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Welcome to episode 558 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show, Sean Lake.
Now, Sean is a former professional snowboarder turned manager and the co-founder of Bubbs Naturals.
So we discuss a host of topics from his journey into winter sports, his lifelong friendship with Navy SEAL Glenn Doherty,
Glenn's incredible courage defending the compound in Benghazi,
how Glenn's death inspired the genesis of Bubbs Naturals and so much more.
Before we get to this incredibly powerful conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of 558 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to every single person who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Sean Lake. Enjoy.
So Sean, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
So where on planet Earth are we finding you this afternoon?
So this afternoon today, I am planted in Encinitas, California, just about a block away from the Pacific Ocean down in San Diego.
Beautiful. Now, I love to start chronologically at the very beginning.
So tell me where you were born and then tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did and how many siblings.
All right. Yeah, no problem. So I was born in a small fishing town in Massachusetts, Gloucester, Massachusetts.
So if you've ever read the book or saw the movie The Perfect Storm, I had Sebastian on the show.
That is my that is my hometown. So I was born in Gloucester.
My dad was in the fishing industry. So he's what you would call a fishmonger.
So he had boats that would go out to sea and bring back, you know, cod and tuna and the various fishes.
And he sold them up and down the East Coast to different restaurants and food chains.
Probably the most notable company that came out of Gloucester was Gortons of Gloucester.
So Gortons of Gloucester was a big frozen fish company. My dad sold them a bunch of their fish.
My mom was born and my dad was born in in St. John's in Newfoundland.
So he was raised in Canada, came down to Massachusetts to start his business with other members of his family.
My mom was born in Budapest, Hungary. So she was actually raised.
She was raised right in born in World War Two.
My grandfather was a colonel in the Hungarian army.
And my mom spent her late not teen years, but her late early as like eight, nine in a concentration camp in Budapest after the Russians invaded.
She escaped and was a refugee out of Budapest that settled in Kitimat, British Columbia.
She met my dad in university. English was her second language.
They were married and moved to Gloucester where my family was born.
So I have an older brother and a younger sister and we were all raised our early years in Gloucester.
So this kind of fishing family. My mom's an economist by trade.
So she's works a lot in businesses, creating operational efficiencies.
I always like to tell a story about my mom. I say, hey, you know how in the 80s you got bills from companies and they're always printed on one side of the paper like your phone bill used to come in the mail.
It was never digital. You had a landline and you saw every number that was called and every number that came in.
And it was like 30 pages in the mail.
And then one day the phone companies started printing on double sides of the page and the page count was cut in half.
So that was an idea that my mom had come up with. So those little operational efficiencies.
And I always I always love saying that. I'm like, oh, yeah, printing on both sides of the page. That was my mom.
So my my folks divorced when I was young and my mom moved me in the fourth grade to Winchester, Massachusetts.
It's a little suburb just outside of Boston.
It's right off where Paul Revere ran through Lexington or rode his horse through Lexington and all that famous history from the American Revolution.
That's where I met my lifelong best friend, Glenn Bubb Doherty.
So I was raised in Winchester and I was that classic middle child.
I was the kid who when you're a middle child, you kind of try and please everyone.
And at the same time, you're kind of the most likely to be this black sheep, have this this element of moving in a bit of a counterculture direction.
So there's first born, there's youngest, and there's me in the middle. So I was the kid who wanted to skateboard.
I got into punk rock music. I just was walking to a different drum beat back then and probably still today to it to a degree.
And it made for a lot of strife in some ways like teen angst and all that fun stuff.
And it was also incredible because I just had a really fun adventure going around Boston and going to punk rock shows, learning how to skateboard in the 80s.
And I wouldn't trade it for the world. So that was sort of the formative year.
So I was raised, you know, predominantly by my mom, you know, going through high school.
And Glenn was my, you know, part of this crew of high school friends we had.
There was like eight of us that just ran around thick as thieves.
And I've come to find out in later years that's not uncommon that you have these best friends from high school.
What is uncommon is when you're turning 50 that you're still in touch with every single one of them as if you're still in high school.
And I still have a text thread with that same crew of guys that we were so close with back then.
And we still, you know, talk endless amounts of crap on each other and wish each other happy birthdays.
During the pandemic, we started sending each other little cocktail kits and we were doing some virtual happy hours just to kind of keep that social fabric alive.
And we would do these Zoom happy hours and everyone would just sort of be on their porch and mix whatever drink their buddies sent to them.
And we unfortunately celebrated a handful of 50th birthdays that way.
But it was a it's just a neat way and a neat crew that is still in touch.
Glenn was really the core of that group. And, you know, I was just I was kind of the younger brother of the group.
My older brother Guy was kind of the main player. I was the kid brother who kind of like played into it.
And I think I was such a little black sheep that they enjoyed having me around because I was always going to say something inappropriate and, you know, roll around on my skateboard and be that guy.
So but that was that was my teenage years. I took that kind of like approach into going to college because my mom was hell bent on all children going to college and getting a degree.
I think part of that had to do with her own upbringing.
You know, she was uprooted from life in Budapest as a refugee and she had to make her own way.
She wanted her children likewise to apply themselves to that education.
I went to college for a year, realized very quickly that it was not for me.
I had my heart and mind set on pursuing my passions, which at the time was snowboarding.
I'd been skateboarding all through high school. I discovered snowboarding, fell in love with it.
And I knew that that was what I wanted to do.
It was pretty uncommon to take time off of college back then.
So you can imagine what the conversation was like with my mom and then separately with my dad to tell them that I was going to drop out of college to go and pursue a dream of becoming a professional snowboarder.
At the exact same time, my buddy Glenn was doing the same thing at his house. He's like, yeah, you know, I'm going to school right now.
I think I'm going to take a year off. None of our friends were doing that.
So we took off. We moved to Snowbird, Utah. I think I was 18 turning 19 years old. Glenn is a year older than me.
I dropped out of college and went and had a lot of fun.
And that turned into almost a five year lifestyle of working odd jobs and pursuing this great sense of adventure with a goal.
Like there was this intangible goal of becoming a professional snowboarder.
And, you know, I did okay in a couple of little regional contests.
I met some of the right sponsors out there and started taking photos for magazines because there was actually print magazines back then and they were relevant.
So that was a big measure of success was if you could get your photo in a magazine.
And I'll never forget the first time I got a photo in a magazine and I was able to call my dad and call my mom and show them that this thing I'd been working towards was starting to happen.
My dad died shortly thereafter.
Really kind of unfortunate health circumstances. He was an absolute workhorse stud of an athlete.
But he got this crazy pneumonia while away on a work trip and it got the best of him and it was really somewhat unexplainable.
No one expected him to pass. You know, he had some of the best hospital care that he could get and it just didn't work.
So I dealt with death at a young age and I had a really strong relationship with him.
You know, when your parents go through a divorce, there's a lot of kind of teen angst and frustration.
There's a lot of blame that gets thrown around.
And I had gone a pretty far way to mend those fences with him, which helped me through the grieving process because I didn't feel like, boy, we had some unresolved tensions.
I felt like we'd kind of we'd work through that stuff together.
My brother and sister weren't in the same position.
I found myself in an interesting role to be able to help them understand him more.
And just it was it was a helpful process. And this has come back up in my life later.
When you have a role to play in the grieving process, it kind of gives you structure in what you're what you're going through and experiencing.
It is a helpful tool. And I experienced that with my dad.
I was able to tell my brother, my sister and help them understand his love for them and his understanding of things he had done wrong and his grief over those past mistakes.
And it was it was very good because it added a nice human touch to them and understanding that he had nothing but love for the family.
So anyways, once I'd gone through that, you know, my snowboard career took off to a degree.
I always say I'm like a B snowboarder.
There's like an A plus snowboarder that are getting paid six figures a year winning the X Games.
And then this is like level below them where you're still good enough to travel the world and get a small salary and you're getting in magazines and video and stuff.
That was me. I was I was that level.
So I'm out there. My best buddy is Glenn.
Glenn is a very, very talented skier.
We're both working odd jobs to live this lifestyle, you know, waiting tables, washing dishes, you know, being a lifty.
He used to tour with the Grateful Dead during the summer.
Well, I saw that. What was he doing? What position was he holding in that?
Because that was an interesting element of a resume.
So it's a really funny one when the resume continues with Navy Seal.
But Glenn just used to want to he wanted to follow the Grateful Dead on tour. And the only way he could think to pay for it was to sell peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the parking lot.
A lot of guys sell drugs in the parking lot.
Glenn was like, well, I, you know, not not a drug dealer.
So I'll sell peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
And, you know, these stony hippies all need to eat some food.
A lot of them are vegans. You get the munchies.
Here's your two dollar peanut butter sandwich.
And the profit margins were just strong enough that you could put gas into the tank of the little pickup truck and drive to the next show and get a ticket and go to the next concert.
And, you know, it was definitely not a profitable model.
But one of the things to note about Glenn and this this is something that not a lot of people have this skill set is between the ages of, say, 18 and 25, Glenn was one of the most fiscally responsible.
Buddies that any one of us had.
We used to have a nickname for him back then, call him the Bank of Glenn, B.O.G.
So whenever you couldn't pay your rent, you go to Glenn because you know that he's always saved his money and he would give you a modest loan with a very modest, like one time interest payment.
And you borrow a couple hundred bucks. You give him a couple hundred bucks back, plus, say, 10, 20 bucks.
And the Bank of Glenn was always open.
And he would let's loan his buddies money all the time.
And he was just that guy. He could make it work.
And when he worked, he worked incredibly hard.
So he would paint houses, you make the most money, and he didn't spend extravagantly.
He kept things tight. So he always had a little nest egg.
So, yeah, you could go tour with the Grateful Dead, make a little bit of money and then come back and live the ski bum life.
So we had these really eclectic jobs.
You know, I would paint houses during the summer and Glenn would go down to Moab and he was a river guide.
And he would literally tour people down the Green River, down, you know, south of Moab and do these great river excursions.
And it was a really cool way to experience the outdoors and to get the most out of that time.
Fast forward, we're 24, turning 25 years old.
And we're kind of looking around ourselves and going like, OK, what's what's next?
All of our friends have now graduated from college.
All of our friends have gotten their first real job.
A couple of them are married. And then you got Glenn and I, a couple of college dropouts living in the mountains, act like, you know, basic ski bums.
And I kind of had my direction set. I had received sponsorships and endorsements in snowboarding.
I was starting to receive a little bit of momentum there.
And I said, hey, I think I'm going to go back to college.
I'm going to go and I'm going to wrap up my degree.
And I looked at the University of Utah where I was based.
I could go summer semester, get a full semester's work and a concentrated amount of time, and I can go fall semester.
So I get a full year's worth of college. I get the entire winter off to go and snowboard.
Everyone's happy. So I really buckled down and made that my job.
And then I was getting paid to snowboard, which helped pay for college because news flashed to the world.
When you drop out of college for four years and then go back to your parents, they don't pay for round two.
You know, they don't. So you better get the most out of that round two.
And Glenn, for his part, you know, in the course of all of his adventures, he had met a couple of Navy SEALs.
He went on like a surf trip down to Costa Rica one of the summers.
And he met these guys and he was working out with them, hanging out with them.
They were all in the same little town and they kind of got it in his head.
They were saying, like, hey, man, like, you got what it takes. You could do this job.
And Glenn came back and this is a guy who was always up for the next challenge.
He was always looking to the next challenge in his life.
And he said, you know, Sean, I think I'm going to join the Navy and become a Navy SEAL.
