On this episode of the podcast, I sit down with my good friend and former Marine, Rob O'Neill. We talk about his life and how he got to where he is today, and what drove him to do what he did. We also talk about some of the struggles he went through growing up, and the lessons he learned along the way. I hope you enjoy this episode, and know that you are not alone in your journey, and that there is always a way forward. Thank you so much to Rob for being a part of this podcast, and I hope that you find some value in this episode. Peace, Blessings, Cheers, and Cheers. -Jon Sorrentino and . If you like the podcast and would like to support it, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and become a patron patron. Don t forget to leave us a rating and a review! if you have any questions or suggestions on how we can improve the podcast. We appreciate your support. Don't forget to also leave a review on Apple Podcasts and tell us what a great podcast you're listening to this podcast is going to be a big thank you! Thanks, Jon Sorrento and I'll see you next week! -Dakota and Jon talk to you soon! -Jon & Dakota - Jon "The Way Forward" -Jon and Dakota - Thank you for listening to Jon and Dakota's podcast, Jon talks about their journey and how they are doing their best to create a better life. . . . Jon and Dak and Dakota talks about what they are going to do the best to help others have the best of their day to day life in the best possible day in the most authentic way possible. Thank you, Jon & Dakota does the best they can do the most they can be the most important thing they can achieve the most in their best possible way possible for the most beautiful day in their lives, and how to live their best in their most authentic version of their best, the most honest and the most meaningful day possible, the best way possible, and they give the most of what they can give their best chance to be the best chance for the best day to do that most of the most possible, most authentic and most authentic day possible. Jon & Dakotah thank you for being kindest of all of that they are the most genuine and most genuine.
00:00:27.000You know, like, I think that there was, like, a point in my life to where I kind of just, you know, kind of put it all together, like, wanting to help people.
00:00:44.000That was one thing we could relate on is, like, you know, we both came from two different places, did two different things, but, like, there's always a way forward, you know, focusing on what matters.
00:00:52.000Was there a time in your life where you didn't think there was a way forward?
00:00:57.000Yeah, I mean, I wrote about that in my first book about, you know, a time that I just didn't know if there was a way forward.
00:01:04.000But, you know, what I learned was, is like, you know, when you don't see a way forward, it's because your purpose is yourself and it's not other things, right?
00:01:13.000People that are lost, or I feel like when I'm lost is when I'm too busy focusing on things for me and my purpose is me and it's not like the things that are around me, the things that matter.
00:01:42.000But finding something bigger that you can believe in, like, you know, being a firefighter or being a good dad or, you know, just trying to have goals of fitness or start a company or all those things, right?
00:02:39.000But, you know, that was where I was at, and I was walking around blaming all my problems on, you know, well, you know, I'm drinking all the time.
00:02:48.000I wasn't an alcoholic, but just drinking all the time, trying to, you know, overcome the pain of, you know, the stuff that I'd seen, the things that didn't make sense.
00:02:54.000And then, you know, when you would try to question me or hold me accountable, I'd be like, well, you didn't go through what I went through, right?
00:04:28.000And one night I was out drinking somewhere and I was driving home on this road and I just seen like the pain I was causing the people around me, right?
00:04:37.000Like, My dad was never going to kick me out of the house, but I just seen the disappointment in people that I was bringing.
00:04:47.000I was driving down the road one night and I just said, look, this is it.
00:05:38.000And so I sat there and I I just told myself that if I'm going to continue to live life like I am and waste it, then I know how to load this gun.
00:05:55.000I need to just rack it back and get it over with.
00:05:58.000But I just made this deal with myself that if I'm going to put the car in drive and go home, that, like, this is not an option ever again.
00:06:07.000And, you know, God gave me a different, had a different outcome for me, and I drove home.
00:06:14.000And ever since then, I mean, you know, look, I think we all, I think we all go through moments where we don't know.
00:06:22.000There's always these moments where we don't know if we can get out of it, right?
00:07:22.000I mean, I've been in so many situations where I was supposed to die, or I thought I, like, there's been at least five or six situations where it wasn't that I thought I was going to die, it was that I knew I was going to die.
00:08:12.000I think that, like, I just realized that I need to live a life, if I don't want to do it for myself, then I need to live a life that's worthy of their sacrifices.
00:09:10.000It's such a common problem with veterans.
00:09:12.000I mean, I believe at one point in time, I don't know what the status is now, but at one point in time, more veterans had died by suicide in Afghanistan than had died from combat.
00:09:24.000Yeah, I mean, I've lost more guys Since being home to suicide than I ever lost in combat.
00:09:44.000What they were trying to drill into people was that asking people to go over there and fight and to see the horrors that they see and to see friends die and loved ones die and then ask them to come back and have life just be normal.
00:10:18.000I don't know what kind of training they give you when you're about to leave the military or when you're returning from combat, but do they try to give you any sort of an understanding of how to cope with this kind of stuff?
00:10:33.000Yeah, I mean, you know, it's obviously gotten a lot better, right?
00:10:39.000I mean, the more that mental health is accepted, I mean, look, I mean, to be honest, I mean, as men, 10, 15 years ago, it wasn't something, it was looked at as weak, right?
00:10:53.000It seems like somewhere along the line, I mean, I don't know what the statistics show, but it seems like somewhere along the line, it became way more common to know people that kill themselves.
00:11:35.000I mean, so many guys that I know, like yourself or many of my other friends that are veterans, they just have memories that they can't shake.
00:11:43.000I think that you want to talk about the group of people that have it the worst is our first responders.
00:12:58.000But that doesn't give me, like, a card to blame, well, why I'm an alcoholic or why I'm not getting help or why I hit my wife or why I'm in fights.
00:13:11.000Like, let's get help and let's want to get better.
00:13:13.000You know, there's just a fine line of...
00:13:19.000Of using it as an excuse versus as what's real on it, right?
00:13:24.000And no one can identify that, but it's like at some point you have to look in the mirror and I mean look, Jocko talks about extreme ownership, right?
00:13:31.000You have to look in the mirror and at the point that you can take responsibility for your actions, you can then change them.
00:13:36.000So when you think about PTSD and you think about the effect that it has on you, is Being a firefighter, does it compound all of the PTSD that you experience as a combat veteran?
00:14:54.000But yeah, those kind of experiences, like the experience of seeing someone die, for a lot of people, it doesn't just change you, but it makes you...
00:15:08.000I don't know what the best way to say it is, but you're just devastated by it.
00:15:12.000And every time it happens, it becomes compounded.
00:15:17.000One of the things that I've thought about a lot with police officers, because I feel like there's bad cops.
00:15:24.000We all know there's bad cops, just like there's bad everything else in life.
00:15:27.000But I think that most cops are the experiences that they have in situations where their life is threatened, situations where they pull people over, they have no idea if this person has a gun, if this person's a criminal.
00:15:43.000There's so many moments in their life where they...
00:15:46.000I'm sure they've seen all the YouTube videos that I've seen where cops get shot at and cops get killed and run over by cars and all that crazy shit.
00:15:53.000That has got to be always chipping at your mental well-being.
00:15:59.000Yeah, I mean, you're always living in that sense of that fight, right?
