#84 - The Untold Story of How One Garage Brand Erased Millions in Veteran Debt w/Bear Handlon

Could you imagine your medical debt being erased? Swiped clean?

Start with grit and end with gratitude. That’s the pulse of this conversation with Bear Handlon—Yale linebacker turned Navy SEAL officer turned founder of Born Primitive—who built a $100M brand from a garage while shouldering rucks, rewiring his life around service, and refusing to cut corners when it mattered most.

We dig into the selection moments that strip away ego—why BUD/S graduates tend to be the ones who want the job, not the title—and map those lessons onto entrepreneurship without the Instagram gloss. Bear shares how he and his then‑wife sold at CrossFit events for years, doubled revenue eight straight times, and still chose product integrity over speed: delaying launches, iterating through double‑digit prototypes, and renting a Black Hawk to fast‑rope in full kit to test a boot’s abrasion and outsole noise. You’ll hear how the footwear bet changed the ceiling, why Born Primitive moved credibly into outdoor and tactical with real subject matter experts, and how the brand kept its spine when culture wars tried to bend it.

Then we go to the point: using a company as a force multiplier for good. Last year, Bear routed four days of sales to wipe roughly $11 million in veteran medical debt—5,800 people who got certified letters before Christmas. The calls back were raw: single parents with garnished wages, a Marine reconsidering suicide who checked into rehab after his bill vanished. This year, alongside Black Rifle Coffee, the mission is bigger: Operation Debt of Gratitude aims to reach $25 million and bring the VA and other brands into a durable solution. It’s not a promo. It’s direct relief, dollar for dollar, with stories that make the stakes real.

Along the way, Bear opens up about fatherhood, faith, and finding joy in the simple—letters to his daughter, popcorn on the couch, and choosing presence over noise. If you care about building something that lasts, gear that’s earned not hyped, and helping veterans in a way that actually changes lives, this one hits. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs the push, and if you’re moved, support Operation Debt of Gratitude at Born Primitive and Black Rifle Coffee between Nov 7–11. Your share might be the reason someone sleeps easier tonight.

Visit Born Primitive and subscribe to their newsletter to follow along on their campaign to support!

Chapters

• 0:00 From Garage To $100M Brand
• 2:40 Values, Veterans, And Real Giveback
• 4:15 Bear’s Early Life And 9/11 Spark
• 6:10 Yale, Red Bull, And The SEAL Bug
• 10:40 Secret Training And Ultimatum At Home
• 14:20 OCS, BUD/S, And Starting Born Primitive
• 18:20 Building A Company From The Garage
• 23:30 Scrappy Growth: Events And Leave Days
• 27:18 Honest Advice For Would‑Be Founders
• 31:40 BUD/S Reality And Hell Week Attrition
• 39:50 Earning The Trident And Team Culture
• 43:56 Near‑Miss Jump And VBSS Dangers
• 50:40 Dual Life: Platoon Ops And Payroll
• 55:48 Footwear Bet That Changed The Business
• 1:01:40 Expanding To Outdoor And Tactical
• 1:07:18 Product Integrity Over Hype
• 1:13:40 Brand Backbone: Standing By Values
• 1:22:40 Lawsuits, Targets, And Thick Skin
• 1:28:20 Why The Giveback Is The Point
• 1:33:50 Operation Debt Of Gratitude: $11M To $25M
• 1:41:20 Impact Stories And Bigger Goals
• 1:48:00 Rallying Other Brands And The VA
• 1:55:20 Fatherhood, Faith, And Perspective
• 2:10:00 Final Message To Veterans

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You've grown a hundred million dollar company from your garage.

SPEAKER_02: 0:02

It was way bigger than I could have imagined. The sentiment has always been there from the beginning. And as we've grown, we end up doing 11 million medical bills, which ended up being about 5,800 veterans. But here's the deal, man. We can do better and we can go bigger.

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

You ready, bro?

SPEAKER_02: 0:36

Yeah, let's do it, man. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

I'm so excited for this episode. You've been on my hit list for a while. Since I met, we met at the I know you probably don't even remember because they're so crazy, but the Western Hunt Expos, your guys' first year when you're giving away that Elk Hunt, you're gonna jump out of helicopters for all this crazy shit. Yep. I went and traced you down. Um, but first we're gonna send you home. The girls, they bake everybody a fresh loaf of sourdough from the sour bee. Uh it's incredible. We started it with our kids, and so every guest gets to go home with some fresh bread, which doesn't suck. It usually doesn't make it home. Most people end up eating it before.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09

That'll be my carry-on, dude. I love that. Exactly. A lot of people ever bringing uh sourdough bread as like my carry-on, but let's do it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

Yes. Well, dude, I I can't thank you enough for making the time to come here. You've been on my hit list for a while because you are a very interesting man. You have accomplished a lot and you're doing some really incredible things that I don't say lightly. Like you were actually making a difference in the veteran world for starters, and correct me if I'm wrong, just what by what I've picked up and learning from you. You are got accepted very young into the officer candidate school for Yale.

SPEAKER_02: 1:47

I actually I so I was just a student at Yale.

SPEAKER_00: 1:50

Student student at Yale.

SPEAKER_02: 1:51

Yeah, then I went to OCS after.

SPEAKER_00: 1:52

You went to OCS afterward, you played Division I football. Yes. And during this time, you started a small business in your garage with about 10 grand, and that you have now grown to a hundred million dollar plus enterprise that you have born primitive, which is uh incredible apparel, lifestyle, fitness, outdoor, tactical community. You cover a little bit of everything. And during that time of growing this business, you also joined the Navy and became a Navy SEAL, and you're an officer in the Navy SEALs. You've done a little bit of everything. And I also want to touch on this episode, which is probably the main reason I even wanted to have this conversation, is because in the last 12 years of us having an organization, I've worked with hundreds of companies. And I would say the majority of those companies, I could probably count on both hands of how many companies truly care to give back to the veteran community. Like truly in their heart, these companies want to absolutely help. And it's not very often. And I I watch what Born Primitive has done, how it has grown, and how much you are giving back to help pay medical bills. You opened up a fund during COVID that was helping gyms stay open. Not an easy thing to do, and not a lot of people actually give a fuck about truly helping. And I feel you, from day one of your our interaction and watching the growth of Born Primitive, it is no questions that you guys are truly making a difference in the veteran community, which means a lot to me. And you don't help my organization. We're actually retiring it here in January. We're out, so this isn't some cheesy plug, like I'm getting money from you guys. You don't support me. I don't support you like as far as that type of stuff. This is just from an outsider who has an organization for over a decade, and I watch businesses that claim that they help veterans, and we watch them. You guys are crushing it, man. And then at the same time, I also would like to talk on you being a father. A lot of guys, for some reason, and a girl dad on top of it, which is the ultimate. It's our most important title. It honestly is, dude. So you have built a lot, and we're gonna go over. So, dude, why don't we just jump into who are you? Where are you from?

SPEAKER_01: 4:10

Yeah, uh, yeah, Bear Hanlin grew up in Indiana, Midwest guy.

SPEAKER_02: 4:14

Um, we got two older brothers, you know, typical Midwest upbringing, sports. Um, you know, I was football, basketball, baseball, um, and uh grew up on a lake, so that was fun doing water sports and stuff, fishing and stuff like that. Um, and then um, you know, eighth grade hit, that was 9-11 for me, um, and that kind of planted the like this the military bug.

SPEAKER_04: 4:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 4:34

I remember like we got sent home from school early that day, and I remember the um that they delivered the the I think it was the Vidette Times delivered like a uh a special afternoon edition newspaper that they printed like immediately. Obviously, you usually get in the morning, but they like we did a special edition for that day. And I remember I cut out the main page with the towers burning um and I put I pinned that above my desk, and that that newspaper clipping has gone with me everywhere since. You have it to this day? Yep. I went to I took it, went to Yale with me. Um, and then um then when I was you know going through uh Buds, it was pinned up in my locker. Um and then you know, now it's in my garage. Like I I have like an old squat rack, it's it's pinned above the squat rack, but uh, you know, it's obviously all all shredded now and old. Um but that planted the seed for me of like, hey, uh I eventually you know I want to serve my country because you know, as an eighth grade boy, that you know that was a typical kind of response. You know what I mean? Obviously, you're not really a man yet, but you want to get in the fight uh in your own way, you know, in your head. Um so that kind of planted the seed there. You know, sports were progressing. Um I was planning on you know, I was toying with the idea of enlisting in the Navy out of high school, but football was really progressing. Um, and my parents kind of convinced me, hey, you can you have an opportunity to go get like a really good education and still play football, which you still love. Um, and hey, if you still want to do this crazy dream, then you can do it after you graduate. So I thought that was a fair, a fair compromise. So that's what I did. I had the opportunity to go play um football at Yale, was a middle linebacker there, you know, played all four years, had a great experience. And then when I graduated, um, I took a job with Red Bull, um, did marketing for them.

SPEAKER_00: 6:08

Um did you get right in after that? Was it was it a mentorship program? I mean, how do you go from college to straight to Red Bull?

SPEAKER_02: 6:14

So I was uh like a student rep for three years. Okay. Um they have like student employees like to that were like little marketing, you know, reps that like throw parties and do stuff like that on campus, which was awesome because I got unlimited Red Bull, so like I was the popular guy.

SPEAKER_00: 6:27

Did you have the little mini bug thing that you're gonna do?

SPEAKER_02: 6:29

No, I didn't, but they would drop off product to me, so like they deliver like 15 cases, you know, and then it was like obviously uh used as a lot of mixers and things like that. So I was a popular guy for that reason. Um so I already knew the brand, and obviously they like to like transition people from being like a student rep into full-time employees because you already know the brand. So there was an opening in Indiana that popped up, um, and I and I wanted to go back home, so I took that. Um and I had to fix my shoulder because I you know I had a torn labrum. So I thought, oh, like let me do the sur surgery, and then I need to transition my fitness from like a you know big meathead linebacker to like getting like in shape for you know going to SEAL training. It's obviously quite different. Um, so that I you know, I figured all right, let's take a year to do that, you know, get in the pool, do all that stuff. Um, and uh that transition took longer than I expected. I ended up doing Red Bull for four years. Um that good, huh? Well, it what happened was there was a lot of pressure from uh so I was married at the time. So so Mallory, um, we got married when we were, I think, 23. We actually started Born Primitive together, and I you know, I'll get to that. So I was married at the time, and uh there was a lot of pressure from both families um to not go do the SEAL thing just because of you know, we were living a really good life in Indiana. It was actually the easiest my life had ever been. You know what I mean? Like I had a really cool job, we had a great friend group, you know, we had a like a fun, like we were in a CrossFit at the time, so we had like a cruel, cool crew of friends, and you know what I mean? Like easiest my life's ever been by far. Yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking, man, like I could just ride this out.

SPEAKER_00: 7:55

Like I wanna change my life right now.

SPEAKER_02: 7:57

Um, but I couldn't kick it, man. I you know, I really couldn't, and you know, at the time, you know, you're in your early to mid-20s, and you know, I was pretty fit, and you know, I had been a division one middle linebacker, and you know, so I think I'm like physic physically pretty capable, and then I'm seeing the news, like you got these young Marines like in Iraq, like fighting, you know what I mean? And I'm sitting on the couch like watching college football on a Saturday, eating wings and drinking a beer, and it just didn't sit right with me. I was like, this ain't gonna work, man.

SPEAKER_00: 8:23

Um like when you got that bug, you got it.

SPEAKER_02: 8:26

Yeah, yeah. And I and I'm thinking I'm a waste. You know, I was I was competing in CrossFit, you know, I went out to the CrossFit game, so like that made it worse that you know, I you know, I all we did was train, so I'm not trying to brag, but like, you know, I was putting like you know, 350 pounds above my head, and my mile time was like a 5'10 and I'm 230 pounds. Like, what a waste of talent. Like, oh, you're this physical thing now because all you just think, but like sitting there, you're using it for nothing good, you know what I mean. So that I kept could I couldn't kick that man. Um, and so um I had given the dream up for a minute, and I I told Mallory, okay, I'm not gonna do it. And then I secretly started training again with the guys. We had like a little crew in Indianapolis, and most of them actually ended up going on to make it, and we're still really good friends. That's cool. So we would meet at the pool every morning, we'd meet out at this old concrete track that was, you know, I remember those 6 a.m. uh workouts in the winter. It was like my my my miserable. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03: 9:17

You'd you'd sit in your car with the the heated seats and you're waiting for 6 a.m. to hit because you know, you'd roll in at like 5 58, and you're like, all right, I get two minutes to sit here and then you know it's windy and you're on this track, you're doing 400 repeats and 800s.

SPEAKER_02: 9:31

And I was a bad runner, like because I was I was a fast, like short distance runner, I was like a linebacker, but to say, hey, we're gonna do 800 repeats and we're gonna do six of them, you know what I mean? Like was my nightmare. Like that was so bad. So um I secretly started training again for it, um, and not telling anyone. And I and I remember uh this is kind of a funny story. We would go to the pool and then on the weekends we would like practice some drown proofing stuff. Yeah. Or you tie you tie your hands and feet up, and we wouldn't do hands and feet because that's a little dangerous. But we tie our hands up behind our back and practice the drown proofing techniques that we'd have to do in SEAL training. So I had wet rope in my gym bag, and I remember I brought my gym bag home, and I remember Mal like pulls out my like a piece of wet rope and like shows it's me in the kitchen, and she's like, What is this? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 10:18

Which normally if your wife is finding rope, maybe it's something else related. Yeah, um, and you know, it's a it's wet rope, and she knows what's going on, and she was like, Were you at the pool?

SPEAKER_00: 10:29

And I was like, Yes, it could have been worse, yeah. It could have been way worse. Like, who's this? It's just rope.

SPEAKER_02: 10:35

Like, I swear um, so she figured out that I was I I had started training again, and and I I you know, I was like, All right, we got to talk about this. I said, I can't kick this 25 years old. If I don't do this right now, I will regret it the rest of my life. And I said, indirectly, I'll have resentment towards you and definitely your parents, because they were putting a lot of pressure on her to like not let me do it, right?

SPEAKER_00: 10:57

That's a pretty mature thing to be able to process, I feel at 25. Like, I was fucked to be but to be able to like, okay, I'm gonna have this long resentment down the road, because it's got those types of things just fester.

SPEAKER_02: 11:10

And then they you dwell on that shit. Well, it was dominating my mind. I couldn't, I couldn't kick it. I'd think about all day at work, you know, I try to go to bed, I'm staring at the ceiling, thinking about it, right? And I'm like, all right, this is so dominant in my mind. Like, I can't, there's no way this is just gonna go away, particularly because the guys that I had been training with had all went and done the thing, and a lot of them now were like, you know, because I'm following them on Facebook, and it's like now they're like securing Hell Week, and now they're in like second fit. And I'm seeing them go through the process as the outsider. And now I didn't have guys to train with anymore because they all went to boot camp and they're doing the thing. So now I'm like isolated, you know, and uh so that that made it worse. Um, so I remember I said, all right, here's the deal. Um, I'm a hundred percent certain I have to do this. I'm really sorry that I have to do this because we have a really good life right now, and you know, we're close to family. You know, she was from Indiana too. Um, but I said, I I I need you to take 24 hours, and you come back and you give me a yes or a no. And if we need to get divorced and go our separate ways, like that, that's just I I respect it, and I'm sorry to have to give you a crazy ultimatum like that, but that's just how it's gotta be. That's so I said, I said, so I said I said, take 24 hours, you know, and and think about it, and then just give me it's a yes or no. There's no gray area, it's a yes or no. So she, you know, we went to bed that night, and then I remember she came down in the kitchen and she was like, All right, I made my decision. I was like, What? She's like, All right, you're gonna do it. But she's like, I swear to God, you better not fucking quit. And I was like, check, deal, that's a deal, right? So she she gave me her blessing. Yeah, um, and then I, you know, submitted a package and I got accepted. Um, so went to went out to Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island, got commissioned there. Um, that's actually run by the Marine Corps, by the way. So that was kind of funny. They got the drill instructors and stuff. Yeah, it was actually they did a good job, man. Those those DIs, like they take that shit really seriously, and I I respected that. Um, and then yeah, went out to California um and and kicked off um SEAL training and kind of restless history. And then right before I went to OCS is when I started Born Primitive. Um, so horrible timing. Um I went to OCS in June of 2014, and and we started Born Primitive March of 2014. Um, so I just I came up with a pair of compression shorts for weightlifters. Super niche. You know, I was a CrossFit nerd at the time, and it was meant to kind of solve a niche in that market, and I was gonna just make one prototype myself, um, just to wear for myself personally, and I wasn't gonna make any more of it. I just I was gonna make one of one. Um my neighbor was the seamstress, um, so I went over there and I took an old football girdle for my Yale days, and she uh cut it up and re-stitched it in a way that I wanted, while me and her husband Arnie drank a gin and tonic on the back deck, and she came out with the first prototype all stitched up, and I wore it to the gym the next day. And then the guys, and I was being silly, so I was we were doing Olympic lifting in the back, and I took my shorts off and just was just wearing the compression shorts with my Olympic lifting shoes so they could see it. You know, and they were like, dude, you should like you should market those. Like, guys would buy that, and I was like, No, no way. And then I I ended up researching like a lot of Olympic lifting forums and realizing like the the need I was solving for was actually very prominent in that community. Um, so I was like, well, shoot, maybe there is uh maybe there's a niche market here that I always starts. Um so I I I read a couple books on supply chain and product development and you know, self-taught, um very similar to you doing this. You know, we're driving around with the car, you're telling me how you produced all this, you know, you just figure it out. So went down that road and then ordered 200 units, that sold out, and then ordered 500 units, that sold out, you know, order a thousand, and this was all happening while I was like at OCS. So I'm trying to run a business.

SPEAKER_00: 14:34

So now is the wife stepping in? Yeah, is she like picking packing for you at this point?

SPEAKER_02: 14:39

She was a dental hygienist full time. Um, and uh, and so by you know, by necessity, when I went to OCS, she was kind of running the running the show back at the house. And you know, obviously, then you're getting like I I mean, I don't even remember, maybe one or two orders a day, so it's way more manageable. Yeah, um, but yeah, going to the post office, doing the shipping labels and all that. I mean, I think back then we were actually handwriting the shipping labels, which is freaking hilarious. Now, you know, I remember when we figured out you could just like input everything into like one machine and just gonna spit it out, spits them all out.

SPEAKER_03: 15:07

Like I'm I think it took us three and a half years to figure that out, by the way, um, which is hilarious.

SPEAKER_00: 15:11

That little machine is the greatest thing. See, this is what I oh why I love these conversations because people just look at it what it is now. You just opened a storefront, yeah, you you got all these different categories and niches, and and people just see, but they don't realize plugging that machine in, getting it connected to your Wi-Fi, and it's pretty awesome. Those are like the little milestones for when you're where you are now, you sit back and you're like, Yeah, dude, this it was worth it. I I we've been relate, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:43

I know exactly how that is. Yeah, and I remember so I so I was at OCS, and and I had a guy that was in the class before me tell me, hey, no one gets their phone other than the class leader. Um, so like, and and so you should try to be the class leader because you have to communicate with the DIs and the RDCs about the schedule the next day. So you're the one, and you know, texting with a DI is kind of funny. I remember that. Like you're like because I think we had to call them sir and ma'am, even though they're obviously enlisted. Like that was a weird thing. But you know, you're you're texting them at night, trying to get the plan of the day and all this, and trying to be super formal. Um meanwhile, you're hustling on the side. The reason I wanted to be the class leader is because I knew I needed my phone to conduct business. Um so every night, you know, when my roommate was shining his boots and we're doing all you doing all the shit we should be doing as recruits or students, you know what I mean? Like I'm I'm like over by the window with one bar of service, like sending out emails to my suppliers.

SPEAKER_00: 16:31

You got it stuck in the corner. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 16:32

No, literally, I remember I had like one bar. I was like, thank God. Because the depending on what room you had, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like you so you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:40

You probably you send sen and then you don't touch it, like five minutes later it goes through.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

Don't move, no one move. Yeah. Um so you know, but Mal was back home, she was still, you know, uh a dental hygienist, but she was hustling it on the side. And um, and then you know, I went out to BUDS and she um her dental hygiene license didn't carry over because they had you had to have three years as a hygienist for for California to recognize it, which is was a complete pain in the ass. So she just went all in on it, and then you know, I'm going through BUDS, and um, you know, she was signing us up for CrossFit events on the weekends, you know what I mean, to like go be vendors. So, like, you know, I'd I'd lit my ass through the doorway on Friday night, just beat to shit, and she'd be like, All right, don't get comfortable.