And I'm like, what the hell are you talking about?
Like that Charlie Sheen movie that you can rent on VHS blockbuster.
And that was literally what we had to go off of.
And I had to say, hey, like, what are you thinking?
Like, what's behind this? And for him, it was about that next challenge in life.
And, you know, like we'd already had the Iraq War that happened in the end of 1990 into 91.
And it wasn't about going to war. It was about the challenge.
What is he made of? What's inside of him?
And, you know, he had set out to become a professional skier and he was an incredible athlete, but that didn't happen.
So this was that next challenge to him. It was very appealing. It was a ton of adventure.
It was what are you made of? It had all the right recipes for who he was in his DNA.
Well, Glenn, as he was the Pied Piper and leader of all of our friends in high school, very similarly in Utah, all the ski bums, you know, would, would, you know, Glenn was like this gravitational force that everyone was pulled towards.
So you can imagine what it was like when he told all the guys, yeah, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to quit this lifestyle and I'm going to go join the Navy.
Everyone's like, what man, you can't do it.
And so I drove him to the Navy recruiter and watched him walk in, sign his life away.
Next thing you know, he's packing his bags, going to basic training.
And a year later, I'm driving down to Coronado to go to his bud's graduation.
So he got this motley crew of ski bums with long hair and, you know, purple hair, you know, rolling in, you know, down at Coronado to see his bud's graduation. It was next level.
And it was amazing, like, because he made it, like, of course he made it. Like that's who Glenn was. He would set his mind to something, he would set out and he would go and do it.
And, you know, I had had my own dream on the snowboarding level and it was amazing and fulfilling. So I, all my friends that had graduated college, like, I wouldn't trade those experiences at all.
I got my degree. You know, I wrapped it up right when I was turning 30. So, you know, an extra eight, nine years, whatever.
And I got to go and travel the world snowboarding. And I mean, what a neat way to do things and to see life is, you know, through nature and through the outdoors and on someone else's dime.
So, yeah, that kind of brought me up to the end of our Utah chapter. Glenn, of course, was shipped down to San Diego Station in Coronado.
And I graduated college with a degree in political science. You know, my mom had since kind of packed up the house, sold everything, and she actually moved back to Europe.
So the family ties weren't set in Massachusetts anymore. And I was like, well, you know, I think my next adventure is I'm going to join the State Department.
I'm going to take this degree in political science. I'll go take a civil service exam. And I'm going to, I'm going to travel the world, too. I'm just going to do it with the Department of State.
And best laid plans don't always go the way you think they are. I graduated from school in December. The civil service exam isn't until the end of the summer.
So I had this like nine months to kill. So I was like, well, I might as well go snowboarding and have a blast. And, you know, I quit all of my sponsors.
And I always thought in my head, it's better to quit than to be quit. Like, you don't want to be the guy who gets cut.
So you might want to just know when it's your time to walk away. And there was all these younger athletes that were way better than I was, you know, on the come up.
So I walked away from that chapter. And right when I was just kind of in the middle of my winter, I got a phone call from a buddy of mine.
And he said, hey, you know, Burton snowboards this major company in snowboarding. They're hiring for a team manager. You really should apply.
Like, you got what it takes. You've been in the industry. Like, you know how things work. And I was like, no, man, I got a plan.
He's like, I know you do, but you're meant to do this. And so I didn't reluctantly apply for the job.
I just kind of went through the motions of applying for the job. And I just talked about this with a buddy about how some of the results you get that you don't expect to get happen when you're not overly emotionally invested in something.
You can actually just sort of like lay things out as they are. And that that's what I did with Burton. I said, hey, here's all the things that are wrong with marketing and team management.
And it was just what they wanted to hear. And I was like, oh, because I was I was approaching it from the athlete's mindset, not the management's mindset.
And they end up offering me this job. And it was like way more money than I was going to make with the State Department.
And I was going to travel the world. And they asked me to move to Encinitas, California, to work with a young kid named Sean White.
And of course, Sean White's now been on the cover Rolling Stone and won a bunch of gold medals. And he's a great guy. I want to I keep wanting to call him a kid because I knew him as a 16 year old.
But I got to play a role working with Burton snowboards and the North American snowboard team, which was, you know, the pinnacle team in snowboarding.
And that kind of parlayed me into a career in sports marketing and the action sports youth lifestyle world based down here in San Diego. And my best buddy was live in 30 minutes south of me in Coronado as a seal.
So we got to get the band back together. It was great. Beautiful. Well, I mean, that's I mean, that's a hell of a journey right there.
And I want to really kind of delve into some some areas. The first one going all the way back chronologically. Fast forward, you know, a decade or so your dad's profession was now slapped all over the History Channel or whichever channel it was.
And now we're all learning about fishermen and crab fishermen. One thing coming from the kind of wellness arena that I found myself in is there seems to be, you know, a lot of mental health challenges in that the seasonal work, you know, some of the addiction elements.
What were the pros and cons that you heard from your dad about the profession that he was in?
So that's interesting. So my dad was like a classic grind it out kind of worker.
So he wouldn't complain about his work. He wouldn't talk about the negative sides of the work. You just do the work.
And that's one of the things that was instilled in me was, you know, you just grind it out. You get the job done. So it's interesting. He suffered from the things that you just mentioned. My dad was an alcoholic.
My dad went through AA programs and he went through substance abuse programs. This is in the late 70s or early 80s. That's why my parents got divorced. My parents got divorced because my dad was an addict.
The struggles of that work cycle took its toll on him. And, you know, it's something we've talked about. It's something that we have we've dug into.
And it's, you know, he talked about it from hindsight with the on the regret side of things like I wish I hadn't I wish I hadn't treated your mother the way I did. I wish that that I hadn't done the things that I had done.
And I understand now in my work cycle, in my work career, why some of those decisions why sometimes it's easy to grab the bottle and it's easy to to drown your sorrows and to not face some of the challenges.
You know, he was in the fishing industry when it is feast or famine. If you don't have a good cycle. Now you've got shows like wicked tuna that sort of like they kind of showcase that.
And it's definitely to a degree is romanticized but there's also some very real struggles behind that I know that now more historically than from how he lived in it and maybe it was my age.
But through my teen years, you know, he wouldn't talk about it in terms of failure. That wasn't that wasn't something he didn't I wouldn't say he was the most successful businessman.
But I would say that he didn't. He certainly didn't lean in on the failure side of things. The lessons that he was trying to instill with me were definitely forward thinking forward moving.
Yeah, it's interesting and that parallels a military first responders and even the weight of gold that Sean was in the documentary talking about mental health and elite athletes should love to kind of visit in a little bit.
So then that's real. I guess I should jump in. It's not that I'm that he didn't have those struggles. I saw them. I saw the sobriety challenges. I saw the drinking. I watched him break his hand on a wall.
He was so mad at some situation he lacked the self control that he punched the wall. Now we've all punched walls. We've all done, you know, things that we have we wish we didn't.
Well, when he punched this wall, this is I'll never forget this. I was I was 13 years old. He was incredibly angry at, you know, something.
And he's in his new house. So here he is building a brand new house that he's going to get married in and start a new family with.
He punches this wall and it's just sheetrocked, but he hits it square on the stud shatters his hand breaks every breaks all these bones in his hand.
And you know, he realizes what he's done. And I'm there watching this. And he was not mad at me. He's mad at whatever situation there was.
And he sort of looks at me like, well, I had to test the strength of the wall and it passed. I'll never forget it. He made a joke with a broken hand. He was in so much pain.
He's driving to the hospital and, you know, getting his hand fixed up and he's in a giant cast afterwards. And, you know, but I mean, tough as nails.
I mean, that that's the dad that I remember. So I saw the struggles on display. But culturally, you didn't talk about those struggles in the way you talk about them.
Now, you don't you know, you talk you can talk about regret, but you're not diving in and really peeling back the onion the way we talk about mental health in 2021.
It's a it's an open book. I'm far more apt to talk about struggles and failures and insecurities than you ever were back then. Hell no. That just that that wasn't a topic. You move forward.
Yeah, exactly. And I think that's that, you know, that facade of masculinity has, you know, put so many people on the ground and it's heartbreaking because being able to tell someone what you're going through doesn't negate in any way, shape or form the incredible grit that you have as, for example, a fisherman.
Yeah, yeah. And he had it and he dealt with it. And like, I remember struggles in the business again as a as a nine year old, 10 year old kid.
But you don't really know. You just know, like, it's on display, like, he's angry, he's mad, he's frustrated, but you don't quite get all the things behind it.
And you just, you know, you just, you know, there's something there, but he's not discussing it. And he certainly didn't take me into like when I was getting ready to go to college to talk about some of those those those moments that you're going to experience, it was definitely more about
armoring up and fortifying yourself to drive it forward. And those were the lessons that were taught to him. Those are the lessons he knew to teach to me.
I feel grateful to be in a position now at 50 years old to have enough access to others to be able to talk about those insecurities talk about what's, you know, where there are some vulnerabilities and you'll be able to express those.
It doesn't mean you're not going to solve the problems and have your armor on, but it also means you're willing to look in the mirror, see those things and by looking in the mirror, ideally be able to solve.
Why do I resist certain activities or behaviors? Why do I run away from them? How do I face those? How do I lean into those? That dialogue?
It's so much better now I think than it was culturally for us 20 plus years ago. Yeah, 100%. Now go into your mother's side just quickly before we move forward chronologically.
I had a couple of guests from Hungary. One actually was more recent. She's roughly our age and she was trafficked, sexually trafficked from Hungary to Canada. That's my dog grumbling in the background if anyone heard that.
And then I had Dr. Edith Eager who was taken from Hungary by the Nazis and was in Auschwitz and survived and became a counselor, an incredible woman.
So what are some of the things that your mother carried with her and then what was her perception of her home country when she returned?
So great question. One, she's not a fan of the current president and that arrangement. So my mom was raised in a fairly affluent house in Budapest.
Her father, my grandfather, was a colonel in the Hungarian army. He was successful. He was in charge of all these tanks.
He used to tell me these stories when I was his grandchild about the military stuff because of course when you're eight years old and 10 years old, you're fascinated by all that.
And he was an incredibly loving, warm man. And because of his role in the military, my family was targeted and placed in a concentration camp. Now, it wasn't like an Auschwitz.
It was a detainment center, but it was a detainment center for political people of interest.
And if you're in the Hungarian military and you're the Soviets, Soviets are going to make sure that you're placed in a safe area.
So there was a lot of concern that because he was higher up in the military that the family was in danger.
And that's why he facilitated the family to leave Budapest, to walk away from his entire life, born and raised in Hungary.
And basically say the Russians won. They rolled right in and took over. And this is after he had served in World War II.
He'd been through a lot of stuff. And my mom as a young girl was grateful to receive an orange to eat for sustenance while in these camps.
And she escaped in the middle of the night. They went into Germany. They ended up in Canada in Kitimat in British Columbia.
There was a small concentration of Hungarian refugees and they started life over with nothing. And that always stuck with her.
So she remembers having status and clout and things. And so did my grandmother, by the way, which was something I don't think she ever forgave my grandfather for.
So Anya, my grandmother, who's still alive, she's 101 years old, still lives in Vancouver.
They settled into Kitimat and they took jobs with the energy company that was local in Kitimat.
That was the only industry in town. And my mom learned English as a second language. And my mom is an incredibly smart woman.
She's got German, French, Hungarian and English, like on tap. So very handy to travel Europe with.
And there was a different kind of toughness that was instilled in her from that experience.
And that is she had to make everything that she had for herself.