00:16:07.000And yeah, I mean, look, the respect I have for cops is just, it's astronomical, right?
00:16:13.000Like, you know, being on scenes and seeing like, look, as a firefighter, the way I'll describe it is cops are kind of like the dad of the country.
00:16:24.000When they show up, like, nobody's happy.
00:16:27.000Like, there's never a time that people are like, you know, like, somebody's going to be mad, right?
00:16:40.000Yeah, and then, you know, when EMS shows up, they're kind of like the moms, right?
00:16:44.000Like, they're the caring, they're going to fix it, they're going to, the empathy is there.
00:16:50.000And I'm not saying that all three don't have empathy.
00:16:52.000I'm just saying that they all have to hold themselves in a different way because they're all there for a different role.
00:16:57.000And, you know, being a cop, you know, look, those guys are just, they're incredible because they could go from coming over and, you know, Miss whoever, Miss, you know, Miss Nancy or whatever,
00:17:13.000Miss Smith, you know, she's Having, you know, she might think somebody's at her house or, you know, maybe the next door neighbor's a little too loud and, you know, he's got to handle it one way and then the next person that he pulls over, he could walk up to a car.
00:17:26.000They could walk up to a car and could pull a gun and shoot him.
00:20:31.000I think what happened during the pandemic was people were tested in a way that they had never been tested before.
00:20:38.000We had never experienced a moment in our life where there was a real fear that society was going to be completely disrupted and that a disease was going to ravage everybody.
00:20:48.000And even though it turned out to be a terrible disease, it wasn't nearly as bad as what we were fearful of.
00:20:56.000What we were fearful of was some kind of plague that would just wipe everybody out.
00:21:01.000I think that initial mindset that people had was very difficult to shake.
00:21:06.000Even now, that COVID, this new variant, this Omicron, is not nearly as dangerous.
00:21:12.000It's much more contagious, but not nearly as deadly.
00:21:15.000There's some people that still want to treat it like it's the thing that's going to kill everybody.
00:21:21.000They still want to have this sort of same mindset because that's the initial mindset they had.
00:21:26.000So I think when people were stockpiling toilet paper and stockpiling food, there was a fear mindset, a mindset of the unknown that gripped people that a lot of folks are just not willing to let go of.
00:21:54.000You've seen people's lives leave their body.
00:21:58.000One of the things that I truly appreciate about veterans is You don't get to do what they do unless you've experienced massive amounts of adversity.
00:22:13.000If you're talking about someone who's a SEAL, just getting through buds.
00:22:17.000What fucking percentage of human beings that walk around could do that?
00:23:39.000Unfortunately, I mean, I'm just guessing, I'm not really a psychologist, but I think, unfortunately, there's a certain level of fear and anxiety I think kids do adapt or adopt, rather, from their parents.
00:23:52.000I think there's, some of it might even be in their genes.
00:23:56.000You know, people that are neurotic and weirded out, maybe they're modeling their parents, maybe they're paying attention to how their parents handle things and they handle things similarly.
00:24:40.000Yeah, it could be both, but I also think it's like, I think you need some challenges.
00:24:45.000You know, some of my favorite people besides veterans are jujitsu people.
00:24:49.000And one of the reasons why is because they experience so much adversity.
00:24:56.000It's safe, it's all controlled, it's in a controlled environment, but in that moment when someone's trying to strangle you and you're literally fighting for your life, it doesn't feel safe.
00:25:46.000But there's moments In these struggles where you're out of breath and then all of a sudden this guy mounts you and you're like, oh fuck.
00:25:54.000Like those moments, most people never experience that thing where you have to push because either you're going to escape or you're going to submit.
00:26:05.000Having moments in your life where you're really tested gets you to understand who you are, gets you to understand where your character lies, gets you to understand what your thresholds are, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are,
00:26:21.000lets you strengthen those weaknesses in a very real, usable way.
00:26:25.000I think most people, they don't experience enough difficult scenarios in their life.
00:26:32.000One of the things that I love most about jujitsu is you could just take a regular person and you could transform them.
00:26:37.000And through this difficult game that you're playing, you can change the way you interface with reality.
00:28:04.000I mean, yeah, I mean, we could, you know, we could roll jujitsu, and if they get their arm around your neck, I mean, they get to decide if they let go, you know, and it's a real vulnerability and test of you being there, right?
00:28:16.000I mean, the more experience you have in adversity and tough times and coming out of it and trying to figure out, and I think that's the cool thing about jujitsu is, is you roll, and then you try to figure out Okay, so obviously,
00:28:32.000when you have to tap, that was not where you wanted to be.
00:29:43.000People would say, at a certain point in time, if you keep apologizing for the same thing, you're just getting away with apologizing, you're not fixing yourself, right?
00:35:29.000I remember like fighting it just like just realizing that that all this was ego that my ego just The best way to describe it was like it didn't make me like you know like when you drink like you kind of feel numb This is like my soul like it was like it was just it just like I It was like my soul had gone through a workout.
00:39:07.000Like, those good things are inside of us, and it's just our ego that keeps us from feeling and being happy.
00:39:15.000So, the Ibogaine gave you this understanding of all the conflicts that you've caused and whether it's interrelational with other people or even with yourself by not finishing things and not following through on things.
00:39:32.000Do you think that it was trying to show you that some part of your problems lie in the fact that maybe you don't respect your own efforts?
00:39:42.000Like when you look at that you haven't finished things, do you think like it was showing you that you don't have a respect for yourself because you don't respect the effort that you put into things?
00:39:53.000Yeah, I think it showed me that like Yeah, I mean, I think it showed me that, like...
00:40:12.000And if you, like, the only thing that I've, and I still struggle with it, right?
00:40:17.000Like, the only thing that I feel is, like, whenever I mess up.
00:40:21.000You know, like, I just, I live in this mindset of, well, I can always be better, so I just, you know, like, I stay focused on that aspect of it, of, like, What did I do wrong?
00:40:44.000And, you know, like, so I think that that was what it kind of showed me was that, hey, you know, like, it's okay to, you know, you can do your best.
00:40:55.000And as long as you do your best, that's what matters.
00:40:57.000And as long as your intent's good, That's what matters.
00:41:03.000And I think it was, like, it gave me, like, I don't know, maybe a little grace on myself of, you know, because I just have this, I have this problem of I just always want to do more.
00:41:17.000You know, I always want to do more for people.
00:42:13.000I mean, that's a great way to think about life, too.
00:42:16.000If you enjoy making people happy and you know how to make people happy, you know there's things you can do that can enhance people's happiness.
00:42:24.000You know, we were talking before this podcast about a guy that you pulled out of a truck that went into a pond as a fireman.
00:42:43.000Yeah, there was a, and obviously I can't get into many details of it, but there was, we had a call.
00:42:50.000We have a lot of, I get to serve with a lot of great people.
00:42:54.000And a call, a truck had like gone underwater inside of a pond, rolled up, and we were initially told that it was stuck on the side of the pond.
00:43:05.000And had no clue that it was going to be underwater.
00:43:11.000And so I'd gone over the fence and another guy come with me and started going to this pond because I see two people standing on the side of it.
00:43:21.000And I thought they were already out or the guy drove off, whatever, who knows.
