Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Geering, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome on the show Navy
SEAL veteran, Echelon Front leadership instructor,
and the founder of Primal Beef, Sean Glass. Now,
in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics
from his unique journey into the military, notable
deployments, the Afghanistan withdrawal, the
industrial military complex. sleep and performance,
regenerative farming, and so much more. Now,
before we get to this incredible conversation,
as I say every week, please just take a moment,
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Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
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So that being said, I introduce to you, Sean...
Glass. Enjoy. Well, Sean, I want to start by
saying two things. Firstly, thank you to Jason
Gardner, who for the second time brought me along
to the Echelon Front in Orlando. And secondly,
I want to welcome you on to the Behind the Shield
podcast today. I appreciate that. Jason is a
good friend of mine, mentor of mine. I joke around
that he has been babysitting me for a long time,
both in and out of the SEAL team. So he's a good
man and I'm glad he brought us together and I
appreciate the opportunity to spend some time
with you. Yeah, likewise. Well, very first question
then, where on planet Earth are we finding you
this afternoon? Okay, well, right now I'm in
my office, which is in our... pole barn which
is on our farm in virginia so my family and i
have a uh about a 60 acre farm in the northwest
corner of virginia right in the middle of the
shenandoah valley so um we got pretty lucky it's
a beautiful farm it's a very historic farm it's
been running since the mid 1860s we've got Cattle
is our main thing. And then we've got some chickens
just for us, basically. But it's been a nice
way to transition out of city life in San Diego,
where I was when I was in the Navy, and kind
of get back to the way that I grew up, which
was on a farm as well out in Texas. So this is
my office, which is why it doesn't look too fancy
or too well decorated. But this is where I take
all my calls and do stuff like that for Echelon.
Yeah. Well, my office behind me is a mess, but
I never show my videos so I can get away with
it. All right. Well, just before we go to the
beginning of your timeline, we just had that
crazy cold front blast through. What was your
experience in Virginia? Well, we got about 10
inches of snow and then about two inches of frozen
rain on top of that. And then we stayed in the
20s basically for almost a month. Right now it's
in the fifties and it's starting to melt. It's
almost all melted off, but we had just a layer
of 10 inches of ice basically for almost a month,
which, um, You know, it definitely throws a wrench
in a lot of systems, especially on a farm. It
means that you're putting out a lot more food
every day for the cows because they can't reach
the grass and they use the food to regulate their
temperature. So it was like every day rolling
out hay for them. And then we have five kids
and they love to be outside, but it's like, what
are they going to do outside with ice? So it
was basically like, hey. board games if they
weren't at school it was like we were playing
board games or cards or something for a month
straight which is actually pretty cool but i
am very happy to not have the snow on the ground
anymore yeah i i grew up on a farm and i remember
the horse troughs were a big problem because
they would freeze over and this is england not
as cold as virginia yeah how do you keep the
the hydration going during the freeze so we're
very fortunate and we have uh two different sources
of live water on the rant on the farm and they
Cover basically almost the entire farm. So we've
got a smaller creek at the front of our property,
and then we have about a 20 -foot creek that
runs into the Shenandoah River. So that thing's
always running. It's never frozen. It basically
moves too fast and has too much volume of water
in it. So the cows are in that back pasture where
that creek is, so they always had access to the
water. Even if maybe it was a little bit colder
than they were used to, they could still get
it. Brilliant. Well, you mentioned Texas. Let's
start at the very beginning then. Tell me where
you were born and tell me a little bit about
your family dynamic, what your parents did, how
many siblings. Yep. So I was born outside. I
was actually born in Dallas, but we lived in
a town called Blooming Grove, which is a little.
like a thousand person town. And we weren't really
even in the town of Blooming Grove. That was
just kind of the nearest zip code that they could
attach to us so we could get mail. And the city
that we kind of did school, sports, all that
stuff in was called Corsicana. And we had, we
lived probably about 15 minutes outside of Corsicana.
And my parents had a small farm. It was about
57 acres, I think. And they raised. Primarily
when I was younger, they raised Arabian horses
and then offloaded those about halfway through
my childhood and had some other animals. But,
you know, I had mom, dad, two sisters, one older,
one younger and me. And then outside of that,
I mean, really kind of your normal childhood,
church, school, sports, all that good stuff.
Did you ride a lot when you were younger? You
know, I did not, and I regret it, but I was pretty
young. And to us, it was, at least to me, it
was just work. The horses were just more work.
And even... If I wanted to ride the horses, it
was still work. It was like, well, you got to
get them in the stall. You got to put the saddle
on them. You got to ride them for a little bit.
Then you got to let them cool down. Then you
got to wipe them down. Then you got to do this.
Then you got to. So for me, no, I did not ride
them that much. And looking back at it, it was
definitely a wasted opportunity. But I think
I was like 10 maybe when we started getting rid
of the horses. So, you know, if we had. horses
today i would definitely utilize them a lot more
but as a kid for me i looked at a horse that's
like a thousand pounds worth of work Yeah, we
had the same. My dad was a horse vet, a veterinary
surgeon. So we never actually owned our own horses.
My sister had one when she was younger, and then
my mom had one. But the rest of us just had to
ride whatever was being boarded at the time,
which was Russian roulette on horseback, basically.
Yeah, yeah. It's probably smart of your dad,
too. He's like, I know how much horses cost as
the horse vet, so we're not getting one. We'll
borrow everybody else's. Well, he had five kids,
too. So he's like, well, if one of them dies,
it is what it is. Saves money. Yeah. All right.
Well, then, so what about your parents? What
were they doing profession -wise? So my mom was
a medical tech before we were born. And then
when my oldest sister was born, she stayed at
home until my youngest sister, who's two years
younger than me, until she was school -aged.
And then she took a job at our school, at our
private school, teaching science. And then she
did that almost all the way up until... My youngest
sister was in high school and then she switched
over. We have a junior college in our hometown
in Corsicana. And she took a job as, you know,
science, biology, kind of running the gamut of
instructing over at the junior college. And she
just retired, I think, three years ago from there.
And then my dad was kind of a serial entrepreneur,
still is. Him and my uncle, his brother started
a couple of different businesses. But the vein
of things that they had that ran through all
the different businesses, they were always kind
of dabbling in real estate. And that's mainly
what they do now is buying real estate and managing
real estate. Was your mom teaching when you were
a student at the school? She was, yeah, which
was both good and bad. It was good because if
I forgot something, I could just go over and
get it from her. It was bad because when I did
things like forge her signature on a test that
I didn't do very well at, my teacher could just
walk my fake signature over to her and go. This
is a little shady. Is this really what your signature
looks like? And she would go, no, absolutely
not. So it had pluses and minuses. What if, if
you've had this conversation at all, what is
her perspective on the devolution or evolution
of education over the last couple of decades
or so? There's been some interesting research
that's come out that has shown for the, and it
just came out like a couple of weeks ago that
shown for the first time. At least as long as
we've been keeping these stats, unfortunately,
our kids are dumber than us. And that doesn't
happen by accident. And I think the main cause
that they're pointing at is the amount of technology
in school and the over -reliance on technology
and the under -reliance on kind of like rational
learning skills. My kids are, I think, very fortunate
because they go to a private Catholic school
in our hometown that's a classic education. So
like they're studying Greek, they're studying
or so they're studying Latin, but they're studying
like Greek philosophy and the foundations and
the pillars of Western civilization. It's a no
technology school like whatsoever. So there's
no tech in the classroom. There's no phones allowed.
But I don't think. It's a good thing that we're
allowing all this tech in. There's probably a
balance that needs to get struck between learning
how to function in a technologically advanced
society, but then using that too much to our
disadvantage. I had Dave Castro, one of the heads
of CrossFit and Navy SEAL on a while ago, and
he was talking about that. He said they're called
the classics for a reason. That's why you teach
them because they've been around for millennia.
And obviously the knowledge in there is so important.
But I think another kind of reoccurring theme
I hear in American education is the standardized
testing as well. We're not teaching to inspire
kids to have a hunger to learn. We're teaching
kids for a test. And in a lot of areas, if that
school then doesn't do well in the test, they're
financially penalized, which if you look at the
100 ,000 foot view, 10 ,000 foot view, excuse
me. Usually the ones in the areas that are struggling
need more support, not less. So we've got that
whole thing completely backwards as well. Yeah,
I would agree. And just without getting on like
a total tire on education, our whole system of
instruction is pretty antiquated. And it's based
off of a early 19th century form of education
that came from kind of like the Austro -Hungarian
Empire. And it was designed, their system of
education was designed not just to educate the
child, but to make good. uh citizens who will
do whatever the state tells them to do as far
as fighting battles and wars and whatnot so um
we had a representative from our before it was
the department of education that went over there
to like study that model and was like this is
great and brought it back so i would argue almost
from like the founding of what we consider to
be our culture of how we teach in this country
i would consider it flawed and i think there
is a lot better systems that we could utilize
but the problem is you know how do you restructure
an entire system I had a guy, Pasi Sahlberg,
on the show from Finland, and he tours the world
talking about the Finnish system. And you listen
to what they do. There's lots of recess. It's
a shorter school day. And they're teaching the
child holistically, like the whole child, not
just, you know, grades and academia. So, yeah,
I think this is one of the things. We've got
to be careful when we beat our chests and say
we're the greatest country in the world. I always
say, A, it's not a competition. You know, it's
a round planet. There are a lot of places that
do things a lot better than us. And there's things
that we do better. So the rising tide lifts all
ships. If we actually have the humility to say,
well, Finland, Japan, show us what you're doing
again. That's how we fix it. But it begins with
humility, which I'm sure we'll get into in leadership
too. Absolutely. And look, we already know how
to do it. We have different private schools that
have this like classical education model. And
whether you want to base that on, you know, religious
education, like it's a big part of my kid's school,
or whether you want to just base it off of a
classical model of education, we already know
how to do it. And we already know that it works
in helping the child learn how to learn and enjoy
learning. And I will say there's downsides to
it as well. My oldest son is 15. is taking a
logic class. So he'll be like, Dad, that's a
fallacy, what you just said. That's an appeal
to authority. And I'm like, pipe down, son. I
mean, you're right, but take a rap off. I am
the authority in this household. Well, going
back to your childhood again, what were you playing
and doing as far as sports and exercise? Yeah,
when I was younger, it was kind of like we played
everything. The only sport that I didn't play
growing up that was kind of like a mainstream
sport, if you will, was football. And the only
reason I didn't is our school where I went, our
private school, like it just wasn't big enough
for a football team. So, you know. T -ball, baseball,
basketball, soccer, all of those things growing
up. When I got into high school, I just focused
more on soccer. And that was really the only
thing that I did as far as like working out was
play soccer. And I hated the practices and I
really enjoyed the game. But that changed once
I. I decided that I wanted to go into the Navy
and try to go on the SEAL teams. I got a lot
more serious about my fitness, but that was,
you know, 16, 17, 18. Up until then, it was like
whatever sport I was playing is basically all
I was doing to stay in shape. Did you have any
family members in the military prior to your
interest? So not. Not really that I had a relationship
with. So my great -grandfather, and actually
there's a couple pictures back there that you
can kind of see right now. My great -grandfather
was a two -star general in World War II, and
his son was an army officer in World War II who
was killed at the Battle of the Bulge. But outside
of that, no, not really. So some more distant
ties to the military, but nothing recent. So
what was it that piqued your interest about the
SEAL team specifically and kind of walked me
through your journey into enlistment? Yeah, so
I was an avid reader as a kid. I like to think
I still am. And we spent a lot of time in the
Corsicana Public Library getting books and stuff
and loading up. And I was in there one day and
there was a military history section and there
was this book that had this guy in a jungle with
his face all painted and it was about SEALs in
Vietnam. And that was the first time I'd ever
heard anything about a SEAL or the SEAL team.