She never really knew wealth as a child because she was too young to really understand it, but she knew that they had it in Budapest.
And then she didn't have it her entire childhood. Well, if she's going to make anything of herself, she had to study, learn and adapt.
So she adapted and she ended up getting the ability to go to college at Queen's University in Canada, where she met my dad.
And she took everything was probably too serious of a woman in some regards to apply herself to that degree and to apply herself to her career.
So think of this year in the 1960s, you're female, you're going to college, English as a second language.
You're graduating with incredible results and you're very much thinking about the career.
You're thinking about becoming successful and making a difference. You have a built in drive.
Like it is inside of you a burning fire. That's my mom.
And she didn't roll over because life dealt her a bad hand.
She took that energy of being in a concentration camp and applied it.
And that led her through her career path. And she had a very successful career in the private sector, you know, working with Anderson Consulting and EPMG,
like a bunch of, I'm sorry, KPMG, like a bunch of big successful brands helping other businesses, you know, prepare for sales and audit them for efficiencies and helping mergers and acquisitions.
There's a lot that she did that was impactful and drove her and she was very successful.
I mean, she was a C-suite level executive throughout her career and she had three children in her twenties with a degree while working in Boston and hired the nanny and made it work.
This is in the 1970s. This was not done. Women dropped out of the workforce to raise their children. My mom never did that. She never quit working.
She pulled herself up, you know, the bootstraps, all the classic expressions applied to this woman who was the matriarch of my family.
Like she is who I look up to as an example of hard work, determination and success.
And I had more time with her than my dad. So that's why I'll probably lean in on the compliments towards my mom.
And, you know, she just did it and she did it every day and she never quit. And there was a tenacity and determination that, you know, you just don't question it because it's just what she did.
At the same time, when my dad went through his own problems, my mom took us children to counseling.
And again, in the 1970s and the 1980s, I went to Al-Anon meetings and I went to these meetings to understand as a child what it's like to have a parent going through addiction.
And I remember being like 10 years old and the counselor like gives me a little foamy sword and my brother a foamy sword.
And she allows us to act out the frustrations or whatever that we're experiencing.
And we beat the living crap out of each other with these little foam swords. And that was healthy, of course.
But I've always had exposure to telling the truth, to being vulnerable and to expressing yourself.
I'm not going to lie and say I've always practiced, but my mom always fostered that environment.
And it helped. Obviously, she's female, but she's also Eastern European. So those are some tough broads.
So the scariest words I would ever hear as a child would be if my mother said to me, I have a bone to pick with you.
You knew right then, James, if you heard those words, you better run for your room because you are in big trouble.
But she always gave the opportunity to explain, to be honest, be forthcoming. And I learned that lesson the hard way.
I tried lying once, 13, 14 years old, got in trouble for throwing water balloons and spray painting on, not spray painting, what do you call it?
Shaving cream on Halloween. And I got in a bunch of trouble and I tried lying about it and I got caught.
And it was one of those like it's such a harmless lesson to learn, thankfully, that gave me a lifelong blueprint to follow.
And I have her to thank for that. But also the accessibility to share your feelings has always been present in our family.
My wife kind of jokes about it. She's like, you're so emotional. You're so emo.
And I'm like, well, you could have it the other way. But I'd rather you know when I'm pissed off, you know when I'm frustrated and you know why.
And it's my job to be able to articulate it so that we know whether the problem lies with me, with you or externally so we can manage it.
We both agree to that and it works well. And I thank my mom for instilling the work ethic, the determination, the grit, as well as the ability to be vulnerable and open about what's going on in life.
Beautiful. I mean, that's why I love these early life story moments because there's so much gold to get from parents, grandparents, etc.
What was the factor that sent her back to Hungary? Because I mean, I'm sure she's got a lot of roots set in the US with family with her career path.
What was it that finally made her kind of circle around back to home?
So she didn't actually move back to Budapest, to be clear. She goes back to Budapest to visit.
But she had an opportunity in her firm to make partner. And when you make partner, you have a choice to live and go into any office.
And she said, you know, all of my kids have graduated college. All of my kids have kind of set their path up. They're good now.
I'm going to sell the house where we were raised in Winchester and I'm going to move to Germany.
And there's an office outside of Munich. I'm going to go live there. And I've made partner so I can go and command a book of business.
And I'm going to just go have a very different experience. She already speaks fluent German.
So she went to Germany and hated it. Now, this is mid 90s. This is probably 94, 95, 96.
This is right when Glenn's joining the Navy to become a SEAL. And I'm in the middle of my snowboarding heyday.
And she she hated it. So she said, OK, this didn't work so well culturally.
It was really a very masculine culture. And she's a very strong woman.
So she was butting heads with, you know, that that entire workspace. So she said, let's try London. So a year later, she moves to London.
London was a great fit. It gave her access to all of mainland Europe and it gave her the professional chops to continue doing what she was doing.
And she thrived in London and that became her home. And she's still there to this day.
She met her husband there, Steiner, who's in the shipping industry. So he builds a lot of big freight and he's an he's an engineer by trade.
And, you know, they dropped anchor. He's Norwegian. So she sort of created this this hybrid mixed family of her American children with her former Canadian husband who passed her Norwegian husband who had children from a prior marriage.
So now there's this blend of family from Bergen, Norway and Gloucester, Massachusetts that can all get together once in a while.
Pre pandemic, of course. Yes. Yes, exactly.
Well, that is amazing. So thank you for sharing your history.
I want to get to Glenn's journey in the Navy in a moment. But just before that, you were an elite athlete in the winter sports world.
What was that like for you going to the management side and with, you know, as I mentioned, the weight of gold with with Sean being one of the athletes that talks about the highs and lows of being under that pressure.
You know, what what did you see within the athletes that you spent so much time with?
So, so, interestingly, moving on to the management side, I applied a lot of the lessons, a lot of the don'ts in team management that I learned as an athlete, like the worst things that can happen.
Your check doesn't arrive on time. You're dependent on those funds. Your equipment doesn't show up on time.
I will never forget flying to New Zealand for the first time. And I was sent to New Zealand without a snowboard.
And I had to fly through Los Angeles and L.A. to Auckland. And the team manager for one of the companies met me at the airport to hand me a snowboard to go on this trip.
And it was embarrassing, frustrating. Like it was all the wrong things just to be able to go and do my job.
Now, this is the company that paid for me to go on the trip. And they weren't supplying me with the equipment to go.
So I just had those things in my head of like the things you don't do and the things that you do do to show someone that you care.
And we apply this at Bubs now in my current business every day, which is how do you help someone be seen, heard, right?
Like, how do you keep good open dialogue with them? So we, you know, I would do things at Burton Snowboard, like make sure we sent out boxes every other month with a couple of T-shirts in it,
very low cost items that made sure that that athlete felt recognized for the role that they play in the company.
Those are the simple things. Obviously, Burton was a well-run machine, so checks did not show up in the mail. All of that stuff was established.
But then you've got the actual management side, like you're going to a contest. And there was a definite fine line in team management back then and still to this day.
You've got the team managers that are there to party. Like they don't get involved in the athletes lives. They just, they're there for the after party.
They show up, they make sure the athletes are there, and then they crack a beer and they're off, you know, doing their own thing.
But then you've got the ones that are really invested in being with the athlete. And that team manager role, it's part friend.
It is part boss. It's part psychiatrist. And, you know, that role of being a boss, but also being a friend and being a boss and being, you know, a psychiatrist.
You've got to help someone through, navigate their issues and give them the confidence that they need if they need confidence or give them the structure they need if they need structure.
Like you've got to be there for them or not. And that was the difference between the party or team managers and the ones that I think were really invested in the athletes.
And this was also at a time when sports management and sports agents were really just starting to enter the equation in a substantial way.
So I work hand in hand with sports agents to create schedules for team riders and goals, like measurable goals throughout a season.
Sean had that with his family. And then he, of course, had his sports agents as well.
But, you know, with him, it was like, hey, man, like, let's go run the course. We would ride the course together. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you liking?
He already had it on lock up here. You just gave him a vehicle to express it. I feel good. I'm going to do this trick, this trick, this trick.
And then he'd ask you your opinion. You'd be like, well, if you do this trick up there, you might want to do a different trick down here.
And he would just use a computer. You'd be like, OK, got it. And then he'd go out and win because he just pushed print.
He has very, very good at not getting in his headspace and just relying on the hours and hours and hours of practice that he had put in other athletes.
Totally different story. Other ones, you got to really make sure that mentally they get themselves out of that space.
Like, I'll never forget working with Kimi Fasani, who is one of the world's best female snowboarders.
And you'd never know it by her contest results.
I love Kimi. But Kimi, like under the pressure, she didn't do her best.
But then you got a camera on her and filming and you would see that and you'd be like, oh, my God, if you could just do what you do naturally without the pressure when you're filming and do that naturally in a contest, you'd have every gold medal under the sun.
But so everyone's different. So you have to apply that difference and be in tune with the differences because remember, this is an individual sport.
We're all individuals and you have to have dialogue with each one that's unique to who they are.
So a good team manager, he's going to hopefully apply that well and you can't treat everyone the exact same.
It just doesn't work.
Yeah, that's amazing to hear. And when you see Sean, I mean, it doesn't matter what is under his feet, whether it's a surfboard or a skateboard or a snowboard.
How are you so good? But I think that's a huge point that you said. I actually had a gymnast who was originally from New Zealand now in Australia and she mentors a lot of athletes and even areas like nasal breathing, not just right before an event, but actually hours before.
Hopefully that was a difference between being able to smash whatever routine in the gym away from the spotlight and be able to perform under the lights. And so that psychological element, that breath control element, there's so many things that factor in that, like you said back then, no one was even really talking about.
But now people are starting to get it. And whether it's the sporting world or the first responder world, we all need to understand that so we can perform our highest level.
Yeah, you know, it's funny. One of my good, good friends is a guy named Mike Hazel. Mike Hazel was a US champion for javelin US national champion. He went to the O eight games in Beijing. So he's an Olympic athlete.
And a lot of his training had to do with the concept of just push print. By the time you get to the competition stage, you're not tweaking, adjusting or doing anything other than just doing what you know to do. And by just repeating that simple formula after thousands of hours of training, you achieve the result that you're there to achieve.
He completely flamed out on the Olympic stage, had one of his worst throws in competition history for him. And he forgot to just push print and that lesson stuck with him because three months later, he won a national title.
Months, months later, he went and won a national title, because he didn't care. He'd already flamed out at the Olympics, he had a case of what he would call the fuck it's, but the fuck it's were actually a key to him to actually be the most successful. It's kind of like when I interviewed for Burton, I didn't really care about getting the job, but I did everything the way I was supposed to do. And I was very honest, hey, I got the job. Hey, he had a case of the fuck it's he threw his best throw of his life.
There is definitely something there, nasal breathing, just to touch on, like Mike and I train together a few days a week. He's one of the worst friends I could have. Glenn was one of the worst friends I could have for fitness. Mike's like the second worst friend I could have.
There's a few others that are just brutal in the gym. And he's like taken to this thing where he takes water bottle, you fill up your mouth full of water and you do a range of high intensity exercises with the water in your mouth and your success is made on.
Can you do the 20 burpees without spilling the water?
Just all through the nose. So it's pretty amazing that there's some really neat things out there that elicit, you know, a really strong physical response, mental response. There's just there's just good tools out there. So I know we're jumping around a lot, but that's it's it's cool to see the level of experimentation, adaptation and evolution in sport, fitness, training, and just hey, man, who we are, as men as women and our ability to evolve.