00:43:25.000And so I get there and I could see this little white square out in the middle of the pond.
00:43:31.000And this woman goes, she said, he's still in there.
00:43:57.000And so I was in full bunker gear, you know, like our turnout gear.
00:44:02.000And so I took my coat off, took my pants off, and other guys are showing up on scene at the same time.
00:44:10.000And so I jumped in the water, swam out to the truck, and then as soon as I got out there, you know, the truck was probably three and a half, four feet deep.
00:45:36.000So then Eric beats the front window out, and so he did.
00:45:40.000So then I dove down, dove in the truck, and the guy was in there, and he was floating.
00:45:50.000And you couldn't see because it was in a pond, but he was up against kind of like the roof of the truck inside.
00:45:58.000I tried to reach in and grab him, or reach and grabbed him, and I just kind of felt where it was up at top, and I grabbed his collar of his shirt because I knew I could just get him out of the window, which is pretty tight to fit a person through a window, right?
00:46:11.000So I pulled him out, and whenever I did, I kind of, like, sank because I had him with me.
00:46:18.000And I just knew I couldn't let him go because if I did let him go, I'd never find him in the pond.
00:46:24.000And yeah, I thought I was going to drown.
00:46:41.000I guess I kind of went over a little bit.
00:46:44.000He grabbed me by my belt and pulled me up.
00:46:46.000We get to the top, and the guys, obviously, he drowned.
00:46:51.000And so we swam him back, myself, Eric, and Jonathan swam him back to the shore, got him up on shore, and then, you know, everybody kicked in and started doing CPR. He was breathing on his own by the time the helicopter landed.
00:47:04.000And, you know, we had Tiffany there, who was just an incredible, you know, just the EMS people were just incredible.
00:47:10.000How do you get the water out of someone's lungs when they do that?
00:47:14.000So they put an eye gel in to establish an airway.
00:47:18.000But getting CPR going, they put airway in and they start doing suction.
00:47:22.000I don't know how much fluid she brought off, but they brought a ton of fluid off of him, just doing continuous suction.
00:47:29.000So what would you do if you didn't have equipment there?
00:47:32.000I mean, you just, I mean, compressions, right?
00:47:34.000Compressions and trying to, you know, bag, trying to get as much water as you can off.
00:47:38.000You know, they might aspirate, you know, trying to keep that aspiration out of the lungs, right?
00:47:44.000And me, you know, the next day, myself, Eric, and Jonathan, we actually had to go to the doctor because we all have aspiration pneumonia right now.
00:48:43.000I'm, like, when people talk about, like, oh, the world's going to shit, or, you know, there's just bad people, I just...
00:48:52.000You just come hang out with me for a day.
00:48:54.000You should see the people I'm surrounded by.
00:48:56.000Just, like, incredible people who would give their shirt off their back who were just awesome dads, awesome moms, just awesome people, you know, just really, really good people who do good things.
00:49:58.000Yeah, that's true and also one of the ways that a person becomes a good person is being around a person like that and then realizing that like wow the effect that person has on me in terms of like the inspiration they provide me in terms of like the way you can see a person behave and how much admiration you have for them and you like you change your behavior patterns to be more like them people If your friends are all gross,
00:50:26.000you're probably going to be gross too.
00:50:28.000If your friends are all stealing money and just lying and being assholes all the time, it's like, man, you don't have a lot to shoot for.
00:51:28.000Be around people that are Trying to help people all the time, EMTs, people that are first responders that are working to try to help people on a daily basis.
00:51:39.000Or people who are good parents, or people who are good husbands, and people who are good wives, right?
00:52:37.000And if you can do that, you can eliminate a lot of problems in your life with people that are just...
00:52:42.000It's unfortunate because I do want people to do better in life, but there's certain people that you just got to cut them loose.
00:52:48.000They just, wherever they are at this moment, they're too far away from where you need them to be.
00:52:54.000And if you hang out with them, they're just going to keep creating problems.
00:52:57.000One of the ones that drives me the most nuts is people that create constant problems and then they get like this sort of emotional charge out of resolving the problems.
00:53:09.000So they create a problem and then they resolve the problem and then they get addicted to that sort of seesaw thing where they're always like in a squabble with someone and then, you know, I'm sorry and everybody makes up.
00:54:07.000In a relationship, you know, nobody starts off by beating each other, right?
00:54:12.000Like, it starts off by saying, you know, like, fuck you, right?
00:54:18.000And then it, well, that becomes normal, right?
00:54:20.000And then every time the bar's pushed a little bit further, a little bit further, and the next thing you know, it's just, it's toxic, and it's just bad, and it's like, you know, we just lose respect for each other, and it happens.
00:54:31.000I mean, it can happen so fast if you don't pay attention.
00:54:41.000Because a woman has to worry physically about her safety from a guy.
00:54:48.000You have daughters, as do I, and that's one of the scariest thoughts is that someone's going to fuck your daughter up and beat them up or do something terrible to them.
00:54:59.000It's like the fact that men are capable of that is just such a horrific, Aspect of life, you know, because most people aren't capable of that.
00:56:09.000And so if they start dating shitty guys down the road, I should probably look in the mirror.
00:56:14.000And my example that I set to them is...
00:56:18.000And not just that I'm good to my daughters and that I'm respectful to women, but that I work hard and that I serve the community and that I continue to try to better myself and I accept responsibility for my actions and all these things.
00:56:36.000Like, they're watching everything and that is...
00:56:38.000It's going to program them to someday, like, you know, we automatically, as parents, we automatically have, whatever you want to call it, like street cred with our children.
00:56:50.000And that's how they learn to handle problems, and that's how they handle, you know, relationships and things like that.
00:56:57.000And it's just so important that, you know, my daughters are my accountability factor.
00:57:02.000Like, I look at it, and it's like, I try to treat people the way that I would want someone to treat my daughters.
00:57:09.000Now when you talk about that Ibogaine experience about how it bothered you that, you know, you had to think about all these times we disappointed people or all the people that were upset at you.
00:57:19.000What about that was, what was so frustrating about that?
00:57:23.000Was it that you had already gotten through that and put it aside and now it's like rehashing it and just making you feel like shit or was it just that you were confronted with reality?
00:58:32.000It wasn't, it wasn't, I didn't see the things that, like, I didn't see anything about combat.
00:58:37.000I didn't see I didn't see anything like that.
00:58:40.000I just seen the things that I let control me that I couldn't control.
00:58:44.000The way I've heard it described is that it's ruthlessly introspective.
00:58:51.000It makes you see things that maybe you've been avoiding thinking about.
00:58:55.000Yeah, I mean look we all know if we all sit down and we truly want to see it we all kind of know Why we are the way we are everything adds up, right?
00:59:04.000Like it's just like we don't want to We don't want to face it And Ibogaine makes you face it like you're gonna sit there And it's gonna keep you there until you've seen enough of it.
00:59:17.000You know, are you hallucinating while you're doing this?
00:59:20.000I mean, I mean it is like I'm really there but I mean I can open my eyes and In stand-up, I mean, the world's spinning, but, you know, like...
00:59:30.000But when you close your eyes, it's like you're there.
00:59:33.000So it's like you're rehashing memories, or like, is that what it is?