SPEAKER_00: 17:18

We gotta like we gotta pack the Jeep because we're gonna You're going through BUDS and you're working booths on the weekends.

SPEAKER_02: 17:24

Yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:26

Yeah, man. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 17:28

So, you know, while other guys were getting massages and hanging out and recharging, you know, I'm I'm trying to heal. I'm on my feet, you know, trying to sell you know t-shirts and compression shorts to people at a CrossFit event that is a hundred people there.

SPEAKER_03: 17:39

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 17:40

That's how you do it though. Yeah, so we uh so but you know, obviously in hindsight, I'm glad I would say like I I was just dumb enough to not know any better. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 17:50

You're just I said just dumb enough to not quit. You just there's no you're sorry, we'll think about it.

SPEAKER_02: 17:55

Perfect level of dumb which is a thing, yeah. Um, and that probably helped me get through training too. But um, you know, because in hindsight, in the early days, that's how you got the you established the foundation of your customer base. You know, we were we were kind of born in the CrossFit space. Um, I was competing in CrossFit, so like it was easy for me to be one of them because I was like I that was my life, that's how I you know got uh ready for SEAL training and all that. Um and uh but yeah, there was definitely like times where I'm like, God damn, like you know, we're like we're like redoing the inventory in the garage at nine o'clock on a Sunday night when I'm like getting the major Sunday scaries, like I'm I'm about to go get my ass handed to me for another week, and like most guys are probably in bed right now, and I'm we're redoing inventory in the garage.

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

That's gotta be a really interesting feeling, knowing you gotta go check back in for your next phase or next week of buds, but that night you're in your garage packing gear, organizing sizes, probably shelves, got everything going in the garage, like all of us have had at one point. Yeah, and then you're knowing the whole entire time, like, oh my god, tomorrow morning is gonna be rough.

SPEAKER_03: 18:56

Oh yeah, yeah, real bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:59

Dude, your mental your mental toughness has to probably be off the charts because you got these guys that are fighting for their life just to not ring a bell and quit. And here you are, your your mind is on a business that you're trying to grow in a garage and at the same time you're you're going through one of the toughest course in the world to try to make that happen as well. Like that is not that's that's very interesting to me. I mean, I couldn't even imagine because I talked to a lot of guys, I got some buddies that are seals and hearing their which I want to get into a couple of bud stories, but I mean it that's a hundred percent mindset, is but I mean, guys trained for years just for the opportunity to get there, and here you are slinging a barrel on the side on the weekends. That's fascinating, that's incredible to me.

SPEAKER_02: 19:46

Yeah, man, it was it was a lot, but again, at the time you didn't know any better. Like I didn't realize how kind of absurd that in hindsight I'm like, man, I could have never done that again. Like, if I don't have the horsepower I did then, like, no way. Yeah, and I'm 37 now. Um, but I laugh, like, man, we like it must be nice to be 25, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 20:01

I mean, like just unlimited energy, and just you know, you don't know any better, so you just go. Peak, peak, peak piss and vinegar, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 20:10

Yeah, just you know, naive enough to just think, oh, this is this is kind of normal. It's like not really. Um yeah, so so we did that, and um, you know, and in this little by little, you know, um, it was mainly just going to events. Like people come and talk to me, like, you know, to try to get advice as a like to start up a company. Um, and I'm like, hey, in the early days, you just gotta be scrappy. You know what I mean? Like, we didn't have a marketing budget, we didn't have an advertising budget. It was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna my my human bandwidth is the budget. I'm gonna go to every CrossFit event I can. And most of them were free because they just want vendors to come to make it look more legit. Um, and all right, so we're gonna spend a little bit of gas money, but other than that, we're just on our feet all day, and that's the it's the only there's no cost, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 20:50

I respect this so much. Um only because I've walked these shoes.

SPEAKER_02: 20:53

There you go. Yeah, and I mean I that was literally the first four or five years. That's all we did, man.

SPEAKER_00: 20:57

That's all you know.

SPEAKER_02: 20:58

Um in all my military leave I would use to go to CrossFit events, right? So, like, you know, the regionals were big at the time, and regionals was always three weekends in a row, and it would run like Friday through Sunday. So I would try to, and it actually worked out. Like once I was in a platoon, like it always lined up that I was like fairly available available for regionals weekends. Um so I would submit all my leave. Um, I'd cut away like on Thursday, and then I'd limp my back my ass back in on Monday, and then work like Monday through Wednesday, Thursday, and then like roll again. Yeah, but Mal would be pr reinventorying everything and re-prepping, and a lot of times, so she would drive like the van or or the trailer to the next one, and then I would meet, I would fly there. So she would be in it for like 25 straight days, like non-stop. Uh, and I would go back to work just for a few days, you know what I mean? And then uh so that was but all my military leave was was used on that, and then you know, because I think this is like I get a lot of guys that wanted to start a company, and I I actually I go speak at this thing. So there's an organization called the Honor Foundation that takes transitioning um service members, you know, in Virginia Beach and helps prep them for you know resumes and like interview tips and like you know, to kind of like recalibrate them for like civilian world, which is a really cool organization. So every quarter I go speak, they have like an entrepreneur summit night that you know I just speak it's like an hour and a half, and I think the guys I come in thinking they probably think, oh, like fairly successful entrepreneur, he's gonna tell us like go for it, and like it's the best thing ever, and like you should all be entrepreneurs. And I actually give them the exact opposite of debrief. I'm like, all right, if you guys are like, if you're 43 right now and you have three kids and you're married and like you just did 20 years in the Navy, right? Like, I don't know if starting like that coffee company is the right move for you. You know what I mean? Like going and working for a good company that allows you to check out at five o'clock and like go to your kids' softball games and not be like talking with lawyers at 9 30 at night on your like you know, like while you'd rather be like hanging with your family or you know, dealing with lawsuits or uh you know the bank or what you know, like all the things that are gonna come with it that you don't know about yet, like working for the quote man is actually not a bad gig at all. Um because you know, only 8%, I think the latest stats of the SBA is you know, less than eight percent of businesses actually succeed that that are startups. So I'm like, all right, you're dealing with that stat already. And I was like, I know you guys have already beat the odds in another area of your life, but like, you know, we don't we don't want to you know put test our luck too much, you know what I mean? Well at the same time, and the sacrifice you make as a fan, you know, for your family, as you know. Um I said I and then I would use the example born primitive. I'm like, guys, it was just me and Mallory for five and a half years, and until year five, we didn't pay ourselves a penny. Mal took our salary for the first time on on like day one of like year five, right? And then I think I added mine like you know, um like maybe three-fourths of the way through the year. So for five years, you know, working, you know, however many hours a week, um, you know, while I'm having a day job that was fairly demanding, um, we didn't have a penny to show for it, right? And most people won't have that. And again, at the time, dumb enough. Like, I well, I'm not saying I had this crazy resolve, I just didn't know any better. Yeah um, but now, like for guys that are like a little bit more past that phase of their life, I'm saying, hey fellas, like you might want to think twice about this, like this sexy romantic idea of being an entrepreneur, um, because it's gonna be really stressful. Um, and and depending on where you land on that risk continuum of like how much risk you want to incur for your family. You know what I mean? Like it you might not want to, you know, bet the ranch on this like thing and slide a hundred grand in from your TSP.

SPEAKER_03: 24:30

You've worked your whole career.

SPEAKER_02: 24:31

Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, so you know, and so I always just try to lay that out. And but but I said, however, if you're staring at the ceiling every night thinking about it, and and you you can't kick it, because I said I've been there, you know, um, for a different career path, like then you have to acknowledge that that's how you're wired, and that means you have that itch and you gotta scratch it, you know what I mean, because you won't be able to work for the man. You're not gonna want a boss, and you're gonna, you know, you are probably a maverick, you're an innovator, you want to blaze your own trail. So if if that's you, then like for better or worse, that's the hand you get were drew draw, you know, you drew so so embrace that and then go all in. And I said, if that's the case, then let's get you know, then I'll try to help you at least, you know, maybe set the left and right flanks on what what it might look like, man.

SPEAKER_00: 25:15

But um, people don't realize I've talked about on here a ton, like being an entrepreneur sucks. You look at the Gary V's, you look at all these social media influencers, guys that are worth hundreds of millions, whatever, it's like, okay, cool, but nobody truly shows the grid it takes. And I tell everybody, because I I help a lot, I'm you know, uh constantly mentoring guys like, man, I really want to start this. Cool. Once I get the ball run, I'm like, if you're not willing to set the first three to five years of the most miserable time and expect nothing except for grinding, do it. But if you think you're just gonna launch this and you're gonna get some followers and you're gonna be ripping apparel within the first six months, it happens. There's some really cool brands and they just they catch that that wave and write it, but the majority of them like three to five years minimum before you're like, okay. Okay, like I I we could handle this because it is. I mean, just the few things, everything that you're saying, it's so hilarious because obviously, you know, with our organization, that's how it was when we launched. I'm networking, I don't even have business cards, I'm just writing on napkins at events. I'd pack up a booth by my work, a three-day event by myself, pack it up, drive to the next state, set up the booth, I want to donate, like you know, obviously, you know, selling apparel. And I did that for the first three years of our organization. I spent 280 days on the road for three years in a row, and just to get the ball rolling and just to have some momentum where we could be like, okay, people know who we are now. We have funds cut, people are donating, like, cool. Because I mean, there were times when we first started off, I'm sleeping in hotel rooms with these guys. Like, we're I'm the president, founder of this organization, and we're splitting a hotel room because we just didn't even have the money. We're brand new. And so I'm in here, I'm like begging the wife, I'm like, babe, when we get enough money, please get out of my own room. Dudes are on CPAP machines, snoring like grizzly bears. They got prosthetics, they're pulling like their socks off their prosthetics, the room stinks like I love all my prosthetic homies. You guys know I gotta love every, but we know they are not the best smelling things when they come off, and I'm in these rooms, like, oh my god, I can't wait till we start making money. And so it was just like those little things, but that's what it would take. People are like, bro, how are you guys this? You're always on the road. I'm like, I I want to help the community, like this is my passion. Just I want to give back, and this is what it's gonna take. Can't just sit here and make a post about 22 vets a day, you know, like you got to be on the road doing it, and so and it's tough, man. I mean, we show our girls like guys, you we gotta grow this name, like as a cut the brand of this bakery that we're doing. It's like we're hitting farmers markets and they're working three-day events, eight-hour days, and it's like they're not sitting down. I mean, here's my 11-year-old, 17-year-old, and you guys want to work, let's go. And they're grinding booths out for a whole weekend.

SPEAKER_02: 27:49

And I tell you what, though, man, that is so cool because that that is gonna arm them with so many skills. Yes. That is gonna put them so ahead of their peers. Like, I I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it because like because you know, my daughter's four and a half, and I'm and I'm already thinking, like, all right, at what age do I start showing her the the grind that dad does behind the scenes that she doesn't see yet? You know what I mean? Um, you know, I'm already thinking like getting her in on marketing meetings with Born Primitive.

SPEAKER_03: 28:16

100%.

SPEAKER_02: 28:16

Um, you know, they grow up with it. And getting her to the booth with me, or you know, obviously eventually like working a retail store. Um, or you know, I grew up like mowing lawns and doing landscape, you know, and so like I'm I've already thought like even though she's a girl, like it might be a little weird. Like, I learned so much from running a lawn mowing business for you know, I think I started when I was in sixth grade and did it all the way through like my sophomore year in college of just that grind and then having to bill your clients and try to acquire new clients, you know what I mean, with flyers and stuff, like very rudimentary stuff. But for a seventh grader, like in in and having to then like you know, I remember I just had an envelope of cash that I would keep in my dad's safe, you know. That was like my bank account, like you know what I mean. But I had this little, you know, shitty little like sheet that like said like how who had paid and who owed this, and you know, just exposing them to that, man, is so valuable. Um, so I I love that you're and I know that the story of obviously like how you stood up and got this studio going with your daughter, and like that's so cool. And together you guys were like, hey, we just have to figure it out. Um, like that's awesome, man. Like, there's that is like you there are lessons that will be taught that you'll never learn in a textbook. Um, there's nothing we'll teach you this except for life. I love that.

SPEAKER_00: 29:26

You know, obviously, our oldest runs this is a family operation. Anybody doesn't know. I have a teenager that is our producer. I mean, anything you see, hear, or watch, it all comes from her. But then our little one with this with the bread company and learning, and I tell the girls like listen, bread isn't my dream. We love it, we have fun, but you gotta I gotta learn as much as you can together with this, and then that just learn the skills. Like our youngest, she's she's 11, literally gets on Canva, makes her little rake business, puts it just she's an 11-year-old, and she builds. These little flyers, Mom, can you print them? She's going door to door. She has a little raking company. She goes and rakes every fall. Now she's got clients every year. She just shows up, they're like, Yep, whenever rake it. And so she's got her little scooter. She sits on the bags of leaves, brings them home. And so it but it's just starting that mindset. And not every and like you were saying, when you're giving that speech, not everybody's built to be an entrepreneur either. Everybody might like the idea and it sounds cool. I'm gonna work for myself, but like when you really get into the guts of starting a business, trying to run, maintain, take care of things, it's a shit show. And it's a lot. And so you're either you either have it or you don't. And it's not a bad thing either way. And just but like you're saying, dude, if you've done 20 years in the military, maybe just cruise for a little bit. If that is not your 100% passion, and you're not laying in the up bed at you know, staring at the ceiling at night, you're at the gym, you're fixating on it, you're in the shower, okay. I'm gonna do that's that's when I know when I'm when I'm in the show, okay, okay, I gotta do this, and oh my god, we can launch this, and we can add this on down the road. If you're not thinking that and it's just you're you're building phases out in your mind, you're laying there at night, okay, this is a badass name. I gotta launch this, we gotta start building that's when you know. But if you're like, I want to be an entrepreneur and change my life, you probably you you need to do some research or talk to guys like yourself that have been down this path because it's but it's great though. It's uh it's it's this misery we love company or this this love-hate relationship with being a business owner, especially like a small business owner, because you're dealing with customers, you that's a whole you're learning how to deal with people, and then apparel world. Oh my god, you can put the sizes and the fit and everything, and it doesn't fit. This shit sucks, too tight, too loose, and then I don't like this material. And you're like, oh my god, we have people come up, this sourdough's not sour enough. We're like, like, you know, like these like sorry, you just have to learn those things. And now my daughter's like, okay, no problem. You know, I got this little 11-year-old that's she's been told no a thousand times in a day. She's like, I don't give a shit. I'm gonna knock on another door. So it's just it's those little things that you can start teaching, and it's fun, man. I I I absolutely love the journey that businesses take you on.

SPEAKER_02: 32:06

Yeah, man. And I think one you know, takeaway too is like if if you're a a younger guy listening to this, or girl, of course, too, like earlier on in your life is the time to send it and take risk. You know what I mean? Like, particularly before like little humans are depending on you, right? Yeah, um, like you're in your 20s, like you're playing with house money, all out. Play a lot of hands, um, make a lot of mistakes, fuck some shit up, you know, play a big hand, you know, try to, you know, go join the military, do some thing, you know, or whatever. That's your time to kind of do it. Um, because if you if you screw it up, like it's it's not even halftime yet. You know what I mean? Like you're not even out of the first quarter, you know what I mean? And and I'm really glad I I was like, I didn't know any better to like not take that approach. That was just natural to me. But looking back, you know, in hindsight, I'm like, man, I'm I'm so glad I played a lot of hands in like in my 20s because I actually had a failed business right before Born Primitive. Which was uh I I had invented a keg insulating device um with a college uh teammate, um, and we tried to throw the Hail Mary and market it to the big beer brands. Um, and you know, we raised$110,000 and uh signed a five-year lease on a warehouse and um leased out some really expensive printing equipment um these wide format printers and flew into Chicago and pitched the Miller Cours uh directors on this product we had, and they were all about it, and we thought we had like struck the lottery. Um, and then that the head guy in that department, um, that the director, his name was I I'll just I'll I won't use the first name, his last name was Del Vecchio. He uh said, Hey, we want 4,000 units to get this going, but then we we're we're gonna want like thousands of units. So us not knowing any better and being 22-year-old entrepreneurs ordered forty thousand dollars worth of foam to get imported in so we could start production of this like purchase order. But they hadn't given us a purchase order yet. Which, you know, I'm 22, I don't know any better. Like we they have they have a bar in their headquarters. So after the meeting, we were all drinking beers at their like you know, headquarters bar, and they're like, hey, we're in, we loved it. The directors loved it because we had them all on display. This was like my shark tank moment as a 22-year-old, and they loved it. We're drinking beers, everyone's high-five, and like, all right, so this is what we want to do. We're gonna do 2,000 units of the Miller light and 2,000 of the Coors light version, and like then we'll you know we'll get this into the catalog and do all this. Um, so I immediately went home and submitted 4,000 units of foam that we needed for the raw materials. That was like you know, it was like close to I don't know, 40 grand worth of stuff that's coming over in a big shipping container. Well, guess what? Like six weeks later, old Mr. Del Vecchio gets fired, right? So every time I get an email from his like you know, this right-hand man being like, hey, like, not great news, like Pete got let go today. Uh unfortunately, that means like all programs in the point of sale like catalog are gonna be put on temporary hold and they'll be reassessed by like whoever takes his position. And I'm like, dude, I I got 40 grand of foam like that's like on a ship right now, like rolls coming like through the Mediterranean or whatever, wherever it was coming from. Um, and uh and I had just signed a five-year lease on a on a warehouse, and then like the printer we leased was like a$60,000 wide format printer um because it had to print the graphics. It was basically it was like a giant keg koozie um that we could print, so it looked it would look like a giant like Miller Light can, but it would insulate the keg. So like you know, I just genius. Yeah, it was kind of cool. Um and I got a design patent on it. Like it was, you know, it was at the time. Um, so anyway, that that fell through, and then we tried to pivot to go direct to consumer and like sell them just to regular people, but there's not really a market for that. Like, how many times are you using like a keg in your life? Not very often, right? Um, so through a lot of uh, you know, lessons learned, you know, that but but that so that one kind of went up in smoke. Um, but again, being dumb enough to not know any better, I just doubled down and immediately played the next hand, and that was born primitive. That was the compression shorts, right? Um, so I I guess I I give that example as a way to say, hey, like if you're early in the game, you know, take a lot of risk. And hey, that doesn't mean if you're late in the game, you can't either. Um, but just I think you have to consider other factors, like your family, uh, your actual bandwidth, um, how hungry you are to actually see it through. You know what I mean? You don't you don't want to waste two years of your life because you couldn't go five. You know what I mean? So either do it and go and grind it out like the three to five year period you're talking about, or just say, hey, I'm good. Like, let me go work for the man and and have a maybe a balanced lifestyle. Um and yes, someone's gonna be telling you what to do technically, um, but there there can be some um some security to that in knowing that like okay, on when five o'clock on Friday hits, I can actually put that phone away and I don't have to be answering it, you know, at eight o'clock when a lawyer calls and says, Oh, we just got this new lawsuit that came in and this and that. Like that's the that's the lonely life when you're at the top, um, as an entrepreneur, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 36:38