It's it's an exciting time to to be around it if you're willing to participate.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you mentioned Glenn again, I want to make sure that you know, we talk about the namesake of what you do now. So lead me through through your eyes, kind of Glenn's career in the seals. And then let's get to September 12 2012. And talk about that second grief process that you had to go through.
Yeah, so, you know, I guess because you know, like having this conversation, like, so much of what I have done in my life was with this best friend like, like, hey, if Glenn was alive, he'd be sitting right here, we'd be doing this together, just talking shit, and you'd probably cut us off.
So so you know, my best friend joins the Navy, he becomes a Navy SEAL. And again, I think timing is important is important for people to understand, like, this was in 1995. This was a long time ago, there wasn't rule books and YouTube videos and tutorials and expectations and dozens of movies out on the subject.
This was, this was some pretty hardcore shit. It's hardcore today. It's just more visible today. It was hardcore then but you had no idea what you're getting yourself into.
So, my buddy Glenn joins the Navy. He served 10 years with SEAL Team 3 stationed in Coronado.
He was part of the original deployment to Iraq, the second war from from George Bush Jr.
So he was part of that original deployment. He was a part of a couple missions that were notable to in the media.
You might remember when the USS Cole was bombed. Glenn was the first platoon in to guard the ship. He calls it the world's most boring assignment because the attack had already happened and he was basically there to sit on a boat with a bunch of his teammates, which is funny because I hear stories about the things that they would do now to kill time on the boat.
And like my buddy Shane will talk about this story where he's like, it's like, yeah, I sat in the boat to see how long I could stay in my bed without leaving.
I'm like, didn't you have to use the bathroom. He's like, Yep, did it all right there.
Come on, man. He like you know he went days, days without leaving the bed. I'm like, what kind of fucked up game is that playing but mental toughness.
So, so anyways, he was part of the USS Cole. And then there was another famous thing that happened in Baghdad during the war, there was an army girl who like ended up in a hospital was like kidnapped or somehow the Iraqis got ahold of her and she was like sending to a hospital.
It was like all the news headlines were like saving this, this soldier this female soldier Jessica's hospital someone's. Yeah, like I don't remember her name.
But Glenn was a part of the rescue operation that pulled her out. So did he train with Mike Ritland then because I heard Mike Ritland had Jessica on his podcast. He's a he's a canine.
So, Mike, Mike is one of my, one of my buddies. So Mike Ritland is was part of Team three.
Clint Emerson, you know he was part of Team three so the 100 Deadly Skills book series, Team three, Brandon Webb who's written a bunch of books, Team three. So you've got Shane Hyatt, Team three like all these guys, they're my, they're the friends of mine because of Glenn's time in the Navy.
And maybe those cats are New York Times bestselling authors. They were all in the same frickin' platoon. Like they all like were like, how random is that that all you guys got out of the Navy, wrote books, have podcasts, are super successful.
Like it's, it's, it's next level. So yes, Mike Ritland, you know, he used to come in and hang out on our couch with, you know, these dogs he was training right when he got out of the Navy. So funny stuff.
He was still there. And he's a great guy. And I was lucky, I was lucky to blend these various groups of friends like yeah I'm friends with Sean White, I'm friends with these pro snowboarders and surfers and athletes.
And then I'm friends with some real pipe hitters in the US military and you know it's really fun barbecues there for a while getting all these different crews together.
So, good stuff.
So Glenn, you know he searched 10 years in the Navy. He's a part of these, you know, these operations that are in the media, but you'd never know it.
You know he was posted up at Saddam's Palace, like he literally was at Saddam's Palace and he's got all there are all these pictures from his teammates of those guys like standing out front with these big, you know, ornate, you know, decorations and they're just hanging
out at Saddam's Palace. And every once in a while if you follow you know Clint's Instagram or Mike's you'll see those photos pop up and you know there's Glenn right in the middle of it.
So, Glenn moves back to San Diego. He's married he got married right before his deployment, an old high school sweetheart so a girl that we all grew up with him, Sonia.
And it doesn't work. He gets home he gets out of the Navy he buys a house in Encinitas, and he's immediately trying to figure out what he's going to do next. And he's always been great about saving money.
So he invests some money with Brandon Webb.
It didn't work, like the investment when they would just shit the bed like they bought a house together in San Diego right before the Great Recession and like oh 506 like fucking horrible timing.
So he invested in a second business with Brandon that didn't work it was for a shooting range they wanted to forge and all the while Glenn's pouring money into these investments that don't work.
He has to continue to deploy overseas so he becomes a security agent with the central intelligence agency so he's a private contractor doing GRS support for for intelligence agents overseas so he's now on this deployment cycle as a
private citizen, going to Iraq, Afghanistan, Beirut, you name it these these dangerous areas, helping provide security and the occasional offense he would joke, you would say sometimes the best defense is a good offense I'm like, what do you mean by that.
And he would come up with these amazing stories that he would, he was always very, he wouldn't talk a lot about his work, and I should probably pause on that note. Glenn and I didn't talk a lot about what he did in the Navy, and that was on purpose.
He was a sniper and he was a medic. I knew he was a medic because he went through you know all the all the training for it I knew he was a sniper because he would talk about it in very general terms.
He would tell me stories about what it was like to, you know, to triage animals and what it was like to snipe but I never like I was never the friend who was like hey you know did you ever have to kill anyone.
Those kind of questions I always felt were very very private. And I always would tell Glenn.
If you ever want to talk about what you've been through. I'm here.
And if you don't.
Cool, but just know the doors open. And he always understood that. And we talked about his marriage. We talked about the work he did and he would complain about it when it was worth complaining about, but we never, we never talked in great detail about some of
the things that he had to do in the line of duty, the only thing that he said to me which I always always stuck with me was very succinct he said, I have learned from being in the Navy, that there are some really really bad people out there that are doing some really
really bad things.
And I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can help turn that tide.
I can do some good out there.
And that was it. That was all I needed to know. There's bad people doing bad things and my buddies out there doing good.
Okay.
And I'm lucky enough to have him as a best friend and and a family member to me. That's fantastic.
But he gets out of the Navy, and he's at this crossroads. So when Glenn was left high school, and went to college he went to flight school he went to every riddle aeronautical school in Prescott, Arizona, and he was going to be an airline pilot commercial
pilot, right, go see the world that you'll that's a theme here. And then he joins the Navy gets to go and see the world. And then he gets out of the Navy, and he's still contracted but he's like what should I do should be a firefighter high adrenaline
adventure job. Should I go work in the medical field and save lives as an EMT. Do I become an airline pilot again he was kind of exploring all of these things but didn't know what that thing was going to be.
Meanwhile, I'm on my career track. I'm now the director of sports marketing at DC shoes which is a part of Quicksilver and I'm running these sports marketing programs and I'm like locked and loaded on my career in a very fun industry so I'm like cool man I got my shit.
What are you going to do. And it's like, I'm going to go make $150 200,000 a year as a private contractor because that's how I can afford the house that my wife wants me to live in, and it's an edus.
That's not good for marriage stability.
And there was a lot of fights and disagreements and ultimately they got divorced. So, like, into 2008 Glenn moves into my house. I was married at the time.
And I have my marriage wasn't doing well either because I was the director of sports marketing I was traveling all over the world you know I remember famously like something like three years in a row, I flew over 500,000 miles, like I was both platinum delta
and one K on United in the same year like three years in a row, because I turned one K and then flip airlines and I would just travel on another airline I would just build up my status.
And I was actually thinking I poured myself into work I always have.
But it had a huge cost to it.
But anyways we're both unhappily married two dudes now getting ready to turn 40 so Glenn was into my house he is still on this travel cycle.
You know the end of 2009 comes along and I finally pulled the plug on my marriage, and then all of a sudden we're roommates again so January 1 2010. I move into Glenn's house. And also we're two single guys get rid of turn 40.
And what the fuck are we going to do with our lives.
And Glenn was still trying to figure it out so he, but he was trying to figure it out he didn't figure it out but he was on he was trying to so he went back to college gets his degree.
So Navy SEAL has his bachelor degree now. And then it was like now how am I going to apply this. Ah fuck I got to go deploy again I'll figure it out when I get back comes back he's got all this money.
Oh, you know you're going to go have some fun with that money too so you go become the island medic on Tavarua and go on a surf trip, and then you go skiing in Utah.
And he was, you know, to kind of pull back the curtain a little bit I mean he was wrestling with what to do there were some demons in there. There was definitely some fear of failure, there was some self identity work going on and from the outside looking
in. He's the most entertaining charismatic epic human on the planet like you want to hang out with Glenn. That's all you want to do because he's so much fun.
And on the inside. He was struggling with what that thing was going to be he had a failed marriage he he had doubts he wasn't sure, and that was a tough time for him to go through.
And it was great to watch him come out of that come out of that period of self doubt. It's a testament to his own strength and his own ability to soul search and to, you know, to be able to be introspective and it didn't happen easily I mean I'm talking
about it very quickly here but it was, you know, there was a six month period where he moved to Utah.
At the end of 2009, and he was basically drinking himself to sleep every night in my buddy's basement, while being ski bombing out there just to like not think about what the next thing was going to be.
And he rolled back into contracting, and then the money kept coming in he met a girl who helped stabilize him. So he had a good long term relationship.
And then we moved in together in San Diego and that was like the best three years of, you know, of our kind of adult lives like being kids all over again but as adults with responsibility.
And, you know, we would go to CrossFit together we both coached at a gym together. Glenn introduced me in my 30s to being really fit because you can't be best friends with a Navy SEAL and be schlubby you got you kind of got to hold your shit together.
So, I really embrace that fitness journey. That's really what led me on the path that I've been on ever since is, I want to show up and be able to perform. I don't want to be the guy who can lace up my shoes and go run lace up my shoes and go hike up a mountain, or ride down
a mountain or paddle out and surf. I want to be able to be present in the moment and attack whatever's going on. These days it's more than likely just chasing my five year old and my three year old around.
But you know you, I do believe that there's a lot of physical preparedness that is really key to the mental game and Glenn introduced me to a lot of that I give, I give full credit because I wasn't paying close attention to it.
Prior to him, but he'd always been a stud athlete and you know it rubs off on those around you, because you get, it's a bit infectious. So he introduced me to CrossFit I dove into that we both drank the Kool-Aid.
I've had CrossFit cultists on the show before they'll talk about how much they love their fitness.
And we would joke, we would call it a cult. We were very aware that you really dive into it, but the results were phenomenal and they still are now like 13 years later, I wouldn't trade doing that type of activity for anything else.
So, Glenn teed up these experiences and Glenn was my partner in crime like I went through a divorce with him he went through a divorce with me like we could share everything and it was really healing cathartic it was all the things to to have your best buddy to go through those times.
And those were awesome years, and it sucked to have him deploy and do the things that he did but it was also funny and fun to be around him like he had a deployment in Mexico City once.
It's like 2011, and we had to go to the men's warehouse because he had to buy a couple of suits. He's like well I'm not going to Iraq I'm not going to be in camis I have to be in civilian clothes, and I'm protecting an embassy assignment so we go there.
And Glenn's a short stubbier guy is not as you know he didn't fit into a traditional suit yet I get everything hemmed. And I call him a hockey puck just because he's not around to kick my ass.
And so we go in there, and the tailor comes up and says little old lady and Glenn standing in front of her and the mirror and he's like practices putting his hand in his pocket like this.
