War by Sebastian Junger w/ John Hill aka “Small Mtn” & Jesan Sorrells

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All right, Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode

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number 171 with with John Hill,

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aka Small Mountain Covering War

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by Sebastian Younger in 3,

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2, 1.

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Hello, my name is Hasan Sorrells, and this is

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the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast,

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episode number 171.

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This is going to be kind of a long intro, so bear with me.

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In the study of conflict, whether between people, between people

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and institutions, or between institutions themselves, there is

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an observation that applies to those types of conflicts

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from the economist Thomas Sowell, whose book

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A Conflict of Ideological Origins of Political Struggles we

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will be covering next season in February on this

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show, and this

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quote applies to our book today.

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There are no solutions. There are only trade

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offs. And then

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there is this from that hoary old book that lies at the bottom of Western

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culture that we don’t often talk about out loud.

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And I quote, for which of you, desiring to build a tower,

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does not first sit down and count the cost? Whether he has enough to complete

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it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to

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finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man

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began to build and was not able to finish? Or what king

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going out to encounter another king in war will not sit

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down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who has

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comes against him with 20,000? And if not,

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while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and

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asks for terms of peace.

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Luke 14:28 32 ESV

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the challenge of trade offs the challenge of counting the cost of those trade

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offs and then being willing to explain the trade offs to people who might disagree

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or who might like to have their own costs included in the conversation

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is one of the most difficult challenges endemic to the Western way of war

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making. None of the countries who have sprung

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out of the Western tradition has been quote, unquote, good at this part.

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Going back into the history of the west and this lack of

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being skillful at measuring the trade offs inherent in waging war

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has reached its apotheosis in the form,

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as is usual, of the United States making

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war. We forget in our postmodern time,

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and I think to our peril, that we have never been fully united in the

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pursuit of war because we disagree fundamentally about the trade offs in

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blood, Treasure, time, and here’s a big

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one, the will to commit to what the enemy

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won’t. But

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when the moment of battle arrives, as it did at the siege of Vienna in

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1683 by the Ottoman Empire, and as it would in

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the Korengal Valley in 2007. The

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militaries of the west tend to commit all of their

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forces to an inflection point and leave

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the dealing with the trade offs and the arguments for

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later today on

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this episode of the podcast, we will explore what happens after. The arguments about trade

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offs and the counting of costs have been, for better or worse, put

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aside. Now the will to

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commit will be enjoined right at the tip of the spear

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with Battle Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd

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Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team

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in 2007 and documented by the embedded journalist

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Sebastian Younger in his excellent

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reportage war,

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which you can see on the video today.

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Leaders. Who among you, even in business,

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are willing to count the cost and willing to live

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with the consequences of that cost?

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And today we will be joined by our co host rejoining us on episode

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number 161 this summer and feeling a little spicy today.

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We were talking a little bit before we hit record, so he’s going to bring

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some of that spiciness to our conversation, I suspect.

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And in episode 161 we discussed Robert Heinlein,

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Stranger in a Strange Land. You should go back and listen to that episode too.

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My friend and the friend of the show, John Hill, AKA

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Small Mountain. How you doing today, John?

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And I’m. I was getting a little spicy before we hit the record

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button. Um, this is an interesting

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book. Like, there’s a lot into this and yeah, we’re going

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to dig into it, but I’m not going to jump ahead. I’m very excited to

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dig into this and hear your perspective on it and kind of talk about my

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thinking on it and go from there. Absolutely,

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absolutely. This book was,

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you’ll, you’ll, you’ll hear. So by the time you hear this

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episode. Right. The introductory episode will be, will be out where

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I talked a little bit about the background of the book, talked about the background

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of Sebastian Younger as an embedded journalist and reporter

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of Vanity Fair and an author who had written the book the

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Perfect Storm before this. And that sort of was his ticket

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into, into the Korengal Valley and into

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being embedded with the, the 2nd Battalion and,

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and their efforts at Opera Strepo or

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Op Restrepo as well as other places in

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the Korengal Valley. And we’re going to talk a little bit about the Corgon Valley

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today. But I would encourage you to go back and listen to that intro episode.

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I would also encourage you to go back and listen to the shorts episode, I

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believe it’s number 200, where we talk about

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or where I address this idea, which is addressed in the back end

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of the book in the section called Love.

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The really complicated relationship that young men have with

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combat, particularly when we ask them to go do it,

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and then we demand that they come back and put that all down

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in favor of the lives that we live here without,

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in my opinion, a requisite understanding. And even Younger

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says this in the book. An understanding of why combat

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works particularly for young men. We

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don’t really want to think about that because it’s just too. It’s too

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ugly. It’s too ugly. But I

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think we, and I agree with Younger, I. I think we have to face that

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ugliness if we ever really actually

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want to have peace on Earth.

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That’s really hard. It’s a really hard way to get from there to here.

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But that’s kind of starting at the end. I would encourage you to go back

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and listen to that shorts episode, listen to the introductory episode. Today on the

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show, I’m going to delve into John’s insights

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from the book. I’m going to share my own, as usual, because it’s copyrighted material.

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I’m not going to be reading directly from the book. I respect not only the

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copyright, But I respect Mr. Unger’s work too much to do that.

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And I respect the. The men of.

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Of the 173rd Battalion and of 2nd Platoon. And so I’m not going

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to do that to them. Instead, what I’m going to do

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is I’m going to ask John to start us off with. And he was very

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excited to read this book. When I initially sort of sent him the list, just

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a little bit behind the scenes, sent him the list of books that we’re going

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to be reading this year on the podcast. He said, dude, I want to do

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that one. And I knew it was going to be tough. And we’re

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doing it on Coming in on the Back End, or we’re covering this book Coming

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in on the Back End of World War I by John Keegan. And there’s

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a lot of parallels between the way Keegan reports

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on World War I and the ways in which World

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War I has been framed from a soldier’s perspective, which Keegan does critique

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in his book because he’s framing it as a historian, not a

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combatant, and definitely not an embedded person.

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All the way a hundred years later to what we are doing in the

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Korengal Valley and the ways in which things have shifted over the course of a

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century is kind of amazing. But what’s even More

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amazing are the things that have remained the same.

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So with that framing and setup, I

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would remind you that the book is divided into three parts.

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We’re going to probably talk about each part, but first part is fear. The

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second part is killing. And then the third part, as I said previously,

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is love. John, you went through

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this book. Tell us your thoughts about Sebastian

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Younger’s book on war.

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So a little bit of backstory here. I

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am prior service. I joined the army reserves in

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2001, in May of 2001. That’s an important

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part of this thing because I joined largely just for some college money

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and for all the wrong reasons to join the military. But we were in

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peacetime. Didn’t really matter. You know,

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the recruiters made it sound. It was like it was going to be awesome, right?

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I was going to get really great training. I was gonna be able to come

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back. I was gonna be able to get a really cool job, and no big

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deal. Let’s just go do this thing. So I joined,

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and me and. Me and a buddy joined together, and his younger brother

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had already joined. And so I kind of got to see this

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person who had gone through basic training and was still very

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optimistic about the army, right. And being in the

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military. And I didn’t have anything going on. Right. I dropped out of college.

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At this point, I’m working full time. You know, I had all the credit cards

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that everybody got around that time, and, you know, starting to feel that pressure of

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it, didn’t know what to do. And so kind

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of found my way there and

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put a lot of distance, I think, between myself whenever I was

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going through that and this person that I am now. Right. I see a lot

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of value in some of the stuff that I’ve had to go through. A of

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lot of what the military taught me had a long period of kind of being

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not really excited about any of that stuff. I didn’t want to talk about it

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a whole lot. But now I kind of see where it’s helped

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me. Like, I do not think I would be capable of running my own business

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or being a sales professional or doing any of the things that I do now

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without my time in the military. But all that to be said,

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I never deployed. I never really had to go out

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and do the things that are talked about in this book. And so

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when I’m talking about this and I’m sharing my opinion, I just wanted to be

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clear that I am speaking from a place who. Who has been through the training

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but has not actually been in that environment. But I have a lot of friends

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who have and have come back different and

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to the point you’re talking about before,

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not the same, completely different. So

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this book was. Wasn’t fascinating because like

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reading through it, I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything

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that made it more like real.

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Like I was instantly like teleported back to being in

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Georgia before 911 when it was just an exercise, and after

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911 when it was no longer just an exercise and we’re on, you

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know, 24 hour alert and things like that. I’ve never,

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like, I had to put it down a couple of times and like, take some

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breaks and walk away from it and stuff like that because it was just like

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very, very well written. Like there’s this,

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there’s this vibe that like is. And you can see it in the

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book if you’re really paying attention to it and stuff like that. And if you’re

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not familiar with it, it just feels like bravado.

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But there’s this weight to it that if you’ve been around

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it and you’ve seen the output of it and stuff like that, to where it’s

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not just bravado, like it’s, it’s. It’s this very

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weird version of like hope kind of thing and stuff like that.

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And it’s, it’s mixed up and labeled oddly and put into weird

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conventions, you know, and there’s a lot in the book about like, you know, the

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needling and the, you know, the crap giving and the, the

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hazing and all of this stuff. And like it’s, I

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mean, it’s so well written, right? Like, if you’ve never been

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through it, this is probably one of the, one of the most interesting

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points of view on it, right? Because it’s all there

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and even down to when you’re leaving, you’re going to give

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the new guys crap because they’re not prepared, but they think that they are, but

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you’re going to go humble. Like that is. That is so just in

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it, you know, and the, the cool part

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of they know that that’s what’s required

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in that space, right? Like, you know, when they’re talking about how

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their uniforms are completely destroyed and everything because they’re doing these things and stuff

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like that, and it becomes a mark of distinction. Like when you’re out and you’re

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that far out and stuff, it is. There are like, the rules are lesser, you

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know, and then when you come back and you’re, you know, herded together again,

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it’s kind of like, you know, I, I’ve seen that frustration

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so many times when talking with people who are frustrated by the rules when

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they come back, you know, and, and it’s just, I’ve never read

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anything that like, put me back in that spot as deeply as this book did.

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And I’m, I’m. It was, yeah, it was a

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lot. It was a lot for sure.

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Buddy of mine who’s been on the show, I don’t feel bad about using his

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name, R.J. st. John. He came on a couple years

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ago and talked with us about the book about Face,

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which is, which is another great, another great memoir

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written from the perspective of a guy who,

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the author who, who served in Korea. Right. And then proceeded to serve

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in Vietnam and then just, you know, left the military, the American

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military, and retired to, to Australia, began to critique the American

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military’s approach in, in Vietnam and then

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was, you know, cast off, basically.

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Colonel David Hackworth. Right. I didn’t know about that.

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Like, like I know about, I know about Hackworth and about,

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about Face, largely because of, you know, Jocko’s podcast and following him

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for a while. I didn’t, I didn’t realize that he got kind of like

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excommunicated for some of these ideas. That’s fascinating.

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He became peacenick or what they called Peacenick back in the day.

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Today we would just call him a reasonable guy,

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but the thing he was fighting uphill against was

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all of the residue From World War II that

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was the thing he was fighting against. And we don’t, we don’t appreciate.

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No, I’ll frame it this way. I think people who have a non

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historical perspective on the world and on the, on America

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don’t appreciate just how powerful military service

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was from World War II and the ripples that went out from that in

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literally every facet of American life.

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And so by the time you get to Vietnam

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and Hackworth’s looking at the decay of the American

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military command structure, he doesn’t really

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understand it. And so for him, the only solution, at least this is what

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I was able to glean, was to critique

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the system and then eventually leave the system.

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Yeah. Because there was no way around it in

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that particular environment that he was in. I think it’s because of

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the work of guys like Hackworth. I think it’s because of the

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writing of folks like that and yes, the journalists who came

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after and who critiqued Vietnam that we are able to

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wind up with this book right here. Oh, I think so.

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And I want to. So I was mentioning my buddy RJ I want to bring

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this up because he, he saw the picture that I posted

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on Facebook, on our Facebook page about getting into the

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book and he texted me, he said this, that book, Younger, that book

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by Younger War. I’ve read it, actually I read it in

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Afghanistan and I couldn’t put it down as finally I had found a

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civilian who understood and could put into words what I could not.

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When I came home, I had, I’m not going to say her name. I

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had this person and her mother read it. And while this person

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understood, her mom didn’t and lots of people I’ve

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recommended that book to Just Do Not Understand. It’s an

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excellent book and a good view into the grunt world from a non

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grunt perspective. Yeah.

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Close quote. There’s, there’s this

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status that goes along with it, right? And they talk about how they

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know about it, right? Like I went to Benning, which is where like the home

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of the infantry is. But my, my, my job is not to be an infantry

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person, right? So I went through like the regular standard boot camp.

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But it was wild because since I’m at Benning and it’s the home of the

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infantry and that’s like their big thing and they’re very, you know, we were

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always hearing about how we weren’t, we weren’t there for the,

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for the good stuff, the 11 Bravo. And like, I mean it was always

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just kind of being dangled, like the pride of that, right? And

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it has to be there, it must be there, you know, and

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this is a, I hate, I hate when people take

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war propaganda into sales leadership. It really, really bothers me, but it happens

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all the time. But you know, if you

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don’t make it a big thing, something

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you can be proud of or whatever, people are just going to do the minimum,

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00:18:04,560 –> 00:18:08,110
right? And so right now there’s a, there’s a whole fleet of

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sales professionals called like SDRs and BDRs, right? And they, they do

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early stage work, right? They’re setting appointments, they’re, they’re triaging, they’re

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clarifying the information and stuff. They don’t even get to close any deals. And in

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that mode, when you’re just being told, well, you’re just a setter, you’re just a

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setter, you’re not going to, you’re not like they’re doing it the, the bad way,

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right? Because everyone just wants to be out of that role, which means no one

294
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is going to really be in that role and do it well and like lead

295
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the Pathfinder and document the journey and do these things. And so

296
00:18:34,600 –> 00:18:38,360
it’s, it’s this very stark comparison. Right. Because being.

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00:18:38,360 –> 00:18:42,200
Being an sdr, being an appointment setter, being a BDR can sometimes be a thankless

298
00:18:42,200 –> 00:18:44,840
job because you don’t get the glory of closing the deals or getting it across

299
00:18:44,840 –> 00:18:48,520
the finish line or anything else like this. And if it’s positioned as well,

300
00:18:48,600 –> 00:18:51,160
just do this for a little bit and then we’ll get you promoted and then

301
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you’re going to do the cool work, then you get to do the, the big

302
00:18:53,560 –> 00:18:56,830
bucks and stuff. It’s why everyone has

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00:18:56,980 –> 00:19:00,740
hates that role and it’s why people can’t keep people in that role because they’re

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not packaging it in a way that makes people excited to do it.

305
00:19:04,580 –> 00:19:07,940
Right. Whereas infantry, for as much as that job sucks,

306
00:19:08,660 –> 00:19:12,340
most of those people are incredibly bought into the value and

307
00:19:12,340 –> 00:19:16,100
the value of the effort that they do. Yeah, I, One of

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00:19:16,100 –> 00:19:19,220
the things that really struck me, particularly in the first part of,

309
00:19:20,260 –> 00:19:24,030
of the book. And it. Struck me

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00:19:24,030 –> 00:19:27,870
all the way down to my bones, so I’ve known the kinds

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00:19:27,870 –> 00:19:30,270
of folks that go into the military.

312
00:19:31,470 –> 00:19:35,310
This was a surprise for me. I, I did not know

313
00:19:35,310 –> 00:19:38,990
this. And it was. I, I was delighted that they put this

314
00:19:38,990 –> 00:19:42,710
into the book, honestly, because, because people do not know about this if they

315
00:19:42,710 –> 00:19:46,430
have not served or not spent time around armed services folks. Right.

316
00:19:46,750 –> 00:19:50,570
And it’s, it’s, it kind of reminded me in a certain way of

317
00:19:50,570 –> 00:19:54,090
the folks that I see at. And this is my first mention of it, and

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00:19:54,090 –> 00:19:57,130
I’ll mention it more this episode. I always do once or twice or four times

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00:19:57,130 –> 00:20:00,570
an episode. It reminds me of the folks that I’ve been going through Jiu Jitsu

320
00:20:00,570 –> 00:20:04,050
with right now on the Jiu Jitsu journey. It is this ragtag

321
00:20:04,050 –> 00:20:07,570
collection of miscreants and criminals

322
00:20:08,130 –> 00:20:11,170
and people with a criminal mindset who aren’t quite criminals

323
00:20:12,530 –> 00:20:16,280
and people who just want the thrill and accountants

324
00:20:17,000 –> 00:20:20,720
and lawyers and doctors like we were

325
00:20:20,720 –> 00:20:24,400
just talking about. And we’re all united in this sort

326
00:20:24,400 –> 00:20:28,080
of brotherhood. And they

327
00:20:28,080 –> 00:20:31,840
were united in this. And they talk about this a lot. In love, united in

328
00:20:31,840 –> 00:20:35,080
this brotherhood. And to your point, there’s hazing,

329
00:20:35,720 –> 00:20:39,400
there’s nonsense, there’s crap talking. Like

330
00:20:39,400 –> 00:20:42,520
every time I go to Jiu Jitsu, I’m getting crap talked. It’s fine. And I’m

331
00:20:42,520 –> 00:20:46,230
dishing out as much as. I’m taking it fine. Because, you

332
00:20:46,230 –> 00:20:49,710
know, my mom didn’t raise no punk. So there you go. That’s how that goes.

333
00:20:53,470 –> 00:20:56,750
Don’t, don’t get confused with the flat

334
00:20:56,750 –> 00:21:00,270
Midwestern sounding voice. Don’t get confused. Don’t, don’t

335
00:21:00,270 –> 00:21:04,110
confuse that. But you sound like you’re going through boot

336
00:21:04,110 –> 00:21:07,830
camp like right now, right? A little bit. Well, you

337
00:21:07,830 –> 00:21:11,310
know, here’s the thing. I would never compare what I’m doing in jiu jitsu with

338
00:21:11,310 –> 00:21:15,030
boot camp. I would never compare. Thank God. Like, like it’s not

339
00:21:15,030 –> 00:21:18,770
even. No, please. Number one, I’m in my mid-40s. My knees don’t work

340
00:21:18,770 –> 00:21:21,930
that well. Let’s be really real here.

341
00:21:22,570 –> 00:21:26,370
But the, the, it is the closest

342
00:21:26,370 –> 00:21:30,130
thing a non combatant, non grunt can get to something

343
00:21:30,130 –> 00:21:33,930
that’s like, almost like that. And even still you’re not close.

344
00:21:33,930 –> 00:21:37,730
Right? And it’s. And what fascinated

345
00:21:37,730 –> 00:21:40,890
me in the first part of the book in Fear was

346
00:21:41,530 –> 00:21:44,830
the psychology of these guys, the

347
00:21:44,830 –> 00:21:47,590
mentality of these young men.

348
00:21:48,390 –> 00:21:51,590
Typically when we think about soldiers, we do, we think of a rootless,

349
00:21:51,990 –> 00:21:55,790
typically our time. Rootless, to

350
00:21:55,790 –> 00:21:59,270
your point about your experience, rootless, non college going

351
00:22:00,070 –> 00:22:03,870
guy who might have some violent tendencies. And we

352
00:22:03,870 –> 00:22:06,910
don’t understand that. And so we want to channel that as a society and culture

353
00:22:06,910 –> 00:22:10,730
into something that’s beneficial. And I looked at the statistics. Less

354
00:22:10,730 –> 00:22:14,290
than 1% of the available male population in the United States serves.

355
00:22:15,650 –> 00:22:19,090
Really? Yep. I looked up the statistics. It’s like 0.08%.

356
00:22:20,290 –> 00:22:24,090
I did not know it was that low. That’s interesting because the biggest

357
00:22:24,090 –> 00:22:26,770
lesson that the Pentagon learned from the end of the Vietnam War,

358
00:22:27,730 –> 00:22:30,690
at the end of the Vietnam War was get rid of conscription.

359
00:22:31,490 –> 00:22:35,290
This is why anytime anybody in Congress on either side of the

360
00:22:35,290 –> 00:22:39,050
aisle talks about going back to the draft, the

361
00:22:39,050 –> 00:22:42,650
Pentagon shuts that down immediately. Oh, yeah, don’t,

362
00:22:42,650 –> 00:22:45,490
don’t even talk about it. Shut up. Right.

363
00:22:46,610 –> 00:22:50,130
But what this does on the other end of that

364
00:22:50,130 –> 00:22:53,970
idea, which we don’t appreciate this. Remember I talked about the World War II veterans,

365
00:22:54,050 –> 00:22:57,730
right. What this does is it flattens

366
00:22:57,730 –> 00:23:01,450
society in the face of a warrior ethos. And now

367
00:23:01,450 –> 00:23:05,170
the society doesn’t understand how to deal with that warrior when they come back.

368
00:23:05,170 –> 00:23:08,950
So the case in point for sure is o’, Byrne, right. In

369
00:23:08,950 –> 00:23:12,790
the book, his, his journey. Right. So you know this

370
00:23:12,790 –> 00:23:16,630
guy, Brendan o’, Byrne, right. He led his men, what I, in what

371
00:23:16,630 –> 00:23:20,030
I would consider an exemplary fashion in a

372
00:23:20,030 –> 00:23:23,430
horrible place and made command

373
00:23:23,430 –> 00:23:26,670
decisions that

374
00:23:27,070 –> 00:23:29,550
a 22 year old shouldn’t have to make.

375
00:23:30,910 –> 00:23:34,520
But he understood what the game was and he

376
00:23:34,520 –> 00:23:37,520
understood how to do the thing. I even, I even as a, as part of

377
00:23:37,520 –> 00:23:40,880
me reading this book, I went out and bought Restrepo, which was

378
00:23:41,920 –> 00:23:45,320
the movie that was made from the

379
00:23:45,320 –> 00:23:49,000
photographer Tim Harrigan, or I’m not saying his name, last name

380
00:23:49,000 –> 00:23:52,760
correctly, I don’t think. But the photographer that was along with Sebastian

381
00:23:52,760 –> 00:23:56,240
Younger, who took photographs and video. Right. Of their experience and it turned into a

382
00:23:56,240 –> 00:23:59,200
movie called Restrepo. And then there’s another movie called Korengal, which I’m probably going to

383
00:23:59,200 –> 00:24:03,050
get to. And I watched that movie as part of reading this book and normally

384
00:24:03,050 –> 00:24:06,170
I don’t do that. Normally I don’t cross over the book with the film. But

385
00:24:06,170 –> 00:24:09,970
this was one of those things like reading Shakespeare where you’ve got to like hear

386
00:24:09,970 –> 00:24:13,650
it and see it, because seeing the words on the page, to your point,

387
00:24:13,890 –> 00:24:17,490
doesn’t quite have the same impact as it does when you actually watch the videos

388
00:24:17,490 –> 00:24:21,290
of it. That’s a fascinating thing because. Because like, I was watching

389
00:24:21,290 –> 00:24:25,050
this or sorry, I was reading this and I was seeing about the Restrepo stuff

390
00:24:25,050 –> 00:24:28,410
and the other document and I was. And I want all the context. I’ll go

391
00:24:28,410 –> 00:24:31,390
watch all this stuff, right? And then got a little real and I was like,

392
00:24:31,630 –> 00:24:33,790
right. And so I still want to watch it, but I think I need a

393
00:24:33,790 –> 00:24:34,350
little bit of time.

394
00:24:37,390 –> 00:24:41,150
That’s a fascinating thing, right? Because like, if you’ve not gone through anything like

395
00:24:41,150 –> 00:24:44,830
that, I would imagine, I would imagine your

396
00:24:44,830 –> 00:24:47,470
feeling at the end of that book is completely different than my feeling at the

397
00:24:47,470 –> 00:24:50,670
end of that book. Oh, right, yeah, I, Yeah, I mean I,

398
00:24:51,710 –> 00:24:55,430
I had to thumb back through it again on, on the. Well, so

399
00:24:55,430 –> 00:24:58,470
we’re recording this on a Monday. I had to go back through it on a,

400
00:24:58,470 –> 00:25:02,150
on a, on the Sunday beforehand. And I just sat on my front porch and

401
00:25:02,150 –> 00:25:05,750
just sat with. Was just one of those books I just sat with like, like

402
00:25:05,750 –> 00:25:09,110
at the end of John Keegan’s book, like World War I, I just sat with

403
00:25:09,110 –> 00:25:10,270
it because

404
00:25:16,510 –> 00:25:20,270
again, as a non grunt, right, As a person

405
00:25:20,270 –> 00:25:23,630
who might have more orientation towards that mindset

406
00:25:24,120 –> 00:25:27,720
than most other folks that I know, but never actually did the thing, never actually

407
00:25:27,720 –> 00:25:31,480
pulled the trigger to go down the road for a

408
00:25:31,480 –> 00:25:32,680
whole variety of reasons

409
00:25:35,560 –> 00:25:39,360
as a person who, who has lived a life surrounded by these kinds

410
00:25:39,360 –> 00:25:43,040
of people. And I’m talking about a lot of it like

411
00:25:43,040 –> 00:25:46,800
they, and, and I’m the first male in my family to not serve in the

412
00:25:46,800 –> 00:25:50,450
military. I broke the generational like going back, right?