So nobody sees it. And then and then when they do see it, they don't want to be part of it, like, oh yeah, no, I'm I'm here for the brand, but I'm not here for the it's it's really lonely. I and I love that you say that. We tell our kids all the time, they're like, man, we're like, it's where's it lonely? And they're like, it's lonely at the top, and it's because the harder you work, and then you start losing friends, you gain some friends along the way, but then you start seeing who's truly supporting you. You got loved ones backing you, and friends wanting help or not, and so you it's the entrepreneur title is a very, very loaded title. And I don't I don't feel the majority of people truly know what weight comes with wanting to be an entrepreneur because it is lonely, it is stressful, you question life, you m you question if you made the right decision and are we about to lose everything. It's but that's what when you have that ish, that's what you live for. You know, and you take me, I'm I just turned 41, man, and we're burning the ships. Like we walked, I've built a marketing company, we have a brand, we get I have an organization, like we have all these things that just we live a comfortable life, we're not rich, but hey, we have a free life. I get the fuck off with my kids all day. Like that's to me, that's living. And we sat down, we're like, dude, we're we've been working and building everybody else's stuff, been building their companies, been building their brands and helping them get on the map. And then finally, I'm like, fuck, let's just do it ourselves. And so, yeah, that was a big reason behind this and the bakery. And we're like, let's show our kids. I we may have failed a lot and messed up a lot and lost a lot, a lot of expensive mistakes and learning mistakes, which cost a lot of money here and there. And I know you've probably got a list of those. But it's just that's where I'm like, okay, if there's one thing I want to do as a father, is like I want my kids to walk out of that door one day and just be like, okay, they they know how to talk, they know how to run a business, they know money, they know finances, they know what it's gonna take to get ahead of it. Okay, if we're selling this now, we need to get more product now, start future, you know, we're starting, we need to start planning for this, X, Y, and Z. I just want their minds to start just thinking like that. And if they don't, and I tell them all the time, dude, if you want to go be a veterinarian, you want to go be whatever it is, do it. Do it. If that's what calls you, chase your dreams. But you'll have this weapon in your pocket that maybe one day you have this idea, and you're like, I know how to do this. Hey, mom, hey dad, this is what I'm thinking. Let's do it. We're in, you know, and that that's it. That's all I want as a dad. Is that when they walk out one day, I can go, okay, I feel they're as best as we can get them ready. I'm sure there's always gonna be that we probably fuck this up, you know, like every parent does. But I just I want them to be able to have the skills to I can rest one day. If they're like, I'm gonna start a business. I don't need to be like, oh god, she's gonna start a business and be like, fuck yeah. What is it? What I'm in, what do we gotta do? Like that's that's the goal I want to get to. And it's that's you just ha and the biggest secret with it is you just can't quit. I talk to these guys, not you, you're a different breed, but I I I I work with this VC group and these guys, and I'll leave these meetings and I'll be like, What the fuck? They're fucking idiots from the bottom to the top. They just never quit. They just never stopped, they've never stopped. And that's why this dude is worth this. This is why they own this. People are like, what's the secret? Oh, I did no, they just never stop because I've met and I know you have a list of dudes that you mean you're like, you're worth how much? Like, you wait, what? And then you just get to know him, you're like, oh man, this dude, he's nothing special. He just never quit. And that it took me a long time to figure out if you just keep grinding, you keep believing, you constantly just chip, little chips every single day, and eventually it could be five years, it could be eight years, that snowball on the top of the mountain just eventually rolls off, and then one day you're like, oh fuck, we got a hundred a hundred orders today. I don't know if we're ready for this, and like that's and then it's just constantly that, and then it's that's the feeling where you're like, okay, but you just have to get to that point. That's right. That's right, man. Years of grinding. Absolutely. Well, dude, the buds. Okay, so you're building born primitive. Your wife's helping you on the side, which I I love. We are obviously a family or I've drugged my wife through every one of my crazy adventures, so she is right there with it. Now you're in the buds. I want to hit on some bud stories because I love talking to Navy SEALs is the war stories, they are great. You guys are the coolest dudes on the planet. I'm saying that lightly as a reason. I love bud stories because it no, I feel nobody is ever truly prepared. You could talk to any seal and they could be the hardest dude on the planet. Everything goes out the window when you're when you're in the water and you're freezing and you're covered in sand. That's right, man. How was Buds for you? Obviously, you had some time to get ready, you're training for it, you're mentally, physically prepared, you're crossfitting the hell out of it. How was it rolling into it for with you?

SPEAKER_02: 41:26

Yeah, it was rough, man. Yeah. Um it it was interesting because when you show up, you know, I think we we had it was between uh probably around 220 uh guys there when you when you when you finally like kind of muster up as a class in in Coronado. Um the all the enlisted guys had gone to the Great Lakes um boot camp, and I was, you know, all the I was an OCS candidate, so I was coming from Newport, Rhode Island, but then uh the all the academy graduates, you know, come from the academy, of course, after they commission. Um so you you know everyone musters up and and you know, we're being told, okay, we're probably gonna lose between 80 and 85 percent of the class. And you're looking kind of across the formation, and and you know, it's a little it was a little unnerving because I'm like, all right, like other than a couple guys here, like everyone looks really fucking squared away. You know what I mean? Like some I'm seeing some chiseled jawlines, I'm seeing some hard motherfuckers, and then I'm seeing, you know, we had a UFC middleweight in our class. Um, there were, you know, uh Olympic swimmers, division one wrestlers, division one lacrosse players, so that you know, these dudes, you know, highly motivated caliber of individuals that were all convening to do this ridiculous thing. So that was my first thought is like, all right, where are they gonna trim the fat? Because I ain't seeing it, right?

SPEAKER_03: 42:36

And I hope I hope I'm am I the fat? Yeah, am I the fat? You know? Um feel like okay, I get it.

SPEAKER_02: 42:43

But as as expected, you know, the system works, man. It does its thing. And uh, I think I I put I've heard this um said a couple times, and I think I agree with it, but I I think the difference between the guys that make it and the guys that didn't make it, one of the main reasons is I think the guys that made it genuinely wanted to do the job that came at the end of the of the selection process. And I think the guys that didn't make it, whether maybe they don't realize it or not, were more attached to the idea of being the title and what would come with that, with you know, maybe being feared by other men, or maybe I can get, you know, a girlfriend, whatever those reasons were for them, um, I think those were the you know the surface level reasons don't hold up when things get really bad.

SPEAKER_00: 43:28

You get sniffed out real quick.

SPEAKER_02: 43:30

Yeah, and and so you know, when it's two in the morning and you're hypothermic laying in the Pacific um on very little sleep, your um your reasons uh need to be really valid because you're you know, like any situation, that that little that little voice in your head is gonna start justifying the off-ramp. You know what I mean? Um and you and and uh in anyone that had any bit of an off-ramp, like it's gonna become real apparent, like four-lane highway, off-ramp, right off to the right. You can just take it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 43:59

And then they present it to you as like this treat, like just ring the bell, it's right here.

SPEAKER_02: 44:03

Um, so you know, that was really wild to see because like um, you know, they had us down from you know 220 plus guys to you know 19 by the end of Hell Week. You know, that Hell Week is on is your fourth week of training. Um so they just we just got absolutely massacred. And that's not original. Like, I'm not I'm not saying that like oh our class was the hardest. Like most guys have very similar stories. So you go from seeing that giant group to like and and you run in formation like on base, like to go to and from Chow and stuff. So in the very beginning, there's this long centipede of guys that you know are running with our stupid little helmets and our little canteens. Um, and you know, to even just across the road, like the this they gotta like the stoplight. Yeah, and then you know, here we are four weeks later, and it's just a little 19-man crew, lean as fuck. You know, that same, you know what I mean? Like just four weeks ago was this huge group of dudes that had probably been training for this for you know many years, many probably had been thinking about it since they were kids, and just that quick that the fat is already trimmed. So that was kind of like really wild to me, because I'm just like, that's crazy you know what I mean. That the fact that I mean you you had guys that would that would be crying when they'd ring the bell, and yeah, like that, you know, we had that UFC guy, like again, you think he's got all the cauliflower ear, and like you dude, you just fought like 10 fights in UFC and like you you didn't even last a week, you know what I mean? Like that's crazy, you know. So um, you know, one of the with the stories that was a little unnerving, which but was kind of like wild in hindsight, we had a couple fleet returneys that were in our class that had failed buds before. And since they were the most senior, I think they were like third class petty officers, maybe or maybe second classes by then. Um, the first three weeks of like indoctrination, they were like our class leaders because they were the most senior enlisted guys just by time in the Navy, right? Because they've been in the Navy, I don't know, three years by that point. Yeah, um, and uh so they were telling all the all the guys like how bad it is to go to the fleet, because obviously if you fail out, like you're gonna shipped to the fleet and you're not gonna have a great life. You know what I mean? Some guys can redesignate and actually get real designations, but a lot of guys become undez seamen.

SPEAKER_00: 46:01

Terrifying.

SPEAKER_02: 46:02

Yes. So you're basically like a prisoner on a ship, like chipping pain.

SPEAKER_00: 46:05

Just an OPA contract at that point.

SPEAKER_02: 46:06

Yeah. Um, so they're saying, Man, we just did the fleet, like it's it's worse than prison. Like, you know, you never you know what I mean? Like you you like don't quit, like it's not worth it. Like, you know what I mean? This is gonna be really hard. And they're hyping this up how bad the fleet is and how they will never quit ever, you know what I mean? And and so, like, you know, and they've kind of done a few days of buds, so they know more than we do. So we're kind of like, oh, here's how you set up your gear, and this this is what's gonna this is what's gonna happen on day one, and like you know what I mean. So you know, we're obviously looking up to them to okay, that's probably some good word that they're they're passing. And uh the buds always starts at 0400 on a Monday morning. Uh I mean I believe it's still the same, but it you just do a PT on the grinder, and there's all the little duck feet, right? So you get information, everyone's and these are like this is hollowed grounds, man. I've been you know, this that grinder is like something you you hear about. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00: 46:54

And so it's it's historic.

SPEAKER_02: 46:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 46:57

I mean, think how many guys have stood on the Paris Island Navy, it's the Paris Island footprints, like equivalent to that. Like there you go.

SPEAKER_02: 47:03

Yeah, like think how many guys before you have done that exact same evolution and had this exact same emotions of the nerves and like what am I about to do? So we go out there for the first, you know, everyone's nervous. It was like it was kind of like it was the feeling I had like before college football games. I was like, I haven't felt this in a while. And we're standing in formation on the duck feed at 0350. You know, you get out there 10 minutes early, and uh, you know, we're obviously just I'm scared shitless because I'm like, oh man, I I'm having some buyer's remorse right now. And these guys fall out of formation as our class leaders and go over to the bell and they ring out before it even starts. The guys that had just for three weeks had been pumping how bad I'd like the fleet was, and and I look I look over at my buddy and I'm like, dude, what do these guys know that we don't like are we fucked or what?

SPEAKER_03: 47:46

Okay, yeah, let me ask you.

SPEAKER_02: 47:47

So they rang before Buds had even started. Yeah. Do you think that was a psyop? Do you think they were just fucking with you guys? No, no, dude, that was not a psyop. That was them saying they were talking a big game for three weeks, and then we're right when you're back on the grinder, ready to get after it. They were like, fuck this. And and so I remember the instructor opened up the door to the first phase, they had like a first phase instructor um classroom, and he was like, What the fuck? Are you kidding me? And then he just slammed the door again because he obviously he heard the bell ringing, and you know, so there's a couple, I think it was either two or three guys, those helmets are right, you know, the first two or three helmets. What? And then, of course, like a couple minutes later, all the instructors pour out of the first phase classroom or uh, you know, their their in it. And you had two to three guys. And it was and and then, but it was just funny because I'm like, I just remember that feeling of being like, Man, what did I get myself into? And then you're screwed. You know, you lose like 20 on the first day, you know. It's like it's not, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00: 48:44

I could not fathom being a man and ringing that bell before it even started.

SPEAKER_02: 48:50

Right. Yeah. That especially when you had already done it and you saw what the alternative is. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 48:56

That that that blows my mind.

SPEAKER_02: 48:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:59

You got a taste of that, and then you know what the real fleet is like, and you're gonna give this a go again to be some seal, and you ring the bell before it even starts. Yeah, chipping chipping pain on a on a that's a dude that lays in bed at night staring at the ceiling.

SPEAKER_02: 49:13

Yeah, yeah, man. So that was that I think that kind of best summarizes the experience. Um, you know, but it it was cool, man, because you know the it it it's not all the star athletes and elite people that make it, you know. It's really just like, you know, I don't mean to oversimplify it, but I think it's just the guys that make it literally were like the only you literally even gonna have to kill me, or I'm like it's I'm just not gonna quit. I might be really bad at shit, and I might be a bad runner, but like you will have to kill me, and that's the only alternative to this.

SPEAKER_03: 49:42

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 49:42

Yeah, the only way to a literal degree, is you know what I mean? Those guys that make it at the end, it's like you could have made bud five years and you'd still have the same 19 guys because it's just like it's just a decision. Like, I this is just what I'm doing, and if you want to kill me, you can, but that's the only way I don't get through this. Minus like if I don't can't pass a skill or a test gate, like that's another story. Yeah, but as far as just like I I will not voluntarily ring that thing ever. Um, and uh so yes, you know, a slim crew makes it through at the end, and then you know, as you know, like it's you you you get um you get pinned and all that, and then you go to a platoon and you're right back to being like having to prove yourself again, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 50:20

You're the low man on the room.

SPEAKER_02: 50:22

Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00: 50:22

Um you go from graduating, bud's like I made it, and then you hit the fleet and you're like, oh fuck, I'm yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 50:29

It was pretty cool when you when I got to a platoon, and I I really really like my platoon chief. I th I thought the way he ran us was really, really awesome, and he wanted us to make mistakes and he wanted us to be aggressive in making mistakes, and just I I I just loved it. But he so once we check in, there were four of us as new guys in our platoon, they took they they take all your tridents back. Um they say, hey, like you you are a Navy SEAL, but you're not a team guy yet. And you have to prove yourself to us, your peers. You made it through the schoolhouse, but you know what I mean, and you should be proud of that. But hey, you have to cut your teeth here in a real platoon now and show that you're an actual team guy. So they take your tridents, um, and then they they uh well, some of the platoons would spray paint them blue, you know, so it's like in symbolic of being inert, you know, like a blue, like frag, you know, like anything blue, a blue pistol, like you know it's inert.

SPEAKER_03: 51:15

Right, yeah. So I thought that was kind of funny. Like we're little harmless little little little mini baby seals, you know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 51:22

Um, and uh so you you know, you do your workup, and then um, you know, we end up you know re-earning that trident with our platoon in a closed ceremony. And how long does that take? Um we did that on our first deployment. Um so we were in UConn and we actually got to do our pinning um on uh Utah Beach in Normandy. Our church platoon chief had arranged it. Um so that was pretty cool. Yeah, we took a trip up to over the weekend, and uh and I won't go into specifics of what that pinning uh looks like, but you might be able to imagine. Um I don't want to get anyone in trouble here. Um I think some of those traditions have gone away, but uh fortunately my chief was still all about it, and and it was a really cool, cool thing to finally be validated. You know, and that's by that time you're you know in the Navy for four years, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 52:09

So it's like uh Was that a better feeling than Buds?

SPEAKER_02: 52:12

Um it was pretty similar, you know, because by the time you get that one, the second one, like you know you've been accepted. You you've made it through a whole workup and you know you're proficient, you know what I mean? It's it's not like accepted. You're part of you're part of the team now. So I think I think getting like the real tried in the like in in in out of the schoolhouse probably meant a little bit more because it's that giant sigh of relief of like, all right, unless I just totally fuck this up, like I I I have a career now. Yep. Um and uh just happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does happen. Yeah. Um, but uh, but it was just kind of cool, like you you've never really made it, right? Um and and so um but uh really look back on it with really fond memories and um yeah, the bud stuff was you know, it it's all very similar stories, but um you know, just just a wild experience. And and uh and again you look back and you're like, man, I don't know if I could do that again.

SPEAKER_03: 52:59

You know, we we'd always joke like they should make us redo Buds every 10 years, you know what I mean? And I was like, you would have so many guys get out at nine years and eleven months, but we would joke like all right, if we had to roll back to Buds right now as a platoon, like could we do it?

SPEAKER_02: 53:12

You know what I mean? And and the running would be the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_03: 53:14

Like you'd have to, you know, but other than that, it's like, well, you know, we're all still the same dudes.

SPEAKER_00: 53:18

There's a lot of broken backs, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 53:20

Yeah, the geriatric, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:23

We're still there mentally, but the knees probably couldn't hold up, lifting the log and the boats and all that good shit for a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_02: 53:29

Yeah, we we would need a lot more time to warm up before the evolutions.

SPEAKER_00: 53:34

Dude, well, we got we're at 45, so um before we get any more stories, you want to we got fifty, I guess we got 15 minutes. We want to keep you wanted what around 950.

SPEAKER_01: 53:43

Yeah, probably I'm good. Yeah, that might be a good um transition, but uh up to up to you, man.

SPEAKER_00: 53:48

I'd say I'd let's go into a bud story or a Navy SEAL story about you almost dying. Um there was a parachute problem. So you're is this is this part of SEAL training?

SPEAKER_02: 53:56

That was actually a civilian jump. No shit. Yeah, yeah. So it's actually funny. I I um I I was taking so I I I have a child uh and we we were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time. Um, you know, so we have a child together, but on our second date, I took her skydiving. Okay. Um and uh I I didn't tell her, I said, I'm picking you up, wear like comfortable clothes, and and we showed up at the at the drop zone, and she was like, You gotta be kidding me. Like I'm and I'm like, Yeah, we're gonna go jump out of a plane. So she did a tandem, of course, and I jumped out solo. And I was telling her it's super safe, like statistically, there's more chance of us getting in a car accident on the way, like all the other things. And then I had a cutaway. I had I had a really bad line twist, which normally a line twist is not a big deal, it's actually like very routine. But this line twist was like, I mean, it was completely, I couldn't pull out of it at all.

SPEAKER_00: 54:40

You couldn't counter spin it.

SPEAKER_02: 54:42

Took me into this crazy spin. Um, and uh, and I remembered thinking, because I'm like I'm looking through the lines through my altimeter and I'm seeing it like you know, obviously go down, and I'm thinking, like, my first thought was, man, my mom's gonna kill me. Like, if this is how I go, like on a civilian jump after all this shit, you know what I mean? And uh, and I remember, you know, I could see people walking around the hangar. Like, I was like, that's when I realized I was like, all right, I'm at cutaway altitude because if I can see people walking around, that's we're close. Um, and uh, so I I reached through and you know, I pulled my cutaway pillow and and thank God um you know the reserve works. So I landed it and you know, played it cool, and then I had to get in the truck to go get the the the main canopy.

SPEAKER_03: 55:18

Um and and the tandem guy knew what was going on, so he he covered for me because he didn't like I didn't want to tell her I had a near-death experience. Yeah, uh so that was cool. And then she's like, Where were you? And I was like, Oh, I just I had to like go get my parachute, but like I didn't go into detail like what you know, obviously you should have your parachute on you, yeah, it shouldn't be a thing, you know. But she didn't like kind of know.

SPEAKER_02: 55:37

So yeah, that was my my main uh that was the one jumping uh uh you know kind of mishap. Um yeah, I think honestly the only other the most dangerous thing we did is is when we do VBSS, you know, visit board search and seizure. So like taking down ships. Okay. Um that's uh literally when we were in that training block, I literally went home the first night and I was like, I need to up my life insurance policy because if I die, this is a hundred percent how it's gonna be. Really? And I mean that. I I I I literally actually did that. It was with Navy Mutual Aid, like they they have to give us life insurance policies because they see like the job you do and you get denied everywhere else. So I remember I went out and got like a million dollar life insurance policy like the next day. What made it so So you you you know you come alongside the ships and then you have like a giant hook that that that hooks and then you pull the hook and it deploys like this caving ladder. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 56:23

Um and we had these new caving ladder is just pretty much like a rope ladder.

SPEAKER_02: 56:27

Oh, yeah, it's like a wire ladder, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 56:29

Well it's got a lot of flexibility in it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:31

So it's it and it's real skinny, you know, so it'll twist and you know what I mean. And uh in your you know, you could be doing this on rough seas, and some of the ships, you know, you hope the climb isn't that high. You know, 15 to 20 feet would be like a nice gentleman's climb. Okay. Um, but we were using these pneumatic poles that like the pole would be connected to a compressed air tank, and you could actually deploy the pole like up to like 55 feet to get a hook. Whereas like old school, like you just it'd be you and like one other dude with a like a plastic pole. So you can't get it that high just because you lose leverage, you know, uh the higher the pole gets, you know what I mean. So but they had come up with this new concept with this pneumatic pole system with this this compressed air tank. Yeah. So the poles could go up to like I think 54 feet. So we were doing like you know, these VBSS iterations, and and we had one that was like a you know, it was a damn near 50 foot climb, you know, on like rough seas, and you got three guys on the ladder at once. Uh and that's a long climb, you know, with all the gear. And I mean, that was probably that was the gnarliest thing I think we do by far.