And he's like, hmm. Hmm. And he's like, Okay, can I get you to sew two extra pieces of fabric on the left side of the suit in this following square, and she's like, but sir, why is this oh that's where I'm going to holster my gun so I shoot people in the
face. I'm like, uh, and she was horrified, but it was freaking hysterical. And sure enough she tailors three suits for him and they've got a bunch of extra fabric in them, and, and he's kidding, but you know he's also doesn't have a filter so he lets that
shit fly. He's like, yeah, you know if I have to shoot someone in the face I got to get to my gun. And it was just that kind of stuff that was just, it was really entertaining to be around and of course like I'm a civilian, like you know I don't know anything about this stuff
other than what he's teaching me with but being friends with him being friends with his friends really brought me into a world of just some really kick ass high caliber humans that are among some of my best friends today.
And, you know, we lived together for almost three years, you know we live together in our teenage years he used to live with me in high school he actually moved out of his house and moved into my house when we were teenagers.
Then in our 20s we were ski bumps together then again in our late 30s and 40s we're roommates again so it's like we've always had these chapters.
And, you know, in the fall of 2012. Glenn and I, you know we did our adult thing, where we had had a moment where we said hey you know like we're in our 40s now we should probably do all of our legal stuff so he left his will and his power of attorney
in the estate and all that legal stuff to me and I did it to him and we had had a joke with my girlfriend who became my wife was like one of the witnesses.
And we joked about it was well you know you get all my debt. And I was like yeah yeah you get all my debt, and that was like our big adult move.
And I didn't really think at the time, anything of it.
That being someone's listed next of kin on their military paperwork or being someone's power of attorney or any of that, it didn't mean anything to me.
So we do like we should do these things because I wasn't married. I had a girlfriend but I wasn't going to leave her, you know my 401k is I left all that shit to Glenn, and we had very specific rules with what we were supposed to do.
Should one of us die.
We each had to throw an epic party.
And the other person had to take the money, whatever was left over from the other guy and spend it amongst the friends and go have epic adventures.
So fast forward to September of 2012, Glenn is still struggling with what he's going to do next, but he makes a call.
This is going to be my last deployment.
When I get back, I am going to go to the University of Utah, I'm going to enroll in their Physicians Assistant Program, I'm going to become a PA, and I'm going to do it.
It's going to suck. I'm going to be you know head down for a couple of years. I've saved enough money.
I can do this. You're in charge of the house and I'm sort of in this transition where like I love my girlfriend, who's not my wife.
And like you know there's this kind of sense like this might be the end of the road for a while like you're going to go do your next chapter, I'm going to go to my next chapter and hey man, who knows.
And he's stationed in Tripoli. So this is right after the fall of Gaddafi and Glenn is you know goes over there. It's like September 3rd, 4th, 5th, something like that. It was like early September.
And he gets over there. He had just broken up with that girlfriend, that long term relationship that he was in.
And he's like hey Sean, like go check in on Shannon, make sure she's okay, make sure that she's doing all right.
And I'm like yeah man, no problem. He's like go help her find a boyfriend. Go make sure that she finds a boyfriend so that you know she knows. So there's no weirdness when I get home.
I'm like sure Glenn, no problem. He's like and don't kill my fucking plants. He's always given me a hard time about taking care of the house.
So that's you know I think that was September 9th or 10th. And on September 11th, I go over, I remember having dinner with Shannon and we're talking about the breakup and Glenn and there's something that happens.
And there's like some blip on the radar. I can't remember if it was a text message or something on the news that said there was some unrest happening in some spot called Benghazi.
And Shannon gets worried about it. I remember we had a quick conversation about it. I'm like yeah it's fine.
And I'm like wait Benghazi's, you know we looked it up and it's like oh Benghazi is like three hours away from Tripoli. It's like you know it's a three hour flight. It's way, way far away. Like Glenn's in Tripoli, he'd be fine.
But I remember going to bed that night and I wrote Glenn a quick email. Hey man be safe over there. Like keep your head down. I heard there's some shit happening.
I wake up the next morning and it's all over the news. Something is happening in Benghazi. So I hit up Glenn. Yo man I hope you're okay. I hope you're good.
Now I can't text him because you know he's in a different part of the world. And that's it. I don't hear anything else. I go to the gym that day.
And I'll never forget I'm leaving the gym. It's now the morning of September 12th, 9, 9, 12. And I get a phone call from a local phone number. And I usually do not answer those calls if I don't recognize the number.
And something, some little voice in my head said answer this one. So I did. And the voice on the other side said is this Sean Lake? Yes it is. I need you to return home to 165. You know my house address immediately.
Okay. We have to meet with you right away. Didn't say who it was. And I just hung up the phone. I drove straight home and I just fucking knew. I had just a pit in my stomach. Something happened. What's going on? What's going on? You don't know but something happened.
I pull up to my house. There's two black SUVs parked directly in front of my house. And there's a bunch of people in black suits standing out. I pull up and I'm like what's going on guys? And I took them into the house in the backyard. We all sat down and they broke the news.
There was a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. And Glenn Doherty was one of four Americans killed over there. They didn't know a lot of information. But they said you're the listed next of kin. So we had to come and tell you.
Now one of the agents that was there to report the news was actually someone I knew very lightly through Glenn which helped. And I knew like the shit was real. And that kicked me into gear. There wasn't a lot of time for me to grieve and cry and mourn.
I had those moments, thank God, and I'm very happy for that process. But this was a national event. There were news trucks that came up and parked outside of my house that wanted interviews. There were people that wanted scoop. There was newspapers calling.
There was all sorts of crazy shit that unfolded from that moment. I'll never forget. They had to tell me first so that I could then help them disseminate the information.
They went to Glenn's mother's house immediately thereafter. They told his mom. And it was okay, let's circle the wagons. I was on the phone for two days straight. And it was get Glenn's family immediately out to Dover Air Force Base to greet the body, to meet the president, to do those things.
Get everyone to Winchester, our hometown, where a very big national event happened to honor Glenn's life. It was like a whirlwind. I mean, I'll never forget sitting in the passenger seat with the Hertz driver, driving through the streets of my old hometown with a thousand people on either side of the street.
Celebrating a hero. And shit, nine years later, it still gets me.
And you know, a nation really
came together in that time. And it was epic in what it was in, again, channeling grief, celebrating patriotism, these rogue deeds that Glenn and the other Navy SEAL performed and all of those that were in that action were a part of.
And, you know, to be in the center of that and then sort of spiriting this legacy was, you know, it was surreal, but it was also, it was the thing to do. So, you know, coming out of that moment in our nation's history, Glenn's friends, Glenn's family, we all had this intense desire to keep his memory alive.
This larger than life light bulb, this galvanizing force amongst all these different groups of friends. We wanted to keep his memory alive. We wanted to keep him at the table.
So Glenn's sister came up with the idea to start a foundation. And we did it in the basement of her house, like right after that funeral ceremony. And we said, you know, let's help others transition out of active duty to civilian life.
Let's solve the problem that Glenn never solved for. So we started the Glenn Doherty Memorial Foundation to help special operators and their families transition out of active duty to civilian life, primarily through scholarship.
And it was, it was awesome. And all of a sudden we were able to channel that energy into helping others. And we got involved in fundraising and we got charity bibs to the Boston Marathon. And we were raising money in Glenn's memory and Glenn's honor to help others.
And Glenn was that guy. He stood for self-improvement. He was always helping others. And we were right there to do that. And that was super healing for me, for his family, for his friends to channel that grief energy into a positive outlet.
And you know, they, that is an old expression that you try and find brightness from obscurity. This was the brightness was honoring Glenn's memory. Glenn didn't want you to cry and be sad for him that he was gone. He wanted you to throw an epic party.
And I did, by the way, we threw an epic party in San Diego in his honor.
But that's who he was. So the foundation was a way to honor that. And, you know, fast forward several years, there's a movie, 13 hours that came out. There was a congressional hearing that came out. There was all this stuff that happened.
And then eventually all that popularity started to wane. You know, it wasn't in the news cycle. Hillary Clinton got her wrist slapped pretty hard as well deserved.
I could go on for that, but I'm not going to. And, you know, the congressional hearing really afforded me a chance to share Glenn's story and legacy.
The foundation was up and running. And then, you know, I got married and things started to wind down a little bit. But, you know, we're still involved in sharing Glenn's story most every day.
And that's when the idea for Bubs came about.
And it was an accident. It was not something that was strategic or sought after. It was just one of those happy occurrences.
In early 2017, my wife bought me a jar of collagen protein. It's a supplement. It's a thing. I didn't even know what it was. She just bought it for me. She said, hey, you're not getting any younger.
And I need to preserve your old ass. We're having kids now. And, you know, at the time I was 45 years old. She's like, you're getting up there. We got to preserve you.
Sounds like what my wife tells me. She's six years younger.
There you go. Yeah. And when you got a decade on your wife, you want to listen to her.
Exactly.
So I start taking this thing, this collagen. I said, just put it in your coffee and let me know what you think.
And I put a scoop in, I drink my coffee, put a scoop in, drink my coffee. And I do this for a little less than a month.
And around that time, I noticed my fingernails are growing like crazy. And I'm like, okay, I used to take supplements with Glenn.
We used to try BCAAs and creatine and whey proteins and hydration formulas, all the things. Right.
But I could never really say that anything worked.
This worked. It was doing something physical to my body that was measurable. Fingernails. My hair started growing. I needed a haircut.
I had just gotten a haircut. So I'm like, I'm getting these data points that are saying that this product is doing something to me.
Well, about two months into it, the reason I had started taking the product from my wife wasn't for any of those cosmetic benefits.
It was for my joints. My knees from all the years of snowboarding sounded like wrinkled up newspaper walking up a flight of stairs.
So she's like, you really need this for the joints. Well, it turns out that collagen is amazing for joint health and joint support.
About two months of taking the product, my knees stopped hurting. Now, that is a huge statement coming from me.
My knees hurt every day. And all of a sudden, one day I pop out of bed and my knees don't hurt.
It was like an epiphany moment to be like, holy shit, nothing hurts. What the hell is in this stuff?
Fast forward a little bit later and my buddy TJ comes over to the house and TJ and I had done a couple of work consulting projects together.
And he came over to the house. We're shooting the shit. And he sees the jar of collagen on the counter.
And he's like, oh, you take that stuff. And I just start raving. I'm like, James, it's like I'm talking to you about it. I'm like, it's the best ever.
I'm running faster. I'm squatting again. I'm back in the gym. Like I'm hitting PRs. Like this stuff changed my life.
I feel like I'm 30 years old. And he looks at me and he's like, cool. Well, let's start a company.
And I'm like, yeah, right, man. Like, what does that look like?
And he goes, we're going to start a company. And he's like, what would it look like? We go, all right.
Well, we look at each other and we both say at the exact same time, well, whatever we do, we got to do something cool for charity.
And I was like, a little light bulb went off in my head. I'm like, holy shit. Well, I know the charity. It's got to be Glenn's charity.
And this is exactly the kind of product that Glenn would have taken if you were alive. It stands for self-improvement, just like Glenn did.
So we're like, write that in there. We go, all right, we'll start this company. We'll give 10% of profits to charities in Glenn's name, to Glenn's charity.
And Glenn's call sign in the Navy was Bub. So we'll name the company Bub's Naturals as a tribute to Glenn and his way of life.
A company that stands for self-improvement in all of our products and is always donating what it can to charitable cause. Fuck yeah.
And then we're like, do you think anyone's going to care? I don't know. Let's go find out. So we called Glenn's family. We called his teammates from the Navy.
I remember talking to Mike Rilland about it. And I remember he was one of the guys who said, Glenn would kick your ass if you don't do this. You got to do it.
