because they're like, these are trends that we don't see. Why are you doing it? And I explained to them exactly what I explained to you. This is purposeful, meaningful design. It has a reason and a purpose. It is not just a piece of clothing, it serves a purpose. And they thought that was interesting enough to have an interview. Unfortunately, we had the interview, and I didn't agree to have it published because, as a brand and in clothing and textile, you know this, and it's basically impossible to um copyright your design. Yeah, you get pirated immediately.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09:11

Immediately. Yeah. Especially from China. As soon as they find anything that's working, I mean maybe they own it.

SPEAKER_04: 2:09:16

So I had to strategically have the call, but strategically decline to have it published because once it gets published, it'd be hey, this is a microphone. This is what this company is doing. I get squashed.

SPEAKER_00: 2:09:28

Oh, yeah. You don't need to.

SPEAKER_04: 2:09:29

So our footing, our the only beach head that we have is literally our technology. It's our fabric. That's what makes it different. And also the iteration, the design, and why we're doing this. You have a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09:42

I mean.

SPEAKER_04: 2:09:44

I didn't I didn't cut any corners.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09:46

You didn't cut any corners because I mean, packaging this bag right here, fuck, dude, you're talking. That's 25-50 cents right there, depending on the minimums.

SPEAKER_04: 2:09:56

It's not cheap. Hang tags. I mean, that's another well, you should see the new hang tags. I mean, so Aaron, our he's officially our brand and design guy. Dude has like 20 years of corporate design experience, like big big agency shit. Yeah. Dude's a dude's just a wizard. He's an absolute master. And um, so Steve Jobs, Wozniak, right? Like you find complimentary assets, and I'll give that nugget too as a business person, right? When you're starting a business, if you have pride, you're fucked.

SPEAKER_01: 2:10:27

Why? It usually takes guys years and a couple failed companies to figure out.

SPEAKER_04: 2:10:31

Because you have to be able to look inside and say, I really suck at that. Who can do that shit? And this guy can do that shit. He's really fucking good.

SPEAKER_01: 2:10:40

Fire yourself and hire someone else.

SPEAKER_04: 2:10:42

100%. And Casey, my wife, she can do the shit I can't do. I don't want to do it. And she's really fucking good at it. So you look in the room and Josh, and all even the athletes, right? What they're doing. Like, you have to look around, you have to understand less all this out here and more about what's going on in here. Like, where do you suck? Where do you fail? How do you fix that? Who do you need to bring in? So we have quite the team. Um, I mean, we we are working on all cylinders. I mean, everybody's up late, early and late. I mean, so with the manufacturing piece, we obviously want to, we'd like to have some elements domestically, which by extension, we were able to do with our patches. That's cool. Yeah. It's 100% American made.

SPEAKER_05: 2:11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:11:28

Our commitment is as far as we can financially afford to do it without completely ruining the business. This is a way that we can do custom handmade patches in America with another veteran-owned company that are pretty fucking badass. Yeah, that's I mean, I I just I'm so excited to to send those out on the on the 7th, one of 25. Um, so your listeners already have a heads up, but we're gonna have some really cool media. So we got some guys, some operators out in Utah that are actually doing some pretty cool foot footage right now. Yeah. And pretty cool imagery with those. Because we so that's our team, team patch. So that one, intentional, right? That's our team patch. It's gonna be uh basically a part of our team edition, which will be a limited series, as these other series will as well, apart from the general offering. But those are intended for weight belts, right? They're intended for weight vests. We have our elite editions that are coming out that is a scaled-down version of that, still still the same, same design, same everything like that, but it fits on your rig. It's made for your nameplate area. Okay, so it's very cool. Those are coming, and we're gonna drop those as well. But so those guys are out there gonna be lighting some shit up with our patches, and um, we have some pretty cool imagery that's coming out for the for the uh the chest rig and then also the the weight belt. We just did that with Jesse and a few other guys and Chris. So we're excited to share that, man. But that's a way we can differentiate, that's a way we can support domestic production.

SPEAKER_01: 2:12:57

And there's little ways of doing it, but yeah, I it's it always drove me nuts. They're like, man, I'd love to support it, but I want to support American made. And I'm like, well, if you want to support American made, you think this is expensive now.

SPEAKER_04: 2:13:07

Yeah, I mean, it's just you have to pick, right? I mean, there's only I don't have endless money, I don't have any investors. I I mean it's just me and my wife, I mean financially.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13:16

Like what is it, Jocko and those those that group of dudes that are trying to do their origin or whatever? Dude, they got such a I mean, there's a behemoth.