413
00:25:50,930 –> 00:25:54,530
And so there was a lot of pressure not to serve

414
00:25:54,530 –> 00:25:58,010
necessarily, but a lot of pressure to do something if you’re not going to do

415
00:25:58,010 –> 00:26:01,810
that. Oh, so then it’s like, well, you don’t have to go,

416
00:26:01,810 –> 00:26:04,450
but you better be a doctor. You better be something.

417
00:26:06,130 –> 00:26:09,930
It’s. It’s almost like it’s the. I’m going to use an analogy here. This

418
00:26:09,930 –> 00:26:12,250
is going to be terrible. But it’s my platform, so I can use terrible analogies

419
00:26:12,250 –> 00:26:15,940
if I want. Absolutely. That’s the whole point of building a platform. Exactly. It’s the

420
00:26:15,940 –> 00:26:18,140
African American version of the Asian tiger bomb.

421
00:26:19,500 –> 00:26:23,340
Oh, yeah. It’s that kind of

422
00:26:23,340 –> 00:26:27,020
pressure, right? So, like, my uncles on my father’s side all

423
00:26:27,020 –> 00:26:30,700
served. My uncles on my. On my mother’s side

424
00:26:30,780 –> 00:26:34,140
served. My grandfather on my father’s side served.

425
00:26:35,340 –> 00:26:38,940
Like, it goes. You know, it’s just there, right? We were the

426
00:26:38,940 –> 00:26:42,590
opposite, actually. Okay, okay. So, like, my

427
00:26:42,590 –> 00:26:46,390
parents are both hippies. And, like, whenever I told my mom I was thinking

428
00:26:46,390 –> 00:26:49,910
about it, she’s like, are you sure? What’s. His

429
00:26:49,910 –> 00:26:53,430
name’s. What’s his name? Who was in here? What was one of the soldiers. They

430
00:26:53,430 –> 00:26:57,190
were describing him, the one who’s like, mom wouldn’t

431
00:26:57,190 –> 00:27:00,870
let me have guns. She was also a hippie. Mm. Yeah. And

432
00:27:00,870 –> 00:27:04,710
he was like, now I’m here doing this thing here. They like. I.

433
00:27:04,950 –> 00:27:08,700
I believe he was. He was interviewed in. In Restrepo. And then they

434
00:27:08,700 –> 00:27:11,140
cut to him, like, firing the 50 cal or it might have been the saw.

435
00:27:11,460 –> 00:27:15,020
I can’t remember right now. And, you know, it’s.

436
00:27:15,020 –> 00:27:15,380
It’s.

437
00:27:18,820 –> 00:27:22,100
I don’t. I don’t know what to do with any of it other than to

438
00:27:22,100 –> 00:27:25,460
say reality plays out in weird ways.

439
00:27:26,580 –> 00:27:30,300
And let’s not layer. Let’s not layer stuff on top of it. Let’s not try

440
00:27:30,300 –> 00:27:33,380
to make it more complicated or subtle or gray area

441
00:27:34,110 –> 00:27:37,950
than just reality works out in weird ways. And follow the bouncing ball.

442
00:27:38,830 –> 00:27:42,030
Well, and that’s. That to me, goes back to how you open the show. It’s

443
00:27:42,030 –> 00:27:45,870
about the trade offs, right? And there’s a.

444
00:27:45,870 –> 00:27:48,350
As you were talking about this, I was having this flashback of

445
00:27:49,629 –> 00:27:52,510
being in basic training, right, very early on, and

446
00:27:53,630 –> 00:27:57,390
drill sergeants were yelling at us about not being decisive, not making decisions, not

447
00:27:57,390 –> 00:28:01,190
just moving forward with intent and everything. And he goes, ah, that’s right. You

448
00:28:01,190 –> 00:28:04,810
guys are. You guys are privates. Like, we’re not even soldiers yet. We’re privates, right?

449
00:28:04,810 –> 00:28:08,450
And it’s derogatory, and you know it. Right? So going through this whole

450
00:28:08,450 –> 00:28:10,930
thing. And he goes, oh, that’s right. That’s right. You guys haven’t been to school

451
00:28:10,930 –> 00:28:14,210
yet. You guys are, you know, too dumb to make decisions. And I was like,

452
00:28:14,290 –> 00:28:18,090
I’m sorry, what? And. And he was like, start pushing so I’m down now.

453
00:28:18,090 –> 00:28:21,930
I’m pushing now. And we have this conversation about how there’s a school that the

454
00:28:21,930 –> 00:28:25,010
military sends you to when you get to a certain rank, and it’s all about

455
00:28:25,010 –> 00:28:28,290
how to make decisions. And I thought this was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard,

456
00:28:28,290 –> 00:28:31,750
right? So while I’m doing push ups, I’m like, hey, drill Sergeant, this seems a

457
00:28:31,750 –> 00:28:35,590
little silly. Like, really. And he goes,

458
00:28:35,670 –> 00:28:39,470
well, private, here, if you make

459
00:28:39,470 –> 00:28:43,270
the wrong decision, people die. And here, sometimes, even if

460
00:28:43,270 –> 00:28:47,110
you make the right decision, people will die. And there’s a lot

461
00:28:47,110 –> 00:28:50,310
of times where time does not actually show you which solution

462
00:28:50,790 –> 00:28:54,270
has less risk and less death. And you have to be able to make command

463
00:28:54,270 –> 00:28:58,110
decisions in the heat of that moment. And, like, I can. I couldn’t

464
00:28:58,110 –> 00:29:01,910
even do push ups anymore. I’m hearing this, and the weight with which he’s

465
00:29:01,910 –> 00:29:05,710
talking about it is just like, coming through, right? Because I’m

466
00:29:05,710 –> 00:29:08,430
20 years old and I’m one of the older guys in the. In the thing.

467
00:29:08,430 –> 00:29:11,870
Everyone else is like 18 or doing split ops. They’re like on summer break between,

468
00:29:12,109 –> 00:29:15,310
you know, junior and senior year of high school and everything.

469
00:29:15,790 –> 00:29:19,590
And I’m like one of the older guard at 20 years old. And this idea

470
00:29:19,590 –> 00:29:23,310
that, like, it was kind of like, okay, what have I really gotten myself

471
00:29:23,310 –> 00:29:27,150
into? You know, but it was still fine because we’re not at war. It’s

472
00:29:27,150 –> 00:29:30,670
okay. We’re not at war. It’s okay. This is just the reserves, right? And,

473
00:29:30,750 –> 00:29:34,350
you know, talk about the hazing and like, the kind of hierarchical nature of it.

474
00:29:34,590 –> 00:29:38,269
You know, there were airborne guys on our base, right? And

475
00:29:38,269 –> 00:29:42,070
the hero worship, right? The Red Beret and. And all these

476
00:29:42,070 –> 00:29:45,750
things, right? And being a reservist going through, like,

477
00:29:45,750 –> 00:29:47,630
Benny, oh my God, man, like,

478
00:29:49,520 –> 00:29:53,240
just hazed. And you know, only thing worse than being reservists of being a

479
00:29:53,240 –> 00:29:56,960
National Guard or a nasty girl, like, it, like, there. There’s

480
00:29:56,960 –> 00:29:59,920
no way to show up and not take it in some way, shape or form,

481
00:29:59,920 –> 00:30:03,760
which is just kind of like an interesting aspect to it. But that idea of

482
00:30:04,160 –> 00:30:07,800
everything has a trade off, right? And this is one of my very unpopular

483
00:30:07,800 –> 00:30:10,840
conversations that I got to have with people now, including my wife sometimes, and she

484
00:30:10,840 –> 00:30:14,440
does not like this, that choices, everything is a

485
00:30:14,440 –> 00:30:18,180
choice, right? And everything has trade offs. You know, as a founder, if

486
00:30:18,180 –> 00:30:21,820
you’re not doing your stuff, that’s a choice. If you’re choosing to

487
00:30:21,820 –> 00:30:24,700
procrastinate, if you’re choosing to not figure it out, if you’re choosing to go by

488
00:30:24,700 –> 00:30:28,020
tech as opposed to understanding how this stuff works. Because you think the tech is

489
00:30:28,020 –> 00:30:31,860
going to save you. You’re making choices and there’s going to be output of those

490
00:30:31,860 –> 00:30:35,580
choices. Not only that, something else that Sebastian

491
00:30:36,060 –> 00:30:39,100
makes an excellent point about in. In War,

492
00:30:40,060 –> 00:30:43,640
in the back. In the back of the book, the back end of. Of Love,

493
00:30:45,000 –> 00:30:48,760
he talks about how, yes, there are trade offs

494
00:30:49,160 –> 00:30:52,680
and at. No, the. The tension

495
00:30:52,920 –> 00:30:56,640
when you’re in. As they used to say back in the day, pardon my French,

496
00:30:56,640 –> 00:30:59,760
but they used to say back in the day, in the shit, when you’re in

497
00:30:59,760 –> 00:31:03,320
it versus when you’re back home and the dial is turned down.

498
00:31:03,560 –> 00:31:07,140
Yep. Everything that is out

499
00:31:07,140 –> 00:31:10,660
there. This was the best explanation I ever saw for the psychology of this

500
00:31:10,820 –> 00:31:14,620
or I’ve ever read for the psychology of this. Everything out there can kill

501
00:31:14,620 –> 00:31:18,380
you. Everything is consequential whether you tie your

502
00:31:18,380 –> 00:31:22,180
shoes or don’t tie your shoes, whether you wash

503
00:31:22,180 –> 00:31:25,860
or don’t wash, whether you are carrying the appropriate

504
00:31:25,860 –> 00:31:29,580
amount of water or not. Like, he. He told the story of a guy who

505
00:31:29,580 –> 00:31:32,100
peed off the side of the. Believe it was off the side of the bunk

506
00:31:32,510 –> 00:31:36,270
and the pee was like. Everybody could smell the pee. And the commanding officer went

507
00:31:36,270 –> 00:31:39,910
back to that guy and said, listen, you’re not drinking enough water. It’s

508
00:31:39,910 –> 00:31:43,470
110 degrees out here. We’re sweating ammonia.

509
00:31:44,110 –> 00:31:47,710
Drink water. Why would you be yelling at you about drinking water? Well,

510
00:31:47,710 –> 00:31:51,390
because if you die on patrol or if you

511
00:31:51,390 –> 00:31:54,990
pass out, a repeat stroke on patrol, now we have to carry your behind

512
00:31:55,470 –> 00:31:58,590
up the mountain and back down the mountain to make sure you don’t get shot

513
00:31:58,590 –> 00:32:02,380
by the enemy. Drink water. Every decision

514
00:32:03,100 –> 00:32:06,820
has monumental consequences. And then we come back to your

515
00:32:06,820 –> 00:32:10,340
point about using war metaphors in business and war propaganda and sales and

516
00:32:10,340 –> 00:32:13,900
leadership. You come back to the civilian

517
00:32:13,900 –> 00:32:17,740
world and people are behaving. And I could see this in my veterans

518
00:32:18,220 –> 00:32:21,980
that I know. I could see their frustration with civilians. This is the

519
00:32:21,980 –> 00:32:25,620
best way I had it articulated. Civilians behave as if no

520
00:32:25,620 –> 00:32:29,250
decisions are consequential. 100%. 100.

521
00:32:29,490 –> 00:32:33,330
And I could see where that would drive them crazy and where that is the

522
00:32:33,330 –> 00:32:36,370
biggest disjuncture. It’s not the PTSD, really.

523
00:32:37,170 –> 00:32:40,690
It’s more the disjuncture on going from a place where

524
00:32:41,170 –> 00:32:45,010
if you don’t tie your shoelaces it can get you killed to,

525
00:32:46,610 –> 00:32:49,050
well, I’m just not going to walk the dogs today because I don’t feel like

526
00:32:49,050 –> 00:32:52,450
it. Yeah. And the dogs will be fine.

527
00:32:53,900 –> 00:32:56,180
And how do you make those two. How do you make the zipper close on

528
00:32:56,180 –> 00:32:59,580
both of those ideas and you can’t. No one has a good

529
00:32:59,580 –> 00:33:02,140
psychological. Yeah. Way.

530
00:33:03,500 –> 00:33:06,740
Matter of fact, I think Younger is probably the first writer to ever sort of

531
00:33:06,740 –> 00:33:10,540
really articulate this correctly. Beautiful

532
00:33:10,540 –> 00:33:13,740
job talking. I. What I love

533
00:33:14,060 –> 00:33:17,020
and. Oh, man. Okay.

534
00:33:19,030 –> 00:33:22,630
I love how he talks about how he carried it back

535
00:33:22,630 –> 00:33:26,430
himself, that he was struggling with it. Right. I finished

536
00:33:26,430 –> 00:33:30,150
the book and then I was doing a little bit of research on o’

537
00:33:30,150 –> 00:33:33,510
Brien a little bit, and turns out that he writes now and

538
00:33:33,750 –> 00:33:36,510
was reading some of his stuff and then I read an article about a flashback

539
00:33:36,510 –> 00:33:40,350
he had because people were on him and it put him back

540
00:33:40,350 –> 00:33:43,590
into that mode. And when you tighten the spring,

541
00:33:44,320 –> 00:33:46,840
by. The way, the guy Money who told him he wasn’t going to buy his

542
00:33:46,840 –> 00:33:49,280
book, I freaking loved that. I laughed so hard.

543
00:33:50,880 –> 00:33:54,600
Anyway, sorry, go ahead. When you put that. When you. When

544
00:33:54,600 –> 00:33:57,600
you take a steel bar and you wind it into a spring, right. So that

545
00:33:57,600 –> 00:34:01,000
way it’ll push, it’ll be. It’ll compress, it’ll do these things and everything else like

546
00:34:01,000 –> 00:34:04,680
that. Like, we don’t unwind that spring. No. In any way,

547
00:34:04,680 –> 00:34:08,320
shape or form. Right? No. And a friend of mine is serving a double life

548
00:34:08,320 –> 00:34:12,000
sentence because that spring was not unwound. And it just led to

549
00:34:13,910 –> 00:34:16,830
a truly unfortunate incident. And he was trying to get help, but the line was

550
00:34:16,830 –> 00:34:20,630
super long and so made some decisions and you know, he will

551
00:34:20,630 –> 00:34:24,230
never be out because of that.

552
00:34:24,230 –> 00:34:28,030
And it didn’t have to be that way, but there was no. There

553
00:34:28,030 –> 00:34:31,790
was no offloading of that tension in a meaningful way. And

554
00:34:31,790 –> 00:34:35,590
so. Yeah, it’s tough. Very tough. Well, and, and, and

555
00:34:37,430 –> 00:34:40,749
so we think it’s the trauma, right? I mean, Younger addresses this in the book

556
00:34:40,749 –> 00:34:44,389
too. But violence, I think of the movie Heat,

557
00:34:44,389 –> 00:34:48,029
right? The action is the juice, right. The

558
00:34:48,029 –> 00:34:51,629
violence is the thing that young men want. That’s why I opened up the

559
00:34:51,629 –> 00:34:55,228
podcast with that, with that point. We, as a post

560
00:34:55,309 –> 00:34:58,949
modern culture where we

561
00:34:58,949 –> 00:35:02,389
have attempted in very meaningful ways to

562
00:35:02,389 –> 00:35:06,040
erase violence at multiple levels, or at

563
00:35:06,040 –> 00:35:08,840
least put it on the back burner enough to where we see it as an

564
00:35:08,840 –> 00:35:12,080
aberration, not merely human nature

565
00:35:12,080 –> 00:35:15,360
anymore. This is why everyone’s shocked with murder statistics.

566
00:35:15,920 –> 00:35:19,440
This is why everybody’s shocked. Every time there’s a murder statistic, everyone is surprised and

567
00:35:19,440 –> 00:35:23,160
blown away. Everybody’s shocked when we see.

568
00:35:23,160 –> 00:35:26,280
Now, unfortunately, murders or

569
00:35:26,280 –> 00:35:29,960
assassinations happen and then are publicized on social

570
00:35:29,960 –> 00:35:33,610
media. And the reason why we’re

571
00:35:33,610 –> 00:35:37,290
shocked is not only because the vast majority of the available

572
00:35:37,370 –> 00:35:40,250
male population doesn’t serve in the military, thus doesn’t See,

573
00:35:41,290 –> 00:35:45,130
no, not only does it serve in the military, but doesn’t experience combat because

574
00:35:45,130 –> 00:35:48,330
combat has even reduced over the course of time. Okay.

575
00:35:50,250 –> 00:35:54,010
So because of those two factors, we are shocked by violent death.

576
00:35:54,170 –> 00:35:57,450
And we can say that’s a good thing. We can say that that’s a good

577
00:35:57,450 –> 00:36:00,180
progression of society and culture. Yeah.

578
00:36:01,380 –> 00:36:05,180
And yet to your point about trade offs, there’s a trade off there. So

579
00:36:05,180 –> 00:36:08,980
we exchanged being anti violent all

580
00:36:08,980 –> 00:36:12,500
the way down to the lowest level for the

581
00:36:12,500 –> 00:36:15,940
ability to focus violence,

582
00:36:16,340 –> 00:36:19,940
as John Keegan made his point in World in the, in the first World War,

583
00:36:20,180 –> 00:36:23,700
to focus violence at an inflection point very quickly,

584
00:36:24,180 –> 00:36:27,880
very narrowly, particularly in America, we’re really good at this.

585
00:36:28,120 –> 00:36:31,800
And then get in and get out. Right. And then not waste a whole lot

586
00:36:31,800 –> 00:36:35,200
of time. We don’t like to waste a whole lot of time, partially. That’s culturally,

587
00:36:35,200 –> 00:36:37,840
we’re Americans, we don’t like to waste a lot of time. It bores us. We

588
00:36:37,840 –> 00:36:41,599
lose interest just as a civilian population. But

589
00:36:41,599 –> 00:36:45,080
when we ask people to do that, the thing we haven’t taken into

590
00:36:45,080 –> 00:36:48,840
consideration is back to my point about the psychology of these men.

591
00:36:49,320 –> 00:36:52,760
What type of person do we want to go do that?

592
00:36:53,290 –> 00:36:56,490
Because what’s coming up in the next 20 years, and you and I have talked

593
00:36:56,490 –> 00:36:59,410
about the next 20 years on the show before, what’s coming up in the next

594
00:36:59,410 –> 00:37:03,050
20 years is I would say probably 50%, maybe even

595
00:37:03,050 –> 00:37:06,410
60 to 70% mechanized warfare between

596
00:37:06,490 –> 00:37:10,250
drones and cyber AI

597
00:37:10,970 –> 00:37:14,690
and God only knows what else that will come out

598
00:37:14,690 –> 00:37:17,130
of human beings. Fertile imaginations.

599
00:37:19,030 –> 00:37:22,830
We are going to reduce the number of human bodies you need in

600
00:37:22,830 –> 00:37:25,830
an inflection point to an insanely low number

601
00:37:26,710 –> 00:37:30,390
in the history of warfare. Now that will happen not only

602
00:37:30,390 –> 00:37:33,830
in America, but also in Europe, in places that are

603
00:37:33,830 –> 00:37:37,590
technologically advanced, in China, places that are technologically advanced. But the

604
00:37:37,590 –> 00:37:41,350
knock on effect will be to places that are not technologically advanced because

605
00:37:41,350 –> 00:37:44,790
they always ape us and try to copy what we do

606
00:37:45,290 –> 00:37:48,730
in order to fight their own wars. And so over the next 20 years,

607
00:37:49,290 –> 00:37:52,250
I suspect the casualties in warfare,

608
00:37:53,130 –> 00:37:56,090
they won’t go to zero, but they’re going to be very low.

609
00:37:57,850 –> 00:38:01,370
And yet we still won’t ask the question, to your point about the

610
00:38:01,370 –> 00:38:05,130
metaphor, about the steel bar, we know what it takes to tighten that steel bar

611
00:38:05,130 –> 00:38:08,450
up, but I think we’ll, I think we will still lack

612
00:38:08,450 –> 00:38:11,900
curiosity, which is a shame to me, about what it takes to

613
00:38:11,900 –> 00:38:15,620
unbend that bar. But we’re still going to bend bars

614
00:38:15,940 –> 00:38:19,220
because wars are still going to happen and

615
00:38:20,020 –> 00:38:23,460
combat is still going to happen. And that’s. I don’t know.

616
00:38:24,420 –> 00:38:27,219
And I don’t know, maybe that’s a thing, but maybe like 500 years from now,

617
00:38:27,300 –> 00:38:31,140
long after you and I are dead and this podcast is gone from the Internet,

618
00:38:31,460 –> 00:38:35,180
maybe 500 years from now, we’ll get there. Maybe we will

619
00:38:35,180 –> 00:38:38,110
get to world peace, but it’s gonna take a while.

620
00:38:39,710 –> 00:38:42,270
I know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Things to where

621
00:38:45,390 –> 00:38:48,630
I put a lot of work over the past handful of years and being more

622
00:38:48,630 –> 00:38:52,030
optimistic and being more of a positive person, because I am by nature kind of

623
00:38:52,030 –> 00:38:55,510
cynical, kind of skeptical, especially after some of the stuff that I’ve been through and

624
00:38:55,510 –> 00:38:58,590
what. What I’ve seen. And I work in sales, right? So.

625
00:39:01,630 –> 00:39:05,180
I don’t. There’s something about youth,

626
00:39:05,740 –> 00:39:09,260
right? And ego and

627
00:39:09,580 –> 00:39:12,140
things like that. And, you know, reading this book

628
00:39:13,100 –> 00:39:16,940
is really fascinating because whenever I was going through my time in the military, I

629
00:39:16,940 –> 00:39:20,460
was kind of. And I had the same thing in sales, right?

630
00:39:21,180 –> 00:39:24,900
I was trying to follow someone else’s playbook, right? And I mean, it’s a military,

631
00:39:24,900 –> 00:39:28,500
so that’s kind of what. What happens, right? But I was just thinking, okay, well,

632
00:39:28,500 –> 00:39:30,700
if I just keep. If I just keep trying harder, if I just keep trying

633
00:39:30,700 –> 00:39:34,540
harder, if I just keep, okay, eventually I’m not gonna have any of these concerns

634
00:39:34,540 –> 00:39:38,220
that I have now, right? That was not true at all,

635
00:39:38,220 –> 00:39:41,860
you know, because what I realized is, and I could not appreciate this

636
00:39:41,860 –> 00:39:45,620
then, but hanging out with some of the people that I’ve met training martial

637
00:39:45,620 –> 00:39:49,100
arts as well. Some people are just

638
00:39:49,100 –> 00:39:52,420
meant for violence, right? Like

639
00:39:54,350 –> 00:39:57,950
Clint, who was Marine,

640
00:39:58,510 –> 00:40:02,270
served over there, deployed, was kind of doing some of the same stuff around.

641
00:40:02,910 –> 00:40:06,670
Around, like, jocko stuff whenever he’s talking about it in his book. But he

642
00:40:06,670 –> 00:40:08,190
was Special Forces, Marines, and

643
00:40:11,470 –> 00:40:15,270
never on my most angry day do I have the

644
00:40:15,270 –> 00:40:16,830
capacity for violence that he.

645
00:40:19,480 –> 00:40:23,320
Just. Because he. He go into that mode, right? Like, he’s not a

646
00:40:23,320 –> 00:40:27,120
sociopath or anything else like that. He’s a super kind dude when he

647
00:40:27,120 –> 00:40:30,680
wants to be, right? Thoughtful guy, great person, love

648
00:40:30,680 –> 00:40:34,480
hanging out with him and stuff like that. But his. I mean,

649
00:40:34,480 –> 00:40:37,640
his capacity for that is significantly more than mine, right?

650
00:40:38,040 –> 00:40:41,680
And so going through that and you’re bumping up against those people who are

651
00:40:41,680 –> 00:40:45,530
built for that stuff, you know? And, you know, sweetheart, John was

652
00:40:45,530 –> 00:40:48,850
not especially during that time, right? I hadn’t learned how to be myself. I was,

653
00:40:48,850 –> 00:40:52,450
you know, very unconfident and hadn’t gone through anything

654
00:40:52,610 –> 00:40:55,450
yet. So it was kind of this. Well, that’s who I’m Supposed to be. That’s.

655
00:40:55,450 –> 00:40:58,370
I’m supposed to be. And then whenever I wasn’t, it was just like a failure

656
00:40:58,370 –> 00:41:01,650
on my part, you know? And then whenever I get into sales and I’m. And

657
00:41:01,650 –> 00:41:04,850
I’m experiencing kind of the same thing, it’s, like, frustrating, but I’m a little bit

658
00:41:04,850 –> 00:41:08,330
older. And then, thankfully, I found coaching that was able to walk me out of

659
00:41:08,330 –> 00:41:12,050
that jaded hole that I was about to walk down. I’m trying to

660
00:41:12,050 –> 00:41:15,730
turn myself into something I didn’t need to be to do the job, you know,

661
00:41:16,450 –> 00:41:20,050
so it’s there, you know. But hearing o’ Brien

662
00:41:20,050 –> 00:41:23,890
just talk about how he approaches

663
00:41:23,890 –> 00:41:27,730
the world, like, yeah, yeah, I’ve.

664
00:41:27,730 –> 00:41:31,570
I’ve met people like you. And, and while. While I’ve trained and I’ve

665
00:41:31,570 –> 00:41:34,610
done a lot of training, and I think I can handle myself and everything else

666
00:41:34,610 –> 00:41:36,290
like this. There’s never.