So, you know, we bootstrapped our way into starting a company. We learned about what was in collagen, who made the best collagen, how do we put the best product on the market, like the absolute pinnacle of purity.
And we set out to educate ourselves on that space. Here we are four years later. And it does seem that the world does care about a brand trying to do things a little bit different.
It's, I mean, it's incredible. I want to get into not only Bob's, but also I was taking it before we ever connected.
We were connected through a kind of intermediary, you know, company, but I 100% contribute that to or attribute that to Jeff Nichols.
So Jeff is a big, you know, Thorne advocate as well. I use Thorne. They're actually one of the sponsors of the show. I love those guys.
Thorne is like to me is one of the epitomes of how a company should be run when it comes to purity and integrity and authenticity.
I never knew who they were before starting Bob's. I met them through Bob's. And then when I learned the backstory of their brand and like why it's called Thorne, I was like, these guys are great.
We're on the same wavelength. Yeah, well, exactly.
But what was so great about Jeff, because he does not mince his words, is he took a lot of the glucosamine and the joint health supplements and, you know, he raves about Thorne's creatine and protein and all the other amazing things that they have, the multivitamin.
But when he started taking Bob's, he was blown away that the first time, as you said, measurably, he truly noticed the difference in his joints with the collagen.
So, you know, that is amazing. And then I've been using it myself and seen the same thing.
But before we get into the collagen world, I think it's important to educate people on, you know, the hows and the whys.
I would just love to, if it's okay with you, to highlight, you know, Glenn and his team, the heroism, like what they were called to do, the numbers that they ended up facing,
and taking the politicizing bullshit out of it for a second in an ideal world, what should have happened so Glenn's team were able to return home that day?
Well, so let's start with the last question. I'll backfill it in a little bit.
What should have happened is that they received a level of air support that would have lent itself to a successful extract of all those American lives. So there's about 28 Americans and foreign aides that were, you know, pinned down.
I'm going to give you an approximate number. I believe it was close to 30. I'll call it 28.
What didn't happen is the receiving of that support. And there were assets that I've been, you know, talked about a fair bit that were within striking distance in the Mediterranean that could have been there within time to offer that aid.
In theory, Glenn never should have had to go down there, because that aid would have been offered. Glenn's team wouldn't have had to go down there.
So again, informally, I don't have security clearance, but I'll tell you what happened. And that movie 13 hours, by the way, isn't that horrible in terms of just like a cliff notes version of the shit that went down.
But the guys in Benghazi, when the attack happened, right, the attack never should have happened. There's a whole set of reasons why that attack shouldn't have happened.
That consulate should have had the right guards and armaments to protect themselves so that they never would have been subject to an attack like that. That's what should have happened.
And there are countless requests that are a matter of public record of the requests for financial aid to build up those properties all around the world so that they wouldn't be subject to those attacks.
Now that's State Department stuff. That's the company I almost went to work for.
Then there's Glenn's role. Remember, Glenn doesn't work for the Department of State. Glenn works for the Central Intelligence Agency. Completely different groups. They're not communicating great. They're in different lanes.
The same town, but different lanes. It's like they both know they're there, but they're not buddy-buddy. Glenn's up in Tripoli.
So the CIA guys realized that everything is FUBAR down at the State Department complex, and they need to get in there and help them. But they're being told not to. That whole stand down thing is real.
They're like, hey, you protect you. They got to protect themselves. Like, no, no, no. Fuck that. We're all Americans here. We're going to go do the right thing. So I'm very happy for the team that was stationed in Benghazi to have done what they did to save all those lives.
Glenn, for his part, was bouncing off the fucking walls in Tripoli trying to get down there because that was Glenn. Glenn rushed into the fight.
He wanted to rush in to be with his friends, to do the right thing, to save them. That's what he had trained for. Not only that, that's who Glenn was. If you were in danger and you were Glenn's friend, he would be there for you.
This is the ultimate expression of that. Glenn and I would joke that he'd be the one that a friend would call to move the couch up two stories, and he'd be like, fuck, why me? God, I fucking hate this. But he'd always show up, and he'd always do. He's the most dependable friend.
Well, professionally, he was the most dependable to get down there. When the chips were in, he was there. So he was in Tripoli, and they had to secure a plane. And this is going to go into a little bit of the land of urban legend, but I love telling this because this was what was relayed to me, and I could never prove it or disprove it.
But as I understand it, and this is also due to the time of day, Glenn and his team were basically breaking orders trying to find a plane to charter to get from Tripoli down to Benghazi.
Now, the attack is happening. It's in full swing. Glenn calls his bank to see if they can wire like $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 out of his savings account into some account in Tripoli to pay off some sheik so that he can charter his plane.
That is how bad he was trying to fight through the red tape to get an airplane to get him down to that airport in Benghazi from Tripoli. Well, the CIA chief, whoever the guy was in charge, they end up finding a plane, and they end up being able to get on that plane.
And this is Glenn. There's a couple guys from Delta Force. There's another private security agent, I think it was four or five of them, a translator, that were able to get down to Benghazi.
But the adventure that it took for him to get down to Benghazi, it's not covered in the movie, but that was part of the real adventure was that guy was ready to move fucking mountains to join the fight, to save his friends, to be on that rooftop with Tyrone Woods and the others.
And he ended up on an airplane for three hours. As I understand it, it was a very nice airplane, like one of those like G8 or some G whatevers. And apparently he was like, got his Blackberry out and he's snapping photos of like him on the plane like, like, we're in a luxury plane.
I'm flying, I'm flying private. I never saw the photos, but I love that guys told me about it.
That's also Glenn. He's flying into the danger, but he's making light. He's cracking wise. He's keeping brevity in the moment because he knows the severity of what is about to happen.
And he lands in Benghazi. There's that all back and forth of the different militias. And he eventually gets the CIA annex.
And he shows up. He goes directly inside and administers first aid to those that need it. Like he's the medic.
And he patches some people up and without missing a beat, he's on that rooftop next to Tyrone. And this is definitely glorified in the movie that these two guys and the others on the other security towers are up against over a hundred different militia members.
Like there is a wave and wave. And as I understand it, before those mortars started to strike and ultimately hit the rooftop that Glenn and Tyrone were on, they gave it well to the others.
They, you know, I, as I understand it, I knew Glenn was a hell of a shot. He took down some bad guys before that mortar hit. And, you know, there were three mortar strikes and one went long.
One went short and that's called triangulation. And the third one hit. And before that third one hit, I like to think that Glenn took care of a lot of bad guys.
And, you know, that third one hit and Glenn and Ty were killed.
They were killed and 28 Americans lived.
That gesture of friendship, that gesture of patriotism, that gesture of the ultimate sacrifice happened to my brother, my best friend.
And I'm proud to be able to share those stories and continue to be a voice for doing the right thing, for living beyond yourself, for service, whatever that looks like to you.
And just to share what an epic kick-ass human my buddy was.
Well, again, I want to thank you for sharing that. And then we get such a two-dimensional report when things like this happen, you know, and it becomes like anything, you know, the pulse, Sandy Hook, whatever.
Immediately they're pulled into pro-gun, anti-gun, you know, you name it. And the actual story of the human beings on the ground is lost in the white noise.
So to hear your story, Glenn's story, the parallel, the crossover, the ultimate heroism that he and Ty showed in saving so many lives and fighting to the end and running towards the bullets when everyone else is running away needs to be heard.
So thank you firstly just for sharing the story.
Thank you. Yeah.
You know, and obviously like I, it's been nine years and parts of that still get me like that memorial in Winchester.
Like, it's an emotional thing to revisit and to go through. And it's also worth celebrating. And that's, you know, that's key in all of this. So yeah, you know, I've gone through major traumatic loss twice.
I had a different call to action each time.
And, you know, it's, it's definitely a surreal experience to start a company and just to start a company. It's another one to start a company in the memory of your best friend and his legacy and memory.
And it just feels right. You know, it's felt right to celebrate what he stood for, to inspire others into better living, better health, better wellness and knowing that we're able to help others along the way, man. Like that's the juice worth squeezing.
That's the good stuff.
Absolutely. Well, that altruistic business model, I love social, I think it's social business, I think is the term, but you know, take it because it's 10% isn't it of every sale goes back into the charitable.
Have I got that right? 10% of profits. And that's an important distinction. So we've given a little over $125,000 to charitable cause about 115,000 of that has gone directly to the Glenn Doherty Memorial Foundation.
We're not profitable.
We're growing so like you're investing everything back in the growth of the company, but we just are hell bent on finding ways to help others and and obviously in scaling this so that you are profitable and you can grow and give even more.
That's the magic. But yeah, no, we're committed to giving and we've given more than we should in terms of being fiscally responsible, but you know, that's part of the magic and part of the lessons you learn along the way.
Absolutely. Well, I love that though, you know, cause then you're one of your motivations, of course, you know, building a business and making money, but also the bigger your business is, the more money you make for that social purpose.
So it's a win-win and it blows my mind that more, I guess it doesn't blow my mind because I see how a lot of consumerism is, but I think that model should be embraced by more people because then a lot of, you know, the people behind it, the people that that are actually working in the business itself know that there's something bigger than just the profit margin.
You know, when they come to work every day.
You got it. Yeah. Hands down. And it's a big driver for us. And it just, yeah, again, it's a feel good moments. It's knowing that you're contributing to someone else doing, just doing, making change in their lives.
And it could be the person that buys the product that says, Hey, my knees stopped hurting and I'm a plumber and I've been working for, you know, 30 years and I just discovered this stuff and I can work better.
It's the mom that says, you know, she had some GI issues and they've gone away and how grateful she is to have discovered something that can be a part of her life.
It's a scholarship that you know was received and you get a personal note from one of those recipients saying, thank you because what you're doing is allowing me to do what I'm doing.
It's all that. Absolutely. I wouldn't trade it. It's good stuff.
Well, I'm on a wellness journey right now. I transitioned out the fire service. I brought a lot of injuries with me between that, the stunt work I did, martial arts.
And so I'm sure you had the same when you get to your late 40s. You're like, all right, how do I unfuck myself from all the things I did in my 20s and 30s?
And one of the big things I had meniscus tears on both knees. I've been just starting doing Ben Patrick's knees over toes workouts.
And but at the same time, as of about probably a couple months ago now, I started taking the collagen, your collagen.
And I have been noticing the things you talked about, the strengthening of the nails and the hair.
But also, you know, there is an improvement in joints where I was taking some of the joint supplements before.
And as Jeff pointed to, not really seeing much of anything.
So what I'd love to do first is reverse engineer. What is it about the diet in 2021 that sees us maybe lacking in collagen?
And then let's talk about all the different areas of the body that you've discovered collagen actually helps.
Yeah. So so think of the American diet like you can't you're hard pressed to naturally find in nature today in a traditional Western diet,
access to the proteins that are going to benefit college and production in your body. I'm sorry.
You can do a great red meat diet. You can do you can find your different proteins and livers and organ meats.
And you're going to do OK, but you're not going to get the level of collagen that used to be in nature probably years ago.
But then again, the life expectancy was quite a bit shorter back then.
So supplementing with collagen and adding to collagen is key.
Now, now let me let me give that some context. Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body.
You have more collagen in your body than any other protein. So James, literally when you think of your body, muscle, skin, hair, joints, bones, your intestines, all collagen.
So this very abundant protein in your body naturally stops being produced in your 20s.
Well, you don't think about that because as a teenager, you're just full of piss and vinegar and you can do no wrong. And your 20s are largely the same.