So I picked the book up. I read it to cover to
cover. And then I was just like, this is what
I want to do. And something about that book really
resonated with me and really kind of ignited
a passion. And since then, that's all I ever
wanted to do. So I made it my my life's goal
from there. Like, that's what I want to do. And
I graduated high school. I went to Texas A &M
University because they had a for the only reason
that they had. a unit in the Corps of Cadets,
and I was not in the Corps of Cadets, but they
had a unit in the Corps of Cadets that was a
group of guys that wanted to go into SEAL training.
And basically this unit was stood up by an advisor
at A &M many years ago who had been in the SEAL
teams and basically set this program up for guys
that were interested and they could come and
basically get some knowledge, work out together,
prepare together, and hopefully, you know, be
a platform for them to, to make it into the Navy
and into the SEAL team. So I went there for that
reason. I'm very glad I did a great group of
guys. We would wake up every single morning.
Like my normal day at college was I was up, I
lived off campus. So I was up at four 30 in the
morning. I'd slam a cup of coffee. I had to be
on campus by five o 'clock because we would start
PT at 515. We would PT from 515 until about seven.
Then we would grab some chow at the chow hall.
And then I would usually work out again before
my classes and then go to class. I had a job
after school that. Took me until about 5 .30
or 6. I'd go home. I would do whatever work I
needed for class or sometimes maybe not do whatever
work I needed for class and then fall asleep
and wake up and repeat. And that was kind of
my cycle. But it was all because I was single
-mindedly focused on wanting to make it, at least
get a shot into making it in this community.
And it was definitely the right move because
I thought I was in really good shape. When I
went to A &M and then I met these guys who were
actually in good shape and it re -baselined a
couple of things. One, my understanding of what
being in condition looked like. And two, my understanding
of how far I was capable of pushing myself because
I was so far behind these guys that it took me
a really long time to catch up with them. But
from there, I got picked up. for officer candidate
school right when i graduated and i got a spot
to go right from officer candidate school to
coronado to go through seal training so i got
the shot and then once i got out there it was
basically just up to me as it is everyone who
gets to go through that training whether they
make it or not but all my preparation all my
hard work all my choices up till then um paid
off and i knew at least i was going to get my
chance to go through uh buds as we call it I've
had so many people from the teams on here now
from multiple generations. And, you know, one
of the kind of misnomers, I think, of the average
person is a SEAL is this, you know, six foot
four bodybuilder, you know, and then you hear
about and you see, I mean, you know, some of
my friends that are SEALs are not physically
imposing people by any means. But, you know,
they always allude to the mindset, you know,
and obviously coupling that with, as you said,
the preparation. What was it that drove you and
allowed you to complete Buds when someone rang
the bell? Oh, man. It's all I wanted to do. So
I've been working for, I was 25 when I made it
into the SEAL teams, when I made it into training.
So I had been on this journey for for 12 years
of wanting to do this. So when I got there, there
was definitely some nervousness and apprehension
about how I was going to stack up against my
peers, because, you know, in my mind. I'm thinking
every single person that makes it to buzz is
like superhuman. They're kind of like that person
you just talked about. They're six foot four.
They're like freak athletes. You know, they were
the captain of the football team or the wrestling
team or Olympian or something like that. So there
was definitely some apprehension. But when I
got there, the thing that got me through, which
is the same thing that gets anybody through,
is just your refusal to quit. And really, if
you break that down, it really comes down more
towards your focus on what's right in front of
you. every evolution even the worst evolution
at most is only going to be a couple hours long
and if you can just focus on I wouldn't even
say making it through that evolution because
I think that's weak but performing and doing
your best during that evolution That evolution
in a couple hours is over with and you're going
to move on to something else. I think where guys
have a big issue is when they lose the focus
on what's right in front of them and they look
at buds and the selection pipeline in totality
and go, there's no way I can do this for 14 more
months. And then it just becomes a spiral. And
before they know it, they're standing in front
of the bell. So I think another big advantage
that I had is I was an officer. my focus a lot
of times wasn't necessarily on my own performance.
It was on my team and my boat crew that I was
leading. So at times where maybe I would have
liked to crawl into my shell and think about
how miserable I was, I had the advantage, I think,
of also having to worry about how my guys were
doing and focusing on them. So it took a lot
of my ability to focus on my own pain away because...
I had a group of guys that were going through
it with me. And ultimately, I was responsible
for our performance. And I think that was a huge
advantage. It's funny. That reminds me of something
I've always said when it comes to my choice of
profession, which is fire versus police. Anytime
someone got in my face when I was younger, I'd
shit myself. I would be scared. I was fearless
when it came to getting between two people if
they were fighting and, you know, and trying
to be this, even if I knew I was going to get
clocked that way too. And I think it's the same
thing when you take your focus off yourself,
sometimes actually it empowers you. You know,
absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I. feel
for guys that either didn't feel that same way
or didn't have that ability like it you know
if you're an enlisted guy going through buds
yeah you're worried about your boat team but
you're not ultimately responsible for them so
it it allowed me to be less focused on myself
and more focused on the guys around me which
i thought was very beneficial the other thing
that i think is worthy of bringing up because
i don't know that that many people talk about
it but i think it's important and i think it's
a good thing is James, I was terrified to fail.
Like this is all I ever wanted to do was be here
in this community. And now I had my chance and
I did not want to fail. And that fear of failing
pushed me to try to be the best at everything
I did in buds. Was I? No, absolutely not. Uh,
that was a guy named Mike, who was a buddy of
mine who went through buds, who made it look
easy. Mike was the best at everything, but I
was trying to be the best at everything. And
a big portion of that was, uh, I was afraid to
fail because I had built up so much time and
energy and all these different decisions that
got me here. And the other thing that I was aware
of, because the instructors told us this, was
your reputation starts day one of training. And
you hear it when you're a student. You know,
they're like, one of these days, you're going
to be in a platoon with us. And especially as
an officer, like one of these days, you might
actually be in charge of us. And in my mind,
I'm like, well, you know, my reputation starts
on day one. That means that I'm going to do everything
I possibly can within my power and my control
to make sure that that reputation is as good
as I can possibly make it. And it's funny to
hear them say things like you might be in charge
of us one day. But my first platoon? I was an
assistant platoon commander. And who was my platoon
chief? My favorite instructor from first phase.
So I'm in a platoon with the chief that I looked
up to the most in first phase. And it was exactly
what he said. And, you know, the reason I was
in that platoon is because he remembered me and
he pulled me in his platoon. So whether you're
going through a selection pipeline, whatever
training it is, like you're always being measured
by the people around you. When I reflect back
at the sometimes miserable experience of growing
up on a farm, whether it's just the sheer physical
work, whether it's being cold, whether it's being
in the middle of a rainstorm, lambing, whatever
it is, I'm sure that served me well as I progressed
through and wanted to become a firefighter. What
element do you think of your upbringing on the
farm contributed to your success in the teams?
It's funny for me because if you ask my parents
that question, they'd be like, nothing. He was
lazy as hell growing up on the farm, which there's
probably a lot of truth to that. I was given
a lot of freedom when I was a kid, as I think
most people are that grow up in rural life, just
a ton of freedom. And my parents gave me a lot
of freedom throughout my life growing up with
them to kind of just figure things out and make
mistakes. So I learned pretty quickly that. screwing
up wasn't the end of the line and making a mistake
was not necessarily something to be afraid of
and I think that helped me out because there
were people that I went through training with
and I later ran one of the phases of buds uh
later in my career and I saw this from that perspective
too there are people that have never failed at
anything that get to buds and guess what's going
to happen you're going to fail nobody is going
to make it through buds unscathed. And some people
cannot deal with that failure. I was fortunate
enough where I was like, I failed at a million
things before in my life. So that failure was
more of just more of a small step back and not
like this giant millstone that hung around my
neck. When I stopped being lazy was when... I
decided that I wanted to go into the SEAL teams
because in my mind, that was a habit that I just
couldn't keep. And I would be willing to bet
if you asked my parents, they would back that
up and say he did have a tendency to like try
to avoid work or do the minimum on the farm.
And then when he was a teenager, he made this
switch and he finally had the ability to kind
of like buckle down and do the things that needed
to be done. Yeah, unfortunately, my farm upbringing
sounds like it was very different than your farm
upbringing. When was it that you went in? What
year? It was 2008 when I went in. Okay, so rolling
back a little bit then, what was 9 -11 through
your eyes? I was a senior in high school. Taking
college courses at our junior college when 9
-11 happened. And I woke up the morning of September
11th and, you know, the news was everywhere.
The first tower had just been hit right when
I woke up. So everyone was just trying to think,
you know, it's kind of like, hey, it's a freak
incident. And then all of a sudden it happened
again and again. And then it was, this is definitely
something. That was planned. And I, like everybody
else, was definitely caught up in the emotion
surrounding all of those things. And I knew that
I'd already made the choice that I wanted to
go into the Navy. And I initially had this urge
to just go and enlist right then and right there.
I think I'm fortunate that I didn't make that
emotional decision because I had a very. very
good career. And I don't actually think it could
have been any better. And all that just came
down to the timing of when I did finally get
to go in post -college. So where were you first
assigned then? Where was your first deployment?
My first deployment was with Team 7 out in Coronado.
And it went back and forth. When we first started
our workup, it was going to be Iraq. And then
it was someplace, undisclosed location in the
Middle East. And then it was back to Iraq. And
then we went to Afghanistan for almost 11 months,
which was much longer deployment than normal.
But the community made this decision that they
wanted to try to get both coasts kind of back
in sync with each other as far as our deployment
cycles. And what that meant was our team, Team
7, and the... The East Coast team that was our
counterpart, Team 10, we're going to have to
do a longer deployment to get everybody back
on cycle, which, hey, we loved it. 11 months
in Afghanistan is exactly where we want it to
be. That's where everybody in the SEAL teams
wanted to go during that time frame. So the first
question that I always ask people, and I preface
this, for everyone else at home. We get a very
polarized view of war, either stack bodies, let
God sort them out, or they're all baby killers.
And in the middle, obviously, the men and women
that go overseas with our flag on their shoulder
and go protect our homeland and the people that
are in that particular country as well. Two -part
question. The first part, regardless of the politics
or incidents that sent you, and this can be any
of the places you were deployed, sent you overseas.
Was there a moment where you realized that there
were some horrendous people that did need to
be taken care of? Oh, yes, absolutely. Like,
very quickly. Our mission was what we call village
stability operations. And it was typically, historically,
it was more of a special forces, army special
forces. So when we say... Army Green Berets or
Special Forces, that's the same thing. The Green
Beret is like their nickname. That's based off
of the beret that they get awarded. So that's
typically an Army Special Forces mission. At
the time, basically any SOF unit that was going
over to Afghanistan was expected to conduct that
type of mission. So what that means is we were
living in a village. with the villagers inside
of a certain area, province, region of Afghanistan.