667
00:41:38,300 –> 00:41:41,980
There’s never excitement about that prospect. There’s never any kind of glee. There’s never

668
00:41:42,300 –> 00:41:45,780
like. It’s just like, this is. This is the last line, right? This is what

669
00:41:45,780 –> 00:41:49,580
it takes for me to go home. Some people, that’s their first response. I’m

670
00:41:49,580 –> 00:41:52,940
just not that guy. Right. And so for as long as there’s going to be

671
00:41:52,940 –> 00:41:56,300
those people, and I think. I think there’s always going to be those people around

672
00:41:56,300 –> 00:42:00,140
youth and around big ego. I think it’s always

673
00:42:00,140 –> 00:42:02,860
going to get in the way. Well, and

674
00:42:03,870 –> 00:42:07,670
he talks also about, in the book Reaction Times, particularly between men

675
00:42:07,670 –> 00:42:11,470
and women. You know, he talks about

676
00:42:11,550 –> 00:42:15,230
the research around, particularly the psychology coming out of World War II, about

677
00:42:15,230 –> 00:42:18,949
what basically creates a bond or team among disparate

678
00:42:18,949 –> 00:42:22,590
elements of people. He also talks

679
00:42:22,590 –> 00:42:26,110
about, or younger, writes about in this book, the

680
00:42:26,670 –> 00:42:29,700
nature of. And this is sort of a Minority Report idea that I want to

681
00:42:29,850 –> 00:42:33,690
go down the road a little bit with you here. The nature of

682
00:42:33,770 –> 00:42:37,610
the enemy and the nature of

683
00:42:37,850 –> 00:42:40,250
the Taliban. And

684
00:42:41,370 –> 00:42:44,970
because he’s unable to be embedded with them, he doesn’t get a full

685
00:42:45,609 –> 00:42:48,570
view. But he tries to be fair at least as much as he possibly can.

686
00:42:49,530 –> 00:42:53,210
And, you know, the reality of

687
00:42:53,290 –> 00:42:57,050
fighting wars in places that are.

688
00:42:57,780 –> 00:43:00,580
And I love this line when he was describing the Korengal Valley. I have it

689
00:43:00,580 –> 00:43:04,380
in my script here. Too remote to conquer, too poor to intimidate, and

690
00:43:04,380 –> 00:43:08,220
too autonomous to buy off. Kind of put me in mind of

691
00:43:08,220 –> 00:43:11,980
what my buddy, one of my buddies I brought invited on the show. He

692
00:43:11,980 –> 00:43:14,860
comes on and talks about the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution every year. De

693
00:43:14,860 –> 00:43:18,660
Rolo Nixon, he and I were kind of going back and forth A

694
00:43:18,660 –> 00:43:22,220
little bit about sort of how people think around

695
00:43:22,220 –> 00:43:26,020
freedom. Right. And one of the, one of the

696
00:43:26,020 –> 00:43:29,540
points he made because we kind of. I don’t know how we got on Afghanistan

697
00:43:29,540 –> 00:43:32,780
in the conversation, but he made the point about the country of Afghanistan. He said,

698
00:43:33,900 –> 00:43:37,660
he described it as the global version of Appalachia in the United States.

699
00:43:38,220 –> 00:43:41,260
Right. A place where the internal

700
00:43:42,220 –> 00:43:44,380
cousin fighting has been going on for

701
00:43:45,820 –> 00:43:49,560
since time out of mind even the evening. I

702
00:43:49,560 –> 00:43:53,080
mean the Chinese wouldn’t go into that place. The Indians don’t mess with them.

703
00:43:53,480 –> 00:43:56,440
The Russians and the, and the British both had problems

704
00:43:57,400 –> 00:43:59,960
and the Americans, for all of our 20 years of

705
00:44:01,000 –> 00:44:04,400
going in and meddling ignominiously left in

706
00:44:04,400 –> 00:44:08,200
2021. And I’m not going to discuss that at all. I don’t want

707
00:44:08,200 –> 00:44:10,480
to get on that. That, that kind of irritates me. I’m not going to get

708
00:44:10,480 –> 00:44:14,160
on any of that for a whole variety of reasons. But we

709
00:44:14,160 –> 00:44:17,920
spent 20 irritates you as fascinating label though. It does. It irritates me because I

710
00:44:17,920 –> 00:44:20,930
don’t. Was all for now.

711
00:44:24,930 –> 00:44:28,530
I, I am not happy

712
00:44:28,690 –> 00:44:32,530
with what we did as a great power. Even if we don’t

713
00:44:32,530 –> 00:44:36,210
want to be a great power, we’re still perceived by others as a great

714
00:44:36,210 –> 00:44:39,890
power. Even if internally we reject that and internally we do. We don’t like that

715
00:44:39,890 –> 00:44:43,250
language. That’s why I wrote in my, in my script here

716
00:44:44,130 –> 00:44:46,850
we’re not supposed to. I think there’s a, I think there’s a contingent of people

717
00:44:46,850 –> 00:44:50,400
who. Okay, sure there’s a. There’s a political contingent of people

718
00:44:50,640 –> 00:44:54,440
that like the Lindsey Graham types. Sure. There’s a political contingency

719
00:44:54,440 –> 00:44:57,680
of people. The Victoria Newlands, you know, in both

720
00:44:57,680 –> 00:45:01,280
administrations by the way. Doesn’t really matter who. Who are. Who are there. Right. I

721
00:45:01,280 –> 00:45:05,120
think this is a uniparty idea. I’m not talking about those people.

722
00:45:05,520 –> 00:45:09,240
I’m talking about people like you and I. Like you and I aren’t interested in

723
00:45:09,240 –> 00:45:12,920
being part of an empire. And the reason why we’re not interested in being part

724
00:45:12,920 –> 00:45:16,640
of an empire are many and multifaceted. And that’s part

725
00:45:16,640 –> 00:45:20,360
of what I was saying in the intro about the arguments over trade offs.

726
00:45:20,600 –> 00:45:24,280
That’s where we have arguments over trade offs is okay,

727
00:45:24,440 –> 00:45:27,560
we’re going to give up our blood, our treasure, our time, our young men

728
00:45:27,960 –> 00:45:31,080
to this in exchange for what

729
00:45:31,160 –> 00:45:34,880
exactly. Yeah, what exactly are we

730
00:45:34,880 –> 00:45:38,640
getting in exchange? And it’s the politicians fault, not the generals

731
00:45:38,640 –> 00:45:41,960
and not the civilians. It’s the politician’s fault for not

732
00:45:41,960 –> 00:45:45,620
sufficiently explaining that to us and updating us every

733
00:45:45,620 –> 00:45:49,420
single step of the way. And by the way, I don’t mean updating us

734
00:45:49,420 –> 00:45:52,060
in a Senate subcommittee that no one sees on C Span.

735
00:45:53,020 –> 00:45:56,740
Yeah, I’m talking about updating us in political campaigns

736
00:45:56,740 –> 00:46:00,580
and pass the propaganda and the rhetoric. I’m talking about updating us

737
00:46:00,580 –> 00:46:04,220
through like say what you want about Ted Cruz, he’s got a podcast.

738
00:46:04,700 –> 00:46:08,220
Use a podcast. Like frickin go and do it. You know,

739
00:46:08,780 –> 00:46:12,200
open the door. Right. But don’t,

740
00:46:14,200 –> 00:46:17,880
don’t tell me that we’re going to do the blood and the treasure

741
00:46:17,880 –> 00:46:21,600
exchange. And then because you

742
00:46:21,600 –> 00:46:22,920
know we are impatient,

743
00:46:26,360 –> 00:46:29,840
you’re going to do a pull out or

744
00:46:29,840 –> 00:46:32,840
withdrawal in a manner

745
00:46:33,480 –> 00:46:36,920
not befitting of the image or the

746
00:46:36,920 –> 00:46:38,600
avatar you have put forth.

747
00:46:40,580 –> 00:46:43,780
Because other people in the global neighborhood are watching.

748
00:46:44,260 –> 00:46:47,580
It’s not like we’re doing this behind the scenes or

749
00:46:47,580 –> 00:46:51,180
underwater or in the dark. Other people are

750
00:46:51,180 –> 00:46:54,820
watching and they’re taking our measure. They really are. They’re taking our measure. Just like,

751
00:46:55,860 –> 00:46:59,140
just like in. If I’m, if I’m,

752
00:46:59,940 –> 00:47:03,620
I’ll use a case of point. If I’m behaving badly at the American

753
00:47:03,700 –> 00:47:06,900
Airlines ticket counter in front of my kids

754
00:47:07,620 –> 00:47:11,220
because my tickets to where I’m supposed to go

755
00:47:11,700 –> 00:47:15,220
or my luggage to where I’m supposed to go, if I’m behaving

756
00:47:15,220 –> 00:47:18,260
badly, who sees that and learns from that?

757
00:47:18,900 –> 00:47:21,940
My kids. I have a responsibility

758
00:47:22,500 –> 00:47:26,180
to those people greater than can possibly be

759
00:47:26,180 –> 00:47:29,900
fathomed, just as everybody else does who has kids to

760
00:47:29,900 –> 00:47:32,820
make sure that I’m role modeling the correct behavior.

761
00:47:34,530 –> 00:47:38,250
Great powers also have the same responsibility, but we

762
00:47:38,250 –> 00:47:42,050
don’t act like it and we don’t want it. We just want to

763
00:47:42,050 –> 00:47:45,770
come in and do our stuff and then leave. Okay, okay,

764
00:47:45,770 –> 00:47:49,610
I’m with you. And that’s where my objection comes in. And then there’s a bunch

765
00:47:49,610 –> 00:47:53,210
of things that spiral out from all of that. And so I get. It’s too

766
00:47:53,210 –> 00:47:56,890
complicated for me to get into here. Yeah, we’re gonna, I can’t, I can’t

767
00:47:56,890 –> 00:47:59,770
wait until we’re not recording because I can’t wait to get in the backside of

768
00:47:59,770 –> 00:48:03,140
this conversation. I’m very fascinated. But we’ll put it down for now. I’ve spent a

769
00:48:03,140 –> 00:48:05,860
lot of time thinking about this. This is not just something that, like I came

770
00:48:05,860 –> 00:48:09,300
to yesterday, heard a lot of time thinking about this. Very

771
00:48:09,300 –> 00:48:11,740
intentional, which is why I want to talk to you about it. Oh yeah. And

772
00:48:11,740 –> 00:48:14,220
then you like see the thing as it actually went down and you’re just like,

773
00:48:14,220 –> 00:48:17,460
I’m just like, no, that’s not. Other people are looking.

774
00:48:18,580 –> 00:48:22,220
So, you know, as I was saying.

775
00:48:22,220 –> 00:48:24,780
He, he goes, I want to talk about the Afghanis. I want to talk about

776
00:48:24,780 –> 00:48:28,600
them. Because the enemy gets a vote. Right? Okay, this is an idea from. Yes,

777
00:48:28,600 –> 00:48:31,480
Jocko, but from other places, right? The enemy gets a vote.

778
00:48:32,760 –> 00:48:35,880
You know, the, the Taliban recruited forces out of Pakistan.

779
00:48:37,000 –> 00:48:40,480
And the reason why the Americans were in the Coral Valley, a place the

780
00:48:40,480 –> 00:48:43,880
Soviets didn’t even go into, like, they got to the mouth of the valley and

781
00:48:43,880 –> 00:48:46,960
they were like, no, we’re not going in there. The British didn’t even look at

782
00:48:46,960 –> 00:48:50,680
it. Even people in Afghanistan were wondering why the Americans

783
00:48:50,680 –> 00:48:54,400
were going in. So like when the global version of

784
00:48:54,400 –> 00:48:58,200
Appalachia says, don’t go in there with those people, you should

785
00:48:58,200 –> 00:49:02,000
probably listen to them. And of course, we’re

786
00:49:02,000 –> 00:49:05,560
Americans and we’re arrogant and we know better

787
00:49:05,720 –> 00:49:09,320
and we are beyond history. We, we’ve canceled history, haven’t you heard?

788
00:49:09,720 –> 00:49:13,560
And so we’re going to go into the Cor Valley. And to our credit, to

789
00:49:13,560 –> 00:49:17,240
our credit, arrogance and a lack of historical knowledge will take

790
00:49:17,240 –> 00:49:21,000
you far. They’ll take you right to Op Restrepo.

791
00:49:21,000 –> 00:49:22,960
That’s where they’ll take you. They’ll take you to

792
00:49:24,240 –> 00:49:27,160
Firebase Phoenix. Right? And we did

793
00:49:27,160 –> 00:49:30,720
successfully, we cannot take away this away from us. We did

794
00:49:30,720 –> 00:49:34,560
successfully set up military bases and operations inside of that that

795
00:49:34,560 –> 00:49:38,320
disrupted other operations that were happening further down the valley. So from a

796
00:49:38,560 –> 00:49:42,240
strategic perspective, the strategy was correct,

797
00:49:43,120 –> 00:49:46,350
the tactics left something to be

798
00:49:46,350 –> 00:49:49,830
desired. But when you get past the

799
00:49:49,830 –> 00:49:53,550
politics and the patriotism and the religion, which Unger makes an excellent

800
00:49:53,550 –> 00:49:57,350
point of this, you begin to realize that the 14

801
00:49:57,350 –> 00:50:00,070
year olds that are shooting at you with AK47s

802
00:50:01,830 –> 00:50:04,630
are shooting at you because you’re there in their backyard.

803
00:50:06,070 –> 00:50:09,830
And the guys realized this, by the way, they weren’t ignorant to this. They were

804
00:50:09,830 –> 00:50:13,310
not. Yeah. And so it’s a weird

805
00:50:13,310 –> 00:50:16,670
combination of, I’m saying that all of that to make my much larger point here.

806
00:50:16,750 –> 00:50:20,470
It’s a weird combination of understanding the enemy gets a vote, but

807
00:50:20,470 –> 00:50:24,190
also understanding like there’s an incident that occurs in the back end of the book

808
00:50:24,190 –> 00:50:27,750
killing where an elder, it might have been an elder, but a

809
00:50:27,750 –> 00:50:31,510
villager is basically caught by the American. Not caught,

810
00:50:31,510 –> 00:50:35,350
but like he’s tracked by the Americans and it turns out that his son, who’s

811
00:50:35,350 –> 00:50:38,990
14, got shot in the leg by a, by an M4.

812
00:50:38,990 –> 00:50:42,470
And at first they thought it was an AK47 bullet, but it turns out that

813
00:50:42,470 –> 00:50:46,030
it was an M4 bullet. Right, which means it definitely came from an American’s gun

814
00:50:46,030 –> 00:50:49,830
at some point. Right. And the doctor was like, no, we need to.

815
00:50:49,830 –> 00:50:53,590
The doctor for the American patrol that followed the villager back to the

816
00:50:53,590 –> 00:50:56,430
village goes, oh, no, no, we. Did you take this kid? And we need to

817
00:50:56,430 –> 00:50:59,950
go wrap up the kid and we need to go. And the villager

818
00:51:00,190 –> 00:51:02,590
whose son it was who got shot, didn’t want to go.

819
00:51:03,800 –> 00:51:07,320
Vilger was like, no, I don’t want to go. Because he knew that the

820
00:51:07,320 –> 00:51:11,080
Taliban was floating around. He knew that all these guys were floating around.

821
00:51:11,240 –> 00:51:14,920
Right. And the Americans like, shut up. Let’s

822
00:51:14,920 –> 00:51:18,280
go. We gotta save this kid’s leg. Let’s go. We gotta go. Now.

823
00:51:19,480 –> 00:51:23,120
That’s the weird dichotomy that other countries don’t understand

824
00:51:23,120 –> 00:51:26,880
about us. Yeah. That’s the weird thing. Past patriotism

825
00:51:26,880 –> 00:51:30,570
and politics and religion and all of that. That’s the thing that’s not

826
00:51:30,570 –> 00:51:34,410
understandable because every other soldier from

827
00:51:34,410 –> 00:51:38,250
every other empire in the history of the world would have

828
00:51:38,250 –> 00:51:41,050
shot that kid, shot the villager,

829
00:51:41,610 –> 00:51:44,490
cleared out the village, and moved right the heck along.

830
00:51:46,330 –> 00:51:50,090
And we don’t. We didn’t do that. And that’s just one time. That’s just one

831
00:51:50,090 –> 00:51:53,610
time. And so. And by the way, the American patrol knew that they were

832
00:51:53,610 –> 00:51:56,970
patching up this kid who was probably going to go pick up an AK47 from

833
00:51:56,970 –> 00:52:00,450
behind a rock somewhere and start shooting at them 10 minutes from now. These are

834
00:52:00,450 –> 00:52:04,010
some of the lessons we learned, by the way, in Vietnam.

835
00:52:05,610 –> 00:52:09,210
These are some of the hard lessons we learned in Vietnam, I think. Yeah. Like,

836
00:52:12,649 –> 00:52:16,010
that part was. I piled in a lot there on you. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

837
00:52:17,210 –> 00:52:20,850
all of that stuff because, you

838
00:52:20,850 –> 00:52:24,630
know, so a couple days after 9, 11, it might have been the

839
00:52:24,630 –> 00:52:28,470
next day. Honestly, this is a bit of a haze for me because I’m

840
00:52:28,470 –> 00:52:32,270
just going. Going to, like, army version of college. Right. For people who

841
00:52:32,270 –> 00:52:34,710
don’t listen. Right. You go to a school, it’s called ait. It’s where you learn

842
00:52:34,710 –> 00:52:38,350
how to do your job. And, you know, mine was 17 weeks. Right. So. But

843
00:52:38,350 –> 00:52:41,550
it’s largely just a bunch of experiments and you do a little army stuff, but

844
00:52:41,550 –> 00:52:44,910
most of the time you’re just in a classroom, like, learning, right? Yeah. You still

845
00:52:44,910 –> 00:52:48,440
have to run and do PT and everything else like that. And so I’m like,

846
00:52:48,440 –> 00:52:52,160
okay, cool. Like, I’m. I’m enjoying this new version of the military that’s

847
00:52:52,160 –> 00:52:55,840
more like learning and educational. I’m learning cool stuff. I’m learning, like, you know,

848
00:52:55,840 –> 00:52:59,200
really cool stuff. And it’s not just, like, how hard can I push my body,

849
00:52:59,360 –> 00:53:03,080
you know, the nerdom runs pretty deep, I guess. And

850
00:53:03,080 –> 00:53:06,840
so I remember being. And it’s called the day room.

851
00:53:06,840 –> 00:53:10,640
And the day room is like the common area, right? And there was big screen

852
00:53:10,640 –> 00:53:14,310
tv and you know, we’re in there, we’re watching, you know, Fox News or,

853
00:53:14,380 –> 00:53:18,100
or, you know, something at the time. And everyone was like, yeah,

854
00:53:18,100 –> 00:53:21,060
let’s just go turn it into a parking lot. Let’s go turn it into a

855
00:53:21,060 –> 00:53:24,780
parking lot. And it was wild. Cause like, I’m this, I’m this small

856
00:53:25,180 –> 00:53:28,420
kid from Texas, you know, Like, I never really spent any time out of the

857
00:53:28,420 –> 00:53:32,180
state. And now I’m here in Georgia with people from New

858
00:53:32,180 –> 00:53:36,020
York, people from D.C. people from these areas that have had these things.

859
00:53:36,020 –> 00:53:39,660
And, and it’s this weird duality of like, God, I get

860
00:53:39,660 –> 00:53:43,470
it. I get why you’re so frustrated. I do. But like,

861
00:53:43,630 –> 00:53:47,470
that is, that’s the road we can’t go down. That makes us

862
00:53:47,470 –> 00:53:51,230
know better than them, right? Like, that’s what they

863
00:53:51,230 –> 00:53:54,910
did. We, you know, and you want to talk about

864
00:53:55,870 –> 00:53:59,150
instantly being the unpopular guy in the crowd,

865
00:53:59,870 –> 00:54:03,630
I decided to say something about this. And man, the rest of the 17 weeks

866
00:54:03,630 –> 00:54:07,350
is pretty brutal right after that because, you know, now I’m.

867
00:54:07,350 –> 00:54:10,950
Now I’m not bought in. Now I’m the problem child and stuff like that.

868
00:54:10,950 –> 00:54:14,710
So the, that, that mob mentality, right,

869
00:54:14,710 –> 00:54:18,470
is also, I think, easier at youth, right? And so kind of going back to

870
00:54:18,470 –> 00:54:21,390
that idea of there’s a reason why we send young people to go do these

871
00:54:21,390 –> 00:54:24,950
things and stuff like that, because they’re easy to control, it’s easy to manipulate. And

872
00:54:25,110 –> 00:54:28,270
also they’ve not seen a whole lot of the world. Some of these people do.

873
00:54:28,270 –> 00:54:31,990
And because it’s not forced, right? Everyone who doesn’t want to go now doesn’t

874
00:54:31,990 –> 00:54:35,680
have to go. So there’s no. Everyone is there, right? For

875
00:54:35,680 –> 00:54:39,520
whatever reasons that they’re there. And I remember getting there and

876
00:54:39,920 –> 00:54:43,040
first day, we’re marching around and they start making us in cadence about

877
00:54:43,440 –> 00:54:47,040
how, you know, thieves and people who are about to go to jail and stuff

878
00:54:47,040 –> 00:54:50,280
like this were only here because a judge told them, you can join or you

879
00:54:50,280 –> 00:54:53,920
can go to. Like, I’m. I’m the whitest white

880
00:54:53,920 –> 00:54:57,680
bread kid ever from Fort Worth, Texas, marching around

881
00:54:57,840 –> 00:55:01,040
thinking that I’m here doing this like, really cool, like,

882
00:55:02,440 –> 00:55:06,120
thing. And, you know, then we’re singing this cadence. I’m like, ah, well, that’s

883
00:55:06,120 –> 00:55:09,920
just kind of like a weird thing. And then like a day later, company commander

884
00:55:09,920 –> 00:55:13,160
comes in and he asked the question, okay, how many of y’ all are here

885
00:55:13,560 –> 00:55:16,680
because you decided to join the circus and everyone kind of like looks around a

886
00:55:16,680 –> 00:55:19,440
little bit. Oh, hold on a second. I forgot. How many of y’ all are

887
00:55:19,440 –> 00:55:21,640
here because the judge told you if you didn’t come do this, you’re going to

888
00:55:21,640 –> 00:55:25,480
jail. And, dude, the number of hands was astounding.

889
00:55:26,200 –> 00:55:30,000
Like, just in my company, right? Company of 30 guys. The number of

890
00:55:30,000 –> 00:55:33,760
hands was, Was baffling to me,

891
00:55:33,760 –> 00:55:37,480
who was here for what I thought were good, genuine

892
00:55:37,560 –> 00:55:41,360
reasons. Let me ask you a question, because Younger

893
00:55:41,360 –> 00:55:45,120
was. One of the points he makes in the book is, you know, he

894
00:55:45,120 –> 00:55:48,680
carried a 60 pound rucksack and he carried his own water

895
00:55:49,080 –> 00:55:52,600
and eventually him and Tim the cameraman eventually carried

896
00:55:52,600 –> 00:55:56,290
ammunition. And there’s a whole sequence in the book and

897
00:55:56,290 –> 00:56:00,130
the front end of love about journalists and weapons and war

898
00:56:00,210 –> 00:56:02,610
and ethical considerations and all of this,

899
00:56:04,450 –> 00:56:06,930
which I find to be interesting because a lot of journalists served in World War

900
00:56:06,930 –> 00:56:10,530
II. But, okay, maybe that’s far enough away that we don’t. We don’t think about,

901
00:56:10,770 –> 00:56:14,090
like, the nature of that anymore. I think you hit it nail on the head

902
00:56:14,090 –> 00:56:17,210
that Vietnam changed everything. Right. And the. Yeah. The

903
00:56:17,210 –> 00:56:20,850
overarching, assumed nobility of military service

904
00:56:21,010 –> 00:56:24,610
was just forever tarnished. Like. Right. Like there is no going

905
00:56:24,610 –> 00:56:27,970
back. So I think now the distinction’s got to be bigger. Right.

906
00:56:28,210 –> 00:56:32,050
Because I think, I think Unger hits it spot on. If, if it came back

907
00:56:32,210 –> 00:56:35,449
and he was. And he was known to have, like, picked up a weapon or

908
00:56:35,449 –> 00:56:39,210
done something like this, he would have no credibility in the circles that he wants

909
00:56:39,210 –> 00:56:43,050
status in. Right, right. And you. And we keep circling back,

910
00:56:43,050 –> 00:56:45,970
and I want to circle back to this idea of status too. Sure. Because I

911
00:56:45,970 –> 00:56:49,790
think this is, this is hugely important. But one

912
00:56:49,790 –> 00:56:53,630
of the points he makes to your point about, you know, looking back

913
00:56:53,630 –> 00:56:57,270
on this now 20 years plus, like looking back on these

914
00:56:57,270 –> 00:57:00,830
experiences through the lens or through the window maybe of this book.