But that's when it starts to decrease. So your collagen production is going through the roof and all of a sudden they get a little bit less of it every single year.
So the 30s, little aches and pains show up in your 40s.
The real aches and pains show up. And if you're active, you're a firefighter, you're practicing martial arts, you're training in the gym, you're living a full active lifestyle.
Man, the wear and tear just starts to pile up and you don't want to surrender to that.
But you do, or a lot of people do. So looking into your diet, looking into your nutrition is one of the ways.
It's not a biohack. It's called living that you just want to get into so that you can keep maintaining a high level of activity.
So collagen is very new to the market. It's new to the Western diet.
Like it used to be in topical creams and it was promoted for like, you know, voluptuous skin. That was kind of its beauty marketing.
Well, that was really just gelatin. So jello is a type of collagen, right?
It's from the bone. It's from the bone marrow. It's congeals. So think of what gelatin does in water.
Like if you pour jello into water, it congeals. That's what collagen does to your body. It's a glue.
It holds your body together. Skin is tighter. Fingernails are stronger. Your connective tissue is more supported.
Your bones are denser. Your intestines are protected and fortified. Your joints move better.
They're cushioned better. All of those things are tied into collagen production.
So when you supplement with collagen that is now commercially available and it's available either through bone,
which is kind of a lower grade form of collagen or the hide of the animal, again, connective tissue,
that's where you can start to supplement and really see these benefits. So you put two to three scoops of collagen a day, you know, 20, 30, 40 grams of collagen per day.
You're helping to offset those aging effects. And that's what you're experiencing now a couple months in on this journey.
Your fingernails are growing like crazy. Your hair is a little bit fuller and your joints start moving better.
So let's talk about the joints. My favorite example, because I think it's the most functional to talk about, even if you don't have joint discomfort.
There's this little thing called synovial fluid. Synovial fluid is in all of our joints. It helps us move. You know, you stay flexy and bendy.
Well, synovial fluid production wanes because that is a byproduct of an amino acid called glycine.
A good quality collagen is loaded with glycine. Glycine produces synovial fluid.
The more synovial fluid you have, the more your joints are cushioned and the more comfortable and the better bendy flexy that they are.
You can just move better. Well, our collagen is loaded with glycine. Awesome.
It's also loaded with a bunch of these other essential amino acids. And those amino acids each form a role in your connective tissue health.
You know, whether it's glutamine, proline, you know, glycine is my go to. Also helps with sleep. Like, cool.
There's some magic and it's so simple. All collagen is, our collagen, it's a fancy ground up cowhide.
There's nothing, you know, sexy about it. It's actually what's amazing about it is the simplicity and purity of what the ingredient is.
And our job is to make it the best in terms of flavor, solubility, performance, and then take that out to you and to everyone else and to get it independently tested and certified for quality.
So that's why Jeff Nichols kind of like discovered us was we're NSF certified for sport. We're the only brand that I know of that takes all of its collagen, every single piece of it and certifies it as NSF for sport.
We're also one of two brands that has the Whole30 approved mark on our packaging.
And that's a big clean eating diet protocol that is massively important. It's a big reset diet to help you with inflammation and to really educate yourself about what foods work for you and which ones don't.
So we got both. No one else has got both. I love that. Some of them have one, but they don't have the other. And that's how we wanted to go to market.
I wanted Bubbs Naturals to stand for the absolute pinnacle in terms of quality. We're not charging more because we are the best. We just wanted to put the best out there and make it discoverable to people so that when they're making that purchase choice, they don't lean towards the bottom of the barrel on Amazon and get a product that they don't love.
Because if you don't love it, you won't take it and you won't adapt it and you'll never get those health benefits from it. But if I can make a truly great product that you like taking, that you can adapt into your daily routine to where you finally get to the point now where you see those benefits, man, you're in for life.
We got you. Like you're on board. You're part of the Bubbs family and it just gets better and better and better.
Yeah, well, it's amazing, like I said, to have tried other things and to have the positive placebo effect where you have an expectation for it to work. You're not waiting for it to fail. But a lot of these other ones really didn't.
And I've had issues, especially with my knees, for years and years. So seeing this and again, being 47, I've always had very dry skin. I mean, even the skin side, we don't, as men, want to lose our hair. We don't want to have nails that flake off.
So there's that element too. But there's probably no one listening that's in the tactical space that doesn't have aches and pains in some areas. And the mobility is going to help and nutrition is going to help.
But when I look, for example, at my protein consumption, when I do have a steak or chicken, I'm like a surgeon. If there's a piece of sinew, a piece of fat, that fucking thing is off.
Like I'm so anal about that, not because of the fat content, just because I was a son of a vet and my dad would bring god knows what, roadkill and throw it in a stew.
So I think it just scarred me for life. So I don't get naturally, like you said, I'm fully aware that I don't get a lot of stuff. I don't eat a lot of the awful meats. So the common sense element resonates with me.
But then the actual products, and again, I only shout from rooftops about things that I truly have used and believe in. Here you've got this cowhide. You're like, well, that's got to be disgusting.
I put it in with my Thorne protein shake and both products end up being incredibly smooth. I was on a cruise, so I couldn't do my protein. So I put it in orange juice and mixed it up.
So that's what's crazy too, is you have this ground up cowhide, yet it is, like you said, it kind of blends in with whatever you've got.
So you don't feel like you're having to take medicine or anything. And it's not overly sweetened like some of these supplements are.
But as far as bang for the buck, as far as knowing that you're actually doing something good in the world with it, I mean, I was absolutely amazed.
And like I said, I've used supplements on and off for a long time. I've been exposed to Thorne and seen how great a lot of their products are.
So I had a good baseline and I totally understand why Jeff raves about it because I saw the same thing in myself.
Yeah, you know, it's funny when I first met Jeff, it was after he had gone on Instagram and announced on Instagram that he had bought two jars of collagen protein.
He bought vital proteins and bubs naturals. And he said, I'm going to test these two and I'm going to come back to you in a month and tell you which one's legit and which one sucks.
You know, something very blunt the way he delivers that message. And I remember TJ and I talked and I like TJ, did you give Jeff Nichols bubs?
He's like, no, did you? I'm like, no. We're like, oh shit, what's going to happen?
Like we didn't know he found us, you know, random organic, bought the product, tested it.
And then we tuned in when he like the big unveiling. I'd never spoken to him.
I had no idea who this guy was other than what his presence was on Instagram. And then he rolls it out and he says, I choose bubs.
And he's like, this is why you talked about our amino acid profile, the flavor, the solubility.
And I reached out to him after that. I wrote an email and I was like, hey, we're the bubs guys. You want to talk?
And it was great. He was like, yeah, you guys got great shit. Appreciate it.
And he was like, you know, I found you guys. I tested it out. He's like, you're no bullshit. You pass the test.
He's like the day your stuff sucks. I'm out. You got to prove it every day.
And I'm like, I freaking love that mentality. And he's a fantastic guy to have in the fold and bounce ideas off of and share things with.
And you get an unfiltered, honest conversation every time. And I couldn't be more happy to have that.
But, you know, quality is key. You know, if you want someone to stick with you, you better deliver the goods.
Thorn does that incredibly well. We strive to do that in everything we do.
Just deliver and continue to deliver and deliver those health results because that's really, that's the magic.
Absolutely. Well, I haven't tried the MCT yet. Is it MCT? Have I got that right?
Yeah. MCT oil powder. So effectively it's a consider it like your favorite non dairy creamers. We take an MCT oil, which is a great medium chain triglycerides, a healthy fat source.
And you throw it into tapioca starch. So it's a powder. And then you use it in place of dairy as a creamer in your coffee.
It's got a little coconutty flavor to it. And what it really does is deliver healthy fats.
So your body is using those healthy fats for energy. So not like sugar where you spike and crash, think energy for hours.
Then you also use it, your brain uses. So the MCT is passed through the blood brain barrier and your brain eats those for food.
So you get this great mental focus. So you get this great cognitive function behind it and a sustained amount of energy.
So I swear by MCT oil every day in my coffee. It just gives you that little, just a little extra gear.
Brilliant. So I've got to try that. What I have been trying though is the apple cider vinegar gummies.
And I again had another brand that my wife has taken before. So I had something to compare it to.
But yeah, I mean, it's another great tasting product again. It's coming from the same mission, the same background.
So talk to me about the health benefits of that.
So, you know, apple cider vinegar has been used for ages. And the thing about primarily is like immune support.
Like why do you use vinegar? You're killing bacteria. You're killing things off.
Like you're getting rid of the bad stuff. So that's definitely an essential component to why you would take apple cider vinegar.
It also promotes a good clean energy, which is everyone can use a little bit more even on top of the MCT because it's not a spike energy.
But also think about your metabolism and how you're digesting food. So it's really satiating.
So if you're say on the middle of your day and you haven't had lunch yet or you're going to you sort of have this this window between lunch and dinner.
And when you're like just famished, very satiating. So it allows you to play through. It's good for the metabolism.
But all of that, it also has a little bit of prebiotic fibers in it. So you get a little bit of digestive aid as well.
So it's just a good keep the body tuned up kind of thing to have. And you pop two, three, four of those a day.
We may or may not go through half a bottle sometimes when you're really grinding it out and you're doing the body right.
Beautiful. Well, I mean, it's been such a great conversation to hear the full back story up to where Bubs was created and the health benefits of the products.
And again, I can attest as a reason why I reach out to people and when even though there was an intermediary that reached out and connected us, I said I already had your powder sitting on my fridge.
So I'm like, yeah. And then when I learn more about the story behind it, because I just knew it was called Bubs, I'm like, well, fuck it.
Now we're definitely doing this. So I appreciate that. If you've got time, I'd just love to throw a few closing questions at you.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's let them rip.
Brilliant. OK, so the first one I love to ask, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
So there was a book I read, there's two books I read that I found to be fascinating.
One has got absolutely nothing to do with anything we're talking about today. It's called Moneyball.
And what I enjoyed about Moneyball was it really educated me to get out of my gut thinking and look at analytics to make good decisions.
I found that book fascinating as to unlock some future decision making things.
There's also a book that I've read and I read kind of funny enough, not through Glenn, but as a way to kind of understand a little bit around his life called The Things They Carry.
And I recommend that book to anyone. Just really start strong language.
There's a book I've read recently that I've reread and I don't reread a lot of books.
And this is definitely would fall into the kind of self-help book.
But it's a great educational book by a guy named Dr. Doug Brackman called Driven.
And Driven is a fascinating book in terms of just understanding your own psyche, your propensity for self-sabotage and kind of road mapping your way into being as constructive with your time as you can.
The most recent book that I read was a little bit of an offshoot of Driven called The Four Agreements.
I also recommend that one and I'm not throwing enough fiction out there. I threw a couple. So we'll leave it at that.
It's funny. The Four Agreements. I've had it mentioned multiple times, but I swear almost every guest, the last 10 interviews that I've done have all mentioned that book.
I just wrapped it up. And I mean, it's so simple. It's so concise, but yet it's incredibly hard to do some of the things in it. But you got to do it.
Absolutely. Yeah, I think it was when I was talking to one of the other guests. I'm sure I own it.
So I've got to go through this monstrous bookshelf behind me and see if I can find it. But yeah, I mean, if I haven't, I need to buy it for Christmas. So thank you for that.
All right. Well, the same kind of question. What about a movie and or documentary that you love?
Oh, all right. So I just finished watching Dear Rider documentary. It's the Burton story.
It's about Jake Burton, Carpenter and his journey. And I found that as a person who's been in the culture and sport, very, very inspiring. It goes well beyond snowboarding.