And our job was to provide security to those
villagers who'd been suffering under the control
of the Taliban and these different insurgent
forces and build security up for them, help them
build their own security apparatus, like a local
police force, first responder force. And then
the theory behind that was, the strategy behind
that was, you take all of these provincial village
police forces that are getting formed up, put
them underneath a local governance. And now you've
got like a police force that each province can
own and run to provide their own security. So
we were living in a village with these villagers
for 11 months. And the things that we saw when
we first got there, because we did a very good
job of clearing the bad guys out pretty quickly.
The things that we first saw. When you got over
there, it was just complete and total oppression
of the civilian population. Everything was handled
basically through the Taliban courts and the
Taliban law system, which surprisingly enough,
if you listen to Villagers, has some positives,
but mostly negatives. The positives was it was
better than like no system of law. The negatives
were they were. very antiquated punishment, shall
we say. But it was basically, you're going to
do whatever we tell you to do. And if you don't
do that, then, you know, we're going to torture,
kill you and your families. So they were basically
just living under this constant state of fear
when we got there. And then, you know, Afghanistan
was one thing, and that was bad enough. My last
tour, I was a troop commander at Team 5. And
I took five, my whole team, or not my whole team,
my team headquarters and my troop of five platoons
went over to Iraq in 2016 and led the battle
of Mosul to push ISIS out of Mosul and eventually
push them out of Iraq. And I will say this without
getting into too much detail. There has never
been a more brutal or barbaric regime on the
face of the earth than ISIS. And regardless of...
what allowed them to come into power in the first
place, they don't belong on the same earth as
everybody else does. And I was very proud of
my troop and my team and all the Americans that
were over there, the part that they played in
getting rid of those individuals and giving Iraq
back to the people. This is always an interesting
perspective when someone's fought in multiple
countries. Do you think as a common denominator,
bearing in mind that we all are born as these
little bundles of joy and then with these giggling
toddlers and then one day beheading people, what
if you're able to kind of identify as a common
denominator that seems to spawn such evil and
hatred in what were once innocent young children?
Man, this is sketchy. At the root of it, without
going into anything else, it's ideology. And
then the ability of certain leaders underneath
that ideology to present a corrupted form of
that ideology, or let's say the worst form of
that ideology, and then to harness those feelings
underneath that ideology and point them in a
certain direction, which is towards the West.
That's the common denominator of every area that
I saw, whether it was Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,
any of those places. What about poverty? Because
I hear this a lot in Afghanistan, for example,
you know, you've got the people and they're paid
to join the Taliban because they just simply
want to feed their family, which is obviously
then kind of amplifying the effect. I think there's
definitely a part of that, and I would say that
probably plays a large piece. And if you would
wind the clock back 15 years, I think most people
would say that's the biggest part. ISIS threw
a big wrench in that because there was very wealthy,
very well -to -do people coming from all over
the planet to include Europe. to include America,
to go get under the banner of this ideology.
So if you would have asked me in 2009, I would
have said poverty is probably the main driver.
I don't say that anymore based off of what I
saw. I mentioned it was a two -part question.
This is the other side that we just don't hear
in the media here, but I've heard so many beautiful
examples. Again, you can pick the battlefield.
What were the moments of kindness and compassion
that you remember, whether it was obviously our
own people or the people that you were protecting?
Yeah, look, the kids in every single village
that you go to, they're kids. Trying to live
a normal life. Their parents want them to live
a normal life. We were able to build a couple
of schools in our province where we were in Afghanistan,
the first schools that were there. And to me,
that was like one of my favorite memories ever
was getting the honor through the village had
this big ceremony for us. And I got to lay the
cornerstone of the first school that we built
there. And then after the school was built, you
know, from our fob, we could see kids going to
school in the morning, doing their walk to school,
doing their walk back to school. And I would
say this, outside of the individuals that fell
underneath that ideology, they're human beings.
They want the same thing that we want, whether
it was in Afghanistan, whether it was in Iraq,
whether it was in Somalia or some of these other
areas. They want to be left alone. They want
to be able to live their life in their village
with their families. They want to be able to
raise their kids the way that any parent would
want to raise their kids. And there's always
that common denominator that runs through things.
Unfortunately, in some of these different areas
across the globe, they don't have what we have
in the West, especially in America, which is
the freedom to do those things. So what about
transition? What made you decide that you wanted
to transition out? And then, as we've heard many,
many times, that can be a struggle for many people
in uniform between the tribe and the purpose
and the identity. What was your initial transition
experience? Yeah, my plan was to, you know, be
in that uniform till I was like 95 years old
initially. My transition was based off of a couple
of different factors. The biggest factor, the
main driving factor, was my family. So my wife
and I had five kids by the end of my last tour.
And when your kids are young, it's still a big
toll on them. But it's very different when you're
deploying and you've got... a 10 -year -old,
11 -year -old, a nine -year -old, a seven -year
-old than it is when you have a newborn, just
because the impact on them of, you know, their
father not being there is huge. And the impact
on me of not getting to be there and watch my
kids go through these different stages of life
was starting to really weigh on me. And the real
genesis of what got me thinking about getting
out, and this first incident that I'm going to
tell you about happened about two years before
I actually made the decision, was my commanding
officer at Team 5, that tour that we went to
Iraq, was just an awesome leader, a guy named
Beef. Jason was his master chief. So Jason and
Beef ran the team. Beef was an awesome CO. He
sat me down during our detailing talk of where
do you want to go next? And he's like, hey, you're
at eight years right now. Let's map out the next.
20, the next 12 years, let's get you to 20. I
want you to write down every job that you want,
like your dream job, your number one job for
the next 20 years. So I was like, Oh, you know,
I want to go to, to the training command and
run the training command. And then I want to
go and I want to be, you know, a commanding officer
of team five. And then I want to do this. And
he goes, Okay, awesome. Great. Now, right underneath
each of those tours, right how old your kids
are going to be. And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
No one's ever done that with me before. So I
started writing down and it was like almost a
knife in the heart because what I realized was
when I hit 20, my oldest son would be 18 years
old. So if I chose to retire at 20, What that
means is now I have time to spend with my family
and my oldest son is going to be gone within
a matter of months. And then a year and change
behind him, my second son is going to be out
of the house. And then I started to look at these
tours on the paper and go, how much does that
mean to me versus how much does my family mean
to me? The other thing that I was very fortunate
with that made this decision very easy for me
was I had done. everything that I ever could
have imagined in the SEAL teams. I got to do
an awesome assistant platoon commander tour,
right into my platoon commander tour. I got to
go and run a phase of our selection pipeline.
I came back and had the best troop commander
tour I could possibly have at Team 5. I got to
stay at Team 5 for another tour. And then I was
given the privilege and opportunity to run our
training command. I had ticked every box that
I ever possibly could have wanted to tick. And
I had no regrets whatsoever about my career.
So I made the decision to get out after the running
the training command. And it was the best decision
I've ever made. And when we talk about the transition
for me, and I know there's a lot of people that
struggle with this. For me, it was not difficult.
It was very difficult for me to make the decision
to step away because, you know, a lot of my desire
was still to serve in uniform and be around the
caliber of individuals that I was fortunate enough
to be around. But I had things on the outside.
So a lot of guys, when they get out. They haven't
cultivated anything else outside of the teams.
They've cultivated no relationships. They haven't
cultivated a family. And if they have a family,
some guys haven't really been pouring the time
and investment that they need into their wives
and their kids. So they get out and like, there's
not really this. stable life at home. And now
it creates all of these different issues or they
get out and they don't have a family to lean
on. They don't have any other friends to lean
on. And now they're feeling isolated and alone.
For me, when I was a very young guy, my identity
was as a SEAL in the SEAL teams. When I got married,
my identity primarily became a husband. When
I started having kids, my identity became a father.
I only ever had two goals for my life. I wanted
to be a good SEAL and I wanted to be a good father.
So at some point in time, those two things started
to intersect and affect my ability to do both.
So I made the decision to... to do the number
one priority, which is hopefully be a good dad.
And because I had my family here and I had been
investing in them and cultivating them with as
much time as I possibly could, my transition
was pretty easy. The other thing I had was I
was going to work for a bunch of team guys. I
didn't have to try to make this shift into like
a corporate world that I was really unfamiliar
with. And maybe the culture was different. I
was also very fortunate to go and work with individuals
that were very like -minded in an industry that
I really believed in. What was that industry?
So the first industry was a construction technology
startup that was founded by two of my former
teammates from the SEAL teams to include my best
friend, a guy named Garrett, who's like one of
the greatest leaders I've ever met. the best
person you've ever met james he's he's someone
that you want to hate because he's just better
at you that at everything but you can't because
he's also better at you better than you at just
being like the nicest most humble person you've
ever met so he started this company about the
same time as I was getting out. And he asked
me if I would help him start it up. And I came
on board with him. And I was asked to be the
COO of that. And we helped grow and scale that
company for a couple of years. And then I had
the opportunity to go and join the awesome team
at Echelon Front, the leadership consultancy
and training company that was founded by Jocko
Willink and Leif Babin. So I went from working
with awesome guys in the SEAL teams, to working
with an awesome team and company at the construction
technology company, to now working with an awesome
team at Echelon Front, where I get to go around
and meet amazing Americans. And not just Americans,
it's a global company now. Amazing individuals
who are just trying to be the best, most effective
leaders that they can possibly be. How many years
did you have total in the military? 13 and a
half. And that's combined active duty. And then
I stayed in the reserves for about a year. So
I have 14 years in the fire service. And it was
just a crazy twist of fate where the universe
spit me out and said, you know, you need to go
outside the walls now and try and help the profession
as a whole. I didn't ever think it was going
to be that short. It's interesting because if
you do 14 years, 13 years in the military, people
are like, wow, that's amazing. Thank you for
your service. But if you do it in the first responder
professions, they're like, well, why did you
quit? Totally different lens. But this is what
I've tried to storytell. And again, I love the
job. I didn't leave because I didn't want to
run the cause anymore. It was the opposite. I
was just tired of burying my friends. But I tell
people, and I love that. that that mentorship
that you had with lay out what you want and lay
out how old your kids are because it is the same
in the first responder profession especially
as i know we're going to get to when we're talking
about work weeks and extra shifts away there
is no greater you know more important currency
than time with your children or time with your
family i believe that hand on my heart if we
just you know if you're just a firefighter if
you're just a seal and there's nothing else in
your life then what is it really for Ultimately,
I'm protecting my community, which would be hoping
that someone else is protecting where I live
and my children and my family. But understanding
that there is a balance. And when there's that
shift where your identity becomes more important
than your family, or you have this kind of bizarre
mythology, you tell yourself that you being worked
into the ground as a firefighter is an honorable
thing. When it's not, being a firefighter is
an honorable thing. The work week, the way that
you're worked and kept from your family is another
entire discussion. But I really love that lens
and that story that you told, which is always
be, you know, putting your finger on the pulse
of what matters the most. And if there's a shift,
that's when maybe you need to have a conversation
because the only reason that we work 25 years
is because a pension company told you that's
when you would have accrued amount of money.
That's it. It's nothing to do with the burning
desire in your heart. Yeah, absolutely. And,
you know, I was fortunate. My first platoon chief,
that guy that I told you about that put me through
selection, he had six kids. So my first. glance
at what's possible in the SEAL teams was this
chief who, by the way, was the Pacific Fleet
Sailor of the Year. So that's not a SEAL team
honor. That's the entire Pacific Fleet, which
is like 100 ,000 plus sailors. He was the Pacific
Fleet Sailor of the Year. So not only was he
an outstanding father and husband, but he was
the best sailor in the Pacific Fleet. So my example
was, oh, it's possible to do both of those things,
but they're... is definitely a sacrifice. Like
your family is making a huge sacrifice because
it's not like he could drop everything and just
go home if there was an issue at any given time.