SPEAKER_04: 2:13:24

They're a behemoth, and it's like Yeah, the previous owner of Under Armour's back in it. It's unreal. And it but it's still challenging.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13:30

I mean, so and they they had to create their own manufacturing company, I believe, for their jeans and stuff.

SPEAKER_04: 2:13:36

So and I don't want to knock that. Oh, no, no, no, no. If you have the funds for it, do it. Well, even as a consumer, like I don't want to deter anybody, like, hey, look, like if your turn off for this brand is this Vietnam, cool. Like, I get it. Like, that's fine. Buy the patch. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02: 2:13:50

But um Patch of America.

SPEAKER_04: 2:13:51

No, no, it's cool because I mean, I think most people understand just the dynamics of financial and and what it what it does. And at the end of the day, we're we're trying to create a great product, we're doing it. Absolutely. Um, we just had two podiums, actually, had three podiums last weekend at the Mountain West Fitness Championships. We had a first place, second place team literally in our gear, uh, and then another podium they were on second place. So we're literally, you know, half of the podium is made up of our shit. That's cool. And I'm like, this is fucking cool.

SPEAKER_01: 2:14:21

Have you um you know about um God, what are those it's like uh CrossFit games, but they have shooting and shit. I went to a couple, what are they? Yeah, have you thought about that? That seems like right up your guys' demographic.

SPEAKER_04: 2:14:35

Yeah, so again, financial, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our shirts have already made it into that space. We have a ton of SWAT guys using them. Yeah, a ton of fact, that's how I, you know, we started dialogue with some of these cool groups of shooters because they were like, hey, use your shit at the range. I mean, go you go to our Instagram page, you'll see like there's dudes kicking indoors, there's people on ranges, there's people doing the tactical games, there's people at CrossFit games. What did you make something that does everything? I'm like, well, kinda. I just kind of fucking did made something that does everything I want to do, right? Feels great, wears great. 100%. So at the end of the day, we're seeing it r really kind of make its way and pilot hole into that. And we do have a runtime to get into that space, like Cody Dickerson, the guy I'm talking about, one of our athletes, he's transitioning into to the the tactical space, the tactical games, because he's a shooter, he's on in the military, he's prior military, he's now currently in law enforcement, top 10 at a huge CrossFit, super fit, dude's jacked, he's super jacked, amazing human. But yeah, so he's trying to go into that. So we're trying to iterate with him as he grows, we grow. So yeah, I would say probably if I was to put a guess on it, I'd say 18 months, we'll probably have a design for the true competitive tactical arena. Um, but our shirts are already there. Our shirts are in that arena, they're lightweight, they're like a 143 GSM, which is almost an ultra lightweight. Um, and and uh all the things that it's made for body armor and kits. So yeah, it's it's definitely made its way there already. Damn, dude. This is awesome. Yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_01: 2:16:06

This was this was good. We we unpacked a lot. That's how we do it, man. Yeah, that was we well, you know, and then I've obviously have a little experience in the in this world. So it's interesting to see because you know, especially the young fish coming into the the big pond. The big there's some fucking sharks and piranhas in that motherfucker.

SPEAKER_04: 2:16:26

But yeah, there's sharks and piranhas in every industry. Especially in it, especially in infrastructure. That's a I was also I was also in the automotive industry before that. So I was in uh I worked for I'm not gonna say it, but a a global uh financial institution. So that's where I started my professional career outside of college in that car industry. Those are savages. They are savages. And you think it's the salespeople, like the guy selling you the car, girl selling your car? Fuck no. It's the finance dude. It's the it's the those are the highest paid people at dealerships. The highest paid. Buy a long shot. People just don't know. They're just so uneducated. No fucking clue. You think the deal's over after you buy your car, you walk in, your guard's down, they're like, you want gap, you want tire and wheel, you want, you want extended coverage, what you want. Next thing you know, you're your payment just goes up by a few bucks, and you next thing you know, you spend five grand and see ya. Yep. See ya. Have a nice day. Yeah, but this industry's good. Um, I love it. Um, honestly, I'm less focused on the industry, I'm more focused on the people.

SPEAKER_00: 2:17:30

Good.

SPEAKER_04: 2:17:30

Uh I I come away every event just stoked.

SPEAKER_00: 2:17:33

Good.

SPEAKER_04: 2:17:34

Uh photo shoot with a double amputy od tech. Fuck. I don't give a fuck about the market. That guy just fucking kicked ass at a gym, like with me, like, yeah, hell yeah, dude. Like, yeah, who's doing that? I mean, I I I see it as an absolute privilege. It's a conduit into the community, and I wouldn't have any other way.