915
00:57:02,110 –> 00:57:05,750
Younger makes the point that he was in his 40s, he was 20

916
00:57:05,750 –> 00:57:09,550
years older than all these boys, and he knew,

917
00:57:10,350 –> 00:57:13,670
you know, that him not keeping up would be

918
00:57:13,670 –> 00:57:17,080
consequential and would, Would, would maybe

919
00:57:17,080 –> 00:57:20,640
potentially set these young men, I shouldn’t say

920
00:57:20,640 –> 00:57:23,880
boys, young men up for death in a way that was

921
00:57:23,880 –> 00:57:27,520
unnecessary when there were so many other ways of death that were coming

922
00:57:27,520 –> 00:57:31,280
that they had signed up for. Right, yeah. And so, you know,

923
00:57:31,280 –> 00:57:34,800
part of the uniform thing was. Yeah, exactly. Real. Was very, very

924
00:57:34,800 –> 00:57:38,000
real. Right, exactly. And then he sort of like let go of his pride and

925
00:57:38,000 –> 00:57:41,730
was like, well, not pride, but More like, I would

926
00:57:41,730 –> 00:57:45,010
say, was journalistic ego. But I think it might be too simplistic.

927
00:57:46,210 –> 00:57:49,090
You know, I think he just got real with the situation with himself.

928
00:57:50,050 –> 00:57:53,010
Well, I think in some of those situations it’s easy to think that, like. Well,

929
00:57:53,010 –> 00:57:56,730
because you’re just a bystander, it’s not really going to be that big of a

930
00:57:56,730 –> 00:58:00,570
thing. Right. And you know, there’s some stigma around this. Right. Because, you

931
00:58:00,570 –> 00:58:04,050
know, we’ve all seen examples of the embedded reporter or the

932
00:58:04,050 –> 00:58:07,600
reporter who’s like following the beat and they’re all way off to the side and

933
00:58:07,680 –> 00:58:11,120
nothing really gets dirty and you’re fighting to be taken. Like, I mean, it’s a

934
00:58:11,120 –> 00:58:14,920
very pretty well known trope, right. As far as like culture and movies

935
00:58:14,920 –> 00:58:17,440
and stuff like this. So the.

936
00:58:19,200 –> 00:58:22,279
I, I mean, there is a little bit of ego, but I also think it’s

937
00:58:22,279 –> 00:58:25,880
around the idea of like, he’s very aware that he can

938
00:58:25,880 –> 00:58:29,400
die and more than that, the trade off of what

939
00:58:29,400 –> 00:58:33,170
happens whenever he decides that he can’t do this because of

940
00:58:33,170 –> 00:58:36,650
his role or his part. Like, you’re creating risk,

941
00:58:36,890 –> 00:58:40,330
you’re adding to risk, you’re making the trade offs potentially bigger.

942
00:58:40,410 –> 00:58:44,090
Right. And I, I thought that that was a very

943
00:58:44,090 –> 00:58:47,170
cool component of him kind of like talking about it and kind of getting to

944
00:58:47,170 –> 00:58:50,730
it. And then he goes and asks for it. Right. Which I, you know.

945
00:58:50,810 –> 00:58:54,610
Yeah, probably should. Well, and I wonder how his perspective has

946
00:58:54,610 –> 00:58:58,050
changed on the book now that he’s. He’s 20 years past the writing of it

947
00:58:58,050 –> 00:59:01,780
almost. Yeah. And in a different stage of life. Because a man

948
00:59:01,780 –> 00:59:05,620
at 20 is not this. It’s just not. It’s just you’re not

949
00:59:05,620 –> 00:59:08,820
the same man as you at. At 40 and you’re going to be a totally

950
00:59:08,820 –> 00:59:12,500
different man at 60. And if God blesses you or whoever to live.

951
00:59:12,500 –> 00:59:15,220
God or genetics blesses you to live that long, you’ll be a totally different man

952
00:59:15,220 –> 00:59:17,820
at 80. Okay. And so

953
00:59:18,940 –> 00:59:21,900
looking back on your experience, this is a question that I wanted to ask you.

954
00:59:21,900 –> 00:59:25,430
20 years out now, could John

955
00:59:25,510 –> 00:59:26,470
of 20 years

956
00:59:29,670 –> 00:59:33,390
with your brain now, going back to that situation, which.

957
00:59:33,390 –> 00:59:36,150
I know, I know, I know, but going back to that situation

958
00:59:37,030 –> 00:59:40,590
with that, what would your reaction be to that, Drill

959
00:59:40,590 –> 00:59:44,230
sergeant? Right. Or to that 17 weeks

960
00:59:44,230 –> 00:59:47,750
of like, what would you say to John on that 17 weeks? Because now you

961
00:59:47,750 –> 00:59:51,510
have the benefit of. You’ve lived that next 20 years, you know

962
00:59:51,510 –> 00:59:55,030
how the game ends, Right. He doesn’t. He has no clue.

963
00:59:55,370 –> 00:59:59,130
Yeah, he has no idea. It’s funny because I get to do this a

964
00:59:59,130 –> 01:00:02,770
little bit occasionally now, right, because it has been so long and I’ve

965
01:00:02,770 –> 01:00:06,050
networked a lot and I put myself out there and I talk about the fact

966
01:00:06,050 –> 01:00:09,730
that I served and everything. I’ll have parents, like, people that I’ve trained

967
01:00:09,730 –> 01:00:12,810
with, people that I’ve worked with, sold with, networked with and stuff. And they’re like,

968
01:00:12,810 –> 01:00:16,570
hey, will you come talk to my kid? And it’s

969
01:00:16,570 –> 01:00:20,170
always an enlightening moment, right? Because

970
01:00:20,490 –> 01:00:23,290
the first handful of times that I did that, or people would ask and I’m

971
01:00:23,290 –> 01:00:26,280
like, you know, you know, you don’t want me talking to them. And they’re in,

972
01:00:26,280 –> 01:00:29,960
in because I’m making a bunch of assumptions, right? And now it’s

973
01:00:29,960 –> 01:00:33,560
okay, what are you, what are you hoping I’m going to talk about with

974
01:00:33,560 –> 01:00:37,080
them? You know, and this is always a very fascinating thing because people will

975
01:00:37,320 –> 01:00:39,240
know I want you to talk them out of it or I want you to

976
01:00:39,240 –> 01:00:42,840
talk them into it. It’s like, that’s not my job and it’s not really

977
01:00:42,840 –> 01:00:46,560
your job, right? So you should know that if, if

978
01:00:46,560 –> 01:00:49,840
you want me to talk to whoever in your life is thinking about this thing,

979
01:00:49,840 –> 01:00:53,530
I’m going to talk about the only good reason to go. And it’s for you

980
01:00:53,530 –> 01:00:56,810
have a burning desire to go serve your country. That’s the only good reason. Everything

981
01:00:56,810 –> 01:00:57,770
else is going to be

982
01:01:01,530 –> 01:01:05,290
infuriatingly fragile later on, right?

983
01:01:05,610 –> 01:01:09,210
College, money, the muscles, the uniform, the, you know, flying

984
01:01:09,210 –> 01:01:12,890
above your station after the war, all these other things and stuff, these are, all,

985
01:01:13,210 –> 01:01:16,970
these are all remarkably hollow in the moment when you’re being asked to go

986
01:01:16,970 –> 01:01:20,820
do, to go take a hill, to go live in a valley that no

987
01:01:20,820 –> 01:01:23,620
one else wants to live in and no one even, even cares about,

988
01:01:24,420 –> 01:01:28,260
you know, so, you know,

989
01:01:34,579 –> 01:01:37,740
I don’t need to be in the room is what it is, what it really

990
01:01:37,740 –> 01:01:41,580
needs to be, you know, because I

991
01:01:41,580 –> 01:01:45,190
don’t, I don’t regret my military service at all. Like, I don’t, as I said

992
01:01:45,190 –> 01:01:47,670
at the beginning of this thing, I don’t know who I would be if I,

993
01:01:47,670 –> 01:01:50,270
if I hadn’t gone through it. But it definitely wouldn’t be this person who, who

994
01:01:50,270 –> 01:01:54,110
does these things, right? Chooses to do all these hard things that I do

995
01:01:54,110 –> 01:01:57,030
in the, in the form of, you know, like my own training, my own development,

996
01:01:57,190 –> 01:02:00,710
my, the business that I choose to run and everything. So I,

997
01:02:00,790 –> 01:02:04,550
I, I respect a lot of it. And so I’ll, I’ll do

998
01:02:04,550 –> 01:02:08,190
the thing occasionally, right? If you went back, would you, would you tell yourself to

999
01:02:08,190 –> 01:02:09,910
go do it again? Like,

1000
01:02:13,440 –> 01:02:17,080
I I would have had to have

1001
01:02:17,080 –> 01:02:20,920
given myself another lane to explore. And I can’t think of another one that gets

1002
01:02:20,920 –> 01:02:24,760
me to the same point of distinction. Right. The same. The

1003
01:02:24,760 –> 01:02:28,560
same path of certainty. Right. Because at

1004
01:02:28,560 –> 01:02:31,560
this stage, I’m a pacifist. You know, you and I have talked about martial arts

1005
01:02:31,560 –> 01:02:34,640
training and, you know, if. If someone has been listening to all these episodes that

1006
01:02:34,640 –> 01:02:38,370
I’ve guessed it on. I’ve got 16 years of martial arts training, and, you

1007
01:02:38,370 –> 01:02:41,290
know, I don’t ever want to be in a fight with anybody on the street.

1008
01:02:41,850 –> 01:02:45,090
I don’t want to be in that moment ever again. It’s for me, it’s a

1009
01:02:45,090 –> 01:02:48,610
way for me to exercise my brain and to, you know, keep pushing

1010
01:02:48,610 –> 01:02:51,370
myself for the sake of myself. It’s not because I’m

1011
01:02:52,010 –> 01:02:53,770
fearful or anything else like this,

1012
01:02:55,610 –> 01:02:56,010
but

1013
01:03:00,250 –> 01:03:03,160
I don’t want to do it. But I know that I’m capable

1014
01:03:04,840 –> 01:03:08,120
if the situation comes up and I can’t think of another path

1015
01:03:08,440 –> 01:03:11,800
that I could have walked down to where I would have that same comfort in

1016
01:03:11,800 –> 01:03:15,480
my. In my normal daily actions in my. Now,

1017
01:03:15,640 –> 01:03:18,280
let’s also call into a couple of things that are also kind of important to

1018
01:03:18,280 –> 01:03:22,040
talk about. I’m a tall white guy, right. A lot of people aren’t really

1019
01:03:22,040 –> 01:03:24,760
messing with me, right. In the grand scheme of things, if I was 5, 9,

1020
01:03:24,760 –> 01:03:27,560
I probably would have had to put a lot of these ideas to the test

1021
01:03:27,560 –> 01:03:31,350
a lot more rigorously than I’ve had to. So, like, I do. I do

1022
01:03:31,350 –> 01:03:34,790
get, you know, some grace here around this stuff. But, like, you know,

1023
01:03:35,510 –> 01:03:39,270
there’s also how you carry yourself, right? I don’t carry myself like that right

1024
01:03:39,430 –> 01:03:41,870
there for a while. I tried for a little bit, and then I would be

1025
01:03:41,870 –> 01:03:45,230
uncomfortable whenever people would, like, kind of. And then finally I was like, oh, I

1026
01:03:45,230 –> 01:03:48,870
should just not be that person anymore. Not wear it, not paint it

1027
01:03:48,870 –> 01:03:52,630
on myself. The way that it was weird. I kind of felt like I

1028
01:03:52,630 –> 01:03:56,120
was supposed to, right. And talk about that winding of the

1029
01:03:56,120 –> 01:03:59,960
spring. Right. You know, for anyone who’s listening to this, one of the things

1030
01:03:59,960 –> 01:04:03,520
that I talk about with people is that the sales is a beautiful job

1031
01:04:03,520 –> 01:04:06,560
for people that are coming out of the military. Right. Because what happens the way

1032
01:04:06,560 –> 01:04:09,320
that I talk about it with people is you’re in sixth gear all the time,

1033
01:04:09,320 –> 01:04:12,640
and then you come home and everyone’s in second. Right.

1034
01:04:13,040 –> 01:04:16,880
And you’re used to being in sixth. Right. And sales is a really, really,

1035
01:04:16,880 –> 01:04:19,840
really beautiful role and transition period for,

1036
01:04:20,940 –> 01:04:24,500
you know, service people that are coming out of this thing because you’re allowed to

1037
01:04:24,500 –> 01:04:28,340
be performance driven in a really, really big way, right? One of

1038
01:04:28,340 –> 01:04:31,620
the hardest things about coming out of the military is like, you’re supposed to be

1039
01:04:31,620 –> 01:04:34,620
awesome, you’re supposed to be pushing. You’re supposed to be looking for performance

1040
01:04:35,420 –> 01:04:39,180
into your point. Like, I came back, I’m waiting tables, right? Everyone just, like,

1041
01:04:39,180 –> 01:04:42,980
wants to make a hundred bucks so they can go blow it on shots, you

1042
01:04:42,980 –> 01:04:46,590
know, later on after we’re done for the night and everything. And it was just

1043
01:04:46,590 –> 01:04:50,350
like this weird, like, flywheel. Like, I couldn’t, like, grab

1044
01:04:50,350 –> 01:04:53,870
at anything, you know? So sales is a

1045
01:04:53,870 –> 01:04:57,630
beautiful job because how hard you want to work has a direct impact on

1046
01:04:57,630 –> 01:05:00,630
how much you want to make. And that’s a beautiful thing here. They want that.

1047
01:05:00,950 –> 01:05:04,670
Sometimes when you show up and you’re a little too driven, you become

1048
01:05:04,670 –> 01:05:08,430
problematic, which is kind of crazy. But sales you’re

1049
01:05:08,430 –> 01:05:11,930
allowed to be in. Entrepreneurship is another really great way to. To

1050
01:05:11,930 –> 01:05:15,490
transition and to put yourself out there and to be really driven and do it

1051
01:05:15,490 –> 01:05:19,330
on your own terms. But that pacing thing is very interesting. You’re not

1052
01:05:19,330 –> 01:05:22,970
going to find a lot of places that have that same kind of pace with

1053
01:05:22,970 –> 01:05:26,050
that same kind of go be the best you can be. Don’t just, like,

1054
01:05:26,610 –> 01:05:30,410
man the box, right? Don’t just be here for no reason. Put. Put

1055
01:05:30,410 –> 01:05:33,650
your full effort into this. Put your focus into. Be the best version of this

1056
01:05:33,650 –> 01:05:37,450
you can be. So I tell everybody, I hope people hear

1057
01:05:37,450 –> 01:05:41,240
this and come seek me out. If you are in the military, you’re transitioning out

1058
01:05:41,240 –> 01:05:43,720
of the military, and you think you want to be in a sales role or

1059
01:05:43,720 –> 01:05:47,440
you’re looking for a role you think is going to put some of these ideas

1060
01:05:47,440 –> 01:05:51,200
that you’ve been working on into play, please come talk to me. I

1061
01:05:51,200 –> 01:05:54,959
will coach you for free until you get a job in sales, if that’s

1062
01:05:54,959 –> 01:05:57,840
a thing that you want to go do. I offer this to people. I don’t

1063
01:05:57,840 –> 01:06:00,960
market around it because I’m not trying to be that guy. But I do think

1064
01:06:00,960 –> 01:06:04,640
that sales is one of those really great opportunities for people to transition out

1065
01:06:05,000 –> 01:06:08,720
and still bring a lot of what was making them great before. It’s

1066
01:06:08,720 –> 01:06:12,000
got to shift a little bit, of course, but it’s a really great race. So

1067
01:06:12,000 –> 01:06:14,600
if you’re looking for a sales role, if you’re not sure if you want to

1068
01:06:14,600 –> 01:06:17,400
re up or if you’re thinking about these things, I have group practice labs. You

1069
01:06:17,400 –> 01:06:21,120
can come, you can sit, you can learn, and you can get a job. And

1070
01:06:21,120 –> 01:06:23,720
then from there, if you want to continue Training, we’ll talk about it. But if,

1071
01:06:23,720 –> 01:06:26,680
if anyone in the military is thinking about this and they’re like, what do I

1072
01:06:26,680 –> 01:06:29,920
do with this energy? I can help you and would love to help you if

1073
01:06:29,920 –> 01:06:33,010
that’s something that you’re interested in. That is a.

1074
01:06:33,490 –> 01:06:36,850
This incredible offer. And I would recommend that anybody take advantage of that.

1075
01:06:37,010 –> 01:06:40,770
Anybody who was coming out of the military, particularly anybody who’s coming out of combat

1076
01:06:41,730 –> 01:06:45,010
or is. Is sort of like some of the care

1077
01:06:45,090 –> 01:06:48,810
characters, some of the guys were, you know, trying to figure out what they were

1078
01:06:48,810 –> 01:06:52,650
going to do next and how to not fall back into, as we’ve already, you

1079
01:06:52,650 –> 01:06:56,290
know, talked about on this episode, how to not fall back into problems,

1080
01:06:56,290 –> 01:06:58,770
right? How to not fall back into bad behavior and

1081
01:06:59,730 –> 01:07:03,450
traumatic engagement. How to not fall back into drinking or substance

1082
01:07:03,450 –> 01:07:06,930
abuse or just trying to calm the demons in their head,

1083
01:07:07,090 –> 01:07:10,050
you know, that is a great tool.

1084
01:07:11,330 –> 01:07:15,089
And you know what? Whether you’re

1085
01:07:15,089 –> 01:07:18,450
good at it or not, you will

1086
01:07:19,250 –> 01:07:22,610
gain something at the end. 100.

1087
01:07:22,930 –> 01:07:26,610
Like, you know, there’s, there’s no downside to, to this offer at all. So please

1088
01:07:26,610 –> 01:07:30,390
take advantage of this. If you’re listening, if you’re on the, if

1089
01:07:30,390 –> 01:07:33,870
you’re on a similar path of me and my excellent friend Hassan here,

1090
01:07:34,510 –> 01:07:38,190
you probably see that there is a lot of overlap between

1091
01:07:38,510 –> 01:07:42,230
good leadership and selling with intention because they’re exactly

1092
01:07:42,230 –> 01:07:44,830
the same thing, right? And

1093
01:07:47,150 –> 01:07:49,510
going back to the hazing for just a second, you know, where they talk about

1094
01:07:49,510 –> 01:07:52,750
jumping in the new, the new guys, right? And

1095
01:07:52,990 –> 01:07:56,730
it’s, it’s. There’s this weird thing of like, it kind

1096
01:07:56,730 –> 01:08:00,450
of ruins you for leadership outside of the military, right? Because it’s like,

1097
01:08:00,690 –> 01:08:03,770
I know you’ve been here. I know you can do everything I can do, and

1098
01:08:03,770 –> 01:08:06,370
I know you’re better at it or else you wouldn’t be here, right? And then

1099
01:08:06,370 –> 01:08:09,730
you come out to the civilian sector and you see people that are in management

1100
01:08:09,730 –> 01:08:13,090
roles and they can’t tell you anything other than like, we’ll just do more.

1101
01:08:13,490 –> 01:08:17,010
Well, if, if your only response is more, you’re not qualified to be on the

1102
01:08:17,010 –> 01:08:19,410
spot, Right? But

1103
01:08:20,870 –> 01:08:24,710
it’s hard to, it’s hard to realize that. And being a young person

1104
01:08:26,150 –> 01:08:29,830
and not, not knowing how

1105
01:08:29,830 –> 01:08:33,630
to navigate that conversation when I’m talking to someone who sounds like

1106
01:08:33,630 –> 01:08:37,350
they’re three days out of managerial school

1107
01:08:37,430 –> 01:08:40,670
and they want to tell me to just keep dialing and trying harder and that

1108
01:08:40,670 –> 01:08:44,470
I don’t want it enough and ever, and it’s like, dude, I, I, like,

1109
01:08:45,600 –> 01:08:48,960
there have been times to where I’m just like, oh, God. It’s so, like, I.

1110
01:08:48,960 –> 01:08:52,240
I have to remind myself I cannot be that guy

1111
01:08:52,800 –> 01:08:55,960
here, right? Because, like, if you have a problem in the middle, you go talk

1112
01:08:55,960 –> 01:08:59,080
about it, right? Sometimes it leads to a desktop, sometimes it leads to a transfer

1113
01:08:59,080 –> 01:09:02,840
and stuff like this. But, like, you know, if. If I thought someone was

1114
01:09:02,840 –> 01:09:05,880
full of, I’m gonna go tell them, right? And so that led to a lot

1115
01:09:05,880 –> 01:09:09,040
of uncomfortable conversations because I’m like, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.

1116
01:09:09,520 –> 01:09:13,159
Well, John, now we gotta have a. An HR conversation and

1117
01:09:13,159 –> 01:09:16,879
stuff. And I’m like, am I wrong? Because if I’m wrong, then like, sure. But

1118
01:09:16,879 –> 01:09:20,719
if I’m right and you just got offended, like, that’s not my problem. You should

1119
01:09:20,719 –> 01:09:24,439
be good enough to lead. It’s interesting that you brought about. Brought this

1120
01:09:24,439 –> 01:09:27,919
up, being good enough to lead and if I’m wrong, being offended. Because this is

1121
01:09:27,919 –> 01:09:30,759
a good segue into something else that I wanted to talk about. Another theme from

1122
01:09:30,759 –> 01:09:33,999
the book which also struck me. So

1123
01:09:34,719 –> 01:09:37,999
I’ll tell a story here to kind of unite the two ideas. So

1124
01:09:39,900 –> 01:09:43,620
I heard it probably anecdotal tale about the

1125
01:09:43,620 –> 01:09:47,460
American troops who were deployed in Bosnia in

1126
01:09:47,460 –> 01:09:51,180
the mid-90s during their civil war between the

1127
01:09:51,180 –> 01:09:54,540
Serbs and the Croats and the Serbs and the Croats and the

1128
01:09:54,540 –> 01:09:58,220
Bosnians, all who visually look the same,

1129
01:09:58,780 –> 01:10:02,580
but divide up among Muslims and Christians. And it was a religious

1130
01:10:02,580 –> 01:10:06,150
war in the middle of Europe, which hadn’t happened in, like, 100

1131
01:10:06,150 –> 01:10:07,390
years up to that point.

1132
01:10:10,190 –> 01:10:13,710
Well, the American troops were going in under NATO, right? And so the American

1133
01:10:13,710 –> 01:10:17,550
troops all had, you know, the NATO blue pith helmets on, right?

1134
01:10:18,670 –> 01:10:22,070
But what. What befuddled the Serbs and the

1135
01:10:22,070 –> 01:10:25,630
Croats and the Bosnians alike was that

1136
01:10:25,630 –> 01:10:29,310
they would roll up on a squad or they’d roll up on a patrol

1137
01:10:29,310 –> 01:10:33,110
of Americans or a patrol or a squad of Americans would roll up on them,

1138
01:10:34,070 –> 01:10:37,110
and there’d be an Asian, there’d be a Mexican,

1139
01:10:39,590 –> 01:10:42,630
and there’d be a white guy. And they weren’t all shooting each other. They weren’t

1140
01:10:42,630 –> 01:10:45,830
all having problems. Now, this is an anecdotal story, right?

1141
01:10:47,110 –> 01:10:50,470
And you run across this idea in War by

1142
01:10:50,470 –> 01:10:54,070
Sebastian Unger, where Tiggily

1143
01:10:54,070 –> 01:10:57,670
Jones and Bobby, like,

1144
01:10:57,670 –> 01:11:00,870
I’ve had that kind of relationship with, quite frankly, white. A white guy. I have

1145
01:11:00,870 –> 01:11:04,190
had that kind of relationship. But not a lot.

1146
01:11:06,270 –> 01:11:09,350
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, you had to hold on to them when you. When

1147
01:11:09,350 –> 01:11:12,750
you got them. You don’t let that sucker go easily. But.

1148
01:11:13,230 –> 01:11:16,590
But one of the defining characteristics

1149
01:11:16,990 –> 01:11:20,790
of America is that and we do not appreciate it very much

1150
01:11:20,790 –> 01:11:24,190
until we go other places where it is not the defining characteristic.

1151
01:11:24,660 –> 01:11:28,420
Yeah, the defining characteristic of America is our, for lack of a better

1152
01:11:28,420 –> 01:11:31,380
term, multiculturalism. And our

1153
01:11:31,700 –> 01:11:35,140
ability to break

1154
01:11:35,220 –> 01:11:38,940
down along visual lines and to divide

1155
01:11:38,940 –> 01:11:42,660
up society among visual lines, good, bad, ugly, and indifferent.

1156
01:11:42,980 –> 01:11:46,340
And then to, of course, beat the snot out of each other verbally,

1157
01:11:46,820 –> 01:11:50,620
sometimes metaphorically, sometimes psychologically, and then all the way at the end,

1158
01:11:50,620 –> 01:11:53,950
sometimes even physically, over those differences.