So your family is getting pulled into that same
thing. But, you know, that mentorship that he
provided me, that lens of like your family is
the most important thing. And the mentorship
that Beef provided me of like, hey, let's look
at not just your career, but like, what are you
putting your family through during this is huge.
And it's not that they're not intertwined either.
If your family life is a mess, there's a 0 %
chance that that does not bleed over into your
work life in some way, shape or form. And it's
idiotic to think. that you can completely compartmentalize
this giant dumpster fire that you have over here.
And it's not going to affect this profession
that you say that you care about so much. And
whether you're in the military, whether you're
in the firefighter first responder service, my
personal philosophy is that if you are a man,
your ultimate responsibility, your ultimate role
is to be a father. And that can look different
ways. I'm blessed to be a father with, with five
kids. You know, some guys through no fault of
their own, they're never going to have a family,
but there's ways they can fill that role of fatherhood.
They can be a mentor to someone underneath them.
Like my chief was, and like my commanding officer
was, they can be a coach. They can be an advocate
like you are for an entire community. Whether
you have a family or not, there's a role that
you need to fill outside of this very small thing
that you're doing that is very important. But
in the grand scheme of things, it's definitely
not the most important. I couldn't agree more.
Speaking of advocating, I know you were on Mike
Ritland's podcast. He was on here years and years
ago. I actually need to get him back on. I saw
in one of the clips that you were talking about
the withdrawal and trying to get some of the
people that you work with out. I just had an
army veteran, Dewey Yop, on talking about this
very thing. You and the men and women that you
serve alongside are in this country for basically
20 years. There's this incredible selflessness
and heroism of the indigenous people as well.
Talk to me about the withdrawal itself and then
the human impact of some of the people that you
cared about. Yeah. It's the most disappointed
I've ever been in our country when that happened.
Because anyone who had spent time on the ground
in Afghanistan. could tell you exactly what was
going to happen if we pulled out, when we pulled
out, in the fashion that we pulled out. Now,
if someone wanted to get into a debate about
whether we should still have been there or not,
maybe we could talk about different ways to scale
down that would have looked differently. But
anyone that spent time over there could have
looked at that plan and just said, this is ridiculous.
And we can tell you exactly. What's going to
happen if you do this? And the reason it was
so disheartening and disappointing to all of
the different veterans that had served over there
is we saw the cost of 20 years of sustained conflict
over there, not just in lost brothers and sisters,
but the cost to the population as well. Those
people were put through hell for 20 years, not
just the oppression of the Taliban. But, you
know, war takes a toll on the innocent civilian
side as well. And their whole society was thrown
into this upheaval. And you had really brave
Afghanis that in a lot of ways is like the most
brave thing I've ever seen, which is they put
their neck on the line to help out. American
forces. And, you know, we had in our camp, we
had multiple Afghanis who teamed up with us to
help us push the Taliban out. And we had multiple
Afghanis acting as interpreters for us going
on some patrols with us to point different things
out. And we knew that if we pulled out. And the
country was turned back over to the Taliban,
exactly what was going to happen to those individuals,
which is exactly what happened to those individuals,
which is why you see people desperate enough
to cling to the wheel of a C -17 as it's taking
off into the stratosphere, knowing that they're
going to die, but knowing that that death is
probably a lot better way to go than what's going
to happen if the Taliban gets a hold of them.
So it wasn't just... this sense of disgust of
like a waste of the time that we spent over there
and the lives that we spent over there, American
lives we spent over there, coalition lives we
spent over there, Afghani lives we spent over
there. For me, it was also a sense of disgust
of what was going to happen to the population
of Afghanistan, which is exactly what happened.
Question to so many people who have been on here,
because this is the voice that we need to hear.
We know now, in hindsight, for example, that
some of the things that people were told about
Iraq now weren't true. And it doesn't downplay
the impact that our allied soldiers had whilst
they were there. And I've heard many, many stories.
But there's a responsibility of when to go to
war and when not to go to war. Understanding,
though, that there are companies that make billions
and billions, if not trillions of dollars when
we are at war, with your kind of 2026 lens now,
and I think the comparison is when you make billions
and trillions of dollars on sick Americans, where's
the push to make Americans healthy? It's the
same, and it worries me with the war. Where are
the checks and balances to make sure that we
only send our young men and women overseas? when
all other diplomacy has failed? The honest answer
is, I don't know. I think that we're much more
aware and cognizant of that now than we were
20 years ago when the decision was made. And
I think that's probably true if you look historically
back to any conflict. I'd be willing to bet that
right after the conflict is over, there is...
This desire to make sure that we don't allow
it to happen again, that we don't send American
forces and coalition forces into a conflict that
we shouldn't be involved in or into a conflict
needlessly. And I would probably say, again,
if you look historically, that we failed to do
that again and again. And I unfortunately, well,
not unfortunately, I don't think that leaders
should be judged by their intent. I think they
should be judged by the outcome of their decisions.
So if you look at the leaders that were in place
when the decision to go in Iraq was made, I don't
know if their intent in going in there was pure
or not. And unfortunately, it doesn't matter
if it was or not, because the outcome is what
the outcome is. So I would hope. that we have
these checks and balances in place. But what
I've learned from observing leaders at every
single level of the military, corporations, our
government, is that it takes good leaders or
a good leader to be that check and balance. If
that person is not willing to do that, or several
people are not willing to do that, bad decisions
will be made. Case in point, the withdrawal from
Afghanistan. You can't tell me that there's not
Every single general in that room that signed
off on that plan, whether they agreed with it
or not, but that signed off on it, didn't know
exactly what was going to happen. And every single
one of them should have had to resign in shame
for putting their name on that. Because what
a real leader would have done would have been
to take the four stars off of their shoulder
and say, I'm not supporting this. Here's my resignation
if this is your plan. But nobody did it. I think
that same thing is probably how we get involved
in conflicts that we should not be involved in.
I agree completely. I see even in my profession
when there are solutions to a lot of these problems
now, but there's an absence of moral courage.
And what kills me with the example that you've
just given, because none of those generals are
in Kabul when this is happening, and the same
with my profession. We have people refusing to
make the decisions. um that will drive change
that will reverse the mental health crisis the
physical health crisis the recruitment crisis
the retention crisis etc etc who work 40 hours
a week they go home at five every night they
go back to their family they shrug the shoulders
and they go well it's not my problem and i don't
understand how you develop such a disconnect
and honestly to be completely blunt the only
thing that i can really come up with is we talk
about mental health and the fire service, and
I would say that that was a mental health issue.
If you as a leader are burying your own people
or stopping them from going home with their family
because of your poor management decisions and
you are sleeping well at night, you really need
to look in the mirror and see if you're actually
fit for duty. Yeah, absolutely. I just had this
conversation with a friend of mine who's at Development
Group right now. And he was talking about the
fact that he is the CEO of all of Development
Group. He saw him in the hallway and just had
to pull him aside and just tell him, hey, sir,
you know, I really appreciate what you're doing.
I think that you're you're killing it in your
role. And he's like, the reason I told him that
is because the guy. has not left his office in
like three weeks because that's the op tempo
that he's expecting the command to to go through
right now based off of world events and he's
not willing to not pay that same price for him
and i think if you had more leaders with that
mentality it would probably be a little bit different
and you look at uh there's a fascinating book
in the worst possible way called the generals
and it's basically a profile of american generalship
all the way up from World War I, World War II,
Korea, Vietnam, first Gulf War, and then into
the war on terror. And it's a profile in the
decline in the ability or capability of our generals.
When you look at World War I and World War II,
hands down, we had the best general level officers.
That means army, admirals in the Navy. We had
the best general level leadership. on the planet
of any military. And then since then, it's been
a steady decline. And I would argue one of the
reasons is if you were a general in World War
I or World War II, up even into the Marine Corps
in Korea, you were in the field with your troops.
Now, you probably weren't on the front line,
which is not where you should be, but you were
in the field. And you had your finger on the
pulse of what was going on with your people and
you were sharing that burden with them. The further
and further they'd get disconnected from that,
it doesn't matter if they have the best of intentions
and they're a solid leader. You just can't replicate
that scenario of living with them and seeing
what they're going through and sharing a level
of that with them. Why has that dynamic changed?
Well, according to the book and according to
things that I've seen, too, it went from a privilege
to be in that role to almost like a good old
boys club, where once you got in there, you were
kind of a made man. It's kind of like being a
tenured professor. The Marine Corps has held
off on that the longest, and I would argue the
Marine Corps still has the best corps of general
level officers. In the American military, maybe
the world, but it became kind of a club where
you were protected once you got in there. Our
supreme ally or the commander of all U .S. forces
in the Second World War fired like 60 % of generals.
60 % of generals. Now, just because you got fired
didn't mean you were kicked out. He knew his
generals well enough to understand their strengths
and weaknesses. So he might go, hey, Sean, you
know, you just turned out you really weren't
that good of a tactical general. So I'm going
to pull you out of the field because you have
a mind for plans. And I'm going to use you as
a general in our planning department to help
plan the next phase of this campaign. Or James,
you know, logistics, you kind of suck at it,
man. But you know what? You are piss and vinegar,
and I'm going to put you out on the front line
like leading troops. And he would use them to
the best of their abilities. But if they weren't
getting the job done, he fired him. And why did
he fire him? Because he cares more about the
guys on the ground than he does about this general.
That doesn't mean he doesn't care about the general,
but he knows what it's all about. And I think
we've lost that mentality. Matter of fact, I
know we've lost that mentality. Yeah, yeah. And
again, I can just see it in my mind now and in
my profession as well. To your point, 40 % were
phenomenal. Same in the fire service. We have
some great, great fire service leaders and law
enforcement and EMS specifically. But the damage
that the wrong person can do that is more concerned
about their own political path or career ladder
than the people that serve under them. I mean,
as I've said, and it's raw, but it's true. Our
graveyards are full of those. Yep. Yep, absolutely.
And then the last thing that compounds that too
is. When you get to a certain level of generalship,
part of your job is to also, unfortunately, be
a politician because you are interacting and
liaisoning with policy and different groups.
So that has to help muddy the waters, too, of
where their real focus should be. What about
as you look back now over your military career
specifically, whether it's yourself or people
you're around, what were some of the biggest
leadership mistakes? And then what was some of
the most powerful mentors that you had in that
role? Obviously, you mentioned Beef. I mean,
just what he did with your career was a perfect
example. Absolutely. Look, the biggest leadership
mistake that anybody can be is to lack humility.
I mean, there's not even one that's a close second
because it opens the door to all of these different
pitfalls that aren't just going to affect you,
but they're going to affect everybody around
you. And hey, you know, if you're a leader in
a corporation and you lack humility, you're going
to make bad decisions and that's going to affect
people's livelihood. And that's a terrible thing.
If you are. A leader who lacks humility in the
first responder world or in the military, your
lack of humility could result in people getting
killed, which is the, you know, ultimate sin
of a leader. When you lack, like, you're going
to make mistakes. There's no part of your job
description as a leader that says you can never
make a mistake. Like, that's an unreal expectation.
What we expect of leaders is that when they make
a mistake, they have the humility. to analyze
that mistake, to own that mistake, and to fix
that mistake and not do it again going forward.