SPEAKER_00: 57:28

When you say you got all your gear, you fall in, you're not coming back up.

SPEAKER_02: 57:33

Well, yeah, I mean you you have water wings, um, so you should be, but you know, I hate to say it, you know, we lost a couple guys couple years ago, right? Yeah, I think it was in, you know, um, I think kind of near the Red Sea um doing a VBSS op real life, um, and and a couple guys went in the drink. And um, you know, I don't know the specifics on it. I was out by then, but you know, I think you know, in that situation you're supposed to deploy your water wings and maybe there was a malfunction there. Um, but uh but yeah, I mean, or if you fall off the the the the the the ship that you're you know kind of boarding from is right below the ladder, you know what I mean? So like if you know I If you land on a hard deck, I know someone that you know the the the the caving ladder got uh caught on one of the A dub, you know, the mounts on the side of the boat and it and when it pulled taut the ladder snapped. So three guys fell and he landed and hit his face on like the 50 cal mount and it like basically predatored his face. Oh my god, he had a I think he had a his his leg broke like and it I think it cut his femoral artery, but the way it like it like broke, it kept it like from bleeding out. So like he got to the hospital, they had to like do emergency surgery on like his pelvis and and you know and stuff like that. So it's it's extremely dangerous. Um and it's just gnarly, it's just gnarly, you know what I mean? Like you just gotta not look down and you know, gotta come over the railing. But that was probably like the most dangerous thing because you know I missed all the all the war, man. So like when by the time I got in, um the stuff in Afghanistan was winding down, and they were dangling that in front of us, like you know, for during part of our first workup, but all the all the all the action had already you know happened, and and you know, as a as a seal, that's definitely something that like you don't feel like you you fully earn the title, you know what I mean. I I'll just be transparent on that. Like I I I I do think I I earned like the title to some extent, but to put me in the same sentence as the guys that you know were in the GWAT and really doing the job, you know what I mean? Like, w we're not even on the same planet as far as I'm concerned. Like those guys were the real SEALs. Hey, I did what I was told. Um, I think I was a dependable teammate, you know. I I think I was physically capable, but uh we never got the nod to actually validate that capability in a real life scenario. So I think it would be reckless for me to try to even associate myself with those guys that actually did it. And I've used the analogy before, like it would be like if you know Roger Goodell, you know, the commissioner and the NFL like controlled when seasons were played, you know what I mean? And and and you have to you know just do a constant. Training camp. You gotta make the 53 man roster, and you know, so you're elite if you're on the roster. But like imagine if like Roger Goodell just decided for five straight seasons just to not let anyone play a game. You know what I mean? And it's like, all right, I can't control that, but I'm still kind of a practice squad player, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:14

Yeah, people don't realize that's how the military works. It's yeah, it's not it's not your decision, it's if you're lucky enough to draw the straw to be well, when I say luck, yeah, it's it's in quotes for sure. Yeah, but yeah, so it's it's as a Marine and the civilians also are like, dude, you're a Navy SEAL, you can't take, but I get it's it's the breed, it's the mindset. I know a lot of guys that you know you joined for that reason. I mean, you sat there, you watched 9-11 in eighth grade, I think you said. Yep. And you know, it's just that that was your calling. But I dude, I I get it. Like, there's a lot of guys out there that beat themselves up, but it's that's how it is. I mean, you could have deployed and never done it. You could have sat on a ship off the coast somewhere and just stared at a coastline and be like, fuck, this is miserable. Like, I got buddies that have done that. And they're like, that's you know, it it is what it is. It's the military, and when your straw is drawn, yeah, or you don't.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:03

Yeah, and I also think it's a little reckless to say, Oh, I wish I could have, you know, gone to war because it's like, well, hey, guys lost friends, they lost limbs, they lost lives, um, or they, you know, saw trauma that would lead to them to take their lives later, or their lives were in disarray beyond you know that that part of their career because of all just the downstream effects that that can have. So I it would also be reckless for me to say, oh, like I I wish we could have got it on, and you know, because it's okay, man, you don't know until you you've done it, um, and everyone has different experiences in that. So I say that with humility of like, hey, don't don't be pounding your chest, asking like acting like you wanted war. Um, you were ready for it and and and you want it to be validated um in your profession, um, but you did it in in with a you know significant respect for what comes with that. Um and and so you know, I think it's a it's a balance, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:52

Absolutely. We're back, dude. Born primitive, so this whole entire time you're going through buds, you're grinding this out in your garage, you got your wife at the time freaking driving all over the place, trailering everything around, just grinding it out, because that's that's what it takes. There's no other option. So now that you've got into the SEAL teams, everything's kind of rocking and rolling. How's born primitive? How are you juggling both at this point?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:24

Well, it was, I mean, as you can probably relate, just every hour that you weren't doing the day job, um, yeah, I was doing born primitive, right? And and um again at the time you had the horsepower, you had you had the uh you know the uh the competitive spirit, which I still have. I you know, a lot of the business for me, it's it's the it scratches the itch of competing. I like to compete. Um and um but every every hour that you weren't on the job, you were you were you were doing born primitive, and obviously any weekend you were free, or you know, we'd be gone on work trips and we'd come back for a week, and you know, it was where most guys would hopefully try to reset on family stuff, you know. Mal and I were just working. Um, you know, we would I remember on a pre-deployment leave at we went to Hawaii um and we were there for like seven or eight days, and you know, just to kind of put in perspective like what the norm was for us, but I remember we would get up at four in the morning in Hawaii and work until noon. Um, and because we were I think Hawaii was five hours behind, so at four a.m. zero four hundred, all of our employees were starting the work day at nine. Um so we would go to a the you know, we would work, it's like still dark, obviously, then we'd go to a Starbucks down the street and we would work there till noon, and that was a full eight-hour workday. And then we would say, okay, now we can start our vacation day, right? So like what should have been like a normal vacation, yeah. We're getting up at you know four a.m. to to make sure that we work a full eight-hour day. Yep. We can't get behind on everything. Um and you're steamrolling at this point. Yeah, I mean, but that's when you know we still we're we're still you know kind of cutting our teeth and getting established. But I that's just one example of many. Or, you know, I would do a full day during workup, um, you know, which as a new guy was pretty stressful because you're still kind of under pressure to perform. And you know, we're doing CQC all day long into night runs, and you get back to your hotel, it's 10, 10:30 at night, and your adrenal system is smoked because you've been shooting live rounds in the house all day under high pressure, getting scrutinized from the rafters. Like, you know what I mean? Like you're you're on edge, especially as a new guy. Uh, and then I would get home back to the hotel. Most guys are obviously going to eat and crash out, and like, you know, because we're up early again for the next day of training, and like Mal's calling me and being like, hey, you know, we got to talk through this, this, this, and you know, we're on the phone for an hour talking through BP stuff, and then I open up my laptop and I got an hour of emails to knock out just to stay ahead of it, right? So that was the that was the pace for for a really long time. And you know, on deployments, it was actually that was like the best time to get work done because like you know, as you know, like on a deployment, a lot of your responsibilities are kind of taken care of. Like you can just show up to chow, right? Like in in like you don't have all these, like you don't have to go to a grocery store. Like, there's all of a sudden you have all this extra free time, but on deployments, you know, I'd be taking you know Zoom calls with my ad agency, you know, at one in the morning because of the time change, and they're in California, you know. Um, and um, you know, when I was on my my second deployment in CentCom, I remember like you know, things would usually wrap up around 9 p.m. and I would work from like 9 to 2 a.m. every night was kind of my battle rhythm for BP because I was everyone else back home was kind of online still. Um so I would schedule all my calls between you know 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. would be like my call window, you know, if anyone needed to take a call with me, like that was fair game. Um so it that was just that's just what it took, man. But it was it was constant, you know, all the way through. I even I remember this is kind of silly, but I remember we were we were down in Destin, Florida, doing some um some training. We were do we were doing like a big FTX, we were gonna like take down a ship, and we were in the the half package, you know, so they we were the Hilo Assault Force, and there was a bath package too. And the ship that we were gonna take down in this training exercise, it wasn't quite in position yet, um, you know, because like it was gonna go out like and do like racetracks, and we were gonna then hit it and like do a simo hit, whatever. Um, but it wasn't in position yet, so the you they came over the net, and the the pilot was like, hey, we're just gonna kind of do racetracks around Destin, you know, over the over the you know, the the Gulf right there until the ship is in position. It's gonna be about like 30 minutes, right? So most guys like, oh shit, like let me zonk out a little bit or whatever. Yeah, doors are open, typically, and I'm you know, I was on the edge. And so I remember I took my phone out of my like I had like an extra mag pouch, I'd keep my phone in, and I logged into my bank and I saw we like owed a supplier payment, you know what I mean? And it was like I think it was like 900 grand. So I like logged in and I like you know, I'm I knock out a few emails and then like I wire like 900 grand to like you're hanging out of a helicopter.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:42

Yeah, literally. And and and I and I just kind of like put my phone back and I'm like, man, if guys only knew like the shit I'm managing on the side here, like you know, that was a very casual thing, but I like then I just kind of hit me like, man, that is kind of wild.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:54

But it's the mindset at the time, like it's gotta get done. You're like, I need 30 minutes, let's grind some out.

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:58

Every minute matters. So, like, hey, if we have 30 minutes just to chill, um, and we're you know, we're just all gonna be shooting the shit and waiting for this ship to dig in position, like let me knock out a few emails on my phone. You know, obviously took my gloves off and like, all right, let me, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:10

Hold it out of the wash, yeah, yeah. Don't don't don't drop it, right? Yes, yes. Sat back in a little so I'm not in the wind doing one of those.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:17

Um and uh, you know, it was this, you know, there's you know, hundreds stories like that I could I could give of just you know, you you never could quite turn the other one off completely. Um, and that's just what you did, man. And and as I got more senior, it got more difficult, you know what I mean? Because like, you know, my when I when I was in my second uh second gig, I was over at uh special boat team 20 and I was a troop commander, so I was in you know in charge of like 30 plus guys, and uh, you know, you're starting to bring you got to brief the skipper, and like when we were on deployment, I you know, we would you'd have a VTC with a two-star, you know, every week. Like so you had to be you had to be a little bit more buttoned up and there's more responsibility, right? Um so it was getting harder to really manage that as well as then like running like what was becoming a real company. You know, by that point we probably had 40 or 50 employees, and there was real stakes on the line, you know, by the by the by the end of like my military service. Yeah, and that's when I realized like I couldn't do all of it, man, because I had a I had a daughter on the way. I have this growing company and I'm becoming more senior um as an officer. And I was like, it's it would be a disservice um to all three of those to be to continue to do all three, because there's there's no way I can be elite at all of them. I I you know, even if I put in the effort, like I'm probably gonna be at least not to the standard I would expect of myself at all three. Um so that's when I had to make the tough call. Like, well, I want to be definitely be a dad. I need to be present. And born primitive, I now have 40 or 50 employees that are depending on me to like help run the organization. And a, you know, the SEAL thing was great. Um, and I can be proud of my service, but there's not really anything happening in the world right now that needs our services. So uh that's what ultimately led me to to kind of um have to hang it up. Um, but um, but yeah, doing it it and once I was done to finally have like 40 or 50 hours a week that you could dedicate towards just one thing, I was like, oh my god, this is so much better.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:03

Have you ever gone back and looked at the trajectory of sales or just the growth of Born Primitive from when you got out and now you're giving it a hundred percent of your time? Did you ever go back through and look and see if it or was your wife at the time just crushing it?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:19

There really wasn't a correlation, man, because we we doubled every year for the first eight years of the business. Good for you. Almost dead on, like double. Like it was funny because we'd be like, we would joke, like, well, right, what's next year's goal? And we'd be like, you know the goal, double. And like every year, dude, it was it was wild how close it was within a one or two percentage points like every year. Um so but as what as I was getting out, we were actually starting to, I think, hit a little bit of a critical mass as a company as far as like the market we were saturated in, which is like mostly the CrossFit market. Okay. And that's where you know the the the first kind of big challenges came of like, okay, how do we how do we branch out credibly in other you know, niches and and and do it in a way that grows the ceiling of our business?

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:00

You guys focused and started in CrossFit fitness, that was the core of Born Primitive.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:07

100% was. And since CrossFit was kind of exploding at the time, we definitely got really lucky in the fact that we just so happened to start our brand in a space that was also growing in a similar manner. So like I I you know attribute a lot of our early growth just to the fact that we were right place, right time. You know what I mean? Like if we had gone into like, oh, we're gonna be a bodybuilding brand or well, you know, make up any, you know, any other kind of vertical you could put yourself in, it wouldn't have happened like it did because CrossFit was just you know on this explosive growth chart. Um, so we got really lucky there. Um, but as that started to kind of taper off, and we've kind of like, all right, everyone in that space knows us, like what's next. Um, you know, that's when I decided, hey, let's develop a training shoe, you know, a workout shoe, the savage one, which I'm so glad I did because that has completely changed our business. Like it's like the ceiling.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:53

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:53

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's our number one selling product. Not yeah, it's not even close. It's number one selling product. Um and uh interesting. I never wanted to do shoes because I was like, all right, that's highly technical, and I just don't have the like the expertise. Um, but just like anything, you can delegate expertise, right? And and we found these these shoe engineers that were really good that have you know uh done shoes for a lot of big companies. Ironically, there was another SEAL officer, and his dad is like pretty senior at that organization. So he ran in me at the hall in the hallway at one of the days at work and was like, dude, you know, my dad's been in the shoe industry for like 35 years, and I was like, No. And he's like, he's like, Yeah, let me like you guys should at least get on a call, but like you guys should definitely do shoes. And I was like, Well, I've always wanted to, man, but I don't know where the where the hell I'd start. So I got on a call with them, and you know, long story short, it led to the development of the Savage One, and then once we launched that, we launched that in June of 2023. It just it changed the business overnight.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:46

Which ones are you wearing?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:47

I like those ones. Those are so that's the Defender one. Okay, those will be launched next fall. So you got the sneak peek. And those ones I'm wearing, the black multi-cams, I probably shouldn't disclose this, will be next Veterans Day. So Veterans Day 2026, it'll be like a kind of a secret release. Those things are gonna kill. Um look, I saw I saw a couple of and I was like, you can't wear those. Yeah, so it's it's so we we made a high top savage one, but now we we made a modification. It'll be called the Defender one. It's it's a high top, it's like a it, it's if it's a sneaker, but it kind of can pass as a boot, right? And that's kind of what we wanted because guys want that. We had a lot of law enforcement because I posted that on Instagram, and oh my god, people were losing their freaking minds. Um, I couldn't believe it. And but a lot of guys were saying, hey, I'm like law enforcement, like if you get all black ones, I'll wear those like on duty. You know what I mean? So we'll we'll have an all-black one, but um, it just opened up a whole um footwear, opened up a whole new um door for us and in 2026, and we have a running shoe coming out, we have a barefoot trainer, we have like a sneaker, kind of like a Vans cool guy shoe. We have a tactical boot, the Patriot one, um, and and all kinds of other shoe styles that are will be coming out, and that'll just totally change the business as well. Because like, again, like how do you raise the ceiling on what you can do? Um, and that's ultimately what led to us launching Born Primitive Outdoor and Born Primitive Tactical. Um, because I was like, hey, we were credible in the crossfit space because we were one of them, and we were actually participating in that. Um, and you know, particularly with outdoor and tactical, I was like, all right, this is us as well. You know what I mean? Um, and now I wasn't some avid out outdoorsman, but I had you know gotten enough training in the military and you know, the the SEAL training that like I alright, I know enough to be dangerous in that space. Yeah, you know, I wouldn't say I'm a I'm a subject matter expert, but I I I know enough, but I also can align myself with people that do know enough, like an Aaron Snyder.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:33

Which I was just gonna say, which you guys did a phenomenal job. I think the stars align so perfect with his previous company, and then obviously transitioning to Born Primitive. I mean, if you if if somebody gave me a list of it, he would be number one on my list like hey, help me build this because I worked with him with a different outdoor brand, and he came in and restructured him, but they just never I would sit to be like, guys, this dude knows, like, listen to him, and they'd like go opposite, and they were just they weren't utilizing his expertise, and then when he called me, he's like, Hey, I'm working on something, born primitive. Like, I I want you to think, let me know what you think. And I'm like, Oh, I'm in. Like, if you're I followed him from Snyder and I go back a long ways. So every time he'd get an adventurer or me, he's like, dude, I'm in this. What do you think? And he so he called me with you guys. He's like, bro, this is this is the shit. And I'm like, Alright, cool, let's test it out. And that's when he brought me over on board. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:25

Yeah, you're rocking the quiver. Yeah, that's that's like one of my favorite items, by the way. Live in these things.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:29

There's I have a puffy and one of these in in every vehicle, every pack. Like, yeah, I don't leave up without him.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:34

Yeah, so we I got really lucky getting introduced to Aaron and basically, you know, I told him, kind of gave him the guidance of where we were at. You know, obviously we had by then we have product developers and product engineers that can like tee everything up. Yep, and then Aaron would take it into the field and and test it and then come back with feedback. And the good thing about Aaron is he actually knows a lot about apparel. Um so it wasn't some like you know, quote, influencer who like I'm you know, we need to leverage his name just to get reach. Like Aaron was actually instrumental in like um you know, every feature of the product, fit in the pockets, and for me it was like, all right, I I again I know enough, but if Aaron takes this into the field and comes back and says, like, for example, the Frontier pant, Aaron Aaron designed every pocket. And at first it was like, all right, the right quad pocket's different than the left, which was different for me. Like, usually the pot everything's symmetrical. Yes. And then once Aaron explained it and he's like, no, this is what I would run, I'm like, well, that's what you would run, then that's done. And then like you have final say, and then he, you know, he went up to British Columbia. You know, he always goes up to BC for like six, seven week hunts, you know, mountain, you know, mountain goat and stuff. And so he, you know, took our rain gear when we were T and E and developing that. Like, it was like, all right, there's no other environment that would you could better test it, right? So it just was good in validating the product and knowing that okay, when the end user gets this, um, we'll we'll be proud to put our logo on it because we've put it through the the the rigors on our end. And then same thing with the tactical stuff, you know. I just wasn't happy with the gear we were getting issued. One because I didn't think it was functional in in the way we needed it as like athletes, you know what I mean? But also, like some of the brands that were supplying us, like you know, we were getting a Patagonia loadout. It's like, guys, have you looked at like the politics of these companies? Like, they don't like us. Like they're like take your money, yeah. I mean, and they're like selling it to the government through like a like an intermediate company so they can be like, oh, like we'll yeah, we'll take it. Yeah, we'll take the hundred million dollar SOCOM contract, but like we we're not gonna like formally associate with uh you know SOCOM. So like that that like really rubbed me the wrong way because we were like the opposite. It's like, all right, I'm literally active duty, like trying to run a company, we're super patriotic, we give back to military. And it's like, yet, like we're we are not only like wearing this stuff, we're paying these companies to wear it. When honestly, they should be paying us, you know what I mean? And they don't even like us. So that planet of seed is like, all right, I think we can make this better, but also like maybe eventually guys would be more proud to wear a brand that's actually by one of them that like you know that actually gives a shit about their community.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:53

How'd you meet Bruno? Because Bruno heads that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That dude, he's on my hit list too. I gotta get him on.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:59

No, we gotta get him over here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:01