SPEAKER_01: 2:17:51

I got a dude I need to get you in contact with. He's one of my best friends. He's at a he's a marine amputee. Um, he's a firefighter now down in Salt Lake, and he's a stud. So he would he would fit this shit so perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:18:08

I mean, please send him my way. Yeah, yeah. He'd yeah, if you ever need anybody, man, he's uh he's as solid as they come.

SPEAKER_04: 2:18:15

So and I would just say like that has been one of the coolest, like, and I know we've got a wrap pretty soon, but I would say that's one of the coolest things too, is just constantly just getting people calling and going. Hey man, like like two weeks ago I had an army vet just reach out from uh from uh like New Orleans area, and he was like, Hey man, I bought your stuff, I love it. Like, could I be like a field team? And I called him and he was like, Huh? What you I didn't think you were gonna call me. I'm like, the fuck you want me to do? You know, I we're just human beings, dude.

SPEAKER_01: 2:18:45

Like nobody, it's it's almost sad. Right. Yeah. I get it a lot. Like guys will message me and I take it personal. Like if I reach out to somebody, following or not, and you can't get back to me, but it's a legitimate question. Now that I get DMs a lot of bullshit, there's a lot of just noise and DMs, and I I'm not gonna waste my time on memes and shit like some random people sending me that shit. But like if I have a father reach out or somebody that's like a wife wanting to know something and how what to get their husband, or just a dad wanting advice, I take my time and I probably spend way too much time, but I spend several hours a day just trying to get back to because I feel they're reaching out for a certain reason. Then when they reach out, they're like, Oh my god, I never thought you would respond to me.

SPEAKER_02: 2:19:29

I'm like, bro, like well, it's kind of how I felt when you reached out to me, but I was like, so it's kind of true. I was like, I don't know what this guy wants to do, I don't know what he wants to do with any of my brand. I mean, we've been around for we've been around for six months.

SPEAKER_01: 2:19:42

See, but that's this is that's who I am, though. Like, I appreciate that. I felt bad for you. I think I sent you the voicemail, like, yo, dude, I'm not blowing you up. No, you're got me the worst. I was guiding, I'm back, I'm on the road. I went back and so yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:19:55

See, anybody who doesn't live around here, you know, you know when hunting season comes, like people are gonna be in my a for a bit. Like comms are comms are gone, like, totally get it.

SPEAKER_01: 2:20:03

The only reason I'm here this week is because I'm not offended. We try to, well, because we try to work things out. Like, I'll knock out like five or six podcasts in a week or so, so then we're done for a couple months. And like her and I can walk it up here today, we're like, I'm dusting stuff off. I'm like, shit, we haven't been up here in yeah six, seven weeks because we just had a string, but you know, like I saw I have several this week we're gonna knock out, but we're out, like I'd be gone right now. But she was like, Yeah, we're pretty low on episodes content. And that's why I so I had you know I got some other guys coming in, but I was like, yo, dude, I'm already back this week. And so um, but it just it makes me sad when people interpret the brand as something bigger, you know. Because I've worked for brands where like don't acknowledge them, we're it doesn't matter. We just want to just want we just want customer mindset. And I'd work for them and be like, what the fuck? And then these guys would come like, dude, holy shit, numbers are this, and man, this guy just placed it. And I'm like, Yeah, because I just spent the fucking hour on the phone with his wife, buying their whole entire family and their kid at them out and everything. Like, that's what it takes. And customer service. Well, dude, my wife is like the master customer service person because she worked for some big companies back in the day. Like, yeah, you know, she only dealt with the when it escalated, and you're just getting the phone, like, you fucking bad.

SPEAKER_04: 2:21:13

She's the firefighter, man. She puts the shit out.

SPEAKER_01: 2:21:15

That was hers, so uh, she's taught me a lot over the years, and but so that's one of those things. It's like, dude, just show I don't care how the numbers and the the following, the mut yeah, everybody's human, man. And these people lose track of who they are, and they they get this ego and this pride, and like, oh man, we're this company now. Like, but it's like, dude, at one point you were begging these people to support you and to buy your product, but now that you're in a box office, yo, you got in the shields, and now you don't respond to people anymore. It's intentional.