The other thing that's really damaging about
not having humility is you think you have it
all figured out and you don't ask the opinions
of people around you. We don't expect leaders.
In the military, in the civilian sector, in the
first responder role, we don't expect you to
have all the answers. That's also not realistic.
But we do expect you to find the answer. And
how do I do that? Well, James, if I'm your leader
and you're a chief in my platoon and you've got
16 years of tactical experience and I'm struggling
to solve this problem, I should go and I should
ask you, hey, James, what have you seen, man?
What am I missing here that you're seeing? Have
you seen this problem before? In your experience
and your expertise, what would you do to fix
this problem or address this problem? And that
takes a tremendous amount of humility. And leaders
that won't do those things, it causes this chain
reaction up and down the chain of command. The
opposite of that is true as well, as far as like
the best traits. is a leader who has their ego
in check and like look having ego is not a bad
thing in and of itself i would not have been
in the steel teams if i didn't have an ego that
was that was driving me and pushing me to accomplish
that goal um you probably would not have made
it as far as you have in your career if you didn't
have an ego motivating you and pushing you to
be a professional and to be the best that you
can be but that ego can get out of control and
cause all kinds of problems. And the best leaders
that I worked for and the best leaders that I
saw come through training when I was running
training were the leaders that were humble, that
listened to people around them, that used the
ideas of the people around them, that empowered
the people around them and could own up to a
mistake when they made a mistake. You mentioned
about training. It's funny because that's where
I've seen The poor training in my profession
is when you go, you're expected to do it once
correctly. They check a box and then that's it.
And if you don't do it correctly, so you didn't
do it correctly. They still check a box and then
you go. The good training, you know, there's
multiple layers to it and that you're set up
to fail. And then they're like, all right, what
would you do the next time? OK, let's try it
again. And so now. the training ground is exactly
where the mistakes are made. So hopefully on
the fire ground or the extrication site, whatever
it is, now hopefully things are going to go right
or we've got plan B and plan C because we train
that way. Before we hit record, you talked about
training in your profession and actually having
a unique perspective on the impact of sleep deprivation
on the performance of these high -level warfires.
So I'll give you the microphone knowing how passionate
I am about this topic. Yeah. In the military,
we love to, well, at least in the SEAL teams,
we love to sleep -deprive people. You know, it's
not that we do it out of this sense of, you know,
wanting to torture people or make people miserable.
It's a part of the job. Like, you're going to
go overseas and deploy if there's a war going
on, and there are going to be times. have to
push through and just stay awake for 24, 48 hours
based on the needs of the mission. So we're trying
to get people used, one, to the realization that
they can push themselves, and two, that at some
point in time in their career, they're going
to be called upon to do that. Hell Week, which
is a part of the initial selection pipeline,
it's six days of nonstop physical activity where
they're going to get no more than two and a half
hours of sleep. over a six -day period. So that's
not each night. That's no more than two and a
half hours of sleep over a six -day period. When
I was running training and when I was going through
training, we replicate these periods of having
to just push through at a high op tempo. And
how we do that is we have these events that we
call field training exercises or FTXs for short.
And an FTX is... as close to a real world operation
as we can get in a training environment. So we're
trying to replicate real world environments.
There's a mission planning cycle. They're going
to get aircraft and helicopters and jets and
all these different assets to take out there.
We're going to give them these really complex
problems. They're going to have to plan how they're
going to do it, plan for contingencies, and then
they're going to have to go out there and execute.
And then as soon as they're done with that, we
give them another one and another one and another
one. And we do this for three to five nights
in a row. Over the course of that three to five
nights, leaders are getting almost no sleep.
And what we saw replicated again and again and
again, and we have some data to back this up
because we have, you know, some sleep scientists
that came out prior to my time running the training
command to kind of collect this data, is that
high performing individuals. can function at
a pretty normal level for about 48 hours. And
then when they hit that 48 hours, it's not this
gradual slope of decrease in performance. It's
a cliff. It's a straight dive off of that cliff
where their cognitive and their physical abilities
just plummet. So what we learned is if someone
has to push themselves and there's a time where
you're like, look guys, we just have to push
through because we have this, you know, multi
-day operation that we have to go on. We know
that the limit where we can expect our guys to
function at their normal ability is no more than
48 hours. And if something is going to cause
us to go past that 48 hours, We understand we're
taking a significant risk and that risk has to
go into our mission planning, into our risk mitigation
to ensure that we're keeping everybody safe.
So now you look at a career that's defined by
these cycles of like, just push for 48 hours
in perpetuity and you'll be totally fine. And
when we do these FTXs. You know, there's a lot
of time and space in between these FTXs. There's
like a month, month and a half in between these
FTXs. We're not asking them to do this back to
back to back to back over a 20, 25 year career.
So I can only imagine the effect that that's
having on people long term. And the thing about
it that we've learned is you don't get better
at this. This is not like a stress that you can
get better at. Managing stress in a kill house.
I can get better at by doing more runs and increasing
my skill in the kill house. Managing my stress
level when I'm jumping out of an airplane, I
can get better at because I can get more proficient
in that skill and I can conduct more jumps, which
lowers my stress reaction to that environment.
Your stress reaction and the effects of these
48 -hour cycles does not get any better. It's
not like after three weeks of those, all of a
sudden your body learns to function for 72 hours
or 96 hours. That's not how it works. It's just
a steady cliff that has long lasting impacts.
It's really interesting because it was literally
a seal that opened my eyes to this whole thing.
It was Kirk Parsley. listening to him you know
talk initially and this was like 10 years ago
now listening to him on the original barbell
shrug podcast and then they were talking about
it from a sports specific point of view but the
backstory you know where they were running these
ops like the old way and you know he was doing
all the blood work and it was all like 80 year
old women he's like what the hell these are navy
seals um and then reframing everything for the
rest and recovery and i've i've Since then said,
you know, to my profession, well, think about
it. Sleep deprivation is used deliberately for
three things. Special forces, special operations
selection, like Hell Week, interrogation and
torture. That's it. None of those are high performance.
They're breaking people down. And so to your
point, yeah, if you've got a 48 hour, you know,
op that. you're pushing through and then you
have this long rest and recovery. Well, that's
one thing. But one of the shift schedules that
the West Coast loves a lot is 48 on 96 off, which
means that you actually only have three days
because that third of those three days you work
from that midnight to the morning, which is not
enough time to recover. But then, as you mentioned,
you times that by 10, 15, 20, 25 years, there's
a cumulative drop off each time. So I would argue
using your model that the brand new person maybe
could push through to 48. 10 years in, I would
guarantee you it's probably degraded down to
24 if you're lucky. So you've got this step down
as well. So getting them to understand that if
you're going to be 24, which I think that's the
kind of accepted one, you know, we have a place
to sleep, you know, changing the days and nights.
We know that doesn't work. I mean, look at police
and, you know, ERs. They're not exactly epitome
of health. After that 24, you've got to forge
enough rest and recovery to get back to zero
for the next 24, which is this 24 -72 that I
talk about all the time. And, you know, Florida
has been leaning into and, you know, surprise,
surprise, it works. People are happy and healthy
again. Yeah, crazy how when you listen to all
of the things that we know about the importance
of sleep, crazy how things just tend to fall
into place. You know, for our community, it is
a fine balance. because there are going to be
times where guys are going to go overseas and
the tempo is going to be something where they
have to push themselves. So it's important for
guys to understand that they can, but it's also
important for leaders to understand that that's
not sustainable and it's a time and a place.
And if our expectation is that they're doing
that again and again and again and again, all
you're doing is you're taking this really expensive,
really high performing individual. And you're
slowly degrading them over an entire career.
And then you look at the impacts outside of just
the work itself. You work a 48 -hour shift. Do
you think you're getting good quality family
time in that 24 hours when you come off of that
shift? Or do you think you're kind of like a
zombie dead to the world need to recover? So
now you're talking about extra stressors that
are compounding in here. So it's not just like
the impact on the job itself. There's a lot more
things that you have to look at. 100%. Well,
let's walk to echelon front. So firstly, how
did you find yourself working with Jocko and
Leif? Yeah, so Jocko put me through my first
workout. So I've known him and Leif was my first
leadership instructor in the SEAL teams. He was
running our junior officer training course when
I was going through selection. So I had like
at least a peripheral relationship with both
of those individuals. And Jason Gardner was my,
he was a troop chief when I first checked into
Team 7. So that's where I met him first. When
I was at... running our third phase of buds later
in my career, my next move was going to be a
troop commander. And Jason was going to team
five to be the command master chief of team five
with beef. And I reached out to him about coming
over to team five. And he put in a good word
for me to beef and I ended up over at team five
with him. After he finished up that tour, he
went to the training command and he was the command
master chief of the training command. And then
After my tours at Team 5, I ended up over with
Jason running the training command again, which
is why I joke that Jason was put in place to
babysit me everywhere that I went and make sure
I didn't get into too much trouble. Well, Jason
retired after 30 years of service and went to
work for Echelon Front, and he loved every second
of it. So when he found out, when I talked to
him and told him I made the decision to get out.
He was like, hey, man, you would be an awesome
addition to this team and you would love this
work. So he put in a good word with Jocko. I
sat down with Jocko and we just kind of talked
about that possibility. I was initially going
to go on board with Echelon Front right after
I got out of the SEAL teams. But my friend Garrett
approached me and asked me if I would help him.
And I went to Jocko to kind of get his advice.
And he's like, hey, man. You would be dumb not
to do this. You know, you'll get a chance to
build a great company. You'll get to learn a
whole bunch about leadership in a different capacity,
about the startup world, about the corporate
sector. And then whenever you want, we're here
for you and you can come and work for us. And
you'll just be more of an asset for Echelon because
now you'll have leadership experience at all
these different tiers. When we made the decision,
and the reason we left the construction tech
company was we just made the decision to move
out of California, which is where the tech company
was stationed. So the day that I stopped working
for Garrett, I went on board with Jocko and Leif
at Echelon Front, all thanks to a good advocate
who advocated for me throughout my career in
Jason Gardner. But don't tell him I said that.
I'm sure he's listening. So now you come from
this long military background, you had an exposure
on the corporate side as well. A lot of people
from the first responder professions, arguably
a lot of people in chief positions are attending
the musters and some of the other events that
you guys put on. What was your first impression?
of just what that looked like. I'm not going
to be very specific, but what that diverse landscape
of these personalities that are the helm of these
large organizations. Yeah. Well, if we're talking
about the first responder community in general,
what I would say is just talk to me when I go
and work with you guys. For the love of Pete,
they're like, it's super hard to get them to
open up at first. Once they get rocking and rolling
and we start to have these really good discussions
around leadership and what it means to be a part
of a team, everybody wants the same thing. Everybody
wants to be a part of an organization, whether
it's first responders or, you know, a high performing
team in the corporate environment. Everybody
wants to be a part of a team that they feel like
is making a difference and they feel like they
can use their talents. and their abilities to
help that organization make a difference. And
I would say that's the common thread that I've
seen, regardless of the endeavor, whether it's
the military, whether it's first responders,
whether it's corporations, they're full of people
who genuinely want to do, for the most part,
who genuinely want to perform, who genuinely
want to do their best and help support the people
around them. And unfortunately, A lot of times
when people are not allowed to do that or they
get disenfranchised or burnt out has nothing
to do with their desire and almost everything
to do with the people that are in charge of them.