And I highly encourage people to watch that documentary. You know, there's a shoot. What was the Red Bull documentary that was done on that climber?
That the first ascent. You're talking about Alex Honnold? Free Solo. Yes. Yeah. That would be another one that's kind of like it's funny.
I call it kind of like not see your parents, but definitely it helps you put yourself in a very uncomfortable place. And if you can watch something like that, that makes you uncomfortable.
I find that to be to be really entertaining. I can't go without mentioning what's called The Usual Suspects was an old 90s movie that was just a classic kind of who done it, especially because there's a famous Hungarian character in it.
That's just like cult classic great shit there. And of course, I was raised on Star Wars. So, you know, can do no wrong there. Now, have you seen a film called The Alpinist?
TJ just watched The Alpinist and he was like, you think Free Solo is good? He's like, that's like kindergarten. Go watch The Alpinist and like really shit your pants.
I think it was Rachel who, was it Rachel? I think it was Rachel Vickery who recommended it. And she said, this guy is the guy who is Alex Honnold's hero. Like he's blown away.
And it's, I can't say anything really about it because it's such a journey. It would be an absolute tragedy to mention any part other than just just watch it. If you enjoyed Free Solo, you will absolutely love The Alpinist as well.
And it's extremely powerful. I'm so psyched you mentioned it because I can't recommend it because I haven't seen it. It just got recommended to me with the ultimate enthusiasm.
But yeah, that's a range of like kind of recent documentaries that, you know, I've tuned into. And of course, you know, a couple feature films that, you know, that are pretty good stuff.
I have a three year old and a five year old now. So the last movie I watched was Paw Patrol the movie. So, you know, I'm not a good resource right now for more recent content.
Brilliant. All right. Well then speaking of all the incredible people that you've worked with and know, is there a person or are there any people that you'd recommend as a guest to come on this podcast and speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm going to say you get Clint on here. 100 Deadly Skills. Not only well spoken, but his story is phenomenal. He's been on his book. Okay, sorry. Yeah, I've had Clint and Mike on the show already.
Well, those were my two. I'm going to give you a third one, but it's only if you can handle a ton of F bombs.
Well, I have to pull them back myself. So, yeah. So Shane Hyatt. Shane Hyatt was a Navy SEAL team three. I think he served 16, 17 years. He is a no bullshit individuals like born and raised New Mexico.
Like a fascinating guy. I think he got his college degree in philosophy, which means he can argue like a motherfucker and incredibly imposing physical presence like big strong wide guy mouth like a sailor talks endless amounts of crap, but incredibly articulate smart.
He makes custom knives for a living now, but he was in that same platoon with Mike and Clint and Glenn. I would say you, you could do. You'd be doing yourself a solid by talking with him.
What's the name of his knife company? Is it half?
No, half face blades is a local San Diego company. Shane owns SH nine edge works. Okay. So, sh like, you know, Shane Hyatt, the number nine edge works and he just makes some amazing blades. I mean, he's got some really kick ass skill sets there.
And the adventures of his life and where he's gone and the things he's done along the way are pretty epic. And I definitely count him as a very close friend and a great person to have on the podcast.
And there's, I'm going to rattle off more names that you would say, oh, they've already been a guest. They've already been. If you haven't had Shane on, I'm going to just lock in on Shane.
Beautiful. And what about Sean? Why is he someone that's accessible? Because I mean, seeing the kind of, I guess, courage and transparency that he brought to weight of gold and the other athletes to all of them on that.
He seems like you'd be an amazing person to talk to. But if it was someone that was down to earth and accessible, because I get that a lot of people.
He's tricky. I mean, he's he kind of like lives in kind of a rock star place. Like I see him here locally in Encinitas when he comes down to visit his mom, his dad and stuff like when he's when he's here.
I don't see him that often. But get him through the Olympic season. Remember, we're going into a winter Olympics right now. He's in the middle of trying to make the team. So he's like, he's always on that.
Focus. Yeah. Yeah. Get him through that. And then and then, you know, you'll you'll get better access. So aim for that one come spring. Reach out to me. Young buddies with his coach and his agencies and stuff.
It's just a matter of scheduling because he's he runs a pretty busy one.
Beautiful. I appreciate that. All right. Well, then the very last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find you, where to find bubs. What do you do to decompress?
I meditate every day. And and that is a super key thing. I practice an active type of meditation that I learned from that book driven and I have applied it in my life for the last five years.
I can't believe I didn't know about this before. I wish I had. And that is one of the fundamentals that I do every day. That allows me to really greet the day and engage in whatever is going to happen with the best possible mindset and kind of solution
oriented approach. It's a level of open curiosity to problem solving instead of emotional reaction. So I like to say the meditation allows you to respond to situations, not to react to situations and fitness.
Fitness is the best physical expression of cleaning the mental slate. I don't care what you have going on in the world and what's troubling you. You get after it in the gym. You are going to approach those problems with a better mindset or be better and more present with your wife and your children and your family and your loved ones and your friends and all the things.
You're just you're more there. You're locked in. And you know you have to take time for yourself to you know you can't help others if you haven't helped yourself. That's a common expression. You go on an airplane. They say put your mask on yourself before helping others. That's real.
And you know there's a lot of buckets in life that you have to feed and you have to fill those buckets constantly. But if you ignore a bucket, that bucket is going to suffer. Friends, family, finance, fitness, fun, faith. These are all buckets that you have to service.
And I just try and be conscious of that and make sure that hey if I haven't had fun in a while, I better go first surf. I better go I better go get on a snowboard and strap in. If I'm not being great at home, if I'm not being as present, I better invest there.
Got to make sure the finance works. Got to make sure the work element is in tune. You know you have to constantly service these areas. And I think we do ourselves a disservice by overly focusing on one. If I'm just at the gym every day, I'm probably not making much money.
And I might look good naked but that's not going to help with these other areas. So you got to allocate your time. Be smart about it.
Beautiful. I appreciate that. Yeah. You reminded me of CrossFit as well. Just as a tangent quickly, did you and Glenn both work with the SealFit team for a while? Mark Devine?
Yeah. Yeah. So we both worked for Mark. So we joined the gym in 2008. I was like the head of sports marketing at DC shoes. Glenn had just gotten out of the Navy. We both were living up here in North County. Glenn's like, Sean, I found gym in Encinitas. It's like right down the street from where we live. It's owned by a Navy Seal. It was Mark Devine.
He's like, he needs me at his gym. He needs a Navy Seal at his gym. So I'll never forget like we roll in there and Glenn's just walking around the joint like he owns. And he's like, he's like, hey, I'm here. Let's go. Let's work out. And I was kind of like, I'm with that guy.
And next thing you know, we're both members at the gym and a year goes by and Mark Devine and we all become friends. It's a very intimate community. CrossFit gyms that are well run are great community drivers. And Mark, we all just became fast friends.
And I remember about a year into 2009 Mark's like, Sean, you've been a member at this gym for a year and you've never paid a dime. I got to get my money out of you somehow. So I want you to go and take your level one CrossFit certification and become a coach.
And Glenn was already coaching at the gym because he knew so much about fitness anyways. So I'm like, okay, I'll go do my level one. I'll become a CrossFit coach. And I started coaching at the gym while I was doing my day job. I just coached like the morning classes before going into work.
Absolutely loved it. But yeah, for several years, right till the very end, Glenn and I both coached at SealFit. We both coached the Kokoro camps. So those immersive camps to take people through the SealFit experience. We both shared in that.
It was a fantastic experience. I went through the camp. I was 39 years old. I went through it and got that kind of hell week simulated experience. And then on the back end of that, I was invited to coach it and be a part of it.
And that's really where I started to unlock a lot of those that the potential that's behind the training, what Mark offers in his unbeatable mind programming and what he offered at that time when the gym was alive.
It was fantastic. You just saw people changing their lives right around you and really tapping into their potential. And it was awesome to be a part of that community for years.
That's amazing. One of my friends from my gym just went through Kokoro literally like two weeks ago, and he had a blast. He loved it. He made it through. But I had Mark. And Mark was actually probably one of my earliest guests, probably around episode 40-ish, if I'm guessing.
But yeah, amazing. Some of the programming for the SealFit versus CrossFit. I'm like, there seems to be a zero here. Is there supposed to be an extra zero? 100 rope climbs, are you sure?
Oh yeah. When he's like, we're going to do a thousand push-ups, I'm like, excuse me? A thousand. How are we going to do it? How are we going to problem solve this? How are we going to get through this?
And we used to do that stuff all the time. It was great. We called them these operator workouts, and then there'd be these monthly challenges. And it was like, you're going to do 100 rope climbs for time.
How fast can you do 100 rope climbs all the way up 15 feet, touch the ceiling, back down? And it gets real slippery and dangerous there around 80, 90. And you just got to make it to 100.
And here, you know, and physically got to make the mental and physical stuff work for you. It was a fantastic experience.
Yeah. I took that from the internet. I did that very workout, but I was at the fire station and I had a rope that I strung up from a tree that had to take down in case people thought it was some sort of racist symbol.
But I would climb it, but it was my shins. Doing the wrap, you know, I just tore the hell out. So it wasn't so much the muscle fatigue, but it was a point where I was just bleeding the lower of my uniform. I'm like, okay, I probably need to stop this now.
Long pants and tall socks, my friend. Eventually, duct tape. You just duct tape it up so your shins don't tear apart. I had so many skin marks on my shins. I remember doing a bunch of rope climbs, tearing up my shins. I had to go snowboarding.
Like three days later and it was just this giant raspberry and I'm like, okay, this is where my fitness is impeding on my fun.
There's the buckets. One bucket's a little too full.
Exactly. Like great stuff. Yeah. Mark Devine is an absolute legend and the training that he has and the amount of people that he's coached into a better, more productive life is inspiring. It's awesome.
Absolutely. Well, so I'm sure people listening, we've been through so many amazing different areas here from Hungary to Benghazi and everywhere in between. Where can people find Bubbs Naturals and then where can they reach out to you, follow you specifically online?
Yeah. So all of our social handles for Bubbs Naturals and our website is just that. It's bubsnaturals.com for our website. B-U-B-S-N-A-T-U-R-A-L-S.com. And then our social handles for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all the things is at bubsnaturals.
And then I'm out there just at SLACO, S-L-A-K-E-O. You know, we do fun things with the brand on Instagram. We host Instagram Lives every couple of weeks. I had Jeff Nichols on as a guest.
As you scroll back a couple of months, he's on there. We have this great conversation about comic books and skateboarding and all the fun stuff. But yeah, those are our social handles. That's where you find us, Bubbs Naturals.
And yeah, I mean, for anyone out there who wants to take that journey, try us out. Give it a shot. You're not going to go wrong. You're going to help yourself and you're going to help someone else along the way.
Beautiful. Well, Sean, I just want to say thank you. I mean, one thing I always say when someone recounts a story that takes them to a place that hurts is, you know, I understand that that takes a little piece, but I mean, the value that telling that story has and the ripple effect.
And also honoring Glenn's legacy is so powerful. So for you to go down that road and kind of relive that moment and tell us his incredible story. And then, like I said, the inception of the company, I just truly, truly appreciate you being so so generous and vulnerable in this conversation.
Thanks, man. You know, you never know where these conversations are going to lead when you start them. And it's been an absolute pleasure because, yeah, you got me to go down some memories that I haven't visited in a while.
And I'm absolutely grateful to be able to re-experience those and share those with you and hear about some of your past as well. So thank you, James.