He is he's one of those guys that you look and you're like, you have seen some shit. And he's he's a lifer dude has been in I won't even go into his bio because it just goes on and on. But how did I mean I give you huge props because I feel a lot of business owners and I've seen it. God, I have seen this so much, and it's one of my biggest frustrations. But for you to point it out that some guy comes and meets you in the hallway, hey, my dad's got this connection. Let's go. Like, where do we go? Hey Snyder, I'm I like my pockets here, but Snyder's saying this, okay, I'm gonna listen to you. I don't know how many companies I've worked for tried to help to get on momentum, and you present everything to him as a as a subject matter expert, and they're like, Yeah, that's great, but we like this anyways. But the fact that you're able to sit back, you've grown this from nothing, and have enough pride in you and enough knowledge to be like, oh, cool, Snyder, this is your world, this is what you recommend, we're gonna run with that, and then now look at what your outdoor program is doing and the the people that are backing it and the quality of gear. I got a pair of pants from you guys, I got a full kit from you guys, and I wore it on one of the worst hunts of my entire life. It was a bear hunt in Pennsylvania. We I when they explained this hunt to me, I didn't even bring a gun. It was just more of like a bunch of Marine Corps buddies, and we were gonna meet up with a local friend that we were all deployed together. I didn't even bring a gun. I knew how miserable it was gonna be. We busted brush for six and a half hours. Mountain Laurel. Anyone from Pennsylvania knows mountain laurel, it's their state plant. It's Lucifer created this plant himself. You can't even see in front of your face, so I'm just crashing brush, and I just got your guys' gear. I'm like, I'm gonna shred this shit. Like, this is not gonna last. Dude, seven hours of that. I even had a puffy on at one point, not one. I was like, I messaged Snyder, I was like, bro, if if there was ever a test besides Canada rocks, we were living on boulders for a month or two at a time. This was I just I should have shredded any other gear, I would have 100% shredded. And I was like, he's like, dude, I love it. And I saw I was giving him a ton of feedback, and that's when I was legitimately sold. And I because at that point, people were asking, What do you think? What do you think? I'm like, dude, just give me a season or two on this, and I'll start giving. And then after that, I was like, sold, hooked. And because my buddies, I they bought some of my uh gear from the old company I was working with, and one of them blew out a caught a branch, ripped a whole pocket open. I mean, it was just it was a tough, it was brutal. You should be wearing like car hearts and the thickest, nastiest gear just because you're in it, and not a puffy jacket or any of you know my more of a lightweight stuff. And man, I was blown away by it. So the fact that you're listening to your your crew and your team shows a lot of to me of like, okay, this is how this is how you grow, this is how you get to this level. It's not just it's my company, it's my idea, go build what I want. You're bringing in these subject matter experts that are going, okay, guys, here's my dream, go build it, and then they're coming back to you and perfect, let's go.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:50

Yeah, because I mean it's so especially in in like those types of spaces, like it's so obvious to spot things when they're not authentic. You know what I mean? Um, and uh, so like you've got to go in and do it the right way. And that's why like I see some of these outdoor companies, and they're like they don't really show like hunting, you know what I mean? Like they're afraid to show, like, you know, it's like, guys, you know your market. You you think you're some if you post uh uh an image of a guy holding up a bull that he shot that all of a sudden you're gonna like alienate a bunch of your customers, like that literally is your customer. It blows me in, you know. We get into like these companies that raise a bunch of private equity dollars, and then the board's telling them they have to like you know add gender pronouns to their email signatures and shit like that. Like it it it it is a definitely a thing, and that's something we as a company have never had to deal with because it's just us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:38

You've never taken money, you've done this yourself. Yeah, we've done it ourselves, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:41

So we're we're family owned and and we call the shots, and you know, that ultimately comes basically, you know, I'm I'm the ultimate um you know decision maker. So um, but yeah, you know, same thing with tactical. We brought Bruno in. You know, Bruno was a a ranger turned Green Beret, turned 160th pilot, which for those that know the 160th, I mean they're the best in the world. Yeah. Um, and then um his last 11 years, he was uh at a tier one unit um and uh you know as a kind of a liaison and doing all kinds of other things once he left the 160th. So he ended up doing 41 years in the service. It was um pretty much all of that in a special operations capacity. So when he came in, um Tactical was you know, we it was in progress, but it wasn't there yet. Yeah. Bruno really helped us take it um to you know, kind of across the finish line. And when we do in our flagship product was the op assault pant. That was like our you know, our this is gonna be our main thing, and then we have an op top to go with it. And the idea was like, all right, how do we create an op pant that like is made for athletes? Yep. You know, with mobility in mind, all the the little things that we need for it, like we need to take that into account. No, we had a huge advantage because me and quite a few other guys at Born Primitive, you know, have a special operations background, and of course Bruno did too. But though we also have a bunch of guys down the road that we can say, hey, try these, you know what I mean, for a come back to us in a week and we're getting real feedback. So when I compare our situation to see these, some some of the these other big established tactical companies, huge advantage for us because a lot of those, even though they're big and established, they don't have that direct access to like the commute, the the the actual end user that will use it. I think they have probably product developers on staff that think they know what guys need, but you you know, things change too, and the needs change. So I think that really set us up for success, but also just the the credibility that came with our all right, these guys are one of us, you know what I mean. This isn't some brand trying to swoop in with private equity dollars and like, oh, we're gonna carve out market share in the tactical space. It was like, no, hey guys, like we were one of y'all at one point, um, and we think we can do it better than the competitors, so like you're we're gonna we're gonna you know take a shot at it. And so far it's been very well received. Um I I think it's you know, I'm say this with some reservation, but I think it's only a matter of time before we we have a significant disruption in that market. Um I would argue it's it's already happening, but um I I would hope you know over time and you know we keep doing what we're doing, guys will recognize that um the expectation of the gear they can get from us, if the if the logo is on it, I can promise that we have put it through the rigors ahead of time. So one example is we're launching our Patriot one like like tactical boot in in February. Um actually I think we're gonna debut it at Shot Show, so that would be January. Um and that's something Bruno and I and the team wanted to develop is basically a lot of us would wear Solomons, and you know, they're obviously a great company. Um I don't want to throw shade on them, but since they're a European company, the toe box, and it's it's a very narrow shoe, particularly the toe box, and as we're Americans, like we're a little bit beefier, man. Um and you know, you'd want to kick those things off at the end of the day. Like that was the first thing you want to do is kick those Solomons off.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:40

Fast as possible.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:41

So we're like, all right, can we make a better version for for for you know again for for guys like us? Um so we we redesigned um uh a tactical boot that you know carries a lot of the same traits, but our own our own uh features. And we went through, I think we're we we we got to 11 prototypes, which you know that that ended up being like a two and that ended up being like a two and a half, nearly three year rollout where like we should we we sh we had to show patience because it's like all right, if we come out with this and it's like eight, eighty-five percent good, but not a hundred percent, like that's our one shot, you're dead in the water. So, like, hey, if we need to delay this another year, year and a half and do four or five more rounds of prototypes, like we're not gonna um so there were little things that were popping up that like again, I don't think other companies would have spotted or cared about. Like, for example, the outsole on on one of the like when we we were like on version seven, so we're like, oh, we're close, like it's it's starting to look really good, like we think we're there, and then we're wearing it around the office, and we're noticed that the outsole is like squeaking a little bit, like on the hallway floors, yeah. And we're like, shit, like that ain't gonna work because like if you got a whole like you know, squad or fire team like flooding down a hallway, bunch of squeaks coming up. Like, yeah, you know what I mean? Like, imagine you know, we need to think of the end user, like, or imagine how ridiculous that would sound if like you know, you got like a platoon like patrolling across the street real quick to like and you hear this like it's the middle of the night. So we actually went back to Vibram and because they make the outsole with the obviously they're an awesome company. We're like, hey, we need like some sound mitigation. Like, what's an outsole compound that you have that would would be the quietest that you have, but still have like the puncture proof, all this. So they tend they sent us like four or five new outsole options, and we tested them all out, you know, literally like simulating going down a hallway, and we found the one that was like super quiet. Yeah, so I was like one more thing, but okay, now it delays you five more months.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:25

So when you're developing a shoe like this, is it expensive getting new prototypes every time? I mean, yeah on because it every little change, every color, I mean, you're kind of starting all over again. I mean, is it it's not like you're just like, oh hey, let's build a new boot. There's a lot of the lot that goes into developing just changing a zipper on something of pants that I've seen in the industry. Like, what's it like for a shoe?

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:48

Yeah, it can be. Yes. Like if you have to like say change the outsole mold and they've already done the mold, like each mold for every half size is like three grand. Okay, right. So like imagine if you did an entire size run of molds, and then like you're like, oh, we need to like change the swing of this a little or whatever, and they're like, All right, well, that's gonna be you know, however many hundreds of grand that it's gonna be. Um but usually the shoe designers, like, unless it's one of those things, if you're making tweets to the upper, like they they'll work with you. Um but those are all things that we had to go through. Um, and because again, it's like imagine if you you just order 10,000 units of this shoe, and a bunch of dudes are stoked, you know, you got good brand momentum, like oh BP just launch a new boot, and then you have a bunch of guys wearing it on the job and everyone's squeaking down the hallway. You're dead, you're dead, right? So you have to so Bruno would send it out to guys that were on different continents. We we jumped it, we swam it, you know, we'd put fins over it, and like, you know, we and we we worked out. I mean, we would just take it to the gym and do butcher sled pushes, like we did we put it through everything because we know guys are gonna work out in this too, like when they're deployed and they don't want to have you know, like they're just gonna work out in your your uh you know the boots you're wearing. So we did all that, and then the last test we had to do, there's a fast rope strip on on the interior of each shoe, um, you know, so guys can fast rope. Um, you know, obviously, because of all the friction and and you can burn through the the the boot real easily. So they did an abrasion test in a lab and it outperformed our competitors uh fabric. I I won't even name names anymore, but you probably figure out who I'm talking about. So, like, all right, in a lab, this is actually how the abrasion test came back better, and we're like, check, that's a good sign. But we're like, we have to test that in person before we can sign off on this. Like, there's no way. Yeah. Um, because I've I have fast roped onto a ship and burned completely through the outsole and the midsole. I was wearing a Nike boot when they they made the Nike free outsole. There's they're cushy and they're comfy, but do not wear them fast roping. Um, so you know, I I'm an idiot that like had burned through all the way to my sock basically on a you know, a fast rope.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:42

But then you're thinking about it the whole time. You're like, is there's a damn hole in my there was, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:46

But of course, I didn't know until I hit the deck and I like why are my feet hot? It's because and I looked down and the the midsole and outsole's just gone.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27:53

Melted.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:53

Um, so again, being the end user once, I that's I I understand the need there. So what what Bruno did is we ordered like five sets of samples, which were expensive, and again, they're like, hey, this is gonna delay it like three more months. And we agreed we have to test this in real life. Like, I I can't trust some nerd in a lab. Um, so we rented a Black Hawk out in Tennessee. We we we paid for four blade hours, um, which was 50 grand. Um, and it was me and Bruno and um Blake Cook and Kyle Morgan Um and I and I think Kurt was with us. So all guys with experience in that world, except Blake had actually never done a fast rope or uh or he that so he he was the one kind of newbie to that, but the rest of us obviously had a lot of experience doing that. And for four hours we did just real fast ropes from that hilo. Um, full gear, full kit, you know, weapons, helmets, body armor, the whole thing, plates. Um, and because we're like, and we want to break this shoe and see if we can do it. And then Kurt and Bruno at the very end, they went that we had 90 foot ropes, so they went up to like 75, 80 feet on the last one. Damn, and they did it. They did like an 80-foot fast rope because obviously like you're probably never gonna do that in real life. Like, if you're fast roping from 80 feet, someone probably fucked up the planning. Um, so but we wanted to overdo it. All right, if it can survive like the the burn of an 80-foot fast rope, like we can we can sign off on that. That feature's good. Sure. Right. So we did all that, and like I I only give that as an example of like that's the extra mile like the team took to make sure, okay, by the time this thing launches, and which will now be you know in January of 2026, which took forever, we can say, All right, it is good to go, and every little contingency we've thought of, right? Um, because then you know that's how you establish credibility and that's how you build a foundation of customers where guys put it on, they go, Oh, check. Man, they they thought of that one, you know what I mean? Um, so um that's how that's how we've approached everything recently, and obviously all the hunting stuff is the same way, and that's why Aaron's been so valuable. Um, because we'd rather delay something six months before you know. If we if we miss hunting season for a new product, it's like, guys, then we miss hunting season. I know it sucks, and it would suck to launch like a new product in like January for the outdoor space, but hey, if we can't. Launch it in August and it's not ready, then like you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:02

So the fact that that's your mindset, that that's not normal. I don't feel like that's normal at all. Especially in the world that I've been in when the hunting industry apparel get get get this in, get it out, get it. You know, I've I worked for a company and we got a whole they didn't even do God bless them, they didn't even do like a prototype run on them. They just ordered it and I told them I was like, guys, the belt loot the belt band needs to be higher because you bend over, your butt cracks hanging out, you're sitting in glassy, I'm getting dirt down my ass, crack like shit like that. Just the stuff that like that bugs me, and I'm going to them with these these hey, this is what we need to fix. Like, oh, we'll do it on the next round. And then this this pant goes live and it just flops because people are immediately returning and uh and they're like, we don't understand, we're not even selling. I'm like, guys, I gave you the heads up. Like, this is how it I would have changed X, Y, and Z on these, but you have one shot, especially in these tight-knit communities, the hunting community, that this the tactical world. Oh my god, you one mistake and you're branded, you're done. Yep. And so the the fact you guys are realizing this, and you there's not this your motivation isn't the sale immediately. It's hey, let's build the best quality product we can put out, and that'll follow along. That's just that just falls in tail with everything else. If you're building the foundation of proper products, I feel like. And that's that's what guys want, especially the true dudes. You guys are here and you got a bunch of vets, you got some of the heavy hitters for every industry working for you. It it it doesn't know good if you're just rushing product to get it out the door to make some sales.

SPEAKER_02: 1:31:31

Exactly. And for us, man, since we've never raised capital, yeah, like it's it's an it's it's a we have to do that because we don't have like the the giant marketing machine, some of these like private equity backed companies do. Yeah. Right. Um, so like that's like we have to hang our head on the product because we need the customers to come back for a second purchase. That's how the math formula works. You know what I mean? Um, if you put you know a ton of money into product development and then the the initial marketing push, like the only way that math maths if is if people are happy with the product and come back. And you know, with each each iteration you do, if you get that right, well, you start to build a foundation of of wow, those guys actually like have a reputation for putting out good stuff. And that's why we've expanded into like, you know, we got the flannels now, and we just launched our campfire collection, which is my favorite, you know, we got jeans and flannels and denim jackets and like basically every aspect of my life that I needed clothing for. I was like, well, let's make stuff for that. So we've why not? We've we've we you know we took that same approach and you know, we like stuff that stretches, so pretty much everything we have stretches, like like the start stretchy flannel. I was like, I was always sick of getting flannels that would get all droopy and like that, you know, get all and it's like, why don't we find a flannel that's thick but stretches? Like that's so stupid.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:40

Like it's this is not that who would have thought that's not that innovative, and it's like sure enough, like there weren't really any out there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32:45

So um, yeah, I think we've approached that the right way, but I think equally important is this the position of the brand. And um, you know, we've we've always tried to be true to our values. Yep, and people always ask, like, you know, on other podcasts and stuff, like, how did you come up with like the the brand traits of Born Primitive? And it's like, guys, I'm not creative enough to to to create a fictitious thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:07

The brand traits are just malarianized like values portrayed through a brand, which is the easiest business plan ever is when it's just this is what I believe in, this is what I want, let's make it the best quality possible. You're not acting, you're not trying to put on a persona like this is who we are. We're you just do you do what you believe is the right way to do it, and it makes life so much easier that way instead of trying to fake it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:32

Exactly. So, you know, that you know, being you know, both from the Midwest, you know, we love America, we love our country and what it stands for. You know, we'll always support the military first responders. Um, you know, we reject the victim mentality that I think has infiltrated our society. You know, you only get what you earn, you work your ass off. Um, you know, the world doesn't meet anyone halfway, you got to go out and get it. Um so that became the born primitive mentality. Um and uh so you know you have the product side, but that's more the brand side. Okay, what do you actually stand for?

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:01

Um and I think that has also been a good differentiator for us because over time people have recognized how consistent that's been and that we haven't wavered an inch. You know, particularly there was a time when you know, obviously the um the the the issues with like you know people that were turning their backs on our law enforcement community and just the shit that they were taking for for and you know you could argue they still are, but there was a you know a period of time obviously when like I feel like our whole world, the whole our society lost their goddamn minds and you know they're defunding the police and you know, fuck the police and all this stuff. And we had always supported the police and had donated to charities that supported the families of fallen officers and things like that. And I'm getting hate mail, you know, on DMs, my personal DMs, being like, You guys sell thin blue line gear, you should be ashamed, you're a racist, you're a bigot, you're I'm you know, we're gonna ban you in our gyms now. Like, I I remember I had a CrossFit owner in in like the biggest gym in New York City DM me and was like, if you don't denounce the police, I'm banning you from my gym and I'm not gonna let anyone wear born primitive in my gym anymore. And you and he he's like, you he's like, you have 24 hours to comply. I'm like, oh, what is this? A hostage negotiation? Like, first of all, fuck you. Second of all, I'm gonna run my company. How you know it's it's gonna be run, it's gonna be the values. We're not gonna waver because some snowflakes are trying to hold me hostage on Instagram. Um, and I'm said, if you're gonna if you're gonna try to stereotype a million law enforcement officers in this country because of the acts of a couple people, an extremely high stress job that you know has split split second decisions. Because guess what? I I never you know was able to do this in real life, but we did enough uh situation training that you go in a room and you don't know what you're gonna see and you have to react with the proper force continuum, how difficult that is, and you know what I mean? And you're you're expecting someone that has one fiftieth of the training that I've had to across an aggregate of a million officers to always be making the right decisions in the field, like you're fucking crazy. Um doesn't mean you can't work to improve it, but if you're gonna alienate a million law enforcement officers and tuck and all of a sudden we're turning our back on them and saying, you know, fuck the police, if you're expecting that from my brand, well then you know you can go shop noble, I'm sure they'd love to have you, but that ain't born primitive. Like, dude, I'm still active duty. I'm I'm I'm texting this to you as I'm at an airfield about to jump out of a plane. Literally. You know what I mean? Like I'm in I'm in between jumps, DMing this this douchebag, right? Those were the things that were coming at us. Um and when it's just you and you know, when it's just me and Mal, like that really didn't affect me because it's like all right, it's just us, but like when you have like 40, 50 employees, that actually can rattle you a little bit because you have to start thinking about the organization and like making sure you can keep people employed and actually run a successful business. And you get enough of those people chirping at you, man, it it does it can affect your confidence on on the path you're on a little bit because you're like, well, hey, do we need to tone down the rhetoric a little bit? Do we need to kind of and you know you think about that for all of like 30 seconds and then you're like, no, fuck that. But but it does, it it does mess with you a little bit because you're it's not about you anymore. You it's like now I'm in charge of you know, um maintaining the tone of an organization that you know now employs people. You know, by that time, like people had uplifted their families and moved across the country, and like you know, we're employing the husband and the wife, and I'm thinking of okay, well if they just moved out here. So it there's more pressure on you to make right the right decisions, but ultimately, thank God we never wavered. We actually doubled down and we were like, no, we're gonna do the opposite, we're gonna donate more money to charities for fallen police officers, we're gonna show support to them, we're gonna, you know what I mean? We're gonna embrace like the difficult job, and um you know, it's like it's such a hard job, and I don't think law enforcement gets enough credit, man. And you know, you and I as as both as service members, we get you know thanked for our service, and you know, people acknowledge the sacrifice, and it's like, dude, don't thank me. Go thank a fucking cop. Right. Um, go thank a firefighter, like because that guess what? They're seeing this stuff on the on daily on the job. You know, it's like there might be a police officer that had to respond to a call for uh, you know, a four-year-old that drowned in the in the in the family pool in the backyard, and he has to show up and he sees a mother liter literally devastated, screaming, and in that you gotta pull this kid out of a pool, and then the firefighter shows up. Like, okay, now they have to go home to their wife and kid that night and try to act normal, or they see a fatality on a traffic accident, right? Or uh, you know, obviously there's you know, the block pop pops off and there's something, you know, they get there's a shooting. Like these are the things that you know they're carrying around every day, and then you know, at least with us on deployments, you deploy and then you come back, right? So it's like uh whereas this, it's they have to now be it's every day. So I just you know, as a veteran, I'm always like, man, that we're as a society, we're getting this wrong, man. Like, you know, while we appreciate the the the the acknowledgement and you know the veteran discount and active duty board early and all this stuff, it's like we should be doing that for our law enforcement and for our first responders, I think, because they I think they carry a heavier burden on us. Um and anyway, so that that was just that was a period of time, man, where it it really tested our resolve as far as our brand values. But man, when we came out of that, and I think when our society sobered up a little bit and that that insanity kind of subsided, it it it was good to know, okay, we were on the right side of that one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:09

These dudes didn't bend a knee.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:11

We didn't bend a knee. And and and I saw, you know, especially during like the COVID and and all the like I saw all of our competitors doing the opposite.

unknown: 1:39:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 1:39:19

And I was just like, man, you know, they're they got all this private equity money, they've raised, you know, tens to some north of a hundred million dollars, and we're competing in the same space, and now they have all these new rules. And hey, if you don't get the vaccine, you're fired, and all this, and you know, they they they're not doing like the the Fourth of July posts anymore. Oh, because you don't want to like recognize the exact it was dude, it got crazy. I remember the one 4th of July they were gonna like ban 4th of July, and it was like they were gonna call it like black 4th of July or something. It was something where they were gonna say, like, we're not celebrating our country because it's so flawed, and it was just like, all right, well, guys, we're we're gonna celebrate Fourth of July.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:55

Is it have you seen not the shift gears, but like you've grown a hundred million dollar company from your garage, you've gone through every single phase to get to where you guys are at now. Is it hard in your position now to look over this company? Because it's not just you and Mel, right? Mal and Mel. It's not just you and her. Now you have families that are dependent on you, you have businesses, smaller businesses that are now probably you've hired on, they're sewing, they're putting pieces together, whatever it may be. Now, as a CEO of a hundred million dollar company, I mean, what what is what scares you about this? Because it's not all glamoured. I don't care how big and successful a business is, there's hard parts of it. What is that at your level?