When I was talking to Jocko in our first conversation,
obviously ownership is a big thing. And I pointed
out to him in that particular department I was
working for that the chain of command only had
about four or five rungs. And if that top rung
grooms the next rung, then you're in this kind
of vicious cycle. And you can, at your own level,
have extreme ownership and try and be a positive
influence from whatever rank that you're in at
the time. But sometimes you're just in this environment
that is very, very toxic. And like in my particular
example, it was walking out and fixing it from
the outside that was ultimately the solution
that I went with. What are some of the challenges
that you're hearing from these people in these
positions that do have the heart for it? And
what are some of the success stories? What are
some of the takeaways from? you know, Echelon
Front's mentorship that is actually having an
actionable change in some of these departments?
Yeah, look, when you're talking in general about
being a part of a team that maybe is not being
led very well and it's causing issues and friction
down the chain of command and you're feeling
like you don't have a lot of ability to affect
the chain of command, the reason is In some cases,
you don't have a lot of ability to affect the
chain of command. Now, we could talk a lot about
strategies for having a better relationship,
which means that you have more influence, picking
and choosing your battles, so that when you do
choose to make something a concern or bring something
up, you're not the boy who cried wolf over and
over again. But I would see the same kind of...
paradigm in the military, especially when I was
running the training command, because I was putting
every platoon on the West Coast through their
training functions. And we had good leaders and
we had bad leaders from a team level all the
way down to a platoon level. And what I would
tell people that feel like maybe they're stuck
in that cycle of not having a lot of influence
in the negative environment is good teams can
absolutely overcome bad leadership. But you have
to be focused on the right things. If you're
focused on the bad leadership, nothing is going
to change. You're going to get burnout. You're
going to get frustrated. Those frustrations are
probably going to bleed into your day -to -day
interactions with your teammates and cause friction.
But if you take the energy that you are using.
focusing on the thing that you can't change,
and you focus it on trying to ensure that you're
building the best team that you possibly can
with the people around you, and you're looking
out for each other and supporting the people
to your left and to your right, a lot of good
things can happen. And I would see, I could give
you example after example of platoons that were
not led well, but it was no factor because the
guys in the platoon were focused on getting the
job done and supporting each other. And in doing
that, in putting the mission first and the team
first, they were still able to be really effective.
I also saw times where there were bad leaders,
bad platoon commander, bad platoon chief, bad
troop commander, and the platoon was horrible.
And the reason the platoon was horrible is because
they were focused on the thing that they can't
change and not focused on what they could control
and what they could own. If you're in that scenario,
you got one of two choices. Option one is leave.
Look, that's a huge decision. That's a huge decision
that might affect not just you, but people that
depend on you for support to provide for them,
you know, your family. There's a lot of good.
You're a perfect case in point. And sometimes.
outsize good that can happen by making a move
like that but if you're in this scenario and
you're like well nothing i'm doing is working
ultimately you have one choice which is to leave
and find something else to do the other choice
is to own the things that you can own which is
your performance your ability to keep the focus
on the mission your ability to support the people
around you and influence the people around you
to do the same thing. And I would argue from
my experience, from what I've seen, and also
from having a tour or two where I wasn't led
the best in the SEAL teams and had some of those
experiences, is if you can focus on the people
around you and supporting them and getting the
mission done and not spend your time worrying
about the things that you can't control, things
get better. Doesn't mean things are going to
be perfect. But things will absolutely get better.
One thing that I've seen as well is I think our
profession is just so underslept and overworked
that the ability to critically think diminishes
rapidly. And so, for example, they're so hell
-bent on banging heads with the union, the administration,
the city, the county, whoever it is. Sometimes
they can't see that actually the solution that
fixes all things is right in front of them. But
you have to repair these relationships. And we're
in Florida where these departments have really
moved forward. Massive respect to all the people
in those positions because they've done that.
They're like, look, enough is enough. Let's just
sit down. Let's just talk about this. And I'll
give Plano, Texas a shout out. They sat down
and in one day hashed out how to completely revolutionize
their work week. Because as you said, humility,
they left all their egos out the door. Pasco
County in Florida, another good example. So this
is what I think another thing is, rather than
having this constant headbanging with these groups
because he wears bugles or that person's a politician,
but actually taking a step back, but what is
the solution? What is the thing that works that
we can do as a team? And then in this particular
example with the work week and the recruitment
and crisis and the retention crisis, The answer
is the same. The overtime money wastage is the
same exact thing, but it's a false economy to
work the people the way they do. You have to
invest money up front and that will save hand
over fist on the way down. So now all we're really
left with is egos because it's someone going,
you know what? We were wrong. Just the ability
to say we were wrong. Let's start doing something
different. I think if we could just implant that
into someone's head so all the egos settle down,
they actually look at. The spreadsheet, the way
it's supposed to be seen, and here's the money
that's downstream, and here's how it costs to
put these extra people. And if we took that from
there and put it there, then boom, now we're
in a much better place. The solutions are there,
but I see that people, like I said, they're so
tired, they're in some cases so angry that they
literally can't see the wood for the trees anymore.
Yeah, ego is the number one killer in business
and in life. And like we talked about earlier,
if you are the person in charge and you're leading
with that ego, it's going to have terrible effects
for your entire organization. And there's nothing
that gets better by having a frictional relationship
with someone. Nothing is going to get solved.
Nothing is going to get better by that. So the
number one leadership principle that we teach
as a company. is relationships. And we teach
it through this lens of teamwork. And when we
say teamwork, what we mean is like the entire
organization. So it's not just my platoon, it's
all of team five. In actuality, it's all of Naval
Special Warfare. But if I'm focused on just my
platoon, And I'm not building relationships with
team 10 or team seven right across the hall from
us. Then I'm letting these silos pop up in between
us. And when there's silos in our organization,
we're not communicating. We're not sharing best
practices. I'm not learning from them. They're
not learning from me. And what usually happens
is. those egos get involved and we start to compete
against each other. And we start to look at our
own teammates, the people that we should be on
this journey together with, we start to look
at them as like our competition or a barrier
to our success somehow. And when you've got leadership
in the firehouse that can't play nice with the
union or the city because of their ego, that's
going to affect every single person. And look,
everybody... In that, you know, triangle of three
that we just talked about, they all want the
same thing. Ideally, at the end, they all want
the same thing. So if we can focus on the things
that we're aligned on, then we can start to talk
about the tactics to get that result in the best
way. But if we can't focus on the thing that
we're aligned on, if it now becomes about, well,
I want it this way because my ego and you want
it this way because of your ego, then we're never
going to get aligned on the things that really
matter. No, I couldn't agree more. Well, I want
to shift subjects so that we can get to the closing
questions. Talk to me about, I mean, you mentioned
in Virginia, you mentioned on a farm, how did
you find yourself kind of circling around to
your early life and actually getting into the
rural? you know, farm upbringing, but also the
beef industry. Yeah, so I love growing up on
a farm. Even though it was work, like the freedom
that it offered me, I really enjoyed it. My wife
grew up in New Hampshire, and they had, I think,
two acres, but it backed up into national forest
land. So it seemed to them like they had a lot
more land. When we were having kids and raising
our family in San Diego, we were in Coronado
for like 10 years. Then we moved to Imperial
Beach, which is just south of Coronado, and bought
a place down there. And we enjoyed our time.
But man, your space is like the size of my office
that I'm sitting in right now. And that always
bugged me because I'm used to open spaces. And
I'm probably what we would call like a... introverted
extrovert. And what I mean by that is like, I
like people, but I like to choose when I engage
with people. So I like space. I like silence.
I like the ability to, you know, not be able
to see my neighbor because they live far away,
but to invite my neighbor over whenever I want
to invite them over. And my wife kind of felt
the same way. And we knew that we wanted our
kids to grow up with that same level of freedom
that we had. And there's a lot of great lessons,
as you know. that come from growing up on a farm.
Like there's responsibility, there's chores that
they're just not going to have in the city. And
the place where we moved, my wife's family has
basically been moving here over the last 10 years.
So they've got, you know, a set of grandparents
are here. Aunts and uncles are here. Bunch of
their cousins are here. So we knew we wanted
to be near family. We knew we wanted to be back
on like the rural farm life. And we were just
fortunate enough to find this kind of beautiful
farm. And we didn't have cattle growing up. I've
always loved cattle. I always wanted to raise
cattle. And now I get to raise cattle with my
family out here on our farm. I've had Joel Salatin
on here a few times talking about regenerative
farming. What's your philosophy on your farm?
same thing so uh joel's farm is only about two
hours away from ours and i started reading a
lot about regenerative ag uh when i was in the
seal team still because i knew that i wanted
to do this one day so we have about looks like
56 acres and when it's grazing season because
in the winter nothing grows so the cows get put
in a pasture and we roll out hay for them uh
every day but In the grazing season, spring,
summer, and fall, we move our cows every single
day to a fresh patch of pasture. So they get
about an acre a day to graze, and then we move
them every single day. And what that does is
allows the plant to flourish and not get overgrazed.
And it's good for the health of the soil. It's
the best thing for the cattle. We don't treat
our cattle with any antibiotics or hormones or
anything like that, because we don't have to,
because they're acting like cattle were designed
to act in open air pastures. So we very much
follow the same kind of philosophy. And I took
my family and my nieces and nephews down to Polyface
Farms to kind of see his operation and get a
tour of how he does things. We had a great conversation
recently and we're kind of looking back again.
I had him during COVID as well, but this was
post -COVID. And, you know, because what I'd
said is if there was ever an event in modern
history that should reframe, you know, what we
eat, how we move in America. should have been
the pandemic. And if you wrote down how to make
people even more susceptible to the virus and
more likely to die, it was exactly what everyone
said. Don't see your family, don't see your friends,
don't see the sunshine, don't see nature, watch
Tiger King, order fast food and alcohol to be
delivered. That's it. Couldn't have been worse.
And so coming out of this, what we should have
seen was real food served in schools like we
used to, PE programs bolstered, local farmers
given... incentives to grow clean food locally,
because we saw that massive bottleneck in the
abattoirs. With where you are now, what is your
perspective, your after action report on how
COVID was handled? And then what is your view
on where we should be as far as local farming
and the type of farming these days? Yeah, I don't
know that it could have been handled much worse.
It goes back to that conversation we talked about,
about leaders. And unfortunately, you know, I'm
not in those people's heads. I don't know what
their intent was, but all we can judge is their
actions and they were the wrong actions. And
anyone that tries to claim that they weren't
now is just ignoring all the data that we have
now in hindsight. The thing that I think was
the most important thing that came out of the
pandemic was this realization that the medical
establishment, the government. And some of the
research science is not infallible. And a matter
of fact, we're always learning. New things are
always being developed. And at times, those establishments
have made the absolute wrong decisions. Like
sugar at one point in time was really good for
you. Smoking cigarettes at one point in time.
was really good for you, according to science.
The food pyramid that is absolute garbage that
just got flipped on its head was designed by
the same people. So there's this, you know, like
when you look at agriculture, take that for example.