1159
01:11:55,470 –> 01:11:59,270
And yet when we go someplace and the

1160
01:11:59,270 –> 01:12:02,990
Taliban sees us show up, or the Bosnians and the Serbs

1161
01:12:02,990 –> 01:12:06,750
see us show up, or Vietnamese see us show up,

1162
01:12:07,070 –> 01:12:10,790
or the Koreans or even the Germans, even the Germans back in

1163
01:12:10,790 –> 01:12:14,590
World War II thought we would all fall apart because to Hitler’s term,

1164
01:12:14,910 –> 01:12:18,760
we were. We were a mongrel people. That’s how he described the

1165
01:12:18,760 –> 01:12:22,280
Americans even back then. And as Americans,

1166
01:12:23,640 –> 01:12:26,440
we see that. I see this in the. Saw, this in the book is early

1167
01:12:26,440 –> 01:12:30,160
descriptions of. Of the. Of the. The folks in combat, the guys in the

1168
01:12:30,160 –> 01:12:33,960
squad, the guys on patrol, when. And

1169
01:12:33,960 –> 01:12:37,080
I told my wife this because I was having to be reading the book a

1170
01:12:37,080 –> 01:12:40,040
little bit while I was on our anniversary trip.

1171
01:12:40,920 –> 01:12:44,380
I look, it was reading it, and I just started laughing because

1172
01:12:45,260 –> 01:12:49,100
we’re literally Americans everywhere where we show up. And the most

1173
01:12:49,100 –> 01:12:52,780
American thing is to be, quite frankly, a Benetton ad,

1174
01:12:54,060 –> 01:12:57,460
not to put too fine a point on it. Benetton? What is that? Yeah, you

1175
01:12:57,460 –> 01:13:00,540
deal with a brand with, like, all the multicultural people in it all the time.

1176
01:13:02,620 –> 01:13:06,420
America’s a walking Benetton ad. And then we’re just going to shoot you

1177
01:13:06,420 –> 01:13:10,100
and go home. And every single one of

1178
01:13:10,100 –> 01:13:13,730
those people in that ad, that is the American army

1179
01:13:13,730 –> 01:13:17,570
that’s showing up have the capability, particularly in war.

1180
01:13:17,570 –> 01:13:20,890
This is. This is most. I mean, this was it. Like, every single one of

1181
01:13:20,890 –> 01:13:23,770
those guys could jump on a saw. Every single one of those guys could jump

1182
01:13:23,770 –> 01:13:27,010
on a.50 cal. Every single one of those guys is going to have each other’s

1183
01:13:27,010 –> 01:13:30,690
back. It was a massive brotherhood. And, yeah, when

1184
01:13:30,690 –> 01:13:34,410
we get back to the outpost or when we get back to

1185
01:13:34,410 –> 01:13:37,770
behind the enemy lines at the fire base, yeah, we’re going to crack each other

1186
01:13:37,770 –> 01:13:41,370
in the mouth just because we’re Americans. That’s what we do. But the second we

1187
01:13:41,370 –> 01:13:45,210
step out of that fire base, all that goes

1188
01:13:45,210 –> 01:13:48,730
away. And it’s not religion that’s uniting us as it was in the

1189
01:13:48,730 –> 01:13:52,290
Serbian and Bosnian war or, or, or. Or causing us to

1190
01:13:52,290 –> 01:13:56,090
diverge as it does in other parts of the world. And this is where

1191
01:13:56,090 –> 01:13:59,930
we also get Back to status. Class is also not the

1192
01:13:59,930 –> 01:14:03,570
thing separating us. I mean, one of the major problems in World War

1193
01:14:03,570 –> 01:14:07,320
I was the class differences between the generals and. And

1194
01:14:07,320 –> 01:14:10,960
the combat troops and then the class differences between

1195
01:14:10,960 –> 01:14:14,800
the folks who were the commanders and the generals. Because World War I

1196
01:14:15,120 –> 01:14:18,720
was, for better or worse, a very European

1197
01:14:18,720 –> 01:14:22,520
war where the entire European aristocracy kind of

1198
01:14:22,520 –> 01:14:26,320
fell apart in order to make space for the modern world. And

1199
01:14:26,320 –> 01:14:29,720
that was why, you know, 10 million people died and 10 million troops died in

1200
01:14:29,720 –> 01:14:33,440
that war. And it took a lot of death to break that aristocracy

1201
01:14:33,440 –> 01:14:37,140
and to break that aristocratic thinking that we look at

1202
01:14:37,140 –> 01:14:39,860
as foreign and we don’t understand. I mean, we think of it in terms of

1203
01:14:39,860 –> 01:14:43,460
like, you know, the prince. Yeah. Entitlement

1204
01:14:43,460 –> 01:14:47,260
or divine will. Prince Harry and Meghan. I think of Prince

1205
01:14:47,260 –> 01:14:50,780
Harry and Meghan Markle. I go way, way low rent on that. Right.

1206
01:14:50,860 –> 01:14:53,580
And I’m like, who are you people? Why do I care about you? You have.

1207
01:14:53,580 –> 01:14:56,940
You produce nothing. Go away from me. I don’t know what you do.

1208
01:14:57,740 –> 01:15:01,350
And yet in other parts of the world that are

1209
01:15:01,350 –> 01:15:04,550
still running parliamentary systems with an aristocratic

1210
01:15:04,870 –> 01:15:08,550
kings and princes and kind of overlay on top of

1211
01:15:08,550 –> 01:15:11,430
that, that stuff means a lot.

1212
01:15:12,710 –> 01:15:16,509
And we don’t understand what any of that

1213
01:15:16,509 –> 01:15:19,910
means. And so the things that mean something to us mean very little

1214
01:15:20,470 –> 01:15:23,670
to people in other parts of the world. Like, one of the notorious things about

1215
01:15:23,670 –> 01:15:27,060
Islam is Islam accepts everybody, regardless of how they look.

1216
01:15:28,650 –> 01:15:32,050
They don’t care because it’s about the Israel. It’s about. Can you

1217
01:15:32,050 –> 01:15:35,610
conform to what the book says? And if you can, well,

1218
01:15:35,770 –> 01:15:38,690
great. You could be from the Philippines, you could be from Bangladesh, you could be

1219
01:15:38,690 –> 01:15:41,530
from India, you could be from Saudi Arabia,

1220
01:15:41,930 –> 01:15:45,650
whatever. And when jihad gets declared, as was

1221
01:15:45,650 –> 01:15:49,210
declared in Afghanistan, we’re going to funnel troops through,

1222
01:15:49,210 –> 01:15:53,040
and they’re going to be multicultural for sure, but

1223
01:15:53,040 –> 01:15:56,120
they’re all going to pray five times a day and they’re all going to be

1224
01:15:56,120 –> 01:15:59,680
engaged in Jihad. And this is something I don’t

1225
01:15:59,680 –> 01:16:03,320
think. I think we struggle

1226
01:16:03,720 –> 01:16:07,440
because. And you and I have talked about this on the show, we’re

1227
01:16:07,440 –> 01:16:10,440
struggling, I think we’ve struggled for the last 20 years to figure out what unites

1228
01:16:10,440 –> 01:16:14,240
us as a country anymore. Because patriotism doesn’t

1229
01:16:14,240 –> 01:16:17,920
unite us, and love of country doesn’t unite us, and religion doesn’t

1230
01:16:17,920 –> 01:16:21,770
unite us. Even economic situations and circumstances don’t unite

1231
01:16:21,770 –> 01:16:25,610
us. So what binds us together? What is the thing? And

1232
01:16:25,610 –> 01:16:29,330
the book gives an interesting example of what may bind us

1233
01:16:29,330 –> 01:16:32,650
together, which is brotherhood. That’s really

1234
01:16:32,650 –> 01:16:36,170
interesting, but I don’t Know that you could scale that up as a

1235
01:16:36,170 –> 01:16:39,570
substitute across. Across a multifaceted culture

1236
01:16:40,210 –> 01:16:43,970
on a third of a continent like us, man. What we

1237
01:16:43,970 –> 01:16:45,820
got here? Okay,

1238
01:16:48,380 –> 01:16:51,900
this is a fascinating take to hear from you a little bit, because it really

1239
01:16:51,900 –> 01:16:55,620
kind of shows to me where some

1240
01:16:55,620 –> 01:16:59,100
of my thinking, like, comes from, right? Because

1241
01:16:59,260 –> 01:17:02,780
the thing you’re calling brotherhood, I just call community, right? And

1242
01:17:03,020 –> 01:17:06,620
you hit it on the. On the head earlier about talking about training jiu

1243
01:17:06,620 –> 01:17:09,740
jitsu, and, man, that was my kung fu community. Like,

1244
01:17:10,140 –> 01:17:13,900
my. My. My kung fu sifu is a special operations

1245
01:17:14,950 –> 01:17:18,550
guy, right? And so when I come home from the military and I’m looking

1246
01:17:18,550 –> 01:17:22,150
for something, right? Yeah,

1247
01:17:22,710 –> 01:17:25,710
I. I’m like, I always wanted to be a Ninja Turtle. It was always this

1248
01:17:25,710 –> 01:17:28,910
thing, and my parents were like, no, you’ll shoot your eye out. But, yeah, you

1249
01:17:28,910 –> 01:17:32,430
know, we don’t have insurance because we’re hippies, so, like, don’t do anything too dangerous

1250
01:17:32,430 –> 01:17:36,230
is really what it was, right? And so I. I went and I

1251
01:17:36,230 –> 01:17:39,750
looked at some martial arts before the military, and that. That. That

1252
01:17:39,750 –> 01:17:43,590
brush Persona of, you know, this, of the sensei always kind of ran me

1253
01:17:43,590 –> 01:17:46,460
off. Like. Like, we got to be this, you know, but after the military and

1254
01:17:46,460 –> 01:17:48,740
realizing, like, hey, there’s just a lot of people who are just like that by

1255
01:17:48,740 –> 01:17:52,580
natural or by nature, I was like, oh, okay, cool. Maybe these

1256
01:17:52,580 –> 01:17:55,940
are the people I want to be learning how to do violence, you know? Okay.

1257
01:17:56,340 –> 01:18:00,100
So I come home, and I’m in this weird state of, like,

1258
01:18:00,100 –> 01:18:03,900
looking for that. That space to really

1259
01:18:03,900 –> 01:18:07,580
be driven and to do what I want to do and be performance driven

1260
01:18:07,580 –> 01:18:11,340
and. But still, not for. Not for just the

1261
01:18:11,340 –> 01:18:14,710
sake of it, but for something cool, something interesting, something

1262
01:18:14,710 –> 01:18:18,270
meaningful. And I went to all these schools, man. I went to an

1263
01:18:18,270 –> 01:18:22,110
aikido school. I went to Travis Luder’s school way back in the day

1264
01:18:22,110 –> 01:18:25,750
whenever it was like an H E B area, right? Wow. Okay.

1265
01:18:25,750 –> 01:18:29,590
Way back, like, 2002, I go

1266
01:18:29,590 –> 01:18:32,190
into Travis Luder school, and I was like, I don’t. I don’t really want to

1267
01:18:32,190 –> 01:18:35,950
do jiu jitsu, right? And, you know, because I’m like, I’m 6 4.

1268
01:18:35,950 –> 01:18:38,190
That’s a long way to fall. I don’t want to have to go down to

1269
01:18:38,190 –> 01:18:41,810
the ground every time I fight. And, like, I’m going around,

1270
01:18:41,810 –> 01:18:44,890
I’m looking for it. And then in a casual conversation,

1271
01:18:45,370 –> 01:18:47,850
someone was like, have you. Have you called the kung fu guy? I’m like, there’s

1272
01:18:47,850 –> 01:18:51,130
no kung fu in Fort Worth. And he goes, yeah, he teaches you how to

1273
01:18:51,130 –> 01:18:54,490
fight with A cane. And I was like hell yeah, let’s go. Right? Because

1274
01:18:54,890 –> 01:18:58,690
it was this, it was like kind of like mystical in pursuit

1275
01:18:58,690 –> 01:19:02,290
of something else. Right. Like I like that. And big huge fan of kung fu

1276
01:19:02,290 –> 01:19:05,940
movies and Jackie Chan and all this stuff by that time. So it was like

1277
01:19:05,940 –> 01:19:09,740
violence, but it was like violence for good. Kind of elevated.

1278
01:19:10,060 –> 01:19:13,860
Exactly right. Yeah. It wasn’t like like three guys

1279
01:19:13,860 –> 01:19:16,420
just deciding to be at the piss out of each other like in a backyard

1280
01:19:16,420 –> 01:19:19,620
and stuff like that. You know, this was a school and there’s stuff there. And

1281
01:19:19,620 –> 01:19:23,420
so I look up the website, it talks about being prior service and everything. So

1282
01:19:23,420 –> 01:19:27,100
I pick up the phone, I call him and he answers the phone. Now I

1283
01:19:27,100 –> 01:19:30,900
was surprised at the time because I didn’t realize how most small kung

1284
01:19:30,900 –> 01:19:34,680
fu martial arts schools, how small they actually are. And it’s usually kind of a

1285
01:19:34,680 –> 01:19:38,440
one man show. And so I’m like okay, I go and I,

1286
01:19:38,840 –> 01:19:42,640
it’s oh man, you can’t ask for

1287
01:19:42,640 –> 01:19:46,280
a better landing for someone who is getting out of the military is looking for

1288
01:19:46,440 –> 01:19:49,240
because there’s curriculum, there’s standards, there’s

1289
01:19:49,720 –> 01:19:53,560
hierarchy. Like you don’t go to the red sashes in my school

1290
01:19:53,560 –> 01:19:56,800
and be like hey, you don’t know anything. You’re going to get worked. Right? And

1291
01:19:56,800 –> 01:20:00,570
they’re also doing all the teaching and everything. And so it, that was

1292
01:20:00,570 –> 01:20:04,250
my community, that was my space to go and do these things. Now

1293
01:20:05,450 –> 01:20:09,210
a lot of times what happens is it gets too far, right? And that’s where

1294
01:20:09,210 –> 01:20:12,610
the culty kind of stuff starts to show up a little bit. And we see

1295
01:20:12,610 –> 01:20:16,050
a lot of this with like entrepreneurial, you know, communities and stuff like this, like

1296
01:20:16,050 –> 01:20:18,810
the guru and all this other stuff and everything. But

1297
01:20:20,090 –> 01:20:23,890
it was, it was exactly what I was hoping for and looking

1298
01:20:23,890 –> 01:20:27,590
for, right. It was drilling and training and really glad

1299
01:20:27,590 –> 01:20:30,910
that I found it because it was it

1300
01:20:31,070 –> 01:20:34,910
like while the military showed me a bunch of stuff and is super impactful

1301
01:20:34,910 –> 01:20:38,670
for here like that 15 years of going to kung fu for

1302
01:20:38,670 –> 01:20:41,630
20 hours a week and training with other people and putting myself to the test

1303
01:20:41,630 –> 01:20:45,470
and everything is, is just as much of a reason why I’m here doing these

1304
01:20:45,470 –> 01:20:49,150
things because like I had, it was like, it was like I had a bunch

1305
01:20:49,150 –> 01:20:52,910
of tools that I didn’t know how to use afterward in, in

1306
01:20:52,910 –> 01:20:55,990
kung fu and martial arts like showed me how to apply these things in a

1307
01:20:55,990 –> 01:20:59,660
way that was helpful in this setting. But it took a while.

1308
01:21:02,220 –> 01:21:05,820
So to me that’s, that’s community and you can find it anywhere, right?

1309
01:21:05,820 –> 01:21:09,340
Like you can Find it politically, you can find it spiritually. Right. And the

1310
01:21:09,340 –> 01:21:13,020
coolest thing I think about the Internet is like you’re.

1311
01:21:13,420 –> 01:21:16,700
You’re only the nerd because you’ve not found your pocket of people that are taking

1312
01:21:16,700 –> 01:21:20,540
whatever you take as seriously as you are. And why would

1313
01:21:20,540 –> 01:21:24,340
you enable that? Right. There’s Reddit, there’s communities, there’s all this stuff online and

1314
01:21:24,340 –> 01:21:28,140
everything. So if anything, go find your people as opposed

1315
01:21:28,140 –> 01:21:31,260
to trying to nerd out on something that doesn’t really get you that excited.

1316
01:21:31,820 –> 01:21:35,300
Well, and this is also, you know, the decline in sort of a business and

1317
01:21:35,300 –> 01:21:39,100
economic sense, the decline of mass. So, you know,

1318
01:21:39,100 –> 01:21:42,860
mass has been, well, you know, mass entertainment, mass movements, mass

1319
01:21:42,860 –> 01:21:46,380
media, mass journalism, mass sales, mass

1320
01:21:46,460 –> 01:21:50,300
business. Good. Honestly. Right, right, right. Don’t get me wrong. Like, one

1321
01:21:50,300 –> 01:21:53,850
of the things that the Internet did when it got turned on in 1989, and

1322
01:21:53,850 –> 01:21:57,650
we didn’t foresee that happening, was it was

1323
01:21:57,650 –> 01:22:01,250
going to like poop through a goose, destroy all

1324
01:22:01,250 –> 01:22:04,690
these mass organizations and mass institutions. And the

1325
01:22:04,690 –> 01:22:08,490
institutions and organizations that. Going to hang on because there

1326
01:22:08,490 –> 01:22:11,050
will be people who will push back on me and say, well, what about Amazon

1327
01:22:11,050 –> 01:22:14,730
or NBC News or the church or whatever. Okay, sure,

1328
01:22:14,730 –> 01:22:18,370
you can name all those mass institutions, but the reality is

1329
01:22:18,820 –> 01:22:22,300
they’ve all been eroded and impacted by the Internet. And you’re a fool if you

1330
01:22:22,300 –> 01:22:26,140
don’t see it. Absolutely. And then the institutions that were

1331
01:22:26,140 –> 01:22:29,620
built on top of the Internet are built on fundamentally different

1332
01:22:29,620 –> 01:22:33,260
assumptions. And the fundamentally different assumptions are not

1333
01:22:33,260 –> 01:22:36,180
ones around mass. They’re ones around

1334
01:22:36,740 –> 01:22:40,540
different areas. Like preference. Not

1335
01:22:40,540 –> 01:22:43,380
only that, but preference. Expectation.

1336
01:22:44,710 –> 01:22:48,390
Yeah, Assumption. Here’s another one. Talk about community.

1337
01:22:48,550 –> 01:22:51,830
Community. So those are other

1338
01:22:51,830 –> 01:22:54,950
assumptions that don’t play well

1339
01:22:55,350 –> 01:22:58,950
with the assumptions of mass. Right. Or they

1340
01:22:58,950 –> 01:23:02,750
play differently with the assumptions of mass. So as a

1341
01:23:02,750 –> 01:23:06,390
side note, you know, while I’m reading this book and I’m. I watched Restrepo,

1342
01:23:06,710 –> 01:23:10,310
I’ve also been geeking out on Alfred Hitchcock Presents

1343
01:23:10,590 –> 01:23:13,790
every night on Amazon Prime. Okay, so I’m on like season.

1344
01:23:14,910 –> 01:23:18,710
I bounce around in seasons because. Whatever. But

1345
01:23:18,710 –> 01:23:21,990
it’s a great show because it shows. It

1346
01:23:21,990 –> 01:23:24,190
demonstrates two things that I think we

1347
01:23:25,550 –> 01:23:28,550
not. I think I know that we have. That have eroded over the course of

1348
01:23:28,550 –> 01:23:31,830
time and that we lament. But it also shows the undercurrent of all of them

1349
01:23:31,830 –> 01:23:34,710
too, because it was Alfred Hitchcock. So he did it really well because it’s good

1350
01:23:34,710 –> 01:23:38,290
writing. The two things. Well, the two of many things that it

1351
01:23:38,290 –> 01:23:42,050
demonstrates is, number one, the conformity of the. Of the late. The mid

1352
01:23:42,050 –> 01:23:45,890
to late 50s and 60s. Oh, God. Conformity. But

1353
01:23:45,890 –> 01:23:49,690
conformity at a social level so that all these other things could happen

1354
01:23:49,690 –> 01:23:53,210
underneath. Right? Which is part of what we are

1355
01:23:53,210 –> 01:23:56,250
missing. And we’re trying to put that into community now because

1356
01:23:56,810 –> 01:24:00,410
over the course of time, the conformity to social level has completely eroded.

1357
01:24:00,570 –> 01:24:04,050
You talk about your parents being hippies. They were part of that process. My mother

1358
01:24:04,050 –> 01:24:07,720
was part of the civil rights movement. She was part of that process. Yeah. Okay.

1359
01:24:07,720 –> 01:24:10,240
So that. That he wrote it away. Okay, cool.

1360
01:24:11,520 –> 01:24:14,880
A question I always ask at the end of this podcast. What are we building?

1361
01:24:15,840 –> 01:24:19,680
Because you can’t just erode, you can’t just deconstruct. You have to build something

1362
01:24:19,680 –> 01:24:22,480
else, because human beings are builders. That’s what we are. That’s what we like to

1363
01:24:22,480 –> 01:24:26,280
do. Deconstruction works for a little while, but you have

1364
01:24:26,280 –> 01:24:29,120
to replace it with something else. So that show

1365
01:24:29,680 –> 01:24:32,760
shows the level of conformity and sort of the other things that were going on

1366
01:24:32,760 –> 01:24:36,610
underneath it. But it also shows, interestingly enough, the

1367
01:24:36,610 –> 01:24:40,250
power of community out of that conformity and the safety,

1368
01:24:40,250 –> 01:24:42,050
or the appearance of safety anyway.

1369
01:24:43,890 –> 01:24:47,250
That’s the important distinction with a difference there that

1370
01:24:47,250 –> 01:24:50,730
seemed to emanate from that conformity and what we’re

1371
01:24:50,730 –> 01:24:54,570
missing now, and I think what’s causing us a lot of psychic angst in

1372
01:24:54,570 –> 01:24:58,130
this country is the safety part.

1373
01:25:00,140 –> 01:25:03,540
And this is why we’re searching for it in a whole lot of different places,

1374
01:25:03,540 –> 01:25:07,100
in brotherhood and community, on Reddit,

1375
01:25:07,740 –> 01:25:10,300
and. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think this is a human.

1376
01:25:10,860 –> 01:25:14,380
This is a human thing. Human beings want, because this is how our

1377
01:25:14,380 –> 01:25:17,780
amygdalas are set up, right? We want to eat, we want to reproduce, so we

1378
01:25:17,780 –> 01:25:21,180
want to be safe. No amount of social jiggering

1379
01:25:21,820 –> 01:25:25,420
or even biological jiggering is going to get rid of

1380
01:25:25,420 –> 01:25:27,460
that, at least not for a long time.

1381
01:25:30,420 –> 01:25:34,220
Man. So I had a. I had a really great teacher in

1382
01:25:34,220 –> 01:25:37,380
sixth grade. This man made me want to be a teacher all the way up

1383
01:25:37,380 –> 01:25:41,060
until junior year of high school. And my friend Kevin said, you know, they don’t

1384
01:25:41,060 –> 01:25:44,140
make any money, right? And I was like, oh, I better go find something else

1385
01:25:44,140 –> 01:25:46,420
to do. But his name is Rob Krueger.

1386
01:25:48,020 –> 01:25:51,300
Very, very, very cool person. And

1387
01:25:52,660 –> 01:25:56,180
he was telling us this. He’s talking about being

1388
01:25:56,260 –> 01:26:00,100
like an older kid in like, late 70s, right?

1389
01:26:00,100 –> 01:26:03,234
Because this was in. This is probably 90,

1390
01:26:03,406 –> 01:26:06,340
91, right? And so he’s talking about

1391
01:26:07,380 –> 01:26:11,100
walking around and wear. And seeing people wearing shirts that say, kill a commie

1392
01:26:11,100 –> 01:26:14,500
for mommy. Right? And the group think of, like, the anti

1393
01:26:14,500 –> 01:26:18,290
communism Kind of push and everything else like this, right? And

1394
01:26:18,450 –> 01:26:19,090
you know,

1395
01:26:22,610 –> 01:26:25,970
to me, to me, I see a big overlap

1396
01:26:26,210 –> 01:26:29,970
between that kind of like, group think and what

1397
01:26:29,970 –> 01:26:33,290
it kind of just does to someone if you’re not already aligned for that stuff,

1398
01:26:33,290 –> 01:26:36,970
right? And how it wears on you, right? Just like being the only guy

1399
01:26:36,970 –> 01:26:39,490
who’s, who’s in an. Who’s in a, you know, company

1400
01:26:40,690 –> 01:26:43,930
full of people that want to go off and bomb everybody, and I’m the only

1401
01:26:43,930 –> 01:26:47,050
person who doesn’t want to go do so. Right. You know, I mean, the, you

1402
01:26:47,050 –> 01:26:50,690
know, when you’re the odd man out, you know, it. Right. Pretty hard to argue

1403
01:26:50,690 –> 01:26:54,210
about. And so the thing that I think is really cool is

1404
01:26:55,410 –> 01:26:56,610
the ability to

1405
01:26:59,330 –> 01:27:02,370
be yourself, right? Like,

1406
01:27:05,250 –> 01:27:08,530
because, because I see a lot of overlap with like, gay people, right? People who

1407
01:27:08,530 –> 01:27:12,170
are gay. Right. People who are trans. Right? And so imagine never

1408
01:27:12,170 –> 01:27:15,900
feeling comfortable with that stuff, right? But just constantly being pushed and

1409
01:27:15,900 –> 01:27:18,860
told and pushed and told. You’re wrong, you’re an idiot. You’re wrong. You’re an idiot.

1410
01:27:18,860 –> 01:27:22,300
You’re wrong. See how no one else has these problems because no one is talking

1411
01:27:22,300 –> 01:27:25,780
about them because there is no community, because it’s not surface level, right?