SPEAKER_04: 2:21:43

It's it sucks. So it's just your purpose, man. Like, why are you doing this? And uh, unfortunately, I think that at the end of the day, if the derivative of your purpose is to make money, which it you know, you have to be financially viable, but if if the derivative of your purpose is just money, you won't you don't last, you don't last, or you're completely shallow as shit. Yep. And honestly, this is fucking fun. I love this. I love going to photo shoots with these dudes, just working out, inviting people into the space, having like CrossFit North side just say, We we had a we had a unfortunately, we had a like literally 12 hours before our photo shoot yesterday, got a call and was like, hey, we can't have you at our space. I literally call Cross Venor side. I was like, hey guys, like I know it's like 12 hours. Can I use your space? Like, we're talking a multi-million dollar facility that they funded, they paid, and they're like, our doors are open for you anytime you want, brother. And I'm like, it gives me chills because I'm just like the humanity, like those are the people that you surround yourself with. Yeah, that's your team, right? The people that are hey, I got no time for you. Like, that's when like I respond to customer service stuff personally. Like, I'm I'm like, hey man, like I got you. How can I make it right? Not hey, you know, this didn't fit right. Like, cool, how can I make it right? Here's your money, here's a gift card, send the shit back. I just want to take care of you.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23:02

Yeah, right. That'll get you so far, man.

SPEAKER_03: 2:23:05

But it takes care of them, right?

SPEAKER_04: 2:23:06

It feels good to serve. It feels good, and I and I love it. I love this, I love the career, I love the the ability to do this. And obviously, being creative is just in my blood and just surrounding myself with like-minded individuals that you know come from service and and just have that that heart to do it is is really it's it's it's amazing. Yep. I wouldn't have any other way, man. It's challenging as shit, though. Super challenging.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23:32

Yeah, the fact that you're like, I love this. I'm like, give it time.

SPEAKER_02: 2:23:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just wait. There's it's a slight it's like a hot sauce.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23:37

We're gonna have a follow-up episode next year.

SPEAKER_02: 2:23:40

You'll be like, bro, hey man, you're gonna be gray haired, selling cars, you know. So just kidding.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23:45

Got my real estate license.

SPEAKER_02: 2:23:48

You know, we're about to go into that market, dude. Interest rates dropping, shit flying off the shelf. Here we go.

unknown: 2:23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:23:54

Well, bro, I appreciate the conversation, man. It's it's cool to just, you know, I wanted to get your feel of like who you were. Obviously, you know, had some mindsets of being a SEAL and obviously with due to injuries that got cut short, and then being a SEAL trainee.

SPEAKER_04: 2:24:10

Correction. Yep, I just gotta be clear. I don't want anybody to catch the square, oh, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_01: 2:24:16

Especially that community. Oh my god, you you just fart in the wrong direction, you're getting crucified. But and you should. 100%. Everybody should. And so that's why I wanted to see how what it's like because there's a lot of people out there that not even just never reach a their only goal. If it's SEAL, if it's corporate world, if it's being a teacher, whatever it may be, things things change all the time. And so I what I love is how dudes pivot 100%. That's to me, those are the stories like that. That's where I want to like because you always hear like, oh, I started this brand and blah blah blah blah blah. Now I'm worth like 20 mil. It's like, all right, cool, but like they don't talk about, dude. I put everything, all of my chips were on being coming a seal. I get injured during training, fucking can't do anything anymore. Now, where's my life here? I gotta go corporate. Hey, I might not be satisfied here. I want to, dude, I'm wearing this gear and it sucks, and I want to build the best thing that I can possibly put on my body. Yeah, and then this is where it leads to is these types of conversations and building, yeah, and doing this.

SPEAKER_04: 2:25:19

I mean, I never would have met you probably. And it's been such a um honestly just a great opportunity. I I we feel privileged, my team feels privileged. I mean, I can't tell you how many people are like, oh my god, I listen to that podcast.

SPEAKER_03: 2:25:30

Like, you're you're you're going on that podcast. Like, his shit's on on the all the gun stores I go to. All of them listen to him.

SPEAKER_02: 2:25:38

Fuck yeah, dude. That's exactly what they said. They thought I was crazy, dude. I was like, I was like, I'm gonna tell him. I'm gonna tell him.

SPEAKER_04: 2:25:44

And I was just like, Well, I mean, I I we just feel super we feel the same way that we feel when places open their doors to us. We feel the same way when an EOD Marine Tech walks up, his wife comes up and says, Will you we have my husband come model for you, right? Be an at and I go, he's not a model, he's an athlete. Make that really fucking clear. Like when we work out, we just work out and there's somebody there taking pictures, and we're not sitting in front of a fucking green screen doing that shit. The point is, is um each exchange like this and and and with our partners and organizations, it's if you're looking for small wins and gratification and small business, seek that. Yep, because you will be you will be filled. And and obviously, you know, just just keep your priorities and and make sure that it's not money and make sure it comes from a good place. That's it. Put God first, yes, sir. Thanks, bro. Brother, thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 2:26:38

I appreciate it, man. This is great. I I love watching the new stuff, the new companies, the snow.