I mean, I'm sure you remember like the mad cow
epidemic back in like 2001. I was touring Europe.
with two of my friends after we graduated uh
high school we saved up money and we went and
toured around europe for a month after high school
and when we were in england like we couldn't
have beef because of mad cow the reason that
mad cow became an issue was because the the Ag
industry said it was a really good idea to grind
up your dead animals and feed them to your cattle
because it's good protein for them. And surprise,
surprise, that caused some issues. So when you
look at like, hey, why are all of our cattle
treated with hormones? It's because the majority
of the commercial ag space, and I'm not hating
on the farmers that are doing this because they
have to fit in this system that's been built
for them now. They have to push them full of
hormones to get them to grow fast so that they
can make a profit off of them. Because if they
don't do that, they carry the cow for too long
and they can't make a dollar off of them and
they'll go broke. Why do they have to inoculate
them with antibiotics? Because they're living
on top of each other in these big feedlots. Some
of them are not even open air and they're developing
all of these different issues because they're
not allowed to thrive out in open pasture. So
we have to inoculate them with all these different
antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. So
I think a positive that came from COVID was just
a spotlight on one. There's no such thing as
someone who's infallible. We're learning things.
And I think it shined a spotlight on the fact
that we've been doing things the wrong way for
quite a long time. What is your hope as far as
supporting local farmers once more? The infrastructure
right now to support local farmers should, in
theory, be the best it's probably ever been because
we have the internet. And it should be easy for
someone to connect with a local farmer via the
Internet. The issue is farmers love to farm.
You know what farmers don't love to do? Create
websites and market their goods and manage a
website. And like, hey, I don't blame them because
it's freaking terrible now that I have to do
it. It used to be that people would get their
beef from their neighbor or from their local
butcher who was sourcing it from farms that are
around them. And then we had this big push, lots
of urban development, people moving to the cities.
And then it was kind of like, well, you don't
know where your food is coming from. The internet
should be the big equalizer to those things because,
James, if you have a farm, you should be able,
if you want to, to build a website and market
that. to your neighbors market that to the people
that live in the town next to you market that
to the people that might live in your nearest
city and draw them in to buy the produce and
the meat that you're producing so the the i think
the infrastructure is there but it just comes
down to like what farmers want to focus on and
what they're good at and what they're not good
at if each farm magically had the ability to
to market their goods I don't think there would
be a problem anymore because who living in a
city or an urban environment doesn't want to
know that their cow was treated humanely, that
nothing artificial is in their beef, and shake
the hand, whether in real life or digitally,
of the person who's putting their heart and soul
into that thing that you're about to consume.
One of my favorite books that Joel wrote was
Everything I Do is Illegal. And he talked about,
again, the barriers against local farmers or
even people that are just cooking out of their
kitchen and be able to sell it to their neighbors.
The barriers that we have for these small local
farms that obviously do support in these mega
farms and these monocrops, etc. So what are some
of the challenges for an independent farm? And
again, what do we need to change for that to
be easier for people to be able to provide to
their neighbors? Too much bureaucracy that's
involved in the day -to -day operation of a farm
or a ranch being able to sell their goods to
a consumer. So again, you go back to intent versus
the outcome. I think the intent originally, when
those things were put in place, was to protect
the consumer, to make sure that the farmer was
doing the things that they needed to do to ensure
that their product was safe for consumption.
I think the intent of that is probably pretty
noble, but I think the way that it's been executed
has done nothing but put barriers between a farmer
or a rancher being able to actually sell their
goods and a consumer that wants those goods to
be able to purchase those goods. I mean, you
know, a perfect example is raw milk. You know,
we have a neighbor who has a Jersey cow. And
they're very nice and they give us raw milk for
free. I can't buy that raw milk for them because
it's illegal to buy that raw milk for them. Now,
if that neighbor, because of bureaucracy, puts
for pet consumption only and I buy it for my
labradoodle, that's our farm guard dog. Not really.
He's useless on the farm. And I just happen to
take a sip of it. Well, then it's legal. But
if he sells it for human consumption. He can
face fines or potentially even go to jail. The
number of people that have issues from raw milk,
contamination in raw milk, is like minuscule,
0 .001%. The number of issues that come from
massive at -scale dairy operations. is way more
than that. I mean, how many E. coli recalls have
there been for tainted beef, tainted chicken,
tainted pork off of commercial shelves in your
grocery store? You know where that doesn't happen?
At a farm where the animal is raised in an open
air environment or at an abattoir or a local
butcher who has really good handling practices
and is not allowing that beef to sit and get
shipped across the country. unfrozen for this
long period of time. But like, no, it's okay
for that big ad company to do that and have all
these issues and recalls. But it's not okay for
Farmer John to take that same risk, even though
it's way, way, way less of a risk. So I think
the only thing that you can do is just strip
away some of the bureaucracy. Joe Salatin has
a role. in this administration, I don't know
if he still has it or not, in hopefully breaking
some of that down. You know, RFK with Make America
Healthy Again push, I know he's trying to do
some of those things, which I applaud, but it's
a big bureaucracy, and it's not going to be dismantled
overnight. Well, I mean, I thought RFK was great
prior to the election. And again, I don't know
what's happening behind the scenes, but again,
you're talking about intent versus action. If
after a year, all you've done is get rid of food
dyes and turn a pyramid upside down, I'd say
that's a pretty piss poor production for a year
in the most powerful position. So something's
going on back there that's certainly holding
them back. Yeah, I think everyone that gets a
peek behind the curtain of any mechanism of government
goes, oh my goodness, this is way more complex
than I thought. and way more difficult to dismantle
not because of necessarily the policy itself
but because of the entrenched positions from
a lot of individuals that are involved in those
policies like there's a lot of individuals that
don't want people i shouldn't say individuals
there's a lot of entities that don't want people
to be able to buy milk from their neighbor And
don't want people to be able to go and purchase
farm -raised cattle from their neighbor because
they want to push them to a shelf where their
product is. Well, it's as we said before with
the military -industrial complex, there's a lot
of people that don't want Americans to be healthy
because they make meds, they make wheelchairs,
they make implants. There's a lot of people that
don't want peace because they make weapons and
they make MREs and they make uniforms. So this
goes back to that checks and balances. I really
feel like if we literally just changed everything
back to 100 years ago, the way we eat, the way
we move, even as we talked about earlier, the
way we learn, you would solve 90 % of our problems
right there and then. But that involves empowering
local farmers to grow and to raise just like
they used to and have local. you know, butchers
and bakers and all these things, which I think
we're craving as well. I think this mega store
has just got so out of whack and the death of
the American mall, I think, is because of that.
People just don't want to be going in and mindlessly,
you know, rummaging through coat racks and shelves
now. They want to interact. They want to sit
down. They want to break bread. They want to,
you know, share a drink, whatever it is. So I
hope that we're going to start seeing this full
circle to that again. Because a few people making
all the money, I know the monopoly was kind of
worshipped in American business for a long time,
but that's other people's money that you're accumulating.
We don't all need to own 15 Ferraris. We can
all just cohabit in villages and towns and have
food local and the air is clean and the water
is clean. And it's not a unicorn with rainbows
coming out of its ass. It's just literally how
we lived 80, 100 years ago. Yeah, and a piece
of that too is with the medical profession, like
an increased focus on the importance of nutrition
because they get next to none in medical school
right now. And it's almost like, well, the first
thing that I think you should be asking someone
when they come in with a chronic illness is let's
look at what you're putting into your body. And
unfortunately now you have to also look at like
what's in the things that you're putting in your
body. All of our wheat is sprayed with... um,
pesticides. So whether you're getting that wheat
in your bread or, um, in cereal or whatever the
heck now, it's not just like, well, you're having
some wheat now it's well, what's that grain been
sprayed with that your body and some people's
bodies react very differently to it. So I hope
we can go back there and I hope we can get an
increased. focus on the importance of nutrition
and start that cycle really young uh like you
said earlier you know start in the school system
where you can teach people what a real healthy
meal actually looks like absolutely going back
to what you're talking about you know what can
we control and this is you've already seen this
happen a little bit what we can control is what
we spend you know, what we actually purchase.
And, you know, now a lot of, a lot of supermarkets
don't even have like a health food section. Now
they have health food or healthier food throughout
the entire grocery store. So I think this is
it. If people are really empowered to understand
the damage that some of this commercial food
is doing to us. And then obviously the, again,
downstream costs, your, your disease, not only
for your wallet, but also your longevity. If
America really started demanding the healthier
food, the local food, you would see a shift again.
Because as you said, of course, these corporations,
they don't want you to be doing that. They want
you to buy their cereal or their dairy or whatever
it is. But we all have the power to just change
where we buy and also just break that myth that
healthy food is expensive because it's not. Like
fast food is getting more and more expensive
now. So there's never been a better time to actually
lean into local produce, local meat and actually
save money at the same time. And it is one of
the, I think, beauties of capitalism, which is
like the businesses will go where the money is
and the money is telling them to go. So if all
of a sudden there is a demand for a local produce.
A lot of those grocery stores, they'll build
relationships with local producers and they'll
put them in there if that's what people are demanding.
If people aren't demanding that, then why would
they go out of their way and spend millions or
hundreds of millions of dollars to revamp the
way that they do business? So we all get a vote
with our dollar. And at the end of the day, what
we've seen again and again and again in America
is that businesses will go where. the consumer
the american public are willing to spend their
dollars and if that's on healthy local food then
there will be avenues for people to get that
regardless of where they live because not everybody
can live next to a farmer or rancher absolutely
well i want to throw some closing questions at
you before i let you go 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 I love
the book Legacy, which is written by a guy that
I've come to know. And I actually brought him
out to talk to NSW, a guy named James Kerr. And
Legacy is a profile of the All Blacks rugby team.
And the profile is really what makes them the
team that they are. Because historically, they're
the winningest sports team in the history of
sports across any sport. And it's a rugby team
from a very small island, New Zealand, compared
to its neighbors and the other nations that compete
in rugby. So James went down there with no agenda
outside of just let's try to figure out why they're
so good. Is it the coaching? Is it, you know,
the talent pool they're pulling from? And those
things played a part in it. But what he really
found was the thing that makes the All Blacks
so good. is there's more tied to that black jersey
than just their desire to win. In the minds of
everyone that's ever put that black jersey on,
they're carrying the hopes and dreams of a nation.
And because of that, the culture that they keep
and the standard that they keep inside of their
own ranks is the greatest profile I've ever seen
in how to build and maintain a culture. So if
you're... a leader who's like, hey, how do I
improve the culture of my organization? Or how
do I really form up a culture inside my organization?
Or if you're a contributing member of a team
that's like, hey, you know, how do I get people
on board with this direction that I want to go?
I would highly recommend that they take a look
at that book because it's the best study on culture
that I've ever read. I also think that book,
The General, The Generals is a great book to
read because it's also, as well as being, you
know, a tale of like what happened to the American
generalship, it's also a cautionary tale of the
factors that led up to that. And I think it's
very easy for other industries to fall inside
of that same kind of pitfall if they're not careful.
Those would be two off the bat. If you haven't
read The Count of Monte Cristo. I'm just going
to throw a pitch out there. It's my favorite
book of all time because it deals with a lot
of very deep things about what it means to be
a human through highs and lows. So I'm going
to throw that in there as a read as well, even
though it's not a real tale. It's funny, you're
not the first person that's mentioned that book
as well. So very interesting. I'm going to have
to read it then. What about films, documentaries,
or movies? Okay. let's see films i have to break
it up and man i have to i could spend probably
like another two hours on this but i have to
break it up into like comedies and then like
serious movies that you can actually learn something
from um i would say serious movies that you can
actually learn something from you'd be pretty
hard pressed i think to top the movie gladiator
and what that movie is really all about and the
profile of uh maximus inside that movie. And
I think if you're looking at like the archetype
of a servant and archetype of a well -balanced
man, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone
better than Maximus for everything that he goes
through. Rising to the generalship. being Marcus
Aurelius' right -hand man, not wanting to take
the position that Marcus wants him to give, his
loyalty to his wife and his kids, his ability
to rise back up through the ranks, all of those
things, pretty hard -pressed. Man, what else?