1412
01:27:26,100 –> 01:27:29,900
So imagine dealing with 50 people and they’re all telling you. Them telling

1413
01:27:29,900 –> 01:27:33,380
you that you’re wrong, right? Like, imagine

1414
01:27:33,940 –> 01:27:37,500
because we, you know, we still have people that go through this,

1415
01:27:37,500 –> 01:27:41,020
right? In different ways, shapes or forms. I want to go be an entrepreneur. No,

1416
01:27:41,020 –> 01:27:44,600
you don’t. Just go get a job and just play it safe, right? And then

1417
01:27:44,600 –> 01:27:48,320
we’re told these things. It’s really hard to continue to have

1418
01:27:50,240 –> 01:27:53,920
individual opinion when everyone is telling you that. That it’s

1419
01:27:53,920 –> 01:27:57,080
wrong and that it’s stupid and you should just change and stuff like this, right?

1420
01:27:57,080 –> 01:28:00,680
And so now in the military, this is really helpful because you’re there for a

1421
01:28:00,680 –> 01:28:04,280
purpose, right? And I remember the first time I got in

1422
01:28:04,280 –> 01:28:07,680
trouble because I was doing something that I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be

1423
01:28:07,680 –> 01:28:09,900
doing, but everyone else knew they were supposed to be doing at the this way.

1424
01:28:09,900 –> 01:28:12,860
And the drill sergeant got in my face and I’ll never forget this moment. He

1425
01:28:12,860 –> 01:28:15,540
goes, he goes, why are you still trying to be an individual?

1426
01:28:16,980 –> 01:28:20,580
Why can’t you just do what everyone else here is doing? John, are we going

1427
01:28:20,580 –> 01:28:24,060
to have to kick you out on, like, a failure to conform? And I was

1428
01:28:24,060 –> 01:28:27,540
like, what? Like it was bad to be individualistic in the

1429
01:28:27,540 –> 01:28:30,980
military. Like, it’s a, it’s a problem, right? So I mean,

1430
01:28:30,980 –> 01:28:33,460
imagine being, you know,

1431
01:28:35,150 –> 01:28:38,670
gay and you don’t happen to have any community around you

1432
01:28:38,670 –> 01:28:42,390
who’s gay, Right. And you’re just being told that, no, it’s not

1433
01:28:42,390 –> 01:28:45,950
true. You’re just experimenting, you know, blah, blah, all these things, right? Or being trans

1434
01:28:46,030 –> 01:28:49,750
or, you know, let’s just say that you’re a pacifist, right? Or

1435
01:28:49,750 –> 01:28:53,390
let’s say you’re, you know, kind of progressive and a very conservative town. Like,

1436
01:28:53,550 –> 01:28:56,750
it’s really hard to have the opposite opinion. Right? So

1437
01:28:57,150 –> 01:29:00,950
I love that people, oh, well, maybe I

1438
01:29:00,950 –> 01:29:04,270
should go check online as opposed to just being bottle fed by this

1439
01:29:04,270 –> 01:29:07,670
immediate group of people around me who might mean well,

1440
01:29:08,150 –> 01:29:11,790
but might ultimately be shutting down access to the person

1441
01:29:11,790 –> 01:29:15,470
I’m, I could be, I should be, I want to be like, I

1442
01:29:15,470 –> 01:29:19,190
don’t, I don’t want that for anybody. So I think it, well, yes,

1443
01:29:19,270 –> 01:29:22,950
I, I, I appreciate how you said you

1444
01:29:22,950 –> 01:29:26,550
feel safe, but imagine having to pick up

1445
01:29:26,550 –> 01:29:30,230
an identity that only has 10% of

1446
01:29:30,230 –> 01:29:33,850
something you care about because no one is diving any deeper

1447
01:29:33,850 –> 01:29:37,410
to like, be like, oh, you could be just this

1448
01:29:37,410 –> 01:29:40,810
group over here without being, without picking up the bigger mantle.

1449
01:29:41,370 –> 01:29:43,450
Well, what I’m saying is that.

1450
01:29:45,770 –> 01:29:49,530
And. I see your, I see the, I see the opposite point.

1451
01:29:50,250 –> 01:29:54,010
And I would say to that, I think the opposite point, if not

1452
01:29:54,410 –> 01:29:57,370
by virtue of the Internet, at least by virtue of the last 20 years,

1453
01:29:59,520 –> 01:30:03,280
has made its cause very well. I

1454
01:30:03,520 –> 01:30:07,040
think we are in a space in comparison

1455
01:30:08,000 –> 01:30:11,720
to the other spaces

1456
01:30:11,720 –> 01:30:15,400
in the last 80 years that existed. I think we are at a

1457
01:30:15,400 –> 01:30:19,120
highly individualistic space. I think we are. Now

1458
01:30:20,480 –> 01:30:24,080
we’re okay. If we’re at a highly individualistic space where our identity is

1459
01:30:24,080 –> 01:30:27,610
around, say a sexual identity or racial

1460
01:30:27,610 –> 01:30:31,130
identity or even weirdly enough, a

1461
01:30:31,130 –> 01:30:34,610
religious identity, we’re not okay.

1462
01:30:36,210 –> 01:30:40,050
Or the culture of America is not okay. If

1463
01:30:40,050 –> 01:30:43,530
we’re at a highly individualistic space where we’re

1464
01:30:43,530 –> 01:30:47,210
individualistic about our money or about how much money we

1465
01:30:47,210 –> 01:30:50,770
make or about how much property we have

1466
01:30:51,670 –> 01:30:55,110
or about how much work we do that produces something. So, for instance,

1467
01:30:56,710 –> 01:30:59,910
we’re okay with a person being an individual

1468
01:31:00,550 –> 01:31:04,230
around their racial identity. I’ll use the one that I see the most

1469
01:31:04,230 –> 01:31:08,070
often. Right. But it’s interesting to me. Here’s

1470
01:31:08,070 –> 01:31:11,190
the dichotomy that as a person

1471
01:31:12,070 –> 01:31:15,870
begins to become more wealthy, while their racial identity may say

1472
01:31:15,870 –> 01:31:19,360
the same, now all of a sudden we have demands as they conform to a

1473
01:31:19,360 –> 01:31:21,120
group structure around their wealth

1474
01:31:22,960 –> 01:31:26,720
and the conforming, such as, okay, so the conforming to a group structure around

1475
01:31:26,720 –> 01:31:30,560
their wealth would be, well, you should give money

1476
01:31:30,560 –> 01:31:34,400
to xyz, nonprofit or ABC activist platform.

1477
01:31:35,040 –> 01:31:38,840
I don’t get to be an individual and determine what monies I want to give

1478
01:31:38,840 –> 01:31:42,420
where. Instead, I’m going to have pressure put on me by the

1479
01:31:42,420 –> 01:31:46,220
overarching racial group to go in

1480
01:31:46,220 –> 01:31:50,060
this particular direction. Because while these people supported you

1481
01:31:50,220 –> 01:31:54,060
when you were nobody, the group supported you when

1482
01:31:54,060 –> 01:31:57,340
you were nobody, and now you’re somebody. So you have to. This is how it’s

1483
01:31:57,340 –> 01:32:01,180
typically couched. Give back. And that,

1484
01:32:01,180 –> 01:32:04,620
to me, is the dirty underside of the conformity argument,

1485
01:32:05,580 –> 01:32:09,190
but from the opposite direction. So I’m okay to be an individual

1486
01:32:09,590 –> 01:32:13,310
if I’m going against the dominant group on my racial identity, but the

1487
01:32:13,310 –> 01:32:16,950
second I get money as an individual, now I

1488
01:32:16,950 –> 01:32:20,310
must return those funds back to the dominant group

1489
01:32:21,030 –> 01:32:24,390
or even to the minority group that I came out of in order to raise

1490
01:32:24,390 –> 01:32:28,070
other members of that group up. I’m not allowed to be an individual on that.

1491
01:32:28,550 –> 01:32:31,830
I’m just not. There’s all kinds of social controls around that.

1492
01:32:32,230 –> 01:32:35,620
And so I think we have to be intellectually

1493
01:32:35,620 –> 01:32:38,780
honest and say that this

1494
01:32:39,340 –> 01:32:42,220
idea of conformity versus security

1495
01:32:43,900 –> 01:32:47,700
and the individual versus the group. Right. Is

1496
01:32:47,700 –> 01:32:49,260
one that I think

1497
01:32:52,540 –> 01:32:56,100
just like what motivates young men to combat is one I don’t think we’re ever

1498
01:32:56,100 –> 01:32:59,900
going to resolve. It’s going to be the continuing dynamic tension. Yeah, it’s going to

1499
01:32:59,900 –> 01:33:03,530
be the continuing dynamic tension for police for as long as there’s human

1500
01:33:03,530 –> 01:33:07,130
beings. And I think that the line between

1501
01:33:07,130 –> 01:33:08,090
those two things

1502
01:33:12,010 –> 01:33:15,650
runs through the human heart, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn would say about the line of

1503
01:33:15,650 –> 01:33:16,890
tyranny. Right.

1504
01:33:19,610 –> 01:33:23,410
And I don’t think there’s a way to make. Other

1505
01:33:23,410 –> 01:33:26,370
than maybe in smaller and smaller communities, this is maybe the only way I see

1506
01:33:26,370 –> 01:33:29,700
it working. You know, I don’t think there’s a way to unite people

1507
01:33:30,180 –> 01:33:33,740
around that. So. And. And I’m using race as an

1508
01:33:33,740 –> 01:33:36,580
example because that’s the one that I’m most familiar with, because that’s where I get

1509
01:33:36,580 –> 01:33:40,300
the most pushback. Right. There’s presumptions about what I should do

1510
01:33:40,300 –> 01:33:43,860
with my money because of how I look or where I came from. And

1511
01:33:43,939 –> 01:33:46,980
by the way, I’m not the only one to rap. Oh, I’m not one. I’m

1512
01:33:46,980 –> 01:33:49,740
not the only one to, like, talk about this. Kanye west rapped about it all

1513
01:33:49,740 –> 01:33:52,980
the time. Right. Maybe I should have forgotten where. I should have forgotten where I

1514
01:33:52,980 –> 01:33:56,800
came from. Right. Well, I’m not forgetting where I came from. Where I

1515
01:33:56,800 –> 01:34:00,440
came from was conformist in a particular way that, quite frankly, I didn’t want to

1516
01:34:00,440 –> 01:34:04,000
go There, that’s what I’ve forgotten. It’s that I’ve

1517
01:34:04,000 –> 01:34:07,600
decided to rise as an individual out of that conformist thing and of that

1518
01:34:07,600 –> 01:34:11,160
conformist thing, out of that conformity. And now you’re going to pull me back into

1519
01:34:11,160 –> 01:34:14,680
that conformity like a crab in the bucket. And you’re going to claim

1520
01:34:14,760 –> 01:34:18,600
that whatever the dominant majority is doing is somehow not

1521
01:34:18,760 –> 01:34:22,410
confident. Correct. And yet if I

1522
01:34:22,410 –> 01:34:26,250
hadn’t played the dominant majority’s game to a certain degree of

1523
01:34:26,250 –> 01:34:29,570
success as an individual because nobody else was helping me,

1524
01:34:31,730 –> 01:34:34,770
well, how are we going to square that circle? And by the way, I don’t

1525
01:34:34,770 –> 01:34:37,490
think there is a good way to square that circle. I think, I think it.

1526
01:34:37,570 –> 01:34:41,290
I think it works out differently. The line runs through every

1527
01:34:41,290 –> 01:34:44,250
human heart, and every human being has to work this out differently and has to

1528
01:34:44,250 –> 01:34:48,100
make decisions. I think the Internet has allowed people to see

1529
01:34:48,420 –> 01:34:52,220
what the decisions are that people make more clearly and

1530
01:34:52,220 –> 01:34:56,020
then to unite in community, in smaller and smaller groups, further

1531
01:34:56,020 –> 01:34:59,860
and further out on the long tail. And this is part of that decline

1532
01:34:59,860 –> 01:35:03,660
of mass thing that’s happened. But I don’t know how

1533
01:35:03,660 –> 01:35:07,060
far out the long tail goes. I guess we’ll find out with the LLMs. I

1534
01:35:07,060 –> 01:35:10,300
guess we’ll find out how far out the long tail goes. That’s going to be

1535
01:35:10,300 –> 01:35:14,080
fascinating and interesting. And I have. I have a question mark at the end of

1536
01:35:14,080 –> 01:35:15,440
that because I don’t know what the answer is.

1537
01:35:19,680 –> 01:35:23,320
Where, where I get a little sideways with these conversations. And I’m trying to be

1538
01:35:23,320 –> 01:35:27,160
better about this idea, right? Because with what you

1539
01:35:27,160 –> 01:35:30,640
just told me is you’re not ever going to make anybody all, all happy,

1540
01:35:30,880 –> 01:35:34,640
which is just life. You know what I’m saying? Like, maybe,

1541
01:35:35,280 –> 01:35:38,930
maybe it’s my maybe. And maybe it’s my tragic view of, of human experience.

1542
01:35:39,090 –> 01:35:41,770
And I’ll. I’ll chalk it up to that. Maybe it’s that I have a tragic

1543
01:35:41,770 –> 01:35:45,570
view of human experience, and maybe that’s just me, and that’s just my bad

1544
01:35:45,570 –> 01:35:48,730
mileage, my bad road, and I got to deal with that. You know, I’m not

1545
01:35:48,730 –> 01:35:52,570
asking you to adopt that road. Well, like the, the thing

1546
01:35:52,570 –> 01:35:54,210
where I keep getting, like, stuck is.

1547
01:35:56,530 –> 01:35:59,650
Oh, man. Okay, we’re gonna get spicy.

1548
01:36:00,450 –> 01:36:03,890
Social media has given way to promise. We promise to people.

1549
01:36:04,210 –> 01:36:07,510
Social media has given way too many people access to people being loud

1550
01:36:07,750 –> 01:36:11,110
without the ability to be clear.

1551
01:36:11,990 –> 01:36:15,590
Okay. In the way that all the algorithms. I would agree with that

1552
01:36:15,990 –> 01:36:19,790
is you’re not benefited by talking at depth

1553
01:36:19,790 –> 01:36:23,190
and making sure that you’re spelling everything else that you can’t be misinterpreted. The stuff

1554
01:36:23,190 –> 01:36:26,950
that gets the most mileage is the stuff to where two very polarized, different people

1555
01:36:26,950 –> 01:36:30,710
can find something to argue about. And here’s the thing. Are they even

1556
01:36:30,710 –> 01:36:34,440
arguing about the same things half the time? No, not at all. But most

1557
01:36:34,440 –> 01:36:38,280
people can have a civil debate. Most people can’t stand up to critical

1558
01:36:38,280 –> 01:36:40,880
feedback of like, hey, have you gone and researched any of these things? Are you

1559
01:36:40,880 –> 01:36:44,560
just watching the news all day? Well, I’m watching the news all day. Okay. And

1560
01:36:44,560 –> 01:36:48,360
that makes you feel like you’re really informed just by watching the news,

1561
01:36:48,519 –> 01:36:52,120
right. Where you’re, where you are the product. Like, and

1562
01:36:52,200 –> 01:36:55,280
like, that’s not to say that people, like, should avoid the news. I avoid the

1563
01:36:55,280 –> 01:36:58,160
news because I just can’t deal with it anymore because I don’t know what is

1564
01:36:58,160 –> 01:37:01,960
actually worth caring about at this stage. Right. Because it just feels like everyone just

1565
01:37:01,960 –> 01:37:05,120
wants my focus and attention. So none of you get it. I’m. I’m going to

1566
01:37:05,120 –> 01:37:07,680
go go over here and do my own stuff, but I’m taking my ball. I’m

1567
01:37:07,680 –> 01:37:11,480
going home a little bit, you know, kind of like, I can’t, I can’t

1568
01:37:11,480 –> 01:37:15,240
impact any of this. And I don’t think, I don’t really believe anybody who has

1569
01:37:15,240 –> 01:37:18,720
a vested interest in my eyeballs being on your page to give me the truth.

1570
01:37:18,720 –> 01:37:22,480
So let me go do. I’m going to go read three articles from very

1571
01:37:22,480 –> 01:37:25,640
different sources and I’m going to try to figure out the main line through it

1572
01:37:25,640 –> 01:37:27,960
kind of thing is how I kind of go about it. Yeah,

1573
01:37:29,480 –> 01:37:33,080
but most people should not be debating on social

1574
01:37:33,080 –> 01:37:36,720
media. Most people, you should have to have a license, which is a

1575
01:37:36,720 –> 01:37:40,200
pretty hot topic debate. But if you have, if you have a

1576
01:37:40,200 –> 01:37:43,880
loud horn, right, and you were in the mall

1577
01:37:44,600 –> 01:37:48,120
and you went around saying fire, there’d be consequences for your actions.

1578
01:37:48,520 –> 01:37:52,280
Right? There’s a bomb and hot topic. Right. There would be consequences. You’d

1579
01:37:52,280 –> 01:37:55,810
have people all over you. Rightfully so. Okay. But you can get on social media

1580
01:37:55,810 –> 01:37:59,530
to say whatever you want. And like, there are, there are strategists that are

1581
01:37:59,530 –> 01:38:02,970
specifically hired to make it more polarizing and all of these things and stuff like

1582
01:38:02,970 –> 01:38:06,730
that. So it’s tough, right? It’s,

1583
01:38:06,730 –> 01:38:09,930
it’s. The problem is a lack of

1584
01:38:09,930 –> 01:38:13,650
vocabulary in my, in my opinion. And then a lack

1585
01:38:13,730 –> 01:38:17,250
of having to sit in front of people and say these

1586
01:38:17,250 –> 01:38:20,920
things versus being able to hide behind the keyboard and

1587
01:38:20,920 –> 01:38:24,560
then, you know, doing that 50,000 times and there’s never been any

1588
01:38:24,560 –> 01:38:28,320
consequences for those things. And now you’re just going around heavy handed feeling justified,

1589
01:38:28,320 –> 01:38:31,760
like, like everything must be right because no one’s ever

1590
01:38:32,160 –> 01:38:35,960
been able to convince you that you’ve been wrong. But you avoid all of

1591
01:38:35,960 –> 01:38:39,800
those conversations because they’re, they’re the dumb ones. Right. And it’s just, it

1592
01:38:39,800 –> 01:38:42,240
just. I mean, how could we not end up here?

1593
01:38:43,520 –> 01:38:46,320
Isn’t this still the part of the trade offs, though that we were talking about

1594
01:38:46,320 –> 01:38:49,820
earlier? I mean, I think so. Right?

1595
01:38:49,820 –> 01:38:53,220
Like, yes, I do think it’s a trade off, but like in

1596
01:38:53,380 –> 01:38:56,980
ultimately, please, please hear me out. I love

1597
01:38:57,220 –> 01:39:00,860
that I don’t just get my information from the

1598
01:39:00,860 –> 01:39:03,620
local paper and that’s the only access that I have to it because that would

1599
01:39:03,620 –> 01:39:06,900
be way worse. Right. I’m very well aware of that. Right. Talk about trade offs.

1600
01:39:06,900 –> 01:39:10,220
Right? Yeah. So I’m never going to push too hard for like

1601
01:39:10,220 –> 01:39:13,940
censorship online because I want the ability to talk about

1602
01:39:13,940 –> 01:39:17,580
the things that I want to talk about even when they’re unpopular. So I must

1603
01:39:17,580 –> 01:39:20,820
give other people space to talk about the things that I think are stupid or

1604
01:39:20,820 –> 01:39:24,300
unpopular because I want my ability to go do these things. Right.

1605
01:39:25,420 –> 01:39:28,580
But when you start thinking of like, well, I’m right and everyone else is wrong,

1606
01:39:28,580 –> 01:39:32,380
that’s where you lose the thread. Right. And if someone else believes something

1607
01:39:32,380 –> 01:39:35,260
differently than you, well, then they just must be the idiot. They’re not allowed to

1608
01:39:35,260 –> 01:39:39,060
be intelligent and think differently than you because you’re not on the level of understanding

1609
01:39:39,060 –> 01:39:42,780
just how deep all of these decisions and chains and things like that go.

1610
01:39:43,100 –> 01:39:46,620
Just, oh, well, you’re an idiot because that helps me sleep at night. I don’t

1611
01:39:46,620 –> 01:39:50,300
have to question anything super deeply because you’re dumb. Right.

1612
01:39:50,300 –> 01:39:54,140
It just becomes the easiest off ramp. Right? Oh, you’re a child. I

1613
01:39:54,140 –> 01:39:57,860
don’t have to listen to you. Well, you know, like, this is why

1614
01:39:57,860 –> 01:40:00,780
I, I have a shirt. It’s my favorite shirt.

1615
01:40:01,420 –> 01:40:04,940
Don’t argue with within with. Don’t argue with idiots on the Internet.

1616
01:40:05,340 –> 01:40:09,110
Favorite shirt. Had to buy it. It doesn’t even

1617
01:40:09,110 –> 01:40:11,790
really fit me because, like, I washed it one time and it shrank up too

1618
01:40:11,790 –> 01:40:14,470
big, but it still hangs up in my closet. And there are certain days when

1619
01:40:14,470 –> 01:40:16,750
I’m going through my shirts, I’m like, what am I gonna wear today? And I

1620
01:40:16,750 –> 01:40:20,550
get to that shirt and I was like, thank you for the reminder. Right.

1621
01:40:22,629 –> 01:40:26,190
This is, this is compounded because you can’t have hard opinions about

1622
01:40:26,190 –> 01:40:29,950
anything without some person being like, well, if you thought about. Yeah, thought about

1623
01:40:29,950 –> 01:40:33,670
it. Right. Like, at least I have. Right. Before I Before I

1624
01:40:33,670 –> 01:40:37,510
post content, talking about sales and entrepreneurship and being a founder.

1625
01:40:37,510 –> 01:40:41,310
Yeah. I’m thinking about how you’re going to hear it and where, like Joe

1626
01:40:41,310 –> 01:40:43,790
Schmo idiot who’s never done any of this, is going to be like, you’re not

1627
01:40:43,790 –> 01:40:46,870
right. How. Let me just go ahead and weave it in

1628
01:40:47,990 –> 01:40:51,750
so everyone can know I’m right unless they’re trying to see me

1629
01:40:51,750 –> 01:40:55,270
as wrong, you know, so there is this weird thing. And

1630
01:40:55,350 –> 01:40:58,870
every time I talk about a thing, especially as a sales coach, you know, this

1631
01:40:58,870 –> 01:41:02,720
one time back in like 1873, I followed, followed up with one

1632
01:41:02,720 –> 01:41:06,560
person for 5,000 days in a row. And then, you know what happened, John?

1633
01:41:06,560 –> 01:41:10,160
They bought. And it’s like, okay, cool, I’m glad you have an anecdote.

1634
01:41:10,320 –> 01:41:13,760
Is that how you want to keep getting it done? You know, like,

1635
01:41:14,400 –> 01:41:18,120
you can’t have too hard of an opinion with this thing. But. But

1636
01:41:18,120 –> 01:41:21,360
by that same token, if you are out here in some sort of space, whether

1637
01:41:21,360 –> 01:41:25,160
leadership or being a founder or anything, you must be comfortable putting your

1638
01:41:25,160 –> 01:41:28,260
ideas into play and going and defending them, because you will have trolls. And if

1639
01:41:28,260 –> 01:41:32,060
you let them stop you from putting yourself out there, you know,

1640
01:41:32,060 –> 01:41:33,740
you get to go back to work for someone else.

1641
01:41:39,260 –> 01:41:40,940
I think we are at a.

1642
01:41:43,260 –> 01:41:44,620
We’re at a moment of,

1643
01:41:46,940 –> 01:41:49,740
I think, several things. So we’re at a moment of

1644
01:41:50,220 –> 01:41:53,980
inflection. Right. People call it a vibe

1645
01:41:53,980 –> 01:41:57,750
shift. Okay, Maybe I think it’s more like a

1646
01:41:57,750 –> 01:42:00,870
moment of inflection or an inflection point in the culture.

1647
01:42:03,430 –> 01:42:06,895
And I put this in my notes. 20 years on, from 9 11,

1648
01:42:06,978 –> 01:42:10,710
24 years on from 9 11, get ready to be 25. Which is just

1649
01:42:10,710 –> 01:42:14,390
insane to me. At a certain level,

1650
01:42:16,470 –> 01:42:19,830
I’m not quite sure that if a 911 style event

1651
01:42:20,240 –> 01:42:24,080
occurred now that we would have the same response.