01:00:22.000Now, was it a replica of what you'd experienced or was it Was it situations that never really occurred?
01:00:32.000Well, I mean, obviously the walking onto the stage was not, you know, obviously all these people weren't in one room, but their faces were real.
01:02:08.000And look, I'm not going to say those thoughts go away.
01:02:11.000You know, like, while I'm on that truck, while I was on that truck the other day, all I was telling myself was just, like, you know, I can remember it vividly of, you're a piece of shit.
01:02:28.000Now this guy's going to die because of you.
01:02:30.000And then I'm watching my friends swim out there, and I'm just thinking to myself, like, oh, look at you, you're an idiot, and now you've brought them in here, and now they're gonna drown, and you're gonna get your friends killed.
01:02:38.000And then, you know, I mean, like, it was just, like, the whole time, I'm literally, like, my brain is just talking shit to me.
01:03:14.000You know, I mean, like, there was accountability.
01:03:17.000Everything was black and white, right?
01:03:18.000Like, everything was accountability, right?
01:03:21.000You know, I mean, look, my dad, my grandpa, I mean, I grew up with my mom until I was, like, 10. And then I went over to my dad.
01:03:28.000And, you know, my dad, my dad's one of the, my dad and my grandfather and my grandmother, like, they're just, they're the greatest people I've ever met.
01:03:36.000And if I can be half of them, I'll be somebody.
01:03:39.000But it was just like, it was more of a, there's right and wrong.
01:04:08.000You know, and then the medal just made it worse.
01:04:12.000And for people who don't know what you're talking about, we had a long conversation about this on the first podcast that we did together, and it's a harrowing story.
01:04:22.000I mean, it's wild shit what you went through.
01:04:27.000And I would just tell people, just, you know, go listen to that so you don't have to say it again.
01:04:35.000You know, like, you know, I... Don't know like I when I walked in that valley that day like I truly thought that how I was I thought I was good at something, right?
01:04:48.000I mean I put the work in and like I thought I was good and and you know I I Really thought that I don't know.
01:04:56.000I mean obviously it shows my naiveness But I just I never thought that there would be a situation that I couldn't get my teammates out of right and I thought that if anybody was ever gonna get killed it was gonna be me and Yeah, just like Just,
01:05:13.000like, wanting to help them and bring them home alive so bad and then just getting in there and they're all dead.
01:05:24.000And so it was just like, I just felt like I let them down, right?
01:05:29.000Like, I just felt like I let them down, you know?
01:05:32.000And so, and then you come back home and then you get this Medal of Honor.
01:05:59.000And so, like, you know, people, I think, I feel like a lot of times people want to change the narrative because they don't like the way it feels.
01:06:07.000And I'll never do that because the lesson that I learned from that and the emotions that I get from facing the true results of that day push me to the next level to be able to go out and help people today.
01:06:25.000So that time of your life, that was responsible for all of the, whether you would call it self-doubt or self-judgment, like the nasty voice in your head that says you're a loser.
01:08:42.000I'm like, I'm wondering if there's other...
01:08:45.000I kind of have a similar thing going on in my head, but I don't ever let it get to the point where I'm saying, you're a loser, you fucked up, you fucking idiot.
01:08:57.000I don't have that kind of internal dialogue.
01:09:00.000But I do recognize that I have to manage my mind.
01:09:05.000I can't allow those kind of thought patterns to spiral in my head.
01:09:18.000I mean, I think we do, and I think that, like, you know, would I need those if I wasn't going to continue to put myself in these critical moments?
01:10:03.000For me to be able to, when you fight, whether it's in a ring, whether it's with a gun, it really comes down to who's willing to give it all.
01:10:20.000I mean, obviously training comes into it, but if you don't get in the ring, you ain't going to fight.
01:10:26.000If you're not willing to go get evil with somebody and take their life, You know what I mean?
01:10:34.000And so it's like, what level are you willing to get at?
01:10:37.000Well, the crazy thing to me has always been that then you ask those people to just rejoin society.
01:10:45.000And I don't know how much, like, again, I don't know how much counseling they give you or how much counseling would you, how much do they give you?
01:12:21.000But she, like, worked out this arrangement to where I could, instead of just going back to base, I came straight home because the deployment was still going on.
01:13:57.000Like, I wake up every day and, I mean, I'm not going to say every day is the best day of my life, but every day, like, there's a moment that I just look around and I'm just like, how awesome is this, right?
01:14:08.000Like, I can literally look at my friends and just, you know, I mean, I'll start tearing up just thinking about, like, how awesome it is that I get to be surrounded by such great people.
01:14:18.000I mean, I'm sitting here with you right now.
01:15:26.000And that's what I'm saying is, is that's a natural path that automatically Comes in and instead of well riding that path that we know there's no logic to or good into It's like I get to do this.
01:15:40.000And so like yeah, that's the control we have We don't have control of what happens to us most of the time, right?
01:15:47.000But we do have a control on how we look at it Do you talk in this book about your ibogaine and DMT experience you do how do I talk about it?
01:15:54.000Is it one of the main factors of this idea of the way forward?
01:17:29.000That guy, I don't know, I was so arrogant coming into that day and Him almost killing me.
01:17:37.000But then just seeing, watching him die at my hands and just not, I don't want to say I'm not, I didn't like, I don't want to say that I didn't know why I was killing him because he was going to kill me,
01:17:56.000but There was just like the reality of like, somebody's like, it's not one-sided, right?
01:18:06.000Like, the same way that people were going to be hurt if I died, there were people that were going to be hurt if he died.
01:18:19.000And I think with that, it's like trying to be able to see it from somebody else's side is a huge, huge tool.
01:18:27.000Trying to see somebody else from their view is a really, really critical tool before we get all wrapped up in how we're going to handle things.
01:18:57.000It's hard sometimes for people to look at other human beings And try to imagine what's going on in their head and how they view you and how they view whatever conflict you're too engaged in, the two of you are engaged in.
01:19:14.000It's a good exercise and it's also good for empathy.
01:19:19.000It's good to kind of get a sense of How you should communicate with that person.
01:19:26.000Think about what it's like to be them.
01:22:57.000Take from the hard lessons that's held us back or that we've had to be in and try to turn that into something good.
01:23:04.000So when you set out to write this book, did you get in touch with Robert?
01:23:09.000Did you guys did you both have like the same kind of vision as to what to do here?
01:23:13.000Yeah, I mean we yeah, I mean we we just we wanted to have principles that are simple and and we wanted to Come together and talk more like not just about war but about everyday life everyday struggles that we have and kind of humanize and You know,
01:23:35.000Not humanize war, but humanize life and humanize us and kind of show that, look, the same concepts that made us successful in combat are the same.
01:23:43.000It is literally the same principles that you just apply in all situations.
01:23:50.000So do you feel like the first book, when you're talking about it being larger than life, that you're missing your own internal struggles and dialogues?
01:24:02.000What is it about it that didn't make you seem like a regular person to people?
01:24:07.000I think it only told the majority of the good side.
01:24:11.000It didn't tell that The aspect of, you know, I grew up in a small town.
01:24:43.000And still today, like, everything I'm successful at is because I'm surrounded by great people who push me and hold me accountable every day.