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:44

Um a lot of it now is once you have a target on your back, people will be opportunistic to that. So, you know, we've had three lawsuits just this year that I've had to fight um that are completely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:57

If you don't mind me asking over what, I mean, I know you probably can't get it. No, no, I can't.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:00

I don't care at all. So uh for anyone that has an e-commerce company, um, there are law firms out there that use a software and they comb everyone's website. And if there is one part of your website, one page that is off and it's not ADA compliant, so American Disability Act, and a blind person that that is using like a blind software, and I don't understand fully how it works, but like I think they have a software that like scrubs the site and gives them input so they can still like you know shop and have the opportunity to explore the site like a like anyone else would. Well, if you're a web developer, let's say you ab at one page and he messes one little thing up. One click, one little thing, they these law firms are just scrubbing everyone's site at all times and it will identify these pages that are not like ADA, technically ADA compliant. What they'll do is they will find a blind guy who's in on the racket, and they say, Hey, we're gonna file like 500 lawsuits to on different companies, and you're gonna be the plaintiff for every one of them. And we're gonna give you a cut of the settlement. We know that they're probably gonna settle for X amount of money, they're not gonna want to go to court, so they just literally copy and paste a lawsuit and they file lawsuits on like 500 companies at once, right? And so you get this thing in the mail, and that this one literally the guy's was claiming like he had night sweats and PTSD because he couldn't buy a tank top, because like uh our tank top that page like had one little thing wrong, and and then guess what? We got another one three weeks later, same bullshit, just a different person, right? Um, and then we got another one, a guy um in Florida, he couldn't unsubscribe. So when you get a text message, the promotional text, you know, they always say like reply stop to stop receiving, like they all do, right? Well, he couldn't, he wanted to be able to call the phone number, tell the the on the phone, hey, I don't want to get these anymore, instead of just literally replying S T O P via text message, the easiest thing ever. Um and it's since it's not a like a landline, you can't call it because it's like a it's like a short code. It's it's you know what I mean? So you there's you can't call it. So we got sued because he was distressed and had PTSD and emotional distraught, blah, blah, blah, because he couldn't call a number to unsubscribe from our text message things, even though he literally signed up on our landing page and subscribed to receive promotional text messages. So this is the type of bullshit you start to deal with when you get bigger. Um, there's also a risk with employees who leave and say, Oh, I know how well they're doing, and oh, and then they get filled with the victim mentality of like, oh, I was wrong because of XYZ, check any box you want. And then they find some lawyer, oh, we can well they'll they'll we can get 80 grand from them because they're not gonna want to go to court because they'll have to spend 200 grand in court and just the allegations of you know something could so you start getting those spun up, even though we're really um good now with like making sure like our hiring practices and like everything's documented and like and we don't give a shit about anyone's background, man. It's like if you show up and you put in the work, like you know, I don't give a damn about your gender, your sex, your sexual orientation, your race, none of that matters. It's a merit-based organization. And I'm proud when you look across our our organization, you can see that it's like, hey, dude, we didn't hire you because you checked a box, we hired you because like you're you're really good at what you do and you're bringing a lot of value to the organization. Yep. Right. Um, and and so it's it's a little frustrating when um just the scare of like, okay, we just let this person go. And like, are we gonna be getting a letter in the mail in three weeks? Like, I I got a letter in the mail, and someone said, I'm like, I'm gonna I I want 20 million to settle, otherwise I'm gonna sue you. And it's just like, all right, fuck off. Like sue us. Like, you're you know what I mean? Uh and but again, those you get this FedEx envelope, it's a normal day, it's a Tuesday, and all of a sudden you're reading this, you know, 20-page thing saying, like, how you know I'm entitled to$20 million, or I'm gonna like, you know, get a lawyer and we're gonna see you in court, sort of thing. So the the normal battle rhythm of what you're used to changes a lot, and then you're dealing with banks, you're dealing with lawyers, you're doing like it's just it's just the you're you're solving a lot of problems that no one else sees, um, and it's because you have a target. And that's why I kind of use the analogy, like, hey, you know, as the castle gets bigger, like you know, that that castle on the hill that everyone sees, like, is is more desirable to take down, right? So we gotta we gotta we gotta widen the moat, we gotta put more archers in the watchtower, thicken the walls because they're coming. And I even you know, I've talked to Mal about this, you know, because she gets stressed out over the lawsuits and stuff too. And I said, Mal, we need to accept that this is now normal. Uh we need to expect four or five lawsuits every year. This comes with the territory. So we've got to thicken our skin, we got to fortify our organization, and I will be the one to go to leave the walls and fight it. Like I will, I'm that guy, I'm happy to do it. So you you keep running the operation, but we just have to know it's it's it's there's a target on our back, people are opportunistic, it's the way of the world. So get used to it because these three or four lawsuits is not an anomaly, it's it's now the status quo. Um, so those are the things that kind of stress me out because like what if someone you know um gets a judge that you know says, Oh, we now owe them$10 million, even though it's not true, and like, oh, you were prejudiced about some hiring prior, you know what I mean? And now I have to appeal it, and that's an appeal for two more years, and I spend 600 grand in legal fees, and then you know what I mean? And you now you have to have this cash reserve because you don't know, like those are the things that those are the what ifs that really worry me of like what if something happens totally outside of our control that like literally just takes all the work we've done and throws it up in flames. Um and then so but you you can only control what you can control, man. Right? So you just have to you have to know you know that that's the that's now the new um environment you're working in and make adjustments uh to to best put yourself in position to not have to deal with that. So that's I mean, that's that's the kind of the the cheesy stuff that um you know my employees don't really see that like you know when I close my door in my office and I gotta take a call, like a lot of times it's shit like that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 1:46:51

So I wish it wasn't so though.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46:54

I mean, you get it and people wouldn't be coming after you if you weren't doing it right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:46:58

Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46:58

You know, or or gotten to a point where now they could play the victim card off of, but it is what it is, man. I mean, lonely at the top. So what's your favorite part about running a business uh that you've grown into the size that it is?

SPEAKER_02: 1:47:13

Well, this might sound a little cliche, man, but it the my biggest fulfillment and satisfaction now comes from the give back stuff that we do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:21

Okay. I want to I want to touch on this. Cool. So like I said earlier in the conversation, one of the only reasons I even wanted to entertain this this conversation, I was super excited to have you on, is because of what you're giving back to the veteran community. And like I said, I've worked with hundreds of companies over the last 12, 13 years that wanted to help and support vets and law enforcement. And it's really sad from a charity point of view, from someone that I started this organization because I saw dudes rotting in hospitals, I'm literally putting them on my back and running up and down mountains with them because I didn't I felt like nobody was helping them. So I started a charity thinking everybody in the world wants to help wounded veterans and cares. And then we quickly found out the majority of people don't give a shit. It's about marketing, it's about eyeballs, it's about raising money, making themselves look good, they're the hero, and at the end of the day, they could honestly give a flying fuck about a wounded veteran or a cop. And I'm speaking just from my experience of working with in industries, all sorts of industries, all sorts of companies. When you guys came along and I saw these campaigns that you were starting to do, that to me is when I put a target on you guys. I was my radar, you guys may hit my radar because I always want to see. I've I've worked for companies that have done hundreds of millions of dollars in apparel, and they don't give a f they they could care less. And I've I've I've sat in these conversations, and they were they're honest with me. Hey, listen, this is why we're bringing you on. We want this, you do it, we don't care. You just make us look good. And I'd come home and be like, fuck these guys. Like, okay, I'm gonna take the we're gonna do good with this money, we're gonna help the veteran community, but they don't care. I'm not selling out, we're not gonna be loyal to these guys. So then when I see Born Primitive, we're gonna donate five million dollars this year. I'm like, well bullshit. Like, who are these dudes? Okay, you're on my radar and I'm watching and I'm seeing, and I and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, we're now matching this. Hey, we're going to do this. Hey, next year we're doubling it. We want to do 10 million, and then I hear, hey, born primitive, we're gonna donate. We want our goal is to hit 25 million to help pay back medical relief on vets and their bills. And I'm like, get at there. No, like these guys are full of shit. And everything that I have watched, we've researched, I've followed, like in the shadows. Like, okay, like if these guys are who they truly are, I want to know this. And that to me is what take, and I'm not throwing shade and I'm not downplaying the success that you've had by building your fitness line and launching outdoor and tactical and growing this hundred million dollar company. That that's great, bro. Like, that's your world. When I see somebody that's claiming they want to help and give back to the community and that they're truly doing it, it's a rarity, man. And I personally want to thank you, even though you don't support my organization, we're retiring it this year. I'm not this isn't some pity that I didn't want money any because it's going away. I want to thank you from a charity point of view that it is very hard and it sucks working with so many companies over the years that just truly do not care about vets, but to watch what you guys are doing where you're actually making a difference. I've had I posted something last year, the year before, like, hey, these guys are doing this. I had several vets that saw that video, applied for your guys' uh medical relief fund, and they messaged me like, dude, this changed my life. This I'm able to now get my family fed more often. Like, we are our whole entire paychecks, my VA bill, every or my VA uh disability, everything's paying my medical bills because the VA is not covering this. Now I have all these veterans just for me helping, like, hey, dude, Born Perimeter is doing this. You're a vet, reach out. And now I have this these this overwhelming amount of vets reaching back to me. Like, dude, thank you for putting that out there. So I want to thank you because it I'm seeing what's happening in the trenches with these vets of working with disabled vets, working with vets that are battling cancer and crazy things that have happened to them that the VA isn't covering and they don't have the the funds or the ability to do it. So the fact that Born Primitive is has stepped up to the plate and is absolutely crushing the give back program that I I couldn't even. There's no other there's nobody on your guys' shelf when it comes to giving back. And I know this sounds like a huge like kiss ass moment, but I get nothing out of this except for this conversation. So I want to make that very clear because it honestly like it means a lot. And the wife and I have talked about it from the beginning. Like, that's why I have no problem putting your guys' logo on. Cool, you go you've you've got a badass team and you build badass gear. Personally, I could give a fuck. I I I want to know the roots. I want to know the the what is behind this driving factor of giving back and changing lives, and you guys are doing it. So, how did this start and and where is it going? Because there's a lot to what you you guys aren't just, hey, we donated five grand to help this charity. You're you're dropping tens of millions of dollars to give back to the veteran law enforcement first responder world.

SPEAKER_02: 1:52:25

Well, it started, you know, in the very beginning, we always Mal and I thought like this has to be more than just making apparel, right? Like we have to, you know, in the early days, of course, the the the number of digits on the checks we were writing weren't as as many, right? You're still scrappy and bootstrapping your business. Sure. But but the but the sentiment has always been there from the beginning. Um and as we've grown, um, you know, it's like all right, the the the our obligation um to give back it you know has to be there, right? And it's it's kind of nice that you know I don't need to be validated by fancy things. Yep. Um, you know, I think part of that's my Malinized Midwestern upbringing. You know, it's like, dude, I was I was mowing lawns and drinking out of a garden hose. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not gonna be the guy that needs a house in Malibu and need to be on these magazines of like like dude, I'm always gonna be a simple guy. You know, I I drive a used F-150. I could definitely probably buy a much more expensive car, but I'm good. F-150 is all I'll ever need, man. You know what I mean? So I'm uh so I think our our our our reasons were were never um, oh, I need to have this you know giant financial success. Now, of course, you know, you hope you know you can secure your financial future for your family as the provider, um, but you can also do a whole lot of good with the platform you've built. So as as the platform has gotten bigger, I've continued to okay, how do we get creative to leverage the audience we have to do good for others? Um and it's not just um it's not just a punchline, it's it's it's it's at the core of who we are. Um so you know, I was proud, you know, up to you know a couple years ago, I think we did the math and we had donated about two million dollars to charity. And you know, we did the thing during COVID where we donated over 200 grand to gyms like all of across the country that were closing. We started up like a little profit sharing fund and it was a really cool thing. Um, and so it had always been there, but um, last summer, uh it was actually last June, um I kept getting hit up by by a guy, uh his name's Eric, and he uh works for a company called Forgive Co. And he and him his dad actually runs it, so so I think Eric is like the second in command there. And uh, you know, I kept ignoring him because I I get a million emails a day. And he actually were the way he got me, so he played offensive line at Georgetown. Okay. And we played Georgetown. So I played against him. So we pulled up, he found old game film of when we paid played Georgetown, and I had gotten a one-handed interception that game. Okay, so he found that clip and sent it to me an email. I was like, dude, we played against each other. Like, you gotta give me 30 minutes. I was like, all right, that's pretty fucking creative. Like, let's get on my council.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54:48

That's what it takes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:54:48

So we we got on, and he was like, hey, you know, um, you know, we work with Verizon and you know, all these big look, you know, companies about like, you know, this give back thing with uh you know paying off medical debt or just debt in general. Um and I think you should look at it. I was like, well, hey man, I'm not really in the business of like paying off people's bills for no reason, because I don't know the context. Like, what if a guy bought a Ford Raptor and you know he's an E5 and like you know, he like I'm not paying off his$60,000 truck because he was an idiot and like you know, or or the Camaro across the street at 30% interest.

SPEAKER_03: 1:55:16

Yeah, you know, like we know it. All you E4s listening, don't do it. Don't the 29% interest is not good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:55:23

They're gonna do it anyways.

SPEAKER_02: 1:55:24

Talk to your e your senior listed, you're sort of like don't buy the rings either.

SPEAKER_00: 1:55:28

We don't need engagement rings.

SPEAKER_02: 1:55:30

Um, so yeah, make them go through a deployment first before you do that. Um so so where where was oh so um but I said, hey, what if we got creative? I said, I'm intrigued by this though, but could we do veterans? Okay, like how like how much detail could you go in on the depth or on the debt debt? And I said, What if we did veterans in and I want it classified as medical debt? Is that possible? He said, give me 24 hours to get back to you. And he got back to me and said, Yeah, we can actually do that because we can start by DOD ID number, and then like medical debt is a classification of debt, so we can actually apply those exact filters and give you a list of anyone that meets that. Um and I said, Dude, let's do that this year, because we every Veterans Day we would donate a bunch of our profits. Like I think the previous year we had donated like a hundred grand to I think we split it four ways to four different veteran charities. Um and we'd always do like a four or five day sprint where we would pledge like a bunch of sales and profits and stuff, and you know, up to a cap and you know, just to kind of get people fired up or you know, um, and do something different that isn't like a 20% off sale or something. Um, but I was like, we I think we can do better. So we had this idea of like, what if we try to pay off with a goal of five million in medical bills by the end of the campaign? So we know we pledged you know all every penny on the site until we reached that goal. Um, and I had no idea how it was gonna go. Um that's huge though.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:40

You're not coming out here, hey, we're born primitive, buy our gear, we're donating proceeds. When you know, and people are just like, hey, we're pro proceeds, it's usually that 10, 15, it could be higher, lower, whatever. But you guys came out hey, from this date to this date, a hundred percent of what we sell is going to help this this medical relief funds. And that's when I was like, holy shit, these guys that's when you could tell when people truly care. If you really are trying to support the mission in something that you believe in, you're like, cool, let's do a hundred percent. And I know not every business, and I'm not saying if you're not doing this, you're not doing it right, but the fact that you guys are doing this, no questions asked, hey, this next week, everything we raise, everything we sell, going to help out the veterans. That's that's when it's like, okay, you're you guys are making a true difference in this on a big level, and so that's that's what's awesome to me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:57:37

Yeah, so so it was well, thank you. Um, and and that's so that but that was again a wild idea. Hey, let's see how this goes. It's a little different than just cutting a check to a charity, although that's great. This is literally a dollar for dollar, like you know, if a guy's got a ten thousand dollar bill, it's gone. You know what I mean? There's no admin fees, like so. I was really intrigued by that. Um, and we were fortunate that um, you know, I was able to go on Fox News and we had a bunch of people promoting it for us, so it got some momentum. You know, it was a four-day campaign and it ended on Veterans Day. Yep. Um, and I remember we came back to work the next day. My brother's our CFO, and I brought Mal in and we kind of looked at things. We're like, hey, five million is great, but like we need to do more. You know what I mean? Like it, you know, we get so much like extra business from this. Like, you know, now and now it's this awkward, like, all right, well, now I almost feel guilty because like it was way bigger than I could have imagined. Also, though, Black Friday's right after this, and we just sold a shit ton of inventory that I would have made a lot of money on. So there's this weird image, there's this weird calculation of like, well, okay, this is a good problem to have, but like I kind of just fucked our sale for Black Friday, which is like the Super Bowl of the year. You know, we'll do like 15% of our entire sales in four days on Black Friday. So you have to be prepared for that moment. But we ultimately landed on we so we end up doing 11 million um in medical bills, which ended up being about 5,800 veterans uh were debt-free by Christmas. Yeah, um, so they all got a certified letter in the mail. Um, I was able to call quite a few of them, um, which was a lot more emotional for me than I thought. Absolutely. Because obviously these are just names on a spreadsheet, you know, and I don't see the names. Uh Forgive Co. runs that, but like, you know, once you talk with someone and you see the impact it has on their life, you you get hooked on the on the on the on the emotion. So, you know, one girl I called, uh, she was an army veteran, she was a single mother of two. Um, her bill wasn't that much, I think it was like 15 grand, but she had gotten uh T-bone driving to work and had to relearn all of her basic skills. Um, so she had to do a bunch of additional therapy beyond like the accident. Um, and she was already working two jobs. Um, you know, she's raising two kids by herself, and now she's like having to relearn how to walk and like her cognitive and all these things, but it didn't cover a lot of the therapy. So she had a$15,000 bill. Now her wages are getting garnished from both jobs. Her credit score is shot because once you go to collections, like your your credits. So if you try to get a loan on a car or heaven forbid you try to sign a lease to rent a condo for your, you know, the They won't approve you. You gotta find someone to co-sign. All these things happen. Um all your interest rates go up because your credit score. Um, so to be able to tell her, hey, um, you're you that that bill you had, we took care of it, it's gone, and then you hear silence on the phone and they start crying, that's pretty cool, man. Yeah. Um, and uh there were quite a few examples of that. There was another guy who was a Marine, um, he was a uh single father of three, had been partially paralyzed. His bill was 183 grand. And I was able to text him on on November 10th last year, which is the Marine Corps' birthday, which is cool. Yeah, on the Marine's birthday, like, hey man, I think you got a letter in the mail, but I'm just letting you know that's real. Like, it's not a that's not a hoax. Like, you know what I mean? And for you, man.

SPEAKER_00: 2:00:41

That's got to feel pretty good.