1652
01:42:26,000 –> 01:42:29,040
I mean, I think all the first responders that are, like, trying so hard to

1653
01:42:29,040 –> 01:42:32,840
get seen and taken care of after they, you know, put forth so much, and

1654
01:42:32,840 –> 01:42:36,279
now they’ve kind of gotten screwed. I mean, not really a whole lot of pattern

1655
01:42:36,279 –> 01:42:39,920
and precedent for wanting to be super excited to go, you know, really commit to,

1656
01:42:39,920 –> 01:42:43,560
like, driving the country forward. Because all, like, if you’re paying any

1657
01:42:43,560 –> 01:42:47,130
attention, all those people that are putting forth the most effort

1658
01:42:47,290 –> 01:42:50,650
are the people who don’t get taken care of on the backside of it. Right,

1659
01:42:50,730 –> 01:42:54,450
Exactly. Why, like, you almost have to

1660
01:42:54,450 –> 01:42:58,290
be delusional at this point. I would think to be like, you know

1661
01:42:58,290 –> 01:43:02,010
what? They’re gonna take care of me. I just. Right. You know, and

1662
01:43:02,010 –> 01:43:05,370
I hate that I have that opinion, I really, really don’t like it. But

1663
01:43:05,690 –> 01:43:09,370
I, I mean we read these books for a reason. We,

1664
01:43:09,450 –> 01:43:12,410
you know, like it’s there and it happens too often

1665
01:43:13,490 –> 01:43:17,090
for I think anybody who’s reasonable and really concerned about it to be like, you

1666
01:43:17,090 –> 01:43:20,370
know what, they’re going to take care of me. Well, and even if we had

1667
01:43:20,370 –> 01:43:24,210
like, and, and you know,

1668
01:43:24,370 –> 01:43:26,130
we’re doing this podcast, you know,

1669
01:43:29,090 –> 01:43:32,690
four years after Covid. Right. Yeah.

1670
01:43:32,850 –> 01:43:35,970
Another wet blanket on, you know, any kind of

1671
01:43:36,690 –> 01:43:39,800
right. Rotary is ignat. Right. So

1672
01:43:48,600 –> 01:43:51,560
on the one hand I, I would like to,

1673
01:43:56,280 –> 01:44:00,040
I would like to say that because of our collective in this

1674
01:44:00,040 –> 01:44:03,840
country, and I’m not talking, again, not talking about the politicians or the generals, they’re

1675
01:44:03,840 –> 01:44:07,360
a minority on this one. I’m talking about because of the

1676
01:44:07,360 –> 01:44:11,160
collective. Disinterest is probably

1677
01:44:11,160 –> 01:44:14,840
a hard word, but maybe that’s the most accurate one.

1678
01:44:15,080 –> 01:44:18,600
Disinterest on the part of the electorate in

1679
01:44:19,480 –> 01:44:22,040
not necessarily supporting the people on the back end.

1680
01:44:23,160 –> 01:44:26,880
I think disinterest on responding in

1681
01:44:26,880 –> 01:44:30,560
the same way as we did previously. I think there’s immense disinterest in

1682
01:44:30,560 –> 01:44:34,210
that. If a 911 event was. Were to happen, I think there’s just immense disinterest.

1683
01:44:36,610 –> 01:44:39,250
Yeah. The question then becomes,

1684
01:44:41,090 –> 01:44:43,690
and this is a truly apocalyptic question, but

1685
01:44:44,810 –> 01:44:48,290
is the question that follows from the logic, how

1686
01:44:48,290 –> 01:44:51,890
many 911 events, how close together

1687
01:44:52,690 –> 01:44:56,130
would have to happen in order to move the American

1688
01:44:56,290 –> 01:45:00,080
public out of their disinterest into a different space? And by the way, I’m

1689
01:45:00,080 –> 01:45:03,120
not asking this question because I want it to happen.

1690
01:45:03,760 –> 01:45:07,200
I’m asking the question because if the line of

1691
01:45:07,200 –> 01:45:10,880
911 is way back there in the rear view mirror and

1692
01:45:10,880 –> 01:45:14,720
the line of COVID is way back there in the rear view mirror, then

1693
01:45:14,720 –> 01:45:18,320
how much horrible, much more horrible will the next

1694
01:45:18,320 –> 01:45:19,280
line have to be

1695
01:45:22,320 –> 01:45:25,770
to shake us out of our disinterest and our apathy and our

1696
01:45:25,770 –> 01:45:29,610
impatience with outcomes? And I think we’ve been asking a

1697
01:45:29,610 –> 01:45:33,370
variation of this question since World War II. And we. And

1698
01:45:33,370 –> 01:45:37,010
the line has gone further and further and further and further and further out.

1699
01:45:38,610 –> 01:45:41,010
And I think that.

1700
01:45:42,450 –> 01:45:45,810
Back to that idea of being a role model in a neighborhood. I think other

1701
01:45:45,810 –> 01:45:48,770
countries pay attention to that. They pay very close attention

1702
01:45:49,970 –> 01:45:53,550
for a whole variety of reasons, by the way, some that are self serving

1703
01:45:53,630 –> 01:45:56,510
and some that are venal for their own interests

1704
01:45:57,550 –> 01:46:01,350
and others that are like, we wouldn’t. If

1705
01:46:01,350 –> 01:46:04,590
you don’t, if you don’t think I’m correct, we wouldn’t have had all of the

1706
01:46:04,590 –> 01:46:08,190
blathering over Russian

1707
01:46:08,190 –> 01:46:11,550
interference in elections if we didn’t think Russia was paying attention,

1708
01:46:12,110 –> 01:46:15,550
whether you, whoever candidate you think it’s benefiting, it doesn’t matter to me.

1709
01:46:15,950 –> 01:46:19,500
We wouldn’t have all that blathering if we didn’t think Russia was paying attention.

1710
01:46:20,700 –> 01:46:22,700
We just like, we don’t blather about.

1711
01:46:24,380 –> 01:46:27,980
No one’s blathering about, no one’s blathering about South African election interference.

1712
01:46:29,100 –> 01:46:32,700
No one. Okay, yeah, no one. No one. Because like

1713
01:46:33,180 –> 01:46:36,940
topic think South Africa is paying attention. Right? And the reason, and the

1714
01:46:36,940 –> 01:46:39,580
reason why I’m saying that is the reason why I’m saying this. Among the, the

1715
01:46:39,580 –> 01:46:43,340
smart people, you know, those people that are not the electorate,

1716
01:46:43,670 –> 01:46:47,470
right? But who think they know what the electorate wants by virtue of

1717
01:46:47,470 –> 01:46:51,190
having won a vote from the electorate, they think they know that that gives them

1718
01:46:51,190 –> 01:46:54,310
an idea of what they think the electorate wants for those people.

1719
01:46:55,990 –> 01:46:59,110
I don’t think they have an answer to the question. And this is the part

1720
01:46:59,110 –> 01:47:02,950
that scares me even more. They don’t have an answer to the question of what

1721
01:47:02,950 –> 01:47:06,790
would be the thing, where is the line to move the American

1722
01:47:07,030 –> 01:47:10,740
public. And you see this, by the way, notoriously and political

1723
01:47:10,740 –> 01:47:14,460
acts that are happening now in this country and I’m not talking

1724
01:47:14,460 –> 01:47:18,260
about the big popular ones that everybody can see. Like right now we’re currently

1725
01:47:18,260 –> 01:47:21,860
in the midst of like a 30 day government shutdown

1726
01:47:22,420 –> 01:47:26,020
and I can’t, I don’t know, there’s no one in my circle

1727
01:47:26,260 –> 01:47:29,700
or the circles that I go to in my limited expansion on the Internet

1728
01:47:30,100 –> 01:47:33,860
that are even remotely talking about any of this. Oh

1729
01:47:33,860 –> 01:47:37,310
yeah, everyone else is the bad guy, right? But that’s the first rule of

1730
01:47:37,310 –> 01:47:40,790
rhetoric. But that is. Right, it was just the first rule of rhetoric. Exactly. Yeah,

1731
01:47:40,790 –> 01:47:44,590
yeah, it was funny because like, you know, one of the lines

1732
01:47:44,590 –> 01:47:47,750
that I learned early on is like, was like marketing, right? You know, because like

1733
01:47:47,750 –> 01:47:51,350
I, you know, started, started to really get into selling and then I started to

1734
01:47:51,350 –> 01:47:54,270
like look at marketing and everything and then it was like, just make someone else

1735
01:47:54,270 –> 01:47:58,110
the bad guy, you know, so cold calls are the devil. You

1736
01:47:58,110 –> 01:48:01,440
don’t want to be a salesperson. You want to be in marketing, right? So when

1737
01:48:01,440 –> 01:48:05,240
you can demonize something else, right? And people are like, oh,

1738
01:48:05,320 –> 01:48:08,960
I don’t want to be like that, then, then it creates a

1739
01:48:08,960 –> 01:48:12,800
thing, right? And we see this, right? Remember the Titans, when Denzel Washington is like

1740
01:48:12,800 –> 01:48:16,560
the, like he is the centering focus, he becomes the bad

1741
01:48:16,560 –> 01:48:19,760
guy. So then everyone else does this thing. Same thing with Miracle with Kurt Russell,

1742
01:48:19,760 –> 01:48:23,160
right? Is it is such a well known thing and People play their parts. Like,

1743
01:48:23,240 –> 01:48:27,040
I, I honestly thought that my, that my, that my

1744
01:48:27,040 –> 01:48:30,890
company commander, my captain, he wouldn’t, he would not approve

1745
01:48:30,890 –> 01:48:34,330
of how these drill sergeants were treating us and talking to us. He was, he.

1746
01:48:35,210 –> 01:48:38,970
I was wrong. I was way wrong. You were way wrong. Couldn’t have been

1747
01:48:38,970 –> 01:48:42,690
more wrong, honestly. Right. So. But

1748
01:48:42,690 –> 01:48:46,170
it, it’s human nature. Right? Right. Someone else is.

1749
01:48:46,730 –> 01:48:50,330
It’s not your fault. Right. And humans

1750
01:48:50,410 –> 01:48:54,010
love to not have to take ownership for their,

1751
01:48:54,680 –> 01:48:58,400
you know, their deficiencies. Right. So, you know, and we see this, like,

1752
01:48:58,400 –> 01:49:02,040
and you see this because we see it even in, like, martial arts training. Well,

1753
01:49:02,040 –> 01:49:05,000
I can’t do that. I got bad knees. Why are you here? How bad? Why

1754
01:49:05,000 –> 01:49:08,080
are you here then? Yeah. How about. Are those knees? If you’re here and training

1755
01:49:08,080 –> 01:49:11,680
all these times, but you can’t do a pistol squat, you’re not strong enough, You’ve

1756
01:49:11,680 –> 01:49:14,920
not developed yourself to the place to where you can do that move. Stop trying

1757
01:49:14,920 –> 01:49:18,440
to play the victim. You’re just not enough.

1758
01:49:18,600 –> 01:49:22,310
Now accept that and then go fix it. Right.

1759
01:49:23,190 –> 01:49:27,030
But stop making it out to be that you’re put upon and you’re limited

1760
01:49:27,270 –> 01:49:30,670
because a lot of times you’re not really right. It’s just. You’ve not decided to

1761
01:49:30,670 –> 01:49:34,030
face the music. You’ve not decided to go look at yourself and your personality and

1762
01:49:34,030 –> 01:49:36,510
why some things are easier for you to believe and do, and some things are

1763
01:49:36,510 –> 01:49:39,550
harder for you to believe and do, and that goes back to awareness. But if

1764
01:49:39,550 –> 01:49:43,230
you’re not aware yet, and most people 18 years old aren’t

1765
01:49:43,230 –> 01:49:46,830
super aware. Right. So it’s just kind of like, well, hey, you can let someone

1766
01:49:46,830 –> 01:49:50,540
not let you go to college. Absolutely not. Right. So come on, you

1767
01:49:50,540 –> 01:49:53,860
know, and like, be all you can be. Like, these are. I mean,

1768
01:49:53,940 –> 01:49:57,060
they’re. They’re very well known rhetoric things.

1769
01:49:57,460 –> 01:50:00,900
Right. They’re. They’re so well used

1770
01:50:01,140 –> 01:50:04,659
in the form of indoctrination and

1771
01:50:04,900 –> 01:50:08,660
persuasion and, you know, things like this. So

1772
01:50:09,380 –> 01:50:13,140
the, the more ceremony we have

1773
01:50:13,220 –> 01:50:16,990
around the community, the deeper that community goes. Right.

1774
01:50:16,990 –> 01:50:20,270
The military’s got a lot of deep ceremony. So does martial arts. Yeah.

1775
01:50:21,070 –> 01:50:24,350
Well, here’s one other thought as we wrap up, as we close, as we turn

1776
01:50:24,350 –> 01:50:27,790
the corner around on this episode,

1777
01:50:29,470 –> 01:50:33,270
another thought that sort of bounced around in my head from reading

1778
01:50:33,270 –> 01:50:33,790
this book.

1779
01:50:37,950 –> 01:50:39,950
When we went to Afghanistan, we were fighting

1780
01:50:41,920 –> 01:50:45,360
Taliban. We were also fighting uphill

1781
01:50:45,680 –> 01:50:48,760
against village elders. Some of the more interesting

1782
01:50:48,760 –> 01:50:52,240
interactions, particularly you could see this in Restrepo in the movie, but in,

1783
01:50:52,560 –> 01:50:56,160
in the book that were documented were between o’ Brien

1784
01:50:56,320 –> 01:51:00,120
and the village elders and I always wondered, like, and then

1785
01:51:00,120 –> 01:51:02,120
when I got to see it in the movie, I was like, oh, that’s how

1786
01:51:02,120 –> 01:51:05,920
that went down. Like the village elders who literally were like

1787
01:51:07,090 –> 01:51:10,530
wizened elders in a way that we don’t appreciate age, we just don’t

1788
01:51:10,690 –> 01:51:13,890
like. Going back to that story about the, the boy who was shot by the

1789
01:51:13,890 –> 01:51:16,850
M4 or had the M4 bullet in his, in his leg

1790
01:51:17,650 –> 01:51:20,810
at the Americans took one of the points that Younger makes in the book when

1791
01:51:20,810 –> 01:51:24,650
he relates that that story is that he thought that that 60 year old man

1792
01:51:24,650 –> 01:51:27,170
could out walk the Americans all over those mountains.

1793
01:51:30,610 –> 01:51:34,210
And we talk a lot about man strength or men do at a certain

1794
01:51:34,210 –> 01:51:37,690
age. We talk about just old man strength, right? Which, which,

1795
01:51:38,010 –> 01:51:40,970
which by the way, in jiu jitsu, I’m accused of having old man strength. I’m

1796
01:51:40,970 –> 01:51:43,290
just like, no, I just know where to grab you. Like I’ve just been alive

1797
01:51:43,290 –> 01:51:47,090
long enough to know where to grab you. That’s all I’m really, once again, hey,

1798
01:51:47,090 –> 01:51:50,890
it’s not my fault. Like you must have something that I don’t, you know, and

1799
01:51:50,890 –> 01:51:54,730
then you know what you’re like, now we have an age limit, right?

1800
01:51:54,730 –> 01:51:58,010
If you’re over 40, you got to go to the old man’s class because you

1801
01:51:58,010 –> 01:52:00,970
can’t be bringing, you can’t be bringing old man strength down to these 20 year

1802
01:52:00,970 –> 01:52:04,770
old white belt or blue belts who are tournament champions in training and

1803
01:52:04,770 –> 01:52:08,560
stuff like this. It’s not fair. So you have this old man strength, you know,

1804
01:52:08,720 –> 01:52:11,880
let alone a decade of training in another martial art, you know, like, you know,

1805
01:52:11,880 –> 01:52:15,480
let’s not talk about that at all. You know, I, I, I, I cover all

1806
01:52:15,480 –> 01:52:19,160
of it by saying, listen, I’m a frail old man. Go

1807
01:52:19,160 –> 01:52:22,439
easy on me. You’re just gaming

1808
01:52:22,439 –> 01:52:26,160
everybody. My, I mean, my instructor doesn’t

1809
01:52:26,160 –> 01:52:29,240
buy, he just laughs. He just keeps right on going. He doesn’t buy any of

1810
01:52:29,240 –> 01:52:32,440
it. And there’s a few of them in there. It only really works on white

1811
01:52:32,440 –> 01:52:35,360
belts, honestly, who just don’t know. But like by the time they get there, the

1812
01:52:35,360 –> 01:52:38,480
blue belts all laugh at me. They’re like, whatever, shut up, shut up.

1813
01:52:39,200 –> 01:52:42,560
It works on, it works on everyone who’s looking for a reason to discount you.

1814
01:52:42,640 –> 01:52:46,480
It is, it does, it does, it does work on them. That’s true. Well,

1815
01:52:46,560 –> 01:52:49,480
you know, I’m like Al Pacino in the Devil’s Advocate. Never see him coming. Always

1816
01:52:49,480 –> 01:52:53,240
take the subway. Just, they never see you coming that way. But

1817
01:52:53,240 –> 01:52:56,560
my point is, the village elders and o’ Brien.

1818
01:52:57,120 –> 01:53:00,800
And again, you saw it in the movie. It was that weird collision of American

1819
01:53:00,960 –> 01:53:04,400
youth that was puffed up with authority

1820
01:53:05,440 –> 01:53:09,240
and then these village elders who literally liked it with a cow. The cow

1821
01:53:09,240 –> 01:53:11,920
is the best. Oh my God, that was the best. Go read the book if

1822
01:53:11,920 –> 01:53:15,080
you want to know about the cow. That was hilarious. And living in, living in

1823
01:53:15,080 –> 01:53:18,600
Texas, you know, being. I started laughing. I knew

1824
01:53:18,600 –> 01:53:22,440
exactly what had happened. Yeah, but beautiful moment of that,

1825
01:53:22,440 –> 01:53:25,120
which I not thought about until you talked about it. I mean, imagine if you’re

1826
01:53:25,120 –> 01:53:28,870
not from the south, right? Like, I mean, made sense

1827
01:53:28,870 –> 01:53:31,470
to me too. I’ve lived here my whole life. But you know, if you’re from

1828
01:53:31,470 –> 01:53:35,230
Chicago. You’Re like, what the hell? It doesn’t. Why, why

1829
01:53:35,230 –> 01:53:38,430
do you even care? Why do you even care? But then, but then Younger uses

1830
01:53:38,430 –> 01:53:42,110
the line, I love it on the, on he goes, you know, the, the

1831
01:53:42,110 –> 01:53:45,750
commander, whoever was o’ Brien’s commander, made an Old Testament style decision.

1832
01:53:46,230 –> 01:53:48,630
And I was like, that’s genius.

1833
01:53:50,150 –> 01:53:54,000
Brilliant. That. Yes, you’re exactly right. The weight of the

1834
01:53:54,080 –> 01:53:57,720
cow. And like, honestly, this is, this is

1835
01:53:57,720 –> 01:54:01,280
awesome. Because, man, okay, short

1836
01:54:01,280 –> 01:54:04,880
detour we talked about in Strangers during a Strange Land about how if the language

1837
01:54:04,880 –> 01:54:08,320
doesn’t have a label for it, the convention probably doesn’t exist, right?

1838
01:54:08,640 –> 01:54:12,440
And so what? And I, I have to teach salespeople

1839
01:54:12,440 –> 01:54:16,080
and founders to do this, right? Put it into their conventions. Because since

1840
01:54:16,080 –> 01:54:19,280
we’re trying to get something out of these people in the form of revenue or

1841
01:54:19,280 –> 01:54:22,360
relationship or something else like this, you know, it’s the least we can do, right?

1842
01:54:22,520 –> 01:54:26,040
So if they’re talking about, you know, MRR

1843
01:54:26,040 –> 01:54:29,840
monthly recurring revenue, and you’re trying to back everything up to like times 12 for

1844
01:54:29,840 –> 01:54:33,600
like annual RR recurring revenue, why are you making it harder

1845
01:54:33,600 –> 01:54:36,120
for them to be on the same page with you? Right? It doesn’t make any

1846
01:54:36,120 –> 01:54:39,840
sense. Right? And using of jargon when you’re talking to people who

1847
01:54:39,840 –> 01:54:42,280
don’t understand the jargon is the same thing, right?

1848
01:54:44,120 –> 01:54:47,600
But if that’s what’s supposed to happen, right? Because

1849
01:54:47,680 –> 01:54:51,440
here’s the thing. If, like imagine talking to someone

1850
01:54:52,400 –> 01:54:55,840
who died 15 years ago about the ease of creating

1851
01:54:56,080 –> 01:54:59,880
white papers using AI right now, there’s no way they would be

1852
01:54:59,880 –> 01:55:03,480
able to really conceptualize the lift that that provides. Endless

1853
01:55:03,480 –> 01:55:06,680
slop that it’s creating all over the place, but that’s a whole other conversation. So

1854
01:55:06,680 –> 01:55:10,520
like in that mode, how much can I talk to you about? Like,

1855
01:55:10,520 –> 01:55:13,160
how much can I take your opinion? Right? I can take your concerns, I can

1856
01:55:13,160 –> 01:55:16,060
take your theories and Everything else like this. But I got to talk about this

1857
01:55:16,060 –> 01:55:19,900
with people, because founders will often get stuck

1858
01:55:19,900 –> 01:55:23,740
because they’re taking advice from everyone. Right? Their mom, their, like, nephew

1859
01:55:23,740 –> 01:55:27,500
who’s in college. Right. Their sister’s baby cousin who. Who’s just in high

1860
01:55:27,500 –> 01:55:31,260
school. Like, sorry, Like, I can’t

1861
01:55:31,260 –> 01:55:34,620
take advice from you if. If you’re not on the level. Like, my mom loves

1862
01:55:34,620 –> 01:55:37,860
me. She has a copy of my book. I’m not going to be like, hey,

1863
01:55:38,020 –> 01:55:41,870
what’s keeping you from reading it? Why would I do that to myself? Right.

1864
01:55:41,870 –> 01:55:45,070
Like, it just open. It’s not for her. She wants it for the reasons that

1865
01:55:45,070 –> 01:55:48,830
she does, and that’s okay. But the same thing is just

1866
01:55:48,830 –> 01:55:52,670
all the way through, like, the whole thing. So while we should

1867
01:55:52,670 –> 01:55:56,190
have respect for. For. For elders. Right. And you know,

1868
01:55:56,350 –> 01:55:59,510
I love the whole. Now that I’m older, I love the. They put on their

1869
01:55:59,510 –> 01:56:01,950
pants one leg at a time. I used to hate that whenever I was younger.

1870
01:56:01,950 –> 01:56:04,270
Right. You know, when I didn’t have patience for folksy wisdom.

1871
01:56:06,040 –> 01:56:09,560
But it’s like, they’re just a human. So now, and this is super

1872
01:56:09,560 –> 01:56:13,080
helpful for me as my development as a salesperson of, like,

1873
01:56:14,440 –> 01:56:18,120
you’re good at what you do, right? I’m good at what I do.

1874
01:56:18,280 –> 01:56:22,039
Okay. But I’m not putting myself down here just because you’ve done

1875
01:56:22,039 –> 01:56:25,120
three things that were really great over here in these things. No. If we’re having

1876
01:56:25,120 –> 01:56:28,920
a conversation, it’s called equal business. Stature is how. Is how. How it

1877
01:56:28,920 –> 01:56:32,640
was taught to me. And so by that same token, I don’t put people into

1878
01:56:32,640 –> 01:56:36,490
lanes to where they can feel like. Like they should be giving me advice

1879
01:56:36,490 –> 01:56:39,690
that I’m not going to listen to anyway. Right? Yeah, well, and.

1880
01:56:40,170 –> 01:56:43,450
And. And you saw that with o’, Byrne, right? Like, he’s trying to

1881
01:56:44,170 –> 01:56:47,970
navigate this. And then you’ve got these elders and

1882
01:56:47,970 –> 01:56:51,610
these villagers who. And this is sort of my

1883
01:56:51,610 –> 01:56:53,610
larger point here, who have.

1884
01:56:55,210 –> 01:56:58,810
They’ve been knowing the battles that have been going on between them

1885
01:56:59,050 –> 01:57:01,940
going back at least 500 generations.

1886
01:57:02,580 –> 01:57:06,300
Yep. Yeah. And 500 is probably exaggerating. 50 generations. At least

1887
01:57:06,300 –> 01:57:09,980
50 generations. They’ve got that recorded. Right. Particularly in those

1888
01:57:09,980 –> 01:57:13,700
mountains with those people. And we’re going in.

1889
01:57:14,100 –> 01:57:17,900
And it’s not that we’re. Although we are. We’re going in

1890
01:57:17,900 –> 01:57:21,580
and disrupting their lives. And the thing

1891
01:57:21,580 –> 01:57:25,420
that’s interesting to me is that ever since World War II, where the

1892
01:57:25,420 –> 01:57:29,170
idea of civilians as targets

1893
01:57:29,170 –> 01:57:31,410
in war started,

1894
01:57:33,170 –> 01:57:36,890
we haven’t yet ground down to our logical end of this.

1895
01:57:36,890 –> 01:57:40,690
But we’re Getting closer to the logical end of it. And

1896
01:57:40,690 –> 01:57:44,370
the logical end of civilians being seen

1897
01:57:45,330 –> 01:57:48,690
as part of the infrastructure of

1898
01:57:48,690 –> 01:57:52,490
warfare is I think, the other dynamic that’s going to

1899
01:57:52,490 –> 01:57:56,070
shift warfare in the next 20 years. Because, see, here’s the thing. So

1900
01:57:56,070 –> 01:57:59,790
collateral damage is no longer going to be, like, explained away the way that it

1901
01:57:59,790 –> 01:58:03,510
often is. Now, not only that, but I think that

1902
01:58:03,510 –> 01:58:05,390
collateral damage will be justified.