01:24:49.000And, you know, this book talks about, you know, we're not meant to be alone.
01:24:54.000You know, we're meant to live, be around people, and interact with people.
01:24:59.000And, you know, this book kind of talks about how, you know, how People are everything and you know who you select to be around from all the way from who you select to be around from who you All that is what there's always a way forward There's always a way forward and when you can find hope it doesn't matter if you're in a valley in Afghanistan surrounded and you've just lost all your team or You're back here and you're getting divorced or whatever it is as long as there's hope and you've got good people around you You're gonna get through it like everybody
01:25:29.000has a bad day And so when you decided to do this, how do you start a book like this?
01:25:55.000So how do you start something like this?
01:25:58.000Did you have an outline in your head of how to do it?
01:26:00.000So we came up with an idea, and we just kind of talked about, you know, we wanted almost like a self-help book.
01:26:09.000We wanted people to be able to read it and apply it to their lives, take the stories that we have.
01:26:17.000We just got with, you know, people, agents, who helped us put that, kind of, like, write out this outline, and then we took it around to the publishers, right?
01:26:27.000And the biggest thing, you know, me and Rob wanted with these publishers was, like, we didn't just want a book.
01:26:32.000We wanted a book that was, like, we didn't want it to be left or right.
01:29:51.000They don't like to think that way, and they definitely don't want to think that that's a motive, that those people benefiting and these corporations benefiting is a motive for doing certain things that cost lives.
01:30:05.000When you see what's going on right now, because we are in the middle, as people who may listen to this in the future, we're in the middle of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
01:30:15.000It just started a few days ago, and everyone is kind of shocked.
01:30:22.000I'm terrified by this prospect of a hot war going on, you know, inside the former Soviet Union with Russia invading Ukraine and we're watching it play out on television and it's a very terrifying time for a lot of people.
01:30:43.000Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it is terrifying.
01:30:48.000This giant superpower that's trying to control more of its territory, what it used to be, its territory, former Soviet Union.
01:30:58.000Is it, though, like, I mean, let's, again, I hate Russia, so let's get that off the table.
01:32:36.000Well, that's a good question, but I think one of the things that's going on with Wi-Fi is I think Elon Musk has chipped in to use the satellites.
01:32:45.000But again, I mean, again, I don't know what's going on.
01:32:48.000You know, you hear these stories that inspire you to think that, oh, you know, these people on this island, on that island, like, you know, they gave their life and there's this...
01:32:57.000And it's like, well, now they're alive, supposedly.
01:33:50.000Jamie, I'm going to send you something just so that you could have this too.
01:33:54.000There is a very good video that's online that explains the conflict.
01:34:03.000And, you know, it's not a judgmental video.
01:34:07.000It's not casting the blame one way or another, but it's a...
01:34:11.000A YouTube video that explains, I think we talked about it a little bit yesterday, but it explains how this conflict got started and why Russia, for like logistic reasons, why it wants to control...
01:34:57.000Yeah, just play a little bit of it at the beginning because it shows you the map of where Crimea is and Ukraine and that if they join NATO, like they're trying to join the EU right now, if they join NATO......conflict series that explains the entire course of the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia.
01:35:19.000It's called Why Russia is Invading Ukraine.
01:35:22.000Why Russia is Invading Ukraine is available on YouTube and it's very good.
01:35:58.000You know, this sort of natural resource rich country, they could become like a huge economic power and sort of separate from Russia and separate from We're good to
01:36:50.000There's a lot of, in terms of, like, tactical control, the ability for a military to have control in case there's some sort of an invasion or something.
01:37:41.000Well, I mean, I think what he's looking for is Ukraine to give in to his demands, right?
01:37:48.000Well, I think he, maybe he thought that in the beginning, but at this point he should probably see that that's not, I mean, I think it's not going to happen.
01:37:56.000I mean, the difference in, like, obviously we handled it different, but the difference in us going to Iraq and Afghanistan versus him going here is, like, he also has the world against him, not only Ukraine.
01:38:08.000You know, the world is against him doing this, which, you know, yeah, I don't know.
01:38:29.000Yeah, it does suck and it is horrible.
01:38:33.000And it's also, it speaks to the distrust that people have in the mainstream media today because so many people don't know what is the true story.
01:39:06.000If you tell a distorted version of the story because that's what the people that are paying for your advertisements want you to tell, that's lying.
01:41:34.000You know, we're worried about trying to make our naval fleet green, and they're over there rocking rockets around and just over there teaching meat-eaters, right?
01:41:49.000I mean, I get there's a balance, but again, you can't stay the free world and stay the leader and stay an influencer if you can't protect it.
01:42:02.000What do you think happened in terms of this crazy woke shit that's invaded the military?
01:42:07.000I never thought I would see it in the military.
01:42:09.000I thought that would be the one sector of our society that would be immune to that kind of ridiculous ideology.
01:42:18.000I mean, I just think that people, you know, people have gotten so, they get offended by everything.
01:42:52.000And that's all of our, most of our problems here are ultimate first world problems.
01:42:57.000And, you know, like, but again, you have to understand, like, talk about my generation.
01:43:05.000You know, my generation, we had access to internet, right?
01:43:09.000Like, Like, everything was kind of instant gratification.
01:43:11.000I didn't have to go out and raise a garden, and I didn't have to do the things that my grandparents had to do to be able to live and to be able...
01:43:18.000Everything's convenient for me, but it doesn't mean that, like...
01:43:22.000So, these people who are portraying these problems, they are true problems to them, and they are that big of a deal to them, but it's kind of like when you're looking at your kids.
01:43:34.000Like, when my daughter comes to me and she's like...
01:43:36.000You know, so-and-so, he said this and it hurt my feelings and she's devastated.
01:44:26.000Just because you don't agree with me doesn't mean I'm wrong.
01:44:28.000Well, some people get offended too easily, and they don't want to hear that.
01:44:34.000But some people get upset at things too easily, and it's because they're making a problem that a lot of folks would think is not a very big problem, and they're turning it into a gigantic one in their head because they don't have real problems.
01:44:44.000I mean, I couldn't imagine going to my dad and telling him that...
01:45:10.000I remember when I was a kid, I was reading about the fall of the Roman Empire.
01:45:14.000And we were just talking about the excess of the Roman Empire during its demise.
01:45:19.000And I remember thinking, I wonder if that's ever going to happen here.
01:45:23.000Because I remember thinking, like, every civilization in the past that was a great civilization, whether, you know, whatever it is, ancient Egypt or whatever ancient civilization that was this dominant civilization, Massive civilization,
01:47:43.000When it's 10 below zero and it's in the middle of fucking January and you see someone whose hazard lights are on and there's no one else on the road, you feel obligated to help that person.
01:47:54.000And there's a thing about nature Where it makes you confront your own vulnerability, your own mortality.
01:48:00.000And California doesn't get that very often.
01:48:02.000And I have this theory of, I don't know, I just believe that the more adversity you've gone through, the more hard times you've gone through, the more power you have to help others.
01:48:15.000The more struggle you've had, the more you can help others.
01:48:29.000To connect with somebody, you have to be vulnerable.
01:48:33.000And people who have gone through stuff and came out of it, they have the power to be vulnerable because they know that they're going to get through it.