SPEAKER_02: 2:00:42

There were many stories like that. Another guy wrote me a letter, um, and basically was in the letter was saying, like, hey, I was kind of getting ready to consider taking my own life, and I asked God for like any sign to continue. And literally the next day, I got the debt relief letter in the mail saying, like, you guys paid off my medical bill. Um, and uh, and he so then he checked himself into rehab um and was like, I'm gonna try to get my life together. I'm trying to use this as like a springboard, like getting back on track. Um, and then on Christmas, you know, we sent him a bunch of stuff to rehab. We sent him like four grand in gear because like I knew he was gonna be alone in rehab on Christmas. It's a pretty lonely place to be. So we hooked him up and like so those are little micro examples that come from this of 5,800 people. Um, but I so I left that thinking, man, like this was definitely like a mission accomplished. We did well beyond what we could ever do, or I thought we could ever do, but like now I feel like there's meat on the bone because I feel like I didn't do enough because I know of those 5,800 people, there's probably another hundred, two hundred thousand that we didn't help. And this is a random list, it's a random selection. I can't control who it goes to. Um, so man, like I have a bigger responsibility now to make this bigger, and and I I need to leverage my access and placement to important people in the platform we build up born primitive to like put more uh horsepower into this next year. Um, so so I I I got uh in touch with Black Rifle Coffee. I was going on the Black Rifle Coffee podcast, and and Evan interviewed me, Evan, you know, their their founder, and when the camera stopped rolling, I said, Hey man, I need I need two minutes to pitch you on something. He was like, Yeah, what is it? And I gave him the elevator pitch on what we had just done, and I said, Hey man, I've been watching you guys giving back for a long time. I know you guys have a big megaphone. Like, why don't you join us on this next year? Um, and let's do this together and let's try to fucking more than double the number in in under two minutes. He said, Done. Like, tell me what you guys need. And like, I love the idea. We're in. Um, so that was in like you know, late last year. So, you know, throughout this year, we've been all been coordinating, and and so so basically for from November 7th to November 11th of this year, with 11th being Veterans Day, that'll be the final day. We are gonna try to get to 25 in total, 25 million in total. Um, Black Rifle will do 12 and a half million, we'll do 12 and a half million uh you know in in medical bills to pay off. Um, we've actually already done five million combined. Um, we we did that in quietly in July because I wanted there to be a bunch of recipients before the actual campaign that we could, you know, hopefully tell some of those stories um to help humanize the campaign. Because having done it last year, I was like, once you get like once you humanize this, it's so much more powerful. So I said we need to have some stories we can tell during like the art the campaign window. So people actually realize that the real people on the end of this that it's affecting. So it was actually pretty neat. One of the recipients on this five million dollar batch, um, Forgive Co. called us, and they're like, You're not gonna believe this. Um, one of the recipients, uh Gold Star spouse, um, her husband was an Army infantry guy, was killed. He was in a turret roadside bomb in Iraq in 06, was killed. Um, and she was an army veteran herself. They have two kids. She got in a really bad car accident, was airlifted, had like 18 plates put in her face, um, and was in the hospital, you know, a couple weeks, and her her bill there was 341 grand, and she's never been able to pay it. Um, and this batch paid it. Like, you guys, it's gone. Bill's zero. And they were like, Yeah, dude. So I got on the phone with Matt Best, you know, the other co-founder of Black Rifle, and I said, Hey man, I I think it would be cool. Like, why don't we hand deliver this girl the letter? Because like, this is like we got you know, this is like such an incredible story, and like the fact that she's a gold star spouse, and I've ever herself and they got two kids, and like this is you know what I mean. I was like, this is like this is why we fucking do this. So we flew out to Denver a couple weeks ago uh and met her, and we hand delivered her the letter. How was um it was awesome, man. You know, really emotional. Um, you know, I think a the big theme I'm kind of pulling from a lot of this is when people leave service, as you know, I think a lot of people feel like they've been forgotten a little bit, like they were almost expendable, and once your service is done, it's like get the fuck out.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 2:04:43

Um, and of course she's she's been out of the service for quite a while, and she was like, Man, this this really does like I really felt isolated and alone, but this really reminds me that like there still is kind of a brotherhood, and like you know, you still are part of a team. Yeah. Um, so for you guys to kind of like lend out a hand and like be she was like, This is like life-changing. She's like, I knew it was looming in the background, and I was just like, I think she kind of implied she was in a bit of denial, just like, hey, pretend it doesn't exist and like it won't. Yeah, but you know, she's like, I was worried if I ever had to sell my home and buy a new place, like you know, then that would come up and I wouldn't be able to like you know buy a house or whatever. So she get she was pretty emotional and it was like a really feel-good moment. And you know, we sent her a bunch of gear and like Black Rifle sent her a bunch of coffee and and we still text with her now and check in on her. So these are again, these are the stories, the micro examples of what this can do. Um, and uh but here's the deal, man. We can do better and we can go bigger. And us cutting a check obviously is a great thing. Um, and and and I I need to stress like I'm simply facilitating this. I I'm not actually doing the deed. The customers are doing that by by coming out and supporting. I'm literally the guy facilitating the funds and setting up in a way that you know allows us to have the impact with the partnerships with ForgiveCo and all that. So I I have to give all of the credit to the customers because that's that's why we're able to say, wow, we did 11 last year. Well, maybe we do 25 this year because I know how fired up people get to support a generally cool cause. So I can't stress that enough. That's why we get the momentum, is because people go, you know what, that's a cool thing. I was gonna wait till Black Friday, but that's a cool let me go buy a gift for my wife and have a cool storyline attached to it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 2:06:18

Or hey, maybe if you're in the doghouse for buying too much clothes, this will be a guilt-free, you can get out of jail free, like, hey babe, like I'm helping, you know, so buy those hunting pants, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 2:06:28

Um and um but but on one of the calls with Black Rifle, one of the one of the guys was saying, Well, hey, what's you know, maybe there's a long-term vision here where you know how cool would it be if two civilian companies on their own that are veteran-founded could completely eradicate all veteran medical bills, right? Because I like the idea of like the government shouldn't be solving our problems. We should we should work together to solve our own problems. You know, I think I would love the government. Yes, yes, I would I would love to be as minimal government, you know, we should we should not go to them to solve our problems. Hey, we can work together, and as you know, being a service member, like we're wired to work together as a team. That's that's how we're wired, man. That's how we get our that's how we we solve our problems, is through teamwork and aggression, right? Um, and this is another example of that. How do we work together to solve a problem? And this and this is so I want to I'm going up to DC in a couple weeks, and I'm gonna meet with the secretary of the VA or his right-hand man. I'm still waiting on confirmation whether I'm actually gonna get a meeting with him. But I'm but if we're able to do 25 million in debt and we have the 5,800 veterans from last year, like this will end up likely being close to 30,000 veterans that are that we've you know that are in now a data set that I can provide to the VA and say, hey, I'm not here to throw shade, but I'm giving you a data set that maybe we can figure out some points of failure within the VA of why these people had outstanding medical bills. You know, if some if there's some girl in rural America that gets T-bone driving to work and because she was airlifted to the wrong hospital, it's not covered, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01: 2:07:59

Now she got a hundred thousand hours.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08:01

On an airlift while she's in a coma, she's gonna supposed to say, like, oh, you need to go to the other hospital because this isn't covered. You know what I mean? Like these are the things that okay, a couple change a couple inputs on the back end, we might be actually fix a lot of these. Um, so I'm hoping to have a very productive meeting with them. I'm also meeting with like uh 10 or 11 uh senators and congressmen the same day. Um I'm starting with a lot of the SEAL senators uh because the yeah, yeah, he's on the list.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08:26

He lies a homie.

SPEAKER_02: 2:08:27

And and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna tell them, hey, this is what we've done, but hey, I need some some air support here because like I want to make this bigger and I want to actually get to the root of this. And you know, if you if you guys want to join us in like, you know, obviously I don't give a shit, take all the credit, I don't care, but if you guys can help implement real change, you know, we'll we'll continue the financial piece, but I want to leverage my my access and placement to these types of people um to to actually get to the bottom of the to get to the root of the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 2:08:53

I don't mean to interrupt, but like imagine if half of successful business owners had this mindset. Instead of it being about the dollar and and uh how much can me, me, me, me, me, this is what I want to build. I'm I'm building this empire, whatever their excuses. Imagine if the mindset of your average business owner that's made it, they're doing they're well, they're rolling, was like, how do I make a difference? How do I just make an impact on a family this year? If if we could just change the thought process in this country of people just w it doesn't take a lot to help. Obviously, you have the means and you've built this extremely successful company, so that's where you're at. But imagine just all the way down the tiers if everybody's like, man, hey, we're we're a small mom and pa, we're packaging bread. Let's let's let's take a bunch of the firehouse and feed these guys this year. Let's take proceeds from this month and just help out some local families for Christmas. And and to see what a difference that would make, and to see who knows somebody. Everybody's got somebody in their Rolodex somewhere that has a connection to somebody that can help. And I love the fact that you guys are doing this because it's this is how it has to it has to happen this way. And if we had more company, imagine if Nike and fucking Under Armour and these companies that truly gave a shit were doing the same thing. Hey Bear, we're primitive, yeah, we're in the same competitive space, but you guys are making a difference. We want to match. Or hey, we're gonna come in at X percent. Yeah, imagine the lives that would change for these children. I don't think people realize, like I've been in the trenches for over a decade with these vets. And once they get in that hole, they there's no coming out. And it just spirals, and then the the depression sets in, the anger sets in. They're not this vet that served their country, then they got out and now they're living this fulfilled happy life. They got their bills, they're they're they're hoping their VA is not getting cut, or they're trying to increase their VA, they're trying to get 100%. The all the stresses that come along with getting out, which it's tough for vets because we're never showed anything. It's just cool, thanks for your service, have a nice life. And then now you have this guy that was a warfighter, that's all he knows, and now he's thrown into the real world. They don't know how to function half the time, and then they get into these holes, and there's no coming out. And we've helped a lot of people over the years. It's like, and all it takes is just a little lift, just a hand. Hey, bro, like we got you. Cool. I just erased even it might not sound like a lot, 10 grand, five grand, 2,500 bucks for somebody, and they're paying on this thing, and a hundred thousand for an ambulance rider. You had to get oxygen at a for some stupid shit to happen. It adds up, and then that stress, and then what's all they're worrying about, that's all they're fixated on. They're not helping their family, they're not spending that quality time with their kids because they got that cancer in the back of their head because it's that bill that's never gonna go away. I've been there. We were I dude, I almost killed myself a few years ago in a horrible wreck. You actually launch your shit, and the wife's like, We should. I'm like, no, we've done enough. Like, there's more people than needed us, we'll pay, we'll chip away this. But I ended up racking up a giant medical bill, and I was like, damn, like, good. I I didn't obviously take advantage of it, should have, it would have helped us out. But I saw, like, dude, that's that I we could be those people, but obviously, I'm we're more than capable of paying off my own bills and my own dumbass mistakes. But the fact that I had veterans reaching out to me thanking me just for showing what you guys are doing, and if we can get everybody on board, God, imagine, imagine the difference that look at the difference that you're making with Black Rifle for this year. Imagine if we can get other guys on, and then it just then the ball starts rolling.

SPEAKER_02: 2:12:33

And that's I think that's the the the you know, we're I I'm saying we're in phase two of this. Phase one was my wild idea last year to see all right, how does this go? Phase two, all right, we're bringing in black rifle coffee. I'm trying to engage in Washington, DC. Uh phase three for me is obviously getting the wheels turning on that, the solution part of that with the with you know the lawmakers in DC and the VA, yeah, but also, hey, how do I get Amex to come in on this? How do I get Anheuser Busch to come in on this? How do I get Apple, right? Where they say, hey, you know, or shit, even competitors, I don't care. If if Nike were to come in and say, hey, I want to we'll we'll do a hundred million and work, but hey, we're we're probably gonna get all the credit because everyone's gonna, you know what I mean? I'd probably you know what? As much as like I would like to be able to say this was our thing and you know, and serve the veteran community, hey, if that's gonna help, you know, 80,000 veterans or whatever, then like let's you know what I mean. So I think that's where this could get interesting is next year. And I've already had a few companies reach out and say, Hey, I see what you're doing, like, how do we get involved?

SPEAKER_01: 2:13:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 2:13:31

Um, like Harry's Razors is one of them. They're very successful company. And I spoke with their founder and he was like, dude, I love this, but it's too like too late this year, but like like definitely I wanna like, you know, so that that presents a really cool opportunity, and I think it you know puts the kind of pressure on me to say, okay, how do we not let this get off the rails where then people like are doing it for the wrong reasons and then it gets like high kind of hijacked, but at the same time making sure that, hey, if someone wants to throw 10 million into the mix and that that that's you know, 5,000 veterans that are now debt pre like done, you know what I mean? Like uh so that's that's how I you know I'm really fired up about it. Um, and um and and I just it just goes back to like you know, we're stronger together. That's the one of the punchline. We're calling it operation debt of gratitude, is is the we want to like name it like an operation, yeah. Yeah, and then you know the the punchline is kind of stronger together. Uh and I think that you know kind of speaks to the theme of this of like, yeah, hey, we we can work together to solve our problems, and and and I do think there's a there's there's momentum to that, you know what I mean? Because all those little gestures that you were talking about, like that that that adds up, man. You know what I mean? And everyone everyone can obviously contribute in their own way, and even if it's hey, ten bucks, or hey, go you know, volunteer at the food shelter, or hey, take bread, whatever, all of that adds up in aggregate, man, it has a real impact. So don't downplay, oh well, you know, I I I can't help because I don't have the means. Well, hey, you also you have your body, you know, you can go help, you know, you can volunteer, things like that.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14:55

Post about it. Yeah, it costs zero dollars to put something on the internet to promote something great. And that's where we get I get it. Man, I would ru I want to support, but I don't have the money to support. We you don't need them. The people that have the money, they're gonna support. But if you're an average American and you're seeing a campaign that's truly making a difference, and you can't support, there's nothing wrong with that. Make a post about it, write something from the heart about what this company is doing and giving back to help out. And that's and that's and then you might have we had a guy that did that, and this is a perfect example. He I have I don't have a pot to piss in, but I want to support what you guys are doing. He made a post about it. He had a woman that is a very wealthy that he we went to school with, I believe. She saw it, ended up making a generous donation to us off because this guy just talked about the difference. It was actually his we helped his son out, and then that he saw that, but he's like, I don't know how to help. How do I thank you for what you did for my son? We're like, dude, just spread the word. And he ended up doing it, and it led to something. So for people listening, don't think that you have to spend money in order to help a cause. You can go and donate your time, your services, make a post about it, share the love. Dude, go on and buy a patch. If it's you know, like it's something so simple that it adds up. Imagine if you got 50,000 people that are and they're buying your cheapest product on there, it's it adds up. Yeah, and and those little I when I use the word crumbs, I use it lightly because it's not, but the change, you start piling it together, before you know you add it up, you're like, dude, this is this is five or six vets right here. We're gonna pay these bills off just from our little things, not the big donors, the big orders, but it it it goes so far, it all adds up. Totally.

SPEAKER_02: 2:16:38

And yeah, anyone listening, if you go to our Instagram, it because I think this will go live during the campaign, like it'll I think as we speak, it will be live. So you know, you can support it, bornprimit.com, black, blackrifle coffee company.com. But more importantly, is this the sharing of because that's what helped last year. It was the viral component. Yeah, right. I kind of all right, turn it loose and just see where it goes. And because people were so fired up about it, that's what made it what it was. So that does go a long way. And I mean, if you look at our Instagram, I'm sure you'll see all the stuff on it. Like, you know, any of that content you can share, you know, helps the helps the algorithm for sure. Absolutely. Um, and uh yeah, hopefully, you know, by the time the dust settles on midnight on Veterans Day, we'll be able to say mission accomplished.

SPEAKER_04: 2:17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:17:16

Um and I think we'll get there, man. I I mean I'm looking at it this year. You know, Fox News has been very gracious to us, and it looks like I'll be on Fox News for a couple different media placements, and obviously they have a huge audience that you know, so they've they've they they were super helpful last year. I gotta give them a lot of credit for letting me come on and you have the you know, just have the platform for three minutes just to put the word out. Um and then you know, Black Rifles plugged in to you know a slightly different audience that they're able to reach. And I think there's gonna be ad reads from like Rogan and like guys like that, you know, um, probably speaking more to the Black Rifle side, but um, we're setting this up in a way that hey, if they achieve success, then you know it rising tide will raise all ships. Um and and I hope it is really goes really well for them too, because I I want to be able to double down on this next year and say, all right, what's what's phase three look like? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 2:18:01

I want to ask what the end goal is, but I know you don't have one. It's gonna be as big as bad as possible.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:05

I think the end goal, and you know, if your ideas don't scare you, they're probably not big enough, is like what uh that Black Rifle employee threw out in one of the calls was like, is there a situation where we could, you know, over maybe a five-year period pay off the entire outstanding debt? You know, and and I think the number was like eight or nine hundred million or something.

SPEAKER_04: 2:18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:24

Um but but I I need to validate that because I don't know if that was just one specific category of debt or whatever else, but but how wild would that be? You know what I mean? So to me, that's the end state. Um, but in order to do that, we have to get to the solution as well. Like we have to stop the bleeding, uh, you know, and that's with the VA and identifying some of these issues that you know is the reason these debt this debt is there in the first place. So I think it's a two-pronged attack. Um if I can get with the VA and they can we can cooperate with them to help you know be a part of the solution, at the same time continue to pay down the balance. Um, because if if 50 million is added to the to the debt balance every year, like we're you know what I mean? We're trying, I mean, it's not really doing anything. Yeah, yeah, even if we did 50, like, okay, you broke even that year, right? So I think we have to we gotta stop the bleeding, but then um, you know, come at it with with additional financial support. And I think if we can leverage other organizations that have deep pockets and even like private donors, you know, that are you know have a high net worth that like to you know contribute, like if they get wind of this, you know, you could see how that could get momentum. So we'll see. Um obviously we're we're just getting started, but you know, I now feel an obligation to this. And it and also, you know, charity is interesting, man, because um, in a way it is very self-serving. You know what I mean? It's it's I almost feel guilty because I actually get real joy and gratitude from this. So in my internally, I'm like, all right, well, in a way, you're kind of doing this for yourself because it makes you feel good. You know what I mean? And and I, you know, it could be worse. No, but and and and so it's it's even that's like, dude, you gotta get that out of your head. Like that this is not self-serving, but it's okay to feel uh the joy and gratitude of being able to call someone up and say, hey, like, hey, that that bill that you got, hey, we took care of it, and you know, then hearing the silence on the phone and tears after.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20:01

You're not expecting anything, and that's the I tell people all the time like if you're going to ever help, don't ever expect anything in return. Yeah. But when you have those vets reach out and you're hearing their personal stories and you see that the the kids that make a difference there's a lot of veterans that are living in when I say poverty status, it is below poverty. Like it's and it tears us up. We have some families that we help every year and just go above and beyond for for their children because of medical bills, because of them, just can't get out of a hole. And so yeah, you're not you're just you're just being bare, right? You're just doing you because it feels good. But at the end of the day, man, when you get to see an impact, you're just like, okay, this is why I'm doing this. Not for it's not for me, but it the the get those little wins and to solidify, like we are changing lives where veterans don't have that stress where they're on the edge of possibly taking their life because of these bills, the VA fucking with them, and whatever it may be, and then all of a sudden I get a letter in the mail and my debts cleared. God dude, it's gotta be the greatest feeling, man. Good, like, good for you guys for for doing this. Like, you're you're gonna be on your deathbed one day, be like, fuck yeah. I made I made a difference. I I made a difference. Like I you're you it's gonna be great, man. I I'm so pumped to watch where this campaign goes just because of last year, and you're like, oh, we're just getting started. To start with like a 10-11 million dollar fundraiser is a hell of a start. So I mean, there's no ceiling for you guys, and that's where I love just watching and sitting back and be like, damn, dude, okay, these guys finally, finally, is like my biggest thing. Finally, there's a company that legitimately gives a fuck about veterans, and and no matter what, cool, here we go. And it's not even your guys' charity, you're just helping another organization that's doing the work, which is the perfect scenario because then it takes all that shit off your guys' plate. You just get to focus on helping in in cool, here's our funds that we raise. Go take care of the go take care of the men and women that have served this country that are now struggling. Like, that is the greatest thing, man.

SPEAKER_02: 2:22:08

Thank you, thank you, man. I I appreciate that. And it's it's very humbling, and obviously I'm very grateful that we have the platform to to do it, and we're just facilitating it. It's the customers making it happen. And um, as long as I'm running the show, which hopefully be will full will be for a very long time, like that's our promise to the customer, is like it's gonna be more than just apparel to us.