Last of the Mohicans, same thing. I mean, if
you're a young man looking for a good role model,
it's right there in that movie. Either one of
those people I think would be a good archetype
for you to struggle towards. TV shows, I don't
watch a lot of TV, and I think it's mainly because
TV has just turned into crap. I would say the
same thing with modern movies. Everything is
deconstructed. There's no such thing as a hero
anymore. Everybody has to have a dark, entangled
past, and that's just absolute bullcrap. I served
with some of the best people on the planet. And
maybe some of them came from backgrounds that
they had to reform themselves, but some of them
were just amazing human beings that were doing
their best to serve their nation. So this idea
that there's no such thing as a hero and we have
to try to deconstruct all of these existing heroes
that we already have, I think is absolute garbage
and damaging. And I'm seeing a trend now where...
the archetype of the hero is coming back. And
I think that's very important for young men and
young women to be able to see that mythos that
has been part of Western civilization, this myth
of the noble hero. And in some perspective, be
able to see themselves in that myth or be able
to see themselves striving to become. a part
of that myth, I think it's really important.
And I think it's been missing deliberately from
movies and TVs over about the past 10 to 15 years.
I'm working on creating a TV show from my latest
book. And it's funny that there's a generational
trauma element to it. But the whole takeaway
is the hero's journey and post -traumatic. But,
you know, that doesn't have to be, you know,
something that breaks you down. If it's addressed
and worked through, just like an enemy would
be, that then you have scars that actually are
making you stronger. Because I think there is
an opportunity to have both of those. But, yeah,
even there's a film, Asphalt City, that portrayed
FDNY paramedics. And it was dark and depressing
and the ending sucked. There was no hope whatsoever.
I'm like, what the hell? We're not. But this
is how we're portrayed. Either a bunch of buffoons
that, you know, running around, tripping over
each other. Or like you said, you know, they're
all like a lot of our veteran stories, too. They're
going to stick a gun in the mouth the end, you
know, but struggles. That's a real human thing.
But what you do with those struggles, that's
what we need to really be storytelling. Yeah.
And if you look at. You know, the golden age
of Hollywood, if you will. And my family does.
We don't have a TV in the house. The only TV
we have is in our pole barn right behind me.
So it's like a very deliberate thing if we want
to watch something as a family. And we have our
Friday night movie night where we get a bunch
of pizza and watch a movie. And we watch, you
know, some newer stuff that's kid appropriate.
But we I love watching the classics with my with
my kids. And you like to kill a mockingbird.
you're not going to get a better example of someone
doing the right thing in the face of tremendous
pressure to not do the right thing. Mr. Smith
goes to Washington, this small town guy that's
willing to go and stick his neck out in Washington
to try to do the best that he can for the American
people. And all of these movies have this common
theme of the power of one person to make a difference.
And it's true. There is a huge power in someone
that just decides to do the right thing and decides
to struggle against the things that they need
to struggle with. Absolutely. Well, speaking
of amazing people, is there a person that you'd
recommend to come on this podcast as a guest
to speak to the first responders, military and
associated professions of the world? Yeah, that
platoon chief that I was talking about, Dave
Hanson. Absolutely. One of my best friends still
to this day. the best seal that I've ever seen
in my entire life. And one of, if not the best
men I've ever met in my entire life. And he's
just got the gift of wisdom. And it comes in
the shape of a thick New York accent. So it seems
very folksy when he gives you his wisdom. Well,
I would love to get him on if you're able to
help me with that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Beautiful. Thank you. All right. Well, then the
last question before we make sure everyone knows
where to find all things, Sean, what do you do
to decompress? I love to work out. I love to
box. I love to play guitar, but my biggest decompression
is my family. Like there's no stress with me
if I'm around my family. So if I've had a long
day at work or stuff on the farm is just frustrating
me. The thing that I enjoy the most that helps
me de -stress is just sit down and play a game
with the kids, whether it's a board game, a card
game, whatever it is. And I'm instantly only
thinking about how much fun I'm having right
then and right there. Beautiful. Goes back again.
Ultimate currency. All right. Well, then for
people listening, let's start with Primal Beef.
Where can they find that? And what do you offer
on that site? Yeah, the website's just primalbeef
.com and it's single sourced farm raised beef
right here in the Shenandoah Valley where I am.
And you can go on there. We've got curated boxes
where we've made some boxes with some really
good blends of cuts. And then we also have a
custom box option where you can go and just put
whatever beef you want in there. So whether you're
looking for ground beef, steaks, barbecue cuts
like brisket or beef ribs or a tri -tip. We got
you covered. And I promise you a couple of things.
You're not going to ever have better beef. If
there's an issue with your order, we're going
to take care of it. Myself or Paul or Declan,
the other founders are going to take care of
it. And at the backside of that order, we donate
a cut of beef to active duty military members
and their family through the C4 Foundation. So
anytime someone comes and orders a box, we take
a cut out of our... Our inventory doesn't cost
the customer anything. It's totally on us. We
take a cut out of our inventory and we set it
aside and we donate that inventory periodically
to active duty SEALs and their family. So not
only are you getting good beef for yourself,
but you're hooking up some service members as
well. And that service member is not me, by the
way. Full disclosure. I don't just take it and
put it in my refrigerator. Going back to that,
just while we're talking about leadership and
business, I also feel, I guess I'm kind of romanticizing
about a lot of things, you know, the good old
days. But with this worshipping of monopoly and
with these James Bond villains that we've got
as a result of that, I feel like one of the most
powerful business models is the social business
model. woven into the sales of your product is
some sort of altruistic practice what is your
view of that on the grander scale that being
like the kind of the next generation of businesses
that's really kind of leaning into the consumer
as well i love seeing it and i think the only
thing that i would say is i hope it comes from
a place of true desire to give back and not as
like a marketing scheme to try to get people
to buy your product. And I think it is. I think
it comes from a genuine place for people to want
to give back. And that was really important to
us when we founded Primal Beef and Jocko's a
partner. He's the other founder of Primal Beef.
And we knew that we wanted this company to be
something that provided the American public with
something that they needed, which was farm fresh
American beef with no hormones, no antibiotics,
none of that nonsense in there. But we also knew
that we wanted the company to be more than just
that. So we have the partnership with the C4
Foundation where we feed active duty service
members. And then the abattoir that we use, Seven
Hills down in Lynchburg, Virginia, a couple of
hours from us. We chose them because they're
the best in the business of what they do. They're
a small. you know, boutique, if you want to,
abattoir that focuses on, you know, the quality
of the cuts and the quality of the dry aging.
But they're also very mission focused, and they
hire and train butchers from a work release program.
So they're taking people that have made some
bad decisions in their life, spent some time
behind bars, and they're giving them a chance
that most other people are not willing to give,
which is giving them a chance at employment and
not just that. They're teaching them a very marketable
and very important skill, which is how to butcher
and process an animal, which is a skill that's
going away. And I can tell you from going down
there and spending time with them that this is
a life changing thing for these individuals,
because now not only are they given a second
chance at life, they're given a career and they're
made part of a family at Seven Hills that genuinely
cares about them. So that that desire to take
care of people around us was woven. all throughout
Primal Beef. And you are seeing that more and
more with companies that are starting. And I
think it's a beautiful thing. And I think it
speaks to the heart also of what it means to
be an American and wanting to take care of your
fellow citizens. That reminds me, I've talked
about this a lot on here. I had the superintendent
of Bastoy Prison in Norway. And they have everyone
from petty crime through to murderers in this
prison. But the prison looks like a housing development.
It's on an island outside of Oslo. So they've
lost their freedom, but they live together. They
cook together. They clean together. They go to
work. They go to school. Because the Norwegian
philosophy is one day, 95 % of all prisoners
are going to move back into your street. So do
you want someone who was held in a box that had
to, you know, have a shank in case they got murdered
that day or, you know, drugs that were smuggled
in? Or do you want someone who's truly rehabilitated?
And even in Portugal, if you look at how they
reversed addiction there, they decriminalized
addiction, not selling, not smuggling, but addiction
itself. And job creation is one of their tools
in there as well. So looking at a human being
and saying. They're fallible just like I am.
They make mistakes. You know, they went down
that one road. Maybe they didn't have that mentor
that I had woven into their crossroads and be
able to have these programs that really allow
people to get back on their feet and become a
productive member of society again. I mean, it's
exactly what we need here. Yeah, it's huge. And
it's awesome to see that those countries are
doing things like that and that it's working.
Absolutely. All right. Well, that was Primal
Beef. What about Echelon Front? Tell me kind
of what the different branches of the leadership
training are there and where people can find
that. Yeah, our goal is to just. Teach the skill
of leadership to as many people as we possibly
can. And I use that word skill very deliberately
because it is a skill. There's no such thing
as a born leader. That's a myth. There's no such
thing as a child that emerged from the womb with
all of the characteristics and traits that they're
going to need to be a good leader. It's a skill.
We can all learn it. We can all get better at
it, no matter how effective we are as leaders.
There's always things that we can do to improve.
There's always new tools that we can leverage
to better the lives of the people that we're
leading. And that's our mission at Echelon Front.
And there's a couple of different buckets that
that falls into. So we have events where people
can come to them, like the muster, where there's
a thousand people that come from all over the
world to attend this two -day deep dive into
leadership. And you're going to hear from Jocko
and Leif, our founders, and from all the different
instructors. And you're going to get time to
liaise with the different leaders that are there
and pick their brains. And then we also have
a business unit. Our main business unit is going
and working. with companies and going and working
with teams. So, you know, a leader or a team
might reach out and say, hey, you know, I'd really
like to bring Echelon Front in to spend some
time with my leaders to get to know them, to
get to hear what their struggles and what their
challenges are. And then let's talk about some
strategies and some opportunities, excuse me,
and some tools that they can use to be more effective
in their leadership role. Or sometimes the company
will go, hey, we just, promoted from within.
And we've now got 50 managers that have never
managed people before, and we want to set them
up for success. So we want you to spend some
time with them and really help us prepare them
for that first real leadership role that they're
going to undertake. So that's really our driving
mission as a company is just to teach these principles
of leadership to as many people as we possibly
can. And then you have the online format as well.
Yes, the online format is something that kind
of stemmed from COVID, where we could no longer
go and interact with our clients and our teammates
at these different companies and different teams
in person. So we started an online format. And
over the last five years, we've really focused
on building out the digital content around leadership
that we have, because what we've realized is
our limiting factor to teaching this is us. There's
only so many of us that can go around and talk
with the company and meet with the company. So
we're building out this digital database of all
these different leadership topics and all these
different leadership tools that companies can
utilize to help improve their leaders' capabilities.
And that's echelonfront .com. echelonfront .com.
And if you're interested in the online stuff,
you'll find plenty of information out there.
If you're interested in talking about maybe bringing
out Echelon Front to support your team or one
of your events, you can go on there and there's
a kind of a question submittal form that'll go
directly to our team and they'll follow up with
you real quick. Brilliant. Well, Sean, I want
to thank you. It's been such an interesting and
diverse conversation from obviously, you know,
active duty in the SEALs to restorative, excuse
me, regenerative farming and everything in between.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous
with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. Yeah, absolutely, James. And again,
man, I really appreciate the opportunity. And
it was awesome to see you at the muster. And
it's awesome to spend some time with you today.