01:49:41.000He listens to you, so you're kind of like running around in a circle and telling him, I've got this whole plan built up, and this is how I see it.
01:49:51.000And then he lets you wear yourself out, and then he comes in and he talks logic.
01:50:23.000Well, is it, he said, the only time you should fight or the only time you should go at or entertain this stuff with people is one way, is if it's willing to, are you willing to lose everything?
01:50:48.000And he's like, the only time it makes sense to engage in something like this is if you're willing to just say, hey, look, it's worth me losing everything that I got, my freedom, whatever it is.
01:50:59.000And he said, outside that, it ain't worth it.
01:51:01.000And when it gets to that point, that's your deciding factor.
01:52:04.000You know, like, I hear people talk sometimes, like, I just want to be like Jocko, and I'm like, you'll never be like Jocko, but you can strive to be like Jocko.
01:52:27.000You know, you did, and you're very fortunate that you did, but you don't make a person like you, you don't make a person like Jocko easily.
01:55:46.000I don't even know if they're even loyal to that, right?
01:55:50.000And so it's just, you know, we do the American Party podcast and we just try to break it down to looking at it from what's best for the people.
01:58:23.000There's a great expression that I've talked about before, but it's worth mentioning again.
01:58:30.000There's an expression, the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you, no matter what it is.
01:58:37.000Like, if you've had a sheltered life and the worst thing that ever happened to you is someone said something that hurt your feelings, that is the worst thing that's ever happened to you.
01:58:47.000It's like, because they haven't had a lot of life experiences.
01:58:50.000And then we see people that have gone through hell and those people, you know, I don't want my children to go through hell, but those people are more resilient.
01:58:59.000They have more, they've got more life experiences to judge it against.
01:59:05.000So a thing like someone being mean to them, you know, if you grow up in some hard part, some Eastern Bloc country where things are rough, like you don't want to hear any of that bullshit.
01:59:15.000Like just an insult, that's not enough.
01:59:18.000That's not the worst thing that's ever happened to them.
01:59:20.000But we just have to, like, we have to stop trying to out-victimize each other, right?
01:59:26.000Like, look, the worst, like you said, look, the worst day of your life, the worst day of my life is no more significant than the worst day of your life.
01:59:33.000They're both the worst days of our life.
01:59:35.000And if we stop trying to out-victimize each other, see who's seen worse or done worse or been through worse, and we're just like, hey, look, like, hey, here's what I've been through.
01:59:47.000But there's a culture in this country, unfortunately, that has arisen, you know, within my lifetime, of victim, like, there's just like a currency to victimhood.
02:00:00.000Like, the more things are stacked against you, the more you get to complain about those things stacked against you, the more you get to, like, wear it.
02:00:16.000And there's no accountability to get through it.
02:00:20.000There's more reward to having that and being able to talk about it and being able to use that as your identity than there is to put the work in to get better.
02:00:30.000And a lot of times, we just don't want to...
02:00:34.000That's what I'm fortunate about with my friends.
02:02:23.000But this whole idea that You love it, and this is who you are, and everybody should just accept it, and then pretending that it's healthy, which is really weird.
02:02:36.000People will distort the reality of medical science and pretend that there's not some real significant effect that obesity has on all parts of your body.
02:02:49.000All sorts of things go wrong if you're obese.
02:02:52.000But we send this message to people that body positivity is the way to go, that it's okay, but it's not okay.
02:02:58.000I mean, look, it sucks if someone could point something out and like, hey, you have let this lapse, you have treated your body in a poor way, and because of that, you have a significant problem, and you got to do something about it.
02:03:40.000They want to think that somehow or another it's okay.
02:03:43.000And especially during the pandemic, like, my God, it's like one of the main factors for whether or not you're going to be healthy and whether or not you're going to survive this fucking thing.
02:03:53.000It's a, you know, one of the main factors was obesity.
02:03:57.000Yeah, I mean, yeah, and I just like, you know, the frustrating part to me was just, I got it.
02:04:37.000And her cart was, I mean, I remember looking in there and it was like just junk food.
02:04:42.000And she's like screaming at me, telling me how, basically how much of a piece of shit I am for not having my mask on and I'm endangering everyone.
02:05:53.000Can I walk around and when I see somebody who looks very, very unhealthy and I know that the science supports that, can I walk up to them and be like, hey, you don't need to be eating that.
02:06:05.000The thing about you with the mask is that, you know, I don't think masks, especially most of the masks that people use, unless you're wearing an N95 mask, which most people aren't, like a really snug fit N95 mask, I don't think it's really doing much.
02:06:18.000Those cloth masks, and especially those surgical masks, I mean, I don't think it's doing much.
02:06:22.000Those cloth masks that you wear over, like, it's almost like these, like, what are they called?
02:06:56.000So it's something about, like, if you are sick and you have one of those on, it actually does significantly reduce the amount of viral load that comes out of your mouth.
02:07:15.000If you want to go to a place and you want to...
02:07:21.000I mean, if there's a mask law and you're not wearing a mask, that's one thing.
02:07:25.000But if you want to go to a place and it's optional and you've got your mask on and other people don't and you're screaming and yelling at them...
02:07:32.000Especially if you're obese and you've got a cart full of shit, you're concentrating on the wrong thing.
02:13:08.000Fortunately, it came true and I did have success and I did do all that stuff, but the people that haven't and they're obese now, They have a bunch of shit going on.
02:13:18.000First of all, they have low energy levels.
02:13:20.000It's very difficult to get something done when you have low energy levels.
02:13:24.000It's so hard because whatever motivation I need, I mean, I'm kind of on autopilot now.
02:13:31.000When I get up in the morning, I know I'm going to work out.
02:14:40.000Fucked up like they don't have the energy to do it and that's just a reality of what it means to be an obese person so what they have to do is force themselves you know they don't have like this feeling like I can't wait to get to the gym that feeling it's not there their feeling is okay I know that this is a process it's a long brutal process but I must begin it and it must be a part of every day and that's the only way I want to get out of this hold it up Doug I mean,
02:15:09.000I don't I don't wake up and have that and I work out six days a week I don't and I built a gym on my property like three a hundred yards from my house And I still have to fight myself to get up to go work out at it,
02:15:30.000Who the fuck has more discipline than Goggins?
02:15:32.000He goes sometimes I see my shoes I stare at those motherfuckers for a half an hour I could see him in his house angry, looking at his sneakers, not wanting to go run.
02:15:46.000And then I put him on and I say, stay hard!
02:15:49.000Dude, he sends me some of the most hilarious text messages.
02:15:51.000My favorite video of him is, you know, obviously, he's running.
02:15:56.000I mean, dude, I don't know if he ever sleeps, but he's running and he's like, you know, I'm out here and somebody just pulled up next to me.
02:16:05.000It's 100% humidity and it's whatever degrees.
02:16:08.000And he's like, and he looked at me and he said, why are you here?
02:17:00.000I mean, it's probably not healthy if he was going to be like a youth pastor, but for him to achieve the goals he wants, I mean, he's doing it.
02:17:08.000Not just achieve the goals he wants, but here's what's maybe as important with him is that Goggins inspires so many people to action.