1903
01:58:07,150 –> 01:58:10,950
Oh, so any collateral. So the rhetoric. So

1904
01:58:10,950 –> 01:58:13,070
the rhetoric is we don’t have to kill as many people. We don’t have to

1905
01:58:13,070 –> 01:58:15,470
kill as many people. Look how great our technology is. Oh, my God. We killed

1906
01:58:15,470 –> 01:58:19,230
all these people. They must have really been bad. Okay, I can see

1907
01:58:19,230 –> 01:58:22,730
that playing. I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s. You see this, you see a

1908
01:58:22,730 –> 01:58:25,450
variation of this proto argument beginning

1909
01:58:26,410 –> 01:58:30,090
in Israel with, with the Gaza war

1910
01:58:30,090 –> 01:58:33,930
that either just wrapped up or is. They’re still trying to wrap

1911
01:58:33,930 –> 01:58:37,769
it up. You’re also seeing a variation of this in, in

1912
01:58:37,769 –> 01:58:41,450
the Ukraine, Russian war. I mean, when the Russians. This is something

1913
01:58:41,450 –> 01:58:45,290
that nobody knows or very few people know because it was very lightly reported on

1914
01:58:45,530 –> 01:58:49,240
when the Russians were paratruding, parachuting. Russian troops

1915
01:58:49,240 –> 01:58:52,680
were parachuting into the Kiev airport. Kiev

1916
01:58:52,680 –> 01:58:54,720
civilians were shooting them out of the air.

1917
01:58:58,160 –> 01:59:01,880
Right? What does that make a Kuyev civilian then who could pick up an

1918
01:59:01,880 –> 01:59:04,800
AK47 and just shoot a Russian paratrooper out of the air? What does that make

1919
01:59:04,800 –> 01:59:08,520
that civilian? Now, now that civilian’s a combatant. Now, the rules

1920
01:59:08,520 –> 01:59:12,320
of war have shifted. And while it’s

1921
01:59:12,320 –> 01:59:15,410
interesting to talk about the

1922
01:59:15,410 –> 01:59:19,250
philosophy of this at a material

1923
01:59:19,250 –> 01:59:21,850
level, I think it’s really, really important for us to understand

1924
01:59:22,890 –> 01:59:26,490
that warfare will have much more integration in the future with civilian

1925
01:59:26,490 –> 01:59:28,410
structures. Not just

1926
01:59:29,850 –> 01:59:33,610
paratroopers parachuting into an airport to take over a

1927
01:59:33,610 –> 01:59:37,250
spot, but also. And this is why the data

1928
01:59:37,250 –> 01:59:40,970
centers. Yeah, the cyber warfare, the data centers.

1929
01:59:41,210 –> 01:59:43,730
I mean, think about how much of our lives going back to this idea of

1930
01:59:43,730 –> 01:59:47,310
conform, conformity and mass are now being gradually

1931
01:59:47,390 –> 01:59:50,430
through the trillions of dollars being spent on LLM development.

1932
01:59:51,230 –> 01:59:55,070
Yes, it’s a bubble. Yes, it will burst. Yes, it will be nasty. You heard

1933
01:59:55,070 –> 01:59:58,790
it here first. I’ve been through four of these bubbles already. It will

1934
01:59:58,790 –> 02:00:02,070
burst. It’s fine. And then we’ll all somehow

1935
02:00:02,070 –> 02:00:05,790
survive whatever, but it will

1936
02:00:05,790 –> 02:00:09,510
burst like a bunch of people are going to go broke, Right? And

1937
02:00:09,510 –> 02:00:13,070
when that happens, there’ll be a lot of collateral H damage.

1938
02:00:13,390 –> 02:00:16,510
But, but one of those things is

1939
02:00:17,070 –> 02:00:20,750
one of those offshoots of those ideas is if we’re building data centers in

1940
02:00:20,750 –> 02:00:24,030
remote places like you can use it a bomb.

1941
02:00:24,430 –> 02:00:27,870
Right. Like Abilene, Texas. It’s not hardened. Or

1942
02:00:28,670 –> 02:00:31,950
ol. Kansas. That’s not hardened. Or.

1943
02:00:32,830 –> 02:00:36,110
Well, not Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole is hardened. But like

1944
02:00:36,750 –> 02:00:40,470
any. Any name, any rural place in America where, by the way, these data centers

1945
02:00:40,470 –> 02:00:44,080
are going in. Yes. Providing jobs. Yes. Providing.

1946
02:00:44,880 –> 02:00:48,600
Yes. Sucking up natural resources. Yes. Doing all these kinds of things

1947
02:00:48,600 –> 02:00:52,240
that happen when you put a big, you know, piece of machinery, you know,

1948
02:00:52,400 –> 02:00:55,680
in the middle of a population that hasn’t had a whole lot of growth in

1949
02:00:55,680 –> 02:00:59,400
the last, like, I don’t know, 60 years because everything got offshore to

1950
02:00:59,400 –> 02:01:02,960
other places and now we’re trying to reshore that for a whole variety of

1951
02:01:02,960 –> 02:01:06,480
geopolitical reasons that are way beyond what we could get into right now.

1952
02:01:07,130 –> 02:01:10,970
Yeah, but it is happening. Like they’re building a chip manufacturing.

1953
02:01:11,530 –> 02:01:15,330
They’re building a chip manufacturer in. In North Carolina. I think it’s North

1954
02:01:15,330 –> 02:01:18,890
Carolina right now that’s going to employ like 50,000 people.

1955
02:01:18,890 –> 02:01:21,450
It’s going to be a great thing. But it’s going to take 10 years to

1956
02:01:21,450 –> 02:01:24,170
build. Well, I think they’re trying to build.

1957
02:01:25,050 –> 02:01:27,010
A friend of mine is trying to move into the space and I think he

1958
02:01:27,010 –> 02:01:30,770
was talking about either maybe Little Elm, which is a

1959
02:01:30,770 –> 02:01:34,500
suburb up here, where. Where we are. They’re building a huge, huge one

1960
02:01:34,580 –> 02:01:38,220
out there. Right. And they’re popping up everywhere, you know, so. Right. So what

1961
02:01:38,220 –> 02:01:41,220
happens when those become. Become nodes

1962
02:01:41,780 –> 02:01:45,540
along a path to disrupting an enemy’s

1963
02:01:45,780 –> 02:01:49,540
infrastructure so you can make war on them better? Well, that

1964
02:01:49,540 –> 02:01:53,140
means that at that facility in Little Elm, and I’m not putting anything on that

1965
02:01:53,140 –> 02:01:56,660
at all. I don’t want anything to happen. I want to be very clear.

1966
02:01:57,140 –> 02:01:59,620
I am not wishing for that. And

1967
02:02:01,060 –> 02:02:04,660
warfare has shifted. Yeah,

1968
02:02:04,980 –> 02:02:08,100
it’s shifting right in front of our eyes right now. Overseas,

1969
02:02:08,580 –> 02:02:12,340
it is merely minutes before it will show up at a country near you.

1970
02:02:13,060 –> 02:02:16,860
Oh, man. Like. And we’re. When we’re not psychologically prepared for

1971
02:02:16,860 –> 02:02:20,060
that in America, we’re just not. And you know how I know we’re not? Because

1972
02:02:20,060 –> 02:02:22,060
I just saw it in war, I just saw it in this book that we’re

1973
02:02:22,060 –> 02:02:25,670
not psychologically prepared for it. We can’t even like scroll on

1974
02:02:25,670 –> 02:02:29,510
Facebook without, you know, taking the wrong point

1975
02:02:29,510 –> 02:02:33,190
from someone else’s conversation and then, you know, belittling it down, the

1976
02:02:33,190 –> 02:02:36,830
name calling and stuff like that. We’re definitely not ready for, you know, anything

1977
02:02:37,150 –> 02:02:39,310
like that. But, you know, I.

1978
02:02:45,230 –> 02:02:47,190
And by the way, we’re going to try to do that as a country to

1979
02:02:47,190 –> 02:02:50,870
other countries. As well. It’s going to be 100%. Yeah. It’s going to be a

1980
02:02:50,870 –> 02:02:54,340
tit for tat thing going back, right? Like, True

1981
02:02:54,340 –> 02:02:58,140
Lies, right when True Lies came out, right? And I remember watching

1982
02:02:58,140 –> 02:03:01,980
it, and I think I was 13 or 14 when that

1983
02:03:01,980 –> 02:03:05,100
movie came out. I think it was like 93, 94. I forget the exact year,

1984
02:03:05,100 –> 02:03:08,259
but I’m 13, 14 years old. And I remember just being like,

1985
02:03:08,820 –> 02:03:12,420
man, we really hate these guys with, like, the red. With the red head

1986
02:03:12,420 –> 02:03:15,620
coverings, you know what I’m saying? Because, like, I’m just old enough to. Where I’m

1987
02:03:15,620 –> 02:03:19,110
starting to see, like, they’re always the bad guy. Like, they’re always made out to

1988
02:03:19,110 –> 02:03:22,630
be the bad guy. It becomes this very easy thing and stuff like this. And,

1989
02:03:22,710 –> 02:03:26,430
you know, I’m like, okay, well, that’s. Well, that’s kind of. And

1990
02:03:26,430 –> 02:03:30,150
now I’m like, okay, you know, if we’re. If we’re putting that into

1991
02:03:30,230 –> 02:03:32,710
all of our cultural things, you know,

1992
02:03:34,310 –> 02:03:38,150
there’s. There’s. There’s gonna be a whole lot more room to hate those guys just

1993
02:03:39,270 –> 02:03:43,070
easily, right? We’re indoctrinating around it and stuff like that, depending

1994
02:03:43,070 –> 02:03:46,680
upon what you’re watching and stuff. Stuff. And so, like, that was a very weird

1995
02:03:46,680 –> 02:03:49,960
thing to kind of, I think, realize that, like, 13 or 14 years old. And

1996
02:03:50,040 –> 02:03:53,400
because it was like, it’s like, I’m supposed to hate these people, right?

1997
02:03:53,640 –> 02:03:56,720
The same thing with. I forget the name of the movie, but it had Annette

1998
02:03:56,720 –> 02:04:00,080
Benning, it had Bruce Willis, maybe the

1999
02:04:00,080 –> 02:04:03,680
Siege, you know, I’m talking about. And there’s like, martial

2000
02:04:03,680 –> 02:04:05,880
law, and it ends up being.

2001
02:04:08,680 –> 02:04:12,030
Let me look this up. Kind of situation.

2002
02:04:13,150 –> 02:04:16,990
But it came out, like, around that same time, and I was like,

2003
02:04:17,630 –> 02:04:21,430
man, like, these people must have done some really bad

2004
02:04:21,430 –> 02:04:24,110
things to us, you know, and stuff like that, because it. Because it just felt

2005
02:04:24,110 –> 02:04:27,310
like it was everywhere. It felt like I couldn’t watch an action movie without

2006
02:04:27,710 –> 02:04:31,150
them trying to make, like, someone in the Middle Eastern area, right?

2007
02:04:31,390 –> 02:04:35,230
It was the siege. You’re right. It was the siege. Congratulations. 1998.

2008
02:04:35,230 –> 02:04:39,080
Congratulations. Thank you. I’m. I’m really good at movie trivia. Like, don’t.

2009
02:04:39,080 –> 02:04:41,240
Don’t invite me to trivia night. It’s. It’s brutal.

2010
02:04:43,400 –> 02:04:47,200
So I think. I don’t know, I think. I think

2011
02:04:47,200 –> 02:04:50,880
culture is used to soften people up for certain things, but I also think

2012
02:04:50,880 –> 02:04:54,440
it’s used to deliver. Media

2013
02:04:54,520 –> 02:04:57,480
in particular, is used to deliver messages very subtly,

2014
02:04:58,280 –> 02:05:01,920
by the way. Messages that are all over the map. I. Because you’ll have two

2015
02:05:01,920 –> 02:05:05,740
different media deliver two different messages. Like. Like the propagandists can’t get

2016
02:05:05,740 –> 02:05:09,340
their story straight. Like, if you

2017
02:05:09,340 –> 02:05:13,060
like anyone who’s like, you know what? Editing. Who cares about editing?

2018
02:05:13,060 –> 02:05:16,780
Like, if you’re walking around thinking that you are being manipulated so

2019
02:05:16,780 –> 02:05:20,540
hard because you can take the same interview and edit it 17 different way.

2020
02:05:20,540 –> 02:05:24,340
Like, and my daughter is kind of at this thing now

2021
02:05:24,340 –> 02:05:27,660
to where, like, I’m trying to, like, teach her how to be. Slow down, make

2022
02:05:27,660 –> 02:05:31,130
sure it’s real, you know, and one of the things that I’ve been showing her

2023
02:05:31,130 –> 02:05:34,370
is, like, I love the YouTube clips to where they’ll take a movie that’s like

2024
02:05:34,370 –> 02:05:37,370
a horror movie and they’ll re edit it to make it a comedy or vice

2025
02:05:37,370 –> 02:05:40,530
versa. Because I love showing that to her. Because then I’m like,

2026
02:05:41,010 –> 02:05:44,609
this might be why you hate that person, because someone just

2027
02:05:44,609 –> 02:05:47,850
decided to make them out to be. To look like this, and they might not

2028
02:05:47,850 –> 02:05:51,330
actually be who they are, you know, And I mean,

2029
02:05:51,410 –> 02:05:55,250
we’re. A lot of people are deep in the throes

2030
02:05:55,410 –> 02:05:57,470
of malicious editors currently.

2031
02:05:58,910 –> 02:06:02,630
Yeah, well. And, you know, a lot of this goes back to

2032
02:06:02,630 –> 02:06:06,430
what. Oh, God. C.S. lewis talked about this in his book

2033
02:06:06,430 –> 02:06:10,230
Mere Christianity, which we’ll cover on the podcast in December. But he has a

2034
02:06:10,230 –> 02:06:12,990
great line in that book where he talks about how

2035
02:06:15,310 –> 02:06:17,870
he doesn’t tie to propaganda, but this is what he means.

2036
02:06:19,230 –> 02:06:21,950
How, in essence,

2037
02:06:23,080 –> 02:06:26,760
the meaning of a word is lost. When we focus more about what

2038
02:06:26,760 –> 02:06:30,520
the feeling of the meaning of the word is or the feeling of the

2039
02:06:30,520 –> 02:06:33,920
word itself, we lose the actual core of that

2040
02:06:33,920 –> 02:06:37,400
meaning. And, you know, to me,

2041
02:06:37,640 –> 02:06:41,440
that’s. That’s at the root of what a propagandist does. At the root

2042
02:06:41,440 –> 02:06:45,160
of it. A propagandist is about. Is. Is focused on

2043
02:06:45,720 –> 02:06:49,510
one. The answer to one question. And the question is,

2044
02:06:49,510 –> 02:06:53,150
who owns the dictionary? Who owns not only the

2045
02:06:53,150 –> 02:06:56,910
definitions of the meanings and the definitions of the words, but who

2046
02:06:56,910 –> 02:07:00,670
gets to decide it by whose authority. So here’s

2047
02:07:00,670 –> 02:07:04,389
my most spicy take going into that mode. Right. Oh,

2048
02:07:04,389 –> 02:07:07,990
we’re rounding the corner. Your last spicy take. Go ahead.

2049
02:07:09,110 –> 02:07:12,270
Well, I don’t really know that I’ve. Gotten all that spicy so far. I felt

2050
02:07:12,270 –> 02:07:14,730
like I’ve kind of. Kind of held it in the back box a little bit.

2051
02:07:14,730 –> 02:07:18,450
But we’re not going to anymore. If you go and you are confused,

2052
02:07:18,610 –> 02:07:22,450
I think about who’s pushing, like, you know, a good

2053
02:07:22,450 –> 02:07:26,010
message versus who’s not, who has the

2054
02:07:26,010 –> 02:07:29,810
depth versus who’s choosing to keep the depth away from it. Right.

2055
02:07:29,970 –> 02:07:33,570
Categories, labels. Definitions and stuff like this. Right?

2056
02:07:33,570 –> 02:07:37,410
Because it’s just as easy to, to realize like, oh, hey, you

2057
02:07:37,410 –> 02:07:41,250
know what, the reason why we argue about politics is because we

2058
02:07:41,250 –> 02:07:44,600
have different values. And that’s okay because we have different paths. Right. That this

2059
02:07:44,600 –> 02:07:48,280
requires a little bit of patience, a little bit of knowledge and a little bit

2060
02:07:48,280 –> 02:07:50,880
of ability. Because it’s just easier to be like, you know, what are you, a

2061
02:07:50,880 –> 02:07:54,720
dumb snowflake? What are you, dumb snowflake? Like, there’s

2062
02:07:54,720 –> 02:07:58,520
no attempt to hear the other person out and say, and it happens

2063
02:07:58,520 –> 02:08:00,800
the other way as well. Like, so I’m not just saying it only happens this

2064
02:08:00,800 –> 02:08:04,080
one way, but when you’re not willing to give anyone else the benefit of the

2065
02:08:04,080 –> 02:08:07,720
doubt, like, what are we even doing?

2066
02:08:07,800 –> 02:08:11,550
You know, so it’s depth. Are you, are you, are you taking

2067
02:08:11,550 –> 02:08:15,110
it deeper? And is it okay for them to feel how they feel because there’s

2068
02:08:15,110 –> 02:08:18,830
a room there, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a map to how they got there.

2069
02:08:19,470 –> 02:08:22,350
Or is everyone dumb if they don’t believe what you believe?

2070
02:08:23,150 –> 02:08:26,630
Yeah. And anyone who’s pushing that idea is in my

2071
02:08:26,630 –> 02:08:29,790
opinion, or a tyrant pushing ri. Or

2072
02:08:30,510 –> 02:08:33,630
rhetoric. Right, Rhetoric. Everyone else who’s like, hey,

2073
02:08:34,350 –> 02:08:37,950
they don’t know enough. They don’t know these things. And so that’s why they feel

2074
02:08:37,950 –> 02:08:41,750
like anyone who’s pushing depth and education probably on the right side,

2075
02:08:41,750 –> 02:08:45,070
at least in my personal opinion. Anyone who’s trying to keep it shallow so that

2076
02:08:45,070 –> 02:08:48,550
way they can name call and then everyone picks up these name calling labels

2077
02:08:49,190 –> 02:08:52,990
is rhetoric. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

2078
02:08:52,990 –> 02:08:56,230
we seek to avoid rhetoric on this show,

2079
02:08:56,790 –> 02:09:00,630
which is why John returns. And thanks for having me on, dude. Like,

2080
02:09:00,630 –> 02:09:04,390
I, I, I really appreciated all the books that we’ve done. I

2081
02:09:04,390 –> 02:09:08,010
really appreciated you letting me bring you Stranger, Stranger in a strange land.

2082
02:09:08,730 –> 02:09:12,490
This was an important read for me and so I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you.

2083
02:09:12,490 –> 02:09:16,210
You’re welcome. Any final

2084
02:09:16,210 –> 02:09:19,610
thoughts on war? What can we take from.

2085
02:09:20,570 –> 02:09:24,130
I’ll frame it this way. I’ve been framing my, my outlying question or my outgoing

2086
02:09:24,130 –> 02:09:27,890
question this way lately. What can

2087
02:09:27,890 –> 02:09:31,570
we take from a book like this? A book like War by Sebastian

2088
02:09:31,570 –> 02:09:34,390
Younger and apply to

2089
02:09:36,550 –> 02:09:40,350
building forward. Right, Because I’m tired of, I’m weary of

2090
02:09:40,350 –> 02:09:44,150
deconstructing. I’m way more interested in building,

2091
02:09:45,030 –> 02:09:48,670
I’m way more interested in building the next thing

2092
02:09:48,670 –> 02:09:51,870
versus deconstructing the old thing to find out all the problems. Because we know what

2093
02:09:51,870 –> 02:09:54,710
all the problems are. We, we do know we’ve had

2094
02:09:55,430 –> 02:09:59,050
20, some would say even 40 or 50 years of

2095
02:09:59,050 –> 02:10:02,730
just masticating. That’s chewing for you folks out there

2096
02:10:03,530 –> 02:10:06,250
over have to be very. You should not be posting on social media.

2097
02:10:07,370 –> 02:10:11,050
There you go. That’s right. Over what the problems are. And

2098
02:10:11,050 –> 02:10:14,690
arguing, to John’s point, social media just being the latest

2099
02:10:14,690 –> 02:10:18,090
tool arguing to shut people up or to

2100
02:10:19,850 –> 02:10:23,690
elevate our own egos. And neither one of those things are building.

2101
02:10:23,930 –> 02:10:27,350
So what can we take from war that can help us build

2102
02:10:27,910 –> 02:10:31,550
the next institution, the next community, the

2103
02:10:31,550 –> 02:10:35,110
next business? What can we take from war?

2104
02:10:41,190 –> 02:10:44,390
I think the thing that I take away the most from

2105
02:10:44,710 –> 02:10:48,030
from war. And this shows up all the time for me and my

2106
02:10:48,030 –> 02:10:51,670
conversations because whenever I talk with people about hiring, right?

2107
02:10:52,090 –> 02:10:55,810
And they start talking about salespeople and they all start saying this

2108
02:10:55,810 –> 02:10:59,530
line, John, I want someone who has urgency,

2109
02:11:00,250 –> 02:11:04,010
right? And urgency is an important quality,

2110
02:11:04,010 –> 02:11:07,770
okay? But what happens is, at least in my

2111
02:11:07,770 –> 02:11:11,490
conversations, right? People struggle in conversations not because they’re

2112
02:11:11,490 –> 02:11:15,250
bad at sales, but because they’re bad at having conversations. They’ve not done

2113
02:11:15,250 –> 02:11:18,650
them enough. They’re. And so they start thinking of, I need something

2114
02:11:19,300 –> 02:11:22,900
just more than me, right? And

2115
02:11:23,140 –> 02:11:26,740
I think that this book shows very clearly

2116
02:11:27,700 –> 02:11:31,380
what that end label or in level of

2117
02:11:32,420 –> 02:11:35,460
more can be. It becomes

2118
02:11:35,940 –> 02:11:39,060
dogged determination. It becomes the inability

2119
02:11:39,540 –> 02:11:42,420
to relax after the fact, right?

2120
02:11:42,900 –> 02:11:45,970
Becomes lasting impact of things. And so

2121
02:11:47,570 –> 02:11:51,410
first of all, if you’re in business and you’re trying to whip people into

2122
02:11:51,490 –> 02:11:55,170
rabid intensity by making it war, like I have a problem with you and we

2123
02:11:55,170 –> 02:11:57,650
can talk about it, please send me a dm. I will show you a better

2124
02:11:57,650 –> 02:12:01,170
way to coach and lead and manage your salespeople. Because

2125
02:12:03,970 –> 02:12:07,090
these people have been honed for this one environment

2126
02:12:07,330 –> 02:12:11,010
specifically to the point to where they’re problematic even

2127
02:12:11,010 –> 02:12:14,280
with the people that are. That are not as far forward as they are, right?

2128
02:12:14,440 –> 02:12:18,280
And so when you start thinking about just rabid intensity and

2129
02:12:18,280 –> 02:12:21,960
sales savages and urgency and everything else like this, or

2130
02:12:22,120 –> 02:12:25,320
you’re telling yourself that you need to be more because you’re a founder or you’re

2131
02:12:25,320 –> 02:12:27,720
a leader and you just think you got to be more. You got to be

2132
02:12:27,720 –> 02:12:30,079
more. You got to be more like this thing or whatever, you can take it

2133
02:12:30,079 –> 02:12:33,880
too far to the place to where you are the cultist,

2134
02:12:34,040 –> 02:12:37,640
you are the. You’re just as problematic as anybody

2135
02:12:37,640 –> 02:12:40,680
can be because you’ve lost the ability to have

2136
02:12:45,180 –> 02:12:47,740
a discerning point of view.

2137
02:12:49,260 –> 02:12:52,940
And I. And that’s problematic, right? You got to know those

2138
02:12:52,940 –> 02:12:56,500
trade offs favorite book for anybody around this

2139
02:12:56,500 –> 02:13:00,260
topic that’s not around war, but go read Annie Duke’s book

2140
02:13:00,260 –> 02:13:03,780
about quitting, because quitting is notoriously shown or seen and

2141
02:13:03,780 –> 02:13:07,540
portrayed as, like, absolute failure. But, God, if we’re going to lose everything to

2142
02:13:07,540 –> 02:13:11,270
go win this hill, is that does that even make sense? No, it does not.

2143
02:13:11,430 –> 02:13:15,150
Right. Losing your sanity because you’re, you’re on some founder’s path, and

2144
02:13:15,150 –> 02:13:18,310
you’re the only person who gets it. It’s not worth your sanity. It’s not worth

2145
02:13:18,310 –> 02:13:21,990
your relationships. It’s not worth anything else like this. Don’t get so dogged that, like,

2146
02:13:21,990 –> 02:13:25,510
people who should be able to kind of point you in the right direction

2147
02:13:25,749 –> 02:13:26,710
can’t be heard.

2148
02:13:30,710 –> 02:13:34,110
That’s a good way to end. And so I want to thank you for

2149
02:13:34,110 –> 02:13:37,910
listening to the Leadership Lessons from the Great Book podcast. I want to thank

2150
02:13:38,070 –> 02:13:41,830
John for joining us today. And with that, well,

2151
02:13:42,710 –> 02:13:43,430
we’re out.