SPEAKER_04: 2:22:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 2:22:27

Um, and I hope that makes people proud to wear the logo. Um and the consumer does have a say, man. We've seen that in recent history here in the last couple years that um you know you're the the the the the brands and the companies you support, like you do have a vote in this, you know what I mean? So if there's if there's organizations that don't align with your values and are doing things that go against your personal beliefs, um shopping the alternative actually does can change those organizations to rethink some of their, you know, whatever it is, their politics or their stance on this and that. Um and and you know, we're not trying to rock the boat in any way because this is just this is a this is a bipartisan, you know, like there's no politics, this is just helping veterans, but um you you do have a vote in brands that you align with and and and ultimately um that's the best way to support. Um, and uh we we really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 2:23:12

I want to shift gears real quick because we're running out of time. I think my favorite thing about watching you in your growth is you with your daughter. Yeah, man. Are you cool with it? Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:23:23

It's my world, man. Fucking it's bigger than any of the other stuff we've talked about. Facts, bro.

SPEAKER_00: 2:23:28

I and I love that you're a girl dad. Yeah. Because they will soften you, they harden you, they change you, they make us the best versions of us. What has it been like having this just ball of love and energy, and obviously you have the daddy's girl, and there's nothing greater than holding your baby child and this little girl that just loves you unconditionally.

SPEAKER_02: 2:23:56

Yeah, man. It's you know, until you have one, you can't really comprehend it. You know, and I think the coolest thing about becoming a dad, it you finally, you know, I had a really good upbringing, and so I can't, and I know everyone can't say this, um, and I'd say it with you know kind of respect to that, but you you finally fully realize how much your parents loved you growing up because it all makes sense now. You know what I mean? You're like in it's just the a depth of love you didn't think was possible. Um, and it's just like, man, it it I I think about time so much more now that I have her because I can see time portrayed through how quickly she's growing up. You know what I mean? Like whereas before, hey, you're like you're in your 20s, like you're just you know, you're you're you're just firing from the hip, man. You're not thinking about like you know, the long game or like you know, the how finite time is and all that. You're running with the boys, you don't care. Um, and now that you got a little one and you're seeing her go through these different phases and grow up, you know, it's like it's it you know, I think about time so much more, and I think it's it it definitely has softened me up a lot. Like, dude, I I I I've never I don't really cry much. Like, I I think before I had a daughter, the last time I'd actually cried, and this this is kind of silly, but before my last ever football game, we were up in the tunnel getting ready to come out against Harvard. That's our big rivalry game. And the coach said, Hey, everyone but the seniors basically get the fuck out. I want to give the seniors a moment together because they all came in as freshmen, and now there is their last game together, right? And we're all standing there, you know, we hear the crowd outside and the band playing, and one guy broke, you know, I mean, first, and then like before you know it, there's like 25 grown men sobbing, you know what I mean? Like before a game. That was the last time I really got emotional. And then for the in, but um, and then you know, I never cried. It was like it had been, I don't know, 15 years, and then I I finally got a daughter, and now like the littlest things will make me cry. Like, dude, I swear to God, I like I'll a couple times, a couple times I've cried at church because like the pastor will be talking, and then like I'll start thinking about my daughter, and like all of a sudden I have a tear coming down my cheek for no reason. Gratitude. Um, and um, and it's like wow, um, like what a powerful thing. And and I don't I I'm not ashamed of it at all. Like, I'm not trying to be Mr. Tough Guy. Um, and uh so that's uh such a change because dude, like you know, people would die and I wouldn't cry. You know what I mean? Like I just I it's not how I showed emotion. Um and uh now man, she just you know, she'll turn me into mush in two seconds. And you know, I I think it's just I I feel such a responsibility to try to set a strong example. Um I think it's also helped me, you know, become a better man in many ways because now it's like okay, I I have to set the standard. Um, and um, you know, I've gotten really strong with my faith again and just a few other things. And uh, you know, we read, we have like a little kid's Bible we read every night. She calls it God's book. So we're re we we've re now reread it like four times, and she loves it and we say the our father, and I'm trying to like instill those values in her. Um, but I'm really excited for when she gets a little older to do things like I can't wait to get her in the gym with me. Um, and because uh she's a whole part of my life she doesn't see yet, right? She, of course, knows nothing about my military experience. She doesn't see me go to the gym and get after and train hard. She doesn't see me at work, you know, working deals and like you know, running employees, you know what I mean? So eventually I want her to be exposed to that because I think there'll be so much value to that, hopefully for her. Um, and uh and that that'll be really exciting. Like when I can teach her how to do a back squat for the first time, like I'm gonna and I saw you guys doing the shooting. That was awesome. Great shooting, by the way.

SPEAKER_00: 2:27:15

Well, that was my little one.

SPEAKER_02: 2:27:16

Oh, that was your little okay. Oh my god. Uh well she's even crazier. Yeah, well, you you guys are out at 500 yards, you know, and she didn't seat the mag all the way. And you said, you know, I love, I was like, dude, that is so cool. Thank you. Right. Um, and then she's you know, hit and steal at 500. Like, no, you know what I mean? And she's you know, keeping, I mean, that you know, that that was and I'm sure like that was such a proud dad moment, right? And you were so nonchalant about it, and you're being such a good instructor.

SPEAKER_00: 2:27:38

Um in that defense, she ran the gauntlet. Run the fucking ball. What do you do? Get in the glass, like that's how I used to be. Okay, right? So I've learned. So I do I can't sit here and say it's been perfect with her sitting here.

SPEAKER_02: 2:27:51

I gotta I was that was a very cool moment to watch. Thank you. I think that video you posted yesterday. At least that's when it hit my feed, and I was like, wow, such a cool moment. So I'm looking forward to all those moments, man. Um, and teaching her stuff. And um starting now, man. Yeah. Well, I mean, she's four and a half. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:28:06

I'm talking the business. Yeah. Just taking her to I know you I don't know your life, right? And I don't know how crazy your shit is. But like with us, we've involved our kids with everything. Like my youngest, she was in my wife's belly when we started our charity, and then she's five years old slinging raffle tickets just because it's it's but then they grow up with it, so it becomes who they are of just watching, learning. And obviously, everybody's got the right times, and I don't obviously don't know your schedule. Like I've said, you're getting the office, you're just putting out fires all day. But I have a lot of guys that'll reach out, like, when do I start? It's like now, yeah. Because then it they just evolve. It's and I explain it. You're a dog guy, it's like that puppy, and you bring that puppy to where you're at you're you know, my my service dog. When I first got him, he was born the day I got back from Iraq. I got him like six weeks later. Was it wasn't out of the back of some Mexican's truck down in Chula Vista out of a newspaper ad. But I and I just got back from deployment, so I had all this time off, but I just brought him everywhere everywhere I went. My dog came with me. Yeah, so we did that with our kids, and like that's how you raise these incredible, just rad kids because they're in the gym and they're like, Hey Jeff, hey Bill, like they get to know the community there, they get to know the community at work, socialized, socialized, and then it's just them walking into a hundred million dollar company. Now that's their mindset from day one. Now they're like, oh, this is the standard for me. Like, I now I'm watching my dad. Yeah, then when they get older, like, dad, oh my god, I had no idea this is what went on here. I'm a I'm a huge believer in sooner the better. Yeah, because then it's just like people, dude, when'd you start your kid shooting? I'm like, fuck, I don't even remember. They just they've always had a gun as a little 22 startup, and now it's like that video, she has not shot since last year this time. And our deer hunt, I'm like, fuck, we haven't spent any time on the range because we've just been busy. Of course. Run her out there, and I'm like, fundamentals, like just because she that's how it's yeah, from day one. She knows trigger the I get on the gun, run the gun, stay in the glass. So now it's just like now with these things, instead of teaching them them at 10, 11, 12. It's just natural for them or the business side of things where it's like, hey, we need you to do this. Hey, you're running this now. You're on your own. If you got any questions, ask. I'll be over here, but this is your corner. Run it. And then it's like they're over there running the freaking square reader. They're grabbing shirts in different sizes. They got their bins at 10, 9, 8, whatever it is. So yeah, I'm I'm, dude, get them in there now.

SPEAKER_02: 2:30:22

Yeah, no, I'm excited, man. It's so fun. And uh hopefully at some point I'll have a few more. You know, I'm I'm I'm a I'm a single man at the moment, and I obviously I want to do it and be deliberate about this next chapter. But I I definitely I mean I'd love to get three more. Um really? Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah. Well, ladies, um We could do a close-up of pair right now.

SPEAKER_00: 2:30:44

Um I don't know if you want my demographic, but they're probably a little crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 2:30:49

Yeah, we're we're taking applications. No, um, you know, that's the long game because I, you know, as we know, that's that's the most joy we'll ever feel. And that's why I'm like, wow, if if one can bring me that, like I shit, give me three or four more because like you know what I mean. If it's if it's exponential, then like let's go.

SPEAKER_00: 2:31:05

What's crazy with that is that you love this one so much, and then you have another one that's completely different in every single way, and you love them just as much, but in their way. Yeah, I can't speak past that, but like, you know, when raising her, I'm like, God, how am I gonna love something else? I've thought about that. More than this, and then it comes along, and you're like, oh, yeah, like, okay, and then it just it but there's the love isn't finite, it's not finite, yeah. No, yeah, and then they but you she is so polar opposite of her little sister. They're nine days, she's our don't get me wrong, she'll kick your jaw off, shoot you in the face at a mile, no problem. But she's our princess. Everything, hair, make everything is perfect. Our little ones like like F the world, I don't even need clothes. We're like, you're 11 now, like you gotta start getting. Yeah, it's but it's it's so incredible because they're their own little people, and then like you're at this age now, it's it's fun, and then before you know it, bro, they walk out, and you got a grown-ass woman, and I look at my wife like when did this happen? You know, like when did now I have two full-blown women in my house, and now they're they're fighting over period dominance and all this crazy shit. I'm like, bro, where did my life go to? And I got a fucking bakery. Girls are the I wish every dude, but I know we're not all built for it, but God will give you what we are what we could handle. Yeah, and I'm so glad I don't have sons, and daughters have been the greatest gift that has ever been given to me.

SPEAKER_02: 2:32:37

So so true, man. I've I've been doing this thing, so I I try to write one letter a month. Um, and I just you know, I kind of recap, you know, the cute stuff she's doing, you know. Hey, we're doing this at nighttime now, and you're brushing your teeth on your own, and you know, also talk about like how to literally quantify the love that I have for her, you know, because I understand there's gonna be a phase that she's gonna get to where dad's not cool anymore. Most maybe well, maybe I don't know. Maybe no, I'm preparing for it at least.

SPEAKER_00: 2:33:04

Don't prepare for it. Do not prepare for it. Everybody tells me that, and I dude, I the one thing that pisses me off the most, people are like, oh, teenage man, good luck with that. It it's honestly offensive to me because who you are and how deliver deliverable you are, like you are hey, this is how I'm gonna do dude. It comes down to just building that friendship and and and spending that quality time with them. There's no because if you know your daughter and this is your world or your son or anybody else, and you know your children, you can read those signs that are coming when they start to branch off. And I know it's a natural form for especially boys when they hit that teenage that we have to defy to get out of the house. I get the primal instincts that we have, but if you have that relationship with your children, hey, what's going on? Sit down. What's going on? Like, I see this attitude. No, like we're how do we correct this? Let's get you back on track. And with her, every kid could go in any direction, but you are just what's the word I'm looking for? Just intentional? Intentional. Every day should be, I don't know why I couldn't think that word. Every day is intentional with your kids. Yeah. And to sit them down and to have that open line of communication, which is going to be the most important thing out of everything you build with her, is that they can trust you. They could come to you for everything because they're gonna make mistakes, they're gonna want to sneak out, or they're gonna get at a party late, whatever it may be. But that's when that time comes, instead of them being like, oh fuck, I'm in trouble, call me. Yeah, I'll I'll be I I don't care, call me. And so that's where a lot of dads have that, oh man, it's gonna be she's gonna be a teen one day, and I gotta teach her how to put freaking tampons and coat, whatever the girl shit, you know, the crazy stuff that nobody prepares you for. But that's that trust and that bond, and then you guys are just best friends, man. And then there's no oh god, teenage years. It's just like everything else. You just spend that quality time, man. Be in it and just deliverable or deliberate with every single day, and you're never gonna have to worry about it. Yeah, I love that, man.

SPEAKER_02: 2:35:05

Yeah, I'm definitely planning on bringing her around as much as I can. And what I would just to finish out the letter story, my my plan. No, you're good. My plan is that I'm gonna get that all in like a I'm envisioning like a nice leather-bound binder, and it's gonna say letters from daddy, and I'm gonna give that to her when she's 18. Like, I I'm envisioning giving it to her when I drop her off at college. And she's like, What is this? And I say, Open it later. Yeah, you know what I mean. There's something too good. You know what I mean? And and it'll be like it'll literally go back to when she's three years old, and you know what I mean. She's gonna say, you know, reread all the stuff. Yeah, um, what a good idea. So yeah, because I and I got the idea because there was a I got an ad on Instagram that said like letter, it was like a leather-bound uh journal that said like letters from daddy. Yeah, and so I bought it, but it's a smaller journal, and I'm but I was like, how cool would this be to if I let me do a letter a month and like no agenda, just like just write, just whatever comes to mind and just compile this over the years, and then you know, I mean, at the end, I imagine how many that's gonna be, right? But I was like, that would be my way of maybe staying with her when I'm not physically with her, because obviously if you get to college, like there's gonna be a lot of temptation to maybe take the wrong path or to do drugs or to you know binge drink and all these things, you know what I mean, and all the dangers that can come with uh, you know what I mean. So I'm like hoping that will be maybe her shoreline of like you know, remembering um, you know, what what we had been through and been taught and all those things. So we'll see. That'll be a that hopefully will be a really cool moment to give her that. It's good, but yeah, but she yeah, but she you know, she's my world, man. You and I don't know if you get it, because it's something until you until you have one, you can't put it into words. But um, you know, that ends up being there. You know, the the last thing I'll say on this, like it really simplifies things, man, because I've always been hyper competitive. Try to be this hyper achiever, like I always need to get straight A's. If I got an A minus, I freaked out, and I always was like, you know, living in a weight room or in it had my face in a book, or obviously like to go through the SEAL teams. I was really dedicated to that. Like I've always thought like I always had to achieve things to be validated, you know what I mean? Um, and when I had a daughter, dude, man, does it simplify life? Stamps it all. Because it's like, okay, nothing really else matters. Um, and and and also the beauty and being able to extract joy from the most mundane things now. Um I I I was listening to something from Chris Williamson, you know, another podcaster, and he was talking about the the irony of like um how quickly we can become distraught by something, but how high the bar is to experience real joy. You know, you have to have that pinnacle moment or you achieve this one thing you've been working for forever and you experience a little bit of joy, and then you're back to your everyday life. And you we need to learn to be able to experience joy from the mundane in life and in the simple things. But when you have a daughter, literally it her and I sitting on the couch eating popcorn and Sour Patch Kids and watching Frozen under a blanket for the thousandth time, uh, with a candle lit on a Saturday night when like maybe guys my age are that are single are out chasing tail and you know doing that the the typical things, like that brings me more joy than any business outcome, any uh auto deposit that goes in my bank account from a business deal, whatever it is, and it's it's it's not even clear, it's by a hundred X multiple. Um, so how cool is it that to be able to say, okay, if this is now the bar, if I can feel the most joy I've ever felt from these simple little things, like what a blessing that is. And that brings me back to like you know, and I'm trying to now do that in other aspects of my life, um, because I realized, man, you're so hyper competitive, you don't step back and enjoy anything anymore. Um, and it took this beautiful little creation to remind you of that. And you know, I was in the airport yesterday connecting through Portland, and there was a guy playing Elton John on the piano, and he was playing um, you know, uh uh a candle in the wind, you know, and uh and you know what? I was going to my gate and I stopped and sat and I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna sit here for four minutes and enjoy this because this guy is like he's beautifully playing this piano and singing this song. This is a moment I can sit back and say, Hey, these are the little things. Let me just enjoy this four-minute moment, right? And I listened and I grabbed my backpack and kept walking, and I was like, okay, that was cool. That was cool, man. You know what I mean? So I I think it's taught me um, you know, to kind of step back a little bit and and make sure that we're not, we're not there the stakes don't always have to be so high, and you don't have to have these grand achievements to unlock happiness. Um, and and I think that's a much more sustainable way to live if you can if you can lower that bar back down. And I think all the modern entertainment we have has messed with that. Like when we were like growing up and there were no iPhones and no phones, and you had a landline, it was just you and the buddies with your bikes, and like it was so much simpler, right? Or, you know, they they show pictures of concerts back in the day, and like everyone's just in the moment now that same shot, everyone's looking at it behind a screen because they need to upload that video to their Instagram stories to show they were at a show, even though they're up in the lawn seats and no one gives a shit, you know. But um, so anyway, kind of on a on a rant there, but I I think I gotta probably get over the airport so I don't miss this flight.

SPEAKER_00: 2:39:57

But dude, one last thing real quick. If there's a message that you can leave to your listeners, to to veterans, guys wanting to serve or get in, if there's just something that you feel passionate about that people should know, what would that be?

SPEAKER_02: 2:40:10

Uh, you know, I think to the veterans and and any any of the first responders, just knowing that you're not alone, you know. I I think um unfortunately a lot of our cohort goes through a lot of struggle after the service. Um, and and unfortunately, it's it's all too common that you guys like you and I are getting text messages about a buddy that took his own life. Um so I would say, you know, if you are listening and you're in that that boat, like definitely know that you have a support system. You are not alone. You might feel isolated, um, but you know, there are people that will lend a hand at the drop of a hat. Um and uh you know treat yourself kindly. Don't don't take you know it n no life is worth taking, right? There's always gonna be you know light at the end of the tunnel, and and you might be in a really hard chapter right now, and um, and it might seem like there's no light at the end of the tunnel, but but there are phases to life and there are seasons to life. And you might be in winter right now, you might be dead of winter, right? And that and and we've all you know, most of us have been there to some extent. Um, but hey, spring's right around the corner, and you might it might just be one break that you get, or hey, let's be real, it might be a mindset shift that you have to have. So look so so enough with that victim bullshit. Pick yourself up, right? And and and and and and and fight your way out of that, right? But but it's okay to do it with help. You don't have to do it alone.

unknown: 2:41:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 2:41:30

Um so I mean I know we talked about a lot of different stuff, but that would be the one thing that resonates with me having done this veterans campaign of talking with these people, because a lot of them, you know, they'd say, Well, thank you so much for helping me, but like I I I wish you could, you know, I I don't deserve this. Like, there's more people that need it more than me. And and that's the you hear that from everyone. It's like, no, no, you do deserve it. It's okay to take help, you know what I mean? Um, I I you don't know how many times I heard that one thing about this debt thing already. Like, oh, but like, I I I mean this definitely helps me, but I'm sure there's veterans that needed this more than me. And it's like, no, you are a single mother of two, working two jobs, getting your wages garnished. No, you are the perfect candidate for this. Um, so so take help. It's okay. You know, you can swallow your pride and um yeah, man, um, and and and to teamwork, you know. We we work together to solve each other's problems, and um, you know, we're all in this together, man. And at the end, we we all die at the end of it regardless. So let's make the most of it um and try to uh you know hopefully extract some joy from the mundane things in life, too.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42:31

Well, dude, Bear, thank you so much for this conversation. Um you've grown a hell of a business. It's one of the very few businesses that I actually would 100% put my name behind and back because you guys are doing it right, you make great quality product, and you're giving back, man, with no questions asked. And obviously, I'm gonna be following along the girl dad journey, and I love watching the photos and the pictures that everybody put up. It honestly brings a smile because I can see the true joy, and I wish every father can feel what you're feeling in those little on the beaches walking with your daughter. Man, it's it's the greatest shit. So, dude, thank you. Uh keep fighting the fight. We're here if you ever need us. I would love to be involved. Anything you need. Like I said, I don't I don't put my name on anything lightly. I've done this for a long time and I know who's real, who's not, and you're crushing it, dude. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:43:21

Well, thanks so much for having me, man. It's good to get out to to Boise and um and finally meet you.

SPEAKER_00: 2:43:26

Hell yeah. Thanks, thanks, man. That was uh that was great, man. That was fun. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 2:43:31

Very easy, easy combo to add with you, man. So