02:17:17.000There's so many people that watch his videos and they go, that is an exceptional human being.
02:18:18.000A hard workout, like, you know, the things, if you ever notice, like, the things that bother you, like, that are on your mind before you start working out versus when you're done.
02:18:44.000And it's also a form of therapy that requires you to engage and to work.
02:18:48.000And I think that is just as much an important aspect of it as anything, is that you're forcing yourself to do something that's very difficult.
02:18:56.000And through that, you get this alleviation of anxiety and stress and all the good stuff, and it's great for your body.
02:19:03.000But also, it's great for your mind, because your mind did the work.
02:19:07.000Your mind is what tells your body what the fuck to do.
02:19:11.000You know, my friend John Joseph, he's the lead singer of the Cro-Mags, and he's done a bunch of shit-ton of triathlons.
02:19:20.000And one of the things that I love about what he loves about triathlons and Ironman, he says, because your mind has to tell your body who the fuck the boss is.
02:19:45.000I love, I love those workouts where it's just like, where it's like anybody could do it and you know, you could take off.
02:19:52.000Like I try to do everything, like these workouts I'm talking about for time, right?
02:19:56.000Because, you know, it's like you can take off because you can get through anything.
02:20:00.000You can pace yourself, you know, all these things.
02:20:02.000And for me, I just like, I like to get to that dark place and I like to just get in there and I just like to, For me, I'm not going to go talk.
02:20:10.000I'm not very good at talking to people about my problems.
02:20:13.000I feel like I'm inconveniencing them, and then when I verbalize them, they're not that big.
02:20:18.000So for me, this is kind of like my time to my counseling session with myself, where I don't have to say anything.
02:20:29.000And at the end of it, I come out and I feel better.
02:21:03.000Well, I think with a lot of people, what's going on is society's created these tensions and these problems that our body doesn't totally understand.
02:21:15.000I think our body thinks of conflicts as being danger to our body.
02:21:22.000I think our body thinks of conflicts, of anything that you've got that's going on that's giving you stress, our body thinks we're gonna have to go to war.
02:21:29.000Like you're gonna have to fight off a neighboring tribe.
02:21:32.000You're gonna have to fight off a predator.
02:21:34.000The way we evolved as an intelligent being, the way we got to today is we had to fight off a lot of shit.
02:21:42.000And so your body is programmed to fight off a lot of shit.
02:21:46.000Now all of a sudden you get to this place in 2022 Where you're not really fighting anything off, but you have those same feelings.
02:21:52.000And I think until you wreck your body and just tax it out, you can't think rationally.
02:21:59.000I think all those people that have major anxiety and major problems and don't have a rigorous workout schedule, I think they do themselves a disservice because I don't think you're able to think as clearly.
02:23:58.000And it's like, how, what's going to happen when, you know, God forbid that this country and two more generations, somebody comes here that wants conflict.
02:24:12.000The real fear is that that happens, right?
02:24:15.000Or the real fear is the conflict comes now and we're not prepared for it and by the time we adjust it's too late.
02:24:29.000What would it take to snap America back into a position where we value physical resiliency, we value discipline, we value, and it's a common thing.
02:24:41.000It's common that people exercise and are fit.
02:24:47.000And imagine what I do and what Jocko does and Tim Kennedy does.
02:24:50.000Imagine if the whole country adopted a way of life where you eat healthy, you train almost every day, and you think about your problems, you think about accountability, you think about your personality,
02:25:06.000you think about interpersonal conflicts you've been in with friends or with co-workers or what have you, and you try to do better constantly.
02:25:33.000You mean like pharmaceutical business?
02:25:35.000Yeah, I just think that everything goes back to convenience and things like that.
02:25:43.000I mean, obviously it's nice, but the more people rely on these other things to do in their daily life, there's more money to be made there, right?
02:27:31.000Like, if Putin launches a nuke on us...
02:27:34.000What's going to happen right behind it?
02:27:56.000I just don't think that, like, I think people will do things whenever they're sure that it's not going to affect them, but I think that, like, the humanization factor of, oh, I'm going to push this, I'm going to support, and I'm going to have to push this nuke button or whatever it is, key or whatever.
02:28:11.000But I also know that as soon as I do that, like, I'm going to get the first hit, but my family's going to suffer, and everybody here's going to suffer.
02:28:17.000I just, again, like, they're worried about him dropping nukes inside of Ukraine.
02:28:22.000Well, what he said, and this is where it gets disturbing, what he said is that if anybody supports Ukraine and, you know, the idea of NATO moves weapons into Ukraine and points him at Russia, I believe his quote was something to the nature of they will face horrors the likes of which the world has never seen.
02:29:50.000It's just like, listen, it's not that long ago.
02:29:52.000I mean, it seems like a long time ago, 1947. But if you look at, in terms of, like, the overall time that humans have been on this planet, that's pretty recent.
02:30:00.000Like, if you look at Roman history or Greek history, like, a 50-year, 60-year, 70-year gap in between something is not much.
02:30:32.000But you know that during the 60s, there was some generals that were legitimately thinking about launching nukes against Russia, against China, against Cuba.
02:31:52.000So, I mean, like, do you think for one second, and I don't know, these are legit questions, right?
02:31:58.000Do you feel like he's going to drop it in Ukraine while all of his people are there, and that his own people aren't going to turn on him and be like, what the fuck?
02:32:21.000But what I'm saying is, who the fuck thought that we were going to have a hot war with Russia invades Ukraine with tanks and jets and they're shooting missiles into apartment buildings?
02:33:10.000I mean, I think Russia, you know, I think Russia's kind of showed their hands, right?
02:33:15.000Like, Russia's kind of been like, to my generation, the guy in the bar that, you know, you walk into, you've never seen him fight, but everybody's like, oh, don't mess with that guy, right?
02:33:24.000Like, don't, you just don't ever even mess with him, right?
02:33:30.000And I think Putin's more screwed because he's kind of showed that, I mean, if he can't take on Ukraine, he better not try to come to anybody else.
02:34:14.000I want the world to be a better place than it was before, and there's a real possibility that it won't be.
02:34:21.000The thing that every civilization is worried about, when you talk about the possibility of the advancement of the human race, the one big dilemma is if we don't blow ourselves up, That comes up all the time.
02:34:36.000Whenever people talk about the future, like, what is the world going to be like in a million years if we don't blow ourselves up?
02:35:49.000I would hate to have this conversation or go back and listen to this conversation a year from now after a nuclear bomb's gone off.
02:35:55.000I'm like, wow, we didn't even see it coming.
02:35:57.000I'm just saying that the real fear that people have about civilizations not reaching their full potential is natural disasters or self-destruction.
02:36:10.000Do you ever see, and again, I don't know, I'm just asking a question, do you ever see somebody, yeah, I mean, somebody who's willing, because like, you know, suicidal, sometimes, I don't know, suicidal people, they usually just hurt themselves sometimes,
02:36:40.000They made it into a movie with Christopher Walken, The Dead Zone.
02:36:44.000There was a guy who could see the future, and there was a guy who was running for president, and he could see that this guy who was running for president was going to launch the nukes.
02:36:53.000And that launching those nukes was going to cement their name into history, which I think, for some people, is a powerful, motivating factor, believe it or not.
02:37:04.000I mean, history has changed up all the time, so I wouldn't bet on that.
02:37:08.000Yeah, but especially as you're getting older, what keeps a guy going when you're 69, you've been running Russia for decades, and you have untold billions of dollars?
02:38:48.000I mean, he keeps that population terrified, terrified and under control.
02:38:53.000And that's the thing is, it's like that's happening right now in 2022. And one of the things about us is we're so like if someone lives in a wonderful, really safe neighborhood and you just think this is the world.
02:39:06.000The world is like my neighborhood because that's all I experience.
02:39:10.000Your point of reference is this great neighborhood that you live in where everything's safe and you never really have to worry about anything.
02:39:16.000At the same time, there's places in the world like...
02:39:25.000Shane Smith from vice was telling us about This one city that has the most murders.
02:39:32.000I think it was in Pakistan It's one city where there's more like murders and more hits like you know like people pay people like it's a shockingly low amount of money to commit murder and they just have them constantly all the time and It's just the reality of living there.
02:40:53.000We were pulling up a chart the other day of the amount of drone strikes that have gone on while the Ukraine thing is happening, that the United States is participating in.
02:41:05.000There's a lot of drone strikes going on right now all over the world that the United States participates in.
02:41:11.000Because you're thoughtful on this, so I want to know, or you're always thoughtful, but do you think, because I keep hearing this, do you think that this issue that's going on in Ukraine, do you think it would have happened with Donald Trump?
02:41:29.000I don't know why it's happening, so I can't answer that.
02:41:32.000I don't know what Trump would have done differently.
02:43:10.000They weren't saying, wait a minute, this is outside of the law.
02:43:15.000This is a horrific violation of our laws and our boundaries of our ethics, what we think should be done and not done by someone who's a leader.
02:43:25.000You want to find people who are actually committing crimes.
02:43:30.000But again, like, you know, you just don't think, like, it's just so weird, and I don't know if there's any correlation to it, but it's so weird that, like, they were trying to plant stuff on Trump with Russia.
02:43:52.000But that's the question, is, like, does that company represent the government, or is that company just, I mean, is it just, like, Chevrolet?
02:44:00.000Not that Chevy's corrupt, but just a company.
02:44:23.000And then it's like, you know, you see that and it's just...
02:44:26.000I think they fucking all talk to foreign leaders.
02:44:29.000They do whatever the fuck they can if they think it's going to help their career, it's going to help their campaign, it's going to help them...
02:46:45.000They would probably raise him up as a hero.
02:46:48.000Yeah, they would come up with some reason why he was just a hypersexual individual who was tempted by his genetics and it's not his fault.
02:47:00.000I got one thing that might already be a mistake.
02:47:04.000There was a filing that happened last week that's gotten this back in the news.
02:47:09.000When the initial spying happened on Trump, wasn't it because of the Obamas?
02:47:13.000Obama was in office and they were spying on the candidate's I think that was the original part.
02:47:19.000According to this, the New York Times says that they changed that.
02:47:24.000I don't know who they, like the Trump team, I guess.
02:47:26.000They were initially saying it was the Obamas, and now they're saying it was the Clintons team that was doing the spying.
02:47:32.000Right, but maybe they thought it was the Obama.
02:47:34.000They knew it was the Democrats, perhaps, and then we thought it was the people that were in power, and it turns out it's not the people in power.
02:47:41.000It was Clinton because she was running against Trump.
02:47:55.000You have to give that up, though, to become the candidate.
02:47:58.000Yeah, but the connections that she had with those people are, if she is the favorite to win the presidency, and she was, the connections that she had with those people.
02:48:09.000The only question you got to ask is, in this whole thing, is do you think Obama knew?
02:49:08.000And it's constantly in arguments and fights with people and going after them and Rosie O'Donnell and Girls He Banged and all the crazy things to concentrate on.
02:50:36.000It says, for the same reason we're worried about foreign influence in elections, we want to make sure that during the elections, I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.
02:51:04.000Congress is usually very concerned about intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane, and I want to make sure that that happened.
02:52:25.000But I think they have capabilities that we don't understand yet in terms of the general public.
02:52:32.000And they've been working on these sort of different types of propulsion, magnetic propulsion systems.
02:52:36.000These have been theoretical for a long time.
02:52:38.000And then this thing that Bob Lazar supposedly worked on way back in the late 80s at Area S-4, the way he described it is exactly the way these things are moving, the way that you see these crafts move, like the one that was observed by Commander David Fravor,
02:52:55.000the one that was observed by a lot of these other guys, these Air Force folks that are catching these objects moving at these insane rates of speed.
02:54:12.000I mean, that was what Eisenhower warned about when he was leaving office.
02:54:14.000I mean, that speech, when he warns about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, that is a terrifying speech, because that was a guy who knew.
02:54:23.000He knew exactly what was going on behind the scenes, and he chose to take the time, when he's leaving office, to warn about a machine that wants to go to war, that wants to find reasons to go to war to profit, and that we know that that's real.
02:54:39.000That's why we stayed in Afghanistan and Iraq so long.
02:54:53.000Like, if the Taliban had thought that we were going to come occupy them for 20 years, they would have gave over Osama bin Laden on September 12th.
02:55:13.000And, you know, even though this administration completely fucked this whole pullout up, every other administration had the same opportunity to pull us out.
02:55:52.000All these weapon systems, all this military gear, well, now we're just going to have to build the next gen because they've got it now, right?
02:57:18.000It's possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
02:57:22.000It is the only one international in scope.
02:57:25.000It is the only one in which profits are reckoned in dollars and losses in lives.
02:57:31.000A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people only a small inside group knows what it's about it's conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many Out of war,
02:58:15.000I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909 to 1912. Where have I heard that name before?
02:58:28.000I bought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar business, interest rather, in 1916. In China, I helped see to it that standard oil went its way unmolested.
02:58:41.000I mean, this is, he was writing about this in the 1930s, almost 100 years ago.
02:59:22.000Part of it when you have stocks and you're in those positions.
02:59:26.000But I don't think you should be able to have stocks.
02:59:29.000You should have to go up there and purely you're here to serve.
02:59:36.000Well, you get a lot less people wanting that fucking job.
02:59:39.000Well, I mean, but you also might be able to get more relevant people to what the everyday citizen lives.
02:59:44.000I think the real problem is once it's already established the way it is now, where there is a lot of financial influence, where they do contribute to the campaigns, where they do have special interest groups, where they do have these people that help them get into office and they're beholden to them once they get in there.
02:59:59.000And then you have people like Nancy Pelosi that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they make 200 grand a year.
03:00:24.000It's crazy that, you know, that they can have information.
03:00:28.000So the shit that they can do, they're not held accountable if they know inside.
03:00:32.000Like, go look at the, I did a podcast on the American Party, or me and Dan did a podcast on the American Party podcast about trading within, you know, the house and all that.
03:00:43.000Oh, you see the list of all the people that trade?
03:00:46.000And then what you look at is, is you look at like, oh, they invested in Raytheon or whatever, and then they knew that three days later they were going to vote on a contract that was going to go to them.
03:00:56.000And it jumps their profits up, raises their stock price up.